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20tous | what's happening with the atoms on a mirror when i step in front of it? | I know atoms aren't created, but I have a hard time understanding what's going on at an atomic level when things change in front of a mirror. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/20tous/eli5_whats_happening_with_the_atoms_on_a_mirror/ | {
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"Nothing is happening to the mirror itself. A mirror just bounces photons (light) off of it. If you throw a tennis ball at a wall and it bounces off the wall, the wall hasn't changed at all because the ball bounced off of it.",
"Nothing terribly special is going on at the atomic level; it's simply the normal reflection of light. The molecules in the surface of the mirror are just arranged in such a way that light bounces back without being scattered.",
"Nothing. All surfaces reflect light. The type of light they reflect, how much, and where it goes varies based on chemical composition.\n\nA mirror reflects most light -- the carpet doesnt.",
"Maybe just to be a little explicit about the series of events: The light bulb above your head in your bathroom gives off a spread of white light in all directions, some of that light hits your skin and luscious hair which has some reflectivity, some of THAT reflected light hits the mirror and reflects \"specularly\" and some of that, beleaguered, light finally reaches your eye where your human body has a whole system in place to turn that information into \"sight\"."
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2pgtd8 | how do you create a new dog breed in the lapse of a human lifespan? | Evolution took millions years to create a wolf, but mankind was able to create doberman in a few years. How is it possible? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2pgtd8/eli5_how_do_you_create_a_new_dog_breed_in_the/ | {
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"First of all, humans didn't create a doberman out of thin air. The doberman was bred from several existing breeds of dogs:\n\n > The breed is believed to have been created from several different breeds of dogs that had the characteristics that Dobermann was looking for, including the German Pinscher, the Beauceron, the Rottweiler, the Thuringian Sylvan Dog, the Greyhound, the Great Dane, the Weimaraner, the German Shorthaired Pointer, the Manchester Terrier, the Old German Shepherd Dog, the Thuringian Shepherd Dog.\n\nSecondly, dog breeding is a guided process, unlike evolution which is far more random.",
"Biologically, breed and race are more or less the same. You may be confusing your thoughts with species, and therefore be thinking that humanity is one monolith homo sapiens versus the many breeds of dogs. Once this is grasped, you will see that actually us humans have been \"crossbreeding\" quite successfully with each other over time and within one lifespan (for instance, the distinct examples of Latino and Phillipino, though these are also coloured by cultural meanings) and with globalisation and increased contacts among people, well we may be able to \"cross\" a new race somehow... But I would just like to caution at this point that \"race\" has no biological meaning, and with humans, we are far more similar with each other per race, than different than each other as breeds.\n\nMore interestingly, and what I think may appeal to you, is the thought that our species might have been able to mate with other homo genus types in the past - think Neanderthals and Hobbits. That may have given us a great deal more variation in our temperament akin to the breeds of dogs. Unfortunately, we probably killed all our nice cousins in the past to renderb that an impossibility, though I recall a recent article suggesting that modern Europeans and Asians' DNA indiciate evidence of Neanderthal-Human crossings in the long past, so well, maybe some of us have already done that."
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9640we | how is it possible for people with anxiety to express physical symptoms like shaking or imagining chest pain that isn't there? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/9640we/eli5_how_is_it_possible_for_people_with_anxiety/ | {
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"Muscle contractions and just genereal panic, especially if you aren't used to them. \n\nI have mild anxiety for the most part but the one time I had a full on panic attack, I was sure I was having a heart attack and was dying which of course only made it worse. ",
"First off... the physical symptoms are really there. THe cause of those symptoms might be neurological or hormonal, but that doesn't make the experience of them any different than if someone got stabbed in the chest and the body reacted the same way.\n\nSo that hints as to the how... we experience those feelings with our brains, and all the brain bits are interconnected. So if you trigger the bit that says your muscles around your heart are contracting uncomfortably, it really doesn't matter to the person experiencing the pain what triggered the feeling in the first place.\n\nAlso, the same methods are used to decrease the pain for people having an anxiety attack that are used for a person having a heart attack or a stabbing. Calm down, use steady slow breathing, and remove stress from the area."
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5kvnwk | why are amino acids in living things "left-handed" in their chirality? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5kvnwk/eli5_why_are_amino_acids_in_living_things/ | {
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"We honestly don't know, it's one of the open questions in the field of biology. One possibility is that a supernovae sometime in our planet's past produced radiation with a certain rotation to it, which selectively destroyed right handed amino acids before life even got started here. Since there would have only been left handed ones to work with, that's what proteins are built out of. "
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5ptusw | how can someone find me on reddit without my username? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5ptusw/eli5_how_can_someone_find_me_on_reddit_without_my/ | {
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"Clarification. Given your verb tense, are we to understand that you've been ID'd in some way? That this happened?"
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1r1skg | when i breath in is it the air that enters my lung that expands it or is the air entering because i have expanded my lungs by some muscle activity. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1r1skg/eli5_when_i_breath_in_is_it_the_air_that_enters/ | {
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"text": [
"Muscles pull down to expand your lungs, creating a vacuum and pulling air in. When those muscles relax, the lungs collapse back to normal atmospheric pressure and all the bonus air leaves."
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6svtog | if uranium is radioactive for millions of years, why do nuclear reactors go through spent rods so quickly? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/6svtog/eli5_if_uranium_is_radioactive_for_millions_of/ | {
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"Being radioactive is not the same as undergoing fission.\n\nThe fact that it is radioactive means that, over time, it will release some form of radiation and decay to a lower energy state ~~(a neutron in Uranium 235's case)~~. The design of the reactors will slow down any neutrons to a speed where it is likely to be absorbed into the U-235 core which will make it unstable and cause it to undergo fission and be broken up into lighter elements like Iodine and Xenon while releasing more neutrons to continue the chain reaction.\n\nSo, over the life of the fuel, the Uranium is turning into other elements through fission, so the reactors need to be refueled occasionally.\n\nEDIT: Removed the neutron decay part, I forgot that it Alpha decays as /u/osgjps mentioned and the neutron is received from elsewhere in the environment or from fission.",
"think of it like burning wood vs burning cordite(gunpowder). One is a raw material which releases its chemical energy slowly, the other is a well refined, chemically similar product (carbon) which burns very quickly.\n\nUranium decaying naturally releases its energy very slowly. Refined into nuclear fuel it releases its energy much faster (though still in a controllable way, unlike in a nuclear weapon)\n\nWhilst theoretically possible, there is a very low chance of finding naturally-occuring uranium which wouldn't need refinement. Similar to the unlikelihood of finding naturally occurring cordite.\n\nTL:DR, We make the Uranium get \"burnt\" much faster than would happen naturally.",
"As mentioned, fission is a much faster process than radioactive decay.\n\nBut in addition, the nuclear reactors in the world today are almost all based on U-235 and are pressurized water reactors. There are types of reactors that use other fissile isotopes (thorium is the one Reddit seems to love) that are more efficient than U-235.\n\nThe main problem with U-235 reactors is the percentage of U-235 in a fuel rod is low, if it were too high then it'd be more like a bomb.\n\nWhen U-235 splits, you get 2 lower numbered elements that are very radioactive, but aren't fissile. So over time the fuel rods get full of this highly radioactive \"waste\" and no longer produce the energy that we want. That's why they have to be removed.\n\nThere is a process that can take these spent fuel rods and remove the waste and you then have new fuel rods that still have U-235. But it's banned because this process is also how you get plutonium for nuclear weapons.",
"The uranium undergoes fission faster than it would in nature since it is induced by the free neutrons in the reactor. As the fission happens, the daughter products (the sub-atoms that break off from the atom undergoing fission) include what are called \"poisons\". They are generally poisonous to humans but in this sense they suck up neutrons in the reactor without undergoing fission themselves and adding new neutrons back to the party.\n\nWhen a reactor is loaded up with uranium at the beginning of its fuel cycle, it is very carefully calibrated to be \"critical\" when the control rods are removed and when water is in the reactor. This sounds bad but it just means that the rate of fission is steady. If the reactor is \"sub-critical\" in means the rate of fission is declining. \"Supercritical\" means the rate of neutrons is rising. You want it to be as steady as possible since that keeps the system stable and since nuclear reactors can take up to 72 hours to reach a steady state. \n\nWhen a reactor is first refueled, the fuel has fewer neutron poisons in it and more of the atoms that will undego fission. At the start of the cycle (most) reactors have the control rods in a bit. As the neutron poisons build up, keeping the reactor critical becomes harder and they remove the rod a bit to keep it operating in a steady state. This can go on for about 18 months before it is economically necessary to change out the fuel rods.\n\nThis is not an easy task. Most reactors have to be disassembled. And we're talking about enormous heavy structures needing to be moved. Fun fact: ships in the US submarine fleet have fuel that is much more enriched (higher proportion of the \"good\" uranium atoms) and to be refueled about four times a century. To do so they cut the submarine in half and then weld it back together.",
"The radiation isn't what makes a reactor work. \n\nA reactor works by splitting atoms. Radiation is a gradual breakdown process that is completely different. \n\nYou really need to consider the fact that nuclear fuel is extremely energy dense, and when we load a reactor with fuel it lowers over a millions homes for up to 2 years with 1/3rd of its fuel. \n\n_URL_0_\n\nThe decay time has nothing to do with fission. They are different processes. ",
"Radioactive decay takes place over a long time, whereas Induced fission is what takes place in a reactor. It's a forced process. Similar to how composting in a bin is faster than just throwing something out into wild.\n"
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375zpq | the charlie charlie challenge. | I know what it is but try to explain what is happening exactly. Also a rational explanation for this would be cool too | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/375zpq/eli5_the_charlie_charlie_challenge/ | {
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"The best explanation I have found is [here](_URL_0_).\n > You’ve probably heard of using a Ouija board to contact spirits, but I bet you haven’t heard of using pencils to have your questions answered by supernatural beings! The Pencil Game, also called “Charlie, Charlie,” is a traditional Mexican ritual wherein players (usually children) are said to contact the spirit of a child named Charlie.\n\n > To play The Pencil Game, you will need six pencils and a partner. Facing each other, each person must hold three pencils and arrange them as three sides of a box, with the open end facing the other person. It is best to use unsharpened pencils, or to hold the tips so that the eraser ends are pointed toward your partner. The ends of your pencils will need to touch your partner’s to form a complete rectangle.\n\n > To begin the game, both players must chant: “Charlie, Charlie, can we play?” If the pencils move inward or up, the answer is yes. If they move outward or down, the answer is no. If one side goes one way and the other side goes a different way, it means maybe or the question can’t be answered at this time. You can then ask the spirit of Charlie yes or no questions, and he will respond by moving the pencils. Charlie is kind of like the spirit world version of a Magic 8 ball. To end the game, both players must chant: “Charlie, Charlie, can we stop?” After the pencils move, both players drop all of the pencils on the floor to break contact with Charlie.",
"Try doing it in a huge room from a far distance from the paper. That's the only thing I suggest trying so far.",
"_URL_0_\n\nHere's an explanation for the Ouija board. I imagine that this is very similar. If you're playing the six pencil game then you're actually moving the pencils yourself.\n\nAs for the version with two pencils in a cross shape, it's just simply someone blowing on it - again not on purpose. Try it yourself, get two pencils on top of each other and see how little effort it takes to blow on one to make it spin. Now imagine 5 or 6 people sitting around scared shitless, holding their breath in anticipation, then one breathes out and bam! Everyone loses their shit. \n\nEdit: Spellngs not so gud",
"If you get it to balance correctly it is *extremely* easy for it to move. The slightest draft will get it to move. That's pretty much it lol "
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a4foje | why are most holidays in the fall and winter seasons compared to the spring and summer seasons? | Doesn’t it make more sense for the distribution of holidays be balanced throughout the year instead having them be clustered in only two seasons? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/a4foje/eli5_why_are_most_holidays_in_the_fall_and_winter/ | {
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"Both of those seasons have a different reason. All of our modern major holidays line up with the old pagan holidays. A few were just thrown in later (looking at you, family day) But most of the established ones have been around for millennia. Autumn has many holidays because of the harvest. Communities wanted to celebrate all of their hard work growing food and such during the year so they threw a big party.\n\nWinter holidays are more of a pick-me-up. Back when people would routinely freeze to death in the middle of winter it was common to get pretty depressed so people would throw a big party to make it easier to get through the winter.",
"in spring, summer and early half of fall, the common people had a lot to do. farming is a 3 season job. Winter, you got nothing to do but stay warm and not die. so more festivals and parties happen because people had more free time. ",
"Major holidays in the US are Easter (Spring), 4th of July (Summer), Halloween (Fall), Thanksgiving (Fall), Christmas (Winter), New Years (Winter). That is fairly evenly spaced. \n\nMinor holidays such as Memorial Day (Spring), St. Patrick's Day (Spring), Cinco De Mayo (Spring), Labor Day (Summer), Veteran's Day (Fall), etc. So they are also fairly well spread once you plot out the dozens of smaller holidays that exist. "
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2kh3xw | why are headaches the symptoms of so many illnesses? | Suddenly thought of this as I lay in my bed with a headache. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2kh3xw/eli5_why_are_headaches_the_symptoms_of_so_many/ | {
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"Your brain has very specific needs regarding oxygen and sugar in the blood as well as blood pressure, etc. It is more vulnerable when things begin to go wrong than muscles, bones, etc in the rest of the body are.\nNot only is it vulnerable, the brain is important, so we feel pain when things start to go wrong sooner in our head than we do elsewhere.\n\nThis is a big contributing factor to why headaches are so common. The actual causes of a headache are in many cases the same causes that lead to other symptoms. Many sicknesses will cause soreness and muscle cramps. Things like dehydration that cause headaches but aren't traditional \"illnesses\" will ALSO causes soreness and muscle cramps. So there isn't one single thing happening to your body with all illnesses that causes headaches. The head is just the first thing to be affected when pretty much anything goes wrong. "
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2o7nob | how does the internal architecture of a cpu effect the speed it can process things? | How does a CPUs internals effect how fast it can process code or the commands given it? And the like nm size of it? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2o7nob/eli5_how_does_the_internal_architecture_of_a_cpu/ | {
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"I'll start with the nm size. At a very basic level, your CPU is built of billions of little switches, grouped together to perform logical functions (AND, OR, NOR etc.). The way these switches are built are basically two pools of electrons, separated by a non-conducting bridge. On top of that bridge is a gate, which is basically a plate of silicon. When they apply a poisitive voltage to that plate, the electrons are dragged into the bridge, and form a channel between the two pools, as they are attracted to the positive voltage, and can't leave the non-conducting bridge. When this channel reaches the other pool, a channel is formed between them, and current can flow, effectively turning the switch on. The nm size references the distance between the two pools, or the length of the bridge. Having a smaller length means two things, a smaller voltage is needed, as less electrons are needed to establish this channel, meaning less power; and more importantly, there is less distance for the channel to cover, meaning that it can appear and disappear quicker, meaning faster ons and offs. \n\nNow depending on how these switches are laid out within the CPU, it determines how your CPU can handle instructions. Basically, the shorter the wire that there is between different logic elements, the faster the signal can travel, because wires are non-ideal have resistance and capacitance, parameters that slow the progress of current through them. If the switches are smaller, and can therefore be placed closer together, there is less wire needed, and the current can travel faster. VLSI designers analyse which operations are used the most, and prioritise the time of those, placing them closer together so they take less time."
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1rzc2a | why at a sports game (football, baseball, basketball, etc.) is the away team affected by noise more than the home team? | Why does noise play a factor? Would the effect change if the rolls were changed?
Ex: Team A(home team) vs Team B(away team)
Team A has the noise advantage because it's the home team therefore; Team B wont play as well.
So if the rolls were switched
Team B is now the home team and Team A is now the away team.
So now does Team B have the sound advantage because they are the home team?
TL;DR: I'm Stoned. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1rzc2a/eli5_why_at_a_sports_game_football_baseball/ | {
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"The fans (ideally) will only be loud when it's advantageous for their team. For instance, in football it's generally considered that the offense needs to communicate a lot more through audibles and the like, so fans will be loud when the opposing team is on offense, quiet when their team is.",
"noise disrupts concentration. imagine taking a free throw and the 50,000 people are screaming their heads off because your team is in their town. now imagine taking that free throw in still silence because the crowd, who is on your side, wants you to focus.\n\nthis applies to various scenarios in different sports.",
"Teams may have difficulty communicating if it is very loud, it can be a moral boost to the team whos fans are cheering and it can be quite intimidating, distracting, and put the pressure on the opposing team. \n\nFor instance last nights Seahawks-Saints, Drew Brees had special ear pieces made for each member of his team so they could better hear each others plays. Noise was such a factor in this instance that they went and spent money to get outside help. "
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2m3m9t | how can lego and other animated movies that i see all over netflix use spiderman and other characters in their films with the avengers characters when it's a "rights" issue for live action films? | If I'm not mistaken, Sony owns the rights to Spiderman/X-Men properties while Disney owns the other Avengers characters...which is why we won't see them together on the big screen.
