q_id
stringlengths 5
6
| title
stringlengths 3
296
| selftext
stringlengths 0
34k
| document
stringclasses 1
value | subreddit
stringclasses 1
value | url
stringlengths 4
110
| answers
dict | title_urls
sequence | selftext_urls
sequence | answers_urls
sequence |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
8kmtou | how did google manage to get 3d models of every building on google earth? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/8kmtou/eli5how_did_google_manage_to_get_3d_models_of/ | {
"a_id": [
"dz8vfl9",
"dz8xa5y",
"dz8xajd",
"dz8xh4x",
"dz91ylu",
"dz93650",
"dz9388z",
"dz978mz",
"dz97ugj",
"dz97zby",
"dz9cmuu",
"dz9llb0",
"dz9o8r9",
"dz9ogls"
],
"score": [
78,
787,
8,
234,
3,
88,
8,
5,
5,
2,
4,
2,
2,
2
],
"text": [
"Most of the buildings are modelled from satellite data. Google buys different satellite images from different angles of the city and uses a program to calculate the height of each building.\n\nImportant buildings such as monuments are manually sculpted in sketchup.\n\nSome buildings have food plans in a publicly available database and Google uses this to calculate the shape of the building too.",
"[Here's a video](_URL_0_) about the topic, related part starts around the 2-minute mark.\n\nThey mostly use planes and helicopters to get high res images, to use \"photogrammetry\" to construct the 3d models of buildings.",
"It's called photogrammetry:\n\n[_URL_1_](_URL_1_)\n\nBasically, you take pictures \\(2D\\) of something from several points \\(in your case, Osaka from a plane flying over a city, not too high\\), and then a software creates a 3D model out of them. \n\nSee this picture from the wiki article above:\n\n[_URL_2_](_URL_0_)\n\nBy taking photos of the car from above, below, behind, left and right sides... you can create the 3D model. ",
"Google used to actually model buildings by hand (or have community members submit them). But with the most recent 3D models you're seeing of whole cities, they're using a technology called photogrammetry. Basically they fly an airplane with carefully-calibrated cameras that take photos from different angles. Then a computer program figures out the 3D shape of things using parallax (basically the same thing your brain does with the two images your two eyes supply). ",
"[here’s an in depth blog post](_URL_0_) how google uses machine learning, image recognition and multiple data sets to extract building shape data. ",
"You think that's mind-blowing, i have an HTC Vive Virtual Reality headset and they have a Google Earth VR app and it's probably the closest thing you'll get to a religious experience in electronics. You can fly around the world from outer space to a dirty Philly alleyway. ",
"Can confirm, most images are done by plane. Source: knew someone who worked for one of the companies that flew the planes. ",
"Photogrammetry is really cool. There is an app for hobby drones (DJI phantom) where you can lay out an xyz path for your drone to fly it will take a bunch of images and and the app will generate a 3D point cloud. ",
"The footprint is taken from the satellite \\(or top down image\\) or map.\n\nThe height can be calculated by referencing the building from different vantage points, this can be from multiple plane positions or even the street view images. Another method is to analyse the shadow length against the time of day.\n\nSome are produced by hand \\(google used users to contribute to their model collection\\).\n\nSome are provided by the building owners, if you want your building to be found, the more information you give google on it the better.\n\nSome are taken from public data such as planning documents. IMany new buildings are planned using the principles and technology of \"BIM\", which would submit the model shell to the planning boards.",
"The 3D modeling uses cameras the same way your brain uses your eyes to see depth. It is called photogrammetry.",
"[Here's](_URL_0_) an article which goes into a good bit of detail about what exactly Google has been doing all these years with Maps, and how that head start puts it ahead of its competitiors. Really interesting read",
"I used to work at Microsoft at the Bing maps division. \n\nAll those 3d models are made using imagery and lidar data taken from airplanes that fly in grids over the city. Combining images of the same object from many angles, algorithms will generate the 3d model of the buildings. Most of the computer output would get looked over, block by block and corrected to make sure there was no artifacts by actual humans. \n\nThe high value iconic areas of cities or tourist areas would get heavily modified by artists to make them look stunning and almost unrealisitic. These would be things like the Eiffel tower or like every building in Manhattan.",
"Satellite imagery at 4 simultaneous angles and stitch it together ?",
"Didn't the KGB run ads in the back newspapers offering satellite images of all four sides of you house for a few bucks? This was in the 80's and was apparently a psy-ops tactic to let the US know they knew exactly what we were doing."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[],
[
"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=suo_aUTUpps"
],
[
"https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/6/6d/Synthesizing_3D_Shapes_via_Modeling_Multi-View_Depth_Maps_and_Silhouettes_With_Deep_Generative_Networks.png/220px-Synthesizing_3D_Shapes_via_Modeling_Multi-View_Depth_Maps_and_Silhouettes_With_Deep_Generative_Networks.png",
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Photogrammetry",
"https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/6/6d/Synthesizing\\_3D\\_Shapes\\_via\\_Modeling\\_Multi\\-View\\_Depth\\_Maps\\_and\\_Silhouettes\\_With\\_Deep\\_Generative\\_Networks.png/220px\\-Synthesizing\\_3D\\_Shapes\\_via\\_Modeling\\_Multi\\-View\\_Depth\\_Maps\\_and\\_Silhouettes\\_With\\_Deep\\_Generative\\_Networks.png"
],
[],
[
"https://www.justinobeirne.com/google-maps-moat"
],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[
"https://www.justinobeirne.com/google-maps-moat/"
],
[],
[],
[]
] |
||
1d145a | if someone uploads a picture that is high resolution (ex. 4034x4096), is it not just showing in the resolution that your monitor can display? | Are these 2 different things? If not, what is the point of these higher resolutions if we can't see them?
Edit: Thanks for the quick and simplified answer! | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1d145a/eli5_if_someone_uploads_a_picture_that_is_high/ | {
"a_id": [
"c9lv9m8"
],
"score": [
8
],
"text": [
"[Here is a high res picture of the Joker from The Dark Knight](_URL_0_)\n\nTake the following image for example, the resolution is larger than my monitor so I can make the image fit by zooming out, or display it at its native resolution but only some of the image is on my screen at once. \n\nThe point is that there is much more detail in a high res image, and while my computer screen may not be of a high enough resolution to display the whole thing at once there are other things that are. "
]
} | [] | [] | [
[
"http://host.trivialbeing.org/up/tdk-aug3-jokr-high-res-2.jpg"
]
] |
|
lbwd4 | why a 5-6 year old console (ps3, xbox360) can run every new game that is released without issues but a pc of similar age cannot. | I understand that some 6 year old PCs can run new games if they have high end components (Processor, vid card, etc..) Does a console just have high end components? Or are games made for consoles just "dumbed" down?
Sorry if something like this has been asked before | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/lbwd4/eli5why_a_56_year_old_console_ps3_xbox360_can_run/ | {
"a_id": [
"c2rffiq",
"c2rfqbm",
"c2rfrnt",
"c2rfs6w",
"c2rii4s",
"c2rffiq",
"c2rfqbm",
"c2rfrnt",
"c2rfs6w",
"c2rii4s"
],
"score": [
6,
5,
3,
5,
3,
6,
5,
3,
5,
3
],
"text": [
"Games that are made for consoles are \"dumbed\" down versions. That is why we constantly having wars over bad ports from console to PC where newly released game have poor graphics, controller problems and such.",
"First, because every console of a given type has the same components inside it, while there's no standard for what constitutes a \"gaming PC\" and so every gaming PC is different.\n\nSecond, because console games are manufactured to meet the hardware specs of the console, while PC games are manufactured to whatever the developer decides is a decent PC hardware spec at the time.\n\nGenerally, when a console is first released, its hardware is pretty close to top-of-the-line, which is why console games that come out around the same time as the console itself feel more cutting-edge. By the end of a console's life cycle, it's probably fallen well behind the specs a top-of-the-line gaming PC.",
"1) Games for console have lower graphics than the PC vesion.\n\n2) Consoles are initially packed with high end components when they first launch. The PCs have to catch up. To make the consoles affordable, Microsoft and Sony sell the consoles at a loss. e.g. [the Xbox 360 was sold for $126 less than it cost to make](_URL_0_). The idea is that they can make the money up in software sales (Microsoft and Sony take a cut of every game, app, movie, whatever sold on their systems).",
"One of the advantages of a console time and time again is a set piece of hardware. The developers can learn to exploit every single little feature because the hardware remains constant over time. With a PC, you never know what the end user will be running and sadly it's different all the time.",
"Good points, I'll add another. Game consoles are awesomely powerful machines, but to get all the juice from one the game programmers need to put a lot of effort and expertise. So besides the hardware remaining constant, the programmers' skill increases leading to better games over time.",
"Games that are made for consoles are \"dumbed\" down versions. That is why we constantly having wars over bad ports from console to PC where newly released game have poor graphics, controller problems and such.",
"First, because every console of a given type has the same components inside it, while there's no standard for what constitutes a \"gaming PC\" and so every gaming PC is different.\n\nSecond, because console games are manufactured to meet the hardware specs of the console, while PC games are manufactured to whatever the developer decides is a decent PC hardware spec at the time.\n\nGenerally, when a console is first released, its hardware is pretty close to top-of-the-line, which is why console games that come out around the same time as the console itself feel more cutting-edge. By the end of a console's life cycle, it's probably fallen well behind the specs a top-of-the-line gaming PC.",
"1) Games for console have lower graphics than the PC vesion.\n\n2) Consoles are initially packed with high end components when they first launch. The PCs have to catch up. To make the consoles affordable, Microsoft and Sony sell the consoles at a loss. e.g. [the Xbox 360 was sold for $126 less than it cost to make](_URL_0_). The idea is that they can make the money up in software sales (Microsoft and Sony take a cut of every game, app, movie, whatever sold on their systems).",
"One of the advantages of a console time and time again is a set piece of hardware. The developers can learn to exploit every single little feature because the hardware remains constant over time. With a PC, you never know what the end user will be running and sadly it's different all the time.",
"Good points, I'll add another. Game consoles are awesomely powerful machines, but to get all the juice from one the game programmers need to put a lot of effort and expertise. So besides the hardware remaining constant, the programmers' skill increases leading to better games over time."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[],
[],
[
"http://www.gamespot.com/news/6140383/microsoft-taking-126-hit-per-xbox-360"
],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[
"http://www.gamespot.com/news/6140383/microsoft-taking-126-hit-per-xbox-360"
],
[],
[]
] |
|
5pubqu | how does working out in the morning give us *more* energy through out the day when our body is using energy to work out? | Titles says it all. I looked through ELI5 to see if someone else had asked this question, I could not find anything.
Thanks! | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5pubqu/eli5_how_does_working_out_in_the_morning_give_us/ | {
"a_id": [
"dctx573"
],
"score": [
9
],
"text": [
"Well this is a leading question, because you're assuming, by fact, that working out in the morning *definitely does* make you more energetic throughout the day, which is not a guaranteed fact. \n\nBut I am being nit-picky. Regular exercise *does* indeed make you feel more energetic, and it isn't necessarily time-dependent. Regular exercise, whether AM or PM, most often makes you feel more energetic throughout the whole day. \n\nTo answer this question though, its very important you understand a key difference: your *actual bodily energy stores* and your *feeling of bodily energy* are two very, very different things. \n\nA great deal of the time, especially in our modern, more lethargic society, we may *feel* tired, but we have in reality an abundance of energy; most of us are walking around with plentiful fat stores that could easily carry us through a week of no food. \n\nYour body is a thing of routine. It always acclimates to satisfy its expectation. If your body things its going to do nothing but sit around, you will *feel* tired, because your body is accustomed to *not* spending energy. \n\nExercising regularly increases the demand for muscles, and for ambulation (movement) in general. Excercise increases certain bodily hormones, including ephinephrine, norepinephrine, and dopamine. These have the effect of dulling the pain from exercise, but they also dull pain globally, which makes you feel happier, more alert, and more energetic. \n\nOur bodies were made to move, and moving is closely tied to our pleasure center. Your body associates movement with getting food, because in the prehistoric age, we moved to get food, that was the excercise. So your body rewards you generously in the form of hormones. \n\nThere are a lot of very complex interactions in addition to this, some of which are short term, and some of which are long term after long periods of daily exercise.\n"
]
} | [] | [] | [
[]
] |
|
1zsvex | why does a radar dish spin? | Why do radar dishes spin? Why can't they remain stationary? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1zsvex/eli5_why_does_a_radar_dish_spin/ | {
"a_id": [
"cfwmtkh",
"cfwmvjx"
],
"score": [
12,
5
],
"text": [
"Why does your head turn? So you can see more of your surroundings. It's the same for a radar dish. If it was fixed, it could only 'look' in that direction.",
"Radar works by sending a signal out. The signal bounces off whatever it's looking for, and the radar unit detects it when it comes back. It then times how long it takes - and, based on the time, it can work out how far away the object is.\n\nBut the only thing it can work out based on the timing of a radar return is its distance. It would be technically possible to send a radar signal in every direction, and to listen in every direction for returns... but when you hear a return, you wouldn't know which direction it had come from.\n\nThe easiest solution to this is to rotate the dish, so that it sends a signal in only one direction at any one time. That way, when you hear the return, you know it's come from the direction the dish is pointing."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[],
[]
] |
|
1jdw0i | how the us can gain oil through military intervention | Everyone says that the US sends soldiers to places such as Iraq to get their hands on oil. All political BS aside, how does a military presence lead to the ownership of foreign oil? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1jdw0i/eli5_how_the_us_can_gain_oil_through_military/ | {
"a_id": [
"cbdpfcd"
],
"score": [
2
],
"text": [
"It's not about ownership of the oil, it's about retaining friendly regimes in countries, which will keep oil flowing at a rate that keeps gasoline prices under control, and prevents a repeat of the 1973 oil crisis. The US's support of the Saudi ruling family is one of the reasons Saudi Arabia has continually rejected demands by other OPEC nations to decrease production quotas that would drive up the price of oil."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[]
] |
|
a5z27e | why do ceos tend to be famous than their coo or cfo counterparts? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/a5z27e/eli5_why_do_ceos_tend_to_be_famous_than_their_coo/ | {
"a_id": [
"ebqdlvi",
"ebqfmej",
"ebqtwhy"
],
"score": [
14,
5,
2
],
"text": [
"For the same reason the head coach of a football team is more famous than the offensive coordinator or trainer. The CEO is at the top of the organizational chart and the person seen calling the shots in public. More often than not they are also the public face of the organizations leadership. ",
"CEO’s are the public face of a company. Usually a COO and CFO are internal figures that have specific duties for the company and board. Also, some CEO’s are blowhard narcissists who love attention. ",
"The CEO is the face/head of the company and one most tasked to drive the overall direction of the company, the top line revenue generated. Y good products. The CFO and COO are reactionary positions that handle the bottom line numbers and production/operations. The general public care about how the product looks and acts, how the brand is portrayed... not what accounting measures were used on quarterly filing or how the company sources parts."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[],
[],
[]
] |
||
6eodqe | how and why does heat create a mirage? | What causes the mirage effect and why can heat on a sidewalk be "seen" ? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/6eodqe/eli5_how_and_why_does_heat_create_a_mirage/ | {
"a_id": [
"dibrifb"
],
"score": [
4
],
"text": [
"Different temperatures of air change the angle at which light passes through them. This means that you will see a 'shimmer' or a 'wobble' in the air as light takes a bent path to your eyes, because the 'straight line path' from your eyes to some object has distortion along it.\n\nIn strong cases, the light may be so bent that you could, for instance, see light from the sky in the direction of the ground, as it takes a sort of bent, u-shaped path from the air, towards the ground, to your eyes. We often interpret this as a watery reflection on the ground based on the *apparent* position of that bit of 'sky light.'"
]
} | [] | [] | [
[]
] |
|
450xem | why does onion breath stay for such a long time? | I have always wondered why onion breath lingers for long periods of time, even after brushing your teeth or eating a mint | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/450xem/eli5_why_does_onion_breath_stay_for_such_a_long/ | {
"a_id": [
"czuew8g",
"czuh1i9"
],
"score": [
3,
30
],
"text": [
"Similar to garlic, once ingested it creates a smelly sulphur gas that kind of lingers. The best way to help the stench is to eat a lemon right after eating raw garlic or onion. ",
"Basically, what happens is your body breaks the onion down into a compound called allyl methyl sulfide. This actually then flows into your blood stream and eventually into your lungs. After a while when you breath you are actually breathing out the sulfide coming from your own blood which is why the smell lasts so long!"
]
} | [] | [] | [
[],
[]
] |
|
2t3ekv | why do my devices need an ip address if they all have a unique mac-address? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2t3ekv/eli5_why_do_my_devices_need_an_ip_address_if_they/ | {
"a_id": [
"cnvcd71",
"cnvce66",
"cnvcel7",
"cnvchu7",
"cnvcp2w",
"cnvg0vm"
],
"score": [
2,
5,
3,
2,
2,
2
],
"text": [
"With IP addresses you can make subnets and route or not route to different subnets. You could make a subnet for each floor in a building, or each department or each building. \n\nYou are right, MAC addresses are unique but they are also somehow \"random\", you can't use them to \"group\" your devices.\nThe MAC addresses are used for transportation between network devices like switches. Routers use IPs. So the packets of your computer leave with a MAC and an IP. The network devices in between use both to determine on which way they send them.",
"Because a MAC address says *who* you are, but not *where* you are.\n\nWhen I say \"who\" I don't literally mean it identifies you of course, it identifies a particular piece of equipment. But the IP address really does identify where that piece of equipment is located in a sort of physical sense.\n\nIP addresses are structured so that routers know which connection they need to pass the message through so it gets closer to its intended recipient.\n\nA MAC address doesn't tell you that until you are close enough that it can simply store a mapping between IP address and MAC address. Which is what a network switch does (your home router is really a very simple router and a switch built into one).\n\nMAC addresses aren't transmitted across the wider internet. They're only known by your local network. This means that not everything connected to the Internet needs to have a MAC address of the same form. Not every network uses ethernet or related standards, so they don't necessarily have a compatible addressing scheme. But that's fine, because IP works on top of ethernet, wifi, cellular networks, etc. You can send IP messages to any network connected to the Internet regardless of what networking technology it uses internally.",
"If you have Ethernet connecting your PC to the LAN & then have a T1 doing Frame Relay connecting your office to your ISP & then your ISP uses ATM to connect you to another network, your MAC isn't getting passed around because every single one of those networking technologies uses a different system for addressing devices that are physically on that network.\n\nTCP/IP is designed around the idea that IP networking will work on top of existing networks **and** across different networks. IP doesn't care if it's on ATM or Ethernet or DECNet - it's just data & the computer/router on the other end of the connection reads that from the underlying network to handle the message.\n\nLike many things in computing, it's an example of *layers of abstraction*. Your web browser doesn't want to worry about whether it should send 5-volt or 3-volt signals across a wire, nor does your network card need to worry about whether you're looking at a JPEG or a GIF.\n\n[The OSI Model](_URL_0_) is normally used to describe the various parts of this - from the physical electrical connections, up through session-oriented transports to the final application protocols that are on top of everything.",
"A MAC address is like your social security number, an IP address is the address where you are currently living (not an exact analogy but hey, you're 5)",
"Summary: it's faster, it's more secure, it allows for more devices, and it's cleaner.\n\nMultiple reasons. First, because eventually MAC addresses can get re-used. They aren't 100% unique. Manufacturers are allocated certain ranges of MAC addresses, but if they produce more devices than expected they sometimes repeat some previously-used addresses. Theoretically once a MAC is used it's supposed to be used for good, right? It doesn't expire or anything. IP addresses on the other hand can be more easily re-used.\n\nSecond, because IP addressing allows for separation of multiple networks (usually private vs. public). If everything were based on MAC address, then everything would be directly accessible on the Internet and everyone would know your MAC address. It would be 1 big flat network with no organization. There are billions upon billions of MAC addresses in the world, and no router could possibly keep track of all of them without costing hundreds of thousands of dollars. Additionally this would be very insecure; MAC addresses can be falsified, so anyone could impersonate your computer.\n\nInstead, IP addresses provide a layer of abstraction. This makes things more secure, more organized, and more efficient. Nobody on the Internet can see your MAC address. They can only see the IP address of your router. Other routers on the same subnet (meaning your ISP's routers) can see your router's MAC address, but your router doesn't show them your computer's MAC address. It handles all the Network Address Translation (NAT) between the two different networks. It keeps your computers hidden behind your router.\n\nThis is pretty complicated to explain, but if you're at the level where you're wondering about this question then you better be prepare for reading lots of walls of text :p",
"Your MAC address is a physical address. If everybody in the world was on the same wifi network, you wouldn't need a seperate IP. But the internet is built on a large number of networking protocols, all with different addressing requirements, and so there's a protocol called IP built on top.\n\nYour IP address should be globally unique (Unless you're behind a NAT, which you probably are). If you're not behind a NAT, then it works like this:\n\nYour computer sends a packet to your router. The packet contains your computer's IP address and the destination IP address (Probably a server somewhere). This IP packet is then stuffed into an ethernet frame, which contains your computers MAC address, and *the routers* MAC. \n\nThe packet is then sent out over the wire. Every device connected to that ethernet cable sees the packet, checks the MAC and then discards the packet if the MAC doesn't match. So only the router will process the packet (unless there's a network card running in promiscuous mode).\n\nThen the router strips away the ethernet frame as it's no longer needed, and reads the IP address. It then consults it's routing table to decide where the packet is intended to go (If this is a home network then that will either be back into the local network or out onto the internet). If you aren't behind a NAT, both source and destination address will be unchanged.\n\nIf the router is connected via ethernet, then the router would put the IP packet into a new ethernet frame with *it's* MAC as the source and the MAC of the next hop as the destination. In practice, your router is probably not connected to your ISP via ethernet. In that case an entirely different protocol would be used, and MAC addresses don't even come into play.\n\nIn effect, IP hides the fact that there are likely multiple computers between you and your destination. You just provide the IP of the computer you want to send the packet to, and each computer on the way knows where to pass it on to to get it to it's destination. MAC addresses aren't like that- if there's no direct link between your computer and the destination, you can't send anything using MAC addresses alone. \n\nYou can also spoof MAC addresses very easily. If I change my MAC address, not much happens. Even if I change it to match another device on the network, I probably won't notice the difference. If I spoof an IP address (without ARP poisoning the network or anything like that), then I won't be able to connect to the internet as all the packets will be sent to the wrong place."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[],
[],
[
"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OSI_model"
],
[],
[],
[]
] |
||
1r80g0 | is there such a thing as "naturally soft water" or must we process water to make it "soft". | Bonus points: why does "softened" water rinse off soap less effectively than "hard" water? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1r80g0/eli5_is_there_such_a_thing_as_naturally_soft/ | {
"a_id": [
"cdkhzaj",
"cdki0gg",
"cdki34a",
"cdkm789"
],
"score": [
6,
5,
2,
3
],
"text": [
"There is such a thing as naturally soft water. \"Soft,\" in this context, just means low mineral content, and some places do have that - the Czech city of Plzn, for example.",
"The 'hardness' of water has to do with the amount of dissolved minerals in it. If you get your water from an aquifer, then it is likely hard, but if you get your water from runoff, it is very often soft without treatment.\n\nThe dissolved minerals in hard water are often in the form of ions, electrically charged atoms which interact more strongly with the soap than just plain water.",
"Hardness is just mineral content, which varies from place to place.\n\nWater from rain and snow, for example, has very little mineral content, so places that get their water from upstream lakes and rivers tend to have soft water.\n\nPlace that get their water from aquifers tend to have hard water.",
"Licensed water operator here. Hexadecimal, eideid,enteruserid,kouh and jupiter all have it right. I've work at a plant that treated surface water and well water. Surface water is soft and especially during a snow melt it becomes very soft"
]
} | [] | [] | [
[],
[],
[],
[]
] |
|
2gfhxr | why is it so hard to get beds for ebola patients? | I've been reading plenty of articles about Ebola recently, and many of them describe doctors and policymakers desperately calling for "at least 1500 more beds."
Well, I'm pretty sure even my university has at least 5,000 beds, so they mustn't be incredibly expensive. Do "beds" include doctors as well? Or is it more complex? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2gfhxr/eli5_why_is_it_so_hard_to_get_beds_for_ebola/ | {
"a_id": [
"ckimrww",
"ckimyer",
"ckinui6"
],
"score": [
11,
4,
2
],
"text": [
"\"Beds\" in that sense generally means a hospital bed, which implies the entire hospital infrastructure to go with it.",
"Your university has 5,000 beds, but they aren't in the countries currently being savaged by Ebola.\n\nIn Liberia etc. where Ebola is raging its shitstorm, there aren't 5,000 beds. Not 500. Try 50. \n\nOh, and you have to isolate and quarantine the confirmed and even potential cases. Hard to do when the hospitals don't have incinerators to burn the bloody/infected bedsheets and/or people are stealing them.\n\nMultiplied by ignorance (despite these African governments doing their best to broadcast procedures via radio and TV), and lack of trained medical professionals on the ground backed up by security forces (who are poorly trained, poorly equipped, and in poverty themselves (aka stealing infected bed stuff) but who are mandatory to inforce quarantines), combined with government officials who - at first light of an outbreak, flee the country - are needed to oversee and manage the crisis.... \n\nOh, and the medical labs to test the samples from potential carriers are run by medical pros from other countries who are themselves becoming sick, thus the labs shut down.\n\nHere in the first world, we hear on the news about under-funded doctors being denied the funds to return home to get quarantine or treatment. Even the brave of us who volunteer to go over to the stricken African countries aren't getting the support they need.\n\nIts a world of complex pain over there and its only going to get worse.",
"The CDC, a usually quiet conservative body, has called this outbreak a plague and said tbe US should send troops to help protect hospitals.\n\nI read that we could see a potential 200,000+ infected by end of 2014. \n\n"
]
} | [] | [] | [
[],
[],
[]
] |
|
6ko3kx | what causes babies to go from happy as can be one minute, to bawling their eyes out the next for seemingly no reason? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/6ko3kx/eli5_what_causes_babies_to_go_from_happy_as_can/ | {
"a_id": [
"djnia35",
"djniha0",
"djnncrx",
"djnnfwc",
"djnq0ad",
"djnr4md",
"djnrdrp",
"djns38u",
"djnws2w"
],
"score": [
405,
76,
262,
43,
13,
46,
34,
4,
2
],
"text": [
"Babies can't communicate except by crying and everything is new and weird. Cold breeze? Cry. Feeling lonely? Cry. Just realized you're hungry? Cry. Tummy hurts? Cry. ",
"Depending on the age infants don't grow the emotional regulator until (I think it was 2 years old?). So they're emotions are primitive and allowed to be expressed without any control. That and positive reinforcement when they do something (ex. cry) and their parents do everything to make them happy, if it works why would they stop. ",
"I once read that babies cry so much because literally the worst thing to ever happen to them is occurring at that moment.",
"I have raised two children from birth to adult.\n\nMost of the time, when babies cry, there isn't much you can, or perhaps should, do.\n\nWe learned to use \"the ten minute rule\"\n\nWhen the baby starts crying, wait 10 minutes. If the crying becomes distressing within 10 minutes, go check. If it goes on longer than 10 minutes, go check.\n\nMost of the time, the crying is over in 10 minutes and you can go back to sleep.\n\n[edit] IMPORTANT NOTE: Please do not let your child cry for more than ten minutes without checking. Please do not let your child cry in a distressing manner at all. If it sounds like something is REALLY WRONG, check immediately.",
"Also sometimes it is just healthy to cry as it is one of the only ways to exert energy and it helps them to develop strong lungs! Good advice if nothing seems to be working is just lay them down for a minute or two and let them fuss it out. Then the comfort of being picked up again will usually calm them down. I think this also helps the baby to learn to handle their breakdowns a little bit on their own. And to realize that not being attached to their parent 24/7 will not be the end of their world.",
"Everything they experience from birth is experienced for the first the time and, like previously mentioned they have no way to communicate.\n\nUs: \"man, it's cold.\"\nBaby: (jesus fucking christ, what the hell!) = crying.",
"Imagine you were teleported to an alien world where everything is loud and huge and terrifying. You'd always be sewsawing between wonder and terror too.",
"Babies can't talk so anything that's out of the ordinary, sore or just different, hungry, thirsty etc this is how they will communicate they need something.",
"Babies don't have a middle ground, it's all extreme, black and white thinking, pure absolute emotion, they don't remember this 'split mind' when they get older..."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[]
] |
||
8a4qx0 | why can cancer cells keep on dividing? | Not what causes to to keep on dividing forever ik why that happens (mutated proto-oncagenes and stuff) im asking *why* can they keep dividing forever?
Isnt there a limit to how much a cell can divide? Doesnt a normal cell die and stop dividing when the telomeres run out, so why can cancer cell keep on dividing? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/8a4qx0/eli5_why_can_cancer_cells_keep_on_dividing/ | {
"a_id": [
"dwvtx2f",
"dwvtx64",
"dww43j7",
"dww94vi"
],
"score": [
5,
2,
2,
2
],
"text": [
" > Doesnt a normal cell die and stop dividing when the telomeres run out\n\nNot exactly. Fraying of telomeres can result in the cells stopping performing their function properly but that doesn't really stop cancer from being cancer; it could just be the difference between a tumor that creates a hormone or doesn't.\n\nPart of what makes cancer what it is includes the normal functions which would tend to limit the growth of cells being disabled, which includes normal cellular senescence. Some cancers then are biologically immortal. An example is a sample of ovarian cancer which has been grown in labs for test samples for a very long time (and without the express permission of the donor which is its own issue). Even after the donor died from old age the samples continue on.",
"The vast majority of tumors have active telomerase, an enzyme which prevents shortening of telomeres. This along with them increasing vascularization around themselves, evading the immune system via MANY means, and what you mentioned already knowing are parts of why they are able to just keep going without dying or running out of resources. \n\n_URL_0_",
"\n\n > Isnt there a limit to how much a cell can divide? \n\nNot for *stem cells.* Tumors have them too. In fact most of the cells in malignant tumors cannot, in general, divide indefinitely.\n\nIn cancer, stem cells loose the ability to recognize whether they're in their own parent tissue, lose the ability to turn their division process on or off, and lose the ability to control their own population.\n\n > Doesnt a normal cell die and stop dividing when the telomeres run out, so why can cancer cell keep on dividing?\n\nTelomeres have an important anti-cancer function. Stem cells contain *Telomerases* that repair their telomeres, but this enzyme is suppressed in all other cells.\n\n",
"Cancer cells also run on a different metabolic cycle than normal cells. They run on an anaerobic cycle even in the presence of oxygen. This is call the Warburg effect. This is characterized by increased glucose uptake and reliance on glycolysis for ATP production despite available oxygen source."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[],
[
"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4915101/"
],
[],
[]
] |
|
9qlkbv | why do tvs look worse from an angle? | Particularly LCD/LED TVs.
The back-lighting and colors become distorted.
