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4burnj | why do officials test urine instead of blood for drugs in professional sports? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4burnj/eli5why_do_officials_test_urine_instead_of_blood/ | {
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"They actually do test blood under some conditions in sports. However, urine tests are very non-invasive, easy, and reliable. Blood testing is more reliable, but more invasive and people don't like that too much, and urine tests are good enough in most cases."
]
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||
52yc9g | what is the scientific reasoning behind feeling peaceful during a near death experience? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/52yc9g/eli5what_is_the_scientific_reasoning_behind/ | {
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"text": [
"Full disclosure: I'm not an expert. However, from what I have learned there is a chemical in your brain which is released both at birth and death/during near death experiences. DMT - as I know it (there may be other, or more technical terms) - causes strong feelings of peace and contentment. I also know that a similar chemical (which is either the same thing, or goes by the same name) can be manufactured and ingested for its psychological effects. Again, not an expert, but I believe this may set you on the right path towards a complete answer. "
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6vdt86 | if the human throat has two pipes, one for breathing and one for swallowing, why do we choke when something gets stuck in our throat? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/6vdt86/eli5_if_the_human_throat_has_two_pipes_one_for/ | {
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"text": [
"You choke for one simple reason. I shall explain. We choke because the food gets stuck in your breathing pipe, which cuts off air.",
"when you're swallowing normally, there's a flap that covers your breathing pipe and lets the food path through to the swallowing pipe. when you choke, that flap opens and your food accidentally goes into your breathing pipe and blocks your airways.",
"Stuff can only go down one pipe at a time. If you're swallowing, you can't breathe. If you're breathing, you can't swallow. The body does this to prevent things from going the wrong way.\n\nIf some food gets lodged in your throat, you are in the process of swallowing, so access to the trachea is closed off while you do so - don't want any carrots in the lungs! It'll stay closed until swallowing is complete.\n\nThis is all because we have the ability to breathe through our mouths. Interesting side note: snakes can't breathe through their mouths; their nasal passage is directly routed through to the rest of their respiratory system. This is because it can take quite some time to swallow larger prey, and can't afford to hold their breath for that long."
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5qnnix | if your accent has changed since you were a kid, why is it that after a few drinks you revert back to the old accent? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5qnnix/eli5_if_your_accent_has_changed_since_you_were_a/ | {
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"text": [
"It takes effort (unconscious effort after some length of time) to maintain a different accent than your first; when you're drinking your accent reverts because you don't have as much focus/energy to expend on maintaining the newer accent. It's the same reason people slur their words when they've had too many (less focus / energy to properly enunciate).\n\n_URL_0_",
"OP what are the reasons you changed your accent? Did you intentionally do it to fit in with the new environment? Or did it just happen naturally?",
"For me it was trying to be understood. People (kids, I was at high school when I moved) couldn't understand my South African slang so I had to use different words and change my pronunciation otherwise I got blank stares. \n\nEdit: I'm drunk and forgot what the question was. Not gonna change it now though.",
"I'm from the southern US and now live up north. I learned to cover my southern accent intentionally as a kid to sound less stupid (yes, that stereotype also exists in the South). Now, after living in the northeast for almost 7 years, I don't have to cover it intentionally anymore.\n\nMy husband, also from the South, has undergone the same transformation. We both still had accents when talking just to each other for a few years, but now we sound more SAE (Standard American English) even when we're alone. My brother says I sound Canadian when we talk on the phone (we live in Maine, so...).\n\nThe worst part is that when we lived in the South, we would do a really intense southern accent when telling stories about someone stupid we had encountered. Since that stereotype doesn't work as well in New England, we have lost a funny part of our conversations. Or at least until we get good enough at the Maine accent to switch to that one...\n\nEdit: Also, I should add that if you learn a new dialect/language after what's called the \"critical period\" for language acquisition, you'll always revert back to your original language/dialect when drunk or tired or whatever. That's the same reason why if you learn another language after age 14 or so, you'll never master the accent and will always sound \"foreign\" (with few exceptions).",
"My friend is Scottish, but her accent is mild until she gets cross, then she goes full Scottish. Apparently her kid said 'Mummy I know your angry because you go Scottish' Chuckled at that one!",
"I have heard that when transgendered people go under anesthesia for surgery, upon coming out of the fog their voices will briefly revert back to what they sounded like before transitioning. I can't find a source currently for this, so take it as you will. \n\nIf that's true, it could be that our consciousness actively influences our speech while we do have an underlying speech dialect/pattern. \n\nI used to do a lot of phone based tech support would find myself adapting my accent and speech style to match those who I was helping at the time. \n\nI suspect that there is some \"active\" control we exheret over our speech that is subtle enough for us not to notice. "
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67oo0c | what was it about the russian winter that deliberated the german army and gave the russians the edge to push forward and make it through? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/67oo0c/eli5_what_was_it_about_the_russian_winter_that/ | {
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"The German army were not prepared to fight a war in winter. When designing the equipment there are a lot of things to take into consideration. A uniform that is pleasant to use during summer might not offer a lot of warmth during the winter. Similarly a winter uniform will only add weight and discomfort during the summer. There was also an issue with cost and resources and the need to chose between equipping half an army with equipment that works well all year round or an entire army with equipment that have problems during the winter.\n\nGermans were not given enough effective winter clothes. This caused them to become cold which meant that they would consume more food and be less effective at fighting. The increased supply demand would cause problems for the supply lines which only had plans to supply the eastern front for a few months. When you have a supply line you need spare parts, fuel, rescue vehicles, etc. to maintain the supply line and the Germans had only prepared enough supplies to last to the autumn. And just as the front line the supply lines also had problems with equipment as they did not have equipment to clear the snow and ice or traverse it. If there were a snowstorm the roads could be closed for days and may have to be cleared by hand. And even when the roads were open the drivers had to be very carefully as they did not have tires prepared for the winter. If they were not carefully they would get stuck and needed to be rescued which took time and manpower. And if they ran out of fuel their engines would be cooled down and would not start as they did not have winter fuel or oil. So the German army who were to protect from the Russian attacks had no warm clothes, no food, no ammunition and no fuel. Considering this they put of a hell of a fight against the Russians."
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aizlyq | what happens in the brain when someone experiences claustrophobia? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/aizlyq/eli5_what_happens_in_the_brain_when_someone/ | {
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"Fears are not easy to describe, although it is commonly a logical pathway. \n\nClaustraphobia is likely less about small spaces and more about lack of freedom or lack of escape routes. So when you are in a small space you could freak out by thinking 'i'm trapped' or 'something is going to prevent me from leaving. And their panic then stems from survival instincts and lack of safety."
]
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21w34r | if we don't actually touch anything and all we feel is the molecules pushing against each other, why do we get sticky after touching something like a lollipop | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/21w34r/eli5_if_we_dont_actually_touch_anything_and_all/ | {
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"Because the molecules from the lollipop are attracted to the molecules of our skin...",
"The people who say that are splitting hairs. Yes, atoms are mostly empty space, so you're not really \"touching\" things in the intuitive sense on a molecular level, but in a practical sense molecules pushing against each other _is_ a form of touching something."
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8ic2rt | how does a hose work with an attachment? how does it not explode off? does the water pressure stop? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/8ic2rt/eli5_how_does_a_hose_work_with_an_attachment_how/ | {
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"Because the attachment is either crimped or clamped onto the hose in such a way that it can withstand the pressure of the water. ",
" > Does the water pressure stop?\n\nPressure is static, it doesn't change. When allowed the escape the water will constantly flow out but when stopped it doesn't continually build up. Normal water pressure is about 40-45 psi.",
"the same reason your house doesn’t explode when you turn off the sink. there’s water pressing up against every valve in your house just like it presses up against the valve in the hose attachment. like some other guy said, the pressure doesn’t build up because the force pushing it doesn’t change ",
"in simple terms, the force attaching the end to the hose is stronger than the pressure the water exerts "
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48bo0l | how do people with birthdays on february 29th get their age calculated with things like drivers licenses and passports? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/48bo0l/eli5_how_do_people_with_birthdays_on_february/ | {
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"text": [
"Just like everyone else. Just because the exact day of your birth doesn't appear that year doesn't mean you don't age that year. On non leap years, they legally turn a year older on March 1st.",
"Your mileage may vary based on jurisdiction, but typically it is reflected as your birthday being the 28th or March 1st."
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5hzn20 | how does a "secure" website connection actually work? | I understand that the data we exchange with the target server is encrypted, so that's what makes it secure against an ISP trying to spy on your info.
BUT for either party to decrypt the data, they would need like the key or password to do so right? So this key/password needs to be transmitted between the two parties... through the ISP, no?
So doesn't that mean that an ISP is perfectly capable of decrypting our secure messages because it could have caught the key/password that is required by both parties to decrypt it? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5hzn20/eli5_how_does_a_secure_website_connection/ | {
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"This is a great question. The short answer is that no, unless there's a known bug or vulnerability, the ISP can't decrypt these messages.\n\nThe magic is called \"secure key exchange\", and it's basically a way for both the sender and receiver to agree on an encryption key that they can both use for the duration of that connection, without any way for anyone else to intercept it. It was a major breakthrough when it was discovered.\n\nHere's a really simplified analogy for how it works, using physical mail.\n\nI mail you a package containing a padlock. Only I know the combination, but I leave it unlocked.\n\nYou generate a new secret code and put it in a box, then lock it with my padlock, then mail it back to me.\n\nIf someone else intercepts it along the way, they won't be able to open it, only I will.\n\nIf someone in the middle tries to swap out my padlock for their own, it won't work because when I try to open it, it won't open with my combination. \n\nAnyway, now that we both have the same shared secret, we can just use ordinary encryption and nobody else can eavesdrop.\n\nThe actual protocol is more complicated than that, but that's the essential idea. And of course the math to make this possible is really tricky.\n",
"What you are describing is known as a man in the middle attack (MITM). When you set up an encrypted connection you start of with a key exchange. You would use something like the Diffie-Hellman key exchange algorithm where both parties would generate a prime number, use it in an exponential function and send the result to the other party, then use that as a constant in the exponential again. This works because (c^x)^y = (c^y)^x . So both parts of the conversation would have the same number but anyone listening would only catch c^x and c^y and have no idea how to find x, y or the key.\n\nHowever if the attacker is smart it will not only listen on the connection but also intercept the packets and re-encrypt them using his own keys. For this you have asymmetrical encryption for signatures. The server can generate a secret key and then make a public key. It can then do some maths on a number to sign it and the client can verify the signature using the same number, the signature and the public key. In this way the server can sign a number only known to the server and client.\n\nHowever now the client have to know if he can trust the public key from the server. It is possible this key have been altered by the attacker as well. This is done by a certificate of authenticity of the key. A certificate contains the public key and some information about the holder. Most notably it contains the list of domain names this server is authorized to serve. The client checks these names against the name the user entered in the location bar. If they do not match it gives an error as someone is trying to use a certificate not authorized for the domain.\n\nBut finally how do the client know to trust the certificate. Well the certificate can be signed by itself and other certificates. This goes on and you have a certificate chain going from the server certificate to a root certificate. All the browsers and OS comes with a collection of root certificates it expects the user to trust. You can edit the list of certificates as you wish though.\n\nSo for an ISP to read your encrypted traffic to the web server it needs to either get issued a fraudulent certificate or somehow install its root certificate into your machine without you noticing. Then they have to intercept your network traffic and re-encrypt all your traffic. This will allow them to intercept the certificate sent by the server and the signature so they can inject their own certificate and signature."
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6ocnhg | why did the term/joke "ethiopian food" have to be specifically ethiopia, don't countries like sudan/zimbabwe have bigger starvation problems? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/6ocnhg/eli5_why_did_the_termjoke_ethiopian_food_have_to/ | {
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"The 1983–85 famine in Ethiopia affected around eight million people, resulting in one million dead. There were a number of telethons, fund raisers, and news reports specifically about Ethiopia. Sally Struthers rammed the image of pot bellied fly faced children down our screens constantly. So for many of us, at least in america, ethiopia became the face of african hunger....well until we found out most of the food and relief sent was being stole and sold by their government to buy guns and fund war....then we stopped caring again. ",
"Ethiopia has a fairly popular culinary style that has a reasonably large number of restaurants in foreign countries. The Sudan and Zimbabwe do not have such restaurants (or at least not the same number). As such the disparity between a group having popular cuisine and also being a place facing famine does not exist for the Sudan and Zimbabwe so there is no basis for a joke. "
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cci9lj | why is there so much concern about humans overusing antibiotics, but so little with regard to animal feed and cafos? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/cci9lj/eli5_why_is_there_so_much_concern_about_humans/ | {
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"There is concern in agriculture. It's to the point that antibiotic-free meat is used as a marketing point. I've been in a bunch of restaurants (even chains like subway and Chipotle) where the menu and/or big signs in the windows advertise antibiotic-free meat."
]
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4p48gu | how would thermoregulation in humans be maintained if half of the body was exposed to extremely cold temperatures and the other half to extremely warm? | [deleted] | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4p48gu/eli5_how_would_thermoregulation_in_humans_be/ | {
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"text": [
"Essentially, you're circulatory systems would keep your organs at a fairly neutral temperature, but your extremities would likely suffer. Especially the skin. "
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12bndj | why roast beef turns green | as a subway worker I get hassled each day by customers and I really need an explanation. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/12bndj/eli5_why_roast_beef_turns_green/ | {
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"Reflectivity and luminosity in the cellular structure of beef produces green light (555nm.) You can’t see this color when the meat is fresh because hemoglobin produces the color red and humans cannot see both red and green at the same time. Thus, we do not see the green until the red color from hemoglobin is greatly diminished.",
"From the USDA... \nIridescent Color of Roast Beef: \nSliced cooked beef or lunch meat can have an iridescent color. Meat contains iron, fat, and many other compounds. When light hits a slice of meat, it splits into colors like a rainbow. There are also various pigments in meat compounds which can give it an iridescent or greenish cast when exposed to heat and processing. Iridescent beef isn't spoiled necessarily. Spoiled cooked beef would probably also be slimy or sticky and have an off-odor."
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jjg30 | how rainbow tables work | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/jjg30/eli5_how_rainbow_tables_work/ | {
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"\"If done well\" website don't store your actually password as password. They convert the password to what's called a Hash. A Hash is like a computer version of the password. The computer turns your password into a number and then does some quick math on the password to form a hash. The best part of a Hash is that it's really difficult to turn a Hash back into the original password so even though the website knows a Hash you might not be able to turn it back into a password.\n\nFor example a Md5 (Common Hash algorithm) hash of \"password\" is dc647eb65e6711e155375218212b3964. This makes it so the website has to never know your actual password and if a hacker steals their password database the hacker won't be able to know anyone passwords. People tend to use the same password on multiple sites, so knowing a person password on say reddit might also be the same password as their banking site. \n\nA rainbow table is basically a table where a hacker has taken alot of common passwords and generated Hashes from them. Then the hacker can take the Hash of your password and know what your password already was. So let's say a hacker hacks into a website and steals the password database. He needs to know your password but only has your hash \"dc647eb65e6711e155375218212b3964\" he runs it through his rainbow table and it's like.\n\n\"When I put the word Password in it gives me a hash of \"dc647eb65e6711e155375218212b3964\" so the person password is probably \"Password.\"",
"How does a rainbow table deal with salting? Does one generate a table which includes hashed passwords for every possible salt? Even with a 2-char salt, that's ~32 thousand times more hashes to include in the table than unsalted. If rainbow tables can't deal with long salt strings, how are they still relevant?",
"When you enter a password on a website, the system first takes your password and runs it through a one-way encryption algorithm. For example, the password \"1234\" could be converted to \"81dc9bdb52d04dc20036dbd8313ed055\" using [MD5](_URL_0_). The encrypted version is called a hash, and that is the only thing stored in the database. The next time you log in, the system converts the entered password into the hash and matches it with the hash in the database. Since the encryption is one-way, even if someone had access to the database it would be impossible to figure out the password from the hash mathematically.\n\nRainbow tables are used to help \"crack\" the hash codes. They are basically a giant table with common passwords in one column and their hash in another column. Using a rainbow table, you can search for \"81dc9bdb52d04dc20036dbd8313ed055\" and figure out that it is the hash for \"1234\". Since there are so many different password combinations, creating a large enough rainbow table to include them all would require an impractically long time. However, rainbow tables are definitely a good way to \"crack\" common passwords like \"1234\".",
"\"If done well\" website don't store your actually password as password. They convert the password to what's called a Hash. A Hash is like a computer version of the password. The computer turns your password into a number and then does some quick math on the password to form a hash. The best part of a Hash is that it's really difficult to turn a Hash back into the original password so even though the website knows a Hash you might not be able to turn it back into a password.\n\nFor example a Md5 (Common Hash algorithm) hash of \"password\" is dc647eb65e6711e155375218212b3964. This makes it so the website has to never know your actual password and if a hacker steals their password database the hacker won't be able to know anyone passwords. People tend to use the same password on multiple sites, so knowing a person password on say reddit might also be the same password as their banking site. \n\nA rainbow table is basically a table where a hacker has taken alot of common passwords and generated Hashes from them. Then the hacker can take the Hash of your password and know what your password already was. So let's say a hacker hacks into a website and steals the password database. He needs to know your password but only has your hash \"dc647eb65e6711e155375218212b3964\" he runs it through his rainbow table and it's like.\n\n\"When I put the word Password in it gives me a hash of \"dc647eb65e6711e155375218212b3964\" so the person password is probably \"Password.\"",
"How does a rainbow table deal with salting? Does one generate a table which includes hashed passwords for every possible salt? Even with a 2-char salt, that's ~32 thousand times more hashes to include in the table than unsalted. If rainbow tables can't deal with long salt strings, how are they still relevant?",
"When you enter a password on a website, the system first takes your password and runs it through a one-way encryption algorithm. For example, the password \"1234\" could be converted to \"81dc9bdb52d04dc20036dbd8313ed055\" using [MD5](_URL_0_). The encrypted version is called a hash, and that is the only thing stored in the database. The next time you log in, the system converts the entered password into the hash and matches it with the hash in the database. Since the encryption is one-way, even if someone had access to the database it would be impossible to figure out the password from the hash mathematically.\n\nRainbow tables are used to help \"crack\" the hash codes. They are basically a giant table with common passwords in one column and their hash in another column. Using a rainbow table, you can search for \"81dc9bdb52d04dc20036dbd8313ed055\" and figure out that it is the hash for \"1234\". Since there are so many different password combinations, creating a large enough rainbow table to include them all would require an impractically long time. However, rainbow tables are definitely a good way to \"crack\" common passwords like \"1234\"."
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1vhusf | why the way people interact while driving and on the internet are so similar despite the interactions taking place on different mediums with different consequences. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1vhusf/eli5_why_the_way_people_interact_while_driving/ | {
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"We feel safe from retribution."
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9neae0 | why is it more efficient to produce energy by fusion instead of nuclear power? | i once read an article where it says fusion is like one million times more efficient to gain power then a power plant (hope you get the point, english isn't my first language)
Edit: i mean fission vs fusion | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/9neae0/eli5_why_is_it_more_efficient_to_produce_energy/ | {
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"Fusion is nuclear power, just a different type.\n\nIf you fuse together elements lighter than iron they release energy, if you split atoms (fission) heavier than iron they release energy. Fusion is the process which generates power in the stars and generally releases more energy with less harmful by-products than fission does.",
"Firstly to clearify some of the vocabulary. Both fusion and fission power is nuclear power. Our current nuclear power plants are fission based, which means they split heavy atoms in a chain reaction to produce energy. Those heavy elements have to be mined, enriched and within the running power plant they have to be moderated and controlled to prevent an explosion. All that takes a lot of resources and energy.\n\nFusion would mean to take very light atoms and fuse them together. That fusion also produces energy. Since the light atoms are much smaller, a lot more fusion events can happen in the same space and time than splitting heavy elements. That means the energy density in fusion is much higher. There also are more benefits to fusion. The raw material we need for fusion is way cheaper and cleaner to produce (basically water), the fusion leaves much less waste behind (basically helium) and the chain reaction of a fusion plant isn't self sustaining. That means a breach will let the fusion reaction fizzle out instead of explode.",
"Fusion is nuclear power, the big advantage of it is in the case of an He3+He3 magnetically contained reactor, there really isn't anything dangerous about it. The fuel, He3 is both non-toxic, and non-radioactive. You put it in the reactor and the magnetic containment is able to completely contain the radiation, and it would produce only stable hydrogen and helium as waste. Additionally since the fuel is a gas and non radioactive, a loss of containment merely results in a little bit of completely non-toxic gas getting blown away, and the loss of containment would instantly stop any nuclear reaction.\n\nThe Fusion we are working on now, D-D and D-T Fusion, are similar, but would result in the power plants container eventually becoming radioactive, but still would never melt down or produce radioactive waste (other than the bits on the container).",
"In a similar vein, what's cold fusion and why can't we do it?",
"Nuclear fission (atom splitting) is the kind of nuclear power that we have running today in plants. Each nuclear fission reaction, in which a very heavy element (like uranium) is split into two pieces by a neutron, releases about 200 MeV of energy (you don't need to understand what this means exactly, just bear with me). By making trillions of atoms split, we can extract that energy into water, boil the water, and use it to turn a turbine that makes electricity.\n\nNuclear fusion is another kind of nuclear power, but one we don't have working in a way that can yet generate electricity. It works by heating up and/or compressing light atoms (like hydrogen or helium) so that they combine into heavier atoms. This also releases energy. However unlike fission, it typically requires a lot of energy to start the reaction (the heating and/or the compressing in question). Depending on your fusion reaction that occurs, each one might release between 5 and 17 MeV. \n\nNow you might think, oh, 200 MeV is a lot more than 5-17 MeV! And you would be correct. But hydrogen atoms are _much_ smaller than uranium atoms, so each kilogram of hydrogen contains hundreds of more atoms than are in a kilogram of uranium. So if you could fuse an entire kilogram of hydrogen, it would release several times (~5X) more energy than fissioning an entire kilogram of uranium. So fusion is more _energy dense_ than fission, and in this sense, _more efficient_. A fusion power plant would have other things going for it as well (it wouldn't really produce nuclear waste to the same degree, for example, and it wouldn't have major safety problems — fusion plants can't \"melt down\"). \n\nIt is not 1 million times more efficient than a fission plant. But both nuclear fission and nuclear fusion are millions of times more efficient than _chemical_ means of generating electricity (e.g. coal, natural gas, etc.), because nuclear reactions are millions of times more energetic than chemical reactions (most chemical reactions are measured in eV, whereas as we've seen, nuclear reactions are measured in MeV — millions more). \n\n_However_, we do not currently have fusion power generating machines. There is much research into doing this going on, and has been for many decades. We know that controlled fusion reactions take place in the Sun, and we also know that _uncontrolled_ fusion reactions can be created using nuclear weapons. But it has proven a very tough scientific and engineering problem to create the conditions for a controlled fusion reaction that releases usable net energy on Earth. We have managed to created controlled reactions, but they release less energy than it takes to get the atoms fusing in the first place. So while fusion is more efficient than fission, whether that proves to be true _practically_ is unclear. If you are looking for a reliable power source _today_, fission is basically your own nuclear option. In several decades, _maybe_ fusion might be an option. But there is still a long road to go."
