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7h3ow4 | why does co2 increase world temperature but a big enough volcanic eruption lowers it? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/7h3ow4/eli5_why_does_co2_increase_world_temperature_but/ | {
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"CO2 acts like an invisible blanket, or more accurately like the glass in a greenhouse. It's a \"greenhouse gas\", which traps radiant heat close to the planet.\n\nA huge cloud of dust and smoke from a volcano isn't invisible. While it will also insulate, it's also quite reflective, bouncing sunlight back into space *before* it warms up the Earth. This is why debris clouds from volcanoes, huge meteorites, or hypothetically nuclear war, can caused a \"nuclear winter\"."
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55ira7 | why do modern home theater media centers use bare wires and spring loaded clips for speakers instead of a plug? | I understand that different setups will have different distances between the center console and each speaker, but I personally feel like it would be simpler to coil up the excess wire and zip tie it or something instead of having to reach around and pinch down two wires per speaker during setup. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/55ira7/eli5_why_do_modern_home_theater_media_centers_use/ | {
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"Possibly because this allows you to cut the wire to perfect length yourself and not worry about having to use special tools to attach plugs. Also makes things easily fixable. ",
"You don't want to coil up speaker wire. Passing electricity through wires coiled into loops makes things happen you don't want in your stereo system."
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6wso8x | why did the the navajo have such a complex language | [deleted] | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/6wso8x/eli5_why_did_the_the_navajo_have_such_a_complex/ | {
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"It wasn't complexity. It simply used sounds that people can make (phonemes) that aren't part of other languages. Your brain processes sound, so that you can understand people who are making different sounds as saying the same words with an unusual accent. To do this, it specializes on the phonemes that are used in your native language. That's why English speakers have a hard time with the trilled R of Spanish or Chinese speakers have trouble distinguishing r and w sounds in English. Once you get to a certain age, it's very difficult to train your brain to distinguish new sounds.\n\nNavajo was only a spoken language, they didn't develop a corresponding written form. Children learn to distinguish sounds that to English, German, and Japanese speakers are the same. As a result, people not raised Navajo have a very hard time following the language. This makes it a \"talking code\", more than the linguistic structure.",
"Regarding your question about passing it down: \"language complexity\" doesn't make a difference if it's your mother tongue. We learn language simply by copying what others say. This does not require any schooling or knowledge of the \"rules\" of a language"
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6zr0bd | how do tv reality/(cooking) competitions do those scenes where the contestants/actors go off scene and make a private comment to the audience? | Like does the director just say "EVERYBODY STOP COOKING, AUSTIN NEED TO GO DO A PRIVATE CLIP" or do they wait until later to say it? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/6zr0bd/eli5_how_do_tv_realitycooking_competitions_do/ | {
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"I always figured they take those shots after the fact and just have the individual go over what they were thinking at the time.",
"They're filmd after the competition. The director goes \"ok Joe, we noticed you had some difficulty starting with the chopping. Tell us about that. Action!\" ",
"It's a post-game interview, but it's not a sports event broadcasting live, so they can splice the two together before you watch it on television.",
"Those are shot afterward. They basically air the footage for them off screen and ask them to narrate, describe what was going on, what they were feeling, to provide the commentary."
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3l240m | why are tech giants vastly overcharging aussie's for their software? | For instance, it's been cited by many that it would be cheaper for someone go fly from Australia, to the US round trip, purchase photoshop and fly back. In fact, it would save them some $600. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3l240m/eli5_why_are_tech_giants_vastly_overcharging/ | {
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"Considering how many people in Australia aren't flying to the U.S., buying software and going back makes me go on to the side of they aren't overcharging them. The transaction costs of dealing with the situation to leave the country and return to make a purchase are very high, it seems these may be priced appropriately for the market to maximize profit. ",
"I actually met a guy who is a cause of this...\n\nEvery place on earth has its own rules about how things like Netflix and books, and movies and TV shows and software get licensed. A license means that the person who has a license can sell that thing (book, movie, software) in that country. If you don't have a license to sell the software, then you're a pirate - you're a bad person who is stealing someone's intellectual property and giving it away, or selling it yourself. Either way, the people who made the movie or the software don't get paid when you do that. \n\nThere are also people who do get the license. But because each country needs its own license, the person who owns the license for that country can have exclusive right to sell the licensed product there - at whatever price they think they can get for it. Now, the person who made the product will sell it for the same thing to any of its license owners, but when the license owner resells it, they can sell it for whatever they like, or whatever people will pay for it. \n\nSince Australia is far away from any other country, the person who owns the license doesn't have to worry about people just driving over to another country to buy it cheaper from another license owner. They have a virtual monopoly on the product, so they can sell it for what they want. \n\nThis is the same for prettying any product. There are people who control the licensing for products or even restaurants in countries and they can make all the profit they like after they pay for the license. These people are mostly very very rich. \n\nI",
"The simple answer is Because they can.\nIt was normal to tack on additional fees for physical media which had additional distribution costs (shipping etc) and somehow this continued for electronic media.\n\nAnd they got away with it.\nITunes was a big bully in this regard. Purely digital content cost more in Australia. No additional costs, just interwebs.\nThe claimed reasons are things like \nAussies earn more, thus things cost more.\nLicensing costs more to licence things in AUS.\nExchange rates.\nCost of doing business in AUS.\n\nBut the main reason is that they charge what the market will bear. If they can sell it for X+y, they will.\nColloquially known as the Australia tax.\n\nThings like Netflix - They actually licenced OITNB to Foxtel. So when they opened Netflix Australia they didn't own the rights to screen their own show there. This is one example, but itunes, Photoshop, steam etc are just all hocum"
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2s21d1 | if you get sued and have no money to defend/litigate, do you automatically lose? | Title kind of explains my question. But there's a context.
I saw this article: _URL_0_. It says in the article, that defending against the lawsuit might cost more money than he is willing to invest.
To me, common sense would be that defending a lawsuit should not cost big bucks. Because that would enable companies with lots of money to use lawsuits to force you to their will if you're unable to pay for defense litigation. Or doesn't it? I'm not at all familiar with US law (or law in general for that matter). | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2s21d1/eli5_if_you_get_sued_and_have_no_money_to/ | {
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"A guy once threatened to sue me and I was very poor. I scoffed, \"Ok, I've got a dog and a riding lawn mower. If you come here right now, you can have them both.\" He didn't show. He also had no case. But he was wealthy and could have crushed me.",
"You'll lose because they have a lawyer and you don't. You can show up to court and plead your case to the judge, but without a lawyer the opposing lawyer will rip you to shreds. "
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"http://thehigherlearning.com/2014/12/30/united-airlines-suing-22-year-old-who-figured-out-genius-way-to-buy-cheaper-tickets/"
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1w74jd | what had chris christy done for the state of new jersey that would earn him a presidential nomination? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1w74jd/eli5_what_had_chris_christy_done_for_the_state_of/ | {
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"He balanced the budget for New Jersey and put together a number of charter schools for the state. Not to mention he is the governor of a populous state that saw extensive damage from Hurricane Sandy, and has done a relatively good job at rebuilding in the aftermath. Finally, he's relatively moderate in comparison to the rest of the Republican party, and was relatively popular (up until the recent issue with the bridge closing).\n\nBeing elected (or better yet, reelected) governor of a more important state is basically all you have to do to 'earn' a bid for a Presidential nomination. It isn't the only path, of course, but it is one of the more straightforward ones.\n\nHonestly the only surefire way to be in the running for President is to poll well in the years beforehand, and he was polling better than any of the other candidates (Hillary included). Now though...unless Hillary doesn't run, it's looking like the Democrats will have the White House again in 2017."
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1l34xf | how does witness protection work with education/certificates? | For example, if a guy has a specific degree like a Ph.D. in underwater cat breeding or served in the military then goes into witness protection, how do they maintain their degrees / service benefits / other awards? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1l34xf/eli5_how_does_witness_protection_work_with/ | {
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"they are forged a new identity. more than likely nothing more than a 4 year degree would be part of the new identity ",
"You have to let your past go if it can be used to track you down. Underwater cat breeding PhDs are rare, no way you would be recredentialed.",
"Nice try Mafia.",
"Tell me where you live and we can help you ",
"You will be issued a equal or greater certification from an institution that fits the narrative created for you. If you grew up in the UK, but the new your grew up in Utah. Your new degree would likely before from BYU or the like. Anyone who checks at the college would be able to pull your records and verify you degree. If we can't find a college that is as good, we give you a better GPA. If they were an expert in their academic field and would like to continue working, we have in the past created a pseudonym they may publish under. Keep in mind most in witness protection are taken care of financially. \n\n(I used to do this for foreign nationals we relocated to the states after providing intel or being compromised before doing so.) ",
"I would imagine that different jurisdictions work in different ways and have different requirements. In Canada I don't think there are many people that are involved in international espionage for example.\n\nBy far the majority of people going into protection are not everyday joe's who happened to witness something, they are people who were involved in the crime organisation themselves, deeply enough to damn well guarantee a conviction of major players. with folks like this degrees and certifications are hardly the first priority. One thing is for sure, the new identities will stand up to any scrutiny because they are based on a new foundation identity, the first level of trust.\n\nA fake birth record is created and a legal valid birth certificate issued on that birth. The birth certificate is used to obtain secondary identity such as a passport, credit cards, Sin (social security) card etc. When someone tries to validate these, they check out, because they are real. Ditto with the birth certificate.",
"Better call Saul!"
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3apikm | how does shifting a bike gear make it more difficult to pedal? why does pedaling once in 5th gear give more speed than pedaling once in 1st? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3apikm/eli5_how_does_shifting_a_bike_gear_make_it_more/ | {
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"Gears are like round levers. A big lever lets you put a lot of force on the axle in the middle, but you have to move it farther. That's good for going up a hill. It's like a big wrench on a nut. A small lever puts less force but turns the axle really fast, like if you're going fast on a flat, or like a tuning knob on a radio. You can spin it faster than if you're using a wrench but with less force. ",
"By switching gears, you are changing the ratio between how much your foot moves and how much the tire moves. In 1st gear, your foot moves a lot and the bike moves a little. In 5th gear, your foot moves a little, and the bike moves a lot. It takes energy to move, so the more the bike moves the harder it will be to peddle.",
"That is how gearing works. If your pedals is on a big gear and the wheel is on a small gear, one turn of the pedals means several turns of the wheel. But that means that you need to put in as much power on that one pedal as it takes the wheel to turn several times. Which means if you are going up hill, the power of your entire weight might not be enough to turn the wheel.\n\nHowever on a low gear it's the opposite, one turn of the pedals only makes the wheel do a fraction of a turn. Then you get really strong, as your power only needs to turn the wheel a bit. But on the other hand, you don't get very far.\n\n",
"Spin your finger in a circle in the air. The smaller the circle you make the faster you can make that circle. The bigger the circle you make, the longer it takes for your finger it takes to complete that circle. \n\nNow apply this to bikes, the pivot point (center of the cirlce) is your feet/pedals. The lower the gear the bigger the circle you are trying to create with the gears, which effect how fast the tires spin. The higher the gear, the smaller the circle is causing the tires to spin faster. \n\nNow this example doesnt get into force, on why it is harder to go up a hill or start off in a higher gear, but your question was based completely on speed."
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8hwr9j | immunotherapy | Everything I keep reading about cutting-edge research in various medical fields, from HIV to cancer to Lyme disease treatment and on, everyone is talking about this, and I'm realizing I don't understand exactly what it is. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/8hwr9j/eli5_immunotherapy/ | {
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"Immune system is blood hound. Scientists let blood hound get a \"scent\" by introducing the enemy to body, lets blood hound go and fetch finding the said enemy in body. \n",
"Immunology is fun. Let's see if we can teach you about immunotherapy by explaining it through the context of the 1988 cult classic, \"They Live.\" \n\nPremise: Aliens (cancer) has invaded earth (your body), but the general populace (your immune system) are completely unaware of this fact because they (cancer) look like us (your body). If this was Independence Day instead, you'd have your soldiers (your innate immune system) lobbing bombs, albeit rather ineffectively, and your military scientists (Jeff Goldblum... er, I mean, your acquired immune system) sneaking in to nuke the mothership. But these muthas are CAMOUFLAGED. Super sneaky. So there's no military presence and everybody goes on about their day even though the aliens are taking over.\n\nRowdy Roddy Piper (your doctor) uses his crazy 80's sunglasses (his diagnostic imaging and sampling devices) to determine that, hey, that's not human, it's cancer, er aliens.. whatever. The problem is, the aliens have set up a broadcasting beacon that hides their appearance to the general populace (your immune system). How can Roddy (your doctor) blow up the broadcasting antenna so he can alert the military (your functional immune system) to the invasion? With his small concealed pistol of course! Just like the antenna (and sadly Roddy too - sorry, spoiler alert!), that tumor gets a shot. In the movie, it's a bullet. In immunotherapy, it's a small dose of immune system inspiring wake up juice - some antigen that will create a robust immune response (lob those bombs, fellas) to something that was previously camouflaged. \n\nSuddenly, the populace (the immune system) is fully aware of the alien invasion despite the best efforts to hide and they swoop in and make short work of the invaders. Yay science.\n\nBack to reality for a minute. Something that makes cancer, cancer, are those neoplastic cells' abilities to blend in, to deactivate normal methods of destroying and removing broken cells and their ability to pacify the immune system. Throughout a lifetime, you may have countless cells that go bad, but not bad enough that the normal mechanisms don't remove them from the system. Just like there are countless low level thugs at any given time, each generation only has a handful of Vito Corleones (big bad). Immunotherapy is a method of waking up the immune system and bypassing some of the protections that the neoplasia has established (it's like kicking it up to the federal level when the local crime boss has paid off the local PD). \n\nThere are infectious agents that use similar strategies of camouflage as well (you mentioned Lyme). These buggers hide out in areas that aren't accessible to the immune system or they effectively steal the ID badges of otherwise kosher members of the physiologic family. Immunotherapy can be used to help suss them out and reveal that, yes, they're spooky skeleton aliens after all. \n\nThat's immunotherapy in a nutshell!",
"What most people don't understand about the immune system is that it is composed of two main parts, innate and adaptive immunity. \nThe adaptive immunity, which produces antibodies that protect against infection, normally works through random chance. Immunotherapy works through genetic modification or training immune cells against a specific target instead of relying on random chance."
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b0pasx | how do they create bullet holes and make glass shatter for movies? to my knowledge some are real and not cgi? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/b0pasx/eli5_how_do_they_create_bullet_holes_and_make/ | {
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"There are \"squibs\" which simulate bullet hits on people or surfaces. They don't fire live ammunition for movies. Safety glass can be made to shatter - often it is made out of materials other than glass."
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6ca2t1 | difference between a virus, a bacteria and a parasite | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/6ca2t1/eli5difference_between_a_virus_a_bacteria_and_a/ | {
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"A bacteria is a living organism with basic structures and can reproduce on its own and carry out functions as either a single unit or a group of cells. A virus is a nonliving cell that's essentially a mass of DNA surrounded by what is called a capsid--Basically their only function is to hijack a cell and make copies of its DNA to be released before it dies. Because it can't reproduce on its own, it is an abiotic organism. A parasite is any organism that takes advantage of another organism (a host) and leeches their resources and harming them in the process. "
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2rkdox | how do musicians memorize pages upon pages of music? | Does it come with practice, or do they just have naturally good memories? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2rkdox/eli5how_do_musicians_memorize_pages_upon_pages_of/ | {
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"how do you memorize the tune of your favorite song? Its essentially the same process, but instead of just listening, they are making the music on the spot with the instrument. \n\nif you play a song enough, muscle memory comes into play as well",
"Usually a little bit of naturally good memory, and a *lot* of practice. \n\nThrough practice, a lot of it becomes muscle memory. Your hands get used to the movement from note to note, and playing a piece can become nearly automatic after a while. \n\nAlso, if you're very familiar with your instrument and with the piece of music, you can very accurately associate the sound you want with the fingering/embouchure/whatever that you need to get it. That's how a lot of improvised music comes about: the player \"hears\" what they want to do in their brain, and their body knows enough to make it happen.",
"It's really not that surprising, considering the fact that actors can memorize entire plays. Not to mention the ancient poets who could recite the fucking Iliad and Odyssey from memory.\n\nWe've just forgotten how to remember things. "
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b890ae | why is anecdotal evidence so unreliable? | For example, stereotypes. Why is it that many of us perceive a stereotype to be accurate due to individual experiences, but when we look at data closer those perceptions are often shown to be inaccurate. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/b890ae/eli5_why_is_anecdotal_evidence_so_unreliable/ | {
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"Confirmation bias primarily. We will often remember that which agrees with our beliefs more easily than that which does not. \n\nYou can have a good meal at school for months on end, but you have one burnt or over-seasoned meal and you wind up remembering that one which stands out and saying school food is bad.\n\nBeyond confirmation bias is just how memory stores.\n\nNewspapers report on tragedy, because that sells papers. A headline of “local school experiences 120th year of zero shooting fatalities” is pretty short and uninteresting. Our memories do the same, we remember what is novel more easily than what is common.",
"Confirmation bias is part of it, but it's also simple statistics. Any given trend has some noise in it: if we say that X tend to be bluer than Y, that doesn't mean that *any given* X is bluer than *any given* Y. If you take a very small sample of Xs and Ys, there's actually a relatively high chance that you'll find the Ys bluer than the Xs because your study population (i.e., the group of things you're looking at to try to draw conclusions about whole population of those things) isn't *representative*. The degree to which your study population is representative--meaning that conclusions about it are valid for the whole population--is primarily determined by two things: the size of your study population and its randomness.\n\nSize is important because of the simple fact that a portion of the whole is more representative the closer it comes to being the entire whole. If you could study 100 percent of the population (all Xs and Ys) then you could draw perfectly accurate conclusions from your study: if you measure that the Xs are bluer than they really are because you've looked at every single X and Y. Generally speaking it's not practical to study 100 percent of the population. But if you can study 90 percent, that's better than only studying 10 percent. And 50 percent is better than studying 40 percent. And so on.\n\nRandomness is important because it eliminates *selection bias*. If, say, all of your Ys come from one particular area it's possible that the area simply produces Ys that are bluer than normal, making it seem as if the average of all Ys is bluer than it really is. A rather famous example of this involves a presidential election in the United States: Truman vs Dewey. Several prominent newspapers conducted polls of the voting public and concluded that the majority of them were voting for Dewey, so they announced his victory; they were quite surprised when Truman emerged as the victor. The problem was that they conducted the poll by telephone, and at that point in history telephones were relatively uncommon and disproportionately owned by wealthier citizens; so their sample population skewed heavily toward the rich instead of being randomly distributed across all economic sectors.\n\nAnecdotal evidence typically fails both of these: it involves a very small sample size, and that sample tends to be very concentrated within a relatively small sphere."
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2w1w43 | why i feel addicted to cracking my fingers. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2w1w43/eli5_why_i_feel_addicted_to_cracking_my_fingers/ | {
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"Cracking your fingers releases endorphins, which makes it pleasurable, which are the same hormones that make people addicted to drugs or food or alcohol. "
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1xclkr | is there a reason to why things so simple as "flappy bird" can turn out so addictive? | Complex games like GTA 5, Halo 3 or Assassins Crees series... Sure, they are somewhat addictive (I prefer competitive). But how come a game that the only thing that you have to do is tap the screen can become so addictive? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1xclkr/eli5_is_there_a_reason_to_why_things_so_simple_as/ | {
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"IMO Flappy bird in particular becomes so addictive because it has a high risk/reward potential. Its frustration level is just enough to cause you to get a bit of a rush and almost want to beat the game at its own game. And when you make a small accomplishment you are relieved of that frustration just long enough to engage you into playing more.\n"
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6q96on | the usa teaches subjects like chemistry, history, etc. in school but are rarely used in an average person's normal day to day life. however finance skills are used on a daily basis and have a much larger impact on an individual's life. so why is persinal finance not taught in high schools? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/6q96on/eli5_the_usa_teaches_subjects_like_chemistry/ | {
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"And I mean taught in schools as in it is a required course like English or math",
"Depends on the state. I graduated 10 years ago in OR, and we had a required class senior year that dealt with balancing a check book, doing taxes, investing in the stock market, as well as job interviews, resume building, and career research(as in what interests you, shadow someone in that field, research market trends, etc).",
"You might find these previous posts helpful:\n\n_URL_0_\n\n_URL_1_\n\n_URL_2_",
"It's not the point of school to teach only the things that would be most useful to every person's life. You might as well ask why schools don't teach people how to do laundry or ask for a job.\n\nSchool subjects are there to give everyone an understanding of certain basic concepts that may or may not be expanded upon later by an individual person. Sure, not everyone is destined to be a chemist, but we wouldn't have any chemists if no one learned basic chemical concepts until they went to college. It would be a waste of thirteen years of schooling. \n\nMany schools *do* teach personal finance, though generally not as its own class. Math often incorporates financial concepts in its lessons, from how many apples cost so much money to calculating interest. High schools often have classes, such as economics, that focus specifically on finance. There might also be classes that are focused on life skills (my high school called it \"Computers & Health,\" but we also learned how to do taxes and budget for a home).\n\nIt is also untrue that things like chemistry or history have little impact on daily life. Sure, I don't need to know the Krebs cycle while I'm at the CVS, but knowing how vaccines work is essential to not only my personal health but the health of any children I might have; *not* knowing is what leads to things like measles outbreaks. It's not terribly important to know what year Hitler invaded Poland, but it is important to know how he came to power and what steps people can take to prevent such tragedies in the future (or at least [prevent your spokesperson from making embarrassing statements to reporters](_URL_0_)). Knowledge is important to daily life, even if it doesn't seem like it is while you're learning it.",
"Chemistry is used every single day when you cook or clean. History is what allows you to understand basic government function and world events. \n\nAs for teaching finance skills. That is math, and fairly basic math at that. Your common citizen does not need the skills of an accountant and what they learn in their normal math courses if taught correctly should be more than sufficient. ",
"How would you work out if your utility bill is wrong? What do define as \"personal finance\"?\n\n.\n\nMy simple education allows me to take (say) a utility meter reading and check if I've been ripped off. If all we learnt was personal finance then all we'd be able to do is say \"dollars are correct\". ie: no way of knowing if we'd been mischarged.",
"Short answer: Everything necessary for understanding personal finance is taught in high schools.\n\nLong answer: Personal finance is an application of mathematics, mostly arithmetic with some algebra. The concepts of ratios and percentages are taught relatively early, simple and compound interest rates are in any pre-algebra textbook worth its salt, the way to deal with solving for how much money you'll need to invest to get a certain result is usually covered in algebra once you have finished the theory of exponential and logarithmic equations, etc. In other words, if you're taking enough mathematics to graduate high school, you're already learning everything you need to make sense of personal finance stuff so long as you pay attention to the documents describing certain interest rates.\n\nNow you might be thinking \"it's all well and good to teach a bit of finance focused stuff in mathematics, but why aren't high schools teaching whole courses devoted to it?\" The answer is, many are! Hell, in my state (MO) it's *required* to take one semester of personal finance in order to graduate from high school. If your state doesn't require it, that's an issue to take up with the Department of Education in your state!"
