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37agwp | does my brain have some kind of subconscious timer alerting me when to do things? | Example: I go into the kitchen and put some food in the microwave. I set the timer to three minutes and go into another room and do something else (watch TV with no clock, clean, etc.) and then absent-mindedly walk back into the kitchen and check on the food and it's almost always when the timer is at 3, 2, 1. The timing is perfect, like my brain knew when to spur me to go check even when I wasn't consciously thinking about how long it had been.
I just now walked back into my bedroom where my laptop is and the screen goes dark after a certain amount of time without the mouse being moved (I don't even know how long it is!) and the past three times I've had my computer open and left the room for a while, it's always gone to sleep legit right as I walked into the room, as if my brain knew it was time for it go idle.
Am I crazy or is this a scientific thing? I don't know if it's just me being quirky or if this is something our brain actually does that we're unaware of. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/37agwp/eli5_does_my_brain_have_some_kind_of_subconscious/ | {
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"yes, your brain actually has at least two timers.\n\nOne timer is basically a counter regulated by cyclical cues\nanother \"timer\" is based on sequential events and essentially attaches a time value to memories.\n\nThe earlier of these is what is coordinating to the microwave, it allows you to keep absolute time, and makes you feel sleepy and wake up at regular intervals. Properly trained, you could be accurate to the second with almost any regular activity. It is how you can accurately time when something will happen based on limited cues, such as hearing someone familiar to you exit the bathroom, and knowing (and even becoming ready to respond) to them entering the room. It is a big part of coordinated activity, and the ability to perform task with high precision. They eye is too slow and too imprecise. This is a big part of practice making perfect.\n\nThe other timer is something of a sequence of memories, whereas the first actually experiences time as an event, the later experiences time as a sequence of moments of duration, that is, memories with a belief of how long they took. It is much less precise compared to a clock, but it is how we build a timeline of separate events and, ultimately, a temporal aspect to long term memories.\n\nBasically, your experiential time can be extremely precise, but your memory of time can not be, they are organized by two different systems.\n\nhere is an older scientific american article about this:\n_URL_0_"
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dpqo3w | how do video game data miners get information? | When I hear that a data miner has gotten new game information regarding Apex Legends or Fortnite for examples, most of the time they are eventually proven correct to some form. How do they access this information so easily when one would think that these companies would try to ensure that this data is hidden in order to preserve any unreleased content?
P.S.: I looked up previous data mining questions and didn't get the answers I was hoping for. Thanks! | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/dpqo3w/eli5_how_do_video_game_data_miners_get_information/ | {
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"There are various ways someone might do this. I think the easiest/most common way is that they look through files in the games directory. Since actual assets have to be downloaded to your computer, you could look at the code and see for example that a region or character not in the game is mentioned but not connected to anything. You could then say “they’re planning to release an update with this stuff” or “this was cut from the game”.\n\nAnother method for online games would be hosting a private server and monitoring the data coming in or out of the connections."
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px79d | why do cats bury their poop? | Is there a logical/evolutionary reason as to why they bury their poop? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/px79d/why_do_cats_bury_their_poop/ | {
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"Hides the scent of the poop from their predators in the wild. It's become so instinctive to their species that kittens litterbox-train almost instantly. One of our cats learned from a pet rabbit in one day. ",
"They also bury it as a sign of submission to their owners. They don't want you to think they're blatantly marking their territory. ",
"Then.. why does my girlfriends ex-boyfriends cat not bury their poop?",
"my cat is afraid to touch her poop.\n"
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171bbn | why was the 22nd amendment passed? (2 term limit). | I get that it states that a president can only serve two terms, but why? It can't be to "stop" a dictator from seizing power, because he'd just change around the constitution / manipulate the words to speak to Presidents, not "Supreme Leaders" etc.
I guess this starts with the fact I don't get the point of ever wanting to be President - Senators paid more, high stress, little reward, can't do much after that... | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/171bbn/eli5_why_was_the_22nd_amendment_passed_2_term/ | {
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"The more time someone spends in power, the more time they have to shuffle laws around to keep them in power even longer. It lets them rig the system in their favour or in their party's favour. Even more subtly, it's to prevent a president from getting \"lazy\" and just riding a wave of popularity from his past deeds without doing anything truly useful. It keeps them accountable. Every constitution since the Magna Carta has had some control over a ruler's term - though having a strict limit is a relatively new phenomenon. \n\nSo, yes, it *is* to prevent someone from seizing power. However, the process of doing so in an effective democracy takes a long time and a lot of gerrymandering, so you solve it by not giving them enough time to carry it out. \n\nSpecifically, the amendment was passed after Franklin Delano Roosevelt's terms (he had 3 and a bit of 4 before he died). It was relatively apparent at the time that, had he not died, he would have basically just kept getting elected until he did since he was so popular from his wartime leadership (though it's hard to say, really). ",
"FDR ran and was elected president 4 times, breaking the 2 term norm established by George Washington.\n\nBy his 4th term he had more power then any president had ever had before, due to his extended stay in office. He was able to more or less do whatever he wanted. At the time this was a good thing as it allowed the president to very heavy handily push his New Deal and bring the US out of the depression. \n\nHowever after his death it became clear that this kind of thing could not happen again, no president should have the kind of power FDR had and it was unfair to anyone who tried to run against him because of how used to him people became.\n\nSo the 22nd amendment was passed limiting all presidents to only 2 terms in office. ",
"Washington established a tradition/unwritten rule of a two term limit. At the time, he was still incredibly popular and would have most likely been elected more times, but chose not to run. From then on, that's how it was until FDR kept running and winning. This was seen as a threat to democracy by some because part of the reason he was winning was WWII. People don't want to change presidents during war time. Afterwards, the voted on the 22nd amendment to help keep it more democratic."
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5rr54i | the controversy surrounding betsy devos' nomination as education secretary | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5rr54i/eli5_the_controversy_surrounding_betsy_devos/ | {
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"She has said some pretty negative things about teachers unions. Since teachers are a big part of implementation for any education program, that's not going to be an easy relationship for Ms. DeVos to manage.",
"Simply put: Betsy DeVos has absolutely no professional experience that would qualify her for the role of Secretary of Education.\n\n",
"She's a billionaire, creationist, charter school advocate, she's anti-gay marriage, daughter of Amway founder, sister of Blacwater CEO, she is the largest donor to the worst Religious Right hate groups.",
"In addition to being unqualified, she supports the abolishing of all public education and believes that private, for profit charter schools, especially religious ones, should be the way that America educates its students. She's also an heir to the Amway fortune, which you might recognize as a notorious pyramid scheme. The implications of her being nominated after her family made huge donations to Trump's campaign are just your garden variety American political corruption.",
"She is quite frankly the most unqualified person to ever be nominated to a cabinet post in modern history. She has never been a teacher or an administrator in any school, public or private. She has never been on a school board. She hasn't even volunteered in a school. She did not go to public school herself, and she sends her kids to private schools. She has no knowledge of major issues in education, such as proficiency grading. She has never run a large organization. She has no experience with college financial aid, which is a big part of the Secretary of Education's job. But most of all, she actively, passionately HATES public education. Her number one issue, by far, that she has been working for relentlessly for years, is to funnel tax money to private and religious schools through school \"vouchers\". As another author put it, it would be like hiring a soccer coach who has never played football, who doesn't know the rules, and who actually hates football, as the new head coach of the Dallas Cowboys. ",
"In addition to everything here:\n\nI believe parents who put their kids into charter schools or private schools are upset that they are still paying taxes that go to public schools. In their mind, we aren't using it so why should be pay for it? The voucher system not only incentives the move of kids from public schools to charter/private/christian schools, it also lowers the funding provided to public schools. The kids whose parents can't afford to move them to charter schools will have even less resources than they have now. "
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3ch2c6 | what is a neo-conservative and why is it used as an insult? | I see people be accused of neo-conservatism and I'm wondering why it's a bad thing? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3ch2c6/eli5_what_is_a_neoconservative_and_why_is_it_used/ | {
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"_URL_0_\n\nIt originally meant someone who was a liberal and became more conservative, but these days it more often means a warhawk Republican similar to George W Bush, Dick Cheney, Paul Wolfowitz, Donald Rumsfeld.",
"There really isn't a good \"explain like I'm five\" answer for this. \n\nHowever, if you think of it this way there is Liberalism and Conservatism. They are somewhat opposites of each other.\n\nI think Neo-Liberalism is basically the same thing as Neo-Conservatism. Except Neo-Conservatism is just Neo-liberalism (laissez-faire economics) at gun point. One would think it should be the opposite, but it isn't. ",
"[Neoconservatives](_URL_0_) are a branch of conservatives that favor a broadly interventionist foreign policy. They're usually much more defined by their foreign policy than domestic policy - neocons can fall into a number of groups or camps regarding domestic affairs, and oftentimes will \"sell\" their vote on a domestic issue in order to buy someone else's vote on one of their foreign policy proposals.\n\nNeocons believe that the greatest threat the United States and the world ever faced was the Soviet Union, and that intervention in other countries can benefit those countries. During the Cold War they urged greater spending and greater action to defeat the Soviets. After the Cold War, they urged action, including military action, in reply to a number of overseas crises. They believe the best way to ensure national security is to prevent threats before they happen - by intervening in foreign countries, stopping atrocities, and spreading democracy.\n\nNeoconservative influence was a key factor in the US support of anti-Communists throughout the world during the Cold War, for the US invasion of Grenada in the '80s, for both Iraq Wars, and for the modern outcry against both ISIS and Iran.\n\nThey tend to lean Republican, but not all Republicans are neocons. They get a lot of flack from both sides of the aisle over what can sometimes be perceived as an \"invade first, ask questions later\" philosophy. Their polar opposite in politics are isolationists like Ron Paul.\n\nThey also get a lot of criticism because they are often intricately tied in with the interests of Israel. Many neocons have unwavering support for Israel and its interests, enough that their critics accuse them of having dual or divided loyalties: supporting the interests of Israel over the interests of their own country. This in turn often leads to accusations of anti-Semitism against their critics.",
"Lemme tell you about neocons...\n\nBack in the 90s, a group of hardcodre neocons that included Dick Cheney, Don Rumsfeld, Paul Wolfowitz, John Bolton, and others cooked up the idea of invading Iraq as a way of earning what they saw as cheap and easy political capital. They were kinda pissed that Bush the Elder hadn't gone all the way and crushed Saddam when he had the chance, and they saw this as a way of reminding the world what huge dicks American conservatives have.\n\nSo when presidential candidate George Bush asked Dick Cheney to head up his VP selection committee, Cheney thought long and hard and picked...himself. Once this crowd slimed their way into power, they began to work to make their splendid little war a reality. Selling Dubya on it was probably easy, he no doubt saw it as a way to prove to Poppy Bush that he was wearing Big Boy Pants now.\n\nWhen 9/11 happened, that made selling the war ever so much easier. So we invaded Iraq, which will eventually be recorded as one of the worst blunders in US history. The entire invasion and occupation were run strictly on necon principles, which means it was an utter horror of a clusterfuck, and ended up making us FAR less safe than we had been before.\n\nCheney was really in charge of the country in the early days of the Bush administration. Dubya famously styled himself as \"The Decider,\" but it was Cheney who decided what The Decider got to decide ON. You didn't get to see the president without going through Cheney. \n\nAnd almost immediately, Cheney decided that all those inconvenient little laws and international treaties were just a hindrance, so he had his pet lawyer David Addington (another neocon) over in the Office of Legal Counsel write up a finding that essentially said that we TOTALLY aren't bound by things like the Geneva Conventions. So we started torturing people, disappearing them, locking up innocent people with no evidence and no rights indefinitely, the whole Fascist State schtick.\n\nBasically, they're just not nice people. \n"
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6n8p6c | aren't renewable energy sources also dangerous to the environment? | Won't wind turbines slow down air currents, tide harvesting plants change tides and sea currents, dams change river flows and flooded areas faster than the environment can adapt?
Edit.: Why downvoting? Isn't this Eli5? I'm not opposing renewable sources, just want to know long term impacts | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/6n8p6c/eli5_arent_renewable_energy_sources_also/ | {
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"Anything that extracts energy from the environment will have *some* consequences. The goal is to *minimize* these consequences, not to pretend there are zero. The consequences of fossil fuels are much, much worse.",
"Yes, but the risk is smaller and reducing through research. Also, not a whole lot of earthquakes caused by renewables.",
" > Won't wind turbines slow down air currents,\n\nVery marginally. You have to consider the influence of wind turbines against the total mass of the atmosphere. Similarly, a housefly sitting on furniture in your living room slows down air currents to some extent, but it will never be a noticeable change. \n\n > tide harvesting plants change tides and sea currents\n\nAgain, almost assuredly never to a significant amount. It may have an impact on the immediate local vicinity, but you're not going to see an alteration to oceanic currents in the foreseeable future. \n\n > dams change river flows and flooded areas faster than the environment can adapt?\n\nYes, this one can definitely happen. As an example, the Mississippi is prone to much more significant flooding as the buildup along its banks and in damming the river itself can result in channeling more water to specific areas, whereas before it may have flooded larger areas, but with less water. ",
" > Won't wind turbines slow down air currents\n\nNo, not anymore than a city with it's skyscrapers, mountains with it's hills, forests with its trees or quite literally anything that is in the way of wind will. Air currents that matter are really high in the air, far above wind turbines, and they would take much more than a fan to be marginally affected.\n\n > Tide harvesting plants change tides and sea currents\n\nNo, the tide plants are just collecting energy that was there anyhow, currents flowing past anyhow. They have minimal effects.\n\n > Damns change river flows and flood areas.\n\nThey do, and that is a very valid debate every time a river is damned, but overall they affect the environment they are built in, not the environment half way across the world (unless you flooded a rainforest).\n\n\nThe Idea isn't \"let's have no effect on the enviroment\", but to minimize the effect and give the world a change to adapt by using energy that either is already in circulation, just not being used (such as solar) or have such minimal effect that the world can 'work around it', which under fossil fuels isn't really possible. "
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1ujn7c | in a survival situation, will a sea water enema safely prevent dehydration vs drinking it? | I'm not exactly sure why, but I know that you are not supposed to drink sea water because it can make your condition even worse. But if you have no other choice, I have heard that it is much safer to give yourself a sea water enema. Is this true? If so, why? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1ujn7c/in_a_survival_situation_will_a_sea_water_enema/ | {
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"Absolutely not. This would do nothing but harm you. Also, how on earth would you give yourself an enema?"
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3rf9d0 | why do we vote on some state laws, such as marijuana use and school levys, while some other laws are voted on by lawmakers only? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3rf9d0/eli5_why_do_we_vote_on_some_state_laws_such_as/ | {
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"Usually referendums as we'd call them here are brought forward where decisions are sociocultural and have wide divide between populations. \n\nMost decisions in government are mostly economical and defence, based on sociocultural aspects, but where there is a divide it will usually go up for public decision at which point lawmakers will use this as a basis for their decisions and debate. Technically, these votes aren't actually decisive - they can be overturned or changed based on further debates. ",
"It depends on where you live.\n\nIf you live in California as I suspect, then the reason is that California has multiple paths for a law to be created. \n\nOne is through the legislature; the legislature may propose and pass a law if they can agree on passing it.\n\nA second is through the proposition system, any citizen may create a proposition and bring it to the public as a petition. If enough people sign the petition, then the proposition becomes an official proposition that will be voted on in the next state election.\n\nIn between these two, certain types of law must be approved by the voters in an election, and the California legislature can only pass it on to the next ballot as a proposition"
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3xraar | why are some multivitamins much cheaper than single vitamin products, even though they contain the same % of daily values as each other? | [deleted] | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3xraar/eli5_why_are_some_multivitamins_much_cheaper_than/ | {
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"The contents of the vitamin pills is pretty much meaningless. Likely it cost the exact same amount to manufacture a multivitamin vs a single vitamin pill.\n\nPricing is all about how much your customer is willing to pay. Companies do huge amounts of research into what the customer is willing to pay. People aren't perfectly rational when it comes to shopping, so its very likely that the average customer will only pay $X for a bottle of vitamins, regardless if its a single vitamin or a multivitamin."
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3ktce2 | why do some people get dizzy at heights? | Seems like something evolution would have worked out pretty quick given when you get dizzy you stumble. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3ktce2/eli5_why_do_some_people_get_dizzy_at_heights/ | {
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"It does, in the form of a survival instinct. If you're the type of person that does get dizzy high up, you will likely be afraid of heights(if not you should be).",
"Because they have not spent enough time in the area to deal with the low partial pressure of oxygen. We are rather well evolved to handle heights up to 4000m if we give it a little time. \n\nWhen arriving in high altitudes, the low partial pressure of O2 triggers the body via peripheral and central chemoreceptors, which are otherwise reliant on CO2 to regulate breathing, to start hyperventilating. At the same time, partial pressure of CO2 is also low, so they very effective breathe this out. Overall, this provokes alkalosis because they are exhaling all of their CO2 -- > Less carbonic acid in their blood. Alkalosis makes you dizzy, makes your blood vessels constrict and lowers the diffusion of O2 from red blood cells - all contributing to altitude sickness. \n\nOnce you've lived in heights long enough, an adaption process takes place where the concentration of red blood cells rises, central chemoreceptors adapt to conditions (basically the bicarbonate in the CNS fluid equalizes with the blood) and you start expelling more bicarbonate from the kidneys (lowering pH) and releasing a chemical known as 2,3-DPG, which makes O2 more readily released from the red blood cells to meet demands from the cells.\n\nSome of the medications for altitude sickness work by making you release bicarbonate from the kidneys without having to wait for the slow adaption period."
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opr09 | how did countries declare "neutrality" during wwii? | I know the various countries that were neutral during the war (Switzerland, Spain, etc.) But I was never properly taught "why" these countries were able to stay "neutral". I suppose what I mean is, what was stopping Hitler from saying, "Oh well actually, fuck you Switzerland, I'm invading you anyway" while he was invading other countries? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/opr09/eli5_how_did_countries_declare_neutrality_during/ | {
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"Nothing prevented Hitler from doing that, and in fact he did invade some nominally neutral countries during the war. But invading more countries obviously costs more manpower, so if they've pledged not to hurt you or assist your enemies you would want to have a good reason for it.",
"Well, the situation with every country was different, but basically it was self-interest. It made more sense to leave the countries alone than to invade them.\n\nSwitzerland: Swiss neutrality was firmly established by WWII, so Hitler could be assured that it wouldn't become a base for the Allies. Just as importantly, Switzerland would be an extraordinarily difficult country to invade and occupy. (Like, say, Afghanistan.) Everyone serves in militias and is trained in firearms and then there's the Alpine terrain. It would have been a bloodbath, an absolute bloodbath for Hitler, for very little gain. Also the Swiss banks were useful for German government/industrial interests so why upset that apple cart.\n\nSweden: Sweden also had a long history of neutrality. It sold iron ore to Germany too, which they needed for steel, and had a decent military. Again, a case where the ends were not worth the means.\n\nSpain: Spain was under the control of the fascist Franco regime which came into power in the 1930s with some assistance from the Germans and Italians. Occupying Spain did not figure into Hitler's short- or long-term plans, it was in safe hands, there were much bigger problems elsewhere so it wasn't of concern.\n\nOn the other hand, there's Belgium. Belgium declared its neutrality but it was the main route to occupy northern France, so Hitler invaded it anyway."
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1mnyzn | what it means when a color "absorbs" light. | People always say that you should wear a white shirt on a sunny day because it reflects more light than, say, a black shirt which "absorbs" the light. What does that mean? What part of my shirt is actually "absorbing" light from the sun? What happens to that absorbed energy? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1mnyzn/eli5_what_it_means_when_a_color_absorbs_light/ | {
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"Light is made up of different frequencies. We perceive these different frequencies as colors. When you have a molecule of blue dye, what actually happens is that the molecule of blue dye reflects the blue light back into your eyes, and absorbs the red, yellow, green, purple and orange light. \n\nWell, when a molecule absorbs light, it gets hotter. So black dye molecules, which absorb all colors of light, will get hotter faster than white dye molecules, which aren't particularly good at absorbing any light.",
"It's a bit like this: if have a wall, and I make hundreds of ping-pong ball sized holes in it, then throw a collection of ping-pong balls and tennis balls at it, the tennis balls bounce back, but the ping-pong balls go through.\n\nThe ping-pong balls have been absorbed by the wall.\n\nIf we interpret the analogy now, different frequencies of light hit an object. Some frequencies are reflected (the tennis balls) and some are absorbed. The ones that are absorbed go on to make things warmer (normally), which is why if you wear a black t-shirt in the sun, you get hotter than if you'd worn a white one, because energy can be converted.\n\nThe part of your shirt \"absorbing\" light from the sun is the whole thing. Anything that's black isn't reflecting at all (imagine it's got bowling ball sized holes), while anything that's white is reflecting everything (imagine it has no holes)."
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6uh1nk | how do we grow from a single cell to a extremely complex organism with specialized organs and bones? | [deleted] | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/6uh1nk/eli5_how_do_we_grow_from_a_single_cell_to_a/ | {
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"You mean like from conception to human or like evolution?"
