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1orx39
|
if a journalist writes about a source that pays them, it's a conflict of interest and against the work ethos. why is it considered ok for politicans to make laws which affect companies who pay them through campaign donations?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1orx39/if_a_journalist_writes_about_a_source_that_pays/
|
{
"a_id": [
"ccuyi57",
"ccuzdm5"
],
"score": [
2,
2
],
"text": [
"Because while journalists are expected to be representing the objective truth of a story, politicians are expected to be representing the goals of their constituents and backers. The politician is already *supposed* to be biased as compared to journalism being unbiased.",
"It's a *potential* conflict of interest for the journalist, but it is not illegal. And it is not even considered unethical, so long as the journalist reveals the conflict.\n\nSame with politicians, they are (mostly) required to reveal their donors, and the public can make their choice accordingly.\n\nAlso, just about every law affects every person and corporation in this country in some way. If that was ground of a conflict of interest, no one could contribute to a politician ever."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[]
] |
||
53iu9x
|
do the dates of world wide events change depend on what country you ask (due to timezones)?
|
Does the date an international event such as the landings at Normandy change depend on what country you ask? For example in Japan it might've been a different day than it is in the US
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/53iu9x/eli5_do_the_dates_of_world_wide_events_change/
|
{
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],
"score": [
7,
8,
3
],
"text": [
"Never considered this before... but it seems like standard practice is to use the timezone the event happened in. So if you talk about D-Day you say \"June 6th\"... because everyone would understand that was the date when it happened *in Normandy*. Discussing when it actually happened on a timezone level just seems needlessly complicated.",
"Normandy wasn't exactly a worldwide event, though it had worldwide consequences. It happened in France, so it would make sense to talk about it based on the day it happened *in France*. ",
"They may be international in the sense that multiple countries were involved, but the events themselves take place in a specific geographic location. Thus an event is usually referenced to the time zone the event occurred in. "
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[],
[]
] |
|
684gl4
|
what keeps bread from toasting when it bakes?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/684gl4/eli5_what_keeps_bread_from_toasting_when_it_bakes/
|
{
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"dgvld5v",
"dgvlx6w"
],
"score": [
2,
2
],
"text": [
"Bread still toasts pretty good when baking, it just depends on temperature and how far away from the heat source the bread is.",
"The dough is too wet for most of the baking time, which keeps the surface too cool (evaporative cooling). If you kept the finished loaf in the oven it would eventually toast. "
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[]
] |
||
6ol9iq
|
how can the government credibly investigate itself, if the government appoints its own investigators?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/6ol9iq/eli5_how_can_the_government_credibly_investigate/
|
{
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"dki8lx3",
"dki8s46",
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"dki8zlx"
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"score": [
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2,
3,
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],
"text": [
"Because a government isn't a single monolithic thing, it is a group of people with different interests and motivations. If enough of those people want an investigation, there will be an investigation.\n\n",
"Remember also that the supreme court (or equivalent) is run by design to remove all possible chances of bribery. The SCOTUS has multiple judges, appointed by different presidents of different parties, and they are there until they die, retire, or are impeached by Congress and the other judges. No president can touch these judges or threaten them with replacement, to ensure the president isn't a raving lunatic with unlimited power. They can impeach if they need. ",
"There is always a risk that an investigation will be faulty, but (good or at least well-meaning) governments usually acknowledge that and make an effort to structure investigations to make them more credible. \n\nSo, in the U.S. for example, the executive branch controls the \"investigators\" in the form of the FBI and various agencies that have responsibility for enforcing the law. But, Congress has the independent power to conduct its own investigations. When there's potential criminal activity in the executive, there are efforts to appoint special prosecutors---who don't depend on the job or being promoted and who are outside the normal chain of command---to give them some semblance of independence. \n\nThen there are the indirect things. Lawyers and investigators are supposed to learn and abide by ethical and professional codes that teach them to have integrity even if they are investigating colleagues. Mechanisms like the free press and the Freedom of Information Act allow the public to have at least some insight into how the investigations are conducted. And, of course, in the end there are the courts to review things if they get far enough. ",
"Because many government agencies are not aligned with each other, by design. There are many adversarial agencies that make up \"the government\", who constantly compete against each other and hold each other in check. For instance the Department of Environmental Quality of any particular state has oversight (for example) over a city owned airport and the pollution and emissions that might result from the operation of that airport. Those are both government entities, but the DEQ's entire job is to breathe down the neck of the city to make sure they aren't doing anything illegal. Trust me, the city hates the agency and won't hesitate to complain to the state if the DEQ oversteps its bounds, and the DEQ is constantly looking to throw the book at the city when they screw up. They keep each other in check."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[],
[],
[]
] |
||
2bqw9j
|
why are my knees so much more sensitive than when i was a kid?
|
When I was a kid, I could practically run a marathon on my knees. Now, I can tap my knee the wrong way and I'm writhing in pain. Why?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2bqw9j/eli5_why_are_my_knees_so_much_more_sensitive_than/
|
{
"a_id": [
"cj80hrt",
"cj80ngm",
"cj80v9n"
],
"score": [
4,
2,
2
],
"text": [
"Don't run so many knee marathons.",
"wear and tear. Carrying 100# of meat around one step at a time takes it's toll on a body.",
"Auto-immune disorders like low-key arthritis are much more common as you get older. Knees wear out too. All the jelly and junk goes bad, the sheaths that hold tendons get scar tissue.\n\nPartly though, when we were kids running around on our knees we weighed at most 30 lbs. Our flesh didn't change but that's not a lot of weight to rest on body part- even if its not built to support anything."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[],
[]
] |
|
9uxs8a
|
how do you know your ballot was counted? how are ballots counted anyway?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/9uxs8a/eli5_how_do_you_know_your_ballot_was_counted_how/
|
{
"a_id": [
"e97twig",
"e97u9ka"
],
"score": [
4,
2
],
"text": [
"How to be sure around the world: become a vote counter. It's a seasonal job of sorts, popular with teachers and retirees (and especially retired teachers). You get paid, fed, and get to not only make sure your own vote gets counted, but also all the other votes. \n\nAs for the procedure, here in Denmark we use paper votes because electronic voting is such an obviously bad idea. When voting has closed, the ballot boxes are opened and the ballots are passed down a row of tables - one table per political party, the biggest one first. \n\nWhen the people at a table gets a ballot for their party, they make a note and place the ballot off to one side of the table. When all votes have been counted at a site, the results in terms of how many votes each political party received is reported to a central location (first at the regional level then national) and the news, and the people that did the first count go home. This usually happens around 4-6 hours after the polls close, for the largest sites, or 4-6 minutes for the tiny ones. \n\nNext, all the ballots at each table are counted again, this time taking time to not only note the political party but also individual candidates. By different people. Usually the mistakes in the first somewhat rushed count is measured in dozens or hundreds of votes total across the country. ",
"With paper ballots the first question is relatively straightforward. With digital it is a bit trickier.\n\nIn most areas some combination of the various campaigns, organizations, news stations/papers, and universities in the area are able to watch registration, voting in process, and the count/tabulation.\n\nWith paper ballots any challenge is readily resolved, and I suspect we will see states drift toward either using paper exclusively, or toward printing out a \"receipt\" that you would turn in as backup in case of a recount.\n\nTo your other question: I live in Colorado. Every registered voter gets their ballot in the mail. It comes with two extra envelopes. One envelope is anonymous and it \"wraps\" the ballot. I sign the other envelope, which also has my name, address, etc printed. The anonymous sleeve goes inside the labeled sleeve.\n\nWhen I put my ballot in the polling box someone records that my name \"went through\", and I get a notification. Someone compares my signature to the one on file with the state [in my case, for my driver's license] and contacts me if it doesn't match so I can say yay/nay I turned in a ballot. The ballots also have tear-off stubs with tracking numbers that match the signed envelope in case there is a question. The ballot won't fit in the anonymous sleeve if I don't tear off the stubs. [You can also go in person and request a replacement ballot if you made an error, or you lose yours, or because you just want to vote in person-- as long as you only appear on the list once you are counted]."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[]
] |
||
5keprk
|
how do universal health care systems work, and why is the united states essentially the only developed country without universal health care?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5keprk/eli5_how_do_universal_health_care_systems_work/
|
{
"a_id": [
"dbne5v1"
],
"score": [
2
],
"text": [
"Tax money goes to healthcare in a single payer system, and in turn is used to pay the doctors. The US doesn't like it because it looks like communism, and ultimately Americans in general like to be told what to do as little as possible. The US does have single payer systems, but they aren't universal due to bad experiences. It feeds into itself because most of those bad experiences are precisely because it's not universal."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[]
] |
||
1zko7q
|
why do i have to wear a lead cover on my crotch when getting x-ray'd? what would happen if i didn't?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1zko7q/eli5_why_do_i_have_to_wear_a_lead_cover_on_my/
|
{
"a_id": [
"cfuhhfm",
"cfuhj49",
"cfuifme",
"cfuifpb",
"cfuim9a"
],
"score": [
23,
7,
9,
2,
3
],
"text": [
"The little radioactive guys beat up your little swimmy guys (or eggy girls) and make it so you can't have little people guys. ",
"Radiation. Mainly, the risk of cancer. Lead helps nullify the adverse effects of radiation. Remember the spy who died of radiation poisonong a few years back? I'm 95% certain he was buried in a lead-lined coffin.\n[Check this out](_URL_0_)",
"X-rays are what's called \"ionizing radiation.\" Ionizing radiation is the kind of radiation that damages cells and increases your risk of cancer. That doesn't mean you should stop getting x-rayed. When working with radiation, doctors use it to get valuable information they may not otherwise be able to acquire and save lives, and the radiation dose isn't going to melt your skin or anything. Now, when getting an X-Ray (or a CAT scan, if I recall correctly), the doctors have obviously decided that the small radiation dose is worth it in order to find out what's going on inside your body. However, just because it's worth it to use x-rays doesn't mean that they don't want to minimize the risk of cancer or damage, (especially to sexual organs, which, last I checked, are especially vulnerable to radiation), so they protect the areas they don't need to x-ray.\n\ntl;dr Info from X-rays is worth the radiation dose, but it's still best to minimize the dose and protect your body.\n",
"You can kiss your tadpole army goodbye.",
"The lead cover protects your genitals from radiation. Radiation is a risk factor for cancer because it damages DNA. DNA is most vulnerable to radiation when cells are using DNA to divide. The cells in your genital region - specifically those involved in becoming/supporting eggs or sperm - are rapidly dividing. This rapid division requires frequent use of DNA, making these cells extra-susceptible to radioactive damage. \n \nRadiation's preferential damage to rapidly dividing cells is the reason we use it to fight cancer. It may seem counter-intuitive (given the fact that the lead apron is there to prevent cancer), but many cancers are composed of cells that are dividing too quickly. Radiation ends up affecting these cells more than the rest of the body because of their overuse of DNA"
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[
"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/X-ray#Adverse_effects"
],
[],
[],
[]
] |
||
2c92w4
|
why aren't bikers lawfully required to wear helmets?
|
People driving automobiles (in the US, Texas I know of specifically), are required to wear seatbelts or else a policeman has the lawful right to pull you over and give you a ticket. Since the seatbelt is a safety feature of cars, why aren't bikers required to wear helmets and/or protective clothing?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2c92w4/eli5why_arent_bikers_lawfully_required_to_wear/
|
{
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"cjd4fjo",
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4,
2,
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],
"text": [
"In many states, they are. But in some states they trust the rider to make the wise decision for themselves. In populated areas it is wise, but out in the desert it is nice to have the choice.",
"The federal gov't gave out huge $$$ to states who made a seat belt laws. ",
"To play devil's advocate. Why aren't pedestrians required to wear helmets? Most pedestrian fatalities involve head injuries (just like with bicyclists and motorcyclists), so why shouldn't pedestrians wear helmets. For that matter, car occupant fatalities are also due to head injuries, so maybe they should be wearing helmets also.\n\nWe don't actually want to make the world as safe as possible. In most cases there's a trade off between the cost of a safety measure and benefit of a safety measure. Getting rid of cars and motorcycles would be the safest option, but the cost is too great. It isn't clear if helmets are worth the cost.\n\nIt's clear that motorcycles are far more dangerous than cars or bicycles or walking. in the US ~10% of highway fatalities are motorcyclists even though they make up ~0.4% of miles traveled, so most math says that are 27-37 more likely to kill you than traveling by car (that math doesn't actually account for passengers, but that just makes motorcycles appear more dangerous).\n\nWhat isn't clear is if wearing a helmet helps. Some studies look only at fatal injuries, but don't compare that with how many motorcyclists wear helmets. Some studies liked at mortality rates before and after helmet laws, but most don't correct for changes in number of motorcyclists, or show no significant difference.\n\nThe data supporting seatbelts was much stronger than it is for helmets."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[],
[]
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|
aoczaa
|
how does water from the wet roads gets onto the car's rear windows while driving?
|
When the rain stopped and the road is wet. The vehicle is speeding away at 70 mph and yet the back spray from the tires still manages to soak the rear window... How?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/aoczaa/eli5_how_does_water_from_the_wet_roads_gets_onto/
|
{
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"efzzx6q",
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],
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3
],
"text": [
"Unless the car is perfectly aerodynamic, air flow around the car and especially at the back of the car will be turbulent (not smooth). So the air is quickly swirling all around in many directions at once, which means that some of the water drops kicked up by the tires gets swirled around too, and hit the rear window (and other parts of the car). ",
"Air is flowing over the top of the car and underneath the car. At the back of the car, in the center, a low pressure zone is created as the solid vehicle pushes through the air. Gases, like air, will always flow from high pressure areas to low pressure areas; basic fluid dynamics. The air flowing underneath the car (higher pressure) gets pulled upward towards that low pressure zone the car is creating, bringing water drops up with it as they are thrown up by the tires."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[]
] |
|
byl1a4
|
why does eating something crunchy sound so loud and overpower other sound?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/byl1a4/eli5_why_does_eating_something_crunchy_sound_so/
|
{
"a_id": [
"eqis0ex"
],
"score": [
3
],
"text": [
"because the sound is generated inside your mouth and the vibrations travel through your jawbone / skull to your auditory canal/ ear drum/inner ear."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[]
] |
||
2l4r6v
|
what is silicon valley and why are countries like china trying to replicate it?
|
What makes Silicon Valley so important?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2l4r6v/eli5_what_is_silicon_valley_and_why_are_countries/
|
{
"a_id": [
"clrhcqa"
],
"score": [
3
],
"text": [
"Silicon Valley is the nickname for an area in California, south of San Francisco. It's the location of the headquarters of a large portion of the technology industry, including well-known names like Google, Apple, Facebook, Hewlett-Packard, Intel, Nvidia, Oracle, and Yahoo. Because so many of the top tech companies are headquartered there, it attracted a huge number of incredibly talented software developers. Because of the amount of talent and money in the area, it's also a huge area for technology startups, and a large number of new ideas start either in Silicon Valley itself or in nearby San Francisco. China wants to have a larger presence in the world economy- right now, they mostly just make everyone else's stuff. They want to emulate Silicon Valley so they'll have their own strong technology sector, developing new ideas that get used all around the world."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[]
] |
|
29uwk6
|
why has internet speed increased over the years if the medium of delivery has always been the same?
|
Why couldn't we get 20mbps over phone lines twenty years ago?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/29uwk6/eli5_why_has_internet_speed_increased_over_the/
|
{
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"ciops0a",
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2
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"text": [
"Mainly because of new methods of compressing data to fit into the limited bandwidth of those copper wires. Also by expanding and bringing high bandwidth fiber networks closer to the home. \n\nI'm getting 100mbps over the same cable I used to watch scrambled porn on when I was a teenager. ",
"The medium of delivery hasn't been the same though phone lines were used at first then we moved onto cable and now we have fiber optics all of which have led to some pretty big increases in data transmission rates. From cable and phone lines to fiber was huge because we went from electrical transmission to light basically. Even if you don't have fiber optics to your house you still benefit from it because the backbones on the internet are all fiber optic.\n\nAlso fiber itself has been improving over the years + getting closer to peoples houses which = faster speeds.",
"20 years ago we were just starting to set up 10Mb LANs at home to play Doom on, while dialup was the way to access the internet using 33kbps modems. If you wanted faster internet you'd have to pay for it. Businesses could afford ISDN lines for internet access at 128kbps but this was out of the price range for your average consumer. But why would you want faster internet? What was there to download? No YouTube videos, not much in the way of digital photography, no high resolution pictures, no camera phones, no Facebook. Even if there was, it would fill your hard disk in no time, space was measured in 100's of MBs, while 1.44MB floppy disks were the data transfer medium of choice. CD-ROM drives were just starting to appear in home PCs, Encarta was the Wikipedia of its day. Dial up wasn't fast but the internet pages of the day were optimised for it, so you could wait for pages to load without getting too bored. You put up with it or put your money where your mouth is. Today's websites would take forever to load over modem, no one would visit your site if it never loaded.",
"Mostly that we are finding ways to cram more data on analog wires. There are so many ways to represent 1 and 0. For example, a lot of you know how on and off; + and -; or any two states that are easy to tell that are different can be used. You can even use things lot hot and cold\n\nDial-up modems only had a theoretical bandwidth of I think it was 2400 baud or something with straight 1 and 0 encoding. I don't fully remember the entire story. However, with different encodings / representation, we were able to push it to 56k. \n\nDo you know how [DDR RAM](_URL_0_) works? Instead of straight 1s and 0s, it's able to encode data on the rising and falling parts of the signal. So, you are able to cram more data onto the same amount of analog metal. \n\nSomething similar happens with cable and telephone. [QAM](_URL_1_) is a popular way to cram more data on the same amount of analog frequency range. In some cases, encodings like this turn that nice, hilly curve to a curve that has a bunch of bumps at the top. \n\nIn fiber's case, one way is instead of zapping 1 color through the fiber optic cable, you can shoot an entire spectrum of colors. \n\nIn some cases, certain mediums like DSL aren't very good for long-distance transmission, but can do fast speeds over short distances. You can have fiber close to the house, and do the final run over telephone wire"
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[],
[],
[
"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DDR_SDRAM",
"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quadrature_amplitude_modulation"
]
] |
|
c5qew5
|
how is bamboo turned into pillows, clothing, and other textiles?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/c5qew5/eli5_how_is_bamboo_turned_into_pillows_clothing/
|
{
"a_id": [
"es3c2ib",
"es3gipd"
],
"score": [
3,
5
],
"text": [
"Bamboo is a very fibrous material, so its stripped down into these fibers, softened, and woven like any other fibrous material. It's also super soft and breathable, as well as more renewable than other materials because of bamboos ridiculous growth rate.",
"Just got done cutting some bamboo fleece.\n\nOversimplified, they crush the bamboo, use enzymes to break it down to a pulp. Mechanically separate the fibers from the pulp. Fibers are then spun into yarn. Yarn is turned into linen/fleece/some type of fabric. \n\nThe bamboo fabric is sent to the apparel manufacturer which will be cut and sewed up."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[]
] |
||
5f796e
|
how can the potus be so close to people in some events when he is usually guarded by an insane amount of security?
|
So we see the POTUS often engaging in social service events like serving meals to veterans, meeting children in schools, etc. This is always surprising to see since we always see them guarded by basically an army of Jason Bournes.
I understand that there are countless security measures to make this happen, but what kinds of measures are actually being used to make sure that the crowd is 100% safe for the POTUS to get close enough to shake hands and stuff?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5f796e/eli5_how_can_the_potus_be_so_close_to_people_in/
|
{
"a_id": [
"dai329l"
],
"score": [
2
],
"text": [
"Most likely, the army of Jason Bournes is there, just not in the picture. What you see in frame is just a fraction of what is going on. \n\nAlso everyone in the room/building/area has probably been thoroughly searched before being able to be with the president. "
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[]
] |
|
19x8lq
|
static vs dynamic ip address, and how an ip address differs from a mac address
|
From what I understand, every device connected to a network (for example, a home network) has its own, unique Mac address (ie, computer, tablet, etc).
I guess what I don't understand is how this differs from an IP address...and what the differences are between a dynamic/static IP address.
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/19x8lq/eli5_static_vs_dynamic_ip_address_and_how_an_ip/
|
{
"a_id": [
"c8s4ecb",
"c8s4jgp"
],
"score": [
2,
3
],
"text": [
"In networking there is this concept of Layers. At one layer, your Router communicates to your PC threw a physical medium (radio, wire) however at another layer those links are made by use of Mac Address (think point to point transmission), now above that we have IP addresses which when assigned by a router allow for multi-point transmissions (and why you can access more than your router.). Each layer is independent so for example, the MAC address of your NIC doesn't matter outside of connecting to your Router just like your physical connection doesn't really matter (as long as you're connected).\n\nAnd to answer your other question, Static IP addresses are the ones you assign yourself, where as Dynamic ones are given to you by the DNS server (which takes care of the IP addresses for a network).",
"Mac address is an identifying number hard coded onto the hardware by the manufacturer.\n\nDynamic addresses are IP addresses automatically assigned and re-assigned by a DHCP server.\n\nStatic addresses are IP addresses assigned by the person installing the system in the IP configuration options and do not change unless some one changes them."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[]
] |
|
54bynp
|
why are screen refresh rates most commonly divisible by 30?
|
Example: 30Hz, 60Hz, 120Hz. The only oddball I know of is 144Hz. But why didn't they use more round numbers, like 25Hz, 50Hz, 100Hz, etc.?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/54bynp/eli5_why_are_screen_refresh_rates_most_commonly/
|
{
"a_id": [
"d80j6wg"
],
"score": [
7
],
"text": [
"The electrical grid in the US is alternating current at 60Hz. This made it much easier for CRT displays to cycle at 60Hz or multiples."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[]
] |
|
8enaow
|
how do badgers transfer tb between cows?
|
I was wondering how they go about physically transferring the disease, such as biting.
