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4xvmgk | why do some people react so badly after eating something like taco bell burritos? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4xvmgk/eli5_why_do_some_people_react_so_badly_after/ | {
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"No science here on my end, just an observation: some people have more sensitive stomachs. And this is sort of how the body is trying to protect or heal itself from potentially harmful foods",
"Your body goes \"WTF is this shit coming in, better make some room, so i can process this bullshit.\"\n\n\nThats why sometimes eating something, then 20 mins later you have to shit... nothing from the food you ate has made its way that deep into the system yet.",
"Edit: Changed statement to better reflect the % of real meat to fillers & included sources.\n\nTaco Bell meat is 88% beef with some other fillers & food additives including^\\* ~~something like 30%~~ soy filler so that can have an impact on soy sensitive people.\n\n_URL_1_\n*Beef, water, seasoning [cellulose, chili pepper, maltodextrin, salt, oats (contains wheat), soy lecithin, spices, tomato powder, sugar, onion powder, citric acid, natural flavors (including smoke flavor), torula yeast, cocoa, disodium inosinate & guanylate, dextrose, lactic acid, modified corn starch], salt, sodium phosphates. Contains: Soy, Wheat*\n\n\\* - _URL_0_",
"There are degrees of being lactose intolerant. That liquid cheese on tacobell is very hard on people that have problems with lactose. Lots of people don't deal with their lactose intolerance problems. ",
"Irritable bowel syndrome. If you find you have sudden urges to go, especially afer eating something, its an indicator for this. \n\nBasic theory, certain types of food are not broken down well i nthe small intestine. This does not bother most people but part of the population experience issue due to this. When the undigested food enters their large intestine the fermentation that naturally occurs with these poorly digested foods irritate them instead. They end up with diaherra and/or constipation, gas, bloating, sudden urges to go."
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frtmtb | why won't a lot of employers (particularly in usa) let their employees work from home, even if their job could be done from home? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/frtmtb/eli5_why_wont_a_lot_of_employers_particularly_in/ | {
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"Employers don’t trust employees. They think employees are going to steal (time) from them. They think if you sit at a desk where you are watched you will do more work. \n\nTl;dr employers think employees are children and are not responsible individuals."
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3g6nf3 | those nonsense names for prescription medications. | How and why do they come up with those weird names for prescription medications? Is there some evidence that consumers actually like this? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3g6nf3/eli5_those_nonsense_names_for_prescription/ | {
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"They have to make a name that has no medical claims and that the FDA will approve. It can't be confused with anything else. And it has to be trademarkable and likely have a free URL.",
"I think that it's best to make the generic name very hard and the trade name easy. This way in ten years when the patent is off. Ppl ( including medical professionals ) will remember the trade name and perscribe your medicine rather than the competition or the generic jeuwkamiwmab. \n\nEdit :\n\nIn many cases the drug's name does help identify things about it.\nFor example when a drug ends with mab, this means that it's based on monoclonal antibodies.\nHowever, you can understand how me and most other doctors I know say Keppra instead of the generic Levetiracetam.\n",
"Generic names are often shortened versions of the chemical derivation of the drug. Healthcare providers can usually discern what class of drug is being described by this nomenclature. Brand names often give an indication of the drug's effect (ie: Lopressor--lowers blood pressure). "
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3ulgxs | how come that low cost airlines are cheaper than the train? | I was just appalled that Ryanair Berlin-Köln and back, 2 persons, is 90 euro and the same with Deutsche Bahn is 300 or more.
I would understand over thousands of kilometers, but not something 'intrastate' in EU. Especially in countries where the railways are well developed.
I always thought than airplane companies had a lot of costs due to the higher skills required for maintenance, flight and so on, while trains requires relatively simpler skills.
How can this be explained? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3ulgxs/eli5_how_come_that_low_cost_airlines_are_cheaper/ | {
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"Because they charge what people will pay, not how much it costs them to provide the service. Also, you aren't comparing the same services.\n\nWhere are you finding DB tickets, the standard price for Berlin-Koeln return is 234 euros. This lets you take any train on the day, and you can cancel and get some of your money back. So for 234 euros you are buying the right to take the trip at any time during the day you specify.\n\nBut DB also sells Sparpreis tickets which depending on the time and how far in advance you book, can be as low as 38 euros for the return, but you must take the specific train you booked and also you can't cancel or change the ticket.\n\nMost of Ryanair's tickets can't be cancelled or changed, without paying excessive fees that mean it may be cheaper to buy a new ticket. I think you can also buy Ryanair tickets which you can change for a smaller fee but these will cost more!\n\nAlso, on train you can carry more or less unlimited luggage, and at least for now, there are no security checks for this particular route",
"Low-cost airlines are usually run by clever bargain-hunting managers who operate cheaply by:\n\n- Only serving certain cities\n- Buying used or discounted airplanes\n- Using secondary, less-popular airports\n- Taking advantage of tax breaks or subsidies, where available, from governments that want to attract their business\n- Selling profitable extra services, such as charging extra for baggage\n- Flying at times convenient for their schedule, which may not be the most popular times, so they don't need as many vehicles\n- Scheduling things with little time margin, so that trips are often delayed by even small surprises\n\nThese techniques allow them to sell tickets more cheaply than a company that has to run a comprehensive system serving everyone.\n",
"I'm surprised no one has mentioned the infrastructure costs. The Railways have thousands of miles of track and hundreds of stations all over the place, often these places are though to access aswell. \n"
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1n9mzt | how do we know the concepts of mind and thoughts are "located" in our brains? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1n9mzt/eli5_how_do_we_know_the_concepts_of_mind_and/ | {
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"because if I stab a pencil in your eye, your personality might be radically changed. google lobotomy. there have been cultures that associated it with the abdomen or the heart primarily, but simply put, they've been proven wrong by science ranging from brainscans to pencils.",
"All the wiring for our sensory inputs lead to the brain. Not to mention brainsurgeons have cause many mental traumas due to brain pieces removal. \n\nAnd the number one reason, if you remove the brain, we can't think anymore ",
"I once knew a guy who got in a motorcycle accident and recieved traumatic brain injuries. While he recovered physically, *everything* about him changed: his personality, thought processes, morals, beliefs, moods, even some of his memories. \n\nIt's from events like this that we can logically deduce that brain structure is linked to mind. We can directly observe that a change in the brain - structural, chemical or electrical, results in a corresponding change in mind.\n\nYou could argue that its possible that the brain might be merely an *interface* between the physical organism and a mind that's floating around in some other place. But that's a bit of a pointless argument because a) it's untestable and b) it's not applying Occam's razor.\n\n\n\n"
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6he0si | how the american job situation got so bad. | I often see posts on reddit about how managers in the US expect their staff to work 60 hour weeks for the price of 40 and basically never take time off.
As an outside can someone explain to me how it got that bad? The worst we have in Britain are zero hours contracts where you only get hours if they call you in but that sounds like luxury to the US | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/6he0si/eli5_how_the_american_job_situation_got_so_bad/ | {
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"This is only true in certain industries and with certain companies. My company is 40 a week with good benefits... I do not of course get paid but a fraction of what they do.",
"There are a few things going on here. \n\nFirst there was as others have mentioned an abuse of job title designation. In the United States, employees of companies that work hourly, after a certain amount of work, would be entitled to overtime and certain benefits, like vacation time. However, there was a period companies would designate people managers and/or give them fixed salaries as a way to get around this. For example, say you flip burgers for McDonalds. Let's say you live somewhere where the minimum wage is 8.50. You'd make roughly 17000 a year working there doing the standard 40 per week. McDonalds could say okay instead you are a burger \"manager\" and you have a salary of 18000 a year, but it's no longer tied to your hours per week. This way, they get around any protections for hourly workers. The logic of this is that people who are \"managers\", because they make more are entitled to fewer protections because they have better jobs. For example, I'm a lawyer. I have never worked a week less than 60 hours since I started as a lawyer (granted only one year ago). However, since I have a six figure salary no one is going to be crying for me, or saying he should be getting overtime (besides me, I'm crying a lot). \n\nThe real problem is how to deal with the situation if it happens because doing that is ILLEGAL. The burger flipper even if his employer says he is a manager isn't. And if the employer was brought to court the employer would likely lose. Barring particularly egregious behavior, the employee would only get damages equal to the amount of money they should've been paid. While those few hundred or thousand dollars may be a lot to them, it likely wouldn't cover a lawyers time. So, bringing these sorts of cases to trial are hard, unless a company has many of these problems.\n\nSo a company like McDonalds wouldn't be able to get away with doing something like that for long, as they would likely have a class action, or at least a large aggregate action on their hands. \n\nSmaller companies however that only hire a few people would literally never get caught. The only way to solve this problem is to have neutral watchdogs put in place with enforcement power, like say government watchdog administrations. But, in the United States with anti-tax fertilization that has overwhelmed the right the odds of us seeing an effective group like that is basically non-existent. \n\nThis is compounded by the fact that the US is a predominantly at-will employment country. That means when a person is hired, their employment contract is usually minimal, or realistically, non-existent. The person could be fired for literally any reason, except for a few protected classes. Thus, if a person takes his vacation days and gets fired, he would have to sue and then prove the reason he got fired was specifically (or at least very likely) that it was because of his taking vacation days. That's really tough to do. So, cases like that rarely go to court. And since they rarely go to court companies don't feel particularly worried about violating those rules. \n\n(I could then go into a long rant about the complete misunderstanding of the purpose of lawsuits amongst the american people, but I think the Adam Ruins Everything about the hot coffee case does a good job of that.) \n\nEdit: Fixed a few small typos",
"The issue with the USA is that a number of industries which previously provided stable middle-class incomes have either been outsourced or replaced with technology. At the same time, unions and other worker protection entities have been gutted by politicians, primarily on the right. So with fewer stable career jobs and worker protetions, the balance of power has shifted dramatically towards the employer. Accordingly, they can demand things like moving employees to salary where they lose some of the protections of overtime rules. Further, employees are discouraged from taking paid time off because they fall behind their colleagues."
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871z0z | why is there a "motion blur" effect when moving something around at night? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/871z0z/eli5_why_is_there_a_motion_blur_effect_when/ | {
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"Your retina cells are not able to turn off as quickly as the object moves, since they are chemically operated. You don't notice it in normal lighting, but when the background is very dark it becomes apparent.",
"Some of this effect can be due to the lighting used in some locations.\n\nFlorescent lights for example 'flicker' - that is they brighten and dim in time with the electricity supply (so 50 or 60 times a second). If you move something rapidly, you can sometimes see a flickering/blurring effect as you see the item clearly when the lights are at full brightness, but not when they are dimmed - this gives an effect similar to the jerky motion in stop motion animation.\n\nLED torches are also very bad for this effect - LEDs only really work at full brightness, so they use a system called 'pulse width modulation' to dim them - if the light on all the time gives full output, if you flicker it so that it is on 50% of the time and off 50% of the time on average it will be half as bright - do it quickly enough and the human eye doesn't see the flicker, just the lower average brightness. The problem is that if you don't flicker it fast enough, or try to light something moving quickly, you get the blurry stop motion effect."
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22dyrq | why doesn't the sport of boxing sign an espn tv contract and stop doing ppv? | In my opinion this would bring back some popularity to a dead sport. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/22dyrq/eli5_why_doesnt_the_sport_of_boxing_sign_an_espn/ | {
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"ESPN does show boxing routinely on their Friday Night Fights. For the larger fights however, like a Mayweather bout, it is far more profitable for the promoters and the fighters to have the fight on ppv. In his last fight alone, Floyd Mayweather stood to earn over [$100 million with a bulk of those proceeds coming from pay per view earnings.](_URL_0_) \n\nTL;DR: While it might help the sport's popularity to have big time fights be shown on cable and not on a ppv basis, with the amount of money that ppv generates for promoters and fighters, that model is not going to change anytime soon.",
"The singular nature of boxing makes it harder for the promoters and the fighters to get their fair share of the money. Unlike football or basketball there isn't a regular enough schedule to determine who should get a cut."
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9n5b19 | if i use a plastic straw and put it in the trash, how does it make it to the ocean. | How do so many end up in the ocean if we are throwing them in the trash.
Are we just that irresponsible as a society that we constantly littering straws? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/9n5b19/eli5_if_i_use_a_plastic_straw_and_put_it_in_the/ | {
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"Most developed countries dispose of their trash in relatively responsible ways. The biggest problem is underdeveloped countries that don't have a waste disposal infrastructure that end up throwing their garbage in rivers that flow into the ocean. ",
"Should see pictures of India and countries like that. Fast growth but don't have the infrastructure to deal with it. Garbage is literally piled up in the streets, thrown in to rivers it's disgraceful. Anyway a straw in the West that's disposed of in a bin will most likely end up in landfill, eventually buried, sealed and forgotten about. It's not a bad way of disposing of waste actually.",
"I live on the shore In the Bahamas where seaweed and garbage float in from the wide open Atlantic Ocean to the east. There are no major sources of pollution (dumping garbage, etc) for many miles, and it’s what you would call a very clean and sparsely populated area. Everything floating up here is coming from long distances. \n\nIn one day there are plastic knives, forks, spoons, plastic jugs and containers of things like fabric softener, engine oil, tangled piles of rope, lids to bottles, flip flops, sneakers, buoys, buckets and loose bucket lids. There’s even more broken up pieces of plastic about the size of a dorito in blue, green, yellow, red. Around half of the products with labels are in Spanish and half look like they originated in the US. I’ve seen labeled plastic drinking cups from Caribbean Islands like St Maarten and Hispaniola which are hundreds of miles away. One thing you see a lot of is thick plastic storage trays, that look like larger stackable milk crates around 3ft x 18”.\n\nLast year there were hundreds of small plastic bags the size of a ketchup packets floating up filled with chicken buillion labeled in Spanish. After a week or so of finding them everywhere, I kayaked out and found several larger intact bags the size of a volleyballs that were bulk packages containing the same chicken buillion, 250 per bag.\n\nI always wonder where these things came from and how they ended up in the ocean. It’s quite upsetting. "
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1oxsxy | how do halloween costume stores survive economically? wouldn't a business that really only serves a purpose for one month go out of business? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1oxsxy/eli5how_do_halloween_costume_stores_survive/ | {
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"I live in a city with 3 million + people.\n\nThe halloween stores here are only operational 2 months a year. They DO go out of business, after making mountains of sweet cash. \n\nMy state fair comes around only once a year, yet there are food businesses there that make a years worth of income in less than 3 weeks. ",
"Think about it this way: they only have storefronts for 2 months, but that's when they make ALL their money, and the rest of the year they have basically no expenses other than building inventory. They pay their employees minimum wage, mark up cheap crap to crazy levels, and then only pay rent in unwanted spaces (at a huge discount) for two months. They're never in major malls, they're in already vacant storefronts. They have very little cost associated with running them, and make big profits while they're open."
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779em0 | why do police/fire radios sound so staticky? how do these departments that rely on radio communications understand each other? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/779em0/eli5_why_do_policefire_radios_sound_so_staticky/ | {
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"I've spent some time on VHF amateur radio in the UK, which has the staticy sound you're talking about. I suppose after a while you develop an ear for it, and you're able to filter out the ~~cosmic radiation!~~ static. This is also the reason they use numbered codes for different situations, and of course the phonetic alphabet. It'd be disappointing if digital radio isn't already in widespread usage though.",
"Cop here:\n\nThe main reason is that we develop \"radio ear\". Basically we get used to the static, codes, shorthand, etc.\n\nIt takes awhile and is something that Rookies have to overcome. In the academy we were encouraged to listen to the radio as much as possible.\n\nIt's very much a learned skill. \n\nAnother thing is that if you're listening to scanners, they're usually much worse quality than the actual radios are.",
"The same is true when you fly a plane.\n\nYou eventually get used to it, and the protocol and jargon you use is designed to be easily understood on an imperfect transmission.\n\nThat why they say things like 10-20 and Whiskey Tango Alpha Two Two Niner instead of Where are you? and WTA229.\n",
"Audio quality isn’t the main priority. Connectivity is. Meaning if an officer is three floors below street level in a concrete parking structure he can still send/receive. An officer at dispatch can reach the dive team on a lake. It’s all about dependability and connectivity. "
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8gry9h | what is the difference between the words “shall” and “will”? | Therefore, when should you use phrases like “will not” and “shall not”? I know they’re different, I just don’t know why. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/8gry9h/eli5_what_is_the_difference_between_the_words/ | {
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"If Gandalf said “you will not pass” instead of “you shall not pass” Lord of the Rings would not be the same.",
"Historically the meaning was:\n\n- shall = something that is definitely going to happen\n- will = something that you intend to make happen \n\nThink of \"will power\" or \"the will to succeed\" or \"last will and testament\" — all are statements of using your *intentions* to influence the future.\n\nBut in English as in most languages, words drift over time. These days, \"will\" is used as a substitute for \"shall,\" and the old meaning of \"will\" is met with terms like \"intend to\" or \"am going to\" or \"plan to.\"",
"Here's how it was explained to me (I wasn't 5, but it's simple enough):\n\nA guy who's drowning-- because he accidentally fell off a bridge and none of the bystanders seem to care-- thinks: \"I *shall* drown! No one *will* save me!\"\n\nA guy who jumped off the bridge because he wants to end it all-- and hopes none of the bystanders will interfere-- thinks: \"I *will* drown! No one *shall* save me!\" . \n\n"
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3e4x08 | why are uniforms for police departments (cities) generally a dark blue color, while uniforms for sheriff's departments (counties) are a lighter tan color? | Specifically thinking of this in California. For example, Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) as compared to the Los Angeles Sheriff's Department (LASD). | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3e4x08/eli5_why_are_uniforms_for_police_departments/ | {
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"Just tradition. Sheriff's are often tan shirt, green pants, like a ranger, because the sheriff often patrolled rural areas outside of town. A dark blue or black uniform would quickly get dusty and look dirty. \n\nPolice uniforms are navy blue or black, often because they purchased surplus army and navy coats when the idea of standard unforms began in the 1840s. \n\n_URL_0_",
"Where I grew up the sheriff's deputies wore dark brown and the police wore black. At night you couldn't tell them apart except by the direction they were running- the police toward the crime, the sheriff's deputies away from it. ",
"Its entirely an aesthetic choice. While you are probably right that county and state police tend to go with khaki colored uniforms and city cops tend to have blue, you will also find exceptions. \n\nAn example of an exception would be Dupage county sheriffs in Illinois and Lisle police, which is a town in Dupage county.",
"There is actually a lot of interesting information in this question. Starting off with the blue police uniforms: \n\nIn 1829, Britain created the Metropolitan Police Act, forming what is often considered to be the first modern organized paid police force. They chose blue as their uniform color to stand apart from the red military uniforms, and to look less intimidating to people on the street. \n\nNearly simultaneously in America, the organization later known as the Texas Rangers were being formed. However, standardized uniforms did not start taking effect for police until toward the end of the Civil War. At this time, there were a lot of surplus military uniforms left over, making them inexpensive to acquire for police forces. As most places would not want to be associated with the losing side of the war, the Southern uniforms were not nearly as popular. Some places still used the Grey, either out of loyalty to the South, rebellion against the North, or simply due to the abundance of cheap and unused uniforms. \n\nFast forward 150 years, and they are still commonly using the Blue. This is do to many factors. It is harder to stain. It makes you less of a visible target at night. Blue is considered a calming color in Psychological tests. \n\nIn the 1960s, many police departments started trying to move further away from the military-esque look of the uniforms and started adopting more \"friendly\" uniforms. Moving away from darker colors, they experimented more with khakis, greys, light blues, browns, and whites. They also experimented with the uniforms themselves, adding and removing ties, blazers, baseball caps, etc. Many departments spent the next 20-30 years making changes to try to find a proper balance between presenting professionalism, service, friendly demeanor, calming effect, and trustworthiness, while still maintaining authority and respect. \n\nConversely, Sheriff's offices traditionally gained influence and importance in areas where standard police forces were not available. In other words, in rural areas. Working in a rural area, especially in a time period when you might have to ride a horse over a distance, the Union Blues were simply too hot. This led to many departments going with a white, green, or khaki/brown shirt. The white shirts became dirty too easily, and the lighter browns won out overall. \n\nTraditionally, the Sheriff departments and police departments in the same region have tried to stay independent in their uniforms, and the metro police forces were more commonly blue, so the sheriff departments stuck with their traditional browns. Many state associations for police and sheriff departments also influence the uniform (and car) color selections in their region, for the sake of comradery. \n\nIn recent times, however, law enforcement uniforms and cars are both changing to black in many areas of the nation. While a large percentage of the people think this is for the sake of becoming more tactical/military, (and that may be an influence) the real reason is simply cost. Black uniforms are typically cheaper than other colors. It may only be a couple of dollars per item difference, and that may not seem like much to the average person, but look at it over volume, and over time. A department of 1,000 officers may need 5 shirts and 5 pairs of pants per officer. $2 for color times 10 articles times 1,000 officers is $20,000. And these also need to be replaced regularly due to things such as wear and tear. So the tax payers can be saved a dramatic amount for a small change. \n\nCars are the other big thing. Manufacturers such as Ford used to put the police cars together in black and white configurations for police use. However, most have stopped this practice, as it is more costly than simply making a solid white or black car. This means the departments have begun to have to pay extra for aftermarket paint jobs on the traditional black and white vehicles. At an average of about $500 per paint job times that same 1,000 number from earlier, this is half a million dollars for paint jobs. Most communities would prefer lower taxes or more officers on the street when compared to simply having a traditionally colored vehicle. \n\nTLDR; Police - Military Hand-me-downs. Sheriff Departments - A lower temperature color option. \n\nEdit: Manualcorrect autocorrect. "
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6huxaf | how did we know the human population before birth and death certificates? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/6huxaf/eli5_how_did_we_know_the_human_population_before/ | {
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"Churches and governments kept records in medieval Europe. You have to know who to collect taxes from.",
"Pretty much like we do today, we take the data we have, and make the best possible guess.\n\nEven in developed countries, some people are born or die or move with the government knowing. For example, the US has about 11.1 million illegal immigrations, +/- 125,000. In less developed countries with large rural population, like China or India, the degree of uncertainty will be greater. Researchers can't just count up all the birth and death certificates and hope for the best.\n\nGoing back in time, the process is largely the same, only the uncertainty is greater.\n\n"
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54k4hx | how is it possible for two airplanes to collide? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/54k4hx/eli5_how_is_it_possible_for_two_airplanes_to/ | {
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"Planes move a lot faster and manoeuvre slower than you think. The pilots would probably not have enough time to react."
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ed9kgn | why when we breath too fast, we feel dizzy afterwards? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/ed9kgn/eli5_why_when_we_breath_too_fast_we_feel_dizzy/ | {
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"So in the brain the bloodflow can be increased or decreased by a few factors. One of them is the amount of CO2 in the blood. Co2 causes the blood vessels in the brain to expand allowing more flow. Dropping Co2 will cause the vessels to constrict and limit flow. Breathing fast blows off CO2 and causes some constriction, thus reducing bloodflow."
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5v00w5 | what is the longterm significance of the spacex landings and or program? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5v00w5/eli5what_is_the_longterm_significance_of_the/ | {
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"Preface: I am no expert, I just like space\n\nBasically, right now we invest billions of dollars into making a rocket that we send into space, leave most in space, and crash the final bit back into the ocean. With Space X being able to land the rocket and reuse it, and also producing them for as low as $500 million, we can go to space for a lot cheaper. Elon estimates that we will be able to take a trip to mars for around $200,000.\n\nEdit: down to $62 million now according to /u/no_real_username",
"They are starting to get the hang of landing the rockets. This is one of the reusability program they have. The rockets that have landed are being studied and experimented on to find out how easy it is to press it back into service. In fact one rocket is already completing its final tests and is scheduled to launch its second payload into orbit in March. The theory is that it is cheaper to just overhaul an existing rocket then to build an entire new one. It may be some time until they perfect the maintenance procedures and the components but they hope that you could get a second launch with the same vehicle within a few hours which would be a lot of saved costs. They are comparing it to a jumbo jet that is being used for multiple flights each day with just some regular maintenance once in a while."
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7v6ewo | why do certain strains/variations of the common cold & influenza seem to have unique symptoms among sufferers? | Some strains seem to be a simple runny nose/respiratory affair, and others can manifest fevers, muscle aches and even nausea.
The symptoms seem to follow each particular strain - those who communicate the disease to another (colleagues etc) often suffer identical symptoms from each infection. Why is that?
