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aqdnkr | carbonation | Some drinks have bigger bubbles, some drinks will burst when uncapped, some drinks' bubbles will not build up so fast. Most importantly, why do bubbles appear *after* you uncap a drink and if you leave it alone it goes on? (excuse my English) | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/aqdnkr/eli5_carbonation/ | {
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"text": [
"Carbonation is basically carbon dioxide (CO2) that has been dissolved in water. The size of the is usually based upon the viscosity, or \"thickness,\" of the liquid that it is dissolved in. One of the properties of gasses is that if you increase the pressure of whatever system you're in (let's say a soda can), you will actually dissolve more of the gas in the liquid. So the inside of our soda can is a relatively high pressure system compared to the outside environment. When you open the can, the pressures will even out so that they are the same inside the can and outside of the can. Because the pressure is now lower in the can, the carbon dioxide won't want to stay dissolved in the water (remember increased pressure = better solubility). This causes the carbon dioxide to come out of solution, and this is what we see as bubbles. "
]
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11nrca | why do your collarbones/shoulders ache when you're dehydrated? | are there magical thirst nerves there or what | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/11nrca/why_do_your_collarbonesshoulders_ache_when_youre/ | {
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"I believe the pain you are talking about is the referred pain from your diaphragm when you overexert it through exercise. The sensory nerve responsible for feeling pain from the diaphragm (at least the middle of it) actually originates from the spine near your neck. So any pain from the diaphragm will be sent back here before going up to your brain. Your brain sees pain signals coming from your neck region and you begin to feel pain near your neck and shoulder. I don't think this necessarily has to do with dehydration "
]
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6kbbww | why do some pens and spray cans have that little ball in them so it rattles when you shake them? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/6kbbww/eli5_why_do_some_pens_and_spray_cans_have_that/ | {
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"It's called the agitator ball. It's purpose is to help mix the contents of the canister. \n\n",
"The chemicals in the can will separate over time and settle. Kind of like oil and water. The steel slug will agitate the mix and keep it consistent. "
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88oqgl | why is the sinclair thing a big deal? what’s bad about multiple stations reporting the same story? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/88oqgl/eli5_why_is_the_sinclair_thing_a_big_deal_whats/ | {
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"It's not that it's just \"multiple stations reporting the same story\". It's a giant media company buying up a bunch of local stations and using them to push the same ridiculously one-sided news out to the entire country. **It's not journalism, it's propaganda**, where wealthy individuals are using their money to bury truth & push the version of stories that most directly benefit them.",
"In the US, there used to be a variety of restrictions on the ownership of radio and TV stations. The idea behind these restrictions were that if stations were owned by a variety of people, you'd get a variety of viewpoints and programs.\n\nThis all changed with the passage of the Telecommunications Act of 1996, which ordered the FCC to repeal or modify regulations it no longer deemed necessary. This has led to reduced restrictions on the merger of media outlets, and a lot of what were formerly local TV stations (possibly affiliated with the big three CBS/NBC/ABC) are now part of large national conglomerates.\n\nCouple this trend with an overall reduction in the money spent on local reporting and you've got a situation ripe for exploitation like we see with Sinclair -- the local stations can't afford their own reporting, and so rely on these feeds.\n\nIMO, this is also why radio sucks now -- instead of local stations with local DJ's catering to local interests, you've got Clear Channel cookie cutter stations that completely lack soul."
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3fpubi | why does bracing yourself seem to help with pain? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3fpubi/eli5_why_does_bracing_yourself_seem_to_help_with/ | {
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"Sometimes it is a matter of muscles being tense vs loose. A tense muscle will be able to withstand more damage than a loose one. If you get punched in the stomach, it will hurt less if you are flexing because your muscles are acting as a barrier "
]
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||
6t8qb1 | why do screens go crazy when a magnet is near it. | Whenever you hold a magnet close to a computer screen it freaks out and makes lines and rainbows in the direction of the magnet. Why does this happen? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/6t8qb1/eli5_why_do_screens_go_crazy_when_a_magnet_is/ | {
"a_id": [
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"text": [
"This only effects old CRT screens, newer LCD screens are unaffected\n\nA CRT screen uses electromagnets to steer an electron beam that is pointed at the front of the screen. When you add another magnet close by you change the magnetic field and cause the beam to go to the wrong spots. You can also cause the cores of the electromagnets to pick up a permanent magnetic field which will cause the beam to be steered wrong even after you have removed your magnet"
]
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[]
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63gyb2 | why is third person called third person? | Why is third person called what it is? Is there a reason it is called that. Same for first and second. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/63gyb2/eli5_why_is_third_person_called_third_person/ | {
"a_id": [
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"text": [
"The \"first person\" is the person speaking, for obvious reasons.\n\nThe \"second person\" is the person being spoken to, since that's the very next possible person.\n\nThe \"third person\" is anyone remaining -- so, someone other than the speaker and the listener.",
"Because the first person is yourself, because in absence of anyone else you are the only one left. When you add a second person, for you to talk to, that is known to you as \"you\", as in the person you are talking to or otherwise addressing. A third person would be someone outside of the conversation between yourself and the person you are talking to.\n\nIt is kind of like how far removed you are from who you are talking about. "
]
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9xrqxd | how does our skin know when to detach from the bottom of the fingernail, resulting in the opaque off white color at the end? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/9xrqxd/eli5_how_does_our_skin_know_when_to_detach_from/ | {
"a_id": [
"e9upcqp"
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"text": [
"Our nail bed is a bit different than ordinary skin, and is basically a membrane which specifically clings to the bottom of our fingernail.\n\nWhen the nail bed ends and normal skin begins, the finger nail is able to grow away from the membrane."
]
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5ntvtx | the julian calendar | [deleted] | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5ntvtx/eli5_the_julian_calendar/ | {
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"January and February were the last months to be added to the calendar (thus why many months have a prefix two months off from their place in our modern calendar eg. Sept-, Oct-, Nov-, Dec-.). When the two months were added, the length of February jumped around for a bit until it was finalized under Julius Caesar, giving February 28 days with a 29th day every four years.",
"Basically, we humans like measuring time in nice, organized quantities. We would live it if a year was an exact, round number of days. For example, if a year was exactly 360 days, we'd cut it up into 12 months, with 30 days in each month.\n\nUnfortunately, a year is 365 days, 5 hours and 50-something minutes. We can't cut that up in nice, regular blocks, so we had to change the regular blocks a bit and make them fit reality. That's why we have some extended months, some leap years (every four years, except every 200 years).\n\nIn addition to that, our calendar has a complicated social history. A lot of decisions were made for political reasons, not actual practical ones. Weeks are seven days because it says so in the bible. There are 12 months and not 10 because Cesar and Octavian added in their own months to the calendar.\n\nDuring the French revolution there was an attempt to create a more rational calendar, which was used for a bit over a decade before Napoleon went back to the Roman calendar so as to improve his relationships with the pope.\n\nSo yeah, given all of that, our calendar actually is pretty orderly and simple, compared to how it could have been."
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2w1xiz | why is sound not heard upside-down when you put speakers/headphones/yourself/etc. upside-down? | My little brother asked me this question today and I was about to dismiss it as stupid when I realized I didn't actually know the answer. I assume that soundwaves just can't be upside-down, regardless of the orientation of whatever it's emanating from, but I don't actually know the answer.
So why is it that sound isn't garbled or heard in a different way when it's being presented in a different way?
ELI5? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2w1xiz/eli5_why_is_sound_not_heard_upsidedown_when_you/ | {
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"Sound is pressure waves. There is no up or down.",
"[Here](_URL_0_) is what a wave looks like.\n\n[Here](_URL_0_) is what a wave looks like upside down.\n\n\nDoes that help? :P\n\nIn all seriousness, sound waves are actually longitudinal waves, not transverse waves. That means that the wave diagram depicted above is not accurate for sound waves.\n\nPicture a weight on a stretchy spring, going up and down. You can see waves in the spring, but it's not moving from side to side- instead, parts of it are compressing and decompressing down its length. That's how sound waves work!\n\nAnd therefore, sound waves literally have no up or down, because it's just a compression wave through the air or whatever medium you are using. Sound waves can't be upside down!",
"Sound waves are longitudinal waves: they move towards-away rather than up-down or left-right. Example: Think of a slinky that is pointed at you from the source of the sound, where someone has smacked the far end of the slinky and caused a ripple to head towards you. There is little to no meaningful difference if you flip over the slinky, since it is round and moving in a direction perpendicular to the flip.",
"Waves don't look like the typical wave picture people usually show you. In case of sound you deal with a longitudinal pressure wave, it doesn't \"wave\" up and down, it \"waves\" back and forth like you can see in [this video](_URL_0_)! \n\nIn addition to that, what we hear is frequency. So even if sound would be a transverse wave (the kind of you usually see in pictures) you could turn the wave upside down but that wouldn't change the frequency we hear. Orientation doesn't affect frequency, because it doesn't matter how you turn your wave it will always wave at the same rate. "
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6g7gqg | why *one* side of the face is commonly affected by a stroke and not both sides. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/6g7gqg/eli5_why_one_side_of_the_face_is_commonly/ | {
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"Different parts of the brain controls the different sides of your body. This is because our body is symmetric including the brain. A stroke on the other hand is not symmetric and only affects one area of your brain. And since the areas controlling your face muscles are on different hemispheres and therefore far apart it is very unlikely to have a single stroke affecting both areas at once. So a stroke on the left hemisphere might cause you to lose control over the facial muscles in the right side of the face but not the left.",
"Here's a crude explanation that is probably eli5 friendly:\n\nVery vaguely speaking, left side of brain controls right side of body and vice versa. So your right arm moves and feels because of the left side of your brain. The blood supply of the brain doesn't have much cross over the midline. This means that the arteries on the right side of the brain supply the right side while the arteries of the left side supply the left side.\n\nWhen you have a stroke usually it is from a blood clot that travels to the brain and clogs an artery. Let's say the clot blocks one of the left arteries which supplies the left half of your brain. Now the left brain is dying because it isn't getting blood. This means that you can get right sided problems like no sensation in your right leg or no movement in your right arm.\n\nAgain, this is sort of the quick and dirty of classic strokes. It can get a lot more complicated but hopefully this satisfied your curiosity."
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2vf9n5 | what would be the result of a media blackout for the isis killing of hostages? wouldn't that slow the spread of "terror"? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2vf9n5/eli5_what_would_be_the_result_of_a_media_blackout/ | {
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"text": [
"How complete do you imagine this media \"blackout\" being? How in the world would you tell various media not to cover such things, and not violate their rights?"
]
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[]
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||
3cdq70 | why do we prefer drinks such as coffee or tea either hot or cold but not at room temperature? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3cdq70/eli5_why_do_we_prefer_drinks_such_as_coffee_or/ | {
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"text": [
"Two reasons:\n\n1. Best flavor profiles are found at either end of the temperature spectrum: coffee tastes less bitter and more of the bean characteristics come out at low temperatures (floral, sometimes earthy notes), whereas more of the roasted character is found at higher temperatures (tobacco, chocolate, sometimes caramel). Lukewarm coffee is pretty bland.\n\n2. Psychological perception. When you're drinking iced coffee or iced tea, you're expecting the drink to be cold. If it becomes lukewarm it is now too warm and you perceive it to be less pleasant. When you're drinking hot coffee or tea, you're expecting the drink to be hot and when it cools to lukewarm it is now too cold and therefore unpleasant.",
"I guess I'm the odd man out...I prefer Pepsi at room temperature, rather than cold, and certainly not hot. I like to drink my coffee black which is easier to manage if it's not fresh off the brewer. I'm a middle of the road drinker. Not too hot and not too cold...just right for Goldilocks.",
"There's a psychological reason you don't like lukewarm food or drinks- that's prime bacteria growing regions. You are physiologically inclined to avoid warm food. Cold reduces bacteria growth, hot kills bacteria. "
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1zvcyt | if household electricity is ac, why do we use dc so much? | Just wondering why we resort to wall warts and giant power bricks and all, instead of designing devices to run on AC? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1zvcyt/eli5_if_household_electricity_is_ac_why_do_we_use/ | {
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"Most modern electronic devices require DC to operate. Simple devices like motors and heaters (light bulbs, vacuum cleaners, washing machines, etc) can run on AC but electronics can't. You can't design electronic devices to run on AC; it's fundamental to how they work that they run on low-voltage DC.\n\nHouses have AC supplies because high voltage electricity is more efficient to transmit, and it's easy to convert high voltage AC to low voltage AC using a transformer, but high voltage DC is more difficult and expensive to convert to low voltage DC.",
"Up until the late 1950's just about everything in a house ran on AC. A lot of things still do. motors (as in a washing machine, refrigerator, an air conditioning unit etc) Light bulbs, heating elements (electric heaters, stove burners, ovens). \n\nDC circuits are typically less than 24 volts while household AC circuits (in the US are 120v and 240)--a standard wall outlet is 120 volts and 15-20amps. In simple terms, more voltage/amps translates into more power. Refrigerators, washing mashing machines, dryers, furnaces etc require a lot of power. A computer circuit board doesn't. DC is necessary for modern electronic circuits (think circuit boards) to operate, which means that even appliances that use AC for motors, use DC for controls, displays, and other on board electronics. ",
"Modern electronics usually require rather low voltages, and somewhat low current.\n\nFor the most part, adding the PSU would add bulk, heat, and require devices be approved by safety agencies.\n"
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2hlkpt | why do we replace curse words with "nicer" words that have the same meaning? what's the difference if they're used in the same context? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2hlkpt/eli5_why_do_we_replace_curse_words_with_nicer/ | {
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"text": [
"It's called [Euphemism](_URL_0_), and we do it for exactly the reason you pointed out: they sound nicer. Our society has decided that certain words are bad, so we dance around them to say the same thing while still sounding \"nice\". Euphemism is a natural part of language, every language does it. ",
"the curse word often times shows the level of our frustration or amazement. It is like an exclamation point. ",
"i don't know, but it drives me crazy\n\nmy wife's favorite is \"holy macaroni\"\n\nand i just fucking cringe when she says it - our kid is 18. he knows they words. he uses the words like any other adult.\n\njust stop. for the love of God just stop.",
"The fact that you choose times to replace or not replace the word implies that they do have a different meaning.",
"Louis CK makes some [interesting comical observations](_URL_0_) regarding the use of \"the n-word\".",
"Vsauce did a pretty cool video about swearing... should answer your question. Plus his channel is awesome!\n\n_URL_0_",
"I believe it came from superstition that saying \"curse\" words actually caused you bad luck, or cursed you, or made God/gods angry. While they have the same meaning, you're not offending whatever supernatural thing you might offend with the real word.",
"One case of this is swear words. Swearing can sometimes be offensive, rude, disrespectful, or impolite. So people choose not to swear to be a better person.",
"There are a disturbing number of people who care more about word choice than about understanding what people actually mean. I don't understand them either, but know they exist."
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1hw1ux | why does my hair appear to be several shades darker when it is wet? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1hw1ux/eli5_why_does_my_hair_appear_to_be_several_shades/ | {
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"text": [
"When hair gets wet, it gets closer together - clumps.\n\nWhen you hair is dry light bounces off all the surfaces of the hair, reflecting a lot of wavelengths of light, thus looking lighter.\n\nWhen your hair covered in water it smooths these surfaces, these means that light can go deep into the hair rather than be reflected back, thus looking darker.",
"Totally stole this from the Interwebs because I was curious myself. Here you go: \n\nWhen hair gets wet it gets closer together. Hair is light when it's dry for the same reason that glass is clear when it's as a glass but lighter when it's made into tiny particles of sand. What's happening when it's dry is that light is bouncing off all the surfaces of the hair and bouncing around all over the place and reflects lots of wavelengths of light and looks lighter. When the hairs are covered with water it smooths the surfaces, more light can go through deep into the hair rather than be reflected back, so it looks darker."
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9ejny1 | why do snipers exhale before taking a shot? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/9ejny1/eli5_why_do_snipers_exhale_before_taking_a_shot/ | {
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"They actually exhale and during that time they take the shot. This is also accompanied by steadying the heart rate to time the exhale and shot between heart beats, the shot not the breath. It allows the sniper to take a steadier shot so not to move the barrel and make a more precise shot",
"They take the shot during their natural respiratory pause. This happens to be after you exhale and before you take another breath. You don't forcefully exhale, you just exhale naturally. Obviously, you have to hold it for a couple seconds. This is the time that your body and heart are most \"at rest\" or relaxed. This allows you to be as still as humanly possible for the shot."
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2fjaip | why do i have no problem napping throughout they day but can't sleep on a night if there's a light on? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2fjaip/eli5_why_do_i_have_no_problem_napping_throughout/ | {
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"text": [
"Because you are not used to it. \nIt's not the light, but the fact that you get distracted by it. \nI for example live next to a streetlamp (its about 3 meters from my window and in the exact same height) and never rolled down the shutters, and can sleep just fine because of that, even though the room is lit."
]
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ax4irm | is there any battery usage difference between lowering the headphones volume from phone software and lowering it from the rheostat style volume adjustment wheel which is on the headphones? | [deleted] | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/ax4irm/eli5_is_there_any_battery_usage_difference/ | {
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"So.... your phone has an amplifier circuit in it just like any stereo. It's a very small amplifier but it acts much like larger amplifiers do. \n\nWhen you turn an amplifier all the way up you tend to get more distortion than if you had it at half volume. \n\nSo if you were to turn your phone volume ALL THE WAY UP and then use your headphones volume control to reduce the volume back to a listenable level it's possible you might hear more distortion than if you were to put the headphone volume all the way up and turn the phone volume up to just halfway.\n\nIn other words don't drive the amplifier circuit any harder than you have to to get the volume you want.\n\nNOTE: The amount of distortion from your phone at full volume vs. half volume may not be something you can easily distinguish. In which case...who cares right? It will ultimately depend on the quality of the audio circuit in your phone. Cheap phones may sound way better at half volume whereas a high quality phone may not produce much distortion even at full volume. YMMV \n\n\n\n\n ",
"The volume of your phone uses such a minuscule amount of battery power that it is almost impossible to answer this. In theory, yes, reducing the volume on the phone going out to the headphones would reduce battery drain. You would never notice it though."
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23lhtr | why do hindu's believe in reincarnation? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/23lhtr/eli5_why_do_hindus_believe_in_reincarnation/ | {
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"Reincarnation – known as Punarjanma – it is one of the core beliefs of Hinduism that is generally accepted by many of its practitioners.\n\nReincarnation is the natural process of birth, death and rebirth. Hindus believe that the Jiva or Atman (soul) is intrinsically pure. However, because of the layers of I-ness and My-ness, the jiva goes through transmigration in the cycle of births and deaths. Death destroys the physical body, but not the jiva. The jiva is eternal. It takes on another bodywith respect to its karmas. Every karma produces a result which must be experienced either in this or some future life. As long as the jiva is enveloped in ignorance, it remains attached to material desires and subject to the cycles of births and deaths (Samsara).\n\n_URL_0_\n\nTL; DR if you give up material things and your ignorance, you escape the cycle of reincarnation. Until then, you will be reborn as something better or worse depending on how close you were.",
"I'm a Hindu atheist, so I don't actually believe in reincarnation, but this is how my parents explained the reason for this belief to me.\n\nThe ancient Hindu philosophers believed in karma. Karma is basically the ancient concept of justice. If you do good deeds, your life will be good, and if you sin, you will bear the consequences of it. But they observed that this was not always the case. They saw that many people who were righteous abd good had evil befall them, and many evildoers led long and happy lives. This was a basic flaw in their reasoning, that would have proved their belief false.\n\nChristians too had the same problem in their reasoning. They got around it by saying that God rewards their good deeds by keeping them in heaven or punishes their bad deeds by sending them to hell after death. The Hindu philosophers, on the other hand, explained this by saying that people who sinned would be reborn as lesser beings, or lead their next life in misery, while the good people would be rewarded with a happy next life. This was also used to explain why people who were good and righteous lead miserable lives- it was due to their sins in past lives!\n\nSo this meant that the soul was in a never ending cycle of rebirths. The only way to escape from this cycle was moksha. Souls could attain their original divine state and become one with the creator. This could be achieved by three ways- the pursuit of knowledge or enlightenment, doing good deeds and living increasingly rightoeus and honourable lives, and devotion to God."