Surprisingly, they still advertise 178 degrees viewing angles. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/9qlkbv/eli5_why_do_tvs_look_worse_from_an_angle/ | {
"a_id": [
"e8a8cec"
],
"score": [
5
],
"text": [
"The structure of an LCD panel [isn't completely flat](_URL_0_). \n\nThis isn't an accurate analogy in terms of structure, it's just the principle. If you imagine an LCD super zoomed in, think of it as looking down at a cityscape, all skyscrapers and such. If you look down at it directly from above, you can see the streets perfectly fine. If you change your angle and look at it off to one side, your view of the streets becomes obscured by the buildings, and you can't clearly see the roads, you can just get an idea of where they are. The further to one side you move, the less obvious the streets become.\n\nThat's kind of what's happening when you view an LCD at an angle. \n\nThe panels that allow a wider viewing angle have a 'flatter' structure, so the angle you look at them matters less."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[
"https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Jean-Luc_Duval/publication/310783356/figure/fig1/AS:434144682483725@1480519567062/a-LCD-panel-observed-from-the-top-with-an-optical-microscope-b-Structure-of-an-TFT-LCD.png"
]
] |
|
224ad6 | why is there so much focus on positive body image/anti-anorexia messages for women when so few women are actually underweight? | I feel like I see almost as much health advertising/media attention focused on anorexia as I do at obesity, mainly for media aimed at women. There are so many "real women" or "positive body image" blogs and articles, and often when people criticize thin models, it's for encouraging eating disorders. When I was younger, I remember seeing videos about anorexia in health class in addition to learning vaguely about nutrition. Why is this?
I looked up some figures online (CDC and NIH, _URL_0_, _URL_1_) that say only 2% of women are underweight, and 64% are overweight/obese. Obviously I don't object to helping eating disorder sufferers, but it seems like a very very small fraction of the population, so why the media frenzy? And isn't it better for public health overall to encourage being thin (benefitting > 60%, harming < 3%)? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/224ad6/eli5_why_is_there_so_much_focus_on_positive_body/ | {
"a_id": [
"cgj7gps",
"cgj7hi3",
"cgj7hm2",
"cgj835r",
"cgjhkq0",
"cgjiwqw",
"cgjjfbf",
"cgjm3f0",
"cgjnf3s"
],
"score": [
29,
32,
19,
2,
3,
4,
5,
2,
3
],
"text": [
"Maybe this is a bitchy answer, but I think it's because people see underweight people as more tragic and fragile, whereas fat people are just \"sloppy and can't control themselves\".",
"Although relatively few people may suffer from anorexia, it's one of the most fatal mental illnesses. It's sometimes difficult to find the line between encouraging being thin and instilling unattainable body image values in impressionable young people.",
"Just because someone isn't thin doesn't mean they don't have an eating disorder. Many times people who are larger and wanting to lose weight will develop an eating disorder in hopes of huge weight loss but end up damaging their metabolism.\n\nWhile people need to be more focused on healthy eating, the fear is that the people who are desperate to lose weight and have not had success previously will turn to unhealthy options.",
"I don't know why, but I think that it's viewed as \"mean\" to point out someone's obesity, but somehow it's acceptable to point out that someone is \"too skinny\". As a society, we neglect to realize that this is equally damaging and we seem to have much less of an issue attacking anorexics. As someone who developed a chronic illness that caused me to lose a lot of weight, I'm highly offended by all of the women out there who tell me they wish they got sick so they could be skinny without trying too. Most people would never point out someone's crooked nose or their acne or their facial scars or their obesity, but there seems to be no boundary when it comes to being thin. It's offensive as hell and maybe that why there's so much advertisement on it. Society is simply less comfortable attacking the obese, which happens to be over half the population, so maybe they don't want to attack themselves?",
"The bigger issue is the social issues behind it. Eating disorders, BDD, and other mental issues that go along with these ideas are incredibly detrimental and are usually more severe than the physicality of being underweight. It's the root of the problem. These mental components strike before the visible symptoms.",
"Most people are aware that being 300 pounds is a problem; not as many realize that the deceptively mild-named category of \"underweight\" is an even more serious health hazard.\n\nIn short, our BMI scale is off-center: the healthiest category is being \"overweight\" and health risks rise as you vary from there. Underweight is actually the most severe health risk - worse even than morbid obesity. Underweight is ~2% of women and morbidly obese is ~4%. What we call \"underweight\" is really more of a \"morbidly underweight\" category, about as common and dangerous as it's counterpart of morbidly obese.\n\nSo, we have two equally dangerous conditions, one of which is held up as the ideal of female beauty and the other of which is condemned as a lazy and unhealthy lifestyle. It makes sense to focus education and awareness campaigns on the people who think they're being healthy, not the ones who are already being shamed by society.\n\n_URL_0_",
"As a recovering bulimic, I was barely underweight and it was only at the worst point. There's still monumental health risks, like loss of nutrients, and for bulimic girls there's acid corrosion of the teeth and the throat. Keep in mind that 2% of millions of people is still a very large amount of people. It can also be very hard for those with eating disorders to get help, because of the things we see. I thought weighing 120 pounds meant I was fat. After awhile it turns into body dysmorphia where you literally cannot see yourself correctly. Thankfully I snapped out of it or I could've killed myself, or caused permanent damage to my stomach and throat.",
"It's not that those campaigns discourage thinness, they're promoting healthy body image/lifestyle choices. I admit I'm a bit biased though, my GF suffers from bulimia followed by binge eating. IDK, I think we should just promote health in general. \n\nAnd I also think people like to categorize overeating as a bad personality trait, rather than an actual problem. As humans, we naturally see eating as good, and not eating as a sign of illness or trouble somehow.",
"Eating disorder does not automatically equal underweight. There is emphasis everywhere to be thin. Everywhere. When women think they do not fit the societal mold of desirability and attractiveness in terms of their body, they want to change whatever it is to fit that mold. They may achieve that by making unhealthy decisions about food. The process of falling into an eating disorder is a complicated one, it involves more than just being underweight. \n\nIt involves a very unhealthy attitude and relationship with food, and with her own body. You don't have to be classified as underweight to still be starving yourself, or forcing yourself to throw up, or binge eating. It becomes more than just wanting to look the same size as a model or celebrity. The road of an eating disorder, or anorexia as you have focused on, is curved and winding. You don't simply go straight down the road to \"underweight.\" \n\nThere is the focus on body acceptance and \"real women\" because the rest of the media teaches us and reinforces that the only body to accept is the one on the magazine cover. The push for body positivity is there so women don't fall prey to unhealthy relationships with food, exercise, and their own image in order to fit that \"mold.\" Those unhealthy relationships can easily turn into more serious eating disorders. \nSure, the majority of women are not underweight, but that doesn't mean that the proponents of an eating disorder, or what will lead to an eating disorder are not there. \n\nSorry if my reply sounds choppy and all over the place I'm on my phone but I wanted to try and help you understand before I forgot what I was going to say. "
]
} | [] | [
"http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/hestat/underweight_adult_07_08/underweight_adult_07_08.pdf",
"http://win.niddk.nih.gov/statistics/"
] | [
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[
"http://share.kaiserpermanente.org/article/underweight-and-extremely-obese-die-earlier-than-people-of-normal-weight-study-finds/"
],
[],
[],
[]
] |
|
3k246m | what are kernels and roms for android? | I recently bought the oneplus one. Which is greatly sided towards android customisation. Browsing through xda forums and not understanding anything sucks.
Eli5. Thanks | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3k246m/eli5_what_are_kernels_and_roms_for_android/ | {
"a_id": [
"cuu5rp3"
],
"score": [
2
],
"text": [
"A ROM is the collection of \"all the software on the phone - operating system, built-in apps, background images, ringtones, everything\".\n\nPutting a new ROM on is like factory resetting it, losing everything, and afterwards it's different. It's pretty high risk, if it goes wrong the phone can be useless.\n\nThe kernel is the most important section of the software, it is the central bit, the core, the 'kernel' like of a nut. It has all the power, organises everything, has drivers for video/sound/bluetooth/wifi/etc. closely tied in with it, and everything else builds on top of it.\n\nDifferent kernels are built to have different versions of display drivers, different features enabled/disabled, to try to make things more stable, or more responsive, or support particular rare devices, or to patch security problems, or add new behind-the-scenes features to support more apps overall.\n\nIt's not usually possible to put a new kernel on by itself, only by building it into a ROM image and putting that on."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[]
] |
|
5cpek6 | what is the unit of viscosity and how is it measured? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5cpek6/eli5_what_is_the_unit_of_viscosity_and_how_is_it/ | {
"a_id": [
"d9ybkwb"
],
"score": [
3
],
"text": [
"The SI unit is the Poise, and it's measured by applying shear stress to the liquid. A typical viscometer has the liquid sandwiched between two concentric plates that the fluid sticks to, and measures the torque needed to turn one of them, then you calculate the viscosity from that. The plates can't be smooth, of course - the liquid needs to stick, not slide over them. There are different types of viscometer. "
]
} | [] | [] | [
[]
] |
||
eyst1p | why amoled whites look yellow-ish compared to lcd whites? | I noticed that all AMOLED displays show whites with a yellow/red tint on them and don't look as "white" as LCD whites. Why? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/eyst1p/eli5_why_amoled_whites_look_yellowish_compared_to/ | {
"a_id": [
"fgj9k2p"
],
"score": [
5
],
"text": [
"Blue AMOLED subpixels burn out the fastest. Red and green subpixels create yellow, so an AMOLED screen will shift yellow as it gets older. LCDs don't burn so they don't change much over their life."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[]
] |
|
3zb5qt | why doesn't the president make every change he wishes to see an executive order? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3zb5qt/eli5_why_doesnt_the_president_make_every_change/ | {
"a_id": [
"cykneny"
],
"score": [
15
],
"text": [
"An executive order is not a law. The president is the chief executive, and is thus responsible for executing the law--including overseeing the various departments that do so. An executive order is simply a formal instruction from the president to other parts of the executive branch.\n\nAccordingly, it does not have any special power. A new executive order might be significant, expounding a new interpretation of law, directing an agency to write regulation, or to focus on certain activities over others. But ultimately it is still within the bounds of the executive authority granted by the Constitution and the laws passed by Congress.\n\nAn example: the laws of the United States permit the government to deport non-citizens who entered without inspection (i.e., illegally). Congress has appropriated a certain amount of money for that purpose. President A might say \"we should focus that money on prosecuting and deporting drug traffickers and other hardened criminals.\" His successor President B might say \"we should deport as many people as possible; they all broke the law.\" That's a big difference in policy, but the law hasn't changed. If the president wanted to make it easier to obtain a visa, for example, Congress would need to pass a law changing the criteria."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[]
] |
||
93fpnb | where does the smoke go? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/93fpnb/eli5_where_does_the_smoke_go/ | {
"a_id": [
"e3cwxlo",
"e3cyrym"
],
"score": [
2,
15
],
"text": [
"I've tried this before like a thousand times, never been able to do it. The trick must be to take the smallest puff possible in the first place?",
"The inside of the lungs have a very high surface area of wet mucous membrane, which is great at capturing all kinds of things. Some of it (insoluble) just stays there, some of it gets coughed back up in mucus, and some of it is very quickly absorbed into the bloodstream. Nicotine and THC are a few of the things that get absorbed quickly, which is why you feel the hit so quickly. \n\nOne of the benefits of vaping is that the cloud ostensibly contains no insoluble components, so the whole thing eventually gets absorbed into your bloodstream and eventually processed by your body, instead of staying in your lungs like ash and soot."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[],
[]
] |
||
9b90yb | how do drill instructors in the military not damage their voice from all the shouting? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/9b90yb/eli5_how_do_drill_instructors_in_the_military_not/ | {
"a_id": [
"e516sm9"
],
"score": [
2
],
"text": [
"They do. Often. I couldn't even begin to remember how many days our Drill Sergeants showed up to work hoarse and barely able to speak. "
]
} | [] | [] | [
[]
] |
||
2q1126 | how come the category of "sugar" in the nutrition block doesn't have a daily recommendation intake such as protein, carbs, or fats etc...? | Been working out and eating healthy again. I've been constantly checking the nutrition block for the back of nearly everything I eat to make sure I stay healthy. One thing struck me was that there is no daily % or recommendation for sugar as to how much an average 2000 calorie person is to consume, yet there is one for every other category. Why is it? And can we do something about this? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2q1126/eli5_how_come_the_category_of_sugar_in_the/ | {
"a_id": [
"cn1ufcu"
],
"score": [
2
],
"text": [
"Because sugar is a carb, so its falls under the category of carbs."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[]
] |
|
ckwsqx | how do game developers put a game on a disc and how can the game console be able to read the disc knowing what game it is? | (Sorry if my grammar is a bit off) | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/ckwsqx/eli5_how_do_game_developers_put_a_game_on_a_disc/ | {
"a_id": [
"evrdut9",
"evrgieo"
],
"score": [
2,
2
],
"text": [
"Basically it is because the people who make the console told the people who make the games in which way the game has to be put onto the disc. They tell them were to put the name of the game on the disc so that the console can find it and show to you, they tell the developers where to put the graphics and sounds, and how to write the code and where to put it so that the console knows what to do with it.",
"The CD's surface is made up of a huge amount of these little pits: _URL_0_ they are extremely small. The exact configuration of the pits is made by the CD burning process.\n\nA laser is shined at the disc as its spinning. A photodiode can detect the changes in intensity from the laser moving farther away. The photodiode turns this change in intensity into electrical signals: 1s If there's a change in intenisty, 0 if there's not.\n\nYour computer then puts the whole thing together, translating the binary information into whatever that information represents: a game, in this case."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[],
[
"https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/9/98/CD_Pits_at_6.25x_Magnification.jpg/800px-CD_Pits_at_6.25x_Magnification.jpg"
]
] |
|
7jijga | why do they offer 2for1 or a reduced price on food that isn't going to expire anytime soon. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/7jijga/eli5_why_do_they_offer_2for1_or_a_reduced_price/ | {
"a_id": [
"dr6ltz2",
"dr6lw8s"
],
"score": [
2,
3
],
"text": [
"I think because they want you to try them, and keep on buying them after the sale ends because you're (hopefully for them) hooked.\n\nDisclaimer: I don't come from that industry, so the actual reason might be completely different...",
"Depends on the circumstances. They could need to clear out inventory or shelf space for something else, for example. Or they could be trying to boost sales in the short term by selling on volume instead of margin. Or in some cases the sale price is their intended margin, and by putting a fake sale they hope that you'll buy more of it.\n\nThe answer is that it could be a bunch of things driving that decision."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[],
[]
] |
||
d51dgr | what created the massive reserve, and why does the middle east have so much oil? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/d51dgr/eli5_what_created_the_massive_reserve_and_why/ | {
"a_id": [
"f0iu2ai",
"f0iw3l6"
],
"score": [
2,
7
],
"text": [
"The large financial reserves are from selling oil. The \"large oil reserves\" are a fancy way of saying they have a lot of oil. \n\nMiddle east has oil because of geological and climate things that happened millions of years ago. \n\nIn fact, Middle East is only important because of that oil. There are plenty of other places with endless & bloody civil wars or religious conflicts (Yemen, Somali, Congo, Libya etc.), and they receive a lot less attention precisely b/c they have no effect on global economy. \n\nMoreover, if all that oil ended up somewhere else, there would be dictatorships and conflict there.",
"Oil and coal formed from dead organic matter buried in sedimentary rock. If that happen underwater it will form oil, while if it's underground it will form coal. That's why we often get oil offshore from platform in the Ocean.\n\nNow you ask yourself well the middle east isn't an ocean so why oil there? Well part of that oil is underwater in the Persian Gulf or the Caspian Sea. That said, a lot of the oil of the region are found underground and the reason is that the whole region used to be an Ocean separating what would become Africa and Eurasia.\n\n[_URL_0_](_URL_0_)\n\nLook at 3:18 this is 70 millions years ago. You can see that the Arabian Peninsula was part of the African continent at that point and that a big sea was separating it from what would eventually become Iran. The two continents become closer and the ground went up, pushing the oil reserves to the surface. Something similar happen where Texas is today, what is the Mexico gulf today went deeper into the continent at the time and almost divided North America in two. You can see that at 3:02 in the video and that was 100 million years ago."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[],
[
"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uLahVJNnoZ4&t=195s"
]
] |
||
81kns5 | can analog watches "die"? | [deleted] | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/81kns5/eli5_can_analog_watches_die/ | {
"a_id": [
"dv3mghm",
"dv3rcd2"
],
"score": [
5,
2
],
"text": [
" > Can analog watches \"die\"?\n\nI'm not sure what you mean by this. An analog watch is simply the method of displaying time in a dial watch face rather than with a numerical display and doesn't imply anything about the actual operating mechanism. So anything which can \"kill\" a digital display watch can kill an analog display watch.\n\nBut a mechanical watch can of course cease functioning if anything goes wrong with its mechanism or if it loses a power supply, be it from springs or batteries. A mechanical watch though is not necessarily analog in the same way that an electronic watch need not be digital display.",
"analog (aka mechanical) watches rely on wound spring to drive sets of gears around spindles. eventually gears teeth and spindles bushings and other parts wear from friction and cease to be in specifications for the watch function. but you're talking about hundreds of years worth of use."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[],
[]
] |
|
3q2y14 | why is spare tire in car usually smaller than regular tire? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3q2y14/eli5why_is_spare_tire_in_car_usually_smaller_than/ | {
"a_id": [
"cwbkx04",
"cwbky2r"
],
"score": [
9,
3
],
"text": [
"The purpose is to get you from A to the tire shop, so you can proceed to B. If your spare is a legitimate tire, and you forget to replace it with another spare after having a blowout, what happens on your next blowout?\n\nIt encourages you to always keep your tire count at 5.",
"It's only supposed to be used as a temporary replacement until you can get your existing tire fixed. You shouldn't drive at excessive speeds or keep it on for longer than the recommended distance, and for god's sake, never put it on a drive axle. If your car is a front wheel drive, put it on the back axle and swap the good rear wheel to the front. "
]
} | [] | [] | [
[],
[]
] |
||
8e5b3j | so we are always taught to "save water" to protect the environment. but using water isn't destroying the water it goes back into the environment because the water cycle. so why are we taught to save water if it doesn't actually go away? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/8e5b3j/eli5_so_we_are_always_taught_to_save_water_to/ | {
"a_id": [
"dxsh4y2",
"dxsh85l",
"dxsh9h4"
],
"score": [
2,
7,
7
],
"text": [
"What we're saving is *clean* water. When you \"waste\" water, you're causing water to become undrinkable. It takes time, money, and resources to clean water again so that we can safely drink it. If there's a drought, it becomes much more important to avoid wasting all of the effort that went into purifying the water, since it's entirely possible that water could be dirtied faster than it can be cleaned, resulting in running out of drinkable water.",
"The amount of *water* on the planet is basically unlimited, but what is limited is clean, fresh water. Water you can actually use for the vast majority of things you actually use water for.\n\nMaking clean water takes time, energy, and money, and in some places climate or political factors make a water problem even worse. Simply desalinating sea water is expensive and moving that water across large distances is even more expensive. \n\nSo we don't have an unlimited supply of *clean* water because it takes money and effort to make clean water.",
"The water cycle doesn't automatically adjust to meet the consumption rate of your region. If you're consuming 50 gallons of water a second, and the water cycle is returning 2 gallons of water a second, you will deplete your sources and possibly not have water when you need it, such as for agricultural needs, or drinking. \n\nAdditionally, some sources of water can be permanently ruined if you completely drain them, like aquifers, which tend to recharge slowly. \n\nIn other words, yeah the water still exists, but if it's all downstream you're still thirsty. "
]
} | [] | [] | [
[],
[],
[]
] |
||
37k12i | if it's so easy for americans/canadians/europeans to go fight for isis why doesn't the fbi/cia/nsa just send over tons of spies? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/37k12i/eli5if_its_so_easy_for/ | {
"a_id": [
"crncm72",
"crnco3f",
"crncvt8",
"crndqcd"
],
"score": [
9,
6,
3,
3
],
"text": [
"Well being as they would be spies, do you know that they aren't?",
"How do you know they aren't?\n\nIt would be an incredibly dangerous undercover assignment. Whoever does this would have to participate in whatever ISIS was doing. Including fighting and killing. \n\nI don't know how they would be able to keep in contact with the CIA while over there without getting caught. They could even be killed by an American airstrike.\n\nSeems like a good idea on paper. Not so simple in practice.",
"You can safely bet that they do, and safely bet that ISIS doesn't trust the grunts with all that much because of it. \n\nIt's not the FBI nor the NSA's job to do so, though. CIA/CSIS/MI6/ASIS/etc would be the relevant agencies. ",
"Many who served in Saddam Hussein's security & intelligence apparatus went on to join the Islamic State after his regime fell to the Americans. ISIS has been able to use their skills to develop a professional counter-intelligence operation. The only people who are provided with information on plans in the group are trusted and only given the information necessary to complete their task in order to mitigate any potential information breaches. "
]
} | [] | [] | [
[],
[],
[],
[]
] |
||
5902nc | what does it take to run for president? (u.s.) | I understand some of the more basic requirements like being 35 years or older. Being a natural born US citizen. Having no criminal record. etc. But what is really stopping perhaps more decent people from running our country? I feel there's some mix between it not being a desirable job and or not being a fulfilling one. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5902nc/eli5what_does_it_take_to_run_for_president_us/ | {
"a_id": [
"d94jvyc",
"d94jzgw",
"d94k19k",
"d94krqb",
"d94m6cz",
"d94rfo4"
],
"score": [
4,
6,
2,
5,
5,
5
],
"text": [
"Besides the Constitutional stuff, the other big requirement is that you have to secure the backing of one of the two major parties. Third parties simply don't have the resources or following to compete, which is why they are never successful.",
"The US is a rather large country- over three hundred million people spread out over about four million square miles. It takes a lot of time, money, and effort to get most of those people to know your name. You need to get your name out there, and then convince them that you'd be a good person to run the country, and then you need to collect signatures in all 50 states to get your name on the ballot. Most people are too busy with their lives to want to do that.",
"Other than seating qualifications? Money",
" > Having no criminal record.\n\nThat's not actually part of it. Eugene Debs ran for president out of his jail cell when he was arrested for his anti-war messages.\n\nedit: wrong war",
"You need a lot of money. Just getting your name on the ballot in the primary elections in every state requires filing a lot of paperwork, paying fees, and getting signatures. So you need to have some infrastructure in place before you start running. You could skip the primary process by running as an independent, but then you don't get the benefit of having the support of a major party. You have to be able to travel all around the country. You need campaign offices, buses, charter planes, a website.\n\nYou also need to be willing to have your whole life picked apart on national TV. Anything you've done going back decades could be fair game. Even your spouse could be open to attack.\n\nThe job itself is extremely stressful. Even on your vacation, you're still answering phone calls and meeting with aides. You have to be willing to order military operations, knowing solidiers and civilians could die. You're going to be constantly attacked in the media and have people protesting almost everywhere you go.",
"There's nothing legally stopping them -- but being president is a demanding, risky, and not all that rewarding job. If you want money, respect, or fame, there are better, easier, and more sure ways to get it. \n\nIf you run for president, there are a large number of people who will be dedicated to digging up anything discreditable about your past and making it public. Some of it will be true and some of it will be outright lies. They will dig up school papers or letters that you don't remember reading and ask you to defend what you said decades before. Few people want to go through that. \n\nIf you look at before-and-after photos of presidents, they age in that 4 or 8 year span. It's an incredibly stressful, demanding, aging job."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[]
] |
|
2emmh7 | how come most people in america are so pissed with their isp's or cable providers? | I feel like I never have a problem with my internet. I know I do pay quite a bit for it though. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2emmh7/eli5_how_come_most_people_in_america_are_so/ | {
"a_id": [
"ck0wa05",
"ck0xu4u",
"ck12865",
"ck156ex",
"ck19bau"
],
"score": [
11,
24,
3,
2,
2
],
"text": [
"They deliberately give crappy service due to a complete lack of accountability. They're private companies rather than public utilities, so there's no government oversight. They're politically influential local monopolies, so there's no private oversight (read: competitors). Only in a few highly metropolitan areas are there more than one provider.\n\nI remember we had trouble with our download speeds being all over the place in an area in which Comcast was the only game in town. Random disconnects. They eventually sent a technician. When he opened it up, it was apparent they were selling a level of service to thousands on equipment that was meant to deliver this service to hundreds. The technician himself commented that they treat everyone this way in areas that don't have access to Verizon FiOS.",
"I believe technically it's an oligopoly, not monopoly. This video perfectly (and hilariously) sums up our frustrations:\n\n_URL_0_",
"We don't have choices in providers, so if you want a service, you have to go with asshole company A, that does nothing as far as customer service, and the bills are outrageous.",
"Time Warner just boosted my 50/5 to 300/20 for no extra charge. They've evidently done it in NYC, Southern CA, and Austin (where I am). From what I understand, they'll be continuing the roll-out to the rest of their markets over the next 2 years. But all their speeds got boosted. The old standard which was 15/1 is getting boosted to 50/5. ",
"Isn't it something like ... Here in the UK BT owned all the \"telephone\" lines and the then up and coming BB providers paid a fee to rent them and now have a range of different providers who rent BT lines or now have built there own fibre optics due to high revenue etc.\n\nWhereas in the US one of the providers might own some lines in a part of a city which isn't connected to another part and can only have a certain provider...as it would cost too many millions to expand the lines everywhere ? I remember being explained to me but its very vague :/\n"
]
} | [] | [] | [
[],
[
"www.youtube.com/watch?v=0ilMx7k7mso"
],
[],
[],
[]
] |
|
8ehgzf | why doesn’t reddit have a bookmark feature for the mobile app?? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/8ehgzf/eli5_why_doesnt_reddit_have_a_bookmark_feature/ | {
"a_id": [
"dxv8dqv"
],
"score": [
2
],
"text": [
"How would anyone here possibly even know the answer to that question? You'd have to ask the software developers who work on the mobile app, not random people in ELI5."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[]
] |
||
2fqia2 | when a man and women have a child, why do some genes in the child seem to mix (hair texture, skin tone) while others seem dominate (facial features)? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2fqia2/eli5_when_a_man_and_women_have_a_child_why_do/ | {
"a_id": [
"ckbqrfc"
],
"score": [
3
],
"text": [
"Not all features are determined by just one gene.\n\nEarlobes, for example, are determined by a relatively simple single gene; hanging is dominant and attached is recessive.\n\nEye color is determined by at least two genes, and hair color and skin color are determined by even more."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[]
] |
||
20oky1 | how does someone end up a nascar racer? | Does it start out with your local dirt racing track with stock cars, talent recognition, truck series, then to NASCAR?
Is it one of those sports that you have to start out with a lot of money anyway? Then qualify like golfers do at the beginning of the season? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/20oky1/eli5_how_does_someone_end_up_a_nascar_racer/ | {
"a_id": [
"cg5ac06"
],
"score": [
2
],
"text": [
"I'm pretty sure drivers are recruited and sign multi year contracts with the teams. The driver is really just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to a racing team. You basically start with amateur dirt tracks and go-carts and such until you get discovered and signed. Even the small time dirt tracks have lots of team members and local sponsors and such.\n\nEdit - one things for sure, you do not need to start with a lot of money to become a nascar racer, just driving talent and mechanical know-how."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[]
] |
|
7t0oc3 | how is money transferred digitally from bank to bank? | I feel like this is one of those questions where the solution is obvious, but you end up thinking about it wrong and are unable to come to the right conclusion. Maybe I’m just an idiot, but nobody else has been able to answer this for me.
Okay, so you take cash and deposit it into your bank account. You buy something online and the seller lives thousands of miles away from you — maybe even in a country that doesn’t use your currency. What happens to the cash? It obviously can’t be transported to the receiver’s bank every times you make a purchase. How does the bank work out these kinds of transfers without accidentally creating money or losing it? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/7t0oc3/eli5_how_is_money_transferred_digitally_from_bank/ | {
"a_id": [
"dt8xrjq",
"dt8y99o"
],
"score": [
13,
7
],
"text": [
"There is a special network, called SWIFTnet, that connects the banks. The Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication (SWIFT) uses a standard protocol (ISO 9362) to identify each bank and transmit encrypted payment orders. Each bank is part of a collective that reconciles these orders each day. So if you spend $100 on some fine German product, your banks collective has an order to send that $100 to the German's bank. It tries to find a cancelling transaction, where some German bought $100 worth of US stuff. Then they can send your $100 to the German's seller and the German's euros to the company you bought stuff from. At the end of the day, if it can't match perfectly, some dollars have to be changed for euros on a currency exchange. Since that involves fees, the banks work to avoid it so they can make more money.",
"To add to u/WRSaunders's answer:\n\n > What happens to the cash? \n\nTransfers between banks generally don't rely on cash. In fact, most of the money in the world is electronic, with no physical bills or coins to represent it. This actually isn't a problem, since \"money\" is just an abstract token that we use to represent the value of things. In which case it doesn't really matter if that token is physical or not."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[],
[]
] |
|
j4wcz | could you explain why undervaluing the rmb in china gives the country an advantage in foreign trade li5? | What are the pros/cons of such a policy? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/j4wcz/could_you_explain_why_undervaluing_the_rmb_in/ | {
"a_id": [
"c2965pi",
"c2966e0"
],
"score": [
2,
8
],
"text": [
"China’s engine of growth is exports. The lower the value of the Yuan, the better it is for China’s exporters. Basically, if 1 Dollar buys 7 Yuans, and a exporter sells a Chinese Shirt for 10 dollars – he pockets 70 yuans. But if one Dollar was worth only 5 Yuans, the exporter would only be able to pocket 50 yuans.",
"So, let's say I have a dollar, and I want to buy your Chinese food from China. Now, you're in China, so you don't want my dollar, you want RMBs. I mean, if someone came over here with Chinese money, you wouldn't sell them anything, because you can't use it. Right? Right. So I take my dollar to somebody who wants dollars and has RMBs (maybe he's a Chinese guy who wants a cheeseburger). Now, the question is, \"how many RMBs does my dollar buy me?\" If the RMB is *devalued,* then I can buy a lot of them with my one dollar. That's because RMBs are really common and not as many people want them as want my dollar. So then when I go to you, my one dollar is suddenly 500 RMBs, and I can buy more with it than I could at home with my dollar.\n\nSo, the pros and cons. Well, the pros are that you can sell me more of your Chinese food for my dollar. So you sell more food, and thus make more RMBs than you would if $1 = 1 RMB (I buy 500 RMBs worth of food, instead of 1 RMB's worth). Now, the down side is, what if you want a cheeseburger? You have to get 500 RMBs just to get a dollar! Imagine if you had to get $500 to buy a cheeseburger in France. That'd be crazy!\n\nSo: It's easier to sell things to people from other countries, because they have really really valuable money, so to them all your prices look really cheap. But it's hard to buy things from those people, because they don't want your cheap money."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[],
[]
] |
|
1hbqc1 | why do animals and humans feel extreme amounts of pain? it seems like this would be an evolutionary disadvantage. | I understand small amounts of pain to indicate that something is wrong, but what if you're running away from a wolf and you get a gash on your leg? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1hbqc1/eli5why_do_animals_and_humans_feel_extreme/ | {
"a_id": [
"casrsvb",
"casrwgg"
],
"score": [
6,
8
],
"text": [
"Pain is a mechanism that both lets animals know if they are being injured, and prevents them from injuring themselves. If you have a broken leg, walking on it will injure it, so pain prevents animals from walking on it. Pain simply conveys the magnitude of the injury. \n\nIf animals felt the same amount of pain for ripping out an eyeball as they did stubbing your toe, animals would be much less protective of their eyeball. This applies for any vital organ or limb.",
"If you're running away from a wolf, you won't feel the gash on your leg. The body has mechanisms to suppress pain when there is a need.\n\nPart of the problem with chronic pain is that our lives are incredibly safe and easy these days, relative to the vast span of human evolution. We have the time and attention to notice pains that in the past would have been ignored out of simple necessity. "
]
} | [] | [] | [
[],
[]
] |
|
5wrixg | what is frequency in light? | Yup, what's that all about??? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5wrixg/eli5_what_is_frequency_in_light/ | {
"a_id": [
"decg450"
],
"score": [
5
],
"text": [
"Frequency, in anything, is how often something happens in a certain period of time. \n\nFrequency in light is measured in hertz, or Hz, which is 1/s. It refers to how many times a part of the light wave repeats itself in one second, so to speak. So, if light has a frequency of, say, 100 Hz, that means the wave travels from peak to peak (or valley to valley, or midpoint to midpoint) 100 times in one second. "
]
} | [] | [] | [
[]
] |
|
66lera | why does pouring vinegar or peeing on jellyfish stings make them feel better? | EDIT: Probably should have mentioned this before, but a few days ago, my buddy was stung by a jellyfish and was in a considerable amount of pain for about 30 minutes. I could tell it was really hurting him. We didn't have any vinegar to put on him at the time. A few hours ago, though, I was stung by one, and we did happen to have some vinegar. I was in lots of pain for about two minutes, but once we put vinegar on it, it quickly felt better.
