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c1dxi2 | how do doorbells work? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/c1dxi2/eli5_how_do_doorbells_work/ | {
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"So traditional wired doorbells are normally simply a complete wired circuit involving:\n- a bell\n- a transformer to lower the voltage so that if the button gets compromised people won’t get a high voltage shock by pressing the button\n- a button outside\n- and wiring connecting it all\n\nWhen you press the button outside it completes the circuit by allowing electricity to pass through and ring the bell."
]
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4d4xie | are there any disorders that involve an altered perception of the rate of time? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4d4xie/eli5_are_there_any_disorders_that_involve_an/ | {
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"[This might interest you.](_URL_0_)\n\nI know at the least some disorders cause you to \"lose\" time in the sense that you blacked out and can't remember what you did.\n\nI'm just adding useless text to my comment here because for some reason this sub thinks you cannot give a concise and meaningful answer. Must have long winded mods or something. I also think this might be better suited to /r/askscience."
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"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time_perception#Kappa_effect"
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16vv10 | how does a full cycle charge extend a lithium-ion batteries life? | Supposedly one should do a full cycle charge about once a month. What is going on inside the battery that makes this necessary? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/16vv10/eli5_how_does_a_full_cycle_charge_extend_a/ | {
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"It's not required for the battery at all. \n\nYou know how the battery meter on your phone or whatever says 100% right when you take it off? And 57% sometime later? It needs to be calibrated to accurately determine from the battery (usually via a voltage measurement) what the state of charge is. \n\nDoing a full cycle occasionally helps your device do this calibration. \n\nNote, with a Li battery, you DON'T need to do this very often (certainly no more than monthly). Fully discharging the battery can actually damage it, unlike older NiMH or NiCd batteries. "
]
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o7jgh | what is a scripting language? | What is a scripting language and how do scripting languages differ from other programming languages like Java? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/o7jgh/eli5_what_is_a_scripting_language/ | {
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"A scripting language is a type of programming language, it's normally not compiled before being run and normally is created or modified by end-users. It also normally is used to interact with other applications, as opposed to creating an application itself.",
"Sorry, your question's phrased as coming directly from a textbook or a homework assignment.",
"There are 2 types of languages: compiled and interpreted.\n\nInterpreted (or scripting) languages require the \"script\" be run through an external application called the \"interpreter\" which takes your script and does the work the script tells it to do.\n\nCompiled languages are run through a compiler which translates the code into a native assembly that the processor can directly understand.\n\nJava is, sort of, both. Its compiled into an arbitrary bytecode that the java virtual machine interprets."
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f5sqvd | how are cancer and tumors related? does one cause another? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/f5sqvd/eli5_how_are_cancer_and_tumors_related_does_one/ | {
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"Cancers are a type of aggressive tumor. While tumors themselves are overgrowths of cells , they are not always dangerous. Tumors are just byproducts of uninstructed cells. Cancers are dangerous subcategories of tumors causing the mass make of harmful cells the body doesn’t view as a threat due to it essentially being made by your own body.",
"A tumor is an abnormal growth of tissue. It can be benign or it can be malignant. A malignant tumor is cancer. It grows very fast, it creates its own blood supply, it can spread throughout the body, and it can invade and destroy other tissue. A benign tumor is not cancer. It grows more slowly, it doesn’t make its own blood supply, it won’t invade other tissue, and it won’t spread to other parts of the body.",
"Tumors are cells that are ignoring only some of the rules the body sets for them. Cancer cells have gone completely renegade.\n\nSpecifically, the body sets clear rules for which cells are allowed to divide (and thus grow their tissue) and when. That's how you grow and maintain your organs and other bodily tissues. If cells were allowed to divide whenever they wanted to, you'd end up with strange bulbous growths that would leech blood and nutrients while making a mess of things and getting in everyone's way. Sound familiar? Yes, that's a tumor.\n\nTumors aren't necessarily that harmful as long as they aren't messing things up too much. If they are small, self-contained, and in a place where they can't do much harm, you can live with a tumor for a very long time without serious complaints. If they are larger or if they are interfering with vital functions, a tumor may become a problem in and of itself and have to be removed for that reason.\n\nA more important issue, though, is that cells who've already broken some of the body's rules may start breaking others. Specifically: the very important rule that, with some exceptions (e.g. blood), cells need to stay in their designated place within the body. When cells break this rule as well, we call them *malignant* or *cancerous.* These cells are now traveling throughout the body and settling in different places, where they start dividing again and growing new tumors. This is very bad. As I said, you can live with a contained tumor quite happily if it isn't interfering with anything important. But if tumors start to grow everywhere, that's a different ball game. Some of these tumors are bound to be in dangerous places, and even if they aren't, their numbers alone can start to pose a problem.\n\nMoreover, once you're at this stage, it becomes much harder to remove the bad cells. A single, large-ish tumor can be easily detected, surgically removed, irradiated, or otherwise targeted specifically. But once you have many small tumors growing all over the place, you're fighting a guerrilla war. The enemy is now spread over many places, and hard to track. We're getting better and better at fighting these sorts of wars, and we can subdue cancers for longer and longer, to the point where more and more people are dying *with* cancer, not *of* it. But it all depends on how far the cancer has spread, as well as the type of cancer and how aggressive it is. In any case, the earlier you detect it, the better, and often a *benign* (i.e. not (yet) cancerous) tumor will be removed for that reason.",
"Cancer: Cells that are growing in an unchecked manner. Normal Cells reproduce in a certain way at a certain rate, cancer cells don't have these instructions and as a result grow unconstrained.\n\nTumors are an abnormal growth of tissues somewhere on the body. Basically, the instructions on how the cells are supposed to grow has been ignored.\n\nA tumor can be a result of a cancer. A cell growing rapidly and without check could form a mass (tumor) - that would be a malignant tumor. However, it could be non-cancerous cells making up the tumor (benign). \n\nCancer can also effect cells that can't form solid masses like a tumor - so if you have Lymphoma or lukemia, you wouldn't see tumors, since the cancer is in your blood."
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2gzjyd | why does metal shrink & water expand when they turn from a liquid to a solid? | I work in a foundry were we pour Carbon & Stainless steel into large molds, to form a casting. On that casting are what we call "risers". They hold extra metal for the casting to draw from as it shrinks. Water on the other hand, expands when turning into a solid (everyone knows that so i figured a explenation isn't neccesary) So can anyone tell me why they're so different, even with the similar change? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2gzjyd/eli5_why_does_metal_shrink_water_expand_when_they/ | {
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"Water is special. No other liquid does that when you freeze it, I dont think. Its due to hydrogen bonds and the shape of the molecule.",
"Water molecules stick together through hydrogen bonding. In a liquid state, there is enough kinetic energy (heat) in the molecules to prevent stable hydrogen bonds from forming, so they form and break as molecules flow over each other. As water loses heat (remember, kinetic energy) they are able to move closer together because they bump into each other less, and at 4 degrees C water is most dense - and a liquid - because there's still too much kinetic energy for them to form stable hydrogen bonds, but not enough for molecules to force each other apart. Heating or cooling beyond this point causes water to expand. \n\nWhen enough heat is removed, water can begin forming stable hydrogen bonds. This forces molecules to form sort of rings with a lot of empty space in between them. Compare the structure of [ice](_URL_1_) to [liquid water](_URL_0_).\n\nMost other things, however, don't have so much space in their solid structure. As they lose heat, they move less, and thus bump into each other less and become more dense as they are able to move closer together, and becoming more dense = contracting."
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6ry6hz | how do micronutrients work? are they a good solution to malnutrition in poor countries? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/6ry6hz/eli5_how_do_micronutrients_work_are_they_a_good/ | {
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"Micronutrients are things you only need small amounts of lime vitamins and minerals. What malnourished people need are macronutrients like fats and carbs.",
"Micronutrients refer to the nutritional value of a food, e.g. vitamins and minerals \n\nMacro nutrients refer to the nutritional content of food, e.g. Protein, carbohydrate and fat\n\nMicronutrients would help if the said person was deficient in vitamins due to a diet that isn't varied, however if the said person if deficient in food all together then micronutrients wouldn't do much to help as they would be deficient in macronutrients and therefore calories which are all essential to normal function of the body."
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19ja2w | - what exactly is the current relationship between the us and cuba, and why does it appear that the relations haven't changed much despite the end of the cold war? | To me it appears that the US is holding a grudge to a fleeting remnant of the 1960s, but is this actually true? If so, why? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/19ja2w/eli5_what_exactly_is_the_current_relationship/ | {
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"When Castro came to power, may Cubans fled to Florida, and harbored a deep seated hatred for Castro, one they handed down to their children and grandchildren. So now there is this huge community of rabid anti-Castro voters living in the biggest swing state in the US. \n\nDuring the Cold War, this served US interests well, but now it complicates matters. Even though there are a a lot of Americans who feel the US should normalize relations with Cuba, it is not something many people are passionate about. On the other hand, the anti-Catro community would raise holy hell, to the point any political party that suggest it would risk losing the Florida vote. At the end of the day, there is very little to be gained politically, and a lot to lose, by softening the relationship with Cuba."
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152vhb | when i call someone, why is the first ring always louder than subsequent rings? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/152vhb/eli5_when_i_call_someone_why_is_the_first_ring/ | {
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"This is probably due to sensory adaptation. When you experience something that triggers one of your senses multiple times in a row, the experience is less and less each time. This is also why you get used to smells."
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1oh470 | why are certain eye colors almost none existent? (like purple) | I'm just curious who out there can tell me why some eye colors are rare or almost none existent. I understand that in many countries certain colors are rare (like blue eyes in China.) but how come nobody (except rare occasions) has purple or red iris'?
Thanks in advanced to the community. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1oh470/eli5_why_are_certain_eye_colors_almost_none/ | {
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"Only time I have seen \"red\" is with albinos. You see red because of the complete absence of pigment which allows for a good reflection of their retina in the correct lighting conditions. This lack of pigment also means that they tend to be very sensitive to light (a lot of albinos are nearly blind).\n\nEye color is mainly a function of the pigment melanin. If your eyes have a lot of it, they're brown. If they don't, they're blue. (Some details of this explanation are in dispute, but don't worry about that now.) Green eyes result from yellowish flecks of fatty pigment against a dark background. Some men think a green-eyed woman is exotic. The truth is she's got fat eyes.\n\n\nI have never seen purple eyes. Animals maybe? Then I assume it's the same idea but different colours (different pigment).",
"Elizabeth Taylor and others are reported to have purple [eyes] (_URL_0_)\n\nIs it real? Contacts? A trick of the light? Photoshop?\n\nWho knows, anymore?"
]
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"http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&site=webhp&tbm=isch&q=natural+purple+eyes&revid=1704346694&sa=X&ei=ZbRcUrasEITAkQfa-4GgDA&ved=0CDkQ1QIoAA&dpr=2&biw=-1&bih=-1"
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5jdxbg | what safety measures are on gas tanks to prevent them exploding when a car is on fire? | Over the past 6 months, I have seen two cars go up in flames. Both times, the tires exploded, and the whole car was engulfed in flames, but the gas tank never exploded.
What do car manufacturers do to prevent the tank from exploding? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5jdxbg/eli5_what_safety_measures_are_on_gas_tanks_to/ | {
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"They don't need to do anything. You need a certain proportions of gasoline to air mixture for an explosion and in spite of what you see in movies and video games, that composition is frequently not present in the gas tank.",
"Usually seal them so oxygen cannot get to the gas and contribute. \n\nOn a science note, gasoline vapor is explosive and flammable, not so much liquid gasoline. So as long as the gas is condensed into a liquid and kept contained, it's quite safe. Which is also why you should never take the nozzle out of the tank if there is a fire while filling. The lack of oxygen will smother the fire while \"heroically \" removing the nozzle will cause a significantly worse fire. And total loss of the car, if not the station and other vehicles. ",
"\"Let's start with why cars don't usually explode. To have an explosion, you've got to produce a lot of hot gas in a confined space so that the gas can then go rocketing outwards. Your best bet for that to happen is in the car's gas tank, since you've got gasoline in an enclosed space, but it's hard to make that happen. For one, gasoline by itself isn't explosive. We explode it in car engines, but to make that happen the engine vaporizes the gasoline, turning it into gas, and mixes that with air before introducing the spark of flame to create the explosion. If you light a cup of liquid gasoline, it'll burn merrily but it won't explode.\"^^1 --Physicist Dr. Stephen Granande\n\n2016. _URL_0_. Accessed December 20 2016. [Link to article](_URL_1_)"
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3lseb1 | why does white bread crisp quicker compared to brown bread when toasted? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3lseb1/eli5_why_does_white_bread_crisp_quicker_compared/ | {
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"It's made mostly from white bleached flour and is generally lighter in both appearance (so the toasted bits show up better) and density than most brown breads. \n\nThe latter are generally coarser and heavier, and have more of the doesn't-burn-so-easily parts of the wheat grain in them like the grain's skin, particularly \"whole grain\" types of bread or most artisan types that can often be much denser. So it takes longer for them to heat up, reach the burning point of the material that's in them, and lose enough water content on their outside surface to show the charring."
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4kdakc | my bird starts chirping when he hears other birds of completely different species. why? | My bird is a lovebird, and I live in Canada. If he hears robins, he'll start freaking out and chirping. Is it like he can here them, but its a different language? Or is it just triggering some response from him? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4kdakc/eli5_my_bird_starts_chirping_when_he_hears_other/ | {
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"Birds can only have offspring with their own species, so recognizing your own species is done through the specific songs.\n\nBirds are also quite territorial, not just for nest building but also for general food and water resources in the area, so singing is a great way for advertising that this is your area.\n\nSo they're not really talking as much as they're basically saying \"hey, I'm a Robin, this is my tree, any single robin ladies in the area?\". And then other birds sing their own songs to say they're also here, basically responding \"hey, this is my house and I'm not a robin, please leave!\""
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8n8pi6 | how come some vendors require my debit card pin but others do not? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/8n8pi6/eli5_how_come_some_vendors_require_my_debit_card/ | {
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"Your debit card has Visa (or another credit card company) backing it. Each transaction can be run as debit (processed by your bank directly, requires your PIN) or credit (processed through Visa, does not require your PIN).\n\nProcessing as credit through Visa is to your advantage as the consumer. The consumer protections are much greater. If there is fraud or a dispute, you have a lot more power to get it fixed quickly.\n\nVendors don't want you to choose this option, because when you do they have to pay Visa a transaction fee. This is why some shady Point of Sale systems will force debit even if you try to pick credit. You could complain to Visa about these places and they would probably be forced to fix it, but ain't nobody got time fo' dat.\n\nWhen you use debit, the money is literally pulled out of your account immediately without that intermediate \"credit stage\". This is a big deal, for example if you use it to check in at a hotel then the full amount of the hotel's holding amount will immediately be pulled out of your checking account. Versus the credit card approach where it is just a \"pre-authorization\" transaction that doesn't actually hit your account until they complete the posting.",
"You can spend up to £29.99 with contactless payment but will need to enter your pin for transactions of anything more.\n\nOr.. have i completely misunderstood.",
" Source: almost 10 years of card-specific processing.\n\nYour card issuer (the bank) has a preference on how they verify their cardholder, whether it's via PIN, signature, or not at all. This is primarily what drives the PIN request, but certain transactions require it regardless, such as ATMs. That's the simple answer.\n\nFor more color: Prior to the advent of chip cards, transactions made with your PIN posted at the same time as they authorized due to the additional verification token, whereas transactions without it always had a lag between authorization and posting. However, chip cards muddy the waters. Sometimes, PIN transactions will travel along the signature networks, and vice versa; it depends a lot on issuer vs. Merchant network affiliation and a whole bunch of other industry nonsense.\n\nI could go on and on, but the long and short of it is that the PIN request is driven by your financial institution's preferences. That's it!",
"Similarly, how come when I use my credit card sometime I have to sign and other times I don't? I've had to sign and not sign at the same store before. ",
"McDonalds is the only place where it's like SWIPE BAM. You're good.\n\nOther places are dial up, you pass a clip board (such as checking out of the airport or something) sign it, wait for the other copy to print out. I can go on and on "
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2bvdmp | why do stores display fruit and vegetables outside where people could steal them? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2bvdmp/eli5why_do_stores_display_fruit_and_vegetables/ | {
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"Because people like to touch and feel their apples before buying them. That way you can check for freshness and bad spots. \n\nThe amount of food someone can steal is pretty small and that implies that they are able to steal this stuff with no one noticing in a brightly lit and well trafficked area.\n\nSo the stores take a risk and display their fruits and veggies because the value they get from people being more likely to buy outweighs the risk of stealing.",
"My guess would be that before refrigeration, super markets would want to advertise their fresh, brightly colored produce out front to grab the attention of passerby's, and the tradition has carried on.",
"Other than street urchins and tykes, who is stealing apples from a store front? ",
"Because the traffic brought in exceeds losses",
"Because the vast majority of people are basically honest, or at least honest enough not to steal a few dollars worth of produce displayed in front of a store."
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2nhm78 | why do i need planning permission to build on land i already own? | If i already own the land, why can't i go ahead and build anything i want on it? How can it possibly be legal or even morally correct for the council to have the power to decide they don't like what i've built, evict me form my own land and destroy whatever i have built.. with no compensation?
Is this just a UK thing?
Edit: just to clarify, i'm talking about a hypothetical situation, i don't own any land. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2nhm78/eli5_why_do_i_need_planning_permission_to_build/ | {
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"So you've got this nice piece of land and you've spent your life saving building yourself the house of your dreams on it, then a company buys the piece of land next door to yours and builds an abattoir on it. This makes your property stink off rotten meat all the time and be constantly swarming with flies, making it practically impossible to live in and causing it's resale value to be utterly worthless. \n\nThis is why planning permission is required, so that when permission to build the abattoir is applied for you will be notified and have the opportunity to raise an objection, and possibly stop it from being built."
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951j9e | how do humans taste things like smoke and metallic flavors if there are only five tastes (salty,sweet, sour, bitter, umami)? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/951j9e/eli5_how_do_humans_taste_things_like_smoke_and/ | {
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"While the tongue only detects 5 ‘tastes’, smell is also a compnent, and it is this that creates ‘flavour’. Without any sense of smell an apple and onion would taste VERY similar. Food is ‘smelt’ through olfactory glands in the nose, via the internal nasal cavity.\n\nEDIT: Corrected location of glands per several commenters below. Thanks guys.",
"The taste of food is a combination of the balances of the 5 flavors, and the scent of the food. A large percentage of what we taste is actually dictated by what we smell. This is why food has almost no taste when you have a cold. ",
"Consider this: how can humans see thousands of colors if their have only red, green, and blue cones in their eyes?\n",
"I’m a little apprehensive seeing as how nobody has asked this question: what the actual fuck is “umami flavour”? As a follow up I’d like to add that I’m not actually mentally disabled. I’m just an uncultured Canadian pleb. Plez hep meh. ",
"Umami? What food tastes like that?",
"It's not just those 5! There has been some good research over the last decade that suggests \"fat\" is the 6th flavor that mammals (including humans) can taste.\n\n > After a short overview of the gustatory pathway, this review brings together the key findings consistent with the existence of a sixth taste modality devoted to the perception of lipids.\n\n[Taste of Fat: A Sixth Taste Modality?](_URL_0_)",
"I could be wrong but I believe the \"five tastes\" theory is outdated and oversimplified , much like the five senses. ",
"Metal doesn't actually have a smell or taste. What we perceive as a metallic smell/taste (from coins, keys, etc) is actually caused by volatile oils on our body undergoing rapid oxidisation (e.g. rust is one form of oxidisation) upon contact with metal.",
"The same way that your monitor can use a massive array of red, green, and blue LEDs to create a full spectrum of colored and grey scale images. ",
"Taste isn't what you may think. Imagine a drinking glass you own. If you freeze water in it, the cup will kinda hold on to the ice cube if you turn it upside down because it's such a perfect fit. But if put that ice cube in a different cup, even slightly different, and it won't stay in upside down at all. The cups are your taste receptors and the ice are 'tastes'. \n\nYou tongue is covered in cups. When the cups have ice in them they send a signal. Similar cups, when also full, will add to the signal adding up together and making it stronger. This is half of the story. The rest of taste is in your brain, which decides what the signal means. Is it an emergency? Is it a very weak signal? Different brains might give a different answer to the same signal.\n\nLet's just call the 'ice cubes' 'shapes' now because that's what is important, the shape.\n\nI put tastes in quotes earlier because this allows us to taste a sensation. For example when we burn our tongue, what is really happening is we triggered special sensors on our tongues whose whole job is, \"When you detect heat, throw out a bunch of shapes that fit in the 'my tongue is on fire' cups!!!\". It, for whatever reason, is the same shape as capsaicin, which is what we taste when we have food that is hot, as in spicy hot. Because of this, plants have evolved to produce all sorts of wonderful capsaicin containing compounds that make our food so delicious.\n\nSo when you taste something, it means it is the right shape to trigger our cups to signal, or it is stimulating our tongue to release a shape that does trigger the cups.\n\nThe smoke I imagine is a shape thing and the metal I imagine is something strange a property of metal has that messes with the way the signal system works.",
"Someone might have talked about this already, but metal doesn't actually have a smell or a taste. The metallic 'smell' is from the oil on your skin reacting with the metal. If you smelled metal that hadn't been handled, it wouldn't smell like anything. Similarly with taste, your saliva reacts with the metal. I'm no expert so I can't go super in depth, hope that kinda helps though",
"There are not only five tastes.\n\nIt's a useful model for teaching schoolkids, but it's not an accurate one.\n\nThere are, in total, around thirty tastes.\n\nI'll go over them.\n\nSweetness is detected by G protein coupled receptors, which respond to sugars, aldehydes, alcohols and ketones.\n\nSourness is quite simple, it is activated by hydrogen ions (it basically responds to low pH) and detects acidity.\n\nSaltiness is activated by small singly charged cations, Li+, Na+ and K+. The larger Ca2+ and Mg2+ cations have a much weaker response. Other cations, like ammonium, do not elicit this response.\n\nBitterness is the most complex of tastes, using a G coupled receptor (to gustducin) like with sweetness, to form over 25 different taste receptors. Some types of bitterness, such as beer or wine, are pleasant. Other types are unpleasant, like dandelion milk. These have as much a claim to be basic tastes by themselves as any other receptor does. We even have a very tightly coupled receptor which responds to a molecule nobody's yet discovered, a completely unknown taste which was likely down to an unpleasant plant we encountered somewhere in our past. \n\nUmami is another G coupled receptor, which is tightly coupled to detect the glutamate ion, the anion of the amino acid glutamic acid, a very versatile amino acid used as the building block of proteins. Most people describe it as \"savoury\" or \"meaty\", but it is properly called \"umami\". Nucelodites like guanylic acid and inosinic acid can also complement glutamate. Ribonucleotides are also often used to trigger the umami taste.\n\nThat's five basic tastes, and researchers at Purdue University believe they have found a sixth, that of rancid oils, which likely has its own receptors and therefore is a basic taste. Oils are usually triglycerides, which contribute to mouthfeel, but have no taste. Once the triglyceride begins to break into fatty acids (e.g. via bacterial fermentation), it imbues a taste which is pleasant in low concentrations, but as concentration increases becomes unpleasant and finally inedible. Fatty acids are a good nutrient, however their presence indicates food which is likely spoiled as they are not found in isolation in the human diet to any large degree.\n\nThe somatosensory system is also involved in taste, adding coolness (e.g. mint, menthol), pungency (chilli peppers, black peppers), numbness (sichuan pepper), astringency (tannins in tea, rhubarb, chestnuts), metallicness (blood) and we're still discovering new tastes such as calcium and fattiness, which are present in mice and may be present in humans.\n\nSo, in the ELI5 summary, of \"basic tastes\", there are as many as six, and then the 25-strong bitterness complex, as well as those added by the somatosensory system, as well as temperature."
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8nk7oi | how do bagged cereal companies not get sued? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/8nk7oi/eli5_how_do_bagged_cereal_companies_not_get_sued/ | {
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"A patent only lasts about 20 years in most cases. So it is perfectly fine to make the exact same product. Thus, it is only the trademark laws that you have to get around. If you can argue that a person wouldn’t confuse your Big Fatty’s sugared broccoli squares with Nestle’s sugared broccoli squares, then you are all good.",
"It's the formula that is protected, and in practice the original company would have to prove some kind of contact between an agent of the knockoff brand and the original company to sue successfully. The bagged cereal company would just claim they reproduced it independently. \n\nTL;DR - You can't trademark a taste."
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1vcrjk | how do astronauts shave? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1vcrjk/eli5_how_do_astronauts_shave/ | {
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"Who other than Chris Hadfield to answer the question:\n\n_URL_0_"
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2ay0lj | why do bands keep pretending to end a rock show, but always comeback for an encore to play like 2-3 of their best songs? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2ay0lj/eli5why_do_bands_keep_pretending_to_end_a_rock/ | {
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"it's building hype.\n\nand in many cases they: (one of this options)\n\n1. love the crowd, so they want to give them more\n\n2. pretend to love the crowd, so they want to make them happy.",
"I sometimes work the camera crew on stage at nearby venues and one popular country band finished their set recently in front of 30,000. The audience wanted an encore and the lead singer uttered to his lead guitarist, \"No way. This aint the South\".\n\nFuck that guy.",
"I was just at an Arctic Monkeys concert and it seems to me that playing some of their best song in an \"encore\" has a few benefits.\n\n1. The delay between songs when they're off stage builds hype\n\n2. The crowd is likely to want an encore after a concert. If they played all their songs that they planned they would have to improvise an encore and it would eat into their time. If they plan an encore they can save some good songs, please the crowd and still stay within the expected time for the concert\n\n3. Makes the band seem like they're generous by giving more time than you paid for, even though it's all planned.\n\nAt least thats what I took from my experience. Also Arctic Monkeys played \"One for the road\" last, which may have just been because its a suitable song."