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2gz53r | if north korea's economy is crappy, their populace is starving, and they have nothing big going on in terms of production, how do they have all this military strength? what do they use to get military weapons and supply an army? | We were learning about command economies in macro this week at uni. I always see all these soldiers marching on tv with all these big missiles, and I'm wondering, how the hell do they(NK) afford this shit? If their economy is crap(or is it really?) then how do they supply their military? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2gz53r/eli5_if_north_koreas_economy_is_crappy_their/ | {
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"They spend what little they have on military. Also, most of there military equipment is way out dated. ",
"The equipment they do have is inferior black-market military stuff. That is why they aren't a threat to us and no one really thought they had nukes. The country's main economic beneficiary is china; being allies most products (I assume) are used/outdated Chinese weaponry. ",
"because NK has a decent sized international economy. NK trades raw materials with china to the tune of about $3bil a year. there's also trade with alot of the african warlords for other materials and weapons. i remember reading NK has a big \"leader statue\" industry. "
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4z3p71 | why can a person feel their pulse in a toothache or any area of pain? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4z3p71/eli5_why_can_a_person_feel_their_pulse_in_a/ | {
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"I believe it may be due to increased blood flow to the affected area. Like, if you have a headache that seems to pulse, it's partly to do with blood pressure in the head",
"When the heart pumps with each beat there's a slight increase in pressure. Blood vessels swell up a bit. It's not much, but enough to be noticed if you put your finger on a major artery where it's close to the surface. An area where things are inflamed and already sensitive, the slight swelling of the blood vessel is enough to move things around and put pressure on nerves."
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3jx9n7 | how would a swimming pool in space work? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3jx9n7/eli5_how_would_a_swimming_pool_in_space_work/ | {
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"With the introduction of artificial gravity, like a bitch. Without ? Like a porcupine as a scrotal brush.",
"You would have to scuba dive. I imagine a room completely filled with water and a entry chamber that they would be empty of water, then filled. The door would open and you would enter the main pool.\n\nI don't know why you would want to undergo the bother, unless you wanted the increased water resistance to help with exercise.\n\nAnyway, if this is going in your sci-fi novel I want credit.",
"You would have to spin the swimming pool around like a bucket with water in until it reaches a strong enough g level for gravity to keep the water in place. ",
"[Here](_URL_0_) is a nice article about a swimming pool on the moon.\n\nAs for the actual zero G, my guess is that it wouldn't work at all, unless you conceal the whole thing with no bubbles. There are ways other tan gravity to keep the water in place, such as magnetism and surface tension, but they aren't nearly strong enough to hold it when someone is swimming in it. A tiny bubble with goldfish could work maybe, but not human swimming pool."
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3ejgv6 | why isn't there a consistent number and order of flavors in tubed candy like sweet tarts and wine gums? | It just seems more efficient to have 3 blue, 3 red, 3 purple, etc. all evenly distributed throughout the tube | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3ejgv6/eli5_why_isnt_there_a_consistent_number_and_order/ | {
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"Spread over the entire population there will be set percentages. Each package is different. The creation of each individual piece and then the packaging are two different steps on an assembly line. Making sure the distribution is exact in each package would actually be less efficient because it would require more precision.",
"It takes a lot more effort and precision machinery to accurately sort identical amounts of things into a container than it does to dump all the things into a single hopper and have it package whatever comes up."
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lb0vh | when i have nosebleeds, why is it only on one side? | I'm 21 and I've never had a nosebleed on the right side, only the left. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/lb0vh/eli5_when_i_have_nosebleeds_why_is_it_only_on_one/ | {
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"That's atypical. As far as I know, most people can bleed out of either of their nostrils.",
"A nose bleed is caused by a burst blood vessel in your nose. If your nose is hit hard a blood vessel in your nose can be damaged. These damaged blood vessels can bleed in the future if they are rubbed or touched (or picked).\n\nIf you don't have damaged blood vessels in both nostrils only one nostril will bleed. If you have damaged or sensitive blood vessels in both nostrils the chances are only one nostril will be aggravated and therefore bleed.",
"When I cut my right hand, why doesn't my left hand bleed?\n\nThe inside of your nose has a wall of cartilage running down the middle of it, called the septum. When you get a bleed in your nose, it is only going to come out of one nostril, because the septum prevents it.\n\nIf you always seem to get a nose bleed on the *same* side, like, it's always from your left nostril, then you may have a weak blood vessel near the surface of the inside of your nose. If it bugs you, it might be worth seeing a doctor about it. A doctor could cauterize the weak blood vessel for you. This will create scar tissue and will hopefully prevent future bleeds.",
"I have a friend who was getting frequent nosebleeds. Something about the skin in her sinus's being very thin and prone to breaking open. How they fixed this is through frequent cauterization of her sinus.\n\nThey do this by inserting what looks like a soldering iron into your nose.",
"That's atypical. As far as I know, most people can bleed out of either of their nostrils.",
"A nose bleed is caused by a burst blood vessel in your nose. If your nose is hit hard a blood vessel in your nose can be damaged. These damaged blood vessels can bleed in the future if they are rubbed or touched (or picked).\n\nIf you don't have damaged blood vessels in both nostrils only one nostril will bleed. If you have damaged or sensitive blood vessels in both nostrils the chances are only one nostril will be aggravated and therefore bleed.",
"When I cut my right hand, why doesn't my left hand bleed?\n\nThe inside of your nose has a wall of cartilage running down the middle of it, called the septum. When you get a bleed in your nose, it is only going to come out of one nostril, because the septum prevents it.\n\nIf you always seem to get a nose bleed on the *same* side, like, it's always from your left nostril, then you may have a weak blood vessel near the surface of the inside of your nose. If it bugs you, it might be worth seeing a doctor about it. A doctor could cauterize the weak blood vessel for you. This will create scar tissue and will hopefully prevent future bleeds.",
"I have a friend who was getting frequent nosebleeds. Something about the skin in her sinus's being very thin and prone to breaking open. How they fixed this is through frequent cauterization of her sinus.\n\nThey do this by inserting what looks like a soldering iron into your nose."
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cizser | why do animals act casual and gaze around like nothing’s happening, even though they might be getting killed or are the situation is serious? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/cizser/eli5_why_do_animals_act_casual_and_gaze_around/ | {
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"Animals usually dont have similar facial expressions to humans, the exeption being our closest genetic realetives like chimps and such. Even then the facial expressions mean very different things to them. And animal with it head and ears up scanning its surrounding is looking for a potential threat so it can run the opposite way usually."
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65dare | why do we call it "our brain"? | I was wondering why we call it "our brain" when we in fact are, our brain.
We're all brains sitting inside a skeleton so why do we refer to ourselves as "our brain"?
My brain (for me) is an entirely different part of me and I could never consider myself as just "a brain" | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/65dare/eli5_why_do_we_call_it_our_brain/ | {
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"If you asked most people they would probably say that they are more than just a lump of meat enclosed in a sack of bones and other meaty stuff. The brain is where all of our thought originates from, but people feel \"unique\" and \"special\" which translates into thinking that we are more than our meat.\n\nIf you want to be religious/spiritual then you'll talk about \"souls\".",
"Because it is your brain. Just like your body is you, and also your body. And also we don't refer to ourselves as \"our brain\", at least nobody I know does. Everyone I know refers to themselves as \"me\". Actually the more I read this question the less I'm sure I know what you're actually asking. Yes we are indeed our brain, we are also all the other parts of our body. The brain could not exist without the rest of the body to keep it alive. At least not without artificial support to deliver nutrients and pump cerebra-spinal fluid in and out\n\nEdit: For more specificity, the reason we have specific labels for things, like our brains, is because it allows for accurate communication. If we thought of ourselves only as our brains, what would you say when you have a headache?\n\nYou: \"Doc, my Me is really in pain.\"\n\nDoctor: \"Your you? What part of you?\"\n\nYou: \"What do you mean what part of me? All of my Me!\"\n\n\n\nLife becomes very confusing without specific language",
"As alan watts said \"...most western people think of themselves as existing somewhere between the eyeballs and the ears, inside their head driving their bodies around...\" \n\nthat collection of \"parts\" is psychologically separated from \"you\" as a collective being. \n\n\"your arm\" \"your leg\" \"your brain\" .. as you say, they are all \n\"you\" but the perspective of them being \"a part\" of you versus \"entirely you\" is a subtle, but difficult difference to digest.",
"Because we are not, in fact, our brain. A human is an animal consisting of many parts in addition to the brain. And a personality is, roughly, a *creation of* the brain, but not the brain itself -- much as your favorite computer program is not your computer."
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3jnart | why do marine engine utilize only one gear for their transmission instead of multiple gear ratios in a automobile? | I don't know if I'm wording this correctly but it's something that has always confused me. Why is it a marine engine will basically have a single gear instead of multiple gears you would find in a automobile transmission? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3jnart/eli5_why_do_marine_engine_utilize_only_one_gear/ | {
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"In a car the speeds of the engine and the wheels are directly connected by the gearbox. The engine needs to be within a relatively narrow band of speeds to run efficiently and generate the best power, so you use a gearbox to allow the wheels to turn at a wide range of speeds while the engine stays within its preferred range.\n\nIn a boat the propeller can move at a single speed and be providing forward thrust whatever speed the boat is moving at, because it can \"slip\" through the water. You don't need to turn the propeller really slowly to get the boat moving and then speed it up as the boat speeds up, so you don't need a gearbox allowing the engine to turn the propeller at a wide range of speeds.",
"i only know wakeboard/waterski boats.\n\nususally the prop and transmission ratio are set up so that the motor, usually a V8 like you would find in an american pickup truck, is at its optimum torque/hp curve when you are travelling at wakeboarding or waterskiing speed. I don't need it to be very efficient anywhere else because this is where i spend the most time running. they also happen to be plenty fast on the top end for the small waters they are designed for.\n\ni imagine that it would be simmilar for other boats, the prop pitch/transmission ratio and motor function the most efficient in the design normal speed of the boat.\n\nusually in a boat when you are cruising, you maintain that speed so having one gear for that is all that is needed, where as in a car you are always speeding up and slowing down, older transmissions for cars were 3 speeds and they aren't very efficient.\n\n"
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u69fp | what is the spacex dragon, and why is it such a big deal? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/u69fp/eli5_what_is_the_spacex_dragon_and_why_is_it_such/ | {
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"Until very recently, only governments had ever built rockets big enough to take people into space. Now a non-government business Space X has joined the US, Russia and China in becoming space capable. Once enough trials are done, Space X will be a NASA subcontractor for delivering people and goods to the International Space Station.\n\nSpace X can do space flight much cheaper than NASA has for two reasons. This is because (1) their parts are largely interchangeable between their (planned) different models of rockets and (2) around 85% of their rockets are planned to be reusable.\n\nThe \"Dragon\" is the end-stage capsule that will be fitted to the top of any Space X rocket that caries people. It can hold seven people plus supplies or it can hold nothing but supplies and carry a lot. it is designed for re-entry in both Earth's atmosphere and Mars's atmosphere. It is the cornerstone of their rockets and must work for Space X to work. \n\n[Here's a very cool 3.5 min video of how they plan to have their rockets work](_URL_0_) though currently everything is coming down by parachute to a water landing.\n\nBefore last week Space X had done only two tests of their main rocket the \"Falcon 9\" but neither of those times were they allowed near the International Space Station and they didn't have the Dragon capsule. But since those tests went well, this time NASA wanted them to try docking with the space station and they were successful. This make Space X, and commercial rocketry that much closer from happening. Once it does, NASA can start using the Falcon 9 to reach the International Space Station for fractions of what the shuttle (or any current NASA proposals) cost.\n\nTL;DR The Dragon is the last stage of the rocket that is meant to actually hold people. The fact that it docked successful means Space X, a private space company, is that much closer to being able to launch manned missions to orbit as a sub-contractor for NASA. \n\n"
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8iu6l0 | why is it so hard to find a cure for cancer despite the money that has been poured into cancer research? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/8iu6l0/eli5_why_is_it_so_hard_to_find_a_cure_for_cancer/ | {
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"Because cancer is not a disease like smallpox or anything else we've cured so far. It's your cells that turn into cancer cell because of whatever reason so there is nothing to cure from the outside. Oh and there are a lot of types of cancer so that makes it even harder ",
"Cancer is a mutation and not a single illness. As such we can treat types of cancers, but a one-size fits all treatment is very difficult. ",
"Because there are many, many cancers. Saying 'a cure for cancer' is about as reasonable as saying 'a cure for physical injury'. There are as many different kinds of cancer as there are ways and places that a person could be cut, bruised, broken or burned.\n\nThe research, tests and trials are constantly discovering, testing, and bringing into full production treatments for different cancers. As a result, the outcomes for people are getting better all the time. Some cancers that were a death sentence just a few years ago are now routinely cured, and as we gain deeper insights into the genetic causes, this can only get better. But it will always be an area where more research will be needed, as there will always be less common cancers that need new treatments, or more common cancers that could have better treatments.",
"Because\n\n* It's parts of your own body killing you by doing a perfectly normal and desired thing *too much* - so your immune system usually won't' help, and chemicals that destroy cancer cells will generally also destroy healthy cells and kill you.\n* if you don't get every single cancer cell, it will just gro again, possibly much worse if you did something where the surviving cancer cells got into your bloodstream and spread around your body.\n* Cancer is really not jsut one disease, it's hundreds, because different kinds of cells behave quite differently when they become cancerous, and even in a single tumor you can often find different strains that are effectively separate diseases.",
"Because it's your own cells going haywire and taking over your body. It's like trying to stop an enemy that hides among innocent civilians. Yeah, it's easy to kill them if you have overwhelming firepower, the hard part is doing so without killing all the innocent bystanders. The innocent bystanders, in the case of cancer, being your healthy cells you need to survive. The methods we use to kill cancer, chemotherapy and radiation, also kill your healthy cells. It's hard to find a method which distinguishes between healthy cells and cancerous cells, whereas with something like a bacterial infection, you just flood your body with chemicals (antibiotics) that kill bacteria without affecting your human cells. Because of slight differences between our cells and bacteria cells, there are chemicals that kill bacteria while leaving us alive. There are slight differences between your healthy cells and cancerous cells, such as the cancerous cells being slightly weaker than your healthy cells, so they can be killed with a certain concentration of poison that leaves your healthy cells alive (chemotherapy). If the cancerous cells are all located in one spot that can be operated on, you can simply cut out the blob of cells, or target it with radiation. Unfortunately, there's lots of types of cancer, and sometimes they aren't weak enough to be killed by these methods or they've spread throughout the body and can't be killed without killing all the healthy cells, or originated in an inoperable area where surgery or radiation would kill some vital organ.",
"It's a lot of reasons. People can have a lot of different kinds of cancer. Some for your skin, some for your blood, everywhere. Each of these cancers form slightly differently and affect your body differently.\n\nCancer is difficult to study because most people don't realize they have it until they get really sick. Because of that, a lot of medicines are made for stopping cancer after it becomes dangerous and not before cancer forms at all. Stopping something that is already formed is much harder than stopping it from forming\n\nFor cancer that has been studied a lot (such as breast cancer), medicine for cancer is harder to make. Very simply, cancer is just a normal cell that doesn't know when to stop growing. There are hundreds of different checks in cells to stop these uncontrolled growths. If one of them fails or a combination, it could be the cause of cancer. It's very hard to find. \n\nSome cancers are not well known at all and receive little money to study so you have even less knowledge on how to find a cure. \n\nTesting the medicine takes time., about 10 years of time. 4 stages of testing has to be done and if even one part fails, you start again from stage 1. This costs a lot of money and many companies don't really want to try because of how many medicines have already failed.\n\nTldr; lots of parts make cancer something difficult to cure. There are different kinds of cancer, it's hard to study and not easy to make medicine for.\n\n",
"Cancer is a copy error. Your cell divides, just like billions of cells in your body are doing all the time, but it gets the copy wrong. The next time that copied cell divides, it's even more wrong. Soon you've got a snowball effect spreading to other organs and systems. \n\nIt can happen to anyone, at any time, though obviously some activities like smoking or radiation exposure increase the chances for copy error. If you live to be 200 and nothing else kills you, eventually you WILL get cancer, in the same way that even the most reliable car will eventually run out of oil.\n\nWe can find activities that contribute to cancer and stop doing them. We can diagnose someone with cancer and kill all the cancerous cells with things like surgery and radiation... though often that stuff is every bit as bad for healthy tissue. But without some kind of miraculous breakthrough, on the order of solving the aging process itself, we can't \"cure\" it in the same way that we can cure an injury or an infection. Cancer is, in many ways, a byproduct of just being alive.\n\nThat being said, don't feel like cancer research is a waste. More and more types of cancer become survivable for more and more people all the time thanks to all that money and effort. Fifty years ago, \"he's got cancer\" was practically a death sentence. Now it's something you have a very real chance of beating. ",
"Cancer isn't a disease, but a *type* of disease. There are many different types of cancers, and all of them have their own name - you may have heard of leukemia, melanoma, and/or common names like cancer of the colon, skin, eye, brain, etc.\n\n\nFinding a \"cure for cancer\" means finding a cure for each and every different type of cancer (or, possibly, a way to prevent it from occurring to begin with.)\n\n\nCancer is what happens when cells malfunction in a certain way. You see, the cells in your body reproduce by splitting into copies of itself. This is how your body grows and heals. The copying process itself isn't perfect, and small mistakes happen all the time. Mistakes made when copying stuff like proteins or ribosomes or whatever don't matter that much - the bad copy doesn't work, but that's fine because the DNA master file is still undamaged and a new copy is made from that.\n\nWhen a mistake is made while copying DNA, or the DNA is damaged by radiation or something, the problem is a bit more serious. Fortunately, your body has several mechanisms to fix this sort of error - there are special proteins that can sort of \"quick-fix\" tiny bits of damage - they sort of comb small knots out of the strand.\n\nFor more serious damage, more complex sort of processes exist - I'm not going to go in to too much detail, but every cell has multiple copies of the same code - two on each strand, for a total of four on each chromosome. These processes can replace damaged bits of code by making copies of the undamaged versions, like restoring from a backup. There are some types of damage that can't really be fixed, though, not correctly.\n\nThere's even a self-destruct function built in - when too much damage occurs, or certain other conditions are met, cells die in a process called apoptosis.\n\nCancers happen when cells stop self destructing, and continue growing.\n\n\n\nDifferent cancers exist because there are so many different types of cells in the body, which even normally all act differently in order to perform whatever function the body needs them to do. Their rate of growth and replacement, how they move through the body, and the sorts of conditions and nutrients that help them grow all play a part in how they behave when they become cancerous.\n\nNeurons, for example can't really reproduce and make copies of themselves. A neuron might have the exact same damage done to it that would cause another cell to become cancerous, but we'd never know the difference.\n\nSkin cancers, however, are much easier to spot, and the easiest cure is to remove the cancerous areas of skin.\n\nOther cancers, like glioblastomas, can be a death sentence depending on where they occur in the brain - sometimes they're in a location like the brain stem and can't be removed without killing the patient.\n\nMany cancers are treated with chemotherapy. Since a cancer is a specific type of cell, all you do is take poison that's more poisonous to that type of cell than others - hopefully you kill the cancerous cells and still have enough regular cells left to live.\n\nFuck cancers. Fuck.\n",
"There's no money in cures. \n\nIf you cure a disease or make a phone that doesn't crap out after a few years, your customers won't have to pay you anymore.\n\nChris Rock once said, \"The government curing AIDS? That's like Cadillac making a car that last for fifty years... and you know they can do it! But they ain't gonna do something that fucking dumb! Shit! They got metal on the space shuttle that can go around the moon and withstand temperatures up to 20,000 degrees. You mean to tell me you don't think they can make an El Dorado where the fucking bumper don't fall off?\"",
"In addition to /u/robbak, our methods of detecting different cancers vary significantly in sensitivity. If you catch a tumour early, treatments tend to be more successful, but these same treatments give rise to poor outcomes later on. Some detection methods, such as ultrasound for liver cancers, don't tend to be able to detect a tumour until quite late on, so treatment outcomes tend to be poor. At the moment, it's the best we've got, so people are finding better detection methods all the time.",
"A cancer cell is like a car that just keeps going and won't stop. So we want to make this car stop, right?\n\nMaybe we fix the brakes, maybe the problem is the brakes aren't working, so let's design a new brake system to install on the car. Except, how do you design one that fits EVERY car (BMW, Toyota, Chevrolet)? You would have to design one for every car.\n\nSo we do that, and we fix the brakes, only to discover that the gas pedal is the problem, it's giving the engine full throttle despite the brakes, so we go back to the drawing board, and we come up with a fix for the gas pedal, again, requiring a different one for every car. Only to find out, from travelling so fast, the car is all bent up, and hood is pressing down on the wire to the gas pedal, so our new system isn't working.\n\nThe idea of a \"universal cure\" for cancer is the same as the idea of a universal mechanical part that would fix any car. In the same way that we can brand a car as \"BMW\", \"Toyota\", \"Chevrolet\", and then as \"1992 model\", \"2007 model\", and then \"Sport ZX trim\" or \"SS V8 model\", we can do that with a cell - \"lung cancer\", \"neuroendocrine lung cancer\", \"ER+ PR- breast cancer\". In the same way that each car would need a special part, each cancer would need a special drug to fix the particular thing that is broken in that cancer cell. Beyond that, each PARTICULAR car has its own story and its own unique pattern of damage, same as a cancer cell, so even the specific part for that specific car model may not actually work in that particular car given its damage. The mutations in every person's cancer, will be different from another person with what is called the same type of cancer.\n\nOn top of all that, we don't have 1 broken car, we have 1 billion of them, and the ones that we failed to fix, they reproduce and generate new, differently broken cars.\n\nSome of the exciting stuff they are doing with cancer now it's going to the immune system, the auto mechanic, and telling it to destroy these cars. The cars are telling it \"hey, stay away, it's all good\", so we try to mess that up. These are, for example, PD-L1 inhibitors in lung cancer, and they can work miraculously, but they don't always work (since every cancer is different), so people can once again point their finger and say \"no cure\"\n\nSome cancer research money goes into better understanding the cancer (the blueprint of the car) to understand which parts are malfunctioning. That research, one hopes, will lead to a new type of car part that can fix that problem. We are also doing a lot with this immune system stuff too. But the war on cancer, it's a game where we are slowly whittling, whittling, whittling, collecting parts, building an arsenal. We likely won't ever have \"the cure\" but rather slowly increasing chances of survival year after year.\n\nMost drugs now, your hair doesn't fall out. Back in the day, the first generations of cancer drugs, your hair falls out because the stuff we were giving just knocks out any cell that reproduces a lot - such as your hair follicle cells. With the car analogy, this is like we put spike strips on every road for any car going over 40 mph. So this knocks out our broken cars well enough, but the normal working cars going 45 mph also hit the strips and get knocked out too. Because these drugs or \"replacement parts\", they don't go on just the broken cars, they go on EVERY car - they effect every cell in the body, not just cancer cells.",