So I am certainly under the impression that at least vinegar does, in fact, help. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/66lera/eli5_why_does_pouring_vinegar_or_peeing_on/ | {
"a_id": [
"dgjewi8",
"dgjhcs0"
],
"score": [
3,
2
],
"text": [
"These cures are fictional. Vinegar may help, but it's more likely it won't. \n\nJellyfish stings are a particularly nasty sort of attack, because it leaves behind its venomous cells to harm you. If you try to cleanse it with freshwater or likely even vinegar, the cells react to this change by pumping out MORE venom to sting you with. The best cure, from a cursory googling, is to wash out the nematocysts (stinging cells) with the same salt water you encountered the jellyfish in.\n\nAnything else is liable to upset the balance of the solution the cells are accustomed to, and they'll react by upping the ante with their sting.",
"stinging jellyfish have millions of stinging cells (nematocysts) usually in there tentacles. when these cells come into contact with our skin the release penetrating the epidermis and injecting venom in the blood. \nVinegar does not make the skin feel better and if it does its a placebo effect. Vinegar is used to neutralise any unreleased nematocysts that have not fired yet. The connection between what part of the vinegar neutralises the nematocysts is yet to be pin pointed."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[],
[]
] |
|
1dk6n9 | different types of retirement (401k, etc) | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1dk6n9/eli5_different_types_of_retirement_401k_etc/ | {
"a_id": [
"c9r2wi5",
"c9r4fuf"
],
"score": [
3,
3
],
"text": [
"401k isn't a \"type of retirement\".\n\n401k refers to a specific type of account which people who are working put money into to be used after they retire. \n\n401k refers to the part of the tax law that describes these accounts.",
"This is a pretty broad question so I'll just give you some info on a 401(k).\n\nA 401(k) is an investment account that uses pre-tax dollars. If you get paid $20/hr and work 40 hours a week you make $800 gross a week. You can then contribute a percent (it varies by company) into a 401(k) account, we'll say 5%, so $40. That $40 has not yet been taxed by the government, the 401(k) allows you to delay the taxes on the money until retirement. The money that goes into a 401(k) is then invested into a fund (usually you get to choose from a small number of them). Often your company will do a \"match\", they will also invest 5% into your retirement fund, so you pay $40 and the company pays another $40, so $80 a week. When you retire and start taking money out of the 401(k) you have to pay taxes on it.\n\nThe benefits of it being pre-tax are mainly two-fold: You get more money to invest, since 30% (or whatever) have not already been taken out for taxes, you get to invest that whole amount ($40 vs $28 if 30% taxes had been taken out). In addition when you retire you are generally in a lower tax bracket because you are making less money, so your retired tax rate may be something like 15%."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[],
[]
] |
||
10iel0 | what a "promoter" is and how they fit in with djs and the club scene? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/10iel0/eli5_what_a_promoter_is_and_how_they_fit_in_with/ | {
"a_id": [
"c6dq9f1",
"c6dqg5w",
"c6dqgcz",
"c6draar",
"c6drnuf",
"c6drr96"
],
"score": [
3,
3,
5,
2,
2,
2
],
"text": [
"From my experience, what you pay as a door charge to get into a club where a DJ is playing goes into the pocket of the promoter. It is their responsibility to get people in the door and buying drinks, whether it be through social media or word of mouth.\n\nUsually the DJs and the promoters work for the same company (this includes photographers and door staff too), and are hired by clubs to perform and fill them up. Many aren't just one or the other, either (DJs promote, vice versa). And many do this for several clubs for different nights of the week.",
"A promoter is someone hired by a bar/company/ and business to push their product/services. They usually hire someone who is very outgoing and subtle about it.\n\nWith clubs they'll hire someone young and fairly attractive and send them out to bring in business, push their club as the one to be at on any given night. They can usually give out free drinks, reduced or free cover in order to bring in more peoople and thus sell more alcohol.",
"The DJ is the talent. The clubs are the venues. The promoters are responsible for bringing people out to the venues. (Door charge doesnt necessarily matter). \n\nThe promoter is usually the one who organizes the evening. \nAs an example: Say you go to a club and they have a \"dubstep night\" featuring 3 DJs who are all specialized in that genre. The promoter is the one who has come up with the idea for the evening, booked the DJs, secured the venue, AND (most importantly) has the clout to be able to promote and bring enough people out to the show. Big promoters can bring many people out just off the strength of who they know. The booked talent also brings people out. \n\nThe club has some kind of agreement with the promoter that varies, but usually consists of them getting paid based on draw. The promoter then doles out a smaller portion of his cut to each of his acts.\n\nThe principle is the same with big concerts and major tours with bands and other artists. Madison square garden (the venue) doesnt book Lady Gaga (the act) directly. Theres a middle man who tells MSG they can bring Lady Gaga and that if they do they will bring x amount of money to their venue.",
"In the dj club scene you speak of, a promoter rents out a club, hires a DJ, charges people to get into the club to see said DJ. Then uses that money to pay the club rent, pay the DJ and if he was successful he made a profit.",
"Independent promoter here.\n\nIn short the promoter comes up with the idea and takes the financial risk. They secure the venue, the talent, the promotional materials and go out there and sell the tickets.\n\nAny other questions just ask, I've done everything from 60 cap to 10,000+.",
"Promoters are typically hired as independent contractor by music venues, earning an agreed-to fee or royalties. The royalty structure is often a simple percentage of admission fees and/or food and drink sales, but like other royalty arrangements many variations are possible such as minimums or maximums, allowances for various expenses, or limitations. Other promoters operate independently, renting venues for a fixed fee or under a revenue sharing arrangement with the building owner or tenant, and keeping all of the additional profits from a successful event. One common arrangement for small venues is for the promoter to earn all of the admissions fees, while the venue earns all of the food and drink revenue.\n\nSome venues have exclusive arrangements with a single promotion company; others work with multiple promoters on a rotating schedule or on an event-by-event basis. Promoters often work together, either as equal partners or as subcontractors to each other's events. Several promoters may work together for a large special event, e.g. a New Year's Eve party in a hotel ballroom. They may also deputize \"hosts\", who are essentially socially influential or desirable non-promoters who will market the events to their circle of friends in exchange for special treatment or free admission to the event.\n\nAt a minimum the event promoter manages publicity and advertising. Depending on the arrangement they may also handle security, ticket sales, Admission to an event or establishment (door policies), decorations, and booking of entertainers. Many promoters are DJs or musicians themselves, and perform at their own event. Conversely, many musicians act as de facto promoters for their own concerts, either directly or through their manager or booking company. Historically, promotion has been a cottage industry, with companies operated by one or several well-connected charismatic individuals, often working part-time. However, with the rise of corporate ownership of live entertainment assets several large companies have emerged in the field, most notably Live Nation via its acquisitions. The larger companies tend to promote more traditional mainstream music in exclusive contracts with concert halls. Alternative music and events and nightclubs remain in the hands of independent promoters."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[]
] |
||
1mylbk | why do you have to sign up for cashback bonuses? | On my credit card, they offer all sorts of cashback bonuses, but I have to sign up for each of them. Is there a reason they don't just offer this automatically? Is there a downside to cashback bonuses I don't know about? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1mylbk/eli5_why_do_you_have_to_sign_up_for_cashback/ | {
"a_id": [
"ccdssbd"
],
"score": [
3
],
"text": [
"The cashback programs cost the credit card companies money. They want to be known as having a good rewards program, but they don't want many people taking advantage of it.\n\nThus, they implemented a program where people have to opt-in (usually every 3 months) to take advantage of it.\n\nMail-in rebates work the exact same way. Those companies know that not everyone will sign-up or take advantage of the rebates."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[]
] |
|
t419k | what is pirate bay, and why would i use it? | I hear a lot of talk about it on reddit, from my understanding its used to pretty much get free stuff like movies, songs, etc. But could someone explain further and maybe how to use it too. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/t419k/eli5_what_is_pirate_bay_and_why_would_i_use_it/ | {
"a_id": [
"c4jd1xs",
"c4jdn5x"
],
"score": [
9,
3
],
"text": [
"1. Download and install [uTorrent](_URL_0_).\n2. Go to _URL_1_ (assuming it is not blocked in your country).\n3. Search for something you would like and click on it.\n4. Click \"get this torrent\". This will launch uTorrent and a uTorrent window with the details about the torrent you are going to download.\n5. Click Yes/Ok/Whateveryouhavetoclicktoconfirm.\n6. Wait a couples of minutes (or perhaps a few hours, depending on how big of a file you are downloading).\n7. Go to your \"Downloads\" map or where ever you have told uTorrent to put your download.\n8. Enjoy your download!",
"The pirate bay is the most popular bittorrent tracker on the internet. BitTorrent is a peer-to-peer file sharing protocol used to transmit files efficiently among a large group of users. It works by splitting a large file into small pieces. When you download a file using BitTorrent, you are receiving pieces of the file from everybody else who's downloading it, and you are uploading the pieces you've already downloaded to everyone else that wants them too. This is much more efficient than most other file transfer protocols, especially for large files. For example, if I want to distribute a Linux CD using a web server, I have to serve the entire file to every person, and I can only serve a few at a time before my server gets overloaded. With BitTorrent, I can \"seed\" the file to the first few people, and if they're good little boys and girls, they'll seed it too once the download completes. The more seeders there are, the faster other people can download the file, and no one server has to work very hard. BitTorrent depends on people to keep seeding once the download completes, but it's also uploading the bits you've already got while you download the rest. Since most Internet connections download much faster than they upload, you usually have to keep seeding four or five times longer than it took to download in order to \"give back\" a full copy of the file. It's generally considered very bad form to quit seeding before that happens.\n\nSo that's the basics of BitTorrent. The Pirate Bay is a website that provides an index of thousands of (usually copyrighted) music, movies, games, apps, ebooks, etc. Essentially for anything digital that you can buy and most TV, chances are good that someone has seeded a torrent and put it on the pirate bay. It's basically the Google of free, (usually) illegal stuff. If BitTorrent is the Mos Eisley spaceport of the Internet, the Pirate Bay is where you go to find the droids you're looking for. Governments, especially the United States, have been trying to shut it down for years without success, mostly because they're hosted in Sweden and are not violating any Swedish laws.\n\nIf that sounds awesome to you, you should follow floppycopy's instructions and check it out. Be aware that using torrents is not risk-free. The recording and movie industries will occasionally pick someone to make an example out of and sue them for obscene amounts of money. Because you're uploading while you download, you're legally \"distributing\" a copyrighted work, and the penalties are stiff. Still, most people who use BitTorrent never get caught. It's a personal choice whether the risk is worth it (and whether you're okay with it ethically).\n\nDamn. That was long."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[
"https://utorrent.com",
"https://thepiratebay.se"
],
[]
] |
|
5lb0c2 | why are you required to remove headphones for take off and landing on most flights? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5lb0c2/eli5_why_are_you_required_to_remove_headphones/ | {
"a_id": [
"dbua7r3"
],
"score": [
2
],
"text": [
"Most emergencies happen during these periods, and the cabin crew want to be sure you will hear any emergency announcement that's made. And that you or your seatmate don't get tangled up in a cord if the plane must be evacuated."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[]
] |
||
4goa67 | why are police vehicles becoming increasingly inconspicuous? | Why are police cars becoming increasingly inconspicuous?
I passed one this morning that was a black car with black lettering and the light bar was inside the car. (_URL_0_)
If the police are in place to keep a peaceful and safe environment, as well as enforce criminal laws; why do they need to be stealthy and borderline deceptive? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4goa67/eli5_why_are_police_vehicles_becoming/ | {
"a_id": [
"d2j8ew2",
"d2j8soj"
],
"score": [
5,
3
],
"text": [
"Those are not standard, those are ones they use to catch you speeding and whatnot, they still make models with obvious markings. \n \nPolice presence as a deterrent is for things like property/violent crime, they want to be stealthy in automobile related crimes. You shouldn't be breaking the law in the first place, so they want to catch as many people as they can, to keeps the roads safe, and meet their quota",
"A lot of it depends on the nature of the community you're in. \"Stealthy\" police cars are better at catching speeders and things like that.\n\nFrom my completely anecdotal experience, smaller communities tend to go with sneakier police cars, especially communities that rely on traffic tickets and such for a lot of funding. Larger communities with higher crime rates go for more visible cars, because a visible police presence helps reduce crime, and they're often understaffed, so visibility makes them seem more present in the community."
]
} | [] | [
"http://www.classiccarstodayonline.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/02/2013-Dodge-Charger-all-black-police-car.jpg"
] | [
[],
[]
] |
|
ee2a47 | what is it about harmony that makes it sound better than a single note or melody? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/ee2a47/eli5_what_is_it_about_harmony_that_makes_it_sound/ | {
"a_id": [
"fbqz7ap"
],
"score": [
3
],
"text": [
"Music and the pleasure it brings are still being understood, but a large part of it is dependent on patterns. A single note can't have a pattern, but a single instrument changing notes over time (melody) or many notes at once (harmony) can have a pattern of relationships between themselves that our brains find very pleasing."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[]
] |
||
7m7cg1 | how is the nose connected to the mouth and the ear? why is it that blowing your nose will block and your ear and yawning will release the pressure? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/7m7cg1/eli5_how_is_the_nose_connected_to_the_mouth_and/ | {
"a_id": [
"drrvs3z",
"drsqk9l"
],
"score": [
4,
3
],
"text": [
"The eustachian tube connects the pharynx to the middle ear (otherwise fluids would build up in that otherwise closed space between your ear drum and cochlea). ",
"When you blow your nose, you are likely creating high pressure inside your mouth/nose. This is forcing air into your Eustachian tube and into the middle ear. This tube isn't open all the time, you've forced it open with the air pressure. Now the pressure inside your ear is higher than the pressure outside, which stretches your eardrum, making it less able to vibrate in response to sound waves, so your hearing gets muffled.\n\nYawning/opening your jaw wide/chewing manually opens the Eustachian tube, allowing the air pressure to equalize. \n"
]
} | [] | [] | [
[],
[]
] |
||
5svksu | why is the nea against school vouchers? | Question says it all | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5svksu/eli5_why_is_the_nea_against_school_vouchers/ | {
"a_id": [
"ddi549e",
"ddi5brh",
"ddi9myw"
],
"score": [
7,
3,
4
],
"text": [
"NEA is for public school teachers\n\nVoucher program will result in more private schools reducing member rates and therefore lowering union dues. \n\nTheir spoken reason though is they think that voucher program will encourage private schools will raise the cost of education and sacrifice the quality of education.",
"This link has the NEA's position on charter schools: _URL_0_\n\nThis link has their position on vouchers:\n_URL_1_\n\nThe general answers you are going to get in this thread are, I suspect, going to be one of two types: \n\n1.) They are corrupt villains who only care about public school teachers and charter schools will pry education from their stranglehold grip\n\n2.) They are dedicated educators valiantly guarding against vulture capitalists and zealots who aim to cripple the public school system by diverting funds in a way that is political acceptable but will ultimately lead to the collapse of public school funds. \n\nWhich side you believe, and to what extent you believe it, is sort of beyond ELI5. ",
"You can read why the NEA opposes it [here](_URL_0_). While there is some argument that they favor unions - the overall argument is that vouchers have not shown that they lead to any better success than their respective counterparts in public schools (i.e. low income students in public schools did no better than low income students getting a voucher to attend private school).\n\nMoreover, vouchers allow the state to fund religious organizations. Sure, sending public money to a Catholic School sounds great - but then you would also have to send money to fund madrasas and maybe the Church of Satan would like to set up Satan Worship Elementary and the state would have to fund that too."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[],
[
"http://www.nea.org/home/16332.htm",
"http://www.nea.org/home/16378.htm"
],
[
"http://www.nea.org/home/16970.htm"
]
] |
|
bp64j0 | why cant we move our penises without clenching our anuses? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/bp64j0/eli5_why_cant_we_move_our_penises_without/ | {
"a_id": [
"enp4hj4",
"enp97p1",
"enq15zl",
"enq2fr6"
],
"score": [
11,
7,
15,
4
],
"text": [
"Because it uses the same muscle that the anus uses to pinch off your poop when you're done ;)",
"You can. It’s simply a matter of learning how to control and isolate specific muscle groups.",
"Wait THATS how y’all do it?",
"The reason the anus and penis contract at the same time is because when you move your penis you actually don't move it at all. Instead you are contracting the male Pelvic Floor Muscle. This is the muscle at the bottom of the pelvis that supports the man's bladder and rectum and stretches from the tail bone at the back to the pubic bone in the front. The urethral tube (the muscle tube at the bottom side of the penis that allows urine to pass through) and the rectum pass through this muscle in a non-obstructive way. Therefore if you willfully try to contract the muscle (it should feel like the area between your testicles and the anus) you should feel your penis move up and down and the anus pull in slightly. It doesn't hurt at all and is in fact important for maintaining urinary and sexual health."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[],
[],
[],
[]
] |
||
5cca2o | is electricity attracted to the earth? if so why? also, could you have a ton of electricity flowing through you but not affect you if your grounded? i'm so confused about how it works | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5cca2o/eli5_is_electricity_attracted_to_the_earth_if_so/ | {
"a_id": [
"d9vdshf"
],
"score": [
3
],
"text": [
"Electricity flowing is what causes the damage. This is called *current* and it's measured in amperes or amps for short.\n\nVoltage is the build up of electrical charge. Voltage is electricity that *wants* to flow. The higher the voltage the more charge and more it wants to flow. \n\nHigh voltage is also dangerous but only because it can lead to electricity flowing. Your body has a natural resistance to electrical flow but only to a point. If you come in contact with a high enough voltage, then the electricity will flow through you and do lots of really nasty things like burn you from the inside and cause your heart clamp shut. \n\nWhen you are *grounded* you are in contact with the Earth. The Earth is like a giant hole for electrons. There is almost always room for more. When you're not grounded you run the risk of static shock because you are constantly striping electrons off of the stuff around you when you walk or touch things. If you are grounded then the build up of electrons never gets too high for a shock.\n\nHowever being grounded is not good if you come into contact with a high voltage line because now you have a super easy pathway for the electricity to follow that goes right through your vital organs. "
]
} | [] | [] | [
[]
] |
||
j2hjc | can someone explain to me (like i'm five) how the u.s. electoral college works and why u.s. presidents aren't elected via popular vote? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/j2hjc/can_someone_explain_to_me_like_im_five_how_the_us/ | {
"a_id": [
"c28lc8z"
],
"score": [
2
],
"text": [
"Good question.\n\nIt's very simple really. Originally, the electoral college was the founders' idea for overriding voters if, frankly, more elite citizens felt they made the wrong choice. As time progressed, the idea of elite rule became unpopular and the electoral college quickly became archaic.\n\nThe way it's meant to work: Each state has a certain number of delegates (now, usually high ranking party officials), according to population and decided by the census every 10 years. In a general election, these delegates were supposed to cast their vote for whichever candidate their constituents decided on (simple majority). They could, if they chose, disregard the voters and use their judgement, but that was obvious quite unpopular. \n\nWith the rise of political parties and primaries, the delegates essentially became 'rubber stamps', no longer allowed to use their own judgement, as it was undemocratic. So now, every delegate in a state (CA, the largest, had some 55 I believe last election) must vote for whichever candidate wins the popular vote in their state. This renders all the remaining votes null in that State.\n\nSo during a general election, the candidate must win the majority of electoral votes, which is why they focus so heavily on swing states and large ones. Texas, California, New York, and a few other states alone hold almost half of the total votes.\n\nSo to answer your question, Presidents aren't elected by popular vote because the electoral college is written into the Constitution, which makes it very hard to get rid of. Similarly, the two main parties don't want to get rid of it because it's another mechanism that keeps third parties from gaining momentum, as their votes are 'wasted' in the electoral college.\n\nTLDR: It was meant to protect elites from stupid voters, but that wasn't popular. It's still around, not in its original form, simply because it's hard to get rid of."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[]
] |
||
7yxsev | do victims of terror attacks have to pay medical bills? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/7yxsev/eli5_do_victims_of_terror_attacks_have_to_pay/ | {
"a_id": [
"dujvzro"
],
"score": [
2
],
"text": [
"Just because you're injured beyond your control (stabbed, shot, etc.) doesn't mean you don't have to pay for treatment. Saving lives is a for profit business after all. Not sure if any states have laws that are different but in Maryland, if your hurt/injured as a result of a crime, the state covers a portion but not the entire thing. You can go after the person who injured you through legal action but let's face it, they are already broke so it's pointless to do so. "
]
} | [] | [] | [
[]
] |
||
1rrn0b | why can't a human fall pregnant to an animal? | And has there been any cases where this has happened? If so, details?