How can a flu virus specifically target/damage muscles, or create stomach upsets? And what is characteristic about the strain of the individual virus that makes the symptoms manifest in this way? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/7v6ewo/eli5_why_do_certain_strainsvariations_of_the/ | {
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"There are two main things to address in your question: (1) our bodies have generally the same response to infection and (2) unique symptoms may be the exact byproduct of the infection. There is also other byproducts of infection, such as fatigue (tiredness), but those are usually easily understood. \n\nSince we are all the same species with typically the same response to infection, we will see common response between people. When your body detects an infection, it tries to kill it by say, overheating (fever), or by runny noses to flush the system, or nausea to reduce metabolic intake and stop the spread of the disease (etc.). This is why illnesses may present the same; the body only has a few responses to deal with all the pathogens out there. \n\nIt comes as no surprise then that diseases and infections can evoke this general response through attacking common cells, or that there exists pathogens who target specific cells or specific microscopic machinery inside our bodies. If an infection targets the mitochondria of your muscle cells, or a receptor which removes volatile chemical build up in those muscles, you will get stiff and sore muscles (assuming your nutrient intake hasn't declined). Your body has to use its few responses to try to stop the infection, but the symptom appears none the less, and is tied to that specific strain of virus or bacteria. \n\nThe characteristics of specific cells which allows them to manifest this way is a huge question, and has 3 specialties in medicine dedicated to it (virology, pathology, and internal medicine). It can be anything from the bacteria having a strong carbohydrate shell which survives our stomach acid and activates during deacidulation in the intestine (infecting the intestine), or perhaps it spawns in mucus rich environments, and penetrates the cell walls to eat and reproduce in there. As long as there is nutrient flow in an area of our body, a pathogen can hijack it. \n\nThese three notions answer your \"communication between colleages\" question. The infections are specific, and are dealt with similarly. Specific strains ARE the reason why people have similar symptoms. \n\nI just woke up, so i hope that answers it. ",
"I'd like to point out, the flu/cold don't specifically \"target\" your muscle cells. The majority of the symptoms we get, runny nose, fever, muscle aches etc are just our bodies way of telling you it's under attack and needs to get rid the virus, not directly caused by the virus itself. Because everyone's immune response is pretty much the same, that's why feel similar when we have the cold/flu. Fever is a good indication that there's inflammation/infection somewhere in the body which is why it's a pretty generic symptom with most infections.\n\nPS: not a doctor or anything so if I'm wrong on something please point it out but this is how I understand it"
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r2a6q | queer feminism | I read a bit of the native language article but didn't really understand. So what's up with it? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/r2a6q/eli5_queer_feminism/ | {
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"Okay so I just dug up one of my old Women's Studies textbooks, and this is the most simple summary I could find (apologies, not quite LI5 - I don't consider myself enough of an expert to summarize properly):\n\n\"Lesbian feminist organizations also formed to challenge bias not only in the wider society but aso among mainstream feminist organizations and to encourage lesbians to contribute to a collective identity that can exert political influence... As a result of the feminist movement, which has challenged traditional ideas about sexuality and gender, lesbianism became more visible and, increasingly, is viewed not as abnormal but as 'normatively different'.\"\n\nI think that's a bit more the view of feminists of queer orientation rather than queer theory itself though. From what I gather, queer theory is less about *gay* or *lesbian* or *straight* and more about embracing *all* gender orientations and sexual orientations? And allowing and understanding that gender and orientation are all shades of gray, not black and white. I'm no expert though!\n\nedit: Just found this, even better definition from my Understanding Human Sexuality text under the \"summing up\" section, so it's pretty LI5. \"Queer theory challenges heteronormativity - the view that heterosexuality is normal - and points out mismatches among anatomic sex, gender roles, and sexual desires as evidence.\""
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3snyzh | why in visual depictions of native americans, the native men are always cleanly shaved. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3snyzh/eli5_why_in_visual_depictions_of_native_americans/ | {
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"Most sources say that they plucked their facial hair. I can't imagine how much time that would take, but it would last longer than shaving. A Google image search for \"Native American facial hair\" or \"Native American beard\" will show you that many did grow hair.",
"Most depictions you're looking at are being done by people after the fact, so they go based mostly on pre-existing stereotypes. Almost all depictions of earlier times have people with complexions that would be damn near impossible to pull off at the time. Colonial Americans certainly didn't have pristine clothing and immaculate facial hair either, but that's what you see. Painters at the time removed blemishes to please their subjects, and no one bothers to describe the rough edges in historical documents either. A pilgrim describing Native Americans wouldn't have bothered explaining some random hairs that weren't plucked or shaved just as they wouldn't mention the stains of the socks of their neighbor.",
"A lot of Native men just flat out don't grow facial hair. My old boss was half Cherokee, and he'd never had to shave a day in his life. ",
"First, stone tools can be very sharp. [Sharp enough to shave.](_URL_0_) Granted this is obsidian but flint can be similarly sharp.\n\nSecond, don't underestimate the ingenuity and leisure time of such peoples. Remember some dude in a cave figured out how to start his own fires. Some other guy figured out how to make stone weapons and tools. These seem simple to us but they were huge leaps forward.",
"I just googled 'Native American Beard' and the first picture was of Rasputin \n\n[What?](_URL_0_)",
"There's a spanish word that explains this condition, though I can't find an accurate translation. Most native americans are what in spanish can be referred to as \"lampiños\", which can be poorly translated as \"hairless\". It's a genetic condition that appears in every ethnicity, but native americans seem particularly prone to it. Tough the term \"Native American\" is pretty wide, I've met people from different backgrounds in south, central and north america that backed-up, and initially originated, my theory.",
"I'm 5/8 Alaska Native. The only reason I grow the facial hair that I do have is because of that 3/8s part of me that isn't native. and what hair I do grow doesn't grow in very fast or very impressively.",
"I have Native family (while I am technically enrolled in a tribe since birth I am far more irish than Shoshone) and most of them shave because they cannot grow any real facial hair. In the movies I suppose it made more sense for the Noble Savage to look clean cut, rather than to have them look like a prepubescent Mexican.",
"Pure blood native Americans (almost) never grow facial hair. They don't actually shave; they just have no hair on their faces to begin with.\n\nThis goes for Inuit people and central and south american natives as well. It's a pretty recessive trait though, which is why most of the time if someone has some European ancestry there will be normal amounts of facial hair. Some guys you'll see have almost fumanchu like hair just on their chin, some guys grow an all out beard, and that hair almost always comes from non native American ancestry.",
"1/4-ish native here. I get nothing but peach-fuzz stache after like a month of not doing anything with it and some random hairs on my chin. That's about it.",
"Quinault native American here, rez born and raised. \n\nI can confirm that natives are not a hairy people. If a guy DOES grow body or facial hair, it's because he's mixed blood (who isn't at this point) or the hair is wiry.\n\nI've always thought natives who could grow hair, the hair always looked the way Asian people's do.",
"I might be a little late but I'd also had a question, why are there no BALD Native Americans depicted? Is the baldness gene super rare amongst Natives?",
"You are looking at this from a European viewpoint. Native Americans were racially closer to Asians, who don't grow such a heavy beard.\nBr his is why the old Asians let their beard grow long. It was a sign of masculinity and age which conveys status.",
"I live in Canada, none of my aboriginal friends can grow facial hair. Maybe like 1 whisker, but even then, it's usually soft and blends in.",
"An odd genetic trait of many Native Americans is an inability to grow facial hair or body hair in general. I've met one that had a mustache but none of them have had much use for razors and shaving cream. One guy I met, I swear to god, legs smoother than any woman I've ever met. I'd have sworn he was shaving them. Strange but interesting!",
"Genetics. I'm not sure the exact ethnicity, some parts of China don't grow facial hair. \n\nThough to be honest, I met a Chinese grad student at uni who had a full, very real, very red beard. It was magnificent.",
"I'm Irish and Native American. What that means is, what little hair I have, is shitty and scraggly and blonde.",
"In 2015 you can see where we've all mixed a little in Canada. This might surprise people but there are tribes with very strong Italian admixture and African-American. Then of course plenty of English, Euro mixes. \n\nIt also varies from tribe to tribe to nation but for example I noticed some Haida people on the west coast islands and yes the older dudes can actually grow some decent moustaches and beards. \n\nI noticed a good many Cree I hung around with had pretty much zero facial hair. One joking about his thick moustache (literally like 7 hairs on each corner of his mouth). \n\ngenerally speaking very little body hair. let me say some of the ladies I was intimate with had very very little to deal with. 'bikini lines' a total white person thing. \n\nMuch the same as most of the Chinese I know (actually less hairy than Chinese overall I'd say). It also seems beard 'maturity growth' is much much slower for men among asians/natives. Meaning: in the same way Caucasians and I suppose others often have weaker beards at 18 and maybe by 30 you can seriously get growth. But natives (and Chinese) seems like its only the oldest of dudes into their 60s that can get a beard going on. Most of the Uni guys quite seriously just get 10 strands.\n\nAnd having said all that, i just recently saw a young Chinese guy downtown with a pretty damn impressive beard going on! I quite seriously mistook him for a foreigner for a minute it was that thick of a beard. \n\nOverall though they sure seem to do much better with the hair on the head. I rarely ever saw a truly bald bald native guy (and rarely a chinese) but I know lots of white guys with the full on 'horseshoe' baldness and even at young ages. We got the beards and ass hair. got robbed on the top part :(",
"Just chipping in, I'm 1/16 Native, and I *also* can't grow facial hair for anything, haven't balded (yet) and do very well in the sun.\n\nI know it seems a little silly, but I've never felt like I had a \"people\". I'm adopted, and love my family, but don't look anything like them.\n\nTo read all these accounts of people who \"look like me\" or at least deal with some of the same issues. It was really nice.\n\nI hope you're all doin' good, fellow \"kind of a little bit Native, but mostly something else (Italian in my case)\" folks!\n\n(Fake Edit - I came here for lolz, not to Feel!)",
"Also, more important than Native American's lack of facial hair: they don't go bald. They have fantastic hair genes, and baldness is practically non-existent in them.",
"Many native Americans have no body hair. If they do, it most likely from a non native ancestor. It's beautiful. ",
"My family is native, dad is pretty much hairless except for the hair on his head. No pit hair, leg hair, arm hair. I can grow some light stubble, no where near a full beard or mustache. So really I get the hair on my face from my mom.",
"Native American, Mandan and Hidatsa from Fort Berthold North Dakota. \n\nMost natives I knew and grew up with on our Rez had little facial hair and body hair. I Am almost 30 and have no chest hair, little arm hair, little leg hair, but a beautiful head of hair! \n\nThe only reason I have a little facial hair is because I started shaving to be like my military father and friends when we moved off the Rez. Who all joked that I shaved my legs.\nEdit: I'm not 3",
"Everyone is talking about being part Native American and not growing a beard. I'm Irish, Scottish, and Russian, without a hint of Native American: I still cannot grow much more than a scraggly beard and even that didn't start until I was 23!",
"I'm half (Muscogee/Kiowa) on my mother's side and my facial hair grows insanely fast and dense. I could grow two beards in one day if I pushed. Mom's side of the family is generally typical of what everyone is saying here, so it must be Dad's Euro-genes coming through in my case. At least I got the sun-safe skin tone and stoic gaze. ",
"Im native American and cant grow anything but a cheap little stash and i dont have hair on almost my whole body ",
"Good job guys. This is the first time I've seen a thread about natives on reddit that isn't overflowing with racism.",
"I know this is super late, but genetically, many Native Americans lack androgen receptors in the face. Androgen receptors are receptors that sex hormones (testosterone) will bind to. They lack the ones that, when testosterone binds to them, it facilitates facial hair growth. ",
"Mexican mestizo here, we don't grow facial hair. Genetics!\n\n(Also, man, I'd like a beard...)",
"I actually went and did a trip this summer to study the Cherokee culture in Cherokee, North Carolina. They said that historically Cherokee men would use clam/mussel shells to grab the hair and rip it out from the pores. So it was more like waxing, and it would take longer for the hair to grow out. The same for their heads to make it more like a mohawk or such. It was also a sign of bravery and manhood to not flinch at all when pulling the hairs. ",
"I'm glad this is being answered. When I was in high school, we had a native american speaker in one of my classes and I asked the same question. I was told that my question was offensive and racist. ",
"As a native, I can attest to the fact that we don't grow much facial hair. I moved down south and tried to grow it out... People just confused me for Mexican. Sometimes I wish I had a beard but I'm glad I don't have to join dollar shave club. ",
"Oklahoma native here. 1/4 Cherokee...can't grow anything other than chin pubes and a Michael Cera mustache. ",
"Native Americans originated from Asia, Asians are known for not having lots of facial hair.",
"Most of the native women rarely have leg hair, armpit hair, and very little pubic hair. Source: half native male that's seen multiple examples for science. ",
"This guy is Mohican! How come he can grow a beard????? _URL_0_",
"As already said, most North American Natives grew very little facial hair. Some may have had goatees or thin mustaches, but most plucked their facial hair.\n\nIf I remember correctly, most mountain men didn't sport beards. The natives would call them \"dog face\" and look down on them. Beards would have made trade very difficult.",
"Native Americans, for whatever reason, aren't genetically predisposed to have androgen receptors in their face. Basically, this means their faces can't receive the testosterone necessary for growing facial hair",
"This is why the thick mustache has been popularized in Mexico. It used to be grown to show that one had enough European blood in one's ancestry to grow facial hair. Indigenous people can't grow them.\n\nIt's interesting to think of, now that the mustache has become such a icon of Mexican heritage...it states \"Hey, tons of white dudes raped my ancestors to get me here!\"\n\n",
"Could this be why some people take WAY longer to grow facial hair than others? Asking for a friend.",
"I am chinese and if I try to grow a beard, well... i have been trying for the past 10 years.",
"Haha I laugh at you all! I don't shave my face and I probably never will because I'm Native. But you guys got all our land so choose your battles hey :(",
"I have a small amount of Native American in me and my beard always grows slow. My Dad (whom I get it from) could never grow a beard. He did have a 70's stache back in the 70's that he denied existed to his dying day. And yes there were pictures. \n\nI don't know where this comes from genetically though. A documentary on the genetics of facial hair would be awesome. then again I am sort of weird.",
"I'm Native American. (Navajo) I've never had to shave my body. I'll never get to feel facial hair :(",
"I'm mostly Chickasaw, and we have hardly any body/facial hair. No shave November just results in a very odd and awkward looking scruff on my face that never fully grows in. Joe Dirt-esque",
"Funny story, when a Sioux scout encountered western men for the first time, he told his tribe about the enormous four-legged beast he met. It's head was upside down and he had a fish's eyes.\n\nReally though, the man had never seen a house, the european man he encountered was bald-headed and had a beard (upside-down) and had round eyes, dissimilar from the narrow eyes of the Sioux.",
"This might be relevant for a lot of people submitting comments here _URL_0_",
"Full native. I wish I could grow a bear. I just grow little hairs on my chin, and face. I'm so smooth, it's awesome! ",
"Kinda surprised OP and other non-natives didn't know Native Americans didn't grow much (if any) facial hair. I'm not native, I've just known this for years. May be because I went to school with a couple of full blood brothers and I seem to remember them mentioning this in high school. One of them also didn't drink because he said natives were more prone to alcoholism, including many of his relatives, than white ppl. (He said it, not me.)",
"It is their Racial Perk. If you get the right modification you can get it too. \nkhajiit can see in the dark \nargonian can breath underwater \nnative americans dont have to shave",
"My family has Cherokee ancestors. I grew up understanding that, because of our heritage, body hair in general was very little. My father has baby smooth arm pits on top of no facial hair. Like some of the comments I took the time to read, my brother grows very little body hair that is very patchy. Pair that with red hair and freckles. Poor guy. ",
"Because natives can't grow facial hair.\n\nI have not met a native with a beard in my life.\n\nAnd I lived on a reserve for a time.",
"Native Americans migrated to north america back when there was a land bridge from Russia to Alaska. They are basically from an asian decent. Asians can't beard",
" > if I was living as they do.\n\nWhat does this mean? I'm quite certain that the vast majority of native Americans live much like the rest of the North American population. \n\n",
"So a lot of the answers here seem to indicate native americans don't grow facial hair.\n\nFor me this begs the question... do they grow carpet? :p",
"Just came to tell you if you want to look like those illustrations, throw your 15 dollar scam of a razor in the trash and head over to /r/wickededge we have cookies",
"Everyone saying they don't grow facial hair. \n\nBut *why*???",
"Half native American here. We don't grow facial hair and those of who do, their beards are Apache.",
"Hispanic woman here, my dad is from Mexico but his family (on his mother's side) is more native than Spaniard. (Tepehuanes, if you're curious) and his father was born and raised in California and had a surname that was very uncommon among Mexicans but very common among Filipinos. (We can't find out much more about him because my grandmother sold his papers after he died way back in 54 or sthg but we suspect he may have been Filipino) \nSo dad could grow a mighty mustache and a pretty good beard but my brothers can barely grow leg hair. Their mustaches are sad and I often tease them about it. \nMy sister and I were really fortunate in that we grow veerrrry sparse and pale body hair on our legs and arms (no shaving ever!!). In fact, I'm quite dark skinned but my arm and leg hairs are blond. Most other Mexican women have dark hair on their arms and legs. *Whew!*\n\nI used to shave my legs when i was around 17 because I thought it'd make me seem more grown up but there's no reason for me to. I haven't shaved since I was 18, I'm 30 now. [Photo of legs for proof.](_URL_0_)",
"TIL native americans don't have facial hairs.\n\nI guess its because its in their genes somehow.",
"Off topic but I'm full Persian and shave once a day. Not really a surprise. Just look at my ancestors lol _URL_0_",
"I'm native American and my whole family doesn't grow facial hair or leg hair. Most native peeps don't.",
"Anecdotal stories have told me that a lot of first nations people don't have much in the way of any body hair, but never go bald. ",
"Native Americans arent cleanly shaved, they simy Dont grow facial hair 99.9% of the time. Its a genetic trait.",
"Guess one of my parents lied and I'm not English/Dutch but partial Native American.. I got 17 moustache hairs, 9 chest hairs and a few random patches around my chin and cheeks.\n\nworst part is they are exactly like eyebrow hairs, I just eyebrows everywhere.",
"My buddy (part Native American) used to say.. \n\n\"I can't grow a beard, I'm part Apache.. It's just a patchy here and a patchy there..\"",
"Beause of the migration across the Bering straight, Native Americans hve a lot in common with north eastern Asains, a lack of body hair would be one trait. ",
"When I was a boy growing up in Osage County Oklahoma where there are many Native Americans, I was told and have been shown, that some of the men used what was called at the time (1960's) an Indian Gillette. It was a tightly wound steel spring about four inches long that the man would bend, place over the whisker, let the spring straighten back out grabbing the whisker and then pull the spring away from his face. As others have said on here, some Native Americans don't grow much facial hair so instead of shaving, they would pluck individual whiskers that appeared with the spring.",
"Comanche here. \n\nMy dad has zero facial or body hair. Meanwhile, I can go full Conquistador. \n\nIt's genetic. Some of us just can't. ",
"Native American checking in. I am from Canada. My mom doesn't need deodorant, my father's side there is Spanish in there some where so he grows stubbles haha. So as for me and my brothers and sisters. Us boys barely grow facial hair and my sister aren't like my mom and need deodorant. ",
"To be fair, natives had a civilization. There were trade routes all up and down the Americas. There was commerce, culture, etc etc etc....\n\nUnfortunately, they didn't have nearly the domestication we had... \n\nSmallpox had a 90% kill rate. Think about that. Europe thought the Black Death was the end times, and that only had a 30% kill rate. \n\nSo most people think of Indians as these noble savages living in the woods. No... That was AFTER they went through the apocalypse. \n\nAlso, all the Asian genes helped quite a bit too. "
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37buir | why do pills such as paracetamol come in a nice number like 500mg, but others such as aspirin come in numbers like 81mg? why not 80? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/37buir/eli5_why_do_pills_such_as_paracetamol_come_in_a/ | {
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"For some medications it's because they come in both micrograms and milligrams so they make one of them slightly off so people don't accidentally take 1000x the usual dose. Baby Aspirin comes in 81mg because it's 1/4 as much as normal Aspirin which is \"5 grain\" or 325mg.",
"Is paracetamol an over the counter medication? I've seen it mentioned several times here on Reddit and I've always wondered. I have am extremely painful autoimmune disease and I'm basically immune to the NSAID's avalible here in the US so the possibility of a different one excites me!\n ",
"Aspirin is perhaps the oldest of the modern medications. The US and UK medical communities had not yet adopted the metric system, and measured the standard does as 5 grains, which is very close to 325 mg.\n\nA typically children's does was one quarter of a pill, or 1.25 grains. Children's aspirin was soon marketed as its own product, and the 1.25 grains worked out to 81 mg. When they switched to metric, the 81 mg persisted.\n\nThese days, that's the dose that gets studied a lot, because doctors who want they patients on a low dose aspirin regimen tell them to take one children's aspiring a day.\n\nManufacturers could switch to 80 or 85 mg, but 81 is what everyone is used to.\n\nEDIT: Geez, I fixed the damn apostrophe already..."