"These are all the types of cancer you can [get.](_URL_0_)\n\nEvery person is their own beach. This is why it can't be cured.",
"Part of the money is also going into improving existing methods to make them more effective or just making things easier on the patient, or a more assured diagnosis. My department is going to be trialling a more efficient form of Mohs processing so that people who require what we call ‘slow Mohs’, which will typically take 24 hours rather than the hourish turn around normal Mohs takes, will have that sped up, so they don’t have to go home and come back in the next day or the day after. Better for the patient, gives them a higher chance of clearing in one day. \n\nI know that doesn’t really answer your question, but I just wanted to add the money is going to other research aside from cures. ",
"There are heaps of cures. A few of my friends and family members have had cancer previously, they do not have cancer now. Why? Cured. The thing is these cures don't work on all patients, so we're still looking for all of the cures.\nThe types of cures? Some types of chemo, radio therapy, early detection and surgery. It works really really well. _URL_0_ has a nice graph down the bottom highlighting how well all the current cures work.",
"Like the disease itself, it's terribly complicated. \n\nOne factor is that cancer isn't a single disease, it's a group of diseases where some are similar to eachother and some are different, some are usually curable with the right treatment and some are almost universally a death sentence, variants may have different drugs they respond to and so on. \n\nThen, there's dealing with the actual problem at a physical level: killing cancer cells is easy. Killing cancer cells without killing off a *lot* of other cells you need is... not easy at all. ",
"Explaining cancer as if you were five: \n\nEvery cell in your body has instructions. We call it DNA. Those instructions tell every cell to do three fundamental things: Eat, work and grow. \n\nBad things can happen like sun burns or chemicals that hurt the cell’s instructions. So let’s pretend one of those functions is broken and doesn’t work. \n\nIf a cell can’t eat, but tries to work and grow anyway, it will simply starve and die. \n\nIf a cell can’t grow but can eat and work, it will be fine for a while but all cells die of old age if they can’t reproduce(grow). \n\nIf a cell can’t work but can eat and grow, it doesn’t help your body. But it will keep eating and growing. It even grows faster because it doesn’t waste time working. \n\nThose last kinds are cancer cells. They steal your bodies resources and don’t perform a function. And since they look and act like your own cells(because they are), your body can’t identify or stop them. \n\nThis makes finding treatments very difficult. ",
"A tumor is made up of a bunch of cells, each slightly different. You can get treatments that target some of the cells, but the remaining cells either adapt to be resistant to that treatment or are already resistant, those then replicate so that over time the tumour becomes resistant to the treatment (similar to bacteria acquiring resistance to antibiotics).\n\nThere are several ways the tumour does this. For example, a treatment may block a certain pathway for survival in order to kill the cell, but the cell can rewire around that block such that it remains alive even with the treatment. Cancer also turns off your immune system from killing the cancer cells. They grow new blood vessels so they can have oxygen, they adapt their metabolism so they can survive in harsh conditions.\n\nAnother big problem is they can alter the environment they are surrounded by (of \"normal healthy cells\" and cause them to stimulate growth of cancer. So even if \n you cut out a tumour, the environment can cause new cells to return. Similarly, after removing a tumour there will still be cancerous cells in the circulation (they \"exfoliate\" off the tumour) which can go and grow elsewhere. This can even occur 10-20 years after the original tumour was removed.\n\n\n",
"I'm probably going to sound like a conspiracy theorist, but whatever, I'll say it anyway. My step-dad was a scientist, he worked with other scientists. A few of them came up with a few things that would eradicate a normally common problem. The problem was that when you create a permanent solution for something, it'll essentially bankrupt companies that deal with those problems temporarily. Most of them and their ideas were bought out for a large sum. Now, I'm not saying that this applies to cancer research, and I'm sure we have very capable people working on a solution, but I wouldn't be surprised if it did. Anyway, I'm just trying to put out a different perspective on things, also I'm sorry I didn't explain it like you're five (first time here). ",
"Plenty of cancerS have been cured or become treatable\n\nThere are literally hundreds if not thousands of varieties, breast cancer is not bone cancer is not prostate cancer is not leukemia is not skin cancer is not lung cancer\n\nThere's no single cure for a spectrum of disease",
"The treatment of cancer is very profitable, so why cure it? People gotta die from something, so...if a global pharmacy corporation us making billions from cancer treatment...do the math, and follow the money.",
"You'd be shocked at how much money raised for cancer actually makes it to research. Most charity money funds the charity, not the cause. ",
"Cancer is an umbrella term for many different diseases that result in malignant cell production. ",
"My wife works in a lab funded by cancer research grant money. Her specific study is on how cells migrate. Mutant cells vs normal cells. She's spent the last 3 years studying what look like hairs sticking out of the cells and how they affect movement, and now she's ready to publish her findings. It takes a long ass time to collect data on just one aspect of cell behavior. And these aren't even cancer cells. You have to generate enough data to study, then you have to find a pattern, and then you have to publish the data in order for it to be studied further. ",
"I'm an MD PhD student studying immunotherapy for osteosarcoma. First off, plenty of cancers ARE cured every day. Many of them childhood cancers. Second, cancer cells have mechanisms by which they can evade the immune system. Third, many cancer cells look very similar to normal cells, so they can be very hard to target specifically without causing damage to normal tissues- often, organ toxicity is the limiting factor with chemo and radiation. Fourth, many cancer cells divide rapidly and erroneously allowing for new mutations to constantly occur and the ones that develop new drug reistant traits can therefore survive and stay one step ahead of targeted treatments. Fifth, many cancer cells can lie dormant and therefore be unaffected by the majority of cancer drugs targeting rapid proliferation, only to reactivate later down the road. ",
"You can put all the money you want into it, but it the technology isn't there then it's just not there.\n\nCancer is a genetic inevitability, not something like a common cold (which there is also no cure for, due to its genetic variation)\n\nYour cells mutate all the time, and your body is constantly killing off cancerous cells.\n\nThe mutations aren't always the same, so when cells go cancerous and haywire, they can do a number of wild things.\n\nSo a cure, in a sense, would be the ability to build something better then your body's immune system at detecting and killing these mutations. And if that were easy, we would all be living happy and healthy lives right now.\n\n",
"Let's not forget that big companies see the money pouring in and skim most of the money off leaving a small portion going to actual cure research.",
"As well as there being many different types of cancer, every human is a little different as well. Cancer starts where all of your cell growth starts, with your DNA",
"So disappointed to read all the nonsense conspiracy theories! I am in Oncology drug development as a senior researcher and have been in this general field for about 15 years. As others have put it, Cancer is not a singular disease - between people and even within a patient. This is called cancer heterogeneity which is one of the biggest issues we face. Often our targeted therapies can kill one variant of the cancer cells, but leave behind a few cells that are resistant this is because the drug wasn’t designed to kill those resistant cells. You will see now there are a lot of combination therapies that give multiple drugs to the patient in an effort to cast a wide net and kill as many variants of the cancer as possible. Even so, some patients are left with tumors that acquire mutations specifically to the treatment they have been given (and worked) - EGFR therapies are a great example of this. So now many of us are working on medicinal chemistry efforts to specifically target cancer cells that have these mutations. \n\nWhat many people don’t think about it is what we call the Therapeutic Index. This is, how safely can we administer the treatment and still maintain a good response. Most cancer therapies have a very very narrow therapeutic index because of the nature of the drugs - selectively killing cells and avoiding killing your normal organ is very hard. We have a lot of drugs that kill cancer very well, but you know what happens if you take it - you die. They are too lethal and would obviously be deemed unsafe by the FDA. \n\nI just ask that people try to learn more about the disease from credible sources - Pubmed is your friend! Undermining the years and hard work from those of us who have decided to spent our lives on finding a good therapy is really disheartening (but not demotivating!). \n\nAnyway, I have one of my drug discovery efforts make it to a Phase 1 clinical cancer trial now so fingers crossed we can make it to our predicted human efficacious dose without hitting our predicted toxicities first!! ",
"\n\nLots of reasons\n\nCancer has a lot of kinds: Each type of cancer (lung, liver cancer, etc.) can have several types, subtypes, further classification and so on. Each can have their own characteristics and only some drugs work on some others. Research, money, time, and drug development has to be spread out instead of a focused on one kind.\n\nCancer is microscopic: Cancer is microscopic so we literally don't know if we got all the cancer. If we don't it will probably come back and possibly worse (it got more resistant to the drug, spreading to the body, etc.). If there was some way to go \"Oh here is every single cancer cell in the body\", cancer would probably be cured. \n\nCancer treatment is crude: Cut it out, poison it, or irradiate the area. Sounds like war right? Well it's even worse because since everything is tiny, we have no choice but to do some collateral damage. Our tech just isn't good enough yet. Chemo is basically poisoning everybody in a village, but hoping it kills the people with faster metabolism first. Irradiation is basically bombing a suspected terrorist area. You'll never know if you got them all, or if you created more extremists through irradiation.\n\nCurrently our best bets are target therapy or stimulating the immune system to attack it. Problem is, we're still not very good at either yet, either because we lack the tech or we lack the knowledge. Also targeted therapy will only work on a specific cancer since each cancer is different. And if the cancer mutates to something no longer targeted? Well good luck because our current tech isn't good enough to make a new target therapy drug that fast, let alone personalize target therapy.",
"Cancers are basically cured all the time. There are millions of people walking around who had cancer, received treatment, and are now living out the rest of their lives. Everyday treatments get better and better and more and more people survive. \n\nRecently, immunotherapies have cured people who were though untreatable only a few years ago. \n\nThe thing is that cancer is not an easy thing to treat. It is, for all intents and purposes, you. Just you with a few more mutations. Most things that kill it will kill you. ",
"When treating diseases, whether it be cancer, infection, or sometimes even genetic, the key is to find the difference between the good cells that you need to keep, and the bad cells you need to get rid of. Antibiotics target the parts of bacteria that are different from our own cells, so its more damaging to the bacteria than ourselves.\n\nIn cancer, those are our own cells that only have a few slight differences. Most chemotherapies will target rapidly growing cells, thus preferentially killing the fast growing cancer cells. The side effects of chemo are from killing other fast growing cells in your body (nausea=stomach lining, Hair follicles=hair loss). For slow growing cancers, surgery is usually the only option, because they don't grow fast enough to be targeted by chemo. \n\nThe holy grail of cancer cures would be finding a drug that can some how target only cells with specific DNA sequences (mutations that caused the cancer). But to do this you would have to get a drug into the cell nucleus and have specificity for only mutated cells. Just getting into the nucleus is a really complicated process alone and getting a big drug into there would be really hard. There are many scientific hurtles to be able to do this.",
"Because a good portion of that money doesn't go to research. It goes to throwing parties for the rich so they donate more money.",
"Unfortunately there’s no disease known as cancer. Cancer is a collective term for a process which leads to disease. The process involves acquiring mutation which do 2 main things. The first is that the affected cells stop responding to the body’s signals and commands telling them to carry out their purpose. This includes dying when they’re supposed to. The other is to autonomously replicate indefinitely. There are some (Burkett Lymphoma) which replicate explosively fast and others (certain myelomas) which are very slow. However, they all essentially become immortal and replicate indefinitely, producing a bastard variation of what they’re originally supposed to. Some even acquire new abilities and produce new things they’re not supposed to, leading to weird presentations in patients. These are known as paraneoplastic syndromes. Lung cancers are notorious for this. There are hundreds and hundreds of cancers, each having different reasons why they exist. Even within certain cancer types, there can be many variations. Example: there are many subset types of melanoma. Each one can have a different mutation which caused the melanoma, meaning they have a different therapeutic target that a drug will attempt to act on. That’s why it’s very unlikely to have a magic bullet which cures it. \n\nTL;DR there is no “cancer” disease. Cancer is an encompassing term for a process which all the diseases have in common. They all behave differently and have different targets, so one drug is unlikely to work on all.\n\nSource: 3 years of medical school so far. That was more like an ELI10 but I’m happy to talk more about it",
"I think this would be an interesting ELI reply \\(FYI, not a biologist\\): You are made of cells, lots of cells. How many? 37.2 trillion cells in fact \\(roughly\\). Now that's a large amount of cells! But how many different types of cells are there? it's about 200 different types. Now, to answer the question why is it so hard to find a cure, we have to state what the problem is. A cancer cell is a cell that begins to divide without stopping and spreads into surrounding tissues.\n\nNow comes the big question: If a cell starts to divide without stopping, and it looks like every other cell that isn't a cancer cell, and there are 37.2 trillion cells, how do you know what cells to kill?\n\nYou don't know? Well, that's ok, no one really does. The problem is exactly that with so many cells, and with so many cell types, and the fact you can't just 'sniff' out the bad ones, it's a really hard problem to solve. \n\nSometimes you can 'sniff' out the bad ones as the thing that went wrong in them and makes them divide leaves a trail that can be detected, but that might be just one type of cell misbehaving in a one particular way. What do I mean by in 'one particular way' ?\n\nWell, a cell dividing is actually quite complicated. Think about the complexity of making a car. You need a huge manufacturing plant, filled with robots and people, all working together in a massive building covering a massive area. Now think if the manufacturing plant wasn't designed to make a car, it was designed to make a copy of itself without damaging the original.. that's much, much, much more complex! It would have to be huge in comparison to just making a car! \n\nNow, what if it started copying itself uncontrollably.. would you recognize where exactly the problem is inside the plant that is the size of a small city? It could be anywhere, right? Are the faults in one manufacturing plant the exact same faults as in another?\n\nSadly no.. there are many different types of cell division that can go wrong for each of the 200 different cell types, for the 37.2 trillion cells in a human body, and detection is hard because they all look the same, and destruction is hard because you can't be sure you got them all.\n\nSo current plan is to destroy an area with a high likelihood of cancerous cells, but can you be absolutely sure you got them all? No.. they look too much like the other cells, you're never sure, and your detection is most likely very flawed.\n\nSo Cancer will never go away until we can find a way to inspect and mark individual cells.. and we will get better at doing that for some types of cancers.",
"Because the money poured into research, doesn't actually go to research but high salaries and administration costs. ",
"Cancer arises from your own body's cells. To your body and to chemotherapy drugs, cancer cells are nearly indistinguishable from normal vells, except for the fact that they divide fast and disrupt the normal architecture of tissues. Cancer drugs have to exploit a difference between the cancer cells and normal cells. In many older drugs, that difference is the rate of division. In many modern drugs, it is a specific molecular difference. Finding those specific molecular differences is very hard, finding ways to exploit them is even harder. \n\nAdd to this problem the problem of the variety of cancers - each cancer arises from a random cell that went bad, and is completely new and unique. This means to make next-gen drugs, you either have to make a new drug for every single patient, or you have to find molecular targets that are common between patients. \n\nDrug development for cancers is almost like trying to find a substance that would burn your right hand off, but leave your left hand unscathed. \n\nThe reason cancer hasn't been cured despite the billion poured into researching it is because it is a problem that is nearly impossible. In that light, the progress we have made is remarkable. Gleevec is basically a cure for a specific blood cancer. Some melanomas that used to be a death sentence are completely surviveable. Breast cancer used to be treated by radical mastectomy, which horrifically maimed women (they cut off the breasts, the associated lymph nodes, and much of the pectoral muscles). Now, it is often treated with chemotherapy and a lumpectomy, where only a small amount of tissue is removed. \n\n\n",
"\\ > why is it so hard to find a cure for cancer despite the money that has been poured into\n\nso hard to find a cure for cancer \\~\\~despite\\~\\~ \\*\\*because\\*\\* of the money that has been poured into\n\nFTFY",
"Because there’s like a bajillion different types of cancer. And even for different cancers of different organs, there are different subtypes. ",
"Because all we have been doing is shooting in the dark. We don't have enough fundamental knowledge about how cells work. We need to spend much more money on fundamental research and the government has to fund it because the drug companies won't. ",
"Best explanation I've seen is to view cancer as the natural state of any living organism. Evolution has simply come up with a million different ways of making sure cancer doesn't happen. But there are so many ways of slipping up. Evolutionary pressure against cancer drops as we get older because the pressure is for surviving until reproductive age and being able to be around long enough to raise your kids.\n\nSolving cancer seems like the equivalent of being able to solve ANY problem with the human body.",
"Because cancer is a group of disease which comprise at least 200 different types. Some are very rare and some are common. The rarer types are hard to treatment as not enough data exists on them to accurately find or test treatments that are effective. The common types are, but certainly not in all cases, easier to treat. I say not in all cases because of course lung cancer is very common and is notorious for being the biggest killer. That being said, lung cancer is a highly avoidable cancer if you cut out smoking and long term exposure to harmful chemicals. Common cancers such as breast, testicular, prostate and thyroid cancers are all exceeding high percentages (90% plus) for 5-year survival and I expect this to continue across the board. The money and research through science has made that possible.",
"I would also add, as someone who works in cancer treatment and research that we already cure many types of cancer. It is a combination of chemo agents, surgery and radiation. But people want there to be a cure that has absolutely no negative effects on their life which is understandable. This is likely a hundred years away. The money that has been spent is being used in today's cures already, but not every situation is the same for every cancer. Even with the same type of cancer the staging and progression is much different and the end result of treatment can be drastically different.",
"Here’s an analogy I like to use when this is brought up. \nFixing a car isn’t too hard if you’re a mechanic or made the car. Humans made cars and if something goes wrong, it’s likely a part that we put together so we know how to fix it and what to replace. \nWe didn’t make humans. We are discovering more and more each day on a genetic and microscopic level about humans and disease. Since we didn’t make ourselves and don’t necessarily know what every single the part means. Which makes it hard to fix when things go wrong. ",
"Another point to consider. Just because you pump money into something it does not mean you are guaranteed a result. There is no pump X amount of dollars and do research for Y years and presto alakazam cancer cure. It's all trial and error with more failure than success.",
"Cancer is a very broad term, equivalent to saying, \"I'm sick.\" There are many types of sicknesses, each one is different.\n\nAlso if the cure was that easy to find, they would have found it by now!",
"A lot of people have chimed in on various facets of the issue. I'll leave you with a simple word: variability. \n\nAbout a year ago, we were testing a drug for metastatic pancreatic patients. One patient, miraculously enough, was found to have no residual disease. She was shocked to hear the news. We laughed. She cried. We hugged. It was a great day. Other patients on this treatment...not so much the case. \n\nSame disease. Same drug. Different people. Its a shitshow most of the time. ",
"Think of your DNA as a room full of 1000 people doing math problems. As long as everyone does it right life goes on and everything is good. When just a single person screws up the cell can end up misbehaving. Usually the cell detects this and dies, or is killed by your immune system. It is when this system of detecting mistakes break a down that cancer occurs.\n\nThe major problem is that each of those people has a chance to make a mistake, and each one, or each combination of people has the potential to be its own unique cancer. Combine that with the fact that everyone has unique DNA and cancers can potentially be unique for each person. \n\nInstead of a one size fits all approach you have to tailor a solution for an almost endless variety of problems that all happen to be under the blanket term of \"cancer.\" That's like putting all illnesses under one term and asking why we can't cure \"disease.\"",
"I recommend reading \"The Emperor of All Maladies: A History of Cancer\". It answers this question and many, many more.",
"Because curing patients is not a good business model. The goal of most drug companies is not to cure, but to find a drug to “treat” you for the rest of your life. Sell you a “subscription to life”, if you will. Stop paying for your subscription, well...\n\n[_URL_0_](_URL_0_) ",
"There are plenty of cures for cancer. The issue is that they're also mostly cures for human also. ",
"Imagine that there's a gigantic room that you can't go inside, but you can send things into. That room has **trillions** of people in it. Most of them work very hard to keep you alive, and if they stop you'll die. A very small number of them want to kill you, and if you leave them alone, they will succeed. What can you send into the room that stops the murderers without hurting the good guys?",
"The body contains many, many different kinds of cells. Liver cells, skin cells, brain cells, bone cells, blood cells (That's extremely simplified, but you get it). Each and every type of cell (except cartilage, as far as we can tell) can get cancer.\n\nCancer is a mutation of the cell's DNA. Radiation can cause cancer (this includes sunlight, which is UV light, a type of radiation) because it corrupts the DNA of a cell. This causes the cell to either not know when to stop growing, or to reproduce too fast. This is usually how cancerous tumours are created.\n\nThe problem of curing cancer comes not only from the variety of the types of cancer, but trying to figure out how to reverse or stop the corrupted DNA of a cell from spreading or growing. Cancer is a living thing, and it's a disease, but the issue is that it is not an *external* disease such as pneumonia (bacteria or viruses). It is an *internal* disease, like cystic fibrosis (immune system or genetic mutation).\n\nWe can cure external diseases, but we struggle with internal diseases because we cannot yet remove the disease without killing the person, as these diseases are *a part* of the affected person.\n\nMy veterinarian likes to say: \"Cancer is dumb.\" \nIt is. It really is.",
"Cancer in general is very hard to treat because it is your body’s own cells. If you have a foreign invader like a virus, bacteria, or parasite their metabolism isn’t the same as ours. They don’t have the same proteins that we use, so with a foreign invader we can design a drug that specifically targets something in the foreign invader that we don’t have. Using this specific target we can be confident that then invader will not survive but the drug will have little effects on our own cells. Cancer is a human cell and has very similar metabolism so it’s hard to find a drug that will specifically target the cancerous cell without causing damage to your own cells. ",
"I really think if you took all the funding for the hundreds if not thousands of various cancers and threw it into a stem cell powered organ growing artificially out of the body setup, then cut out the cancerous liver lungs etc etc and throw in the new organ.\n\nRight now imagine your car has a wheel bearing go. Would you \n\nA) make micro incisions in the bearing, send in tiny tools to cut away the ground down bearing, reconstruct one using molten metal piped in, perfectly shape it and have to come back once a week for 8 weeks to have it checked and zapped with microwaves to try and break up any remaining bits of bearing, 6 hour operations with a team of mechanics all clearing millions of dollars a year\n\nB) get Tony at the local car shop whip off the wheel, swap out the wheel hub, give him 150 dollars and be driving in the hour?\n\nIf we can add AI controlled arms into the surgery, like the arms already in use for telepresence surgery then imagine the speed and ease of having an organ transplant. People might get their heart swapped out every 10 years just in case.\n\n",
"Cancer has been cured for almost 10 years.\nIt's not profitable.\nThere's no money is curing people.\nWhereas there are billions upon billions to be made through chemo and radiation and medication",
"Because curing something is not nearly as profitable as treating it long-term, and somehow we (in the US) have simply accepted the fact that health care should have a profit motive.",
"Too much money is involved. A lot of the cancers we see can be attributed to the approved chemicals we consume and the environment we are in.",
"Because why cure someone in a day when you can treat them long term and bill them each step of the way",
"because there is more money in treating it than curing it, at least as far as the united States is concerned. Most of our research is funded by big pharma, who have proven to be more for prophet than cures\n",
"I will explain this one time only and this is the absolute truth, CANCER IS TOO PROFITABLE TO CURE, you know what happens when a cure for cancer comes to light? big pharmacy bros buy the shit and destroy it. There will never be a full on cure\\(without a huge price hike and secret doctor\\) because that will destroy their market.",
"Because there is no money in finding the cure for cancer. The treatment of cancer however is a multi billion dollar industty."