Obviously not wanting to get knocked up by an animal, just curious as to why exactly it isn't physically possible. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1rrn0b/eli5_why_cant_a_human_fall_pregnant_to_an_animal/ | {
"a_id": [
"cdq5s0m",
"cdq5v03",
"cdq5vop",
"cdq6wa8",
"cdq7178",
"cdqdo62"
],
"score": [
6,
5,
9,
3,
6,
2
],
"text": [
"for a similar reason that a phillips screwdriver can't unscrew a flathead screw. The sperm/egg combination doesn't mix. You have one DNA trying to coexist with another type of DNA type thing.. I don't know the specifics but basically yeah.",
"I did here of one case, but I really don't think it was reputable. Apparently a creature half man, half bear and half pig. My grandson told me but I think he watches too much tv.",
"What if the DNA is close enough, such as in a primate - I believe Chimpanzees may be 99% similar to humans on a genetic level? (please correct me if I am wrong) \n\nThere have been documented cases of animals breeding inter-species offspring - such as Ligers (Lion/Tiger hybrid) and Zonkeys (Zebra/Donkey hybrid).\n\nA list of hybrid animals if anyone is interested:\n\n_URL_0_\n",
"I feel bad for OP's pets.",
"The egg and the sperm has a special species recognetion system, it consists of special proteins that are found in the egg cells and will prevent any sperm of getting into it unless the sperms have the corrosponding proteins. those proteins are species specific and only human sperm can fertilize a human egg and a chimp sperm can only fertilize a chimp egg, ect.\n\nthe difference in DNA others mentioned in the comments means that there are different numbers in DNA backages called chromosomes, and are only recognized by the DNA repair system as genomic malfunction/instability and will try to (1) repair the it which will cause even more damage to the integrity of the chromosomes or (2) it will activate a different response and will cause the cell to commit suicide.",
"[They actually can](_URL_0_)."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[],
[],
[
"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_genetic_hybrids"
],
[],
[],
[
"http://i0.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/original/000/127/391/141.jpg?1306468586"
]
] |
|
697xsk | why is the minimum age for a lot of medications 12 years? what happens at 12 that allows children to take these medications? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/697xsk/eli5_why_is_the_minimum_age_for_a_lot_of/ | {
"a_id": [
"dh4fmqi",
"dh4fqgj",
"dh4h23j",
"dh4nwfg"
],
"score": [
13,
2,
53,
11
],
"text": [
"It is the fact that 12 years old is the average age that people are of a high enough weight to take their recommended dosage safely. Some also require the hormones of a person that is going through puberty, or has gone through it already, but those are rare. ",
"Because either they have been shown to be ineffective to children, harmful to them (because children have different metabolisms and body chemistry eg it might interfere with development) or the drug hasn't been sufficiently tested on children yet ie we don't know with confidence what the consequences would be. ",
"I work in the clinical trial industry, and the reason why so many medications say that it's for people 12 years of age or older as well as \"NOT FOR PREGNANT WOMEN\" is because children and pregnant women are rarely ever in clinical trials, because of all the logical reasons you can think of. Are a lot of medications probably OK for a pregnant woman to take, or a child? It's likely, yes. But, it hasn't been proven by statistics, so no one can really say with any certainty because most medications are formulated and tested only in adult, non-pregnant populations. ",
"Age limits usually come out research trials and approvals processes. Ethically and logistically, drug trails involving young people become very tricky. As a result, there is much more limited information around risks and adverse effects. Since drug companies can only prove safety for the ages represented in their trials, those are the ages attached to drug approvals.\n\nHowever, many medications approved for ages 12+ or 18+ are still administered to children. Usually that means the doctor, parents, and child (depending on their age/ability) agree that the risks of doing nothing is probably worse than the risk of trying the medication."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[],
[],
[],
[]
] |
||
3ulzdy | how would a $15 minimum wage actually affect a franchised business like mcdonalds? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3ulzdy/eli5_how_would_a_15_minimum_wage_actually_affect/ | {
"a_id": [
"cxfwbl0",
"cxfwg77",
"cxfx3z8",
"cxfxei6",
"cxfzemy",
"cxg1vdw",
"cxg2ykb",
"cxg3gfe",
"cxg43jv",
"cxg4ace",
"cxg4m6y",
"cxg4tqw",
"cxg4xhh",
"cxg4xxa",
"cxg53g5",
"cxg59wl",
"cxg5cgz",
"cxg5ja9",
"cxg5jlu",
"cxg5yrc",
"cxg608a",
"cxg666x",
"cxg6sea",
"cxg7d4a",
"cxg7kbz",
"cxg7p8z",
"cxg7w4x",
"cxg85uh",
"cxg85zz",
"cxg8rpe",
"cxg8yqw",
"cxg8ziy",
"cxg97ac",
"cxg9nqq",
"cxg9ytp",
"cxg9zpw",
"cxga06b",
"cxga6p8",
"cxga9yt",
"cxgaa0p",
"cxgar73",
"cxgarlq",
"cxgazn2",
"cxgbb0u",
"cxgbry1",
"cxgbthw",
"cxgc4el",
"cxgcb6g",
"cxgcdme",
"cxgcfj7",
"cxgci5p",
"cxgcn9b",
"cxgcpwj",
"cxgcte6",
"cxgcw31",
"cxgcy3s",
"cxgcyxj",
"cxgd7fa",
"cxgdgsv",
"cxgdmmz",
"cxgdrdw",
"cxgdsjs",
"cxge6dt",
"cxge7t2",
"cxgelxu",
"cxgerox",
"cxgeuov",
"cxgf096",
"cxgf3am",
"cxgfbt9",
"cxgff8m",
"cxgg0vm",
"cxgg75o",
"cxgg8yl",
"cxggbfr",
"cxggdxl",
"cxggjiz",
"cxggmj7",
"cxggo9v",
"cxggpux",
"cxggxey",
"cxgh6s8",
"cxgihvo",
"cxgii0s",
"cxgin6j",
"cxgj0pg",
"cxgj3ga",
"cxgjopy",
"cxgjv1b",
"cxgjwrr",
"cxgk0gq",
"cxgk9u3",
"cxgkj4o",
"cxgkz7f",
"cxgl436",
"cxglarw",
"cxglg3u",
"cxglh9i",
"cxglyf1",
"cxgmzpk",
"cxgn79h",
"cxgn7o3",
"cxgocql",
"cxgp02x",
"cxgp8hr",
"cxgpdus",
"cxgppcl",
"cxgpws9",
"cxgq4bb",
"cxgqgtt",
"cxgqn5q",
"cxgqqzx",
"cxgqrs6",
"cxgrc2r",
"cxgrdls",
"cxgsjsb",
"cxgsqx2",
"cxgwz1d"
],
"score": [
3,
4309,
216,
7,
210,
41,
88,
4,
15,
5,
8,
4,
2,
2,
336,
6,
3,
2,
39,
2,
2,
7,
6,
2,
35,
28,
2,
3,
28,
2,
15,
5,
4,
7,
2,
2,
5,
3,
2,
2,
2,
11,
7,
212,
2,
2,
3,
2,
4,
49,
2,
3,
2,
2,
29,
2,
2,
4,
5,
2,
7,
2,
255,
4,
25,
2,
3,
6,
9,
5,
4,
3,
2,
2,
2,
2,
2,
1410,
2,
8,
2,
5,
5,
2,
5,
2,
3,
2,
2,
5,
3,
5,
5,
3,
2,
4,
2,
2,
2,
2,
5,
2,
2,
2,
5,
3,
2,
2,
2,
3,
3,
2,
2,
2,
3,
3,
2,
2
],
"text": [
"2 of those serve the same purpose, less money for the execs or fired workers means lower operational costs for McyDs, while price increases mean they transfer the cost of labor to the consumer. \n\nOne of these things would have to happen for places to stay in business. I think they would go super automated like they are already testing.",
"It really depends on the Franchise, and what percentage of gross sales go to payroll costs, but lets look at your McDonalds example. About 10% of the stores are corporate owned, & the other 90% are franchised locations. The Franchisees pay annual fees to McDonalds for “royalties” & national advertising campaigns, which are calculated as a percentage of gross sales. About 1/3 of McDonald’s corporate revenue is collected from Franchisees \n\n[Here’s](_URL_4_ ) a sample income statement for an Average Mcdonalds franchise store based on typical figures.\n\n“Crew”(non-managerial) Payroll costs amount to about 20% of sales. Most store-level Mcdonalds employees make anywhere between $7.25 - $9.25/hr – so lets assume employees at this location are making $8.25. If Minimum wages are hiked to $15 as proposed, that will equate to about an 82% wage hike. Assuming all sales stay the same, & no employees are fired, total crew payroll costs will rise to about 36.5% of sales. In the above example, that would equal about $442,800 per year more in payroll costs.\n\nHowever, the company is only making $153,900 in net profit. If they made no other changes, this store would be operating at a $288,900 loss. That is obviously unsustainable. \n\nThe only way to recoup that lost income is either raising sales revenue, or cutting expenses. \nMost people in this situation say “Ok, just raise the price of food to increase revenue”. The problem is, McDonalds franchisees are already hemorrhaging due to competition & a changing market. In most cases with food, higher prices, will result in lower sales volume. Especially with low quality chains like MickyDs – nobody in the US is going to want to pay $5-$6 for a big mac - keep in mind that the only people immediately benefiting from a minimum wage hike are people making below the future $15 minimum wage - everybody else (over half the country) will be making the same amount until the rest of the economy catches up. (If McDonalds could charge more per burger & still make money, they would already be doing it.). Others say “You need to get higher food quality to charge more”. Fair, but higher food quality means lower margins per sale, so it wouldn't necessarily help your bottom line - it also takes considerable time & money to implement drastic process changes like that.\n\nSo increasing revenue isn’t really a viable option - the only solution to stay in business is to cut expenses. McDonalds is a highly mature company, that has massive economies of scale...meaning most variable expenses are probably already as low as they can get at this point. The only expense you could really cut & still maintain sales, is Payroll. That means cutting hours, firing employees, or increasing automation.\n\n It becomes clear, that many McDonalds will either have to shut down, or get rid of workers. Considering that many under-performing locations have probably already cut workers down to the lowest possible amount, the currently struggling stores would have no choice but to automate or get shut down. However, automation costs a lot of money up front though, so if the Franchisee doesn't have the cash to shell out, they will be left with no other option but to close.\n\nIf store locations shut down, that means less franchise fees are going to the corporate entity. Currently, about [33%]\n(_URL_0_) of McDonald’s Gross Revenues comes from Franchise Fees.\n \nIf 20% of franchised locations shut down, that would equate to $1.854 Billion in lost revenue. The operating expenses would also be reduced by 20% ($339 million). So Net Profit for the corporate entity would decrease by about $1.515 Billion - about a 30% loss in profits.\n\nLoss in profits lead to falling share prices - they will also probably have to cut back dividend payments issued to stockholders, which leads to a further drop in share price. Falling stock prices are generally a bad indicator for future investors & lenders. It would likely result in less interest from potential franchisees, as well as increased lending costs from banks who would see McDs as a greater risk.\n\nAdditionally, there are about 1.7 million McDonalds workers worldwide. About [440,000](_URL_5_) of them in the US. So if 20% of the stores closed, that would be about 88,000 Americans losing their jobs.\n\nGranted, most of the minimum wage hike programs being proposed would be rolled out over 3-4 years. So they would have a little bit of time to adapt their business model. $3.50\n\n**TL;DR**My prediction would be that companies like McDonalds would have to change their business models which rely on low wage employees producing low quality products, or they will fail. \n\n**Edit** Sorry if I explained more like you are a 5 year old with a 15 year old's understanding of business finance.\n\n**EDIT 1-B** A lot of people are saying \"But all competition will raise prices too\". Competitors won't necessarily all have to raise prices by the same percentage, depending on their business models & operating margins. Some higher quality restaurants could be able to sustain operations with little to no price increases, & seriously undercut McDonalds with lower prices & better food. I explain this further in depth in this [comment reply](_URL_3_)\n \n**Edit 2** Some people are saying \"Why don't the millionare executives just take it out of their salaries?\". In 2014, McDonalds dished out about [$20.28 million](_URL_2_) in executive compensation. If you took every single executive's salary down to 0, & distributed it to all 440,000 US workers, that would equate to about $46 per employee per year. If the average McDonalds employee works 20-30 hours per week (lets assume 25), and we don't consider the full-time employees who would raise this number further, thats about 1200 hours per year. That would come out to about a $0.038 (3.8 cents) per hour raise per employee. You may not agree with the fact that the 1% are making so much more than everybody else, but really its just a drop in the bucket with companies this big.\n\n**Edit 3** Lots of people are citing Australia/Denmark/other countries with McDonalds stores that are already paying high wages - For example, in Australia they pay a $19-$21AUD wage (~$15.11USD direct exchange rate). First of all, when that number is adjusted for Purchasing Power Parity ratio (1.4) - the $21 AUD wage is only about $10.79 worth of goods in the US. Second of all, this argument is not really relevant to the US McDonalds market. You can't compare the two Apples to Apples. Its a much different field of competition, many of the local Fast-Casual franchises have not made their way over there yet, & some of the Aussie stores have a [very different business model](_URL_1_), which produces higher quality food. Additionally, wages & costs of foods are higher everywhere in Australia. \n\n**Edit 4** Now a lot of people are saying \"Can't corporate just reduce its franchise/royalty fees?\". In the above example total royalty fees/corporate rents are 14.5% of sales. To make up for the $288,900 deficit caused by the $15/hr raise, just for that store to break even, corporate would have to reduce fees by 74% if you didn't want to cut payroll costs.\n33% of Corporate Revenue comes from franchisee fees - about $9.272 Billion last year. If you cut down franchise revenues by 74%, that would reduce that number by $6,861,280,000.\nTotal Corporate profit was $4.757 Billion last year. So they would be operating at a $2.1 billion loss - aka they'd go bankrupt if corporate took on the burden of cost through fee reductions. And thats just a break even figure.\n\n**Edit 5** To the \"Sales would rise because people would have more money to spend\" responses. Sure, assuming that there is the same demand or greater for McDonalds with people who make higher incomes. McDonalds customers don't go there for high quality - they go there because its cheap & fast. Keep in mind, living expenses such as utilities/rents/etc won't go up as dramatically with minimum wage hikes - so the new $15/hr earners will be able to put a higher percentage of their income towards food. Do you think people with a lot more money to spend on food will be flocking to spend it at MickyDs? Maybe, or maybe they'll switch to higher quality/healthier options. People will still buy fast food - but they're probably going to want to buy higher-quality junky fast food than McDonalds currently has to offer.",
"_URL_0_\n\nPaul Krugman does an excellent job discussing this. His argument is that 1. It won't really raise costs for the consumer 2. It can't be outsourced or mechanized so the job loss will be minimal. And 3. Better employees generally demand a better wage, and that improvement usually offsets the increase in wages.\n\nListen to a Nobel economist not random internet strangers.\n\nHe also says that a 15 dollar minimum wage might be too high for the us to support.",
"Watch [THIS](_URL_0_) video.\n\ntl;dw: the cost per employee needs to be less than what profit the work of that employee can generate. If you increase the cost per employee through increasing the minimum wage, you would need to increase the profit of the work that employee does; this is not guaranteed and is unlikely.\n\nAdditionally, there is this false idea that companies are not-for-profit businesses and would simply just roll over and take a hit to profits instead of passing on the increased costs to the customer. In the case of McDonald, customers would stop buying as much because prices would go up in order be able to pay out more per hour.\n\nIf McDonalds or any other company thought that paying its employees more would increase profits, don't you think they would be paying more?\n\nThe real truth is: the $15/hour movement is being pushed by unions as union wages are based on a multiple of minimum wages; if the minimum wage goes up, union wages go up even more.",
"As an example, i worked at McDs when the minimum wage went from 7.25 to 9 dollars. The increase in wage correlated with the removal of the dollar menu. Most items on the board went up by 15 cents to a dollar in cost. I cant imagine the price increase that would happen if the wages went up to 15. Is anyone really going to pay $3 for a mcdouble? ",
"Due to unions and strong labor laws, [McDonalds workers in Denmark start at $15/hr if they're teenagers, $21/hr if they're adults](_URL_0_). The median wage for restaurant workers is $41k/yr. A Big Mac costs [$5.08 in Demark](_URL_1_), versus $4.79 in the US.\n\nSo rule out the adult wage, and it rounds off to something like an extra twenty-some cents per item on the menu if McDonalds had to pay a $15 minimum wage.",
"You know..alot of these fast food restaurants are owned by individual franchise owners..alot of them are not mega rich billionaires that people assume they are. In those cases it could be the difference between being profitable and un-profitable...maybe possibly...\n\n\n\n",
"I have an honest question related to this. I never ask because it gets too political and I just want an honest answer . I'm not trying to argue anything. Hypothetically, if the millionaires at the top of these chains etc, had some sort of cap on their income, by choice or regulation, something like 300-600k a year (no idea what they avg now. always just assumed its... alot?), and all the rest of the money went back into the franchise, would this problem be partially solved? I don't know the ins and outs of big business so I'm genuinely curious how something like this would impact problems like wages etc. when there's so much money going to ceos or whatever. ",
"Well, if it's anything like Australia, where I was offered $22 to work at McDonald's, it would be business as usual.\n\nHigher minimum wage heightens spending money of the lower and middle classes, McDonald's broad customer demographic. Everything evens itself out apart from there is higher cash flow, so there's more money to purchase higher quality ingredients.\n\nYou don't need to look at someone's skewed analysis (like the top comment in this thread) just look to countries that already have a high minimum wage and see where the differences are. I don't think you guys in the US have grass-fed lean beef patties in every burger or Angus beef for the gourmet selections.",
"In my home state in Australia, a 21 year old casual employee at McDonalds would earn $25.34 per hour, or $20.27 if employed on a full time basis - [source](_URL_0_).\n\nHaving said that, I'm not sure if this is the case elsewhere but in Australia junior employees often get paid less than full time employees. So in McDonald's Enterprise Agreement, a 16 year old only earns 50% of the wage of a 21 year old. This is why a lot of McDonalds stores are staffed with high school students, or employees under the age of 21 - because it's far cheaper for the employer. ",
"They will either jack-up the prices and lose a lot of business or get as close to fully automated as they can and lose less business.",
"You have to look at it as a context of ALL employers having to do this at once. If McD's alone had to do this, it would either have to automate and let most of its employees people go, or raise prices- which is a nonstarter because people will just move to other fast food, and result in less income, not more. Right NOW, if the market would bear another $0.50 for a burger and result in more net income, they *would*, for sure, in a heartbeat.\n\nIf all the fast food industry faced the same labor cost problem, they'd *all* be forced to raise prices by $0.50/item. In theory the market share for McD's alone is unaffected. \n\nBut then some people say \"why would I spend $8 for a Big Mac, fries, and a coke- or Taco Bell or Burger King- when I can get a decent premade meal from the store for $6\". Fast food is a labor-intensive industry, more so that regular restaurants and ready-to-eat grocery store deli items. Fast food will be more affected and lose market share.\n\nYou could imagine *Idiocracy*'s Carl's Jr fast-food autovendor kiosk as the endgame of automation, to restore fast food to a viable market position. \n\nMany say that the minimum-wage hikes will never work, only resulting in jobs disappearing forever in favor of automation. IMHO they may be right. But you can also make a scarier case that the \"age of employment\" will inevitably disappear, regardless. Most job functions average, even highly trained, people can perform could be done far more efficiently with machines. \n\nNow that theory's been a mainstay of scifi since, like, the 50's. Since John Henry got into a battle with a steam hammer. \n\nIn the past it's been proven misguided, as automation merely changed the job market, and vastly increased productivity. Humans still had a great deal of purpose- just different functions, ditch-digging by hand and mining with pickaxes would go away. But there's a theory that as AIs become superior to humans, NONE of the functions of a competent human would be usable. And that's been a good question as some factories have gone fully \"lights off\", there are no human workers on-site (whether they leave lights on or not is only figurative, no light is required, in theory). You can make the case that you still need a handful of people who set up and maintain the machines but that may also change. ",
"They would have to raise menu prices by about 25 cents an item according to an economic analysis I read a few months ago. ",
"Automated Ordering Machines,Automated everything .Big Cost in the beginning but easiest way to save money in future .McDonalds will continue to make huge profits.",
"_URL_0_\n\njobs are for robots. ",
"lol you think CEOs would take a profit cut? No way in hell. The prices of goods would almost double as a result of a $15 wage. Then the people who are already making more than $15 an hour would ask for a raise and eventually you would end up seeing a raise on everything and everyone. The dollar would become inflated and your savings would be worth less. This is why a $15 minimum wage isn't going to solve anything.",
"It's going to be a combination of things. From rising prices, cutting staff, changing menu's, changing quality of food and other things. However, fast food will not disappear because the fact remains that people don't want to cook their own food. Some how someone will find a way to service this sector of consumers. I also bet it will be a better service. If they raise prices at all people will demand better service, quality or quantity. ",
"Depends where you live with the franchise thing. Most of the ones around here are company owned.",
"Most McDonalds are independently owned, they just pay the licensing and royalty fees to the McDonalds corporation. On those small (not all are small, some owe many franchise locations) it would be pretty damaging. Especially since many franchise owners are struggling due to the aging franchise and poor decisions made by HQ. \n\nAs for the consumer, expect higher prices, smaller portions and possibly even worse (is it possible?) ingredients. Their business model is built on cheap labor, if labor doubles in price they will have to make up for it somehow or eliminate jobs/go out of business. \n",
"Think about your personal labor as a commodity in the same way that food and clothing is a commodity. The more a low quality t-shirt costs, the less likely you are to want to purchase the t-shirt because you know you aren't getting a good return on your investment. For businesses, this is how they view your labor. The more your labor costs, especially if you are a low-skilled or inexperienced worker, businesses will want to purchase less of it. This is because they aren't getting the right return on their investment (ROI) and they will therefor replace you with a higher skilled worker or machines like iPads that can do the same job. ",
"Automaton is what would happen. A few people to monitor the equipment and everyone else is jobless.",
"$15/hr minimum wage? [meet your new cashier](_URL_0_)",
"I managed an Abry's many moons ago while in college and we paid our employees 10 dollars an hour in the early 2000's (would be roughly 15 an hour now).\n\nEnded up saving money because the employees we hired for 15 an hour literally did as much as 3 7.50/hour employees.\n\n",
"Best I can back-of-napkin calculate is that pretax profit is about 3% with current wages taking about 25% of revenue. To maintain the same profit, the average sale would have to increase about 22% to cover the approx 100% wage increase. That also is figuring that all other costs will stay the same (they wont, their wage costs will increase as well)",
"McDonalds would become a kiosk. Instead of surly employees with neck tattoos, a robot would make the food and take your credit card. A technician would service multiple local restaurants, and one all-purpose employee would clean up trash and make sure nobody burned the joint down.",
"1,500,000 employee\n \n* $5.00 estimated average increase in pay\n\n* 20.00 Estimated average hours per week per employee\n\n* 52 weeks in a year\n\n$7,800,000,000 per year in additional costs. More then Net income of $4.7578 billion in 2014",
"The way it should work is pay goes up, product costs go up. How it would really work is McDonalds would cut costs everywhere it can, it would cut benefits and make more positions part time while it spends millions trying to fight the raise while outsourcing every position possible and beginging a rollout of rebotic like employees (self serve)",
"Fast food workers days are numbered anyway. An increase to $15/hr will just speed up the process to fully automated fast food with a technician and an employee or two around to oversee operations. ",
"Competetive firms hire people until the cost of hiring an additional person is more than that person will generate in revenue. This means at all McDonalds the last employee hired generates the lowest wage paid. They certainly don't generate $15 an hour. No business will continue to employ someone who only generates $7.25 an hour if they have to pay them $15 an hour. Whether they can afford to pay that person $15 is irrelevant when they can make more money by firing them. \n\n\n",
"It means they no longer can rely on the taxpayers to subsidize their workers. People like to shit on welfare recipients, when they should be focusing on the corporations who don't pay a living wage and thus directly profit from their workers making up the difference elsewhere. (Hypocritically, conservatives are often anti welfare *and* anti raising the minimum wage, despite the clashing of these two disparate positions. But that's what partisans do: swallow an entire package deal in order to enforce a sense of identity rather than wading out into the mirk of thinking for oneself. See also the cry for smaller government on one hand as they support legislating sexuality and women's reproductive rights on the other.\n\nAn extra $5 an hour is the cost of a single sandwich. For the labor of preparing 30~ of them. Don't be fooled by business owners' self-serving logic. We've landed men on the moon; we can establish a liveable income.",
"It will push us into increased automation as they cut down on the number of total workers. ",
"Automation. McDicks would go from 10 to 15 people working at a time to three guys in the kitchen making sure machinery is operating correctly and doing some manual operation, and the rest would be automated. Touchpad registers, money vendors similar to a vending machines. At Wal-Mart suddenly everyone would have to be forklift certified because they'd find a way to make every process simpler as well. Nearly every company can replace most of their employees with automation at this point in society, it's just that they haven't had the kind of money constraint to bring that. Raising minimum wage to $15 for places like McDicks? Yeah goodbye freshman year jobs.",
"Okay, so I'm going to be broader than just McDonald's, I'll talk about the whole country using McDonald's. The thing is, a national minimum wage is a retarded thing. The reason I say this is because we are a huge country with very diverse states. It works really well in a place like the UK or Australia to raise the national minimum wage, but that's because the economy is largely similar all across the board. In America, in a place like New York, raising the minimum wage to 15 dollars wouldn't affect McDonald's. There's plenty of people there, and the cost of living and such is much higher, the dollar is more inflated. Let's take a state like Idaho, it's a state with a small GDP and not a lot of people spread out over a large land mass. You always here statistics like \"Most people in Idaho work for minimum wage\", but that's because most counties have a low cost for living. So minimum wage is a sustainable income. The reason why I'm against a 15 dollar national minimum wage, and the reason why I think Bernie Sanders isn't so great for saying that it should be the minimum wage, is because it would adversely affect low income states. But most low income states are Republican states, and therein lies the problem. Both sides don't give a fuck about the states they won't win. So they don't try to do things that would help them. A 15 dollar minimum wage would suck in Idaho. And the minimum wage now sucks in Cali and New York. Personally, I think the minimum wage should be calculated based off of inflation in your area. The country is much too huge to relay a national minimum wage to. Some people it would help, some people it would disadvantage. Now, how would a 15 dollar minimum wage affect a franchised business like McDonald's?\n\nRealistically, they'd get rid of a bunch of employee positions and replace them with robots. ",
"I tried reading some of these logical explanations... But all I can think about is how I make $12.50 at my engineering job. :(",
"People should not care about what happens to McDonalds. The effect will be somewhat marginal. The problem is what will happen to the mom and pop shops that are on razor thin margins. Those will fail, if minimum wage is increased.",
"the problem with $15 an hour minimum wage is a lot of businesses could not afford that. you would have people who deserve raises not being compensated because the businesses couldn't afford it and you would have managers making around the same as regular employees because of this. this would cause massive job loss in the market and only certain businesses would be able to survive. people don't look at things in the gray area enough. it's always black and white. yes, $15 is great in theory because the truth is $7.75 isn't enough to survive on, but if they rise to $15 that orginal 7.75 job may not be there anymore for you because who is more qualified will get the job because. they end up applying at mcdonalds because another job couldn't afford to pay them. either way people will lose, but $15 an hour will cause more people to lose.i guarantee you that. ",
"When they raised the minimum wage in Ontario my moms company got fucked. Costs her about $70,000. Not a huge company, but when you're only clearing a net of $1,500,000 - $2,000,000 and rent alone takes up a fucking INSANE amount (location specific to the business's ability to function). Shes the hardest working employee & she now makes less than some fucking retarded 60 yearold manager who has no education who she hired out of pity 20 years ago.\n\nTheres a good chance that shes going to have to file for bankruptcy or just kill the company and go out of business. Its a good thing McDicks gets more tax relief on a corporate level and their .1%er shareholders continue to multiply their bank accounts.",
"We have this in nz. It works. Burger prices are a dollar or so higher, but nobody cares, nobody lost their jobs, and Trumps immigrants didn't take our jobs.",
"The honest issue is that there is no set-in-stone issue of what will happen, it's just a lot of \"could happen\" scenarios, and there are simply too many variables and moving parts to properly predict the outcome, as it rests a lot on decisions made by people rather than empirical number analysis.\n\nAny of the options you present *could* happen, they're up to how the company policy-makers feel is the best way to react to such a change.",
"In CA. a state assembly member just put forward a bill for $15perhr min. wage, the catch is Union member will not be covered. The Union push is a scam.\nThe min. wage goes to $10 per hour this Jan 1st. here it cover all food service people servers included. and we will all be paying for it. ",
"It's a fucking burger flipping job. Sorry but it's meant for high schoolers and extra mom money. Hit trying to fuck with economics in making his a suitable career. Work harder in a skilled trade or go to school. Not every job needs to be suitable to provide for a family. This shit fucking kills me. I would have loved to make a life out of my short order job but that's not how life works. I went to school then joined a skilled trade. Fuck off with this socialist bull shit.\n\nEdit: I made typos and had some autocorrect issues which I'm leaving. If you can't figure out my intentions I suggest filling out an application to McDonald's ASAP.",
"I don't know about McDonalds, but I worked at a couple of pizza stores.\n\nOn a good night (lot's of pizza sales), labor would cost 15% of all profits.\n\nOn a bad night, the owner could be spending as much as 40% of that nights earnings on labor.\n\nThis is when employees are paid $7.75/ hr.\nSo, double that to $15/hr, and you spend between 30% and 80% of all earnings on paying employees (instead of 15-40%).\n\n\nI would imagine many other fast food restaurants have similar labor costs.\n\n\n\n\n",
"Dick's, a hamburger drive-in in Seattle offers its employees $13/hr starting wage, plus 100% employer paid healthcare to everyone working 24 hrs or more. They also offer paid community service, childcare assistance, and college or vocational education scholarships up to $25k over four years for employees working at lease 20 hrs/week. They've been around for 50 years, and their incentive is having good, loyal, long lasting employees. If they can do it, McD's certainly can. ",
"I know this question is about McDonalds but I run a small business and asked myself this same question. My business is house painting, and I make enough money to live comfortably but I'm not loaded by any means. Presently payroll makes up around 30% of my business expenses. this percentage is what allows me to pay off my other obligations while still paying myself a fair price. An increase to a $15 an hour wage would drive up my payroll expense which means I would have to charge more for my painting services decreasing the size of my business due to less people being able to afford it. With a smaller business, I need less employees and I certainly can only afford to pay the very best $15/hr. So in my very anecdotal case, I probably make less money as the business owner and my customers pay more. The employees I keep make more, but I have to lay a few off to offset that. I imagine any other business, except those willing to take a cut to their profit margin, would behave the same. \n\nEdit: to those of you wondering how I am paying painters less than $15 an hour, I hire mostly college students and other people with minimal experience. It's actually really easy to learn how to paint well as opposed to other skilled trades. They make considerably more working for me than for many other summer employment opportunities in my area and learn a life skill while they're at it. My best painter made $14 an hour before bonuses and my average painter made $10.50 an hour before bonuses in a state with the federal minimum wage of $7.25. In general it doesn't make sense for them to start their own firm to compete with me, as some have suggested, because of the expensive price of the overhead and the fact that frankly, I don't think most of them want to put in the 50/60 hour weeks that I do during the season. ",
"I'm no expert. But I do know that in some European countries, these establishments pay equivalent to between 15 and 20 USD normally, due to the country's minimum wage laws. \n\nDespite this, these worldwide companies do not seem to be in too much of a pickle overseas. ",
"McDonald's wages are not meant to be lived on. It's meant for teenagers and young people as a temporary job, some short term experience. It's hilarious how everyone here is all for hiking the wage to $15 an hour, yet you'll whine and moan when the price of your burger increases.\n\nMcDonald's isn't a career, and if it is, that's... not a good thing. Don't like it? Quit, find something else. Most people stay for such a short amount of time that they simply just don't care about wages.",
"Do I think fast-food workers deserve $15/hr? Of course not, but there are some potential benefits if you read on.\n\nIn all honestly it probably would drastically affect most businesses. Places that use rock bottom prices would go out of business very quickly: Wal-Mart, Dollar Store, McDonalds. Why? Because when you are making $15 an hour you can afford to go out to eat at better places. \n\nLet's look at this realistically. Nobody in the bottom 90% would really be affected at all. They would make much more money, but they would still have their horrible habits and inject that money back into the economy.\n\nThese fast-food workers aren't protesting because they are intelligent, hardworking people who can't make ends meat. They are protesting because they can't buy the new iPhone 6s while trying to support 4 kids with no high school degree. They spend and live beyond their means, and a boost in pay will not suddenly make them save money.\n\nA business like McDonalds will be completely obliterated, and we will no longer be anywhere near a recession because now we will have millions and millions of fools with more money to spend. Theoretically it will provide massive amounts of economic growth.\n\nWhy? Now, your silly business that may not have otherwise gotten off the ground may generate a profit because these fools cannot stand seeing a positive balance on their bank account statements and they must spend their money on something.\n\nIn my opinion, this is most profitable for small-medium sized businesses but absolutely horrible for large scale businesses or businesses that were running just fine before the minimum wage hike. Large scale businesses will have to lay off massive amounts of employees to remain profitable, and may not be able to continue to support they amount of customers they normally do. However, if you are a small family owned business and take no salary, you could sacrifice productivity and still make a great profit.\n\nWill it help the economy? Most likely, by hurting the big businesses and providing room for growth for small businesses. You will likely see a great increase in standard of living for a few years, and huge innovations in technology. As much as I think fast food workers are idiots, the more discretionary income they have, the better.",
"A lot of the people asking for a higher minimum wage would lose their job. Employers will require more from their fewer employees. \n\nThey are called \"part-time jobs\" for a reason. Not designed to live off of. ",
"I work in aerospace, applying coatings to prevent corrosion and conductivity. One mistake by me could cause a jet to go down. I make $14/hr. What is the result of a $15/hr fast food worker making a mistake?",
"pretty simple. Automation. they'd fire as many employees as possible and make everything automated. This would essentially eliminate those workers who would have made $15 and now robots and just a few people (who actually deserve to make $15) would remain. I actually think these companies are secretly hoping this is how it goes because they will make way more profit this way. The initial cost of the machines might hurt but that would be worked off fairly quickly. As soon as this goes into effect I think most companies would jump at the chance to implement it. This of course would leave the same people demanding $15 minimum wage out of work with nothing else to replace these jobs they'd just be an additional cost to society. Be careful what you wish for because you just might get it. The real sad part of all of this is that none of the people wanting this change understands the ramifications and just how ironic it is that in essence, they are lobbying for being unemployed.",
"A business (like McDonald's) does not hire the greatest number of employees it can afford, it hires the smallest number of employees that get the job done. \n\nSo nobody is getting fired.",
"If a company can't afford to pay a living wage, then it's questionable that the company should exist in its current form.",
"Doesn't seem to hurt them here in Australia.\n\nIn fact we get stuff like touch screen ordering and McCafe's first most of the time.\n\nHell, back in the early 2000's when it was really busy they'd walk down the lines with PDAs taking orders so it was ready by the time you got to the front of the line.",
"it happens every other country in the world with macdonalds... sooooooo probally would be just fine, minimum wage laws have been in europe and australia for years. heck you can get $23 an hour at macdonalds here or about $17 US soooo....",
"I'm a district manager for Burger King. If minimum wage hit 15 then my whole franchise would be forced to close within months. We are operating on a 1% to 3% profit margin as it is. Most of the fast food market is in the same boat.",
"ITT, people who have never studied economics, purporting to explain economics. Top poster would be a prime candidate.",
"If minimum wage were increased would there also be inflation?",
"Ex small business owner here (sold about a year ago because wages are going up). This is ELI5. Here's the \"short\" of it. \n\nELI5: All prices go up. Everyone's value of money goes down. Businesses themselves chose a combo of jobs, profits and/or raising prices.\n\nNow for the not so ELI5: This is essentially inflation. Businesses are not charities and need a margin. Raising the bottom skilled labor squeezes the middle class more than any other class. If all goods and services go up (including rent because land lords are seeing nominal wages rise) buying power doesn't go anywhere for anyone and only devalues the dollar. \n\nThe people that get hit the hardest are non-profits. Their budgets stay the same but they are forced to pay their already low paying employees vastly more. Many non-profits have begged not to go this route because they will suffer severely and have to cut jobs and cannot be as effective. Very sad.\n\nThe raise in minimum wage is fine. But ignoring the fundamentals of macroeconomics is completely idiotic. Why don't we just raise the minimum wage to 100/hr? Hmm...\n\nA better answer is increasing minimum wage at a reasonable pace say every year or 2. Not huge jumps that subjects everyone to hyperinflation. And yes, I know there is an implementation schedule for many states. It still ignores reasonable rates of inflation.\n\nAlso, this is not the 1950s. Living off of no skilled labor should not be a life long viable career choice. There should be and are paths getting ppl from no to moderate skilled labor to become more valued members of society. You have to compete and if you aren't, then you will need to suffer the consequences just like the last 30 years of labor enforcement has wised up to. ",
"As someone who lives in one of the two US states where I can not pump my own gasoline at vehicle service stations. I'd like to know how a $15 minimum wage increase would affect the gas stations here in Oregon and New Jersey? Would they charge crazy amounts for gas? Would they change the laws, making Oregon and New Jersey like the other states? I'm just curious.",
"Easy answer - this: _URL_0_\n\nMCDonalds buys 7,000 touch screen cashiers....they eliminate the baffon asking for $15/hr",
"As someone who uses their college degree in science for their job and only makes $17 an hour... ",
"iPads replace people. Business continues as usual. No one is affected, except those who lose jobs. Will they be a drag on the economy, or freed from drudgery to perform more productive, meaningful labor and add more value to society? Who's to say. But your burger won't cost more or less. ",
"My problem: how the hell can we all talk about $15/hr, as though it had the same value across the whole country? Cost of living carries wildly. $15/hr where I live is a decent living for one person (cheapest rent I've seen is about $150/mo). In LA, however, It's peanuts (rent in LA is approximately 1 body part/mo).",
"ultimately, it would drive automation, and that is a very good thing.\n\nordering screens dont fuck up orders. robotic chefs dont get tired or frustrated. and you cant \"exploit\" a robot, robots dont have families to support, you cant bully a robot.\n\npeople talk about job losses, *but nobody wants a McJob anyway, the pay is terrible, the conditions are terrible, and employees are not valued, which is why they have such high employee turnover.*\n\nin the next 5-10 years, automation is going to rip through the job market, *a $15 minimum wage will ensure that people aren't being exploited and told \"if you want a raise, ill replace you with a robot\"*",
