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c4sbc5 | what is the difference between program and a script? | I told one of my programmer friends that I made a program on Excel VBA, and he looked dumbfounded and told me it wasn't a program.
& #x200B;
I feel like I offended him by comparing his profession, a 4 year study, to what I created after 2 months of learning VBA. At what point of complexity would a script be a program? Is a program a lump of scripts that are dynamically called? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/c4sbc5/eli5_what_is_the_difference_between_program_and_a/ | {
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"In practicality nobody really cares too much about the semantics of program vs script. Sounds like your friend might have a bit of an ego problem. Devaluing someone else's enjoyment of CS is not a cool move on his part.\n\nBasically, a script is something written to control a piece of software. It's read by a command interpreter built in to the software. VBA, Python, and PHP are all examples of scripting languages. The lines get very blurry in the case of Python and PHP especially.\n\nA program is something that gets compiled to machine code and run that way - it doesn't give instructions to a software interpreter, it gives instructions to the hardware.\n\nOnce again in reality nobody really cares and whether or not someone calls it a program or a script is often based on the application, control flow, and usage of whatever has been written.\n\nFor example if I'm gonna write a utility to do one small, linear thing, like moving some folders around in Windows with C#, I might call it a script. If I'm building a whole video game in Python I'm not gonna call it a script. Don't get caught up in the semantics too much!",
"Really there's not a big difference technically. However, they're different tools in the sense of a hammer vs a screwdriver. Technically you can use both of them for the same thing (hammer in a screw or use a screwdriver to hammer in a nail). But they were meant (for the most part) to do different things.\n\nScripts - meant for quick and dirty things or to get a program to do a sequence of tasks. These tasks are usually existing tasks or can be assembled from a collection of other tasks.\n\nPrograms - meant to be more complex and lets you do a lot more stuff in a computer. It lets you create new tasks from the ground up.\n\nThis isn't a strict definition as you can definitely use a \"program\" for stuff a \"script\" can do and a \"script\" for stuff a \"program\" can do. For example, maybe you need to do something more complex. If you use a script you might be able to write it quickly, but it'll be a pain in the ass for another programmer to look at it and understand what it does/fix problems with it. If you write a program to do something simple that can be easily scripted, it might be really complex for the problem it solves and just be a pain in the ass to work with.\n\nAs far as the 4 year vs 2 year learning to do programming vs scripting, it's bs. It doesn't take a 2 year degree to learn to write a program or a script. It takes 2 years to learn to do it ok, but 4 years to learn to do it well. It doesn't matter if its scripting or programming since there's not a huge difference between them. A 4 year degree that just teaches you to program is an utter waste of time. You do the 4 year degree to learn how computers fundamentally work and the mathematics behind it, and how that is used to solve real world problems. Your course load in a good 4 year program is learning algorithms or systems. If your course requirements include a \"course\" specifically on learning C++, Java, or any programming language, it's an utter waste of time. You can easily learn that with online resources, you don't need to pay a college to do that for you.",
"Scripts always remain in plain text, and is interpreted as it's ran. This means if you give someone a script, you're pretty much giving them the source code.\n\nPrograms are compiled when you are finished writing them, and are ran as bytecode. If you give someone a compiled program, it cannot easily be turned back into source code as it's all binary data.\n\n & #x200B;\n\nAside from that, the only big difference is that scripts are usually less complex.",
"If someone gives you crap for writing a script instead of writing a program then they are simply being elitist.\n\n & #x200B;\n\nAll code is written as Source < Human readable instructions > \n\n < Edit.... ok, sometimes people Will skip to writing ASM directly... but everyone thinks they are kinda weird and technically even ASM needs to be compiled to byte code... so they'd have to be writing it in actual byte code which would be real tough but not impossible. > \n\nA script is interpreted... this means the script is providing instructions to a program. The script is never translated to machine language.\n\nA program is compiled... the source file is converted to a binary file of machine language before it's executed.\n\n & #x200B;\n\nThe difference between Script and Program got especially blurry with the inventions of JIT compilers and Virtual machines.\n\nMost people would agree that source that has been compiled into Virtual Machine code is similiar enough to compiling to native machine code that they are still considered executables rather then scripts.",
"I think the tipping point is writing something that does one or twelve things, and then writing something that's understandable, reusable, extendable, maintainable, flexible, x- able, etc, etc. \n\nI work with a lot of people who have done a lot of Excel/VBA programming and they think they are the tits. In those cases, a lot of the Excel functions are hundreds of characters long (mostly embedded IF() ad nauseum) or \"Record Macro\" outputs, so either basically \"write-only\" or simple stuff that's auto-generated and copy/pasted around. That kind of stuff is not exactly what a seasoned programmer would produce. \n\nIt's possible to write some \"real programs\" in VBA (you can access the Windows API so basically anything is possible), and you may have done just that and maybe your friend is just a jerk. \n\nYou like programming ? Great! Keep at it, and ignore what other people think."
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1sn68h | how does a tow plow move sideways? | This may be a stupid question, but a few days ago I saw a picture on here of several large plow trucks on the highway. The front one had a trailer that appeared to be moving sideways as a secondary plow. I have since learned that those are called "Tow Plows". but I cant find any pictures of one moving sideways. So how does this work? Can the tires pivot? Is it slaved somehow to the front wheels of the truck or is it completely separate?
Thanks! | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1sn68h/eli5_how_does_a_tow_plow_move_sideways/ | {
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"If you look closely at the left corner wheel of the plow on [this](_URL_0_) wikipedia tow plow image you'll see that the tire is indeed pivoted.",
"The wheels on the tow plow can pivot up to 30 degrees using a hydraulic system, this steers the plow sideways. You can see the tow plow deploying in this video _URL_1_. This infographic explains in a little more detail _URL_0_",
"Anyone know the advantages to this compared to the side plows mounted right to the truck?"
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5nwdqc | why are car manufacturers doing away with traditional gear shifts? | I hope this isn't a case of "they're not... what cars are you looking at?"
Anyway, I've noticed that some car manufacturers are getting rid of the traditional automatic gear shift and replacing it with either a very small Prius-style shifter or a knob similar to an air conditioning control? What's the deal? Is this really a design that consumers desire?
For examples of this, see the Chrysler 200 and Ford Fusion 2017 models. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5nwdqc/eli5_why_are_car_manufacturers_doing_away_with/ | {
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"That's very much an American thing. \n\nWant to see Americans freak out? Go to a European vehicle rental counter.",
"The shifter on my 2015 Grand Cherokee, \"looks\" normal, but is really just a huge toggle switch, when you \"flip it\", the PRNDL indicator on the dash moves in the selected direction. There's a slight delay and I hate it because if I'm not paying attention, it doesn't always move to the desired position fast enough. It's the same shifter that killed Anton Yelchin when he got out of his jeep and it rolled and crushed him.",
"Im pretty sure you arent talking about it moving away from a manual transmissions which is what most people are assuming from what ive read, the answer is aesthetics. Also they are moving away from manual gearboxes. You'll notice that cars that offer manual gear boxes have more traditional shift nobs. This is because they have to have that to accommodate manuals, which again are being phased out in many markets. If a car doesnt have a manual option then they can do what ever they want with the shift \"nob\" because they have far more freedom because it doesnt have to be mechanically linked.",
"Manual transmissions are being phased out with the advent of 9, 11 and 13 geared automatic transmissions that are more efficient and are more fuel efficient as car manufacturers are pressured to increase fuel efficiency. I own two manual transmission cars and one automatic. Daily driver is auto due to my commute but my fun cars are manual.",
"The ones you are referring to like an air conditioning knob are electric shift instead of a mechanical linkage connecting the shifter to the transmission. They are still automatic and still function like a normal automatic. I am not familiar to the Prius style shifter and cannot answer that one.",
"Before they were computer-controlled, automatics needed a mechanical link between the the shifter and the parts of the transmission that determined whether it was in park, reverse, neutral, drive or one of the lower gears. That meant you either had a lever that was part of the transmission as it is with a manual or cables that pulled on tabs sticking out of the transmission. After computer control, none of that was necessary. The console- or column-mounted shifters became electrical and sent signals down a wire to tell the transmission how to behave. That leaves room for other designs.\n\nGetting rid of the traditional shifters has a few advantages:\n\n * Less weight. A knob or a panel with pushbuttons on it doesn't have to be as big or as rugged as a lever shifter. This may add a small fraction of a mile per gallon to the fuel economy of one car, but it makes a difference in countries like the U.S. that have corporate average fuel economy standards.\n * Better reliability. Contacts or optical rotary encoders don't need the mechanical complexity of a lever shifter with mechanical interlocks, gates or anything else like that.\n * Less real estate. The gearshift no longer has to occupy space on the center console, leaving room for other things or even nothing, which un-blocks the lower part of the center stack. It's also a good way to get the bigger cup holders that everyone seems to want.\n\nThe downside is that it's a big change to a well-understood interface. This has been tried a couple of times in the past, such as with the pushbutton shifters of the 1950s and 1960s. We're at the beginning of a period where the industry is feeling its way around a bunch of different options, but it's quite possible they'll settle on a layout and start putting it in roughly the same location like pushbutton starters."
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akun1j | why do big interviews have to have 50 microphones from each media outlet listening as opposed to just one microphone that everyone there can receive an audio file from? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/akun1j/eli5_why_do_big_interviews_have_to_have_50/ | {
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"Both techniques are used. Highly professional venues have the technicians and equipment needed to set up a shared mic system. Other venues don't have that.",
"Imagine you are Fox News. Are you going to give your audio or video to your competitors CNN or MSNBC? News organizations are companies. Like any other for-profit organization, you would not share equipment or media with your competitors. Further, not every organization uses the same audio encoding or transmission protocols. They use their own satellites and distribution facilities. They aren’t in the business of making your view a little less cluttered with microphones. They are there to bring you the “news”. It’s the same reason why there are 50 reporters there instead of just one that everyone shares. It’s business. ",
"There is something similar to a pool camera or an official photographer. \n\nBut in America all these media outlets are not supposed to work together. That would be collusion.",
"I work A/V for athletics at my college - whenever we have a press conference we set up two mics for redundancy both ran to a press box (basically a splitter that all the news outlets can get a feed from). 90% they still want to put their mic at the podium and the camera op always says their boss requires them to get their mic flag in the shot (the flag is the box around the microphone that has station logos).\n\nI'm sure for most other cases/events it is so that they have full control over their feed when a professional audio company isn't involved to reliably split the feed. i.e. you never see multiple mics at the presidential inauguration because there is a pro company there that splits the feed from several strategically placed podium microphones to about 50+ news outlet destinations.",
"They don't always. Sometimes there is a press box setup where the camera crews remove the radio transmitter from their microphone and insert it into a jack, and get a common feed. This would be pretty typical of any large scale type press conference, and works out well since people can come and go when they want without going up to the podium. If there's not a formal setup with something like that, then there's really not much of a choice but shoving a whole bunch of wireless mics up on the podium. ",
"If a venue’s audio tech lead knows that it will be heavily attended by media, it is in their best interest to provide a audio pool feed so that the sound system that is integrated to the venue is well received by the media. This is called a pressbox and most venues that do this often have one of their own. However, the house will generally rent larger ones depending on the estimated size of the attending media outlets. Most press boxes have the ability to switch between mic level and line level. Some press boxes even have the ability to provide a isolated transformer feed for each one of the outputs. Meaning, one person’s crappy equipment won’t ruin everybody else’s. This is the professional way to go.\n\nIf set media outlets are smart, they keep one of their channels available for ambient sound just in case the house mixer misses something and to get a sense of audience response (something that the house mixer is not concerned with because his main responsibility is a good sound for the live audience).",
"Each mic provides a chance for a media outlet to advertise their logo on camera and show everyone on their broadcast and the broadcast of their competitors, that they covered the event. \n\n(in addition to the many technical points covered by other posters)",
"Aside from events that are transmitted live, I wouldn't trust any recording I didn't record myself. They can be edited before they send it to you. \n\n & #x200B;\n\nAnd I wouldn't trust my competitors to send it to me in a timely fashion. ",
"it's an independence thing too. the only way to make sure you're getting an exact record of what happened is if you record it yourself. if you trust the person holding the presser to send an audio file...well, it leaves a lot of room for \"mistakes,\" right? ",
"Not every venue/location has the equipment to share a microphone signal.\n\nSource: I develop such systems.",
"Everyone asked themselves that\n\nIt's quite simple. Look for the governement theres official microphone and all the media have the record (in live or not) (maybe multicasting ?)\n\nBut for street people you have to take your mic. and everybody want the news, they won't share at with others, not for free\n\nAnd sometimes they use shitty recorder, so you have to get a better one yourself",
"Advertisement and original, trustworthy material might be two important factors. \n\nCopyright is an important factor too though. Or is that just me being European? \n\nIn Europe, the author / originator / creator has different rights on the material. Even if it were distributed under Creative commons (CC0). It’s about “creatorship” that can never be changed (for obvious reasons) even if it’s public domain or the ownership is sold to a client. \n\nEdit: clarification. ",
"In addition to all the other reasons mentioned, some celebrities like to look like they are the hot news at the moment, and photage of them with a forest of mics in the face helps to convey that image.",
"It depends how much planning is there, all it takes is something like this at the side of the stage or even the foot of the podium, and you solve the many MIC's issue\n\n_URL_0_\n\n",
"Can't believe no one has mentioned copyright. \n\nIf you made the recording you own the rights to it. You then have the right to edit, broadcast, sell it. \n\n",
"Depends on the situation of the press conference, and if there are other parties involved in providing equipment, or not.\n\n & #x200B;\n\nIn order to do the \"1-2 mics on a lectern\" thing requires something to split the audio signal from those 1-2 mics to every press outlet present - this includes those with and without cameras. This device is commonly called a \"press mult\" - also known as a press multi, a press box, distribution amp, or similar names. Press mults are generally provided by a 3rd party vendor (not a news outlet), or by the party holding the news conference themselves.\n\n & #x200B;\n\nIf no one drops a press mult, you get the 50 mics on the lectern scenario. Also, in last-minute impromptu scenarios (manhunt, breaking news, etc), there may not be enough time to set up a press mult and have everyone line check their devices, so the \"many mics on the lectern\" happens again.\n\n & #x200B;\n\nLooking from the press side of things, there's also the \"run whatcha brung\" scenario, or \"I know my stuff works, but I don't trust yours\". From the vendor side, I've seen MANY news crews that can't figure out how to adjust their input gain, switch from mic to line input, or other basic audio functions on their camera. And then there's the \"Hey, do you have an extra (Insert: cable/adapter/battery/etc) \" folks that always seem to pop up.\n\n & #x200B;\n\nBig press multi are expensive, and they are MUCH more than a glorified Y-cable. There are audio isolation transformers in there to protect every output connector from the input and from every other output. IOW, if one news crew has a bad cable that makes noise when you touch it, it won't affect the other 23 news crews plugged into the same press mult.",
" > incredibly easy to fix\n\nYeah, everyone just has to carry an audio splitting box and tons of cables around with them literally everywhere they go. Sounds easy.",
"Every answer I’m seeing is incorrect.\n\nIt has nothing to do with A/V capabilities. It has everything to do with having a microphone next to the speaker with your “flag” on it. The microphone “flag” is the network logo / call letters. The answer to your question is - So networks can have their brand shown on television.",
"Veteran Photojournalist here. At least when I was shooting we didn't want to risk a buzz or hum from an inferior audio system. We trust the gear we use. We also like multiple sources so we have a back up. We usually agreed with competing stations not to use mic. flags. If you see all the flags it's because someone was a dick. In the Boston market it was against union rules to take a feed but it also is important because it's a form of censorship. If someone protests a speaker we need the option to film them if it's newsworthy. If we're sitting in a room with a feed we may not even know it's happening. So though it may look messy consider it a sign that we still have a somewhat free press.",
"It’s better if there are more, so that if the single audio file is edited, there will be other copies present to compare and reveal that\n\nJournalism is about protecting and taking measures to preserve the truth, it’s not at all about being more efficient. The truth should never have to make concessions to efficiency."
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n6sib | why do older crt monitors have a response time of 0ms, while newer lcd and led monitors can have response times of up to 5ms? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/n6sib/why_do_older_crt_monitors_have_a_response_time_of/ | {
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"This question is like the other question that was asked when LCDs first came out. (Why doesn't my LCD monitor have a Hz rating?)\n\n\nResponse Time is a function of the LCD and LED environments. It's job is to estimate how long it takes for a particular section of the monitor to go from (standard is) all white to all black or vice versa. There is gray-to-gray, don't wanna touch on that.\n\nCRT (Cathode Ray Tube) uses Hz, this tells you how many times it has to refresh each individual pixel in a second. 60 Hz means each pixel is refreshed 60 times in one second. A pixel on a CRT monitor or TV is made up of Yellow, Green and Red \"lights\" that light up as a result of an electron being fired from a gun in the back of the TV (why there's that big ass end on CRTs.)\n\n**TL;DR** Response time measures how long it takes to change the image, not how many times it updates that image in a second. Hz (Hertz) is the standard of measurement for CRT. ",
"LCD stands for liquid crystal display. Liquid crystals exist part way between a solid and a liquid. When an electric charge is applied to the crystals, they change their shape. When the charge is gone, they go back to normal. \n\nA LCD monitor has millions of these liquid crystals smashed between the layers that make up your monitor screen. Behind the screen is a light source. In old school / normal LCD screens, the light source is a bunch of thin florescent light tubes. In newer screens, it's an array of LED lights (hence a LED display really is a type of LCD). \n\nThe most common type of liquid crystals used in monitors twist and untwist when a charge is applied. When the crystal is strait, light flows from the back of the screen and you see a pixel. When it's twisted, it blocks the light and the pixel is black. The charge isn't just on or off either, it can be part on. That's how you get different levels of brightness. \n\nThe reason you have a response time is that it takes those crystals a while to wrap or unwrap. It's a physical change. When they don't change shape fast enough, you can see bluing where they aren't quite in the correct configuration yet. As I understand it, the response time is how fast the manufacture thinks it can wrap / unwrap those crystals and get a good picture. A 120Hz TV will have pixels that change shape faster than a 60Hz one so it can change the picture more quickly.\n\nAn old school CRT had a electron gun that shoots elections a screen. When the screen is hit, it produces a tiny bit of light at that location. As I understand it, there's no moving parts involved. The electron beams are bent using a magnetic fields. Since there's no moving parts, it's possible to greatly reduce the response time. However, there is still a response time, it's just much lower than 5ms. Lower to the point that people can't tell the difference, and therefore no one talks about it. \n\nNow, that was the 5 year old explanation and some statements were over simplified, but the basics are true. A few issues people might like to point out. There is there is more than 1 crystal behind each pixel, and not all LCD monitors use Twisted crystals. There's also AMOLED which is totally different. As for CRTs there are some that use other types of fields than magnetic. But all of that is beyond ELI5. There are also CRTs that use other types of fields than magnetic. I'm sure there are plenty of other generalizations :) \n\n*Edit - Correction of my response time mistake, thank you Undamaged. \n",
"When LCD and LED monitors first came out, there was a noticeable \"ghosting effect\" when things on the screen moved quickly. This was ugly...especially to gamers. The reason for this \"ghosting\" was that the individual pixels in an LCD monitor take time to light up and turn off -- if you ever turned on or off a lightbulb that takes a second or two to \"warm up\" you'll have pretty much the right idea. The \"response times' cited for LCD monitors were a direct response of the manufacturers of these products to consumers which tried to tell them how fast or slow the pixels in their monitors were able to turn on and off. Obviously, a lower response time is better. (sidenote: the vast majority of LCD monitors today no longer suffer from the \"ghosting problem\" and even response times of 7ms or so will not exhibit any noticeable ghosting)\n\nNow, CRT monitors work totally differently than LCD monitors. In a CRT monitor there is actually an electron gun (pew pew!) that SHOOTS electrons at the screen causing sections of the screen to light up in red, green, and blue colors. This happens very very fast and produces the picture that you see. (sidenote: CRT monitors also talk about their screen refresh rates in Hz, just like LCD monitors) The screen lights up when it is shot with the electron gun because the inside of the screen is coated with a special material. This turning on/off process is much much faster than the turning on/off process in LCD monitors. The \"response time\" in a CRT monitor is certainly not *zero* but it is fast enough that ghosting isn't, and never really has been, an issue in CRT monitors. ",
"LCD's became known by how quickly a pixel can react to a change in input (response) and CRT's became known by how quickly you could draw to the pixels to light them up again (refresh). \nIt's a subtle difference in wording but the main idea is that LCD's panels are able to draw to pretty much every pixel at once, however the pixels themselves can be relatively slow to change in brightness. \nCRT's on the other hand, have 'pixels' that respond very quickly, however only one pixel can be drawn to at a time, which puts real strain on the drawing hardware to refresh all the pixels before you notice flicker. \nHope that helps.",
"This question is like the other question that was asked when LCDs first came out. (Why doesn't my LCD monitor have a Hz rating?)\n\n\nResponse Time is a function of the LCD and LED environments. It's job is to estimate how long it takes for a particular section of the monitor to go from (standard is) all white to all black or vice versa. There is gray-to-gray, don't wanna touch on that.\n\nCRT (Cathode Ray Tube) uses Hz, this tells you how many times it has to refresh each individual pixel in a second. 60 Hz means each pixel is refreshed 60 times in one second. A pixel on a CRT monitor or TV is made up of Yellow, Green and Red \"lights\" that light up as a result of an electron being fired from a gun in the back of the TV (why there's that big ass end on CRTs.)\n\n**TL;DR** Response time measures how long it takes to change the image, not how many times it updates that image in a second. Hz (Hertz) is the standard of measurement for CRT. ",
"LCD stands for liquid crystal display. Liquid crystals exist part way between a solid and a liquid. When an electric charge is applied to the crystals, they change their shape. When the charge is gone, they go back to normal. \n\nA LCD monitor has millions of these liquid crystals smashed between the layers that make up your monitor screen. Behind the screen is a light source. In old school / normal LCD screens, the light source is a bunch of thin florescent light tubes. In newer screens, it's an array of LED lights (hence a LED display really is a type of LCD). \n\nThe most common type of liquid crystals used in monitors twist and untwist when a charge is applied. When the crystal is strait, light flows from the back of the screen and you see a pixel. When it's twisted, it blocks the light and the pixel is black. The charge isn't just on or off either, it can be part on. That's how you get different levels of brightness. \n\nThe reason you have a response time is that it takes those crystals a while to wrap or unwrap. It's a physical change. When they don't change shape fast enough, you can see bluing where they aren't quite in the correct configuration yet. As I understand it, the response time is how fast the manufacture thinks it can wrap / unwrap those crystals and get a good picture. A 120Hz TV will have pixels that change shape faster than a 60Hz one so it can change the picture more quickly.\n\nAn old school CRT had a electron gun that shoots elections a screen. When the screen is hit, it produces a tiny bit of light at that location. As I understand it, there's no moving parts involved. The electron beams are bent using a magnetic fields. Since there's no moving parts, it's possible to greatly reduce the response time. However, there is still a response time, it's just much lower than 5ms. Lower to the point that people can't tell the difference, and therefore no one talks about it. \n\nNow, that was the 5 year old explanation and some statements were over simplified, but the basics are true. A few issues people might like to point out. There is there is more than 1 crystal behind each pixel, and not all LCD monitors use Twisted crystals. There's also AMOLED which is totally different. As for CRTs there are some that use other types of fields than magnetic. But all of that is beyond ELI5. There are also CRTs that use other types of fields than magnetic. I'm sure there are plenty of other generalizations :) \n\n*Edit - Correction of my response time mistake, thank you Undamaged. \n",
"When LCD and LED monitors first came out, there was a noticeable \"ghosting effect\" when things on the screen moved quickly. This was ugly...especially to gamers. The reason for this \"ghosting\" was that the individual pixels in an LCD monitor take time to light up and turn off -- if you ever turned on or off a lightbulb that takes a second or two to \"warm up\" you'll have pretty much the right idea. The \"response times' cited for LCD monitors were a direct response of the manufacturers of these products to consumers which tried to tell them how fast or slow the pixels in their monitors were able to turn on and off. Obviously, a lower response time is better. (sidenote: the vast majority of LCD monitors today no longer suffer from the \"ghosting problem\" and even response times of 7ms or so will not exhibit any noticeable ghosting)\n\nNow, CRT monitors work totally differently than LCD monitors. In a CRT monitor there is actually an electron gun (pew pew!) that SHOOTS electrons at the screen causing sections of the screen to light up in red, green, and blue colors. This happens very very fast and produces the picture that you see. (sidenote: CRT monitors also talk about their screen refresh rates in Hz, just like LCD monitors) The screen lights up when it is shot with the electron gun because the inside of the screen is coated with a special material. This turning on/off process is much much faster than the turning on/off process in LCD monitors. The \"response time\" in a CRT monitor is certainly not *zero* but it is fast enough that ghosting isn't, and never really has been, an issue in CRT monitors. ",
"LCD's became known by how quickly a pixel can react to a change in input (response) and CRT's became known by how quickly you could draw to the pixels to light them up again (refresh). \nIt's a subtle difference in wording but the main idea is that LCD's panels are able to draw to pretty much every pixel at once, however the pixels themselves can be relatively slow to change in brightness. \nCRT's on the other hand, have 'pixels' that respond very quickly, however only one pixel can be drawn to at a time, which puts real strain on the drawing hardware to refresh all the pixels before you notice flicker. \nHope that helps."
