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3x7czk | how can a bunch of 0s and 1s create everything digital? | It always fascinated me how, true or false or simply the on and off of an electric charge create such complex structures, figures and images on screen.
And to an extent, does the same apply with machine language programming? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3x7czk/eli5how_can_a_bunch_of_0s_and_1s_create/ | {
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"The whole subject is a bit too complicated and a bit too deep for a short ELI5, but I'll give a stab at the gist of it.\n\nThe reason why computers work (at least in the vein of your question) is very similar to the reason why we have language -- written, spoken, etc. \n\nWhat you're reading right at this very moment is a complex system (language) simplified to symbols on the screen. The very fact that you can read these words and attain meaning from them means that each sentence, each word, and each letter represent a sort of code that you can understand. \n\nIf we take an apple for example, there are many other ways to say that in different languages. Manzana. Pomme. Apfel. And so on. Codes -- some symbol maps to some concept.\n\nIn the context of computers, well, they can only \"understand\" binary. Ones and zeros. On and off. Well, that's okay, because we can map those ones and zeros to codes that we (humans) care about. Like 101010111 could represent \"apple\" if we wanted it to. \n\nSo we build these physical circuits that either have power or don't (on and off) and we can abstract that to 1's (power flowing through that circuit) and 0's (no power flowing through it). This way, we can build physical chips that give us basic building blocks (basic instructions it can do) that we can leverage in order to ultimately make programs, display stuff, play sounds, etc. And the way we communicate that to the computer is via the language it can understand, binary.\n\nIn other words, in a basic sense, we can pass the processor binary, and it should be able to interpret that as a command. The length of the binary, and what it should contain can vary from chip to chip. But lets say our basic chip can do basic math. We might pass it a binary number: 0001001000110100 but it might be able to slice it up as 0001 | 0010 | 0011 | 0100 -- so the first four, 0001, might map to an \"add\" command. The next four, 0010, might map to a memory location that holds a number. The third group of four might be the number to add it to. The last group might be where to put it. Using variables, it might look like: \n\nc = a + b. Where \"c\" is 0100, \"a\" is 0010, \"b\" is 0011, and the \"+\" (addition operator) is 0001.\n\nFrom there, those basic instructions, we can layer abstractions. If I tell you to take out the trash, that's a pretty basic statement. If I were to detail all the steps needed to do that, it would get a lot longer -- take the lid off the can, pull the bag up, tie the bag, go to the big garbage can, open the lid, put the trash in. Right? Well, if I tell you to take out the trash, it rolls up all those sub actions needed to do the task into one simple command.\n\nIn programming, it's not all that different. We layer abstractions to a point where we can call immense functionality with relatively little code. Some of that code might control the video signal being sent to the screen. Some of that code might control the logic behind an app or a game. All of the code though, is getting turned into 1's and 0's and processed by your cpu in order to make the computer do what is asked. \n\nIf you want to learn more, I highly recommend [Code by Charles Petzold](_URL_0_) for a much more in depth but still layman friendly explanation of all this.",
"One thing to add to all that is said already above: 0s and 1s are not only used to encode *data* (0=No, 1=Yes, and you build up from there) but also to encode *instructions* (0=Turn off, 1=Turn on, and you build up from there).\n\nNothing much different than writing data and instructions in human languages in books, essentially (\"Yes\", \"No\", \"Turn on\", \"turn off\"). But two things changed our approach:\n\n+ industrial revolution: now we could have machine executing instructions, instead of human reading cooking recipes. Machines are (were?) dumb, so we needed to find a simpler language to interact with them, free of context, sarcasm, double meaning, etc.\n+ Shannon's information theory: we discovered that anything could be represented by the simplest act that tells you a story, the coin flip, aka the yes vs no, aka the 0 vs 1. If you wanted to tell a longer story (image, song, game) you just need more 0s and 1s. This was a huge thing! Before, no one would think that sound and image both contained information that could be expressed the same way!\n\nHope that helps!",
"It's math. There are different ways of counting and we call these bases. What method is used depends a lot on who's doing the counting. \n\nFor instance human beings tend to work in base 10, which one has to wonder if it's a coincidence that we have 10 fingers and count in multiples of 10? Base 10 is 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0\n\nBinary computers count in base 2 which is 0 1 \n\nYou also have base 8 or Octal which corresponds to the 8 bits in a byte and counts like 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7. Very useful for TCP4 networking. \n\nAnd the other main one is base 16 aka HEX. Hex is 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 A B C D E F. Hex is useful for storing things like ASCII text like the text you're reading in my post. \n\nYou can freely convert from one base to another and the binary numbers computers used do this most efficiently using octa and hex conversions since it's arranged logically into 8 bits to a byte, 16 bits to a word, etc. \n\nIn binary this is what they look like\nocta 11111111\nhex 11111111 11111111\n\nAnd decimal numbers (base 10) are usually not used directly, but are instead encoded in octets or hex. So counting to 10 in octet binary would look like \n\n00000000 0\n\n00000001 1\n\n00000010 2\n\n00000011 3\n\n00000100 4\n\n00000101 5 \n\n00000110 6 \n\n00000111 7\n\n00001000 8\n\n00001001 9\n\n00001010 10\n\nThe way binary works is by doubling the value of each digit, with a 1 enabling that number, and a 0 disabling it. \n\nSo an 8 bit binary number has 8 digits that are either 1's or 0's and they correspond to the following numbers\n\n128 64 32 16 8 4 2 1 \n\n\nso if you want to write the number 128 it would be 10000000. The number 64 would be 01000000. The number 3 would be 00000011 because 2 + 1 = 3. The number 255 would be 11111111 because 128+64+32+16+8+4+2+1 equals 255. \n\nLearning about TCP4 networking introduces you to these conversions because although IP addresses look like normal numbers, 192.168.1.1 they are actually just 1' and 0's and because of the way computers and networks are encoded in an IP address, some network numbers are possible and others are impossible. For instance you can have a subnet mask of 255.255.255.0 but you can't have a subnet mask of 255.255.63.0 because of the way the base 10 numbers are converted into binary. So learning IP networking and subnet masks teaches you to count in base 10, base 2, and base 8. And if you learn TCP6 you also need to learn to count in base 16. \n\nFor example these are all the same number, but represented differently by each system. \n255\n11111111\nFF\n\n\n\n\nIn TCP4 networking, the subnet mask is created by stripping bits off of an octet and because all bits after a certain position are ignored, it limits the exact numbers of systems and networks you can have. For instance a /24 netmask would be 255.255.255.0 or 11111111.11111111.11111111.00000000 but lets say you wanted to do a /25 netmask. That would be 11111111.11111111.11111111.10000000 which would equal 255.255.255.128. /26 would be 11111111.11111111.11111111.11000000 or 255.255.255.192. You can't skip a digit in subnet masks so you couldn't have something like 10001000 so the netmasks descend in value like 0,128,192,224,240,248,252,254,255 or \n100000000 128\n\n11000000 192\n\n11100000 224\n\n11110000 240\n\n11111000 248\n\n11111100 252\n\n11111110 254\n\n11111111 255\n\n00000000 0",
"imagine a grid, now in those boxes make some of them black and leave the others white. simple on/off it's either black or it's white. black out the right boxes and you got an image. it's a basic black and white image though, and has no shades of grey. so let's get more complex, well to do that we need a number...how can we make a number using only ons and offs? well we know that off can be 0 and on can be 1, well this is just a base 2 system.\n\nok, so what is a base 2 system? well you are probably familiar with a base 10 system, so there are digits 0-9 or 10 possible digits, so one spot in a number can represent anything from 0 to 9 and when you go higher to carry the 1 right? so 9+1 is 10 19+1 is 20 (the 9 rolls back to 0 the 1 gets carried and added to the other 1 to make 2) so base 2 is the same principal, you have the numbers 0-1 so 1+1=10 because the 1 goes back to 0 and you carry the 1, 11+1=100 because you carried the 1 which made the next one roll over and carry the one to the next slot.\n\nso since 1+1=10 we can know 10=2 in base 10. 10+1 is 11 which means 3 in base 10. and so on.\n\nso, now we have that, let's give it 255 shades of grey, this is a number with 8 slots each slot being on or off. so you get the number 00000000-11111111 \n\nso let's take that same grid, but now we will use a mixture of paint, black and white paint. for each 1 in the number add a drop of black paint, for each 0 add a drop of white paint. (this isn't exactly accurate since something that was 50% black in this system would be 00001111 but it should be 10000000) so mix those up based on those proportions and add them to the grid. now you have a nice greyscale. if you wanted colour instead, you can 3 of those 8 bit numbers, one for red, one for green, one for blue.\n\nthis is true for anything a computer does, what a number means depends on what it's talking to. so if i send 1110000 to that paint machine maybe it thinks i want 3 drops of black and 4 drops of white, if i send it to a robot maybe it thinks i want to send 112 pulses of voltage to a stepper motor, if i send it to a text editor maybe it thinks i want to print the character q (the 112'th character in the character map) the same number means different things to different systems. it could be a memory address, it could be a number, a letter, an instruction, it all comes down to the machine.",
"The same way Morse code can communicate every word ever conceived and then some, despite being just a single light turning on or off. \n\nExcept computers can do it billions of times a second."
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5lyqdg | the 9 pieces of 8 in pirates of the caribbean | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5lyqdg/eli5_the_9_pieces_of_8_in_pirates_of_the_caribbean/ | {
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"Each of the nine Pirate Lords agreed to hold a piece of eight to be presented during a meeting of the Brethren Court, though the term came to apply to a variety of items and trinkets as the pirates found themselves short on money, simply keeping the original term as it sounded more 'piratey'. Each piece of eight reflected something about the lord who possessed the piece, and altogether, the nine pieces were used to bind the sea goddess Calypso to a human form, after Davy Jones informed the Brethren on how to capture her.\n\n_URL_0_"
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e4ipgf | how do scientific research articles get published? how do we know their results aren't faked? what exactly are scientific journals and how do researchers get revenue from publishing their research work? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/e4ipgf/eli5_how_do_scientific_research_articles_get/ | {
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"When an article gets submitted they have a lot of people look at it and similar data in order to publish it. It generally takes months. And a lot of research is funded either at a government or private level.",
"The articles are submitted to journals or conferences for publication. They are then 'peer reviewed'.\n\nThe peer review process is largely a check on relevance and basic sanity. The reviewers want to ensure the work is meaningful and not simply a rehash of previous work (although the standards for this these days are incredibly low). They also want to ensure the author is using plausible methods within the field.\n\nIn terms of data faking, we don't know. We simply trust that the researcher was honest. Unless the work is very significant or has real-world consequences, no one is likely to replicate it. However, almost any work with far-reaching consequences *will* be replicated and they'll discover that the conclusions are inaccurate.\n\nWhen you look at people who have been caught in academic fraud, it's almost always because they've established a pattern over years of publishing too-good-to-be-true work that someone finally figures out *isn't* true.\n\nIn terms of getting revenue from their research work, researchers normally don't. Your published works are a way of building your CV. Your CV is what gets you hired in academia and certain industry jobs. If you don't publish anything, you're unlikely to be considered for these jobs.\n\nResearchers do earn money from patents, but you don't need to publish to secure a patent - and, in many cases, it would be prudent to not publish your results if you're planning to monetize them in this fashion.",
"There’s a board, the IRB, that you have to submit your hypothesis and plan to before you even start. You have to get approval from the board on your tactics for gaining data, make sure it’s ethical, fair, and unbiased. And you have to have a *ton of supporting information. If you don’t get approval you can’t submit your research. You can’t just bring a document to them and ask for it to be published. Depending on the type of research, sometimes you can get government funding. Some companies have their own research labs and will pay people to carry out experiments. For example I know hospitals always do “Evidence-based practice”. Where research teams look at certain practices and research the efficacy of it, instead of just saying “well we’ve always done it like this”. \n\nMost people in Research don’t have any motivation to fake or sway results, they’re after the truth. That being said, I’m sure if you really wanted to you could. There are some ways to prevent that, in Blind, Double Blind, and unbiased research (where the researcher isn’t tied to the company or another entity in any way).",
"Let's start with the last question.\n\nGenerally some Master's (in some countries) and all PhD students in scientific fields get paid either with a grant they got or a grant they were offered from a prof. Where does the grant come from? Either the students or the prof or the group submit a project proposal to some authority or government body or some funding agency, they explain the problem in the field, how they intend to fix it, and how this would impact the world. If the agency is convinced, they give them the money: it's usually from tax payers money, by can also be from pharma companies or charities or whatever (conflict of interest might arise). The money then covers everything from consumables to instruments to wages of people you hire for the project and salary or stipend of the main student. Post doctoral fellows are similar, but they get paid typically from their own grant (they bring their own project when they join the lab, and they already have an approved funding, they just need a lab to work), but post docs can also join a lab that already has a grant (usually super rich labs in top universities). Professors get money from the university itself and they also typically have side jobs as some consultant or the CEO of a spin off/start up bio tech company and so on.\n\nSo publishing per se doesn't pay you (in fact you often end up paying for it). But publishing good science shows your employers that you're good and productive, which makes them hire you and pay you (also for grant agencies to give you money).\n\nLet's get to the first questions. How's quality controlled? Well.. It goes like this: you write up a paper, with figures and tables showing the data. You don't show everything, that would be way too long, you skip out on the controls and validation experiments and pick out representative stuff and so on. Now when the paper is received it depends on the journal, but usually it goes through a preliminary assessment where they decide is this at all fit to be in the journal in terms of field? Is the quality standard at least in the ball park of our journal? Are the authors sketchy or from some weird place you never even heard of? Etc.\n\nOnce this step is done. Then there is I think the editor choosing whether he recommends this for publishing in the journal. This is just based on quality, significance, reputation, vision, etc. If yes, then a group of experts who are usually professors are chosen from around the world who are good at the field of that paper and pretty up to date. Sometimes the profs are the go to profs for the journal, sometimes they're new and so on. Then these professors read the manuscript and criticize the living shit out of it. They look at the quality of the data, the validity of the data, the credibility of the methods, the sensibility of the whole approach, the interpretation of the results, does this fall in line with previous literature? Is it completely conflicting with everything we know? If so, is there a possible reason or just straight out bs? Are the controls properly done? And so on. They really scrutinize the paper and dig it to the bone.\n\nThen it's a dynamic process. After the first review round, the profs sent their recommendation and opinion to the editor. The editor, based on the. Comments, decides hmm.. Okay this is worth it. So he sends the author that they have preliminary acceptance if they respond to the comments. The comments can be questions for clarification, asking for the controls that aren't shown, asking for more experiments to make sure the observed effect is real and reproducible, ask for the actual raw untouched data (this is usually done to studies showing revolutionary data, they want to make sure it's not made up, and trust me some papers before have been found to be fake this way, they can even analyze the noise in the system to see if it's random or there's a pattern). They can also ask for changes to text, writing style, etc... Etc. Then it's a cycle.. Back and forth between the authors and the reviewers, until the reviewers are satisfied and say okay. We're good. Then it gets published in the next available issue.\n\nOf course.. This is high end journal stuff. Like nature, science, cell, etc and also stuff like PNAS, endocrinology, etc. But crappy journals from some random country with an impact factor of 0.2 are usually extremely careless and don't give two shits if your data is true.\n\nOnce a paper gets published in a good journal, that doesn't mean it's fact. Some fake data still makes its way through. And if it's bad enough it usually gets retracted later. Like that Wakefield crap. But sometimes the model used in the paper or the protocol followed or something is actually suboptimal and renders inaccurate data or something specific to their set up but cannot be reproduced. This is usually found by later papers. I mean all science builds on itself. Most of what you do in a paper depends on protocols by other papers. And you use the protocol of another paper and it doesn't give you their result because you have a different model, and then others find themselves in the same shoes, well eventually that paper loses its value and gets cited very little. Science is all about reproducibility. Even if you succeed in scamming a journal, it's impossible to scam the scientific community and they find out in a few years (very easy to scam the public though.. Too damn easy).",
"**How do scientific research articles get published?** \n\nA given journal has a panel of scientists that perform a peer review on submitted papers. An established scientist in a relevant field reads of the paper looking for flaws and trying to establish whether it is interesting enough to be published.\n\n**How do we know their results aren't faked?** \n\nIf a paper presents interesting and novel results, two things will happen. First, the paper will be scrutinized for errors and anomalies, faking data in a way that will pass deep statistical analysis is actually quite difficult. Next, if there are no obvious flaws, other scientists will try to replicate the experiment to get the same results. That will quickly expose any shenanigans, many a career has been ruined by simply overstating results, much less faking them.\n\n**What exactly are scientific journals?**\n\nA journal will typically be associated with a scientific organization, like a university or a professional group, although some are independent. They invite scientists in their field to submit papers, provide peer reviewers to ensure quality, and publish results they consider interesting. The more prestigious the journal, the higher the quality of the submissions, the more accomplished the peer reviewers, and the higher the cost. Some run thousands of dollars per year.\n\n**How do researchers get revenue from publishing their research work?** \n\nThey don't, not directly. Publishing does three things for the researcher, it ensures they get credit for the discovery, it improves their reputation (and job prospects) within the field, and it justifies their existence to their employers, particularly those in academia.",
"Generally they're published in journals with a peer-review process. Typically when you submit an article to a journal they'll give it a look over to make sure it fits the scope of the journal and if it does they'll send it out to some other academic in the field to check the methodology, literature review, analysis, writing etc.. The reviewers don't get paid, it's part of the 'service' obligation that's part of most academic jobs. There's always the risk a reviewer will do a half-arsed job, but there will be at least one other reviewer, so if you do that there's a good chance you'll get found out and do damage to your reputation.\n\nThe reviewers usually don't check that the data is real because they don't have access to the necessary information. It's up to universities/research institutions to ensure academic integrity in relation to the falsification of data. At that level there *are* people who can check up and usually there's more than one person involved in the research project. Anyone caught falsifying data's reputation will be ruined, they'll certainly be fired and probably be unable to find work in the field again. Sometimes it happens, but generally there is very little motivation to falsify data and doing so involves taking a career-ending risk."
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30d2fd | how do government officials justify trading 5 terrorists for bowe bergdahl, who's now facing charges, but not making trades for all the aid workers that have been killed? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/30d2fd/eli5_how_do_government_officials_justify_trading/ | {
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" > Aid workers that have been killed. \n\nProbably because they're dead, I suppose. ",
"per the former gitmo commander, those 5 were scheduled to be released at the end of 2014 anyway due to no prosecutable evidence.",
"The government has a responsibility to recover American soldiers. The government does not have an equivalent responsibility to secure the release of people who voluntarily entered a combat zone.",
"The American government needs soldiers to fight. Having policies to ensure that the we will recover those soldiers if they are captured encourages others to sign up. In this case they had a particular desire to have him back because he was a desertion case and prosecuting him sets an example for other soldiers who might desert. But even without his circumstances the government goes to great lengths to recover captured American soldiers because its the best policy to ensure we get future soldiers.\n\nThe American government doesn't employ aid workers, or at least the ones you are discussing. They have no obligation to them beyond that of a normal citizen. The government has no incentive to recruit more. In fact in almost all cases the government dissuades American citizens from going into the areas where they could be captured exactly so they don't have to deal with problems like this. Putting American citizens in a situation where they could be captured is bad policy. It encourages that capture and can be used as a weapon against America. The government doesn't want to encourage that and one of the ways to do so is to say it will not make attempts to recover them. Its the same with paying ransoms, paying ransoms just encourages the kidnappers to kidnap more. \n\nIn the case of the soldiers (or other government employees) they don't have a choice about being there and since the government sent them into harms way it has an obligation to recover them. In the case of private citizens who chose to go into harms way despite being told not to go it has a much lesser obligation."
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1am0de | steubenville rapists | Hey guys over here in Ireland we havnt heard a single thing on the news about the Steubenville rapists.I tried looking it up but all I could find was CNN and memes about the whole thing.Can anyone explain to me this whole thing in a simple way as Iht seems complicated and nobody is really talking about what exactly happened only the aftermath.Thanks to anyone who can help me. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1am0de/eli5steubenville_rapists/ | {
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"It's an open and shut case, really. The only angles of interest were (a) the rapists were high profile sports players, indicating they had some community support behind them, and (b) the large degree of social networking used by the rapists and the other students. ",
"This ~~[Blog](_URL_1_)~~ gives a pretty good run down of all the controversy. \n\n*Edit for summary:\nAlthough two students were convicted, evidence was uncovered that there were many more people involved in the rape and subsequent cover up. From other students who tweeted jokes about the girl while she was being dragged from party to party; to coaches, teachers, and law enforcement turning a blind eye or even encouraging the victim to keep quiet. Apparently this isn't an isolated incident for Stubenville, in light of all the news coverage other victims have come forward.\nThere's also coaches giving drugs to students, student party apartments, and underground gambling on high school sports. \n\nAlso, here is the link to the original [Local Leaks](_URL_0_) site, it has a bit more videos, info, and references.",
"What nobody else touched on yet was the controversy with CNN\n\nWhen CNN ran the story, they focused entirely on how the future of these \"young, promising football players was tragically ruined by this event\". Many people were angry at CNN because they reported it as more of a tragedy for the rapists and barely mentioned the girl who got raped.\n\n \"It was incredibly emotional—incredibly difficult even for an outsider like me to watch what happened as these two young men that had such promising futures, star football players, very good students, literally watched as they believe their life fell apart.\" - Poppy Harlow, CNN reporter. Many felt she was sympathizing with them, rather than, you know, berating them for raping and filming a sixteen year old girl."
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bs992c | why does alprazolam stay in your system for 1-6 weeks when the half-life is always the same? | Why is there so much discrepancy? For example Alprazolam has an average half-life of 11.2 hours, so it should be out of your system in 78 hours. Even in the worst case of 26.9 hours half-life, it should be gone in 188 hours. So why do so many websites say that it'll be out of your system in 1 to 6 WEEKS?
Sites say that it takes longer for the drug to get out of your body if you are a "regular" user, but why? Seems to me half-life should be the same regardless of whether or not someone is a regular user or not. Once you stop using, the half-life of the drug dictates that it should be out of the system after 188 hours max. So why can it be detected for up to 6 weeks? What is the science behind this? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/bs992c/eli5_why_does_alprazolam_stay_in_your_system_for/ | {
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"There are going to be three main reasons for this. First, the half-life of the drug is the time for half the material to break down, meaning there is rare chances for some of the material to last longer than usual. It's an estimate, not a guarantee.\n\nSecond, and more important, is the fact that drugs like Alprazolam break down into secondary products, 4-hydroxyalprazolam and α-hydroxyalprazolam, which themselves can be broken down into other metabolites, before being excreted in the urine.\n\nLike most drugs, the compounds can be deposited into fats or other tissue, leading to a lingering timeline of release, especially when taken over a long period of time.\n\nFor example, if you take 1 dose a day, and 1/4 remains in your body after 1 day, then on Day 2 you would have 1.25 dose-equivalents in your body. On Day 3, it would be 1.31, to a limit of 1.333 dose-equivalents in the blood, plus whatever is stored in your tissues.\n\nThe third main reason is going to be drug-interaction. Using a CYP3A4 inhibitor, like Tagamet (cimetidine) can delay the intake of Alprazolam into the liver, which would delay the breakdown of the drug, which would allow it to stay in the body longer."
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1hftx7 | i'm sitting at a stoplight and there are several cars in front of me. they all have there blinkers going at different intervals, except for a short period of time when they completely coincide. what is happening?? | I'm not actually sitting at a stoplight. Don't reddit and drive, kids.
edit: wow, that was quick. thank you! all good answers | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1hftx7/eli5_im_sitting_at_a_stoplight_and_there_are/ | {
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"If car A's turn signal is blinking every 1.3 seconds, and car B's signal is going every 1.4, they won't match up. However, since one car's signal is faster than the other's, it will eventually 'catch up'. While they won't be perfectly in sync, they'll appear to blink together for a second or two before the gap between increases a sufficient amount.",
"Imagine I'm walking around a track, and it takes me 5 min to make one loop around. You're also walking the track, and you do a loop in 5:30. We are walking at different speeds, and will complete the loops in time periods that are obviously different. But when I pass you, there will be a brief period of time when it looks like we're walking together. ",
"Let's say that blinker 1 blinks every three seconds, and blinker 2 blinks every five seconds. \n\nBlinker 1: 3, 6, 9, 12, *15*, 18, 21, 24, 27, *30*\n\nBlinker 2: 5, 10, *15*, 20, 25, *30*, 35, 40, 45\n\nAt 15 and 30 seconds, they will coincide. In a real life scenario, the blink intervals are much shorter, but the idea is the same.",
"I'm going to represent three people's lights. O means on, X means off, the number is the time:\n\n 00 OOO -----\n 01 XXX\n 02 OXX\n 03 XOX\n 04 OXX\n 05 XXO\n 06 OOX\n 07 XXX\n 08 OXX\n 09 XOX\n 10 OXO\n 11 XXX\n 12 OOX\n 13 XXX\n 14 OXX\n 15 XOO\n 16 OXX\n 17 XXX\n 18 OOX\n 19 XXX\n 20 OXO\n 21 XOX\n 23 OXX\n 23 XXX\n 24 OOX\n 25 XXO\n 26 OXX\n 27 XOX\n 28 OXX\n 29 XXX\n 30 OOO ---\n\nSo what the hell does this all mean?\n\nSo the first light goes off every other second. The second light goes off every third second, and the third one goes off every fifth second.\n\nSo that means they'll all have to light up.... every 30 seconds - Because 30 is the **lowest common denominator** of 2, 3, and 5.\n\nWhile this is a good math way of looking at it. The simpler way is that they don't really go off at the same time, just close enough that it looks that way to you, and that's weird, so you remember it, or you take notice of it. Most of the time it's not close so that's not interesting, so you forget it."
