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1v7jd1 | why do some people bother uploading illegal content for us all to view/download? what do they gain from it? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1v7jd1/eli5_why_do_some_people_bother_uploading_illegal/ | {
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"Typically nothing. They just consider it a service to provide people with free stuff. \n\nIn some cases though such as games, the uploader group might have some site with ad money or a donation button... or pack malware into their release.",
"Maybe a \"self hero\" kind of effect. \n\"I compiled this artists whole discovery in a single torrent so no one will have to, everyone will appreciate the fact I did this\" \nI'm not too sure tho, in\"m not one to upload illegal files.",
"Imaginary internet points",
"In some of the more tight knit torrent sites the uploaders and their \"teams\" build up a reputation and gain recognition and thanks for their uploads. They are judged and rated based on audio and visual quality and on some sites it seems like a race to release the best quality they can find. This is just one small thing I've noticed. And many different sites and forums have likes and/or points, similar to facebook or reddit.\n\ntl;dr recognition, praise and as /u/thatsexynerd mentioned, imaginary internet points.",
"Good try NSA, trying to get some uploaders to confess. ",
"Some people believe all art should be free.\nSome people just like hurting corporations.\nSome people just like to specifically piss off the MPAA/RIAA/etc.\n\nAll three are acceptable to me.",
"They benefit when their activity encourages others to do the same.",
"maybe they just want to give something back. After downloading terabytes throughout their lives",
"When I grew up in the 90s in an Eastern European country, there was no Internet and EA/Activision/FOX/Universal/EMI/Sony didn't bother to set up shops in my country. In short, I had no available means of buying content, even if I could afford it (which I couldn't). \nNow that Internet access is everywhere and I have a 1 Gbps link, I can benefit from Steam/GoG and can CHOOSE between them and look forward to support the developers. \nOn the other hand, I still have to wait for over 1 year, maybe 2 in hopes that a movie I like will be released on DVD/Bluray (in my native language, they won't just release a plain old English version worldwide). For TV shows, Netflix, Hulu still don't have a presence where I live. \nAnother point to make is that \"someone\" might get a film, album, game, application and try it out, see how well it works, if v2 is measurably better than v1, etc. AND THEN buy it if everything is \"as advertised\". Think of being able to avoid shitty releases, buggy applications or simply not pay for overpriced stuff. \nAnd yet another thing to think about is education. I was curious about computer programming, so I took Borland C and started messing around. I became fascinated with 3D modelling for games and movies, so I learned to use 3ds Max. It helped me to develop as a professional. Now that I am having my own job and can afford all of these things, I am actively supporting the producers, creators and developers. \nLastly, while being at home browsing reddit, remember that others are not so lucky. There are still many, many places on this planet where, for some, getting a DVD with a potato-filmed copy of the summer blockbuster movie might just provide that moment of disconnect from the tragedy of their lives. \nI think anyone can deduce from my post why some people bother uploading illegal content for us all to view/download.",
"Some of us think all art and knowledge should be free and available to everyone. The more people can experience and learn, the better for the progression of our species. ",
"Many uploading sites have something like loyalty-programs in which you can get premium account just by uploading things that others download. This way many premium accounts are created and then sold on ebay or other sites like that. In the end owner of the site gains money from ads and shares a little bit of it with uploader in form of premium.",
"Some people just want to watch the world burn",
"You gain prestige in the bitTorrent community if you upload lots of stuff. That is as good of a motivator as any other.\n\nAnother explanation is that the uploaders themselves run Torrent trackers and need traffic to get clicks and thus get well paid by advertisers.",
"They're just being nice. It's the same with volunteers for a soup kitchen, or people answering questions on internet forums. They do it to give back to the community and feel good about themselves.",
"i dont care about the legality : i upload because it's a public service and i care about providing files to people\n\n",
"You do it for props, basically, and you get them. They are pretty shallow props, but props nonetheless. Good upload bro. ",
"Much of the content you find on popular, widely-known filesharing sites actually starts out being released earlier on top-level sites/networks. The people that upload to those get earlier access to all the content that is posted before it gets released to the public at large, usually a week or two in advance. That's pretty good incentive I imagine.\n\nThe people who upload to large public sites can either be releasing for the top-level networks or just random internet users who want to upload something. For the former it's probably their duty. For the latter there's very little chance of getting in trouble unless you upload massive amounts of content or something important like a leak of a movie before it comes out in theaters.",
"For the same reason I'm donating blood, I want to help people.",
"Wow so apparently being a nice person is a foreign subject to the OP.",
"Feel good factor about sharing. ",
"Some of us just like to share.",
"If you read some of the nfo's that come with the files, some of the makers or 'teams' have slogans or paragraphs that shows part of it is driven by their opinion of the entertainment/software industry and is a way of sticking it to them. \n\nBecause themselves and others do it, you also build communities where you not only provide content, but others provide content for you too. That's probably what you gain from it, it's perpetuating an alternative way of getting content and people need to upload stuff for that to exist.\n\nPersonally I think the entertainment industry has dug themselves into a hole with their actions against pirating. Instead of realising pirating has and always will exist even before the internet, and try to compete with it to remove as much advantages as possible, they've tried to obliterate it with security like DRM, restricting it to certain regions and devices, putting up long unskippable anti-pirate advertisement and banners on their own content. They tainted their own content which just empowered pirating even more, making it even more appealing. Companies like Valve and Netflix have taken the right approach and has helped thwart pirating tremendously. Now if you'd kindly make netflix region free so people outside of America can enjoy it without going through some proxy and entering a fake zip code that would be great.",
"In short itt pretty much started with groups competing with eachother over who could crack a copy protection first, thereby proving that they were the more skilled group of crackers.\n\nThe cracked software would then be uploaded to an FTP site and if they were first to release it fame and geek cred would ensue.\n\nSince not all the kids could be cool and have access to these top FTP sites, some cool cats with lots of bandwidth would set up their own FTP servers as dump sites for all this fine content.\nSo called couriers would compete against eachother in a race to see who could upload a new release to the dump site first. The reward for this would be ratio to download stuff from the dump site yourself, similar to the principle of many torrent trackers.\nAnd the more you could supply the better sites you could gain access to of course.\n\nAn entire scene evolved with suppliers, crackers, artists, couriers, site admins, so called nukers who checked to see if releases followed the scene rules etc. etc.\n\nThis later came to include music, movies and so on as it became viable.\n\nThis is still how things work in large parts although today many people with no entrance to or background in the warez scene release straight to torrent sites. Reason still pretty much sums up to e-fame though."
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4o0o3e | labor party vs liberal party vs the greens (in australia)? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4o0o3e/eli5_labor_party_vs_liberal_party_vs_the_greens/ | {
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"Remember that when you're voting you need to give a preference to each party and can even decide to Vote 1 for a small party you haven't heard of before (or, if you live in the electorate of Grayndler, Meow-Ludo Disco Gamma Meow Meow because you like the name - but seriously don't do this without researching the party a bit first) because you like their policies. On the House of Representatives ballot (the small green one) you need to number all the boxes and on the Senate ballot (the large white one) you need to number at least 1-6 above the line or 1-12 below the line.\n\nTo help you decide the [ABC is your friend](_URL_0_) - their election coverage is excellent and non partisan. On their site you can check how the [three main parties' policies actually differ](_URL_2_), [check who is running in your electorate](_URL_0_guide/electorates/), or take the [Vote Compass test](_URL_3_) to see how your views line up against the three main parties. ",
"The LNP policy is based on providing an economy that suits the average to exceptional owner and operator classes. Their aims are to reduce business red tape for the greatest number of businesses that can profit the greatest number of people that can affect votes. In the current economy they have created a problem by transitioning to the greatest number of sales on farmland and homeownership to foreign investors. The move included an ability to provide milk and meat to Asia. At the same time foreign owners were renting back houses gained via loans at our banks. It's a practice bereft of Australian values and the LNP are aligned to run off to mansions to sit out a disgrace period after the election.\nDie hard electorates like Maranoa refuse to give them up and be done with their budget robbing cuts that gaslight Left leaning policy departments. You can see the style of budget robbing most easily by asking why the CSIRO had cuts in climate change science?\n\nLabor are targeting the economy at the middle class and workers' unions. They attempt to stimulate the greatest number of policies that suit the greatest number of votes. They'll support nearly any policy that seems to get votes. They'll block any popular party that they can. Their supporters fill the internet topics with mass trolling on any sensational piece of information to deny other parties readership. They also like to support businesses and organizations that can affect the greatest number of voters. A negative campaign style is not uncommon. However, despite having so many balls in the air, they do try to cover the needs of the average Australian with a decent economy.\n\nThe Greens have never had a majority government, so they field possibilities on various parts of the economy. Each election they may present a new set of policies to suit voters. This election they, by state of the world, have the best policies on offer for Australians. They were meaning to save the GBR before Greg Hunt's UNESCO blunder. They were planning to bring in batteries for renewables before Labor got on the bandwagon. They are pitched to undo the damage created by the LNP budget robbing. Their policies are so far reaching that they actually cover more Australians than any other party. They will support the arts, unemployed, parents, trades, professionals, scientists, tourism operators, farmers, medical practices, businesses, ...\nBut, they are the least likely to get in, and so therefore, are quite ready to work with other parties. 2016 should be the election that Australia thinks/votes Green and divests fossil fuel subsidy and investments."
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"http://www.abc.net.au/news/federal-election-2016/",
"http://www.abc.net.au/news/federal-election-2016/guide/electorates/",
"http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-05-25/key-issues-where-the-parties-differ/7421638",
"https://votecompass.abc.net.au/"
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a50k0e | what’s the difference between gas stations, and why might one get their gas at other locations? | I always get my gas at Chevron, but that’s just because that’s where my dad always gets his. Costco gas is really cheap and I want to get it there, but I don’t know what the difference is. There also plenty of places cheaper than Chevron, but I’m not sure how gas quality would affect my car at all.
I want cheap gas, but I’m scared of damaging my engine! Help me please | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/a50k0e/eli5_whats_the_difference_between_gas_stations/ | {
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"My understanding is that it comes down to additive package and volume. \n\nFind s station that’s top tier and moves a lot of fuel. \n\nThe top tier means it has more than bare minimum federal mandated additives which is good.\n\nThe volume means it doesn’t sit in the holding tank too long and possibly pickup moisture or other things you don’t want in your engine. ",
"Also, look at your auto owners manual. Find what grade of gasoline you engine is supposed to use and pick that grade. Grade is the octane rating, the numbers on which type of gas you want. You do not want to use gas which has an octane rating less than what your owner manual specifies. Also, it doesn't do your engine any more good using gasoline with an octane rating above what your owner manual says. You're only hurting your bank account."
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5ahflb | how can there be a lake under a sea? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5ahflb/eli5_how_can_there_be_a_lake_under_a_sea/ | {
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"Waters of different densities don't easily blend together, so it's not a lake, but it's segmented layers of waters that may be of different temperatures and salinity. \n\nFor example, when the oceans near the poles freeze, only the water freezes, the salt does not. So the salt gets concentrated in the remaining water, creating a very cold brine. That brine is denser than the rest of the water, so it sinks to the ocean floor, slowly it travels along the ocean floor seeking out low spots where it drains into.\n\nOr you sometimes see this in underground caves that open into the ocean, dense ocean water forms a layer on the bottom, and fresh water forms a layer on the top. \n\nYou can make am example of this yourself. Take two cups of water, add two different food colors to them. Heat one in the microwave, cool the other in the fridge. Then carefully spoon the hot water into the cup with the cold water, you'll see it resists mixing together.\n\nObviously you can force it to mix by stirring or shaking it, just like the ocean can mix it with waves or currents. "
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546zx8 | difference between von neumann architecture and harvard architecture? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/546zx8/eli5_difference_between_von_neumann_architecture/ | {
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"The Harvard architecture has separate memory stores for instructions and data. The von Neumann architecture has just one. The von Neumann architecture allows instructions to be manipulated as data, which is helpful in more complex systems. A basic example is instructions stored in executable files, which can be loaded as data. A strict Harvard architecture can't do that at all. And then there are things like just-in-time compilation which are way out of its league, but which work fine on a von Neumann architecture.\n\nModern computers tend to be more like the von Neumann architecture. They do tend to have separate L1 instruction and L1 data caches for efficiency. Some architectures require the instruction cache to be cleared when instructions are changed in memory; the processor would happily run stale instructions still in its cache. In this sense they're still like a Harvard architecture, called a modified Harvard architecture. It's a combination of the efficiency of a Harvard architecture and the flexibility of a von Neumann architecture."
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6c7zdh | why can't you feel it when you're on a commerical flight and the airplane makes a turn that is practically perpendicular to the ground? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/6c7zdh/eli5_why_cant_you_feel_it_when_youre_on_a/ | {
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"When you're in a turning vehicle, \"centrifugal force\" (*) tends to push you toward the outside of the turn. At the same time, gravity pushes you downward, so the total force on you is down and outward, on a diagonal.\n\nWhen a pilot makes a \"coordinated turn\", he/she tilts the plane to an angle that matches the direction of this diagonal force, so it pushes you straight down into your seat rather than sideways. As a result, you'll feel a bit heavier during the turn, but you won't be pushed to the right or left.\n\n(*) Centrifugal force is not a real force, but it's a useful way of understanding this at the ELI5 level. The explanation would be twice as long without it, but would end up at the same conclusion: the tilt of the plane ensures that the force on you is aligned with your seat."
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ai22ta | dirty glasses appear clean | So I (relativly) recently got glasses. The one thing that baffles me is how often I take them off and see that they are very dirty, but appear clean when being worn. How is this possible? The light IS passing though the dust, grease, and fingerprints regardless right? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/ai22ta/eli5_dirty_glasses_appear_clean/ | {
"a_id": [
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"Your brain is really good at ignoring parts of your vision where you can't see as well. In fact, there's actually a blind spot in your visual field right now where there are no photoreceptors on your retina. But, you brain edits out this blind spot and you don't notice it."
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13mf2e | why we cant just put water on dry skins? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/13mf2e/eli5_why_we_cant_just_put_water_on_dry_skins/ | {
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"Water evaporates on the skin, so it wouldn't create any new moisture.\n\nLotions work under one of two actions:\n\n* There are varieties that will create a barrier to hold the moisture in, using a variety of oils depending on the dryness of the skin. These prevent the evaporation of the moisture already in your skin.\n* There are also varieties that serve to wick moisture from the air into your skin.\n\nMost lotions fall into the first category. \n\n",
"Aesthetician here...dry skin is not just the lacking of water, but natural oils your body naturally produces. **Sudoriferous** glands (sweat glands) excrete water. Internally, adding more water and clear fluids to your diet will help improve the hydration of your skin. Externally, wash with a softer water that is medium warm, and use a PH balanced cleanser. **Sebaceous** glands excrete oils. Internally, add foods with good oils to your diet- olive oils, coconut oil, avocado. Externally, when washing, do not use uber hot water. It strips the skin of the natural oils that moisturize your skin. When out of shower/bath, pat skin dry and immediately apply moisturizer or coconut oil to skin. Not only does it \"trap\" the water on your skin, it restores the natural oils.\n**TL:DR**...dry skin is lacking in both water and natural oils. Sorry the explanation isn't really ELI5. ",
"Skin is actually waterproof.\n\nEDIT: downvotes? It really is. [good article on Epsom salts](_URL_0_). \"Skin is almost completely waterproof. If it weren’t, you would dehydrate like an earthworm on a sunny sidewalk.\"",
"Water evaporates very easily. It stays in our skin because it is kept inside by oils in the skin. If you keep washing your hands in water, you'll absorb water, but also get rid of these oils. \n\nGet two bowls and fill them both with water. Then pour a layer of oil on the top of one. Then wait for them to evaporate. ",
"Wait. Are we supposed to get wet before we get in the shower?",
"Scientific answer: your skin is a barrier that doesnt allow water in or out. ",
"Or else you'll get the hose again"
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1hlvns | why doesn't the us just go to sheremetyevo airport and get snowden themselves? | Thanks. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1hlvns/eli5_why_doesnt_the_us_just_go_to_sheremetyevo/ | {
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"Because they have no authority to make arrests on Russian territory. And the entire airport is Russian territory. All that stuff about a transit zone being something other than fully a part of Russia is just a diplomatic convenience. It has no real basis in law or custom. Believe me, if a wanted Russian criminal ended up trying to hide in the transit zone at Sheremetyevo, they'd simply go in and arrest him, regardless of which passport he was under. However, only Russia can do this at that airport.\n\nIn other words, if the US proceeded to arrest Snowden in Moscow, it would be a diplomatic firestorm far beyond anything else we've seen in this whole sorry mess."
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1s4dqa | why do some coins have ridged edges and some have smooth edges? | Why do the quarter and dime have ridges, while the penny and nickel have smooth edges? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1s4dqa/why_do_some_coins_have_ridged_edges_and_some_have/ | {
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"As far as I'm aware, they are to help blind people distinguish different value coins when they have similar sizes as others",
"\"Milled\" edges were originally used to deter people from filing or clipping silver off the edges of coins to melt for scrap. Now coins that used to be silver are made of other metals, but the millings have accessibility advantages also, and are just traditional now."
]
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4q4y58 | why do cats bring us dead animals? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4q4y58/eli5_why_do_cats_bring_us_dead_animals/ | {
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"I read somewhere that it's because they think you're a giant dumb cat that can't feed itself so they're trying to feed/take care of you.",
"Animals teach their young how to hunt and introduce them to the concept. The owners are acting as the cat's surrogate family - their instinct leads them to bring the dead mouse, or whatever, to the member of their family in order to 'teach' them how to hunt for a mouse on their own (because when will your cat ever normally see you walking around carrying dead mice and the like?). It still happens even with spayed cats who don't and won't have kittens of their own.\n\nIt's basically a result of the owner - cat relationship replacing the normal mother - kitten relationship. In some aspects we act as the mother and in some aspects they sometimes act like the mother to us."
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2uq46e | why is a bad idea to double up on rubber bands for braces? | Sorry for the noon question, but I've had my braces for more than a year and I haven't seen much improvement in terms of bite. I heard somewhere that doubling up on rubber bands speeds up the process, but aside from giving me stark warnings, Google can't explain why. Someone explain? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2uq46e/eli5_why_is_a_bad_idea_to_double_up_on_rubber/ | {
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"My ortho told me to double up on bands..but that was years ago, things might have changed. I'd say have a talk with your ortho about how her or she sees your case going and whether or not doubling up (or using stronger bands) would speed things up.\nClosing an overbite is usually the very last part of a case, so it could just be that you aren't quite there yet. 1 year is generally the halfway point for a lot of cases, so that's quite possible. \n\nThis might be a frog in a pot problem too; the changes that are occurring with your bite might just be happening so subtly that you don't notice. \n\n",
"More pressure = more pain & possibly moving the teeth too quickly. You might also run the chance of popping off your braces - that kinda sucks.\n\nYour orthodontist doesn't want the process to take longer than needed - he's not making money on how long you stay in braces, the price is pretty much a flat fee. If you think it's going too slow, talk to your orthodontist."
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454wgs | how come some of my subs randomly disappear from my drop down menu? | For example, I subscribe to r/nba, and yet [it's not listed at all in my drop down menu](_URL_0_). I have to search for 'NBA' and then go from there. What's the deal? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/454wgs/eli5how_come_some_of_my_subs_randomly_disappear/ | {
"a_id": [
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"text": [
"You can only have a certain amount of subscriptions in your drop down at any given time. I believe the limit is 50 but I might be wrong on the exact number. \n\nWhich subs are shown seems to be randomized, and it changes depending on which sub you're visiting when you click on the drop down."
]
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59kfvd | why does the winter sun seem so harsh? | Once summer ends the sun is killer in both the morning and evening when leaving work. Even on the hottest days of summer the suns not that blinding. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/59kfvd/eli5_why_does_the_winter_sun_seem_so_harsh/ | {
"a_id": [
"d995hqy"
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"score": [
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"text": [
"In the winter the sun spends more time lower in the sky. It's actually less bright since the rays are traveling through more air, but it's in your eyes more than in the summer when it is higher in the sky."
]
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[]
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5u5055 | how does a universal remote work? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5u5055/eli5_how_does_a_universal_remote_work/ | {
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"Each kind of remote has its own special language. \n\nUniversal remotes know all of the languages but you have to tell them which one to use \n\n\nOr it pretends to be what ever remote is needed to do what you want ",
"The way a remote works in general is that the remote is programmed to send particular infrared signals to the tv, which it then reads and interprets. Universal remotes have 2 types; preprogrammed, which are loaded with the \"codes\" or signals that a device requires to control it. The second type is a learning remote. It reads the signal from an existing remote or tv and mimics it. "
]
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bvmhnm | how are some traits heritable? | Why do some traits, like skin tone, seem to be a mix of both parents, where others like eye & hair colour are from a single parent? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/bvmhnm/eli5_how_are_some_traits_heritable/ | {
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"So genes are what makes something heritable, you get one set from each parent and for some characteristics there is a single dominant gene and a single recessive one meaning you express only one gene from one parent.\nHowever for a lot of characteristics there are many different genes all contributing to that one characteristic, some may act against each other and some may act with each other, and some may be 'codominant', meaning both sets from each parent are expressed.\n\nSo for skin tone, there are many genes contributing and some are codominant, meaning there can be a variety of skin tones even if your parents have vastly different or very similar tones. (of course not including tan and other environmental factors)\nFor eyes, there are actually so many genes that it is possible for anyone to have any colour eyes, regardless of their parents eye colour (though the probability obviously is very low for rarer colours like green, grey and Amber)\n\nHope this answers your question, please feel free to further query in the comments or by message",
"All of your traits come from both of your parents.\n\nExplained simply, on a monogenic inheritance model, you have a gene which tells you what eye colour you have. This gene has two possible alleles (variants), one blue and one brown and each person always has two alleles. Now, the brown allele is dominant (this means you only require one brown allele to have brown eyes, no matter what the other allele is). The blue allele is recessive (this means you need two blue alleles to have blue eyes). \n\nSo, imagine your mum has blue eyes - this means she has two recessive alleles (aa). \nYour dad has brown eyes - this means he either had two dominant alleles (AA) or one dominant and one recessive (Aa). \nYou, as their child, inherit one allele from your mum and one from your dad. In my example, you always get the recessive (blue) one from mum, but you can get either the recessive or the dominant one from dad.\n\nSo if your mum is aa and your dad is AA, you will always end up with brown eyes, because there is only one combination of alleles you can get (Aa). If your dad is Aa, though, you can end up with either blue or brown eyes (it's fifty fifty in this case, actually).\n\nThe monogenic model is simplified (though it does work sometimes, see Gregor Mendel and his experiments) and in reality many traits require the cooperation of more genes. The inheritance model is then more complicated."