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3epjk2 | if the voyager was found by another living civilization, how would they decipher our writing? | It seems like we thought they would just get what all those symbols mean. It seems like the aliens would need more context. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3epjk2/eli5_if_the_voyager_was_found_by_another_living/ | {
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"Voyager didn't just include text. It also included pictures, and other diagrams that don't require an ability to decipher our writing to understand."
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4lirby | why does organic milk take so much longer to expire than non-organic? | Organic milk seems to have ridiculously long expiration dates and it seems like it would be just the opposite? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4lirby/eli5_why_does_organic_milk_take_so_much_longer_to/ | {
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"They use a different pasteurization process than normal milk. It's called ultrahigh temperature, or UHT, pasteurization. Longer shelf life, although there are issues with flavor and vitamin content."
]
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[]
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4v2zxm | what exactly does it mean when someone is legally blind? | Sometimes in sports like the Paralympics you'll see someone who is tethered to another athlete and is classified as legally blind. What is the difference in classifying between legally blind and blind. Can legally blind people actually see anything? I can't read a few feet in front of me without glasses, would that be called legally blind?
Edit: Glasses not classes | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4v2zxm/eli5_what_exactly_does_it_mean_when_someone_is/ | {
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"To be considered legally blind, your visual acuity must be 20/200 or worse in your better eye while you are wearing corrective lenses.",
"In general it means \"bad enough eyesight to have a significant negative effect on your ability to live your life\". The exact definition depends on the legal authority that is defining it. \nThe US Social Security Administration for example defines it as: \n1) 20/200 vision or worse in your best eye after correction with glasses. \nor \n2) Less than 20 degree visual field in your best eye. \n \n > I can't read a few feet in front of me without classes, would that be called legally blind? \n\nIn the US at least \"legally blind\" is after correction with glasses, so that would depend on how good your vision is when you're wearing the best glasses you can get. \n",
"Legally blind is basically a threshold for which you are deemed to be blind (even if you actually aren't; i.e. you can still see, just really, really badly) for various legal purposes (i.e. disability benefits, or things like the Paralympics).\n\nI think the threshold is your vision in your best eye is something like 20/200, even with corrective lenses.\n\n",
"someone who is stereotypically blind (not vision at all) is legally blind, but not all legally blind people are completely blind. Legally blind people can often see somewhat, but are very much visually impaired. \nin the USA, legal blindness is \"a central visual acuity of 20/200 or less in the better eye with the best possible correction, and/or a visual field of 20 degrees or less\"(_URL_0_). and no, you are not legally blind. your eye doctor would tell you if you were.",
"I need to ask my eye doctor next time I go \"for fun\". I have terrible vison, without glasses, I literally, (yes, literally) can't see more than about 4 inches in front of my eyes. \n\nWith glasses, at a -9.5 lens things are pretty good.. at that level we are already talking coke bottle lens even when using the \"super thin polycarb\" lenses. \n\nLast time I ordered contact lenses from what I could see in the process, there was no lens stronger than what they made. Which is a bit scary. Eyes are so bad, when I went for a consultation on laser surgery, they couldn't guarentee their usual 95% (or whatever) success rate. I was told something like 50%, and for that much money I'm not willing to gamble on 50%. \n\nAll I know is every time I do my taxes and it asks me if I qualify for the legally blind thing... I so want to click yes, but I'm quite certain I don't qualify because I can in fact see after I get my coke bottles on :-p "
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2me0sp | why is the distinction between paperbacks and hardcovers so important? | I've never understood it. Isn't it the same thing, but with different binding? I've never seen a book that wasn't available in both, and now it's getting irrelevant because of ebooks. Yet the New York Times has separate lists for these, and people refer to them like a different category. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2me0sp/eli5_why_is_the_distinction_between_paperbacks/ | {
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"Exactly the same content, just one is designed to be kept / collected, and the other is designed to be essentially disposable.\n\nHardbacks are meant to be kept and displayed, that's why the binding is a lot higher quality, they come with a dust jacket, and are more often signed / acknowledged than paperbacks.\n\nPaperbacks are designed to be low-cost, more portable, read and chuck copies that are conveniently sized. It's really only the absurdly high pricing of both that has lead to people retaining paperback copies of fiction and nonfiction works.",
"Hardcovers are more expensive to produce, hence more money is spent to \"push\"/market them.\n\nAlso, most books that come out in hardcover don't come out in trade paperback until about a year later, while many books are never released in hardcover editions at all. So putting them on the same list would be inherently unfair, as paperbacks have to sell more copies (and, in some cases, maintain their popularity longer) in order to make that list.",
"It's called [price discrimination](_URL_0_). \n\nPublishers know that some people really, really want certain books. They sell them first in hardcover. Hardcover has roughly the same production costs as a paperback (it's higher, but not that much higher), but does confer other benefits (lasts longer, mostly). Publishers are \"capturing\" the extra revenue by producing the high-margin product first. Once all of the people willing to pay more for the book do so (after the first year, say), they release it in paperback; the margins are lower, but now they can capture more readers.\n\nThink of it in parallel to movies. People who really, really want to see a movie are willing to pay $10 for the privilege of seeing it in the theater. Other people are kind of eh about it; they're willing to wait and get it at $5 on pay per view. Still others are willing to wait and pay $2 on Redbox or whatever. This tiered pricing allows producers to capture the most profit; the eager people (who legitimately are willing to pay more) *do* pay more; the people on the fence who are willing to wait pay less.\n\nSo it is with books (and other media). If they only offered this in one format, they wouldn't be able to do this. If they only offered a $10 paperback, they miss all the profit from selling a $30 hardcover. If they only offer a $30 hardcover, they miss the profit from a larger number of people. By delaying the offer of paperback, they're able to separate the people willing to pay more from the people willing to pay less and still capture the most profit.\n\nEdit: As to your question: you're right, it's becoming less and less important thanks to ebooks. I don't know how that's going to be handled. Also, I should point out that the library market is actually fairly robust, and they only want hardback (at least for now). That's a factor, if not a major one. "
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9a56mw | why does yellow food coloring look red when it's concentrated? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/9a56mw/eli5_why_does_yellow_food_coloring_look_red_when/ | {
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"A dude named Beer made a law about it. It's called \"Beer's Law\", oddly enough.\n\nHere's the way it works. Say you have a rainbow and a very special pair of filtering glasses. Without the glasses, you see every colour in that rainbow. But the glasses make the lower part of the rainbow a little bit hidden more than the upper layers. So with them on, you see lots of the upper part (which is reddish) but not quite all of the lower part (which is bluish)... and yellow's in the middle so it's a tiny tiny bit missing but most of it's there.\n\nNow, put on another pair of those glasses so you look quite dorky with two pairs of glasses on. Now almost all of the blue is gone.. and quite a bit of the yellow's gone too.\n\nNow put on a third pair of glasses so you look super dorky. Blue's pretty much not there, yellow's about all gone... and so you largely see red.\n\nThe more layers of dorkiness-causing glasses, the more red shows through and the less yellow does. Well, Beer's Law is kinda like those glasses when it come to the liquid in food colouring. The thicker it is, the more it absorbs yellow light and only shows red light, even though the base colour of the food colouring is yellow when diluted. \n\nIn very simple terms, the more layers caused by more concentrated liquid that the light passes through, more and more of the reflected light off of it that you see shifts toward red because all of the blue and almost all of the yellow gets absorbed. \n\nBut water that food colouring right down or mix it in icing so there's just a tiny tiny layer of light-reflecting stuff at the front, and the yellow now shines through because it's not really absorbed at all."
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7u7nmx | why do psychedelic mushrooms almost ubiquitously cause people to experience a deeper connection with nature? why is this phenomenon not reported as often with use of other psychedelics like lsd? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/7u7nmx/eli5_why_do_psychedelic_mushrooms_almost/ | {
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"It's an ego separator. Your connections to the world break down, that's the 15 minute jitters at the beginning. Those preconceptions break down and then you form the world new in ways you hadn't imagined.",
"You stop realizing there is a mind behind your eyes, and you are liable to dispose of your cumbersome body by curling it up into whatever position is most immediately comfortable, and doing what can only be called dying.\n\nWhile this is occurring, your eyes are open, so all you see is the sensory input, which separately refuses to assemble itself into a meaningful, interpretable 3-dimensional image, so it remains two-dimensional at best. Presumably you're in nature, so you'll see an amalgram of the leaves, blades of grass, plants, environment around you in its smallest elements. You won't bother to look down and see that cumbersome body. You'll only see nature, and only nature shall exist.\n\nLSD also dissolves the ego into nothing, but generally through dissolution of thought into unrefined thoughtlets of chaos, rather than total disposal of thought and the body."
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3zbjnr | why do some special needs people often hold/shake a toy/trinket in front of them? | I work at a recreation facility and I've noticed that a fair amount of people/children with a severe disability often hold/shake a toy or trinket in front of them for entertainment. It's normally a small child's toy, and they'll be extremely fascinated with it, constantly bouncing it around, swinging it around, basically gravitating to it to no end. What's the psychology behind this? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3zbjnr/eli5_why_do_some_special_needs_people_often/ | {
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"The toy can do a couple different things depending on the needs and perceptions of the person. \n\nIt establishes a continuity in their perception. The world around them may change in many ways they can't comprehend as they are moved from place to place, each having their own visual elements and sound elements and smells and touches, but the toy is always there and can be a consistent anchor for them. \n\nSome severely disabled people learn to associate comfort with a specific familiar noise, and empowered when they can exercise a little control over their environment and create that noise themselves. \n\n(P.S. closely associated with a disabled person here.)"
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dqgp0e | how come music streaming services like apple music and spotify making money doing same thing? | Why will a person subscribe to service which is costlier than other when both of them have almost every music one wants to listen? If one is cheaper than the other then how come both of them has huge number of subscribers? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/dqgp0e/eli5_how_come_music_streaming_services_like_apple/ | {
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"Humans are not, strictly speaking, rational. We will choose \"suboptimal\" choices because we're used to them, they make more sense to us, they're the first thing we found, or they look nicer, or any other of a long list of reasons.",
"It's about the userbase and slight differences in certain features.\n\nLike Spotify is well known for its recommendations and playlists features.\n\nApple Music on the other hand has the advantage of the large userbase that apple has. Apple can by default install Apple music on iPhones and most people would choose it because of advertisement. \n\nIt's similar to like people think no one uses Bing but as Bing is the default search engine on Windows Bing has a lot of users and it makes billions in profits.",
"Each one has a different thing that makes them unique from each other that makes them attractive to different people. I'll list what I think each of these ones are known for.\n\nSpotify - Lots of podcasts and playlists\n\nApple Music - Beats 1 radio, the Apple Music/AirPods meme\n\nSoundCloud - The most songs and a lot of Indie artists\n\nTIDAL (what I use): Lossless audio, very good algorithm for recommending songs\n\nIt really depends on what each user cares about. I think a lot of people use Spotify or Apple Music because they are the most popular and those are what people know.\n\nEdit: A lot of people use the one that's built in, eg. the default search engine on Apple devices is Google so a lot of people stay with Google. Also, a lot of people care about the interface."
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vmemg | eli 5: hashing and salting passwords. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/vmemg/eli_5_hashing_and_salting_passwords/ | {
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"In the context of passwords, the point of hashing is to turn the password into something else that uniquely identifies the password but from which you can't work out the password. The something else, or the hash, is a small piece of text (small but usually longer than the password itself). Uniquely identifying means that no two passwords get turned into the same small piece of text and that the same password always gets turned into the same small piece of text. And the last part means that if you have this small piece of text, it's not possible, or at least it's very hard, to figure out the original password. Or at least those are what it tries to do, in practice no hashing function does all of these perfectly. (Note that hashing is used in other contexts as well where the ideal requirements may be different.)\n\nThen you can store the hashes in your user database. When a user logs in and sends their password, you can do the hashing again and compare that to the hash you have in your database. If they match then the user gave the right password (because the hashes uniquely identify the password). On the other hand, if someone breaks into your database, or the system administrator takes a peek, they won't immediately see all the passwords. Note that you can't login with just the hash. \n\nIf you get a hold of a hash, or all the hashes in the database, then there is one way to work out the original password. You can try all the possible passwords and do the hashing and see if they match. It'll be a lot of work but it can be done. And there are actually ready made tables where someone has done it already. They have computed the hashes for a lot of passwords (maybe not all of them but for a huge number of ordinary passwords, like most letters with a couple of numbers or other symbols). Then you can lookup from this table the hash you got from the database and get the original password. These tables are called rainbow tables and you can download them from the internet for a variety of different hashing functions. Essentially a rainbow table is a way for someone to do a brute force attack, that is trying all the possible passwords, beforehand.\n\nThen we get to salting. Salting means adding some fairly long random piece of text, called the salt, to the user provided password. The salt usually isn't a closely guarded secret. Sure it's not in plain sight on the website or anything but it is assumed that the attacker will have the salt if they manage to get the passwords too. And the salt is commonly stored without any kind of encryption in the same database as the password hashes. What the salt does is effectively make the password much longer. The user doesn't need to know about the salt, it just silently gets added to the password they give on the server. Making rainbow tables becomes infeasible as the table would have to be incredibly huge to cover all the possible salts.\n\nNote that to defeat the rainbow table type attack you can use the same salt for every password in your database. But brute forcing all the possible passwords is still as easy as it was before. The attacker just goes through all the passwords (or all likely passwords) and adds the salt, which the attacker should know, and gets the hash for that. Then compare it to what they got from the database. The attacker just can't do it beforehand or download the work of someone else having done it already.\n\nSalting each password with an individual random salt makes the brute forcing a bit harder. The attacker can still go through all the likely passwords and add the salt to that. But since each password in the database uses a different salt, the attacker can't compare the hash he gets to every hash in the database, only to the hash with the salt the attacker used. So whereas the attacker could crack the entire database of hashes by going through all the possible passwords once, now he needs to crack each password individually.\n\nFinally one more desired quality for the hashing function. With passwords the hashing function should be (relatively) time consuming to compute. For many other applications of hashes the hashing function is designed to be very fast to compute which is why they are a bad choice for password hashing. The reason it should be time consuming to compute is to make the brute forcing harder. A difference between taking 1 ms to do the hashing and taking 100 ms makes no difference to the user logging in. But it makes a hundred fold difference to the attacker cracking passwords by brute forcing. It might change the time to crack a single password from a day to a hundred days.",
"Storing user passwords in plaintext is bad practice because, if that data were to get out, anyone could use it to log in to user accounts. Also, many users use the same password across many popular sites, meaning that if a disgruntled employee at any one of those sites, say, were to steal that information, they could use to attack all of a given user's accounts.\n\nInstead, it's better than information security be maintained by allowing only one person to know the password: the user. So instead of storing a password directly in a database, sites should store something else, let's call it a hash. (We call it this because if your password is \"potatoes & meat\", we're going to mix it all up until it becomes something else. :-) )\n\nThen, when you log in, we apply the same hashing algorithm to whatever you typed in and compare it to what we have stored as your hashed password. If they match, then we know you are the authentic user (you have been \"authenticated\"). Once we know who you are, we keep a separate table that says what you're allowed to access on our site (this is \"authorization\").\n\nOk, so let's make one of these hashing algorithms. Let's take whatever a user types and turn it into \"1\". It turns out this is a bad hashing function. It lets you log in, but it doesn't distinguish between different passwords...no matter what you type, whether it's your original password or not, it hashes to 1 and that equals your hashed password.\n\nSo we need it to be a little better. Let's have a hashing function that replaces each letter with its position in the alphabet. So if you type \"abc\" this function stores it as \"1 2 3\". Unfortunately, this is no good either, and for two reasons.\n\n1. Anyone who gets your hashed password can easily reverse it to \"abc\" if they know how it works, i.e., this function is \"reversible\". We want a \"one-way\", or irreversible, function that can't be turned back into your original password (at least, not without great difficulty).\n\n2. The second problem with this approach is that it doesn't \"distribute the hashes uniformly\". This means that if you put in \"abc\" and I put in \"abd\", because our passwords are similar the hashes will be similar (\"1 2 3\" and \"1 2 4\"). What we really want is a function that defines a large output space (with lots of digits) and distributes hashes evenly across that whole space with no indication of whether the inputs were similar or not.\n\nSo a great hashing function might take \"abc\" and turn it into \"e814f11adb14c4\" and \"abd\" and turn it into something else completely different like \"153b29dc5f12a\", and ensure that it's very, very difficult to reverse those hashes back to the original passwords. It turns out to be not that easy to make a good hashing function, but there are a few that work really well (you may have heard of SHA-1 and MD5, these are names for hashing functions).\n\nHowever, there's a problem with having only a few good algorithms. Let's say you pick a password of \"unicorn\" so it's easy to remember. The hash for this is some long sequence of digits that I can't easily reverse, so no problem. However, if I'm a smart attacker, here's what I might do.\n\nI take the entire dictionary and apply the hashing function to each word, and I keep each output of the function mapped to its input. Now, I can easily sort this map and make it easy to find any hash I want, and then look up the word that generated it. So if you pick a password out of the dictionary, I can easily discover it if I get my hands on the hash. This is called a dictionary attack. It turns out with the power of today's computers, this isn't farfetched at all...in fact, there are easily available password cracking programs that come with a database loaded with the hashed Oxford English dictionary as well as several variants on each word (like doing easy replacements of letters with numb3rs, Varying Case, stickingWordsTogether, etc). Oh, and every other language too. (Computers are really powerful these days.)\n\nTo frustrate a dictionary attack, sites can do a little something extra called \"salting\" the hash. When I sign up for an account, the site can assign me a randomly chosen value like \"13\" (you might get \"37\"). Then, when I put in my password of \"unicorn\", instead of just hashing that, the site adds the salt first and hashes \"unicorn13\" (makes a completely different hash). Whenever I log in, the site looks up my number and salts whatever I typed before hashing and comparing it to the stored hash.\n\nThis might seem silly at first until you think about doing a dictionary attack. Now, as the attacker, I have this giant database with every word known to humanity hashed with this really popular function. But, to make it useful against salted hashes, I should have put \"13\" on the end of every value before generating the dictionary. And if I did that, it would still only be useful for attacking accounts that have \"13\" as a salt, so they might be able to get access to my account but since your salt is \"37\" they'd have to generate an entire new database with every single word using that salt.\n\nSo that's that, hashes with salt. I'll leave you with this: attackers actually have figured out an approach to deal with salted hashes by using a thing called \"rainbow tables\"...that will give you enough to Google!"
