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dz99l0 | why when a bike is being used consistently, the tires won't get flat, but when a bike is not being used for the same amount of time, the tires will get flat? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/dz99l0/eli5_why_when_a_bike_is_being_used_consistently/ | {
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"It's to do with the way the air gets in. The valve you use to inflate it has a return valve to keep it in. A bike you use has your weight on it so the valve locks tighter because the pressure is higher. An unused bike let's more air escape because the pressure keeping it tight is not enough for a 100% or close to it seal. \n\nTires always deflate through the purous rubber. But the valve is what's connected to the use."
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1j9hvs | - stand up comedians. why are they not sued? | I have always wondered why stand up comedians can say so much shit about, say, Obama....and not get sued for defamation of character or something of that sort. Are they immune? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1j9hvs/eli5_stand_up_comedians_why_are_they_not_sued/ | {
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"Defamation is very technical, its not just \"saying stuff that's mean or making fun of someone\".\n\nThe person defamed has to prove that factual statements of the defamer were false, the speaker knew it was false, and the defamee has suffered damage. It's that last one that protects comedians, as noone thinks that comedians are saying serious things about the defamee.",
"In America the 1st amendment allows people to express opinions freely. Spreading false information can get you sued though, but the law is designed to make it very hard to punish someone for talking about a public well known figure.\n\nSo not just comedians are immune. Everybody is.",
"I took two semesters on just this one subject. This is a highly detailed and nuanced corner of the law. In the US because of the first amendment there is a strong tendency to allow speech. So defamation has some really high hurdles to pass before it becomes something you could win damages over.\n\n**Baseline**\nIf we set a baseline for defamation as two private individuals over a point of private concern (like say a woman takes out a full page ad in the New York Times accusing her husband of infidelity), there are several hurdles such a case would have to pass before the husband could win a suit. The defamer would have to be mentally capable. Then it would have to be false. At this level you don't have to prove malice, although that would always help. But even simple negligence can have some liability issues.\n\n**Public Matter**\nThe moment you add in a point that is a public matter things get a lot harder. Basically you can call pretty much anyone a homophobe right now, because gay rights are a matter of public debate. This is protected to allow a free and vigorous debate. In addition to the above the claimant would have to prove that the point was unrelated to or egregious beyond relevance to the point of public debate.\n\n**Public Figure**\nPublic figures are anyone who has inserted themselves publicly into a debate. By definition this includes all elected officials. It also includes all government employees as long as it is relevant to their jobs or private individuals who have injected themselves into a particular subject. And it includes anyone else who has achieved pervasive fame or notoriety. And public figures have a massive problem suing. Not only do they absolutely have to prove actual malice, they also have to prove actual specific damages.\n\nSo someone like Obama is almost always \"defamed\" as part of a public concern and as an elected official he is a public figure. So for Obama to successfully sue a comedian in the US, he would have to prove that the comedian was mentally capable, that the statement was clearly and categorically false, that the discussion had no value to debate on a subject of public concern, that it was made with actual malice and intent to harm Obama and not just careless disregard of the truth (oops, we didn't do our homework properly is actually a valid defense), and that the statement caused actual, specific, and measurable harm to Obama specifically and individually. Those are incredibly high hurdles to clear.\n"
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4rku5a | is 'suing' someone as prevalent outside the u.s? if it is not, what is different about the law elsewhere that keeps suing from being so ridiculously abused? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4rku5a/eli5is_suing_someone_as_prevalent_outside_the_us/ | {
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"From an European perspective - no. The reason? I think people here just aren't that concerned with trying to get a lot of money from every possible situation.\n\nOf course, it also has to do with the laws - many countries don't allow for punitive damages (don't know if that's the correct term) - only enough to cover the costs of actual damages.",
"Along that line: Is being insured for being sued likely to attract lawsuits? You can't squeeze blood from a turnip.",
"From what I know the amount of money you can get from a lawsuit in America is a lot bigger than here in Europe. Suing someone often costs almost as much as what you can \"win\". The person at fault also wants to avoid being sued, so an agreement is often found. ",
"To use the UK as an example, they have a loser pays system, meaning if you sue someone and lose, you owe them for their defense costs. In the US, the defendant is responsible for the costs of their own defense regardless of the outcome of the trial, which leads to people and businesses/corporations/governments settling to avoid running up a large amount of legal fees, which leads to frivolous lawsuits, because they know they have a good chance of the defendant settling. If a plaintiff in the US new their lawsuit was going to trial, and they'd be responsible for the defense costs if they lost, the amount of lawsuits would drop dramatically.",
"Some of the things that you mentioned would result in medical bills. With the state of America's healthcare, sometimes you really, really need someone else to be on the hook for those medical bills.\n\nAnother part of it is probably an attempt in shifting blame. \"It's not that I didn't parent my child, these violent video games clearly neutralized any effective parenting I did, and therefore it's not my fault he's an insufferable little twatwaddle.\"\n\n",
"What I've heard from lawyers is that the American legal system was intentionally designed to make it easier for someone to sue. The reason was that, in many places including most of Europe, it's very difficult and risky for the little guy to take on corporations or richer people (because of things like the loser pays provision, caps on payouts, and others). So it's more leveling, but also makes it so that lawsuits are more prevalent."
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2sf05w | how come certain creatures' stomach acids can dissolve bones and flesh but don't dissolve the stomach lining itself? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2sf05w/eli5_how_come_certain_creatures_stomach_acids_can/ | {
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"Your stomach acids could dissolve your own flesh, as well as your stomach itself, so the stomach defends itself by constantly supplying a layer of mucus on its inside. The stomach can also produce some basic chemicals that can neutralize the acids. \n\n",
"Google got the answer:\n\n > The stomach is protected by the epithelial cells, which produce and secrete a bicarbonate-rich solution that coats the mucosa. Bicarbonate is alkaline, a base, and neutralizes the acid secreted by the parietal cells, producing water in the process. This continuous supply of bicarbonate is the main way that your stomach protects itself from autodigestion (the stomach digesting itself) and the overall acidic environment.\n\nSome animals have stronger acid than we have, but the principle is still the same. So our stomach would also dissolve itself if it wasn't for this protection."
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6ggmie | why are jpeg files still used today when internet speeds have increased which would allow for less compression to be needed? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/6ggmie/eli5_why_are_jpeg_files_still_used_today_when/ | {
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"It is desirable to have compression no matter how much speed you have, since this allows more photos to be sent in less time and stored in less space forever.\n\nA popular website may send out the same photo millions of times. It adds up for them.\n\nThe amount of compression in a JPEG is adjustable, so it doesn't have to be \"excessively\" compressed.\n",
"Making files big when you don't need it is a dick move, and you don't need it.\nEven though speeds are faster, most people still have data caps.\nAlso, jpeg compression has improved to near-lossless quality with decent file size. _URL_0_\n",
"Typically as internet bandwidth increases, you download more stuff in the same time, rather than download the same amount faster.\n\nIf you compare a website of today with one from 2007, you'll see more images and larger images. If you download 10x as much because the site is 10x faster, you can still benefit from compression.\n\nAlso, you are often viewing those images on a mobile device. If you are stuck in a 3G area with 2 bars, you will appreciate smaller image files.",
"Because speeds aren't that fast\n\nMy phone takes 15 megapixel photos and compresses them down to about 4MB with pretty good quality JPeg encoding. Sending that picture of 25mbps broadband will take 1.28 seconds which is still a reasonable amount of time. Uploading it at 3 mbps, because we don't do symmetric connections, will take 10.6 seconds\n\nNow what if we didn't compress it at all, not even lossless compression? That picture has 8 bits per color, 3 colors per pixel, and 15 million pixels resulting in a 45 MB file. That would take 14.4 seconds to download and 2 minutes to upload.\n\nWhat if you're making a post to /r/DIY with 45 images in a gallery? Do you really want to wait an hour and a half for all of them to upload to Imgur? Or 10 minutes just to wait for the gallery to download so you can view it?\n\nNah, you'd much rather only spend 7.5 minutes uploading and a minute downloading\n\nConnection speeds have improved but the amount of data moving has increased to outpace that. We compress things so we can make the most of our available resources, both data storage and time"
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9cswg9 | who films the war videos/pictures used for documentaries or anything along those lines? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/9cswg9/eli5_who_films_the_war_videospictures_used_for/ | {
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"Very brave war correspondents. Mainly for the accurate reporting to governments and for public consumption.\n\nHere is a [list](_URL_0_) of some known journalists killed while reporting on wwii. \n\nI couldn't figure out how to include this as a hyper link but this is a list of famous war correspondents during wwii: _URL_1_",
"Did you ever hear the term \"embedded journalists\"? Those are journalists reporting directly from war regions and sometimes also from behind the lines. The first \"press war\" is said to be the Krim War between England and Russia an the mid-1850s, since then the photography technic was developed enough to get some direct after-pictures, but the first official reporting from a war goes back to Alexander the Great.\n\nThe problem is, that not all journalists and reports are neutral reporters. One of the aim for each party is to use pictures for propagandistic reasons, e.g. to show the success of the own army or to show war crimes. Therefore they have an own press team with them, which often are soldiers but not on \"active duty\" (I mean they do not belong to the group who will run and shoot, but follow those groups and take pictures or films). During WWI that was used for the first time in a large amount and therwfore we have a very large base of sources ",
"I believe there are also members of the military dedicated to photography and videography. Combat photographer and Combat videographers.",
"Follow up question. Was the people who took pictures and videos armed?"
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1n6p8d | if pain only exists in my brain/mind how do painkillers work then? | If pain only exists in my brain or mind how do painkillers work then? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1n6p8d/eli5_if_pain_only_exists_in_my_brainmind_how_do/ | {
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"Pain killers kill the source of the pain sensation, which is not in the brain, it is nerves near the location of the pain. The brain interprets the pain, it doesn't cause it.",
"Pain is a message from your nerves indicating damage, which your brain interprets.\n\nPainkillers stop that message from making it to your brain.",
"Nerves are choo-choo tracks that are all over your body. Electric signals that travel on these nerves are trains. \n\nSometimes these choo-choos carry cargo filled with the sensation of pain, and if these choo-choos reach your brain, you go \"owwie\". \n\nPainkillers can be train robbers, the alcohol that causes the conductor to steer off track, and so on. "
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26iw2j | how do products like ac pro work to "recharge" car air conditioning systems | Always wondered how these work.
Thanks for the answers! | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/26iw2j/eli5_how_do_products_like_ac_pro_work_to_recharge/ | {
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"Air conditioners work by using a heat exchanging fluid (or gas). The exchanging fluid is first compressed which causes it to heat up (the same heat in a smaller space means it is more concentrated), and is then allowed to cool to exterior temperature. It is then pumped inside and allowed to expand, which causes it to cool. The cold fluid is allowed to warm up (cooling the interior area), then pumped outside to await being compressed again.\n\n\"Recharging\" and AC unit is just the replacement of the heat exchange fluid which may gradually leak out through imperfect seals or leaks in the system."
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ovhfu | dna microchip technology(or dna microarray) | I have read about it a few times but still have no idea what it's about. How does it work and what is it mainly used for? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/ovhfu/eli5_dna_microchip_technologyor_dna_microarray/ | {
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"Basically, it's a method for determining the presence of specific nucleic acid (DNA or RNA) sequences. Let me explain this with a relatively generic example experiment: You have samples of seeds and samples of fully grown plants, all of which belong to the same species. Since they are from the same species, they all the same DNA for the most part. However, gene expression probably differs between the seeds and the grown plants. For instance, seeds probably have more activity from genes related to forming the seed tough exterior. Different levels of expression means different amounts of RNA.\n\nSo, what do you look for? You want to see if any gene's RNA is more prevalent in just the seeds or just the grown plants. Fortunately, you already have access to the plant's DNA sequence. Based on this knowledge, you make a ton of RNA fragments that should correspond to RNA potentially coded by the genes. You then place these fragments on a \"microchip\" or \"microarray\", which is just a flat surface. The idea is that a sample piece of RNA should bind to a complementary strand of RNA kinda like velcro.\n\nBut how do you get useful data? Through some complicated processes, you add a green flourescent marker to your RNA samples from the seeds. For your adult plants, you use a red marker. You then dump all your sample RNA onto the microarray and wash away what's left. Now, much of the sample RNA should be stuck to the microarray based on which genes are expressed in each sample. If a gene is expressed only in seeds, the corresponding piece of the microarray will appear green. If it's only expressed in adult plants, it'll be red. A computer is used for this part of the analysis.\n\n**TL;DR:** If a gene is expressed highly, lots of corresponding RNA will be present in a sample. Microarrays compare which sample contains a higher level of each sequence of RNA. (Microarrays can also be used with strands of DNA, but, for clarity, I did not discuss that.) "
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1r2zf6 | say a factory in the u.s. pays their workers $20 an hour but workers in mexico earn $3.91 per hour. how do u.s. manufacturers compete with that? why don't we just do all manufacturing in mexico? | Pretty straightforward question. It just doesn't make sense. Why don't we just move all the factories to mexico to save money? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1r2zf6/say_a_factory_in_the_us_pays_their_workers_20_an/ | {
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"Often times we do - thats partially why so much of electronics manufacturing happens in China, or textiles in India.\n\nLets take a car factory - why would we ever do the assembly here, when it would cost a fraction of that in mexico?\n\nWell doing in here lets us monitor the process more closely - we can enforce higher standards of manufacturing, employment, skill, etc. \n\nThere's also a question of patriotism - the idea to 'Buy American,' which is why companies like Toyota have set up factories here in the states to at least assemble the cars (even if the parts still get imported). that 20$ an hour per worker might translate to more cars sold because consumers are choosing the 'american assembled' brand over the 'foreign' one.\n\nSome industries require skills and precision that aren't well suited for being imported - e.g. precision computing/electronic/machine work, robotics, aeronautics/aerospace, etc.",
"US workers generally don't make the same things as Mexican workers (there aren't many airplane factories in Mexico, and airplanes are a major US manufactured product), and operate far more equipment than Mexican workers (so the factory produces more stuff with fewer employers). \n\nAdditionally some buyers have to buy US made goods (the US government for example). \n\nA similar reasoning can be applied to China and manufacuturing growth has been dramatic in China (though the differences in output are much smaller than most people generally assume). "
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7u81an | how tv shows maintain a person's attention span more than movies. | Like many, its much more common for me to binge netflix/youtube series rather than actual movies.
Movies require periodic pausing, quietness, etc.
Meanwhile netflix/youtube series can easily be watched for hours on end, even while preoccupying yourself at the same time. (such as videogames alongside youtube or homework alongside netflix)
To sum up the question: how do our attention spans last through several hours of *episodes* and how come movies (most often) cant create this same mindset in a viewer? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/7u81an/eli5_how_tv_shows_maintain_a_persons_attention/ | {
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"Gotta point out here that a lot of people, myself included, don't share your viewing habits. \n\nIndividually or as a group, our family can easily sit down through an entire movie of two hours or so at home, maybe take one break to refresh snacks or beverages through a pause in the middle. Ditto a couple one-hour episodes of TV shows that we've taped or have on Netflix. But that's really about it, other than that they're kind of equivalent. We can't do more than a couple one-hour shows per sitting.\n\nFor those that DO binge-watch, part of it is the whole process of \"getting to the end\", much like people will stay up really late to read those last hundred pages of a gripping long novel. Movies are done after two hours, and then it's time for something else. Bingewatched series are much more of a marathon, and you get a lot more between-episode points to \"watch just one more show\" in the series, especially when the previous episode ended in a cliffhanger or twist of some kind.",
"Your premise isn't universal. I don't know anyone who can't sit through a 90 minute movie, let alone one who can't do that but can sit through 4 hours of TV.\n\nStill, maybe it's that one story for 90 minutes rather than a different story every 40 minutes? Faster buildup and faster resolution. Less character development, etc.",
"Because they are telling different kinds of stories.\n\nIn particular, movies usually only tell one story. They only last for two hours, and in that time they have to introduce the world and the characters who live in it, establish the central conflict, have the hero strive against the villain, have the star-crossed lovers learn their true feelings, then resolve everything before you have to roll credits. When the movie is done, the story is done.\n\nWith TV, you do all the establishment stuff in the first few episodes and have several hours to work with each season. That allows you to tell multiple stories at once and start one story before the last one is finished. That means every episode can be a bit of a cliffhanger, leaving at least one story unresolved and viewers eager to find out how it works out in the next episode. It is particularly effective when you don't have to wait a week to get that next episode, and is essentially the same formula soap operas have been using since the dawn of mass media."
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2q7u0u | how does a "master" key work? for example, a postal worker who can get into multiple buildings in order to delivery mail using only a few keys? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2q7u0u/eli5_how_does_a_master_key_work_for_example_a/ | {
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"Often there is a second key spot for the mail man or fireman or whomever. It acts as a bypass and is how mailmen put the mail into slots for apartment buildings.",
"Going off the image posted by /u/Peter_Venkman_1 over here _URL_0_\n\nA lock that can be opened with a master key will have a second set of separations in the pin. This set will be the same across all the locks in the set. The master key will be made to align this second set to open the lock. So not every lock can be opened with a master key, it needs to be specially made to accept a master key.",
"Hi /u/polaroidgeek, this question concerns one of the more frequently asked topics on ELI5, so it has been removed. Try the searchbar!\nIt's okay to re-post questions, but please indicate that you did a search and that previous questions/answers didn't help you understand."