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46hpz4 | why are conservatives fiscal plans considered to be the best choice when it comes to national economies. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/46hpz4/eli5_why_are_conservatives_fiscal_plans/ | {
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"You are likely paying more attention to conservative-leaning media.\n\nNobody knows *for sure* the best way to fix the economy. It's possible for different people to look at the same set of evidence and come away with different conclusions. That's why elections happen, because there is no definitive right or wrong answer so we go with what the majority want.\n\nSometimes the media don't look at the evidence and they support the person who says the idea rather than the content of the idea. And it's often the case that media corporations are conservative, because they are owned by people who have become successful and they are the conservative ideal. \n\nBut that's another topic and if you were to find some more liberal-leaning media you'd find plenty of criticism for conservative approach to economics. Many, for example, say that the \"trickle down\" method has never been proven to work. But again, each person is free to draw their own conclusions from the evidence out there.",
"Let's say you have two friends giving you financial advice. Friend A and Friend B.\n\nFriend A tells you that you need to live within your means, assess how much money you have to spend, don't depend on others for money, and don't go beyond your financial limit by abusing credit. And if possible, save money if you need it for a rainy day.\n\nFriend B tells you not to worry about money, debt doesn't matter because you can print more money anyway, and that you need to give any excess money to a homeless person across the street because your privilege stole it from him.\n\nFriend A is practical and pragmatic about money. Friend B is idealistic and clueless about it because he never studied economics.\n\nHopefully that clears things up. ",
"Because what they advocate (not what they actually do when in power) makes sense from a micro or household scale. I mean, the advice not to spend more than you take in makes inherent sense since that holds very true from an individual or household perspective. Whether it holds true or not on a national level has been the subject of debate amongst economists for many years."
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9v1fca | what's the difference between a dean, director, superintendant, principal or any other word used for the head of school? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/9v1fca/eli5_whats_the_difference_between_a_dean_director/ | {
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"A principal is typically the head of a school, overseeing all the teachers and staff. A superintendent runs a school district, which includes multiple schools. So they are the principal's boss. A dean is typically below a principal and deals with students matters, like attendance, dress code enforcement, discipline, etc. A director is more typically used as the title for head of a private school, daycare center, etc. where there is more of a business component to the job such as fund raising, collecting tuition, and such in addition to academic matters."
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1m4hda | how is it u.s. debt can remain exactly $16,699,396,000,000 ($25 million below legal limit) since may 17? | And the U.S. deficit spends tens or even hundreds of billions every month since. Very strange...
I keep hearing and reading the above, and at first blush it seems as though there is something corrupt or illegal going on. Maybe so, but before I make up my mind, I turn to you guys for some help understanding how this is the case.
These reports released every day prove it: _URL_1_
And then there is this latest publication:
_URL_0_
| explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1m4hda/eli5_how_is_it_us_debt_can_remain_exactly/ | {
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"Which of your sources list the US debt every day since May 17?\n\nThis source summarizes the debt and shows it changing every day:\n\n_URL_0_"
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"http://www.fms.treas.gov/dts/index.html"
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59yf7v | why are baseball teams forced to play so many games compared to other sports? | MLB - 162 Games
NBA - 82 Games
MLS - 34 Games
NFL - 16 Games
Compared to other sports they play almost double of the next closest sport. Why is that?
Edit: 162 games, not 164 (sorry) | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/59yf7v/eli5_why_are_baseball_teams_forced_to_play_so/ | {
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"Baseball is 162 games not 164. I would say that baseball is not as physically demanding as the other sports and lends itself to being played more times per week and month. It's also tradition and stats in the MLB are cherished and based on the 154 to 162 game schedule.",
"The only position in baseball that puts enough strain on themselves to warrant multiple days off on the regular is the pitcher (arm strain). And pitchers don't play 162 games, the starters rotate in a rotation of 5 while bullpen pitchers will not pitch multiple innings consecutively. For the rest of the positions, they are able to play almost every day at a pretty high level because it is not as demanding physically as the other sports you mentioned.",
"Baseball requires more games to determine which is the better team. A *very* good baseball team only wins 65% of thier games. \nAlso, as others have mentioned, baseball is less grueling than many other sports, so they can play almost every day. ",
"MLB is the oldest major sport in the USA by a few decades. It's been a daily game in the 19th century. You can even play two games in one day (double header) which was more common back then than today. When other sports came along, they decided they couldn't do that... more physical impact or constant action required recovery time in between games. With the exception of the starting pitcher a baseball player can play every day. (Exception: Catchers need a day off about once a week)",
"It's because the games take a different toll. In baseball you hit 3-4 times a game and field half a dozen a game. The only ones who wear out after one game are pitchers, and that's why they don't play every single day.\n\nCompare that to the NBA, where guys are running and bumping each other for almost the entire game, or especially to football where you're getting hit by the strongest and fastest people in the world",
"Out of all professional sports Baseball is the one most fueled by tradition. It is also very driven by statistics.\n\nIf a change were to be made to lessen a MLB season down to say a NBA or NHL 82 game season it would make traditionalists lose their collective minds and invalidate 100+ years of stats/records.\n\nPlus the game isn't that physically demanding for all but one position so the players can actually perform daily.",
"Because baseball is not that taxing on the body, most of the times you are just standing around scratching your ass, with only the pitcher and catcher having to exert themselves."
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jbmvc | li5 how can you own a house, but not the land that it's built on? and what exactly are property taxes? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/jbmvc/li5_how_can_you_own_a_house_but_not_the_land_that/ | {
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"I can try to help a little. With property tax, you are paying for the space that your 'Property' takes up. \n\n\n\n\n Lets say you have a table. This table only has a limited amount of space. People want to put stuff on the table (food, toys, etc.). There are more people that want to put things on the table then there is space. This means that not everyone can put something of theirs on the table. Because of this, if you are 'lucky' enough to get a spot on the table for your item, it has value, since there are people that are waiting to take your spot. The more people that want to put their things on the table, the more valuable your space becomes. \n\n\n\n **This is why property tax is higher in locations that a lot of people want to live.** \n\n\n\n The property tax itself is the amount you pay for the physical space you take up at the table. The more stuff you want to put on the table, the more property tax you pay.",
"Not entirely sure if it works the same way in common law jurisdictions, in Continental Europe it works like this:\n\nEvery piece of land has an owner. The owner can basically do whatever he wants with the land. He can also say: I want to give other people some rights for my land. For example, I want to give my neighbor the right to walk his dog on my land. So the owner goes to the register with his neighbor and says that he wants to allow his neighbor to walk his dog on the owners land. So from this point on the neighbor also has a limited claim to the land, and the owner cannot take it away from the neighbor. Similarly, the owner can give different people all kinds of different rights. He can also allow his neighbor to build a house on his ground. Now if the neighbor builds the house, the house belongs to the neighbor. While the land still belongs to the owner. Now if the neighbor wants to sell the house, he can only sell the house together with the right to build a house or we get a problem.\n\nTo make things more difficult, you can give rights not only to other people, but also to other bits of land. The owner could also have said: Whoever owns the land right next to mine shall have the right to walk his dog on my land and put that in the register. And in some Countries, you can also give rights to your land to things that are not land and are not people. You might go to the register and say: I want you to create a new entry for a house that will be built on my land. And I want to give this new entry the right to build a house on my land. So whoever owns this entry will automatically own the house and have the right to have a house on my land.\n\nSo what's the point of all this? Why not just sell the land with the house? I'm not sure. Taxes, sometimes. Sometimes it's easier to do this than to split an entry in the registry, which can be complicated. If you want to allow someone to build a house on your land, but want to keep the surrounding area, this is the easiest thing to do.\n\n",
"Very interesting. I never knew you could own a house without owning the land it's built on. So would it be illegal in this scenario if you built another room or shed in your backyard since you don't own that land?",
"you are referring to \"land rights\" \"mineral rights\" and \"water rights\".\n\nYou can own land, but you do not own all the land underneath your land down to the center of the earth! The government owns all resources found under your house unless they are specifically owned/sold to others. This is how you can have a company build a mine under your house, or if a prospector finds oil on your property it can be extracted without you having any say (and possibly reduce your land value). This is the basis also for governments being able to force you to sell your land to them for things like highways.\n\nThe property taxes on the land you do own depends on many factors: (what you use it for, does it have a store or a house, how valuable or popular the land is, and what services are provided to the city to the land): gas, roads, electricity, water, sewer etc.\n\nProperty taxes scale to property value and the size of any structures. Higher taxes are because people are willing to pay more, build larger houses to live there and in turn demand more/better services that are more expensive for the city to provide.",
"I can try to help a little. With property tax, you are paying for the space that your 'Property' takes up. \n\n\n\n\n Lets say you have a table. This table only has a limited amount of space. People want to put stuff on the table (food, toys, etc.). There are more people that want to put things on the table then there is space. This means that not everyone can put something of theirs on the table. Because of this, if you are 'lucky' enough to get a spot on the table for your item, it has value, since there are people that are waiting to take your spot. The more people that want to put their things on the table, the more valuable your space becomes. \n\n\n\n **This is why property tax is higher in locations that a lot of people want to live.** \n\n\n\n The property tax itself is the amount you pay for the physical space you take up at the table. The more stuff you want to put on the table, the more property tax you pay.",
"Not entirely sure if it works the same way in common law jurisdictions, in Continental Europe it works like this:\n\nEvery piece of land has an owner. The owner can basically do whatever he wants with the land. He can also say: I want to give other people some rights for my land. For example, I want to give my neighbor the right to walk his dog on my land. So the owner goes to the register with his neighbor and says that he wants to allow his neighbor to walk his dog on the owners land. So from this point on the neighbor also has a limited claim to the land, and the owner cannot take it away from the neighbor. Similarly, the owner can give different people all kinds of different rights. He can also allow his neighbor to build a house on his ground. Now if the neighbor builds the house, the house belongs to the neighbor. While the land still belongs to the owner. Now if the neighbor wants to sell the house, he can only sell the house together with the right to build a house or we get a problem.\n\nTo make things more difficult, you can give rights not only to other people, but also to other bits of land. The owner could also have said: Whoever owns the land right next to mine shall have the right to walk his dog on my land and put that in the register. And in some Countries, you can also give rights to your land to things that are not land and are not people. You might go to the register and say: I want you to create a new entry for a house that will be built on my land. And I want to give this new entry the right to build a house on my land. So whoever owns this entry will automatically own the house and have the right to have a house on my land.\n\nSo what's the point of all this? Why not just sell the land with the house? I'm not sure. Taxes, sometimes. Sometimes it's easier to do this than to split an entry in the registry, which can be complicated. If you want to allow someone to build a house on your land, but want to keep the surrounding area, this is the easiest thing to do.\n\n",
"Very interesting. I never knew you could own a house without owning the land it's built on. So would it be illegal in this scenario if you built another room or shed in your backyard since you don't own that land?",
"you are referring to \"land rights\" \"mineral rights\" and \"water rights\".\n\nYou can own land, but you do not own all the land underneath your land down to the center of the earth! The government owns all resources found under your house unless they are specifically owned/sold to others. This is how you can have a company build a mine under your house, or if a prospector finds oil on your property it can be extracted without you having any say (and possibly reduce your land value). This is the basis also for governments being able to force you to sell your land to them for things like highways.\n\nThe property taxes on the land you do own depends on many factors: (what you use it for, does it have a store or a house, how valuable or popular the land is, and what services are provided to the city to the land): gas, roads, electricity, water, sewer etc.\n\nProperty taxes scale to property value and the size of any structures. Higher taxes are because people are willing to pay more, build larger houses to live there and in turn demand more/better services that are more expensive for the city to provide."
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2b5m2w | why is that when i drink water or soda, i feel full after a while, while with beer, there's no stopping me? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2b5m2w/eli5_why_is_that_when_i_drink_water_or_soda_i/ | {
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"That's the complete opposite for me..",
"Thats some unusual soda.",
"By the time you have drank enough to feel full [for me it is 3 glasses of water] you have had enough alcohol for the fun to start. Lack of inhibition is enough at that point to make you want to drink more. On top of that the ethanol being metabolized in your liver causes a sudden blood sugar drop. Drops in blood sugar encourage eating and drinking so you want even more. Plus who really wants to stop drinking?\n\nTL; DR: Beer makes you dumb n thirsty.",
"'cuz you a booze hound.",
"Because you're an alcoholic.",
"If you're like me, alcohol makes you urinate every 30 minutes. So maybe you're able to drink more?"
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3zpl66 | why are human boobs bigger than any other animals? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3zpl66/eli5_why_are_human_boobs_bigger_than_any_other/ | {
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"It seems to serve mostly as sexual fitness signalling function, as women with small breasts don't have problems feeding their offspring, generally. This goes well with the tendency of many males to attribute some sexual attraction to them.\n\nBreasts, outside pregnancy, do not have high metabolic demands, so there wouldn't be a strong selection *against them* either.\n\nIt is worth nothing that breast size is one of the most varied human traits there are! You don't find many anatomical features that can easily be 5x as large from one random person to another.",
"The leading theory is sexual selection, as most other mammal have no problem feeding much more offspring (litters) with much smaller breasts.\n",
"I've heard a silly theory that having a secondary sexual trait on women's fronts encourages the missionary position, which encourages pair bonding.",
"From what I've read on it, humans evolved engorged breasts as a sexual attraction trait. They are meant to signal the same desire that a healthy hip/waist ratio would in a man (in other words, large shapely breasts mimic a healthy and shapely butt). \n\nMost four legged mammals mate \"doggy style,\" as it's the most advantageous position. That's why the butt is a good place to signal fertility. In bipedal mammals (mainly humans), \"missionary\" is a more advantageous position, but the butt isn't visible from that angle. Hence another set of secondary sexual characteristics that mimic the same desire.",
"The truth is that this almost impossible to answer given that we cannot actually go back and watch this evolutionary change occur. However, following the idea of fitness, something about the genetic trait of large breasts has made the probability of these genes to survive across generations. Interestingly, the code for large breasts may be linked to some other genetic code that actually drove adaptation. E. g., increased ability to store energy as fat, increased brain size, etc.\n\nOf course genetics for small breasts do not necessarily create a situation where offspring would are not able to reproduce. Thus, these genes remain in the population too.",
"The answer is quite simple, and it makes perfect sense. Animals and critters of all sorts need to mate in order to have more baby critters (see Birds And The Bees 101). In order to distract the mate animals away from feeding their faces all the time in order to procreate and produce offspring certain enticements had to...evolve. \nFor most, though not all, warm blooded animals the fact that they walk about on hooves means that if they were to reach for a partners breasts while in the throes of passion they might fall flat on their faces. Not good for building passion. \nSo, to help get the love juices flowing, many mammals are offered an enticing vagina that smells great and tastes great...apparently. So they have no need for boner producing displays of swaying mammaries to fire up the boys. All the guys need do is follow their noses to discover the pleasure pits of their dreams. They enjoy a little oral loving, make sure no one gets kicked in the face and voila. Copulation occurs, offspring are sprung and all is good. Until the carnivores come looking for a snack. \nSo then...male humans, who walk about upright (except for special events, like a Saturday) are not always handily close to a vagina in order to get an aromatic hint that love is in the air. So females of the species have been gifted with several \"breeder\" attractions that work well getting our attention. As a lone weapon, the visual appeal of a pair of fine breasts works very well. If more firepower is required, there are the curvy hips, the hairy eyeball, and the sweet and innocent air and, do not forget, the long legs that come in packs of two. If all this works as expected, then a little later both parties will get to enjoy the tasty delights of a woman ready for loving. \nThis objective could not be reached if there were no boobs that could be offered for perusal that would help kick start this whole process. \nIsn't evolution a wonderful thing? ",
"Because dogs and cats don't have brains big enough to lead them towards the idea of \"motorboating\"",
"Have you seen a cows udder? That's pretty big.",
"Humans are also weird in that our penises are HUGE by primate standards (yes, even you). A gorilla's penis is, on average, just 1.25 inches long. \n\n[This](_URL_0_) article seems to suggest that, with the development of culture, we began to have societal preferences that went beyond a simple 'will this help me mate/survive'. This could also be the case for large, permanent breasts in females. \n\nEven though there's not a real reason why big breasts (or a large penis) would be evolutionary advantageous, if proto-society started to select for those features it could eliminate gene lines with other traits. ",
"Look at the chimps (our closest evolutionary relatives). Their mouths all protrude somewhat significantly from their face. Also, their noses are in line with the mouth.\n\nOne theory is that as humans brains evolved, the skull enlarged to contain it. Keep in mind birth canals are not large places, and something needed to change for these larger heads to be born. Like bringing the mouth and nose more in line with the rest of the face, smoothing out the protrusion. \n\nThis means human babies would have a hard time eating/breathing if they were pressed up against a mostly flat surface like the chest of a nursing gorilla. Supposedly the 'protrusion' shifted from baby's face to mother's teat, giving human females boobs.\n",
"It's been explained to me that this grew out of sexual selection as a false signal of female fertility. The advantage being that the male would not leave if he thought his female was fertile.",
"As humans we've been sexually selecting for bigger boobs. Guys want girls with bigger boobs, so girls with bigger boobs are more likely to reproduce creating bigger boobed offsprings.\n\nThere's a case with big horned elks that showed bigger horned male elk are more sexually attractive than smaller horned. Eventually the biggest horned elks produced elk with such enormous horns that it was to the point that lifting up its head was so difficult, but it was still sexually successful. Eventually natural selection killed the biggest horned elk off so the population was shifted back towards average sized horned elks. "
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5f6592 | why does an extreme lack of sleep seem to temporarily change an individuals mannerisms and personality? | For example, if I go a very extended length of time without sleeping and I'm at a point where I don't feel tired at all, I've noticed I tend to get a bit "goofy" with how I act. I've also noticed that I have less of a filter and will verbally respond to things much differently than I would otherwise.
& nbsp;
Very interested to hear your explanations, as I'm currently at this point right now.
| explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5f6592/eli5_why_does_an_extreme_lack_of_sleep_seem_to/ | {
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"Mood and sleep are linked. When you are overly tired, you lose some abilities to regulate your emotions, so you feel more emotional extremes than usual.\n\nAt the same time, sleep deprivation causes the same kind of impairment as alcohol intoxication. So you subjective understanding of what you are experiencing isn't necessarily as accurate as if you were not sleep deprived (or drunk).\n",
"In rats beta-amyloid that builds up during the day which is something found heavily in alzheimers patients.",
"Also, there is a known phennomennon in psyciathry where sleep deprivation causes relieve from depression in some individuals. Also ssri's like prozac supresses rem sleep for a while after starting usage. You can find papers on pubmed, im on mobile now cant link cause of that. But in short there are no clear understanding what causes effects of sleep deprivation.",
"Sleep deprivation also stimulates the adrenal glands. The feeling is like \"breaking through the wall\" where you reach past the morning and feel awake. It's a natural reaction to your body adapting to the possibility of another full day ahead before it gets some rest, so it pumps a little bit of its own natural stimulant.",
"Don't go too far, after that, things don't become fun anymore, and you start losing hair and whatnot.",
"Your brain uses sleep to restore any cells or neurons that were used throughout the day. So without sleep, the cells never get repaired. Overtime your brain starts to pick and choose which functions are most important to hold on to so that it can continue to keep your body functioning like it needs too. This usually means that the brain stops spending so much energy on deep thinking and on internal thought processes. \nIf you stay awake past that point you will lose energy in general bc your body will begin to rely on glucose as it's main energy source, which isn't as efficient and burns faster. \nOver time you begin to get delusional and will show signs of dementia as your mental stability breaks down completely. \nAn 18 year old in college decided to see how long he could stay up, he kept aides with him to keep him awake and make sure he was okay. By day 12 the aides made him go to the hospital bc he was suffering from dementia, would forget his name and basic personal information like where he was and things like that... and his heart rate was slowing dramatically. When he got to the hospital it took only 4 minutes for him to reach REM sleep, he then slept for 14 hours straight. \nNo sleep study has lasted longer than 12 straight days, but studies on mice show that we wouldn't survive much longer than that. Our body would just shut down. \nThough I've met people who use stimulants that beg to differ. So I think that staying up with the help of stimulants would allow you to stay up longer without the physical effects, but I think your mental state would still break down, maybejust at a slower rate...",
"I don't think it changes your personality. Rather it reveals the part of your personality which habits and social niceities hide. The same thing happens with addictions. ",
"I don't have an answer. All I can add is when I get super tired (say I've worked 9-10 days straight with little sleep) I get very clumsy and can't focus. I work in a kitchen. so clumsiness turns into burns and cuts...mostly burns. ",
"I've also noticed this, though I wouldn't call it extreme lack of sleep. \nI work as a bartender, and we clean the entire club each fri and sat night, so if I'm up at 7 am on a friday, and we clean until 5 am saturday morning, I get the goofy sense of humor of a five year old kid.\n\nSame thing happens when I'm hungover.",
"I have sleep induced clonic-tonic seizures, the less sleep i get (ie the last month of each semester) the more vunerable i am to having a seizure...this is when it usuallt hits. Its happened in the past where im asleeo and BAM i wake up with what feela line a month of information gone and it takes me a week to get back into the swing of reality (physically and mentally). I plan my entire life around ensuring i get the right amount of sleeo just to keep this from happening. Yes. I can feel when ive been pushing it. Just something to add here",
"Dude reading this brought me back to middle school when I did a science fair of lack of sleep does to someone ( ended up being three days of no sleep and stupidly I was the guinea pig lol)\n\nDay 1: after about 24 hours all I wanted to do was sleep nothing would keep me awake \n\nDay 2: I had what felt like so much brain activity that I was (what felt like) having intelligent conversation. Body function was eh to a point was slap happy.\n\nDay 3: This was something else, mind you have not slept for 72 hours. I felt like I slept for days and days like a bear in hibernation. I felt sharper in reflexes. No idea where this energy came from. Held a full 2 and a half hour conversation with my mom and dad. Then when it came time to be able to sleep after my experiment was over. I crashed in my living room floor.\n\nNext day at school: turned my project in teacher gave me an A then proceeded to tell me I was supposed to monitor someone else not put myself through it. Needless to say best A I have ever gotten in school. ",
"Recent research has shown that the purpose of sleep is to allow the brain to be cleansed of built up byproducts. Without this periodic cleaning it just won't function well.",
"Also why do humans who over sleep have a \"drunk\" type feeling? ",
"IIRC sleeping repairs the body and flushes toxic waste out of the brain. \n\nWhen you're sleep deprived your body releases more dopamine to counteract cope with the damage done by not sleeping. \n\nThe overdose of dopamine then does something to your receptors, (I'm not sure if I'm correct on this sorry) and your body won't be able to absorb as much dopamine after the initial burst wears off. That's lack of sleep can lead to depression. \n\nI definitely know what you're talking about though. I'm a senior in high school and have stayed up studying/procrastinating too many times to count. If I don't fall asleep before midnight, I start to feel a little more awake and giddy. I usually find myself cracking up at really stupid videos at 1 or 2, then wanting to die the next day. ",
"The best way I can describe it is to think of your body as a library and the brain is the librarian.\n\nThis librarian is REALLY busy though. Every time they need an answer to something, they have to consult the correct book. Every event that requires an emotion, consult the book on how to react. When they're finished with the book, they don't have time to put it back where it belongs. They just throw it on the floor so they can get to the next book.\n\nAt the end of the day, the library is *a mess*. Librarian has to close the library (go to sleep), so they can pick up all the books and put them back where they belong.\n\nStaying awake keeps the library open, not enough sleep and the librarian doesn't have time to put all the books back. With enough sleep deprivation, the mess just gets worse. The librarian (brain) either consults the wrong book, or simply cannot find the right book at all. Sometimes, the library randomly closes, as the librarian desperately attempts to reorganise (microsleeps). Given enough sleep deprivation, the librarian will simply give up and the brain dies.\n\nSleep is important. Sleeping allows the brain and body to recuperate and reorganise, ready for the next day. Don't let your library be a mess. Get enough sleep!",
"This is semi relevant to me recently.\n\nI'm in college, so long nights are a usual. But recently I stayed up around 48-72 hours working on a personal project for my friends. This was a video (just stupid gaming memories I had randomly recorded and decided to show my friends over thanksgiving break).\n\nI worked on the project a total of around 70 hours over a 4 day period. Again, the first continuous sit down session I would say was around 55-60 hours. This was just simple watching and editing and clipping some of the videos.\n\nFor the first 24 hours, it was just getting tired. But coffee helped a SHIT ton. Every time I'd start to get tired, I'd put in a new pot, and get back to work. After around 36 hours, I started getting confused. Not like \"where am I\" confused, but more like overthinking simple things, and just getting confused on my ideas and the project itself. But after about 50 hours my mind lost creativity for the video, and I realized I was rushing just to finish so I could sleep. \n\nAt this point, I saved what I had done, and passed out at around 2 pm to 11pm. But before I went to sleep, the best way to explain my state was just unhealthy. I didn't feel myself, not out of body, just very weird and uncomfortable. I start to lose track of my ideas and my overall goal, and organization of video clips was just getting too complex for my state to figure out.\n\nWhen I woke up and got back to work, compiled all the clips into a single video, and rendered it to watch, I drank a few cups of coffee and a shot of espresso, sat down on the living room floor of my dorm, and passed out. No amount of caffeine could keep me awake. I do remember my heart feeling unhealthy, just the way it was beating and all. \n\nBut yea, that's my long story of my recent adventures of finishing a video project for my friends in a few days straight! It was one of my favorite colleges experiences and I can't wait to make another (:\n\n(But yea staying up fucking blows)",
"Think of the exterior brain as complex, calculative, and executive functioning. These areas, well rested, serve us well. These areas require a lot of energy. Go deeper into the brain, this is where primal emotions are processed, as well as areas of repetitive motion, etc are processed, including more basic survival mechanisms. From my neuroanatomy days, this should account for an eli5 answer. If you want more, in ten dollar words, I can break it down. ",
"Disclaimer: I have no real science to offer. That being said, I do have absolutely awful sleeping habits. I'll have nights where I feel like I wake up every hour or so, but it has happened so much that I've come to realize that I actually do crash for a few hours, usually between 3:30 and 6:30am. The effects during the daytime are what really get weird. I will get fits of narcolepsy at 2, 5, and 7 pm. These are always preceded by involuntary micronaps in which I must be slipping immediately into REM sleep, because I hear and see things that are not there. What's worse is that I'm often seeing exactly what I was seeing before I fall asleep, which makes it all seem more real. When I snap out of it, I'm left with a serious WTF kind of feeling. It's confusing and disorienting, and I'm sure it affects my behavior. Sorry so long winded...it was nice to write this all out.",
"I work 20+ hour days frequently during my season and I've noticed mild hallucinations after about 3 days of it in a row. Usually happens when I stare at something for too long and zone out. It's kind of enjoyable once you get used to it",
"I feel like there's so many things like this that are so strange to others, but so normal to my life ",
"The longest I've ever gone was 76 hours due to a medication. From 0-24 hours I experienced cycles of fatigue with sporadic bursts of energy. From 24-48 hours, I was extremely fatigued, but not tired in the slightest. My body wanted to sleep but my brain said no. This was also about the time that I felt like my skin was crawling and there was no way to get comfortable no matter what I did. From 48-76 hours I had extreme ups and downs. I went from tired and irritable to wired and goofy in an an instant. The entire time I still felt my skin crawling. I did start to hear things, and any sensory stimulus, (lights, sounds, etc.) caused me to have what were basically anxiety attacks.\n\nI really recommend getting some sleep and not pushing yourself if you don't have to. If you absolutely must, don't do anything that requires mental processing or motor functions. Don't make any important decisions and DO NOT DRIVE. I made the mistake of driving while sleep deprived once and pulled out in front of a vehicle I didn't realize was there. Almost crashed. Someone correct me if I'm wrong, but I've read that going 24+ hours without sleep is the equivalent of being legally intoxicated.\n\nTLDR: If you don't get enough sleep, you might go a bit crazy and end up naked in a dumpster with the remains of two dead prostitutes and a live bearded man eating a turkey club.\n\nSources: I was the bearded man eating a turkey club.",
"Circadian Rhythms are the natural cycles that act as our internal clock. For example, they make sure hormones are produced throughout the right times of day. When exposed to many environmental disruptions such as artificial light (which I'm assuming you are exposed to while being awake for this long) they will push your natural clocks out of rhythm , which leads to odd hormone production which is ultimately responsible for how we act.",
"**There is no ELI5 for this question**. It is still largely a scientific mystery regarding the necessity of sleep and specific changes it is responsible for inducing within the brain. Any answers you get to this question will be mostly conjecture given the vast roles sleep could be playing in different parts of the brain and the complete lack of scientific consensus about what exactly sleep is needed for.",
"Sleeping lets the brain clear out toxins using cerebrospinal fluid. The toxins are just the leftover bits from using your brain, like the fumes from driving a car. \nThe longer you go without sleep, the more of these toxins build up. These toxins cause you to lose your emotional regulation and you essentially become inebriated. This is why people go through the 'giddy' stage of sleep deprivation and eventually begin to lose their mind and hallucinate after extended periods of time. \n\n\n**_URL_0_",
"Theory time:\n\nI base this on the split Brain theory.\n\nI suggest that what you are experiencing currently is what I would call a \"subconscious\" take over. \n\nSee I suggest that during your \"wake\" time you unknowingly or even knowingly if you have something like depression are suppressing your \"subconscious\" personality which causes stress on your \"wake\" Brain/personality.\nNow what happened due to you staying up so long is that your \"wake\" brain has become over exerted and is not able to suppress your \"subconscious\" brain as well. That is why you feel that your personality has changed. Because it did. In your \"normal\" \"wake\" time your personality is probably something around 90%+ \"wake\" and ~10% \"subconscious\" depending on how strong your suppression is (these Numbers I'm pulling out of my ass because there is no research as far as I know in this direction). \nAt the moment because your \"wake\" brain/personality is resting your \"subconscious\" brain/personality has taken over more of your conscious.\nIn what way it changes you depends which regions of your brain which brain/personality has directly control over. \n\nNow I understand that this is defensively not the commonly accepted way of seeing what is happening and most here will give what I say no or extremely low credence. \nAll I wanted to do is give one more possible explanation for what you are experiencing.\n\nHave a nice day",
"I'm late but I have chronic insomnia as a side effect of chronic pain. When I stop sleeping it goes in 48 hour cycles. I will get no sleep one day then the second day I'll sleep something like 2-5 hours. \n\nIt starts with not being able to concentrate, unable to read or watch TV I start picking up and putting things down unable to finish any tasks. Then it moves to being unable to remember words just normal words. Like fridge and my brothers name or my pets names maybe just the word for food. \n\nThen I'll get some sleep and I'll wake up feeling really refreshed and more functional. I'll eat some food because at some point during all this eating becomes difficult because it seems like you've just eaten even though it may have actually been 8 hours ago. Then about 4 hours after waking up from this sleep and eating it'll start going down hill quickly. \n\nDuring all this holding conversations becomes more and more difficult. Verging on impossible so I start avoiding talking to people. I can can't engage in any of the activities I enjoy. Time starts to pass differently. It starts to go in cycles of giddy happiness like being tipsy drunk and a deep depression. Then it starts again. \n\nI start to feel like I'm going crazy that the world isn't real and time isn't real my personal relationships start falling apart because keeping in touch with people becomes more difficult because I might be the most clear headed at 4am. No one wants to talk at 4am. Then try and talk to people when I'm normal they think I've been ignoring them. It's incredibly isolating",
"When you deprive yourself of sleep, your body loses energy more than its used to in a normal waking cycle. To make up for it, you begin to produce cortisol as a stress response. This spikes your blood sugar, and begins to shift your brain to a more needs based thought process. When your blood sugar dips, even a little, you'll get hungry, to supply your body with energy it cannot get without sleep. You tend to get cranky already when hungry, for that primary reason stated before. Your brain switches away from our evolved logical and rational thinking to high-stress, survival style thought. Over time, the stress response mounts, and you begin to literally shut off any sane thought unless its to get sleep, or prevent your death, whichever comes first.",
"yeah, I've gotten the \"goofiness\" too. it's kind of fun\n\nthis happens because your brain, under normal operation, creates buildup of toxic byproducts and proteins, which eventually build up and impair functioning.\n\nwhen you sleep, your brain washes and cleans itself and cleans all this crap out and is back to top working condition",
"After about 36 hours of literally no sleep after I had my daughter, no matter where I was or what I was doing I'd constantly hallucinate my baby rolling of things and I'd lurch to catch her, only to realise she was still in her swing...\n\nI have her to my mum for the night and slept for 12 hours straight. ",
"Went on a first date last week. I was dealing with a few weeks' worth of lack of sleep, a month worth of 10-11 workdays (new for me), and I hadn't eaten at all the day of the date but had a double espresso. I didn't realize the crazy shit I was saying until much later. \n\nThe day after we went out he politely texted he didn't feel a connection worthy of a second date. At first I thought, \"okay, no spark, understandable.\" \n\nTwo days later I got ten hours worth of sleep and ate more than I had in weeks, and it all came rushing back to me. Oh my god that was the most embarrassing date of my life and I had no idea at the time. "
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5en948 | why are humans more or less shades of tan and brown instead of blues, greens, etc.? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5en948/eli5_why_are_humans_more_or_less_shades_of_tan/ | {
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"Short Answer : Melanin.\n\nAnswering your question involves a mix of understanding biology and a little physics.\n\nMelanin is a pigment that is naturally produced by your body, from the metabolism of an amino acid called tyrosine. This pigment can be polymerized and produced in skin cells, and by nature of its structure, is capable of dissipating 99.99% of the UV radiation that comes from the sun.\n\nWhy this is important is because UV radiation is capable of doing molecular damage to DNA by causing the formation of what are called pyrimidine dimers, which is a fancy way of saying it breaks the ladder rungs and sticks them in the wrong place. Broken DNA is useless for processing, so it has to be repaired. There are proteins that can repair this broken DNA, but they have an upper limit on how much repair they can do. Beyond that, the cell will die, or worse, mutate and cause cancer.\n\nThe body's method of protecting itself is by creating this pigment called Melanin, which it generates from little cells in the skin called melanocytes. These cells produce melanin when exposed to UV radiation, and the pigment diffuses through the skin, which is what creates the tan colour you see in the first place.\n\nIncreasing concentrations of melanin will cause the skin to grow progressively darker. Which is how you get brown, and with increased concentrations, darker and darker shades of brown.\n\nThe amount of melanin that's produced by default is genetic, but it also increases with UV exposure, which is how people can tan, and in the case of brown-skinned individuals, turn even darker.\n\nNow as for why there are no pigments in those other colours. Well, they're just terrible at blocking UV light. So they don't stick around in the gene pool long enough since they're not useful pigments to have.\n\nThe reason people appear fair skinned in the first place is because of a reflection of light from the dense layers of cells and skin, and a lack of melanin. Babies are translucent when they grow, and increased tissue density is what makes them appear solid.\n\nA further detailed note, melanin comes in two types, Eumelanin, which can be brown or black and is seen in the skin and hair, and Pheomelanin, which gives tissues a pink colour, usually around the genitals, nipples and lips. This added pigment when mixed with eumelanin is what creates red hair. A lack of brown eumelanin in the hair, is what causes it to gray or turn blond.\n\nTL;DR\n\nMelanin is what makes humans appear in different shades of brown, and its production is genetically coded, but can also be increased by UV exposure.\n\nIt has the protective effect of acting as a shield against harmful UV radiation, and its efficacy is the reason why it persists as a pigment compared to other possible colors such as blue, green and so on, which are by nature, terrible at blocking UV light.\n\nEdited for grammar and types of melanin."
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1mkrr4 | spontaneous combustion | How? Why do people spontaneously combustion? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1mkrr4/eli5_spontaneous_combustion/ | {
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"Nobody really knows for sure, due to its weird nature. However, it is accepted that two things are needed: fuel and ignition.\n\nFuel is either methane produced from digested foods (farts) being excreted from the skin or oily body fat. An ignition is usually either static electricity or a cigarette.\n\nDo not worry though, spontaneous human combustion is very rare and it usually occurs 'naturally' in humans that are obese or have severely imbalanced bodily fluids. It is also very unclear if it actually exists due to rarity.\n\nEDIT: another theory for fuel is buildup of flammable substances (like alcohol) in the blood.",
"To be clear, the question was \"Spontaneous Combustion\" the word Human does not appear in the question.\n\nSpontaneous Combustion happens all the time: _URL_0_\n",
"Someone is having chest pains and feeling dizzy. They rub some Vaseline and Vix vapor rub on their chest and go to bed. That doesn't work so they get up, dawn a cotton shirt, and sit in their favorite lazy boy for a cigarette. Then they fall unconscious and the cigarette ignites the cotton and ointment. Fatty tissue continues to burn with the cotton and lazy boy acting as a wick."
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35fg2z | why do i always see empty cars on the side of the highway with rags/plastic bags out the window? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/35fg2z/eli5why_do_i_always_see_empty_cars_on_the_side_of/ | {
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"those are broken down/out of gas cars and the bag is supposed to indicate that the car isn't abandoned and someone will be coming back for it"
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4tugfx | does the maestro or conductor of an orchestra really make a difference by standing there waving their wand? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4tugfx/eli5_does_the_maestro_or_conductor_of_an/ | {
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"Yes! So the sheet music is basically a guideline to follow. The conductor will change things as they go, making the music flow with what they feel is right. Conductors actually do a lot more than they are given credit for. Without them, the music could be played, but with them, it can be played in a really fluid way. ",
"The conductor serves an important function, yes. It is possible for an orchestra to play without a conductor, but there is a much greater chance of errors/mistakes and there will likely be synchronization problems as well.\n\nAlso, the conductor provides feedback to the performers with respect to how the music sounds from the perspective of the audience. For example, a conductor can signal to performers or groups within the orchestra to let them know that they should increase or decrease their volume.\n\nA lot of what the conductor does though has to do with keeping all the performers synchronized so that they all follow a standardized time reference with respect to things like how quickly the music should be played (beats per minute) and when exactly certain performers or groups should start and stop playing. \n\nThe conductor can also make slight changes/adjustments on the fly (like increasing or decreasing the length of a pause/rest, increasing or decreasing the speed/BPM, determining how long the last note of the song is extended, etc.) and it's the responsibility for the performers to pay attention and follow the conductor's directions).",
"4 musicians can play together well without a leader. Even 10 can do it somewhat, but when you get to 80+ people spread out across an entire stage it is just not physically possible to play all as one. Minor errors will occur and add up to a bad performance. \n\nMusician do have their eyes on the music, but they also have their eyes on the conductor. They are constantly switching between the two and keeping one in the peripheral when looking at the other. The Conductor is keeping the beat, but they are also instructing changes in volume, changes in styles, changes in speed, cueing individuals or sections to come in, adapting things on the fly as needed. Take a live band playing in an opening ceremony that has a procession of some kind. Those are things that happen to go much longer than the piece of music generally played during them so you have impromptu repeats added into the music that are given on the fly to the musicians. \n\nThe conductor is also the voice of the group to the audience during the performance should talking be required. \n\nAnd the conductor is the leader of rehearsals. They are the ones that choose the music to be played and practice it with the band. What you are asking is very similar to asking why a football team has a coach and why they attend the game and give instructions on what to do. ",
"When I was in band I always thought of it like this: the sheet music tells us what to play, the conductor tells us how."
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8gkxf3 | why does florida have so many sinkholes? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/8gkxf3/eli5_why_does_florida_have_so_many_sinkholes/ | {
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"Florida used to be largely under the ocean, because the water was higher and it's a flat state. Much of the state now is on top of the Florida Aquifer, which is sort of like a big limestone sponge filled with water and caverns and so on. (Limestone is \"composed mainly of skeletal fragments of marine organisms such as coral, forams and molluscs\" - the effects of being underwater all that time.) Limestone is quite soft and is easily eaten away by water, especially the places that are basically big empty coral patches left underground. Sometimes, when a giant lump of ancient coral or simply a big area of limestone, is dissolved in the water, it causes the land above to collapse. Sinkhole!",
"Sinkholes require two major things rock (normally limestone) which can be easily dissolved by the action of water and plenty of water. Florida has both of these in abundance, for how sinkholes are formed - _URL_0_"
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6ijjgs | why aren't you supposed to put car batteries on the ground? | I have a small understanding of how batteries work through an Electric Engineering class in college but I still don't know why I shouldn't. I have heard the saying of "grounding the battery" but wouldn't the case around protect it from that? Would charging it afterwards not fix it? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/6ijjgs/eli5_why_arent_you_supposed_to_put_car_batteries/ | {
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"Yeah, there is no issue on setting a car battery on the ground. The issue comes in turning a battery sideways or upside down. Sometimes a battery can become unsealed and leak causing battery acid to spill out.\n\nGrounding the battery has to do with the positive and negative terminals. Basically you don't want your positive terminal to come in contact with the negative terminal directly or indirectly (loose wires touching the chasis, etc.). Edit: This causes the stored electricity to discharge, which depending on how rapid the reaction, cause damage to the battery itself.",
"This is an outdated concern. Back in the olden days car batteries were made of a rubber material which actually allowed some acid seepage...potentially leading to conductive connection to the concrete diminishing the batteries stored potential. \nModern car batteries are not susceptible to this as they are made of plastics. Todays batteries are actually BETTER stored on the ground as the cold surface reduces self discharge.",
"Modern batteries dont have this problem.\n\nEdison cell nickle iron batteries were encased in iron instead of rubber and they would discharge into concrete. Batteries before that were made of wood with glass cells. Storing them on damp earth or concrete would cause the wood to swell and break the glass.\n\n",
"I was always told this too specifically for concrete- so usually I put down a piece of scrap wood, but...\n\n\" The short answer is that letting modern batteries sit on concrete does not harm or discharge them in any way. \"\n\n_URL_0_"
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6ow7wd | with a few exceptions, the most popular vocalists throughout history are ones with high vocal ranges, not low. why do humans enjoy high pitched singing so much? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/6ow7wd/eli5_with_a_few_exceptions_the_most_popular/ | {
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"In classical music, it is typical for the melody to be played on a high-pitched instrument, such as flute, trumpet, or especially violin. This is because those instruments, in a higher register, are easier to hear over the rest of the orchestra. Having the melody \"on top\" of all of the other parts makes it stand out. From a more technical point of view, a higher sound is more constrained to a particular range of frequencies, and the sound waves are less likely to be interfered with by other instruments. This makes it easier to hear, and is also a plus in recording and mixing. It's important to have the distinct parts of a song you are hearing occupy different pitch ranges, otherwise they complete with one another and the sound gets muddled. High-pitched instruments and voices naturally are more easily distinguished.\n\nThere *may* also be biological or psychological reasons that high-pitched sounds sound more clear to us or get our attention, but I can't speak to that. Another comment asks a question about that, and I too would be curious to know the answer."
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15v2wc | why do computers with ssd's need ram? | Since SSD's are basically the same flash memory as RAM, why do computers that have SSD's need RAM? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/15v2wc/why_do_computers_with_ssds_need_ram/ | {
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"RAM is not the same as flash memory. While flash memory is faster than hard drives, they're still about 100 times slower than RAM.",
"Imagine your computer's memory like modes of transportation, and you are trying to get somewhere. \n\n- Your hard drive (either solid state or spinning disc) is like an airplane. It can fit a bunch of people, but you have to show up early, go through security, and then wait to board before you can board the plane. \n\n- Your RAM is like the subway system. It can fit a fairly large amount of people, but you still need to wait a little bit for the train. \n\n- On your CPU, there are two types of memory, L2 and L3 cache. Your L3 cache is like a car. It can only fit a few people, but usually doesn't take too long to get to. However, you do need to spend some time finding parking.\n\n- Your L2 cache is like a bike. It can only fit you, but you never need to look for parking. \n\n- Finally, your CPU contains a tiny amount of super-fast memory called \"registers\". These \"registers\" are like your feet. Instant access, but can only take you and you alone a very short distance. \n\nYou can imagine that on a long trip, you would use all of these modes of transportation. As you go down the list, each mode of transportation is quicker to use, but can move less people. So your RAM is actually the second-slowest memory in your system, and what your operating system on your computer does is move memory between the levels at appropriate times so that everything moves fast and smoothly. ",
"You are confusing RAM with flash memory. \n\nThey are 2 completely separate and unrelated technologies.\n\nRAM is compared to flash memory:\n\n* 1. Around 1 million times faster for the **first** access.\n* 2. Around 100 times faster for total amount of information moved."