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503une | how does the quest for understanding the behavior of subatomic particles lead to theoretically infinite universes/multiverses? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/503une/eli5_how_does_the_quest_for_understanding_the/ | {
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"There's actually multiple multiuniverse ideas. You may be referring to the many worlds view of quantum mechanics. It's not really just about sub atomic particles. Not sure if you're familiar with the double slit experiment, but the basic idea is this. If you take particles, eg. electrons, and fire them towards a barrier with two small slits in them and measure where they hit the wall behind the barrier, you'd expect that sometimes the electron goes through the left slit and sometimes through the right slit. This should give two lines on the wall behind the barrier where the electrons hit. That's not what happens. What happens is that you get a pattern on the wall that looks like elections are waves, not particles. This is called an interference pattern. In a sense it looks like the particles go through both slits and interfere with themselves like a wave would. OK, so if the electron goes through both slits, we should be able to measure it at both slits, right? Nope. If you try to measure the electron at the slits you only ever find it at one slit. So that's the conundrum. How can the electron be in both slits if you can only find it at one? There's a lot of different potential answers to this (among them is the answer that I should shut up and calculate). \n\nIn the mid 50s a guy named Hugh Everett suggested a rather simple, but also extremely radical solution to this. You *do* measure the particle at both slits. However, the universe sort of splits into two realities. One in which you measured it at the right slit. One in which you measured it at the left slit. "
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eihr7w | why does it hurt to hold your breath but you can die in your sleep from carbon monoxide poisoning? | Wow folks, thanks for all the solid answers! I went to workout and came back to more information than I could have ever asked for! | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/eihr7w/eli5_why_does_it_hurt_to_hold_your_breath_but_you/ | {
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"When you're holding your breath, your body knows it's not getting its oxygen. Carbon monoxide has the unfortunate property of tricking your body into thinking it's getting its oxygen, when it's actually suffocating.",
"The feeling of suffocation is caused by the buildup of carbon **di**oxide in your blood. That's what your body produces. Carbon **mon**oxide is a different chemical.",
"Carbon monoxide doesn't stop you from breathing in and out instead it prevents the transport of oxygen around your body. _URL_0_",
"The pain you feel and the urge to breathe is not from lack of oxygen, rather it is a build-up of carbon dioxide in your bloodstream. The body senses that it is not getting rid of CO2 and wants to breathe more. Carbon monoxide (CO) however isn't detected by the body, it is odorless and colorless, hence the danger.",
"Your body doesn't actually know how much oxygen is in your blood stream! That's plentiful in our normal environment and not something worth the expense of monitoring, evolutionary speaking. It actually measures the CO2 your body is trying to get rid of and preventing blood toxicity caused by excess CO2 which is an actual daily threat.\n\nCO binds like O2 in your blood, but it's hundreds of times \"stickier\" and doesn't let go so O2 can't stick. It slowly decreases the amount of O2 your blood can grab until it can't grab any O2, all the while your body thinks everything is great because your CO2 levels are not exceeding dangerous levels. By this point you pass out/die without realizing what is happening.",
"One of my friends said she was getting monoxide poisoning for several weeks. She was in a LOT of pain (to the point she thought she was dying) and couldn’t think. She would go to urgent care and eventually the hospital, they couldn’t find anything wrong because she would be getting fresh air there. But back home she would feel the effects again. After post on FB, another old classmate suggested testing her house. Sure enough her heater was leaking and poising her. She has gotten the issue fixed and is doing well now.",
"That pain you feel when holding your breath is the buildup of CO2, not the lack of oxygen. Your body has no way of knowing if it gets oxygen or not.",
"If you don’t have CO detectors, get some. \nIf you have them and they have expired, replace them. \nIf you can’t tell that they are still good or not, replace them. \n\n\n_URL_0_",
"Holding your breath is hard because of carbon dioxide in your body. \n\nCarbon monoxide is different, and won't make you feel like you need to breathe.\n\nIt probably wouldn't *hurt* (in terms of *sensation*) to breathe lots of carbon monoxide. \n(It would kill you, but you might not *feel* like you aren't breathing properly).\n\nI'm less confident that a lot of carbon dioxide would make you wake up feeling as if you need to breathe, but I suspect it would.",
"I cannot stress this enough, everyone needs to have a carbon monoxide detector in their house. One on each floor, depending on the type of house. That little detector is the only reason I’m alive today.",
"You can die in your awake from carbon monoxide poisoning also. \n\nLack of oxygen makes you dizzy/light headed, which isn’t what you are feeling when holding your breath",
"Carbon dioxide is detectable by your body, partly because it's also produced by your body.\n\nSuffocation is generally a build-up of CO2, more than an absence of oxygen, and the trigger to make you stop holding your breath is that build-up of CO2.\n\nCarbon monoxide, however, binds to the red blood cells in the same way as oxygen does, so the cell doesn't realise that it's not carrying oxygen (in effect, it doesn't see the extra carbon at all, but it does see an extra oxygen like carbon dioxide has, because the oxygen actually reacts with other things).\n\nHence carbon monoxide (and any non-reactive gas, like helium and nitrogen) will not trigger your body's defence mechanism, because it doesn't react with the body's defences. The body sees nothing wrong, thinks it's just oxygen, provides no warning and slowly suffocates to death. This is one reason why you never travel in an elevator with a canister of compressed nitrogen, you shouldn't go mad playing with helium balloon canisters, etc. Your body literally doesn't know that it's starved of oxygen and won't tell you, and you'll pass out before you can do anything, and then body has nothing to stop you just dying on the floor still breathing it in.\n\nCarbon dioxide, however, gives you that \"I'm full to bursting\" feeling that you get if you try to hold your breath underwater. Your body \"feels\" that it's full of the gas that it basically has designed itself to expel. This is one reason that you breathe out while swimming underwater (the other being pressure)... if you held onto the carbon dioxide, your body will make you get rid of it anyway by reflex, which could be dangerous. Just lacking in oxygen (because you haven't taken a breath in so long) is only 50% of suffocating. What kills you is the presence of CO2 because that stops your body working if it builds up, the same as carbon monoxide. If you didn't have oxygen, you can live for a few minutes. If you can't expel the built-up CO2, you would (in theory) die quicker. Removing the CO2 makes you live that little bit longer even if there's no more oxygen coming in.\n\nBut a build-up of CO2 literally happens in every breath in your body. So it is able to detect it, it has a \"feeling\" of having too much of it, it has a reflex to make you breath it away which you can't overrule (no, you can't hold your breath to commit suicide... the worst that would happen would be you would pass out and then the body would breath normally anyway).\n\nCarbon monoxide is just an undetectable substitute that the body has no mechanism against. We never got exposed to it in any significant fashion in our history, so it never evolved a detector or defence. There just aren't that many people who have \"nearly\" survived, say, putting their campfire inside a cave, living near to a live volcano or forest fire spewing it out. Evolutionary speaking, it's like evolving to become immune to electrocution. It just hasn't been around long enough for us to evolve a defence mechanism and, with carbon monoxide especially, most people simply do not survive a build-up. There are news stories of people lighting a gas stove in a tent, dying from monoxide poisoning and then 2, 3, 4 other people trying to help and dying/nearly dying in the exact same way... they don't even notice until it's too late and then they often pass out and their body has no defence against it whatsoever, so they suffocate too.\n\nDon't fuck with carbon monoxide or inert gases in volume.",
"Eli5, as a freediver.\n\nIt hurts when you hold your breath because of something that happens inside your lungs. When you hold your breath, the air inside becomes more of something called CO2. \n\nCO2 is something your body keeps an eye on because it can kill you. Funny enough your body doesn't keep track of 02 (oxygen) or CO (Marvin monoxide).\n\nWhen your body has too much CO2, it tries to get rid of it. It gives you the urge to breathe and if you fight that urge, your tummy will start to wiggle and then flap in and out to try push the bad air (too much CO2) out so that you breathe and get good sure back into them. \n\nCarbon monoxide poisoning doesn't increase the CO2 inside your lungs, and your body has no real way of detecting it, so you'll be a happy little kiddo thinking your air is good when it's actually really really bad, then you fall over and join the pets that your mommy and daddy sent to the farm.",
"I can answer from personal experimentation! As others have said, the feeling of the need to breathe is not due to lack of oxygen, but build up of carbon dioxide. Once when my friends were doing nitrous oxide (I'm life-long sober) I realized I could test this (this was before the internet was available for easy research). So I breathed out, and breathed in a full lung-full of nitrous, and held my breath. Unfortunately I didn't think to time it, but sure enough, no need to breathe. I got numb head to toe, giddy, and eventually my vision was going black and I lazily thought, \"Wow, still no need to breathe. But losing consciousness would be bad. I should breathe. Yeah. Definitely should breathe. What? Oh, yeah, breathe, like, now.\" And finally I breathed. Never felt bad.\n\nI did the corresponding negative experiment some time later: block of dry ice in a big sink, breathed out, lowered my face into the vapor and breathed in. At least, I tried. My entire body was immediately filled with electric fire, and I didn't manage half a breath before coughing it out uncontrollably. About the sharpest pain I've ever felt.\n\nSo yes, CO2 build up causes the need to breathe, and anything that prevents that and starves you of oxygen will kill you.",
"Holding your breath means you are not getting rid of carbon dioxide. That hurts (or is uncomfortable), as the trigger for taking a breath is to get rid of carbon dioxide, not to take in oxygen.\n\nBreathing in carbon monoxide in your sleep doesn't prevent you breathing, so you're still getting rid of carbon dioxide. So it doesn't hurt or wake you up.",
"Wtf do you guys hurt when you hold your breath?",
"Hold breath = carbon dioxide poisoning. Your brain has alarms for it.\n\nYour brain has no alarms for carbon monoxide."
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3dfy80 | why does the faster the air go, the lower pressure it exerts, hence making a plane fly? | I can't get why the faster a liquid goes, the less pressure it exerts around every direction except the one it is being accelerated to.
Do the liquid molecules have less time to exert a pressure in a given point? It should make no difference, since the next molecule will take its place and continue exerting the force. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3dfy80/eli5_why_does_the_faster_the_air_go_the_lower/ | {
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"Air pressure isn't a nebulous force that gets exerted. It's the result of the physical phenomenon of an air molecule hitting a surface and bouncing off. The energy transfer in the collision is what causes the force of pressure.\n\nImagine an air duct, open at both ends. If the air in the duct is \"still\" (in a macro sense, no pump or airflow), then the air molecules have an equal chance of hitting each of the sides or moving towards one of the openings. Thus, the pressure exerted on all six \"sides\" is the same.\n\nIf you were to blow air through the duct, the pressure is no longer equal on all sides. It is much more likely for a given air molecule to move towards the \"exhaust\" side of the duct than hit the sides. And it's nigh impossible for the air molecule to move towards the entry side of the duct, against the flow of air.\n\nSo moving air laterally across a surface will make it less likely for the air molecules to collide with that surface, which makes for lower air pressure exerted on that surface."
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a8zn2v | what is the reason behind eye dilation when bird’s mimic speech? | Is it simply an accidental reflex or is there actual purpose to it? I noticed some birds don’t have it happen, but others do. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/a8zn2v/eli5_what_is_the_reason_behind_eye_dilation_when/ | {
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"Not sure there's a known reason other than it seems to happen when they're thinking.\nIt's called pinning _URL_0_\nAnd can be a good indicator when said Parrot is plotting something 😀"
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4g1gyv | why do some companies rely on sweatshops, wouldn't automation be cheaper and more consistant? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4g1gyv/eli5why_do_some_companies_rely_on_sweatshops/ | {
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"It comes down to economics. A third world worker that earns $3 a day or a machine that costs $5000 a year to maintain?",
"Nope, paying kids pennies per day is way cheaper than building and maintaining an automated factory. \n\nLook at Nike, sure they COULD spend hundreds of millions of dollars on a state of the art automated shoe factory, but its considerably easier and cheaper to pay poor Vietnamese kids a few cents to stich up their shitty shoes.",
"A lot of times the products that are made change every so many months and it would require a completely new machine to make the product. Suppose it is a clothing factory. Every different size, every different fashion, every different accessory would necessitate changes to the machine. People are easier to program.",
" > wouldn't automation be cheaper and more consistant?\n\nSometimes it is, so the process is automated. \n\nIn clothing for instance, processing the cotton into fabric is automated because it's cheaper and makes a better product. The actual sewing of the fabric isn't automated because workers in Bangladesh are cheaper.",
"* automation requires a large capital investment\n* the technology often doesn't yet exist, and needs to be developed\n* human labor can be very, very cheap in developing countries",
"No automation is not cheaper than a sweatshop.\n\nAutomation requires the purchase of expensive machines and skilled labour to maintain them.\n\n",
"I live in China and I can tell you that almost everything you buy has been touched by human hands in a significant way. When I was young I imagined everything just popped off totally automated assembly lines but that just isn't true. Automation for a lot of tasks is simply impossible right now because we don't have sophisticated enough machines. This is especially true in the clothing industry. Most likely all the clothing you own was hand stitched, or at least a person did it with a sewing machine. As of now there is no magic machine that you can toss in a bunch of cotton and out the other end fully formed jeans will pop out. ",
"It makes sense in the USA, but doesn't in many other countries.\n\nLabor is *insanely cheap* in China and India. Ridiculously cheap. Far, far cheaper than complex automation machinery required to do the job. This is the reason why companies outsource manufacturing to China, and outsource labor jobs to India. \n\nI don't know what the going rates are for factory workers in China, but I'm guessing it's no more than a few dollars per day.\n\n"
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ljo4j | how does an xbox kinect work? [eli5] | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/ljo4j/how_does_an_xbox_kinect_work_eli5/ | {
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"Thirty times per second the Kinect sends out a laser across your room. When the laser touches objects in the room it bounces back and is collected by the Kinect again. Objects that are close bounce the laser back quicker than objects which are far. This allows it to to create a depth field of your room, and monitor movements in that field. \n\nThis means the Kinect is now able to identify that there is a shape in the middle of the field which is moving often, that looks similar to a human shape. \n\nOnce it identifies these possible humans it overlays what it expects a human skeleton to look like. On your bottom half it splits you in two, and calls each half a leg. On your top half it creates arms to monitor. \n\nBy monitoring the movements of these \"limbs\" and filling in the gaps, it can assume lots of different motions that a human skeleton might make, and convert those into commands the game can understand. \n\n",
"Thirty times per second the Kinect sends out a laser across your room. When the laser touches objects in the room it bounces back and is collected by the Kinect again. Objects that are close bounce the laser back quicker than objects which are far. This allows it to to create a depth field of your room, and monitor movements in that field. \n\nThis means the Kinect is now able to identify that there is a shape in the middle of the field which is moving often, that looks similar to a human shape. \n\nOnce it identifies these possible humans it overlays what it expects a human skeleton to look like. On your bottom half it splits you in two, and calls each half a leg. On your top half it creates arms to monitor. \n\nBy monitoring the movements of these \"limbs\" and filling in the gaps, it can assume lots of different motions that a human skeleton might make, and convert those into commands the game can understand. \n\n"
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49b8i3 | who controls how delegates vote in presidential nominations | Do the delegates have to vote the way their candidate tells them to? Who are the delegates anyways? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/49b8i3/eli5_who_controls_how_delegates_vote_in/ | {
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"Delegates are local party members who are picked to go to the Convention. The majority of delegates are pledged, which means they are required by the rules of the Convention (and in some cases state law) to vote for a specific candidate based on the results of their state's primary or caucus. There are also superdelegates, which are major party officials as well as those holding political office who can vote for whomever they want. The number of delegates a state gets us determined by its population of Party members.\n\nWhile the primary or caucus determines how many delegates each candidate gets from that state, in most states exactly who gets to go to the national Convention is determined through a state or local mini-Convention.\n\nOnce at the Concention, the delegates vote for the nominee as pledged. If a candidate won some delegates in the primaries but has since dropped out, he can keep his delegates or he can release them to vote for whomever they want. (He could also ask them to vote for a particular other candidate, and often they will, but as I understand it, he can't require them to do so?)\n\nIf one candidate receives a majority, they become the nominee. If not, the delegates vote again. However, on this second ballot as well as all later ballots, the pledged delegates are free to vote from whomever they want. (In some states pledged delegates are required by law to continue voting their pledge on the second or maybe even third ballot, but eventually they are released.) So if a nominee doesn't get a majority of delegates, then the field ends up wide open and the candidates and delegates negotiate, horse-trade, twist arms, all the normal political stuff, until eventually a nominee receives a majority. This person doesn't have to be one of the people who ran in the primaries -- in fact it's unlikely to be, because all those people have already shown themselves to have been losers this cycle (except the guy who won but couldn't get a majority -- and if the superdelegates aren't willing to bump that guy up the votes necessary to win on the first ballot, then obviously he has some problems within his Party and is unlikely to win a later ballot.\n\nThe last time there was a brokered convention was the Democrats in 1968, back when there were many fewer primaries and less voter participation in the process. Bobby Kennedy was winning the primary over Gene McCarthy, both running on an anti-Vietnam War platform, when Sirhan Sirhan murdered Kennedy the night of the California primary. This threw the race into disarray, and eventually the Conventioneers nominated Vice-President Hubert Humphrey, who had not run. Although Humphrey was personally against the War, President Johnson convinced him to adopt the establishment position that the war was necessary. There were riots both outside and inside the Convention, the Chicago PD ran wild on the protestors, several people were prosecuted for incitement to riot, and seven months later Richard Nixon was president, so this is not something that has a great history of success."
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701txo | why are store brand allowed to use the phrase, "compares to (brand name)" on their packaging? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/701txo/eli5_why_are_store_brand_allowed_to_use_the/ | {
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"There is nothing illegal in just mentioning a competitor. If they are using the competitor's trademarks that is still perfectly legal. The point of a trademark is to avoid brand confusion. So as long as it's clear I'm selling you Kirkland Brand Crispy Rice and not Kellogs Rice Krispies it's perfectly legal to mention Rice Krispies on my packaging. I can't make false claims about Rice Krispies but \"Compares to\" isn't a false claim."
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et9bdw | how does electricity pass through wires? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/et9bdw/eli5_how_does_electricity_pass_through_wires/ | {
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"Conductive materials on the atomic level have electrons that are not tightly bound to their atoms. When voltage is applied all of the electrons are forced to shift to the next atom simultaneously. This is the flow of current.",
"All materials consist of atoms that have a nucleus with electrons gravitating around it. The wire you speak of is made of conducting material (such as a metal, often copper). Being a good conductor means that the electrons inside this conductor are free to move around without encountering much resistance. The atoms that form the copper wire therefore \"share\" these electrons, think of it like a sea of electrons. In the \"off\" condition of the circuit, the motion of these elections is perfectly random, so nothing really happens (it all cancels out, you have neutral charge). In an \"on\" condition where a voltage is now applied, there is a potential difference created between the two ends of the wire, and as such the electrons all start moving in the same direction (away from the negative terminal towards the positive one). The electric current you then observe is simply the number of electrons passing (\"charge\") per unit time. When you disconnect (\"open\") the circuit, you stop applying a voltage difference and balance is restored, so there is no more current flow.\n\nAs an analogy (with some simplifications), imagine putting balls in a tube that's resting on an flat surface. Nothing will happen. But if you now put the tube on an incline, the balls will roll from the top of the tube towards the ground. The balls are your electrons and the incline is the voltage. The tube is your wire. \n\nHope this helps!",
"I believe we can easily explain this with an analogy. Think about your wire (or more exactly the electrons in the wire, but same idea) as a belt and the power source of this system as a rotating wheel. The belt is set around the wheel. The wheel rotates and moves the belt so we have motion, if the belt is cut somewhere the movement obiously stops. The consumer would be another wheel that gets moved by the belt.",
"Think of it like that as water moving through pipes. It's all under pressure and the moment an opening happens the water will take that route. It is similar with electricity, there is potential that wants to move and wires are the path of least resistance, the electrons will go on the wild ride and take the path, sometimes the path isnt large enough and too many electrons crowd the wire and the electric energy turns to heat energy and melts the wire, Just like a pinhole in a water pipe with too much pressure.",
"Electrons hang around their atoms, chilling.\n\nWhen you close the circuit, the electrons are pushed towards the path of least resistance (\"ground\").\n\nThey do this very slowly but the effect is very quick - imagine a looooong row of novelty office swinging balls, the ones that go clack-clacklack back and forth, like so:\n\noooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo\n\nIf you flick the ball on one end, the ball you flicked barely moves, but the effect on the opposite end is immediate.",
"Billiards or croquet? Line your balls up in a straight line, hit one end with you mallet or que (the force that moves the elections), all the balls move down and in a complete circuit the end ball (electron) would make its way back to the beginning.",
"I like the ping-pong balls analogy. Imagine a wire is a pipe packed full of ping-pong balls (the electrons in the wire). A battery is a ping-pong ball pump: when it shoves a ball into one side of the pipe, of course another one pops out the other side.\n\nThe only difference is with electricity, the \"ping pong balls\" won't fall out the end of an open pipe. They only move if there's a new pipe for them to go into."
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6e39vl | why does wearing something that covers your neck make you feel like it's harder to breathe? | Around winter when scarves and turtle-neck sweaters are more acceptable to wear, I find myself unable to participate. No matter how loosely I wear these garments, it feels constricting. Why is that? It's not like the clothing is covering my mouth or nose where it directly affects my breathing. Can anyone explain? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/6e39vl/eli5_why_does_wearing_something_that_covers_your/ | {
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"It's strange but I agree with you. Scarves don't bother me but I love but cannot wear turtlenecks. It honestly feels like I'm getting choked. But it's not like I can't breathe. Hopefully someone can answer!",
"As a male a tie or buttoning the top button of my dress shirt feels that way to the point of having a hard time wearing them for long with gagging a bit. "
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f8v98y | why do babies sleep better at night if they sleep more during the day? why do they wake up more at night if they miss a nap? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/f8v98y/eli5_why_do_babies_sleep_better_at_night_if_they/ | {
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"When babies have consistent sleeping patterns, including naps, they are simply *tired* at these times.\n\nWhen babies miss naps, or are awake longer than expected, they become **overtired**.\n\n\n\nWhat determines whether your body is tired or overtired is related to the brain chemicals that are released in response to these situations:\n\n* being tired is a relaxing state and produces sleep hormones like melatonin;\n\n* being overtired is a stressful state and produces stress hormones like cortisol.\n\nThis is all linked in with what's known as the Circadian Rhythm, which is the way our bodies know what to do at any time in a 24-hour period."
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3onm3b | why is it a direct threat to our health to be exposed to blood yet we eat animal blood and actually use it for flavoring? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3onm3b/eli5_why_is_it_a_direct_threat_to_our_health_to/ | {
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"Human blood contains pathogens that are specific to humans. Animal blood is much less likely to contain something that can harm humans, but the risk is relative, handling animal blood isn't necessarily safe. I can't even think of any food that involves eating uncooked animal blood off the top of my head.",
"The reason it is not safe to be in contact with other human's blood is the risk of things like HIV can be transferred that way. There isn't that same risk with blood in food (however there is some). \n\nYou can't just go around drinking animal's blood though, it is toxic in high levels due to the high iron content. ",
"The viruses that target animals usually don't humans, also it's cooked so it kills any virus/bacteria. One of the reasons they think Ebola broke out is because bat DNA extremely similar to human DNA and the Ebola virus only had to mutate minimally to make the leap from bat to human. Same thing with HIV being in primates before it made the leap to humans. There's concerns with natives of Africa eating bush meat (monkeys, bats, etc) because monkey and bat DNA is so close to humans that you can have a virus transferred to a human (usually during the preparation of the meat when it's raw if it gets in an open wound). They have actually found some people in Africa with HIV2 (form in monkeys) but it hasn't mutated yet so it doesn't cause any symptoms. Potentially it could be the cause of the next super bug, if you had an airborne disease like HIV. "
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eifp82 | can bacteria be killed by contact and friction? | So I was brushing my teeth and was wondering if the toothbrush is actually killing bacteria by contact. In my mind the movement of the toothbrush very quickly has to kill some of the bacteria right? Then I went into the mental rabbit hole while brushing my teeth trying to think of the best way to kill bacteria by touch. I settled with slapping my hand on a flat object like a counter. I understand bacteria is everywhere and is important. I just want to know if we can poke, slap, prod, stab and chew bacteria to it’s death.