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3amylm | the new finding that reality doesn't exist until we measure it. | _URL_0_
This may be more of an "Explain to me like I'm 15" but I'd appreciate any explanation of what this actually means. It sounds pretty profound, yo. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3amylm/eli5_the_new_finding_that_reality_doesnt_exist/ | {
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"It was posted in /r/science a few weeks back. [Here's somebody asking for an ELI5 of it](_URL_0_).\n\nThe key points are that \"reality doesn't exist\" is a bit of hyperbole & a \"measure it\" is quite a bit different than you intuitively think it is.\n\nFor future reference, if you paste a URL into the Reddit search, it'll show you all the places it's been posted so you can look at other discussions.",
"This isn't actually a new finding, it's a confirmation of an old finding. That finding is that when you measure a particle you lock it into a quantum state. Prior to measurement the particle exists in some probabilistic landscape. By measuring it, it gets fixed. So its reality in a quantum framework *isn't* until it's measured. \n\n \n(Edit: Wrong word.)",
"What it means is that science reporting stinks on ice.\n\nThis is just a muddled report of an experiment that confirms something we've long known that certain quantum states don't become concrete until there is a certain interaction with other events. But that's boring, so it gets reported as \"reality doesn't exist until we measure it.\"\n\nThis only happens at the level of quantum mechanics, subatomic particles and such, and not at the macroscopic level of the world. Indeed, Erwin Schrödinger postulated his famous cat in the box thought experiment NOT as something he was claiming *actually happens,* but as an obvious *absurdity,* a disconnect between the quantum and macroscopic worlds.\n\n\n\n",
"It is important when interpreting experiments to understand what is being measured. These types of experiments measure the behavior of light and subatomic particles. A theory called Quantum Field Theory (QFT) does the best job of providing a framework to predict the results of these experiments. QFT makes some assumptions about how reality works. QFT is an extremely well proven theory, but that does not mean that the universe fundamentally works the way QFT assumes, it just means that QFT is the best tool to predict events in reality.\n\nFor example, there are several different interpretations of QFT that have conflicting philosophical ideas about how reality works. Yet, each of these competing interpretations make the exact same mathematical predictions about reality, so we cant tell them apart.\n\nWhat you can take away from these types of QFT experiments is that the assumptions about reality that seem to hold true at the macro scale (our size things) do not apply to the quantum scale. There are situations where it seems energy is temporarily borrowed from the future, or situations where seemingly separate particle are still connected over vast distances and behave as one. These experiments imply very strange things about reality, but the interpretation of the experiments is still open for debate, until we make better measurements.",
"It certainly still exists. It's more like that everything is a blob, and you never really know where that blob is until you bounce light off of it."
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18njfn | will someone please explain jazz music like i'm five? | My cousin is a jazz musician. I dunno if he is any good. He has an expensive horn. I've been around it a significant amount, but I feel like I just don't "get it." When I've asked him what jazz is, he has given me an abstract artsy-fartsy definition along the lines of *it's all about communication with the audience, man.* And then he makes bee bop sounds and closes his eyes. I'm exaggerating here, but hopefully you see my point.
edit: i found a video of him performing with one of his combos [here](_URL_0_), in case you were curious. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/18njfn/will_someone_please_explain_jazz_music_like_im/ | {
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"There are lots of different styles, but one of the main ideas behind Jazz is improvisation. Classical music is very structured, all the notes are predetermined. In Jazz, you can have a solo where the performer has to improvise and create music on the spot. This makes every performance unique. \n\n\"jazz is often characterized as the product of group creativity, interaction, and collaboration\"\n\nJazz isn't rigidly defined, it's a collection of lots of different subgeneres. Just like there are different types of classical music, there are many different styles of Jazz, although they do share many common traits.\n\n\"It was born out of a mix of African and European music traditions. Its African pedigree is evident in its use of blue notes, improvisation, polyrhythms, syncopation, and the swung note.[1]\"\n\n",
"Your cousin is very good! Your question leaves me a tad confused though. How do you explain any genre of music? Jazz is just a style of music like any other, except it relies heavily on horn instruments, improvisation, and syncopation (meaning that the notes played can often feel unanticipated). There's nothing to \"get\". Some people prefer the sounds of classical music, others prefer jazz, and others prefer the other varieties of music styles."
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1p4b4h | what does the constitution of the united states guarantee us citizens and what does it guarantee non-citizens? | I always here that the Constitution Guarantees this or that. So I ask what does it Guarantee in plan English? What does it Guarantee both US Citizens and Non-Citizens? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1p4b4h/eli5_what_does_the_constitution_of_the_united/ | {
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"I'm not entirely sure about what rights apply to non-citizens, although I'm sure it's not as broad as citizens. Hopefully someone else can cover that part.\n\nBut regarding the rights outlined for the people, those are mostly explained in our first ten amendments to the constitution, normally called \"The Bill of Rights\". These are:\n\n1. The rights to Religion, Speech, Press, Assembly, Petition\n2. The right to bear arms (own guns essentially)\n3. The right to not have your home taken over to house military troops\n4. The right to be protected from unreasonable searches and seizures (the government can't just come into your house and take your stuff)\n5. The rights to a specific kind of trial in case you're accused of a crime, the right to not be charged for a crime you were already found innocent of, the right to be free from being forced to testify against yourself (you can't be punished for refusing to admit to your own guilt)\n6. The right to a trial, to a lawyer in case you're arrested, and the right to see those who accuse you of crimes\n7. The right to a trial by jury in non-criminal lawsuits over a certain value\n8. The right to avoid excessive bail or fines, and the right to not face \"cruel and unusual\" punishment like beatings or torture.\n9. You have rights not outlined elsewhere, this isn't an exhaustive list.\n10. If the constitution doesn't give a power to the federal government, or the states, it belongs to the people.\n\nLet me know if you have any questions.\n\n"
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3j7o1k | why do big engineering and building projects cost so much more and take so much longer than they used to? | The new One World Trade Center took nine years, whereas the Empire State Building was built in a single year. It seems to have stood up pretty well.
A similar pattern seems to be playing out in other areas of large engineering in the developed world - ships, planes, rail networks, even NASA projects. I realize that modern construction projects are more advanced (e.g., more energy efficient), but not to a degree that warrants the massively inflated budgets and construction times.
What happened? Or am I overlooking something? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3j7o1k/eli5why_do_big_engineering_and_building_projects/ | {
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"There may be several causes. For one, construction or big projects are much more complex now that in the old days. So a new WTC has a lot of tech build in, which includes security features like sprinklers, alarms, dectectors and what not, that the Empire State Building doesn't have. \nThe added complexity makes it more difficult to estimate in advance how long such a project will take. \n\nSecondly, must companies need to bid on a project like that. And the cheapest one is usually the one that gets the contract. So there is an incentive to underbid (= bid a lower price than it will actually cost). And then during construction the construction company 'suddenly' runs into 'unexpected' additional work that they need to bill. I personally think that also plays a role.",
"A few reasons:\n\n1. The complexity of labor has risen dramatically. When the Empire State Building was built, you hired labor like you hire guys to mow to lawn - stop at the right street corner, toss folks in the back of your pickup and drop them off at the end of the day. You could do this because virtually any adult man knew how to use the tools of the day. This is not true in the modern day. Even if you manage to find a guy to operate your forklift, he still needs a formal certification to do it legally on your site. The methods and technology have advanced to the point where guys on a construction site actually need training.\n\n2. Labor laws. When the Empire State Building was constructed, losing a few workers to 'fell off building' was no big deal. You said some nice words, called the hearse and hired some more guys. In the modern day, the government gets upset when your workers are seriously injured or die - the kind of upset that leads to work shut downs and tons of money going out the door. So you have to take all sorts of safety precautions that cost money and time.\n\n3. Safety regulations. The plans for the Empire State Building (and similar buildings) were drawn up by some architects and engineers - and everyone just took it on faith they knew what they were doing. This is not the case in the modern day. Any major construction involves numerous safety and environmental reviews by independent experts, which adds cost and time.\n\n4. Delay breeds delay. The longer a project takes, the more likely that the people who commissioned the project will change. You'll have a new set of politicians with a new set of opinions about your project - and you'll need to spend the time/money to modify the project to these new specifications.",
"Because project managers are clueless asshats who have no idea what they are doing, while sales decides to sell a job with out once single bit of insight on what it takes to engineer and design the project, let alone the time it takes to produce a final deliverable drawings, also it doesn't help when the client feels the need to change something 5 times after i spend countless hours figuring out how to get something to work after they changed it initially....*sigh* sorry i'm bitter...",
"There is a ton more oversight in construction projects than there used to be. In the 1920s/30s (Empire State Building era) there was no OSHA, no one cared about worker safety. If someone died on a jobsite, it was like \"OK, go scrape him off the ground and find a replacement\" And you're lucky if the local paper ran a 2 sentence article about it.\n\nThere was no EPA, no one cared if you drained an entire swamp and paved over wetlands or displaced some red-winged black bird's breeding grounds. Today, projects need lengthy Environmental Impact Statements, and that alone can take years before the first shovel is allowed to hit the ground.\n\nAnd as you said, technology is a lot different than it used to be, structures are so much more complex, requiring much larger groups of people each designing their own parts before it all comes together. This take a lot more time.\n\nAs a side note, the WTC taking 9 years was more a result of the constant arguing and bickering between all the players involved, the City of New York, the Port Authority of NY & NJ, Larry Silverstien, and the insurance companies involved with the attacks.",
"In addition to the wonderful points that the other redditors have made, government corruption is a big factor in delaying the completion of large government building projects, at least in California.\n\nFor examples look at the ~~bullshit~~ bullet train or the new span of the San Francisco Bay Bridge. \n\nWhat happens in that the construction company is frequently in bed with the government. The construction company wins the bid to build the project. They immediately return some of the money back to the legislature in the form of political contributions. There is a financial incentive to be as inefficient as possible because all they have to do is ask the legislature, who they bribed to get the job, and who they bribed again after they got the job, to get more money for the project siting \"unforeseen difficulties\" or whatever. The cycle continues until they complete the project. Ideally, it's a poorly done job, so that they can get re-hired to fix it. All the while the legislature and the company are getting wealthy on the money they filtered.\n\nAlso unions use the environmental lobbyists to hold up any non-union work project with \"environmental impact studies.\""
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3qjfwz | where did the depiction of pirates with an eyepatch, a parrot, and a wooden leg originate from? | Was purely from cartoon or comic sources or from actual historical origins? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3qjfwz/eli5_where_did_the_depiction_of_pirates_with_an/ | {
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"I believe the work that popularized this image of a pirate was *Treasure Island*. Long John Silver had a parrot. He had a crutch instead of a wooden leg, since his leg was cut off at the hip. I believe eye patches were mentioned in some capacity, but it's been ages since I read that book.\n\nHow common these things were in real life is something I don't have any particular insight on.",
"Not sure about the parrot. But since most pirates operated in or near tropical climes, some sort of exotic pet would make sense.\nIt wasn't only pirates that had wooden legs. \nThe eye patch was for boarding of other vessels. A patch over one eye was lifted up when going below decks where it was dark. The uncovered eye wouldn't need a lot of time to adjust to the dark.",
"Treasure Island has a lot to answer for in our pirate stereotypes. Long John Silver is an amputee with a pet parrot and a penchant for going \"Arrrr, Jim lad.\" It's also a really great and fun book. I only read it as an adult and totally recommend it.",
"As others have said, it's mainly Treasure Island. But, it was not uncommon for a sailor to be an amputee (a sail line in a storm can do a lot of damage), the eyepatch had some value, and an exotic pet was not unheard of. All this stuff in one character stands out, and Treasure Island was a popular book, and even more popular movie."
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3m1g3i | why do some smartphones seem to die faster and charge more slowly when their "power save" feature is enabled? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3m1g3i/eli5_why_do_some_smartphones_seem_to_die_faster/ | {
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"The keyword here is \"seem\" do die faster. If you put your phone in powersaving mode you're probably trying to get the most out of it, whereas in normal mode you're probably using it in short bursts or having a charger on-hand, causing a bias in your perception.\n\nThere is also the possibility that the developers simply borked it up. Such as powering up and down certain components repeatedly can consume more power then actually keeping them on consistently.",
"You may have developed more habits that make your battery last longer than what the power saver mode overrides. For example, you may have your screen dimmer than the override default. That is the case with mine when power saver mode comes on, my screen gets brighter."
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3id39x | why does it cost money to do a reverse lookup on a phone number, or a person, when a lot of information is readily available for free? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3id39x/eli5_why_does_it_cost_money_to_do_a_reverse/ | {
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"It's because\nA. The company collects all this info in one place to save you the time. That's what you're paying for, not the number owner's details.\nB. It's a service that people are willing to pay for, so there will be people willing to provide it.",
"I can't speak for the US, but it's possibly a legal thing. In New Zealand, reverse lookups on phone numbers are illegal and the whitepages website tells you this if you try to.",
"If you want free reverse lookups, try these websites:\n\nCanada: _URL_2_\n\nUSA: _URL_1_\n\n_URL_0_"
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5ujzf1 | why do actions movies have so much usage of shaky cam and jump cuts? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5ujzf1/eli5_why_do_actions_movies_have_so_much_usage_of/ | {
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"It is because action scenes are hard to film, it takes months for actors to learn how to fight and for production teams to create all of the costuming, make-up, props and sets. And usually actors don't spend a lot of time training in martial arts or gun ranges, so often they aren't very good at it. (Actors like Keanu Reeves and Jackie Chan are the exceptions, where they train for months to do certain stunts and scenes.) And to conceal actors not having the proper training to fight, the camera men shake the camera to give the illusion of more powerful hits. And the use for jump cuts is to get a sense of the actors going much faster in fight scenes than what they normally be. And also good fight scenes take ages to get perfect, one particular fight scene from The Raid took more than half a year to finish. Also sometimes large blockbusters might have secondary directors film smaller action scenes so that the filming process could be speed up, and usually these second units won't be as experienced as the actual directors doing the main action scenes."
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2fsiyo | global warming of 2014? | Whats the issue with creating a stirict carbon emission protocol to fight global warming? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2fsiyo/eli5global_warming_of_2014/ | {
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"I don't quite know what you're asking. But if you're asking why we're not fighting global warming (or climate change, being a more correct term) as much as we maybe should do, here's why:\n\n \n\nIn the end it is all about cost, welfare and a certain state of living. Fighting climate change will cost a lot and limit welfare or growth. And who is going to pay for that? You better have a good reason before considering giving up that very convenient dryer. So, why we're not willing to pay that price currently:\n\n \n\n*1. Complexity*: Climate change, and the role of CO2, is a really complex problem. And although science is pretty certain climate change is going to happen and the effects may be severe, the public opinion and politics are not really convinced yet. Also, the climate change predictions are still inaccurate.\n\n \n\n*2. Scale*: This is not some local thing. A polluting factory in the vicinity of your home is shut down easily, and the environment gets better quickly. Cause and effect are easily established. Climate change happens globally though. Driving your SUV or using that tumble dryer will result in more CO2 in the atmosphere, and you may not feel the effects at all. However, people in Bangladesh, or some islands in the Indian Ocean will feel climate change and have flooded homes. This also means that the problem needs to be tackled globally, by everyone. And this easily starts a prisoner's dilemma: the entire world benefits if we stop emitting CO2, but if one country (looking at you Australia) says 'screw you world, I'm not giving up my coal', the entire world is screwed, except for that country. Additionally because it's global, it brings a total new dimension to the problem in terms of ethics. Should the industrialized countries pay relatively more than the non-industrialized...? Won't dive into that though. It is partly why we've failed to get a new Kyoto protocol though.\n\n \n\n*3. Temporal scale*: Talked about the global thing already, but it is an inter-generational problem as well. This mess started in the 19th century, and it is going to be a problem for a while. It comes down to this: why should we pay for the emissions of our ancestors? And the other way around, why should our children pay, if we fail to? See, prisoner's dilemma again. All generations benefit if we tackle the problem, but if a generation doesn't, they're much better off.\n\n \n\nThere's a whole lot of other reasons, for instance because our institutions are not well equipped to tackle such a problem, but these first points give a bit of an idea why the pace is so slow.\n\n \n\nIf you're interested in it, check out Stephen M. Gardiner: A Perfect Moral Storm. I summarised a few points of his article here.\n"
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3ngvfb | why is proactive so ridiculously expensive? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3ngvfb/eli5_why_is_proactive_so_ridiculously_expensive/ | {
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"They are willing to pay that much because it's relatively effective and because it's endorsed by celebrities. "
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2eurhq | what's with the wording of the ukraine-russia conflict in the media? how is it not a "war?" | It seems like a lot of the words being thrown around in the news paint the Russian invasion of Ukraine as a "crisis" and a "conflict." However, America invading Iraq and the USSR invading Afghanistan were certainly "wars." If Canadian armored columns rolled into Vermont, wouldn't we call it a war? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2eurhq/eli5_whats_with_the_wording_of_the_ukrainerussia/ | {
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"No official \"declaration of war\" has been issued, so its not a war.",
"Words have implications.\n-If it's a 'counterterrorist operation' it means the rebels were criminals, and are to be arrested. So, if, say, a rebel is shot and driven to a hospital in Russia, he is to be arrested and extradited to Kiev.\n-If it's a civil war, then both sides are 'legitimate', and what they do in Ukraine is their own business.\n-If it's a war, as in, actual Russian Federation forces on official orders, then it's a violation of a treaty, and NATO has a reason to get involved.\n\nThe official story of Moscow is that the east-ukrainian people declared independance, Kiev attacked, and volunteers from Russia poured in to join the resistance (so, not Russian forces, but civilian volunteers). \n\nThe official story of Kiev is the rebels are terrorists, Kiev launched a counterterrorist operation, and then Russia invaded, and now they want NATO to help fight Russia.\n\nSaying \"war\", or even worse, \"civil war\" means picking a side. \"Conflict\" is nice and neutral."
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9344wv | how do gps voices/text-to-speak voices work? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/9344wv/eli5_how_do_gps_voicestexttospeak_voices_work/ | {
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"Once upon a time they actually had an actor paid to register each word that would be used in a GPS or whatever. That's why till 5-6 years ago GPS did not say the name of the street, because it wasn't recorded. And this is alswo why often THEY soUnded LIKE thiS. \n\nBecause it was a match up of different words.\n\nNowadays there are software that are able to learn how to read, they learn how to pronounche phonemas and how to bind them togheter. This is done using a neurale network, which is a VERY comolex mathematical tool that I am absolutely incapable to understand and even less explain. But basically it boils down to a software that can change it's behaviour by learning stuff, the more stuff you give to it, the better (more or less)."
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1s1635 | the differences between propellers with 2, 3, 4, or more blades | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1s1635/eli5_the_differences_between_propellers_with_2_3/ | {
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"Three blade propellers produce more thrust than two blade propellers of the same diameter however at the cost of reduced efficiency. The wake effects at the tip of each blade effects the flow around the blade that follows it. On a two blade propeller the distance reduces this effect. One reason propellers with more than two blades are used is that the design of the aircraft may not allow for the diameter needed to generate enough thrust. Using a 3 or 4 blade propeller at a smaller diameter may work better. This is used a lot of times on RC planes where ground clearance is more of an issue. ",
"Are we talking about air or water?",
"It's all about propeller efficiency. Ideally, you want your propeller to be as big as possible (in diameter) and move as slowly as possible. In addition, you want your propeller to see nice undisturbed air.\n\nIf efficiency is all that you're after, then you want a one-bladed propeller. Like this: _URL_1_\n\nOf course, efficiency is not the end-all be-all. The reason you don't see one-bladed propellers on airplanes is because if you're going to carry that weight anyways (as a counterweight so the prop doesn't fling itself apart) you might as well make it a prop blade as well.\n\nNow say you need more thrust. Make the propeller bigger! If you can't because of issues like ground clearance or material strength, then spin a smaller propeller faster. If you can't do that because of your engine or because the blade tips are nearing supersonic, then you can add more blades. Sure it will be less efficient, but if you need the thrust, then you need the thrust.\n\nThe most blades I've heard of is 8, on C-130s, see here: _URL_0_"
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2edx4c | incidents with high fatality numbers (plane crashes, for example) often say something like "200 dead, 10 of which were children". why do they highlight the number of children and infants? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2edx4c/eli5_incidents_with_high_fatality_numbers_plane/ | {
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"For the same reason that you always hear the term \"semiautomatic assault rifle\" when someone decides to go on a rampage. \n\nIts sensationalism.\n\nOrdinarily, specifics like that are used to reach something deeper inside of our heads to make us react in a more meaningful way , thus increasing ratings/sales. ",
"Because children are seen as far more \"precious\" and it is used in headlines to grab your attention. The idea is that children have an entire lifetime ahead of them that is tragicaly cut short.",
"Agreed. I always hate the references to \"mother of three' or 'housewife' or 'grandfather'. As if that makes their deaths more tragic. Hooray! The woman died but thank God she was single! And even the whole 'Christian' thing or how many American's died. ",
"to sell future ad space. tugging the emotional strings keeps people coming back.\n\nits partly why we have \"infotainment\" now rather than just news."