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6yg6c3 | please help me understand time travel einstein's theory | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/6yg6c3/eli5_please_help_me_understand_time_travel/ | {
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"This is indeed something special relativity has a hard time portraying, and is only really understandable in general relativity. The simple answer is that it's about the decelleration and acceleration when you want to come back, the astronaut ages slower relative to the earth, and not the other way around, because he will at some point have to slow down, turn around, and then speed up again, and that's what makes the difference here. "
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leyls | what austrian economics is, and how it is different from the keynesian system we have now. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/leyls/eli5_what_austrian_economics_is_and_how_it_is/ | {
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"Austrian economics isn't a \"system\", but a way of looking at economics. The US doesn't have a Keynesian \"system\" but there were points in history when many top-level economic advisers were Keynesian, leading to Keynesian policies.\n\nThat bit of nitpicking out of the way, Austrian economics encompasses many different points of view. One big one, and probably one of the most important ones, is the Austrian Business Cycle Theory. Apologies for the big block of text, but here's the best I can summarise it:\n\nThe economy is not a static system, but constantly changing, with innovation and productivity improvements.\n\nPeople have what is called \"Time Preference\", which means, do I consume more stuff now, or later? Do I splurge on a new car, or save and get a car next year instead, when I need it more? High time preference means that \"NOW\" means a lot to me, and I spend my money quickly. Low time preference means thriftiness and spending money later. The \"High\" and \"Low\" refer to how much the value I place on things is affected by when I get them.\n\nInterest rates, if left to market forces only, are a measure of the general sort of average time preference of consumers. Imagine a society where everyone has very high time preference -- we all want the latest gadgets when they come out. If you lend money, you will want a high interest rate, because you can't buy that iPhone you want now. Not only that, but borrowers are willing to pay a lot of interest to have spending money for their own iPhones now, instead of saving and waiting for later. On the other hand, if everyone saves a lot of money, interest rates will be low, because many people will be willing to lend out their money, and very few will be willing to pay a lot of interest to borrow money. So, high time preference - > high interest rates, low time preference - > low interest rates.\n\nInterest rates are also affected by spare wealth. High interest rates mean that people don't have lot of money left to spend, so they are unwilling to lend it out unless they get a lot of interest. Low interest rates mean that plenty of people have lots of spare cash. One would expect a very wealthy society to have very low interest rates, while a poor society should have high interest rates, all else being equal.\n\nBusinesses work similarly. As a business owner, you can allocate labor and capital toward your everyday short-term production. This is like Apple producing iPhones. Or, you can allocate resources toward long-term production processes, such as building new factories and upgrading existing ones, researching more efficient production techniques, and so on. These processes are vital to a growing economy, but they don't pay off today. You have to wait a long time to see profits from them.\n\nIf interest rates are low, that makes investing resources in long-term production processes more appealing. However, high interest rates can make such investment unlikely to produce a profit. I don't want to borrow money at 10% interest to build a factory that will produce 110% of what it cost to build it, but only starting in 3 years. However, I might do it if I could borrow the money at 5%.\n\nNot only do interest rates allocate resources within businesses, but also between businesses and across entire industries. Low interest rates mean more people will work on increasing production capacity and research in general. High interest rates mean that more people will just work on making stuff, growing food, making iPhones, whatever they do.\n\nTo have a healthy economy, short and long term production need to be balanced in close to an optimum ratio. To see what I mean, imagine what it would be like if they were wrong.\n\nIf short-term production were too high compared to consumer preferences, that would mean that businesses were producing lots of products, but people didn't really need to buy them. It would be better to produce little, but work more on researching how to produce the same products for a lot cheaper in the future, so in the future, people's needs would be satisfied and extra resources would be available for other things. The excess production today would drive prices way down, but then in the future, prices would rise higher. This could happen with artificially high interest rates.\n\nOn the other hand, if long-term production were too high, that would mean that businesses were focusing too much on producing more products for cheaper way in the future, but then neglecting short-term production. Prices would rise today, because everyone is producing very little, but then they'd crash when all of the sudden that extra production becomes available. This could happen if interest rates are somehow artificially kept below the natural market rate.\n\nSo, it's good that market interest rates allow the market to correctly allocate resources between production now and production in the future, right? Well, almost. Notice how the example I gave of long-term production being too high sounds a bit familiar? That's what happens in most market bubbles. Interest rates in most countries are not simply directed by market forces, but are subject to control by the Federal Reserve or other central banks. To lower interest rates, the FED lends out money at the rate it wants to set, as much as anyone wants to borrow. To raise them, it borrows money at the rate it wants to set. It almost always wants to lower interest rates, though, for reasons I won't get into here. There aren't any Austrian economists working at the FED, because they don't think interest rate manipulation is a good idea. It would be like a vegan working as a butcher.\n\nSo anyway, the dot-com bubble, for example, was a good instance of what low interest rates can do. Lots of money was available to borrow very cheaply, so everybody and his mom decided to start a tech-start up. The fact that the bubble was very tech-oriented is more of a social/copycat thing than an economic thing. In any case, lots of people thought they would be able to make a profit, but too many businesses were started and they produced way too many websites and online stores and such for any but a tiny fraction of them to stay profitable. If interest rates had been a good bit higher, many of those companies would never have been started because it would be much more expensive to borrow money, and the ones that did would have had a much higher chance of success. All those years of work by entrepreneurs was wasted because they made a bad decision, due in part to bad market signals.\n\nThe housing bubble is another example. Low interest rates means low interest home mortgages, so too many people bought big fancy houses (a long-term investment) instead of renting or buying smaller houses. This wouldn't be a problem except for the secondary effect of artificially low interest rates, which is inflation.\n\nThis comes from another important principle of economics, which is that the value of money is not fixed. If there is a lot of money in circulation, it is worth less than if there is only a little. Double the amount of money, and you cut the value in half, which is like doubling all the prices.\n\nThis would be ok, but the change in value is not even. It doesn't happen everywhere at once, but instead spreads only as fast as market forces do. Interest rates change pretty much right away, but it can take a long time before prices all change as well, by which point everyone has already invested in the next great thing.\n\nIn the housing bubble, that's what happened. Everyone was investing in houses, when all of the sudden the rise in prices caught up with people. Not just houses, but food and other essentials got more expensive, so suddenly, there weren't so many people buying houses anymore. People realised they weren't quite as rich as they thought. Time preferences changed from long-term to short-term, and the bubble crashed.\n\nSo anyway, that's the Austrian viewpoint. I have to confess that I don't understand the Keynesian viewpoint as well, so I won't be able to explain it very well. The reason I don't understand it is that the Austrian viewpoint makes a lot of sense to me, and it seems to address important issues that the Keynesian viewpoint ignores, such as the variable value of money.\n\nKeynesian economics approaches from the side of modelling. They have found certain equations that seem to fit certain measurements about the economy, and so, in order to get the economy into the desired state, they change certain values and expect other values to change in predictable ways. As far as I understand, Keynesians have been incorrect many times, and end up changing the equations repeatedly to always fix the last mistake, but if you are placed in charge of \"running\" an economy, it's better for your job security to have the viewpoint that you can make things better, than to believe that anything you change is very likely to make things worse.\n\nYou shouldn't take my word for it, though, I'm sure someone else who actually thinks Keynesian economics has the right idea will be willing to put forth a better argument for it.\n\nEssentially, though, Austrian economics is based on building up a model of economy from certain basic principles and focusing on qualitative description, whereas Keynesian economics focuses on modelling the economy using mathematical equations and quantitative measurements.",
"The main fundamental difference between Austrian thought and other modern economic theories is that is uses a method known as \"praxeology\" rather than empiricism. So let me explain what these terms mean:\n\nWe'll start with empiricism. This is basically a theory of knowledge that states we only know things through our observations. In science empirical evidence is used all the time in experiments. It's a fundamental tool. Every time you drop a ball it travels at the same speed towards the earth. Do this enough times and you can come up with a theory of gravity from your empirical research.\n\nNow Keynesians and monetarists take this concept and try to apply it to macroeconomics. So for example they might observe that when the government spends a lot of money, unemployment goes down. So they empirically decide that this must be a law of economics if they observe it happen enough times. Or they might see that smashing someone's window creates work for the glassmaker, and decide that empirically destruction can lead to greater prosperity.\n\nOn the other hand, Austrian thought rejects empiricism and embraces a method they named praxeology. Praxeology is the study of human action. Except Austrian's don't study human action by observation. They start with the axiom \"Human's Act\" and deductively reach all of their conclusions. Some of the greatest and most prominent discoveries of praxeology are the price mechanism, spontaneous order, and the subjective theory of value.\n\n\n_URL_0_\n\n_URL_1_",
"I'm not sure if links without commentary are acceptable here, but if you're a male, I think you will appreciate learning about praxeology (related to Austrian economics) from [praxgirl](_URL_0_).",
"Keynesian economics believes in intervention rather than letting market forces bring an economy back to its long-term equilibrium. They so by propping up aggregate demand during a recession. GDP= Consumer Spending + Investments + Government Spending + (Exports - Imports). So during a recessionary gap one might tend to see that Consumer Spending and investments go down, so in return the government will increases it's spending, decrease taxes, and the fed will control the money supply. This in turn hopes to kick into effect multiple different processes which hope to increase consumer spending and investment. By the fed controlling the interest rate during times of recession they hope that more households will take out loans and raise consumer spending. This sounds good but can also cause such issues as a liquidity trap where zero bound interest rates leave no incentive to open up a savings account because you can not earn interest. Austrian economics believes that market forces need to be left alone and the market will eventually adjust itself back to equilibrium. The issue with this, in the mind of a Keynesian, is it could take much longer to see results or an upturn than if the government were to intervene. Obama took a very Keynesian route to economics by enacting his bailout package and Ben Bernanke also has a very Keynesian view after spending a lot of time studying the great depression. That is in a nut shell and my Macroeconomics is kind of rusty, not to mention my waffles are getting cold. ",
"Austrian economics isn't a \"system\", but a way of looking at economics. The US doesn't have a Keynesian \"system\" but there were points in history when many top-level economic advisers were Keynesian, leading to Keynesian policies.\n\nThat bit of nitpicking out of the way, Austrian economics encompasses many different points of view. One big one, and probably one of the most important ones, is the Austrian Business Cycle Theory. Apologies for the big block of text, but here's the best I can summarise it:\n\nThe economy is not a static system, but constantly changing, with innovation and productivity improvements.\n\nPeople have what is called \"Time Preference\", which means, do I consume more stuff now, or later? Do I splurge on a new car, or save and get a car next year instead, when I need it more? High time preference means that \"NOW\" means a lot to me, and I spend my money quickly. Low time preference means thriftiness and spending money later. The \"High\" and \"Low\" refer to how much the value I place on things is affected by when I get them.\n\nInterest rates, if left to market forces only, are a measure of the general sort of average time preference of consumers. Imagine a society where everyone has very high time preference -- we all want the latest gadgets when they come out. If you lend money, you will want a high interest rate, because you can't buy that iPhone you want now. Not only that, but borrowers are willing to pay a lot of interest to have spending money for their own iPhones now, instead of saving and waiting for later. On the other hand, if everyone saves a lot of money, interest rates will be low, because many people will be willing to lend out their money, and very few will be willing to pay a lot of interest to borrow money. So, high time preference - > high interest rates, low time preference - > low interest rates.\n\nInterest rates are also affected by spare wealth. High interest rates mean that people don't have lot of money left to spend, so they are unwilling to lend it out unless they get a lot of interest. Low interest rates mean that plenty of people have lots of spare cash. One would expect a very wealthy society to have very low interest rates, while a poor society should have high interest rates, all else being equal.\n\nBusinesses work similarly. As a business owner, you can allocate labor and capital toward your everyday short-term production. This is like Apple producing iPhones. Or, you can allocate resources toward long-term production processes, such as building new factories and upgrading existing ones, researching more efficient production techniques, and so on. These processes are vital to a growing economy, but they don't pay off today. You have to wait a long time to see profits from them.\n\nIf interest rates are low, that makes investing resources in long-term production processes more appealing. However, high interest rates can make such investment unlikely to produce a profit. I don't want to borrow money at 10% interest to build a factory that will produce 110% of what it cost to build it, but only starting in 3 years. However, I might do it if I could borrow the money at 5%.\n\nNot only do interest rates allocate resources within businesses, but also between businesses and across entire industries. Low interest rates mean more people will work on increasing production capacity and research in general. High interest rates mean that more people will just work on making stuff, growing food, making iPhones, whatever they do.\n\nTo have a healthy economy, short and long term production need to be balanced in close to an optimum ratio. To see what I mean, imagine what it would be like if they were wrong.\n\nIf short-term production were too high compared to consumer preferences, that would mean that businesses were producing lots of products, but people didn't really need to buy them. It would be better to produce little, but work more on researching how to produce the same products for a lot cheaper in the future, so in the future, people's needs would be satisfied and extra resources would be available for other things. The excess production today would drive prices way down, but then in the future, prices would rise higher. This could happen with artificially high interest rates.\n\nOn the other hand, if long-term production were too high, that would mean that businesses were focusing too much on producing more products for cheaper way in the future, but then neglecting short-term production. Prices would rise today, because everyone is producing very little, but then they'd crash when all of the sudden that extra production becomes available. This could happen if interest rates are somehow artificially kept below the natural market rate.\n\nSo, it's good that market interest rates allow the market to correctly allocate resources between production now and production in the future, right? Well, almost. Notice how the example I gave of long-term production being too high sounds a bit familiar? That's what happens in most market bubbles. Interest rates in most countries are not simply directed by market forces, but are subject to control by the Federal Reserve or other central banks. To lower interest rates, the FED lends out money at the rate it wants to set, as much as anyone wants to borrow. To raise them, it borrows money at the rate it wants to set. It almost always wants to lower interest rates, though, for reasons I won't get into here. There aren't any Austrian economists working at the FED, because they don't think interest rate manipulation is a good idea. It would be like a vegan working as a butcher.\n\nSo anyway, the dot-com bubble, for example, was a good instance of what low interest rates can do. Lots of money was available to borrow very cheaply, so everybody and his mom decided to start a tech-start up. The fact that the bubble was very tech-oriented is more of a social/copycat thing than an economic thing. In any case, lots of people thought they would be able to make a profit, but too many businesses were started and they produced way too many websites and online stores and such for any but a tiny fraction of them to stay profitable. If interest rates had been a good bit higher, many of those companies would never have been started because it would be much more expensive to borrow money, and the ones that did would have had a much higher chance of success. All those years of work by entrepreneurs was wasted because they made a bad decision, due in part to bad market signals.\n\nThe housing bubble is another example. Low interest rates means low interest home mortgages, so too many people bought big fancy houses (a long-term investment) instead of renting or buying smaller houses. This wouldn't be a problem except for the secondary effect of artificially low interest rates, which is inflation.\n\nThis comes from another important principle of economics, which is that the value of money is not fixed. If there is a lot of money in circulation, it is worth less than if there is only a little. Double the amount of money, and you cut the value in half, which is like doubling all the prices.\n\nThis would be ok, but the change in value is not even. It doesn't happen everywhere at once, but instead spreads only as fast as market forces do. Interest rates change pretty much right away, but it can take a long time before prices all change as well, by which point everyone has already invested in the next great thing.\n\nIn the housing bubble, that's what happened. Everyone was investing in houses, when all of the sudden the rise in prices caught up with people. Not just houses, but food and other essentials got more expensive, so suddenly, there weren't so many people buying houses anymore. People realised they weren't quite as rich as they thought. Time preferences changed from long-term to short-term, and the bubble crashed.\n\nSo anyway, that's the Austrian viewpoint. I have to confess that I don't understand the Keynesian viewpoint as well, so I won't be able to explain it very well. The reason I don't understand it is that the Austrian viewpoint makes a lot of sense to me, and it seems to address important issues that the Keynesian viewpoint ignores, such as the variable value of money.\n\nKeynesian economics approaches from the side of modelling. They have found certain equations that seem to fit certain measurements about the economy, and so, in order to get the economy into the desired state, they change certain values and expect other values to change in predictable ways. As far as I understand, Keynesians have been incorrect many times, and end up changing the equations repeatedly to always fix the last mistake, but if you are placed in charge of \"running\" an economy, it's better for your job security to have the viewpoint that you can make things better, than to believe that anything you change is very likely to make things worse.\n\nYou shouldn't take my word for it, though, I'm sure someone else who actually thinks Keynesian economics has the right idea will be willing to put forth a better argument for it.\n\nEssentially, though, Austrian economics is based on building up a model of economy from certain basic principles and focusing on qualitative description, whereas Keynesian economics focuses on modelling the economy using mathematical equations and quantitative measurements.",
"The main fundamental difference between Austrian thought and other modern economic theories is that is uses a method known as \"praxeology\" rather than empiricism. So let me explain what these terms mean:\n\nWe'll start with empiricism. This is basically a theory of knowledge that states we only know things through our observations. In science empirical evidence is used all the time in experiments. It's a fundamental tool. Every time you drop a ball it travels at the same speed towards the earth. Do this enough times and you can come up with a theory of gravity from your empirical research.\n\nNow Keynesians and monetarists take this concept and try to apply it to macroeconomics. So for example they might observe that when the government spends a lot of money, unemployment goes down. So they empirically decide that this must be a law of economics if they observe it happen enough times. Or they might see that smashing someone's window creates work for the glassmaker, and decide that empirically destruction can lead to greater prosperity.\n\nOn the other hand, Austrian thought rejects empiricism and embraces a method they named praxeology. Praxeology is the study of human action. Except Austrian's don't study human action by observation. They start with the axiom \"Human's Act\" and deductively reach all of their conclusions. Some of the greatest and most prominent discoveries of praxeology are the price mechanism, spontaneous order, and the subjective theory of value.\n\n\n_URL_0_\n\n_URL_1_",
"I'm not sure if links without commentary are acceptable here, but if you're a male, I think you will appreciate learning about praxeology (related to Austrian economics) from [praxgirl](_URL_0_).",
"Keynesian economics believes in intervention rather than letting market forces bring an economy back to its long-term equilibrium. They so by propping up aggregate demand during a recession. GDP= Consumer Spending + Investments + Government Spending + (Exports - Imports). So during a recessionary gap one might tend to see that Consumer Spending and investments go down, so in return the government will increases it's spending, decrease taxes, and the fed will control the money supply. This in turn hopes to kick into effect multiple different processes which hope to increase consumer spending and investment. By the fed controlling the interest rate during times of recession they hope that more households will take out loans and raise consumer spending. This sounds good but can also cause such issues as a liquidity trap where zero bound interest rates leave no incentive to open up a savings account because you can not earn interest. Austrian economics believes that market forces need to be left alone and the market will eventually adjust itself back to equilibrium. The issue with this, in the mind of a Keynesian, is it could take much longer to see results or an upturn than if the government were to intervene. Obama took a very Keynesian route to economics by enacting his bailout package and Ben Bernanke also has a very Keynesian view after spending a lot of time studying the great depression. That is in a nut shell and my Macroeconomics is kind of rusty, not to mention my waffles are getting cold. "
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dflum3 | are the personality disorders illness or acquired behaviors ? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/dflum3/eli5_are_the_personality_disorders_illness_or/ | {
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"Personality disorders are exactly that - disorders. The diagnostic criteria describe them. Since they are descriptions of personality, anybody reading them can relate to some of the descriptions e.g. everybody can behave antisocially or conceited or dramatic sometimes. That doesn’t mean that you have antisocial, narcissistic or histrionic personality disorder. \n\nThe disorders must be having a considerable and significant detrimental effect on your quality of life in order to be considered a disorder. Less severe versions may be diagnosed as personality traits. And the least severe can just be described as being a bit of a dickhead without any mental illness involved."
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edvjiv | why isn’t the sum of all integers 0? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/edvjiv/eli5_why_isnt_the_sum_of_all_integers_0/ | {
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"The sum of all integers from -infinity to +infinity would be 0, when considered by adding and subtracting numbers in order along the number line. No matter where you start, as long as you end on the opposite number, it adds up to zero.\n\nBut you can play games with the numbers with infinity, and ultimately make the nonsensical \"add infinite numbers\" to equal anything you want. That's where they get the idea of \"the sum of all numbers is -1/12\"",
"How do you sum all integers? That's not a rhetorical question.\n\nIf you do it like this: 0 + (1 + -1) + (2 + -2) + ... + (n + -n), you get 0. But if you do it like this: (0 + 1) + (-1 + 2) + (-2 + 3) + ... + (-n + (n+1)), you get infinity. And you can do it other ways to get other results.\n\nSo, there is no answer, because \"the sum of all integers\" doesn't have a well-defined meaning."
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ealviq | how does being mute ‘work‘? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/ealviq/eli5_how_does_being_mute_work/ | {
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"Imagine a guitar with no strings. How do you play it?\n\nYou can't. There's no strings. And that's exactly what being mute is. You have no strings, or rather, no vocal cords, which essentially ARE strings. There are probably cases in which people are mute because they are unable to use their vocal cords, which is like have a guitar with strings, but having no fingers to play it with; but as far as I know, it's usually a lack of strings/vocal cords.\n\nSo what can you do when you're mute? Several things. You could always smack the guitar, or make some very basic non-vocal-cord sounds, but this won't get you very far. Those with vocal cords but no ability to use them might find some way to use them, or otherwise recover their ability to use them the normal way; sort of like learning to play guitar with your feet, or regrowing your fingers. You could use the guitar as a base to install electronic circuits and create a sort of button-based MIDI guitar, or essentially using text-to-speech software like Stephen Hawking. You could install strings yourself, though the real life equivalent, artificial vocal cords, probably isn't quite there yet. Or you could throw the guitar out and just tap dance, ie use sign language.",
"Mutism is not a single condition. It's a broad word for various people who cannot or do not speak a substantial part of the time, for all kinds of reasons. It's a subjective description of an often-subjective symptom.\n\nMaybe your vocal organs are under-developed or damaged and you can't make intelligible sounds at all.\n\nMaybe you have apraxia, and rather than try to explain why everything you say comes out as \"MUBBA BLUH-BLUH\" even though you understand English perfectly fine, you just never say anything and tell people you're mute because that's easier and less upsetting.\n\nMaybe you chatter away just fine to close friends and family, but anxiety and panic attacks make you clam up around strangers and fresh acquaintances.\n\nMaybe you can speak perfectly fine but *just don't feel like it*.\n\nAll of these situations are medically and publicly recognized as mutism."
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5exrml | what happens if you accumulate a lot of debt and never pay it off? | You probably end up in jail at some point - but what happens to the debt if you idk die before? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5exrml/eli5_what_happens_if_you_accumulate_a_lot_of_debt/ | {
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"Debtor's prisons are not legal in the US, so if you live here then you won't go to jail for failing to pay. Ultimately your wages may be garnished, meaning that a court will order your boss to withhold a portion of your paycheck and send it straight to your creditor. Your bank account can also be attached, meaning that the court will order your bank to give a certain portion of your savings to your creditor. In some circumstances, the things you own, like real estate, can be seized and sold to pay off your debt.\n\nIf you die with debt, then everything you owned when you died (this is called your \"estate\") will go towards paying off your debts before whatever is left goes to your heirs. If your estate has more debt than there are assets to pay it off, then the people you owe money to are just out of luck. Sometimes they'll call your family and try to convince them that they should pay your remaining debts. This is a dirty trick, since your family is not legally responsible for those debts."
]
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1p81z0 | what was the cuban missile crisis all about? i can't find a simple explanation that doesn't go on for pages and pages. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1p81z0/eli5_what_was_the_cuban_missile_crisis_all_about/ | {
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"Basically, the Americans discovered a bunch of nuclear missiles in Cuba. The Americans suspected that the Soviet Union (Russia) put them there. This was a big deal, because for the first time, the USA was now in range of Soviet nuclear missiles (remember that this is 1962 and the technology isn't like it is now).\n\nThe Americans were freaked out and tried to figure out what to do. Some suggested that the USA invade Cuba and some suggested that Americans negotiate. President Kennedy decided to take a middle option and quarantined Cuba. He surrounded Cuba with warships to try and prevent the Russians from sending in more missiles. At some point, the American Navy came face to face with Russian ships outside Cuba. This was a risky time, because if the ships fired at each other, then it could escalate to full out war. Fortunately, the Russian ships eventually turned back.\n\nThis prevented more missiles from arriving in Cuba, but it didn't do anything for the ones already there. Eventually, President Kennedy offered the Russians a deal. He promised that he would not invade Cuba, and also said that he would remove American missiles based in Turkey (this second part of the deal was supposed to stay a secret). Premier Khrushchev of the Soviet Union agreed, and the missiles were dismantled.\n\nThis crisis was a big deal because the American and the Soviet Union came so close to going to war. Had the Americans chosen to invaded Cuba, there would have been war. If the Americans did nothing, the Soviets could have used the missiles. If some of the ships would have opened fire, there would have been war. Basically, this crisis was maybe the closest time when the world faced nuclear war. I remember reading something by McNamara (Secretary of Defense). One night he went home, and looked at the city of Washington. That night, he was convinced it was the last time he would see that city because he was certain that he would be dead by morning."