]
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] |
||
1uskmb | how has colorado'a economy benefited from legalizing recreational marijuana? | Is it doing better? Is it causing any unforeseen issues in other areas of the economy or in any financial intuitions or structures? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1uskmb/eli5_how_has_coloradoa_economy_benefited_from/ | {
"a_id": [
"cel96dl"
],
"score": [
6
],
"text": [
"It has been a week. Nobody has any useful stats yet. The answer to this one won't really be clear for months. "
]
} | [] | [] | [
[]
] |
|
1qlj47 | how is government debt different than household debt? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1qlj47/eli5_how_is_government_debt_different_than/ | {
"a_id": [
"cde5cv3"
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"text": [
"The first major difference is the interest rate. Government debt is an incredibly safe investment so the government can borrow money at really low interest rates. In fact many governments are able to borrow at rates that are lower than inflation. This means that their debt decreases over time in terms of its real value rather than increasing like household debt.\n\nAt the same time governments generally owe money in a currency that they control. They have the option of doing things like manipulating interest rates or printing money to deal with the debt. Printing money to pay the debt sounds like a terrible idea and it is if you do it to fast, see Weimar Germany. In the course of normal economic growth, however, the money supply must expand and if the government accomplishes this by printing money and buying back debt the debt can be slowly paid down without running a surplus or causing hyperinflation.\n\nAnother difference is the way the income of the government changes. This matter because how burdensome debt is depends upon its relationship to the income available to the debtor. This is why government debt is often stated in terms of percent of GDP. Government income tends to grow at about the rate that GDP grows. Household income tends to grow much slower than this in the long term. This means that overtime the ratio of government debt to income will shrink and a previously large debt eventually becomes irrelevant compared to GDP."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[]
] |
||
24inke | how do search engines decide which websites to display first? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/24inke/eli5_how_do_search_engines_decide_which_websites/ | {
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"This type of information is often secret because if everyone knew how it ranked, it could be controlled.\n\nUltimately there is really no 'one answer' to how it's done as each engine has it's own way of determining a top ranking. Usually it's done based on a combination of the history of clicks from the engine, the page relevance, and other sites which link to it, all while trying to sniff out those who attempt to cheat the system.",
"I knew someone who worked for bing before it was called bing. Windows live search, maybe? Anyway, much of it is automated, but then double checked by a person. The employee is shown the search query, a website, and basically a 1-5 scale which they use to rate how well the website relates to the search.",
"The gist is search engine's have programs that crawl a website's contents and read them looking for key words and indexes them. Then when someone types in a word or phrase the search engine will return the most relevant links that contained those key words. \n\nThere is a complex algorithm that the engine will use to determine what is most relevant and there is a whole industry around trying to work the system, it's called [Search Engine Optimization](_URL_0_). \n\nBut like /u/tragluk says the actual algorithm is kept secret to prevent people from faking the relevance and hitting the top of the front page on terms that have nothing to do with their site.",
"As has been already stated, it's secret and there are many different things involved. Also, search engines periodically update and change their algorithms for various reasons, so any answer you get today might not be correct six months later.\n\nIn addition to what others have said, one thing Google does is to rank sites according to how important Google thinks they are. For example, one of the most important sites on the web is Wikipedia, which is why when you google something, you very often get one or more Wikipedia links near the top. One of the criteria Google uses for determining how important a page is is by looking at what sort of sites link to it; so a page that is linked to from Wikipedia, the New York Times, the BBC and Al Jazeera will likely rank higher than a page that is only linked to from _URL_0_.",
"Google for example uses the PageRank algorithm for this ( _URL_0_ ). It basically gives search results a rating, based on different things such as relevance (do the words you're looking for appear on the website, but also for example when a link to that website from another site contains the keywords), amount of websites linking to that website etc. There's a lot of other stuff which is used to calculate this rank, but that's a bit too much to post here, so if you want to know all the details, I'd suggest checking out the wikipedia algorithm.\nSearch results are then just shown based on this rank (highest rank first). \nThe search also doesn't happen live, the PageRank of most websites and search terms are already calculated beforehand, so when the user actually searches, the results are just fetched from Google. That's also the reason why searching is so fast.\nI assume other search engines than google use similar algorithms (probably a bit less advanced though).",
"_URL_0_\nIf you want to know how they utilize the change in algorithm and keep things functioning with accuracy and results this is the answer. This is actually a very good video to watch if you are interested in this subject.\n\n_URL_1_\nWatch this is you would like to know how the very first level of search works.\n\nI hope this helps answer your question after watching. They explain it very well."
]
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[],
[],
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"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Search_engine_optimization"
],
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"some-boring-blog-nobody-ever-reads.com"
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"http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/PageRank"
],
[
"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J5RZOU6vK4Q",
"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BNHR6IQJGZs"
]
] |
||
3ocxip | why we don't just use ocean water for things like toilet plumbing where each flush is around half a gallon of clean water, especially in places prone to droughts *cough california cough* | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3ocxip/eli5_why_we_dont_just_use_ocean_water_for_things/ | {
"a_id": [
"cvw20g4"
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"score": [
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"text": [
"Because we'd have to construct a whole new infrastructure of watermains alongside existing, retrofit all buildings with additional salt water lines, and pump water from sea level. Just for the toilet. Watch Cowspiracy."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[]
] |
||
1r5bs6 | what is happening in the us senate today (11/21) with regards to the nuclear option? | I'm watching TV and don't really understand what's going on. Thanks. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1r5bs6/eli5_what_is_happening_in_the_us_senate_today/ | {
"a_id": [
"cdjr1r5"
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"text": [
"The senate has a rule called cloture which means that a 3/5ths majority of the senate must agree before ending debate on a bill or a motion. This has lead to a partisan tactic called the filibuster, where a minority of 41 senators can prevent the majority from taking a vote by demanding that debate continue indefinitely. Traditionally this tactic has been reserved for the most important bills and only when the minority feels that the majority is being overly partisan or abusive.\n\nOver the last two decades or so, though, filibuster usage has increased dramatically. At this point there is a de facto filibuster on every single bill or motion brought forward, so even though the democrats routine have even votes to pass legislature, they can't get anything done without 60 senators voting for the legislation.\n\nThis has become increasing galling to the democrats, especially around federal nominations for judges and cabinet positions. The democrats contend that the republicans are effectively circumventing the power of the executive branch by not allowing any nominees to branches of the government they dislike, and not allowing Obama to appoint judges with the hope that they will be able to fill those spots if they can win the presidency in 2016. The republicans contend that the democrats are being overtly partisan with their picks, and hypocritical considering they didn't mind using partisan tactics such as the filibuster when Bush was in charge.\n\nSo the democrats are basically saying if the republicans don't allow votes on judicial nominees they are simply going to change the rules. The cloture rule isn't in the constitution, in fact the constitution simply says that the senate gets to make up its own rules. There is also no filibustering a rules change, which means as long as 50 democrats agree they can change the cloture rules or remove it entirely. The fear is that this is a slippery slope towards removing minority power from the senate, and it could upset the balance of power. It may sound like a good idea when your side has the majority, but how bad could it be the next time you are in the minority?\n\n\n\n\n\n"
]
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[]
] |
|
2ensfg | why do microwave ovens expel air? | Whenever I turn on my microwave, air comes out as if it had a fan (maybe it does?). Why does this happen? I understand the process in a normal oven because the air heats up and you need to release pressure, but air inside a microwave shouldn't heat, or at least not as much to justify all the air coming out. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2ensfg/eli5_why_do_microwave_ovens_expel_air/ | {
"a_id": [
"ck17v23"
],
"score": [
6
],
"text": [
"it's cooling the \"microwave emitting plate thingys\" they eat a lot of power and subsequently generate a lot of heat like a computer motherboard."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[]
] |
|
3bu1s6 | how do u.s. states, such as colorado, deal with people smoking weed and then driving? does that count as "intoxication?" | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3bu1s6/eli5_how_do_us_states_such_as_colorado_deal_with/ | {
"a_id": [
"cspioao",
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"text": [
"DUI means driving under the influence of any drug legal or not. It technically can be applied even if you take too many advils and the prosecution proves this impairs your ability to drive.\n\nWhile Alcohol is the most common drug tested for on drivers, Marijuana is a close second. Each state deals with it differently, but Colorado specifically says that its officers will look for signs of marijuana use on drivers.\n\nTL;DR: Yes, it's a DUI and yes they look for it, especially where it's legal.",
"Yes, in fact driving under the influence of any drug is a crime, regardless of the drug's legality. There is no breathalyzer test that can instantly tell you if a person is intoxicated for most drugs so police give a field sobriety test like you've seen on TV: balancing on one foot, saying the alphabet backwards, stretching out your arms and then touching your nose. If the officer believes you have failed the test because you're under the influence of a drug, you will be arrested and charged with DUI, driving under the influence. "
]
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[],
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] |
||
2j7q75 | why do some dried fruits (raisins, prunes, etc) have their own names while others (dried apples, dried mango, etc) do not? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2j7q75/eli5_why_do_some_dried_fruits_raisins_prunes_etc/ | {
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"text": [
"Well it's worth noting that raisin is French for grape, and prune refers to the specific process of drying the fruit, called pruning (although according to Wikipedia, \"Due to popular perception (in the U.S.) of prunes being used only for relief of constipation, and being the subject of related joking, many of today's distributors have stopped using the word \"prune\" on packaging labels. Their preference is to state \"dried plums\".\"). ",
"Raisins, prunes, etc., are whole fruits that will preserve naturally if dried properly. They also date back to antiquity, along with dates, figs, etc., which don't have nicknames.\n\nApples, mangoes, etc., will not dry whole, but simply rot. They need to be portioned and dried rapidly, a task made all the easier by using a modern dehydrator. ",
"Fruits with a specialized name when dried have been around in the dry form for a long time. For example the novel Robinson Crusoe mentioned making raisins. Dried fruits without their own names are either not found in a primarily-English speaking countries until recently or dried form being uncommon. ",
"\"Prune\" is well on it's way to being replaced with \"dried plum\" because of general association with the elderly and constipation. [The largest advocacy group has changed it's name to \"California Dried Plums\"](_URL_0_)",
"I might be wrong but i remember reading an article about the several hundred years where England was vassal to France, after Guillaume Le Conquérant won, and during that time all English noblemen had to speak French at court. That would have led to the french name of foods *when prepared to be eaten by nobles* to be often used, while non-nobles would refer to the actual item as it is in the field, not the dish. For instance, pig (in the field) = pork (the dish / porc in french). Sheep = mutton (mouton), calf = veal (veau), cow = beef (boeuf), grapes = raisins (raisins), etc. \n\nI might be off...",
"It's pretty much the same thing as the whole cow/beef naming story : \n\nWhile the farmers, back then, would speak English, the court would speak French. As a consequence of that, since the farmers would deal with the living animal, it ended up being called its english name (e.g. cow), while the nobles, who ate it, named it after French (beef, from French boeuf). \n\nSame goes for fruit. Since it wasn't as easy to transport fresh fruit back then, the nobles would only get the dried ones. Grapes became raisins (French for grapes), and on and on.\n\nIt hasn't been a long time since we knew how to dry other fruits, like apples, mangoes, etc, since these fruits have a tendency to rot more than to dry. When we knew how to dry them, the language barrier was no longer in place, and so we just called them \"dried fruits\".",
"In addition, what is \"prune juice\"? How can you get juice from a dried fruit? Why is prune juice different from plum juice?\n"
]
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[],
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[],
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"http://www.californiadriedplums.org/"
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||
2g89ig | what exactly do u.s. military generals do? | I understand they command all the people under them, but what is the average week in the life of a general like? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2g89ig/eli5_what_exactly_do_us_military_generals_do/ | {
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"text": [
"I haven't lived along side a general or anything but from my limited observations it seems that their days are spent in staff briefings or meetings of some kind and then punctuated by reading/signing memos/orders and the occasional site visit.",
"A general is a senior officer who controls a division level organization. As such, they have a staff consisting of Colonels and LtCols. Most of their time is meetings. Probably 80+% \n\nThey have meetings with the people above them and people below them.\n\nThat said, what those meetings are about is probably what your real question is about.\n\nThat depends on the General.\n\nDifferent generals have different priorities. There are Base Generals, Division generals, Area Generals (Like those in charge of Warzones), etc.\n\nSource: Former Instructor for the MAGTF Staff Training Program (USMC) - We taught General Officer Staffs.",
"Major General Dempsey seems to spend considerable time in front of congress and TV. "
]
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[],
[],
[]
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|
4plc2h | why are children and sounds of children so creepy in horror movies? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4plc2h/eli5_why_are_children_and_sounds_of_children_so/ | {
"a_id": [
"d4lx7yt",
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"score": [
22,
2,
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"text": [
"We often think of children as sweet, innocent, and carefree. In horror movies, children are often tainted by evil. The child's laughter, when corrupted or used by an evil demon or other villain, twists what we're used to, which makes it creepy.",
"I always thought it was the contrast between what children generally represent, innocence, purity, and the like, and shows you something twisted and perverse and dark. It's symbolic of complete corruption of what is supposed to be true innocence. That's why kids are usually a focus in exorcism movies. ",
"because they're moved ever so slightly away from their natural state. if you're familiar with the uncanny valley, it's the same phenomena. humans are good at noticing things that are different, particularly in other people. children in particular are something we are hard-wired to be attentive toward.\n\nthe creepy little girl in the white dress isn't just a little girl. film makers will use tricks like playing their footage in reverse (this is how a lot of creepy walk cycles get done), not make them move enough for a living person, making the costume unnaturally pale or changing the model's proportions. all of it is there so you see the child and your brain goes \"this is a thing trying to look like a child\" "
]
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||
9w58h4 | when running a system software update, what is happening conceptually and literally? | Had to run an update on my PS4 this morning and generally curious what is happening as increments of MB or GB are added to the system. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/9w58h4/eli5_when_running_a_system_software_update_what/ | {
"a_id": [
"e9hoppv"
],
"score": [
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"text": [
"Concept of update literally replaces old system files with new ones, adds new files or removes existing files. That's basically all it does.\n\nNow the way an update itself works is quite convoluted (not complex, just damn fuck**g twisted). Take for example a critical security update. The software vendor/developer fixes the flaw and generates a new version of the file. Then he uploads it to a special central distribution server. When your computer checks for new updates, this new version will show up. Your computer downloads it. The older version is removed from your computer. This version is installed.\n\nNow here's where it gets twisted. A backup of old version is left on your computer just in case you decide to rollback. A copy of the new version you just downloaded is also kept in case you change your mind again. But this version of software brings a whole load of changes in all its dependents, so they are upgraded as well following the same logic."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[]
] |
|
47oivu | how trademarks work and why can other artists use superman's name while dc owns him? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/47oivu/eli5_how_trademarks_work_and_why_can_other/ | {
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"d0eg8u1",
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"text": [
"Trademarks are limited in scope. So DC will have a different trademark on the name Superman for comics, for graphic novels, for novels, for toys, for costumes, for tv shows, and for movies. They do not have one for songs. \n\nThe purpose of trademark is to prevent brand confusion so it only prevents similar products from having the same or too similar a name. ",
"The problem is when a word becomes 'generic' it is no longer able to be a trademark.\n\n\nThe word Superman is so widely used and such a generic thing that it's likely no longer enforecable as a trademark. What will be enforceable will be ripping off elements of the design/trying to pass of non DC products as DC through use of superman brand designs.\n\n\nSee [this](_URL_0_) guidance. An interesting thing to note is that words that start of as fanciful/arbitrary *can* become generic and therefore unenforceable. \n\n\nThis is a concern for a lot of companies with dominant products. To 'google' something is pretty much a generic way of saying to use an online search engine. to Photoshop something means to manipulate an image using software. Both the companies that own those products have to battle to try stop the words becoming generic because then they can't prevent other companies using those terms and diminishing the brand-association with their product.\n\n\nCopyright is a whole other kettle of fish mind!"
]
} | [] | [] | [
[],
[
"http://www.inta.org/TrademarkBasics/FactSheets/Pages/TrademarksvsGenericTermsFactSheet.aspx"
]
] |
||
37e7au | why did the space race stop at the moon? why weren't there competing colonies on mars or something? | It's not as if the space programs were bankrupting the US and USSR or anything. Why didnt Russia try and one up the Americans after the moon landing? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/37e7au/eli5_why_did_the_space_race_stop_at_the_moon_why/ | {
"a_id": [
"crlyhj1"
],
"score": [
2
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"text": [
"The *entire* reason the Apollo program was funded was to show the world that we had bigger dicks than the Rooskies.\n\nAnd the entire goal was to get to the Moon FIRST. There are no Big Dick points for second place.\n\nThe main reason the Russians didn't at least bother to do a \"me too\" was that, shortly before they were about to beat us to the Moon (and they might well have), one of their N1 rockets blew up on launch with a force of some 7 kilotons of TNT--a small nuke--and destroyed much of their launch facility. \n"
]
} | [] | [] | [
[]
] |
|
42975z | what would happen if you put a newborn child in a dark room, gave it what it needed to survive and let it grow? | How would the mind develop? It wouldn't know anything about anything; death, life, languages. If you did the same thing for 10 years and you showed yourself without feeding it for for a couple days, would it try to eat you? I imagine it becoming as close as a zombie as you could get. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/42975z/eli5_what_would_happen_if_you_put_a_newborn_child/ | {
"a_id": [
"cz8mhav",
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4
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"text": [
" > How would the mind develop?\n\nIt doesn't. The child ends up stunted (emotionally, psychologically, socially etc.), blind (because it's dark), doesn't learn a language (and later cannot) and so forth.\n\n > I imagine it becoming as close as a zombie as you could get.\n\nBasically. We need other humans to be properly raised. ",
"I recommend the documentary 'Genie: secret of the wild child'. It's a horrific story of child abuse however some incredible research was undertaken once Genie was rescued. A lot was discovered about child development and the importance of the early years in a child's life as well as fully realising the irreversible damage done by raising a child in such isolated conditions. Incredibly sad story."
]
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[],
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] |
|
6yskgr | what is the difference between juices that contain "natural sugar" and ones that contain actual sugar? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/6yskgr/eli5_what_is_the_difference_between_juices_that/ | {
"a_id": [
"dmpuwjv"
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"text": [
"Natural sugars like fructose are found in things like fruit whereas sugar is a specific substance from the sugar cane that has been refined. Long story short, they behave the same way in the body--but natural sugars are expected to be in the food based on its ingredients. Sugar is usually added during processing. That's the difference "
]
} | [] | [] | [
[]
] |
||
1q1lxe | why do plants continue growth throughout their entire life while other organisms reach maturity and stop growing? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1q1lxe/why_do_plants_continue_growth_throughout_their/ | {
"a_id": [
"cd89gbt"
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"score": [
2
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"text": [
"The main reason is that we, (along with other animals) have a tendency to move around alot. Therefore we cannot drag with us alot of mass. Therefore it is much more reasonable to maintain a certain size, so we can hunt, gather and generally just move around. \n\nPlants on the other hand is noget able to move. Therefore they can grow to which ever size they want, and it is even good for them to be larger, this leads to more leaves, which leads to more energy (Photosynthesis) and a larger root net, to get more nutrients from the soil. \n\nBack when life first started to move arond, it was very much larger then the life on earth today, because of the high amount of oxygen in the atmosphere. This meant that they could get more energy from oxidative phosphorylation and therefore they could move around more mass. "
]
} | [] | [] | [
[]
] |
||
7t1eqv | why was timothy mcveigh’s trial and subsequent execution so fast, especially compared to other popular trials of the 90’s until now? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/7t1eqv/eli5_why_was_timothy_mcveighs_trial_and/ | {
"a_id": [
"dt942d7"
],
"score": [
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"text": [
"His trial wasn't particularly fast - almost a month. The execution was fast because three years after the trial McVeigh petitioned the courts to waive all further appeals and set an execution date. He waived all appeals in December 2000, the judge waited a month to make a decision and then set an execution date for June 2001. \n\nIt was the waiving of all appeals that sped up the process. Normally the death sentence is automatically appealed, the trial transcripts are checked for obvious legal errors, and if the sentence is upheld then there are years of waiting as the lawyers submit individual appeal after appeal through the state and federal courts. "
]
} | [] | [] | [
[]
] |
||
747nwi | why do cops in movies and tv shows taste the cocaine before saying something like "take him away" or "jackpot"? isn't ingesting coke dangerous, and illegal? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/747nwi/eli5_why_do_cops_in_movies_and_tv_shows_taste_the/ | {
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"text": [
"Maybe in the 80s they taste tested it... \nits cooler in the movies then busting out a testing kit and going csi on it \nIt tastes chemically...then numbness and thats how you know its not powdered sugar. The amount being consumed in a touch'n'taste is too little for any significant effect beyond local numbing. Insufflation not only involves a larger dosage but also provides a more conducive path of absorption. ",
"First of all, cocaine is a local anesthetic. The tiny amount one picks up by touching a pile of cocaine with one's fingertip isn't enough to do anything serious, but it's enough to cause brief, local numbness on the tongue. It's one of the only white, powdery substances that can do that, so it's a quick and accurate way of determining whether the perp has a bag of coke or something innocuous (e.g., powdered sugar, baking powder, etc.). \n\nBelieve it or not, unlike most street drugs, cocaine isn't a schedule I substance (i.e., totally illegal with no recognized clinical use). It's schedule II (i.e., rigorously controlled, but available via prescription). It's still occasionally used as a topical anesthetic in sinus surgeries. It is no longer the *preferred* agent most of the time, but there are apparently certain situations where it's the right tool for the job, as it were. Many ENT (i.e., Ear, Nose and Throat) surgical clinics will have a supply of it on-hand at all times. \n\nBut second, law enforcement doesn't use this method of field testing nearly as often as it used to. And it probably never used it as much as movies and TV shows would lead one to believe. Why? Because having a cop take a quick taste of a suspicious powder is visually effective and *quick*. Waiting for them to bust out a field chemical testing kit (or, even worse waiting for one to arrive on the scene from somewhere else), and then watching someone perform the relevant chemical test, is *boring*, both visually and dramatically. Chemical testing kits are cheaper and more widely available than they were fifty years ago, so there's even less reason for actual cops to do this today than there ever was. "
]
} | [] | [] | [
[],
[]
] |
||
2qeeym | how is time dilation symmetrical? | First of all I'm not sure if the title is exactly what my scenario refers to, but it's as good as I can in describing the problem shortly.