Edit: I understand that this isn’t the point of brushing your teeth. I was just explaining my thought process. The core of my question is can I do something physically to kill bacteria by contact? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/eifp82/eli5_can_bacteria_be_killed_by_contact_and/ | {
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"You cannot kill bacteria by contact and friction. When you brush your teeth, you're taking away the food stuck in your teeth. Bacteria need food to live. So without food, they die.",
"No, that's not quite what's happening.\n\nThe whole point of brushing is to remove food. Bacteria feed on the food and release acid, which eats away the teeth. Brushing is removing their food source primarily, any bacteria that are incidentally removed as a secondary benefit return eventually, since our entire respiratory tract, oropharynx, and entire body are constantly colonized by bacteria...but without a ready source of food, they don't excrete as much acid, and don't proliferate as much overnight.\n\nAs to whether bacteria can be killed by friction and impact, that's an good question, but I would guess almost certainly not, as the pores and microscopic recesses on our hands and surfaces offer ample room for bacteria to blend in and be protected. They are really, really small and fit in microscopic crevices. And, they are flexible and fluid filled, and can probably take a beating... Imagine an orange on a mattress...you can probably hit it as hard as you like, it will just sink into the mattress and deform a bit, but pop back.",
"In theory one can, but because bacteria are so small, you need special equipment, otherwise they just escape into a tiny crack you can't touch. So, you can remove bacteria by friction (like hand washing and tooth brushing), but that's not what kills them. \n\nOne apparatus that uses physical force to break open microorganisms is the [French press](_URL_0_)."
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9sf0em | why does a nuclear/atomic bomb stop exploding? | Essentially it splits atoms that split more atoms right? So why does it not just keep infinitely exploding... | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/9sf0em/eli5_why_does_a_nuclearatomic_bomb_stop_exploding/ | {
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"Not all atoms are \"fissionable\", only the Uranium/Plutonium in the bombs core. These atoms only support a nuclear chain reaction when they are very close together, this is why the bomb is triggered by using conventional explosives to \"push\" the fissile material together, to start a nuclear chain reaction.\nWhen the bomb detonates, the fissile material is very quickly scattered, which means that the bomb \"stops\" detonating. In actual fact, only a small amount of the fissile material in the bomb contributes to the explosion, most is scattered.\nIn the Hiroshima bomb, only 2% of the fissile material actually detonated.\nThere are a few differences between Nuclear and Thermonuclear bombs, etc, but this is generally true for all nuclear bombs.\n",
"First off we can't make an atomic bomb with just any material and expect those atoms to be able to split. Uranium and Plutonium are the common elements for atomic bombs because those atoms are much more able to be split than others. Secondly, as an atomic bomb explodes the force of the explosion starts pushing the nuclear material apart. The first bomb exploded by the manhattan project contained many pounds of uranium, and it is thought that only a very small amount of the uranium actually was split. I've heard it said that in that first bomb, the amount of that uranium that underwent fission was equivalent to the mass of a dollar bill. The rest of the uranium was scattered by the force of the explosion and did not attribute to the explosion."
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2eayjx | why generic usb 3 enclosures are abundant and cheap while thunderbolt enclosures are rare and expensive despite both being intel set standards | Thunderbolt launched at the start of 2011 and the second version already came out. It's on all Macs and many PCs. It uses an open standard port (mini display port) and is developed by Intel. It's 4x the speed of USB 3. Why can't I go on eBay and buy a SATA enclosure for it? The cheapest one is nearly $200, compared to $4 with USB 3. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2eayjx/eli5_why_generic_usb_3_enclosures_are_abundant/ | {
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"I would have to guess it is simply a result of there being far more manufacturers of USB 3 enclosures than thunderbolt ones, the more supply and competition there is the cheaper products generally end up.\n\nNow as to why there would be more makers of USB 3 enclosures than thunderbolt I can think up a couple of reasons, first of all if you make a USB 3 enclosure you are not limiting your market to only people that has USB 3 since USB 3 is backwards compatible, on top of that USB 3 is now being included in the hefty majority of Desktops and laptops build during the last year or two.\n\nThunderbolt on the other hand is not backwards compatible with any popular pre-existing standard and is more or less only found on Apple computers.\n\nThat is my hypothesis for the price differences you have experienced."
]
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89tf5h | how does someone genuinely manage to play chess with themselves? | I’ve seen the trope but never understood how it’s supposed to work, nor what it signifies about the mind of whoever is doing it. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/89tf5h/eli5_how_does_someone_genuinely_manage_to_play/ | {
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"Chess player here.\n\n\nYou play a certain opening, but after a while, you divert from that.\nThen you keep on playing untill you find out if your divertion works, or not.\n\nPlaying the game untill the end isnt requieed, but switching sides on the board can help get insight.",
"You don't play chess with your self to \"win\", you do it to study and explore.\n\nFor example, let's say your were curious whether a White King and two Knights could checkmate the lone Black King. In order to do that you have to play both the role of White trying to checkmate, and of Black trying to avoid it, to the best of your ability. In doing so, you would learn that despite there being checkmate positions, there is, in general, no way for White to force checkmate.\n\nSimilarly, you might be interested in a certain series of opening moves, and play out various scenarios to see if the other side has a good counter.\n\n"
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ezl3le | what are doctors checking for when men turn their heads to cough? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/ezl3le/eli5_what_are_doctors_checking_for_when_men_turn/ | {
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"The space where your testicles developed before dropping left a cavity. This cavity leaves an area for your intestine to drop into should the floor of your abdominal wall tear or stretch, called a hernia.\n\nThe coughing serves the purpose to get you to create pressure in the same area. You turn your head so you're not coughing in the Doctor's face.\n\nEdited for clarity and my own misunderstanding!",
"Coughing increases abdominal pressure which, if you had a hernia, would cause intestine to move with in the inguinal canal.",
"So, to clarify the other answers that aren't quite correct: Your doctor is checking for a hernia. However, it is for a hernia in the abdominal wall, not the diaphragm. Coughing causes the pressure inside your abdomen to increase, which pushes intestine through the defect, making it easier to feel. Some will ask you to bear down like you're having a bowel movement, which increases pressure the same way. I like that because I don't like being coughed on."
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k008c | zero emissions coal | If someone could explain this idea/technology and how it works I would be very appreciative. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/k008c/eli5_zero_emissions_coal/ | {
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"Right now, it's a series of technology proposals. It's important to understand that there is no such thing as \"zero emissions coal\" right now.\n\nWhether there will be in the future is a subject reasonable people can disagree on, but the idea has been promoted by politicians as if it actually exists now, usually by those who accept a lot of campaign contributions from the existing coal industry.",
"Right now, it's a series of technology proposals. It's important to understand that there is no such thing as \"zero emissions coal\" right now.\n\nWhether there will be in the future is a subject reasonable people can disagree on, but the idea has been promoted by politicians as if it actually exists now, usually by those who accept a lot of campaign contributions from the existing coal industry."
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fc8f78 | why normal, working class people are donating their money to billionaires attempting to become president? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/fc8f78/eli5_why_normal_working_class_people_are_donating/ | {
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"Because not everyone can run for president. Understanding that, the working class wants the person who best represents them and their voice to be funded and win.",
"Same reason we root for football teams, get mad when they lose and hate fans from other teams. We're tribal and this feeds in to our baser instincts. We can't go out and fist fight everyone who wants to take our elkmeat and mating partners so there's someone we think is stepping up for us. It's so simple yet so complex."
]
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8s4p0y | the recent immigration policy that is causing separation of families, and why that is happening. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/8s4p0y/eli5_the_recent_immigration_policy_that_is/ | {
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"Generally, during previous administrations, families detained crossing the border were put in immigration detention centers together.\n\nThe Trump administration has made it policy to separate children from parents as part of a strategy of \"maximum deterrence.\" \n\nThe administration cites the result of a court challenge to detaining minors settled in 1997 which was later ruled to apply to holding families together in immigration detention centers as their rationale. However, given a choice between:\n\n* separating families\n* calling on congress (which is dominated by the president's party) to pass a law allowing family detention\n* or releasing families prior to their court date\n\nthe administration chose the former. This is, to many people, untenable."
]
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||
7j0jhj | where does having a soul and spirituality fall on the religious spectrum? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/7j0jhj/eli5_where_does_having_a_soul_and_spirituality/ | {
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"You're at least mildly spiritual and not likely very religious.\n\nGenerally I spiritual as a view that there is more to existence than first meets the eye. There is a deeper meaning or at least perspective going on that is hard to pinpoint.\n\nReligious is more often a set of beliefs or practices. Going to church. Attending religious holidays. Reading holy books on the regular. Faith in a particular God or way of life.\n\nOften times you'll have religious people that may not even be spiritual. Religion is more a culture than a part of their worldview or understanding of life. There are nice traditions that they enjoy participating in. \n\nIf you're spiritual you may not believe there is any particular answer to life, or way to view it, other than to be aware that you've got a spirit and it needs to be taken care of like your body.\n\nA religious spiritual person will generally believe most or all of what they faith system preaches as reality. Possibly as only metaphorical explanations, but rooted in truth nonetheless and faultless. They'll feel some degree of having answers. \n\nThere are plenty of places and mixes between these though. This is the most thorough I can be in my phone, hope it's at least something to ponder."
]
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2pbzhn | why can i buy plan b over the counter, but i can't purchase birth control pills without a prescription? | I did the search! I did not find an answer for this specific question. So here is a little backstory: I tossed out my pack of unused birth control pills with a pile of mail a few days ago. I realized the error of my ways today (which happens to be the day I needed to start taking them again). I thought, "No problem! I'll call my pharmacy and see if they'll just let me purchase a pack without insurance." I found out that I had no refills and needed to call the doctor on call for my general practitioner. No big deal, so I called the office and chatted with someone who sounded like a normal human being. Then she said, "Well, I can't do that. Birth control pills are a controlled substance. You need to file a police report that they were stolen before the doctor will write a refill."
What. The. Fuck.
I tried to explain over and over again that birth control pills are not a controlled substance and that if I called to file a police report for stolen bc pills, the police would likely laugh at me. She still refused.
Seriously. This really happened. You can't make this shit up.
This left me wondering a couple of things: 1) If the birth control pill was invented in 1960 and has been tested for safety since then, why is it still not over the counter? and 2) If I can buy Plan B over the counter, why can I still not buy birth control pills over the counter?
Also why did so many people get votes way below the threshold? I thought they were good thoughts. :p | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2pbzhn/eli5_why_can_i_buy_plan_b_over_the_counter_but_i/ | {
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"Birth Control pills are not a Federally controlled substance, but they may be controlled in your state, and that may be why you can't find any info, or get them replaced without a police report.\n\nOtherwise, what [gnualmafuerte](_URL_0_) said.",
"Plan B one time shot of hormones, birth control long term doses of hormones, finding the right birth control requires a doctor to adjust as needed. There is not a one size fits all birth control pill."
]
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5zfzue | how do hcci engines work? | I know how normal engine ignition works, but with HCCI, there's no fuel spray (diesel) or spark (gasoline) to start the combustion stroke. How do they control the timing of the combustion to prevent knock? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5zfzue/eli5how_do_hcci_engines_work/ | {
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"It takes a very fine balance of compression, fuel and internal temperature control to prevent knock and detonation in an HCCI motor. Consistent internal temp control is the last major hurdle to overcome in order for production engines to be realized. Compression remains constant due to, well...physics. Fuel can be rigorously standardized to an almost fixed constant and metered delivery can be surgically precise. The stumbling block is maintaining a regulated internal temperature that will allow ignition to take place at the exact same compression point thousands of times per minute. Temperature fluctuations will change the compression point at which the fuel will ignite. Get three or four cylinders out of whack and the cumulative effect can wreak havoc on power production."
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3zzxjq | if everyone has free speech, why do students get in trouble for saying racist things, even if they're not aimed at one person in particular? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3zzxjq/eli5_if_everyone_has_free_speech_why_do_students/ | {
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"Free speech does not mean that a person can say whatever they want. It means that the government, specifically the government, cannot stop you from saying something, but even this has exceptions. Hate speech and lies, for example, are not protected. Free speech also does not protect you from the consequences of what you say.",
"Free speech is a right in the US and many other places. But it is limited. The most famous example is that no one is permitted to shout \"Fire.\" in a crowded movie house.\n\nStudents are learning appropriate public behavior as opposed to their home environments where they may have picked up offensive habits. You recognize that you cannot say offensive things about on person in particular. \n\nWhy don't you stop saying hateful things? There are many nice things you can say and nice things you can learn.",
"Free speech gives you the right to say what you want without the government arresting you. Free speech does not protect you from the consequences of what you say. If a school, business or other origination has a code of conduct, they are fully within their rights to remove you from that group based on what you say.",
"The first amendment states that the government can not censor you or you opinions, so you have the ability to say whatever smack you want to about the current congress members and what ever. Schools however can still punish people for saying something mean if they see it as out of line.\n\nAlso something declared obscene is not protected by the first amendment, so if the average person is disgusted by the content (and they should be if the content is super racist) the government can ban said content whether it be a video game or a book (mein kampf and cannibal holocaust and 2 things banned in the united states and several other countries for disturbing content)"
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51fhuz | working out the gravity of beer | I get the principal behind water + yeast + hops + malt, but I get lost at things like Original Gravity. I'm actually going to be working on brewing a beer through a project run by my employer so want to have a good idea how it all works. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/51fhuz/eli5_working_out_the_gravity_of_beer/ | {
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"Here, the beer gravity is a reference to what is known in science as the specific gravity, which is basically just the density in comparison to water. So, a beer with a gravity of 1.01 would be 1% more dense than liquid water. It's useful because you can correlate that change in density with the alcohol content of the beer (i.e. the more change in density, the more sugars have been turned into alcohol). You can also monitor the beer's gravity while it's fermenting, and when the gravity stops changing, you know it's finished fermenting.\n\nSource; I'm an engineering grad student. By nature I have a spiritual connection with beer.",
"As mentioned gravity is short for specific gravity which is a measurement of the weight of the liquid. For beer production most of the added weight is sugars that comes from the malt. If you know the specific gravity you can estimate how much sugars there is in your liquid. When you ferment the beer the sugars will turn into CO2 and alcohol. This will reduce the mass of your liquid and even increase the volume a bit as alcohol is less dense then water. If you know how much sugar you started with and how much the beer weighs in the end you can estimate how much alcohol and sugar there is in your final product.",
"To add to what has already been said, a 'high gravity' beer is one that starts a higher specific gravity than most, and a higher finished AVB than most. More sugars in the wort (pre-beer) get converted to alcohol to produce a stronger beer. Brewers note: The conversion of sugars to alcohol is done by yeast. Ethanol (The alcohol in beer) is toxic to yeast. So part of the problem with brewing high gravity beers is finding a strain of yeast that can survive AVB above 10% and that still produces a tasty beer. ",
"There are three important factors. \n\n* Water's specific gravity is 1.\n* Alcohol's specific gravity is 0.787.\n* Granulated sugar's specific gravity (sucrose) is 1.59.\n\nHowever, there are many possible mixtures to produce almost any specific gravity reading after fermentation starts. [This chart](_URL_0_) shows specific gravity falling during fermentation as sugar is converted to alcohol from different starting points, but notice that all the declining lines go through the horizontal lines 1.00, 1.02, 1.04, and 1.06. Also, there are many more possible lines! So just knowing specific gravity isn't useful to know how much of the three main ingredients are in the mixture. \n\nSo, the easy way to know which mixture is correct is to know where your mixture started, and that yeast can only convert sugar to alcohol, so you know which line to follow down (so knowing the starting point allows you to calculate the other two factors). \n\nOriginal gravity is the term for where you started, and as it ferments, more sugar is converted to CO2 and alcohol so keeping track of the specific gravity over time gives a good indication of fermentation progress. ",
"Additional to what everyone else is saying, specific gravity is also important to know when you are actually bottling the beer. Most label claims for a liquid will be volumetric, as in this bottle contains X fluid ounces of beer. In a bottling operation, it's very hard to measure volume in real time. It's much easier to use weight. You tare the bottle (weigh an empty bottle), fill it, and then weigh the filled bottle and subtract the tare. That gives you the weight of the liquid in the bottle. If that liquid is water, then you can instantly calculate volume as 1 mL of water = 1 g of water. For liquids other than water you need to know the specific gravity and then you can calculate the weight of product. High speed bottling lines have in-line check weighers that do this for every bottle. Someone inputs the numbers at the beginning of the run and they assure that each bottle has at least the legal amount of product in it."
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atpl1p | how do they store and transport highly radioactive materials like reactor core level or higher radioactivity | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/atpl1p/eli5_how_do_they_store_and_transport_highly/ | {
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"Lead and concrete for hard storage containers. These containers are often\"temporarily\" stored in large pools on site. Officially Cheyenne Mountain is where permanent storage was supposed to be, but decades of politics have held up anything actually getting moved there. ",
"Active fuel from a reactor core is stored under water. Water is one of the best radiation shielding materials. It blocks pretty much every kind of atomic radiation, it's cheap, safe and easy to maintain.\n\nIt's kept this way for at least 5 years after coming out of the reactor to cool it down. Fuel is not only radioactive, it's thermally very hot. Placing it in any container at that temperature would damage the container.\n\nWhen ready for transport to long term storage a container is lowered into the water. The fuel is then moved into the container under water. All fuel moves always occurs under water or inside/behind some kind of shielding barrier.\n\nOnce full the container is lifted out of the water. The water is drained out and the container is placed in a big concrete and steel container called a cask.\n\nIf it's transported it's by train or by giant trucks. But in the US spent fuel is primarily stored on site at the power plant due to there being no approved place to store it."
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jngv1 | a microwave. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/jngv1/eli5_a_microwave/ | {
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"Certain molecules such as water are not symmetrical, which leads to one part of them having an charge greater than another side of them. They behave like tiny magnets, with a + and - side.\n\nIf you then put these molecules in an electromagnetic field the little magnet-like molecules all line up with the field. Microwaves are a type of electromagnetic field that oscillate back and forth very quickly (2.4 billion times a second). When the field oscillates, the little magnet-like molecules oscillate too, moving them around. These molecules moving around bump into other molecules in the food, and the give them energy which is heat.",
"*(I wrote this just now for another person asking the same question, but the thread was deleted before I posted my answer. So I'm putting this here for future readers who are good with the search box.)*\n\nA microwave is a ray of a light that you can not see with your eyes, just like most radiations that exist.\n\nA microwave oven uses microwaves to create an electric field inside their cooking chamber. Some molecules want to be turned in a certain direction inside an electric field (because they have one side more positively charged and another more negatively charged). When they move to adjust themselves to the electric field, that movement creates friction, and just like when you rub your hands together, it becomes warmer. (To be a bit more specific, the energy in the magnetic field turns some molecules, and their movement in turn moves other molecules, which turns yet others and so on, and atoms and molecules that are moving is what we humans think of as heat.)\n\nSince we are taling about waves, that go up and down, the direction that the picky molecules want to be in changes all the time, so they move a lot. \n\nDon't worry about them cooking you though - as you can see in the door window there's a grid surrounding the cooking chamber that stops almost all of the \"bigger\" microwaves while letting \"smaller\" visible light through.",
"Certain molecules such as water are not symmetrical, which leads to one part of them having an charge greater than another side of them. They behave like tiny magnets, with a + and - side.\n\nIf you then put these molecules in an electromagnetic field the little magnet-like molecules all line up with the field. Microwaves are a type of electromagnetic field that oscillate back and forth very quickly (2.4 billion times a second). When the field oscillates, the little magnet-like molecules oscillate too, moving them around. These molecules moving around bump into other molecules in the food, and the give them energy which is heat.",
"*(I wrote this just now for another person asking the same question, but the thread was deleted before I posted my answer. So I'm putting this here for future readers who are good with the search box.)*\n\nA microwave is a ray of a light that you can not see with your eyes, just like most radiations that exist.\n\nA microwave oven uses microwaves to create an electric field inside their cooking chamber. Some molecules want to be turned in a certain direction inside an electric field (because they have one side more positively charged and another more negatively charged). When they move to adjust themselves to the electric field, that movement creates friction, and just like when you rub your hands together, it becomes warmer. (To be a bit more specific, the energy in the magnetic field turns some molecules, and their movement in turn moves other molecules, which turns yet others and so on, and atoms and molecules that are moving is what we humans think of as heat.)\n\nSince we are taling about waves, that go up and down, the direction that the picky molecules want to be in changes all the time, so they move a lot. \n\nDon't worry about them cooking you though - as you can see in the door window there's a grid surrounding the cooking chamber that stops almost all of the \"bigger\" microwaves while letting \"smaller\" visible light through."