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1bltcz | how do movie 'flops' ever get released? | Movies all seem to take a good few years to go from initial detail to actual release in the cinema, how could it go so wrong, with nobody intervening along the way? (e.g. Jack the Giant Slayer) | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1bltcz/eli5_how_do_movie_flops_ever_get_released/ | {
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"Because film making is an inexact science. No one knows what exactly will be good and what wont. Furthermore its not like the movie is shot in sequence where part way in someone can just look it over and go 'no this isn't working'. Each scene is shot discretely and on especially big films there are sometimes multiple crews all shooting bits of the film separately and simultaneously.\n\nIt isn't until the editing process that someone would even be able to tell and at that point the filming is done and the vast majority of the money has been spent, so at that point why not release it and hope for some return to mitigate the losses.",
"Shelving a movie is a very expensive decision - that means that you will recover 0% of the money already invested in the movie. It's better to release it, even if it doesn't make a lot of money, because that helps recover some of the losses.",
"Imagine if you put 30 hours into an assignment and read it and you realize that it's shit, but you either fail to turn it in and the teacher gives you a big fat zero and writes you up or you turn in your shitty assignment, maybe get a bit of bad rep in the teacher's eyes, and at least get any grade at all (maybe you flunk narrowly or get a bad but passing grade).\n\nYou can always do a better assignment later on to make your teacher change his or her opinion of you, but if you don't turn it in, you'll have wasted 30 hours, gotten a zero and been written up t the principle, all at the same time.\n\nEven simpler, $20,000,000 spent on the movie + $5,000,000 made on the movie from stupid weekend moviegoers who didn't have anything else to watch is a $15,000,000 loss, whereas $20,000,000 spent + $0 due to a no-release means a $20,000,000 straight up loss + you get a reputation for being a guy who can't deliver a finished product.",
"Jack the Giant Slayer was fantastic. Imo anyway. Dat ending.",
"Because movies don't always flop because they are bad. They could flop because another better movie is out at the same time. They could flop due to poor marketing decisions. Etc..",
"I saw Jack the Giant Slayer just recently in theaters.\n\nThe theatrics, sound effects, and execution were *pretty damn awesome*. The storyline, albeit predictable, was still enjoyable. \n\nWhat part of the movie did you not like? I personally thoroughly enjoyed the movie. Sure, it *was* sort of lame and cheesy (and hell, tons of logical fallacies - like, why the fuck would you not move your base camp *before* chopping the giant vines?) but either way, the movie remained actually really interesting.\n\nI'm curious as to why you didn't like it!",
"Because it makes more economic sense to make a bomb at $100 million and get $50 million back in ticket and video sales versus making a bomb at $100 million and making absolutely none of it back because you didn't bother to release it. And also, not all bad movies do poorly. You never know how any particular movie is going to be received by the people. There are some people who declared \"Cloud Atlas\" to be one of the most amazing films of all time and surely the studio releasing it had faith in it given the marketing and the starpower in it, yet by all financial accounts it was a bomb. Likewise I doubt that many people thought that movies like Blair Witch 1 and the first Ace Ventura movie would be the blockbusters that they were.",
"Nobody sets out to deliberately make a bad movie. It's entirely possible that what you view as \"so wrong\" is in fact exactly what the filmmakers had in mind, and that they feel it went perfectly right!\n\nAs with anything, taste is highly subjective. For example, I enjoyed Howard the Duck and I hated The Shawshank Redemption because of the ending. I think Will Ferrell is an unfunny hack, but some people love him. \n",
"Plenty of shitty movies make a lot of money. Just because a movie sucks doesn't mean it will fail. So you throw it out there and see. ",
"I think the question you are asking is why nobody notices a movie is going to be a flop before they even start filming. Even though a script may be amazing, a studio picks it apart, usually getting numerous rewrites between greenlighting and filming. Then a director changes things in the script to fit his style and tastes a bit better. Then a producer decides what they can afford to spend money on in this script. Then the studio loses faith in the director and a new one is hired who makes his own changes to the new script. Then the actors want to tweak things in the script to suit their style of acting and personal preferences on what they are willing to say and do on film. Then the film is edited to make a cohesive story and things are changed again. The original vision is changed numerous times over the years it takes to make a movie. This is why the most memorable directors have numerous movies that are good. They keep their vision focussed from the start of the project until its completed.\n\nAlso, the sad truth is that other people do intervene, especially studio people. Unfortunately, movie studios have a tendency to put people into creative decision making positions who have no creativity. The creative types (directors, writers, actors, etc) don't correct them because they are already getting paid and no one wants to question the boss and lose their own paycheck. Even directors with \"Final Cut\" will still bend to a studio executives will when it might cost them money. More so if the director is not personally emotionally invested in the project.",
"I can understand releasing a movie that is in the middle of production, but what about the planning stages? No actors have been hired, no stage hands, no sets built, no music commissioned, no costumes or anything bought. With little to know money sunk into the movie, why continue on with a bad idea?",
"They'll make their money somehow. Uwe Boll, who seems to only make horrible movies (just look at ratings and reviews), gets a tax credit if the movie fails. So they release it in theatres so it fails and they get money back, then they make money on dvd sales for people wanting to watch a bad movie. Yes, there are people who enjoy watching bad movies (specifically while enjoying an adult beverage and making a game of it).",
"Audiences are fickle and it's impossible to know what people will or will not want to see. The reason schlock like Jack the Giant Slayer or the slew of rom-coms and half-baked action movies are released is because they follow a \"crowd-pleasing formula\", regurgitating elements of past successes. This is important because a movie is actually sold before it's made.\n\nWhen you have an idea for a movie, you have to stand up in front of a room full of production execs who will \"yea\" or \"nay\" your film. If it's a \"yea\" they'll be giving you some ridiculous millions of dollars to make this thing. And they're not doing it out of the goodness of their own heart. They want a return on their investment. How do you guarantee a return on their investment? You show them with facts and figures how your film is just like another film (or films) that have made people great gobs of money in the past. Then, they release the film on a gamble hoping your market research, data and projections were all up to snuff and they'll make a healthy return. \n\nBut the truth is no one can predict how a movie will be recieved and it really is like a form of high stakes gambling and financial success often has little or nothing to do with the actual formal quality of a particular movie.\n\n Case-in-point, Bladerunner. Nowadays, everyone agrees Bladerunner is a hallmark of cinematic progress (if you're a nerdy film academic like me) or just a damn good action film with a kickass, deep, intriguing plot, beautiful sets and fantastic acting. But it's original theatrical reception was notoriously lukewarm. Audiences just didn't \"get\" it and they had no real desire to see it, opting for the big blockbusters of the year like E.T. \n\nFilmmaking is like gambling. You give the dice your heartiest roll and hope the odds will land in your favour, and there are tons of cases of a great film that makes no money or a crappy film that makes tons. ",
"The problem is to those working on it, it can be tough to tell. To put it another way when your standing in front of a green screen waving a stick and shouting 'have at you' it's tough to know if you're making Van Helsing or Lord of the Rings.\n\nOften the actors/producers etc. are promised that it will all come together in editing. One of three big lies on the planet.\n\nOh and just because something's shite doesn't mean it won't find an audience (see Twilight for reference).",
"Keep in mind that a lot of \"box office flops\" end up doing really well out of the theater either internationally and/or with sales/rentals. At the end of the day, most movie producers know whether or not their movie will be a critical success before it is released. They are more concerned about the bottom line. \n\nThis is why practically every shitty flop movie is on Netflix, because at that point it's the only way the movie can make any money. ",
"Well, if I learned anything from \"Crocodile Dundee II: Dundee in LA,\" bad movies are made and financed through art smugglers who use movie sets as ways to get stolen art across country borders. \n\nThat movie was cheesy, but fun, and I now use that as a \"go to\" reply to anyone who asks, \"How did this movie get approved and funded?\"",
"Some flops do well. *Taken* was expected to be a flop, but because of an accident (good casting of the lead) it ended up doing so well that they made a sequel. Imagine *Taken* without Neeson, for a second, and the movie isn't great. It might as well be a made-for-TV movie starring Stephen Segal or Michael Biehn, something that you catch on in the middle of the night and laugh at for a minute before getting bored. The budget was $25 million and the film made more than five times that back, which is what makes gambles on questionable scripts really attractive to executives and producers. \n\nNot only that, but being able to tell how well a big-budget action movie will do is not easy. In hindsight, we can see how *Transformers* did well and *John Carter* did poorly, but if you'd asked me which of those movies would do better years before they came out, I would have made the opposite prediction. People rant and rave about how poorly this or that was marketed, but the reality is that it's anyone's guess how well a movie will perform at the box office. \n\nThey're not flops until you get the numbers from opening weekend in the current system. ",
"Paul Sheer has a podcast called \"How did this get made?\" that attempts to answer this very question about different movies. ",
"Because when you have a bunch of bad scenes but it cost $80 million to film them your only option is to work like hell to make it mediocre and get it out the door. You're never going to turn a bad movie into a great one, if the acting sucks or you had no budget for good effects, or your set caught fire or your actors hated each other and they look dead on screen. All these things can sink a movie and are, to varying degrees, uncontrollable. SO you work with what you have and try to do better next time. Assuming you're given the chance.",
"They sometimes do screenings so they can get public opinion. I saw a free screening of Southland Tales several years back in Sacramento. Fucking terrible movie. Most people left before the movie was over, it was so bad. They were polling people on the way out on their opinions.\n\nI don't think it made it to wide release. Film cost $17,000,000 to make, and it grossed only $275,380 in the US:\n\n_URL_0_",
"Don't you know anything? [ALL MOVIES are flops](_URL_0_)\n\n > **Examples** \n > *Winston Groom's price for the screenplay rights to his novel Forrest Gump included a share of the profits; however, due to Hollywood accounting, the film's commercial success was converted into a net loss, and Groom received nothing.[7] That being so, he has refused to sell the screenplay rights to the novel's sequel, stating that he \"cannot in good conscience allow money to be wasted on a failure\".*",
"Tech writer David Pogue wrote a column recently covering the same topic, but for tech gadgets. Several answers, but this one is intriguing: \n\n\"**The Broadway Flop Effect.** I spent 10 years working as a conductor and arranger of Broadway musicals, many of which were flops. (I hope that wasn’t because I worked on them.) Everyone in the cast and crew was perfectly aware that we were working on a flop. But nobody ever spoke up. We all just showed up for work and did as we were told. Why? Because it was a paycheck. We would be idiots to suggest to the management that the emperor had no clothes.\"\n\nSource: [Why Gadgets Flop](_URL_0_)",
"Jack the Giant Slayer, according to Wikipedia, is about 37 mill in the shitter. Better than almost 200 mill in the shitter.\n\nSimply put, \"something's better than nothing.\"\n\nAs far as \"along the way,\" a lot of the times filmmakers ARE really proud of their work and confident it will succeed. However, you can't completely predict the market, even with the right research.",
"ITT: People understand sunk costs but don't use (don't know?) the term.",
"I didn't see jack the giant slayer. Someone want to give a rundown on why it was terrible?",
"Question is: Is it a flop?\n\nA movie doesn't have to be good to sell, as long as you sell to the right market. Think about those \"cheap\" slapstick parody-movies like \"Epic Movie\" or \"Disaster Movie\". They are movies that are incredibly bad, but they still sell like heated shit, because people are curious, they market them well and they appeal to some audiences that isn't picky about their comedies.\n\nDisaster Movie is at the bottom of IMDB by far, but they still grossed very well on their \"tiny\" budget of 25M USD."
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8b8vy7 | how does this guy do his job without instant death? | Post in question- _URL_0_
There is a short explanation in the comments but it didnt satiate my curiosity. Some more detailed science would be nice. Is he discharging static electricity with the rod? What is his suit made of? How is it ok to cross wires?
Seen animals fry doing what he is doing (with the exception of the rod) so very curious. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/8b8vy7/eli5_how_does_this_guy_do_his_job_without_instant/ | {
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"Well the suit is infused with metal, and he survives by exploiting what’s known as the “faraday concept” basically, when electricity meets a good conductor, in this case the workers metal infused suit, it glides so easily over it that it doesn’t penetrate the surface of it, so he is completely safe from electrocution while inside that suit, nothing got to do with the rod",
"So I'm an electrical engineer, but I deal with consumer electronics and not power, so I can't give a 100% certain answer. But we know he's alive and we can apply EE principles.\n\nSo helicopter/rod scene first. In general, the helicopter should be relatively safe from shock while its flying. The copter can't make a circuit because it's not touching the ground. When lightning strikes aircraft it usually goes from cloud through aircraft all the way to ground.\n\nThe rod is probably some kind of specialized equipment that allows it to sink large amounts of current.\n\nNext the two wires he crawls on. Those should be the same voltage. If they weren't being that close they would be arcing to each other all the time. Again, it's why birds can sit on a single uninsulated transmission line, and why the lines are usually pretty far apart.",
"For current to flow, there has to be a voltage difference. When the guy in the helicopter approaches the wires with the rod, he is bringing himself up to the voltage level of the wired. Once there he's fine. \n\nThis is also why birds don't get shocked. The whole bird is at the same voltage as the wire but with higher resistance, therefore there is no reason for current to flow through the bird. ",
"The rod dissipates charge difference between the helicopter and the line. It's exactly why birds don't get electrocuted. You are not killed by charge. The charge that builds up enough to jump through the air to the doorknob in the winter is thousands, if not tens of thousands, of volts. People, and helicopters are capacitors, that's how your phone screen works, but they are not good capacitors. You charge them up, they hold a little, and then you discharge them. Discharging them doesn't create enough current to kill them because they didn't store enough.\n\nCurrent kills you. Current has to follow a loop from the source, through a load, and into a sink. If you put a human as the load between those power lines, it's 100% fatal. So, the guy doesn't do that. They only touch one wire at a time. They dissipate charge differences through a wire before they touch the wire. They do the same thing before they land. all the wires go to the same point, so crossing them is no big deal unless you tangle them up (then you have to stop and untangle them to get more room to work).\n\nThe suit conducts current well, but it's mostly protection in case the wire breaks. Putting a human in an arc will burn them, but current would much rather travel through the almost zero ohm suit than the person's one million ohm body."
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c9gkih | why are air vents always placed by windows? doesn’t that defeat the purpose? wouldn’t the room be more efficiently cooled/heated if the vent was placed somewhere else in the room? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/c9gkih/eli5_why_are_air_vents_always_placed_by_windows/ | {
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"Window glass is the coldest part of a wall. When warm room air hits it, the air cools, and cool air sinks. The movement of cool air creates floor drafts that most people find uncomfortable. The placement of forced-air heat registers or baseboard heating units under the windows counteracts this process by sending up warm air to mix with the cool. The end result is that the room feels more comfortable.\n\nAt one time, builders didn't understand this process. That's the reason that one of the stereotypical descriptions of old houses is that they're \"drafty\".\n\nEDIT: I'm not in construction. I copied this from the This Old House website.",
"When you place it by the drafty door or window, you ensure that the hot/cold air is getting circulated through the room. If the vent was in a corner, the hot/cold air would build up there and create a localized hot/cold spot. And I'm the meantime, your HVAC will be running continuously until the treated air finally reached the thermostat.",
"People here also forgot to mention that the outside wall is where a majority of your temperature change in the room comes from, especially if it has a window. That means that there is a temp difference from what it is outside vs inside is greatest near your window and gradually changes to meet your thermostat temp as you move inward (the rooms temperature gradient). By dropping your conditioned air (either warm or cold) near the window, you are putting the biggest effect from that air where it is needed the most. Then it mixes with the room air, and the air that is making it back to your thermostat is a mix of what is in the room. The further you move the vent away from the outside wall that is causing the temp difference, the more persistent that difference will be because you are mixing conditioned air with air in the room that is not at one end or the other of your temperature gradient. When your ac unit kicks off because the thermostat says the room is at the correct temp, you will still have a spot near the window that is either too hot or too cold.",
"As explained in my A/C course, the proper way to set up the ventilation is to have the air flowing over the exterior walls to keep the outside temperature from getting into the house. It would be less efficient to condition the air alone.",
"The truth of this is actually really simple.\nThe window is placed on an outside wall..... The same wall which an airbrick needs to be installed, and tere aren't many rooms with more than one external wall in your typcal terraced/semi detached property.",
"In the summer, the window panes heat up and the area around the typically has the hottest air. In the winters, the windows are cooler and chill the air around them. Instead of drawing the hotter/colder air across the room to the return, the register immediately dilutes and circulates the air around the room. Less noticable drafts or hot and cold spots in the room.\n\nI suspect the air currents would reduce minor condensation on the window pane similarly to the defroster in a car.",
"In cold climate areas like mine, the vents near the windows not only circulate the air better but they also prevent windows from frosting up when it gets really cold. Constant air hitting them keeps the moisture from building on them.",
"Well windows are usually the least insulated spots in a room, leaking in heat in the summer and cold in the winter, so vents are usually placed in front of them to combat these effects. EXP HVAC TECH/INSTALLER",
"put a heater in the middle of a wall, or away from a window and you'll find there are two sides. there's the warm side and the cold side. the warm side is where the heat comes from, the cool side is where the window is. \n\n\ngo to a store in the middle of winter though - and notice they blast the hot air right at the entrance. the cold air doesn't get in... because while YES, some hot air is escaping - not all of it does. and the air that doesn' escape is contained nicely in the room.",
"So imagine a supermarket. When you walk into the freezer isle, you feel cold, but if you take out a thermometer and measure the ambient air, it’s the same temp as any other isle. What’s essentially happening is, the cold freezers are “stealing” warmth from surrounding objects (you). So it’s a similar principle in heating, you want to “wash” the glass from windows and doors, to create a buffer between yourself and the cold environment... Someone smarter can explain it better, but this is a good way to think about it.",
"I used to work in HVAC, and I remember the owner telling me, \"you always need to put these air vents by the windows, and if you ask 10 people why they're going to give you 10 reasons, but I'll tell you why I do it. it's because people are going to put a bed or a couch or a desk or a dresser somewhere against these walls, and they are gonna wanna sit it right on top of your vent, but they are not likely to want to cover up a window\"",
"What are you doing, conditioning air. What unconditions it, sources of heat loss and gain. If you keep the outsides of a box cool, the insides cant heat up past that point. now there is something to be said about targeting a specific area such as if you were sitting in a room that was warm and you just wanted a cool breeze blowing in your face that can be very very effective without having to pay the condition the entire house. This is not an adapted practice in the United States yet.",
"First house I had (built 1952), had a \"gravity furnace\" with heat ducts in center, returns under the windows. Place always seemed cold. We replaced with a forced air furnace, gas bill dropped and was way more comfortable. Original unit was a beast, pilot light was like 4\" long.",
"Yes the room would be better ventilated if the circulating air regulator was placed to make better effective use of the air in the home. However please note that the filter needs to be at the window or you get the air of what ever is outside. If it tends to be toxic without a filter you will get those toxins when you open the window at 100%.\n\nTo create good airflow you don't need a window at all. Just a method to exchange air and insure good air quality. In Japan they have many apartments that are in bad area's of town with noxious waste. So they created air units to address the issue of not being able to open a window. I would recommend one of these from panasonic or national. Then you would not need to worry about the vent being placed in the window. \n\nMay require ducting to an air exchange baffle and you might have to change a filter every few months.",
"Fun fact related to this, in our training as firefighters we are taught to look out for these air vents along outside walls when crawling in zero visibility as they are usually under windows and windows=escape when stuff goes sideways."
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8di0nm | why is losing cabin pressure in airplanes so catastrophic and can bring down the plane? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/8di0nm/eli5_why_is_losing_cabin_pressure_in_airplanes_so/ | {
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"The air at altitude is incredibly thin, there isn't much oxygen in the air for you to breathe. People lose consciousness quickly. The extreme cold of the altitude accelerates that as well. If the pilots lose consciousness, bad things happen to the aircraft.\n",
"People in the cabin will pass out and die from lack of oxygen if the plane does not get down under ten thousand feet or less pretty quickly. The cockpit crew is also at risk. The plane doesnt \"start falling\" upon loss of pressure, the pilot noses down to save everyone's life. "
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b6un2y | after the russian nuclear disaster of reactor 4 how did humans mange to keep reactors 1,2 & 3 running without suffering life changing radiation sickness, with reactor 3 only being shut down in 2000? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/b6un2y/eli5_after_the_russian_nuclear_disaster_of/ | {
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"They did an extensive clean-up of the reactor site. This involved going around and picking up much of the radioactive graphite, parts of the core, etc., that had been shot out of the reactor during the Chernobyl accident (which was in Soviet Ukraine, not Russia), which you can do relatively easily with a Geiger counter and a tractor. \n\nThen they \"entombed\" reactor 4 in a \"sarcophagus\" of concrete. They basically just buried it in a massive structure so that what was inside would stay inside.\n\nLastly, they kept track of the radioactivity that any given worker was exposed to. They didn't live on the site — they traveled to it for work. Different countries have different standards of radioactivity that a worker in the industry can be exposed to. It is higher than the general population, both because workers \"choose\" to take on higher risks, but also because the number of workers is much smaller than the general population. Low-levels of radioactivity contribute to a lifetime cancer risk, but if the exposures are kept low then the statistical cancer risk is kept low. If the risk is low enough, in a small-enough population of exposed people, you won't expect to see any cancers caused by it. \n\nTo make the latter point ELI5, the question of whether you get cancer from low levels of radioactivity is like rolling a die — it's probabilistic in nature. Let's say (for example's sake) that it's like rolling six 1's in a row. If you only roll the die six times, the chance of each one being a 1 is pretty low. However if you keep rolling the die a million times, then the odds that you'll have sequences of six 1's coming up starts to go up. The individual risk of each six-die sequence is the same every time (you could just luck out and hit it on the first try), but over a long-enough period, you'll hit it several times. \n\nTo make it more practical again, if working at Chernobyl increased your lifetime cancer risk by, say, 0.1% (a made-up number), then if you had only 100 people working there, in theory you wouldn't expect to see any cancers. If you had 1,000, though, you'd get 1 — not great, but still not detectable (given that this group of people already have a cancer risk that is separate from the radiation). If you had 100 million people, then you are talking about 100,000 \"excess\" cancers that you otherwise wouldn't have seen — a huge number. I don't know what the \"baseline\" fatal cancer risk in Ukraine is or was, but in the US it is about 1 in 4 (that is, about 1 in 4 Americans will die of cancer), so if you're only adding a little bit to the risk, you won't notice.\n\nSo this is why people can work (and visit) the Chernobyl site, but you probably shouldn't have _large_ numbers of people living there, especially children, who have more time to develop illnesses and whose bodies are often more susceptible to the hazards because they are still growing, or pregnant mothers. \n\n(There are a handful of very old people who have gone back to live there — they're going to die of something else long before any radiation-related cancers develop to a fatal state, if any of them do, which again is probabilistic. Radiation-related cancers take on the order of a decade to develop. This is also why wildlife flourishes in such areas: deer and hogs don't live decades _anyway_, and nobody cares or notices if they have a slightly higher miscarriage rate, whereas we do in humans.)\n\nSeparately: did the workers at Chernobyl afterwards experience radiation-related illnesses over the long time because of their time at the plant? I'm not sure one can conclude they _didn't_ — at least not without looking at a lot of data. I would not be super surprised to find that there were some illnesses that could be attributed to being in that area, because it does contain some radioactivity risks that a typical nuclear plant does not have. \n\nBut in general, the intensity of radioactivity from spent fuel (the main hazard) drops off much quicker than people realize — the site went from \"super dangerous levels of radioactivity\" (like, \"kill you in days if you touch the wrong thing or stray to the wrong place,\" on the days of the accident and its immediate cleanup efforts) to \"a chronic issue\" (you'd have to keep an eye on your exposure if you _worked_ there, and you probably shouldn't _live_ there) within a few weeks."
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3vkc3b | why does defining something as terrorism matter? | Why does it matter whether an act is defined as terrorism? If the act is still a crime, couldn't it just be treated that way? Is there something I'm missing?
Isn't the only thing that makes terrorism different than any other crime is the goal of provoking fear to inspire political change? Thus isn't calling it something different based on the motives falling into the exact trap the act was created to inspire?
I guess that's a different point, but I just don't understand the need to label something "terrorism" instead of "a horrific crime." I'm sure theres some basic explanation I'm just forgetting b/c I haven't had my coffee yet but if someone could explain it, that'd be awesome. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3vkc3b/eli5_why_does_defining_something_as_terrorism/ | {
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"Well I can give you one answer, but there are probably a bunch of different perspectives: Semiotics is a thing with us humans. We attach meanings to the interpretation and packaging of words, with the understanding that how we unpack those meanings can change how we see the world. \n\nThe more that the meaning of a word is framed and changed and packaged over time, the impact the word has changes. \"Retarded\" was once a simply medical term. Now it's seen as a pretty insulting pejorative. The reason why is because people began using it as a pejorative. The word now has hateful impact and can be emotionally harmful because of how it's framed. \n\nThe labeling of \"Terror\" and \"Terrorist\" takes kind of the same shape. Some content analyses of the news have shown that through the 1960s to 1980s, the press in the U.S. was much more likely to call the Palestine Liberation Organization a terrorist group, yet call the Irish Republican Army an \"anti-government group\" or \"political extremists\" or an \"armed movement.\" \n\nThe conclusion is often because of cultural and geographical biases -- We in the U.S. have much more in common with Ireland than Palestine. \n\nBut it's important because the meanings of words are important. \"Terrorist\" and \"terrorism\" carries a much stronger cultural meaning than simply calling someone a \"criminal.\" "
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27oy4l | what is the proof that global warming exists and that we will have more extreme weather as a result of it? | How can such conclusions be drawn when we have only been collecting climate and weather data for a relatively short period of time in earth's history? Will every instance of extreme weather (hurricanes, tornados, etc.) be considered an effect of global warming? Or is there a distinction between "normal" weather and the weather caused by global warming? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/27oy4l/eli5_what_is_the_proof_that_global_warming_exists/ | {
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"No, not every weather event will be considered to be caused by climate change. Weather events far above or far below the average will be considered to be caused by climate change.\n\n***What proof is there?***\n\nIce caps are used to find out CO2 concentrations thousands of years in the past.\n\nCO2 is known to cause a greenhouse effect.\n\nThere are many charts that point to correlation between temperature increase to the CO2 concentration increase.\n\nHere's a chart showing temperature increase:\n\n_URL_4_\n\nHere's a chart that shows CO2 concentration (notice that temperature increased with CO2):\n\n_URL_0_\n\nYou can also see that the warmest years on record are most recent:\n\n_URL_1_\n\nand that droughts are getting worse:\n\n_URL_3_\n\nWhile winters get worse:\n\n_URL_5_\n\nSo...weather is getting extreme\n\nThere's also the fact that arctic sea ice is decreasing:\n\n_URL_2_\n\nAny questions I'll answer...",
"Just like geologists looking at bands of dirt, climate scientists can take core samples of [polar ice](_URL_0_) to get an idea of the chemical makeup of the atmosphere over time, which gives us an idea of what the temperature was, and how much it fluctuated over time. We also take historical accounts of big weather events as a factor, though usually a very small one. "
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"http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/sotc/global/2013/13",
"http://www.arctic.noaa.gov/detect/ice-seaice.shtml",
"http://droughtmonitor.unl.edu/",
"http://climate.nasa.gov/interactives/warming_world",
"http://www.usatoday.com/story/weather/2014/03/13/usa-winter-weather-climate-report/6367757/"
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327tp2 | how do hotels profit during the winter? | How can hotels afford to pay staff & workers with such low rates in the winter? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/327tp2/eli5how_do_hotels_profit_during_the_winter/ | {
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"By only having a bare minimum of employees working and accepting that their profit margins will be thin in the slow months. They charge cheap rates that are enough to stay in business, pay the few employees, and keep the lights on, knowing that they can make a profit by raising the rates to double or higher during the periods of extreme demand during the summer. ",
"It really depends on the hotel. I work at a hotel and we do have some slow times (the weekend of Thanksgiving, the week between Christmas and New Years, a few days around Easter and 4th of July) but in general, we stay busy all year. Granted, my hotel primarily serves business travelers rather than tourists so there's not really a \"busy season\". Late December is the slowest but the last 2 years we've rented out the entire hotel to a single group for 10 days around that time.",
"Depends on where you are. People travel for business or to visit family all year round. It's a slower time of year, but not as though people completely stop moving about.\n\nIt is also my understanding that larger hotels (i.e. chains, rather than B & Bs and motels) have huge margins on the rooms -- I recall reading somewhere (not sure where) that the break-even point would be $40 per room per night for an average chain. Renting one room at at $160 per night (pretty low-average rate) means you only need to be 25% full at any time to break even. Rent out a suite or some other room and there's an even better margin. Given that they're busier in the summer, they make enough money then to carry on operation through the winter, and reduce staffing levels accordingly. "
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1wqc30 | how does nat (network address translation) work. | I've googled it and all the answers are very complex. I need it explained to me like I'm five.