]
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4nqk0r | why are many of the threads regarding the shooting closed today? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4nqk0r/eli5_why_are_many_of_the_threads_regarding_the/ | {
"a_id": [
"d460uj5"
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"score": [
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"text": [
"Been posted here 3 or 4 times. Mods remove it as its not complex enough of a question. Yet none of the have an answer."
]
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[]
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||
5o06sb | why do department stores put small clothing sizes on the top shelves and xl on the bottom? | I just came from a Target store, and like many places they rack undergarments (in the men's section) so that the small sizes are up high, and the larger stuff is at the bottom. Do they get a kick out of seeing short guys jump and big guys bend over to look at underwear? I don't get it. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5o06sb/eli5_why_do_department_stores_put_small_clothing/ | {
"a_id": [
"dcfkh9z",
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],
"score": [
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6,
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"text": [
"You don't stack something bigger on top of something smaller it doesn't look good and falls over. Didn't you ever play with blocks as a kid?",
"Because the most visually appealing clothing are small sizes. It caters to the hopes and aspirations of people who wish to be thin. They visualize in their mind how appealing the clothing looks on a thin person, even though they will choose the XXXL size when they buy the product.",
"They do it with shoes and bras as well. \n\nMy size four shoes should be at the bottom where I can get at them dammnit."
]
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[],
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1w0id7 | what's stopping anyone from forming their own isp and providing faster data rates? i'm sure investors would jump over it and you would lure a lot of the market. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1w0id7/eli5_whats_stopping_anyone_from_forming_their_own/ | {
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"text": [
"You would need hundreds of millions of dollars for the equipment you would need to hook everyone up together. I don't really think investors want to go that way. "
]
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||
5w9lb8 | what is an ip address and what role does it play in tracing online activities back to you? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5w9lb8/eli5_what_is_an_ip_address_and_what_role_does_it/ | {
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"An IP address is actually an address. It's a number that uniquely identifies anything that connects directly to the internet.\n\nAs for tracing online activities - it becomes a little bit more hairy. Say you are at campus and connect through the same router as all the other students. Then the router is the only thing with a global IP address. Everyone else connecting through that router will identify as the same IP (it's called NAT if you want to read further)\n\nYour home connection may or may not be a fixed IP. There is a limited number of IP addresses so most ISP's use dynamic IP's. This means that your IP of today may be your neighbors tomorrow.\n\n",
"I assign ips, both public and private for a hosting company. Im also responsible for switch configuration and firewall provisioning. \n\nPostal service is the best analogy here. Your house address is how people send letters to you. Each up address can be broken down into street and house number but for this example let's just says it's your whole address. \n\nRouters/firewalls are like post offices, they may not have anyone there who knows where 12345 easy lane is, but it knows where the post office in Simple, TX is, so it sends it there. \n\nIn the mean time while it passes through some of these routers/firewalls the traffic gets monitored and logged. \n\nApartments are more like dynamic ips, it's a temporary address assigned to a large group of dwellings. This is most of us who have home internet connections. The apt complex knows who has what address, and when questioned they know who had apt 987 in June of 2008. \n\nThis is why TOR network was created, and this is also the importance of VPNs. ",
"Have you ever been in a group with two people that have the same first name? Someone might say \"Hey John\" or whatever name, and both look up and wonder if you mean them or the other John. Usually this problem is solved by adding more information that only applies to one of them, like their last name, or simply calling them by their last name to begin with. \n\nComputers have this problem when they try to talk to each other too, especially now that we've connected thousands of them together on the Internet. This problem is solved by giving each computer that connects to the Internet a number that only they have, an IP address. \n\nSince the Internet got way bigger than anyone had thought of back when they chose the numbers used for IP addresses, they divided them into public and private IP addresses. The private ones can't connect to the Internet, so they don't need to be unique. Each home or business has at least one router, which is a special type of computer with both a private IP address and a public IP address, the latter being assigned to it by their Internet service provider, like Comcast or CenturyLink. Computers and game consoles and tablets and stuff use their private IP addresses to talk to the router on its private IP address, which then uses its public IP address to talk to other computers on the Internet. \n\nSo people on the Internet can sometimes see the public IP address and can look up what Internet service provider it is from, and find the city and state it's in. Unless the customer posts it somewhere, only your Internet service provider knows the actual address of the house or business behind an IP address. A government or a hacker may be able to get that information from the Internet service provider, but is usually very difficult and rarely happens. ",
"Say you want to send a request to a web server, you put the website name into your browser, say _URL_0_, and the browser ascends the request to the web server, except how does it get there? \n\nComputers and routers don't send data to host names, they need something that's easier for computers to understand. Every computer and router connected to the internet has a numeric address, the IP address. There's a process that converts names like _URL_1_ to addresses and your computer does that and sends the request to the address. \n\nNow, to get the response back your computer needs to have an address. I'm going to gloss over some details you can google if you're interested (rfc1918, nat, dhcp) but your computer gets an IP address from your ISP automatically and when you send a request to a server that request includes your address so the server knows where to send the reply. \n\nNow, your address uniquely identifies your computer on the internet, so if someone does something on the internet the server they talked to has a record of what IP address made the request. From that people know which ISP issues that address to a user and then they can ask the ISP which customer had that address. \n\n",
"Any body ever get the feeling you just became an accessory to up coming criminal activity? ",
"Think of it like a phone number. Pretend your internet service is the same as phone service. Each customer has their own phone number, but they can also have more than one phone in their home which all use this number.\n\nWebsites are just computers with their own phone numbers: Reddit, Google, Facebook, all have their own numbers. When you want to visit a website, your computer uses a service akin to the YellowPages to find the phone number for that service. This is called DNS.\n\nSo your computer looks up the records for whichever site you're visiting and connects to that service and you can now talk to each other. The internet providers around the world all have the physical infrastructure in place to route all traffic from everyone in the world.\n\nYou can be traced the same way as you can by your phone number. If you prank call someone, your number will show up on their caller ID. Someone only has to look up your number (IP) to find out who your provider is, call your provider, and request your account holder information.\n\nWhen you connect to a website or service, they can see your IP address in their logs. There are ways around this, called proxies. These are just middle-men which route your connections. It would be like calling a mobile phone and having the call forwarded through that, so that the receiver would see *that* phone's number and not yours.\n\nThis analogy is not perfect but it's ELI5."
]
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3fes1e | why can't we just do the reverse reaction of rust to remove it? | Isnt rusting just oxidizing a metal, for example 2Fe + O2 -- > 2FeO. Why cant we just reverse this reaction? How would we reverse it? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3fes1e/eli5_why_cant_we_just_do_the_reverse_reaction_of/ | {
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"ctnxz94",
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"That would require energy, one could...but cost. It's easier to have the oxygen react with something else, such as a cleaning agent.",
"The oxidation of iron releases a lot of energy. So much so, in fact, that it can [cut through steel](_URL_1_). If you want to reverse this reaction, you have to put this energy back in somehow.\n\nNatural iron oxide found in ores is converted to pure iron by means of a [blast furnace](_URL_0_). Carbon monoxide is blown through molten iron oxide at high temperatures. The carbon monoxide is oxidized to form carbon dioxide, and the iron oxide is reduced to form pure iron.\n\nEDIT: Accidentally wrote carbon dioxide twice instead of carbon monoxide"
]
} | [] | [] | [
[],
[
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blast_furnace",
"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JI5whCBV0bk"
]
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|
2c8qyu | why are some teeth whiter than others (in the same mouth)? | For instance, my incisors are whiter than my canine teeth. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2c8qyu/eli5_why_are_some_teeth_whiter_than_others_in_the/ | {
"a_id": [
"cjd3law"
],
"score": [
7
],
"text": [
"That \"in the same mouth\" clarification killed me!"
]
} | [] | [] | [
[]
] |
|
20jakr | why do humans still insist on dividing ourselves up into arbitrary nations? | It just seems to me that we could achieve so much more if we just stopped fighting and competing among ourselves all the time. Why can't we take away the borders and nations and live as one species, live as Earthians? We would save so much just on military expenditure alone. Look at China and the recent "Jade Rabbit" they sent to the moon, what's the point of that apart from them being able to claim "LOOK GUYS WE DID IT TOO"? We should be aiming at Mars by now and here we have China wasting resources going back to the moon.
I understand it's not such a simple matter, there's the issue of languages and if we did indeed merge, I think the affluent first world nations would be the ones voicing up against it. I just don't understand why it's not even being considered. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/20jakr/eli5_why_do_humans_still_insist_on_dividing/ | {
"a_id": [
"cg3seai"
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"score": [
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"text": [
"All animals are territorial & for good reason. let's say you have found a good hunting ground & someone comes along & either takes it away from you or takes so much that there's not much left for you. That's what happened to the indians. \n\nPeople are basically animals & if you don't fight for your territory, you will either lose it & have to move on or die. Where people go wrong on this planet is that gov & people have tendency to not respect borders.\n\nEvery war that ever occurred would not have happened if their gov & their people respected borders. Simple as that.\n\nBy the way, if you think you aren't territorial then leave your doors unlocked & take down all the fences around your home. Then when you have friends over, don't make them leave. Before you know it, you've lost your territory & now it's communal property. In fact, you can't even throw them out because you invited them into your territory. You actually have to go to court & try to prove that it's your territory.\n\nPart of the reason most ppl with common sense in this country oppose open borders is because we are taking on Mexico as a liability. The developed nations are committing suicide by adopting the New World Order where there are no trade restrictions. We simply can't compete with slave labor.\n\nEssentially they have decided to try & build a world economy based on the developed nation's economy, but it has already had disastrous results for us. When we collapse so will everyone else. China is already experiencing problems due to our economy. I knew sooner or later that our economy would bring them down too. But it was their mistake thinking they could build their economy on our illusionary economy. $17 trillion in debt is an illusionary economy."
]
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arm7ro | why does the water behind a boat become incredibly smooth for a period after the boat passes? | Water behid boats is incredibly smooth after a boat passes evem though swell is still rolling through, why does it happen and how does it last so long? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/arm7ro/eli5_why_does_the_water_behind_a_boat_become/ | {
"a_id": [
"ego3zjg"
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"score": [
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"text": [
"It displaces the water it’s moving through, as the waves move in behind it to fill back up the open space they’re equidistant and when they collide they cancel each other out until the tide naturally takes over again."
]
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2spz3y | why are video games still being refused classification in australia despite the introduction of an r18+ rating back in 2013? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2spz3y/eli5_why_are_video_games_still_being_refused/ | {
"a_id": [
"cnry5tk"
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"text": [
"It is understandable why this may be confusing. The existence of an R18+ rating may suggest to most people that they should be able to sell/buy whatever game they like. \n\nA few quick facts:\n\n- Games must have a classification to be legally sold\n\n- Games can be \"refused classification\" and consequently can not be sold\n\n- Games are classified according to set classification guidelines\n\nTo understand the situation in Australia you need to understand *how* games are classified.\n\nClassifiable *elements* include themes, violence, sex, language, drug use, nudity. It assesses each of these elements and rates the *impact* of each. Impact is rated on a scale from very mild (G) up to high (R18+) and very high (RC). So if any of these elements are considered \"very high\" impact it will be RC and effectively banned. Before the R18+ rating there was simply a lower threshold for an RC as anything considered above \"strong\" impact (MA15+) was RC. So now let's see the differences in content allowable under guidelines for the new R18+ rating. This is basically how more lenient the new rating is. These include:\n\n- Impact can now be \"high\" impact instead of \"strong\".\n- Violence is more lenient. Under MA15+ violence needed to be \" justified by context\" and \"Strong and realistic violence should not be frequent or unduly repetitive.\" Under the R18+ guidelines note the change in language, \"Violence is permitted,\" so really context matters very little any more. It is followed by, \"High impact violence that is, in context, frequently gratuitous, exploitative and offensive to a reasonable adult will not be permitted,\" which means that there is still room to determine violence beyond this category. Also follows is this problematic guideline, \"Actual sexual violence is not permitted.\nImplied sexual violence that is visually depicted, interactive, not justified by context or related to incentives or rewards is not permitted.\" So violence is more lenient than before but not totally unrestricted.\n- Sex: before was \"Sexual activity may be implied.\" The language for R18+ is \"Depictions of actual sexual activity are not permitted. Depictions of simulated sexual activity may be permitted. Depictions of simulated sexual activity that are explicit and realistic are not permitted.\"\n- Language is now basically unrestricted under R18+.\n- The only change in drug use is that it doesn't have to justified by context under R18+. There are still heavy limits on allowable drug use though that is considered separately to these impact grades \n- Nudity is now permitted is not required to be justified by context.\n\nSo now what makes a game RC? If it falls out of line of the guidelines mentioned above it will be RC. There are also additional specific types of content that are not allowed. Please read this link under the heading RC - Refused Classification. \n\n_URL_0_\n\nThat document should tell you what you need to know. If you are thinking about Hotline Miami 2 the relevant quote is \"Implied sexual violence that is visually depicted, interactive, not justified by context or related to incentives or rewards is not permitted.\""
]
} | [] | [] | [
[
"http://www.comlaw.gov.au/Details/F2012L01934"
]
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||
a1xwq2 | what are the alphanumeric codes associated with colors on computer paint programs? like #ff8365 etc. | How are they used? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/a1xwq2/eli5_what_are_the_alphanumeric_codes_associated/ | {
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"If you look closely at a computer screen, you will see that each pixel is actually made of [three components](_URL_0_) - a red, a green, and a blue. Each of these smaller lights can be activated to various extends, and between the three of them they can reproduce any color that the human eye can see.\n\nThe value ##FF8365 is actually three values - FF, 83, and 65. These three numbers describe, for an individual pixel, how much to activate the red, green, and blue lights respectively (if you've ever seen the abbreviation RGB, it stands for red-green-blue).\n\nThe reason they are alphanumeric is partly historical and partly to do with how computers process numbers. They are in base-16, instead of base-10. In the base-10 system, when you see a number (e.g. 25), that really means (2 * 10 + 5). When there are more digits, the left digits get higher powers of ten, so 284 = (2 * 10^2 + 8 * 10 + 4). Base-16 is similar, except that the place values stand for powers of 16 instead of powers of 10, so the number 25 would be (2 * 16 + 5). #25 (25 in base-16) is equal to 37 in base-10.\n\nIn base-10, each place value can have a digit between 0 and 9. In base-16, each place value can have a digit between 0 and 15. However, since we don't have single digits equal to 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, or 15, we use letters instead - the letters A, B, C, D, E, and F.\n\nSo for example, #A8 = (10 * 16 + 8) = 168. And #FF, the largest two-digit base-16 number, is (15 * 16 + 15) = 255. So, each color code is really three numbers, each between 0 and 255, that tell you how much red, green, and blue there should be in a pixel, with 0 being none and 255 being the maximal amount.",
"The describe the the amount of red, green and blue in the color. You can split it in three parts FF Red 83 green and 65 blue.\n\nThe number are in [hexadecimal](_URL_0_) so you have a value for 0-255 in decimal. The system have a base of 16 instead of 10. a=10, b=11, c=12,d=13,e=14 and f=15. \n\nYou can look at the decimal number 55 as 5*10+5 so you multiply by 10 for each new digit. For hexadecimal it is 15 so A5 is in decimal 10*16+5=165 and FF is 15*16+15 = 255\n\n\n\n",
"Ultimately everything is 1's and 0's in the computer.\n\nSo the way an image is displayed on your screen, is that the screen has a block of computer memory that matches the number of pixels (red, green, blue color dots) that make up the screen. You can see them if you use a magnifying glass.\n\n60 times per second, the screen electronics read this memory dot by dot, line by line, and match the brightness of each dot of color (red, green, and blue) with the number stored in memory at each location for each dot. Black is 0, full blast of color (red, green, or blue, whatever each pixel is) is 11111111 (binary numbers) = 255 = FF (hexadecimal numbers / hex code).\n\nThe computer generates this \"image\" in binary code (1's and 0's) in its own memory (from the graphics / video card), and can manipulate the image by doing math with the 1's and the 0's to zoom, deform, etc. And then it copies the image from its computer memory to the screen memory. \n\nAnd the screen memory matches the pixels of color to the 1's and 0's of color intensity.\n\nSo TLDR: FF 83 65 is code for full (FF) red, about half saturation (83) green, and about 1/3 saturation (65) blue. Which is [this color](_URL_0_)."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[
"https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/4d/Pixel_geometry_01_Pengo.jpg"
],
[
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hexadecimal"
],
[
"https://www.color-hex.com/color/ff8365"
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|
9rydil | what happens if you lose a court case that requires you to pay a huge settlement but you can't afford to pay? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/9rydil/eli5_what_happens_if_you_lose_a_court_case_that/ | {
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"text": [
"Most likely the government will garnish your wages. Which is just a nice way of saying they take the money straight from your future paychecks.",
"You go to court and basically get put on a payment plan where a percentage of your income will go to whoever you owe the money to. If you make more money they can petition the court to have the amount readjusted."
]
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||
42ym0g | why do wet compact things catch on fire? (like hay/straw bales) | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/42ym0g/eli5_why_do_wet_compact_things_catch_on_fire_like/ | {
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"text": [
"Hay and straw bales are full of different bacteria, bacteria which begin to digest and break down the straw as it decomposes. Once the moisture level gets to a certain point, the environment becomes perfect for extremely rapid bacteria reproduction. This huge amount of bacteria keeps breaking down the bale, which creates heat, which can't escape because of the density and moisture, so the heat builds up until it combusts. "
]
} | [] | [] | [
[]
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||
25sze5 | why can't a tornado become a super tornado? like over an ef5? | Why can't tornados be say 15 miles wide? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/25sze5/eli5_why_cant_a_tornado_become_a_super_tornado/ | {
"a_id": [
"chkfnq6"
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"score": [
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"text": [
"Notably in physics, there are depreciating returns on energy based on size: a tornado with twice the radius needs far, far more than twice the power. Similar effects also cap the size of plants and animals.\n\nThere's nothing explicitly forbidding a 15 mile wide tornado, but the realistic properties of our environment means there generally will never be enough energy available to a system to generate a tornado of this size. Considering that a large tornado's energy output rivals our nuclear devices, a tornado is already an outlier in our environment."
]
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] |
|
3vs8w1 | how can the universe be infinite in size if we have measured the distance between the earth and the edge of the universe to be 46 billion light years? | Additionally, if it is expanding at a certain rate, its size should be calculable and hence, finite! | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3vs8w1/eli5_how_can_the_universe_be_infinite_in_size_if/ | {
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"text": [
"The edge you speak of is the edge of the *observable* universe, the universe we can see because light from those areas has had time to reach us. As time goes on, light from older and older objects will finally reach our location. However, there are objects so far away that light from them will *never* reach us. \n\nThe *whole* universe is arguably much bigger than the observable universe and probably infinite in spatial extent. If this is the case then the universe's size never actually gets any bigger; it's just the space between objects increasing (expanding).",
"We dont know the actual size of the universe.\n\nWe dont think it is infinite in the sense that it never ends, but it could look infinite in the sense that if you were able to look far enough you would see the back of your head.\n\nThe edge you are speaking about is our cosmic horizon, we can not look further because not enough time has passed yet so light emitted from objects further away has not yet reached us.\n\nHow much bigger the universe is then the cosmic horizon, we dont know yet, we have several ideas but its hard to find observable evidence for any of them."