So what makes it ok for these animated, particularly Lego, films to do what many of us want to see in the live action blockbusters? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2m3m9t/eli5_how_can_lego_and_other_animated_movies_that/ | {
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"Because Marvel didn't sell the animation rights to Sony. I am sure they would have, if Sony was willing to pay for it. But Sony just wanted to make live action Spiderman movies. Same for Fox and X-Men.\n\n",
"Because it's not a matter of ownership, it's a matter of licensing. Disney/Marvel \"owns\" the rights, and they license them out to various entities that allow them to do various things. Licensing out the rights doesn't give the other person absolute right to do anything they want, nor does it prevent other people from also getting rights to do stuff.\n\nThough they are referencing characters from the Marvel universe, the LEGO Characters are very much novel creations as are those in the Super Squad Universe and other animated series. Lego worked out a deal with Marvel to create the LEGO versions of the characters and no doubt part of that agreement was to be allowed to create games and animation based on them as well.",
"Each medium has a separate set of rights, as agreed upon in the contracts. In this case, Marvel sold live action movie rights. They did not sell animation rights, book rights, action figure rights, ownership rights, comic rights, etc... Otherwise, Sony would be printing the Spider-Man comics also.\n\nThe contract would look like a much wordier and lengthier legal jargon version of:\n\"In exchange for one hundred billion dollars, Sony can make live-action Spider-Man movies. If Sony ever goes 10 years without making a Spider-Man movie, they lose these rights.\"\n\nTo make matters more interesting, sometimes they sell PIECES of characters... For example, Smallville ran into issues because they had the rights to \"Clark Kent\" but not to Superman. So as Clark Kent aged and became public knowledge, you had \"The Red-Blue Blur\" in the Metropolis media, not \"Superman.\"\n\nYou will also see supporting cast get broken up sometimes... Like a main character will be in a show, but not the sidekick or love interest or villain. \n\nLastly, back to Marvel, another current issue they are dealing with: They sold the X-Men and all things \"mutant\" to Fox, but specifically held on to all members of the Avengers before a certain date in the contract. So who owns the movie rights for Quicksilver and Scarlet Witch? They are both mutants, but also both on the Avengers roster... So the answer: They both do. In the X-Movies, they can appear as mutants... In the Avengers movies, they can appear as not-mutants. So we are actually going to have different versions of the SAME characters in the movie world. Totally different versions of Quicksilver, for example, with totally different back stories.\n\nRights can be very interesting.\n"
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fsnyit | how do you determine the terminal velocity of oddly shaped objects? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/fsnyit/eli5_how_do_you_determine_the_terminal_velocity/ | {
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"It is very difficult to compute, requiring a supercomputer or more commonly simply using a wind tunnel to directly measure. Turbulence of air or other fluids are not simple to figure out.",
"You drop 'em. Or you put them in an apparatus that simulates dropping them, such as a wind tunnel. If you want to find the terminal velocity of any real world object with accuracy, that's how you do it."
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56lwcc | what is that distinct smell that happens when using a vacuum cleaner? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/56lwcc/eli5_what_is_that_distinct_smell_that_happens/ | {
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"It's ozone (O*_3_*)\n\nElectric motors use wire brushes/threads to keep electricity flowing through the moving motor and the stationary frame. They generate sparks, which can disrupt oxygen molecules (O*_2_*) and cause them to gain an extra oxygen atom.\n\nOzone is poisonous but also unstable so unless you have 100 vacuum cleaners running at once in a small room, you won't have to worry about it building up and becoming dangerous.",
"Or it could be burning hair that you smell. as the beater bar picks up hair it gets tangled up begins to melt.",
"It can also be mold and ancient dust trapped in the works. I like to disassemble the vacuum every once in a while and clean it thoroughly.\n\nHint, There is nothing wrong with putting plastic parts through the dishwasher."
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2i9nn2 | how does somebody develop paranoid schizophrenia? | I had a family member that suffered from it. Completely curious. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2i9nn2/eli5_how_does_somebody_develop_paranoid/ | {
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"Although it isn't really understood, as is the case with a lot of mental health conditions, there is a lot fo evidence that it is largly genetic. \n\nHowever a genetic predisposition to the condition isn't a gaurentee that a person will develop it, and there is suggestion that it generally presents when combined with environmental factors. It most often presents during pubity.",
"Chemical imbalance of dopamine/serotonin (caused by drugs/genetics/severe emotional damage) leads to the person's brain not properly reacting to stimuli. ",
"It may also be triggered by a stressful or traumatic event. This is commonly referred to as the stress vulnerability model theory.\n\nMy aunt has Schizophrenia that developed in her early 20's. There was a rumor going around that she had been raped around the time she was showing symptoms. "
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uz7g2 | why do i need a video card? | Why do I need a video card instead of just using another processor? and what type of operations are video cards better at then regular processors?
Edit: I suppose i should clarify, I want to know why a gpu is better at handling graphics then a cpu, as regular processors can also do graphics (just not as well). | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/uz7g2/eli5_why_do_i_need_a_video_card/ | {
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"Most calculations on a computer are handled by what CPU, the Central Processing Unit. This handles most things for most users without difficulty, and primarily operates on the concept of have a few very powerful cores. Most processors now are dual-core or quad-core.\n\nThere's an optional component you can get for your computer called a GPU, a Graphics Processing Unit. A GPU is a different kind of component that plugs into a generic plug in your motherboard called a PCI slot. You can use a PCI slot for a special audio card, for a WiFi receptor, or a number of different things. GPUs are for users who want improved performance on visual calculations on their computer- if you're a video gamer it's very very important. It's also important if you do things like video-editing, 3D production, or even some advanced photo editing. GPUs these days are based around a LARGER number of low-powered cores, each of which is assigned small problems. GPUs are actually quite interesting these days too because they're practically mini-computers within your larger computer- a GPU will have it's own RAM and cooling components in addition to it's processors.",
"A separate video card or something like it built in to the computer gets information from rest of the computer and based on that it tells the screen what to show. A separate video card is dedicated to just doing video, can do it better, and support fancier graphics.",
"A processor has a couple of very complex cores. Think of them as as superefficient geniuses with 160+ IQ. They're very good at picking a very complex problem and working on it.\n\nA graphics card is more like a group of thousands of regular workers. Not the best at tackling a single complex problem, but they're excellent at solving problems that consist of a lot of smaller problems.\n\nNow you probably know that the video you see is a collection of millions of pixels. Processing a pixel is a relatively simple problem, but it needs to be done hundreds of times per second for each pixel. Think of it as writing the answer to a simple math question and handing it to someone.\n\nClearly, a graphics card is better suited for this. A CPU can handle it, but it's very inefficient.\n\nGraphics cards are also better suited for things like physics simulations, because they require calculating the behaviour of lots of particles. Basically any problem that consists of many 'parallel' problems that must be solved together can be done more efficiently on a GPU than a CPU.",
"I'm gonna chuck this into the mix for anyone interested why we have the two.\n\n_URL_0_"
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1vcptv | how men became the dominating sex in almost every society? | All through human history, we have always seen that women have been heavily dominated by men.
I do understand the strength factor of it, but were there other factors that contributed to this? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1vcptv/how_men_became_the_dominating_sex_in_almost_every/ | {
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"Throughout our history men have been in control because it was the men who were stronger. The strong control the weaker, whether that's weaker men or women in general. Throughout history women spent much of their time pregnant. Being pregnant came with the need to be looked after. ",
"Because females selectively bred them for that trait.\n\nThe foundations of society were laid long before we were actually human. Most animals whole lives revolve around the mating cycle. We're not really that different, our displays are just more elaborate. Our base instincts still drive us, so consider it in those terms.\n\nGenerally speaking, males want all the mates, females only want the best ones. There is more pressure on a male to be something exceptional - he must represent himself as a worthwhile investment because mating can (duh) result in pregnancy. \n\nSo if I am peacock for example, I might roll up on some ladies flashing a display of boldly colored feathers. This does not say \"Look how pretty I am\". This says \"I am the king of not giving a single fuck. Predators? Let them come if they're looking to get their shit ruined.\"\n\nIf I am a peahen, my cloaca is instantly all fluttery at the idea of my potential super fit offspring.\n\nOther animals have different standards - if I am a predator, I am looking to hook up with someone strong, fast and preferably with a big flashy set of teeth. If I am a prey animal, speed and perception get my motor running.\n\nPrimates, being the clever beasts that they are, figured out that they could impress the ladies by giving them things - even if they are not physically the biggest and baddest around. Now the new hotness in the mating game is find the best way to get all the things. If you are really awesome at acquiring, you are likely to be really awesome at mating. If you are a giant hulking badass, who is also very clever about getting things, you are probably drowning in vagina. If you are a hulking badass, clever about getting things and also maybe a little lacking in empathy you are probably attracting mates, beating up competitors and stealing their resources and mates, and maybe just for good measure taking the rest of the females whether they actually want to mate with you or not and HOLY SHIT THAT ESCALATED QUICKLY.\n\n\nTL;DR - Being an aggressive, dominant animal is more likely to yield food and territory. Bitches love food and territory. \n"
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3opbkc | why do android phones wipe their battery statistics when restarted at > 90% battery? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3opbkc/eli5_why_do_android_phones_wipe_their_battery/ | {
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"Restarting a phone clears the memory and closes all apps that were open. When the phone restarts, it re-calculates the battery percentage based on the current usage. Not sure if that answers your question."
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1ict3e | can somebody explain computer specs to me, and what to look for when purchasing a new machine? | A breakdown of the individual parts, its functions, and what is high performing on the current market would be nice. I am looking to purchase a computer, and was always impressed by people who could tell the functionality of a computer simply by looking through its specifications.
No excessive use of computer terminology if possible please:) | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1ict3e/eli5_can_somebody_explain_computer_specs_to_me/ | {
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" > and was always impressed by people who could tell the functionality of a computer simply by looking through its specifications.\n\nI don't really know how else you'd determine how good a computer is without touching it.\n\nAnd in response to your question, what do you plan on doing with it? If you just check email and watch youtube/netflix, then you really don't need a high-end computer, but if you're gaming, video editing and other stuff like that you'll need a good computer.",
"/r/buildapc\n\n\nWould love to hear form you.",
"I'm going to assume that you're planning on building a PC. You can buy pre-built if you want, but be aware that if you do, you're spending 30-50% of your money on a shiny \"Alienware\" or \"HP\" label or whatever, not on parts. Build it yourself, it's not hard, and there's a billion guides on how to do it.\n\n**CPU:** CPU's are far too complicated to understand how they perform just from a stat sheet unless you're an expert. Go to a [benchmarking site](_URL_1_), find whatever processor is highest on the \"high-end\" CPU chart that you can afford, and go with that. Don't skimp on your CPU, because the other parts of your computer are replaceable. I'd recommend spending at least a fifth of your budget on a CPU. If it's more than $200 and it's on that list, it's more than fine for modern games.\n\n**Motherboard:** The motherboard connects all your parts together. What's important is that it fits your CPU and that it's reliable. Your CPU's specs will have a \"socket\" listed, like \"Socket LGA 1150.\" Make sure the motherboard is the right socket. For reliability, read reviews.\n\n**RAM:** More GB is more better. It has to be the right type to fit your motherboard and processor. For example, \"DDR3 1600\" is a type of RAM. Technically, a higher number is better, so DDR3 1866 is faster than DDR3 1600, but it's not that big of a difference. You definitely don't need more than 8 GB of RAM, so I'd just get one 8 GB stick or two 4 GB sticks and be done with it. It's really cheap and easy to replace/upgrade if you feel like you need more later.\n\n**Video card:** Like the CPU, the video card is extremely important and extremely complicated. They're replaceable, but if you're doing gaming, very important. Plan to spend a good amount here, too. Like the CPU, look at a [benchmarking site](_URL_0_) and choose a price you can deal with. If a video card is more than $150-200 and high on that list, again, good enough for modern games, though you may not be able to max the settings.\n\n**Hard drive:** It's just a hard drive. Make sure it's 7200 RPM, has SATA 6 Gb/s, (don't worry what they mean, just make sure it has it) and has enough storage space. Most people are okay with 500 GB of space, but it's not too expensive to go up to 1-2 TB.\n\n**Power supply**: It supplies power to your computer, surprisingly. It needs to have enough watts. 850W is more than enough unless you go absolutely crazy. It's hard to tell exactly, but you probably only need 650W, if you only have one video card, hard drive, etc.\n\n**DVD drive:** They're cheap, don't forget to get one because you need it to install Windows. They need to be able to read a DVD.\n\n**Case:** Make sure it fits your motherboard. There will be something in your motherboard specs like \"ATX full\" or \"ATX mini\" or whatever. That's the form factor. Don't buy a case that has the wrong form factor, because your stuff won't fit. If you have space, get a \"full tower\" sized case, because it's really annoying when stuff is all cramped while you're building your PC, and the airflow is better. You will also need fans, so check what size the fan \"ports\" are. Lots of cases come with a PSU and/or fans included, which is convenient."
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1tj4ys | why do so many reporters use bad puns? | In written articles and news reports (especially on the radio) it seems that reporters really like to use puns. Why?
Cue the bad puns in this thread... | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1tj4ys/eli5_why_do_so_many_reporters_use_bad_puns/ | {
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"I just spent 10 minutes looking out my window trying to think of the perfect pun. I feel like I failed. ",
"Humor is a good thing to use to engage your audience, but it can be risky. A joke might only make sense to a certain group of people or might even offend others. Puns are usually a safe way to inject humor without running the risk of complete meltdown. If a pun doesn't make you laugh, it still probably hasn't attacked your religion or ethnicity\n\nI attended a training session for educational programming and the experts there cited puns as the safest form of joke because they play on verbal cues instead of cultural ones.",
"From my own experience, it is usually the editors that title the articles and/or work puns into the body of work. I worked at a small publication and the reporters were solely responsible for the content. The editors, lead by the editor in chief, were responsible for putting the whole publication together. This includes reviewing/rewriting individual articles, finalizing titles, determining headlines, and deciding which articles make it to the front page. As an editor, I used good (read \"funny\") puns in article titles to grab the readers attention. As for puns within the article, one or two work great to keep the reader entertained. Puns also made for friendly competition between editors/writers to keep us entertained. Though many of the puns that we came up with could not be used because of our offbeat sense of humor. It would be really fun to work for The Onion.",
"Perhaps they are pressed for time?"
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21k0t6 | what's going on in turkey and why are websites like youtube and twitter being banned? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/21k0t6/eli5_whats_going_on_in_turkey_and_why_are/ | {
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"Just as we have seen in countless countries, the government is corrupt . People are exposing the corruption on social media outlets. so they are being blocked to avoid that and so people can't see it. "
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32mz1c | how do people who release leaks on to torrent websites originally obtain them ex. game of thrones | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/32mz1c/eli5_how_do_people_who_release_leaks_on_to/ | {
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"Usually reviewers receive advance copys of something to review.",
"There's three reasons why TV shows or any other media is leaked:\n\n- The production crew is huge usually hundreds of people. Someone such as an intern could easily steal a tape from an editor or someone in a similar position and then go home and upload it to the internet.\n\n- The company producing the show also sends out review copies for early reviews. One of these people who receive a review copy could upload it themselves.\n\n- Sometimes companies purposely \"leak\" an episode of their show to get public interest going or free advertising. "
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8142o3 | how are pills tested to determine their side effects? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/8142o3/eli5_how_are_pills_tested_to_determine_their_side/ | {
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"Human testing, animal testing etc. They discovered that a specific heart medication actually helped with ED. That became viagra",
"Clinical Trials.\n\nDuring one phase of the clinical trial, you need to give your drug/medicine to random people who are not ill. Then measure any effects that might occur, compared to a placebo trial with no drugs/medicines in the pill.\n\nIf there is an increase in fevers or weird rashes or worse in the first group over the second group you must state that your drug/medicine has side effects."
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8da3vu | - viruses and cancer | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/8da3vu/eli5_viruses_and_cancer/ | {
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"Yes, it can. In fact, the Human Papilloma Virus is one of the leading causes of Cervical Cancer in women.\n\nViruses that lead to cancer are classed together as DNA or RNA Oncoviruses.",
"Yes. Cancer is a term for a large number of diseases with rapid cell growth. Some can be caused by viral activity, among other factors.",
"Cancer virologist in training here. There are a handful of viruses that cause cancer in humans and many more in other mammals. However, we think that in most cases it's actually not due to the virus incorporating into the genome or changing the DNA of our cells. As our cells grow and divide they have to pass through various checkpoints to continue through the cell cycle. There are proteins in the cell, such as p53 and Rb, that are kind of in charge of regulating this to make sure that the cell meets certain requirements to proceed, which limits growth. Cancer happens when these checkpoints are disrupted, so that the cells keep growing and dividing even when they shouldn't be allowed to pass the checkpoints. Cancer causing viruses (oncoviruses) usually make some sort of protein or RNA that interferes with the checkpoint regulators somehow, but usually the virus itself can't cause cancer without some mutation also randomly happening in one of these cell cycle pathways. This is important because a lot of the cancer viruses are found in most people but only rarely cause cancer. For example, I work on EBV, which causes mono but can also cause Burkitt's lymphoma, NPC (a head and neck cancer), and gastric cancer (stomach). 90% of us have a latent EBV infection, but most people won't get cancer."