"The $15 minimum wage number is meaningless. What people are actually complaining about is eroded buying power, which is a symptom of wealth disparity.\n\nChanging the minimum wage, thereby reseting the base wage scale, is only going to cause other wages to rise also, re-adjusting the buying power - because you're still only producing so much in per capita output.",
"From what I have learned from this thread is that if minimum wage increased all companies would collapse and robots would take over. ",
"Don't forget that a minimum wage increase would hit all fast food. McDonald's is quite large. If they can weather the storm long enough and adapt properly, then when others' restaurants close the remaining McDonalds locations would see an increase in sales. The reverse is also true. In the end, the ones losing out are likely the bottom workers. There will be more competition for these jobs.",
"At one point, people asked this same question about ending slavery, instituting minimum wage, ending child labor, social security matching, etc.\n\nCompanies that can't stay in business while competing under government -mandated ethical practices will shut down (and rightly so). ",
"There would be an increased push to mechanize labor. First the cashiers would be gone with some sort of touch screen, much like self checkouts at supermarkets. Other things would soon be automated. \n\nStaff would be cut to about half of what it is now, which is going to happen anyway in less than 10 years.\n\n$15 an hour now would hasten the automation of labor.",
"My memory is that McDonald's used to be staffed primarily by teenagers and maybe one or two adults at the management level. Now it seems so many McDonald's have adult workers who seem to be there full-time. I don't think the business was set up to have a full staff of people needing to earn enough to support whole families.",
"Not directly answering this but something you might be interested in...\n\nWalmart reached their dominant position by paying their staff as little as possible BUT they are now lobbying for controls/higher wages to prevent their competition from doing the same!!\n\nI guess the only reason McDs hasn't done this is it's a bunch of franchisees and not one single company.\n\nWorth bearing-in-mind that using cheap labour to make yourself rich and stamp-out your competition before raising wages to ensure you STAY there seems to be a valid tactic. In the UK I've seen this happen with utilities and services companies who corner all the skilled staff and make it impossible for competitors to eat into their business (built on cheap labour)",
"I don't know much of anything about economics, but I would think that raising minimum wage _immediately_ to $15 would almost certainly mess things up in a number of ways including inflation and job loss.\n\n**HOWEVER**, I don't recall seeing anyone suggest a jump to $15, yet this seems to be what most of the answers and the question seem to be talking about. The idea is a slow transition upwards with an ultimate goal of $15. Again, not knowing much about economics, it's hard for me to say if that would really be better, but I would assume that it would have less disastrous consequences than the ones talked about in other comments. \n\nSo this seems to raise a more relevant question to people who, unlike me, actually have a clue what they are talking about: How would a slow increase affect businesses? How would it compare to an instantaneous one?",
"Many people are interpreting a rate hike poorly for McDs, but McD's is not representative of the economy.\nThe higher wages would mean slightly broader distribution of wealth. Remember that the multiplier effect.kicks in, causing overall increased consumption and economic activity. \nSo what if McDs may or may not be as siccessful. We are talking about the economy as a whole benefitting",
"Not intending to derail, but I think it's important to note... The people making < $15/hour aren't limited to McDonald's workers. \n\nI'm not proud to say this, but I have a Broadcast Journalism degree from the University of Colorado. I now direct the local news (I suck, I know, Reddit tells me daily) for a top-100 affiliate. The company I work for is doing great, as far as profit.... I make $25,000 a year.\n\nI realize this has a lot to do with two things: 1) I'm easily replaceable with any new graduate; 2) Because I can be replaced, they don't have to pay me much at all. I think, if we changed the required minimum wage, this would stop companies from taking advantage of this situation. ",
"The CEOs will take home a few less billion and will only be able to afford 5 yachts instead of 7.",
"This is buried, but believe me, on this.\n\nIn regard to the fast food industry, you may have seen the automated ordering units, perhaps, used them before.\n\nQuite a few chains have them in place as a supplement, it's been a slow burn.\n\nMost major chains knew it was coming, the unrest, minimum wage increases - however, like any good product, you don't change your model, until you're absolutely forced to. And, that includes the many sub-levels of getting there.\n\nEmployees will be absolutely exhausted, stores will be shut down, before automation takes place.\n\nYou're going to see an increase of these units in the near future. They'll be off to the side, as they already are in some areas. Heck, I know of certain franchises that have more automated tills, than actual cashiers.\n\nOnce it reaches breaking point, they will make the change over - it's a simple matter of balancing books. And, despite the \"upfront costs\", they're slowly working toward it, as when they finally unload droves of paid employees, profits will skyrocket.\n\nThey're not worried.",
"Is healthy food a lot more expensive? Cause if not this is kind of a positive.",
"I don'd deal with McDonald's specifically. I have, however, spent a large portion of my professional career designing sales, statistical and financial reporting solutions for pretty much every other QSR chain out there. \n\n\nAt my fingertips, I have access to daily sales, labor costs and every other dollar figure that exists for well over 10,000 restaurants across varying brands. Right now, I am looking at an actual weekly sales and labor report for a popular quick-service restaurant chain, for week ending of 11/24/2015.\n\n\nCost of Labor (COL) is a figure usually represented as a percentage of net sales in operational reporting. For this particular restaurant chain, their COL is typically around 28% of net sales. This means, for every dollar of food they sell, it costs about 28 cents in labor. When you buy a $15 meal, it costs them $4.20 in hourly wages to produce it.\n\n\nCost of Sales (COS) is another figure represented as a percentage of net sales - this is basically the cost of ingredients. For this chain, it also averages about 28%. Your $15 meal costs $4.20 in hourly wages, and another $4.20 worth of ingredients to make. That's 56% of the cost of your meal - the labor and ingredients to make it.\n\n\nFranchise fees typically cost about 10% of net sales. This is the fee that the corporate HQ charges each franchisee for running a store with their brand. These three items (COS, COL and franchise fees) make up the majority of operating costs.\n\n\n$27,321 Net Sales\n\n-$7,702 COL (28.19% of net sales)\n\n-$7,908 COS (28.48% of net sales)\n\n-$2,732 Franchise fee (10% of net sales)\n\n**$8,979 remaining**\n\nCOS + COL = 56.67%\n\nThis restaurant averages around $9.25 an hour for crew labor. Meaning, the *average* hourly wage for the crew staff (people making and serving the food) is $9.25 per hour.\n\n\nBump that $9.25 an hour average to $15 per hour, that is a **62% increase in labor costs**. Let's pretend this restaurant had a $15 average wage for this week:\n\n\n$27,321 Net Sales\n\n-$12,477 COL (**45.6% of net sales, increase of $4,775**)\n\n-$7,908 COS (28.48% of net sales)\n \n-$2,732 franchise fee (10% of net sales)\n\n**$4,204 remaining**\n\nCOS + COL = 74.08%\n\n\nIn the quick-service restaurant biz, you want your COS + COL to be under 60%. But you *NEED* to keep your COS + COL under 65% to remain profitable. It just can't happen otherwise. You *CANNOT* cover costs if you don't. \n\n\nWith a $15 hourly wage, $4,204 per week is all they have left. It may sound like a lot, but that has to cover the manager and assistant manager's salaries, rent/mortgage payments, garbage, utilities, maintenance, advertising, administrative overhead and anything else that comes up. It won't.\n\n\nFast-food restaurants run EXTREMELY tight budges, and work on EXTREMELY thin margins. It's one of the most competitive industries that exists. You cannot increase their labor cost by over 1.5X and expect everything else to still work the same. Restaurant manager will do **whatever it takes** to get their COL percentage back down to the 28% it was before.\n\n\n**EDIT 1**\n\nSeveral have asked what needs to happen to keep their bottom line roughly the same after a wage increase, so here it is. This restaurant's previous COL + COS was 56%, so to keep that bottom line the same, after a 62% increase in labor costs:\n\n$32,096 Net Sales (**increase of 17.47%**)\n\n-$12,477 COL (38.87% of net sales)\n\n-$7,908 COS (24.63% of net sales)\n \n-$2,732 franchise fee (10% of net sales)\n\n$8,979 remaining\n\n\nThis puts them at the same \"remaining\" number as before the labor cost increase, meaning they are netting the same amount after COL, COS and franchise fees to cover their other expenses like utilities, rent, etc. That is straight up increasing the cost of everything on the menu by 17.47%.\n\n\n\n\n\n",
"I know this isn't really directing an answer to the posed question, but my whole $0.02 on the $15 minimum wage debates is another question of my own. Why aren't we all stopping to look at the bigger picture and asking why the hell is our economy requiring a $15/hr income just to reasonably make it on your standard 40/hr a week job? The fact that our economy has come to this is the bigger issue in my mind, and THAT is what we should all be picketing about.",
"With penny pinching being such a highly regarded aspect of the McD's franchise, I'd assume that all a 15$ min would cause are robotic / computer ordering systems.. Perhaps in a few years robotic sandwich making machines. They would only need human staff around to reload the beef patties into said machines. ",
"In Canada it would make McDonald's more profitable because I doubt there is a Mc's that's pays less then 15 an hour. Most is western Canada start around 18ish. ",
"So does every job get an equal bump? I didn't bust my ass to get through college so that some teenager could make $15/hr flipping burgers. This is a ridiculous notion. ",
"I don't own a McDonald's, but I own a franchise that hires low skill, minimum wage labor.\n\nBottom line, I'm going to pass that cost on to my customers by either raising prices or giving them less for the same price. \n\nEither that or lay off 1/3 of my staff and make the other 2/3 earn their raise.\n\nAs a business person, I'm not just going to \"eat the cost\". Customers will pay it (they lose) or employees will lose their jobs (employees lose). The one who never loses is me, the business owner.",
"There are so many things that are being overlooked here. I'm too drunk and it's too late to site sources but here it goes. \n\n1. Average annual income per household has been practically idle since 1999.\n2. Average number if hours per year worked, per household, has increased during this time frame. \n3. US employees work many more hours per year than any other comparable nation. \n4. US CEO's earn a significant more on average, when compared to the average salaries of their employees , than any other nation in the world. This pay gap between the CEO's and their employees has never been higher. \n5. The wage gap between the top 1% and the middle class in the US has never been higher. This wage gap has been primarily created on the backs of the low income workers. Or through frivolous means, like the blatant fraud that occurred on Wall Street and in the housing market. \n6. The cost for medical insurance, when compared to average annual household income, has never been higher in the US. Every employer takes this into consideration and is considered part of their employees average annual salary. In my personal case my employer pays approximately $7500 per year as part of my medical coverage. I pay slightly over $2500 out of pocket. \n\nUntil the time comes that corporate America is no longer dictating the policies that govern this nation, there will never be a \"strong\" middle class. That will never change until the American public takes a stand against these behaviors and remove the officials who take subsidies from these companies from office. We remove money as a form of free speech. We reverse the decision that corporations are people and we eliminate super pacs from politics and lobbyists from Washington. I'm only 35 and I see no hope for this economy being sustainable in the long run. Evidence of that exists. For the first time in American history our children will be less educated and earn less per year than their parents. \n\nPS. I don't think the minimum wage should increase to any more than $12 per hour over the next 3 years. Anything more would act as a deterrent to sustainable growth. ",
"It would not cause other goods prices to rise dramatically as some have stated here. There will always be some other business to offer lower prices if McDonald's raises prices to high. The franchisee owners will have to take a pay cut. Automation isn't certain as customers generally will avoid automated checkers at grocery stores. Lastly, minimum wage hasn't even kept up with inflation.",
"What will actually happen is that those McJobs will be McReplaced with McRobots and McOverseas drive thru personnel - and it's already happening. If you look closely, a robot now fills your drink in drive thru. McDonalds can be made into mostly an assembly line for robotics in the kitchen, and mostly into kiosks out front. So, this is what will happen.\n\nThe more relevant ELI5 question is \"where did this $15 number come from?\" because the number was arrived at randomly - it sounded good for a movement - and it stuck. Some cities have such a high cost of living that it makes quite a bit of sense, probably. But as a national minimum, it's a joke.\n\nMcDonalds won't close their doors - but you'll pay higher prices, and essentially corporations will go to war with low wage, low skill positions because automation, or simply not hiring anyone is easier. The folks screaming for $15 per hour should rethink their position with some economic models in place to bolster whatever they come up with. ",
"People tend to think all jobs are career jobs.\n\nMcDonalds, and jobs similar to that have always been jobs designed to help the young into the workforce and therefore as the young generally do not have extraordinary debt to manage it is a livable wage within their means.\n\nWhat would happen if the McDonalds jobs and those like it are force out of the 'young and mortgage free' bracket, simply put, automation would be driven in and the jobs would be extinguished.\n\nWhy? Because if you double the wages, you'll quickly recognise that customers would not be prepared to pay double for the same product. If you replace half your staff with robots, your wages would remain constant and your costs (after the initial automation investment) would remain fairly constant.\n\nDoubling the wage only doubles the expectation of the worker. When the expectation is unreasonable for somebody new to the workforce with fewer skills, they likely don't keep their job or never get the opportunity for that job.",
"I work at an e-recycling plant. I know for a fact if min wage went up to $15 an hr I would be out of a job. Not saying at current rate I am still probably going to be out of a job in the next few years. Very slim margins, laws are basically making impractical to be a responsible recycler. ",
"One thing everyone should understand is that if there is more money in the pockets of working people, they will spend more money. So, if every buisness raised their wages, everyone will have more money and therefore, more of that will go back into those businesses when people spend their money.",
"I'm not an expert on this, but here's my insight on the issue: it'll probably force McDonald's to automate all their restaurants as quickly as possible lest they go bankrupt. I've already seen an [automated burger cooker](_URL_0_), so it wouldn't be impossible for them to automate the whole restaurant to the point of only needing one person to run the restaurant.\n\nTo understand the why a little better, let me put you in the position of a McDonald's franchise owner. As a franchise owner, you'd basically be the owner of your very own business that gets to call itself McDonald's, and sell McDonald's merchandise because you pay a royalty every year. It is very likely that you would own this franchise as a Sole Proprietor, which means you are the sole owner and operator of this business and are also, personally, fully responsible for the finances of the business. All losses come out of your pocket, all profits go into your pocket, and your business's debts are also your debts. So with this in mind, you need to be mindful of how much you're making and how much you're spending so you an stay in the black. Let's run through all the expenses before modelling this into a mathematical relationship, which we'll later use to see what the effect of raising the minimum wage to $15 would be.\n\nSo let's say that in order to run a McDonald's restaurant you need 10 employees to properly run the restaurant at peak efficiency (AKA: Supply of Food meets demand at a reasonable time). Now let's say you pay them all minimum wage, and that you are located in my state (for simplicity sake) of Florida, where the minimum wage is $8.05/hour. Your salary expenses in this case would amount to $80.50/hour; and assuming that your restaurant is only open 15 hours per day, that will end up costing you $1,207.50/day (assuming only one long shift), or about $33,810/month (assuming you're open 7-days a week).\n\nNow of course, as this is a restaurant, it is imperative that you sell food so that you may stay in business, the food will cost you however. McDonald's (the company) does not have a national supply chain, instead they contract with local suppliers and let the franchises buy from them. As I said before, buying from these suppliers is not free so every food item you sell costs you some money, but for our purposes let's say you sell at a 100% markup (I.E. Item x costs you $10.00, and you sell at $20.00, netting you a profit of $10.00 per Item x sold). Keep this in mind for later.\n\nNow let's factor in all the other expenses. First, your rent: You would probably want your franchise to be in a locale that garners a lot of business while still being cheap. Eyeing some local real estate in my area, the rent is $21.82 Sq.Ft./year for a 1,100 Sq.Ft. space, or about $2,000.16/month. Secondly, your royalty fee is 12% of your revenue (not profit, gross revenue). Thirdly, worker's compensation: It varies depending on a lot of factors, but your premium will likely end up costing you anywhere between $650-$10,000 per month. For our purposes let's assume $2,000/month as burn and tripping/slipping accidents are common hazards in the restaurant industry. It's also likely that you'll want to take out property insurance, in case of fires or other circumstances. The premiums for this can range anywhere between $1000-$2500 per month, but let's assume it's $1,750.00/month. You'll want some security by placing an alarm system on your business in case it gets broken into and robbed. ADT offers business monitoring for about $2/day, or about $60/month. And finally, you'll have to pay your utilities (electricity, water, and internet) which we'll say is about $3,000/month.\n\nSo with all this in mind, let's model this into a mathematical relationship so that we can see what the effect of increasing the minimum wage would be on a franchise's finances. Before we can start on that, let's first group as many of these expenses together to make our lives easier. \n\nFirst, let's group together all our fixed expenditures (the ones that don't change, for simplicity we'll assume that your utilities are fixed. Also, we're keeping wages separate from this): \n\n $2,000.16+$2,000+$1,750+$60+$3,000 = $8,810.16/month\n\nNow that we have our fixed expenses we can model our mathematical relationship, R is your gross revenue, P is your total profit.\n\n P = R - (0.62R + 8810.16 + 33810.00)\n\n0.62R because your franchise royalty is 12% of revenue, and our food expenses are 50% of the cost, so therefore 62%. 8810.16 is our fixed expenses and 33810.00 is our wages\n\nLet's turn this into X's and Y's so we can graph this:\n\n y = x - (0.62x + 8810.16 + 33,810)\n\n\n[Here's the graph](_URL_1_), it's about $112,158.00/month in gross income to break even.\n\nNow let's see what happens when we increase the minimum wage to $15.00/hour:\n\n $15.00/hour * 10 workers * 15 hours * 7 days * 4 weeks = $63,000.00/month\n\n $63000 - $33810 = $29190 increase in wages per month\n\nThe new relationship becomes:\n\n P = R - (0.62R + 8810.16 + 63000)\n\nfor graphing purposes:\n\n y = x - (0.62x + 8810.16 + 63000)\n\n[New Graph](_URL_2_), in order to break even you now have to make $188,974.00.\n\n $188974.00 - $112,158.00 = $76,816.00/month increase\n\nNow let's see what would happen if you were to automate the franchise down to only needing one person to run the store:\n\n $15/hour * 1 worker * 15 hours * 7 days * 4 weeks = $6300/month\n\nNew relationship (assuming utilities only increase $500 month due to automation):\n\n P = R - (0.62R + 9310.16 + 6300)\n\nFor graphing:\n\n y = x - (0.62x + 9310.16 + 6300)\n\n[New Graph](_URL_3_), you now only need to make $41,079/month to break even.\n\n 41,079.00 - 188974.00 = -147,895.00\n\nA $147,895/month reduction from the 15$/hour minimum wage.\n\n 41,079.00 - 112,158.00 = -71,079.00\n\nA $71,079/month reduction from an $8.05/hour minimum wage.\n\nKeep in mind, this isn't exactly accurate as I have made a lot of assumptions, and deliberately simplified some portions of the explanations, but the general premise would remain the same regardless: Automation would be (from the franchise owner's perspective) much more preferable to having your operating costs surge by about 68.5%. I hope this answers your question.",
"At $15 per hour, expect to order your big mac via a touch screen or an App on your phone in the future. Which would be pretty cool via the phone as you could order and let them know you will be there in exactly 4 minutes and it will all be ready. \nA cheap tablet costs $50 now, they could have a row of those on the counter alongside 2 severs instead of your usual 4-5 servers.",
"They did a pretty good analysis here: _URL_0_\n\nBasically, by their summary done in 2013, it would cost McDonalds $8.32 Billion dollars.\n\nTheir gross income in 2013 was $28.1 billion, but their net income for 2013 after expenses was \"only\" $5.6 billion, which is a \"Lackluster\" performance for this company.\n\n_URL_1_\n\n$5.6 billion - $8.32 billion = -$2.72 billion; If McDonalds increased their wages to 15 an hour, they would wipe out all profit and further incur an additional $2.72 billion a year in expenses, AKA, they would be out of business because no company can survive bring in less than what they spend.\n\nSo basically, you'd see prices go up, but first and foremost you'd see lots of services automated, in particular those that deal with the customer.",
"If your business model depends on taxpayers to keep your workers alive through food stamps and social programs then your business model is parasitic and deserves to fail.",
"There is a study that did basically this before. Granted it wasn't as great of a wage increase as $15 would be, but still a greater than 20% wage increase is substantial. \n\nMy main criticism of people that speculate on things like this is the assumption that productivity would remain constant while wages increase. People are happier with their jobs as their pay increases. Happier employees are more productive. So it isn't that much of a stretch to think that productivity would increase as wages also increase. \n\n_URL_0_",
"Very little would happen to McDonald's.\n\nWhat would happen is a combination of all of the factors you mention, to small degrees.\n\n- The food prices would go up a little. Maybe a $6 meal will now cost $6.50\n- A small number of jobs would get cut and replaced with machines. Maybe one or two people per large restaurant.\n- Operating profit margin would decrease slightly. Shareholders would earn $4 per share per year instead of $4.20\n- Some franchisees would be too dumb or too greedy to make those changes, so some branches would close.",
"I find it weird that people assume places will have to cut staff or go bust in this situation, rather than just put up prices. Americans so devoted to the dream of being able to buy a burger for a dollar.",
"Well for starters...I'd quit my job and work at McDonalds. What happens? You need higher qualifications to work there. ",
"I assume employees would have to work much faster. That older people likely wont be hired. And even people just entering the job market. When you have to pay a higher salary you want more from your employees. If you dont have an education you will find it hard to get a job, even at McDonalds. They may have to increase prices, or lower staff, mening more expensive food and having to wait longer for it. Some franchises without enough revenue to Account for the higher forced wages may even have to close, making everyone out of a job at that particular restaurant, accountants, managers, various contractors for maintenance etc. Its a cascading effect.",
"As with any typical business, it is a balance between income and expenses. If McDonald's is being ran efficiently (which they should be since they are one of the biggest company in the world), the price of the product vs the demand of the product is already at the optimized point. Meaning if they raise or lower prices, the total income would not be increased. So raising prices would not really help them offset increased cost because they would have already raised prices to that level already. So any additional expenses will more than likely be offset by cuts in other areas of spending. With labor costs, the best way to do so is to reduce staff or reduce the existing staff's hours. And one of the very best way to reduce staff is with automation. There are a few ways to automate a McDonald's restaurant.\n\n1) Simplify the menu and provide food that are easier to prepare (reheat).\n2) Eliminate sales point labor and replace them with an ordering kiosk or online/phone app ordering.\n3) Eliminate the restaurant area that requires daily cleaning and expand the drive through.\n4) Minimize operational staff during non rush hours while increasing capacity (see 3) for breakfast/lunch/dinner hours.\n\n",
"To add to what other have said(profit margins being high enough to support it or not high enough)...\n\nI want to add a different perspective..minimum wage is a welfare program. It was created because capitalism was not favoring the employee, and kept employers from taking advantage of low skilled workers. with any government assistant program we must have a way to afford it, usually done via taxes. In the case of minimum wage program, the group paying for it is the businesses which rely on low skilled labor. Do we really want to give money to our poor by taking money from their employers? \n\ncould we just tax everyones income and spread it back out to our poor(/r/basicincome)? Seems more fair than a tax only on businesses that rely on low skilled labor.",
"You know, none of these \"points\" matter because it's extrapolated data. And that kind of data can not be trusted or reasonably be used. \n\nFor example, most are saying that a $15 wage hike isn't sustainable based off their current numbers. But what if higher wages produce better workers and a better product thus increased sales. \n\nYou're making more money overall, but you're still having to pay out more of course. But the influx of cash might offset that. Make sense? \n\nIt's far better to note, that the two cities that have the highest job growth in the country both have minimum wages of $15. \n\nThat kind of data, is better used imo. But it ultimately doesn't matter. We're all peasants working in slave labor anyway. We can continue to fight for scraps down here. \n\nThe world will keep spinning. ",
"When my employer (a big company well known to the entire globe) had to follow laws that employees working 30+ hours a week needed to be provided healthcare, my hours dropped to 29 a week and they mass-hired new employees.\n\nWhen that minimum wage goes up, I'm pretty sure our labor levels will go down. Hello 20 hour work weeks and stores being cut to 2 people a location rather than the usual 5",
"There are a lot of doomsday scenarios here. Simple fact is that MacDonald's operates in countries with high minimum wage just fine. Things would change for sure but they can compete. ",
"$15 minimum wage will do much to bring about more automation, eliminating workers by replacing them with touch screens and robots.",
"This is not the question that needs to be asked. I swear that there is so much lack of common sense that it hurts to even think about some of these proposals. First off this is not a political ideological argument - to identify to any of these parties is beyond incomprehensible. Does anyone actually look at the big picture anymore?? At what point since 9/11 has the economy looked good enough for this to be a good idea? It's a horrible idea. This will do many things but helping the lower class is the last thing it will do. McDonalds won't even have to worry about this - as a matter of fact, the upheaval caused and initial rocking of the boat will probably have them better off than when started (barring an unforseen economic collapse in this country...). They will automize the process to the point where they could just cut the necessary workers needed by fifty + percent. The process will be disturbing and McDonalds will turn into a large box that you walk up to punch order in, pay and food will be shot out to you promptly. This will be business model copied by those who can sustain initial investment. The real problem is everything else. Walmart will have to do something similar or if that's impractical, raise prices. Prices being raised all across the board beyond normal inflation and there will be no way that anything the Fed (lmao) or our government can do to stop it. Unemployment will now be back up on even the figures the government releases where workers no longer on unemployment benefits and haven't found work are counted in unemployment figures. Well, I imagine that the worker that was making $20 to $40 an hour will see an adjustment to their pay because of this right? That is highly doubtful, because companies will be dealing with their own new higher prices all around. Not only will they have to lay off some labor but they won't be able to afford raises to offset what the new minimum wage did. So, this will lead to a significant loss of wages for workers when elevated inflation hits. The obvious domino effects can be seen from this point. Unemployment insurance benefits will strain budget, more people unable to pay for Healthcare, social services altogether strained, national budget willing never be at a surplus, and the National debt will continue with climb time some new cartoon like figure that no one is able to fathom. Obviously, worse case scenario from here is dollar bottoms out, world markets fall, economies collapse and a glorious 'economic dark ages' begins. This may seem ridiculous but at what point is our economy and lack of foresight note as ridiculous? There was a time where we could have avoided something world changing from happening but no one wants to suffer a little for the greater good. This sense of entitlement is what put this country in the shape it is and we as a people will have to suffer now. It's OK because the candidates for president are all over the situation and many game plans sound disturbingly like crickets. I'm not sure when last time the debt was mentioned in the news but that should tell people enough right there. Instead, gun control, police shootings, Mass shootings, race struggle Oh and anything Kardashian related. The situation can be fixed but no will be happy with how. People will have to suffer for a while and the idea that we are the best in the world needs to be seriously addressed. I have obviously simplified the economics involved above and frankly, this is basic common sense. Money earned must be more than total expenses and at a very high margin now. Increase minimum wage to $16/hr will only hasten and make it harder to fix. This has gotten longer than meant but it still is lacking many factors and I could probably write for days on this problem. Bottom line this will hurt America to a potentially fatal level if we aren't already too late. Basic research about our debt will show how this works. Ultimately though, I hope this leads to the end of debtor banking because that is always the smoking gun at the end of the day. \n",
"I think a lot of people are missing the point. McDonald's isn't a job you raise a family on. it's designed for college kids and high schoolers. it's also one of the easiest buisness to move up in. I go to McDonald's soooo many times and a lot of the workers are just indifferent. if they can't put a bun on right or even greet me then they aren't worth $15 an hour. how about teachers??? why don't THEY! get paid that!! you can't say \"give me money and I'll work better\" life doesn't work like that pal. food service has such a low profit margin. even other business. payroll and other factors. if this happens you'll find places closing instantly. it will only hurt people.",
"I want to expand on this. What would a $15 minimum wage do for salaried workers? Right now I make $40,000/year, which works out to around $19.23/hr. Yeah, it's be more than the$15 minimum wage, but not enough for me to want to keep the stress of my job over just flipping burgers. Would everyone's salary have to increase as well? Surely a $15/hr minimum wage would cause cost of living to sky rocket, and $40,000/year would be nothing in my area anymore? ",
"TIL that raising the minimum wage is actually worse for employees because many of them will be laid off",
"There will be multiple level factors, which will all have an effect at different time scales.\n\nIn the short term, small businesses will employ less people, and take longer to expand, because it raises the net profit required to think about expanding. Big business will aggregate jobs and shed surplus or marginal roles.\n\nIn the longer term, inflation will nullify your raise, because when everyone has a raise, no-one does. Things will cost more, because having more money devalues it when viewed across the population. This is why in the 70's a bar of chocolate cost 15 cents, but now costs 85. As peoples wages go up and up, the actual VALUE in the long run doesn't. \n\nThe positive is, that as Inflation takes hold, it removes the negative short term costs previously associated with the raise, and businesses re-adjust to the cost and now relatively depreciated value of the currency. The down side is, you're back where you started, feeling you don't get paid enough.\n",
"I seriously never thought I'd live to see the day, when fast food employee's need a livable wage...\n\nFast food is meant to be a stepping stone for young kids when going to school or just out of school, to get the basic skills for jobs. Showing up on time, clean uniforms, interacting with people, etc etc. These positions shouldn't be life long jobs, and it's honestly pathetic if you're in your mid 20s to beyond and be working there, crying out for your $15 so you can live on those wages. Step aside, get educated, better yourself, allow the kids to get those jobs, allow prices to remain low for people to buy. \n\nI'm in my 30s, and the last time I made minimum wage, was when I was 20 years old... I went in to the military and better'd myself, I wasn't looking for someone to hold my hand through my life and give me everything. This country is just turning pathetic. There needs to be a movement to get this country back to manufacturing things, and doing away from the PC crap movement... Tired of it.",
"I don't see how some dumb-ass straight out of highschool can make more money than some people who go out and get a degree and work hard. You don't deserve $15 an hour, either get a 2nd job or work to get a better one that pays more. ",
"The cost of automating a McDonald's (or similar operation) is currently pretty high. It's cheaper to hire people than to automate existing operations.\n\nHowever, if you raise minimum wage past a threshold, it's cheaper to automate. In Tokyo there are fully-automated fast food restaurants- that's what the US will see if minimum wage is hiked too far. Fifteen might not be that threshold- but it's close.",
"My question is how is this going to affect salaried employees around the US? For example, I'm a non-exempt salaried employee in Illinois and I don't make $15 an hour (broken down). If minimum wage goes up for hourly, I'm assuming the minimum salaried requirement gets bumped as well?",
"1) Not all McDonalds are owned by corporate.. so these CEO's everyone keeps mentioning who would have to take a pay cut, are not in the picture in many/most scenarios\n\n2) Individual stores don't make a lot of money each year. While the average gross is 2.5 million, once you take out operating costs, franchise fees, royalty fees, each store, if doing well, will make around 200,000 a year (US)\n\n3) Each store has about 60 workers to cover all shifts. Of those workers, 13% make min wage. The rest average around $9/hour.\n\n4) Assuming of the 60 people, they all make $6 an hour more now & each employee works 30 hours a week: $6 x 30 hours = $180 per week more per employee. $180 x 60 employees = $10,800 per week for all employees. $10,800 per week x 52 weeks = **$561,600 a year for the individual store to get to $15 an hour for every employee.** There is some error here as there are employees making more than $9/hour, some making less.\n\n5) **Each store would have to increase revenues by 22.4%** to keep from dropping their income. Studies show that 1/3 of wage increases get passed onto the consumer in this industry segment. The rest of the increase gets covered by operation cost reductions. This can be the product, labor, property, etc.\n\n6) Mcdonalds has had lower earning this year, it is all but guaranteed that each store will pass on the cost or remove operating expense to make up for the loss of $561k. As with any price equilibrium, sales will go down once you increase prices, so product and labor is mostly going to be on the chopping block. \n\n7) **Finally, this means lower quality food and less workers.**\n\n\n\n\n\n\n",
"SHORT ANSWER - an increase in automation resulting in decreased human labor.\n\nSee the clip below from the Prophet Mike Judge's film, \"Idiocracy\":\n\n_URL_0_\n",
"Paying workers more would incentivize companies to find cheaper alternatives which means automatic ing the process. At $8-10/he, it is cheaper to keep a part time/no benefits employee. A $5/hr pay hike for a minimum if 3 employees working at any time, covering 16 hour days, 7 days a week will increase the costs a minimum of $87,000 in increased wages. Five $10,000 computers taking orders will eliminate those employees and save $37,000 the first year alone. But the problem isn't just eliminated positions. Those employees that remain will be expected to perform more tasks for the increased wage. The prices of goods will increase which will stress the customers budgets and reduce frequency of consumption. Ultimately those consumers will demand an increase in their wages from their employers, not only to increase their spending capacity, but for people like me that went to 4 years of nursing school and have $100,000 in student loans, on principle alone. I suffered, lost sleep and worked my butt if to become a nurse, foregoing nights out and time with friends and family for the privilege of working nights, weekends and holidays. Was it my choice? Yes. But one of the incentives was the pay. A narrow pay gap between a minimum waged unskilled worker and a highly skilled professional with a bachelors cm degree means that fewer will attempt to attain a skill because they can remain unskilled and still make a living. I'm all for people making a living wage. But without investing in yourself, you should not expect a return. I should expect to make considerably more than a fast food worker",
"I have worked at a fast food restaurant in an ever increasing minimum wage environment and I can say this, the business and the people that make good money working for it, remain largely unaffected, certainly in the short term.\n\nHere is what happens. The company will not lose money. It is the goal of a business to remain profitable and they will alter the business in a way that achieves that goal by taking away things from the minimum wage employees.\n\nThey will take away raises, benefits, and hours from the retail places in an effort to maintain the level of profitability they have. Also, promotions from within tend to only result in more hours and come with minimal monetary advancement. So, you can be a 3rd key manager, but it only means you work 40 hours and maybe $15.25 per hour.\n\nThe result of raising the minimum wage is that business changes its structure so that they aren't paying anything extra to its minimum wage employees over all and those minimum wage employees do more work, deal with more crap, and have little opportunity to better their quality of life though advancement.\n\n",
"Many people in this thread seem to think that if McDonalds raises their prices to offset the increased labor cost, no one will eat there anymore. However, this does not take into account that a higher minimum wage will also increase the buying power of the average consumer. Sure, someone earning $8 an hour wouldn't pay an extra dollar or two for a burger. If that same person is now making $50 more each day through the increased minimum wage, paying a few bucks more for a burger, or any other product for that matter, isn't so bad"
]
} | [] | [] | [
[],
[
"http://www.aboutmcdonalds.com/content/dam/AboutMcDonalds/Investors/McDonald's%202014%20Annual%20Report.PDF",
"http://www.businessinsider.com/mcdonalds-in-australia-vs-america-2015-5",
"http://insiders.morningstar.com/trading/executive-compensation.action?t=MCD",
"https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3ulzdy/eli5_how_would_a_15_minimum_wage_actually_affect/cxg2fmq",
"http://www.bluemaumau.org/sites/default/files/Janney-McDonalds%20Income%20Statement%20mock.pdf",
"http://blogs.wsj.com/numbers/top-employers-in-the-u-s-by-number-of-employees-1815/"
],
[
"http://mobile.nytimes.com/2015/04/03/opinion/paul-krugman-power-and-paychecks.html?referer=&_r=0"
],
[
"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ct1Moeaa-W8"
],
[],
[
"http://www.politifact.com/punditfact/statements/2014/sep/03/other-98/can-you-make-45000year-mcdonalds-denmark/",
"http://www.statista.com/statistics/274326/big-mac-index-global-prices-for-a-big-mac/"
],
[],
[],
[],
[
"http://www.sda.org.au/images/awards/award69.pdf"
],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[
"http://www.bizpacreview.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/kiosk_feat.jpg"
],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[
"http://www.inquisitr.com/1594675/mcdonalds-counters-minimum-wage-hike-15-automation/"
],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[
"http://www.cnet.com/news/mcdonalds-hires-7000-touch-screen-cashiers/"
],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[
"http://cdn.psfk.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/11/robotburger-1.jpg",
"http://i.imgur.com/4nR984Z.png",
"http://i.imgur.com/yil7l9y.png",
"http://i.imgur.com/jg6Jk7D.png"
],
[],
[
"http://247wallst.com/jobs/2013/07/31/the-wage-hike-to-15-would-cost-mcdonalds-8-billion/",
"http://www.forbes.com/sites/maggiemcgrath/2014/01/23/mcdonalds-ends-challenging-2013-with-lackluster-earnings/"
],
[],
[
"http://www.uh.edu/~adkugler/Card%26Krueger.pdf"
],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[
"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wW-4LU79qbU"
],
[],
[],
[]
] |
||
6vsajj | how bass sounds can affect our inner ear ? | A friend of mine can't bear a certain level of «bass sound» and she says that it hurt her in her inner ear. How is it possible ? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/6vsajj/eli5_how_bass_sounds_can_affect_our_inner_ear/ | {
"a_id": [
"dm2ok29"
],
"score": [
2
],
"text": [
"I have to prefix this with \"Just because your friend says that's what's happening doesn't mean it's true\". This is pretty much, heh, hearsay. \n\nThat said, sound is basically vibrations. Bass produces deep vibrations, and you can feel those all over your body. Some peoples' inner ears may be more sensitive than others'. Now unless your friend gets really dizzy or something, I don't know that it's \"affecting her inner ear\". "
]
} | [] | [] | [
[]
] |
|
1lnqza | are electrons point-particles with no dimension, or do they have a radius (see lorentz radius)? | I have always understood electrons to be fundamental point-particles.