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favyvh | why do airlines seem to overbook flights so often, especially when they end up having to pay extra in rewards to passengers who give up their seats? | It just seems like it happens so often, and airlines will sometimes offer you three times the price of the ticket just to stay a few extra hours. Seems like it’d be easy to just...stop selling tickets once the plane is full?? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/favyvh/eli5_why_do_airlines_seem_to_overbook_flights_so/ | {
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"I didn't realize airlines still overbook. I thought if I bought a ticket and choose my seat than that's guaranteed for me. How can they sell another ticket for a seat I already reserved?",
"If it bothers you, JETBLUE doesn't overbook.\n\n\nOf course, if you don't show up for your flight, they won't just put you on the next one, like every other airline will.\n\nThat's the tradeoff.",
"If your way costed them less overall then that's what they would do. They're very price sensitive, so it obviously wouldn't.",
"There are always some people who don't show up so airlines use algorithms to predict how much to overbook so the plane will be exactly full. Of course algorithms like that cannot be perfect so overbooks at the gate still happen here and there. Apparently the bottom line works out better for the airlines even if they have to pay a few people not to fly.",
"The amount they spend in compensation is less than the amount they get for selling the same seat twice and having one person not show up before take off. \n\nThey've worked out what % of passengers on average never board the plane after buying tickets for whatever reason, so they sell the seats twice.",
"They do overbook every flight because it happens very often that people don't take their booked flights. So often that otherwise they would fly with empty seats. So paying for hotels or for people simply waiting still is cheaper for the airlines.",
"I'll use an example to help illustrate this. \n\nYou, a traveler for pure pleasure has spent a few weeks tripping around europe. You booked your return ticket well in advance and got a great deal (say $500 because it makes the math easier). \n\nMe, a traveler for work, found out this morning that I need to go to New York for an important client meeting tomorrow. Crap, should have planned better but you know gotta keep the lights on. So I look up flights and lo and behold it'll be $2000 for the ticket. Boss says go we need you there so I buy it.\n\nWe both get to the gate and look at that it's oversold. So they make the announcement for someone to fly to NA tomorrow instead (the plane is not full so this is easy). You as a pleasure traveler don't really care so you go up and take the $500 they give you and go to a pub to enjoy your extra day. \n\nNow at the end of the day the airline comes out ahead. I overpaid for the same seat on the plane by $1500, you got $500 and the airline gets $1000 for free.",
"I used to work for an airline. We didn't overbook every flight, just ones on routes where we had more then one flight every day (so that if someone did ever have to be left behind we could accommodate them on another flight as quickly as possible)\n\nThe 'no show' rate for flights was between 4% and 7% and that was pretty reliable. It was very rare for everyone booked on a flight to actually turn up.\n\nIf 99% of the time a handful of passengers aren't going to turn up, and you can fill some of those extra seats, it just makes commercial sense to do it.",
"They overbook to ensure full capacity... they know that on average, X% of people who book a flight will cancel or change their flight. So they're better off overselling the flight and compensating people if they have to bump people than flying with unnecessary empty seats",
"They make more money that way.\n\nA certain number of people are going to miss every flight...their plans changed, they caught an earlier flight, or they just didn't get to the airport in time. Airlines anticipate this and sell a few extra tickets rather than fly with empty seats. Most the time, they do a good job and no one has to get bumped. Occasionally it doesn't work out, and they have to bribe someone off of the plane. If they stopped selling tickets when the plane is full, they'd have to charge everyone more. \n\nIt might seem like they are spending a lot of money, but it is not every flight and that last-minute traveler might have paid $800 for the ticket you bought for $200 three months before.",
"Because it’s worth it. It’s really that simple. \n\nThe airlines have done their homework, they did the math. The amount that they pay to passengers that get bumped is less than the potential revenue lost by having empty seats. \n\nAnd it’s not like you have much of a choice, either. There are half-a-dozen airlines left, and they don’t all service every city. So you’ll probably have a choice of 2 or 3 airlines at most, who all do the same thing.",
"FWIW not every flight is overbooked. It *seems* like it because people flying observe more full flights, because there are more people to observe it. If there are 20 flights that have 1 person on them, and one flight that's overbooked with 100 people, most people will have an overbooked flight even if that's not the majority of flights. A lot of flights are, in reality, far from full, it's just that people aren't necessarily there to observe them.",
"Plenty of people miss their flight by simply being late. Also, there are people who fly for business, and it would be a huge problem for them to take a later flight due to scheduling an important business meeting. The problem is when a businessman gets bumped off of a full flight, even if he arrives on time. So...many business people book two separate tickets, and cancel one as they are boarding.",
"Because on any given flight there is a probability of some percentage of 300 passengers not showing up and making the flight. And with good modeling, tracking, and math you can get a good prediction of how many.\n\neg: Say a flight that leaves at 6:30pm often has more than average people miss the flight because they didn't plan for rush hour traffic. I'm making up numbers here but let's say more often than not about 8 people miss that flight or don't show up. Well that's 8 more tickets they could sell, now they might not book 8, they might book 5 and leave 3 open (incase not as many miss the flight, or they need to move someone from a canceled flight or something). And many times they'll be fine. An average ticket for that flight might be $250, but once the flight starts booking up or it gets closer to the date of the flight, those tickets are selling for $500 or more. That's $2,500 they just made. Now if a bad day happens where more people show up and they have to re-book someone because of a canceled flight and they end up needing a few extra seats, it costs them if they bump them, but they don't have to pay out on every flight, and even if they do they'll often do so with gift certificates that cost them less than the face value.\n\nIn the end, even paying out for a bumped seat occasionally costs a lot less than what they make up for by filling those extra seats. Of course if someone gets bumped, you notice it, and if someone gets bumped and you weren't there, they'll tell you. I flight quite a bit, and many times I'm in a situation where I can take a later flight if they offer money. But it's only happened to me twice. They don't bump people as much as we think, we're just very aware of it when it does happen.",
"The airlines don’t have to “pay extra” to passengers who are bumped. They’re given vouchers towards another flight on the same airline. So really they’re giving up some profits on a future flight that may or may not be full. So it doesn’t really cost them as much. Plus I’d be willing to bet a big percentage of the vouchers never get used.",
"It's cheaper to give out a voucher which will expire and also forces the user to buy more of your services than it is to let a seat go empty."
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d4lrye | why must we flip clothes inside out when putting in the wash, but needn't worry about button up shirts? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/d4lrye/eli5_why_must_we_flip_clothes_inside_out_when/ | {
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"Wait... I was supposed to be flipping my clothes inside out...? All these years? Ou man.",
"We have to what? \n\nI'm... either you're wrong, or I've been doing laundry wrong for decades.",
"I think some specific items of clothing say to flip them inside out. But the majority of clotgez do not.",
"Because the inside of your clothes is the areas that get skin contact such as sweat that make it stink.",
"I only flip my graphic tee shirts so the design does not crack. You don't need to flip anything else.",
"Turning dark jeans inside out does stop those vertical faded lines from appearing. That and the graphic t-shirts already mentioned are all I've ever turned inside out.",
"Only flip shirts with silk screen graphics. You don’t need to flip pants, but doing up the buttons and zippers is a good idea."
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2ev6rd | what is the significance of the letter in the title of vitamins e.g. vitamin a? | Also, why are there so many different vitamin B's? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2ev6rd/eli5_what_is_the_significance_of_the_letter_in/ | {
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"Good summary here _URL_0_",
"Vitamins were named alphabetically according to which ones were discovered first. There are so many different vitamin Bs because at first all of the different types were thought to be very similar and all called \"vitamin B\". Later it was found that they serve different biological functions and were renamed. All the vitamin Bs together are called vitamin B complex, by the way. As for the missing gaps (B12 existing when there are only 8 types of B vitamins, the jump from vitamin E to vitamin K), those are from substances that were thought to be vitamins being named, then discarded after scientists realized that they didn't classify. ",
"[Vitamins](_URL_0_) are chemicals that your body can't make on its own but are needed (in small amounts) to facilitate various chemical activities inside the body.\n\nSince early scientists didn't really know what else to call them, they just assigned letters when they discovered these chemicals. There's so many B vitamins because they have related, but different, functions & were originally lumped together as \"Vitamin B\" until we discoverd that they were separate."
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74f5wu | can lsd desensitize the receptors it binds to, thus causing biologically based mental problems, either tempory or permanent? | I have read that any agonist being administered repetitively to a receptor can desensitize them and since the desensitization of some receptors is sometimes linked to mental health problems such as depression and such, that's why I am asking
edit: typo | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/74f5wu/eli5_can_lsd_desensitize_the_receptors_it_binds/ | {
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"With my very precursory knowledge of LSD, I do not believe it does. It doesn't bind to receptors like an opiate, the tolerance you build from a dose only lasts a few days. Shouldn't be any long term effects unless you experienced something traumatic or had such a great time you miss the fun and it makes you sad",
"When LSD binds to the 5HT2A receptor(main receptor responsible for the psychoactive properties)((LSD binds on multiple receptors though)) the receptor acts as a lid and holds the molecule in place and the only way to remove the drug is by endocytosis of the receptor (This is why there is such a rapid tolerance to psychedelics) because it has to remove the receptor from the membrane to remove the drug then reinsert a fresh receptor later. \n\nAs far as mental issues are concerned if you know you have a history of mental issues then the set and setting in which you take the drug could potentiate some of these issues, and i would probably say it would be best to avoid them all together unless you have really done your research and know what you are getting into.\n\nBut i would say it has the ability to bring out underlying mental issues you may not even know you had. At the same time it can also be the most magical life changing experience of your life. LSD is a very curious molecule as your thoughts and experiences can vastly shape the outcome(which is some thing that does not happen with any other class of drug)\n\nThe only long term effects worth noting would be that for some people with mutations in their 5HT2B receptor ( LSD is an agonist at this receptor) this can lead to heart valve issues with repeated dosing ( not just once or twice but multiple long term dosing). another long term outcome, from my experience is a general happiness about life and the ability to look past surface level bullshit and focus on YOU and understand what truly makes you happy.\n\n"
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1vgcwy | why are both lack of government intervention in an economy and fascism considered 'right wing'? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1vgcwy/eli5why_are_both_lack_of_government_intervention/ | {
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"Mostly because that's not true - or rather, it isn't true that a lack of government intervention is *strictly* right wing.\n\n[Anarchism](_URL_5_), for example, is about as far left wing as you can get.\n\nThe distinction between left and right wing in terms of economics has *nothing* to do with government intervention in the economy on the macro-scale, but rather the individual's perception of what constitutes just [property rights](_URL_8_).\n\nFor example, if someone says, \"I own your computer\" this is pretty obviously a false claim. What socialists - be they [democratic socialists](_URL_9_), [state socialists](_URL_3_), [libertarian socialists](_URL_11_), [market socialists](_URL_0_), or [religious socialists](_URL_10_) - believe is that it is wrong to make a claim to private property: that is to claim to own something you don't use.\n\nContrary to popular belief [capitalism](_URL_2_) is not \"support for the free market\" and [socialism](_URL_4_) is not \"support for state intervention\". The distinction between the two is whether or not they accept private property as morally just.\n\nTo learn more about how socialists define just property you can read [Proudhon's What is Property?](_URL_1_); [Private Property vs Possession](_URL_6_); and [FAQ: Why are anarchists against private property?](_URL_7_) Every single one of these sources is unequivocally left wing and is grounded in anti-government rhetoric.\n\nFascism is categorised as right wing for its support of institutional and cultural hierarchies, its suppression of worker's rights, and its support for private property."
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"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Socialism",
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"http://dbzer0.com/blog/private-property-vs-possession/",
"http://www.infoshop.org/AnarchistFAQSectionB3",
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8raxvj | why when you have a cold, if you walk around or eat food your nose clears up, but as soon as you sit back down again it blocks back up? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/8raxvj/eli5_why_when_you_have_a_cold_if_you_walk_around/ | {
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"The blocking of your nose is essentially caused by tissue swelling and blocking the airway. This swelling isn't static and can be influenced by outside factors, such as temperature, humidity or posture (vertical vs. horizontal). That's a general explanation for why your airways block or unblock depending on what you do. \n\nMy airways usually unblock immediately when I go outside in winter due to the lower temperature, which reduces the swelling. Similarly, my airways block when I lie down (horizontal position), but unblock when I get up (vertical position). ",
"Grab a nasal spray with fluticasone. It's a steroid that significantly reduces the inflammation in your nose, which causes the stuffiness.",
"Same exact thing here. Stand up, I can feel the sinus membranes open up. Sit down, and they clog right back.",
"Its called postural blood pressure. We usually assume a clogged nose feels that way due to mucus but its more often caused by swollen blood vessels narrowing your airways. When you stand, your bp lowers, in turn shrinking the swelling and opening up the airways. ",
"It's because when you sit up, your blood pressure increaes (relative to a lying down posture) and causes your sinuses to open up. In general higher activity you are performing, higher is the heat generated by your body and this promotes opening up the nose. That's why some people here mention that when they jack off their nose opens up, as it's just another excersise. \n\nHigher BP can also result from raising your arms above your head when you are lying down. Try it, it helps with sleeping when your nose is blocked.",
"Different positions have different impacts on blood circulation in your head and in your nose. Standing has less blood rushing to your nose, sitting has more, lying down is the 'worse' in that regard (hence why trying to to go to sleep with a stuffy nose is awful, when standing up isn't that bad). As for eating food, my guess would be that it's a mechanism designed to keep you breathing with your nose when your mouth is occupied, to prevent choking. Just like holding your breathe for a while will decongest your nose (try it next time!). Your brain is not stupid, it will not block your nose to fight an infection or small allergy if it's not worth it, i.e risking death.",
"Can anyone offer me advice for this? I have this every day of my life, not just with a cold. I also 95% cant smell (only like skunk or gasoline). My doctors said I had bad \"air fluid levels\" and have me buying Flonase... but I dont get what I really have, and how to actually fix it long term.\n\nBasically I'm always mildly congested, cant smell, blowing my nose does literally nothimg...but running and eating helps temporarily. I tested negative on all of my allergy tests, too.\n",
"Others have mentioned that you are stuffy because the vessels in your sinuses are dilated. Adrenaline helps constrict those vessels and therefore open up the airways. Physical exertion raises adrenaline levels. Walking helps, but you can speed up the effect by doing something that requires even more exertion.\n\nAnd if you want amazingly fast relief, hold your breath at the same time. (If in an office environment, then I recommend holding your breath and walking down the hall.) You have to get to hold your breath a little bit beyond uncomfortable levels (which is why you get a small boost of adrenaline), but it is soooo worth it.",
"I knew it was inflammation as opposed to mucus (which I thought for the longest time.) But I've since wondered if I could just stick metal straws up my nose so that the inflammation couldn't close the airways.\n\nI seriously am curious about it because I hate stuffy nose so much. This is coming from a boy who stuck a vacuum hose on his nose to suck all the snot out, and snort dayquil directly thinking that it would work at the source faster than ingesting it.",
"I work in immunology, so my explanation focuses on related factors:\n\nMostly, this is all to do with lymph nodes and inflammation. \n\nWhen you get some form of inflammation response, one of the most common things to happen is for affected cells to send out distress signals called cytokines. These cytokines cause nearby blood vessels to undergo a few changes: Some cells lining the blood vessels begin putting up signalling molecules (like MIP-1) that cause white blood cells to say \"looks like trouble in this area, I'll go check it out.\" \n\nOne thing that helps white blood cells get around in affected tissue is swelling, so cytokines also tell those cells lining the blood vessels to start flooding the area with liquid known as interstitial fluid. **This is fluid swelling,** and fluids go to all sorts of areas: Including your sinuses and nasal cavity. \n\nSo, how to get rid of swelling? Drainage. Your body has a system of drainage pipes called Lymphatic Ducts, which are lined with Lymph Nodes. When your muscles move, they compress the lymph ducts (and your veins) causing them to drain into your blood stream, temporarily causing drainage to occur more rapidly. \n\nMore motion, more drainage, less congestion. But all the signals causing your head to get filled are still there, so when motion stops, the swelling returns. \n\nThink of it like a bathtub: When you're moving, you're holding the plug out of place. The faucet is still on, but the bathtub is draining until the plug goes back into place."
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7ks9bn | how did the tulip market during the tulip fever work? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/7ks9bn/eli5how_did_the_tulip_market_during_the_tulip/ | {
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"It worked much like modern-day stock markets do: tulip bulbs were only available a few months of the year, but by purchasing future options for tulips, you could keep trade going all year round. An option means that you enter into an agreement with a vendor to purchase a given item at a given cost at given point in time, i.e. in January you would agree to purchase two tulip bulbs 1st of June at a cost of 4,000 Dutch guilders. Different categories were also created, meaning you held an option for a certain category of tulip (e.g. solid red colored or white with red stripes, the latter which was considered the most rare and thus valuable).\n\nAt the height of the fever during winter 1636-1637 bulb options would change hans ten times a day. However, prices across the Netherlands collapsed in February, following a scheduled action in Harlem for which no one showed up, most likely due to a plague outbreak. The event sparked concerned across the country, and people attempted to sell off their options, leading to a collapse in prices."
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b6hb63 | if being dehydrated gives you a headache, why don’t we always wake up with a headache after 8 hours without water? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/b6hb63/eli5_if_being_dehydrated_gives_you_a_headache_why/ | {
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"Being dehydrated CAN give you a headache, but not 100% of the time. Depending on how much water you drink before bed, you may not even be dehydrated after 8 hours.",
"Because most people are not really dehydrated in the morning, or at least not to any appreciable degree.",
"To add to the above comments, our bodies aren’t running at full capacity when asleep. A lot of brain functions and therefore bodily functions shut down or perform at a percentage of their day time capacity, so less calories and water are consumed by the body. \n\nIn contract, 8 hours at work without water would leave plenty of people feeling parched to say the least. ",
"I wake with a headache every day pretty much, sometimes I wake up at 2-3 am to drink a bottle of water, still parched in the morning.\n\n2 glasses of water and a piece of toast usually helps ",
"When you sleep your body goes on low battery mode so you’re not using as many resources as you would when you’re awake ",
"crap this is just a reminder that i need to drink more water religiously. i often get headaches/migraines that are likely due to me never drinking water. 36 still cant eat/drink right.",
"Only tangentially related, but when I moved to the US from Europe, I was surprised how religious people are about staying hydrated. At least when I grew up, the plain rule was \"you drink when you are thirsty\", but in the US I've heard \"if you're thirsty you are already dehydrated\" statement. The number of ailments I have seen attributed to dehydration is kinda staggering.",
"I read that night dehydration is a common cause of morning grogginess. Drinking a good glass of water first thing in the morning does wonder for your waking up routine.",
"Because you have hormones. Antidiuretic hormone to be specific, which is released from the post. pituitary in times of dehydration. When it's working, your body tries to stop you from losing water. When it's not working, it can be caused by alcohol (which inhibits ADH secretion), or pathological (ppl who don't secret sufficient ADH). Those are the cases where you would have the hangover experience"
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9n9b57 | when the police gets a call for crime being done from the particular place why do they come with their sirens on? doesn't that makes the criminals alert and gives them a chance to run off? exclude the hot pursuits. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/9n9b57/eli5_when_the_police_gets_a_call_for_crime_being/ | {
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"The sirens are to protect the policemen and other people in traffic (imagine having a traffic accident or near-miss with every travel to crime scene). It might tip off the criminals but that's less serious than whatever damage not using sirens might cause.\n\nIn some cases it might even be beneficial as the criminals don't get a chance to finish their crime and run instead (e.g. mugging, breaking and entering etc. ). There are cases when this might escalate the situation (hostage taking) but those are very specific and less common than the 'smaller' crimes.",
"They don't. \nAt least in Germany there is something called \"stille Anfahrt\" (roughly translated as quiet drive/approach). \nThis is used for example if there is a burglary and the burglar is expected to still be in the house he broke in. \n\n\nThey only use there lights and no siren. \n\n\nBut in most cases it's more important to be there as fast as possible. \nIf there is an act of violence for example.. it's more important to stop it fast... even if the offender can run of. \nAnd going without siren is more difficult as the normal traffic will not notice you that easily."
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8d1q7h | watching movies and tv shows we've already seen | I'm not sure if there's a scientific explanation but what makes us able to watch shows like Golden Girls or Charmed or movies like Clueless or The Wizard of Oz and not get bored/tired of it? Is it bc it's familiar? Bc we like/love them? What keeps us coming back to them time and time again? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/8d1q7h/eli5_watching_movies_and_tv_shows_weve_already/ | {
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"Humans find security in the familiar, would be a simple answer. It could also be that when we see a movie we saw (for example) during a happy time in our life, that movie reminds us of those good times.",
"You said it friend. Comfortability is key in retaining an audience. You eventually chose to watch those shows for the first time and since then continue to do so because you liked it, it's familiar, and it's entertaining.\n\nNew stuff is scary and the cost-benefit analysis of wasting your time watching something new is kind of lame when you just wasted 3-4 episodes of your time trying to watch a new show but don't like it, and could have been watching your old show instead.",
"If you keep watching it over and over during a short period of time I would say it's about familiarity, but on a longer scale it's probably because as you grow and your perspective shifts you find new things to appreciate about them",
"When your brain expects something and then receives it, you get a burst of dopamine. \n\nThis is why a piece of music can be good over and over and over again. \nWhen listening to a new song, you automatically build expectations based on song structure and when it goes the way you expect you get dopamine. \n\nSo when you enjoy a movie, and begin watching it again you build an expectation for your favorite moments and get the resulting quick bursts of dopamine when they happen. "
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2deuah | how does a polygraph not result in inaccuracies depending on how nervous, healthy, happy, angry, etc the subject is/becomes | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2deuah/eli5how_does_a_polygraph_not_result_in/ | {
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"It does. Polygraph tests are wildly inaccurate methods of determining whether the subject is lying. ",
"Before the official questions start, they ask you simple questions like \"Is your name really bob\" . They ask questions they know the answer to to get a \"Base line\". Also, usually the person administering the test would be good at reading body language, Almost as if they were a human lie detector.\n\nAll that being said, There are still inaccuracies.",
"They do, hence why they are generally inadmissible in court. They are generally only used to back up an already strong case.",
"The polygraph can't detect lies, it detects discomfort and poorly at that. ",
"They do all the time, hence why they are inadmissible as evidence in a court.",
"I had to take a polygraph as i want to work in law enforcement. So how it works is they ask you the questions before hooking you up. Then when they hook you up, they ask you baseline questions. They're ask what state you're in or what your name is. These are supposed to tell them how your body responds when you answer questions honestly. It's supposed to be find if you're nervous, as that should fall into their parameters.\n\nI should go into what a polygraph measures. \n\nThe straps that go around your chest and your stomach measure breathing. It measures how deep you're breathing and how often.\n\nThe things they put on your finger tips measure your sweat glands.\n\nThe arm cuff measures your pulse and your blood pressure.\n\nSome places also use a seat cushion that measures your movement.\n\nThey may also use a voice stress analyzer.\n\nSo the idea behind a polygraph is that you shouldn't worry if you have nothing to hide. The questions are very vague though, at least in my case. Obviously they realize that the more specific they get the less they can claim you are lying.\n\nMy polygraph said I was lying about negative stuff with my employment history and the types of illegal drugs I used. I tied to explain why that was. Completely honest responses. I said that one of my managers and I did get along very well. And I said that I wasn't proud of my drug use. None of my answers were lies. But hey, you get nervous and start doubting yourself. I still couldn't believe that it said I was lying. I ended up having to go back to take more specific poly graph. One for the drug stuff and one for the work stuff. The questions were exactly the same ones I failed the first time. I passed the work one no problem though because the manager I was having problems with and I are cool now. I did not pass the drug one. Even though I was honest. I was obviously nervous about failing it again.\n\n\nSo polygraphs are utter shit. They can't tell you if someone is lying. I doubt any psychologist led steak their license on defending them. If you have any questions about the polygraph, feel free to ask."
