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339gee | why are isis and taliban announcing jihad against each other. | Follow up question. What do you think the outcome will be? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/339gee/eli5_why_are_isis_and_taliban_announcing_jihad/ | {
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"same reason gangs fight each other. ISIS is more powerful but Taliban is further away and much more asymmetrical in nature. I doubt any actual conflict of importance will ever happen between them. This is mostly ideological and political.",
"Because neither side believe *exactly* what the other wants them to.",
"Because they both love embarrassing us Arabs to the point we hate affiliating with the race\n\nedit: sorry got emotional, basically they both believe that their interpreation of islam is superior, and so they fight cause they both lack education."
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j7c4v | can someone explain li5 the difference between vitamins, drugs, and supplements? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/j7c4v/can_someone_explain_li5_the_difference_between/ | {
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"Vitamins are organic compounds that an organism needs to perform its tasks but can not produce itself, and therefor must acquire through food.\n\nDrugs are chemical compounds that are designed to interact with your physiology in a certain way, targeting specific areas of the nervous system to achieve a beneficial result, for example.\n\nSupplements are taken to increase the intake of certain vitamins that are perceived to be deficient. Sometimes supplements purport to increase benefits well known to be associated with certain vitamins via greater than normal dosages, but this isn't usually the case. ",
"Vitamins are organic compounds that an organism needs to perform its tasks but can not produce itself, and therefor must acquire through food.\n\nDrugs are chemical compounds that are designed to interact with your physiology in a certain way, targeting specific areas of the nervous system to achieve a beneficial result, for example.\n\nSupplements are taken to increase the intake of certain vitamins that are perceived to be deficient. Sometimes supplements purport to increase benefits well known to be associated with certain vitamins via greater than normal dosages, but this isn't usually the case. "
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cw6qcx | how is it possible for russia - a country with a governement revenue the size of sweden - to develop advanced nuclear and non-nuclear weapons? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/cw6qcx/eli5_how_is_it_possible_for_russia_a_country_with/ | {
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"Most of the initial development of this was done during the era of the USSR when Russia was much larger geographically and economically. They also had complete government control over the economy. The government dictated what every worker did, and as such they could focus industrial and scientific efforts as they saw fit. Modern development has drastically slowed, but it is often easier to improve existing tech than it is to develop new.",
"Russia have about 15 times more people and an economy almost 3 times bigger than Sweden. Sweden have 10 million people with a GDP of 563 billions, while Russia have 146 million people with a GDP of 1.6 trillion.\n\nBut Sweden have a lot more taxes so that is why they have a government budget similar. Sweden also use most of that money on social program. Sweden have a military budget of 6.3 billion, which is about a bit more than 2% of their government budget, while Russia have a military budget of over 60 billion, which is more than 20% of their government budget.\n\nSo overall Russia have a military budget about 10 times bigger than Sweden. Which make them on a similar level as the military of France and the UK, which also have complex nuclear submarines, ICBM, fighters and other advanced weapons. In addition, the Soviet Union was a bigger economy at the time than Russia today is, and so with a bigger military budget they developed a lot of weapon and their company today still retain a good portion of that know how. Their military company are well know and export their product to a lot of other country, not just for Russia. That's why a military like China, Saudi Arabia and India, which have a bigger military budget compare to Russia, still get a lot of their stuff from countries like Russia or the US, because they don't have developed the experience and know how than other countries have developed in the past. China is getting a lot better at this and develop most of their own stuff now, but India only have 24 fighter that they developed themselves and it's a small one, while most of their fighter come from Europe. Saudi Arabia is even more dependent on other country for their advanced weaponry."
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g20pnf | if the speakers on my computer can replicate the sound of my voice, would i be able to create the sound of my voice or anybody else's from scratch without ever recording it? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/g20pnf/eli5_if_the_speakers_on_my_computer_can_replicate/ | {
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"its possible, but difficult to make voice from scratch. mostly generated speech just stitches together lots of different voice clips, smooths it over so it sounds ok. There are completely artificial voices but they're more difficult and intensive",
"Yes, that's pretty much how screen readers and other voice synth technology works. It's an artificial voice. \n\nObviously because it's an evolution and there's tons of history, initially it would've been samples of a real voice, but we've come pretty far away from that.",
"Theoretically, yes. Although, a voice is extremely complicated, so even original voices still work from modified samples as opposed to being created entirely from scratch. It would be virtually impossible for you to recreate your voice perfectly just by typing in lines of code or something, without recording say, your neighbour first, and altering the sounds until they fit your voice.",
"Technically yes, you would be able to create any sound you want, including a speech with a voice you want, but it would be time consuming as you would need to 'design' out every millisecond of the sound/speech.\n\nA sound at basic levels is produced at a certain frequency and amplitude. Frequency would determine the pitch while amplitude determines the volume. For every word you say, their frequencies and amplitudes are different (think saying 'Ah' vs saying 'Ooh'). What makes your voice different from other people is that their voice is higher or lower pitch, hence higher or lower frequency voice.\n\nWhen you record a voice/sound, sound waves travel to the microphone, which has a component that changes voltage and current based on the frequency and amplitude of the sound it received. It can then 'transcribe' it into the computer as audio data, containing information about the frequency and amplitude of the sound it recorded. Using speakers, you recreate the physical sound from the data.\n\nSince the computer saves frequency and amplitude as audio data, you can create your own original audio data. It would take a lot of effort, but it is entirely possible."
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3tkj51 | what is blood? | My daughter is 5 and she asked me this question. I tried to explain but I guess I was explaining like she was 8 or 9 because she didn't understand me at all. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3tkj51/eli5_what_is_blood/ | {
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"It's the roadway in your body that 'cell food' travels to feed all your cells, and which they send their trash on to get rid of after they eat. At least, that's the most genuine eli5 I can think of. Obviously there's more nuance :)",
"Basically blood is mostly made of water with lots of stuff in it, and is the transportation of important things around the body. The stuff in it is the plasma which is the liquid itself, the red blood cells that carry oxygen (and make it red), white blood cells that defend against germs, and platelets that help form scabs and stop bleeding.",
"Baby don't hurt me, don't hurt me, no more. \n\nSorry, couldn't resist. \n\nTo a 5 year old I'd put it something like this:\n\nWhen you take a big deep breath, the air you breathed in needs to get to different places inside you. Like it needs to get to your heart and your hands and your feet. Blood is like the school bus that takes the air to those places, except it's red instead of yellow. "
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1rqmls | why do the vibrations of bass in songs pump us up? | If you listen to an awesome song on speakers without any subwoofers it's not gonna be very inspiring, but when you've got a kickass sub pumpin some vibes, it's like you're fueled by adrenaline and feel like a badass. Why? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1rqmls/eli5_why_do_the_vibrations_of_bass_in_songs_pump/ | {
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"there are said to be some evolutionary factors, we associate many low frequency sounds with events that may be a be a threat to our life or sudden and unexpected danger, volcanoes, earthquakes, lightning, the thundering sound of being chased by a large prey, which causes a heavy beating of the heart, all sorts of things, this is thought to be why they tend to quicken the pulse and give a release of adrenaline, check out infrasonics, very interesting field _URL_0_ "
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2t0xw5 | how did harry potter become so well known when other similarly good fantasy tales are more obscure? | JK Rowling published Harry Potter in 1997 in the UK and 3 years later my elementary teacher read it to us in class in Canada. By that time, the 3rd and 4th books were already out so the series must had made traction in the UK with the first few titles. The first movie came out a year later and now there is a Harry Potter theme park in Orlando.
What forces made Harry Potter so popular? It couldn't all have been by fans and word of mouth because of how much it would cost to promote the book right? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2t0xw5/eli5_how_did_harry_potter_become_so_well_known/ | {
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"The first book \"Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone\" reached the New York Times best seller list shortly after its release in 1997 and remained there for years. Its sales actually dwarfed the non-children's books on the NY Times best seller list.\n\nWhen the sequels were published, they also shot to the top of the NY Times best seller list. It got to the point where several of the top spots were all Harry Potter books, for a very long time. It was because of the Harry Potter book franchise that the NY Times had to start a best seller list for children's books.\n\nAs to what made Harry Potter popular? It was a story that resonated with both adults and children, and was written in such a way that both those audiences could absorb its story, characters, setting, and themes. \n\nOther fantasy tales being more obscure but \"similarly good\" is solely in the eye of the beholder. I would say that if those books weren't as commercially successful, that many people did not think they were \"similarly good\". I base that only on book sales."
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341va4 | if our body stops producing melatonin when we're exposed to light, why do i get tired and take a nap on really sunny days? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/341va4/eli5_if_our_body_stops_producing_melatonin_when/ | {
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"It never \"stops\" melatonin production, it controls it. Your body constantly forms melatonin for a variety of reasons, not just based on light sensitivity. For example, you could be in a very bright room, but have gone without sleep for 48 hours. Part of your brain wants to lessen melatonin production because it's bright our, but your brain realizes it needs you to rest to repair muscle and overall function properly; as a result it will still pump out melatonin. There are of course are other reasons your brain may produce melatonin, but this is just an example. \n \nYou probably don't particularly get tired on sunny days, and a possible explanation is you might be more active on these days because of the abundance of daylight/warmth - as a result tiring yourself out more.",
"The timing of said nap is the key. During the afternoon, typically around 2 pm, humans have a natural drop in alertness, fondly referred to as the \"[post lunch dip](_URL_0_)\".\n\nBasically what this dip is, is a decrease in the alerting stimulus provided by the body's circadian rhythm. Melatonin is not being produced at this time due to the light inhibiting its production, but the body is reducing its overall drive to stay awake, and therefore most people experience a sleepy \"dip\" during the afternoon.\n\nIn summary, the body's circadian rhythm acts in direct opposition against the body's need for sleep. This sleep pressure builds from the moment we wake up until the moment we go to sleep at night. A natural \"dip\" in the body's circadian alerting response occurs in the afternoon, and it's perfectly natural to give in to the sleep pressure and take a nap."
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2h4xh8 | how did hackers break into target's credit card information system? | The scandal that happened about a year ago | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2h4xh8/eli5_how_did_hackers_break_into_targets_credit/ | {
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"They asked the hacker known as 4chan to use the password app to hack into the database of credit cards. "
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5pd7rt | why do cringing memories from the distant past remain so persistent? do we know what triggers them instead of other memories? | Was just reading in another sub about this, and it seems fairly common for memories of cringing moments of your past to float up to the forefront of your mind when you're trying to get to sleep. They can also trigger an avalanche of similar memories. Why is this? What could be triggering it? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5pd7rt/eli5_why_do_cringing_memories_from_the_distant/ | {
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"Your sense of self, and who you perceive yourself to be are extremely important psychologically. \n\nYou're probably familiar with cognitive dissonance - when you hold two conflicting ideas in your head. This is somewhat unpleasant.\n\nI'd suspect that it's your mind still trying to reconcile why you aren't a cringer, despite the fact that you have done a cringe-worthy thing. ",
"Not a psychologist so do not know the psyche perception of it, but when our brain obtains new information and stores it, the brain either decides to build more connections to it or to \"forget\" it all together. The whole process is much more complicated, but in simple terms it goes like this: If you are thinking about it more often or view it as more important, then the brain will go through and aborization (building connections) as it feels that you need that neuron more. This is not always the case as stress and things take a part in the process too (otherwise we would remember everything from school ha ha). Now as the neurons are building connections, triggers could form (meaning that a certain activity or sound or anything could cause you to remeber the information). These triggers are connections between neurons. So all in all, if you keep thinking about it , it will only strengthen or maintain the memory/connection."
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30bnmb | why does food in the usa taste so much sweeter than food in the uk? i've heard uk visitors describe even us loaf bread 'like cake'. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/30bnmb/eli5_why_does_food_in_the_usa_taste_so_much/ | {
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"Because we load up our food with a bunch of random shit.",
"Because they do put sugar in loaves of bread here. Its kinda ridiculous, i went to make a fuckin sandwich and my bread is sweet wtf",
"For bread, it's because people visiting from the UK are buying brands like Wonder Bread, which is sweet, there is also a reason the shelf life is much longer. If they went to a local bakery, or even a supermarket bakery, the bread is really good.",
"The US grows a lot of corn, so high fructose corn syrup makes its way into a lot of our foods, even savory ones."
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1k27ne | why don't colorized photos look like modern color photos? | Every colorized photo I've seen looks like it was painted. Is it even possible to achieve something that looks like a modern color photo? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1k27ne/eli5_why_dont_colorized_photos_look_like_modern/ | {
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"It is possible to make colorized photos look more realistic, but it takes a lot more time and effort.\n\nIn a lot of colorization attempts, the artist will simply apply a (semi-transparent) brush layer of a specified color over an entire object or area, ignoring the fact that the object/area in question may actually be comprised of many different shades or variations of that color (e.g. mixed with other colors) which are not properly conveyed in the colorized version of the image.\n\nFor example, an artist may select a single 'peach' color to paint-over an entire person's face. In reality, however, different parts of any given person's face may have a little more (or less) red than other parts of the face (for example) which would not be represented by using a uniformly consistent brush color across the entire face.\n\n",
"I just wanted to share this with you -- it's always stuck in my mind as the best colorized photo I'd ever come across. It's the top one titled \"Pilot\". _URL_0_"
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509uol | experimental simulation of closed timelike curves. | I found this article titled the "Experimental simulation of closed timelike curves" but I lack the background in physics to fully understand the article. Is it actually possible that scientists have found a way to send a single particle back in time?
EDIT: Article Link: _URL_0_ | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/509uol/eli5_experimental_simulation_of_closed_timelike/ | {
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"There are certain solutions in general relativity that allows for time travel. This has been known for a long time. Now, I think it's fair to say that most physicists don't think time travel is actually possible. \n\n\nThere's some serious problems with time travel. Most notably the grandfather paradox where you go back in time and kill your grandfather so you're never born, which means you don't go back in time and kill your grandfather, which means you are born, which means... yuck. Several people have offered solutions to this. Among these is a rather clever solution by David Deutsch(a curious, but brilliant man) that employs quantum mechanics to resolve the issue. Like schrodinger's cat that is dead and alive at the same time, you can both go back in time and kill your grandfather and *don't* go back in time and kill him. So you're both born and you're not born. These are known as deutschian CTCs. While that perhaps sounds even weirder than typical time travel, it does in fact seem to preserve causality (ie no nasty paradoxes). \n\n"
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36cpng | why does congress have the power to redraw their congressional districts? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/36cpng/eli5why_does_congress_have_the_power_to_redraw/ | {
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"Gerrymandering always occurs. [Due to the perceived issues associated with gerrymandering and its impact on competitive elections and democratic accountability, numerous countries have enacted reforms making the practice either more difficult or less effective. Countries such as the U.K., Australia, Canada and most of those in Europe have transferred responsibility for defining constituency boundaries to neutral or cross-party bodies.\nIn the United States, however, such reforms are controversial and frequently meet particularly strong opposition from groups that benefit from gerrymandering. In a more neutral system, they might lose considerable influence.](_URL_0_)\n\nTo defeat gerrymandering a bipartisan movement towards fairness would have to push for reform. Incumbents would have to vote for change. But they want to retain power and do not want a fair system.",
"Congress does not have that power. Congressional districts are drawn by the states, generally by the state legislature. "
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59kdhs | is there somewhere a land which doesn't belong to any country? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/59kdhs/eli5_is_there_somewhere_a_land_which_doesnt/ | {
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"Yes, there is a huge bit of land in Antarctica as described in [this CGP Grey video](_URL_0_) and a small part of Saharan Africa called \"Bir Tawil\" as described in [this WonderWhy video](_URL_1_). Cyprus also has a UN buffer zone that is not officially claimed, also described by that WonderWhy video."
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1xhs9n | this may sound stupid, but if oxygen's vital for our survival then why doesn't our body save up some of it in the body for "later use?" | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1xhs9n/eli5_this_may_sound_stupid_but_if_oxygens_vital/ | {
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"The body does save up oxygen for \"later use\" via hemoglobin in our circulation. It's just limited. If it wasn't, there would be many other complications from the altered consistency of our blood. ",
"From a biological perspective, there has never been a case where something like this would've benefited land creatures. Theoretically, if there were large pockets of the world without oxygen that people had to occasionally pass through I can see \"oxygen biding\" being an evolutionary trait... but AFAIK no such things exist. No one ever entered the water without expecting to come back up a few seconds later.",
"It does! Or, more properly, it tries to; it uses it rather quickly.\n\nIt's important to note that atoms of oxygen are used in all sorts of chemical compounds such as carbohydrates, proteins, and nucleic acids throughout your body, but the form you're talking about is elemental oxygen, O2.\n\nWhen we take in oxygen, it diffuses into the thin capillaries in the alveoli of the lungs and is taken up and carried by a protein in our red blood cells called [hemoglobin](_URL_2_). Hemoglobin is composed of four subunits, each of which carries one oxygen molecule. It is then swept along with the rest of the blood back into the heart and out to the rest of the body.\n\nAs the blood cells reach said rest of the body, the oxygen they carry is released and taken up by the cells of various tissues (at the same time, they transport CO2 out). These cells use oxygen primarily in [cellular respiration](_URL_0_), which is a bit of a complex topic, but to say simply the oxygen is ultimately used as an oxidizing agent; an electron receptor. Basically, it's used to help release the energy of sugars and other molecules into a form useable by the body.\n\nThe nifty thing is our cells contain another protein in the globin family, [myoglobin](_URL_1_), which is capable of storing oxygen once it reaches them from the blood stream. This protein is especially common in cells like muscle cells, where they might need a little extra on hand.\n\nOur metabolic rate actually requires a huge amount of oxygen; it's hard to give you a real sense of scale, but the reason we pass out if asphyxiated is because not enough oxygen reaches the brain to keep it running.\n\nAnimals that can hold their breath longer, such as whales, typically have an extraordinary amount of myoglobin in their cells. So, you may ask why *we* don't have as much? Because we generally don't need it! Thus, it's more efficient for us to simply breathe more often than to make a whole bunch of extra myoglobin just in case. Or, to say differently, that trait won't do much for our fitness in our environment.",
"Pure oxygen is also incredibly corrosive. It didn't exist until those pesky plants started polluting our CO2 atmosphere with it... "
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4k98no | how does medicine work with our body to relieve pain in different parts of our body? back ache-take an asprin. tooth ache-take the same asprin. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4k98no/eli5_how_does_medicine_work_with_our_body_to/ | {
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"Pretty sure painkillers just affect the whole body, there is no selective pain reduction. If you were experiencing pain in two spots on your body the same dose would affect both the same way it would pain in only one place. You don't take \"two aspirins\" for \"two pains\".",
"Well when you consider what is causing the pain it may make more sense. And the culprit is often times inflammation. So NSAID's, or Non-Steroidal-Anti-Inflammatory drugs like Asprin do just that, relieve inflammation. Whether it's in your tooth, ankle, or big toe, inflammation causes pain, and Asprin reduces inflammation. ",
"Pharmacist here. To ELI5 this: basically, there are enzymes which facilitate reactions (cause them to happen more rapidly and more often) which cause signals to be sent producing pain. The name of the enzyme medicines like Ibuprofen target is called cyclo-oxygenase, or COX for short. Meds like this are closely related to the chemicals in the body which actually activate this enzyme, and the med takes the place of the body chemical, but do not activate the enzyme, causing it not to activate. That's it on a molecular level, and that happens many, many times when you take medicine. This causes the pain signal not to be sent. This is an example using NSAIDS. There are many other types of pain medications, all having unique ways in which they stop pain (Tylenol, opioids).",
"Almost any medicine that you take orally or inhale and everything that you put in your veins goes everywhere your blood goes--except the brain (for most drugs). It doesn't matter if you inject Windex or milk or heroin, it goes through your entire circulatory system--minus the blood brain barrier.\n\nThe same applies to most pills: after your stomach breaks it down, your bloodstream absorbs it through the intestines. The digestive process can change a percentage of the chemicals sometimes, and dilute their effects, but they travel throughout the entire body nonetheless."