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8vwsk3 | where do those crazy "unsolvable" math problems (like the millennium prize problems) that people spend their whole lives working on come from and what makes them so difficult to solve compared to regular "hard" math problems? | I was watching a movie earlier that mentioned [The Millennium Prize Problems](_URL_0_). I've heard about this kind of stuff before but I've never really known anything about them. Where do they come from? Do people just create them out of nowhere and make them as hard as possible or is there more to it? What makes them so hard that people end up spending their entire adult lives trying to solve them often without any success? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/8vwsk3/eli5_where_do_those_crazy_unsolvable_math/ | {
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"Assuming you've had a typical Ameican education, all of the math problems you've been faced with have been things like \"add these numbers together\" or \"solve for X\" where there's a straightforward way of solving the problem. That's one meaning of \"solving\" a problem.\n\nWhen talking about these \"unsolvable\" mathematical theorems, we're using a different sense of the term. We're trying to prove *general statements about mathematics*. A great example is Fermat's last theorem:\n\n > No three positive integers a, b, and c satisfy the equation a^n + b^n = c^n for any integer value of n greater than 2.\n\nWhen n=1, you have \"a+b=c\", it's trivial to show that you can pick 3 integers to make it true. With n=2, you have \"a^2 + b^2 = c^2\", you can also find solutions (eg - a=3, b=4, c=5). With some mathery, you can prove that no solution exists for n=3. The problem is that you're trying to prove this **for all values of n**. You can't just keep solving individual cases of the problem, you need to find a broad general solution.\n\nFermat first suggested this was true in 1637. It took until 1994 for somebody to properly prove it. While on the surface, it seems like a simple thing, it was huge, sprawling & complicated process that involved lots of higher mathematics that I won't even attempt to go into.\n\nSo, once you understand that they're talking about problems being \"unsolvable\" in this context, it should make a bit more sense what's going on. These aren't things that you can plug into a calculator and get an answer, these are things you need to write hundred page proofs of.\n\nAs for why people try to solve them... they're considered important because they're either foundational to a discipline (eg *P = NP*) or the consequences of proof will snowball into proving a bunch of other related problem. Even if you never solve the problem yourself, you might make proofs of some special case (which might help somebody actually solve it in the future) or discover something new about a tangentially related problem in your quest.",
"There are a few basic principles mathematicians are interested in:\n\n* Exploring patterns. If you want to pack a plane with radius-1 circles as densely as possible, what is the optimal pattern? If you want to [maneuver a sofa around a width-1 corner](_URL_0_), what's the largest-area sofa we can fit? How many rotational symmetries does a regular icosahedron have? These questions don't have to be geometric necessarily. If we look at equations, involving numbers or matrices or functions or whatever, we might ask things like: when can we be sure these equations have solutions? Can we prove that a solution is unique? How do the parameters of the equation affect what the solutions look like?\n* Classifying structures. We might formally define a [Platonic solid](_URL_1_) as a convex 3-dimensional shape where all the faces are identical regular polygons. There are 5 of these - but how can we be sure there are no more? What about the higher-dimensional case: we can let the number of dimensions be as large as we like, so is there some nice way of classifying the \"shapes\" that appear in higher-dimensional spaces? Many branches of mathematics have spent a great deal of time classifying a certain type of mathematical object. In topology there are many different ways of classifying mathematical spaces, and in group theory mathematicians basically spent the latter half of the 20th century classifying the types of symmetry it's possible for an object to have. It's often the case that we need to ask questions about equivalence as well, like: what does it mean to say that the symmetries of this one object are equivalent to the symmetries of another object?\n* Generalizing statements. This has a great deal of overlap with the others. We can prove there are 5 Platonic solids. But that's a very specific case. What about if we relax the constraint that all the faces be *identical* regular polygons? Or if we change the number of dimensions? Or allow for concave shapes in addition to convex ones? Alternatively, we might generalize definitions. We know what it means for a positive integer to be \"prime\". Can we talk about a polynomial being prime? What's the most useful definition for such a concept, and what do prime polynomials have in common with prime integers?\n\nIn pure mathematics, these questions are asked for their own sake, because they are mathematically interesting. In applied mathematics, these lines of questioning are turned towards solving problems in physics or computer science or other areas. The Riemann hypothesis, for example, comes from pure mathematics, and combines many different pattern-exploration questions ranging from finding solutions to an equation in the complex numbers to finding patterns in the prime numbers. On the other hand, P vs NP comes from the field of computational complexity theory, which as the name suggests arose from people trying to classify computational problems into different levels of complexity.\n\nExactly which problems end up being extraordinarily hard is very difficult to predict in advance. Prime numbers are a very simple concept, but mathematicians have been looking at patterns related to primes for a very long time. Compare these four questions:\n\n* How many even prime numbers are there? The answer is \"2 is the only one\" basically by definition: an even number is divisible by 2, so any even number besides 2 can't be prime because it's divisible by a number besides itself and 1 (specifically, it's divisible by 2).\n* How many prime numbers are there overall? The answer turns out to be \"infinitely many\", and while the proof is [not trivial](_URL_2_), it's been known for hundreds of years and isn't that hard to follow.\n* How many prime numbers are 1 less than a perfect square? This one is a little tricky, but you can solve it with basic algebra if you approach it in the right way. I won't spoil it.\n* How many prime numbers are 2 less than another prime number? This one is currently unsolved: no one knows how to prove it one way or another, though there's been some recent progress on this.\n\nThe last of these is a famous problem in number theory, but it doesn't look much different than the others. It has become famous because it turned out to be much more difficult - no one remembers all the other questions that can be answered in 5 minutes using basic algebra.",
" > Do people just create them out of nowhere and make them as hard as possible or is there more to it?\n\nHaha. No, there's more.\n\nThese are problems that are important because of their context and the expected mathematical value of a solution. Mathematicians are process, rather than destination people and so the \"value\" of one of these solutions is not necessarily the \"answer\" to the question, but the math that must be created in order to answer it. These problems all come from novel investigations of things that are very interesting and important. For each we've found that the current state of math is not sufficient to answer these questions, and so the hope is that in order to get a solution we will have to create really good, interesting, powerful math that will lead to even *more* questions and make connections we haven't even begun to make.\n\nThree big examples of this intense creation of math in order to solve problems:\n\n* **[The Prime Number Theorem:](_URL_4_)** In the late 1700s, early 1800s, mathematicians began to ask different kinds of questions about prime numbers. Particularly, they wanted to get an approximation for how frequent they pop up. After doing some number crunching and computations, a few prominent mathematicians came up with a hypothesis for a function that describes how the prime numbers are distributed. No proof, but a conjecture based on evidence. Many mathematicians put in a lot of hard work in order to prove it, Legendre, Chebyshev, Dirichlet, Mertens, etc. The way these mathematicians worked with sums, integrals, growth is very sophisticated and laid some of the backbone to how we work with similar things today. But no matter how adept they got at working with sums (particularly Mertens, he's a beast), the solution seemed out of reach. In order to actually prove it, we needed to look at the problem a little differently. Riemann figured out a way to encode the distribution of primes into a function that input and output complex numbers, which meant that you could use the brand new field of Complex Analysis (calculus with complex numbers; it's super powerful and one of the most perfect fields in math). With this brand new perspective and the right tools form Complex Analysis, we were able to prove it. But this proof introduced to us the notion that we could use this really powerful theory of Complex Analysis, including things like Fourier Analysis, to investigate properties of numbers. This idea revolutionized how we look at Number Theory as a whole and Riemann's original paper linking the two ideas is one of the most important paper of all time.\n\n* **[The Weil Conjectures:](_URL_1_)** If you have an algebraic equation, how many solutions are there if we work over an exotic number system with only finitely many numbers? It seems like a pretty innocuous question, but when Weil decided to investigate it, he found that if we borrowed brand new ideas from the new field of geometry called \"Topology\" (a field of math that deals with abstract, stretchy geometric shapes). But the tools of topology that Weil wanted to use did not exist in the discrete, equation-focused field he was working in. It was then thought that if we could transfer tools used to study the continuous world of topology and recreate discrete versions of them, then we would be able to answer the questions of Weil. This was incredibly insightful of Weil, and set the stage for Alexander Grothendieck, the greatest mathematician of the 20th Century. Grothendieck completely reworked how we view number systems, solutions to equations, polynomials, and geometry, through extremely abstract reinterpretations of things we thought we knew. His influence cannot be understated. He created as much new math as someone like Euclid, Euler or Gauss. His work was motivated by Weil's conjectures, and eventually people were able to use the crazy new math that Grothendieck had made to actually prove Weil's Conjectures.\n\n* **[Fermat's Last Theorem:](_URL_3_)** I think it would be impossible to list all of the new mathematical ideas that originated from trying to solve Fermat's Last Theorem. It was an open question for 350 years. Practically every mathematician of note in that time took a shot at it. Every time someone created a new tool to solve Fermat's Last Theorem, they'd find that they were still short of the solution. Even the math that Wiles himself had to invent to finally solve it is a drop in the bucket. It is the most important theorem in math, not because we use it all the time, but because the attempts to solve it resulted in a huge volume of mathematical ideas.\n\nFor each of the Millennium Prize Problems, we expect something similar to happen from a solution. They were chosen because we think that, out of all the millions of open problems out there, these are the ones most likely to require a paradigm shift in math to solve. For some context, we can talk about a couple:\n\n* **[The Riemann Hypothesis:](_URL_2_)** The way that Riemann proposed to solve the Prime Number Theorem was by finding a function that takes in complex numbers and outputs complex numbers, and a shape on the complex plane so that the (important) zeros of this function had to be on this shape. In order to prove the Prime Number Theorem, all you have to do is show that the zeros cannot be on the boundary of this shape. But he noted that the further that the zeros were from the boundary, the better we would be able to approximate the distribution of primes. He then conjectured that all of the zeros were as far away as possible from the boundary of this shape, leading to the best possible approximation of the primes we could get from his method. That's the Riemann Hypothesis. It comes from the solution to a problem that resulted in a paradigm shift in math and its solution has eluded us for 150 years (not because of lack of effort), so we can be fairly certain that a solution will be come with some very cool math. In fact, we can think of the Weil Conjectures as an alternative version of the Riemann Hypothesis that lives in a different world, and it is thought that, with the right kind of formulation, we may be able to adapt and translate the proof of the Weil Conjectures into a proof of the Riemann Hypothesis. A link like this would truly be earth-shattering, and we already know that the key missing ingredient is extremely wild, abstract and exotic and finding a way to make sense of it may require another Grothendieck-like mind. \n\n* **[The Birch & Swinnerton-Dyer Conjecture:](_URL_0_)** This conjecture is, in a way, a mix between a whole lot of this stuff. Riemann (and Dirichlet) found that we can encode properties of number systems into functions on the complex plane. Grothendieck and Weil got us thinking about how arithmetic is a type of geometry. The BSD-Conjecture very loosely states that arithmetic properties of certain algebrao-geometric objects should be able to be encoded into functions on the complex plane. It is difficult to communicate how important and deep this conjecture is. It comes from and links very abstract ideas. But already, just as with Fermat's Last Theorem, partial results have already been obtained about it using radically new ideas. Ideas from trying to prove the BSD have already been used in the proof of Fermat's Last Theorem. A complete solution to the BSD Conjecture will definitely change math as we know it.\n\nFor each of the Millennium Prize Problems, there is an equally important background and hope that their solutions will upend math. (These are just the two I'm the most familiar with).\n\n**TL;DR (and more ELI5):** Mathematicians just want new, cool math. All the Millennium Prize Problems are hard, come from asking deep questions, and so we hope that a paradigm shift in math is required to solve them. Offering a prize is a way to try and get the shift happening sooner.",
" > Do people just create them out of nowhere \n\nYes and no. Yes, because mathematics is purely abstract thought and created out of nowhere by definition.\n\nNo because mathematics is all about making up simple rules and then exploring the infinitely complex implications of those rules. And there's millenia of history of people doing this to take into account - very rarely does a mathematician deal with a truly new field.\n\n > and make them as hard as possible or is there more to it?\n\nHard math problems are not \"made\". They are *found*. You come up with ideas for theorems and try to prove or disprove them. Sometimes you find that you just cannot find a proof either way. You ask other mathematicians, and often one of them manages to solve it, but sometimes even simple theorems confound even the top minds for decades and centuries. Those are the problems that become famous.\n\n > What makes them so hard that people end up spending their entire adult lives trying to solve them often without any success?\n\nThis is a very good question, and very hard to answer concretely. Actually, I can't really think of an answer that doesn't end up being circular."
]
} | [] | [
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Millennium_Prize_Problems"
] | [
[],
[
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moving_sofa_problem",
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Platonic_solid",
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Euclid%27s_theorem"
],
[
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Birch_and_Swinnerton-Dyer_conjecture",
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Weil_conjectures",
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Riemann_hypothesis",
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fermat%27s_Last_Theorem",
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prime_number_theorem"
],
[]
] |
|
5sej7p | why do white clothes turn gray after multiple washings? is it just soap residue? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5sej7p/eli5_why_do_white_clothes_turn_gray_after/ | {
"a_id": [
"ddegpjo",
"ddeo2x0"
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"score": [
4,
18
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"text": [
"Are you washing white clothes with bark colors? Dark colored clothes have die in them and when you wash them the dies can \"bleed\" out of them and color other clothes. If you are only washing whites with whites then you must be A) using terrible soap B) your washing machine has a problem or needs cleaned C) they are old and where washed with dark colors at some time.",
"As others have said bleeding of other colors in the wash is one source of dulling of whites, another is the water itself. Water high in iron, like a lot of well water, can stain clothes. Hard water, high in calcium and magnesium can hamper the effectiveness of the detergents. \n\nAdditionally whites are rarely white. They're often brightened with a blue dye, or UV fluorescent dye to make them appear whiter. In the past, many people used to use a bluing wash additive like this. \n\n_URL_0_\n\nIn modern times, most popular brands of detergents already have it mixed in.\n\nAlso see if adding bleach can help reduce any staining."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[],
[
"https://www.amazon.com/Reckitts-Blue-Laundry-Bluing-Tablets/dp/B003IWUNJU"
]
] |
||
4kzhdi | when you are building a lot of muscle, you need a lot of calories; but how come alcohol calories are considered 'empty' and 'useless?' | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4kzhdi/eli5_when_you_are_building_a_lot_of_muscle_you/ | {
"a_id": [
"d3izv6m",
"d3j1iqb"
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"score": [
11,
7
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"text": [
"\"empty\" calories are considered empty because the only thing they provide is calories. They only give energy and have no significant minerals, vitamins, proteins, or dietary fiber. ",
"You have $2000 to spend by the end of the day. You could go to vegas and blow $2000 on a roulette wheel. Or you could spend that $2000 geting your car tuned up, and replacing your broken washer and dryer.\n\nThe roulette dollars (calories) were fun for a moment, but you don't have anything to show for them after. You still need your car tuned up and your appliances fixed. In the second scenario you are still out your 2k, but you have a better running car and appliances that will work for a while.\n\n\"Empty calories\" are those you take in without any extra benefit. As opposed to tge calories that come naturally on your quest to meet all the dietary needs of the day."
]
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[],
[]
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||
73ajvd | why does fresh lime/lemon juice taste so much better than the stuff from concentrate? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/73ajvd/eli5_why_does_fresh_limelemon_juice_taste_so_much/ | {
"a_id": [
"dnov4rd",
"dnp3r77"
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"score": [
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2
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"text": [
"I think the prevailing wisdom is that there are [chemical compounds in the lime juice which oxidize quite quickly, thus changing the flavor](_URL_0_). I did see a [side by side comparison](_URL_1_) that shows 4 hour old lime juice tastes better than lime juiced squeezed to order though. ",
"Most industrial citrus squeezes, like the ones used to make the juices you can see at the store, work in a, well, industrial scale. The more juice per fruit, the better. Also, they work within a specific fruit size. \nSome machines squeeze fruits too much, including albedo and flavedo (the white and coloured parts of the fruit skin). These have a compete different composition, what changes juice flavour. This happens even more if the size of the squeezed fruit is smaller than the desired one.\n\nAdd this to the addition of preservatives and the oxidation of other compounds, and you've got the awful flavour of industrial juice."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[
"http://drinkfactory.blogspot.com/2010/08/harold-mcgee-and-tony-conigliaro.html",
"http://www.cookingissues.com/2010/10/01/fresh-lime-juice-wtf/index.html"
],
[]
] |
||
5wi4x6 | why does food need to be at least room temperature before being put in the fridge? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5wi4x6/eli5_why_does_food_need_to_be_at_least_room/ | {
"a_id": [
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"score": [
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"text": [
"If \"hot\" food between 80 and 160 degree F, is put into a fridge, between 35 and 45 degree F. It will steam inside its container and contribute to major bacteria growth.",
"If you put something in the fridge that is really hot, it will heat up things around it before the fridge can cool it off. So lets say you put some soup in the fridge that is just 90 degrees. If you put it next to say sour cream, or any dairy, it will heat up that dairy product edges by at least 20 degrees before the fridge brings that temp down. This will cause bacteria to grow and make you sick. ",
"For most cases, it doesn't. In older refrigerators or when dealing with large amounts of food, it could lead to the food being at a dangerous temperature for bacteria growth for longer. But for things like leftovers, it's fine to just put it directly in. It's actually probably better, as being left out at room temperature will allow it more time for bacteria to grow. Modern refrigerators can handle the load to ensure that the heat doesn't raise the surrounding temperature by much. If you have a large batch of hot food that needs to be cooled, it's advised to split it up into portions, allowing more surface area to be exposed to the cold so it can cool quicker.",
"Optimal bacterial growth occurs between 40º and 140º F. You want to minimize the time that food is in that \"danger zone\". Large quantities of hot food, can increase the temperature of the fridge more quickly than it can cool itself. Heat moves to cold, so the heat energy in the food warms the air in the fridge, which in turn heats the other food in the fridge. At the same time the fridge's condensing unit removes heat from the air in fridge, but if there is too much heat energy in the food it can't cool the fridge and food quickly enough. So, if you put too much heat in the fridge, you don't cool your heated item quickly enough and you put a bunch of other food in the danger zone.\n\nMost of the time, it probably isn't going to be a problem to put warm or hot foods in the fridge, again depending on how much. You want to move that food from above 140º to below 40º as quickly as possible. Keeping it on the counter until it is room temperature isn't going to do that. Certain foods retain greater heat than other foods. Generally speaking foods with greater water content store more energy. So, if you were to make a large pot of soup and then put it in the fridge to cool, if could cause a problem. The best course of action in this case is to put the container of soup in a ice bath and cool it down to below 40º and then put it in the fridge. \n\n_URL_0_\n\nEdit: typo"
]
} | [] | [] | [
[],
[],
[],
[
"https://www.fsis.usda.gov/wps/portal/fsis/topics/food-safety-education/get-answers/food-safety-fact-sheets/safe-food-handling/refrigeration-and-food-safety/ct_index/!ut/p/a1/jZFRT8IwEMc_DY_d3RwS8G1ZYmDKkBCl7IWUreuabO3SVqd-est8EQNK76l3v3979z_IgUKu2JsUzEmtWHO855M9rnESzhJMV7PwHhfZy3r1kCQ43dx6YPcHkEVX6i-cGP_Tp1d8cGOWyVJA3jFXE6kqDVRwR5iyPTcWaKV1SSyruPsgFSscsTXnzheOOTJUa6bKRioB1PDKSMHN4JB_oyQ_5EALt5eq5O-whfy0NQx9LLJoM56nWYSr8W_gjHffwGVz_PSi0YdhUbtYHaKpH9N3yA03wavx6dq5zt6NcIR93wdCa9HwoNDtCM9Jam0d0FMSuvaZfj7Gc5RP7XZq4y8BE-W7/#5"
]
] |
||
2gpswh | what's the difference between a bath towel and a bath sheet? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2gpswh/eli5_whats_the_difference_between_a_bath_towel/ | {
"a_id": [
"cklf7lp"
],
"score": [
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"text": [
"Bath sheets are bigger.\n\nThis manufacturer's bath towels are 28\" by 55\" \n_URL_0_\n\nBut their bath sheets are 35\" by 66\" \n_URL_1_"
]
} | [] | [] | [
[
"http://turkishtowelcompany.com/zenith-bath-towels",
"http://turkishtowelcompany.com/zenith-bath-sheets"
]
] |
||
5jdeod | why do people come to fast food places in groups rather than a steady flow? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5jdeod/eli5_why_do_people_come_to_fast_food_places_in/ | {
"a_id": [
"dbf8clp"
],
"score": [
2
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"text": [
"People get off of work to go to lunch at the same times. People don't go to lunch at 10:37, they go at 10:30 and 10:45. This means that large groups of people are leaving their various offices at around the same time, with around the same distance to whichever fast food place they're going to (otherwise, they'd go to a different place. Got me?)"
]
} | [] | [] | [
[]
] |
||
2gkcc4 | what's the difference between blackmail and extortion? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2gkcc4/eli5_whats_the_difference_between_blackmail_and/ | {
"a_id": [
"ckjw7o2",
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"score": [
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"text": [
"Blackmail involves threatening to release information about someone's doings, thoughts, desires, etc.\n\nExtortion involves threatening violence, arson, etc.\n\nBlackmail requires research, extortion requires a strong arm. ",
"Blackmail is generally inducing someone to give you money by threatening to reveal something about that person that they'd prefer to remain secret.\n\nExtortion is inducing someone to give you money by threatening to cause them harm in the future.\n\n",
"Blackmail: Johnny knows that you kissed Susy behind the trees on the playground and since Susy is dating Hank, who is Johnny's friend, Johnny is threatening to blackmail Susy unless she kisses Johnny too.\n\nExtortion: Johnny is stronger than you so he threatens to beat you up unless you give him your lunch money."
]
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[],
[],
[]
] |
||
1pv3qm | how can cable providers air their own commercials over the ones shown by the networks. | I have Mediacom, and almost every commercial break seems to get cut off (sometimes in mid advertisement) and replaced with Mediacom commercials or ones from local businesses that are presented by Mediacom. It would stand to reason that this screws over the advertisers that paid the network to air in that ad spot. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1pv3qm/eli5_how_can_cable_providers_air_their_own/ | {
"a_id": [
"cd6d6b0"
],
"score": [
3
],
"text": [
"Cable providers are given certain amounts of commercial time during each show which preempts 'national' commercials. These are often ads for the cable provider itself, but might also be ad time that they sold to local businesses.\n\nWhen you see a commercial get interrupted by another commercial, it's usually because of this. As part of the signal sent from the network to the cable provider, there's a little signal during the broadcast which triggers the 'local' ads. This signal is supposed to start in sync with a commercial so that it's seamless, but they occasionally fall a little out of sync. That's when you see a local ad starting a few seconds into a national ad, as the cable provider got the signal a few seconds late. "
]
} | [] | [] | [
[]
] |
|
2cej1i | the new "unlocking cell phone law." | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2cej1i/eli5_the_new_unlocking_cell_phone_law/ | {
"a_id": [
"cjep44n",
"cjep536"
],
"score": [
14,
9
],
"text": [
"To understand the new law, you need to understand what the law was. So first some history.\n\nIn 1998 the U.S government passed the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA, the same thing you see if you see a takedown notice on Youtube or Google). Included in that (in addition to the copyright provisions themselves) was a prohibition on circumventing what are called \"Digital Rights Management.\" In laymen's terms it's a bit like both making it illegal to take your television *and* making it illegal to break your door lock in an attempt to get your television.\n\nThe DMCA gave the librarian of Congress the power to exempt certain things from DMCA regulations. Basically, he could say \"so, yeah, rooting your iPhone *is* a circumvention, but all it's doing is letting people use their phones to their fullest capacity, so we're going to exempt it\" (which actually happened).\n\nThe issue of cell phone unlocking came up, and the Librarian of Congress elected *not* to exempt it. But did provide a window for people to unlock their existing phones without running afoul of the DMCA. The idea was that while it made sense that anyone buying a new phone could simply buy an unlocked version, it wasn't fair to stop people who got their phones prior to the rule coming down from unlocking them.\n\nSo, about a year ago, that grace period ended and it became illegal (under the DMCA) to unlock a cell phone. Recently, Congress passed legislation to amend the DMCA to exempt cell phone unlocking.",
"For years, cell phone companies have made it hard to switch to a different company by \"locking\" the phone you purchased from them. This is no longer allowed. Provided you purchased the phone you are allowed to unlock it, which allows you to use it on another companies network. You can expect large carriers now to \"lease\" phones to customers so the carrier retains ownership :( "
]
} | [] | [] | [
[],
[]
] |
||
eoh55u | how do people like celebrities and politicians not constantly battle colds and flu when they are constantly touching and shaking hands with other people? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/eoh55u/eli5how_do_people_like_celebrities_and/ | {
"a_id": [
"fectkp9"
],
"score": [
5
],
"text": [
"They learn not to touch their face and eyes. Viruses on your hands do nothing, they have to get into you to make you ill, and the easiest way for that to happen is to rub your eyes."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[]
] |
||
5f3pdq | how to buy, sell, and exchange stocks, bonds, etc. | Specifically in Canada | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5f3pdq/eli5_how_to_buy_sell_and_exchange_stocks_bonds_etc/ | {
"a_id": [
"dah8vx5"
],
"score": [
6
],
"text": [
"Set up an account with an an online broker. Send them a check. They'll have some custom software for you to install to monitor the market and place orders. For bond purchases you'd probably have to call in to a live broker. \n \nAmeritrade and Charles Shwab are good brokers for noobs."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[]
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|
clv0ww | why do waves slide back into the ocean instead of being sucked into sand? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/clv0ww/eli5_why_do_waves_slide_back_into_the_ocean/ | {
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"The sand a few centimeters down is already wet. So there is no space for more water. So it just flows back into the ocean. But a part of the water flows back through the sand indeed.",
"The sand can only absorb so much water. That’s why when you walk on a beach there is very dry sand and as you get closer to the water it gets more wet and compacted. The sand closer to the water has soaked up all it can take and now the waves just move over it and back down to the ocean.",
"It does both. Water takes the easiest path back to the lowest level it can. The water that soaks into the sand can't move very fast. The water above it has nowhere to go, until the wave passes. Then it can just roll across the water that soaked into the sand and join with the ocean again.",
"Sand has space between the grains that can be filled by either gas or a liquid, the sand in the shore is soaked to its limit.",
"It’s like spilling a large glass of water on the floor and trying to soak it all up with a towel that’s too small. The towel soaks in as much as it can, but after a while you’re just sloshing liquid around.",
"While a lot of these answers are good, nobody has also pointed out one of the properties of water responsible for this. Aside from saturation in the sand, water molecules are cohesive—they like to stick to each other. This is due to hydrogen bonding in the molecules. Since water is “sticky” and likes to keep in touch, molecules can pull each other. This is why waves are able to pull the water back, as well as the reason (along with the adhesive nature of water, or the tendency to stick to other stuff) is why some water may run down the glass when you pour it."
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1ehwoo | what determines how fast a person metabolizes alcohol? | I seem to 'sober up' really fast and I was wondering why?
Example: Tonight between 7 and 8 I had three 16oz beers, by 11:30 I feel no effects. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1ehwoo/eli5_what_determines_how_fast_a_person/ | {
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"What is your weight, height, and gender? Do you drink on a regular basis? Did you eat while you drank the beers?",
"The average male metabolizes .015%-.020% of their BAC every hour. Three pints of 4.5% ABV beer would put you at .086, or just over the legal limit to drive. 3 hours later would put you at a BAC of .041-.026, the lower end of that estimate being not only well under the legal driving limit, but under the BAC that people even tend to feel \"buzzed\" at. You're sobering up at a completely normal rate, it's not unusual at all for someone of your weight to not feel anything after 3 hours.\n\nNow, if you had slammed down a six pack and 3 hours later still felt totally sober, that would just be you having a high tolerance. Sometimes it comes from routine drinking, some people just have it affect them less. Mind you, high tolerance DOES NOT affect your BAC or how fast you can get it out of your system, it just affects how you feel at a given BAC level. You would, in that case, be skirting the line almost exactly at a .08, but even if you passed a roadside \"walk-the-line\" test would still technically be over the limit and could get nailed for a DUI on that.\n\n[Here's](_URL_0_) a good calculator that lets you fine tune the settings. I wouldn't use this to decide whether to drive or not, but if you've ever wondered how long it would take you to get your BAC down after a given quantity of alcohol, it can sort of give you a clue."