]
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[],
[],
[]
] |
|
4hg7sc | what are the rules of evidence law and what are they there for? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4hg7sc/eli5_what_are_the_rules_of_evidence_law_and_what/ | {
"a_id": [
"d2pilu8"
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"That's not really something you can answer in the form that a five year old can digest but I'll try. \n\nWhen you argue without rules there is no end to the argument. You can see this in the classic case of \"he started it mom v did not you did\". If on the other hand you enforce some rules such as not giving opinions as evidence, excluding things that you heard other people say, (hearsay) and only using physical evidence that you can prove is from where you say it was and unaltered (chain of custody), then there is some prospect of actually resolving disputes about facts and getting to the truth. That's one part. Another is that with some rules you can have some protection from being railroaded in court. The opposing party could just make up whatever they wanted if there were no rules. \nWhere did it come from? Literally thousands of years of accumulated legal precedent and legislative effort. If you think about it legal systems are accumulations of rules. That's their essence. "
]
} | [] | [] | [
[]
] |
||
16zl83 | eli15: where does google get the satellite footage for their services from? (google earth, etc) | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/16zl83/eli15_where_does_google_get_the_satellite_footage/ | {
"a_id": [
"c80vft8"
],
"score": [
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"text": [
"I've looked into buying satellite imagery for my research, which would require getting in touch with a company that has a private satellite (KokorHekkus mentioned Rapid Eye, but just a quick search turns up [Ikonos](_URL_4_), [Digital Globe](_URL_3_), and [Geoeye](_URL_1_), and there's also imagery taken by public entities such as the [U.S. Geological Survey](_URL_0_)) and ordering the images for the area I want covered. If they haven't already taken hi-res cloudless imagery for that region, then they will fly the satellite over it and take the images specifically for me. As I understand it, if it were completely new imagery I would have it exclusively for 6 months or so and then it would become public, at which point Google could buy it and upload it. So they just keep buying new images, updated images, etc.\n\nOpen Google Earth and zoom in fairly close to the ground. You'll see all the copyright info at the bottom, including something saying [\"Image © 2013 GeoEye.\"](_URL_2_) In this case that means that the imagery is provided by GeoEye. Scroll around to another tile and you should see different names in the copyright section, and they are the company or agency that Google got the images from. If you see more than one named, that means that the image comes from more than one source, or you may be on the edge of two tiles."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[
"http://earthexplorer.usgs.gov/",
"http://www.geoeye.com/CorpSite/",
"http://imgur.com/WfFaghw",
"http://www.digitalglobe.com/",
"http://www.satimagingcorp.com/gallery-ikonos.html"
]
] |
||
2af57c | how does dog the bounty hunter work? | Im trapped at home after hernia surgery and watching abc. I roughly understand bonds. But is he sanctioned by the government or local authorities because theh seem very paramilitary. Thanks :) sorry if this isnt clear im on a ton of painkillers D: | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2af57c/eli5_how_does_dog_the_bounty_hunter_work/ | {
"a_id": [
"ciuf14q"
],
"score": [
2
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"text": [
"Bail bondsmen are not affiliated with law enforcement "
]
} | [] | [] | [
[]
] |
|
2osmcs | why do some people love and crave the feeling from roller coasters or waterslides, while it makes others feel ill? is it pure emotion, or are they actually having physiologically different experiences? | For context, I went to a water park with my SO and his son this weekend. They went on every slide multiple times and couldn't get enough. I went on two, and both made me feel nauseous, messed up my equilibrium for a long while after, and were generally not fun, though I wanted them to be.
This has been the case since I was a small girl. I have tried at multiple points in my life to enjoy roller coasters or other thrill rides and I ALWAYS feel sick and kind of terrible. Is there something different about me compared to the people who love the rush of rides? Thanks! | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2osmcs/eli5_why_do_some_people_love_and_crave_the/ | {
"a_id": [
"cmqd13y"
],
"score": [
3
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"text": [
"There is a slight difference between adrenaline junkies(i.e thrill seekers) and non-junkies. Basically, adrenaline junkies have less sensitive adrenaline receptors, and there need more adrenaline to feel the rush. On the ther hand, non-junkies get overwhelmed by the huge influx of adrenaline and it upsets hormonal balances.\n\nThis is a very simplified explanation. Hope it helps."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[]
] |
|
6pti1k | how does smelling something work? i saw a post today that a small test tube of a particular substance could make a half mile radius smell, does this mean particles of this are strewn that far? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/6pti1k/eli5_how_does_smelling_something_work_i_saw_a/ | {
"a_id": [
"dks2uka"
],
"score": [
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"text": [
"That's exactly what is means.\n\nAir molecules travel at a few hundred miles per hour, but you don't feel it because they are so small an all going in different directions. By the time they get too far away from the source, they are usually too dispersed for us to smell, unless it is something we are very sensitive too."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[]
] |
||
1xhp5y | how does r/imgoingtohellforthis have 300 million+ subscribers when a subreddit such as r/pics only has ~5 million? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1xhp5y/eli5_how_does_rimgoingtohellforthis_have_300/ | {
"a_id": [
"cfbfdsn"
],
"score": [
4
],
"text": [
"They have 300,000 subscribers. The 666 at the end is a joke."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[]
] |
||
46h2z9 | why does thoroughly washing frequently not prevent acne? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/46h2z9/eli5_why_does_thoroughly_washing_frequently_not/ | {
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"text": [
"You can't really wash under the surface of the skin now can you? ",
"Acne can also be caused by diet, and sometimes washing too frequently can irritate your skin and make breakouts worse. ",
"Acne is often caused by hormonal imbalance, not by a lack of hygiene. your doc can help you with medication for this :)",
"Spots & Acne can be caused or exacerbated by a pretty wide array of things. Hormonal imbalance, bacteria, tiredness, stress, irritation & dryness.\n\n* Washing regularly can actually be counteractive to your intent, because it cleans away vital oils (which take time to replenish naturally) which keep moisture in your skin. This leads to dryness and irritation.\n\n* Something key to understand is that our body & skin does most of its healing while we sleep, and the healing process is hurt by lack of sleep and increased stress levels.\nThe number 1 thing you can do to reduce skin problems, is make sure you go to bed early enough to get a solid sleep. Personally I've always found that 7-8 hours is enough to keep my skin in its current condition, and don't heal at a noticeable rate until I'm regularly getting 9 hours or more. \n\n* Getting some sunlight is also a big help in healthy skin, presumably due to Vitamin D which we can't get easily or in high quality from other sources, and is important for the body to heal wounds (which spots/acne technically are)",
"As someone who has lived twenty years of unrelenting acne that has developed in cystic acne covering half my body... I have no idea.\n\nI'm very sure it has nothing to do with hygiene though."
]
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[],
[],
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||
f01hgb | how can there be a margin of error for something that is counted? you see this being said all the time during election season when votes are being reported. votes are counted right? it seems like this is the most simple type of math that should not have any error associated with it. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/f01hgb/eli5_how_can_there_be_a_margin_of_error_for/ | {
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"fgqxkb9",
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"text": [
"You mostly see margins of error in polls. The pollster calls 1000 people and extrapolates to the population of California. That's a statistical sampling activity, and there is always uncertainty.\n\nVotes are different, the answers are the answers, and winning by 1 vote counts.",
"Margin for error is not talking about the actual vote counting. That is, as you would think, an exact number. Instead, that is talking about various polls and estimations that the news people are doing to try to guess where the voting will end up. Since they are only counting a small portion of the voters, this means it isn't completely accurate and there is some error, albeit relatively small.",
"Votes are counted on a scale that there simply is a lot of oppertunity for mistakes. Like, a whole lot of the time these possible mistakes won't be made, but when counting and organising thousands, eventually something will be done incorrectly and this effects the outcome."
]
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[],
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||
1r0rb9 | why can we predict solar bodies' movements and eclipses a thousand years from now, but we have trouble predicting the weather tomorrow? | The weather is here in our atmosphere and space is so far away. And yet we can predict space much more accurately. Why? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1r0rb9/eli5_why_can_we_predict_solar_bodies_movements/ | {
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"text": [
"Because the motions of planets etc. are very steady and regular. Things happen almost like clockwork, unless you start talking about the small stuff like comets. \n \nWeather, on the other hand, is a very complex, interconnected, chaotic system. And even though we have very sophisticated computer models of it, we'd need data down to every few square meters of the entire planet to make sure that a simulation wouldn't deviate from reality. Plus a shitload of computational power. ",
"We can predict the weather very accurately, unfortunately for those predictions to be correct we would need a massive number of hyper-accurate measurements spread over a wide distance....which we don't have. Weather is one of the prototypical chaotic systems. Very small changes in initial local conditions quickly cause large downstream changes in behavior.\n\nIt's kind of like asking why we can't prediction the outcome of a shuffled deck of cards. Well we could do so perfectly in theory, because we understand the mechanics involved, but we would need to know the initial position of every card, and closely monitor how each card lands during every shuffle. What we do today is know where some of the cards are, infer where others are likely to be, and model likely ways for cards to fall when they are shuffled together, but there is enough problems that our predicted final deck positions can be wildly off from reality, even though we only made a few mistakes."
]
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[],
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1lf0ww | the european union. what was the point, and what are the perceived outcomes of this economic alliance? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1lf0ww/eli5_the_european_union_what_was_the_point_and/ | {
"a_id": [
"cbyktfb"
],
"score": [
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"text": [
"It was founded in the 50s as a Coal and Steal trade partnership. Parts of the reasons for the First World War and thus WWII, were that there is a inherent inequality between European countries as far as natural resources are concerned. Back then, coal and steel were so important that war seemed like a adequate solution to obtain those. After WW1, the Rheinland was under international control and one of the reasons Hitler came to power was that he promised to take back the Rheinland and get the economy stabilised. \nHe did that, and a as we know now, way more than that.\n\nWell, back in the 50s, the general consent (thankfully so!) was that such a thing as the two world wars should never happen again and one of the most effective preventive measures at that time seemed to be to deprive any revanchistic tendencies in Germany of any foundation. And since Germany lost quite a bit of land, an open trade zone with france and the benelux promised to be a good solution to start from.\nPlus where there is trade and prosperity caused by mutual dependencies, there very rarely is war, historically speaking.\n\nFrom there on, it went on to grow into what is now know as the EU. It used to be a massive success: We didnt have a War in over 60 Years within the EU borders, we saw a unprecedented economical growth, especially in the post war years. (the German \"Wirtschaftswunder\" for example.\nAs a matter of fact, even over here in Britain there were doubts (pre 2007 obv) if a full membership wouldnt have been more beneficial.\n\nIn the wake of the debt crisis however, the perception changed and it isnt all sunshine and roses, but then again, the economical reality is that it isnt all doom and gloom either."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[]
] |
||
1sudp7 | what causes things in the universe to just move on their own? | I get inertia and gravity has something to do with it but I'm still pretty confused.
Edit: when I say "universe" I mean space. The galaxies and such are moving away from each other at a very fast rate. What causes this? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1sudp7/eli5_what_causes_things_in_the_universe_to_just/ | {
"a_id": [
"ce1bk2e"
],
"score": [
2
],
"text": [
"What do you mean? Move how? "
]
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[]
] |
|
2ll23e | identical vs. fraternal twins/triplets/etc. which parent contributes to/causes which? | I understand the basics of the biology behind twins:
Identical siblings = the mother released one egg from the ovaries, which split into 2+ embryos after the sperm fertilizes the egg
Fraternal siblings = the mother releases multiple eggs from her ovaries, which are each fertilized by the sperm
I assume (but please correct me if I'm wrong) that the likeliness of fraternal twins are more dependent on the mother and her genes since she's the one releasing multiple eggs. Of course that's only assuming the mother is not being helped along by fertility meds, artificial insemination, or in vitro fertilization, which can cause multiple births (see: Octo-mom).
My questions are:
1) From a genetic perspective, which parent contributes to identical twins most often? Is it the father's sperm or the mother's egg causing the split to occur? Is it both sides equally contributing to the split? Is it simply a question of genetic likelihood (i.e., one or both parents carrying a "twin gene") such as one parent's family line tends to produce more twins than the other parent?
2) Many people believe that the twin genes tend to skip a generation so it would be passed from grandparent to grandchild with parents as a carrier rather than parent to child. How accurate is this belief?
**TL;DR** - when it comes to multiple births, which parent is the more likely genetic culprit behind the creation of twins/triplets/etc.? And does the chance of having twins really skip a generation like so many believe? I've heard of twins giving birth to twins, so I'm leery about that.
EDIT: Added another question about whether the odds of having twins skips a generation like many people believe. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2ll23e/eli5_identical_vs_fraternal_twinstripletsetc/ | {
"a_id": [
"clvtso2"
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"score": [
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"text": [
"Identical twins do not run in families, but fraternal twins do. It appears that there is a gene that either a mother or father can pass on to their daughter that causes hyperovulation (meaning these women are more likely to release multiple eggs in a cycle). Twins born from this gene do not skip generations. The likely reason this myth arose is because a man who inherits hyperovulation from his parents can pass it on to his kids, but the gene will have no effect on him or his own likelihood of having twins. Hence, if he inherits it from his mother and passes it on to his daughter, grandma and granddaughter will both hyperovulate and create the illusion that hyperovulation has \"skipped a generation\".\n\nWe don't know what causes identical twin eggs to split. All we know is that it probably isn't genetically hereditary. Multiple identical twin births are considered coincidences.\n\nSources: _URL_0_, _URL_1_"
]
} | [] | [] | [
[
"http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/do-genes-influence-whethe/",
"http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/02/health/02real.html?_r=0"
]
] |
|
x2tz3 | how people are tracked on the computer | For Example:
the 4chan burger king incident, how to the person find the OP? is it some sort of program they have, or... | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/x2tz3/eli5_how_people_are_tracked_on_the_computer/ | {
"a_id": [
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2
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"text": [
"There are lots of ways to track people on the internet, it all depends on what position you are in. All web servers keep a log of everybody who visits the site, page, datetime, ip address and similar variables unless the website operator disables that. It is easy to look up where an ip address is located geographically because ISPs are assigned blocks of IP addresses to assign to their customers. Most consumers are dynamically assigned an IP address by their ISP when they turn on their router/computer but that IP address still signifiies their geographic region.\n\nWith the Burger King lettuce incident, it is my understanding that he was discovered through EXIF data, which is encoded into digital photos when you take them, usually shutter speed, f-stop and the like. When you take a picture with a camera phone with a GPS chip in it, lots of them encode the location in the picture as well. There are programs that remove/edit the EXIF data.",
"4chan burger king incident:\n\nEvery digital photo you take has, embedded within it, some data called EXIF data. Depending on the device you used to take the photo, the EXIF data could contain the camera settings, the time and date of the photo, or even the location it was shot. The last one is particularly common on cell phones, which have built in location services. \n\nIf you upload your photo online but forget to clear out the EXIF data, other people can read it using special tools. 4chan did this and learned where the Burger King photo was taken. From there, it was a simple matter of contacting the nearest Burger King."
]
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[],
[]
] |
|
849929 | why does sugar-free chewing gum not stick to braces like bubble gum? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/849929/eli5_why_does_sugarfree_chewing_gum_not_stick_to/ | {
"a_id": [
"dvo8idr"
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"score": [
3
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"text": [
"Sugar is sticky. Sugary gum is sticky. Sugar-free gum is not sticky. Ergo lack of sugar may be the answer."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[]
] |
||
8fohjw | can someone explain how charging by induction works? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/8fohjw/eli5_can_someone_explain_how_charging_by/ | {
"a_id": [
"dy56m74"
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"score": [
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"text": [
"Any time you have a conductive material with relative motion in a magnetic field, you get induced voltage and possibly the flow of electricity through that conductor. \n\nCharging by induction just places the conductive material within a moving electromagnetic field which allows current flow to charge the battery that is connected to that conductive material. Think of it like electrons jumping into a magnetic field from a circuit and out when it meets another piece of metal in that field."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[]
] |
||
86s328 | i read that scientists managed to bring back an animal called the quagga. could they do the same with the northern white rhino? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/86s328/eli5_i_read_that_scientists_managed_to_bring_back/ | {
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"text": [
"They are using selective breeding to bring back something like the quagga.\n\nWith the white rhino, which is one of two subspecies in the area that are quite similar, it may be possible. But the other subspecies being similar and doing OK I doubt they would bother.",
"I had to look this up. Apparently they aren't bringing back the actual quagga, they're just using selective breeding on zebras to make the resulting offspring look like a quagga. \n\nSuffice to say that they aren't the actual original species but just lookalikes.",
"The Germans did this in the 20s and 30s with cattle, too. They bred back cows to resemble the primeval aurochs. Unfortunately the allies' bombing raids subsequently killed all the uber-cows. _URL_0_",
"Before the last male Northern White Rhino that was covered in the news recently was put down, they harvested its sperm. I think they have every intention of trying to bring it back.",
"Theoretically they could use the same technique that was used to clone Dolly. Basically, this technique requires a nucleus, an oocyte donor, and a surrogate mother. The nucleus can be implanted in the oocyte and it would develop inside the surrogate mother, the only problem would be that this new rhino would be a clone, which would make breeding highly advised against"
]
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[],
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||
1f6b50 | medical records and doctor/patient confidentiality. | I've noticed that when I go to a new doctor they sometimes already know a few things about my health which I assume they are getting from my medical records. How exactly does this work?
What all information would those records contain and how are they being accessed? Is there a special program or something that only licensed physicians are able to access?
What about doctor/patient confidentiality. From what I know, doctors aren't allowed to divulge any of a patients medical information unless it violates a law or puts people in danger. Wouldn't my medical records be confidential too? Does doctor/patient confidentiality apply to everyone **except** other physicians?
By the way, I want to thank everyone on this sub for answers. I've had quite a few posts here and I usually find a good, simple answer every time. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1f6b50/eli5_medical_records_and_doctorpatient/ | {
"a_id": [
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"text": [
"They usually can't get your records unless you sign a release for them to do so. An exception would be electronic records, or even your paper chart, that another doctor has access to. ",
"So it is a bit of a complicated issue, protected health information. Here is the crash course. With any law it is obviously more complicated than this makes it.\n\nIn the United States health records are protected under what is called Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (HIPAA).\n\nWhat this law protects is the link between identification or a patient and their corresponding medical records.\n\nThe law was designed to prevent your medical records being obtained by the general public. So it would be illegal for your doctor to disclose to your cousin that you had the clap. \n\nHowever if you went to a new doctor they could call your old doctor and get everything they had ever seen you for. Because your history pertains to current ongoing issues. Regardless if they are actually related. So Doctors can talk to other doctors within federal law without issue if they both have had involvment in your health care.\n\nYour medical records can be used for training students or at refresher without your consent if it has been anonymized. Meaning your name, age, address, SSN, phone number ect... has been redacted. \n\nTLDR doctors can talk to each other without issue if involved in your care. Doctors cannot talk to the public about you without consent."
]
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[],
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|
3bvsa6 | how do we continue growing seedless watermelon? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3bvsa6/eli5how_do_we_continue_growing_seedless_watermelon/ | {
"a_id": [
"cspyhz3"
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"score": [
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"text": [
"From seedless watermelon seeds. \n\n\nSeedless watermelons are basically a sterile hybrid. You take two different watermelon plants that are perfectly capable of forming seeds on their own and cross pollinate them. The plants that grow form the result of this cross pollination don't make seeds."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[]
] |
||
ksptm | what's happening in côte d'ivoire? | It would be really appreciated if someone could explain the historical context of what's happening in the civil war also :) | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/ksptm/eli5_whats_happening_in_côte_divoire/ | {
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"***HISTORICAL BACKGROUND***\n\nAround 1890 or so, the French established a colony in Ivory Coast, and proceeded to exploit it for its natural resources without preparing the natives for any kind of self-government. After World War 2, Ivory Coast gets its independence. The man who took over, Houphouet, ruled as a competent, benevolent dictator for about 30 years. Then Houphouet died, and the political system which he single-handedly bound together breaks down. The country's underlying ethnic and religious fault lines (poorer Moslem north, richer Christian south) came out with full force.\n\nIn 2002, the Moslem north revolted after an attempt to exclude the northerners' preferred presidential candidate from the upcoming Presidential elections, leading to a full-scale civil war. Between then and the spring of 2011, open warfare continued, punctuated by brief cease-fires enforced by UN (mostly French) peacekeepers. \n\n***THE SITUATION NOW***\n\nThe most recent cease-fire was made contingent on a free and fair presidential election being held. That election took place last year, and the northern candidate (whose name escapes me) won. However, the incumbent president, Gbagbo, refused to accept the results, and declared himself the winner of the elections. This led to the resumption of hostilities, and the eventual capture of Gbagbo this last spring.\n\nAll of this violence in what was once a prosperous country has led to the breakdown of social order, and a massive refugee crisis in what is already a very very troubled corner of the world. I sincerely doubt that the new president will be any better than the old one at keeping the country's ethnic tensions in check. I wouldn't be surprised if UN peacekeepers get called in come the next presidential election.",
"***HISTORICAL BACKGROUND***\n\nAround 1890 or so, the French established a colony in Ivory Coast, and proceeded to exploit it for its natural resources without preparing the natives for any kind of self-government. After World War 2, Ivory Coast gets its independence. The man who took over, Houphouet, ruled as a competent, benevolent dictator for about 30 years. Then Houphouet died, and the political system which he single-handedly bound together breaks down. The country's underlying ethnic and religious fault lines (poorer Moslem north, richer Christian south) came out with full force.\n\nIn 2002, the Moslem north revolted after an attempt to exclude the northerners' preferred presidential candidate from the upcoming Presidential elections, leading to a full-scale civil war. Between then and the spring of 2011, open warfare continued, punctuated by brief cease-fires enforced by UN (mostly French) peacekeepers. \n\n***THE SITUATION NOW***\n\nThe most recent cease-fire was made contingent on a free and fair presidential election being held. That election took place last year, and the northern candidate (whose name escapes me) won. However, the incumbent president, Gbagbo, refused to accept the results, and declared himself the winner of the elections. This led to the resumption of hostilities, and the eventual capture of Gbagbo this last spring.\n\nAll of this violence in what was once a prosperous country has led to the breakdown of social order, and a massive refugee crisis in what is already a very very troubled corner of the world. I sincerely doubt that the new president will be any better than the old one at keeping the country's ethnic tensions in check. I wouldn't be surprised if UN peacekeepers get called in come the next presidential election."