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/8enaow/eli5_how_do_badgers_transfer_tb_between_cows/
|
{
"a_id": [
"dxwlolt"
],
"score": [
3
],
"text": [
"It's actually passed on indirectly, not through direct contact at all but through contaminated dung and forage. What's problematic is that TB can survive in this way for months- and obviously not just from badgers but also from cattle. "
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[]
] |
|
3f5xra
|
how can nightmares be so shockingly scary when our minds are creating them
|
If we are making these up, how can they surprise us?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3f5xra/eli5how_can_nightmares_be_so_shockingly_scary/
|
{
"a_id": [
"ctlkvv9",
"ctlkxzn",
"ctlmfgk"
],
"score": [
2,
4,
3
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"text": [
"We don't fully understand dreams, but it's likely that when dreaming we are sorting out our emotions and the imagery we see is a side effect of this. So, rather than feeling anxiety or terror because of what occurs in our dreams, we are simply sorting through feelings of fear and anxiety in our emotional brain, and our neocortex, or thought processing brain is creating an imaginary story of images to go along with it. In other words, the nightmares don't cause our fear, our fear causes our nightmares. This likely happens in a positive feedback loop so fear causes scary images causes more fear causes more scary images. This may serve a purpose, or it may just be an accidental byproduct of flushing the day's leftover chemicals.",
"At the end of the day the answer to most sleep related questions is simply \"we don't know yet.\" If anyone claims they know with certainty why dreams happen and how our brains generate dreams, they're probably bullshitting.\n\nWith that said, the prevailing theory is that dreams are a way to process subconscious emotional processes. Scary dreams may be a way for our brains to cope with ideas that scare us but are not consciously resolved.",
"In fact, your mind creates everything you experience, whether you are awake or asleep. It simply does so in different ways when you are awake versus when you are asleep, and when you are awake, how it creates what you experience is *more closely* tied to what your senses perceive.\n\nIf you need evidence that what you experience is created by your mind, you can replicate an experiment used to demonstrate that your mind picks the colour you perceive.\n\nYou need someone to help with this experiment.\n\nYou need a small LED light that can seamlessly change between red and green (or a small mobile device screen). \n\nYou make the LED (or screen) *red*, and look at it, and perceive it as red. Then, you move it to your peripheral vision — the corner of your eye, and keep your eyes focused on a dot to keep from looking directly at the LED (or screen).\n\nThen, the person helping you changes the colour of the LED (or screen) *without touching it* or otherwise signalling that it has been changed. \n\nAt regular intervals during this experiment, you make notes by saying what colour you perceive it to be.\n\nYour friend then prompts you to look at the LED (or screen), and *\"like magic\"*, when it moves back into the field of vision in which your eyes have *cone receptors*, the colour will change from red to green.\n\nThis is because *cone receptors*, the cells that pick up different colour wavelengths, exist only in the center of our field of vision. \n\nOur minds fill in the colour of things in the periphery of our vision.\n\n---------------\n\nSimilar phenomena exist with hearing, with touch, with smell, with emotion, with perceiving faces where there are none — because our minds take in sense stimuli and synthesise them into what we experience.\n\nWhen we are asleep, our minds are using sense stimuli that originate from inside our own brains — stray signals from neighbouring areas that are normally overpowered by sense stimuli from our sense organs — to inform it of what is occurring."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[],
[]
] |
|
d3da4y
|
why are people who have had broken bones able to “feel it when it’s raining?”
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/d3da4y/eli5_why_are_people_who_have_had_broken_bones/
|
{
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"f01tru5",
"f02bjrd"
],
"score": [
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"text": [
"It's not a matter of having broken bones, it just varies from person to person. Sometimes people who have never broken a bone can feel it, sometimes people who have broken bones can't feel it. It just depends on the person, like whether they can easily whistle or whether they can wiggle their ears.\n\nThe reason is because just before it rains there is a drop in barometric pressure. You can see this easily with a barometer, but it also can have various physiological effects. If anything I would say that people with arthritis or that kind of thing can probably feel the drop in pressure more easily, because it can cause expansion of the joints in your body. (Less pressure outside the body, same pressure inside the body, joints expand -- those with joint ailments like arthritis are more sensitive to changes in the joints because of inflammation)",
"That's not typically a broken bone thing, typically you can feel rain coming in your joints. People with arthritis are particularly sensitive to it. \n\nRain and storms are preceded by a low pressure system. The storms and high winds are air moving into that area of low pressure as a way to reach equilibrium. \n\nAnyway. You have an internal body pressure. And the air around you applies external pressure to your body. When a low pressure system forms there is less external pressure. This means you feel the effects of the internal pressure more. This can cause joint swelling or even pain in some cases. \n\nPeople who \"feel the rain coming\" actually feel the low pressure system that causes rain and wind."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[]
] |
||
9awn42
|
eczema tendency.
|
Can anyone tell me why eczema come up in certain spots and never leaves those spots even after steroid cream is used to get rid of them over time? Also, are there any shampoos for it specifically? I could never find any and I get it behind my ears.
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/9awn42/eli5_eczema_tendency/
|
{
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"e4yuat0",
"e4z3299",
"e4z8ma2"
],
"score": [
2,
2,
2
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"text": [
"Eczema often will form in areas where there is more 'friction' and hence you are likely to itch, and once you start itching it will probably be an eczema spot you keep itching!\n\nSteroid cream should be used for flare ups but shouldn't be the only thing you use. You want to have a good moisturiser you use regularly. Try looking for one that specifically says it's for eczema, easy to find at a pharmacy. \n\nThere are lots of factors that come in to play with eczema, you might want to look at r/eczema for more info or see a doctor or dermatologist.\n\nYou definitely can get shampoos. I get most of my stuff from ego QV and they sell shampoos too but I believe they are just an Australian brand.\n\nAn easy thing to avoid is fragrance - don't use soaps / shampoos / creams with fragrance and that should help as well :) ",
"I get it inside my ears and when it gets really bad on the hairline. I side the ear its white and crusty and for some reason coconut oil gets rid of it when its not to bad. \n\nI also use special dandruff shampoos on my head like nizoral from amazon or tar shampoo like T gel from Boots that work on a build up of dandruff and they seem to help the inflamed skin underneath. Careful they can discolour blonde hair if you dye it. ",
"I mostly get it on my fingers, on specific knuckles on each hand. I can’t use most soaps and there are only 2 brands I can use. It has been there for years (10+) and only went away when I had to go on a highly restricted diet when breast feeding my son. He is intolerant to milk, soya, eggs, oats and gluten and one of his symptoms is eczema which is completely uncontrollable with creams. I suspect if I restricted my diet removing each of these one at a time I would discover I also have one or more food intolerances with symptomatic eczema. "
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[],
[]
] |
|
7t3j2l
|
how does it work, when you flip the connector to the outlet 180°, it still works even when + and - are flipped?
|
reference:
_URL_0_
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/7t3j2l/eli5_how_does_it_work_when_you_flip_the_connector/
|
{
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"dt9lrnx",
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"score": [
10,
6,
2
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"text": [
"That's because the current that comes into our homes is AC(Alternating current) which means that the polarity or flow of current changes from positive to negative and negative to positive after every specific interval. As the polarity of the points keep changing after fixed time intervals, The polarity of the switch board or the plug doesn't matter. ",
"\\+ and - make sense for so-called \"direct current\" (DC) electricity, where electrons move along a wire (or other conductive material) in one direction only, from one point to another. But the electricity that comes out of power outlets in your home is alternating current (AC), which means that the electrons in the wire are constantly moving back and forth. So in that case, there are no fixed + and - poles, because they switch locations all the time. \n\nYour electrical devices often need DC instead, so they contain special circuits that convert the back-and-forth motion of AC into the one-directional motion that they need. An exception to this rule is the old-fashioned (incandescent) light bulb. It produces light by heating up a piece of metal thread inside until it glows, and this heat is produced by the friction of electrons moving inside the thread. Since friction is created no matter what direction the electrons move in, these light bulbs can be powered by DC current directly, without having to convert it to AC. This does mean that the light dims a bit every time the electrons change direction, but this happens too fast (60 times per second in the US, 50 Hz in Europe) for the human eye too see. You can see it in [high-speed videos] (_URL_0_), however.",
"You were given a pretty good answer, but I’ll add something that is mildly interesting. \n\nI worked on power lines for around 14years. \n\nBusiness, or other establishments that have certain machinery require “3 phase.” This means that there are 3 wires. (Red, white, and blue)\n\nEstablishments that use this have motors they need to turn, like elevators. This 3 phase comes from the power line. (These are the ones with 3 transformer)\n\nIs a crew were to accidentally flip the wires between the pole and the establishment, it will cause the elevator, or machines to work in he opposite direction. As you can imagine, this can end badly. It does happen however, as some are too lazy to mark the wires. "
]
}
|
[] |
[
"https://s3-eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/prod-bnw-live-aequah2i-resized/blogs.dir/0/files/2016/07/2400x/uch12w-slideshow-01-eu-desktop-76c2fe65f0673b4e0bbfd0c5d800b142.jpg"
] |
[
[],
[
"https://youtu.be/YnMP1Uj2nz0?t=28"
],
[]
] |
|
2y0la7
|
how do new medical techniques spread?
|
If I'm a surgeon at hospital X and I read about some new procedure that happened with success in hospital Y and Z and think it would be applicable for one of my patients, what do I do? I'm assuming there would be more prepwork than just reading a journal article.
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2y0la7/eli5_how_do_new_medical_techniques_spread/
|
{
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"cp54m27",
"cp5qkex"
],
"score": [
2,
2
],
"text": [
"Doctors often consult with someone who actually has experience of the previous use of a new technique. \n\nAlso, a research institution may do a dedicated study to test the procedure's effectiveness, if possible.\n\nBut a doctor who \"discovers\" a new procedure will write it up so that others could, in theory, work from the journal article. \n\nAs long as the patient understands that it's a new or experimental procedure, they can consent to it. ",
"One of the main ways they spread are through residencies and fellowships.\n\nResidencies and the first thing med students do once they become doctors. They go work at a hospital in their chosen specialty and spend a few years learning the craft by working with skilled doctors. Obviously areas with the latest and greatest surgical techniques become popular residency locations, and then all those newly minted specialists go find jobs at a hospital and bring their skills with them.\n\nFellowships are like residencies on steroids, usually an experienced/very well educated doctor decides to do one of these when they want to enter a very complicated specialty like liver transplants, or hand reconstructive surgery etc. They work with more skilled specialists and undergo a lot of training and testing to make sure they have mastered all the necessary skills.\n\nFor something like a single surgical technique, it is often written up in a journal for other doctor's to read about. Depending on the size of the specialty doctors might just reach out personally to the author and ask to come observe, or maybe they put on a seminar after the article and the 50-70 interested doctors all fly in for the weekend.\n\nPretty much like techniques in other fields I guess...crazy random diffusion mixed with a competitive population who likes to learn."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[]
] |
|
3w0x83
|
if we spend so much money on sewage treatment, and gray water requires so much less, why don't we throw our poop out with the garbage and treat all water with simple gray water methods?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3w0x83/eli5_if_we_spend_so_much_money_on_sewage/
|
{
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"cxsgbc9",
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"cxshwcq"
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"score": [
5,
5,
2
],
"text": [
"Because humans poop alot and poop is full of pathogens and bacteria that want to kill you.\n By \"simple grey water methods\" I assume you mean septic tanks and cesspools which require a lot of time and area to get the job done. Modern day treatment plants create the perfect conditions for nature to take its course (with a little help along the way). \nbe thank full they do because a significant portion of the worlds deaths can be contributed to lack of sewage treatment, 3rd world countries pretty much do what you suggest and I doubt you want to live in those places.",
"My apartment complex gets its 3 dumpsters removed weekly. Its a building of 85 people. Most people poop once a day so now we are talking about approx. 600 poops in the dumpster. Man, that is a lot of poop. Our dumpster would stink so bad, dear god, and be full of maggots or worse.",
"Poop water gets recycled into compost in my city, and each spring you can go to city hall and get (almost) as much as you can carry in a pickup or light trailer for free. (Laval, Qc, Can)"
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[],
[]
] |
||
a7dv85
|
why is the dutch oven dutch ?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/a7dv85/eli5_why_is_the_dutch_oven_dutch/
|
{
"a_id": [
"ec28yx6",
"ec2997n"
],
"score": [
15,
90
],
"text": [
"[Here you go](_URL_0_), but the short version is: \"During the 17th century, brass was the preferred metal for English cookware and domestic utensiles, and the Dutch produced it at the lowest cost \\[...\\] In 1702, Abraham Darby was a partner in the Brass Works Company of Bristol \\[...\\] in 1704, Darby visited the Netherlands, where he studied the Dutch methods of working brass, including the casting of brass pots \\[...\\] Darby realized that he could sell more kitchen wares if he could replace brass with a cheaper metal, namely, cast iron \\[...\\] He obtained a patent for the process of casting iron in sand, which derived from the Dutch process, thus the term \"Dutch oven\"\".",
"Back in the old days, (early 1700s), everyone's cooking pots were made out of brass, which was kind of expensive. At that time an Englishman named Abraham Darby visited the Netherlands and saw them casting pots in molds of sand, instead of the usual English way, which used molds of clay. Darby realized that if he cast cooking pots with sand like the Dutch did he might be able to make them out of iron, which was way cheaper than brass.\n\nIt took a few years of experimentation but eventually Darby and his workers figured out how to make cooking pots of iron. Because they used the Dutch method of casting in sand they were called \"Dutch ovens\" and the name has stuck ever since."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dutch_oven"
],
[]
] |
||
4dpas5
|
people on the internet replacing "lose" with "loose" in almost every scenario
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4dpas5/eli5_people_on_the_internet_replacing_lose_with/
|
{
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"d1t3ay0",
"d1t3hme",
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4,
2,
2
],
"text": [
"Very similar to how people also mix up their, there, and they're consistently.\nTook me until I was 22 years old to actually understand the difference between \"Then,\" and \"Than\" and even now I still get it wrong.",
"If you don't know how to spell properly, you might think the word 'lose' would sound the same as 'close', 'chose', 'nose', 'dose', 'hose', 'rose', or 'pose'. \n\nYou would be incorrect. However, you might look at other words such as 'moose', 'noose', 'caboose', or 'goose', and notice that in those words the vowel sound you are looking for is present. \n\nAfter these comparisons, there is a chance that you might spell the word 'lose' wrong.",
"With the internet, people read a lot more text that is written by nonprofessional writers and not proofread. Before the internet, on a typical day you might have read some stuff that your peers wrote at work/school, but other than that it would be \"published\" text in books, newspapers, magazines, advertisements, product labels, text on television, etc. All of that is written by people whose job is to write, and that includes spelling correctly. Meanwhile poor writing didn't have many readers.\n\nIt's easier to realize that you've misspelled a word when anywhere you see the word, it's the correct spelling that is different from yours.\n\nBut now we can spend hours and hours each day, in our leisure time, reading text by people who can't spell well. And people who can't spell well can spend hours writing stuff that many many people can read. If you constantly see words spelled the same (wrong) way as you do, you don't realize it's wrong, and keep misspelling it, and then other misspellers see your writing in turn and it reinforces their misspellings. "
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[],
[]
] |
||
1t6tq4
|
why is it that, for example, after skiing for an entire day i can constantly feel the boots on my feet?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1t6tq4/eli5_why_is_it_that_for_example_after_skiing_for/
|
{
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"ce4wqsm",
"ce4x9z9"
],
"score": [
2,
5
],
"text": [
"That is your body's way of reminding you that you are not meant to ski. \n\nThe only time it is acceptable is when evading a pack of wolves while harvesting firewood. ",
"Like, even after you take them off? What you may be experiencing is the Tetris Effect. Basically, after spending a long time doing something repetitive, your body will often still feel like you're doing it, particularly when you're falling asleep. For instance, in high school I would sometimes spend the weekend on my friend's boat, then when I slept in my own bed it still felt like I was being rocked by waves.\n\n_URL_0_"
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[
"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypnogogia#Tetris_effect"
]
] |
||
ab4c6e
|
why does a runny nose cause a burning sensation on the upper lip and skin around the nostrils?
|
So I was lead to believe that a runny nose is mostly water with less of the proteins that make mucus. If this is the case, why does it leave the area around my nose feeling irritated and burnt. I wouldn’t have thought water could dry out the skin
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/ab4c6e/eli5_why_does_a_runny_nose_cause_a_burning/
|
{
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"text": [
"That's mostly after you've wiped because after so many times your skin gets irritated. At least that's what a doctor told me once, it's not the runny nose it's just the constant wiping ",
"Using tissues to wipe your nose? Paper is abrasive, no matter how much marketing is behind it.\n\nDry lips often result as well because you are unconsciously mouth breathing due to the obstruction of your nostrils. ",
"It's from wiping your nose, not from it running. After a while you start getting small abrasions from the friction that are the burning feeling, similar to a rug burn. If you get moisturized wipes or dampen the tissues (using kitchen towels, for example) you can alleviate the damage."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[],
[]
] |
|
8k9fha
|
what is hormone exactly? how did the first people discover the existence of hormones? [biology]
|
Can we see the hormones in our blood through the microscope? And how did biologists keep track of what hormones do what? since it happens inside our body.
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/8k9fha/eli5_what_is_hormone_exactly_how_did_the_first/
|
{
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3
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"text": [
"So I can't answer a lot of this, but I can answer some of it.\n\nA hormone is a functional class of chemical messenger. They are released from a gland called an endocrine gland (named so because endocrine glands secrete their product inside the body, as opposed to exocrine glands which secrete their product to the environment) directly into the bloodstream. Hormones are usually lipid soluable/water insoluble, and they will easily cross cell membranes. They usually last for a really long time in the blood, so they have longer lasting effects than other classes of chemical messengers. Certain neurotransmitters are also released directly into the blood, and these are usually classified as neurohormones.\n\nYou can't see hormones through a microscope, they are way too small.",
"Hormones are chemical signals.\n\nEvery cell contains a variety of proteins. Proteins are the things in the cell that do things. They break down some chemicals, build other chemicals, break down some things to build other things, release energy, store energy...\n\nProteins generally work by passive activity. Keep in mind that a single gram of hydrogen gas (H2) contains over 300,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 molecules. If something is in the cell, then there's a lot of it in the cell. So some chemical X bumps into the protein just because there's a lot of X there...and if the protein is able to fit X then it's going to do whatever it does to X.\n\nLet's say it breaks X into Y and Z. Well, if the protein does this for every X that hits it, there's also a lot of Y and Z. If you increase X, you increase the amount of Y and Z.\n\nMOST PROTEINS also work in reverse, so that if Y and Z both hit the protein it makes X.\n\nThis means most cells balance X, Y, and Z just because too much Z and Y means they hit the protein more than X hits the protein....making more X than it makes Y and Z. Likewise when too much X exists, it hits the protein more than Y and Z and thus makes more Y and Z than it makes X.\n\nThis is called **DYNAMIC EQUILIBRIUM**.\n\n-----\n\nNow, most of the time things enter and leave the cell. Let's say X enters the cell...now the cell has more X than Y or Z so it makes more Y and Z. If either Y or Z leaves the cell, then it will also make more Y and Z as it attempts to regain equilibrium.\n\nWhen X or Y or Z leaves one cell and enters another cell, which happens because they are small and there's lots of them, the first cell wants to make more of what left it and the second cell wants to get rid of whatever entered it. This leads the proteins to do the things they do.\n\nThat second cell, however, now has more of things so those things leave the cell...and enter another cell that does what it does, making more things...and then those things leave the cell and enter another cell...until eventually the process ends because some other protein in some specific uses X or Y or Z to do something else.\n\nIt's kind of like the game \"Mouse-trap\" or dominoes. One domino falls, it knocks the next, which knocks the next, until everything is fallen. Hormones are those chemicals that are involved in such chains, the \"dominoes\", if you will.\n\n-----\n\nBecause they are so small, they can't singularly be seen with the eye...but we can inject cells with large visible quantities. For example, melatonin is a liquid that people use to fall asleep. Steroids can be eaten or injected and yield noticeable effects on the body. Cholesterol is a well-known often-natural element of food that contributes to fat content...often being interchanged for specific and non-specific fats in terms of nutrition information.\n\nIt's like how you can't see a single molecule of table salt, but can pour a lot of table salt and because of chemistry the HUNDREDS OF BILLIONS OF BILLIONS OF BILLIONS of molecules interact with each other to yield a visible solid."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[]
] |
|
dpb5a7
|
if your car is constantly running with gasoline in it why is it dangerous to gas up with the car running?
|
Like the title says, ELI5 please!
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/dpb5a7/eli5_if_your_car_is_constantly_running_with/
|
{
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"f5tpiru",
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"text": [
"Gasoline is flammable, gasoline vapors are explosive. There is a risk of static electricity when you’re filling up your car and the air from the fuel tank is voided when the tank is filled. This air/vapor could explode although it’s unlikely. Most fuel pumps have a vapor return system to prevent emissions and it sucks this air back into the underground tanks.",
"When your car is running the tank has a cap on it. When you refuel the cap is off, there are gasoline fumes around the filler neck, and a spark could cause a fire. Gasoline engines use sparks to fire the cylinders, and it is not uncommon for the sparks to be able to jump to places they don't belong, when there is a minor fault in the wiring.\n\nRefueling with the car running is a risk but you will get away with it most of the time. The thing to keep in mind is that millions of cars refuel every day, so an unlikely thing like a fire from having the motor running becomes more likely for *someone.* Don't let that someone be you.",
"I dont see any comments explaining how the car being on would actually ignite a fire here. Someone mentioned static electricity, which can ignite a fire, but that is often generated by people getting in/out of their car during refueling. Personally, I'm with you in that I dont see how a the engine being on would create a spark or flame to ignite the fumes coming from the gas fill port, or how it being on would up the chances of you having a static discharge."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[],
[]
] |
|
35q7jo
|
cults and how people get actually get persuaded to join one. i just don't get it.