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5kds18 | how is it that data can be stored on a drive even though (i think) nothing is physically is different as before | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5kds18/eli5_how_is_it_that_data_can_be_stored_on_a_drive/ | {
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"Something is physically different, just on a microscopic level. A flash drive is basically a HUGE array of very tiny switches that get turned on and off in a precise pattern to store information."
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230dkt | what exactly do lawyers that deal with duis actually do? | Every so often I see commercials about lawyers who specialize in helping others who got a DUI. All I can imagine is them standing up and going "nah my client didn't do that" | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/230dkt/eli5_what_exactly_do_lawyers_that_deal_with_duis/ | {
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"One big thing that they can do is help when it comes to sentencing.",
"All sorts of things!\n\nMaking sure that the police had probable cause to stop the vehicle in the first place. No probable cause for the stop, whole case gets tossed.\n\nMaking sure that the police used appropriate methods for determining that there was probable cause to test for DUI. Unless they're doing a checkpoint (for which there are strict rules), they can't just stop you for an illegal turn and ask you to take a breath test because they feel like it.\n\nMaking sure that the methods used to determine BAC were reliable and correctly used. Police departments fail to calibrate their equipment--and lab results get lost/corrupted/switched--more often than you'd think.\n\nMaking sure that any interrogation/questioning conducted back at the station was proper and did not violate any of the defendant's rights.\n\nEtc. It's not about \"proving\" that the defendant didn't commit the charged offense. Criminal defense work rarely is. It's about making sure the state isn't cutting any corners. Which, unfortunately, happens all the time. Convictions can only be based upon evidence which supports guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. Poking holes in the prosecution's case can be an incredibly effective way of doing that, though in DUI in particular it's more about keeping improper evidence out than casting doubt on the evidence as such.",
"They can challenge the brethalyzing equipment if it's not properly calibrated, or the sobriety test if it's not properly administered. They can challenge the basis for the stop in the first instance. They can also do a lot to mitigate the sentence.\n\nThere are more ways to challenge a DUI than you migh think. And since the defendant is usually facing some pretty dramatic penalties, a good attorney can do a lot to help.\n\nEdit: I a word."
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1cxiwt | why's everyone mad at reddit for the boston bomber "witch hunt"? | I don't understand the apparent collective responsibility. Some people talked on reddit about what they could see in pictures. Others posted accusations on a particular family's Facebook page. Why aren't we just mad at the latter? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1cxiwt/eli5_whys_everyone_mad_at_reddit_for_the_boston/ | {
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"Society likes to be able to point a finger at a single individual or entity and lay the blame at their feet. In this case, a particular user in a small subreddit (devoted to finding the bombers) id'd an innocent person. From there it snowballed and was picked up by the mainstream media. Since everyone can clearly point to the subreddit as the first place to mention the innocent person's name, \"reddit\" is therefore guilty, and by extension, everyone on the site, regardless of their involvement.",
"[This guy covers the detail of the events.](_URL_0_) \n\nI guess it's because of the sheer amount of people involved in the witch hunt. At some point my front page was bombarded by those type of posts when I really wanted nothing to do with it which at the very least shows how much exposure and popularity the witch hunt received from Reddit. \n\nLike any generalization, it is unfair to those who did not participate in it but I'm guessing the logic of 'accessory' or 'accomplice' is being applied here. *If you did not try to stop it, you were part of it.* ",
"Because we (Reddit) isolated individuals and had their photos posted for tens of thousands of people to see without any evidence backing it up. \n\nIt could have exposed innocent individuals to retribution or other stuff like that. It gets dangerous. ",
"It's a simple case of \"Guilty by Association.\" It's like how some atheists have the mindset of \"All Christians are oppressive and bigoted.\" ",
"What I don't understand is why the reddit-hate parade has continued and the NY Post has generally escaped the worst of the criticism."
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3fkewf | how is bernie sanders type of socialism different than historical socialism | I thought socialism was widely accepted as a bad thing. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3fkewf/eli5_how_is_bernie_sanders_type_of_socialism/ | {
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"ELI5 answer: Bernie sanders is advocating a system of regulated capitalism with a strong social safety net. \n\nSocialism is generally seen as the government or worker ownership of the means of production, banks, etc. that is not what he is advocating. \n\nThis is a good basic article: _URL_0_",
"He's technically a democratic socialist, meaning that he thinks we can use some portion of ordinary income derived through normal capitalists functions and markets, to collectively fund, through taxes, universal healthcare, higher education, and rebuilding infrastructure. \n\nA full blown socialist, communist, or Marxist in the historical sense would advocate that the state, and through the state, the people own all factories, and means of creating wealth. (which is not actually how historically \"communist\" countries actually operated either frankly, as the workers really had no stake in ownership. In that sense those countries were effectively authoritarian.)",
"he is not a socialist, and socialism is accepted generally as good outside of the western world, specially in south america and eastern europe",
"Bernie Sanders is a democratic socialist - basically, he believes that the government, held accountable through democratic institutions, should regulate private capital to ensure economic benefits and social costs are more equitably distributed. He would not subscribe to the Marxist belief that a dictatorship of the proletariat is preferable to democracy. \n\nDemocratic socialism is considered the mainstream left political position in most of the Western world. It's worth pointing out how comparably narrow the American political spectrum is. Europe's parliaments contain every party from as far left as orthodox communists to as far right as paleoconservatives with fascist tendencies. Meanwhile, our two party system basically offers a left-liberal party (the Democrats) and a right-liberal party (the Republicans) that spend most of their time arguing over emotionally charged social issues. ",
" > I thought socialism was widely accepted as a bad thing.\n\nOnly in the US, due to Cold War era propaganda. Whilst a bona fide system of socialism would be a little finicky, European democracy is very heavily rooted in the principles of socialism, and most states provide exemplary public services. In England, the private market is absolutely dreadful; I would not trust an insurance company one bit; honestly I'm loathe to even have home insurance, because if my house burns down then the state provides me with a new one; [smaller, cheaply made, and probably inconveniently far away](_URL_0_), but I still get a whole house just for being a British citizen in trouble. I don't have to pay in monthly instalments to anybody in order to get this, I don't need to have been paying them for a certain amount of time, or need a credit check. All I need is to be a British citizen that pays his taxes (because how else would this be funded?), and my government will catch me when I fall, no strings attached. This is what Sanders wants; not true socialism as such, but Social Democracy.",
"A good start to understanding this would be to realize that neither Bernie Sanders nor European countries are socialist. We're all capitalist, except for that Europe has much better social security, which opponents of such a system (e.g. US Republicans) like to label as \"socialism\". As long as you, the American public don't start calling those people out on their bullshit, this will continue.\n\n\nHope I don't come off as too big of a dick here. Props to you for actually seeking understanding of socialism etc.",
" > I thought socialism was widely accepted as a bad thing.\n\nIt's sad that you think that. It's even sadder that millions of voters will automatically assume Sanders is a *goddamn commie* because he identifies as a democratic socialist.",
"If you have the time, please watch this video which describes what socialism is not and where the fear of socialism came from. It really helped me sort out exactly what people are talking about when they talk about socialism vs. communism vs. state capitalism.\n[Link to video](_URL_0_) \n[Link to discussion on r/socialism]( _URL_1_?)"
]
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"https://www.reddit.com/r/socialism/comments/3enrhh/socialism_for_dummies_professor_richard_d_wolff/"
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1fyssb | tcp and udp using real world examples. | I've read the other posts on here about IT stuff but it doesn't click with me at all. Since I'm creating a post on reddit right now, which sends information to the reddit servers, can you tell me what TCP and UDP are doing in this instance? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1fyssb/eli5_tcp_and_udp_using_real_world_examples/ | {
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"TCP uses back and forth communication, like a telephone call. If one person didn't hear something, they can ask for it to be repeated.\n\nUDP uses 1 way communication, like TV or Radio broadcasts. If you miss something, tough noogies, just keep listening.",
"The big difference between TCP and UDP is that TCP checks for missing packets (chunks of data), and if it finds any, asks for it to be resent.\n\nUDP just takes everything it gets as-is. This makes UDP faster (no processing overhead to check, no waiting for lost packets, etc) which makes it better for time-critical things (live broadcasts, games, etc) but bad for anything that needs accuracy, and isn't so time critical (which is most things, websites included).\n\nWhen it comes to Reddit (and any website served over the HTTP or HTTPS protocols) you will be using TCP.\n\nThink about it practically. Imagine you are posting something on Reddit, using UDP. Imagine you wrote \"This is a test. Foobar!\" - A packet is lost in transit, and just happened to contain the \" a te\" segment of your sentence. As far as Reddit would know, you only sent \"This isst. Foobar!\". Obviously this isn't what anyone wants, so UDP isn't used.\n\nNow imagine using TCP. Exactly the same situation. Same message, same packet lost. On the TCP end, before the information even gets to the 'processing' part of the Server, it gets reassembled, and checked.. If a packet is missing, then it will query your computer again, basically saying \"Hey, I missed packet #3, can you resend it?\". Your computer will respond by sending the packet again. If it is lost again, repeat, etc.\n\nWith TCP, you can basically just imagine that every packet is numbered. When you start a transmission, you'll tell the other end \"There's going to be 8 packets in this!\" - then the other end knows that if it only gets 7, it's missing one and can ask for it. Or if it gets 1-3 + 5-8, it knows 4 is missing. It's also worth keeping in mind that the packets are NOT guaranteed to arrive in order (as unlikely as it is, it's possible they even get received in totally reverse order!) But thanks to TCP, the receiving end will be able to reconstruct the packets in the original order (UDP doesn't do this, it just takes and processes everything that comes to it).\n\nTCP/UDP are typically mutually exclusive. You usually use one OR the other. TCP is also far more common as traffic on the Internet, as it is used for serving web pages. UDP has more limited uses, but allows faster communication than TCP.\n\nOf course, this isn't an exam-worthy explanation, but it should do for the gist."
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36xizm | what is the story of dragon ball z? | Not really asking for the specifics because the details are in the episodes but just what is the gyst of what is /has been happening since the show first started? Like a time line of major events would be cool too. I just want to understand it. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/36xizm/eli5_what_is_the_story_of_dragon_ball_z/ | {
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"Goku (the main character)'s story combines the story of Superman with Sun Wukong. He comes from a doomed planet, has a tail and a flying cloud and fights evil, including but not limited to:\n\n* Green slug demons\n\n* Androids\n\n* Other monkey-aliens like him\n\n* Androgynous Space Emperors\n\n* Genetically Engineered super-beings\n\n* Whatever the hell Buu is\n\nBecause of the wishing power of the Dragon Balls, no one seems to die permanently, and even when Goku was \"permanently\" dead, he still managed to come back to Earth for a battle. Shenanigans. There's very little to understand. There's superpowered guys who fight eachother and you can tell who the good guys are because when they pump up, their auras go blue.",
"WARNING: SEVERE SPOILERS AHEAD (OBVIOUSLY) -- IF YOU HAVE ANY DESIRE TO WATCH THE SHOW I SUGGEST YOU DO IT, DON'T READ ANY OF THIS! IT'S A GREAT WATCH!\n\nthe dragon ball series is split up into three series: Dragon Ball, Dragon Ball Z, and Dragon Ball GT. I haven't watched GT but as far as I can tell it's basically non-canon since it wasn't written by the original guy, Akira Toriyama.\n\nDragon Ball is the first, and features a young boy named Goku who has extraordinary fighting strength, and his adventures saving the world. The series starts with a very serialised, drama type approach with a rotating villain of the week and an overarching plot of them trying to find the dragon balls, which summon a wish granting dragon when gathered into one place. There's an evil emperor called Pilaf who also wants to get the dragon balls. at the start of the series, goku is an orphan - his adoptive grandfather, gohan, died shortly before the show started. on this first adventure Goku meets Bulma, a young girl who's good with technology and the heiress to a massive manufacturing company called capsule corp who make capsules that can summon basically anything (cars, bikes, houses, desks, big bags etc). she takes him to meet Master Roshi on turtle island, a martial arts trainer who can help Goku hone his skills. While there he meets Krillin, Roshi's other student. they are initially rivals, but soon become lifelong best friends. they have many adventures searching for the dragon balls, and meet other friends like oolong, a shape shifting pig, and yamcha, a rebellious teen who they befriend. basically every person who becomes friends with goku starts out as a villain. the first few arcs revolve around the World Martial Arts tournament, where they also meet Tien and Chao Tsu, who start as villains but join the gang later. it turns out that Goku can turn into a giant, super powerful ape when exposed to the light of the full moon, and it's theorised that he actually killed his grandfather (Goku only knows it was a giant monster, he woke up one day and their house was destroy and Gohan was dead). the series continues with several sagas, involving the Red Ribbon army who are evil and want the dragon balls, and the King Piccolo saga, where you find out who made the dragon balls: an alien called Kami who is guardian of earth. long ago Kami split himself into good and bad parts, the bad part became King Piccolo who tries to invade earth but fails (thanks again to Goku). At the end of the series Goku marries a girl called Chi Chi who he promised to marry way back at the start of the show (her dad started as a villain and, you guessed it, becomes a good guy). oh, also, Master Roshi teaches Goku the Kamehameha wave (pronounced ka-MAY-ha-MAY-ha wave, rather than KA-mee-HA-mee-HA), which is a super powerful beam attack.\n\nDragon Ball Z takes place a few years later, when Goku and Chi Chi are grown up and have a kid of their own, Gohan, named for goku's grand father. The first arc of this series is the Saiyan saga, where an alien named Radditz comes to earth and claims to be Goku's brother, and says his real name is Kakkarot. Radditz says Goku is really a Saiyan, an alien race of super powerful warriors who destroy planets for profit. Goku was sent to earth to destroy all intelligent life on the planet to make it ready for sale, but he bumped his head as a baby soon after Gohan Senior found him, and his personality changed completely. Radditz goes on to say that all the Saiyan's have been killed except for the two of them and a handful of others. Goku doesn't believe Radditz to begin with, but if you think about it makes a lot of sense. Obviously they fight because a) it's dragon ball z and b) Goku doesn't want to be a planet destroying warrior. The heroes gain a pyrrhic victory where King Piccolo's son/clone/thing (also called Piccolo) kind of becomes good, and kills Radditz and Goku at the same time (at Goku's request because there's no other way to beat him). As Radditz dies, he says there are other Saiyans who will come, who are more powerful, and will destroy them all. Obviously the gang (who at this point is Krillin, Yamcha, Tien, Chao Tsu, Piccolo and Bulma) are pooping their pants because Goku, their best fighter is dead. But Goku is in the Other World, and goes to train with this super master guy called King Kai while the gang gather the dragon balls to wish him back to life. While Goku is dead, Piccolo trains Goku's son, Gohan, in the ways of the warrior, because he too shows incredible fighting potential. The other Saiyans are Napa and Vegeta, who eventually show up and wreak havoc. The gang hold them off until Goku comes back (it's this arrival that prompts the classic \"It's over 9000!\" quote). Through another series of narrow victories (which includes Vegeta doing the giant ape thing and getting his tail cut off by some low life nobody named Yajirobe, come at me fanboys), they defeat the Saiyans, killing Napa but only severely injuring Vegeta. Goku allows vegeta to escape alive, stating that Piccolo became good, so who knows with Vegeta.\n\nVegeta runs away, and thus begins the Frieza arc. Vegeta killed a bunch of people, including Piccolo, so for reasons (just go with it) the dragon balls disappear, so they have to travel to Kami's home world to use the dragon balls there to wish everyone back. On the planet (called Namek) they meet Frieza, a super powerful, super ruthless alien thing that can basically pwn anyone he wants all day long (he's the one that killed all the saiyans). He also wants the dragon balls to become immortal. After an incredibly long, incredibly drawn out battle which includes Vegeta dying and seemingly becoming good on his death bed, Goku's true inner potential as a warrior god becomes unlocked, and he becomes a Super Saiyan (i'm sure you've seen the pictures of the blondie - that's how Goku looks in super saiyan mode). Frieza eventually becomes out classed by Goku's raw power and is defeated, but destroys the planet Namek as a last sort of half trump card half hissy fit type move. Everyone escapes (except Goku, who stays behind to finish frieza), and in the mean time they manage to use Namek's dragon balls to wish everyone Frieza killed back to life. Goku seemingly kills Frieza. Goku and Frieza's fight drags on suuuuuper long.\n\nFrom there, everyone's back on earth and Vegeta's alive and being a dick again. he thinks since Goku and Frieza are dead he's the most powerful warrior alive now (he has a decent case tbf), except BAM frieza shows back up on earth, in his new robot form with his dad to back him up (like i told you he's prone to hissy fits). so everyone's REALLY pooping their pants BIG TIME now, but out of NO WHERE some new super saiyan (remember they're all supposed to be dead?!). This guy's powerful as a fresh set of ovaries and proceeds to absolutely dee-STROY frieza with a sweet-ass sword. This guy turns out to be from the future, his name is Trunks and he's Vegeta's son. Trunks is arguably the coolest guy in the show from this point on. Trunks tells them some androids are gonna show up soon and destroy the planet because Goku dies of heart disease and can't stop them. He gives Goku some medicine and time travels away. The gang train solidly for three years until the androids are supposed to show. They do, and this is where things start to get really complicated, so i'm gonna try blitz through it:\n\n* androids 20 and 19 go on a killing spree\n* vegeta kills 19 (did i mention he's sort of becoming good at this point?)\n* they collectively get 20 on the run\n* future trunks comes back and tells them those aren't the androids from his future\n* turns out android 20 is this guy called Dr. Gero who worked for the Red Ribbon army back in the first series (remember i mentioned them about 4 years worth of writing ago?), he made all the androids including modifying himself.\n* he has other androids, 17 and 18, who are really bamf and when he activates them they kill him instantly\n* this weird creature called cell then turns up who's another of Gero's creations who also travels from the future (convoluted reasons, go with it)\n* cell proceeds to fuck shit up on a very real and serious level, he absorbs the other androids and becomes basically an all powerful god being\n* everyone's got poop all the way down to their socks at this point cus no one can beat cell, but he decides to hold a tournament to see if anyone can challenge him. he gives them 10 days to train.\n* Vegeta is also a super saiyan at this point, he's super happy about this.\n* the gang use this thing called the hyperbolic time chamber to fit a years worth of intensive training into a day. in this chamber, gohan becomes a super saiyan, and goku and gohan develop mastery over the state.\n* they go to challenge cell\n* cell is still BAMF, not even Goku at full power can beat him\n* turns out, on the low down, Gohan actually became more powerful than Goku without anyone realising it.\n* Gohan has the power to beat cell, and vaporises him in probably the coolest episode of the entire show\n\ngoku dies in the battle though, then spends the rest of the series fighting tournaments in the afterlife. some stuff happens with a guy who turns goodies evil, and then there's GT which i dont even know anything about. hope that helps!"
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2wqjbz | why are 'netflix originals' often not originally made by netflix. | For example: Lillyhammer, is made by a Norwegian tv channel known as NRK, but netflix calls it a Netflix original.
Obviously some originals, like 'House of Cards' are made and distrubuted by netflix, though. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2wqjbz/eli5_why_are_netflix_originals_often_not/ | {
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"House of Cards isn't original either. It's a remake of a BBC miniseries form the 1980s.",
"It means that Netflix is involved with the production of the show. "
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2yqxmu | how does sids work? | Could this happen to any baby or is it mostly the ones who were already sick or weak and their little bodies just couldn't keep them alive? I just don't understand. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2yqxmu/eli5_how_does_sids_work/ | {
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"No, it's not the weak/fragile. No one really knows. It's still being investigated. \n\nLike many mysteries, there are ideas but none have been proven.",
"We don't know. That is literally the meaning of SIDS. If a baby dies for an unexplainable reason before they are one year old, it is SIDS. There is some risk factors, but we still don't fully understand why the risk leads to a death in one baby and doesn't in another.",
"Typically, there is not anything obviously wrong physiologically with an infant who died of SIDS. That's basically part of the definition - SIDS is the diagnosis when no one can figure out a reason for the infant to have died.\n\nThe exact cause is still unknown and there might be a variety of causes. There has been a lot of speculation.\n\nOne reasonable speculation that I have read is that the part of the brain that tells you to move when you aren't getting enough oxygen isn't working properly in children who die of SIDS, so, for example, they end up with their face pressed against the mattress while sleeping, don't get enough oxygen, but don't change position the way another infant would, and smother as a result. This ties in fairly well with the fact that SIDS almost never occurs in children more than a year old - the idea being that the part of the brain in question either develops fully in that time or its function is taken over by another part of the brain.\n\nAgain, that's just a speculation that has been put forward by some members of the medical community, there is no conclusive evidence that is the actual cause of SIDS. The actual cause (or causes) is still unknown, although risk factors have been identified."
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5id19a | why does learning english at a young age get rid of an accent? | Why do people who learn English at a young age not have an accent or have a barely noticeable accent?
For example, I'm from an non English speaking country and started to learn and speak English at around age 5. I learned from my older sister and from watching cartoons. :P
I'm in my 2nd year of High School now and recently after I finished reading an essay outloud during English class, a friend told that I sounded as if English was my first language and that I barely had an accent. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5id19a/eli5_why_does_learning_english_at_a_young_age_get/ | {
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"Every language has tendencies to speak certain way. As you grow up speaking a language these tendencies become sort of locked in stone so to say. When you learn a language that has different tendencies you tend to ignore them over your more familiar ones. ",
"watching cartoons. You developed the way you spoke English based on native speakers. You trained your mouth to make the same sounds at an early age. \n\nAdults who attempt to learn different languages are often unable to form certain sounds correctly. My mouth simply can't make certain sounds in Mandarin or Scandinavian languages (among many others), for example.\n\nFor example, if you look at a transplant family. either Americans moving the to the UK or UK to US the younger the children are the higher the chance is they will develop local accents (or at least incorporate parts). The parents tend to soften their accent to fit in, and they will incorporate diction from the region, but rarely do they develop convincing local accents or lose their own. The children will be surrounded by speakers of the local accent, the only exposure to the old country's accent would be the parents themselves, who at best the children spend ~1/3 of their day with during the school year. \n\n",
"Your brain changes the way that it learns language as you get older. There is believed to be a definite qualitative change at around the age of 13, but it's completely unethical to verify (this is literally called [The Forbidden Experiment](_URL_0_)).\n\nWhen you are young, you \"acquire\" language rather than \"learning\" it, meaning that you imitate speaking the way that you hear other people speak (including from the TV). You can form sentences by habit or reflex, even if you can't say what the actual rules of the language are. Children who move into a different language environment at ages like 5 or 8 will adapt to start speaking like those around them, and are basically considered \"native\" speakers of the new language. \n\nWhen you are older, you learn languages by studying them. This is a totally different process, where you learn rules and then apply them. This learning process is not (necessarily) based on observation and imitation of other speakers. People who learn the language in this way will probably end up missing nuances of the language that they did not specifically practice, especially some of the finer elements of pronunciation where it's difficult to hear the differences if they're not pointed out to you.\n\nIt may be possible for adults to \"acquire\" language the way children do, but this is not generally how language is taught in schools, except maybe immersion programs. Your typical cirriculum will have rules and theory, and vocab presented as lists. Students will learn only the parts of the langauge that are specifically described by the teacher.\n\ntl;dr children imitate others speaking, while older people study and apply rules, especially from school"
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9tfg7w | what would it be like if you were swallowed whole by a huge animal? would there be an chances of survival? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/9tfg7w/eli5_what_would_it_be_like_if_you_were_swallowed/ | {
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"Maybe. It depends if you suffocate, freeze, boil, crushed, or get killed by the digestive juices. Assuming you survive all that, most likely you'll get pooped out. ",
"As the others have said, the digestive tract has:\n\n* No air to breathe. You'd need scuba gear, and a tank typically lasts a few hours, much shorter than the day or so it takes to pass through a digestive tract and come out on the other side.\n\n* Acids, typically hydrochloric acid, which is strong enough to easily eat through clothing, skin/flesh, and even (some) metals. You'd need to be enclosed in glass or the special plastics that are acid-resistant, and be completely sealed so not even a drop gets in.\n\n* No fresh water, no food. You can survive without food for a couple weeks, but you die without water in 3-4 days. And as far as bringing some with you, a lunch-box sized per day means to survive several weeks you need a closet-full.\n\n* Some animals have gizzards, and pebbles inside, to squeeze and grind the food. Birds especially, because seeds are protected by an acid-resistant peel/skin, and they need to grind through that, to expose the inner parts of the seed to the acids. So hypothetically for the animal in question, there may be squeezing and rocks pressing in on you.\n\n* Small orifices. Mouth may be big, but the throat may be tiny, or the intestines may be tiny, meaning you can get stuck until the animal dies and decomposes enough for you to find a way out. Could take weeks.\n\nSo, basically, maybe if you're in a submarine that's acid-proofed and has all the room and supplies for you to survive for a while, sure. Just yourself, though, or even as a scuba diver, no.",
"If ot was big enough to swallow you whole it woukd be big enough to crush you so not much of a chance."