Thanks! | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1wqc30/eli5_how_does_nat_network_address_translation_work/ | {
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"Every device on the internet has an IP address. This address must be unique, there can be no two devices with the same IP. The number of IP addresses is limited, and mostly used up. There is a group of addresses that have been reserved for use only in internal networks. This works because the devices sharing an address cannot see each other - they are on different networks with no route between them.\n\nNat is implemented by a device (a computer, a router, or a firewall) that has two network connections, one to the internal network, one to the internet. When a device on the internal network wants to connect outside, it sends its messages (packets) to the NAT device. The NAT device strips the address of the original device and substitutes its own, then sends it out to the internet.\n\nWhen the reply comes back, the NAT device then strips its own address, substitutes the address of the original device, and sends it to the internal network.\n\nIn this way, many devices can share one IP address.",
"NAT simply allows one particular range of IP addresses to be \"translated\" to another range of IP addresses. \n\nAn analogy I've seen used before is the \"postman\" analogy.\n\nA postman knows which address to deliver the company's mail to (i.e. the public IP address) however no knowledge of where it is going internally. Someone in the company (i.e. router etc...) deals with getting the mail to the individuals (i.e. the private IP addresses). ",
"OK, so for the sake of example, assume that a packet looks like this:\n\n[Source IP][Destination IP][Data]\n\nAssume your computer wants to open some porn via a web browsing connection. The process starts as follows:\n\n* Your computer will first check its subnet mask and compare it to it's own IP and the destination IP. Barring a whole discussion on that, it's a *very easy* way, computationally speaking, for a computer to determine if a destination is behind the same router or if i'll need routing services. In this case, it will need to use routing services. So, it does what's known as an ARP (Address Resolution) request:\n\n* [192.168.0.2] [255.255.255.255] [ Who has *router IP* 192.168.0.1? ] **Broadcasted on LAN**\n\n* [192.168.0.1] [192.169.0.2] [ I have the Router IP, and you can reach me via MAC Address ffff ]\n\n* Your computer now knows how to reach the router, so now it fires the porn browsing packet to the router:\n\n* [192.168.0.2] [1.2.3.4] [ open connection ] \n\n* The router, upon receiving this packet, is smart enough to know that it's a connection request, so first it adds the source, destination and port to something called a NAT table, which looks like this:\n\n| Source Port | Destination Port | Local IP | Remote IP |\n|:-----------|:------------|:------------|:------------|\n| 96354 | 80 | 192.168.0.2 | 1.2.3.4 |\n| 88965 | 22 | 192.168.0.3 | 4.5.6.7 |\n| 12345 | 8888 | 192.168.0.99 | 9.9.3.9 |\n\n* Can you guess which row was added? The first one. I'll get back to what this table does in a moment.\n\n* The router than *translates* the packet and, that is to say, it replaces the Source IP to its own.\n\n* [24.226.9.23] [1.2.3.4] [ open connection ]\n\n* Porn web server then sends back its reply:\n\n* [1.2.3.4] [24.226.9.23] [ connection OK ]\n\n* The router, upon receiving this packet, consults its NAT table above. Does it have any information that corresponds to the information it just received?\n\n| Source Port | Destination Port | Local IP | Remote IP |\n|:-----------|:------------|:------------|:------------|\n| *96354* | *80* | 192.168.0.2 | *1.2.3.4* |\n\n* **It does!** So the router now forwards it back to the originating computer. Note that this time it doesn't need to re-translate the IP, because the computer is expecting the IP of the remote site, not the router, and will toss away the packet if its unexpected.\n\n* So for the remainder of the session, until either the router intercepts a *connection close* notification, the connection times out, or the routers connection to the ISP drops for any reason, the router will maintain this NAT table, and will refer to it every time it receives data.\n\n\nThis example is meant for home/consumer routing (*technically it's called Asymmetrical NAT because it only translates the IP on one side*), and there are **FAR MOR** complex/confusing NAT implementations out there, but for your everyday internet user, this is how it works in a nutshell.\n\nI also wanted to add this, **don't cheap out on home routers**. I've picked apart the firmware for several of these things as a sort of hobby, and a lot of them have retardedly low limits on the NAT table size... I've seen it go as low as 512. Average budget brand is about 1,024 connections. This sounds like a lot however certain applications like torrenting will hit this limit in seconds. Generally the ones that are $150 or more are coded more responsibly.\n\n\n\n"
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5ra9vr | why, in statistics, would you ever want to represent data with the median as opposed to the average? | Wouldn't the average do a better job at taking in the big picture?
Like if you had a median of 5 but then all the other numbers were below 2 or above 10, wouldn't this be inaccurate and misleading? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5ra9vr/eli5_why_in_statistics_would_you_ever_want_to/ | {
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"Median is often a better picture.\n\nImagine you have 5 company employees with the following salaries:\n\n- Jr. Accountant - $40k\n- Marketing Mgr - $50k\n- IT Helpdesk - $52k\n- HR Mgr - $60k\n- CEO - $500k\n\nWhich is the better idea of overall income expectations for a job at the company? Average is $140k, while median is $52k.\n\nOr imagine that a town has 5 houses that sell for : $225k, 240k, $300k, $310k, $600k. Average is $335k, while median is $300k... not as extreme as the first example, but still only 1 of 5 houses cost more than the average while 4 are below. If you were trying to determine what towns you could afford, wouldn't knowing that 1/2 cost more than X and 1/2 cost less than X be a more useful tool to gauge affordability?",
"Median is more representative of the typical case when the data is skewed in one direction.\n\nFor example, with life expectancy, especially in the past, is skewed low due to infant and child mortality. If out of three siblings, one died at birth, and the other two lived to their 70 and 80, that's a mean of 50, even though no one died in anywhere near their 50s. The median of 70 would be more representative of how a typical sibling lived."
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7bid2l | in the age of google, why does this subreddit exist? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/7bid2l/eli5in_the_age_of_google_why_does_this_subreddit/ | {
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"The purpose of this sub is to provide simple explanations for things that may be too complex or otherwise difficult to wrap your mind around if you only relied on Google results. But sadly, many questions are posted with easily googleable answers but people are just lazy and want someone to tell them the answer.",
"depends. Sometimes it can take a while to find answers that make sense to you.\n\nI spend a lot of time in wikipedia-black holes of time. Some of the math/physics entries are bogged down with a lot of exacting tecno-talk and math equations. I often find myself dusting off parts of my brain that haven't been exercised in a while.\n\nI enjoy that stuff.....but not everyone wants to spend an hour trying to remember some terminology they learned many years ago just to answer a simple question.\n\nAnd trying to get a simple answer (that you trust) on some topics can be hard. Is global warming a hoax? Google it.....\n\njust try it - i did.....Donald Trump's twitter account came in the 2nd spot....\n\nWith the \"top 10\" that came up for you in your google search....do you now trust google to give you \"accurate\" information?\n\nor just the top 10 places they found the internet reading about that topic so they can sell targeted adds to your cookie tracked demographics....\n\nnow try _URL_0_\n\nare your results different? yahoo? bing?\n\nscrew it....ask reddit.",
"Googling is a skill, and you have to know how to find what you're looking for. Out here, people know how to phrase things directly, instead of making you look for an answer. Even then, an answer that at least *seems* right.\n\nEver wonder why people in IT can fix computer issues easily? They are adept googlers. They know what to look for."
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3uuab8 | a poster at my kid's school counters the "whitewashing" of ancient egypt by depicting a "black" cleopatra. what was cleopatra's actual heritage? could the egyptians even be called "black" or "white" ? literally explain it to a five year old. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3uuab8/eli5a_poster_at_my_kids_school_counters_the/ | {
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"Cleopatra was actually Greek (hence her greek name and her two brother-husbands both named Ptolemy).\n\nShe descended from a Greek (who was also named Ptolemy) who served Alexander the Great. \n\nThere was a lot of inbreeding going on so her family had liver failure issues which results in something called jaundice. So probably not black or white but... Yellow.\n\nEDIT: Made make sense.",
"Cleopatra is in the Ptolemaic Dynasty of Egypt. That is the Dynasty established in Egypt after it was conquered by Alexander the Great. Ptolemy was one of Alexander's personal bodyguards and was given control of Egypt after Alexander died. Ptolemy was a Macedonian Greek, so he was white. The Dynastic line chose to marry other Greeks generally, as well as taking on the local traditions of royalty marrying siblings from time to time. In fact Cleopatra was the first of that line that even spoke Egyptian, the rest spoke only Greek. There is a chance that some local bloodline was introduced at some point, but very little. \n\nThat said the native populations of North Africa are not black. They are of a tanned complexion bordering on what we would consider a Mediterranean-Caucasian look. Being black is a feature of Sub-Saharan ethnic groups. \n\nEdit: I added more details. ",
"Well Cleopatra was of Greek (Macedonian) descent so it is highly unlikely she was black. Her mother was probably Egyptian, but the Ptolemic dynasty was installed in the wake of Alexander the Great's conquest of Egypt. \n_URL_0_ \n[Her grandfather](_URL_1_) \n",
"From what I have read it seems like over the long history of Egypt there was a spectrum of \"color\".. but contemporary politics are black and white. Thanks."
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3ndlr6 | how different is japanese lettering to chinese | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3ndlr6/eli5_how_different_is_japanese_lettering_to/ | {
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"Not studied any Japanese for about 9 years but here's what I remember... \n\nIn Japanese they have 3 alphabets: hiragana, katakana and kanji. Kanji are the Chinese characters which are identical to what is used in Chinese (I don't remember if they use the simplified or traditional characters though). Hiragana is a much simpler alphabet, taught to kids and foreigners. As your hiragana gets better you will start using more kanji. In typical Japanese text there will be a large amount of kanji, making it very hard for a beginner to understand. Katakana is just used for foreign words. ",
"A lot, yet they're similar because historically they were the same characters.\n\nThere are essentially two main differences:\n\n- Japanese text uses three different types of characters. Ideograms, complex characters, there are tens of thousands of them. Used for words: nouns, verbs, anything containing meaning. Then there are hiragana, an alphabet of 70+ characters. Used for linking words of the phrase, conjugating verbs, also indicating pronounciation. Then there is katakana, another alphabet equivalent to hiragana but with all characters different, used for foreign words or for putting emphasis.\n\nThat's three different kinds of characters for Japanese. Chinese only has one, which fits all needs.\n\n- Japanese ideograms are written (in the modern world) in a way that looks very angular, neat and cleaned from unnecessary details. While Chinese has a more traditional feel to it, with a lot of details. This is somewhat similar to writing with a serif or sans-serif font, except serif loads the complex characters enough that it feels different.\n\nNotably, character unification through Unicode made the decision that Chinese and Japanese would be considered the same characters, and that displaying them in the correct way for Japanese or Chinese was the job of the font.",
"Chinese is written using *hanzi*, commonly just called Chinese characters. These are a set of ideograms - greatly simplified, each character represents one word. There are thousands of them.\n\nThere is another system called *zhuyin*, which is a completely phonetic system used for writing Chinese. Zhuyin is used mostly as a teaching aid and pronunciation guide in Taiwan; it is not generally used in day to day writing, and is very rare in mainland China. Chinese braille is also based on zhuyin.\n\nJapanese has three writing systems. *Kanji* are Chinese characters - as in, they are the same as hanzi, and have the same meanings (but are pronounced differently). Traditionally, Japanese was written entirely in Chinese characters, though linguistic drift has rendered this impossible today. It is a mark of literacy to know enough kanji to read a newspaper.\n\n*Hiragana* a completely phonetic writing system used for Japanese words for which there is no kanji; it may also be used as a pronunciation guide for Chinese characters. Each characcter represents one syllable.\n\n*Katakana* is another syllabic writing system; each katakana character perfectly corresponds to one hiragana. Katakana is also often used as a pronunciation guide for Chinese characters. Where hiragana is used for Japanese words that don't have kanji, katakana is used for foreign words.\n\n-------------------------------\n\nNow a very quick history lesson to explain why Japanese is like this.\n\nFor a long time, Chinese language held a position is east Asia comparable to that of Latin in Europe. Educated and cultured men were expected to speak Chinese, and in Japan, writing all languages was done in Chinese characters. Hiragana derived from a cursive form of Chinese calligraphy, and over time developed into an entirely phonetic system. Since there was a need to write Japanese words for which there were no suitable Chinese characters, hiragana came to serve this role even among those who preferred kanji.\n\nKatakana was developed specifically as a pronunciation guide to aid in the teaching of kanji; as such, each katakana takes the form of one part of a Chinese character, as opposed to hiragana, in which each character started as a highly abstracted form of a kanji.\n\nWhen European and Middle Eastern traders reached Japan and began introducing words for foreign concepts, Japanese writers initially treated these new words the same way they did Chinese characters - as a series of discrete strokes with a dedicated pronunciation. Thus, in officialy documents, they would write the names of foreign things using Roman or Arabic letters and try to remember the pronunciation of each one. Soon enough katakana were pressed into service as a pronunciation guide for foreign words, just as they were for Chinese characters. Eventually, people started just writing the katakana and not bothering with the foreign scripts at all.\n\nThus we arrive at the situation where katakana are used to write foreign words while hiragana and kanji are used for Japanese words.",
"In the Chinese writing system, Kanji, one character represents one word.\n\nThe Chinese introduced the Japanese to Kanji, and the Japanese started to use it.\n\nHowever, the Japanese realized that it wasn't perfect for the Japanese language, and not everyone could afford to learn it. Then, they had the idea to sound out words using Kanji. For example, if we did that in English, imagine if I drew an eye. Then I told you, \"don't look at the meaning; just look at how it's pronounced.\" Then I could draw an eye every time I wanted to write the word \"I\".\n\nThis is where Hirigana comes from. However, this didn't mean Kanji dropped out of use completely. Many words are still represented by one Kanji character, several Kanji characters, or a combination of Hirgana and Kanji together.\n\nKatakana is another syllabary, or phonetic alphabet, like Hiragana. The only difference is that it's mainly used to sound out foreign words."
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8cg14b | why do humans sweat the most from their head even if we work out different parts of our body? | ELI5: Why do humans sweat the most from their head even if we work out different parts of our body? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/8cg14b/eli5_why_do_humans_sweat_the_most_from_their_head/ | {
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"I believe it has to do with regulation of brain temperature. Keeping the brain cool is extremely important to a species with one as large and complex as ours. ",
"The tl;dr of it is that cooling your head is in fact the quickest and easiest way to cool the core of your body. The effect of cooling your head down is roughly equivalent to the effect of cooling all of the rest of your body down the same amount, but obviously your head is a much smaller piece of real estate so the amount of cooling needed is far less. \n\nThis is caused, in part, by the paradoxical workings of our homeostatic systems. When you cool your body, your body will actually naturally start processes to warm you up again. It's automatic, and while it doesn't completely counteract the cooling effect, it slows it down and makes it less efficient. Our heads don't have the same tools for warming up, so the cooling takes full effect."
]
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[],
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|
ek9feu | why is war considered good for polling numbers? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/ek9feu/eli5_why_is_war_considered_good_for_polling/ | {
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"text": [
"It's called the \"rally round the flag effect\". If the people support the new war effort, they often think more highly of the President for some time. The effect usually fades eventually.\n\n_URL_0_"
]
} | [] | [] | [
[
"https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rally_%27round_the_flag_effect"
]
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||
bnwl68 | how does crucifixion kill you? | Is it from the afflicted wounds? Or from secondary effects like dehydration or hunger? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/bnwl68/eli5_how_does_crucifixion_kill_you/ | {
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"Asphyxiation was a common cause of death, as the body couldn't summon the strength to lift itself up to breathe.",
"Actually you suffocate to death. Your diaphragm can't move well enough to inflate and deflate your lungs.\n\n_URL_0_",
"When you are in that position, it gets harder and harder to breath and your lungs slowly fill up with saliva until you stop breathing. They say this is why when Jesus was stabbed, the liquid that came out was clear and they thought it was water."
]
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"https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crucifixion"
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2i47oc | how does sanitizer triclosan work and how can bacteria adapt to it to become "superbugs"? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2i47oc/eli5_how_does_sanitizer_triclosan_work_and_how/ | {
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"Triclosan prohibits energy production in the cells that it affects, bit does not affect human cells because we lack a particular enzyme in our cells.\n\nIt effectively kills 100% of bacteria and such, so long as they have that enzyme. If a strain of any disease were to mutate that lacked that enzyme, it would be immune to triclosan. \n\nUnder normal circumstances, this wouldn't be a real issue, as the mutated disease would have plenty of competition, and would most likely die out rather than become an epidemic. \n\nHowever, if we constantly use things like triclosan to kill off all of the mutant's competition, then its chances of going from oddity to pandemic increase."
]
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2ipok8 | search for extraterrestrial intelligence | Question - If their was a Intelligence life that was on a planet say 100 Light Years away and was broadcasting a beacon for a 1,000 years then they disappeared and it was 10,000 Years ago - would we still detect it or would the waves have already passed us by with no chance for us to ever detect them? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2ipok8/eli5search_for_extraterrestrial_intelligence/ | {
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"If their planet is 100 light years away, it takes the signal 100 years to reach us. That's what a light year is, the distance light (or anything moving at the same speed as light) covers in one year.\n\nSo if they started broadcasting 10,000 years ago, and kept it up for a thousand years, the last signals would have left them 9000 years ago, and passed us 8900 years ago. We could never catch up to them or detect them here from earth, the last signal is 8900 light years away from us. \n\n"
]
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cqazhg | during puberty, does the amount of sleep you get or what time you go to sleep matter more for growth? | As a teenager I've been thinking about this for a while. I've noticed a lot of my peers growing up faster than me and have settled on the conclusion that I am just a late bloomer. However, I'd still like to give myself a little boost and have just wondered if giving myself enough sleep regardless of the time equats to my body simply putting off the melotonin until I am actually asleep, or if my body releases the melotonin at a certain time period even I am still awake. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/cqazhg/eli5_during_puberty_does_the_amount_of_sleep_you/ | {
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"Humans have evolved to naturally sleep when the sun goes down. The amount of sleep you get (or rather, getting *enough* quality sleep) is more important overall, but most people tend to get better quality sleep and have an easier time doing so following the daily patterns of the sun. \n\nEDIT: As an example, it's proven that long-term shift work (non-standard working hours) often leaves people with less or lower quality sleep, which increases the risk of many types of health issues. They clearly are able to function because they are still getting sleep,",
"Eat more quality food, do daily pushups, sit-ups and air squats both in the morning and at night (start small like 10 and slowly increase the reps) read for 15-30 minutes before bed and try to get at least 7hours of sleep a night. Sleep is recovery for your body and food is fuel it’s up to you to put the work in but know if you do it everyday you will get stronger."
]
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64b89r | why do old people remove their spectacles to read? shouldn't their spectacles help bring their vision to normal? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/64b89r/eli5_why_do_old_people_remove_their_spectacles_to/ | {
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"Old people generally are suffering from the inability to change the focus of their eyes from near to far, not just an overall degradation of vision such as with normal eyeglasses. This is why bifocals are the typical elderly glasses, as they contain lenses that focus both near and far.\n\nIf the elder is taking off their glasses to read they are most likely taking off glasses focused for distance and can manage well enough to see closer things.",
"I remove mine to read because I only need them to see far away. I can see up close just fine."
]
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2oi83v | why does my computer only use 4.5gb (the most noticed) of ram when my computer has 12gb installed? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2oi83v/eli5_why_does_my_computer_only_use_45gb_the_most/ | {
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"Your computer is smart and very efficent. It uses only what it needs to use. In addition, depending on the specific program it is running, and how it is made, it may be limited in to how much RAM it can use",
"Either you're not running programs that need that much ram or you're only running 32 bit programs that can't use more than 4. \n\nMore than 8 GB is excessive for the sweeping majority of consumers, in prebuilt machines it's a selling point to rack up the price and in custom built machines it's for specific purposes, really in things that have lots of real time signal processing on big chunks of data. Video editing and processing is a notorious example, audio a bit less so. "
]
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1jhlka | why are school books in the us so expensive (~$100), while they are much cheaper (~10€) in europe? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1jhlka/eli5_why_are_school_books_in_the_us_so_expensive/ | {
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"Europe has a bunch of different cultures, countries and schooling systems.\nIn my country, Belgium, the school books are about €60 to hire the whole package for one school year.. The price depends on which school you visit, and there are schools that require that you buy a €130 calculator and so on. The law gives schools a maximum price they can ask students to go to school. That is until you reach the age of 18.\n\nIn universities and colleges, most ordinary books go for about €20 each. (I'll give you this example I'm studying right now: [Link](_URL_0_)). You can find them in bookshops for about 50% more expensive, but universities can buy them in large quantities that make them cheaper. Often, the writer of the book is your professor, so he/she can help making the book cheaper by refusing royalties.\n\nIf your parents don't have enough money the government will give you a budget to pay for it. In my case, my parents could afford it, so I paid about €1000 this year on my education, a BA in social work. My SO her parents couldn't afford it, so the government gave her €1000. If you parents can afford it a bit, the government can give you E.g €500. \n\nThe current system allows everybody to have a higher education, without student debt at all.\n\nI know that this system is used in the Netherlands and Slovenia too.\n\nRemember, education remains an expensive thing. Belgium decides to share the cost with every citizen. My parents give *literally* half of their income to the government. For every €2000 my dad earns from his employer, €1000 goes to the government. For almost every product he buys, he pays 21% of the price to the government. \n\nDon't think the USA system is crap and our system is enlightened. Don't think it's the other way around. Every system has advantages and disadvantages.\n\nEdit: The professors are able to write the book because they did research, funded by the university. Keep that in mind.",
"Well, i live in europe and i never saw any school books cost 10 €.\n\nMine cost at least 60€ (and can go to 80/90€). 10€ would be cool but i doubt that anybody can buy a school book for this price.\n\n^^sry ^^for ^^bad ^^english ^^!",
"Monopoly or Oligopoly and Cartel behaviors along with a broken copyright system.",
"Never had to buy a textbook throughout my entire master degree in computer science.\nOnly free online pdf or cheap handouts during lectures. France.",
"I love LPE (Low-Priced Edition) books from India and the Asian Pacific. An 80 USD cisco book costs me 300 Rs (~6 USD) there. They are not in color, are soft-bound and have lower quality paper, but contain the same content. Many college texts have similar, low-priced options in India. In fact, there are many people who bring books from India to sell in the States for a profit, while undercutting the retail (and often used) pricing of the same book."
]
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2td3xj | whatever happened to congress turning the commercials down? | Just woke up my kid during a commercial break! | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2td3xj/eli5_whatever_happened_to_congress_turning_the/ | {
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"Commercials cannot be louder than TV shows. TV shows can be pretty loud, but usually aren't because they like to use the full extent of their dynamic range (make some parts quiet and some parts loud and some parts in between). Commercials don't give a rat's ass about that and just play as loud as they can to grab your attention. So, commercials *have* been turned down, just not as much as you may have hoped for."
]
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1nnsl1 | how are animal populations counted / found in specific areas? | There was the article on the front page recently that talked about there being only 625 wolves in Montana. I'm curious how they find this specific of a number or how they even get close to a correct estimate.
Thanks! | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1nnsl1/eli5_how_are_animal_populations_counted_found_in/ | {
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"If it's just 625 i do believe they've actually counted every single individual. We have about 300 wolves in my country, exact numbers come and go but it's fairly easy to count big animals that there's very few of, you can even give them a tracker so you can keep track of were each pack goes. So that's one way to count populations.\n\nFor animals that there's lot of you obviously can't count everyone, so you do samples. For example you can count every animal in say a 100m X 100m square. Then repeat that 20 times or 50 times or maybe more or less depending on how evenly distributed the population is. And let's say you find 50 lions in all of those squares, and the squares area is 1% of the total area, then you can assume you have about 5000 lions +- a number that you get from doing the statistics. There's always a lot of statistics involved unless you count every individual. \n\nYou can use a proxy, for example if you're looking for moose you can count feces, or horns that have fallen off and you can find some previous data done which you can use to convert your findings into actual population numbers.\n\nIf you're looking for insects or small rodent you can set traps. It get's a bit advanced but you calculate the total population based on how many individuals you got based on how long the traps were there. \n\nBirds are typically caught and tagged and then you release them. And the next year you can catch some again and see how many tagged once you got and estimate how big the total population is. \n\nThere's really so many different ways."