]
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26mret | why tv shows and movies can get the rights to show certain video games, but never the actual sounds/ music. | Every movie and TV show I've seen, from House to Weeds, they always show what they're playing but the sounds are always some 80's 8bit-bullshit. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/26mret/eli5_why_tv_shows_and_movies_can_get_the_rights/ | {
"a_id": [
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"text": [
"A lot of music, especially, is licensed from someone else for the game. So if they're showing Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 2, they have permission to show the video game. If they want to play the music (\"When Worlds Collide\" - Powerman 5000), then they have to get permission from Powerman 5000 or their agent/record label to play that music."
]
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[]
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|
1nd7sd | why do drift cars turn their wheels in the opposite dirrection they need to go? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1nd7sd/eli5_why_do_drift_cars_turn_their_wheels_in_the/ | {
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"To keep the car from spinning out, as you know the objective of drifting is to slide the car through a corner without making it spin, turning it opposite of the turn counters the cars drifting therefore stabilizing and balancing the drift.",
"As the drift angle becomes larger, the car is traveling more sideways than straight ahead. Just as you do when you drive your car, the drifter points the front wheels where they want to go. In this case, it's straight out the side that's 'forwards' in the direction they're traveling.",
"The front wheels are not pointing in the \"opposite\" direction from where they need to go. They are pointing **exactly in the direction they need to go**. If you examine a video closely, you'll find that the front wheels don't slip - they're following right around the curve.\n\nIt is the back wheels that are swung outwards, thus the car is pointing further into a turn than it is going."
]
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||
6ttlfj | can weather or storms actually be controlled or man made? if so, to what extent and how? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/6ttlfj/eli5_can_weather_or_storms_actually_be_controlled/ | {
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"Short answer: yes to a very limited extent\n\nLonger answer: not in any realistic, safe, or controllable way.\n\nWeather is super complicated and often pretty hard to predict. Imagine if you had a big bowl of water and you kept sloshing it around, meteorology is guessing/analyzing where individual waves will form.\n\nYou can effect the weather by large releases of heat or particulates, but both have enormous ecological impacts and are expensive. Also if you mess with the weather in one place you tend to fuck over somewhere else (a la butterfly effect).\n\nSo generally its not safe, cheap, or smart, but we could technically do it minorly."
]
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[]
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||
3jbxt9 | why don't companies like nintendo and sony put their retro games on steam? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3jbxt9/eli5_why_dont_companies_like_nintendo_and_sony/ | {
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"text": [
"Companies like Nintendo and Sony already have their own game distribution platforms and they're generally very wary of using other distribution channels. \n\nIf they distribute games through Steam, they ultimately would have to give up lots of control over the distribution and pricing of the games. Furthermore, Steam will take a cut of the sales revenue that Sony/Nintendo are probably unwilling to give up. \n\nAlso, Steam already acts as a competitor in some ways since users may opt to buy video games on Steam/PC rather than consoles, so that's just another reason these companies may be unwilling to negotiate deals with PC distribution platforms like Steam."
]
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[]
] |
||
2di06q | how was code invented before code? | How did someone code a programming language without using another one. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2di06q/eli5how_was_code_invented_before_code/ | {
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"you programmed in binary by flipping toggle switches. after that came punch cards. ",
"Machine language is a code that CPU can run directly. Many years ago some brave young men and women wrote a series of machine language programs that converted assembly language into machine code. After this point, programmers simply needed to write programs in assembly language and pass it through the machine language translator. Eventually more machine language programs were invented that allowed people write in high level programs then compile them into a large number of different machine languages so a single program can run on a number of different computers.\n_URL_0_",
"All programming is basically simple logic (addition, subtraction, comparing values, etc.) and control statements (jump, branch, etc.). At the lowest level of all, you've got electrical circuits, not code.\n\nThis is how adding two numbers works: [image](_URL_0_). This performs basic binary math, and outputs the addition of two 1's or 0's (with an extra \"carry\" digit if you're doing 1+1, which is 10). Here is an example of a 4-bit full adder: [image](_URL_1_). However, in your device, it's probably a tiny chip only a few microns thick.\n\nA person who wants to build a computer from raw metal and silicon would want to make these electrical circuits, then stick them together in the right way to make a processor. The wizards at intel and whatnot have to do this basically by hand, and so did the first people who made computers.\n\nThe processor takes in binary inputs (for instance, the number 00011101101110), and then depending on what number it is, does a different operation. When you add A + B in code, A + B are being stored in this binary input, as well as the word \"add\", and where you want the number to be stored. The processor looks at the binary number, send the electrical signals to the circuits that will add them together, and goes on to the next line.\n\nAt this point, they can reasonably easily invent programming languages using these microprocessors. You make a computer with circuits that turns text like this:\n\n add a, b, c\n\ninto \n\n 100101000010001000010\n\nwhich when fed to the compiler will store b+c in the address of a.\n\nThat \"add a,b,c\" is assembly, the base for programming languages. The coding language \"C\" uses a \"compiler\", which turns if \"I.amhungry() { dothis(); }\" into assembly, which is then assembled into the machine code binary, which is executed by the processor."
]
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[],
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"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Machine_language"
],
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"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adder_(electronics)#mediaviewer/File:Full-adder_logic_diagram.svg",
"http://www.waitingforfriday.com/images/thumb/e/e4/Full_Adder_circuit_wiki.jpg/400px-Full_Adder_circuit_wiki.jpg"
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2rp337 | if you lose your genitals will you lose your sex drive too? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2rp337/eli5if_you_lose_your_genitals_will_you_lose_your/ | {
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"No.\n\nYour sex organs are not the only \"source\" for your sex drive. It affect it in some ways, although there is no consensus about how much.\n\nIn losing them, you'd fail to act upon these desires, but your capacity to feel them would not disappear completely."
]
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[]
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||
vv31l | could someone explain why astronomers use julian dates? | I know that dates in general are constructs, but what's so special about 4713 BC and why is it preferable in science? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/vv31l/eli5_could_someone_explain_why_astronomers_use/ | {
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"Astronomers like Julian dates because they make math simpler for events that don't have anything to do with the Earth year. If a variable star has a period of 270 days, it is a lot easier to add subtract 270 than it is to count through all the months to figure the exact date.\n\nWhy 4713 BC? It is pretty arbitrary, but it is useful because it predates any historical events, so you don't have the BC/AD problem. \n\nThe reason for that particular date is pretty obscure. When they came up with it in the 1500's, there was a 15 year cycle, a 19 year cycle, and a 28 year cycle astronomers cared about. 4713 BC was the last time all three cycles started at the same time."
]
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9v7swo | placebo side-effects - i think i understand the placebo effect but how can your body create a side effect? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/9v7swo/eli5_placebo_sideeffects_i_think_i_understand_the/ | {
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"From what i understand, its the power of over believeing, then realizing it has to make up the difference when it realizes some part didnt happen",
"Basically if you believe hard enough, your body will try and make it true. Obviously it can’t do as much as a drug for testing can do, but the placebo effect is quite a powerful thing. "
]
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1q0lwf | could someone eli5 why java is so insecure? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1q0lwf/could_someone_eli5_why_java_is_so_insecure/ | {
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"text": [
"Because Java is everywhere! The more popular something is the more it will be exploited. "
]
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||
vodgq | 4-dimensional space and hypercubes? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/vodgq/eli5_4dimensional_space_and_hypercubes/ | {
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"[Carl Sagan did a pretty good ELI5 on this topic.](_URL_0_)",
"\"Imagine a 3D cube. Now add one dimension\" -- mathematicians",
"Like a 3D cube casts a [2D shadow](_URL_0_), a 4D cube casts a 3D shadow, so [that shape you often see representing a hypercube](_URL_1_) is actually the 3D shadow of a 4D cube.\n\nAnother fun fact is if you drew on a 4D piece of paper you would actually be able to draw in 3 dimensions.",
"Let's first get a grasp of what a \"dimension\" is in geometry. \"Dimension\" sounds like a big word and is sometimes used to mean something like \"world\" or \"universe\" when people talk about \"alternate dimensions\" and so on, but it's actually a fairly simple concept in geometry and mathematics in general.\n\n\nLet's have a look at some examples to figure it out:\n\n\nIs there such a thing as a 0-dimensional object? Yes! A point. \nHere we are talking about the geometrically perfect point. So perfect that we cannot even draw it with our imperfect tools. If you try to measure how wide a geometrically perfect point is, you can't. It's just a single pixel. It is so tiny that it has no width/height/breadth, you can assign no number to it. It has no dimensions.\n\n\nNow, how can you make a 1D object from this? The answer: You add another point and connect both with a lot of really close points to form a line (it's actually an infinite amount of points).\nUnlike the point, you can measure a line with a ruler, but this only works in one \"way\", along the line's width. A geometrically perfect line has no height and no breadth. It is a 1-dimensional object, you can only measure it in one way, in one dimension. Why is the dimension we measure the line's width? Well, that's just convention, a name we decided to give it. It really does not matter if you call that measurement width, breadth or height. That's just the way people decided they would call it.\n\n\nLet's progress to 2D now. To make a 2D object you take the line from before and make a copy of it a little further away. Then you connect both lines with additional lines. The object you created is an area. An area is a 2-dimensional object, so you can measure it in two ways. You can measure its width and its breadth.\n\n\nFurther to 3D: Take the area from before, add a copy of it and connect both areas with additional areas. Suddenly, you have a volume, which is a 3D object. You can measure width, breadth and height of this object, because it has three dimensions.\n\n\nNotice how for every transition to a higher dimension, we used several copies of the object in the lower dimension to create the object in the higher dimension. To make a line we used a bunch of points. To make an area we used a bunch of lines. To make a volume we used a bunch of areas... so mathematicians figured out: To make a 4D object, we need to use a bunch of 3D objects!\nThis is how a hypercube is drawn. You take a 3D cube, and place another 3D cube near it. Then you connect both cubes using other 3D objects.\n\n\nThis was all probably a bit difficult to visualize in your head, so [here's a nifty animation](_URL_1_) showing you what I just described in this post. Also, [here's an additional non-animated picture](_URL_0_).\n\n\nUsing the same principle you can go beyond 4D and do this for 5D, 6D, etc. The results get increasingly difficult to visualize both because our brains are not able to handle the images and because we can only use 2D images (flat screen of your computer or a sheet of paper) or possibly 3D toy models to represent the multi-dimensional objects. You can certainly imagine it's a difficult task to do.\n\n\nBut what is this all good for? Why would anyone need a 4D, 5D, 6D or whatever-D object? This seems like a mathematical curiosity at best. However, there are many practical uses and I will explain them in the following with a simple example.\n\n\nBefore, I kept mentioning how each dimension adds a measurable quantity to our objects. We commonly say that our world is 3D, because it has the measurable quantities of breadth, width and height. \nHowever, if you stop to think about it, there are a lot of other things you can measure: There's time, which is often called the \"fourth dimension\", but you can also measure more simple things like the amount of money you have, how many green apples you bought and how many red apples you bought.\nEach of these things you can assign a number to, can be thought of as a dimension in mathematics. Keep in mind that this concept of dimension is a bit different from the purely geometrical one, where each dimension corresponds to an object's size.\n\n\nThis different take on dimensions is mathematically really useful if you're trying to track changes in several distinct things, or variables.\nFor example, a farmer might be interested in how much food and water his cows consume, how much milk they produce, how much they have to poop, how much space they take up, how often they get ill and so on... in total, the farmer has to keep track of six variables (food, water, milk, poop, space, illness), he's dealing with six dimensions. Thanks to those crazy mathematicians that invented formulas for 6D objects, the farmer can apply the same formulas to the variables influencing his cows. This way he can find out how to best feed them so they do not get ill and produce the maximum amount of milk, while keeping the amount of poop as low as possible.",
"This is probably the best video I have seen if you want to try and visualise 4D:\n\n_URL_0_",
"Adventure Time actually ELI5 in the episode \"[The Real You](_URL_0_)\":\n\n\"This 2-dimensional bubble casts a 1-dimensional shadow. A 3-dimensional bubble casts a 2-dimensional shadow. A 4-dimensional bubble casts a 3-dimensional shadow!\"",
"Dimensions are simply directions.\n\nNow, imagine two dimensions. You could draw two lines following each dimension, and you'd have a square.\n\nWith one dimension, the equivalant would be a line. With 0 dimensions, the equivalent would be a point.\n\nWith three dimensions, the equivalent is a cube.\n\nThink of it like this.\n\nAt 0 dimensions, you have a point. When you move this point through one dimension, it makes a line. When you move that line through a dimension at a right angle to it, it makes a square. If you move that square at a right angle to both dimensions, you make a cube.\n\nSo when you move a cube through a dimension at a right angle to all three dimensions, you get a hypercube."
]
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||
1mio2b | when you ignite your propane barbecue, why does the flame not travel down the hose and into the tank? | I've never been able to figure this one out. There doesnt seem to be any little valve, just the hose attached onto the burner mechanism. Same with the patio heater. Yet the flame sits where it should and doesnt ignight the rest of the propane in the tank. Why? Is this simple physics or is there a mechanical device in there that I just don't see?
------------------------------------------------
Edit: thank you good people of Reddit, that makes perfect sense to me now. I wish I had asked ages ago. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1mio2b/eli5when_you_ignite_your_propane_barbecue_why/ | {
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"The propane needs oxygen to be able to burn (burning is just chemically combining with an oxidizer), and there's no oxygen in the hose. As long as the pressure is such that the propane is constantly pushed out, then oxygen can't get in, and the propane in the hose can't burn.",
"Two reasons: The outward flow of the gas pushes the hot area away from the opening, and propane needs oxygen to burn. ",
"there is no special mechanism there is just no oxygen in the tank for the fire to breath. fire needs fuel (like wood or in this case propane) oxygen (to breath) and an ignition source (which would be a lighter on the gas stove) without oxygen it has fuel and an ignition but can go where there isnt oxygen so stays where there is.\n",
"Based on answers in this thread:\nDoes this mean that there is likewise no risk of igniting a can of deodorant, when blowing fire igniting the outburst of gas?\n\nAs a kid, my mom always told me that this was the reason you should not do that, and would like to know if there is no need for taking cover every time I see some dude burning bugs :). \n\nSorry for my english",
"Propane tanks have a few things that keep this from happening. First is the safety valve that is build in to a lot of propane tanks.\n\nSecond is that the lack of oxidizer\n\nThird is that the outward force of propane is sufficient to repel air.\n\nLastly and I know this is true with bunson burners and other lab equipment. The gas in the line has a very low pressure making it hard to to get a high enough concentration to combust. The spout that the flame comes out of is the only part that needs to be pressurized to prevent damage.",
"21 comments on a topic involving Propane. None of them mention Hank Hill."
]
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2qz2vr | why do headlights at night seem to blind me while headlights in the day do not if their intensity stays the same? | Just occurred to me driving home tonight from work, I seem easily blinded by on-coming traffic, but this effect never happens during the morning/day time. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2qz2vr/eli5why_do_headlights_at_night_seem_to_blind_me/ | {
"a_id": [
"cnavd1n"
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"score": [
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"text": [
"Your pupils are larger at night as there's less ambient light. Bright headlights in that situation let in more light than you can handle."
]
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|
3nhuve | how do supermarket trolleys get "stuck" to escalators and then suddenly work again once they've moved off? | At our local supermarket there's an angled escalator going up and down to the car park. When I put wheel the trolley to the escalator the wheels lock up so it doesn't roll down.
It has no electronics, no handbrake and pretty simple wheels that have a groove in the middle. I can still push it a little bit on the escalator but it's tough.
I was tempted to think it was magnets, but then that wouldn't work...? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3nhuve/eli5_how_do_supermarket_trolleys_get_stuck_to/ | {
"a_id": [
"cvo7wlx"
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"text": [
"Magnets is exactly right. The magnet holds the trolley to the escalator, and the grooves just help to keep the trolley centered so it can be pushed off at the end."
]
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] |
|
2zi8eh | how can shows such as house of cards have differing writers and directors every few episodes, yet still remain consistent in tone and feel? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2zi8eh/eli5_how_can_shows_such_as_house_of_cards_have/ | {
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"text": [
"The producer for the series hires people with a similar sensibility and gives guidance so that they maintain a consistent tone.",
"This is common in most tv shows. The demands on the writer and especially the directors mean a single writer/director can't keep pace with a 12 or 21 episode in 4/8 month schedule.\n\nThere's a show creator or show runner who probably came up with the idea and provides continuity. The scripts would have to be vetted by them. And probably all the directors, actors etc. get to review drafts as well and have input to some extent. So its not like one writer can completely write a character out (hit by a train for example) unless all stakeholders with creative input agree.",
"On the writing staff, there is someone who serves as what they call the Showrunner. This is the person with ultimate authority over the script. They're in charge of the writing room when coming up with story ideas, they're in charge of handing out writing assignments for each episode. And they often re-write the other writers' scripts once submitted. So it's that person's job to make sure the script fits the tone of the series, that each character's voice is maintained, etc.\n\nIn TV, the direction and cinematography and editing and production design is basically set by the first episode. Those people will determine the look and feel of the series. Everyone who comes later works to keep things consistent. They still have important work to do, but they have a limited set of choices to make, because they have to stay within the framework set by the first episode. "
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8yd2ok | why can’t you donate menstural blood? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/8yd2ok/eli5_why_cant_you_donate_menstural_blood/ | {
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"Well more or less because its basically uterus wallpaper not exactly just blood like you would find in your veins.",
"It's not like blood from the rest of your body at all. Menstrual blood is filled with dead cells of the uterine lining, as well as a dead ovum. It's basically blood filled with biological garbage. It would cause ridiculous amounts of infection (sepsis) if it was given to someone in place of regular blood.",
"* Ew. \n\n* Lots of red liquid, not as much blood as you think there is in that liquid to make it red. \n\n* No good collection method.\n\n* It doesn't all come out at once.",
"In order to donate blood, you have to keep it clean and you have to add anticoagulants to stabilize it for transport otherwise it just coagulates. \n\nAside from the obvious contaminants that could be present in your random vagina, the blood comes out far too slowly to be viable for collection. The amount is also rather negligible when compared to standard donation methods(about 80ml of blood compared to a pint which is 473ml). \n\nI mean, what are you going to do? Stand over a blood bucket for 4 days?"
]
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23fmae | how do superchargers make cars go faster? or why? | Wondering how and why they work. Mostly why. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/23fmae/eli5_how_do_superchargers_make_cars_go_faster_or/ | {
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"text": [
"Put simplistically, the power from an engine is made from the combustion of fuel and air. A supercharger compresses the incoming air, allowing more to enter the engine. More fuel is added to the engine via the fuel injectors, and the two combined combust to create more power than would have otherwise been made.",
"I'm not a car guy, but Wiki just confirmed my guess - a supercharger provides / allows for a greater oxygen intake to the engine. This lets it burn more fuel and do more strokes or revolutions or whatever... and that makes you go vroom. ",
"Supercharger sucks more air +more gas =more power",
"A supercharger is driven by a belt on the connected to the engine. A car without a supercharger or turbocharger has to suck air in, this is called naturally aspirated. With a super charger the air is being compressed and fed into the engine. This is why turbo and superchargers are called \"Forced Induction\".",
"A supercharger uses the spinning of an engine to create pressure, like a fan. A belt is placed on the engine and is connected to the supercharger. As the engine spins it spins the supercharger and pushes air into the engine. Since there is now more air moving into the engine you need to add more fuel to make more power.",
"A supercharger pushes air(oxygen) into the intake of the engines increasing the combustion going on in each cylinder. The pressure of the engine is increased as a supercharger works depending on how much 'boost' it is producing.\n\nIt is different from a turbocharger in the sense that it runs off the belt in the engine. So to put it simply, it produces boost at idle where as a turbocharger does not. "
]
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[],
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[],
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] |
|
3bkb0m | how do television ratings translate into monetary benefit for the stars of the show? | My assumption is that:
Advertisers pay the network, which means that more viewers for the show = more people seeing the advertisements = more people buying products which allows the network to pay the stars of it's most watched shows more money (after demanding more money from the advertisers to show their advertisement during peak viewing times) and so on and so forth.
Correct me if I'm wrong. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3bkb0m/eli5_how_do_television_ratings_translate_into/ | {
"a_id": [
"csmwivd"
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"score": [
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"text": [
"That's basically it.\n\nThe amount actors are paid is based on the previous season's ratings/advertising. So usually the during the first season of the show, the actors aren't paid very much. \n\nThe exception would be for actors who themselves carry aadvertising value and are assumed to bring more viewers to the show. Like Matthew McConaughey... they assume him just being in the show will bring more viewers, and thus more advertisers."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[]
] |
|
ehc1e5 | why can you bring extremely fire hazardous items as hand luggage on an airplane? | You can buy litres of high proof alcohol after the security check, as well as bring your own lighter and things like big laptop lithium ion batteries as hand luggage. I’d be safe to assume that you could start a big fire. Isn’t that a problem? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/ehc1e5/eli5_why_can_you_bring_extremely_fire_hazardous/ | {
"a_id": [
"fci4fwe",
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"score": [
10,
3
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"text": [
"Fires are a threat that aircrews are trained to deal with and lie within their response capabilities.\n\nAnti-terrorism forces worry about things that could take down an airplane (fuselage penetrating explosives) or allow a plane to be highjacked and used for terrorism. Fires are neither.",
"They have fire extinguishers and can monitor people to prevent it from happening.\n\nWhat they're more concerned with is unknown fires starting in the cargo hold which is why you have to put batteries in your carry on."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[],
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|
3mmrj1 | what are the reasons behind the various sizes of books? | So pictures aside, why do books (novels, not including manuals or come in such a wide variety of sizes? Is there some correlation to genre?
Do authors get to choose? If so, would anyone ever really notice if a book "felt undersized?"
Thanks for enabling my procrastination. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3mmrj1/eli5_what_are_the_reasons_behind_the_various/ | {
"a_id": [
"cvh3114"
],
"score": [
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"text": [
"It depends on who the book is targeted at. Harry Potter for example, wide pages, big letters, lots of spacing, easy for a child to read. Then Game of Thrones, short pages, smaller font, closely spaced. Made to be read by adults. Also, the length of the book. HP books are wide but not a lot of pages. GoT has a lot of pages, so it's better to make small pages. (Wish I could word this better)"
]
} | [] | [] | [
[]
] |
|
cscq4u | how do cereal makers decide which vitamins and minerals to fortify a certain cereal with? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/cscq4u/eli5_how_do_cereal_makers_decide_which_vitamins/ | {
"a_id": [
"exe08vz"
],
"score": [
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],
"text": [
"The reason I'm asking is because I was looking at the back of random cereal boxes at the store, and thought it was weird how much of a huge spectrum of vitamins and minerals there are. They have very different choices in different cereals, even by the same makers! \n\nIt even just varies greatly with kid cereals from the same company. Do they choose by flavor or the texture of the cereal or something? Also, why is this common anyway? I'm guessing for marketing to look like some of the kids cereals aren't junk food or something. Thanks!"
]
} | [] | [] | [
[]
] |
||
871jeh | how can dust damage electrical components? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/871jeh/eli5_how_can_dust_damage_electrical_components/ | {
"a_id": [
"dw9k5yf"
],
"score": [
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"text": [
"[dust corrosion](_URL_0_) \n\nDust contains all kinds of different elements, including some salts. The accumulation of these minerals over time paired with humidity, creates a salty solution, which then does what a salty solution does and eats into the material. \n\nI knew about this immediately because I work with structural fasteners, the kind that hold bridges and ships and buildings together. In storage they’re required to be covered to protect them from dust for this very reason. The dust can diminish any plating on the fasteners through the same process. \n\nEdit: added context\nEdit 2: added a related story "
]
} | [] | [] | [
[
"https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.researchgate.net/publication/4102200_Dust_corrosion/amp"
]
] |
||
4884lf | asian men wearing a western suit is acceptable, but why is it weird for a white guy to wear a kimono? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4884lf/eli5_asian_men_wearing_a_western_suit_is/ | {
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"score": [
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"text": [
"Because you are more used to seeing an Asian guy wearing a suit then a white guy wearing a kimono.",
"Western suit? I don't really know, but I think it's safe to assume that suits in general is a general worldwide thing. Its just business attire. Where as, a Kimono has to do with culture. ",
"Most people from japan don't consider it unacceptable. My mother is white and of german & British heritage yet my fathers Japanese business associates have brought her a kiminono before. \n\nKiminos aren't held in the same regard they were in the 1800's when america \"opened\" japan. \n\n",
"I'm speculating a bit here. But I think it's because japan post WW2 adopted a lot of american culture and integrated it in to its own. Including corporate structure and business practices. The western world, being the winner of WW2 and further ahead both in weapons and capitalistic progress had no reason to import culture from Japan."