]
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[],
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[],
[],
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"http://www.reliablehomesolutions.net/content/userfiles/images/FortBragg/Fort_Bragg_Glass_Beach_Tiny_Houses_Tiny_Houses_for_Rent_Custom_Tiny_Houses.jpg"
],
[],
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"http://rebrn.com/re/i-always-hear-that-a-cure-for-cancer-is-misleading-because-cance-551955/"
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"https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2018/04/curing-disease-not-a-sustainable-business-model-goldman-sachs-analysts-say/"
],
[],
[],
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||
j3mvk | can some explain why the world trade center building 7 fell over when a plane didn't hit it? like i'm 260 weeks old... | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/j3mvk/can_some_explain_why_the_world_trade_center/ | {
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"text": [
"Because it was hit with a huge chunk of debris from one of the other towers that fell.",
"You've heard the official story below. I will offer a conspiracy theory that I **DON'T** believe, just as an alternative.\n\nSome people claim that it was set off in a series of planned explosions, yada yada you know the beef. The reasoning behind this is because it contained a lot of information or something, so it was necessary for whoever the conspiracy theorists are blaming on that day to have blown it up too. They'll give you evidence of other buildings that have been impacted that didn't fall. \n\nDISCLAIMER: This is not my opinion, this is not fact either. 9/11 is a shady and shrouded event, so I'm just offering the typical conspiracy theorist view, which I do **NOT** share."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[],
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] |
||
1voolo | if a military vessel seizes narcotics in international waters, what happens to the drugs? who has control of them? | There was a news story about a Canadian ship seizing 280 kilos of pure heroine. What happens to those drugs? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1voolo/eli5_if_a_military_vessel_seizes_narcotics_in/ | {
"a_id": [
"ceubgls"
],
"score": [
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],
"text": [
"canada gets them, and they get incinerated. "
]
} | [] | [] | [
[]
] |
|
3lujxh | what makes banks special enough to be able to hold electronic money? what is stopping people from just opening their own accounts? | [deleted] | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3lujxh/eli5_what_makes_banks_special_enough_to_be_able/ | {
"a_id": [
"cv9ed5z"
],
"score": [
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],
"text": [
"Banks are tightly regulated by the government, required to follow thousands of laws and rules, and subject to constant inspection and detailed audits at any time. Therefore they are trusted to manage certain financial tasks."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[]
] |
|
61my2q | feminists often complain of a wage gap but i always thought (at least in the u.k.) that it was illegal to pay someone less for the same job as it was discriminatory. so where does this 'wage gap' come from? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/61my2q/eli5_feminists_often_complain_of_a_wage_gap_but_i/ | {
"a_id": [
"dffp98r"
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"score": [
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"text": [
"It's not illegal in the UK, the idea of attempting to align everyone's wages (both male and female) is a nightmare. \n\nIf you worked in an office for 10 years with only incremental pay increase, the company then employs another person doing the same job at the current market rates which could be higher or lower than what you are on. \n\nIn terms of the Wage Gap there is statistical evidence that men in same positions especially senior management get paid more than women on the same position. \n\n(grammer and spelling may be an issue, using mobile)\n"
]
} | [] | [] | [
[]
] |
||
33knzg | what are the post music genres such as post rock, post grunge etc.? | I have been exploring the post music genres more out of boredom but the definitions I've found on Wikipedia or whatever are a hard to get my head around. I've tried listening to the music but it just seems too big to simply define in an hour of listening. Any fans of the genre(s) want to weigh in? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/33knzg/eli5_what_are_the_post_music_genres_such_as_post/ | {
"a_id": [
"cqlxo8o"
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"score": [
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"text": [
"\"Post-\" means that the genre was created by people familiar with and reacting or responding to the original genre. The term often gets associated with a genre that superficially sounds like the genre that originally inspired it but which intentionally subverts one of the dominant aspect of the previous genre."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[]
] |
|
37zn1c | how did hacker(s) retrieve assumingly protected pictures from phones during "the fappening"? | What did they have to do to get passed all the security? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/37zn1c/eli5how_did_hackers_retrieve_assumingly_protected/ | {
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"text": [
"They weren't retrieved from phones, they were taken from iCloud. I read that one of Apple's APIs was failing to lock people out after too many failed logins, but I don't know if it was ever confirmed that that's what was exploited.",
"If anyone knows, it hasn't publicly been disclosed. Whatever it was, it probably involved a big element of [social engineering](_URL_0_) - basically lying to people to get the information you want.\n\nWhen a company outsources their tech support call centers, anybody can call up claiming to be Jennifer Lawrence and the person on the other end of the line won't know that this is some famous person."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[],
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"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_engineering_%28security%29"
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|
60dfnb | does bleach remove stains in their entirety or just masks the color? | I had a severe nosebleed two nights ago that got on my white pillow sheets. I threw them in the laundry this morning but forgot to use bleach, which resulted in them having some dark stains.
I threw them in the laundry again but with bleach and the stain went away. So what does bleach actually do? Does it remove the stain (dried up blood, etc) or just removes the color (dried blood is still there)? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/60dfnb/eli5_does_bleach_remove_stains_in_their_entirety/ | {
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"text": [
"My understanding is that bleach actually denatures/damages chromophores so that they no longer reflect any color or reflect colors we cannot see, thus why bleached items appear white.\n\nThe blood is still there, it's just that its color reflecting molecules have been changed so you don't see red anymore.",
"Many of the stains we get on clothing are due to organic molecules, little groups of atoms bound together in particular structures. Because they are rather large and sticky, they get stuck in the fibers of clothing or carpet and make stains.\n\nBleach is a strongly reactive substance, meaning that it interacts with the stain molecules. Frequently it breaks the bonds holding the atoms in the stain molecules together, tearing them into smaller pieces that aren't colorful anymore. These are washed away in the laundry.\n\nThere may be traces of the blood left, but most of it was chemically digested (broken apart) and washed away.",
"Most bleaches are very strong oxidizers that will break the chemical bonds of complex chemicals therefore inhibiting their ability to absorb and re-emit visible light, ergo whitening the stain. To some degree it may break molecules enough to make them more water soluble but that is not the primary way it removes stains. In any case only a solvent (like water) actually removes anything; active chemicals (like bleach) only react and change but you still got to flush what is left.",
"USE AMMONIA NOT BLEACH ON BLOOD STAINS.\n\nSix years in a dry cleaner... trust me. Bit of ammonia let it soak, wash and repeat if needed. Works on years-old blood stains as well.\n\nDo not mix with bleach too - it will *kill* you if you mix them together."
]
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[],
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4itzmg | what is the difference between "dangerous" drugs i.e. spice more dangerous than "recreational" drugs i.e. marijuana? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4itzmg/eli5what_is_the_difference_between_dangerous/ | {
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"text": [
"\"Spice\" is not a single drug. It's a product that consists of synthetic cannibinoids that somewhat mimic the effects of THC but are produced in unregulated labs with no testing. There are hundreds of compounds that are used as the main ingredient in spice. The general business plan was to develop a chemical that kind of feels like weed and sell it at gas stations. Then a law was passed banning that specific compound so they would tweak it a bit. \n\nThey have about as much in common with weed as sugar has with splenda. Both activate the same parts of the brain. But they aren't the same. The difference is that splenda has been studied extensively while the chemicals in spice have not. \n\nMany have been shown to have very serious side effects such as kidney damage and psychosis. \n\nJust smoke weed if you want to get high. Spice isn't worth it. ",
"Ultimately the difference is the dosage of chemicals used when achieving a high, or more specifically the LD50 (the does at which 50% of the test subjects died, which is loosely extrapolated to say a 50% chance of dying with that dose.)\n\nFor example the LD50 of marijuana is so large that it is practically impossible to reach before the body starts to degrade or remove the toxins where as something like LD50 for heroin is well within the practical amount used to reach a high and is therefor more likely to result in overdoses.\n\nThe various chemicals that are used in spice all have their own LD50s, some of which have a lower LD50 (sometimes much lower) than THC. Meaning the lethal concentration is now reachable. \nWith this in mind, the chemicals that cause the high may not necessarily be at fault but you also have to remember other chemicals get dragged along in the chemical synthesis process and the final product may not be pure.",
"It depends on the drug. Most often, one or more factor leads a drug to be considered more dangerous than another:\n\n1. Being more addictive, especially physically addictive (since withdrawal from some drugs can kill you).\n\n2. Being easier to accidentally ingest a lethal dose.\n\n3. Interacting with other drugs in a dangerous way.\n\n4. Having a more significant cumulative health effect over time (cigarettes are a great example of this).\n\n5. Causing more erratic behavior, which in turn can cause people to injure or kill themselves."
]
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[],
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||
1gwxdf | if the sun's gravitational pull keeps the planets in our solar system from flying off, what keeps the sun from doing the same thing? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1gwxdf/eli5_if_the_suns_gravitational_pull_keeps_the/ | {
"a_id": [
"caomjs1",
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"text": [
"The sun is orbiting the center of the Milky Way.\n\nAlso, note that even if the sun isn't orbiting anything, what is your measure of \"flying off\"? If the sun is going in a straight line \"flying off\", nothing much will change to us. We will still orbit the sun.",
"The sun is rotating around our bigger galaxy, which is rotating around a whole group of galaxies which is... Just keep expanding that until it burns your brain in the size and scope of the universe"
]
} | [] | [] | [
[],
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||
1mp2bw | what would be the implications from redefining the metre so that the speed of light would be exactly 300m m/s? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1mp2bw/eli5_what_would_be_the_implications_from/ | {
"a_id": [
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"text": [
"You could get with the program and define it as 671 million miles per hour. \nBut for real the SI systems units are dependent on each other so changing the definition of one unit would require changing every other unit of measure.\nAlso those units existed before the speed of light was known. ",
"The metre is actually already based off the speed of light. It is the distance light will travel in a vacuum in 1/299,792,458 of a second. I don't see much point in changing the metre to the distance light will travel in 1/300,000,000 of a second aside from easier calculation.\n\nIt is a fairly difficult thing to change, units, because a lot of things will need to be updated. Not only rulers but street signs, maps and lots of other units. Speed units (m/s) will need to be updated. Now we have speedometers and laws which need to be changed. Force units will need to be updated (newtons) as they are also based on the distance of a metre. This now includes weighing machines and various other instruments. Accelleration, force, speed, distance, pressure and many other units will need to be changed.\n\nChanging the metre would be about as hard as it is for USA to use the metric system. So why do it just for an easier calculation?"
]
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[],
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3mv69l | why is skin considered an organ? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3mv69l/eli5_why_is_skin_considered_an_organ/ | {
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"cvidimo",
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"text": [
"An organ is defined as a group of tissues that perform a function. or, as Google puts it:\n\n > a part of an organism that is typically self-contained and has a specific vital function, such as the heart or liver in human\n\nThe skin is \"self-contained\" in that it can be easily differentiated from other parts of the body, like the muscles underneath or the blood vessels that feed it. And it serves several clear functions. \n\n",
"Because it fits the definition.\n\nAn [organ](_URL_0_) \"is a collection of tissues joined in a structural unit to serve a common function.[1]\"\n\nYour skin is a collection of tissue joined together to serve the common function of protecting your body from the outside world.",
"An organ is defined as a system of specialized tissues that performs a specific set of functions.\n\nThat's what skin is. It's a system of cells that regulates body temperature and acts as a barrier to infection and a bunch of different things."
]
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[],
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"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Organ_(anatomy\\)"
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||
46crh9 | the physical makeup of tier 1 ip network operators. | I'm looking at companies like GTT Communications that operate tier 1 IP networks but have practically no assets ($44 million worth network equipment; no proprietary technology). I understand that they lease excess capacity from companies like Level 3 Communications in order to physically transport it from location to location, but don't understand how their network is physically setup. Is it really just a bunch of routers within a cage at various colocation facilities around the world, that have interconnections with each other and other networks?
Thanks in advance! | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/46crh9/eli5_the_physical_makeup_of_tier_1_ip_network/ | {
"a_id": [
"d047bbu"
],
"score": [
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"text": [
"They lease the lines and networks from other ISPs. They don't own anything but the routers they install at the users site(usually) In summary, you pay them more than they pay to lease the line. \n\nThey may have a couple aggregators or authentication servers, but can't be too many because 99% of what I see from them is our line.\n\nSource: I work at one of said ISPs who sells to GTT."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[]
] |
|
1cq8nr | when does murder become terrorism? | Are the bostom bombers considered murderers or terrorists? An why? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1cq8nr/eli5_when_does_murder_become_terrorism/ | {
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"text": [
"Terrorisom \nNoun\nThe use of violence and intimidation in the pursuit of political aims.\n\nMurder:\nThe unlawful premeditated killing of one human being by another",
"I always understood the word \"terrorism\" as using fear for the purpose of **coercion**. Kinda like blackmail or extortion, but using terror to get what you want.\n\nA murderer is not trying to coerce anyone into doing anything. They have other motives; sometimes just the killing itself. They may be causing terror, but not for some other purpose.\n\nOf course, nowadays it seems like they try to use the term terrorist based on just the causing of terror. Or on the scale of the crime. But I don't think that fits with the original definition.",
"One important thing to consider is that the Marathon bombers weren't targeting anyone in particular. They had *no idea* who their bombs would kill. We don't know what their motives were yet, but that fact alone means that they didn't have a personal vendetta against one particular person, which is what you would expect with murder. That leaves us with them just being crazy and wanting to cause a stir, and them having an external goal they wanted to accomplish. The first one isn't super likely -- truly crazy people tend to act alone, it's difficult to find someone else who is just as crazy as you are. That leaves us with them having an external goal they wanted to accomplish. And that tactic is known as terrorism."
]
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[],
[],
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|
1ra0sj | why queensland, australia, doesn't use daylight savings time? | Just curious as it confuses me. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1ra0sj/eli5_why_queensland_australia_doesnt_use_daylight/ | {
"a_id": [
"cdl3h5s",
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"text": [
"It's hot in Queensland. In the rest of Australia DST means the afternoon and early evening are sunnier and warmer than they would be otherwise, this isn't an issue if you're in Queensland.",
"There was a plebescite in 1992 and the population voted against it. There hasn't been enough call for daylight savings since then to justify having another plebescite. \n\nThe government could of course just introduce it if they wanted to, which they did on a trial basis for a few years before the 1992 vote, but it's just been too unpopular to do so.",
"They were concerned it would fade the curtains faster."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[],
[],
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|
3sxu2a | how does oman, a relatively small country, manage to stay clear off terrorism, even though it has its very own interpretation of islam? | [deleted] | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3sxu2a/eli5_how_does_oman_a_relatively_small_country/ | {
"a_id": [
"cx1b174",
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"text": [
"Socioeconomic scenarios are always convoluted but one of the factors is that Oman has a very solid middle class. There really isn't room for extremism to grow in and fester.",
"Islam is not a cause of the terrorism, merely something they use as a rallying cry. The Crusades were more about getting territory, and using religion as an excuse. Modern day terrorism is pretty much the same thing."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[],
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] |
|
y8sfk | how air is created | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/y8sfk/eli5_how_air_is_created/ | {
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"text": [
"The oxygen and nitrogen (that is what air mostly is) are created in the fusion furnaces of stars.",
"Animals take in (inhale) air, water, and sugars. They convert these into (exhale) carbon dioxide and water through very complicated processes in their bodies.\n\nPlants take in (\"inhale\") sunlight, water, and carbon dioxide. They convert these into (\"exhale\") air and sugar through very complicated processes in their bodies.",
"Basically, when the Universe was first created, the only elements that formed were hydrogen, helium, and a bit of lithium. The rest formed over time, in stars, and as stars exploded, they dispersed those elements across space. Eventually, the Solar System began forming, and chunks of rocks started to gather up into larger and larger chunks, and eventually you got something planet-sized. At this point though, the object is pretty big, and has enough gravity to pull in the surrounding gas, forming the atmosphere as we know it today."
]
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[],
[],
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||
3cadgu | why are we never woken up by our own coughing/snoring while we sleep, but find it hard to sleep next to others who are coughing or snoring? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3cadgu/eli5_why_are_we_never_woken_up_by_our_own/ | {
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"Well, it really depends, but, this can happen. Snoring occurs when someone cannot freely pass air through their mouth and nose, often there is a narrowing of the airway (such as overweight people who sleep on their back can have the weight of their neck on their esophagus which narrows the airway). If that airway becomes too narrow, a person will begin to cough heavily or stop breathing (sleep apnea) which wakes them up. However, as u/Mumblix_Grumph said, when a person is coughing (or snoring for the most part - not always the case), they are in a deep sleep and it is hard to wake people from that deep sleep.",
"I once work myself up. And my SO. With an atomic bomb of a fart. I burst out laughing at 4am as did she."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[],
[]
] |
||
2i54ke | how do hospitals quarantine patients? | When a someone contracts something highly contagious and they're admitted in to a hospital, where do they treat the patient at? Is there a separate ward where they treat people that may harbor really dangerous pathogens? Do they run off different ventilation systems? What about how they dispose of things (bedding needles, stuffed rabbits ets...)?
T.V. makes you believe that its just put in a big orange bio-hazard bag and chucked in to a fenced off dumpster. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2i54ke/eli5_how_do_hospitals_quarantine_patients/ | {
"a_id": [
"ckywrg1"
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"text": [
"Depends on the pathogen. If it's something airborne like TB, the patient will be placed in a negative-pressure room, meaning the ventilation system in the room keeps the air pressure a tiny bit lower (you don't even feel the difference) than outside, so air always rushes into the room and not outward. For a diagram and explanation, look at [THIS](_URL_0_).\n\nPotentially-contaminated items (called *fomites*) can be sterilized in the autoclave (a very hot steamer/pressure cooker/oven). Otherwise, they may be incinerated."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[
"http://www.filterair.info/articles/article.cfm/ArticleID/BC9AA829-30F8-4406-8FEE4A1E17574D6B/Page/1"
]
] |
|
3tdjo1 | how exactly can gps have a margin of error of only a few inches, when the satellites are 13,000 miles away? | I have a pretty sufficient understanding of modern technologies, but for some reason this has always left me perplexed. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3tdjo1/eli5_how_exactly_can_gps_have_a_margin_of_error/ | {
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"It's only inches/centimeters when you have augmentation systems.\n\n[It's not quite that low, \"normally\"](_URL_1_)\n\nSo, like someone else said, the satellite knows where it is. Based on the time of signal transmission, the receiver (the GPS on your end) can find itself in a spherical distance.\n\n[When you get a wide area augmentation system (WAAS)](_URL_0_) in place, the satellite can communicate with a number of base station that are in known, precise, fixed places. \n\nThey can use that information to then determine their own error, and transmit that error to another satellite, and transmits that correction data (through another channel) to WAAS enabled receivers.\n\nIt's ~~triangulation~~ trilateration based on distance (determined by time) from known points. Those known points just happen to be in space, flying around in orbit. Which is pretty damn cool.",
"Actually it's pretty clever.\n\nWe know the position of the satellites to within a couple inches because...\n\nWe know the position of ground stations very precisely. If you're the US military and have GPS receivers at known locations, you just work the formulas backwards to track the position of the satellites. This lets you derive the orbital parameters precisely, then those are broadcasted through the GPS network.\n\nLocal disturbances, things like the radio signals being diffracted through the atmosphere, are corrected for by using a local reference station."
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"http://www.faa.gov/about/office_org/headquarters_offices/ato/service_units/techops/navservices/gnss/waas/howitworks/",
"http://www.gps.gov/systems/gps/performance/accuracy/"
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1zqzhl | what is the difference between russia occupying crimea and the us occupying parts of the middle east | I am against Russia invading Ukraine, but I am in a debate with someone who is mad that Americans are so mad at Russia for invading Ukraine when they said essentially we have been doing this in the Middle East for years. Can someone help me out on how to explain to this person these two incidents are not the same! Thanks! | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1zqzhl/eli5_what_is_the_difference_between_russia/ | {
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"The Russians are trying to take Crimea and absorb it, which defies international laws. You can't just march your troops in to an area and throw down your flag and say, \"this is mine now\".\n\nWe were/are in Iraq and Afghanistan because they signed an agreement with us. Once that agreement expired with Iraq, we left. The same will happen in Afghanistan.",
"The truth is we have been doing it for years. US invasion is different though. We set up favorable governments and businesses in the country. Instead of outright conquering it we turn it into a business partner. Which lets face it, gives us all the benefits of ownership (resource exploitation by American Companies) without any of the responsibility for the local populace (who really doesn't want us there anyway). It's been the American way of Imperialism for years. It also happens to (sort of) keep other western nations happy because our business partners are their business partners, and their companies often get an in rode to the country as well.\n\nRussia appears to be trying to use a more direct method to retain control of a vital port. They are having the \"people\" of Crimea vote to secede from Ukrain and join Russia. The problem is a large portion of the \"people\" appear to be non-uniformed Russian soldiers, or possibly even just Russian civilians shipped in."
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3qieoi | how does an elevator get put in its "tube"? bonus points for telling me, how safe they are. | They always seem to be much larger than the doors which allow their entry, so how exactly are they put in place? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3qieoi/eli5_how_does_an_elevator_get_put_in_its_tube/ | {
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"Elevators are very, very safe. Short of the cable itself and the emergency brakes getting sabotaged (which I can't think of a single instance of) it's basically impossible for a cable driven elevator to fall all the way down the shaft at a speed that will kill you.",
"Oh my so many wrong answers here it hurts my eyes. \n\nThe elevator hoistway (shaft) is constructed by the general contractor. Its usually made out or concrete or wood, concrete the majority of the time. Once enough of the hoist way has been completed (ten floors on a 40story bldg, etc). We the elevator constructors show up and begin to install the elevator. First we put up the rails, which is the foundation for the elevator. Everything in the shaft is built measured to the rails. After the rails we install the fronts (doors). On cable driven elevators, the machine is almost the last thing put in, because its on the roof of the building. Once the machine is put in we start to wire the elevator up. Once all the wiring has been completed, all the doors assembled, we assemble the counterweight assembly. We then start to build the cab (elevator interior) piece by piece inside the shaft. Then we tether the counterweight to the car by usually hoisting the counterweight up. \n\nOnce an elevator has aged beyond its life expectancy, we modernize the elevator by removing controllers, wiring, buttons, doors, etc and install new ones. Usually the rails always remain, along with the cab/sling. Elevators are never broken beyond repair, we will fix them no matter what. Parts may go obsolete, but we re engineer new ones. Elevators cost a shit load of money and are vital to a buildings movement of people. \n\n\nElevators are the safest mode of transportation in the entire world. They are almost too safe in my opinion, so safe, that they now constantly break down and people think they're unreliable when in reality they are too smart. "
]
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[],
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8zi3v7 | - why does watching a movie that is scary to you make you stop thinking rationally and believe that you are being watched, stalked and about to be murdered? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/8zi3v7/eli5_why_does_watching_a_movie_that_is_scary_to/ | {
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"You're at a higher level of stress, you become more aware of your surroundings, begin entering into a fight or flight type of mindset and start down a spiral of paranoia and anxiety. Stress will make people do/think crazy things.",
"I do know that some movies use infrasound, it’s a frequency lower than we can hear. It’s said to give people feelings like something else is in the room, and this can be used in movies to express that feeling.",
"Good use of sound, color, and light can somehow break the barrier of the screen between you and the movie. A good movie will make you feel like you are a part of that world, therefore you will consider your other surroundings as a part of that atmosphere. Think about the fact that there must have been some really bad movies which didn’t really do anything to you. If every scary movie does that to you then I guess your tolerance and fear of death play the major role in the way you feel. ",
"Am I the only one that watches scary movies to laugh at the gore and horror and then be lulled gently to sleep, comfortable in the knowledge that none of that shit is happening to me?",
"All I know is the woman in black stands in my bedroom corner and the witch from the conjuring is under my bed just waiting for me to put my leg down or hang over the bed. "
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3reewb | if all the clocks in the world stopped for an unknown amount of time, how could we figure out what time it should be? | If every time counting device on the planet stopped for an undetermined amount of time, would we ever be able to figure out what time it is? Or would be just have to start over? Was there an instant when we realized that the present time was (edit: "incorrect")? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3reewb/eli5_if_all_the_clocks_in_the_world_stopped_for/ | {
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"We would still have the sun and stars. For known locations, you can compute the time using a sextant. The current international agreement on precision time requires precise atomic clocks and computers, you'd have to get that back after the mysterious alien invasion (or whatever caused all the clocks in the world to stop).",
"Back in the day we used primitive methods to determine the time. For instance when the sun came up, went down or was at it's highest. Since then the movement and position of most visible astrological bodies has been mapped. Just by peering into the sky with a telescope into space and spotting the position of a few astrological bodies, we could easily determine the time, since we know where they should be at certain points of time. "
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5w07im | why are note harmonies, specifically chords, "more pleasing" when at a higher pitch? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5w07im/eli5_why_are_note_harmonies_specifically_chords/ | {
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"text": [
"They really aren't, not as a rule. It can depend pretty heavily on what instrument or instruments are playing each voice of the chord. "
]
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bblzvz | how do people take these amazing detailed pictures of the sky... | Without obviously zooming in? Like there's mountains in the foreground (not zoomed in) but the sky above is really detailed. I know they use a good quality camera but how does it work that it seems to zoom in to the fine detail of some parts of the scene (the sky) and not others (the mountains) | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/bblzvz/eli5_how_do_people_take_these_amazing_detailed/ | {
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"It will be a combination of good equipment and, in some cases, overlaying multiple photographs. That's how images of the night sky are generally created - multiple exposures layered to enhance detail and contrast in specific areas of the resulting image.\n\nOften this can be done by taking two photos with different focal points - so for example taking one focused on the sky, and another focused on a tree in the foreground. Layer both images, and you have a final image that has sharp focus across all subjects."