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j5n06 | to me, why can't *japan* just print money | I understand how printing money can be bad because it leads to inflation. What I don't understand is why, if it's so easy to cause an inflation, doesn't Japan, or any other economy with deflation problems, just print money until the deflation curve is leveled out? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/j5n06/eli5_to_me_why_cant_japan_just_print_money/ | {
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"While printing money causes inflation, the contrary is not necessarily true. Japan did, in fact, mess around with the currency value (via printing money and changing interest rates), but it seemed not to have the desired effect. \nThere are several economists that argue that Japan's deflation it's not a monetary problem, but a structural one. Bad corporate decisions and demographics. They argue that Japan's workforce is severely diminishing because its population is old (and old people tend to save more money and not buying things) and doesn't create new humans!, hence, lowering productivity, and that corporations should diversify their products to increase demand. \nEDIT: to clarify why there's deflation. People stop buying, the products price lower, companies lay off workers, which in turn decreases even more the demand for goods, and so on. \n____________________________________________________________________ \nTrying to dumb it down a notch (got a legitimate complaint from a 5yo). \nSo, kid, you're saying that you know that printing money makes things more expensive. That's cool. So, japan has a problem because the prices of things are going down, and they are getting cheaper because people don't buy them. Why is this a problem? Because if companies sell their products cheaper they don't have enough money to keep all their workers and so they fire some. If there are more people without a job, there are even more people that buy less things, and the prices continue to going down. \nWhy not print more money? Well, they did. But can't do it anymore and it had no result. People just don't buy. \nThere are some experts that say that the problem is that Japan has very old people living there, and they don't spend as much as young people and don't work anymore. They also say that if companies start to make more and different things maybe people would start buying again.",
"On that note, can someone ELI5 why deflation is a bad thing for a country?",
"Most of our money supply is book money (M2, M3) based on central bank money (M1). If a central bank \"prints money\", the actual monetary supply expands by a multiple of what the central bank prints.\n\nNow money isn't just given away. Our money is based on debt, so in order to enter circulation, it has to be *borrowed* by someone. E.g. if you take out a loan at a bank, money is created (that's a whole other subject...).\n\nAnyway, when an economy is already so saturated with debt, that nobody wants to take out loans anymore and the banks don't want to *give* loans either, because they don't know if they'll ever get the money back, you can lower interest rates to zero and print as much central bank money (M1) as you want (as was done in Japan), the overall money supply (M1+M2+M3) barely changes.",
"Okay, so, here's what you need to understand: when the government prints money, they are *tricking* everyone into spending more money. People aren't *truly* richer, because there isn't more stuff. There's just more worthless pieces of paper.\n\nThe second thing you need to understand is that when the government prints money, the main people they are trying to trick isn't *people* like your mommy and daddy. They're trying to trick companies. Here's how it works: the government prints money and give it to your mommy and daddy. They spend some of it, but they also put some of it in their bank accounts. All the other mommies and daddies put some of the money in their bank accounts too. So after the government prints money and gives it to people, the bank ends up with a whole lot of money.\n\nNow, let's say that you're thinking of opening your own lemonade stand, but you can't afford $100 for a nice big neon sign, which would attract more business. One thing you might decide to do is go to the bank and ask them to borrow $100, and then you promise to pay them back later, plus a little extra for their trouble. That extra is called *interest*. \n\nBefore the government printed all the money and gave it to your mommy and daddy, the bank might have said, \"well, we don't have very much in our accounts right now, so we'll have to charge you an extra $30 interest\". And you might have decided that $30 was too much, and decided not to buy the sign. But *after* the government prints the money and gives it to your mommy and daddy who then put it in the bank, the bank might say \"well we just got a whole bunch of extra money in our accounts last week, so we'll only need to charge you an extra $5 interest\". And that, you might think, is a great deal, so you take it and buy the sign.\n\nMost businesses buy all their signs by borrowing money from the bank, and the less interest the bank charges, the more signs that businesses will buy [stepping outside of 5 years old here. Signs are a metaphor for all investment spending: building houses and buildings, factories, machinery, expensive computer systems, etc]. And since the government can control how much interest the bank charges by printing money, they can get businesses to buy more signs by printing money. If more people can afford more signs, then they'll start more lemonade stands and other kinds of businesses, and more people will be able to get jobs at those new lemonade stands.\n\n*But*, say you do some research in your neighbourhood and you find out that people aren't feeling very good about how rich they are, and they don't want to spend extra money on things like lemonade. Whenever the government prints money and gives it to them, they decide to put more of it in the bank instead of using it to buy lemonade. Maybe a lot of them don't have jobs too. You realize that your lemonade stand probably isn't going to be very successful, and so you decide not to borrow the $100, even though the bank only wants to charge you $5. In fact, you wouldn't even want to buy the sign if the bank was only going to charge you $0. You decide it's better just not to open a lemonade stand at all, no matter how little the bank will charge you to borrow money.\n\nIn that situation, the government is [trapped](_URL_0_). If the government lowers the interest that the bank charges by printing more money, then businesses might want to buy more stuff. But if businesses are so worried that they won't even borrow money for zero interest, then the government can't do anything by printing more money. In that situation, printing more money is kind of like spinning the tires on a car when it's stuck in a ditch. It just digs the car in deeper. \n\nAnd that's the kind of situation that Japan is in.\n\n",
"While printing money causes inflation, the contrary is not necessarily true. Japan did, in fact, mess around with the currency value (via printing money and changing interest rates), but it seemed not to have the desired effect. \nThere are several economists that argue that Japan's deflation it's not a monetary problem, but a structural one. Bad corporate decisions and demographics. They argue that Japan's workforce is severely diminishing because its population is old (and old people tend to save more money and not buying things) and doesn't create new humans!, hence, lowering productivity, and that corporations should diversify their products to increase demand. \nEDIT: to clarify why there's deflation. People stop buying, the products price lower, companies lay off workers, which in turn decreases even more the demand for goods, and so on. \n____________________________________________________________________ \nTrying to dumb it down a notch (got a legitimate complaint from a 5yo). \nSo, kid, you're saying that you know that printing money makes things more expensive. That's cool. So, japan has a problem because the prices of things are going down, and they are getting cheaper because people don't buy them. Why is this a problem? Because if companies sell their products cheaper they don't have enough money to keep all their workers and so they fire some. If there are more people without a job, there are even more people that buy less things, and the prices continue to going down. \nWhy not print more money? Well, they did. But can't do it anymore and it had no result. People just don't buy. \nThere are some experts that say that the problem is that Japan has very old people living there, and they don't spend as much as young people and don't work anymore. They also say that if companies start to make more and different things maybe people would start buying again.",
"On that note, can someone ELI5 why deflation is a bad thing for a country?",
"Most of our money supply is book money (M2, M3) based on central bank money (M1). If a central bank \"prints money\", the actual monetary supply expands by a multiple of what the central bank prints.\n\nNow money isn't just given away. Our money is based on debt, so in order to enter circulation, it has to be *borrowed* by someone. E.g. if you take out a loan at a bank, money is created (that's a whole other subject...).\n\nAnyway, when an economy is already so saturated with debt, that nobody wants to take out loans anymore and the banks don't want to *give* loans either, because they don't know if they'll ever get the money back, you can lower interest rates to zero and print as much central bank money (M1) as you want (as was done in Japan), the overall money supply (M1+M2+M3) barely changes.",
"Okay, so, here's what you need to understand: when the government prints money, they are *tricking* everyone into spending more money. People aren't *truly* richer, because there isn't more stuff. There's just more worthless pieces of paper.\n\nThe second thing you need to understand is that when the government prints money, the main people they are trying to trick isn't *people* like your mommy and daddy. They're trying to trick companies. Here's how it works: the government prints money and give it to your mommy and daddy. They spend some of it, but they also put some of it in their bank accounts. All the other mommies and daddies put some of the money in their bank accounts too. So after the government prints money and gives it to people, the bank ends up with a whole lot of money.\n\nNow, let's say that you're thinking of opening your own lemonade stand, but you can't afford $100 for a nice big neon sign, which would attract more business. One thing you might decide to do is go to the bank and ask them to borrow $100, and then you promise to pay them back later, plus a little extra for their trouble. That extra is called *interest*. \n\nBefore the government printed all the money and gave it to your mommy and daddy, the bank might have said, \"well, we don't have very much in our accounts right now, so we'll have to charge you an extra $30 interest\". And you might have decided that $30 was too much, and decided not to buy the sign. But *after* the government prints the money and gives it to your mommy and daddy who then put it in the bank, the bank might say \"well we just got a whole bunch of extra money in our accounts last week, so we'll only need to charge you an extra $5 interest\". And that, you might think, is a great deal, so you take it and buy the sign.\n\nMost businesses buy all their signs by borrowing money from the bank, and the less interest the bank charges, the more signs that businesses will buy [stepping outside of 5 years old here. Signs are a metaphor for all investment spending: building houses and buildings, factories, machinery, expensive computer systems, etc]. And since the government can control how much interest the bank charges by printing money, they can get businesses to buy more signs by printing money. If more people can afford more signs, then they'll start more lemonade stands and other kinds of businesses, and more people will be able to get jobs at those new lemonade stands.\n\n*But*, say you do some research in your neighbourhood and you find out that people aren't feeling very good about how rich they are, and they don't want to spend extra money on things like lemonade. Whenever the government prints money and gives it to them, they decide to put more of it in the bank instead of using it to buy lemonade. Maybe a lot of them don't have jobs too. You realize that your lemonade stand probably isn't going to be very successful, and so you decide not to borrow the $100, even though the bank only wants to charge you $5. In fact, you wouldn't even want to buy the sign if the bank was only going to charge you $0. You decide it's better just not to open a lemonade stand at all, no matter how little the bank will charge you to borrow money.\n\nIn that situation, the government is [trapped](_URL_0_). If the government lowers the interest that the bank charges by printing more money, then businesses might want to buy more stuff. But if businesses are so worried that they won't even borrow money for zero interest, then the government can't do anything by printing more money. In that situation, printing more money is kind of like spinning the tires on a car when it's stuck in a ditch. It just digs the car in deeper. \n\nAnd that's the kind of situation that Japan is in.\n\n"
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90ozyu | the limit of tornado wind speed and why tornadoes might never become ef6 | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/90ozyu/eli5_the_limit_of_tornado_wind_speed_and_why/ | {
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"Tornado and hurricane scales run from \"Ehh\"(EF0/Tropical storm) to \"OH SHIT!\"(EF5/Cat 5), in both cases we give the upper category an open upper bound. EF5 tornadoes have wind speeds > 200 MPH, even if you find a 300 MPH tornado, it would still be greater than 200 MPH and fall into the EF5 bucket \n\nAn EF5 tornado will demolish pretty much everything it comes across and throw train cars like toys. Even if the wind speed increases, the damage is pretty complete already\n\nThere's also the concern of thinning the scale out too much. There are lots of EF0-EF3 tornadoes but significantly fewer EF4 and even fewer EF5s. If you added more granularity then you might see an EF6 once every few years and an EF7 once a decade but those won't be useful classifications. A few, nice large buckets makes categorization much easier for those categorizing and those understanding what it means\n\nIf you hear there's an EF5 tornado coming you should think \"OH SHIT\" rather than \"Well, at least its not an EF6 ¯\\\\\\_(ツ)_/¯\"",
"_URL_0_\n\nthings fall off at EF5, where they classify anything at or above 200 MPH winds as EF5.\n\nand then\n\n_URL_1_\n\nthe article cites measured ground gusts (in australia, during a cyclone) as high as ~250 mph. New Hampshire is cited - on top of the Mt Washington Observatory, at ~230 mph.\n\nIt also cites calculated fastest wind speeds during a tornado in Oklahoma at 282-322 mph. But the only reason they had to calculate it was because the wind speeds would destroy the instruments.\n\n;;\n\nI think the main reason why they don't bother to classify them differently above 200 mph winds is because they are already *so destructive* at that level. The effective destruction is only so much.\n\nThink of it like a scenario where your house gets flooded and submerged. Does it really matter if it's 20 feet under water, or 200 feet? Not really - the whole thing is still ruined/damaged."
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exv9f7 | a small-case 4-letter password has 456,976 possible combinations. why is there a need for even stronger passwords? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/exv9f7/eli5_a_smallcase_4letter_password_has_456976/ | {
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"I’m sure there is more to it than this but 500,000 possible combinations seems like a lot for a human to figure out, but with today’s technology a program designed to try all different combinations (sometimes referred to as “brute force”) would crack a 4-letter password in no time at all.",
" > \tThat's a lot.\n\nFor you maybe. Typing that many passwords in manually would take a long time.\n\nBut not for a computer. It might be able to try hundreds per second, quickly breaking the password. It could even be much worse if some people are foolish enough to pick only real words of 4 letters in length.",
"Its important to remember that people don't pick passwords uniformly randomly - people normally pick words, and there are a little over 5000 4 letter english words, with some (like \"open\") far more likely to be picked as a password. Combine that with some basic tech that allows you to target more efficently (if I get 10 attempts per account then over a significant number of accounts I will probably score a hit) and you have a vunerability.",
"Imagine the database got hacked and leaked. Now, any company that takes security as anything less than a joke would've hashed the passwords, so you'd have to try all possible passwords to find one whose hash matches that of some account. A modern laptop processor can perform several BILLION operations per second (accounting for parallelism). So... that won't take very long. And also, now the hacker knows a password you might be using in other places, too.\nThis isn't uncommon, happens about once a month with some large company getting breached.\n\nAlternatively, let's say the website was NOT hacked. How long would it take a clickfarm with a few hundred workers randomly guessing passwords for random accounts to find one that works? On average, that's, let's say, 60 tries per hour, per employee. So 8x60x100=48000 tries per day for your clickfarm. You'll have breached into some accounts in no time.\n\nNot to mention, in some cases (e. g. Wi-Fi) your password can be used to encrypt communication. So let's say I listen to your wifi, and get the key establishment handshake. So now if I just knew your password, I'd be able to decrypt the packets. Soooo... I capture one packet, and start trying passwords until the resulting key decrypts the packet successfully. That won't take very long, either.",
"Human nature is to use sequences of numbers or dates for passwords, so there would be fewer combinations commonly used. With dates for example the first 2 digits might be months 01-12 and last 2 might be days 01-31.",
"It is not as simple as you think.\n\nYes they could implement brute force protection but there is an additional factor at play here.\n\n**Any service worth its salt will not store your password.**\n\nPassword authentication systems use something known as a cryptographic hash to not store your password. A hash is a piece of data a couple dozen bytes long that is produced by a hashing algorithm. A hashing algorithm takes in any data and spits out this hash. Cryptographic hashing algorithms are designed to not be reversible, that is given a hash, it should not be possible to figure out some kind of data that hashes to it.\n\nIt’s like a fingerprint (in fact hashes are commonly referred to as fingerprints). Given a random fingerprint, you wouldn’t know what person it belongs to. But if you know the person with the fingerprint, you can confirm it is theirs.\n\nSo how does logging in look like from the services point of view? You send the service your username and password, the service hashes your password, looks in its database for the entry under your username and checks that the hash there matches the hash of the password you provided. If so, it knows you put in the right password and you are let in.\n\nWhy not store the password? Protecting the business from itself.\n\nDatabase leaks are unfortunately fairly common. Computers are complicated, there will always be some bug or something that may let hackers into a master database. Check out _URL_0_ for some examples of these breaches in the news section.\n\nSo the hackers will get a list of usernames and password hashes. \n\nThey cannot use this to directly login to the account. They need to know the password, they only have the hash.\n\nNow this hash is a piece of data not a login prompt communicating with a server. The only limit on brute force speed at this point is how fast your computer is. \n\nAssuming some decent amount of complexity in your password, it will take decades to brute force it. We can try all combinations of 4 character passwords in less than a second if we have the hash. The longer and more complex the password is, the longer it takes to crack a hash.\n\nComplex password requirements are insurance against this, not against brute force logins. \n\nAdditionally this scheme means that any service that sends you the password you set during any password recovery means that the service is not using proper security practices.",
"You only think about a direct web-based bruteforce cracking attempt.\n\nWhat if you get access to the password hash files? You download them, run a bruteforce cracker, and have the password in less than one second.\n\nNow think about the same happening, but every password takes several months to years.",
"While ~457,000 sounds like just an absolutely unfathomably large number to a human, that's actually child's play when it comes to computers. [Kasperky Labs](_URL_2_) estimates that an average computer that's not even particularly specialized to password cracking can attempt roughly 7100 passwords every second. That means it could figure out a 4-letter single-case password in at most 65 seconds. I'm sure you can see why that's not very desirable.\n\nEven just stepping up to a six-character password where lower case, upper case, and numbers (but no symbols) are allowed slows down an average computer's brute force attack to 3.5 days. This can be sped up by using known tables of common passwords that people use over and over again, or even just using a dictionary attack since most people use a password that's a word or some variant thereof (e.g. they might use \"acc1d3nt\" instead of \"accident,\" but a good dictionary attack can account for these variants too).\n\nAnd that's all to say nothing of the fact that people who make their living by cracking people's passwords are going to have specialized hardware that can crack passwords even faster. In 2012, [ArsTechnica](_URL_0_) wrote an article about a then-new supercomputer that could guess up to 350 *billion* passwords every second (meaning the 6-character password from before could be cracked in a fraction of a second). And you can surely imagine that even more powerful hardware exists now, 8 years on.\n\n > Most websites also have a brute-force protection that disables password guessing after about 10 attempts.\n\nThis is true, but again people who make their living cracking passwords have ways of circumventing this. Explaining the exact specifics would probably make this explanation not ELI-5 anymore, but the basic gist is that they don't actually crack your password by going to the website and entering each potential password one at a time. Else, as you mentioned, they'd get locked out and that would make the process take a long long time.\n\nRather, what they usually do is they get their hands on a master password list directly from the source. This can sometimes come from a leaker who works for a particular company, but most often it comes from hackers breaking into to the company's database and getting the master list file that way. Now thankfully, any company worth their salt encrypts said password list, but that turns out not to really be a problem for hackers.\n\nMost of the time hackers know what encryption algorithm a particular website uses to secure their passwords (e.g. the ArsTechnica article mentions that LinkedIn uses the SHA-1 algorithm. Obviously, this may no longer be the case today, but it was true as of 2012). Given this information, they can use their brute force password generator and run each one through the encryption algorithm until they find one that outputs the same string as one of the passwords in the list - they then know that user's password.\n\nIn addition to all of that, sometimes companies utterly fail at security and don't follow the industry best practices for securely storing passwords. In late 2013, a password list containing over 153 million Adobe Creative Cloud passwords was leaked. Subsequently, hackers discovered that Adobe did a very bad job securing this file. They used an encryption algorithm that is easily reversible and stored users' hints in the same file as their password. Properly secured password files also use a process known as salting, whereby if two (or more) users have the same passwords, they end up being stored as completely different encrypted strings... but Adobe didn't make use of this, so if the list showed, say, five instances of the same string, hackers just got a 5-for-1 deal on that password.\n\nAs a final note, on rare occasions hackers will actually try logging in through the website and brute forcing it that way, if there's an exploit that circumvents the lock out routines. It's believed that such a vulnerability played a role in allowing the leaks of celebrities' nudes from their iCloud accounts back in 2014. [The Next Web](_URL_1_) writes:\n\n > The vulnerability allegedly discovered in the Find My iPhone service appears to have let attackers use this method to guess passwords repeatedly without any sort of lockout or alert to the target.",
"The problem is that hackers can steal the hashes and brute force them locally instead of just typing a password into the normal interface. It’s the interface that prevent people from making multiple attempts. But if you get the password database you don’t have to go through the interface. You get unlimited tries. \n\nAnd as complex as 4 random characters are, it’s no match for even a normal desktop computer. Even if you use symbols too.",
"A single 1080ti graphics card can do about 50000 megahashes per second. So a 4 character lowercase alpha password would be cracked in no time. With the Advent of the cloud computing, even an 8 character lowercase alpha password is nothing. That's why its important to add as much entropy to your password as possible by using upper and lower case, numbers and special characters.",
" > a password of 4 letters would have 264 possible combinations\n\nBut the company/website doesn't trust its users to pick a *random* collection of 4 letters. \nThey want even their worst customers to be at least a little bit secure. \n\n\n\n > disables password guessing after about 10 attempts from a given IP\n\nIf the company is hacked and the password information leaked, then while this wont directly reveal passwords (or it shouldn't, the company shouldn't know your password), people can guess passwords as many times as they like against the password information, and the nature of this information will let them know if they were correct. \n\nTherefore, if there are more possible combinations, then this protects your passwords from people brute forcing a hacked list quickly/easily.",
"Your average desktop computer could crack that with a simple brute force very quickly. Computers are very fast. Login limits obviously prevent brute forcing of websites, but should your hashed password ever leaked as often happens (i suggest signing up to [_URL_0_](_URL_0_)) then it could be brute forced in minutes.",
"For 500,000 four-letter combinations, it doesn't take very long for a computer to go through all of them.\n\nSometimes a hacker is able to steal the secret encoded version of your password AND gather enough info to understand what the formula is to make secret encoded versions of passwords for that website.\n\nSo then the hacker just needs to plug all 500,000 combinations into the formula (again, this happens surprisingly fast when automated), and only one result will match with what the website had stored.\n\nAs someone else pointed out, there are lists of the most common passwords. People almost always make their passwords variations on, well, words. English language words, with just slight tweaks.\n\nA four letter password is way more likely to be \"love\" or \"haha\" than \"qksv\"... Just guessing variants of \"love\" or \"haha\" (and other popular choices) will get the correct answer most of the time.\n\nIf the hacker is targeting not just one person, but as many people in a million as they can crack, the chances go way up that they can crack 90% or more of the passwords.",
"The main problem here is a dictionary based attack not brute forcing. Attackers will use a “dictionary” or a set list of commonly used phrases or numbers (like the current year 2020 or easy phrase abcd, 1234..) and you have to remember you will most likely not be the only one personally attacked. These dictionaries are then sprayed to all accounts across the network and 10 shots at guessing every hour for all account has a high chance of working. \n\nUsing special characters will help prevent dictionary attacks/password spraying. Brute forcing is a largely a last ditch effort.",
"Many answers already have the correct explanation for this question. The short version is that trying passwords in webpage is slow, and would take a long time. This is not how it's done.\n\nInstead, hackers can obtain the list of hashed passwords for a website. A hash is a method of converting a password into another string of characters that is practically impossible to reverse. The only way to discover a working password is to run it through the hashing algorithm and see if it matches the string of characters in the stolen file.\n\nThis off-line method can happen very quickly for passwords under 12 or so characters, or for words in the dictionary, or for words with common replacements like p@ssw0rd for example.\n\n[Xkcd](_URL_1_) has a relevant comic, as usual. Edward Snowden explains it well in this [video](_URL_0_).",
"Wanted to add that they (experts in the field) have also found that the \"standard\" of 8 chrs with 1 upper, 1 number and a unique symbol isnt actually any safer and might be less secure then just a wacky/unique 4 or 5 letter password.",
"There are two types of account attackers (aka hackers)\n\nPeople who know you/have access to your information and those that do not.\n\nThe top comment by /u/RedditName6 and /u/Duckerton3 explain why 4 characters is not enough for the first type of attacker- people who know you. Chances are your 4 character passwords have some significance to you.\n\nLets discuss those that do not know you. Individuals attacking your data with no information about you either have to be INCREDIBLY lucky, or they have to put some creativity behind their attack.\n\nThe go to way to attack is to first get access to the database that tracks the passwords to user accounts. Now these databases are typically VERY difficult to get ahold of and often they are encrypted with some sort of key - but that is outside this explanation. Lets assume an attacker gets all the necessary information. So in essence they have cloned the website or service you are utilizing and have it as a digital copy that they can do what they want with.\n\nSo how do they attack the database? Well first they extract the user names, and then they simply start trying every combination of every letter. How would you start? Well we know humans are terrible at remembering long series of characters unless their is a pattern. We also know that socially 4-pins are common and due to limitations in earlier technology 8-16 character passwords were maximum length. So instead of starting with 100 character passwords, lets just hit it with all 36^4 (counting letters, lets exclude special characters, approximately 1.7million combinations) 4-character passwords. Since it is on a digital system we can put this on a really fast computer and essentially run that routine in minutes.\n\nNow the attacker won't have any account with > 4 characters, but this will likely get a large chunk of the passwords and accounts. (Maybe 20%?) with the minimal effort. They may at that time determine they got enough value to then sell the information or use the information. Or they may decide to start on 5-character passwords. 5-character passwords though will have 36^5 or approximately 60 million combinations. That single letter addition makes the password 1) potential skipped to minimize effort and 2) increase the time and difficulty it requires to detect the password is detected by a factor of 60 if the routine is run against 5 character password. In this example, 6 characters would put it into the realm of 2BILLION combinations, and you can see how just adding letters/numbers will help increase security.\n\nA bit more then ELI5; typically these databases also have safeguards in place. Safeguards such as increasing feedback for successful/failed log-in after x-failed attempts and lockdown/full rejection after y-attempts. In this case though the attacker has a digital copy... So they just take a picture of the database, erase the database that is now locking them out, and then restart the routine on the copied database where it left off at. This adds substantial time to the routine, but is just a hurdle - not a road block.\n\nKeep in mind, the attacker would run this on a local copy if possible. There is no delay to communicating with a server. Further the server protections of delaying the feedback can be removed or sped up so each password can be checked at an incredibly fast speed.\n\nAnd finally, the real reason you want to have a long password. Chances are you have the same password or similar password to all your accounts. So, no big deal if your Club Penguin account gets hacked right? Except if your username and password are similar and that attacker gets access to something more important - like your bank's database or your university database - then you may have allowed the open door into those databases. A long password (even on Club Penguin) increases security everywhere if you utilize shared/similar passwords.",
"Because nobody's brute forcing the login page. They're obtaining a copy of the user database and running a few rainbow tables over that then trying some dictionary attacks.\n\nYour 4 character password would be done instantly.",