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6iimhd | how much credit (or blame) can be assigned to film directors for the overall quality of a film? | How much influence does the director have over pacing, story, beats, dialogue, etc.? Also film mechanics such as lighting, production design, blocking, etc. Aren't there designated professionals to handle each of those tasks? Does it depend on the director and how hands-on he/she prefers to direct? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/6iimhd/eli5_how_much_credit_or_blame_can_be_assigned_to/ | {
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"The director on any movie is limited by the creative control given to him/her. Generally, the directors who have limited experience, but have big budgets, have very little control over the general direction of the movie. The control is taken away by producers and executive producers. On the other side, indie films and low budget movies gives directors almost universal control. The investment risk low so if the director screws up, it wasn't a big loss. \n\nFor the other part of your question, some directors, with a high level of control over the movie, select the entire production staff working on the movie. And vice versa, directors with little control work with what they got. Some production companies have their own production staff on retainer and the producers only change the director of the movie. \n\nThe matter becomes more complicated when multiple producers all want to provide input on a movie. They all have money invested and none want the movie to fail. \n\nThere is also the challenge of 2nd unit directors and 3rd unit directors. For movies with multiple locations, it is cheaper for a production company to hire a local production team rather than flying and shipping the first production team all over the place. In this instance, only the actors are flown to the location. It also speeds up production because the language barrier issue becomes minimized with local production teams.\n\nFinally, some movies are rushed through production because studios are always targeting specific release dates which don't always agree with the schedules of the directors.\n\nAll in all, the director cannot be tied completely to the success or failure of the movie. There are many other people which may have had creative control over the direction of a given movie. \n\nFun fact: Edward Norton chose not to continue to play the Hulk because he wouldn't have creative control over the direction of the character through the timeline of the Marvel universe.\n\nFun Fact: Josh Trank, director of the new Fantastic Four, claims the movie was terrible because the movie production studio had too much influence on the development of the movie. ",
"Well, the director gets most blame. \n\nDirector's jail is when a movie bombs so thoroughly that the director can't get hired on another movie of equal size. \n\nThe grips, for instance, are below the line workers, which means they aren't the artists. The director has to communicate to the others what he want. When a corporation fails, you don't blame middle management. If Facebook faols tomorrow, Mark Zuckerberg would be blamed.\n\nYou should look at the case of Josh Trank and the making of Fantastic Four. He fought with Fox and the producers and also damaged the home that he was renting. He didn't even want Kate Mara there. There was a lot of poor communication there. The movie was terrible. If the movie was good, he would be making FF4 2. The actors are still doing great."
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7oevts | why does alcohol (isopropyl) evaporate so much faster than other liquids than say water? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/7oevts/eli5_why_does_alcohol_isopropyl_evaporate_so_much/ | {
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"Well thats a very relative question. It is a liquid at room temperature, which puts its boiling temperature above that of any gases. Water has a higher one, wood/metal has a higher one still.\n\nThe boiling point is determined by the intramolecular forces in the liquid state. They are weaker than water. Also importantly they can lower the boiling point of a mixture when added to water (which it always is) so its just about how well the molecules stick together (cause they always want to escape)."
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33fp3v | what's going on in my body when it suddenly decides to tell me i'm super hungry? | Five minutes ago I wasn't thinking about food. Now I feel like I could eat an obscene amount of noodles.
What's that feeling in our stomach that we instantly recognize as hunger? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/33fp3v/eli5_whats_going_on_in_my_body_when_it_suddenly/ | {
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"Basicly, there's a part of your brain, called Hypothalamus, that observes the bloodsugar level in your blood. And when it gets low, it sends out signals to other parts of your brain to find food.\n\n\nThe other way around, it also notices when you eat something, and rewards you with a satisfactory feeling, especially if you are hungry."
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2n2djd | why do we elevate a sprained ankle? isn't blood good for it? why should we be draining it away from the injury (if that's the point)? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2n2djd/eli5_why_do_we_elevate_a_sprained_ankle_isnt/ | {
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"Good question. Also makes me wonder about anti inflamatory medicine.. Isn't inflamation a part of the healing process?..",
"Blood is good for it, but the amount of blood that causes the swelling isn't. Too much blood can put undue pressure on the injury, which can slow the healing process. Combined with the fact that modern medicine has stuff we can take to help the process along, and the excess of blood isn't necessary in the least, and having it elevated allows it to rest, which is most important.",
"These are all wrong so far. Blood doesn't 'cause' swelling. It's a result of biochemical pathways due to localized tissue injury.\n\nTissue injury (in your case, an overstretched tendon) produces a vascular response which does a bunch of crazy manipulations to the diameter of your various blood vessels around the injury to help you heal. The biochemistry pathways involved also do a bunch of stuff to regulate all the manipulations of the vascular system. They also function to produce pain if you try to move as a way of trying to avoid further injury to the area. \n\nAnti inflammatories are taken to block some of the pathways. Which causes less inflammation.\n\n\nYou elevate your ankle because the swelling causes an increase in resistance to your blood vessels. The arteries delivering blood are fine. They have plenty of pressure from the heart. The blood pressure in veins on the other hand is a lot lower, and the force of gravity from an elevated sprain ankle helps the blood not pool in the veins of your foot. \n\nEdit: Forgot to include the purpose of inflammation - (1) Localize damage (2) Remove Damaged Tissue (3) Produce Healing. "
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29xk3g | is there an evolutionary reason people think "the good old days" were better? | People seem to think the past was overall better than the present, despite all evidence to the contrary. Is there an evolutionary reason this attitude is so prevalent? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/29xk3g/eli5_is_there_an_evolutionary_reason_people_think/ | {
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"there are hundreds of studies in this area. as a whole it comes down to one thing, change. change is not received well by humans because change takes us out of our comfort zones. this can give the feeling of uncertainly and ultimately causes a primal response. a good thing to look at in the 'change curve'. this is the process everyone goes through for every change. generally small changes progress along the curve quicker than large changes and different people take different amounts of time to move along the curve. Large employers have trained HR staff to improve the speed of individuals means of coping with a change in their employment. ",
"It's not so much an evolutionary reason, as just an artifact of how we process our surroundings.\n\nYou see, most of the things that you consider negative about your day to day life are actually fairly minor, but they add up throughout your day. Tiny struggles and annoyances that make you feel like your life is drudgery, worthless, and more of a pain than it's worth. Nothing major, but almost constant annoyance. Death by a thousand paper cuts, to steal a phrase. \n\nGOOD THINGS, however, tend to come in more discrete moments. They are usually bigger, more memorable, and more notable. You can remember when various good things happened in your life. They are the things that you hope and pray for every day. That promotion at work. Getting married. Having children. Getting a new car. Your team winning the championship, etc...\n\nSo, you can see how negative things are generally smaller in amplitude, but higher in frequency, whereas positive things are generally bigger in amplitude, but slower in frequency.\n\nThis leads to the curious situation where, as time passes, you forget the negative things more quickly than you forget the positive things. The negative things weren't notable individually, and so you can't really recall them on an individual basis. You CAN, however, make individual notice of good memories. They were more impactful individually, and made stronger memories.\n\nSo, think back 15 years ago. You can't possibly remember, or feel the emotions, of the day to day dreariness that you felt. The frustration of traffic. The long afternoons. The headaches. The annoyances. But you CAN remember the major victories. The triumphs. The love. The adrenaline. All the memories that make you proud of who you were, and what was going on.\n\nThe further you go back, the less you can recall the things that truly make you dread each and every day. Things that sap the life out of you this very day. You eventually won't be able to recall them anymore, and in the future you will wish to return to this very day, back when you \"didn't have the problems that you do now\".",
"Not everything has to have an evolutionary reason.",
"I'm just spitballing here, getting philosophical. But perhaps we need to believe the Good Old Days were better so that we can believe the future might also be better. We need to at least think its possible that the world might not suck (one day), and believing that it didn't suck in the past proves to your mind that a non-sucky world is at least possible, even if its not happening right now. If we saw our lives as they really were, one unmitigated shitshow after another, we'd probably all kill ourselves. "
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ez23y3 | how did banks greatly contribute/ cause to the great recession in the 2000’s? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/ez23y3/eli5_how_did_banks_greatly_contribute_cause_to/ | {
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"They made a lot of very bad lending decisions. They gave people money in exchange for pieces of paper saying they will get paid back. The people they gave money to a lot of times weren’t going to be able to pay it back, but the banks still gave them the money. Then, they sold all of their pieces of paper to their bank friend. The other bank then took all the pieces of paper and turned them into a super package of papers and sold pieces of the super package to their bank friends.\n\nWhen the people couldn’t pay the money back, all of the super pieces of paper were worth nothing.",
"They didn't care that they were giving loans to people who would default because they sold the risk to others who then repackaged. Also a lot of hubris thinking that nothing bad would ever happen and when they realized it would all go south they bet against the crap loans they originally sold to make money",
"The people in this thread have answered it well. I'm no expert at this subject at all, but the movie \"the big Short\" seemed to capture everything pretty well and describes the different factors at play if you want an entertaining movie to get more info.",
"1. Loaned money to poor people who couldn't pay. \n2. Resold that debt to others to collect\n3. Repeat",
"Before the recession, the value of homes were growing at very fast rate. So, many banks gave out loans, think that even if they didn't get money back from the loan, they could sell the home and get it back and make profit.\n\nThey started giving \"sub-prime loans\" with really high interest rates to people with bad credit. Many people couldn't afford their loans, defaulted, and the bank was out of money. They took possession of their homes. \n\nThe demand for homes went down, however, and caused their price to go down too, so selling them didn't make enough money back. The banks started failing because they lost so much money on the loans.",
"They made millions of home loans to people they should have known would not be able to pay them back. In many cases they were quite aware they would not be getting paid.\n\nThen \"securities\" were created which were basically like a loan that uses a bunch of smaller loans as collateral. These smaller loans were those risky mortgages I mentioned above. So the big securities were worthless but most people didn't know they were worthless.\n\nOne small stock market crash and it caused a cascade of home loans to go into default, causing the securities to fail, causing banks to fail, crashing the economy.",
"OK, the best way to discribe this is to discribe the \"old\" way and then compare it to the new way.\n\nIn the old days, a bank would lend money. They would then get paid back according to the terms of that loan. So they would lend $100,000 on day 1, and it would take 20 years to get it all back in monthly payments. The up side here is they would receive interest along the way.\n\nSo if someone failed to repay the loan, it's the bank that actually lent the money that would suffer the loss. So there was a strong incentive to only make good loans. \n\nThis is slimier to how it works today, banks lend money to people. They decide who to lend to and what interest rates to set. The problem is, immediately after lending the money the banks would sell the loan to someone else. \n\nThis transfers the risk of the loan to a new person (or instution). And normally this would mean this new person requires a higher interest rate because they did not have a hand in setting the original terms of the loan, so they are by default less confident in the repayment of the loan. But there was a step (or two) that prevented this from happening.\n\nFirst thing is that the person who bought the loan actually bought hundreds of loans. They take those loans and bundle them all together. So instead of 1 $100,000 loan, they have 10, 20 or even 100. They then take that bundle of loans and cut it up into smaller bits and they resell those bits to other investors.\n\nSo if I have $100,000 invested in loans, what I actually have is 1/100th of 100 different loans. So I own $1,000 of each of 100 different $100,000 mortgages. This spreads the risk around, it's highly unlikely that all 100 of me peaces of loan will default, sure some of them might but most won't. This effectively lowers the risk of the initial debt.\n\nSo to recap. Someone bought the banks loan, they bought many of them. They mixed the loans all together then cut the mix up into peaces again and sold the peaces. These new loan peaces are considered very low risk because the risk of default is spread among a large number of borrowers. \n\nThere's one more thing. Even if someone defaults, we are talking mortgages here and mortgages have houses as collateral. So even if someone defaults their house is taken and resold. Since (prior to 2008) home prices always go up, the value of the collateral is \"always\" more than the value of the loan itself. \n\nEVEN IF everything failed, these little investments have insurance on them! So the insurance company pays if everything goes wrong with one of these investments. \n\nThis allows the financial industry to sell these new things (loan bits) as VERY, VERY safe investments. There are third parties that have basically certified these investments as virtual guarantees. \n\nInvestments that are considered to be basically zero risk have a very special place in the way banking works in a modern system. Banks are not required to hold onto all of the money you deposit into them. They are allowed to make loans with the money, but they are required to hold onto a portion of it. This is known as fractional reserve banking and I won't get into the details of it, just know it exists. The banks are required to hold a portion of their deposits in... wait for it... very safe investments. \n\nSame thing with insurance companies. They might write policies that would see them paying our $50,000 if it fails, but they don't need to have all of that cash on hand at any given time because every policy is unlikely to fail all at once. So they only need to have cash on hand for a fraction of their total oblations. They keep that cash in, very safe investments. \n\nSo now for the problem. All of this safety and risk assumes that a small number of the loans go bad. If they go bad there's insurance and the value of the house there to recover any potential loss. Even if there is some loss it's all spread around to different investors so no one person takes a big hit. \n\nAnd so along comes 2008. Because the banks lending the money are not the ones taking the risk of repayment the banks get a little too free with lending the money. So they are giving loans to people who are highly unlikely to repay them. But remember, that's OK because home values \"always\" go up, and there's insurance on these things anyway!.\n\nExcept... home prices do NOT always go up. When people start to fail at repaying their mortgages there's all of a sudden a whole bunch more homes on the market. Banks see that happen so they tighten up their lending a little bit and that removes some buyers form the market. A high supply, and a lack of buyers activates the laws of supply and demand, and that means prices must fall. So home prices start to go down.\n\nBut there's still all these \"investments\" out there in mortgages who's risk level was determined assuming that home prices will not fall. All of a sudden these investments are losing money and they are held by people who absolutely cannot have losses in their accounts.\n\nInsurance companies start having to pay out on policies, but they themselves have held these investments because they thought they were safe, so they don't actually have the money to cover everything they have promised. AIG, one of the largest insurance companies in the country goes under. \n\nThe banks who were making these mortgages all of a sudden can't sell them like they used to. They are forced to hold onto them. So they start making considerably fewer mortgage deals. That means fewer home buyers and THAT means lower home prices (again). This means that there's lots of people out there who have mortgages that are higher than the value of the underlying property, so these people stop paying the mortgage (because why would you). This causes these properties to foreclose and go onto the sale market, that means more homes for sale and home prices drop, again. \n\nThose chopped up mortgage investments are now worth considerably less than people thought they would be. It's like a series of dominoes falling, one after the other. Insurance companies, banks, retirement funds and all kinds of other investors are all of a sudden holding something they thought was low risk but was actually fairly high risk. So they are all freaking out about their investments and the losses they are taking. \n\nBanks now can't lend money because they don't have enough cash on hand to cover the fraction they are required to keep. Insurance companies can't pay out on policies for the same reasons. Home owners can't sell homes because no one can get a mortgage and people with mortgages are refusing to pay them because the house is not worth what they expected it to be. \n\nIt all came crashing down, hard and fast. Very few people saw the inherent flaws in the system that had been build. The main flaw being that the person who decides to lend the money is not the person on the hook if that choice turns out to be a poor one."
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cm4cqp | why do some diseases kill so quickly? wouldn’t it be more advantageous to be super slow and stealthy so you can get the biggest bang for your buck out of your host? | [deleted] | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/cm4cqp/eli5_why_do_some_diseases_kill_so_quickly_wouldnt/ | {
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"The majority of those diseases - often called plagues - are not natural to humans. They're diseases that have jumped the species gap from some other species to humans.\n\nWhat's the equivalent of a cold to an animal may be far more lethal to the biology of a human. As such they didn't evolve for humans and don't exhibit the kind of behaviour you'd expect of something that wants to survive.\n\nAside, and this comes up often, but \"best bang for buck\" isn't the goal of evolution. Evolution is only about surviving and procreating. A disease that only lasts a week, but has an excellent chance of infecting additional people during that week, is just fine from a \"propagation of the disease\" standpoint."
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f16jan | how does a long exposure picture (10 plus hours) of other galaxies work when the earth in constantly spinning? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/f16jan/eli5_how_does_a_long_exposure_picture_10_plus/ | {
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"Normally the telescope/camera is attached to a motorised tracking device/\"tripod\" which ensures the object being photographed remains in the centre of the image.",
"There are two common ways of doing this.\n\nThe traditional way is to slowly move the camera so that it stays aligned with the stars as they move. \n\nAn alternative way is to use some computer trickery. Rather than have the camera take a single long exposure, you can split the same time into a series of shorter exposures - each short enough that they won't show any movement in the stars - and then combine these together on the computer, aligning each image so that the stars all line up.\n\nProblems will appear if you want to take a long exposure showing both landscape features and the stars above, so this would normally be handled again with multiple exposures in the editing stage, with tricks like using the foreground from on image, then deleting the foreground from all the other images to let you line up all of the composite sky shots separately from the ground."
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8ohvee | why is it that butterflies don't need to learn how to fly ? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/8ohvee/eli5_why_is_it_that_butterflies_dont_need_to/ | {
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"They are little pre-programmed organic machines. Just as spiders don’t have to learn how to weave a web, and crickets don’t have to learn to chirp. \n\nLower level insects are reacting to stimuli and running their software loops (with an ultimate goal / focus on successful reproduction). ",
"If you go a little bit abstract and think about it, the process of learning is needed where the necessary information for survival cannot be contained in the DNA.\n\nYou're born with the necessary muscle movements for your heart for instance, but you have to learn spoken languages for survival.\n\nIn that sense, living things that are simple enough are born with the entire information they need to survive; from the instructions for their body plans to the actions that those bodies will perform.\n\nIn Ancestor's Tale, Dawkins elaborates on an experiment where beavers in isolation start \"mime-building\" dams in thin air. The action is hard wired in them, so even if there are no rivers or logs around, they are compelled to continue to the action; alluding to the fact that just like morphological characteristics, behavioral characteristics are also passed down genetically.\n\nSo for the butterfly, flight is literally in their DNA."