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1xtqcf | the physics behind luge. how do the athletes strategize? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1xtqcf/eli5_the_physics_behind_luge_how_do_the_athletes/ | {
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"\"*Lie flat and try not to die.*\" \n \n\n-- Carmen Boyle (Olympic Luge Gold Medal winner - 1996)",
"All the track racing sports - bobsled, luge and skeleton, have the same basic strategy.\n\nThere is an \"ideal path\" down the track which minimizes distance and maximizes velocity. This track is slightly different for each racer based on their weight and their body dimensions.\n\nThe objective of the racer is to follow their personal ideal path as closely as possible. While on the track they have some control over their position to the left, center or right of the midline of the track either by steering with blades (bobsled) or by shifting weight - luge & skeleton. \n\nThrough thousands of hours of practice the racers have learned how to sense where they are in relation to that ideal track, and by spending hundreds of hours memorizing each individual track, the racers can anticipate where they need to be as they go into each turn to stay on the idealized path.\n\nThe hard part is that when you're going really fast on a slick surface in the winter while the wind blows and rain and snow fall being on the ideal path is really, really difficult. The tiniest variations from the ideal path cost fractions of a second and these races are won by fractions of seconds."
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2xpdsi | would a passenger in a sub like deepsea challenger survive if it was in space? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2xpdsi/eli5_would_a_passenger_in_a_sub_like_deepsea/ | {
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"remember in space material only needs to stand up to 1 atmosphere of pressure. That really isn't much 14.7 psi. Steel can easily withstand that. An astronaut would be able to apply more then 1 atm of pressure by poking a wall.",
"Probably. The deep sea certainly has much, much higher pressure than the pressure it would need to contain in space.\n\nBut there might be other problems... Seams which rely on external pressure to help keep them sealed, for example. "
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3ohrda | why is gay marriage still an issue in the 2016 election? what could a president do to reverse the supreme court's decision? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3ohrda/eli5_why_is_gay_marriage_still_an_issue_in_the/ | {
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"Nothing. But it's an issue because it motivates conservative voters. Even though the candidates can't do anything about it.",
"Republicans, by and large, are still opposed to gay marriage (and, similarly, abortion), even though very little can be done about it. This means that candidates still need to have a stance against it in order to be competitive in the polls and eventually secure the nomination. \n\nAs for what the president can do - nothing on his own. However, if the Republican party holds a full majority (House, Senate, and Oval Office), they may try to pass a constitutional amendment defining marriage as between one man and one woman. Even if the judicial system let that fly, though, it would almost certainly be repealed the next time the Democrats got into power.",
"The President, directly, can't do anything about a SCOTUS ruling. A Supreme Court decision like this would only likely be overturned by a change to the Constitution, like one that says \"The 14th Amendment doesn't apply to marriage contracts.\" The President couldn't make that happen, but as the effective leader of their party and the biggest voice in government, they could push for such an Amendment to happen.... \n\nOf course, it's really, really hard to pass a Constitutional Amendment. And a majority or at least a large plurality of the country supports gay marriage, so it's not likely to happen. Gay marriage isn't really an issue, but candidates are using it as a means to get attention and votes.\n",
"Marriage Equality is what's known as a \"dog whistle.\" Let's say in your state, the Republican voters are very 'meh' towards Senatorial candidate Joe Oldwhitedude. There are a lot of voters who aren't motivated enough to come out to vote for Mr. Oldwhitedude but they could be motivated to vote for something else that they do care about, and while they're in the voting booth, they may as well vote their party to give Mr. Oldwhitedude a push.",
"Aside from what has been mentioned, the president can nominate Supreme Court justices. Like it or not, the constitution basically means what 5 of the 9 justices say it means... so if there are 6 or 7 solid conservatives on there, theoretically, the decision could be overturned. \n\nI'm not sure how realistic that is, even conservative-appointed judges often rule in favor of gay marriage... but if you got 5 Scalias on there, yeah... it just might happen, and if there is an actual plan, that would be it as it's more realistic than a constitutional amendment (which is the only other viable option, as far as I know). ",
"Realistically, there's not much the president can do directly. However, there are 2 main things that the president can influence that may lead to invalidating the Supreme Court decision.\n\nFirst is, as others have mentioned, pushing for a Constitutional amendment that will overturn the Supreme Court's decision. Because of the requirements for a new amendment, that's very hard to do.\n\nThe other thing that the president can do that may influence this issue is appoint new Supreme Court justices. Chances are that one or more justices will decide to retire during the term of the next president, allowing the president to appoint a new justice. For example, Bush and Obama each got two appointments during their years in office. Roberts and Alito for Bush, and Sotomayor and Kagan for Obama. While a president can never fully predict how a particular justice will rule on a future case, chances are the president will select justices that have ideologies that are similar to their own. If, say, a justice on the majority side of the Obergefell retires, and the president appoints a new justice that would likely oppose gay marriage, and a new gay marriage case manages to make it in front of the court again, Obergefell could be potentially overturned."
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674iwy | why do police officers like donuts? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/674iwy/eli5_why_do_police_officers_like_donuts/ | {
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"Have you ever had a donut?",
"Most likely? Patrol Shifts.\n\nWhile things have changed, until the 80s/90s when the stereotype REALLY exploded, pretty much the only things open past like, 7pm other than ultra-fancy-restaurants were donut shops and little diners.\n\nSo if you're patrolling evening or overnight, chances are your only options if you didn't have a packed lunch were donut shops for cheap fresh snacks, and maybe a breakfast platter for lunch at 3AM.\n\nThe sugar and coffee also helps for the more stakeout-types, although it's not very good for you in the long run.\n\nThere was also no AC in cars before that meme started, so chances are if it was a scorcher you wanted to eat someplace cool as well.",
"Decades ago, the only places to get snacks or coffee during the night shift would be donut shops and diners. Since an officer would likely want to be able to get in and out quickly in case they're called to an emergency, a donut shop was typically preferable. Also, over the winter, a donut shop provided a heated area to handle paperwork when working far from the police station. All these factors caused people to associate cops with eating donuts. \n\nAlso, donuts are delicious. "
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9nw1ac | what's the modern use of thallium (ti) a chemical element not found widely in nature? | Since I come from Macedonia, a country in Europe ( The Balkans Region ) I've often heard some older people talking about this element and how it was once mined in my country in the Alshar ( Allchar ) Deposit in Southern Macedonia. This is supposed to be the only deposit on Earth that anyone knows of where you can find the element in it's natural form. It's usually not found in nature without a chemical procedure. Even today some politicians, scientists and mining companies are talking about this element and how it can be used to repair my country's economy and raise the overall GDP if they start mining it. So my question is simple, how beneficial and useful is this element for modern day use, and will it really have that effect on my country's economy?
Note: I'm sorry if I made some typing and grammar mistakes! | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/9nw1ac/eli5_whats_the_modern_use_of_thallium_ti_a/ | {
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"It's used as a detector, in the form of Thallium(I) bromide in X-ray, Gamma-ray, and infrared cameras, and Thallium(I) iodide is used in mercury arc lights to adjust the color and also in radiation detectors.\n\nIn general though, Thallium is really really toxic, so it's not popular and practically every application where a suitable replacement can be used it is, leaving just a handful a high end detectors still using it as just a coating (so a tiny, tiny amount is used in a device that's very expensive and few people buy).\n\nDue to its toxicity, I don't think it's really something that anyone is going to be mining much of soon, it has it's usage, but there is a big push to not put such a toxic thing in anything sold to consumers, the only place people would really be comfortable using it is closed industrial processes, but it doesn't seem like there are many that require it right now."
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22970o | why is it that my iphone dies before it reaches 0% battery, it sometimes even dies at 20%? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/22970o/eli5why_is_it_that_my_iphone_dies_before_it/ | {
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"If it dies at twenty most likely your battery is dying. ",
"Batteries don't really work the way people think they do. It's not a % based system in real life. It's not like a water bottle where you fill it up half way and that's 50%. Firstly a battery puts out a voltage, if it's a 5v battery for example it still probably won't put out exactly 5 volts. Your device that uses that battery is designed to run off a minimum voltage which is less than 5v. \n\nAs a battery is used more it's output voltage decays, a 5v battery might decay to 4.5 volts. All your phone battery indicators are doing is reading the voltage the battery puts out and then using their minimum operating voltage as 0% and the battery's maximum as 100. \n\nThe problem is that this is all a chemical reaction, you can't just stick electrons in the battery until you have a certain amount then use them throughout the day. The voltage the battery puts out is a function of the rate of that chemical reaction, when you charge the battery you reverse the reaction so it can go again the next day and provide you power. Batteries are designed to have as smooth of a decay as possible so you won't notice any non-linearity with your battery indicators. However towards the end of their lives that kind of goes out the window, the battery might put out 4.7v one minute then drop to 4.5v the next which to your phone would look like \"we're all good we've got 20%, oh no wtf happened I'm dead\". "
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1ca5ba | why do we have to mix and master songs? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1ca5ba/eli5_why_do_we_have_to_mix_and_master_songs/ | {
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"When you record an instrument, it will probably not sound as good as it could be. Depending of the setup, there might be background noise, the microphone might warp the tone, or it just won't \"sound right\". In the mastering phase, the sound is adjusted so that it will sound like it should be. As microphones are not hearing the sound like humans do, it will always sound a bit different.\n\nMastering will also be necessary if the recording has uneven dynamics. For example, when recording vocals, the track might not be evenly loud. To get the \"breathiness\" of the singer out or to cut the inhaling out, you have to use post-processing tools (like compression).\n\nMixing is basically just balancing the different instruments so that they sound great together. If you record a full orchestra playing a piece, you will want the instruments to be well-balanced, and to make the solo instrument come out.",
"I don't really agree with those answers, no offence anybody. I'm a recording engineer and studio owner, so I'll have a try.\n\nThe reason we mix music has always been the same ever since the multi-track recorder was invented. Because once we got the ability to do overdubs, which means the ability to play over something previously recorded, we got multi channels. In order to get this music to your CD player or MP3 player or what not, it must be summed down into 2 channels (usually 2, sometimes 6, but that's a rare case these days thanks to the ipod).\n\nWhat's changed over time is the techniques used to do this. if you listen to older music, say Frank Sinatra, for example, everything sounds pretty much the way it sounds, save for distortion introduced by the equipment used back in those days. EQ was avoided, and considered for fixing mistakes in the tracking process. A tool called an audio compressor(which limits dynamic range) had not been invented yet. And back then, people's ears were used to that kind of recording. But as time went on, People started to shift to a different sound. Now, if you listen to modern music, it's all very dynamically limited, meaning that it doesn't really got softer or quieter. Furthermore, everything is very separated. Ultimatly, our mixing styles changed with our preferences. For a further example, listen to stuff that was recorded in Britan, and it sounds very different than american music. What's the story morning glory by Oasis comes to mind. Those guys use a lot more echo and reverb than we do usually. \n\nWe EQ during mixdown hopefully not to be fixing frequencies in instruments that aren't good, hopefully you don't get stuff to mix that has errors like that in it. (which is entirely dependant on how good the recordists is). Hopefully your eq'ing the instruments individually to make them sit a certain why with each other. Like, I might cut some high end of some electric guitars and boost it on the bass to make the bass come out more, or catch more of your attention. Or I might add a little midrange, say 2Khz or 3Khz, to the vocal to give it a bit more edge and cut through the guitars better. Or plenty of other examples I could go on and on about. \n\nMastering is a different process where the mixdown is treated in respect to an entire record. Some things a mastering engineer might do are to level the tracks, so they are all the same volume. And decided the order of the tracks. And they EQ the tracks so that the frequency responses match, i.e. you won't have a tremendous amount of bass in one song, then a lack of bass in the next. \n\nA good book about mixing is \"Zen and the art of Mixing\", by a guy who goes by mixerman. A good book about mastering is \"The Art of mastering\" by a dude named Bob Katz. Both available on amazon.\n\nSource: MY LIFE\n_URL_0_\n"
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7jovg5 | advantages/disadvantages of a space station ( i.e. iss) vs. lunar base (cost, difficulty/risk, scientific value...) | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/7jovg5/eli5_advantagesdisadvantages_of_a_space_station/ | {
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"The moon is *very* far away. The ISS is close to us. It's longer to go from New York City to Pittsburgh than from Earth to the ISS. The moon is almost a thousand times further away. You could go around the earth ten times in the distance it takes to get to the moon. That means it's a lot easier to get to the ISS than to a moon base. That's a huge advantage when *everything* at this off-world base has to be brought in from Earth. You might be able to afford a dozen ISS style stations for the same cost as one base orbiting the moon.\n\nGetting people back from the ISS is *very* easy. You put them in an insulated capsule with a parachute attached and give them a nudge in the right direction. Getting people back from the moon takes a large rocket. It's expensive, it takes more math and navigation effort to get back, and more can go wrong.\n\nIt's also a lot easier to talk to people on the ISS than on the moon. You can do it with a much cheaper radio. And they can pick up your signal almost instantly. It's close enough that you can get internet access there. On the moon, you'd have several seconds of delay, and that breaks internet access. Granted, that's a minor annoyance.\n\nThe moon's surface is covered in sticky, sharp dust. (It's statically charged, and it doesn't have an atmosphere to erode away the edges.) This caused a lot of problems with past missions to the moon. The ISS, on the other hand, is subject to orbital debris. We don't have enough junk in orbit for that to have caused major problems yet, but it could.\n\nThe ISS can conduct experiments in microgravity. This is significantly different from Earth conditions. A lunar base can conduct experiments in reduced gravity. The ISS can somewhat replicate those with a centrifuge.\n\nA lunar base could be more self-sufficient if we developed appropriate smelting and manufacturing techniques.\n\nMicrogravity is unhealthy for humans. The moon has some gravity -- about one sixth as much as Earth. That might be enough for humans to live there successfully for a long time."
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1ocbbd | why is politics about being right or left and not on a issue by issue basis? | I'm not big into politics, that's why I am asking.
It seems that there is always this "Which is better, Republicans or Democrats, Conservative or Liberal, Right or Left?" attitude. What if you fall between them? Why isn't it "Most people feel like *this* should happen over *that.*" and that's what goes, instead of you have to pick to follow everything this person wants over what that person wants?
I don't follow politics too much so try to keep it really at ELI5, not ELI35 please. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1ocbbd/eli5_why_is_politics_about_being_right_or_left/ | {
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"It provides a framework for reasoning around certain issues. People have general, overarching 'beliefs' - welfare state vs. small government, personal freedom vs. stricter control etc etc - and these big beliefs tend to manifest themselves in how people approach more specific issues.\n\nYou are right insofar as it would be more helpful if people formed their own opinions about subjects rather than being bound by what they 'should' think based on their affiliation - but hey. It's a workable system for identifying where people lie. Considering the fact our parties and political factions tend to work along the lines of left-right/progressive-conservative, it's no wonder people use that as the basis for ideology.\n\nKeep in mind too that left-right is very much a Western idea too, coming out of the French Revolution. Many non-Western nations have a much less rigid idea of politics which aligns with your personal conception. :)\n\nTL;DR: it's a way of describing political beliefs in an easy, workable way, but it can influence the way people think about certain issues when they first encounter them. So you're definitely right in seeing a problem!",
"This binary attitude of left and right is seen in many political systems. However from my observation it seems as though American politics makes this distinction the most apparent. \nThe issue with this is that it seems to more or less 'divide' the nation when it comes to policy making. \nThe issue that the whole left vs right debate brings is that many people pick sides without realising it should be considered a spectrum rather than two distinct paths, \"which side/party offers to tackle the issues that matter to me\" rather than \"which side is bad and which is good\".",
"A couple of these things have been talked about but I'll shortly mention them.\n\nFirst of all, having one belief often means that you have other beliefs too. Everybody has certain views of the world that affect their opinions. Conservatives, for example, typically believe that people are responsible for the outcomes of their own lives. This outlook is seen clearly in the conservative party's opinions on many issues: the death penalty (they made their own mistakes!), food stamps and welfare (they should have worked harder!), healthcare (people should buy their own health insurance!), lower taxes for the wealthy (they earned their money!), and so on. One general view of the party is individual responsibility.\n\nIn addition, I think it is part of human nature to want to identify with a larger group. Some people simply choose to identify with one political faction.\n\nAll in all I think that most people *are* capable of thinking for themselves, and very few people completely agree with every single opinion shared in their political parties. The above just demonstrates how they tend to gravitate towards one side naturally.",
"Because most people don't think about issues individually, they think about them *as* groups of issues while *in* groups of other individuals. \n\nThey pick the 1 or 2 issues that matter most to them, say gun rights for someone who likes to shoot or abortion for members of certain religious denominations, and then choose the appropriate political tribe.\n\nThen, on all the other issues that they don't know or care about, they just agree with the people who agree with them on issue 1 and 2 since they seem like nice guys.\n\nHence political dogma and tribalism develop.\n\nAt my university you could generally guess an undergrad's political affiliation by where they bought their jeans. Certain views tend to match certain subcultures in the way girls match purses and shoes. Fashion and self identity play as large as part in shaping political beliefs as ideology.",
"I think the reasons would be shared interests, shared culture and outlook and the influence of the polar system in defining peoples allegiance to a 'side' and belief to its ideology."