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32ozz4 | how is it that the boston marathon bombing trial is already over when the aurora theatre shooting trial just sat jurors? | how come it takes one so long to go to court and the other one seems like it was fast tracked? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/32ozz4/eli5how_is_it_that_the_boston_marathon_bombing/ | {
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"The boston marathon case was very very clear cut. There wasnt much to do really.",
"The boston Marathon Bombing case has so much evidence proving guilt that the defense isn't even trying to fight the fact that he did it. Since the prosecution has such a clear case, (multiple confessions) they don't need to spend so much time getting their evidence aligned and can proceed to the case sooner."
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3mhd91 | why is it a big deal that the us ran out of ipv4 addresses yesterday? | Are there any practical implications for me as an average user? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3mhd91/eli5_why_is_it_a_big_deal_that_the_us_ran_out_of/ | {
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"IPs are the IDs of computers, and that includes websites hosted on computers (that is, servers). IPv4 allows up to 4 billion addresses, what sounds like a lot but we've run out already. IPv6 is the new iteration and it allows nearly unlimited addresses.\n\nOn a more practical side, this just means that software that can't make use of IPv6 addresses might suffer, but since almost all software is already IPv6 compatible then almost nobody will notice."
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2yfrdo | evolution vs. christianity? | Will someone explain why this is a debate? I am a Christian and I do not understand why people say, "If you believe in God you can't believe in evolution." Why can't you believe that God uses evolution as a tool to make new animals? Is there something in the bible that I am missing?
EDIT: I personally believe that "In the beginning", God does not mean literal days when he is creating everything. Could it be reasonable to assume that when the Bible say 6000 years, it might not be a literal 6000 years? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2yfrdo/eli5_evolution_vs_christianity/ | {
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"Its primarily between creationism and evolution. \n\nAll scientific knowledge we have points to an extremely old earth where life started simple and evolved into what we see today, that is however a direct contradiction with creationism where the earth is about 6000 years old and man was the first animal.",
"There is an \"theistic evolution\" argument that basically says, God set the process into place but as a science teacher, I would like to point out that religion and science are explaining things in different ways.\n\nScience is looking for a natural explanation and God is a supernatural being. Therefore, science and religion should not be in debates (fighting each other) as they use different methods to answer questions. This is the same reason I don't allow \"because God said so\" on my tests. It is not to say that isn't true just that it is not science.",
"There is no reason why a theist, or specifically a Christian, can't believe in Evolution. Now, I will say, you cannot believe in Evolution if you also take the Bible literally. If interpreted that way, at least according to some, the Earth is only 6,000 years old. No where near enough time for Evolution to occur. Also, the world was created in six days, with all animals and plants created in one day. Also, not enough time for Evolution. Furthermore, I have heard some argue that \"God doesn't make mistakes\" so organisms would have no need to evolve if they are already \"perfect.\"",
"Christians also said that the Earth couldn't be revolving around the sun. Back then it would have been said that you couldn't believe both.\nThe current bible has been translated that many times that it has basically played chinese whispers with itself. Even Christianity doesn't have enough conviction to stick with it's own beliefs.\nCan open, worms everywhere.\n",
"I went to a Catholic school my whole life and we were always taught in science class that we can believe any theory we want as long as God had a role in it. \n\nMuch of the debate stems from two of many views of how things came to be. Most only think in strict evolution or strict creationism. Neither leave any room for concessions. \n\nThere is a middle ground that many, including myself, choose to believe. It is called Guided Evolution. Its a view that the Bible is not literal. As the name suggests God guided all of evolution. It wasn't just spontaneous creation. He didn't start with the whim to make an elephant. He guided the single cell into becoming these larger creatures over time. Much of it is also based on the idea that since God exists outside of time that the seven days of creation could very well have been millions of years apart. \n\nYes the bible does trace generations. What many forget is that Methuselah lived to be 969 years old and his father lived 365 years. More than a millennium and a quarter between the two! And those were recorded lifespans. Many Guided Evolutionists believe in a decay of human life spans after the fall, meaning that pre-record lifespans could have been multi-millennial or even longer. ",
"When people tell you, \"If you believe in God you can't believe in evolution.\" they are misspeaking themselves. What they are actally saying is,\"If you believe my particular version of Biblical literalism you can't believe in evolution.\" There is a huge difference.\n\nLiteralism strips Scripture of any sense of poetry, of metaphor, of any real role for faith. If it's all just a literal reporting of facts where is there any room or need for faith?\n\nI had a conversation with a Rabbi once about the traditional Jewish calendar that holds that this is the 57th century rather than the 21st. I noted that the 21th century idea is said to date to an historic event, so, \"What is the event that is considered the start of the Jewish calendar?\"\n\nHe laughed, \"The Beginning.\" \n\nOh, you mean, \"Genesis 1:1?\"\n\nHe laughed again, \"Well, yes, but no one really believes that. The traditional stories are used for their teaching value not as any sort of record of actual history.\" (He was a Reform not an OrOrthodox Jew)\n\nAt the Sermon on the Mount His followers address Jesus as \"Rabbi\" (Master). If as a Christian, you can't take the advice of a Rabbi on Scriptural Literalism, who ya gonna call?\n\nThe Pope says that evolution is the facts and that the largely American Protestant notion of Biblical Literalism is an error. Who can realisticly argue that the Pope isn't a Christian?\n\n[Chris Smither](_URL_0_) has a delightful take on Theistic Evolution. Enjoy.\n\nEdit: Massive spelling and grammar fixes",
"I believe quite a bit of it extends from the idea of original sin and Jesus' death and resurrection. The basic idea is that Christianity is founded around the birth/life/death of Jesus. His whole purpose on earth was to represent God and then die so that we would be forgiven for our original sin. The original sin that Adam/Eve committed would not be possible from an evolutionary standpoint. Because the original sin isn't possible when you understand evolution it eliminates the need for God to both send Jesus and then have him die to forgive that sin. Essentially that means that Christianity and evolution are incompatible because if you accept evolution you destroy entire reasoning for Jesus being on earth and make worshiping him and God pointless.\n\nUnfortunately for religion (Christianity included) they have a choice to make, they need to either change their doctrine and switch their teachings away from a literal point of view and essentially turn the Bible into a giant metaphor or go full literal (crazy creationists like Ken Ham) and attempt to disprove scientific fact like evolution while also using pseudo science to attempt to prove that the Bible is fact and is meant to be taken literally."
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4g5ovd | if thc is the 'active ingredient' in marijuana then why isn't a pill of thc prescribed -vs- herb form. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4g5ovd/eli5_if_thc_is_the_active_ingredient_in_marijuana/ | {
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"THC isn't the only \"active ingredient\" or beneficial one. For many years, growers have been perfecting strains with a high Tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) content, but now growers are also focusing on strains with high Cannabidiol (CBD). Cannabidiol is non-psychoactive, so you get the benefits without the high for those who are seeking it strictly for medicinal purposes. This is especially good for those who are seeking it for children. And while THC is known to cause anxiety (and paranoia) for some people, CBD is known to have the opposite effect, calming the person using it. CBD was recently cleared by the FDA for testing in children with epilepsy. Both are available in pill form, in addition to herb, edible, oil, and tincture forms. ",
"There is a pill. Marinol. It causes unacceptable side effects in many who take it.\n\nLook up the Entourage Effect. Whole plant medicine is where it's at."
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7qpyxx | why are black bears shy and timid if they have no predators? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/7qpyxx/eli5_why_are_black_bears_shy_and_timid_if_they/ | {
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"In modern times, they might not have any predators, in your area, but that might not always have been the case. Grizzly bears and wolves have been documented as to attacking/killing black bears. \n\nBefore that, other apex predators existed in North America such as the sabertooth cat and the American lion. It's believed both of those also hunted black bears. ",
"Black bears are shy about *humans* because *humans* are horrifically proficient predators. Without any exposure to humans black bears don't care about us at all and are not shy.",
"They are wary of animals that threaten them. They don’t realize they have no predators in many areas. Bette safe than sorry. ",
"Humans have been hunting black bears in the new world for 15000 years. That's _plenty_ of time to develop an innate fear."
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9ivrpq | what is the advantage of a car with rear wheel drive? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/9ivrpq/eli5_what_is_the_advantage_of_a_car_with_rear/ | {
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"Better balance overall, and more unstable (and thus more responsive) handling under acceleration. You also get a good weight transfer onto the rear wheels when you're accelerating by the car rocking back onto its rear wheels, which results in more grip between your tires and the road and thus better acceleration.\n\nThey're also generally easier to service as you're spreading out the important bits of the car across the entire vehicle, and your tire wear is more even because you're spreading out jobs to all four wheels (front for steering, rear for power) as opposed to putting all of the important jobs on the front wheels only.",
"Torque steer is also a thing. A high powered FWD car will tend to pull steering away from the driver in a hard acceleration scenario as it pulls forward. RWD cars may fishtail and spin, but it's much easier to manage than hard torque steer.",
"Top Gear explained it best. When turning too fast/tight, front wheel drive cars tend to understeer (i.e. not turn as much as you want) while rear wheel drive cars tend to OVERsteer. Oversteer is fun and looks cool (when drivers talk about drifting, that's oversteer).\n\nAlso, the other stuff people have said about spreading components around makes repairs easier, and torque steer. \n\nTorque steer is very annoying when passing another vehicle. As you speed up to get past them, your vehicle pulls towards them, and you have to countersteer. ",
"I'm not sure if you are talking only RWD vs FWD but that's already been covered fairly well. If you are including all wheel drive there really aren't any advantages that you are going to see on a day to day basis.\n\n It's going to be a little lighter, so that's something, especially in a lighter car, every pound matters. It's going to have less moving parts, so probably slightly more longevity although most drive trains don't fail anymore anyway, at least not during the expected normal usage of a car ( 10 < years or so). And it's more likely to spin if you want it to, so it can be more fun, but in normal driving is obviously more dangerous. "
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bm6c07 | how an individual can be wealthy (i.e. make money) while simultaneously claiming millions of dollars of losses, and avoid paying taxes. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/bm6c07/eli5_how_an_individual_can_be_wealthy_ie_make/ | {
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"You're confusing like 4 things. To start:\n\n* wealth = how much stuff you have that's valuable\n\n* \"make money\" = income = how much cash you have coming in TODAY\n\n* losses = some of your stuff went down in value\n\n* avoid paying taxes = well.....this is complicated. \n\nLet's make up a scenario: you have a job and you like to visit a local bar. You have income from your job ($60K/yr) and you pay appx $10K in taxes every year. You save up your money b/c you are responsible. You save up (say) $75K over 5 years. Your best friend wants to open a bar and needs you to invest. You say YES! The day you buy in, you have:\n\n* Income = $60K from your job\n\n* Wealth = $75K in the form of an equity interest in the new bar\n\n* Taxes = you're still paying that $10/yr.\n\nNow you get some REALLY bad news: the bar completely failed and its gone out of business and your share is actually worth zero. SO on your taxes, you get the following for your 2019 taxes:\n\n* Income = $60K from your job\n\n* Wealth = $0 - but importantly, note that your wealth went down from $75 to $0 - this is important. \n\n* Taxes = this is where it gets complicated. You can deduct your business losses from your income. So you take your $60K *minus* your $75K loss (you're only applying a max of $60K tho) and your taxable income is $0. So you pay no taxes for this year despite having $60K in income. The next year, you can use the remaining $15K and only pat ~$7500 in taxes instead of the normal $10K. (NOTE: before CPAs blow me up, remember this is an ELI5 and I'm trying to highlight the difference between cash taxes and a non-cash writedown. Also, you'd hold this investment in an LLC and treat the loss as a pass through.).\n\nBut the point is: people could look at you and say, \"WTF YOU PAID NO TAXES!!!!\" - buuuuuut thats not exactly fair.\n\nIf you want an ELI-COLLEGE: [read here and read the whole thread.](_URL_0_) I went through how people do this on a much larger scale.",
"Taxes are done on a year to year basis. Maybe you got a billion dollar inheritance and did nothing with it so you don't get any income from it. You would have paid taxes on it when you got it but the next year, because you made no money, you don't pay any taxes. \n\nOr maybe you went and bought a bunch of new real estate with buildings on it to get some rental income. Depending on where you are in the world, physical assets like buildings have a \"depreciation\" schedule. Which basically lets you deduct the price of the building from your taxable income. The idea is that if you bought something like a car or a building for business purposes for $x, it has a usable lifespan of y years. At the end of that it's no longer worth anything to you and you \"lost\" $x over y years. In these cases the government lets you treat this \"loss\" as actual financial losses and deduct that from your taxable income. Maybe you couldn't rent out any space in the building and your income was less than the deduction schedule for your building for that year, so you don't pay any taxes. But you still have a half a billion dollars in cash money to live off of.\n\nJust because you're wealthy doesn't mean you are actively making money that can be taxed. Taxes are on income, not already taxed money.",
"Let's say that you inherit a real estate portfolio worth over $400 million, that generates millions of dollars in income. Let's also say that you want to earn more than that and be seen as a successful real estate mogul. Since most of your wealth is tied up in real estate, you don't have a lot of cash to buy new buildings, so you put up some of your properties as collateral in order to obtain large loans. Let's say that over the course of 10 years, you take out $5 billion in loans to finance your real estate empire and other business ventures. Let's say that over those 10 years, your empire decreases in value, from either depreciation or just poor performance, to the tune of $1.2 billion. You're still making income from the properties you inherited, as well as income from your new investments, but that pales in comparison to the written down losses, so you don't owe any taxes those years. Ideally, your creditors want to hey their money back, and if you turned your fortunes around and everything became profitable, you'd eventually pay taxes on your income, as well as the gains in value if you sold your buildings. Let's say you don't do that, and the banks want their money back. Well, if everything is done through LLCs, they can file for bankruptcy and your personal wealth and income will be protected. The banks will get what they can out of the property they loaned you the money for, and will either take a loss or force you to sell some of your inherited property to make up the difference. If you do this often enough, banks will stop wanting to lend you money and you might have to go to other \"non-traditional\" sources of funding in order to keep your business income and personal lifestyle afloat.\n\nIn short, the large amounts of money that Trump \"lost\" was the perceived value of the property other people loaned him money to buy."
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zqw1x | why does everyone in the us mortgages their house. | It's maybe because im from South America, but I just can't understand why everyone just gets a huge debt for the rest of their life. Please explain [: | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/zqw1x/why_does_everyone_in_the_us_mortgages_their_house/ | {
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"Because decent houses start around $125k and most people don't have that lying around.",
"Houses cost a lot of money. Most people don't have the kind of money it costs to buy an apartment or a house ($200,000 to $1,000,000 and up in many cities).\n",
"How do people pay for houses in South America? ",
"Sure, most could save up for years and years and buy a house straight up, but check this out. I live in a nice 2 bedroom two full bath apartment and pay $525 a month. A girl I work with got a mortgage and her father co-signed, so she got a great deal. For her three bedroom 2 bathroom house she only pays $515. Smart people pay as much as they can on their house so they dont end up paying tons and tons in interest. Also, getting a job, a family and a house is the 'American dream'. It is drilled into us that apartments and the such are sleazy. ",
"A mortgage makes owning a house more like paying rent than saving up more than a year of salary for a major purchase. And in many places, the only thing that happens if you can't pay the mortgage is that your house gets sold to cover the debt - even if your house isn't enough to pay it. And if you don't want to own the house anymore, it's usually not that hard to sell the house to pay off the mortgage.",
"Because most people can't afford to buy a house all at once, but they *can* afford to do it over 20-30 years.\n\nIn less developed countries, most people can't afford to own a property no matter how long they work for it, so renting is their only option.\n\nAlso, if you do it right, you don't amass a huge debt for the rest of your life. Your mortgage payment stays the same, but your income goes up with inflation, as does the house's value. My parents were paying $200/month for a $50K in 1977. Today it is worth $250K and they can rent it out for $1600/month.",
"The working(?) theory is owning/mortgaging is superior to renting. You're paying money monthly either way, so why not get some incentive out of it? That's the argument.\n\nRent = You essentially throw money into an abyss each month with no chance of return. But in exchange, you aren't tied down, and typically don't have to worry about maintenance, etc.\n\nMortgage = You get tax incentives, and the ability to get lower and lower required payments over time. And if/when you pay off the mortgage, you never have to worry about rent or mortage payments again. In a decent market, you could even make profit from the entire situation.\n\nBoth options have their pros and cons. Just depends on your personal situation.\n\n"
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2fquae | do driverless cars require driving licenses? what about driverless cars that do not have a steering wheel or controls? what do different countries plan to do regarding that question in the future when autonomous vehicles become mainstream? | Who is allowed to "drive"? What if I sent my cat somewhere in the car and the police wanted to stop the vehicle? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2fquae/eli5_do_driverless_cars_require_driving_licenses/ | {
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"Laws aren't fully established for driverless cars and a lot of states don't even allow them yet the last time I checked. For the ones that do you have to have a licensed driver in the driver's seat. The ones without a steering wheel are not street legal yet as far as I'm aware. It seems that the law is trending towards the actions of the car being the responsibility of either its owner or its passenger, so a bug in the software could make the owner/passenger liable for damages. It's still very early for this technology, though, so it's likely that laws will change, especially since requiring an alert, licensed driver behind the wheel really negates a lot of the benefits of having a driverless car in the first place.\n\nIf you want to look to the future and philosophize about what the laws *should* be once the technology is mature and deployed then that's another story. It's likely in that case that you'll have many cars driving without anyone inside of them as people do things like calling their car to pick them up after a night of drinking. In this case it's likely that the police will have the means to pull a driverless car over and deactivate it if it's malfunctioning then to contact its owner. If a car is involved in an accident and is shown to be at fault then the question of who has to pay for the damages arises. I really doubt that car manufacturers are going to accept the liability for damages here and they have more political weight than the average Joe, so I would expect the owner of the car to foot the bill here, although it would still likely be handled through liability insurance just like with human-operated cars. I would expect this insurance to be cheaper than insuring a human driver once the technology is mature and reliable enough that the cars can handle all of the situations a human can, but better. "
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9otdxo | how do junkyard/dumps sort trash and recycling? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/9otdxo/eli5_how_do_junkyarddumps_sort_trash_and_recycling/ | {
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"Typically, items with any value get sorted out to be sold, and the remainder hits the dump. Depending on where you are in the country, and how your state government regulates recycling, some dumps will also have their own sorting methods, especially for construction and demolition materials. \n\nYou'd be surprised at the amount a garbage/recycling company can make. But there's also such a high cost to transport, it's not quite as profitable as it used to be.\n\nTl;Dr people who don't get paid a lot hourly stand at a conveyor belt and pull out anything that can be resold for value. Everything else goes to the dump. ",
"They don't.. sometimes they'll have an assembly line conveyer belt that will separate but most goes into the landfill unless they have a good buyer. ",
"if it's mixed in with garbage, it doesn't. recycled goods are only recycled if they're clean. no grease, no dirt.\n\n & #x200B;\n\non recycling line, magnets for metals, compressed air for paper goods, tumbler for bottles and cans. bottles vs cans separated by computer camera. "
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6ca3k1 | if people could save hundreds of thousands of dollars by paying upfront for houses and cars instead of taking out a loan, is there a logical reason why they don't save money for longer and pay upfront? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/6ca3k1/eli5_if_people_could_save_hundreds_of_thousands/ | {
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"Yes, because saving up $250k for a house (or however much) while you need a place to live generally isn't feasible. You'll be renting apartments, paying similar to what your mortgage would be, for about the length of the loan, and that money won't be seen again - just like the interest payments of your mortgage.\n\nA car is not as similar. You might not need a new vehicle, and a $5000 car can be found that will run pretty well. ",
"Because in the end that can be much more expensive.\n\nIn the case of a house, you still need to live somewhere. So that means that for those decades (and it can takes decades to save up) you are saving up money, you are not only putting away money to save, but you are also sinking money into renting a place. That is money you won't ever see a return on (whereas, putting that same money into mortgage payments at least comes with the potential of the house being worth more at the end of it all)\n\nSame with a car. For many people, cars are a necessary part of life. They need it to have a job. So you either have the situation where they do not have a car at all, and cannot get a job as public transport is not always an option (and therefore also cannot save.) Or you have the situation where instead they drive around an older less reliable car. That means they are able to have a job, but if that car is truly in a bad state, that also means they might need to throwing a lot of money at said car in terms of maintenance and constant repairs. Which can be more money than you pay on loan interest. ",
"Because they don't want, or can't afford, to be without that thing while they save up the money.\n\nLet's say you want to buy a $200,000 house. If you get a mortgage it will cost you $1000/month for 30 years, or $360,000 total.\n\nYou could save up the money and just pay for it up front, but at the same $1000/month it would take you almost 17 years. And since you're going to have to pay to live somewhere else that whole time, it's unlikely that you'll be able to afford to save the same amount you could pay on a mortgage. Plus there's the fact that the house will likely increase in price during those 17 years.\n\nLet's assume you're living in an apartment that costs $500/month during the time you're saving money, so that you can only afford to save $500/month. Let's also assume the price of the house goes up to $250,000 during the time you're saving up your money. At $500/month, it's going to take you almost 42 years to save up the money to buy that house.\n\nMost people don't want to spend years living in a cheap apartment so they can avoid paying interest on a mortgage. But here's the real kick in the ass. In my hypothetical scenario above, you'd have spent $360,000 if you'd gotten a mortgage, but if you count the rent money you were paying while you saved up for the house, you ended up paying $500,000 instead over those 42 years. And you didn't even get to live in the house the whole time.\n\nCars are a little bit different. It wouldn't take as long to save up for one, but for a lot of people, they can't afford to be without a car. They don't have easy access to public transit, or it takes too much time, or something like that. So they have to have a car. Plus if you have good credit it's pretty easy to get 0% financing on a car.\n",
"Aside from the very good answers provided here, there is one other part that hasn't been mentioned. \n\nHumans want things *now*. They want *tangible, instant gratification*. They don't *want* to save up for years to buy a thing outright (delayed gratification), they want it *today*. Although psychologists find that delayed gratification often leads to a more fulfilling sense of gratification, a rat given the choice between food *now* and more food *later* will always choose the former. This extends to humans very easily. "
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6s5cv1 | how can someone survive hitting the ground from skydiving? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/6s5cv1/eli5_how_can_someone_survive_hitting_the_ground/ | {
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"Usually by opening a parachute, which slows their terminal velocity to an acceptable speed. If you don't have one, generally skydiving is not recommended. ",
"For a large part luck, but there are a few things you can do to improve your chances. So let's imagine that you're skydiving and you left your parachute on the plane.\n\nMinimizing speed:\nWhen you're falling you can decrease your speed by spreading your arms and legs. A lower impact speed causes less damage when hitting the ground.\n\nPicking the right location:\nYou have a fair degree of moving horizontally when falling, again by moving your body. Your best chances would be falling into vegetation. Smallish tree branches, bushes and other plants can slow you down before impact. Even just dirt will 'give' more when landing compared to a black-top road for example.\n\nLanding \"right\":\nIf you land on your head you'll probably won't survive, you need your brain. If you land flat on your back/belly a lot of force is passed trough your organs, rupturing your lungs or damaging your heart. You can survive a lot of damage to your legs though, so you want them to take the most force by hitting the ground first.\n\nAfter that you can improve your landing a bit more. Instead of keeping your legs straight you can bend your knees a bit and try to roll with the impact. This way the landing takes just a little bit longer and the forces will be more spread out while you land.\n"
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cuelku | what instrument/equipment is disrupted by my active cellphone when flying on a modern airplane? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/cuelku/eli5_what_instrumentequipment_is_disrupted_by_my/ | {
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"To my knowledge, none. If was originally to stop interference in radio communications on the ground. I'm not a pilot or an engineer though, but I've read an article about it a while back.",
"None. \n\nAircraft instrumentation may have been possibly affected by early cell phones and walkmans etc., **but now they're designed with cell frequencies and interference in mind. \n\nNo, the reason why they want you to put your devices away is so you're _paying attention._ Paying attention to the safety briefing, paying attention as the airplane takes off. Otherwise you're the asshat who can't open the emergency exit because he didn't read the safety card, or noone can get past you in your seat because your tray table and Macbook pro are blocking the seat.\n\nedit: and as /u/hvarzan points out, cabin crew don't get paid enough to determine which devices DO vs. which ones don't, so the rule blankets ALL.",
"See my contribution to a previous thread on this question: [here](_URL_0_)",
"On my recently flights they have you pack away things the size of a latptop or bigger in case there's an emergency during take off/landing. Other than that they actually promote their wifi and available services and even offer headphones for your cell phone.",
"The issue is with the FAA. Anything that transmits or receives must be tested and certified for safety. How many different cell phone models are there? And they change every year. The cost for all that testing is prohibitive.",
"If you hold a cellphone up next to analog audio equipment (like a headphone cable using a standard jack), you'll occasionally hear intermittent buzzing.\n\nIf you do this in a room without cell towers, it'll be louder and more obnoxious (since the cellphone will increase radio power in an attempt to get a signal).\n\nIn theory, cellphones on an airplane could produce line interference in any of the aircraft wiring in a similar manner.\n\nIt's very, very, very unlikely that this would happen with sufficient strength to cause any problems at all, especially with modern aircraft (which are designed with this interference in mind) and modern phones (which don't produce as much interference as older ones did).\n\nThink about it: if it were really dangerous, they wouldn't settle for just asking you nicely. They'd ban you having the devices.\n\nBut they don't rescind the rule, because since it's the FAA, it has the force of law, and it's an easy way to deal with the fact that people's phones ringing/buzzing and people yapping away into them, in an environment as miserable as an aircraft, would lead to frequent outbreaks of violence.",
"I don't think it's actually dangerous anymore, just more that they keep the law because it would be wicked annoying otherwise. \n\nYou know how annoying it is in a DMV or on a bus or other public place with someone talking loudly on a cell phone? Now imagine that, but on a cramped 10 hour flight with 300 passengers that are already pissed off because their flight was delayed by 3 hours.",
"Recreational pilot and computer engineer here.\n\nIdeally, none. In reality, it is impossible to test all combinations of aviation radios and consumer electronics in all circumstances to eliminate the possibility of interference. So aviation takes a belt-and-suspenders approach -- ask passengers to turn off their active transmitters, and also have procedures for dealing with it when something goes wrong (which may involve flying up and away from the airport and starting the approach to landing over).\n\nMy personal experience: I was flying into Truckee-Tahoe airport while sitting in the copilot seat of a small jet, using the GPS to guide our approach. As we got down below the level of the mountain peaks, the GPS lost its signal (as did its backup), and told us \"\\*\\*\\*FLAG\\*\\*\\*\". There is no formal procedure for what to do if your GPS (and backup GPS) fails while on a GPS approach in the clouds. The pilot started to improvise (climb quickly and ask for help from ATC) when we broke out of the clouds and saw the airport. We then proceeded visually (a.k.a., navigating by looking out the window).\n\nLater diagnosis revealed that if any passenger in the plane had their cell phone left on, it was about that point on this approach when the phone came in range of the cell towers on top of the local ski hills. And a cell phone checking in to the tower at max power was enough to briefly overwhelm the GPS receivers in the plane, at a rather inconvenient time. But this only happened with certain cellphone providers (I believe it was T-Mobile in this case).\n\nSo my conclusion? Turn your phone off. It probably won't matter. But it might."