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6d91nm | basements? i see in a lot of us tv shows and movies people having basements. i have never seen a house with one in australia. do they add considerable expense to the building of a house? is it for hurricanes, tornadoes etc | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/6d91nm/eli5_basements_i_see_in_a_lot_of_us_tv_shows_and/ | {
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"Basements are simply subterranean living areas and are only present in certain locations depending on the water table. My last house had one and it added about $30k to the cost to build it as an unfinished area. While it is a secure area in the event of a tornado (many areas where hurricanes hit have water tables that might prevent building of a basement), the primary purposes are for additional storage or to add more living space to a house.",
"I live in Australia too and most of the people in Australia live on the east coast, between the mountains and the sea. Bits of land directly between the mountains and the sea often get a lot of rain and flash flooding, because clouds don't like going over mountains - they get too tired. So maybe it's because of the risk of flood. That's part of why [\"Queenslander\" houses] (_URL_0_) are on stilts.",
"Basements are very cheap on a per sq ft level compared to living space. At least where I live basements are standard. We do have some tornados, but very low chance. At least here, I don't think baseements are built for tornado protection, they are built as a cheap place for people to store their things, and a cheap way to get some extra space.\n\nOne thing to note, in a lot of the US, basements are not common, for instance in Florida. The water table is to high, and keeping a basement dry would be difficult. "
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3alpxl | why can't i comprehend what people say to me when there are other people talking in the background? | Basically when I'm talking to someone and another person started talking, I lose my concentration, and i completely can't understand what the person in front of me is saying, I can hear it, but I can't understand it, what is happening and what's causing it? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3alpxl/eli5_why_cant_i_comprehend_what_people_say_to_me/ | {
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"It's your brain trying to accept information from multiple sources simultaneously. Given that you say you can hear them fine, it seems as though the issue is your brain is attempting to listen to all sources of sound and comprehend all of the simultaneously, meaning that you only partially focus on each of them and so won't really take in what the person is saying",
"Mindfulness training may help. It's actually quite easy and seems fairly effective, you can look it up if you are interested.",
"Might be King-Kopetzky syndrome. Mine is terrible, if I'm in a crowded room, a dinner party or even an office floor and someone is trying to talk to me I have a very difficult time understanding them. I have to focus on the words individually to understand any of it. \n\nNot much I can do but try to avoid certain situations that would involve those scenarios. It's an auditory processing issue, then add that with some ADD and I'm super fun at parties. \n\n_URL_0_"
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ai5fyh | why doesn’t saliva make us vomit? | [deleted] | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/ai5fyh/eli5_why_doesnt_saliva_make_us_vomit/ | {
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"Saliva is something you are used to and doesn't really have a taste or much volume. When you get nauseated your body doesn't want more intake because it is less to throw up later. Also, it stems from protection from harmful substances not wanting to be ingested further. You are swallowing very small amounts of saliva with no taste, so no real trigger points to make you feel worse. "
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c9t5ts | why was there a countdown on old film movies? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/c9t5ts/eli5_why_was_there_a_countdown_on_old_film_movies/ | {
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"The film leader assists the projectionist in when to start the film and switch reels in longer films.",
"Older films were so massive in terms of how many images were projected per second that they had to split them up into several smaller parts. A 90 minute movie might be broken into four sections of film, all spun into that familiar snowflake looking thing with little bits of film trailing off of it that we see emblazoned on movie themed restaurants and various getaways.\n\nThat's a reel of film.\n\nYou'd take this portion of the movie, and you'd have two or three projectors to put it onto. You would have to play a constant game of piggy back with the reels, winding and rewinding them, placing them on the projector, in order to screen a movie. It was done by hand back in the day, and there would be subtle indicators of when it was time to switch to the next reel. \n\nWe call the smaller indicators \"cigarette burns\" due to their resemblance to when a hot end of a cigarette would burn itself into a piece of paper. Anyway, the projectionist knew to sync that shit up. \n\nHowever - - you had to sync it up to the other parts (reels) so that it made sense and seemlessly flowed like one big gigantic reel to the audience watching below you, the projectionist. When the time came to switch over to the next segment (the next reel), there would sometimes be a a helpful countdown with numbers and a spinny second hand like on a stopwatch.\n\nAs a projectionist, you would match the timing on the reel that was just about to be unwound to the fresh, unwound reel that would be all the next stuff coming up in the movie.\n\nSo, the people that made the print (the copy you're working from) would put in these little indicators of when it was time to switch over to the next reel, and they looked like what you're describing.\n\nIf you were in a movie theater fifty or sixty years or more ago and saw that countdown thing, it would mean that the projectionist sucked, but over time it has become an emblem of watching a manually projected film.\n\nThe countdown thingy gave the projectionist a chance to get the focus and intensity of the projection right before screening the final product.\n\nBut raw film would often include this countdown, so it's used nowadays as a stamp of pseudo authenticity."
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4bzo2o | musical notes? | I understand most musical notes. They're a specific tone like 440HZ is an A and 880HZ is an a just 1 octave higher. But why are they labeled in such a way that B and E don't have sharps?
A4 is 440hz
A#4/Bb4 is 466.16
B4 is 493.8
C is 523.25
Why does it go to C instead of B#/Cb because the difference in HZ is similar from a to a# and from a# to b, they're not exactly the same but close. and so is C. the whole step from b to c is a half step anywhere else... why??
| explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4bzo2o/eli5musical_notes/ | {
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"It's not to do with the frequency difference between 2 specific notes. Back in days of yore, before standardised music theory and notation, monks would sing in certain scales that they decided sounded good. One of the most popular was what we now call the C major scale:\n\n(C D E F G A B)\n\nNo sharps/flats.\n\nBut, as music progressed and evolved more scales were developed and more frequencies were used that were in-between some of the notes in the C major scale, hence they were given names that placed them between the existing notes.\n\n(C C# D D# E F F# G G# A A# B)\n\nSpecifically, E does not have a sharp because the frequency that would correspond to E# is represented by F.\n\nSorry, may have rambled a bit there.\n\n\n\ntl;dr Ultimately the note names are just a simpler way to categorise specific frequencies, and because notation evolved over time, the labels are not perfect.",
"I'm going to rephrase your question pretty dramatically, but bear with me here.\n\n**Why are their twelve semitones in an octave-** why is twelve the right number of intervals to divide the octave into? **And why do we use seven of those semitones in normal scales?** Why not six, or eight, or five? **And why do we only give seven letter names to them, and use sharps/flats to name the rest?** Why not just name all twelve notes A-L? Maybe A-M, so that we don't have an I/J problem?\n\n**Why twelve semitones?** Because a few of those semitones are important. Five half-steps up from 440hz is 587.33hz, almost exactly 4/3 the frequency. Seven half-steps is 659.3hz, almost exactly 3/2 (this isn't surprising, because it's just five half-steps in the other direction, give or take an octave). And four half-steps is 554.4hz, which is close to 5/4 the frequency (this one isn't as close as the first two). Those nice, clean ratios are basically synonymous with chords, and you don't get them- not the good ones, anyway- with any other division than into twelve.\n\n**Why use seven of them in a major scale?** (Some styles of music, do, in fact, use just five of them; those are called *pentatonic.* But it's still a fair question) Well, for an A scale, you've got to use A+0 (semitones), because it would be silly to have an A scale that didn't include the note A. And if you want to include the most important harmonics (which you do) you have to include A+5 and A-5 (which is the same as A+7). And you really ought to include A+4 and A-4 (ie, A+8), too. So you're definitely using at lease five notes: **0**, 1, 2, 3, **4**, **5**, 6, **7**, **8**, 9, 10, 11, **0**. But those long gaps at the ends are inelegant- why not include 2 and 10, so that every note-interval is either one or two steps, instead of one, two, or four? Besides, #10 is an important harmonic of #5 (and #2, of #7), so you'll probably want them for chords, too.\n\n**Why not just give every semitone its own letter?** Well, I have to admit, it would make sense to me if it were done that way, but that's because I'm not really a musician, and I think of the notes as things like A+4, and not C#. But the standard system has some nice properties. The most important of these is that every major and minor scale uses each letter once, with modifications that are either all flats or all sharps. And that jibes well with the staff notation that everybody uses (and bitter experience has taught me that convincing musicians to change this is a non-starter). Now, every line/gap is used by a note from the scale. To write out a major or minor scale, you just mark every possible staff location for eight notes, and indicate the appropriate sharps or flats for the key signature."
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21e7lf | in america, jewish people make up 2.1% of the population. why is there a far bigger percentage of jewish people in hollywood and on television? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/21e7lf/eli5_in_america_jewish_people_make_up_21_of_the/ | {
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"Before WW2 there were a lot of producers and directors in Germany, Hungary, etc making silent films. They came over here and continued to make films. When someone of a particular culture starts succeeding in a field they tend to hire people of that same culture, especially then.",
"It goes back to vaudeville and Yiddish theater in the 19th and 20th century. Jewish immigrants basically performed for their communities that were stuck in ghettos in NYC. When the film industry was emerging, producers needed actors, stagehands, etc. and Jewish theater companies were ripe for the picking. Couple that with the strong immigrant work ethic and you can see how within a few decades, Jews might have a foothold in the industry. From there, many worked their way up to studio owners, producers, and directors. Of course, nepotism, tradition, and a love for the arts have propelled new generations of people of Jewish heritage into movies and tv.",
"Well in the Hollywood and los angeles area, us Jews make up more than 2% of the population. ",
"In a word, \"nepotism\". The film industry was founded by Eastern European Jewish refugees, who have kept their organizations very closely held. The entertainment industry is highly unionized, and many of the craft trade positions (gaffers, makeup, carpenters, grips et al) are generational positions. So too are many actors, directors, production, and studio personnel.\n\nFair hiring practices aren't applicable to \"talent\"-- which means that brothers-in-law and marginally attractive actresses who are related to *Someone* are far more likely to find employment than your average off-the-street job applicant. \n\nThen there is the insularity of a shared culture and religion that values \"family\" over diversity. Navajos dominate the high-rise construction industry. Sushi chefs are still predominately Japanese. Firefighters are over-represented by the Anglo/Irish. It's the same with the entertainment industry. ",
"As a persecuted minority, Jews often had to take jobs considered undesirable by polite society. Believe it or not, entertainment used to be a very low prestige line of work. (So at one time was banking, another historically \"Jewish profession.\")\n\nWhat's that old saying? \"He who laughs last, laughs best.\"",
"It's not just Hollywood. Jews are over-represented in any arena they engage themselves in. That can be good or bad, depending on the arena.\n\nLook at the list of Nobel prize winners over the last century. Same disproportionate number of Jews winning and being nominated. That's one of the \"good\" cases."
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6eb5bw | how do major league sports sponsorships work for individual players? | I noticed in the last few games of the NBA Finals, players like Steph Curry are wearing brands they aren't sponsored by. For example, Curry is signed with Under Armour and has his signature shoe plus some apparel, but when he's warming up on the court he's wearing the Adidas sweater shirt without sleeves. Does his sponsorship only go for his shoes and he's allowed to wear other brands otherwise?
Also, is there a specific brand making the jerseys for pro teams or are they generic? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/6eb5bw/eli5_how_do_major_league_sports_sponsorships_work/ | {
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"Rules for sponsorships are governed by the Collective Bargaining Agreement(CBA) that is negotiated between the League and the Players Union. Every major sports League in the US has one of these things. Both the League itself, the specific franchise in question, and the individual athlete might have sponsorship deals, some of which may conflict with one another. The CBA deals with who is allowed to wear what and when they are allowed to wear it.",
"The rules for the NBA, as negotiated by the players union, is that players are allowed to warm up in any brand they like, but they must play in the brand that sponsors the NBA.\n\n > Also, is there a specific brand making the jerseys for pro teams or are they generic?\n\nNearly everything a player wears is going to be sponsored by someone, and the sponsorship deal usually includes the entire uniform. It is possible that things like knee brances or glasses might not have sponsors, or have different sponsors."
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24ndrk | why do polar bears not suffer from snow blindness? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/24ndrk/eli5_why_do_polar_bears_not_suffer_from_snow/ | {
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"Polar bears have a third eyelid, otherwise known as a nictitating membrane. It allows them to minimize the amount of UV radiation entering their eyes, and thus prevent snowblindness.\n\n**EDIT:** By the way, humans used to have a third eyelid as well. And there are vestigial remains of your third eyelid in the corner of your eyes, permanently folded toward the nose. It's called the plica semilunaris, and it's a pretty good example of a useful trait which, unfortunately, was selected out through evolution."
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3gduyf | where does the taste come from when juices say they only contain 5% of real fruit juice on the side in small print? | Drinking V8 mango peach and looked on back and it only has 5% juice... Is there any 100% juices out there on the market and why such a low Percentage common in juices? Is there a limit or something on how much can be preserved... i guess im just all around interested in any info on this. thanks guys and gals | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3gduyf/eli5_where_does_the_taste_come_from_when_juices/ | {
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"Take some fruit and get the juice out of them. Now you have 100% juice. Tastes great, but is very expensive to transport.\n\nNow remove water, until it only weighs 5%. Now it's much cheaper to transport.\n\nThen you add water again, the same amount you removed. Then you have 5% concentrated juice and 95% water.\n\nBut it's almost the same as the original, and most people don't notice the difference in taste.\n\nTLDR: It's 5% *concentrated* juice plus water so it's no longer concentrated."
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30t9rr | wtf is happening in the middle east with regard to the obama peace plan | I get hard left or hard right talking points all over the place but no clear-headed non-partisan information. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/30t9rr/eli5wtf_is_happening_in_the_middle_east_with/ | {
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"text": [
"Go outside the US for your news. I go to England's reporting - BBC, The Guardian, Telegraph - they give you a better view of what the world thinks of our politics. \n"
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3x6ko3 | why do we care so much about habitable planets that are several lightyears away when there is no feasible way to get there? | always struggled to grasp this concept when it seems hopeless to get any outcomes or information. is the hope that we (or rovers) may travel at light speed at some point? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3x6ko3/eli5_why_do_we_care_so_much_about_habitable/ | {
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"We're studying the universe around us, as we have done for practically all of human existence. We're so excited and focused on habitable planets because they're the most likely candidates to find signs of extraterrestrial life (as we know it). Just because you can't get to where you're studying doesn't mean you can't learn anything from it.",
"The hope is that we can eventually develop ways to reach them if it ever became necessary. And of course there is the possibility of life existing on these planets as well. ",
"One day...\n\nPS. You don't need to travel at light speed to make inter system travel feasible. When you start travelling at high speeds like .4c, you'll experience the effects of time dilation so what was actually say 100 earth years would be far less (lazy to do the math) on the spaceship. ",
"The earth has a finite lifespan and assuming the human race lasts long enough we will need somewhere else to go. Even if we don't plan to leave anytime soon there are plenty of ways to get people there; traveling at high fractions of the speed of light, putting crew into suspended animation, finding a way to create and safely travel through wormholes to cut the distance down.\n\nAnd the technologies that can come out of our attempts to do or understand something \"impossible\" will have plenty of applications right here at home.",
"It's not hard to go a few light years. You don't need to go faster than light, or even nearly that speed. You just need to be patient.\n\nThat being said, we could put off our astronomy until we're ready to build a generation ship. We're mostly just looking at the planets out of curiosity.",
"Why would we even develop the means to go there if there's no \"there\" to motivate us? Maybe it's a bit of a chicken/egg situation.",
"We do have *one* way.\n\nIt's called Project Orion. Or \"Old Boom-Boom\". Nuclear pulse propulsion.\n\nThe design is a pusher plate and a ton of nukes. You drop them behind you and ride the shockwave.\n\nPretty much the only way to go to another system with our technology",
"The slow way should be feasible, but requires patience and engineering skills that perhaps we don't have yet.\n\nThat said, as people start to live longer, our ability to consider multi-century projects might also improve.",
"Because it's there. Also, learning how rare or common 'Earth-like' planets are gives us insights into our own solar system. Also, because it's there.",
"A planet 14 light years away is actually a surprisingly doable goal. We would need to get ion drives working in a big way. We would need to invest hundreds of billions into it. But we could do it.",
"Assuming we could get life support down, even with our pathetic technology we could get to our closest neighbor in 30-80 years. There's nothing there, and it would take generations, but it could be done.\n\nNow then, if you find a place to colonize that can support human life, and if you find it close, even with our pathetic technology it is feasible that within one or two generations we will send expeditions there.",
"50 years ago it wasn't feasible to send a probe to another planet in our own solar system. It might take a very long time but you still have to look before you leap. While a human being could not currently survive a flight to one of these exo planets, a probe could. Energy wise we already have the delta V to exit the solar system and an isotope powered space probe could survive hundreds of years of travel through deep space. The payoff would likely exceed the lives of the people who launched the probe, but future generations would benefit. \n\nWe are looking for life on other planets and right now it is the single greatest question in human existence. Are we alone? We think no, but until we find the first undisputable proof of life on another planet; there are people who will doubt. \n\nAs a species, we need to leave Earth if we want to ensure our chances of survival. The chance of plague, war, meteor impact, etc are too high to put all of our humanity in one place. We need to colonize other worlds if we want to prevent something like nuclear war from wiping out our species. It is the single most imperative goal humanity should aspire to if we wish to survive. ",
"if we find an inhabitable planet there is a good chance it's also INHABITED, what life might be on this new world, could they be intelligent like us? maybe they have a means of communication...if so...could we make contact? right now we have a terrible sample size of planets with life on them to study....we have 1, being able to talk to another life form, even if it takes years to get a signal there and back would be amazing. and maybe some day we can make a generational ship, one that can make the trek to another world, who knows what we might discover there, what life might have evolved, what new medicine might we find. the idea is tantalizing. and it could answer one of our oldest questions \"are we alone in the universe\""
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1vdu3l | how the amount of energy used at the large hadron collider works | The LHC is designed to provide 14 TeV of energy. A TeV is approximately 1.6 x 10^-7 J, but there's 535 joules in your average slice of bread. Does this mean there's more energy in a slice of bread than there is being used at the Large Hadron Collider or am I completely misunderstanding this? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1vdu3l/eli5_how_the_amount_of_energy_used_at_the_large/ | {
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"The figure you cite (14 TeV) is the collision energy of *particles*. It's an enormous amount of kinetic energy to ascribe to a couple of particle sized pieces of mass.\n\nThe LHC itself uses a lot more energy to produce particles going at that velocity."