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5b9p2f | why are people so against international trade agreements? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5b9p2f/eli5_why_are_people_so_against_international/ | {
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"Protesters say the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) will lower European standards on food and environmental protection, and could lead to outsourcing and job-losses.\n\nSupporters of the deal say it promises to lower tariffs and promote growth.\nMuch of the opposition to TTIP in the UK and other EU countries including Germany, is focused on its provisions for \"investor-state dispute settlement\". This procedure would allow companies to sue foreign governments over claims of unfair treatment and to be entitled to compensation. Critics say the measures undermine the power of national governments to act in the interests of their citizens.\n",
"There has been a lot of concern about secrecy and lockout.\n\nOften various large business groups are invited in to comment/contribute on proposals while other groups such as consumer groups or workers representatives are excluded. To the cynical eye it appears that the negotiations are focused on exploiting the excluded groups.\n\nAnother angle on this is the restriction placed on MPs, MEPs, Senators etc who do have access to the treaty. That access is usually heavily restricted with such provisions as reading rooms where phones and computers are banned. This is often viewed as an attempt to prevent these representatives from being able to communicate accurate information about the proposed treaties back to their constituents.",
"Some people are against the treaties because of what they contain, changes in rules that make their product less desirable or easier to compete with.\n\nOther people are against them because they are negotiated in secret. That's an open door for mischief from wealthy companies or people with a stake in the outcome. Folks in Hollywood want to make sure that there are no movies on the Internet, or at most only highly copy protected movies from them, and they are in a position to offer very valuable perqs to the treaty negotiators.\n\nTreaties are negotiated in secret because if the positions were public, people would know which groups were biasing the rules. This would make the whole \"free trade helps everybody make more money\" message. In general trade agreements benefit some and hurt others. There is no free lunch.",
"Overall free trade agreements benefit society. \nThe positive is that we get lower prices for goods. \nThe negative is that some people will lose their jobs. \n \nThe reason for negativity, is losing your job can be devastating, whereas slightly lower prices on TVs and Iphones is only a marginal difference. So if 300 million people save 15% on their TV's, but 5,000 lose their jobs, the overall impact on society is positive. However not to the 5,000 job losers, who will be far more vocal than the 300 million who saved some money on their TV. \n \nFree Trade Agreements provide a slight benefit to almost everyone, and a terrible negative to a small number. This creates a small number of very loud voices against free trade agreements, while the masses don't completely understand the positives.",
"The trade agreements are often seen as a way for corporations to get access to cheap labor in other countries. So populist political parties often blame them for job losses (it is easier to do politically than talk about automation). \n\nAtleast in US there has been a narrative that (1) the corporations help write these treaties (2) the treaty is publicly accessible only after signing..\nThe second fact goes against basic tenets of democracy and transparency. The first one is a disconcerting for obvious reasons. \n\n\nSome countries can manipulate their own currency. This can give them an edge in trade and undercut the industry in a different country. \n\n\n",
"Part of the fear is that this will create self regulation through corperate tribunals that are higher than local law. An example is if the tribunal thinks OSHA rules make things too difficult they can legaly ignore the regulations OSHA established. Many people think allowing cooperations to self regulate is a very bad idea.",
"Trade agreement lock you into a specific way of conducting business. They prevent a country from raising taxes and tariffs on the goods, they prevent a country from raising standards on the goods, they can even prevent (or make it more difficult) to sanction a country for workers rights violations. \n\nYou also have the fact that they tend to encourage outsourcing which results in Job loss. \n\nTrade agreements are a good thing, but the multi-national extreme trade agreements are a very mixed bag and the increased trade is rarely enough to compensate for the negatives and lost sovereignty. ",
"No one seems to be ELI5'ing, so here goes. I'll focus on TTIP, but the issues are the same for each one pretty much.\n\nProbably the central problem is power, on a huge scale, is being handed to corporations rather than governments. Someone mentioned 'investor-state dispute settlement'. This gives massive control to corporations to what you do in your country. Say a corporation invests in your healthcare system, but 10 years later you find out they suck. If you ditch them, they can potentially SUE your government for millions or billions for 'loss of future earnings'. Canadian gov. got sued for deciding to get rid of a cancer drug that didn't work. The makers said it did and sued the healthcare system for loss of future earnings. In Uruguay the tobacco companies sued the government for changing to plain packaged cigarettes to cut down smoking. This thing has the potential to completely tie up governments who won't be able to act against the might of corporate giants. Very bad news for the daily liberty of ordinary people, great news for rich corporate types.\n\nAlso, they want to 'harmonise' standards (food, vehicle quality, appliances) across borders so things can be traded more easily. Europe has much higher standards in general than the US for those things (in GENERAL, nobody get angry, it's true: you can still get great quality stuff in the US but the benchmark for what's acceptable is usually a lot lower). What you can legally sell as a sausage in the US wouldn't be legal in France. A car that passes minimum safety in the US wouldn't in Sweden. If you put it that way, and not to be melodramatic, but real people will most likely die as a result of some of these measures, like car safety, as companies are legally allowed to produce lower safety margins. That's obviously at the very extreme end, but you take my point. Obviously the US isn't going to raise all its standards, so 'harmonising' them means dropping the quality in Europe.\n\nDecades and decades of work has gone into achieving workers rights and civil liberties in Europe, to achieve the standards that are there. TTIP threatens to wipe a great deal of them out purely to achieve lower trade Tariffs so the rich people can get even richer. Will ordinary Americans benefit? No, will ordinary Europeans? No. our economies might see some favourable outcomes, *in certain areas*, maybe. But you are honestly talking about big companies maxing their profits. Unless you're tied to that somehow, you don't profit. \n\nLike all good evil plans, TTIP and the others are happening *in secret*. Of course. You don't see what is being carved up, you don't vote for it, you don't decide it. Nevertheless it will have a tremendous effect on how your country is run if it passes. It is really a huge assault on democracy and civil liberty. Low trade tariffs make it easy to buy and sell things, but we are not in a place where we can't get things we need because of tariffs, so the only point is profit for the very wealthy and very powerful.\n\nPower to control your government, your food, your commodities, your economy, and your jobs is threatened for the mere profits of a few already wealthy people, and that's why people don't want these agreements.",
"When Canada signed NAFTA the government knew 1 in three workers would be displaced - and it happened. That is a huge social disruption.\nThere are always unintended consequences. \nCanada has now become the most sued country in the world. Provisions in NAFTA to protect corporate profits are now being used by shell companies that have no US or Mexican operations.\nThe trade deals always favour the most powerful partner. The US has often flouted the provisions of NAFTA rulings. Areas of particular note were the Canada Wheat Board and, ongoing, softwood Lumber. Were Canada and the US more equal economically the agreement could be equally enforced.\n",
"Primarily because of [Investor/State Dispute Settlement](_URL_0_) clauses that have been inserted into every multi-national trade deal since the World Trade Organization treaty back in the mid '90s.\n\nTo ELI5 it, let's say that you make a product that's perfectly legal where you live but illegal in another country, like some fake drug, or some consumer product that voters over there think is unsafe. Or let's say that the way that your company makes it is perfectly legal where you live but illegal in another country, like using child labor or by harvesting endangered species. Or let's say that your product pollutes the planet, either because the way you make it dumps huge amounts of pollution into the environment or because the product itself poisons the environment where it is.\n\nSo let's say that the other country bans your product, or limits the amount that can enter the country, or taxes it to discourage people from buying it and to pay for repairing the damage you're doing. If there's a trade treaty with an ISDS clause, you can sue the other country for making your product illegal, or for taxing it, or any other attempt to regulate it, if what they're doing cuts into your sales or makes your product less profitable. And the suit isn't heard in any regular court, it's heard in a completely secret court, where the public isn't even allowed to know who the judges are, or to hear any of the evidence.\n\nBig businesses all over the world lobby *hard* to get ISDS mechanisms inserted into these treaties. (And by the way, big businesses are the *only* people allowed to directly lobby the treaty negotiators while it's being worked on, everybody else is banned from even seeing the treaty until it's done.) The fear is because people think that the reason they're doing so is as a back-door way to undo all product safety laws, all worker protection laws, and all environmental safety regulations. The fear is that companies will set up shop in the country with the least regulations and then sue every other country in the world to make them repeal their regulations.\n\nIt's called \"[race to the bottom](_URL_1_).\"\n\nNow, ISDS agreements have been around since 1995, and there aren't a lot of examples that people can point to where the company that's trying to overturn a ban or a tax has won. But there's nothing stopping it from happening.",
"Because of what is inside them, especially abilities for companies to sue in front of special courts against laws or decisions they don't like and potentially win large sums at the cost of the taxpayer. This also gives the governments new excuses to side with lobbyists against the population and/or the environment.\n\nUnlike what you read in the press it is not about the partner country or \"fear of globalization\""
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1n7aik | the difference between the hand brake and the normal brake pedal. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1n7aik/eli5the_difference_between_the_hand_brake_and_the/ | {
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"The hand brake is connected to one of your rear brakes via a separate cable, so if you encounter an issue with the foot brake, it provides an alternate means of stopping the car. Its essentially a backup plan for your regular brakes.",
"The brake pedal is hydraulic, and pushes brake fluid to all 4 wheels (usually about 60% to the front brakes, 40% to the rear brakes). \n\nHand brake is is mechanical, usually with a cable that sets the rear brakes, and 99% of the time is used only for parking (to prevent the car from rolling). \n\nIn the rare event you lost all hydraulic pressure suddenly and had to use the hand brake, it will work, but the performance from having rear brakes only is usually bad (again, less than half) and the driver has to be extremely careful about not locking them up, skidding out, and crashing. ",
"The pedal is for stopping. The hand brake is for parking and often unsuccessful emergency stops. Most a the braking systems stopping power is in the front. Hand brakes activate rear brakes only."
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1fcbxm | classical music nomenclature. | Also, why do some pieces receive names. For example, Beethoven's Sonata No. 32 is referred to as such, but his Bagatelle No. 25 goes by Fur Elise. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1fcbxm/eli5classical_music_nomenclature/ | {
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"Most pieces are described by the type of work they are. For example, a sonata is a piece for a solo instrument, or a solo instrument and piano (usually), and it has a certain number of movements each at roughly this tempo and so on and so on. Symphonies are large works for orchestra, usually 4 movements. You can look up other terms (Bagatelle is one) if you want. If composers wrote several works of the same type, or wrote a collection of works, each of those would be numbered, usually by publishing order. Hence, Sonata No. 32, Beethoven's Fifth Symphony or Symphony No. 5. Often the name would include the key (in C minor or whatever), to help further distinguish each work. That gets you the basic title of most classical works.\n\nFurthermore, a composer's entire catalog of compositions is numbered as well. Usually you will see this as an opus number (Op. 67 in the case of Beethoven's Fifth). Some composers like Bach and Mozart are catalogued with a different system (you will see BWV and a number next to Bach pieces, K next to Mozart's). \n\nAs for the names, there isn't much special about them. Usually they were applied by the composer, a critic, or the publisher simply to identify the piece, and they usually were only given to very memorable pieces. In the late romantic and early modern period (late 1800's to 1900's), there was a swing towards incorporating and composing renditions of folk songs, and writing pieces that didn't follow the traditional forms like sonata and concerto. These pieces were often named individually. Similarly, operas and vocal works are often named individually. "
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3ni2dn | why was the star wars series out of order? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3ni2dn/eli5why_was_the_star_wars_series_out_of_order/ | {
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"From my knowledge Star Wars, unlike many movies today, wasn't originally made with the expectation of a sequel. We expect movies today to tie into each other because it's becoming established by stuff like the Avengers, but the original idea of Star Wars was what we now see as episode IV - originally it was just Star Wars, and even though it allowed for the possibility of a sequel, it was also able to function on its own. The rest of the ideas kind of radiated out to encompass the \"future\" but also the \"past\" relative to the Star Wars story, and the success of the original Star Wars made it possible for the rest of the movies to happen. ",
"Well, at first it was just *Star Wars*, a stand alone movie. When Lucas started working on a sequel, he decided to change *Star Wars* to *Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope*. The Star Wars films were heavily inspired by old serial pulp novels, and the numbering was meant to evoke this, giving the feel that we're diving into a long-running serial midway through. Then, years later, he decided to go back and make the prequels to complete the story."
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3nptv8 | how can bp pay a ~$20bn usd fine if their annual profit is only ~$4 bn usd? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3nptv8/eli5_how_can_bp_pay_a_20bn_usd_fine_if_their/ | {
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"The simple answer is that BP has $32 Billion in cash and short term investments on hand to pay off the $20 Billion it owes.\n\nAlso possible that BP will pay some fraction of the total amount it owes each quarter or each year for the next decade or two."
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17npnn | how does the iphone 5 noise cancelling microphone work? | I keep seeing this commercial for the microphone on the back of the iPhone 5 that cancels our background noise during a call, and I'm curious as to how it actually works. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/17npnn/eli5_how_does_the_iphone_5_noise_cancelling/ | {
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"The mic on the back picks up noise it hears, then the phone takes that info and identifies those same sounds from the mic near your mouth. The computer then cancels that noise from the mouthpiece that it identified with the other mic. ",
"One microphone pics up your voice and the background noise. Another microphone picks up another copy of the background noise. The phone takes what is being sent to the other person and uses the recording from the second microphone to know what to make quieter. The finished audio with reduced background noise is then sent to the other person, and the cheering, clapping, etc. in the background sounds quieter to them.",
"It picks up the background noise, and plays a similar sound that cancels out the ambient noise. It's hard to explain in simple terms, but basically, sound travels in waves sort of like ocean waves, but instead of crests and troughs, there are areas where the air is denser (crests) and areas where it's less dense (troughs). Because of this, you can layer two sounds on top of each other, and they interfere and cancel each other out. The graphical explanation looks something like [this](_URL_0_). If you add the pink and blue lines together, they cancel each other out completely.\n\nedit: I was under the impression that the phone cancels out background noise on *your* end so that you can hear more clearly, not canceling out the background noise for the person you're calling.",
"The same way as our ear, sort of. First of there's two mics. One on the front and one on the back. The back one will get everything in front a little later, so it can identify this. If it get's something before the front one, it's noise (since it's coming from the back). This eliminates most of it, since you hold it so close to your mouth. \n\nThe rest is math, I believe. Speech is possible to identify, since it follows a pretty set pattern. So it can amplify speech. Then it does the same with noise, random sounds in low or high frequencies can be dampened. "
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rjwnd | where trolls came about | How did people who were bothering other people on the internet became a "Troll"? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/rjwnd/eli5_where_trolls_came_about/ | {
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"[Trolling](_URL_1_) is a method of fishing where you drag a bait through the water to trick fish to bait on it. The internet meaning of trolling predates the WWW and as far as I know the earliest use is from [usenet](_URL_0_) which can be described as a collection of online forums that was shared between many servers. \n\nSo trolling was a means to make people \"take the bait\" when provoked.\n\nOf course it helped that \"trolling\" in fishing terms also could be applied to \"trolls\" in the mythological sense. So when someone was trolling you could call them trolls."
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7sd01p | what difference does the layout of pistons in an engine make? | eg. Two stroke, Straight 6, V6, W16
Does it have a significant contribution to power delivery? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/7sd01p/eli5_what_difference_does_the_layout_of_pistons/ | {
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"There’ll be many smarter answers than mine, I just wanted to point out two stroke vs four stroke has nothing to do with piston Layout in a sense of V6 vs W8 etc ",
"[this is more ELI9]\n \nIt helps to think of a car (or any other piston-engined machine) like a bicycle. Each piston moves up and down inside its cylinder, sort of like your legs do when pedaling your bicycle. Those pistons, just your legs, turn a crank that connects to the wheels and makes the car/bike move forward.\n \n-\n \nIn a bicycle, the pedals are located opposite to each other. In other words, one pedal is at the top when the other is at the bottom (i.e. 180°/180° orientation). This makes it easier for you to pedal smoothly. If they were both at the top/bottom at the same time, or some other orientation (e.g. 90°/270°), it would be harder to pedal, and you would get a more “lumpy” feeling, similar to how it feels if you try to pedal with just one leg. You’d feel a very pronounced pulse on every rotation.\n \n-\n \nThe same principles apply in a piston-engined car; It’s convenient to lay out pistons in pairs that oppose each other. That gives you smooth and efficient power delivery. Unlike bicycles though, an engine can easily have more than two pistons (i.e. legs), which can give you a lot more power. Most cars have between four and eight cylinders, and sometimes up to twelve (16 in _very_ rare cases). You could arrange them like a tandem bike, but that takes up a LOT of space. Instead, engines usually arranges the pistons all side by side, as if bicyclists were sitting shoulder-to-shoulder (like in a paddle boat). This is called an “inline” or “straight” arrangement e.g. an inline 6-cylinder or I-6 engine.\n \n-\n \nThat works well for four cylinders. It doesn’t take up a lot of space, and you get a nice and even 90°-90°-90°-90° orientation along the crankshaft. It also works ok for five cylinders, but you can imagine how awkward it is to have a one-legged bicyclist on your team. It works REALLY well for six cylinders, with a 60°-60°-60°-60°-60°-60° orientation that is extraordinarily smooth because each pulse is so close to the next. Unfortunately, that requires a longer crankshaft, which takes up more space in the engine compartment and makes the hood longer (or wider, depending on which direction you orient the engine itself). \n \n-\n \nTo get around that problem, engines sometimes position the pistons across from each other instead of all in a line side by side. That modification takes up less space. Usually it’s in a “V” pattern (e.g. V6, V8, V12) with pairs of pistons arranged like \n`•’ around the crankshaft, and occasionally it’s an “H” pattern with pistons arranged like\n—•— (most notably Subaru and Porsche). V’s are narrower but taller (good tradeoff between packaging efficiency and smoothness), whereas H’s are lower but wider (great for handling due to low center of gravity, but tend to have more vibration/harshness).\n \n-\n \nIf this were an ELI12, we’d go into the differences between different piston and crankshaft angles in V- engines as well as their resulting harmonic/vibrations, why different companies chose certain layouts, and maybe even talk about a few crazy W-shaped engines."
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1tjgq0 | does nitrogen in your tires actually help keep the pressure consistent when changing elevation? | This is similar to questions asked previously, but with a slightly different emphasis. I'm an engineer, but I haven't had partial pressures, etc since like UG Chemistry. I'm not satisfied with a simple "It's snake oil" answer. If that's the case, please explain why but keep it simple remembering that it's been a while for these topics for me. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1tjgq0/eli5_does_nitrogen_in_your_tires_actually_help/ | {
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"No water vapor - that's the main reason to fill tires with nitrogen. When you fill tires with air from a regular air compressor, that regular air is filled with water vapor. Lots of it in fact. Compressed air tends to be very wet - guys that paint with compressed air spend lots of money on filters and dryers to get this water out of the air so it doesn't ruin their paint. To fill tires with pure nitrogen means you have to get it from a gas bottle which is filled at a factory. The gas in the nitrogen bottle is dry (no water vapor at all) so when you fill your tires with it, you're not putting a bunch of water vapor in there as well.\n\nSo why is water vapor bad? When you drive tires very hard, they heat up. When the tires heat up, so does the gas inside - and it expands, increasing your tire pressures. However, pure dry gas doesn't actually expand that much in a tire. Water vapor, on the other hand, expands a lot. On the race track, wet air in will often raise pressures over 10psi per wheel after 15-20 mins. This is bad, as big changes in tire pressures really affect the handing of the car. Dry air in a tire, either from pure nitrogen or even dried regular air, will usually only raise pressures one or two psi. \n\nSource: I'm a track junkie and deal with this crap every weekend at the track. Tires become a big deal when you're chasing other drivers or lap times. "
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472zdv | i have had call display at home for over a decade that shows the name and number of who is calling, why in 2016 this feature is still not on my cell phone? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/472zdv/eli5_i_have_had_call_display_at_home_for_over_a/ | {
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"I don't know how true this hold today, but here's the top answer from two years ago. _URL_0_\n\nLooks like it still holds true. Looking at ATT page their caller ID sends the number and billing name info if you're calling a landline but if you're calling another cell only the phone number you're calling from makes it through to the other cell. So yeah, the systems not set up to let all the info sent during the call to make it all the way to the other phone.",
"In the States anyway, that feature IS there so long as it's a landline phone.\n\nHere, cell phone numbers are not public information like landlines are, so there is no (legal) way for a third party to access a name/number combination without a court order, and that's not likely to happen just for Caller ID.\n\nThird-party apps get around this by comparing the number to publicly accessible information (think Facebook profiles, etc) to do the same thing.",
" Removed as a repost. Please remember to search before posting."
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9ptevw | why are uk newspapers the parallel of usa tv news channels? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/9ptevw/eli5_why_are_uk_newspapers_the_parallel_of_usa_tv/ | {
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"By law, TV news in the UK has to be neutral. In reality it's not completely neutral, but broadcasting laws prevent them being blatantly biased.\n\nNewspapers have no such rule. So they can be as opinionated as they like.\n\nI don't know why US newspapers tend not to be like that. Maybe just because people who want that sort of content has it on TV instead.",
"I'm not sure you could even call papers like The Sun, The Mirror and The Daily Mail newspapers. Their content are more like the women's magazines Take a Break, That's Life and Heat. They're essentially the male targeted versions. Nothing but lies, opinion, half truths and celebrity gossip. ",
"The NY Post is another of Murdoch’s Empire and like the Sun is a cesspit of turds. However he also has the Sunday Times of London and the Wall Street Journal which are very good newspapers tilted to the right. ",
"UK TV/radio have enforced standards.\n\nCurrent rules [here](_URL_0_)\n\nSection 5, \"Due impartiality and due accuracy\" and section 6, \"Elections and Referendums\" are the most relevant to your question."