So let's imagine there are two space shuttles in space in the following scenario:
The first space shuttle is traveling at the same speed as earth, so lets called it stationary shuttle.
The second space shuttle is traveling at close the speed of light. And while doing so comes close to stationary shuttle.
Now, from what I understand, relative to the stationary shuttle, traveling shuttles time is moving slower.
To me there seems to be a paradox here by simply switching the frame of reference, since from the perspective of travelling shuttle everything is traveling and they are stationary, which would mean that in fact time was actually going by faster inside the shuttle relative to everything else.
What am I missing here?
| explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2qeeym/eli5how_is_time_dilation_symmetrical/ | {
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"There isn't a paradox here. Let's call the shuttle at rest relative to earth **shuttle A**, and the other one **shuttle B**. According to A, B's clocks will be running slow, and according to B, A's clocks are slow. Neither needs to be right, or wrong because special relativity removes the idea of a universally correct clock ",
"First of all, this is a great question, I've never thought about it myself.\n\nNow for my attempt at an answer:\n\nFirstly, lets define space. To move faster than something else \"through space\" you have to define \"space\". So lets define space as the place between two objects. Since you cannot be moving relative to yourself we need two other objects than yourself that create \"space\" between them.\n\nBecause of this, the moving shuttle is moving very fast relative to the earth and the stationary shuttle, while the stationary shuttle is moving at a given speed relative to the earth and the moving shuttle.\n\nThe stationary shuttle and the earth cannot be moving through space at the speed of light relative to the moving shuttle, because the moving shuttle is a single object, and as we implied when defining space, you need more than a single reference point (other than yourself) to measure your speed through space.\n\nWhen reading this it looks badly explained, but i did my best\n\nEdit: cleared something up",
"This is actually called the [twin paradox^\\[wiki\\]](_URL_1_) and is a very interesting thought experiment! The short answer is that both shuttles see the other one's time as slower, and there's no way to reconcile that, which is why it's a paradox.\n\nThe reason is that it only takes into account [special relativity^\\[wiki\\]](_URL_2_), which is what says time dilation is symmetrical **when both objects are moving at constant velocity relative to each other**. I won't explain special relativity here, I'll just say that [general relativity^\\[wiki\\]](_URL_0_) answers the paradox by taking into account what happens when one of the shuttles matches velocity with the other.\n\nSuppose both shuttles meet up and dock with each other so the astronauts can compare clocks. Suppose that the shuttle flying past Earth at near the speed of light slows down in order to dock with the shuttle orbiting Earth. The shuttle that slowed down will have experienced less time -- its clock will be behind. Now suppose in stead, that the shuttle orbiting Earth speeds up to meet with the fast moving shuttle. In that case, it will be the shuttle that was orbiting Earth that experienced less time and whose clock is behind. So the change in velocity is essentially what decides who ends up actually experiencing less time. Special relativity only accounts for objects moving at fixed velocities, while general relativity adds changing velocity (acceleration) into it to solve the paradoxes. Special relativity is pretty easy to understand and learn, but general relativity is pretty complex."
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4j5r8w | the american law enforcement hierarchy. | Some cities have their own police departments (NYPD, LAPD etc), but then you have county-based police departments too? What's a sherriff and where do they fit in? And finally, state police - do state troopers' jurisdictions overlap with local police departments'?
It looks like a messy patchwork from the outside. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4j5r8w/eli5_the_american_law_enforcement_hierarchy/ | {
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" > It looks like a messy patchwork from the outside.\n\nThat's because it basically is a messy patchwork. \n\nTowns and cities can have their own local Police departments if they choose. County Police departments are the result of several or all of the towns in a county agreeing to merge their individual departments into one big department in exchange for (usually) lower operating costs per town. Sheriff's departments are often managed at the county level and can be regulated by the state constitution in some states.\n\nPolice Chiefs run local and county Police departments and are usually appointed by the town or county's leadership, whereas Sheriffs are usually elected to a term of service by the residents of their county.\n\nState police, as their name implies, are state-run agencies and have jurisdiction anywhere in the state.\n\nThis all leads to agencies having overlapping jurisdictions, so there is usually an arrangement that dictates which agencies are responsible for which types of service in those areas. In some areas the towns are too small or choose not to to have their own town or county Police departments, so the Sheriff's department and/or State Police handle all of their Police services.",
"There are about four primary levels. Federal jurisdiction, state, county, and then local. The federal is supposed to deal with any crime or matter that either crosses state boundaries or on federally mandated lands. \nThen from the state level down state troops used to just patrol the highways, but their roaming has increased I some cases to town and city roads also. County sheriff's are the same idea just in the county roads. Then the local police maintain the the smaller portions of city ,town of village. There can be major over lap and egos that determine who gets the lead on certain cases and incidences. ",
"Prequel: There's a tl;dr at the bottom with a picture linked if you really don't want to read all these words.\n\nTo start with: it is a messy patchwork, even on the inside. Jurisdiction is PRIMARILY determined by the geographical location that a crime occurred, and the government group that controls it. After that, other factors can come into play, such as the specific nature of the crime. Precisely when the nature matters unfortunately also varies, in at least as many ways as there are states in the country. For this explanation I'll use California since that's where I live. \n\nThe police at all levels deal with two main codes of law: the Penal Code (PC), which covers typical crime like murder, theft of property, burglaries, and other disturbances, and secondly the Vehicle Code (VC/CVC) which covers primarily vehicle related crime distinct from the Penal Code. This is things like reckless driving, speed laws, hit and run collisions, DUI, stolen vehicles, and a ridiculous multitude of things which you can learn about elsewhere but I hope gives an idea of what it entails.\n\nIn California the state police is the \"Cailfornia Highway Patrol\" (CHP). Don't let this name confuse you, they merged with the agency that was actually called the \"California State Police\" in 1995. The CHP typically has jurisdiction over all highways for almost any crime (PC and CVC), and roadways in unincorporated areas (will cover this later) with regards to vehicle related crimes (CVC). CHP officers are also in charge of providing security in various state-level government buildings such as the state supreme court and the capitol building. Crimes that happen in those buildings would fall under the jurisdiction of the CHP. \n\nCalifornia is further broken down 58 counties. These cover regions of wildly varying sizes and populations, and each county has its own police force typically referred to as a Sheriff's Department, though I imagine different counties have their own names for it (for simplicity I'm just going to call them that for the rest of this). The county sheriff will typically handle any PC violations that occur in unincorporated parts of their county. An area is considered unincorporated if there is not a formal city in an area (this difference could get an ELI5 of its own but I'm not going to do it). Very broadly speaking, a high population, built up area is going to have its own city, while a random pit stop on the side of the road or farming area is probably not. EDIT: Another poster brought this up and I forgot to, but a Sheriff's department will often include a huge variety of non-enforcement duties such as the county coroner, court security, and providing personnel for county jails. In some cities where the city limits very closely match the county limits this line starts to blur, such as New York City and San Francisco, where the city basically IS the county. \n\nThe (almost) lowest level is going to be city police. These are what you typically see (NYPD, SFPD, LAPD) and they handle ALL crimes that occur inside their city limits that aren't on the highway. These are pretty straight forward. \n\nAlongside all of these and potentially the lowest level are something I'm just going to call boutique police departments. These are most often college police departments and also the District Attorney's office (they have their own police/investigators sometimes) but I'm sure there's other forms that exist. These have wildly varying rules and enforce kind of random things so your mileage will vary here. \n\nThis explanation goes from the most to least expansive. Typically more expansive agencies will assist less expansive agencies in times of great emergencies and need. Sometimes a particular crime will trigger an investigation by multiple agencies but for different reasons. Sometimes this can get VERY complicated and I won't go into that in this post but can in another if you want.\n\nThe tl;dr you've all been waiting for: _URL_0_ Take this imaginary oval-with-a-bite-taken-out county in the state of California. Pretend it has the state supreme court in one of the cities. The red is all handled by the CHP/state police, green by a county sheriff, blue by the city/municipal police force, and yellow by a specialty department (university PD, DA's Office). \n\nSource: Me, I work with this vast machine for a living\n\nEdits for formatting and adding something",
"As u/unnownrelic mentioned these systems vary widely. I can give a quick run down where i live Rhode Island. Rhode island is a little unique because there is no unincorporated land and counties are pretty meaningless, they have no administrative function and are really only geographic boundries. At the top level is the RI State Police who are pretty badass if you have ever seen them. They have primary juraidiction on all interstate hughways and state roads.\n\n Then their are city and town level PDs. Some of the smaller forces defer to the state police for more serioues crimes murder, rape etc. The state police will also conduct investigations of any of these officers involved in crimes, generally things more serious than IA handle or after they conclude there was a crime committed. Any crimes that are committed across multiple jursidictions or of state level politicians and companies state police handle as well. They will also cooperate with local PDs for these investigations as well. \n\nThere is no county departments or facilities but a state sheriff dept which is basically a security company handling security at state offices and transporting prisoners. There is a state level prision which has its own COs who have jurisdiction at that facility. \n\nLast there is one university i know of with their own police force and their jurisdiction overlaps with a portion of the city so it is really more like precinct. They have the authority to make arrests, detain suspects, investigate crimes, etc but i only ever hear of them issuing parking tickets. They are a small dept so they may just not have the resources to handle any real crimes and so the city exercises their jurisdiction.\n\nThere is also a train station with Amtrak police which gets into federal level (which gets complicated) and they are kind of a mixture between TSA and US marshalls. Also of note in the northeast in some large metro areas tmay have seperate transit police. And for areas that span state borders there can be an additional police force, im thinking specifically of NY Port Authority which really has jurisdiction over shared areas (tunnels, bridges, etc) with adjoining states or cities. This may be common in other areas. ",
"/u/unnownrelic has a good answer posted up there for California. But it REALLY, really depends on the state. a lot. I'm a cop in Louisiana and while some of what he says applies here, most of it does not."
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4abqih | the difference between white matter and grey matter? what purpose do they serve? | Also: what attributes is a person with 'higher than normal' grey or white matter be expected to have? Do certain types of people have more of one than the other, if so what types of people? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4abqih/eli5_the_difference_between_white_matter_and_grey/ | {
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"Hi! I just published a paper about what makes different [brains unique](_URL_0_)! \n\nThe answer to your first question, is that grey matter is composed primarily neural cell bodies and their support glia, while white matter is long fibrous bundles of axons, and their support glia. Sometimes the cell bodies get called the \"processing units\" and the fiber bundles the \"wiring.\" With most of the processing (both metabolic and information), happening in the gray matter, while the white matter acts as connective tissue that supports the grey matter and transmits information between grey matter nuclei (i.e. chunks of grey matter).\n\nThe second part of the question is harder. There's lots of reliable differences in grey/white matter but understanding what they mean requires bringing in lots of other information. \n\n[For example](_URL_1_): Male mammals tend to have more GM than female mammals. But male mammals also have bigger heads than female mammals. Females have a higher GM/WM ratio. That makes sense too, because a smaller head would require less \"wiring\" to connect up the same amount of \"processing.\"\n\nBut! The plot thickens! Male brains are also more asymmetric than female brains, and most of the above-mentioned size and ratio differences are left-size only. But wait! Maybe that's just because all brains are slightly asymmetric, but bigger heads mean the asymmetry looks more pronounced. \n\nGreater amounts of GM predict higher IQ. But a higher ratio of GM to WM is an even better predictor. What's more GM is a better predictor of IQ in women than it is in men (which sort of has to be true, because men and women have nearly identical IQs, but measurably different head sizes).\n\nThat's barely the start, it gets weirder when you start accounting for different brain regions, fiber tracts, and measuring methods. These things all affect each other, a big frontal lobe means a bigger head, or at least smaller parietal lobe. \n\nMy *tl;dr* is: it's probably for the best if you don't make any life (or scientific) decisions based on this information. We know a lot about grey and white matter, but one of the things we know is that there isn't one obvious, clear, important fact that explains those two properties of the brain. "
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avhwnk | what happens if you get more than one "common cold" or seasonal illness at once? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/avhwnk/eli5_what_happens_if_you_get_more_than_one_common/ | {
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"You get multiple viruses that likely have similar non-descriptive symptoms.\n\n & #x200B;\n\nThis happens all the time and you likely never noticed. You just might think you had a particularly bad cold. ",
"You feel equivalently crummier. Infectious disease unfortunately is not like ninja in old action movies, taking their turns in fighting the heroes, but will gang up on you with no restraint."
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1geywt | what is the connection between the speed of light and time? (why does movement/speed have an effect on the passage of time) | Such as why when for example they had a jet fly round the earth rapid and there was an atom clock on earth and one in the jet and they were offset when it returned just for an actual example.
Edit: So if we had a vessel that could go very near the speed of light (*if*), the perception of time to the people on board would be say 10mins, but to the outside world (and in *reality*) the journey actually could have taken 1 hour, due to time going slower on the inside? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1geywt/eli5_what_is_the_connection_between_the_speed_of/ | {
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"Because we don't live in a simple 3-dimensional space. We live in a 4-dimensional spacetime, where space and time aren't always separate entities.\n\nEvery object in 4D spacetime has a four-velocity. It's just like your regular velocity, but it has four components instead of three.\n\nNow, here's the interesting thing: the magnitude of your four velocity (in other words, the speed at which you travel through spacetime) must ALWAYS equal the speed of light.\n\nSo if the distance components of your four-velocity are all zero (which means you're not moving through space), you're \"moving\" through time at the speed of light.\n\nBut if you start moving through space, you increase the space components of your four-velocity. But the magnitude must always equal the speed of light. So whatever you add to your DISTANCE components, you subtract from your TIME component.\n\nThe faster you move through space, the slower you move through time.",
"It's impossible for anything to travel faster than the speed of light.\n\nIn your example, you talked about an atom clock on a jet. If you were on the jet, watching that particle in your atom clock bouncing around inside the clock, you'd see it moving at the speed of light.\n\nBut imagine I'm on the ground, (somehow) watching that same particle as you fly overhead in your jet. If the particle is moving inside the clock at the speed of light, *and* the jet is moving past me at 500mph, then you'd imagine that, relative to me, I'd see that particle moving at the speed of light *plus 500mph*.\n\nBut this is impossible. Nothing can move faster than the speed of light.\n\nSo how do we resolve this?\n\nThe answer is that the faster you go, the slower time runs from your perspective. When I watch the jet go by, I see the particle's *total* movement as being at the speed of light. That means that I see its movement relative to the aircraft (and the clock) as being slightly less than the speed of light.\n\nHow is this possible? Well, to you, and the clock, and the particle in the clock, and everything else that's moving with the jet, time is going slower than it is for me, because you're moving quite fast. You won't notice any difference - to you, time just seems normal - and indeed time is normal. The photon is moving at the speed of light. But your time on the jet is different to my time on the ground.",
"The best way to think of it is that *everything* has to go the exactly the speed of light...always.\n\nWhen you are sitting still, you are going the speed of light in the direction of time. But when you move, you velocity is divided between time and space, so your total movement along time is lessened.\n\nAnd since the speed of light is so high, you have be going really fast before you notice anything weird."
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60tzds | why do american's love their flag so much? | Just curious on when/how this came about because other countries' people don't seem have the same passion about their own flag as us Americans do for ours. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/60tzds/eli5_why_do_americans_love_their_flag_so_much/ | {
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"As one who is not an American, my guess is that the answer is far more about culturally ingrained patriotism rather than a hypothetically superior flag.\n\nA country founded by violent separation from a colonial empire is a good start and makes for a great national mythos, but I think the culture of it really developed during the Cold War. You basically had the two superpowers of the world waging, among other things, a cultural war over their own people and the rest of the world. Patriotism runs high still in the US and Russia because of it.",
"Americans seem to love freedom so much, and have such a focus on our flag, because it represents a great deal about our shared cultural heritage. Many other nations around the world have many hundreds or thousands of years of shared culture and history binding them together. They have traditions that everyone in the country can gather around and connect with. It hasn't always been that way for the US, and still largely isn't. \n\nMany people in America today seem to forget that our country is a nation of immigrants. Peoples from all over the world have come to this country, have brought their own cultures and traditions with them, and have largely found that America is a place where they can hold onto what defined them in their home countries, while still becoming \"American,\" too. So there's an element of American society where we have this general culture defined by things like the flag and its colors, or like those national American holidays anyone of any religion can celebrate. The flag, then, becomes the thing that Americans can share, even if two given Americans don't sound the same, look the same, think the same, eat the same, or lead lives that look anything alike.\n\nIt's not about our flag being better or in some way more a symbol of freedom than any other nation's. It's that the flag, and the freedom it supposedly represents, is what we've built our nation's mythology on.",
"Our country, at its founding, was very new and had no established symbols. There is no monarch, and originally there was no grand capitol building. There is no single main city or location, and no single main geographical feature -- it's too big and spread-out. Thus there was a need for *some* symbol around which people could rally and show their love of their nation.\n\nOriginally there were two main contenders: the flag, and a female mythical goddess figure called Columbia. The flag eventually became more popular, and today most people don't even know about Columbia.",
"I never understood it until I was in the Military. Once you go to a shit-hole like Bahrain that flag means you're home. No offense to anyone living in Bahrain by the way. I understand that America has no small role to play in why your country is as fucked as it is, and I apologize for my part in that. But there are bases all over the world, and in my experience they're mostly in places where there is no assumption of value on human life. The bases have foods, stores that sell goods you can get in the US, our movies and culture reign inside the walls of the base. Even if they don't have these things, it's a place where you can have a reasonable expectation for the people already there to not try and kill you."
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1x04s9 | how does an hourglass become accurate? | Is each hourglass measured individually or is there some exact measurement to making an hourglass accurate? Also would any type of sand work or does it has to be of a certain kind? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1x04s9/eli5_how_does_an_hourglass_become_accurate/ | {
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"I would assume that early hourglasses, being hand-made, would each be individually measured and tested in order to get something close to reliability/accuracy. Nowadays, I would think that there is software or some sort of models/equations that can be used to design an accurate hourglass."