"Other have answered pretty thoroughly but I'll try to do a more ELI5 answer:\n\nComputers run really fast. Like, REALLY fast. Computers can guess half a million passwords in just a few minutes. Making a password longer makes it take a lot longer to guess. The more different kinds of letters, or numbers you use, the longer it takes to guess. What you want to do is make a password take a really long time for a computer to guess.\n\nPeople are also really bad at creating passwords that a computer can't guess easily. So people who want to guess your password can take things they know about how people make passwords to help their computer guess better. That's why it's important to make long passwords that aren't easily guessed by a computer.",
"Because computers are fast. Insanely, godawfully fast. You thought they were fast back in the 1980s, but now they're about a million times faster. No, I didn't say 'million' just because it's an arbitrary large number. They're *literally* a million times faster now.\n\nMy PC is from 2014. Its CPU (AMD FX-6300) runs at 3.5GHz across six cores. In the time it takes a typical monitor to refresh *just one frame,* each core can process up to 58 million machine code instructions. If you wrote down one letter for each machine code instruction one core can process in one second, and it took you one second to write down a letter, you'd have to be writing letters since World War 1 ended in order to catch up by now. The PC sits about a meter away from my face while I'm using it; I literally can't watch the CPU run in real time, because even if I could see its inner workings operating at this distance, each core would have processed about 11 additional machine code instructions in the time it takes light to get from the CPU to my eyes.\n\nHow does this apply to password cracking? Well, just now I tried hashing 4-character strings, using my own homebrew hashing algorithm, in Javascript, running in Firefox 72. (If you don't know what 'hashing' is, just understand that it's something a hacker would want to do to text in order to guess a password.) For 1 million strings, the script took about 1.3 seconds to finish hashing them all. For your 456976 strings, it took 0.77 seconds. That's single-core performance in Javascript. A real hacker would at the very least have a multithreaded C program running on all cores, gaining probably more than ten times faster performance than what I was getting; so a reasonable estimate for the time taken to guess a 4-character password on the CPU would be something like 77 milliseconds, enough time for a typical monitor to display about five frames. Very likely the hacker could take advantage of his GPU to run hash checks even faster. And very likely the hashing algorithm for the passwords is faster than the one I designed for myself.\n\nThe math just doesn't work out. The 4-character password is *not even close* to long enough to resist bruteforcing attacks on a modern computer.\n\nWhat if you made the password longer? Well, if we assume that the 4-character case takes 77 milliseconds, here's how it breaks down for passwords of increasing length (all with just 26 alphabet letters):\n\n5 letters: 2.5 seconds\n\n6 letters: 1 minute 18 seconds\n\n7 letters: 39 minutes\n\n8 letters: 19 hours\n\n9 letters: 24 days\n\n10 letters: 1.9 years\n\n11 letters: 54 years\n\n12 letters: 1530 years\n\nBecause of the way the combinatoric arithmetic works (you're multiplying the variety of passwords by 26 with each additional character), a longer password takes *far* longer to crack. So you are definitely much more secure with, say, a random 12-letter password than with a random 4-letter password.",
"ELI5:\n\nComputers are fast. 26\\^4 is a small number to a computer. 26\\^10 is a much larger number. 62\\^10 is even larger (62 is upper/lower/numbers mixed).\n\nAlso, any passwords are cracked offline, where the entire password file is taken, and the attempts to break it are not against the 10-limit.\n\nless-ELI5:\n\nIf everyone salted and hashed passwords perfectly, and nobody ever re-used a password, 4-letter would be fine. \n\nYour 4-letter password would survive any attempt to hack it against the 10-try limit.\n\nWhen the site is hacked, they will tell everyone, and everyone immediately changes their password.\n\n In the real world, password reuse and places that still store passwords as encrypted (so a \"crack\" doesn't just get them into Ashley Madison, but gets the password and the email, so that they can have a proven working password and email combination to use against every bank, website, and service with an online login. One attempt each, no worries about a 10-time lockout) then we'd be fine. \n\nBut in the real world, every password you use will be found out, eventually, and it will be used against all your other accounts. So to keep security, never reuse a password (I break that rule - forum sites, like Reddit all have a shared password, so one less to remember, and who cares if I lose this account?), and make it random, not Pap3r123 or some other combination that would be in a dictionary attack. \n\nAnd you have to change your password when someone gets the password file, even if perfect, the 4-char password will be broken quickly.",
"You're math is actually a bit off. If you include case and numbers the number of possible combinations is 14,776,336. \n\nHere's why that's a problem. You see that GHz number on your computer? That's an estimate of how many operations it can perform, per second. So my laptop with a 2.8GHz CPU can more or less execute 2,800,000,000 operations per second. On a single core, I have 8.\n\nSo your quaint 4 letter password is dead in less than one second. Adding more characters increases complexity pretty fast. Using only numbers and characters here's how fast the number of combinations increase by adding just 1 digit:\n\n1 62\n\n2 3,844\n\n3 238,328\n\n4 14,776,336\n\n5 916,132,832\n\n6 56,800,235,584\n\n7 3,521,614,606,208\n\n8 218,340,105,584,896\n\nAs you might have noticed adding additional characters went increased the combinations more than tenfold. Adding characters makes it more complicated to guess a password quickly.\n\nYour next question gets to an interesting point, why not rate limit password attempts? Well most websites do, but that's not the problem. What is?\n\nMost people use common passwords across many websites. So if one website is compromised along with its password database, more than 90% of those user/password combinations will work on elsewhere. So if say Ashley Madison or Adobe get hacked then they use that information on Amazon or Chase. In fact I'm betting you're reddit password is the same as your banking and other passwords.\n\nMost websites hide your password in such a way that it isn't easily or is impossible to recover, so they have to guess passwords one by one (as an aside, if you do business with someone that can give you your password instead of resetting it, don't do business with them, good security should make that impossible). A more complicated password means this is gonna take longer. There are tricks they can use to get around this but better passwords make this harder. So basically the idea is that they're going to assume the password file will be stolen (which is what you generally do), so they'll make it as hard to use as possible.\n\nNow the overkill part. Well it turns out we made a mistake with password policies. It turns out we've made passwords hard for people to remember and easy for computers to guess [Relevent XKCD](_URL_0_). So better sites have moved away from the random collection of characters thing. If you change your password at BestBuy, for example, they'll let you put in whatever you want. My password is a whole sentence. It turns out that this sort of approach, with common phrases is much harder for computers to guess and much easier for us to remember.",
"Alan Turing and a lot of others encountered this problem during WW2 against the Germans. The Germans would use a device called the Enigma that should've been impossible to crack due to the close to infinite possible combinations. \n\nAlan Turing made essentially a computer design to crack the German codes faster, more efficient, and no error. \n\nThe second point would be of the human factor. People tend to have a habit of subconsciously even when told to use random letters/numbers, choosing preferred letters/numbers thus forming a pattern. Another great example of this would be, Hitler made sure that the Enigma will not re-use the same combination when encrypting messages, so the people at Bletchley Park knew not to try the same combination and it sped up their computer significantly. \n\nOther factors include the limitation of languages. English for example must have a vowel shortly after a consonant, since there are only 5 vowels, you can see how a pattern can be easily formed, try playing hangman. Which is why most sites ask for numbers or special symbols, capital or what not, so as to stop these patterns. \n\nIn all honesty though, instead of hacking for your info, it would be more efficient to hack the corporations thus attaining everyone's passwords and other info instead of just one person. So it's highly recommended not to use the same password for all your sites, if a hacker got ur info from one site then all ur sites are compromised.",
"I read a few years ago that the guy who first recommended complex passwords 10-20 years ago in some government security report...apologized. He thinks it's stupid now too.\n\nAnd it is. As long as you have brute-force protection that you mentioned in place. That didn't used to be common either.\n\nWith brute-force protection in place, \"8 is enough\". But the problem with 8 is that people will use words. Knowing this, you drastically cut down the number of possibilites. So, we have to force people to use upper/lower, numbers, symbols, etc.\n\nIt's because people are stupid. ELI5.",
"Edward Snowden said small phrases are the hardest to crack that also have numbers, caps and symbols. His example was legendary: \"MargaretThatcheris110%sexy\"",
"Its not so much the length but that people use easy to guess passwords.\nRelevant XKCD.\n_URL_0_",
"My question is, if a password requires a number, does that not make it easier to crack, since its now guaranteed to have a number in it and thus theres less possible combinations?",
"Have anyone done any mathematics: is it better protection to use 8 or 10 characters with upper/lower case and special characters, or just lower case letters but super long password? The latter is definitely much easier to remember, for me.",
"Also: why do computers are allowed to try thousands of passwords a second? Why is it not mandatory a few seconds delay after a password try? (in websites, for example)",
"What bothers me most is that I cannot choose the level of difficulty of my password.\n\nThere are tons of webs I couldn't care less if I were to have my account stolen. Why I can't have some weak easy password. No, must be 8 letters long, have numbers, symbols, unicorn blood, a fulfilled paladin oath, the real ending of song of ice and fire and it is too similar to your last password.",
"Half a million combinations may sound like alot to you, but for a computer that's nothing. Take a look at [_URL_0_](_URL_0_) to give you an idea. \n\nExamples: \n\n*password: iplaygames*\n\n**It would take a computer about 59 MINUTES to crack your password**\n\n & #x200B;\n\n*password: IPlayGames*\n\n**It would take a computer about 1 MONTH to crack your password**\n\n & #x200B;\n\n*password: I\\_Pl4yG4me$*\n\n**It would take a computer about 4 HUNDRED YEARS to crack your password**\n\n & #x200B;\n\n*password: I\\_Pl4yG4Me$4FuN*\n\n**It would take a computer about 16 BILLION YEARS to crack your password**",
"A server should limit requests anyway, but a database can leak, then when you have the password (and the salt, hoping that there is one; look up hash and salt if you haven't heard of it) and then I don't have to ask the website if the password is correct.\n\nYou'd assume whoever can see the database is probably in deep enough to update it too and/or maybe other abilities, but not necessarily.",
"From Steve Gibson’s Haystack Passwords site: _URL_1_\n_URL_0_",
"Seems the question has been answered already, but for some context on how small 450k is, the rather small company my father works for has a password cracking machine that can make a few hundred million attempts per second",
"Hi, back-end developer here. You don't try to connect like a normal user, to guess a password: you already have the database that leaked, and (normally), the password are hashed. Hackers do a loop of characters then hash it to compare to the one in the database.\n\nI did an program to see how much time it takes to get a hashed password, and tested it on doing a loop of 4 uppercase letters doing all the alphabet, in PHP.\n\n**Result : 2.882 seconds**\n\nNow, add lowercase letters in your 4-letter password and you get 7,311,616 possibilities.\n\n**Result : 49.883 seconds**\n\nAnd if you add special characters, my localhost is having a hard time!\n\nAnd keep in mind I only use the cheap PC from my work. People who hack use PC for gamers.\n\nSo, minimum, use 8 characters. Because people who hack aren't just people like me and you, but organized band of people.\n\nIf it takes too much time guessing a password, they go on the next one."
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n91an | why the hippies were so horrible to soldiers returning from vietnam | i was just watching a documentary, and i couldn't believe how openly aggressive the hippies were to soldiers. i know most were drafted, so why would this be such a widespread problem? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/n91an/eli5_why_the_hippies_were_so_horrible_to_soldiers/ | {
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"reddit being what it is, I can expect this answer to be heavily downvoted...\n\n----\n\nThe answer is \"Self-righteous indignation\" -- something which the Right is just as good at as the Left, BTW.\n\nThe soldiers were \"clearly\" all willing and eager to do what they did, and all sociopathic baby-killers. \n\nIt makes a self-righteous person feel better about themselves when they can label someone as having \"a lesser moral compass\" and also allows them to believe their unleashed rage is \"totally excusable\".\n\nThis still happens today, hippies or not. The left and right do it to each other all the time. And even if a moderate/centrist pops up, they get raged against, too, by both sides, for being \"not enough like us / too much like them\".\n\n----\n\ntl;dr: people like to believe they are better than others",
"Viet Nam was the first televised war. Korea, WWII, and even some from The Great War may have had newsreels at the movies, but for the first time you could see Soldiers engaging in an unpopular war. \n\nShowing the war on the 6 o'clock news also meant that the draftees knew exactly what they were getting into. With WWII, a lot of people who went to war thought it was nothing but glory and medals. That was what the newsreels showed. \n\nWith Viet Nam, it was a lot of young men dying horribly and being forced to kill people they couldn't even see. \n\nAt the time, the young people, the Hippies had learned that they had a choice, and they had a voice. A lot of the Hippies believed that the government of a country several thousand miles away made no difference to the young people here in the US. They thought that because they stood up to \"The Man\" here in the US and decided they weren't going to go to a war they didn't believe in, no one should. \n\nRelate this to Dancing with the Stars, or the Green Bay Packers. How could anybody see that we are not right. These are the best choices. \n\nSince the Hippies stood up to The Man and refused to show up to the draft board, how could any thinking person. Those that did enlist or were drafted must support the war. If they supported the war, the Hippies felt, they must support everything that is done in the war. \n\nI know I have oversimplified a lot of stuff, but that is the basic 5YO version. ",
"Many people think that their fervently held beliefs about morality somehow make it impossible for them to act hatefully. Left-wing activists are no more immune to this than are right-wing activists.",
"reddit being what it is, I can expect this answer to be heavily downvoted...\n\n----\n\nThe answer is \"Self-righteous indignation\" -- something which the Right is just as good at as the Left, BTW.\n\nThe soldiers were \"clearly\" all willing and eager to do what they did, and all sociopathic baby-killers. \n\nIt makes a self-righteous person feel better about themselves when they can label someone as having \"a lesser moral compass\" and also allows them to believe their unleashed rage is \"totally excusable\".\n\nThis still happens today, hippies or not. The left and right do it to each other all the time. And even if a moderate/centrist pops up, they get raged against, too, by both sides, for being \"not enough like us / too much like them\".\n\n----\n\ntl;dr: people like to believe they are better than others",
"Viet Nam was the first televised war. Korea, WWII, and even some from The Great War may have had newsreels at the movies, but for the first time you could see Soldiers engaging in an unpopular war. \n\nShowing the war on the 6 o'clock news also meant that the draftees knew exactly what they were getting into. With WWII, a lot of people who went to war thought it was nothing but glory and medals. That was what the newsreels showed. \n\nWith Viet Nam, it was a lot of young men dying horribly and being forced to kill people they couldn't even see. \n\nAt the time, the young people, the Hippies had learned that they had a choice, and they had a voice. A lot of the Hippies believed that the government of a country several thousand miles away made no difference to the young people here in the US. They thought that because they stood up to \"The Man\" here in the US and decided they weren't going to go to a war they didn't believe in, no one should. \n\nRelate this to Dancing with the Stars, or the Green Bay Packers. How could anybody see that we are not right. These are the best choices. \n\nSince the Hippies stood up to The Man and refused to show up to the draft board, how could any thinking person. Those that did enlist or were drafted must support the war. If they supported the war, the Hippies felt, they must support everything that is done in the war. \n\nI know I have oversimplified a lot of stuff, but that is the basic 5YO version. ",
"Many people think that their fervently held beliefs about morality somehow make it impossible for them to act hatefully. Left-wing activists are no more immune to this than are right-wing activists."
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25llmj | why my computer lags when only 50% of the cpu is being used | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/25llmj/eli5_why_my_computer_lags_when_only_50_of_the_cpu/ | {
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"Is your computer as a whole lagging, or just one application? \n\nIf it's a single application, it may only have one or two threads running. 50% of a dual-core CPU is one core maxed out. Certain programs can launch more threads to do work in parallel, but others can't (or *could*, but aren't designed to).\n\nIf it's the whole machine, you may have a bottleneck in memory or your hard drive.",
"You've got a bottle-neck! It doesn't matter what system you run, just about every single one of them have multiple things going on all at the same time. Most of them are pretty vital, such as checking to see if you have pressed a key on the keyboard to minor ones that check to see if Adobe Acrobat is the latest version or not. Each of these gets it's own little sliver of time. The ones that are entirely based on memory and CPU, such as updating the little clock on the corner are really quick. Others, such as fetching the next section of the game you are playing or grabbing the next few megs of music off of the CD in your computer are relying on spinning media. Just like the name implies, spinning media is anything that relies on a motor to spin one or more disks and moving sensors (heads) to gather the information needed. These are very slow. Even the advanced hardware used in powerful servers are very slow compared to memory. \n\nSo anyway, that process gets it's little sliver of processing time and says \"fetch me a shrubbery from the hard drive!\" And the good little knights (another process) go off to find it. Now there is no hope that those knights can find it during that sliver of time, much less return it, so the process loses that turn while the knights go galloping off. The next sliver comes around and the knights aren't back yet. They found it, but haven't finished pulling it up. So the process loses that sliver too. Several slivers later the process sees the knights waiting for it pay attention to them. Then it can start working on the shrubbery they brought back. But every single one of those slivers between the order to fetch and getting the data back was a waste for that process. \n\nLet's pretend it used 100 slivers for this work. The real numbers would be significantly higher, but 100 slivers is easier to imagine. The command to go get the shrub is 1 sliver, or 1%. Then starting to work on the shrubbery is another 1 sliver, or 1%. The 98 slivers while it sat there twiddling it's thumbs is 98% wasted. Now there are dozens of processes going on at once. So that -98% really pulls the average down. If even a quarter of the running processes get -98% then you system will show a utilization average of about 50% when it reality it is working hard, just waiting on slow media. \n\nSSD's are a huge improvement but they still aren't nearly as fast as memory. And having your music 100% digital is also a huge step in the right direction, but your computer still has to pull if off of the spinning hard disk to let you listen to it. Even the fastest computers in the world right now have something slowing them down. The only way to get 100% utilization, 100% of the time would be to have a computer that is nothing but the fastest memory, CPU and GPU. Then you would become the bottleneck and that's the way it should be. \nEdit: Followed some formatting advice."
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2010ly | if a straight razor, single blade, is the closest shave we can get, then why do companies keep adding blades? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2010ly/eli5_if_a_straight_razor_single_blade_is_the/ | {
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"to justify charging you $20 for a 3 pack of replacement razors. ",
"marketing gimmick. truthfully you can use a cheap plastic handle razor for a long time if you dry it off after each use. clark howard from the radio did it for like a year.",
"A multi-blade razor basically compensates for an improper or imperfect shaving technique. The cartridge attempts to force you to use the proper angle for the blades, and the multiple blades take advantage of the pulling effect of the preceding blades to cut the hair even closer to the skin.\n\nIn reality, about 3 blades maximizes this pulling effect, but even a particularly sloppy technique might benefit from 4 or 5 blades. I love my 5-bladed razor cartridges. They last forever and give me a super-close shave even when I am half asleep and using a particularly sloppy technique. I never get razor burn and never use after-shave, even though I have ultra-sensitive skin. There is never any feel of scraping or pulling.\n\nAlthough it will destroy the lubricated strips on the cartridge very quickly, I swish my blades in grain alcohol (95% pure or better), then dry them thoroughly after each use. One five-blade cartridge lasts for 100 - 125 shaves before it no longer shaves like new. I know a couple of guys who store their blades in a non-corrosive oil and say that the blades last even longer. I'm not sure if that's true, as I haven't tested it."
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4t722q | realistically, what would have to happen before games (especially vr) can match the photo-realism of film cgi? | Specifically. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4t722q/eli5_realistically_what_would_have_to_happen/ | {
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"Think of it this way. \n\nThe deadline for rendering 120 minutes of movie is around 2 years. \n\nThe deadline for rendering 120 minutes of video game is 120 minutes + 33ms. \n\nEven counting the fact that movies need to be developed, then rendered, that still leaves about 1 year of rendering available for movies. \n\nNo matter how good rendering gets, film cgi will be better than vg cgi. The best we can do is to make film cgi so good that the diminishing return effect kicks in and top-notch cgi v real-time cgi, while vastly different in quality, only look slightly worse in real time generation. \n\nAnd look at the most recent games v the first short that Pixar made in 1985 (30 years difference). A decent cpu can render something about 3x more detailed than that short in real time, while in that time period they were actually rushing the production to meet yearly trade show deadlines for shorts because of the time it took for them to render.",
"Film CGI uses a lot of processing power to render, they can take time, they can use a large cluster of computers working for days or weeks or more to render all the light and textures of single scene. Your game has to render scenes as you play them, has to adapt as objects move in light sources in real time with you, and it has to be able to do that on a single mid-range computer. And as for VR you need to do it twice, once for each eye.\n\nFurther, games have to make it so that the animations, the way the different character models move and interact with other objects is very procedural. The physics engine is the most important thing, and say a character is wearing a cape or cloak, it has to be able to in general figure out the forces on the cape as the arm moves, as they lean down, as they run into the wind. Which is all very hard work. If you're making a film, a strong physics system can help you a lot, if you have a large number of blades of grass or hairs, you want something to help you coordinate it. But the physics doesn't need to stand alone, each animation and each frame of the movie is designed and manipulated and massaged. The artists at work can make those look prefect they don't need to worry about all possibilities, just the ones in the actual film. \n\n\nSo then what do we need to have photorealistic CGI in video games, especially VR? Insane amounts of processing power available at home and highly sophisticated and intelligent engines. Computers are always getting more powerful exponentially, but it will take quite a few cycles of doubling to reach the power of a major rendering farm in your home computer. Smarter and more sophisticated engines, well I don't know, making something look good to a human eye is essentially an artificial intelligence question, I don't think you're really going to get there from a pure low level physics simulation aspect, the calculations scale very rapidly. Work in AI seems to be coming along well, I can imagine a neural network based enhancement to physics engines being made. Implementation in a 60 dollar game that runs on your home computer, who could say?"
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2bpqm8 | car motor oils. | So what's the difference between motor oils? 5w-30, 5w-15, 10w-40, and all the rest. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2bpqm8/eli5_car_motor_oils/ | {
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"Different oil weights have different thicknesses which may or may not affect how fast they move through small holes, called orifices. A thick oil through a small hole will increase oil pressure and cause possible damage to an engine. ",
"_URL_0_\n\nThe first number is a measure of how viscous or thick the oil is at low temperatures. The second number is how thick it is at high temperatures. Since the oil is supposed to lubricate the engine, you don't want it to be very thick, unless your engine can handle it.\n\nThe bottom line is that you should use whatever type of motor oil is specified in the owner's manual. A generic brand is fine, so long as the designation matches.",
"If you run a finger through water and then run your finger through honey, do you feel the difference in how thick the two different liquids are? That thickness is called viscosity, and it applies to all liquids. When you're using an oil, it's important to match its viscosity (when dealing with oil, this is also referred to as \"weight\") to how you're using it. Too thick and it won't get into all of the small nooks and crannies, but too thin and it'll get out too quickly and won't provide enough lubrication. \n\nWith motor oils, it's important to remember that many cars will start cold and then run at a different temperature, and the viscosity of a liquid will change as the temperature changes. So it's 70 degrees outside and you start your car, the motor oil will be very thick compared to after your car has been running for 15 minutes and the engine is around 200 degrees. But since it is important that the car be lubricated when it's cold as well as when it's hot, it's important to know how those oils will behave when heated.\n\nThe numbers you see represent the cold and hot weights (viscosity) of the oil. The thicker an oil is, the higher a number, so you need a number that is small for when the engine is cold and a number that is large for when the engine is hot. This is why when you change your oil in the spring they'll put in 10w-40, but when you change it again in the fall you get 5w-30 - the shift in temperature around you calls for thicker oil in the summer so it doesn't thin out too much with the extra heat, and thinner oil in the winter so it can quickly lubricate your engine when you start your car. Your manufacturer has done a lot of testing with the engine to determine which oil weight is ideal for it and will list this information in your manual."
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4nczr8 | how did big army get fed in the past like durring big conquest like crusade | How can you manage to feed an entire army and horses long enough to win a war and comeback without much transportation like we have today | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4nczr8/eli5how_did_big_army_get_fed_in_the_past_like/ | {
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"Basically, raiding the countryside.\n\nRemember the whole \"quartering soldiers\" bit from the 3rd amendment? The British were commandeering people's homes and property for their soldiers because that's how they found places to stay when deployed in the colonies.\n\nIn medieval times it was considerably worse. Armies would simply raid the land and take what they needed.",
"A few ways. \n\nRequisitioning. For an army on their own territory, they will have legal authority to demand supplies, food, shelter, etc. from any nearby residents. This can be extremely difficult for the peasants and some even starve to death. If they refuse bad things can happen.\n\nPillaging. Invading armies basically do the same thing as requisitioning... but without legal authority. They come in with their weapons and steal everything. Often they also rape and kill everyone, burn down the structures, etc. If the town leader is *real lucky* perhaps he can just give them everything they have and be left alone.\n\nForaging. Armies have to travel great distances and may not be near towns, or nearby towns don't have enough to feed the whole army. The army will send out teams to collect fruit and hunt animals, and then they cook it at camp.\n\nAll in all, peasant life sucked ass.",
"Many of the troops foraged in whatever land they were in and/or forced the local civilian population to feed them. It often caused friction with the local populace when an army stayed in an area for an extended amount of time.",
"You only really have a few options when it come to feeding your army:\n\n* looting the countryside. This only works in enemy territory, and is the basis of the \"scorched earth\" defense ie: you burn everything before the enemy gets there so they can't eat.\n* bring your own. This is how things work today, for the most part, and happened in the past as well. Your train carried supplies, people, cooks, etc.\n\nThere are two old sayings when it comes to warfare:\n\n* an army marches on its stomach\n* amateurs think about tactics, but professionals think about logistics. \n\nAs the OP intuits, if you supply your army with weapons, food, water, and other supplies it's hard to win a war. One reason the US armed forces is effective is that its logistics is unbelievably good. Say what you want about the effectiveness of the DoD, but when it comes to moving stuff around the world they can do it like no other.\n\nHere's some light reading on Roman logistics from the Republican days through to the Empire:\n\n_URL_0_\n\n\n"
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2xfs74 | if republicans control both houses of congress, why was it so hard to get a homeland security bill passed? | The only thing I can think of is that they had to work within the threat of Presidential veto, but I feel like the Republicans would be more than happy to pass a bill they know would be vetoed to force Obama to take the blame. It seems instead, though, that there was legitimate difficulty just getting a bill to the President's desk. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2xfs74/eli5_if_republicans_control_both_houses_of/ | {
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"The Republican Party is not united. The establishment faction and the Tea Party faction disagreed over the bill. The establishment faction wanted to pass it. The Tea Party wanted to use the bill as leverage against Obama in order to force him to take back his executive orders on immigration."
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zdkji | would curing cancer ultimately be a good thing? | Everyone has been affected by cancer, myself included, and I know that this is incredibly insensitive.. but with the current population increase rate doesn't it provide a good regulator? I heard somewhere that if nothing else kills you, cancer eventually will, so wouldn't it create a huge problem in regards to overpopulation?