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1r0x6e | the current government in russia | I have heard many call it a "dictatorship". I know its officially a democracy with Putin as president, but does he have more power than Obama, or is it a lot more complicated? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1r0x6e/eli5_the_current_government_in_russia/ | {
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"Russia has one ruling party that de-facto holds all power with Putin in charge. Every election is \"adjusted\" towards \"desired\" result. It comes to ridiculous things like \"146% of population came to vote\" in some regions. \n\nUS has 2 parties and somehow independent judges and police to keep them in place."
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khm8s | how lasers are used to measure temperature and speed. | Those laser thermometers always amazed me, I have not even the slightest clue how they work. Also curious about laser speed detection. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/khm8s/eli5_how_lasers_are_used_to_measure_temperature/ | {
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"Laser thermometers exploit something called Thermal radiation. Any object that has any temperature at all emits radiation of various types. Some of this radiation is light your eye can see and, this is why for example the sun makes light and if you heat a piece of metal in a fire it glows. Some of this radiation light you can not see. \n\nA laser thermometer measures this radiation/light and uses it to determine the temperature of the object based upon what times of radiation it emits. As a object get hotter it tends to start off red, and then go blue for example. \n\n\nLaser speed detection work by shinning a very concentrated burst of light at a object. The light hits the object and bounces back into Laser speed detector. The Laser speed detector then measure the time it took for the light to go from the gun to the car and back. Since light goes at a fairly constant speed you can measure how far away the object is it. The speed detector does this multiple times and is able determine how fast the object is moving away for the speed detector. ",
"Laser thermometers exploit something called Thermal radiation. Any object that has any temperature at all emits radiation of various types. Some of this radiation is light your eye can see and, this is why for example the sun makes light and if you heat a piece of metal in a fire it glows. Some of this radiation light you can not see. \n\nA laser thermometer measures this radiation/light and uses it to determine the temperature of the object based upon what times of radiation it emits. As a object get hotter it tends to start off red, and then go blue for example. \n\n\nLaser speed detection work by shinning a very concentrated burst of light at a object. The light hits the object and bounces back into Laser speed detector. The Laser speed detector then measure the time it took for the light to go from the gun to the car and back. Since light goes at a fairly constant speed you can measure how far away the object is it. The speed detector does this multiple times and is able determine how fast the object is moving away for the speed detector. "
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5i650t | why is writing zeros (or 1s or random characters) one time not sufficient for formatting hard drives? | So, it is common when disposing of a computer or hard drive to wipe the data so it can't be recovered, I do this as part of my daily job often. Most hard drive wiping applications (DBAN, etc.) have several options such as the number of passes and what type of data to write to the drive (1s, 0s, random, etc.). What I don't understand from a technical standpoint is why multiple passes or different types of data are needed. Wouldn't writing all zeros (or whatever) to every sector of the drive be sufficient for removing all data and any hope of a recovery? I've never understood this but really didn't care until a client just asked me and I really didn't have an answer. I've searched for a good explanation of this and the best answer I can find is "so your data can't be recovered", but I can't seem to find a good technical reason for this. If I wrote over an entire hard drive with all zeros, how could anything possibly be recovered? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5i650t/eli5_why_is_writing_zeros_or_1s_or_random/ | {
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"Magnetic media has data stored on it in binary, but magnetic particles are similar to that in analog audio tape: the magnetic particle can be aligned in a variety of positions.\n\nSo, as an analogy, let's say you've got some number-shaped plastic pieces, like magnetic numbers for your fridge. They spell out your phone number -- 812-555-2359.\n\nThey've been lying there long enough that they get a layer of dust, but now you don't want people to know your phone number, so you rearrange the numbers.\n\nSure, the numbers are in different positions, but you can still see faint outlines in the dust of the orignial numbers. A crafty person could probably figure out your phone number from the dust images and the possible numbers available.\n\nSo, if someone had the right technology, they could see that a spot on the disk has a zero byte written to it now, and the magnetic particles are aligned the way a fresh zero would look -- but if they find a zero, but the magnetic particles are *mostly* aligned like a zero, but some look like they were once aligned as a 1, then maybe they can figure out what the bits used to say. \n\nBut, really, [it's not necessarily needed](_URL_0_), it's unlikely anyone with the technology or know-how would be able to get anything useful after a single pass write.",
"Just to make sure, hard drives manufactured during this millenia are not vulnerable to this type of attack, and despite rewards offered for anyone pulling even proof of concept attack of this type, there has been no incident ever where data has been recovered by this sort of attack, even as proof of concept.\n\nWriting by ones once is enough to completely and permanently erase all data, even against NSA. Theoretically if you are trying to hide information from hyperadvanced aliens that are operating at the very edge of what laws of physics permit, you might want to do 2 sweeps. Probably 2 sweeps just to be sure.",
"A single pass is absolutely sufficient to completely wipe a hard disk drive. It's a bit of an old wives tale; it's mostly based on nonsense and pseudoscience but it's not hurting anyone so it tends to persist as it makes some people feel better.\n\nThe whole \"multiple pass\" philosophy originated in the mid 1990s after a research paper identified a theoretical method of recovering overwritten data using magnetic force microscopy. This research was never validated and has never been publically acknowledged as being attempted in a lab. Futhermore, there have been subsequent papers challenging the scientific basis that the original paper rests on with some even going so far as to claim that the error rate would be close to 50% (essentially pure, worthless noise).\n\nWhile I will not discount the possibility that there may be methods of deeply analyzing modern magnetic platters to recover historical data, these methods are not published and would certainly require extremely expensive laboratory equipment and a clean room to work in.\n\nEDIT: Although you did not specifically ask about it, it was possible in some cases to recover overwritten data on floppy disks by using forensic tools. The philosphy may have some historical basis in the false assumption that floppy disks and hard disks are more similar than they actually are. Some government standards that do not differentiate by storage medium require multiple erasures of hard disks as a result of this."
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jogp6 | why everyone hates michelle bachman | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/jogp6/eli5_why_everyone_hates_michelle_bachman/ | {
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"Well she comes off as a bit of an idiot with her gaffes in speeches (accidentally comparing herself to John Wayne Gacy; saying that the founders of America fought slavery, etc.) and she has rather radical beliefs. She owns a clinic that is supposed to try to \"fix\" homosexual people. And she's running for president so there's a chance that she could be put in a position of responsibility with all these nutty beliefs.",
"Aside from her being batshit insane, let's look at another reason to dislike Michelle Bachman:\n\nMichelle Bachman said in one of her speeches that she, as a woman according to the bible, is submissive to her husband. So think about this: let's say you like Michelle Bachman's policies and you would want her to be in office, so you vote for her. You wouldn't really be voting for her, you'd be voting for her husband, who's policies and beliefs you don't know.",
"She *constantly* makes factually incorrect statements. Though it appears to be from a combination of pure stupidity and ignorance, she is also (intentionally?) pandering to the uneducated and the religious... so either way it is detestable. It is detestable because her deception is blatantly obvious to any moderately intelligent objective observer... but her fan base is anything but that.\n\nShe is either bat-shit insane, utterly stupid, or a combination of the two. ",
"My blog post about Bachman, [Why Michelle Bachmann is a Worthless Bitch](_URL_0_). That sums up what I've found about her.",
"Two main things. First, she tends to be factually inaccurate, leading to a lot of skepticism of her ability.\n\nSecondly, she is very extreme in most of her viewpoints, and doesn't work well with different viewpoints. Some people view her as the perfect example of what is wrong with politics today: extreme, factually inaccurate, partisan to a fault, and with a lot of money and power behind her.",
"She has no policy on anything. Her policy on healthcare? She's against obamacare. Her and Sarah Palin would make a great team.",
"sometimes, bitch just be crazy",
"One important thing to note is that NOT everyone hates Michelle Bachmann. She won the Ames straw poll, she is the leader of the Tea Party caucus and she has a dedicated following.\n\nAs for the people who do hate her (myself, most of Reddit, Democrats and more moderate Republicans), it's because she is an extremist Christian conservative who is opposed to gay marriage, wants to ban pornography and thinks that only Intelligent Design should be taught in schools. She does also have her ridiculous gaffes (claiming Lion King was a destructive influence because Elton John, who wrote the soundtrack, is gay; that whole John Wayne Gacy thing) but that's not the main reason. Plenty of people do that, and they are not as widely hated as Bachmann.\n\nEssentially, it's because her policies are unpopular amongst the sort of people you've been asking.",
"Well she comes off as a bit of an idiot with her gaffes in speeches (accidentally comparing herself to John Wayne Gacy; saying that the founders of America fought slavery, etc.) and she has rather radical beliefs. She owns a clinic that is supposed to try to \"fix\" homosexual people. And she's running for president so there's a chance that she could be put in a position of responsibility with all these nutty beliefs.",
"Aside from her being batshit insane, let's look at another reason to dislike Michelle Bachman:\n\nMichelle Bachman said in one of her speeches that she, as a woman according to the bible, is submissive to her husband. So think about this: let's say you like Michelle Bachman's policies and you would want her to be in office, so you vote for her. You wouldn't really be voting for her, you'd be voting for her husband, who's policies and beliefs you don't know.",
"She *constantly* makes factually incorrect statements. Though it appears to be from a combination of pure stupidity and ignorance, she is also (intentionally?) pandering to the uneducated and the religious... so either way it is detestable. It is detestable because her deception is blatantly obvious to any moderately intelligent objective observer... but her fan base is anything but that.\n\nShe is either bat-shit insane, utterly stupid, or a combination of the two. ",
"My blog post about Bachman, [Why Michelle Bachmann is a Worthless Bitch](_URL_0_). That sums up what I've found about her.",
"Two main things. First, she tends to be factually inaccurate, leading to a lot of skepticism of her ability.\n\nSecondly, she is very extreme in most of her viewpoints, and doesn't work well with different viewpoints. Some people view her as the perfect example of what is wrong with politics today: extreme, factually inaccurate, partisan to a fault, and with a lot of money and power behind her.",
"She has no policy on anything. Her policy on healthcare? She's against obamacare. Her and Sarah Palin would make a great team.",
"sometimes, bitch just be crazy",
"One important thing to note is that NOT everyone hates Michelle Bachmann. She won the Ames straw poll, she is the leader of the Tea Party caucus and she has a dedicated following.\n\nAs for the people who do hate her (myself, most of Reddit, Democrats and more moderate Republicans), it's because she is an extremist Christian conservative who is opposed to gay marriage, wants to ban pornography and thinks that only Intelligent Design should be taught in schools. She does also have her ridiculous gaffes (claiming Lion King was a destructive influence because Elton John, who wrote the soundtrack, is gay; that whole John Wayne Gacy thing) but that's not the main reason. Plenty of people do that, and they are not as widely hated as Bachmann.\n\nEssentially, it's because her policies are unpopular amongst the sort of people you've been asking."
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co89sv | - where are education funds spent? | I always seem to see posts on social media this time of year decrying the fact that "94% of teachers have to spend their own money for classroom supplies." The numbers vary by post, but they are always in the hundreds of dollars. But the US spends an average of $12,201 per year per student, according to the Census Bureau. That's about $360,000 per classroom! To a layperson, that seems like it should be more than sufficient, so how are classrooms so underfunded that teachers have to come out of pocket to purchase supplies? Where is all of that money spent if not on supplies? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/co89sv/eli5_where_are_education_funds_spent/ | {
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"Average class size is in the low 20s, so it's closer to 250k per year.\n\nSubtract the average teacher's salary, then add a prorated amount for everyone who isn't a classroom teacher: administrators, librarians, gym teachers, custodians, nurses, counselors, teaching aides. And a healthy amount on top of that for non-salary benefits (health insurance, retirement pay).\n\nAdd building maintenance costs, new construction, etc. It adds up quick.",
"Not all schools get that equally. Schools in a district with wealthier people will have better funding and the teachers are unlikely to need to buy aything. Plus the students will be able to afford their own supplies like pencils. A school in middle of nowhere Alabama is probably going to have crap funding and there's a chance the students can't afford their own supplies.",
"Two reasons:\n\n**1) Non-teaching staff.** \n\nSee [this](_URL_1_) report. \"Non-teaching staff\" includes administrators and others with non-teaching roles. Nationwide, we have 15.9 students per non-teaching staff member in the US, and 15.3 students per teacher. In other words, today we have almost as many non-teaching staff as we do teachers.\n\nIn case you are wondering if this number is high, here is the increase of headcount of students, teachers, and non-teaching staff from 1950 to 2009:\n\n|Role|Percent increase from 1950-2009|\n|:-|:-|\n|Students|96%|\n|Teachers|252%|\n|Non-teaching staff|702%|\n\nWhy does it now take 8 times the number of non-teaching staff to run our schools as it did in 1950 when the number of pupils has only doubled?\n\n**2) Teachers cost more than their salaries**. Although they may only be paid an [average starting base salary of $55k/year](_URL_0_), they also generally receive better benefits than private sector employees. Chief among these are attractive, defined benefit pensions. The [average retirement age for teachers is 59](_URL_2_). The point isn't that they are overpaid, just that salary data alone is an incomplete picture.",
"We could have a billion dollars per classroom, and it still wouldn't magically turn into the supplies the teacher wants. If the teacher has no way to direct those funds to a specific thing they want, they would still need to either buy it themselves, or do without."
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1a82a3 | what happens when you remove a brain tumour? what grows in its place, if anything? | I started thinking about tumours and realised I have no idea what happens to the body when you remove them, especially somewhere like the brain. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1a82a3/eli5_what_happens_when_you_remove_a_brain_tumour/ | {
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"Well two things are possible...\n\nOne, you removed all the tumor cells (harder than you think). Nothing grows there. The brain of an adult doesn't grow under normal conditions. \n\nTwo, you didn't get all the cancer cells. A tumor will eventually recur there.",
"I guess we'll see.\n\n_URL_0_\n\nHad a tumor removed last October.",
"Do you have one?\n\nI had one removed several years ago. [an acoustic neuroma](_URL_0_)\n\nAs far as I know, nothing has grown in it's place. It was pushing things out of the way to grow. They removed 96% of it, and when the swelling went down, stuff just moved back to the normal space.\n\nThink about it like you have a couple wet sponges pushed together. Then blow up a balloon in between them. As the balloon gets bigger the sponges compact and shift out of the way. When you remove the balloon, they sponges go back the their original state."
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aqzizw | why is it that when you get paint at the hardware store, they mix so many colors to get the desired color rather than say yellow and blue for green? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/aqzizw/eli5_why_is_it_that_when_you_get_paint_at_the/ | {
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"Mixing pure yellow and pure blue in equal amounts will give you exactly one shade of green. If you use less yellow/more blue, you get a bluer looking green. If you use less blue/more yellow, you get a yellow looking green. And that's it. Your range of greens runs from yellow-green to blue-green. But there are more kinds of green than that, meaning you'd have to use other colors than blue or yellow.",
"They have recipes that are provided by the manufacturers of the paint to make that particular color. It's not something that happens at the store, it's something that happens in the lab at the manufacturer. \n\nThat said, there are two different types of pigments, and they are used for different reasons. There are prime pigments, and include Titanium Dioxide (white), Chrome Green Oxide, Yellow and Red Iron Oxides and other prime color pigments. Then there are extender pigments that are used to control glossiness and these include Calcite (Calcium Carbonate), Talc (Magnesium Silicate), Mica, Barytes (Barium Sulphate) and many others. There is a lot more to paint than just color, and these colors and other modifiers all much come from chemicals which can be manufactured and added to the paint without changing the structure or the spreadability of the paint itself.",
"Well it is kind of like a screen or TV. Most things are displayed in RGB, meaning red, green and blue. Using those 3 colors you can make over 16 million colors. This is essentially what they are doing with paint. Theres all kinds of ways to make any color, some are just unexpected. ",
"With just yellow and cyan you could make a range of hues, but to control saturation and brightness, you need to add other colors. "
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eh9nv4 | how does a stuffed nose affect your voice so much so that it creates a deeper pitch and affects one's ability to hit higher notes when singing? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/eh9nv4/eli5_how_does_a_stuffed_nose_affect_your_voice_so/ | {
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"That deeper sound doesn't come from what's happening in your nose. It comes from the same thing, but happening in your throat. \n\nNasal congestion involves a swelling of nasal membranes. There are also membranes in your throat that you call vocal chords. Higher pitches come from chords that are thinner, shorter, and more tightly stretched. Swelling causes them to be thicker and prevents them from being stretched as tightly."
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1v3a05 | what is/is there, a maximum capacity to the human brain? and if so how is this measured? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1v3a05/eli5_what_isis_there_a_maximum_capacity_to_the/ | {
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"Yes, the theoretical upper limit is the [Bekenstein bound](_URL_1_). In reality memory capacity is obviously significantly less than that, [estimated at something like 2.5 petabytes](_URL_0_).\n\nThe thing is, we still have a very poor idea of how exactly neurons store information. The brain is obviously very efficient at some tasks (like distilling relevant information from visual stimuli, why CAPTCHAs work) and terrible at others (like pure mathematics, even a billion autistic savants can't match a single modern GPU).\n\nIt'll take a full understanding of how the \"hardware\" and \"software\" interact before we've got a more accurate understanding of it.\n\nThere are also drugs that significantly improve long term memory retention, one I use is [PRL-8-53](_URL_2_)."
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2v0qak | how can we have the technology to complete safe assisted suicides but lack the technology for 'safe' lethal injections? | In what way is killing by lethal injection medically different from killing by assisted suicide? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2v0qak/eli5_how_can_we_have_the_technology_to_complete/ | {
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"We have the technology for both, but the manufacturer of the drugs used in lethal injections won't allow it to be sold for use in lethal injections.",
"The medical establishment makes it difficult for governments in the US to access drugs and expertise that could humanely end a person's life. The result is that for executions US governments rely on incompetent individuals using increasingly experimental cocktails of drugs that often result in extreme suffering whilst the prisoner dies.\n\nThe American Medical Association, [for example](_URL_0_), forbids doctors from participating in executions.",
" > In what way is killing by lethal injection medically different from killing by assisted suicide?\n\nIt's *legally* different, and the legality affects what methods can be used, and may not be based on(or current with, or capable of) the most advantageous methods. ",
"The guillotine was invented ages ago. Humane. Instant. Messy is all."
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cnwuvd | - what is the physiological process that creates the cold/hollow feeling you get when you receive bad news or are really really sad | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/cnwuvd/eli5_what_is_the_physiological_process_that/ | {
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"_URL_0_\n\nI’m assuming this is akin to what you’re referring to. Basically it’s a defense mechanism. When the news is bad enough and you can’t process it without losing your sanity to some degree you’re emotions basically shut down and remove you from the experience to protect you from it. That’s in part why people often talk about feeling like they’re being run on autopilot when that kind of stuff happens. \n\nAs for the physiological process underlying depersonalization, that actually isn’t well understood. Some people are more susceptible to it than others, and we know that it can result from heightened states of stress and fear but what causes it directly isn’t known and so we don’t really know why it happens to some people and not others. \n\nHopefully someone better trained then I can answer this. But let me know if this was what you were asking about, if not then please clarify for me that I might answer it better.",
"When I had this empty feeling with some very bad news it gave me the capability to act really rational\nAs posted before it probably has to do with a fight/flee/freeze reaction. If your emotions are empty you probably have a better chance in making a rational decision on how to react in that situation.",
"When people feel emotional pain, the same areas of the brain get activated as when people feel physical pain. \n\nThis triggers the release of stress hormones (cortisol and adrenaline), which leads to physical symptoms, such as nausea, difficulty breathing, and also a weakening of the heart muscle that doctors called Takotsubo cardiomyopathy.\n\nTakotsubo cardiomyopathy is also known as stress cardiomyopathy, which there is a sudden temporary weakening of the muscular portion of the heart. This weakening may be triggered by emotional stress, such as the death of a loved one, a break-up, rejection from a partner or constant anxiety.",
"Your gut uses a lot of resources. Between digestion, management, and exchanging nutrients, the area has a very high traffic of bloodflow.\n\nThe rest of your body also gets the stuff if needs to do things from the blood. To help conserve resources, the body does most of its gut-stuff while asleep (which is why many people poop in the morning). However, the gut does still get a lot of blood while you are awake.\n\nWhen something triggers a stress response, your body wants resources in other places. Your body wants to supercharge those arms for punching, those legs for running, and that brain for processing sensory information. In order to supercharge those other areas, the body diverts blood from the gut. Digestion is a much lower priority than not getting digested.\n\nThat's why you feel cold and hollow. Your gut, the part of you that is normally full and warm, has less of the blood that makes it feel that way.\n\nMeanwhile, our brains haven't quite adapted to social stresses because they are a relatively new invention. Our brain hasn't quite figured out the difference between the different kinds of stresses. Your brain handles bad news in the same way it handles rustling grass; it gets ready to run or fight.",
"Look up the vagus nerve, new research is showing just how tied to the brain it is. Like the butterflies in the stomach feeling comes from that, also when you have a gut feeling about something, that's legit. Always trust your gut. And for those who posted about the general numbness in feelings, look up ANS dysfunction and the Nemechek protocol. I only learned about it because my kids were a hot mess of delayed speech, ADHD, ASD and anxiety. I learned everything I could about ANS dysfunction and was amazed. Basically from past traumas I'd slowly turned into an emotional zombie. Things are much better now."