]
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6v4wmg | why is the moon able to cover exactly the same size as the sun? seems like a crazy coincidence? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/6v4wmg/eli5_why_is_the_moon_able_to_cover_exactly_the/ | {
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"It basically is just a crazy coincidence. The sun's diameter is about 400x larger than the moon, and just by happenstance is about 400x further away.",
"Yep, crazy happenstance. The moon is about 400 times closer to us than the sun, and is also about 1/400th the size of the sun. So things work out pretty well.\n\nOf course, this is only for a few million more years, as the moon is slowly moving farther away from the Earth. Once it's backed off a bit more, it won't be able to totally cover the sun, leaving us with only partial eclipses from then on. But I doubt we'll be around to be disappointed by that.",
"It's a coincidence, but not quite a perfect one. The moon's distance from the earth varies slightly over time, and you can get [annular eclipses](_URL_0_) where the moon's apparent size is not quite big enough to cover all of the sun's disc."
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"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_eclipse#Types"
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||
68m8yw | why hasn't japan been ruined by inflation like germany was before wwii? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/68m8yw/eli5_why_hasnt_japan_been_ruined_by_inflation/ | {
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"text": [
"The United States and United Nations intentionally enacted policies to prevent it following the end of WWII.",
"Serious question for you, OP. Why would post-WW2 Japan have the same economy as pre-WW2 Germany? They're different countries, in different points in time, have different economies, in different areas of the globe, and have different histories. "
]
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24kuzv | if the chinese language is dependent on tonal inflections for meaning, how easy/hard is it to understand chinese music? | Is the tonality built into the melody? In a similar vein, how easy/hard is it to take a Western melody and give it Chinese lyrics? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/24kuzv/eli5_if_the_chinese_language_is_dependent_on/ | {
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"text": [
"the inflections disappear in melody. you just know which word by context. "
]
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|
2syhki | is there a different between unnamed batteries and name brand batteries? or is it just marketing? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2syhki/eli5_is_there_a_different_between_unnamed/ | {
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"depends on the unnamed. \n\nnamed batteries like duracell, panasonic means you know the source of the battery and the factory and the quality of standards.\n\nbulk branded batteries like kirkland, sams club, harborfreight you don't know the source of the battery and factory and have no idea of their quality of standards (although kirkland and samsclub are pretty good). standard consumer batteries can all generate 1.5V but the quality of longevity and load can vary from great to toss in a month.",
"Yes, there can be. Take a digital camera. The cheap, generic batteries will last only a few photos while the Duracell and Energizers batteries lasts for many photos. The change is even more dramatic when you compare those batteries to the ones that they market for devices like digital cameras.\n\nI once went through a large back of cheap batteries in a few hours, while the Energizer Lithium batteries just kept going, and going, and going...",
"Many off brand batteries are old fashioned zinc-carbon batteries, which hold a lot less charge, and lose that charge faster in storage. They are pretty terrible compared to regular alkaline batteries.\n\nFor alkaline batteries, [they are all pretty close](_URL_0_), with a difference of about 10% from best to worst."
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cmz9d2 | what causes the brain fog and dizziness often experienced while ill, and what is its purpose? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/cmz9d2/eli5_what_causes_the_brain_fog_and_dizziness/ | {
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"So the easiest way to answer this question is to first very quickly talk about a process called homeostasis. Very broadly speaking homeostasis is when all conditions are optimal for a certain function to occur. Homeostasis in the body is incredibly important. \n\nAll organs function best when they are around 37 degrees Celsius. Whenever you are ill, the body attempts to generate an immune response via your lymph nodes. The lymph nodes, and generally the immune response, function better when the temperature is higher than 37 degrees. As the body prioritizes getting rid of the infectious element rather than how you feel about it your body temperature rises. \n\nUnfortunately the hemoglobin in your blood that carries around oxygen throughout your body does not necessary like this increase in temperature and is slightly less efficient in binding and depositing oxygen to where it needs to go. Add to this an increased oxygen demand from your lymph nodes. This results in your brain getting less oxygen/glucose (And ketone bodies but lets skip this for now) to function. This ever so slightly causes the brain to function less optimally, resulting in dizziness and what you describe as brain fog. Although this is not the only reason behind this phenomenon it is by far the most prevalent factor in causing this dizziness.\n\nAs such the dizziness does not have a purpose but is an effect of the body to get rid of the invading pathogen.",
"Honestly there’s a good chance it doesn’t really have a purpose. Your body pretty tightly regulates its own chemistry and physiology in normal healthy conditions. When the various processes that constitute the spectrum of inflammation start, it can throw those balances off, and the brain doesn’t like that very much. It doesn’t function so well in these suboptimal conditions. \n\nWhen it gets really bad, that brain fog becomes delirium. It’s crazy how bad it can get. You can have a patient who comes in with a really bad infection and fever. You ask them their own name and they can’t tell you. They’re trying to fight the nurses. You knock them out for everyone’s safety and give them a dose of antibiotics, and even though they’ve still got an infection, next day their sickness is down enough to the point where they’re perfectly fine."
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9998hw | hypothetically, if a president is found guilty of any criminal offence how would that work? as in can you actually arrest someone whose title is commander in chief | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/9998hw/eli5_hypothetically_if_a_president_is_found/ | {
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"Technically they could be arrested and processed like any other citizen, however the President does have the right to pardon themselves for any charge that is not an impeachable offense (the constitution outlines this as a blanket statement but does not restrict to whom pardons may be granted.) However impeachment charges may be levied for crimes which are either an abuse of the power granted by an office, or crimes committed which are violations of the terms of office. As an example, when former President Bill Clinton was impeached, the charges levied against him were of him abusing his position as Governor of Arkansas in order to commit real-estate fraud, a charge for which he could not pardon himself as it was impeachment. On the other hand when Congress voted to seek impeachment against Richard Nixon, since he resigned before charges could be laid and those charges were built off of the crime associated with the Watergate Break In (utilizing presidential authority to cover up a crime) Gerald Ford was able to pardon Nixon for any criminal acts in connection to Watergate, however if impeachment charges had been filed then he would not have been able to as the impeachment into the cover-up would make the initial charge part of the impeachable offense (in other words the pardon of the crime would have meant that there was nothing to cover up and therefore there could have been no abuse of authority, meaning that even though the charge of impeachment could not be pardoned directly it could be pardoned indirectly.)",
"The Executive and Judicial Branches (including the police and courts) would defer to the Legislature for the trial of the President, in a process known as Impeachment.\n\nIt works like any other trial, with testimony before Congress instead of a judge and jury, and the final decision of guilt and punishment by voting.\n\nSpecifically, the House of Representatives decides if Impeachment is warranted, and the Senate tries the case, with conviction being based on 2/3 of the Senate agreeing on the outcome.\n\nThey don't *have* to remove the President if they convict, and could give a wide array of punishments, as low in severity as Censure (an almost literal slap on the wrist).\n\nThe President can be impeached for treason, bribery, or \"high crimes and misdemeanors\". The current interpretation, based in Ford's assessment of the procedure in 1970, is \"whatever the House decides is a crime\"\n\nIf the crime is such that the President needs to be incarcerated, like if he were to start killing people, then I imagine it would be up to the Secret Service to handle the security, as they do normally.",
"The US Justice Department’s opinion is that a sitting president cannot be indicted or arrested. Congress can, however, impeach a president and, upon conviction by 2/3 of the Senate, remove the president from office. Once the president has been removed from office, that can be indicted and prosecuted.\n\nSo, prosecuting a sitting president for a crime would require the following steps:\n\n1. The House of Representatives, by a majority vote, can impeach the president.\n2. An impeachment trial is held in the senate. Upon a 2/3 vote to convict, the senate can remove the president from office.\n3. The now-former president can be indicted, arrested, and convicted of a crime."
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a41j62 | how does polymorphic code work? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/a41j62/eli5_how_does_polymorphic_code_work/ | {
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"Imagine a living Rubik's Cube whose function is to keep you from solving it. \n\nWhenever you try to solve it, it changes itself to make it more difficult. \n\nWhen you make one move, it makes another move, just to prevent you from solving it. \n\nThis is basically what polymorphic code is: a program that changes itself while maintaining it's function.\n\nIn this case, if the Rubik's Cube were a program, its function would be to keep you from solving it. \n\nIt will constantly change just to keep you from solving it until you solve it.",
"Let's go with an example. You want your program to take input from some data stream. You don't care where that stream comes from, only that you can open it, query it for data, and read from it. So you make a generic DataStream class, specify the query and read functions, and write your program to use those functions and do some neat things with the data.\n\nPerhaps to test your program, you want to run your program from a file on the OS, so you make a FileDataStream that reads from a file but uses the functions you declared, allowing your program to run from a file now. Another programmer sees your neat program and wants to run it from an Ethernet socket instead of a file, so they make a SocketDataStream. Another needs to support some old program using a serial connection, so they make a SerialDataStream. Thanks to polymorphism, your program does not need to change to adapt to all these different sources. It just needs to know some generic things about what a data stream is and the allow you or others to specify how to accomplish the details.",
"Let's start with a couple things about how a computer runs a program. First, the processor can only \"think\" about things that are in special memory locations called registers, and are physically located on the CPU. Second, a program is fundamentally a list of instructions for the processor to execute.\n\nThese instructions are things like \"move the data located at address *x* in RAM to register *a*\", \"move the data located at address *y* in RAM to register *b*\", \"add the contents of register *a* to register *b* and store the result in register *c*\", \"move the data in register *c* to address *z* in RAM.\"\n\nEverything the CPU actually executes is this kind of *very* basic instruction.\n\nAmong the instructions the CPU executes is \"go fetch the next instruction from RAM.\" It knows where to look for the next instruction by asking a special register that contains the \"instruction pointer,\" which is the address in RAM that will hold the next instruction. The instruction pointer changes based on what the program is doing. It simply counts up to the next address when just executing a series of statements, or gets set to specific values based on \"branches\" in the code - that is \"if some thing is true, then jump to this other location\" (which is how the CPU processes if/then statements, while statements, for statements, and so forth).\n\nNow, when you run a program, the whole thing gets loaded into RAM from storage so that the CPU can keep looking up the next instructions. But remember that among the things the CPU does is read information from addresses in RAM and write information back.\n\nSo what you can do is write code that, while processing, overwrites the instructions that are already in RAM with something else before the instruction pointer \"gets there.\" ",
"It depends, there are 3 major types of polymorphism.\n\n1. Parametric Polymorphism\n\n2. Ad Hoc Polymorphism\n\n3. Subtype Polymorphism\n\nFirst, parametric polymorphism. Imagine a List data type. You could simply create a List data type that takes arbitrary types as elements of the list, and then it is up to you to figure out what type of thing you are dealing with as you access each item. Instead you could create a bunch of different types: IntegerList, StringList, FloatList, etc.... However the functions for dealing with the _list_ don't depend on what is in it, so now you are duplicating tons of code. This is where parametric polymorphism comes in: you define a type, and functions operating on that type, with a generic parameter indicating some underlying type. So with the list, you might define the type List < T > and a bunch of functions that operate on List < T > s. Then, when making use of the type you might declare a new value of \"type\" List < Integer > , and now you have a List that is meant to contain Integer elements. All the functions you defined as taking List < T > s, can operate on your List < Integer > (because they never depended on _what_ \"T\" was). \n\nNext is ad hoc polymorphism. This is a bit simpler. If you understand function signature overloads, you understand ad hoc polymorphism. So say you have procedures to print values of various types. You could create printInteger(Integer arg), printString(String arg), etc... Or, with ad hoc polymorphism you could just create print(Integer arg), print(String arg), and the programming language will figure out which one you meant at runtime (or compile-time, depending on whether early-binding or late-binding is being used, but that is a whole other thing) based on the type of the argument being passed.\n\nFinally subtype polymorphism is what you might be most familiar with if you've learned object oriented programming, though it is more general than class inheritance. The classic example of this is numeric types. Addition, subtraction, multiplication, division, etc... are all mathematical operations that can be applied to numbers, whether they are integers, floating points, or even complex numbers. So you could define an abstract type Number, and specify that all concrete Number subtypes need to implement that set of functions. Thus multiple \"+\"s would be separate functions defined for integers, floats, and complex numbers, and potentially for combinations thereof such as +(Integer arg1, Complex arg2). Now you want to write a procedure called printSum, which prints the sum of any two numbers. You can now write it as something like printSum(Number arg1, Number arg2) = print(arg1 + arg2), and the type system will choose the correct \"+\" function based on the subtypes of Number passed in. "
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8ucrcf | how do we know that someone who is shot in the heart is "killed instantly", rather than having some residual brain activity for some time? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/8ucrcf/eli5_how_do_we_know_that_someone_who_is_shot_in/ | {
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"It’s not really instant, but really quick (less than a minute).\n\nTheir blood pressure drops very rapidly since the heart is where all blood flows through. They quickly go into shock, loss of consciousness and death once the brain cells stop receiving oxygen.\n\n",
"We actualy know it's quite the opposite.\n\nPeople in cardiac arrest have basicly no heart function and still can be aware for some time.\n\nThe brain needs oxygen, but it doesnt run out the second the heart stops."
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29tjpl | what if the british won the war? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/29tjpl/eli5_what_if_the_british_won_the_war/ | {
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"well you will be a british in the first place and the USA will have never existed ",
"To be honest I don't think much would be different today, as the two world wars split up colonies anyway and the USA would probably still be as it is today, maybe with a different culture though.",
"It would be Canada from Greenland to Mexico.",
"The US of A would span the entire North American continent. Independence would have been granted to the whole lot, without any bloodshed as it was to [Canada](_URL_2_) (once it was shown to Britain how expensive it was to run the place). In hindsight it is hard to find advantages of the Revolution that could be put before the ghosts of those that died. The colonies were an oligarchy before the revolution and and remain an [oligarchy](_URL_1_) today...so just what was bought? Edit: Today would not be a celebration of independence but of the triumph of the (now dead) philosophy of [Manifest Destiny.](_URL_0_)",
"Well first of all I doubt that France would have sold the Louisiana purchase to England and that territory probably would have been conquered and taken by England during the French revolution.\n\nThe US colony would probably have fought a second revolution sometime between 1833-1843 as England outlawed slavery in it's possessions and territories starting in 1833 and rolling through out the empire until complete in 1843. \n\nNow then this revolution would have distracted England allowing France to reign supreme in Africa and the Russians to pursue their goals in Crimea during this time, quite possibly starting WWI 60-80 years earlier then it did occur. \n\nThe question from there is would the Northern territories join the Southern territories in revolution? If the North joins the South then the revolution would most likely succeed, but if the North decides to side with England then either the revolution fails or England lets the Southern states go and Canada becomes both the Canadian territories and most of the Northern states all the way to the Pacific.\n\nThe South would most likely then conquer Mexico and possibly most of South America.\n"
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b11o14 | on programs such as photoshop, increasing the size of a picture beyond what it already is lowers the quality of it. how do small projectors manage to create a relatively high quality picture from such a small display? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/b11o14/eli5_on_programs_such_as_photoshop_increasing_the/ | {
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"Projectors have lenses that designed to create high quality images at a certain distance. If you try to project smaller or larger the image starts to go out of focus. On professional projectors designed for large live events you can swap in a different lens but increasing the size of the projected image will cause the light spread out more and so the image will not be as bright which can contribute to a loss in quality. "
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1hmmyt | how does the immune system work? | I really don't understand how the immune system works, like how it builds up resistance etc.
I have been sick 5 times in my life (I'm 24) and it's been 9 years since the last time. So my doctor constantly says I got a good immune system and so do everyone else.
I live in Norway where people catch a cold like it's worth something.
I know that coldness itself is obviously not the cause of disease, but that it surpresses your immune system making you more receptive to disease or something.
But what does it mean that I have a "good immune system" and how does it know how to fight viruses that I've never had?
Bonus question: my brother was only sick 6 times up until he was 24, he caught mononucleosis (kissing disease) and after that he catches viruses from everywhere, I'm goddamn sure he even caught one from thePirateBay.
So does mononucleosis kill a persons immunesystem permanently? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1hmmyt/eli5_how_does_the_immune_system_work/ | {
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"Imagine that antigens (virus, bacteria, etc.) are criminals, and your immune system is the police. In that case white blood cells are the officers. But the police use different methods than in real life. Once they have encountered a \"criminal\" they kind of store their information, especially weaknesses, and the next time they encounter it, they target the weak spots on the \"criminals\". Having a strong immune system basically means that it's fast enough, that it can kill the antigens before they can attack you.\n\nIt's really, really much more complicated than this, but this is the simplest I could come up with.",
"Tried to simplify this, but the immune system is a really complex system within the body. We know a lot of how it works, but we're always discovering new things which really challenges what we think. It's hard to keep simple when discussing specific viral agents, but I tried. Keep in mind, this is extremely simplified. \n\nA simplified way to think about the immune system is that it's setup to recognize \"self\" (you, your body, good) from \"non-self\" (foreign, could make your body sick, bad). Your immune system has a lot of cell types which detect non-self things (usually termed antigens) and coordinate the response to remove the non-self. After detecting antigens, it usually takes a number of days to fully activate the response to non-self which means you might be sick for a number of days until you can clear the source of antigens. An important aspect of the immune system is \"memory\" to antigens which the immune system has already seen. The memory response allows you to respond to the same antigens much quicker (approximately 2 days vs 7 days) allowing you to clear the source of antigens before you might even feel sick. \n\nHaving a good immune system could mean that the cells responsible for detecting antigens and their ability to activate the immune response are particularly adept. It is possible that as a child you were exposed to a number antigens which really primed you for some strong responses to clear out sources of infection before you feel ill. Exposure to environmental antigens is really important for the development of the immmune system and maybe you got to play in the dirt as a kid which helped you develop a strong immune system. It could also just be good genes that your cells are really good at detecting the right antigens to activate the right responses. \n\nAs for your brother, mononucleosis is caused by Epstein Barr virus (EBV) which is a human herpes virus. When it comes to Herpes viruses, they're particularly adept at surviving within the body. Viruses reside within our cells and so the only way to eliminate the infection is to kill the infected cells. We cannot usually completely remove all the EBV infected cells, but can reduce the number of infected cells to a point where you no longer feel sick. However the infected cells that do remain can still cause problems and your immune system is still reacting to them. In this case instead of an acute infection (actively feeling sick) you end up with a chronic infection (immune system always responding at a low level). The chronic immune response can have a number of consequences and it seems with your brother it might be a minor immune deficiency. Additionally and probably more relevant, EBV specifically infects cells of the immune system and the infection could compromise his immune response. I'm assuming your brother is constantly on his death bed from these infections, so he probably still mounts a strong immune response, it just takes a little longer and he might feel sick before he can clear the infection."
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28d9bz | why does home wiring have a hot, neutral and ground? | And a batteries, including your car, only have a positive and negative? And why is the "hot" wire black in home, but red everywhere else? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/28d9bz/eli5_why_does_home_wiring_have_a_hot_neutral_and/ | {
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"So I assume you mean live, neutral and ground?\nNeutral is a misnomer however as it can and will carry charge through it, at a much lower amount however, and you are unlikely to die from that. \nThe electrical grid however is much like your battery and only has 2 connection, live and neutral. The ground is simply a safety put in place to stop short circuits/electrocuting yourself on appliances.\nSome appliances don't have a ground wire, but these are double insulated (these appliances are denoted by a symbol of 2 squares 1 inside the other) which means there is no possible way, short of disassembling the appliance to electrocute yourself with it.\nThe ground wire acts so that current is preferentially put through it rather than you, you will still get shocked, but hopefully not much.\nNeutral wire simply is the other end of an electrical appliance (the negative end of the circuit)",
"Ac current cycles between the hot and neutral at 60hz. The ground is for protection if an object were to become energized. Electricity would flow to ground and cause a fault at the breaker. \n\nDC current in your car doesn't cycle. It flows from positive to negative. The chassis of your car is grounded on the negative side of the battery, anything connected to the positive side can make a circuit with the chassis and let's electricity flow. The ground on DC voltage is an active part of the system.. It can not work without it. AC grounds are fault protection and don't normally have a high current running thorough them",
"First, you need to know that electricity is created by forcing electrons to move back and forth in wires by a generator. The hot is the equivalent of the negative end of a battery, where all of the charged electrons come from. When you place a load between this and the neutral then you have a complete circuit and power flows through the load. The neutral wire is basically a common wire that completes the circuit. The ground wire acts as a safety mechanism. When there is too much power going through the hot wire, the excess escapes through the ground wire. Since the (literal) ground is basically a pool of free electrons where they can move freely, and the original source is also grounded. When electrons are forced to go through the ground, they first go through the breaker in your house. This is where the safety is, as soon as there is a current through the ground wire in a breaker, the breaker shuts off as a safety. \n\n(I am unsure about the colours)"
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p4loa | why do people keep saying the government is profiting on the war on drugs? | I just don't understand, from my perspective it would seem like they are pouring money into manpower to make drug busts and operate the prisons full of minor drug offenders. Where does the money come in, and why is it more than what could be made on taxation? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/p4loa/eli5_why_do_people_keep_saying_the_government_is/ | {
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"The raiding agency (DEA/local law enforcement) can keep any money/arms/vehicles seized during a drug bust. Don't know how the bureaucracy would benefit from it, though people point out general corruption and lobbying by private prisons.\n\n\n",
"Like most conspiracy theories (for lack of a better word) I don't see it as a clandestine agreed upon set of mutually supporting actions decided by the elite, but rather the result of trends in polices.\n\nPerhaps the greatest example is the privatization of prisons where each convict equals increased revenue from the state. \n\nSo, while the state doesn't profit from the prisons directly, the do benefit from lobbyists and the 'one hand washed the other' nature of a closed self perpetuating loop.\n\n\nIts normal for companies that have similar interests to work together: like product placement in movies. Its just that in the case of prisons, we aren't talking about ad space, we are talking about people. ",
"I don't know if many people are saying that the government themselves are profiting because most agree that it's a huge money pit.\nThere are many, many private organizations and individuals that profit from the drug wars though. Probably too numerous to name but a short list would be private prisons, those who supply law enforcement equipment, the alcohol industry, pharmaceuticals, etc etc",
"[This book] (_URL_0_) explains with data how much our government spends on consensual (victimless??) crimes - specifically, the \"war on drugs.\"",
"The gov't would probably come ahead if drugs were legal. But specific agents within the government definitely would not.\n\nDrug prohibition means more cops, more lawyers, more prisons. They want to keep their jobs and their toys. What's more, politicians can always rally behind \"keeping drugs away from you children\" as a reason to justify a new tax.\n\nFor them, the status quo is more important than the overall financial picture.",
"Prisons get more prisoners, the prison lobbyists give more money!"
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1dfwp3 | will the planets ever crash into the sun because of gravity? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1dfwp3/eli5_will_the_planets_ever_crash_into_the_sun/ | {
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"No, but near the end of the Sun's lifespan it will swell to immense proportions and engulf most of the inner solar system.",
"The only way that would happen, would be if we were to lost the speed at which we are orbiting. There isn't that much to slow us down in the vacuum of space, so no worries about that. \n\nHowever, on extreme long timelines (longer than the lifespan of the Universe), assuming the Sun doesn't engulf the Earth during red giant stage and assuming that orbits don't get destabilized due to close encounters with other stars, Earth's orbit will decay due to emission of gravitational waves. Before that happens, most stars in the universe will be dead."