Roll on, downvotes. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/zdkji/eli5_would_curing_cancer_ultimately_be_a_good/ | {
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"Ugh, nothing is more annoying then \"boo hoo I'm going to get downvoted for speaking my mind\".\n\nIt's obnoxious.\n\nRegardless though heart disease is still the biggest killer in the US at least, and overpopulation isn't really a massive concern in the industrialized world where cancer is an issue.",
"We have plenty of space and plenty of calories and plenty of water in the world. The problem is not the amount, it's the location.\n\nBy the time the curing of cancer and other similar ailments becomes significant enough to cause problems with population, space/food/water probably won't be such a big limiting factor.\n",
"You don't need cancer, starvation, or anything else like that to control population. All you need is prosperity.\n\nThe more prosperous a country is, the fewer children it has. For example, in the US, the average couple has fewer than two children. The US population would actually be shrinking if it weren't for immigration.\n\nThe reason the world population is still growing is that there are still big areas that are not prosperous. Solve that, and you solve the population issue.\n\nAll that *without* resorting to brutal, pointless methods like disease and starvation.\n\nBesides - even if that weren't true, I would prefer a law that caps the number of kids you can have at 2, to a law that says \"if you get cancer, you're not allowed to get cured.\"\n\n",
"What exactly do you want to be explained like your 5? This seems like you want to have a debate on the merits of population control/aging via disease. \n\nNothing about your post suggests that there is something that you need help with understanding by having it explained in simpler terms. Please post this to a more relevant subreddit. If you then need help with the answer you get there, come back here. "
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82homb | who are the people peer reviewing statistics and scientific findings | Every week I see a new study on some subject and some of them contradict one another, others coincide, others are just off the wall and all of them use different metrics and ways of analyzing to skew the data to make it seem like there way is the best way.
So who the heck is approving all this stuff? Is there some entity in charge of checking if someone's findings are 'honest', accurate, and not skewed into some bias or is it just scientists in the same field signing off? If it's the latter that seems like a massive conflict of interest. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/82homb/eli5_who_are_the_people_peer_reviewing_statistics/ | {
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"Are you seeing actual studies, abstracts or articles about studies? All those are different and only proper journal studies are peer reviewed.\n\nBasically it gets sent to a random selection of experts in the field, who comb through the paper and the report to are if the findings are reasonable.\n\nIt depends very much of the field how specific the circumstances for reproduction are.\n\nDo you have any examples or a particular area?"
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1ktfp1 | what are the biases of main us news networks? which us news network is considered the must unbiased? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1ktfp1/eli5_what_are_the_biases_of_main_us_news_networks/ | {
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"None of the cable news networks are unbiased.\n\nMSNBC is probably the most biased, with a far left slant.\n\nCNN is about as far left as Fox is right, both with a moderate to heavy slant.\n\nNBC, CBS, and ABC (the old three networks from before cable) all have left leaning slants of varying degrees.\n\nFox has the highest ratings of any US cable news, mainly due to being the only one without a left leaning slant, so they get the 50% of the population that is right of center politically."
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bxun1r | how do animals without parental training know how to be the animals they are? | Like snakes, bees, lizards, crocs. Everything that doesn't have a parent raise them. How do they "know" how to survive? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/bxun1r/eli5_how_do_animals_without_parental_training/ | {
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"First, if I were to cut your skull vertically and take a look at a cross-section of your brain, I'd be able to divide it into what you normally think of as the brain (the noodlely bits) and the brain-stem. \nMost of your instinctual functions, such as curling away from heat, your fight or flight instincts, reflex to swallow things put in your mouth, etc. are all handled by the brain-stem.\nAnimals that don't require parental nurture often have their behavior programmed into them. They're extremely complex chemical reactions at the end of the day.",
"They are literally programmed like a computer. The same way an application knows how to be an application. There is code in their genetic material that instructs them to do what a bee does, or what a lizard does. \n\nEverything that they do is an effort to survive, and procreate. Some animals are intelligent enough to innovate, and play/do recreational activities, but their main pull in life is survival, and procreation. \n\nWhen you hear the word \"instinct\" you can literally translate it to \"code base\"."
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3cjzuu | /r/subredditsimulator | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3cjzuu/eli5_rsubredditsimulator/ | {
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"The subreddit is filled with bots that randomly generate posts and comments, based on existing reddit content. For example /u/AskHistorians_SS generates comments from the content of /r/AskHistorians.\n\nThe sticky post explains how the comments are generated:\n\n > The text for titles/comments/text-posts are generated using \"markov chains\", a random process that's \"trained\" from looking at real data. If you've ever used a keyboard on your phone that tries to predict which word you'll type next, those are often built using something similar.\n\n > Basically, you feed in a bunch of sentences, and even though it has no understanding of the meaning of the text, it picks up on patterns like \"word A is often followed by word B\". Then when you want to generate a new sentence, it \"walks\" its way through from the start of a sentence to the end of one, picking sequences of words that it knows are valid based on that initial analysis. So generally short sequences of words in the generated sentences will make sense, but often not the whole thing.\n\nFor example, lets say the only things I ever wrote are \"I am the Walrus\" and \"I am the one who knocks\". The algorithm will therefore determine that the phrase \"I am the\" is always followed by the word \"Walrus\" or the word \"one\", so it will randomly choose between one of them. \n\nNow, if I also wrote \"the one I love\" then the algorithm might conclude that \"the one\" is sometimes followed by the word \"I\". So after writing the phrase \"I am the one\", it might decide to randomly pick the word \"I\", which will create the phrase \"I am the one I love\" - a phrase that I had never written, but is comprised of fractions of sentences that I have. Of course, the more content there is to draw from, the more possibilities there are for new sentences to be generated."
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4okbr5 | if we manage to get fusion, is that really unlimited energy and how does it compare to current energy sources? | Also, can we process normal water for fusion and get out energy efficiently (theoretically with 100% efficiency) or are our resources of fusion material just as limited as oil ? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4okbr5/eli5_if_we_manage_to_get_fusion_is_that_really/ | {
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"Not exactly - the fuel of a fusion reactor is deuterium, which is present in seawater. Approximately 1 out of every 6500 atoms of ocean hydrogen is deuterium. \n\nFusion power is non-renewable, and not unlimited. However, the amount of power that can be produced from a very small amount is tremendous and far outpaces any other known energy source. On top of that, the amount of fuel necessary is tiny and burns only in precise conditions. Even in a \"meltdown\", without being actively and constantly refueled it will burn itself out in seconds. In addition, the waste produced, while highly radioactive, has a much shorter half-life and the danger decreases sharply over 50-100 years. Compare this to fission nuclear reactors whose waste can remain radioactive for thousands of years.",
"Energy efficiency is likely to be lower for a practical process. If we use fusion to generate heat, that heat boil water to make steam, which spins turbines,and gets you 30 to 40% efficiency at best. However, if we can do it cheap enough, it is still cost effective, and the amount of fuel for the amount of post efficiency loss energy production is still very small compared to fossil fuel.",
"Not technically renewable or unlimited but there'd be A LOT of energy. Enough to, at current usage rates, last a few millenia. "
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v0rmi | why does the human body get used to things? for example: smells, the way a room looks, routine | to explain more... Every family has a scent to their house, but they are unaware of it. You go to a new place and it looks huge at first, the more times you go there, the smaller it seems. Can someone explain why the brain does this? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/v0rmi/why_does_the_human_body_get_used_to_things_for/ | {
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"because it is the *unusual* sound, smell or object which may offer the unique opportunity or be an immediate danger. \n\nregular stuff... becomes unimportant. ",
"it's not really a bodily process more than it is a mental process. \n\nwhen we are presented with something new (whether it be a new place, a new smell, or a new sound) our brain makes us aware of it because it is different from what we are used to. being aware of new stimulus (going off of what viniTheHat mentioned) is important due to the fact that the stimulus can present a danger that we are unaware of.\n\nthe process of becoming familiar with something is called habituation, by which we become more accustomed and familiar to something. after a long time being exposed to something, the body and the brain learns that maybe the stimulus we are exposed to is not that dangerous. it takes less note of it and it becomes filtered out of our consciousness as routine.\n\n",
"If we didn't become used to things, we would never be able to focus on things. If you constantly had to take in every single detail of your living room, you wouldn't be able to pay attention to your tv. Human attention is very selective. Google the cocktail party effect and habituation in infants if you want more detail.",
"sensory adaptation. Your body hates change, so sensations that are consistent and unchanging are put on the bottom of the list of things your body pays attention to, so it can devote more time to find new things to pay attention to. Do you FEEL your clothes on you right now? no because you've had them on all day. Do you HEAR the clock ticking on the wall? no because it has been making the same noise for hours. --- Here's a little extra... your sense of smell is the most adaptive of the senses. A room smells bad, but stand in there for a minute or two and you suddenly won't notice it. ALSO there are nervous system diseases that prohibit your body's ability to \"tune out\" constant sensations (aka stimuli) and results in pain and irritation constantly. Imagine having that sensation of an annoying T-shirt tag rubbing on your neck, but all over your body, all the time.... :/"
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70mzkn | how do plastic bags help preserve food? | Assuming you don't vacuum seal it how does trapping the food with the same oxygen that's outside the bag help it stay fresh? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/70mzkn/eli5_how_do_plastic_bags_help_preserve_food/ | {
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"I think it depends on the item. E.g. Cucumbers are usually wrapped in plastic to prevent moisture lose - _URL_0_",
"It limits the amount of bacteria that can find its way to the item.\n\nWhile it won't remove any that's already on the item, it will prevent new bacteria from happening to land on it.\n\nIn addition, it helps the item retain its moisture instead of drying out, or keep it dry instead of absorbing moisture from the air, depending on whether it started out moister or dryer than air.\n\nIt also prevents cross-contamination with other items. If your fridge was full of open jars and loose items, the smells from each would float around and sink into each other, and soon you would have pickle-flavoured cake and milk that tastes like boiled eggs.\n\nIt also helps prevent live organisms from interfering with the food, such as flies that would otherwise land on it and potentially lay eggs in it."
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ebt9at | where is non-physical government money stored? | [deleted] | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/ebt9at/eli5_where_is_nonphysical_government_money_stored/ | {
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"A large majority of money in the world is non-physical. It’s just 1s and 0s in a computer system somewhere."
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39mwrr | why do people prefer "natural" diamonds. are there real differences? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/39mwrr/eli5_why_do_people_prefer_natural_diamonds_are/ | {
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"It's all about marketing creating the public perception that \"real\" diamonds are superior to artificial ones. All it takes is one salesman to say \"well, if you don't really love her *that* much, we've got these synthetics over here\" and most customers are going to jump right back into the natural diamonds.",
" > I thought that we (humanity) could create Diamonds\n\nYes, synthetic gem-quality diamonds have been around for some time now. The de Beers corporation works overtime to make people think there is some actual difference between a synthetic and \"real\" diamond. It was also de Beers, back in the early 20th century, that created the marketing myth that diamonds are rare and valuable.\n\n > can't we essentially create any element? \n\nNot as such, no, and this is a different question. In making a synthetic diamond, we are not \"creating an element,\" we're just crystallizing carbon. You have to provide the carbon.\n\nThe only way to actually create a NEW quantity of an element is by nuclear processes, fusion or fission. But that takes a fuckton of energy, and produces just a few atoms.\n"
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4cj6ot | the growth rate of real gdp per capita is usually lower than the growth rate of real gdp | Why? And under what circumstances can it be the same or higher? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4cj6ot/eli5the_growth_rate_of_real_gdp_per_capita_is/ | {
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"Per capita GDP growth is lower than real GDP because of population growth. If GDP per capita is $100 and the population is 100 then GDP is $10,000. If GDP per capita grows to $110, that's a 10% increase per capita. And if population grows to 102, then real GDP would have grown by 11.2%",
"If population were constant, the growth rate of real GDP per capita would be exactly the same as the growth rate of real GDP because GDP per capita is just GDP divided by population.\n\nIn real life, the population is almost always steadily growing."
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n355f | why is copper such a good conductor? | Cause [this shit](_URL_0_) don't make sense | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/n355f/eli5_why_is_copper_such_a_good_conductor/ | {
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"Try [this shit](_URL_0_).",
"Copper has only one electron in its outermost electron orbit, which makes it easy to steal away the electron or add it back. Electricity, (the movement of electrons) takes advantage of that lone electron.\n\nOther metals with one electron in their outermost orbit are Platinum, Silver, and Gold; each of which, predictably, are outstanding electrical conductors. ",
"Atoms of metals connect to each other in a very special way. They share their electrons with each other, but not in the conventional sense where only two atoms grab on to the electron and hold it. Instead, the atoms are free to move about in a \"sea of electrons\" that flows between and around all the metal atoms. \n\nThis explains why metals are good conductors, but what's so great about copper?\n\nWell, copper atoms aren't very attracted to each other. which means that the \"sea of electrons\" has more wiggle room to move around. (They have only one atom in the d sub-level) \n\nCombine that with durability, ductility, stability, and relative abundance and you have the perfect charge carrier.\n\n",
"Try [this shit](_URL_0_).",
"Copper has only one electron in its outermost electron orbit, which makes it easy to steal away the electron or add it back. Electricity, (the movement of electrons) takes advantage of that lone electron.\n\nOther metals with one electron in their outermost orbit are Platinum, Silver, and Gold; each of which, predictably, are outstanding electrical conductors. ",
"Atoms of metals connect to each other in a very special way. They share their electrons with each other, but not in the conventional sense where only two atoms grab on to the electron and hold it. Instead, the atoms are free to move about in a \"sea of electrons\" that flows between and around all the metal atoms. \n\nThis explains why metals are good conductors, but what's so great about copper?\n\nWell, copper atoms aren't very attracted to each other. which means that the \"sea of electrons\" has more wiggle room to move around. (They have only one atom in the d sub-level) \n\nCombine that with durability, ductility, stability, and relative abundance and you have the perfect charge carrier.\n\n"
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850884 | how were the first perfect objects manufactured? first straight piece, first perfect circle, first perfect sphere, first perfectly straight sword, etc.? | As the title says. Thank you! | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/850884/eli5_how_were_the_first_perfect_objects/ | {
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"I don't know, we will let you know when it happens. No such \"perfect object\" has ever been made and it seems impossible.",
"There's no such thing as a \"perfect object.\"\n\nIn fact, we use a concept called \"significant figures\" to tell you how confident we are about a measurement.\n\nFor example, if I say something is 100.00 meters long. That actually means that object is 100.00 +/- 0.01 meters long. So it could be 99.99 m to even 100.01 m.\nA perfect object would have an infinite amount of significant figures. This is completely impossible, absolutely everything we will have some estimation to it. Even with modern technology, your measurements aren't perfect. They are so good it doesn't really matter, but they aren't perfect. \n",
"You can make a straight object by rubbing two not-straight objects together. As long as the stroke is long enough, the high bits will wear off until it's all flat low bits. \nOnce you have a straight/flat thing, you can slide tools along it to carve other straight/flat things. Among the straight/flat things worth making are a lathe bed. Put an object between two pointy things to hold it in place, spin it, use something sharp to cut off the high bits, and you have a perfect (within manufacturing tolerances) circle. Slide the sharp thing along the straight thing and you get a perfect cylinder. \n\nThe HARD thing is threads. You can hand cut threads to a fair tolerance, but there will still be outside-of-tolerance variation. You can cut other identical threads by gearing the thing that drives your cylinder to your OK thread, and using the OK thread to drive your sharp thing. \nTo make your thread more accurate, you construct a scissor, that averages between two separate places on your OK thread. By averaging the difference, you get a thread that's closer to perfect. After a few generations you get a thread that's perfect, ie, within tolerances. \nOnce you have a thread of any size, you can use gears to drive that thread at various speeds, so you can cut a thread at any ratio to your perfect-but-not-sized-right thread. \n\nWith within-tolerance straight things and flat things and threads, you can build machine tools to make anything within the tolerance of those machine tools. Using good-enough machine tools and similar tricks, you can make better machine tools, to any tolerance sustainable by the materials you're using."
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2mu6m0 | how does a virus such a ebola stay unheard of for so long and then have massive outbreaks? are there still a few cases between outbreaks? or is it truly non-existent in humans in the time between outbreaks? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2mu6m0/eli5_how_does_a_virus_such_a_ebola_stay_unheard/ | {
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"It's actually been around for a very long time, yet it's remained mainly in parts of Africa. Which means that unless its on Facebook, nobody here in America really cares for more than a week or two. But of course once it reaches America we actually care about it when media says its become a massive outbreak",
"RadioLab just re-released an updated version of their episode that looked at the origin of HIV. They added a segment specifically talking about the origin of Ebola. You can listen [here](_URL_0_). The short answer, though, is that viruses like Ebola and HIV come from other animals: monkeys in the case of HIV, bats (we think) in the case of Ebola. In humans, however, these are very new diseases.",
"In the case of ebola it's generally in the wildlife. That's where the human cases generally originate from since it tends to kill the human carrying it in short order. A lot of times the outbreaks are restricted to small villages in the middle of nowhere. Simply put, no one cares about an exotic disease that kills a handful of people once in a while. We have bigger diseases to worry about like malaria or the various forms of cancer.\n\nThis is the same reason why people complaining about the lack of a cure/research into ebola are idiots. We have limited resources to expend on disease research. The fact that there's no money in ebola research is directly tied to the risks the disease poses, not because of greedy pharma companies. There's no money in it because it's of low risk to the overall population while there are many other diseases causing far more damage. ",
"Ebola has been known for almost 40 years. It was identified after the first 1976 outbreak and, prior to this year, had infrequently reappeared in small outbreaks. The kind most Western media didn’t give a shit about: 300 here, 50 there, 180 here, and so on, all occurring in jungle close to the arsecrack of Africa where no-one or nothing important was. There were bigger problems in Africa at the time (war, genocide/ethnic cleansing, mass famine, apartheid – depending on what part of the continent you were in) so it never really crossed in to the mainstream. \n\nYou also have to take into account how the news cycle has changed over that time. 20 years ago, most people were still only watching one half hour news bulletin per night and reading the newspaper in the morning. A small outbreak of Ebola would have barely made page 40 in the World News section, if at all. Now we live with a globalised news system delivering everything in real-time from every corner of the Earth. \n\nThis is certainly the biggest outbreak of Ebola so far, but most of it is sensationalist beat-up designed to turn fear of the disease in to ratings/clicks. The simple truth is Ebola is not the kind of disease that will cause a global pandemic. Its natural reservoir are African bats which have infrequent contact with humans – hence the rarity of the outbreaks. Secondly, it’s just too good at spreading via fluids. It’s not going to spontaneously evolve to spread in the air when it’s perfectly efficient at spreading how it does. Thirdly, it’s fairly easily controlled in non-squalid environments. Finally, it’s too lethal. Once they become symptomatic, the virus doesn’t let the vast majority of its hosts live long enough to actually spread the disease en-masse. \n\nEbola has the potential to cause major carnage if it lands in the slums of Johannesburg, Port-au Prince, Lagos or Delhi where there are third world conditions, no functioning sewerage systems and poor medical access, but as for China, Europe or America -- an outbreak would be completely locked down and isolated in days. But that story will never sell a newspaper. "
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bmuo6v | why "trap music" has such a distinguishable beat. what about the beat is different? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/bmuo6v/eli5_why_trap_music_has_such_a_distinguishable/ | {
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"Trap music usually follows a formula of simple crisp snares and hats, often in 16th and 32nd notes. That mixed with an 808 and a few synths gives you a basic trap beat. Its different because most trap is very simple and alot of it sounds similar compared to alot of other hip hop and rap."
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4lu12y | how could two shapes or places that have same the perimeter, have different area? | I know this in theory, i.e. in Mathematics. But, somebody please explain this to me further and give me an example in real life. Thank you! | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4lu12y/eli5_how_could_two_shapes_or_places_that_have/ | {
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"Take a loop of string to represent your fixed perimeter, and try arranging it on the table to make different shapes which have that perimeter. You can make it into a circle and have lots of area inside the string, or you can stretch it out until it's almost just two lines side by side, and there's hardly any area inside.",
"A piece of string has a fixed perimeter but can be deformed to enclose many different areas. There is generally no relationship between the perimeter and area of a planar region."
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4kyl2f | rim lost its dominant position in the smartphone market,and nokia its dominant position in mobile handsets general market. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4kyl2f/eli5rim_lost_its_dominant_position_in_the/ | {
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"Apple leapfrogged them with the iPhone, which was far better and far easier to use than the BlackBerry. Google copied Apple with a good enough copy and gave it away free to cell phone manufacturers around the world. Between the two companies, iOS and Android took over 90% of the smartphone market in a few years and RIM couldn't adapt quickly enough. Tech is fast changing and brutal. Apple almost died a RIM style death a decade or two ago and was fortunately saved by Microsoft.\n\nNokia didn't really die, they just never got competitive in the smartphone arena. Microsoft bought them for talent and patents and made a good Windows Phone 10 system, but it was far too late and they ran into a chicken and egg situation in which nobody (customers or app developers) wanted a a Windows phone, so nobody much bothered to make a Windows phone ecosystem for that nonexistant market.\n\nMicrosoft, Nokia, and RIM were all big companies too slow to react to sudden changes in their industry. Apple was dying and had nothing to lose and hit it big with the iPod and then iPad and iPhone. Google had enough money from advertising that it was able to make and give away early Android as a loss leader just to prevent complete market dominance by Apple. The other companies just didn't effectively fight this battle until it was too late.",
"They didn't catch up with the new guys so they were history. \n\nAndroid and iPhone appeared and people wanted that kind of usability, those guys remained in the path they always had so clients shifted to brands that had what they wanted. ",
".Nokia is bigger and earlier player of smartphones. Their biggest blunder is not moving forward beyond \"Symbian OS\". By the time they realize they are behind, they try to bargain with google to do exclusive of some sort. Google said \"forget it\". And Nokia went with Microsoft and fucked it all up.\n\n.RIM had their OS and locked emailing system. They didn't see why Android such a big deal after it's too late. RIM was still very much profitable, when their sales suddenly drop to near zero seemingly overnight. (2012 .. I think)\n\n... basically, these players were too big and too arrogant to move on until it was far too late.\n\nearly form of iphone and Android were fairly primitive, so these two think they know everything there is about wireless device. Don't forget they own huge amount of patents too. But software and service are what people want. And the rest is history.\n\n"
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1472qt | the physical process of death | I'm curious about what happens to your body as you die. The order of events and how one might feel as this is going on. Thanks! | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1472qt/eli5_the_physical_process_of_death/ | {
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"\nThe loss of blood in the capillaries happens rapidly, within minutes of death.\n\nAlgor mortis is when the body begins to cool. Within the first hour, the body will lose two degrees in temperature. Then, every hour afterward, it will lose one more degree of temperature until it is the temperature of the environment it is in.\n\nRigor mortis is the stage most people are familiar with, if they know their CSI. It is when a dead person becomes stiff. It begins after three hours of death, reaching full stiffness after 12 hours. Then, three days after death, the body becomes soft again as it slowly decomposes.\n\nLivor mortis is the next stage, when the blood begins to pool to the lowest part of the body. Since the body no longer combats gravity by pushing the blood around, the blood just resorts to falling down to the lowest level.\n\nDecomposition and putrefaction occurs, marked by the production of vapors. The body’s cells are rupturing and breaking apart. The intestines push out and fall prey to distension. The skin breaks apart often and the insides purge out. Insect activity begins to take shape.\n\nDecay is marked by the breaking down of the body. Bacteria, fungi, and protozoa begin to move in, as insect and possibly animal activity begins to become more rampant. The darker the color of the body, the longer the person has been dead. Also evident are blisters or skin slippage.\n\nSkeletonization or diagenesis is the final stage. The moisture in the body is lost. The bones are visually evident. Two years is typical in moderate temperature, whereas in hot climates like Africa, skeletonization may occur as quickly as in two weeks.\n\nBones, in the first year of death begin to bleach and moss or algae may grow on them. After a decade, big cracks will form.\n\nThe End.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n",
"I'll try to generalize, since the cause of death obviously shakes things up a bit. \n\nSo, what is death? Death is the permanent stopping (or cessation) of the things that sustain you, the living organism. But this rarely happens all at once. Death isn't just a flick of an electrical switch - it's not really a 'moment', so to speak.\n\nDying can be a very slow process, after all, not everyone keels over clutching their chest at the Heart Attack Burger Joint, dead before they hit the floor. Some outward signs include gradual loss of energy and weakness, often resulting in the loss of the desire (or ability) to eat or drink. Loss of bowel and bladder control is not uncommon either.\n\nNow, you're probably wondering why we don't just click off all at once. That's because your body is trying really hard to preserve itself. It's going to try and keep the most vital functions up for as long as possible. \n\nYour body starts to shut down, though the speed does depend on the cause of death. If dying is a prolonged incident, your body will begin to shut down in stages, starting with the 'least important' areas. Your reproductive system, digestive system, immune system - these, I believe, tend to be the first to go. \n\nEventually, your vitals start to fail. Breathing slows, as does your heart. Eventually, when your breathing and heart stops, oxygen isn't getting into your body and there's no pump to push that oxygenated blood to the rest of your body. Your brain can't survive and begins to shut down.\n\nIt's hard to say for sure how one might feel. The cause of death is very significant - the book 'The Perfect Storm' has a chilling description of what death by drowning might feel like, but dying in a hospice with end-of-life care would be completely different. [Here](_URL_0_) is a rather unpleasant read on what death by a number of common causes would feel like.\n\nWhat actually happens next is unclear. Some people claim to have Near-Death Experiences - visions of brights lights, long tunnels or out of body experiences as their body is clinically dead. Others have no such experience, or at least, recall no such experience, and simply 'wake up in hospital'. The ways in which people respond to death are as varied as the people reporting their experiences.\n\nThis much we know for certain - eventually, the vital organs shut down, as oxygen fails to reach the very cells that keep us alive. We lose consciousness. Our heart, lungs and finally, brain, cease to operate.\n\nAnd...then nothing. Or the Great Beyond.\n\n\n\n",
"Theres a book called The Big Sleep that explains in (not gruesome) detail what happens, as well as celebrity last words and all kinds of neat stuff. Its a very good read, without being gory or gross. ",
"If you're genuinely curious about this topic, and you're not actually 5 years old, you should definitely read [Stiff](_URL_0_) by Mary Roach. It's a fantastic book that discusses death and the 'life' of cadavers in an entertaining, in-depth, and not-so-macabre way. \n\nFuck it. You should just go and read all of her books. They're great. And they all deal with different aspects of the human body.",
"Fuck I hate death.",
"The \"10 Fascinating Stages of Death\"\n_URL_0_\n\nextremely interesting and very educational.",
"Timor mortis conturbat me. \n\nThe fear of death disturbs me.",
"Im 17 and spent the last 7 months in an out of hospitals for a ruptured appendix, severe crohn's disease and a perforated bowel. I hid the pain for a long time, and eventually had to be life flighted to a few different hospitals because the ct scans baffled doctors. I remember being so weak i couldnt lift myself from one bed onto another only 3 feet over, and being constantly drugged up with god knows what, where i was seeing colors, felt like i was constantly floating in water, and i felt warm. A that point, you begin to accept your fate. I didnt care about life anymore, as the pain wasnt even worth living with. After being fed through my vein for 2 or 3 months, and having some intestine etc removed, my life is back in order. Im now on chemo and need infusions every 2 months to reduce risk of another attack, but life feels so good knowing i can be somewhat normal again. Im doubtful anybody will read this, but i felt this would be an ideal location to vent to people i dont know."