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1md5ks | how does a boat anchor prevent it from drifting when it only weighs a very small fraction of what a boat weighs. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1md5ks/eli5how_does_a_boat_anchor_prevent_it_from/ | {
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"As a boat drifts away from the anchor, the line becomes more parallel to the bottom, this allows the anchor to dig more deeply into the sand, which stops the boat from drifting.... usually.",
"Anchors don't stop the boat by weighing it down. They usually have a plough or claw like end that digs into the sea floor, holding the boat in\nPlace.",
"Anchors that actually go to the sea floor don't use weight to keep the ship stationary, they use grip. \n\nA ship will drop its anchor a certain distance from the position it actually wants to keep, let the anchor hit the bottom and then move the ship back to the desired position while paying out the anchor chain. Modern anchors are constructed with two large blades and a central shank on a pivot (as seen [here](_URL_0_)). This means that when the anchor is lying on the sea floor and the chain pulls taught, the tips of the blades will dig into the sea floor. The tension placed on the chain will pull the anchor deeper into the sea floor due to the angle of the blades.",
"The same way your hands prevent your body from falling when you are hanging from monkey bars."
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cscusl | what’s the difference between an economic crash back then (which caused the great depression) and an economic crash in modern day? | I don’t know a lot about economics so try to explain it to me like I’m 5 (Sorry if my grammar is a bit off) | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/cscusl/eli5_whats_the_difference_between_an_economic/ | {
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"To put it simply, the Great Depression was a bigger crash, and we didn't have failsafes for bank runs back then. Now, we are able to control the negative effects a little better, but they still hurt, just not to the point of mass poverty like the 30s.",
"Fundamentally, nothing. Both crashes were caused by a market that had been driven high on speculation (predictions of future performance) of an asset that no one was paying attention too as it turned sour. \n\nWith the Great Depression it was the stock market generally, which kinda means the American economy generally, it kept going up so more people bought in thinking it would keep going up and so it kept going up because people were buying in, until one day it didn't and everyone panicked crashing the whole thing. The people buying the stocks weren't paying attention to what the stocks they were buying actually represented, didn't see that it was in no way worth the prices they were being sold for. They were purely buying in because the stock market was rising, not because what those stocks represented was rising.\n\nWith the Great Recession, it was the housing market. A financial market occurred that made money from bundling up mortgages and selling them on to the next guy for a lump sum, who made money long-term collecting the interests on all those mortgages. Eventually you run out of mortgages to bundle together, there are only so many houses with so many good buyers after all, so there was pressure to issue riskier and riskier mortgages. The people issuing the mortgages didn't suffer for issuing risky mortgages like you'd expect for any other loan, they sold it and the risk on to the next guy. The companies buying the mortgage packages weren't paying attention to what they were buying, the ratings agencies (who were pressured to give the nod to everything) had given the all clear and the culture was that housing was a safe investment. So as large banks and financial institutions bought in and relied more and more on these bundled up mortgages, nobody was actually paying attention to them to realize they weren't worth anywhere near what they were valued at as everyone was still making money, until one day everyone realized all at once and it crashed.\n\nThe difference between then and now is that the Great Depression was back when governments didn't know how to react to events like this."
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8ebsja | why are the keys on a piano arranged with the low notes on the left and the high notes on the right? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/8ebsja/eli5_why_are_the_keys_on_a_piano_arranged_with/ | {
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"Most people are right-handed, and in lots of pieces of music the low notes are used to provide a relatively simple foundation for ornamentation done at higher pitches. It therefore makes sense to have those higher notes more accessible to the more-agile right hand.\n\n\"Left-handed\" pianos, with the keys running the other way, do in fact exist, but they're comparatively rare.",
"Most people are right handed and the more complex parts of the music will normally be in the higher notes, which necessitate them being played by the more agile right hand. ",
"I suspect it has more to do with ancient lyre construction than with right-hand dexterity directly. [Take a look at the lyre here.](_URL_1_) You'll notice that the higher pitched strings are further from the player than the lower pitches. This makes sense: even today, the lower strings are frequently used to fill out the chord. A strum towards the body will also have more strength, adding power and dynamics to the root of the chord. When people built organs, they couldn't put the keyboard on both sides so they pivoted.\n\nThat said, right-hand dexterity did play a part. As you can also see from the above the lyre was built for people who were right-handed. Building a parallel hydraulis would then mimic the existing lyre.\n\nAnother [convention can be found here.](_URL_0_) The early versions of the hand-organ (precursor to the accordion) relied on the left hand working the bellows and the right hand playing the instrument. When someone else would work the bellows instead, then the player would similarly pivot.\n\n------\nEDIT: (And I can't believe I didn't think of this earlier)\n\nIt should be also noted: the original organs *DID NOT USE POLYPHONY*. This is important. It was unlikely that the organ would be playing *the same melody* in __BOTH__ hands. This all but rules out any argument that it comes from facility of one hand over another. Both hands would have played the same thing, or they would split the melody between them."
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6jf18c | do sea creatures such as geese and dolphins frequently die in storms? if not, how do they manage to stay alive? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/6jf18c/eli5_do_sea_creatures_such_as_geese_and_dolphins/ | {
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"That's a weird two examples. The destructive effects of storms don't extend very far under the surface (waterspouts do not suck fish up and cause them to fall from the sky, that's a myth) and birds usually aren't active during storms, you'll notice you don't hear birdsong when a storm is coming. They can still be killed the same way anything else can, but they're probably not out flying in a tornado.",
"Geese are not sea creatures. Their nests are located on land, and they stay there during storms.\n\nDolphins spend most of their time below the surface, where storms have little effect. They need to come to the surface to get air for just a few seconds every few minutes."
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2b6355 | why is considered unethical to date your boss but it's perfectly fine to be close friends with him/her? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2b6355/eli5_why_is_considered_unethical_to_date_your/ | {
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"There's no catch-all answer here. Depending on the nature of your friendship with a boss, it could easily lead to accusations of favouritism, and dating in the workplace is so common, that bosses dating underlings is not really out of the question entirely either.\n\nIt depends on the workplace, and the politics or culture of that workplace as to whether it can work or not.\n\nThe general basis for having fraternisation rules, though, is because when people break up there's a good chance one or the other will look for another job, so they don't have to keep running into each other (and each other's dates). That awkwardness is perhaps less among broken friendships than it is among broken relationships."
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2yqby6 | why is it okay for black rappers to use the "n word" freely but not a caucasian person? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2yqby6/eli5_why_is_it_okay_for_black_rappers_to_use_the/ | {
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"It's like how you can call your friend a dirty f*ckhead but you wouldn't say that to some random person.",
"Because thats the way it is. Freedom of speech doeant protect you from criticism of your choice of words, just from legal ramifications. Thats why you can be fired or expelled or whatnot for most of the things you say. You just cant be charged with a crime.\n\nAs a society, we have said that black people, by virtue of them being black, have the right to use that word um.most respects without serious consequence. We have also decided that most white people under most circumstances, absolutely cannot. \n\nWe used it badly for a long time and we had that toy taken away from us.",
"Because it was a slur used to insult and oppress black people. They reclaimed it, using it as a term to refer to each other positively, so the word would no longer have its effect. This happens with a lot of terms, it's a civil rights strategy for taking powerful words away from oppressors.\n_URL_0_\n\nSo when a white person uses it, it's interpreted that it's being used to oppress people. When a black person uses it, it's interpreted as the reclaimation of the term."
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6fwznj | how can a large company like nintendo not be able to keep up with demands, while other companies do so seemingly without effort? | [deleted] | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/6fwznj/eli5_how_can_a_large_company_like_nintendo_not_be/ | {
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"Selling expensive hardware like gaming consoles has a \"damned if you do, damned if you don't\" problem. Too few AND too many units is bad.\n\n**Too many** - It costs money to make gaming consoles. If you spend (random number) $100 million dollars on a batch of consoles, and then after 6 months have only sold $70 million, you are $30mil in the hole. Sure you'll probably *eventually* move the rest of them, but your shareholders don't like to see you spend money you didn't need to.\n\n**Too Few** - Lemme preface this by saying ignore anyone who says \"artificial scarcity.\" If there aren't enough boxes to go around... some of those people may get bored of waiting and go to a competitor. If a customer wants to buy your product you should put it in their hands ASAP before they stop caring about you, so too few units to go around means lost money too.\n\nIdeally, you want to have exactly as many boxes as customers... but estimating it **that** precisely is really hard. Nintendo **usually** goes conservative and shoots for the \"too few\" side, but Nintendo estimated WAYYYY too many on the Wii U: the initial major shipment sold out but the follow-up boxes sat for months and months on shelves with plenty of back stock still around. That hurt them a lot. So with the Switch, they went particularly conservative, especially considering this console is weird and different from other things so far. ",
"I'll use the recently released Nintendo Switch as an example, since that may be what you referring to.\n\nWhen Nintendo comes out with a new product, it has to decide long in advance of its release how many it will make in a certain timeframe. They have to purchase parts, ship them to the manufacturer, pay to have them assembled, and pay to have them shipped. \n\nWhile there are usually economies of scale where it is cheaper to produce more of something, in electronics that is often not the case past a certain point where the parts become more difficult to acquire. Right now LCD screens and NAND memory is both in relatively short supply since companies like Apple and Samsung will also buy them up. Short supply means expensive to purchase.\n\nThe end result is that if Nintendo overestimates demand and makes more than people would purchase they could lose a lot of money in two ways. (1) They lose money because they pay even more per component than if they purchased fewer, and (2) the items may never sell or sell slowly so they either lose all the cost or have to pay for warehousing. Drastically overestimating demand can put you out of business.\n\nIf you *under*estimate demand, however, then you may lose some business (but it may also just be a delayed purchase) but your will never put yourself out of business entirely.\n\nOnce Nintendo realized that they underestimated demand, it is difficult to quickly recover by making more because the components need to be sourced and their assembly line can only be sped-up by a limited amount. Paying for an entirely separate additional factory line to meet short term demand is almost always a mistake because demand is higher in the beginning. Once Christmas is over, for instance, it is likely the existing assembly line will be able to cover demand. So paying for a new one to make more now would almost certainly lose them a lot of money."
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diswdp | before modern day technology how were such intricate and huge structures like the houses of parliament or the st victus cathedral in prague designed and built so perfectly? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/diswdp/eli5_before_modern_day_technology_how_were_such/ | {
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"All modern day technology does is expedite the math involved in the design and construction of buildings. The math itself already existed - architects were versed in physics, mathematics and geometry so that they could properly measure all the distances/weights/amounts and ensure everything was both designed properly then placed properly during the actual construction.\n\nIt's why architectural planes and diagrams exist, as well as why architecture utilizes so many models. Once everything was properly diagrammed and modeled all you had to do was multiply measurements to scale and you got the exact coordinates and distances for *everything*. All we've done is switch the diagrams to digital, the models to 3d graphics and the math to calculators. A lot of older tools are still employed to make certain everything is level and properly placed. Outside of that, a lot of hard work is the answer.\n\nThis is the son-and-grandson-of-architect-but-not-architect explanation. An actual architect can probably explain it better.\n\nEDIT: Well I did not expect this to blow up! I've learned a lot, thanks everyone for the discussion!",
"There was a time before consumerism where the vast majority of people worked until they died on projects such as these, in order to make enough income to put food on their family's table, a roof over their head, and taxes paid to their king. A lot of them may realistically have not had the option to work on anything else. \n\nELI5: Cheap abundant labour, construction lasting decades/centuries, and not many other jobs to do.",
"Also dont forget they often got it wrong - many buildings and cathedrals collapsed during construction and had to be rebuilt (e.g. Lincoln Cathedral in 1237) . There was a lot of trial and error and rules-of thumb.",
"For anyone who hasn’t seen this series, [Secrets Of The Castle](_URL_0_) is a fantastic documentary about how things were done at a 13th century castle. I’ve learned so much from this series and constantly go back and watch it.",
"With a semi-circle and a straight-edge. It also took forever, like 20-30 years. \n\nPart 1 - Before very recently the math involved was trig and geometry and it had to be done by hand. You can actually design a building with a straight edge, ruler, and fractions. Algebra is a recent invention, the Greeks didn't have it yet their structures have stood the test of time. If you know how long the blocks of stone are that you are cutting (as an example) you can give me a precise measure measurement based on the full size using a fraction. This is specific to the job but it is effective. We see examples of this across the ancient world, from India to the Incas. \n\nPart 2 - The time, we can make a building like Freedom tower in about 7-8 years, not an insignificant amount of time but not terrible considering the scale of that project. A lot of that time includes construction not conceived of in ancient times, like AC, plumbing, electrical, windows, radio towers, etc. Considering the added stuff we have to do in modern times, 7-8 years is bloody rapid. In ancient time we were looking at lifetimes of work for one building.",
"Victorian Era engineers often built things with huge safety margins. (Not sure how strong to build that support? Make a good guess and multiply that by ten.) That's why the Tower Bridge is still cookin' along, not to mention that the Thames embankment sewer structures were only recently outgrown after 150 years of service.\n\nAlso, you can tour Europe and see examples of Cathedrals that, in their builders' desire to build taller and more elegant churches, exceeded the limits of material physics and had to be reinforced... or taken down, if they didn't outright collapse. Check out Beauvais Cathedral, for example. \n\nFWIW, I'm not deliberately beating on the French here (yes, I am). I'm merely citing examples near to mind and one should not take this to mean English engineers are any better than their French counterparts (they are). \n\n*dons his trusty Brodie helmet and awaits the inevitable onslaught from across the Channel*\n\n😁",
"Go to Rome, and realize we've been doing that for WAY LONGER.\n\nAnd then go to Giza, and see the Pyramids.\n\nIt's all math. If you do the math right, the structure will hold. \n\nMarcus Agrippa was an amazing engineer. His works are all over the empire. \n\nYou just go with what bears the load best, and then design around that. \n\nTake Jenga for example, you instinctively know what blocks may or may not cause structural failure.",
"The Ancient Egyptians had this figured out millenia ago. When they built the pyramids, the engineers had detailed blueprints made for the workers to follow that would ensure structural integrity. Interestingly enough, they also had a detailed record keeping for providing wages to workers that was just as complex and impressive! If I recall correctly, there was even a pension system for them as well!",
"The thing modern tech do is mainly speeding up the building time. \neg. Its faster to use a machine than having people dig a hole manualy with spades, showels and picks. \nOr lifting stuff with a crane over using a simple rope´n´pully system. \nThe large old building could take 100s of years from start to finish.",
"The novel Pillars of the Earth goes into a lot about medieval construction techniques and is also just a great read.",
"Measure twice, cut once. Want it to look nice? Measure twice.",
"Based on a quick Google search it took 600 years for St Victus to reach its current state. 200 for Notre Dame. Guess and check took time.",
"They were (most of the time) over-designed. One of my favorite quotes is \"Any idiot can make a building stand up, but it takes an engineer to make a building barely stand up.\"",
"You'd be surprised how many crooked keystones there are, how many slanted windows and unaligned windows/walls.\n\nStill very impressive, but famous old architecture is full of flaws.",
"Let's just say, for example, that there were twenty buildings erected 500 years, but only two survived to the modern day. It might be argued that those two buildings were \"**designed and built so perfectly**\" yet 90% of the buildings failed. It's a fallacy to look at all such extant buildings and conclude that engineering was so perfect in the past.",
"As others have said, the math was there, but the builders were especially careful when churches and cathedrals were involved. Don't want to burn in hell for messing up God's house. \n\nThat's a reason cathedrals are still standing today, and other buildings aren't. In general, only the best of the best designed them."
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76jx2i | why is it that heavier people generally can initially lift more weight than people of same overall health but less body weight? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/76jx2i/eli5why_is_it_that_heavier_people_generally_can/ | {
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"A few reasons : Extra body fat (up to about 25% for males) is actually not bad for you, and doesn't even increase the risk of death. In order to optimally build muscle the body has to be in a anabolic state which is best achieved by excess calories. (Short of steroids that is). So people who have eaten more, generally have gained more muscle (ceteris paribus). Also from carrying around excess weight support muscles will generally be stronger - legs, lower back, calf, core. ",
"For two people of the same height, assuming similar health, the heavier person will generally have greater muscle mass. More muscle means more strength. ",
"1. Leverages. No doubt, it's impressive to be extremely strong at a certain weight (i.e. Pound for pound strength or wilks score) But the strongest people in powerlifting tend to be extremely fat. It's easier to squat half a ton of weight when you have basically have a mini monster truck tire around your waist for support and to push off from.\n1a. I didn't know how to describe this, so I'll describe it as a subpoint of leverages. When you're fat, your lifts also tend to have less distance to travel. For example, if your chest is extremely fat, how far does the bar have to travel up, vs if your chest is extremely lean? Doing partial reps of powerlifting exercises is a frequently used method, used partially (no pun intended) because they teach you to work through sticking points while not taking a huge toll on your body (vs compared to if you did the entire range of motion). So if you're fatter, you're probably limiting your range of motion inherently.\n2. Body composition. While it's possible, it's unlikely two untrained people will have the same lean body mass at different weights. The fatter guy will probably have a higher overall lean body mass because he has to lift more weight overall on a daily basis.\n\nAlso, it's unlikely you will have two people of the same overall health at different body weights. Overall health encompasses many factors. But let's isolate two: cardiovascular health and overall strength. I'm currently 200 lb @ ~15% body fat, or 170 lb lean body mass. I can run a 6 min mile, but at a heart rate of 170 bpm. That's pretty good for someone my weight, but I would no doubt be faster or have a lower bpm at the same running rate if I was lighter. But I would also lose strength. Someone of identical height who is 170 lb @ 10% body fat would be able to run a faster mile if they trained for it. Because he'd be carrying less weight. But no doubt, he would also not be as strong as me.\n\nAs just a small example, based on my Fitbit data in the past, going from 200 lb to 185 lb, maintaining the same LBM, my resting HR would decrease by about 10-15% (which is good). But looking at my work out logs, my strength took a hit of about the same %. \n\nUltimately, based on changing weight alone (while using similar lean body mass), overall health is dramatically affected. If you changed overall lean body mass, the effects would be even more drastic. Then there are many other factors to consider.",
"Because a larger persons muscles are literally larger. Including length. Muscle volume is a large factor in how much can be lifted.",
"They have more muscle.\n\nThis is not super hard to understand, they carry around more weight constantly so they will build a certain amount of muscle just from doing every day things like getting out of bed, getting on and off the toilet, walking. Also, a high calorie diet is great for building muscle even if it is poorly balanced.",
"Fitness is extremely misunderstood by the general population. For example, the common person believes that if they want to lose belly fat, they should do ab exercises. However the truth is that you cannot target specific areas for fat loss, and all you’re doing is strengthening the abdominal muscles underneath the fat. That is a very simplified version, but I mention it because it relates to your question in one way.\n\nThe human body doesn’t operate the way most people think it does (speaking in the health/fitness capacity)\n\nTo directly answer your question, basically the more mass you have on you, the more likely you are to have muscle mass. Every time you take in more calories than your body burns, your body stores it in some capacity. Most of the time when it’s bad food or you aren’t working out it is going to be stored as fat. However, even if you didn’t eat great and didn’t work out a small percentage of the calories will still be used to build muscle fiber. When you workout you burn calories and break down your muscle fibers, which the body then repairs through the food you eat. Carbohydrates will help your body replenish its energy storage, and the protein will be used to rebuild the muscle you broke down. (Again this is overly simplified, but you get the idea.) However an interesting study, I’ll try to find the link, found that males who were given testosterone and did not work out compared to males that weren’t given the testosterone but did work out actually put on more muscle mass than males who weren’t given any. Think about that: if you have good genetics, with high testosterone, you can put on more muscle mass sitting on your butt than someone who is actively lifting with bad genetics.\n\nBasically TL;DR The more you eat, the more likely you are to put on muscle mass, even if you aren’t working out.\n\nHope this helped.\n\nSource: Former personal trainer",
"Another factor to consider is the larger person has a more stable base in most cases. This translates better to real world applications vs bodybuilding. Examples. My 150lb co-worker pics up a 50lb box and has to use his whole body to get the load up and at a carry-able position. He normally has to lean way back to keep his center of gravity correct. I (350lbs) have a very stable base/center of gravity. It's much easier for me to pick up and carry that load without having to use my entire body to maintain stability. \n\nI always notice this with those really stiff business doors as well. I just need to use my arm to open it because my tractive weight holds me in position. My co-worker has to brace his body differently on stiff doors in ways I've never had to. ",
"\nI’m a student of Medicine and I hold a degree in Nursing. \n\nFrom a physiologic point of view:\n\nThe strength of a muscle is determined by it’s size, with a maximal contractile force between 3 and 4kg/cm^2 of muscle cross-sectional area.\n\nTo make it as vague to a 5 year old as possible:\nTo contract, muscles need actin and myosin filaments in each muscle fiber. These are contractile proteins that generate muscle force or work. When you have a lot of these, they split up and form more fibers. This results to more muscle mass or ‘bigger/stronger’ muscles. There are mainly 3 factors that affect this: training, diet, and genetics.\n\nNow, when you have more muscle mass (mass does not necessarily mean size but the density of muscle fibers) you are heavier. This is why heavier people tend to be stronger. This is also why people who have lean muscles tend to be heavier than others who are about the same size and height.\n\nSource: Guyton & Hall Physiology\n\nFrom a physics point of view:\nForce = mass x acceleration\n\nBy this formula, it is easy to see that mass (in our case, weight) is directly proportional to Force (or in our case, strength). \n\nDisregarding factors other than weight, a larger individual will throw a heavier punch compared to a lighter individual if they had the same acceleration.\n\nSource: Grade 6 Physics\n\nedit: added that bit about lean muscles",
"There's more muscle under all the flab. In the most extreme cases that's simply because it takes more muscle to lift all the flab. Strength is determined by muscle mass, not total mass or somebody \"fitness.\" That's why it's common to see rather rotund individuals benching multiple 45s when much more lean and fit individuals can only manage a fraction of that.",
"Their bodies are larger, so they literally have more muscle and more strength potential. You don't need to work to carry muscle around, do you? Other than that, they have bones and fat like everyone else. A person can lose fat and be predominantly muscle, and a larger/taller person will have much more of it, so they will be stronger. Pretty simple. ",
"Muscle distributes more evenly than fat. Fat tends to have a couple build up areas, namely the stomach for men and the butt/thighs for women. Muscle, on the other hand, tends to grow with your frame. As you become larger, you gain more muscle to support your body weight, but this muscle distributes more evenly since your skeleton and muscles are working together a cohesive unit.\n\nThis is a weird analogy, but it's the best I could think of on the spot. \n\nImagine you have two nets: net A and net B. Net A is capable of holding 50lbs and net B is capable of holding 100lbs. \n\nImagine that you also have two rocks: 40lb rock A and 90lb rock B. \n\nIf rock A is in net A, then net A can hold an additional 10lbs, and the same is true if rock B is in net B.\n\nNow if you were to add some sort of support, like a cable with a harness that supports the weight of the rock so the net doesn't have to, which net is stronger? Clearly net B, right? \n\nThe same thing is true with people. If each net/rock combination is a person, then the rock is their fat and the net is their muscle. You need more muscle (net) to support more fat (rock), but if you have some sort of additional support such as a bench (cable holding the rock) to support most of that fat, your muscle (the net) can support more weight.",
"Two reasons (just my opinions)\n\n1. They have more muscle mass with fat over the muscle. This makes them look even bigger then they really are. So they are already much stronger than you but look fat.\n\n2. They eat more energy dense food than you and therefore have more energy available for burst exercises. \n\nPersonally, I have much more strength and energy when im bulking vs. Cutting or maintaining. ",
"While it is true that they generally have a greater amount of the non-impressive muscles and postural muscles that can't really be worked in the gym, they *also* generally eat more, have more energy stored in cells (called glycogen), and have more cellular creatine available. Creatine helps the muscle cell make use of the energy it produces. However, people with less body fat typically produce more testosterone and growth hormone (which helps them build/retain muscle) and are more sensitive to insulin (which helps sugar/energy sources get into their muscle cells).\n\nThis phenomenon can be observed in bodybuilders. They \"bulk\" (eat more & gain weight purposefully to fuel muscle growth) in their offseason then \"cut\" (eat less to slowly lose fat) to prepare for a show. As they eat less and lose weight, their testosterone and growth hormone production increases. This helps them to build and retain muscle. Think of it as a built-in way of preventing our bodies from losing muscle when food is scarce. They also have more insulin sensitivity, meaning sugar can get into their muscle cells more effectively. For this reason, bodybuilders may actually get *stronger* as they begin to lose weight. However, after significant weight loss, their energy stores and creatine (which we get from food and/or supplements) become depleted. This means that after bodybuilders lose a lot of weight, they actually begin to lose some energy, become weaker, and even lose some muscle mass. However, their fat loss generally \"outweighs\" the muscle loss, and they end up looking... like a bodybuilder.\n\nHope this helps!\n\nEdit: more fit for ELI5."