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3rp04n | how is milk made biochemically? do we understand it well enough and have the means to make it artificially (either cow or human milk)? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3rp04n/eli5_how_is_milk_made_biochemically_do_we/ | {
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"Milk is basically water that has proteins, sugar, fat and salt added to it. It is created by epithelial cells arranged in glands (called mammary glands). The glands then release it into the ducts. I'm sure we could make it artificially (and we do, as you can buy formula in the store for babies), however it is significantly cheaper to get it from cows. ",
"Milk production is fairly complicated. Some components are just chemicals excreted (water, salts, etc) but the fat and protein components are actually manufactured inside the gland's cells and budded off. There isn't really a non-biological way to make that stuff.\n\n[There's a company trying to make bioengineered artificial milk](_URL_0_) but they're not there yet. I think they use genetically modified yeast, like a lot of things (e.g. insulin): yeast is well understood and easy to grow.",
"Often times on Dairy farms, a milk replacer similar to baby formula is given to calves when milk supplies is short. The blunt of this strategy is that this replacer is more expensive usually because it has medications to prevent against common calf diseases such as scours. Milk is made by cows. And at this point in history, cows are fairly efficient at making milk. In 1950, the average dairy cow produced 5,300 lbs. of milk a year, today, the average cow will yield around 21,000 lbs. of milk a year. To actually produce the milk, lots of blood (500 gallons of blood for every gallon of milk) is pumped through the cow's udder. Inside the cow's udder are lots and lots of tiny alveoli that make the milk. These alveoli take all the necessary ingredients, sugars, water, building blocks of fats and protiens, and it creates milk. (Very simplified) The majority of that milk (87%) is water, while the rest is the added from the cow. As of now, artificially made milk that is close isn't very common. The closest we've gotten is things such as that milk replacer."
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7f1xbh | shaken not stirred | Can anyone explain why or what would be the difference between a shaken drink or a stirred one. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/7f1xbh/eli5_shaken_not_stirred/ | {
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"For drinks it's much more \"high class\" to have it stirred and not shaken as many think it dilutes the ice more if it's shaken... That's why it was always odd when James bond would say shaken on stirred... But honestly I've never tasted a difference between the two... It's just a weird thing like pinkies out and stuff like that ",
"When you shake it, the ice breaks a little, melting faster, watering down the martini.\n\nStirred could be seen as the more pretentious, upper class way of drinking it, and it could be part of James' desire to rebel against the posh world he finds himself in by having the more down to earth, \"rough and ready\" version of the drink.\n\nHowever, I do believe in the books he asks for it stirred, not shaken, but when making the first movie they decided it sounded better the other way around.",
"It's generally a Hollywoodism. Trying to show 007 has a certain level of refinement, that he can tell the difference.\n\nIn some drinks it can make a difference. Shaking a mixed drink in a Boston shaker can smash bits of ice and possibly end up in the final drink. This might slightly dilute the drink. In others, (I think for example absinthe) shaking it will make the final drink more cloudy than a stirred one."
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3azegp | if some stars we see are probably nonexistent because their light takes a while to reach us, will there be a moment in the future when we see a star exploding into a supernova? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3azegp/eli5_if_some_stars_we_see_are_probably/ | {
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"text": [
"Yes.\n\nAnd it's happened before. _URL_0_\n\nIt's important to note that not all stars will go supernova, too. ",
"Yep. There are plenty of stars in the sky that are going supernova right now (well, they did millions of years ago, but we can see it right now). However, all of these are very distant and can only be seen via telescopes. \n\nThe star [Betelguese](_URL_0_) is one that looks likely to go supernova one day in the not too distant future. When it does, it will likely shine bright enough to be visible in broad daylight for several weeks.",
"As others have noted, yes. One thing I do want to specify though, all of the stars you can see with the naked eye are part of the Milky way (although on a good night you may be able to make out andromeda as a milky patch), they're also relatively close to us, tens to thousands of light years, which means you're only seeing them as they were tens to thousands of years ago. On the time-scale of a star, this is *very* short, so most, if not all, of the stars you can see just by looking up at the sky are probably still around. It's more relevant when you bring telescopes into play, and can see much more distant ones. "
]
} | [] | [] | [
[
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_supernova_observation"
],
[
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Betelgeuse"
],
[]
] |
||
3rs03u | why do languages originating from north europe use the latin alphabet, despite not being part of the roman empire at any point? | I know why languages like English, French, Turkish etc use the Latin alphabet, but why do languages like German, Norwegian or Estonian etc use the Latin alphabet and not a unique alphabet or Cyrillic. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3rs03u/eli5why_do_languages_originating_from_north/ | {
"a_id": [
"cwqrmxi"
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"text": [
"Those countries weren't Romanized as part of the Empire but were as part of the Church. I assume that with the arrival of Roman Catholicism, which at that time was still using Latin in all masses, so too came the Roman alphabet. /r/askhistorians could probably give you a much better answer."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[]
] |
|
1unngv | why is fire so hypnotizing and satisfying to look at? | When next to a fireplace or a bonfire I always find myself staring deeply at it. It's so satisfying I could do it for hours. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1unngv/eli5_why_is_fire_so_hypnotizing_and_satisfying_to/ | {
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"Probably goes back to our prehistoric affinity for it where fire kept us warm in the cold, cooked our food, and kept animals away during the night.",
"What I really want to know, is why does this not hold true for the fire in an oven, or a lightier. Sure I could look at those for about a minute, but no where as long as a campfire or BBQ fire. ",
"It's almost certainly become part of our hardcoded 'knowledge', in the same way that being scared of snakes and spiders is. Without any further understanding of what you are seeing, you know that the shape and the movement of a dangerous predator is something to fear. Likewise, there are some things that will elicit a sense of satisfaction, fire being an obvious example. Opinions are scattered, but human relationship with fire likely dates to around 400,000 years ago, give or take 100,000 years or so (You know, a casual 100,000 years...). That's a long time to spend primarily spending your evening down time staring at fire.",
"The way fire moves is unpredictable. Others have mentioned that it is due to evolution, which is correct, but for a different reason than what I've read so far. We have developed a sense of \"arousal\" for things that are visually, physically, or auditorily unpredictable because they tend to be harmful more often than things that are predictable. A threat that is predictable can be defended upon, whereas an unpredictable pattern requires much more attention to defend oneself. It may sound strange but the reason that fire is so captivating is the same reason that horror movies use bizarre unmelodic (i.e. unpredictable) sounds to arouse you by increasing the release of adrenaline. \n\nSource: Environmental Psychology UC Davis",
"I read somewhere that the random patterned movement and associated sound is hypnotic, and that this carries over to this day when people can look at TVs, especially the black and white static without thinking, and it lets their brain switch off and rest. I'll see if I can find the article."
]
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[],
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2nquq9 | why haven't companies reimagined and innovated printers? they seem to be stuck in the 90's, sure maybe they're wireless, but couldn't they be more? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2nquq9/eli5_why_havent_companies_reimagined_and/ | {
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"cmg1jdq",
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"text": [
"There are a few reasons why. First, our current printing technology is hard to improve on. Mechanical devices are a pain to work with. Most consumer level robotics are terribly inconsistent - when iRobots are asked to move a foot forward, often they only move 11 inches or even move 13 inches! Modern day printers are really specialized pieces of equipment that rely on precise timing to function properly - and often they fail to do so because their functions require such delicacy.\n\nSecond, there is little incentive for printer manufacturers to improve the quality of their printers. In fact, printer manufacturers often sell printers at a loss! This is why printer ink and toner is so expensive - it has to be for companies to recoup their losses from selling the printer itself. This is also why printer companies often market their own ink and toner as \"the best\" for the printer - sometimes it is, sometimes it is so that they can make a profit.\n\nIt is unclear whether a factor is due to the movement away from paper to digital. According to [Statista](_URL_1_), the consumption of paper within since 2006 has stayed relatively the same, if not increased a hair. However, according to the [same website](_URL_0_), U.S. consumption of paper has actually gone down. I'm not sure what to conclude from this data; make what you will of it.",
"While traditional printing hasn't changed much, 3D printing is becoming a bigger market. \nAlso with the ever growing nature of the internet and the many ways to share documents, printing is not as much of a necessity as it was 10 years ago. "
]
} | [] | [] | [
[
"http://www.statista.com/statistics/252710/total-us-consumption-of-paper-and-board-since-2001/",
"http://www.statista.com/statistics/270319/consumption-of-paper-and-cardboard-since-2006/"
],
[]
] |
||
d9l80e | how does our body converts external stimuli (like sound, light, etc) in electrical impulses that goes to the brain? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/d9l80e/eli5_how_does_our_body_converts_external_stimuli/ | {
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"text": [
"Light: Photoreceptive neurons have pigments (cone cells have one of three colored pigments for color vision while rod cells have a more delicate pigment for any color of light at lower brightness) in them that decay when struck by a photon. When this happens, it releases an electron. This free electron starts a chain reaction within the cell that then causes the nerve cell to fire, causing a signal that propagates to the brain.\n\nSound: Hair cells (nerves with hair-like attachments) in the inner ear wiggle when hit by sound waves. This stretches the cell, causing it to fire a nerve impulse. Your outer and middle ears' shapes are designed to capture and amplify sound, while the shape of the cochlea in the inner ear is designed to filter sounds into their component frequencies so you can interpret the sound.\n\nTaste: Nerves in your tongue have proteins with a specific shape (like a lock). Certain chemicals bind to it (like a key), unlocking the protein. That triggers the same cascading reaction like in your eyes that ultimately signals your brain.\n\nSmell: Same as your nose, but redesigned for airborne chemicals and more varieties. \n\nBalance: Same as hearing, but the fluid in that part of your ear swirls with motion rather than vibrating for sound. You also have nerves in your muscles and joints that can detect the position of your muscles/limbs by the tension and forces applied to those cells.\n\nTouch: Nerves in different layers of your skin and different sensitivity settings react to different types of contact. All trigger a signal based on being stretched or squished.\n\nPain: Nerves that react to damage or irritant chemicals. Distinct from touch.\n\nTemperature: Internal chemical reactions happen when the cell gains or loses energy. Different cells for hot and cold. Mint and capsaicin modify the threshold they trigger at, causing your own body temperature to feel cold or hot, respectively.\n\nBlood CO2 (I.e. the burning in your lungs when you hold your breath): Measures blood acidity via chemical reactions. Carbon dioxide turns your blood into an acid, like acid rain.\n\nPathogens: Proteins in your blood react to invaders, causing a cascading chain reaction. You aren't aware of this, but your immune can pick up on this, including nerves in your gut.\n\nHunger: A hormonal reaction picked up by nerves in your stomach. It's a blood chemistry reaction you can feel.\n\nTime: Your brain has circuits within itself that keep track of time, like a clock. This is reset by food and visual inputs (and why you can treat jet lag by eating at meal-times by the local time)."
]
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[]
] |
||
6piaqg | how does a "harmonic sound" work, and why is it only on certain frets? | I've been playing around with harmonics for a while now and after I tuned my whole guitar one half-step down, I noticed that the harmonic points (is that what you even call it) remained on the same frets, 5, 7 and 12. So that's when I started to wonder why those frets are the best for harmonics and why they stay the same, independent of the tuning. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/6piaqg/eli5_how_does_a_harmonic_sound_work_and_why_is_it/ | {
"a_id": [
"dkpiks3"
],
"score": [
3
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"text": [
"Harmonics involve the ratios between the notes that you play. For example if the ratio between the wavelength of your notes is 1:2, 3:2 or 4:3, it will sound good together. The Ratio of 1:2 is the note and it's octave, which is 12 semitones higher. The perfect fifth (3:2) is separated by 7 semitones. The perfect fourth (4:3) is separated by 5 semitones.\n\nRegardless of what note you begin with, the ratios are all that matters for harmony."
]
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[]
] |
|
agx9rs | why are south americans not « white »? | So I don’t really know how to phrase that, but both South America and North America were colonized by Europeans. Spanish people are generally as white as people from other places in Europe so how come their colonies in South America made a new ethnicity?
Edit: to clarify where that question comes from, I’m from Europe, and when I watch Americans series it strikes me how white people always refer to South Americans as « Latinos » when both parts of America has been colonized similarly by white Europeans. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/agx9rs/eli5_why_are_south_americans_not_white/ | {
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"They were colonized but the settlers didn't take over unoccupied territory. The Inca and Maya people's had major civilizations beforehand for example and they form a large portion of the current population's inheritance. The Spanish used native labour to get gold and silver but there wasn't a major influx of settlers looking for land like there was in the north. Other than those that died due to new diseases, there wasn't significant deliberate depopulation.",
"South American natives were more numerous and had better survival rates than native peoples in most of North America after being decimated by European diseases. Also, the Spanish and Portuguese enslaved them - which often involves rape and mixed children - while the English and French were more apt to simply push tribes out and take their land.\n\nNorth America is also just closer to Europe than South America is, so waves of emigration tended to focus on it. And the climates of the Northeast coast are more familiar to Europeans than the tropical climates they tended to encounter in the major cities of South America, so that was attractive. \n\nBoth of which are also some of the same reasons why the Northern United States ended up with higher populations than the South in the 19th century - it's closer, and the climate is more familiar.",
"Because “White” is, and always has been, a designator to identify who is in and who is out. It has arbitrary and inconsistent boundaries that, past and present, have a strong connection to linguistic and religious identification.\n\nIn Europe a LOT of Hispanic folks would be considered “white” who wouldn’t be considered so in the US, even many of those who self identify as “white”. A big part of this is that in the US there has been a very long-standing and deliberate effort by certain groups to tie “Hispanic” to “not-White”. The same likely applies to Brazilians too, albeit as a nationality they’re not often in the sights of the sorts of groups that push this agenda.\n\nAnother example are folks of middle eastern ancestry - the US formally identifies most Arabs as “White”, and many self identify as such too - Joe Public sure as fuck doesn’t. But thought exercise - imagine a Syrian child was adopted as a baby by a family of Italia American descent - that kid would almost certainly be readily accepted as “white”, similarly if the same were done for many Hispanic kids in the Americas. What exactly changed about that kid?\n\nI don’t want to only single out the US here - a lot of places in the Europe have some pretty fucking special ideas about race too.",
"Basically cause even we had horrible press, the spaniards where probably the only colonist nation that didn't systematically slaughtered the natives.\n\n\nYes, we killed a lot, yes in some places some Spaniards enslaved them, but this was illegal. By law. Unline any other power the spaniards thought natives where 'human beings' and they weren't heretics, they didn't had to be removed or enslaved but thought in the 'christian ways'.\n\nThere was major punishments for those who did, and yes sometimes they enslaved them by making them work for a joke payment, but the government tried to avoid this. We also mixed a lot with them since we treated them as human being and didn't had laws against it.\n\nSo nowdays latin american people are basically a mix between spaniards and natives. They are 'whiter'. In some places like Peru and Bolivia the mixing wasn't that big and the people there look way more like the original natives."
]
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|
ah6asx | how do non-liquid millionaires pay for things | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/ah6asx/eli5how_do_nonliquid_millionaires_pay_for_things/ | {
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"text": [
"buying stocks is basically buying a portion of the company's profit, so once a year the total profit that the company made is distributed to the people who bought the stocks instead of going to the workers. "
]
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[]
] |
||
103npt | hivemind | You know, the whole Hivemind/bandwagon effect where everyone just kind of goes with something for no apparent reason. Why do we do this? What causes this to happen? How would one cause something like this to happen? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/103npt/eli5_hivemind/ | {
"a_id": [
"c6a5nzw"
],
"score": [
2
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"text": [
"Psychology, more or less. And people tend to agree with others. And most people only read the top comments, so they get an excessive amount of upvotes compared to the others."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[]
] |
|
b5y06v | what are "germs"? when a dirty kitchen has "harmful germs," which specific bacteria or viruses are present? | People always say that having a clean house or bathroom is important, but being "too clean" can promote allergies, and having pets in a house makes it "dirtier," but is associated with better health and longer lives. So which specific bacteria/viruses are the bad ones? Are there hundreds of baddies, or just a few that we have to look out for? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/b5y06v/eli5_what_are_germs_when_a_dirty_kitchen_has/ | {
"a_id": [
"ejgs7br"
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"text": [
"\"Germs\" in common use can mean a virus or bacteria.\n\nBactria make up the bulk of biomass on the Earth. In fact, most of the DNA in your body isn't \"you\". When it comes down to it we're nothing more than very successful hosts for a whole range of bacteria that live in our digestive system.\n\n\"Harmful germs\" can be any bacteria or virus that makes us unwell.\n\nArguably the most common would be [E. coli](_URL_1_), [salmonella](_URL_0_) and [Listeria Monocytogenes](_URL_2_)\n\n[There is some research suggesting that keeping our houses \"too clean\" means that children don't build up the immunities we did in years gone by.](_URL_3_). This is most important for infants.\n\nThere is also an argument that since health care has improved, what would have been fatal 100 or so years ago is no longer fatal, meaning that there are more people with severe allergies that survive until adulthood."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salmonella",
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Escherichia_coli",
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Listeria_monocytogenes",
"https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/06/100614171907.htm"
]
] |
|
aidaxz | why is shuffling a youtube playlist not actually random? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/aidaxz/eli5why_is_shuffling_a_youtube_playlist_not/ | {
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"text": [
"It is actually random. \n \nYou can get recurring entries in a random sequence. iTunes was actually faced with the same question as you are asking. People complained that the shuffle function didn't \"feel\" random, as listeners would get the same songs played to them or a sequence of three chronological songs would play, breaking the impression of true randomness. \n \nTo \"repair\" this, iTunes created a pseudo-random sequence that, instead of playing songs randomly, would create the illusion of complete randomness by inserting algorithmic constraints on what songs would be played at what times. \n \nThere have also been experiments demonstrating that people are generally very poor at understanding how randomness works, such as where participants are tasked with producing dice roll sequences that would appear to be random, but produce much more predictable sequences than what a random generator would produce. In these experiments, participants would, for example, avoid sequences such as *6-6-5-5-6-6*, because it \"feels\" less random than *6-1-2-5-6-3*. \n \n**tl;dr:** It is actually random."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[]
] |
||
4ewdja | when do we observe red shift? | Let's say you're on a spaceship moving towards a red shifting Galaxy (observed from Earth). The spaceship is approaching the galaxy faster than the galaxy is moving away from the ship. Would an observer on the spaceship not be able to see any signs that the galaxy is red shifting away from the Earth? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4ewdja/eli5_when_do_we_observe_red_shift/ | {
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"text": [
"RobusEtCaleritas is right. You can imagine it this way: \n\nImagine you're standing in the ocean at the beach, a short distance from the shore. Waves move toward you at a constant pace. Let's say you are hit by one swell every 10 seconds. If you start running towards the shore, you will be hit by less and less waves, maybe once every 20 seconds. The frequency of waves has decreased (redshift). If you run back out to the ocean, the frequency that you are hit by a wave will increase. Maybe once every 5 seconds. This is blueshift."