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9jmgxp | why are some tumors are cancer and some are not? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/9jmgxp/eli5_why_are_some_tumors_are_cancer_and_some_are/ | {
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"So a tumor is any unregulated growth, basically. Your body is supposed to keep your organs and blood vessels at a certain size, as some cells of the organs die and are replaced by others. \n\nA tumor, however, is when that goes wrong. When the growth of a certain part of an organ or bone stops being regulated and grows to far larger than it is supposed to, that is called a tumor. \n\nThat is not necessarily cancer. A good example of this are the moles that some people have. They are technically tumors of unregulated growth on the skin, but they don’t harm the body in any way. \n\nSometimes, a tumor is cancerous, which means it contains cells that don’t function as they are supposed to (making them useless to the body) and survive better than the body’s cells. This causes the slow (or sometimes very quick) replacement of the organ’s cells until there are too few normal cells around and the organ can not do its function, and the person experiences organ failure and dies. ",
"Tumors one from cells that have a mutation (which can just happen over time) that causes growth of cells that aren’t supposed to grow in that way. Some tumors have an additional mutation that causes growth to be 1) very fast; 2) the growth creates its own blood vessels, making it well-supplied with nutrients to grow faster: 3) spread throughout the body; 4) invade other tissue—in other words it’s like it might grow within and throughout an organ, meaning it’s not easily separated. This latter kind is a cancerous tumor. The former kind is a benign tumor. Benign tumors are easier to remove because they’re just in one spot and they’re separate from organs and stuff-like if you throw a marble into cake batter, It’s easy to remove the marble without leaving any of it behind in the batter. A cancerous (malignant) tumor is like throwing a bunch of dirt into your cake batter. It’s impossible to remove all the dirt because it’s all mixed in."
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5kxuzh | how did news travel across the atlantic so fast during the late 18th century? | Just read that word reached the United States of the French Revolution four days after it began. How is that possible when ships crossing the Atlantic usually took two months to make the journey? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5kxuzh/eli5how_did_news_travel_across_the_atlantic_so/ | {
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"It really didn't travel that fast. News was delayed for as long as it took to take it across on ships. They couldn't even get news moved reliably on land. During the War of 1812, the famous Battle of New Orleans was fought weeks after the end of the war because the news that the war was over didn't make it to Jackson until after the battle. ",
"Do you have a reference to this happening? \n\nThe US had been following the political situation/unrest in France for a long time before the French Revolution broke out. Perhaps there's some misinterpretation due to that.",
"The first ocean cable was completed in 1858 _URL_0_\n\nBefore that news was passed via ship across continents"
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4lxmah | why is newspaper so different from regular paper? | If I take a load of recycling to my recycling center, they have separate bins for "paper" and "newspaper". What's up with that? Obviously they're made differently, but what is that key difference? Why is newspaper made the way it is? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4lxmah/eli5_why_is_newspaper_so_different_from_regular/ | {
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"Newspaper is cheap thin paper made from generally shorter pieces of fibre, in addition it has a large amount of printing ink per volume of paper. All these factors add up to paper which isn't really worth recycling and would be better burnt to generate electricity. ",
"Newsprint needs to be strong enough to go through a web press and have the ink dry quickly.\n\nAnd since a newspaper is a perishable item, the paper doesn't have to last long -- that it, it doesn't have to be archival quality. So, it's a cheaper blend of paper, since there really isn't much added to the wood pulp to make the paper last longer.",
"Newspaper is designed to be cheap. It doesn't have to be high quality--the edition may only be current for a day, or less than that for a paper that publishes twice a day (uncommon now).\n\nAs paper fibers tend to get broken up a little more with each use, it's normally downcycled into a lesser use. For example, those cardboard pulp cup holders at fast food restaurants can be made from really low-quality stuff. It's useful to keep newspaper separate, because it's already low-quality paper."
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364scr | how exactly does adding your phone number secure your account? | Is it just so that if you forget your password, they can text it to you? Because that's stupid. I don't want Facebook knowing **that** much information about me. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/364scr/eli5_how_exactly_does_adding_your_phone_number/ | {
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"The other answers have missed out on one of the big points of this. If your phone number is added, you can use their \"one time password\" feature, if you're in a place like a hotel or coffee shop where the network may not be secure or any time you're worried about security, they can text you a temporary password, so that there's no risk of your actual password being captured"
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a5ftye | why are bulls so angry? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/a5ftye/eli5_why_are_bulls_so_angry/ | {
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"In my experience they typically aren't. Even if they fight/butt heads, it's to establish a hierarchy not out of anger. Even around humans they are very calm.\n\nI'm assuming you're asking after seeing something like the running with the bulls. I don't know for certain but my guess is those animals are out under a certain amount of stress putting them in a protective state (thinking they are under threat). They are prey and humans are predators, it's only natural to defend themselves. \n\nSource: Beef Farmer",
"In bullfighting arenas, usually the bulls are provoked via pain. I’ve met quite a few bulls and they’ve all been really mellow and sweet"
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5x4vlj | do we digest liquid foods such as soup or yogurt through urine or feces? | [deleted] | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5x4vlj/eli5_do_we_digest_liquid_foods_such_as_soup_or/ | {
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"When you eat food, it goes into your stomach where you start digesting it. The food then moves into the small intestine where it continues to get digested. What's leftover finally moves into the large intestine where your body gets the last nutrients it can out of it and then gets it ready to poop out.\n\nDuring digestion, most of your food gets pretty liquefied and your body absorbs water and whatever nutrients it can from the digested mush of food. The bits of food your body can't liquefy or can't absorb as nutrients remain and are passed as poop. \n\nYour pee come from what your kidneys filter out of your blood. So anything you pee out was first in your bloodstream. Pee is almost all water, with other waste products mixed in like urea and proteins, salts, and hormones your body doesn't need or needs to get rid of.\n\nTo get back to the original question, most things we would consider still \"foodlike\" are passed when you poop. By the time something makes it to your urine it has been broken down and transformed a lot and has already traveled in your bloodstream. Your body doesn't care much about whether it's a liquid or a solid going in because most everything will get liquefied anyway and most of the water will be absorbed by your body as the food travels through your digestive system.\n\n"
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3ofvoo | why are different franchises allowed to use tolkien's lore (elves, orcs, etc)? | This was a two part question but I found the answer to the first part here (thanks to the tooltip on submit button). So if Tolkien "invented" the elves/orcs/goblins/dwarves why do so many movies/games/books use them?
If I wanted to shoot a movie with about spiderman in mass effect setting I'd get shot down quickly. Is it a matter of Tolkien not patenting his ideas on purpose? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3ofvoo/eli5_why_are_different_franchises_allowed_to_use/ | {
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"Tolkien didn't invent elves, goblins and dwarves. They already existed in Scandinavian myth and folklore, of which Tolkien was a scholar, and he used many themes from it.\n\nThe games and other products that directly take from Tolkien's works are licensed - those who use them pay for the right to do so.",
"The answer to the first question is, basically, because the different companies that use his creations pay a licensing for to the rights holders to be permitted to do so. IIRC, his children still hold the rights to all Tolkien's work.\n\nFor the second part of your question, you most certainly could shoot your spider man movie, if all the rights holders involved agreed to let you.\n\nedit: things like elves and dwarves and other traditional folk tale beings can't be patented or copyright. That's why they turn up again and again in fantasy. Specific inventions of Tolkien's, like Hobbits and Middle Earth are exclusively his, which is why other fantasy universes have \"halflings\" and other, similar yet different-enough-for-legal-purposes versions of Tolkien characters. ",
"Both Dwarves and Elves as concepts predate Tolkien.\n\nBoth Dwarves and Elves were creatures of germanic mythology, although tolkien added some features, some were traditional such as elves and their relationship to bow/arrows and purity, and dwarves and their size/mining/underground nature.\n\nSo you're allowed to use Elves like you're allowed to use things like zeus in the God of War games.",
"Because he didn't invent them.\n\nHe was one of many author's who used the name but he invented HIS version of Elves and orcs.\n\nElves, as a generic statement, are a Race and Species. You can't patent and own the license to create an Elf. Elven creatures have existed since Drudaic times, over 1,500 years ago and have appeared constantly in European folklore.\n\nThe same goes for evertything you state. Elves, Orcs, Goblins and dwarves are all fictional races that are types of creatures, not individual persons or creations.\n\nAs opposed to someone like Spiderman. He is designed to be unique, or near-unique. His design, drawings, and other aspects of his character are carefully crafted for their intended design and crafted as a product. Unlike elves, which are a large concept variable to interpretation, the people who write spiderman want to protect his image and when you think \"Spiderman\" you think of a specific thing.\n\nAlso, why would you want to trademark a Race. (Not to be racist or anything so im saying something highly controversial and if you choose to read it that's your own doing and I am not aiming to offend anyone. M'kay?)\n\nYou can't Trademark a race, and own it like Blacks or Whites. Literary fiction has certain freedoms that allow a writer to use normal ideas, especially if those idea's are more than centuries old. Such as, I could write tomorrow, a story of a Black Man, in the eyes of an 1800's child and call him a Nigger. Politically incorrect and highly offensive yes, but literarily allowed and unchangeable.\n\nYou can't own a thought or idea basically, and it's only the way we think now that allows Copyrights and Ideas to carry the weight they have on us now. You could write your own script, and shoot a fan movie, or a parody. As long as you don't make money from it in any way.\n\nUnlike elves, you can make a movie depicting your own race of elves that you created, and no one can come and tell you that its not right because its fictional and unless you say that you are using \"Tolkien's Elves\" or something like the Elves of Rivendell or Elves of Morrowind, that you then label them as something you did not create.",
"I don't think Tolkein created the ideas of elves/dwarves/goblins (Orcs maybe? I dunno) I think he just used pre-existing folk-tales (well, dwarves are real) and built on it and created a world, politics, etc based on them.\n\nSo I don't think he could've opywritten them if he wanted to (a fairly rare practice in his day, and I'm nbiot sure how big hids books were on release, either). But if Warner bros could copywrite that stuff now, they would. But you can't copywrite pre-existing mythology.\n\nSo you couldn't use specific, copywritten characters/settings (Spidernam, or Gotham City), but you could use more generic idea's (elves or vampires, or Atlantis or Solomon's Temple)\n\n",
"Tolkien didn't invent elves, goblins or dwarves, they've existed in many mythologies and are typically of Germanic or Norse origin (at least according to Wikipedia).\n\nHe did invent the orc, although the name itself comes from an Old English world for demon. If he had wanted to he could have taken action against people who used orcs in other works, but wether or not to do so is his prerogative (in general some authors/publishers are happy to allow free use of some aspects of their works). Beyond that though, the specifics of his orc design differ from many later iterations, so some sufficiently expensive lawyers could probably challenge the point if anyone tried to enforce it.",
"Because it's not tolkiens lore. 'Elves' and 'dwarves' were around long, long before Tolkien. They were in several different mythologies and folk legends.\n\nHowever, they took many different forms. Tolkien presented a version of the elves and dwarves and such that a lot of people came to define as the definitive version, but it's still just an interpretation of an idea that's been around for a while. \n\nIt would be like if you wrote a book or did a painting where the devil had bear like arms or where Santa didn't have a beard and it caught on and became the normal way to think of it. You could copywrite your specific book or painting, but you can't copywrite Santa or the devil, and people can continue to present them in a similar manner to what you did, because you just presented a popular figure in a slightly different way, you didn't create a new figure.\n\n",
"The same reason why Marvel and Disney gets away with molesting Thor.\n\nWhen you don't know what else to do as a Disney writer, steal from norse mythology or scandinavian poetry.\n\nThat said, Tolkien build a comprehensive universe around some basic stuff,he didn't water anything down, he buffed it up, so he's a-ok in my book."
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5coaql | why is a keyboard space bar so large? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5coaql/eli5why_is_a_keyboard_space_bar_so_large/ | {
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"It makes it easier for your thumbs, they meet up in one place and that takes up more space than the tip of any other finger when in traditional typing \"finger stance\" (idk what to call it)",
"Not only is it the only key used by more than one finger, but it's a very frequently used key as well. The width also helps you find it with incredible ease."
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autst2 | how do medical professionals determine whether cancer is terminal or not? how are the stages broken down? how does “normal” cancer and terminal differ? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/autst2/eli5_how_do_medical_professionals_determine/ | {
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"We basically look at the type and stage. If it's a bad, aggressive cancer that is widely metastatic, we say it has a horrible prognosis (we use terminal for the lay person). If it's a relatively benign or easily excised tumor that is localized, we say it has a good prognosis or is curable. ",
"The stages have to do with whether the cancer has spread. So stage 1 would be if it’s localized to a system or organ. Stage 4 is where it has spread to other areas of the body, eg lung cancer cells found on the brain. Any of them can terminal depending on how aggressive it is and where it is, whether it responds to treatment. Of course the lower the stage the more likely it is to respond to treat. ",
"Stages determine how far the cancer has spread. Is it just one tumor? Has it spread to nearby lymphnodes? To distant organs? Numbers ranging from 0-4 are established based on how far it's spread. Sometimes, it'll be broken down into smaller categories (eg: 2a and 2b) based on things like the number of lymphnodes. The lower the number, the better - stage 1 is usually very treatable or even curable, but stage 4 is usually considered terminal.\n\nThis is also a big factor in determining prognosis. Someone who's got one tumor is *usually* much easier to treat. If it's in an accessible place, treatment may be as simple as one surgery - no chemo, radiation, etc. At that point, the person is not expected to die of the cancer. If a cancer is not caught before it's spread, prognosis becomes progressively worse. If a cancer has spread to distant organs, it's generally not possible to cure the patient, but they may live for several years. \n\nBeyond that, where the cancer is can play a big role. A brain tumor is hard (or impossible) to operate on, because you're likely to damage important structures. Cancers in some places don't directly kill you - you don't *need* a breast or testicle to live - but can spread to other places and become deadly in the new locations. Other cancers kill directly because they prevent vital organs from functioning correctly.\n\nFinally, the way the mutated cells behave is a major issue. Some cancers are simply more inclined to spread, grow quickly, and \"survive\" treatment attempts. Others are slower growing and easier to treat. \n\nWhen doctors are deciding what kind of prognosis someone has, they look at all these factors, and compare them to patients with similar cancers (stage, type, etc). If 97% of patients with similar cancers survived cancer-free 5 years after treatment, their patient is likely to do really well with appropriate treatment. If 75% of their patients died within 5 years of treatment, the prognosis is much worse. ",
"Nobody in here is really explaining it like you're five. I'm an oncology research nurse and to explain it to medically ignorant people or children we would use the weed analogy. \n\nThe original (primary) tumor is like a single weed in the yard. If you catch it before it goes to seed you can pluck it out (surgically remove it) assuming you can reach it. Maybe you would then also apply a treatment like casoron granules (chemo or radiation) around the yard just in case some seeds that you didn't see got in the grass.\n\nA metastatic cancer is like the original weed went to seed and now there are baby weeds all over the yard also going to seed. There are too many to get rid of them all without killing the entire yard. There may be some products you can apply (chemo) that will kill some of them (reducing the tumor burden) but there are just too many weeds and seeds to ever get rid of completely and the product is real hard on the yard and the yard can't take it forever. Someone may come out with a new, really really GOOD product that targets something special in some seeds (like a monoclonal antibody) but the seeds and weeds evolve over time to make even that ineffective. If you go to the hardware store there may be even another product that works some for awhile, but the weeds and seeds are just unbeatable and eventually it's time to rest. \n\nI hope that helps. Of course it doesn't address all kinds of things about cancer but in my opinion it's the best layman's explanation. People not in the medical field really dont understand staging and staging is always changing. Simple analogies work best.\n\nEdit, thanks so much for the kind replies! I especially value hearing from those who will apply this analogy to their practice and those who may use it to explain cancer to children. That makes me feel so good! ",
"The word \"Terminal\" means that you will likely die from it.\n\nDoctors are guessing if/when they use this term, based on statistics from similar cancer patients with similar tumors in similar locations. They usually give a x (often 1 or 5) year survival rate as a percentage. When this percentage is very low, it can be said to be \"terminal\".",
"Imagine your garden. Said garden has a lot of grass and few patches of valuable plants and flowers that the garden needs for nutrition and stuffs. Without the flowers the garden would die. The grass can just grow back if removed. You want to prevent pigeons from entering that garden. The only weapon you have is a rocket launcher and its blast is gonna kill everything in a 1 m radius around the center of impact (i know, small rocket launcher its still one shut up). A pigeon lands on a patch of grass. You can shoot it. It's gonna wreck a whole ton of grass and disturb the flowers but with time they will heal. If you don't shoot hte pigeon, it's gonna attract more pigeons.\n\nOne day, you slept through a pigeon attack and now the flowers are full of pigeons. If you shoot, the flowers are gone and your gardens dead. The act of determining \"the pigeons are so close to the flowers its gonna wreck everything\" is the act of determining if a disease is terminal, apart from analyzing the likelyhood of pigeons attracting each other, etc.",
"Well lets see.\n\nPancreatic cancer kills like 95% of the people who get it within 5 years, so generally that is considered terminal cancer even if it is caught early since its so lethal. Where as Childhood acute lymphocytic leukemia has like a 70-90% cure rate so the type of cancer plays a major role.\n\nBasically Stage 1: means you have cancer in the initial spot it was formed in.\n\nStage 2-3: means its now spread to your lymph nodes and is in your blood stream floating around\n\nStage 4: is terminal cancer which means its now spread to other parts of your body like your brain, lungs, liver etc.\n\n & #x200B;\n\nSo some types of cancer are more lethal than others, and the amount the cancer has spread to other parts of the body also play a role.\n\n & #x200B;",
"It is increasingly difficult for oncologists to have confidence telling patients they have “incurable” or “terminal” cancer since the advent of immunotherapy. For instance in metastatic triple negative breast cancer we knew there was no cure 5-10 years ago with chemo and patients would succumb to their disease. However with immunotherapy a very small subset of these women can achieve no evidence of disease status, even though the percentage is small it’s still infinitely better than 0% chance. ",
"Doctors don't always even use the word \"terminal.\" My wife was diagnosed with stage 4 lung cancer - 30 tumors from her brain to her pelvis, just all over. She was told her cancer was \"treatable, but not curable.\" We pretty quickly realized that meant \"very likely terminal\" as her diagnosis came with a 5-year life expectancy of less than 2%.",
"Not really a \"5 year old\" explanation, but there's another facet to diagnosis that I don't see mentioned. One of the first things done is a biopsy, simply put they take a small sample of the tumor and they determine it's type.\n\nSome tumors are essentially a single cell that multiplied exponentially, these are relatively simple to treat. Others are very heterogeneous, with a chaotic mix of different cell types that will all respond differently to chemotherapy. [Here is a simplified model to visualize it](_URL_0_) If your Chemotherapy targets the color Red, you might be able to kill off the top tumor completly, but for the bottom tumor the color would from purples and pinks to blues and greens.\n\nIn that case you're able to kill some but not all of the cancer. You may even go into remission temporary before the green and blue cancers grow and comes back. By the point you've tried many options, the cancer is still returning, and the paitent is in terrible condition from years of chemo, that's where it becomes terminal in many cases.\n\nTraditional Staging is mostly about the linear progression of the cancer from local to distant, but while Tumor heterogeneity tends to increase over time it's not inherently linked to traditional staging. Comprehensive tumor isotyping and the creation of a custom treatment regimen to hit all of the cancer sub-types you have is the biggest difference between Rich-People oncology and normal people who get more generic treatments out of the hour or two per week their Doctor:Paitent ratio allows.",
"It has to do with the stage. Stage 1 means it hasn't spread at all. It's only in one part of the body. Stage II usually means its more advanced than stage 1 but hasn't spread beyond the general area. Stage III usually means it's spread to at least the lymphatic system, possibly further and stage IV means it's spread well outside the area it originated in to other parts of the body. The higher the stage the worse the prognosis. Stage 1 can usually be treated surgically or with chemo/radiation and usually has a good outlook. Stage IV usually means terminal, although not always. \n\n & #x200B;\n\nIts also important to note that different types of cancer can have different stages and certain cancers have particularly poor survival rates, which has a lot to do with the prognosis. ",
"Am oncologist. There is no such thing as normal cancer. The answer to whether cancer is curable or not is more simple. If all the cancer cells can be removed from the body, you have been cured. In most of the solid cancers that form as lumps this needs to be done with surgery (cut) or radiation (magic dna damaging beams in eli5 terns). In liquid cancers such as cancers of the blood (leukemia etc) there is nothing to cut and so we give drugs to mix in the body and kill the cancer. Terminal cancer means we are unable to do either (sometimes not because of the cancer itself, but because the patient is too frail to have dangerous treatments). ",
"Pediatric oncologist here - late to the thread.\n\nWhen I talk to patients and families, we think about the diagnosis in terms of curable vs. incurable. The vast majority of pediatric cancers are curable at the time of diagnosis, most highly curable. Therefore, it would be extremely rare to tell a child or their family that their cancer is terminal. In fact, the term \"terminal\" is rarely ever used in pediatric cancer in my own experience.\n\nWhen a child relapses or has refractory disease that has not responded, the cure rates are much lower. We try other therapies, but it is important to be open and honest with families about the likelihood of cure. While many families don't want \"odds\" or numbers, you can use terms like \"usually\" or \"most of the time\" or \"hardly ever.\" Families appreciate this honestly when evaluating their options. \n\nIn most cases, families will latch onto any hope, however fleeting. So, as chances for cure dwindle, it is incredibly important to work closely with kids and their families to make good decisions at the end of life. \n\n & #x200B;\n\nSorry - this is an entirely different topic than what OP wanted. But I thought it might help the discussion.",
"Hey reddit and u/leapoz!\n\nI'm an oncologist, chief of a large non-profit cancer center on the east coast of the USA, and an assistant professor at a medical school associated with my hospital. I teach medical students and residents about cancer, and specifically about how to discuss it with patients.\n\n**Here's how I break down the stages for patients and students:**\n\nThe **diagnosis** tells us **what** a cancer is (where it started--lung, colon, etc). The **stage** tells us **where** a cancer is.\n\n**Stage 0:** Non-invasive cancer, meaning that it is not attempting to grow into other tissues.\n\n**Stage I:** A small amount of invasive cancer, involving no nearby lymph nodes. (The lymph node involvement is important, because that is usually the first place any cancer goes before spreading to other organs.)\n\n**Stage II:** A larger amount of cancer, or minor involvement of nearby lymph nodes.\n\n**Stage III:** A very large or invasive tumor, and/or major involvement of nearby lymph nodes. BUT: NO spread to other organs.\n\n**Stage IV:** The cancer has spread from its place of origin (e.g., the breast) into other organs (usually lungs, bone, liver, or brain).\n\nAll stage III and lower cancers are theoretically curable. Most stage IV cancers are not considered curable. We don't usually use the word \"terminal\" (instead, \"metastatic\" or \"unresectable\", meaning that it can't be removed by surgery).\n\n\"Terminal\" cancer is not necessarily different under the microscope (or in its behavior) than other cancers of its type; it has just spread to a point that it can't be cured.\n\nTwo quick related facts:\n\n1. For some cancers (testicular, for example), there is no stage IV--even the worst are considered stage III because they are curable with chemotherapy even when metastatic. See for example a [famous bicyclist](_URL_1_) whose cancer had spread to his lungs, and brain. (BTW: most oncologists have complicated feelings about that man.)\n2. Stage IV used to be synonymous with \"terminal\" or \"incurable\", but that is no longer the case. I currently have dozens of patients who are on newer medical therapies, and are cancer-free despite initially having lung, colon, skin (melanoma) and other cancers in multiple organs. Stage IV cancer is not yet \"curable\", but has become a chronic disease for many, like diabetes, or high blood pressure. We have work to do, but have come a long way.\n\nOBLIGATORY DISCLAIMER: The staging above is simplified, and generally correct; however, all cancers have different staging systems, so for details, look up the [AJCC staging system](_URL_0_). Also, I am a doctor, but I am not YOUR doctor. The above is meant as a reference, and not as a specific diagnosis."