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2f5gwn | how is it possible to enhance and increase a picture's quality so that it looks better than the original? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2f5gwn/eli5how_is_it_possible_to_enhance_and_increase_a/ | {
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"Good-quality film can be scaled up and down almost arbitrarily.\n\nIn order to increase the resolution of a digital picture and enhance its detail to match, you need a very clever artificial intelligence that will spot contours, lighting, colors, and shapes and interpolate the pixels properly.\n\nCSI-style \"zoom and enhance to focus on a face or a license plate\" does not exist, nor will it -- ever. It is not possible to retrieve information that was not stored in the first place; ultra-fine, low-contrast details like that simply cannot be brought out.",
"Without making any physical appearance differences like cropping, adding a different photo or a part of a photo, or manipulating the object's shape in the photo -- these are the ways you can alter a photo to look better in terms of quality: \n\n• Light\n\n• Contrast\n\n• Hue\n\n• Saturation\n\n• Color\n\n• Luminosity\n\nLight -- Adjusting the \"light\" in your photo can enhance the overall visibility within the scope of your image. It can also provide a directive viewpoint for the audience to focus on what is image trying to show by shadowing over the less important portions of the photo. \n\nContrast -- Adjusting the \"contrast\" in your photo can enhance the overall differences between the black and white within the scope of your image. This is especially useful if the photo is bland or greyed in appearance, having a dim and blended color mix throughout the background of the photo. Increasing the contrast will bring out the colors and make the image pop out.\n\nHue -- Adjusting the \"hue\" in your photo can enhance the overall colors within the scope of your image. This is done by manipulating the colors of your image following a provided syntax of Yellow, Green, Red, Blue (or even more colors) adjustments. Usually, this is done by selecting the appropriate setting per color and mixing the settings to create a desirable color outcome. You can change the color scheme of a photograph by using the hue options, enabling photos to have an entirely different mood to them. For example, a bright, sunny, Yellow day can be adjusted by adding more Blue hue to create a dim, cloud overcast, Blue day. \n\nSaturation -- Adjusting the \"saturation\" in your photo can enhance the overall intensity of color within the scope of your image. This is similar to contrast, but with more emphasis on producing density for the color that the saturation increase is applied for. A red traffic light, for example, can be produced with a more glaring, intense red, if the saturation increase is applied. The opposite of a saturation increase would produce the effects of the traffic light appearing more bland, lighter color, and faded. \n\nColor -- Adjusting the \"color\" in your photo can enhance the overall look of the presented format within the scope of your image. You can individually change the standard colors of your image to a different color of your liking.\n\nLuminosity -- Adjusting the \"luminosity\" in your photo can enhance the overall receptive appearance within the scope of your image. It can make objects in the photograph to have a radiative look to them, which can make the photo warmer or well blended in with the background. \n\nThere are more ways to adjust the photo.\n\n"
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3jws18 | why is spotify on my computer basically premium with ads, but mobile is a crippled, shuffle-only mess? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3jws18/eli5_why_is_spotify_on_my_computer_basically/ | {
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"They can easier serve visible ads on the pc vs the mobile. They need you in the app a lot more than on the pc.",
"The free Spotify serves two purposes: 1) Being a \"demo\" of what full Spotify is to try to get people to go premium and 2) Still make money with people who don't want to pay, through ads. The paying system is a lot more profitable, that's why there are ads asking you to go premium.\n\nNow when making the free version they faced a dilemma: If the system is too good people won't want to go premium, but if it's too bad people won't like it at all and the ones who would stay free will migrate to other services. So they probably concluded the current scheme is the best one, people get to try it freely on PC (with ads, because many will stay free forever), but if they want the full mobile experience too (the focus of the service) they have to go premium. But just to get a taste of how mobile works they can play playlists, but in shuffle. It's a question of balance.",
"LPT: If you have an android, you can install the Spotify Tablet APK, and get all the functionality of the Desktop.",
"I'll tell you what - I've been subscribed to Spotify for the mobile capabilities for over 2 years now. The reason I subscribed was for the mobile app. I stream Spotify to my car stereo using Bluetooth, and it has completely 100% replaced radio for me.\n\nAnd that's the sale. Mobile music is where the market is going. Our phones are basically streaming devices, our listening area bound by the nearest BT-enabled boom box.\n\nSpotify has the music - it's damn good. The PC demo is designed to demonstrate that to you. But if you want the full power of Spotify - music on the go, no radio, your one-stop-shop for everything that you will listen to... Well, for that, you gotta pay. Like I paid, and never looked back. Because fuck corporate radio. \n\nTo ELI5 - it's like your first few crack rocks. On the house. Once you're hooked though - and you want it in your life all the time - well now you gotta pay, sucka. Now give me yo wallet!\n\n",
"So there's \"on demand\" listening, and there's \"shuffled\" listening. On demand listening means you pick a song and it plays it. Shuffle, you pick an artist or playlist or whatever and it selects at random.\n\nSpotify works with labels and music publishing companies to basically \"rent\" the license of a song to play it for you. The record labels and music publishing companies were lenient (aka didn't ask for a lot of money) for Spotify's \"on demand\" desktop service. But they wanted a lot of $$$ for mobile use.\n\nYou may remember that it was only a year or two ago that you could even shuffle playlists or artists through Spotify. Before that it was more of a \"discover\" thing like Pandora where you couldn't even really pick the artist or songs you wanted to hear, no matter the order; you only got to pick a starting place. Well the reason this changed was because Spotify was able to renegotiate licensing contracts with major music publishers, who previously wouldn't license their songs unless they were played \"radio\" style a la discovery / Pandora. Spotify convinced them to \"rent\" their music to them for cheap enough that they could cover most (or all?) of the costs with ads... but only if it was non on-demand shuffle.\n\nTL;DR\n\nThe people who actually own the music ask too much money for on-demand mobile listening. For whatever reason, they ask for less on desktop, and therefore Spotify is able to give you that experience. ",
"I guess you could give all sorts of reasons for it, but I always think of it as pay for mobile access. There are quite a few services that do this, such as LastPass. Mobile is a more widely used platform.",
"I pay for my spotify account. And I enjoy listening to CD's by artists from start to finish, because I believe there is an art in the way that the CD is ordered. On desktop, I can listen to CD's in order. On my iPhone, I can not. Why? Why can I not listed to CD's in order on my phone? ",
"I think we are overall just incredibly spoiled when it comes to free music. We are definitely in the golden age of free and/or cheap music.\n\n\nI'm not even that old, but when I was a teenager you had to buy every cd if you wanted to listen to it. It usually cost around $15, and it usually had around 12 songs..\n\n\nNow you can listen to almost anything that has ever been recorded for less than $10 a month. Yeah, music was overpriced before, but I also think it's underpriced now, and record labels are going to figure out a way to make everyone pay more. Enjoy it while it's there.",
"I am the 1%. I have had Spotify premium for 7 years and am still on a lower monthly payment. Too scared to cancel it in case I have to resub and the monthly cost goes up",
"Another question: Why are there so many \"pointless\" ads? Like those telling the user about obvious stuff like how they can create a playlist, are they just there to annoy us?",
"I'm not really answering you question but there are rumors that in October, Spotify on your computer may only have few songs. To access the full catalog of songs, you'd have to go premium.\n\nNews: _URL_0_",
"I will just leave this here for anyone interested in PC/Tablet like version on mobile... \n\n_URL_0_\n\n_URL_1_",
"On the topic of spotify \nI use _URL_0_ and have adblock and i get no adverts. like ever. \n\n"
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39xqbx | why do humans usually find daylight too bright and need sunglasses, as we find night too dark to see well? | It seems to me like we should at least do well with one end of the spectrum | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/39xqbx/eli5_why_do_humans_usually_find_daylight_too/ | {
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"Having a middle-view ability would be a long-term evolutionary benefit.\n\nIt would result in humans being able to hunt/survive moderately well in all conditions, rather than just one.",
"We evolved to be really good generalists, scavengers, and omnivores. We have *excellent* day vision, binocular vision, and colour vision. It's very difficult to be good at both day and night vision and it was better for us to be okay at both than really bad at one."
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adqw7a | how exactly does the feeling of your heart "fluttering" in your chest happen when you think about someone you like or love? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/adqw7a/eli5_how_exactly_does_the_feeling_of_your_heart/ | {
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"To put it in very simple terms: the things that you think of and emotions that you feel can have physical effects on your body. Its just like how your hands might shake when you get scared or angry and how your cheeks may turn red when you’re embarrassed. When you think of somebody you’re fond of you may get anxious or excited. When you have these different emotions your brain will release chemicals that are related to these emotions which will cause other parts of your brain to respond, like the area that’s responsible for heart rate. The part of your brain that control your heart rate and other basic functions isn’t able to reason out WHY you’re feeling excited or anxious because it’s one the most basic parts of your brain and it doesn’t do very much “thinking” at all. It just receives the message that you are excited and so your heart rate will rapidly increase. In fact, your body’s “built in” control mechanisms are constantly adjusting things like heart rate and breathing for a large variety of things you may not even be conscious of. The reason your body reacts the way it does to these certain emotions can be instinctual or learned. Another example: Your heart races when you’re scared because your brain is basically telling your body “get ready to run or fight!!!” Even though you may just be sitting on the couch watching a horror movie. It’s just the same. The heart rate part of the brain doesn’t know you’re watching a movie. All it knows is that you’re scared so it adjusts accordingly. \n\nSource: Degree in BioMedical Sciences ",
"You know how when you just finished a really tough run, you can really feel your heart beating in your chest without even putting your hand on it?\n\nWell that’s because when you exercise or are put into a situation of stress, your heart is stimulated to pump faster and harder so enough blood is pumped around to supply your body. This means that you can feel your heart beat in your chest, and this is called “palpitations”.\n\nWe don’t really understand why it is, but love and attraction and this fight or flight response are very linked - in fact it is a firing of this nervous signal (the sympathetic system) that causes ejaculation in men. \n\nHence when you think about someone you love a large amount of sensory stimulus is processed by your brain, stimulus that may make you nervous, excited or getting your heart rate up in preparation for vigorous exercise you may be doing with this person.\n\nIt’s the same reason why if you’re lying in bed at night, and suddenly you think of that insanely creepy movie you watched months ago your heart rate rises and you become much more alert. Even just thinking of something can cause part of your body’s reaction to it."
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20aika | say i'm an 19yo travelling by flight to australia or france or italy etc from the us of a. any location across an ocean where i can legally drink. once i'm in international waters, will they serve me booze or serve me booze at any time during the flight whatsoever? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/20aika/eli5eli5say_im_an_19yo_travelling_by_flight_to/ | {
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"Us airlines may not but the rest would. Cheaper to just go to Canada if youre that desperate for a drink....",
"I am pretty sure the rule is that you are technically *in* Italy until you land in the US. Then you are in legal limbo until you pass through customs. This means the laws governing alcohol in the country you are leaving continue to apply until you land.\n\nI think the \"international waters\" laws only apply to boats.",
"Hopefully you keep out of international and national waters. ",
"Yep. This was in 2006, but I flew Northwest (now delta) from the states to amsterdam when I was 19. When drink service came, we were over canada, and the flight attendant served me beer.",
"When I flew to Brussels from Washington, D.C. at 20 I asked the flight attendant the same question. The guy laughed and said he wasn't the cops and I got hammered the whole flight. Just play it cool and don't act like it's your first time. (2010)"
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3kgrtb | how are 3d graphics in video games rendered so quickly, while 3d movies are rendered so slowly? | I saw [a picture of BF3](_URL_1_), and all the textures look really good. How do they render textures and models so quickly with that level of detail in a video game (presumably it's near-instantaneous since you can't predict exactly what the user is going to do in the game), while 3D movies like Cars 2 use huge render farms and still [take 11 hours to render a frame](_URL_0_)? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3kgrtb/eli5_how_are_3d_graphics_in_video_games_rendered/ | {
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"Movies use much more detailed models, higher resolution textures/maps, many different layers of shading, heavy post processing, and higher resolution. It all adds up. Imagine trying to run Crysis 3 on a computer from '85, same idea.",
"Games and movies use fundamentally different rendering techniques.\n\nMovies use ray tracing to simulate the interaction of light and various surfaces. They literally trace the reverse path light follows leaving a pixel on a screen and going out into the environment and hitting objects. They calculate things like reflections, diffusion, etc. Done well you can't tell the difference from a photo.\n\nGames fake it. Literally, everything a game draws on the screen is an approximation designed to be fast. It does not simulate the behavior of light. This is why games look so wrong when they are made to look realistic. The way light works in it is slightly off, and that makes scenes look slightly off to us. We've gotten really good at hiding the imperfections, but if you know what to look for you can still find it (eg an object not reflecting the right amount of light).\n\nA good example is human skin. Light acts funny with human skin and it's really hard to do it well in games. You get the normal reflective aspect of it, but then you get subsurface scattering. Light penetrates skin slightly and bounces around before coming out elsewhere. I've heard people describe it as a sort of glow. Games have a really hard time doing this right, but ray tracing makes the effect relatively trivial to do right."
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24admz | why does the us have a tax on worldwide income? | As an US citizen wanting to work abroad for some time, it sounds like antiquated bullshit. :(
Also, if you can provide a detailed answer after your ELI5, it would be **very** appreciated. I'm trying to learn about this stuff. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/24admz/eli5_why_does_the_us_have_a_tax_on_worldwide/ | {
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"Quite simply, it's to prevent Americans from investing money abroad in tax havens. Rich businessmen in other countries -- the UK, for example -- can take advantage of elaborate schemes whereby they officially get their income from off-shore companies and investments, and so avoid paying taxes.",
"In principal: Just because you are working abroad does not mean you are no longer entitled to your rights as a US citizen. You are still reaping the benefits of being protected under a costly government, and therefore still have to contribute. In purpose: it prevents you from just making all of your money abroad, or off-shore in order to evade paying taxes while still being a citizen.",
"I think you are using incorrect phrasing. Most countries tax on worldwide income, just like the US does. Most countries decide who needs to file a return based on where those people live, not where they are citizens. The US decides who has to file a return based on citizenship (and is basically the only country who does this).\n\nSo a Canadian citizen living in the UK (permanently) does not need to file a Canadian return. But a US citizen living in the UK does need to file a US return.\n\nIf a Canadian living in Canada earns a bunch of income from the UK, that Canadian will pay Canadian tax on that UK income. The same could be said about an American living in America."
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2s7h2g | how does someone with a burqa travel overseas without photo id of their face? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2s7h2g/eli5how_does_someone_with_a_burqa_travel_overseas/ | {
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"They go behind a screen with a female TSA agent and unveil. Their face is uncovered on their passport picture."
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boorex | how can we distinguish where the sound comes from? between left and right is really obvious by timing. but between front and back, or up? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/boorex/eli5_how_can_we_distinguish_where_the_sound_comes/ | {
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"The shape of our ears. Our ears are angled slightly foreward meaning that is we can tell front to back, and the ridges in the ear allow us to tell up from down."
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1xfwh6 | how did we evolve to be hairless if being naked in large parts of the planet would lead to death from exposure? | If we were stripped naked and left outside for a day or so in large parts of the globe then we'd die of hypothermia.
Is this simply a case of clothes allowing us to 'colonise' colder areas than we'd normally inhabit? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1xfwh6/eli5how_did_we_evolve_to_be_hairless_if_being/ | {
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"Because even with the body hair we had, our ape forefathers figured out that shelter and clothing were important to staying alive. \nSo many millions of years ago it didn't matter if you had lots of hair or no hair, you could still survive to have kids. Thus less hair was allowed to flourish. \nThen there were pressures to reduce the amount of hair, hot weather, parasites and bugs, attractiveness to females, etc. So having extremely thick hair was a negative, and eventually slowly weeded itself out. \n\nThose of us with thick body hair all over didn't get weeded out as much as we'd like. ",
"Lack of hair helped our ancestors stay cool in the hot climate of Africa and could have potentially given an advantage in hunting animals as they would overheat before us. \n\n\nAs we got smarter and started using animal fur we were able to survive colder climates. I'm on my phone but saw a documentary on Netflix called becoming human or something. Hopefully someone can provide a better source. ",
"We evolved ages ago in warmer climates, it wasn't until the domestication of animals and advent of fire that we were able to migrate into colder climates utilizing fire and animal pelts as warmth.",
"The simplest explanation is the fact that human males are attracted to [neotenous](_URL_0_) females, and primate infants have little body hair. Human infants take a lot of effort to raise - more than a single female could do during most of our evolution - so she needed help from the father. The female who got the highest quality father for her children would have had more healthy offspring living to have children of their own. \n\nBecause males prefer young looking females, the females with baby faces and little body hair got to marry the chief, while the hairy, masculine females got to marry the dungheap tender (or later the town drunk). Sexual selection is a very strong driver of evolution (just look at a peacock's tail if you don't believe this). If you add this up for a few hundred thousand years, the effect really accumulate. \n\nSo, why aren't we entirely bald? What's up with that patch on top of the skull? Well, any bald guy will be able to answer you that one. Without a full head of hair, and without hat making technology, you'd have to stay in the shade for most of the day in the sunny east african climate where we evolved. \n\nNow trying to explain why people have hairless bodies turns into an attempt to explain why males prefer neotenous females. I wonder if it is because of the extremely heavy investment in raising offspring. A male can really nuke his evolutionary success by investing in raising another guy's child, so perhaps this is why the 'virgin' look became attractive to males. Another explanation might be the fact that human females lose their fertility about halfway through their natural life span. This is unlike any other primates - female chimpansees typically remain fertile until they die of old age. The younger your spouse, the more time you have with her to produce offspring. Of course there's a chicken or egg question there. Did males develop a preference for young looking females because older ones are less fertile, or did fertility in old age get lost in human females because quality males weren't into older females anyway?",
"I know of three possible explanations:\n\n1) It allowed us to become endurance runners/humans by trading fur for more sweat glands, which allowed tolerance of higher metabolism and heat.\n\n2) Sexual preference. Even today, shaving certain areas of the body is considered attractive. Hairlessness signals youth which signals good reproductive capability.\n\n3) Hair parasites [killed hairier humans](_URL_0_) by spreading diseases with their bites. Humans with less body hair became resistant against the ancestors of body lice.\n\nWhen humans started wearing clothing, body hair became less necessary for survival, so the above three factors could weed it out over time.",
"Interesting that you ask this. I was just watching a talk on Netflix about this very question. There is, supposedly, an overwhelming base of evidence to support the theory that humans came from aquatic primates. The evidence ranges from the way we are built to the distribution of fat in our bodies, and, yes, to the unique way out hair grows in patches. The evolutionary anthropologist who gave the talk at TEDGlobal 2009, Elaine Morgan, goes through the various evidence which backs the \"aquatic ape hypothesis.\" The reason that this theory is relatively unknown is because academia is reluctant to change the established norm, for many reasons. Many paleoanthropologists reject the theory for reasons outlined in the Wikipedia article below. Despite these reasons, it is a reasonable claim, backed with sufficient enough data to where it *should* be taught in classrooms along side other theories of the origin of humanity. \n\n\n Morgan's TED Talk can be found [here](_URL_0_)\n\nMore information on the [aquatic ape hypothesis](_URL_1_)",
"We didn't evolve in those places tho. We evolved in the plains of africa. ",
"What I learned was because [it helps us rid ourselves of parasites and bugs and stuff.](_URL_0_) Humans have fine hairs which are sensitive to things touching them. When you have those bushy rough hairs it's hard to tell if a tick has burrowed into your fur and skin. The tradeoff for not being furry was being able to effectively prevent those things since we'd be able to sense them easier. The linked source wasn't my first choice, there's better out there I just couldn't find it.",
"There is also the Aquatic Ape Hypothesis... I always found it fascinating.\n_URL_0_",
"First of all, we are not hairless. \nSource: I'm Indian. ",
"If I may add onto your question, why is it that we grow really long hair on our heads?",
"Yes. Clothes, fire, housing, and all of the other things which minimize the effects of exposure. Clothing allows us to control how much insulation we need whereas fur would effectively limit the climates we could exist within.",
"Probably should've posted this in /r/askscience\n\nLots of baloney ITT",
"Probably because we did not need it after we learned to wear other animals skins. The appendix used to be important also, now it is just a left over.",
"To be fair, I bet humans a long time ago had much better cold resistance to us because they had to. I actually train myself to be more resistance to the cold. I can go jogging in 40 degree weather in shorts and a tank top.",
"sweating allowed us to hunt during the day when most animals sleep/graze in the heat of Africa",
"Hey everyone! Didn't see it mentioned anywhere yet, but just so no one is misled: To our knowledge, evolution is not a goal-oriented/driven process. Actually, mutations occur at random. Some mutations are fixed pretty quickly, however others may go on to be expressed phenotypically. This is basically what we call MICRO-evolution, MACRO-evolution which is the type leading to new species and diversity occurs as result of these mutations and their effect on the fitness of the organism. As phenotypes appear and occur in populations (both spatially and temporally), isolation through various barriers eventually leads to new species. \n*Homo* didn't become hairless overnight. This trait developed through the \"mosaic\" process of evolution. It has to catch on over time. Although, I distinctly remember reading an article discussing the high adaptability of hairiness traits that stated populations of birds and mammals may rapidly adapt to climate conditions - bulking up on hair/feather/fat mass.\nBut back to the point, traits evolve and are THEN tested. During a human evolution course I had last semester, we discussed a fossil hip of a presumed bipedal hominid which had \"flattened\" out more than the typical modern human's. Our hips form a shallow bowl, unlike chimpanzees which are more narrow and deep. This allows our particular pattern of locomotion. The owner of this particular fossil would have most likely developed a different pattern of walking in order to maximize that mutation. Perhaps it walked even more efficiently than we do, however its phenotype was snuffed out for whatever reason. The pattern of walking develops as an after effect or emergent property of that particular phenotype - the better the mutation is at helping the organism survive and spread it's genetic material, the longer it will persist.\n\n\nPersonally, I sorta hope that evolution is goal-oriented in an ass-backwards manner. As a biocentrist, I believe that the universe is finely-tuned for the creation and continued existence of lifeforms. In my opinion, one emergent property resulting from the combination of energy and matter given time and proper resources is life. Life wants to continue living - to me, that's why things evolve. \"Versions\" of life (like Dr. Wu's dinosaur \"software\" editions in Jurassic Park) exist around the world (and undoubtedly throughout the universe) - each competing to continue the struggle. It's elegant really. Vicious, chaotic, but elegant.",
"A little hair wouldn't keep you alive either, so no evolutionary pressure.",
"We evolved in Africa, where it's really hot and clothing isn't necessarily needed. Losing our body hairs allowed our pores and sweat glands to form. The cooling system that sweat gave us allowed us to be able to hunt game by wearing it out gradually. The animals our ancestors hunted can run much faster than we can, but only for short distances. Constantly forcing an animal to run would tire it out and eventually make it subduable. ",
"There is evidence for use of fire going back nearly a million years. It may have been occurring long before that.\n\nRegardless, clothing + fire + living closer to the tropics, probably meant the benefits of hair were outweighed by the disadvantages of having hair.\n\nMainly the disadvantages of parasites, poor temperature regulation, increased bacteria and uncleanliness, outweighed the ability to insulate body heat--- especially with alternatives available to replace it.\n\nThink about it this way--- if it gets too cold, and you have a ton of hair, awesome! You insulate a great deal more heat, and you survive. However, what if it suddenly gets really hot? Now you have all of this hair insulating in your heat, and you have a hard time dissipating it.\n\nHuman hair follicles in fact co-evolved the ability to dissipate sweat at the same time they stopped producing hair, on much of the body.\n\nIt seems as if humans solved the issue of retaining body heat as well as hair could, if not better through clothing and fire--- but not the problem of dissipating heat nearly as well, as we spread into different environments, or experienced the dramatic environmental shifts that occurred in Africa.\n\nSo- humans did not spread very far from the tropics for most of our evolution. It's a fairly recent (~40000) years, since we've spread into the Northern Parts of the globe. \n\nIt's probable being exposed to such harsh winters would have been a strong selective force for more body hair, but we haven't really experienced a significant amount of selection, nor done so without much more advanced forms of technology, in these areas.",
"Shortly after the Original Life Fiber appeared on Earth, Life Fibers began living as parasitic life forms, gaining sustenance from the biological life energy of other organisms. However, since the host could not withstand the strain of having them in their bodies, the Fibers began covering the host instead. As such, they targeted the ancestors of today's humans, which were the species with the mostly well developed brains at the time, and started accelerating their evolutionary process. With time, Life Fibers entered a dormant state, but left mankind with the evolutionary instinct to cover themselves. "
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a6v3b9 | why is carbon monoxide (co) poisonous while carbon dioxide (co2) is mostly harmless, despite only differing by one oxygen molecule? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/a6v3b9/eli5_why_is_carbon_monoxide_co_poisonous_while/ | {
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"because CO will displace the oxygen in your blood stream and that is bad for you. It has a greater affinity for hemoglobin than oxygen does. CO2 does not do this. \n\nThere are two equilibrium reactions of binding oxygen and becoming oxygenated hemoglobin:\n\nHb(aq)+4O2(g)⟶Hb(O2)4(aq)\n\nHb(aq)+4O2(g)⟵Hb(O2)4(aq)\n\nAnd carbon monoxide binding equation at equilibrium:\n\nHb(aq)+4CO(g)↽−−⇀Hb(CO)4(aq)",
"The shape of carbon monoxide molecule and the electron bonds holding it together mimic the oxygen molecule well enough for it to take its place in the large molecule that carries oxygen in the blood. If carbon monoxide blocks the site, the oxygen doesn't get to the cells.\n\nCarbon dioxide is completely the wrong shape and bonding to do the same.",
"CO is harmful bc in order for the two elements to properly share the electrons that are shareable in both elements you need another oxygen.\n\nCO, to your blood, looks a lot like O2. It takes the place that O2 would normally take, and suffocates you. \n\nCO2, also, is not harmless. By the time it reaches about 800 molecules per 1 million molecules in the air, your brain function begins to decrease, and your IQ drops.\n\nPerhaps another reason to control carbon emissions.",
"CO hugs onto your red blood cells a lot harder than oxygen. One molecule differences make HUGE differences.",
"Bonus question i wanted to ask today;\n\nOkay then how does hydrogen peroxide fit into all this? H20 is good but h202 helps us heal?",
"You can think it this way. \n\nCO2 is the cool guy. Everyone likes CO2. \n\nCO is envious of CO2, so to be able to be as cool as CO2, CO has to steal an oxygen from somewhere to become CO2. When being in your body, the only place CO can get oxygen from is from the oxygen that your body carries. A body without sufficient amount of oxygen makes the owner of the body sleepy. \n\nSo if you´re in a closed room with high concentration of CO, it´ll induce the user to sleep since CO is stealing all the oxygen to be CO2, and at the same time, you´re inhaling more CO which causes more oxygen to be taken away from you which will finally cause death after a certain amount of time. ",
"Blood has to carry oxygen for you to live. Carbon monoxide molecules are the right shape to fit into the slots that are supposed to carry oxygen. Since the slots are all occupied with carbon monoxide, you can't carry oxygen, so you basically suffocate from the inside out.\n\nCarbon dioxide is the wrong shape so it can't fit into the oxygen slots. (it's still bad to have too much of it in the air, tho, because basically you can only fit so much air in a given space and if more of that air is CO2 than O2, you can't get enough O2 to keep doing the staying alive thing.)\n\nBonus fun fact: that uncomfortable \"omg I need air\" feeling you get when you hold your breath for too long? That's not caused by not being able to breathe in oxygen, it's caused by not being able to breathe *out* the CO2. If you walked into a room that was full of helium but had no oxygen, you would suffocate without ever noticing because that \"omg I need air\" feeling would never happen since there's nothing stopping you from breathing out CO2.",
"CO2 is your typical normal girl. She is nice, she likes to play on the playground and occasionally will make you a little light headed. CO though, is her evil cousin. Yeah sure, you love hanging out with CO, in fact you like to hang out with her a lot more than you do CO2, but when you play with CO she will NEVER let you play with CO2 or their good friend O2. O2 happens to be a really good friend of yours, and if you don't get to hang out with O2, then you will just die.....\n\n & #x200B;\n\nThe reason CO is just so clingy is that she is a mutant with three arms that hold her together. So she has a really tight bond to her self and can bond to you that way too! CO2 is also clingy, but in a slightly nicer way and CO2, since those arms have something to do other than cling to you, they let go of you easier.",
"Monoxide has a much higher ability to bind to hemoglobin over oxygen. Suffocating you from the inside. Oxygen has a higher ability than CO2.",
"Your question implies effects on humans (or at least mammals). But if you're considering the effects of CO vs. CO2 on global climate the answer is completely different. ",
"Your body needs Oxygen. When you breath, the oxygen goes into your lungs and then come into blood. The haemoglobin combines with the Oxygen to form oxyhaemoglobin, which is then transported to various cells of your body. Carbon Monoxide is highly reactive and can also combine with haemoglobin. So when you breath in CO, you're getting suffocated. ",
"Whoa, almost everyone here seems to think CO2 is somehow harmless. It is at low concentrations, but it is in fact extremely toxic at higher concentrations. It will very easily kill you if you take a few breaths of pure carbon dioxide. Not because of lack of oxygen, but because it turns your blood into soda pop, and at below around pH 6.9, large parts of your body's biochemistry begins to fail.",
"Because being one molecule away is a hell of a difference and not a good standard of similarity. ",
" > despite only differing by one oxygen molecule?\n\nRather than tackling the specific question, I'll tackle this general idea you have, which seems to hint at a misconception. \n\n-----\n\nI think it is a mistake to even think of it as differing by \"*only*\" one oxygen atom. \n\nYes, one oxygen atom is small, but it is *big* compared to the rest of the molecule. \n\nThink of it this way - that oxygen atom is like a third of the carbon dioxide molecule! \nImagine if I took a third of your DNA away, or added half-again the heat of a fire, or removed quarter of a car's wheels. \nThose would result in huge changes in how those things behave! \n\nWith that in mind, taking away a third of a molecule seems like it very well could be a big deal.",
"Carbon dioxide is perfectly poisonous. A failure of the lungs or your kidneys to rid your blood of CO2 causes acidotic states, which will kill you pretty damn quick, albeit less quickly than CO. lol\n\nSource: RN",
"This reminds me of the time when my Foods class teacher in high school said something about margarine being one molecule away from being plastic \"so you can imagine what it does to your body\". Even back then, I remember thinking that was a BS way of looking at it",
"Not too ELI5, but I added some explanations and tried to keep it simple. From a biochem POV, some compounds have a greater affinity for Hb than O2. Hb is the compound found in erythrocytes(RBCs) that consists of 2 peptide(aminoacid) chains - alpha and beta - and 4 hemes(a fragment of protoporphyrin IX which binds Fe2+). When you add CO, SH or other compounds which bind stronger to heme, they block the binding situs for O2, thus making Hb unable to transport O2 to tissues. In serious cases(smoke inhalation from fires) it can even lead to Hypoxia(low level of O2 in blood) that affects cell energy production. CO2 is not transported by binding to heme, it is transported as bicarbonate(HCO3-) in plasma(blood). Thus it does not inhibit O2 binding(is less poisonous).",
"The sensation of suffocation doesn't come from a O2 captor but from a CO2 captor in our body. If the CO2 concentration is too high, we feel it and it trigger the gasp for air.\n\nBut since CO take the O2 spot in blood cells, and since CO2 is still removed in the process, our body doesn't realise that we are lacking O2, and therefore it doesn't trigger any emergency response. \n\nThat is why it is dangerous, you are suffocating without knowing it."