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60z6qk | why can some people feel storms approaching in their hips, knees or other joints? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/60z6qk/eli5_why_can_some_people_feel_storms_approaching/ | {
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"I want to add to your question. I can feel storms coming in some joints but only the ones I've broken. What makes the broken and healed joints different than the ones that have never been broken",
"The air in our atmosphere is constantly pushing down on us, although this pressure does vary all the time. This is called barometric pressure. Low pressure in the atmosphere tends to have storms that come with them ( why that is, is meteorological and some one could expand on that). When low pressure \"fronts\" come ( and the storm) the pressure against your body drops as well, and your joints and areas that are injured or are old can begin to swell/ inflamed and \"ache\".\n\nI broke my tibia (lower leg bone) from a motorcycle accident and my knee from the accident tends to act up when storms come. Just like anything else in life it's not a 100% accurate measurement though.\n\nEdit: spelling and grammer.",
"it happens with migraines too! Migraines are caused by blood pressure changes in the brain, either in the body or atmospheric. I get one before a big storm is coming and I often confirm with friend of mine to see if she's got one too"
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7qa4lm | why do some fabrics get softer when they're washed a lot, while others get rougher? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/7qa4lm/eli5_why_do_some_fabrics_get_softer_when_theyre/ | {
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"It depends on the textile. With wearing and use, some materials relax and become softer and looser because the thread is bent, pulled, and twisted through mechanical motion, much the way that crumpling a sheet of notebook paper over and over makes it very soft. Wearing the clothes often contributes more to this than the washing by itself. \n\nHowever other materials may contain oils, waxes, and other materials naturally present in the fiber such as lanolin. Washing, and especially bleaching, removes these soft, greasy, fatty substances which can make the fibers dry, scratchy, or cause them to begin to fray or lose their water proofness. The primary purpose of fabric softeners, is to help replenish these substances, but it's always a downhill battle short of soaking the clothing in lard or oil. \n\nLastly, some synthetic cloth can become brittle with use, similar to the way that bending a plastic spoon back and forth in the same spot will cause it to snap. The fabric begins to get creases and folds in it that don't come out with ironing. They don't exactly get scratchy, but they become stiff like folded paper, and don't bend and take the shape of the body as well. \n\nAs fibers wear and break and tear, it has an effect of reducing thread count. Thread count is the number one thing for comfort up close to the skin, with higher thread count cloth feeling softer and silky versus lower but thicker thread count like a knitted sweater which can feel rough. ",
"Think of the fabric like different types of hair, say your friend has really oily hair and you don't.\n You wash your hair about every other day, if not 2 days, while your friend has to wash her hair every day. If you guys switched routines, your hair would become dry and brittle from over washing, because you've stripped the oils out of your hair that keep it soft and elastic. Same thing applies to richly colored fabrics/dyed hair. Hope this helps! ",
"TL;DR: Different materials behave differently when washed and dried. Even things made from the same thing (cotton fabric and denim) will behave differently because of how they are made. In that case, it's caused by the threads being pulled taut by wear, and then relaxing from having water introduced.\n\nFabrics cone I'm all shapes and sizes and can be made from things 'simple' as cotton, intense as silk, or complicated as plastics. Each have their own uses, but are also going to get tired in different ways. Some don't do well when they get really hot, some don't do well when they get wet, some really like to stay wet and not dry. It all depends on what they are meant to do and how their materials interact. \n\nFor some things that like to shrink, it's basically caused by the fibres being able to absorb a ton of water and being able to relax. This causes them to contract/curl up back into their resting position.. Shorter fibres, means shorter threads, and a shrunk shirt. This is much more a problem with organic materials that are pulled/stretched very tight during processesing into a usable thread.\n\nSimilar processes can cause materials to be really uncomfortable after a wash, or just when wet, while it can make others really soft. There are a ton of different ways materials interact, even things made from the same thread (cotton fabric and denim) can behave very, very differently just from how they are woven.",
"This is one of those extrinsic/intrinsic things. Extrinsic to cloth fibres as fibres, is how they are spun, and woven or knitted. Intrinsic to most fibres is the 'staple' or length and strength of the individual strands which makes up the thread. How hairy it is under a microscope. Along with staple, how much innate strength it has, how hydroscopic or oleophilic it is. Natural fibres tend to be somewhat shorter, and have innate oil or water or other content. Except silk which is much more like unnatural fibre and is strictly speaking a filament. But still has intrinsic water and other things in it.\n\nWhen you wash something, you alter this balance. Dry cleaning before perchlorate used to mean rolling clothes in fullers earth (diatomaceous .. well.. basically soil. Special soil.) to absorb oily dirt, and judicious brushing. Why did people do that? Because dyes were not colour fast, but also because mechanically agitating natural fibres in water does exactly what you describe: makes some stiff stuff loose (mechanically alters it's weave tension, it's fibre rigidity, it's intrinsic balance of water or oil) and makes other loose stuff stiff (for the same reason, but in reverse. Absorb water? You swell up.)\n\nThose balls of fluff which you clean out of your lint filter? Where do you think they came from? They broke off the fibres of the fabric. It's one definition of microplastics, most people obsess about the gritty stuff in facial scrub. Apparently the fibre trash is really heinously bad too. All that artificial fibre we live in is adding to the mess.",
"Some of it is the type of fabric as others have said, but a lot of processed cloths are pre-distressed to achieve softness. This can have the effect of being soft when you get it, because the broken fibers are on the outside and make for a fuzzy feel when you buy it, but the broken fibers wear away quickly if the cloth isn't super thick and high quality before it is distressed. As the broken fibers wear away, all that's left is a rough fabric underneath.\n\nThat's why cheap wools and cashmeres will feel softer than expensive stuff when you start, but the cheap stuff will never achieve the thick luxurious feel of the nicer, thicker stuff. As the distressed fibers on your $10 mall scarf wear away, what's left underneath is thin and somewhat rough. Whereas the thick, rough nap of a shetland wool will break down with wear until it is soft and thick.",
"Depends on the fabric, some materials, some weaves etc, get softer because the threads of that material fray and loosen, other threads are prone to becoming threadbare, just losing all the fluff and flexibility out of them. ",
"I presume you are talking about wear over multiple washes and not why air drying clothes are stiff, scratchy initially but soften up.\n\nThat's caused by mineral deposits left behind causing the fibers to be stiff.\n\nTumbler dried clothes remain softer as they as always in motion.",
"Doesn't using the dryer help clothes, get back there original shape? "
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4lks4h | why is everything gigantic on mars? | So Vallles Marines, I just read, is ridiculously huge, spanning some 3000kms. In comparison to that, the grand canyon seems like a little crack. Also, Olympos Mons is several times as large as Mount Everest. Is there a reason, like tectonic plates or lower gravity or something, that would explain basic landmarks to be so much more gigantic than they are on earth? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4lks4h/eli5_why_is_everything_gigantic_on_mars/ | {
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"Mars has no active tectonic-plate-like activity. While this means that mountains will not form through new activity, it also means that there's no movement of the surface that would over time equalize it as the vertical features are \"shaken\" to be more flat. With tectonic activity, valley systems would not be so deep and remain stable.\n\nAnother effect is what keeps planets mostly round: gravity. Gravity imposes a limit to the height of a structure over time. Mars has a much weaker gravity, and can therefore have taller mountains remain stable over time (Olympus Mons).\n\nThere's also no significant erosion to smooth out features like Valles Marineris.\n\nSo, no tectonic activity + low gravity + no erosion = vertical structures are more long-lasting and stable. It also means no new features being formed to erase the old ones.",
"Lower gravity and lack of erosion.\n\nMountains, canyons, and other geological features on earth shrink over time, as water, wind, and biological erosion wears them down. Mars has very little atmosphere and liquid water and no known life, so erosion is much less intense.\n\nAlso, gravity causes mountains to collapse up on themselves and spread out. Less gravity means mountains can get taller before they collapse.",
"Mars has low gravity and no tectonic activity, which when combined with no precipitation means that surface features tend to last for a very long time. \n\nAlso since we believe that mars once had liquid water it isn't hard to believe that it also had oceans. Some of those large depressions can be the bottom of ancient oceans, and when you are looking from the bottom of the ocean the highest mountain looks that much higher. "
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23ud2g | what is smoke made out of that makes ham and fish taste better? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/23ud2g/eli5_what_is_smoke_made_out_of_that_makes_ham_and/ | {
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"It isn't smoke in itself, it's what the smoke is coming from. Wood or charcoal smoke lends a 'smokey' flavour due to the actual 'flavour' of the substance being carried in the smoke ",
"Hardwoods (the type used for smoking ham, fish and other foods) are made up mostly of three materials: cellulose, hemicellulose, and lignin. \n\nCellulose and hemicellulose are sugar molecules which, when burnt effectively caramelize to produce carbonyls. These provide most of the color components and sweet, flowery, and fruity aromas.\n\nLignin also produces a number of distinctive aromatic elements when burnt, including smoky, spicy, and pungent compounds such as guaiacol, phenol, and syringol, and sweeter scents such as the vanilla-scented vanillin and clove-like isoeugenol.\n\nSince different species of trees have different ratios of components, various types of wood impart a different flavor to food. ",
"I love you for even asking this. ",
"It's made of trees. "
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45czd7 | what happens if you melt a positive and a negative magnet together? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/45czd7/eli5_what_happens_if_you_melt_a_positive_and_a/ | {
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"There are no such things as \"positive\" and \"negative\" magnets. Those would essentially be something called a \"magnetic monopole\", as as far as we know, those don't exist. Every single magnet has a north pole and a south pole (or a positive end and negative end, if you prefer).\n\nAnd melting magnets makes them stop being magnetic. Magnets are magnetic because electrons are magnetic. But atoms in a metal are usually arranged in such a way that all of their electrons \"orbit\" (we call it \"orbiting\" for historical reasons, but it's really nothing at *all* like orbiting planets) in different, random directions, so the magnetic field of one electron cancels out the magnetic fields of neighboring electrons. \n\nBut in a magnet, all of the atoms are arranged so that the orbits of their electrons all line up. So rather than cancel out, all of the individual electrons' magnetic fields add up, and create a much larger magnetic field around the entire magnet.\n\nBut if you melt a magnet, the atoms become disordered, and the electrons' orbits no longer line up, so it stops being magnetic."
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3nip9t | why do people key cars? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3nip9t/eli5_why_do_people_key_cars/ | {
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"You have a nice car and they're jealous and angry.\n\nSome people harbor an irrational hatred of anyone they perceive to be doing better than they are.\n\nYou may want to invest in a camera system for the vehicle so that you can press charges next time.",
"Well, it's a beautiful, expensive car. \n \nThere are a lot of people who spite those who can afford the luxuries in life that they themselves can't. \n \nSo, they key your car because of that. ",
"This is a good question. Is it jealousy? Or do they do it because a car is a status symbol, and marring it up makes them feel like they're knocking you down to their level?\n\nOr is it some sort of thrill maybe?\n\nIn any case, your a fucking cuntastic twat if you key someone's car."
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37k85v | why in the us are there mostly unfinished basements and not finished ones? | They look really grungy and dirty. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/37k85v/eli5why_in_the_us_are_there_mostly_unfinished/ | {
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"They're mostly used for storm protection in the Central states. Tornadoes and what not. Some are finished though. My relatives lived up in Colorado and then had a partially finished basement, and then roughly the other half was storage or work space for tools.",
"It really depends on where you are. I live in the northwest, and most homes don't have a basement at all. Of those that do, it's a pretty close split between finished and unfinished. ",
"I've always thought to save costs. Sell the house to whomever can afford it and if they need a finished basement, let them do it. Most people don't because they don't need it. ",
"Much, if not most of the US does not even have basements. As for why many that do are \"unfinished\" as you say? They are not by default intended to be living space. They are utility space that is for storage, houses water heaters, houses furnaces, and houses the washer and dryer as well as any other large appliances such as a big freezer or the like. \n\nWhen a family/person decides to make it a living space they will put up interior walls, carpeting/flooring, and the like to make it a finished basement. \n\nUnless you plan on using it as a living space it is a waste of money to make it a finished basement. ",
"I suspect a lot of basements in some areas are subject to flooding, so it wouldn't make sense to bother furnishing it and spending money on it because there's a chance everything could get ruined."
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ehktyw | how are communication companies able to provide us internet? where do they get internet from and how do the speeds and volume caps work? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/ehktyw/eli5_how_are_communication_companies_able_to/ | {
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"Internet is just a network. Your computer is a part of the internet. Every device is part of it. Your ISP just connects you to all of the other people on their network, and then they connect their network to the networks run by *other* ISPs. Now everyone is connected in one big spiderweb, and by sending a message with the right address you can contact any node in this network.\n\nTo cap your speed and use, all they have to do is measure the number of bits (1's and 0's) that are transmitted through the connection that runs to your house or whatever.",
"To expand on what others have said, while the entire internet is quite simply a large and complicated network, most of the data is transferred over the internet \"backbone\" which is comprised of hugely expensive and fast network/data centers owned and managed by telecommunications companies and other corporations. In this sense they \"get the internet\" because they are \"making\" the internet along with all of the other ISPs and companies out there who manage the backbone. Plenty of data is certainly stored and served on individual computers around the world but the vast majority of what average people use is probably stored at one of these nodes."
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2hetz4 | whenever i see behind-the-scenes footage of a movie, directors are always seen talking to their actors while they're acting. what do they do to remove the director's voice in the final product? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2hetz4/eli5_whenever_i_see_behindthescenes_footage_of_a/ | {
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"I think they usually rerecord all the voices later in the studio. Certainly all the sound effects- footsteps, doors closing, etc are recorded separately.",
"Two things.\n\n1. It is surprisingly common to film without audio and dub everything in later. This is done for most outdoor scenes, and scenes shot in unusual locations. It is less common today now that small efficient microphones are available but still happens; back in the 50s and 60s, it was common especially in Italy to just shoot *everything* without sound and dub later. There are a lot of reasons for this: there may be nowhere to put the microphones in a scene that requires a very wide shot, the environment may be unsuitable for recording sound (noisy streets, factories, etc), they may only have 2 hours to film in a specific place like Times Square and so just film the motions and worry about getting good line delivery later, there may be complicated actions like pyrotechnics that require unusual sounds or require crew members to yell during the shoot, etc etc.\n\n2. You may be watching a run-through, like a last-minute set rehearsal. Actors do rehearse scenes ahead of time obviously, but may not be rehearsing on the actual set, or the director may want to guide and change certain things based on how it looks on the monitors (he has a little screen set up to see what the final product will look like). So they'll run through the scene a couple of times with live guidance before actually shooting. This stuff is especially likely to be seen in Making Of documentaries because it's more engaging to watch and because they usually don't want some guy shooting a Making Of featurette on his camcorder bustling around the set during an actual take.",
"Audio engineer- using \"natural sound\" AKA \"wild sound\" from the set is pretty uncommon. We spend many hours adding sound and ADR (dialog replacement) in a sound studio. \n\nTL;DR All the sound you hear is not from where the scene was shot. "
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4pwmbi | why does it seem like it is harder for some people who lost weight to maintain their weight? | So recently, I was reading about contestants in the tv show "The Biggest Loser" and the contestants were talking about how difficult it is to maintain their weight after they lose it. They have to workout six times a week and calorie count in order to maintain their weight. Meanwhile, I know plenty of people who are skinny and don't exercise at all and just eat whatever they want yet they will also stay the same weight. I believe that as long as calories in < calories out, you will lose weight but this is something that kind of challenges my perception of that belief. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4pwmbi/eli5_why_does_it_seem_like_it_is_harder_for_some/ | {
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"The answer to this has been clearly demonstrated by A LOT of scientific research. A fat person who loses weight and becomes a skinny person, doesn't now have the same body as a skinny person. Instead, a fat person's metabolism will slow down to be much slower than that of a skinny person who has always been skinny, to encourage the fat person to gain more weight. The body thinks that they're starving and is acting to make them gain back the weight. When they get back to their original weight before the weight loss, the body will return the metabolism to a normal metabolism, and it will stay normal... until they start dieting again, when the metabolism will slow down again."
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3dc6dx | how does protein affect the body? | I know it might be a stupid question but I'm just curious as to how protein gets people "stronger" and what it actually does to the body. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3dc6dx/eli5_how_does_protein_affect_the_body/ | {
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"Okay so protein does all kinds of things in the body. The word \"protein\" is like this overarching term for enzymes, hormones, etc. Your body doesn't store protein either like we store sugar and fat. Protein doesn't make you stronger if you don't workout. You have to workout and make tiny tears in your muscles by doing a hard workout and protein helps repair those muscles. They naturally grow back larger and you have to keep designing harder workouts to keep growing your muscle. In this case, protein mainly helps heal. So some people complain after they workout that if they don't eat, they'll \"lose their gains.\" That's because it's been proven that if you eat a high protein meal immediately after working out, your muscles heal faster."
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5vrjk2 | how do tv shows and films make actors/actresses appear decades younger so easily? | I was recently re-watching HBO's Westworld and there is a flashback scene where the character played by Sir Anthony Hopkins is pictured at least thirty years younger (I think this was episode 4 but I could be wrong).