]
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[],
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||
6yzphi | why do avoiding left hand turns save gas? | ups no longer does left hand turns. How does this save them gas | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/6yzphi/eli5why_do_avoiding_left_hand_turns_save_gas/ | {
"a_id": [
"dmrecdy",
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"score": [
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"text": [
"If you have thousands of trucks, avoiding the time spent waiting to make left turns across traffic can add up, especially if your planning routes with dozens of stupid. In your personal life, where you only have two or three destinations, your never notice the difference or even travel further.",
"A computer determines the optimum route. It tries to avoid lefts because of safety and time savings. It does not mean they never turn left. If a left is the best choice, it will be mapped. ",
"In the USA, left hand turns means crossing the line of incomong traffic, UPS trucks are not known for their quick acceleration so left hamd turns often means waiting, and idleing the engine.\n\nengines at idle burn more gas then when they are actually movimg the vehicle (in most cases). it isnt a lot of fuel savings individually, but across their fleet of trucks it adds up.\n\nadds up to the tune of 200 or 300 million dollars\n"
]
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[],
[],
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|
54ze4a | how likely is it to survive a headshot? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/54ze4a/eli5_how_likely_is_it_to_survive_a_headshot/ | {
"a_id": [
"d868ohr"
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"score": [
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"text": [
"There are notable cases of people surviving a bullet that actually enters the skull and penetrates the brain. Malala Yousafzai, Gabrielle Giffords, and although it's not a bullet, you have to remember Phineas Gage, who survive a steel bar through the head. So yes, it's survivable, although the degree of deficits you have is often a matter of where it penetrates, and how young you are. \n\nMore often though, a headshot is survivable because the bullet doesn't penetrate the skull and track through the brain. *Most* of the time that you get a bullet in your brain, you're not going to live, or live well. Most of the times that a bullet hits an unarmored head, it's going to kill you. \n\nVariables to consider in all of this are: Caliber of the bullet, velocity of the bullet when it hits (was it a long rifle at a 100 yards, or a 9mm pistol at 100 yards?), and the angle of the impact. That last only really matters if the bullet is relatively light, slow, and/or in the terminal portion of its flight. \n\nThe thing is, the head is a small target, and it moves a lot relatively to the body; it's quite hard to hit on a human target without training, and a good rifle... or close range. "
]
} | [] | [] | [
[]
] |
||
97xiux | how many appliances can i plug into a single socket (using series of extension chords) without 'something going wrong'? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/97xiux/eli5_how_many_appliances_can_i_plug_into_a_single/ | {
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" > I have a single socket in my room, and I use a series of extension chords to run a few ~~high~~low-power appliances such as a laptop, monitor, PS3, lampshades, speakers, LEDs etc.\n\nFixed that for you\n\nEverything you listed consumes 200W or less. The laptop is probably around 30W while the monitors may be closer to 50W\n\nA standard US outlet/breaker can support up to 1800 W of power(15A). If you load it up to that level or beyond you run the risk of the breaker tripping and turning off all your connected devices. Based on your loads, you're probably drawing less than 500W on a regular basis(i doubt you have everything at max power at the same time)\n\nDon't add a toaster or hairdryer to the mix and you'll be good",
"I'm assuming you are in North America, where we use 120v power.\n\nThe key is to look at the wattage of each device you want to plug in. \n\nYour circuit breaker is either 15 amps or 20 amps, probably 20. Check the panel to make sure. \n\nNext find out how many outlets are hooked to that circuit breaker, turn it off and then find out how many outlets don't have power. Several rooms may be running off that one circuit breaker. \n\nNext, find out the total wattage of all the devices plugged into all those outlets. There will be a sticker on every device which lists either the amps or watts it uses. 20 amps = 2400 watts, and 15 amps = 1800 watts. So you could plug in 24 hundred watt lightbulbs before it would trip the circuit breaker.\n\nIf the device has the listing on the sticker in amps, then multiply that by the wall voltage (120v) to get watts. So a 120 watt light bulb running off of 120 volts, uses one amp. A 10 amp space heater would be using 1200 watts (10 amps x 120v).\n\nSo you have probably 2400 watts to use, and as long as you don't exceed that, you won't have any problems. Just remember that the power strips might also have a circuit breaker, so they could be limited to ten or 15 amps (1200 or 1800 watts).\n\nA good way to check is just to touch the power strip/power plug/power cord in several places. If it gets warm, thats okay. If it get so hot it's about to burn your hand when you grab it, that is NOT okay and you are overloading things. Same thing if you smell burnt plastic smell. You are overloading something and it's beginning to melt. \n\nYou can also buy a device at any hardware store called a WattMinder or WattMeter or something like that. I forget the exact name. You plug it into the wall outlet and plug the power strip into that and it gives you a digital readout of exactly how many watts you are using. Very handy thing to have around."
]
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[],
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||
8o89t6 | why is it that when driving in cruise control, going uphill feels like the car is going much faster when in reality it’s maintaining speed? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/8o89t6/eli5_why_is_it_that_when_driving_in_cruise/ | {
"a_id": [
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"text": [
"When the car is in cruise control it is monitoring and attempting, as you said, to maintain the speed it was set to. When you go up hill the car faces more resistance as it has to work against gravity more, so when in cruise control this causes the car to slow down, the car notices this and then attempts to accelerate, like if you pushed down on the gas, to maintain the speed. You are likely hearing the engine rev up which we usually associate with 'going fast,' but the car is just maintaining.",
"In my car (Pontiac Vibe), it's because the stupid cruise control is actually speeding you up. It'll accelerate up to 5 mph above what you set it, for reasons I can't divine. It likes to do this around bends too."
]
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[],
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||
608dui | why do car batteries only need to be charged when fully dead? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/608dui/eli5_why_do_car_batteries_only_need_to_be_charged/ | {
"a_id": [
"df4am8l",
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"text": [
"They are actually charged every time you drive. This happens with a machine called an alternator. \n\nWhen your car engine is running, it also turns a little electrical generator that helps keep the car battery charged. ",
"Car batteries are kept charged by the alternator, which is turned by the engine. 12-volts DC is the nominal voltage of a car battery. If it falls about 10% below this, your car won't work. So the battery isn't completely dead when it doesn't work, it just isn't near 12-volts DC. \n\nThis is true of even household batteries that you use in electronics. When they no longer work, they aren't completely void of any power, they're just not near their nominal rating for the device to work properly."
]
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[],
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||
eshckn | is there truly any way to get over non-seasonal allergies? | I am aware it is possible for some to "get over" allergies when they are younger, but are there any ways to get over non-seasonal allergies such as those to dust/animal fur in later years? Is it only possible to reduce the allergies? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/eshckn/eli5_is_there_truly_any_way_to_get_over/ | {
"a_id": [
"ff9xyjp",
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"text": [
"I got allergy shots for six years. Granted most of mine were seasonal or at least flared up in spring/fall. Now I’m very glad to get those because I rarely have to even take meds for it.",
"Yes when i was younger i was very allergic to dust, well actually allergic to dustmite shit, and i've gotten something called \"Hyposensibilisierung\" (thats the german word no idea whats the english one) where you get a shot of the thing you're allergic against at a small does kinda like a vaccine but you get it multiple times with bigger gaps between the longer you do it until you wait like 6 months for your last shot. And it actually helped me its not gone but it's greatly reduced",
"Immunotherapy is the process of getting micro doses of what causes allergies in the form of shots. Slowly over time your body builds up antibodies and you no longer have reactions to the allergens. At the clinic near me the process takes about 3 years."
]
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[],
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|
a0sqid | what’s the difference between forging and casting metals? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/a0sqid/eli5_whats_the_difference_between_forging_and/ | {
"a_id": [
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"text": [
"Forging involved hammering soft heated metal into the shape you want. Casting is pouring liquid metal into a mould and letting it cool.",
"Casting doesn’t have grain structure, which makes it weaker than something that is forged. _URL_0_:"
]
} | [] | [] | [
[],
[
"https://www.google.co.in/search?q=casting+vs+forging+diagram&rlz=1CDGOYI_enUS668US668&oq=casting+vs+forging+diagram&aqs=chrome..69i57.9462j0j9&hl=en-US&sourceid=chrome-mobile&ie=UTF-8#imgrc=r2WmrYqINwi1SM"
]
] |
||
28fxlu | what are the horizontal part (sleepers?) of a railway track for? and why can some sections of track not have them | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/28fxlu/eli5_what_are_the_horizontal_part_sleepers_of_a/ | {
"a_id": [
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"text": [
"They hold the rails at a fixed distance - without them, the trains would push them apart. If the railroad is built on concrete or other solid material (e.g. a railway crossing, or railroads in cities) then they're not needed because the ground provides enough stability.\n\nIf the ground is soft, they also keep the rails from sinking in because they have more surface than the rails.",
"They're railroad ties. They keep the tracks level and from sinking. They also make sure the tracks stay a uniform distance apart from one another."
]
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||
76wxin | why do android phones get slower over time even after a factory reset? | Often the common complaint would be of cache, data or new updated apps, but I've seen them get slower than a brand new phone even without any updated apps. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/76wxin/eli5why_do_android_phones_get_slower_over_time/ | {
"a_id": [
"dohbkyd"
],
"score": [
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"text": [
"This is just speculation tbh.\n\n\nOver time, the same applications on your phone consume more resources. This is because the rate technology improves is swift, and application devs are constantly keeping up. So say an app is currently built to run well on a phone with 1GB RAM. When phones with 2GB RAM become the norm, app devs feel comfortable giving their app a larger footprint on available resources.\n\n\nBut your phone still has 1GB. And the app and the OS both have progressed to being comfortable using more resources than before. Hence the difference in performance.\n\n\nEdit: Apparently this has been asked before and the answer is flash memory degradation"
]
} | [] | [] | [
[]
] |
|
f3xssm | when a computer says "scan and repair"; how does it repair? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/f3xssm/eli5_when_a_computer_says_scan_and_repair_how/ | {
"a_id": [
"fhnpukd"
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"score": [
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"text": [
"One other thing is repair tools are designed to implement a set of fixed “scripts/instructions” known to solve common problems. You can consider the scan and repair program to be a collection of known fixes that attempt to run and repair your system. Sometimes these tools can be helpful, sometimes they are not able to resolve the issue as it is dependent on the people writing the program to include the necessary bug fixes or configuration fixes."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[]
] |
||
1ub19z | judges and what happens to them after their rulings are repeatedly overturned. | So I see all the time judges making rulings and a higher court overturning them. Some judges more than others seem to have their rulings more frequently overturned than others, usually due to poor judgement of the first ruling.
What happens to judges who frequently make bad rulings? Do they face a review board or anything? Is there some sort of penalty?
What's to stop a judge from ruling any old whacky way once he gains the seat, aside from overturning his rulings? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1ub19z/eli5_judges_and_what_happens_to_them_after_their/ | {
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"text": [
"Alright, I'll try my best to explain it. \n\nFirst of all, law is a murky subject. There are many ways the same piece of law could be read by different people. Often the judge who has his opinion overturned read the law different than an appellate judge, but once the appellate court rules on it, the trial judge now has a framework for how to handle similar cases. \n\nCases are not overturned that often. The vast majority are not, because most topics in our legal system have been ruled on by appellate courts or set forth in clear terms by legislatures. \n\nThere are review boards in most states, but they only step in when Judges do off the wall things, that have ZERO basis in law. Most of the \"bad\" rulings you describe actually have some merit in the law as written, but lay people don't know the law like people trained to do so. \n\nJudges who make \"wacky\" rulings can be impeached. I recall a case of one judge in Georgia with no prior legal training who made rulings based on his judgment instead of the law. He was impeached, and I believe sent to jail for a few days. EDIT: I looked it back up. He did have prior legal training, but apparently had forgotten all of it when he became judge. He had no handle on basic legal concepts. For instance, he offered in Court to let a woman off a parking ticket if she paid him. \n\nThe thing to remember is this: Judges in appointed positions are trained legal professionals with years of experience (in most cases) and their judgments are based on law, whether you like them or not. Most \"bad\" rulings come from areas with elected judges, because anyone can register for the ballot without any training(varies by locale). This usually happens in uneducated, conservative areas, where people vote a party ticket.",
"Some jurisdictions (as in Florida) have elected judges who have to run for re-election. If they have \"performance problems\" (such as an inordinate number of cases being overturned), you can count on their opponents to trot them out prior to the election.",
"Judges have a career track that involves them getting appointed to increasingly higher courts. A judge whose rulings get overturned a lot isn't going to get better appointments.\n\nIf a judge is too bad, then can get appointed to courts where they have less influence, like traffic court. They can also be impeached. And many judged are elected, and can be voted out. "
]
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[],
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|
2qpii4 | - does gritting the road harm the environment? surely a massive increase in salt would alter the natural soil composition and harm the surrounding area/ecosystem? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2qpii4/eli5_does_gritting_the_road_harm_the_environment/ | {
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"text": [
"It does, yes, and for the exact reasons you mentioned too. The problem is, that the best alternative to salt is to use sand instead, but that doesn't get rid of the ice and also has to swept away again once the weather got warmer, which in turn makes it more expensive.",
"As well as being bad for the natural environment, it plays havoc with any metal reinforcing in the road or bridge structure. Many of the 'elevated' sections of roads in London are now rotting because no-one realised putting loads of salt on them every winter was a bad idea. ",
"It's actually funny that you say that. Here in wisconsin, we use a shit ton of salt, and it actually can help some plants like celery grow. Apparently there are people here that drive around in spring and get some road celery to eat? Idk why but I've seen it happen. "
]
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[],
[],
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||
5d7c4l | how to win radio station call-in contests? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5d7c4l/eli5_how_to_win_radio_station_callin_contests/ | {
"a_id": [
"da2cp2h",
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"score": [
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"text": [
"If its a small station call just before the end of the announcement, if its a large station call as soon as possible. \n\nAt a small station the announcer answers their own calls, at a large station a producer or panelist will answer the phone. \n\nSource I work in Radio.",
"Used to be a dj, always call as soon as it starts. At the one I worked at we had 6 phone lines to where as soon as I was off air I would answer the phone as such: \n\"Caller number 1 thanks for trying\" click etc. really it's just luck, but being those first few calls helps. Also listen at certain times, we always have our tickets at certain times of the day, so keep track of that to up your chances. "
]
} | [] | [] | [
[],
[]
] |
||
6nbmjn | why certain fruits and veggies taste crunchier after they're chilled | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/6nbmjn/eli5_why_certain_fruits_and_veggies_taste/ | {
"a_id": [
"dk88c7l"
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"text": [
"the fibrous cell structures within the plants become more rigid when they are cold. that rigidity gives them additional \"crispyness.\"\n\nit is similar to if you were to take a foam bed and turn the heat off in the room. the bed becomes much firmer. "
]
} | [] | [] | [
[]
] |
||
5t4pjp | it's said that a single strand of dna contains roughly 4 megabytes of information. how exactly do they know this and how are bytes convertible to something physical like base pairs? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5t4pjp/eli5_its_said_that_a_single_strand_of_dna/ | {
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"A bit is a binary digit. A byte is an 8 digit number, in binary.\n\nIn decimal, a ten digit number could represent a high count of something, or each digit could have it's own significance. For example, in a telephone number, where it really just represents what button to press. It's conceivable that every two digits could combine to represent something. Kind of like the first three in an American phone number represent a region.\n\nDNA is made up a discreet number of pairs of bases, no? The are four bases that bind in two different pairs. Even if it matters which is left and which is right, relative to something arbitrary (for instance the pairs of the entire preliminary length of the strand), it's all powers of two.\n\nSo in the case of DNA it would be pretty simple to convert to bits and bytes. Without even knowing specifically how many kinds of bases there are, or whether the chirality matters, as long as everything must pair up, each pair is represented by a strict number of bits, with no waste.\n\nI.e., if there are 4 bases I'll call a b c and d, but the pairs only form like ab and cd, then that's either 0 or 1 in binary. One digit covers all those possibilities. If chirality confess into play, so that relative to the first ab or cd, you can have ab ba cd or dc, then there are 4 possibilities, which are entirely grasped by two digits with no wasted digit.\n\nBy waste I mean, imagine if you had 5 possibilities. That would require 3 digits, but wouldn't use all the combinations of those 3.\n\nAlthough, even if the third digit is used, and a little bit a waste, it would still factor correctly into an amount of dat a, so that's somewhat moot.",
"Well, with only one of four nucleotides possible at any position on the strand (A, C, T, G), the nucleotide could be represented by a number 0, 1, 2 or 3, or the binary equivalent 00, 01, 10 or 11 (two bits per nucleotide). From there, it's just a matter of multiplying by the number of positions on the DNA strand for the total number of bits, and then dividing by eight to get bytes. The number still seems a bit off though, so perhaps I'm missing something.",
"Depends on what you mean by \"information\".\n\nIf we just say how much a *single* strand of DNA *could possibly encode*, it's ~750 MB. I agree with [this blogger's take](_URL_0_), and really reading that is better than an ELI5 here, probably, but...\n\n- The DNA code uses 4 \"code pieces\": A, T, C, and G. (They are teeny little bunches of specific atoms, such bunches are called \"bases\", and those letters stand for their names: adenine, thymine, guanine, cytosine).\n\n- To use binary code--just 0 and 1--to distinguish between four things, you have to do it like so: 00, 01, 10, 11. So say \"00\" = A, \"01\" = T, and so on. A single digit is one \"bit\", in binary code.\n\n- So therefore you use 2 bits for each letter. \n\n- There are 3 billion such letters in a *single* strand of DNA. (though the blogger talks about 2 strands, one each from mom and dad...that's why the answer there is twice as big).\n\n- 3 billion x 2 bits = 6 billion bits / 8 bits per byte = 750 million bytes = 750 Megabytes also called 750 MB.\n\nSo where does the 4MB come from? \n\nInformation is defined in information theory as basically \"that which we don't know\"--in the sense that if you tell me \"the sun will rise tomorrow\", you haven't told me any information, since I already know that. \n\nSome estimates state that all human DNA is 99.5% the same as everyone else's. So, under this interpretation of information, if I got a sample of your specific DNA, I'd only learn 0.5% new information compared to \"Joe Human's\" DNA.\n\nAnd 0.5% of 750 MB = 3.75 MB ≈ 4MB."
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2sedmd | why if the distance between two objects can always be halved, do they ever touch other? | Let's say I drive my car towards a wall. I am 10 meters away from it, half that distance to 5m, 2.5m, 1.25m, 0.625m etc. Surely I should never be able to touch it?
Numbers can get infinitely smaller, so does this not apply to physical distances?
Or is there a physical distance that cannot be made smaller?
From my mathematical brain 0.000000000000000000001mm is still bigger than 0.000000000000000000000000000000000001mm.
Does this not also apply to a time? Consider the same problem applied to a ticking clock.
I hope I have explained myself properly. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2sedmd/eli5why_if_the_distance_between_two_objects_can/ | {
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"In theory if you keep cutting the distance between two objects in half, they will not meet. I'm not sure what you are asking about though.\n\nHere's a little joke that is very relevant: \nA mathematician and an engineer are both told they can half the distance between themselves and a beautiful woman as many times as they want. The mathematician responds: \"I'll never get to her.\" The engineer says: \"I'll get close enough...\"",
"Two answers:\n\n1. You can't keep cutting matter in half. There are particles which are indivisible.\n2. Your idea of what it means to \"touch\" something only applies at the macro scale. On the quantum level, \"touching\" isn't a binary state in which two atoms are either touching or they're not. What's actually happening is that the closer two atoms get, the stronger the electromagnetic forces between the electrons and the protons in the atoms are felt. It's like trying to push together two repelling magnets that can never be touched together.",
"Because we don't move in half-distances, we move in whole ones. My steps are, say, 1 meter apiece, not 50% of the distance between me and my object. I'm not subdividing the distance, I'm subtracting it. Dividing the distance between me and the object is a model of movement that breaks down at very small distances.",
"Well if you want to get REAL technical about it, no two objects EVER actually touch due to the way electron clouds work. Even solids are made up of tightly packed, but essentially free floating atoms that never touch. Nuclei of atoms never touch, but reactions can take place that swap electrons and protons",
"None of these answers would appeal to a 5 year old. Let's get an answer in simple elementary English!",
"The answer is: calculus. You use calculus (specifically: limits) to determine that ½ + ¼ + ⅛ + ... is equal to 1. "
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41bkww | why do the facebook accounts of dead people or people who have not logged on in years all of a sudden start spamming sales for sunglasses? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/41bkww/eli5why_do_the_facebook_accounts_of_dead_people/ | {
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"My guess is since the password never changes anymore some bot brute forces the password and takes over the account."
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dgxks8 | why are some fairly modern commercial aircraft built with propeller engines instead of jets? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/dgxks8/eli5_why_are_some_fairly_modern_commercial/ | {
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"Propeller aircraft are usually less expensive for the same size and slightly more fuel efficient, although slower. Makes for a compelling argument for shorter routes without high demand, and some airlines such as Silver run almost exclusively propeller aircraft.",
"Not sure how modern is modern, but the Seattle-Portland route that Alaska flies is frequently serviced by Dash-8s or Q-400s, I believe. It was designed in 84, with the upgraded Q-400s coming out in the 90s.\n\nEdit: they are more fuel efficient and require a lot less runway to take off.",
"One thing to keep in mind is these are still jet engines, and not piston engines. They just don't use the jet stream for propulsion, but propellers connected to the engine via a shaft.\n\nThe reason is that propellers are more fuel efficient at speeds they operate at. Regular turbo-fan engines really need to be bigger to be efficient (thats why you see companies like Boeing trying to use the biggest engine possible in latest 737 models). They are also cheaper to produce and mantain.\n\nOne nice \"safety\" feature of using turbo-props (thats how their are named) is that you have very little power-lag in case of aborted approach. Because they regulate thrust by propeller angles, the engines are allways runnig at speeds, so there is no spool-up if you require thrust, you just need to change the angles.",
"TLDR: The aircraft are cheaper to operate and more efficient for short-haul flights.\n\nDisclaimer: I used to work for a commuter airline that operated only propeller driven aircraft.\n\nModern commuter aircraft use Turbo-props which are effectively small jet engines with a propeller attached to the front via a gearbox.\n\nTurboprops are considerably more expensive to build and maintain vs traditional piston engines but they are more powerful and much lighter. For aircraft weight is everything, as each pound you can potentially carry directly translates to profits.\n\nBut why turboprops instead of Turbofans (jets)?\n\nTurboprops use less fuel than Turbofans but consequently they also fly slower. What airlines discovered in the late 80's, early 90's is that passengers on commuter (short) flights were willing to take slightly longer flights if it meant paying less per ticket.\n\nTurboprop aircraft are more efficient for short haul flights. They are also less noisy which means they operate under less restrictions than jets.\n\nThey can also land in shorter distances, and even operate on gravel with fewer modifications making them better suited for operating out of smaller airports. Particularly in the far north where airstrips are mostly chip-stone/gravel.\n\nAll aircraft are very safe (statistically speaking you are hundreds of times more likely to die in the cab on the way to the airport) but *arguably* turbo-props are safer than jets because they can land in shorter distances, propellers are more responsive (less throttle lag than jets) and can fly at much slower speeds making them easier to handle in the case of an emergency.",
"Except for a few military planes, there are no jet planes. All the planes you name are turbofan or turboprop. A small jet core turns an air mover and that air thrust makes the plane go. The bigger the air mover, the more efficient. But, really big air movers are speed limited, you don't want the tips to break the speed of sound.\n\nIf you're willing to go slower, turboprop saves gas. If you want to go faster you enclose the propeller in a duct to make a turbofan. It costs more and needs more gas, but it's faster."