]
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[],
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||
2xukph | what causes some women to get an "urge" to have a baby at a certain age? is it biological? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2xukph/eli5_what_causes_some_women_to_get_an_urge_to/ | {
"a_id": [
"cp3ihkm"
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"text": [
"No explaining anything but the obvious here, but it doesn't help when they have friends their age popping them out left and right then hear \"Hey! you should totally have a baby! ohemgee! I love being a mom!\"\n"
]
} | [] | [] | [
[]
] |
||
4na0k2 | how is it, that sometimes letting something ferment makes it more edible, but usually leaving food to decay is a sure fire way for food poisoning? | Bonus: How about Hákarl? My understanding is that it is meat left to rot outside for weeks. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4na0k2/eli5_how_is_it_that_sometimes_letting_something/ | {
"a_id": [
"d423ig1"
],
"score": [
9
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"text": [
"There's two ways in which food that has gone bad can harm you. \n\nThe first is when it's become infected with an organism that can also infect you and overwhelms you. So that organism gets into your gut or your bloodstream and starts reproducing like mad. E coli is an example of this.\n\nThe second is when byproducts of an organism's digestion of that food are poisonous and harmful to you. Essentially, you'd be ingesting poison bacteria poo in this case. That's why you can still get sick if you're eating even fully-cooked rancid meat.\n\nIf you can protect your meat from rotting in a way that allows for either of these two circumstances, it remains safe to eat. \"Curing\", involving smoking or brining or drying or other preservation techniques like in the Hakari that you mention, are ways to do this. You can also control the organisms that get into the food so the bad ones won't latch hold. Beer-making plows the raw stuff full of yeast; cheeses and yogourts use special bacteria.\n"
]
} | [] | [] | [
[]
] |
|
5zz379 | how do we know life only started once? | How do we know life only started in one place on earth? Like bacteria started in one place, and virus another? Or other chains started, and went extinct? Does every living thing on earth share a percentage of DNA?
Thanks in advance!! I spent a lot of time on google trying to find answers, and still could not get clear information. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5zz379/eli5_how_do_we_know_life_only_started_once/ | {
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"We *don't* know that, as a matter of fact. We just don't have much evidence that it happened like that, and we do have evidence that all life on Earth is descended from some common ancestor in the distant past. \n\nIf other branches started and then died out, we don't have evidence of that happening... but due to the fact that it's not like we have proper scientific documentation of all points in the past, it remains possible.",
"We don't know that life started only once, but we do know that all living things on the Earth are extremely similar in their biochemistry, so they are all descended from a common ancestor. This also includes viruses, which aren't usually considered living, but it depends on the definition.\n\nNo one clearly understands how life got started, there may have been a union of more than one self- reproducing biochemical system into a single cell that was the origin point for life.\n\n",
"There is a hypothesis of some thing called a \"Shadow biosphere\". Assume life started more than once on earth. The second instance might be, chemically completely dissimilar to all other life. So when you do a DNA test - nothing there cause maybe it uses Arsenic rather than phosphate in its coding material. Test for the amino acids we need - nothing _URL_0_ they would have to find and notice something growing that doesn't test as alive. \n\n A few Scientists are looking at areas with extremophiles but nothing yet. But some little thing hidings in some isolated pool somewhere might prove a 2nd origin. It would be a mega-huge important find. Cause if life got started more than once on earth the odds it happened elsewhere go way up.\n\nUnfortunately, the life we do know about has been all over earth for billions of years. For that matter, if they find a half billion year old fossil, they can't really say much about it's chemical structure. There could have been lots of origins that one badass cell completely outcompeted"
]
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[],
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"there.So"
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|
96l1f3 | why are hoppy beers so popular in the us? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/96l1f3/eli5_why_are_hoppy_beers_so_popular_in_the_us/ | {
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"Its because IPA is the only term a lot of people know and they want to sound educated when ordering beer.",
"IPAs became popular in a lot of the former British Colonies because they were the kind of beer that could survive the long sea voyages. Hops are more than just a flavoring agent, they are also a preservative of a sort that extend the shelf life of beer. So the \"India Pale Ale\" which is extremely hop heavy was developed specifically to let beer last long enough to get to India. The techniques were used for most exported beers so almost all colonies had very hop heavy beers until they started to brew their own and chose to not make it hop heavy. Though by this point in time a taste for the hop heavy kind had established itself in society. \n\nThis was disrupted with prohibition and after it was lifted there was a shift to the Pilsner style Lagers preferred by German immigrants and their descendants took over as the dominant style drunk in the USA. The current trend to like them is in part associated with micro-breweries becoming popular. These are small breweries that have either taken up old familial recipes from pre-prohibition records, or are simply choosing a style very different from the common beer made by Coors, Budweiser, and Miller. This combination of obscure historical ties and counter culture made them attractive to the \"hipster\" crowd and that bled into millennial and post-millennial society as a whole. ",
"I think it is because many people believe that an overly hoppy taste is an indicator of a craft beer.",
"I've maintained for awhile that IPAs are \"fancy\" beer for people who don't actually know what beer is supposed to taste like. But I'm a stouts-and-porters guy with a terrible palate, so take that with a grain of salt.",
"It's less that hoppy beers are more popular, and more that hoppy beers are easier for small breweries to make.\n\nWorried about your microbrew's flavor? Throw in a bunch of hops and call it an IPA. It'll cover any imperfections in the base product.\n\nIt should be noted that lagers are still the most popular beer style in the US.",
"I wish they weren't, I can't stand them. Now all these restaurants toting \"craft beer\" will have five fucking IPA's, in their total 10 craft beers and no sours. I'd kill for a nice fruity sour or radler even on a hot summer day. Or even a gose. But no, its fucking IPAs all the way down. "
]
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[],
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||
dmdej5 | what are radioactive isotopes and how are they used most commonly ? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/dmdej5/eli5_what_are_radioactive_isotopes_and_how_are/ | {
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"All elements are made up of a combination of protons, neutrons, and electrons.\n\nAn isotope is a variation of a chemical element that has a different number of neutrons.\n\nWhen we talk about Carbon for example we're talking about an element that definitely has 6 protons because if it had 7 it would be Nitrogen. Now we usually say that Carbon has 6 neutrons as well, but Carbon doesn't \"always\" have 6 neutrons. In fact if you got a big pile of Carbon and analysed it you would have a mixture of 6 (99%) and 7 neutron Carbon (about 1%). We call these Carbon-12 and Carbon-13 (6+6 and 6+7) and each of these is an isotope of Carbon. Both 12C and 13C are stable.\n\nNot all isotopes are stable though and may only exist in a lab or may be naturally occuring but quickly decay.\n\nThis is where radioactivity comes into it. Carbon-14 (6 protons, 8 neutrons) for example is not stable, it decays and only lasts for a while. In 14Cs case this \"while\" is still quite long, in fact if you have a kg of 14C then only 500g of it will have decayed after 5730 years and it would take another 5730 years for half of the remainder to decay and so on (this is called it's half life). When it decays it turns into Nitrogen-14 which is regular old Nitrogen, which is stable.\n\nHow does it do that? It gains a proton by converting (I won't go into specifics here) one of its neutrons into a proton leaving 7 protons and 7 neutrons. Bang, you have Nitrogen.\n\nThis type of decay is called beta decay and unsurprisingly emits beta radiation. Other types of isotopes decay in different ways and emit things such as gamma radiation.\n\nTo answer the second half of your question there are heaps of uses for them. For example gamma radiation does a great job at killing bacteria (well, everything to be honest) so we expose things we want sterilised to Cobalt-60 which emits gamma radiation as it decays into Nickel-60."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[]
] |
||
3da2ll | why does adding a "v" to the end of .gif in a url make the gif play faster and smoother. | So this gif:
_URL_1_
Is much slower than this gif:
_URL_0_
The only difference is that I added a V to the end of the first URL. Why does this work? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3da2ll/eli5_why_does_adding_a_v_to_the_end_of_gif_in_a/ | {
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"ct36b4w",
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"text": [
"gifv is a video, not an animated gif. It's just a name change for the webm format (short for web media). You can change the extension to webm too, [look](_URL_0_).\n\nEDIT: The reason they created gifv is to have \"the best of both worlds\" - the behavior of a gif (looping, no UI clutter) and the performance of a video.",
"Because it's not a gif. Adding the v tells imgur to serve you a video file, and not an actual gif. Since video files are actually designed for video (unlike GIF), they compress much better and so load faster."
]
} | [] | [
"http://i.imgur.com/DmrEYXS.gifv",
"http://i.imgur.com/DmrEYXS.gif"
] | [
[
"http://i.imgur.com/DmrEYXS.webm"
],
[]
] |
|
580npb | if someone's credit card is stolen and their bank rejects the charges what do the companies do? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/580npb/eli5_if_someones_credit_card_is_stolen_and_their/ | {
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"text": [
"what companies? the ones that took the stolen credit card? \n\nThey get a charge back from the bank, and will have their money taken back out. Then they will make a note on the account that there was a charge back and the person that paid with the stolen credit card will owe that money again.\n\nif this happens repeatedly they may call the police and investigate the ongoing fraud",
"The company where the charge happened loses that money for that purchase. They'll probably investigate that account to see if they can find the actual perpetrator and police may be involved. It's why _URL_0_ is so paranoid about purchases. Like the billing address has to match the shipping address exactly, unless you set it up with your bank to have an authorized shipping address and you have to use Verified by Visa during the purchase. They've been burned too many times by fraudulent purchases."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[],
[
"Newegg.com"
]
] |
||
2pprkt | why are people still saying that the pirate bay is "down for good" after the swedish police raid? after all, there are, like, a bunch of working replicas of it all over the net. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2pprkt/eli5_why_are_people_still_saying_that_the_pirate/ | {
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"text": [
"From what I read those working replicas only mirror old files not anything new. ",
"Basically, the replica sites you see have all the old links the pirate bay used to have but any new ones will be coming from somewhere like IsoHunt or KickassTorrents. \n\nPirate bay is down but it's links are still usable and the other torrent sites have taken advantage of that to get more and more users to use their sites. \n\nEdit: /u/Ampix0 is right. _URL_0_ is probably the safer bet. The .cr probably woks but nobody's really sure who's running it so you may not want it as your first choice!"
]
} | [] | [] | [
[],
[
"Oldpiratebay.org"
]
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||
5j57k0 | why it's impossible to cry in space? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5j57k0/eli5_why_its_impossible_to_cry_in_space/ | {
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"dbdhdha"
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"text": [
"You can cry in space, however the tears will not fall off, they will instead just stick to your eyes instead of falling down due to the lack of gravitational forces.\n\n_URL_0_"
]
} | [] | [] | [
[
"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P36xhtpw0Lg"
]
] |
||
27qftj | why does it burn so bad when you have diarrea? | I had a bad case the other night and this seemed like a reasonable question for my first reddit post. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/27qftj/eli5_why_does_it_burn_so_bad_when_you_have_diarrea/ | {
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"text": [
"Because the feces are carrying excess stomach acid iirc...",
"Saw this on here a while ago, ... I hate being the guy with the answer to this but apparently it's because diarrhea contains more water and water transmits heat much better than anything else coming out of there.\n\nExcuse me while I go barf now",
"I always assumed the burning was from excessive wiping, kind of like giving your ass a nice case of road burn/rug rash from all the wiping but maybe that's just me. \n\nFor me, the first time in a bout doesn't burn, its only later on that it does."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[],
[],
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|
22chay | whenever i stay up late, i laugh at the most non-funny things. why is this? | I've noticed that whenever I stay up late, like until 2 or 3 am, I find things extra funny. Funnier than they actually are. I will laugh hysterically at a funny reddit post that isn't *that* funny. Only happens when I stay up late...