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2q6nd1 | how can the decriminalization of illegal drugs, make drug consumption safer for the final consumer? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2q6nd1/eli5_how_can_the_decriminalization_of_illegal/ | {
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"Well, you won't have criminals trying to sell you drugs, for starters.",
"2 words. Quality Control. \nThe clear and concise dosage on unadulterated drug is always safer than the unknown quantity of street chemicals. \n",
"one problem with illegal drugs is the processing. Cocaine is a very processed form of coca leaves; and it takes many steps to become cocaine.\n\nPoisons could be used (instead of 'better' chemicals) in the process;\nleaving traces in the finished product.\n\nand/or the finished product could be diluted with fillers like corn starch.\n\ndecriminalization would mean better quality control, and reduce the fear of complications from a bad batch. \n\nAlso, then using would be seen as the disease it is as opposed to a moral/criminal failing, and addicts could get the help they actually need as opposed to jail time which benefits no one in society. (except for those running the private jails)",
"Correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe the argument is it will allow for more resources to be dedicated to the treatment and rehabilitation of drug addicts instead of throwing them into prison and perpetuating the cycle of addiction/criminal behavior. While prison can certainly rectify the behavior of some, I think a lot of the time the system fails to treat the real issues. Outside of prison, legalization would potentially eliminate a lot of violent crime as drugs would be regulated and sold in designated areas via legitimate businesses as opposed to gangs and street thugs. If you illegally buy some pot, for example, and someone robs you, you most likely will not call the police because you are partaking in an illegal activity to begin with. Knowing that police might not be called is incentive for criminal behavior that may easily lead to violence. Worse, the only retaliation is more or less some form of street justice and the cycle goes on. Also, it's good to add that legalization would also lead to safer means for drug users to use the drugs, reducing disease passed on intravenously. "
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vcgu0 | why is summer solstice the beginning of summer, not the midpoint? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/vcgu0/why_is_summer_solstice_the_beginning_of_summer/ | {
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"Why is the solstice the beginning? It's not. Summer is June, July, and August.\n\nFrom the Straight Dope:\n\n > There is a widespread misconception in [the United States]—which extends, I might note, to the makers of most calendars, dictionaries, and encyclopedias—that summer \"officially\" starts on the day of the summer solstice, June 21 or 22, which is the longest day of the year. Americans also believe (1) that there is some valid scientific reason for doing it that way, and (2) that everybody in the Northern Hemisphere does it that way, and always has.\n > \nNone of these things is true. So far as I have been able to discover, no scientific or governmental body has ever formally declared that summer starts on the solstice.\n > \nCertainly there is no good scientific reason for doing so. ...\n\n[Read full article.](_URL_0_)"
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cv4itm | why does some food require eaten without x days of opening? | I bought a salami and provolone cheese snack today and was reading the package. It says to use within 7 days of opening. Other things like jerky day to refrigerate after 3 days of opening. Some coffee creamers say to use within a week of opening. I know about food safety and usually you wouldn’t want to eat something too long after it’s been opened. I’m guessing moisture and the type of ingredients probably create a haven for bacteria? What about food like chips and cereal? They go stale but don’t say consume within 5 days of opening. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/cv4itm/eli5_why_does_some_food_require_eaten_without_x/ | {
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"Fresh Food like that spoils quick once exposed to the environment, while processed foods last longer when opened due to the preservatives added, foods are sealed in a quarantined area basically, once you open it, it is exposed to bacteria and other things in the world that will make your food go bad within a certain amount of time.\n\nThink aged cheeses, for years they sit on a shelf dipped in an air tight wax covering, they age and age and form certain bacteria within that is beneficial, but once you crack the seal on that cheese it needs to be eaten before the bad bacteria from the world around us takes over and makes it bad. That is why when it goes bad it tastes sour or different, it is different bacteria that we do not want in there.\n\nBefore fridges existed, almost everything was turned into some form of jerky, dry aged with salt. Dry stuff lasts longer than moist, moist areas are a spawning zone for bacteria. So dry your food out and is less likely to be overcome by bacteria."
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74o93a | why does viewing at 60fps exist/matter (specially with motion) when eyes can only see at 25-30fps (or so i think)? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/74o93a/eli5_why_does_viewing_at_60fps_existmatter/ | {
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"That's because your eyes can see way more than 30fps.\n\nMovies and TV get away with using low framerates because of built in motion blurring and the fact that they are passive medias.\n\nFor media that require active participation, like video games, low framerates are very noticeable.",
"It’s an internet myth, from reaction tests they have found some people can process sight information at 1 millisecond (1000fps), others much much less. It’s all about the individual. I do believe though, to an ordinary person, anything above 200fps is deemed as looking like regular real life motion. \nFor clarification, at 60fps/hz you can still visibly see a flickering light source.",
"Human eyes can only see at 30fps...ish. Really, your eyes don't even see in \"frames per second\" like a camera, but instead see a continuous stream. \n\nIt's just that somewhere around the 30fps mark your brain stops seeing still images and starts fuzzing them together as a moving picture. Upping the count to 60fps makes it even easier for your brain to interpret the moving image and even pick out more detail as it's closer to 'real life' movement. "
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3ecrk8 | once segregation became illegal, what did segregated bathrooms and waiting rooms turn into? | I'm sure there were thousands and thousands of those rooms, so what happened to them when they were no longer allowed? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3ecrk8/eli5_once_segregation_became_illegal_what_did/ | {
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"Most of them just stayed bathrooms that anyone could use. Such as the Pentagon. Was built when that was the thing. So they have a ton of bathrooms that's for anyone. "
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3oer1u | are any negative consequences for judges (or courts) whose decisions get overturned frequently by higher courts? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3oer1u/eli5_are_any_negative_consequences_for_judges_or/ | {
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"You will get a better explanation from others, but simply put, the lower courts rule on basic interpretation of the law and use prior rulings as justification. The judge may even agree that the ruling appears unjust but prior rulings dictate they must rule in that way. So then it goes to appeal to a higher court that can seek more evidence and interpret the facts and circumstance with more authority and more interpretation that the lower courts can. So to punish the lower courts for doing what they are supposed to do would not be appropriate.",
"Yes, professional consequences. Most judges care about their record, because most judges want to leave open the possibility of being appointed to a higher court. The higher up you go as a judge, usually you get more money, more power, and more job security. EVERY judge would love to be appointed to the federal bench, which has a great pay and a lifetime appointment.\n\nWhen appointments are coming up, the committees and final decision makers do look at a judge's record. If the judge has been upheld on appeal multiple times, it probably means the judge isn't bad.\n\nThere are some judges who don't give a crap, love their current position, and will do whatever they want. As long as it is not too egregious and unprofessional, the judge will unlikely be punished. \n\nNotable exceptions to what I have said are Judges Posner and Learned Hand. Those two judges often went against established precedence, but used new logical tools and reasoning to support what they did. This led to their being elevated and even changing the law.\n"
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dx4l1f | what exactly are the crystals in an lcd an what happens to them when the screen is turned off? | [deleted] | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/dx4l1f/eli5_what_exactly_are_the_crystals_in_an_lcd_an/ | {
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"Hey, i'm gonna try to explain this :)\n\nTo understand how it works, you need to know light is like a wave, which vibrates in a fixed direction in space, it's called polarization. So when lights travel in a said direction, it can be polarized in any direction through the 360° around it's line of propagation.\n\nCrystals in LCD screens are in a phase between solid and liquid matter. It's like a liquid matter, but that keeps the organization of its molecules in a very specific order. Imagine all the molecules are facing the same direction. That gives them the property to change (or not) the polarization of the light passing through it, depending of their excitation. So there is green, red and blue crystals in your screen, and the combination of the three make one pixel.\n\nThe system of light emission emits light when your screen is ON, and it goes through 3 steps before exiting the screen and going to your eyes:\n\n1. A horizontal polarizer, which force the incoming light to be horizontaly polarized\n2. The colored crystal\n3. A vertical polarizer, which only let through the light if its polarized verticaly.\n\nIf the crystal is switched ON : the property of the specific liquid crystal changes the polarization of light to be vertical, so the light going through the crystal can exit the screen. It also has changed the color of the light depending of which crystal (blue, red or green) it was.\n\nIf the crystal is switched OFF : there is an electricity current flow through the crystal and its property to change polarization is disabled. Therefore, the light passing through the crystal is still horizontaly polarized, and doesnt go through the vertical polarizer.\n\nWhen your screen is switched OFF, there is no electric current going through the crystals, so you can say they are all switched ON. But as there is no light emitted from the back of your screen, no light is exiting.\n\nIf you want to know more : [_URL_0_](_URL_0_)\n\nEDIT : forgot the mention what happened when you shut down your screen.",
"Imagine that there's a picket fence covering the display. Light passes between the pickets. Not as much as when the fence isn't there, but a good amount. Now think of the crystals as another picket fence in front of the one I just described. When they're lined up, the same amount of light passes through. But when the crystals are activated, that flips the direction of the pickets 90°. Now there are no gaps in the pair of fences for light to get through.",
"Take the lenses of the 3d glasses you get at movie theatre. If put them against each other and rotate one, you will either be able to see clearly though them or see nothing. This is because each lens is a filter that only lets through a specific type of light based on its rotation. An LCD monitor works in the same way. It starts with a backlight consisting of pixels each with a red, green, and blue light. This light is then passed through two of these filters, where their rotation determines how much light of each colour gets through. When all of the filters are not letting light through, you have a black screen, but all the lights in the back are still turned on. When you turn the screen off, all the backlights finally turn off."
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9qyqer | why is learning and exploring fun while studying is boring? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/9qyqer/eli5_why_is_learning_and_exploring_fun_while/ | {
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"I wouldn't say studying is boring for everyone. I know people who actually like studying.\n\nI guess the main reason is that when you study it's most of the times because you are forced to do it. And most of the times when you're forced to do something you're doing it without any self motivation, and then it's just plain boring.\n\nIt does change a lot when you actually study something that lies in your interests, or something you enjoy doing. Even if forced, you're more motivated because you enjoy this particular subject. But it's just too different for everyone to generalize why it's boring. ",
"Stuff ain't boring when ya doing stuff willingly but is boring when ya forced to doing stuff",
"It's interesting to see the verbs you chose here. *Exploring* is usually an active process, even though you can be sitting in your desk in front of a screen, you can explore and find the answers or knowledge you're looking for. \n\n*Studying* is usually understood as the passive process of you sitting in front of a book or a text and just letting the words come inside you. And that's boring. \n\n*Learning* is also an active process that can be achieved through reading or through practice, but the process itself is always active. It was interesting that you put the result (learning) with the active method (exploring). ",
"Self-chosen learning *is* fun. Learning *in school* often isn’t fun. Unfortunately most people don’t realize there’s a difference between learning and school.\n\n“Learning is meant to be hard,” is said by those who made it through the school system. In order for them to feel all their time spent in school wasn’t a waste, they *need* to believe they got some benefit from it. Otherwise they would need to accept that they were made to spend a good chunk of their childhoods on miserable work that meant nothing.\n\nWhat’s sad is that once they’re out of the system, most lose their motivation to change it. They had to suffer so why should they work so others suffer less? (But to be fair, those who do try to change the system face massive resistance.)\n\nSchools don’t need to be boring. Learning in school *could* be fun, but adults fear changes that are too radical. For a variety of reasons — history, testability, familiarity — schools are stuck on a system that focuses on memorization. It “works” (gets kids into college) for those it works for so parents fear changes that might endanger that."
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cvq4iq | how does gps know it's inaccuracy? | When you use google maps, it says how inaccurate it is. If they know the inaccuracy, couldn't they just use that to calculate the exact position? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/cvq4iq/eli5_how_does_gps_know_its_inaccuracy/ | {
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"It's about how the GPS actually works.\n\nYour phone is \"listening\" to signals that a series of stalactites are putting out. Basically these satellites are all constantly sending signals that contain the current time.\n\nYour phone takes the signal, compares the time codes to the other signals and is therefore able to determine how far it is from the satellites. \n\nSo my phone knows it's a certain distance from a satellite, and the position of the satellite is a known thing. Problem is my phone has no idea what direction the satellite is in. However if it can hear 2 satellites, or even better 3 or more, it can use those 3 distances to figure out with a lot more accrual where it is. It's drawing circles around where the satellites are and where those lines intersect is where you are. \n\nSOOOO accuracy is based on how many satellites it's currency hearing. It's also based on the strength of those signals. In addition the older satellites might be less accurate and so on. \n\nThere's 2 other factors. Your phone does not only use GPS to get it's location. It can also use the cell phone network, it knows what tower it's connected to and the location of that tower. So sometimes your \"GPS\" location actually shows the location of the cell tower. So when you first open maps the location will be HUGE and way away from you. Then it will snap to something much more accurate. That's your phone swapping from using the cell tower location to using your actual GPS location. \n\nLastly your phone can use it's wifi network to determine location. I'm somewhat understand on how this one works but it's some combination of the wifi network being able to tell the phone what address it's at combined with the major phone makers having access to some kind of wifi network map that the phone can use to see what networks are around and use that to determine what it's rough location is. \n\nSo your phone has 3 methods, all 3 methods have differing impacts on location accuracy along with battery consumption so your phone will attempt to get the best accuracy with the least battery impact.",
"It does, that's one of a few reasons GPS has gotten better in the last decade. \n\nFirst: GPS uses satellite signals to figure out where your phone is. Think of each GPS as a spotlight creating a large circle on the earth (the spotlight is the signal). As you end up in the spotlight of two satellites the phone knows you're in the area they overlap. Add a third, and the location gets more precise. My running watch waits for at least 4 before it's considered \"accurate\" and will track up to 9 at a time.\n\nThe area of overlap that you're in is the accuracy. When signals are stronger and clearer, the phone can \"see\" rings within the spotlight (it uses signal strength, time delay and other math), so instead of a spotlight, you now have a narrow band of area within each spot light that you could be.\n\nYou have to add some \"vibration\" to the signal, since everything (earth, satellite, your phone and objects in the way) is moving and the signal is bouncing off of buildings and mountains - not to mention other signal noise. This adds to the the inaccuracy your phone might report.\n\nAs computers in phones get stronger and the physics is understood better some of the uncertainty can be factored out to increase accuracy. A compass in your phone, and a knowing that you're in your car and moving along a road, can help the phone figure out that you were at point A, traveling along a road - and it will fill in that you're at point B next, not D or F (the other possible locations). \n\nSignal isolation is getting much better as well as the strength of the receivers . \n\nAt the end of the day, there will still be some inaccuracy - but it is getting better. With all the money behind self-driving cars, drones and other location dependent technology, expect this to happen rather quickly.",
"Tl;dr: Inaccuracy is in fact uncertainty, and as indicated by the name we are uncertain which way to account for the lack of accuracy. A GPS concist of at least 4 signals to be able to identify a position, but a minor issue might in any part of thr system might place you a kilometer in the wrong direction. So any conflic between more then 4 satellites can be used to measure the inaccuracy/uncertainty, but we cannot know which of the satellites to trust the most. \n\nSo in order to understand this, there are two concepts we need to know. How does a GPS system work, and what is uncertainty. \n\nFirst: GPS is basically just a super fancy set of stop watches. So imagine you are in a thunder storm, you know that you are able to see the lightning before you can hear it. That's because light travels at some 1 million times faster than sound in air. So I take it that you know that you can count out the distance to the \"thunder bolt\" as the delay between the flash and the crack. \nGPS works by sending a ping with a time stamp. By the time you receive the time stamp, a tiny amount of time have passed, so by the difference in the recieve and send time you can calaculate your distance to the satellite that sent the signal. Since you only know the distance it could in principle be anywhere on a sphere, center at you with a radius of said distance. However, if you have two satellites you know have to spheres. Two spheres intercepting will create a circle. So far so good. But we need another satellite. Three spheres intersecting will in general give two points, however typically only one will place you on the surface of the earth, whereas the other will put you in space or inside of earth. \n(see this picture _URL_0_ ) \n\nNow, what is a uncertainty: picture me (not as Daredevil, that will ruin my point) trying to make bull's eye in darts: if I did it on the first go you would have me do it again to prove that it wasn't just luck. And it probably would be luck. You're a kind stranger and you let me throw, let's say 10 shots, and they all scatter across the board in the vicinity of the bull's eye. So obviously I'm not throwing at random but I have limited precision, so we can place some ring around the bull's eye where I should definitely be able to hit within. Now if I were to take on a bet that I knew I would win I bet that I could place the dart within that ring again, but I never be able to predict where within the ring I would hit next. \n\nSimilarly the point we got from 3 satellites id equivalent to a single shot, you can't really know if it's representative because that's not the best quess, that's your only guess. If you add an additional (4th) satellite its sphere will probably not match with all of the others: so now we're left with two possible conclusions, either your position is not mathematical possible (it's not this one) or we have to consider that you could be at any of the many points that will arise from an additional satellite (combinatorics and stuff - I think that will give you 8 possible location, but likely only 4 that are plausible). So now we can again put a circle around these points and say: well you're definitely within here. If more satellites joins in, we csn start to acount for which one that agrees the most and a such narrowing the circle, but unless they all agree we cannot know for such which is off. So we can know how uncertain we are, but we won't be able to know which way to correct it."