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c6jguk | how do websites which ask for the x, y and zth letter of my password avoid storing it in plain text? | Edit:
This is better than I expected! I've learned things - such as the actual secure part of the process is the 'Memorable Word' that you also have to type in with the 1st, 3rd and 9th letter of your 'password'. Use anything you can remember for the password, as it will likely be stored plain-text - use a password for the memorable word, as that's actually encrypted.
Also - the internet is a terrible place for poor passwords. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/c6jguk/eli5_how_do_websites_which_ask_for_the_x_y_and/ | {
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"There’s no guarantee that they aren’t. They very well might be. It only takes one lazy programmer or someone on an “off” day to set to store in plain text.",
"Remember the site who told you whose password you typed when you tried to create one that was already in use?\n\nSecurity standards of websites differ greatly. Thats why you should use different passwords everywhere, some might store it openly in plaintext, some might even be more lax about your security.",
"The whole point of encrypting passwords *(that is, seeding and hashing them and others)* is that the then produced value cannot be converted back to the password. Okay theoretically it's possible but it'd take centuries or millennia to do that.\n\nSo yea, if they ask you for the 7^th letter of your password they have the 7^th letter saved in their databases.",
"Hi, programmer who recently implemented this here.\n If they ask you for characters from your password, they are storing the password insecurely. Current standard for password storage is hashed with a 64+ character randomly generated string this makes it so that there is no way to get back to the original password. (There is however it takes current technology many years and has will have false positives)\nWhat should happen is they will also store along side the password a security word. This is shouod strongly encrypted. (Not hashed) because it is encrypted the original value can be compared against. It is this that should be used for character checks. (If possible only decrypting the characters that are wanted.)"
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3ms349 | how is circumcision acceptable in cultures or religions that don't accept body piercings or enhancement surgerys? | [deleted] | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3ms349/eli5_how_is_circumcision_acceptable_in_cultures/ | {
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"They consider it to be separate from and different than body piercings or enhancement surgeries. It's considered a different thing entirely. It's a bit like asking, \"If Muslims and Jews don't eat pork, why is it acceptable to eat beef?\" The answer is \"Because beef isn't pork.\"",
"In Judaism, you mean? Tribes -- and everyone is a member of a tribe -- define themselves more by what they refuse to do, and much less by what they do. While cosmetic procedures are seen as a perverse excess, ritual amputation is a convenient taboo. They do not say 'we are the tribe that circumcises its boys;' they say 'we are the tribe that does not abide foreskins.' \n\nThat, incidentally, is why circumcision is so popular in the US. Call it anti-communist sentiment. 'We do not have dirty foreskins, like the *Europeans* do.'"
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8k4btu | what is the difference between dna and rna, and how do the work in biology? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/8k4btu/eli5_what_is_the_difference_between_dna_and_rna/ | {
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"DNA is like a book in the reserve section of the library. It’s the full complete section of your entire genetic information that can’t leave the nucleus. \n\nRNA are the photocopies/notes of the book. You can take those anywhere and use them to study, and they are only going to be the pages that you actually need at that moment. \n\nEdit: Thanks everybody for the gold and the karma. ",
"At a chemical level, DNA (deoxyribonucleic acid) has one less hydroxyl group (an -OH group) than RNA (ribonucleic acid). The DNA code is A-T G-C, while RNA replaces the T with U (uracil).\n\n.The information flow of biology is DNA- > RNA - > protein. Functionally, DNA is the hard code of the cell, and the entirety of DNA exists in a stable, “permanent” manner within the cell. When a gene is expressed within the DNA, RNA is formed, carrying the information for that gene only. Because of this, a given RNA strand is much more transient and can be quite small. The RNA will then connect with ribosomes, building a protein, and once that’s done the RNA strand can be degraded into its nucleotides.\n\nTo make it even simpler, RNA transmits information from the DNA to build proteins.",
"DNA and RNA are very similar. They are words containing information on how to build an animal. DNA is like the instruction manual. It is made in this beautifully bound, tough book. It is really really important, so it sits in this protective case. (DNA is deoxyribose nucleic acid. It is made of four bases adenine, thymine, guanine, and cytosine. RNA contains a uracil instead of a thymine, because it costs less energy to make and if it is present in DNA, the body knows cytosine was broken down and there is an error. RNA is ribose nucleic acid. At the 2' carbon, DNA has no hydroxyl group, but RNA does). \n\nRNA is a messenging service. It is kinda like mail. The DNA is located in the secret HQ of our bodies. It is really important amd cannot be taken out of this HQ. But messages still need to be sent to the factory to produce our machines to make the body work. \n\nRNA differs from DNA by being written on post it notes instead of a book. The post it notes get sent outside of HQ, where the factory workers read it, and start putting pieces of a machine together. RNA post it notes should not last long, so it is very easy to discard these post it notes. Thats why HQ adds some stuff before the post it notes go out. There is a sticker saying it is from HQ and not fake, and a bunch of little post it notes on the end so the people of the cell know itnot to throw it out. Eventually this post it note will still be thrown out. Which makes sense, because we dont want the building people to make 1000 of a machine when we only need 4. And because there is a lot of gibberish in the post it note, the stupid stuff gets cut out, and the important imformation pasted together.\n\n(Gene expression, or transcription of a set of genes, needs to be transient. Continual expression of an uneeded gene wastes precious resources. Tightly controlled expression at the level of transcription is therefore important. RNA is a relatively inexpensive thing for the cell to make, and it will be degraded at some point. This is why we add the 5' methyl guanosine cap and the 3' poly a tail. It tells the cell that this RNA is not foreign and has a function to perform. The 2'hydroxyl on the ribose increases the chance of self attack, however, adding to the transient breakdown of RNA. We want this though, to regulate translation. Lastly, the mRNA has the introns cut out and the exons spliced together. Introns are important for transcription, but not translation. These uncoding regions are cut out for the exons to be spliced together. \n\n",
"DNA is double stranded and used for storing the genetic information, a part either strand can be transcribed (complimentary base pairs, A to T/U, C to G) to produce the RNA that fits with the DNA. The single stranded RNA is then directly used to make proteins using ribosomes",
"Feynman simply explained that they’re very similar, but RNA is shorter and has been sent to ribosomes for protein synthesis.",
"DNA is a boss that hates talking to his employees directly. \n\nRNA is the loyal secretary that transmits info to works and does a little extra work on the side that she doesn’t want to bother the boss with. \n\nProteins are the employees. ",
"DNA cannot leave the nucleus, RNA can. Both carry genetic information, but since RNA can leave, it copies the information found in DNA. It leaves to go find a ribosome to be able to make proteins.",
"This was posted on Reddit a while back. Some awesome guy made it for bonus marks iirc... _URL_0_\n\n"
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85riry | why can't we send someone with a piece of paper and a pencil to map the paris catacombs? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/85riry/eli5_why_cant_we_send_someone_with_a_piece_of/ | {
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"Because he would end up dead in few minutes of course.\n\nSeriously, there are maps of Paris catacombs (official and not public or unofficial and public), they could be incomplete because things can change and (I guess) nobody cares about extra dead-ends."
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vnale | youtube top comments | What the hell kind of system do they use?? They change every minute! | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/vnale/eli5_youtube_top_comments/ | {
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"It's a mess and YouTube hasn't been very forthcoming about the algorithm in play. \n\nSome videos don't even have top rated comments despite having comments with over 100 thumbs up. Even if the thumbs down of highest rated comment is taken into account, the math still doesn't add up."
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3sdr5d | how does a website like facebook or google handle millions of requests a minute? | I know load balancing is a thing, but how does it work? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3sdr5d/eli5_how_does_a_website_like_facebook_or_google/ | {
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"There are many different ways to handle load balancing. Here are just two examples:\n\n1) It's possible to create DNS records for your domain that effectively point users to different servers (by IP address) by presenting the user's computer with a list of server IP addresses associated with the domain in a randomized order and then the users' computers will typically just submit their requests to the first server on the (randomized) IP list they receive.\n\n2) It's possible to have a specialized load-balancing appliance that sits in front of many servers. This appliance is designed to handle extremely high loads of traffic, but the only function it can serve is to hand-off the traffic to another server for processing. So the load-balancer itself uses up very few CPU resources per request because all it has to do is assign and redirect the traffic to another server to handle and then it's up to that server to actually generate the page/content the user is requesting which is a much more computationally expensive operation."
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1z6b0t | if i was an employer, would i be allowed to fire whoever i wanted for no reason? | Would I be allowed to fire someone just because I wanted to? Or are there laws preventing this from happening? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1z6b0t/eli5_if_i_was_an_employer_would_i_be_allowed_to/ | {
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"I believe its different from country to country. In Canada there's termination with cause and without cause. With cause is with reason such as theft or misconduct. Without cause means you should be provided notice of termination and may be entitled to compensation, an example of without cause is your position no longer exist within the company (due to changes management made).",
"That's highly dependent on your location.\n\nThe US is *generally* \"at will\" employment - meaning you can quit or be fired at any time for any reason, as long as that reason doesn't amount to discrimination based on protected attributes (gender, race, religion, etc). Some jobs - particularly city workers - are unionized / tenured, and their contracts with the employer require them to prove and document valid reasons for termination.\n\nEurope as a whole (but there is quite a bit of variation between the nations) requires reason and has pretty powerful workers rights laws."
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4yny3g | why do we wake up to alarms even if we seem oblivious to background noise while asleep? | Another question: why do people who leave televisions running or music playing all night wake up to alarms if the alarm clock is essentially just more noise? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4yny3g/eli5_why_do_we_wake_up_to_alarms_even_if_we_seem/ | {
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"There are two forces in play:\n\nThe sound of an alarm is annoying. While the radio or TV can be annoying, it's not annoying enough. For example, I often fall asleep during a radio program, but I get woken up at the hourly beeps before the news.\n\nTraining: Your brain learns to recognize the alarm sound and the requested action with it: Waking up.",
"I used to work shifts. I had annoying buzzing alarm clock to wake me at 5am. My wife used the TV to wake her every morning around 7.30. \nMy alarm never woke her, and the TV never woke me (if I wasn't getting up early that week or was on nights). Perfect example of selective hearing if you ask me.",
"The alarm is not an harmonic sound, it's noise, in its technical definition. It's sound is designed to be annoying on a physiological level.",
"While we sleep, our brain recognizes sounds, but doesn't process them because it's already doing something else. In particular, if the sound is prolonged in time (television sounds, air conditioner, etc.), as long as the sound is somewhat regular, our brain ignores them, letting us sleep. When, in our sleep, we listen to a strong sound (alarm, a thunder, glass breaking, etc.), we wake up because our brain recognized that something near happened, and it needs to see what happened. Also, in the case of the alarm, soon the brain link the sound to the action 'wake up', so we wake up knowing what disturbed your sleep.",
"There was a time when i got used to alarm tunes after few days. So I wouldnt wake up even for alarms. Then I had to change the alarm every few days to trick my brain out. ",
"My current alarm clock sound is softly chirping birds so the idea of \"discordant sound as alarm\" doesn't feel right to me, smoke alarms notwithstanding. ",
"My question is: why do I NEVER hear alarms? But my dog about to throw up works every time...",
"Our consciousness operates like an office. You have your workers going out and getting information/sending out information. Any information that is coming in has to go to the higher ups to be processed so the company is aware of it. All incoming information has to go through a secretary before it reaches higher ups so they aren't burdened by a constant influx of useless information. Secretary also fetches their coffee so they don't fall asleep. \n\nDuring sleep, higher ups get to go home and sleep, but all other workers keep doing what they do during day, just in case anything in the outside changes. Everything is still relayed to the secretary, who just decides not to inform the higher ups until something important happens. This can be something drastic in the outside or some agreed signal in surrounding. When that happens, the secretary fetches the coffee, wakes up the higher ups so they can act on the changes in the environment. \n\nIn non-eli5, consciousnesses is maintained by RAS (reticular activation system, coffee) in brain stem. During sleep all senses (workers) function during sleep, but thalamus (secretary?, which usually relays info and also keeps RAS \"active\") doesn't relay those signals to higher centers (cerebral cortex). If anything drastic happens in the environment (varies on degree for individuals) thalamus again activates RAS, and \"awakens\" the higher centers to process the info.\n\nCrappy metaphor, but I suppose it gets the job done. Read up on RAS :D interesting stuff, how loss of RAS fibers lead to coma and such.\n\nTl;dr: Brain has a secretary who stays up all night listening for important sounds, and wakes up the rest of brain only if the sound (also other sensations) fall in to \"important\" category. What's important changes person to person.\n\nDisclaimer: may have some exaggerated/simplified info. Forgive me, this stuff was years back.\n\nEdit: Grammar",
"I read somewhere that anythingcthat isn't repetitive background noise could indicate an intruder.",
"We have evolved to react to changing stimuli, I can sleep with blaring brown noise drowning out all background noise - because it's consistent.\n\nWith an alarm, the stimuli (sound) changes rapidly, waking you up (it may represent danger and demands attention)"
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20qmdr | when doing a multiple choice test, is it better to choose 1 answer for when you have no clue, or to make your guesses random? | Is it a better testing strategy to vary what your random guess answer is, or to keep it the same (Like "The answer is always C") | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/20qmdr/eli5_when_doing_a_multiple_choice_test_is_it/ | {
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"William Poundstone actually talks about this very thing in his book \"Rock Breaks Scissors\". His findings from research conclude (this is paraphrased and not directly quoted):\n\nThere are, in fact, approaches one can take if the correct answer is not known in a multiple choice test. Two things to keep in the back of your mind: 1.) the correct answer distribution could be either truly random or \"randomly chosen\" by a human. 2.) the test questions and their answers were devised by a human (at this point, even if the test answer distribution is random, there is still information you can use to your advantage).\n\nIf the correct answers of the test were distributed \"at random\" by a human:\n\nIn a 4-choice multiple choice (A,B,C, or D) B has a slight advantage over the other choices coming in at 28%.\n\nIf there are 5 options (A,B,C,D, or E), E has the advantage of 23% and the middle choice, C, is the least favorite at 17%.\n\nIn a 4-choice test, the likelihood of two correct answers in sequence (like 1. A, 2. A) is 19% vs expected 25%. In a 5-choice sequence, it is 18% vs 20%. A test taker can gain the advantage on an unknown question just by avoiding the previous choice.\n\nThis part would apply to both randomized and non-randomized tests:\n\nRemember how I said no matter the randomization source, all questions and answers are made up by humans? In any multiple choice (4+ answers) test, \"none of the above\" or \"all of the above\" are much more likely to be correct (52%). These answers are particularly strong choices because the other answers are designed around them which creates a bias against randomizing none/all answers, possibly because of the input effort on behalf of the test writers. If the answer includes both, you should be able to rule one out.\n\nAnother human test writer element is the length of the answer. Because the answers have to be absolutely correct, the test maker input effort on the correct answer will have a bias towards extra qualifiers in the text. There is a slight advantage in choosing the longest answer to shorter ones.\n\nAnother check, though this one is much less likely to show up on standardized tests, is looking for grammar continuity. If you find an answer that has an \"a\" where there should be an \"an\" there is a chance the writer had the correct answer in his/her head when composing the incorrect answers. For example: say the answers as written are\nA) \"a orange\"\nB) \"a kiwi\"\nC) \"an apple\"\nD) \"an avocado\"\nSince A) should have been written out \"an orange\", this tells you the correct answer could very well be B) \"a kiwi\". The writer likely was subconsciously thinking about the correct answer \"a kiwi\" when drafting the test and made the grammar mistake.\n\nImprovements over random guessing:\nChoosing none/all of the -- 90%\nPicking B on 4-choice questions, E on 5-choice questions -- 11%\nAvoiding previous choice: -- 8%\n\nOther summarized strategies:\nYou can boost the \"avoid previous choice\" success rate a bit by also avoiding the following questions correct answer (assuming you know it).\n\nIf you can rule out answers on a question, but can't rule out a \"none\" or \"all\" answer, pick it. It's very likely the right answer. Otherwise use the \"option B\" and \"avoid sequential same letter answers\" rules.\n\nA working example of employing these strategies to make a guess with one answer ruled out of the question (test \"randomized\" by a human writer) is this:\n\nYou don't know the answer to #2, but you're sure \"C\" is incorrect. This leaves three possibilities for #2. \"B\" is most often correct (28% of the time) for a 4-choice question, so that's 1 vote for \"B\". You know the correct answers to the neighboring questions #1 and #3 are \"C\" and \"D\" respectively, so you can rule out \"C\" and \"D\" for #2 as that would violate the sequential answer rule, resulting in 1 vote for \"A\" and 1 vote for \"B\". This gives 1 vote for A, 2 votes for B, 0 votes for D, and C was ruled out by your own knowledge. \"B\" is the best guess. When voting leads to a tie, pick any of the tied options.\n\nThere are other, more complicated reduction logic techniques to use on standardized tests like, when finding a set of three similar and one odd answers, assuming the correct answer is among the three similar and not the outlier (reverse psychology on the test writer). Narrowing that down further, of the tree answers, if two are so similar as to be unambiguously indistinguishable that probably means the other one is the right answer.\n\nTechniques that involve getting into the heads of test writers are hard to remember on test day. Hopefully you get a test that is \"randomized\" by human selection, but if it's a standardized test then best of luck. To complicate random guessing, as others have said, you are incapable of being able to truly randomize your own guesses without the help of a random number generator. And after all, a guess of higher probability is better than your own \"random\" guess, so use these techniques and increase your overall odds.",
"assuming no knowledge of the test, it does not matter.",
"For a sufficiently large number of questions, assuming your choices are truly random, there would be no difference; any of the answers is, in theory, equally likely to be correct. Since you would be unlikely to choose truly randomly, it would be best to go with a single answer. If you tend to favor, say, B, you're going to get a disproportionate number wrong; if you always choose B (out of A-D), you'll get 25% right. Again, this is only true for a fairly large number. For only a few questions, there isn't a significant difference."
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54zj22 | the difference between object oriented programming and structured programming in computer science? | Thanks! | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/54zj22/eli5_the_difference_between_object_oriented/ | {
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"Structured programming was invented in the 1950's as people started writing the first programs that were thousands of lines long. It basically means to organize your program into pieces and use functions and loops, rather than \"go to\".\n\nObject-oriented programming was invented in the 1970's as people started writing the first programs that were millions of lines long. The idea is to encapsulate both pieces of data, and the code that operates on that data, together.\n\nOne of the most important things to understand is that neither structured programming or object-oriented programming make it possible for computer programs to do anything they couldn't do before. Rather, they're tools to allow programmers to work with larger and more complex programs without getting hopelessly lost trying to understand it all at once.\n\nNeither of these are new or controversial ideas anymore. They're taught in the very first introductory programming class at every university and in one of the first few chapters of virtually every book on programming.\n"
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1r19pr | elvis presley, particularly why he was so influential and significant | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1r19pr/eli5_elvis_presley_particularly_why_he_was_so/ | {
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"IANA Elvis expert, but this is what my grandma told me. \nWhen Elvis first arrived on the \"scene\" her generation was in a more prim and proper time, and had been for quite sometime. (This followed the \"roaring twenties\") There were very strict generational guidelines going on and he challenged that in a way that was unique. In his musical selection, his dancing, etc. He was a good boy with a bad boy splash. He was a unique blend in that the older generation liked his gospel, good boy side and the younger generation couldn't get enough of his bad boy side. To top it off, he was a fine looking man which made for good television and movies and IMO some of his songs show a vocal skill that few have ever had. Elvis was a transitional moment in time, when the old was going out and the new was coming in. ",
"Well, he made black music accessible to white people, and got rich and famous by doing so. That's about it."
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7ndl27 | - what is a “bus” (or what is “bussing”) in audio and how is it utilized in live vs studio audio? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/7ndl27/eli5_what_is_a_bus_or_what_is_bussing_in_audio/ | {
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"I was a live sound engineer a while ago, we used sends instead of busses but it is basically the same thing.\n\nYou can send a signal along a bus and it is basically a copy from when you send it. \n\nSo audiosignal comes in and you send it and audiosignal keeps going to where it is going, but you can send audiosignal_a somewhere else and do different things to it without affecting audiosignal.\n\nLike making a copy of a document then editing the copy.\n\nNever worked in a studio so I can't say what they use it for but in a live situation the mix out the front is equalised and has effects added so it sounds good out the front, and the bussed or auxilliary signal is sent back to the stage with a different set of processing so the band can hear themselves and it doesn't feedback in the monitors (screech).\n\nHope that helps, this is my first ELI5 and I haven't worked in the industry for more than 10 years.\n\nJames",
"Bus is short for busbar which is an electrical connection with multiple connections on it. A mixer bus can have multiple input channels assigned to it. The bus can then be treated as a single signal. It can go to a group fader, or be sent to an external device like a recorder or effects box. \n \nI'm more of a mixer repair guy than an operator, but in a studio, you can send busses to a multitrack recorder. \n\nIn live, a bus can be used to create a mix-minus output. That contains all the program except for one source. That is useful for feeding on-air people who need to hear the program, but don't want to hear themselves in their earpiece. ",
"I've done a fair amount of live and studio sound alike, and here's my best crack at an explanation:\n\nA \"bus\" is any place in which multiple signals come together. In the simplest case, if you have a few microphones, etc, you are mixing them together onto the \"mix bus\", which feeds your PA system.\n\nIn a more involved situation, you may want to create submixes first, apply processing to those, and then mix the final results together onto the mix bus (which could be into your PA system or a final mix of your song in the studio.)\n\nFor example: If you have 12 backup singers, it's pretty common to mix them all into a stereo bus. This would set the panning and relative levels for all 12 signals, and give you a nice stereo pair (just two channels) to work with. Now, you can control the overall level of backup vocals, or the overall EQ of them, with just a single stereo channel on your real or virtual mixer.\n\nSame goes for drums, guitars, etc. By submixing in this way, you are able to make micro-level changes using the original tracks and how they contribute to the submix, and macro-level changes by riding the master bus faders.\n\n"
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5nmsa2 | how can someone be lost at sea with all of the technology and satellites we have now? | I saw the post earlier about a man and his daughter who have been lost at sea for about a month finally landed in Australia. Maybe it's because I watch too many sci fi movies, but I find it hard to believe that with all the technology we have now we could not pick them up on a satellite or something. Are we not as technologically advanced with satellites as I assume we are? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5nmsa2/eli5_how_can_someone_be_lost_at_sea_with_all_of/ | {
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"Oceans are huge, that's basically the answer. A major aspect though is that acquiring temporary use of a satellite costs millions of dollars, something that's not viable for search and rescue. So, helicopters can be sent out to look, but again, the ocean is huge. \n \nIf the people lost at see bought an [expensive satellite phone](_URL_0_), they could call someone and give them their location (cell phones would still have a GPS signal). ",
" > ...pick them up on a satellite...\n\nSatellites don't have any special abilities to \"sense\" where people are.\n\nMost satellites aren't cameras, those that *are* cameras are in use by spying agencies and they cost a trillion dollars.\n\nIf those lost people were floating around the Indian Ocean spotting them with a spy satellite would be like spotting a tick on a dog from a mile away.\n\nCompounding that, the ocean is full of floating garbage. Miles and miles of it.\n\nIts not a matter of technology, but scale. ",
"Oceans are huge, and most GPS technology only *accepts* information from satellites; it doesn't talk back or relay any information back to the satellites, so no one sees or hears anything.\n\nAlso, did I mention that they oceans are huge?",
"I think the main answer is Oceans are huge, but also in the specific story you mentioned they were harder to find because they told people they were heading to the Bay of Islands and ended up heading to Australia instead... and they didn't have a radio or any means of communication on board their vessel.",
"Sci-fi TV/movies paint a pretty amazing picture, lol - they just dial up a satellite, cut to the shot of it spinning into position (cue low rumble), snap a couple pictures, enhance, and oh look! Facial recognition says that's our bad guy :)\n\nMost satellite imagery that you see on the news or Google Maps is captured from Low Earth Orbit (LEO) and therefore has a pretty narrow field of view, 8-12 miles wide in the case of the [WorldView](_URL_1_) satellites. The resolution is 1 pixel per 18inches at best, so detecting a face is out of the question, maybe a body, a boat is reasonable.\n\nImagine trying to find a single flea (and that's ridiculously large as compared to a human, heck even a boat, in a 100sq-miles of ocean) on a carpet square 45ft x 45ft, taking pictures 1-inch by 1-inch, and you can only take a 1-inch wide row of pictures every 90min (on average the time of one orbit around the earth at ~380miles up). It would take you over a month to photograph the whole thing. Let's hope the flea (or the boat) didn't move.\n\nNow somebody's going to nitpick my numbers, but I fudged a lot...point being, it's just not practical to visually scan an ocean from so close, and the ones that are sitting at Geosynchronous Earth Orbit (GEO, 22000 miles up) don't have that kind of resolution - they're meant to look for hurricanes, etc.\n\nHowever, [NOAA](_URL_2_) has been operating the [Search and Rescue Satellite Aided Tracking (SARSAT) System](_URL_0_) and it has rescued almost 4000 people since 2001, but that only works if the vessel or person is carrying an emergency transponder.",
"Not nearly.\n\nThe sea can wipe out any ability to notify anyone of anything. Searching at random across the ocean would take all the lifetime a person would ever have in decades and more."
]
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3ne2a8 | how did 9/11 change the world ? | What major impact did 9/11 have on the world ? what would be different if it didn't happen? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3ne2a8/eli5_how_did_911_change_the_world/ | {
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"9/11 created the War on Terror. Without the War on Terror, the U.S.-led wars in Afghanistan and Iraq wouldn't have happened. The Patriot Act wouldn't have happened. The NSA's PRISM program wouldn't have happened. ISIS wouldn't have happened."