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24n9lc | why do dogs have cleaner mouths then humans. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/24n9lc/eli5_why_do_dogs_have_cleaner_mouths_then_humans/ | {
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"text": [
"Why do you assume that they do?"
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c1jls2 | how can apple trademark "apple" | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/c1jls2/eli5_how_can_apple_trademark_apple/ | {
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"text": [
"Trademarks only apply within a specific industry or product type. They can trademark \"apple\" as a name for computer equipment because no one else was using it for that. They can't control its use for fruit, flavors or other unrelated stuff.",
"The primary requirement for trademarks is that they be distinctive - they need to uniquely identify the product. Apple is the textbook example often used for \"arbitrary\" marks, the strongest category of mark. Apple makes computers. The word \"apple\" has nothing to do with computers. Therefore, there is no possibility that anybody else would need to describe a computer as an \"apple\", so the mark is extremely distinctive.\n\nThe more plausible it is that somebody would need to use your brand name in describing your product, the weaker your trademark is. The categories are:\n\n1. **Arbitrary**: The word has no relation to the product. Amazon has no relation to a shopping website.\n\n2. **Fanciful**: The word is made up. Kodak film\n\n3. **Suggestive**: The word relates to the qualities of the product. Greyhound bus lines - A fast animal suggests a fast bus line.\n\n4. **Descriptive**: The word directly describes the product. Cold Ice Cream. These are generally not trademarkable, but long-term unchallenged use can make it more distinctive. Names are generally in this category too.\n\nTrademarks acquire or lose distinctiveness based on how closely consumers identify the product with the brand. McDonalds is a descriptive trademark, but it is extremely strong because of the prevalence of their brand in the public eye. Kleenex is a fanciful mark, but fairly weak because consumers habitually use their brand to refer to other company's products.\n\nTrademarks can overlap it it's not likely to cause confusion; Smith Auto Body in Des Moines is not likely to get confused with Smith Auto Body in Anchorage. Nor is Smith Auto Body likely to get confused with Smith Ice Cream, even if they're in the same town.\n\nSome trademarks are considered so distinctive that the existence of any other meaning, even ones that don't overlap would still weaken the trademark and are thus disallowed - Coke and McDonalds are examples. If you're named McDonald, you can't name your business after yourself. The Mc(thing) branding is so strong that you generally can't even use Mc(thing McDonalds doesn't sell)."
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svgkx | what is whole grain? | What is whole grain and what does it mean? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/svgkx/eli5_what_is_whole_grain/ | {
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"When most companies make bread flour, they usually use just one small part of the wheat grain, called the endosperm, because that makes bread feel softer and look whiter. \"Whole grain\" means they use most of the rest of the wheat grain (not just the endosperm, but the germ and the bran, too), so you get more nutrients and fiber."
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4isv4v | the difference between a sleeper hold and actually killing someone by choking them. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4isv4v/eli5_the_difference_between_a_sleeper_hold_and/ | {
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"My guess is the difference between the lack of blood (sleep) and lack of air (death). When a sleeper hold is applied, it looks like the trachea has space in the crook of your elbow, but the veins are still compressed by your bicep and forearm. When you're choking someone you're more likely to crush the airway, even if you're still compressing the veins. Just my guess. ",
"Time. A sleeper hold is a blood choke, and after a few seconds without steady blood flow to the brain, you pass out. If the hold is held, brain damage, and ultimately death, will result. Stopping airflow takes longer for each step to occur, as oxygenated blood will still keep the brain \"awake\" longer",
"Do this:\n\nPush in on your throat (larynx) just a tiny bit. It doesn't take long and you find you can't breathe. If someone puts their hands around your throat to cut off the air, you're a goner.\n\nNow press in on the sides *of your neck.* After a good 4 or 5 seconds, you will feel the effects of blood slowing down to your brain. It doesn't take long and you pass out. That's the sleeper. Now if someone was doing that to you and CONTINUED even after you passed out, you'd die.\n\nOne cuts off air. The other cuts off blood.",
"sleeper hold cuts of the main arteries on your neck...thus they pass out from lack of oxygen tot he brain (which can also be fatal if done too long)\n",
"If you want to see someone thrash lock them up with a choke and just close their windpipe, don't get their jugular, tell them you are going to give them brain damage, but not kill them. They thrash like fucking crazy, they'll scratch and eye out and shit if they can. Also make sure they don't have friends ready to fuck you up, it can take up to a minute for someone to go out when you just choke them. You gotta do a rear naked and pull the wrist into the front of the throat and not squeeze with your arms. It's weird. ",
"There are two types of chokes. Blood chokes, which reduce blood going to the brain, and air chokes, which reduce air coming into the lungs. \n\n\nWhat most people think of as a \"sleeper hold\", is also known as a \"Rear Naked Choke\" or [\"RNC\"](_URL_0_). (Naked just means that you're not using any clothing, rope, etc. Just your bare hands.) The RNC is a type of blood choke. \n\nDone properly the victim will lose consciousness in a few seconds. If it's released soon afterwards they will wake up eventually. It's unlikely to kill someone (please don't try this at home though) unless it's held for a long time afterwards, the victim vomits and chokes on that, or they have some other kind of health problem. \n\nThere are lots of different types of air chokes. From weird variations of the RNC to stuff like [this](_URL_1_). While they hurt a lot more than blood chokes, they usually take much longer to make the victim pass out. Just think about how long you could hold your breath before passing out. \n\nThe other problem with them is that squeezing on the windpipe can injure it. So even if the choke is released, the person might still not be able to breath. Because it takes a lot of time and hurts a lot, people also usually thrash around a lot, which makes these injuries more likely. "
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2ql3m5 | how far back does a dog's "smell memory" go? | For example, when I go visit my parents once a year, does their dog remember who I am, or am I completely new to them? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2ql3m5/eli5_how_far_back_does_a_dogs_smell_memory_go/ | {
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"I had seen a British video (sorry, can't source) asserting that it's about seven days. The video \"showed\" smell layered upon layers with spiffy moving clouds, I think it was a dog going into a pub.\n\nTypical British, it had to be a pub dinint?",
"Their brains operate similar to humans, so while their such smell memory can go quite far back potentially, there's also the potential for them to forget, or prune away memories not very salient to them. For instance, if he was smoking weed and banging bitches and meeting new friends everyday at your parents', they'd pretty much soon forget you with you being inconsequential to their lives - especially if you are just the occasional visitor to your parents, not like their puppy playmate. Smell is not the *only* thing they use, they use sight too, though smell is admittedly by far the best. \n\nSmell is unique in that it's often direct to the limbic system in the brain, so smell memories can be powerful and last long unconsciously, that said. However, unless you have a particularly strong, differentiated scent to the dogs, that's only going to do so much to help them remember you by."
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2yin01 | how are we supposed to know what the laws are? they can be built and changed and removed, but we're never told about it. | From the State's perspective, they may build laws, change laws, and remove laws, but never update any of the citizens.
An example, though maybe not a good one, would be robbery. I understand being a thief is illegal, but how am I supposed to know this, legally, short of asking someone in government or doing it and then facing the consequences?
Another could be piracy. I could download and share movies (which is extremely easy to do) and then all of a sudden be told I am breaking the law and may end up owing tons of fees. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2yin01/eli5_how_are_we_supposed_to_know_what_the_laws/ | {
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"They simplify the matters by just assuming you know all of the law. This is understood under the principles of *Ignorantia Juris Non Excusat (ignorance of the law is no excuse). As long as the new laws and changes to laws are promulgated in public media (newspapers of record, government websites, TV), they assume you can read it.\n\nBecause if ignorance is considered a valid legal excuse then a lot of problems would arise as it is difficult to prove/disprove what may/may not be in your head in the past.\n\nPS. However, if you can demonstrate genuine ignorance of the law, the judge/jury may go easier on you during sentencing.",
"Never told about it? You're free to read the [US Code](_URL_0_), your state's laws, and your municipality's laws. They are almost universally published online and at the very least your local courthouse can point you in the right direction to find hard copies."
]
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9pjd4n | what measures a write cycle on an ssd? | I know what it is in theory, but what I don’t know is how it’s measured. Is it a certain amount of gigabytes saved? A certain amount of time spent writing data onto the drive?
I hope I’ve explained the question sufficiently to be answered. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/9pjd4n/eli5_what_measures_a_write_cycle_on_an_ssd/ | {
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"SSD contains storage cells. Imagine many stacks of sticky notes. You want to save data? Write it on the sticky notes. You want to make change to the data you saved? Peel off the sticky note and write on the new blank. The bigger the sticky note the more you can write on it before having to peel it off for a new blank.",
"Flash consists of billions of transistors that store data by pushing electrons through to a floating gate. They're pushing them through an insulator which gets damaged each time and will break down eventually. The \"write cycles\" spec is how many times you can write to each transistor before they break down and can't accurately store what you want\n\nIf you had transistors that worked fine at 999 write cycles and we're dead at 1000 then the max life of a 256 GB drive would be 256 TB written\n\nIn practice though, 1000 write cycles is the mean time between failures (MBTF) meaning they have a 50% chance of failing after that many cycles, and the manufacturer will spec that lower than reality(may actually be 1200). We also put extra flash on SSDs so we can rotate in new blocks when some get over used so your 256 GB drive may actually have 300 GB of flash on board(called over provisioning) to extend it's life\n\n[In practice you can write 900-1200 TB to a 256 GB drive over it's life](_URL_0_)"
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rzs6i | why are potato sprouts toxic while the potatoes themselves are not? | If I leave a potato sitting for too long, it grows sprouts that are toxic to humans. It seems counter intuitive to me that something that is not toxic can became toxic without outside influence. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/rzs6i/eli5_why_are_potato_sprouts_toxic_while_the/ | {
"a_id": [
"c49y8ip"
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"score": [
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"text": [
"ELI12: Potatoes (all parts of them) contain very low levels of chemicals called solanine and chaconine, which are toxic, but not at the normal levels found in potatoes. Chemical reactions in the sprouts cause the concentration of these chemicals to be much higher, to the point where they can make you sick.\n\nELI5: There's stuff in potatoes that makes you sick if you eat too much of it (like candy, or anything else does). But sprouts have a lot more of that stuff, so eating any of the sprouts will likely make you sick.\n\nSource: On Food and Cooking, by Harold McGee."
]
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[]
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|
1g71lj | terminal cancer | I'm reading The Fault In Our Stars, and the main character has terminal cancer. It started with stage IV thyroid and metastasized to her lungs. But she says that since she was originally diagnosed it was terminal. How do they know that? I get it with something like brain cancer where it can be too hard to cut it out. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1g71lj/eli5_terminal_cancer/ | {
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"Stage IV means that the cancer has metastasized to other organs in the body (the lung in this case). By this point, it's too wide-spread to effectively deal with. You can't cut out the tumours cause they tend to be numerous, and the cancer cells are using your body's lymphatic system as a highway to transport itself anywhere it needs to go.",
"That make this determination by looking at other patients who have had a similar diagnosis. If most of them die within 6 months, you are considered terminal."
]
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503vpk | why blood does not coagulates in blood bags? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/503vpk/eli5_why_blood_does_not_coagulates_in_blood_bags/ | {
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"They put anticoagulants in with the blood, also they have a little device that constantly shakes the blood bags. the shaking keeps them from coagulating while you're donating.",
"As /u/inc0nspicous suggested, the bags are usually coated with heparin which is an anti-coagulant."
]
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[],
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||
1pk0u6 | what happens when a founder of a company dies? who do the shares / voting rights go to? | Do the person who inherits the shares also inherits the same voting rights as the founder? What if he had no idea about the company ! | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1pk0u6/eli5_what_happens_when_a_founder_of_a_company/ | {
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"The shares are like any other property, it likely transfers in the same way a house or a car would.\n\nIf they have no idea about the company ideally they would get advice from someone who is more informed, or they might sell their share, or have someone vote in their place.",
"I'm assuming you're talking about the corporation, in which case the founder's shares would pass to his heirs like any other property. Maybe he willed them to someone, or maybe he holds them indirectly in some trust in which someone has a right of survivorship. Shares are like any other property; there's a thousand ways to pass them along at death. The fact that this guy was the founder doesn't change anything.\n\nIf he was a member of, say, a partnership or an LLC, it may be a bit different. Typical operating agreements don't just allow a person's interest to pass along upon their death. Usually, the other partners have to buy out the decedant's interest in the business (by paying the proceeds to his estate/survivors). Businesses commonly keep life insurance policies on their members/partners for this very reason.",
"if yer thinking like Adam Sandler's Mr Deeds movie, it'd pretty much work like that. "
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3rxj6r | why do some candies like jolly ranchers make my teeth hurt (or at least more sensitive)? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3rxj6r/eli5_why_do_some_candies_like_jolly_ranchers_make/ | {
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"Basically the acidity of the candy wears down your enamel and leaves your teeth more susceptible to sensitivity. \n\nAnother possibility, and more serious problem, is from gum decay. As your gums recede higher and higher they expose more sensitive parts of the teeth. "
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1ple0g | how frozen fruit can have a higher sugar content than fresh | Eg: I picked up a bag of frozen blueberries which list no other ingredients than the fruit itself but show a significantly higher sugar/carb content than the same serving size of fresh blueberries. I've also seen nutritional info show different sugar % for fresh vs frozen of a given berry. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1ple0g/eli5_how_frozen_fruit_can_have_a_higher_sugar/ | {
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"Frozen produce can be picked when it's ripe.\n\nStore bought produce is either picked green if it's a fruit that ripens off the tree( in reponse to ethylene, like bananas), or slightly unripe(like most berries, tomatoes , Ect) The purpose is both to extend shelf life and to make the fruit stand up to rougher shipping."