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1ealmy | just how many rewrites of the bible have there been? and is there any record of the differences? | If this isn't an appropriate thread I apologize.
Edit: Thank you all for the enlightening responses. My goal was to quickly expand my knowledge of the bible's history without delving to deep into a religious discussion and you have all been very helpful.
Edit 2: and I learned "rewrite" is not necessarily the best word for every modification that has happened to the bible | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1ealmy/just_how_many_rewrites_of_the_bible_have_there/ | {
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"The bible isn't a book. It is a collection of several books, oral histories, and letters, that eventually got edited down to the 66 books we seen in most modern bibles.\n\nAsking how many times it has been rewritten isn't really meaningful.",
"There are competing theories about the particulars, but it's fairly widely accepted that the Bible we know of today came from a few different places. The Hebrew Bible (or Old Testament) was most likely written from oral traditions - probably from the kingdoms of Israel and Judah. It was then edited, or redacted, into a series of books by a group of priests in the post-exilic period. \n\nThe New Testament is a collection of books that were written by many sources and were used in liturgies all over the place. The First Council of Nicea made the decision in 325 CE that Jesus was, in fact, divine, and decided which of the many many books in circulation would be part of the canon of the Christian collection of scripture. It was at this point that other commonly-used Christian books were declared non-canonical (in the case of the Gospel of Thomas, for example), or heretical, such as books that espoused ideas that Jesus was a non-divine man.\n\nAs far as the Torah and other books of the Hebrew Bible, there isn't any record of the sources or redaction; scholars have developed theories about where the different pieces came from and who authored them based on historical-critical and documentary analysis. \n\nThe history of the Christian writings is somewhat easier to trace, as the various councils that met to determine \"the rules\" kept records of what they did. \n\nAs far as translations or interpretations, there are thousands of them. Some of the earlier ones are fairly well documented, such as the Vulgate, the King James Version, Martin Luther's translation, etc. \n\n \n\n"
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5459mx | how are generation groupings determined? i.e., "generation x", "millenials", etc. | How are generations determined in regards to birth years, and how is consensus reached about who falls where in the generational "gaps"? I've seen a lot of debate online about just where cutoffs actually fall between age groups and I'm just wondering about how the process works. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5459mx/eli5_how_are_generation_groupings_determined_ie/ | {
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"There's no official definition, and many people aren't fully a member of just one \"generation\" or the other.\n\nIt's just a convenient way for the media to talk about a group of people.\n\n",
"Nothing is official, you have to define the age range you're talking about. Various fields settle on a definition; for example, I know the marketing industry is calling a millennial anywhere from 18 to 34 years of age. Others disagree because there is no clear line. For example, there is a valid argument that there is a missing, short generation of about 5 years, between X and millennials, where these people possess some characteristics of both, and mostly characteristics of neither. No one cares, unless you're one of those people and are made to feel like you don't belong. Because fuck you, I'm not a millennial, I remember a time before families had computers, before cellphones, when we used to play outside, how to write cursive, how to endorse a check, and what a work ethic is."
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3mu2et | structure of bacterial chromosomes? | I'm taking a microbiology class and I cannot for the life of me understand this | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3mu2et/eli5_structure_of_bacterial_chromosomes/ | {
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"So bacteria and other prokaryotes lack a nucleus. Instead of hanging out in a nucleus bound up in chromosomes, their DNA just exists as a single large coiled up circular strand."
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6oxt0u | tour de france ... what goes on between stages? | Just found out the Tour De France has stages. Been trying to find out what goes on between stages. I know there's that one big pasta dinner everyone has a day or two before the start, but what goes on after the riders are done for the day? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/6oxt0u/eli5_tour_de_france_what_goes_on_between_stages/ | {
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"You can try to look up Taylor Phinney's video tour diaries from this year. He was sharing some of the behind the scenes stuff. \n\nBut mostly it's traveling to the next starting point, getting the physical therapy a rider may need, going over tactics for the next day, and resting up because you just rode super hard today and have to do it all again tomorrow for three weeks. \n\n",
"As little as possible.\n\nRiders eat, travel, rest, and get massages and physical therapy, and little else. I have heard of riders fighting over who gets the ground floor at the hotel so they can walk less."
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j4t6x | why do we lend money from the federal reserve? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/j4t6x/why_do_we_lend_money_from_the_federal_reserve/ | {
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"I am not sure what you mean by lending money from the federal reserve.\n\nIf you are talking about the United States government, the wikipedia article on the federal reserve says:\n\n > \"The U.S. Treasury, through its Bureau of the Mint and Bureau of Engraving and Printing, actually produces the nation's cash supply and, in effect, sells the paper currency to the Federal Reserve Banks at manufacturing cost, and the coins at face value. The Federal Reserve Banks then distribute it to other financial institutions in various ways.\"\n\nIf you are talking about banks, it is a means of the banks to borrow (and thus lend out to you and corporations) more money than they have on hand.\n\nThe Fed is also a lender of last resort, where a corporation down on its luck that is unable to get credit elsewhere can obtain funds where to not do so would adversely affect the economy.\n\nThe Fed as a central bank is meant as a stabilizing force. \n\nUnless you expand on your question further, this is about the most that can be provided.\n\nAll of this is available [here](_URL_0_).",
"I'm a little confused about what you're asking. Do you mean: why does the federal reserve lend money? I'll answer as if that interpretation is correct, but if it's not, just let me know.\n\nI'll answer **like you're five,** which can be difficult, seeing as though monetary policy is a bit complicated. Here goes!\n\nSo you have the Federal Reserve, which is the Central Bank. What does a Central Bank do? Well, a Central Bank has a few main goals:\n\n**1.) Issue Currency** (Ya know when you get allowance? The Federal Reserve printed that money!)\n\n**2.) Regulate the Money Supply** (This will be explained soon.)\n\n**3.) Control Interest Rates** (This is tied in with #2 and will be explained soon.)\n\n(There are also a few other goals like providing liquidity, acting as a fiscal agent, etc., but they all tie in with the 3 above more or less.)\n\nThe Federal Reserve controls the money supply, which basically means that they tell the world how much US currency and reserves (reserves are what banks hold in their actual banks) the world will have. Why is this important?\n\nThe money supply is a hugely important part of our economy. The Federal Reserve's job is often controversial (Ron Paul, for example, wants to abolish it), but most economists (if not all) agree that the Federal Reserve is vitally important to our economy for its handling of the money supply.\n\nLet's say you're a bank. Your goal is to lend out money, right? Well, the only way you can do that is if you borrow it from other people. That's all fine and dandy, but sometimes, people don't want to give you their money and even if they do, they charge you a lot to do it (in the form of interest rates, which is basically the cost of borrowing money). But sometimes, people just aren't willing to lend because they are afraid that you won't be able to pay them back. This is especially true in recessions because people aren't feeling so great about the economy.\n\nAnyway, so the Federal Reserve comes in and says, \"Hey look, we can help you banks out. Since we can print money, we'll just give you some.\" So they do. They loan out whatever the bank needs at a decent rate (I won't go into the rates now, but let me know if you want to hear about those). \n\nI cannot stress how important this is for our economy. Both the depression and the great recession became so bad because no one wanted to borrow money for fear of economic collapse. So the Federal Reserve goes to them and says, \"hey, here's some money for SUPER SUPER cheap.\" I mean, SUPAH SUPAH cheap. Like near 0% interest rates. And this is hugely effective because when banks lend, they are giving people mortgages or new cars, or more importantly, they give money to businesses, so they can invest and offer ~~more efficient~~ better products. *This* is the reason why the Fed is so important - they make sure that financial markets (where everyone lends to one another) don't collapse. Most economic theory stems from the fact that investment spending basically decides the fate of a recession or boom.\n\n**TL;DR: The Federal Reserve is a \"lender of last resort\" and lends to banks in times of trouble, which can stop a recession in its tracks.**\n\nEdit: The English language and I do not get along sometimes. Or all the time.\n\nEdit #2: What's up with the downvotes? If you don't agree, let me know."
]
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3s0kin | how locking threads from allowing comments on eli5 does anything but censor open discussion on controversial explanations. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3s0kin/eli5_how_locking_threads_from_allowing_comments/ | {
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"In most cases mods close an explained posts once it starts derailing into non-constructive/spammy discussions (which happens quite often especially with frontpage posts). They're just doing their job of keeping the sub civil. It's not really censorship, and calling it that doesn't do much good IMO."
]
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26sakq | why does so much of my hair fall out every day? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/26sakq/eli5_why_does_so_much_of_my_hair_fall_out_every/ | {
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"You could have male pattern baldness, or be going through chemotherapy. You haven't included enough information.",
"You lose around 100 hairs a day naturally, and of course you start growing around 100 hairs a day. If your hair is long, the hair that falls out naturally probably just gets held in by your other hair until you shower or brush it out, so if you don't shower or brush your hair for a day or two, when you finally do it will look like you lost an ungodly amount of hair, but in reality it's just your scalp doing its thing.\n\n_URL_0_"
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[],
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4lvt8y | why sound seems softer or louder at different times of the day | Why can I watch TV at 25% volume in the middle of the day, but at night 25% seems to be blaring loud? Both times there is roughly the same amount of ambient sound. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4lvt8y/eli5_why_sound_seems_softer_or_louder_at/ | {
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"Your ears adjust to the ambient level of sound to protect against hearing loss. When exposed to loud sounds, muscles tighten around you eardrum, and the three bones in your inner ear. This makes them vibrate less, so relatively less sound makes it through to your very sensitive cochlea. During the day, you're exposed to a lot more sound, so your ears tighten up a bit so you don't damage the cochlea. At night, everything is a lot quieter, so your ears loosen up a bit, making them more sensitive.\n\nThis even makes sense evolutionarily: during the day our ancestors have to listen for very loud calls from others, and loud calls from other animals, and you're going to rely on sight to locate dangerous predators. You don't need to be super sensitive to sound, and the loud noises you expect might hurt your ears. At night most of those calls stop, and you don't have sight, so you need to be very sensitive to the predator sneaking up on you.\n\nIn any case, even during the day if you sit quietly in a room with very little ambient sound for twenty minutes or so, you'll find that you can keep the TV much lower, after your ears adjust to the quiet.\n\nAlso note, this is not an excuse to listen to very loud music or not protect your ears. Your ears do a good job of trying to protect themselves but you have to help. Don't underestimate how damaging loud noises are."
]
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2731rz | why won't technological advances in the near future make giant atmospheric carbon sequestration machines to balance out global warming? | Watching cosmos and this question occurred to me.
EDIT: Hmm, interesting responses but I want to add that we are going to have a materials science revolution in the next 20 to 30 years. Things that are science fiction now will begin to be possible, so I was wondering if new technologies might make this possible and thus save us all. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2731rz/eli5_why_wont_technological_advances_in_the_near/ | {
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"No one is saying that's not a possibility, but it's not a good idea to count on it.",
"How are we going to power such plants when our power generation now centers around the energy released by breaking such bonds?",
"It would be difficult to make atmospheric carbon sequestration machines bigger than the existing one known as the ocean.",
"People have been working on solutions that remove more CO2 than they take to run and produce, and unfortunately when they add everything up it takes to run and make it, even the best stuff we have been able to come up with has very small gains.\n\nIt's not optimistic in the near future we will be able to widen this gap to a reasonable level."
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33dxee | how come it's possible to sleep "too much?" why doesn't my body wake me up when i'm rested? | If I don't set an alarm, I can often sleep 10-12 hours a night, or sleep for 8 hours and also take a nap of 2-3 hours. There's nothing in my routine that should require me to need that much sleep. If 7-9 hours is the required amount for most people my age, why don't I consistently sleep that much and wake up naturally? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/33dxee/eli5_how_come_its_possible_to_sleep_too_much_why/ | {
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"Everybody is different but for the most part our modern lives completely destroy our sleep cycle. This is due to bright lights, stimulation, and stimulants. You will naturally sleep with the fall and rise of the sun. Longer in the winter and shorter in the summer. That's \"natural\" sleep. You would also likely take a nap in the middle of your day. \n\n8 hours is a rather accurate number of hours one needs for optimal function. However it is only in recent times that we sleep once a day for a timed period determined by science. Segmented sleep was the historical norm and it wasn't timed at all. Go camping and leave your time pieces at home if you want to see this at work. \n\nAlso, younger people also need way more sleep. So if you are 16 years old, sleeping 10 hours is normal. Generally the younger you are the more sleep you need. It isn't until the age of 6 that you shouldn't be sleeping more then half the day. \n\nReferences:\n_URL_2_\n_URL_1_\n_URL_0_\n\nEdit: I should also answer the question. You are probably not really getting to sleep when you go to bed. Your body lies there for a while, in the dark and gets ready for sleep. You may drift in and out of stage one. However the later stages of sleep are probably not coming for a few hours. Just sit in a dark room before sleep for a few hours, sounds like fun right? That's what we used to do though, sit in the dark for a bit and maybe watch the fire. The TV is MUCH too bright for your body to know it's time to go to bed. Try reading by something at a light level of candle light before bed. That usually works also. \n\nYou may also have sleep apnea or other illness. You should bring this issue to the attention of a medical professional. \n\n"
]
} | [] | [] | [
[
"http://sleepfoundation.org/how-sleep-works/how-much-sleep-do-we-really-need/page/0/1",
"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Segmented_sleep",
"http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/trouble-sleeping-go-campi/"
]
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dzfmay | how does rubbing a blade on a strop sharpen it? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/dzfmay/eli5_how_does_rubbing_a_blade_on_a_strop_sharpen/ | {
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"It doesn't sharpen it, it strops or hones it. \n\nThe difference is, sharpening removes metal, stropping just straightens up the edge. Honing polishes the edge to a fine finish. \n\nWith use, the very very fine microscopic edge of the blade can get rolled over and dulled slightly that way. The strop realigns the edge, and brings the sharp edge back to the fore, as well as buffing the edge up to extreme sharpness. Hence their common use with straight razors in a barbershop.",
"The same way other methods of sharpening works. You wear down material to create an edge. With a strop, you're making very small changes. Typically this is to polish a blade, or sharpen a really thin blade."
]
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[],
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68aosn | how it's even remotely sanitary to wash dishes over and over with the same sponge for sometimes months on end without replacing it | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/68aosn/eli5_how_its_even_remotely_sanitary_to_wash/ | {
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"It isn't. You're supposed to sterilize the sponge (microwave or boiling water) every now and then, or toss the sponge after a while.\n\nI buy quality sponges and they never last more than a month. What are you buying that lasts months on end?"
]
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[]
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||
1ujnac | why does the us have such lax policies against illegal immigrants? | I'm asking this under the assumption that other countries have much stricter consequences for illegal immigrants, ie, immediate imprisonment, deportation, fines, etc. However, I feel that the government wants to enforce our borders, but at the same time we give the illegal immigrants who are already here a lot of benefits, including a person who became a lawyer. I'm asking this question b/c I just heard this on the radio and I was very surprised
_URL_0_ | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1ujnac/eli5_why_does_the_us_have_such_lax_policies/ | {
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"Our policies aren't lax *on paper*, but there's just so many illegal immigrants that the policies can't be enforced effectively.\n\nWe can write a law that no raindrops are allowed to hit the ground during a storm, but.....",
"Having grown up in a border state (Texas), I would not describe such policies as 'lax'. Deportation, denial of national benefits (property, healthcare, family association, etc), and denial of employment affect many people and families living in the U.S. without citizenship. There are a few factors which affect enforcement of these policies, though:\n\n**(1) Limitation of law enforcement officers.** There are many (10 million+, or about 0.4% of U.S. population) illegal immigrants living in the U.S. from many countries, and identifying and deporting them would cost a lot of money in government costs.\n\n**(2) Public sympathy.** Attitudes in the U.S. towards immigration are changing, with much of the public believing that people migrating from other countries should have all the human rights that U.S. citizens have. Many people also believe that the U.S. laws are unfair, racist, or inhumane, and that the U.S. needs immigration reform rather than more immigration enforcement.\n\n**(3) Many U.S. companies rely on illegal immigrants for cheap labor.** As many illegal immigrants have *very* limited employment opportunities in the U.S. due to citizenship laws, they are often willing to work for little money, even below minimum wages. Many illegal immigrants thus work in low-paying jobs, like janitorial staff, produce pickers, or manufacturing jobs. Because these workers cost businesses less than U.S. citizens, many are inclined to keep illegal immigrants in the states rather than having them deported.\n\n**In summary, deportation costs, human rights sentiments, and business exploitation significantly contribute to the U.S. policies on illegal immigration.**\n\nEDIT: Links: \n[Immigrants](_URL_1_) \n[Attitudes](_URL_0_) \n"
]
} | [] | [
"http://www.cnn.com/2014/01/02/justice/california-immigrant-lawyer/"
] | [
[],
[
"http://www.pewresearch.org/2006/04/25/attitudes-toward-immigration-in-black-and-white/",
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Illegal_immigration_to_the_United_States"
]
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baf7e2 | how did large armies in ancient history manage human waste while camped, fighting or on the move? | [deleted] | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/baf7e2/eli5_how_did_large_armies_in_ancient_history/ | {
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"Either they didn't and it was a major source of disease for armies, or they used latrines, basically a massive pit that was then covered up.",
"Camped: Dig big hole. Throw shit in hole. Fill in hole. \n\nOn the move: dig small holes. Shit in holes. Fill in holes.\n\nFighting: hold it. ",
"Badly.\n\nVast amounts of people died from disease. Any veteran could figure out that you needed to place your latrines far from camp, and preferably downhill, but even into the 18th and 19th centuries we still saw amateurs who hadn't figured this out. The revolutionary soldiers at Valley Forge were up to their ankles in poop until some veterans from Europe taught them to dig a proper latrine."
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g3ed1x | how come most people can hold their breath up to 30 seconds pretty easy, but when you’re in a rear naked choke (your throat gets constricted) you lose consciousness in less then 5 seconds? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/g3ed1x/eli5_how_come_most_people_can_hold_their_breath/ | {
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"A choke hold stops the blood flow to your brain, it doesn't matter how long you can hold your breath.",
"Two different things going on. \n\nHolding your breath is stopping air flowing to you lungs, which oxygenates your blood. \n\nRear naked choke is stopping the blood passing through the arteries in your neck, which restricts oxygenated blood supply to your brain and you pass out.\n\nDid this help?",
"If you take a close look at how a (properly done) rear naked choke is done, you will see that there isn't a lot of pressure on the air supply. So the name is a bit misleading, it's not really a choke. \nThe pressure is on the sides of the neck and cuts the blood supply to the head to make people pass out."
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1jmk0e | batman and robin! | My boyfriend absolutely loves Batman, and has watched everything with the name "Batman" on it! I also love batman but sometimes I have no idea what he's talking about with the different Robin's and something about other characters suiting as Batman. He's tried to explain it once, but I couldn't really keep up. I watched some videos and saw that Robin and Nightwing were in the same scene, so I was a little confused on which Robin he was. Can someone give me an easier understanding and maybe a timeline of the Robins and how some overlap? Thanks! | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1jmk0e/eli5_batman_and_robin/ | {
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"I'm going to preface this by saying I haven't read much new 52 batman (which is the last 2 years or so of DC comics, but as far as I know most things are pretty similar)\n\nBruce Wayne is Batman most of the time. Dick Grayson was adopted by Wayne after Grayson's parents were killed by the mafia. Grayson became the first Robin. Grayson gets involved with the Teen Titans and starts getting too busy to help Wayne is Gotham all the time so he quits/gets fired from being Robin (depending on if you ask Grayson or Wayne about what went down) and starts his solo superhero gig as Nightwing, him and Bruce remain friends so Nightwing is still part of the \"Bat Family\" and shows up often in those stories as well. This bit is covered in *Nightwing Year One* (which is issue 101-106 of the Nightwing comic series from 1996. Batman swears he'll never have another partner but pretty much the next night he catches Jason Todd (a teenage punk) trying to steal the tires from the Batmobile. Todd becomes the next Robin and is there for a while but he is not nearly as well liked by readers as Grayson was. DC holds a vote to decide what to do with Todd and he gets killed by the Joker in \"Death in the Family\" the next robin is Tim Drake but I don't know much about him. After Drake is Damien Wayne Bruce Wayne's son.\n\nAs far as other people wearing the Batman cowl in \"Knightsquest\" (well one of those, there's 3 arcs that are pretty closely related) Bane breaks Batman's (Wayne's) back and while Wayne is recovering Azreal takes up the mantle of Batman. Azreal is a confusing character because he was an assassin and villian but he got spun into the hero light with very little transition. There was also a time after \"Batman R.I.P\" when Wayne was killed (although it turned out he wasn't actually dead) that Grayson filled in for him as Batman, Damien was the Robin at the time.\n\nYou would have seen Nightwing and Robin together most likely when Tim Drake was Robin (they worked together in *Hush* which was pretty good in my opinion but the consensus in the comic world is the opposite) or when Damien was Robin.\n\nThat's all I got, hope it helps. Feel free to ask about anything that wasn't clear enough."