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5gu63x | what's the significance of planck's constant? | EDIT: Thank you guys so much for the overwhelming response! I've heard this term thrown around and never really knew what it meant. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5gu63x/eli5_whats_the_significance_of_plancks_constant/ | {
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"The energy of a quantum of light (a photon) is related to its frequency. The higher the energy of the photon the greater its frequency hence their relation ship is linear and increases at a rate equal to Planck's Constant. \n\nEdit: This is one of the foundations of all quantum mechanics as we are treating photons as discrete packets of energy (quanta) and not just waves. This helps us explain some unusual but critical physical phenomena such as the photo electric effect or the uncertainty principle and much more.",
"This is from an undergrad chemistry text and it maxes out my understanding, so I'm sure someone will be along shortly with a better answer. Until then... \n\nAtoms can only absorb or emit energy in discrete levels according to their frequency. When a particle moves from one energy level to the level adjacent to it its change in energy, delta E, is equal to Planck's constant (h) * frequency (v). If it isn't moving to an adjacent level but some arbitrary level, its change in energy is n*h*v, where n is an integer representing the number of energy levels it has changed.\n\nSo, I guess I think of it like the minimum amount of energy between these discrete levels. Even if a particle had an incredibly small/large frequency, the energy it releases is still constrained to be in steps the size of Planck's constant.\n\n",
"Well, this is quite a difficult question. I'll try to give an answer that is not too mathematical (which I tend to do usually). If it's too complicated, I'm sorry. :(\n\nFirst of all (sort of historically), Planck's constant is the proportionality between light of a specific wavelength (i.e. light of a specific color) and the energy a single light particle (a photon) has. This is already quite a profound statement. Energy is usually measured in Joule, while the frequency is measured in Hertz (= 1 / seconds). That means this proportionality constant has a unit of Joule * second. This unit is what physicists call the unit of an *action*. For someone who does not care about the mathematics of physics, an action is quite an abstract concept. You could say it is a measure for how much dynamics a system exhibits over a time interval (precisely: It's the integral of the difference between kinetic and potential energies in a system over a time interval). An interesting fact is that your physical reality around is the one that has the minimal action that is possible.\n\nWhat we can understand from that really, is that Planck's constant can be seen as being related to dynamics of a system. However, it only arises in the case of quantum mechanics. I.e. it is what separates classical physics from quantum mechanics. Planck's constant sort of restricts this action in a sense. While in classical physics the action of a system can take any value whatsoever, in quantum mechanics you are always restricted to multiples of Planck's constant. In this way physicists say that classical physics can sometimes be recovered from quantum mechanics, if we assume Planck's constant to be zero (this is really only a thought experiment, we cannot change Planck's constant of course). \n\nPlanck's constant being related to dynamics of a system, it has a say in what kind of positions and momenta (that is velocities) particles in quantum mechanics can be. In fact, Heisenberg's uncertainty principle says that position and momentum of a particle are related such that one *cannot* measure both at the same time better than Planck's constant, i.e. the product of the momentum uncertainty and position uncertainty needs to be larger than Planck's constant. This in effect means that if you measure one of the two very well, the other needs becomes more uncertain (as in actually will take values of a larger range). It kind of means if you try to trap a particle in a very small volume, it's uncertainty in velocity and direction will become huge and vice versa, because the product of the two needs to be larger than Planck's constant.\n\nSo, in a way one can argue that Planck's constant really is a fundamental unit of our Universe; our Universe is not continuous, but rather grid like on extremely small scales (heck, Planck's constant has a value of 6.63 * 10^(-34) Js, which is so ridiculously small I don't even know how to give a proper example). And the size of these blocks is directly proportional to Planck's constant.\n\n\nWell, I hope this was somehow understandable or even answers what you want to know. This really is at the core of most of physics, so a proper explanation is always going to be lacking in some respects. If you have more specific questions, just ask. :)\n\nedit: fixed some 'typos'. Accidentally wrote Heisenberg's uncertainty principle means the product of the two needs to be smaller and not larger than Planck's constant (the latter is true).",
"Ok, if you want an explanation for a real five years old let's just put it that way.\n\nMax Planck showed that matter and energy are not continuous, which was an ongoing debate at the time. Planck talks about \"quanta\". He proved that the energy of a photon (particule of light) is equal to his frequency multiplied by a constant\n\n\n\nE=h*v \n\n\nE is the energy, h is Planck's Constant and v is the frequency of the photon.\n\n\n\nWhat that means is that a photon cannot take any energy value. It can only take multiples of Planck's Constant. What that means mathematically is that E/v is always a multiple of h.\n\nLet's image it : If the energy is transferred by packages, it can be transferred 1 package at a time, or 2, or 26, but it can't be transferred 3.6 packages at once. In real life, 1 package is equal to h=6,626.10^-34 J.s.\n\n\nIf you wanna know a fun fact, Max Planck was convinced that matter was continuous and he was the one to prove that it, in fact, was not. He was also a non-atomist but when the proof of the existence of the atom emerged (Einstein... U da best) he rallied to the atomist.",
"For many things that we measure, we can measure fractions of them – a quarter of a second, a third of a kilometer, etc. Some things that we measure can't have a fractional part – you can't have 1.5 atoms of gold, because the atom is the smallest part of gold that is still gold.\n\nMax Planck showed that things that emit energy have to emit it 1 photon at a time at a minimum, so energy is emitted in non-fractional amounts. The energy of a photon (a particle of light) is always a multiple of a constant, which we now call Planck's constant. In essence, measuring energy at this level is like measuring squares on a chocolate bar, where you can have 1 square or 2 squares but never 1.5 squares. The size of the squares will change depending on the color (wavelength) of the light. Emitting energy is like handing over a square – you can hand over different sized squares, but you can't hand over less then one square at a time.\n\nEach of these squares – the amount of energy in a given photon – is called a \"quanta\" of light, and this is the basis for the name given to the branch of physics that studies the behavior of atomic and subatomic particles and how they interact with energy: quantum mechanics.\n\nEdit: thanks to /u/sluuuurp for the correction.",
"If I'm understanding the explanations, it describes the granularity of the universe?",
"Before Planck, it was thought that energy, frequency, all of those measurements were a smooth continuous spectrum. You could always add another decimal. You could emit something at 99.99999 hertz and also at 99.9999999999 hertz, etc.\n\nPlanck realized there's a problem here. He was looking at something called black body radiation, which is basically an object that emits radiation at all frequencies. But if you allow frequencies to be defined infinitely close to one another, and it emits at \"all\" frequencies, doesn't that mean it emits an infinite amount of energy? After all, you could always define another frequency .00000000000000000001 between the last two you defined and say it emits at that too.\n\nObviously this doesn't happen. So Planck theorized that there is a minimum \"resolution\" to frequencies and energy. Through both experimentation and theory, he realized that all the frequencies and energies radiated were multiples of a single number, which came to be called Planck's constant. To simplify, you could emit at say, 10000 Planck's constants, and at 10001, but not at 10000.5.\n\nBecause energy, frequency, mass, matter, etc. are all related through other theories, this minimum \"resolution\" to energy has enormous implications to everything in physics. It's basically the minimum resolution to the whole universe.\n\nBecause nothing travels faster than light, and mass and space and time and the speed of light are related, you can derive things from it like Planck Time (the smallest possible measurable time), Planck Length (the smallest possible measurable distance), etc. In a way, it's basically the constant that defines the size of a \"pixel\" of reality.\n\n(Edit: a number of people have called out that the quantization does not happen at the frequency level. This is correct, but given the constant's proportional relationship between the discrete energy level of an oscillator vs. the frequency E=hf I figured I could skip over this and treat the frequency as discrete in the answer and move on. Remember most of the audience doesn't even know what a photon *is*. The tradeoffs over oversimplification for ELI5.)",
"Do you know how when you roll the dice in a board game like Life or Sorry!, the smallest amount of spaces you can move is one? Well, let's say it takes one unit of energy for you to move your piece one space, two units of energy to move your piece two spaces, and so on.\n\nPlanck's constant is like that, but for the universe. It says that the minimum amount of energy you can expend on (i.e. transfer to) a mass is a number \"h\", called Planck's constant.\n\n**Example for light:**\n\nThe energy of a single light wave is equal to Planck's constant multiplied by the frequency of the light (E = hf). Since (1) frequency is the number of times a full period passes by a point in a given time (usually a second), and (2) light in a vacuum always moves at the same speed, c, this means that, given two light waves of the same length, the one with the higher energy will have more waves in it. This obviously means that those waves are going to be closer together, which means that each wave is going to be smaller. Therefore, we can use another measurement -- wavelength (λ) -- which is clearly related to frequency, to talk about light. \n\nYou've seen this before without even noticing it. It's the reason we have different colors. Different wavelengths of light stimulate different components in our eyes, and our brain interprets those different stimulations as different colors. I could probably go on forever with this tangent, but hopefully this helps explain why Planck's constant has real, tangible meaning.\n\nSidenote: the \"h\" stands for \"help\".\n\n**EDIT**: Added an example and rephrased the second sentence to cover sub-hertz EM waves.",
" > your physical reality around is the one that has the minimal action that is possible. \n\nCan someone further ELI5 this?",
"Does thus lend credence to the idea of the universe being a holographic simulation? Could Plancks constant be the equivalent to our binary 1s and 0s?",
"TLDR:\nPlanck proposed that energy isn't infinitely divisible, that it is actually granular. Planck's constant is the base frequency that all energies must have a whole number multiple of (Planck's constant=x, a frequency can be 4x or 5x, but not 4.5x).",
"I think there's great answers in this thread, I am going to try to merge some of them.\n\nAs u/ReshKayden, u/Vindaar and others explained.\n\nLight comes in different frequencies, and though they can interfere they are different sources of energy.\n\nPlanck realized that, since many objects release light in a range of frequencies (for example a light bulb) you can filter out all the different frequencies of an object, and extract energy from them, if there are infinite frequencies then there must be infinite energy! This doesn't make sense (last I checked my electric bill my light-bulbs don't consume infinite energy). If there's a limited amount of frequencies though that would mean that we could spread them and there would have to be some \"space\" between them where a frequency cannot exist. You could think of this smallest difference in frequencies as the resolution, just like in a picture a pixel is the smallest space that can exist between two colors.\n\nNow photons have energy, and the energy they have is the frequency they can have. There's a proportion between the wavelength and the energy which represents the smallest difference we talked about. This is the Planck constant.\n\nNow frequency is measured in how many times something happens, and the energy of a photon is measured in Joules. Because Planck's constant is a proportion we know that *E=hv* where h is the Planck Constant, E is the energy in Joules, and v is the frequency, so in units *J=h/s*, this means that the unit the unit of the Planck(*h*) is Joules \\* seconds.\n\nWhat does that mean? Well think of energy as the ability to change. The more energy you have the more you can change. You can use the energy to heat up (or cool down by loosing it), you can use it to move around, to speed up or slow down, to change in color, to grow larger. So think then of the unit of Planks as \"changes on time\" a better way of thinking of this is \"an action\". Since plank is the smallest number of Joules-second we can see in the universe, you can think of it as the smallest amount of action possible (without it being 0 and nothing happening).\n\nOnce you are doing the smallest action you can choose to either change something very quickly and a lot, or change something very little but over a long time. That is at some point something has to give.\n\nNow why does this matter? Well the problem relates to how things see each other, and how they can interact. When we want to know how something will be, we need to know to things: how it is right now, and how it is changing (if at all). For example where the thing is, and how fast it's moving (momentum).\n\nObserving something is an action. In order to know where something is you have to observe it very often. Also when you observe it you don't want to change its speed, so you have to change it very little. The thing is that there's a limit to how small this can be, which means that invariably you will affect one.\n\nLet me explain. Imagine that the Planck constant was HUUUGEE, I'm talking about 1J-s (which is a lot of 0s larger than what it actually is). Now imagine that you are in a dark room, there's a fairy floating around the room with you and it's being an asshole. You want to get your revenge by hitting it with some balls you have.\n\nThe thing is you can't see the fairy, so you throw the balls around and hit the fairy. Each time you hit it you know where it is. The fairy could turn around between hits, so you have to hit it often to be certain of where the fairy is at any moment. The problem is that the fairy's cannot change its speed, unless it hits something like a wall, or your ball. The stronger it hits something the more it can change its speed. So you need to hit the fairy often, to know where it is, and hit it very weakly so it doesn't change its location.\n\nThe problem is that Planck's constant is 1Js in this world and throwing the ball is an action that cannot be smaller than it. If you want to hit the fairy every second you must hit it with at least 1J, which means that it's hard to know where it is, and its hard to know where its going.\n\nIf you hit the fairy more often to know where it is better, say every 1/2 second, you would have to throw the ball twice as fast and hit the fairy twice as strong, a 2J. Like we said you can't change something less/slower than the Planck constant. \n\nIf you hit the fairy very weakly you'll be able to guess the speed by seeing how much it moves. You won't be able to check on the fairy very often which means you won't get a good idea of where the fairy is at any moment.\n\nBasically observing the fairy is an action, and the energy and frequency of the action affect what you observe. Since Planck's constant defines a smallest ratio between Energy and Frequency of any action, then there's a smallest ratio of what you observe vs. what you don't. The more you know about the fairy's location, the less you know about how fast its moving and where (its momentum), the more you know about where its moving the less you can know about where it is.\n\nThis is called the Uncertainty Principle and it is one of the foundations of quantum theory and the universe.\n\nNow why don't we normally observe this? Because the Plank constant is very small. Humans can't do actions that quickly or weakly. Imagine the fairy again, but imagine it was 60,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 times heavier or slower (or a mix of both). Suddenly your 1 Joule strong hits would barely move it, and it would be so slow that hitting it every second would be a good reference. This is how things are at the scale we humans see the world.",
"People looked very closely at everyday objects and found that everything is made up of very small building blocks, like Lego. It's weird but it's true. When you turn on the tap and water starts coming out it looks like a very smooth line. But if you look very closely it is made up of many little blocks. The blocks are so small that your fingers cant feel each one so water feels soft. Mr Planck found that even light works like this! When you turn on a flashlight and light starts coming out it looks like a very smooth line. But if you look very closely it is also made up of many little blocks. Little blocks of light! Mr Planck's number tells us how big these little blocks are. Its very useful for studying the little \"Lego\" pieces and how they work together.",
"Well... You know how the earth is going around in circles... But the plank constant well... stays constant.. Like a plank",
"It is the smallest number that we should ever have to deal with in physics. If the constant was measured in observable universe diameters (OUD), any number smaller than the constant could not occur in natural physics. It doesn't matter if you're measuring energy, distance, volume, etc. All measurements are meaningless when measuring items below that threshold. Ever wonder where that fact that you only need x digits of pi to calculate the circumference of the observable universe with exact certainty? Plancks constant helped in figuring that out. \n\nIt also has a neat role in quantum physics, but that's not much of an eli5 topic. "
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3or2j8 | why do most us states and almost all countries around the world have a minimum age limit to purchase cigarettes but not a minimum age limit to smoke them? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3or2j8/eli5why_do_most_us_states_and_almost_all/ | {
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"You can't go after the kid so you go after the people providing it to the kid.\n\nYou can't go after the parents either if they got it from an establishment that sell them.\n\nSo you go for the adult that provided the goods. It all has to come from somewhere.",
"The entire question is based on a false premise. Many states and countries have laws in place that prohibit possession and use of tobacco products by minors. And likewise, many states have laws which permit consumption of alcohol by minors with parental consent."
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728hhn | why does wood get hard when burned for a short while, but get brittle if it is burned for too long? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/728hhn/eli5_why_does_wood_get_hard_when_burned_for_a/ | {
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"As you probably know, wood is made of a load of atoms, mainly carbon. All of these atoms are joined together by covalent bonds, which are pretty strong, but not unbreakable. To break these bonds, you need to reach this thing called an \"activation energy,\" which breaks the bonds, and makes the wood brittle, as it is not firmly joined together. The catch is, energy can actually strengthen these bonds, and putting energy into the wood without reaching the activation point makes it stronger."
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68b4lt | what's the deal with google inc and alphabet inc? why a holding company? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/68b4lt/eli5_whats_the_deal_with_google_inc_and_alphabet/ | {
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"It breaks up the financial burdens and responsibilites of the company making it possible for the company to engage in outside endeavours without endangering its core products.\n\nGoogle is Google. However Google is becoming so big, that they can't manage everything under the Google branding without some level of additional headroom to cover everything, especially logistics for a company with 70 different departments.\n\nSo Alphabet controls its lesser products and R & D that has developed over the past few years that doesn't deal with the core product of Google. Things like Google Docs, Google Search Engine, Google Adwords... those are all still under the Google brand name.\n\nHowever, products like Google Glasses for example, are lesser quality products that didnt take off, yet still provide a revenue base and need support. Thus, financial resources don't get diverted from the main company directly for Google Glasses, and legal concerns also stop with Alphabet Holdings instead of Google having to deal with it personally for every single project."
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4trkb1 | how can i watch hd youtube videos with no buffering, while imgur images takes forever to load? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4trkb1/eli5_how_can_i_watch_hd_youtube_videos_with_no/ | {
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"YouTube is owned by Google, Google has a ton of large servers and a ton of small severe places locally, with large amounts of bandwidth. Imgur in contrast is much smaller, meaning they don't have enough bandwidth to handle peak usage, which means every user gets a slow connection, even if you have a Gigabit internet connection. "
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km01z | how sailing works... tacking, luffing, points of sail, etc.. | I've been reading some [nautical historical fiction](_URL_0_) and although it's all terribly exciting I admit I don't know exactly what is going on most of the time they talk about sailing! | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/km01z/eli5_how_sailing_works_tacking_luffing_points_of/ | {
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"It's like an airplane, but moving forward instead of up. The point of sail comes from where the wind is coming from, and how you set the sail in order to create the speed of the boat. The keel (heavy fin looking thing at the bottom of the boat) keeps the boat moving in a forward motion, instead of a sideways motion in the direction the wind pushes you.\n\nIf you want to go to a certain point, there's a direct line between the point where you are and your destination called the rum line. You can usually not go directly on that line, unless the wind is pointing in that direction. So instead, you tack through the wind (or jibe, if the wind is at your back) to use the sail to power the boat as fast as possible. It creates a zig zag line usually. \n\nLuffing is when the sails are not \"full of wind.\" This happens if your sails are not set properly to where the wind is coming from.\n\nIt's hard to explain everything all at once. I truly recommend getting out on a boat and learning a bit. If you live close to any yacht or sailing clubs, they usually have \"beer can races\" during the week, which are fun races and often boats will be in need of crew, no matter how inexperienced you are. This is how I learned to sail and it was the best decision I ever made.\n\nSomeone else may be able to explain better, but I figured I'd give my 2 cent explanation, as it's been explained to me.\n",
"It's like an airplane, but moving forward instead of up. The point of sail comes from where the wind is coming from, and how you set the sail in order to create the speed of the boat. The keel (heavy fin looking thing at the bottom of the boat) keeps the boat moving in a forward motion, instead of a sideways motion in the direction the wind pushes you.\n\nIf you want to go to a certain point, there's a direct line between the point where you are and your destination called the rum line. You can usually not go directly on that line, unless the wind is pointing in that direction. So instead, you tack through the wind (or jibe, if the wind is at your back) to use the sail to power the boat as fast as possible. It creates a zig zag line usually. \n\nLuffing is when the sails are not \"full of wind.\" This happens if your sails are not set properly to where the wind is coming from.\n\nIt's hard to explain everything all at once. I truly recommend getting out on a boat and learning a bit. If you live close to any yacht or sailing clubs, they usually have \"beer can races\" during the week, which are fun races and often boats will be in need of crew, no matter how inexperienced you are. This is how I learned to sail and it was the best decision I ever made.\n\nSomeone else may be able to explain better, but I figured I'd give my 2 cent explanation, as it's been explained to me.\n"
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7hoeb4 | why do some people (like me) have to invert the y-axis when playing 3d video games? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/7hoeb4/eli5_why_do_some_people_like_me_have_to_invert/ | {
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"My friend says he does it because he would always play Kingdom Hearts as a kid which he said came with inverted controls.",
"Controlling a game (especially one with fast action) is all about reflex, you need the same experience across multiple games. See someone switching from CoD to Halo and accidentally hurling grenades everywhere when they meant to aim down the sights. With this in mind there's a chance that an early gaming experience was a flight simulator or similar, where inverted controls are used as they match real aircraft, and as such \"pull up, push down\" is ingrained on you."
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7zs9w8 | what is a 'superseding indictment'? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/7zs9w8/eli5_what_is_a_superseding_indictment/ | {
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"It replaces (supersedes) a previous indictment.\n\n > Like are the charges against Gates all dropped because of his guilty plea?\n\nGates has pleaded guilty to certain charges -- as part of his plea some of the other charges against him may have been dropped. He will nevertheless still have to be sentenced on the charges he has pleaded guilty to.\n\nI believe the superseding indictment was against Paul Manafort; it includes new charges, and likely restates some (or all) from the previous indictment (I have not actually read it.) It seems information Gates has provided has led to additional charges against Manafort\n\n*Edited for clarity."
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4up85l | how a computer can execute a program but not allow the source code to be viewed | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4up85l/eli5_how_a_computer_can_execute_a_program_but_not/ | {
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"Computers run machine code, which includes a very specific set of instructions.\n\nSource code is an abstraction of machine code, which is meant to be human readable. Computers can't natively run the source code - instead, a program called a compiler converts the source code into machine code.\n\nYou can definitely read the machine code yourself, but it will be very difficult to understand what it does, because it is vastly different from the original source code that created it.",
"The source code isnt saved with the program itself. When a program is written it is then translated into machine code. This translation can then be executed by the computer. You can actually read the machine code of a program but it is very hard to understand what the program is actually doing from just reading this. ",
"Think of the source code as a recipe. You go to a restaurant and order the lasagna. The waiter brings it to you. You get the food, you can use it, eat it, but you won't know the exact recipe based on that."
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1uhz42 | how come the visual quality of a youtube video decreases as time go by? | I've noticed that videos I've watched years ago are now grainy and pixelated. What causes this? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1uhz42/eli5_how_come_the_visual_quality_of_a_youtube/ | {
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"The visual quality did not go down. Most likely, the average quality of videos has gone up, and now that you have other videos to compare the old ones to, you will notice the flaws of the earlies ones. \n\nYou should be prepared to experience that again and again. I'm 34, and if look at the video games I used to play as a child...",
"This may be wrong, but Youtube's overhauls and upgrades of the video rendering system can lead to video degradation. Youtube doesn't keep the original file that is uploaded, but creates a copy that is in the appropriate format for the flash/HTML5 playback. When these standards change or are upgraded, the file's quality seems to decline."
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4asvag | . how did st. patrick's day turn into the get drunk holiday? | Title says it all. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4asvag/eli5_how_did_st_patricks_day_turn_into_the_get/ | {
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"It mainly boils down to the perception that Irish people drink a lot, and the fact that us silly Americans will turn ANYTHING into an excuse to get drunk. Look at Oktoberfest and New Year's Eve.",
"Virtually every holiday in the US is a get drunk holiday. That is a major part of celebrating. ",
"Because the Lent restrictions on drinking alcohol were historically lifted on March 17 in Ireland. It's a Catholic holiday, they were a Catholic country. So it became the day during Lent that you could drink.",
"Most of the answers on here are pretty good, but there's a few things missing so I'll chime in: \n \nFirstly, we don't know exactly why because St Patrick lived so long ago and most of the stories can't really be backed up with any hard evidence. \n \n### Secondly, St. Patrick was never canonized by the Catholic Church. \nNo, I'm not lying. I emphasized it just because people are thrown for a loop by that fact. Back then there was no formal process for canonizing saints, it was just sort of done by popular acclaim. But that means there's not an official date set for his feast, and we have no way of knowing if there ever was a St. Patrick's day prior to the 1600s (when the church added his feast day to the calendar). \n \nThirdly, there is a tradition that states that St. Patrick was one time staying at an old inn with some friends. The innkeeper was being very stingy and charging normal rates for drinks but then giving the smaller portion serves. St Patrick, noting this, persuaded him by talking about God's abundant love and how Jesus changed water into wine and the containers were overflowing. This convinced the innkeeper to not be stingy and (presumably) every one got wasted and had a Jesus is awesome Jamison Whiskey drinking party. (The Catholic Church used to be a lot more fun). Even if the story isn't true - it's possible the association of this tale with St. Patrick was enough to associate the feast day with drinking. \n \nFourthly, the other option (mentioned by a user on here) is that it's a solemnity in Lent and the rules of penance during Lent do not apply on solemnities. This is why you sometimes hear people say \"You don't have to do your penance on Sundays\". This is because all Sundays are solemnities. Even if this isn't the CAUSE for drinking on St. Patrick's Day, it likely helped contribute to the tradition as it would definitely encourage it. This is also why Mardis Gras / Fat Tuesday is a big party / drinking day. It's the last day before Lent where people could drink. \n \n### TL/DR: Most likely it started with an old tradition where St Patrick got a stingy innkeeper to serve more whiskey. The whole solemnity in Lent thing likely helped encourage drinking. Bottomline: we don't know for sure, but who cares? Drink up!"
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3f4jja | why do we see full trailers for a movie now, but the movie is scheduled to come out 1 year later? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3f4jja/eli5_why_do_we_see_full_trailers_for_a_movie_now/ | {
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"It's actually really flawed marketing and it's starting to change. If you look closely, you'll start to see a shift where now (especially in music) creators announce their projects a couple weeks (in movies sometimes a couple months, but still shorter than before) before they come out so the hype and excitement doesn't fade away. They realized that announcing it a year before gives people time to lose their desire to watch the movie. ",
"To drum up excitement and hype for the movie ahead of time. \"I can't wait to see *Action Man 3*!\" \"What do you think will happen in *Action Man 3*?\" \"Let's make plans to all go see *Action Man 3* together when it comes out!\"",
"I think it can work both ways, like with movies that are either big in nature or just part of a franchise that is successful and well known, (ex. Marvel/DC Movies, Star Wars, Jurassic Park) It can build up hype and suspense. Like DC is doing a great job of building up the hype and bringing people who aren't even fans of superhero related content but are still going to see it because of the hype. Same with Marvel. I realize I'm kind of word vomiting but basically, announcing it way before allows hardcore fans of those franchises to bring hype to lesser fans and even people who don't know or care about it, to basically make watching the movie the \"thing to do\" if that makes sense. ",
"One thing that nobody else seems to have mentioned yet is that sometimes the movie isn't even done yet. For example, during the premiere of the first hobbit movie, someone was running a disc with last-minute revisions to the theater as the actors were walking down the red carpet. ",
"It works like this for many, many reasons. I'm going to lay out a few, though I'm sure I am missing many.\n\n-It can take 3-6 months (sometimes even a year) to execute a good marketing campaign. They will need time to get build a following (grass roots, social media). They need to set up interviews for the cast and crew to get the movie in the spotlight. They need to plan and execute advertising – trailers on TV, ads on websites, etc. They might give some outlets exclusive clips; the film needs to be finished to give those out.\n\n-Even after the trailer is out, they might not have completed the film.\n\n-Plans need to be in place for distribution. Main distributors may need to see the movie to decide if they will distribute it. Once they decide on how many theaters, it doesn't happen over night. The theaters are already scheduled, so they will need to find a time down the road for release.\n\n-Many people – especially the older demographic – actually need to hear of a film many times before they can decide to watch a film. For families, going to a movie is a $100-$200 affair. Pay for the tickets, possibly dinner, or a baby-sitter. It's quite a commitment. They won't commit to something they heard of the day before.\n\n-For any films that do not have distribution set up, the film may be completed, but they are still shopping it around. To show that there is an audience for the film, they release a trailer to drum up support.\n\n-Many films want to find organizations/celebrities to endorse and/or view the film. For instance, a conservative-leaning film will look to be endorsed by – say – Glenn Beck. Beck won't endorse a film he hasn't seen in it's entirety, for obvious reason.\n\n-Sometimes a studio won't set a marketing budget for a film until it is complete.\n\n\nAnd many, many more. Feel free to ask questions!\n\n\nTL;DR: Marketing campaigns take a long time to be done effectively because they have so many moving parts that take time to set up properly."