]
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[]
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153uvr | why some sites such as cracked split all their articles into 2 pages instead of just putting everything on one page | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/153uvr/eli5_why_some_sites_such_as_cracked_split_all/ | {
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"Double the views for the ads",
"Every little ad that shows up on your screen earns sites like _URL_0_ money - it's their way of making money off of writing all of these articles that are completely free for you to read. By giving a little bit of your screen space to these advertisements, Cracked makes money in return for giving you content to read.\n\nEvery time one of those shiny little advertisements appears on your screen, Cracked makes a tiny amount of money. If three ads show up on your screen, Cracked makes three times as much money off of that pageview. If an article has, say, three pages, and each page has three ads, Cracked makes nine times as much off of that single article as they would if they only showed you one ad on one page.\n\nThis is also the reason Cracked has the three 'relevant articles' at the bottom of any article you read. If you get drawn in to another article, that's more revenue from a single user.\n\nSo, while you enjoy all of these lists of assorted facts and stories that the Cracked authors wrote and put up on their website, they make a living. All the while, you never have to pay with your own money - you just have to let these moving pictures (which you're welcome to ignore) sit around on your screen. Not a bad deal, if you ask me.",
"Cracked is not the worst of it. A lot of sites present things as slideshows for this very reason. It is really annoying. "
]
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[],
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||
2t1phe | why are panty lines taboo? | So I admit, I show panty lines, especially when I go to the gym. I really don't see what the big deal is. Everyone (hopefully) wears drawers, so wouldn't it be natural to have lines? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2t1phe/eli5_why_are_panty_lines_taboo/ | {
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"It's simply a style/fashion thing, like wearing maroon and red together. Yuck. In this case, yuck, you're showing your underwear. You either want to go stylishly modest or stylishly sexy. Showing panty lines is neither.\n\nStylishly modest: The clothing over your underwear is thick enough or loose enough to not show your panty lines through it.\n\nStylishly sexy: If you're wearing something that is tight enough to show your underwear through it, then you still dont want to \"show off your underwear\". You want to show off your butt instead, so you go buy a \"no panty lines\" style of underwear (thong, or the really flat seam kind).",
"I don't see the big deal either. I've never said, \"Did you see the panty lines on Susan? What a stupid bitch!\""
]
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[],
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3b48dp | if college education at public institutions became free of charge (to students) what happens to private institutions? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3b48dp/eli5if_college_education_at_public_institutions/ | {
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"Realistically, not much.\n\nCost to attend is rarely the barrier that prevents people from going to college; student loans are easy to get (though the true \"cost\" of these is an entirely different discussion). Moreover, in-state tuition for most public universities is very low - [UT Austin is only $10k a year in-state](_URL_0_) - making cost even less of an issue.\n\nPrivate institutions have always justified their higher price tags with their prestige and alumni networks. That doesn't get devalued if state schools are suddenly free."
]
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"http://www.collegefactual.com/colleges/the-university-of-texas-at-austin/paying-for-college/tuition-and-fees/#"
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||
fjce84 | what is ip routing? | Hi all,
I’ve read on IP routing from different sources and since I am not very tech savvy, I get even more confused.
As an additional question: Is there a difference between your typical at-home fiber cable router and an IP routing capable router?
Thank you! | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/fjce84/eli5_what_is_ip_routing/ | {
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"The router at your house has a pretty simple set of rules. Packets with the IP address assigned to your house by your ISP come in and all others are ignored. Any traffic it sees is forwarded to the ISPs routers, as there is no other part of the Internet that's at your house.\n\nA more general router, like the expensive ones your school or ISP buys, keep a more complex structure of which parts of the Internet are on which connections. If your ISP connects to three other ISPs, it has to sort all the traffic from all the users according to which destinations are served by each external ISP.",
"Routing - by definition - works with IP addresses. Some routers use fiber cable, and some use copper cables, but they generally do the same things. The differences between routers like you have at home and those super expensive cisco ones is the amount of stuff they can do aside from juggling IP addresses. There are \\*a lot\\* of these things, so to make it short, these IP routing capable ones you were thinking of are basically for any application that goes above \"one household wants to google cat videos\".\n\nAs for IPs and routing itself, it works almost exactly like postal addresses. You have an address and a zip code and the mail company has a database where all these addresses are noted down so the mailman knows where the mail has to go. And if you think about various postal offices and logistics centers communicating with each other to make sure each item is delivered to the right address, this is basically what routers ultimately do too."
]
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[],
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72v3kb | how is supporting research for children's cancer different from supporting any other sort of cancer research? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/72v3kb/eli5_how_is_supporting_research_for_childrens/ | {
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"There are many different types of cancer, and in some respects every single individual case of cancer is specific and unique, although there are likely to be some broad similarities. The types of cancers that are common in children are different from the types of cancers that are common in adults. Childhood cancers are also more rare than other types of cancer. There is selective pressure against mutations that cause childhood cancer because childhood cancer would prevent an individual from reproducing and passing on their genes, whereas genes that cause cancers that onset after reproductive age will not be selected against. "
]
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||
3z4u4q | "citizens united" court case ruled corporations as "people", so how come they can avoid taxes on income made in other countries while us citizens living abroad have to pay taxes on all income made abroad? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3z4u4q/eli5citizens_united_court_case_ruled_corporations/ | {
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"Citizen's united did not rule that corporations are people. More that corporations are made up of people who all have a right to free speech, and can exercise that right through the corporation. \n\nThere are still big differences between a corporation and an individual from a legal perspective. One of them is liability, which is the whole point of incorporation. Another is taxation. There are also different forms of regulation and regulatory bodies (police vs. the SEC for example). \n\nAnd on top of that, you only pay taxes on income made abroad as an individual if you're in the top tax bracket. This is to discourage highly paid individuals from leaving the country. Furthermore, you still get the benefits of being a US citizen even if you live and work abroad, such as free movement between many countries and protection from the greatest military power on the planet. \n\nSo really it's apples in oranges. Not to mention corporate taxes are really bad in the long term, and if you look at places like Germany that reduce those corporate taxes you get all those foreign holdings back within your borders.... the problem isn't corporations avoiding taxes so much as it trying to squeeze money out of corporations when they can just hire people and open offices next door. ",
"There's a flaw in your question. Citizens United vs FEC did *not* rule that \"corporations are people.\" This is a gross oversimplification that the media made (call it their ELP2 [explain like the public is 2 years old]).\n\nThe First Amendment has always been construed to provide individual rights to free speech. Citizens United said, basically, \"hey court - a corporation is nothing more than a group of citizens\" (more subtle than that, this is the ELI5 version)...\"why can the court deny the right of free speech for a group of individuals who happen to be united around a political and/or a business issue?\" The court said that, with respect to free speech rights, an association of individuals should have the same rights as individuals. \n\nOne other quick point - tax laws for corporations are different than for individuals. The unintended consequence of the corporate tax law as it stands is that companies are pretty much encouraged to make/keep their money overseas because they're not taxed on it. Corporations, and their boards of directors and officers, have a legal responsibility to their investors to do *what is best for the investors*. Being patriotic and supporting American jobs is all well and good - but if my company has $10M in profit in the US, it will get taxed whereas money earned overseas won't. \n\nIf we really want American companies to keep jobs at home, then let's give them a financial incentive to do so. ",
"This is grossly simplified, but seeing as this is ELI5:\n\nUS Corporations do pay taxes on income regardless of whether the source is foreign or domestic.\n\nUS corporations don't pay taxes on income earned by foreign subsidiaries until that income is somehow 'passed up/back' to the parent.\n\nI think a lot of the confusion comes from the fact that generally speaking a lot of this 'tax avoidance' people talk about comes via the use of foreign subsidiary corporations. That is, a US corporation 'owns' another corporation in a foreign country. It's often much more complicated than that (corporations owning corporations which in turn own more corporations). The avoidance in question is generally the result of the US corporation not 'taking up' or 'recognizing' the income of it's foreign subsidiaries. If they did, they would be subject to US taxes.\n\nUS corporations can generally bring the money back just as soon as they want to (via convoluted licensing agreements, transfer pricing agreements etc) they just choose not to, because they don't want to pay US taxes. \n\nIt's different for an individual - The US taxes individual income regardless of where you live. But, if the family in NZ you were referring to owned an NZ corporation, that corporation would not be subject to US taxes until the individual owners recognized income from that corporation (let's say they were paid a dividend or similar)",
"Simply put, it's the concept that a group of people maintain the same rights as they do as individuals. ",
"Your question has a faulty premise--it assumes that corporations can do something that humans cannot do. That is not the case.\n\nThe reason that corporations don't pay US tax on overseas prodits is that the overseas profits are made by an active non-US business conducted by a non-US subsidiary of the main corporation. The main corporation doesn't pay US tax until the non-US subsidiary pays a divisend to it.\n\nA human being can also own stock of a non-US corporation. If that non-US corporation engages in an active business outside the US, then the US human doesn't pay US tax on those profits until the non-US corporation pays a dividend to the US human, same as with the corporation.\n\nSo, since the main thing going on in your question is a faulty premise, let me ELI5 that concept: if you ask for the result when you add 5 to potato, no one can give you a meaningful answer because the question itself is broken.",
"Everyone is hammering on the \"Corporations are people\" thing. You were wrong about Citizens United talking about it, but you are right that courts have a long history of applying the 14th Amendment of the Constitution to Corporations. From Wikipedia:\n\n\"In Santa Clara County v. Southern Pacific Railroad (1886), the court reporter included a statement by Chief Justice Morrison Waite in the decision's headnote:\n\nThe court does not wish to hear argument on the question whether the provision in the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution, which forbids a State to deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws, applies to these corporations. We are all of the opinion that it does.[122]\n\nThis dictum, which established that corporations enjoyed personhood under the Equal Protection Clause, was repeatedly reaffirmed by later courts.[122] It remained the predominant view throughout the twentieth century, though it was challenged in dissents by justices such as Hugo Black and William O. Douglas.[123] Between 1890 and 1910, Fourteenth Amendment cases involving corporations vastly outnumbered those involving the rights of blacks, 288 to 19.[124]\"",
"1. Citizens United did not rule corporations to be people. \n\n2. If anything, it affirmed the *centuries-old* principle that corporations have \"legal personhood\" - that is, a distinct legal personality that can sign contracts, take out loans, etc... They are not, and have never been, considered natural persons.\n\nThis is not a new concept. It's been around in some form for at least 4 centuries - it basically came about as a way to fund exploration, trade and infrastructure projects. Investors wanted to shield themselves from liability, and the Crown needed the private funds for suchprojects, so the \"corporate veil\" came about. \n\n3. A US-incorporated company does not carry out business abroad in its own name. A US company will incorporate its overseas businesses in the relevant jurisdictions. So you have Parent Company X, with Subsidiaries A, B and C incorporated in Japan, Canada and Mexico, for instance. \n\nRelated, the corporate tax rate is different from the individual tax rate, which makes sense if ine understands corporations are not people in the \"natural person\" sense. There is also the policy consideration that corporations, as employers, investors, etc.. generally require a separate set of tax considerations. \n\nEdit: Several countries' courts have also ruled corporations have the fiduciary duty to act in the best interests of shareholders. As someone already pointed out, keeping profits in lower-taxed subsidiaries is the prudent course of action. \n\nSource: lawyer. \n",
"I worked at a brokerage firm for a bit. Regular people do this as well, it's all about finding the correct \"tax shelter\". These can be in the form of bonds or CDs, and they serve the same sort of purpose as the overseas money laundering our favorite corporations use. ",
"I am constantly astonished by the number of people who will defend a system that allows corporations to get away with murder (sometimes literally) on the backs of human beings.",
"Simple answer: citizens United has nothing to do with the law of taxation, which is written by congress and interpreted and enforced by the IRS.",
"Sucks to be an American.\nMove to another country - pay that countries taxes AND US taxes.\nI'm surprised any yanks can afford to work outside of the US.\nSuch a strange system."
]
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5g15l4 | how is the data in an mp3 file translated into the sound coming through my headphones? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5g15l4/eli5_how_is_the_data_in_an_mp3_file_translated/ | {
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"First let's talk about a .wav file. Take a sound and capture it with a microphone (or a bunch of them, or their equivalent input devices). The microphone converts the sound (vibrations of the air) into [electrical voltages](_URL_1_) that vary (quite quickly) with time. Use an Analog to Digital Converter (ADC) circuit to convert that time-varying voltage waveform into a series of numbers. For example, 0000 could represent 0 volts; 0001 could represent +5 millivolts, 0010 could represent +10 mV, etc. Stick that series of numbers into a computer file and you've pretty much got a .wav file. (Not exactly, but close.) \n \nDepending on how often your ADC [sampled](_URL_0_) the waveform and how fine the voltage steps are (the \"number of bits of resolution\"), your .wav file could get kind of large. So you use some special techniques to compress the file and make it smaller. One major technique is to analyze the sounds and remove high frequency components that humans can hardly hear. The mp3 algorithm applies a bunch of tricks like that to make the computer file quite a bit smaller. (It also degrades the quality of the sound somewhat in the process...mp3 compression is \"lossy\", meaning that when you reverse the process, the file you get back isn't quite the same as the one you converted in the first place.) \n \nTo turn an mp3 file back into sound, reverse the process. Reverse the mp3 techniques to create a .wav -type file, send those numbers to a Digital to Analog Converter chip (DAC), and send the resulting voltage waveform to a speaker (probably using an amplifier first to make it louder). Voila!",
"Sound is moving (oscillating) air, moved by a speaker. The speaker is moved by an electromagnet driven by an amplifier. The amplifier gets it's signal from a digital to analog converter. The the audio file is a series of digital numbers that feed that converter. \n\nAt each step, it's a pretty direct translation. The alternating current electricity drives the speaker position to the same magnitude and frequency. The sound file stores those series of positions.\n\nThe whole thing works in reverse for recording from a microphone. Hope that helps"
]
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"http://www1.icsi.berkeley.edu/Speech/mr/images/PZM_waveform.gif"
],
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] |
||
lkqis | - what essentially is going on with the nba lockout? | Information regarding present status of the lockout, also past articles/information would be helpful to put a timeline on the events. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/lkqis/eli5_what_essentially_is_going_on_with_the_nba/ | {
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"players want 54 percent I believe, owners only want them to have 50. Fuck both of them they make too much money to be bitching anyway. I'm from Chicago and as soon as we start to have a championship caliber team the NBA goes outta fucking business. fuck that.",
"Owners are complaining that they lost $300M last year, even though the NBA overall had one of its best years ever. That makes them think they're on the short end of the stick.\n\nPart of this is happening because the owners are (by their own will and doing) overpaying players. There is a lot of competition within the league to land limited resource (i.e. talent) each off season - basic supply and demand. When a few mid-level talents come out as the best options for teams to upgrade in that particular off season (i.e. not the best player, but the best FA available at the time), they draw big salaries as a team's only choice to improve. This is how players like Rashard Lewis end up making more money than LeBron James, Dirk Nowitzki or Dwight Howard. Oh, they also get really long contracts which often leads to this pattern: first year of a contract = play hard and show you're worth it; middle 3-4 years = slack off, maybe get chubby; last year = play hard to get a sexy, new contract (see Baron Davis, Eddie Curry or young Z-Bo). This makes it even harder to swallow / manage a team around because, once a player under performs, teams go out looking for more talent to get them some wins, which means more crazy contracts on top of the crazy deal they just signed 2 years ago.\n\nSo, the NBA owners think player contracts are out of control and the owners are getting the short of the stick. NBA players think they're just not at fault because each off season, there's at least one idiot willing to give it to them. In negotiations, the player's job is to get maximum wage and the owner's job is to make sure they don't over pay or sink their team into one player's wallet. Players think their only fault is signing the crazy contracts that owners were offering. This leads to a lot of finger pointing because if someone is willing to pay you $10M per year, you're gonna take it - even if everyone knows you're actually worth about $4M. Now, the owners are looking for a new CBA to save them from themselves and the players are trying to make sure the market doesn't crash so their next contract isn't cut to half of their last one.\n\nSo, the owners think they players are making more than they should. This makes the owners look for other ways to compensate for the lost dollars, since they can't just erase Rashard Lewis' contract when they realize he's not worth it / not performing at a level that justifies the money. This is why there is a battle over who gets more of the ~50/50 revenue split. Owners want more because they're losing money on these crazy deals and think the players are taking advantage of them. Players want more because they bring in the money and feel they haven't done anything wrong. Even beyond the star players, the NBA is driven by faces, not helmets, so the individuals performing are important - and they know that. People will watch all-star exhibitions and Olympics games because the jerseys change but the individuals are still fun to watch.\n\nSo, now we have a lockout. You'll hear from the players that they want to keep playing ball but the owners have locked them out (the owners own the gym, equipment, training facility, etc so they can do that). In some ways, they're holding the league hostage until they get what they want. In other ways, they don't want to run a business that loses money. Unfortunately, they can't just extend the old CBA for one year and keep playing ball until this is worked out (great idea, Melo, really) so we have to deal with a lot of bickering and worthless chatter until it gets resolved.\n\nThe real downside of this, as an NBA fan, is that last year was AMAZING. Compelling story lines throughout the season. Great matchups regularly. Pretty much every playoff series was engaging. The Finals? Don't get me started. So instead of coming back to build on that momentum, we have this - a dead stop. People complaining about paychecks (for many people, the worst part of the sport) and Blake Griffin isn't dunking on anyone (for many people, the best part of the sport). It's a sad situation but hopefully it'll get worked out by Christmas and we'll have basketball after the NFL season wraps up.\n\n**TL;DR: Owners are writing crazy contracts. Players are happy to take the big money if it's being offered. Owners lost money last year because they overpaid players. Now the owners are trying to save themselves from themselves.**",
"players want 54 percent I believe, owners only want them to have 50. Fuck both of them they make too much money to be bitching anyway. I'm from Chicago and as soon as we start to have a championship caliber team the NBA goes outta fucking business. fuck that.",
"Owners are complaining that they lost $300M last year, even though the NBA overall had one of its best years ever. That makes them think they're on the short end of the stick.\n\nPart of this is happening because the owners are (by their own will and doing) overpaying players. There is a lot of competition within the league to land limited resource (i.e. talent) each off season - basic supply and demand. When a few mid-level talents come out as the best options for teams to upgrade in that particular off season (i.e. not the best player, but the best FA available at the time), they draw big salaries as a team's only choice to improve. This is how players like Rashard Lewis end up making more money than LeBron James, Dirk Nowitzki or Dwight Howard. Oh, they also get really long contracts which often leads to this pattern: first year of a contract = play hard and show you're worth it; middle 3-4 years = slack off, maybe get chubby; last year = play hard to get a sexy, new contract (see Baron Davis, Eddie Curry or young Z-Bo). This makes it even harder to swallow / manage a team around because, once a player under performs, teams go out looking for more talent to get them some wins, which means more crazy contracts on top of the crazy deal they just signed 2 years ago.\n\nSo, the NBA owners think player contracts are out of control and the owners are getting the short of the stick. NBA players think they're just not at fault because each off season, there's at least one idiot willing to give it to them. In negotiations, the player's job is to get maximum wage and the owner's job is to make sure they don't over pay or sink their team into one player's wallet. Players think their only fault is signing the crazy contracts that owners were offering. This leads to a lot of finger pointing because if someone is willing to pay you $10M per year, you're gonna take it - even if everyone knows you're actually worth about $4M. Now, the owners are looking for a new CBA to save them from themselves and the players are trying to make sure the market doesn't crash so their next contract isn't cut to half of their last one.\n\nSo, the owners think they players are making more than they should. This makes the owners look for other ways to compensate for the lost dollars, since they can't just erase Rashard Lewis' contract when they realize he's not worth it / not performing at a level that justifies the money. This is why there is a battle over who gets more of the ~50/50 revenue split. Owners want more because they're losing money on these crazy deals and think the players are taking advantage of them. Players want more because they bring in the money and feel they haven't done anything wrong. Even beyond the star players, the NBA is driven by faces, not helmets, so the individuals performing are important - and they know that. People will watch all-star exhibitions and Olympics games because the jerseys change but the individuals are still fun to watch.\n\nSo, now we have a lockout. You'll hear from the players that they want to keep playing ball but the owners have locked them out (the owners own the gym, equipment, training facility, etc so they can do that). In some ways, they're holding the league hostage until they get what they want. In other ways, they don't want to run a business that loses money. Unfortunately, they can't just extend the old CBA for one year and keep playing ball until this is worked out (great idea, Melo, really) so we have to deal with a lot of bickering and worthless chatter until it gets resolved.\n\nThe real downside of this, as an NBA fan, is that last year was AMAZING. Compelling story lines throughout the season. Great matchups regularly. Pretty much every playoff series was engaging. The Finals? Don't get me started. So instead of coming back to build on that momentum, we have this - a dead stop. People complaining about paychecks (for many people, the worst part of the sport) and Blake Griffin isn't dunking on anyone (for many people, the best part of the sport). It's a sad situation but hopefully it'll get worked out by Christmas and we'll have basketball after the NFL season wraps up.\n\n**TL;DR: Owners are writing crazy contracts. Players are happy to take the big money if it's being offered. Owners lost money last year because they overpaid players. Now the owners are trying to save themselves from themselves.**"
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u22qr | and new to reddit, what is circle jerk? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/u22qr/eli5_and_new_to_reddit_what_is_circle_jerk/ | {
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"A circle jerk is when a group of guys get together in a circle, and jerk off the guy next to/in front of them. Everyone is jerking someone else off.\n\nA reddit circle jerk would be a sub-reddit where members post the same tired un-original content but everyone upvotes everything. Everyone jerks each other off by passing karma around even though it is often lacking content.\n\nMany people would say /r/atheism is a prime example.",
"Are you asking, what is a circlejerk in general, or what is /r/circlejerk ?\n\nPeople seemed to like the ELI5 explanation I gave here to the answer of what a circlejerk is: _URL_0_\n\nAs for /r/circlejerk, it's a place where you post parody threads that are phrased in such a way as to gain a lot of upvotes by playing into Reddit's biases. Right now, for instance, there's a thread in /r/circlejerk called \"I know I'll be downvoted for this, but could I have some upvotes for an opinion that I share with the majority?\" This is because many Reddit posts seem to try and curry favor by saying they feel they might get downvotes, and of course a Reddit post that endorses the majority opinion has a good chance of getting upvoted."
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1aczg9 | why do video's filmed in 720p looks so much better viewed in 360p than video's filmed at 360p do at the same resolution? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1aczg9/eli5why_do_videos_filmed_in_720p_looks_so_much/ | {
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"It's called oversampling. Basically, if you capture way more digital data than you need, then throw most of it away with math, you end up with a much nicer result than if you only captured as much data as you intend to keep in the first place."
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fbg8bl | we can inject fat and silicon into body parts like lips, boobs, and butts to make them bigger and fuller; why can’t we do the same for penises? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/fbg8bl/eli5_we_can_inject_fat_and_silicon_into_body/ | {
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"Boobs are mostly fat, not functional tissue. The actual milk producing parts don't make up much of the overall size so when you want to add size, you just add filler. Butts are the same way, it's mostly muscle and fat so just add more filler.\n\nThe penis however is mostly blood. The reason a penis gets hard is because your body pumps blood to it and then regulates how easy it is for the blood to leave, thus swelling up. Because the majority of the penis is this type of tissue (the spongy body and the cavernous bodies) you can't just add filler to make it bigger.\n\nIf the penis was mostly fat with the urethra in the middle we could do exactly what you're saying, but in that case it couldn't ever get hard, it'd just be the consistency of boobs.",
"I’ve seen a video on a nsfw sub of some dude who did this. Literally it was so messed up man. Apparently he was like a “sub” to this dude who’s known for making people submit to him and they’ve died because of him, it’s a whole story but I forgot the name"
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92oqw7 | what happens in our brains that makes us "like" or prefer one thing over another? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/92oqw7/eli5_what_happens_in_our_brains_that_makes_us/ | {
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"I'm not a professional, but I have heard that whenever you like something, your body makes the hormones dopamine, seratonin, oxitocin, and endorphins. You don't necessarily crave food you like for the taste, for example, just the sensation that comes from it. You like what sends more \"good\" hormones, if you will, (that tend to be at fault for bad habits) throughout the body whether that's a song, food, sport, ect. I am not sure what the opposite of those are, but I imagine it works similarly. "
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6nksqc | hypnagogia | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/6nksqc/eli5_hypnagogia/ | {
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"That's a popular question here. I hope you find these previous posts helpful.\n\n\n- [Eli5 Sleep Paralysis and Why It Happens...?](_URL_0_)\n- [Eli5 Sleep Paralysis...?](_URL_4_)\n- [Eli5 Sleep Paralysis...?](_URL_3_)\n- [Eli5 How Does Sleep Paralysis Work and Why Does...?](_URL_1_)\n- [Eli5 Sleep Paralysis...?](_URL_2_)\n- [Eli5 Sleep Paralysis...?](_URL_5_)\n- [Eli5 Hypnagogia and What Causes It...?](_URL_6_)\n"
]
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"https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1p0zz0/eli5_sleep_paralysis_and_why_it_happens/",
"https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/581vdp/eli5_how_does_sleep_paralysis_work_and_why_does/",
"https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3ohjso/eli5_sleep_paralysis/",
"https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1sqmum/eli5_sleep_paralysis/",
"https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/u55av/eli5_sleep_paralysis/",
"https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4evd7k/eli5_sleep_paralysis/",
"https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2knhup/eli5_hypnagogia_and_what_causes_it/"
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||
6mj2sb | why does having something on your head (hat, headband, etc) worsen a headache? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/6mj2sb/eli5_why_does_having_something_on_your_head_hat/ | {
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"To put it simply, headaches are generally skin deep. Pressure on nerves or blood vessels can make it feel worse. Common headache medicines work by reducing inflammation, which reduces that pressure in the inflamed tissue.\n\n_URL_0_\n\n > The brain itself is not sensitive to pain, because it lacks pain receptors. However, several areas of the head and neck do have pain receptors and can thus sense pain. These include the extracranial arteries, middle meningeal artery, large veins, venous sinuses, cranial and spinal nerves, head and neck muscles, the meninges, falx cerebri, parts of the brainstem, eyes, ears, teeth and lining of the mouth. Pial arteries, rather than pial veins are responsible for pain production.\n\n > Headaches often result from traction to or irritation of the meninges and blood vessels. The nociceptors may be stimulated by head trauma or tumors and cause headaches. Blood vessel spasms, dilated blood vessels, inflammation or infection of meninges and muscular tension can also stimulate nociceptors and cause pain. Once stimulated, a nociceptor sends a message up the length of the nerve fiber to the nerve cells in the brain, signaling that a part of the body hurts."