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3dhasd | what is the logic behind some jurisdictions requiring both parties knowing that a call is being recorded? | You can do it in face-to-face communication, can’t you? What’s the difference? And does it apply to VoIP? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3dhasd/eli5_what_is_the_logic_behind_some_jurisdictions/ | {
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"Generally it is against the law to record somebody without them knowing. However, there are often exceptions for public places, when somebody should reasonably expect that they might be overheard. Face-to-face conversations often happen in public places like that, meaning that they're sometimes permissible to be recorded. VoIP would probably have the same rules as with phone calls, as the end goal is no different even if the technology is more sophisticated.\n\nI'm not sure what the logic is behind it, aside from general protection of the right to privacy. It probably also helps prevent blackmail."
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cw6htn | what makes batteries chargeable and how are they charged in the first place | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/cw6htn/eli5what_makes_batteries_chargeable_and_how_are/ | {
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"There are two types of regular (AA for example) batteries.\n\n \nNon rechargeable batteries have two chemicals that send energy from one to another through a device. Once all the energy has moved from one end to the other or been used by the device, the battery is dead and must be disposed of.\n\nRechargeable batteries have two different chemicals. When plugged in to a battery-operated device, they work the same way as a non-rechargeable battery. But when plugged into a device with something else on it providing the energy, like your wall power outlet, the energy can be pushed backward and refill energy in the first chemical. \n\nWhen you try to recharge a non-rechargeable battery, the energy isn't moved back, and instead turns into heat. This makes the chemicals really hot, until they explode out of the battery and make a really dangerous mess. That's why you shouldn't try to recharge non-rechargeable batteries.",
"Batteries are just a chemical reaction happening. Specificly an REDuction/OXidation reaction (Redox), which involves the exchange of charge, ie electrons. Thru clever design and an intermediary we can make the electrions travel down a path we choose, namy thru our electornic devices. So they are not \"charged\" in the first place. They are built with a charge in them.\n\nHow they are recharged is you apply a reverse voltage to the battery. This drives the reaction in reverse causing the chemicals to go back to their initial state. This process is not perfect, which is why batteries get less and less powerful as they charge and discharge.\n\n\"Non\"-rechargeable batteries can't be properly charged as the chemical reaction doesn't reverse properly when the reverse charge is applied. So the chemicals do NOT go back to their starting state.",
"Batteries have 2 different substances in them. One is slightly more attractive to electrons than the other. When those 2 substances are attached to each other via a circuit that attractive force causes electrons to flow. When you charge a battery the more electro attractive substance is made less electro attractive and the process is reversed.",
"When it comes to rechargeable batteries, not all batteries are created equal. NiCd batteries were among the first widely available secondary cells, but they suffered from an inconvenient problem known as the memory effect. Basically, if these batteries weren't fully discharged every time they were used, they would quickly lose capacity. NiCd batteries were largely phased out in favor of NiMH batteries. These secondary cells boast a higher capacity and are only minimally affected by the memory effect, but they don't have a very good shelf life. Like NiMH batteries, LiOn batteries have a long life, but they hold a charge better, operate at higher voltages, and come in a much smaller and lighter package. Essentially all high-quality portable technology manufactured these days takes advantage of this technology. However, LiOn batteries are not currently available in standard sizes such as AAA, AA, C or D, and they're considerably more expensive than their older counterparts.\n\nWith NiCd and NiMH batteries, charging can be tricky. You must be careful not to overcharge them, as this could lead to decreased capacity. To prevent this from happening, some chargers switch to a trickle charge or simply shut off when charging is complete. NiCd and NiMH batteries also must be reconditioned, meaning you should completely discharge and recharge them again every once in a while to minimize any loss in capacity. LiOn batteries, on the other hand, have sophisticated chargers that prevent overcharging and never need to be reconditioned.\n\nEven rechargeable batteries will eventually die, though it may take hundreds of charges before that happens. When they finally do give out, be sure to dispose of them at a recycling facility."
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5wk84g | i do not understand how amps are drawn through a battery. | I am just starting to think about batteries and motors and ebikes. I have been researching how to build my own battery pack out of LI 18650 cells. I now understand how to build a pack to whatever voltage I'd like. I also get how to build a pack of a certain number of Amp-hours. What I do not understand is how to plan for a certain amp draw for a given load? i.e. if I have a 52volt pack with 12 amp hours... what does the bike do if it needs 20amps to get up a hill or to accelerate hard? I don't understand how to plan/size/what to do for that. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5wk84g/eli5_i_do_not_understand_how_amps_are_drawn/ | {
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"Amps are a physical representation of the amount of charged particles going through the circuit per second\n\nThe voltage is the source that pushes said particles, and the amount of particles that can pass through is determined by the resistance of the material. \n\nThis basically gives ya Ohm's law. \n\nThe easiest way to imagine this iz with plumbing\n\nLets say you have a water tank and a tube going from the water tank to the ground (high potential energy to low potential energy) \nGravity is the source that drives the water to move, the resistance is determined by the diameter of the tube and the stuff inside it (lets assume u can add sand to the tube to increase resistance) \nThe current will be the amount of water that passes through that tube every second. \nIf you ass pressure in the tank (increase voltage) it will cause more water to pass\nIf you add resistance to the pipe it will cause less water to pass. \nIf you try to force too much water, the pipe can burst. \n\nAnd so on... "
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395nh6 | what is actually attractive to the citizens of wisconsin about scott walker? please help me understand the good side of what he's done for the state as governor. what improvements do his supporters--average people--believe he has brought to the people of wisconsin? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/395nh6/eli5_what_is_actually_attractive_to_the_citizens/ | {
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"I don't have any real facts, since I've stopped following politics and news for the most part (creates hopeless anger in me)...........but as a WI resident, I can tell you a lot of people really dislike him. I've heard a few things about him/state government over the last few years, that I can't quite understand. That said, there are also a lot of fundamentally religious, socially conservative, politically black/white people, that have beliefs that align more with popular beliefs of decades ago. (generalized overall. They're not all like that, and not always bad) There are a lot of rural farm areas here and small inclusive towns, and those people aren't as exposed/open to new ideas, different people or compromise. In contrast, the bigger college towns tend to have more open/liberal majority opinions.\n",
"There's no objective answer for this, so I think you'll find more luck submitting this to either /r/ask_politics or /r/changemyview.",
"When Walker originally got elected, he seemed like politician who always committed to doing what he campaigned for. A lot of politicians make false promises so people liked that about Walker. Also, the previous democratic administration at the state level was littered with corruption and poor decisions and people just wanted a change. \n\nDuring the recall election, many voters didn't agree with the reasoning behind the recall. Recalling a governor because you don't like his stance on issues didn't make sense. So some people reelected Walker even though they disagreed with him because the recall election was unjust in their mind. \n\nFinally, Walker has become more conservative since becoming governor and thus more polarizing and thus attracting stronger opinions from both sides. \n\nI doubt he could win another Wisconsin election without a major positive change. His education stance is definitely rubbing people the wrong way. Wisconsinites take pride in the University of Wisconsin system and he seems to be undermining it big time. As a UW grad, I liked that he froze tuition because it seemed tuition cost were getting out of control around the country. Now that he has been trying to cut funding while freezing tuition, it just seems he is putting the university system in a bad position. \n\nTLDR: People wanted change and a man of action when Walker was first elected, but now ppl are starting to hate his actions or result of his actions from 1st term and doubtful he could win another Wisconsin election IMO. ",
"Oh look, one of those political questions that's not really an ELI5, but actually a politically driven attack. Stellar work OP."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[],
[],
[],
[]
] |
||
2636qy | why does sleep under the effects of nyquil, benedryl, etc, feel so different(worse) than normal sleep? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2636qy/eli5_why_does_sleep_under_the_effects_of_nyquil/ | {
"a_id": [
"chn8aca"
],
"score": [
2
],
"text": [
"Because you are using side effects of the drug to force sleep vs. your normal circadian sleep "
]
} | [] | [] | [
[]
] |
||
1i12yy | why are there so many clean air natural gas buses but not many natural gas cars? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1i12yy/eli5_why_are_there_so_many_clean_air_natural_gas/ | {
"a_id": [
"cazxh3m",
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"score": [
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"text": [
"It can sometimes be easier for state and local governments to \"bet on\" new or not widely used technologies than individuals. ",
"One major reason is that CNG (*Compressed* Natural Gas) requires a pressurized container and contains less energy per volume than gasoline at any reasonable pressure. Thus the fuel tank takes up much more space and mass, which is obviously less of a problem in a bus. It also makes distributing the fuel slightly harder, which favors centralized locations like bus depots.\n\nThen there's the simple thing that 'everyone' uses gasoline anyway so most new development is still focused on it."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[],
[]
] |
||
3fz1y7 | how fast would an average height-average build person have to run to run on water? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3fz1y7/eli5_how_fast_would_an_average_heightaverage/ | {
"a_id": [
"cttcykv"
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"text": [
" > Unsurprisingly this has been the subject of several scientific papers. In particular Google for papers by J. W. Glasheen and T. A. McMahon. They studied the basilisk lizard, but their results can be extrapolated to humans. It's debatable how reliable such a large extrapolation is, but the result is that the required speed is so far beyond human ability that we can safely conclude it's impossible without some artificial aid.\n\nThere's a summary of the results from the papers in this article and a more general summary here. The conclusions are that you have to run at a speed of 20-30m/sec, which doesn't sound too bad, but you'd need to generate a mechanical power of 12kW to do it. Trained athletes can just about manage half a kW, and most of us would struggle to generate 200W."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[]
] |
||
2twxlu | can americans just go to some 3rd world country with a few thousand dollars and be rich where the local currency is very weak compared to the us dollar? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2twxlu/eli5can_americans_just_go_to_some_3rd_world/ | {
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"text": [
"In those countries you'd be considered \"rich\" if you had a cow, a clean well, and a roof over your head. By 1st world standards you'd need more than a couple thousand to maintain our style of life over there. Also in many of those countries there is little rule of law and many starving people which=crime. So you'd basically have to build a walled compound and pay security to keep the starving masses out. People have done this, like that crazy McAfee multimillionaire who moved down to Belize. However they have quite a few more resources than the average person and basically build their own private fortress/compound there.",
"U can live like a king in Panama on a modest (in us terms) retirement. And dollars are the currency. From what I've read the us expat community is significant.",
"The better question would be: \"would you prefer having a few thousand dollars with access to many choices and opportunities or have 50,000 dollars with limited ways to use it in a potentially uncomfortable living arrangement.",
"In theory, most likely yes, although costs of different goods will vary based on a variety of factors. You're effectively referring to something known as \"purchasing power parity,\" which allows you to measure and compare different countries' incomes by **standardizing** the currencies, and comparing them against costs of living. Also, prices tend to vary between different regions in countries -- just like in the US -- so in a very \"poor\" country, you might find that the cost of living a comparable standard to what you would expect in the USA might not be much cheaper. \n\n[Simple Wiki](_URL_1_) provides an example that is slightly more detailed than what I would have written. \n > \nFor example, suppose that Japan has a higher GDP per capita ($18) than the US ($16). That means that Japanese on average make $2 more than normal Americans. However, they are not necessarily richer. Suppose that one gallon of orange juice costs $6 in Japan and only $2 in the US; then $6 in Japan exchanges to only $2 worth of US goods, since the Japanese can only buy 3 gallons while the Americans can buy 8 gallons. Therefore, in terms of orange juice, the Americans are richer, and in this example the US has a GDP (PPP) of $16, since the $16 can buy $16 orange juice (by definition), while Japan has GDP (PPP) of only $6, since the $18 in Japan can only buy 3 gallons of orange juice, which represents only $6 of US goods. > \n\n\nNumbeo has a neat tool that allows you to do rough comparisons between cities. [Here's an example comparing NYC to Dhaka.](_URL_0_) \n\nEdit: added link to Simple Wiki",
"In China I could eat out for dinner every night, ride taxis everywhere I went, shout drinks for everyone at the bar. I felt like a king even though I was dirt poor by western standards, making $8 an hour. \n\nIt was awesome. \n\nChina is a bit more expensive now in Beijing/Shanghai but in smaller cities this is totally still possible. Rent a flat in a town with a population of a million and if you have a little stash of cash, you need never work again!",
"I'm an American living in a developing country. I still make an income in USD that would be considered middle class by US standards. \n\nIf I lived in a tin hut and ate rice and beans like the locals, I would have plenty of cash to spare.\n\nBut, I don't. I live in a nice villa by the ocean with power and water, eat most of the same foods I did back home, have a car, and send my kids to school. \n\nI am broke. Far more broke that I would be if I were living in the US. Everything \"luxurious\" like 24 hour electricity, cars, cell phones, school, electronics, decent food, gas is far more expensive than it would be in the US. And everyone wants my Gringo money, everyone. All the nice things we take for granted in the US cost 30-50% more. "
]
} | [] | [] | [
[],
[],
[],
[
"http://www.numbeo.com/cost-of-living/compare_cities.jsp?country1=United+States&city1=New+York%2C+NY&country2=Bangladesh&city2=Dhaka",
"http://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Purchasing_Power_Parity"
],
[],
[]
] |
||
2giuxj | why have there been so many pacific hurricanes this year, but no substantial atlantic hurricanes? | The "coast" of Arizona is getting ready for record rains from Hurricane Odell (sp). I've never seen a hurricane come up from Baja California like this. Earlier this summer two rare hurricanes came at Hawaii. Meanwhile the Atlantic has been quiet. Why is this? Global warming? Random act of science? Ebola? Why are there so many named storms in the Pacific this year? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2giuxj/eli5_why_have_there_been_so_many_pacific/ | {
"a_id": [
"ckjj0a3"
],
"score": [
2
],
"text": [
"After Hurricane Sandy, it's your turn."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[]
] |
|
1c739j | autorotation | Helicopters can somehow gently glide down unpowered using something called "autorotation". Autogyros rely on autorotation to go. Reading through the wikipedia page, it made no sense to me. Can somebody please explain?
**EDIT**: I'm not sure anybody has explained "like I'm five", but I think between all your answers, I get the gist of it. Here is my understanding so far.
**When objects move through air, two they create friction with the air, and the air pushes back against the moving objects. The faster the object moves, the more the wind pushes back. When a helicopter falls straight down with the engine off, the air moving up (relative to the helicopter) through the angled blades pushes against them, forcing them to spin. When the blades spin, they run into more air, creating more friction, and more pushing up against the falling contraption. As the blades spin faster, the pilot can make them flatter so less air will get through, so the helicopter can only fall so fast, like a feather which lets little air through its filaments. Unlike a feather, the pilot can still control the helicopter as it falls in the usual helicopter manner. Furthermore, as the helicopter approaches the ground, the pilot can fully reverse the angle of the blades in order to use the kinetic energy stored up in the spinning blades to actively push back against the air and slow the final descent. It may also be helpful to think of autorotation as being the same thing as a plane gliding down, except with the rotors doing the gliding instead of wings.**
If I don't hear any crucial complaints, I'll mark this as "answered". | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1c739j/eli5_autorotation/ | {
"a_id": [
"c9dnwrz"
],
"score": [
3
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"text": [
"A rotor on a helicopter is effectively the same thing as a windmill.\n\nThe difference is that, in normal operation, the rotor is powered, and as it rotates, it moves air downwards (and therefore creates lift, due to Newton's law about equal and opposite reactions).\n\nA windmill, on the other hand, gets turned by the wind. Let's assume a north wind (ie blowing from the north). This not only turns the windmill, but also slows down the air. And, in order to slow the air, the windmill must be exerting a force on it - a force from south to north, in fact. The equal and opposite reaction is that the windmill experiences a force trying to blow it over, a force from north to south. Of course you can't see that, because the windmill is firmly rooted to the ground, but it must exist.\n\nWhen a helicopter auto-rotates, it turns its rotor into a windmill.\n\nAs the helicopter descends, it experiences a \"wind\" from below, which causes the rotor to turn. The rotor exerts a force on the air, in a downward direction, and the air exerts a force in the rotor (and hence on the helicopter) in an upward direction."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[]
] |
|
c7bzur | why aren't browsers able to block all pop-ups (some of them seems to "escape the filter")? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/c7bzur/eli5_why_arent_browsers_able_to_block_all_popups/ | {
"a_id": [
"esed5qf",
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"score": [
11,
5,
2
],
"text": [
"There's a constant battle between browser developers and popup makers. Browser devs try to get rid of unwanted popups, while the popup makers are looking for ways to trick the browser into allowing a popup. Sometimes, the popup makers find something that the browser devs missed.",
"What MROctantis said, plus the fact that advertisers are, well, kinda dinkish. I remember the early days of web browsing, when the ads would just be there, as banner items at the top, bottom and sides. Sure, they made a web page smaller, but the ads just sat there. Which was fine and dandy.\n\n & #x200B;\n\nThen they started flashing and making noise ...",
"One of the main reasons is that in order to be able to completely block any kind if pop up they would need to block some useful functions that legit websites uses."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[],
[],
[]
] |
||
7wylu9 | doctors of reddit, what is the difference between intrvenous, intra dermal, and intra muscular injections ? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/7wylu9/eli5_doctors_of_reddit_what_is_the_difference/ | {
"a_id": [
"du462cq",
"du463b9"
],
"score": [
3,
2
],
"text": [
"They’re all different routes of administration. Intravenous is into a vein, Intradermal is into the dermis, and intramuscular is into the muscle. Many different factors go into deciding what route to administer medications.",
"Not a doctor but the answer is in the names. Intravenous is injected into the veins. Intradermal is into the skin. Intramuscular is in the muscle"
]
} | [] | [] | [
[],
[]
] |
||
7m2a29 | why are games from japanese developers notoriously difficult/or include a difficulty setting higher than most games? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/7m2a29/eli5_why_are_games_from_japanese_developers/ | {
"a_id": [
"drqtjm0"
],
"score": [
3
],
"text": [
"I can't say with certainty, but I would conjecture that it ties into Japanese culture similarly to some of their ridiculously hard game shows. If you've ever seen Ninja Warrior or some of the more obscure Japanese game shows, their difficulty is all kinds of insane."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[]
] |
||
bkrb42 | what happened at the kentucky derby? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/bkrb42/eli5_what_happened_at_the_kentucky_derby/ | {
"a_id": [
"emiy7a1"
],
"score": [
6
],
"text": [
"Maximum Security strayed from his lane before being clear of the other horse and almost caused a collision"
]
} | [] | [] | [
[]
] |
||
y6jmw | why doesn't europe have a huge drug smuggling problem like we see on the us - mexico border? | I would imagine that Europe consumers just as much illegal drugs as Americans do. Wouldn't a border crossing some place in the EU prove to be big money for organized crime like it is in North America? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/y6jmw/why_doesnt_europe_have_a_huge_drug_smuggling/ | {
"a_id": [
"c5sxxdg"
],
"score": [
2
],
"text": [
"You only have two big borders, one of which is with Canada (which isn't much of a problem), which means that, by default, you only have one big \"battle front\" in terms of smuggling. We have drug smuggling going between Morocco and Portugal/Spain, probably some being brought into the EU from Eastern Europe, some more from the Baltic. But that won't make news as \"The EU has a drug smuggling problem across its borders\". You'll see separate pieces on how Portugal, Spain, Italy Greece, Germany all have some drug smuggling problems.\n\nGranted, it does help that South America has some pretty noteworthy drug lords, and the US is a big market."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[]
] |
|
422dzx | why in a country of 320 million persons are the (real) choices for president so limited? there is a potential with this upcoming election for four of the five recent presidents to be from the same one or two families. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/422dzx/eli5why_in_a_country_of_320_million_persons_are/ | {
"a_id": [
"cz72odn",
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"score": [
9,
6,
8,
3
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"text": [
"It costs millions of dollars to run a campaign. Most of the money comes from big banks, unions, big business and other institutions. They don't throw money around on unknown candidates not backed by party mandarins. They donate to known candidates after they are vetted and approved.\n\nTrump appears to be a dark horse but has been involved in politics all his life.",
"Because two parties control pretty much the entire political system (in the US). There are other candidates. Other parties like the Green, Libertarian, Constitutional, etc parties all have candidate who end up being on ballots (state by state) but a lot of the laws and rules (made by the two big parties) keep the other parties irrelevant. For example, the presidential debate committee requires 15% in different polls to be included. It used to be 5% but once Perot got into the debates as an independent candidate, they raised it.",
"For what it's worth, there are actually a couple hundred people running for president. You only hear about the ones that can manage to raise enough money to run an effective campaign, but you would be shocked how many people are actually running for US president right now.",
"It's an inevitability of First Past The Post voting system, it has nothing to do with money and everything to do with the population speculating on who has a chance of winning.\n\n[CGP Grey explains it nicely](_URL_0_)\n\nEdit: You may be asking why the clinton's and bush's have held so much power for so long. You know how networking is key to getting you the job you want? Well turns out having a dad/brother/husband who's done it all before, having already built a huge support network, is pretty useful.\n\nPeople may also think having that experienced support network will make them a better leader than some \nrandom.\n\nWhy this seems unique to America I dunno, I can't think of another obvious example in a western country but Im not sure if that's just because I don't pay attention."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[],
[],
[],
[
"https://youtu.be/s7tWHJfhiyo"
]
] |
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