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3ne8xs | if a teenager can be charged with child pornography for having pictures of themselves, why can't they be charged with sexual assault when they masturbate? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3ne8xs/eli5_if_a_teenager_can_be_charged_with_child/ | {
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"Because they've given consent to it as a sexual act. However, if they somehow did it against their own will, then they could potentially sue themselves. Even under the age of consent, they are doing it to themselves. Plus, the only people who could sue in the name of their kid would be the parents. But again, the kid is the one doing it to themselves. Child pornography is illegal no matter if you give consent to someone or yourself, or not.",
"Are thinking about turning yourself in?"
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367ae2 | why do japanese cartoons change their opening/ending so often (10-20 episodes) compared to western cartoons, that keep the same opening for many seasons (south park, the simpsons, family guy)? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/367ae2/eli5_why_do_japanese_cartoons_change_their/ | {
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"For anime, most of them follow a story, to some degree. If you want to watch an anime show, you have to start from the beginning for most of them, there is a chronological progression. Because of this, the new openings reflect the newer, upcoming story arcs, in non-animated American shows, most of them change their openings every season, with clips from the upcoming episodes in that season. \n \nFor American animated shows, most have almost no chronological order, you could have never watched Family Guy before and simply watch S06E08, then S01E03, then S04E12, and so on, and you can probably follow along almost perfectly, this can be said with pretty much every American animated show. The few that you can't do this are shows like Avatar (original and Legend of Korra), Young Justice, Teen Titans (the original, not the new Teen Titans Go bullshit), etc.",
"Funny you should mention South park. Although they keep the song, they change the scenes from season to season. Also the Simpsons, which has a different couch scene, billboard, and chalkboard every episode. The walking dead changes openings every season, sorta, because of the ... character changes.\n\nIt all comes down to how often their story/content changes. No sense showing kid naruto for 300 episodes, playing with sasuke and struggling against common thugs when it doesn't make sense anymore. They also do a lot of tie-ins with the music.",
"So there are three things in japanese anime OPENEINGS / ENDING specificly that differ from \"western\"\n\n- Music in openings ending is often written to be released as a \"Top 40\" hit on a national level. Label companies pay big money to get their song on a AAA Anime opening. (or even write one). so the show creators have incentive to change the opening.\n\n- Many anime follow a story across a season or even multiple seasons, not the normal \"every episode on its' own\" we have here. There is no chronology, barring a few exceptions (Avatar comes to mind). Anime do this more as a rule than an exeption, so changing the opening allows to show a new \"story\" arch to entice viewers.\n\n- Lastly, the endings (and openings) are often the place where sponsors for the show are displayed, these can change between seasons or even during a season if a show is designed that way. Changing the opening/closing reflects this change. \n\n",
"Most anime openings and endings have \"hit\" songs by actual artists. By having more opening themes they can sell more content as a result. It also keeps things fresh. It's also a culture thing within anime to have an enticing visual at the start of a show. As the season progresses, more plot and characters may be revealed and a new OP is created to accomodate. In some cases if a show is lacking, the only thing keeping the attention of the viewers is the hope of a new opening.\n\nIn my view, I think American shows tend to want their openings to be iconic and part of the brand so you rarely see a change even for near decade long shows. Not many people would download the the Family Guy or South Park themes to their music player for daily listening. Whereas songs for anime are in most cases already written and produced without the anime in mind and are chosen after if they are a good fit for a show's particular opening.\n\nMany upcoming japanese artists hoping to hit mainstream have an incentive to produce poppy and \"anime style\" music in the hopes that it is used and they are effectively \"put on the map\"."
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4zswa1 | are modern humans pure homo-sapiens? | Or are we a mix of Homo-sapiens, Denisovans, and other pre modern humans? And can you explain the differences of them and when they went their separate ways to the different continent? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4zswa1/eli5_are_modern_humans_pure_homosapiens/ | {
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"If you can trace your ancestry to somewhere other than Africa, you have trace Neanderthal DNA, up to 4% by conservative estimates and 10% by more extreme ones. We interbred with them after we left Africa, so therefore people who can trace themselves back to that continent would lack this admixture. You also mentioned Denisovans. Traces of their DNA have been found in some human populations as well.",
"If you are of pure European descent you have greater Neanderthal DNA and if you were of pure Asian descent you'll have more Denisovans DNA due to the interbreeding. Only a pure African would be 100% Homo-Sapien. Of course in today's highly globalized world I think you'll have a hard time finding any so called 'pure' groups outside small villages or other remote locations. ",
"Speciation is determined by the ability to reproduce and create viable offspring. Living things in the same genus can sometimes reproduce to make a sterile offspring, such as a horse and donkey making a mule, but only members of the same species can make a sexually viable offspring. That's how we know that nearly indistinguishable groups of animals are separate species. For example, we know that the rhinoceros iguana and the marine iguana are different species, despite appearing very similar to one another, because they cannot reproduce and make a baby that, in turn, can make babies. That is why any type of dog can be bred with any other type of dog and the resulting baby will still be a dog. Despite their physical differences, each breed of dog is still a dog, and can make babies with any other dog regardless of breed.\n\nIt is a fine line between physical differences and species. People can be of a different race and have different genetic predispositions, but as long as we can bang other people and make a baby, we are still all the same species. \n\nAs for us still being /Homo sapiens/, I dare say that we are because there is no other group in the same genus as us that is a different species. Despite our physical changes and differences, /Homo sapiens/ is the only member of the genus Homo in existence, and so until another member of said genus arises that is unable to reproduce with us, then we shall remain as /Homo sapiens/.",
"In addition to the neanderthal mix in Europeans mentioned above, there are also variations in certain subpopulations (such as the Aborigines) in wisdom teeth formation. Some people of European descent are born without wisdom teeth at all, which is progress because wisdom teeth are usually vestigial. So I would not say that the modern human is a pure homo sapien. We are constantly evolving. Having said that, it seems unlikely that we will ever call ourselves anything except homo sapiens. I think it's more likely that one day scientists will just come up with a new name for people who had wisdom teeth."
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2f4s41 | why do i get sick (sore throat, phlegmy lungs, stuffed up nose) when i smoke a pack of cigarettes of another brand? even lights of my brand to lights of another brand. | It seems every time I go to buy another brand other than my usual, I feel get sick almost that day, why is that? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2f4s41/eli5_why_do_i_get_sick_sore_throat_phlegmy_lungs/ | {
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"Different brands have different moderation of tar and nicotine. So, even though all brands have a type of light, one might contain more tar than the one you're used to. \nWhen you smoke, your body produces more mucus in an attempt to protect your throat from damage. So I assume that smoking another brand sets off a different amount of mucus because your body is already used to the amount of mucuses produced when you smoke your regular brand. :)"
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3snbuf | why do people even protest? | [deleted] | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3snbuf/eli5_why_do_people_even_protest/ | {
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"It brings awareness to the case (or cause) and awareness influences others in their actions.\n\nFor example Amnesty International campaigns for a political prisoner in a foreign countries far away. The raising of awareness brings people to think and talk about, which brings people in power to state their opinion about it, which (hopefully) causes the people who hold the political prisoner to release him.",
"A couple of reasons in no particular order:\n\n1. It's fun. Human being are social animals and for a lot of people it's fun to be out in the open air with a bunch of like minded people. This might seem frivolous but a lot of the day to day work involved in causing some kind of political change manages to be both mind numbingly boring and heartbreaking at the same time, and sustaining a movement long term means having these sort of \"fun\" moments as a break from the day to day grind of trying to change something from the grass roots level.\n\n2. It's a show of force. The March on Washington back in the 1960s had roughly 250,000 people in attendance, which is 100,000 more than the D-Day landings in WWII. Any organization that can put that many people in the street is an organization that the people in power will have to pay attention to. \n\n3. It's a beacon for the people who can't be there. If you're locked up in prison, or if you're black and live in a society where the police can just beat your ass with impunity, or if you're gay and growing up in a society where people won't even acknowledge that people like you exist it's easy to feel like you're all alone. Knowing that there are thousands of people out there willing to fight for you can be a big deal.\n\n4. It's a way to network. If you care about a given issue it can sometimes be really hard to find the other people around you who care too. Protests tend to be extremely friendly when viewed from the inside & are a great way to meet like minded people who you can then organize with in the future.\n\n5. it's expected. Political organizations hold protests because protesting is what political organizations do. Not all reasons are equally good reasons obviously."
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1oqx6x | where does societal pressure for women to shave come from? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1oqx6x/eli5_where_does_societal_pressure_for_women_to/ | {
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"It is important to note that shaving (what you shave, who shaves, how often you shave etc) varies from culture to culture and through time. My answers will focus on contemporary shaving practices of \"western\" cultures. But this will not apply to all cultures at this time.\n\n[This article on the history of shaving seems to provide some answers](_URL_0_)\n\n\"As far as armpits are concerned, we can pinpoint it almost to the day. In May of 1915, the upscale magazine Harper’s Bazaar ran an ad featuring a young model in a sleeveless, slip-like dress posing with both arms over her head...Well, up until that time, fashion – and propriety – dictated that women were covered to the wrist and to the ankle. A dress that exposed the underarms was nothing short of revolutionary...It also meant since underarms were body parts that had always been covered, whether or not they needed shaving had been a moot point and little discussed.\"\n\n\"Then World War II erupted, and that iconic pin-up picture of Betty Grable became part of popular culture almost overnight. It’s only a slight exaggeration to say that the women of America have been shaving their legs ever since. Why, you ask? Because Betty’s legs looked amazing, and to emulate that look, you had to wear a short skirt and sheer stockings. You also had to shave your legs, as nothing killed the effect you were trying to create more than leg hair poking through your silky stockings.\"\n\n[The straight dope](_URL_3_) says just about the same things with regards to women.\n\n[Wikipedia](_URL_1_) provides less detailed evidence but more or less states that women shaving their legs in western societies dates back to the mid 20th century (1950's).\n\n[Another blog stating just about the same thing](_URL_2_)\n"
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"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leg_shaving",
"http://www.womenyoushouldknow.net/pit-stop-a-quick-history-of-women-shaving/2/",
"http://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/625/who-decided-women-should-shave-their-legs-and-underarms"
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6q8ai6 | can a president in the us run twice if they weren't elected the first time? | For example if a president is assassinated and the Vice President gets the position and then runs for president the following term and wins the election, can that person run the term after that since they technically didn't run the first time? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/6q8ai6/eli5_can_a_president_in_the_us_run_twice_if_they/ | {
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"It's not about how many times you have run, it is about how many terms you have served. You can only serve two terms as president, and in the case of succession, like an assassination, the cutoff for deciding whether or not a term has been completed is two years. If the VP becomes president the day after halfway through the president's term, then it does not count. The day before halfway, and it would. ",
"The 22nd amendment deals with this exact question:\n\n > Section 1. No person shall be elected to the office of the President more than twice, and **no person who has held the office of President, *or acted as President, for more than two years of a term to which some other person was elected President* shall be elected to the office of the President more than once.**\n\nSo as long as its after halfway, it counts. ",
"The constitution is very explicit in answering this question.\n\nThey may not run if they've served two whole terms, or one whole term and at least two years of another (such as when the president leaves office prematurely).\n\nOnce they've met their limit they cannot run for either president or vice president and cannot be elected nor sworn in. They could, in theory, be appointed to a high ranking position early in the order of succession to the presidency and serve a third term in that way, but it would be *highly* irregular.\n\nA president seeking to serve a long time could also, in theory, serve one whole term and then resign a day short of 2 years into their second term. They could then run again and repeat that stunt until the public stops being willing to elect them. ",
"There is no limit to the number of times that you can run for president. You are allowed to serve 2 terms, with Vice Presidents being able to serve 2.5 terms if they take over from their predecessor after the 2 year mark. ",
"Certainly. Also consider Grover Cleveland, who was our 22nd and 24th president. He was elected, not re-elected, then subsequently elected after the 23rd."
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p97dq | — why is the christian year (2012) used by
everyone around the world, including jews and
hindus and muslims? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/p97dq/eli5_why_is_the_christian_year_2012_used_by/ | {
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"In short, because of Western-European cultural imperialism and dominance.\n\nIn what we now call the year 525, a Christian monk named Dennis the Short (Dionysius Exiguus) devised an era system based from the birth of Jesus, and deemed (erroneously) that Jesus was born five hundred and twenty-five years ago from that standpoint. He prefaced all years from the year \"1\" onward with the phrase *Anno Domini Nostri Iesu Christi* (Latin: \"In the year of our Lord, Jesus Christ\"), which eventually became shortened to *Anno Domini*, and then abbreviated as we know it today; *AD*. That is why we call the current year 2012 AD.\n\nIn the 8th century, Saint Bede the Venerable was calculating the dates for Easter, and came upon the necessity to tabulate years prior to 1 AD. He called those years *Ante Christum Natum* (Latin: \"Before the birth of Christ\"). He knew not of the mathematical concept of \"zero\", so the year immediately prior to 1 AD was deemed 1 ACN (later translated to English as \"Before Christ\"; abbreviated to 1 BC).\n\nThis system quickly became the predominant year era system in the Western world, and as the West's influence spread, so did the common use of the era. There are other eras in existence (Jewish year—*5772 AM*; Islamic year—*1433 AH*), but they are secondary to the Christian era for convenient civil use in virtually every civilized country on Earth.",
"In Japan it is now year [Heisei 24](_URL_0_). \n\nAll legal documents and most regular documents (like signing up for a video rental card) ask for your birthday in this way. New Years postcards tend to be about half and half, depending on the style of the postcard. I was born in Showa 44. I say it more than I say I was born in 1969 when asked my age.\n\nI am not saying Japanese don't use or understand the western year. I just wanted to mention that not all countries use the western year as their main way of keeping track of time. ",
"Jew here. We totes use our calendar for religious purposes. We use the secular time-keeping system for secular purposes.",
"Same reason the non-Norse use Thursday as a day of the week.\n\nAs it gained popularity, it lost is religious significance, and is now just a secular way of marking time. Changing it would be too much bother.",
"because europe conquered the world\n\nsimplest explaination available"
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1qxtpa | why are most popular websites created by americans? | If websites require a very low capital investment to start and anyone in the world can create one, why are nearly all successful startups and globally popular websites created in the US rather than somewhere in Europe or Asia? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1qxtpa/eli5_why_are_most_popular_websites_created_by/ | {
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"text": [
"English, plus the largest portion of internet traffic is American, so anyone who can appeal to the American market will find it easier to make a popular website.",
"In Asia, most countries have either limitations on internet usage/content, (ie China, S. Korea) or the internet is not widely used enough to encourage website creation. There are many many websites that are popular in Asia, but us English speakers aren't aware of them due to linguistic differences.\n\nEnglish has the second most speakers in the world, coupled with the technological assets of the US/UK/Canada, meaning that English websites are more commonly percieved than other websites in different languages\n\nTL; DR there are many popular websites around the world, we never hear of them because English"
]
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[],
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4umkw2 | why does copying and pasting large amounts of text lag computers when the actual transfer of files is so low? | [deleted] | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4umkw2/eli5_why_does_copying_and_pasting_large_amounts/ | {
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"This is a guess, but I would expect the problems to be caused not by the amount of data but by the formatting which has to be done at the receiving end.\n\nYou know how word processors sometimes suddenly shift everything along and screw up your formatting because of one tiny change? Imagine doing all that shifting work several million times.\n",
"Displaying the file (on your text editor) is different from just simply copying the file directly. \n\nThe resource intensive operation is drawing each letter, formatting etc.\n"
]
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6yn4uv | ; why is it that we can sense people looking at us sometimes when we are sleeping/dozing? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/6yn4uv/eli5_why_is_it_that_we_can_sense_people_looking/ | {
"a_id": [
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"You cannot, short of seeing them looking at you. You can sense *people* through a variety of senses, whether they are making sound, visible, vibrations, feeling them, or noticing the same as they disturb their environment. And it is not at all unlikely that, upon being disturbed and going to look at said person, they might look at you in return.\n\nBut any notion that you can 'detect when eyes are pointed at you' outside of direct observation, is confirmation bias or otherwise mistaken. "
]
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||
4dd5x5 | how do certain drinks help potentiate certain medications? | I am predominantly regarded grapefruit juice and opiates, however, I'm also curious about the unspoken rule about not mixing alcohol with medications. Does it dissolve pills faster? I'd like to know the science behind this! Thanks in advance. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4dd5x5/eli5_how_do_certain_drinks_help_potentiate/ | {
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"d1pvaag"
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"text": [
"Grapefruit juice potentiates certain opiates because it is a CYP3A4 inhibitor. In other words, it blocks the metabolic pathway your liver uses to break down many opiates, leading to increased drug concentration in your blood. Alcohol should not be mixed with opiates (or benzodiazepines or barbiturates) because they are all CNS depressants, so combining them can lead to respiratory failure."
]
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6md7cn | why do people choose to follow religion while no one is truly certain of their true existence? | [deleted] | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/6md7cn/eli5_why_do_people_choose_to_follow_religion/ | {
"a_id": [
"dk0p7m2"
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"score": [
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"text": [
"There's actually a reddit for \"why do people?\" questions: /r/WDP ;-)"
]
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[]
] |
|
a9w2yo | if i got millions of venezuelan dollars couldn't i just hold on to it until the value went back up? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/a9w2yo/eli5_if_i_got_millions_of_venezuelan_dollars/ | {
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"There is no chance of it ever going up. There is no value behind the Venezuelan bolivar, the entire economy is in shambles and the government deficit is massive, printing more money to fill that gap.",
"If... if it goes buck up. I have a co-worker who has millions and millions of pre Saddam Hussein Iraqi dinar and they are worth less than toilet paper!\n\nAnd less absorbent!",
"It is almost certain to be a constant fall until the currency is redenominated or replaced by a different currency altogether. If this happens with the current dictator or after a revolution is still to be seen, but there is practically no chance of the current currency recovering.",
"Over time the value of money only has decreased, as such I wouldn't keep on to the million dollars except for funny money.\n\nIn the country itself, after a event of a mega-inflation, the treasury can adjust the value back to normal numbers. They can do this by distributing new bills which have for example six less zeros but which are the same value.\n\nSo the old value is US$ 1 000 000, and the new value is US$ 1.\n",
"The currency won't recover because the government already print that much of money. It's like what happened if people managed to cheaply transmutate gold, then expecting gold price to reach back their pre-transmutation value.",
"When the economy eventually stabilizes, they'll just retire the old money & issue something new that isn't hyper inflated. At best, this will be a collector's item you could sell on eBay in a few decades because people think it's fun to buy 100,000,000 *whatever* bills.",
"I remember in 2003-2004 my buddies were telling me how I was going to get rich if I invested in Iraqi Dinar. It had to go up, once we rebuilt their country.",
"The current value of the currency already factors in the future expectation of value. That is to say noone expects it to recover. ",
"Why do that when you can buy Dinar?! Any day now...\n\n\nOk, jokes aside it's not a viable idea because their money is much more likely to be revalued in the future than return to previous levels of value. If/when revalued it essentially won't be the same currency and at best the old money will be bought by the government at the value of the old money.\n\nIt's why the Dinar *SCAM* is a scam. Even if revalued it won't be the same currency and therefore still worth less than dried dogshit.",
"Yes its called forex trading and it can be a very rewarding experience if you hate having money.",
"Almost certainly not.\n\nWhen a currency becomes worthless it’s usually replaced by a new currency after conditions improve. Brazil has done that a few times. The issuing gov will hold an exchange of the old currency (depending on circumstances) but that exchange is never 1:1. If it were 1:1 speculators like you would basically tank the recovering economy by removing the value of the currency you hold when you “cash out” your cash.\n\nThis is actually kind of a scam right now with the Iraqi dinar. “Kind of” because it’s really just dumb people fooling themselves. The dinar is almost completely worthless and has been for years, but diehard Trumpists are convinced he’s somehow going to “revalue” the dinar (which isn’t a thing) and make it 1:1 with the US dollar."
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5mhfby | why is "zero excuses" plural? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5mhfby/eli5_why_is_zero_excuses_plural/ | {
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"text": [
"Why is \"no excuse\" singular?"
]
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9foln8 | how does flea and tick treatment "prevent" or "kill" them for a long time period on cats and dogs? why are these treatments not used on people when you say, go hiking for example? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/9foln8/eli5_how_does_flea_and_tick_treatment_prevent_or/ | {
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"The treatment chemically sterilizes (they can't have babies) the creatures or their eggs by the chemical being present in the skin, hair, or even blood of the animal, so if they land on the animal they cannot reproduce and die off.\n\nAs far as people, the treatments often have side effects on the animals which people wouldn't tolerate, especially when most people aren't hiking often enough. Speaking of frequency, animals are much more often in contact with the ground, nature, etc and do not bathe nearly as often as humans. They also don't wear protective clothing. \n\nBug spray and protective clothing is the temporary human version of flea and tick treatment that makes it so putting those harmful chemicals in our bodies month after month is not necessary. (Also bug spray isn't even really healthy for us!)",
"Ina flea infestation, be it on a dog or in your yard or your living room, it is known that roughly 1% of that population is in the adult stage. For this 1% the product has an adulticide. So clearly we need to effect the youngster who comprise 99$% of the population. This is done by adding an insect growth regulator.\n\n & #x200B;\n\nAn insect growth regulator works in several ways depending on the formulation. Here are the most common:\n\n & #x200B;\n\n1. Chitin inhibitor: Chitin ( pronounced KY-tin) is a substance much like human fingernails. Insects use this to make their hard outer skin (exoskeleton.) By stopping an insect from producing chitin, it dies in one of two ways. As the insect in it's infancy life stages (larvae, and pupae in the case of fleas) grows larger it needs a new , larger exoskeleton. As there is no chitin now produced, the insect will out grow it's old exoskeleton and be physically crushed by that now too small exoskeleton ...or it will tear it's old exoskeleton away and have no new exoskeleton. Then it will just lay there like a bag of water as it's muscles will have no skeleton to attach to. It eventually dies of starvation or desiccation (drying out.) A third way such an insect dies is that, when trying to leave it's old exoskeleton, it tears it's self and will desiccate.\n2. Some insect growth sterilizes the adults. and soon there after any pupa emerging into adulthood.\n\n & #x200B;\n\n3. There are products that effect the egg directly but these products are severely restricted as they are environmentally persistent and effect the eggs of non target species (especially reptiles, amphibian and avian (birds.) I know the mass of this class of Insect Growth Regulators were banned in the U.S. in the early 70's but it's possible a small amount is still made for research and/or medical purposes.\n\n & #x200B;"
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5dk07e | what is the difference between apa and mla? why do we use apa at times and for others we use mla? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5dk07e/eli5_what_is_the_difference_between_apa_and_mla/ | {
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"APA stands for the American Psychology Association (I believe) and provides citation information that includes the dates of relevant information, such as research and case studies. This style is most often use in the fields of medicine or any research-based field where the date of the research/information affects the credibility of the claim being made. For example, if you're writing about research on cures for cancer, the more recent research will be less proven but more leading edge.\n\nMLA stands for Modern Language Association. The documentation style is used for art and literary studies because it emphasizes the author as the most important information. This makes sense because if you are studying a piece of Van Gogh's art or reading a play but Shakespeare WHO wrote of created the piece is the most significant detail.\n\nThere are other styles as well, intended for other fields, such as Chicago Style for history and EEEI for engineering."