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c2vk1j | how does the us tax system work? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/c2vk1j/eli5_how_does_the_us_tax_system_work/ | {
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"I’m not a CPA, but in a nutshell yes everyone who is employed gets taxes taken out automatically each paycheck however, sometimes they take too much or not enough because of the plethora of deductions individuals might be eligible to claim. Every year we must report any income and deductions we are eligible to claim to the IRS. Deductions reduce the amount of your income that is taxable. Some end up paying more and some get money back.",
"Most people in the US end up paying their taxes the way you do, by having money \"withheld\" from their paychecks every month. This amount is usually calculated for you by the company you work for. However, the US also asks citizens to prepare a form every year summarizing how much they owed in taxes, how much they paid, and either sending along additional money if they underpaid that year or requesting a refund if they overpaid. \n\nThis is... not the most efficient system. The US tax authority can already prepare this form itself (it kind of has to if it has any chance of catching tax cheaters), but it still compels citizens to make their own version. This has lead to an industry of software and seasonal accounting firms to help people fill out the form, and that industry has even lobbied to make it *harder* for citizens to use free services to do their taxes. It's kind of a mess. \n\nThe biggest reason why the US goes this route is because its tax code is very complex and includes lots of things that aren't properly thought of as \"taxes\". Paying your mortgage, sending a kid to college, or even working at a certain level of income can all affect your tax burden. The US tax authorities don't know *everything* about your life, so even if they just sent everyone a generic form to sign, lots of people would end up submitting a more complicated return instead.",
"Taxes are taken out of our pay by our employers, banks that pay interest, etc., (called withholding) but the amount taken is just a very approximate guess. At the end of the tax year, most Americans get sent a bunch of forms from everyone that gave them significant money, and we fill out a big form with those numbers and do the math the form tells us. That shows how much extra or under was withheld. That form is sent to the government. More and more lately, instead of filling out the form directly, Americans are either using an accountant or tax software to do the actual form-filling and math. \n\nIf too little had been withheld over the year, we send in the form to the government with a check (or the electronic equivalent). If too much was withheld, we send in the form and the government sends back a check. \n\nThe reason it is so hard to estimate the withholding in the first place is that the US tax code is full of “credits” and “deductions”. These are ways that the government gives you back some of the tax money depending on your situation and what you spend. For example there are deductions for having kids, spending money on child care, on some kinds of medical care, mortgage interest, charities, and many more. \n\nSo let me ask you in return, in Scotland, how does your employer know how much to withhold every pay check?",
"The US tax system is based on the idea of \"voluntary compliance.\" When Americans start a new job, they fill out a \"W4\" form that estimates the proportion of taxes that should be deducted by the employer and paid to the federal government. For argument's sake, this estimate is usually around 30% of gross annual income.\n\nIn January, the employer gives the employee a \"W2\" form indicating exactly how much tax has been paid from the employee's salary/wages in the previous year.\n\nThe employee gathers their W2 (or more than one if they work multiple jobs) and any documents or receipts for money that can be deducted from their net annual income before April 15. Most people use their W2 and other documents to fill out their tax return (\"1040\" form). This is the document telling the government exactly how much you paid in taxes, and exactly how much can be deducted from your annual net income. \n\nDeductions can be things like tuition or student loan payments, a flat amount for each child or dependent you support, interest on a mortgage, or charitable donations. There are LOTS of possible deductions. Each of these amounts can be deducted from your net income in order to lower the amount that 30% will be.\n\nIf 30% of your annual net income AFTER deductions ends up being LESS than you paid on your gross income throughout the year, then the government issues a tax REFUND to you. \n\nIf there are circumstances in which your annual income ends up being GREATER than the amount you earned at work (investment dividends, inheritance, proceeds from the sale of a house can all increase your gross income) then the 1040 will show that and you will OWE the government some more tax money.\n\nThe reason this is \"voluntary\" is because the taxpayer is responsible for doing all this on their own. Many people use a private accountant or tax preparation service to help get the calculations exactly right.\n\nOnce the taxpayer submits all this info to the IRS, it is checked for accuracy. Most taxpayers do it accurately enough to satisfy the IRS. If the IRS thinks you've made a huge mistake in your calculations on the 1040, they'll do an \"audit,\" which is an entirely different ELI5.\n\nHTH!",
"Is it really that simple in UK? What about deductions, income from other sources like investments, etc.",
"For normal employees, taxes are withheld based an approximate formula but you then have to \"do your taxes\" to calculate the exact value and pay/receive the difference. If you do it yourself manually, there are lots of forms you (potentially) have to fill out. The main 1040 form is now simpler than it used to be, but that actually makes it more confusing in a way, because there are a zillion forms and it's hard to even make sense of what you need to fill out unless you already know (it depends on your situation), but basically you need to enter information from forms from your employers (income), banks (interest/dividends), etc. and then either take the standard deduction (a fixed amount everyone gets to subtract) or (if it comes out higher) itemize various deductions in a lot of different categories such as unreimbursed work expenses (it's often very hard to understand what is actually deductible or not). If you have received a form with tax information and you \\*haven't\\* entered this in a form somewhere, you have probably screwed up.\n\nTo get a sense of all the types of information you might potentially need to fill out you can look at the excel form someone makes every year here: [_URL_0_](_URL_0_)\n\nYou basically either need to fill out paper forms or use software (which may or may not be free depending on your situation) that will ask you lots of questions to essentially fill out the forms for you.\n\nIf you do it manually there are lots of calculations you have to perform, including calculations just to figure out whether something applies to you, and it's very easy to screw up.\n\nThe biggest argument against having the IRS calculate everything for you (I guess) is that so many people do itemized deductions (unfortunately this is how the whole system is set up and that would be harder to change) and the IRS won't necessarily have this information, but IMHO they still need to provide easy software to everyone and automatically fill the information they do have, even if they provide an option to manually add deductions etc.\n\nIt would probably better to somehow change the system to not be have so many deductions so that it could be completely automated, and politicians do sometimes talk about simplifying the tax code, but it unfortunately seems like it's never going to happen because of how US politics work.",
"Government: you owe us money, it’s called taxes\n\nMe: how much do I owe? \n\nG: you have to figure that out. \n\nM: I just pay what I want? \n\nG: No. we know how much you owe, but you have to guess that number. \n\nM: what if I get it wrong. \n\nG: you go to prison.",
"Internal Revenue Service worker here. The top answers (as of this posting) are correct about how tax is withheld by employers and so on and is generally not as complicated as it looks, etc.\n\nHowever, the people writing and making the TV shows you talk about, in general, do have really complicated tax returns, due to, essentially, being freelance and getting taxes taken out by many different employers (theres more complexity to it than that, but let's keep it simple), not to mention the very large amounts of money being worked with, so if there is an error, there is a potential for huge penalties that you have to pay for doing it incorrectly.\n\ntl:dr The reason people on TV freak out about taxes , even though it's not that complicated for most of the Americsn public, is because the people making TV actually have really complicated tax situations.\n\nEdit: Don't even get me started on working in different states, that each have their own local taxes you need to pay and tax forms you need to fill out. That gets bonkers really fast.",
"US citizens are subject to taxation by federal, state, and local governments in a variety of different ways. In addition to income taxes, there are also property taxes (often used by state/local governments for public school revenue), among others.\n\nMany (probably most) people do have their income taxes withdrawn from their paychecks so that, in theory, there is little left to do at tax filing time - at least with respect to doing their federal and state income taxes (a few cities in the US also have income taxes - for example, NYC - and I don't remember if they have the machinery to automatically withdraw their taxes from paychecks). However, there are a vast number of deductions that one may qualify for at the federal/state/local levels, and the tax authorities will not have this information available to them on the back end. Additionally, some forms of income are taxable, some aren't, and some are subject to different rates of taxation than others. As a result, the taxpayer will need to work through those things and apply for any available deductions (and ideally also keep records verifying that they qualify for the deductions in the event of an audit). Essentially, US tax policy is used as a means of incentivizing behavior on the part of citizens in addition to raising revenue, and the deduction system reflects this (for example, there are deductions for mortgage interest payments because home ownership is viewed as a \"good thing\"; there are deductions for educational expenses; medical expenses; there are deductions for charitable giving; income placed in a retirement fund may not be counted as taxable income under certain circumstances; etc.).\n\nRelated to this, taxes/tax policies are constantly being adjusted at the federal, state, and local levels, and so even if a taxpayer did not seek out any deductions, tax laws might change over the course of a year and as a result the amounts withdrawn from that year's paychecks may be too little or too much to cover a person's income tax obligations for that year.\n\nThere are also some unique situations posed by the US's federalist system. For example, if you live in one state but commute to a job in another state (say you live in New Jersey or Connecticut but have a job in NYC), you'll have to work out what taxes you owe to each state (and possibly also to NYC).\n\nWith respect to property taxes, typically the local government will just send you a bill on a regular basis stating what you owe, based on the government's assessment of your property's value. There is often some sort of challenge/grievance process available if the taxpayer thinks that the charge is too high, but otherwise you would just pay that bill as it comes due.\n\nIn terms of actually \"doing\" the taxes, many people do them themselves. Others use an in-person tax service (H & R Block is one of the bigger providers), or buy a reasonably inexpensive software program that can quickly identify most deductions that someone could qualify for. If a person's finances are not too complicated (a job, a house, a family, maybe a nest egg or a retirement account), then one of those options should do the trick. If someone has a more complicated financial portfolio, owns a business, etc., then hiring an accountant might be preferable.",
"**Does everyone in the U.S. have to do their own taxes, regardless of your employment status?**\n -- > Yes. Tax forms are supposed to be filled out, regardless of whether you're employed or not. Retirees need to fill out tax returns, just as the employed do. This is because taxation in the U.S. is based off your income, and it's possible to have income without being technically employed (See how Al Capone was eventually incarcerated).\n\n**(skipping ahead). What taxes do you need to file?**\n -- > You file taxes twice, but taxes are assessed at 3 or 4 levels: \n* the federal level \n* the state level\n* the county level\n* the incorporated city level (if applicable). \n\n2-4 are all rolled into a single form & set of calculations on your State tax return. \n1 is through a separate form filed specifically with the IRS.\n\n**(coming back) How the hell do you keep track of it all?**\n -- > For the purposes of simplicity, my answer below is within the context of the federal tax return - I am ignoring the State tax returns. The answer is, it depends. As a lot of other people have pointed out, the purpose of filing the forms is to reconcile how much tax is owed versus how much has been pulled out of your paycheck in withholdings. Not enough withholdings to cover your return == you owe tax; More withholdings than you owe in tax == you get a refund. For people who have a single source of income, it's simplistic. It can very easily get complicated once you start to get multiple sources & types of income. Generally speaking, those in the first situation (single source of income) can use the Form 1040-EZ for calculating their tax obligations. 1040-EZ is just a simplified version of the Form 1040 where in Form 1040 all options & deductions are explored as a possibility, with 1040-EZ it starts with the assumption that you have a single source of income & are taking the standard deduction instead of itemizing. This reduces the paperwork requirements. As an example, I've seen 1040-EZ returns that were 2-3 pages long, and I've seen 1040 returns that were 40 pages long. The TL;DR; on this is that the more complicated your financial situation, the more complicated your tax calculations will be.\n\n**Are there different types of tax you need to take it upon yourself to pay?**\n -- > Within the context of income-based taxes, possibly. If you are a salaried or waged employee, then the company is required by law to withhold a portion of your paycheck in anticipation of paying taxes. There are other types of workers where that law doesn't apply. Independent Contractors (1099 workers) work for themselves, but contract their services out to a company. In that case, the company isn't responsible for withholding taxes for what you're paid - you are.\n\n -- > Outside of income-based taxes, yes, there are still taxes we have to pay ourselves, depending upon circumstances. For example, the taxes we owe to the county we live in for property we own are assessed completely separately than the income-based taxes we're assessed yearly. For property taxes, we get a bill each year showing how much we owe based upon the value of the property & we have to pay that out of pocket. There are some caveats to that, like having your mortgage company charge more each year & withhold that money in an escrow to pay the property taxes on.\n\nHope this helps!"
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xpifu | how or where do radio stations get their music? | Do they buy the CD albums? Do they download the music online? How did they get the music in the early days when radio just started? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/xpifu/eli5_how_or_where_do_radio_stations_get_their/ | {
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"From the promoters. They want to sell the music. ",
"For several weeks now my buddy has had a two hour radio show every Saturday on an independent radio station. It's his responsibility to find and purchase the music to play on air and online. This is obviously very different from your standard Clear Channel broadcasting. ",
"Six-year radio station employee here. \n\nMost commercial music stations have an agreement with a programming/distribution company like Dial Global. Every week, your station gets discs loaded with new music that fits your station's format (Top 40, adult contemporary, country, etc.). In exchange for these discs, the station plays what are called \"barter\" commercials. Their agreement with the distribution company may be 2 minutes per hour of commercial time, for example. The distribution company has sales people that then sell this nationwide airtime to big companies like Pepsi, Home Depot, etc. Every week, the station then gets a list of commercials to play in each of those 2 minutes per hour. This is how the distribution companies make money. The stations, of course, sell the rest of their alloted commercial time to local advertisers, which is how the station itself makes money. \n\nThe station's program director likely also has a weekly phone conversation with someone at the distribution company about what songs they're going to add to the station's rotation that week. It's a negotiation process, so that the company can get the songs they want on the air, and the program director can make the station sound the way he/she wants, as they know the local market and what the local listeners want. Record labels and promoters are likely dealing with the guy at the distribution company, not the local program directors across the country. This is why radio station playlists are often very similar across the country. \n\nCollege radio is a different game. No distribution companies, just a lot of music promotion companies that send CDs and MP3s of new artists to college music directors every week. The promoters then have weekly phone conversations with each station's music director to try to get them to add the music that has just been sent to them to the station's rotation. ",
"One year an album was leaked a few weeks before release and a radio station nearby played the entire leaked album. \n\nSometimes the stations torrent shit I guess too lol. ",
"Just to add a bit more, there's like 4 major record labels that own about 80% of the music in the US. Universal, EMI, Warner, Sony. These companies make retarded amount of money by dominating the music industry, as well as video games, movies, tv shows & networks, magazines & publishing.\n\nThey control the distribution of the music they produce. If any independent labels start doing well, they just buy them out.\n\nThe sneaky part is that they've done this for decades. They just keep the smaller label name to keep people from realizing that they're just another asset of the big 4.\n\nLook at the top 40 lists and they're all produced, recorded, or distributed through one of the big companies.\n\nWhy this is bad is because it's exploitive. It means that music trends don't form naturally anymore. Rap & punk before they got taken over had serious anti-corporate, anti-exploitive messages and they got sold out for money.\n\n",
"I work at a college radio station. We get a constant stream of new music sent to us by record companies that we digitize. If Djs feel like playing the actual cd, they can. We used to get vinyl too, so we have a huge collection of vinyl that can be played. Beyond that, most student djs just play music off their laptops, which means it is their music that they're playing. The music we get comes either from record companies that have been sending us music for a while and know about us, or from labels we contact if we're interested in an album they're putting out. We typically get music before it's actually released. We're not allowed to play commercials either since we're not a commercial station.",
"Another related question: why aren't there more radio stations with more variety? Why can't there be a radio station that plays more metal, for example?"
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62ddpr | why does having a strong core help with exercises like pull ups? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/62ddpr/eli5_why_does_having_a_strong_core_help_with/ | {
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"You can hold your core and legs steady and that makes the pullup easier to control and execute. You have to hit the right angle and then hold it. Alternatively you can do sloppy kipping pullups a la Crossfit. I never do pullups that way though as it looks like a great way to get hurt when you're my size. ;D",
"When you do a pullup, from a physics perspective, you use a lot of energy and your body goes up. When your core sucks, you use a lot of energy and your body flops around and maybe goes up. Having a strong core helps you lose less pulling energy to wiggling your body around and use more for actually pulling you up.",
"If you have a strong core you can maintain the correct shape during the exercise. If you have the correct shape while you pull yourself up you use the correct muscles. So good core strength = more efficient exercise.",
"I'll explain in terms of a deadlift (picking something up off the ground) then transfer the same idea to pull-ups\n\nShort answer, levers, leverage, and energy transfer\n\nWhen you pick something up off the ground, the point of contact is between your hands and the object, you then apply force through your feet to the ground, and while holding onto the object, begin to stand up bringing the object with you.\n\nTo accomplish this you need to transfer energy from your feet through your body to your hands.\n\nIf you've tried to \"yoyo\" with a loose string... you know it flops on the ground and doesn't come back up... this is because there is poor energy transfer between your hand and the yoyo.... so if your back isn't right (weak muscles in core) the energy from your feet to your hands gets dissipated and you can't lift it up \n\n\nSo now to the pull-up... this same energy transfer occurs with tight muscles transferring energy from your back (lats) to your hands to pull you up\n\nYour back muscles though pull on your rib cage... if there's no counter force (provided by a strong core) then it's like pulling on a loose yoyo string and you don't get up\n\nLet me know if it makes sense\n\nSource: kinesiology degree, personal trainer"
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apna0w | why do mma fighters hate to suffer so much from cutting weight? isn't there the technology to calculate your weight without the water weight that you would have cut by the dehydration processes fighters go through before the weigh in? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/apna0w/eli5_why_do_mma_fighters_hate_to_suffer_so_much/ | {
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"They have to do a weight to power ratio calculation. How small can I get to maximize my power in the cage? There are some calculations and technologies that measure body fat percentage. But ultimately, it’s up to the fighter and their team of trainers to decide what weight class they get cut down to. The fun wrinkle to all this is how quickly can these fighters recover from a weight cut because they have roughly 24 hours to drink and eat before stepping in the cage.\n\nIn college and high school wrestling they test weights at the beginning of a season to limit what weight classes guys can cut to whole factoring in water weight. They don’t apply this to MMA. "
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3eb12a | why does bacon shrink when you cook it? | I always thought that when you give something heat it expands, not shrink it like how it does for bacon. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3eb12a/eli5_why_does_bacon_shrink_when_you_cook_it/ | {
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"A lot of Fat and and a great deal of water are expelled as it cooks. The remaing fat and protiens are what you are consuming.\n\nLook at the pan when you are done cooking it - that is volume that the bacon has lost.",
"The heat causes the proteins in the meat to contract and tighten up, which causes the the literal shrinking of the piece of bacon. Cooking out fat and water does nothing (or very minimal at best) shrinkage. \n\nYou can throw a piece of fat in a pan and it will mostly disappear with enough time. That doesn't explain why it shrinks. Sure, heat melts it... But it doesn't shrink, it just disappears. \n\nBut take a lean piece of meat... Venison tenderloin or something similar, and heat it, and it too will shrink. Not from water loss or fat loss (very little fat) but from the tightening of the muscle fibers. "
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2fbqdv | if, according to newton, an object at rest will stay at rest unless an external force acts upon it, how come anything in the universe is moving? | What caused the initial moving? In our universe, isn't everything in motion on a particle level? So if you go back in time far enough, won't you eventually reach a point where nothing was moving? Can some things move on their own accord? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2fbqdv/eli5_if_according_to_newton_an_object_at_rest/ | {
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"If you work the patterns of the universe backward you get the Big Bang. What caused the Big Bang is unknown and potentially unknowable.",
"Because the universe has tons of forces.",
"You're ignoring the second part of the law. \n\n > An object in motion will stay in motion, and an object at rest will stay at rest, *unless acted upon by an outside force*. \n\nThe universe is full of forces. Gravity pulls things together, Electromagnetism pushes and pulls and makes things move in funky ways, the Strong force pulls nucleons together into a nucleus, the Weak force has a complicated function that I can't understand or explain. Newton's 1st law doesn't say that the universe is static, it's a definition of force, and how objects move when you're looking at the universe through the lens of Newtonian mechanics. "
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644od6 | why does japan have awesome candy? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/644od6/eli5_why_does_japan_have_awesome_candy/ | {
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"That's more of a subjective opinion question as opposed to an objective question. I'm not sure it's a good fit for eli5",
"You probably like them because they're exotic. They use flavors that are more popular in Japan. They eat different fruits and spices that reflect flavor profiles you aren't bored with.",
"Try at r/nostupidquestions\n\nThis is a subjective question, so you are not likely to get a good answer here. A lot of replies will also get swept away by the automod, which is why I am partially rambling.",
" > ELI5: Why does Japan have awesome candy?\n\nThat's a subjective question. According to me, for example, it doesn't. However they do have a really wide variety of flavors (which many of them are very weird such as lemon Kit Kats, squids covered in chocolate and many others...).",
"Japan is huge on novelty and seasonal/limited/local editions of things. It's not only candy, it's beer, menu items at restaurants, special TV events, what have you. What this means is that over the course of a year you see a million versions of typically mundane things.\n\nA post about the 500 types of Kit Kat available in Japan does not indicate that all these variations are available at the same time. It's just seasonal marketing- like the McDonalds' McRib or Shamrock Shake, but with everything. \n\nAnd for what it's worth, here in Japan I've heard similar questions about breakfast cereal and soda in the US."
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8ceg96 | when their is no reception and get "sos only", how come emergency services can be contacted but no one else? | [deleted] | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/8ceg96/eli5_when_their_is_no_reception_and_get_sos_only/ | {
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"That generally means either your phone can see a network but not your own carriers network or you have an inactive SIM (disconnected, out of credit etc)",
"\"No service\" means that you don't have a strong enough connection to any towers belong to your carrier to operate under normal conditions. In an emergency, you'll connect to other networks, use more transmit power, flaky connections and stuff like that.",
"In SOS mode any nearby towers (regardless of network) will treat your call as a top priority, even if it means dropping other signals or 'boosting' your own. It's similar to cell boosters (highly illegal) they draw more 'attention' to your connection, where as SOS mode informs the tower you require more attention.",
"Emergency service has special rules.\n\nIt has reserved capacity on the towers, so you can use it even when you couldn't make a call otherwise. You can also use it even if you don't have balance, an active account, or a SIM card at all, and the call will be accepted by any tower capable of communicating with your phone. Provider restrictions don't apply for emergencies.\n\nIf you have a normal, working phone and an active account, then the most likely reason is that you're outside your operator's area of coverage.\n",
"When you make a normal call it is done at normal power levels with average priority to a cell tower associated with your phone company\n\nWhen you dial 911 or equivalent the rules change. Your phone will do everything possible to connect to the nearest tower of any network, that tower *must* take your call and *must* shed load if necessary to ensure your call does not get dropped. Emergency calls are higher priority than any other traffic on a cell tower and the tower *must* keep that call connected even from an inactive phone or a phone from another provider"
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9at7z8 | loan repayments | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/9at7z8/eli5_loan_repayments/ | {
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"Because in some cases, especially with cars, they’re still taking a loss on reselling the asset due to depreciation and administrative/legal fees. ",
"Depending on what the loan agreement says and what the law says as well. Usually the lender will sell the collateral, get their money back plus whatever fees are involved and then the person who defaulted gets the left over cash. For things like cars and what not, the reason you don’t get it back is because the car won’t cover what is still owed.",
"[US] Generally with repossessions, the lender must return any excess money from the sale of the repossed property after all relevant debts are paid, and the cost of repossession and sale is deducted. Although lenders will often charge a sizeable fee for the repossession.\n\nBut for a lot of repossession cases, the sale of the property does not cover the debt owed. This often occurs with new cars financed with a low down payment, and deliquent very soon after purchase, as cars depreciate fast."
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6bszr6 | why gasoline can go "stale" or become "old"? | I just want to know the mechanism that makes gasoline become "stale" after sitting for a while. What makes it not as effective in a combustion engine when it becomes stale? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/6bszr6/eli5_why_gasoline_can_go_stale_or_become_old/ | {
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"Gas is not a single chemical, its a mix of them, and each one of these behave differently. Over time, the \"lighter\" (meaning burns easier and cleaner) chemicals in the gasoline can evaporate. While the rest of it can still burn just fine, it doesn't have the same power as before.",
"Gas and petroleum based products are hydroscopic, they attract water. The longer they sit, the more water they attract. Water is not combustible. Eventually the scales tip from combustible to non-combustible. ",
"Everything that has been said is true. Old gas separates into many different elements that \"gum up\" your carburetor (old school) or your fuel injection on your car. Your modern car engine can usually handle old gas no problem. But your small engines such as your lawn mower and snow blower are built much more cheaply. They are excepionally sensitive to old gas. I should know. 85% of all small engine repairs I do are simply cleaning out the old gas from last season."
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2getao | why is black not considered a color, but zero is a number? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2getao/eli5_why_is_black_not_considered_a_color_but_zero/ | {
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"Because black is what you get when there is no colour. The null set is what you get when there is no number. 0 has no magnitude, but it's still an acceptable outcome of a count or a way of describing the value of something.",
"Black is a color of pigment, it is not a color of light. ",
"It might depend on who you ask/what definitions are in use.\n\nI would consider both black to be a color, and zero to be a number. But that's mainly because I'm a programmer, and in general, programmers don't like exceptions. If *x* and *y* are numbers, *x* - *y* ought to be a number as well, even if *x* = *y*. Similarly, it would sound silly to me if I said that my laptop's screen supports roughly 16 million colors, plus black, plus white. From my perspective, *a color is just something that a pixel can do*, and black is included!\n\nBut if you ask an artist, they might talk about things from, e.g., a paint perspective. You can't mix primary colors to get a pure black: you just get a muddy brown. And you can't mix primary colors to get a pure white: you have to start with a white paint.\n\nAnd if you ask most people to start counting, they will probably start at 1 and go up from there. For some reason, the concept of \"nothing\" gets a completely different category (or at least, it feels this way in English). I have two sheep in my room. Now I have one sheep in my room. Now I don't have any sheep in my room.\n\ntl;dr: Some things seem like they ought to have universal definitions, yet people define things differently.",
"Art student (and Physics B.S.) here. In terms of painting, I consider black a color, along with grey and pink, all of which one can't find in the visible electromagnetic spectrum.\n\nI use the Munsell System for color: \n_URL_0_\n(It is so f'n helpful.)\n\nIn terms of light, there aren't black photons. There aren't grey photons. ... I'm not sure if there are pink photons. I guess a pink photon might be possible; \"A photon from a light source that looks pink but where we haven't measured the wavelength of the given photon yet.\" Pink doesn't have a place on the electromagnetic spectrum, mind."
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2b8ng4 | gel electrophoresis | Got some middle-school students w/ whom I'm going to do this w/ fruit DNA. Something they can envision easily, please and thanks! :)
EDIT: I forgot to make it clear that analogies would be appreciated in conjunction w/ the explanation!