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3n7cgr | how were languages created? did we just get better at grunting? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3n7cgr/eli5_how_were_languages_created_did_we_just_get/ | {
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"Yes, we got better at grunting.\n\nBut to say \"developed independently all over the world\" is a bit misleading.\n\nA group of people that speak A all lived together, but then some moved away and over time the languages changed, and now you have two different languages, A and B because they were so far apart geographically they couldn't keep eachother up to date.\n\nFrench, english, spanish, german, all have similar origins, so they were not independent in the beginning. It is not like different languages spontaneously happened.\n\nThe language's change is very much like evolution of the species, and in essence there was no \"creation\" for languages either. Radical changes take a LOT of time.",
"More like a big \"chicken and egg\" thing going on as our brains developed, I think. Getting better at grunting helped us make more sounds. More sounds mean the ability to convey more information. Passing information is really useful if you're a social, cultural species with a brain that can make use of it; it means you can do much more complex things as a group, and more efficiently. So developing a vocal system that can make lots of different sounds is really useful. So you get better at grunting. And round it goes.\n\nIf you're really interested in how language might have developed, though, you could do worse than go read about Nicaraguan Sign Language. In a nutshell, NSL is the nearest we have to an real example of a language emerging spontaneously from next to nothing (among a group of deaf school children in Nicaragua in the 1970s onwards). What's fascinating is the way in which succeeding \"generations\" of children passing through the school rapidly deepened the complexity and subtlety of their signing, from a very basic pidgin into a full-blown language with all the sorts of grammar subtleties you'd expect to see in one. However language started out, it's clearly something we're very strongly adapted to make use of.",
"At first I thought the post said \"Did we just get better at hunting?\" and I thought, hey that's probably right. We would of started making different noises to mean different things in hunting situations. Maybe that is a cause for its beginnings?",
"A lot of people are claiming much more certainty than we have on the topic. We'll never really know how language developed initially - there are a huge range of theories, which you can find a summary of [here](_URL_0_).\n\nOnce the first language(s) developed, basically people would speak a language, get separated from other people, and their languages would naturally diverge. \n\nOne of the most prominent language families is Indo-European. A group of people, the Proto-Indo Europeans (PIE), seemed to have some advantage (possibly horsemanship) that allowed them to spread from their original homeland somewhere on the border of Asia and Europe to inhabit almost everything from Portugal to northern India, excepting some parts of Scandinavia and Eastern Europe which speak Finno-Urgic Languages (thanks /u/tarvaina for the correction!). The only non-Indo European language in South Western Europe is Basque, which is the last remnant of a now mostly extinct language family. People were either displaced or (more likely) learned the new language of a conquering people. PIE language then diverged as separate pockets stopped speaking to each other. One of those pockets, for instance, became Latin. Latin spread over Europe with the conquests of the Roman empire, but then when the Empire collapsed, people stopped speaking to people from other regions, so Latin became French, Portuguese, Italian, Spanish etc.\n\nEdit: added Finno-Urgic Languages as per /u/tarvaina",
"One interesting theory is that the first languages actually used gestures rather than sounds. The idea is that complex communication started as pantomime - you would act out a story to tell others about some event. Over time these acts were reduced to hand gestures, while vocalisations and facial expressions started to convey more and more of the message. According to this theory, the way modern humans use their hands during speech is a remnant of ancient gestural communication.\n\nHere's an article which makes the argument more fully: _URL_0_",
"You see, following the Great Flood, a united humanity all lived together in the Tower of Babel and spoke the same language. Then God scattered us and confounded our speech.",
"Yup.\n\nExcept French. French was formed from hate and bad Italian cheese over a three day bender.",
"Watching a toddler grow from grunting noises to almost-complete sentences over the last year has been absolutely fascinating for me.\n\nIt's not a direct parallel for the development of our species into one that could communicate with more and more complexity, but it's definitely an insight.\n\nIt begins with nouns. You can point at a thing and then at your mouth to signify that you want to eat it, but if you can't see the thing, you need to be able to metaphorically point at it. That's what words are for.\n\n\"Biscuit!\" said while pointing at the mouth is a much more flexible form of communication.\n\nBeyond nouns lie more abstract concepts. It's just fascinating to watch a toddler grasp \"outside\" or \"raining\" or \"hot\", and then start to combine them. There is a definite pause between them still, but my toddler can now say \"Cat! Downstairs!\" or \"Shoes on! Outside!\" to make himself understood.\n\nOnce the basic building blocks are in place, you can then start stitching them together in more nuanced ways. \"What's catty doing?\" is a complete sentence. \"Where's mummy?\" displays a grasp of concepts like the existence of places and people beyond current sight. \n\nI guess what I'm trying to say is that there is real continuity in the development of his language. There is no sudden leap of intuition where one day he's not talking and the next he is. It's a distinctly gradual process of knitting together simple concepts into more complex ones as his brain develops, and I imagine humanity has done something similar on a much larger scale.\n\nI don't know that that's a very scientific answer to your question, but perhaps it's one that's still appropriate for ELI5!",
" > From what I understand, languages developed all over the world independently from one another. \n\nThis is wrong: _URL_0_\n\nAnd it is likely that those different language families are also related to each other. It is just extremely hard to trace back more than 5,000 years.\n\nModern humans exist for 100,000-200,000 years. Meaning that for at least 100,000 years, humans have the same cognitive abilities as we have today. And humans most likely even spoke more than 200.000 years ago.\n\nIt is quite likely that all languages are derivatives of a very old (way older than 10,000 years) language. Note that languages changed very fast back then. For example, German and English are about 1500 years apart. And English and German are still very similar. That is because there were many many thousand of Germans and English people who carried their language to the next generation with only little changes. In pre-historic times, people lived in small tribes. Meaning, langues change fast because smaller groups are more \"dynamic\". After just 200 years of a tribe splitting up in two tribes, their languages would probably already be more different than German and English. And after 1000 years, even linguists would have a hard time to see that those tribes spoke the same language 1000 years ago.\n\n > How rapidly did this happen,\n\nIt happened kinda fast in terms of evolutionary times. From a chimpanzee-like grunting creature to modern humans in just 6 mio years is fast.\n\nBut it was definitively not like that we all grunted, and suddenly one smart ape invented words and thousand years later we had a language like today. It took many ten or even hundred thousands of years.\n\n > and was it just a result of us learning to make complex sounds with our mouths?\n\nIt was a result of brain development. You can be sure that as soon as our brain was capable of speaking a language, that we also did. Nature does not waste resources. Having a brain that is able to speak, but does not, is a wast of energy. Maybe it was even the need to communicate that caused our brain to develop.\n\nPoint is: The important part was the brain, not the mouth. Of course you need both, but developing the brain was the \"hard\" part.\n\nAnd this all happened way before humans left Africa.",
"When we talk about language change, we are talking about how individual languages change, rather than the mental faculty itself. Latin became Spanish and French because pronunciation changed and meanings shifted while those groups were isolated from each other. \n\nThe evolution of language occurred on a far longer time scale. No doubt it involved a lot of language change, but to go from grunting to Latin, you need a lot of evolution reshaping your species' brains.\n\nAll languages may or may not have descended from a common super ancient language, which would in turn have developed from something simpler which we would not a call language. The important thing is to understand that all this can happen without conscious creation. Languages don't need to get invented: mistakes, changes in pronunciation, compounds, and intuitions reshape language naturally. ",
"It all started with sweat glands! Sweat glands allowed humans to run further than any other animal. To day humans are still the fastest long distance runners on the plannet. We weren't able to, outrun a deer in 100 feet, but if we kept chasing it we would eventually exhaust and overheat it and thus be able to eat it. This hunting style relied on multiple people chasing after the animal. So societies that could find a way to organize and communicate quickly were able to eat more as they were able to make more effective strategies for outrunning the prey. A society with different grunts meaning different things was able to make better plans and thus they got to eat more. After a while this turned into language!",
"The origin of human language remains a scientific mystery, but OP makes a reasonable guess that the ability to articulate more sounds over time was what marks a change from primitive language to complex language, and that the earliest behaviors that we would recognize as language-like probably occurred in more than one community, and that both the separation of nomadic groups and their occasional contact sped up the cultural evolution that is concomitant with the rise of language.\n\nA great deal of the question depends on how smooth the evolutionary process occurs. If you are a Daniel Dennett, you think it was very smooth, and view the \"language organ\" the same as you view an eye or a wing, e.g. incrementally developing from a succession of barely useful adaptations/mutations that still granted a smidgen of survival/reproductive success. If you are a Steven Jay Gould, you see infrequent, but often profound hiccups in the evolutionary process, and a more complex organ develops more rapidly.\n\nI actually posed a similar question to Gould when he came for a lecture at my university (just a few months before he died), and his answer was a little cryptic: he referred to the \"evolution of computational propensities\", which I took to mean that language evolved somewhat parasitically on the back of the rise of human intelligence generally.\n\nMost people believe that language-as-we-know-it developed fairly rapidly (compared to eyes, wings, etc.), and that the critical period corresponds to the end of the last ice age, and the changes in proto-human social behavior that were required for survival. Hunting, tool-making, primitive agriculture, must have required a lot of coordination, with hierarchical social structures developing. Primitive religious practice - animism - helps account for abstraction in language.\n\nSince the earliest proto-humans are so close genetically, and the earliest homo sapiens essentially our genetic equal, it's logical to assume that all the hardware for modern language was in place, and so it simply took the rise of complex culture and early civilization to cause larger areas of our cognitive capacities to be concerned with expression.\n\nA favorite quasi-theory about language origins - which perhaps could ascribed to Steven Pinker - holds that some language behavior is truly innate (e.g. calling mom \"mama\" has something to do the pursing of lips related to breast-feeding), some language is based on mimicry of nature (e.g. onomatopoeia), and some language is purely a human invention, a tool in the strictest sense (e.g. religious utterances like \"Amen!\" or \"Om...\" - which originate in ritualized breathing). Though not Pinker's idea, it is sometimes speculated that discovering edible psychotropic substances ('shrooms, marijuana, fermented mold on wheat, etc.) was instrumental in the genesis of religion and language alike.\n\nAnother point to make is that there were specific changes in proto-human physiology which are directly implicated in the origin of language. Walking upright, and eating upright, required a different kind of throat, which just happens to correspond to the period when grunts gave way to a wider selection of vocal articulations. Also, the human diet becoming more iodine-rich (e.g. with organized hunting) and diversified (with agriculture) allowed us to use the brains we had more efficiently - and obviously increased life-spans, so that when you have old tribal elders, you've effectively increased the cultural heritage, and have the origination of history.\n\n(Sorry for wall of text - diachronic linguistics was my specialty before going into philosophy. But I have one more point.)\n\nAll of the above is fine and good until you take Darwin to a logical end-point. There is language-like behavior all across the biospheres. Birds, bees, ants, dolphins, whales, even flowers - and maybe even velociraptors according to Jurassic Park. The way Dennett approaches this observation is basically to grok \"meaning\" in language-like behavior to be akin to the way a thermometer \"tells\" us the temperature. It's an interpretative stance, that we made up by painting the lines on the thermometer. ",
"English is not only becoming global but also intergalactic. Heaps of science programs I've seen have alien life forms speaking in English or f not they have an alien that can translate and create English subtitles at least. \n",
"Just had a lecture about this in my Anthropology class, from what I understand there was a mutation in the FOXP2 gene in humans that allowed for us to have advanced tongue and mouth movements-- something that is pretty much exclusive in nature to humans. ",
"Noam Chomsky has a lot to say on the subject of the formation of language. He kind of blew my mind by suggesting that the purpose language isn't for communication. It is actually a \"mode of creating and interpreting thought\". You can see him talking about it here: _URL_0_\n\nIn this context the question becomes more of at what point did our brains advance to where we required language to organize our thoughts?",
"Parasites that attach to the vocal cords needed nutrients from a host and these particular parasites chose humans as a viable host to receive sustenance. In return the vocal cord parasites allowed our speech patterns to evolve until we no longer needed them to learn. Skull face plans on using these parasites to wipe out all language. Causing a kind of cleansing of sorts.",
"Here's a really great recent review of the status of research into the origins of human language: _URL_0_",
"A man named Code Talker once told me about these vocal cord parasites that caused the human larynx to evolve...",
"Languages evolve like species. Like species, isolation is important in allowing them to split off from one another. But the rate at which language changes is much faster than the rate of change due to mutation in organisms, so you end up with tens of thousands of different languages spoken by members of the same species that have spread out across the globe.\n\nAs of relatively recently, we have globalization. Languages aren't isolated. That's why most of the world's languages are now dying out. There are something like 60,000 languages still living, but like 90% of people on earth speak one of the most common 20.",
"I remember asking this same question in primary school, the teacher plus all the students laughed at me, I'll never forget that shitbag teacher.",
"A simple question with an incredibly complex answer. If you read Richard Dawkins' *The Selfish Gene*, it explains in a way how languages formed. \n\nI don't remember if it actually talked about languages, but it does talk about memes. Yes, memes. In fact, it was Richard who coined the term meme, derived from the word mimeme, which means 'self replicating thing' \n\nQuite literally, everything that is not is not a gene/biological, that self replicates (ideas, stories, tales, religions, *languages*), IS a meme. Memes self replicate in the same way genes do. The stronger memes persist. Some live longer than others, like Success Child or the boogyman. Some live short, but have huge impact, like Gangnam Style or Woodstock. \n\nLanguages are no exception, and, other than religions, are probably one of the 'longest living' memes in human history. Memes can even evolve in a same way biological life forms do. In fact, if you compare languages to evolving beings, you will see some very similar things, and you can probably understand just exactly how they formed. \n\nThe way I think of it is that, yes, it started out as sounds. There was some point in our evolution that we adopted the ability to recognize perhaps tones or intents in grunts. Kind of like how your dog might not know *what* you're saying, but understands your intent based on your tone (you could call your dog all kinds of nasty names in the nicest tone ever, and he will just wag his tail and get excited). \n\nIf you think back when primates were adapting the ability to use tools and hunting spears, certain sounds and yells were better at warning others than other sounds. It also depended on the region. Certain sounds and yells might travel better in a mountainous area than a flat desert, for example. Since certain language traits were better at certain things, and in certain regions, we got different languages based on region, and even different dialects of the same language. \n\nEarly on, communication was simply a primary means of just that - communicating. Perhaps not speaking exact words, but rather shouting certain sounds to convey certain meanings to other primates. A cry for help would be different than a cry from fear, or a shout to get another's attention.",
"Languages R own Lee words oar noises. \n\nAh brains yous passed eggs-peer-eons two under stand the me-nin.\n\nTheir moor Weir ewe sing it the moor we our understanding it.\n\nIt's the same way children learn.\n\nRepetition.",
"We did get better at grunting, *so to speak.* Essentially, we experimented in many of the same ways babies do, but not as fast. And we only had each other to learn off. Remember the sounds. We required labels for things. Grunting and gestures were not sufficient to encapsulate all the idea's and things. It took thousands and thousands and thousands of years to develop, because it took the human brain many thousands and millions of years to develop too.\n\nLanguage is evolving even now. Look at all the additional nouns and adjectives we're creating. Yes, many of these are not technically 'dictionary' level but, given enough usage and it becomes part of the corpus. \n\nIt's quite exciting really, not just to see where we started and how long it took to progress from basic plosive, glottal sounds, to much more complex sounds where a label for something requires a string of syllables. \n\nAnother thing with developing language is also perception. To be aware of third person, and gender and time and so on. To be able to categorise these concepts through voice and then to further capture this in written/drawing form. \n\nLanguage truly is humanities greatest achievement. The more advanced our brain becomes, so shall our language. It's one of the many reasons I hold high regard for languages such as Japanese and Chinese.\n\n((Kept it simple. Studied linguistics so didn't want to ramble on about the technicals!))",
"There was these guys who got help from satan to build a portal into heaven, in the process God made languages so they couldn't understand each other.",
"From what I remember of my western Civ class we started to get more rules for language after we started building villages and living in one spot instead of roaming around. It started with symbols for certain objects and then grew more complex as their technology did. Language I believe was similar, in that it started with people using verbal sounds to communicate certain things. Much like animals might do for predators or mating. Over time that would've grown more complex, especially when written language came into play",
"This is important, because many smart folks have noticed that there are three important time periods for mankind's evolution. The first, was 250 thousand years ago, or around then. This is when our bodies stopped evolving. We became fit for our niche. Skeletons from this time period are more or less indistinguishable to us today.\n\nThen, again, 50 thousand years ago, another event occurred. The Toba catastrophe. This event proves my previous statement, because despite enormous natural selection pressures which drove our species down to as few as a thousand or so people, we did not have any major changes in our physiology. In a sense, our fit status proved itself by not changing through this event. However, even though our bodies didn't change, our minds did. For one reason or another, the Toba catastrophe gave us a spark that made us the intelligent, sapient, sentient beings we are today. Prior to the Toba catastrophe, mankind's greatest achievement was fire and rock cutting tools. Things that even our ape cousins can pull off from time to time. After the Toba catastrophe, we were making art, stories, sculpture, farms, homes, villages, governments, and everything we have today. The academic term for this event, is Behavioral Modernity. It is thought that language first began being experimented with at this time. Limited to mostly just symbols on rock.\n\nHowever, research into when exactly language, spoken that is, began, is a bit difficult to locate. We know that the FOXP2 gene is partially responsible, and some research indicates it became widespread around 50k-20k years ago. The gene itself seems to have begun in Africa or India, and spread throughout the human species over the subsequent tens of thousands of years.\n\nIt is important to realize that humans are not as isolated as we like to think. In fact, an Englander is more genetically related to an isolated pacific islander on Easter Island, than two ape communities in the same forest are. Human migration has never truly stopped. If you are white, you have indian dna in you from a migration wave a few thousand years ago. if you are Chinese, you have Polynesian dna in you from a wave a few thousand years ago, etc etc.\n\nWith each wave, comes the genes from the host population. FOXP2 probably spread throughout the human species about 20k years ago.\n\nFor this reason, you are not wrong to state languages developed all over the world independently, but you are not right, in the sense that primitive language spread through these migration waves many eons before those current languages developed. In fact, there is even a little evidence that Neanderthals learned a word or two from us.\n\nIn order to make this super easy, here's a diagram:\n\n100k-50-k: Hominid populations spread out of Africa\n\n50k: true humans leave Africa, subsequently likely contributing to the extinction of all other hominid groups in their way.\n\n30k-20k: FOXP2 mutations begin to exit Africa on later human waves, bleeding into the local populations.\n\n20k-10k: Environmental changes somewhat cause a cold restart of human development. Subsequent migration waves carry advanced languages with them. Languages as they are today, can be broken up into basically a handful of families, suggesting that they all came from a primitive master-tongue that humans were speaking before the environmental changes.\n\n10k-5k: Languages start to form local identities from the previous language families. Environmental stability leads to human societies being established all across the world. simultaneously. Any river valley with some fertile lands leads to a civilization.\n\n5k-1k: Cyclical rise and falls of societies cause \"hubs\" to develop where languages firmly root themselves. \"Latin\", \"Germanic\", \"Sino\", etc etc. These language groups form out of the cultural primordial soup of the last couple thousand years.\n\n1K-present: Unusual stability leads to the formal establishment and codification of language groups into formal grammatical societies and dictionaries. Language development is frozen, other than a few dank memes.",
"It's probably wrong or there is a lot more to it but this theory always interested me. People learning to talk from mushroom tripping ancestors.\n\n[Stoned Ape Theory](_URL_0_)",
"Might be too late for you to see this, but to piggyback off the top post... We got better at grunting because we had to. Imagine being a group trying to hunt a large animal and having to work as a team. Language (probably) developed as a means to coordinate hunts, and then slowly evolved and improved from there.",
"Yeah, it is interesting to know as well. My old man can be quite lazy at home in front of the tv at times and just grunt and point to make his point across. Growing up with him meant that we had to learn which grunt meant, \"Go out and buy me some snacks. The money is on the table.\", or \"Make me some snacks\" or \"Pass me that pillow\" or \"Quietly, go out and buy some snacks and dont tell mom\" or \"Move over, I want to lie down and pass me that remote\" or \"Let's order pizza. And dont tell mom\".\n\nAh, I miss my dad.",
"What I'm more curious about is when we developed the *ability* to speak languages.\n\nIf we magically took an infant born 200,000 years ago and brought him into the present, would he be able to speak like us?"
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aldva3 | why does your average sport player not get the serious injuries commonly suffered by professionals? | Why do I not rupture my anterior cruciate ligament playing football in the park? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/aldva3/eli5_why_does_your_average_sport_player_not_get/ | {
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"Probably just because professionals do it way more often and probably way more intensely than you. Lots of high school sports players get injured frequently.",
"Your average sports player does not have the strength and speed of a professional sports player nor are they competing against other professional sports player. Force equals mass times acceleration. The faster you're going and the more mass you have, the more strain it puts on you when you suddenly stop or say, plant on a foot and try to turn.",
"People still do, but what people also don't realize is that the movements that cause some ACL tears require a great deal of athleticism. You aren't running, cutting, planting, and spinning with nearly the same force, speed, and quickness that professional athletes do. It's those weird movements that lead to injuries.",
"People are talking about intensity but frequency is just as important. You play a couple hours once/week. Professional athletes are playing their sport 40+ hours/week. They may get injured at a higher rate (ie one ACL injury per 500 hours of training for an athlete vs. one per 1000 hours for you and you never hit the threshold) and as noted below, nobody is writing a news story about how /u/itravelforchurros/ knee injury is going to affect his team's chances, so there's recall bias at play too."
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5taus9 | how do usb/hdmi/displayport keep getting faster? | Are they making new discoveries? If so what are they? Or are they simply making thicker cables?
Eg.
HDMI 2.0 -- > HDMI 2.1 went from 18Gbit/s to 48Gbit/s
USB 3.0 -- > USB 3.1 went from 5Gbit/s to 10Gbit/s
DisplayPort 1.2 -- > 1.3 went from 17.28 Gbit/s to 32.4Gbit/s
This was last look at [5 years ago](_URL_0_) with speeds doubling again do those answers hold up? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5taus9/eli5how_do_usbhdmidisplayport_keep_getting_faster/ | {
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"Improvements in various things. For example in HDMI the speed increase is associated with a higher clock rate. Much like faster processors increased in Mhz, and into Ghz.\n\nHDMI Max Clock frequency to Data throughput\n\n - HDMI 1.0 - 1.2: 165mhz = 4.95Gbps\n\n - HDMI 1.3 - 1.4: 300mhz = 10.2Gbps\n\n - HDMI 2.0: 600mhz = 18Gbps\n\n - HDMI 2.1: ?? Spec not out to public or vendors yet, [here is some speculation though](_URL_0_).\n\nThis increase in clock speed is kind of like increasing the speed limit on the road. If the speed limit goes up from 25mph to 50mph, twice as many cars can go down that road.\n\nThere are various reasons that increasing the frequency of the signal is difficult, and just gets harder the higher the frequency gets.\n\nSometimes bandwidth increases come from adding pins/wires. This is like adding another set of lanes to that 25mph road. More lanes, more cars.\n\n"
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"http://www.bluejeanscable.com/articles/hdmi-2-1-cable-48g.htm"
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3qyfno | how is work outsourced to other countries without massive outrage from the outsourcing country? | Obviously in the 40s the USA relied heavily on their own industrial needs due to war, yet 70 yrs later the textile industry is nearly all centered in Asia. I understand the cost of cheap labor but how was there not a riot over people losing their jobs/industry? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3qyfno/eli5how_is_work_outsourced_to_other_countries/ | {
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"Because of the cheaper prices. If a company can pay people less, then the price of their product can be reduced. That's not to say there is no outrage - it's just limited to the workers in that particular industry. For the average customer, they just are happy to have the cheaper price and don't really think about why it's cheaper. Especially if their job is not affected by it.",
"I grew up in northern Indiana. Many people were upset when the steel industry started moving jobs over seas. The thing is it was a slow process. They did not do it all at once so it was not as noticeable. Also a lot of people did receive compensation for losing there job. An example would be being able to retire earlier with full benefits. ",
"Politicians deflect the outrage to illegal immigrants while their corporate owners continue outsourcing jobs and maximizing profits. ",
"One thing to remember is that just because some jobs/industries are lost, doesn't mean others aren't gained. The US has a much larger service industry now than manufacturing. So people may have been laid off from their textile job, but there isn't much outrage if they can go and find another job without much difficulty"
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146cvo | gene mapping, and the human genome project. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/146cvo/eli5_gene_mapping_and_the_human_genome_project/ | {
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"**TL;DR - I freaking love biochemistry and explaining things**\n********\n\n**Explained Simply** \n\nYou have DNA, which is a mixture of 4 chemical \"bases\", known as Cytosine (C), Guanine (G), Thymine (T) and Adenine (A). DNA itself is made of two long strands (*double stranded*) with Cytosine binding to Guanine, and Thymine binding to Adenine. Thus DNA is a long length of C-G and T-A links. Because of this, we only need to look at one strand of DNA to know what the other strand looks like. \n\nWhen we map a gene, we break down the gene into the DNA strands and try to determine the \"sequence\" of one of them - that is, which bases are present, and in what order? Each base can bind a specific chemical, which usually fluoresces when a specific light is shone on it. In the end, we have a large length of DNA to which we can work out it's complimentary second strand. \n\nWhen you have a lot of genes together, they can form a chromsome. They need some help from other chemicals, such as histones, but basically a chromosome is a large number of genes together. Most people have 23 copies - or 46 chromosomes. The reason you have copies, is that you have one set from your mum, and the other from dad. As well as this, one set of them are your sex chromosomes - which are known as either X or Y. If you get two X - you're a girl. If you get an X and Y - you're a guy! You can't get two Y's - but you're clever for thinking that. \n\nThe Human Genome Project was an idea set forth in the 1990's which had the aim of characterising and sequencing every gene in the human body. That meant taking all the DNA from a person, and using the process described above to work out the sequences. In the end, about 20,000 to 25,000 genes were discovered, but we don't know what half of them do! It's like knowing that one gene can contribute to the colour of your hair, but if you have that gene and it's identical to your friend's gene, it doesn't mean you'll have the same hair colour. \n\nOther methods of gene mapping depend upon your knowledge of biochemistry. Essentially you can do what's called a \"shotgun\" sequence approach, where you take a gene, isolate the DNA within it and then copy it a lot. It has recently gotten a LOT easier to copy DNA (look up a process called Polymerase Chain Reaction). Then you break all those DNA copies up in different places, and then see where each bit of the DNA matches up with other parts - kinda like break 3 or 4 rulers into pieces and then matching up based on the number of centimetres they have. Once you've determined the overlapping, you can \"walk\" your way from one end to the other, working out the bases as you go, using chemicals.\n\n\n********\n**ELI5**\n\nWhat colour hair do you have? Is it the same as your mothers? Does your dad have the same colour eyes as you? What about your best friend? All of these are because of your \"genes\". Genes are the little things inside of you that make you different from everyone else. Genes themselves are made up of DNA. \n\nA while ago, a couple of clever fellows made a model of DNA. Their model used four letters: C, G, T and A. DNA is a whole bunch of those letters mixed up in a long, long row - and if you have enough of them, you can make a gene! \n\nWhen we want to \"map\" a gene, we have to work out the long sequence of letters (What were they again? C, G, T and A!), which is very specific! First, we have to take out the DNA from you. Don't worry - you have a lot of it! Then we cut it up and add some colours. Each colour will find a letter (C, G, T and A) and stick to it! Then we work out which letters are next to each other, until we reach the end of the gene. \n\nIn the 1990's, long before you were born, some people decided to work out the DNA sequence of every gene in everyone's body! They took some DNA from a lot of people, and did exactly what you just learned. Guess how many genes there were? OVER 20,000! Some of these genes will decide what colour hair you have, or your eye colour. Some may actually help you be tall, or short, or big, or small. \n"
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5j26us | why is snow soft | If snow is just frozen water why does it not rain chunks of ice | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5j26us/eli5_why_is_snow_soft/ | {
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"Moisture in the atmosphere is water vapor. When the temperature is low enough, the molecules of water condense but also freeze simultaneously in ice crystal structures rather than forming together into a water droplet THEN freezing (which would obviously result in hail). These ice structures are much less dense than actual chunks of ice, and when they fall to the ground, they stick to each other rather than compress and merge (that is, until they're compacted forcibly together, or melt is warmer surface temperatures)."