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2pt8vi | what are nootropics, and is there any evidence that they really work? | On a basic level, I know that nootropics are chemicals and supplements that alter your mind in some desirable way, but can anyone offer a better or more informed description? Is there any scientific or clinical evidence that suggests nootropics actually work? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2pt8vi/eli5what_are_nootropics_and_is_there_any_evidence/ | {
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"Nootropics are a type of drug that is purported to improve mental functions and increase overall mood. They can be drugs, vitamins, superfoods, or supplements. Some are legal, but not FDA-approved.",
"Nootropics are a class of drugs purported to be \"cognitive enhancers\" there are all kinds, natural herbs and tonics and things, and then synthesized chemicals that are meant to increase certain neurotransmitters in your brain.\n\nThe simplest nootropic? Caffeine, very few side effects. Helps deal with mental fog.\n\nDo they work? It's up in the air. Companies who grow and standardize the herbal supplements already make money by just going ahead and selling it, they don't necessarily have an incentive to do classical double-blind testing in order to prove results, since they are already making money. \n\nI do have some anecdotal evidence though, I take 3 kinds every morning with black coffee, and I do notice a difference when I don't take them. You have to recognize that they aren't MAGICAL \"smart drugs\". I pay a little bit, maybe 30 cents a day and I get... 5-7% increase in overall tolerance for stress and mental quickness.\n\nGinkgo Biloba 120mg x 2\nRhodiola Rosea 700mg x 2\nCoqh-10 100mg x 1\n\nThe first two are natural, ginkgo has a pretty large amount of research on it and it's still up in the air on how much it helps, Rhodiola has even less research but I think it's the most helpful of the lot, and COQH-10 is synthesized, it's supposed to help your body produce ATP but idk if it does much.\n\nNow there is a WHOLE other side of nootropics, and fundamentally they are narcotics but so few people use them that it's not really regulated. These include things like Piracetam and Modafinil. \n\nFor more information, National institute of Health has some really good studies on nootropics, and there are tons of forums about this stuff.\n\nHope this helps, if you're just going for some get up and go in the morning, try taking a 200mg no-doz (just caffeine) and a nootropic called L-theanine. It prevents jitters from heavy bursts of caffeine.\n\nCheers buddy."
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1y44o7 | why do trucks and buses use air brakes instead of hydraulic brakes? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1y44o7/why_do_trucks_and_buses_use_air_brakes_instead_of/ | {
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"It's a fail-safe system. Hydraulic brakes are fail-deadly, if they fail, the car is likely to crash, it loses its ability to brake. Air brakes actually use springs to clamp the brakes, the air pressure is always-on and forces the spring back, it is released when the driver presses the pedal. If the brakes fail and air pressure is lost, the brakes fail closed, and the vehicle cannot move.",
"Here is a list of advantages of Air Brakes:\n_URL_1_\n\nAnd Hydraullic brakes are used in cars because they are smaller and less expensive: _URL_0_",
"Fluid cannot be compressed it is therefore not good at transmitting energy over distance. Air can be compressed so it is great at transmitting energy over distance. Air brake systems are much more tolerant to leaks. If there is a leak the governor reloads the compressor and the reservoirs are refilled. They are proven, been in use on the big vehicles since the 1920s. There is a fail safe system. If you run out of air the spring brakes apply or dynamite and the vehicle stops. You cannot get the kind of braking effort needed for large vehicles from hydraulic brakes. You can produce a lot more stopping force with compressed air compared to hydraulics. I teach the air brake course for a living, in fact just finished teaching one yesterday."
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1lncgz | when we take a step back and look at the sun and the planets, how do we know which way is up and which way is down? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1lncgz/eli5_when_we_take_a_step_back_and_look_at_the_sun/ | {
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"We don't. In space up and down are relative directions, like left and right. \n\nUp is towards your head and down towards your feet. \n\nYou are free to orient yourself however you like. \n\n\"The enemies gate is down.\"",
"There is no such thing. The orientation we tend to use is arbitrary and for our convenience only.",
"TIL there is no up and there is no down. Unless you're on earth."
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3prii6 | legally, if we have the right to bear arms, why can't we own bazookas, machine guns, anti aircraft guns etc? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3prii6/eli5_legally_if_we_have_the_right_to_bear_arms/ | {
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"Some of those things ARE legal to own depending on where you live. \n\nBut in general, you're referring to a passage from the US constitution's 2nd Amendment, which reads as follows:\n\n > A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed.\n\nBazookas, machine guns, and anti-aircraft guns *stored in the personal possession of any and every person who may or may not have something to do with potential militia service* arguably does not fit very well under the description \"*Well regulated*\". However, that's still a judgement call that is not black and white.\n\nSo there's different interpretations in local, state and federal levels as to what the whole clause means, and widely varying opinions as to how much it applies to those larger weapons.\n\n ",
"In most states you can, it requires a Federal and State firearms license, and if you do enough selling or trading a business license. Most people who do own heavy weapons tend not to advertise much to avoid being ripped off or having a demonstration 24/7 on their lawn. But bazookas and many AA guns are considered antiques as well as fire arms, making them even easier to buy.",
"While possible that these could be regulated in a similar manner to small arms, there isn't the political willpower to do as such. Technically, machine guns are legal but with various restrictions, AA guns and bazookas are possibly legal as a destructive device. \n\nHowever, when fighting for gun rights, it is important to fight for the most relevant legislation as well as consider the opposition. The number of people able to safely take advantage of bazookas/rocket launchers/grenade launchers, AA guns, etc is limited, so it is better to fight for rights that will affect a broader populace (no \"assault weapon\" ban). \n\nWith respect to the opposition, bringing up legalizing easier access to full auto will cause people (who don't know weaponry) to go \"oh no, you want to legalize full auto death machines, I'm totally against you and your organization.\" It is the same thing with \"silencers.\" In Europe they are considered good etiquette, minimizing muzzle blast and sound. Over here they are difficult to get because of the fear that you'll create a magic silent killing machine. \n\nAnother note with the opposition, your argument is often used as an absurdity level argument (if you want to be able to have guns, why not cannons, why not nukes?), so pushing for something similar would be playing into the anti-gun hands. "
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2oaaxx | why can't we figure out the sex of a fetus at conception? | This is my first post on reddit ever, might as well make it unique, right?
I've actually had this question in my head for a long time, and when I saw this sub, I couldn't resist asking.
Alright, I know a bit of biology, so you can use some more complicated terms if you'd like. The biological sex of a fetus is determined by chromosomes, XX for girls and XY for boys. A woman's egg always carries an X chromosome, and a man's sperm can carry an X or a Y, which is what ultimately determines what the baby will become.
So several years ago when my sister-in-law became pregnant and I asked if I was getting a niece or nephew, I was surprised when my Mom said we wouldn't know until she was four or five months along. After all, once a sperm meets the egg, the gender has been decided, so they should know, right?
I can understand not knowing the gender from a home test or an early ultrasound, but it seems like blood tests could detect that, after all, they do tests sometimes to test for chromosomal defects.
So, TL;DR: Can a blood test determine the gender of a fetus before an ultrasound, or is that still in the realm of science fiction?
PS: For the curious, my sister-in-law had a boy. He's nine years old now. :) | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2oaaxx/eli5_why_cant_we_figure_out_the_sex_of_a_fetus_at/ | {
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"I believe, and my biology is rusty, that we all start out as female and there is a point where the Y gene gets activated, which is when we turn male. So then a simple blood test wouldn't work. Plus, where are you going to get the blood test from and how are you going to know for sure that it isnt contaminated with blood from the mother. Feel free to down vote me, but I would hope you let me know how wrong I am. I am trying to remember a one off class from like 20 years ago.",
"Pregnancy tests are designed to tell if your urine or blood contains the hormone called human chorionic gonadotropin (hCG) which is released right after the fertilized egg attaches to the uterine wall. The only way to check the gender of the fetus before an ultrasound can detect it is to extract the DNA from one of the fetus's cells and check it for two x chromosomes or one x and one y. Taking out even one cell from a fetus will definitely slow down production of an organ down the road so removing one cell for the purposes of DNA screening is detrimental.",
"First off, while:\n\n > The biological sex of a fetus is determined by chromosomes, XX for girls and XY for boys\n\nIs *usually* true, it is not always so. The development of male characteristics begins with the development of testes, which are coded for by a gene called SRY (**S**-dermining **r**egion on the **Y** chromosome). But in rare cases, SRY can \"jump\" from a father's Y chromosome to his X during meiosis, producing an XY female or XX male.\n\n--------\n\nAnyway: the sex, outside of fairly rare anomalies like those, is determined at conception. But to test the sex, you need to do a karyotype (chromosome analysis) of the baby. To do that, you need one of its cells, and those are actually pretty difficult and dangerous to get until the baby is well-developed (typically around 5-6 months)."
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2bccz7 | what is credit and why is it necessary? | [deleted] | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2bccz7/eli5_what_is_credit_and_why_is_it_necessary/ | {
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"* I'd say yes but the better answer is it can be, because people with bad credit will be able to get (very high interest) options that people with no credit might not be able to.\n\n* You build credit by getting credit. You have to get a first card from someone, usually a $250 or $500 limit. If you, for whatever reason, absolutely can't get one, you can get a secured credit card where you have to put down a deposit upfront and that will build your credit.\n\n* Having a credit card will cause you to have a credit score to begin with, and paying it on time and keeping the balance reasonable will cause it to go up, which will allow you to have access to more credit.\n\nCredit's necessary if you ever want to finance a house or car purchase. If you pay for things with cash, truth is, you can go through your whole life without it. But I don't mind the idea of other people letting me use their money as long as it's cheap enough.\n\n/r/personalfinance can go into far more extreme detail but it's closer to ELI45."
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4yb54f | why is poker the game that confers the largest advantage to experienced players in the casino? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4yb54f/eli5_why_is_poker_the_game_that_confers_the/ | {
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"Players play against each each other in poker. The house takes a cut but the game is completely fair.\r\rEvery other game is designed so that the odds are in the house's favor.",
"You dont play against the house in Poker, you play against other people. You then pay the Casino for the right to play at their establishment in the form of a \"rake\" or a cut of the money in play. \n\nThe most common form of rake is based on time. For example, every 30min, each player at the table may have to give the casino $5 in order to keep playing. Another form of rake is based on the total pot size, where the casino will keep around 1%-2% of the total pot after a showdown.\n\nTo put it in real world terms, if you and some buddies want to get together and play basketball against another group of people, you look for a place that has a basketball court. Now lets say a gym has a basketball court that you can rent to play on. When you an your buddies go to the gym, the gym doesnt offer up a team to play against you, you play against another group of people that paid to use the court, just like you did.\n\nThe gym always makes money as long as someone is playing on the courts, and you and your buddies win if you are better than the other team.\n\nTo profit in Poker, you just have to be better than the people you are playing against. The Casino itself has nothing to do with how well you do or do not do. "
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2y5sae | what would happen to the population number if there were no births for an entire year? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2y5sae/eli5_what_would_happen_to_the_population_number/ | {
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"In the U.S., there would be 3,952,841 fewer people around. (That's how many were born in 2012, the last full year data is available). ",
"I'm not sure what the number is but statistically speaking you would just need to subtract the number of deaths per year from the total population. Societally speaking I think shit would hit the fan after only a month. People would realize that no people were being born and religious groups would claim the apocalypse environmentalists would claim toxins and people would break down into anarchy"
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9qqkyv | i know i shouldn’t do it at all, but why does q-tipping my ears feel so damn goooood? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/9qqkyv/eli5_i_know_i_shouldnt_do_it_at_all_but_why_does/ | {
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"We call them Eargasams in our house. Feels so good because it’s difficult to scratch otherwise?",
"Haha I am so glad it’s not just me. The whole time I am in the shower, I think about those glorious little cotton swabs waiting to scratch every millimeter of my ear canal. Even if I happen to notice the box of Q-Tips when I am rooting through the cabinet looking for something else.. I take an ‘eargasm’ (thanks, unbelievable_curtain, for the term!) detour!",
"Does anyone else lick them to make them wet first?\n\nI cant stand a dry swab."
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60kakl | why does harmony, especially harmony by multiple human voices, sound so pleasurable to our ears? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/60kakl/eli5_why_does_harmony_especially_harmony_by/ | {
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"Harmonies are created when multiple notes are played together and blend to make a sound. Certain notes blend better together due to differences in frequencies. There is a mathematical method to finding those notes. Notes that blend well together create they create a sound that is unified or consonant, while notes that don't blend well create a sound that is \"off\" or dissonant. Consonant sounds trigger more activity in sensory neurons which ultimately lead to more pleasurable feelings."
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37nhtt | gymnastics question. how come men don't compete on the balance beam and uneven bars and women don't compete on the still rings, parallel bars and high bar? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/37nhtt/eli5_gymnastics_question_how_come_men_dont/ | {
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"Gymnastics has been around for a long time and goes back to the days when women and men had different roles in society and different appreciations of their athleticism. So the gymnastic sports that were associated with them have been segregated to reflect where the sexes are typically focused.\n\nThe first two are focused on pure balance and flexibility, much like dancing. You can add ribbon and ball floor exercises to the list. Traditional girl stuff.\n\nThe last three require incredible strength and are focused on muscular control, traditional guy stuff.\n\nThere's not perfect alignment; [this video of Paul Hunt performing a joke routine on the uneven bars during a 1981 gymnastics tour is priceless.](_URL_0_)\n\n",
"In addition to the explanations offered, which is a good explanation, women have a lower centre of balance and is better able to perform things that requires balance, men have stronger upper body strength and core strength making them more suited to the activities you mentioned. \n\nOf course it doesn't render either sexes incapable of performing these things but there is an underlying mechanical reason why some activities would be more difficult than others.",
"I'd assume that the rings require & emphasize the type of upper body strength that men are built for. "
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19dqtz | what is a philosophical zombie? | I really want to know but the concept is really hard for me to grasp. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/19dqtz/elif_what_is_a_philosophical_zombie/ | {
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"Imagine someone who's like a person in every single way. They talk about their hopes and dreams, they laugh at jokes, they eat and sleep and poo, and their insides all work the same as ours. There's only one difference; this someone isn't *conscious*. There's no mind that *has* the hopes and dreams, or thinks the jokes are funny. There's just nothing.\n\nThis raises a few questions:\n\n* How could we tell the difference between such a person and a regular, mind-having person?\n\n* If we can't tell the difference, how do we know there *is* a difference?\n\n* If a mindless person couldn't exist, why not? "
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2mbn2n | my rights, or lack thereof, when encountering the tsa in an american airport. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2mbn2n/eli5_my_rights_or_lack_thereof_when_encountering/ | {
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"You are required by law to comply with legal orders of border control agents, the TSA, and police.\n\nYou are not obligated to incriminate yourself. So you do not have to answer any questions they ask you.\n\nIf you have entered a border control facility (like customs at the airport) they have the right to open and inspect your luggage. They have the right to search your person.\n\nIf you are traveling through a security checkpoint they can ask for your permission to open and inspect your luggage and search your person. If you refuse, you can be denied entry to that checkpoint.\n\nThey have the right to refuse to let you proceed through a security checkpoint if you fail to comply with their lawful requests.\n\nThey have the authority to deny you entry to the United States, or to arrest you and take you into custody if they believe they have probable cause.\n\nIf you are arrested you have the right to have an attorney present while you are questioned. You have the right to remain silent. The authorities must present evidence in front of a judge within 72 hours that you have committed a crime by making a specific charge against you.\n\nIf you do not have the proper visa to enter the United States, you can be held until such time as transportation can be arranged to send you back to your point of origin, or your home country."
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3sfrh0 | how is my high school able to block cellular service in the school. | As soon as you step into my High School, all cell service goes down. It is not just Verizon, it is ALL cell service on all phones. Anywhere you walk in the school there is either one bar or no service. They are somehow blocking the cell service, because as soon as you walk a 15-20 foot radius away from the school, the service returns. How is this possible? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3sfrh0/eli5_how_is_my_high_school_able_to_block_cellular/ | {
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"Lots of building have a facade on them that is made from, among other things, a layer of wire mesh. While not intended for this purpose, the wire mesh acts as what's called a [Faraday cage](_URL_0_). This will severely interrupt the kinds of electromagnetic waves that cell phones use to connect to a cell tower. ",
"It's only illegal to block it if you do it actively (ie through a jammer or something) \n\nIf it's \"passive\" (thick stone walls,or metal sheeting) it's completely legal"
]
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7axkse | how does speaker phone calls avoid feedback? | Whether it's on our cell phones or at work - speaker phones, how do the calls work so well without feedback? I realize that the quality is lower when using the hands-free or speaker phone but I still don't understand how it works at all. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/7axkse/eli5_how_does_speaker_phone_calls_avoid_feedback/ | {
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"When the phone plays loud audio from the other side, it lowers microphone sensitivity in order to prevent it from being picked back up again. Sometimes it isn't enough and the other end still hears an echo of themselves.",
"Don't know about cell phones, but they probably do the same thing as a speaker phone. At least, one of them. \n \nSpeaker phones are generally designed to try to physically isolate the speaker from the microphone. This minimizes how much the output is coupled back to the input through vibrations in the speakerphone itself. (This is obviously harder to do in a cell phone.) But that doesn't stop coupling through the air. \n \nThe other thing a speaker phone does is to check for correlation between the speaker output and the microphone input. If it finds correlation, it subtracts the speaker output signal from the microphone input. \n \nOlder/crappier speakerphones simply run in half-duplex mode...they don't allow output and input at the same time. That's not too common these days. "
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238z8z | excise tax | tax season and what not | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/238z8z/eli5_excise_tax/ | {
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"Excise taxes (short for exercise taxes) are taxes paid when purchases are made on a specific good, such as gasoline. These are taxes the government puts in place to encourage its citizens to use other forms of transportation, like riding a bike or walking."
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2xcrz9 | why are ancient but still clearly real and historical people considered 'mythical'? | E.g. [Romulus and Remus](_URL_0_) from the foundation myth of Rome. There's ample historical support that these were real people even if much of what we know about them is subject to speculation, embellishments, and tall tales meant to enhance their stature. Or are they considered mythical because the exact details/story of what they took part in are considered myth (e.g. the foundation myth of Rome) even if what they did is true (you know founding rome)? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2xcrz9/eli5why_are_ancient_but_still_clearly_real_and/ | {
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"Romulous and Remus may have been real people, but most of the stories about them are almost certainly myths. (Suckling from a wolf?)\n\nAs a comparison, there's two versions of Jesus. One is the historical Jesus, a real person and leader of a Jewish cult/sect who espoused certain philosophical and political ideas, and was probably crucified.\n\nThe other is the mythical Jesus, who was the son of god, could perform miracles, rose from the dead, etc.\n\nThose are only the same people if you believe in the myths. Which is fine if you do - it's fine if you believe the Romulus and Remus myths too - but for formal, academic discussions, its necessary to separate the two.",
"They are considered mythical because many of the stories surrounding them are myth.\n\nNo doubt that Romulus and Remus were two real men, unlikely that they were raised by wolves.\n\nSimilarly there are many known Robin Hoods who were thieves that shared with the commonfolk, but Robin Hood is considered mythical because the stories about him are myth and not all can be attributed to a single person. More likely that his was a pseudonym.",
"Remember that myth doesn't mean that it's untrue or fictional. It just means the story surrounding the person, place, or thing may have been heightened or elevated beyond what's true. One definition I found of the word myth is: a traditional or legendary story, usually concerning some being or hero or event, with or without a determinable basis of fact or a natural explanation, especially one that is concerned with deities or demigods and explains some practice, rite, or phenomenon of nature.\n\nThere are myths of even modern people, places, and things that we still talk about today. ",
"In academic circles the term \"myth\" doesn't mean what it does in everyday terms. People tend to use it loosely to mean an untrue story. Academically it's more just \"a story\" without a specific judgement as to the historicity of it.\n\n*Mythos* means a narrative.\n\nWhen a theologian, say, talks about \"creation myth\" they're not necessarily saying it is untrue. When someone speaks in a social context about a myth they're usually implying that there is very little truth, that the story is traditional or grounded only very loosely in historical fact.",
"I would love to see some ample historical evidence that Romulus and Remus were real people.",
"\"Clearly real and historical\"???\n\nIt's not impossible there was a real historical founder named Romulus, but he could also easily be completely fictional. There's nothing \"clearly\" about his existence. \n\nHowever, the story about him and his brother is clearly a good yarn, shaped through generations of retelling to give an answer to the question on how the city of Rome began. A narative about where we, the romans, came from. Also known as a foundation myth. ",
"They are considered mythical because we can actually pinpoint within a few hundred years when the story was clearly created. Read [Remus: A Roman Myth](_URL_0_) by Wiseman if you think they were historical personages. In that book Wiseman traces the development of the Romulus and Remus myth from the earliest records we have by the Greeks when they first came into contact with Rome. Remus doesn't even exist in some versions of the story, the names are radically different as are the events. The original myth or myths are very different from what we consider the standard story now. Now there [is dissent on Wiesman's interpetation](_URL_1_) but that further points at it all being myth.\n\nThey myths most people learn in school come from a very narrow set of sources (Ovid, Vergil, Hesiod, Homer, et al.) and use each other for sources. They are not truly representative of the actual body of mythic literature, particularly in the development of those myths. There are hundreds of obscure authors with their own versions of the myths out there that unless you are a mythologist or classicist and read the original Greek and Latin you will never hear of."