EDIT 2: Thanks a lot for your submissions, everybody! You contributed reinforcing and unique information, and I enjoy /u/Ryugar's analogy w/ the tires. Thanks again! | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2b8ng4/eli5_gel_electrophoresis/ | {
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"DNA and RNA are negatively charged so when placed into a gel with a current it will always move towards the positive charge. This positive charge is at the opposite end to the wells that the DNA/RNA is in. \n\nThe main factor influencing how far a piece of DNA/RNA can move is size (shape/conformation is also important but more complicated). If you imagine dragging a spoon through water, it will move easier than a frying pan so this means smaller fragments move through the gel easier and further. So on the resulting image, the lower bands generally indicate smaller fragments.\n\nYou can use a DNA ladder of known fragment sizes in another well to compare.",
"The DNA/RNA is broken down, all the little pieces have different size, shape, and charge..... they go thru the gel which has these pores, so the smaller fragments can go farther cause they can get past more pores then bigger fragments. \n\nAn analogy..... maybe have people with various foot sizes go thru an obstacle course of smallish tires, the people with smaller feet can go thru it quicker cause people with big feet would get their feet snagged on the tires, while smaller feet can get farther. \n\nI'm sure middle schoolers will understand the basics, just gotta remember the bigger frags will be closer to the initial well and smaller as you go farther. There will be a key to give you a guideline of how big the frags are, and you can possibly have duplicates of the same size. ",
"I run gel electrophoresis almost everyday. There are many types of gel electrophoresis. But the most frequently used in a laboratory setting are Agarose gel electrophoresis and Western Blotting which is a subset of SDS-PAGE (Sodium Dodecyl Sulfate Polyacrylamide Gel electrophoresis).\n\nSince you are talking about DNA lets talk about Agarose gel electrophoresis. Westerns are used for protein. Usually a DNA sample is obtained by amplifying specimen DNA via PCR (Polymerase chain reaction) but there can be other sources as well. A gel is cast from agarose and a conducting salt solution (TBE) and placed in a tank with electrodes and more TBE , there are wells in the gel. The DNA sample is mixed with a loading dye which increases the density and viscosity of the sample so when loading, the sample settles down in a well, otherwise it just diffuses out. \n\nDNA is negatively charged because of all the phosphate groups along the backbone, so when current is run through the tank the DNA starts moving, (the same direction as the electrons) towards the positively charged electrode. But different DNA pieces move at different speeds. The agarose is like a mesh, long pieces get caught in the mesh more often, so they move slow, short pieces can squeeze through the mesh so they move faster.\n\nYou run your samples usually along with a positive control and a ladder which tells you where the different sized DNA should be. I should point out that the gel or the running TBE contains a DNA intercalating chemical that flouresces in the presence of DNA, eg. SYBR safe, ethidium bromide. The gel must then be imaged using special equipment.\n\n So say is you want to determine whether your fruit sample is heterozygous and the allele sizes are different. If you see two at different bands then you have a hetereozygote. If you see only one band consistent with the heavier band on you heterozygous positive control, then you know your sample is homozygous in the allele that produces a heavier fragment.\n\nHope thats helps. PLEASE BE VERY CAREFUL WITH DNA INTERCALATORS. DO NOT LET YOUR STUDENTS HANDLE IT. IT IS A CARCINOGEN AND A MUTAGEN! ",
"Conductivity counts... salt concentration in the gel and the buffer should be the same. Follow the protocol. Also different concentrations of agarose will change how fast the DNA/RNA move through the experiment. Maybe have half the kids run 1% agarose and half run 1.2%. Describe the difference. Also have them feel/measure the temperature difference in the buffer before and after. "
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a8a3af | when a man ejaculates, what creates the pressure for the semen to fly out? | Are there muscles in the balls or something? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/a8a3af/eli5_when_a_man_ejaculates_what_creates_the/ | {
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"Testicles only produce the sperm that makes up about 5% of the volume of ejaculate. The rest is fluid produced by the prostate and other internal glands. It is ejected by forceful contractions of the muscles at the base of the penis."
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4dlu5o | if i was going to be dropped into freezing water, would i want my clothes on or not and why (purely from a heat perspective)? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4dlu5o/eli5_if_i_was_going_to_be_dropped_into_freezing/ | {
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"Most likely, you wouldn't. Having your clothes on wouldn't offer much insulation from the cold- unless it was specific gear for it, but I'm assuming we aren't talking about a wetsuit or anything like that. What it would do, though, is absorb the water. This is going to hinder your movement in the water and add weight to possibly drag you down. When (if) you got pulled out of the water, the cold water in the clothing would keep leeching heat from your body, making hypothermia more likely. So, while either situation sucks, you're probably better off naked. ",
"Air in the clothing could give you a little buoyancy, hopefully letting you minimize the exertion you need to do to stay afloat while awaiting rescue. Actually working in the water can speed how quickly you lose heat to the water, and rapid numbing can impair efforts to save yourself. As far as temperatures go, you're boned either way, unless you've got a water tight outfit on.",
"It doesn't really matter in terms of just getting dropped in... where this ends up mattering is when/if you're getting out of the water.\n\nWet clothes are going to be a lot worse for you out of the water than being wet and throwing on some dry clothes.",
"You would want to be wearing a dry suit. This is not a joke. You can look them up. They are special gear mostly for kayakers and other water enthusiasts who do not stop having fun in the winter.\n\nIf you suddenly drop into freezing water, you will start hypothermia immediately. Very cold water can quickly cause you to lose muscle movement and rational thinking skills. The closest to a dry suit you are wearing is what you want to have on. \n\nThe next thing is to have a set of dry clothes. Even if I am canoeing with friends in a very safe environment, a known route without white water, I take a fresh set of clothes in a garbage bag with the top folded over several times. The key thing is to get out quickly, dry, and put on the dry clothes.\n\nYou could carry a dry set of clothes with you in the winter time just for safety.\n\nA hiker in New York State this year apparently fell through the ice, got soaked, knew she had to have warmth, but did not carry enough gear. She died of hypothermia. ",
"You want to minimize the amount of heat leaving your body, which means you want your clothes to be made out of something that insulates well and does not like transferring heat.\n\nIf your clothes are made out of cotton, then they'll quickly soak up the freezing water and readily transfer heat from your body to the water. When dry, cotton is an excellent insulator, but does almost the opposite when wet.\n\nIf they're made of wool, they'll soak up the water as well; however, wool is a good insulator, which means it'd slow down how quickly your body is losing heat. Even when wet, wool helps insulate well.\n\nPolyester is somewhat decent at not absorbing moisture, but it becomes useless sooner than wool when wet. \n\nIf you're jumping into freezing cold water, you likely don't want to be wearing cotton, but may want to wear wool or polyester, or some other fabric material. Once you get out though, you probably want to change into clothes that aren't soaking wet and begin heating your body again.\n"
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axk7ex | how is it that some animals can other swallow animals several times their size without being "killed from the inside"? | EDIT: *swallow other animals! | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/axk7ex/eli5_how_is_it_that_some_animals_can_other/ | {
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"not sure but i'd say it has to do with their bone structure and musculature having evolved to be able to do so, snakes for instance have 4 jaw bones instead of 2 to be able to open their mouth as wide as they do and their rib cage (wich is as long as their entire body length) is \"flexible\" in the sense that it can expand and their muscles stretch to make more space for eaten prey."
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3fd096 | how much does rest does your body and mind get while laying down and closing your eyes but not falling asleep compare to actually sleeping? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3fd096/eli5how_much_does_rest_does_your_body_and_mind/ | {
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"Yikes that title.\n\nI'm going to give you a very unscientific explanation as far as my understanding goes. Please feel free to correct anything that may be incorrect.\n\nWhen you go to sleep your body slows down and you enter different sleep phases, with the entire phase cycle taking roughly 90 minutes. Basically, when you are in these sleep phases your body is repairing itself and recovering from the day. Then eventually you get to R.E.M. sleep, which is by far your deepest sleep. During this phase, it is my understanding, that your mind processes what it had learned and your body is basically shut down. (Not entirely, of course).\n\nSo when you rest you do not enter any of these phases and nothing major happens physiologically. You probably feel alert because you give your mind a quick break, give your eyes a rest, not to mention just giving your whole body a rest. \n\nSo instead like a complete reboot (sleep), it's more like going AFK (rest) where your computer is still running, but it's not doing much ",
"Yeah a little shut eye can be pretty effective, you may even sleep lightly for some of it. IFRC though sleep is around 5-6 times more effective per minute at cleaning metabolic waste products out of your brain, thus refreshing you, than just shut eye. So if you really wanna clean up, your going to need to sleep.",
"I have really bad insomnia and it even more worse when sleeping at my boyfriends, i swear sometimes i just laid all night with my eyes closed but never fall asleep, and when he wakes up i get up, I'm rested mentally but I'm psychically tired still. ",
"Related question: how would sleep and rest compare to being knocked out by anasethics? ",
"I had a doctor tell me (when I had insomnia for about four months straight) that resting would still help my body function even if my mind was still racing when I laid still. It sure didn't feel like it did anything but nights are long when you never sleep.",
"I can't explain what the difference is, but if your body cannot sleep, you will die. There are people with a genetic disease that doesn't allow them to achieve REM after a certain point in their life and it is fatal. So, full sleep must be necessary. Source: _URL_0_",
"I would argue just closing your eyes for 20 minutes would perhaps make you feel better, but it wouldn't have any of the benefits sleep does. Correct me if im wrong but I remember hearing that the longer you brain is active without sleep, the more waste chemicals/ waste products build up in your brain but when you sleep your brain is flushed of these waste products.",
"I remember reading about how waste chemicals build up in your head while you're awake, and parts of the sleep cycle cause certain pathways in your brain to more than triple in size, allowing the waste to get swept out. The takeaway is that if these sleep phases are never actually entered, the waste never gets pushed out, and it collects, doing nasty things like you feel when you stay up too long.",
"ELI5 answer is much much less. While you may be resting your muscles your brain is not getting any significant rest.\n\nAlso I feel compelled to correct people here saying REM sleep is the deep sleep; REM stands for Rapid Eye Movement. It is the last part of our sleep cycle. The brain is very active in this stage, hence the name rapid eye movement' and is the stage of sleep responsible for facilitating dreams. You are easily awoken during this part of the sleep cycle compared to earlier stages.\n\n"
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2td3jx | why do some regiments and divisions have obsolete names, like "cavalry" or "grenadiers", when others have modern names, like "armored" or "airborne"? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2td3jx/eli5_why_do_some_regiments_and_divisions_have/ | {
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"It is just tradition. It lends a sense of history, continuity, and pride.",
"Tradition, and its good PR, nobody wants to be the politician to say we should cut the unit that has been around for decades or centuries and which has achieved so much. "
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1io2sj | why is imperialism no longer a thing? | I was thinking about how in the 20th century a lot of countries gained independence from empires and such. How come country are no longer as fussed about controlling lots of land and having the biggest empire? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1io2sj/eli5why_is_imperialism_no_longer_a_thing/ | {
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"After the Second World War most imperial powers quite literally no longer had the capacity to maintain their colonies due the devastation they suffered during the war. As a result most colonial holdings were allowed to declare independence after it became clear they could no longer be held. Most of these western nations still don't have the capacity to reclaim their empires. \n\n\n",
"Imperialism is very much longer a thing."
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8t1wao | why do certain pasta shapes taste better with certain sauces? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/8t1wao/eli5_why_do_certain_pasta_shapes_taste_better/ | {
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"Pasta serves as a conveyor from plate to mouth. Some pasta shapes scoop up more sauce. This is effective when your sauce is lighter or when its chunky so the pasta can scoop up the chunks. Some pasta shapes can't scoop up much sauce. This is for heavy sauces so it doesn’t become overpowering. We also have pasta like ravioli with other food inside it.\n\nEdit: grammar and additional info",
"See this 3.5k upvoted post about your question from 12 days ago\n\n_URL_0_",
"Like the other comments said, sauce conveyance is a big part. Texture can also effect how you enjoy the pasta as well, and that obviously changes with shape."
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1dpmxv | why do we feel like there's a wall in front of us when we close our eyes and walk? | Even when there's clearly nothing in front. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1dpmxv/eli5_why_do_we_feel_like_theres_a_wall_in_front/ | {
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"Yeah, not to sure about this one. I can walk pretty confidently around my house with my eyes closed. Sometimes I cheat and trace my hands along the walls, but never feel one in front of me. \n",
"You don't want to bump into a wall so your brain is telling you there is one in front of you so you won't bump into one.\n\nBrain is being overly cautious."
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58vgjp | why is tuberculosis (tb) so frequently forewarned in many medicine advertisements? what makes tb such a large factor with certain medications? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/58vgjp/eli5_why_is_tuberculosis_tb_so_frequently/ | {
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"It is an infection that can lay dormant in many people without symptoms. Certain medications weaken the immune response allowing the TB to become an active infection. Once active, TB is very contagious and requires 6-9 months of multiple antibiotic treatments at least. One third of the world is infected with \"inactive\" TB. Once activated it becomes very deadly. It kills 1.5 million people per year, about 2-3 times as much as malaria. Since many meds can cause latent TB to activate, there is a lot of caution when starting them given the prevalence of inactive TB"
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3mj910 | why does, in a very hot pizza, only the sauce seem to burn your tongue, never the cheese? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3mj910/eli5_why_does_in_a_very_hot_pizza_only_the_sauce/ | {
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"Trust me, the cheese will burn you just as well as the sauce. Though the cheese, being on top of everything, usually burns the *roof* of hour mouth as it comes in contact with that first. Sauce, being lower and more liquid, tends to splash all over the place. ",
"Liquids tend to have a faster heat transfer rate. So, even though the sauce and the cheese are approximately the same temperature, the sauce will transfer its heat into your tongue faster than the cheese will, causing more of a burn. Also, the cheese is on top of the pizza, so it cools off first and faster, while the sauce is insulated below."
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33sz2g | why do some of the superhero movies keep repeating the same villains - superman/luthor, batman/joker, spiderman/oscorp? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/33sz2g/eli5why_do_some_of_the_superhero_movies_keep/ | {
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"Because those are the character's most recognizable, most easily created and most evil enemies.\n\nSure, you can have Batman go against Mr Freeze, but you have to explain who he is. Instead you have a man dedicating his life to order go against the human embodiment of chaos.\n\nYou can have Spiderman need to fight off the Rhino or Scorpion, but then you have to explain to people that these guys are villains and not furries. Instead you have relatively average human Peter Parker go up against a giant corporation and an alien parasite (venom).\n\nSuperman has some cool villains, but all are too expensive to make or have too large of a backstory to show in a single movie. Hence why you do see things like Doomsday, Apocalypse and Brainiac, but usually just in the TV series or in an animated movie. Instead it's easier to have everyman Clark Kent go against billionaire Luthor."
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122mna | why do some new sitcoms still have laugh tracks? | They're incredibly annoying, in my opinion.
Answered!
Thanks! | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/122mna/eli5_why_do_some_new_sitcoms_still_have_laugh/ | {
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"There's either a real audience, or the producers wanted it. Producers want it because they feel its needed, to give a hint of where to laugh.",
"It harkens back to vaudeville and theater. Sitcoms are the last TV genre that still hold to their theatrical roots - the laugh track gives the audience cues for where to laugh and a sense of collective enjoyment of the show.",
"Interesting fact that I can't substantiate because I can't remember where I read it: most of the canned laughter you hear on sitcoms was recorded in the 1950s and just gets repeated over and over. So the people you hear laughing in current sitcoms are either very old, or, by now have passed away. \n\nI guess laughter never changes.",
"When television began, plays and live performances were still very common. Comedy acts had to take the audience's laughter into account when timing their lines.\n\nWhen this was translated to television, audiences and performer found the lack of laughter awkward, so the laugh track was brought in to fill this game, and people have gotten used to it. \n\nWe might claim a dislike the laugh track, but the reality is most people don't notice it unless it is done poorly. Without it, shows often seem off. For example, the 60s classic *Hogan's Heroes* tested very poorly without a laugh track, because audiences weren't sure a Nazi prison camp was supposed to be funny.",
"after reading this, I can't stop noticing the laugh track in my tv show! I know find it deeply disturbing ",
"To make up for the lousy writing.",
"ELY10: You're [**30 times** more likely to laugh in social settings](_URL_0_) compared to when you're alone. The laugh track or \"sweetening\" is an effective-enough simulacrum of a social setting that you're more likely to laugh at sweetened stuff.\n\nELY5: You laugh more when you're with other people, and the laugh track is like having a bunch of really laugh-y friends around.\n\nBonus: TV executives who make final programming decisions are not comedians, writers, or other performing types. They're business guys. The laugh track tells them where the hee-larious comedy is in a show, and if those guys need it, they figure everybody does.",
"Watch some clips of Big Bang Theory without it.\n\nThe show is dead in the water without people telling you when to laugh. \n\n[Here ya go](_URL_0_)"
]
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"http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PmLQaTcViOA"
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whayk | how do bodybuilders get that unnatural look? | Maybe it's just me but body builders always look so weird compared to regular people that just work out for exercise. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/whayk/eli5_how_do_bodybuilders_get_that_unnatural_look/ | {
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"Combination of months and years of weight training (not hobbyist-level like you or I might do, but professionally), weeks of eating a specialized diet that will get them down to the lowest body fat % possible (lower your BF% = the more defined your muscles will be), spray tanner, and oil.\n\nThey don't look like regular people because they train differently from regular people. It's a competition sport, and you wouldn't expect to resemble them much in the same way you wouldn't expect to resemble an Olympian unless you trained like an Olympian did.\n\n**Edit:** Certain bodybuilding competitions frown on the use of anabolic steroids and perform drug testing on their contestants; These are the folks who are still bulky but within a \"normal\" or \"natural\" range. On the flip side, there are still plenty of competitions that are lenient on performance enhancing substances rules, and your most unnaturally large contestants are most likely a product of heavy steroid use.\n\nHowever, steroids alone do not produce a bulky, muscular physique. This is accomplished by bulking (high kcal intake per day, with emphasis on protein) and committing to an intense training regimen. There's two types of bulking: One focuses on maximum kcal intake without regard to macronutrient breakdown (generally resulting in a lot of fat to go along with the muscle), the other focuses on maximizing muscle growth while minimizing fat gain (clean bulking). Like I mentioned above, all bodybuilders have a cutting phase pre-competition that will get them down to unnaturally low body fat percentages, maximizing the amount of muscle shown.\n\n**TL;DR ELI5 Version:** They eat a lot and lift a lot of heavy stuff for months and months. Some of them take drugs to help their muscles grow. Then, a few weeks before they get on a stage and show off their muscles, they eat a special diet that makes their fat go away so their muscles look even bigger. Then they cover themselves in spray tan and oil and go on stage!",
"They also dehydrate themselves before a competition so their veins pop out more. \n\nOr so I'm told ",
"what is a natural look? If you think about it, what they do, you cant get that in a \"natural\" way. You have to train everyday, have a special diet, etc. So they get that look, that appeareance simply because its not determined by your common day use of your body.",
"Years of hard and intense training, 4-5 days a week pluss cardio. Plenty of protein, 30 or more grams every 3 hours. Water, as much as you can drink. \n\nFor the professional, there's something called human growth hormone, or HGH. Combine that with another hormone called insulin, and you'll get very big; even your intestines will grow! If you want to lose fat, you can eat a normal amount of carbohydrates for like 2 days, then drop it entirely or just a tiny amount for 3 days - and repeat. Furthermore, there are certain steroids that will melt bodyfat like icecream on hot pavement - but these I shall not speak of...",
"In addition to what effervet said, they also engage in isolation exercises to build muscles that you and I don't even realize exist. So they have a big round POP in a location that looks inhuman to the rest of us, but is actually a muscle that is usually a support muscle for the larger muscles, but is isolated to become large and prominent.",
"They lift things up and put them down.",
"As a former bodybuilder I can say that they get the \"unnatural\" look by doing things to their bodies that are unnatural. Firstly, the bodies you see at competitions are oiled with cooking spray and they have taken diuretics that purge almost all water from their bodies. Obviously the competitors have dedicated many months of their lives to working out and eating right. Now when I say eating right, I actually mean eating almost no carbohydrates for a period of time (usually 2 - 12 weeks). I don't know if you know what that does to your body, but it normally doesn't feel pretty. It's good to note that the body that bodybuilders have during the competitive season, is not the body that they have throughout the year. If they did that, they wouldn't live very long.",
"This is Swolehate. Please cease and disist your discrimination. you're offending and isolating an entire group of people\n\n/r/swoleacceptance "
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19m5ng | how to compare the uses of the conscious and unconscious mind. | My little brother and I got into a discussion about the mind when we were watching inception. I couldn't quite put into words about the difference of the conscious and unconscious mind. Could someone help, please? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/19m5ng/eli5_how_to_compare_the_uses_of_the_conscious_and/ | {
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"The conscious mind is what you are thinking and feeling. You have a degree of control over it. You can try to keep your emotions in check, you can make yourself pay attention to something, and you choose to think about certain things, usually. Of course, control is limited, but you have it, and you are aware of what going on in this realm of your mind. \n\nYour unconscious mind are basically all the things that are automatic. Memories, motor skills, things done out of habit, and automatic responses (like jumping when something scares you) are all part of the unconscious mind. So the unconscious mind is whats going on behind the scenes of your conscious mind. \n\nMost psychologists think that the unconscious mind influences your conscious thoughts. However, some psychologists don't think that the unconscious mind really exits. Rather, they think that what really exists are several sub-sets of your mind that aren't really related to each other, instead of one major force thats at least as strong as your conscience self. "
]
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|
2eo2q8 | why are parodies exempt from us copyright laws? | I mean from a company's point of view, I would think parodies have more power to be damaging to a brand's image than a cover, or a simple product placement, both which need to be cleared first with the copyright owner (usually at a cost). So to me this law seems backwards. Not that I'm complaining though, I love Weird Al and [this shit is funny too](_URL_0_) | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2eo2q8/eli5_why_are_parodies_exempt_from_us_copyright/ | {
"a_id": [
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"text": [
"COPYright is the right to control who makes a COPY of your work. It isn't to stop your image from being damaged, it's to protect your income from something you created.\n\nParodies are exempt because of fair use, you are adding to someone else's work enough that it is becoming it's own intellectual property, and therefore isn't controlled by them.\n\nIt's the same idea as commentators playing a video game and talking over it.",
"Fair use/fair dealing is a legal notion that copyrighted works can be copied legally where restrictions would inhibit free speech. Examples are use in journalism, research, teaching, and web searches. \n\nParody and satire are the use of a copyrighted work in a new way to form a new message independent of the original work. It isn't created with an intent to steal profits from the original author, it is created to make commentary using the copyrighted work as a vehicle or allusion."
]
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"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y4KrdjAPohc"
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[],
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5xsmq3 | how do all those vitamins fit into that one gummy | [deleted] | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5xsmq3/eli5_how_do_all_those_vitamins_fit_into_that_one/ | {
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"text": [
"In very minute doses. The tablet weights is usually a gram or two. The vitamin content is in milligrams. So it can have hundreds of milligrams in a gram. "
]
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[]
] |
|
354twj | do the people in the comment section of /r/nosleep really believe that these stories are true, or are they just adding to the experience? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/354twj/eli5do_the_people_in_the_comment_section_of/ | {
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"Mostly the latter; there's a rule on the subreddit that you act like everything's entirely true and don't question it, to maintain the atmosphere. The overwhelming majority there acknowledge that it's a creative writing subreddit.",
"Largely the second option. It's called the \"willing suspension of disbelief.\" It's the same effect that lets you enjoy a movie in spite of its plot holes and unrealistic plot."