Now, I am reading that they have a classical "Lorentz" radius of 2.817(E-15)m.
How do these two concepts play into each-other, if at all?
How do either or both of these concepts play into an electrons wave function? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1lnqza/eli5_are_electrons_pointparticles_with_no/ | {
"a_id": [
"cc10mub"
],
"score": [
2
],
"text": [
"You are correct, this value is derived from the electron's point-cloud nature.\n\nEdit:\n\nI'm not entirely sure if the above is succinct enough. That value is derived from the mass-energy of an electron, which corresponds to uncertainty of position -- this uncertainty is that radius."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[]
] |
|
1te000 | why people with alzheimer's forget things like their age, name, friend's faces etc but not how to breath, talk or walk? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1te000/eli5_why_people_with_alzheimers_forget_things/ | {
"a_id": [
"ce6zcvf",
"ce6zdw6",
"ce6zesq",
"ce70d0f",
"ce71q9m"
],
"score": [
20,
34,
2,
4,
2
],
"text": [
"They eventually do",
"Alzheimers is degenerative disease of the cerebral cortex. This is the part of the brain that deals with memory, attention, thought, language, awareness and the like. So the disease affects a part of the brain that controls a separate function from the examples you gave.\n\nThe Brain Stem is the part of the brain that controls things like breathing, circulating blood, digesting food.. etc.\n\nAs for talking, many people who have Alzheimer's do forget how to speak certain words. They won't remember what a word for something is or might not know what a word stands for with out having the object to use as a relation.\n\nThe Cerebellum is the part of the brain that controls voluntary movement, posture and balance.",
"The brain is made up of several different parts. The earlier parts are in charge of basic controls for things like breathing (a particular bit called the medulla oblongata). We have an override capacity, but this part of the brain runs itself (it is autonomic) and that means we can carry on breathing without thinking about it. Walking and talking are a little bit more difficult, they are looked after by the motor control system. The motor system has lots of different things that tell it what is happening and how to respond. It is quite complex. The main control centres are in two bits of the brain, the cerebral hemispheres (behind the sensory parts) and the cerebellum for fine control. The motor parts of the cerebral hemispheres tend not to be affected by Alzheimers until it gets to a moderate or severe stage. ",
"A few years ago my grandmother died, on her death certificate the C.O.D was Alzheimers. You have to understand that it is a degenerative neurological disorder and that it just gets worse. First The forget the things you mention, this often takes several years, but eventually they forget how to do things like swallow, walk, bowel control and breathe. Words cannot describe how vile dementia in all its varying forms is, because you see the person disappear over the course of several years. \n**tl;dr** eventually they do...",
"My mom died of Alzheimer's. She eventually did forget how to eat. That and chronic infections from being bedridden eventually killed her. She could walk until she got so weak from not eating. \n\ntl;dr fuck alzheimer's. fuck it so hard. "
]
} | [] | [] | [
[],
[],
[],
[],
[]
] |
||
6258lw | how do home shopping tv channels like qvc and hsn stay in business? | Since all they sell is overpriced shit how do they compete with the internet? Granted I'm going to assume most of there customers are in the computer illiterate segment which is rapidly dying off. It doesn't sound sustainable as a business model. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/6258lw/eli5_how_do_home_shopping_tv_channels_like_qvc/ | {
"a_id": [
"dfjurv9"
],
"score": [
3
],
"text": [
"Old people are their market. Old people hate computers and buying things they're not certain about. They see the product, and a smiling salesman, they don't have to read anything or search for it, they pick up that phone and say what they want. Edit: and if I had to guess, I'd say they don't mind paying a little more for the convenience of it. "
]
} | [] | [] | [
[]
] |
|
1gwt64 | the difference between exposure, brightness, contrast, iso & white balance | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1gwt64/eli5_the_difference_between_exposure_brightness/ | {
"a_id": [
"caolj3j",
"caolman",
"caomlst",
"caoqe3m",
"caotgvc",
"caou92g",
"caouofn"
],
"score": [
7,
7,
700,
9,
9,
6,
4
],
"text": [
"Exposure: How 'exposed' the image is to light\n\nBrightness: How much/little light there is in the image\n\nContrast: The difference in luminance, i.e. how strikingly different the brights of an image are to the darks of the image\n\nISO: How light sensitive the sensor is to light, i.e. a low ISO would mean the sensor is less light sensitive, and vice versa (also stands for International Organization for Standardization)\n\nWhite Balance: White balance (color balance) is the adjustment made to intensities of colors (measured in Kelvin, you may see a white balance of 5500K, which you would basically set to get a warmer image (think sunny daylight at noon) as opposed to 8000K, which would intensify colors to the extent of, say, a hazy sky)",
"**Exposure**: How long the lens stays open, bringing in the picture / light. A longer exposure creates that 'blurry' movement effect.\n\n**White balance**: Telling the camera what in the frame is white (often by putting up a white piece of paper), so that it takes in all the other colours properly.\n\n**ISO**: Digital brightening (in the modern world of cameras) - turning on gain to boost light in low-light conditions. Causes graininess to the image.\n\n**Contrast**: Almost distinguishes colour from brightness. If the contrast is too low, everything becomes a flat gray - too high and everything becomes blown out and bizarrely hyper-coloured.\n\n**Brightness**: How much light is available to the camera.",
"I'm seeing lots of good answers but I want to try too.\n\n**Exposure**: This is how affected the sensor/film has been by light. The amount of exposure controls what you'll be able to see in any given shot. \nFor instance, if I take a photo of a building at night I have to choose between a high exposure so that I can see the building but the moon will be a white mess or a low exposure so that I can see the moon but the building will just be a black blob. The moon is the brightest thing in the picture so it doesn't take a lot to print itself onto your sensor/film. If you give it too much exposure then it will keep printing beyond what's necessary and that's when it all just goes white. The building isn't nearly as bright as the moon so it needs lots of exposure before the camera will be able to actually get any detail.\nThere are 4 factors that control exposure.\n1) Lighting. Bright sunny days require next to no exposure. Night shooting requires oodles of exposure.\n2) Shutter speed. The faster your shutter is, the less light hits the film/sensor (but also the less chance there is for a blurry photo)\n3) Aperture. Your camera has a hole through which it takes the photo, the bigger the hole, the more light it lets through and the more exposed the photo is.\n4) **ISO**. The ISO is how sensitive the film/sensor is. A very high ISO means that the image can expose very easily with not much light. The problem is that it's also more likely to expose things that aren't really there and result in a grainy photo. I like to compare it to sound. If you listen to a piece of music and you start turning it up you'll start hearing noise in the background. If you keep going too far then that noise will take over and you'll start getting clipping and distortion that ruins the song. So upping the ISO is like turning up the volume, it will sound better if you don't do it, but sometimes you have to crank it all the way up and hope your speakers/camera can handle it.\n\n**Brightness**: With photography, brightness is just chucking extra white onto the image.\n\n**Contrast**: Contrast is the difference between black and white. If you lower the contrast then colours will start melding together. If you up the contrast you get big differences between colours but you may find that you push bright parts to be too bright and dark parts to be too dark (which is why some photo apps will have a mid contrast to confuse matters)\n\n**White Balance**: Your brain is very good at pretending the world is normal when it's not. In any given room you'll look at a white piece of paper and you'll think it's white when, in actual fact, it's whatever colour the lighting in that room is. Your brain knows the paper should be white so it makes sure you don't care too much. Lighting in any given situation can vary wildly from reds and yellows through to blues depending on the quality of the artificial lighting or the time of day.\nWhen you take a photo the camera takes whatever the colour actually is and when you look at your photo your brain won't bother correcting it so a picture of that bit of paper will look whatever colour it actually was. White balance allows you to tell your camera or photo software that the paper is white. With that in mind the photo can be automatically adjusted to compensate for the extra colours of the lighting. (On the assumption that everything will have been lit with the same light).\nThis can also be used to create an illusion of a different type of light. Throw the white balance way up on a picture and it'll look like the photo was taken at sunset. Throw it the other way and it'll look like it was taken at night.",
"Once you understand it, go here and put it into practice \n_URL_0_",
"Sorry. I know this has been answered very well already but I came upstairs and turned on my computer just so I could share this video.\n\n[Video is here](_URL_0_)\n\nThis is how I finally understood ISO, Shutter Speed and Aperture. It's ELI5 but in video form and i've had it bookmarked forever.\n\n",
"Photographer here so ill have a crack..\n\nExposure is generally an in-camera thing and basically controls how much light gets on the photo. It's controlled by 3 things - aperture, shutter speed and ISO.\n\nBrightness and contrast come hand in hand. You can adjust contrast in camera but I recommend to just do it later on. Brightness simply controls how bright or dark a photo is. If a photo is a bit dark, you can use this tool to brighten the image.\nContrast basically compresses your colours / tones. Imagine every colour or tone laid out in a line end to end. If you increase conrast, your compress the line; if you decrease contrast, you make it bigger. Simply, increase contrast = more intense colour and tone - decrease contrast = more muddy look.\n\nISO is the new lingo for what used to be called ASA or DIN. None of those are used anymore but it used to describe the 'speed' of a film - 50 ISO/ASA.. Fine grain Film / good quality and detail- not very sensitive to light so you. 1600 ISO/ASA. Fast film and exfremely sensitive to light but end really grainy and depending on the quality was probe to falling to pieces. \nISO is easily changed now so we can pick and choose. Use it in conjunction with aperture and shutter speed to get good exposure and achieve the results you want. I frequently use 6400 ISO when photographing indoors because simply, the cameras can handle it.\n\nFINALLY white balance is the colour you set your camera to shoot at. You don't notice it but different light sources have different colours - out eyes see it as white but sometimes you need to compensate. A good example is to photograph inside under natural light. Tungsten lights (warmer lights) will make your pics look red / orange. Halogen lights (supermarket lights) will make pics look purple or green depending on your shutter speed. Most cameras have different options to change this and there is a way to manually set it but let's keep it simple. Generally, AWB or auto white balance will take care of most situations but if you want to get tricky you can take a floodlight outside just after the sun goes down, change your white balance to tungsten and take some photos of someone under that light source. They'll be nice and colour correct and your background gets and eerie blue to it. Anyways sorry for the wall of text, hopefully it\nHelps.",
"This is a great simulator to show... \n\n_URL_0_"
]
} | [] | [] | [
[],
[],
[],
[
"http://camerasim.com/camera-simulator/"
],
[
"http://vimeo.com/41174743"
],
[],
[
"http://www.canonoutsideofauto.ca/play/"
]
] |
||
6iz9qj | did women really faint or get hysterical in emotional or shocking situations during the victorian era? | [deleted] | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/6iz9qj/eli5_did_women_really_faint_or_get_hysterical_in/ | {
"a_id": [
"djabett",
"djabux2",
"djae2r8",
"djam7b9",
"djaop4r",
"djaq1kc"
],
"score": [
12,
19,
47,
4,
8,
4
],
"text": [
"Hysterical, maybe not. Faint, probably. This is attributed to a person's biological response to stress, typically heightened respration, being hindered greatly by their corset. ",
"Women wore tightly laced corsets back then. A lot of them fainted just because they couldn't draw a full breath. Also, layers upon layers of clothing OVER the corset, so I imagine many ladies swooned from a combination of restricted breathing and heat stroke. In polite society they called it \"a case of the vapors\".",
"In addition to physiological causes such as constricting garments, it was also *socially expected* for women to faint in certain situations. Consequentially, to a woman who felt dizzy, the idea to try and \"pull herself together\" simply didn't occur - clearly she was fainting, so she did what she had seen others do.\n\nFurthermore, since it was considered normal, fainting could be faked and used to one's advantage, e.g. to get out of an uncomfortable situation, or to be caught by a young gentlemen one wished to get closer to - some considered this an important skill to be practiced.",
"Gas lighting as well. \n\n\"Low pressure was a common problem for consumers, caused by the numerous fractures of pipes and joints due to poor workmanship, accident or sabotage. However, rather more concerning, were the increased reports of fires, explosions and suffocations. The image of a Victorian lady fainting is as likely to be due to lack of oxygen caused by gas lighting as an overly tight corset.\" - [Source](_URL_0_) ",
"The way that people respond to and express strong emotions is influenced by their cultural context - it doesn't dictate the way every individual responds but it does give people a kind of shared playbook of \"normal\" ways to react, which changes historically and across cultures. \n\nIn most modern, Western cultures, it's generally understood that people might respond to intense, acute stress by having a panic attack that can involve dizziness, shaking hands, crying and difficulty breathing. Now imagine doing that while wearing a corset and multiple layers of floor length skirts, in a culture where it's seen as improper for women to express anger, assert themselves or deal with interpersonal conflict bluntly, where the definition of what constitutes a shocking situation is a lot broader, well brought up women are expected to have delicate sensibilities and a failure to be appropriately shocked could be read as a sign of loose morals. The Victorian era also happened to be an era where it was seen as attractive for women to be very delicate, more emotional than rational and even a little bit sickly. ",
"In Belgium, I've never heard of kids being \"hyper\" because of sugar until I saw it in a US sitcom.\n\nThere are plenty of cultural responses that exist because they are expected, there are even mental disease that only or mostly exist in a specific place or culture.\n\nSo yes, if it's a normal reaction for a woman to faint, then women will faint often. But fainting from surprise or stress is not all that unusual anyway. "
]
} | [] | [] | [
[],
[],
[],
[
"http://www.countrylife.co.uk/property/guides-advice/gas-lighting-in-victorian-times-16562"
],
[],
[]
] |
|
2zkr2k | why aren't we pressuring turkey? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2zkr2k/eli5_why_arent_we_pressuring_turkey/ | {
"a_id": [
"cpjsnlq"
],
"score": [
2
],
"text": [
"Well, if we have a stern word with Turkey about allowing oil to be sold illegally and financing a terrorist organisation, who's going to have a stern word with, say, America about allowing drugs to be sold illegally and financing criminal and guerrilla organisations?\n\nWhat would Turkey actually do? I mean, it's easy enough to say that Turkey should just arrest anyone who sells black market oil, it's just not that easy to do. Take a look at the Turkey-Syria border region on Google Maps: how is anyone supposed to police that? Or maybe the Turkish government should launch a national \"Just Say No\" campaign?\n\nThat said, I'm willing to bet that stern words are being said, just not in public. In the world of diplomacy, there's usually a lot more going on behind the scenes than even journalists are told about."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[]
] |
||
6cy46j | why do some bakeries refuse to allow you to take a picture of their cakes? | Went to a bakery known for some higher-quality cakes to buy something for a old friend returning to town. I wanted to take a picture to share with some mates to see what designs and types they liked, but the clerk behind the counter said "you're not supposed to." I didn't feel like arguing so I went elsewhere and ordered a cake there instead because my mates asked if they could see the design first.
I've heard of this in wedding dress stores but this was the first time I ever heard it elsewhere. It seems like the most anti-consumer things a store could do. Did they think I'm a plain-clothes baker trying to spy out on the competition? It rubs me off wrong when stores like that judge every customer like some kind of latent crook.
Thoughts? Have you heard of this? Is there any convincing those people? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/6cy46j/eli5_why_do_some_bakeries_refuse_to_allow_you_to/ | {
"a_id": [
"dhy9tdp",
"dhyaolz"
],
"score": [
6,
3
],
"text": [
"Theoretically, you could take a picture of a cake, show it to another baker and have them make it for less than the original. It'd be in the best interest of the original baker to not let you take a picture and have someone else undercut them. Granted, I've never seen this happen in real life. ",
"It's because of \"showrooming\", basically you take a picture of their cake and then have another baker copy the design for cheaper."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[],
[]
] |
|
9b03wb | why are words like “and”, “of” and “the” left out of acronyms? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/9b03wb/eli5_why_are_words_like_and_of_and_the_left_out/ | {
"a_id": [
"e4zbnqb",
"e4zc0vh",
"e4zcywe",
"e4zpmmn"
],
"score": [
6,
9,
2,
2
],
"text": [
"Too much trouble. An acronym is still recognizable without them, and would make many acronyms cluttered with O’s and A’s. ",
"There's no official rules to making acronyms. Usually those words are omitted for the sake of shortening the acronym, but sometimes they're retained if the \"A\" or \"T\" or \"O\" helps spell something cute or differentiate from a different organization with similar lettering.\n\nTypically they're not adding useful information to the name of the group, just grammatical formality. Leading \"The\" is especially redundant since almost every organization would technically start with \"the\" to be grammatically correct.",
"Basically to make them shorter, but sometimes they can be added just to make the final acronym pronounceable, or resemble a word, for example RADAR stands for Radio Detection and Ranging is easily pronounceable and better than RADR, whereas USA leaves out the “of” to be better pronounced letter by letter, though this is not the only reason, there is no actual rule",
"\"It means someone really wanted our initials to spell out 'shield'.\"\n\nBasically, they are left out (or included) in order to form a more suitable (or easier to remember) acronym."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[],
[],
[],
[]
] |
||
2iilh5 | is it possible to determine a person's blood type by using an everyday product/chemical as an indicator? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2iilh5/eli5_is_it_possible_to_determine_a_persons_blood/ | {
"a_id": [
"cl2i04c"
],
"score": [
2
],
"text": [
"Unfortunately, no. Blood types are determined by the kinds of certain molecules on your red blood cells. The easiest way to see what kind of molecules you have (A, B, both [AB] or neither [O]) is to use antibodies to those molecules. Your blood drops then react and you can tell your blood type.\n\nThere are some commercial kits out there that let you do it at home, I believe."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[]
] |
||
c30pi1 | what is the electric universe theory? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/c30pi1/eli5_what_is_the_electric_universe_theory/ | {
"a_id": [
"ernxy0c"
],
"score": [
5
],
"text": [
"It's basically pseudoscience that postulates that electricity describes most of the features of the universe. It's generally said to be at odds with modern Physics though, and tends to be popular among the conspiracy types."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[]
] |
||
1jzips | golf score handicap....'tis all...i have yet to get it... | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1jzips/eli5_golf_score_handicaptis_alli_have_yet_to_get/ | {
"a_id": [
"cbjtk28"
],
"score": [
10
],
"text": [
"**TL;DR:** It's like a head start in a race, to give the weaker players a fair shot in a head-to-head.\n\nIt's an official estimate of how far over par you can be expected to shoot. So if your regular course is a par 72 and you have a handicap of 10, you average about a 82 when you shoot a round of golf.\n\nIt's used in competition between obviously unequal players. If I normally shoot a 73 (handicap of 1) and you shoot an 82 (handicap of 10), I'm likely to beat you every time. No fun there. So instead, we compete to see who can do *better than our own normal*. Instead of just competing for best score, we each subtract our handicap from what we actually shoot. So if we both shoot a 76, I lose -- my score was 75 and yours was 66."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[]
] |
||
1hrcyd | fascism | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1hrcyd/eli5_fascism/ | {
"a_id": [
"cax545z",
"cax60da",
"cax8hor"
],
"score": [
26,
5,
5
],
"text": [
"Fascism is a political movement that developed in Europe between the two world wars, as a result of economic troubles after World War I. Fascist nations are led by a powerful and charismatic dictator, who controls a single political party. Opposition parties, trade unions and free elections are all banned under fascist regimes. Fascism places a strong emphasis on the power of the state - people are encouraged to work hard not for themselves, but for the good of their nation. Fascist leaders were often opposed to democracy, communism and liberalism, and in some cases were anti-Jewish. Fascist regimes were often maintained through a mixture of propaganda and terror, which convinced the people of the absolute power of their nation and silenced those who stated otherwise.",
"Permit me to add : How could the people of fascist countries let this happen ? Did they like being governed by a dictator ?",
"Imagine you're at school. You've got a bunch of coloured pencils, and you're playing with your friends.\n\nNow, your classmates are comparing their strength, so they start breaking your pencils. Pick up a pencil, snap it, simple enough, you don't need much strength. But, if you and your friends decide to tie the pencils up in a bundle, all the colours together might not look pretty, but at least nobody will be able to break your pencils. In fact, if they still try, you can put a little blade in the bundle, in the middle of the pencils, so they cut themselves if they even touch the thing.\n\nI've just described the symbolism and meaning behind the [Fasces](_URL_0_), the symbol Fascism takes its name from. Fascism champions the idea of national unity - that the entire nation should unite itself for a common cause, and reject efforts such as communism to divide it based on class warfare, social issues, etc. It was formed as a reaction to those anti-nationalist (\"internationalist\") views, in order to preserve the traditional notion of the nation and nation-state."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[],
[],
[
"http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/7/74/Fasces_lictoriae.svg/500px-Fasces_lictoriae.svg.png"
]
] |
||
1pr5kq | why does my voice sound higher in videos or when i speak into a mic? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1pr5kq/eli5_why_does_my_voice_sound_higher_in_videos_or/ | {
"a_id": [
"cd54snm",
"cd55abj",
"cd55xop"
],
"score": [
13,
3,
3
],
"text": [
"Because you skull acts like a sound chamber.",
"[Here's a video on it.](_URL_0_) ",
"Because the voice originates internally, when you speak you're hearing your voice from both outside of your body and inside of your body at the same time. When we hear other people speak, our ears only pick up the external sounds. "
]
} | [] | [] | [
[],
[
"http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uvosNz0Xq7g"
],
[]
] |
||
2fxrrb | how do sewing machines work? | I've used one before but I still don't get how it works. The thread is threaded through the needle and the needle goes up and down in the fabric, yet the thread goes in at one spot and then comes out at another. How is this physically possible.