]
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39wa1y | why do countries need a gold reserve? for instance, america seems to have 8k tons of gold. when would they ever need to use it? also, do they gradually buy and sell it? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/39wa1y/eli5_why_do_countries_need_a_gold_reserve_for/ | {
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"They no longer need gold reserves. Countries having them was a hold over from when countries used the gold Standard to back their currency. No country currently uses the gold standard so all gold reserves are just a point of investment now. ",
"Let's ignore the conspiracies that fort knox is empty, and the gold isn't there. \n\nIt's mostly there for political reasons now, there is no real market calming value to a gold reserve anymore. The world has moved well past an asset backed currency to a fiat currency. ",
"Originally, we had a gold reserve since the dollar was effectively a piece of paper that said \"I have an amount of wealth equal to a certain amount of gold\", so we needed the gold to regulate how much the dollar was worth and ensure it would always be worth something concrete. Most, if not all, countries have since moved away from currency being anything other than itself, but we still have the reserve because it is worth money, but we don't have any reason to sell it or use it. ",
"Gold has been accepted as currency for thousands of years. But a trustworthy central bank has more flexibility to control inflation and deflation if they can print and withdraw money at will, rather than tie it to a physical commodity. \n\nHowever, fiat money systems have been tried in the past, and it's very difficult for a government, especially a democracy, to resist the temptation to a) print more and more money, or b) keep the interest rates a bit lower than they should be. Debts get bigger and bigger, and it's harder and harder to raise interest rates. \n\nKeeping the gold (or accruing it, as China is currently doing) is a good strategic idea, because it at least retains the option of returning to a gold standard, should a loss of faith in the central bank suddenly happen. ",
"We don't but the gold is kept for the same reason it always has been, it's a symbol of wealth. Even early hominids had an obsession with the shiny stuff. It's pretty and easy to work with. Humans eventually began to glorify their Gods with it and this led to only powerful people having it which probably led to exchanging it as currency. Fast forward a lot and paper money became less arduous to carry around. Basically, it was a representation of how much gold there was. You have a buck and that means your buck represent one dollar of gold. Something to that effect. Fast forward again and we wanted bigger monies but we didn't have more gold. Ditch the gold and the sky is the limit. "
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6yz8fl | why does my body's capacity limit and threshold for pee seem to change? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/6yz8fl/eli5_why_does_my_bodys_capacity_limit_and/ | {
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"It may be that you have low grade urinary tract infection (UTI). When it flares up, your bladder becomes irritable, and you feel the frequent need to pee even though the bladder isn't full. Other times when the infection subsides, you don't have to pee as often.\n\nAnother sign of infection might be discomfort while peeing.\n\nA doctor can take a urine sample and send it for testing to confirm or rule out UTI.\n\nOne home remedy is to drink a glass or more of cranberry juice each day. Something else that can help is a sugar called D-mannose, sold under brand names such as Clear Tract. Neither is guaranteed to work, though they help sometimes.\n\nIf you have a history of UTI, you should probably mention this problem to your doctor.",
"Concentrated urine irritates the bladder, intensifying the need to pee. Often times dehydration(less water in bladder) leads to concentrated urine. Stay hydrated, thats the secret of life or something. I'm sure theres other reasons too, ",
"Your bladder holds your urine, but it isn't a container of fixed size like the gas tank on a car is. It's a flexible sack than can expand and contract. There is a complex series of reflexes as well as inputs from higher brain functions that regulate the bladders tone. Diurnal variations, local irritation and other factors (drugs, diet, etc) may influence the balance between relaxation signals (don't have to pee, fill bladder more) and stimulation signals (no no, pee now!!)."
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r7o2b | how do boosting antenna for wi-fi routers boost the signal output? do they? | I found [this explanation](_URL_0_), but I'm quite lost because of the liberal use of jargon. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/r7o2b/eli5_how_do_boosting_antenna_for_wifi_routers/ | {
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"Short answer: they don't boost signal output, they just direct it better.\n\nAn antenna can only put out so much signal and the standard router antennas spread it out evenly in literally all directions; imagine the signal as a perfect sphere. Now, that might be great if you have a computer on a floor above or below the antenna, because you'll still get a good signal, but it's pretty unlikely so you're wasting signal by sending it up and down to where it's not needed. The antenna you linked still sends out the same amount of signal but it only sends it out the sides*, not the top and bottom, so there's more signal available if you're on the same floor as the router but none if you're on a different floor.\n\n*Reality is more complicated. The antenna still sends some signal up and down, but not nearly as much."
]
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"http://www.amazon.com/review/R31PHMN4JXDM5U/ref=cm_cr_dp_perm?ie=UTF8&ASIN=B000SEQGT2&nodeID=172282&tag=&linkCode="
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3kmqoz | why does house not receive as much electricity at night during the summer? | For the past month or so whenever I try to game on my PC at night my computer will shutdown after a few minutes of running most any game. When I plug my phone in to charge nothing happens, the phone just dies as if it's not even plugged in. After about 6 AM my phone will begin to charge again and my computer wont shut down. Why is this a thing? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3kmqoz/eli5_why_does_house_not_receive_as_much/ | {
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"um... it's not. is your utility provider shutting down your service during those times or something? or is something else time managed in your house?"
]
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2hfbsk | if having good eyesight is an evolutionary advantage, how come so many people these days have to wear glasses? surely natural selection would have favoured those with good eyesight? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2hfbsk/eli5_if_having_good_eyesight_is_an_evolutionary/ | {
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"Natural selection cares about one thing: Being good enough to survive until you can reproduce.\n\nIt's not trying to create the best creature, it's trying to create a creature just good enough to have babies. The vision we have now is, on average, good enough to get us to reproduction age. That's all.",
"Someone needs to come in there with that evolution RES macro. Simple answer is that evolution will not, in general, produce *perfect* outcomes.",
"Even in the way back, when we were huddled in forests and caves, there's evidence that we tended to the sick and wounded. Someone with poor eyesight can still be useful ... even tens of thousands of years before corrective optics were invented ... through the supervision and support of his community.\n\nAnd today there's almost zero evolutionary disadvantages to having poor eyesight. It's just something that we accept as normal. There isn't even any sexual favoritism because of contacts and other unobtrusive solutions.\n\nSo without survival-based or sexual pressures there's not reason to expect it to change or go away any time soon.",
"the ability to correct that defect through the use of glasses, or laser surgery is adaptability. a key element of natural selection. ",
"* there is a lot of evidence that reading contributes to the need to wear glasses\n* not being able to see the sort of fine detail most people need glasses for would not be a huge detriment in a primitive society\n* human are highly cooperative social animals, poor eyesight in one could be compensated for by the rest of the group\n* many people only need glasses well after their reproductive peak\n* in a primitive society, many people would have had poor eyesight due to injury, disease, or malnutrition, so naturally poor eyesight would not have been as much of a factor",
"Some people look more attractive when blurry or they may not know they aren't attractive having bad eyesight like permanent beer goggles creating a reversal in natural selection. "
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yz6zh | what are the best and easiest options for an american to move to another english-speaking first-world country? | Say an American gets sick of the US and decides to move to another first-world country. What are his best options? What would require the least amount of hassle and red tape, what would be his best bet for getting a legal residence or citizenship, and just what would he have to do to actually go about getting himself set up in this new country?
Would this even be a plausible option for the average American citizen? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/yz6zh/eli5_what_are_the_best_and_easiest_options_for_an/ | {
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"R/iwantout might be able to help",
"Be a well-educated person with marketable skills who has ties to the other country. It's not a plausible option for the average American citizen; other countries don't really need or want more random laborers."
]
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fh765e | if the theory of entropy states that the universe continuously tends towards disorder, then how did humans (and other organisms) develop to become more complex from the earliest single cell organisms? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/fh765e/eli5_if_the_theory_of_entropy_states_that_the/ | {
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"The entropy in an isolated system will always increase. This mean that there is no energy or matter added to the system. Earth is not an isolated system because a huge amount of energy is received from the sun all the time. \n\nSo for live stuff on earth or the whole planet, the entropy can decrease if it just increases more in another location, that is in our case the sun. The fusion of hydrogen to helium and the release of energy to earth increase the entropy of the sun all the time.\n\nIt is not different from how you can use fuel to do stuff. A refrigerator decreases the entropy inside it by using an energy source that can be something you burn and the result is more energy is released to the air then was removed from the inside. So the total entropy increase but inside the refrigerator it is decreased."
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121u4p | what makes cigarette tobacco taste different, compared to to a pipe or a cigar when not inhaled? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/121u4p/what_makes_cigarette_tobacco_taste_different/ | {
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"Please don't say volatile nicotine.",
"Different tobaccos have differerent flavours. Different treatments generate different flavours as well. Take a leaf of fine Virginia tobacco, cure it, and you'll end up with the dry, bitter flavour of Canadian cigarettes. Takea leaf of turkish tobacco, age it (i.e. ferment it), cure it, and you'll have something more like American cigarettes.\nPipe tobacco is comprised of a number of different tobaccos which have been aged, blended, possibly flavoured, pressed. and cut. Cigars have been aged and dried whole, then rolled so that they burn in a certain pattern. Also, you're pulling more hot air through unburnt tobacco in a cigar, so it will pick up volatile flavours as it goes.\n\nCigarettes in general are made of bits of tobacco that have been dried, chopped finely, mixed with burning agents, and jammed into a paper tube. The primary goal is to deliver nicotine, not actually provide any flavour. Strong flavours belong elsewhere - much like with American Lagers.",
"Well, I am no expert, to say the least, but I have had enough experience to definitely know the difference. So far, I am enjoying my pipe the most, as the tobacco, depending on the blend, can be very smooth and aromatic. Whenever I smoke my pipe around my friends, the number one comment they give me is that it smells like a campfire and roasted marshmallows. For me, I dont smoke my pipe, I *enjoy* it. Cigars are similar, but I feel that they tend to be slightly more bitter. I suppose that is because I have never had one above a $10 value (although high price does not necessarily equate to high quality). Anyway, when smoking a pipe or cigar, its more about experiencing and enjoying it, rather than getting that nicotine fix."
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3v0mmm | i often hear that top u.s. banking officials should be thrown in jail for their actions leading to the 2008 collapse. what exactly caused the collapse and what did the bankers do? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3v0mmm/eli5_i_often_hear_that_top_us_banking_officials/ | {
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"Read u/iStillHavetoGoPee explanation on the housing market details. Adding my piece to ELI5 it.\n\nBasically, U.S. banking officials sold loans to the American public to purchase houses that they (the American public) couldn't possibly pay back. The terms & conditions of these loans were strict and incentivized American consumers into entering a long-term contract (i.e. the loan) that they couldn't fulfill. This type of financial instrument (i.e. a \"piece of paper\" that promises to be paid back) is usually considered high risk, but bankers were able to hide the risk through clever \"repackaging\". The repackaging entailed grouping together these hundreds of thousands of loans with standard financial promises and tiering repayment options to investors (\"collateralized debt obligations\"). This basically helped hide the aggregate risk and allow for its spreading into the global financial marketplace.\n\nSo, banks were getting more promises of payment from new homeowners who had never been able to own a home before. This simple fact made the banks richer despite the fact they had hidden the reality of the high unlikelihood of repayment. Then, U.S. banks bought \"insurance\" (\"credit debt swaps\") to protect themselves and traded these promises (as if they were currency) on the stock exchanges.\n\nThis wouldn't have been an issue if these high-risk promises (\"sub prime loans\") accounted for a small portion of a bank's holdings. But the opposite was the case. U.S. banks were incentivized by selling more promises of payment and selling those promises on the open market, so the engine kept churning. And the engine churning kept spreading soon-to-be defaulted loans into every part of the global credit market. So, every company holding a \"repackaged\" financial instrument thought they had $100 but really had $70. Multiple this (random example) $30 loss times every instance of a bad loan on the entire world's credit market, and you'll understand why there's such an outcry for jail time.\n\ntl;dr Shady & unsound financial practices lead to American citizens agreeing to loan promises they couldn't repay, which U.S. banks resold under false pretenses to make more money; thus, bringing about a collapse of the global credit market."
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1z2qf8 | how does career progression in criminal gangs work? | I'd assume it's done based on when more senior people die/are arrested, but then how is it decided who moves up the ranks? I'm guessing it depends on the type of gangs as well, but the more regimented typically seem to be the more family-orientated, which you wouldn't expect to be the most efficient way of making sure the most capable people are in charge. Or is it just a dog-eat-dog fight for the top? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1z2qf8/eli5_how_does_career_progression_in_criminal/ | {
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"The Mafia system maybe? Soldato - Capo - Underboss - Boss\n\nMaybe they have their own version of that",
"Ok I have never answered a question on here and I an definitely not in a criminal gang so I don't have all the answers but this question reminded me of [this](_URL_0_) scene from The Wire. They are comparing drug street gangs to the game of chess. One of the best scenes in the whole show. ",
"This TED talk is on a related matter - it brushes on career progression. It is both fun and informative. _URL_0_\n",
"It was either Freakonomics or its sequel that delves deeply into a crack gang in Chicago. They said the org chart was almost exactly like McDonalds, the gang leader even had to report to a \"Board of Directors\"",
"They start from the bottom until they are there.",
"Mexican gangs work like this were I'm originally from. You start of as a baby. You put in you work eg; (killing people, committing robberies) for a couple years and you get to change your nickname from baby spider to lil spider. Once you been in for years and become the older of the bunch, you get to drop the lil and become spider. It takes about 6-10 years to reach this point. You receive the title of veterano and become a made man. The hardest of the gang, at this point your no longer expected to commit crimes but are in charge of leading the gang and setting up the meetings. ",
"The person who has proven loyalty and an ability to make money will get promoted first. Loyalty is usually proven by committing violent crimes such as murder. Nowadays family and connections don't mean as much as they used to (not saying they don't mean anything though, depends on the organization) but with RICO laws and the government able to crack down hard on these types of groups they have adapted by promoting the best possible \"employees\" rather than just nepotism. \nSource: Grew up in Mafia controlled town (in the US) and have dabbled in the drug trade myself when I was younger",
"Everyone here acting like gangs are structured heirarchies. \n\nMost gangs now a days are nothing of the sort. Your position within the group is mostly dictated by how much money you're capable of bringing in. Deal drugs, and be good at it, youre not gonna get sent out to do hits on someone, the poor motherfuckers scraping by are going to do that.\n\nits not career progression like youd think",
"Pretty much like most other jobs, the bigger/more powerful the organization the more well structured it usually is. \nIts not so much about being tough and fucking everyone up, its about being reliable, loyal and doing what you are told. Some will stay muscle forever but if you have leadership potential you can climb the ladder"
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2jqgwe | how all computer software basically boils down to zeros and ones. i can't fathom the number of zeros and ones to reproduce a movie digitally. how does this work? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2jqgwe/eli5_how_all_computer_software_basically_boils/ | {
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"Yes, it takes a lot of ones and zeroes. That's why movies can be tens of gigabytes in file size, despite the fact that a single number takes up very little space. \n\nBasically every color has a number assigned to it, and this number can be expressed in binary. Then the file for the video tells the player \"Pixel one is this color, pixel two is this color, pixel three is this color, etc.\" For an HD video it will do this just over two million times every frame (ignoring compression and whatnot). ",
"It's a convention. \"Everybody\" agrees that a certain string of ones and zeros, starting at a certain place and ending in another place, stands for \"this color\". Usually the value is represented by hexadecimal, but that is just an abbreviated way of expressing a string of ones and zeros. Bashing out a long list of 01000100011100 is just too hard, so it gets represented by odd looking numbers like 1A6F. (Engineers and CS majors, sorry, but I know these strings are not equivalent.)",
"This question gets asked a lot, you're probably gonna get deleted. But lemme take a stab at a super short version:\n\nSoftware boils down to 1s and 0s in sort of the same way that the human body boils down to atoms and molecules. Technically, both are true, but the human body has structure on top of the atoms and molecules. The atoms together form cells, and then the cells form organs, and so on. Computers are the same way. There are 1s and 0s, but then we organize all those 1s and 0s into bigger things, like let's say an alphabet, or hexadecimal numbers, and then we can organize strings of those into a movie player, or a movie, and so on. So it's 1s and 0s, but when guys are coding a movie player, they are not coding in binary."
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5hmvuq | why do spinning things often look like they are spinning a different way than how they are actually spinning? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5hmvuq/eli5_why_do_spinning_things_often_look_like_they/ | {
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"This is called the [wagon-wheel effect](_URL_0_).\n\nIt happens when the rotational rate of the spinning object exceeds what our brains can pick up (our internal refresh rate). The object eventually spins fast enough that your brain is only able to catch the frame when the blade/spoke/whatever is advanced just behind the position in the last frame it perceived. So it looks like it's going backwards.\n\nImagine if an airplane's propeller blade were a clock. When the propeller spins clockwise at a rate that induces the wagon-wheel effect, what you are seeing are frames of the propeller blade when it is at the 12'o clock position at cycle #1000, 10 'o clock position at cycle #1050, and 8 'o clock position at cycle #1100"
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ai9mie | how did the modern guitar come to be? why aren't there any guitars with strings designated for each note? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/ai9mie/eli5_how_did_the_modern_guitar_come_to_be_why/ | {
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"There are guitar like instruments with strings designated for each note. For example the harp. There have been guitar like instruments for as long as there are written history. They have varied in size and number of strings but they are largely the same. A lot of these variations have survived to this day. The modern guitar form were developed in the middle ages when music theory and professional musicians and composers became popular. As musicians and instrument makers could do this full time they had a lot of time to experiment with different forms and features. So they discovered the form that would make the best sound and the number of strings that a musician could use. Earlier guitar like instruments often had a simpler resonance box and fewer strings. For example the lute.",
"I know nothing in regards to the first question, about the history of a guitar, and would love to follow this thread for this.\n\nBut the second question sounds like a misunderstanding of how a guitar functions.\n\nFirstly, there are a lot of different guitars with different string number.\n\nSecondly, there are 12 unique notes - it is the same for every single instrument. The design of a guitar (strings and threats) allows it to have a very rich sound with varying octaves. Usually about 4 octaves of the same 12 notes.\n\nSo to answer why there aren't guitars with strings designated for each note - it's not optimal. For instance, a six string guitar is designed so that it's easy to reach all the 12 notes and their variations (octaves).",
" > Why aren't there any guitars with strings designated for each note?\n\nBecause at that stage it stops being a guitar and becomes a harp. The important part of the guitar is the fingerboard, and an important aspect of being a guitar is that it's organised into spaced by frets -- the little wires you see going across the fingerboard at various intervals. Other string instruments can be fretless, such as the violin or the double bass, and violinists and double-bassists have to be much more precise about where they put their fingers; that's why chords on these instruments tend to be less common than they are on guitar. Other string instruments, such as the Indian sitar, have movable frets, which means you can change how the strings behave in relation to one another and to themselves.\n\nThose frets are wider at the bottom than at the top because of the mathematical basis of music: it's all about ratios. At the bottom of the string (up towards the top of the neck of the guitar) the spaces are wider than they are at the bottom because the ratio changes. This is analogous to the way the strings of a harp change as you get closer to the player, from the long low strings at arm's length to the short, high strings right next to the harpist's nose. \n\nBeing able to isolate a few different strings in different positions you can make pretty much any chord imaginable, and you also get lots of different options for making the same chord. That gives the guitar some of its trademark features; chords and versatility. "
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7nou9i | how does it cost the american people tens of millions of dollars for their president to play golf? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/7nou9i/eli5_how_does_it_cost_the_american_people_tens_of/ | {
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"Air Force One alone costs nearly $180,000 per hour of flight as of 2012, so just taking that into account, along with the cost of security, staff, etc, you can easily see why the costs add up.",
"Mainly due to having to pay for all the security, Secret Service, etc. that has to travel with the President and the First Family. The cost of food lodging, and travel for all of that staff is expensive. Plus, Air Force One isn't cheap to operate either. ",
"Travel costs, secret service man hours & equipment, any reimbursements for lost business of places that have to close for security reasons... anywhere the president goes away from the White House requires a staff of like 200 people to mobilize."