]
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[]
] |
|
8nd9uq | how did pre-clothing female humans thousands of years ago do anything remotely physical without breast support? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/8nd9uq/eli5_how_did_preclothing_female_humans_thousands/ | {
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"A major aspect of this is that breasts are fatty tissue, and humans living outside modern affluent society are much less likely to have a high percentage of body fat. Obviously there are some thin people who happen to have large breasts, but that's fairly rare. (And running probably sucked for those people.) \n\nThe modern brassiere actually wasn't invented until the turn of the 20th century. There is some evidence of early proto-bra forms of breast support, but all in all it seems like this is just something people by and large did without until the last century or so. \n\nA major aspect of all of it is aesthetics. Supportive bras mainly exist to create a certain shape in clothing. The jog bra wasn't even invented until the 1980s. ",
"I imagine they didn't, judging by a few docco's I've seen on current primitive tribes I think if running was necessary the guys just did it."
]
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[],
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||
egrbm4 | why is the year counted from the birth of jesus all over the world, even by non-christians etc? how has that come to be? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/egrbm4/eli5_why_is_the_year_counted_from_the_birth_of/ | {
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"text": [
"Is Jesus' bday on 1 January? (Honest question)",
"The people who used that calendar colonized or otherwise exerted political influence over many other places. Then just for convenience, it stayed that way and spread to everyone else.\n\nMany places do still use their own traditional calendars internally, however.",
"Starting in the 1400s, Europe colonized the Americas, as well as places like Australia and New Zealand. These places would then clearly continue using the dating system as they were still Christian and European.\n\nStarting in the 1700s, Europe conquered and imperialized much of the rest of the world. European systems, economic, social, military, religious became the lingua franca globally. Due to a vast majority of the world having been controlled by European governments running on the Jesus-system, it became the norm for most people to use.",
"A guy named Constantine. He was an emperor of Rome. They set many of the rules we still go by. When he converted to christianity he coopted several tenants of christianity into the existing tenants of Roman society. This included what they thought was jesus's birth year, not his birthday. Saturnalia was the end of a year for them.",
"Around 2020 years ago, Jesus was born (although the actual date of this is thought to lie anywhere between 6 BC and 1 AD, since historical accuracy can be difficult when it comes to dates). At this time, he would probably have been using the Roman calendar, which measures years starting from the founding of Rome. Assuming he was actually born in 1 AD, this would have been the year 754 according to the Roman calendar. \n\nAfter the collapse of the Roman empire, many regions stopped counting years by the founding of Rome, and started counting years by the current ruling leader of the region. Even the person who created the AD system counted years by the reign of the ruling consul of scythia at the time. Meanwhile, the Byzantine Empire was using a system created by Emperor Diocletian, which was an unpopular system in western europle because Diocletian persecuted Christians. The monk who created the AD system wanted to create a new Easter Table (a way of calculating when Easter should be celebrated each year) that would not \"remember\" Diocletian. In this, he declared that Jesus was born 525 years prior to the year it was made in. This system was largely ignored.\n\nThen, 206 years after that (in what is now known as 731 AD), a monk in England named Bede wrote a book entitled \"The Ecclesiastical History of the English People\". At the time, in England, dates were counted by ruler, which was a somewhat inconvenient system since different regions would have different years, depending on when their current ruler was crowned. Bede chose to wrote his book using Dionysius' AD system.\n\nThe use of AD in this book inspired the Carolingian Renaissance, and the Carolingian Empire became the first nation to formally use the AD system, under Charlemagne, in the 8th and 9th centuries. AD continued to gain popularity in catholic countries up to the 14th century, and in 1422 Portugal was the last western european nation to take up the system. Eastern european countries would continue to use the Byzantine calendar up until the 1900s, and only started changing to AD when Russia did in 1700. \n\nThe reason the system became commonly used all over the world is really quite simple: At various points in time, most of the rest of the world has been owned by various European countries, and adopted the same dating system because that's how empires do things. Those countries that didn't pick up the system as a part of a European empire ended up doing so because they were joining a global market that already used the system, and in the long term it's far easier just to use the system everyone's using. \n\nAlthough it's worth noting that a lot of countries do still retain their own native dating systems and use those at the same time as the AD system - often for ceremonial and formal purposes."
]
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2lk5s8 | how do military tank members relieve themselves in combat? | How do military tank members relieve themselves in combat if it is unsafe to leave the tank? There's been talk about integrating women into tank units as well as infantry, will this have any impact on current standard procedures? [yes yes the is about how soldiers pee and poop in a tank, no I could not find information elsewhere on the internet] | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2lk5s8/eli5_how_do_military_tank_members_relieve/ | {
"a_id": [
"clvjna9",
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"score": [
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"text": [
"I've known some that just... go. Others when the flight or fight response kicks in say they simply dont feel the need to go anymore.",
"Piss on the next unloaded round so you can add insult to injury."
]
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[],
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|
60ho41 | the byford dolphin explosive decompression accident. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/60ho41/eli5_the_byford_dolphin_explosive_decompression/ | {
"a_id": [
"df6i0vb"
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"score": [
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"text": [
"There is a practice called saturation diving where commercial divers working at great depth, usually on oil drilling installations, stay at the pressure of their seafloor work site for weeks at a time since decompressing safely from those depths takes > 12 hours, which would be hugely inefficient if you had to do it to come back from work every day. The way they do this is by living in a system of pressurized chambers in the hull of a ship anchored above the work site and \"commuting\" to work in a diving bell, essentially a pressurized chamber that detaches from the ship and opens up at the work site, where its pressure matches that of the surrounding water.\n\nThe Byford Dolphin accident happened when saturation divers working at 9 atm of pressure (so the work site on the seafloor, the diving bell, and the pressurized living chambers on the ship were all at 9 atm) were returning in the diving bell from the work site to the pressurized chambers in the ship after a day of work. To go from the diving bell to the ship, the hatches of the diving bell and pressurized ship chamber were lined up and clamped together by two shallow divers working on the outside. The hatches were then opened, connecting the diving bell to the chambers on the ship and allowing the divers to pass through.\n\nTo detach the bell, the hatches between the diving bell and the chambers would first be closed and sealed, and the shallow divers on the outside would then release the clamps and separate the diving bell. During the accident, however, one of the shallow divers released his clamps while the hatches were still open. This broke the connection between the bell and the chambers, effectively turning the chamber hatch where the bell used to be connected into a giant pressure-relief valve. The 9 atm air inside the chamber exploded out of the hatch, instantly depressurizing to 1 atm. This rapid decompression immediately killed all four divers inside the chamber. One diver was exiting the diving bell when this occurred and was therefore located just inside the hatch, where the pressure gradient was extremely high. That is, for a fraction of a second, his lower body might have been at ~1 atm while his upper body was at ~9 atm. The escaping air also sucked him out of the inward-opening hatch, which was itself being sucked shut and slammed closed on him as he was halfway through. This caused him to simultaneously tear in two from being sucked out while trapped in the hatch and explode violently from decompression. This reportedly launched some bits of him as far as 30 ft away, which is the gory detail that makes this story famous. The diver that released the clamps was killed by the force of the air exploding out of the hatch (not decompression, since he was outside the pressurized system), so no one knows why he did it. He was probably just confused and thought the hatches had been closed.\n\nI realize this is very long, and perhaps not explained as concisely as it could be. Do ask if you have any questions!"
]
} | [] | [] | [
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||
5trqq1 | cars - do you require more steering input to get the same turning circle at higher speeds? | *providing traction between tyre and tarmac is not broken.
Long ongoing debate between friends.
Friend A says: If I'm cruising along the motorway at 70 and I approach a bend, I turn my wheel let's say 10deg to make the bend.
If I approach at 90 and turn the wheel the same 10deg the car will travel along the same line as it did when going 70 (so long as traction is not broken).
Friend B says: The car will not travel along the exact same line. Travelling at 90 will require MORE turning circle to stay on the same line as when travelling at 70.
Please help | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5trqq1/eli5_cars_do_you_require_more_steering_input_to/ | {
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"You both are kind of right.\n\nAs the question is phrased, your friend is mostly right, the cars will travel along most the same line...**if traction between tyre and tarmac is not broken**.\n\nBut, it will require more force to maintain that 10^o angle, and that extra force will make more likely you will not maintain traction. "
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390of2 | why can i focus and concentrate so much better when it's late at night? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/390of2/eli5_why_can_i_focus_and_concentrate_so_much/ | {
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"Serotonin levels? I am full of creativity and energy when it's time to go to bed and feel like ten pounds of shit in a five pound bag when I first wake up.",
"I think it's partly stress reduction. During the day, it's easy to feel that there are expectations on you that's you'll be working and achieving things and all that. At night, you're relieved of those expectations and can work at your own pace in your own way, relieved of the stress of trying to do \"what you should be doing\". ",
"I am most prouctive at night. I actually slept at the daytime and worked at night time when I was writing my MSc dissertation. Noone bothers you at night. No noise. No calls. Nothing, just you and the books."
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5ddxvj | how chemicals such as those used by exterminators can be classified as 'safe for humans' if they aren't tested on humans? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5ddxvj/eli5_how_chemicals_such_as_those_used_by/ | {
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"It would be unethical to test chemicals on humans for the purpose of determining if they're harmful. What if you accidentally make something highly poisonous and make a bunch of people sick? Also, who would volunteer to get potentially toxic substances tested on them?\n\nSo instead we test things on animals. Something that's safe in rats and monkeys is likely to also be safe in humans. ",
"A large purpose of the field of toxicology is to answer this exact question: how can we determine that something is safe for humans without testing it on them?\n\nThe short answer is we test it on one or more animals that we know respond to similar chemicals in similar ways than humans. For example, we historically have found that chemicals that negatively impact human reproductive health (ability to have children, specifically) also affect rats in a similar way. As such, we can test it on rats to make sure its safe for reproduction. We have a list of animals like that for various bodily systems, so by testing on all ones we think are relevant, we can then *reasonably* determine that it's safe for humans. It's not flawless, of course; every now and then we'll find something we thought was safe turned out to have a unique effect on people, or certain types of people (a particular ethinicity, gender, age, etc). ",
"'safe' is a relative term. any substance, in substantial large enough quantities, [doses](_URL_0_) or concentrations is lethal.\n\nsimple example: the LD50 of *water* is 90g/kg. so there is such a thing as drinking too much water."
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dcyin7 | why are desktop pc components still so large? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/dcyin7/eli5_why_are_desktop_pc_components_still_so_large/ | {
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"To use your specific example, the mobile and desktop versions of PUBG (and most other games) are not the same. Even if they run at the same resolution and framerate, and feature the same gameplay, the desktop version can use models with a higher polygon count, higher resolution textures, and more complex post-processing effects.\n\nThe desktop version of the game requires more power because it is a more demanding application. Many but not all desktop applications, especially modern games and software for professional purposes, are more complex than mobile equivalents, and require more power as a result."
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1apgva | what does it feel like to have cancer? | Followup: What does Chemo feel like? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1apgva/eli5_what_does_it_feel_like_to_have_cancer/ | {
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"currently doing chemo. unless you have cancer in your eye or something, you dont feel it. there are effects, like my tumor is on my optic chiasm so i have slightly decreased vision. you also dont feel the chemo unless its cold or something. my chemo is temodar, which is a pill, which is super easy to take. there are vitamins that are bigger. its the size of a tylenol. the side effects however, you do feel. the first night i took i didnt take my antinausea meds or my pot or my ginger ale and i woke up at 330 in the morning and puked for a an hour. toward the end it was very bloody. the fatigue is gnarly. my chemo drug doesnt create hair loss, but if it did so what. losing your hair is the best part of chemo. gives you a cool story"
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1uymia | lawyers of reddit: does the affordable care act mandate insurance coverage? what about 42 usc 18115? | [42 USC 18115:](_URL_0_)
"No individual, company, business, nonprofit entity, or health insurance issuer offering group or individual health insurance coverage shall be required to participate in any Federal health insurance program created under this Act (or any amendments made by this Act), or in any Federal health insurance program expanded by this Act (or any such amendments), and there shall be no penalty or fine imposed upon any such issuer for choosing not to participate in such programs." | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1uymia/eli5lawyers_of_reddit_does_the_affordable_care/ | {
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"Well, the way it's worded, this *sounds* like it's talking about organizations/entities who provide insurance to others. It isn't saying that no one is required to participate in the ACA -- that would be ridiculous to include a caveat in a new law which allows basically anyone who wants to to ignore the law. No, this is saying that should the federal government establish a federal insurance program (which, I think, the ACA is not), no insurance companies, essentially, will be required to participate in that program. \n\nEdit: The big reason why I don't think this is talking about individual people and their need to participate in the program is because it keep using the word \"issuer.\" This passage is talking about people who provide insurance -- not people or organization who are getting insurance provided to them."
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2l6z5m | no shave november / movember - where did it come from? what's the point? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2l6z5m/eli5_no_shave_november_movember_where_did_it_come/ | {
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"Most of these \"No Shave\" things are promotions intended to raise awareness and money for men's health issues - things like prostate and testicular cancer.\n\nIt's like the ALS Ice Bucket thing - it's just a viral way to spread the message. People see their bearded friends in person, on social media, whatever, and ask about it. Then some of them donate. "
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3rky0y | why is the currency euros unstable? | [deleted] | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3rky0y/eli5why_is_the_currency_euros_unstable/ | {
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"Euros are a stable currency, it's at a relative low to teh past 5 years, but it's traded in a +/- 20% bnd that whole time."
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zret6 | how does epigenetics work? how much can
your actions change the genes you pass on, and in
what way? | What's it all about? How much can your actions change the genes you pass on, and in what way? Can I use this to influence physical and/or mental capability of my offspring?
EDIT. For clarity. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/zret6/eli5_how_does_epigenetics_work_how_much_can_your/ | {
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"Your genes are made of DNA. We think of DNA as a pretty static molecule, that never changes or varies once we've inherited it. As it would turn out, there are lots of chemical processes that can happen to the DNA (such as chemicals sticking to it and whatnot). These can happen at any moment in our lives and might have to do with our lifestyle. For example, having a high blood-sugar all your life might sway theses \"DNA tweaks\" a certain way. These changes are different for each cell, and can also happen in the copies of DNA that get passed on as we're discovering that it seems that sometimes these \"DNA tweaks\" can get passed on too! This means that we might be passing on effects of a certain lifestyle genetically to our kids. With their DNA pre-tweaked a certain way. It's hard to know how big the effect will be and in what way because we're still trying to understand the exact nature of these tweaks and there's also the nature vs nurture debate where we wonder if they'll have that much of an effect anyways."
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27u0zy | how does ipv6 ip addresses work? | IPv4 is fairly easy to understand. Whenever I read anything describing IPv6, my eyes glaze over.
I've read the typical end user lan has roughly 2x10^19 available IP addresses - is this true? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/27u0zy/eli5_how_does_ipv6_ip_addresses_work/ | {
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"IPv4 is a 32 bit address. IPv6 is 128 bits. IPV4 is noted in a format called the dotted quad, made of 4 decimal numbers separated by a period. IPv6 is 8 groups of 4 hexadecimal numbers. There any many ways to express IPv6 which may be at the source of your confusion. But ultimately they are both just a set of bits. \n\nEDIT: Corrected typing mistake",
"mostly, it doesn't. that's why it's taking forever to deploy\n\nbut other than that, it's the same thing as ipv4. the human representation is different, and the addressing has a few other quirks, but for the most part it work just the same as ipv4. there's a \"network\" part and a \"host\" part and you slice and dice the network part to make subnetworks. \n\nthe guidelines (i believe, i haven't read them in a while) call for end user networks to get a full /64 subnetwork. that means 64 of the 128 bits are used to reach your network. then you subdivide the remaining 64 bits (64+64 = 128) within your network. that means, in theory, 2^64 availables ip addresses for your network \n\nif you're using the recommended configuration, you need 48 of those bits for the actual computers (the last 48 bits are typically the computer's mac address), leaving you with 16 bits (2^16) for different subnetworks, each of which can have 2^48 hosts on it\n\n",
"To add on to this instead of starting a new thread. Does using ipv6 increase speed. I have a friend that says it would help with gaming. I'm unsure of the details though. "
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cq8ndx | why are ancient greek so important that we have to study them at school? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/cq8ndx/eli5_why_are_ancient_greek_so_important_that_we/ | {
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"They advanced a lot of fields in ways we still use. Mathmatics, philosophy, language, aspects of our government. A lot of what we do today is rooted in how the Greeks did things.",
"Much of the world is dominated by cultures descended from Europe. For much of European culture, the oldest known examples of a particular philosophy, art, or scientific understanding came from Greece. In particular, the Roman empire had a preference for Greek culture, and spread it across the known world at the time.",
"It's like if you want to know where anything comes from, you go back to the beginning. Classical Greece is (over simplifying it) that begining, like a recipe that everyone since has been using different ways. \n\nLess simply, they're the earliest cultural inheritance this part of the world has. Greek philosophy and politics were revolutionary at the time, and spread thanks to Alexander (the great one), which lead to Rome doing the same. Every western nation is built on that cultural heritage, since it spread so far. \n\nThere were other major influences on the makeup of modern culture, but Greece is kinda the earliest we have ready access to. The Minoans are mostly a mystery, as are the pre-celtic people, even a lot of the Norse culture is kinda lost to time. We're tracing trends back through time and Greece is the oldest we can illustrate that heritage in."