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3w1lou | what is a phonics sound or word fragment common to all languages? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3w1lou/eli5_what_is_a_phonics_sound_or_word_fragment/ | {
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"The words for mother and father are pretty similar around the globe because they tend to be the first sounds a baby is likely to make. \n\n\nEx: 妈妈 (māma) and 爸爸 (bàba)",
"Aaaaaaaaaaahhhhh!\n\nBecause no matter what language you speak, screaming is always screaming.",
"I remember an article that said \"Huh?\" is pretty much universally recognized as a statement of confusion and/or a request to elaborate. Which I thought was quite funny. I'll try to find it. \n\nEdit: [Here's the New York Times] (_URL_1_) and [here's the Smithsonian] (_URL_0_)."
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4qm0qv | how do physicists use complex equations to explain black holes, etc. and understand their inner workings? | In watching various science shows or documentaries, at a certain point you might see a physicist working through a complex equation on a chalkboard. What are they doing? How is this equation telling them something about the universe or black holes and what's going on inside of them?
Edit: Whoa, I really appreciate all of the responses! Really informative, and helps me appreciate science that much more! | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4qm0qv/eli5how_do_physicists_use_complex_equations_to/ | {
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"While physicists *do* use chalk boards, most serious research is done on computers. Using computers allows for faster calculation, easier sharing of information, creates less mess, and also has more space than a chalkboard. The equation on the chalkboard on the various science shows is likely just there for the sake of the audience. \n\nSo how does doing an equation tell us things? I'll answer with an example. Imagine that you are standing on flat ground and you drop a ball. It falls to the ground. If you were recording video of the ball in front of a ruler or something, you could determine how fast the ball was going. And if you were timing the drop, you would know how long it took. When it started out, the ball wasn't moving. It was in your hand. At the end, the ball was moving. So it gained speed. That's called acceleration. So how can we know the acceleration of the ball? Well, we know that \n\n > distance = 1/2 × acceleration × time^2 + intial speed × time\n\nSo we can plug our numbers into the equation above and solve it for acceleration. Information was gained through the solving of an equation. That's what the scientists are doing. There are one or more variables in their equations that they don't know and these variables represent data about black holes. It could be the mass of the black hole. Or the size. Or something else. When the equation is solved, the scientist will have used known things to find and unknown thing.",
"Imagine you have a box with two holes. You can't see inside of the box, so you're limited to interacting with it through the holes. But you want to learn about the box.\n\nYou see that if you put a marble in one hole, half a marble comes out of the other. You notice that if you put eight marbles in one hole, four marbles come out of the other.\n\nYou get lots of observations and eventually you start to find a pattern. You'll write something like \n*MARBLES_IN = 2 x MARBLES_OUT*\n\nThat's basically how science works. We can't see inside black holes, but we know how matter interacts with it, and we can measure the light and radiation coming from it. So scientists can write equations outlining its behaviour with the outside world.\n\nBut we want to learn more about *what's inside black holes*, even though we can't actually see inside. So let's take another look at our box.\n\nWe know that only half of the marbles we put in actually come out. So we think about other stuff we know and realize that nothing really disappears. Like Bob might tell you your pokemon card disappeared, but you know that he's really hiding it somewhere.\n\nMost likely, the box follows the same rules as the rest of the world. (We assume the basic laws of physics hold constant everywhere in the universe). So therefore, the other half of the marbles must be hiding in the box (like your Charizard card was hiding in Bob's backpack).\n\nSo we write *MARBLES_IN = MARBLES_HIDDEN + MARBLES_OUT*. Therefore, we can combine this with our last equation to get *MARBLES_HIDDEN = MARBLES_OUT*.\n\nThat's exactly how scientists work with black holes. We know how gravity works outside of black holes, as well as heat, light, and lots of other things. We also have equations describing black holes. So if we put the two together, we can learn about the black hole on the inside. (For example, if the equation for the gravity of black holes looks like the equation for the gravity of Earth, maybe there's some similarities going on). And anytime we make a model, we check it with observations to make sure it's accurate",
"Mathematics has several functions for a physicist:\n\n* It's a way of doing deductive reasoning rigidly correctly, because the rules of algebra and calculus enforce logical consistency. So dipping into mathematics and then doing algebraic steps is a way of \"thinking clearly\".\n\n* It's a kind of language, just like a string of letters like \"apple\" brings to mind a concept in your mind. Some kinds of equations are recognizable and give a physicists an immediate conceptual connotation. This is probably the most mysterious part for people not so conversant in the language. There are certain simple things that people can learn quickly, like \"steeply falling/rising\" or \"approaching an asymptote\" or \"oscillating\" or \"vanishes here and there\" or \"proportional to\" and the like.\n\n* It's a remarkable fact that, if you can write the laws of physics that control a physical system as a set of equations, then the solutions of those equations will *automatically* tell you the allowed behaviors that system will exhibit. The solutions will often be functions of variables, which may mean a trajectory, or the way that a system evolves with time, or something else.\n\n* The problem with ordinary language is that words sometimes have extra baggage, so that unwanted associations clutter things up. Mathematics has a kind of leanness about it, where it means only what it says and nothing more, which is great for precise descriptions. This is really important for new things for which we don't really have good words. A good example of this is \"spin\", a term used in quantum mechanics to describe a trait of electrons, say. In ordinary usage this conveys that there is some point on the body that is going in a circle around an axis; but this connotation doesn't actually apply to electrons, which as far as we can tell don't have any spatial extent. But the mathematical description of spin conveys exactly what it does mean for electrons, without spurious and incorrect implications.",
"I think it's like Einstein thinking, well maybe gravity works like this. Then he starts puzzling what it would look like mathematically, which took him quite some time, I think 10 years or so with help from others. So, he publishes his stuff and Schwarzschild reads it and as a hobby finds one of the possible solutions for Einstein's math, which happens to be what we now know would be a black hole. Then the question is, if it's a solution, does it really exist, too? And low and behold, we find that often it is real. And in fact this is totally baffling to a lot of scientists.",
"So mathematics is pretty interesting topic, most mathematics we do in physics is basically balancing formulas. Such as Y = X, we can rewrite this as Y-X = 0 Both of those are the same, and that is what we do mostly in physics to try to isolate paramaters and how they influence the system.\n\nBut with looking into physics we see that the speed of light is a constant, and that means we cant add speeds together and get the right answer as we assume is the case, what we find is that we have to work out speed through another formula (1/ 1-c/speed) or in other words, one divided by one minus the speed of light divided by our speed) So what is interesting here, is that we set our our speed to be the speed of light, all of a sudden you get 1 divided by zero, what this really means is up to mathematicians to find out, what we do know about mathematis is that we cant divide anything by zero. Because if we do all of mathematics just goes out the window 1=2 for example. 1/0 = 2/0 both are infinity so both must be the same.\n\nSo in mathematics or physics when we get divided by zero we have reached a point where mathematics can no longer tell us how things actually work. So when it comes to black holes we have to use Einstans general relativity, however one of the paramters in General relativity is divided by the distance squared. But in a black hole we have no known physical property of matter to withstand the immense gravitational field, so we end up havind to divide by zero.\n\n\nThere is a lot more to this of course, we can also deduce stable geodesics (or a space where a particle in free fall would never ever reach the singularity) because space and time is bent in such a way that a stable orbit is allowed (this i not generally the case for space close to the event horizon of the black hole) If we work through the numbers we find that space and time curves in such a way that no stable orbits are allowed. But closer to the singularity we do find such a space but this is well beyond the event horizon. So in extension its all \"guesswork\" im not saying that we just assume because it fits with what we think, its because it fits the mathematics.\n\nWhat the physicist is doing in such a case is trying to explain in other words what happens when we divide by zero. But if we step a step outside we see that the mathmatics tells us that there are stable orbits around the singularity. And trying to explain an apple from the inside out is a very boring way to explain an apple. So we use shortcuts and cut out parts which we think is not important to the experience of eating an apple."
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4k2847 | how can aircraft dissapear from radars? | We are getting a lot of duplicates of this question in the past hour so I'm putting up a sticky to consolidate all the questions and explanations here.
For those out of the loop, this is regarding the missing EgyptAir flight today. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4k2847/eli5_how_can_aircraft_dissapear_from_radars/ | {
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"Because we don't use \"Primary Radar\" all the time.\n\nPrimary radar sends out a signal, bounces off an object and comes back to the sensors displaying a location. \n\nWhy don't we use this for everything? Because it requires insane amounts of power, has a somewhat limited range, and picks up LOTS OF STUFF. Meaning the return is can be confusing with irrelevant information.\n\nPlanes use secondary radar which is basically a transponder which tells the radar where the plane is, without the radar having to send out an initial signal. If that transponder stops working (plane crash, or someone simply turns it off), the plane \"disappears\" because it's not telling you where it is anymore.\n\nHowever, there's no good reason (aside from cost) that planes can't report their GPS co-ordinates somehow so we have a specific location all the time - although someone with more knowledge could probably explain this better.",
"Regardless of what its mounted to (plane, ship, etc.), a radar set needs the same basic components: something to generate radio waves, something to send them out into space, a receiver, and a means of displaying this information to the radar operator. With the help of a duplexer, the radar can detect the doppler effect on the airliner, even as it travels at ~723mph. In severe cases though, like the EgyptAir flight, the duplexer can stop transmitting when the plane drops below 10,000ft because it relies on a specific air pressure found at high altitudes. Combine that with the yaw of the plane and you can understand just how easily planes can drop off radar if you aren't doing your job right.",
"Since MH370 people have been talking about coverage and stuff with very little understanding of radar and its annoying.\nThere are two types of Radar.\nPrimary Radar has an approximate range of 80miles and bounces off the plane/bird/precipitation and the like. It tells you where something is, and how fast its moving. Very little information\nSecondary Radar sends out an interrogation signal, to which the planes Transponder says \"Sup, I am on this code, at this altitude\" (this is mode C, there are others that give more info I won't get into). This has a range of roughly 200miles.\nBoth radars are line of site only. \nRadars are big expensive machines that need to be calibrated extremely well and are constantly spinning, so you can imagine why they are only installed where they are important.\nSo, to your question, how can an Aircraft \"disappear\". It could be below coverage, out of range of primary, out of range of secondary. Its transponder could fail while it is in range of secondary but out of range of primary. The radar could fail.\nSource - I work in ATC in Canada. Have to run back, I'll update if you need/want more info.",
"Another question. Maybe I am missing something as I have limited aviation knowledge but why doesn't the black box that records and survives the crash include something like a GPS. A kind of 'Find my iPhone' for planes. Wouldn't the cost of implementing this be far less than that of a search and rescue team which sometimes turns up inconclusive? I can't seem to grasp how we can lose something of this size. I understand what everyone has been saying of the two radars but perhaps they aren't the best solution if they are so finicky. ",
"Actually, mandatory GPS position, altitude, flight number, ground track, etc. is mandated to begin in 2020 in ADS-B. Europe has similar information in surveillance transponders already.",
"Can someone tell me why planes don't have one of those on the outside?\n\n_URL_0_"
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e9gw95 | how would a spacecraft just bounce off the atmosphere into space? | In movies at least, astronauts in desperate times have mentioned that unless they get to a certain angle or re-entry window, they would bounce off the atmosphere into space. What’s the science behind that? What conditions have to be perfect for re-entry and why? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/e9gw95/eli5_how_would_a_spacecraft_just_bounce_off_the/ | {
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"you don't normally think of bouncing off water, but if you throw a rock at the right angle and velocity it bounces of the surface of the water. Air and water behave the same in this regard, it just requires greater velocity to achieve the \"skip\".",
"It doesn’t actually bounce, per se. But a spacecraft that enters the atmosphere CAN rise back out of it again for reasons other than starting up a rocket motor.\n\nIt helps to remember that, in general, a thing that is in orbit around a planet (like Earth) moves along an ellipse, where the planet is at one of the two foci of the ellipse. When you’re talking about an airless body, like the Moon, then the orbiter will swoop down close to the body at one end of the ellipse and then farther away at the other end. In other words, the altitude of the orbiter decreases, slows down, stops, then rises again as it heads out to the other end of the orbit.\n\nThe same thing happens with an atmospheric body. The only difference is that if the low end of the orbit is in the atmosphere, then the orbiter is running into a lot of air molecules while its at the low end. That slows down the orbiter, which reduces the height it will reach at the OTHER end (the high end) of the orbit. A spacecraft that is trying to come home aim to hit a fair bit of air, to slow down enough to stay in the atmosphere and eventually land. That’s the “perfect angle” it’s looking for. Too shallow, and it won’t slow down enough; instead, it’ll just rise right back out to the other side of the orbit. Too steep, and it’ll hit a LOT of air and heat up to the point of melting or exploding. \n\n(And, of course, that explanation is vastly oversimplified—orbits can also be parabolas and hyperbolas if craft are moving faster, and I haven’t even attempted to get into the effects of spherical asymmetry or general relativity. But that’s the basics in a nutshell.)",
"The term \"bounce\" just refers to the fact that you will approach the planet, you will lose altitude, and then you will once again start gaining altitude. Contrary to the other posts in this thread, you don't \"bounce\" the way most people think of bouncing. You aren't skipping off the air like a stone off water or anything like that. Remember that unlike a stone meeting water, contact with the atmosphere is very gradual. The atmosphere doesn't have a sudden boundary like at the top of a lake. Instead it just gets progressively thinner or thicker as you gain or lose altitude.\n\n\"Bouncing off the atmosphere\" simply means your approach angle was too shallow and the thin upper atmosphere will not reduce your speed enough. Instead you will slow a *bit* as you encounter some atmosphere but not enough to cause reentry on that initial approach and the craft will eventually start gaining altitude again. At that point, at typical approach speeds, you will now be in a decaying orbit that will return you to the atmosphere and eventual reentry. Unfortunately this time reentry would be at an unplanned location, at an unplanned angle, and at an unplanned time, which are all very bad.\n\nEdit: I should say, they are all very bad *if* you hadn't intended this kind of approach. A spacecraft could use this kind of approach on purpose to help slow the vehicle, with the goal of making a second, planned approach that leads to reentry. I think NASA has even experimented with this."
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8cq7rq | what is a major key and a minor key? | My musical background is required elementary school recorder-playing music class.
I can read basic sheet music ("Every Good Boy Does Fine" and "FACE") and know quarter, half and whole notes. And what a treble and bass clef are and that the treble clef indicates that C is the baseline...and that's about it.
What is a "major" key and a "minor" key, exactly? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/8cq7rq/eli5_what_is_a_major_key_and_a_minor_key/ | {
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"The major and minor differ in a couple ways. It is defined by the 3rd note of a scale. For C major, the scale is C D E F G A B C. No sharps or flats. The interval between 1 and 3 is a major third (C to E). It sounds happy. There are 3 Minor scales (Not including specialty scales and modes). The three scales are natural minor, harmonic minor, and melodic minor (one that the 7th changes). A C natural minor is C D E (flat) F G A (flat) B C. The interval between C and the third, E (flat), is a minor 3rd. The difference between the major and minor is that the minor third is 1 half step shorter. This leads to a darker sadder sound. The other versions of minor involve the 7th, B. It can be raised or lowered to lead the music. It is known as the leading tone because of this.",
"Look a piano keyboard. There are black keys and white keys.\n\nIf you start at C, and play all 12 notes to the next C -- white *and* black, in order left to right -- you will be playing a chromatic scale. In a chromatic scale, each note is one semitone higher than the last.\n\nNow do the same again, but play only the *white* notes. This time, you'll be playing the scale of C major, which goes C-D-E-F-G-A-B-C. But notice how between some of the white notes, there is no black key -- no black key between D and F, and no black key between B and C.\n\nIn other words:\n\n* between C and D is a whole tone\n* between D and E is a whole tone\n* between E and F is a semitone\n* between F and G is a whole tone\n* between G and A is a whole tone\n* between A and B is a whole tone\n* between B and C is a semitone\n\nThat's why, by the way, you can never have the note E♯ or F♭, or the note B♯ or C♭ -- they don't exist.\n\nThis, then, is the pattern of a major scale: tone - tone - semitone - tone - tone - tone -semitone.\n\nNow play the white keys again, but this time start at A. This is the scale of A minor, and it goes like this: tone - semitone - tone - tone - semitone - tone - tone.\n\nIt's actually a bit more complex, because there are different *types* of minor key, but this is the bare bones of it: it's about the sequence of whole tones and semitones.",
"Oh man.\n\nSo, a key is basically taking a subset of notes that can be used in a song, based on their intervals. You use keys because notes that share a key will sound *harmonic* (pleasant to be heard together) and you will minimize dissonance (think about amateur musicians playing/singing a \"sour\" note).\n\nThe notes in the major scale are determined based on your root notes, and what notes exist when you move up in intervals from the root: Starting from your root note, and going up from the last note, the notes in the key are:\n\nI: Root note \nII: whole step (from the root) \nIII: whole step (from the last note) \nIV: half step \nV: whole step \nVI: whole step \nVII: whole step \n(VIII: half step (to octave of root note))\n\nSo for C as your base, the notes in your scale are CDEFGAB(C), as there are a half-step between E & F, and a half step between B & C, and full steps between each other note (a half step between these notes would be sharps or flats)\n\nThe minor scale is a derivative (or *mode*) of the major scale: if you look at any minor scale and look at the 6th (VI) note, it will be the root for your minor scale, so your intervals are going to be whole half whole whole half whole (whole to octave)\n\n*typically* a song in a minor key will sound sad or scary, while a song in a major key will sound upbeat or cheerful.\n\nAnother fun thing is that you can figure out what notes are in a chord by looking at the relevant key, and finding the first, third, and fifth notes of the key. So an A minor chord would have the notes A, C, and E in it, while a C Major chord would have C, E, and G.\n\nEDIT: Un-borked the formatting",
"When learning a song by ear, usually a good start is to ask \"is this a major or a minor key?\"\nIf a song is \"happy\" sounding its in a major key. If its \"sad\" then its in a minor key... then from there you can figure out what exact key the song is in by playing a lead of sorts over it.",
"Some of these explanations are more like ELI 15.\n\nSuper-duper basic *for a five-year-old*:\n\n\nWe use twelve notes to play music. Centuries ago, people used only seven, and in western culture, we are still used to hearing music played with seven notes, even though we have twelve available. So we pick special combinations of seven notes to use in a lot (but not all) of our music, and we play the other five notes less often. There are many different combinations of seven notes that we can use. Each of these combinations is called a scale or a key. \n\n\nNext level:\n\nEach note we play on any instrument causes a string, reed, air column, or other object to vibrate. The speed of the vibration is called its *frequency*, and determines the note we hear. The frequencies of various notes are not equally spaced from each other. Because of this, different scales or keys sound a little bit different. Due to conditioning within our culture, different scales make us feel different ways. Major scales use a certain pattern of seven notes, and ignore the other five, and generally sound happy or bright. Minor scales use a different combination of notes that might feel darker or sad.\n\nNext:\n\nPeople in different cultures use different frequencies (notes) entirely, and therefore completely different scales. The scales and keys in those cultures make the people there feel different ways, simply because that's the way they have learned to hear them. \n\nNext:\n\nOK, *now* get into real music theory, if you've got the kid hooked.",
"Here's a true ELI5, it's a grotesque oversimplification: Major keys sound upbeat and happy; minor keys sound sad or eerie. In general, drop the 3 note down to flat to make a chord minor.",
"Lots of decent explanations, but none are very concise.\n\nModern music and all the instruments designed to play it are generally capable of playing 12 notes. Usually, these 12 notes repeat in a higher or lower register, but they are the same notes. (Like the 12 keys that repeat on a piano).\nA \"key\" is suggested when you select only a certain group of those 12 notes (usually 7 of them, but not strictly) based on the \"character\" or \"mood\" that those particular notes convey when played together. Those same 7 notes can be made to evoke a different mood based on which of those notes you emphasize as being the \"root\" or center of the grouping.\n\nOne way to create this emphasis is to play the group of notes along with another voice that is playing the \"root\". For example, one voice or instrument plays a C note. There is a grouping of 7 notes that will evoke a happy, upbeat sound when played against that C. Play those same 7 notes against an A, and it will sound somber or dark. That is the difference between a minor key and a major key. You can go deeper and talk about the intervals between the notes and why they sound that way, but I don't think that is necessary to discuss it at this level.\n\nThis is easy to experiment with on a piano. Play a sustained C note with your left hand, and then play around on only the white keys with your right. It will sound happy. That's because the white keys are the 7 notes in the C Major scale. Play a sustained A note and do the same thing - it will sound sad. Those same 7 notes make up the A minor scale.\n\nSongs that are said to be in a major or minor key are simply using these groupings of notes to build the chord progressions and melodies. ",
"There are twelve places on a wall where you can put shelves, equally spaced apart. \nSay most musicians put three shelves up and call it a CHORD, because reasons. The floor is called the TONIC and let’s put the first shelf straight down on it. \nThe top shelf, let’s put it in the #8 bracket which just is over your head. (The spaces between shelf places are half steps, which is why I will call that #8 slot the FIFTH. Just doing that to annoy everyone, obviously.) \n\nThe difference between Major and Minor is where the middle shelf hits you when you *walk into that wall.* Major - shelf is in slot #5 and it **touches your heart.** “Happy” feeling\nMinor - note, uh, shelf is in slot #4 and **hits you in the gut.** “Sad” feels \n\n\nI have other metaphors, like why the “crowdedness” of the shelf levels can cause other, virtual shelves to manifest, or the influence of Gravity on melodies, but we quickly get away from the ELI5 realm don’t we?\n\n(edit to add the word ‘places’)"
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1la2t5 | why do many people believe they've got nothing to hide? doesn't everyone have secrets? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1la2t5/eli5_why_do_many_people_believe_theyve_got/ | {
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"I assume this is in relation to NSA type monitoring?\n\nEveryone has secrets but generally only on the personal life/gossip level, rather than the national security or illegal activities type level.",
"Very few people have many secrets that anybody else would want to know. We all have secrets in the sense that we all have PIN numbers for our bank accounts and stuff, but in terms of our \"deep, dark secrets,\" generally nobody cares.\n\nAnd when people *do* have deep, dark secrets that others would genuinely care about, the vast majority of the time they're things that shouldn't be kept secret anyway.",
"People think only really illegal stuff gets looked at and they'll get away with the minor crap they did. The problem is that everything gets collected just in case (would you like to be the intern retard that deleted a list of known friends of a guy that just blew himself up somewhere important?) and is kept indefinitely.\n\nThe real problem is that if you get some political power everything can be used against you later on.",
"Many people conflate privacy with wanting to hide something out of a sense of guilt or shame. In truth, you can have reasons to shield something from public view event though you're not guilty or ashamed of it, indeed, even if you're proud of it.\n\nFor example, let's say you earn a lot of money in a respectable way. This is something to be proud of, why not? In many ways your sense of identity may be deeply tied to your professional life, and there's nothing wrong with that. The money you have is evidence of it and might also be a source of pride.\n\nHowever, if you find yourself walking alone through a dangerous area, you might not be quite so quick to flash around your wealth. In this instance, it's not that you're guilty or ashamed, you want to hide your money because you don't trust the people around you.\n\nThis is exactly what people are missing about the government when they say they have nothing to hide. The government, at the end of the day, is nothing more than a bunch of people that wind up in positions of power. Fallible humans subject to all the same vices and temptations you are, beings that make mistakes and have secrets of their own and can be blackmailed.\n\nSo there are plenty of reasons to hide your personal information from prying eyes if you have no reason to trust those who might come into possession of it."