]
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1ebkd7 | what all this amy's bakery drama is about? | edit: sorry! to clarify, I've seen various screenshots of the Amy's Bakery page on facebook and references to it on reddit and it's all very confusing for this OP | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1ebkd7/eli5what_all_this_amys_bakery_drama_is_about/ | {
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"I believe you're referring to the place that was featured on Kitchen Nightmares last Friday? If so, I can explain. If not, then I have no idea...",
"Amy's Baking Company was featured on Kitchen Nightmares, a show in which Chef Gordon Ramsay visits failing restaurants and whips them into shape with his culinary and business acumen to rescue them from closing.\n\nHe visited Amy's Baking Company, a spot in Arizona owned by a husband and wife duo who were convinced that they were besieged by some kind of plot by \"Yelpers\" to flood them with bad reviews out of spite as some sort of cyber bullying attack.\n\nThe service was slow, the food was bad, and Gordon identified the same basic issues he finds in most every restaurant. The owners, though, refused to take the criticism and screamed at Gordon, their staff, their customers, and each other. \n\nThroughout the course of the episode it was revealed that the chef had no training, the food was frozen but marketed as fresh, the owners would pocket servers' tips, only the husband was allowed to access the cash register (leading to accusations on reddit of money laundering), the restaurant has gone through 100+ wait staff/bussers in a year, and the husband would threaten people with violence for sending their food back. It was like watching a comedy skit about the worst restaurant people could think of.\n\nGordon made the decision to cut the episode short and walk out, since every time he said something the wife/chef would react incredibly poorly and scream about being oppressed/bullied. \n\nOnce the show hit the air, people started flooding the restaurant's facebook page with fake reviews. The owners responded as poorly as you'd expect and continued threatening, cursing, and invoking god against the \"yelpers\" and \"reddits\" terrorizing them.\n\nAll in all it was a glimpse of two people with mental illness and how they react when the entire world seems to decide to fuck with them. Hope that helps.",
"She's a poopy head. ",
"I can't believe I'm watching this... How are these people in business!?",
"Delusional crackpot had this fantasy that Ramsay would come and tell her how wonderful and right she is against all the \"haters\" and \"losers\" who dared to give her restaurant bad reviews or tell her her food was undercooked, because cooking is her god-given talent and a real chef would certainly recognize that.",
"I have to say that I completely disagree with the mental illness claims. Being a spoiled, cheating asshole who throws a tantrum when you don't hear what you want doesn't fall under mental illness. They're definitely insane, just not clinically lol and now their getting the megadose of humble pie they clearly needed (probably more than they needed but karma is a bitch so they're just getting back all the bad they put out). And I bet there's already cameras rolling up in front of the bakery ready to film a reality show! ",
"Isn't there something legal that can be done about this company? I mean - is it unethical or is it **illegal** to take tips from employees and verbally abuse staff and customers?\n\nThe workplace laws and enforcers I have in my country would send these people a hefty fine for the shit they do. ",
"I love how Gordon and the one waitress are sympathizing with each other on how horrible the food is.",
"6 Reasons Why It Was Okay To Ridicule Samy And Amy Bouzaglo For Their Facebook Meltdown (PHOTOS)\n\n_URL_0_",
"I do see the irony. The world really is out to get them now. ",
"Thank you. I definitely needed this. Upvote. "
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"http://www.carbonated.tv/entertainment/6-reasons-why-it-was-okay-to-ridicule-the-owners-of-amys-baking-company-bakery-boutique-bistro-for-their-facebook-meltdown-photos"
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1vnb1k | how are we able to see other planets like we see stars? | I saw the picture of Earth, Jupiter, and Venus as seen from mars and was wondering how it's possible. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1vnb1k/how_are_we_able_to_see_other_planets_like_we_see/ | {
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"text": [
"Because of the Sun. The Sun gives off light and the planets reflect it. ",
"We can see planets for the exact same reason we see the moon. The process is exactly the same, except an optical aid of some sort is required to see them with the same clarity as they are so much farther away."
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5k39ta | why can you just right click on a picture and save it but when you want to save a video you have to open a separate webpage that allows you to download the video, enter in the url and hit download? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5k39ta/eli5_why_can_you_just_right_click_on_a_picture/ | {
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"text": [
"Because you aren't using a browser that lets you do that.\n\nOr because you are using a website that has written some script to prevent you from doing it, because the site wants to make it difficult for you to save its videos, and you haven't overridden the script with your browser.",
"No reason other than the coders of the browser don't make it an option. If it was an option by default in the common browsers, you can bet using Flash and HTML players, coders would specifically code around that (by intercepting the right click) to avoid downloads/copyright infringing re-uploads."
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5l8aff | what prozac (or fluoxetine) is really made of. | I'm trying to get a better understanding about what exactly Prozac (or its generic Fluoxetine) is made of. I have looked into it and have gotten a list of chemicals but no explanation as to where these chemicals come from or why there are "inactive" ingredients (if it's inactive, why is it there at all)? Thanks in advance for any additional info. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5l8aff/eli5_what_prozac_or_fluoxetine_is_really_made_of/ | {
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"The active ingredient is almost certainly synthesized in a lab. It will take more digging than I have the time for to find the actual publication explaining how it is synthesized. This is the oldest article on PubMed that comes up regarding fluoxetine synthesis: _URL_0_\n\nThe majority of the inactive ingredients are included because while they are inactive from a psychotropic standpoint, they are important for proper delivery of the actual fluoxetine. The fluoxetine inside the pill and the pill itself has to remain stable for several months - it would be too costly to synthesize fluoxetine pills de novo every time they are prescribed. The pill must then survive being swallowed, traveling down the esophagus, and through the stomach so that the fluoxetine can be absorbed into the blood stream via your small intestine. If you're taking the extended release form, then the rate the pill dissolves is important for controlling the levels in your blood.\n\nThen there's also the food coloring to give the pill some sort of color."
]
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6f8yel | why is australia so regressive on the issue of climate change | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/6f8yel/eli5_why_is_australia_so_regressive_on_the_issue/ | {
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"Coal exports are Australia's second-largest source of export income, after iron ore exports. When you're selling coal, it's hard to say \"Climate change is really important.\" You don't want carbon taxes, then people won't buy your carbon!"
]
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4590jx | how are superdelegates justified in a democracy? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4590jx/eli5how_are_superdelegates_justified_in_a/ | {
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"It's important to remember that the Republican and Democratic parties are not part of the government. They are private institutions, free to run their internal primaries however they like. That's all this whole primary season is, each party selecting a candidate internally. This means that they can use whatever method makes their members happy, like superdelegates.\n\nEDIT: some continuing thoughts from the conversation below. Lots of people are hung up on the idea that our system should be perfectly democratic. \n\nHowever, this really isn't the case, as several key parts of our government are undemocratic specifically to protect us from the tyranny of the majority. We have appointed SC Justices, which is a very undemocratic system. We elect officials to draft, pass, and implement new laws and regulations without getting to vote on each item individually. \n\nI'm not saying that the superdelegate system is perfect or necessary, but it seems to me that demanding a perfectly democratic system at every step of the candidate selection process is a bit extreme.",
"Being the candidate chosen by a political party isn't a government office, it's a position chosen by a private group of citizens, so they're allowed to choose them by whatever method they like. Their goal is to use a process that gives them the best chance that their candidate will win whatever election they're running in, and they think that having some high-level party members be part of the selection process will choose better candidates than not having them would.",
"Superdelegates were created in the agreements that allowed primary votes to be the main factor in selecting the presidential candidates. Most of the people who serve as superdelegates previously had *all* the say in choosing presidential candidates (the parties are private organizations and can freely choose their candidate through any means they wish). Reducing their influence to 15% was a massive concession and was enough to get the deal made to give primary elections 85% of the influence in the Democratic party. ",
"Political Parties are not public organizations, they can decide how they get to nominate their candidates. The Democratic Party uses superdelegates in presidential races to balance the popular vote with the will of the party (which has the most at stake).",
"Superdelegates are justified because insiders and government elites have information and perspectives the common people do not. This voting block is to help stave off party catastrophe's that can occur when the people end up supporting someone who is ultimately unelectable against the respective competition. \n\nAlso, the Republican Party has its own rules, relying less on something like 'superdelegates', but giving bonus votes to those states which voted Republican in the last presidential election, on the grounds that those states are thus more representative of the Republican Party. That may be true, but the result is that moderates have fewer votes and it gives the dominant conservative section of the party somewhat more votes in the nomination.\n\nFinally, typically, most of the states' primaries don't even matter, and a frontrunner has won enough states that by, or after, 'Super Tuesday' (a day where a number of mostly Southern states vote together, early in the race), a nominee for each party has essentially been decided. Attempts have been made to fix this odd inequality, and we can hope that will eventually happen, but nothing has been close to successful, so far.",
"They're not, in theory. But both the democratic and republican party are a private organization, so they can do whatever they want.\n\nDoesn't make a lot of sense that the guy with the most votes can still lose, but that's the system the americans created and are subscribed to.",
"Primaries are not an official part of our democracy. They're for the parties to pick the people who will run in the *actual* election.\n\nSo they can do whatever they like. Lot of the smaller parties don't even bother with a primary.",
"For context, there is a traditional fear of mob-rule, popular incompetence etc., and this is enshrined in constitutional in governing rules like the electoral college, and in a representative government itself, versus direct democracy. \n\nAs is stated by others, parties are not bound by constitutional law, but, like the constitution, rules are designed to give power to voters, but with a check on that power in case of emergency. ***The justification, warranted or not, is that if somebody like Adolf Hitler were to run, he could not be stopped if he had 50+1% of popular support.***\n\nAnd to be clear, this system is a lot more democratic than it was in previous times, when delegates at conventions largely decided nominees.\n\nIn the modern era, there has not been a time(that I'm aware of) that the delegates have been decisive in deciding a different nominee, different than the popular vote. ",
"What make you think you live in a democracy?",
"Political parties are private organizations. They do their best to identify the candidate that can carry the platform forward, attract voter support, and attract donors.\n\nSuperdelegates in the Democratic Party are usually elected officials at the federal level (do not hold me to that strictly) who can drum up voters and money. They have a huge influence on voters and donors so they get a bigger say on who the party nominee is.",
"This two party system and petty partisanship in general is not justified in a democracy.\n\nI believe George Washington gave a similar warning in his farewell address.",
"They exist because the primary season is choosing a representative for a private organization (the Democratic Party in this case).\n\nTheir purpose is to ensure that the party has some level of control over the nomination in case something happens during the primary. This isn't about throwing a primary to a losing candidate (which is what everyone is currently losing their minds about), but more about consolidating support.\n\nThis makes sense in several situations, such as:\n\n1. The leading candidate in the delegate count murders a baby (or equally auto-losing actions) in the last month of the primary season. Many states require their delegates to vote according to how their state voted no matter what (this part is weird because hypothetically they could vote for whoever without these rules, but normally 1-2 random defections don't matter). Having super-delegates helps to prevent a literally un-electable candidate from being the nominee.\n\n2. In a multiple way race (3-5 semi-viable candidates), super-delegates can help prevent or minimize the carnage that would be a brokered convention would turn into. By being able to swing a chunk of the votes to the leading candidate, it solidifies their position going in and makes it easier for support to quickly move to them.\n\nReally, the long and short of it is that our primary system is dumb.",
"Can you eli5 what a superdelgate is? ",
"It is easiest to think of political parties as private clubs voting for who gets to be King of the Tree House this week. They can make up any rules they want, and have no obligations to the general public.\n\nSuperdelegates are a way of saying, \"since the tree house is in my yard, me and my little brother each get two votes.\"",
"It's a Republic not a Democracy. Check your Constitution and Bill of Rights....anything about a right to vote? Shoot! Well the founding fathers were perfect so it must not matter.",
"The Democratic Party instituted a system of \"Super Delegates\" in its Primaries in 1982, following many of the recommendations of the [Hunt Commission.](_URL_1_)\n\nOne of the goals of this Commission, and of Super Delegates more generally, was to allow Party officials to exert more control over the nomination process. After a series of poor showings following the 1968 Presidential Election (and the ensuing [McGovern-Fraser Commission](_URL_0_)) the Democratic Party saw a need for major reform.\n\nParty Officials sought this additional influence in order to ensure whomever received the Democratic nomination had the best possible chance of winning.\n\nIs this undemocratic? In a sense, yes; one recent estimate put each Super Delegate's vote as equivalent to approximately 10,000 primary voters.\n\nHowever, it's a bit more complicated than that. The majority of these Super Delegates have been democratically elected (Congressmen, Governors, etc...). One could certainly make the case that by voting for a candidate for these offices, a voter is demonstrating their confidence in said candidate to choose wisely.",
"Mostly it's a hold over from before the information age.\n\nThe single most important element of any election is the result. Any election without a result is hugely problematic. So the system was laid out back when transportation and communication where difficult.\n\nSo imagine it before highways and jumbo jets and telephones...\n\nWe here in our town or county or whatever all get together and decide who and what we want, and we tell our delegate Bob. Bob gets on his horse and rides to the convention. At the convention Bob \"must\" vote the way we told him, at least at first. We've delegated Bob as an intermediary because the entire town, region, state can't all go to the convention and vote.\n\nNow the first vote usually settles things and Bob comes home. But if the vote is a tie or there are issues, then the delegates vote again. Issues were way likely as getting to the convention by the required date via horse might not be as reliable as me driving down to the Circle-K today. So issues might be \"not enough delegates showed up\" or \"there was a tie\".\n\nFinally, if none of the directed votes, the votes where Bob _must_ vote exactly as told, reach a valid result... what do you do?\n\nRather than sending Bob home and then starting from scratch hoping that some of the same people vote differently to break the tie... We empower Bob to negotiate and vote.\n\nAnd so the delegate system was designed and is intended to make sure that _some_ answer is reached rather than leaving a no-answer-at-all discontinuity in the process.\n\nThe same thing holds for the \"Electoral College\".\n\nYour delegates are your tie-breaking representative weasel thugs who will figure it out if it gets to WTF.\n\nSo you are _supposed_ to not just be voting for the candidate, whom you probably don't know that well, but also choosing between \"Honest Bob\" and \"Honest Ted\" whom you theoretically know better.\n\nSo if there is a polarizing issue or two, and you know Bob would never back down on Hog Gestation Crates, and you know Ted would never back down on Erosion Abatement, then you know what the fallback debate will and wont bring to the table.\n\nThis is also why the Delegates are not chosen at random, because while they _must_ vote as directed at first, if you send the Green to the GOP convention and you end up in fallback debates you might not get anywhere near your intended result.\n\nWith modern technology where we can effectively count the popular vote with reliability (assuming the voting machines aren't as corruptible as they seem to be) the intermediary failures are far less likely and we can now get them to the court instantly instead of with weeks of delay, so the system _may_ eventually get changed."
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"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McGovern%E2%80%93Fraser_Commission",
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hunt_Commission"
],
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] |
||
2rozp1 | why don't professors just use the older editions of textbooks to keep the costs down? | We are always using newer editions. Is there a reason for this, considering they don't change much content. (Most of the time) | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2rozp1/eli5_why_dont_professors_just_use_the_older/ | {
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"The textbook companies won't sell older editions, and there aren't enough used copies in good condition to go around. When you sell textbooks back, it is frequently for them to be destroyed, so that they can't be used again.",
"In the sciences, older textbooks can be out of date and have incorrect information, even if it is only a few years old. Having the newest edition means that you have the most up to date information. This isn't always the case though. "
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[],
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|
rwgyw | a good way to improve my laptops performance. | I think the title says it all. I am not good with computers, but I'm not a total idiot either so if you showed me something I should figure it out. I could possibly do a total reboot as although I don't have an HDD, I do have a thumb drive that could hold my necessities. I would prefer to just find ways to improve the computer speed though.
It's not as fast as it used to be, and sometimes starts up or shuts-down improperly against my will. I'm surprised it's gotten this far.
Looking forward to your answers. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/rwgyw/eli5_a_good_way_to_improve_my_laptops_performance/ | {
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"Assuming your laptop runs Windows, get [CCleaner](_URL_3_) and use its tools, **especially** the Registry Cleaner.\n\nDefrag your hard drive and then [use Scheduled Tasks](_URL_1_) to defrag it automatically.\n\nCheck your [system tray](_URL_2_) and your [task manager](_URL_0_) (right-click the taskbar, choose Task Manager) and see if any programs are running that you don't use. If so, uninstall them. Lots of junk can just run in the background and slow things down.\n\nThese three things alone should make a huge difference.\n\n",
"If you're on Windows, I find that changing your theme to Classic helps a lot. Frees up RAM and processing speed.",
"Buy a new one.\n\nYou can spend the money to upgrade the RAM, but the RAM isn't going to help you if your processor is pants-shitting slow due to its age. You can then upgrade the processor, but chances are your motherboard either doesn't support a (significantly) faster one, or the bus speed on the motherboard will slow it down anyway. You gotta remember that programs (and upgrades to those programs, incl. Windows Update) *expect* that you have newer components to work with. You can buy a netbook for $400 that will run far better than the laptop you currently have.\n\n**Alternatively** take Windows off of your current one and put Ubuntu on it. It's a lot less strain on the system, and it leaves more processing power and memory to programs rather than the OS. If you really have programs that you NEED to run on Windows, just get VirtualBox for Linux, then ~~pirate~~ buy Windows and put it on your virtual machine. That's my setup and it works flawlessly.",
"3 easy things will get most computers running at least fairly well:\n\n go to start > computer\n Right click your C drive go to properties\n Go to tools\n Click check now, check both boxes then click start then click schedule disk check\n Click Defragment now and defrag the disk\n While the disk is defraging click start and type msconfig into the search bar at the bottom\n Go over to start up, uncheck everything you don't need, if you don't know if you need it you don't need it.\n when the defrag is done restart and let the computer run through a disk check, this can take some time\n\nYour computer should now be noticeably faster\n\n"
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"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_Task_Manager",
"http://lifehacker.com/153089/hack-attack-using-windows-scheduled-tasks",
"http://kb.iu.edu/data/aiat.html",
"http://www.piriform.com/ccleaner"
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|
4f8j4o | why has been there no massive multi-national effort to end global hunger? | And I don't think the World Food Programme counts really (I'll explain in a second).
I mean, it seams like the most non controversial way of helping the third world. This isn't accepting refugees, or training armies, or supplying arms. It's just providing and distributing food.
Around 5-9 million people die of hunger related deaths each year, making it one of the biggest reasons for death among children in the third world. It was estimated it would take around $30-40 billion per year to end hunger, which is minuscule compared to other things first world governments spend money on.
Why is world hunger still a thing? And how much has the World Health Organization?
The World Food Programme got donations of around $4 billion in 2011. And their distribution was very badly managed and allowed local corrupt politicians to use the food for personal benefit. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4f8j4o/eli5_why_has_been_there_no_massive_multinational/ | {
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"The food isn't the hard part, it's the distribution. Many of the poorest nations are run by war lords and they often demand that they control the distribution. They take the food aid and often horde it for themselves, use it as leverage to force people to submit to their authority, force them into slavery, etc. To stop this we'd have to invade all such countries and rule them as colonies to ensure tyrannical rule isn't reestablished.",
"There are so many questions that complicate it. How much food does each person get? The bare minimum to keep them alive, or a greater amount? What kind of food do they get? Where does this $40,000,000,000 come from? Where will the food be grown - most countries suffering from famine aren't prime farming territory, so who else's farmable land gets cut into? Who will make up the tremendously large work force required to grow and distribute this food? How do we stop warlords and other criminals from stealing many peoples' food and hoarding it for their soldiers? Will we continue feeding them forever, or just for a while until they can produce their own food, which ends up costing infinity dollars? How much will the people working in this system get paid?\n\nYou don't just cut a check for 40 billion and solve world hunger. It would be - by a wide margin - the greatest and most complicated humanitarian campaign in human history, orders of magnitude greater than anything else yet done. I'd love to believe in a world where this sort of thing will happen, but I'm not sure I'm optimistic enough for that.",
" > The World Food Programme got donations of around $4 billion in 2011. And their distribution was very badly managed\n\nHow much would we have to pay them to stop being badly managed? Why would some other organization which is just like the WFP but with a different name be well-managed instead?\n\n > and allowed local corrupt politicians to use the food for personal benefit.\n\nIf the local corrupt politicians control the territory in which you need to operate, what do propose doing? If you are not going to use arms to destroy them and are not going to use the armies to overthrow them, then you either need to pay them off, or let the people starve.",
"Many years ago, my botany professor asked our class a question during one of the periodic famines in Africa:\n\n > \"*Which is more cruel - to starve 1,000 people or 10,000 people?*\n\nHe did not answer the question, and he did not ask for our individual answers.\n\nHe did explain the question though. \n\nFundamentally, a population will expand until it reaches the limits of its ability to feed itself. If you feed starving populations beyond the capacity of the local area to feed themselves, they will continue to expand beyond their capacity to survive alone. You must then continue to feed them as they are now dependent on you, and the populations will continue to expand, until at some point they will grow to a size so large you will be unable to feed them any longer and people will then starve.\n\nI won't ask you for your answer. "
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19ldpk | how can valve get away with cutting prices as much as 70% on steam for mostly games they didn't even make? are external game companies not getting really pissed off from missed profits? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/19ldpk/how_can_valve_get_away_with_cutting_prices_as/ | {
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"The really big price cuts happen only to games that have been released for quite some time. Or the price cut happens for very brief periods of time.\n\nThe first is pretty much like the bargain bin at a store. Though Steam has the advantage they'll never run out of stock. Basically they don't expect to make any more sales at the original price, the largest profits have already been made and any money coming in still is better then no money coming in.\n\nThe second strategy where the price cut exists only briefly is that they'll make a few sales with less profit but the people who've bought the game will tell others how much they like it. And stimulate sales when the game is back at it's orginal price again.",
"They can actually make more money by offering a steep discount due to vastly increased volume. That is, people might not be willing to pay full price for it, but they'll pick it up if they see it for 70% off. Valve published some charts on this about a year ago, showing how the volume increases they see more than make up for the steep discount they offer. It was pretty interesting stuff.",
"Valve has to clear such sales with the publishers who are making the money from those sales.\n\nIf your wondering how these sales work:\n\nGame X costs $10 but only sells 5 copies a week. I cut the price to $2 and now it sells 50 copies a week. I am going to make more money despite the price being lower.\n\nValve knows this works, publishers know this works, and so the Steam Sales are a win win"
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