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/35q7jo/eli5cults_and_how_people_get_actually_get/
|
{
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5
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"text": [
"They prey on people who are depressed, friendless, and feel like they don't belong, and they give them something to believe in and be an important part of. They make them feel welcome, which is something that all human beings desperately need. When you are already lonely and have bad social skills, your bullshit detector is also not functioning well, and you can't see when people are taking advantage of you, especially when they're holding your only friendships over your head. ",
"You've been picked on your whole life. Stepped on, overlooked, never listened too. You just want someone to care, you want someone to listen.\n\n\"Psst. Hey. Hey you. Tell me what's going on. I've got a bunch of friends over here that would like to listen to you, don't worry, we care.\"\n\nThink of if you made a best friend, and after you two became close enough that you would be upset if they left, and at that point they start asking you to do sketchy stuff. If you're desperate enough to have that friend, you might just do it. "
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[]
] |
||
8z74ti
|
if panic attacks contract muscles, which lead to unwanted chest pain and other ghost pains, would muscle relaxants be a viable counter to panic attacks?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/8z74ti/eli5_if_panic_attacks_contract_muscles_which_lead/
|
{
"a_id": [
"e2gmrdd"
],
"score": [
3
],
"text": [
"They’d probably only help with some of the physical symptoms. Even then, they take a little while to kick in, while panic attacks can have very different lengths. Benzos are better since they relax both the mind and the body, instead of just the body, and also take effect quicker (depending on the specific medication, of course).\n\nSource: have had severe panic episodes and have taken both kinds of meds"
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[]
] |
||
buvmsp
|
when a game gets remastered do they completely rebuild it in a new engine or do they use the old game files and simply update the graphics?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/buvmsp/eli5_when_a_game_gets_remastered_do_they/
|
{
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"text": [
"Usually the latter. The existing code gets ported to a new platform and updated to support whatever new features they want to add.\n\nAlthough there are a few cases where a game has been rebuilt from scratch but as an almost like for like match with the original. Shadow of the Collosus on PS4 comes to mind. But you might consider that a remake rather than a remaster.",
"Former game developer here,\n\n & #x200B;\n\nThere is the dream that they will repurpose as much material as possible. But consider an older game on an older, different platform was likely written specifically for that platform. Portability would approach zero. The studio would likely start with an engine that already runs on their new target platform, that they're already familiar with in house as a base. Parts of the old engine will be ported, mostly physics, controls, and gameplay elements, IF it isn't riddled with platform specific code.\n\n & #x200B;\n\nLots of visual assets are not usable. That's the whole point of remastering. An artist might LOOK at it, but they're going to recreate from scratch. It's just easier and aligns with their workflow.\n\n & #x200B;\n\nEven content like dialog will likely be converted into a new file format.\n\n & #x200B;\n\nTypically, a remaster is as costly as developing a new game from scratch, it's why studios almost never do it, it's not worth the money.",
"Well there’s a difference between “remake” and “remaster” \n\nRemakes like Shadow Of The Colossus, Crash Bandicoot, and Resident Evil 2, rebuild the game in a new engine from the ground up.\n\nRemasters like Last Of Us, God Of War 3, and Call Of Duty: 4 use existing games but enhance them to look and play smoother on new hardware.\n\n\nThere’s a good bit more that goes into it all of course, but that’s the ELI5 difference."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[],
[]
] |
||
wbod0
|
marginal benefit vs marginal cost
|
Studying economics on my own but I'm having trouble understanding this concept. Can anyone help?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/wbod0/eli5_marginal_benefit_vs_marginal_cost/
|
{
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"c5c01kc"
],
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"text": [
"Any time you are talking about something happening \"at the margin\" or being \"marginal\" you are basically talking about the very last one in a series.\n\nFor example, imagine you run a toy factory. To do that, you need to pay $100 a day in rent and utilities. You run the machines yourself, so there is no labor cost, and each toy takes $1 worth of plastic to make. Now, if you only make one toy a day, the cost of manufacturing that toy would be $101 (rent plus plastic). But, if you decide to make one more toy, that second toy only costs you $1 to make, because the rent is already paid. This is your marginal cost of production--the cost of making your very last unit.\n\nMarginal benefit is similar. It' the idea of how much benefit you get from the very last unit. Imagine you've been lost in the desert for 2 days, dying of thirst. Now you find a liter bottle of water. You will get HUGE benefit from this, because it will keep you from dying. And if you found second bottle, you would get huge benefit from this as well, although slightly less since you already drank one liter. You might even drink a third liter if there was one. But, you can only fit so much water in your stomach, so by the time we get up to the tenth or eleventh bottle of water, you really don't get any use whatsoever from them because you simply cannot drink anymore. So the marginal benefit of your first water bottle was extremely high, and the marginal benefit of each water bottle after that was slightly less than the one before it, because you had less use for water the more you got."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[]
] |
|
7izbm1
|
why are nutritional facts based on a 2,000 calorie diet when that's well below the average for humans?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/7izbm1/eli5_why_are_nutritional_facts_based_on_a_2000/
|
{
"a_id": [
"dr2igbz"
],
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12
],
"text": [
"That is the nutritional need for the average medium activity person to maintain a healthy weight. If you are highly physically active or need to put on weight or muscle you will have higher needs, and if you are trying to lose weight or are highly inactive you will have smaller needs. \n\nSo in example: a soldier, high performance athlete, or someone doing manual labor could need as much as 4,000 or even 6,000 calories to maintain the output they require. But a sedentary office worker who is small and does not exercise may only need 1800 to maintain weight. Basic bodily functions and brain operations take roughly 1400 calories so going lower than around 1600 should only be done under a doctor's supervision. \n\nAs to your other question. That is only below the average of wealthy nations who have a food surplus. "
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[]
] |
||
6a7oa0
|
why media can produce news with out double checking the source or just spread misleading information?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/6a7oa0/eli5_why_media_can_produce_news_with_out_double/
|
{
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"dhcbknx",
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"text": [
"Because we have freedom of expression.\n\nThe ultimate decider is the public. If they don't like how a news outlet does business, they won't go there for news any more, and soon that outlet will be out of business.",
"Not everything in the world is independently verifiable and just because it isn't,doesn't mean it's not true or that reporting on it has no value. Such as with Mike Flynn (only fired after a leak came out about him), various wikileak leaks, etc.",
"Real journalism, where people have degrees in the subject, the editors won't print stories that don't have good sources and that pass legal review.\n\nYour question is really \"Why can't people seem to tell the difference between real journalism and fake journalism where the website publishes random, sometimes untrue, stuff?\". If you read a story and it's not on a real journalism site like _URL_1_, _URL_0_, _URL_2_, or the like; it might not be true.\n\nFacebook shows you things it thinks you will like, not things that it thinks are true. Maybe you're just reading the wrong media.",
"Freedom of speech. It is not illegal to lie.\n\nNor can the government make it illegal to lie.\n\nAlso what about things people say are lies but are actually true? It would be easy to just shut somebody up by saying \"He's a liar\"."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[],
[
"CNN.com",
"BBC.com",
"NYTimes.com"
],
[]
] |
||
2o705n
|
how does an aircraft carrier store enough food and water to feed 6,000 crewman and still have room for other military related hardware?
|
I've been wondering this ever since I watched a documentary on the US Navy. 6000 people? Away from land sometimes weeks at a time? Three meals a day....how in the living fuck do they store all of that food? Where do they keep it? Plus having room for F-18s (soon to be F-35bs) Harriers, munitions, sleeping quarters, showers, fresh drinking water, etc?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2o705n/eli5how_does_an_aircraft_carrier_store_enough/
|
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"text": [
"1. they are _gigantic_. \n2. they get resupplied.\n3. nuclear aircraft carriers use their nuclear power to desalinate sea water.",
"You should look into how big these things are. Carriers are basically small cities. That's why they are so handy for disaster relief as well, when a US carrier shows up its basically a small American city coming to help out.\n\nThey have world class desalination facilities for water, and the rest is carried by the carrier.",
"You should take an opportunity to see one in person. When you see an aircraft carrier in a photo or video, you just don't get a sense of the scale of it. They are enormous.\n\nThe first time I saw one, as a child, my thought was \"we actually *built* something like this? And it floats? And moves?\" And that one was a WW2 era carrier that became a museum. Modern ones are even larger.",
"Enlisted USN, just transferred from a carrier. The potable water plants onboard are a simple distillery. Water is flashed to steam and condensed with chilled pipes. Filtered and minerals added for drinking and general purpose. As for food and such, a cargo ship pulls up and passes over food, repair parts and supplies, and fuel for the aircraft. "
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[],
[],
[]
] |
|
j32rf
|
why did the wars of the ancient times happen, like the why did they do battling. why?
|
this is an actual question from my five year old son
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/j32rf/why_did_the_wars_of_the_ancient_times_happen_like/
|
{
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"c28q687",
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"text": [
"To use an analogy:\n\nLet's say you and some other kids are on the playground. You tend to stay in one place, and everyone else tends to stay in their place. This should work out, right?\n\nWell, the first problem is when this one kid decides he wants to build a big sand castle. But he doesn't have enough sand in his little corner. He goes over to his neighbor and first asks, \"Can I have some of your sand? I want to build a big castle.\"\n\nThe neighbor might respond a couple of ways. One thing he might do is say \"Okay, but you'll have to give me some Dunkaroos.\" This is called \"negotiating\" or \"diplomacy\" and, when you do it right, can make sure that people don't get to fighting.\n\nAnother thing he might do is say \"No! That's my sand!\" The castle-builder then says, \"Well, if you won't give me your sand, then I'll go over there and take it!\" They both subsequently kick each other in the penis. This is called a war over resources.\n\nNow, in another corner of this sandbox, you have one kid who believes that the teacher is nice, and another kid who just hates her. The first kid says, \"Gee, Mrs. Derpson is sure swell, isn't she?\" The other kid subsequently kicks the first kid in the penis. This is called a war over religion.\n\nIn another corner of the sandbox, one kid decides he's done all the digging he can do in his little swath of land. He goes and asks his neighbor, \"can I come over to your spot and dig around?\"\n\nNow, once again, this neighbor can respond in a variety of ways. First, he could say \"Okay, but only if I can dig in your spot too. That way we're equals in how we use this land.\" This is another example of diplomacy, and sometimes agreements like this are how nations (or \"confederacies,\" like the United States was originally) are formed.\n\nAlternatively, the neighbor can say \"No, you can't come over,\" and if the first kid tries to come over, they both will kick each other in the penis. This is a war over territory.\n\nSo, wars can happen for a lot of reasons, some of which are religion, territory, and resources.",
"Wars happened because somebody wanted something bad enough to fight for it.\n\nIn those times, people all lived under a king. The king had a lot of money, and people gave the king some of the money they made, and the king also protected the people from theives and invaders, that is, if he was a good king. If the king wanted more money, the best way to get it was to send his army to invade another king's land, and if his army was a good bit stronger, then he could take over the new kingdom, and all those people would pay him. But if the armies were about the same, then many people would die and both kings would lose money paying the soldiers, so kings didn't always fight wars when they wanted something.\n\nSometimes the king didn't just want more people to rule, sometimes he wanted good land with resources, like good soil to grow crops. In some places like northern Scotland, the soil was so bad that people were fighting all the time because it was very hard to grow crops. In places where growing crops is very easy, and most people had enough food, there were not so many wars.\n\nAnother reason people used to fight wars is because they thought that when the died in battle, they would go to a special heaven for warriors. Every day they would hear about the great warriors as children, and so when they grew up they would want to be warriors and die in battle, instead of dying by working too hard in a field or from getting badly sick."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[]
] |
|
bvr827
|
do planes have to keep tilting down for long flights to make up for the earth's curvature?
|
this is a common argument made by flat-earhters, I want to be able to refute it
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/bvr827/eli5_do_planes_have_to_keep_tilting_down_for_long/
|
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"text": [
"No. Gravity is pulling them down while the lift from the wings is pushing them up. They stay at a constant height above the surface of the planet.",
"Lest assume a atmosphere with no high and low pressure zones and not wind. \n\nAirplane fly at a constant altitude or more exact a constant air pressure. The air pressure will depend on the difference from sea level and the location with constant air pressure will curve around the earth like the ground.\n\nWhen you fly a airplane at constant altitude you use use the engine power and pitch of the aircraft to trim it in to have a constant altitude and speed. That trim if it is exact will result that you could flu at constant altitude forever and the trim include the small effect of the curvature of the earth.\n\nThe pressure of the air changes with altitude and so does the lift so higher altitude result in less lift and lower in more lift. So for a fixed pitch setting and engine setting you will fly at a area wit the same altitude. So because the pressure around earth changes along the cure you will remain at a constant altitude.\n\nA normal aircraft fly so the wings and the nose point a bit up in normal flight. The Angle of attack of the wings is approximate 2-5 degrees. So you will away point a but up in level flight.\n\n \n\nThe trim of the aircraft will include effect of a curving earth. The exact same procedure would result in level flight on a flat earth with a pressure gradient because the way you trim is to change the pitch so the pressure ie altitude is constant. Any constant effect could be trimmed our that way. Where the forces come form is not relevant you trim it so the change is zero.\n\nIt is in a way how you change the pressure of the gas pedal to keep a constant speed and if the incline of the road changes you press more or less on the gas pedal to keep the same speed. You do it the same way for a incline as you do if the drag is higher because you have a caravan attached to the car. Look at the speedometer and move the foot so it is constant. Airplane altitude trim is the same.\n\n & #x200B;\n\nIn practice you can not set is perfectly and the the aircraft get lighter and lighter when the fuel is used so you need to trim the aircraft to keep altitude during the flight.\n\n & #x200B;\n\nMost of the time you fly at pressure altitude that mean that you have a fixed setting as the air pressure in the altitude meter so every aircraft agree what altitude they are at. The result is that if you fly into a low pressure zone you will fly closer to the ground and in a high pressure area farther from the ground. \n\nFor landing and take off you use the pressure reading of the airport so you can know the altitude above the ground but at high altitude away from mountains the true altitude is not relevant.\n\n & #x200B;\n\nIf a flat earther start to talk about coriolis effect on airplanes the answer is that it is small and a lot less then directional correction you have to do because of changes in the wind. So airplanes compensate for it when they fly.",
"This is like asking an ant walking around the surface of an inflated balloon if he has to look down as he crawls forward. He is just going in a straight line forwards from his perspective.",
"Imagine a boat on water. If the water curved down, would the boat have to dive to stay on the water? No, the boat floats on the water, so as the water curves down the boat follows it.\n\n & #x200B;\n\nPlanes work the same way. The plane's wings generate lift based on the speed of the plane and the pressure of the air, basically the plane is floating on the air. As the air curves away with the Earth, the plane follows it.",
" > ELI5: do planes have to keep tilting down for long flights to make up for the earth's curvature?\n\n > this is a common argument made by flat-earhters, I want to be able to refute it\n\nYou can't refute it. It is true. However, the angle of tilt is so slight it is drowned out by the noise of normal flight variances. Updrafts, winds, turbulence, movement of the center of mass as passengers move about and as fuel is expended, even the trembling of the pilot's hands, and the thermal expansion and contraction of parts of the plane - all of these swamp and overwhelm the minor correction needed to compensate for the Earth's curvature. The pilot continuously and subconsciously compensates for it as she continuously compensates for a thousand other factors.\n\nIt's like a car on a straight, level, road. The road surface is not flat, but tilts away from the center to drain away rainwater. A car travelling along the road will naturally drift off the road because of that tilt, yet the driver continuously and subconsciously compensates for it."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[],
[],
[],
[]
] |
|
1zfc6q
|
how can websites offer a free stream for (e.g.) a sports game without it being taken offline
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1zfc6q/eli5_how_can_websites_offer_a_free_stream_for_eg/
|
{
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"text": [
"Not sure which ones you are talking about, but if it is the ones im thinking of then they do try and take them ofline, its just that there are so many.",
"They do get taken out and the pirates keep hosting them on different servers.",
"The problem is, if you shut down one stream, 2 more open in its place. It's a big issue with premium sports channels so they just give up. "
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[],
[]
] |
||
6btdqw
|
the explanation of basic logic
|
Can someone teach the concepts of logic for dummies like me? Thank you!
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/6btdqw/eli5_the_explanation_of_basic_logic/
|
{
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"dhpguh4"
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"text": [
"For really really basic logic: \n\nThings can be true or not true. Forget about maybes for now. \n\nSometimes statements are assigned a variable letter - by convention, a capital letter. This can make them easier to reference. For example, we might have the sentence \"Reddit is a website\" = A or \"Websites are on the internet\" be B. \n\nYou can do the following basic operations in logic, and get more by chaining them together: \nAND - If A is true AND B is true, then C is true. AND requires both statements to be true. \nOR - If A is true OR B is true, C is true. OR requires only one of the statements to be true - so if one is true, we don't need to check the second one. \nNOT - Negates a statement. \n \nYou can combine these basic statements into every other logical combination - for example, you can get XOR (eXclusive OR, where only one condition is allowed to be true) by combining NOTs and ANDs. \nIn fact, you can build a computer out of 'NAND' (not-AND) transistors, because you can use sufficient NANDs to get any other operation. \n\nSo we can use statements in logic to determine things. \nLet's make the thing we want to find out, C be \"is reddit on the internet\". \nA = \"reddit is a website\" \nB = \"websites are on the internet\" \n\nA is true. B is true. A AND B = true. Therefore, C is true - reddit is on the internet. \n\nThis is a quick and dirty explanation that I'm sure people will be able to poke a couple of issues in, and there's a whole lot of other beginner topics - syllogisms, for example, and propositional logic - that are beyond my post. "
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[]
] |
|
3zdmck
|
why are personal aircraft so expensive? is it parts/construction or is it because it's a luxury item?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3zdmck/eli5_why_are_personal_aircraft_so_expensive_is_it/
|
{
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"text": [
"A few reasons, the main one being FAA certification and relatively low volume. Similar to like how all cars must be crash tested on the road and how safety items on your car must have NHTSA certification all the expensive parts of an airplane who's failure could lead to a crash require FAA certification. This is one of the aviation industry's biggest complaints; FAA certification holds back technological advances. Most general aviation aircraft (what most people think of when you say Cessna) are flying with 50 year old engine designs and manual control. We can't get modern fuel injection or ignition systems because no one wants to spend time to develop a new system and pay hundreds of thousands for FAA certification.\n\nThe other part is maintenance, it's like owning a Ferrari. There's lots of scheduled maintenance that needs to be done ",
"A bit of both. \n\nAircraft instruments and sensors are very delicate and expensive. They are far more sophisticated and complicated than a car's instruments and sensors. There is generally more metal involved, a more complex and lengthy certification process, less room for error, etc.\n\nProbably most importantly is a lack of cost effective assembly line (since these are luxury goods). A Cessna 172 is a pretty common airplane, it's kind of the Honda Civic of the skies, and yet it costs 10 times as much. If Hondas were all hand made they would likely cost 10 times as much. \n\nThen you get into complicated aircraft like large airliners and fighter jets and the complexity of everything just runs away.\n"
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[]
] |
||
1vi78f
|
why do lights that are out of focus in a camera appear to be polygons?
|
Usually 6-8 sides from what I see. Shouldn't they just be blurry circles?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1vi78f/why_do_lights_that_are_out_of_focus_in_a_camera/
|
{
"a_id": [
"cesicnp"
],
"score": [
5
],
"text": [
"The blades of the aperture diaphragm form the shape (typically 6-9 sides), and the effects grow as lights go out of focus. Good lenses have more blades which are curved, giving a (nearly) round shape instead. This is a significant factor in fast SLR lenses.\n"
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[]
] |
|
1cimfw
|
why is the island of oahu the most developed island in the hawaiian chain? why not the big island?
|
When I went to the Big Island last summer near Kona, there was nothing near the airport. Just flat ground that was empty with 2 lane highways passing through. Why did Oahu become commercialized but the big island left empty?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1cimfw/eli5_why_is_the_island_of_oahu_the_most_developed/
|
{
"a_id": [
"c9gwxyf"
],
"score": [
2
],
"text": [
"The first king to unite all the islands, Kamehameha the Great moved to Honolulu after conquering Oahu. The nearby harbor was a hub for trade and whaling. In the middle of the 1800s, Kamehameha the 3rd moved the capitol of Hawaii from Maui to Honolulu on Oahu. The establishment of the Naval base at Pearl Harbor and its importance to WWII brought an influx of even more people connected in some way with the military."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[]
] |
|
eqji5z
|
how do cpu transistors *physically* read data?
|
If I understand correctly, transistors act as a switch, as in open/close. I also understand that information is in binary code, meaning 0 and 1 (for those who don’t know, example: the letter “A” = 01100001)
But from a physical standpoint, how do the *billions* of transistors know where to start when they receive information? How is the information carried? Electrons? And do transistors just start on a random part and figure out the rest? Or is everything in order?
Please ELI5.