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qhrh9 | the u.s.'s strong desire to make iran the bad guy. | As far as I know all reports indicate Iran isn't actively pursuing nuclear weapons and it seems as though the U.S. accuses Iran of some really outlandish things. What do? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/qhrh9/eli5_the_uss_strong_desire_to_make_iran_the_bad/ | {
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"Iran wants to develop nuclear power (and arguably (and most notably) nuclear weapons). They have facilities that are nearly 100m underground and so, naturally, it seems suspicious.\n\nIsrael is worried that Iran will develop nuclear weapons and give them to Hizbollah or Hamas or whomever. Enemies of Israel. So the US wants to stand firm with an ally and oppose a dictatorial, and some would say unstable, state.",
"The geopolitics orbiting Iran are complicated. It's a combination of conservative war-hawking at a strong islamic republic, responding to constant baiting from the government of Iran, the potential for Iran to actually have nuclear weapons (regardless of how likely that potential is) and the desire to keep Israel happy but not happy enough to start a war. \n\nAmerican jingoism requires an active villain to keep strong. Americans, by and large, are not interested in being the Roman Empire. They *are* interested in proving their own exceptionalism. To that end, hawkish elements in the government and press will always take the bait from an antagonistic regime. ",
"**The American military-industrial machine requires an active villain to stay relevant.**\n\nWithout active enemies, their budgets go down. \n\nIt's that simple, like-youre-five.",
"Everyone is being downvoted, I'm wondering why. AIPAC?!?!"
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7ffnja | how is it so easy to open a refrigerator from the outside, but so difficult or nearly impossible to open from the inside? | Getting trapped inside a refrigerator was a real danger that we were repeatedly warned about as kids. I never tried it myself, but the warnings made you at least curious. If I'm strong enough to pull open a fridge with my arm, why wouldn't I be strong enough to push it open with my legs or arm from the inside? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/7ffnja/eli5_how_is_it_so_easy_to_open_a_refrigerator/ | {
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"Old refrigerators had latches to keep them closed. New ones don’t. So you are fine in a new fridge, but not an old old one from which the warning comes.",
"Because refrigerators from the early 1900's had latches. Now they don't. An armless child could free themselves from a modern fridge no problem.",
"Fridges used to have locking handles. Nowadays it wouldn't be an issue to open, but if you wait too long you risk suffocation if the seal is still good. ",
"* older refrigerators had mechanical latches that could not be opened from the inside\n* if a refrigerator was on its back, a small child might not be able to lift the door against gravity\n* children playing could potentially tip a refrigerator so it lands door side done, or so something else lands on top of it",
"As Indiana Jones taught us, even a nuclear explosion wasn't enough to open old fridge doors. ",
"In addition to the latching door which others have mentioned, there are other reasons. It is possible for a child to push in the wrong place. The magnetic door gasket makes some doors harder to open. A push near the hinge or on the wall will not open the door. If the fridge is on its back, it will be very difficult for a child to open the door against gravity. "
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6u6wgd | what is the process of a lethal injection? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/6u6wgd/eli5_what_is_the_process_of_a_lethal_injection/ | {
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"I presume you refer to the execution, correct?\n\nThere are 3 stages for this execution, at least traditionally. The drugs involved have been, as of late, harder to acquire as the companies who make them are refusing to sell them to be used to end life.\n\nThe first drug is sodium thiopental or pentobarbital, which is used to put the condemned into an unconscious state. In the US, one is protected from \"cruel and unusual punishment\" by the 8th amendment, and the next two drugs shut down your systems in ways that are basically amounting to a heart attack and suffocation. So by knocking out the condemned, they (in theory, as there have been cases of the drug not doing its job) are unable to feel the effects of the next two as they expire.\n\nThe second is pancuronium bromide (Pavulon), which is a muscle paralytic and causes respiratory arrest (you cant breathe). The purpose here is relatively obvious. You are now (if the drugs are all working correctly) unconscious, unable to move, and unable to breathe. Now of course its possible that some people's bodies might shock them awake as they try to gasp for air, which is why we induce the third drug.\n\nPotassium Chloride induces cardiac arrest, which is the stopping of the heart. This stops the flow of blood through the body, and as you know, if the blood isn't flowing, the body quick shuts down. \n\nAgain, there have been reports of 1,2, or all 3 of the \"cocktail drugs\" used in lethal injection not working properly, thus inducing severe pain to the inmate, and calling for its elimination.",
"The typical lethal injection is a three drug cocktail consisting of the following drugs: (1) Sodium Thiopental, a sedative that relaxes the condemned person and renders him/her unconscious; (2) Pancuronium Bromide (Pavulon), which is a paralytic agent that paralyzes the chest muscles and inhibits breathing; and (3) Potassium Chloride, which stops the heart. The three drugs cannot be administered simultaneously and must be given incrementally, generally 3–5 minutes apart.\n\nThe only company in the United States that produced Sodium Thiopental discontinued producing it so it must now be purchased overseas. The companies who still produce it refuse to allow its sale for the purposes of execution so states have resorted to using compounding pharmacies that produce the drug prior to the execution. The identity of compounding pharmacies is closely guarded with Texas in particular threatening criminal penalties to anyone who discloses the name of the compounding pharmacy. Other states, notably Oklahoma and Ohio, have elected to substitute the drug Midazolam (Versed) for Sodium Thiopental."
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5n4wzd | why are animals not always in heat? | By this I mean, why is it that animals can't recproduce constantly. Because to assure more offspring, would it not be more logical to be constantly in heat to reproduce more often? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5n4wzd/eli5_why_are_animals_not_always_in_heat/ | {
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"I can't explain it in detail but its because they reproduce in times when reproductive success is higher, ie during times of high seasonal food supply or better weather. Humans don't have these selective pressures so we don't have breeding seasons."
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1wb9hl | what steps a computer takes to connect to a webpage | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1wb9hl/eli5_what_steps_a_computer_takes_to_connect_to_a/ | {
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"When you write \"http://_URL_0_/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1wb9hl/eli5_what_steps_a_computer_takes_to_connect_to_a/\" in the browser address box, the following happens:\n\n1. The browser asks a DNS server for the IP address of _URL_0_. Your computer might have the IP address stored in a cache from previously, so this step might be skipped.\n2. The browser connects to the server using its IP address.\n3. The browser uses the HTTP protocol to request the page \"/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1wb9hl/eli5_what_steps_a_computer_takes_to_connect_to_a/\" from the server.\n4. The server parses the URL and uses it to retrieve the contents of the webpage (in reddit's case, this probably requires loading the data from a database and constructing the html page).\n5. The server sends the contents of the page back to the browser, which the browser can now display.",
"This was the final question in my 3rd year Introduction to Networks university class. We listed and explained 20, but I'll try to keep it simple.\n\nThe first part has to do with routers, so I'll fast-forward it a bit. The router has a way of forwarding traffic depending on where it comes from and where it wants to go. A newly connected router will do some stuff to configure itself, learn about it's \"neighbours\" etc. \n\nYou connect a PC to your router. It is assigned an internal address (again fast-forwarding the technical stuff about your NIC). \n\nYou type in _URL_0_, your pc initially can't make sense of that URL to an actual meaningfull address, so it needs DNS. \n\nA DNS request is prepared and sent to your ISP's DNS server. If the server knows the answer it will answer back, else it will ask a bigger one - > a bigger one - > up until the chain of answers reach back to you.\n\nSo now you know the IP address of the webserver that hosts the webpage you want. \n\nYour PC will initiate a TCP \"3-way-handshake\" with that server (every HTTP connection starts like that), basically your computer will prepare a TCP packet saying hello, and the server will respond that they are now communicating, acknowledging the connection. \n\nSo now you begin requesting stuff: in HTTP 1.1 that is used today you can ask for many stuff at once in a single connection, so you send requests and the server answers back with data for images, fonts, texts, style etc\n\nIt's an overimplification really, I've skipped through many smaller steps, if you want something specific feel free to ask \n\nedit: I had mixed up TCP and HTTP in a couple of places. ",
"- Browser as the computer (Wheres _URL_1_?)\n- Computers like I don't know let me asks the Router (Wheres _URL_1_?)\n- Router says I don't know... Let me ask the Domain Name Server (DNS) that you told me to check when Ever I don't know\n- DNS says hey I know where _URL_0_ is. Its at 74.125.239.33\n- Router says thank you and passes that back to the Computer.\n- Computer passes that back to the browser\n- Browser says great now I can request the page from that address.\n- Browser as the computer to get the page at 74.125.239.33\n- Computer asks the Router to get the page at 74.125.239.33\n- Router sends the request to that address and waits.\n- Many switches along the internet relay this request while you wait\n- Google Servers sees an incoming request for that page and sends it back to the router.\n- Router says thank you and delivers it to the computer.\n- Computer says thank you and shows it in the browser.\n- Browser decides its still best to show _URL_0_ in the address bar because the User will recognize that instead of 74.125.239.33"
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3whcxu | (nsfw?) if childbirth is so painful and has resulted in so many deaths over time, why haven't we evolved to, for example, dilate more? (or something along those lines) | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3whcxu/eli5_nsfw_if_childbirth_is_so_painful_and_has/ | {
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"text": [
"We have. But we've _also_ evolved to have much, much bigger heads, which is why human childbirth is so exceptionally dangerous relative to other species'."
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beqe2u | why are bank vault doors round and not rectangular like normal doors? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/beqe2u/eli5_why_are_bank_vault_doors_round_and_not/ | {
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"Traditionally, they work by pushing big rods into holes in the door frame. This is easiest if the rods are all the same length, which is what a circular door gets you. The circle shape also means you can't make use of stress concentrations at the corner, since there isn't one, and you can't really use a jack to force the door frame open like you could with a rectangular door, since it will just squeeze the rest of the door even tighter."
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25uila | how exactly does funding for state-funded universities work in the us? how do governments decide how much money each school gets? | SDSU: 31,899 students, $158.4 million endowment, $721.3 million budget
UCLA: 42,163 students, $2.8 billion endowment, $4.65 billion budget
EDIT: Added numbers. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/25uila/eli5_how_exactly_does_funding_for_statefunded/ | {
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"Let's look at research techniques.\n\nStarting with [SDSU's wikipedia page](_URL_1_) we see:\n\n > Budget\t$721.3 million (2013)^[2]\n\nThat [2] is a footnote - there's a link there that runs to a source providing more information. In this case, it's an article called [SDSU budget explained: Part 1](_URL_0_). Specifically, you can see that:\n\n > SDSU’s $721.3 million budget can essentially be broken down into three groups. First, there’s the university operating fund budget, consisting primarily of what students usually think of when talking about the budget: tuition and fees, and state money. At $328.4 million this is the single largest section of the budget.\n > \n > Second, there’s “designated revenues,” which includes everything from parking fees and citations to money the athletics department gets from things like ticket sales and corporate sponsorships. These come in at a total of $88.8 million.\n > \n > Third, there are the four nonprofit auxiliary corporations: Associated Students, Aztec Shops Inc., The Campanile Foundation and the SDSU Research Foundation. These combine for a total of $254.1 million, with the largest by far being Aztec Shops with a budget of $60.5 million. However, the research foundation also manages the university’s $118 million endowment.\n\nSo, only **$328.4 million** of SDSU's budget is tuition & state money. Following the link on UCLA's page, we get around $550m. Considering that UCLA has a higher student population & LA is more expensive than San Diego, the two numbers are about the same.\n\nWhere's the rest of that money come from? Research grants, investment returns on endowment, licensing fees for the school name (sports jerseys, etc) and the profits from sports (eg - there's a shitload of money to be made when a football team goes to a bowl game)."
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"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/San_Diego_State_University"
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u4yj7 | the c programming languages | I've read the wonderful ELI5 on the differences of other programming languages, but what about C, C++, and C#? I have no idea what they are in the first place and why they have similar names if they're different. I would like to learn more about programming as a hobby and an explanation of these would be much appreciated. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/u4yj7/eli5_the_c_programming_languages/ | {
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"A common bit of confusion is that C, C++ and C# are all different dialects of the same language. This is not the case. They are each their own different, complete language. That said, C and C++ are much more closely related to each other than they are to C#. C# is much more like Java.\n\nOf these three languages, C is the oldest. C is used for systems programming, like writing drivers and operating systems. This is because C exposes characteristics of the computer you're running on. For example, when you declare an integer variable, on some computers that will be a 16-bit number, and on other it will be a 32-bit number. Having access to this much detail about the computer is important when writing system code, but it can make it difficult to write a single program that will behave the same everywhere.\n\nC++ is a direct descendant of C. The name is actually a bit of a joke, because \"i++\" in C means \"add 1 to variable i\", so C++ kind of means the next language after C. This is similar to how C got its name as the successor to B. there is also a language called D, but I don't know much about it. \n\nC++ exposes a lot of the same details about the machine you're running on, but it has a number of features that help you write much larger, much more portable programs. Two of these features are classes and namespaces. A class is a way to group data and code together into coherent units, so that certain types of data and the code that manipulates that data are kept in one neat package. Namespaces are important for writing things like libraries. Every variable has to have a unique name, but what happens if I name a variable in my library \"foo\", and someone using my library also wants a variable name \"foo\"? These would collide, but what I can do is put my library in a different namespace, meaning there will be a \"foo\" for my library, and there will also be a \"foo\" for the main program.\n\nIn C# you are completely insulated from the type of computer you're running on. You can safely write code once and expect it to run on just about any computer. C# also takes care of a lot of other stuff for you that C and C++ don't, like memory management. As far as the name is concerned, I think it was just people trying to be clever. Unfortunately, this clever name tends to confuse people new to programming."
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3omw84 | before the equal pay act of 1963, were women highly sought after by employers as a means of cheaper labor? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3omw84/eli5_before_the_equal_pay_act_of_1963_were_women/ | {
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"My granny told me about this!\n\nWomen were typically sought after for \"woman jobs\" like clothing production, cleaning lady services and others.\n\nHowever, for \"man jobs\" such as office work, men were perceived to be more reliable and more worth the wage. \nSide note, society viewed nuclear families as dependent on the man rather than both the man and women. This suggested that women didn't NEED an equal pay because they relied on the wages of their man. ",
"Back in the 60s and before, most jobs were stereotypically men's jobs or women's jobs and there wasn't a lot of overlap. Boys were taught certain skill sets that helped them with stereotypical male-gendered careers while girls were taught skill sets that helped them with being a housewife and with stereotypical female-gendered careers. So, women were sought after for stereotypically female-gendered jobs, but not usually for things like manual labor jobs (unless it involved stereotypically female tasks like sewing clothes). \n\nEven if legally the employer could pay women less than men in manual labor or other stereotypically male-gendered jobs, that doesn't necessarily mean that women were applying for those types of jobs (it often wasn't considered socially acceptable for women to apply for \"men's\" jobs and vice versa), and even if there were women applying, it doesn't mean the women applying had the same skill-sets or qualifications for those types of jobs that the men applying did, so it still didn't necessarily make sense for women to be hired even if the employer could legally pay them less. Plus women working in male-gendered careers were likely to experience harassment from male co-workers, so it wasn't exactly pleasant for women to work in those careers anyway even if they had relevant skill-sets and knowledge for those careers.\n\nThe Equal Pay Act helped eliminate unfair business practices that would result in women (with the same level of qualifications / skills) being paid less than men to perform the same jobs/duties. It didn't address the more underlying/fundamental reason for the wage gap between men and women though, and that has more to do with the fact that men were (and still are) encouraged to study and get careers in professional occupations (particularly sciences) which pay higher salaries whereas women were (and still in some cases are) expected to study less valuable arts degrees and end up with careers in service type jobs and other work that has less requisite skills and qualifications and therefore results in much lower salaries."
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1e6b83 | american patriotism | With George Bernard Shore in mind "Patriotism is the belief that your country is superior to all other countries because you were born in it", i'm trying to examine American patriotism. (Note: this is not for an exam or report, purely for my interests).
As a Brit, I look onto America and see that they are (in my mind) the most patriotic nation in the western world. Republican or Democrat, they all share in common their love for America and a consequential deep concern for its welfare. Citizens/Politicians often refer to it as "this great nation" etc. I'm aware that schoolchildren salute the flag every morning, and they sing the national anthem before most sports game, which has led me to think that this is a mild form of 'brainwashing'.
However, I can recognise my lack of knowledge on the subject and as a result am looking for some clarification.
EDIT: Thanks for the feeback guys | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1e6b83/eli5_american_patriotism/ | {
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"This isn't the best answer, but hopefully it's helpful.\n\nWe're told we're the most powerful country in the world -- and we are. Our GDP is about [as much as numbers 2 and 3 combined](_URL_4_). *Our GDP is slightly less than the entire EU*. We spend more on the military than the [next 14 countries combined](_URL_2_). We have about as many *active* nuclear warheads as [every other country combined](_URL_3_). We spend [$100 billion more on research](_URL_0_) than any other country. That's like $360 billion more than the UK. Currently, even with all the political and economic mess, US treasury bonds are widely thought to be the safest investment in the world because the US government backs them. And keep in mind that we only have [4.46% of the world's population](_URL_1_).\n\nI'm not saying those things are necessarily good. I'm a liberal and I would love to see military spending cut way down, for example. But they do make us powerful.\n\nSo the world accommodates us. For example, what mandated aviation language do we use? [English.](_URL_5_) Even referring to the US as America. There are Americas: North America, Central America, South America. And yet when it comes to the US we just sort of vainly call ourselves \"America\". As if there's no need to recognise anyone else. And y'all, like much of the world, often do it too. \n\nI don't think it has much to do with saying the Pledge every morning in school, or singing the anthem before a sports game. Maybe a bit? But only in the sense that it's one manifestation of a larger issue rather than being some sort of government brainwashing plot.\n\nOur country is exceptionally powerful and so we get accommodated. (Fuck sake, I cannot spell that word for the life of me.) And we get told our country is powerful so we think that is. And we absorb it into our identities.\n\n----------------------------------\n\nNone of that means his quote doesn't contain truth. For example, I think Texas is the best state in the nation (notwithstanding Rick Perry McFuckStick). It's very likely that had I been born and bred someplace else that I would think differently. So there's an element of brainwashing in play.\n\nBut brainwashing is only part of it; it also has to do with power, and that society thinks the impetus is on others to learn about the US rather than the other way around. For example, I was once in Russian and trying to explain to someone where I was from. They knew I was from the US but not which state, and I don't speak Russian (aside from a few basic phrases from a phrasebook). So I drew a picture of Texas -- they instantly knew what it was. Yeah, they associated me with cowboy hats and riding horses, but still. There are few states -- little s -- that have universal recognition like that. That's one example of how much power and influence the US has over the rest of the world. Or even the South Korean President addressing the US Congress in English (i.e., no translator, and she was fluent).\n\nIn short: we're more powerful than any other country and we influence the world more than any other country. So we're privileged. And we enjoy that privilege in various ways, including people and politicians pandering to us and reinforcing our sense of privilege.",
"Full disclosure: I'm American and have live in the US for my entire life.\n\nI think a lot of it comes down to political culture and tradition. Our origin story is *based* on the idea that we all have a role in our government (which was not the case, but it is absolutely what we are taught up to a certain level). The myth of the American Dream, that you can be as successful as you *choose* to be, makes Americans more likely to identify with those in power even if they dislike the current authority (temporarily down-on-their-luck rather than lower class) and furthers the idea that everyone has a say.\n\nThere is a mythology of choice involved, regardless of whether or not you actually made any choice. The nation was founded by people who chose freedom, our ancestors are people who chose to fight for better lives regardless of their race or country of origin, the major wars post 1965 were foreign--\"when the US chooses to intervene, they win\"--and legislation and reform were motivated by voter's choices, etc. Most Americans, for better or for worse, think of themselves as Americans by choice, not by birth.\n\nThere is a great deal of ideology that carried over from the Cold War. The US was poised as a beacon of freedom standing up to the oppressive USSR. This American exceptionalism was fueled by the Soviet collapse and encourages a sense of America's \"special mission\" in the world.",
"When Great Britain was a world power, their patriotism put America to shame. Have you ever read the literature of the 19th century and seen how the British considered their role in the world? The reaction to the Indian Revolt of 1857 was one of utter disbelief that their colony could be so ungrateful to its obvious superiors. The words to \"Rule Britannia\" go far beyond any American song in terms of patriotism. Britain truly considered herself the rightful master of the world.\n\nThis didn't change because human nature was altered. It changed because the British Empire fell into decline, and finally vanished in the post-war era. If Britain regained her Empire in the future, expect her to match or exceed America in visible patriotism."