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elwz8k | what was that short barrel at the end of old usb cables, and why are they gone now? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/elwz8k/eli5_what_was_that_short_barrel_at_the_end_of_old/ | {
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"That was an EMI (Electro-Magnetic Interference) filter. It was essentially designed to remove interference from other devices/power sources.\n\nThese days, devices are no longer as prone to issues due to this EMI as improvements have been made to the USB controllers to account for this interference, so most cables no longer include them.",
"it's a ferrite bead, which is used to mitigate the effects of the inductance of the wire running through it. \n\nWe don't need them nowadays on USB cables because we use better manufacturing techniques that better match the 'differential pair' of twisted wires, and better controllers at either end that can cope with a little interference.",
"They are ferrous rings that reduce interference from electronics. They are still used on some USB cables.",
"It’s a magnetic coil filter.\nIt’s used as an anti-interference tool to keep out interference on your wires where electrical signals, data, passes trough. \nInterference on your wires can interfere with the polarity of your signals which in turn gives false readouts. \n\nData are a bunch of 1 and 0 (like bits). \n1 is a positive signal, 0 is a negative. With interference that 0 can turn to a 1 or the other way around.",
"Those are called ferrite beads or chokes; any long wire has the potential to act like an antenna, that can either receive or transmit radio frequencies; a moving electrical current will potentially transmit an RF signal off of the wire transmitting it, and this can then interfere with other things.\n\nThe ferrite choke basically absorbs all of the RF signals that are coming to/from the device to prevent interference.\n\nThis isn't typically a big deal over USB unless you're using it to transmit a lot of power, and they can cause issues in the power ranges that USB typically uses, so they're often avoided for that use-case, unless the cord is going to be used in an environment where electromagnetic interference is going to be a constant problem."
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33w0ir | why do you have to ask for plan b from the pharmacy counter when it does not require a prescription? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/33w0ir/eli5_why_do_you_have_to_ask_for_plan_b_from_the/ | {
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"I believe it allows the pharmacist to have a discussion with the person requesting Plan B. If it was simply something that could be bought like regular painkillers or cold medicine I think there is some fear that it will become common-place to rely on Plan B as a primary form of birth control. If someone regularly comes in for Plan B then the pharmacist will be aware of who they are and can speak to them about safe sex more easily than if they just bought it or went to a self-service counter. ",
"I'm not sure about other states but the pharmacy I work at in California has Plan B in the same aisle as condoms and lube. You can purchase it at the register just like any item. Stores with high theft may keep it in the pharmacy for loss protection.",
"If we're being totally, and completely transparent - this requirement was pushed in many locales by groups opposed to abortion, as a deterrent to women using the drug. The rest of the reasons are incidental to the primary, frankly. They hope that by forcing a confrontation, some women would either be embarrassed, inconvenienced, or talked out of the use of the product. \n\nSad, but as someone who followed the debate closely behind the scenes, I can assure you its true."
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3ul679 | after you have signed a contract what stops anyone from switching out the pages of the contract and making it seem like you signed something else? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3ul679/eli5_after_you_have_signed_a_contract_what_stops/ | {
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"That's why they make you initial next to each paragraph. At least on important contracts. Also, you normally get to keep a copy. ",
"You get a copy and they get a copy, if the copies don't Match for some reasons, that's for the courts to sort out.\n\nReally important contracts will have you initial on every page to keep shenanigans like that from happening. ",
"This actually happened to me! I signed a contract with a gym and after a year they charged me an \"annual maintenance fee\". I called them up and they said it was in my contract. I read through the whole thing and didn't see anything pertaining to a yearly fee. I went to the gym and asked in person, they pulled out my contract and pointed at a paragraph I definitely didn't see in my copy at home. I went home to grab my cintract, brought it back, and told them to cancel my membership entirely because of their shady contract changes. They did when they saw my copy. They probably assume no one keeps the copy they make, so, life tip, keep a copy of all of your contracts!",
"1. All parties get a copy\n2. All pages should be initialed and witnessed. Ontario wills, for example, require the testator's initials + those of two witnesses on every page.\n3. Some contracts can be commissioned/notarized. A and B sign their contract, and a commissioner for oaths/notary will sign and keep a copy. This is usually the safest bet. \n\nSource: lawyer"
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1requx | what's the definition of next generation? | For example, I was born in 1990, what year would you have to be born in to be considered next generation? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1requx/whats_the_definition_of_next_generation/ | {
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"It has more to do with the subtle cultural shifts that occur over time. Cultural shift happens gradually, not all at once because babies are born everyday not once every five years. So when a cultural shift is seen that is different from what it used to be, media tend to give it a new name, call it a new generation. "
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18z4jy | the difference between dna transcription and translation | None of the descriptions in the book or lecture seem to stick with me. I almost want to ask my instructor - explain this to me like I'm a child! - but she's very busy and I can never seem to catch her. I thought maybe Reddit could help me out. Oddly enough, I can get all the other concepts, like codons, introns, ect, but the translation/transcription *never seems to stick with me.* :/ | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/18z4jy/eli5_the_difference_between_dna_transcription_and/ | {
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"Transcription is turning the DNA strand into mRNA. \n\nTranslation is turning the mRNA into an amino acid chain.\n\n\nImagine you want to make something following specific instructions. The DNA is a big magazine in a library, containing loads of instructions to make all kinds of things, but it's littered with adverts, comments, trivia and other junk too. \n\nFirst, you take your magazine and photocopy the relevant article so you can take it home with you. You're turning the article from the magazine which can't be removed from the library into a portable copy which you can take wherever you want. **This is transcription.** You're copying the relevant part (the gene you want) of the DNA strand which is stuck in the nucleus of the cell into a small, portable copy which can be carried out into the cell cytoplasm.\n\nNow, what you've actually made is a direct copy, including all the junk. If you want to make your project simpler, you should cut out all the adverts and comments and other stuff and keep just the instructions. In the cell, the direct copy of the DNA makes pre-mRNA, which contains both useful coding regions called 'exons', and unneeded rubbish called 'introns'. The cell cuts out all the rubbish introns, and leaves just the pure instructions, the coding mRNA. \n\nNext, you need to make your project. You use the instructions you've made to put all the pieces together in the right order, converting text and raw materials into a useful physical object. **This is translation**. You're literally translating a string of nucleotides into a string of amino acids, like converting from one language to another. Each set of three nucleotides (the letters on your mRNA strand) symbolises a certain amino acid. Enzymes travel along the mRNA and 'read' each set of three letters, look for the related amino acid, then attach it to the string. You're converting the instructions into a useful protein. ",
"In short? Transcription is the process by which mRNA sequences are assembled inside the cell nucleus, using DNA sequences as a template. Translation happens in the ribosome, and it's where those mRNA sequences are used as a template to assemble proteins.\n\nI remember it this way: DNA and RNA are *basically* the same thing. They're not, obviously, but they're similar enough for this to help me remember. When you \"copy\" a DNA sequence to make an RNA sequence, you're just *transcribing* it. You're just rewriting it into RNA. (Thymine becomes uracil, but that's just a detail.) You aren't *decoding* anything, just copying it. So it's just transcription.\n\nBut amino acid chains are fundamentally different things from either DNA or RNA. In order to turn RNA into a polypeptide — into a protein, in other words — you have to *translate* the coding sequence into amino acids. Like you have to translate \"AAA\" into \"lysine.\" So that's translation.\n\nHonestly, there's probably a mnemonic for it, but I never learned it myself. I was lucky enough that they just stuck in my head that way."
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33uil8 | why aren't there any dinosaur-sized creatures around today? | I know why there aren't dinosaurs. But why, aside from a couple of sea creatures, are there no massive animals around today? It's incredible to think about how big dinosaurs were -- almost mythologically huge. I just think it's weird that there's nothing that even compares to the size of a T-Rex today.
As I write it out, I realize how dumb a question it is. But I still wanna know the answer. Maybe I should post this to r/NoStupidQuestions...
_____________________
Thanks for the answers, everyone! | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/33uil8/eli5_why_arent_there_any_dinosaursized_creatures/ | {
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"It's not a stupid question, and the answer is: we killed them all. There used to be humongous animals all over the place. But, humongous animals make for *real* good hunting for those early humans. Wherever we went, we killed all the big animals, until there weren't any left. The most recent Magafauna species to go extinct was in the place that humans most recently arrived: New Zealand. The Maori found the island around 1300 AD, and by 1400 AD all of the [gigantic terror-birds](_URL_0_) that lived there were dead. ",
"Big things are very vulnerable to extinction. Any meaningful change to their environment can prove harmful. They can't find shelter when tehre are natural disasters, they require a lot of food. If any part of their food chain dies off, it has no chance to adapt.\n\nDinosaurs were the biggest, but the things after them were big to - just not as big. Each extinction event resultedi n smaller animals, because those were the ones that survived.",
"tl;dr - the ratio of food:dinosaurs was much higher, so they could afford to be big. After they were wiped out, that ratio would never be as high again.\n\n___\n\nIn addition to the answers given, when the dinosaurs were around there were orders of magnitude fewer \"creatures\" on the planet and the Earth was covered with lush forests. The largest animals were herbivores because they could eat lots and lots of greens without much effort and competition. Carnivores needed to expend a lot more energy to hunt so they weren't as large, but one kill also provided a lot of meat - ie, dinosaurs were big because they COULD be.\n\nOvertime, as populations of titanic herbivores expanded, it became evolutionarily beneficial to be smaller because there was less food to go around, so larger subspecies were more prone to starvation before breeding. When hunting and killing one of those creatures provided less meat/energy, it became evolutionarily beneficial for the carnivores to also be smaller.\n\nTheir massive sizes and the limited food supply at the bottom of the food chain (plants and herbivores) put a lot of stress on the entire ecosystem. When the asteroid hit, a lot of land was sundered. Tsunamis, earthquakes, acid rain and partial obstruction of the sun meant that there were even less plant-life. Herbivores started dying off en masse. Without their own prey, so did the carnivores.\n\nSmaller creatures that required much less food to live managed to scavenge enough to survive to pass on their genes and continue the evolutionary process. The ratio of food:eaters would never be as high again, so \"big\" animals just never flourished.",
"The Earth has become a much more variable place in the past million years than it was in the deep past. The planet has, for reasons that can't be explained, changed from a world where tens of millions of years passed with very little climate variation to one where repeatedly the climate has seesawed between ice ages and temperate periods.\n\nI believe this tends to kill off the \"outlier\" species on the size continuum. Those are the animals that have become maximally efficient in an ecosystem in the way that whales have in the ocean. Usually the tradeoff for that efficiency is fragility - if the environment changes that the hyperspecialized species adapted to, it faces an extinction risk.\n\nReptiles were also capable of becoming quite large in ways that mammals are not. We of course don't know all the physiology of a giant dinosaur but it is reasonable to imagine that they had slower, cooler metabolism than a mammal - which means the mechanical work of pumping blood and warming tissue was less. They also didn't have to gestate and then birth really large babies.\n\nThe comet/asteroid strike that ended the age of the dinosaurs also wiped out all the big reptiles. The big mammals that replaced them never grew to the size of the dinosaurs, but there were still a lot of \"megafauna\" - animals of roughly elephant size."
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1ilycx | how are large boats constructed and moved to water? | The equipment used, procedures, etc.
Large boats, like the ones that are used for cruises, or boats like aircraft carriers.
| explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1ilycx/eli5_how_are_large_boats_constructed_and_moved_to/ | {
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"usually large boats such as cruise liners and carriers are made in pieces/sections and then brought together in a large specialized dry dock where they are all fused together.\n\n_URL_1_ is a timelapse video showing a cruise ship being created. As you can see on the left side is where all the pieces are being built/brought in (under those green structures) and are being lifted and placed where they need to go on the right. Once the boat is done they open the door and ease it into the water as the keel/bottom is actually sitting on a railroad like track.\n\nbefore the use of high strength cranes that could lift and move pre-constructed pieces the whole ship was built piece by piece out of the water. In the movie Sherlock Homes you can see how this was done in the ship yard scene as well as how the boats are sent into the water. _URL_0_"
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dakxqf | why do everyday objects that look harmless in the day look like monsters or other scary figures at night? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/dakxqf/eli5_why_do_everyday_objects_that_look_harmless/ | {
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"[Here you go!](_URL_0_)"
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2gc5r3 | the green party | I don't know a lot about politics but is time for me to start learning. I am trying to find where I affiliate, and I think it's The Green Party but I am not 100%. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2gc5r3/eli5_the_green_party/ | {
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"The [U.S. Green Party](_URL_0_) is to the left of the Democratic Party and advocates for an expansion of state involvement in infrastructure development, conservation, managing climate change, healthcare, etc. and advocates for income equality and on behalf of workers. It's not quite socialist, but is very liberal.\n\nIf more liberals in the U.S. voted according to their beliefs instead of simply backing the Democrats, the Green Party would be a major political entity. In cities like New York, Boston, Seattle, San Francisco, etc., there are people who are staunch leftists but don't think voting for a third party is a good idea. Unfortunately, enough people think that and only vote for one of the two major parties that it becomes true and perpetuates itself (small original sample --- > this must be bad because it's unpopular --- > affiliation remains low --- > negative perception continues --- > affiliation remains low --- > negative perception continues --- > *ad infinitem*).\n\nI vote Green whenever I can because the candidates reflect my values and priorities more accurately than the candidates for any other party, which I think is a logical way to select who to vote for lol.",
"What country are you from? Green Party's exist all over the world, and their specific policies can differ greatly from country to country. \n\nGo on the website for your countries Green Party and read their policies. It should be pretty easy to understand what they stand for."
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27h93j | why are generations named, and who came up with the name. | IE: Boomers , Gen X, Millennials. And what years do each generation span. What will the next gen be called? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/27h93j/eli5_why_are_generations_named_and_who_came_up/ | {
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"There is no \"official\" process for naming a generation. In each case you mentioned, the names are just nicknames that caught on and became widely used. Some of them were \"coined\" by authors of magazine articles or books. Others may have no known origin.\n\nIt sounds silly, but names given to generations arise in precisely the same manner as those stupid names for celebrity couples. It's likely that nobody knows the first usage of the word \"Kimye\" or \"Bennifer,\" and even if you could find a first recorded usage of the name, there was never any kind of \"approval\" by some kind of official celebrity couple registrar. It's just something people started saying."
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218m2i | how come superheated water doesn't appear to be boiling? | Shouldn't it be boiling at the temperature that it's at? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/218m2i/eli5_how_come_superheated_water_doesnt_appear_to/ | {
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44k5d1 | where do the charges come from to charge a capacitor? | **My understanding of electricity in circuits (ignore if you see it this way too)**
& nbsp;
The way I see it (and the way it probably is), is that in a circuit composing of a battery and a light bulb, there are a bunch of electrons in the wires. When the battery is inserted, it creates a potential difference that shifts these electrons and one pushes into another which pushes into another creating a chain reaction that is ultimately electricity (the drift velocity is 2 * 10^(-6) m/s or something, meaning that they don't travel at the speed of light). Now when an electron enters the positive side of the battery, due to the internal workings of a battery, it gets pushed to the negative side, and then constantly pushed until it ultimately reaches the positive side.
& nbsp;
**Now for my actual question**
& nbsp;
In the above explanation, the number of electrons remain constant. The battery isn't providing extra electrons, but just 'pushing' the electrons for current to flow. So when we insert a capacitor, it gets charged. Where do these charges come from? Are the number of electrons in the whole circuit still the same? Plus once it gets fully charged, the current stops flowing as the potential of the capacitor is equal to the battery. Does that mean that some electrons in the wiring is absent to charge the capacitor? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/44k5d1/eli5_where_do_the_charges_come_from_to_charge_a/ | {
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"In batteries the oxidation that occurs at the anode produces free electrons that travel towards the positive cathode. If there is nothing connecting the two poles then no flow will occur however if you connect a wire between the anode and the cathode the electron will travel from the anode to the cathode and eventually reduce the material in the cathode. This is where the electrons come from.\n\nI see what you are talking about with the shifting however there has to be some net displacement of electrons because electrons are produced and consumed. ",
"A basic capacitor is just two plates of metal really close to each other. If you hook this up to a battery, a light bulb, and a switch the following happens:\n\n* when the switch is closed, the battery forces electrons out the negative end and into the positive end. \n\n* the moving electrons flow through the light bulb and make it bright \n\n* at the capacitor, the plate nearest the positive terminal is depleting of electrons and building up a positive charge. Just on the other side, the other plate is gaining electrons building up a negative charge. **This I believe is where your confusion is, the capacitor is not building up a net charge. It's still neutral, the battery isn't supplying charge, it's making each side of the capacitor an equal but oppositely charged. You are right about basically everything, but you are just wrong is assuming the capacitor is only building up a negative charge.**\n\n* eventually the static electricity charge build up is great enough that the electric field between the two plates equals the battery voltage. At this point, current stops, the bulb goes off, and the capacitor is full. \n\n* If you open the switch, remove the battery and replace it withe a wire, and then close the switch current will flow the reverse direction as the charge build up of the capacitor drains through the circuit until both sides are uncharged. The bulb will glow like before and then dim until off. Same thing as the battery charging it, but in reverse. \n\n\nA few other things to note. If you put a dielectric between the plates, the atoms/molecules will become polarized (like electric bar magnets) and rotate to align with the capacitor charge. While no current flows as they dont move, the alignment effectively makes the capacitor bigger and able to hold more charge. Also, AC constantly changes direction so the capacitor always is draining and filling up. The result is like the beginning of the DC battery scenario above happening many times a second, effectively making a capacitor a short circuit to AC even if there is a physical gap in the circuit. "
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6s6i1r | are all otc vitamins and herbs useless to take? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/6s6i1r/eli5_are_all_otc_vitamins_and_herbs_useless_to/ | {
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"It is impossible to say. The Herbs have not been tested. No one really knows how many things are essential to the human diet. New things get discovered every few years. Obviously a vitamin formulated to include every thing know until then did not include the new thing.\n\nNutritionists say 5 different fruits and vegetables a day have everything we need. Many people in the world do not do this and get by fine.\n\nBut your buying the vitamins and herbs make the sellers rich and you slightly poorer. That is the main effect.\n\nFollow the 5 fruits and vegetables rule. You can find tasty ones.",
"Herbs are mostly untested so it's hard to give a definitive answer. For the most part OTC vitamins are useless. As long as you're eating a balanced diet, you'll be fine. By taking vitamins on top of that you do run into the chance of damaging your liver by overloading it. specific vitamin supplements may be beneficial if you know for a fact you have a deficit but that best to be discussed with your doctor.",
"First off, vitamins. If you are healthy and have a decent diet, you're getting all the vitamins you need.\n\nThere are specific health problems that can, for example, prevent someone from absorbing a vitamin efficiently from food. In that case, the person might take pills with a bunch extra of that vitamin, so that even though they don't absorb it very well, there's so much that they get enough.\n\nThe big problem with herbs and other plant supplement items is that there's no guarantee of consistency, dosage, purity, etc.\n\nHerbs and other parts of plants can absolutely do stuff to your body.\n\nA popular Chinese plant supplement is red yeast rice. It's rice that has Monascus purpureus yeast growing in it. Some red yeast rice has a chemical called \"monacolin K\" in it. You can buy the chemical monacolin K from the pharmacy under the generic name lovastatin. It's a drug that lowers cholesterol. Of course, it does other stuff to your body, too.\n\nSo people who are scared of things that sound like chemicals and think anything natural is good decide to go buy some red yeast rice to help their cholesterol, instead of buying lovastatin that is synthesized (made from other chemicals) in a lab or factory. \n\nHere's the problem: some red yeast rice has a lot of monacolin K in it. Some red yeast rice doesn't have any monacolin K in it. Some has a little bit. There's a huge variation. There is NO WAY for the user to figure out how much of the drug they are getting. \n\nHow would you feel if you went to the pharmacy to pick up a prescription and the label on the bottle said \"take none, or a handful, or whatever you feel like, daily\"?\n\nSo, first off, you have no idea how much of the drug you're getting. \n\nAnd then people are worried about all nasty chemicals that might be left over in the version you get from the pharmacy, because you know, it's made with all kinds of nasty chemicals.\n\nWell, it turns out, red yeast rice often contains citrinin, which can cause kidney failure, so you may be getting an unknown dose of poison along with your unknown dose of cholesterol medication.\n\nIn the United States, herbal and nutritional supplements that do not make specific medical claims are almost completely unregulated and don't have to go through basically any kind of testing. It's a complete crap shoot.\n\nThis kind of discussion always reminds me of a great little ha-ha-but-seriously joke:\n\n\"Do you know what they call alternative medicine that works?\"\n\n\"No, what?\"\n\n\"Medicine.\"",
"If you are deficient in something due to a condition, behavior (such as not going outside), or bad diet vitamins are necessary. But if you are healthy they are mostly useless. \n\nHerbs are flavor for food. Supplements derived from them are mostly useless but the herbs themselves are very useful for flavoring food. "
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1oc7af | why do i want to eat only the most unhealthy food i can find when i'm hungover? | You all know what I'm talking about. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1oc7af/why_do_i_want_to_eat_only_the_most_unhealthy_food/ | {
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"Obviously this isn't a perfect description, but brought together from several hypotheses and personal experience.\nFirst of all, a lot of things get lost when you drink. Fluids, sodium, other chemicals that tend to help everything function well. Eating unhealthy food loaded with salt usually helps with the sodium depletion. (Another thing that actually is supposed to help are B vitamins. I've tried it and it seems to work to help the headaches)\nMore importantly- carbs and sugar. Especially greasy stuff. Our bodies make more acid the more we drink. This is sometimes why we throw up, but also why carbs are great, because it \"soaks\" all the acid up. Sugar is also depleted during drinking, so sugar and carbs make you feel more normal.\nThere's a lot more I could talk about but I'm trying to keep this shortish."
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17mrxy | networking | So I understand the basic premise: "meet people who can get you jobs," but I'm looking to understand the details.
For instance:
Where do you meet these people? Obviously my co-workers aren't going to be much help. My friends and peers have just as little rank and power as I do, and every "networking event" I have been to has been a bullshit waste of time. As a 20-something clearly I'm not going to be meeting project managers at my PBR-and-a-shot bar, so where am I supposed to be hanging out where I will meet people who can actually hire? Golf courses? Cigar lounges?
How friendly are you supposed to be with networking contacts? Is it understood that you don't need to call them until you need a job, or are you supposed to call them up and make small talk once in a while? If so, how often?
How direct are you supposed to be? Is there some sort of unspoken code or obligatory way to dance around the issue, or can you just call them up and say "hey, you got a job for me?"
It just seems like there is this whole mystery world that successful networkers understand and everybody else is just winging it and wondering how this works for anybody.
| explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/17mrxy/eli5_networking/ | {
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"Networking is everyone you meet, but for most professions the biggest value will be people you meet on the job. Peers, subordinates, supervisors, vendors, customers, everyone. They are the most likely to help you find jobs because they are in your line of work, or are at least associated with it. \n \nTo some extent, you are playing the long game. A person you work with right now might not help find you your next job, but they might help with the one after that, or the one after that. \n \nIt's a good idea to keep in touch, not just when you are looking for a new job. Heck, they might hear about an opening that you'd love that you'd never become aware of otherwise. How often? Depends on how friendly you are with them. Don't let a whole year pass without at least exchanging emails. For people you consider more than just passing acquaintances, it might be good to get together for lunch once and a while, or go have a drink after work. \n \nIf you are actively seeking a new job, contact them and let them know you are in the market. One of the best ways to do this is to tell them that you are considering applying for a new job and would like to know if they would be a reference for you. Most people will find this flattering. Of course, this makes no sense if they barely know you. \n \nRemember, the main idea is for them to remember you and keep you in mind so that if they hear of a job opening, they think of you. This vastly amplifies your ability to find out about new jobs. And a lot of companies prefer to hire people found this way, since they are more likely to turn out to be good employees who stick around. \n \nI'll give you two personal anecdotes on how it has worked well for me (and I'm no great networker, believe me): \n \n1. I worked for a large multinational electronics company. I had changed jobs within the company, and a couple of years later I was invited to a going away party for one of my old bosses. She had taken a job at one of our overseas factories. At her going away party, I told her how jealous I was and joked that she should pack me in a trunk and take me with her. A few weeks later, she contacted me about an opening they had there, and I ended up transferring and working for her overseas for a couple of years. \n \n2. I work now in silicon valley, and it seems like everyone knows everyone, or at least, everyone knows someone in common. I worked at a startup for several years before it failed, and then found another position but really didn't like the place much. I was contacted by a headhunter (a professional recruiter) about an opening, and it turned out to be an opening working for my old boss, who I hadn't stayed in touch with. I contacted him to talk about the job, and he told me NOT to take it, the company sucked and he was planning on quitting himself to go to work for another startup. I asked him to keep his ears open for any possible openings suitable for me, and a few weeks later I found myself going in for an interview to work for him at the new startup (which I ended up doing). \n \n*EDIT*: I forgot to mention LinkedIn. It's a great tool for networking."