Cleary the needle isn't just ripping through the fabric, nor does the entire needle go through the fabric, so it must be going in and out of the same hole each time so how does the thread go in and out of different holes? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2fxrrb/eli5_how_do_sewing_machines_work/ | {
"a_id": [
"ckdq00v"
],
"score": [
29
],
"text": [
"Here's a gif\n\n_URL_0_"
]
} | [] | [] | [
[
"http://i.imgur.com/omeuk3q.gif"
]
] |
|
459akf | how is the uk government able to enforce the junior dr contract against their will? | By this I mean, in a democratic country, how is the government allowed to enforce something on a profession when the over whelming consensus of those effected (98% voted for strike action) and the public has expressed that they are against the new contract terms? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/459akf/eli5how_is_the_uk_government_able_to_enforce_the/ | {
"a_id": [
"czw2wxs"
],
"score": [
2
],
"text": [
"Because the NHS is still (just about) public-owned, this means it's under government control. The incumbent government (Conservative) have a majority, which means they can pretty much push through any bill (etc) they want without much opposition. The combination of the two means that the government can say \"This is the new NHS contract for Junior Doctors\" and the only thing the doctors in question can do is either accept it or quit and find work elsewhere. \n \nInterestingly, as health is devolved in Scotland, we are not subject to this change, so it could mean a large-scale employee migration of junior doctors to the Scottish NHS, potentially."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[]
] |
|
7379yo | why hasn't muslim culture been assimilated into western culture? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/7379yo/eli5_why_hasnt_muslim_culture_been_assimilated/ | {
"a_id": [
"dno3pt7"
],
"score": [
6
],
"text": [
"Essentially the West has its own culture.\n\nIn the U.K. the country's culture is essentially a mix of the cultures of all its citizens. Despite what Fox News says the number of Muslims here is fairly low (under 10%). As this is nowhere near a majority Muslim Cultures are not representative of the Culture of the average person. (And also many Muslims are fine with that. After all many left Muslim countries to come here)."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[]
] |
||
4k0gu7 | considering that dictionaries add new words every year, do they always get bigger over time? or is there a system of purging unused words? and related, how do dictionaries deal with shifting meanings over time (e.g. cultural changes, metaphor, slang, etc)? | Furthermore, how and why do languages change over time? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4k0gu7/eli5_considering_that_dictionaries_add_new_words/ | {
"a_id": [
"d3b5h4u",
"d3b5zb7",
"d3b81xj",
"d3bb89m",
"d3becpy"
],
"score": [
4,
2,
2,
2,
2
],
"text": [
"In the age of the Internet yes they do get bigger. They'll usually put *(obs.)* as usage grows limited so it's not like they don't \"purge\" old words. \n\nAs for print, they've always had different levels of meticulousness. A children's dictionary, for example, won't put in highly technical or extremely outdated words, but the Oxford English Dictionary will put in all of those — hence why you have some dictionaries that are 4 inches thick, whereas the most meticulous are like 10 inches, 10+ volumes. \n\nAs for why languages change over time, it simply is because people are lazy. I'm not saying a certain ethnic group or subculture in specific is lazy — our language acquisition methods are inherently lazy. \"Good enough\" is good enough, and that allows for each generation to change the language bit by bit; after one has diverged enough and becomes the \"prestige\" language in a certain area, they will encourage those that haven't adopted the language to adjust their speech to be more like that language.\n\nThose are the two main methods of language change — you can assume the \"why\" and \"how\" on your own, because nobody knows. ",
"The \"why\" is surprisingly simple -- no one ever learns a language from the same combination of people. Also, everyone has a slightly different style of speaking (we are, after all, different people). When it's not the exact same thing getting passed down through the generations, it's to be expected that there will be changes over the years. Laziness need not factor into the equation.\n\nAs for the \"how\" -- language change does tend to follow certain patterns. Thing is, we don't really have any way of knowing WHICH pattern it will follow in the future, so we don't have much predictive power. The field that studies this is called \"historical linguistics.\" It's by and large not too complicated, but it is still an entire field of study and therefore too big to reasonably summarize in one comment. It's fascinating stuff though, if you're interested!",
"We purge unused words. [Here's Beowulf in the original Old English.](_URL_0_) How many words do you recognize? For that matter, there's entire letters in there we don't use anymore. Good luck even trying to look up \"þeodcyninga\" in a dictionary that has no section for words starting in the letter 'þ'.",
"If you want to learn about how languages change over time I highly, highly recommend a docu mini series called The Adventure of English. \n\nThe first episode: _URL_0_\n\n",
"It really depends on the editorial position of the dictionary. In English, most dictionaries try to *describe* how people use language--so when new words are used, or new meanings added to existing ones, the dictionary grows. A benefit to this approach is that you can simply study actual usage and record it; you don't have to decide what's right or wrong. However, some dictionaries do purge obsolete meanings or rarely-used slang, especially if they have a separate abridged edition. On the other hand, the Oxford English Dictionary intends to have full descriptive coverage, so in it's unabridged edition it is always growing.\n\nThere are also *prescriptive* dictionaries, which try to tell you how words ought to be used. These are more common in other languages, and may be sponsored by the government. They may regularly change spellings in line with official reforms, purge obsolete meanings, and do not add new words or meanings until they are officially accepted (or else only to point out the usage is wrong). This means they are often more compact."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[],
[],
[
"http://legacy.fordham.edu/halsall/basis/beowulf-oe.asp"
],
[
"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ihoYL-dUK1g"
],
[]
] |
|
1s0g9c | why does the front brake on a bike have more stopping power than the back brake? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1s0g9c/why_does_the_front_brake_on_a_bike_have_more/ | {
"a_id": [
"cdsozr8"
],
"score": [
14
],
"text": [
"Because when slowing down, your weight is shifted to the front- so more weight on the front wheel means that brake will work more"
]
} | [] | [] | [
[]
] |
||
33wtm5 | the whole /r/thebutton shenanigan | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/33wtm5/eli5_the_whole_rthebutton_shenanigan/ | {
"a_id": [
"cqp3cwc"
],
"score": [
5
],
"text": [
"Nobody really knows. There's a clock that counts down from 60 secs. When a button is pressed by a redditor, the countdown restarts. And it can be only pressed once per person.\n\n\nBasically, its a mystery which is based around speculating what happens when zero is reached. \n\n\nIt can offer any decent theories as to what happens when zero is reached."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[]
] |
||
4kqnu2 | why were buildings so much more beautiful/ornate 100+ years ago? | If you go to most European cities, a lot of buildings are very ornate and absolutely gorgeous. Whereas today, most buildings are just boring glass boxes. Why were we able to build such glorious buildings centuries ago, but build such boring/bland buildings today? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4kqnu2/eli5why_were_buildings_so_much_more/ | {
"a_id": [
"d3gzmfk",
"d3gzq8k",
"d3h15h3",
"d3hcgif",
"d3hi7pq"
],
"score": [
5,
3,
6,
2,
2
],
"text": [
"It's not really that we lost our ability to do it, so much as our motivation, and design aesthetic. Ornate designs fell out of fashion because they're expensive and take a really long time to build. Many those buildings were built during a period of flourishing artistry. Art was practically everywhere. That's not the case today.",
"A glass box might be bland but it maximizes natural light on the interior, which is shown to make employees happier. Old ornate buildings tend to not have nearly as many or as large windows and have much less interior natural light.\n\nTastes change. Modern buildings can look really good but it is expensive. The old nice looking buildings were *also* expensive... the cheap ones are no longer standing and they were constructed by absolute monarchies, often using an army of slaves or underpaid foreign workers to build them. \n\nLike everything, style changes. People dressed amazingly back in the day too, but they also spent way more on clothes. Now clothes are cheap and thus a lot of people just don't give a shit. That doesn't mean that modern clothing is uglier.\n\nJust be thankful the [brutalist style of the '70s and '80s](_URL_0_) is no longer \"in\".",
"This is a form of confirmation bias. Buildings have always come in beautiful and ugly varieties. However, as time moved on the more beautiful buildings were more likely to be maintained and the ugly ones more likely to be replaced by newer buildings rather than repairing them.\n\nAlso consider that the more ornate buildings were usually much more expensive to build and were far more lilkely to be better engineered which compounded the reason above.",
"Keep in mind that 100+ year old buildings still standing are not a representative sample of all the buildings that were built over a 100 years ago.\n\nWhat is left are the ones that survived.\n\nYou will find few wooden shacks or shoddy construction jobs that have withstood the test of time.\n\nMostly what you have will be the buildings that someone actually put some effort into construction.\n\nQuite often even with buildings hundreds of years old they were remodeled and rebuilt to a degree a couple of times. Every few generations saw someone fixing stuff and they would have naturally kept the aspects that looked nice more often than the ugly parts.\n\nA house built in for example a half-timber style with a wooden frame filled with bricks may look really nice from today's perspective, because the only ones left today tend to be examples that have been well built, taken good care of and made to look nice.\n\nTwo hundred years ago when those styles were the norm, many of them looked like shit and few went around appreciating how beautiful any of them looked.\n\nOver time many of the ugliest and shoddiest ones were torn down and the remaining ones were made to look as beautiful as possible and now rather than having an entire town made out of these, you only have the nice old buildings which gives them a certain extra flair thanks to their rarity.\n\nIf you wait a few centuries and look at what remains of for example brutalist prefabricated slab buildings (one of the ugliest styles in recent history) the few ones that remain may be considered to look beautiful too.",
"Because the buildings which were **not** ornate and beautiful were *destroyed to make space for newer buildings.*\n\nThe same things happen in every other area of art and literature. The good and bad are produced every now and then, **but 100 years, later only the best are remembered.**"
]
} | [] | [] | [
[],
[
"http://www.uglycityguide.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/Google-Maps.png"
],
[],
[],
[]
] |
|
1am93w | logistic regression | I want to understand Logistic Regression conceptually. And whether it should be performed with Continuous or Catagorical Independent variables. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1am93w/eli5_logistic_regression/ | {
"a_id": [
"c8yr6oj"
],
"score": [
3
],
"text": [
"Regular regression: Your mom gives you a dollar for every book you read plus $5 if you get an A on your report card. Your money will increase with every book you read.\n\nLogistic regression: Your mom will buy you a bike if you read enough books and get a good enough report card. Maybe 10 books is enough, maybe you need 20. 1000 is probably way more than enough. You either get the bike or you don't. You can't get half a bike or two bikes or anything.\n\nLogistic regression should have a categorical dependent variable. I think it's supposed to have at least one continuous independent variable, else you may be better off with a contingency table."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[]
] |
|
11wzjl | why does the smoke around a campfire always seem to follow me? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/11wzjl/eli5_why_does_the_smoke_around_a_campfire_always/ | {
"a_id": [
"c6qbkz6",
"c6qc9k6",
"c6qca0z",
"c6qclft",
"c6qf48p"
],
"score": [
3,
25,
6,
4,
11
],
"text": [
"Confirmation bias? Basically, the only time you pay attention to the smoke is when it's in your face. So you remember when you're in the smoke and think \"Not again!\". But when you aren't in the smoke, everything's normal and you don't make note of the smoke at all. \n\nIt's the same reason that cold readings (psychics, fortune tellers, mediums) can seem so accurate: you remember the hits and forget the misses. ",
"I believe it's called Cognitive Bias. Basically, your brain only takes note what's going on when it happens, because that's when you think about it. Therefore, it seems like it happens all the time.",
"According to urban stories, it's because you are handsome or pretty.",
"I have heard that when in a circle, a relative vacuum is crated and the air is pulled in from everywhere equally sending the smoke straight up. When there is a hole in the circle, the air inflow from that side pushes the smoke towards the opposite side. So if you are getting smoke in your face and then move to the opposite side, the whole you just created has the same effect and now the smoke is going the opposite direction, right where you're sitting. ",
"The air around a campfire is unevenly heated. The hot air (which contains the smoke) wants to rise and the cold air wants to fall. If you had a chimney the hot air would go straight up. Since a campfire by definition doesn't have a chimney though, the hot air will only rise straight up when the air pressure directly above the center of the fire is at the lowest of all possible air pressure values around the fire. But since the hot air will always go straight up as the fire is kindled, eventually there will be enough hot air directly above the campfire's center to change the pressure closer to the fire. Imagine the fire blowing a \"balloon\" of hot air into the cold air above it. \n\nNow when the pressure of air directly above the campfire changes enough, the smoke will not go straight up but will spread out more or less horizontally for a time. This type of interaction is called a \"feedback.\" The direction the smoke now blows in is the result of many tiny differences and feedbacks in the \"Microclimate,\" (the air in the few cubic meters surrounding the campfire) including which direction the smoke itself is blowing and for how long it's been blowing that direction (another feedback). Other possibly significant microclimate differences are the presence and location of humans, animals, vehicles, and their movements; vegetation (trees), bodies of water; larger winds, etc.\n\nAll of these interactions combine to create an environment where for how long the smoke blows in one direction, when it changes, and to which direction it changes, are very hard to predict, even for very advanced computers. This is what's called a \"chaotic system\" and our brains are very poor at deciphering chaos. So a person who has smoke blown in their face will move to a location where the smoke isn't blowing. Next time a shift in the microclimate triggers the smoke to change to a different direction, it will do so chaotically, and if it doesn't blow in the person's direction, the person doesn't notice it. However, on one of the next few future changes, it will likely blow the smoke at the person again, and they may then conclude that the smoke is \"following\" them and then change their position again, changing the microclimate again, in their own feedback cycle."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[],
[],
[],
[],
[]
] |
||
bfsym6 | why aren't plastic water bottles being replaced by canned water? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/bfsym6/eli5_why_arent_plastic_water_bottles_being/ | {
"a_id": [
"elg35br",
"elg3sjm",
"elga3gp",
"elgcqji",
"elgeemx"
],
"score": [
85,
3,
27,
6,
2
],
"text": [
"It exists, but affects the taste some. We're also used to plastic bottles and people tend to see them as a better product, so theres more demand for plastic than aluminum. \n\nGlass is also a good option that overcomes these issues but is more difficult to transport.",
"Cans are for drinking at home or with meals, bottles are better on the go, for the car, for the jog or the workout.\n\nThere are more factors than environmental concerns and ease of recycling, and cans and bottles arennot completely interchangeable.",
"Bottles can be resealed with the cap, which is more convenient. I've never seen a capped can design so far.",
"In emergency Bud Wiser turns their canning operations to water, if you didn't know. \n\n\n [_URL_0_](_URL_0_)",
"I heard most places have this thing called tap water, which is fine to drink. Why do people trick themselves into thinking they need to buy bottled water?"
]
} | [] | [] | [
[],
[],
[],
[
"https://www.brewbound.com/news/anheuser-busch-provides-emergency-drinking-water-to-northern-california-firefighters"
],
[]
] |
||
3076ft | why is everyone seemingly overlooking all of the racist/douchebag things jeremy clarkson has done? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3076ft/eli5_why_is_everyone_seemingly_overlooking_all_of/ | {
"a_id": [
"cppqgcp",
"cppsfoj"
],
"score": [
36,
3
],
"text": [
"People like Clarkson precisely because he's an unapologetic douchebag. In the era of hypersensitivity, manufactured outrage, and cringe-inducing political correctness it's inevitable that Clarkson and people like him get a large following from people who feel it's gone too far.",
"For the same reason Justin Beiber's fans ignore that he's an asshole. They love the actor/performer, and don't really care about what kind of person they are otherwise. \n\nI love the hell out of Top Gear, but I don't see how you can't fire a dude after this many shenanigans. "
]
} | [] | [] | [
[],
[]
] |
||
pmluu | how did earth enter into orbit around the sun? why is it so consistent? | It's been on my mind recently, since we wake up everyday expecting the sun to rise and set, with every year as long as the other without expecting anything different. Even more so, our orbit is a near-perfect circle such that we don't experience extremes of heat or cold that would wipe out all life on Earth. Could someone please explain to me? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/pmluu/eli5_how_did_earth_enter_into_orbit_around_the/ | {
"a_id": [
"c3qkien",
"c3qkw5p",
"c3qkxsl"
],
"score": [
2,
9,
5
],
"text": [
"I'm not qualified to answer this question. \n\nJust wanted to point out that there is definitely evidence of numerous ice ages occurring in the past, not that they have wiped out all life on earth or anything. What I have always wondered is, does this indicate that something opposite to an ice age is possible?",
"Our orbit is elliptic. It's like a flattened circle.\n\nBasic assumption: The sun rotated when it was being created by a bunch of space dust gathering around. The dust rotated too. And some lumps of dust created planets and comets and all.\n\nOnly those with the most stable orbits have remained today.",
"To answer your title question, you're talking about planetary formation. Billions of years ago there was a very large cloud of gas and other debris in space that got kick started into rotating and collapsing by one means or another. As the gas collapsed it got hotter and rotated faster via several laws of physics. If you follow that plan long enough, you get the hottest part in the center to form into a star (our sun). The sun is just a big ball of gas (plasma, technically) that is so hot that it glows. But you still have gas and debris (rocks, metals, ice) rotating around that central point at various distances, and by those same laws of gravity and momentum mentioned earlier those things themselves form into planets. Planets basically form by the same process as a star, but they are not hot enough and don't have enough material to make a star- although Jupiter is fairly close to the right mass, it just didn't quite make it. Anyway, that's how the earth ended up orbiting the sun and remains there to this day. \n\nAs far as your comments about things being perfect for life and for us to exist, let me throw a thought at you that will potentially blow your mind. There are two ways to think about how we are here and living. This often turns into a religious or at least philosophical debate, but the first way is sort of what you are saying- isn't it amazing how we are on this perfect planet, are the perfect distance from the sun, with the perfect temperature, with the perfect amount of water, etc. Look around the solar system and you see extremes that will not support life (so far as we know yet, but that matter is unresolved)....how is it possible that we got everything so perfectly right? Maybe an omnipotent being made it that way? That's one way to look at things.\n\nThe second way is what I prefer. Think of it from the other direction- we wouldn't be here to notice that things are perfect for us if it wasn't just so. So it's not as if the planet was here and made suitable for us to live on, it's just that there so happened to be a planet that was suitable for life and that's why we inhabit it. There are billions of galaxies each with billions of stars in them, and many or most of those stars seem to have planets around them orbiting at various distances, with various temperature schemes, etc. Most of them probably cannot support life as we know it because the universe is a pretty scary and deadly place with a lot of ways that it is actively trying to kill you. But if each planet is part of a multi-billion sided die, if you roll that thing enough, you'll eventually get one with just the right conditions for life. That's us.\n\nI heard someone on a radio station yesterday saying 'Isn't it so lucky that our eyes are tuned to the visible spectrum? That is how the sun outputs most of its light (green being the most output wavelength). If we saw in the UV for example, then we'd be mostly blind. What great fortune for us!' Well that's one way to look at it. But as an example of what I was saying above, I would suggest that we see in the visible BECAUSE the sun outputs so much in the visible, and if it did not, we would see in another band. Point is, we are defining everything as perfect because that's what suits US best. As a thought exercise maybe you could envision another being that requires some other conditions for living, like ice people, who would never have even existed here because they would melt. They surely would not say things are perfect. "
]
} | [] | [] | [
[],
[],
[]
] |
|
1jwiuk | how do bike gears change the amount of work you do but stay the same speed? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1jwiuk/eli5_how_do_bike_gears_change_the_amount_of_work/ | {
"a_id": [
"cbiz3zx",
"cbj2iu6",
"cbj49qz",
"cbj8178"
],
"score": [
28,
7,
2,
4
],
"text": [
"Changing gears doesn't change the amount of work you need to do. It changes the amount of force you need to apply to the pedals, but the trade-off is that you need to make more rotations to go the same speed. For instance, perhaps one gear has you making one revolution per second with a force of 100N, but lower gear might have you make 1.5 revolutions per second with a force of 67N, and a higher gear might have you make half a revolution per second, but will require a force of 200N.\n\nSince work is the force multiplied by the distance, it's always the same, different gears just allow a different ratio of force to distance.",
"Another thing to keep in mind is something called \"Mechanical Advantage.\" As a simple example picture yourself as a FedEx driver and you have a LARGE box that is really HEAVY to put on the back of the truck. Are you going to want to just pick it up, put it all in your back, and lift it straight up to the back of the truck? NO! You will be smart and get a little ramp then slide it up. A ramp is one of many simple machines that supply mechanical advantage ([check this out for more info](_URL_0_)).\n\nBack to the gears, a gear is a form of mechanical advantage. As you can imagine, the chain that connects the two gears will always move the same distance. What I mean is if you picked two points on the chain it would move the same amount around the chain as any other point you picked (unless magic is involved, which I believe it is not). If this is true, and the gear on the back of the bike is currently smaller than the gear the pedals are directly attached to, then for every time the pedal gear rotates, the back gear will have rotated more than once. Ergo you will get \"more\" out of your push than if the gears were about the same size. The bigger the difference, the more of an \"advantage\" you will get. In fact sometimes the front pedal gear ALSO has a gear shift to make it even larger!",
"They don't. When you use different gears the bike moves a different distance with the same revolution of the pedals. You change gears so that each revolution of the pedals takes the same amount of work, but moves the bike a different distance. So, when going downhill, you change to a high gear. Each revolution moves the bike a long way, and you go fast. Going uphill, you shift to a low gear each revolution might take the same time and the same work as when you were going down, but now the bike only moves a short way and you go slow.\n\nGears allow the cyclist to keep putting constant force into the pedals at the most efficient pace for the human body while the load varies due climbing or descending, or to wind resistance. If the force is the same, but the load varies, the speed must vary too. And it does.",
"They don't.\n\nWhat changing gears does is changes the amount of travel of the chain per pedal revolution. This in effect changes the amount of torque applied to the hub, which can be measured as power (W).\n\nTalking about the torque on the hub alone isn't a useful figure, because the ultimate output power is based on what's measured as the number of revolutions per minute at a particular torque placed on the hub.\n\nA standard chain length will be somewhere around 114 links, give or take a bit depending on the length of your dérailleur cage. Consider the following: You're in a reasonably \"middle\" gear on a 3x10sp geared MTB drivetrain - 32T at the front and let's say 23T at the rear.\nBy shifting 'up' (taller gear) at the front, you increase to 42T. What this does is changes the length that the chain will travel per rotation of the pedals, so the chain will travel 42 links per rotation instead of 32. On 23T, you're now trying to turn the rear wheel almost two full rotations instead of less than 1.5 per rotation of the pedals. Chain movement is resisted and transferred essentially from the rear hub, which is connected to the cassette.\n\nNow say you stayed on the 32T chainring, and changed from 16T on the cassette to... let's drop it all the way up the cassette to say 32T - I pick that ratio because it's a nice 1:1 (and 2:1 at 16T). As the pedals rotate, you've now gone from one rotation of the crank arms moving the rear wheel two full rotations, to one full rotation of the crank arms moving the rear wheel only a single rotation.\nThis of course requires less torque being applied to the hub, but will only have you travel half the distance (about 2350mm instead of 4700mm).\n\nOkay, so up to now you're probably thinking \"right, but that doesn't really answer my question\".\nKnowing this, you should now understand that it takes about half as much energy to pedal the bike at 100rpm on 32-32 as it does to pedal at 100rpm (cadence) at 32-16. However you only get half as much output in wheel travel.\nFew people can pedal at 200rpm either, so you're not really going to get the same amount of output power from those ratios.\n\nInstead, let's pick a more sane example:\nYou're riding at 32-16, and you go up to the big ring but want to maintain the same speed, so now you're on 42-16. Initially you'll pedal slightly slower, until your speed increases such that you can maintain the same level of torque on the rear hub. You might think \"okay, so clearly I'm producing more power now\", but no, not necessarily. If the actual torque you put on the pedals remains only at half at the same cadence, then yes - but if you're not putting torque on the hub, then you're not producing power.\n\n\"Work\" in a real sense is measured as Power (Watts). What you probably mean though, is that it feels like you're not pushing as hard on the pedals. This doesn't mean you're not doing as much work, it merely means you're not outputting as much power. At higher speeds you have more momentum (but it requires more output power to cut through wind resistance).\n\nI don't know if this quite answers your question or is explained clearly, but I'm happy to clarify any missing bits."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[],
[
"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mechanical_advantage"
],
[],
[]
] |
||
fg9c9p | how do watermarks work, and what are they for? | [deleted] | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/fg9c9p/eli5_how_do_watermarks_work_and_what_are_they_for/ | {
"a_id": [
"fk37nt9",
"fk3lnhg"
],
"score": [
8,
2
],
"text": [
"Watermarks on an image are typically a semitransparent logo or signature layered over the original image, typically a stock photo or a drawing, in order to prevent other people from taking the image and claiming it as their own.",
"A watermark is a mark on a document that allows the document to be seen, but also permanently marks or with its source.\n\nThis means a document can be made public, but in the event someone tries to copy it, the watermark will show that they are not the original source.\n\nA good example is the watermark used on a digital image - a lot of image libraries will show you all of the images they have available, but marked with the name of the library all over the picture. This means you can look through the library and cost an image your want to use (as they can still be easily seen through the watermark), but before you can use it you will need to pay they library to give you a copy of the image without the watermark. If you just copy the image they show them everyone else is able to see that it is an image from the library and you have not paid for it."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[],
[]
] |
|
7hghyx | what are different poisons made of to make them more or less poisonous? mostly on a molecular level and happens to the body on a cellular level when poisoned?(i.e. ricin) | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/7hghyx/eli5_what_are_different_poisons_made_of_to_make/ | {
"a_id": [
"dqqs9ju",
"dqqtb2x"
],
"score": [
5,
2
],
"text": [
"Things that are poisonous are usually those that inhibit some important bodily function in some way. Take, say, a neurotoxin, is something that will prevent your nerves from functioning properly, which is a very big problem indeed. Some poisons block bodily processes by getting in the way, acting as enzyme blockers (enzymes are active molecules inside your body that help get specific things done by binding to certain molecules and doing something to them. If some toxin binds to an enzyme which is can't process, the enzyme can't do its job anymore and you have a problem), or by destroying important cells. \n\nIt all depends on the poison in itself, and what bodily function specifically it creates a problem for. That's why neurotoxins are a very potent type - your nervous system is generally very important. Ricin specifically messes up the ribosomal RNA within your cells, which blocks protein synthesis, and various proteins are very important to our bodily function.",
"The potency of a poison depends on the poison (what kind of poison, dosage, one big incident or living in a contaminated area), the method of application (drinking it, inhaling it, ...), the circumstances (your diet, rest or exertion, getting treatment after the poisoning) and the victim (size, health).\nThere are a *lot* of ways for poisons to work in the body. Most poisons are on a molecular level similar to a normal atom or molecule of the body and replace it in the body. Here are some examples:\n\n* Carbon monoxide and cyanide are blocking the molecule which transports oxygen through the body. The cells suffocate.\n* Ricin stops the regeneration of the cells.\n\nIf you want to read more try \"[The Poisoners Handbook](_URL_0_)\" by Deborah Blum. Great book about the beginning of forensic toxicology a science."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[],
[
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Poisoner%27s_Handbook"
]
] |
||
660bvj | why aren't we using phytoplankton to add oxygen to the atmosphere to balance out the co2? | [deleted] | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/660bvj/eli5_why_arent_we_using_phytoplankton_to_add/ | {
"a_id": [
"dgels7z",
"dgemnyr"
],
"score": [
2,
3
],
"text": [
"Because adding more oxygen doesn't solve the problem of CO2 being in the atmosphere acting as a greenhouse gas. So there's really no point in adding more oxygen to the atmosphere.",
"Phytoplankton is actually the largest contributor of O2 in the atmosphere. Given the huge surface area of the ocean and how much phytoplankton grows there, it vacuums up literal tons of CO2 and converts it into O2. We are certainly doing our best to cultivate that, but there's not a lot humans can do to manipulate that. The oceans are already massive, us making some ponds to culture phyto aren't going to make any difference.\n\nWhat *is* making a difference is the increased temperatures in the ocean, which many species of phytoplankton are not adapted to. Fortunately, the additional available CO2 can encourage the species that *can* stand the higher temperatures to grow a lot more. Corals and macroalgae (seaweeds) also provide a *lot* of O2 and act as carbon sinks.\n\nThe problem with making O2 is that the C (carbon) still has to go *somewhere*. With plants like trees, the carbon is stored in cellulose, starch, and simpler sugars that the trees either use as food or use to grow physically larger. However, when those sugars are used for their energy, the carbon is reattached to the O2, just like when we use sugar for energy. So no matter how much carbon dioxide a plant converts into oxygen, if the plant is using its energy stores just as fast, it's not acting as a carbon *sink* and it's balancing to a net zero: just as much CO2 out as O2 out. Individual plankton cells are bad carbon sinks because they just aren't big enough to hold onto the carbon. They don't built big strong bodies like trees that require literal tons of carbon. So individual plankton cells mostly just recycle the O2 they produce right back into CO2.\n\nBut there is *so much* phytoplankton that they still act as a significant carbon sink for the planet. Each individual cell doesn't use a lot, but each cell reproduces into more cells, which use a tiny bit themselves. Moreover, when the plankton dies it can drift down deep into the ocean and settle there, trapping the carbon for (hopefully) millions of years - that's where most of the oil in the world came from. The phytoplankton also feeds animals that use the carbon to build their own bodies, like corals, which can build up huge skeletons on top of other ancient coral skeletons, again trapping the carbon there for millions of years.\n\nBut the oceans are still dying. Corals are dying, fish are disappearing, and that makes using the ocean as a carbon sink a lot more difficult. And no matter what, it's still something that's pretty far outside of our control because it's all just too *big*."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[],
[]
] |
|
23hvos | if lightning travels at the speed of light, how can we perceive a "lightning bolt" as a traveling, moving bolt, and how come it doesn't just look like someone flipped a light on and off really fast? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/23hvos/eli5_if_lightning_travels_at_the_speed_of_light/ | {
"a_id": [
"cgx5nys",
"cgx5ofp",
"cgx5p7t",
"cgx5r0c"
],
"score": [
11,
2,
2,
6
],
"text": [
"Lightning doesn't travel at the speed of light, because it isn't light. Lightning is an electric discharge - it moves very fast, but not light speed.",
"The light of the lightning travels at the speed of light, the actual electrical charge travels slower.",
"Lighting is an electric discharge not light, so it doesn't move at the speed of light. The light that comes off of the lightning bolt does travel at the speed of light and that is why you see it before you hear the crack/thunder.",
"Lighting is electricity, thus it doesn't move at the speed of light.\n\nThink of the lightning bolt as a headlight on a car. The headlight is not moving at the speed of light, but the light that's hitting your eye allowing you to perceive it is."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[],
[],
[],
[]
] |
||
4tc8c1 | how does 2-way glass work? if light can go through one way why can't it go through the other way also? | edit: I think I mean one-way glass | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4tc8c1/eli5_how_does_2way_glass_work_if_light_can_go/ | {
"a_id": [
"d5g76rf",
"d5g7bu4",
"d5gc5vg"
],
"score": [
11,
4,
2
],
"text": [
"AFAIK it's just glass that's very reflective, letting through only a tiny bit of light no matter which way you look through it. The trick is to light up the \"interrogation room\" side very brightly, and keep the \"observation\" side dark. That way it looks like a mirror from one side, but because it's dark on your side, you see a lot less of your own reflection and more of the light coming through.",
"Presumably you meant 1-way glass, or a 1-way mirror. In fact one way mirrors do not block all light. They simply use a very thin mirror coating, or sometimes a mylar film, that still lets about 50% of the light through. When light is shown directly on the reflective surface the reflection is strong enough that it obfuscates most of the background image. Depending on the light intensity and angle, a keen eye would be able to see figures behind the glass, but wouldn't be able to discern details. The effect is made better by dimming the lights in the adjoining room.",
"Glare. \n\nThe light does pass through both ways but if the reflective side of the glass is brightly lit, and the non reflective side is in a darker room, then the person looking at the glass will only see the brighter light of their reflection. \n\nIf you turned off the lights in the mirror side of the glass, and somebody on the invisible side of the glass turned on a flashlight, you would be able to see it. \n\nThink of it like trying to look through the glare of a windshield on a sunny day and not being able to see inside the car easily, because the reflected light is much stronger than the light coming from inside the car. "
]
} | [] | [] | [
[],
[],
[]
] |
|
n1c8k | why don't new games run well on my 3 year old pc but run fine on a 6 year old xbox 360? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/n1c8k/eli5_why_dont_new_games_run_well_on_my_3_year_old/ | {
"a_id": [
"c35hmqo",
"c35hwii",
"c35hmqo",
"c35hwii"
],
"score": [
11,
3,
11,
3
],
"text": [
"When someone makes a game for a PC, they have to make a decision about what kind of PC they want to target. If they target older PC's, then they can have a wider customer base, but their graphics aren't gonna be as nice, which means their screenshots won't look as good, which may mean the game will not sell very well (since unfortunately a lot of people judge games by their screenshots). Or they could decide to target newer PCs, which means the graphics will look great, but many people will have to upgrade their PCs to play it, and some people might not be willing to upgrade their PCs.\n\nIn contrast, you cannot upgrade an Xbox360. So the game-designers design the game to run perfectly with exactly that hardware. There's no need to make decisions about how powerful an xbox360 they want to support, since all the xbox360s are equally powerful.",
"First of all you can optimize your code easier on a device that don't change it's components every year or so. \n\nAnother thing is that best graphics on a console are nowhere near the best graphics a PC can do.",
"When someone makes a game for a PC, they have to make a decision about what kind of PC they want to target. If they target older PC's, then they can have a wider customer base, but their graphics aren't gonna be as nice, which means their screenshots won't look as good, which may mean the game will not sell very well (since unfortunately a lot of people judge games by their screenshots). Or they could decide to target newer PCs, which means the graphics will look great, but many people will have to upgrade their PCs to play it, and some people might not be willing to upgrade their PCs.\n\nIn contrast, you cannot upgrade an Xbox360. So the game-designers design the game to run perfectly with exactly that hardware. There's no need to make decisions about how powerful an xbox360 they want to support, since all the xbox360s are equally powerful.",
"First of all you can optimize your code easier on a device that don't change it's components every year or so. \n\nAnother thing is that best graphics on a console are nowhere near the best graphics a PC can do."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[],
[],
[],
[]
] |
||
46uizj | if kids are normally taller than their parents, does that mean the human population is steadily growing in average height? | And if that is true then does it mean our great ancestors were comparatively super short? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/46uizj/eli5_if_kids_are_normally_taller_than_their/ | {
"a_id": [
"d07yp21",
"d07yvb5",
"d07z8b1",
"d081wui"
],
"score": [
23,
17,
7,
4
],
"text": [
"Yes but no. Children are often taller than their parents because people get shorter as they age due to spinal cartilage wearing down. The average height of the population is increasing over time, but that's because height is seen as an attractive feature and more likely to be passed to future generations.",
"There is evidence that humans have been getting taller, but its largely due to environmental reasons (better nutrition) and not necessarily genetics. It also doesn't mean that trend has continued forever. I am pretty sure we have a good idea of how tall humans were based on the bone record.",
"Improvement in nutrition is the most important factor for the increase in average height of the human population. even a middle-class person can afford a protein rich diet for his children. \nBut this doesn't mean that height will keep on growing. Because of our genes, there's an upper limit to the height irrespective of all the environmental changes. ",
"A lot is nutrition. I can remember reading an article about Korea and it was discussing how at the time of separation both countries were roughly the same height. However, because of the poorer diet of North Korea since then people who grow up in the south are now a couple of inches taller."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[],
[],
[],
[]
] |
|
a1jgz0 | if a five point seatbelt harness is deemed much safer from race car drivers to infants in collisions, then why is it not installed as the standard seatbelt for normal cars, which is only over the shoulder and lap? | [deleted] | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/a1jgz0/eli5_if_a_five_point_seatbelt_harness_is_deemed/ | {
"a_id": [
"eaq947e",
"eaq95tl",
"eaq9ylb",
"eaqcail"
],
"score": [
4,
2,
15,
5
],
"text": [
"I'm betting it's a convenience thing. The 3 point belt is probably safe enough. That and the race car driver is more likely to flip over, that's also why they habe a roll cage and most normal cars would save money and weight by not having one. ",
"I would assume it is out of convenience. It's hard enough to get people to wear a standard seatbelt with one clasp, let alone a 5 point harness with several connections and adjustments. ",
"Because research has shown that the more work it is to put on, the more people will not wear their seatbelt *at all,* greatly increasing fatalities.\n\nIn fact the current 3-point belt was not popular until a clever mechanism was invented to make it automatically change length for the person who puts it on. Too much work to just adjust the length!",
"5 point restraints pretty much keep you pinned to your seat. You can move your arms and head and that's about it. You cant move your body in the seat, you cant reposition yourself, you cant even lean forward to reach out to close the door."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[],
[],
[],
[]
] |
|
2gf303 | why are american companies allowed to destroy net neutrality if the internet is an international resource? | Just been reading about net neutrality and it seems that all the problems are coming from America and big American companies, but then everyone says it will affect the rest of the world. I was just wondering if anyone could shed some light on how they are allowed to do this and not face any backlash from other countries? Thanks guys
Edit: thanks heaps for the replies everyone, clears it right up! thanks again :) | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2gf303/eli5_why_are_american_companies_allowed_to/ | {
"a_id": [
"ckiihwe",
"ckiix5v",
"ckij10o",
"ckijluj",
"ckijzit",
"ckik3hg"
],
"score": [
4,
2,
2,
2,
2,
2
],
"text": [
"The American government can do pretty much whatever it wants with American companies on American soil. The only way it affects other countries is when they use American resources, so they are allowed to do whatever they want.\n\nPolitical backlash (the only thing they *may* face) is day-to-day business between governments.",
"More or less same way China can block webpages in China, while the rest of the world can view them. It holds no bearing on how the rest of the world operates the networks in their nations, though it may set precedent for other governments. ",
"american companies, net neutrality is affecting american consumers as its american companies doing it. It will affect the rest of the world as most things do, but its primarily a American issue ",
"The Internet isn't a \"resource\". It's a series of networks run by a mix of government agencies and private companies around the world all connected together. Any decision the US reaches on net neutrality would only apply to the parts of the network that operate in the United States, which happens to be a good chunk of the Internet infrastructure.. ",
"The Internet is a giant interlinked collection of computers and software. Some computers are owned by some groups. Some computers are owned by others.\n\n\nThere are some areas of the Internet that only exist to move information around and maintain connections. These are the ISPs. If some guy has a server in the US, and is only connected to the Internet through a US ISP, then anything that ISP does affects how the rest of the Internet receives and interacts with that server.\n\n\nIt's a giant complicated ball of ... stuff. I'm not saying I agree with some of the conclusions companies and politicians make based off this, but that's the story.",
"Because an enormous chunk of the physical aspects of the internet are located within the borders of the United States."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[]
] |
|
1kbl7l | i've never had health insurance in my 22 years of life and finally have insurance from my employer. can you please explain how typical insurance works in the us? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1kbl7l/eli5ive_never_had_health_insurance_in_my_22_years/ | {
"a_id": [
"cbnaqzr",
"cbnawa0"
],
"score": [
3,
2
],
"text": [
"Your insurance company has negotiated rates for services with a network of doctors. So they typically will charge you one rate for \"in network\" doctors, and another (higher) rate for \"out of network\" doctors. The insurance company will give you a book (or look on their website) with a list of doctors in their network. Select one of them.\n\nFor some services (like a doctor visit), they'll charge you a flat fee ($35-75). For other things, they'll charge you a co-pay, which is a percentage they'll say you're responsible for. They'll split the cost with you. A great co-pay rate is 90/10 or 80/20. If yours is 80/20, then they'll pay 80% and you pay 20%. If you have, say, a test that costs $200, and your co-pay is 80/20, then you'll pay $40 (20% of $200).\n\nFor crappier plans, you'll have a deductible, which is an amount you'll need to pay fully by yourself before they'll start splitting the costs with you via co-pays. The lower the deductible the better. If you have a $1,000 deductible, then your insurance company isn't going to pay for anything until you've paid $1,000 out of your pocket first. Once you've met your deductible, then co-insurance (co-pays) kicks in. The best deductible to have is $0. If it's $0, then they'll split with you via co-pays immediately. Often, even with a deductible, they'll have negotiated rates you can pay for doctor visits.\n\nEverything is on an annual basis, so if you paid your deductible this year, and are now on co-pays, but then January 1st rolls around again, then you lose the co-pays and have to pay the deductible again before they'll split with you.\n\nIf you keep splitting with them via co-insurance, eventually you'll reach your out-of-pocket maximum. This is the maximum you'll ever have to pay in a year. So let's say you have a $2,500 deductible, 70/30 co-insurance, and a $10,000 out-of-pocket maximum (this is a typical crappy-ish plan). You pay the first $2,500 on your own. Then you pay 30% for everything after that, until the amount you've actually paid out of your pocket hits $10,000. After that, you won't have to pay for anything else for the rest of the year, even if you're in a terrible accident. But on each January 1st, it all resets. \n\nThere can be annual caps ($1,000,000?) and lifetime maximums too, but I think Obamacare made lifetime limits illegal.\n\nTypically you'll see an internist (a specialist in internal medicine) as your primary care physician. This is who you go to first for any problem. They will give you an annual physical and will treat you if you have an issue. If you have a more in-depth issue that requires a specialist, your primary care physician will refer you to one. If you need a specialist (cardiologist/heart, gastroenterologist/digestive system, ophthalmologist/eyes, etc), choose one that's in-network for your insurance plan.\n\nIf you're young and healthy, you should have a dentist, a primary care physician (internal medicine), and a dermatologist to check for skin cancer moles/growths. Unless you have other problems, that's all you'll need.",
"You're gonna have a lot of reading to do .. your employer will hand you many pamphlets with a variety of insurance information. Health insurance usually is 2 types .. preferred network or private practice (PPO) .. whoever you chose, you pay a certain fee per visit, the preferred networks costs are typically lower than PPO. The doctor bills your insurance and then you may be responsible for the portion the insurance does not pay. Prescription coverage is similar, the doctor can verify whether your insurance covers the medication they are suggesting, typically a generic prescription like Amoxcillin will run you $10 / $20, instead of $70 if you didn't have insurance. You need to read all of the pamphlets you receive from your employer as some benefits only become available when you opt in, such as Life Insurance or Counseling .. these may be available through the insurance provider, but the cost may not be shared by your employer."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[],
[]
] |
||
6bcj24 | what is the technological difference between lasers that produce visible light (like the red, green, blue lasers) and the lasers that are invisible (like, i guess, the electric eye ones)? | It it some sort of crystal that determines if it's visible and the color? Like Jedi crystal parallels? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/6bcj24/eli5_what_is_the_technological_difference_between/ | {
"a_id": [
"dhlih17"
],
"score": [
2
],
"text": [
"In general, the material used in the laser determines the wavelength of light that they emit. The wavelength of that light is determines the colour of the light. The human eye is sensitive to only a certain part of these frequencies, and so cannot \"see\" the \"invisible\" beams you describe. The materials used in a laser are special...you can't just randomly try anything. The early lasers used ruby crystals, and produced red light. More exotic materials have been found to be able to be *excited* to produce laser light. Red, green, blue, ultra-violet and x-ray lasers have been built. "
]
} | [] | [] | [
[]
] |
|
52fzq9 | what is the difference between fbi and cbi? | I'm not a US citizen and Mentalist got me confused.