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3qd7y9 | how should i interpret the new finding "processed meat has been linked to an 18% increased risk for colon cancer"? | Does this mean that I'm 20% more likely to get colon cancer than someone who does not eat processed meat? Or does it mean my risk of colon cancer (~3%) has increased 18% (to ~3.6%)? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3qd7y9/eli5_how_should_i_interpret_the_new_finding/ | {
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"According to BBC, it's the latter: \n \n > In the UK, around **six out of every 100** people get bowel cancer at some point in their lives. \nIf they were all had an extra 50g of bacon a day for the rest of their lives then **the risk would increase by 18% to around seven in 100** people getting bowel cancer. \n\"So that's one extra case of bowel cancer in all those 100 lifetime bacon-eaters,\" argued Sir David Spiegelhalter, a risk professor from the University of Cambridge.\n",
"As pointed out by ABC New's \"Health Corespondent\", it raises the probability of getting colon cancer from (IIRC) 5% to 6%.\n\nSo, unless you are eating lots of meat every day, which has other negative consequences, you should be ok.",
"Here's a great [article](_URL_0_) that explains.\n\nOn a personal note, I by no means feel bad about killing an animal for food, but westerners eat way too much meat processed or no. It's harder on the environment and your body. Also, you might actually learn something by trying to decrease your processed meat consumption without spending more on food. And learning is cool."
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3apm8u | why spanking your children is becoming less accepted by society. | My parents tell me all the time they got beat with a belt, a paddle, a stick, just about anything laying around for punishment, but most parents don't spank their kids at all anymore. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3apm8u/eli5_why_spanking_your_children_is_becoming_less/ | {
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"It's illegal to beat anyone, why would it be legal to beat your child?\n\nAlso it's a bad tool to actually instruct your child with. Think about it like this, 2 children join their parents for a birthday party. Both kids misbehave, so the parents of kid A spanks him, but parents of kid B explains to him why what he did was wrong and that he wouldn't want others to behave like that to him.\n\nNext time both kids behave. But here is the thing, once the kids are no longer with the parents kid B still behaves good, as he have actually learned why he should behave. While kid A that only behaved so his parents wouldn't hurt him, why would he keep behaving when the threat of his parents is no longer around?",
"Because society is realising that this has the potential to cause long-term harm in children. Research has shown that the more a child is hit as punishment during childhood, the more they are likely to hit others - friends, siblings, peers, and so on. Even when only hit a small number of times as a child, they grow into adults who are more likely to suffer symptoms of depression.\n\nAdditionally, spanking doesn't work. When spanked, a child feels vulnerable and frightened - a state of mind which is not conducive to learning. So although they will stop doing whatever it is they've been doing previously (because they are frightened), they won't learn from the experience, and the short-term change in behaviour won't be reflected with any long-term change.\n\nSo - it doesn't work, and it leaves lasting negative effects. Hence why it's becoming less accepted."
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m8k9u | game engines | I'm interested in game engines, how they work and what they do. Specifically the graphics engine, but I assume that they bear some similarity to one another. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/m8k9u/eli5_game_engines/ | {
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"A game engine is nothing more than a bunch of code/software that handles the \"hard\" parts of making a game work so that the developers can focus on creating gameplay and content.\n\nSome things that a game engine may do:\n\n* Read and write graphics files (3D models, textures, sprites, etc.) and display them on the screen\n* Automate graphical special effects (animations, rotations, lens flare, etc.)\n* Track objects in the game world\n* Detect collision between objects\n* Provide information about frame rates, performance, and so on\n* Control maximum and minimum frame rates\n* Scale graphics to different screen sizes\n* Detect, report, and record input from keyboard, mouse, joystick, controller, mic, or other input device\n\nNot all game engines have the same features. However, they all provide ways that a programmer may interact with the features of the game engine, usually through code libraries containing functions, methods, classes, and event handlers.\n\nIs that clear enough or do I need to elaborate or clarify anything?",
"While EdgeOfDreams already made a pretty good post, its pretty techincal so for the real 5 year olds out there, its like choosing whether I want to play with Legos or Lincoln Logs. They don't provide prebuilt models of what you want to make and only provide a basis for you to expand on any idea you have. This way you dont have to make the building blocks and just start building :) Obviously this is pretty simplified but hope this helps less tech savvy people.",
"Imagine you're playing with dolls / action figures. Every second, you're moving their arms, heads, make sound effects, make them talk, and decide what's going to happen next. When you play, you're the game engine. \n\nThe same thing happens inside a video game -- the game engine knows how a gun sounds, what a car looks like and how it should move. A gazillion times every second, the game engine checks all the things in the game and moves them around, including checking if you pressed a button or opened a door. It does it so quickly that everything looks like it's happening at once, and so the game looks \"real.\"",
"In trying to keep with ELI5, a game engine is like a completely empty game, no levels, no characters, nothing.\n\nA game developer takes this empty game and adds the maps and characters to it to create a game you can actually play. \n\nSometimes developers create their own engine for just their games and sometimes developers buy someone else's engine to use. This saves a lot of time as you don't have to write everything again every time you create a new game, but does limit what you can do as only features (graphics, physics) that are in the engine from the start can be used (which is why new game engines are written often)",
"A game engine is to a programmer what prepackaged sauces are to a cook. If I want to make Spaghetti Bolognese I can buy a jar of sauce and some pasta and have a tasty meal in a short time or I can buy a bunch of ingredients and produce the sauce from scratch which takes a lot longer. \n \nIf you are willing and able to make your own sauce it will be tailored to your specific taste and needs, but takes much longer and requires more skill. Buying a jar is quicker and takes less cooking ability but you are limited to the flavour of the particular jar you bought. \n\n",
"I think you wanted to ask about \"[search engines](_URL_0_).\"",
"(bit late to the party but I'll try for a good 5-year old explanation)\n\nImagine you're in the world of dragons and knights. You're a powerful dragon on a great white horse with armor on. You see a menacing castle in the distance. While you look there the sky thunders. You ride to the castle.\n\nThis, so far, is what the game engine itself does - keep track what's where, what exists, how it looks and what state it is in.\n\nNow, make a drawing of how you see the castle, yourself, your horse and so on.\n\nThat's what a graphics engine does - just making a drawing of what it knows to exist from your point of view such that you can see what's going on.\n\nThink again of the dream world. Imagine you're riding on to the castle and you're just outside the gate.\n\nWhat you just did was what a physics engine usually does - moving the world forward in time according to the rules that are logical for that world.",
"Let's look at the word 'engine'. What is the first thing you think about when you read 'engine'? The first thing I think about is a car engine. What is a car engine? What do car engines do? \n\nA car engine is what makes cars go. Some cars have big engines that make the car go really fast. Other cars have smaller engines that use less gasoline. Some engines belong to big, fancy cars and some engines belong to small, cute cars. All cars have an engine, because the car engine is what makes cars move and all cars are built to move!\n\nA game engine is similar to a car engine, because the game engine is what makes games work! Now, let's think about what makes a game work:\n\nWhat kinds of video games do you like to play? When I was a kid, I liked playing a game called Super Mario Brothers. Have you ever played a Super Mario game? I think most people interested in games have!\n\nWhat kinds of things do you see on the screen when you play a Mario game? [Take a look at this picture.](_URL_0_) What do you see? I see Mario, a blue background, some green hills that Mario is standing on, some dinosaur enemies, a giant Bullet Bill, a Yoshi coin, and a bunch of letters and numbers at the top of the screen.\n\nHow does the game know how to draw those things?\n\nWell, before the game was made a bunch of artists got together and drew pictures of Mario, the dinosaurs, the Bullet Bill, the green hills, the blue background, and all the letters and numbers. The artists drew the pictures on a computer and saved the pictures in the game. The game engine knows where those pictures are saved and is able to take the pictures and put them on the screen.\n\nNow, imagine you are playing the Super Mario game in the picture and you want to jump on the dinosaur's head. What buttons would you press? You would probably hold the left button on the D-Pad and then press the A button. What does Mario do when you press those buttons? He runs to the left, jumps in the air, and lands on the dinosaur's head. How did the game know how to move Mario?\n\nThe game engine! The game engine can see what buttons you press on your controller. Based on the buttons you press, the game engine moves the picture of Mario around the screen. When you press left, the game engine makes the picture of Mario move left. When you press A, the game engine makes the picture of Mario jump up in the air.\n\nNow, what happens when Mario lands on the dinosaur's head? Is it different from what happens when Mario runs into the side of the dinosaur? Is that different from what happens when Mario runs into the side of the Yoshi coin?\n\nYes, they are all different! If Mario jumps on the dinosaur's head, the dinosaur is defeated. If Mario runs into the side of the dinosaur, Mario is defeated. If Mario runs into the side of the Yoshi coin, the coin is removed from the screen and the numbers at the top of the screen change. How does the game know what to do in each of these different situations?\n\nThe game engine! When the game was being built, the game makers decided how they wanted the game to act. Then, they gave the game engine a bunch of rules to let it know how to change the game when certain things happen. They also gave the game engine a way to know when pictures on the screen touch, called collision detection. Collision detection will tell the game engine when Mario touches a dinosaur or a Yoshi coin, and where the two pictures touched.\n\nIf collision detection tells the game engine that Mario touched a dinosaur picture on its head, the dinosaur is defeated and the game engine will take the dinosaur picture off the screen. If collision detection tells the game engine that Mario touched a dinosaur picture on its side, Mario is defeated and the game engine will restart the level. If collision detection tells the game engine that Mario touched a Yoshi coin, the game engine will take the coin picture off the screen and add a coin to Mario's collection.\n\nFinally, can you think of any games that are similar to Super Mario? When I was young, I also liked to play a game called Sonic the Hedgehog. Have you ever played a Sonic game? If so, do you think the people who made Sonic could have made the game faster if they had the Mario game engine? I think so!\n\nThe people who make video games realized this too, and started selling their game engines to other video game makers. This way, games can be made more quickly and easily. One popular game engine is the [Unreal Engine](_URL_1_) made by Epic Games. Here is a [list of all the games made on the Unreal Engine](_URL_3_). Most of those games were not made by Epic, but by other video game makers who paid Epic to use their Unreal Engine!\n\nThe idea of a game engine has become so popular that some companies are specializing in game engines without even making video games. One of these companies makes the [Unity game engine](_URL_2_) and is becoming very popular.\n\nThis way, a single company can make an engine and many people can make the games, just like a single company could make a car engine that is used in many different brands of cars!",
"A game engine in general is much like an automobile engine. Each device has differing parts all working harmoniously together under a specific set of rules, in order to achieve a main objective.\n\nEach part of an engine serves a specific purpose, and without that part the engine will not work properly. In games, there are various parts that are required for the game to work at all.\n\n* A game must be able to interact with a user in a meaningful way, this is the input/output section of the engine. It handles things such as key-presses, mouse clicks, taps on screen, etc. And, it also handles returning meaningful information back to the user about the key-presses, mouse clicks, taps on screen, etc.\n\n* A game must display some meaningful information about its state back to the user. This is normally the graphics portion of the engine. In the old days when things were simple this part of the engine was self contained, but still part of the overall game engine itself. Now this is rarely the case, most games now have a completely separate graphics engine which must be made to work with the main game engine. The graphics engine's whole purpose is to display things, period. Everything you see in a game is because of the graphics engine. It handles throwing up every single little dot on the screen.\n\n* Most people want to hear things, so this means some type of sound part is added to the engine. Very rarely do developers create their own sound code, it's far more normal to license this from another company which only does sound.\n\n* Game itself. This is where the fun parts come in. The game engine is after all, for a game right? This part of the engine does whatever numbers magic is necessary to pull off the actual game play. This means things like movement, collisions, placement and removal of objects, etc. This part is the make or break part. People are willing to forgive a lot, but being stuck within geometry of a game is not one of those things.\n\n* Physics. Most times this whole section is offloaded to another engine that deals specifically with the laws of physics. This portion sits between the output from the game engine and the graphics engine. The game gives the physics engine information about actions. The actions are then calculated by the physics engine, and the output is routed to the graphics engine for display to the user and back to the game engine for any additional processing. For example: if a player flips a coin in a game, the game engine computes what the action will be, heads or tails, determines if there are modifications to the coin flip such as how hard the flick was, and gives that information to the physics engine. The physics engine calculates flight paths, trajectories, momentum, and then hands off the outcome of the calculations to the display engine so it may draw the realistic looking coin toss on the screen.\n\nThere are many more pieces to a game engine. This is just a very simplistic look at how one may view it.",
"A game engine is nothing more than a bunch of code/software that handles the \"hard\" parts of making a game work so that the developers can focus on creating gameplay and content.\n\nSome things that a game engine may do:\n\n* Read and write graphics files (3D models, textures, sprites, etc.) and display them on the screen\n* Automate graphical special effects (animations, rotations, lens flare, etc.)\n* Track objects in the game world\n* Detect collision between objects\n* Provide information about frame rates, performance, and so on\n* Control maximum and minimum frame rates\n* Scale graphics to different screen sizes\n* Detect, report, and record input from keyboard, mouse, joystick, controller, mic, or other input device\n\nNot all game engines have the same features. However, they all provide ways that a programmer may interact with the features of the game engine, usually through code libraries containing functions, methods, classes, and event handlers.\n\nIs that clear enough or do I need to elaborate or clarify anything?",
"While EdgeOfDreams already made a pretty good post, its pretty techincal so for the real 5 year olds out there, its like choosing whether I want to play with Legos or Lincoln Logs. They don't provide prebuilt models of what you want to make and only provide a basis for you to expand on any idea you have. This way you dont have to make the building blocks and just start building :) Obviously this is pretty simplified but hope this helps less tech savvy people.",
"Imagine you're playing with dolls / action figures. Every second, you're moving their arms, heads, make sound effects, make them talk, and decide what's going to happen next. When you play, you're the game engine. \n\nThe same thing happens inside a video game -- the game engine knows how a gun sounds, what a car looks like and how it should move. A gazillion times every second, the game engine checks all the things in the game and moves them around, including checking if you pressed a button or opened a door. It does it so quickly that everything looks like it's happening at once, and so the game looks \"real.\"",
"In trying to keep with ELI5, a game engine is like a completely empty game, no levels, no characters, nothing.\n\nA game developer takes this empty game and adds the maps and characters to it to create a game you can actually play. \n\nSometimes developers create their own engine for just their games and sometimes developers buy someone else's engine to use. This saves a lot of time as you don't have to write everything again every time you create a new game, but does limit what you can do as only features (graphics, physics) that are in the engine from the start can be used (which is why new game engines are written often)",
"A game engine is to a programmer what prepackaged sauces are to a cook. If I want to make Spaghetti Bolognese I can buy a jar of sauce and some pasta and have a tasty meal in a short time or I can buy a bunch of ingredients and produce the sauce from scratch which takes a lot longer. \n \nIf you are willing and able to make your own sauce it will be tailored to your specific taste and needs, but takes much longer and requires more skill. Buying a jar is quicker and takes less cooking ability but you are limited to the flavour of the particular jar you bought. \n\n",
"I think you wanted to ask about \"[search engines](_URL_0_).\"",
"(bit late to the party but I'll try for a good 5-year old explanation)\n\nImagine you're in the world of dragons and knights. You're a powerful dragon on a great white horse with armor on. You see a menacing castle in the distance. While you look there the sky thunders. You ride to the castle.\n\nThis, so far, is what the game engine itself does - keep track what's where, what exists, how it looks and what state it is in.\n\nNow, make a drawing of how you see the castle, yourself, your horse and so on.\n\nThat's what a graphics engine does - just making a drawing of what it knows to exist from your point of view such that you can see what's going on.\n\nThink again of the dream world. Imagine you're riding on to the castle and you're just outside the gate.\n\nWhat you just did was what a physics engine usually does - moving the world forward in time according to the rules that are logical for that world.",
"Let's look at the word 'engine'. What is the first thing you think about when you read 'engine'? The first thing I think about is a car engine. What is a car engine? What do car engines do? \n\nA car engine is what makes cars go. Some cars have big engines that make the car go really fast. Other cars have smaller engines that use less gasoline. Some engines belong to big, fancy cars and some engines belong to small, cute cars. All cars have an engine, because the car engine is what makes cars move and all cars are built to move!\n\nA game engine is similar to a car engine, because the game engine is what makes games work! Now, let's think about what makes a game work:\n\nWhat kinds of video games do you like to play? When I was a kid, I liked playing a game called Super Mario Brothers. Have you ever played a Super Mario game? I think most people interested in games have!\n\nWhat kinds of things do you see on the screen when you play a Mario game? [Take a look at this picture.](_URL_0_) What do you see? I see Mario, a blue background, some green hills that Mario is standing on, some dinosaur enemies, a giant Bullet Bill, a Yoshi coin, and a bunch of letters and numbers at the top of the screen.\n\nHow does the game know how to draw those things?\n\nWell, before the game was made a bunch of artists got together and drew pictures of Mario, the dinosaurs, the Bullet Bill, the green hills, the blue background, and all the letters and numbers. The artists drew the pictures on a computer and saved the pictures in the game. The game engine knows where those pictures are saved and is able to take the pictures and put them on the screen.\n\nNow, imagine you are playing the Super Mario game in the picture and you want to jump on the dinosaur's head. What buttons would you press? You would probably hold the left button on the D-Pad and then press the A button. What does Mario do when you press those buttons? He runs to the left, jumps in the air, and lands on the dinosaur's head. How did the game know how to move Mario?\n\nThe game engine! The game engine can see what buttons you press on your controller. Based on the buttons you press, the game engine moves the picture of Mario around the screen. When you press left, the game engine makes the picture of Mario move left. When you press A, the game engine makes the picture of Mario jump up in the air.\n\nNow, what happens when Mario lands on the dinosaur's head? Is it different from what happens when Mario runs into the side of the dinosaur? Is that different from what happens when Mario runs into the side of the Yoshi coin?\n\nYes, they are all different! If Mario jumps on the dinosaur's head, the dinosaur is defeated. If Mario runs into the side of the dinosaur, Mario is defeated. If Mario runs into the side of the Yoshi coin, the coin is removed from the screen and the numbers at the top of the screen change. How does the game know what to do in each of these different situations?\n\nThe game engine! When the game was being built, the game makers decided how they wanted the game to act. Then, they gave the game engine a bunch of rules to let it know how to change the game when certain things happen. They also gave the game engine a way to know when pictures on the screen touch, called collision detection. Collision detection will tell the game engine when Mario touches a dinosaur or a Yoshi coin, and where the two pictures touched.\n\nIf collision detection tells the game engine that Mario touched a dinosaur picture on its head, the dinosaur is defeated and the game engine will take the dinosaur picture off the screen. If collision detection tells the game engine that Mario touched a dinosaur picture on its side, Mario is defeated and the game engine will restart the level. If collision detection tells the game engine that Mario touched a Yoshi coin, the game engine will take the coin picture off the screen and add a coin to Mario's collection.\n\nFinally, can you think of any games that are similar to Super Mario? When I was young, I also liked to play a game called Sonic the Hedgehog. Have you ever played a Sonic game? If so, do you think the people who made Sonic could have made the game faster if they had the Mario game engine? I think so!\n\nThe people who make video games realized this too, and started selling their game engines to other video game makers. This way, games can be made more quickly and easily. One popular game engine is the [Unreal Engine](_URL_1_) made by Epic Games. Here is a [list of all the games made on the Unreal Engine](_URL_3_). Most of those games were not made by Epic, but by other video game makers who paid Epic to use their Unreal Engine!\n\nThe idea of a game engine has become so popular that some companies are specializing in game engines without even making video games. One of these companies makes the [Unity game engine](_URL_2_) and is becoming very popular.\n\nThis way, a single company can make an engine and many people can make the games, just like a single company could make a car engine that is used in many different brands of cars!",
"A game engine in general is much like an automobile engine. Each device has differing parts all working harmoniously together under a specific set of rules, in order to achieve a main objective.\n\nEach part of an engine serves a specific purpose, and without that part the engine will not work properly. In games, there are various parts that are required for the game to work at all.\n\n* A game must be able to interact with a user in a meaningful way, this is the input/output section of the engine. It handles things such as key-presses, mouse clicks, taps on screen, etc. And, it also handles returning meaningful information back to the user about the key-presses, mouse clicks, taps on screen, etc.\n\n* A game must display some meaningful information about its state back to the user. This is normally the graphics portion of the engine. In the old days when things were simple this part of the engine was self contained, but still part of the overall game engine itself. Now this is rarely the case, most games now have a completely separate graphics engine which must be made to work with the main game engine. The graphics engine's whole purpose is to display things, period. Everything you see in a game is because of the graphics engine. It handles throwing up every single little dot on the screen.\n\n* Most people want to hear things, so this means some type of sound part is added to the engine. Very rarely do developers create their own sound code, it's far more normal to license this from another company which only does sound.\n\n* Game itself. This is where the fun parts come in. The game engine is after all, for a game right? This part of the engine does whatever numbers magic is necessary to pull off the actual game play. This means things like movement, collisions, placement and removal of objects, etc. This part is the make or break part. People are willing to forgive a lot, but being stuck within geometry of a game is not one of those things.\n\n* Physics. Most times this whole section is offloaded to another engine that deals specifically with the laws of physics. This portion sits between the output from the game engine and the graphics engine. The game gives the physics engine information about actions. The actions are then calculated by the physics engine, and the output is routed to the graphics engine for display to the user and back to the game engine for any additional processing. For example: if a player flips a coin in a game, the game engine computes what the action will be, heads or tails, determines if there are modifications to the coin flip such as how hard the flick was, and gives that information to the physics engine. The physics engine calculates flight paths, trajectories, momentum, and then hands off the outcome of the calculations to the display engine so it may draw the realistic looking coin toss on the screen.\n\nThere are many more pieces to a game engine. This is just a very simplistic look at how one may view it."