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b1t3mv | how do rock climbers use ropes to help them climb/for safety before any of them reach the top of what they are climbing? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/b1t3mv/eli5_how_do_rock_climbers_use_ropes_to_help_them/ | {
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"The ropes does not prevent them from falling. However when they fall the ropes prevents them from falling all the way to the bottom. So if you fix anchor points every 5 meter then at most you will fall 10 meters before the rope catches you. This is much better then falling all the way to the bottom of the cliff. Secondly there is some stretch in the rope and the rope is often attached using breaks and not fully secured in place so when the rope catches it will gently slow the climber to a safe stop. He can then use the rope to climb up to where the anchor were and he can continue his climb. This is generally considered better then a certain death.",
"I know one option is for the leader to attach the rope to the rock (with a bolt or other contraption) as they go. This does not help them climb, and it means if they fall, they will slam down wherever their last bolt catches them. For example, if they climb 5 more feet past their last anchor, they will fall around 10ft and be be caught hanging 5ft below their anchor, maybe more or less depending if they have a climbing partner that is able to help.. sounds painful to me, but it’s obviously preferable to falling to one’s death. ",
"The essence of the method is well described in u/Gnonthgol's answer, but something that may not be clear to non-climbers is that there are actually several types of climbing defined by what sort of attachments are available.\n\nIf you're a crazy daredevil like Alex Honnold, you can **free solo**, which means you don't have ropes or anything else protecting you. You hang on, or you die. Very few people do this more than once.\n\nIn traditional, or **trad climbing**, you have \"nuts\", \"cams\", and other devices which slip into cracks in the rock and *should* hold against a fall (in extreme cases you can try to tie to other features). If you don't know what you are doing, or if you make a mistake, or if you're just unlucky, the protection can fail during a fall when your rope pulls on it (with a *lot* of dynamic force), and you keep falling further, in a bad case zipping all the way down. Trad is the \"normal\" kind of climbing Gnonthgol describes.\n\nIn **sport climbing** (which is kind of a weird name, some people say \"bolt climbing\"), someone else has already placed semi-permanent bolts into the wall, and you tie into those as you go. Usually this means someone first did the climb as trad, but added permanent protection after. Bolting is controversial, with some feeling it \"defaces\" the wall. In **top roping** you are tied into a rope extending down from the top of the climb, so you don't have to do anything special as you climb. Both of these are what you'll get in a gym.\n\nIt might seem like bolt climbing and top roping requires someone to have made the climb already using another method, but in some places you actually start at the top fo the wall, rappel down, and then climb back up to your starting position (e.g. Otter Cliff in Maine), so it can happen that no one has ever climbed it another way.\n \nAnd then there's **ice climbing**, where you screw attachments into the ice as you go (and your boots have spikes on them). It's like bolting, but it's not permanent.\n\nEdit: Clarified \"free\" following u/remonumon's comment, and fixed some typos.",
"[easier to explain visually](_URL_0_)\n\n[but the best ELI5 is probably to just watch any trad/sport climbing video](_URL_1_) \n"
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326go6 | how is it possible that a "good" neighborhood be situated so close to a "bad" neighborhood, and the problems from the "bad" neighborhood rarely spill over into the "good" neighborhood? | I work in a very well of neighborhood, but if you drive down the Main Street a couple of blocks, you're in the slums. How come the problems that occur in those slums don't spill into the well off neighborhood considering their proximity to one another? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/326go6/eli5_how_is_it_possible_that_a_good_neighborhood/ | {
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"That's kind of anecdotal, actually. I live in a nice neighborhood, about a half mile away from what you'd consider \"the projects\". Despite being a nice neighborhood, we've had our cars broken into, we've had bicycles stolen from our yard (lock and all...damn), and I've even caught a guy redhanded who bolted through the adjacent field the second my porch light came on.\n\nSo there is a spillover.",
"Income and education is the short answer. The long answer requires that you define \"problems\" for this scenario. \"Good\" 'hoods are likely identified by the cars out front, the size of the dwellings and often and probably unfortunately by the race of the residents. \n\nThis is anecdotal but I know that these \"good\" hoods have the same problems, if problems are crime, violence, infidelity, drug abuse, etc. , but may be better at hiding them or, in the case of crime, committing different \"white collar\" crimes, usually fraud or financial crimes.\n\nIts an exhausting subject and this isn't explain like I'm a social science major, so I'll end with a \n\nTl;dr : same shit, different toilet."
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b8rv0o | why/how neon red and painting red look different if they are the same color? | What's the difference, scientifically speaking, between colors from a light source, a solid painted source, a screen source, and the like? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/b8rv0o/eli5_whyhow_neon_red_and_painting_red_look/ | {
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"The primary difference is that screens, light bulbs, and neon lights emit light and are therefore additive. Starting with no colour, or black, these sources ADD colour. Paint reflects light rather than emitting it. In this case colours are subtractive. Starting with white, each paint SUBTRACTS certain colours, leaving your eyes to perceive what is left as another certain colour. For example, paint that subtracts cyan and magenta, appears yellow."
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cho00q | the uk is currently in middle of a huge heatwave which is hitting europe. this heat is causing trains to be cancelled or run slowly due to fears of tracks ‘buckling’ from heat. why is it that in mainland europe where countries have high heat more often that trains are ok there? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/cho00q/eli5_the_uk_is_currently_in_middle_of_a_huge/ | {
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"They are prob built to endure that type of heat thanks to the chances of it occuring in that specific region",
"I'm from Belgium. I've just to taken the train to make my daily connection Brussels-Antwerp. On a normal day, it's 45 min. Today it took me 1h45 min., because of trains cancelled or running slowly. \nSo don't worry mate! It's the same in mainland Europe!\n\nEdit: grammar I could fix by myself"
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p3gkt | the british government | I get how defining Great Britain and United Kingdom are different. I get that they are technically still theocracy, but with the other stuff I am lost. I know that they have a shit ton of representatives that then do important stuff. Basically I am asking how are laws passed and organized? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/p3gkt/elif_the_british_government/ | {
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"Houses of Parliament is the building where parliament does its thing.\n\nParliament = essentially means the same thing as ‘congress’ means to the US - the legislative body of the UK.\n\nHouse of Commons = similar to the US House of representatives. MPs elected into a seat in the house of commons (a big room with a green colour colour scheme) represent a relatively small number of people. The political party that controls the most seats of the Commons is the government.\n\nHouse of Lords = like the UK version of the US Senate, but a lot more dated. Lords aren't elected into this house - they're either there through the Church, their bloodline, or by appointment from the Crown (often under the recommendation of the Prime Minister).\n\nMP = Elected Member of parliament.\n\nPrime Minister = Leader of the Government. The leader of whichever political party wins the General Election.\n\nCabinet = major decision makers in the UK. Not necessarily elected MPs, but usually are. General given titles like ‘Secretary of X’, with exceptions such as the head of all things financial, the Chancellor Of The Exchequer. \n\nThere is also: National Assembly for Wales, Scottish Parliament, Parliament of Northern Ireland. These guys make decisions that relate specifically to their member country.\n\nTheocracy probably isn't the right word. Although there is an established Church, they do not run the country with absolute power. They do hold some seats in parliament, though. Essentially, the House Of Lords reviews bills passed by the House Of Commons. It's not ideal; in my opinion, the Church needs to get out of the government and we wouldn't have a house of Lords.",
"Theocracy? It's a monarchy, the monarch is the head of the state religion but the government is not in any way guided by god."
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1fec26 | world map/ american map | Can someone please explain to me why the American map on its own always looks so different to America on the world map? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1fec26/world_map_american_map/ | {
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"Without specific examples of the maps you're questioning, it's hard to give a definite answer... \n\nHowever, I'd be fairly confident it's down to the [map projection.](_URL_0_)\n\nThe Earth is an approximate sphere, and representing this three-dimensional curved surface on a flat rectangular bit of paper means that countries/oceans need squishing and squishing about a bit...\n\nAs xkcd said, it's like trying to flatten and orange peel...\n\nFor a single country, it's a lot easier to approximate the shape on a flat surface... But if you want to do the whole planet and have the edges line up, there's gonna be some squidging about!\n\n[Relevent xkcd comic too.](_URL_1_)"
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"http://xkcd.com/977/"
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7a3817 | [gravitation]how did newton know that the force of two objects is inversely proportional to the square of the distance between them? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/7a3817/eli5_gravitationhow_did_newton_know_that_the/ | {
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"He didn't figure it out with the apple. \n\nThe inverse square law was the result of his work with orbital frequencies. It's the only way that the equations work in order to describe elliptical orbits is if the forces between the planets and the sun decreases as a factor of the square of the distance as they get further from the sun. ",
"One of the reasons we recognize Newton as a genius was that he was able to figure this out without making any measurements in the lab.\n\nNewton was working from data about the orbits of the planets and moons in the solar system developed by Johannes Kepler. He knew the time it took the planets and moons to complete an orbit, and the relative distances of the planets from the Sun (and moons from their planet). He also knew that the orbits aren't perfect circles, but ellipses. Newton was able to show, mathematically, that an inverse square law for gravity explains all these observations.\n\nThe inverse square law for gravity wasn't directly measured until over 100 years later, in a lab experiment by Henry Cavendish.\n\n(It should be mentioned, however, that there's some dispute over whether Newton came up with the inverse square law idea on his own.)\n\n_URL_2_\n_URL_1_\n_URL_0_",
"The principle of celestial bodies moving due to a gravitational force that was some formulation of an inverse square law was first proposed by [Ismaël Bullialdus](_URL_2_) in 1645. \n\n\nRobert Hooke came to believe in this idea and communicated it in a letter to Newton in 1679. \n\n\n\nNewton was insightful enough to see that it was essential in relation to gravity - he made enough careful observations to realise that it was the mass of celestial bodies that gives them this gravitational force somehow (relative to the inverse square of the distance between bodies) and he denoted a gravitational constant 'G' to make things balance out in terms of units - although this wasn't actually measured until 71 years after Newton's death by Henry Cavendish. \n\n\nNewton and the people supporting the inverse square law idea before him guessed that it was so based upon fairly simple geometry - thinking of a sphere, it's surface area is given by 4πr². \n\n\nThe idea that any force or effect which is flowing out from the sphere to the space around - any flux - that is doing so evenly and equally in all directions, means it will carry the same force/phenomenon spread out over a surface area of ever increasing spheres. Because the surface area is dictated by 4πr², the first two terms remaining constant, any flux must change by the r² term, and it must do so inversely because the strength of flux decreases with greater distance. [This diagram probably makes it clearer than my words.](_URL_0_)\n\n\nEdit: The experiment in determining the gravitational constant 'G' performed by Cavendish is briefly described by the enigmatic physicist Richard Feynman in an excerpt from one of his fantastic lectures to Caltech undergrads in the 1960's [here](_URL_1_)"
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j3kqh | can somebody explain the gulf war like i'm five? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/j3kqh/can_somebody_explain_the_gulf_war_like_im_five/ | {
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"Saddam was the leader of Iraq. He decided to invade Kuwait so he could control it and have it's oil.\n\nThe US and the United Nations said he couldn't do that, but he did anyway. America wanted to stop him because they were scared he would invade Saudi Arabia too. So America and a bunch of other countries put their armies together to kick Iraq out of Kuwait.\n\nThere were two operations during the war: Operation Desert Storm, and Operation Desert Shield. Operation Desert Storm was airstrikes and missiles, and Operation Desert Shield was sending in troops.\n\nIn the end, the US and friends won, and Iraq was kicked out of Kuwait.",
"The first one, I assume?\n\nThe Gulf War, aka \"Operation Desert Storm,\" happened as a result of Saddam Hussein's invasion and annexation of Kuwait. The actions were condemned by the UN and the United States. Coalition forces led by the US sought to liberate Kuwait after Iraq failed to withdraw after a certain deadline set by the UN.\n\nThe other major concern was that Iraq's occupation put the Iraqi Republican Guard in close proximity to Saudi oil fields."
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yggq7 | how to navigate 4chan. i am lost. | I decided to go on /b/, to see what everyone's always talking about. How do you navigate this? Every time I refresh the page, posts have flooded so quickly I can't follow them. Then if I do click on a thread, I have to scroll all the way to the top to reply, then I can't find the thread any more. And everyone seems to be quoting posts with a big number (like > > 424827817) and you have to click on the number to find the original, completely losing your place!
I don't understand 4chan. Help! | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/yggq7/eli5_how_to_navigate_4chan_i_am_lost/ | {
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"Sounds like you understand it just fine. It's the primitive mechanics you note that attracts many people to the site. Well...that and the porn.",
"Hit reply on the thread, and you can refresh that thread there. To reply to something on the thread, click the number like > > 424827817 and scroll to the top to reply. When replying to the thread in the e-mail field put \"noko\" (no quotes) to follow the thread after the reply.",
"In addition to what the others said, it would also help to pick a board that actually has a specific topic. Like [this one](_URL_0_). Easier to follow, no?\n\n/b/ still accounts for the most traffic out of any one board, and I don't have the exact statistics right now, but a thread on /b/ exists for the shortest amount of time out of all the boards.\n\n > Every time I refresh the page\n\nAlso, it's easier to pick out specific threads and refresh those, instead of the main page. There's no upvote/downvote system, so whatever is on the front page represents whatever was most recently posted (with certain exceptions).",
"Install 4chanX.\nMakes things easier.\n",
"Consider a thread as a \"chat room\" of it's own. Open the ones that interest you in new browser tabs and refresh them regularly. \n\nIf you follow a quote you can find the original post using the \"back\"-button of your browser.",
"4chan Plus if you use chrome. It makes it much, MUCH more bearable.\n[Link](_URL_0_)\n\nIt adds features such as auto-refreshing, quick reply boxes, the ability to mouse over replies to other posts to read them, etc...\n",
"Explain this like you're **5**, huh?\n\n\nWell... You can navigate it when you're older.",
"There will be too many posts to keep up with. I would suggest opening threads relevant to your interests in other tabs and refreshing from there to keep track of them. You can also control or middle click the > > 0000000000000 links to open them in a new tab as well. To stay in a thread after posting in it, type noko in the email field or just copy the URL. thats what i do."
]
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3ztpq9 | why do text messages have character limits, and why is it measured as 145/1 until i use it up and it becomes 145/2? | Also, why is it that sometimes it stops me at 145/1 and doesn't go to 145/2? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3ztpq9/eli5_why_do_text_messages_have_character_limits/ | {
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"The number after the / isn't related to characters, it's the number of SMS messages which will be used to send the text written. If your phone stops you at the 145 limit, it is doing the behaviour of older phones which only allowed a single text to be sent at a time.",
"SMS were built-in the cell network. Not as SMS but as a way for the cell towers to communicate with the devices.\n\nProviders realized this technology could be used by customers as well to send short text messages to each other and charge for it.\n\nThe 145 limit exists because it was not meant for the customers, it's used by the network itself.\n\nSource: I'm tech support for a cell provider in the great white north.",
"SMS is using some spare bits in the data packages sent on the network, which are not always used. As it uses this spare capacity, it's limited to how much space there in this \"hole\".\n\nLarger messages thus needs to be split up inte several messages, which are then reassembled at the recieving end. The number behind the / is the number of messages. If you are on a pay per message plan, this tells you how many messages you'll have to pay for.\n\nAfter a certain length, it usually stops showing that number, and that's because it has then switched to MMS-encoded text. At some point, it simply becomes more efficient to send it as a more cumbersome MMS than to split it up into a shitload of parts."
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3nqkwh | why are a lot of computer programs still unable to handle signs above letters like: é ë or ê. | For example when someone named René gets his name displayed as René. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3nqkwh/eli5_why_are_a_lot_of_computer_programs_still/ | {
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"Many basic computer programs still use the unedited [ASCII](_URL_0_) table, which doesn't include many of the special letters.",
"Programmers make their programs based on certain requirements. Implementing and testing each requirement takes time, effort, and money. Unless someone explicitly says \"The system needs to be able to handle full unicode text (non-english characters, etc.) like 'é'\", no-one will bother, focusing on tasks that are requirements. ",
"Back in the day, everyone used ASCII. ASCII uses 7 bits per character, so it supported 128 characters. It was design by English-speaking people, so it had the characters needed for English, plus numbers and a bunch of symbols and other assorted things.\n\nThen others, like Europeans with their accents and umlauts and ßs Жs wanted to use computers. These weren't letters used in English, but unlike, say, Chinese, there were still a manageable number of different letters. So they invented ISO-8859, which extended ASCII to 8 bits and thus 256 characters, and they used the extra ones to add all the symbols needed for various different languages. Unfortunately they didn't *all* fit in 256, so they had to specify a different one for each language or group of languages. ISO-8859-1 for example works for most things in Western Europe. ISO-8859-5 works for Russian. Etc.\n\nJust to be douchebags, Microsoft also invented a bunch of their own, because they wanted dumb things like being able to specify different shapes of quotation marks. Or something.\n\nIt kinda sucked because (1) you had to know which character set a particular document used, and (2) you could really only use one at a time.\n\nAnyway, people eventually realized this was dumb, and invented Unicode and UTF-8, which is what everything modern on the Internet uses, and supports everything, which is why I could put the sharp-s and cyrillic letter next to each other up there. But still... even if your software can support it, it can still get confused.\n\nIn your case, on a modern unix system, if you do:\n\n $ echo René | xxd\n 0000000: 5265 6ec3 a90a\n\nThose are hex. And it's UTF-8. 52 65 6e are just \"Ren\". Those are \"boring\" characters, backwards compatible with ASCII and everything else. But the next bytes, C3 A9 0A, those are a UTF-8/Unicode \"é\". But if you interpret them as something else... you get something else. For example, in ISO-8859-1, C3 is Ã. And A9 is ©. Etc. So what happened to you us, your computer got some text in UTF-8/Unicode but *thought* it was in ISO-8859-1.\n\nTL;DR computers have several ways to represent characters as numbers, and if they get confused and use the wrong one, the numbers become the wrong characters."
]
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6sgeu9 | how does my phone never "freeze" while my computer "freezes" on a consistent basis? | [deleted] | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/6sgeu9/eli5_how_does_my_phone_never_freeze_while_my/ | {
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"Phone software and hardware are typically designed for each other. Especially with iPhones, but also with the most popular Androids, the components of the phone are “standardized”; the developer of an app knows what the device running it is capable of, and can design it accordingly to run with minimal hiccups. On the other hand, there are thousands of different computer models, all with different mixes of parts and operating systems, and so it’s harder for a developer to make their app behave perfectly on every computer.",
"Well, theres a few factors here.\n\n1)Phones are pretty closed off from the outside- There are very few internet auto-downloaders, popups, etc. that function on phone browsers, unlike on computer browsers. Apps available for download are all (mostly) examined and approved before becoming available for public download. These both yield a much safer environment for your phone than the computer.\n\n2)Computers have a lot of moving parts, where phones do not. PCs operate on a hard disc, which is like a stack of CDs with record-player needles reading and writing to them. The hard disc, both the needles and the discs can degrade or break over time. Phones operate with non-moving parts, with virtual storage like a USB flash drive, and are less likely to degrade.\n\n3)Phones are often traded in and replaced far more often that computers are, giving you a new, fresh, well-functioning device ever year or three.\n\n4)Phone operating systems are compact and concise, and automatic updates are usually impossible to avoid. Computer operating systems are very broad, and as programs are installed and uninstalled over and over, it can bog down the computer's registry. (The registry is like the map of all the files, what they can do, where to find them, and how they may do things) Sometimes deleting programs without properly uninstalling them can cause issues.\n\nComputer freezes can be the result of many things, and these things are often impossible to do on a phone in the first place."
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3jg8br | in general, what is stopping the internet from being much faster than it is? | How have we gone from 100Mb/s internet speeds with fibre, to 10Gb/s in South Korea? What was the great improvement that happened there? Surely light travels as fast as light travels, so what made the internet faster and what can make the internet faster? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3jg8br/eli5_in_general_what_is_stopping_the_internet/ | {
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"Every component in the system has signal loss. Some more than others. An example is coax cable has more signal loss per 100 feet that fiber optic. Improvements were made at the headend and everything else in between. I am unclear as to why South Korea is so much faster. I assume it is fiber to the modem or something similar.",
"The internet is extremely fast. Your local neighborhood network is not. What's stopping it is the high cost of putting in a new fiber optic line. Because it has to be run into the area, digging up streets, repaving. And that's not very profitable for your ISP unless you're going to pay for it. So if you're willing to pay $400-500 a month for a line, your local ISP will happily run a direct line to your location, dedicated and unshared, just for you. Your business contract includes a SLA. If the line goes down, you get credit on your bill. If the speed goes down, you get a credit on your bill.",
"So the speed of the Internet is still limited to the speed of light- if someone in Seoul wants to download information from a computer in New York, it will still take 36 ms to get there (meaning the minimum ping of someone playing on a New York game server from South Korea is 72ms- the time it takes to get there and back).\n\nHowever, we've figured out how to cram more information in the same amount of space. We can transmit the symbols with higher frequency (making each \"letter\" smaller) and with fiber optic lines, we can transmit data on multiple frequencies simultaneously (stacking the letters on top of each other). As we get better at reading garbled data on the wire, we can increase how much data we send down the line at once.\n\nAnd keep in mind that as fast as a 10Gb/s Internet connection is, the fastest way to transmit large amounts of data over long distances is still a cargo jet full of hard drives.",
"Just to clarify, you're merging 2 different concepts into 1. There are 2 types of speed when we're talking about the internet. \n\nThe one most commonly used is bandwidth - the amount of data we can transmit at once. That's what 100Mb/s or 10Gb/s refers to. This has nothing to do with the speed of light.\n\nYou know those old WWII naval movies where ships are signaling each other using a big spot light and blinkers? Think of this as adding/removing spot lights with blinkers. It lets them send more information at once.\n\nThe other speed when we're talking about internet is latency. This is how quickly your messages get to their destination. This IS limited by the speed of light. In that it's much slower than the speed of light, and it will never get faster than the speed of light (or realistically anywhere close to it when we're talking terrestrial networks). This is sometimes referred to as ping (after a tool used to determine latency) and is usually a number measured in milliseconds. Typically you see something like 20ms-170ms within the US. 200-500ms around the world.\n\nBTW, no form of communication can ever exceed the speed of light from what we understand of physics. Even if the sun were to suddenly disappear, the earth would rotate where the sun was for 8 minutes."