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"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Headache"
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cbismr | why is science so political? and why does it make you seem left leaning to other people when you don’t deny scientific discoveries? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/cbismr/eli5_why_is_science_so_political_and_why_does_it/ | {
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"\nI [answered a similar question](_URL_2_) to this on ELI5 around two years ago (and got gilded for the answer!). The previous question was more specific to climate change, but it applies to the politicization of science in general as well. Here's what I wrote then: \n > > Generally speaking, why are conservatives so opposed to the concept of climate change?\n > \n > A combination of corporate influence on public policy and a growing anti-science sentiment among American conservatives that is fueled (perhaps simultaneously intentionally and unintentionally) by religion, media, and access to the Internet. How we wound up with this mess took decades to coalesce.\n > \n > The corporate influence is the easiest to explain. Many large industries, including the energy industry, have traditionally viewed environmental regulation negatively, as additional regulation can create additional expense for industries, particularly in the short-term. This has put most large industries on the side of the Republican party which has traditionally been a proponent of smaller government and, thus, less regulation. So corporations that view additional regulation negatively throw their financial support behind Republican candidates that will vote against environmental regulation (and other types of regulation as well). \n > \n > The Republicans typically spin this as \"More regulation = higher expenses for companies = less jobs,\" while ignoring that throughout history the shift to newer and better technologies leads to economic growth and better-paying, higher skilled jobs. I.e., yes, we may have fewer horse groomer and wheelwright jobs now than we had before we made the switch from horse & buggy to automobiles, but those losses were more than made up for by the millions of jobs in manufacturing that came with the switch. Likewise, we will lose, for example, coal miner jobs as we move away from carbon fuels, but we'll wind up with millions of new jobs in newer, greener industries. \n > \n > However, that's not much consolation to the coal mining communities of West Virginia and their elected representatives and the coal companies that support and lobby them, though. So those representatives vote against progress. \n > \n > That part is fairly simple and straightforward and has played itself out over and over in the history of American politics. Eventually, progress wins (mostly). Where it gets trickier is when religion and media get mixed into it. \n > \n > Science has always had it's religious detractors (just ask Galileo), but until the mid-20th century there wasn't a lot of *direct* conflict between religion and science in the American political theater (mostly because religion held sway). However, science really picked up steam in the 20th century and started having amazing positive impacts on people's daily lives, increasing its acceptance in society and, subsequently, knocking religious/scriptural explanations of how the world works back on its heels. \n > \n > This gave rise to a fundamentalist evangelical Christian movement in the US that has a strong anti-science bent, as much science contradicts scripture. It particularly took off in the late 70's and the 80's, but you can see elements of it back to the 50's and earlier. Organizations like The Moral Majority strengthened religious opposition on scientific and science-related issues like abortion, stem cell research, evolution, etc. to the point of things like preventing evolution from being taught in some school districts (or requiring that creationism be taught along with it). Since fundamentalist, evangelical Christians disproportionately identify as Republicans these issues became core components of the Republican platform. \n > \n > Concurrently with this, there was a growing backlash among conservatives against universities, as colleges and universities, particularly in the 1960's, were seen (not incorrectly) as having been a hotbed of liberalism that generated significant support for the civil rights movement, the women's movement, the opposition to the Vietnam war, and other liberal / Democratic issues. And where does science come from? Universities. So science gets branded with the scarlet letter of Liberalism by association. That adds to conservative distrust.\n > \n > And it's in the 70's and 80's where -- at least in my opinion -- stuff starts to really get murky. You have the corporate funders of Republican candidates pushing back against environmental regulations that limit their short-term profits. You have Christian fundamentalists pushing back against particular fields of science that contradict scripture. You have mainstream Republicans pushing back against liberalism in universities, and eventually, in primary and secondary school, which influences the Christian fundamentalists and spawns the home-schooling movement and the school vouchers movement (to use public money to send kids to private religious schools). \n > \n > **This all comes together in a weird mix of growing skepticism on the right about both science and education.** I think the corporate funders *picked up on this* and started backing candidates that expressed those skeptical, anti-science views because that landed them more Republican voters, hopefully more successful Republican candidates winning seats to get them (the corporations) more representation in government ... which then supports their anti-regulation desires. \n > \n > **So somewhere in that late-20th century political realm, religious skepticism about science got in bed with corporate anti-environmental-regulation interests and that anti-regulation, anti-science combo made a powerful mix for getting Republican candidates elected.** \n > \n > Then, in the next decade, the nineties, you introduce the expanded role of media -- particularly 24/7 cable news -- and the Internet into the mix. What this does is create echo chambers, so that the population that is voting for these anti-regulation, anti-science candidates can now get all of their information exclusively from sources (e.g. Fox News Channel and conservative websites) that support and reinforce the same anti-regulation, anti-science, pro-religion positions that they hold. \n > \n > That's how we wind up with a whole political party that not only regularly ignores science and logic, but goes through all sorts of mental gymnastics to come up with alternative explanations that, though having no basis in fact, can be piped through the echo chamber to strengthen their hold on their political base. \n > \n > If you [look at the data](_URL_1_), from the early 70's onward, except for a small bounce in the 80's under Reagan but *particularly* from the 1992 election onward, there has been a pretty continuous decline of trust in science among people who identify as conservative. (Source of that chart is [this article](_URL_0_).)\n > \n > I used to think that Republican candidates were just in the pocket of Big Business, and took anti-science stances to keep their corporate campaign donations rolling in. But increasingly I think the Republican candidates that are getting elected now came up and were educated in the political environment of the last 40 years that I described above and _**actually** don't believe in science_ at all ... or believe it's a liberal conspiracy ... or at the least are selective in what science they are willing to believe. That's *really* chilling. \n > \n > This is a troubling position for our country to be in. The one ray of hope that I see is that, in the long-term, corporations know that they have to invest in science to continue to grow and be relevant. \n > \n > [Even Exxon Mobile and ConocoPhillips, the two largest US oil & gas companies, urged Trump not to abandon the Paris Accord](_URL_3_). Of course, that may have just been a PR move, since they had nothing to lose at that point. But they *are* global companies and know that _they must make the shift to different energy sources **anyway**_ to continue to sell into the global economy. \n > \n > I expect that at some point in the next 5-10 years, the corporations that fund the Republicans will be well on their way to making the switch to greener energy policies to stay competitive in the global marketplace and will be driving the Republican candidates they fund *away* from those climate change-denial policies that they drove them *toward* for the last 30 years because the corporations are going to want those sweet, sweet government tax dollars to pay for their conversion to greener sources.\n > \n > That does not bode well for Republicans. Republicans benefited over the last 40-50 years from an anti-science alignment between corporate interests and the religious interests of their base. But that anti-science -- particularly climate science -- stances on the part of American corporations was inevitably destined to be temporary. As soon as the rest of the world -- *and the rest of the world's corporations* -- get on board with greener technologies, the corporations will toss the religious Conservatives to the curb quicker than you can say \"quarterly earnings report.\"",
"Science is political because it affects policy. If your job is to mine coal and science says coal is bad your job is now on the line. You will vote for someone who disagrees with the science because otherwise you and your family are going hungry\n\nAlso you don't always seem left leaning if you don't deny scientific findings, it just depends on which scientific findings you disagree with. The antivax movement is largely liberal mothers, disagreeing with vaccine science doesn't seem right wing at all.\n\nHowever the most visible science argument right now is climate change which the right is against because a large portion of their base will suffer (at least in the short term) from policies made to combat climate change. This is why you think agreeing with science makes you seem left wing: the biggest most talked about example of this scenario supports it.",
"Science is powerful and the current, most respected \"final authority.\" It used to be the church, and that was when clergy got highly politicized as well. And with politicization comes money, with money and special interests come corruption, it picks away at the credibility of an institution. As far as climate change is concerned I don't think it's the science and objective findings that are contentious, but rather the interpretation and reaction on part of the media, which is then projected onto science itself.",
"Well, when you have GOP candidates literally saying that children shouldn’t be taught critical thinking skills that might challenge their ideas, it’s not hard to figure out which party is anti-education."
]
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1d8zh6 | can 'they' be used as a singular, third party pronoun? | I've heard many people on each side, and I wanted to know the basic arguments for each side, and the cases when it would and wouldn't be acceptable, as well as why.
This will settle so many more second-guesses in my writing, so thanks! | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1d8zh6/eli5_can_they_be_used_as_a_singular_third_party/ | {
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"In English, like many other languages, there is no genderless singular pronoun (bedsides the rarely used \"one\") so male is used as the default. Recently it has been considered sexist to use 'he' when meaning genderless (by no means unfoundedly as there is a valid sexist based argument why male is default) so 'they' has been used in its stead.",
"Yes. Some people will claim that it's plural, and therefore can't also be singular; they are wrong. Consider \"you\", which also does double duty as plural and singular. In some cases it may be inappropriate for the register being used, and in a graded assignment may be marked wrong. In the particular instance you give, it is considered a matter of politeness to use the pronouns a person tells you to use.",
"That very much rather depends on what you mean by \"third person singular.\" If you go by subject/verb agreement, then the answer is that in standard English it cannot be so used; you can't say \"They is happy,\" you have to say \"They *are* happy.\"\n\nNow, in terms of *reference* (or the fancy word linguists and philosophers use here, *indexicality*), *they* in English has for centuries been used primarily to refer to multiple parties that are not in the conversation, and secondarily to just one such party . People who are superstitious about matters of grammar—for example, you typical English teacher—tend to get pissed off about the second use, because they believe it's \"illogical\" (despite the fact that very few of these people have ever studied logic). But if you look at languages across the world you notice that this sort of thing is completely normal:\n\n* English *you* was originally just plural, and *thou* was the singular. In European languages it's common to use a second person plural as a form of respect when referring to one person, and English had that, so much that *thou* dropped from common usage.\n* In French, going by subject-verb agreement, *tu* is the \"true\" second person singular and *vous* the \"true\" second person plural, but *vous* is used in singular reference as a respect form.\n* Other languages do the \"respect pronoun\" thing by using a third person agreement pronoun for second person singular reference. In Spanish, for example, *usted* always has second person reference, but the verb agrees like third person singular.\n* Portuguese doesn't even use a pronoun here, it uses *o senhor/a senhora* (\"the gentleman/the lady\") with second person singular reference but third person singular agreement. Brazilians use *a gente* (\"the people\") as first person plural reference, third person singular agreement.\n* German uses third person plural agreement pronouns for respectful second person singular reference.\n* In Haitian Creole there is a pronoun (*nou*) that's both first and second person plural. (There's no subject-verb agreement.)\n* In Japanese it's normal to use nouns in a second person reference situation; if you're talking to the baker, it's normal to say something like \"Does the baker have my cake ready?\" In English the closest we could get to that without sounding weird would be something like \"Do you Mr. baker have my cake ready?,\" but there I'm using *you*. \n* Some linguists would claim that Japanese doesn't really have pronouns like European languages do—that it just has nouns. Why? Because there are just too many nouns that are be used with first and second person reference that if you were analyzing the language without preconceptions you wouldn't come up with the idea of a special type of word used only for this function. (I don't know how good of a hypothesis that is, so don't ask me to defend it.)"
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9w0jbi | why are some roads tan, and others black? | I know that they are made out of different materials Tan probably is concrete, and the black is obviously asphalt. However I want to know the different use case for the different materials.
I also seem to notice the tan roads tend to have hight speed limits, more road noise, and appears to have more construction vehicles on them. These roads also seem to have less cracks in them.
Thanks in advance for an answer. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/9w0jbi/eli5_why_are_some_roads_tan_and_others_black/ | {
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"You're correct as to what materials they're made of. Concrete roads are more durable, and tend to be used in high traffic areas where frequent repairs can't be done. Asphalt is much cheaper to install, so it's mostly used where concrete is not required.",
"Asphalt is cheap and can be recycled \"in situ\" which means a machine can come through and tear up the original material, add some fresh asphalt, and set it back in place. It's not nearly as strong as concrete and is easier to patch. Asphalt roads are better for residential and lower traffic areas. Asphalt roads are technically 'tarmac'.\n\nConcrete roads are tan or grey or other colors when local materials are used. Cement is considerably more expensive but can be mixed at a variety of strengths and is better suited for interstates with high traffic and larger vehicles. Concrete cannot be recycled in place and therefore replacement costs can be huge. \n\nAsphalt is a byproduct of petroleum refinement, cement is its own product which requires a large energy input to produce.",
"Further note:\n\nThe origin of the oil industry was kerosene, as a replacement for whale oil in lamps. At that time gasoline was a \"waste product\" from the refinement of crude oil. It did not serve much purpose and was too difficult to store until the internal combustion engine (ICE) came along. It was often burned off at the source, and natural gas (methane) was simply vented into the atmosphere. Many early automotive engineers preferred alcohol to gasoline as a fuel for the ICE.\n\nAs gasoline became the primary product of petroleum refinement and electricity took over as a light source, kerosene became a waste product until it was converted into diesel and later jet fuel. It took a long time for natural gas to find its place as it is incredibly difficult to store and transport. \n\nAsphalt has always been the red-headed step child of the petroleum industry as it is heavy, sticky, and difficult to store. Its primary uses are as a binder for tarmac and in roofing and flooring products such as shingles and tar."
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1p0oiu | how did western european countries end up colonizing the world, instead of some other civilization? | China, India, the Ottoman Empire and parts of West Africa were very rich and powerful before Europeans came along and took over. What gave them the edge over these other civilizations? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1p0oiu/eli5_how_did_western_european_countries_end_up/ | {
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"Short answer. Geography\nLong answer. Go watch guns, germs & steel\nThe basic premise is that because of Europeans ability to grow a large variety of low effort high calorie foods in their temperate climate they gained an advantage over other civilizations",
"The simple answer is a combination of geography (not needing to navigate around multiple continents, water currents working their favor) and the technological advancements they made in terms of sailing. Their economy also was at a point where these voyages could be funded with relative ease."
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2hyi0g | ups drivers not making left turns? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2hyi0g/eli5_ups_drivers_not_making_left_turns/ | {
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"This article gives great insight on why it's done. \n_URL_0_",
"i wonder if it really saves gas if you have to drive extra just to make a right turn instead of a left... for example: \n\n_URL_0_",
"UPS driver here. The idea is to reduce the amount of time spent waiting at red lights, dealing with intersections, etc. In practice it doesn't necessarily apply to every intersection we come to; some of our routes are single stop setups, where we drive to one skyscraper, park, and stay put all day, and other routes demand multiple-hundred-mile runs where you follow the deliveries and plan as best you can based on who ordered what. If we have a run that can be planned out to follow a mostly clockwise path, then yay us, but the whole \"no left turns\" thing is a theoretical goal and not a hard rule on the ground. "
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83a6ji | how is putting files in the recycle bin any different from a regular folder? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/83a6ji/eli5_how_is_putting_files_in_the_recycle_bin_any/ | {
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"Imagine your computer is a spaceship, you have a bunch of storage compartments. oh this old crap? don't need it anymore, probably, put it in the air lock. \n\nNow instead of having two doors between it and the nothingness of space, it only has one door, and at anytime, you can press the \"open outer door\" button, and eject all those recycle bin files into space. Just one little press of a button, maybe accidental, even\n\nimagine putting important files into that airlock instead of trash...dangerous.\n\n\nSure, even \"deleted\" files , tossed out of the metaphorical airlock can be retrieved when floating out in space, but by \"undeleting\" them, but odds are they'll be corrupted.",
"It isn't. The recycle bin is just another folder. The operating system is going to associate meta data to that folder through some mechanic that when you \"empty the trash\", it implies this folder has its contents deleted. That's it. Nothing special. And your user interface has shortcuts, like if you hit Shift + Del, typically the file is deleted without going to the recycle bin. No computer is going to automagically delete the contents of the recycle bin unless you explicitly configure it to do so. This might be done by a network admin on a company or school computer, but this is not the behavior of a personal PC. If you're running out of disk space, the UI may suggest you empty it.\n\nOn Unix type systems there is a /tmp directory that is temporary, and you can't be sure that anything you put there will stay there. Again, the filesystem doesn't give a shit, it's just another folder, there has to be some higher level program that looks to it specifically and a standard protocol that dictates convention.\n\nTypically on a Unix system, the tmp folder can be scheduled to be purged if the disk is running full, or the directory starts reaching a certain size, or it may get purged at shutdown or startup. The kind of data that goes here should typically be cached data where if it were gone, the data could be obtained another way, the /tmp data would just be an optimization. Other things that go in there are lock files, whose presence means some other file is in use, or some process is running. If the filesystem supports locking open files, then the program can open the file and forbid the drive from being unmounted or the file being read or written to by any other program. You can clear this folder and those open files would remain since they're still in use. Not all of this is a best practice anymore because some of what I mentioned has inherent flaws and new features of operating systems can make some of that old fashioned."
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6g6hpr | what is a hung government? and why do some people think it's good for britain? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/6g6hpr/eli5_what_is_a_hung_government_and_why_do_some/ | {
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"It's good because with no one party in charge, they don't get to run the country purely on *their* idea of what's best. They have to run it by the other party/parties and reach a compromise (if the other parties are tough enough to argue their case and stand up to the ones with the most majority). "
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wtn9m | what would have happened if the banks didn't get bailed out? | I'm having an argument with my friend about this, and we realized that neither one of us knows what we're talking about. Help? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/wtn9m/what_would_have_happened_if_the_banks_didnt_get/ | {
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"Well, put shortly, the US economy would have collapsed, as liquidity would have disappeared and loans would be non-existent. Other Western economies soon would have followed (assuming no bailouts anywhere) resulting in a collapse of the entire financial system.\n\nBroken down more (I'll do a 'like you're 5' summary at the end):\n\nUS economy would continue to destabilize. Institution after institution would fail. With credit frozen, a vast majority of people wouldn't be able to afford necessities (I'm assuming there would be a run on the banks quite early, which would propagate the downward spiral). Business credit would also be frozen, stopping product movement and essentially rendering companies large and small helpless.\n\nAlternatively, instead of bailing out banks, they could have offered mortgage assistance, making citizens deal with the toxic assets. On the other side, it would have preserved average family net worth in the long run. The government also could have acquired the toxic assets at face value, which would reduce taxpayer risk.\n\nLike you're 5: You don't have money to buy pizza, so the pizza guy can't buy ingredients to make pizza. The ingredient man doesn't get paid because nobody makes pizza. No ingredients get made. The farmers don't have anyone to buy their food. Everyone except the farmer starves.",
"Step 1. Many, many banks would be broke.\n\nStep 2. All the banks stop lending money, because you can't lend money when you're broke.\n\nStep 3. Businesses just sometimes have \"bad months\" when they're in the red. Shit happens. They survive these bad months by borrowing money. But if they can't borrow money, they have to lay off employees or close their doors.\n\nStep 4. As many, many businesses lay off employees and close their doors, unemployment goes up.\n\nStep 5. Other businesses, knowing that they can't borrow (because there are no lenders), start trying to \"trim the fat\" from their businesses just to make sure they never go in the red. They, too, lay off employees.\n\nStep 6. The new wave of unemployed individuals start living off their savings. In order to stretch their savings, they spend as little as they can.\n\nStep 7. Other people, fearing that they're going to be laid off next, start building a \"nest egg\" just in case. They, too, spend as little as they can.\n\nStep 8. Since everyone is spending as little as they can, businesses everywhere see all their customers disappear.\n\nStep 9. Without customers, even more businesses shut their doors. Even more people get laid off.\n\nIt goes on. \n\nBut what it boils down to is: our economy *needs* functioning banks. Businesses borrow money for good reason. We absolutely need for the lenders to exist, for them to be there. Without them, businesses are in big trouble. Once the businesses are in trouble, everything else goes downhill.\n",
"I'd always heard that Ron Paul would have descended on a magical zeppelin to whisk away his supporters to an island made of gold, like some sort of Willy Wonka rapture.",
"In most developed countries, the financial system can handle the collapse of maybe a few sizeable banks. Governments step in and recapitalise the failed banks, meaning that people who had deposits in them will still have access to that money, and that people who had loans from them will not suffer immediate foreclosure. But the recapitalisation of a failed bank is not just for the benefit of individual people ('retail' customers) - it's also for the benefit of businesses who were dealing with the failed bank. These businesses include other banks.\n\nBy not stepping in to recapitalise or bail out a failed bank, the people and businesses tied up in that bank have lost out. If you had a loan with them, the failed bank's creditors will want it back immediately - you'll probably get a foreclosure notice from the administrators. If you kept your money with them, you just won't get it back. It's gone.\n\nImagine millions of people being in that situation. The loss of all their savings, their current account balances; even those with decent incomes will take years or decades to recover. But what about those people who work for affected businesses? A business whose bank collapses unaided, and that suddenly has no cash, can't pay its staff. It can't pay its invoices. It might chase up its own clients for payments, but what if a good proportion of its clients were also with the failed bank, and now have no money? Pretty soon that business is facing bankruptcy.\n\nSo what you have in the face of a single collapsed bank is a kind of domino effect as the individual and business bankruptcies ripple out throughout the economy. And included in this domino effect are other banks who were exposed to the failed bank. As soon as one of them also collapses, the situation will escalate dramatically.\n\nSo the practical effect of all this on you and me is that we would all suddenly have no money at all, and the businesses who we buy food from would also have no money, and therefore no way to buy food wholesale and ship it from the countryside to their stores. Our problem isn't just that we can't get cash out of ATMs; it's that the economy is no longer functioning and we can't eat.\n\nAt this stage the government would need to treat this as a humanitarian crisis and step in. It would still have lots of money because it didn't bail out the failed banks; but the value of that money will have dropped as a result of the banking crisis, so it wouldn't be as strong as it was before that first bank crashed. \n\nTo centrally administer the economy and make sure we can all eat it would probably need to call for outside aid, which would come in the form of an IMF loan. But if this same situation had erupted globally, and not just in our hypothetical country, the IMF itself may not be able to step in, it may be drained of resources. This is where the ink runs off the page; from here on in we'd be in uncharted territory.",
"[I recommend you use Khan Academy lectures, when you have the time, and learn most everything about the bailout on a general level](_URL_0_)\n\nLectures are Bailout 1-13. \n\nThe first few explain basic banking then it goes into the proposed plans and ends with why it may or may not work and what would have been a better solution."
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lbt7n | how computer languages like c and c+ are developed and how they work with the computer? | I've always wondered this. So there is a blank computer and someone decides to write a language for it. How does the computer know what to do with that language?
Thanks!
EDIT: Awesome thanks everyone! Super interesting and helpful | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/lbt7n/eli5_how_computer_languages_like_c_and_c_are/ | {
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"You're telling a person how to get somewhere. Technically, how to get there includes steps like this:\n\n* Put your left foot forward.\n* Shift weight forward and onto your left foot\n* Put your right foot forward\n* shift your weight forward and onto your right foot\n* Repeat the first four steps 257 times.\n* Pivot left.\n* Turn head left. \n* Look for cars. \n* if there are no cars, turn head right\n* Look for cars\n* Turn head left again to double check\n* if there are no cars, put left foot forward\n* etc.\n\nYou can see how this would be extremely time consuming. Instead, you say:\n\n* Walk to the next intersection. \n* Turn left and cross\n* etc.\n\nComputer processors are built to understand **machine code** a way to tell a computer what to do in extremely small steps (like giving a person directions the first way). \n\nWhen you create a programming language, you make rules for how to tell the computer what to do in a broader more natural way that is easier to write (like giving directions the second way). \n\nAdditionally, you make a program to translate your language into machine code. This program is called a **compiler**.",
"So the physical processor knows how to understand a specific language called machine code (or assembly). Machine code is incredibly unreadable and very hard to work with on a large scale, so people invented programming languages. The problem is processors don't know how to speak those languages, so someone created a translator, called a compiler, which can translate from the programming language to assembly.\n\nIt sort of becomes a miniature human-driven singularity at that point. You write the first (Very simple!) compiler in assembly. Then you write your next compiler in your language so it can support more features. Then you write your next compiler in your newer language... repeat.",
"Well the computer itself only knows what to do with binary. For example, you might feed a processor something like:\n\n 1011 0010 1010 0011\n\nThe code mean something like:\n\n 1011 - > add\n 0010 - > the number 2\n 1010 - > and the number 10 \n 0011 - > put the result into register 3 (a register is just temporary storage on the processor)\n\nSo to compute this instruction, the processor would add 2 and 10 to get 12, then store the result into register 3. This is, of course, extremely simplified, but that's basically how machine code works. The problem is that machine code is damn near impossible to read or write, so instead people come up with assembly languages, which are just basically easier ways to read and write machine code. In an assembly language, the instruction might look like:\n\n add 2, 10, $3\n\nWhere each of those symbols are just mechanically translated into binary to be ready for the processor. That was a big improvement over machine code, but it still gets *really* messy for large programs. The control flow of the program is very hard to follow, and even relatively simple algorithms involve a lot of overhead in the form of manipulating registers to keep track of temp values, and composing basic arithmetic and logic operations to perform more sophisticated operations. Next came compiled languages, like C. Compilers are very complicated programs, but they have a straightforward job. They turn high level code into assembly language. The only rule is that the assembly code which is produced, has to do exactly what is specified by the high level code. In C, the code from before might look something like this:\n\n x = 2 + 10;\n\nThe problem is that in C we don't have direct access to registers, so the resulting assembly might be something like:\n\n add 2, 10, $3\n mov $3, 0x003F\n\nThe last \"mov\" instruction would be moving the result from the register to the memory location specified by the variable 'x'.\n\nSo to get back to your question; when a processor is being designed, the designers choose an architecture to follow. The \"architecture\" (or full name \"instruction set architecture\") just specifies which machine language the computer understands. Generally, unless it's a small chip for a very specific purpose, they will go with an already existing architecture since assemblers and possibly compilers will already exist for it. If it's a processor for a personal computer, it will always use what's called the x86 architecture.\n\nOn the other hand, when a high level language is being designed, people generally try to make it so that the language is easy to read and write, and makes it easy on programmer to do whatever the language is intended for. Once the language specification is created, compiler writers will create compilers which are able to translate that language into different assembly languages, which can then be run on different processors.",
"You're telling a person how to get somewhere. Technically, how to get there includes steps like this:\n\n* Put your left foot forward.\n* Shift weight forward and onto your left foot\n* Put your right foot forward\n* shift your weight forward and onto your right foot\n* Repeat the first four steps 257 times.\n* Pivot left.\n* Turn head left. \n* Look for cars. \n* if there are no cars, turn head right\n* Look for cars\n* Turn head left again to double check\n* if there are no cars, put left foot forward\n* etc.\n\nYou can see how this would be extremely time consuming. Instead, you say:\n\n* Walk to the next intersection. \n* Turn left and cross\n* etc.\n\nComputer processors are built to understand **machine code** a way to tell a computer what to do in extremely small steps (like giving a person directions the first way). \n\nWhen you create a programming language, you make rules for how to tell the computer what to do in a broader more natural way that is easier to write (like giving directions the second way). \n\nAdditionally, you make a program to translate your language into machine code. This program is called a **compiler**.",
"So the physical processor knows how to understand a specific language called machine code (or assembly). Machine code is incredibly unreadable and very hard to work with on a large scale, so people invented programming languages. The problem is processors don't know how to speak those languages, so someone created a translator, called a compiler, which can translate from the programming language to assembly.\n\nIt sort of becomes a miniature human-driven singularity at that point. You write the first (Very simple!) compiler in assembly. Then you write your next compiler in your language so it can support more features. Then you write your next compiler in your newer language... repeat.",
"Well the computer itself only knows what to do with binary. For example, you might feed a processor something like:\n\n 1011 0010 1010 0011\n\nThe code mean something like:\n\n 1011 - > add\n 0010 - > the number 2\n 1010 - > and the number 10 \n 0011 - > put the result into register 3 (a register is just temporary storage on the processor)\n\nSo to compute this instruction, the processor would add 2 and 10 to get 12, then store the result into register 3. This is, of course, extremely simplified, but that's basically how machine code works. The problem is that machine code is damn near impossible to read or write, so instead people come up with assembly languages, which are just basically easier ways to read and write machine code. In an assembly language, the instruction might look like:\n\n add 2, 10, $3\n\nWhere each of those symbols are just mechanically translated into binary to be ready for the processor. That was a big improvement over machine code, but it still gets *really* messy for large programs. The control flow of the program is very hard to follow, and even relatively simple algorithms involve a lot of overhead in the form of manipulating registers to keep track of temp values, and composing basic arithmetic and logic operations to perform more sophisticated operations. Next came compiled languages, like C. Compilers are very complicated programs, but they have a straightforward job. They turn high level code into assembly language. The only rule is that the assembly code which is produced, has to do exactly what is specified by the high level code. In C, the code from before might look something like this:\n\n x = 2 + 10;\n\nThe problem is that in C we don't have direct access to registers, so the resulting assembly might be something like:\n\n add 2, 10, $3\n mov $3, 0x003F\n\nThe last \"mov\" instruction would be moving the result from the register to the memory location specified by the variable 'x'.\n\nSo to get back to your question; when a processor is being designed, the designers choose an architecture to follow. The \"architecture\" (or full name \"instruction set architecture\") just specifies which machine language the computer understands. Generally, unless it's a small chip for a very specific purpose, they will go with an already existing architecture since assemblers and possibly compilers will already exist for it. If it's a processor for a personal computer, it will always use what's called the x86 architecture.\n\nOn the other hand, when a high level language is being designed, people generally try to make it so that the language is easy to read and write, and makes it easy on programmer to do whatever the language is intended for. Once the language specification is created, compiler writers will create compilers which are able to translate that language into different assembly languages, which can then be run on different processors."