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/eqji5z/eli5_how_do_cpu_transistors_physically_read_data/
|
{
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"text": [
"There is a reset signal that is automatically triggered when the system is powered on that put the CPU in a known initial state. You add special connections and transistors in the CPU to accomplish that. You add extra transistors to wires and pull them to 1 or 0 with the reset signal.\n\nExactly how it happens and what part you need to clear depending on the CPU. There would, for example, be no need to clear the data part of the cache is you just set the address part as no address so you likely lt them have a random value because it cant be read.\n\nIt is quite easy to build a circuit that when the voltage rise send a single reset signal. You use a Schmitt trigger.",
"Not exactly an ELI5, but I did watch a great youtube series of a guy making an 8bit computer from basic logic gates, and it really helped me understand at a more basic level how computers work. Ben Eater on youtube, or _URL_0_ might be worth looking into.",
"Voltage levels. It sometimes bugs me when people say \"it's all ones and zeroes\" to describe what's happening inside the computer. That's true some of the time in software, but in hardware it's all \"lows\" and \"highs\" or \"offs and ons\". \n\nSo reading an ASCII \"A\" from an 8-bit register in an active-high computer (where a high signal equates to a logical 1 and a low signal equates to logical 0) means detecting a high signal at the output terminal of the transistor representing the least significant bit, a low signal at the output terminal of the transistor representing the next bit, and so on.\n\nHow do the billions of transistors in a system start an operation? That depends on the operation. Early computers took input from an operator who literally flipped switches--off/on/off/off/off/off/off/on, for example--before telling the system to \"latch\" that combination of signals (voltage levels) to an input register. Once all of the input values were latched they'd open or close other switches that activated and deactivated a series of vacuum tubes (precursors to transistors) wired together such that they compared the right signals in the right order to perform an operation, eventually putting an output value (a series of voltage levels) into an ouput register, possibly wired to a bank of lights that the operator could \"read\".\n\nIn a modern computer there are several electrical operations and transformations that happen between you pushing 'A' on your keyboard or receiving high-low-low-low-low-low-high-low on a network interface and \"01000001\" landing in a register deep inside the CPU, but at the physical level it's all still a carefully timed ballet of high and low voltages.",
"As far as how 0/1s are carried, yes essentially electrons. But think more about how a transistor works. They basically have 2 input wires, and one output wire. If both of the input wires are receiving electricity, it outputs electricity to the output wire. That's *very* simplified, but good enough for ELI5.\n\nSo, transistors don't know what the heck a 0 or 1 is. They're just dumb hunks of silicon. But, we can treat \"electricity is flowing\" as a 1, and \"electricity is not flowing\" as a 0. If the transistor is a switch connected to a lightbulb, if the lightbulb is on we can call that a 1.\n\nThe transistors are chained in crazy ways to take those inputs and transform them somehow (like multiplying numbers or whatever). The details are hard to ELI5, or even ELI50. Just like a factory can take flour, sugar, sawdust, and soybean oil and output crackers without us knowing the exact process of how they do it, it's easier to think about parts of a CPU the same way. They take some sort of input, process it somehow, and produce output. But it's all just transistors connected together.\n\nTo send a CPU information, we can send electricity to each pin that we want to receive a 1, and don't send electricity to the rest.\n\nThe transistors in the CPU don't randomly start processing the 1s and 0s. We need to tell the CPU when the input is ready. So there is another CPU input that we send electricity to so say \"the input is ready, start processing it\". Likewise, the CPU will send electricity to an output wire when it is done setting it's outputs to 1/0s. \n\nCPUs are crazy complicated - especially modern ones. The above only scratches the surface. Hopefully it helps a little.",
"There is at least one pin (the [metal bits that make contact with the motherboard](_URL_0_)) that is dedicated to a *clock cycle*. A signal comes in from your motherboard that only ever cycles from 0 to 1 to 0 to 1 over and over at a regular cycle. This sets the pace of your CPU.\n\nThe reason it sets the pace is that *all other signals* are compared to that clock signal. IF the clock signal is 0, and IF this other pin is getting a 1, then this other pin will output a 1. Or IF the clock signal is 1 and this *other* other pin is also a 0, then this other other other pin will output 0. Or 1. Or however the logic gates in the CPU are arranged.\n\nThat's what transistors do. There are two inputs and an output. The two inputs determine the output, which is how you build a logic gate. [Here is a gif of logic gates simulated using water instead of electricity](_URL_1_). As you can see, you can set up different kinds of logic, such as the AND gate, which says that the output C will only be 1 (ON) if *both* the input A and input B are set to 1. There is the OR gate, where output C is 1 if either *or* both A or B are 1. Compare that to the XOR gate: C is only 1 if A *or* B is 1, but C will be 0 if *both* A *and* B are 1. Or the NOR gate, where C is only 1 if *neither* A nor B are 1 (in other words, if both A and B are 0).\n\nAnd so and so forth. There are a lot of different kinds of logic gates and you can combine them to build bigger and bigger logic trees with more complex outputs. That's what your CPU does. Take two (or three, or more) inputs and compare them against a logic gate, then output the result of that logic gate. Your CPU has a *lot* of transistors all doing that at the same time and using outputs from some transistors as inputs for other transistors, and outputting signals to other parts of your computer that ultimately do the same thing. The clock cycle mentioned forms the backbone of the process by giving the CPU the most basic signal to compare to. The clock cycle also gives your computer a very predictable signal to check against. For instance, what if there's a part of the memory that just reads \"11111111\"? How does your computer know how many 1s there are in a row? Well, because it compares that to the clock cycle, which is always going 01010101. Even if the signal coming from the memory is just ON for a while, because of the clock cycle the computer will keep checking and potentially getting different results based on other inputs.\n\nThe other major part of the computer is the memory. If the clock cycle gives your CPU one backbone signal to compare against, what else is it comparing? That's what the programs are for: they tell the computer to do something based on what the clock cycle is, along with other inputs. The program is stored in your memory as more sets of 0s and 1s. The computer sends instructions to the memory to find what's at a certain location and begins pulling the bits from that location. It does get a little complicated, because your computer uses a couple different kinds of memory. Some kinds are permanent but too slow to be practical, and other kinds are really fast but can't permanently store data. So you combine them: take a little time to pull the whole program from the permanent hard drive and load all of it into the volatile (not permanent) RAM. Then you can read what you need from the RAM fast enough to keep up with everything else.\n\nWhen you first boot up your computer there is a special little chip and set of memory on the motherboard called the BIOS. The programs in the BIOS never change (except for when someone *really* knows what they're doing and takes special, deliberate steps to change it). The BIOS has instructions on how to communicate between the stuff going on in the CPU and the actual, physical pieces on the motherboard. It's still a bunch of logic gates, but they're particular to that motherboard and contain *firmware* - permanent, unchangeable programs - to interact with the motherboard. As part of the boot-up process, the BIOS gets power from the power supply and makes its own clock signal, which it uses to turn on all the rest of the parts of your computer, including the CPU. It also has very simple instructions that tell the CPU how to pull your operating system program out of the permanent memory and put it into the RAM, where it more or less stays for as long as your computer stays on.",
"Main memory DRAM\n\nIt's actually a capacitor holding the 1 or zero. The capacitor is guarded by transistors. To check the value of the capacitor, the transistor switches allowing for the capacitor to discharge. A detector transistor passes along the result via various amplifiers to hold the result for one cpu cycle.\n\nAlmost instantly if the detection of charge comes from the capacitor, a refresh pulse recharges the capacitor. Because to check the value, the capacitor lost its electrons.\n\nA silicon capacitor on the same chip as the transistors is quite small and will leak it's values very quickly.\n\nSo a refresh cycle is constantly checking each capacitor on whether it should be recharged.\n\nIt's incredibly amazing this works on such a large scale."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[
"https://eater.net/8bit"
],
[],
[],
[
"https://image.shutterstock.com/image-photo/closeup-outdated-cpu-computer-processor-260nw-787892365.jpg",
"https://gfycat.com/rashmassiveammonite"
],
[]
] |
|
adupeg
|
when starting a diet/exercise regimen, why do you lose the first few pounds much quicker than the later ones?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/adupeg/eli5_when_starting_a_dietexercise_regimen_why_do/
|
{
"a_id": [
"edk8vdk"
],
"score": [
11
],
"text": [
"Usually \"water weight\" comes off first. People tend to cut carbs and sugars, which causes your body to use up glycogen, which is stored with water. Also, I think people have a tendency to be very rigid trackers with their diet and exercise in the beginning, then regulate their approach a bit as they move on."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[]
] |
||
4d3ts0
|
how exactly do campaign donations to politicians get used? where does that money actually go?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4d3ts0/eli5_how_exactly_do_campaign_donations_to/
|
{
"a_id": [
"d1nhonq"
],
"score": [
5
],
"text": [
"The expenses of the campaign include paying staffers, running ads on tv, radio and internet, travel expenses for the candidate and staff, renting venues for rallies, and all expenses associated with said rallies. \nI expect there is more that they have to pay for, but there's a start."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[]
] |
||
39yksk
|
when my usps tracking info doesn't update for days at a time, what is my package actually doing? is it really just sitting in a mail room somewhere? why can't they just throw it on a mail truck/plane heading my direction?
|
And why is the last action on the item "departed [location]"? It needs to have arrived somewhere by now.
I've been waiting for something to be delivered for over a week now and I've got a few days left before their "estimated delivery date" and I'm just wondering, what the hell is it doing? Why can't they just put it on a vehicle that's heading my way?
It's obviously very frustrating to see your package "hasn't moved" in almost a week. I really want it to get here!
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/39yksk/eli5_when_my_usps_tracking_info_doesnt_update_for/
|
{
"a_id": [
"cs7miz4"
],
"score": [
2
],
"text": [
"There's no good way to tell. The tracking info only updates when someone scans it at a location. If they forget to scan it, or there is some delay in getting that info posted to the tracking info, it may appear to be stationary. Or it may actually be stationary. If it's scheduled to take a week or more to ship it to you, they're in no hurry to get it from one place to the next. It may sit in a shipping location for days until their next cheap truck comes to ship it to the next place."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[]
] |
|
200h7m
|
do animals such as dogs or cats that can see in the dark just assume that humans can too?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/200h7m/eli5_do_animals_such_as_dogs_or_cats_that_can_see/
|
{
"a_id": [
"cfynb9m",
"cfyokbn"
],
"score": [
2,
4
],
"text": [
"Dogs really don't have any better vision in the dark than humans do. Cats are nocturnal by nature so they have extra light sensors. ",
"My cats look at me like I stepped on them on purpose. "
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[]
] |
||
4gbjf6
|
why do we cry/tear up when our eyebrows/eyelashes/nosehairs are plucked?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4gbjf6/eli5_why_do_we_crytear_up_when_our/
|
{
"a_id": [
"d2g5gij"
],
"score": [
4
],
"text": [
"There are many nerves in the face, this picture has parts sized according to how sensitive they are: _URL_0_\n\nThe nose clearly isn't that big but nonetheless the entire face has far more nerves than parts of the torso. A hair being pulled is registered as painful but on the torso there aren't as many nerves as on the face, so the face registers it as 'more painful' because there are more 'damage reports' "
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[
"http://www.jennifersweeney.ca/wp-content/3d-homunculus.png"
]
] |
||
1v1ikf
|
what's all this lately with chris christie and "bridgegate"?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1v1ikf/eli5_whats_all_this_lately_with_chris_christie/
|
{
"a_id": [
"cens4ii"
],
"score": [
2
],
"text": [
"Christie was expected to win an election. A town mayor didn't endorse him. Christie won anyway, as expected. Christie staffers jammed up a townie bridge to \"get back\" at that town mayor who didn't endorse Christie. eMail messages got leaked out. Christie fired a few people.\n\nOn the sidelines...\n\nSome folks want Christie to be the next US President. Some folks are asking Christie \"what did you know and when did you know it\"."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[]
] |
||
4iv1d6
|
at this point, could we just recycle 100% of our materials such as plastic and paper instead of producing new stuff?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4iv1d6/eli5_at_this_point_could_we_just_recycle_100_of/
|
{
"a_id": [
"d31ams7"
],
"score": [
19
],
"text": [
"No, most materials don't recycle perfectly, in that the recycled material is of lower quality than new material. For example, paper is made of wood mashed into lots of little fibers that are pressed into sheets, and the intertwining of those fibers holds the paper together. Each time some paper is recycled, a bunch of those fibers end up getting broken up, and so they get shorter each time. Eventually, you end up with fibers that are too short to effectively hold together well. You can't recycle paper endlessly. \n\nAlthough, some materials do recycle much better. Glass can be recycled pretty much as good as new, and metals can generally be melted down and purified and be reused easily as well. \n\nThere are a whole bunch of different kinds of plastics that can be recycled, and some of them are better than others. Although many plastics can be melted down and then reformed into new objects, there's generally a degrading in the quality, and so you can't just keep making plastic bottles out of the same lump of plastic. Melted down plastic bottles end up being used to make things like plastic furniture or other things that don't require \"pristine\" plastic qualities. \n\n"
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[]
] |
||
n8ktq
|
methods used by scientists to come close to absolute zero.
|
All I can really find is why reaching absolute zero doesn't seem to be possible. I've heard the terms "laser cooling" and "cryocooler" a number of times; is this how scientists are getting down to 0.0000000001 K?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/n8ktq/eli5_methods_used_by_scientists_to_come_close_to/
|
{
"a_id": [
"c3746zs",
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"c374rkq",
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"c374bcq",
"c374n3f",
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4,
61,
142,
2,
3,
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61,
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2,
3,
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"text": [
"Laser cooling is one of the ways that I know of off the top of my head, I don't know too much other than that it uses lasers to reduce the momentum of a particle such that it becomes trapped in a net of lasers and progressively slows it down. Usually you need both a magnetic field and lasers in order to trap the atoms so they aren't moving around. ",
"There is a fantastic 2 part BBC documentary called \"The Conquest of Cold\" that explains in great detail the history and how it is done. \n\nYou can watch it [Here in Google Video](_URL_0_) or search for links to download them. This is one of those Must Have docs.",
"When scientists talk about cooling something to really really close to absolute zero, they are almost always talking about lowering the *average* energy in a bunch of atoms. On the scales, we're talking about, the \"temperature\" is really just a measurement of how much shaking and moving the individual atoms are doing, so scientists who work to reach those temperatures must try to reduce the motion of the atoms.\n\nNow how do they do that? Well there are two main tools, laser-trapping and evaporative cooling.\n\n**Laser trapping**: the basic idea is to take a stream of atoms flowing one way and hit them with a laser pointing in the opposite direction. Have you ever tried to run quickly against a moving stream? In that situation you are like one of the atoms and the water is like the particles of light in the laser: the laser \"pushes\" the atoms against their direction of movement. Once you slow the atoms down, you can add a second laser opposite the first: now you have two lasers pushing in opposite directions on the atoms and they stay in place.\n\nIf you add more lasers in the up-down and forward-backward directions, then the atoms are trapped by the lasers.\n\nHowever, while the atoms are now trapped in position by the lasers, they are still able to vibrate and jiggle inside of the trap. That's where the **evaporative cooling** comes in. Remember that the temperature at these scales is dependent on the *average* energy of the atoms: if we can somehow remove the higher-energy atoms, only the lower-energy ones will be left, the average energy would drop further and so too would the temperature.\n\nTo do this, the scientists reduce the trap's strength a tiny bit. The atoms with the highest remaining energy can now escape, the lower energy ones remain; rinse and repeat until you're left with a small set of atoms which are hardly vibrating at all. Congratulations, you're now working with materials at the nanoKelvin scale.\n\ntl;dr: Slow a stream of atoms with a laser, add more lasers to hold those atoms in place, and slowly allow the most energetic atoms to escape. Voilà, ultracold.\n----------------------------\nSource: My professor runs an ultra-cold laboratory.\n\n",
"The reason getting to absolute zero is impossible is because heat travels from hot to cold, and there isn't anything 'colder' than absolute zero for heat to travel to, so you can't get there. You can get close though, and it's all about removing energy from a system. \n\nLaser cooling is the big thing now - to a 5 year old it's basically a photon that, when interacting with an atom, can actually take momentum away from an atom, cooling the system. Details can be found on wikipedia. \n\nBefore that, it was [magnetic refrigeration](_URL_0_), which was very clever. If you cool your system to as cold as you can, apply a huge magnetic field (giving it a lot of magnetic energy), then insulate your system (no heat can leave), then turn off the magnetic field, the internal energy in the system will decrease, but since the system is insulated, that will resulted in the temperature going down. Thermodynamics at its finest!\n\nAlso I recommend asking these kinds of question in /r/askscience. ",
"[Sixty Symbols explains it beautifully.](_URL_0_)",
"Laser cooling is actually really cool. It's dependent on 2 concepts: quantum mechanics and blue/red shift. Here's the parts that matter here.\n\nQM: Atoms and molecules can only absorb energy in certain amounts. If an incoming photon has 5 units of energy, but the atom it's hitting is only allowed to absorb photons with exactly 2 units of energy, then the photon cannot be absorbed. The reasons behind this are complex, but every atom/molecule has specific wavelengths it can absorb based on its atomic structure. Another important fact: wavelength of a photon is directly tied to its energy level, and also it's \"color\" (there are colors of light we can't see).\n\nRed/Blue Shift: this is a result of special relativity. Again, the underlying reasons are complex, but the outcome is this: things that are moving towards you look more \"blue\" an things that are moving away look more \"red\". \"Red and Blue\" are shorthand for \"less light energy\" and \"more light energy\".\n\nOne last thing: at very small scales, the idea of \"hot\" and \"moving fast\" is the same.\n\nOk, so you have a very small sample of a gas that you want to cool down. You put it in a chamber with some lasers fixed on it. These lasers are tuned so that the light they produce is JUST below the wavelength that the gas molecules can absorb. Because they can't absorb the light, the molecules are mostly unaffected by the laser. But, if the molecule is moving directly into the laser beam, the light is blue shifted and creeps up to the exact level that it needs to be absorbed. If the molecule absorbs the light head on like that, it's like having a head on collision between two cars. The molecule slows down, which is the same thing as cooling down. The genius thing about this is that the laser can only be absorbed in the case where it will end up slowing down the molecule, otherwise it just passes through.",
"Laser cooling is one of the ways that I know of off the top of my head, I don't know too much other than that it uses lasers to reduce the momentum of a particle such that it becomes trapped in a net of lasers and progressively slows it down. Usually you need both a magnetic field and lasers in order to trap the atoms so they aren't moving around. ",
"There is a fantastic 2 part BBC documentary called \"The Conquest of Cold\" that explains in great detail the history and how it is done. \n\nYou can watch it [Here in Google Video](_URL_0_) or search for links to download them. This is one of those Must Have docs.",
"When scientists talk about cooling something to really really close to absolute zero, they are almost always talking about lowering the *average* energy in a bunch of atoms. On the scales, we're talking about, the \"temperature\" is really just a measurement of how much shaking and moving the individual atoms are doing, so scientists who work to reach those temperatures must try to reduce the motion of the atoms.\n\nNow how do they do that? Well there are two main tools, laser-trapping and evaporative cooling.\n\n**Laser trapping**: the basic idea is to take a stream of atoms flowing one way and hit them with a laser pointing in the opposite direction. Have you ever tried to run quickly against a moving stream? In that situation you are like one of the atoms and the water is like the particles of light in the laser: the laser \"pushes\" the atoms against their direction of movement. Once you slow the atoms down, you can add a second laser opposite the first: now you have two lasers pushing in opposite directions on the atoms and they stay in place.\n\nIf you add more lasers in the up-down and forward-backward directions, then the atoms are trapped by the lasers.\n\nHowever, while the atoms are now trapped in position by the lasers, they are still able to vibrate and jiggle inside of the trap. That's where the **evaporative cooling** comes in. Remember that the temperature at these scales is dependent on the *average* energy of the atoms: if we can somehow remove the higher-energy atoms, only the lower-energy ones will be left, the average energy would drop further and so too would the temperature.\n\nTo do this, the scientists reduce the trap's strength a tiny bit. The atoms with the highest remaining energy can now escape, the lower energy ones remain; rinse and repeat until you're left with a small set of atoms which are hardly vibrating at all. Congratulations, you're now working with materials at the nanoKelvin scale.\n\ntl;dr: Slow a stream of atoms with a laser, add more lasers to hold those atoms in place, and slowly allow the most energetic atoms to escape. Voilà, ultracold.\n----------------------------\nSource: My professor runs an ultra-cold laboratory.\n\n",
"The reason getting to absolute zero is impossible is because heat travels from hot to cold, and there isn't anything 'colder' than absolute zero for heat to travel to, so you can't get there. You can get close though, and it's all about removing energy from a system. \n\nLaser cooling is the big thing now - to a 5 year old it's basically a photon that, when interacting with an atom, can actually take momentum away from an atom, cooling the system. Details can be found on wikipedia. \n\nBefore that, it was [magnetic refrigeration](_URL_0_), which was very clever. If you cool your system to as cold as you can, apply a huge magnetic field (giving it a lot of magnetic energy), then insulate your system (no heat can leave), then turn off the magnetic field, the internal energy in the system will decrease, but since the system is insulated, that will resulted in the temperature going down. Thermodynamics at its finest!\n\nAlso I recommend asking these kinds of question in /r/askscience. ",
"[Sixty Symbols explains it beautifully.](_URL_0_)",
"Laser cooling is actually really cool. It's dependent on 2 concepts: quantum mechanics and blue/red shift. Here's the parts that matter here.\n\nQM: Atoms and molecules can only absorb energy in certain amounts. If an incoming photon has 5 units of energy, but the atom it's hitting is only allowed to absorb photons with exactly 2 units of energy, then the photon cannot be absorbed. The reasons behind this are complex, but every atom/molecule has specific wavelengths it can absorb based on its atomic structure. Another important fact: wavelength of a photon is directly tied to its energy level, and also it's \"color\" (there are colors of light we can't see).\n\nRed/Blue Shift: this is a result of special relativity. Again, the underlying reasons are complex, but the outcome is this: things that are moving towards you look more \"blue\" an things that are moving away look more \"red\". \"Red and Blue\" are shorthand for \"less light energy\" and \"more light energy\".\n\nOne last thing: at very small scales, the idea of \"hot\" and \"moving fast\" is the same.\n\nOk, so you have a very small sample of a gas that you want to cool down. You put it in a chamber with some lasers fixed on it. These lasers are tuned so that the light they produce is JUST below the wavelength that the gas molecules can absorb. Because they can't absorb the light, the molecules are mostly unaffected by the laser. But, if the molecule is moving directly into the laser beam, the light is blue shifted and creeps up to the exact level that it needs to be absorbed. If the molecule absorbs the light head on like that, it's like having a head on collision between two cars. The molecule slows down, which is the same thing as cooling down. The genius thing about this is that the laser can only be absorbed in the case where it will end up slowing down the molecule, otherwise it just passes through."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[
"http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=5261389955425152071"
],
[],
[
"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magnetic_refrigeration"
],
[
"http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=drnq_6ffTbo"
],
[],
[],
[
"http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=5261389955425152071"
],
[],
[
"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magnetic_refrigeration"
],
[
"http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=drnq_6ffTbo"
],
[]
] |
|
bq9sqv
|
why guys with diesel pickup trucks leave them idling all the time vs. turning them off.