Is this make-up alone or is there computer software involved as well? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5vrjk2/eli5_how_do_tv_shows_and_films_make/ | {
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"It was CGI and is, by no means, easy. There's a reason you didn't see much of young Ford. There's also a certain sci-if movie out that did this with an actor who was actually deceased. They hired someone who looked a bit similar and could do his voice, and then painted over his face to match the actor's face. \n\nBut probably the most famous example of this would be TRON: Legacy, which had a deaged Jeff Bridges for half the film. "
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b9slso | what's the current going theory for how life started? was it an amino acid soup until one chain just happened to self-replicate? | [deleted] | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/b9slso/eli5_whats_the_current_going_theory_for_how_life/ | {
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"First part, yes. The Miller-Urey experiment in the 1950s showed that amino acids could be created from stuff that’s deemed “inorganic.” After the amino acids were formed they were probably chained to form proteins and the proteins eventually made genetic material, which made it easier to reproduce since there was a blueprint. From there it was just a matter of evolving to sustain life, and you get all life that we have today.\n\nEDIT: A lot of people seem pissed off by my explanation, but the subreddit is called “Explain Like I’m 5” not “Explain Like the 5 Year Old has a Background in Organic Chemistry.” ",
"If you want a true ELI5\n\nMolecules are like Legos, and sometimes Legos can stick/clump together under the right conditions. Lo and behold earth had the right conditions, and eventually we got Lego so advanced that it could replicate itself.\n\nIf you're wondering what the right conditions are, I have no idea. This wasn't really a completely serious response to begin with aha",
"Not my area of specialty, BUT: the RNA world hypothesis seems the most likely start to life IMO. RNA can be formed from inorganic molecules, has enzymatic activity, can be translated into protein or reverse transcribed into DNA, and can self replicate. While these functions are somewhat advanced, they could be acquired over time, especially once the replication hurdle is passed. DNA or proteins alone cannot perform this myriad of functions. Also if RNA vs Protein is the choice argument, all known organisms require an RNAs to transport individual amino acids for protein synthesis - it seems more likely to me that RNA developed the ability to pick up amino acids to then match to the already existing RNA sequences, rather than have proteins somehow adopt RNA for multiple functions for replication all at once.\n\nEdit: To clarify the \"not my specialty\" part, I'm a PhD candidate studying developmental genetics, but I don't focus on evolutionary biology at all. My knowledge of this stuff is strictly from undergrad.",
"I wrote a paper about the two main schools of thought concerning the origins of life a few years ago, and I’ll attempt to summarize from memory to the best of my ability. Note that, by now, this is likely outdated but it was one of the few term paper I wrote that I found extremely interesting so maybe you will too. \n\nThe two theories were hotly debated for a while via scientific journals, which was hilarious to read through (any time a publication begins with “In response to”, there’s some serious scientific snack talk about to go down). I can’t remember their names but these scientists came up with replication first and metabolism first. \n\nIn replication first, it essentially looks to the Miller-Urey experiment and expands on it, allowing that complex organic molecules can come about naturally, but that doesn’t automatically mean life. The theory explores the possibility of nucleic acids being created and becoming concentrated enough in certain areas to allow them to form into a primitive RNA molecule that was able to self replicate using more nearby nucleic acids. As the replication continued and interacted with other organic molecules, it would eventually lead into the creation of proteins and phospholipid membranes, which from there led pretty easily into single cells organisms. \n\nMetabolism first came about after the discovery of hydrothermal vents, at which they observed iron reacting with sulfate where the vents let out all of their molecule rich waters. The molecule made (I think it was iron (IV) sulfate, but not positive) had a tendency to form think membrane like films and isolate some of that vent water, which along with the heat supplied by the vents would allow the molecules to interact with each other and metabolize larger, more complex and even organic molecules rather than dissolving into the great big ocean. Eventually the metabolism led into creating some of the organic molecules necessary for life, and the membrane would eventually be replaced by the phospholipid membranes I mentioned earlier, creating the first life forms as we know (or imagine) them to be. \n\nAgain, all this stuff is probably not exactly correct and this was meant to be a quick overview of what a remember, but it’s been a fairly slow day at work so here’s a couple paragraphs about it. This is far from specialization I chose and I might be pulling half remembered snippets from outdated articles so I’m likely wrong on a few points, but that’s the basic gist as I remember it. ",
"It is likely less about the amino acids and more about RNA. RNA is genetic material, much like DNA. RNA pieces will randomly assemble into new structures. Sometimes, RNA will randomly arrange itself into a structure that encourages the assembly of identical structures. Boom! You now have self-replicating organic molecules.\n\nPrimitive cell membranes will randomly form in the primordial soup as well. If by chance that self-replicating RNA gets trapped in a primitive cell membrane, you have the most rudimentary basis of life.",
"There are multiple theories, but in my experience one of the more widely accepted theories is the RNA World Hypothesis. Components of RNA, just like amino acids, have been found in celestial bodies and therefore were likely present on the early earth. These components have also been shown to be able to self assemble into short RNA molecules. RNA, unlike proteins or DNA, can both catalyze chemical reactions and carry hereditary information. Scientists have developed RNA molecules that are able to replicate other RNA molecules so you can imagine a scenario where an RNA molecule forms that would be able to replicate itself and other RNAs that catalyze certain metabolic reactions in a protocol, creating a self sustaining system. Additional support for this hypothesis comes from the fact that many of the most conserved metabolites across life are nucleotide derivatives (ATP, Acetyl CoA, etc). Additionally many of most important machinery in cells, like the ribosome, actually are catalytic RNA molecules that now also contain proteins. DNA likely evolved later as a more stable way to carry hereditary information and proteins likely evolved as a better way to catalyze chemical reactions amongst many other functions. ",
"There is no generally agreed upon theory. But one of the more prevalent ones currently is the [RNA world hypothesis](_URL_0_). Today we have DNA with the main role of storing genetic information, and proteins as the main functional unit that performs the majority of biological processes and cellular functions. RNA can be both a molecule for storing genetic information as well as a functional molecule, although it doesn't do either of those as well as DNA or proteins. In the RNA world hypothesis, the origin of life happened with RNA, and then DNA and proteins came later to take over for most of what RNA did originally as more specialized and efficient molecules. \n\nAs for the first RNA, again we don't know but one hypothesis is similar to what you propose in your question. There was a nucleotide-rich soup with some source of energy that caused the nucleotides to spontaneously form chains. Some of these chains happened to have the property that they were self-replicating, and at that point evolution by natural selection kicks in. The sequences of nucleotides that are better at self-replicating become more prevalent than the ones that are worse at it, or can't do it at all. Any mutation that makes them better at replicating would replace the previous ones. Eventually mutations would occur that cause the RNA to use other molecules in the environment to form a protective barrier, creating the first cell. And so on until you have Kevin Hart.",
"Panspermia is the \"out there\" theory. Which I believe Steven Hawkings ended believing. Specifically he thinks a meteor that contained life may have hit earth which helped the evolution process. \n\nMy question is, if we hold the theory that life created itself through the primitive amino acid soup process, why can't today's modern intelligence re-create the process in the lab? But yet, we beleive it can happen completely randomly with the most astronomical odds against it. ",
"What really fucks with me is how DNA \n/RNA replication started. The mechanism is so complex, I don’t understand how a simpler version could have functioned. ",
"Honestly, that somewhat depends on how you define \"life\". There's a research scientist at MIT whose research on this topic is [worth reading about](_URL_0_), but basically, his idea suggests that life arises directly from the second law thermodynamics, because matter has a natural tendency to arrange itself in increasingly complex ways to better convert external energy into heat. His own ELI5 for his theory is:\n\n > “You start with a random clump of atoms, and if you shine light on it for long enough, it should not be so surprising that you get a plant.\"\n\nNot a traditional ELI5, I know, but I figure it's worth pointing out that where we draw the line between \"life\" and \"not life\" is somewhat arbitrary.",
"I teach science for what it's worth, but I think anyone that tells you we have any scientific idea as to how biogenesis can occur is making something up or downright lying. It is so so so so hard to get life from nonlife. People theorize in the ocean with vents and such, but anything we discovered is so far from a functioning single cell that it is crazy. ",
"One thing to keep in mind in this discussion is that the notion of \"life\" in this question is somewhat arbitrary. If you take the notion of life out of your question, it doesn't really harm the question in any meaningful way.\n\nThe insight here is that if you have a lot of different things bumping around in the primordial soup, there are lots (and lots, and LOTS) of different reactions that could happen and products that could result. The only thing limiting what will actually get produced is:\n\n* are the reaction pathways available?\n* are the reactants available?\n\nIf you have a large library of reactants to choose from and you put them in contact with each other, those reactants will take *all* available pathways and *all* products of those pathways will be produced. If you provide energy into the system, you will open up a set of pathways that weren't open before, and possibly close a set of pathways that were open previously. So if you have these reactants available in a wide variety of different contexts, with all these different pathways available from moment to moment, you can expect over time that all products that can result will result.\n\nIf you think about this teeming soup, you just have a lot of stuff constantly being created and destroyed. If there's no particular preference for any one state, then you'll have this equilibrium that pretty much stays constant and doesn't evolve over time. This is where self replication comes into the picture. If you imagine a state where all these different compounds would be in equilibrium, except one class of these compounds has a habit of replicating itself—and if there's some subset of these compounds that are stable in the current environment—then it's easy to see how this subset of self-replicating compounds is going to take over the soup.\n\nSo this setup can act as a forcing function that, over time, moves the entire population of compounds into this constant march away from equilibrium which we call evolution.\n\nI say all this because most people tend to think of evolution as having something to do with life. Really, though, it doesn't. We can think of life as an emergent property of a complex of these compounds…but it is neither necessary nor sufficient for evolution to occur. It's completely independent.",
"Nick Lane discusses it in The Vital Question, that life was probably started in deep hydrothermal vents under the oceans. \n\nHe elaborates more specifically on it using complex science, but it was a good and convincing book.",
"This is a really active area of research. One group I’m familiar with believes that DNA and RNA came first.\n\nAccording to these people, in the early days of the earth, everything was very hot, storms (producing lightening) were common, and very reactive chemicals were everywhere. The combination of these factors allowed lots of random reactions to occur. Very rarely, big molecules somewhat similar to DNA or RNA formed. These molecules had an advantage over other molecules because their shape let them make more of themselves very slowly. This worked because molecules like DNA and RNA are like jigsaw pieces that only fit next to certain other pieces of DNA and RNA. Because these molecules fit together well, they tended to produce more of themselves over time. Some of these molecules got clever and created shells for themselves (the cell membranes we have today) that protected them from the harsh environment. Some of the early RNA and DNA molecules gained the ability to perform other reactions. This is supported by the fact that parts of our protein-making machinery today still contains RNA molecules. These new chemical-forming abilities gave the protomecules even more control over their environment. Over time, these groups of molecules passed a blurry threshold and stopped being just molecules and became early life. , They were now complex systems that, while not smart, controlled their environment, made more of themselves, and contained blueprints for all of the major things they needed to do.\n\nSome people think amino acids came first, but nucleotidefirst researchers believe that nucleotides preceded proteins because nucleotides can catalyze reactions just like proteins, but also they contain the information to self replicate by themselves.",
"Everyone's talking about RNA and proteins and amino acids, but they're wrong (ok not wrong, but that wasn't the first step). You have to follow energy gradients i.e. thermondynamics. Everything in the universe tends towards entropy. You have to figure out consistently energetically favorable reactions at every step, and Urey Miller putters out as a tarry sludge of protein.\n\nThe most sound argument I've heard for life is it started as differences in electric potential across small fatty membranes in alkaline thermal vents. Some of these fatty membranes pinched off and floated away (or stayed there) and voilà, proto cells. Alkaline vents are not the famous \"black smokers\". They are colder and more alkaline. We all know DNA and RNA are important to life, but people tend to forget something even more fundamental: proton pumps that create ATP, the source of biologic energy. Protons are pumped across a membrane and a literal electric spark turns ADP to ATP. An analagous situation can happen in alkaline vents between very closely packed layers of minerals. As far as I've seen this is the only hypothetical origin of life that makes thermodynamic sense. RNA and amino acids are useless without energy to drive them.\n\nEdit: Nick Lane describes this in detail in his book \"The Vital Question\". I highly recommend it.",
"The use of images is a great way to explain something, not just for a 5 year old.\n\nTo explain what others have said here in a illustrated way, I recommend you to watch two videos from the channel Stated Clearly: \"[Can Science Explain the Origin of Life?](_URL_1_)\" and \"[What is Chemical Evolution?](_URL_0_)\". These videos are great and easy to follow.",
"Can someone actually explain it like I'm 5? Be as painfully simplistic as possible. ",
"There always a chance life never \"started\". We just like to think of things as stop start, since it makes it easier to understand.\nHence the big bang theory for the universe or the posts here for life on earth. \nMaybe life and death are beyond time ;) ",
"I always thought that a “first” instance of life happened multiple times until one of them happened to be able to reproduce.",
"symmetrical molecules like polymers breaking apart in a siimilar way over and over again, with occasional variences. Only the least dissonant shapes prevailed.",
"Alkaline hydrothermal vents is, to me, the current best guess. To me it makes more sense than the primordial soup theory. If you’re interested look up the work of Nick Lane at UCL. \n\nI was lectured by him and it’s his theory so I am of course a little biased but it’s important to note that he taught us all the theories and said it was for us to make up our minds which we thought was closest. Note closest, not correct - even he thinks there will be new theories in the future."
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"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mRzxTzKIsp8",
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2kdjn0 | what is an ontology in terms of xml? | And can you explain ontologies currently being used? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2kdjn0/eli5_what_is_an_ontology_in_terms_of_xml/ | {
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"There have been efforts for a long time, by working groups such as W3C, to define ways to describe things and relationships. It's like a meta-description language. While XML is just a markup in which you can say ` < shoes color=\"black\" > `, the Ontology work is around being able to say that a `shoe` can `have a color` and a `color` is `black`. Of course, that's just a very very simple example.\n\nThe whole purpose of doing this is to be able to describe knowledge in a way that other systems can query it and 'understand' that knowledge. \n\nThere aren't many being used and it'll probably be a while before (if) it gains widespread adoption. There has usually been a history of committees creating a technology, only for the community to ignore it and use something more 'organic' that grows over time. \n\nThere is a BioOntology site, and here's an example search\n\n_URL_0_\n\nSee that one of the links is based on the ontology definition here:\n\n_URL_1_\n\nThe OWL is quite complex and is meant for just certain types of systems to read. "
]
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"http://bioportal.bioontology.org/search?query=Melanoma&commit=Search",
"http://ncicb.nci.nih.gov/xml/owl/EVS/Thesaurus.owl#C3224"
]
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|
657wo6 | how do you come to a full stop in a stick shift vehicle? | I hear from people "Don't depress the clutch when you are breaking. Just depress to change gears." And "just break when you are coming to a stop". Okay so I depress the clutch and downshift, and go to first, or neutral, and then I slowly take my left foot of the clutch while my right foot is already braking. However I thought because I'm at a stop I can't take my foot off the clutch because the minute I do it'll stall, since you can't use gas on a full stop? I'm so confused
[I'd post this in cars but they don't allow me because I'm too new] | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/657wo6/eli5_how_do_you_come_to_a_full_stop_in_a_stick/ | {
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"text": [
"You just put the car in neutral and brake like normal.\n\nThe car will only stall if it's in gear and you release the clutch.\n\nIf it's not in gear nothing will happen when you release it.",
"The car must be in neutral if you want to release the clutch and stay still. This is a good plan, as just holding in the clutch can cause throwout bearing wear. To start moving again, you depress the clutch, put the car in gear, and move the right foot from the brake to the gas.",
"Brake as normal. Leave the gearstick alone. When the engine is about to stall, depress the clutch. If you don't want to keep your foot on the clutch, you can choose to put the car in neutral and then release it.\n\nAn alternative technique is to shift down through each gear as you're braking. That was used more with older cars that didn't have such good brakes, shifting down meant the engine could help slow the car. With modern cars most drivers don't bother. EDIT: And in fact organisations that teach driving, for both new learners and 'advanced' driver training, favour the 'block shifting' method where you brake down to your new speed then change into the gear for that speed. For example doing 70 mph in 6th gear, brake to 30 mph, then select 4th gear.",
"The wear you put on a vehicle by holding the clutch down completely is negligible. If it is a long stop, put it in neutral, otherwise just make sure you are not halfway on the clutch.",
"When you are approaching the intersection at speed , remove foot from gas, feather brake ,clutch and down shift when you are in the lowest gear you will get to before the stop slow further with brake,depress clutch, apply brake to stop. Move shifter to lowest gear, foot on brake and clutch depressed. When able or safe to go ,remove foot from brake, lightly apply gas and release clutch slowly at same time up shift when appropriate . If you are in a situation where you need to be sitting for a longer period of time ,Put shifter into neutral and release clutch keeping your other foot on the brake ."
]
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3lkohd | why do links sometimes redirect to the wrong place such as porn or a random image, but only for some users? | Why do some links that are clearly innocent and relevant link to a porn site or to a random imgur picture? It will happen to some people but not to everyone when clicking on the same exact link.
I've seen people describing this when I see the linked content as it is supposed to be, and also the opposite: where everyone else sees the correct content and I don't. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3lkohd/eli5_why_do_links_sometimes_redirect_to_the_wrong/ | {
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"text": [
"This sounds an aweful lot like malware infected computers.\n\nThere are multiple ways, from a malware browser plugin/addon which randomly redirects to another URL up to real malware tempering with your the DNS client of the infected computers.\n\nThe first thing is fairly simple as it really just exchanges the URL.\n\nThe second idea is more indepth and allows for far more control as it affects every browser and every other program in the same way.\n\nEvery computer runs a DNS resolver. DNS is short for domain name system. Most of the time when you try to connect to an URL your DNS resolver will send a request towards a DNS server. Most people use the DNS server of their ISP. This server will resolve the URL for you and give your DNS resolver an IP address for the given URL.\n\nFor example _URL_0_ got resolved to the IP address 198.41.209.138\n\nThis is where the browser or any other program will actually connect to. The DNS resolver in most cases will also keep a list with recently resolved names and a lifetime for those entries (as IP addresses might change a DNS entry isn't valid for infinite time).\n\nThere are multiple ways to manipulate that system with malware. You can setup your own DNS server and let the client system use this DNS server. That server will then normally resolve most addresses but a few choosen entries will be resolved to different addresses. That way a link suddenly redirects you towards a porn site as the IP address the name was resolved to isn't the IP address of the website you wanted to see.\n\nOr you could temper with the list of already resolved entries and write in wrong resolved entries. Aslong as this fake entry has a valid lifetime you DNS resolver will not sent another request towards a server. This problem could be solved by flushing this list clearing it of all entries even if the lifetimes are still valid.\n\nTL;DR\nComputers are probably compromised. Check for malware. It is definitely not normal behavior.",
"As far as I'm aware, this typically happens for mobile users with certain apps when somebody posts an imgur album. Albums on imgur have a different URL format, so the letters/numbers which identify it can be the same as an image. For example, _URL_0_ has the same letters as _URL_1_, and certain apps will redirect the user to the second link even though the first one was linked. It's mostly just a flaw in how it's programmed."
]
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"https://imgur.com/a/OcNsg",
"https://i.imgur.com/OcNsg.jpg"
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8cjff4 | how does our body know when we should stop chewing food and swallow. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/8cjff4/eli5_how_does_our_body_know_when_we_should_stop/ | {
"a_id": [
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"text": [
"Practice. When you were a baby eating was probably much more complicated. Just muscle memory now"
]
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[]
] |
||
23rcv9 | why can we drink our own urine safely, but not seawater? | In times of extreme thirst, drinking seawater will kill you, but apparently urine can save your life. Why? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/23rcv9/eli5_why_can_we_drink_our_own_urine_safely_but/ | {
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"Urine isn't all that good for you. It's made up of water and some dissolved substances the body got rid of. These waste products make up a small part of the urine, so you can get away with drinking it in an emergency situation when your priority is getting water into your body.\n\nSeawater also has substances dissolved in it, mainly salt. However, the salt is present at a much higher concentration. Since salt dries out living things, drinking something salty will have the opposite effect as drinking water. \n\nDrinking either substance won't immediately kill you or anything like that. However, urine is made up of a larger proportion of water, so it at least fulfills the purpose of rehydrating the drinker. ",
"While seawater will kill you in large amounts, a crazy Frenchman named Alain Bombard once crossed the Atlantic in a small boat, eating fish and drinking a small amount of seawater. \n\n_URL_0_"
]
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[],
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"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alain_Bombard"
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b6qqvx | can someone please explain to me why brands like guess and calvin klein have “(name of brand) jeans” on their t shirts?! | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/b6qqvx/eli5_can_someone_please_explain_to_me_why_brands/ | {
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"I assume it's just for the sake of looking cool, showing off, flexing, etc.\n\nEveryone's gotta be *hip* when it comes to clothing now.",
"You've seen them haven't you? There's your answer. Dopes will pay to advertise for other people all in the name of looking cool. ",
"It's basically a marketing tool, if you see their brand name everywhere (or especially on cool people) then you'll want to buy it/remember it over other brands when you're shopping.",
"Those brands became famous because of their denim and for a lot of companies jeans are their first offering.\n\nGuess was the first company to make designer jeans.\n\nIt would be like Apple making an iPhone case that looks like an iMac.\n\nThey wouldn’t do that, [but others have.](_URL_0_) "
]
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"https://www.spigen.com/products/iphone-x-case-classic-c1?variant=7646095966255"
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||
eio9rd | why do tv show guests pretend to drink from an empty mug? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/eio9rd/eli5_why_do_tv_show_guests_pretend_to_drink_from/ | {
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"text": [
"Natural break from talking; lets the host collect themselves for a moment. \nA real drink has the opportunity to spill or cause the host to choke (we’ve all tried to inhale a drink at some points in our lives).\nTo a professional talker, the few seconds it takes to pretend to drink is more than enough time for them to figure out or remember what section is coming next. \n\n\nI’ve also seen them do it as a courtesy to someone they’re interviewing. Being interviewed is unnerving and being stared at can put you off or make you forget what you wanted to say. Having the host break eye contact to fake a drink and you can talk to their mug for a moment is very comforting. It makes things feel more natural and less like you’re on show.",
"You could go the complete opposite way and lube the guest with alcohol (see Graham Norton Show). Be warned this out come could result in Mark Wahlberg falling asleep on your show."
]
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[],
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||
1c940p | why do car blinkers blink faster when a bulb is out? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1c940p/eli5_why_do_car_blinkers_blink_faster_when_a_bulb/ | {
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"text": [
"The circuit that blinks the light is designed to blink faster when the light is burned out. The electrical resistance of a working bulb slows the blinker down.",
"to let you know from inside the car that a bulb is out."
]
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[],
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||
3o6csz | how do gyms turn a profit? | I've always wanted to open a gym. I'm a certified fitness trainer and I like exercising, and I also enjoy helping others. But I'm not business savvy, and I can't wrap my head around how they make a profit with all of their overhead. They need to pay wages, rent, insurance, for the machines, etc. If they have, say, 500 people signed up at a location at $20 a month per person that's $10,000. I don't see how they can turn a big profit after all I mentioned earlier.
Please help me learn :) | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3o6csz/eli5_how_do_gyms_turn_a_profit/ | {
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"text": [
"Well you pay for the equipment once and the members pay over and over again. $20 is a very cheap gym. Most around charge like 50 or 60.",
"big up front investment, but the \"product\" is \"free\". your trainers should be paying for themselves and then some. As should the sales staff. \n\nMeanwhile your only expense is rent, electricity, and maintenence. And probably some janetorial staff.\n\nanyway, based on the turnover of gyms that I see, I think the answer is that most gyms dont turn a profit... the big boys dominate the market, leveraging their scale and network to offer more facilities than the little strip mall gyms can match.",
"Sell other things. Sell drinks, sports drinks with huge mark ups like \"muscle milk\". Get personal trainers to give you 20% of what they make so they can use your gym. Get people in for classes that cost extra on top of their membership. ",
"Dad owned a gym for a while. Truth be told most non chain gyms don't survive\n\n- You buy the equipment once. Each machine is usually several hundred, butif you order a bulk purchase from the manufacturer or buy used it makes it cheaper \n- each member of the gym pays a monthly fee usually around $20 a month. If you've got 200 members that's $4000 a month\n- all gyms sell special \"deluxe\" packages as well as separate personal trainer packages. This is where the money comes in as these packages are usually around 2x as expensive \n- I think most chain gyms are corporate owned rather than franchise owned, which means more money starting out for the business to buy equipment and hire people\n-gyms don't require many employees, and most non trainer rolls make minimum wage/slightly more than minimum wage "
]
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2pel98 | what are the main differences between cooking sytles? ingredients, techniques, both? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2pel98/eli5_what_are_the_main_differences_between/ | {
"a_id": [
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"text": [
"They make different kinds of food, is the main difference."