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6otte3 | antifa | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/6otte3/eli5_antifa/ | {
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"Extreme left wing political group.\n\nTends to be full of Anarchists and/or Communists.\n\nUses violence and intimidation to further their political goals.\n\nResponsible for riots and firebombing cars, especially during the G20 summit in Hamburg, as well as attacking right wing reporters.\n\nNew Jersey has them listed as a Domestic Terrorist group.",
"_URL_0_\n\nIn the *most* simple terms, it just means \"anti-fascist\".",
"Most of these posts are lacking impartiality. As an anarchist, I won't pretend to be impartial here. But even New Jersey's Homeland Security [write-up](_URL_0_) is more generous than these comments.\n\nAntifa is strictly defined as a decentralized collective under which people (often socialists, anarchists, communists, etc) fight fascism and racism. It began around the rise of fascism in Italy and has [history](_URL_1_) in much of the Western world around the time fascism became a potent political force.\n\nNowadays, they mostly just fight or disrupt the alt-right, neo-Nazis, the KKK, neo-fascists, and the like. They certainly do not advocate indiscriminate violence against white people, but there have been some campaigns to discredit Antifa by posing as them online or in flyers and saying absurd stuff."
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"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-fascism"
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27aha2 | if everyone is so against racism, why do we label races, offer benefits and scholarships to certain minorities, and expect certain ethnic groups to like certain politicians just because of their ethnicities? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/27aha2/eli5_if_everyone_is_so_against_racism_why_do_we/ | {
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"In many ways, minorities are still at a disadvantage in the United States. The idea that racism would no longer be an issue if we stopped talking about it sounds good, but it relies on everyone not being racist/prejudiced, which is simply not the case. The programs you speak of are imperfect ways of dealing with the fact that there is absolutely no way to put everyone on even ground. ",
"It's part of an effort to bring everyone to the same level, and it's not just benefits to certain ethnic groups, for example there are special benefit programs for women who want to study science in an effort to bring gender equality to the scientific community. ",
"Because if we accept the premises that race exists and that racism exists, then we (as a government) have two basic options. One, we all just agree not to be racist anymore and hope the problem goes away. Two, we turn to cold, hard numbers in an attempt at impartiality, and try to mitigate the damage as fairly as possible. \n\nBut yeah, I don't understand the 'racial bloc' concept of voting, either. ",
"For the politician thing: Those expectations are based off of voting patterns. For example, because a statistic that the campaign says that the majority of Asian and Hispanic voters sided with the Democratic candidate last time around then it can be expected that they will side with that party again, if there aren't any major changes in party platforms or an issue with the candidate. (My buddy worked for a Senator's campaign and this was essentially how he explained it)\n\nTL;DR: It's not racism, it's just inference based off of past facts.",
"Labelling: It's not racist to describe/label a person, or community as \"black\" or \"Chinese-American\", just as it's not sexist to describe someone as a man or a woman. The issue is often that certain words (e.g. \"Nigger\") have so much history that they bring implications when you try to use them as labels, or that people feel that they would rather be seen for who they are rather than series of labels.\n\nExpecting black people to like black politicians is a (very simple) example of using demographics. \nDemographics means trying to predict how groups of people with certain characteristics (Puerto Ricans, middle-class African-Americans, blue collar workers aged 18-25) will act, based on past evidence. It's not racist to assume that black people will vote for a black politician *if there's evidence to back that up*. It is racist to assume that Jewish poeple will vote for tax cuts because \"that's just what they're like\".\n\n\nGiving benefits and scholarships (affirmative action) is much more complicated. My understanding is that it's trying to redress an imbalance, and in a perfect world it wouldn't be necessary. You could argue that it's racist, or that it's just realistic. It's not a black and white issue (no pun intended...)",
"Everyone is so against racism? What country do you live in?",
"because not everyone is against racism.",
"because there are actually differences between races (though even these are just on average) that needs to be acknowledged. the problems come when you start making value judgements about the differences, or try to prevent people who are not average and don't fit the stereotypes, from doing something because you assume they do. or start treating some people badly based on that distinction. \n\nthe scholarships and affirmative action are attepts to compensate for the disadvantages of often hard to quantify racism these people experience, and it's still out for debate whether it's a good thing... are you helping? are you making people resent them more? or training them to need handouts? or not to value their own ability? probably yes to all for some people some of the time... it's a complex issue... \n\nfor the voting, it's like any other kind of marketing... it's a competition, and even if only 51% of a group is biased a certain way, you can market to that group and possibly gain an edge... or if you have enough money to make 2 ads, you can address 2 subsets... and so on... constraint of campaign funds and biases in cultural preferance lead politicians and marketers to chunk populations into a handful of small groups and tell tbem each what they (on average) want to hear. ",
"ELI5 'loaded questions baiting racism'",
"First and foremost nowadays racism is defined as prejudice mixed with some sort of systematic oppression. Racism is not synonymous with prejudice. For example, say my family had blue skin and was in control of all world governments for thousands of years, it'd seem in poor taste if I were to say something about green people because I already have it good. In the grand scheme of things, green people saying something about blue won't mean as much considering what little power they actually have. \nAnd second, ignoring race is problematic because it makes it seem like the only way you can tolerate a person of another race is to pretend they aren't that race. I'm most likely going to be downvoted but that's my thought process and the process of many organizations with minority scholarships",
"I believe racism is a natural impulse to a degree, and combatting it must be an active effort and will always be needed. I do not have a good source for this, but I know it has been studied. Does anyone have a source?\n\nI do not claim that its being natural (if it is) makes it ok or that all measures used to combat it are ok.",
"Despite what some Americans believe there is very little upward mobility in the United States. Upon Blacks being freed as slaves most of them were then cast into the lower class; then through racism and/or institutional racism i.e discriminatory hiring practices, housing policies, jim crow etc blacks were held down to the lower or poorer middle class. Programs like affirmative action were then put in place to help right some of the wrongs of the past couple hundred years, and to help blacks better able to move up in class standings.\n\nThats how I see it anyways.",
"This is exactly the case that a lot of people (like Morgan Freeman) are making. It's our constant acknowledgement of races and racism that teaches our children that race is important and something they should consider.",
"An EXTREMELY abbreviated history of black Americans:\n\n*early 1600's, American slavery starts\n\n\n*millions of blacks imported. Beaten, raped, killed, status of animals, CULTURE ERASED\n\n\n*1865 concludes a war is fought that ends slavery. Many, many people fight to the death to UPHOLD BLACKS' STATUS AS ANIMALS. They even successfully kill the white man who led the war. Millions cheer.\n\n\n*1865-a few years after freed blacks had started building lives, using the skills developed from years of free labor (smithing, masonry, etc), the pro-slavery whites and the pro slavery president reassert complete white dominance, make it ILLEGAL for blacks to do occupation but farming. Cultural knowledge erased AGAIN. also successfully institute a caste system, with bad schools, severely limited right to vote or hold office, participate in society. White terrorist groups form to enforce this system. Blacks who defy it are killed. The government generally does not intervene, and is often complicit.\n\n\n*1955 sees the beginning of great civil unrest. Blacks push for equal rights that will not be realized legally until after ma'am has ALREADY BEEN TO THE MOON. many of the greatest black leaders are assassinated in the process. Many cheer.\n\n\n*1970 could be said to be the beginning of the modern era, where the caste system that has existed for 300+ years has been lifted LEGALLY. \n\n\nmany of the same politicians who presided over the legal caste system remain in office. Many of the people raised in the caste system retain their original beliefs. Much of the generational benefit whites in 2014 enjoy is derived from advantages that their grandparents enjoyed AT THE EXPENSE of black people, who were denied equal access to resources, rights and privileges on a nation wide scale. \n\n\nMany of the anti black terrorist groups still exist. Many of the systems instituted to confer an advantage to whites persist, and a white majority (understandably) is in no rush to give up any advantage they may enjoy. \n\n\nWorst of all, the most valuable asset black people once had, a culture, is permanently erased. No tradition in the trades. Erased. No tradition of academics. Erased. No tradition of social service. erased. no ”my uncle is a judge.” No ”my father was a firefighter.” Virtually every single black person was starting at ground zero in 1970.\n\n\nSo, in a feeble attempt to remedy this, there have been programs instituted to try to jumpstart black people's entre into the many, many fields that white people and anti black government have legally prevented black people from entering between 1620 and 1970. These programs are controversial, due to the notion that black people are being rewarded for incompetence, or are beating out more deserving non-black counterparts.\n\n\nThis is like letting someone join a game of monopoly once all the property is bought and built upon, and then complaining when they never have to pay property tax. \n\n\nWhite people built the system to bestow white advantage on white people.\n\nIt worked.\n\nIt still works.\n\nAffirmative action is water dripping on a bonfire. \nIt's not going to put out the fire but it's better than nothing.\n\n\n",
"This is an interesting question, which is raised often, and which deserves a comprehensive answer.\n\nI'll start with Affirmative Action, since we need to label races in order to have it.\n\nFor pretty much all of their existence, the United States of America have profited over the exploitation of African Americans. Of course, the biggest element here is slavery, but even after the end of slavery, the sharecropping system and Jim Crow laws in the South, along with the lack of worker rights and redlining in the North, contributed to make the average African American a person who was not only at a heavy disadvantage in the system, but one who also had no way of influencing the system.\n\nSegregation and discrimination mandated or condoned by the government ended, more or less, in the 1970s. And I could, perhaps, stop here: there's a strong argument to be made that after being disadvantaged for so long, Black people deserved an advantage. But the reasons for AA do not stop here. Because those years of segregation and discrimination had a legacy. Even assuming all systemic racism was gone in 1970 (and it wasn't, but more on that in a moment), Black people were:\n\n* Poor, or generally in bad economic conditions. It is important to state that this is not the only reason, because you often hear people asking to make AA income-dependant rather than race-dependant.\n\n* Ignorant. Though there were a number of great examples of Black people who managed to become great scientists or poets despite starting from the bottom, the fact is that schools for Black people, whether they were segregated by law (in the South) or by geography and redlining (in the North) were extremely underfunded and generally bad. HBCUs were better, but still nowhere near the level of white universities. And the percentage of Black people who managed to get to college was extremely small anyway.\n\n* Bunched together in ghettos with other Black people, mostly poor and ignorant too. Segregation is a real issue in America still today. You still have Black ghettos and White suburbs, which don't mix, unlike most other countries where the place of living is conditioned by income rather than race. These ghettos received very little public money at the time, were generally placed in the least attractive and least economically stable parts of town, since if a place was desirable to live in, it would be occupied by White people with no desire for Black neighbours. These ghettos were plagued by crime and had generally shit living conditions.\n\nSo that's why we needed Affirmative Action in the Seventies. But why do we need it now? Here's when I turn to my last, and most important, point: institutional racism. It is very important to realise that people do not need to be personally prejudiced or racist to be part of a racist society. Being white, in America, is the norm. American culture is, by and large, white culture. And white people control the large majority of positions of power: indeed, power is disproportionally represented by White people. And those people can perpetuate racism without necessarily wanting to do so.\n\nIt is a fact, for example, that people with typically \"African American\" names such as Janeesha or Duwayne are a lot less likely to be hired for a job, assuming similar qualifications, as people with \"neutral\" (aka white) names (Michael, Sarah, Brayden...). Indeed, one need not have a typically Black name to be rejected: another study showed that when the resumes were accompanied by a photograph, Black people with no criminal record were as likely to be hired as white felons. Another example of how Black people are rejected as being \"other\" is that AAVE is, unlike every other accent, from Boston to Texas to New York to whatever, to be considered inappropriate in some workplaces - typically, a job as a receptionist.\n\nAnd, while many things have changed for the better, the learning conditions in schools in majority-Black neighbourhoods are still significantly worse than those in majority White ones. Black people have way worse grades at their SATs, have way lower rates of college or even high school graduation, and in later life have way higher rates of poverty, way higher rates of imprisonment and way lower rates of homeownership than Whites. The average net worth of a Black person is 35x lower than that of a White person. We need to break this spiral of ignorance begetting poverty, and for that we need Affirmative Action.\n\nI'll answer the rest of your questions in the comments, but first I'll take a breather."
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27gh9s | what happens if apple, amazon, or google go belly up? unlikely though it may be, what would happen to all the digital content i've purchased from them? | No I haven't read the fine print on the user or license agreements. I can't. I'd rather be in a human centipad. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/27gh9s/eli5_what_happens_if_apple_amazon_or_google_go/ | {
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"That's a billion a year for over 100 years, just like I said buddy."
]
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|
3iskk5 | are us cops really racist or is there just a crazy reaction whenever its a black guy getting shot? | Are these cops REALLY discriminating? From what ive seen these are just twitchy ass cops that perhaps should be trained better going overboard, cant help but feeling that the rioters and protesters are making it more about race than it is
Would like an explanation as im not too deep into the details | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3iskk5/eli5_are_us_cops_really_racist_or_is_there_just_a/ | {
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"This is a tough one, and I absolutely don't want to undersell the issue, as its terrible no matter how you slice it.\n\nNumbers are tough to come by, but there are something like 30 - 40 million traffic stops and other various interactions with US law enforcement officers occurring each year, its hard to draw clear conclusions.\n\nAbsolutely some officers involved in these situations are just racist, some ate just jumpy, and some are doing everything by the book. I don't know that we can say that any one group is representative of the whole.\n\nIt definitely doesn't help that our news media of all kinds is presenting stories that generate the most buzz, likes, views, shares, etc, and not the most representative stories. Not that I think that you could ever quantify such a thing. Right now, police violence attracts eyeballs, doubly so if there's a perceived racial angle.",
"As with most answers, its somewhere in between. Some cops are racist. Others are fine. Others are trigger happy. Some are very friendly to their mostly black communities. \n\nIts easy for media to focus on the outliers because thats what makes a story stand out",
"Around the riots in Ferguson the FBI came out with a report about the area and it basically concluded that the cops in the area were significantly more likely to give a ticket instead of a warning for the same offense to black citizens, and more likely to arrest instead of ticket black citizens. There was also something in the report about how a similar proportion of white and black citizens were using illegal drugs, but black citizens were disproportionately likely to be arrested for drug offenses. I recall there also being something something in the report that cops were more likely to use force against black citizens than white citizens, even in similar circumstances. \n\nThat is what is called \"institutional racism\". It's unlikely that those cops all got together and said \"let's go beat and arrest some n*****s\". They just started to associate (through various means) black citizens with crime, and were harsher on them.\n\nYeah, there are probably some racist cops who cannot wait for an excuse to arrest black people, and yeah, there are probably some cops who are trigger happy and cannot wait to shot at somebody, but these are the exception, not the rule. I think most of the protesters know this too. The issue they're trying to bring attention to is the institutional racism that calls a 18 year old black person a \"man\" (as many news outlets reporting on Michael Brown did), but call a 21 year old white person a \"boy\" (as many news outlets reporting on Dylan Roof did). ",
"There is a lot of racism in the US. Some of it is personal, some is institutional and systemic. A bit is explicit, but much of it is subconscious. Common examples are the studies that show resumes with 'black' sounding names on them are less likely to get callbacks versus identical resumes with 'white' names, or the more recent studies that showed [white felons are more likely to get callbacks than black men with no criminal history](_URL_0_). \n\nNow, say you have people in a tough job that requires dealing with lots and lots of shit all day every day. They more from one crime to another to another. It's easy (but terribly unjust and unprofessional) for them to begin to see every person they interact with as worthless, subhuman, and dangerous just by default. \n\nThen mix in all the race issues from the first paragraph.\n\nAnd then note that the systemic race issues in America has left a large number of black communities in poverty, resulting in disproportionate levels of desperation, hopelessness, and crime, which leads to more police interactions, and feeds back into the loop for both paragraphs 1 and 2. \n\nThen factor in [how difficult and risky it is for good officers to speak up](_URL_1_) - it is an intractable problem. "
]
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"http://csgjusticecenter.org/reentry/posts/researchers-examine-effects-of-a-criminal-record-on-prospects-for-employment/",
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adrian_Schoolcraft"
]
] |
|
91rjzr | how come films that are old (20+ years) can be put on blu-ray and look like they were filmed nowadays? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/91rjzr/eli5_how_come_films_that_are_old_20_years_can_be/ | {
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"Because film is analog and therefore has incredibly high resolution. You can keep scanning the original film using better and better cameras to make increasingly good digital copies. ",
"Film grain in 35mm film is essentially the same resolution as an 8k image of the same size as a film cell, so Blu-ray isn't even capturing the full picture of older films. Not even close. 4k isn't even enough.\n\nNow any special effects or CG might not be anywhere near as good, but the movies themselves should be just fine.",
"35mm film is likely between 4k and 8k in resolution, and many of the people in the credits have a day job that's totally focused on making sure everything works together to maximize the image quality captured on the film. \n\nMovie studios can afford very high resolution scanners, so they just down grade the archival scanned copy to whatever resolution is popular for distribution and sell it. "
]
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[],
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||
5kdxsc | kwanzaa | I mean no offense by this question but.. as it starts today, I'm reading news articles that discuss the long standing tradition of Kwanzaa. Reading about it from Wikipedia and other sources suggests it's a fairly new holiday. I never know what to think about this holiday and would love insight for those who celebrate it or know more. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5kdxsc/eli5_kwanzaa/ | {
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"Kwanzaa is a secular holiday, meaning that it's not religious in nature. The festival itself is observed by a large number of African Americans, between the 26th of December until the 1st of January. Kwanzaa serves as a celebration of their cultural heritage / values.",
"It's a secular holiday celebrated by (some)African Americans to recognize their heritage. It was started in the 1960s and was initially an alternative to Christmas, although the message later got changed and many people celebrate both holidays.\n\n",
"It was made up in the 60s as part of the afrocentrism movement. It's barely celebrated, though sometimes people inject a bit of Afrocentric traditions or Kwanzaa traditions into their Christmas."
]
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[],
[],
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36nxzk | antibiotic resistance | There is a lot of discussion all over the internet about Antibiotic Resistance. However, I can't seem to get a clarification on something.
Antibiotic Resistance is partly caused by the over prescription of antibiotics. Natural selection happens, and bacteria in the body eventually builds a resistance to certain antibiotics. Wouldn't the primary cause of resistance be those who don't complete an antibiotic cycle long enough to kill all of the bacteria, as opposed to just taking antibiotics unnecessarily?
How does the over prescription actually create a resistance? If bad bacteria is not in the body, how does bad bacteria even develop a resistance?