Side question, whenever I stay up all night then go to uni without any sleep, I become very hyperactive, is this my body feeding off my sugar reserves for energy? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/22chay/eli5_whenever_i_stay_up_late_i_laugh_at_the_most/ | {
"a_id": [
"cgljdx0"
],
"score": [
27
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"text": [
"[Here](_URL_2_) is an ELI5-thread with the same question from about a year ago.\n\nThe best answer IMO is that you experience more incongruity. Of everything you focus on, you 'plan ahead' of what is likely to happen, and if it doesn't turn out that way, the energy of your \"planning ahed\" is reliefed as laughter and a feeling of something being funny. \n\nSo I would suppose when you are tired you are just expecting the one usual outcome, so that even the simplest twists of mundane or predictable jokes make you experience incongruity - therefore being funny to you.\n\nedit: In regards to some comments below, I would think this could apply to being high or drunk too\n\nedit2: Concerning your second question, [here](_URL_0_) is an article that found that your dopamine-level rises when you are sleep-deprived. Dopamine is strongly [connected to the reward-system](_URL_1_) in your brain, so a higher dopamine-level could be responsible for the *hyperactivity* you reported of"
]
} | [] | [] | [
[
"http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/08/080819213033.htm",
"http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/mouse-man/200904/what-is-dopamine",
"http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/12grup/eli5_why_everything_is_funny_when_im_tired/"
]
] |
|
1qdekf | why is it that when two people/things make a sound at the same pitch, the total noise reverberates? | I've already used four different search queries in google, and no relevant links popped up. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1qdekf/eli5_why_is_it_that_when_two_peoplethings_make_a/ | {
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"text": [
"I don't think it has much to do with harmonics.\nits more about the subtle differences between the two pitches are suddenly pronounced.\n\nYou can observe this easily with a little experiment.\nTurn down your headphones and play the tone of these two frequencies.\n\n_URL_1_\n\n_URL_0_\n\nWhat you will hear is a 1Hz pulsing.\nIf you were to change one of the frequencies to be 2Hz difference, you hear a 2Hz pulsing.",
"It's called a beat: _URL_0_\n\nIf you add two slightly different tones, the resulting wave pattern produces the reverberation effect."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[
"http://onlinetonegenerator.com?freq=441",
"http://onlinetonegenerator.com?freq=440"
],
[
"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beat_(acoustics)"
]
] |
|
clmpnc | why is buddha sometimes portrayed as fat and sometimes not? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/clmpnc/eli5_why_is_buddha_sometimes_portrayed_as_fat_and/ | {
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"text": [
"\"Fat Buddha\" is actually a completely different figure named [Budai](_URL_0_), who is also known in Chinese as the \"Laughing Buddha\". They are often confused for each other in the west. Note that Buddha isn't a name, but a title.",
"Statues of a jolly fat man often depict [Hotei, a Chinese Buddhist monk](_URL_0_), not Siddartha Gautama, the original Buddha.",
"Buddha and Fat Buddha are two different people, there is Gautama Buddha (the skinny one) and Budai (the fat one) Budai (also called laughing buddha) is a symbol of happiness and joy. Budai is thought to be a later incarnation of the original buddha (gautama). Budai is popular in chinese buddhism\n\nthis isnt a very well put together paragraph but it gets the point across",
"ELI5: The term 'Buddha' is a title to indicate that a person has achieved enlightenment. Siddhartha was the most famous one so he gets portrayed as the default, in general as the skinny version. The fat version is another deity figure who also achieved 'Buddha'. Buddhism is non-theistic so there can be an infinite number of Buddhas and nobody cares which one you worship or whether you even worship one of them.\n\nELI5, TLDR: Buddha is a title not a person\n\n\nEDIT: Siddhartha was a celebrity, not necessarily the first or the best.",
"[Siddhartha](_URL_0_) a book by Herman Hesse tells of a journey similar to the Gautama Buddha. In fact he talks to him at one point. As I read it in the day I became confused whether it was the journey of the Gautama. Luckily I was able to finally realize it had similarities but was not the path that the Buddha had taken.",
"Gautama Buddha said health is wealth or something akin to that, I believe he thought it best to not be emaciated, but also not to be overweight, find a nice middle ground.",
"'Buddha' is not a singular person like this Christian god and Jesus, or the various characters described in Hinduism, but a title given to those who have found enlightenment in Buddhism, and then gone on to pass on their teachings to others.\n\nThe statues most commonly seen are those representing the Siddhartha Gautama - the 'original' Buddha, with the different poses representing different stages of his life.\n\nThe statues of the 'fat buddha' are not actually of a Buddha at all, but of 'Budai', who was a Chinese monk who is venerated as a deity in Chinese buddhism. \nChinese buddhism in particular included more elements of more traditional Chinese folklore, which is why characters like Budai are more commonly seen than they are in other areas."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Budai"
],
[
"https://www.britannica.com/topic/Hotei"
],
[],
[],
[
"https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siddhartha_(novel)"
],
[],
[]
] |
||
cyuvhc | how does screen auto-rotate work on the ipads aboard the international space station? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/cyuvhc/eli5_how_does_screen_autorotate_work_on_the_ipads/ | {
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"eyugmbq"
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"text": [
"In a pure zero-G environment, auto-rotate wouldn't work, due to the iPad's accelerometers reading a constant 0. There \\*might\\* be enough microgravity in the ISS to make it work, but it wouldn't surprise me if it didn't.\n\nIn Xcode, one of the first screens you're presented with when creating a new iOS app has the rotation settings right front and center. Personally I always deselect Landscape or portrait modes immediately, unless my app specifically needs rotation. I'd imagine the highly-specific apps they probably use up there are the same way.\n\n & #x200B;\n\nedit: additional thoughts\n\nI feel like an idiot for not thinking about this before, since I've actually written iOS apps that take advantage of it, but the iPad has a **gyroscope** in it as well as the accelerometers. The rotation functions are coming from the gyroscope components, not the accelerometer. \n\n[_URL_0_](_URL_0_) < -- the fun bits"
]
} | [] | [] | [
[
"https://developer.apple.com/documentation/coremotion"
]
] |
||
oy6zm | why is the civil war in sudan (darfur) considered a genocide? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/oy6zm/eli5_why_is_the_civil_war_in_sudan_darfur/ | {
"a_id": [
"c3kzvwl"
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"score": [
2
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"text": [
"While the word genocide has a dictionary definition, as well as a UN definition, there are no official word police who are able to enforce proper vocabulary choice. \n\n'Genocide' is a highly emotive word that brings to mind images of Auschwitz. People who are campaigning against widespread atrocities of any kind might use the word in order further their cause. Some campaigners might even use the word genocide in even more [manipulative ways](_URL_0_) if they believe that the word genocide will attract attention to their cause."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[
"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sinicization_of_Tibet#Cultural_genocide_accusations"
]
] |
||
2bs4mc | cancer is a genetic mutation. doesn't that make an actual cure impossible? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2bs4mc/eli5_cancer_is_a_genetic_mutation_doesnt_that/ | {
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"text": [
"Ah. But cancer is a mutation or rather usually a combination of mutations in ONLY the cancer cells. Yes there are only limited to no 'cures' for systemic genetic diseases, you can usually only treat the symptoms not the source of the disease and hope for the best. But Cancer isnt a systemic genetic diseases, it is local. Because it is local it opens up a lot of treatment opportunities. Cut out the mutated cells aka cytoreduction, kill the cells that are mutated with chemo or radiation. Cancer cells also exhibit certain other features like high rate of division which allows us to further target the treatment.\n\nSystemic genetic disorders say like Down syndrome dont have a target, we cant kill all the cells and we cant cut it out. Cancer we can.\n\nEDIT: Even then, 'cure' is a word not often associated with cancer therapy. Its 'remission'. We can never be sure we got every single mutated cell.",
"This simple answer is, no, a \"cure\" is not possible for \"cancer\" because cancer is not a single thing, it is the name given to a galaxy of cell abnormalities which have the common property of uncontrolled growth.\n\nBut this does not mean that any given person can't have *their* cancer cured. An old friend, Ted Goldstein, after retiring as a VP at Apple, went back to school at UC Santa Cruz and got his doctorate last year in Biomolecular Engineering. [His thesis](_URL_0_) is non-trivial.\n\nResearchers (medical and otherwise) will often talk about the population they are studying by its size: N=10,000 or N=100,000 or whatever. Which is useful if all of the entities in the study *have the same disease*.\n\nA central tenent of Ted's thesis is that when dealing with cancer you are almost always dealing with what is known as *N of 1*, meaning that each cancer is unique — perhaps in small ways, perhaps in major ways — from all other cancers.\n\nSo he spent years thinking this thing all the way through, and came up with a fascinating system whereby (eventually) all of the results of different therapies (positive, negative, and everything in between) is correlated with the specific genomic signature of the *specific cancer* the patient had.\n\nThe idea is that (eventually) enough data will be collected about enough outcomes, and those outcomes correlated to specific DNA sequences of the tumor(s), that each and every patient can have their cancer sequenced, and then a *patient-specific, tumor-specific* course of therapy can be chosen. BTW, it has been shown that a *single tumor* can produce different DNA sequences when samples are drawn from different places. Talk about shooting at a moving target.\n\nRead his thesis for *much* more detail on this approach.",
"There are lots of well-researched, accurate answers here. I will only add that there are ways to edit the genome of a cell and literally cut out target sites, like the [Crispr-Cas system](_URL_0_). I am certain this is a long way off, but the reason so many people, including myself, are working on it now is because presumably this technology could be used to excise mutations or viral inserts and replace them with normal sequence.\n\nEdit: this does rely on knowing exactly what the mutation is, but this is where individual genome sequencing of tumors would be important/a stupidly obvious approach to cancer treatment that should be prioritized "
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2v1gue | when the baby boomer generation retires will the removal of all their retirement investments have an impact on the economy/stock market? | It would seem this is the first generation to have a substantial amount of wealth in retirement/pensions/etc. Does the current stock market high have anything to do with a whole lot of money looking for return? Will the stock market dip when Baby Boomers start to retire en-mass and cash in their investments? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2v1gue/eli5_when_the_baby_boomer_generation_retires_will/ | {
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"Yes. It will have a HUGE effect on the markets. Nobody knows exactly what, but it's pretty clear when.\n\nIt is likely, but not guaranteed, that some investments will lose value as demand for them decreases (boomers shift money from stocks to bonds as they reach retirement age, then sell the bonds until they die). Lower demand equals lower prices.\n\nOffsetting that are a billion plus people in China and India who are gaining enough wealth to start doing some investing. Currently they're buying a lot of real estate and gold. We'll see if they decide to start investing in equities. Per capita the retiring & liquidating boomers represent a larger loss of demand, but there are a lot more people gaining some wealth in India and China so the absolute numbers might meet or exceed the Boomers impact.",
"Not as big as you'd think on the stock market, but the economy is a big question mark. It's a big generation, but not everyone is retiring at the same time, and not everyone pulls out their investments all at once (most don't). In fact, the transition out of the stock market should be in progress and actually near it's end as a lot of soon to be retirees have already switched to bonds (lower risk). It's not going to cause a huge market crash. \n\nNow, there are a few schools of thought on the economy as a whole... a mass retiring may strain the economy and break social security, but it will also generate openings in the labor market. People are unsure of what that will do, but it probably ends with higher taxes and no social security for future generations, but maybe some employment and therefore economic health.\n\nTo be safe, invest wisely as soon as you can - it's all the money you're going to get when it's your turn. ",
"It shouldn't have a huge effect. \n\n- Markets react negatively to *unexpected* news. We've known for some time now exactly when Boomers would retire. \n\n- About 10% of Boomers hold 90% of the wealth of the generation. Obviously, the wealthy will not have to cash out their investments like the typical retiree. \n\n- Foreign investments will help take up the slack. \n\n- The total share of investments by Boomers is no different from any other group of 46 to 64 year olds in the past. "
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5ll9me | how do data collectors account for people who put random answers in surveys? | I just had to take a one question survey before watching a YouTube video and I just put a random answer without looking at the question just to get to my video faster. I know I am not the only one who does this and I know that it happens A LOT. Like realistically, how many people are actually answering that YouTube survey honestly? Wouldn't this cause the data to be quite inaccurate and unreliable? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5ll9me/eli5_how_do_data_collectors_account_for_people/ | {
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"All legitimate survey results allow for a certain amount of accuracy. That's why \"survey size\" is vital in legitimizing the accuracy of a survey. Too small of a group, or too large in rare instances, will skew the results due to people not answering honestly or not understanding the question. Where the survey is taken is also a factor. Those who commission or actually take these surveys know this, and either determine a percent of accuracy, or use it to sway the survey in their desired direction.",
"What MOS95 said, really.\n\nAlso though, there is often an issue with a lot of 'surveys' like this - The companies behind them often want a specific result. It doesn't really matter if the answers are true, they simply want the numbers to show in their favour.\n\nIf lots of people enter just random answers, but the numbers still point to the answer they wanted. They'll use it in marketing etc.\n\nIf the numbers don't add up, they just re-do them until they do.",
"EDIT- listen to the guy up there at the top for reals.\n\nIf you're filling in online surveys odds are you're getting assigned an advertiser ID associated with you via various combinations of IP and MAC address, account details, cookies etc. If you fill in enough surveys to significantly affect things you'll start getting surveys with subtly bogus answers in them now and again and if you select the bogus answers regularly your entire answer history will get written off as done by a bot, clicker or randomly by a user not paying attention. Examples include asking you about a shop or service that doesn't exist.\n\nThis is something a whole bunch of Google Opinion Rewards users have ran into. They fill in answers at random for a few months and then they hit the \"which fleeble did you gronk regenty? A) flarb B) gonk C) deeble D) none of the above\" question and answer flarb. No more survey questions for you.",
"When data is compiled for surveys as well as for other research, it is put through a number of mathematical tests to determine if there are any patterns or if the data points all fall within a certain range, etc. If they size of the survey is large enough, most studies discard the outlying data points with what they assume is a reasonable amount of confidence.\n\nThis is, of course, operating under the assumption that only a few and not the majority of the responders issued fake answers.",
"In larger surveys, and in any type of validated questionnaire, such as psych testing measures, etc. there are validation questions: questions that are similar to other questions. If you don't answer them consistently, then the form can get tossed because the response isn't valid.\n\n",
"Hi, I am a mod at /r/surveyresearch and a full time survey researcher. \n\nThere is inherent noise in all data we collect. However, generally when people answer surveys they mostly tell the truth, this is backed up with empirical research where we have administrative data on the people surveyed and we compare what the participant says and what the records say. Most of the time their responses align with the responses of the \"truth\". Error is mostly associated with trouble with recall or understanding the question rather than purposeful inattention.\n\nWe also call this phenomenon of answering randomly or answering with malicious intent, \"Satisficing.\" It is an area of intense research from academics in the field of survey research. We can't catch it all, but we can setup various tricks to catch and remove answers that are intentionally wrong.\n\n* Randomization: If you randomize your question order and response order, a person who would pick randomly or pick the first response for each question would just appear as noise in the data, rather than a particular bias.\n* Logic checks: We can ask the same questions twice in different ways or we can ask a chain of questions that logically go together (i.e.,Are you a frequent smoker? Yes, How often do you smoke? Never). This would flag data for removal.\n* Meta/Paradata- If you complete a 20 minute survey in 5 minutes, we can kick your data out. If you straight line your answers, we can kick your data out. etc.\n* Attentional Checks: \"How often do you smoke?(Select the 3rd answer to continue)\". \"Do you use [Brand that does not exist]?\"\n\nWe run the risk of deleting real honest responses, so these checks do not always occur. But it is available if there is concern with data quality. That being said, recent research shows that data cleaning really doesn't change the results that much for most questions. On average, it evens out as long as you have a large enough sample size.\n\nI would strongly encourage to answer surveys and answer them honestly. You have the ability to represent your interests and sway the opinion of companies and even governments by the answers you provide. Data collection isn't cheap, decision makers put a lot of value in these surveys and they will design products and even political positions around the data they get from these surveys.\n\nFor a nationally representative US survey, your single response roughly represents ~606,177 adults. Your response has the power to represent, statistically speaking, an INFINITE amount of people. It is an incredible opportunity, don't waste it.\n",
"It's not the same but I study sociology and when analysing survey data, the software we use allows us to have an option for data that is unclassifiable (I.e. Wrong) and allows us to exclude that value. \n\nAlso randomisation and other controls. And there is always a margin for error. And everything is subject to a statistical test to show its margin for error. ",
"I never really contribute to these threads but I have a story about Google rewards that might be relevant. I was using it for pokemon go, but if you're not familiar with Google rewards it will ask you questions about places youve visited recently and will give you google wallet funds for your answers. Now pokemon go takes you to a lot of different places so I was getting a lot of surveys and just giving the answers they wanted to hear. One day a new survey pops up for me and asks me if I ever went to some funny sounding water park before. I say yes, and they ask me what my favorite attraction there was. I choose some random name of some random water slide, which leads the survey to tell me the locations I just submitted were fake and made up just to test the integrity of my answers. I have never had a new survey since."
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3l6fv7 | i always hear about spacetime, but what proof do we have that it exists and that all theories based on it are accurate? | Reading the ELI5 on the speed of light and made me wonder this. I just don't really understand how spacetime has been decided as something true we can base so much science on. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3l6fv7/eli5i_always_hear_about_spacetime_but_what_proof/ | {
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"There have been [a number of experiments](_URL_0_) that have shown general relativity to be a more accurate theory of gravity than the classic Newtonian model. \n\nFor example, our GPS satellites have to correct for relativistic effects. The fact that your GPS works is proof positive that general relativity is a thing."
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fqlxwg | how do people discover new diseases and know it’s not just the common cold? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/fqlxwg/eli5_how_do_people_discover_new_diseases_and_know/ | {
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"Besides some disease having distinctly un-cold like symptoms- you wouldn’t confuse leprosy with the common cold, for example- we can look at the disease itself. Viruses look different from bacteria which look different from parasites. \n\nFurther, we can look at the genetic code of the diseases for areas that tend to stick around when things mutate- conserved regions- which help us see a diseases ancestry.",
"As /u/nowwithpulp mentioned, some diseases are definitely distinct from a cold. \n\nCovid 19 was discovered because pneumonia is commonly caused by a couple different bacteria and viruses, most commonly bacteria of the pneumoniae family. But we've gotten really good at testing for these. So what happened was patients started getting pneumonia and they would test negative for all of the bacteria and viruses and other processes we normally look at in the lab. So after that we run more testing and bring in all the applicable specialists to make sure we didn't miss anything. After that we're left with a patient with obvious symptoms, x-rays showing they have a problem. But we have no known cause. We treat them as best we can and probably call it a day at that point. \n\nThen someone else comes in with a similar problem, and then another, and another. By the time we're up to 3+ people with the same symptoms and no known causes in a short time period you've pretty well determined that you have some sort of new communicable disease or there's something in the environment. \n\nYou send more things to labs and ask them to look for anything in there that's common between all the patients. They use a variety of methods to do this that I'm not familiar with. From there they can compare it to known organisms and see what it is and if it's new."
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44xite | why can you no longer pause a video to let the whole thing load, for example on youtube? | If you have buffering issues, it loads up to a certain point and then stops. I remember when internet was much slower, I would let a video load completely before watching it. Overall a longer process than streaming, but once I started the video I wouldn't be interrupted. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/44xite/eli5_why_can_you_no_longer_pause_a_video_to_let/ | {
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"Because if you decide not to watch the rest, you've wasted all that data used to buffer the parts of the video you never end up seeing. \n\nI've heard there's a way to change it back if you really want to, but I don't know what the process is.",
"Most video players still let you do it. Youtube is pretty much the only one that doesn't. They stopped letting you do it because they're so big, people watch so many Youtube videos, that buffering every single video that anyone watches would waste a ton of their server capacity. If you turn off the video before you finish it, that server usage was wasted. So they only buffer a few seconds in advance, to prevent wasted buffering.\n\nThere are add-ons you can find for most browsers that will trick Youtube into going back to the old style of buffering the whole video."
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2jlwk0 | what happens when someone takes out a massive loan (e.g. $20 million), and suddenly dies? | Let's also say this person has no immediate relatives or family in general either, so the debt can't fall on a family member. How would the lender get the money back? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2jlwk0/eli5_what_happens_when_someone_takes_out_a/ | {
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"Assuming someone was able to get credit to that amount they would just have it reclaimed from their estate or bank through the courts. ",
"Assuming the loan was secured by an asset, the asset is seized like any other foreclosure. If it's an unsecured loan, the lender would sue the estate for whatever residue they can get, and write off the rest.\n\nAt least in Canada, your family does NOT take on your debts when you die. If it's your spouse it's different because all financial affairs are entered into jointly and severally, so each person can be held accountable for the lot. But kids? Nope. Arbitrarily making one adult responsible for the debts of another is called indenturing, a form of slavery, and is illegal.",
"No lender would give out a loan of that size without without collateral of some kind. In your example, the lender would file vs. the deceased's estate for the remaining value on the loan from the liquid assets; if that wasn't enough they would enact their contract to have the collateral shift to the lender; additionally they may sue for additional funds from the estate if they believe the value of the collateral had diminished in the interim between contract signing and death.",
"In most countries you don't inherit debts. So even if they had family members, it wouldn't become the family member's responsibility. \n\nThe debt would be paid from the estate. The estate is basically just a collection of all of the assets of the dead person. Anyone who is owed money would make a claim on the estate. \n\nIf there isn't enough money to pay everyone, then the people owed money would just have to deal with the fact that they are only going to get some or none of their money back. Business that loan out money are used to this. \n\nIf after paying off all of the debts there is money left over, then people could inherit whatever is left. If there was a will, then this would be used to distribute the remaining money. If not, then whatever the law states for that particular region would be used. ",
" > Let's also say this person has no immediate relatives or family in general either, so the debt can't fall on a family member.\n\nThat never happens. That's a myth that makes for interesting movies. \n\nWhat happens is that the person's estate owes the money - everything that the deceased had title to is liquidated in order to satisfy the debt. Some debts are secured by particular assets so no other creditor can use those proceeds until the secured creditor is paid (\"made whole\"). Some jurisdictions have different approaches to secured debts - some allow the creditor to continue to go after the debtor if the secured proceeds don't cover the debt, but others don't (e.g walk-away mortgages)\n\nAnything left over is dispersed to heirs. If there's not enough to satisfy the debt then the debt simply evaporates. That's why lenders simply don't just lend $20 Million to people who don't have lots of assets and have one foot in the grave.",
"If you owe the bank $100, you have a problem.\nIf you owe the bank $20M, they have a problem."
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1l5l96 | why are nudity and swearing in games not considered appropriate for children? | I've been seeing a lot of discussions regarding age "restrictions" on games (Saints Row, GTA, etc.) lately.
But I'm having a really hard time understanding why some people think it's inappropriate for children to play those kind of games.
I understand that murder/gore can be hard to grasp. But why are we trying to protect children from it, instead of explaining it to them? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1l5l96/eli5_why_are_nudity_and_swearing_in_games_not/ | {
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"In England the daily sunshine girl shows tits. Kids are also allowed in bars. This thing you're talking about is a result of extreme conservatism grown out of the new western world.",
"This is not limited to games, when was the last time you saw a nude person on Sesame Street?\n\n\nPeople want to shelter their kids from the world and then throw them into head first when they turn 18. This is why therapists are so popular these days. "
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9kthu0 | what's the difference between a monoclonal antibody and a polyclonal antibody? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/9kthu0/eli5_whats_the_difference_between_a_monoclonal/ | {
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"A single immune cell that makes antibodies only has instructions for one kind of antibody. If you take this cell and grow it in a lab from a single cell (single colony), it produces monoclonal antibodies to a single part of a target. On the other hand, you could take a bunch of immune cells that each recognize different parts of the same large target, and grow them up in a lab. They would produce a variety of different antibodies, all targeting the same overall thing, but in different ways. These are polyclonal antibodies.",
"A single antibody binds one particular part of a target molecule, such as a protein. The part of the target that the antibody binds to is called its epitope.\n\nMonoclonal antibodies are identical antibodies, produced from a single gene derived from one cell, that recognize the same epitope on the target. The monoclonal means they come from the same genetic material.\n\nPolyclonal antibodies come from different genetic material, from different cells. Although they bind the same target in general - eg the same protein - they bind different epitopes on that target. They are a collection of antibodies against the same general target.\n\nMonoclonal antibodies are much more expensive and laborious to make, but you have a much better idea of what the antibody targets. Because monoclonal antibodies are purified and identical, you can more accurately identify off-target effects. \n\nPolyclonal antibodies are cheap to make, but they differ between batches, and their effects are harder to predict because they bind multiple epitopes.\n\nThere are other differences I haven't listed."
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1yfxpm | why do cats not move like dogs do when they are dreaming/sleeping? | My cat is motionless 100% of the time when he is sleeping, and my dog almost kicks me off the bed with her running legs (and muffled barks). | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1yfxpm/eli5why_do_cats_not_move_like_dogs_do_when_they/ | {
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"They do. I've seen my cats moving their paws and doing some other crazy stuff while asleep.",
"Mine move quite a bit at times. It's not terribly often. I've always attributed it to the fact that waking cats move less than waking dogs.\n\nEdit:typo",
"Mine tosses and turns like a human and makes a weird human-like noise when he stretches after a nice slumber.\n\nHe likes to lay against me at the foot of my bed so I feel it every time. He's kind of a booger.",
"Cats dont usually \"sleep\". They only dream if they sleep very deep, which they seldom do. But they do dream and they move while sleeping. \n\nDeepsleep happens to cats if they feel very safe. E.g., my cat only sleeps deep if she is lying on me somewhere. If that happens, she purrs the whole time no matter what, until the deep sleep hits.\n\nShe then stops purring and starts moving her paws. Depending on the dream she also tenses up and does a little \"jump\". Better said as \"she jerks a little\".\n\nSo yea, cats do sleep, dream and move during it, but not very often and only if they feel safe enough to really sleep.",
"my cat twitches and meows when shes asleep. sometimes her nose starts to whistle. maximum cuteness. ",
"They do. Evidence, of the cutest kind: _URL_0_"
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ckb9ac | how those catfish bots on dating sites work, how are they coded and implemented | [deleted] | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/ckb9ac/eli5_how_those_catfish_bots_on_dating_sites_work/ | {
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"Bot bot = new Bot(’Tiffany’);\n\nIf(guy) { \n\n bot.swipeLeft();\n\n bot.say(’hi there stranger wan som fuq’);\n\nIf(guy.answer === ’yes plz’) {\n\n bot.say(’plis snd credit card detailz’);\n\n }\n\n} else {\n\n bot.swipeRight();\n\n}"
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f8pqvk | how the heck do you do your taxes and why is it so absurdly complicated? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/f8pqvk/eli5_how_the_heck_do_you_do_your_taxes_and_why_is/ | {
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"Most people’s taxes are actually extremely simple. The vast majority of the US can use the 1040 form which only takes a few minutes if you make under 100k and don’t have any weird circumstances.\n\nTaxes only become complicated when you are trying to take advantage of the hundreds of loopholes and tax breaks in the tax code by itemizing.\n\nThis normally starts out well intentioned. You create a law to try and encourage certain kinds of business. People then take advantage of it who you weren’t expecting to, so you create more laws to “fill the loophole”. \n\nYou repeat this hundreds and hundreds of times and you get our current tax code.",
"It’s absurdly complicated because humans are kinda dumb and sometimes just complicate things. \n\nBut mostly it’s complicated because of politics: two groups want different things and have to compromise. The compromise might be that rich people can get a really nice tax break if really, really, really poor people who are over 65 years of age and have a broken leg can get a few cents a week from the government to help pay for groceries.\n\nNow the IRS had to make a form that you can fill out. Instead of it saying “pay us 10% of what you earned” it now has to be more complicated than that, saying “If you make MORE than X pay us 2% of what you earn but if you make LESS than Y, are over 65 and have a broken leg, pay us 10% of what you earn. Also, on line 25 tell us how much money we gave you for groceries.”"
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1itnf6 | the new uk policy in which all porn is blocked. | Does this include Reddit and imgur? Does is block a specific type of porn? How can we get around it? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1itnf6/eli5_the_new_uk_policy_in_which_all_porn_is/ | {
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"It will not include reddit and imgur, as these are not ostensibly porn sites. Instead it will block actual porn sites, such as xhamster or YouPorn. It doesn't distinguish between regular porn and \"extreme\" porn. Everything is targeted. \n\nFortunately, it's not a \"ban\" on porn, it's just a block. You can contact your Internet service provider and request that they allow you access to these websites, and everything will be accessible again (though, in my humble opinion, you shouldn't have to do this). ",
"As a person who has worked at a few companies which have attempted to block sites (facebook etc) it always relies on an administrator to individually block each site. So other there's some kind of hardcoded signature only porn sites have, are they really going to go around and block all fifty billion porn sites around the world?"
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2ll2hx | what mystic wood are electric poles made of, and how is that they never need to be replaced? | I've literally never in my life seen a single one replaced. Boggles my mind. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2ll2hx/eli5what_mystic_wood_are_electric_poles_made_of/ | {
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"Most commonly, they are [Southern Yellow Pine](_URL_0_) in the US, pressure treated with preservatives. ",
"Pine is the most widely used wood for telephone poles in North America.\n\nThey do get replace quite often, but the wood itself is treated and therefore is able to withstand the elements quite well. More often than not the pole will be damaged before it warps or rots to the point of being replaced.",
"The wood itself isn't all that exceptional, it's that it's impregnated with creosote, which is pretty much the stuff that asphalt is made out of, minus the sand and rocks.\n\nAnd yes they do eventually fail, but you're right, it takes a very long time.",
"I worked for a utility in the department that was responsible for inspecting the wooden poles. Here's how they test if the pole is still sturdy enough. \nFirst, they hit the pole with a hammer, listening to determine if it is hollow. Poles usually rot from the inside out. \nThey then drill small holes in the pole near the ground. They stick a long hook inside and feel whether the wood is still hard or if it has started to rot. If so, they can also measure how much of the diameter is rotten. \nThey then place drying agents in the holes they drilled and cap the holes with wooden plugs. The drying agents will absorb the moisture and slow down the rotting.\n\nAs said before, the poles are treated with some kind of preservative before being installed.\nThe wood is usually very dry so it has set. Hence, it won't warp much and won't be affected by rain and snow.\n\nTypically, poles will need to be replaced if they are physically broken: hit by a car, touched by a nearby fire, struck by lightning.\n\nIn warmer climates, a big issue is insects. They will hollow out the pole and nest inside. Sometimes, it's hard to actually notice because the outside wood looks fine.\n\nA pole that was properly prepared before installation and that had an easy life (no rotting, no insects, not hit by a snow plow) can last up to 100 years (we've seen a few of them during our inspections)."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[
"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Utility_pole#Pole_materials"
],
[],
[],
[]
] |
|
a304fs | what are the logistics behind celebrity payroll? do they get really big checks once a year, and who is their 'payroll department?' | Especially curious about royalties. If someone was an actor in a tv series a few years ago that got syndicated, do they just get checks sent to them periodically? And if there's a discrepancy in the amount who are they supposed to contact? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/a304fs/eli5_what_are_the_logistics_behind_celebrity/ | {
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"Don\\`t take my word for it, but I think most celebrities usually run their own company through self employment thus invoicing whoever \"bought their service\". That would be the record company, tv-show producer etc.",
"Yep, they get sent royalty checks on a schedule. The particularly amusing ones are people who had very minor roles, since they often get royalty checks for some small number of cents on a regular schedule.\n\nIf there's a problem, they contact whoever their contract is with, which is generally a movie studio or music company or the like with a bunch of people whose job it is to handle all this stuff."
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[],
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