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/bq9sqv/eli5_why_guys_with_diesel_pickup_trucks_leave/
|
{
"a_id": [
"eo2g7ls"
],
"score": [
3
],
"text": [
"Diesel engines works best when warm and may even refuse to start in even mildly cold weather. The diesel fuel is ignited by the heat generated by compression instead of a spark. So if the engine is cold and the fuel is cold then it will take more heat to ignite it causing it to run rough. Most diesel engines will not even start in mildly cold weather and requires an electric heater to preheat the fuel to even make it start. This means that in cold weather you can not just turn the key as you would a gasoline engine but needs to set it to engine preheat for a few seconds before you can try cranking it. Diesel engines designed for cold climates may even have diesel heater units built into them so that you can heat the engine block in a few minutes to make it start. But even in warm weather the engine may run rough before it have a chance to warm up. So turning off the engine and letting it cool down is really bad for the driving experience and can even increase the fuel consumption compared to if you let the engine idle."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[]
] |
||
cn5d7d
|
how does a pond get stocked with fish, snails, eels and all the flora to assist in a healthy aquatic environment?
|
Basically how to fish get from one pond to another?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/cn5d7d/eli5_how_does_a_pond_get_stocked_with_fish_snails/
|
{
"a_id": [
"ew6xg7k",
"ew71tnz"
],
"score": [
5,
2
],
"text": [
"Most ponds form with a water source going into them and a water source heading out. Fish can travel along this water source into the pond, and leave it in the same manner. There are also species of fish, such as the lungfish, can “walk” over land from one pond to another. That’s not to say all ponds have that aquatic ecosystem with fish, eels, etc. Sometimes, the pond cannot stock itself with certain species.",
"This is only part of your question, but [here's one way ponds can be stocked with fish](_URL_0_).\n\nA lot of the rest of those organisms end up there naturally. As long as nothing wipes out the ecosystem, they're able to maintain their natural levels. The fish are added this way specifically so they can be removed through fishing."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[
"https://youtu.be/3kjFNbKbWFg"
]
] |
|
5g3hwc
|
if data in analog signal travels in form of waves then how does it travel digitally in solid coper wire?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5g3hwc/eli5_if_data_in_analog_signal_travels_in_form_of/
|
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"The difference between analog and digital signals isn't so much about the mechanics of the signal within the wire but how it is interpreted. With an analog signal it is a continuous value, so a smooth wave conveys a smooth transition between any given point. For example if the wave transitions between values of 1 and -1 we might measure values of 0.3, or -0.8 at various times.\n\nIn contrast a digital signal only has two possible values, 1 and 0. The threshold for registering this value on the same smooth wave might be than anything higher than 0.3 is a 1 and anything lower than -0.3 is a zero. Technically the signal is still traveling as a wave through the wire but it isn't interpreted that way.",
"Digital data is still transmitted using waves along the wire, however digital is an encoding.\n\nIn an analogue system the signal changes by the wave changing amplitude (AM radio, for example), or frequency (FM), or some other variable. The waves vary based on the complexity of the content. If something interferes with the wave the version of the wave you will receive will be different to the one I sent: interference, right?\n\nIn a digital system we might agree that a wave that looks like _this_ is a 1 and a wave that looks like _this_ is a 0. There will be some tolerances, so it might not look exactly like that, but it'll be obvious each time whether it's a 0 or a 1, even if the interference is quite bad.\n\nNow, we need to agree a speed. We might agree that I can send 1,000 of these 1s and 0s per second to you. If I send you half a second of the 1 signal, that's 500 1s in a row right? Your equipment agrees, and so we can do that.\n\nIn reality the speeds are much higher, and there are other techniques in order to make sure that interference is limited. Cable, fibre optic and radio wireless digital systems all use mediums that have properties that can allow different frequencies to be used as well, so the total bandwidth of the system can be very high.\n\nThere are a lot more complexities in real world systems, but hopefully this gives you an idea."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[]
] |
||
80bt31
|
if heat rises, why do lakes and other bodies of water freeze on the top first?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/80bt31/eli5_if_heat_rises_why_do_lakes_and_other_bodies/
|
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"Due to the black magic of water molecule structure, it's at its **most dense** around 4'C and **less dense** at 0'C. This means between 0 and 4'C the coldest water _rises_ and freezes at the surface. If it weren't for this one innocuous quirk life probably would not have evolved past the simple pond life stage as lakes would always freeze solid. As it is you get the frozen top and the fluid bottom.",
"It should be noted that heat does not actually rise - there is, rather, a general tendency for things to be less dense when they're hotter, and so in fluids, if you heat the bottom then the heated fluid will rise above the colder fluid.\n\nIn water, this isn't quite the case, because water has the extremely unusual property of becoming *less* dense as it freezes - it's at its densest around 4 degrees C - hotter water is less dense, but so is ice. And so ice tends to rise to the top."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[]
] |
||
2y6nf9
|
why haven't biometrics taken the place of passwords/pins in virtually every instance?
|
It's not a new technology and it seems to me that it would be more secure than an alphanumeric password, given that most people don't choose secure passwords . Certainly, it would be more convenient. So why don't we have thumbprint readers, or iris scanners all over the place yet?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2y6nf9/eli5_why_havent_biometrics_taken_the_place_of/
|
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"The thing is that fingerprints aren't that secret. You can lift a fingerprint off a discarded coffee cup. What's worse, once your fingerprints are out there, there's no way to change them.",
"PINs are incredibly convenient, cheap, and very very secure. If any of these items becoming overwhelmingly false in the future, maybe a change will happen on a large scale, but for now, it works, its perfect, and no one wants shit to change because we have a very good system in place",
"Passwords and PINs are incredibly reliable and fast to verify. You can type a 6 digit PIN into an ATM machine in seconds and it can be verified in milliseconds.\nIf you were taking an IRIS scan, you would need to fact the camera, make a couple of tries, the ATM machine would have to run sophisticated algos to verify the match. (Note: the iPhone does fingerprint recognition much faster now, but that is NOW).\nNow imagine every one of those millions of ATMs installed over the last few decades out there, need to be capable of this new technology. Such verification is either all or nothing, if all your ATMs don't support it, people won't use it. "
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[],
[]
] |
|
3adn9y
|
greece is on the brink of leaving the euro so why is everyone withdrawing their money from atms?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3adn9y/eli5_greece_is_on_the_brink_of_leaving_the_euro/
|
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"If Greece defaults on their debt and leaves the eurozone, they will have to start printing money to pay their bills. This will result in inflation and devaluation, which means a reduction in wealth if your money gets converted to drachma.\n\n > If the euro isn't their currency anymore can they continue to use it?\n\nUnless they pass a law banning it, people can use whatever currency they want. They may choose to use euros instead if the new currency proves to be too weak.",
"People are withdrawing their money because they are afraid the banks are going to go out of business (making it hard to get their money out!) and/or the government is going to require them to pay taxes on their bank accounts.\n\nIf they have euros and Greece converts to the drachma, they'll still be able to use the euros to buy things.",
"To understand this you need to understand how a Greek exit from the Euro (\"grexit\") would work.\n\nGreece would order all its banks to close, and to turn off all their ATMs. They would stay closed for a few days, maybe a long weekend.\n\nDuring that time, everyone with a bank account would be informed that any balance they had in Euros will now be an equal balance in Drachmas. The Greek government will keep the Euros (what few there are; there are not enough to pay everyone anyway), and they can print as many Drachmas as they need. They may also try to go after Greek citizens with foreign bank accounts.\n\nAs soon as the banks reopen, people will begin trading Euros for Drachmas and vice versa, just like people trade any two currencies, and the market will establish an exchange rate, as it does for other currencies.\n\nHowever, even though the government gave everyone 1 Drachma per Euro, once the exchange rate stabilizes, 1 Drachma is going to be worth much less than one Euro.\n\nIf you take your money out of the bank and keep it in cash, it will be sheltered from that massive loss of value.",
"There's no assurance than any other country will accept the new currency (drachma). There's certainly no assurance that they'll offer an exchange rate that would allow people to make reasonable purchases. At which point, every euro you have in cash is like holding gold bars compared to the drachma.\n\nThis is why a lot of countries end up with US dollars or Euros as unofficial second currencies - because there's stuff you can't buy with local money.\n\nLastly, Greece has always had a lot of controls on taking money out of the country. They can stop the banks from processing electronic transactions but they can't do so much to stop people crossing the border with a thousand euro stuffed down their pants."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[],
[],
[]
] |
||
2hdey6
|
why was ma bell forced to break up, and comcast/tw may be allowed to merge?
|
It seems to me (without a good understanding) that what Bell became after the breakup was a lot like what cable is now – different regional monopolies that don't directly compete with each other. So why was this considered a *good* thing, but Comcast/TW are being allowed to merge into what seems a lot like the Bell system?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2hdey6/eli5_why_was_ma_bell_forced_to_break_up_and/
|
{
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"Better lawyers. Better lobbyists. Scummier politicians.\n\nBesides, you realize that \"Ma Bell\" has reincorporated itself across the board. They repurchased/merged in all the broken pieces back into AT & T. \n\n"
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[]
] |
|
89tcvs
|
how can the same flaps create lift for takeoff and destroy lift for landing?
|
I'm not talking about spoilers or air brakes, I just mean the flaps. You hear about them at 15, 30 and 60 degrees but I don't understand how they can be used to both create and destroy lift.
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/89tcvs/eli5_how_can_the_same_flaps_create_lift_for/
|
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"text": [
"They have an optimum speed which they work. They don't 'destroy lift' they just create more drag and thus require a higher engine output. But when you're landing, you usually don't want a higher engine output. ",
"They don't destroy lift for landing. They help the aircraft land at a slower speed by adding lift (so that less horizontal velocity is necessary to maintain lift) ",
"The flaps dont destroy lift. They increase the surface area of the wing which provides more lift for the same speed.\nIt allows the aircraft to fly at slower speeds which wouldn't be possible without the flaps. ",
"Flaps don't generate lift per se, they change lower the speed at which a certain amount of lift is generated. \n\nWhen you take off you want the max lift as possible. Usually 100% thrust is on, but by using flaps, you'll be generating more lift at slower speeds. You technically might not need flaps to lift off, but you'd be lifting off at much higher speeds. Which may or may not be good for landing gear, runway length etc. (actually runway length is your bigger concern. Less flaps = more speed required to get up = longer runway (based on your weight))\n\nWhen landing, you typically have your thrust close to idle aka you're almost gliding (turbofan engines on idle still put out some significant thrust). Again, weight and runway length come into play - you want to reduce your speed as much as possible, so flaps can do this. \n\n(not a pilot so I could be wildly wrong)\n"
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[],
[],
[]
] |
|
3wusfu
|
how important a consistent sleep schedule is? why?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3wusfu/eli5_how_important_a_consistent_sleep_schedule_is/
|
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"I get some sleep every day between 7 and 8 hours. You don't want to screw yourself over by getting like 4 hours of sleep, and don't want to sleep horrifically late because y'know life.",
"Very important. Fatigue, exhaustion, stress all can happen if you're falling asleep at extreme time differences each night. There's also things like weight gain and depression. It has been also studied that those who don't get enough sleep may have a higher risk of developing Alzheimer's disease.\n\nConsistent sleep helps your body maintain and regulate itself.",
"I Slept for like 12hrs straight because i got caught up in a dream... now i suffer. So sleep deprivation because of sleep...",
"For starters you title your ELI5 wrong when sleepy. The real issue is that your body has a natural sleep rhythem an as a result you will feel sleepy at certain times more than others. This sleep rhythm is slow to change, and sleeping at times when you are normally awake will cause your sleep to be lighter and shorter than if you slept during your normal sleep hours. If you spent several days on a weird sleep schedule, even if you slept the full 8 hours, you'd still be groggy and tired from not getting a decent amount of sleep and being awake in the \"wrong\" hours. It might even make it impossible to sleep at some points, or cause you to oversleep depending on the hours and times of your new sleep schedule.",
"Bandwagoning on this thread. How much time do you need to adjust to a new timezone, i.e if you go from europe to japan. How long does it take you to fix your sleep schedule?",
"Sleeping at drastically varying times each day will mess up your circadian rhythm. As long as you're getting at least 8 hours, you're still going through proper REM (rapid eye movement) and non-REM cycles where memory is being consolidated, but if you change the hours at which you sleep you're messing up internal light/dark cycles, which also messes up other internal regulatory processes that are dependent on and controlled by the same part of the brain (superchiasmatic nucleus). Just try to keep your schedule relatively normal, or be in for fatigue, diminished cognitive ability, and other signs of erratic sleep cycles and sleep deprivation.",
"It's one of the reasons why when you work an alternating shift pattern you get a shift allowance, they are paying you extra because you are harming yourself by doing it. ",
"Really important. Your body doesn't adapt to [changes](_URL_1_) in [sleep](_URL_0_) very well. Your brain deterioriates faster, doesn't cope, and just messes you up.",
"[Here's a good article outlining some of the more serious effects of abnormal and irregular sleep.](_URL_0_)\n\n\"Serious impact on our health ... Some of it may have to do with the lifestyle that shift work encourages. The rest has to do with our biology.\"\n\nLifestyle:\n\n - sleep disturbances/sleep loss\n\n - isolation from friends and families\n\n - harder to exercise\n\n - tendency to resort to junk food\n\nPhysiological (short-term):\n\n - Gastrointestinal symptoms like upset stomach, nausea, diarrhea, constipation, and heartburn\n\n - Increased risk of injuries and accidents\n\n - Insomnia\n\n - Decreased quality of life\n\n - General feeling of being unwell\n\nPhysiological (long-term):\n\n - Cardiovascular disease (heart attacks, heart disease)\n\n - Diabetes and metabolic syndrome\n\n - Obesity\n\n - Depression, mood disorders\n\n - Serious gastrointestinal problems\n\n - Problems with fertility/pregnancy\n\n - Increased cancer risk\n\n > After just 10 days, he found that they all had lower leptin levels (which would increase appetite), higher blood pressure, and worse sleep.\n\n > Most disturbing, three of the adults showed higher than normal blood sugar levels -- high enough to qualify as prediabetic.\n\n > \"The changes were very rapid,\" says Scheer. \"It didn't take years for disruption to the circadian rhythm to have medical effects.\"",
"you're probably better off asking /r/askscience if you want a real answer. or at least something more than \"really, really important.\"",
"So, what you're questioning isn't how sleep deprivation (chronic or total) impacts your life, but rather, assuming you're sleeping the same period of time, what difference the specific hours you're actually sleeping make.\n\nThis is a rather complicated question, because there's a wide range of variables that I'm going to try and nail down to give a clear answer.\n\nFirst, I'm going to take your username, and your phrasing of the question to make some inferences. I will assume that you are going to sleep at 8pm consistently, on a regular basis. You are planning to travel, at which point, you might be going to bed at 4 am one night.\n\nWith this, you're going to be quite likely to wake up early - undersleep, because you're coming off of a specific sleep schedule (Presumably one that is from 8pm-4am already), and you're quite likely to wake after a single REM cycle as your body thinks it is oversleeping, or from audio/sunlight triggers. It will likely be difficult to get back to sleep.\n\nIn this example, sleep schedule is important, because the habits of good sleep you have will be fighting with your ability to stay up. If your travel includes 'jet lag,' going east- > west is far easier than going west- > east, because of how it shifts the sunrise. You will likely undersleep, not get as many hours as you need, feel less fulfilled, and mentally sluggish for several hours the following day, due to the difficulty of convincing your body to stay asleep to get the stage 4 sleep that's most beneficial. This said, ultimately, you'll be fine.\n\nSecond, the other possibility is if you constantly shift your sleep schedule. If you normally go to sleep at odd times on a regular basis, which would be going to bed at 8 PM, then 12 AM, then 3 AM, then 10 PM again, then 5 AM, etc.\n\nMany people can manage this with mostly minimal effect, although it isn't as good for you as having a regular, consistent schedule. Two of the biggest problems this causes is an inability to get to sleep when you want to (There are many possible cures for this, like only associating your bed/bedroom with sleep, exercise, targetted exposure to sunlight), leaving you with a 'tossing and turning' state for perhaps hours before you actually manage to sleep, and prolonged exposure to such sleep cycles can lead to [shift work sleep disorder](_URL_0_), which I feel is a misnomer, and should be called [Being a human being told to keep a stupid schedule by people who have a hard time with understanding how days work](_URL_0_). It can cause heart troubles, digestive issues, and, more unexpectedly, has shown possible links with cancer, and leads people to have general trouble with cognition due to, ultimately, their insomnia.\n\nThird, you're talking about having a sleep schedule that wraps completely around (like a 25 hour day), where you sleep at 8 PM, then 9 PM, then 10 PM, and a few weeks later you're going to bed at 8 PM again. I'm not familiar with how this schedule impacts health and mental functionality, though if anyone else has a study, I would be happy to incorporate it.",
"I have insomnia and it occasionally gets pretty bad. Having a set to go to bed, that I don't vary by much, along with a routine I go through to help me sleep. \n\nWhen I vary my bed time by more than an hour or so I have a really hard time getting to sleep the next night. \n\nYMMV",
"I can't say what happens when you go to sleep at different times, but when I go to sleep it is almost always withing half an hour either way of the same time each night. I'm never tired during the day, fall asleep easily, sleep around 5 hours, sometimes a lot less. I don't use an alarm, I just wake up. I think it is due in part to the consistent schedule. .",
"There's a lot of information about Sleep Hygiene, which is the practice of doing everything right to get the best sleep you can. A lot of it is based off an idea that your brain likes pattern and structure, if you do the same things all the time, your brain will know what's up and will respond accordingly. So if you climb into bed at 10pm every night, your brain will start to realise that when you get into bed, its time to sleep.\n\nThis is my favourite publication, its easy to read and nice and simple (click on number 4 to see the PDF)\n\n_URL_0_",
"Well your brain uses sleep to process and sort through information that you have learned throughout the day \n\nIf you don't sleep you won't remember that cool new pokemon tomorrow little jimmy ",
"As somebody without any kind of sleep schedule I can say it's very important, you will eventually go insane.",
"Nutritionist here. May not be totally ELI5 but I'll take a stab at it. \n\nYour body essentially has a sleep-wake cycle which is regulated by hormones. This is the circadian rhythm. The principal \"sleep\" hormone is melatonin, and Is typically high at night to encourage you to be sleepy and fall asleep. Melatonin is secreted in times of low light and darkness, ie night, and suppressed in daylight or by \"blue light\" (like phone screens or TV). This signal is interprets byte brain via light entering the eyes. It's important to remember that humans evolved with a daylight/darkness cycle, which is reflected in the function and secretion of these hormones. \n\nA sleep routine is important because your body gets use to this circadian rhythm, the balance between high melatonin at night and high cortisol in the morning (to wake you up). Going to bed at the same time keeps these hormone levels where they should be at the right times of the day, meaning you get better quality sleep during the night, find it easy to fall asleep, and wake up easily in the morning. \n\nThe body also uses sleep time to do maintenance, which certain organs being more active during certain times at night. The liver for example is typically found more active at around 3-4 am, and may be beneficial for detoxifying the body. If sleep is inconsistent, certain maintenance functions of the body may be impaired, and contribute to the feeling of lethargy and fatigue the next day. I remember reading a paper a while back discussing how the fluid in the brain may essentially \"flush out\" waste during the night. \n\nGoing to bed a little later one night won't affect your circadian rhythm too much, but an inconsistent pattern like shift workers can cause funky things to happen with these hormones (melatonin and cortisol) and can contribute to a lot of health consequences discussed in this thread. ",
"Your body wants to sleep sometimes and wants to be awake at others. This is your sleep/wake cycle. You can force shift that cycle forward or backward up to about two hours a day. Trying to shift it more than that will likely leave you feeling jetlagged. If you're way off when your body wants to sleep, it is harder to sleep, and you don't get as good quality sleep. Going to sleep at the same time every night is part of good sleep hygiene.\n\nYou should also note that blue/green light inhibits your body's melatonin production. Melatonin is the thing that tells you you're sleepy. Computer monitors, smart phone screens, and tvs all put out a lot of blue/green light.",
"So I have less an explanation and more of first hand knowledge but....\n\nAs a Paramedic I worked 24 hrs on and 48 off. During those 24 hrs we would nap or sleep when we could. We never knew if we would get 30 mins or 8 hours of sleep. It was always different and always way less then 8 hrs and I always felt like dog shit!!!\n\nWorking now full time day shift M-F 7-4 I go to sleep about the same time and wake up about the same time and get about 7.5 hrs of sleep. I FEEL GREAT!\n\nto:dr. Important as hell if you want to feel well. "
]
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[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
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],
[
"http://www.webmd.com/sleep-disorders/excessive-sleepiness-10/shift-work"
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[
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shift_work_sleep_disorder"
],
[],
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"http://www.cci.health.wa.gov.au/resources/minipax.cfm?mini_ID=25"
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[],
[],
[],
[]
] |
||
bv73q3
|
how does moving horizontally prevent satellites from falling towards earth?
|
If I was on a satellite, and I pushed an apple towards earth, would it stop falling and level out?