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3ztcvm | why do motorcycles redline at ~14 k rpm, but most everyday cars redline at ~7 k rpm | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3ztcvm/eli5_why_do_motorcycles_redline_at_14_k_rpm_but/ | {
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"Small parts can move faster, and motorcycle engines usually have a short stroke. They are generally optimized for maximum horsepower, while car and truck engines place a greater importance on torque at low RPMs for moving heavy loads from a standstill. Modern sportbike engines are also significantly more advanced that automotive engines, due to looser regulations and a horsepower war that's been going on for decades.\n\nHardley-Davidsons only rev to 6,000, by the way, but their V-twin is based on an engine design that was obsolete in the 1940's. They ride like a truck on two wheels though...instant torque.",
"I'm going to assume you know how a 4 stroke engine works in this post,if not there's thousands of youtube videos that explain it\n\nBecause you don't want a car that redlines at 14,000 RPMs. Motorcycles are lightweight and don't require much power to accelerate; cars on the other hand have lots of inertia and are meant to be driven around in stop and go traffic so you need to be able to make enough power to safely accelerate from low RPMs.\n\nComponents on a motorcycle engine are much smaller and therefore have much less inertia so you can go from 2,500 RPMs to 10,000 RPMs with a blip of the throttle. The valvetrain of a motorcycle is also designed to withstand high RPMs. If you overspeed a car's engine (drop it into too low of a gear at too high of a speed and release the clutch) the biggest danger is something called valve float. This occurs when the valve springs don't shut the valves quick enough and the pistons strike the open valves damaging them. Motorcycles, which have to cope with much higher RPMs have stiffer valve springs. Since the valve springs are stiffer it makes it harder to turn, you increase parasitic loss from the valvetrain and increase wear and tear. That's why you don't necessarily want stiffer valve springs on a car.\n\nHowever, if you did for whatever reason decide to upgrade your valve springs to stiffer ones, the other problem you run into is volumetric efficiency. When engineers design an engine for a street driven car, they want an engine with a flat torque curve. That is, when you floor it at 3,000 RPMs you accelerate roughly the same as you would when you hold it at 5,000 RPMs. This makes the car driveable on normal road conditions since you don't want to constantly be shifting gears. If valve float were not an issue, volumetric efficiency becomes one. At too high of an engine speed the airflow into the cylinders gets less and less efficient. That is, when you floor it at 3,000 RPMs when the piston moves down during the intake stroke it draws in more air than it would at 7,500 RPMs. Cars rely on something called the scavenging effect to maximize the air drawn in during each stroke; when exhaust gasses leave the cylinder they leave in 3 pulses:\n\n1. The first pulse occurs when the valve begins to open and the cylinder pressure equalizes with the pressure in the exhaust manifold\n2. The majority of the gasses come out in this pulse when the piston rises to expel the gasses out the cylinders\n3. This is where that extra umf comes in, scavenging. The exhaust valve stays open while the piston moves down during the intake stroke and while the intake valve is slightly open. The exhaust gasses inside the exhaust system have inertia and want to move towards the muffler, while both valves are still open the exhaust gasses scavenge some of the air inside the cylinder out that would otherwise remain trapped if the exhaust valve closed the instant the intake valve opens\n\nThe amount of time both the intake valve and exhaust valve remain open is called overlap, the more overlap you have the harder it is for the engine to operate at low RPMs but the more power you make at high RPMs. This is what gives old muscle cars the distinctive rumbling sound at idle. Motorcycles tend to have slightly more overlap than street cars. Motorcycles also tend to have shorter intake runners which also contribute to a higher revving engine.",
"Try this - hold something - say, an orange - in your hand. Swing it back and forth through about 12 inches, as fast as you can. You can definitely feel the resistance to changing direction. OK. A piston in an engine running at 6,000 rpm is reversing direction 100 times PER SECOND! It really, really doesn't \"want\" to do that. It's yanking and pushing on that connecting rod with all the \"First Law of Motion\" it can muster. Those \"forces\" increase with mass (size?) and increase exponentially with speed. So, given that they are made of similar materials, smaller parts can do it faster than bigger parts, before they destroy themselves.",
"Long stroke engines generate more torque, torque being raw twisting power. In order for the piston to move up and down really far (stroke), the crank pins need to be further away from the center of the crank shaft (crank pins are where the connecting rods connect to the crank shaft, then the other end of the connecting rods connect to the piston). The crank arms offset the crank pins from the center of the crankshaft. So ultimately, the longer the crank arms the are the longer the stroke is. \n\nOkay, now that that's out of the way, I shall use a little analogy. Imagine you are working on your car and have to remove a few bolts. One of them has corroded and rusted and you're having a really hard time removing it, no matter how hard you push on the wrench. You decide to grab a way longer wrench and with that you're finally able to break it loose and remove the bolt. This is because of leverage, you were able to apply way more twisting power on the bolt with a longer wrench. So just imagine instead of a longer wrench you have longer crank arms, and when the piston is forced down from the gas exploding it applies more twisting power on the crank shaft. This means more torque is generated.\n\nThis has turned out to be rather long winded, I hope you're following me so far! Cars are pretty heavy compared to motorcycles and need a lot more torque to get them to start moving. So car engines need to have longer strokes compared to motorcycle engines. Unfortunately this means the pistons need to travel a lot faster in order to complete the stroke, and faster moving parts mean more friction, and more friction means more heat and wear. This is bad and is why long stroke engines can't rev up as high as a motorcycle engines can.\n\nHigh revving motorcycle engines have very short strokes. Those bikes only weigh 400 pounds, so they don't need much torque to get them to start moving. But if you were to take that same engine and put it in a heavy car you would have a hard time just getting off the line, there's just not much power at low RPM. But because these engines can rev up super high they are able to generate a crap ton of horsepower at high RPM, especially for their small size, which makes them awesome for racing. The draw back here is that they are dog slow until you hit the 9,000 mark. \n\nDoes this help at all?",
"Short version:\n\nAn engine contains parts which need to change the direction they are moving in frequently. A small engine (such as an MC) has smaller parts. Smaller parts can change direction quicker without the forces becoming too large. If the forces becomes too large, you'll get vibrations and possibly failure.",
"Jesus...I googled this, and the first response was this same fucking question asked and answered over a year ago on this very same shitty site. _URL_0_\n\nHere you go you lazy liberal fuck."
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cx0il2 | why do people cook with alcohol, is it just for flavour, if so then can't you just use non-alcoholic substitutes? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/cx0il2/eli5_why_do_people_cook_with_alcohol_is_it_just/ | {
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"Ya, it's just for flavor, and you could use non alcoholic substitutes, but it wouldnt taste the same, and If you just make sure you cook off the alcohol it wont affects you like that.\nIt can if it hasent all been cooked off",
"One thing to note about cooking it off properly is that alcohol (specifically ethanol, for context) has a much lower boiling point than water. Thus, the ethanol boils and evaporates off earlier and more completely than water. So if your food is cooked properly, it would be highly unlikely that any ethanol would remain.",
"Pretty much just for flavour. Could definitely use a substitute if you can find a good one but I’ve yet to find a decent alcohol free wine (suggestions welcome, UK only pls). I read somewhere that alcohol doesn’t always evaporate during cooking, can’t remember the exact details though! \n\nFor things like tiramisu though, I’m not sure what a good substitute would be, plus you don’t cook it. I’m sure google could suggest a substitute but then it wouldn’t reeeeeaally be tiramisu IMO.",
"For some things, alcohol can be pretty important. \n\nAlcohol is a great solvent for aromatic compounds. It’s also volatile and evaporates easily, so as its particles drift into the air, they carry those aromas with them. As you chew, that translates into more flavors that reach the back of your mouth, creating a heightened sense of complexity. At high concentrations, alcohol’s sting can overwhelm these flavors, but in small volumes, that sensation is balanced and pleasant.\n\nAdditionally, alcohol has an emulsifying ability, bonding with both water and fat, encouraging the two to coexist smoothly. In recipes like penne alla vodka, it helps the sauce become a creamier, tomato-ier, more cohesive whole.",
"It is just for flavor, but that doesn't mean you could necessarily use a non-alcoholic substitute. Some flavors are alcohol soluble, but not water soluble.\n\nAlso, since alcohol has a lower evaporation point, foods with alcohol in them will evaporate more and thus have more \"smell,\" which changes how we taste.\n\nAnd when frying things, the evaporation point can effect how things fry. This is why we have \"beer battered\" fish and chicken and onion rings... the alcohol in the beef changes the way the outside of the food cooks (compared to water)."
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4bdlux | what kind of video editing software to big movies such as harry potter use? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4bdlux/eli5_what_kind_of_video_editing_software_to_big/ | {
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"Final Cut X is actually not Final Cut 10, just \"X\". It is a dumbed down, consumer version of the glorious Final Cut 7 which Apple abandoned years ago, which was used on many feature films. \n\nThe old standard, Avid, is still a big one. However, Adobe Premiere is taking its cut of the cake as it has improved considerably over the past few years and its excellent integration with After Effects and other Adobe software makes it a pick of choice.\n\nEdit: _URL_0_\n\nAccording to this interview Harry Potter movies are edited in Avid."
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279e9a | why do i sound on pitch when i'm singing but when i listen to a recording i'm horrible? | So I like to make music with a variety of insturments, and have recently wanted to try my hand at singing. So I was singing along to a track and sounded pitch perfect while actually singing it. But once I listened to the recording it was totally off. Am I just tone deaf? Or is there some sort of strange pitch changing I don't hear when my voice is rattling through my head? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/279e9a/eli5_why_do_i_sound_on_pitch_when_im_singing_but/ | {
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"You \"hear\" your own voice through vibrations in your jaw bone and skull as well as external soundwaves, which creates a different sound than if it was exclusively soundwaves (which is what you hear from a recording). That's why you hear your voice differently.",
"As a Singer (opera, rock, pop, choral) I love answering this because It's a struggle I have had constantly. Nobody can be actually tone deaf or you wouldn't be able to ever hear a tune or inflection in peoples voices, But when you are singing along with a track or with an instrument you are also hearing the instrument or track you're singing with. \n\nThis is why you often see singers plugging one ear so they have a register of what they actually sound like listening with their inner ear as well as the perception of how their voice bounces around and mixes. If you cover your ears and sing you will have a more accurate Idea of what you sound like (I'm sorry for shattering the illusion). \n\nTo improve your singing you can probably take lessons that teach you how to match pitch without the aid of covering your ear as you learn what your own voice truly sounds like and have outside input as to when you are singing correctly. \nHope this helps!"
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34rsh1 | regarding nasa's new "warp" discovery: how does a warp open? | As something that is not technically physical, how do physical objects/energy "open" a warp? And if warps move matter around it then how does a laser get into it? This is all considering it actually is a warp bubble and not a misunderstood discovery. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/34rsh1/eli5_regarding_nasas_new_warp_discovery_how_does/ | {
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"I think you're confused. Nasa's newest piece of technology is the EMDrive. It doesn't create warp bubbles but years ago some guy in a garage said \"hey, I can accelerate this thing without using propellant!\" but was treated as some crazy dude in a garage. Not too long after China, I believe, verified and ran their own tests, and came to the same conclusion as garage dude. Eventually NASA took notice and lo and behold, it worked for them too but they do not know why. It is now undergoing more rigorous testing. \n\nSo in short the EM drive accelerates without using fuel, just electricity, which is huge for space travel. \n\nThere is a theoretical warp drive though but it requires negative mass and is still very theoretical. ",
"Actually, the EmDrive *may* warp space **inside** of the metal cavity. It is not a warp drive, nor does it make itself move faster than light. If it does, in fact, warp space inside of the metal cavity, that shows that it is possible to warp space without a large mass or negative energy, so that may open up a path to a warp drive in the future."
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2tfxf2 | how is it that otherwise seemingly normal people can become so invested in a sports team that they're willing to make it a huge part of their identity, up to the point of rioting should their team lose? | I've never been able to grasp the idea that one can identify themselves as part of a sports team (American football in particular) despite not having ANY involvement with said team. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2tfxf2/eli5_how_is_it_that_otherwise_seemingly_normal/ | {
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"I did research on this in college for psychology. Turns out the more invested in outside events, especially sports the lower the self esteem of the individual. Now having a healthy relationship with a sports team is ok and being happy or disappointed when your team wins and loses is ok, but the people that get truly upset and it ruins their day or week, those are the ones who have the lowest self esteem. They are not happy within themselves and invest part of their identity in the team. As in their teams success also reflects on who they are as individuals. Basically they don't have anything good per say going in their lives and their team is the only thing that makes them feel like they are a success. You will see this pattern in every ethnicity, age and economic range, although it tends to be more pronounced in lower income and blue collar workers. "
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6qdq7a | why are there hd versions of tv channels? why not just replace the original channel with the hd version? | Surely if something is in HD, it was recorded that way originally. I'm not aware of anyone that has a TV incapable of HD now.
If its just a rip off thing, wouldnt it be a good idea to make laws banning this practice? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/6qdq7a/eli5_why_are_there_hd_versions_of_tv_channels_why/ | {
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" > Surely if something is in HD, it was recorded that way originally. \n\nCorrect.\n\n > If its just a rip off thing\n\nIt's not a \"rip-off\" thing. It's a \"people are willing to pay less for standard definition, and more for high definition\" thing.\n\n > wouldnt it be a good idea to make laws banning this practice?\n\nNo. Telling a company \"you can't charge different amounts for different products\" is generally an ill-conceived way of writing laws. It limits consumer options. The result would be \"well, I guess the cheaper version is going away then, and we're only going to charge the higher price for HD channels\".",
"Just because you don't know anyone with an old tv doesn't mean there aren't people out there with old tvs willing to pay for standard programming. As for banning, it isn't the government's business to get involved at that level. The practice is not harming anyone, so they shouldn't be interfering. ",
" > Surely if something is in HD, it was recorded that way originally\n\nNo, it could have been upconverted. \n\n > I'm not aware of anyone that has a TV incapable of HD now.\n\nYou can't say that anymore. I have a SDTV in addition to a big HDTV. It makes no sense to throw away something that works fine.\n\n > make laws banning this practice?\n\nMake laws banning things which harm people. Nobody is harmed by SDTV. "
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3ni7fr | why is it called a 'cold' when you're body is actually hot? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3ni7fr/eli5_why_is_it_called_a_cold_when_youre_body_is/ | {
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"Your*, my bad.",
"Have you noticed that you *feel* cold when your running a fever? It's sometimes called \"the chills\".\n\nPart of the sensation of temperature is the *difference* between the room's temperature and your body temperature. When your body is hot (without clear causes such as exertion), the room feels colder.\n\nThe term cold describes how the patient *feels*. They feel like the room's cold and they want a blanket even though they are running a fever."
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1ilsif | factorials | I have a kind of intuitive understanding of what addition and multiplication are doing. When I add 4 and 3, I'm combining a pile of four widgets with a pile of three widgets. When I multiply 4 and 3, I am putting together three piles of four widgets each.
What is going on when I do 4!? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1ilsif/eli5_factorials/ | {
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"You're counting how many ways you can arrange things.\n\nSay you have 4 cards. How many possible ways can you order those cards?\n\nThere are 4 possibilities for the first card, 3 for the second, 2 for the third, and one for the last (whichever one is left). 4 * 3 * 2 * 1 = 4!.",
"You take the number and multiply it by all the whole numbers preceding it. \n For example: 4! = 4\\*3\\*2\\*1 \n If you are wondering why factorials exist, it is just a simpler way of saying 4*3*2*1 which is useful since you need to do that more often than you might think. \n Edit: I done formatted wrong."
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3usvww | why are some noises "louder" than others? | This sounds stupid, but sometimes when I'm watching TV with the volume constant, certain noises can be heard in the hallway of my building while the rest can't. I thought it was a sound mixing thing but I'm not so sure as sometimes it's the odd sounds like bangs of doors rather than shouting in the show.
Are these sounds just more easily carried? Or is there an inherent "loudness" for these sounds? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3usvww/eli5_why_are_some_noises_louder_than_others/ | {
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"Well, volume or loudness is the amplitude of the sound wave and if its bigger the sound will be louder. But in terms of hearing things in your apartment certain sounds are more likely to penetrate concrete and wood and get to your ears. Bass-ier sounds have much more penetrating power generally speaking so you can hear low-end sounds through your walls much better than high end. High pitched whistles are used if you are lost in the woods for instance because it will echo a lot more and it is much more distinct from ambient sounds. ",
"You are probably experiencing the effect that things sound louder when there is a drastic change in volume level from before to during the sound. Bangs of doors tend to go from quiet to loud really fast, while shouting is consistent.",
"Different frequencies travel through materials differently. you'll find that bass sounds with frequencies below sort of 500Hz (500 vibrations a second) will travel through walls really easily because its closer to the natural Resonance frequency (the frequency the material naturally vibrates) of wood or concrete.",
"I think this is also a consequence of 5.1 audio being played on a 2.1 speaker system. The surround-sound tracks get ignominiously plopped right on top of the front stereo tracks, neatly making them twice as loud to the detriment of the center 'voice' channel."