What I'm saying is: How does the over prescription of antibiotics specifically contribute to antibiotic resistance? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/36nxzk/eli5_antibiotic_resistance/ | {
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"The reason overuse of antibiotics cause resistance is that the bacteria that are resistant to the antibiotic are selected for quicker (i.e. the only survivors). This is mainly due to genetic factors that alter the bacteria's physical make-up like its cell wall etc which doesn't allow the antibiotic to exert its effects (mostly through not allowing the wall to assemble). Now with these strains slowly becoming the dominant strain (while were killing all the sensitive bugs) more widespread resistance develops. Unfortunately, making newer antibiotics to target resistance has been stale and not many new ones coming out, which can create a problem. "
]
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[]
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|
5ipi4r | how does home equity really work? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5ipi4r/eli5_how_does_home_equity_really_work/ | {
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"It's simply a term for the percentage of the value of the home you do not owe to a mortgage (or similar lien).\n\nFor example, you take out a mortgage for a home valued at $100k with a down payment of $20k, thus a mortgage of $80k. Your equity is (1 - 80/100) = 20%.\n\n A year later, suppose you have paid off another $3k of principle just from regular mortgage payment. If the value of the house remained the same, your equity would now be (1 - 77/100) = 23%. \n\nHowever, if the value of your house increased to $110k in that time, you don't owe any more on the mortgage, so your equity is now (1 - 77/110) = 30%.\n\nEquity matters for a couple reasons. First, many lenders force the borrower to pay mortgage insurance premiums if their equity is below a threshold. Second, the borrower may borrow money against their equity as a home equity line of credit, basically \"cashing in\" on some of their home equity for some other purpose."
]
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||
35djrf | how video game backwards compatibility works, and why don't any of the new consoles feature bc if they've had it for their previous consoles? | Besides Nintendo and their consistent addition of backwards compatibility to their consoles, home and portable, the new consoles don't allow it. Is there a technical reason why? Or are they somehow profiting from it?
How does BC work in general? Surely similar but advanced hardware can support games of previous console generations, we've seen it happen before. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/35djrf/eli5_how_video_game_backwards_compatibility_works/ | {
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"Cost.\n\nThere are 2 ways of running older games on the newer consoles. Emulation or having the hardware.\n\nEmulation costs a lot in terms of computing power. This is because it literally involves translating different languages. Games written on the 360 literally talk a different language from games written for the xbone. You might as well ask for the ps4 to run 360 games. Original xbox was a modified x86 processor, 360 was a PowerPC processor, Xbone is a x86 processor. You might be able to get original xbox games to run on the xbone. You may even get the 360 games to run on the xbone because it wasn't too absurdly different.\n\nSony consoles are another story. The PS2 use some weird ass custom processor. The PS3 used an even weirder ass custom processor that was also used for super computers. The ps4 at least uses a not-as-weird x86 processor, almost the same one as the xbone. Early versions of the PS3 had PS2 backwards compatability. Because it literally had the PS2 chip built into the hardware. Sony removed this and thus any revision of the PS3 hardware beyond the initial did not have PS2 backwards compatibility. You'll have better luck getting xbone games to run on a PS4 than a PS3 game.\n\nBecause the computing power gap between the current and last gen consoles is not huge, there's almost no chance you'll get emulation of the older games on the current generation. ",
"Different computer chips have their own sets of instructions they can carry out. The computer code that a game runs is \"baked\" to run for certain types of chips. So the code for one type, will be complete nonsense on a different type of chip. In some cases, its possible to pretend you're running on a different chip, by using additional code that translates instructions. But this is usually slow, and imperfect. Also, different types of chips run at different speeds. Depending on how the game is built, the developers may have expected certain events to happen at specific times. On different hardware, timing can be totally broken. In some cases, like the original Wii, it was mostly a sped up gamecube. So it was easy for them to build backwards compatibility in. Little to no translation, you just have to slow it down to gamecube speeds. With the PS2, it actually had the hardware of the PS1 built in, so again, backwards compatibility was \"easy\". With XBone / PS4, both Sony and Microsoft went for chips that are incompatible with what the previous generation used. Trying to make them backwards compatible is way more trouble than its worth. A ton of effort and money spent for something that would likely not work all that well. And result in dissappointed, angry gamers."
]
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[],
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3u1uae | how does cutting tinfoil with scissors sharpen them? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3u1uae/eli5how_does_cutting_tinfoil_with_scissors/ | {
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"This works by cutting several pieces of folded foil.\n\nAs you cut the top layer of foil that layer is \"pushed\" sideways by the angle of the blade and rubs along the blade. \n\nAs you cut more layers the combined pressure of the sheets means the blade is not able to \"push\" the next layer as sideways, so the next layer presses more firmly against the blade\n\nThis means that each layer is a little closer to the blade, in a kind of V shape. All these edges scrape up the side of the scissors and scratch away a tiny layer of the metal right up to the edge of the blade.\n\nWhen we remove this tiny layer, we make the blade sharper, like in this diagram:\n\n_URL_0_"
]
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[
"http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y166/narsil_draug/sharpness.jpg"
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||
2h8h3h | why are home fridges not transparent like in convenience stores? | I'm referring to the doors. It would let people see what's inside... but it hasn't caught on it appears.
| explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2h8h3h/eli5_why_are_home_fridges_not_transparent_like_in/ | {
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"text": [
"Because the doors are filled with insulation, which is more important for home use than convenience store use, since at convenience stores people are constantly opening and closing them all the time.",
"Often home units use the door for storage shelves and the doors of home units are typically better insulated than the glass doors. This makes them less costly to run. Glass doors are usually heavier and more costly to manufacture thus the unit price would be higher. Finally - the mess - we could see the mess/contents and that might not be appreciated by all. "
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3tgak3 | why does the federal government allow states like north carolina (and probably others) to monopolize liquor sales? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3tgak3/eli5_why_does_the_federal_government_allow_states/ | {
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"text": [
"State's rights.\n\nThere is no constitutional article or amendment saying that alcohol sales can't be monopolized or state-run. Additionally, the constitution for the most part reserves powers to the states unless specified otherwise.\n\nThe last time the federal government tried to control booze was prohibition and then the repeal of prohibition. Both needed constitutional amendments.\n\nA back door way for the federal government to control the states is in funding. The federal government threatened to cut highway/road funding to any state that did NOT raise its minimum drinking age to 21. All states followed suit.\n\nIn any case, the federal government doesn't care enough about ABC stores in Virginia or Alabama...",
"The 21st Amendment, which repealed Prohibition, explicitly gave the states the right to control alcohol sales within the state even if the alcohol was imported from another state. Thus the usual ability of the Federal government to control interstate commerce doesn't apply to this aspect of alcohol sales. \n\nAs to why this is in the amendment: I haven't read any analyses, nor any of the debates around the 21st Amendment, but I do know that after it passed, there were states that continued to have dry counties. So it seems plausible that it was a compromise - \"We'll support general repeal of Prohibition, as long as it's clear that we're still allowed to stay dry.\"",
"A few issues:\n\n* In general, the laws surrounding monopolies apply to companies/corporations, and not to the government. The government itself is a monopoly.\n* The laws specifically refer to inter-state commerce. If North Carolina controls the liquor sales in its own state, that is not *inter*-state commerce, it is *intra*-state commerce.\n* The 21st Amendment gives the right to control alcohol sales to the states."
]
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58m4c9 | we're crossing paths with halley's comet... but how near did we come to colliding? | Later today, as I understand, Earth will pass through the debris 'trail' of Halley's Comet. Since we're passing through the trail it has left behind, does that mean that the Comet has recently passed through where we currently are? And if so, how long ago? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/58m4c9/eli5_were_crossing_paths_with_halleys_comet_but/ | {
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"Not even close\n\n[\"Halley's Comet is arguably the most famous comet. It is a \"periodic\" comet and returns to Earth's vicinity about every 75 years, making it possible for a human to see it twice in his or her lifetime. The last time it was here was in 1986, and it is projected to return in 2061.\"](_URL_0_)\n\nWe're just passing through some debris it left behind in 1986.",
"When a comet comes close to the Sun it will boil the ice and the comet sheds some material. This material still have roughly the same position and speed as the comet. It is not like it suddenly stops in space and just hangs around. The debris will move in almost the same orbit as the comet itself. The \"tail\" of the comet stretches all the way around the orbit and forms a huge ring of debris around the Sun. The material the Earth travels though could have been deposited by the comet thousands of years ago and have just been orbiting the Sun the same way the comet is orbiting the Sun until now.",
"Halley's closest approach is estimated to have occurred in 837, when it was a *mere* 3.7 million miles away (or around 467 times the diameter of the Earth.\n\nMore recently in 1910 it was about 14 million miles away, which was considered a pretty spectacular approach.\n\nIt'll be a while before it is that close again.\n\nUs passing through the tail does not, itself, indicate we're close to it."
]
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1ju21b | why does electricity require a circuit? | Why can't the electrons just flow from point A to point B. Why do they need to flow back to point A again? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1ju21b/why_does_electricity_require_a_circuit/ | {
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"The problem here is that electrons are negatively charged, and like charges repel. So if you start pumping electrons to one end of a wire, that end will get more and more negatively charged, and the opposite end will get more and more positively charged. Eventually, the negative end will be so negative, and the positive end so positive, that the combination of electrons being repelled from the negative end and attracted to the positive end will be more powerful than whatever device you're using to push the electrons, and the entire thing will simply stop working."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[]
] |
|
e3zsep | since metabolizing alcohol is a constant rate, how do you build up alcohol tolerance? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/e3zsep/eli5_since_metabolizing_alcohol_is_a_constant/ | {
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"Alcohol metabolism isn’t done at a constant rate and varies between people and from day-to-day. So you can get better (or worse) at metabolizing alcohol.\n\nYou also get used to operating in an impaired state if you do it a lot. Your nervous system “expects” the alcohol and accounts for it. This is most of the feeling of “tolerance” people develop."
]
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||
61a8u9 | why has no one disrupted the home printer and ink industry yet? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/61a8u9/eli5_why_has_no_one_disrupted_the_home_printer/ | {
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"They have, sort of. Black and white laser printers have a significantly cheaper cost of ownership (when you include not just the price of the printer, but also the toner). So if people would realize that (a) they never print color, (b) home printed color looks like junk and you can get it done for $0.25 at Fedex Kinkos, and (c) ink is stupidly expensive...then they would just buy a laser.",
"There's no money in it.\n\nThere was a time you could buy generic ink or toner for cheap, and cartridges were even refillable, then the major manufacturers realized that toner and ink could be the most expensive liquid people would buy, more per ounce than Chanel No. 5. So then it's been an arms race between printer manufacturers controlling their IP and generics delivering a compatible replacement.\n\nThe generics are losing because the manufacturers figured out how to beat them at their own game. You see, if you have a printer that lasts the rest of your life (I have a 30 year old printer I will *never* give up, works better than anything else I've ever owned), then eventually the manufacturer will drop support for it and the generics can find themselves a market while the manufacturers struggle to sell new products because the old products still work - there's no need to upgrade.\n\nSo they make shit printers. Utter garbage. If they don't break on their own, which, typically, they will, they're hard coded in their firmware to STOP WORKING FOREVER after a fixed number of prints. This is called planned obsolescence. There IS NO legacy market for the generics to dominate, and with everyone's shit printer always breaking, they have to buy new, so the generics can never get ahead of the latest DRM built into these machines - by the time they crack the codes and bring yet another new generic cartridge to market, their market is gone.\n\nOffice printers aren't better. In fact, printer manufacturers make a god damn killing on service contracts and service certifications. That's why they jam all the damn time, that's why there's service men in the office every few weeks working on the printer. If they actually built a machine today like my 30 year old workhorse, that's just killing their revenue stream.\n\nIn conclusion, anyone who wants to get into the printer market would have to adopt this model to stay in business. If they wanted to snub their nose at the competition, they may get an initial bear share, but once established, they'll have put themselves out of business."
]
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||
5wbodl | how does google photos know what is on my pictures? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5wbodl/eli5_how_does_google_photos_know_what_is_on_my/ | {
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"text": [
"Image recognition and detection. It's really cool stuff, to show a computer thousands/millions photos of dogs, and you program it to learn from those photos and recognize what a dog looks like, and Google Images is a great source for doing this. \n \nPS: iOS has it too :)",
"It uses something called Machine learning. Machine learning is our current best way to simulate learning, it involves using many cases (in this case, many, many, pictures of an object) that people know contain what they're looking for. The machine then looks through all these pictures where it picks out details that make an object what it is. After a significant amount of cases the program is sent to the outside world where customers upload their own images and the program will be able to identify objects in them with the patterns and rules it learned from the cases that it was given before. I'd imagine anything that it's not > x% sure of will be sent to a human to verify and improve it's image recognition."
]
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6phvfp | why is there so much more food in cold oceans than warm oceans? aren't warm oceans more favorable for plant and animal growth? | I like watching documentaries on ocean life. Many of them mention that much of the nutrition in the pacific comes from arctic currents.
Why wouldn't their be more abundant food in warm water vs cold water, like there is on warm land vs cold land? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/6phvfp/eli5why_is_there_so_much_more_food_in_cold_oceans/ | {
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"text": [
"Cold water can hold on to more oxygen than warm water so more life can grow and thrive in colder waters.",
"Cold waters are more nutrient-rich. This means more tiny critters can grow in the cold. The base of the food chain is just much larger in cold waters.",
"Cold climates are better for prey animals, warm climates are better for predatory animals. And while warmer climates tend to have more diverse plant life, cold climates are perfectly hospitable for many varieties of plant life as well. \n\nIcebergs form as cold water travels along the polar regions due to ocean currents, which generally leads to nutrients and oxygen being trapped inside of them. As the ice melts during the summer, nutrient rich water (oxygen) comes flowing out with the currents. "
]
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1dox4t | why are pickles so much smaller than cucumbers? | Does the pickling process shrink the cucumber? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1dox4t/eli5_why_are_pickles_so_much_smaller_than/ | {
"a_id": [
"c9sem6e"
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"score": [
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"text": [
"Whole pickles are not made with the same cucumbers you buy for salads. Pickling cucumbers tend to be much smaller and have a firmer texture and stronger flavor than salad cucumbers."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[]
] |
|
2oq51g | why does an execution by firing squad have blank shots? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2oq51g/eli5_why_does_an_execution_by_firing_squad_have/ | {
"a_id": [
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"text": [
"I'm pretty sure it's so that nobody actually knows who fired the kill shot so no individual needs to feel guilty. I would assume at the very least",
"It helps assuage the guilt of the firing squad participants, each can feel like there's a good possibility they didn't fire a real shot and thus, weren't responsible for anyone's death. I don't know if this actually does assuage anyone's guilt. I still think you're guilty. During the beginnings of the Holocaust, when people were being rounded up and sent to extermination camps, they were just shooting the inmates, they didn't have gas chambers yet, and they stopped doing this because a lot of the executioners were committing suicide because they felt so guilty (as they fucking should have). "
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a2cxbb | why is the download speed of a file always less than the speed shown on an internet speed test like ookla? | For example, my current internet speed is roughly 30mb/sec... but my Sims 4 update is only downloading at roughly 1mb/sec.