And if I was on a satellite and pushed an apple in the opposite direction at the same speed I was travelling
(net speed = 0), would it start falling towards earth?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/bv73q3/eli5_how_does_moving_horizontally_prevent/
|
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"Stand on a mountain and throw a ball. It moves horizontally to the surface of the Earth, but gravity pulls out down so it eventually his the ground. \n\nNow imagine a really tall mountain and you throw the ball really fast. It moves away from the Earth because you are on the high mountain, but gravity pulls it back towards the Earth as well. \n\nThere is a specific velocity where these forces balance out and the ball \"falls\" all the way around the Earth and just keeps falling. That's a satellite.\n\nIt's not just the horizontal motion. The horizontal motion is a result of the upward motion and the pull of gravity.",
"Have you ever seen ski jumping? They go down a sloping track and hit a little ramp at the end. They reach 100 meters or so before landing not because they go high, but because the ground slopes away underneath so they fly down almost parallel to the slope.\n\nTranslate that to the slope being the curvature of the Earth and the speed and launch ramp being the rocket. Go fast enough and the Earth curves away as fast as the satellite falls towards it.",
"Orbital mechanics are counterintuitive. If you are in orbit things don't move in the direction you push them.\n\nIf you push something \"down\" it will instead move \"forward\" ahead of you in orbit, you need to push it \"back\" to get the object to move \"down\".\n\nSo yes pushing the apple \"back\", i.e. slowing it down will make it go lower and lower.\n\nThe trick with orbits is not that you are somehow preventing the orbiting object from falling down, it is to move so fast that as you fall down you keep missing the ground.\n\n\"Horizontally\" is an object that not just flat-earthers have trouble with. In every day life we keep treating the idea of \"horizontally\" as a straight line. Obviously in reality the earth is not flat and on a big enough scale horizontally ends up meaning a curved path rather than a straight one.\n\nIf you are in orbit and try to move not parallel to the ground but on a straight tangent to a curve that is parallel to the ground, you would in theory move away from it.\n\nTo imagine that put a ruler on top of a ball. The further you go from the point where the ruler rest upon the ball the greater the distance between the ruler and the surface of the ball.\n\nSo moving in a straight line while up above the earth actually gets you away from the ground. The earth curves away beneath you is you move straight ahead.\n\nOf course gravity is a thing and as the same time as you move away from the earth you also fall towards it.\n\nWhen you fall down at the same rate as the earths curves away from you, you keep the same distance from it."
]
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|
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[] |
[
[],
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|
culilu
|
why does drinking liquid help you feel better from coughing after inhaling something? isn't it a different tube?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/culilu/eli5_why_does_drinking_liquid_help_you_feel/
|
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"After the epiglottis, yes, but prior to that it is the same tube. This is why you can't inhale while swallowing, and why choking on food is so dangerous.",
"Sometimes the reason you’re having a coughing fit is that esophagus muscles are spasming. Something irritated your throat and it overreacted. Drinking liquid gives the muscles something to do any sometimes they calm down after that."
]
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|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[]
] |
||
ciaab5
|
how are sea creatures that live with little/no sunlight affected by the flashlights of submarines?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/ciaab5/eli5_how_are_sea_creatures_that_live_with/
|
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"text": [
"Many of the sea creatures that live below the level at which sunlight reaches are bioluminescent (they glow) so any light may attract other creatures living down that low - _URL_0_",
"[_URL_0_](_URL_0_)\n\nIt appears that these bright lights do permanently blind some deep sea creatures.\n\n At one vent, visited for the first time a month earlier, many shrimp eyes were a healthy pink. However, the eyes of most shrimp from the other site--heavily visited over the years--were a chalky white. Their pigmented light-sensing layers were completely destroyed."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[
"https://youtu.be/XQSr0ShYPio"
],
[
"https://www.sciencemag.org/news/1999/03/deep-sea-shrimp-blinded-science"
]
] |
||
5y1ex9
|
why does it rain more in the spring (in the us) compared to other seasons?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5y1ex9/eli5_why_does_it_rain_more_in_the_spring_in_the/
|
{
"a_id": [
"demlsza"
],
"score": [
3
],
"text": [
"Cold air still being pushed down from the north meets warm moist air coming up from the Gulf of Mexico. This clashing of fronts causes storms including tornadoes as well as rain. During the summer warm dry air comes down from the north and the hot moist air from the Gulf of Mexico blankets the south in asphyxiating humidity. "
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[]
] |
||
38of2q
|
why do train cars always have so much graffiti on them?
|
Im sure everyone notices the crazy amount of graffiti on train cars when stuck behind traffic waiting on a million car train. Is there not enough security at rail yards to keep this from happening? Why dont rail companies protect their assets better or paint over them more often?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/38of2q/eli5_why_do_train_cars_always_have_so_much/
|
{
"a_id": [
"crwihar",
"crwirw2",
"crwlfz5"
],
"score": [
5,
4,
34
],
"text": [
"Trains stop in places other then rail yards. The train near my house growing up would stop, the conductor would get out and walk across the tracks to the 7/11, get lunch, walk back to the train, eat, then take off again. \n \nI believe most of the graffiti takes place everywhere but the rail yard. There was a bridge that the train went under near my house. I could of easily walked over there and marked my territory and It would go unnoticed.",
"It's a cultural thing, subways cars in NYC. Anything that's massive and is seen by people. It's asking, \"why is there so much graffiti on walls?\". ",
"In the late 60s/early 70s in new york and philly kids were painting and writing their names on the streets of their neighborhoods. It didn't take long for the new york kids to realize their names would travel all around the city if they wrote it on the train cars. Back then train security was almost non existent, so the train yards became a playground for graffiti writers. \n\nFast forward to the mid 80s where a fictional film about hip hop, beat street, the book subway art, and a documentary primarily on subway graffiti in nyc, style wars, took graffiti worldwide. It hasn't slowed down since and you'd have trouble finding a city that doesn't have graffiti these days. \n\nNowadays you won't see a lot of subway graffiti in traffic outside of a small number of cities. Subway graffiti basically died in the US in the late 80s and moved to the freight trains where it still thrives. Subway graffiti is still popular in europe and australia, but the A line in rome is one of the few places still running trains coated with layers of graffiti like it was in the 80s (i believe budapest and a couple other places are the same, i'm a little out of touch these days) and many others where you'll regularly see a painted train here and there (such as copenhagen where you may see a handful of pieces running at the same time). It's rare you'll see graffiti on the new york subway today, and if you do it's mostly done by graffiti tourists from outside the US. \n\nHope this explains it a little. \n\nSource: i've been writing graffiti since 1989. "
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[],
[]
] |
|
5dbxkg
|
what happened between now and 30-40 years ago when it was typical not to attend university?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5dbxkg/eli5what_happened_between_now_and_3040_years_ago/
|
{
"a_id": [
"da3ocgu"
],
"score": [
4
],
"text": [
"In short it's about the kinds of jobs available.\n40 years ago, a great career job was working in a factory making toothpaste tube lids. It was a solid 40 hour work week, you made a liveable wage for a family of 5, you could eventually buy a car and a house and put some money away for retirement.\nNow that job pays minimum wage, and to get the same level of reliable comfort you need to be the guy who builds and maintains the machine that makes the lids for the toothpaste tube lids. Or the guy who programs it. Or any number of other jobs that need a much higher entry-level knowledge than the previous job physically moving the plastic to the machine."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[]
] |
||
5qc8n2
|
what is the difference between emitted light and other sources/forms of light?
|
I was reading an article and it said that some devices use emitted light, which makes them resistant to ambient light. I thought ambient light just meant the "amount of light" in any particular environment. How is emitted light different, and what makes devices using emitted light resistant to ambient light?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5qc8n2/eli5_what_is_the_difference_between_emitted_light/
|
{
"a_id": [
"dcy35nf"
],
"score": [
2
],
"text": [
"Are you asking about different types of light in a digital sense (computer modelling, game design, 3d photography, etc)? A film techninque?\n\nIf you mean chemistry-wise, I might be able to help. You know colour right (well, you might know *color* instead)?\n\nWhen a substance is hit by white light (white light is composed of all the visible colours of light together), it absorbs the energy from that light.\n\nElectrons have specific energy levels. For example, they can be at level 1, or 2, or 3, but *never* 1.5. When they absorb the white light, they will move up in energy levels. But they don't like being in higher energy levels, so they want to go back down. However, they can only go back down by \"emitting\" exactly the difference between, in our example, 1 and 2, or 1 and 3 (they *reeeeeally* want to go back to 1, but sometimes they can't).\n\nWhen they emit this energy, they're emitting light back at specific wavelengths. Specific wavelengths of light refer to different colours of light. So, they'll emit back some specific colours of light.\n\nSo, when you see something blue, it's actually absorbing the white light of the sun, and emitting blue light to your eyes.\n\nPresumably, they mean they can filter out certain types of light from the ambient (ambient: relating to the immediate surroundings of something) lighting conditions of the area. The phrasing is strange though, \"resistant to ambient light\"?\n\nWhat kind of devices were these?\n\n"
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[]
] |
|
6xj34p
|
why is it so much harder to snap with your index finger than with your middle finger?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/6xj34p/eli5_why_is_it_so_much_harder_to_snap_with_your/
|
{
"a_id": [
"dmga97w",
"dmgzzu9"
],
"score": [
11,
2
],
"text": [
"The snap comes from your finger hitting the palm of your hand. The middle finger has a better angle than the index or ring finger.",
"Snapping happens when your middle finger hits the bottom most joint in your thumb. Try it, you'll see where. If you try to snap with your pointer finger, your middle finger is in the way, so it doesn't sound as loud. If you manage to move your middle finger out of the way, you can snap with your pointer finger quite loudly. "
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[]
] |
||
9acsd4
|
how come when you have gas pains/indigestion drinking hot tea or water makes it feel better?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/9acsd4/elif_how_come_when_you_have_gas_painsindigestion/
|
{
"a_id": [
"e4umxhn",
"e4w9ter"
],
"score": [
14,
2
],
"text": [
"Ive never heard that it does. Is this common knowledge? I’ve always heard that warm or hot liquids cause your stomach to need to work a little harder to dissipate the heat so it will make a sore tummy feel worse. For gas sometimes you need a trigger to start the gas release so you drink something carbonated to set it off. ",
"Caffeine is a diarrhetic and will make you poo, if you have had it can release that gas. Drinking tea with caffeine would probably help with gas a little but I’m just shooting out ideas. "
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[]
] |
||
7qc022
|
why is it you can think of a word and use it properly in a sentence even though you can’t recall what the word means?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/7qc022/eli5_why_is_it_you_can_think_of_a_word_and_use_it/
|
{
"a_id": [
"dso1unk"
],
"score": [
3
],
"text": [
"Because you've heard or seen it used in that type of context, so you are essentially imitating without understanding.\n\nIn vocabulary tests, constructing a sentence using a word correctly is taken as a sign that the comprehension of the meaning is there. "
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[]
] |
||
bkk7kb
|
why can't cities like nyc and boston create landfill to build on like they did in the past?
|
Much of Boston is built on reclaimed land, as well as much of Lower Manhattan. The WTC is basically built on a giant bathtub that keeps the Hudson out. Why isn't that as common today?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/bkk7kb/eli5_why_cant_cities_like_nyc_and_boston_create/
|
{
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"emhtgej",
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"text": [
"I reckon the biggest problem is cost. Second you have individual problems like the Hudson that is actually a river with a watershed, that water needs to keep flowing. Netherlands has a lot of reclaimed land, but the initial cost is very high and it requires expertise as well as maintenance. Once the land prices are above the price per square unit of reclaimed land it'll start to become feasible.",
"Not to be snarky, but why would they want to? That waterfront area is now incredibly valuable, the people/companies owning the land there want to keep it the way it is to maximize their value. \n\nAnd filling in the bay/harbor is expensive- why not build in other directions that might be cheaper? \n\nFinally, skyscrapers need solid foundations- part of the reason Manhattan is so built up is that the bedrock that supports the skyscrapers is close to the surface level, making it easier to build tall structures. Filling in the harbor would add to the depth that pilings would need to be driven (you’d need to go through the landfill, then through the mud below it to hit bedrock). I’m not sure what you mean about the “tub” at the WTC- I believe that construction cleared the land down to the bedrock and then built retaining walls to keep the surrounding soil/structures from collapsing in, along with any potential water seepage. But the structure sits on solid rock, it’s not floating.",
"Plenty of places still do this, like Lagos, Hong Kong, and Dubai. San Francisco’s airport is on fill. Some parks in New York aren’t on fill, but are built on structures to create more land. Houston has a lot of excess mud from dredging the ship channel, but it’s mostly used to create storm barriers and wetlands. \n\nMostly it’s super expensive to do. With sea-level rise forecasted, it becomes even more risky. There are more cost-effective, safer ways to find land to build on.",
"A giant bathtub that keeps the Hudson out ?",
"While I cannot speak to the east coast of the US, there is a huge reason why it went out of style on the west coast of the United States. Earthquakes.\n\nDuring the big 1912 earthquake, San Francisco realized what a terrible idea filling in wetlands/bays to create more building space is. When you take a bowl of water and add sand to it, you eventually get enough sand to have some of it above water, but if you shake it the sand compacts and the water comes to the surface. This is what happened (more or less) in 1912, but the ground brought parts of building with it.\n\nI’ve over simplified a lot about liquefaction (effect described above), so I’m sure somebody with a degree in geology can fill in the gaps (or correct some inaccuracies) to paint a better picture of this.\n\nEdit: add a d to ad to make it add",
"In places like Hong Kong, such projects are still progressing, and the country has \"reclaimed\" upwards of 40 square miles, most notably to build a new airport to replace the old Kai Tak runways where you'd be close enough to see laundry being hung out from apartments at the same height as your landing 747. Here's a recent article about a new runway and roadway they're planning: _URL_0_",
"Also, garbage now is a lot different than garbage in the past. \n\nLook at spectacle island. It's mostly ceramics and glass. Stuff that doesn't leak toxins to the degree that current garbage does. (There's likely to be lead based paint in some of that garbage but still)\n\nNow we have things like computers, batteries, plastic, and many other things that have heavy metals and acid in them. Those eventually leak into the environment in landfills and after all the effort to clean up Boston harbor that would be tragic. \n\nI think it's worth using said trash for other purposes and up cycling it but we just have to make sure that it doesn't kill anything.",
"If you're interested in this you should read about the polders in the Netherlands and the ever-escalating efforts the Dutch have to keep the North Sea out.",
"Not sure about Boston, but this has taken place slowly throughout history in NYC, and has already happened deliberately. The area called Battery Park City was built on created land.",
"I grew up in NY right next to the East river. There was a proposal to create an entertainment district in the river (because of the natural shape of Manhattan it was a good spot) that was fought down until it was rejected. Current residents don't want decades of construction and to loose their water views. The arguements usually cited environmental protection reasons rather than their personal preferences. No one cared about the fish in the East River until this project was proposed and then suddenly a lot of people 'cared' about those fish a lot.",
"NY kind of is planning on doing it again, but not to use for buildings. It'll be to protect Manhattan from rising water.",
"Copenhagen is building a huge new metro line and they are using all the sand that has been extracted from the underground to build a huge artificial island near Nordhavn. Check it out, it’s quite impressive.",
"South Korea has a massive land reclamation project underway just outside Gunsan and is planning to build all sorts of stuff on it.",
"Environmental engineer from Boston here. In the United States doing something like that today is against most if not all environmental protection policy for the shore/ocean. I don't even know how one would try to work with the dep/epa to allow for the filling of shorefront. (Also I dont manage large projects so I may be naieve here). Currently, disturbing ANY soil in Boston costs a TON of money because the old fill contains PAHs and metals (contamination), which is a big deal in Massachusetts. . Probably not much of a concern in China though."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[
"https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/wjgpm9/hong-kong-spending-billions-taking-land-from-sea"
],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[]
] |
|
8stwef
|
how are large public places like amusement parks and stadiums able to enforce bans? are there not too many people to keep a list going that’s effectively monitored?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/8stwef/eli5_how_are_large_public_places_like_amusement/
|
{
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"text": [
"Previously: Ticket vendors had a bunch of posters / photographs of people they were to keep out, and would refuse to sell tickets or allow entrance to said persons. In general, they relied more on security personnel to detect or stop troublemakers from causing trouble while inside the stadium, and then kick them out if they did, rather than on keeping lists and keeping people out \"next time.\"\n\nCurrently: cameras everywhere, CCTV monitoring, facial recognition software - the face of a banned customer is recognized at the ticket counter / entrance, and they are refused. If already inside, they are escorted off the premises by security.",
"They aren't necessarily able to catch every person who was supposedly banned. However if a banned person causes trouble in the future then when they come to the attention of the park and are recognized as having been previously banned they can be charged with criminal trespassing. This is often enough to discourage their return.",
"They are not designed to block all access, they are designed to give the park grounds for charging them with criminal trespassing if they cause trouble in the future. \n\nBut some effort is put into blocking access such as posters of banned people being at the ticket booth or gate, and they use facial recognition programs with surveillance systems in some parks. ",
"Being banned means you got caught making trouble. There is a pretty good chance you will get caught again if you make the same sort of trouble, and this time you will be charged with criminal trespass.\n\nWhat if you sneak in and don't make trouble? That's pretty much all those establishments want, so it isn't going to that big of a deal to them.",
"back in 2006 i got caught stealing as an 8 year old in walmart and they took me to the back and showed me the facial recognition cameras as you walk in and gave me a life time ban from that store. Not sure how he thought facial recognition would be able to catch me years later since i was a child but if it was in action then, i'm guessing its even more prevalent in places like that. Alot of the time telling someone they are banned is enough but if not facial recognition flagging someone there isn't much you can do in a place like that.. depending on the size a poster of faces to avoid wont really work as they see thousands a day",
"They generally don't. They just tell you that you are banned to discourage you from coming back. You think you're banned, so you're less likely to go back. There is no reliable method of actually stopping you from coming back.\n\nIf they *really* don't want you to come back, they could put your picture up somewhere, but that's not reliable and is rarely used.\n\nThere is an argument to be made that getting banned makes any future entry trespassing. However, this would be negated for any venue that required you to purchase a ticket because the act of selling you a ticket would be giving you permission to enter.",
"In Scotland when people are banned from attending football matches, they are often required to check into a police station when matches are on.",
"I work for the 3rd largest mall in the U.S. We have a huge number of banned guests for stuff like shoplifting, fighting, mugging etc. However with the huge number of entrances and lack of effective security no one stops them from coming in. We have like 35 guards patrolling the mall they'll get recognized and escorted out but then just come in another entrance.\n\nBut, really it's a huge problem for us with parents leaving their shitty kids at the mall all the time causing problems for others. It's unbelievably difficult to press charges on them since guards (within the scope of their contract with THIS mall) can't put their hands on them so they just run. "
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[]
] |
||
7qmnn3
|
what do governments do when an undocumented person literally cannot be identified?
|
[deleted]
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/7qmnn3/eli5_what_do_governments_do_when_an_undocumented/
|
{
"a_id": [
"dsqauz5",
"dsqgeyh"
],
"score": [
3,
2
],
"text": [
"They’re in a pickle. Hopefully their actual government has a system in place to process people clearly born in that country, but as-yet undocumented. \n\nGoogle “stateless person”. There are ways to become somebody that no country will claim as their own. The ramifications can be severe, so rules about giving up citizenship often have rules (like proving you have other citizenship) to avoid these situations. ",
"In a first world nation, there are no really off the grid people, something will get you in the system. Student ID, national insurance system, etc.\n\nIn third world nations, voter or food ration cards. For local issues, asking village leaders can work. And if they travel abroad they'll get a passport anyway"
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[]
] |
|
5461wi
|
why itunes is as bad a program as it is and why apple doesn't create a better one.