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6dx3u8 | the restoring internet freedom act | What's in it? Intended consequences? Unintended consequences? Why do some senators argue it's good when most people seem to agree that it's bad? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/6dx3u8/eli5_the_restoring_internet_freedom_act/ | {
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"Restoring Internet Freedom Act. This bill nullifies the rule adopted by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) on February 26, 2015, relating to the reclassification of broadband Internet access service as a telecommunications service.\n\n_URL_0_\n\n_URL_1_"
]
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"https://www.congress.gov/bill/114th-congress/senate-bill/2602",
"https://www.bing.com/search?q=The+Restoring+Internet+Freedom+Act&qs=n&form=QBLH&sp=-1&pq=the+restoring+internet+freedom+act&sc=2-34&sk=&cvid=D7FF57CE442A4035AAFEE3F6BA99FE2E"
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2z1gyy | how do ocean creatures survive such great depths, 2500m plus while even our steel submarines are completely crushed? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2z1gyy/eli5_how_do_ocean_creatures_survive_such_great/ | {
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"they are at that pressure through and through, while a sub is keeping an artificial pressure.",
"Because organic creatures (including humans) are mostly made of water, and water can't compress.\n\nSubmarines have a pressure hull which encloses an air-filled space. The strength required to resist the pressure at extreme deeps is extraordinarily high. But we have sent crewed vehicles to the bottom of the deepest ocean. It is possible to make a pressure hull that can withstand those forces."
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7op5xk | why do different items usually have the same shipping price even if they're completely different in size, weight, shape, etc? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/7op5xk/eli5_why_do_different_items_usually_have_the_same/ | {
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"Amazon takes a loss leader position when it comes to shipping. In basic terms, they take the hit on shipping in order to sell you and I more stuff.",
"One reason is that the shipping company has price ranges to simplify billing.\n\nA small box that weighs next to nothing costs the same to ship as a box sized exactly the same but containing four books.\n\nIf you look at the price ranges of shipping companies it usually says something like this:\n\nSize 1: not larger than AxBxC inches & not heavier than D ounce.\n\nAnd then they define size ranges. Your package costs as the first category it fits.\n\nThen, to simplify things further Amazon (or any other large retailer) goes I the shipping company and says “hey, we want to offer you the possibility of having five million packages of ours shipped yearly. We want them flat rate. Here is our statistics on the size and weight of all packages sent the last five years. What’s your offer?”\n",
"The money the vendor saves on simplicity and efficiency outweighs what they would make more accurate shipping rates.\n\nHaving dozens of shipping costs represents a lot of overhead. You have to weigh and or measure each time in its packaging, then do it again every time you combine packages. Then you have to pay someone to track it all, and correctly get that information to the shipper. It also makes for a worse customer experience, one of the reasons people shop at Amazon is they are sick of finding out at the last moment the $30 order the just put in will include $12.95 in shipping.\n\nInstead, you figure a number that represents an average and charge that for everyone. Maybe it is a little higher than average, and you pocket the difference. Maybe it is a little lower, and you adjust your prices to compensate. Then you get your shipper to make you a deal because it makes it easier for them as well...especially when you are paying by the truckload.\n\n",
"In addition to the legitimate reasons given by other users, I think a lot of it is just vendors moving cost out of the advertised price and into the shipping and handling charge. They just put as much as they can get away with, without it being related to the actual cost of shipping and handling. "
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83fk38 | why is it that you hear about so many new amazing materials / inventions but you rarely see them being used or sold? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/83fk38/eli5_why_is_it_that_you_hear_about_so_many_new/ | {
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"A lot of the time these inventions or new “breakthroughs” are sensationalized before they ever even get adequate testing. It’s not uncommon for articles to report on something and make it sound like it’s amazing when in reality scientists/organizations haven’t even tested the stuff enough to definitively say whether or not it’s actually useful/not dangerous/worth anyone’s time. These studies unfortunately often take a lot of time (years) because they must be thoroughly tested to make sure they are safe for the general public/whoever would be using them and to also make sure that they actually work well. \n\nEdit: So to sum it up, the product must be tested before it’s able to be put on the market for sale. ",
"You read about new inventions, *not* new products\n\nScientists may figure out how to make a battery with 100x the energy density of a current phone battery, but it required 5 years to make a battery the size of a nickle that costs $5M and is prone to exploding. That's not a commercially viable product even though it is a large improvement in energy density. No one is going to pay $50M to get a phone that is half the thickness, its just not a marketable product at that price point. After a few decades of work someone might figure out how to make it in a cost effective way or they may determine that its actually impossible, but after the initial report of the discovery nothing exciting happens for a while so you hear about it once but never again.\n\nThere are lots of awesome inventions and materials that can do anything *except leave the lab* because they're too expensive to implement on any reasonable scale.\n\nCarbon fiber took decades to find its way into consumer applications, it is now cheap enough to be used in a wide variety of things but it took a longgg time",
"two things really. One is people invent stuff that is \"neat!\" but don't no one really needs. THere is no real economic driver for it. It looks cool but doesn't solve a problem adequately for it to become popular or economically feasible.\nTHe second reason, is \"Hype\". Scientists invent and report on their research all of the time, but there is a long disconnect between what the research is and what it could become. This has to do more with media, marketing, and human psychology than anything else. Researchers will hype the value and use of their work so they can make a bigger impact on getting grant funding. News organizations pick up on 'interesting' potentially useful technology and report it as if it was really there or just a couple years away. THat is the disconnect. \nIf the researchers don't convince their funders that their work will eventually result in useful products (see reason 1 above), then they won't get funded. Media won't report on uninteresting research that has no chance for useful technology. And to help their readers, they have to describe 'what this weird research' can eventually result in.\n\nI write and review new technology grants all of the time. We don't fund things that have no eventual use or potential to solve some need even well into the future.\n\ntldr: Its all about the Benjamins.",
"Because you're hearing about things that are in laboratory testing, which is a LONG way from becoming a consumer product.\n\nHence the jokes about \"Graphene can do everything except make it out of the lab\"."
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4jeq8x | why does stroking (many times) my disposable razor over denim/jeans make it sharpen again? | It works, it is a tip I got from the internet, but how? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4jeq8x/eli5_why_does_stroking_many_times_my_disposable/ | {
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"There are three possibilities:\n\n1) The effect is purely psychological.\n\n2) Rubbing it on your jeans is cleaning out little bits of hair, skin and soap that were clogging it.\n\n3) You are stropping it. \n\nIf a blade (either a razor or a knife) is made of good steel, then it will actually retain a sharp edge for quite some time. But because the metal is very thin near that edge, it will kind of \"fold over\" with use. Stropping or honing pushes the edge back into place. Barbers who use straight razors use a stiff leather strop, in the kitchen, you use a \"steel.\"\n\nYou should hone a decent kitchen knife every time before you use it, and it's important to understand that honing is ABSOLUTELY NOT sharpening. Sharpening actually grinds metal away, honing just pushes it back into place. Although this is Knife 101, a certain loudmouthed vulgarian TV chef [apparently does not know the difference between honing and sharpening.](_URL_0_)"
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4y177b | why does a pitch that is slightly flat sound better than one that is slightly sharp? | What makes a flat sounding pitch more forgiving than a sharp sounding pitch. If one of my guitar strings is tuned slightly flat for example, it's not quite as harsh as one that is tuned sharply. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4y177b/eli5_why_does_a_pitch_that_is_slightly_flat_sound/ | {
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"I think that may be your opinion because flat sounds way worse to me than sharp. Can't say for sure though "
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774lu6 | why is titanium flammable? | Specifically titanium shavings | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/774lu6/eli5_why_is_titanium_flammable/ | {
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"The oxidation of titanium gives off heat. When the titanium heats up, this reaction proceeds faster and faster. This produces a fire, one that is quite difficult to stop. \n\nAs for why shavings and powder are flammable. It's the same reason why leaves are more flammable than a log. The oxidation reaction is limited by surface area. Making shavings from a block greatly increases the reaction speed. ",
"This is not really something special about titanium.\n\nMany materials have pretty much the same thing going on.\n\nMetals like titanium can oxidize. When that happens to iron we call it rust. With most metal objects they automatically form a thin layer of oxidized material on the surface. If you scratch that layer you expose the unoxidized metal which on contact with oxygen oxidizes.\n\nThe problem comes when the protective layer can not form quickly enough.\n\nIf you create lots of metal shavings you end up with a really big amount of surface area per mass of metal and all that surface area is exposed to oxygen in the air. A single spark under this circumstances can set it all aflame and lead to a small (or not so small) explosion.\n\nThis can also happen with materials that aren't metal but are at least somewhat flammable. Wood dust can explode too.\n\nA famous example of stuff becoming explosive when turned into powder/shavings/mist are grain silos which can explode in much the same way.",
"The reaction with oxygen is exothermic. Finer flakes/shavings have more surface area for the reaction to take place. At some point, it becomes a self sustaining fire.\n\nAnd I have seen it in action - we made titanium sponge where I used to work. Some fool tried to use a Dremel to cut around 2 kg of sponge off the electrode on which it formed.\n\nIt immediately caught fire - think of what magnesium burning looks like. It was that intense. They emptied two CO2 extinguishers on it, which only made it worse, so the idiot who started it tries to carry it outside - but it melted through the stainless steel tray he had it on (I still can't believe he could get near enough to pick it up, but he did)."
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65c5p2 | why do hackers want to use linux os even though it's easier to use windows or mac os? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/65c5p2/eli5why_do_hackers_want_to_use_linux_os_even/ | {
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"Once they get through the learning curve it is easier to use linux. Besides, linux is free. The other two will cost eventually. ",
"Linux is generally far more customisable and it's far easier to change things, test out ideas, etc. Also you're less likely to get viruses.",
"Windows/Mac are \"easier to use\" because a lot of time has been spent developing a software that makes decisions for the user, eliminating the level of knowledge a user needs in order to operate it. The cost to this is the user then has less direct control over what they can do with the system.\n\nPut me on a Linux system and I am a few keystrokes away from seeing all of the network traffic that is visible to my computer's network interface.\n\nOn a Windows system, I'm not even sure you can do that natively to the same degree, I'd probably have to download some special program and hope it does what I want it to do."
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9lbvpy | why does one full rotation equal 360°? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/9lbvpy/eli5_why_does_one_full_rotation_equal_360/ | {
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"The metric system recommends using radians and not degrees. The math always works much better in radians. You can seamlessly switch back and forth between exponential, power-series and trigonometric functions (sine, cosine, etc) when you use radians.\n\nWhy degrees ended up being 360 is a historical (pre-historical?) quirk. There are 360 days in a year. Multiples of 12 and 60 were common in ancient systems because they have a lot of divisors.",
"Because it was made by a civilization that existed before the metric system. It came up around the time a ancient Greece and Babylon, so most ideas around why it's 360 is more educated guesses that proof.\n\nFor starters we know that the Babylonians and Persians had a calendar based off of a 360 day period so that seems reasonable to tie it to a circle if the said circle was used as a calendar. \n\n\nThe Babylonians also used a base 60 counting system, which doesn't fit into 100 very nicely. \n\nAlso 360 is just such a nice number for math. It has a ton of divisors, many more than 100 does, which makes doing fractions of a circle much easier to calculate when your TI-84 runs out of batteries. ",
"360 is a relic of ancient base 12 mathematics from the middle east.\n\nThe Mesopotamians were big fans of 12 and its multiples because of how simple the mathematics are.\n\n360 is evenly divisible by: 180, 120, 90, 60, 45, 40, 30, 24, 20, 18, 15, 12, 10, 9, 8, 6, 5, 4, 3, and 2.\n\nIt has a *huge* number of clean divisions.\n\n100 is way less functional. 50, 25, 20, 10, 5, 4, 2."