Where does the rest of my internet go? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/a2cxbb/eli5_why_is_the_download_speed_of_a_file_always/ | {
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"You are limitless by the file hosts available bandwidth. Many times they limit the speed to an individual user so that it is more fairly spread amongst everyone. ",
"First of all, you're mixing up mega*bits* and mega*bytes*. A byte is 8 bits, and internet speeds are usually given in megabits, while actual download speeds are given in megabytes. So your speedtest result is 30megabits/s, which is 3.75megabytes/s.\n\nAdditionally your bandwidth is limited by the server's bandwidth. If the server doesn't want you to get more than 1mb/s then it doesn't matter how fast your internet connection is.",
"When you run a speed test, they try to find the closest possible server & make sure it's on your ISPs internal network. This gives you the absolute best possible results, sort of like taking a car to a race track.\n\nWhen you're downloading things, you've got countless little bottlenecks that add up. The server probably has limited bandwidth to share between everyone downloading from it. That traffic has to go across multiple networks. Your ISP's connection to the network it's on might be bottlenecked. Think of it more like driving your car through a major city where you have speed limits & traffic to deal with.",
"This is a common misconception based on people's lack of understanding of the internet. The internet can be fairly good explained by comparing it to the postal service. The speed you buy from your ISP (the company selling you 'internet access') is roughly the speed you have from your house to their central hub. That's what you're buying. In essence this is kinda comparable to the size of the truck from your hose to the next sorting station of the postal service. Now, just like the postal service there are a lot of hubs between you and your target. It goes from your house to your local villages postal service, then from there it's probably sent to the central hub for your state and the central hub for your state sends it to the central hub for your target's state and then this central hub sends it to the local village hub of your target and then it's delivered to the targets house. The internet is about the same. There are many hubs and paths between you and your target. If any of these paths have a lower speed than what you bought from your ISP then you're automatically capped to that limit. If you a 1Gbps path followed by a 128Mbps path then followed by a 1Gbps path and you send data through this you're going to be limited to that 128Mbps. Also, you're not the only one sending data. If two people send data then you're limited to 64Mbps (assuming they have equal load). If you download something form your average webserver you're probably going to have somewhat around 200-500Kbps and if it's some bigger company behind it maybe 1-2Mbps. That's because even though they have 1Gbps line right at their server you're not the only one using that server and there could be a slow path inbetween. \n\nThis is almost the full story. You're not only limited by the bandwidth of the server you're limited by the bandwidths of every path that your packets travel through. The bandwidth is also not entirely determined by your physical line because you could have a 1Gbps line but you're behind a router/switch that can only handle 128Mbps or maybe your network card can only handle 128Mbps. People genuinely buy 1Gbps connection for their private home but then use the router that comes for free with it that can't handle 1Gbps. Also keep in mind that packets get routinely lost you just don't notice it because we've developed smart network protocols that resend lost packets but packet loss is also going to influence how much data you can send through a path. If a path is overloaded the switches/routers will start throwing away packets because they have to temporarily store packets for routing and they can only store a limited number of packets. Also, the downloading software also has an influence on how fast you can download things. You can have multiple connections open to increase download speed (but that depends on how loaded the network path is). There are cooperation protocols to not overload network paths because if everybody was egoistic and would just always try to max it out it'd collapse and everybody would get much worse speed than when everybody throttles speeds a bit. "
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3w4o2e | supply-side (trickle down) economics and their impact on the american economy today | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3w4o2e/eli5_supplyside_trickle_down_economics_and_their/ | {
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"Supply-side and trickle down are not the same thing.\n\nSupply-side, shockingly enough, concerns itself with the supply curve. In macroeconomics there is the aggregate demand and aggregate supply curve. Business cycle theory deals largely with AD. But long run policies such as taxes and regulation can have significant impact on the AS curve, and thus output. Reagan's tax reform and Clinton's welfare reform are two prominent examples of supply-side reforms.\n\nTrickle down is much less grounded in theory and evidence. The idea that low taxes and barriers for corporations and the rich will create economic growth that benefits the poor. Reducing those barriers certainly helps with growth (supply-side), but how those gains will be distributed is dependent on a lot of factors.",
"They are actually different things.\n\nSupply-side economics is the idea that if the government reduces everybody's taxes, it will make more money. The rationale is that if taxes is too high, people don't buy things, which not only deprives the government of VAT revenue, it also negatively impacts the economy by reducing overall business, since businesses find it harder to survive if nobody can afford their products due to excessively high taxes. Reducing taxes thus stimulates the economy by giving people more money to spend - in theory. In practice, it turns out there is a point where reducing taxes further results in less tax income for the government and thus less money for infrastructure, defence, education, etc. There is a sweet spot where taxes are just at the right level to maximise everybody's well-being, and finding that sweet spot is a challenge.\n\nTrickle-down economics is a relatead but much stupider idea. It is disparagingly referred to as voodoo economics, in a horrific and tasteless insult to Voodoo. The essential idea here is that reducing taxes on the top earners will result in everybody having more money because the rich will take the money that they no longer have to pay in tax and invest it in improving their products and expanding their businessess, thus increasing employment and giving everybody more money. In truth, you usually find that the super-rich just keep on doing as they had been, but now with even more money in their bank accounts. Nobody actually believes in trickle-down economics, and it is ususally used to express disdain for excessive adherence to supply-side economics.\n\nAs for how they affect the American economy, there's a whole lot of historical and cultural context to unpack. For one thing, America has always been a very capitalist country. This actually goes back to before the USA even existed; a big portion of the initial English colonists were Calvinists who had certain ideas about humans' relationship with God. One of these ideas was that God would reward righteous people with wealth. Since hard work often results in more wealth, they came to value work as a righteous thing. The religious aspect weakened over time, but the work ethic remained and spread to other colonists, even non-Calvinists. This came to be seen as a way that America was different to the Old World, since Americans were expected to earn their fortunes rather than inherit them as did European nobles.\n\nThe colonists later revolted against the British Empire over taxation without representation. So an opposition to taxes has been part of the narrative of American history from the beginning. The centrality of FREEDOM! from overseas rule in this narrative is also a significant factor.\n\nThus when the 20th century rolled around, you have a country whose citizens are told was founded on the principles of hard work, FREEDOM!, and minimal taxes leading to happiness and prosperity for all. Socialism gained significant support after World War I as people came to see rising inequality as antithetical to the FREEDOM! America was founded on, a return by stealth to the European model of wealthy nobles and impoverished peasants. Then came the Cold War.\n\nAmerican attitudes to socialism soured during the Cold War. Stories coming out of the USSR illustrated the problems of communism, which many equated with socialism in general. American government propaganda at the time eagerly reinforced this as a way of differentiating the great, heroic America from the evil, oppressive Russia. Capitalism was once again lionised as the path to FREEDOM! and prosperity, though at the time anti-tax rhetoric was fairly minimal, since all that great stuff about America had to be paid for somehow.\n\nThe other big influence from this time was Ayn Rand, particularly her 1957 allegorical novel *Atlas Shrugged*. Rand, whose family escaped communist Russia to America, associated the ideals of Russia with evil and those of America with good. In particular, communism was the worst thinge ever and capitalism was the best thing. She proceeded to construct an entire philosophy, called Objectivism, around this principle.\n\nFor our purposes, Objectivism can be summed up as:\n\n# Violence is wrong except in self-defence.\n# Everybody should be free to do what truly makes them happy.\n# Success proceesing from creative work should not be punished.\n# Government should be as small as possible (but no smaller).\n\nTaxes were a particular bugbear for Rand, as she saw them as government punishing people for working hard and being successful. Her writings have been extensively criticised ever since they were published, but they found a recetive audience with people who don't like paying taxes, rich and poor alike. The poor fan of Ayn Rand resents the government taking a part of what little she has to ostensibly feed others, while the rich fan feels the same way, with the additional sense of being punished simply for putting in the effort so that those who have no desire to work can live comfortably on money they didn't earn.\n\nThese notions tie into American ideas about lox taxes (\"I should keep what I earn!\"), FREEDOM! (\"The government is stopping from doing what I want!\"), and work ethic (\"Why should people who don't work get to laze around all day?!\"). Conservative politicians embraced these themes both to emphasise how the USA was superior to the USST and also as a campaign platform, promising they would lower taxes so that minimum-wage workers would be able to earn billions just by working a little harder, and telling billionaires they earned all their money and thus taking it away would be morally wrong.\n\nThis in turn leads to an embrace of supply-side economics. There are a lot of people who just want taxes lowered, and telling them that lower taxes lead to everyone being better off means they feel even more sure of their position, and hence are more likely to vote for the person promising to lower taxes."
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3xfahu | why do most advertisements leave out the name of the "competing brand"? | In [this promo video](_URL_0_), they purposefully make it very clear what brands A, B, and Y are. However, they never name them explicitly.
I have also noticed that many commercials talk about "competing" and "industry leading" brands, but never actually name them. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3xfahu/eli5_why_do_most_advertisements_leave_out_the/ | {
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"It'd be free advertising for their competitors. Even if the comparison is bad for the rival company, just saying the name is advertising. Similar to political ads",
"Most companies don't want to be accused of Libel or slander. If you can lay claims against other companies that are not entirely true, but leave out just enough information about them, that company can not sue over the commercial, as there is plausible deniability( the possibility that it isn't true) that the commercial refers to them. "
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1uz60w | why does more data cost more? | Why do phone companies charge more for data overages/usage. (e.g. Verizon charges $10 for each gigabyte of data you use that exceeds your plan)
In this modern day and age, I can't imagine any reason why this is a thing. Well, unless it's just greed. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1uz60w/eli5_why_does_more_data_cost_more/ | {
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"Cell networks are oversubscribed, meaning that under normal circumstances, the average user does not hit their limit. This allows the provider to resell excess capacity to more subscribers at presumably at a lower cost. Your \"limit\" is really just a point where they say bursting is acceptable. Probably the 95th percentile of users are under the limit. When a user breaches the 95th percentile, that user then becomes a concern because of the oversubscription of the network. The increased overage rates are meant as a deterrent(people tend to be cost sensitive). It just so happens that this deterrent helps their bottom line immensely. This is the reason providers have moved to tiered plans rather than unlimited. Once smartphones became the mainstream(read iPhone), unlimited plans became untenable because they could not build out their networks fast enough. The only option for all the carriers was to try and promote the use of WiFi when possible. This strategy has been largely successful.",
"Cell service--data or voice--is NOT unlimited. There's only so much space in the spectrum to handle everyone at once.\n\nThe innovations in cell technology (1x/3G/4G) have crammed more and more capacity in the same spectrum, so it's slowly getting better. But it's not in any way, shape, or form unlimited.\n\nAnd don't forget: it's not a matter of building more and more towers. There's only a limited amount of spectrum available. After a certain point, there's nothing anyone can do except try and pack more into the existing spectrum.\n\nAs more and more people use data, the chance that a cell tower hits its limit becomes greater and greater. To prevent this, they have to encourage people to either use less data or use alternate means (like wifi) to take the pressure off the cell towers.\n\nNow, don't get me wrong: most places aren't anywhere near that limit. But the trend is that data usage is going to multiply greatly in the next few years, so it's entirely possible we hit limitations before the technology catches up. \n\nThe \"cost\" that you see for overage is actually used to \"rent\" spectrum from other carriers (as great cost, of course--it IS their competitor, after all). Obviously if you live in a low-population area where there is never any threat of hitting limits, that's just pure profit. But that also subsidizes the costs in high-traffic areas where, in actuality, it might cost $15 instead of $10.\n\n"
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p9rw4 | how someone can be charged with multiple counts of murder for one act. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/p9rw4/eli5_how_someone_can_be_charged_with_multiple/ | {
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"If you drunk drove and killed a family, should you be on the hook for 1 count, or 1 count for each person of the family? ",
"You get charged by the death not by the act. They can try you several times, or just once and make the process more efficient."
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37wfn5 | why does a scale read more weight when force is exerted on it? | Say someone weighing 180lbs steps on a scale. If they were to exert force on the scale with their legs, why does the scale read more weight for a second? Don't they weigh the same no matter how much force they're exerting? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/37wfn5/eli5_why_does_a_scale_read_more_weight_when_force/ | {
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"There's a difference between weight and mass; mass is the amount of physical matter that makes up an object, while weight is a measure of force--specifically the force that gravity exerts on a mass.\n\nScales measure weight, not mass. Even scales that readout in grams or kilograms (units of mass) do so by measuring the force the object exerts due to gravity, and then converting it using Earth's gravitational constant. Exerting more force on the scale is functionally no different than placing a larger mass on it.",
"Remember – Weight is a measurement of force, not mass. A scale measures the force, usually the force of gravity, applied to it. Changing the velocity of the body on the scale will change the force applied to the scale, thus it will change the reading.",
"Have a friend rest their hand in your hand, completely relaxed. What you're feeling is the weight, due to gravity. Now have them press down with that hand, with only muscular strength. The weight of the hand is the same, but you have to work harder to hold their hand up, because you are resisting both their gravitational weight AND the muscular force. If you've closed your eyes, you can't tell whether you are working harder because they've added two bricks to their hand or because they are pushing... it's just a force, and to you it feels heavier."
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91xw65 | how does your eye react to small things that you can't see and close on its own. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/91xw65/eli5_how_does_your_eye_react_to_small_things_that/ | {
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"Your brain reacts to a threat it \"sees\" before it processes what it has seen. That combined with your body naturally also getting on high alert in this situation help it to respond quicker than what we can physically see. \n\nTheres always a slight delay between what is happen and what our brain processes because the nerve impulses have a finite speed; it is very fast, but still not instantaneous. So when faced with a threat, the body first sends a single to make sure the eyes closed, which (at this moment) is more important than knowing what exactly was headed our way."
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7259zv | why is it that racecar tires wear out with a few laps while the tires on a regular car can last years? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/7259zv/eli5_why_is_it_that_racecar_tires_wear_out_with_a/ | {
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"Race car tires are usually softer in order to increase grip, but this makes them less resistant to wear. Also, race cars tend to accelerate, brake, and turn *much* harder than normal driving, which increases friction against the road, which increases wear.",
"The tires on your regular car last years, but are also not experiencing nearly the same stresses as a race car tire. Compare what your car goes through to a race car\n\nMost street cars cannot handle a full 1G corner, a really sharp turn in your car may be 0.5Gs. Nascar cars will experience 2-3 Gs in the corners, and F1 can experience up to 5Gs in a hard corner or while braking. Those forces shred the edges of the tire that are making contact because it is trying to slide the tire sideways across the track\n\nYour car traveling on the highway gets the tires up to the 120-130F range, a race car tire wouldn't even be giving grip at that temperature range! Nascar tires get up to 200F inside, and F1 tires can run around 260F. This makes the rubber a lot softer and stickier, but as a trade of that means they leave more rubber on the track and wear down the tire faster\n\nYou can see similar tire wear issues with performance cars. If you drive a car calmly you can get 30-70k miles out of a set of tires, if you take your performance car to a track day you'll probably need new tires to drive home on even if you only did 100 miles. Top Gear tested cars that needed new tires after less than 40 miles on their track."
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dmddax | what is the tor network and what should /shouldn't i be using it for? | What is the Tor network and what should /shouldn't I be using it for?
From what I gather, Tor network is not a secure internet, it is *another* internet. How does one pull off such a thing on the same infrastructure?
Does a person doing regular internet stuff need to know how and when to use it?
Will using it put you on a watchlist somewhere? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/dmddax/eli5_what_is_the_tor_network_and_what_should/ | {
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"It is not illegal to use it, and nobody will put you on a watchlist. Except if you're from a country where it's banned like China, but I assume you live in the US.\nThe network works, by sending your request on a different computer, from there to another computer, from there to the website. For example if you google kittens, it will go through several computers worldwide, where the path from one to another is encoded, so it's especially hard to crack, and, every station just knows the station before and after it. Google will send the results for kittens to the computer the request came from, this one also sends it back until it reaches your computer again.\nYou can pretty much use it for anything, for example to look at porn, if you want to stay anonymous or if you don't want Google to know, but you can also reach these illegal websites, which operate through the anonimity of the Tor network. Note, that at least in my country, if someone knows for the US, can you pleas comment it, it is not illegal to look up these sites, and to surf on them. It is just illegal to operate these sites, like empire market, which is like eBay for criminals, to sell or buy on them, even if the thing is legal, it is a black market, so it is tax evasion, or to post something illegal like child pornography on a dark net social media site. If you want to know how to get to these sites, there is a wiki in the dark net, you can look up on Google how to get there.",
"TOR is open source software that directs traffic through a volunteer overlay network. It was invented in the 90s to protect US intelligence communications. It protects your privacy but does not conceal the fact you're using it. Some sites can detect you're using TOR and block you. TOR encrypts your data by concealing the next node destination IP, sending your traffic through a virtual circuit. It basically hides the source IP of your traffic. Since the 2000s though, some weaknesses have been exploited allowing the discovery of the physical locations of servers. You can use it for regular Internet stuff, but it does slow you down a bit. Also, as I said, since it has some weaknesses, I would think twice about using it for any criminal purposes or even to visit obvious criminal sites at this point, not that I think you would of course. Interestingly enough, facebook has a .onion site that can only be accessed via TOR as does Pirate bay. As a sidenote: The deep web is just the bulk of the overall internet that hasn't been indexed by search engines while the dark web is focused on intentionally concealed onion sites. In reality the deep web contains much more data than the clear web which is the web most people surf that has been indexed. \n\n If you start with the hidden wiki, you can get a good launching pad for exploring the deep, dark web. [_URL_0_](_URL_0_) There are many versions of the hidden wiki. The links die all the time too. There are also lists of random dark web sites without any info on them which are risky to visit since you can't tell what type of site it might be. Often you will arrive at a federal warning that the site was shut down. I think if you were to use some of the more nefarious sites you could get on a watch list even though its tempting to just look around, say, one of these illegal drug markets without buying anything. But there are plenty of sites that are not illegal necessarily which contain fascinating information on many topics, as well as various anonymous social networks, or obscure blogs on highbrow topics like cryptography and bioinformatics. Its well worth researching and exploring but just use your common sense about sites that are clearly illegal like assassin for hire sites, or some porn sites, or places that sell stolen credit cards and goods or illegal products like guns or drugs. One thing you can do for added is security is run TOR behind a VPN on a public network from a live Linux distro like TAILS, if you're feeling particularly paranoid. Happy surfing. Don't drown out there!",
" > From what I gather, Tor network is not a secure internet, it is another internet. How does one pull off such a thing on the same infrastructure?\n\nTor is still the same internet, just now when you connect to anywhere the data packets are bounced around the world with an 'onion' of encryption layers on them. \n- You made the encrypted bundle and send it to the entry node \n- The entry node to Tor knows you, the encrypted bundle and the next node \n- All the middle nodes only see encrypted bundle, where it came from and where its going\n- The exit node (where Tor connects to the regular internet) sees the unencrypted data (well, no Tor encryption, it might still be from HTTPS or whatever), where you are connecting too and the node that handed it that data. \n- Then that goes in reverse for the reply if the website or whatever gives one.\n\nThe 'another internet' understanding might come from websites you can only connect too via Tor, which do exist. The purpose of these is they live inside the Tor network, so you never have to leave Tor and its security to communicate with them. This is good for anonymisation because one of the main ways to identify a Tor user connecting to the regular internet is traffic correlation. Joe Smith connected to Tor at this time and 5s later this server we think he is involved with got a request from a known Tor exit node, wonder who that could be.\n\n > Does a person doing regular internet stuff need to know how and when to use it?\n\nNot really, Tor as a security measure is kind of at the level where you are trying to protect yourself against dedicated surveillance or attack by sophisticated attackers (eg, hacking groups, nation states, big business). Its not necessary for the average person because sophisticated attackers are very few, regular people are very many and not that interesting to sophisticated attackers. If you are concerned about remaining hidden from advertisers and such there are much less intensive solutions for that.\n\nThough the people who do genuinely use Tor to protect against these threats would love for regular internet users to use it. Regular people using Tor for their regular ass traffic would be akin to a continuous avalanche of hay to hide their needles in.\n\n > Will using it put you on a watchlist somewhere?\n\nYes, or at least you should assume it does. Your connection to Tor entry nodes is not hidden unless you are taking the additional step of connecting to a VPN first, so ISP's and the like know you are connecting to Tor, its just from there they have no idea whats happening. Obviously connecting to Tor is not typical for an average person, so there is a good chance the people/IP's that do are being put on a list somewhere. That list would be huge and functionally useless, see above with needle and haystacks, but if you are the NSA why not make the list, storage is cheap.",
"Tor is a networking system. In simplicity, the main differences between it and standard networking are:\n\n1. Tor uses several \"layers\" of encryption when sending data, much like the layers of an onion (Tor is actually short for \"The Onion Router\"). This means that if said data is intercepted along the way from A to B, it is harder to decipher than unencrypted or single layer encryption data, which means you're a bit more protected.\n\n2. It sends data across multiple \"nodes\", which are all computers set up running Tor software, essentially like a \"tor server\". When starting Tor, it will generally connect you to a series of nodes that is a different set than last time. This is not entirely different from standard networking, but in Tor, the nodes only know the last node and the next node. So if my data is intercepted at node 4/9, whoever took it (if they can break the encryption) will only see that it came from node 3 and is going to node 5, they won't be able to easily see that it originated from me. This is beneficial for anonymity because it essentially 'erases' your paper trail for where the data is going and coming. (Not 100% accurate, but eli5)\n\n3. It also breaks the data down into seperate pieces, and sends them through different \"tubes\" on their way from A to B. This is easiest imagined as a literal band of tubes together, and you take a jigsaw puzzle, and drop each piece through a different hole than the last. That way, if someone was to cut a whole in your pipe and take the data (puzzle pieces) out, they would only have a few pieces that don't really make sense alone, and they almost certainly wouldn't be able to extrapolate what the whole picture is.\n\n4. You can access .onion sites, which are Tor only websites that cannot be accessed by standard browsers, I.e. Chrome, Firefox, etc. There are some of clearnet sites that have .onion servers, for instance the journalistic website deepdotweb has a .onion page. However, most use for them *is* for nefarious purposes, such as pornography (legal and illegal) and drug/weapon selling.\n\n5. At least in the USA, it is not illegal at all to use Tor, to browse with Tor, or even to look at drug selling websites. It is illegal, however, to view child porn/any other illegal porn, to buy things off a drug market, etc. Basically, if it's not illegal porn, it's not illegal to look (in the US.)\n\n6. It won't put you on a \"list\". The NSA has a shitload of illegal spying going on on us already, they really don't need different \"lists\". Much more practical to just have personal dossiers anyway.\n\nThe biggest downside to Tor is that, due to breaking down and going through those tubes and all those seperate nodes, it's fucking **slow**. Even if your net is good, it's slow. Not practical for just laddy-da web browsing.\n\nIf you really want to explore it, especially if you're going to make any practical use of it (which, as a disclaimer, I cannot support or condone), you need to use a TAILS flash drive at minimum for any realistic security.\n\nAlso, inb4 \"DoN't UsE tOr It'S cOmPrOmIsEd\" You motherfuckers that say that are actually retarded. They have so much spying on us they don't NEED to infiltrate Tor to see what we're doing if they REALLY want to. The ISPs will cave and give them what they want. The thing is is that they can't use it as evidence against you because they would have to admit how they got it, don't wanna ruin the gravy train. Besides, they REALLY, REALLY, DON'T CARE about the guy buy a little bit of weed or Xans online, they want the dealers, the suppliers, just like literally every other drug agent.\n*With that being said, if you're looking at drugs, most of the markets have gone down and the confidence in the ones that remain are pretty sus outside that.",
"it's not another internet; if every ISP in the world pulled together their resources they could evict all tor nodes from their network (and, presumably, do something with the information the server's owners gave them in order to sign up for the internet service in the first place). but they won't; because TOR is the big daddy USA's baby. \n\n\n\nAlso because that would be a completely braindead action that would push skiddy and pedo shit further underground; to places where it's even harder to track them and their activity."