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"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_research_and_development_spending",
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_population",
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_military_expenditures",
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_states_with_nuclear_weapons",
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_%28nominal%29",
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8dn5a9 | how did ancient human survive not going extinct thousands of years ago if we didn't have any advance weapon | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/8dn5a9/eli5_how_did_ancient_human_survive_not_going/ | {
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"I know this is going to be removed for not being explaining enough but by using primitive tools... they worked just fine for basic needs such as a basic bow and arrow and a hatchet can be made within a couple of hours at a decent working quality. Or a simple noose trap that can be made with literally grass and twigs, you can make rope out of grass and make a noose trap. All of these things were utilized before we had advanced tools.",
"Before we evolved to modern humans, we had already evolved very well for our habitat as endurance pack hunters and omnivorous gathers. Early man's possession of an outsize brain, complex language, tools (even primitive ones) and fire still provided massive competitive advantage. Because we were able to find plenty of nutrition (through effective hunting, flexible gathering and a broader range of potebtial food sources thanks to cooking) , our population growth was sufficient to offset deaths from predation etc. ",
"How do monkeys and gorillas survive? There are plenty of species that have few natural advantages, and we survived the same way they did: By learning to recognize trouble, avoiding danger, and reproducing faster than we die off. There are still people alive today who live in primitive conditions (Papua New Guinea, the deep Amazon, Sentinel Island, etc) and while their numbers are small they manage to get by just fine.\n\nPredators really don't like to eat things that fight back. They don't have a lot of energy to spare, and when they attack their prey they get tired easily. An injury to a limb might also turn out to be a death sentence if it prevents them from hunting. So few animals are willing to attack humans. They're more interested in things like deer or gazelle. Ever check out those buffalo or cattle surrounded by wolves? As long as they stay in a circle and look ready to fight, the wolves keep their distance and look for easier prey.\n\nFWIW, humans do have one huge advantage over other species (besides our brains). Bipedal movement is really, really efficient. Humans have an endurance that massively exceeds any other animal. To a deer, we look like the goddamned Terminator. We just keep going when any other animal would die from exhaustion. Our endurance, efficiency, and teamwork are extremely important and gave us a big advantage.",
"To add to what others have said, a good number of ancient humans DID go extinct. We are the exception, not the rule. While many factors such as large brains, the advantages of walking upright, tool use and supportive social groups helped homo sapiens survive, they in no way guaranteed the survival of a species.\n"
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4nalr7 | why do objects stick to each other after a while? i.e. a textbook and a desk. | It is not a powerful bond, just enough to be noticeable upon moving the objects. A textbook will make a "click" sound when picking it up off a desk after it has been there a while. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4nalr7/eli5_why_do_objects_stick_to_each_other_after_a/ | {
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"Weak chemical bonding, air pressure, and other explanations, found here:\n\n_URL_0_"
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8lboqf | why do companies have a fiduciary duty to be endlessly increasing profits? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/8lboqf/eli5_why_do_companies_have_a_fiduciary_duty_to_be/ | {
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" > It sounds greedy and short-sighted to me\n\nIt is, but there's no incentive to being less greedy and long viewed. Investors want to put their money where they can get the largest return possible. If that's in Reddit, they will demand that Reddit get a 10% return today, because if they don't they will go somewhere else that will give them a 10% return right now.\n\nIn terms of sacrificing long term growth, who cares? If I'm an investor as soon as I see a downturn in the company I can pull my money out, go to the next shiny company that will get me 10%.\n\n",
"smart business people don't think long term, they think about short term, making bank, then redirecting that money into a new short thing.\n\nOwners should think about long term potential, but investors have a ton on their plate and juggle stuff, they literally only care about growth or they will take their money and put it elsewhere.",
"Economist here, I’m on mobile so this will be short and sweet. My answer is by far not everything, as there could be thousands of variables playing in, but it’s a point that has to be made \n\nThe same people that invest in a company now, may not be the people that’s here in 5-10 years, or even 5-10 weeks, So while they’re here they want the absolute most out of their investment. \n\nSome are long term investors, those we call loyalty investors. Because they like the idea, brand or technology. But most are there for profits. The loyalty investors are generally good people, but if their shares only account for 10% they’re not really doing anything.\n\nYes! This is extremely short-sighted and bad for companies on the long run. But most business people don’t make long term goals for businesses. They want to maximize profits and sell high. \n\nThat’s why so many companies come and go, while a few golden companies stand out. \n\nI don’t want to explain it in detail, because it’ll take hours, but it has to do with risk assessment and profitability. Some companies like ad companies, forums, social media or marketing are in deep competition. Therefore it’s not wise to make a 20 year investment. \n\nSee the common example of MySpace and Facebook. Everybody thought MySpace was the eternal future until Facebook arrived. What’ll be the next? \n\nThe same goes for reddit. Many other forums are blooming. How long before reddit will fade? Is it wise to invest when reddit doesn’t really make a huge profit? Or should you try and milk everything you have out of it while you can?\n\nIt’s a difficult choice. Some prefer one method over the other. You can easily argument that things like disguising ads are the reason that alternatives come up and reddit will die. \n\nHowever Reddit is a company, with expenses and incomes. If the customer would get, exactly what he wanted in the forms of continuous updates, great service and no ads, it wouldn’t make a profit. Then it’ll close due to the lack of income.\n\nI personally think it’s better to disguise the ads, so I don’t notice them, as they can stand out quite badly. Then they get their revenue and I can just scroll past it. Instead of having those walls of ads on either side of the actual webpage that I went to visit.",
"You're conflating executives fiduciary duties to the drives & motivations of investors. Legally speaking, executives *aren't* required to pursue short-term profits above all else, that's just pressure put on them by certain types of investors.\n\nWhy would investors put money in Stagnant Corp when OMGKILLINGIT Corp produces strong returns? Knowing that big quarterly returns are possible, the big investors can demand that the executives chase quarterly returns. If the executives refuse or fail, the investors (by way of the board of directors) will have them replaced by somebody that will chase those returns.",
"Companies do not have a fiduciary duty to increase profits. Companies can be run to maximize whatever value the owners of the company want to emphasize. Take a family owned business that wants to build a strong product with brand recognition. The family could reinvest all of the business's revenues back in the business if they choose. Now, many corporations are not owned by families or even a tight group of investors. Large numbers of shareholders buy and sell small amounts of shares. In those cases, the shareholders may simply want to maximize the amount of money they make for the short period of time they own the shares. Unfortunately (in my opinion), this is the case with many large corporations. But it does not have to be the case. ",
"Corporations have zero fiduciary duty maximize shareholder value. Read that again, because it bears repeating.\n\nIf you don't believe me, let's ask the [US Supreme Court their opinion](_URL_0_)...\n\n > While it is certainly true that a central objective of for-profit corporations is to make money, modern corporate law does not require for-profit corporations to pursue profit at the expense of everything else, and many do not do so.\n\nThe only time in a stock's life it makes money for a corporation is when a company sells it's stocks in it's Initial Public Offering. After that, regardless of whether the price of the stock rises or falls, it bears no consequence on the corporation. Most stocks issued don't even grant the holder voting rights on company affairs - the shareholder gets no say.",
"Companies in and of themselves do not have a legal responsibility to maximize profits, that's an urban legend.\n\nBut they do have the legal responsibility to listen to the shareholders, because they collectively own the company (or at least a majority share). It is the same with any organization. If the board of a local amateur football club votes to burn all the equipment and sell the field, they can. They do not have a legal responsibility to maximize football."
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4hmwcu | has anything actually changed since the edward snowden leaks of 2013? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4hmwcu/eli5_has_anything_actually_changed_since_the/ | {
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"it has given a huge public spotlight to legislation and proposed legislation having to do with web space and telecom supervision. The short answer is yes, but the long answer is that we're still at the beginning arguing about where many things we systematically monitor fall on the \"violation of privacy or not\" spectrum. ",
"If anything most intelligence agencies globally are increasing their stronghold ever since leaks. Other than public outcry and lively online discussions there isn't any concrete change in policy anywhere. ",
"There has been a shift in the legislature in recent years due to the information Snowden released. The USA Patriot Act, section 215, used to authorize the NSA to collect all US telephone metadata (numbers, location, duration). The US Freedom Act replaced it last October and now requires a FISA warrant before the NSA can request the information from telephone companies. It may not seem like much, but it's a shift in the right direction. There are still various other programs that infringe on 4th amendment rights but Snowden at least made the general population aware of them. The legislature is now at least more informed and receiving some pressure from the people (though not much). ",
"Yes...PFS or FS (Perfect Forward Secrecy)_URL_2_ is gaining momentum everywhere especially with help of the following:\n\nHTTP2 doesn't require but prefers HTTPS. People are turning on PFS/FS by default for secure connections. \n\n_URL_0_ requires PFS/FS (among other things) to achieve an A+ rating. \n\nGoogle now incorporates your SSL rating when scoring for search results. Meaning in theory, if you searched for tires the more secure site would rank higher. \n\nSnowden was a huge proponent of PFS/FS: \n\n_URL_1_\n\nNote: I work for nobody linked in this post\n\nEdit: too technical for ELI5. Snowden told use about perfect forward secrecy, basically the ability to keep our communications private from people who may try to record it and play it back later. PFS stops that from happening and is, IMHO, becoming widely adopted. ",
"A handful of things.\n\nFirst, a lot of services, such as [Telegram](_URL_2_) and [Whatsapp](_URL_1_) are implementing end-to-end encryption, deliberately designing their software so even they can't snoop on it. When properly implemented, this sort of change sidesteps government ability to do dragnet surveillance and forces them to have to individually target certain phones via other attack vectors to get anything, which is good, because it means that they're not able to generally catalog everything you've ever said without first deciding it's worth going through the trouble of targeting you individually. This is probably the most important change, as the other legislative changes won't be respected by the three letter agencies anyway. The [Open Source Telephone Network](_URL_0_) was also created to allow for individuals to call each other on Encrypted lines using their existing phones via data.\n\nOn the legislative side, there have been a few improvements:\n\n1. Phone companies are now expected to store most of the data instead of the NSA, requiring a warrant to ask for the data.\n2. The FISA court will now have advocate lawyers that will be expected to present a case on behalf of the person the government is wanting to get a warrant for.\n3. A couple of days ago, the [Email privacy](_URL_3_) act was passed (**UPDATE:** /u/JasonsThoughts points out that it's only passed the House of Representatives so far), which removes the absurd exception to existing law that considered any emails older than 180 days to no longer be private.\n\nYou'll note that all of these legislative changes require the government to keep its word, which is a losing proposition, but it is a step in the right direction and gives citizens more leverage for challenging misaction in courts. The most important progress is private and open source groups writing code that frustrates the efforts of big brother.",
"There was a very large sweep of DoD systems and applications that made sure PII was being disposed of properly and in a timely manner. We had to make multiple software changes to insure that information could be labeled as PII and was dated. This would allow power users to remove information or redact it, if the person was a US Citizen with PII information in a database.\n\nEdit: PII = Personally Identifiable Information (Name, Birth date, SSN, Address, Phone Number)",
"Here's another thing that has changed:\nSelf censorship has increased and can be seen all throughout search engine data and the like.\nI'm a sauceless guy, but I'm sure other Redditarians have read about it and remember where.",
"In terms of legislation, there's been a decent push to restrain the NSA, FBI, CIA, DOJ, etc. Not nearly what there needs to be, but it's better than nothing. as /u/jacks_312 mentioned, the Freedom Act requires a warrant, even though the warrant itself a joke because it comes from the FISA court who never says no.\n\nTechnology companies and the internet in general have made a strong push toward total encryption online. It's a slow migration but it is happening: \n\n* http/2 pushes encryption, although doesn't necessarily require it (although earlier specs did) \n* Google, Apple, Microsoft, etc. are making pushes into end-to-end encryption and decentralized keys. \n* Mozilla and others launched Let's Encrypt which is the easiest way to get an SSL certificate that I have ever done and it's free, which should hopefully encourage adoption by sites that generally cannot afford a certificate. \n* All browsers are more prominently indicating non-encrypted sites with both Firefox and Chrome looking to make their address bars red when visiting such a site\n* Support for SHA-1 certificates, which are easily cracked, is being phased out by all major browser makers\n\nSnowden has also had the side effect of starting the war against whistleblowers and making it much, much more difficult to do it.",
"The main difference is that in 2013 I was paranoid and conspiratorial....and in 2016 I am considered well-informed and aptly prepared.\n\n*THAT* is the difference. You no longer get the eye rolls and the 'oh brother, here she goes again' looks anymore when you discuss this issue.\n\nIt is like the stoners always have said: \"I am not paranoid if the guys who are out there making me paranoid are real\".",
"Conspiracy deniers have switched their tune from \"the government isn't spying on us\" to \"of course, they've always been spying on us\".",
"The general public has greatly increased their concern about encryption. Encryption is coming standard or available on way more communication devices. People are concerned enough about privacy that companies risk their entire business by openly cooperating with authoritys, which is why we saw Apple so strongly resisting the recent FBI efforts to crack there iPhone. We probably owe Snowden for all of these changes.",
"One thing I don't see mentioned here is the rise of the Golden State Warriors. They went from being a perennially mediocre teach to winning the NBA championship last year and setting a record for the most wins in the regular season this year. This has all occurred since the Snowden leaks in 2013. In 2013 nobody would have seen this coming.",
"The attitude changed from \"You're crazy, the government wouldn't spy on its own people\" to \"You're crazy if you think it isn't necessary for the government to spy on its own people to prevent terrorism\".",
"It seems like more whistleblowers are coming forward as of late. I think that part of that comes from the Snowden leaks, and from the Julian Assange leaks. \n\nMy hope is that the Panama Papers lead to some real fundamental changes worldwide. We now know that there are literally trillions of dollars not being used, just sitting in offshore companies that produce nothing and employ no one. This is money that could be used to stimulate the world economy and literally save lives, but instead it's contributing to inflation and devaluing the little money that's left for the poor.",
"The sad thing is the general public doesn't give a shit and barely understands what it all meant.",
"We've become more meek, fearful, and more likely to self-censor as a society.\n\n_URL_0_",
"No. Nothing has changed. \n\nI would venture to say that it's because we the people don't have political power anymore. Only the elites do. \n\nWe the people do have the real, physical power. But we are too busy with NBA playoffs and Trump/Sanders/Clinton and BlackLives/CopLives to actually remove ourselves from the bullshit and take charge of our country. \n\nIf everyone went to Publix (FUCK WINN DIXIE!) and stocked up on two weeks worth of food, and boycotted our economy, we could force change. Don't go to work; don't watch TV; don't buy ANYTHING. If we did that, we would have our \"masters\" by their fucking throats. \n\nIf, during those two weeks, we could manage to NOT dissolve into pure anarchy, and instead use those two weeks to stage huge protests, sit-ins, and mass gatherings around the major political establishments, we could force change. \n\nBut these are all tin-foil pipe dreams, of course. The government will continue to do whatever it wants, and we will continue to bend over and take it in the ass, and say thank you. \n\nSo no, nothing is going to change. ",
"Has anything changed in terms of the way they govern us? No. Have more people become awake to the fact that their government acts like something out of George Orwell novel? yes.",
"There is less whistleblower protection And less privacy for citizens?",
"I would guess that whatever they were doing that was technically illegal has now been made legal by some backdoor wrangling between NSA, the Justice Department, Congress and the White House.\n\nThe government never stops doing something it feels benefits it. That's not conspiracy, that's human nature.",
"According to James Clapper, the head of the NSA, the state of cryptography has advanced by 7 years since the Snowden leaks. Things like Signal, Whatsapp encrypting messages by default, Apple encrypting your phone data etc. all happened - or had timescales massively shrunken - because Snowden revealed that there WAS a bad actor out there actively trying to break into EVERYTHING. What had been an abstract threat became very very real. \n\nThat, and the revelation that the legal protections everyone assumed were in place were not sufficient to protect the rights of citizens. It's one thing to have a government agency devoted to spying on criminals and spies. It's quite another matter when they decide to spy on everyone. ",
"Nothing has changed. Americans still prefer the illusion of security, while giving away one small liberty everyday and saying they're *free. *",
"I personally have not noticed any change for the positive. Infact, the NSA was just granted rights for snooping. Forget the link or the extent in which they were granted these new abilities but the only thing that has changed is Snowdens American citizenship status and the way agencies now go about snooping. \n \nI never understood Snowden, the situation nor trusted him. Something about the entire snowden situation leaves a funny feel on my brain",
"Yes it changed something.\n\nIt was brought to the attention of future whistle blowers that they will not be treated fairly if they say anything.\n\nIn essence, they made the act worse then what was said by the whistle blower in an effort to squelch future dissidents.",
"It doesn't help when those who make the laws, break the laws. Then simply pass retroactive laws to make the laws they broke legal for them to break.",
"I went from laughing at my tinfoil hat wearing buddy to asking him where he got his tinfoil hat."
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2p2345 | how does remortgaging your home give you liquid capital? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2p2345/eli5_how_does_remortgaging_your_home_give_you/ | {
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"You can take a second mortgage against the entire value of your house. After you pay off the remaining value of your first mortgage, any money left over is yours to do with as you wish.\n\nUsing it for frivolous things, like going on vacation, is a horrible idea but some people do it. Other people do it to perform home improvements or repairs, which increases the value of the house, which isn't such a bad idea.",
"You want a collectable toy for $10 so you ask your mom for the money to make the purchase. \n\nMom asks your dad to do research to see if that toy is even worth the money that she is about to lend you.\n\nDad researches the toy, confirms with mom that the toy is in fact worth at least the dollar that she would be lending you.\n\nYou buy the toy with the $10 mom lent you.\n\nFast forward a year later, the demand for this toy has went up for one of many possible reasons, usually because demand has exceed supply.\n\nYou decide you want some more cash so you ask mom to borrow $5 more dollars.\n\nDad researches again and confirms with mom that the toy is worth at least $15 dollars.\n\nWith this information in mind mom willing lends you $5 more dollars.\n\nYOU NOW HAVE $5 COLD HARD LIQUID CASH TO BUY WHATEVER YOUR CANDY LOVING HEART DESIRES!\n\nMom willingly lent you that extra cash knowing that if for some reason you can't or won't pay her back at least she knows that value of your cool toy is worth at minimum the $15 investment she made to you and if she has to she can take it from you and just throw it on eBay to get her money back.\n\nThe only thing I didn't account for in that explanation was the interest rate that is charged on a loan because I don't know any mom mean enough to charge her kid interest on a $15 loan. \n\nKid=adult\nToy=home\nMom=mortgage lender/bank\nDad=home appraisal\n",
"Your mortgage can only be a certain proportion of your property value.\n\nProperty prices rise.\n\nSo say I got my house for £100,000 ten years ago, i paid £10,000 deposit and borrowed £90,000 from the bank.\n\nOver those ten years I paid off (due to interest) about £10,000 so I owe the bank £80,000 on the mortgage.\n\nAlso over those ten years my house value has risen and is now actually worth £150,000.\n\nI could sell my house for that £150,000, pay back the bank their £80,000 and have £70,000 in cash in my pocket.\n\nInstead I decide I want to build a large extension which will cost me £25,000, but I don't have that cash without selling my house, but I don't want to sell my house, I want to stay here.\n\nI could go to the bank and ask for a loan, and they would see that if I didn't pay it back they could recoup the costs from repossessing my house. But that loan has an interest payment of 15%.\n\nMy mortgage is only 5%.\n\nSo I go to my bank and we sit down and we see that if someone else bought that house now, they'd lend them £130,000 if the purchaser provided a £20,000 deposit and would charge them 5% So they'll let me take out a new mortgage of £105,000, £80,000 of which will pay off my old mortgage account, and £25,000 of which they will give me in cash to spend on an extension. Added bonus for me is that will add on even more value to the house."
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1imfb6 | how physicists, astronomers etc gain a better understanding of nature and our universe using "math" | All those crazy mathematical equations on the chalk board must mean something... Right? Please explain, like I'm five. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1imfb6/eli5_how_physicists_astronomers_etc_gain_a_better/ | {
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"Math is an internally consistent system which is based upon simple, observable principles which we observe in the world. One object is distinct from another and we can consider them both, therefore \"1 + 1 = 2\". Notice that we have already moved into abstraction; there is no such thing as \"two\" in the real world, there is just an object and another object. The idea of \"two\" is purely conceptual, a way of considering and counting things that are.\n\nThis abstraction is nonetheless quite useful. If we have our object and another object, if we take away an object we can use simple maths to determine that we will just have an object left (2 - 1 = 1). This becomes crucial when we consider situations where counting is impractical or impossible (238,468 - 217,814 = 20,654). Yet these scalable equations are still based on the simple idea that one object is distinct from another, and can be considered in a group.\n\nThe concept of internal consistency is very important because we have observed that the universe is internally consistent as well. If something works over here it works over there, everywhere plays by the same rules. Concepts within math which have no physical meaning (imaginary numbers) still yield useful real results because of this consistency. Mathematics can therefore allow us to come to predictions about the real world because it is based on drawing conclusions from real principles: \"If all this is true, it implies...\" And it is very, very often correct.",
"Math is a way that we can make predictions about how things will behave. For example, you know that if you have three apples, and I give you four more, you will have seven apples, because 3+4=7. We used the math to make an accurate prediction about what happens when I give you some apples.\n\nSo, what about in physics? Well, let's start with a very simple problem. If you're walking along, and you walk two meters every second (more of a jog, really), I can predict how far you travel in a given amount of time.\n\nIf you walk for five seconds, you'll walk 2x5 = 10 meters. If you walk for 17 seconds, you'll walk 2x17 = 34 meters. I can do this for any amount of time you give me, it's always just speed x time = distance. If I want to express this in the most *general* sense, I would say\n\nx = vt\n\nwhere \"x\" is short for \"distance traveled,\" \"v\" is short for \"velocity/speed,\" and \"t\" is short for time. Now, I have an equation that I can use for any amount of time and any speed, I just put the correct numbers in for v and t and I get x.\n\nMore complicated things, of course, need more complicated math. Most of the crazy equations you see involve calculus, which is the study of how things *change*. Since things obviously change a lot in physics, it's very useful to have a mathematical system that allows you to predict that.\n\nFor an easy example, let's use the formula above. How does x, the distance traveled, change with time? Well, every second that passes, the total distance increases by \"v.\" If you imagine the first few seconds, you can see that x goes \"0, v, 2v, 3v, 4v,\" and so on. We would say, then, that x changes by an amount v every second.\n\nCalculus gives us an exceptionally powerful tool called the \"derivative\" to compute the way that things change with time and space. In this case, we worked it out just by simple educated guesswork, but it's possible to do it for any equation, no matter how terrifying it may be.\n\nedit: For a reasonably simple example of how calculus works, let's think about acceleration. Acceleration is the way that the speed changes with time. So, for example, let's say you're in a car and you have the gas pedal slammed down, so your speed is increasing by 10 meters per second every second that passes.\n\nWell, acceleration is the way that speed changes, so it should be the derivative of the speed, since the derivative is the way that something changes. The function that produces \"10\" as its derivative is \"10t,\" so\n\nv = 10t\n\ndescribes how fast you're going after some amount of time t (assuming you started from rest). Similarly, speed is the way that distance changes with time, so speed should be the derivative of distance (as it was above). We can thus get the distance you've traveled by finding out what function produces \"10t\" as its derivative, which happens to be \"5t^(2).\" Thus\n\nx = 5t^2\n\nSo, we figured out how far you'll travel after a given amount of time, *solely* using calculus. This is the correct formula, but I didn't need to do any experiments or anything to derive it. We made some very reasonable assumptions (acceleration is how speed changes, speed is how distance changes), and got the correct answer solely based on that."