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5461wi/eli5_why_itunes_is_as_bad_a_program_as_it_is_and/
|
{
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],
"text": [
"Why don't you go to one of their... oh right *they have no competitors*.\n\nOptimizing the app *costs money*. Fixing things that are annoying but not mission critical to fix *costs money*. \n\nSince people have no choice but to use iTunes... why on earth would they spend a dollar more than they have too on the site. Apple isn't in this to make you happy, you're a rounding error to them... they are in this to make money.",
"Because iTunes does a lot of different things:\n\n1) Sells music\n2) Sells videos\n3) Provides streaming music\n4) Organizes local music/video collections\n5) Downloads podcasts\n6) Provides syncing/backup services for iPhones/iPods\n7) Maybe some other stuff I'm forgetting?\n\nIf you had a build a new iTunes from scratch and do all the same stuff, it would still be a mess. So maybe instead Apple would replace it with a collection of smaller apps that do the same thing, but you'd need to coordinate them so that there's no gaps in functionality, or confusing overlap.\n\nAlso, making people use iTunes for non-store purposes like organizing music is a way to force them to see ads for things they can buy. So they might lose money if they decoupled some of the functionality.",
"iTunes is required for basic functionality of most Apple hardware. \n\nIt doesn't have to be good because people don't have a choice to use it or not.",
"Early iTunes was a brilliant, simple way to organize your music, by ripping your CD collection to your computer. It served the purpose of also helping sell iPods, since you would want a way to transport all of that music with you. \n\nThen Apple decided to *sell* music, and in their opinion, ripping CDs was no longer the optimal way to collect your music. Why buy a CD when you can just download the album from us for the same cost?\n\niTunes went from being a simple utility program, to a revenue stream. When there's money involved, the software changes will always lean toward making more money for Apple, and away from a better user experience. \n\n\nThis is why we can't burn our own DVDs to iTunes without 3rd party software. Apple wants us to repurchase all of our favorite movies through iTunes. "
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[],
[],
[]
] |
||
4in5nf
|
why are addictions so hard to overcome?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4in5nf/eli5_why_are_addictions_so_hard_to_overcome/
|
{
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"text": [
"Because your body or mind feels like it needs whatever you are addicted to. When you're addicted to alcohol or drugs your body thinks that the substance is normal and required to run properly. For instance, when you use meth your body stops producing dopamine because the drug supplies so much of it. This means that in order to keep feeling decent you need to keep taking the drug because you've stopped making dopamine on your own. For a mental addiction your body will physically run fine without the substance, but you think hat you need it. An example would be someone who think they can't get through the day without a drug, but wouldn't go through withdrawal if they didn't have the drug. \n\nAs far as going to bed or brushing your teeth I'd say that it's more of a routine, not addiction. You're just in a habit of staying up late or not brushing your teeth. If you always go to bed super late you're going to want to keep doing that because it's your routine and what feels right to you.",
"[Neurobiology Student]\n\nAn addiction is more than a habit, such as brushing your teeth. Brushing your teeth is routine, which unless someone has OCD or OCPD pose no physical or mental risk when stopping. If you chose to stop brushing your teeth it is as simple as telling yourself \"I'm not going to brush my teeth today\". When someone is addicted to a substance, alcohol for example it causes chemical activity in the brain. An easy way to under stand this is if someone takes heroin or another opioid it causes the brain to release dopamine, which plays a role in being responsible for the feelings of wellbeing and happiness. With substances such as alcohol and opioids, a tolerance develops. This tolerance gives the person the desire to reach the same \"high\" again and again. However, when someone does this for an extended period of time the body becomes used to having those substances in constant supply, which is what causes addiction. When the intake of that substance is stopped, the body doesn't know how to react or function for a period of time. This causes withdrawal, which is comprised of many mental symptoms such as depression, anxiety, insomnia, and craving. Withdrawal also has physical symptoms which range from headaches up to heart and brain issues, which can be fatal. \n\nOvercomming an addiction is more than saying \"I'm done with this\". As much as a person may want to stop most cannot take the depression and physical symptoms of withdrawal, which can last for weeks or months. Also, going \"cold turkey\" and stopping immediately is often dangerous and had the possibility to result in death, this includes alcohol and heroin withdrawal which can prove fatal.",
"In severe cases of addiction, the brain begins to work against itself. \n\n\nWhen someone is an addict, they have a part of their brain that is whispering at them to go get drugs are alcohol, and it comes from the same [survival center](_URL_0_) of the brain as other impulses; it is not a rational thought, but a need. Just like being very hungry or parched or desperately tired, an addict can find themselves feeling uncomfortably in need of their drug of choice.\n\nLike, if you've ever needed to stay up late to study, but you get the idea to just lay down and \"rest\" your eyes. Now, obviously, that's the last thing you'd want to do if you needed to stay awake. But there's a part of your brain telling you to go to sleep, and so ideas like that seem like a good. Your conscious mind isn't always steering the ship, and your thoughts can often be in the service of your impulses and feelings."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[],
[
"http://www.centersite.net/poc/view_doc.php?type=doc&id=48375&cn=1408"
]
] |
||
3j3pdy
|
why are some bruises purple blue and green or orange? where does the pigment come from?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3j3pdy/eli5_why_are_some_bruises_purple_blue_and_green/
|
{
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],
"text": [
"There is no new pigment, but just how the blood looks *through* your skins pigment. Bruises can look different depending on where they are, how deep beneath the skin, and how severe the bruise is.\n\nBruises happen when you bleed without breaking the skin. Sometimes with more forceful trauma, like twisting your ankle, you bleed in the deeper tissues and the blood gradually seeps into your skin over a longer period of time (hours to days). \n\n**Red Bruises**\nWhen you first get a bruise — especially one near the surface of your skin — it usually appears red. The color comes from fresh blood leaking into your tissues. Fresh blood is bright red because it contains both iron and oxygen.\n\n**Blue Bruises**\nWithin a few hours, blood that has leaked from your injured blood vessels loses the oxygen it was carrying. As this occurs, the blood becomes darker and your bruise begins to look more bluish or purple.\nNote that if you have a deep bruise, the red stage may have already passed by the time you are first able to see the bruise. So the first color you see may be a bluish purple color.\n\n**Purple Bruises**\nTypically, over one to three days (depending in the severity of your injury), a bruise becomes more intensely purple and may even appear black. This occurs as red blood cells break down and iron is released into the injured area.\n\nWhen red blood cells break down, they release an iron-containing protein called hemoglobin. As your bruise begins to heal, your body converts the hemoglobin into other colored chemicals. The presence of these chemicals causes your bruise to change color as it heals.\n\n**Green Bruises**\nYou’ll know your bruise is beginning to go away when you notice it turning green. You’re likely to first notice the transition from purple to green at the edges or center of a bruise. The green color is due to the presence of a hemoglobin breakdown product called biliverdin. The last part of the word, “verdin,” comes from the Latin word for green — making it easy to remember (and impress your friends).\n\n**Yellow Bruises**\nAt long last, your green bruise will eventually turn yellow as it enters the final stage of healing. The yellow color is from the final breakdown product of hemoglobin in your skin, a chemical called bilirubin. The yellow fades as your body clears away the last of the debris from the bleed, leaving you with bruise-free skin that is none the worse for the wear.\n \n\n[This](_URL_0_) is where I got the information.",
"The color of your bruise will actually change over the course of healing. After the initial bleeding stops, your body begins to slowly disassemble the blood piece by piece and return it's resources to the rest of the body. This process of going from whole blood, to disassembled blood, to each product being carried away to the rest of the body at different rates results in a changing color as, at any one time, the makeup of the chemicals in the bruise is different.\n\n[Here](_URL_0_) is a video which explains in a bit more detail, including which colors respond to which blood cell metabolites. ",
"[This tells you](_URL_0_). The pigment is in the blood."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[
"http://www.symptomfind.com/health/changing-colors-bruises-and-what-they-mean/#fQRwxQDRzsbSMg5s.99"
],
[
"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3x1yhVEDkNw"
],
[
"http://www.symptomfind.com/health/changing-colors-bruises-and-what-they-mean/"
]
] |
||
a6jpsp
|
if banks currently make transactions digitally, what prevents hackers from creating counterfeit digital currency? in other words how are banks kept accountable for the amount of money they actually have?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/a6jpsp/eli5_if_banks_currently_make_transactions/
|
{
"a_id": [
"ebvfhxy",
"ebwateo",
"ebwvvbf"
],
"score": [
23,
12,
4
],
"text": [
"Banks *owe* the amount of money that's in each account — the depositors are free to withdraw it. So they have every incentive to prevent someone fraudulently raising the balance.\n\nIn addition to normal computer security they use *audit trails* — complete records of every deposit and where it came from — so that you can't just raise a balance without having a deposit.",
"\nThe most significant bank account a bank has is with it’s central bank. All banks that are licensed have an account at the national CB. When a payment is made between banks the CB moves the money across,crediting one bank and debiting the other. This is the daily clearing system banks use to move money.\n\nSo banks cant just magically add zeroes to their assets and move money, because a third party actually processes all transactions. ",
"Ultimately all these checks and balances boil down to 'double entry bookkeeping'. A very great number of people are in prison because they didn't understand simple double entry bookkeeping. "
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[],
[]
] |
||
3kwr36
|
how does kim davis still have her job?
|
[deleted]
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3kwr36/eli5_how_does_kim_davis_still_have_her_job/
|
{
"a_id": [
"cv14anw",
"cv14bzv"
],
"score": [
3,
2
],
"text": [
"She is an elected official and cannot be fired. She could be impeached when the legislature goes back in session but that is unlikely for political reasons.",
"This has been asked *many times.* There is even a sticky on this very sub, at the top, which explains she is an elected official and cannot be fired, in the very [top post](_URL_0_).\n\nThe authority that can strip her of her position, is not currently in session, and it would be a legal proceeding, not simply a firing. "
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[
"https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3ja14y/eli5_kim_davis_rowan_county_kentucky_who_is/cunjg5s"
]
] |
|
4llf1i
|
why do we have so many national fast food and casual dining chains but no national super fancy restaurant chains?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4llf1i/eli5_why_do_we_have_so_many_national_fast_food/
|
{
"a_id": [
"d3o8e3t",
"d3o8exu",
"d3o8szy"
],
"score": [
3,
7,
4
],
"text": [
"One of the things which makes chain restaurants work is consistency - foods are prepared off-site in factories where they can ensure that whichever restaurant you go to, the food will be identical.\n\nIn fancy restaurants, people want food which is prepared on site, in a kitchen rather than a factory, by skilled chefs rather than by factory workers who operate machines. This isn't a model that's easy to replicate over and over again.",
"The franchise model doesn't really work all that well for fine dining.\n\nA good restaurant uses fresh ingredients and constantly experiments with new dishes and new ways to make old dishes. \n\nThe whole idea behind franchise restaurants is consistency. An Olive Garden in Miami is exactly the same as an Olive Garden in Seattle. Customers always know what they're getting. That doesn't leave room for using fresh ingredients or creative cooking.",
"There are fancier restaurant chains like Capital Grille or Morton's etc. But the reason you don't see these on the scale of McDonald's is economic feasibility.\n\nMost fine dining chains are steakhouses. This is because beef is fairly accessible and most people (that aren't vegetarian) love steak.\n\nBut once you get into more cuisine specific and restaurant specialty dishes, you have to remember, you're starting to cater to a more niche audience in price and even taste. \n\nTrying to have a fine dining seafood restaurant for example, is way easier on the coast because you can have locally sourced fish (which also keeps price down). It's also a food that's familiar to the locals; it's a part of the food culture there. Try the same menu somewhere completely landlocked, the food now becomes slightly foreign, you won't get the same amount of people interested. \n\nIt's also harder because a lot of these fine dining restaurants have specific menus that reflect the area's local produce/cuisine. As a result, you see restaurants that are a part of a \"group\" more than a chain. \n\nFor example, Gordon Ramsay's group of restaurants. They're restaurants that all have varying menu's based on that restaurant's cuisine/produce availability, but they all belong under the Ramsay umbrella. \n\nThat's really the only way to do it, without having the fine dining dip into casual dining like a Olive Garden or Joey's."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[],
[]
] |
||
3iumww
|
what's the difference between organized crime and terrorism?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3iumww/eli5_whats_the_difference_between_organized_crime/
|
{
"a_id": [
"cujrit2",
"cujt7ji"
],
"score": [
12,
3
],
"text": [
"The ultimate goal of organized crime is to make money. The ultimate goal of terrorism is to promote terror.\n\nFor example, I start growing and selling drugs to make money. I have lots of customers that buy from me, and pretty soon i can't do it all by myself. So I hire a friend to come work for me. I'm in charge of growing and he's in charge of selling. Still, the operation still gets bigger, and soon we have to hire more and more people to work under us. We start recruiting more dealers to move our product and keep a portion of the profits. We start needing to get more and more growers. With greater operations comes greater risk. People get caught, and I can't let a street level dealer know everything about my operation. I have to compartmentalize. We set up trusted dealers as distributors, who sell to other guys, who sell to the dealers. I've created an organization who's sole purpose is to make money off crime, hence, organized crime.\n\nTerrorist organizations are there to disrupt the current order and bring about change, either by overthrowing the government or making the government respect them through threat of force. Al Qaeda wasn't trying to make money with the world trade center attacks, they were trying to bring about the end of western imperialism.",
"Organized Crime:\n\nWould be like trying to run a gun, drug, sex, slave, etc. type of business. We're organized because we need a profit. There are people to pay. They want money. \n\nTerrorism:\n\nThis is something like people blowing up an abortion clinic, bombing an airplane, etc. They are not financially motivated at all. They don't want money. They want their issue to be heard be it political or religious."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[]
] |
||
91g2ir
|
why is there a need to share experiences that we have with others?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/91g2ir/eli5_why_is_there_a_need_to_share_experiences/
|
{
"a_id": [
"e2xr65e"
],
"score": [
6
],
"text": [
"The root is in biology. We want to learn from other peoples mistakes (in order to avoid doing them ourselves). In return, we let other people know about stuff we did, so they can learn from our mistakes or adapt our strategies if they lead to success.\n\nImagine finding a plant and wonder if you could eat it's fruit. Of course, you could just find out and eat the fruit, and live with the consequences, but that would be a bad strategy on an evolutionary perspective. You'd probably be happy if someone told you that he's seen somebody eating this fruit before (or preferably he's eaten the fruit before and has survived). \n\nIn the end, you want to expand your knowledge by learning from other people's experience, see the example with the fruit. \n\nAssuming that you never share your experience with others, the other people probably will stop sharing their experiences with you, and you will be worse off, because you'll have to find out stuff by yourself.\n"
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[]
] |
||
5e0zo9
|
why do so many programs want to change your default browser or search engine?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5e0zo9/eli5_why_do_so_many_programs_want_to_change_your/
|
{
"a_id": [
"da8tjgv"
],
"score": [
4
],
"text": [
"Ad revenue from the site it sets your default search engine to. It's the same way Google makes their money."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[]
] |
||
2h0u08
|
how would space elevators not break?
|
If the earth is spinning then how would a tower like that stand straight and not break. Also ELI5: Elevator to the moon.
[Source](_URL_0_)
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2h0u08/eli5_how_would_space_elevators_not_break/
|
{
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"ckoaata",
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"text": [
"The main reason we cannot currently build a space elevator is because we don't have materials capable of withstanding the incredible tension the cable a space elevator would use.",
"well the idea is to put a satelite in geosynchronous orbit far outside so the mid point of the stress is somewhere around the middle of the cable.\n\nas somebody else said, the theory is sound, we just dont have the materials for it.. yet.\n\nalso, how do you put the cable in place? lower it down from space? how do you get it there, its going to be ginormous amount of cable . (its hard to even imagine how big the cable amount needed is... 35,786 km is geo synch, and you would want double of that i think for the cable to stay up.\n\nlets say we have a magic material and the cable is one meter across, how much does a 70.000km cable weigh in at?\n\n\nsay a ton of per metre? 70.000.000 tons (edit: thanks exicon for correction, was calculating distance in kilometers, missing three zeroes in the weight)\n\niss weights in at 450 tons, took years to get that thing up...\n\nits interesting to try to think what the numbers are, they are so big, its impossible to imagine.\n\nthink of something that is 1555 bigger than The international space station, in pure mass. (IF we have a magic material that weights a ton per metre, and can survive it)",
"Most theorized space elevators of late use an \"anchor\" of sorts, in space, which is basically a little space station at the end of the elevator line (although there may be further counter weight past that). Some of the weight of the tether from the geosynchronous station to Earth is held up by counterweight beyond geosynchronous orbit (basically pulling on the cable). An analogue would be spinning a rope over your head: some point in the middle is the station, being held in the circle by the force of the cable (which would be gravity IRL) but also being held not too close by the fact that it's moving (centripetal force) \n\nCurrent technology is not capable of such a tremendous task, but supposedly carbon nanotubes are strong and light enough to make such a project feasible. While it sounds like an incredibly enormous task, building a building like Burj Khalifa (half *mile* tall skyscraper in Dubai) requires an immense amount of material and labor, because of everything you need in it. While the space elevator is 20000~ mi long, It's just a cable, which should be able to be rather thin once the atmosphere thins out a bit and the centripetal force begins to help a bit. \n\nAn elevator to the moon would be rather different, if even practical. It would basically involve mounting a cable on the moon, and have the cable be unattached to anything on earth (the other way around could work too). The elevator would only connect most of the way, because it would not be practical to connect two moving masses of such great size. \n\nI feel like I could elaborate more but I'm tired as balls. I hope this helps a bit. "
]
}
|
[] |
[
"http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-09-21/japanese-construction-giants-promise-space-elevator-by-2050/5756206"
] |
[
[],
[],
[]
] |
|
ydkkc
|
the pussy riot in europe
|
I know it has something to do with women's issues but i can't gleam much else.
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/ydkkc/eli5_the_pussy_riot_in_europe/
|
{
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"text": [
"I am not the best to explain this but here goes. It doesn't really have to do with women's issues. It has to do with freedom in Russia. Russia is supposed to be a democracy but Putin has been in charge since 2000. He and his government arrest and harass anyone who protests against them. Pussy Riot started as a band that protests against the governments crackdown on the people and their protests. \n\nThey were singing at a church (or outside a church, can't remember) and they were arrested and charged with \"hooliganism\". Some of there members are facing up to 3 years in jail I think. The verdict is supposed to be handed down today. \n\nI hope that helped some!",
"Pussy Riot are a Russian Punk band. Their music often says rude things about Vladimir Putin and the rest of his government. Now everyone knows 'sticks and stones' but Vladimir got sick of the musıc that said bad things about him so he said that they were not allowed to do that anymore.\n\nPussy Riot then sang their song in the middle of a big russian Church, without asking the people who owned the Church first, they also said a lot of things the Church didn't like in their song - which made the people that owned the church very angry.\n\nNow Pussy Riot have been found guilty of 'Hooliganism' for singşng their song where they were not allowed to. A lot of people are mad at Putin because no one ever taught him 'stıcks and stones may break my bones but words will never hurt me'. It is about being able to say bad things about the Russian government / church rather than women.",
"The Pussy Riot, a Russian feminist punk band, were known to be against Putin. In 2012, they made a live performance - in a cathedral - praying Virgin Mary to make Putin go away. The problem is that:\n\n a) the Orthodox church is very friend with Putin and did not like the performance at all \n\n b) the opposition against Putin has become quite important and Putin fear he might lose his power\n\nSo tada! Trial for 'hooliganism'* and a 2-year prison (read: camp) sentence.\n\nThey are seen by many as political prisoners.\n\nAlso, a majority of Russia is still Christian, and many agree with the sentence.\n\n*: 'premeditated hooliganism performed by organized group of people motivated by religious hatred or hostility'",
"wy the fuck is this NSFW?"