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ah1vn1 | mood swings due to hormones (like contraception or pms) | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/ah1vn1/eli5_mood_swings_due_to_hormones_like/ | {
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"Hormones produced by the ovaries act as powerful neurotransmitters. When the amount you have in the body changes, it can affect your mood because it affects your brain.",
".\n\nhormones are signaling things, ant they effect almost the whole body including neural, mental,and emotional stuff. some people find it affects that aspect for them particularly strongly. "
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smk6y | why small smudges/scratches wreak havoc on audio cd's, but don't seem to affect data and game cd's. | it seems logical to me that a smudge should be able to halt a game install for example, but rarely ever does. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/smk6y/eli5_why_small_smudgesscratches_wreak_havoc_on/ | {
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"As a follow-up question, why can a CD that's stratched to shit and unable to play on any CD player be imported at perfect quality onto my PC / console?",
"part of it is audio cd can detect, but not correct, read errors. data cd employs redundancy and can actually correct a certain amount of read errors. audio cd uses 2352 (i think, it's been a while) byte sectors, while data cd uses 2048 byte sectors- but in reality, both are actually the same size sectors, the difference is that redundancy. the reason behind it- audio doesn't have to be reproduced *exactly*, if there are a couple read errors, some samples are discarded and replaced with interpolation, and it happens so quickly you most likely won't notice it. data cd needs to be more resilient, hence the redundancy. now in the case of a *lot* of read errors, the audio cd will start skipping, that has more to do with not being able to lock on to the \"groove\" for lack of a better word (showing my age?). the data cd will just fail- but you might get lucky and that missing data might be part of a rarely used file.\n\n\\*edit\\* - so i'm wrong about audio cds not doing error correction, they do have some- but data has more redundancy, so can correct more errors, so the gist of what i said is still (mostly) correct.",
"Like you're five:\n\nTo protect from scratches, only around 70% of your CDs actually contain data. The other 30% is [extra info that's there to help reconstruct data](_URL_0_) that can't be read.\n\nData CDs have even more of these extra info than audio CDs.\n\nThe makers of CDs figured that if parts of an audio CD can't be read, your CD player can just \"guess\" what's in there by looking at the music that's *before* and *after* the broken part, so it needs less error correction than data CDs.\n\n\n",
"a lot of it has to do with the quality of the error correction the disk drive is capable of. [this video](_URL_0_) explains the error correction process in an interesting way. it's all to do with the number 11",
"LY5:\n\nAn audio CD is like a book, with all the words written on the pages in the order it needs to be read.\n\nBut, a data CD is like a book with copies of pages in random places in the book.\n\nWhen the CD gets scratched, it's like drawing on, or ripping out some of the pages. It doesn't matter if a data CD is damaged, since it probably has copies of the damaged pages, but an audio CD doesn't have copies, so that's why it's more damaging for them."
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9t0bpx | how does one navigate buying an engagement ring with so many industry pitfalls? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/9t0bpx/eli5_how_does_one_navigate_buying_an_engagement/ | {
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"I found a jeweler that was referred to me that wasn’t a national brand. They spent time teaching me about diamonds and how they’re graded and what you can expect for the price you’re paying. \n\nI ended up buying a loose diamond from them after they let me look at a bunch of stones, and then they put it in a setting for me. \n\nIt was much cheaper than buying a “pre-made” ring, and I was able to get a fantastic stone too. \n\nI would recommend checking around for an independent jeweler. It seems like they’re more willing to help you learn before you buy. ",
"The way to not get ripped off is to do your research. I went through about 2 months worth of work when I bought my (now) wife's ring but spent a 3rd of what it was appraised at.\n\nWe went to about 20 different stores to find the style of ring she liked, the cut of diamond she preferred, the size of stone that looked good on her hand vs our budget, etc.\n\nAfter that I searched online to find exactly what I wanted and what vendors supplied what I was looking for. I contacted the manufacturers and got a list of local vendors that carried their product. Had to special order the ring as no one stocked it, but that wasn't much of an issue.\n\nThen I worked with some local suppliers to find a loose stone in the weight and cut I wanted and then looked at about 15 samples before I found a stone I was happy with for the price.\n\nBasically, the places you can \"save\" money on an engagement ring are:\n\n* The metal the ring is made of. Platinum is stupid expensive, but looks almost identical to properly maintained white gold. You can even get away with silver if your future partner isn't a stickler for tradition\n\n* Moissanite looks identical to diamonds and is significantly cheaper. If your SO is ok with it, it's a huge budget saver. Don't lie and say it's a diamond if it isn't. They'll find out.\n\n* Non-Certified Diamonds. These are basically diamonds, usually from Russia or China, that don't follow the strict certification process that other diamonds go through. It means there's a chance that they're conflict diamonds, or not mined ethically, or from some other source but, if you're ok with the potential ethical risk, they're cheaper (20-30% I found) than similar cut and clarity diamonds that are certified. Another option is Artisan Diamonds (man made diamonds). You can usually get a synthetic diamond for cheaper than a similar natural diamond\n\n* Know what you want and that there are options. Many jewelers just buy their merchandise from vendors that actually make it. Usually that means multiple shops will carry the same lines of product and can usually order anything from the vendors catalogue. There are also usually two or three vendors that sell identical or nearly identical pieces, which usually means you can find a lower price than what you've initially seen (often you're paying extra for the brand recognition)\n\n* Learn a bit about how stones are graded and priced, that gives you a good idea of where you can skimp, and to what extent. My wife's ring has a sever visual occlusion which made it much cheaper than it's cut, colour, and weight should have meant. The defect is in the cut at the bezel (where the stone mounts to the ring). You'll never see it when the stone's set and it doesn't detract from the brightness of the stone and you'd be very hard pressed to pick it out with a loupe unless you're looking for it.\n\n* Find a Gold Smith. They often do commission work if you want something very specific and will charge much less than jewelry stores for the same work.\n\nThere are a lot of other options out there too, happy to answer other questions.",
"As a voice counter to the \"engagement rings are stupid and a waste of money never buy one\".\n\nI love my ring. It's my favorite possession in the whole world. I wear it 75 percent of the time and get complements all the time about it. I'm excited about it one day being a family heirloom my kids are excited to own. My kids can't inherit my vacation to Rome and it's not like I live in a place where homeownership makes sense (why would I take on the tax burden and maintnance burden when I could rent the same space for less money and pocket the difference), so if you want a ring buy the frekin ring. "
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5ql46v | how exactly do the different settings on dryers (i.e. "permanent press") affect clothes? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5ql46v/eli5_how_exactly_do_the_different_settings_on/ | {
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"The heat output is anything from very hot air (whites) to completely unheated air (air dry). Certain fabrics will shrink with too much heat, and colors will fade. ",
"Lower heat and slower tumble. At least on my dryer. I use it on most clothes with exception to whites, sheets, blankets,and towels. ",
"According to [Sears](_URL_0_):\n\n > A washer on permanent press will wash clothes in warm water and rinse them in cool water, maintaining a mild agitation and spin. The warm water helps relax creases while the slow spin prevents new wrinkles from forming. A permanent press cycle is gentler than a regular cycle, making it good for synthetic fibers like polyester, rayon and knits. Because it does not use hot water, a permanent press cycle will also reduce shrinking and color fading.\n\n > A dryer on permanent press uses medium heat to smooth out wrinkles as it dries, while avoiding the high heat that can shrink clothes and fade colors."
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a7lrpq | why is thermal clothing warm? | Is the fabric different from other clothes? Or is it the way it is made? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/a7lrpq/eli5_why_is_thermal_clothing_warm/ | {
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"People are walking, talking heat generators. Normally, this heat gets lost into the air and spread out across the Earth. Thermal clothing is designed to trap pockets of air so when you heat it up, rather than blowing away to be replaced by cooler air, it stays next to you, keeping your heat close."
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6j13j5 | how long can someone be "knocked out" or put in a medically induced coma? and are there dangers of doing this ling term? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/6j13j5/eli5_how_long_can_someone_be_knocked_out_or_put/ | {
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"Medically-induced coma is used for two things: prolonged seizures that do not respond to anything else, and head trauma which is causing pressure within the skull to rise to the point where the brain may be forced down out of the skull. In the former case, it's been shown you can keep somebody induced for months. The latter is not a long-term illness, either it resolves or it kills you.\n\nThe main dangers of this therapy are first, that the drug itself drops your blood pressure significantly (and low blood pressure is a far bigger problem than high), which will require even more medication to manage; and second, that this therapy requires extended intubation which puts the patient at significant risk over time for an infection which, considering the state these patients are in, is liable to kill them."
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3b11ad | how do we decipher ancient writings of civilizations that no longer exist? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3b11ad/eli5_how_do_we_decipher_ancient_writings_of/ | {
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"Cross referencing languages that look similar, and or of same geographic area. There is more to it, but it's the tip of the ice berg. ",
"There are generally two ways to begin to work on this:\n\n1. Find a text in the mysterious language which is paired with another language that is less mysterious, and compare the two. This is what had to be done to understand Hieratic/Hieroglyphic Egyptian, by comparing it to Greek and Demotic Egyptian.\n\n2. Find numerals, then names, and go from there. This is what had to be done to understand Mayan written language.",
"Hints in other writings. For example, the Rosetta Stone has the same statement in three languages: Ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs, Demotic script and the lowest Ancient Greek. When this was discovered in the 1700s, it became a tool to decipher heiroglyphs since Ancient Greek was still studied. "
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6kiaay | how have phone operating systems, today managed to reduce the time required to uninstall an app within a second, irrespective of its size(android os) | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/6kiaay/eli5_how_have_phone_operating_systems_today/ | {
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"I can't destroy a building you're using in a second, but I can lock the main door in a second. The result will be the same for you, you can't use the building anymore. I'll then take my time to actually destroy it properly. \n\nYour phone doesn't completely delete all the stuff in a second. It is just deletes the icon that launches it, then it can take its time to actually delete all the data. \n\nAlso, deleting a 200Mb app doesn't mean actually doing something with all the 200Mb of actual switches in your memory. It just tells the phone that it can write something else on that part of the memory, which makes even the deleting process in background faster. "
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baqzer | every now and then when you inhale deeply there is that extra room to breathe in really deep that feels great. what is the biological mechanism behind this? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/baqzer/eli5_every_now_and_then_when_you_inhale_deeply/ | {
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"A deep breath increases oxygen to the brain and stimulates the parasympathetic nervous system which promotes calmness.",
" > What is the biological mechanism behind this?\n\nWhich part, taking a big breathe, feeling like you have extra \"room\", or it feeling good?\n\n > Taking a big breathe\n\nOur body is pretty good at regulating our blood oxygen level - but it isn't perfect and sometimes our oxygen levels drop a little. We're actually really bad at recognising low oxygen levels, but we're really good at noticing a buildup of carbon dioxide.\n\nWhen the levels of CO2 in our blood gets too high, our brain tells our lungs to take a big breathe to get rid of a bit of extra CO2 and get a bit of extra oxygen. You'll probably also breathe a little bit faster and more deeply for a minute or two after the big breathe, but we tend not to notice that because it's fairly normal.\n\n > Extra room to breathe\n\nIt's always there, it's just that most of the time we don't need full lungs. Our bodies are designed for our peak performance, not average... when we're resting, we only need a smaller proportion of our lung capacity, less than half. We only use the extra room (expanding our lungs fully) when we've been exercising heavily and need more oxygen, or for these occasional \"big breaths\"\n\n > That feels great\n\nIt feels good for a few reasons\n\n1. Your brain \"rewarding\" you for taking a big breathe by releasing happy hormones, like the endorphine rush we get when we hug someone we like, or the adrenaline rush from a big drop on a rollercoaster, our brains give us chemicals we like to encourage us to do certain things\n2. Like a cold drink when we're thirsty, the cool (usually) air entering our lungs can feel nice\n3. It's like when you yawn/stretch - when we take a full breath it stretches our chest muscles. Stretching allows extra blood into our muscles which helps bring oxygen to them and remove any toxins. This prompts our brain to release some more endorphines because it likes that.",
"I have a fairly well-educated guess. It's just an increase in lung surface area that's adding some extra O2 to your blood, which generally feels good. Here's the longer version:\n\nThe lung is pear shaped. Most of the time, when you inhale, you take in what's called the \"tidal volume\" of the lung -- a smallish inhale, and a smallish exhale. It's about 1 L or so, with the midpoint around 3 L. Most of the air inhaled normally goes to the middle-bottomish area of the pear. \n\nThe part of the lungs that actually take in the air and exchange oxygen with blood are called alveoli. This means the alveoli in the middle-bottomish part of your lungs get most of your oxygen.\n\nWhen you inhale very forcefully, by engaging your diaphragm and a portion of your intercostals, you can actually inhale a volume of air that is equal to your total lung capacity (6-7 L in an adult). When you do this, you fill up ALL of the lung, and the bronchioles and alveoli that are not typically transferring O2 into the blood get in on the action. You can think of this as filling everything from the middle to the top of the \"pear.\"\n\nIf nothing else, your body knows how to put extra oxygen to good use. It's so good, in fact, that adult hemoglobin has to be \"worse\" than fetal hemoglobin, or we'd have too much oxygen! So we're calibrated to take shallow breaths when we're breathing normally.\n\nThe hypothalamus does respond to blood oxygen levels, but the most direct neurological control of respiration rate comes from the medulla. I am skeptical. It is certainly true that portions of the medulla do communicated directly with the hypothalamus. The next question would have to be, which primary messenger hormone is released to the pituitary, and what secondary hormone does it release? This makes a seemingly complex question very easy! \n\nSince the OP describes this as a rapid phenomenon, we know it must be a peptide hormone rather than a steroid one -- the onset and duration match. Since the anterior pituitary produces the peptides, we can look at the \"FLAT\" portion of the \"FLAT PEG\" acronym and see if there's a hormone that matches the symptoms.\n\nThe only hypothalamic hormones that get anywhere near inducing the physiology OP describes are cortico-releasing factor, but you gotta squint your eyes, turn your head sideways, and REALLY want to see it.\n\nMost likely, he's just exposing extra lung surface area to oxygen and modest hypoxia feels pretty good. \n\nI'm no judge, and I'm open to other ideas, but I've love to gavel an ELI5 to completion just once, and say \"case closed,\" like in all of that Law and Order I grew up on.\n\nEDIT - Sorry for typos. It's my day off, so breakfast is Wavy Lays and cheap American beer. Butter fingers plus bubbly brain can make for a hell of a menagerie of typos."
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6n6vnv | how is it not considered false advertising for a company to make commercial that says an offer is only good for a limited or certain amount of time, then play it for years? | For example: I've seen the *same* advertisement for at least a decade with the exact same wording, actors and information that say it's only a 'Limited Time offer'
& nbsp;
Or commercials that say "Call within the next twenty minutes and get < bonus deal > " (and even include a timer that counts down to imply urgency) but play multiple times a day for a long stretch of time.
& nbsp;
It strikes me as very disingenuous and I thought it would be considered misleading | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/6n6vnv/eli5_how_is_it_not_considered_false_advertising/ | {
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"In the fine print they probably reserve the right to alter, extend, cancel any promotions at any time without any obligation to inform customers.",
"What is \"a limited time\"? Is it 20 seconds? 20 minutes? 20 hours? 20 days? 20 years? 20 decades? 20 centuries?\n\nThanks to ambiguity, \"a limited time\" can be any length of time whatsoever, so long as that timeframe has some sort of limit. Hell, the \"limit\" could be \"until we go bankrupt\". ",
"It is worded so that you work on an assumption and not the actual facts. The assumption that you make, based on the wording, is that if you call outside of the given time frame that you would NOT get the special pricing, but that's not what they said. They just said that if you call in the next 20 minutes you will DEFINITELY get special pricing. That's because it's ALWAYS that price regardless of when you call."
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1ghwc4 | why animals can breed with their own family without genetic problems but humans cant | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1ghwc4/eli5_why_animals_can_breed_with_their_own_family/ | {
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"Animals can not be bred with their own families without causing occasional problems.\n\nThis is one of the reasons why most pure-bred dogs have a [shorter life-expectancy](_URL_0_) than mixed breed or mongrels. (There are other reasons for this too, though.)",
"Humans can breed with their family. The chance of biological defects takes a few generations. ",
"Simple answer: that's just not true. The question is wrong.",
"Animals can't breed with their own family either, they have risks of genetic problems as well. Inbreeding is the main reason purebred dogs have so many problems and mutts are considered healthier. ",
"[Another thread about a Tiger with brother/sister parents](_URL_0_)\n\nThe first comment here is very helpful"
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4yqdev | why does it seem that mercury(ii) thiocyanate is creating new mass when heated, therefore defying the law of conservation of mass? | This is what I'm talkng about
_URL_0_ | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4yqdev/eli5_why_does_it_seem_that_mercuryii_thiocyanate/ | {
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"Well, it's not creating new mass, because that would indeed break the laws of physics.\n\nThe fire causes the releases of gasses, which cause the entire thing to blow up like a sort of foam. The resulting material is very light.",
"It's not creating new mass, it's creating new _volume_, the same way your mom does when she whips egg whites into a meringue or when a cake or souffle rises in the oven. Whipping egg whites incorporates air bubbles into the protein structure of the egg whites. Similarly when baking a cake, the baking powder in the batter releases carbon dioxide when heated releasing the gas bubbles into the batter, which get trapped in the protein (gluten) structures. \n\nSimilarly, the chemical reaction you're seeing is releasing gas (carbon dioxide and sulfur dioxide) into the element so it \"rises\" like a really gross snake cake. \n\nAfter the reaction the mass is probably somewhat less because some of the matter has been converted to gases that escape. But the volume is greater because of the gas bubbles trapped in the element. "
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33ybmi | how can population keep growing, and poverty declining, in a world that has limited resources? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/33ybmi/eli5_how_can_population_keep_growing_and_poverty/ | {
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"text": [
"We keep getting better at using/gathering those limited resources... and \"limited\" in this sense is still a really large number."