]
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||
ootdv | what happens to fruit when it goes bad? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/ootdv/eli5_what_happens_to_fruit_when_it_goes_bad/ | {
"a_id": [
"c3iute1",
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"text": [
"It is decaying. Same as what happens when an animal dies. \nWith fruit the decay can be desirable. The sugars turn into alcohol which can encourage animals to eat it and carry the seeds to new locations.",
"Food going bad is mostly the work of bacteria and fungus. They settle in and multiply rapidly. On bacteria makes 2 makes 4, 8, 16, 32 and so on. As bacteria and fungus (mold is fungus) grow they eat the fruit for energy and the fruit shrinks, shrivels, and get mushy as it's slowly eaten.\n\nThe reason we put things in the fridge is because bacteria and fungus take a lot longer to grow when it's cold. They will multiply slower so your food is ok to eat for longer. You don't want to eat all these bacteria and fungi because they will upset your stomach. That's why you shouldn't eat spoiled food."
]
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[],
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36e3lt | how are noble and royal houses structured and how do they function? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/36e3lt/eli5_how_are_noble_and_royal_houses_structured/ | {
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"text": [
"There's a whole lot of separate answers to your question, as it really depends on the country you're referring to. \n\nIn England, there's a king (though not right now) and queen, with sons and daughters princes and princesses respectively. Russian tsars and tsarinas are the same, or at least were before the revolution. Then you have the emperors and their families from feudal Japan and China, various Emirs from the middle east (but there's the King of Jordan and his family in there too, and there used to be a Shah of Iran), and the royal family of Sweden. We could bring Africa into the mix as well with their collection of kingdoms.\n\nAnd that's not even getting to the layers further down where you have peerages, knights, lords, earls, dukes and so forth. \n\nLots of choices and different nuances to their overall structure, so too broad a question to really answer as stated."
]
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||
5f7lo9 | since they are all basically computers, why is there still a wide range of digital synthesizers on the market? | Their sounds are all produced by math operations on a processor - it couldn't matter that much what kind of hardware is in it, right?
Some synths cost more than twice the price of a high-end gaming unit. Why wouldn't just any computer serve as a suitable synth? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5f7lo9/eli5_since_they_are_all_basically_computers_why/ | {
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"Are you taking about audio synthesizers, or high end waveform generators that electrical engineers would use? The answer below focuses on audio. Engineering style function/waveform generators have to do some complex stuff once you're working with very high frequencies.\n\nHardware matters, but most of the stuff synthesizers do isn't too crazy compared to other workloads you might see on server or workstation grade hardware. Many processors these days have built in support for digital signal processing workloads.\n\nMuch of it comes down to how familiar the existing user base is with an existing type of interface and the productivity that would be lost if they had to train to learn something totally new. In my limited personal experience there's also a lot of nostalgia and stuff tied in with older equipment so that's likely part of it.",
"In the case of pro audio and live sound.... we **haaaaaate** regular computers. No multitasking operating systems, please. It's too big a risk that it could screw up live because of a software update or god-knows-what. Dedicated devices designed to do only one task and do it well are preferred. \n\nAdditonally, there's the issue of build quality & time/research that went into the product. Audio hardware is expected to last for years, even as it bounces around inside road cases and the like, it needs a steel body and more bulk/reinforcement than an xbox. Plus of course the features/options in the software the device runs takes time and talented ears to create, so part of the cost is quality software. "
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2ck017 | why you shouldn't fill up your gas tank while the tanker truck is filling up the gasoline storage tanks? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2ck017/eli5_why_you_shouldnt_fill_up_your_gas_tank_while/ | {
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"In a perfect world the tanker and tank don't have any sediment, sludge, water or other contaminants. In the real world there is a VERY good chance that the station's in-ground tank has at least a little water and/or some dirt,leaves or some other detrius in it. Adding new product stirs it all up. HOPEFULLY the in line filter at the pump catches anything. Don't bet on it. Later in the day when the crap settles back to the bottom coke back for fuel.",
"I work in a service station, there are actually a couple of filters that modern fuel pumps have. It's not the same issue it used to be 30 years ago.",
"I worked in a chain convenience store and we were supposed to not let anyone fill up while the truck was pumping in fuel and for a little while afterward, but every other gas station does it so we didn't prevent anyone from doing it. It wasn't my decision, and I doubt it was the manager's decision either. "
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6wnn4m | how we know that the golden record on voyager 1 won't get destroyed by space rocks during its billion year lifespan | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/6wnn4m/eli5_how_we_know_that_the_golden_record_on/ | {
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"We don't know that, but it's pretty unlikely.\n\nSpace is called *space* for a reason, it's almost incomprehensibly empty. As the probes drift farther from the sun they're entering a region of space even emptier than the already empty void between planets.\n\nWhen you point a telescope at a distant star, you're seeing light that has traveled a hundred trillion miles without ever crossing paths with anything of substance.\n\nEventually the probe will be destroyed by a collision or the slow erosion of cosmic radiation. We have no real estimate of how long that may be.",
"The density of matter in interstellar space is *extremely* close to zero -- about 1 atom per cubic centimeter. Statistically speaking, Voyager 1 is *unlikely* to every hit anything large enough to cause major damage."
]
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||
5dsles | why humans have different tastes (foods, music) from one another, but some are the same | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5dsles/eli5_why_humans_have_different_tastes_foods_music/ | {
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"Exposure plays a big role. \n\nYou might hate some music now, but if you listened to it everyday, you might start liking that artist or genre. Same with food. \n\nThere are some foods, though, you might just never like. Usually, this is due to biology. For example, broccoli and cilantro both have a huge genetic component. Broccoli contains similar features with a poisonous plant that humans dealt with thousands of years ago, so the distaste for it was an evolutionary advantage for some. ",
"Neurology and how your brain learns to interprate recieved signals from your body differs greatly from individual to individual. What you percieve as a slick red jacket may look completely different in your eyes than it does in eyes of a person next to you, even if you use the same terms to describe it.",
"Not just humans. I have two cats that are from the same litter. They have very different tastes in food (one loves when I drop hot spicy food and the other runs away from it for example). They also have very different personalities. One sleeps about 23 ½ hours a day and the other is an insomniac. ",
"The answer to this question has a lot to do with growth/upbringing. You and your BEST friend share a lot of interests. Mostly this is because you grew together and learned to enjoy the same things. This could have been a really natural progression \n\n- he enjoys Call of Duty\n- you enjoy World of Warcraft\n\nYou together (seeking friendship) find a middle ground game like League of Legends or Rocket League to play and learn together and that's that.\n\nGenerally speaking you and your best friend don't eat every meal together. But, if you did, you might develop some of the same food habits. You might find that Pillsbury Sugar Cookies (you know the ones with the turkeys/Christmas trees in the center) are the greatest thing in the world. Your Best Friend, seeing your enthusiasm, will be enticed to also enjoy those succulent little cookies and after repeated positive encounters will develop a desire for them as well.\n\nOver time, distance, encounters with new people, more refined tastes, etc. These things begin to fade. You'll still both enjoy Pillsbury Sugar Cookies and reminisce on the old days of League of Legends and Rocket League, but perhaps you wont indulge in those activities anymore. You upgraded to Tollhouse Chocolate Chip cookies. You now work all the time and don't play as much League of Legends anymore.\n\nThe point is, that people develop experiences with things. To enjoy something is to find the beauty in it again and again and again. That takes an open mind and a willingness to learn to enjoy things that you may not have previously learned to enjoy.\n\nEDIT: Damn! Thanks for the gold friend! I'll go through and answer people's questions as best I can!",
"Culture is the thing that does this. It is everything after genome and governs much about you from the way you like to wear your clothes, to what foods you want to eat, to the music you enjoy, to the deity you choose to bend to.",
"It's because:\n\n**1. Some tastes are learned.** \nIn your culture some things are taught as good. Even though you didn't like it at first, you've learned to. \n\nIn Norway we have [folk music](_URL_3_) and [rakfisk](_URL_1_) (fermented fish), for example. Some Norwegian like, few else.\n\n**2. Some tastes all humans are born with.** \nFor example that we are become happy in bright light, or we get a feeling of being startled by a loud sound. It is coded in us, because it had some benefit to surviving some day. \n\nFor example the Norwegian composer [Edvard Grieg - Morning mood](_URL_2_) . Most Norwegians like this, but also most other people elsewhere in the world, and across time. \n\n**3. Some tastes are objectively beautiful.** \nWe agree across different species (both humans and insects), that [flowers are beautiful and attractive](_URL_4_) for example. Even though flowers aren't made for us, but for bees.\n\nMany creations are mix of these three. \n\n[Talk on objective beauty by the physicist David Deutsch.](_URL_0_) \n",
"For food, the most simple explanation is that some of it is genetic. If everyone loves the same type of food, then it leaves us more vulnerable if it gets wiped out or to any diseases it can transmit.\n\nSome of it has to deal with how many papillae (which house taste buds) we have on our tongue. The more we have, the more overwhelming some tastes can be and vice-versa. There are probably similar conditions with olfactory receptors as well that can impact it (remember that smell is a large part of a food's flavor).\n\nWe can also have Pavlovian responses to food, where we will avoid or seek out food based on our previous experiences with it. For example, I can't even stand artifical blueberries because I violently threw up in middle school after eating a blueberry muffin. \n\nAdditionally, evolutionary biologists have suggested that some groups may have altered taste receptors due to evolutionary pressures. The example I read was that people in malaria-endemic regions are usually less sensitive to bitter tastes because low levels of cyanide in their diet (usually through consumption of bitter cassava) is protective against malaria.",
"You should look into this book [\"You May Also Like\"](_URL_0_) by Tom Vanderbilt (also a good audiobook). He explores how our tastes are formed and how and why we express them. Explaining your question is basically the entire thrust of his book!",
"Scientists are currently exploring the idea that our gut flora (with whom we live symbiotically) adjusts our appetites and cravings for certain foods - sometimes for the worse, sometimes for the better. \n\nFor example, by eating certain foods as a kid, you created and fed colonies of particular bacteria in your intestines. When the \"pizza colony\" starts to starve, because you haven't eaten pizza in a while, it makes you crave pizza.\n\nBy not eating a particular food for a long time, you can lose your craving for it as the colony dies out. Which may be why some foods you loved as a kid aren't as appetizing now. It may also be why \"cheat days\" ruin diets for so many.\n\n[Here](_URL_0_) is an article addressing appetite, which has a link to an article discussing cravings as well."
]
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"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gT7DFCF1Fn8",
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"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-rh8gMvzPw0",
"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iFflyHoqDmg",
"https://i.ytimg.com/vi/D15U7XPp5AE/hqdefault.jpg"
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||
1s1bxm | what are the biological differences between a dinosaur, a lizard and a bird? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1s1bxm/eli5_what_are_the_biological_differences_between/ | {
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"Birds are dinosaurs.\n\nThe most obvious difference between lizards and dinosaurs is look how a lizard walks. Dinosaurs didn't have the kind of structure to support walking like that. ",
"\"Dinosaur\" encompasses a LOT of vastly different species. For simplicity's sake, I will talk only about a dinosaur species that evolved in to birds. This is an explanation of how dinosaurs, birds, and lizards as species are related to each other. This is VASTLY simplified. \n\nFirst, there was a reptile a very, very long time ago before dinosaurs existed. This reptile species will end up splitting in to many different species over a long period of time. One of those species evolves in to lizards. Others evolve in to dinosaurs. One evolves in to the type of dinosaur that eventually evolves in to birds. \n\nThe [\"family tree\"](_URL_0_) starts with the reptile, like a grandfather. The children of the grandfather are the lizard and all the dinosaur species. The child of one of the dinosaur species is a bird. "
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ax7w3e | how are growing tree roots strong enough to break concrete but somehow grow around thing like chains and tires? | [deleted] | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/ax7w3e/eli5_how_are_growing_tree_roots_strong_enough_to/ | {
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"The roots grow small and then grow thicker over time, pushing outwards. The don't grow through the concrete at full force.\n\nSo if they can avoid something they will. And if they grow around the chain they have several directions to grow in, so there's no pressure to break that chain. In the ground they'll start pushing up because the place they occupy needs to be compensated elsewhere. So they push the concrete up overtime."
]
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[]
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|
ddkbwp | if your skull is somehow gradually enlarged would you grow a bigger brain? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/ddkbwp/eli5_if_your_skull_is_somehow_gradually_enlarged/ | {
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"Nope - the brain does grow some new cells, but it won't grow to fit the space - it doesn't sit flush against the bone of the skull anyway. \n\nConsider cases of trepanning, where parts of the skull are drilled or removed to alleviate pressure and remove headaches. If the brain was to grow to fill a space in the skull, it would grow through those holes.",
"No. As we see in e.g. patients who have had a hemispherectomy, leaving them with a lot of empty space in their skull, the empty space would simply fill with cerebrospinal fluid."
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l1f54 | explain a website/internet framework li5. how does it all work and what are the working parts? | There is code, domains, hosting, ip addresses, servers, DNS, SSL, etc...What is the progression of how a website is built and finally accessed publicly over the internet? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/l1f54/explain_a_websiteinternet_framework_li5_how_does/ | {
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"It seems like you're asking for some detail. I'm thinking of starting r/learnwebdev, if you're interested.\n\nI'll try. The web world works just like a banana stand. A banana stand is like your sever, and the customers are people who visit your website. The more people working your banana stand, or the more powerful and numerable your servers are, the more customers you can serve at a time.\n\nWhen you've got millions of customers at your banana stand, like we do on the internet (billions or trillions perhaps), you need some way to keep track of who is who. An IP address is like when a banana customer takes a ticket to get in line. However, this only really identifies them and differentiates them from everyone else. It doesn't say who gets what first.\n\nThe banana stand will take resources from other companies. It will ask a banana farm for bananas, and it needs chocolate or whatever else too. When it's asking these companies, they each have an IP address too. So, your banana stand has an IP address.\n\nWhen you want to know about a company, you don't go to google and type in the address. You type in the name of the company along with maybe what city or area you're in. This is like the domain name server (DNS). It's like an address book for where all these things are located that have IP addresses. But the address book only knows about the companies, not the customers. However, it still fills requests by everyone.\n\nThat's the basics of how banana stands, I mean computers, are interconnected through the Internet.",
"[Here's a simple info graphic about it](_URL_0_)",
"There are two concepts that seem to be getting mixed together here. One is the \"Internet\" and one is a \"website\". The Internet was pretty well covered by godinaa. It's essentialy a system for two computers to talk to each other.\n\nA website is a bit more straight forward. So you want to build a website.\n\n1. You need to code something that will, ultimately, come out as something called HTML (HyperText Markup Language). That is the language that a browser (IE, Firefox, etc) can read. You can code your page in several ways (JSP, Facelets, PHP, etc), but they will ultimately generate some form of HTML that the browser is able to interpret.\n\n2. This code goes on a server, which is just a specialized kind of computer. You can litterally \"host\" a website on your personal machine if you wanted to, but it is generally better to get a dedicated machine to hold the files. Hosting simply means that the code you wrote in part 1 goes onto the host server\n\n2. Domains and IP addresses are related. IP addresses are numeric addresses that point to the location of the host server. You can do this one of two ways, hosting yourself or hosting through a company. To host yourself, you ask your Internet Provider for a \"dedicated IP Address\". This is like a phone number. You know what the phone number is and if you give it to someone else, they can call your phone. Hosting through a company is a little like having a work phone. You show up at work and the company tells you \"your phone number is...\". Now, you can tell people that phone number and your office phone will ring.\n\n3. A domain is basically like a phonebook (to keep the analogy going). It's really hard to remember these random numbers that don't actually mean anything, so you tell them \"I'm Gejimayu\". So the person goes to the phonebook and looks up \"Gejimayu\" and sees that the phone number is (123)456-7890. Instead of a person doing this on the Internet, your browser does this. You type in \"_URL_1_\" and the browser goes to a domain registry and finds out what the actual number is to get to the reddit servers. The browser goes to a DNS (Domain Name System) to connect the name (_URL_1_) to an IP address. You could, technically, run a website without a domain, but people would have to go to an IP address to access it. It would look something like \"_URL_2_\"\n\n4. Once you have the code on a server, hooked up to an IP address, your website is ready to go. You should register a domain with a company (like _URL_0_) and connect that domain with your IP address.\n\n5. SSL is not necessary for running a public website that has no security involved. SSL is a way of securing a connection to a website. It is recommended when you are dealing with anything you have to \"log in\" to. It's a system to make sure that your browser is talking to the right server.",
"It seems like you're asking for some detail. I'm thinking of starting r/learnwebdev, if you're interested.\n\nI'll try. The web world works just like a banana stand. A banana stand is like your sever, and the customers are people who visit your website. The more people working your banana stand, or the more powerful and numerable your servers are, the more customers you can serve at a time.\n\nWhen you've got millions of customers at your banana stand, like we do on the internet (billions or trillions perhaps), you need some way to keep track of who is who. An IP address is like when a banana customer takes a ticket to get in line. However, this only really identifies them and differentiates them from everyone else. It doesn't say who gets what first.\n\nThe banana stand will take resources from other companies. It will ask a banana farm for bananas, and it needs chocolate or whatever else too. When it's asking these companies, they each have an IP address too. So, your banana stand has an IP address.\n\nWhen you want to know about a company, you don't go to google and type in the address. You type in the name of the company along with maybe what city or area you're in. This is like the domain name server (DNS). It's like an address book for where all these things are located that have IP addresses. But the address book only knows about the companies, not the customers. However, it still fills requests by everyone.\n\nThat's the basics of how banana stands, I mean computers, are interconnected through the Internet.",
"[Here's a simple info graphic about it](_URL_0_)",
"There are two concepts that seem to be getting mixed together here. One is the \"Internet\" and one is a \"website\". The Internet was pretty well covered by godinaa. It's essentialy a system for two computers to talk to each other.\n\nA website is a bit more straight forward. So you want to build a website.\n\n1. You need to code something that will, ultimately, come out as something called HTML (HyperText Markup Language). That is the language that a browser (IE, Firefox, etc) can read. You can code your page in several ways (JSP, Facelets, PHP, etc), but they will ultimately generate some form of HTML that the browser is able to interpret.\n\n2. This code goes on a server, which is just a specialized kind of computer. You can litterally \"host\" a website on your personal machine if you wanted to, but it is generally better to get a dedicated machine to hold the files. Hosting simply means that the code you wrote in part 1 goes onto the host server\n\n2. Domains and IP addresses are related. IP addresses are numeric addresses that point to the location of the host server. You can do this one of two ways, hosting yourself or hosting through a company. To host yourself, you ask your Internet Provider for a \"dedicated IP Address\". This is like a phone number. You know what the phone number is and if you give it to someone else, they can call your phone. Hosting through a company is a little like having a work phone. You show up at work and the company tells you \"your phone number is...\". Now, you can tell people that phone number and your office phone will ring.\n\n3. A domain is basically like a phonebook (to keep the analogy going). It's really hard to remember these random numbers that don't actually mean anything, so you tell them \"I'm Gejimayu\". So the person goes to the phonebook and looks up \"Gejimayu\" and sees that the phone number is (123)456-7890. Instead of a person doing this on the Internet, your browser does this. You type in \"_URL_1_\" and the browser goes to a domain registry and finds out what the actual number is to get to the reddit servers. The browser goes to a DNS (Domain Name System) to connect the name (_URL_1_) to an IP address. You could, technically, run a website without a domain, but people would have to go to an IP address to access it. It would look something like \"_URL_2_\"\n\n4. Once you have the code on a server, hooked up to an IP address, your website is ready to go. You should register a domain with a company (like _URL_0_) and connect that domain with your IP address.\n\n5. SSL is not necessary for running a public website that has no security involved. SSL is a way of securing a connection to a website. It is recommended when you are dealing with anything you have to \"log in\" to. It's a system to make sure that your browser is talking to the right server."