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34s9hu | why do batteries have a 'use by' date, and what could be the result of using it after that date? | This was actually asked by my 10-year-old sister, changing the batteries in a disco ball in her room. She asked me, and then I realised that I didn't have an answer for her! | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/34s9hu/eli5_why_do_batteries_have_a_use_by_date_and_what/ | {
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1gcvq7 | why is jimi hendrix considered one of the greatest guitar players? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1gcvq7/eli5_why_is_jimi_hendrix_considered_one_of_the/ | {
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"Jimi Hendrix is considered a great guitar player because he reinvented how the guitar was played. He invented a style that influenced just about every rock, blues and jazz guitarist that came after him. His technical skill wasn't the greatest, but his creativity and style has proven to be extremely influential--even nearly 50 years after he got his start! For example, he was known to use hammer-ons and pull-offs: a style that made Eddie Van Halen famous. He played loud and distorted, which was influential to the hard rock and heavy metal bands that came in the 70's. His wah-wah sound went on to influence guys like Steve Vai. He even had a session with Miles Davis, making him popular with fusion guitarists such as Al DiMeola. In short, he was highly original and influential.",
"He was one of the first to use distortion (the heavy rock guitar sound) and other sorts of audio effects in a truly effective way. He wasn't the *only* person doing it, but he's considered the best of his time at it, and generally everybody after started trying to copy him.\n\nFrom a purely technical perspective, he wasn't necessarily unique, though he could certainly keep up with the other top guys of his time when it came to \"shredding.\" He did pioneer (or, really, popularize) a few techniques like using the thumb of the fretting hand, which not many other guitarists of the time were doing, but is now pretty much standard (the guitarist from RHCP and John Mayer do it a lot, off the top of my head).\n\nIt was really in terms of raw overall musical ability and sensibility where Hendrix outclassed other guitarists. There isn't one thing you can necessarily point to that he did better than absolutely everybody else, it's more that he could do *everything* you would ask of a guitarist at a world-class level. Because he was so versatile and so *damn good at everything*, he was able to play in a way that other guys couldn't. A really good soloist like Clapton, for example, can impress you during the lead passages, but their rhythm sections are less inspired. Hendrix's leads might not have been as perfect as Clapton's, but he could drop into a rhythm section and blow Clapton out of the water.\n\nBasically, with most guitarists, I could give you a two-minute clip of them playing, and you'd pretty much know what they're about. With Hendrix, you have to listen to nearly his entire body of work to really appreciate how complete his mastery over the instrument was.",
"IMHO, anyone wanting to learn how to be a \"good\" rock and roll guitarist (more than strumming chords around a campfire) could study Hendrix's techniques and learn far more than you would from any other guitarist. \n\nClapton could show you tasty blues leads, Van Halen could show you two-handed tapping, Iommi could show you heavy riffage, Gilmour could show you melodic phrasing, etc.\n\nHendrix did all of this and better IMO. He also did it first, which means that he was inventing these techniques and playing them better than the folks who copied him. I could go on, but this is already too long.",
"[This is why.](_URL_0_)",
"He's considered one of the best because of his attitude. He is actually just a very good and original guitar player, it's his humble down to earth nature that sets him apart and makes people remember him fondly. Here is a link to a video where he's being told that he's the greatest guitar player in the world, he responds that he [\"might be the greatest guitar player sitting in his chair.\"](_URL_0_)",
"Aside from what everyone is saying here (First to utilize distortion as a lead tone, first to hammer, pull off, ect.) I think the real thing that defines him as a player is a bit more musical. His technical ability (what he does with his hands) is off the charts, though there are lots that are better than him even now in that regard.\n\nWhat Jimi did well however, and I mean that as a litote, was phrase his solos and riffs. Like Keith Moon played drums as a melodic instrument rather than just keeping a back-beat, or Les Claypool plays bass like drum kit with a synthesizer attached, Jimi was able to sing with the guitar. His lyrics were insipid and pointless to most of his songs, in my opinion, but how he was able to warp and change his tone and his playstyle constantly was something guitar players even now haven't mastered. He not only *knew* his way around the neck, he spoke through it. His playing was not just giant shredtastic \"MEEDLY MEEDLY MEEDLY MEEEEEEEE\" stuff, it was soulful, quiet, loud explosive, reserved, all over the place. He had an enormous range with his phrasing, and always knew exactly where to take songs, (having one of the worlds tightest rythm sections ever didn't hurt). \n\nI don't like Jimi Hendrix's songs, but as a musician I have an immense respect for someone who can speak so fluidly and effortlessly through their instrument. Every idea, every piece he played was a perfect translation from his brain to his hands, without falling into the common phrases. Think of it as all of us being in a language class, trying to translate complex ideas through a non-written language. We struggle, some of us get better with practice, but we have tricks we fall into in order to be reliable (in our playstyle). Jimi didn't really do that a lot, he was able to communicate without that struggle. It's some hardcore shit you don't see outside of the really really great musicians. This guy not only knew how to use his hands, he could say anything he wanted with a single guitar.\n\nEdit: Formatting",
"According to Bill Hicks, Jimi was an alien who strung up his cock and played it. Enough said. ",
"Same reason the Beatles are considered one of the best bands ever; he did it first. He defined a style that influenced hundreds of thousands of others, and although by todays standards he's not the greatest guitar player around, you can almost guarantee the best modern day rock guitarist was heavily influenced by jimi.",
"Because there was guitar before Jimi, and guitar after Jimi. He single-handedly changed how people (and when I say people, I mean everyone, not just guitar nerds) approach the electric guitar. You can't really claim that about anyone else, except MAYBE Eddie Van Halen (and I would argue that his impact wasn't nearly as big as Jimi's, people were already shredding before him, though he was on a different level than everyone else at that point).\n\nNeil Young said it best: \"That guy wasn't just on another level, he was in a whole other building from the rest of us.\"",
"I hereby sentence you to listen to listen to *Electric Ladyland* on repeat until you are ashamed to have asked.",
"Here is a list of video links collected from comments that redditors have made in response to this submission:\n\n|Source Comment|Score|Video Link|\n|:-------|:-------|:-------|\n|[IveGotAHadron](_URL_39_)|104|[When Eric Clapton met Jimi Hendrix](_URL_54_)|\n|[griffsterb](_URL_12_)|45|[Michael Jackson - Beat It Digitally Restored Version](_URL_16_)|\n|[roocketfish](_URL_50_)|43|[Jimi Hendrix - Pali Gap Voodoo Soup version](_URL_65_)|\n|[BatmanSadMobile](_URL_0_)|25|[Yngwie J. Malmsteen - Purple Haze - Tribute to Fender](_URL_25_)|\n|[BatmanSadMobile](_URL_0_)|25|[Rainbow - Ritchie Blackmore's Rainbow - FULL ALBUM HD](_URL_61_)|\n|[cc132](_URL_34_)|24|[ETTA BAKER - Carolina Breakdown Ragtime Guitar Legend](_URL_43_)|\n|[bonyhawk](_URL_2_)|19|[Eddie Van Halen CNN Interview 5/3/13](_URL_59_)|\n|[robbiestafford](_URL_56_)|12|[Dread Zeppelin - Black Dog.mpg](_URL_19_)|\n|[aoiao](_URL_51_)|10|[Return To Forever - Duel Of The Jester And The Tyrant Parts I & II](_URL_49_)|\n|[aoiao](_URL_51_)|10|[Mediterranean Sundance - Al Di Meola](_URL_41_)|\n|[aoiao](_URL_51_)|10|[Mahavishnu Orchestra - Meeting Of The Spirits](_URL_64_)|\n|[aoiao](_URL_51_)|10|[Noonward Race by the Mahavishnu Orchestra](_URL_8_)|\n|[j_po](_URL_40_)|6|[Jimi Hendrix Sgt peppers Lonely Hearts Club](_URL_52_)|\n|[daddytwofoot](_URL_4_)|5|[Steve Vai - For the Love of God](_URL_30_)|\n|[daddytwofoot](_URL_4_)|5|[Guthrie Govan - Fives at _URL_60_](_URL_1_)|\n|[daddytwofoot](_URL_4_)|5|[Selkies Solo - Paul Waggoner](_URL_31_)|\n|[untaken-username](_URL_32_)|5|[Jimi Hendrix - :blues - Born Under A Bad Sign](_URL_37_)|\n|[polarityinverted](_URL_55_)|4|[Josh Homme - Guitar Moves - Episode 3](_URL_18_)|\n|[rychild](_URL_26_)|3|[Hendrix Interview - \"I'm not the greatest guitar player\"](_URL_9_)|\n|[DeathFromWithin](_URL_13_)|2|[Django Reinhardt](_URL_23_)|\n|[jumpstartation](_URL_42_)|2|[The WHO - Water Live at Isle of Wight 1970](_URL_22_)|\n|[untaken-username](_URL_67_)|2|[Albert King - As The Years Go Passing By live in Montreux with Rory Gallagher](_URL_7_)|\n|[Chunga_the_Great](_URL_38_)|2|[Bold As Love - Jimi Hendrix](_URL_48_)|\n|[Chunga_the_Great](_URL_38_)|2|[Jimi Hendrix - Spanish Castle Magic / Long Version Audio Only 1969](_URL_27_)|\n|[OrangeEyedPs](_URL_58_)|2|[Cream - White Room](_URL_44_)|\n|[OrangeEyedPs](_URL_58_)|2|[Jim Dunlop GCB-95 Cry Baby Wah](_URL_17_)|\n|[OrangeEyedPs](_URL_58_)|2|[The Jimi Hendrix Experience - Voodoo Child Slight Return](_URL_68_)|\n|[wantonballbag](_URL_33_)|2|[Jimi Hendrix- Little Wing Studio](_URL_29_)|\n|[Mr-Yuck](_URL_69_)|2|[Prince, Tom Petty, Steve Winwood, Jeff Lynne and others -- \"While My Guitar Gently Weeps\"](_URL_35_)|\n|[jumpstartation](_URL_42_)|2|[The Who - Heaven and Hell - Isle Of Wight](_URL_3_)|\n|[khfreek](_URL_6_)|1|[John Mayer - Out Of My Mind Live in LA High Def!](_URL_24_)|\n|[seanziewonzie](_URL_5_)|1|[Steve Vai Solo - Zomby Woof - Zappa plays Zappa](_URL_11_)|\n|[bumwine](_URL_47_)|1|[Jimi Hendrix - Pali Gap](_URL_53_)|\n|[FCBSean](_URL_62_)|1|[Beatles Anthology 2/7 - Part 4](_URL_45_)|\n|[andrewhy](_URL_28_)|0|[None](_URL_66_)|\n|[Kibekt](_URL_36_)|0|[FOUR TET - My angel rocks back and forth](_URL_57_)|\n|[andrewhy](_URL_28_)|0|[None](_URL_14_)|\n|[andrewhy](_URL_28_)|0|[None](_URL_15_)|\n|[saynotoneckbeards](_URL_63_)|-1|[The oOohh Baby Gimme Mores - Beat Up Kidz](_URL_21_)|\n\n* [VideoLinkBot FAQ](_URL_20_)\n* [Feedback](_URL_10_)\n* [Playlist of videos in this comment](_URL_46_)",
"Listen to Villanova Junction at Woodstock.",
"He was innovative. He changed the scene with a whole new sound. Add to that, his personal skill; he was left-handed, and taught himself to play a guitar for right-handed people backwards. He could play it with his feet, or behind his head, and managed an impressive sound playing it with his teeth. His sound holds a great appeal for many millions of people across several generations, entirely distinct from any other source of appeal (take away the girls who want to cuddle with Justin Bieber, because they find him cute and they're too young to really get what sex is all about, and he'd have 27 fans left). ",
"Nobody is mentioning that Jimi also SANG. Obviously legendary musicians can play and sing, but it's another level when you play like he did.\n\nHe obviously wasn't a great singer but it didn't matter.\n\nFurther, he played a right handed guitar left handed, and reversed the strings. (I get that this is kind of meaningless, but I heard he actually learned with the strings in their normal position. If nothing else, it's just strange and adds to his mystique)\n\nOn a side note, his drummer is one of the most underrated of all time.",
"This isn't as in-depth an answer as others, but Josh Homme from Queens of the Stone Age [recently did an interview](_URL_0_) for Guitar Moves and goes over the different styles he's learned and how he's taught himself how other guitarists play, Hendrix included. It pans in super close when he is showing/describing how others play, so you can get a real grasp for what's going on.\n\nIt's 14 minutes long but it's really interesting, inspiring and quite funny. ",
"Ever notice the guy on the far right of Zappa's 'We're only in it for the Money'? [Inside Cover](_URL_0_)",
"Basically, when you hear Jimi Hendrix, you know without question that it is Jimi. No one else sounds like him, yet he influenced so many that followed. It's a remarkable dialectic in the realm of popular music, particularly rock, blues and jazz fusion.",
"Quite simply he had more natural playing ability than anyone.\nThe amount of emotion that he could project through the guitar..a tear comes to my eye.",
"ITT: people saying Jimi Hendrix **wasn't technically skilled**\n\nSMH. FSMH.",
"He was left handed but played a right handed guitar backwards. As a right handed guitarist who has tried to play a left handed guitar backwards...wow, this guy is amazing. Also, he set fire to his guitar mid-song and that was super artistic. ",
"One thing you have to know about guitarists is after a certain point, it becomes less about skill level and technical prowess, and more about creativity and originality. So, yes, Jimi created all these different ways of playing and was extremely influential for a prolonged amount of time, which has been said by many people in this thread already. \n\n\nHowever, one of the biggest reasons why Jimi is considered the greatest guitarist of all time is the same reason people like Clapton, Page, and Richards are: they're songs are all extremely unique from one another. Take a look at how a song like Hey Joe sounds very unlike Voodoo Chile and how they are both dissimilar from Electric Church Red House. \n\n\nWhile Jimi's style is still his own (wah pedal, excessive extraneous noise, high distortion, lots of vibrato) the notes themselves that he picked for each song were chosen carefully. During his solos he was able to create a sound and feel that would match that of the song he was playing. So what it really comes down to is how well a guitarist can evoke emotion and create a compelling guitar track. ",
"-He was one of the first to harness the musicality of feedback, which is like trying to contain a forest fire.\n\n-He use of ugly noises contrasted against his melodies to make them even sweeter sounding, and barely anyone was doing that at the time.\n\n-His use of metaphor in music was original, controversial and mind-blowingly psychedelic. How does he make those noises?!?! Think \"Machine Gun\" or his national anthem. His ability in metaphor inspired countless artists across different mediums, for example Bill Hicks' stand-up act.\n\n-His tone was un-fucking-real, and came out of only (usually) his Strat, a wah pedal, and his Marshall stack. People use gobs of pedals to try to get original tones out of what he made with a very simple set-up.\n\nHe was JIMI HENDRIX! That dude WAS music. Sure, he played guitar, but he punctured the sphere of all music.",
"Just listen. It's like jazz: If you have to ask, you'll never know.",
"Are you deaf? "
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43zoqu | david camerons deal with the eu | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/43zoqu/eli5david_camerons_deal_with_the_eu/ | {
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"Cameron told the EU he would stop promoting a \"Brexit\" if they made reforms in 4 certain areas. Yesterday Donald Tusk (president of the European Council) released a draft trying to find a compromise between Cameron and the EU. Here's what these 4 demands are, and the EU's response to them:\n\n**1. Demand**: Citizens of the EU coming to work in the UK shouldn't be able to apply for important social advantages to accompany their wage for their first 4 years. Also, those workers should no longer be able to send child support to their overseas families.\n\n**EU response**: London will be allowed to pull an \"emergency brake\" if it experiences an extraordinarily large influx of workers from other EU-countries. To do so, they'll have to alert the European Commission to their social security, labour market or social services being under pressure. With a majority vote, the other EU-members can then allow the UK to limit these services for up to 4 years. However, during those 4 years the emergency brake has to be gradually loosened, and the new system only applies to newcomers. Also, an EU-citizen working in London will still receive child support if their child is staying in their home country. In calculating the exact amount of child support, the standard of living in the country in question must be considered.\n\n**2. Demand**: Cameron wanted black-on-white that the principle of an *ever-closer union* would not apply to the UK. He also demanded that national parliaments could draw a 'red card' for European legislation they feel is best decided nationally. \n\n**Eu response**: According to Tusk, the 'ever-closer union' is about improving trust and understanding between the European peoples, not about political integration. Because of this, it can't be the basis for expanding EU legislation. The draft also states the UK doesn't need to strive for further political integration, which is legally binding. Also, if 55% of national parliaments protest against an EU law within 12 weeks, it will be put up for discussion by the national leaders. \n\n**3. Demand**: Cameron wants the EU to recognize itself as multi-currency, and that centralisation for the Euro should never apply to non-euro countries. Also, taxpayers from non-euro countries should never financially support operations within the eurozone.\n\n**EU response**: Laws concerning the monetary union will not be binding for non-euro countries, and they won't have to support operations within the eurozone. However, the EU will not be explicitly multi-currency. Also, non-euro countries can't form an obstacle for integration within the eurozone.\n\n**4. Demand**: Cameron wants the EU to be more competitive, which would lead to more jobs and growth.\n\n**Eu response**: Tusk says he'll be committed increasing competitiveness, and the burden on companies (especially gmo's) will be lessened, but no detailed policies have been mentioned.\n\nAnd that's about the gist of it. Cameron mostly loses out on the first demand, which it what the papers comment on the most. "
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1t4uxh | why is pneumonia diagnosed with an x-ray? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1t4uxh/eli5_why_is_pneumonia_diagnosed_with_an_xray/ | {
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"On X-ray, things that are not dense (like air) are dark. The radiation passes right through air and none of it is \"blocked\" on the way to the film. When no X-rays get blocked, the film is black. Things that are white on X-ray are white because they \"intercepted\" all of the radiation. As an example, check out the first film in catdoctor's post. Metal (the pacemaker) is extremely dense, and as such it \"blocks\" the radiation from reaching the film. This leads to a negative space on the film in the shape of the dense object. An object's relative white/black-ness on X-ray tells you relatively how dense it is. \n \nPneumonia is a manifestation of infection in the lungs. Your body deals with infections by \"cordoning off\" the area via positive pressure (fluid) and antimicrobial cells (like white blood cells). This dense area of cells and fluid creates what is known as a consolidation. Because consolidations are dense and confined to one part of the lung, they show up \"whiter\" than normal lung tissue on X-ray. \n \nIncidentally, consolidations are one of the things a doctor is checking for when they are doing that tapping thing (percussion) on your back and chest. Normal lungs are full of air (black on X-ray) so they have a reverberation to them like a drum. A consolidation caused by pneumonia would cause a dullness on percussion that you can hear and feel (and subsequently see on X-ray).",
"I work as a scribe here (I do charting for doctors on a daily basis)\n\nPneumonia is NOT diagnosed with an X-Ray. It is acutally correlated with an x-ray. \nThe summery by a radiolist would often appear a lot like this: \"consolidations are noted in the X-Ray please correlate with clinical findings.\"\n\nThose findings would then be taken into account during a physical exam i.e wheezing or crackles. That being said you should also look at labs for an elevated white blood count. \n\nOn a seperate note for the actualy X-ray refer to the explination by Shmalpin. I would also note that atelectasis and pneumonia are difficult to seperate from a chest x-ray. So if they dont have any clinical evidence for pneumonia (fever, leukocytosis [elevated white blood count], wheezing, or crackles) then they likely have atelectasis. "
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1g5gb6 | what is smoke, exactly? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1g5gb6/eli5_what_is_smoke_exactly/ | {
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"text": [
"Steam, unburnt gases, particles of ash."
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17dh9k | why does time go from 11 am to 12 pm and vice versa? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/17dh9k/why_does_time_go_from_11_am_to_12_pm_and_vice/ | {
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"AM stands for ante meridiem and PM stands for post meridiem - before noon and after noon. Noon is the point at which the sun is highest in the sky. In the AM, the sun is rising. In the PM, it is setting."
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a8oa7c | - how does the body fight infections not in the bloodstream such as respiratory infections? | Sitting here hacking stuff out of my lungs and suddenly wondering what mechanisms the body uses to get bacteria and virus fighting cells to the site of action in cases with say, an infection in your lungs or sinuses? I’m sure the mucus collects a lot of the bacteria to be jettisoned our but the immune system still needs to kill the stragglers otherwise they’d just repopulate right? So how do they get where they need to go when they’re not fighting in the bloodstream? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/a8oa7c/eli5_how_does_the_body_fight_infections_not_in/ | {
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"Cells like neutrophils can leave the bloodstream to fight infections like that. Mucosal sites can also fight infection with a special antibody called IgA.",
"When foreign cells like viruses are detected by local immune cells that happen to be in the area they essentially sound an alarm attracting more immune cells. At the same time they dump a bunch of substances into the local area that cause inflammation of the area. Part of this inflammatory response is that blood vessels around the site dilate and become leaky, allowing fluid through (leading to swelling) as well as immune cells from the blood into the site of the infection to get at the foreign invader.\n\nThis is just a small part of the inflammatory response your body uses to deal with invaders. In addition to a general inflammatory response, lungs in particular have their own local immune components (e.g. Immunoglobulin A) in their secretions, and other sites of the body which have a high exposure to antigens (like the gut) have their own different mechanisms of picking up and detecting as many foreign invaders as possible so as to alert the immune system when needed (e.g. Peyer's Patches)."
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2tcf20 | if muscle growth is them tearing and re-growing tissue, why can't we invent a machine or procedure that artificially replicates this tearing in order to build up muscle mass without actually working out? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2tcf20/eli5_if_muscle_growth_is_them_tearing_and/ | {
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"there IS a machine or procedure for replicating the experience of muscle growth, they are called \"work out equipment\" and \"gyms\". \n\nIn these places, and using these machines, you are able to artificially tear your muscles in a controlled and measured setting, specifically targeting certain muscle groups with ease. This allows you to change your physique much faster then the unorganized and un-directed muscle exertion experienced in day to day life.",
"I heard a rumor that Bruce Lee used such a device. By electric induction you can force the neves that control the muscle to contract (thus causing the tears). By using paddles like a defibrillator, you can place them on your body to force a contraction of a muscle. This device I know is used by physical therapist because my cousin who is studying to be one tried it. As he explained it, the muscle created, although has mass, is not \"usable\". (Paraphrasing) This is because the neves used to contract the muscle were not done naturally, and thus the new muscle does not have a nervous system response. ",
"[We have.](_URL_0_) It's very painful to have your muscles electrically stimulated to build them up though so it's not wide-spread.",
"There is a gene that prevents muscles from growing too fast, this gene was turned of in belgian blue cows, and they got totally jacked._URL_0_",
"Layperson here. weightlifting is exercise, you burn a ton of calories and get some cardio, just stimulating muscles wouldn't raise your heart rate much. Most importantly it's our compound and use several muscle groups, I don't see how you could simulate that with electrical therapy. Plus you get a nice dopamine rush afterwards different from most exercises. I don't see how electrostimulation or other means could make you feel so good relaxed after. Then there's practical reasons, if you were able to get a good \"workout\" from electrical stimulation or other means you wouldn't get the benefit of stronger bones and connective tissue. Lifting weights, especially heavy weights puts a load on your skeletal structure which causes it to improve bone density. I could only imagine the horror of adding 50 pounds of muscle to an average person's frame and watching their bones shatter when they try to show off. You wouldn't get the benefits in balance because you're not training stabilizer muscles, and even if you're 250 pounds of raw muscle you have the grip strength of a 90 pound middle schooler. It's a terrible idea. ",
"Basic reason is because building real muscle requires the nervous system to be on board. Lifters grow muscle mass not just because of the muscle tearing, but because the CNS is training to work with and support those muscles.\n\nIf you just put on artificial muscle mass without loading your CNS, I'd imagine it's likely you'd just lose excess mass fairly quickly after you stopped (as your body wouldn't feel that it needed it).\n\nMaybe if you could stimulate the CNS - if you could force your body to contract opposing muscles (isometric exercises, perhaps) you might be able to get usable muscle along with the CNS benefits. I don't know, though, I'm no scientist.",
"I'm marking this as explained. It seems, for those of you who don't wanna read every comment, that it is possible with electrical stimulation but your body would be unable to handle it for multiple reasons (nerve receptivity, bone strength, etc.) Thanks, everyone!",
"You remember those electric shock things people stuck on that made their muscles flex? I'm feeling like this is what you're asking for. ",
"it would be more insanely dangerous the more effective it got. powerful muscular contractions are very dangerous - they put a lot of stress on tendons, connective tissue, and bone. the body has a variety of adaptations that down-regulate your strength under conditions that might otherwise cause injury - ie poor mobility, lack of strength in antagonist muscles, etc.\n\nif you could bypass this and increase muscle strength directly, the next thing to happen would probably be 1) tearing connective tissue and/or 2) splintering off bone where the muscle connects. you would go straight to the hospital and cross your fingers that you ever regained full functionality.",
"Its not true. Its bro science. Its better to stimulate the muscle without the damage because the repair is expensive. \n\n_URL_0_",
"There are machines, and muscle stimulators that supposedly cause muscle growth, but none of them have shown to be as effective as actual exercise. Exercise not only causes tearing in the muscles, but also works with your nervous system and cardiovascular system, so you would need it to activate all these things without physically harming you, as those electrical stimulators do (there's only so much your nerves can take)\n\nThe real question you should be asking, is if there is a way to chemically replicate exercise, and this we actually do have. A couple of pharmaceutical companies have come up with some very promising chemicals that can do this. Since diabetes is so prevalent nowadays, it only makes sense this is where their research is directed towards. I implore you to look-up chemicals such as GW501516.",
"You have to understand the benefit of working out is multifactorial. Remember the first time you lifted weights how heavy they were? But remember a wek from then you were lifting significantly more? Thats not because you got stronger, but rather you were able to tune your neural synapses into understanding how much potential is needed to lift a certain weight. This is \"muscle memory.\" Your neurons innervate your muscles, and essentially the more you work out, the stronger you build that signal. The signal will eventually max out and at this point you are actually lifting at your body's maximal potential. After this point, tearing/rebuilding is what continues to build muscle. So if you created a machine that tore muscle, it wouldn't necessarily make you stronger/faster/more agile (because the neural signal will never know how much it can truly deliver), though it might make you look beefed out (which is silly, but you can definitely get chicks). While there are muscle stimulators out there, they do not work as efficiently as a rep done by yourself. Remember that working out also increases the blood/oxygen demand, thus causing a faster heart rate which helps build good cardiovascular health. ",
"For starters, we simply don't understand all the mechanisms behind muscle growth, and the one you've mentioned isn't even necessarily the most important.",
"Actually Bruce Lee was quite into this idea - through electric charge stimulation. He invented his own machines to do this while he was asleep, at rest, et cetera.... ",
"It's because it's a full body thing, not just the muscle. The central nervous system, the body's nutritional needs/efficiency, and testosterone levels all come into play. \n\nAnd besides, it will always be a matter of the mind. You don't get something out of nothing; thermodynamics and all that. That's just how our physical universe works. Matter cannot be created or destroyed. \n\nThe things we desire must pass through our force of will for them to manifest. ",
"**First lets redefine how muscles grow.**\n\nMuscle fibers do not tear, they are more like balloons that can be inflated. Your nervous system and individual muscle fibers dictate how much they will be inflated or deflated. \n\n**Conventional muscle growth:** Muscle fibers stimulated on a regular basis will inflate with nutrients/energy. The amount they increase depends on the hormones and how well the fibers react to them. If they are not stimulated on a regular basis the fibers release the nutrients/energy and transform it into something else like fat.\n\n**Artificial muscle growth for size:** To simulate these conditions without actually putting in effort would be difficult because the mechanical movement and energy used are what drives the growth to start with.\n\nUsing an EMS (Electronic Muscle Stimulation) unit does a very specific type of exercise that is like flexing a muscle and staying still. This does help strengthen muscles for physical therapy patients that goals are for stabilization and recovery. \n\nEDIT: clarity \n\n",
"Short answer we don't know how most things actually work there's always a lot of little nuances that we don't know yet little interactions are actually quite vital are simplistic version would probably fail merely because we actually don't know some of the more detailed mechanisms yet",
"It's called a smith machine, and it's totally out there! "
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3olxp8 | why don't all the mosquitos die out when it gets to cold? do some of them fly south or what? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3olxp8/eli5_why_dont_all_the_mosquitos_die_out_when_it/ | {
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"It depends on the species but they use one or more of three strategies to survive the winter:\n\n*Hibernation as an Adult - Females will drop their metabolic rate and survive off stored fat, usually hiding in a hole or something.\n\n*Hibernation as a Larvae - Larvae can also go into hibernation, but need to do so in water.\n\n*Winter hardy eggs - Adult females can lay winter hardy eggs in moist soil and wait for temperatures to increase and hope water arrives where the eggs were laid.\n \nELI5: they hibernate ",
"Many of them die. Some hibernate, but it is mostly their eggs which survive the winter and hatch into millions of hellions. \n",
"Yarr, ye forgot yer searchin' duties, for ['twas asked by those what came before ye!](_URL_0_)"
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2hfff2 | how do police evidence videos end up online? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2hfff2/eli5_how_do_police_evidence_videos_end_up_online/ | {
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"text": [
"Sometimes leaked but you can usually get them through the freedom of information act unless it is pending investigation or prosecution."
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6svvwl | why is facebook considered such a large company when it seems like the site itself is dying out? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/6svvwl/eli5_why_is_facebook_considered_such_a_large/ | {
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"It might just be regional, because I only know a couple of people who *don't* use Facebook. Facebook chat seems like the primary method of communication for a lot of people, or is at least tied with texting. I also see a lot of people and organizations using Facebook for planning events. I work in advertising and a lot of my clients also have Facebook pages for promoting their brands.\n\nGranted, I don't have any hard numbers to back that up so my experience is equally anecdotal, but it doesn't seem like Facebook is in any trouble."
]
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29qe1r | . why can't we fill our coal mining pits with our rubbish? we are taking out one pollutant and replacing it with another. | As above. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/29qe1r/eli5_why_cant_we_fill_our_coal_mining_pits_with/ | {
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"You start storing waste underground and you need to be damn sure there's no groundwater movement that can leach waste into drinking water. That is not possible in the vast majority of mine systems as the geology which accompanies coal formation trends to be fractured and porous. ",
"On top of the good answer provided by /u/OrbitalPete, much of our rubbish comprises organic materials, such as waste food. Over time, as it decays, organic material releases a number of gases including methane. If this were to happen in a deep underground chamber the methane could build up to high concentrations, and then if a stray spark were to happen (say when someone threw the next load of rubbish down the pit) a huge and potentially devastating explosion could occur.",
"Yes, the water thing.\n\nBut you're not replacing one pollutant with another. Coal itself is not a pollutant. Carbon dioxide, sulfur, etc is the pollutant that's in the smoke of coal when burned.\n\n"
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27nwa2 | what are einstein's two main postulates on special relativity, and what are the relativistic consequences of their effects? | I read about the laws before, but I've never fully understood them, or the consequences they have on spacetime. I want to get a grasp on the workings of Einstein's brilliant theory.