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2fzomq | why is there such a thing as canadian english and american english? what are the differences? | I was just checking in on the available languages on my phone and found CanEnglish and US-English separately. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2fzomq/eli5_why_is_there_such_a_thing_as_canadian/ | {
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"Canadians use slightly more British spellings. AFAIK they are closer to American English in other ways. Like the word truck instead of lorrie and cookie instead of biscuit. ",
"Canada and the US have slightly different spellings of some words, so you often hear of different \"dictionaries\" in word processors where they need their own spellchecker that won't show these as typos.\n\nExamples: Labor (US) versus Labour (Canada); centre (Canada) vs. center (US), and colour vs color.\n\nBritish is slightly different again for some words: colonise over there vs colonize over here.\n\nThere are also various colloquialisms (words or phrases that have different meanings in different regions) that apply to Canada but not the US, eh? :)"
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3154c6 | what is happening when the lights flicker for a second durring a lightening storm? | When there is a lightening storm and the lights go out for just a second and then comes back on is it lightening hitting a power line and the electricity surging before it grounds out or what? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3154c6/eli5_what_is_happening_when_the_lights_flicker/ | {
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"Wind has blown down a power line or lightning has disrupted one. It takes a moment for the system to switch over to a different route for your power, which briefly stops during the switch.",
"I'm not a Bot, but I'm here to tell you you misspelled lightning. Lightening is the act of making something lighter. What you want to know is why the lights flicker when there's a lightning storm. \n\nFortunately, I'm also an electrical engineer. What chel_of_the_sea said is a likely explanation. Lights flicker when current is cut for an instant, or when voltage drops. If a line is knocked down power can be lost for a split second while the current supplied by another route picks up the slack. \n\nHere's a more thorough explanation. At the distribution level (between 35kV and 70kV usually), flicker is most likely caused by substation breaker operation. When winds or a lightning strike cause a short, the breaker is tripped. This could happen when winds and humid conditions cause two conductor wires with different phases of electricity, and therefore a voltage difference between them, to short. They don't necessarily have to touch although that may happen, but wet air can reduce the voltage required for arcing. This will cause a momentary short. The breaker will trip and then will try to re-close a few times with increasing wait times between attempts, but may eventually fail if the arc or short is still occurring. If this is the case it will lock out. These early attempts to reclose will appear to be \"flicker\" at the service voltage level (120/240 volt) as these cycles are anywhere from 1/30th to 1/10 of a second. The really quick ones will have you wondering if if happened of if you just blinked. If, at any point during the sequence the fault clears, the power simply stays on and the device resets itself back to the state to where it will be ready to trip again as previously described. If the fault recurs before the reclosing relay resets, it will resume operation in the state it was last in.\n\nAn alternate situation occurs when there are lightning strikes. Lightning strikes on distribution lines introduce a (higher) voltage on the line and this would manifest itself in a slight brightening of the lights and is generally not very noticeable. But this is very short-lived anyway as modern lightning arresters are very fast and there are usually a number of them that operate simultaneously to bleed off the voltage surge. However, when an arrester is driven into conduction, it looks like a fault to breakers and reclosers and the aforementioned processes kick in. This is called \"follow current\" and the ability of an arrester to return to its steady state very quickly is important. \n\n\n\n ",
"Power line man here. Its tripping the \"OCR\". In plain terms an OCR sends out three short bursts of electricity when ground contact is made to see whether to keep going or not. \n\nIf a tree branch accidentally touches a line you don't want to trip everyone's power out right? Well an OCR basically sends another shot of electricity, to see if the line is isolated from the ground yet, if it is the power keeps on. \n\nOCR have other settings too, we often set it to single shot when we work on or beside a line. \n\nOCR's will trip faster than a fused switch generally. Depending on size of fuse, distance. \n\n\nWhen lighting hits its dealt with through things called \" lighting arrestors\" that we put up, but that flicker you get is the OCR \n\n\nSorry for the poor writing I'm very tired, also I'm still only a year into the trade and aren't that experienced with these devices yet so please feel free to correct me. "
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1q34ja | why are there two "nubs" just on the inside of my mouth? not everyone has them, but a good amount of people i know do. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1q34ja/eli5_why_are_there_two_nubs_just_on_the_inside_of/ | {
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"Do you mean like just on either side of your mouth? I have those too, always thought they were from biting the inside of my mouth!"
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c8nuq5 | why does christian rock have such a distinct identifying sound to it? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/c8nuq5/eli5_why_does_christian_rock_have_such_a_distinct/ | {
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"Someone once said to me that rock comes from a place of angst and hate and Christian rock always comes from love. Sounds legit."
]
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epd2m8 | if i had my child a couple years ago or even a week before he was conceived, would they still look the same? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/epd2m8/eli5_if_i_had_my_child_a_couple_years_ago_or_even/ | {
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"No. Different egg. Different sperm. Different genes. That's why siblings all look different."
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51v77b | how does a computer translate binary into images? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/51v77b/eli5_how_does_a_computer_translate_binary_into/ | {
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"It depends on the file type.\n\nTypically, the first few numbers are reserved for header info, like the size of the image, is it grayscale etc.\n\nThen the bits are decoded in blocks.\n\nExample, each block of 8bits can represent a pixel's intensity (greyscale).\n\nThe computer decodes the a-bit binary into a graphical representation of the number.",
"Different ways the easiest is a bit map.\n\n 12345678\n 1 XXXX\n 2 X X\n 3 X X X X\n 4 X X\n 5 X X X X\n 6 X XX X\n 7 X X\n 8 XXXX\n\nImagine the above 8x8 grid of a badly drawn smiley.\n\nYou have 64 different fields and each field can have a value of either 0 = empty or 1 = full. So you can describe the above picture by a series of 64 ones and zeros.\n\nIf you want higher resolution pictures you make the grid bigger.\n\nIf you want more than two colors you have to add bit depth.\n\nRight now every single pixel in the above image is represented by a single bit. If you want to have more colors you can represent it by more than one bit. Right now\n\n 0 = white\n 1 = black\n\n If you use two bits per pixel you can do stuff like:\n\n 00 = white\n 01 = light grey\n 10 = dark grey\n 11 = black\n\nIf you use 8 bits per single pixel you can differentiate between 256 different colours. If you use 16 bits you can have 65 thousand different colours. with 24 bits you get 16 million colours and with 32 bits 4.2 billion colours.\n\nSo if you have an image in HD 1920 * 1080 pixels and use 24 bits for each pixel you have a total of about 50 million ones and zeros or about 6 million bytes.\n\n6 million Bytes are enough to represent 6 million characters, which at an average length of 6 characters per word leaves you with enough room to represent a million words. Whoever said that a picture was worth a thousand words was underselling it. :)\n\nObviously bitmaps are a bit inefficient. As far as representing pictures go. That is why other image formats use compression to make the image small. If you have a series of a 100 zeros in your image it may be shorter to say something like now come 100 zeros instead of just putting 100 zero there.\n\nThere are different types of compression. lossless where you can reconstruct the original bitmap exactly and lossy where you give up on some of the original information and are happy if you just get the general shape of the picture across.\n\nA method distinct from bitmaps are vector graphics. these are basically directions for drawing a picture along the lines of draw a line from these coordinates to these second coordinates."
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3hhz13 | can someone explain current sex/political scandals in britain? | I seem to hear a lot about sex scandals involving elites or politicians in Britain, but I have not heard any in depth reporting on them. What is going on over there? Are people being prosecuted, or protected? How big of a deal are current scandals in Britain? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3hhz13/eli5_can_someone_explain_current_sexpolitical/ | {
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"Reddit hears once piece of news about a country and it becomes the only thing they think is happening in that country.\n\nEssentially, in previous decades in Britain, victims of sexual harassment, rape or abuse, frequently by celebrities and allegedly some high-profile politicians were not believed, or their complaints were covered up.\n\nJimmy Savile was a high-profile BBC radio presenter who died in 2011, age 84. After his death, hundreds of allegations of sexual harassment, abuse and worse emerged, spanning more or less the length of his career and in some shockingly public situations, including, allegedly in one case, on live television. This was obviously sparked huge news coverage and many reports of other similar situations with other celebrities emerged. The police launched Operation Yewtree, which investigated hundreds of people both living and dead.\n\nEssentially, what happened was a major culture change. Over the course of a few months, the report of sexual abuse by high-profile figures became both a topic of national conversation and people were very much encouraged to come forward, whether the person they were accusing was a high-ranking politician, celebrity or whatever. Many of these investigations are still ongoing.\n\nAs you can see, they are a big deal, but there are plenty of other things happening as well."
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j4b3o | if you're moving at the speed of light and point a flashlight forward, how can that light move at the speed of light from "your vision"? | Wouldn't that make the flashlight's light move at the speed of light x2 from an observer's point of view? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/j4b3o/eli5_if_youre_moving_at_the_speed_of_light_and/ | {
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"It is impossible to move at the speed of light so this situation cannot arise.",
"You can't move at the speed of light, but let's say you're going 99% the speed of light.\n\nYou measure the speed of the light coming out of your flashlight exactly the same as if you were standing still. Light always travels at exactly the same speed from everybody's perspective.\n\nThe outside observer sees you moving at 99% c and the light coming from your flashlight is moving at exactly c.",
"The theory of relativity explains pretty well the idea that light is a constant.\nWhen scientist figured out that the speed of light was a constant (which is usually denoted c), the question arose \"Relative to what?\".\nBecause just like you're thinking now, they thought that if John is perfectly still but Frank moves at half light speed away from John, and then John shines his flashlight towards Frank, then Frank should measure the sped of the light as 0.5c. This created a problem, since the earth is constantly revolving around the sun and the sun is revolving around the center of the galaxy. That's how the theory of the aether came into existence. A universal system consider still, and everything moves in this aether.\n\nScientist quickly adopted the aether theory and tried to measure the speed of light on earth to find the speed of the earth relative to the aether. The results were always the same, the earth is not moving relative to the aether.\n\nThe solution came with Einstein's theory of special relativity. By working under the (correct) assumption that ALL laws of physics work the same in all reference frames. This means that if you do a physical experiment in John's frame and in Frank's frame you will get the same result. \nOne thing that is good to be sure of is that saying that John is still and Frank is moving at half light speed is completely equivalent as to say Frank is still and John is moving at half light speed, it depends on the frame of reference.\n\nOk, so with Einstein's assumption that all laws of physics work the same in all reference frames we must come to the conclusion that the speed of light is a constant in all reference frames. This means that both John and Frank will measure the same value for the speed of light.\n\nBut now lets look back at the original situation where John shines a flashlight at Frank. Relative to John, we would think that Frank should measure the speed of the incoming light as half the value it should be, because he is moving at half the speed of light. How can Frank be measuring the same value as John? Because it truly moves at the speed of light in Frank's reference frame. The change is that time is running slower for Frank, the famous time dilation. So in John's frame of reference, he sees the light approaching Frank at 0.5c, but Frank's time is passing slower than John's so Frank sees the light coming to him at c.\n\nSo if we revert this to your original question. It is impossible to move at the speed of light, but suppose you're moving at 0.99c relative to me and then you turn on a flashlight straight forward. From my frame of reference the light will move at only 0.01c compared to you, so that it looks to be exceeding you very slowly, but from your perspective it moves at c.",
"Fuck all the questions saying \"well you can never move at light speed so you're dumb.\" The true answer to this problem is that velocities don't really add like 1+1. The only seem to at very tiny speeds. Going 50 m.p.h. and then having Randy Jackson throw a 110 m.p.h. means that his fast ball is going at 150 m.p.h. right?\n\nWell that's only true because 100 mph and 50 mph are so tiny compared to c, the speed of light, which is nearly 671,000,000 mph. Really, that baseball is going at a speed which equals (110 + 50)/(1+ (110+50)/c)). When those two numbers are very much less than the speed of light, then you are dividing the addition of those two numbers by 1, which is nearly those two numbers added together. Essentially, you can add speeds, or the magnitudes of velocities, when those speeds are very small compared to the speed of light.\n\nIf you were moving at the speed of light, then turning on a flashlight (and assuming you could see the photons coming out of your flashlight) you would see that those photons were traveling at exactly the same speed as you were.\n\nI apologize if any of this isn't what a five year old could understand; I'm at least a little drunk."
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4xtoyx | why do many asian countries use the latin alphabet on their street signs and/or money? | I've noticed that some foreign countries- particularly from Asian countries- use the Latin alphabet on many of their road signs and currency. For example, see the reverse of the Chinese 2 and 5 yuan notes, or streets signs in Seoul, South Korea. Why do they include English instead of using the native alphabet exclusively? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4xtoyx/eli5_why_do_many_asian_countries_use_the_latin/ | {
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"text": [
"Cause they want to cater to international commerce. There's millions of foreign visitors and businessmen. And it shows the local people that we are now an international commerce power, albeit with horrible Engrish skills"
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2ra6h6 | what is the difference between a simulation and a simulacra? what are some example of these? | I have read the definition of each but I am still do not know where these would appear in real life. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2ra6h6/eli5_what_is_the_difference_between_a_simulation/ | {
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"Simulacra are copies that depict things that either had no reality to begin with, or that no longer have an original. Simulation is the imitation of the operation of a real-world process or system over time.\n\nSo, Simulacra = depiction of a condo you havent built yet, usually static.\n\nSimulation = Making a computer generated model of traffic to see how things might change when you closed a street for construction of that Condo\n\n"
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b3edo9 | why do things look smaller when they are farther away? and is there a mathematical equation to calculate how small something will look based on how far it is? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/b3edo9/eli5_why_do_things_look_smaller_when_they_are/ | {
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"It's angles. Imagine a triangle with a corner on your eye and a side on the thing you're looking at -The angle of the corner on your eye is how much of your field of vision it takes up, and the bigger the angle the bigger the object appears.\n\nSo if you have a meter-wide object right in front of your face, it's taking up pretty much your entire field of view, so it looks huge. But if it's a mile away, it's only taking up a tiny part of your field of vision, and so it looks small.\n\n*EDIT: Proofreading.*"
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3n5zkp | why can an object in a vacuum not constantly accelerate if there is no resistance? why do you cap out at light speed? | Apologies if this has been asked before. I saw another topic that asked "why is light speed the universal speed limit" but it was asking, specifically, why light speed is used as the benchmark and not, like I'm trying to ask, why it is logically possible for there to even BE a "universal speed limit." | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3n5zkp/eli5_why_can_an_object_in_a_vacuum_not_constantly/ | {
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"You live in a 4 dimensional universe. Three dimensions are spacial and one is temporal. The speed of light (C) is the ratio of the distance in the temporal one, the one we call time, to the distance in the spacial ones, which we call distance. Every object exists as a unit velocity segment in this 4-space. If the segment is aligned with the time direction, the object's spacial dimensions must be 0, this gives 0 speed in space and 1 second per second in time. If the velocity segment is oriented along one of the spacial dimensions the object is moving at C in that direction, and since all segments are one unit long, it must be 0 in the temporal dimension. Thus photons move at the speed of light but do not experience changes in time. Gravity and other forces can change the orientation of an objects velocity segment, accelerating it in space and shortening the time element or decelerating it in space and lengthening the time segment.\n\nIt's not resistance that limits your speed, it is the nature of space and time itself. You'd need to change your segment length to more than 1 to exceed the speed of light. We know of no way to do that, and if there were we would have been able to observe it happen."
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2h1wb3 | as someone who is new to having health insurance, how do i figure out what my charges will be before i have procedures done? | I understand the way insurance itself works (deductibles, in-network, out-of-network, etc). My question is regarding the various procedures and costs themselves. It seems as though the insured has no way of knowing *exactly* what they should expect to pay for various procedures PRIOR to having them done.
As far as I can tell, the insurance company can only tell you whether a certain doctor or clinic is in- or out-of-network (which only really tell you what portion of your bill you're required to pay), or whether certain procedures or services are covered or not. And from my experience (and that of others), the staff at a doctor's office or hospital are often unwilling or unable to give you a quote on what your price will be for any given service. I've also heard from friends that they've been outright misinformed in situations like this, and had to pay for things they were told would be covered.
So, am I missing something? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2h1wb3/eli5_as_someone_who_is_new_to_having_health/ | {
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"text": [
"It's hard to know what a \"given procedure\" entails. Even if you go to a \"simple\" doctor's visit (often a flat co-pay), they won't know until they've started looking at you if they need to do any lab work (eg - blood tests) or which ones they'll need. \n\nIn other cases, medical billing is a giant mess of contracts with different companies. There's a person whose full-time job it is to figure out how much they've agreed to bill a given insurance company. It's not something you can just quickly look up. They need to look up the code for your condition & then look that up in the contracts they have with your insurance company & then send a bill to the insurance company. The insurance company may or may not argue a different interpretation of the billing. After that, they have to take the charges & see what category of your specific insurance plan it falls under (since they often have *hundreds* of different plans) and then bill you whatever percentage. The receptionist and even the doctors really just can't tell you what that final number is going to be.\n"
]
} | [] | [] | [
[]
] |
|
23xq64 | how was the taliban formed? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/23xq64/eli5_how_was_the_taliban_formed/ | {
"a_id": [
"ch1lflm"
],
"score": [
2
],
"text": [
"As you can see from the comments so far, you might get a more adult answer at r/askhistory."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[]
] |
||
2uuqxz | why aren't spacecrafts constantly missing their marks when planets like mars are basically infinitesimally small, moving targets that are speeding through outer space? | Especially with missions that are further away like the fly by past Pluto that needed to be planned years ahead. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2uuqxz/eli5_why_arent_spacecrafts_constantly_missing/ | {
"a_id": [
"cobuu8g",
"cobv60t",
"cobwoys",
"cobz7ph",
"cocec6k"
],
"score": [
13,
2,
2,
3,
2
],
"text": [
"Because the orbits of planets are observed for a long period of time, their future position is really well predictable. With a lot of math, a high precision at launch of the spacecraft and well planed mid-flight corrections via swing by at other planets, the spacecraft could meet with planet, where it was predicted. So even landing on a comet like Rosetta was possible.",
"Really, Really, Big amounts of math.\n\nThink nutty-proffessor that has a college class filled with math. only instead of a professor, it's a supercomputer. and it spends months, if not years working on the problem.\n\nEverything they know, they add to the calculation. \nGravity, rotation speed, orbits, orbits of other planets, solar winds, cosmic rays, velocity, athmospheric impact, landing zones, soil density... the sheer scale of the calculations is mind boggling (which is why a supercomputer does it).\n\nNew improvements in computing every generation make this process more accurate every year. thats why the first mars landers decades ago had a landing zone the size of Europe, and just a few months ago we landed on a frigging commet.\n\n\ncomputers are cool.",
"Where is it, where is it.. \nAh, here: \n_URL_0_\nBasically, all gravitational inputs are closely calculated, and the exact trajectory all celestial bodies and spacecraft will make during the mission is pre-calculated. \nThis is not actually that hard, even videogames like Kerbal Space Program do it nowdays; But the precision at which real space agencies like NASA or ESA do it, is of course unrivaled. \nIn addition to that, correction burns are made at various stages of flight, since relying only on the initial burn would require a precision akin to firing a golf ball in Tokyo and hit a golf hole in Paris.",
"People and computers use math to predict the path they need to take",
"Two things make it possible: NASA's calculations are very very very good, and spacecrafts can generally correct their course to at least some degree during flight, even if it's just during their initial ascent into orbit."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[],
[],
[
"http://www.esa.int/spaceinvideos/Videos/2013/10/Rosetta_s_twelve-year_journey_in_space"
],
[],
[]
] |
|
7av3e2 | how (if at all) does the external environment affect what "baby sounds" a child will make before their first words? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/7av3e2/eli5_how_if_at_all_does_the_external_environment/ | {
"a_id": [
"dpd3x5r",
"dpd4i2n"
],
"score": [
2,
6
],
"text": [
"The babies can hear while they are in the womb, like if your in the bath while watching Netflix and submerge your head in the water, you can still hear the characters on the show talking.",
"Babies come out able to make any sounds, of course, but they start to figure out which sounds are important for the speech of their particular language pretty quickly. They start to respond to the sounds of language differently within a few weeks. When they start to babble they makes all kinds of sounds. When they make speech sounds, the parent responds differently than they do to random non-speech sounds. These mechanisms reinforce specific sounds as bring important, and as the infant develops, their knowledge of sounds and communicating becomes their phonology. Phonology is the rules of a language for how sounds are used in spoken language. That's also where accents comes from. "
]
} | [] | [] | [
[],
[]
] |
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