]
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"http://123.456.789.123"
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1yf42o | why doesn't my small toe break everytime i jam it in to a piece of furniture full speed? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1yf42o/eli5_why_doesnt_my_small_toe_break_everytime_i/ | {
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"text": [
"Your bones are simply stronger than the impact. "
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||
2x0qit | why are there mats stapled to most school gym walls? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2x0qit/eli5_why_are_there_mats_stapled_to_most_school/ | {
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"Two fold. One it pads the walls so kids don't run headlong into cinder blocks. Two you need a place to store the matts until you actually need them and the walls are as good a place as any.",
"I am assuming to protect people from injury, while playing games such as basketball. ",
"Everything above, but I also imagine it helps reduce the echo and keeps the noise at a lower level. Like how the walls are bumpy and foamy in recording booths."
]
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6hjqqq | what is the difference between awd and fwd? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/6hjqqq/eli5_what_is_the_difference_between_awd_and_fwd/ | {
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"AWD is all wheel drive, the transmission drives all four wheels.\nFWD is front wheel drive, the transmission drives only the front wheels.",
"With AWD (All-Wheel-Drive), the transmission has the ability to spin some of any of your four tires.\n\nWith FWD (Front-Wheel-Drive), the transmission can only spin one or both of the front wheels.\n\nWith RWD (Rear-Wheel-Drive), the transmission can only spin one or both of the rear wheels.\n\nWith 4WD (Four-Wheel-Drive), the transmission will always spin all four wheels. (There are some caveats and expansions on this scenario, but this is my shot at an ELI5 of 4WD.)"
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5vh3w9 | why is it bad to get punched or hit in the temple? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5vh3w9/eli5_why_is_it_bad_to_get_punched_or_hit_in_the/ | {
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"The temple is were a major artery that delivers blood to the brain is exposed. If that artery is damaged and begins to bleed, you're depriving your brain of a lot of blood.",
"The temple is a weakspot in the skull due to the convergence of several different bones, and just inside of the skull, is the middle meningeal artery. So you have a double whammy of a weak spot with an artery right next to it. Any significant trauma, even blunt, to that spot risks rupturing that artery. A ruptured artery inside the skull is an extremely dangerous thing. It creates an ever growing blood clot called a hematoma, this grows and grows, creating pressure on the brain. The brain is a very delicate organ and when squeezed through certain points in the skull (called herniation) it causes severe damage to areas that function to continue life. If you don't get surgery within an hour you're probably dead, depending on the severity of the bleed."
]
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1z0h6u | why do some websites list an md5-hash alongside download files when a hacker could simply change this value too? | Surely if a hacker has the ability to hack into a website and upload a fake file for download by users, they are capable of computing the MD5 hash of their program and updating the website to list this instead of the original?
I cannot see how websites listing MD5 hashes makes the download any more trustworthy. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1z0h6u/eli5_why_do_some_websites_list_an_md5hash/ | {
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"cfpe1on"
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"text": [
"It's not just to protect against hackers. I once had a bit of a flakey internet connection and was trying to download a largish (@200MB, large for its time) file. Every time I downloaded it, it had a different md5sum, indicating the file was getting blorked during the download (or maybe my network card was just flakey, I dunno). Anyway, because the site posted the correct md5sum value on the download page, I was able to keep trying until the file actually came down correctly (took about eight tries).\n\nThe md5sum tells you that the entire file contents match what the server provided. Yeah, a really clever hacker could take over the website, inject malware into the download, and then post new md5sum values, but there isn't much you can do to guard against that kind of scenario."
]
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|
63xota | why are watch lights green? | I have yet to see a different color watch light. Is it just because green is the center of our visible spectrum or is there more reason? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/63xota/eli5_why_are_watch_lights_green/ | {
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"text": [
"The first watch lights were made with a Radium paint that glowed green and it stuck.\n\nUnrelated bonus: Licking watch paintbrushes gave watch painters radium poisoning: _URL_0_",
" > Is it just because green is the center of our visible spectrum\n\nPretty much, yeah. Green is easiest to process because it's in the middle. Same reason night-vision gear displays in green.",
"initially it was radium as people said. that glowed in only 1 color, and it was green.\n\nThey no longer use radium because it turns out it was pretty damn unhealthy.\n\nExpensive watches will use tritium, which is still radioactive, but far less so. Its uber expensive, but it glows under its own power, it will glow for 10-20 years and is independent of prior light exposure.\n\nmost watches use a simple photoluminescent chemical, cheap and non radioactive, but they can only glow after light exposure. no internal energy, so they will go dim after a few minutes of darkness.\n\neither of the above can be done in other colors and I suspect you could find such watches if you looked hard enough. but we expect green, you could argue that our eyes are sensitive to seeing green, so pick the color we can most easily observe.\n\nfor reference, picture of a watch that has an orange tritium indicator (also, tritium is a gas)\n\n_URL_0_"
]
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5t3p6a | why do we still require signatures when they can be easily forged? wouldn't fingerprints be a more foolproof way of limiting id theft? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5t3p6a/eli5_why_do_we_still_require_signatures_when_they/ | {
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"Mostly just because courts and others have long agreed that signatures are good enough, they for the most part haven't totally accepted other things for legal documents.\n\nAlso, from a legal perspective, the difficulty in recreating it isn't that much of an issue, it's the source that ultimately matters, not the correctness. So the perfect forgery is a forgery and not legally binding, proving that may be difficult though, an authentic signature is however legally binding for the most part, no matter how different it looks from their other signatures."
]
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||
2vm9qs | how do diet pills work? what are they made of? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2vm9qs/eli5_how_do_diet_pills_work_what_are_they_made_of/ | {
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"text": [
"Diet pills typically contain 2 types of ingredients: stimulants and appetite suppressants. Caffeine is the most common stimulant, although they may contain others. Basically, they force your body to use more energy - ie, to burn more calories. Appetite suppressants block your hunger signals, so you're less inclined to eat.\n\nOther miscellaneous ingredients may be in there which claim to enhance fat burning, but typically they're at best minimally effective. One popular one, raspberry ketones, for instance, has been touted as a miracle weight loss solution and included in a lot of supplements. In reality, it has only been proven effective in rats in extreme doses, and has been shown to be ineffective in humans in normal doses.",
"Most of them don't all of the ones that do work are banned for sale in the U.S. because they can kill you.\n\nEphedra and caffeine worked by suppressing your appetite since it is a mild stimulant. A bunch of people had heart attacks and it got banned.\n\nDNP inhibits ATP production on a cellular level causing the energy to be released as heat. It scales linearly meaning the more you take the hotter you get and the more fat you burn, it also accumulates in the blood stream and takes days to clear your system so overdosing is easy to do and is fatal unless you rush to the ER and stay in the hospital until your temp falls. It also can cause nerve damage, terrible cramps, and night sweats.\n\nRarely people use tape worm pills whch give you a tape worm. Very rarely."
]
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e6psut | why do music charts often go to #40? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/e6psut/eli5_why_do_music_charts_often_go_to_40/ | {
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"Published lists often are 50 or 100, such as the Billboard top 100, but the top 40 became popular on radio shows due to time constraints."
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37h9lt | if numbers are theoretically infinite, are fractions equally infinitie. basically if two points are 1 inch apart, do they break down into 1/2, 1/4, 1/8...into 1/infinity? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/37h9lt/eli5_if_numbers_are_theoretically_infinite_are/ | {
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"Yes, that is a way to look at it. But here's a fun fact: if you break it down to infinity, all those numbers added together equals exactly 1, in the same way that 0.9999... equals 1.",
"That's correct, and there's a famous group of paradoxes called [Zeno's paradoxes](_URL_0_) that are based on the infinite numbers of divisions between two points.\n\nThat's something that I've always thought was cool about infinity... there are an infinite number of values between 1 and 2, but not one of those infinite number is 3, 4, 100, or a billion.",
"So there are two types of infinity. There's a countable infinity and an uncountable infinity.\n\nA countable infinity is one where you can just start listing numbers in some definite order. Like listing the integers: 1,2,3,4,5,6, etc...\n\nWhereas an uncountable infinity, you can't even begin to list. Like all the numbers between 0 and 1. What's the first number you list after 0? 0.1? 0.01? 0.001? You can always pick a smaller number that you missed.",
"What you're asking about are the *rational* numbers between 0 and 1. Rational numbers are all the numbers you get by dividing two *natural* numbers, that is, regular counting numbers like 1, 2, 3, or 4. We also allow negatives in the rationals, but your question involves only positive rationals so we'll skip the question of negatives. Crucially, 0 is a rational number, and so are all the natural numbers (6 is rational because 6 = 6 / 1, for instance).\n\nThere *are* infinitely many rationals between 0 and 1 and your figuring was on point. 1/2, 1/4, 1/8, ... are all rational and between 0 and 1. But you had other choices. You could have instead listed 1/2, 2/3, 3/4, 4/5 ... . This time the rationals get bigger each time, but they still remain between 0 and 1.\n\nMany have wondered whether you can make one sensible list that captures all the rationals. While in the midst of completely revolutionizing mathematics, Georg Cantor provided one method which you can see [here](_URL_1_). If you follow the arrows and write down each fraction you come across that is in lowest terms (those in black) then you will eventually write any fraction and never rewrite it.\n\nYou could instead draw a massive Stern-Brocot tree like [this](_URL_0_). I hope you can see the pattern! Every rational between 0 and 1 will appear on that tree *eventually* and it won't ever crop up twice. Even better, only fractions in lowest terms appear.\n\nThese two *enumerations* demonstrate that there are infinitely many rationals between 0 and 1 but they also show that you can list them out no different than the natural numbers 1, 2, 3 etc. It takes a bit more work and it certainly isn't practical, but from a theoretical point of view it is so important that the rationals are called a *countable* infinity. You couldn't actually count them, but you could start and continue without ever wondering \"what's next?\"\n\nAs for 1/infinity, this is a mathematical faux pas. It doesn't really seem to mean anything in particular. It seems like it ought to be 0, but that's turns out to be a very troublesome assumptions. Sometimes mathematicians work in a way that gives specific meaning to 1/infinity, which is fascinating topic for \"Explain Like I'm In Graduate School For Math\", but for your purposes I wouldn't recommend writing it lest you get chewed out by a second year math student.",
"Some infinities are bigger than other infinities. (lol the fault in our stars.) They can break down.\n\nthere is infinite numbers between 1.324432324324 and 1.3244323243245. It keeps going down into smaller fractions. But between 1 and two, there is more infinite numbers because of more room between them"
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2ca55o | if we're replacing cells all the time, how do tatoos work? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2ca55o/eli5_if_were_replacing_cells_all_the_time_how_do/ | {
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"With tattoos, the ink is placed in the dermis layer of the skin. This layer doesn't get replaced as often as the outer epidermis, so the ink stays around.",
"Think of it like a house. The ink is like the furniture in the house. Over the years you might replace the roofing or the floors or the doors, and the furniture might get jostled around, but in general it will stay in the house.\n\nYour body does replace cells, but it replaces them around the ink. The ink gets moved, which is why tattoos blur over time. but it stays in the same general location.",
"This is a really cool video showing how tattoos work and stay on the skin: _URL_0_",
"the cells that eat tattoo ink get eaten by the new cells when they die, so the ink sticks around.",
"When ever we have foreign entities in the dermis, macrophages, cells part of the immune system, will \"eat\" up the foreign stuff. In this case, when the ink in injected into the dermis, the macrophages eat it up, and try to break it down. However this is not possible as we don't have a correct enzymes to do this, and hence the ink will remain in vesicles within the cell (macrophage). \nMacrophages don't divide into two, they come from specific hematopoetic (can't spell) stem cells. ",
"I didn't fully understand until I saw a picture of a tattoo under a microscope _URL_0_",
"The droplets of tattoo ink buried in the skin are permanent because they are too large for your immune system to breakdown and carry away.\n\nThat's why removal of tattoos uses a laser, it heats up the ink and breaks it down into smaller parts that your immune system can then start to work on.\n\nFurther reading: _URL_0_",
"There was an article that I saw this week that talked about how tattoos stuck, and it's for a different reason than we thought. The reason they stay is because a tattoo is a foreign body, and your immune system tries to attack it. The cells that try to break it down permanently attach themselves to the ink, so in essence, a tattoo is like an infection that your body will try to fight for the rest of your life.",
"The cells that eat the ink don't move, and eventually get eaten by other cells that don't move, and so on and so forth. ",
"You might be under the impression that we also get an entirely new body every 7 years because our cells are all replaced. This is completely false. Same deal with skin.",
"There is actually a great TED lesson video about this. I highly recommend watching it.\n\n[TED Video](_URL_0_)\n\nthe TL:DR of it is that the ink is embedded beneath the layer of skin that you shed and the immune system is in a constant war against your tattoo. ",
"Your skin has two layers, the epidermis (the outer most layer) and the dermis (the layer behind it). When the ink is in the dermis, the immune system sends cells called macrophages that eat the ink and carry it away, causing the tattoo to fade; however this is a very slow rate due to the tattoo being so large. The ink in the area is also eaten by fibroblasts (a dermal cell) and at stuck in place until the fibroblasts die. The dead fibroblasts are then either eaten by another fibroblast or a macrophage and are taken away.\n\nThere is a great Ted Ed video that talks about this, here is the [link](_URL_0_) ",
"There are two layers of skin (dermis and epidermis) that are broken up into 7 sub-layers, iirc. It's only the top most sub layer that sheds the cells, as you've described. Tattoos are placed in the dermis, where movement is minimal. It's this reason that ink spreads over time, and because you are looking *through* a layer of skin is the reason why lighter colors don't show up well on tan skin and also the reason why ashy skin makes a tattoo look faded until you put lotion on.\n\nSource: I'm a tattoo artist of 17 years.",
"I am at work, so i cannot access youtube from here. There is ann available video (from TED talks) that explains this in an awesome way. Basically, the cells we all shed are the top layer of our skin, but the colors from the tattoo are buried deeper. Our cells underneath actually eat the color but stay trapped in their location, they eventually get eaten by more cells defrending the body, but the new eating cell also absorbs the droplet of ink. At some times a couple of cells manage to leave the area and that is why tattoos, after several years, don't look as vivid as they do when they are a year old, or so. Still, please look for the video, it is great and much better than any ELI5.\n"
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3i6bjo | is there a practical reason why female athletes wear much shorter shorts than male athletes playing more or less the same sport? | It seems purely a matter of looking sexy. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3i6bjo/eli5_is_there_a_practical_reason_why_female/ | {
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"that is the exact reason. i think it was the london olympics, they said it was too cold for the women to wear bikinis for the volleyball games, now this may have been completely true, but the women were very unhappy about it",
"Looking sexy is something that gives people confidence- confidence is important in athletic competition and so it does have a practical purpose.",
"Maybe because they can get away with it? Maybe those short shorts are more comfortable, or perform better, or they just feel better in them. Men have a hard time getting away with anything that small for both physical reasons (have to put the twig and berries somewhere) and social reasons (men are shamed for wearing something too revealing). "
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5406r2 | what is municipal broadband and why is it so controversial? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5406r2/eli5_what_is_municipal_broadband_and_why_is_it_so/ | {
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"Municipal broadband is high-speed internet service funded and deployed by local communities or governments, designed to compete with the broadband services provided by major cable and telephone companies.\n\nConsumers are generally in favor of community broadband because it generally results in better internet service and lower prices.\n\nCable and telephone companies lobby against municipal broadband and try to make it illegal because it adds new competition to the market and hurts their bottom line.\n\nThe other argument is that it's an unfair advantage for governments to use taxpayer or municipal / community funds to build and deploy their own broadband network that competes with for-profit corporations.\n\nHowever, it is worth noting that all the major cable and telephone service providers, at least in the US, have received millions and in many cases billions of dollars worth of government funding to assist with the deployment of their networks.",
"Municipal broadband is community funded. Cable companies don't like the idea of not absolutely raping a community, and having nearly limitless piles of cash (from raping communities) they can make this 'controversial.' Hint: its not really controversial.",
"Picture this: someone is implementing a utility that they, themselves, have to use, and their entire community is going to judge them if it's shitty. Now imagine that bad public opinion could lose the motherfucker his *job*. That's municipal broadband. Treating the internet as something as basic and puerile as your town's water or electricity or trash pickup.\n\nCompare that to waiting on the phone for Comcast to start giving a shit. "
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cshkbn | when wi-fi says: "connected, no internet" what's actually happening? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/cshkbn/eli5_when_wifi_says_connected_no_internet_whats/ | {
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"Your wifi is really just a device that both has its own network and connects to a wider network(the internet) .\n\nIt's own network is called a Local Area Network(LAN) and the wider network is called a Wide Area Network(WAN).\n\nThe LAN is used to communicate with devices on the same wifi such as sending a document to your printer and only exists on your wifi, the LAN literally is your wifi. The WAN is the internet.\n\nSo when you get this message you are connected to the LAN and can print stuff but you are not connected to the WAN.",
"You are on the local wi-fi network, but that local wi-fi network does not have an internet connection.\n\nThink of wi-fi like a bus you can get on, and the internet is the highway. You can get on the bus just fine... but the on-ramp to the highway is closed, so the bus can't access it. You can still see the other passengers (computers) who are on the bus with you, and pass files back and forth or have a local game with them, but none of you can reach the internet.",
"* WiFi is a connection to your local network. \n* You local network can connect to a larger network, like the internet using something called a router.\n* For most home users, the WiFi device and the router are built into the same single device. \n* So when it says \"WiFi Connected, no internet\" that means you have a solid connection between your device and the router, but the router doesn't have a good connection out to the internet."
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6ihjrg | when there's a cluster of bug bites on my body, is that because that spot was especially tasty or the bug couldn't get a good tap? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/6ihjrg/eli5_when_theres_a_cluster_of_bug_bites_on_my/ | {
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"Most likely you brushed up against something with bugs on it and more than 1 jumped on you and bit you. I.E. if you step in an anthill you are going to get a cluster of bug bites on your foot because it came into contact and they can't jump far.\n\nIt could also be a 'bad tap' but bugs are pretty efficient at 'tapping' and I don't imagine it taking more than one or two tries.",
"I don't think it was tastier or due to the bug's aim. Same thing happened to me a week ago. It was likely because I lay on the grass on my side for 15 minutes. The next day, the leg which was in contact with the grass had 15 itchy bites. The other leg had none. "
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ajpokz | how do ac generators switch their voltage so quickly? | I apologize if "switch voltage isn't the correct term.
I mean when they switch their postive and negative terminals to reverse currents.
+ and -
Like do the electrons in the terminal super quickly go from one side to the other and back all the time? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/ajpokz/eli5how_do_ac_generators_switch_their_voltage_so/ | {
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"A generator spins a magnet past a coil of wire. For each full rotation the direction of the current will switch once. Depending on the standard the magnet will spin 50 or 60 times per second. So, the direction of the current changes 50 or 60 times per second.",
"An AC generator produces electricity from a rotating input. The speed of this input is what determines the frequency of the electricity. The generator is designed so that the current direction switches a number of times each time it spins around. As the axle rotates it rotates a magnet which will then change polarity as it turns which again changes the direction of the current. The electrons do not really move that much if at all. It is just that the spinning magnet will pull and push on the electrons. This force on the electrons goes through the wires all the way to the load where the force can be used.",
"Well, imagine a tube filled with marbles representing a wire filled with electrons. Now think of a magnet as something that has two differently behaving sides. One that pulls marbles towards it and one that pushes them away.\n\nA generator is powered by an outside force, for example water falling downhill, resulting in the magnet spinning. The thing is, wires surround the magnet in such a way, that at first marbles are pushed in one direction, but with the second half of rotation, they're pulled back, resulting in 'flow' in both directions. The faster it spins, the faster it switches between positive and negative and positive and negative and.. you get the idea."
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20zgiq | why is it that when gm knowingly fails to recall vehicles, resulting in the death of thousands they get a slap on the wrist but if i put someone into a dangerous situation and they die it's negligent homicide? | Seems like they should really get a bigger punishment, right?
Edit: What punishment do they get? A financial slap on the wrist?
Edit 2: Here's a link to an article with a small summary: _URL_0_
Edit 3: Everyone is saying money. I mean legally, how do they get off? Looking for a legitimate answer here.