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[],
[],
[]
] |
|
alqm2q
|
how our metabolic rates can be wildly different from each other
|
Cause like, if two people of similar body composition eat the same thing and then do an identical activity, the calories burned isn't always equal, and can be drastically different. Where is the energy going in the person with a higher metabolism, that isn't happening as much in the person with a lower one?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/alqm2q/eli5_how_our_metabolic_rates_can_be_wildly/
|
{
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"efg4uwb",
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3
],
"text": [
"Lots of things can contribute to different metabolic rates and body composition, including amount of lean muscle mass, age, gender, hormones, genetics, and your microbiome (especially your Bacteroidetes:Firmicutes ratio) just to name a few ",
" > if two people of similar body composition eat the same thing and then do an identical activity\n\nBehavioral patterns can cause a huge difference in one's energy usage. We can have a dozen people with identical body composition sitting in identical chairs, but \"sitting\" for one person can mean leaned back and sleeping or for another, sitting up on the edge of the seat with great posture. Someone fidgeting while sitting will burn way more calories than some practically asleep.\n\nInternally, we all have varying internal temperatures. 98.7 degrees Fahrenheit is just an average of all humans. Some people just have a naturally hotter or cooler internal temp. That means in a hot/cold room, some people will need to burn more calories to maintain internal temperature and homeostasis than others. It's the same for the rest of our regulatory functions."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[]
] |
|
6qxx0b
|
why are there plants without green leaves,which nevertheless flourish in sunlight.?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/6qxx0b/eli5why_are_there_plants_without_green/
|
{
"a_id": [
"dl0stk1",
"dl0svve"
],
"score": [
2,
3
],
"text": [
"Non green leaves? Yer not alone in askin', and kind strangers have explained:\n\n1. [ELI5: How do trees with red leaves photosynthesize? ](_URL_0_)\n1. [ELI5: Why do some plants have red leaves instead of green? Do they get less energy from sunlight? ](_URL_1_)\n1. [ELI5: how do purple plants absorb sunlight](_URL_2_)",
"Green plants contain a lot of the pigment chlorophyll. Because chlorophyll molecules are very good at soaking up blue and red light — but not so good at absorbing green light — plants containing a lot of chlorophyll appear green to the human eye.\n\nPigment is also the reason why plants have different colored leaves. Plants that appear purple, blue or red contain a higher concentration of anthocyanin than chlorophyll. Anthocyanin is a pigment adept at absorbing green light, but less skilled at absorbing red, blue or purple light. \n\nScientists believe that the leaves on some plants may act as a natural \"sunscreen,\" protecting the cells of the plant from too much light. Plants that experience too much sunlight can suffer from photoinhibition, a reduction in the plant's ability to carry out photosynthesis."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[
"https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/6pfmr7/eli5_how_do_trees_with_red_leaves_photosynthesize/",
"https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3chhdg/eli5_why_do_some_plants_have_red_leaves_instead/",
"https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/32r4kl/eli5_how_do_purple_plants_absorb_sunlight/"
],
[]
] |
||
6zsdre
|
how does the same temperature feel cold for someone who lives somewhere like phoenix and hot for someone who lives in alaska?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/6zsdre/eli5_how_does_the_same_temperature_feel_cold_for/
|
{
"a_id": [
"dmxzbra",
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"score": [
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"text": [
"It mostly comes down to perception and mental preparedness.\n\nA person in Alaska knows full well what cold is and is ready for it before they ever step outside. They dress appropriately, they alter lifestyle around the cold, and they know how to keep warm. They eat more calories in general and the body has extra fuel for warmth. They still feel cold- it's just no use complaining to eveyone about it that is in the same situation as you everyday.\n\nThere are slight differences in metabolism also, but not so much as to be the only factor. Capillaries in the extremities of northern folk sometimes are better at flushing the fingers & toes with blood to help with warmth.\n\nThat same person visiting Phoenix might have a tough time. They don't know the subtle tricks of keeping cool and may have never experienced unrelenting heat before. Of course the same goes the other way around.",
"It has a very easy explanation. A person who lives in Aliaska or Phoenix get used to a specific temperature and builds a slight resistance to heat & cold after living in there for a while. If you move those people to a different environment they would compare the new environment to the old one.",
"We are not thermometers. We don't measure absolute temperature we only feel it.\n\nYou don't even need friends from different states to test, you can do all by yourself, alone.\n\n\nGet a bowl of warm water, a bowl of cold water and a bowl of lukewarm water.\n\nPlace one hand in the hot bowl and the other hand in the cold bowl and leave them there for a short while. \n\nNow put them both in the lukewarm bowl. The hot bowl hand will tell you it is cold and the cold bowl hand will tell you it is warm.\n\nAt the same time. \n\nYou're just feeling the difference to what that part of your body thinks is \"normal\""
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[],
[]
] |
||
3v1vul
|
why is cunt considered so much worse in the usa then australia/uk
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3v1vul/eli5_why_is_cunt_considered_so_much_worse_in_the/
|
{
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"text": [
"For the same reason why you can watch people getting their heads blown off but not their tits. American prudishness.",
"Its something about how our accents are I think. An aussie calls someone cunt, well that's nice. An Englishman calls someone a cunt, well he's a bloke. A bloke calling an American a cunt, well shits gonna get real.",
"Just want to point out that a lot of Australians (including myself) see it as the worst of swearwords and never, ever use it. ",
"I'm English, and cunt is a weird word - some people cannot stand it, whereas others use it freely. It's definitely the strongest swear word. I save it for people who are the worst of the worst. It's certainly not used frequently. (I'm 28, fwiw.)",
"Most people in the UK would not consider it normal to call their friends that, and you would get looks for saying it in public. ",
"Where I am from, in Canada, it seems like a pretty harsh word. My friends and I sometimes joke about it, because it's so harsh. Part of the problem (IMO) is when I hear people using it for real in Canada, it's usually with a lot of hate and anger behind it. I am not sure if that is how it is in the UK. So while I agree it's just a word, it gets associate with a lot of hate and grossness. Funny because where I am from, I could say \"Yeah that Dan can be a real dick sometimes!\" and most people would just chuckle, but if I said \"Dan's a real cunt\" someone would make that air-sucking noise or say take it easy!",
"The short answer is, different culture. Any \"bad\" word is only as bad as the culture agrees that it's bad. Why 'cunt' became particularly bad in the US could be a number of reasons. \n\nThe word by itself has an ambiguous history which can be read about [here](_URL_0_) but has always been associated with lady bits. So from here the question is, why is it an insult?\n\nSurely the purpose of a \"bad\" word is the intent of the word. Flashing somebody the middle finger, or bowfinger in England, is only an insult to the extent that the other person recognizes it as an insult. In this, words like fuck, cunt and shit are ripe for profanity- they are short, hard and have associations not commonly used in \"polite\" conversation. In the US cunt has a lot of weight, the why probably has to do with the one two of american prudishness (it's not polite to talk about vagina's after all) and its general abrasive qualities. Much like how fuck (which was the king daddy of bad words not 50 years ago) has lost much of its weight, cunt will likely lose its profane value as more and more people use it for shock; you might recognize this in the person who says \"thundercunt\" regardless of it's yonic association and more for the novelty/humor as well as how it rolls off the tongue. \n\nMake no mistake, there are words in the UK that are pretty benign in the US. You could just as easily ask \"Why is 'bloody' such a bad word in England when in the US it's a cheeky stereotype?,\" or \"why is 'shit' the big bad word in Germany while in the US it's allowed in PG movies?\" \n\nIts worth noting that cultures kind of *need* their bad words. When they aren't obvious they will be created because, as the words themselves lose weight, the meaning behind them still needs to be expressed. 100 years ago we'd look at \"humbug\" with the same social acceptance as we do \"bullshit\". In a very real way, rape is becoming a profanity in the US as US culture is giving more severity to the crime. Cunt won't likely ever be a \"good\" word (damn is still a swear word after all), but for right now, it's simply more socially acceptable to call somebody a naught incestuous person (bad motherfucker) than it is a thick meaty vagina, and you'll have an easier time creating a new word for reckless cool guy than you will changing what we've already concluded 'cunt' to be... bitch. \n\nEdit: awkward sentence",
"Swear words lose thier power the more they're used. In Australia and New Zealand (can't speak on UK) the word has been tossed around nonchalantly for years and now we're kinda desensitized to it.\n\nI'm not sure why it's so infrequently uttered in the US though. Maybe you guys just aren't good cunts like us.",
"Because we have different cultures. \"Bloody\" is at least slightly offensive in the UK, but not at all in America. Here's a more extreme example. In spanish, \"puta\" means bitch. But english speakers in America probably aren't going to have the same emotional reaction to \"puta\" as they would to \"bitch\". That's because we speak different languages. The USA vs Aus/UK also speaks a slightly different language, so it makes sense that there are differences in the emotional reaction that you get from it.\n\nOne last example, imagine jokingly calling your friend a \"nazi\" if they're being anal about something. Now imagine doing that in Germany. It probably would have a very different impact."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[
"http://etymonline.com/index.php?allowed_in_frame=0&search=cunt&searchmode=none"
],
[],
[]
] |
||
49xeil
|
how does live television get transmitted to tv's across the world?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/49xeil/eli5_how_does_live_television_get_transmitted_to/
|
{
"a_id": [
"d0vq691",
"d0vqbz7"
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"score": [
2,
4
],
"text": [
"Depends, take an example of a live sports event that is being covered by ESPN or similar sports network. The arena may have satellites or the sports network might have their own satellite trucks, such as [these](_URL_1_) or [these](_URL_3_) Notice these trucks are almost self contained, they have their own generator if necessary. \n\nFrom there, the sports network might edit it, pick which cameras to show, add commentary (some commentary might be done directly at the stadium) then rebroadcast it via satellite to the various cable companies. The cable companies then transmit it over fiber optic to neighborhood/city level distribution centers called headends, where it's converted to coaxial and sent to the home. \n\nOthers, like mobile news reporters use [microwave news truck](_URL_0_), where a reporter and camera operator go somewhere, and the video signal is transmitted back to the local news station via either the [microwave transmitter on a mast](_URL_2_) that can be extended. \n\nSome of the newer trucks use multiple cell phone transmitters to break up the video stream across multiple connections, then restore it back at the news station. ",
"Here's a general answer for a live, domestic broadcast.\n1. The TV cameras are cabled into a local production center; at a sporting event you'll see network trailers where the broadcast is \"mixed\" locally at the event.\n2. The program signal is then transmitted by satellite to the network studios. Here it's merged with national commercials at correct breaks.\n3. Next it's transmitted by satellite to all of the local network studios around the country. Here it's merged with local commercials at correct breaks.\n4. Finally, the network studios broadcast the complete content over-the-air to the area they serve.\n\nLive TV is a bit delayed by all of this. I used to have a large sat dish in the 90's and received \"raw feeds\" of football games direct from the venue. My neighbor would hear me cheer or shout several seconds before he saw why on his TV. :)\n\nEDIT: For \"around the world\", the signal must be sent up and down via satellite as many times as required to reach all areas it will be broadcast. At each \"hop\" it can be used/broadcast locally, and forwarded to other satellites on its way around the world."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[
"http://www.bamlog.com/7newstruck.jpg",
"http://sportsvideo.org/main/files/2013/01/Trucks2.gif",
"http://www.johninarizona.com/ktvq/ktvq-2-billings-mt-live-truck-2010-johninarizona.jpg",
"https://lasvegasnfr.files.wordpress.com/2011/12/satellite-dishes.jpg"
],
[]
] |
||
5ui7v1
|
why does donald trump have so much hatred towards "mainstream" news, in particular cnn?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5ui7v1/eli5_why_does_donald_trump_have_so_much_hatred/
|
{
"a_id": [
"ddu780f"
],
"score": [
2
],
"text": [
"Every news station in America has a leaning. They either lean right or left, Conservative or Liberal. Donald Trump hates CNN and most other news channels because they lean left and therefore always disagree with what a Republican president does or says. For instance if you hear that Trump signed an executive order on something and listen to CNN and Fox news at the same time you will hear mostly negative comments from CNN and positive comments from Fox. There are some cool graphs online that put the most notable newspapers and news stations on a line and how they lean politically. If you watched Fox news while Obama was in office you would hear mostly negatively on how he was doing. It's just cause most news channels and papers lean left and therfore they don't approve of Trump's performance so far. Very similar to people in america right now. They either love Trump or Hate him. "
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[]
] |
||
9wm2go
|
as someone who's never lived in a city how do apartment buildings work?
|
Could you explain the process of getting into your apartment starting from the street (do you have to buzz in? is there a key? is there a lobby?)
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/9wm2go/eli5_as_someone_whos_never_lived_in_a_city_how_do/
|
{
"a_id": [
"e9logcs",
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"e9lpcb8",
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"score": [
7,
4,
3,
4,
2,
2
],
"text": [
"Honestly it depends on the apartment. Some have separate entrances for each unit, some have a main lobby with a key or a doorman, some have a common space that’s unlocked.",
"Chicagoan here, higher-end apartment buildings here usually have lobbies or doormen. A lot do, but most that don’t just have a key to open a front door to some common area stairwell then another key to get into our unit. In buildings with doormen there’s often a magnetic key fob that opens a door or a key to some common area with an elevator or something. If it’s your own apartment you don’t need to buzz in. That’s just for guests, and those apartments that have an intercom just have a button and speaker that lets you talk through it to a speaker where the person is buzzing you and another button that electronically opens the front door. ",
"Every apartment is different. I've been in buildings with a lobby and anybody can walk in but they can't access your specific apartment without your key or they can't even get past the lobby without a pin to get into the elevator or key card to swipe in. Other buildings had a key for the front door and a key for your specific apartment. Other buildings had a buzzer that buzzed into security and you had to provide your apartment number and name to be let in. ",
"Depends on the place. My last apartment we had no restricted access - anyone could walk right up to our front door. That was kind of annoying, honestly. We got all kinds of weirdos trying to sell us stuff.\n\nMy apartment before that had a perimeter fence - you had to either open the drive-in gate with a remote or use a key at a walk-in gate (we could also buzz guests in - if they dialed our apartment number from the keypad, it would ring our phone).\n\nSome have an outer door to keep non-residents out, and then indoor front doors (like a hotel). Similar buzz-in process for visitors. You’ll find this more in densely packed areas or high-rise apartments.",
"When I lived in a an almost 500-unit high rise, there was a doorman at the main entrance who would buzz people through... they'd know the residents within a week when we got new doormen. There was a lobby beyond the front desk w/ a few couches and chairs. On the other side of the elevators were banks of mail boxes for each unit. \n\nTo enter the building from the parking deck and loading dock, there was a key fob system to unlock the door when entering or exiting.",
"I live in the UK but I would imagine it's pretty similar, in some I've lived in I had a key fob for the main door, others had a keypad code to enter then normally a thick fire door as your front door, some have a concierge in the mornings to let the postman in and some had a full-time concierge 24 hours to make sure the building was safe, they vary wildly tbh some are extremely safe...others not so much but it depends on the area and who you share the building with. One I used to live in was locked up like a jail to keep the tenants inside lol there were dealers everywhere selling everything, alcoholics in the stairwells fighting or junkies injecting it was a horrible place to live for the short time I was there. \n\n_URL_0_\n\n > One friendly lady in a dressing gown tells us she will speak to us after getting dressed but we don’t find her again.\n\n > Another says: “There’s no point asking me. I hate it here.”\n\n"
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[
"https://www.google.co.uk/amp/s/www.chroniclelive.co.uk/news/property-news/what-life-really-like-washingtons-11020916.amp"
]
] |
|
1681tg
|
amendment 14 section 4 of the us constitution.
|
The validity of the public debt of the United States, authorized by law, including debts incurred for payment of pensions and bounties for services in suppressing insurrection or rebellion, shall not be questioned. But neither the United States nor any State shall assume or pay any debt or obligation incurred in aid of insurrection or rebellion against the United States, or any claim for the loss or emancipation of any slave; but all such debts, obligations and claims shall be held illegal and void.
I keep hearing about the president invoking the 14th amendment in this debt ceiling talk, ELI5 please.
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1681tg/eli5_amendment_14_section_4_of_the_us_constitution/
|
{
"a_id": [
"c7tol4j"
],
"score": [
3
],
"text": [
"The idea is that the President basically flips Congress the bird and directs the US Treasury to continue issuing bonds above and beyond what the Debt Ceiling authorizes.\n\nWhen Congress flips, a lawsuit will probably ensue to which the President would go to court arguing that he was upholding the 14th Amendment to the Constitution (as he pledged to do) and that the laws giving Congress control of the Debt Ceiling are basically unconstitutional. The law would inevitably go to SCOTUS where they would decide the issue."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[]
] |
|
1japn1
|
why people hate steve jobs
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1japn1/eli5_why_people_hate_steve_jobs/
|
{
"a_id": [
"cbcryrr",
"cbcs124",
"cbcsth1"
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"score": [
3,
9,
14
],
"text": [
"His personality and the way he handled people could be pretty harsh, but once it came out that Apple's supplier had to employ nets at the bases of their employees living quarters to stop the suicides it was easier to paint him as a really bad guy.",
"He was an asshole. He disowned and ignored his first born daughter for her entire childhood. He threw tantrums at work, yadda yadda yadda.\n\nHave you read his biography? Great book actually.",
"He ignored his daughter, didn't acknowledge his biological parents, rarely donated to charity, and attempted to cheat his partner, Steve Wozniak out of money."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[],
[]
] |
||
59x4u2
|
why seats on planes and buses aren't lined up
|
[deleted]
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/59x4u2/eli5_why_seats_on_planes_and_buses_arent_lined_up/
|
{
"a_id": [
"d9c1iym"
],
"score": [
2
],
"text": [
"They are generally laid out to maximize space, using whatever definition the operator has. Buses are often concerned about things like bumps in the floor taking space, so seats are placed over them, and near doors, and the rest are laid out to evenly use up the space they have. Doors may be on one side, and wheelchair spots on the other, seats are laid out to accommodate that, it may mean one side has a different seat pitch than the other. Also on buses standing room might be more important than seat count, so seats may be laid out to maximize standing room (by having seats only on the perimeter).\n\nIt's a similar issue with planes, though they may have more doors and such, and they may have to deal with varying widths (so they cut a column of seats off in the back, and then slide the side columns back a bit to push them into the corner to use that space better.\n\nPeople spend a lot of time figuring out the layouts, and it's all to deal with how much space they want vs how many seats they want. It's not always about seat count or legroom, they may need more isle space to accommodate food carts on a plane or more standing room to accommodate the people standing on a bus. Weather the rows line up across the isle is usually not important."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[]
] |
|
4hoj5c
|
the rico act of 1970, and how it changed prosecutors' ability to tackle organized crime.
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4hoj5c/eli5_the_rico_act_of_1970_and_how_it_changed/
|
{
"a_id": [
"d2rcl27"
],
"score": [
6
],
"text": [
"Imagine your stereotypical mob boss. He personally does not kill people, steal, sell drugs, run numbers, or operate brothels. He orders people to do those things, and since it can be very difficult to prove he issued the orders, he is largely insulated from guilt.\n\nWhat RICO did is make operating a criminal enterprise a crime in and of itself, and provided a framework for prosecutors to prove an organization is a criminal enterprise.\n\nIt also went after the pocketbooks of organized crime. It allowed prosecutors to freeze a criminal enterprise's assets pre trail, and if convicted, allowed victims sue in civil court for treble damages."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[]
] |
||
3hfx8x
|
why people still use a dealer/middleman ?
|
I mean look at the arms,vehicle,aircrafts, industry, there are always a middleman to close the deal. Why people cant buy directly from the manufacture?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3hfx8x/eli5why_people_still_use_a_dealermiddleman/
|
{
"a_id": [
"cu6zu41",
"cu6zwqv",
"cu7s6dr"
],
"score": [
5,
3,
2
],
"text": [
"Because middlemen have enough money to buy in bulk, to be able to sell to the consumer. Big companies don't want to have to deal with individual items, they would rather have one order of 1000 items than 1000 orders for the same item. This also means the big companies get one big lump sum for an order, as opposed to 1000 little orders.",
"Because many manufacturers aren't interested in doing retail, or don't have the resources or experience to do it properly. Retail is very difficult and competitive, and companies do better when they focus on their core competence rather than trying to dabble in everything. For the same reason that retailers usually don't manufacture, manufacturers usually don't retail.\n\nActually, a lot of manufacturers do have online retail stores where they sell directly to consumers, but the prices are usually higher compared to buying from Amazon or other online retailers. Amazon has the logistics network and the knowledge to move a lot of product to a lot of customers cheaply, and the manufacturer doesn't have this. The manufacturer prefers to sell in bulk to companies like Amazon at a discount. When selling directly to consumers one item at a time, they can't compete with Amazon's prices.\n\nConsumers also prefer to comparison-shop different brands on a single website or at a single store, which isn't possible when shopping directly from manufacturers.",
"Arms: The manufacturer doesn't want to try to ship firearms through the mail, the buyer also doesn't want to receive firearms through the mail. Also, the manufacturer might not be able to legally sell the arms to the purchaser, and wants some \"plausible deniability\".\n\nVehicle: It is illegal (see Tesla) and people want to take it for a test drive, and don't want to take it back to Detroit for service and maintenance.\n\nAircraft: At least for commercial jets, the airline usually negotiates directly with the manufacturer. They might lease the aircraft through a middle-man for tax purposes and accounting purposes, but the middleman doesn't become the middle-man until after the deal is negotiated.\n\nIndustry: I don't know. Try to be less vague."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[],
[]
] |
|
67d25b
|
if salmon salt water fish, how are they able to survive their famous final journey up rivers to spawn?
|
And for that matter, are there other fish that can survive both saltwater and freshwater (not necessarily brackish-only fish)
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/67d25b/eli5_if_salmon_salt_water_fish_how_are_they_able/
|
{
"a_id": [
"dgph8p1",
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2,
3
],
"text": [
"They don't, all pacific salmon die after the trek, and almost all Pacific salmon die. The fresh water kills them as they're no longer able to handle the fresh water. \n\nI'm not sure about other fish. ",
"Fish do what is called \"osmoregulation\", and in fact it's something all living things do. It means maintaining the appropriate concentrations of salts and salt ions inside your cells. Those ions are vital to the chemistry of life, so the concentrations have to be maintained pretty carefully. The problem is that whenever you have a *semipermeable membrane* - that is, water can pass through it but nothing dissolved in the water can - the water will be drawn through the membrane until the concentration of dissolved solids is equal on both sides.\n\nMore plainly: if the concentration of salt is higher on one side of the membrane, water will flow through the membrane to that side. If one side is completely contained (like a cell), that can cause a problem - what if the concentration *cannot* be equalized because not enough water can fit inside the membrane? Or there's not enough water inside the membrane to equalize the outside? In the former case, the cell swells until it bursts, killing the cell. In the latter, it shrivels and dehydrates, also killing the cell.\n\nYour cells have mechanisms to move salt around and encourage water either in or out of the cell to maintain the concentration desired. With humans, it's pretty easy because there's no source of water constantly outside your body, but fish are always surrounded by water, which means they are constantly fighting to keep the concentrations where they need to be. \n\nWith freshwater fish, the concentration of salt is almost always higher inside the cell. That means their tissues are constantly trying to swell up with unwanted water. Freshwater fish don't actually drink water, they *get rid* of water, always. Side note: fish don't pee, they exchange waste through their gills at the same time they uptake oxygen. So freshwater fish are always eliminating excess water out of their gills and have evolved to preserve as much salt as possible, since they will inevitably lose some ions dissolved in the water they're getting rid of.\n\nOn the other hand, saltwater fish are constantly trying to suck up water. The water outside their bodies is usually saltier than inside so water is leaving their tissues even if they don't want it to. They have evolved mechanisms to hold onto water as much as possible, and when they eliminate liquid waste (mostly ammonia) it's *super* concentrated. Saltwater fish also do not drink water: it's too salty. Instead, they get most of their fresh water from their food - since everything else in the ocean is trying to maintain an internal salinity lower than the seawater, things eating them get the benefit of ingesting water at a lower salinity.\n\nWhen you put a freshwater fish into saltwater, they aren't used to an environment sucking the water from their cells. Their cells keep doing the things they're programmed to do and eliminating water, even as the seawater is sucking it out of them. So, surrounded by water, the fish dehydrate and die. Well, they mostly suffocate since the tissues in and around their gills suffer the worst and the quickest. The opposite happens with saltwater fish: they continue holding onto water even as their cells swell and burst. Either way, it's not immediate, and larger animals have an easier time of it than single celled organisms (which is why freshwater dips kill ich parasites on saltwater fish, if there are any aquarium hobbyists reading this). And, at least as far as I'm aware, fish have an easier time dealing with hyposalinity (too low) than hypersalinity (too much).\n\nWhich brings us to brackish fish - that is, fish that live in environments between freshwater and saltwater. Brackish fish evolved to have *both* mechanisms. Freshwater fish don't need to waste energy and resources being able to survive in saltwater and vice versa. Brackish do. And most brackish fish live in environments where the salinity changes, like in river deltas and marshes near the ocean. When the tide comes in, more seawater rushes into the river and the salinity goes up. When the tide goes out or there's heavy rain, there's more fresh water and the salinity goes down. Many brackish fish also transition from being almost entirely freshwater fish as juveniles to almost fully marine as adults. The juveniles tend to live upriver where there's less room for large predatory fish, and as they grow they move downstream. Unlike salmon, most don't actually leave the river entirely.\n\nSalmon are born in freshwater. Their cells known how to remove excess water and do so as juveniles. When they become adults and transition to saltwater, chemical changes signal their bodies to stop removing water and start holding onto it. But they still have the instructions to survive in fresh water. They have the proteins, enzymes, and ion channels to balance their salt concentrations, they just aren't using them. When they migrate back to the streams to lay their eggs, they turn all those mechanisms back on, or at least, on enough to survive long enough to spawn."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[]
] |
|
53e971
|
why are we restricted by airport customs in the amount of cash we carry?
|
If I remember correctly, anything in excess of $10,000 is not allowed.
Also, why are they very strict on goods like cigarettes?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/53e971/eli5why_are_we_restricted_by_airport_customs_in/
|
{
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3,
8,
2
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"text": [
"Because large amounts of cash is often a good indication of illegal activity. \n\nThe cigaret-limit is there to stop you from importing goods from other countries and distributing them.",
"There is no such limit. Above $10,000 you have to declare it to them and fill out a form. It is to fight money laundering; same as the reporting requirements for large cash transactions at banks.",
"The general answer is taxes. \n\nYou can't buy cigarettes in a tax-free country and then import them in your luggage to sell them again at the much higher (taxed) price of western countries. \n\nOn the same note you can't take your millions in cash and dump them in a tax haven instead of paying your taxes here. \n\nFor small amounts this is neglected, but for bigger amounts you'll need to file forms and pay import taxes etc. ",
"(In the US) You must declare amounts over $10,000, because large amounts of cash are frequently associated with illegal activity. For large amounts, they want proof it's not from/for drug smuggling, weapons, etc.\n\nCigarettes are commonly smuggled for resale to avoid import duties.\n\nFruits, vegetables, etc., are also commonly controlled to avoid the introduction of pests that are not native to the country/region where the goods are being imported.",
"Greater than 10k is no problem. Just declare it. They have you fill out a more formal IRS form. If you are not hiding anything you have nothing to worry about. "
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[],
[],
[],
[]
] |
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