]
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||
2w1err | what is the high pitched noise that steadily increases as a camera flash/strobe is warming up? | And then it stops when the flash goes off. It's also commonly heard in older tube televisions when they first turned on. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2w1err/eli5_what_is_the_high_pitched_noise_that_steadily/ | {
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"It is the capacitors charging up. The circuit consists of resisting and capacitive components which can cause RC oscillations. This is what you hear as the faint hum.",
"The sudden burst of electricity required to set off a flash must be stored in a capacitor via a \"boost DC/DC converter\" which is a power converter with greater output voltage than input voltage.\n\n_URL_0_\n\n The whining you hear is the mechanical vibration of circuit elements as they are reaching capacity."
]
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[],
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e88vvo | how does the meselson-stahl experiment prove that dna replication isn't dispersive? | To clarify, english isn't my first language; the title might sound like I assume that it should be dispersive, which would make this a question about an opinion and therefore against the rules, but I know and understand that it's semi conservative, I just don't understand how its proven. thanks in advance for replies :) | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/e88vvo/eli5_how_does_the_meselsonstahl_experiment_prove/ | {
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"I'm surprised you didn't get any replies yet. Okay well I'll explain the experiment.\n\nYou have two DNA strands. When the cell replicates, you could either end up with the strands separating and acting as template for the new strands, where you have two sets of strands, each containing an original parental one. This is called semi conservative, the correct model.\n\nOr, you have the double stranded DNA just photocopies itself as is, and you end with two sets of strands, one is the original pair and one is a totally new pair. That's the conservative model.\n\nOr you could have the double stranded DNA just chop itself up in pieces and the pieces are then duplicated. Then these pieces, old and new, are randomly dispersed to each pair of DNA strands. You end up with a cocktail of DNA strands containing segments from parent and new. This is the dispersive model.\n\nNow to know which is true, Meselson and Stahl did this beautiful experiment. They got ecoli and incubated them with heavy nitrogen, it contains an extra neutron. Functionally this is the same as normal nitrogen, but you can tell them apart when you centrifuge on a density gradient. So anyway, when the ecoli were incubated with N15 for several generations, virtually all DNA in these bacteria was built with N15.\n\nThen they got these ecoli and let them divide once in N14 media (20 min), then again (20 min) and so on. They isolated the DNA, and centrifuged it on the gradient to see what you got. Now let's look at how the results would look like if each model was true: assume a single N14 Strand is like 100 AU (arbitrary mass or density or whatever units) and N15 is 200 AU. \n\nSemi conservative: the end result should be that all the progeny of the bacteria have DNA whose half is N14 and other half is N15. So on the gradient you should get only one band, and its density should be 300 AU. As the more and more bacteria divide, you should get a second band that keeps getting more intense, one at 100 AU. You have to draw this to understand.\n\nConservative: here you should get two bands for the first cycle, equal bands, one at 200+200 AU (400) and one at 100+100 (200 AU). Next cycles you'll just keep getting a more and more intense 200 AU band.\n\nDispersive: here you should get theoretically one band in the first cycle, where half each Strand or so is N15 and the other N14. So should be 300 AU. And as you go to higher cycles, you should be approaching the pure N14 Band gradually, which is at 200 AU. So you'll have many intermediate bands along the way.\n\nIf you draw this it'll get very clear. Anyway, they did this and found the results predicted by the semi conservative."
]
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52jqjb | greenpeace. what is it and why does the internet hate it? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/52jqjb/eli5_greenpeace_what_is_it_and_why_does_the/ | {
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"Activists that started out in a reasonable manner and have now become completely blind to science and only prone to pursuing their batshit crazy agenda. [This is one of the founders explaining why he left.](_URL_0_)"
]
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"https://youtu.be/BpBnJq19R60"
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||
8vvqt0 | what would happen if you slapped putin on us soil at a non political event and fled the scene? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/8vvqt0/eli5what_would_happen_if_you_slapped_putin_on_us/ | {
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"You’d be arrested and charged with assault and then probably casually poisoned with nerve gas when you thought you were safe ",
"Well, his security would probably tackle you before you got too far. Then you'd likely be taken into custody by the police and charged for attacking him. ",
"The coroner would come to the conclusion that you somehow choked yourself after tripping on the last stair to your apartment."
]
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3onzr0 | why is the u.s. mad that russia is bombing syria | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3onzr0/eli5_why_is_the_us_mad_that_russia_is_bombing/ | {
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" Mainly it's not who Russia is bombing, it's who they are doing the bombing for. \n\nThe leader of Syria, or whatever's left of Syria, is Assad. He's a bad dude of the same school as Saddam Hussein. He has a track record of killing his own people, he's not friendly with those who speak aginst him, not above using nerve gas. So a bad guy.\n\nThat's who Russia's helping.\n\nNow, sure, they are (in theory) bombing ISIS. But they are also bombing the US allies who we want to control Syria once everything is said and done. ",
"The U.S. supports the removal of Bashar al-Assad, the president of Syria, and are supporting the Syrian rebels with munitions and supplies. Putin supports Bashar al-Assad. However both Russia and the U.S. would like to remove ISIS from Syria. Russia claims their airstrikes targeted ISIS troops but the U.S. believes Russia may also be targeting the Syrian rebels that they support as well as ISIS.",
"To answer your other question, the western world is upset Russia is intervening. Russia claims that the removal of Sadam Hussain and Osama Bin Laden has not improved the middle east, they claim it has made the region worse. Their political approach is to work with these individuals to create stability in the region. \n\nHowever this is just the reported reason. There are many undisclosed reasons that the public speculate on."
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62z27g | why are small, pixelated images even harder to see when zoomed in? | For example, a random file transfer preview from Skype: [It's pretty readable.](_URL_1_)
But when zoomed, [you can barely make out the letters, especially the a and e.](_URL_0_)
Why does it make so much more sense to the human eye/brain when not viewed up close? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/62z27g/eli5_why_are_small_pixelated_images_even_harder/ | {
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"Your vision reconstructs stuff based on what brain thinks probably is there. With small letters, your eye can't really discern enough details to say what's actually going on there, but luckily your brain can guess what probably would look like that. Letters, very small letters.\n\nIf you zoom it out, you can make out those details, and you can see that it's not letters. The part of the brain that fills in things you can't see doesn't get a say because you can see in full clarity all those details, and those details don't make sense.\n\nMakes sense, no? If you can see what is there, you have no reason to guess.\n\nI was trying to think of illusion to demonstrate this, but couldn't really think of any. Well, this one maybe: _URL_0_ (Look at it zoomed out or far away, and it's Marilyn Monroe. Look at it zoomed in or from close up, and it's Albert Einstein)\n\nAnyhow, the big thing is that what you see isn't some unbiased image straight from the eyes. Brains have lots and lots of processing done to what you see that filter out what you don't deem important, what details are worthy of noticing, what is the meaning of each of those details, and overall what does that image imply about the world. In the zoomed-out case, your brain is doing this to fill in the blanks, in the zoomed-in case it doesn't fill in letters because your brain can tell for certain that those aren't actually letters, so trying to fill in letters would be madness.\n\n"
]
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"https://i.imgur.com/dZn4hVU.png",
"https://i.imgur.com/hdEHzRb.jpg"
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4luwon | why do super-low (up to 50 hz) and super-high sounds (15,000+ hz) sound much quieter than mid-range frequencies? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4luwon/eli5why_do_superlow_up_to_50_hz_and_superhigh/ | {
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"Because we're a lot less sensitive to them? Human hearing isn't linear. This is for an [average human](_URL_0_) It's graphing how much pressure it takes to have an equal \"volume\" effect.\n\nAs you can see as you depart from 1kHz things take more energy.",
"There are several causes for this. The pinna (outer ear flap) acts to amplify frequencies around 2.5kHz or so, where most vocal information is located. Some high-end earphones, like the [ER4 MicroPro](_URL_0_) are designed with this in mind. Since the earphone totally bypasses the outer ear, the pinna effect is recreated by the earphone itself. The pinna also creates a notch filter that selectively attenuates high frequencies.\n\nSecond, the middle/inner ear apparatuses (ear bones, hair cells) simply don't transmit or process the extreme upper and lower end of the hearing range as well as the middle ranges. It's a mechanical/neurological limitation. Some animals have a hair cell setup that allows them to hear into the 100kHz+ range.\n\nThird, modern society is very hard on a person's hearing. Unless you've taken steps to protect your ears, you can expect to suffer hearing loss before you even start getting old. Higher frequencies are the first to go. Most people don't even realize how bad their hearing loss is. Interestingly, people in isolated and/or tribal societies rarely suffer severe hearing loss, even when they are well into old age.\n\nFinally, most low to mid-end speakers and headphones don't reproduce those frequencies, and even the ones that do usually have very wide tolerances of 10dB or more. 10dB is a *lot*. Only electrostatic speakers/headphones (or similar) can truly produce such frequencies without distortion and with acceptable volume."
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"http://media.etymotic.com/media/wysiwyg/earphones/er4pt_compliance_graph_opt.png"
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||
b3tmyq | why are ivy league colleges considered better than other colleges when the quality of education is subjective? | So my thought process with this is Physics or Calculus. These two pillars in education have something in common. Their rules, laws, and problems are all the same. Whether you teach them in Harvard or SDCC. L'Hôpital's rule is still a rule if I learn about it at work. Energy still equals mass times the speed of light squared. Why when you say you learned that at Harvard it's considered better?
Another point was, "What about the professor? They are smarter there." Isn't that also subjective? Can't SDCC best physics professor go toe-to-toe (however that would play out in the education world) with a Yale physics professor? If they can teach, they can teach. Just because it's harder to get a job at Yale or Harvard doesn't make it better.
& #x200B;
\*This isn't to bad mouth San Diego Community College by the way. Just an example.\* | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/b3tmyq/eli5_why_are_ivy_league_colleges_considered/ | {
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"They have extremely selective admissions and only the very best (or richest apparently) students get in.\n\nThe actual quality of the education is more debatable, especially in recent years as some programs seem to have lost the plot.\n\nSome programs like law have actual tests the graduates must take for licensing, and the passage rates are considered important gauges of school quality. Others are more subjective.",
"When considering the actual, objective, quality of an Ivy League Undergraduate education you'll find it is on-par with any reputable state school. You hit a limit where it's \"good enough\", because you don't need the world's greatest mathematician teaching you Calc 1.\n\nStudents don't get value out of that level of instruction until they're in Masters and PHD programs, and need to learn the bleeding edge of their industry from those already there. When selecting a grad school, choosing the right Advisor and Institution REALLY matters, and very much depends on context specifics. \n\nIf you're studying Mechanical Engineering from any State or Ivy school, you'll learn the same general skills, and lets say you have designed a revolutionary new water filtration process. It only needs 3-5 years of full time development and about $1billion in funding to become a viable product to sell across developing nations. \n\nHowever, State School education gets you state school friends. Mom and Dad really believe in you and can mortgage their house for $100k and your friends will give you $10k here and there. If you try REALLY hard you can maybe get lucky and score 1% of what you need to make this project happen. \n\nThe real value of an Ivy League Undergrad isn't the education itself, but who you're going to class with. Today's elite send their children to Ivy League schools to become tomorrow's elite. They will almost undoubtedly be gainfully employed in their parent's 1% factory and on-track to wealth and power by age 30. \n\nBy going to Ivy University with the children of today's 1%, you have access to that network of \"old college friends\" that were once your drinking buddies and now are the CEO's of Fortune 500 companies. \n\nBill Gates isn't going to pick up the phone for some kid with some nice drawings. But he will give you a listen while making breakfast for his daughter's roommate after a sleepover. You can pitch a round of investment at the 10 year reunion over memories and beers to your fraternity brothers who are now VP's at 3 different investment banks. Have the thing almost cracked but need a special steel alloy to make it work? Give your buddy Carnegie Jr. the Steel CEO a call and he can get one of his Senior Metallurgical Engineers look it over for feasibility during lunch. \n\nMost reputable education is \"good enough\". The trick to cracking into the 1% then becomes a game of WHO you know, not WHAT.\n\n",
"For technical subjects, the amount that can be taught is a function of how intelligent and hard working the students are. If you teach Calculus at MIT or Stanford, the subjects are more rigorous, more in depth, and faster paced than at SDCC. Yes, Calculus is Calculus, but how much calculus you learn in Calc 101 is different. For example, here are the lecture notes for 18.01 (Calculus I at MIT): [_URL_0_](_URL_0_) L'Hôpital's rule is taught in lecture 34 (of 38). At Stanford, it's in week 9 (of 10). I didn't find the syllabus for calculus at SDCC. \n\nAt Univ of Utah, Indeterminate forms are taught in lecture 14 of Calculus **2** ([_URL_1_](_URL_1_)). I don't know about other schools.\n\nNote that if you can get through more material, and have better understanding, for the basic classes, then later classes can cover more material as well. For example, here is CS234 Reinforcement Learning at Stanford: [_URL_2_](_URL_2_) . Take a look at the lecture notes. I would guess that this is beyond community college classes. \n\n & #x200B;"
]
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[],
[],
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"https://ocw.mit.edu/courses/mathematics/18-01-single-variable-calculus-fall-2006/lecture-notes/",
"https://www.math.utah.edu/lectures/math2210.html",
"http://web.stanford.edu/class/cs234/index.html"
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|
677l3r | why do certain countries, such as the us, venerate and thank military personnel more than doctors/firefighters/cops, etc? | [deleted] | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/677l3r/eli5_why_do_certain_countries_such_as_the_us/ | {
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"In my opinion it's a recruitment type of deal to promote and encourage people to join their military and get the treatment you mention thus giving them a stronger military force",
"It's not just about high-risk. It's about personal sacrifice. Something like volunteer fire-fighter that is inherently self-sacrificial will be a lot more respected than something like making $100,000/yr to sit in a doctor's office. ",
"In the UK I think it stems from the massive importance of the military in our recent history - they literally saved the country and its people from Nazi conquest in living memory.",
"Firefighters are pretty much godlike in UK. Definitely revered above military. Our Police generally have respect, although this is often lessened by the PC Plod mentality some officers display. Doctors tend to be seen as just doing their job (although junior doctors have a lot of support due to the way the Govt has fucked them (and most of the NHS) over.",
"I think if we were a peaceful planet the military's veneration would probably equal that of other high risk professions, maybe lesser so. This would really fall down to any sort of extraterrestrial threats to our planet.\n\nIt really is times of war that drive up the hype of our, or any other nation's militaries because of some of the things that have been said above."
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6qa3o8 | what is the internet hosted on or hosted by? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/6qa3o8/eli5_what_is_the_internet_hosted_on_or_hosted_by/ | {
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"The internet is a massive network connecting computers all over the globe. There are computers (including your phone). There are wires that connect them. There are special computers known as routers that “route” the signal to its intended destination. And there is a set of rules for this communication which the routers and your intended destination follow.\n\nReddit is hosted by a server somewhere in the world, which is just a computer that is used to serve people. Your computer could also host a website on your home network as well if you know how to do it.\n\nEach computer is given an address through this set of rules, generally consisting of 4 numbers from 0 to 255. Reddit’s address for example is 151.101.1.140. \n\nConnecting to Reddit involves a few things. Firstly, when doing so, you do not know of its address, you must find that out. You could theoretically use IP addresses only for internet communication, but domain names like _URL_0_ are just easier to remember. So we invented something called the Domain Name System (DNS) to have such domain names and translate them into IP addresses when needed. After that, you use that IP address and just connect to them."
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35wcux | why do i make choices late at night that i never would earlier in the day? | I sometimes think at midnight it's a great idea to call or see someone that earlier in the day I'd never want to see. Why is that, it's never a good idea | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/35wcux/eli5_why_do_i_make_choices_late_at_night_that_i/ | {
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"Willpower seems to be a resource that's depleted as we use it to make difficult decisions throughout the day. If that's the correct explanation in your case, then after an especially relaxing, tough-decision-free day, you should still retain the ability at midnight to recognize that those phone calls are bad ideas.",
"As you get tired your brain functions worse. Executive functions (the self censorship we engage in like \"pay attention\", \"don't say that\", \"yes chocolate is tasty but I shouldn't have more\") are among the first to go. Possibly because of complexity or perhaps because they are non critical I don't know. \n\nSo you do things you regret. Hence, sleep on it. \n\nYou may also pay more attention to urges given the lack of distractions.\n\nGiven enough lack of sleep other functions also stop working well. Humans hallucinate, loose memory, experience powerful and often nonsensical emotional reactions and eventually die. "
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43dxlw | what has the vice president accomplished in the past eight years? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/43dxlw/eli5_what_has_the_vice_president_accomplished_in/ | {
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"Vice Presidents don't really do anything aside from being the Presiding Officer of the Senate. That position is like the Speaker of the House but less so in that the PO doesn't bring new business (read: bills), to the floor or assign committees, as that's the job of the Majority and Minority leaders. The PO keeps parliamentary procedure rules enforced, keeps the flow of the debate going, and helping make sure things run smoothly in the senate.\n\nNow, recently in our Political history has it been the it thing for VP's to have pet projects, like Gore. Most often, this is because the VP is ramping up to make a presidential run. \n\nMore often in the past, the position was usually reserved for those who the parties kinda want out of the way. Also, further back, the Electoral College would vote on the President and Vice President separately.\n\nNow a days, on top of being the PO of the senate, they are also one of the top statesmen that can meet with other heads of state and act on the president's behalf. They also act as an advisory position regarding different policies."
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3n9s4d | why do cheap headphones inevitably lose sound in one ear piece so quickly? what internally happens? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3n9s4d/eli5_why_do_cheap_headphones_inevitably_lose/ | {
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"For me I usually notice a loose connection. The wires are barely in there and after the sound vibrates it enough plus the extra movements they get knocked loose ",
"The connection that usually breaks is the wiring attached to the plug. There are three wires. One for the left, one for the right, and a common to complete both circuits. \n\nIf the common wire broke, you'd lose both sides of the headphones. \n\nBecause the common is attached to the base of the connector while the other two are attached in the middle, it's must more likely one of those two will break before the common does. You can see what I mean if you look at the picture that's at this address:\n\n_URL_0_\n\nBut you have to copy and paste the url into your browser. They have blocked direct linking from Reddit. (which is kind of funny, and clever). "
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2nvqf1 | flirting | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2nvqf1/eli5_flirting/ | {
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"Someone asked something similar a few days ago.\n\nYour problem is you're asking reddit to solve a problem that only you can honestly solve.\n\nBe yourself, stop overthinking it. Find common ground to begin talking, talk about your interests and establish a basic friendship in which to get to know each other.\n\n",
"Flirting is the worst thing to take advice on, because then you will overthink it and it will be forced and the worst kind of flirting. For that to work, you are edging on the world of pickup artists, which is truly a loathsome thing. Flirting is no different than just talking really... if you are enjoying it, and she is enjoying it, you will know. First, you have to establish confidence and charisma when speaking one-on-one and you can do this by talking to anybody (in person).",
"Everyone flirts differently, and different flirtation techniques work better for some people, and in some conditions. \n\nThe simplest answer is flirting is any way you let someone know you're attracted to them. \n\nIf you want guides on HOW to flirt, it's too in depth for a reddit post. Mainly because of all the variables I listed above, but also because you may be better at certain ways than others. Just find out what works best for you to attract the people you want to attract. ",
"Some times it is best to just pull your penis out and show it to them. Then you will know for sure if she/he likes you or not. Trust me I read it on reddit.",
"Flirting is the art of engaging with another person with \"just a little extra\". A little more eye contact, physical touch (playful and appropriate), conversation, etc. than would otherwise be expected. "
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9uxdxm | why can stories that we know for a fact are not real, i.e. movies, books, video games, affect us emotionally? | [deleted] | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/9uxdxm/eli5_why_can_stories_that_we_know_for_a_fact_are/ | {
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"Because we have imagination and empathy. We can imagine the people in the story are real, and we can imagine what we would feel like in their position.",
"Immersion. Compelling storytelling, scene setting, and character growth. When you play with toys as a kid, they’re not real, but you act as if they are because you’ve got an attachment to them because of their features or backstory. ",
"Short answer: empathy.\n\nYou hear about an experience and you mentally put yourself into that experience. It doesn't have to be real, but if the story is done well it will connect with you.\n\nOther examples are wincing at gore or getting vertigo from images.",
"Your brain is divided into two parts. Emotion and Rational. Emotion is responsible for the first reaction. Anger, love, fear etc. Then it moves to the rational part which processes it (which takes longer time). This comes from way back in time so let's go to a time where we discovered fire ...\n\n & #x200B;\n\nYou are a hunter. You encounter a tiger. If you would start with a rational thinking \"what should I do?\" he would eat you before you finish your thought. So first comes emotion. Fear. Your body prepares for a fight or flight. Adrenaline starts pumping, your heartrate increases, veins dilate.\n\nNow your body is ready to react. So you can fight or run anytime during the thinking process if needed. You start looking at your options. That is the rational part. After you decide on your action, you react. That is a third step of the process, which we don't have to talk about now.\n\n & #x200B;\n\nNow let's go back to November 2018. You are watching a movie or reading a book. Your body first acts on sources it gets from your senses. You see something develop. Only after the emotion processes the situation, it moves to the rational part, where your brain tells you \"This isn't actually real.\" But the emotion is already there. So when it goes to reaction (the third step), your brain accepts the emotion, adds the part of \"this is not real, no need to act on it\" and your reaction is almost none. Every feeling goes through these 3 steps and must be processed. Our brain doesn't like loose ends. For example if you feel stress at work, your brain is evolved to either run away or eliminate the impulse. But you can't really run away or kill your boss. So if you don't \"wrap it up\", the process isn't finished and our brain is not happy about that. That is why stress is unhealthy. \n\n\nSource: Recently started therapy and was explained this."