Edit 4: For reference - the article linked has death counts in the tens. I've seen estimates in the hundreds as well. Local news, being sensational, estimates in the thousands. That being said, I'm not talking specifically about this case, but more as a mass-scale theoretical question. Thank you for the responses!
| explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/20zgiq/eli5_why_is_it_that_when_gm_knowingly_fails_to/ | {
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"Because corporations are only people when it comes to tax breaks, not criminal punishment. ",
"Because in America, corporations aren't just treated as people, they are treated BETTER than people.",
"Few things that I wanted to correct from what I've seen so far:\n\n1) It wasn't faulty airbags, if you're referring to the latest big deal, it was a shorter spring in the ignition switch. This caused heavy key chains, or jolts during an accident, to turn the airbags off and since the ignition controls a lot of the function on the car this in turn, turned the airbags off.\n\n2) What I can gleen from what you want is that you want one person/group of individuals to take criminal/civil responsibility for this? And that's, kinda, exactly what the government is doing with holding hearings; very similar to Toyota. \n\nIANAL, but to prove criminal liability to a corporation, they would have to have some pretty poignant evident that shows individuals knowingly silenced the findings. And while heads of the corporation could definitely go to jail if they were found criminally negligent (they did that), which resulted in the deaths of people; most likely it wont be like that and they'll take a fine and the negative public judgement.\n\nIt's much easier to show a person is criminally negligent when you're accused of some sort of murder, when taking into account the level of complexity of an automotive system and lawyers. It happens though, but that's what the congressional hearings will decide. ",
"Take the number of vehicles in the field, A, multiply by the probable rate of failure, B, multiply by the average out-of-court settlement, C.\n\nA times B times C equals X. If X is less than the cost of a recall, we don't do one.",
"It's because your actions can be tied back to you personally. If you kill someone you go to jail. If GM kills someone who goes to jail anyone who worked on the vehicle? Any managers? Where do you draw the line? Also, since we live in America money can get you out of anything. Toyota had a $1.2bn settlement a couple years ago for a problem they had with recalls on their accelerators...If you pay that much I'm sure your charges will go away too",
"It's kind of messed up. One of my calculus professors was telling us a story about an engineer he had worked with was in prison for like ten years because the water heating system he designed in a New York apartment building blew up and killed several people. When something like that happens, they go over the plans of the design step by step to find out who exactly did what, and who messed up, and that person gets nailed in the ass. In this case, it was an accident, maybe a few incorrect calculations. But when a supervisor like in the GM example you gave KNOWINGLY dismisses it to save the company money, likely no one goes to prison. ",
"Because you don't have lobbyists. ",
"It isn't a slap on the wrist. \nFor 1, GM isn't a person. It's a independent entity where the Board of directors, investors and everyone involved are not entirely accountable.\n\nWhen the news of failed recalls came out, the new CEO of GM issued a statement saying how she was not aware of said problem. She will \"look into it\". A basic company way of denying knowledge and therefore it's not negligence. \n\nIf a person drinks and drives, he is the only person responsible. Whereas GM is composed of the overall collection of many smaller departments. Each department will claim that they fulfilled their part and at the end, it's going to go along the lines of \"miscommunication within the company\". The president will issue a statement addressing how GM will patch this issue. \n\nIf the situation gets worse in terms of media spotlight, GM might target a specific department and get rid of X individual.\n\nRecalls are bad enough for GM. I don't think it would be the government's best interest to sue a currently fragile company. This issue will get slipped under the radar. ",
"They own too many congressmen."
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15c0ku | why the smaller an animal is, the stronger they are for their size, and more able to survive a fall. | This is particularly true with bugs, but even small non-bug animals (ie regular deer can jump 6-7 feet, klipspringers can jump a house.) | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/15c0ku/eli5_why_the_smaller_an_animal_is_the_stronger/ | {
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"This has to do with the strength of the materials from which creatures are made. And there are several possible reasons for it.\n\nThe most important reason is the area of a slice taken from whatever limb does the supporting, like a slice of banana or bologna. The amount of weight an object can hold is related to how big that area is. The bigger the area, the more it can hold. (Equation for not five: S = N*A where S is how much it can hold, N is the strength of the material (bone or whatever) and A is the area of the slice)\n\nBut now we run into a problem. Each time you make the area bigger, you have to add **even** more material and more weight than you did the last time you made the slice bigger. (Area is proportional to radius squared). As such, there is a limit to how big any one piece of material can be before it cannot even hold itself, it will end up flattening out like elmers glue does on paper. Another example is, if you had a ten thousand ton steel ball sitting on the ground, the sheer weight of all the steel above would cause the ball to sag and it would be flat on the bottom. But a small one pound steel ball doesn't have enough weight to bend the steel.\n\nLuckily for us, most structural materials, like steel or concrete and rocks, have a very high limit to this flattening thing, so we can make big things. Things like bones and stuff are really strong for how much they weigh, but falling adds a lot of extra weight the moment you stop falling.\n\n**Edit:** TL;DR: It's all about the amount of area taking the weight. More area can take more weight, but more area also weighs more itself and so it can't fall quite as far before the force of the fall combined with it's own weight exceed the amount it can take.",
"Smaller animals are made up of cells, and those cells are the same size as of bigger animals; samller animals just have less of them. It's like if you drop a small cube made of four lego pieces, which will have a smaller chance of breaking than an enormous 1000-piece cube made of the same lego pieces. Just like the smaller cube, a small rat will have a higher chance of survival when falling off a roof than a bigger animal like an elephant. ",
"\"When an object undergoes a proportional increase in size, its new volume is proportional to the cube of the multiplier and its new surface area is proportional to the square of the multiplier.\n\nFor example, if you double the size (measured by edge length) of a cube, its surface area is quadrupled, and its volume is increased by eight times. \"\n\n\"The Square-Cube Law applies to the bone supporting frame of vertebrates in the same way that it applies to non-living objects. If an individual is twice as tall as similar animals its cross sectional areas of its leg bones are four times greater while its weight is eight times greater. This means that the stress on its bones is twice as much and so the larger animal is much more likely of breaking its bones. Because of scaling properties, the larger terrestrial vertebrates are at a much higher risk of breaking their bones than the smaller vertebrates. \"\n\n\n**TL;DR: Basically, a giant twice as big as a human will be eight times heavier, and bones and muscles don't get proportionally stronger. It works in reverse, in that small creatures need less muscle for more strength.**"
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anfm9u | if we increased the temperature of water every time our body got used to it, how high could it go? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/anfm9u/eli5_if_we_increased_the_temperature_of_water/ | {
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"Just because the body gets used to it, doesnt mean its good for you. If you are in hot water too long, even if it feels fine, it can damage you. So you can put it as high as you will get before your body shuts down. \n\nBesides, eventually you will reach a temperature that you just wont get used to. ",
"ELI5 is not for hypotheticals. Questions like this are better in r/askscience."
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8d771e | why are teachers not reimbursed when they purchase school supplies? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/8d771e/eli5_why_are_teachers_not_reimbursed_when_they/ | {
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"It would cost money to reimburse the teacher. The teacher is usually purchasing the supplies because the school hasn't budgeted for providing those supplies, so obviously it won't be budgeting for reimbursement either. At schools with more funding, the school could simply purchase directly what teachers request.\n\nEdit: if you work in the private sector, your employer assumes that you need your supplies to make more money for the business. It will be happy to reimburse you so long as your spending isn't wasteful. This logic doesn't apply in government or the nonprofit sector, because spending usually doesn't pay for itself, even if it accomplishes something useful or important.",
"The schools don't have the funding to do it, or they would get the supplies themselves. Teachers can either spend their own money to get them, or teach without.",
"This is really district specific. I've worked in districts where we were reimbursed for everything, in districts where we were given a budget of XX amount for which we could be reimbursed, and in districts where we got reimbursed for nothing.\n\nA lot of it comes down to how much money the district has. Some are quite rich, some are critically poor.",
"The schools do not have the funding to do this. If they did the teachers would not be needing to buy supplies in the first place. ",
"Anything I need within reason. I can get if I request it in advance (and it isn’t ridiculous). I am very lucky to be in a wealthy suburban district in a state that supports education. If I were in Oklahoma this would not be the case. \n\nEven that being said, I Coach and am required to have my cell phone on me to contact trainers etc. I get zero money towards my cell phone. If I travel to a conference or to scout a football game, I do not get reimbursed for gas or food. Our union with our Union dues pay for our Christmas party. The district can not. \n\nSo even in wealthy districts there are great differences from the business world. Every job has its perks, unfortunately in some states there are very few perks to teaching. ",
"Sometimes they are. There could be a variety of ways this could happen: \n\n* 'class fund' from the PTA/school/other concerned party \n* the school/district itself could reimburse\n* and of course there was the mighty $250 front page 1040 deduction for education related expenses, but I believe that was nixed in the latest tax bill",
"In many states, out of pocket teaching expenses that are not reimbursed are tax write-offs, so a teacher can expect to get some more money back in their refund.",
"In France, school teachers got a budget (depending on the number of pupils) in order to buy school supplies. This money is given by the city. \n\nIf teachers need more supplies they can buy it and get reimbursed by the school (not the city). It is only possible because schools got a budget «on their own». They either earn money by selling things (cakes, pupils' productions, etc.) or by asking a participation to parents. ",
"Governments are threatened by educated citizens, so they give as little to education as possible, thus it becomes too expensive to reimburse teachers for supplies.",
"Short version, schools don't make money. \n\nWhen you work for a company, you're selling a product. Maybe its consulting, or IT support, or something in aerospace... whatever it is, you've got a product, and selling that product earns money for your company. If you kept showing up to client meetings and had to ask to borrow a pen, that wouldn't really look good, and might result in less product sold. Likewise, if you have to spend an hour every day scrounging up printer paper, that's an hour wasted that could have been spent earning profits. Standard office supplies help to sell the product, so they are payed for by the company. \n\nSchools don't have a product to sell. They subsist mostly on tax money, donations and bake sales. If those sources of income can't supply enough pencils for everyone... well... \n\nAnd if a teacher covers those expenses out of pocket, they do so knowing that the school couldn't afford the items in the first place, so the school obviously can't afford to reimburse.",
"We used to get a $250 tax credit for that very reason. The new GOP tax plan got rid of that. *But* they created a tax rebate if you own your own airplane. So we got that going for us. Which is nice. \nEDIT: apparently the news coverage I had heard was wrong, that deduction was salvaged and is still in use. ",
"They don't have the money to pay for them in the first place so why would they have money to reimburse the teachers?",
"Another better question if said teacher wanted to could they write them off as work place taxes ? And get reimbursed at least a little bit when they do their taxes .",
"There is no need for the teacher to purchase things for the classroom. Their budget is more than plenty to teach and make an impact on our youth. Just ask the politicians!",
"Many times they are. Wife is the PTC treasurer and is always cutting reimbursement checks.",
"I think it depends on the district and their policies. From what I know there are some who will refund teachers if they spend within a specific range",
"It depends what you want to optimize for. If you want to keep costs under control, then teachers expensing retail purchases probably isn’t a very efficient nor accountable way to get supplies to students. They should instead be bought in bulk from wholesalers with vigorous price negotiation applied.\n\nHowever that would lead to some situations where the right supplies weren’t there when needed. For example if a science teacher wants to do a segment on igniting phosphorous, then that chemical needs to be in the locker. If it isn’t, he should be able to buy it, just in the amount needed, so he can teach the course he has planned. THAT would be optimizing for students getting the supplies they need, regardless if it’s moderately more expensive.\n\nELI5: our system is set up to save money, not get the right supplies when needed.",
"Schools, for the most part, do not make a profit. Their funding only covers what if can. So when they buy their own stuff, they do so as a supplement of the funds from taxes. They don't get reimbursed because there is nothing to give them. ",
"Public schools are intentionally under funded in order to make them look bad. Then justifying private schools are a lot easier. ",
"Many schools do not get enough money to pay for supplies, so it happens that teachers often pay for supplies.\n\nIn the United States, [a teacher can deduct up to $250 of school supplies (and related) purchases from their federal taxes](_URL_0_).",
"We are reimburses up to 200$ for the school year in my district, it depends on what the PTO has available. Iama inner-city special education teacher",
"Well, that depends on where you go. In the UK and I know in some US districts and most other Western countries, the school does pay for them.",
"Some are and some aren’t. My mom has worked for private and public’s schools for nearly two decades. As of now she is given a district card that has no state tax when used. This is in Colorado. When she taught in Texas she was forced to pay out of pocket. Both were public. ",
"Wait they aren't?\n\nNow I feel bad for stealing all their pens.",
"It’s expensive for schools to do - and it would encourage teachers to overspend on things they know they don’t need but want in their classroom. \n\nMy fiancé is a teacher and pays for a lot of supplies and claims it as a business/work expense on her taxes to get some reimbursement. \n\nUltimately it makes her very picky on what she wants to purchase to invest on her classroom but not terribly picky knowing so of it will be returned. But I’m not sure how that will change with next year’s tax restructuring ",
"Because it is technically optional. In theory, teachers get all the supplies they need from the school. In practice, it is easier for them to fork out their own money than it is to fight with the school or make their jobs even harder by trying to teach with insufficient supplies.\n\nThis might sound terrible, and it definitely is. But it is important to remember that when teachers and their unions negotiate their contracts, they aren't fighting for school supplies, they are fighting for salary and benefits. The state has limited resources, and teachers are definitely choosing one over the other.\n\nAlso, the school supplies they purchase are tax deductible. ",
"My wife is a teacher and is reimbursed like $200/yr or so but we put in about $500-600 due to lack of supplies",
"My wife gets to claim $250 max per year on our taxes. She easily surpasses this every year. It is sad how some parents dont provide the basic needs their kids need to go to school.",
"My wife went back to teaching high school this year and we easily spent $1,200 on stuff used in the classroom before she received her first paycheck. That includes a $600 computer that will run modern technology instead of that dinosaur they had in the classroom. \n\nThe first year she taught the school gave her a $200 gift card to get supplies at Walmart but nothing at all this year. ",
"My wife is a public school teacher. She is reimbursed for supplies in addition to having a budget each year to order against with her team. ",
"In IL a teacher can still get an adjustment on the schedule M for up to 250 dollars for unreimbursed expenses. IL hasn’t decided how their tax code will change to match the federal but this hasn’t been eliminated yet.",
"I work for a school in rural Illinois and I can tell you funding is a joke. I go to conferences and see what Wisconsin has and the funding they get and it pisses me off. Our school system is so incredibly out of whack. It basically perpetuates the rich and poor classes. Poor areas get shit funding so they get shit opportunities wealthy areas get tons of funding and shit like robotics and coding classes. It's infuriating.",
"In my district you can only be reimbursed for purchasing an item that is not in the district warehouse. To place and recieve an order takes at least 4-6 weeks. Therefore even though I could go end purchase pencils or paper from Walmart, because the district has that in the warehouse I cannot be reimbursed for it. \n\nAnother piece is that teachers are given a ridiculously low budget for supplies every year. I have a budget of $200 for supplies for the year. I have 180 students. This means that on a per student level I have $1.11 to spend. If I want anything nice, it has to either wreck my budget for the year, or I have to pay for it.",
"I spent about 20% of my pay on supplies (RC cars , rockets, magnets, wire, LEDs, arduinos, lego robotics) to make classroom management bearable.. didn’t work :/",
"At my high school teachers were given a budget for school supplies each year of like $50-$100. They would always complain that it wasn’t enough (which it probably wasn’t).",
"Because we do it, and do it, and do it again. And then it just becomes an expectation of the job. Teachers are victims of overdoing it all the time. ",
"Because reimbursing teachers would return the money to their pockets, providing them with more means to donate to politicians who would then actively seek to ensure we have good public education.",
"I'm a teacher and I have never paid for school supplies in my life. If you want your question to be valid, you should ask: \"Why are **American** teachers not reimbursed when they purchase school supplies?\"",
"The school systems (at least where I live) have become very frugal, to the point that they are closing school as much as possible just to keep costs down. Columbus Day, President's Day, MLK Day and other days which I never had off as a kid are now school closures. Kinda sad.",
"Why can't they claim it all on taxes?",
"There isn't any money for reimbursements, because the priorities in American education are all screwed up.\n\n > in many schools, sports are so entrenched that no one—not even the people in charge—realizes their actual cost. When Marguerite Roza, the author of Educational Economics, analyzed the finances of one public high school in the Pacific Northwest, she and her colleagues found that the school was spending $328 a student for math instruction and more than four times that much for cheerleading—$1,348 a cheerleader. “And it is not even a school in a district that prioritizes cheerleading,” Roza wrote. “In fact, this district’s ‘strategic plan’ has for the past three years claimed that math was the primary focus.” [Source](_URL_0_)",
"Public schools aren't fortune 500 companies, they simply don't have the money or \"petty cash\" on hand to do these kinds of things",
"Because the school or county would be paying them back, and the teacher is buying the supplies because the school or county has no money. ",
"Schools use a lot of circular reasoning. \"we need to spend money on our sports stuff like jerseys and guest coaches, because if we do well and win trophies, we will gain more grants from the state, gaining more money!\" Then when they win and get those grants, instead of spreading the wealth, they be like \"well the sports programs won the money, so MORE SPORTS STUFF!\". Its pretty fucked when schools can afford 120 dollar jerseys, but not text books."
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||
ofp63 | what is a companion cube? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/ofp63/eli5_what_is_a_companion_cube/ | {
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"It's from the video game Portal. The cube is an inanimate object about as big as a CRT monitor, which you have to tote from level to level. It helps you solve puzzles sometimes, because its weight can be used to activate switches, and its metal frame can be used to deflect lasers. However, the cube is completely inanimate.",
"From the video game Portal, it's a large, cube-shaped puzzle piece, about one meter per side, with a red or pink heart painted on it. It's utterly inanimate, but there's a running joke in the game that test subjects have in the past become incredibly fond of their companion cube (the implication being that the test subjects have been trapped in the maze so long that they've started to go mad).\n\n[Here's a picture of one](_URL_0_)",
"It is a special \"Aperture Science Weighted Storage Cube\" - cubes that help you solve puzzles, usually via placement on a button that the cube can depress. Instead of the Aperture Science logo, it has hearts drawn on its surface. Other than that, it has no special features, and its presence in the game is entirely as a plot device.\n\nThe developers included it as a way to antagonize GLaDOS, the AI entity that is making you do all these puzzles. While prior to encountering the Weighted Companion Cube, GLaDOS is only seen as the (mostly) emotionless experimenter with a humorous lack of concern for the safety of subjects (the player). By presenting the Weighted Companion Cube (and telling you it's special, so you should treat it with care), and forcing the player to incinerate it later on, it sets up the player to view GLaDOS as the antagonist of the game, and giving them a reason to defeat her."
]
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2fhs5k | eil5 how businesses are aloud to not pay their interns? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2fhs5k/eli5_eil5_how_businesses_are_aloud_to_not_pay/ | {
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"the usual idea is that you're getting job experience and/or college credit.",
"There are rules about what interns can & can't do. An intern should be a short term job that is primarily about gaining experience and exposure to a business. They're not supposed to independently perform \"real work\" for the company.\n\nIn many cases, however, the laws are largely ignored. Nobody fights it because interns generally come from fairly privileged backgrounds and are on their way to getting good jobs.",
"Most internships at for profit businesses are paid. For it to be legal to not pay an intern, then the company must not be deriving any immediate gain from the work being done. For example, it's legal to have an internship where the main goal is for the intern to gain experience, and they work being done is example work, and not work for some actual product/service.",
"Internships are often done in conjunction with a trade school or university whereas the intern will receive credits towards their degree for completing the internship. \nAn internship looks great on a resume because it shows that you have some level of actual experience in the field when applying for jobs after graduation.",
"Imagine that you own your own company. You create widgets. What's a widget? Doesn't matter. It's just a product that you make and sell in order to make a living. \n\nOne day, a friend of yours (Bob) asks if they can come over and watch you make widgets. They want to learn the trade/skills required to make your widgets and want first hand experience in how you run and operate your business. Most of the time, Bob just sits back and watches you work (\"shadows\" you). Sometimes, you allow Bob to help you with some of the things you were going to do yourself but, because those things are **non-essential** to your business activities (filing things, moving stuff around, lending a hand from time to time), and because those things are done for the benefit of Bob at the expense of your time and efficiency, there is no need for you to pay Bob. Bob is an **unpaid intern**.\n\nLet's say that orders for your widgets start to pick up. Suddenly, Bob is not simply learning by shadowing you... he is actively participating in the creation of widgets. In many ways, Bob is allowing you to create more widgets than you could have without him. He is **directly contributing to your business** just as an employee would. At this point, you likely have an obligation to pay Bob for the work he is doing even though he is still learning.\n\n**tl;dr:** An unpaid intern is a burden on a company, but exists to help the community/ecosystem of tradespeople as they grow and gain more experience that may one day lead to an actual, productive job. Because of this burden of resources/efficiency/time, it would be unfair to require the intern to be paid as well. However, a paid intern is still a burden, but provides enough of a service/utility that they are compensated at some sort of rate to make it fair and just.\n\n"
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