Edit: CBI as in California Bureau of Investigation. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/52fzq9/eli5_what_is_the_difference_between_fbi_and_cbi/ | {
"a_id": [
"d7jx9k3",
"d7jxkq7"
],
"score": [
5,
3
],
"text": [
"I think you might mean FBI and CIA, but I'll include a blurb about the CBI first just in case.\n\nThe Caribbean Basin Initiative or 'CBI' was the United State's trade treaty with Central America before NAFTA replaced it. It provided low-tariff trade and economic development.\n\nThe Federal Bureau of Investigation or 'FBI' is a national police force. The FBI investigates criminals, particularly those involved with organized crime, high level crimes, and those who are wanted in a number of places. For example, the FBI is presently looking for William Bradford Bishop Jr, who murdered his wife and 3 children in 1976, dumped the bodies, and disappeared.\n\nThe Central Intelligence Agency or 'CIA' is the United States' spy agency. Their job is to find out what enemy nations or transnational movements are up to. They do this through a number of departments and strategies, including aerial observation, undercover operatives, and wiretapping. For example, the CIA is presently looking for Abu Bakr al Baghdadi, the head of ISIS, so that they can relay his position to the military for bombing.",
"Different jurisdictions (i.e. what laws they deal with and where they do it). \nThe FBI is a law enforcement agency of the US government. \nThe CBI is a law enforcement agency of the State of California. It's specialty tends to be in helping other law enforcement agencies with major investigations by providing experience that smaller (more local) law enforcement agencies might lack. \n"
]
} | [] | [] | [
[],
[]
] |
|
99it7i | how did ancient egyptian currency work? | What was the value of the coins ? I mean did they have any denominations (eg. $5 bill, $10 bill, $1 coin). Or was it that each coin was worth 1 unit? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/99it7i/eli5_how_did_ancient_egyptian_currency_work/ | {
"a_id": [
"e4o19zy"
],
"score": [
2
],
"text": [
"They had a multitude of currencies from goods for trading to precious metals as weighed currency. They didn’t use a form of general coinage though.\n\nSource:\n_URL_0_"
]
} | [] | [] | [
[
"https://www.quora.com/Did-ancient-Egypt-have-money-How-did-it-work"
]
] |
|
ve73p | the use of miltiary drones controversary, please | *Originally I had no text here, but I thought I'd try to clarify my question. The below was added 1 hour after my OP:*
I get what drones are: unmanned aircraft that are able to fire rockets at targets.
What I don't understand is why anyone care if we use drones. We, in theory, don't strike unless we are sure that a terrorist is at the location.
If we send in troops there is no guarantee civilians are not going to be harmed and we risk the loss of those troopers' lives.
Also, why is using drones so "ethically grey" when we already use cruise missiles that can be fired from hundreds of miles off shore.
Lastly, who cares if it is "cowardly" to hunt for the enemy from afar? The United States was one of the first first countries in recent history to use "cowardly" guerrilla warfare back in the US Revolution when the Redcoats wanted us to stand in a line in a field and fight with volleys of bullets.
Every advancement to weaponry in history has had two purposes:
* Kill the enemy faster
* Reduce risk to yourself
First we learned to use sticks and throw rocks instead of our fists. Then we learned to use guns instead of knives. Then we got better guns and rifles that are more accurate at farther distances. Now we have drones instead of manned F16s. This, to me, seems like the natural progression of warfare.
Honestly, why there is a controversy is a mystery to me. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/ve73p/eli5_the_use_of_miltiary_drones_controversary/ | {
"a_id": [
"c53pn4v",
"c53porc",
"c53vq99",
"c544bmn"
],
"score": [
3,
2,
8,
2
],
"text": [
"The drones are unmanned planes that can fire missiles. With them, we've managed to take out quite a few higher-ups in Al-Quaeda but there are usually civilian casualties as well. That's where most of the controversy comes from, the civilian deaths. Another reason is because Obama redefined \"civilian\" to mean really only women and children so they'd have to report fewer civilian deaths.\n\nThen there was another controversy when one of the leaders targeted by a drone strike was legally a US citizen. People don't like that he didn't get due process or a chance in court.",
"Armed drones are being used to hunt and kill individuals with suspected terrorist ties. \n\nSince it is done at a distance with powerful weapons over foreign nations, positive identifications are hard to make, so the wrong people may be targeted, innocent people around the suspect are killed just for being nearby, and *usually* killing citizens is a cause for war.\n\nYour terrorism suspect never gets a day in court, and the country the strike was in appears weak since they didn't defend their citizens. It is also seen as cowardly since the drone's pilots are sitting half a world away not risking anything but an airframe.",
"It's not the weapons system itself, it's how they're being used. \n\n* Often this involves places the US wants to pretend it's not doing these things, places like Pakistan, Somalia, Yemen and Mali. That the US is killing people there is much more controversial than how it's actually happening.\n\n* Drones also make it relatively easy and cost-free. If you lose a drone, you shrug and buy another one. If you lose a squad of special forces, it's a real problem. It's just like any other standoff weapon (like arrows or cruise missiles) in that respect -- if you lose nothing whether you gain or not, it makes the argument to use them easier.\n\n* Much of the intelligence is not very precise. The targeters try very hard to make sure they're not killing the wrong people, but it's just the nature of the conflict. The vast majority of the targeting info is being gathered by using video or signals intercepts, which means the operators don't necessarily have a very good idea of what's going on or who's around before they pull the trigger. If the kids haven't been outside to play or the subject of a phone call, you might not know they're in the house.\n\n* They might be used to assassinate people outside the legal rules of warfare. Now, these rules are pretty antiquated and are much better suited to fights between uniformed, identifiable armies rather than low-intensity insurgencies, counterterrorism and blurred borders, but targeted assassinations in 3rd countries are pretty clearly not legal. The US government's argument is that the war is anywhere there are Al Qaeda or Taliban affiliates, but the legality is a little iffy. Add in the occasional targeting of US citizens without trial.\n\n* The big controversy, at least in the circles that I travel, is that they are being used a lot, so much that to an extent they become the default foreign policy to anywhere with a hostile Islamist group. The argument is that we would think a lot more carefully if we had to send lots of troops in to kill people. We might even decide not to kill people there, or decide to do things very differently (like COIN in Afghanistan, for example). But if we use drones, we don't have to worry about those things, in fact we might not even know what the issues are, and consequently we might be killing people we shouldn't, or pissing people off that we don't want to, or making the fight last longer -- we'll never know, because we're not trying to talk to anyone in the area.\n\nTake all that stuff together, it makes things controversial. To paraphrase a smarter friend, if all this doesn't make you at least a little uncomfortable you're probably missing something.",
"The primary controversy is not in the weapons themselves. It's that they have become a kind of \"get out of jail free\" card for using military action in other countries.\n\nSending in troops, bombing, or launching missiles is an act of war. It's against international law. That doesn't mean we haven't occasionally done such a thing. We bombed Libya. We bombed AQ training camps in Afghanistan. These type of actions were almost exclusively against \"rogue nations\" and they resulted in significant diplomatic backlash. The resulting backlash made sure such actions were used very rarely.\n\nWhat's very concerning about how drones are being dealt with is that they seem to be becoming a common everyday feature of foreign policy, rather than a rare last and final option. People feel this creates a far more dangerous world and people worry about countries and groups far less savory than the United States taking a similar attitude towards their use."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[],
[],
[],
[]
] |
|
9no5pv | how do computers store information? and why is there an integer limit in computing? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/9no5pv/eli5_how_do_computers_store_information_and_why/ | {
"a_id": [
"e7nr47r",
"e7nsdez",
"e7nx34x",
"e7o64bt"
],
"score": [
5,
3,
6,
2
],
"text": [
"All the letters and numbers we use have [corresponding combinations of 1's and 0's](_URL_0_), and the computer stores the 1's and 0's on magnetic disks (hard drives) as magnetic pulses, on CD/DVD's as \"pits\" in the reflective film, or on flash drives as tiny electrical charges in the memory chips inside the flash drive.\n\nThere's an integer limit because the processors and computer electronics are hard-wired to move data internally using 32, 64, and in some cases 128 wires at the same time, and processors operate with 64 bits of data (64 1's and 0's) at a time, so there's a limit to how big a number the processor can work with. Your computer can express bigger numbers, but the processor will have to break a bigger number into chunks it can handle, and work on each chunk at a time.",
"To better elaborate on the integer limit: on one bit (a 0 or a 1) you can store two possible numbers. Let's choose 0 and 1. Now if you have two bits, you can store twice as many as there are twice as many combinations now: 00, 01, 10, 11. These also happen to be the representation of 0, 1, 2 and 3 in the binary number system. Three bits allow you store twice as many (000, 001, ..., 110, 111) which can represent numbers between 0 and 7.\n\nIn a decimal (base 10) system, whenever you add a digit, you can store 10 times as many numbers: 0-9 on one digit maximum, 0-99 on two digits maximum, etc. \nIn a binary (base 2) system, whenever you add a digit, you can store 2 times as many numbers: 0-1 on one digit maximum, 00-11 on two digits maximum, etc.\n\nComputers store numbers in a binary (base 2) system, where 1 is represented by a jolt of electricity or a mark on a disk, and 0 is represented by no electricity/no mark. A 64-bit CPU does everything with 64-bit (64 digit) numbers. One bit can represent two numbers, and with every new bit twice as much, so we have 2\\^64 (2\\*2\\*2\\*...\\*2\\*2 all in all 64 times) possible numbers. 64-bit values thus can either store the first 2\\^64 integers, or more commonly the first 2\\^63-1 positive and 2\\^63 negative integers.",
"You don't need to know binary to understand this. You do need to understand two things, though:\n\n1. Digits. Each number requires a certain number of digits. 545 requires 3 digits. 384271 requires 6 digits. Yes, computers use a different numbering system (binary) and will therefore require different numbers of digits, but the concept is the same: each number requires a certain number of digits. Also, for a certain number of digits, there is a maximum number that can be stored. For example, the biggest 3-digit number that can be stored is 999. 1000 is right out.\n1. Memory addresses. Everything a computer is working on (*everything*) is stored in its memory. The way that a computer uses its memory is by using addresses. Instructions for a computer are like \"store the number 5 into address #1832\". Then later \"what was stored at address #1832 again? I need that now\". So whenever a computer is storing something in memory, or retrieving something from memory, it has to be able to figure out what address it should be using.\n\nAlright, so once you've got those two things understood, there's an unfortunate consequence of this. In order for a computer to easily/quickly figure out which address something's stored in, the address should be *fixed*. If we're doing an accounting program and we start storing the total in address #1500, it's got to stay there! Constantly moving stuff around in memory is a nightmare because you've got to have a system to keep track of where everything is, so keep all the addresses fixed.\n\nIf your addresses are fixed, then that means the *sizes* (number of digits) must also be fixed. You've got to say \"okay I think my total will require a maximum of 10 digits, so let's use address #1500 through #1509\". If you later realize 10 digits wasn't enough, you're stuck. You can't make the number bigger (what if there's another number you're storing at address #1510) and you don't want to move things around, either. So you make a good guess as to what the biggest reasonable number you're going to need will be.\n\nYour addresses are fixed. The size of your numbers are fixed. For a number of a given size, there's a maximum number that can be stored there. Ultimately, that means your program's going to have limits on what kind of numbers they can store.\n\nThere are systems to get around this. They're called [bignums](_URL_0_). They have a book-keeping system to start off a number as being small, then grow it dynamically as it needs to get bigger. The book-keeping system is required because as the number gets bigger, it may need to be move to a new (free) spot in memory, so you need to always keep track of which address in memory it's moved to. Bignums aren't used all that often (usually only in specialized applications) because all the extra book-keeping makes performance quite poor.",
"Computers store information in way you can throw a colored block in a box. That same colored block will be there as often as you open the box until you put a different one in.\n\nComputers have an integer limit for the same reason your hands have a 10 digit limit. Somewhere a choice was made that you get 10 fingers, and that's all you get. If you want to represent something that takes 11 fingers you'll need to time share the 10 you have or find someone to stand next to you with another 10."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[
"http://sticksandstones.kstrom.com/appen.html"
],
[],
[
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arbitrary-precision_arithmetic"
],
[]
] |
||
1fnoav | or elifive: when to use numbers instead of words and vice-versa (5 or five? ten or 10?) | It does seem a little bit odd that numbers have words that mean the same thing. Is there a reason for this? Are there times when we must use the word (Five) instead of the number (5)? How about the reverse? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1fnoav/eli5_or_elifive_when_to_use_numbers_instead_of/ | {
"a_id": [
"cabzxuv",
"cac3fcg"
],
"score": [
16,
3
],
"text": [
"Words if it's ten or under. Numbers if 11 and up.",
"Proper grammar is:\n\n1) Always use numbers when dealing with mathematics\n\n2) Numbers when it is a date (You wouldn't write July third, two-thousand-thirteen, you write July 3rd, 2013\n\n3) Numbers when it is a street name (1st Avenue, not First Avenue)\n\n4) Letters for numbers one through ninety-nine, Numbers for numbers 100+\n\n5) Not entirely sure about this one, but there's a rule about if you have more than one number in a sentence, (Such as \"I have 20 apples and 9 oranges.\" Instead of \"I have twenty apples and nine oranges.\") Although I don't remember this rule completely, might be the opposite :P\n\n\nEdit: I accidentally an enter key."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[],
[]
] |
|
2uf9b4 | why is anarchy on the left-hand side of the spectrum, and not on the right? | The more right-winged you are, the more you believe in small government, so would it not follow that anarchists, who believe in no government at all, are the most right-winged of them all? Left-wingers on the other hand believe in the distribution of wealth. How could an anarchist be a left-winger if he/she believes in no taxes or government intervention whatsoever?
Edit: I don't mean Anarcho-Capitilism or Anarcho-Communism, just straight up Anarchism. Thanks /u/CutOffUrJohnson. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2uf9b4/eli5_why_is_anarchy_on_the_lefthand_side_of_the/ | {
"a_id": [
"co7uba8",
"co7uirm",
"co7v51f",
"co7wme8",
"co7x6ne",
"co85slo",
"co86ntg",
"co88fmj",
"co8lyhc",
"co8suo1",
"co8veay"
],
"score": [
8,
3,
7,
19,
2,
6,
22,
2,
5,
3,
2
],
"text": [
"Anarchism is classless / stateless and therefore a form of socialism.\n\nTheir Capitalistic cousins are called Anarcho-Capitalists and would be considered right wing.",
"Right wing vs Left wing can have some very different implications depending on where in the world you are talking about. In its broadest sense right wing political philosophy advocates some form of hierarchical or class based social distinction which tends to result in a greater emphasis on individualism and in many cases less government involvement in private affairs while left wing advocates for a more egalitarian social structure more akin to collectivist ideals, but that is a very loose characterization. Anarchism is also a broad spectrum of political and social philosophies. There are anarcho-capitalists which would be considered pretty extreme right wing by most standards, and anarcho-communists and anarcho-syndicalists which are far more left in their concepts, not to mention many flavors of anarchism in between. Basically anarchism isn't inherently left or right wing in its philosophy.",
"Historically, the most serious anarchy movements were about anarcho-communism, so the term anarchy kind of defaults to that.\n\nApart from a few nihilists (usually with trust funds), not a lot of people have advocated for pure anarchy.",
"If I recall correctly communism relies on a temporary government which dissolves itself after the transition to a communist state has come to a fruition. Classical anarchism wants to skip the temporary government altogether.\n\nSo anarchism is a traditionally socialist ideology which since then has been adapted by other socio-economical philosophies (ironically by some who are very keen on keeping classes and wealth separated instead of equally distributed).",
"It is more accurate to say that right wing means power concentrated in a small government, ideally a single king. Left wing means distribution of power over a large government of many people, ideally all if them. When everyone has an equal share of power, that is perfect left wingedness and that's anarchy",
"When the right-wing talk about small government, they mean reducing the functions of the state and replacing them with services provided by private businesses. Anarchism is, and always has been, anti-capitalist so it follows that anarchists reject the right-wing's idea of small government. We see the state and capitalism as equally bad and want to do away with both of them. Anarchists are against the _state_, but not necessarily against _government_, we believe that people should govern themselves without the state or capitalism. In a way anarchists believe in _big government_, that is the _biggest government possible_, a society run by everyone not just the minority who make decisions for the rest of us.",
"Holy shit, will people who are not anarchists stop pulling answers out of their asses?\n\nFirst, I wanna address your edit. Anarchism is a really diverse ideology with many sub groups under it. Anarcho-communism falls under the umbrella, and you'll see why when I continue my explanation. Anarcho-capitalism does not, but I won't bother explaining why not.\n\nOkay, so first, you're definitions of \"right\" vs \"left\" are wrong. The simple explanation is that far right wing is full private\\* capitalism, far left wing is full communism. Communism is defined as a classless, stateless and moneyless society. This means that the USSR was *not* communist, just led by a Communist party (Marxist-Lenninist to be specific).\n\nBefore the First International (late 19th century) Anarchism wasn't even distinct from Marxism. The split came from a disagreement about the necessity, and definition of the \"dictatorship of the proletariate\" in Marxist theory and the need for transition periods between capitalism, socialism and communism.\n\nMarxists at the time theorized that the best way to achieve communism was to take control of the state, and then use the state to institute social reforms, bringing about socialism. After the dissolution of private\\* property, and the institution of these social reforms, the state would whither away (or so Marxists theorized). This is why the USSR was led by communists, but still technically capitalist. They theorized that they would need to force an advanced industrial society to then move to socialism and then to communism. They never got that far.\n\nAnarchists, on the other hand, think that the state will *always* be oppressive, no matter who is in charge. So they want to go straight to a classless, stateless society. Some anarchist theories believe in the worker ownership of industry, some in the communal ownership of industry, others in the destruction of industry, depending on the flavor of anarchism (keep in mind, there are a lot of flavors).\n\nAny ideology that is against private\\* ownership is a left-wing ideology. This means Marxism, Maoism, Trotskyism, Anarchism et al.\n\n\\*It's important to denote the distinction between *private* and *personal* property. Private property is property from which you generate wealth. Thus, your house is not private property, nor is your toothbrush. Those are examples of personal property. A factory, apartment complex, etc is private. Most of us don't own any private property.\n\nLastly, if you have more questions, they're welcome at /r/anarchy101",
"Oi, so much bad information in this thread. Plus it's kind of a hard subject to ELY5. But here goes:\n\nThere's a two axis spectrum that everyone falls on politically. The vertical axis is authoritarian, anti-authoritarian. The horizontal axis is [left, right]. This grid is a little pre-biased based on where you live but as a general rule fascists belong at the extreme top of the authoritarian spectrum. Anarchists belong at the bottom of the anti-authoritarian side.\n\nNow you have the debate over adjectives, from anarcho-communists to anarcho-captialists (which is a heatedly debated subject, their own creator has stated that anarcho-capitalist was an inaccurate term and there's no such thing) so we can reclassify the anarchists to be in the lower left of the grid, and free-market capitalists to be in the lower right of the grid (this would be American libertarians like the Tea Party.)\n\nThe difference between the two sides of left-right comes down to a few things:\n\n* Money\n* Property rights\n* Means of production\n* Mutual-aid (Distribution of wealth)\n\nTalk to a dozen anarchists, and you'll find that the generally they agree that you have the right to own your means of production, some will disagree as to the [ownership] of [private] property -- in that if you aren't using it it is effectively fair game -- but will differ on the details. Making a broad set of generalizations though: the most critical difference between free-market capitalists and anarchists is that anarchists are willing to offer mutual aid through financial, or production based means. The free-market capitalists generally seem to be of the Ayn Rand school of thought that if you need help you should die, or be willing to kill other people to take their stuff.\n\nIn short: All anarchists are socialists, but not all socialists are anarchists.\n\nFeel free to head over to /r/Anarchy101, /r/Anarchism, or PM me if you'd like to discuss more about all of this. Mind you I'm not an expert but I have a decent enough grasp to get you through the broader strokes.",
"The left wing/right wing approach of mapping political ideology tends to fail most of the time, this is because it's not really based in any academic way. \n\nThis is due to it's history, it came from the french revolution; after toppling the monarchy french citizens assembled in a 'general assemby' to decide how to manage the country and write the constitution. \nOn the right wing of the assembly sat the land owners and bourgeiose (upper class). On the left wing sat the peasants and the poor. The right wing wanted to keep traditions i.e. act conservatively. The left wing wanted wealth redistribution etc.\n\nThis is why we today denote the left wing towards social equality, radicalism and the right wing towards individualism, conservatism etc. \n\nAnarchism is radical so it supposedly falls into the left wing. Tbh I think the left/right wing methodology is restrictive. You can get some real screwy conclusions like the soviet union being left wing because its considered that large governments with socialist tinges are 'left' when in fact it had all the hallmarks of a rightwing dictatorship.\n\nHope this clears up some stuff.\n",
"The most simple answer is that the *Left vs Right* political scale applies to the rejection or preservation the Status Quo.\n\nThe further \"left\", the more you reject the established system. The further \"right\", the more you seek to preserve or revert the established system. For most modern right-wingers, they are in one way or another \"conservative\" in that they wish to preserve or \"conserve\" the established order of capitalism via private property rights; the further right you get into the extremism, we find those that also reject the current system but seek to re-establish a prior system (Reactionary). These are the extremists that hold the anti-state but pro-capitalist \"right\" (Neo-Libertarians and Anarcho-Capitalists).\n\nAnarchists reject pretty much *all* established systems, which include the state *and* capitalism (among many, many more). Therefore they are extreme leftist (Radical).",
"\"The more right-winged you are, the more you believe in small government\" -- that is entirely specious. Now \"libertarians\" (which if you're reading literature from the late 19th/early 20th century the word libertarian actually means anarchist) are proposed as a right-wing \"small government\". Ignoring this new wrinkle the traditional formulations of the right-left divide have been \"the more right you are the more controlling and totalitarian your government has been\" (e.g. fascism).\n\nAnarchists believe that wealth is only able to be consolidated due to the power of the state (e.g. if you don't follow the law I get to shoot you). And the laws are constructed by and for those with capital (the money).\n\nAnarchists are found on the left because of their first principles: social relations matter more than an ontological/idealogical set up. That is to say, a libertarian would say: \"I'm sorry you are getting screwed, but you DID sign the contract (and here is the guy with the gun to enforce it), and now you have to obey it.\" An anarchist would never have a contract, and there would be no hierarchical relationship between people. Rather, in the first principles of socialism: from ability to need. When one suffers that means that the organization of society has failed them (because ones failure is never intrinsically tied to their morality as capitalism/the protestant work ethic requires).\n\nOK, maybe I failed to ELI5, more like ELI12?"
]
} | [] | [] | [
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[]
] |
Subsets and Splits
No community queries yet
The top public SQL queries from the community will appear here once available.