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7wzglr | how do nationality suffixes work? (american, swedish, chinese, thai, afghani, laotian, etc.) | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/7wzglr/eli5how_do_nationality_suffixes_work_american/ | {
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"I don't think nationality suffixes are actually supposed to \"work\" somehow, I'd guess it's more like an issue of cultural development in the English language. The suffix \"an\" is probably more common because it seems to mean something like \"someone from this place\" in English. There are peculiarities explaining other suffixes, though.\n\nWords such as Iraqi, Israeli and Afghani end as such because those are words in local languages, borrowed by English. E.g., Israeli in Hebrew is exactly Israeli.\n\nNow, words such as French, Turk and Greek are so peculiar because such nationalities came before the nations. E.g. there were Turks roaming around before Turkey (the suffix is in the name of the nation, not in the nationality).\n\nI know the word Greek is based on an ancient italic language word meaning foreigner. Traders back then travelling by the coasts of Italy came from the area (not a nation yet) known today as Greece (land of the foreigners), hence the name. Greeks call themselves something like Hellenians, though.",
"Fun fact, the word isn't suffix. Afterall, it's not always a suffix (ie Holland vs Dutch). \n\nIt's demonym. \n\nExtra words to confound the tilbot, because they require longer explanations etc etc etc you know how it goes"
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1csrgv | why is germany one of the nation in europe to be relatively unaffected by the recent financial crisis? | . | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1csrgv/eli5_why_is_germany_one_of_the_nation_in_europe/ | {
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"I think it order to answer this, we have to go back a little. I'll try keep this as simple as possible, but I'm not sure I can explain it for a 5 year old... So:\n\nGermany was divided into 2 countries until 1989. In 1990, it became one country again, with 5 additional states. These 5 states were having a bad time economically. So Germany had to pump a lot of money from its Western into its Eastern part. \n\nDue to various decisions taken in the one year of the re-unification process (exchange rate of currencies, establishment of solid economic data about the east...) building the Eastern part of Germany back up was a lot more expensive than people thought in the beginning. \n\nIn addition, there were a lot of laws which told employers and employees what was allowed and what was not (labour market regulation). When someone lost their job, they had a right to fairly high amounts of money from the state, etc. Also, the population got older and grew by about 20 million people in a year. \n\nAll of this caused problems over the years: high cost of social security, decreased productivity, incredibly high costs for re-building the East etc. all lead to the German economy slowing down more and more. Then, in the early years of the 2000, a new government came into power. They started to reform a lot of the things I mentioned above. These reforms were not very successful in the beginning, and unemployment etc. started to rise to about 10% at its highest. \n\nWhile this was going on, the economic boom in other European countries started to pick up and Germany became \"the sick man of Europe\" for a few years: unable to stick to the [Maastricht criteria](_URL_0_). Once the reforms started to show results (and the Goverment had changed again), the German economy picked up again - slowly at first and then more and more.\n\nTL;DR: We were too busy having an economic crisis of our own while everyone else was not, so couldn't jump on the bandwagon.",
"Because our economy isn't built around ripping tourists off or building useless shit in the hopes of it resulting in never-ending growth instead of a big bubble that's bound to burst, son. Now get me another beer, will you."
]
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5yxfe1 | how are ethernet cables rated for different speeds actually... different? | So say between Cat4 and Cat5 standards, Cat5 has faster speeds than Cat4, but the cables for both Cat4 and Cat5 appear to be the same, with all the same number of wires.
So what is different between the two cables that prevents a Cat4 rated cable from reaching Cat5 speeds? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5yxfe1/eli5_how_are_ethernet_cables_rated_for_different/ | {
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"text": [
"Different gages of wire, different metal compositions in the wire, different amounts of shielding on the wire, and lots of other small differences. "
]
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29czdk | what exactly is an antioxident? why are we so sure that they are "good" for us? what do they do, and do we have good evidence that they do anything at all? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/29czdk/eli5_what_exactly_is_an_antioxident_why_are_we_so/ | {
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"Various processes in our bodies sometimes produce oxidants, molecules which will oxidize susceptible molecules. \n\nAn Antioxidant neutralizes oxidants. Without them, they can oxidize (and thus damage) other structures, potentially causing illness. \n\nAll that said, they are pushed far harder as a marketing ploy than as a genuine health benefit."
]
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||
24fji8 | how do tv channels handle programs directly after a sporting event that has no set finish time? | So for example if it's baseball they give a time estimate and let's say it ends at 11. What does the network do if they go to extra inning and the games ends at:
11:12?
12:07?
10:34? (Assuming a very quick game since they didn't even reach the time estimate) | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/24fji8/eli5_how_do_tv_channels_handle_programs_directly/ | {
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"There is a guy there to switch the feeds",
"They just run over the programming. I can remember missing the beginnings or even the entirety of shows I wanted to watch because of some game.",
"I often hear \"This channel will now resume its regular programming schedule\" .. i.e. you will miss the beginning of whatever has started.\n\nHeaven's we ever get another Heidi episode!"
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8yej8p | why do old cartoons look so jittery? | I'm watching some old cartoons from the 1960s - 1990s and I notice every once in a while the picture will move around sightly. Why is this? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/8yej8p/eli5_why_do_old_cartoons_look_so_jittery/ | {
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"Because there supposed to be synced with bass lines and drum hits.\n_URL_0_\n\nFor real tho, correct if I'm wrong here people but the old way of animating was drawing each frame by hand. It's kinda hard to make sure each individual line or curve is exactly the same frame by frame.",
"A couple of possible explanations. First, there was much more human involvement in both the drawing and the photographing and tracking of frames in those days. Even extremely skilled humans are imperfect.\n\nSecond, because of the expense of hand-drawing animation, many cheaper cartoons used a lower frame rate (fewer images per second), which can appear more \"jumpy.\"",
"Before animation went digital, the process required intensive physical involvement. \n\nThe cleaned up line art gets placed on a table that has pegs on top of the background art which is also fixed to the table. A pane of glass is laid over that frame or \"shot\" and a camera situated above the table is fired, recording that frame on film. This process is done over and over for each individual frame. The jittery imagery you may notice comes from the small movements that may move the artwork about on the table, or the artwork itself varies in size or shape in each frame as a result of animating straight ahead instead of pose-to-pose (straight ahead meaning the frames are drawn consecutively from start to end where pose-to-pose allows an animator to maintain greater control over a figure by drawing the frames where the figure makes dramatic changes in pose and then filling in the transition frames much like Walt Disney Studios did in their movies)."
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65kmmy | how do 'adult teeth' know when to erupt? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/65kmmy/eli5_how_do_adult_teeth_know_when_to_erupt/ | {
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"The adult crown forms in the bone, under the primary teeth from a tooth bud. As the root structure develops it pushes the adult crown upwards which puts pressure on the roots of the primary teeth causing the roots to resorb. Eventually there is no root structure left on the primary tooth and it falls out. The roots of the adult tooth continue to develop pushing it all the way into the mouth. Not everyone gets all of their adult teeth, some get extra adult teeth, it all depends on how many tooth buds you have, and that is determined by genetics. "
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1sxr8x | why do companies pay money to create stock photography that is extremely unlikely to be used? | There's even an whole subreddit for it at /r/wtfstockphotos - I understand why you would want a photo of a guy in a business suit heading to lunch or something mundane, but creating a photograph of a [lady dressed as Hitler peeling potatoes](_URL_1_) presumably costs time, money, the models' time, the photographers' time, etc.
And there's a *lot* of really weird, unusable stock photography.
EDIT: You guys are awesome and helpful. And now the next time I see a stock photo of a [woman addicted to powdered donuts](_URL_2_) or a guy [using a cake as a pillow](_URL_0_), I'll know why this ever got taken in the first place. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1sxr8x/eli5_why_do_companies_pay_money_to_create_stock/ | {
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"\"We have 'X' thousand images for you to choose from!\"\n\nThere are only so many thousands of ways to photograph the same thing... so you expand into different things. Not a professional answer, but that's my assumption. ",
"Do you have any evidence to show that a company paid for it, and it wasn't instead some bored photography student or a professional with a weird hobby?",
"A lot of stock photography is used during the creative process. They are usually royalty free or the user has a contractual arrangement with the stock photo company. \nIf a company uses a copyrighted photo, even during the creative process, they have to pay royalties to whoever owns the copyright from the point that the photo is used in the creative process. Copyright enforcement doesn't just start at the point of for-profit public use.",
"People take photos of things they think are not already available. They upload them on stock photo sites, hoping some day someone wants to use that photo and buys it off them. The photographer gets paid and the site makes a commission.\n\nThis image may look very weird and make you wonder how someone thought of that and more importantly who the hell would buy it. Who knows, a company might someday want this as a background for \"Confused by your career options? Let Devry help you decide\"",
"I will try to answer because I work in stock music on one of the biggest sites. Obviously very happy upbeat tv commercial type tracks are big sellers so everyone is composing variations of those bit sometimes composers like me have random stuff that they made years ago when they first started composing it whatever - like I uploaded some old stuff that I knew had a possibility as bring considerf stock and would never fit as a release for a label - so I upload them and they sell but not as much as the more mainstream tracks. People need random things. One of my tracks that I uploaded was something I made a couple of months after learning how to produce music and it was just sitting around so I uploaded it. Didn't sell at all - maybe a month later someone buys it and I'm like cool - thrn my brother while knows all my tracks sends me a link to a YouTube channel with 2 million subs and the guys newest video is using that weird track. I know it's not the same as having to pay models but maybe they feel they have to put weird stuff for the weird projects and maybe after a regular shoot they just do crazy stuff for like ten minutes.",
"These companies act as clearinghouses for thousands of professional and amateur photographers.\n\nThey take pictures, upload them to the website, and if a picture sells, they get money and the clearinghouse gets a cut. All it is costing the company is some disk space, the photographers bear the cost of production. \n\nWhy would the photographers do this? Because they are artists, and that is what artists do. Could be part of a school project or a gallery showing that never materialized. The subjects are often friends or the artist themselves. It doesn't cost them anything to make the pictures available for say, so why not upload them?",
"I was a stock photography model and the pay you in hopes they can sell it. They can make good money. My ex and I were paid like a grand or something, her pic has been used by yahoo. Don't know if mine has. But they don't ever have to pay residuals when they do sell it.\n\nThe generally take photos with typical clothes with no logos and photo shop logos later when needed.\n\n",
"Thanks, I actually, actually was looking for a lady that looked like Hitler doing something in the kitchen for article I'm writing about cooking in the kitchen, and how some women run their own kitchen like they are dictators - this is a new trend we're hearing about. Where did you find this image, and do you have a link?\n\nOr, I could have a standard drab picture of a woman in the kitchen doing standard stuff.\n\nOK, I don't need this one, but it does reflect my thinking. I look for unusual pictures that aren't boring. Sometimes I see the business man with a briefcase opening a door and it hurts my eyes because it is so drab and vanilla. Yuck. I don't know what will peak my interest, I like to browse and see. Can you imagine if ever site just had the same business guy walking through the door to an office highrise, and that is it? Fuck me with slivers to my eyes. \"The horror, the horror.\"",
"There was once a time you couldn't find thousands of images of women smiling and eating salad alone. Or hands shaking in front of a globe.",
"This is by the German photographer **Marcel Steger**. My guess is that it was not taken for the purposes of stock photography as he is an exhibiting photographer. \n\nThese stock photography websites work by having artists submit their images for sale. Any money received for the images is passed on to the artist after the website has taken their cut. Sometimes artists submit their entire portfolio in the hope that someone will be interested, even though it looks rather odd for a commercial image collection.",
"''Ok guys, good job, we got the picture of a woman making dinner in the kitchen, lets go grab some lunch''\n\n''Hey Chris, do we still have that hitler suit we used last week?''\n\n''Uh, yeah''\n\n''Can i borrow it and this set while the rest are eating lunch?''\n\n''sure''\n\n",
"Yep, exactly what top comment said. There is an iPhone app called 'Foap' that does just this, but gives the opportunity for people like you and me to snap and upload pictures and put up for sale, which is quite cool. ",
"i use stock photos everyday.\n\nsometimes use 3 or 4 together to create a single image that says exactly what i want it to say.\n\noften i use ridiculously unusual stock photos but only use one small piece. \n\nI am often required to tell a specific visual story or create a specific visual mood so every day I am searching the stock sites i subscribe to for certain terms or certain related topics to find something that could relate to the obscure article I am trying to illustrate.\n\nI might use the hitler photo and crop it just at the chest and wrap a story title around the hands and relate a story about potatoes or domestic life or food prep or gingham dresses. I probably wouldn't use hitler's face on her as I have no content quite that edgy but i would definitely use this photo and download it from my sites.\n\nI see HIDEOUS photos on my stock sites and wonder \"WHY?\" everyday. some things seem totally useless. (naked 400 lb dude with a christmas hat on, pulling on his own nipples... why shutterstock, why???) but somebody, somewhere will have a use for it and thus the stock site makes it's money on ANYTHING.\n\nsource: large, global magazine graphic designer."
]
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"http://www.pleated-jeans.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/08/598.jpg",
"http://i.imgur.com/61LQXXv.jpg",
"http://i.imgur.com/oQgjg.jpg"
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|
42027h | can anyone explain to me the principle of non-contradiction? | I was kinda groggy on my philosphy-logic class today and I couldn't comprehend fully what my professor was saying because I was half-asleep. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/42027h/eli5_can_anyone_explain_to_me_the_principle_of/ | {
"a_id": [
"cz6i3si"
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"score": [
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"text": [
"Simply put? Statements that are contradictory (negate each other) cannot be true at the same time. It's fairly common sense.\n\nFor example:\n\n > a ) I am the president of France.\n\n > b ) I am not the president of France.\n\nThe law of non-contradiction states that these two are mutually exclusive and cannot both be true. I cannot both be and not be the president of France at the same time. \n"
]
} | [] | [] | [
[]
] |
|
2ycrv8 | why do smaller breeds of dogs tend to bark more than larger dogs? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2ycrv8/eli5why_do_smaller_breeds_of_dogs_tend_to_bark/ | {
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"text": [
"Two reasons - the first being that most people don't feel the need to train smaller dogs since they're easier to just pick up and move around. A well trained dog will stop barking when you tell it to. The second reason is that some breeds are more aggressive than others. Most small dogs do tend to be aggressive, barking is a warning",
"Small dogs have a Napoleonic complex",
"Few reasons \n\n1. Poor training - this does not apply to all breeds, smaller dogs were bred to be puppy like their whole lives. Larger dogs were bred for working purposes or guard dogs. Any dog can be trained to stop barking but it takes a lot of time. \n\n2. Breed of dog - Some breeds like beagles were bred to alert their owner of prey when hunting. Some breeds see things like balls, toys, outside critters and even things like sticks as prey. When a dog sees it they let you know about it. Again this can be corrected with proper training but it can be a little difficult. \n\n3. It's cute - Ever see a little puppy bark at their toy or something in the yard? Well it's adorable and some people like that. Once the dog is a few years older and they are still barking at that same toy it's not so cute. This goes back to training again. \n\n4. Protection - If someone/something they don't know comes into their territory (your house) the dog is letting them know about it. A larger breed dog is more intimidating and may not back a lot but will still back. Smaller breeds act as a alarm to alert the owners or others about someone who shouldn't be there. \n\nAll dogs bark about the same amount when they are puppies. With proper training this can be corrected. It does take time to do. Just like some people some dogs are more talkative and may require more time. Some breeds were bred to alert owners or other dogs to something in their area, this can be trickier to correct. ",
"* small dogs are likely to feel threatened more often\n* small dogs are less likely to appear threatening, and less likely to have their barking corrected for that reason\n* small dogs tend to be less well trained in general",
"I read somewhere that the reason is that because little are small and generally more annoying than intimidating people aren't so quick to tell them to shut up. A big dog barks and it is scary so people won't let them bark like a smaller dog. I also remember this being the reason small dogs will bark at big dogs and act like they are dominant. Little dogs think they are the alpha dog because their owners let them.",
"Sometimes it is related to sound sensitivity. Many breeds of smaller dogs were trained as guard/alert dogs such as llaso apsos due to their small size making them easy to camoflauge and their sound sensitivity. Noises tend to set them off because many times it hurts their ears. ",
"I honestly feel all small dogs have a inferiority complex and just do that to seem tough. They're fed up with the cute life. I feel my cute little dog is like snowflake from Rick and Morty. He would be furious if he found out he was bred to be small and cute. He also looks just like him except brown. Cute AF.",
"Many small breeds particularly terrier based breeds, were all bred for rodent control.\n\nThat was their sole purpose on a farm / country estate, to kill rodents and pests, so if you ever wonder about a small dogs aggressive behavior, just remember they were created to be killing machines. \n\nOften this would involve going in to rodent warrens and tunnels underground to kill, so many of the small terrier breeds were bread to bark constantly when hunting so that their handlers could track where they were underground and also dig them out if they got stuck.",
"People do not train small dogs like they do large dogs. Therefore, the habit isn't broken at a young age.\n",
"To get breeds that small, they are INTENSELY selectively bred.\n\n\nThe more intensely you breed for one characteristic, the more variation you get in other characteristics.\n\n\nSo dog A may be bred for size and temperment and appearance. His breed overall develops those traits.\n\n\nDog B is bred to be small. He's just the smallest son of the smallest son of the smallest son. Mean but small? \n\n\nBreed him. \n\n\nStupid but small?\n\n\nBreed him.\n\n\nDesigner dogs actually have a ton of health and temperment issues, but people want miniature Dobermans, so mean, skittish, short-lived tiny Dobermans they get.\n\n",
"Simply put? Psychology.\n\nSmaller breeds tend to be friendlier (in terms of 'talking to strangers') and more hysterical whereas the bigger ones have a bit more brain to work with, tend to think more, deal in different emotional categories....\n\nAgain, its mental."
]
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||
beq5op | why is notre dame's football called "the fighting irish" when the school is named after a french church? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/beq5op/eli5_why_is_notre_dames_football_called_the/ | {
"a_id": [
"el7st0p"
],
"score": [
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"text": [
"The name of the university is not after a French church but for the Virgin Mary in French.\n\nNotre Dame is French for \"out lady\" and it is a named used for the Virgin Mary. The church in Paris full name is \"Notre-Dame de Paris\",\"Our Lady of Paris\" and the universe \"University of Notre Dame du Lac\", \"University of Our Lady of the Lake)\"\n\nThere is a catholic tradition of dedicating churches, cathedrals, schools, hospitals to the Virgin Mary and other saints Saints etc. So there is a lot of them named Our lady, Notre Dame, St. Mary etc\n\n & #x200B;\n\nSo the universe was founded by a french priest in 1841 and it is dedicated to the Virgin Mary and the name was in French. Later most of the university leders and the majority of the student in the university was Irish. Most immigrants to the US that was catholic was Irish so it is not surprising. So the name comes in the early 1900s when most players on the football team is Irish."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[]
] |
||
1omkj1 | there what feel like tiny holes on the inside of my cheeks that i can suck a little water out of, what are they and what's their purpose? | Title pretty much explains it, one on the left and one on the right side of my mouth there are what feels like tiny holes and I can suck water from them sometimes, just curious what they are. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1omkj1/eli5_there_what_feel_like_tiny_holes_on_the/ | {
"a_id": [
"cctezwh"
],
"score": [
3
],
"text": [
"[Salivary glands](_URL_0_). It's where spit comes from. "
]
} | [] | [] | [
[
"http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/51/Illu_quiz_hn_02.jpg"
]
] |
|
5ths43 | why are gifs so "demanding" compared to normal videos? | [deleted] | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5ths43/eli5_why_are_gifs_so_demanding_compared_to_normal/ | {
"a_id": [
"ddmkttg"
],
"score": [
2
],
"text": [
"Becuase they aren't meant to be used for videos, they are meant for like flip book animation. Videos can be compressed a lot by deleting all pixels that don't change per frame."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[]
] |
|
frabor | why are some items from the grocery store sealed for freshness? how does sealing it help keep it fresh? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/frabor/eli5_why_are_some_items_from_the_grocery_store/ | {
"a_id": [
"flunidy"
],
"score": [
5
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"text": [
"In order to spoil there must be a chemical reaction that changes how the food... is. Bacteria or just exposure to the elements can change it over time for the worse.\n\nSo access to fundamental things required for those reactions - like oxygen - is denied by sealing it shut. Often the air that is inside the containers may be (nearly?) pure nitrogen which is generally less reactive when talking about organic products. This slows the reactions way down. Since the air around us is already ~80% nitrogen it's not a big deal.\n\nUntil you open the package. Then fresh air can circulate in it again and new precautions must be taken. Eat it quickly, or refrigerate it so that the organic and chemical processes slow down again. Hence many containers say \"refrigerate after opening\"."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[]
] |
||
4j3k8f | why do electric arcs flicker and wave about rather than just move directly between the two points? | Title | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4j3k8f/eli5_why_do_electric_arcs_flicker_and_wave_about/ | {
"a_id": [
"d33dikm",
"d33dlj2"
],
"score": [
3,
6
],
"text": [
"Electricity always, always, always takes the path of least resistance. This path may not be a straight line between the two electrodes.",
"When the spark first starts to jump it leaves a trail of ions in the air. This conducts easier than non-ionized air so the arc will continue to follow that same path. The air is moving around, however, so the path will follow that motion."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[],
[]
] |
|
3y5fnr | why do we need to clear our throats after eating? what is causing that sensation? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3y5fnr/eli5_why_do_we_need_to_clear_our_throats_after/ | {
"a_id": [
"cyaur18"
],
"score": [
3
],
"text": [
"Your food gets broken up and moistened with saliva in the mouth, then pushed to the top of the throat (called the pharynx) where you swallow it into the esophagus, which carries it down to the stomach. Your throat keeps itself covered up in mucus to stay wet and protect itself. Human bodies have a tricky spot there at the pharynx, cause there's the esophagus, the pipe to your stomach, and there's the trachea, the pipe to your lungs, and they both stop at the pharynx, right next to each other. To keep the food out of the trachea so you don't choke on it, there's a flap called the epiglottis that always keeps the esophagus closed until it's time to swallow - swallowing is what moves the epiglottis over to block off the trachea instead and pushes the food into the esophagus before resetting. The epigottis is also covered in mucus to help protect it and keep it wet. \n\nIn general there's a lot of mucus and/or saliva going on around here, and if it's going to start getting in the way of breathing, you have to either swallow or cough/spit it out. So for you it's likely that in the eating process, you're getting some saliva and mucus built up there. "
]
} | [] | [] | [
[]
] |
||
9mixn5 | what is six sigma? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/9mixn5/eli5_what_is_six_sigma/ | {
"a_id": [
"e7eypwv",
"e7f1kby"
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"score": [
28,
4
],
"text": [
"Sigma is the notation for a standard deviation from a normal distribution.\n\nThe original Six Sigma was a set of techniques and tools used to improve processes used to make things, and was enacted by Motorolla to ensure that 6 standard deviations worth of product off of its' assembly lines (or 99.99966%, or 3.4 per million) were free of defects.\n\nNowadays it has been adopted as typical corporate buzzwords, much like AGILE coding doctrine has been, to mean some parts (but probably not all) of what the original meant, and so it is very likely going to be tricky to really define what they mean at your workplace, other than that they want to make things more efficient.",
"Officially it's a methodology to improve a process by reducing the defects. First you define then problem. Once it's defined then you measure it. After you've narrowed the focus of the project by measuring it you analyze to understand why the defect is happening. Once you've found a root cause or potential root cause you improve the process and then you put controls in place. The acronym for all of that is DMAIC. \n\nIt's definitely a buzzword for many companies but some do a good job of using the method and tools. "
]
} | [] | [] | [
[],
[]
] |
||
ahni9g | phone calls from foreign countries | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/ahni9g/eli5_phone_calls_from_foreign_countries/ | {
"a_id": [
"eegmq9b"
],
"score": [
2
],
"text": [
"It's likely they are just scams. They probably didn't 'get your number' or have any intention of calling you specifically, they just set autodialers to dial pretty much every number. It is a problem if you answer because then they know a live person answers that phone and they will put the number on a list to sell to other scammers, and the number of calls you get might increase "
]
} | [] | [] | [
[]
] |
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