The postulates I am referencing to are the 'Relativity Principle' and the 'Principle of the Constancy of the Speed of Light'. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/27nwa2/eli5_what_are_einsteins_two_main_postulates_on/ | {
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"Einstein's theory of relativity states that time and velocity are relative to an observers point of view, or reference frame. His special theory is called such because it deals only with inertia reference frames which are reference frames that have no acceleration or change in gravitational potential. His general theory takes into account acceleration and gravity.\n\nSpecial relativity is fairly easy to understand as the highest level math you need is Pythagoras's theorem. General relativity is a lot more complex math and not ELI5 friendly.\n\nSpecial relativity has two postulates, that the speed of light is constant and that the laws of physics don't change between reference frames. Both of these have been proven true. Using this, Einstein showed that moving observers actually have their time dilation and their length in the direction of motion contracted.\n\nSo lets talk about time dilation first. Imagine a clock that works by bouncing a photon between two mirrors. We the know the speed of light and we can measure the distance between the mirrors, this means the time it takes for the photon to bounce is easily calculated. Now what if we have that clock moving at a constant speed? Well the path we see the light take is not longer straight up and down, it's [slanted](_URL_2_). Since the light takes a longer path and the speed of the light is unchanged, this means that it takes a longer amount of time to bounce between the two mirrors. Viola, moving objects experience slower time. An important thing to note, because every observe is stationary in their own reference frame, every observer will see everything else as being dilated instead of themselves.\nSo if you're moving, you only experience slower time from someone else's point of view. However, you also see them as experiencing slower time, because to you they appear to be moving.\n\nNow lets move on to length contraction. This one is a tricky one to explain. It relies on how length is measured correctly. Basically, in order to correctly measure the length of an object, you have to know the position of both its ends at the same time. This isn't too hard to do, but if an observer moving past you saw you do this they would think you messed up. Imagine you have a rod, and you have two friends at either end. You walk to a point equidistant to them and tell them to record their position at the moment they see you flash a light. Since you're equidistant, the light will reach them at the same time. However, to the moving observer the light won't reach your friends at the same time. They won't be synchronized and they'll see you as getting an incorrect measurement.\n\nThis leads to one of the last consequences of special relativity, the simultaneity of relativity. Because moving observers disagree on the timing and lengths of things, no two clocks can be synchronized in different reference frames.\n\n[Minute Physics](_URL_1_) gives a **very** basic overview.\n\n[Doc Physics](_URL_5_) gives a lengthy intro to SR.\n\n[Sixty Symbols](_URL_0_) on length contraction.\n\nGeneral Relativity is a lot more complex. You need a very good understanding of Calculus, Differential Equations, and Multilinear Algebra to actually do the math behind it. But the gist of it is that a change in gravitational potential and acceleration are essentially the same thing and have the same effects. It also states that objects with mass curve space-time around them. This means that the force of gravity objects feel is actually them just following the curvature of space-time around them. This can lead to a whole bunch of wacky effects like gravitational time dilation, gravitational redshirting, and black holes.\n\n[Gravity Visualized](_URL_4_)\n\n[Sixty Symbols](_URL_3_) on Special and General Relativity."
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5xlips | why in the military do some people get the best medical care in the country at places like walter reed while other military personnel and veterans get awful horrible care at va hospitals? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5xlips/eli5_why_in_the_military_do_some_people_get_the/ | {
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"A lot has to do with where and when your injured.\n\nActive duty and in combat: If it's sever enough you'll go to Walter Reed, otherwise you'll be in a different military hospital, some excellent, some okay, and some barely passable (just like any large dispersed group). \n\nNo longer active duty but with service related injuries, you go to the VA.\n\nNow imagine the differences in both numbers of patients and age/health of those patients. Military hospitals will generally see younger people with acute issues (broken leg, arm blown off, a cough, etc.) Where as VA hospitals will see older parents with chronic conditions. Plus there are millions more veterans then active duty service members. It's not a surprise the VA has issues since they are almost always underfunded and over worked.",
"It also may have to do with the fact that Walter Reed is where the Senators/Representatives go for care, so of course the standard of care is going to be higher based on who the patient base is. ",
" > awful horrible care a VA hospitals\n\nThe VA provides comparable or superior care compared to non-VA entities in most domains.\n\n_URL_0_\n\n_URL_1_\n\nIf you google \"outcomes of VA care\" you can find other articles and studies about the topic. This idea that VA hospitals are shitty and provide poor care is largely a myth. Many of them are old and look like shit, but the care they provide is usually comparable to non-VA care."
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3l3mmu | what is web api and what is it used to accomplish? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3l3mmu/eli5_what_is_web_api_and_what_is_it_used_to/ | {
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"An API is a defined way for one person's code to interact with another person's code. \"Web API\" means an API that uses the standard systems of the world wide web to interact with each other. For example, you can see reddit's API documentation [here](_URL_0_). It's a list of web addresses you can go to and give certain information, and reddit will respond with the information you're asking about."
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c9h61c | how come after a cia or military operation gets declassified the files say “redacted” for certain things? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/c9h61c/eli5_how_come_after_a_cia_or_military_operation/ | {
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"Because there are still secret aspects of the file that cannot be revealed to the public. A file doesn't have to be 100% declassified to be \"declassified\", if that makes sense - it just means that it has to go through the process of being cleared for public release.",
"They want you to know about it, but not some of the details. Most are under the reason of national security.\n\nThat's like \"we have nukes, the secret code is > !0000! < .\"",
"When a document is \"declassified,\" it means, \"we've taken everything out of it that is still classified as secret.\" When a document is declared \"unclassified,\" it means, \"nothing in here is classified as secret.\"\n\nClassification isn't always \"yes/no\" thing in the US; there are many grades of it, and an individual document can contain many pieces of information that are classified different ways. The Freedom of Information Act, which governs a lot of declassification activity, basically says that, in principle, government agencies should release as much information as possible, so in a document where there are things that can be released, they ought to be released even if other parts have to be held back. In practice this is often left to the discretion of individual agencies or reviewers."
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6i95fc | how come is it incredibly hard for me to get back in shape at age of 45? | Getting back to shape used to be extremely easy. The reasons for slipping were many - too much work, too much stress, having kids. I used to always be able to get back in shape relatively easily. Fat out, muscles back, getting to running condition came relatively easily in 2-3 weeks.
Somewhere around the age of 40 I noticed a considerable change. First of all, I started going out of shape way faster, and the results were much more extreme. If I fall sick or have to cut workouts for some reason for 2-4 weeks, all hell breaks loose.
Fat accumulates, I breathe hard at stairs.
When training again the fat does not dissappear. There's a constant ring around the midsection. Weights at gym plateau and sometimes go backwards despite training 3-4 times a week. The recovery time from workouts gets longer and longer. Sometimes after a hard workout muscle burn can last 3-4 days.
I know I'm losing testosterone, but what else is happening? Why is it so hard? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/6i95fc/eli5_how_come_is_it_incredibly_hard_for_me_to_get/ | {
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"This is going to get removed but here it is:\n\nFiber is the key. Fiber and water. You have to poop a lot. That's it.",
"Its a cumulative effect. Testosterone loss is a huge cause of weight gain and the ability to lose weight. \r\rHowever old age in general is also a cause. Your metabolism slows down, hormones drop, life habits (like constant stress) begin hitting you harder than ever, and if you didn't have established muscle (aka old man muscle) its extremely hard to get it set in due to the slower processes. In essence, you have to work twice as hard to get half the effect. Things to help are hormone boosters, specialized diets, and *constant* work."
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3v4riw | god rays; why they give the impression the sun is only just above the clouds | Everyone's seen [god rays](_URL_1_) coming through the clouds in the right weather conditions. What I'd like to get my head around is why in situations like [this](_URL_2_) and [this](_URL_0_) you get the distinct impression that the sun isn't millions of miles away across the black of space, but probably about as high as the clouds are above the ground, again. This patently isn't the case, so what's going on?
The sun's light from the distance it is you'd think would give parallel beams of light in that sort of situation, but it doesn't. What gives? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3v4riw/eli5_god_rays_why_they_give_the_impression_the/ | {
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"_URL_0_\n\n > Despite seeming to converge at a point, the rays are in fact near-parallel shafts of sunlight, and their apparent convergence is a perspective effect (similar, for example, to the way that parallel railway lines seem to converge at a point in the distance)."
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18rka2 | why do public domain books cost money on app stores? | Why would I have to pay 4.00 for "The Man Who was Thursday"
_URL_1_
if I may read it freely on Project Gutenburg?
_URL_0_
Does making something into an e-book cost a lot of money even though it is already available online? Why does it cost money there, but not elsewhere?
when I can get it off of project Gutenberg for free? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/18rka2/why_do_public_domain_books_cost_money_on_app/ | {
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"They sell it to people who don't know it is in public domain or don't know where to find it for free.",
" > Does making something into an e-book cost a lot of money even though it is already available online?\n\nYes, is the short answer.\n\nIt's kind of like asking why you get charged for the water that comes out of your tap when it literally falls freely from the sky. The answer in both cases is that getting it into the form you want and delivering it to you in a convenient way takes *work.*",
"If somebody is willing to pay for something, someone else is willing to sell it. Often publishers will take books that have passed into the public domain and reformat it with a nice font (or digitize it into an ebook), add an introduction into the front by someone other than the author and then sell it.\nI imagine most people who purchase these classics don't know about project gutenberg, but I'm also sure there is a number of people who don't care and would rather spend the $4.00 than go through the small hassle of downloading through Gutenberg. People will pay premiums for speed and convenience. ",
"If a work is public domain, anyone can take it and charge money for it. Night of the Living Dead is a good example. It's public domain work now, anyone can make a DVD of it and sell it in stores. \n\nMost free public domain ebooks are actually scanned and distrusted by volunteers who feel the work should accessible for free for everyone. A larger company may see the same book and charge for it because of a variety of reasons. Maybe their edition has some editorials. Maybe it's got pictures and diagrams. Or maybe they just figure that if they charge for it, someone will buy it even if there's a free version.\n\nThe interesting thing about public domain work is that you can buy a copy and then distribute it yourself. Completely legal."
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280pvf | what is motivation? i mean what is going on in the brain when somebody gets motivation or has motivation? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/280pvf/eli5_what_is_motivation_i_mean_what_is_going_on/ | {
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"A popular model of motivation requires two things: an incentive (something of value), and the belief that you will get that thing. So, what is going on in your brain is an appraisal of value (I want that thing) and an assessment of your ability to do what is needed to get that thing.\n\nGoal-setting plays a large role. You don't just \"have motivation\". You have to have motivation to do something. Motivation has a direction, it's not a state-of-being.",
"Motivation has two types. Extrinsic, where something outside the person is the motivator, such as grades, a job, status, money, or physical incentive. It's a temporary motivator because once the incentive is achieved, you have to find a new incentive. The other type is intrinsic motivation, which is something a person has internally for motivation. This would be like having a desire to do something, or enjoying it and wanting to do more. It's a longer lasting motivator, because it comes from within.",
"I can't speak about what's happening at a biological level, but on a practical level, you can predict motivation by answering 3 questions.\n \n1. If I put in effort will I perform? (self confidence) \n2. If I perform will I get the desired outcomes? (confidence in surroundings) \n3. Do I care? \n \nTo get a quantifiable estimate of motivation, you can rate each question from 0 to 1 then multiply them together. If you're experiencing a lack of motivation, it's because one or more of these questions has a 0 (or close to it) rating. \n \nBasically, if you want to be motivated, you need to care about it, believe in yourself, and trust your environment.",
"What one calls motivation will depend heavily on the context in which it's being used (academic, psychology, neuroscience, etc). We can talk about motivation in terms of the lack thereof - in other words, from a behavioral point of view, what would happen if motivation wasn't present? BJ Fogg, a behavior design researcher out of Stanford, says 3 things need to be present for someone to perform a behavior: motivation to perform a behavior, the ability to perform a behavior, and a \"trigger\" that sets the behavior off. So motivation is the thing that's missing if, despite the person having the ability and a salient trigger being present, the behavior is not performed. More on Fogg and his model [here] (_URL_0_)\n\nAt the neuroscience level, there's a whole lot of stuff that need to come together and I will not pretend to understand it all. If you explore the intarwebz to discover what happens in the brain when people feel motivated, you'll likely come across a neurotransmitter called dopamine. Often people will say things like \"dopamine is the happiness chemical\" or \"dopamine is the motivation chemical.\" These may be partially true, but nothing in the brain is quite that simple.\n\n[Here's a great article on what dopamine probably does around motivation.](_URL_1_) The idea is that dopamine is present in your brain right about when you're about to get a reward. A few common models of why this is: dopamine is around when you like stuff - This is disproven in mice; dopamine is present when you're learning how to get a reward - this is also disproven. He settles on the theory that dopamine is present when you really want to get something, more specifically when you want to perform a behavior to get the reward (note that the interesting thing here is that this is independent of whether you actually *like* the reward or even know how to get it). \n\n**TL;DR Motivation is required for someone to perform a behavior, so you can think of it as what's missing when everything else required for a behavior is present (Ability, Trigger). What happens in our brains is super complicated and we're only just starting to get a good idea, dopamine probably plays a central role, but be very very skeptical when you read stuff about neuroscience in anything but a scientific journal (including this post).**",
"The short answer: Dopamine. \n\"Whats going on in the brain\" biologically when we feel motivated is that the brain is releasing dopamine which signals for us to go do things that feel good. Researchers used to think that dopamine was just what made us feel the pleasure itself, but more recently they've found that the brain releases dopamine to motivate us to go seek out pleasure and to avoid pain. For example, when you feel compelled to eat a pint of ice cream, thats dopamine saying \"It'll feel so good... do it\" and when you feel compelled to avoid an unpleasant conversation, thats dopamine again saying \"that's not going to be pleasurable, let's steer clear of that.\" \nIt helps to explain why some people feel \"compelled\" to do things that they really know they shouldn't. Teenagers, for example have more extreme levels of dopamine that make them do all sorts of things that feel good that they know they shouldn't do. \nOf course, when you start talking about serious, long-term motivation, it gets more complex, but the big idea is still the same. When you are motivated to go work out (even though you don't want to, and it sucks) that comes from a domaine signal based on the reward you give yourself for doing it (I went to the gym, I deserve a pat on the back). You'll feel good about yourself if you go, and berate yourself if you don't, so dopamine motivates you put on your gym shoes to get the reward. ",
"Okay, so [your brain has a bunch of parts right?](_URL_0_) One part is your Cingulate Gyrus, which is a loop shaped part of your brain in the middle. This part is part of the Limbic System, which is the area where emotion and memory is processed.\n\nSo all of this brain area is getting signals from other places in your brain (your senses and thoughts) all the time. Like a computer with a bunch of input, it makes a bunch of outputs. It sends all this info to the Basal Ganglia. The Basal Ganglia funnels this info into the Thalamus, the relay center of your brain, which then relays it back to specific areas in the Limbic System. This *Reward Loop* goes on all the time, and in parallel with other loops like Cognition(thinking), and Motor(voluntary movement).\n\nHow motivation works. You do a task, and other cortical areas send info to the Limbic System which sends that info through the Basal Ganglia. When you finish a task, the reward loop is set off, which releases neurotransmitters like Serotonin and Dopamine into pleasure centers of your brain (mainly Amygdala). These make you feel good. This also gets sent to the Hippocampus, which is where memory gets processed, so you *remember* feeling good for finishing something.\n\nWhen you feel good for finishing something, you're more likely to do it again. This is how addiction works. Motivation is essentially addiction to finishing tasks. \n\n",
"There were 69 comments when I [came](_URL_0_) here.",
"Wow. lol.\n\n > CSS IN ELI5 ADDS MANY FEATURES! There are many features, both form and function, that are embedded in ELI5's CSS. Disabling CSS will not allow you to circumvent locked threads or enable any hidden functionalities. The CSS implemented exclusively adds functionality and extra features. If there is something wrong with the CSS that you would like us to fix, let us know, please! We may be able to help. Thanks! If you're unable to change CSS on your browser, we’re sorry for this intrusive message!",
"How ironic that i have an exam in 3 hours from now, and my textbook is ooen in front of me while i browse reddit.",
"The truth is no one knows, motivation is the most mysterious area in psychology/neuroscience.",
"Dopamine, but consider this as well. Everything you do in your life is based on probabilities. The reason your brain confidently reaches for a doorknob to open a door is because it knows at a subconscious level that turning the knob will remove the door as an obstacle at a very high percentage. This data is used as proof that turning the door knob will yield the desired result. In the same sense, doing things that require more motivation, increases your motivation. As you accomplish task that were labelled as having a low probability of success, they serve as proof that task with a low probability of success are actually possible and it makes the subject more comfortable with the concept and thus more likely to go through with the task.",
"The desire for recognition from your learned reference group. ",
"The hard part is that sometimes when you do all those things you still get depressed.\n\nFor example, I was training for a marathon, running and lifting daily. I ate relatively healthy, worked 40 hours a week and kept socializing with people. I also went on a few dates here and there. Believe it or not I was also smoking a few cigarettes a day.\n\nNo drugs though since I'm an alcoholic and addict. \n\nAnd then suddenly I lost all motivation. One day I decided not to run and go easy on myself. \n\nMy motivation slowly leached away. While I didn't completely lose it and slide into a depressive abyss, I can relate to people that say that some days you just can't for some reason even though you know you should or have to.\n\nI missed the marathon but still work out regularly. I'm anti getting prescribed drugs so I try to handle my depression holistically.\n\nHonestly, post heavy drug use the lows aren't as low but they still come just as suddenly.\n\nThe highs, well, are never as high as they used to be ; )",
"I just finished writing my thesis paper on procrastination (I procrastinated massively during its conception), and am now 3 days away from my undergrad exam (and still procrastinating). While I am somewhat versed in the workings of procrastination I have a general understanding of motivation. The central problem of motivation is that it is not a well-defined monolithic construct, it is nuanced, its borders are fuzzy, not all motivation is made equal. We do not posses one big motivation, we are filled by hundreds of mini-motivations, each battling it out, one carriage pulled by tens of rowdy bulls, each vying for its own different path. For example, motivation is intertwined with emotion: this is somehow foreshadowed in its latin roots, motivation comes from *movere*, to move, sharing roots with emotion, *e - movere*, \"moving outward\". We move things and we are moved by things.\n\n1) The antiquated and flabby **instinct theory** simply proposes that what we do is a function of some inner instinct that we are born with. Killers have an instinct for violence, gluttons have an instinct for eating, and so on. It explains virtually nothing besides \"it's in my nature to do so\", but it gets one thing right:\n\n*I. We engage in certain behaviours because of inner drives.*\n\n > Instinct theory comes from the works of William James and William McDougall, I do not have definitive direct sources, except sloppily cobbled together first year courses.\n\n2) Behaviorist's **drive theory** follows this train of thought, arguing we have ten to twenty inner drives that influence our behaviour profoundly. If you're smelling bagels and your stomach's rumbling inner peace can go take a hike. A drive is basically a disturbance in the bodys homeostatis, the longer it exists the harder it pulls you towards its satisfaction: hunger, thirst, adequate nutrition, absence of pain, are all drives. Parapharisng Hull and Hebb, almost all drives are \"tissue needs\". The literal tissue in you needs stuff in the environment to survive: fluids, nutrients and vitamins, oxigen, salts, all the \"good stuff\" of existence. The theory is right in a certain aspect:\n\n*II. On one hand, we are strongly influenced by these viscerogenic needs.*\n\nHowever, it also states that sex is one of these basal \"tissue need\", and what you told yourself during adolescence notwithstanding, no one ever died from lack of sex. While it is a need of general individual well-being, it is not a need of well-being in the pure physiological sense. When you frustrate a basic biological need for long enough you die (the definition of basic), they are the *sine qua non* conditions of biological persistence. Thusly, we may derive another idea:\n\n*III. On the other hand, we strive for things beyond simple biological existence, we have psychological needs.*\n\nHow else would we want to see a scary movie, or ride a roller-coaster, or engage in other such bizarre activity that brings nothing to our biological homeostasis?\n\n > Hebb, D. O. (1955). Drives and the C.N.S. (conceptual nervous system). Psychological Review, 62, 243-254.\n\n > Hull, C. L. (1943). Principles of behavior: An introduction to behavior theory. New York: Appleton-Century-Crofts.\n\n3) Maslow compounds this in his **hierarchy of needs**: we have 5 levels of needs from the most basic to the most sophisticated: Physiological, Safety, Love/Belonging, Esteem and Self-Actualization. In order to have needs of a certain level we must first adequately satisfy all the needs below it. For example, the need for Esteem, be it self-esteem by mastering some human endeavour, of esteem from others, from recognition, will not be so strong if you don't have a stable place to live, or the certainty of tomorrow's meal, or the belonging to a group, or a significant other. The theory doesn't have strong validity as individuals are unique and tend to jump around this pyramid. However a new idea we may derive is that:\n\n*IV. Humans are perpetually wanting animals.*\n\nThere is no end-game condition to human wanting and motivation. That's why quintillionaires don't soak their behinds in their diamond studded pools all day and still want more. That is, there is no end-game final satisfaction for these psychological needs, the biological ones can be temporarily fully dealt with, and most often are.\n\n > Maslow, A. H. (1943). A theory of human motivation. Psychological Review, 50(4), 370–96.\n\n > Maslow, A. H., Frager, R., & Cox, R. (1970). Motivation and personality. New York: Harper & Row.\n\n4) Coming from economics is the **hyperbolic reduction model** ambitiously trying to answer the basic question: \"Why do we want what we want when we want it?\". Technically we would derive maximum utility from those Larger Later (LL) goals we so often postpone in order to pursue Sooner Smaller (SS) pleasures, like writing on the interwebs instead of studying. The answer is that we weigh the *perceived* value of a goal, and not its true there-you-go-it's-yours-now value. The fact that we have to wait for something will discount its value, hyperbolicly so. It's one thing to choose an apple today instead of two apples tomorrow, than to choose an apple after a year instead of two apples after a year and a day. As in page 6 of this [paper](_URL_1_). What you see there is a modelling of motivation, we work for the LL goal and not the SS ones because temporal disconting is acting uniformly. That is, until the hyperbolic curve of SS pops over that of LL (the point where the two curves intersect), now in this point of *preference reversal* we are more likely to pursue SS goals, they are more nearer, like in the apple example above.\nThe hyperbolic model has its faults, however the basic idea is:\n\n*V. We have time-inconsistent wantings. What today-me wants might not be what a-month-later-me wants, sometimes even at the cost of a months work of today-me.*\n\n > Ainslie, G. (2010). Procrastination, the basic impulse. The thief of time: Philosophical essays on procrastination, 11-27.\n\n > Ainslie, G. (2012). Pure hyperbolic discount curves predict “eyes open” selfcontrol. Theory and Decision, 73(1), 3-34.\n\n > Ainslie, G. W. (1992). Picoeconomics: The strategic interaction of successive motivational states within the person. New York: Cambridge University Press.\n\n > Mazur, J. E. (1987). An adjusting procedure for studying delayed reinforcement. In M. L. Commons & J. E. Mazur (Eds.), The effect of delay and of intervening events on reinforcement value: Quantitative analyses of behavior, vol. 5: 55–73. Hillsdale, NJ:Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.\n\n5) Going into organisational psychology, Vroom's **VIE model**, Valence, Instrumentality, Expectancy sheds new light on how we would select our new endeavours. We have an *expectancy* that our attributes might be good enough to secure a goal, we have an *instrumentality* that our employer will notice this and will reward us. The reward has a certain *valence*, how well we perceive it, how valuable it is to us. Expectancy and instrumentality are probabilities ranging from 0 to 1, valence ranges from -1 to +1, 0 being a neutral, \"I don't care\" stance on the reward. The probability of engaging in such a responsibility is calculated like so for each possible action:\n\n*Utility = Expectancy x Instrumentality x Valence*\n\nThe action with the most utility (as above described) being the one selected.\nOutside the organisational sphere we may dispense with instrumentality, absorbing it into expectancy, and shaping Valence into Value (perceived value, mind you) we have:\n\n*Utility = Expectancy x Value*\n\n*VI. The expected chance of fulfilling a goal and the perceived value of that goal play a major part in selecting it as our course of action. \"Never give up, never surrender\" only works in conjunction with high vale and expectancy*\n\n > Van Eerde, W., & Thierry, H. (1996). Vroom's expectancy models and workrelated criteria: A meta-analysis. Journal of applied psychology, 81(5), 575.\n\n > Lawler III, E. E., & Suttle, J. L. (1973). Expectancy theory and job behavior. Organizational Behavior and Human Performance, 9(3), 482-503.\n\n > Vroom, V. H. (1964). Work and motivation.\n\n6) Finally, **cumulative prospect theory** (Tversky and Kahneman) nuances this. We are more sensible to losing than to winning (loss aversion), and we are more likely to overweigh low odds and underweigh medium to high odds. In other words, expectancy does not influence us [liniarly](_URL_0_), neither does value.\n\n*VII. We are more moved by loss than by gain, and more probable to overestimate our low chances and overestimate our medium to high chances.*\n\n > Tversky, A., & Kahneman, D. (1986). Rational choice and the framing of decisions. Journal of business, S251-S278.\n\n > Tversky, A., & Kahneman, D. (1992). Advances in prospect theory: Cumulative representation of uncertainty. Journal of Risk and uncertainty, 5(4), 297-323.\n\n7) Drawing on all of the above points, Steel and König devise the **temporal motivation theory** where:\n\n*Utility = (Expectancy x Value)/(Impulsivity x Delay)*\n\nThey integrate the last 3 of the above theories and drive theory, adding also that impulsivity may interact with delay, increasing its discounting effects.\n\n*VIII. We are impulsive animals, our prefrontal cortices, coupled with our propensity for language usually inhibit these tendencies... usually.*\n\n > Steel, P., & König, C. J. (2006). Integrating theories of motivation. Academy of Management Review, 31(4), 889-913.\n\n > Steel, P. (2007). The nature of procrastination: a meta-analytic and theoretical review of quintessential self-regulatory failure. Psychological bulletin, 133(1), 65.\n\nA note, I am not an expert on the field, I am a mere dilettante that sifted through some scientific sources. The literature on the subject is vast, absolutely massive, the above being feint highlights of the most popular theories and models.\n\nEdit: formatting\n\nEdit2: some major sources",
"I have heard that one of the defining traits of depression is that your brain either isn't producing dopamine to allow you to make dopamine related decisions or isn't recognizing whatever you do produce. \n \nAnd when someone is depressed but takes a drug that suddenly motivates them (like adderall) it sometimes reverse-triggers happiness even though it's not an anti-depression drug. \n \nWould be interested if someone could speak a little more in depth about this.",
"There's some evidence to suggest that dopamine is responsible in part for motivation, not just pleasure and reward. The spike in dopamine from drug use creates intense motivation to get more of the drug. When someone with PTSD is exposed to a trigger stimulus, the person experiences a dopamine spike and has a tendency to treat the stimulus like a real threat. Schizophrenia is a thought disorder characterized by high dopamine levels and command hallucinations (a voice commanding you to do something and an intense urge to do it). Thoughts a typical person might dismiss become truth because of the flood of neurotransmitters in the brain. For example: my heart is pounding and my palms are sweaty and I feel really afraid. I see someone frowning in my direction, so they must want to hurt me. My body is telling me that I'm in danger, so I need to identify the danger and get away from it.\n\nConversely, a person with depression tends to have low dopamine and can't find a reason to do anything because their body isn't responding to stimuli that would normally trigger dopamine production.",
"Motivation is \n\n\n1) Imagination and Visualization \n\n2) Assigning Value and Creating a Reward \n\n3) Perseverance, using your emotional side of your brain to create Willpower \n\n\n & nbsp;\n\n\n\n-----\n\n\n & nbsp;\n\n\n\n**TLDR:** [Quick summary by yaminokaabii](_URL_0_)\n > First, you imagine a future possibility and make that real to yourself. \n > Second, you analyze the costs of getting to that reward/possibility, and your brain tricks itself into assigning lots of positive feelings towards it. \n > Third, while in the process of getting to that reward, the brain eventually wears itself out - but keeping at it for as long as you can, that is perseverance.\n\n\n & nbsp;\n\n\n\n**In the post below I am now going to try to explain simply what I mean by these terms, I used right above this TLDR. There is not going to be any new ideas just an explanation of those ideas. It will be long but I will try to keep it simple. I will try to explain in English and everyday language but after doing so I may put down some brain jargon which you really don’t need to know or remember. I do so for some people may want to learn more about it. I will try to give you a warning when I use brain jargon so you understand this is not really important to understanding the bigger concept.**\n\n\n & nbsp;\n\n\n\nYou use 3 different techniques of your brain to create motivation. These techniques use very different parts of your brain and a failure of one will lead to no motivation or low motivation. Some people such as ADHD people can have a failure of all 3 techniques. (More on ADHD later in a response to this post).\n\n\n & nbsp;\n\n\n\n----\n\n\n & nbsp;\n\n\n\n1) The first part is **Imagination and Visualization.** With this part you imagine the future benefit, such as something good or something bad. You imagine it, and you use your brain to make this future benefit very real in your mind. So real that you can see it, you can touch it, you can feel it, you can smell it, you can taste it. The more senses you use imagination and visualization, the more real it seems to your brain. By using the imagination and sensory parts of your brain together as a team, your body can overrule the part of the brain that deals with the present, the now, what is happening right this very second part with you and your environment.\n\n\n & nbsp;\n\n\n\n---\n\n\n & nbsp;\n\n\n\n2) The second part is **Assigning Value and Creating Rewards**, this is done by the computer part of your brain, the analytical part, the part that is in the very front part of your brain. This is the part of the brain that humans have but animals do not or they just have a very basic form. This part of the brain is called the cerebral cortex. Your brain assigns a value of how useful or good this future task brings to you. It assigns a number on how good this task is. It also assigns a cost (a guess) to the amount of effort or work you will probably have to expend in the present and near future to get the reward, in other words how much work you have to do. In effect your brain is doing a math problem on how much work to how much reward you can get.\n\n\n & nbsp;\n\n\n\nOnce your brain has this number of how much gain you are going to get vs how much work you will have to expend, the thought now goes to the emotional side of your brain. Your brain creates positive emotions / compulsions about this future goal to counteract the negative emotions / compulsions. You use your emotional and instinctual parts of your brain to do things like hunger, thirst, heat regulation (sweating), heart rate, ability to block out pain/feel pain, etc. In effect your rational frontal part of the brain the cerebral cortex tricks your body into making and feeling the good feelings right now so you don’t let the bad feelings win out. Thus you are able to do something that make cause a short term loss but allows you to do a long term gain.\n\n\n & nbsp;\n\n\n\n*Brain Jargon for this section, you do not need to remember this.* There is a reason why dopamine receptors are extremely prominent in the front part of your brain (cerebral cortex) and your emotional center (with dopamine specifically a part of the brain called the hypothalamus, there are other parts of the brain that are considered emotional but dopamine does not have many receptors there).\n\n\n & nbsp;\n\n\n\n----\n\n\n & nbsp;\n\n\n\n3) The last part of motivation is **Perseverance or what some people call willpower**. This is controlled by your emotional part of your brain. What happens is your emotional part of your brain is feeling the deprivation of resources such as the loss of energy, you feeling tired, you feeling hot and sweaty, etc. Your body is trying to conserve resources, your body is trying to not die right now and save resources for the future so you do not die later due to lack of planning. You have perseverance or willpower, how much your body can take *before it has to bail* for continuing to do this long term action will actually hurt you not help you. In effect perseverance is pushing your limits to the max, going at it till you can’t take anymore. \n\n\n & nbsp;\n\n\n\n*Once you surpass your perseverance limit your body instantly snaps and activates your mind again going back to number 1.* When you have no more perseverance energy, when you have no more willpower your body snaps and reformulates. It activates adrenaline which creates focus but focus that is prioritized the short term, your brain can't think long term anymore, it deals only with the present. Your brain goes back to step number 1 and does a recalculation but this calculation great empathizes short term gains and losses and has an aversion to long term gains and losses. **If your body activates adrenaline it is game over for long term planning and motivation, nothing you can do can change this.** The only way you can regain motivation is to wait for the adrenaline to wear off, reimagine the positive benefits, make those positive benefits real and start over with number 1. \n\n\n & nbsp;\n\n\n\n*Brain Jargon for this section, you do not need to remember this.* Perseverance is controlled slightly by dopamine but more so by a neurotransmitter called norepinephrine. Norepinephrine is very similar to Adrenaline chemically but how it affects your body is radically different. In effect **Norepinephrine is the anti-adrenaline.** Adrenaline gives you your ability to focus right now in the present. Norepinephrine gives you the ability to have persistence in doing the long term action the long term goal that may deplete short term resources. Once your perseverance ends, your body releases adrenaline to give you focus that prioritizes the short term the here and now, and you break and do the opposite of what you were doing before. In effect Norepinephrine and Adrenaline have a feedback loop, they regulate each other.\n",
"Usually they're out to kill their half-demon younger brother."