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3zezar | how does service in a (posh, i suppose) restaurant work - from the maitre d' taking orders, to what happens in the kitchen. | I ask because I'm watching Bradley Cooper's movie "Burnt" which is about a 2 star Michelin chef. From what I see, he seems to not cook at all, but receive orders, yell them out, and then 'ok' the dish to go. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3zezar/eli5_how_does_service_in_a_posh_i_suppose/ | {
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"In any proper restaurant, you will have 2 major teams: Front of House, and Back of House. Both of these teams report up to the Owner and his team. Let's look at Front of House. In the front, you will have the Maitre d' running the show. He is responsible for the general operations of the restaurant...open/close, and all the servers and wait staff. It would be unusual for the Maitre d' to be taking orders from customers. He will be certainly watching the tables and service team to make sure things are running properly. If there is a bar, the bartender might be front-of-house also. Back is where the kitchen is... and where the food is prepared. The kitchen is run by the Exec Chef. This guy is responsible for pretty much anything that goes on in there. The Exec will have a Sous Chef who acts as his second-in-command and runs things when the Exec is busy elsewhere. There might also be less-talented junior cooks doing prep, running the deep-fryer, grill, soup or pastries for dessert. The mechanism for \"building\" the food is called \"the line\". Basically, the order will come in from the floor (Front of house) and it will be put into an electronic system (with screens) or printed out by a printer. The orders are then stacked up in order...which is critical, as each table should be served at once, and each table might have several orders which take different times to prepare. The Chef basically calls shots...like a quarterback. He decides what to work on, when, and assigns tasks to the team in the kitchen. Some kitchens involve a lot of yelling. \nWhen the dishes come together they are plated (put on plates) and placed on a long counter where a server (often called a runner) will deliver them to the table. \n\n The Chef will very likely be doing a lot of the cooking, but the heavy lifting or simpler tasks (making french fries, making soup) for example will be offloaded to other cooks. The Chef (chef is \"chief\") generally has the most skill, most knowledge and basically has the ability to run all aspects of the kitchen. He (or she) is the leader in there. Ideally, the Chef will have a good team so things can run smoothly. If not the Chef either has to fill in and get things done, or assign someone else to take of the slack.\n\n Both front and back will report to the Owner, who controls the money, and often the menu. ",
"/u/OttawaTechVeteran 's explanation of the service is pretty concise. Though specific operating details may vary from kitchen to kitchen. \n\nThe one detail relating specifically to your example (I haven't seen the movie) that seems left out is the role of an expediter, which sounds more like the role Cooper's character takes. It looks and sounds easy, but being a good expo is one of the toughest jobs in the back of the house. It is that person's job to keep the back of the house running on time, and is the last person to spot check a completed dish for quality before the runner picks it up, so it's not uncommon that one of the higher level chefs will do the expediting in lieu of cooking."
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34xstz | why do you get a closer shave when you go over the same area multiple times? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/34xstz/eli5_why_do_you_get_a_closer_shave_when_you_go/ | {
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"text": [
"because the first pass takes some hair, and some of the top layer of dead skin. so the second pass is closer to the root of the hair.\n\npro tip: exfoliate before you shave. then do one pass. less razor bumps, healthier skin, closer shave."
]
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||
an0d70 | why does black ink often appear a metallic purple/orange colour? | [deleted] | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/an0d70/eli5_why_does_black_ink_often_appear_a_metallic/ | {
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"text": [
"Because black is all of the colors. It has purple and orange in it. So depending how the light hits it depends what shines "
]
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|
a3aqnh | how do people make those picture mosaics where the image is made up of hundreds of smaller, different versions of the same subject? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/a3aqnh/eli5_how_do_people_make_those_picture_mosaics/ | {
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"essentially you give a program a folder full of pictures (alot!) and it calculates the color value of each, if reduced to 1x1 pixel. then you give it a picture that you wanna make \"a mosaik\" this way and it runs through all its pixels, trying to find the closest fitting picture by color-value. Then it just inserts a small version of the found pictures for all pixels (resulting in a bigger picture ofc).\n\nmore professional versions also take into account multiple resolutions (not just 1x1), add edge detection and feature detection to have better fits, and ofc theres now also machine learning algorithm that can try to match variable sized patches (these are more like collages)",
"Mosaic software. You can create them online by choosing the primary picture then choosing at least 100 secondary pictures."
]
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8rj6dw | why is the feeling of silverware hitting your teeth so uncomfortable? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/8rj6dw/eli5_why_is_the_feeling_of_silverware_hitting/ | {
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"Soft material will absorb impact much better than hard material. Think about hitting that spoon on your shin and your calf - the shin will feel much weirder than your calf. As for WHY that sensation is so much more uncomfortable, I could only suppose it’s the way we evolved pain to avoid injuring ourselves - certain things hurt more than others."
]
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||
3naywt | why do defendents on tv court shows defend their case so vigorously if they don't pay settlements out of pocket? | Defendents seem to get genuinely upset when the judge is not siding with them even when they have no real case? Is it just an act? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3naywt/eli5_why_do_defendents_on_tv_court_shows_defend/ | {
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"text": [
"Because people really want to be right, and want to be vindicated about being right on national television. That's why they went on the show on the first place. They don't like to be proven wrong.",
"One, it's an act. Two, they get the appearance money if they don't have to pay it in court.",
"Everyone has their own personal sense of justice and outrage. Have you ever heard siblings or lovers bickering, even though there is nothing at stake other than pride?\n\nAlso, the appearance money is first used to pay the judgment, and then what is left is split between the two sides. So there is money at stake."
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dlge1z | how can big game developers like rockstar or valve seal all the informations about their biggest titles - like gta 6 or half life 3 - despite having hundreds or even thousands employees around the globe? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/dlge1z/eli5_how_can_big_game_developers_like_rockstar_or/ | {
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"text": [
"NDAs (non disclosure agreements), employee contracts and possibly legal action tend to keep employees right lipped",
"NDAs, yeah, but also the tried and true method of spies, terrorists and anyone working with Tom Holland. The guy working on the physics doesn't need to know what the voice actor is saying to do his job properly."
]
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||
tnex6 | what are 'mach' points of speed? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/tnex6/eli5_what_are_mach_points_of_speed/ | {
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"Mach 1 is the speed of sound (340.29 m / s)\n\nMach 2 is twice the speed of sound (680.58 m / s)\n\n",
"Every different material has a different speed that kinetic energy naturally wants to move through it. That speed is called Mach 1, and the \"Mach number\" is just the speed of whatever you're looking at divided by the speed at which energy moves through that specific material (whether it be air, water, steel, etc). \n\nCoincidentally, sound is a type of energy--and so instead of saying \"the speed energy travels through this material\" we say \"the speed of sound through ----\" just for convenience. \n\nSonic booms happen because when an airplane wing moves faster than the molecules naturally want to move (the speed of sound) , the wing ends up separating two sheets of air that end up clapping back together. The sonic boom is that clap. When the plane is moving slower than the speed of sound there's no sonic boom because the air molecules can leisurely fill in the space where the wing just was. "
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31lnza | why do people cough up dark tar when they quit smoking, but it doesn't happen as much when they are still smoking? | It seems like people "cough up a lung" and get all the black stuff out after they quit smoking, but it doesnt happen so much when they are still actually smoking? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/31lnza/eli5why_do_people_cough_up_dark_tar_when_they/ | {
"a_id": [
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"text": [
"The short answer is that smoking suppresses the function of the lungs, thus hindering their ability to remove toxins. When you quit smoking, the body quickly starts on clearing things out and repairing itself.",
"There are little hairs in your lungs that move things that don't belong in your lungs out. They are called \"cilia\" and they have a waving motion that creates this ability. The tar and chemicals in the cigarette smoke paralyze the cilia so they can't do their job. When the person quits smoking the cilia eventually start to work again - and that's when the tar starts coming out because the cilia is doing it's job again."
]
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[],
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3bk5do | why is it that counting down is universally easy, but keeping rhythm is not? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3bk5do/eli5_why_is_it_that_counting_down_is_universally/ | {
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"text": [
"I'd say it's a practice thing. Also musical meter isn't always directly linked to our understanding of the passage of time. Where most people have a good idea of what a second feels like, not everyone can instantly grasp a what a beat is in a given tempo w/o a metronome."
]
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[]
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||
1wdx7x | if buffets are cheaper than having a restaurant with a waiting staff, why aren't all restaurants buffets? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1wdx7x/eli5_if_buffets_are_cheaper_than_having_a/ | {
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"text": [
"It may be cheaper to operate, but that doesn't mean it will make more money or more profit.",
"People won't pay as much for a buffet so you'll probably not make as much profit. ",
"A lot of people prefer sit down restaurants.",
"People enjoy being served. More relaxing and enjoyable to some. Plus the food is better since its made on demand "
]
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798v9m | what would happen if one of my eyes are covered for a long time? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/798v9m/eli5_what_would_happen_if_one_of_my_eyes_are/ | {
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"What do you mean by \"a long time\"? Is it half an hour? Half a month? Five years? Twenty years? \n\nIn like 15 minutes, your pupil would dilate(non-native English speaker, is this right? I am thinking expand), letting in more light. Therefore, if you plan on going somewhere dark, or you think it suddenly will become dark where you are, wear an eyepatch on eye. When entering the dark room, switch Wich eye you are covering. Instant night vision.\n\nIf you are talking about covering an eye for more than a day, better find someone else than me.",
"If you are a child and still in a developing stage for vision and perception, covering one of your eyes can cause amblyopia. Amblyopia -a disorder also called lazy eye- causes decreased vision in covered eye due to the interruption in the eye-brain pathway. \nIf done with growing up, i think it is fine to strut around with pirate's eyepatch."
]
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[],
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kylc3 | why gifs can't have sound. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/kylc3/eli5_why_gifs_cant_have_sound/ | {
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"Gif, jpg, png, mov, avi, mp4 and any other extension you see like that are really just a set of standards. A standard pretty much says, \"act and look this way when this happens, but when this happens do this\"\n\ngif has a standard that doesn't include sound.\n\nFor some more information about these standards, look here: \n[_URL_0_](_URL_0_) (unfortunately gif has no spec on there just yet)\n",
"Gifs are a stack of picture images. Ever tried to get sound out of a flipbook?",
"A file format- any file format, be it GIF, JPEG, PNG, MOV, PDF, whatever- has to be standardised. That is, someone has to dictate exactly what the file is made up of, and everyone has to agree; if they don't, then everyone would make their files differently and everyone would read their files differently, and none of the files would be compatible with anyone else's file viewers.\n\nTo borow from ScoobySnacks801 below, think of the standard for GIF as specifying a stack of still pictures, with a small piece of paper that tells you how quickly to flick through them. By contrast, think of the MOV format as specifying a stack of still pictures, a small piece of paper telling you how quickly to flip through them, and a certain type of audio tape that you should play at the same time at a given speed.\n\nThe GIF format doesn't say anything about an audio tape, so you can't store audio in a GIF. You could certainly add a tape alongside the picture stack, but nobody would know how to play it because there's no standard telling them what kind of tape it is, or where it should start, or how quickly it should play it.\n\nIf you wanted to enough, you could make your own standard; you could tell people that your picture books come with this kind of tape and to play it this fast. But nobody would likely want to bother obeying your rules (making viewers for your file), because nobody but you would use them, and besides, there are formats already that specifiy audio tapes. So instead, you need to use one of those existing formats that do what you want.",
"Gif, jpg, png, mov, avi, mp4 and any other extension you see like that are really just a set of standards. A standard pretty much says, \"act and look this way when this happens, but when this happens do this\"\n\ngif has a standard that doesn't include sound.\n\nFor some more information about these standards, look here: \n[_URL_0_](_URL_0_) (unfortunately gif has no spec on there just yet)\n",
"Gifs are a stack of picture images. Ever tried to get sound out of a flipbook?",
"A file format- any file format, be it GIF, JPEG, PNG, MOV, PDF, whatever- has to be standardised. That is, someone has to dictate exactly what the file is made up of, and everyone has to agree; if they don't, then everyone would make their files differently and everyone would read their files differently, and none of the files would be compatible with anyone else's file viewers.\n\nTo borow from ScoobySnacks801 below, think of the standard for GIF as specifying a stack of still pictures, with a small piece of paper that tells you how quickly to flick through them. By contrast, think of the MOV format as specifying a stack of still pictures, a small piece of paper telling you how quickly to flip through them, and a certain type of audio tape that you should play at the same time at a given speed.\n\nThe GIF format doesn't say anything about an audio tape, so you can't store audio in a GIF. You could certainly add a tape alongside the picture stack, but nobody would know how to play it because there's no standard telling them what kind of tape it is, or where it should start, or how quickly it should play it.\n\nIf you wanted to enough, you could make your own standard; you could tell people that your picture books come with this kind of tape and to play it this fast. But nobody would likely want to bother obeying your rules (making viewers for your file), because nobody but you would use them, and besides, there are formats already that specifiy audio tapes. So instead, you need to use one of those existing formats that do what you want."
]
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bh8v5b | why do car keys (the one with buttons) only unlock your car and none others? not even the same model? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/bh8v5b/eli5_why_do_car_keys_the_one_with_buttons_only/ | {
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"Small computers that are connected to eachother, they’re called immobilizers and they have specific codes to be in sync with a specific computer in a car",
"Both the car and the key has a chip in it.\n\nthese chips are unique and has been coded to only be able to talk to each other.",
"Your ordinary metal car keys open your car, and other cars too. There are more cars made that your key will fit into than possible keys. These \"radio keys\" are actually more secure, because the number of possible keys is very, very large. Not infinitely large, but much larger than the metal key population times the numbers of cars that will fit into the remote's radio range. There might be one other car that your clicker opens, and your chance of being within the clicker's range is vanishingly small.",
"When you push the button it sends out a small bit of information on a specfic radio channel. A bit inside yourncar is waiting to hear it, and only unlocks the doors if it hears the right password.",
"So it is possible to find a car that my metal key would fit, like start the car. But the car remote can’t unlock any other car except mine?",
"The car and the key are programmed to, basically, ask for a password and state that requested password when the button is pressed. Some cars keep the same one all the time, but some even agree on a new password for each instance of locking/unlocking to prevent the signal's password from being intercepted and cloned."
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22faar | why are planes round tubes instead of flattened ovals shaped? | Would planes fly better and seat more passengers if they were flattened ovals?
Thanks | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/22faar/eli5_why_are_planes_round_tubes_instead_of/ | {
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"text": [
"I'm not an engineer, but structurally cylinders are incredibly strong. An \"flattened tube\" would probably collapse much more easily from all the stresses involved in flight."
]
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[]
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68di7v | if a person had enough money to design and build a functional space ship, capable of traveling and landing and whatnot, would it be legal? would the government be able to do anything? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/68di7v/eli5_if_a_person_had_enough_money_to_design_and/ | {
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"The government would most likely not be able to stop you as people have personal planes, helicopters ect. But they would probably try to buy it from you.",
"Well there let's consider these two options.\n\nFirst let's consider that you are just a rich multi-billionaire and want to build a rocket and fly to the moon. Guess what, someone is already doing that. [SpaceX](_URL_0_) is a private company that is building and launching rockets into space right now. They have flown to the International Space Station several times and will soon be carrying passengers. Now SpaceX works closely with NASA and the US government to license operations and flights. BUT if you had enough mony to build a rocket to reach the moon then hiring a few lawyers to jump trough the regulatory hoops would be chump change. [Blue Origin](_URL_2_) is another private company preparing to fly into space.\n\nBottom line: Rocket launches are regulated and licensed by the US government, BUT YES, it is legal for a private citizen to build a rocket and fly into space with the right paperwork. \n\n\nNow let's consider the second option.\n\nLet's say you are a insanely intelligent scientist and discover an entirely new way to fly. Say anti-gravity. So you decide to build an anti-gravity space ship and fly it to the moon. Guess what you can but there are still government issues you would be dealing with. Right now all laws and rules for getting into space are written with rockets in mind. So an anti-gravity powered spacecraft would be considered an aircraft under current us law. Hey it does fly through the air before entering space. So you would have to work with you local [FAA office](_URL_1_) to get an amateur-built aircraft airworthiness certification. Once you built it and were ready to fly it you would have to be properly licensed. Now this is a kicker. There is no license for space craft but you could probably get by if you went and got your private pilots license. But wait you still got one or two more hurdles. If your anti-gravity craft weighed more than 12500 pounds you would need to get a type certificate for it. But guess what that doesn't exist for a anti-gravity craft so you would then have to work with your local field office to get certified to fly the craft you just built. But once all that is done you are ready to go... NOT! there is one more gotcha in US law. US law states that all flights between 18,000 and 60,000 feet in altitude MUST be conducted under IFR, Instrument Flight Rules. So you cant get into space without flying from 18,000 to 60,000 feet. So back to flight school you go to get your Instrument rating. Now you are ready to go. Call your local Flight Service Center and File a IFR flight plan at least 30 minutes before departure. Climb into your space ship and head for the moon. Be sure to contact departure control to activate your flight plan as soon as you are airborne. ",
"If you had enough money to design and build a functional space ship, following all the safety regulations and permits and laws, the government (and many private companies) would probably contract you to deliver some of the satellites and supplies and science projects / scientists to space.\n\nThat's what SpaceX and other private companies are doing."