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1wmhdb | timeshares? something for rich people or something ? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1wmhdb/eli5_timeshares_something_for_rich_people_or/ | {
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"Condos in places like ski resorts and vacation resorts are ridiculously expensive.\n\nSo, instead of buying a condo, you buy a small share of it, usually 1/26th or 1/52nd. This gives you the right to stay there 1 or 2 weeks per year.\n\nWhile there's nothing wrong with that concept, the problem is the timeshare industry is rife with scam artists and sleazeball high-pressure sales tactics. It's almost never a good idea to get involved with it.",
"A timeshare is when you pay a portion of rent, essentially, on a property in order to receive limited use at said property. For example, if I have a place that costs $1,200 a year to own, I could sell timeshares in it for $100 a year to 12 people. Those people each then get to use that property for 1 month out of the year."
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6s5582 | why do most of us have one common fear? | Such as Spiders, clowns, heights. Etc | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/6s5582/eli5_why_do_most_of_us_have_one_common_fear/ | {
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"Instinct. Phobias like heights, scuttling insects, snakes are common because these were very common ways to be injured and killed in our past. Depictions of monsters and the supernatural all share common traits across the planet, like big sharp teeth and glowing (or rather reflective) eyes, because seeing these in the wild will quite probably be the last thing you ever see before you are mauled to death by a predator. The dark brings dangerous animals, and makes walking to the toilet treacherous. Colorful animals and plants are highly dangerous; their spots, stripes, and technicolour patterns say \"stay away from me\". Many people are made uncomfortable by clusters of small holes in mundane objects (the classical example is a lotus seed pod), because seeing this type of pattern in a piece of meat or on somebody's skin is a sign of decay or disease.\n\nPeople who are afraid of the dark, siders, snakes, monsters, and people from other places are the ones that would survive in prehistory, because all of these natural phobias stem from survival instincts. We have these fears because our ancestors survived them."
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bxnkw8 | how do diuretics work? | ELI5: how is it that a liquid like coffee gives you the urge to pee much faster than water, for example? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/bxnkw8/eli5_how_do_diuretics_work/ | {
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"Side question, why does coffee make you poop? Or is it just me?",
"There's a hormone in your body called ADH, or anti-diuretic hormone. As you know, diuresis means \"to pee\". So an anti-diuretic hormone causes your body to pee less - specifically by making your pee less watery, but leaving all the bad stuff in there.\n\nSome substances (like caffeine and alcohol) cause your body to produce less ADH. When there is less ADH in your blood, that's a signal telling your kidneys to leave more water in your pee, causing it to build up faster. This is why you may notice your pee being more clear after drinking these drinks. Your body isn't producing more urea (the main poison your urine is designed to get rid of), but it's just getting rid of more water in the process. (edit: see below, the urea isn't what colors your urine)\n\nThis is one reason why staying hydrated is important to prevent hangovers - even small imbalances in your body's water levels can cause your brain to shrink slightly and cause headaches.\n\nSource: studying to take the MCAT next week."
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4pw1uu | why aren't there nitinol motors? | I have seen older videos using waste heat and nitinol to create a motor. Can someone correct my ignorance with information? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4pw1uu/eli5_why_arent_there_nitinol_motors/ | {
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"Nitinol motors are just a kind of Stirling Engine. They just don't provide enough power to be useful in most applications. There just aren't that many applications where you need a small amount of power, have a ready source of heat, and can't use a more efficient engine for some reason.",
"So, there's three critical factors for what would make an engine good.\n\n\nFirst, you have to consider durability, or reliability. The piston engine has been around for a century at this point because, while other engines might perform better, piston engines tend to be hearty bastards that can get 300,000 miles on a single engine when built properly. No rotary engine is ever getting that.\n\n\n\nSecond, you have scalability. While that piston engine has some good ability to scale- everything from a tiny leaf blower engine to an 18 wheeler's diesel engine all runs off the same basic design principal, while something like a cargo ship or a submarine is going to want a turbine engine. \n\n\nThird, you have throttle. If I push my foot down on the accelerator, my car speeds up in relatively short fashion.\n\n\n\nWhile you can have some flexibility with any of these three factors, when you have virtually no presence in one, then you hit a problem. A nitinol motor has no ability to throttle. It's on, or it's off. There's also questions about scalability. It's the same reason why you don't see a nuclear powered car. "
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1xwnct | why do people "share" porn over social media like reddit or twitter? possible nsfw | I am not saying "Why is porn on the internet", but why is it shared among friends and strangers alike? I feel that when people show each other sexy pics of their SO, it is a way to brag as well to validate their partner, but just images of porn stars they have never met makes no sense to me along those lines. Why brag or feel the need to validate that? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1xwnct/eli5_why_do_people_share_porn_over_social_media/ | {
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"I assume for the same reason people share movies, music and books with their friends. They found something they like and they want to enrich the lives of people they care about.",
"There's a whole giant side to reddit that's just NSFW sub-reddits. Heck if you looked at that history of reddit post that guy made a while back NSFW used to be about 1/3 of reddit's traffic.\n\nI'd guess most people posting in them are using throwaways and not tying it to their real identity, but there most certainly are large social media communities dedicated to sharing porn with like-minded people.\n\nI'm sure there are similar twitter accounts and you only need to look at the backlash when Yahoo bought tumblr and there were rumours they'd ban NSFW content to know it exists there as well.\n\nAs to why, I think its partly that people like to belong to communities that legitimize and support their choices, but also as a growth from how porn used to be shared before tube sites. You may not remember this, but back a while ago when the internet was younger, you didnt have a handy site with a list of categories, video thumbnails and a useful search function. Instead you had malware laden sites loaded with popups, fake links that took you to other sites in the rabbit hole and mostly just 15second preview clips from paysites when you did find a link that went to content.\n\nThe way you got full scenes, and stuff in decent resolution was file-sharing. Torrents, and before that Kazaa, Limewire and similar and direct transfer sites like yousendit, and before all that IRC file sharing. But when you're searching that all you get is an obfuscated text line telling you a movie scene and maybe an actresses name. Makes it hard to know what you're downloading, and before fast internet you didnt really have the chance to just download a bunch and hope for something good.\n\nSo there were forums, dedicated to posting links to downloads along with preview clips, photo samples and descriptions. That way you could look through, find something that looked good and know what you were downloading. These still exist for those that do a lot of porn downloading instead of tubing, but are certainly less necessary now. I think the sharing communities on reddit and twitter are just a more recent incarnation.\n\nThe one that confuses me is facebook, because in all the other cases I assume it's accounts people create just for sharing porn and dont tie to their real identity. The sharing on facebook thing confuses the hell out of me."
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4boele | during hitler's rise to power, did people in germany debate whether or not he was fascist and anti-semitic or was it widely accepted? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4boele/eli5_during_hitlers_rise_to_power_did_people_in/ | {
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"Hitler and the Nazis were explicitly fascist- but fascism wasn't a byword for evil back then. It only became so because of its association with the Germans' crimes during the war and holocaust.\n\nHitler and other top Nazis were also openly anti-semitic. It was part of his public persona. There was some speculation about whether, or to what extent, it was all an act, to rile up racial resentment among the proles, but it wasn't a secret that they wanted the Jews gone."
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4vi5dk | what is the 'birds and the bees' story, and how is it meant to be an accurate, child-friendly explanation of sex? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4vi5dk/eli5_what_is_the_birds_and_the_bees_story_and_how/ | {
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"I think birds and bees is just a vague way of saying nature in general, like all creatures do it to reproduce ",
"I've never heard of an explanation that actually involves birds and/or bees.\n\nI'm sure rule #34 applies, I'm just saying I haven't seen it(thank god).\n\nIt's just a code, a way of referring to sex when you're around little kids.\n\nedit: me not good at grammar.",
"I always assumed they were referring to birds and bees pollinating flowers, which is how flowers mate.",
"I think the story explains how birds and bees help fertilize flowers and therefore flowers are able to reproduce. It still makes no sense to me, but I'm pretty sure it's also about flowers.",
"It never really was an explanation.\n\nThe actual source of the phrase is unclear, smeo attribute to a Samuel Coleridge poem from 1825, others to a Cole Porter song from 1928. In both cases, birds and bees are evocative of springtime, which has long been associated with fertility.\n\nWhatever the origin, the birds and the bees has become a joke about the awkwardness parents have explaining sex to their children, and not an explanation itself. It comes up in popular culture all the time, usually in a sitcom sort of setting. It is a trope that quickly and clearly sets up a funny situation for the audience.\n\nThe fact birds and bees are only tangentially related to sex is part of the joke...the uncomfortable parent is trying to tiptoe around the subject, and winds up making a terrible and confusing explanation that never makes sense. ",
"Just a euphemism for the \"sex talk\" that parents have with their kids. Personally I've never had this talk and don't know anyone who has. I mean honestly, you think your kids don't know? \n\nAs Eminem says, \"they got the discovery Channel don't they?\"",
"I always imagined a bird just flying along, when suddenly a swarm of bees comes out of nowhere and starts bashing itself against the bird. Eventually, one of the bees manages to push itself into the bird, and inside, it melts and the two meld together into a hideous bird-bee hybrid.",
"Maybe an actual explanation could go something like this: \n\nJust like birds makes eggs which can become a baby chicken, women make eggs inside which can become a baby.\n\nThe eggs must get a small \"egg\" from the daddy as well to make the baby\n \n\nMost birds don't have girl parts and boy parts like humans though, but instead an all-in-one butthole that they rub together for a couple of seconds to do this...\n\nFlowers however, have girl and boy parts(but most of them have both), and bees carry \"eggs\"(pollen) from \"boy\" flower into a \"girl\" flower. The \"boy eggs\" then mix with the eggs of the \"girl\" flower so that it makes a baby flower. \n\nPenises of the boys(like the bee, but not as detachable) carry boy \"eggs\" into vaginas of girls. The boy and girl eggs then mix, and the girl becomes pregnant, and then a baby person comes out.",
"you can always do what we did, we did the talk straight like it is, without any bees, birds etc. just told her: penis goes into vagina and everything like that, just not sure if our daughter understood, she's just 3 months old"
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l9l3u | yeast | Just what the hell is it? And where does it come from? Do we mine yeast? Do we farm it? Is it 'alive'? Yeast! | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/l9l3u/eli5_yeast/ | {
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"Is the [Wikipedia](_URL_0_) article not good enough? \n\nQuick edit: That sounds way more condescending than I intended. What I mean is, do you want an even simpler version of that?",
"Yeast is a part of the Fungi family and has over 1500 separate species.\n\n Saccharomyces cerevisiae which is used in baking converts carbohydrates to carbon dioxide and alcohols and as such has been used in baking and alcohol production for centuries. The carbon dioxide causes baked good the rise up and the alcohol produced is used in the production of bear. \n\nYeast is grown both locally and commercially you can read a tutorial on growing your own yeast here (_URL_0_)\n\n",
"Yeast is a fungus; it's a single-celled creature that evolved from amoebae like the rest of the fungi.\n\nIt is very much alive, just like any fungus. We culture yeast as opposed to mining it (which means if you set up a petri dish and yeast spores are around, they might settle and form a significant colony).\n\nHow yeast makes alcohol: like all organisms, yeast undergoes a chemical process called glycolysis, where glucose is broken down into a molecule called pyruvate. This produces usable energy for the yeast, but if there's no oxygen present (which would further break down the pyruvate), then the yeast has to ferment it in order to let the reaction continue (otherwise, it would use up the other reactant, something called NAD+).\n\nIn humans, fermentation produces lactic acid. In yeast, it produces alcohol.",
"Basically yeast is a living organism that eats sugar and shits out alcohol and carbon dioxide. In bread we want the latter to make it all nice and light and bubbly and whatnot. In beer we want the former because it makes us laugh fall over. \n\n",
"Is the [Wikipedia](_URL_0_) article not good enough? \n\nQuick edit: That sounds way more condescending than I intended. What I mean is, do you want an even simpler version of that?",
"Yeast is a part of the Fungi family and has over 1500 separate species.\n\n Saccharomyces cerevisiae which is used in baking converts carbohydrates to carbon dioxide and alcohols and as such has been used in baking and alcohol production for centuries. The carbon dioxide causes baked good the rise up and the alcohol produced is used in the production of bear. \n\nYeast is grown both locally and commercially you can read a tutorial on growing your own yeast here (_URL_0_)\n\n",
"Yeast is a fungus; it's a single-celled creature that evolved from amoebae like the rest of the fungi.\n\nIt is very much alive, just like any fungus. We culture yeast as opposed to mining it (which means if you set up a petri dish and yeast spores are around, they might settle and form a significant colony).\n\nHow yeast makes alcohol: like all organisms, yeast undergoes a chemical process called glycolysis, where glucose is broken down into a molecule called pyruvate. This produces usable energy for the yeast, but if there's no oxygen present (which would further break down the pyruvate), then the yeast has to ferment it in order to let the reaction continue (otherwise, it would use up the other reactant, something called NAD+).\n\nIn humans, fermentation produces lactic acid. In yeast, it produces alcohol.",
"Basically yeast is a living organism that eats sugar and shits out alcohol and carbon dioxide. In bread we want the latter to make it all nice and light and bubbly and whatnot. In beer we want the former because it makes us laugh fall over. \n\n"
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54cigs | what is the biological difference between a queen ant and a regular "worker" ant? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/54cigs/eli5what_is_the_biological_difference_between_a/ | {
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"The queen is capable of mating and laying eggs. That is about the only actions she does. The worker ants are infertile and vary in body type based on task in many colonies. Some colonies will have 4-5 different types of workers and 2-3 warrior ants. ",
"The question is a little broad, so I'm going to make a few assumptions answering it. First, I will state that ants are a very diverse species and that my answer does not apply to many, but let's just examine one type of ant.\n\nWhen a queen ant is born it will mate and start a colony with the stored sperm. It will fertilize the eggs with the sperm and it will create a female and this will start to form the basis of the colony. Interestingly, this sperm will last the queen its whole life (up to 30 years).\n\nNow you might be asking \"how are different ants created, is it just the probability of getting certain genes?\". Well actually, what kind you get doesn't so much have to do with genetics but rather with how that larvae is cared for. \n\nIf workers feed the larvae more, or put them a high or lower temperature, and so forth, this will actually cause them to develop into the different types of ants. This is quite useful because workers can regulate how many soldiers, workers, queen, or other specialized types there are through the environment. \n\nSo, any particular larvae has the potential to become any type within the colony (except male), but it is the environment that determines what they become. Queens for instance may be the result of a biological clock and sufficient feeding.\n\nSo you may ask, how are males created? Well, the female won't fertilize the egg and it becomes male. Sounds kind of weird, but that's just how these types of ants work. \n\nDepending on the species and location, males and females are usually created around the same time. If you're up north like me, they tend to have a bit of breeding season.\n\nNow as far as physical features, the big difference between queens and their non-queen female offspring are that queens have reproductive features as well as wings. They are larger. But as already pointed out, genetically there is no significant difference, which is to say that any fertilized egg could become a queen within the right environment. After the queen goes out and collects some sperm, it will start its colony, and then soon become immobile.\n\nNow it may seems a bit strange how the environment will actually determine what kind of ant is produced, but this is actually pretty normal when you think about it. Take for instance our bodies. Every cell of our body (excluding that important gut bacteria and such) has the same DNA, yet the cells are all quite different from each other. How is this?\n\nWell, on a simplistic level, the environment that the cell is exposed to will determine how that cell will develop, or to put more technically: what genes are expressed. Ants are just the same in that the surrounding environment will cause different genes to be expressed.\n\nAs stated early, this explanation doesn't apply to all ants. The most annoying as well most interesting thing about ants is how different they all are. Also, this is an ELI5 and this could easily become Explain It Like I'm A PHD."
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arshi7 | how does alexa work so quickly and accurately when it supposedly isn't listening-in at all times? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/arshi7/eli5_how_does_alexa_work_so_quickly_and/ | {
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"Computers have a response time of just a few *milliseconds* at their slowest.\n\nThey can perform thousands of calculations every second.\n\nStarting recording as soon as you say \"Alexa\" is easy.\n\nJust like how making a \"?\" appear as soon as you hit the \"?\" key on your keyboard when you type up a question.",
"Funny you should ask this. My kid turned off Alexa’s mic(so now she can’t hear us) I asked her too do 3 things in a row with no response... she said, just so you know my mic is off.\n\n\n\n\n\nShe is always listening ",
"Because it is always listening to everything you say, it just doesn't save or send any of it to it's servers. It forgets everything shortly after you say it until it hears you say \"Alexa\", then it starts recording and transferring data.",
"It is always listening, I think I read somewhere it analyzes the last 4-5 words said for \"Alexa\" to start doing something."
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3f3teh | why does air travel (especially us airlines) have such a low rate of failure? | In terms of major crashes or large passenger aircraft, why is there such a low chance that the plane will crash? Obviously we don't want that to happen. But there seem to be so many variables involved, the airlines have done a good job in keeping planes in the sky. Is it the engineering practices? Standards? Other Processes? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3f3teh/eli5_why_does_air_travel_especially_us_airlines/ | {
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" > why is there such a low chance that the plane will crash?\n\nLots of inspection and standards. \n\nAlso lots of incentive, a plane crash financially hurts a company a lot immediately and long-term. \n\n",
"It's really a combination of everything you listed. As an aerospace engineer, I can tell you millions of hours go into designing plane and analyzing every possible way that the aircraft can fail. The maintenance schedules also try to eliminate any possible hazards long before a problem arises. The FAA is extremely stringent on its safety standards for any plane to be able to fly.",
"As elaborate as a car is, they're simple to drive, and pretty much any idiot can get a license and be on the road. Hence, you have millions of Americans driving at any given time of the day, many of which probably don't put a lot of effort into their driving skills. Thus, the high amount of negligence, road rage, and automobile accidents.\n\nAn airplane is a highly sophisticated and expensive vehicle -- not everyone can handle one, and to fly a plane requires an extreme amount of training and skill. Since the skies aren't nearly as jammed as the roads, there are fewer airplane incidents. Airplanes also have a crew of people keeping track of them during every move; chances are, when you're out driving a car, a team of car traffic control operators aren't monitoring your speed and warning you of road hazards.\n\nTL;DR - airline pilots are smart and don't text while flying.",
"Imagine every time went for a drive, you spend 30 minutes inspecting your car, and if you found anything off, you called a mechanic over to look.\n\nEvery few weeks, you had a mechanic inspect it.\n\nEvery few months, you had a mechanic do a full diagnostic.\n\nAnd every year or two, you had the engine and transmission rebuilt. And replaced them every five.\n\nYour car would probably not have a single mechanical issue while your were driving over its entire life. And it would last 20 years.\n\nThat's roughly the level of maintenance an airplane is going to receive.\n\n"
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1kicer | how do our bodies convert the food we eat into feces? | Or any animal. What is the process? We consume many, many different foods, but our feces is almost always brown.
Why? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1kicer/eli5_how_do_our_bodies_convert_the_food_we_eat/ | {
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"Most of your feces *isn't* food you ate. Most of it is cells that have lived out their useful life span and died, and your body is expelling their remains. Most of these cells are red blood cells, which is what gives feces its characteristic color.\n\nAs for your digestion, basically what happens is that the food you eat goes into your stomach where it gets \"mushed up\" into a relatively uniform mass. From there it goes into your small intestine, where most of the nutrients in your food are absorbed by your body. What's left over passes into your large intestine, or your colon it's also called, where symbiotic bacteria break down things that your body couldn't digest directly. These fermentation products, as they're called, get absorbed by your colon, along with most of the water that's still in your no-longer-food-and-now-primarily-feces.\n\nThen you … you know. Go number two."
]
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|
35gp4y | when our brains find something funny, why don't we just think it's funny. why do we often expel air through our noses, or laugh out loud?sometime to the point we can hardly breathe. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/35gp4y/eli5when_our_brains_find_something_funny_why_dont/ | {
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"text": [
"Humor is a really important social tool. \nIt's likely we wouldn't experience humor if it weren't communicated in some way."
]
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||
bvygoj | the amounts of elements formed during supernovaes | [deleted] | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/bvygoj/eli5_the_amounts_of_elements_formed_during/ | {
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"After the Big Bang there was only hydrogen and helium in the universe.\n\nThat coalesced into stars which fuse the hydrogen and helium into heavier elements. Once the star gets to iron it can no longer fuse heavier elements (fusing iron takes more energy than it releases). At this point the star dies. If it is big enough the star collapses and as it collapses it can fuse much heavier elements in moments before it explodes.\n\nSome elements, like Americium, have a very short half life (like ~430 years) so some heavy elements decay away long before humans ever came around.\n\nGiven the size of stars they can produce vast quantities of heavy elements.",
"You are many order of magnitude off with the amounts of element formed in a supernovae.\n\n20 tonnes of uranium is nothing. Just the crust of earth have 40 trillion tonnes of uranium and the crust of earth is 1% of the mass of earth. Humans mine around 60 000 tonnes of uranium per year.\n\n & #x200B;\n\nIn a type II supernovae the star had a initial mass of between 8 and 50 times the mass of the sun and the white dwarf that is left behind have a max mass of 1.4 solar masses. So the mass ejected is 5-48 solar masses.\n\nThe sun have a mass of 2\\*10\\^27 tonnes that is 2 octillion tonnes or 2 billion billion billion tonne.\n\n & #x200B;\n\nIf you look at [_URL_1_](_URL_0_) wit abundance of elements in the solar system most is hydrogen with 10\\^10 compared to 10\\^-2 of uranium.\n\nSo the the solar system is approximate 1/10\\^12 uranium\n\nIf what is ejected from a super nova is similar to the composition of the solar system you would have \n\n2\\*10\\^27\\* 1/10\\^12=2\\*10\\^15 tonnes ejected per solar mass of eject matter. That is 2 quadrillion tonnes or 2 million billion tonnes.\n\nSo a Type II supernova eject somewhere around 10 million billion of tonnes of uranium. So the numbers in the original post is 15 orders of magnitude off.\n\nThe answer might be a couple of magnitudes because I do not know if the abundance table is by number of atoms or by mass. If it is buy mass the amount is 200x more."
]
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d7jdm6 | why can you die from using methamphetamine and having anthesisa performed on you? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/d7jdm6/eli5_why_can_you_die_from_using_methamphetamine/ | {
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"Meth increases blood pressure and heart rate, and this increases the ability of anesthetics to change the rhythm of the heart, which will lead to a heart attack.",
"I'm an Anaesthetist.\n\nYou can summarise this into:\n\n* **Effects of the methamphetamine itself.** The sympathetic effects of meth (esp increased Heart Rate and Blood Pressure) can lead to heart attacks and strokes. Also, sometimes people are anaesthetised for their own safety when going nuts on meth, and this means giving an anaesthetic in a less than ideal environment from a safety perspective.\n* **Interactions between the amphetamine and anaesthetic agents.** A clear but outdated example would be Halothane (an inhaled anaesthetic) which sensitises the heart to catecholamines (meth increases catecholamine levels), causing abnormal heart rhythms. Meth increases synaptic (or active) catecholamines like noradrenaline, which causes interactions with other drugs which also act to increase synaptic catecholamines (including some blood pressure drugs used in anaesthesia, some analgesics like Tramadol, and antidepressants).\n* **Difficulties with dosing anaesthetic agents in the context of meth use.** If you are acutely high on meth you need MORE anaesthesia to go to sleep. If you are a chronic meth user, but not currently high, you need LESS anaesthesia to go to sleep. This can be challenging for us to get our doses right.\n\nEdit: simplified a few terms",
"Thank you everybody for your time in responding to this question. I'm currently 3 years sober from meth and while working with clients in the substance abuse population I just learned this the other day.... So this information is great to add to my repertoire.",
"Are there options for intensive surgery that doesnt require being asleep. Like localized?"
]
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