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6jpmsi | why do the cups of water i set out at night end up with bubbles and a "stale" taste in the morning? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/6jpmsi/eli5_why_do_the_cups_of_water_i_set_out_at_night/ | {
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"The bubbles have something to do with the oxygen being gassed out especially if the water is cold, since cold water holds more oxygen. And the taste is CO2 being dissolved in the water over the period of time which creates a chemical compound H₂CO₃ - carbonic acid. So the increase of the acid changed the taste of the water. "
]
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[]
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61r0s5 | why can't we upgrade our smartphones like we do on personal computers? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/61r0s5/eli5_why_cant_we_upgrade_our_smartphones_like_we/ | {
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"Smartphones are very small. They are built with components that have to fit very tightly together, otherwise there either won't be room inside the case, or the components might interfere with each other, or the heat dispersal won't be effective and the phone will overheat. The same problem applies to laptops too, which usually only let you replace a few components such as the RAM and peripherals.\n\nThe concept of a [modular smartphone](_URL_0_) is in development, but so far there have been very few practical implementations."
]
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"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modular_smartphone"
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||
7ce93w | how does sequence and separation of files in the deletion process of the computer work? | The other day I deleted a folder on my computer by accident. After a short dumbfounded three seconds the deletion process was interrupted by pressing cancel. But the process had already deleted one file of the folder. So two things I wonder about: How does the computer decide what to delete first? what gives the computer the ability to delete one file but not touch everything else? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/7ce93w/eli5_how_does_sequence_and_separation_of_files_in/ | {
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" > How does the computer decide what to delete first?\n\nTypically the delete command will assume that the sequence does not matter, so it just uses the most easily or quickly available one. Most likely, it will just call a routine to list the contents and delete them in that order, and that routine by default lists them simply in the order the filesystem returns them. Probably in the order in which they were added to the directory, but it really depends on the implementation details of the filesystem.\n\n > what gives the computer the ability to delete one file but not touch everything else?\n\nThat's not an ability but a side-effect of the fact that it has to do something for each file, and can only do one (or a few) things at a time.",
"A folder is just a special kind of file that contains a list of other files. When you delete the folder, it will go down that list and delete files one by one, then delete the folder at the end.\n\nNote that the list is not in any particular order. Your file browser will take that list and sort it in whatever order you choose. That means it won't be obvious which file will be first, they could be deleted in just about any order."
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3h5imf | what is really the difference between high end sunglasses (like ray-bans) and cheap sunglasses (like some from walmart) | I know that the brand influences the price, but what are the actual differences from expensive vs non-expensive sunglasses? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3h5imf/eli5_what_is_really_the_difference_between_high/ | {
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"The integrity of the materials used in the high-end glasses is much higher compared with the low-end. If you just try on a pair of high-end sunglasses at the store the difference is very noticeable.",
"Quality of construction and materials, quality of design, polarization, anti reflective, longevity, and of course branding. ",
"When you're 106 miles from Chicago, you have a full tank of gas, half a pack of cigarettes, and it's dark, cheap Wal-Mart sunglasses just won't do."
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6ip56k | if left alone, will the debris in space around earth coalesce into a ring, if so how long 'til it happens? | If it were to form a ring is there enough debris that the ring would be visible from earth? If a ring is the natural form for orbital debris would it be easier to Clean NEO by encouraging it to form a ring rather then trying to get rid of it... | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/6ip56k/eli5if_left_alone_will_the_debris_in_space_around/ | {
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"The manmade satelites that aren't in a graveyard orbit will eventually reenter the atmosphere and burn up. Eventually the ones in the graveyard orbit will too but that will be quite a while. There isn't enough matter currently orbiting the earth to form rings comparable to our solar neighbours, save for the moon. #notascientist"
]
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cicv4h | if the earth’s crust is so thin relative to the thickness of the core and mantle, how come we don’t feel all that heat? | [deleted] | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/cicv4h/eli5_if_the_earths_crust_is_so_thin_relative_to/ | {
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"\"Relatively thin\" is still 20-30 miles of rock on average for continental crust. That's a lot of padding between us and the heat.",
"We do.\n\nHowever, the minor constant heat exuding from the core of the earth generally pales in comparison to the daily fluctuations and temperature differences on the surface. However, if you get below the surface of the earth (deep caves for instance), then the daily and seasonal fluctuations go away and you get a constant temperature.",
"Solid rock is an excellent insulator. [Take a look at this bit of lava here](_URL_2_). The interior is somewhere around 1,200°C. The air is much, much colder than that, so almost immediately on contact with the air, the surface of the lava cools to below 800°C. It becomes solid and black. But this only happens to the outer few millimeters of the lava. Inside, it's still 1,200°C, which can be seen when the frozen skin is punctured.\n\n[If you look at where a volcanologist digs into lava with a hammer, you can see that just inside the \"skin\", it's still very hot, even though the outside froze very quickly](_URL_1_). That means that the interior of the flow only loses a lot of heat to the outside when the skin is broken. The volcanologist also only really feels the worst of the heat when the interior is exposed; they can't stay close to it for very long once it's broken. It also means that blockier flows [like this](_URL_0_) can be more uncomfortable to stand next to even though they might be cooler on average.\n\nBecause of how good an insulator rock is, the interior of a lava flow can remain molten for days, months, or even years if it's thick enough, even though it looks completely solid on the outside. I've walked on 11 month old flows that would burn your feet if you stood still too long.\n\nThe crust does something similar for the earth; heat escapes through it very, very slowly in most places, so near the surface, the loss of heat to the atmosphere vastly overwhelms the supply of heat from below."
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53n89r | does the expansion of the universe have any measurable effects on smaller scales? | From what I understand, the universe is expanding so that everything is getting further from everything. Does this mean that the moon is getting further from the earth? Am I further from my computer screen than when I first started typing this? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/53n89r/eli5does_the_expansion_of_the_universe_have_any/ | {
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"If by smaller scales you are talking about superclusters of galaxies then yes, there is a small measurable effect. However even the short distance between the Milky Way and Andromeda is too short for the expansion of the universe to be measurable. The gravity between the galaxies is much stronger and drowns out any expansion of space."
]
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2jkb6t | why we hear about new cancer treatments, but patients still just get surgery, chemo, and radiation? | My aunt was recently diagnosed with pancreatic cancer, a particularly deadly form of cancer. They recommended she go on chemo.
It seems like every day we hear about new treatments, discoveries, and breakthroughs with cancer. But it seems that every body who gets it, just gets chemo and radiation. That's same thing we were doing 30 years ago to treat cancer. My dad had cancer 12 years ago, and chemo and radiation was the same treatment.
How come those breakthroughs never lead to new treatments? What happens to them? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2jkb6t/eli5_why_we_hear_about_new_cancer_treatments_but/ | {
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"Because some therapies don't work on the cancer, just like some drugs don't work. For example, my mom also has Pancan (stage IV - was given six months to live THREE YEARS AGO and is in complete remission). They did a number of procedures on her but she always did a chemo combo of tarceva and gemzar. They did very targeted radiation but only on a very small area. They also resected a couple tumors out of her belly fat.\n\nI asked the oncologist about proton therapy and they said flat out there's no evidence proton therapy works on her type of cancer. So it was quickly ruled out.",
"There's a VERY LONG path from curing cancer in a petri dish to an animal to human testing to widely available treatments to the public.\n\nSomewhere along the way, they may discover that you can kill cancer cells with Chemical X, but when they did further testing, it also killed the host, which is not something that they want.\n\n[Science reporters want big headlines that get attention and \"Cancer cured\" gets more readers than \"Science continues slow methodical progress toward small but palpable improvement as the following 40 pages will show in mind-numbing detail with needlessly obtuse prose and confusing graphs.\"](_URL_0_)",
"Because surgeries, chemo and radiation *work*.\n\nThe breakthroughs you've read about are usually just clickbait. Cancer doesn't have a singular cure.",
"Many of the breakthroughs are new versions of surgery, chemo, or radiation that are more effective or have fewer side effects...",
"Those new treatments are chemo...\n\nNot all chemo is the same. We have much better drugs than we did 30 years ago. For example, in 1975, a patient diagnosed with breast cancer had a 75% chance of being alive after 5 years. Today, that's over 90%. "
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1trko4 | why can we tell if a bill (currency) is fake or not/ | So there's a bunch of ways to check the authenticity of a bill. You can use a special marker which will come out black on fake bills. The texture of the bill. The watermark. etc.
So why don't the people that make counterfeits make it so the counterfeit have all those features? The only explanation that makes sense to me would be that it costs more than the bill itself to recreate these features but if that's the case, does that mean the federal governmet waste millions of dollars just to print new bills? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1trko4/eli5_why_can_we_tell_if_a_bill_currency_is_fake/ | {
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"It's because making some of those special authenticating things require very specific materials and tools which are not commercially available. That means that when a person tries to make a counterfeit bill, he/she needs to inspect all the materials very thoroughly if the bill needs to look complitely authentic. It requires a lot of knowledge for example to be able to determine the composition of the bill paper and then making it yourself.\n\nIt is not exacly about the cost of making those features, but more like not knowing how to make them and not being able to get the proper tools.",
"Money is like a cake. You have slices of it, and it's delicious. But what's it made out of? Well, there's a tricky question. Eat the cake and find out? You can try. Hell, let's say you do it. You somehow know every single ingredient in the cake. More still, you somehow know the exact measurments.\n\n But if you put that all in a bowl, would it make a cake? Well no, there is stirring and preheating and the perfect cook time. Then, getting beyond the basic cooking process, you have butt loads of frosting. And the cake decorator is that guy who can make like, castles out of frosting.\n\nHappy baking"
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5lrbf0 | why are drug stores selling products that have a disclaimer saying "no approved therapeutic claim"? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5lrbf0/eli5_why_are_drug_stores_selling_products_that/ | {
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"The simple answer: There's a demand for said products.\n\nThere's a demand for those products, even if there is no proof that the products actually work.\n\nThere are tons of people using treatments that science hasn't prooved to be working (e.g. homeopathy). \n\nThe other side of the simple answer: Legal obligations. If you sell a non-approved product, you are legally obliged to say so on the label.",
"They are believed to have beneficial effects but haven't gone through the testing needed to prove it, or haven't conclusively showed any benefits during testing. It can also mean that the company selling the product just doesn't have permission to say it does have approved therapeutic properties. As for why stores are selling them, that's because they still make money off the product. Lots of people still believe there are benefits to supplements and such, despite labels like that, and many supplements do have a legitamate effect",
"Because they sell.\n\nThere is no better explanation. Drug stores have the right to sell anything that is legal, and that disclaimer just means it doesn't claim to be medicine; this means it doesn't go through incredibly stringent (and costly) testing regimens. And a lot of people are after \"alternative medicine\" and other bullshit, so that stuff sells."
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7gwq7j | why having a diet high in salt is bad for your heart | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/7gwq7j/eli5_why_having_a_diet_high_in_salt_is_bad_for/ | {
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"Simple explanation given to me I'm on a heart medication and diuretic (increased peeing = water and sodium levels decreased in blood) \n\nSodium is a known to cause fluid retention aka the more sodium you take in the more water stays in the body and not filtered out. \n\nso high salt = high amount of water in blood.\n\nlets say that water changes to 1 gallon of blood will be 1 gallon + water content so lets say 1 gallon of water.\n\nWell now your 1 Gallon volume circulatory system now has 2 gallons in it causing increased pressure on veins and making your heart work twice if not three times as hard to pump double the fluid content through your body.",
"People with hypertension benefit from a low salt diet, although it's not clear that salt causes hypertension."
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289cnr | please explain the isis iraq situation. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/289cnr/eli5_please_explain_the_isis_iraq_situation/ | {
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"Ohh man its complicated..\nSo ISIS is the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria. They have been active mainly in Syria fighting against Bashir Al Asad, but have been pushed back there (out of Alepo and denser urban areas) by more moderate rebels (who the US ostensibly supports). Recently they cashed in on the Iraq side of their organization and captured several cities there in rapid succession meeting little or no resistance from Iraqi security forces (trained and supplied by the USA) which freaked everyone out. They got a ton of gold and cash from banks and military equipment left behind by the Iraqi security forces.\nNow weird shit is happening. Iran is offering to send republican guards to Iraq to fight ISIS and the US is considering bombing ISIS in Iraq and Syria. The Kurdish autonomous region has sent soldiers in to hold off ISIS and capture a few cities... basically its the penultimate strange bedfellows type of situation where enemy factions are coming together to try and stop this army who showed up from nowhere and displayed shocking capability. Not a good spot for US regional interests whatever we do will be no bueno. Really points out weakness and division in the Iraqi gov. Basically no one saw it coming.\nSide note ISIS was rejected by Al Queda for being \"too extreme\"\nThere are rumors of old Iraq army brass from the Saddam days working with them.\nThe danger is that Iraq will devolve into a full on ethnic civil war which combined with Syria's war could easily become the biggest genocide of this century.\nThis is what I have gathered feel free to fact check or ask me and Ill explain to the best of my ability.",
"OK, as someone who once lived in one of the cities that fell, a major problem is there are three kinds of people there. For the sake of simplicity we'll call them the red, white, and blue people. \n\n\nThere are more of the white people than any other people, so the red people and the blue people never favored a national democracy. \n\nHistorically the red people have been in charge, because Saddam was red. \n\nNow the red people are ousted from power and are the minority. They know that democracy is going to work against their interests, so they are capturing cities from the government. Many of the army soldiers were red people so they quit instead of fighting, and the white ones who stayed and fought were executed. \n\nThe blue people also left because they have their own area they want to make into a separate country.\n\nTo make matters more complicated, Saudis and Syrians are red, and Iranians are white. The blue people are disinclined to help, because they are holding their own borders well, and it only makes their case for them that they should be independent.\n\n\n"
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6t9jw7 | why is if more harmful to the human body to be exposed to freezing water than it is to be exposed to air of a similar temperature? | I've always heard that spending even a short amount of time in an extremely cold body of water will most likely lead to hypothermia or even death, but spending the same amount of time outside in extreme temperatures doesn't seem to have the same effect. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/6t9jw7/eli5_why_is_if_more_harmful_to_the_human_body_to/ | {
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"The heat capacity of water is much greater than air meaning it can absorb heat from the body much faster. This is basically the idea behind how you can reach into a newly opened oven without harm but dunking your hand into a casserole which was baking in there would hurt you.",
"Heat generally transfers from molecule to molecule. More molecules means faster heat transfer. The amount of molecules in a given volume is called density. Generally speaking, the denser a substance is, the better it is at transferring energy. Water is much denser than air. So, heat energy from your body will flow faster into water than it will into air. That's why cold water is more dangerous than cold air at the same temperature. The water will \"suck\" the heat out of you much faster than the air",
"The easiest example to show you of this can be done with an easy experiment at home. Get some tin foil, or an item with both metal and non metal surfaces. Touch the metal / tin foil surface with one hand, and touch the non metal surface (carpet or plastic or w/e) with the other. \n\nDespite them both being the same temperature, the metal feels colder, because it is more efficient at drawing heat energy away from you, which your body perceives as cold. Water functions in a similar manner, although in this case it is more about conduction vs convection heat loss, which makes a big difference."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[],
[],
[]
] |
|
1z74po | what is modern art and what determines the price? | Example:
_URL_0_ | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1z74po/eli5_what_is_modern_art_and_what_determines_the/ | {
"a_id": [
"cfr3w2a"
],
"score": [
3
],
"text": [
"Whatever the artist feels he is owed is weighed against public appraisal. It’s supply and demand, but on a very intimate scale, that determines the price. That is to say, the worth of the piece is the highest value a person wishes to pay. If the artist accepts, then that will be the price at which it is sold."
]
} | [] | [
"http://www.christies.com/lotfinder/paintings/christopher-wool-blue-fool-5315238-details.aspx"
] | [
[]
] |
|
5znnau | why is depression such a pervasive theme throughout reddit? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5znnau/eli5_why_is_depression_such_a_pervasive_theme/ | {
"a_id": [
"dezjeoe",
"dezkp9d"
],
"score": [
6,
17
],
"text": [
"Because a lot of people suffer from depression and better to make a joke of it than wallow in it. I think Reddit has almost helped me with my depression because I don't take it as seriously anymore.",
"Reddit is a fairly liberal place that likes to focus on fighting for marginalized causes. Depression and mental health are largely ignored in general society and affect a huge number of people, so naturally Reddit wants to talk about it. Also, since Reddit is an anonymous community, it is much easier to talk about our problems when we are anonymous than in person. "
]
} | [] | [] | [
[],
[]
] |
||
3aj076 | why are rabbits associated with sexual things like playboy? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3aj076/eli5_why_are_rabbits_associated_with_sexual/ | {
"a_id": [
"csd1ln0"
],
"score": [
10
],
"text": [
"Rabbits have a reputation of breeding prolifically, which leads to their reputation of having sex very often."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[]
] |
||
eaee56 | difference between memory and ssd | Looking at laptops and confused between memory and SSD. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/eaee56/eli5_difference_between_memory_and_ssd/ | {
"a_id": [
"fapxbsb",
"faq4829"
],
"score": [
19,
4
],
"text": [
"Memory typically refers to RAM (random access memory) where as SSD (solid state drive) refers to storage.\n\nEasiest way to know the difference is think of RAM as a work table and SSD or other storage device like a hard drive as storage cabinets. \n\nIf you want to work on a project, you can only use as many tools (aka apps) as you have room on your work bench. If you run out of room on your work bench but need something else, you'll have to put something away in the cabinets and search for the new thing you need, pull it out and put it on the work bench to use. The bigger your work bench, the more stuff you can use at one time. The bigger the cabinets, the more stuff you can have in total, whether using it or not. \n\nThings like editing software take up a lot of room on the work bench. Games can too. Games also take up a lot of room in your storage cabinet. Things like pictures are tiny and take up little room on the work bench, but can add up in your storage cabinets if you have enough of them",
"Memory is temporary storage, similar to your brains \"working memory\". It controls how much stuff you can have \"in-flight\" or be working on/thinking about simultaneously (e.g., many browser tabs).\n\nSSD is like you brain's long term memory. A big, slow data store for things you want to refer to much later, like a word document or your garage code."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[],
[]
] |
Subsets and Splits