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2w6ni8 | how do youtube videos from brand new accounts go viral? | How do these videos get discovered? Especially with new musicians since no one is going to be searching for the exact song name and artist. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2w6ni8/eli5_how_do_youtube_videos_from_brand_new/ | {
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"The artist promotes the video themselves. Just because they don't have a large YouTube channel they might still have a significant number of followers on social media like Facebook/Twitter/Instagram. They can also post links to sites like reddit for more exposure. For musicians there are also avenues like getting picked up on radio."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[]
] |
|
1ufk0g | how come when i punch in my dreams, it feels like i am punching underwater? | Whenever I get into a fight in my dreams, I always have trouble throwing punches. Why is this? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1ufk0g/eli5_how_come_when_i_punch_in_my_dreams_it_feels/ | {
"a_id": [
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"text": [
"Tell me about it. I have the most frustrating time trying to run away from zombies.",
"As answered [here](_URL_0_), \n\n > It's because punching (like running) is a highly-coordinated activity that relies on proprioceptive feedback throughout the motion to work. Since the thalamus clamps down both on the transmission of the motor signals you'd need to effectively complete the motion and the perception of joint-motion data while you're asleep, everything feels bogged down and slow. \n\n > Compare that to 'flying', which is a), something we can't do normally, so we have no basis for comparison to see if it feels right or not, and b) superman-style flying about doesn't require significant body motion anyway.\n"
]
} | [] | [] | [
[],
[
"http://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/gg3dj/why_cant_i_throw_good_punches_in_my_dreams_i_cant/c1nbibg"
]
] |
|
2a7wq8 | why do you have to pay taxes on a house you build yourself, given that you have already paid taxes on all materials and outside labor? | Assume you find raw, unadulterated land and decide to build a house on it. I kind of get paying property tax for the land as you are a resident of that community and your taxes help maintain roads and build public offices, etc.
But, why would you have to pay taxes on something that was nonexistent until you thought it up and placed it there, especially considering you have already paid taxes on the materials?
Also, would you need to pay taxes on a shed or garage if you built one?
Edit: [Explained](_URL_0_) ...but still shady as fuck. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2a7wq8/eli5_why_do_you_have_to_pay_taxes_on_a_house_you/ | {
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"text": [
"I like this question.",
"You pay taxes on the property based on its value. Having a house on it increases its value. ",
"You're not paying taxes because of the house, you're paying taxes because of the land. Also, there is no raw, unadulterated land that you can just decide to build a house on. It's all owned by someone or other (or the government). So you'd have to buy the land first. ",
"Taxes are a negotiation within the system. \n\nThere's no scientific accounting being done of exactly what your impact is or what portion of services you owe (and the amount of personal information that would have to be yielded to the government would be staggering). Nor is there a universally agreed controlling principle of how to divide the costs of running the system. \n\nThrough a million tiny acts, government is spending a certain amount of money that was agreed to in whatever way is legal in that society, and it is paying for it with whatever collection of taxes, fees, licenses and debt that has been negotiated by another million tiny acts. \n\nSociety *could* pay for everything from a sales tax on materials and labor, but we haven't negotiated that system.",
"you're paying taxes on the land. like it or not, your property and the space it occupies are serviced by the local government. even without utilities and conveniences, your continued use of that space creates certain burdens on those around you. \n\non this principle, governments tax land (set into categories by use such as residential or business) as a proxy.",
"I don't know if you're aware of this, but the idea of a tax on the unimproved value of land only, rather than the value of buildings on top of it, has been around for a long time and is quite popular among economists: _URL_0_",
"It sounds to me if you are confusing \"Sales Tax\" with \"Property Tax.\" Whether you build the structure yourself, or have a contractor/builder do it, you will pay the requisite sales taxes on the materials that go into its makeup. Once the building is complete, and as long as you own the property, you will continue to pay property taxes to the appropriate entity (state/local/municipal) to support the surrounding infrastructure and community services (fire, police, schools, etc.) Additionally, the tax rate on the land you purchased will increase because you have \"improved\" it by building a home."
]
} | [] | [
"http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2a7wq8/eli5_why_do_you_have_to_pay_taxes_on_a_house_you/cislphl"
] | [
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[
"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Land_value_tax"
],
[]
] |
|
99kl9o | why does bass travel through objects so well? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/99kl9o/eli5_why_does_bass_travel_through_objects_so_well/ | {
"a_id": [
"e4oep6z"
],
"score": [
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],
"text": [
"Higher frequency has a short, tight wave. Lower frequency has a long rolling wave. The higher frequency bounces off objects easier, because it's more likely to hit on a \"flat\" side of the wave. Because lower frequency isnt as wavy, it can penetrate farther because it's more direct. Think of trying to push a penny through cloth, or a needle."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[]
] |
||
6lfr7a | how do corn farmers make a profit when corn is so cheap? | I live in a farming area, so it's a little embarrassing that I don't know the answer to this question. But, my boyfriend pointed out the other day that Giant had a special, 10 ears of corn for $2 - a great deal, but sweet corn is pretty cheap to begin with and we were wondering how a farmer could possibly profit from that.
I know there are farmers who exclusively grow corn, though a lot of it is to feed livestock, but still. How can a corn farmer make a livable profit when corn is sold at such a low price? Is it only corn that humans eat that's so cheap?
Thanks so much, Reddit! | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/6lfr7a/eli5_how_do_corn_farmers_make_a_profit_when_corn/ | {
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"text": [
"Even if corn is cheap, if they can grow it more cheaply, they make a profit.\n\nAlso, just because one supermarket bought too much corn last week and needs to get rid of it, that doesn't necessarily reflect its actual price.\n\nFinally, many agriculture products are subsidized by the government, in part to protect farmers from market swings.",
"Corn yield is about 150 bushels per acre, and there are approx 50 ears per bushel. So that's 7500 ears per acre. At $0.20 each, that's $1500 per acre. If the farmer plants 20 acres of corn, that's $30k in corn per harvest. \n\nOf course, that's based on the retail price, which is not what the farmer actually gets. A lot of his yield will get sold for feed, or canning, or commercial processing - only the best looking ears go to the grocery store. And you have to factor in his expenses, plus losses due to weather, pests, etc. The farmer may also have insurance to cover some losses - they can even get insurance to protect themselves against low market prices.",
"That's also a seasonal price. Most corn is processed in some way, and those processing facilities can't necessarily handle the entire harvest as it comes in. So there may be a surplus sent to grocery stores if the corn is unusually productive this year, or came in at an odd time. \n\nCanned or frozen corn is usually more expensive.",
"I enjoy when non-farmers start explaining farming. There is almost no connection between a gardener selling his sweet corn and production row crop agriculture.\n\nCommodity prices at the Chicago Mercantile Exchange have absolutely nothing to do with gardening, sweet corn production, or farmers markets. It's supply and demand at it's finest, with demand from livestock and pet food manufacturers, ethanol producers, and grain processors who make food additives and ingredients, oils, and such.\n\nThese market commodity prices, which are subject to wild swings like any market, minus a value known as the \"basis\" are what farmers get for their crops. Right now, in my local area, the cash price for corn is $3.63 per bushel (around 50 lbs. shelled). Those who said it's the cost of production that's determines profitability are right, but there are minimum costs that the farmer has no control over. Fertilizers (known in ag as \"inputs\") sell at market prices. Seed corn sells for whatever the big ag companies that have been awarded genetic patents can get farmers to pay. Fuel and oil to operate machinery sells at market prices.\n\nSo, as things stand right now, in the middle of America it costs a farmer about $3.00 to $4.00 to produce a bushel of corn. Some will make money, some will lose money when they sell at current market prices. If you sell at a loss for a few years in a row your banker will remove you from your farm and sell it to someone else.\n\nSo the important thing in marketing their crop for farmers is to really accurately know their cost of production and their break even point. They then watch the futures markets and hopefully can contract ahead a percentage of their crop at a price point that will cover the cost of production. Some years that's all one can expect is to break even.\n\nEvery once in a while farmers get lucky and the market price exceeds the cost of production by a decent margin. In those years, the farmer better sell as high as possible and then bank the extra income (windfall) for the lean years.\n\nWe are in lean years right now in American ag. Markets are at decade lows.\n\nAnd $2.00/10 ears is a good price for sweet corn. OP is an astute observer of the sweet corn market.",
"Corn is a commodity, and [its price fluctuates](_URL_3_) over time like any other commodity. As of today, corn is trading at [$3.82 a bushel](_URL_0_). Most farmers will produce about [175 bushels per acre](_URL_1_) in a good year, with the average farm about [430 acres](_URL_2_) in size. \n\nThat means that the average farm will produce 73,100 bushels of corn, with a commodity value of $277,780. (These are average numbers, not specific to individual farms. And most corn grown is dent or feed corn, not sweet corn. Corn farm sizes could also be lower than average.)\n\n\n\n",
"1. Modern farming is highly efficient so corn can be grown at a low cost. \n2. Government subsidies"
]
} | [] | [] | [
[],
[],
[],
[],
[
"http://markets.businessinsider.com/commodities/corn-price",
"http://www.cornandsoybeandigest.com/blog/usda-projects-record-corn-and-soybean-crop-2016",
"http://www.fooddialogues.com/agriculture-101/",
"http://www.macrotrends.net/2532/corn-prices-historical-chart-data"
],
[]
] |
|
5r3y10 | why do many babies sleep with their butts in the air? | My 1 year old sleeps with his bum in the air. I was wondering about that, and apparently many babies do. But why? It seems so uncomfortable really | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5r3y10/eli5_why_do_many_babies_sleep_with_their_butts_in/ | {
"a_id": [
"dd47zvj"
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"score": [
2
],
"text": [
"They're comfortable in the fetal position, usually when they can't roll over they will curl up in the position they were put down, so put face down, butt goes up!"
]
} | [] | [] | [
[]
] |
|
3jkkoq | if you can't get an erection in space, does anything abnormal after the first erection when you get back ( from like a 6 month journey or soemthing ) | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3jkkoq/eli5_if_you_cant_get_an_erection_in_space_does/ | {
"a_id": [
"cuq157u"
],
"score": [
3
],
"text": [
"Can you not get an erection in space?!"
]
} | [] | [] | [
[]
] |
||
1pee3i | according to people who blame the jews for killing jesus--why do they even think that jesus' death was a bad thing? | I've always wondered this. The entire religion seems to be predicated on the concept that Jesus died for humanity's sins and was then resurrected. So, his death was then a GOOD thing, because, y'know, it's a fundamental concept of the religion. No Death/Resurrection = no Christianity.
So, I don't care who you blame for killing Jesus. Question is, why is it a bad thing?
| explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1pee3i/eli5_according_to_people_who_blame_the_jews_for/ | {
"a_id": [
"cd1glrz",
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"text": [
"Two points, strictly theology.\n\n1. The death of Jesus is *necessary* in the ideas Christianity, but that doesn't mean it's \"good\".\n2. Canonically, Jesus FORGAVE those who killed him, so ignorant Christians who hate or act against anyone for the death of Jesus (whether rightly or wrongly accused) are in error.",
"Because it's an easy justification for being mean to the Jews, which was \"in vogue\" for about two millennia.\n\nAnyway, it isn't really that they *killed* Jesus, it's that they rejected his teachings. As you may or may not know, Jesus was targeted by a group of Jewish religious leaders for spreading what they considered blasphemy, and they turned him over to Pontius Pilate who decided to execute him (they told him Jesus was plotting against Rome, which was total bullshit).\n\nThe big issue that some Christians have with that is the \"considering Jesus's teachings blasphemy\" part. If you believe that Christ is the Messiah and Son of God, someone else calling Christ's teachings blasphemy is blasphemous itself, in a weird circular way.",
"Always found it strange that nobody seems to blame the *Romans*..."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[],
[],
[]
] |
|
3zpff0 | why do some people with type 1 diabetes need to eat sugar if their pancreas still releases glucagon which releases sugar back into the body? | It's probably very simple but I don't get it... | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3zpff0/eli5_why_do_some_people_with_type_1_diabetes_need/ | {
"a_id": [
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"score": [
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"text": [
"It's not glucose that the body needs, it's insulin. Which the pancreas no longer produces and why people w/ type 1 diabetes need to take insulin.",
"Insulin drives glucose out of the blood into cells for storage. If too much insulin is administered then there is too little glucose in the blood and the diabetic starts to feel unwell, tired and eventually slips into a coma. Eating some sugary food (lucozade is a popular choice) helps to instantly boost that sugar level.\n\nIdeally this never happens as people get the insulin dose right but it can be difficult particularly when people are growing, exercising, ill or when you're dosing for a longer period of time eg before sleeping.",
"Yes, glucagon helps to release stored glycogen from the liver to help raise blood sugar levels.\n\nBut where do you think the glycogen comes from? It's predominately made by converting glucose through a process that is stimulated by the release of...\n\n*drum roll*\n\nInsulin!\n\nSo guess what happens when your pancreas can't produce insulin properly? You don't have much glycogen in storage to get released later on."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[],
[],
[]
] |
|
4lhwvn | why do most tech can't go past january 1, 1970? or have errors when they do? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4lhwvn/eli5_why_do_most_tech_cant_go_past_january_1_1970/ | {
"a_id": [
"d3nffml"
],
"score": [
3
],
"text": [
"This is day zero in informatics. The base of computed day/time calculation. There is a number that can't be negative, increasing every second to figure out the current time/date since 01.01.1970 0:00. This date is represented by the number zero of the time variable."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[]
] |
||
82a93l | how does hand sanitizer "evaporate"? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/82a93l/eli5_how_does_hand_sanitizer_evaporate/ | {
"a_id": [
"dv8kgyi"
],
"score": [
9
],
"text": [
"Hand sanitizer has a high alcohol content which requires less energy to evaporate than water. Also, because it's on your hands, it is pulling heat from you very quickly (you'll notice it makes your hands cold)."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[]
] |
||
3bf4gx | why do doctors test the "knee-jerk" reaction? why is it important? | What are they looking for and what are the implications if someone doesn't have the reaction? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3bf4gx/eli5_why_do_doctors_test_the_kneejerk_reaction/ | {
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"text": [
"~~They're looking for neurological issues. Each reaction that they can test (knee jerk is the most common) can be traced back to a part of the brain. If the reaction isnt there, it might be sign of brain damage~~.\n\nEdit: I was wrong. Just went off of memory from a small program I was a part of. Comments beneath are more accurate.",
"My brother is a doctor, and I asked him this a couple years ago. He said that it's extremely rare to find someone with a problem through this method during a routine checkup, but it's a good simple low-cost way of identifying possibly serious problems with the nervous system. ",
"When you hit the knee, what happens is that the length of the tendon in the knee changes. When the tendon length changes, the nerves that normally senses length of the tendon sends a message up the spinal cord to the brain. The brain then interpret that signal, and sends a motor signal to correct the change in length. Hence the knee jerk reaction.\nHowever, with pathology, such as a disc herniate, where disc materials compress on the spinal cord, that signal going to the brain gets inhibited, and thus no knee jerk. Is like if you were sending water down a hose, and someone push on the hose, the water you tried to send down the hose will never get to the end. \nAlthough it is not guarantee that if you don't have diminish reflex, you don't have a pathology, it is a cheap and quick way to screen for issues. Some people can have a huge disc herniation, but the reflex response is not compromise, while other have small disc herniation, and can still demonstrate neurological deficit. Again, it is still cheaper and faster than having everyone get an MRI. ",
"The knee jerk reaction is also called the *patellar deep tendon reflex*. In theory it tests three things: \n(1) the nerve that senses the hammer tap on the tendon below the kneecap and carries it to the spinal cord\n(2) spinal cord \"processing\" the sensation correctly and initiating a \"kick\" signal (brain is not directly involved in this reflex)\n(3) that signal traveling down another nerve back to the leg and contracting the quadriceps femoris muscle to kick out the lower leg\n\nIf any of the nerves or muscles involved are damaged (eg. diabetes, hypothyroidism, new stroke or spinal cord injuries, trauma, electrolyte abnormality) the reflex may be reduced, slowed, or absent. This is called *hyporeflexia*.\n\nCertain conditions can exaggerate tendon reflexes, and this is described as *hyperreflexia*. Electrolyte abnormalities, hyperthyroidism, and old strokes or spinal cord injuries can cause this.",
"a quick way to find out when a patient is having neuro issues if it is an upper or lower motor neuron problem, so it helps locate the lesion within or outside the spinal cord. For instance hyperreflexia will give you an upper lesion, whereas less of reflex will give you lower"
]
} | [] | [] | [
[],
[],
[],
[],
[]
] |
|
3spmal | why does micro usb have five pins on one end, if there are only four wires in the cable, and the other end has only four pins? | I never found a satisfying explanation for this.
Is there a reasonable use for the fifth pin? (Is it ever used in real life? Or is it just a theoretical use?) Why couldn't they just do that same thing, but with four pins?
Also, I'm aware there are five pins in Mini USB, but likewise, I have no real idea why. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3spmal/eli5_why_does_micro_usb_have_five_pins_on_one_end/ | {
"a_id": [
"cwzcavh"
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"text": [
"The first USB standard required that a plug either be a dedicated master or slave device and this is why standard usb cables have different shaped plugs on each end. With later versions, it was decided that a device should be able to choose whether it is a master or a slave in certain circumstances, like to allow a phone to connect directly to a flash drive. This extra pin is used for figuring out whether a device should act as a master or a slave in such situations."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[]
] |
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