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2upizp | if the united states wanted to join the british commonwealth would it be permitted to? | I'm referring to the [Commonwealth of Nations](_URL_0_) , *not* a Commonwealth Realm.
I know that a key principle to the US government is disassociation with the idea of monarchy. However, knowing that they are historically connected and that they share language, culture, and democracy would the US even stand a chance at membership? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2upizp/eli5_if_the_united_states_wanted_to_join_the/ | {
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"Yes it would. It used to be under British administration and it wouldn't have to adopt the Queen as the head of state anyway. That isn't required for membership. It would also have to agree with the Harare Principles:\n\n* We believe that international peace and order, global economic development and the rule of international law are essential to the security and prosperity of mankind;\n\n* We believe in the liberty of the individual under the law, in equal rights for all citizens regardless of gender, race, colour, creed or political belief, and in the individual's inalienable right to participate by means of free and democratic political processes in framing the society in which he or she lives;\n\n* We recognise racial prejudice and intolerance as a dangerous sickness and a threat to healthy development, and racial discrimination as an unmitigated evil;\n\n* We oppose all forms of racial oppression, and we are committed to the principles of human dignity and equality;\n\n* We recognise the importance and urgency of economic and social development to satisfy the basic needs and aspirations of the vast majority of the peoples of the world, and seek the progressive removal of the wide disparities in living standards amongst our members",
"Yes...The United States could, in theory, join the Commonwealth of Nations.\n\nHere's the link to the criteria:\n_URL_0_",
"By the existing rules of the Commonwealth, the US could join, although it would require constitutional level changes by the US.\n\nHowever, if the US ever got serious about it, those rules might change. The Commonwealth is Britain's treehouse, and I suspect they would not be thrilled about a bigger kid coming to play."
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c0ya1x | how and why does music sound good? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/c0ya1x/eli5_how_and_why_does_music_sound_good/ | {
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"Short answer: Because you have been programmed with expectations that you enjoy being either fulfilled or subverted.\n\nLong answer: the only universal element in music is the perfect fifth, which is a ratio of frequencies of 3:2. Different cultures have developed different systems of tuning and organization of tones to hang on that foundation, which continue to develop, and borrow from, or spurn each other’s ideas. In the West, you heard nursery rhymes from before you were born, and those simple, boring melodies helped you understand what to expect. New music you hear either fulfills your expectations or surprises you by doing something you might not have expected. Both can make you feel joy, or other emotions. Lyrics lay a whole new layer on top of all this.",
"Since we live in a world with an atmosphere, sound can be used to sense things about our surroundings. In addition, we have evolved to communicate by it, and transmit complex ideas. Therefore, it is an important aspect of human cognition, and one that we have designed music to interact with and subvert.",
"When you hear two notes that are in harmony, its because the vibration of one fits into the other in a perfect fraction. Music is just math applied to sound. Nice clean fractions sound better. Your brain likes it because your ears can tell when the math is right even if you don't understand why."
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epqwur | how is there such a large supply of aged cheeses? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/epqwur/eli5_how_is_there_such_a_large_supply_of_aged/ | {
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"Many 'aged' cheeses only need 12-18 months to be considered 'aged'. It's not hard for a manufacturer to just 'put away' a fixed amount of their production each year, and then only make it available for sale the following year. If we assume production is constant year on year, it just means that they have no 'aged' cheese to sell in their first year of operation....and otherwise, they have the same amount available each year after that"
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38avjr | why do gallon jugs of drinking water cost $0.99, while bottled water costs $1.29 for a quart? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/38avjr/eli5_why_do_gallon_jugs_of_drinking_water_cost/ | {
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"The short answer, you're willing to pay for it.\n\nTap water is a few pennies a gallon. Fancy bottled water is more, because it's fancy bottled water. It's marketed differently, packaged in a nice bottle, stored in a store fridge ready to drink.",
"Because you are willing to pay for the added convenience. In general, smaller servings are more expensive than buying the product in bulk because of the additional expense of the extra packaging, and because people find those packages more compelling, and thus are willing to pay more.",
"Convenience mostly. It's sometimes easier and more convenient for you to get a single bottle, instead of a gallon, so you're willing to pay a little more for it. Also, if it's in a cooler, the additional price usually covers the cost of keeping it cool (of course there's still a very decent profit on it). Marketing and pricing is all about what a person is willing to sacrifice to get a product, and with bottled water, people are willing to sacrifice more."
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586j1c | cell division & growth | More specifically the actual growth of the cell, when the cells are growing, it is just smaller building blocks being added onto another. After you get down to an atom, how can something smaller be added? More specifically is it possible that there is something smaller than an atom? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/586j1c/eli5cell_division_growth/ | {
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"There are things smaller than atoms. Subatomic particles. It gets a bit hairy down there. Nuons and gluons, and some other stuff that rhymes.\n\nBut they don't usually come in to play when discussing cell growth and division. "
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1u1yjb | how is recording things to your dvr not piracy? | You are completely allowed to record television shows and movies to a DVR supplied by you cable companies, to watch them whenever you want. But if you download the same television shows and movies onto your computer to watch whenever you want, and its piracy. Whats the difference? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1u1yjb/how_is_recording_things_to_your_dvr_not_piracy/ | {
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"This isn't new to DVRs.\n\nThe problem existed as soon as home VCRs were invented. In 1984, [Universal took Sony to court](_URL_0_) and argued exactly this point.\n\nCopyright law includes something called \"fair use\". Exactly what counts as \"fair use\" is quite open to debate. Sony argued that being able to record a program which you already have a right to view counts as fair use. Universal said it doesn't.\n\nThe court found it very difficult to decide, but eventually decided, by 5 votes to 4, to side with Sony. And because of that decision, it is still legal to record tv programs today.",
" > But if you download the same television shows and movies onto your computer to watch whenever you want, and its piracy.\n\nNot really. No one is ever busted for downloading. It's **uploading** that lands people in hot water.",
"It's hard to distribute from a DVR to the public at large. ",
"Google the term \"fair use\". \n\nBasically you are right, since you have recording equipment purchaced legally, then it shouldn't be illegal to use it at all cases. That would make no sense. Everybody is ok with you recording, if you abide by \"fair use\", a loose term that basically means: \"Watch it yourelf and show it to some relatives and friends, but don't show it in a public place or release it to the public, or sell it, or modify it, or do anything that would bother the content creator\". \n\nThe same goes for downloading, unless in countries with complex legal systems like USA and Germany. "
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53znxz | why is colin kaepernick taking a knee during the national anthem such a big deal? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/53znxz/eli5_why_is_colin_kaepernick_taking_a_knee_during/ | {
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"Some people think that if you don't stand up for the national anthem you're unpatriotic and shitting on the US and veterans. These people are upset that he is protesting the way he is. They believe it's disrespectful. The other side believes that protesting in that was isn't disrespectful and that if we try to shame people into standing for the flag and loving our country we aren't much better than countries like North Korea. \n\nFor the most part though, veterans support his right to protest. Most veterans don't believe that they served for the flag or the song, but rather the ideas and the freedoms that they represent. Essentially people are trying to say that the symbol of freedom is more important than the actual freedoms people have. ",
"Here is a probably helpful outsider perspective for you:\n\nIn the US the anthem and the flag are a big deal. Across party lines, classes, races, etc. respect for these symbols is usually expected. They are usually also closely related to the respect for veterans who have fought for the US and it´s values.\n\nThis is why they are part of every sports event and why most people expect to respect them (usually by standing, holding hand on the heart, etc.).\n\nKaepernick refused to stand during the anthem as a sign of protest against certain evens in the US currently (namely police violence against blacks).\n\nMany Americans think this is an unacceptable form of protests as it disrespects veterans and US values who have nothing to do with what he is protesting. Others think people latch onto this to avoid talking about the issues and that there is no connection between his actions and disrespecting the military.\n\nPersonally as somebody from outside the US, I find it strange how Americans treat their flag, anthem and military. But nonetheless Kaepernick did something which would be unthinkable to many Americans.",
"He is a very rich and fairly middle-of-the-line qb in talent, but qb's tend to get attention as the 'leaders' of the team, so he has a larger platform than he otherwise would. He decided to speak out against historical and current issues relating to racial equality, starting with the national anthem having extra verses that are pretty dickish to black people. \n\nOn one side, he's not insanely eloquent about what he's protesting, so many say he's just distracting from his job, ie, football.\n\nOn another side, people who see President Obama as the 'end of racism' see him as an uppity curse word who should be happy he's rich and shut up. \n\nOn yet another side, people respect him for basically putting his career on the line in order to bring attention to important issues during a time of increased racial tensions.\n\nAnd on yet another side, we have the frothing-mouth MURICA patriot demagogues who see any disrespect towards the flag as treasonous and unholy, and think he should burn in Islamic hell. \n\n",
"As opposed to La Liga, Serie A, Bundesliga, Ligue 1, the premier league and indeed many other leagues including all that I can think of, American leagues insist on playing the special song before each game (it's very important, don't fucking ask why) and then they get all triggered if someone doesn't stand for the special song. The solution would be to stop playing the anthem before games since there's no real reason to do it, and it's a backwards practice. [There are a lot of editorials out there advocating this idea](_URL_0_) However, this gets Americans even more triggered so it's unlikely to happen soon.",
"Just because the news doesn't have other shit to talk about doesn't make this a big deal. 99.9% of people could not give less of a shit what Colin Kaepenick does. "
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2edxlp | why do chargers, such as my macbook charger, get scalding hot while charging? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2edxlp/eli5_why_do_chargers_such_as_my_macbook_charger/ | {
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"Because they are converting Alternating current to Direct Current, and also changing the voltage. These can't be done perfectly efficiently, and so the \"waste\" is given off as heat. Part of the reason for the inefficiency is that when electricity flows through wires, these wires \"resist\" the current flow some (resistance, measured in Ohms). You can think about this resistance being like friction, heating up the wires. The more current, over a smaller wire, will mean more heat. This is a similar thing to what goes on in a electric heater, or in a prison cigarette lighter. \n\ne.g., _URL_0_"
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1qdzjo | why is graphene not the highest priority in every country's budget ? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1qdzjo/why_is_graphene_not_the_highest_priority_in_every/ | {
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"Great research in one area doesn't matter in the slightest if you aren't paying the bills to maintain your society. \n\nEven if you factor out the day-to-day sort of costs like infrastructure maintenance? Well two things: A lot of research is done privately, not publicly so the government has no say and also the majority of researchers are busy with other important work or, more importantly, aren't qualified to do research in that area. You can't expect good results if you force an electrical engineer to try and do materials science research or something, it's just not their area."
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99r9sm | what exactly happens to my thumbprint while working out that makes touch id not work? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/99r9sm/eli5_what_exactly_happens_to_my_thumbprint_while/ | {
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"Apple's Touch ID works by comparing a high resolution picture of your current finger to a stored version that you set up earlier. It compares whorls, ridges, and bumps, just like a finger print examiner might.\n\nThat being said, it faces the same problems a finger print examiner does. Working out causes minor inflammation in the fingers, which alters the dimensions of those whorls, ridges, and bumps. It can also cause minute sweat/salt build up in those ridges, which further alters the exact shape of your fingerprint.\n\nBecause this system check is performed by a computer, it can't really adjust for unknown conditions like work-out-related-shape-alteration. A human professional might (but that's a whole different ELI5 about the invalidity of fingerprint data), but an exacting computerized comparison just can't keep up. "
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2uvj6i | how is the dollar "backed by oil"? what exactly does this even mean. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2uvj6i/eli5_how_is_the_dollar_backed_by_oil_what_exactly/ | {
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"The USD isn't \"backed by oil\" any more than its \"backed by gold.\" That's a statement by someone who doesn't understand how world politics and international economics.",
"The idea of currency being backed by something means that a bill is of equal value to something else. For example, if a bill was backed by gold, it means that I could exchange 1 bill for a certain amount of gold.\n\nThe dollar is **NOT** backed by oil, but it's very involved in the oil trade. Most of the transactions being made are made using USD rather than another form of currency. This is what people mean, but they're using the terms wrong, because a dollar is not valued at a certain amount of oil."
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etzohe | how does topographical prominence work? | I’ve read multiple times on how a mountain can have a certain prominence in relation to nearby peaks, but can’t fully understand the math that determines this. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/etzohe/eli5_how_does_topographical_prominence_work/ | {
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"Imagine you are standing on a mountaintop and the sea level starts rising. Eventually, the mountain will become an island, and at the moment, the topological prominence will be the distance from the mountaintop to the water.\n\nIn more technical terms, topological prominence is defined by the *key col*. Between any to peaks, there will be a path that loses the least amount of elevation, the col is the lowest point on that path. A peak's key col is the highest col connected to any higher peak, and topological prominence is the difference between the peak's elevation and the key col. In the rising water analogy, the key col will be the last connected bit of land before the mountain becomes an island.\n\nFor example, Denali has an altitude of 20,308 feet. To get to the next highest peak, 22,837 foot Aconcagua in Argentina, you would have to descend the lower elevations in Central America and reach to at least 184 feet before climbing back up again. Therefore, Denali has a topological prominence of 20,308 - 184 = 20,124 feet. Not a terribly useful application, but one that is easier to visualize. \n\n#"
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2wrj7h | why is there after every http in a link ://? | So a link usually starts with http:// and I know what http stands for but what's with the ://? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2wrj7h/eli5_why_is_there_after_every_http_in_a_link/ | {
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"cotg72b",
"coth1bk"
],
"score": [
3,
4
],
"text": [
"A URL is a specific kind of URI. A URI is a way to identify the location of a specific resource in a network (such as a webpage). Different types of URIs have different formats, but they all share the same basic structure:\n\n < scheme name > : < hierarchical part > [ ? < query > ] [ # < fragment > ]\n\nAs you can see, the colon is a required part of the URI, separating the scheme from the rest.\n\nAs for the double-slash, it is the result of a convention where servers are accessed using a double slash. For example in unix, accessing the file /path/to/file will access a file on the local computer, while //othercomputer/path/to/file will access the file located in /path/to/file on the computer 'othercomputer'.",
"So if you wanted to find a file on a computer, you'd identify it by \n\n/directory/filename\n\nfor example\n\n/webpages/index.html\n\nNow, if you wanted to find that file in a directory on another computer you have to give some indication that you're referring to computer's name rather than a directory. You do that with //, so \n\n//computer/directory/filename\n\nThis is typical with networked filesystems. With a networked filesystem your computer often knows what protocol to use automatically, but to specify a particular protocol (like HTTP) you need to include the first bit\n\nprotocol://computer/directory/filename\n\nSometimes one or more of these is left off when it's clear by the context what is meant, but in those cases it's implied. \n\nFor a different example you can access FTP sites with ftp://. An example I happened to stumble across recently is \n\nftp://_URL_0_\n\nthat specifies to use the ftp protocol instead of http. "
]
} | [] | [] | [
[],
[
"ftp.dlink.ru/pub/"
]
] |
|
2rrbhr | how did i just get an electric shock from touching a carrot? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2rrbhr/eli5_how_did_i_just_get_an_electric_shock_from/ | {
"a_id": [
"cniicf4",
"cnij6i2",
"cnijarb"
],
"score": [
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"text": [
"I'd assume it's like when you get a shock from another person, static electricity.\nOr sorcery.",
"[This was the closest explanation I could find from a quick Google search.](_URL_0_)",
"The carrot is asking itself the same thing.\n\nI'm assuming you just experienced ESD (electro static discharge). You had built up a static charge, and the carrot/peanut butter/spoon made a nice place for the charge to flow to.\n\nThat type of discharge can be quite damaging to circuits, so anyone developing electronics takes precautions to avoid it (static mats, wrist straps, toe/heel straps, anti-static clothing)."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[],
[
"http://image.shutterstock.com/display_pic_with_logo/673654/673654,1288902933,8/stock-photo-electric-carrot-64399771.jpg"
],
[]
] |
||
4cw3dp | how do vr headsets that use the phone screen within close proximity to the eyes not damage peoples' vision? | [deleted] | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4cw3dp/eli5_how_do_vr_headsets_that_use_the_phone_screen/ | {
"a_id": [
"d1lujk9",
"d1lumpx",
"d1lvntt",
"d1m0e7t"
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"score": [
2,
63,
17,
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],
"text": [
"Vision isn't damaged by proximity it's damaged by over exposure to incredibly bright light. As long as you have the brightness set to a reasonable level you'll be fine.",
"From what I've heard, it's not that bad for your eyes because you're focusing far away. The lenses on Google Cardboard make it seem as if the image is far away.",
"Like others said, it isn't light that damages your eyes, as long as it's kept at a reasonable level. The real damage comes from focus. A bit of backstory: the Chinese actually did an unintentional experiment a couple decades ago. They took a group of kids from rural China and sent half of them to school in the city. The other half stayed on the farms. Fast forward a few years, and every single kid who was moved to the city needed glasses, while very few of the rural kids needed them. After a little investigation, it was found that because the city kids had been staring at a chalk board all day every day, the muscles in their eyes that focus on objects were \"defective\" because that board was the same distance away all day every day. The rural kids, however, didn't spend much time staring at something, and their focusing muscles were \"worked out\" more. So the city kids needed glasses to help those broken muscles out. Now to modern times: our culture of staring at screens of all sorts is causing the exact same effect as occurred in the city kids. So the issue with the screen being too close for too long will be that your eyes get even less \"working out\" than normal.",
"From what I've seen on reddit, the old \"don't sit to close to the screen or you'll hurt your eyes\" saying isn't true. It was just told to kids so they wouldn't block the screen."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[],
[],
[],
[]
] |
|
41czoi | why didn't space travel get cheaper and easier after roughly 50 years from apollo 11? | A relative of mine doubts the moon landing happened, and he asked me that question. Whats the answer? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/41czoi/eli5_why_didnt_space_travel_get_cheaper_and/ | {
"a_id": [
"cz1eqg7",
"cz1ese7"
],
"score": [
12,
8
],
"text": [
"It has - it's now commonplace (for a small selected group of people) and so cheap that we can have over 2,000 satellites currently in space.\n\nEDIT tyop.",
"Space travel is significantly cheaper and easier today than it was in 1969. It's just that people don't really care about sending people to the moon anymore. It's a been there, done that sort of thing.\n\nThe big cost savings is in the field of satellite launches. Rockets are much cheaper and more efficient today than they were then, and they can take up satellites for tons of different things (TV, radio, GPS, etc.). Now, companies like Virgin Galactic and SpaceX are almost ready to take people up into outer space just for tourism purposes. \n\nFinally, the main form of space travel these days is in unmanned space probes. We get robots/computers to do everything for us these days, why not get them to explore the solar system too? India managed to send a probe to Mars for [dirt cheap.](_URL_0_) It's amazing how much has happened in only 50 years, and it's even crazier when you consider that the first flight only happened in 1903."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[],
[
"http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-29341850"
]
] |
|
d4mi6c | how did chemists in the past discover and collect gaseous elements such as helium? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/d4mi6c/eli5_how_did_chemists_in_the_past_discover_and/ | {
"a_id": [
"f0ebzjm",
"f0efohl"
],
"score": [
5,
2
],
"text": [
"Helium was discoed by observing light from the sun the name is from Helios the Greek word for the sun.\n\nSpectroscopy is the study of the interaction between matter and electromagnetic radiation. Different atoms and molecules releases and absorb light of different colors.\n\nNeon for example release a distinct red light when you excite it with electricity and that's why neon light have the colors they have. If you shine white light trough neon gas it will absorb the same red color so if you spit the light with a prism you will have dark line in the red part where neon have absorbed the light. There is multiple color that neon absorbent to a larger os smaller degree. \nThe same it true for all elements. The colors of fire works is because of the emission colors of metal salts you add to the gunpowder. \nYellow is produce by adding Sodium and old sodium lights that is common for streets light also release the distinct yellow color\n\nSo if you test what color of light the atoms you know about absorb and write them down you can use that information to identify a gas. When it was done with sunlight We saw the line we identified the line Hydrogen has but we also found line that matched no element we had found on earth and called it Helium. The line of helium look like [Helium\\_spectrum](_URL_0_) where the bright line is what color helium emit/absorb\n\nThe observation of sunlight was a decade the gas was fires observer on earth from release during a volcanic eruption and almost 30 years before the element was isolated on earth. This was done by dissolving a type of uranium or in a acid. Helium is produce by radioactive decay of uranium.",
"it varies wildly. most gaseous elements exist in nature bonded into solid molecules. rust contains oxygen, for instance. it takes relatively straight forward reactions to liberate the gasses.\n\nhelium specifically was discovered from observation of the sun during solar eclipses. hence the name being similar to \"helios\" god of the sun. because different elements create different colors of light when heated to glowing, early astronomers could break sunlight into its spectrum and compare it to things on earth. helium's strong yellow color didn't quite match anything else.\n\nthe noble gasses were almost all isolated by william ramsay and...im forgetting the other guy. they cooled a huge amount of air into a liquid, then slowly boiled off the components. the noble gasses only exist in trace amounts in the atmosphere so you can imagine how much work that was. the notable exception was helium, which someone accidentally stumbled upon when they heated a piece of uranium ore."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helium#/media/File:Helium_spectrum.jpg"
],
[]
] |
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