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151sfu | the basic differences between the incas, mayas, and aztecs. | If you wouldn't mind sacrificing some of your time, I'd appreciate it. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/151sfu/eli5_the_basic_differences_between_the_incas/ | {
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"The Maya is a Mesoamerican civilization, noted for the only known fully developed written language of the pre-Columbian Americas, as well as for its art, architecture, and mathematical and astronomical systems. Initially established during the Pre-Classic period (c. 2000 BC to AD 250), according to the Mesoamerican chronology, many Maya cities reached their highest state of development during the Classic period (c. AD 250 to 900), and continued throughout the Post-Classic period until the arrival of the Spanish.\n\nThe Inca Empire or Inka Empire was the largest empire in pre-Columbian America. The administrative, political and military center of the empire was located in Cusco in modern-day Peru. The Inca civilization arose from the highlands of Peru sometime in the early 13th century.\n\nFrom the 13th century, the Valley of Mexico was the heart of Aztec civilization: here the capital of the Aztec Triple Alliance, the city of Tenochtitlan, was built upon raised islets in Lake Texcoco. The Triple Alliance formed a tributary empire expanding its political hegemony far beyond the Valley of Mexico, conquering other city states throughout Mesoamerica. \n\nTL;DR Differences: Different people, different places. Mayans came before the others.",
"Incas lived in the Andes mountains in South America\n\nMayans lived on the Yucatan peninsula in Mexico\n\nAztecs lived in Central Mexico\n\nIt's like asking \"whats the difference between the babylonians, the byzantines, and the nazis?\" Theres a lot of differences. They're all totally different.\n\n*edit*: I'm not implying that one of the mesoamerican tribes are like the nazis... it was just the first thing that came to mind. ",
"Incas lived in Peru, Mayans came before Aztecs and were conquered by the latter in the middle of what is now Mexico.",
"**The Mayans** are supposed to be really bloody. Lots of human sacrifices, lots of war. (but some people are now saying that if you really met them you wouldn't think so)\n\nThey developed a written numbering system with a concept of zero, and they played spectator sports with big rubber balls in hoops. the winning team got to be sacrificed. They lived in Southern Mexico, and disappeared under mysterious circumstances.\n\n**The Incans** lived in the Andes mountains in Peru, they raised llammas, and had a numbering and currency system based on knots in rope. They worshiped the sun and were supposed to be peace loving.\n\nThey were defeated by Francisco Pizzaro, a Spanish conquistador who wanted their gold.\n\n**The Aztecs** Lived after the Mayans and had a capitol in what is now Mexico City. They are the primary culture that modern Mexicans look back on and identify with in their homeland, so you will see lots of Aztec style art and textiles in modern mexico (even on their flag) They invented hot chocolate.\n\nThey were kinda like a Mesoamerican Rome in that they conquered lots of other peoples but let them keep their own cultural autonomy, so they had a really big empire that they only sortof had control over. They were defeated By Cortez who tried to beat them by hiring these other tribes to kill them, but ultimately won by exposing everyone to smallpox.",
"Although the Aztecs and the Mayas share several key characteristics, such as the lack of ability to train mounted units or gunpowder units, the two civilizations have some distinct differences as well.\n\nThe Aztecs are more infantry-focused, and their unique unit, the Jaguar Warrior, is fearsome in combat and can make for unstoppable mid-game rushes.\n\nThe Mayans are an archer civilization, and while their Plumed Archer has less range than the British Longbowman and fires less rapidly than the Chu Ko Nu, it is faster on foot and has a good amount of health.\n\nThe two civilizations each have potentially extremely powerful Monks, with the Aztecs having access to nearly every Monastery technology in the game.\n\nNot sure about the Incas though.",
"Aztecs: Bonus is Sacrificial Captives: Gains Culture for the empire from each enemy unit killed. Aztecs have a special unit Jaguar and a special building, the Floating Gardens.\n\nInca: Bonus is Great Andean Road: Units ignore terrain costs when moving into any tile with Hills. No maintenance costs for improvements in Hills; half cost elsewhere. Inca have a special unit and a Slinger special building, the Terrace Farm.\n\nMaya: Bonus is The Long Count: After researching Theology, receive a bonus Great Person at the end of every Maya Long Count calendar cycle (every 394 years). Each bonus person can only be chosen once. The Maya have a special unit the Atlatlist and a special building, the Pyramid."
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cflh33 | we can tell the age of trees by the rings in the trunk and fish by the rings on their scales. what's a scientific way to tell the age of humans? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/cflh33/eli5_we_can_tell_the_age_of_trees_by_the_rings_in/ | {
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"Generally teeth are a rough indicator of age, and things such as skull and pelvis size are used postmortem to determine age. None of these are 100% accurate though. \n\nSorry that's a bit of a non answer but I tried.",
"I thought it was the bones in a fish ear that have the rings?",
"Biologically, if we talk about DNA, each strand has caps that protect the chromosomes, those caps are called telomeres, they control the process of cellular aging. Telomeres get shorter and shorter everytime a cell divides itself, and when they get too short, cells age and die. You can get an analysis made on your DNA to see the length of your telomeres, it really works as an indicator of your biological aging process"
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4hhqfn | why does different fruit have different vitamin content ? | [deleted] | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4hhqfn/eli5why_does_different_fruit_have_different/ | {
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"I'm perhaps missing something in your question, but...they are different in many ways including taste, appearance, place the grow, soil nutrients they absorb - it would be strange were the outsides to be so different but the 'insides\" were to be identical."
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2ye916 | what are the most powerful positions in a city government? | And what could the person at that position do with their powers that makes them so powerful? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2ye916/eli5_what_are_the_most_powerful_positions_in_a/ | {
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"It depends on the city because different cities governments are set up differently. Some cities are set up so that the city council has the most power, while others have a more powerful mayor. ",
"Like the other answer say, it varies between cities. Different political structure and different levels of corruption will lead to a different answer. Niches of power may also occur which defies the structure, for example if a particular branch of government gains power, it might snow-ball. I'm sure you've heard of the stories of sanitation departments running the city like in certain cities in Italy."
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6026he | what are the psychological benefits of having a crush on someone you've never met ie why do they happen? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/6026he/eli5_what_are_the_psychological_benefits_of/ | {
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"Safe distance to experience/practice/work out romantic feelings. One of my high school students wrote an astute essay on how her boy-band crushes did just that.",
"Having crushes developed when people rarely met others outside their clan/tribe/whatever. Technology has tricked our brains into thinking it knows people we've never met (you can see extreme examples of this in obsessive fans). So, when someone appeals to you and your brain thinks it knows them, a crush can develop.",
"Because you are biologically never meant to see someone without meeting them. Technology allows us to project the image of people, but during our evolution if you saw someone, you were close to them physically."
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9t7lth | how are open world games like red dead redemption 2 made in such detail? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/9t7lth/eli5_how_are_open_world_games_like_red_dead/ | {
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"Plants, trees, and rocks can be generated programmatically. For instance, SpeedTree is software that automatically generates an infinite variety of tree models. A designer might then start by writing a function that randomly places these trees throughout the world. Then he would rearrange them as he sees fit. Likewise, you could randomly generate terrain and then go in and customize it. So there are some shortcuts that can be taken.\n\nHere's an example of someone physically placing each object and sculpting the landscape from scratch. It takes a really long time to do it this way, but I wouldn't doubt that this is more or less how Rockstar did it (because they're crazy and they can afford to):\n\n_URL_0_",
"\"Is every square foot of the open world actually created by a programmer\" - not a programmer. For any large game, the asset creation is a major task, and people working on that tend to greatly outnumber the programmers. Good tools can help automate a lot, but still there's a reason why there's 3000 people on RDR2 credits list - it does take a *LOT* of manpower to make games in such detail.",
"Brushes. So many brushes.\nA lot of macro terrain creation is done through \"sculpting\" a 2D mesh into a basic desired shape. On top of that the vegetation and rocks are \"painted\" (think like a normal Photoshop brush but as you drag it, trees appear rather than a colour). At that point, people will go in and place/tweak things by hand but the bulk of the work is done. Details don't take too long, relatively, when you have 200 people working 10 hours a day for 6 months. ",
"Games are made in game engines. These are software which allow a streamlined process of creation. A modeler will create a rock in a 3D program; maybe it'll take them an hour. Someone will make the geography of the map, someone will model buildings and trees and fences and grass and everything that goes in a world. Then, everything is put into the engine, where it's assembled.\n\nIt's much like how a car is made on a production line: hundreds of people all doing their own wee things l, sculpting and painting, coding and testing, and then at the end it's all put together.\n\nLike a car, we have now advanced where many things can be done automatically. A game such as Pong would have all been hard coded, but now we have tools for automation. Tools to generate trees and textures, people and clouds, animations and sounds, smoke and explosions.\nThe game engine does a good deal of the heavy lifting.\n\nSo, with a game like red dead, while most of the objects that are in the game are likely fabricated by real people, but you might find that an area such as a forest has been almost completely generated at random (from the assets people made) with a few tweaks here and there from a real person. ",
"Wasnt it like 8 years in development ? So, i would say, with a lot of time.",
"Ok so I work as an independant game developer, so maybe I can try to explain it as simply as possible.\n\nA video game is made of quite a few main components made by different people with different skills. The 2d and 3d artists make all the graphical elements, like a texture, or a virtual object. It can be a tree, a weapon, a character, anything you SEE in the game. Animators will make objects and characters move, sound designer will make the sound effects. Then all of this is placed into a Game Engine. The Game Engine is like the motherboard of the game. It allows all the different components to work and be displayed together. This is also where the programmers are going to add the code that makes all the components interact the way we want them to. Without the programmers, you could actually move around in the game but everything would be still, there would be nothing to do. Any action you want to accomplish need to be programmed into the game, from simply telling your character that you want to walk forward to much more advanced stuff like AI.\n\nOnce the graphical elements are inside the engine, level designers and set dressers will actually take them and place them in the virtual world to make it look like something. For example, they will make a village out of many different pieces of houses, doors, windows, walls, add plants, lights, effects, until it looks real. Most of the elements are just the same copied and pasted in different ways. It's mostly a lot of tricks. \nThis is a very basic explanation, it's more complex than that. \n",
"The way large open world games operate for the world around you is a thing called draw distance. Imagine a bubble around your character. As you run towards a mountain a LARGE item it would come as hazy a little blurry, what you would be running towards is almost a flat image of the mountain as you are running (or riding) things like large trees or medium sized items would start appearing the closer you'd get the more detail would appear. to the small items like pebbles and rocks . \n\n & #x200B;\n\nIf you are more looking into HOW it's made, games are usually planned out and drawn on maps, and while some of the previous posts have mentioned asset creations, the people who design and draw the trees, rocks and horse testicles, create the items and put it into a cache ( a toy box) from there designers would take those toys and set them on the map, specific things are planned our, like the railroad goes there, villager X goes there. ( he has an important mission) but generally programmers would create a paint brush like ability to smear on the map that will lay the trees and rocks down into paths, for it to be looked at and tweaked to provide an over all nicer experience. adjust the trees so no two look exactly alike. \n\n & #x200B;\n\nNow I've never worked with rock star, and my knowledge is a little... limited but that's my understanding and I hope it's good enough for ELI5"
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tlhgt | - if a tube of marbles stretched to mars, and a marble was added at our end, would a marble pop out of the other end instantaneously? | So assuming that the marbles are packed as close to eachother as they possibly can be (with no room in between them), couldn't you potentially send a signal instantaneously? [Here's](_URL_0_) the forum the question came from. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/tlhgt/eli5_if_a_tube_of_marbles_stretched_to_mars_and_a/ | {
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"This is just like the \"steel rod a light-year long\" thing.",
"No. The \"push\" would travel at the speed of sound in whatever material the marbles are made from.",
"This is the same as the \"light-year long steel rod\" question. The compression wave would move at a speed less than the speed of light.",
"Have you ever bounced on a trampoline? When you jump on one, you don't simply bounce off a stationary surface, but instead the whole surface is pushed downwards before bouncing back and launching you into the air.\n\nIt turns out that actually, *all* materials do the same thing. For example, when you bounce on the pavement/sidewalk, the concrete is actually being pushed down by your feet a bit before pushing back. However, when the concrete returns to being flat, it doesn't move enough to throw you in the air, which is why you don't notice the effect (there are a few other factors at work as well which I won't mention here, but if you're interested then look up \"damping\").\n\nThe same thing will happen when you push one end of your line of marbles. The first marble will be compressed a bit, and when it \"pushes back\" it in turn hits the second marble, which hits the third, and so on. The total effect is something we call a \"compression wave\", and it travels through materials (be they concrete pavements, chains of marbles, or anything solid) at the speed that sound travels through the material. This is because sound waves are actually compression waves too! So in fact, the marbles don't react instantly. The speed of sound is really fast (it's even faster in solid materials than it is in the air), so we don't usually notice these effects.",
"No, that would require perfectly rigid marbles, an imaginary ideal like point masses and frictionless pulleys. The marbles would compress slightly, and the compressions would move along the tube at the rate of the speed of sound in glass.",
"I have seen a slow motion video of a golf ball being hit, if someone could link to this it may help...since it helps people think of something they thought of as completely inflexible as flexible.\n\nThe best way I can think of to explain this to a 5 year old, which seems to be something this sub has sadly moved far away from....\n\nPush a water balloon into a tube, and then push another water balloon into the same tube that is the exact same size as the first balloon. Both balloons will change shape a bit before returning to the same size it was. 5 year olds need not read what is in parentheses. (I'm going to ignore that gravity would keep them a bit deformed...since I can still get my point across anyway.)\n\nPush a third balloon in and notice how all three of the balloons change shape a bit before going back to the same shape. This is a term that is (pretty much) compression.\n\nNow, imagine a tube of water balloons all the way from your house to your friends house across town. When you push one more balloon in, every single balloon in that tube would change shape in a similar way before pushing exactly one balloon out into your friends house. It takes a bit of time for each of those balloons to change shape and then return, so by the time it has happened all the way to your friends house, a decent amount of time has passed.\n\nThe same thing happens with marbles, just on a less noticeable scale. But when you figure every single marble in, that time becomes noticeable. ",
"LY5: Imagine the tube was filled with foam balls. When you pushed one in it would compress all the others in the tube already and this compression would travel through all the balls until it popped one out at the other end.\n\nThe thing to note is that -everything- is slightly squishy; even those marbles which you think are pretty incompressible are *very* slightly squishy. Just look at this video of a mobile phone being dropped: _URL_0_ Notice how it ripples? Normally you wouldn't think of a phone as being able to do that but it does, just very slightly or very fast. **Everything** is slightly squishy.\n\nThe marbles will compress just like the foam balls would and the compression travels at the speed of sound in the material (i.e. glass for marbles) so it takes a while for the compression to reach the other end. On our everyday scale this isn't normally noticeable but on a scale this size it would be. \n\nSo it wouldn't pop out instantaneously but would take some time (actually a fair amount) to reach the other end.",
"This question is suited better for [/r/askscience](/r/askscience) .",
"It's a great question.\n\nThe answer, simply put, is no. Why? Well, when they say nothing can go faster than the speed of light, they mean nothing - including the force of that last marble entering the tube. So what happens? A compression wave the size of one marble travels at some speed less than the speed of light up the tube till it spits out the Mars side marble.\n\nWhat weirds me out is this idea: if you got a really really long metal pole (like as long as a solar system) and started swinging it in an arc - like a baseball bat - wouldn't the far end of it go faster than the speed of light? The answer, weirdly, is no. ",
"Marbles each weigh about 10g. They are about 15mm wide. [Source](_URL_1_)\n\nThe distance from Earth to Mars is at least 58 million km [Source](_URL_0_). Thus it would take 58000000000000 marbles weighing 87 million metric tons. \n\nHave fun moving that marble.",
"As a follow up question, wouldn't it need tremendous energy to push a lot of mass in the first place?",
"Question! The math in all this looks solid, until I try to understand the physics behind other aspects of this question.\n\n1) how is the compression/weight of these mables not liquifying the bottom marbles?\n\n2) what would be applying the force that could move all those marbles?\n\nI hate to be a party pooper, I just love the answers so much and am curious to see if there are ways that still account for these aspects.",
"You know when you place two magnets with the same pole near each other, it pushes the other magnet away?\n\nThis is actually what prevents your hand from going through a solid object. The atoms themselves are actually very far away from each other. It's the force of the atoms of molecules repelling each other that you're feeling as \"solid\".\n\nFor this reason, no matter how closely packed the marbles are, they are still made of atoms whose forces are exerted on each other. For that reason, the other marble would not pop out simultaneously because a force causes an acceleration based on the mass of what's being moved, even if it's a single atom.\n\nBy definition (F=ma), this acceleration is not infinite because the force is not infinite. If the velocity of the first marble being hit instantaneously gained the velocity of the original marble, then the acceleration would be infinite because velocity is the difference in position over time. For the marble to pop out the other end instantaneously, the delta time must be zero. This would mean the acceleration is infinite. For this to occur, the force would have to be infinite. But we know the force on each atom from its forces are all finite.\n\nThus, we can conclude that it is impossible for the marble on the other end to pop out instantaneously.\n\nWe can probably apply this conclusion to super dense black hole marble masses since other forces still apply at the subatomic level are still forces. But we wouldn't know for sure since we know less about the forces that actually occur in a black hole level of density of mass."
]
} | [] | [
"http://forums.xkcd.com/viewtopic.php?f=18&t=16800&p=1355641&hilit=physics+do+not+change+if+you+are+moving%2C#p1374702"
] | [
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[
"http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uBpghpDvAao"
],
[],
[],
[
"http://www.uwgb.edu/dutchs/planets/mars.htm",
"http://www.amazon.com/Marbles-Glass-Set-Forty-Shooter/dp/B0040B1RBQ/ref=sr_1_4?ie=UTF8&qid=1336965946&sr=8-4"
],
[],
[],
[]
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|
as8htx | what is 'fdi' and what effect does it have on a country? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/as8htx/eli5_what_is_fdi_and_what_effect_does_it_have_on/ | {
"a_id": [
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"text": [
"FDI is Foreign Direct Investment. It typically refers to private investment (ie not government) from an entity outside the country to purchase, either in full or in part or set up a business in that country. It represents an inward flow of investment capital into the country. FDI is NOT purchases of shares for the purpose of portfolio investing - typically to be called FDI a significant stake in one company must be purchased. \n\nFor developing countries, FDI might provide needed capital for business projects, increased employment, transfer of knowledge, increase in local tax. FDI is seen as critical for the development of many countries in Asia - Singapore, Thailand, China, Malaysia etc over the past 4-5 decades. A lot of FDI also signals confidence by private entities that they believe the country is stable and has a business friendly environment. FDI can raise a country's GDP, standard of living, improve education and infrastructure and possibly give more reasons for a country to adhere to global standards.\n\nFDI is not always benign, it might be businesses taking advantage of lower labor and environmental practices and standards. If FDI is directed towards resource extraction industries (metals, oil etc) it can be viewed as foreign ownership of national resources. FDI also flows into developed countries and this can be in the form of mergers and acquisitions. In some cases, FDI is also accused of theft of intellectual property especially if it comes from quasi-governmental bodies, for example, buying a company for their IP and transferring manufacturing back to the home country. "
]
} | [] | [] | [
[]
] |
||
f6jaje | who were the kulaks and why do so many people defend/attack them? | I've heard a lot of people, especially in left wing groups, defend and attack them and constantly call sources either biased or propaganda. Who were they and why are they so controversial. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/f6jaje/eli5_who_were_the_kulaks_and_why_do_so_many/ | {
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"The Kulaks were \"wealthy\" peasant farmers in early Soviet Russia. Now I use the term wealthy fairly loosely here, as the what constituted a Kulak tended to vary widely during different periods of the Russian Revolution and the early Soviet Union. Generally speaking though, most were not big time plantation owners, as one might image. But rather peasants who had managed to obtain larger than average landholdings, owned a mill, or had hired hands. Much like a small family owned farming business that you still see in rural America today. \n\nNow, a big part of Marxist theory is the class struggle. Where the lower classes rise up to overthrow the bourgeois in an inevitable revolution that would bring about socialism, and eventually communism. Things were a little more cut and dry in the urban centres. Which is where much of the Revolution was rooted. Factory workers vs industrialists, soldiers vs aristocrats, etc. But not so much in poor, rural villages. \n\nIn order for the theory to work and make sense, the Bolsheviks pretty much invented a class system for these regions. Bednyak, or poor peasants; Serednyak, or mid-income peasants; were considered class allies. Kulak, the higher-income farmers who had larger farms, were the class enemies. The bourgeois to be overthrown. But as I said, what constituted a Kulak varied widely. For the most part though, Kulaks were anyone who had more than what was considered \"normal\" for the village. But even that was subjective.\n\nIn 1918, Lenin ordered the Red Army to seize grain from peasants. Anyone who resisted, or was thought to be hiding grain, was labelled a Kulak and punished accordingly as an enemy of the revolution. Lenin would go on to described these people as \"bloodsuckers, vampires, plunderers of the people and profiteers, who fatten on famine\".\n\nThis practice continued through several bouts of agricultural collectivization into Stalin's regime, as grain quotas were made artificially high to support urban regions. Many persons labelled as Kulaks were subject to extrajudicial punishment. Their property was seized and many were either murdered, disappeared, or sent to the gulags. A few did migrate to the cities. \n\nThe whole process became known as dekulakization, and it ended up taking a lot of skilled farmers off the land. The whole process of farm collectivization, including persecution of the Kulaks and other rural peasants, has been attributed to causing many of the Soviet famines of the 1930s, including the Holodomor.",
"The kulaks were a sort of middle class under the czar. They didn't own land but made enough money from the land they worked to become an irritant to the autocracy, yet not enough to pose a real threat to th czar's power.\n\nStalin wanted to exterminate them because they did pose a threat to his collectivization efforts."
]
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[],
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|
3m96is | why do restaurant kitchens always have steel walls? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3m96is/eli5_why_do_restaurant_kitchens_always_have_steel/ | {
"a_id": [
"cvd2p66"
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"score": [
5
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"text": [
"Because they're easy to clean and sterilize for food safety purposes, and they're also durable."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[]
] |
||
2jawly | how animals distinguish between men and women. | I know that monkeys in my local park, and forests (in Kenya), know the difference between men and women; and if a lady happens to be alone, they'll harass her for food or try intimidate her.
They will however not do this to men, and even boys. They will also not back off even if the lady were holding a weapon e.g. a stick.
So how do they know this, and do other species exhibit this ability to distinguish human gender? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2jawly/eli5_how_animals_distinguish_between_men_and_women/ | {
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"cla01wf",
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"text": [
"I believe it is because the scent is different between men and women. I don't believe the animals truly know which one is male and which one is female but more so that they recognize the smell of each one and base their actions on that.\n\nSo if an animal is abused by a guy, they would be more wary of any other guy because they smell similar.\n",
"Animals can distinguish individual humans using a number of techniques. These techniques largely depend on that animal's dominant sense. \n\nFor example, it would be expected that dogs should be able to tell the distinct pheromones of people apart - they have excellent smell after all. Each human has a unique scent, but we have horrible sense of smell and don't notice our unique scent on a conscious level. Our brains don't have the capability to distinguish people based on scent, but a dog can.\n\nOn the other hand, primates including humans and monkeys, don't have a a great sense of smell. I doubt that your monkeys (vervets? baboons?) are smelling the pheromones of people walking by. More likely they tell men and women apart by the way the dress (e.g. men in pants, women in skirts) or they can simply tell individual people apart based on their faces. Incidentally, crows and ravens can do this too. Primates are very smart, and like us, have excellent visual memories. As a primate, our dominant sense is vision and so it would be expected that monkeys primarily use their dominant sense to identify not only individuals within their own group, but individual humans within their community."
]
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[],
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