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25mjy0 | the california energy crisis of 2000 and the enron scandal | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/25mjy0/eli5_the_california_energy_crisis_of_2000_and_the/ | {
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"As for the energy crisis, basically Enron would cut off the power supply so that the cost of electricity would skyrocket, and then turn it back on in order to make more money. Enron in general, that was mostly down to a type of accounting they used that let them declare potential earnings, so that it always looked like they were making loads of money when they were, in fact, losing money. I would recommend the documentary \"The smartest men in the room\" If you want to learn more",
"Enron was an energy company that engaged in a lot of fraudulent accounting tricks to make it look like they were much more profitable than they were. It wasn't a complete fraud like Madoff - they had some legitimate businesses like pipelines and actually did produce electricity, but they also had a lot of pie-in-the-sky ideas, most of which lost a ton of money. And when those schemes lost money, instead of admitting it, they either lied about it or used more accounting tricks to hide the losses. When they were losing too much money, it became too hard to maintain their shell game of hiding losses and moving them around, and sooner or later it was clear that the company was in trouble, and investors lost confidence in the company and started selling the stock. When the stock price started declining, it became impossible to maintain the accounting tricks, because they couldn't do things like use overvalued stock as collateral for loans. They went from being one of the ten largest U.S. companies by stock market capitalization to being bankrupt in about 18 months.\n\nEnron was a major factor in the California energy crisis of 2000, but they weren't the sole cause of it. During a heat wave where demand for electricity soared, Enron created artificial shortages of power in order to be able to jack up the price."
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89snwm | can anyone launch a satellite? or are there laws claiming space territory? | With the FCC approving spaceX to launch all those satellites why would they even need approval? Is space not borderless? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/89snwm/eli5can_anyone_launch_a_satellite_or_are_there/ | {
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"text": [
"Per the [Outer Space Treaty](_URL_0_) of 1967, governments cannot stake a claim to territory in space—so yes, space is indeed borderless. However, to get to outer space, Spacex's rockets first have to pass through the airspace directly above the US, which the Federal Aviation Administration *does* have jurisdiction over, thus requiring their approval."
]
} | [] | [] | [
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3lid4n | why does sweden have the highest number of rapes in europe, by a wide margin? | [deleted] | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3lid4n/eli5_why_does_sweden_have_the_highest_number_of/ | {
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"text": [
"Sweden measures rape differently. The rest of the world measures victims, Sweden measures rapes. For example: If a woman was trapped in a basement and raped every day for a year, then broke free and went to the police in Sweden that would be 364 rapes, in the rest of the world it'd be 1. Why do they do this? I don't know, it's arguably more accurate but not necessarily more useful.",
"The difference can mostly be accounted for by differing legal definitions of rape. In many countries, 'rape' is defined in the context of forced sexual intercourse / penetration.\n\nUnder the Swedish penal code, the definition of rape is rather broad and it includes activities that don't involve intercourse/penetration as well as activities where the victim was willing to perform the acts at the time but was later deemed unfit to consent because, for example, the victim was intoxicated, scared, or in a vulnerable position of some sort.\n\nThis results in a lot more incidents of rape being reported in Sweden relative to other countries even though the actual occurrence of rape may be no more common (or perhaps even less common) in Sweden than in other countries.",
"* Sweden has a very broad definition of rape, which includes many acts that other countries would deem sexual assault\n* Sweden has a pretty enlightened views on sexuality and women's rights, which makes it easier for victims to come forward\n* Sweden actively pursues the cases that are reported, meaning more arrests and convictions are made\n* according to some, many of the rapes are committed by recent immigrants...this notion is controversial\n\nSo except for the last point, none of these would indicate that more rapes are actually occurring in Sweden."
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c9zcok | what the heck does a county do? (u.s. civics) | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/c9zcok/eli5_what_the_heck_does_a_county_do_us_civics/ | {
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"Canada does have counties, but the term is used to denote the territorial jurisdiction (geographic boundaries) of courthouses. I understand it to refer to a regional municipality in the US (equivalent to Durham, Peel, York, etc.) but I could be mistaken.",
"US counties act like any other municipal (town or city) government. They run the county court system, provide utilities and services, and in most of the country have a Sheriff's Office that runs the jails and does law enforcement for the county.\n\nA whole lot of the US is not part of an incorporated town or city, and in those areas the county is the local government.\n\nAnd then there's Louisiana, which has parishes instead of counties. Because Louisiana is weird.",
"You've actually already got it pretty close, they do the same thing as the city or state, just with an in between jurisdiction. So a county will often be in charge of say public works/licensing for an area because the regulations are mostly the same between multiple cities in a county and people living in the countryside can still talk to the same office. Counties also tend to have more control over more ethereal departments such as mental health services. And lastly, a sheriff's department and highway patrolmen are party of the country as their jurisdiction needs to extend beyond city limits, but a singular state police force would have a lot of logistical problems.",
"So it actually varies pretty widely from state to state, depending on how much power the state government chooses to give them. But fundamentally, they're subordinate to the state and superior to the city; that is, in general, a state contains counties, and a county contains cities. They are basically a smaller organisational level that relieves some of the pressure from the state government, just as having states/provinces allows the federal government to focus on the nation-sized issues while the state governments deal with their individual issues. \n\nCounty functions may include serving as a judicial court district, providing a sheriff's department (sheriffs are county-based whereas police departments are city-based), providing fundamental municipal services (e.g. public hospitals, libraries, jails, parks, road maintenance, etc.), and/or providing non-essential municipal facilities (e.g. airports, museums, convention centers, etc.). \n\nAs noted earlier, actual scope of power depends on the state. In a few states, counties act as court districts and may provide a sheriff's department, but other than that the cities and towns generally carry their own governmental power, leaving the county as a largely geographical distinction responsible for high-level judicial/executive functions. In other states, the county is highly involved and provides things like public schools, county fire/police departments, welfare services, and public housing. \n\nIn general, though - that is, in most states - the county provides at least basic municipal services as mentioned above, like public hospitals, jails, utilities, roads, and law enforcement. So in general, citizens of a county pay the same taxes, get the same public services, and have available to them the same public schools; if you move from one county to another, those things may change (your kids will attend a different school system, your tax rate may change, you will have a new sheriff's department, etc.).",
"I don't know where you are from in Canada, but we have the exact same thing here too and most of the time it have the same name. In Quebec it's called a Regional County Municipality, in Ontario there is Regional Municpalities and Counties, which have different level of responsabilities. In British Columbia they are called Regional Districts.\n\n & #x200B;\n\nNo matter what their names are, they all serve the same goal. They allow regional cooperation between municipalities and rerual areas, since small town and village doesn't have enough population and ressources to provide all the services the population want or expect. A good example of services is Police. In the US counties have their own Sheriff department that take care of police work for the whole country, because having 1 police officer for a village is not the best idea. That said, in Quebec it's the provincial police that provide that service for Regional County Municipalities. Other services could include land use planning, building inspectors, fire protection, waste management, etc anything that need specialist that a small rural area couldn't pay for.\n\n & #x200B;\n\nUsually those kind of administration are only for less populated area. If a municipality is big enough, it will be able to provide those service. What happen to the county level administration depend on the situation. If the county is larger than the city they can coexist, but the county give up most of their responsability to the city within the city limit, that's the situation with L.A. If the county is smaller than the city, it can simply disappear or be incorporated with the city, that's the situation with New York. Or the city can simply become seperated from the country, which is what usually happen in Canada.",
"Growing up in Ontario somewhere between Ottawa and the St Lawrence, we lived in a township inside a county. Living in BC later on there were no counties (could be wrong?), so I figured it was an Eastern, old Canada thing."
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9ri25z | why is the water in some rivers almost turquoise in color while in other ones it's just transparent? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/9ri25z/eli5_why_is_the_water_in_some_rivers_almost/ | {
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"Dissolved solids.\n\nDepending on what’s floating around in the water will affect its colour.\n\nAlgae and turbid mud will make a hazy brown/green river. Clear water is free from floating debris. Coloured water has something dissolved in it to make it that colour, eg iron, copper, and other elements.",
"Rivers that originate from the melting of alpine glaciers/snow pack are often very clear because the water doesn’t have to drain through a typical particulate-laden watershed. \n \n\n\n\n\n\n"
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49lf9m | what would happen to matter if it were frozen down to 0 k? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/49lf9m/eli5what_would_happen_to_matter_if_it_were_frozen/ | {
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"All molecular movement would cease and the matter would become completely inert. But I'm not sure that this is currently possible to do with our level of technology."
]
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7l6szc | what mastering is, when music gets remastered. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/7l6szc/eli5_what_mastering_is_when_music_gets_remastered/ | {
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"text": [
"So let's say we have an old recording of something. Like The Beatles (Sgt. Peppers was just remastered for example). In older music the recording methods were not near the levels of perfection that we currently have. Audio samples might have some interference that was undesirable and couldn't be entirely removed. This is easier with digitization. We can also take old samples and boost different frequencies, change the volume, change the dynamic range. You can pretty much change any property of the sound you want. Another example is mono and stereo. Old records (The White Album for example) was mixed for mono, all the audio plays out on channel. This conformed to older system standards. Eventually people bought stereos that were able to have multiple channels so now you can play the guitars out one and the singers out the other so it sounds clearer. Changing from mono to stereo is another form of remastering. \n\nTLDR: You scrub undesired noise from the recording and add effects to create the \"perfect\" sound. ",
"Well mastering in essence is just applying noise reduction to remove clicks pops and hissing, leveling volume for more even sound, equalizing the sounds so the don’t sound muddy or too sharp and adjusting stereo width giving the sounds more “space” sounding bigger. You can do this to an already published piece of music like an old rock song or something to make it sound better and be more even. \n\nHopefully this answers your question. \nP.S. take what I say with a grain of salt I’m not great at mastering my music tbh",
"A *master* is the original finished copy of a piece of audio or video. \n\nBefore the 1980s, all masters were analog. Copying it meant playing it, and each time you played, it would wear out a little. Masters were used a little as possible, you'd make 10 copies, then 10 copies of each of those copies, etc., until you had all that you needed. Between occasional copies and just the physical breakdown over time, the quality of the master would degrade.\n\nRemaster means two things. First, you convert the master to digital, which does not wear out. Then you carefully process the digital copy to remove and repair an imperfection, resulting in a better version that will never break down."
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m9ohe | how come i have to eject flash drives on my pcs but other devices dont care? (xbox, cameras, phones etc) | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/m9ohe/eli5_how_come_i_have_to_eject_flash_drives_on_my/ | {
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"I can't speak for many specifics, but I can give you the general idea.\n\nThe memory used by flash drives is kinda slow and crappy. It's chosen to be cheap, not fast. When you try to store something on a flash drive, the computer might be sneaky and tell you \"Ok, done!\" before it's really done.\n\nReally, it's still slowly writing that data to the drive in the background while you do something else.\n\nThe problem is that if you yank the flash drive out before the computer has finished doing its sneaky background writing, well, now it suddenly doesn't have anywhere to write that data and *poof* you get corruption.\n\nThis is write caching, and it's a trade-off of safety in exchange for performance. I believe that Windows 7 (possibly Vista, too) disable this behaviour by default in favour of writing data out immediately.",
"You dont *have* to eject flash drives on computers. \n\n\nThere are two settings you can get for your usb drive when using them with computers (win xp/Vista/Win 7 at least). \n\n\nWrite caching - makes access to the drive slightly faster by queuing up the data it has to write to the drive and does this in the background even when the coyp/move dialog has gone. this setting requires you to \"safely remove\" the drive through the settings dialogs, this tells windows that it should finish all its write operations because the user wants to remove the drive. \n\nRemovable mode - ( thats probably not the right name for it) - this trades of some speed of the drive for the ability to remove it at a moments notice without having to safely remove it. This is done by telling windows to immediatly write any data during a copy/move. \n\n",
"I can't speak for many specifics, but I can give you the general idea.\n\nThe memory used by flash drives is kinda slow and crappy. It's chosen to be cheap, not fast. When you try to store something on a flash drive, the computer might be sneaky and tell you \"Ok, done!\" before it's really done.\n\nReally, it's still slowly writing that data to the drive in the background while you do something else.\n\nThe problem is that if you yank the flash drive out before the computer has finished doing its sneaky background writing, well, now it suddenly doesn't have anywhere to write that data and *poof* you get corruption.\n\nThis is write caching, and it's a trade-off of safety in exchange for performance. I believe that Windows 7 (possibly Vista, too) disable this behaviour by default in favour of writing data out immediately.",
"You dont *have* to eject flash drives on computers. \n\n\nThere are two settings you can get for your usb drive when using them with computers (win xp/Vista/Win 7 at least). \n\n\nWrite caching - makes access to the drive slightly faster by queuing up the data it has to write to the drive and does this in the background even when the coyp/move dialog has gone. this setting requires you to \"safely remove\" the drive through the settings dialogs, this tells windows that it should finish all its write operations because the user wants to remove the drive. \n\nRemovable mode - ( thats probably not the right name for it) - this trades of some speed of the drive for the ability to remove it at a moments notice without having to safely remove it. This is done by telling windows to immediatly write any data during a copy/move. \n\n"
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1ds247 | why do car batteries need water in them? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1ds247/why_do_car_batteries_need_water_in_them/ | {
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"The chemical reaction that releases electrons in a car battery is:\n\n > Pb(s) + HSO4^- (aq) → PbSO4(s) + H^+ (aq) + 2e^-\n\nThis uses sulfuric acid, which is extremely hygroscopic, ie. hard to separate from water. It's also dangerous when undiluted. \n\nThe chemical reaction that accepts electrons in a car battery:\n\n > PbO2(s) + HSO4^- (aq) + 3H^+ (aq) + 2e^- → PbSO4(s) + 2H2O(l)\n\nThis releases water. If you want to recharge a car battery, the reaction goes backwards and consumes water instead. If some has evaporated, you have to add more."
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277io7 | what prevents digital banks / payment solutions like paypal to create money by adding few zeros to someone's account. | Or, in a total hypothetical situation, me, if I create my own payment solution / wallet and add some zeros to my own account and then send those "money" elsewhere.
Edit: ty, answered. D'oh. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/277io7/eli5_what_prevents_digital_banks_payment/ | {
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"Because when someone transfers that money to a bank account, you'll have to pay them.\n\nSee, by adding zeros, they aren't creating money -- they're creating more debt for themselves.",
"When that person withdraws their new balance, its coming out of your company's account",
"Though the answers you've received are correct, your basic question remains valid:\n\n*If* the underlying medium of exchange is entirely non-tangible, then yes, whoever controls it could effectively invent money that way.\n\nIt's just that in our current system, the underlying medium of exchange is dollars, managed by the Federal Government, who aren't going to do that.\n\nPayPal's accounts, being denominated in dollars, have to be backed up by PayPal's own dollar-based assets at a real bank. That bank may indeed (and probably does) maintain PayPal's account as a purely digital record in their databases. But again, that account has to be backed up by the bank's dollar-based assets at whatever institution manages their money. Ultimately, you follow the chain back to a federal reserve bank, leading back to the government.\n\nSo in theory, there can't be more dollars in all the bank accounts in all the world than the total dollars ever issued by the Fed.\n\nBut let's say you could call up the Federal Reserve and say \"Hi. I'm Norci, and I'd like to open an account with you.\" And let's say you had a friend in the Fed's IT department. That friend could effectively create money by add some zeroes for you, and unless someone ever tried to balance all the books, nobody would ever know."
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dr6wt0 | considering millions of men have been sent to war (and their death) throughout the ages, how is it that the ratio of men to women in the world's population still about half? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/dr6wt0/eli5_considering_millions_of_men_have_been_sent/ | {
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"kids have a 50/50 chance of being born male, so even if the worlds population of men gets nuked after impregnating their wives, there’s a chance that the next generation could be entirely male.\nIn short, male mortality rate and male birthrate are not correlated in anyway.",
"The ratio of men to women will always correct to roughly 50% after a couple generations. This is because no matter what happens the sex of any given child is going to be a 50% chance. So in a situation that a women survives and her husband dies young, give it a couple decades and she will die too. Leaving only her children which will of course be a 50/50 split.",
"The ratio actually does dip during really big wars, but in general the number of men dying at war is relatively insignificant compared to other confounding factors. Not to mention, there *are* more women than men on Earth, in part due to violence-related death.",
"A bunch of men dying will have an impact on the population ratio but only for that generation. The amount of women and men leftover does not affect the chance of a child being born Male or female. So regardless of the ratio of the current generation, the next generation will always be 50/50. Over time there is no trend towards one or the other, in fact it's the opposite. As the impacted generation grows older, individuals die and the ratio moves back towards 50/50.\n\nA good example recently is China's one child policy. Chinese culture values Male children to pass on the family name. So instilling a one child policy led to a significant rise in abortions of female babies, causing an imbalance to be created in their Male to female ratio. Currently there are about 35 million more men than would have occurred naturally, and it'll take generations to fix.",
"There is also a phenomenon called the return of the warrior, many hospitals witnessed an increase of male newborns during and after war."
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1qq8j7 | am i left or right handed | I write, throw balls, use rackets (tennis), and punch right handed. I eat, bat, use sticks (Hockey and such) left handed. I feel stronger with my right arm but my left arm looks bigger in the mirror. As well, I'm in construction and can do many things either way. I frequently change arms when painting, drywall taping, and many other things. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1qq8j7/eli5_am_i_left_or_right_handed/ | {
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"For the purposes of most things, you are right handed.\n\nWriting is the standard. However, you are very close to ambidextrous. You are probably part of the population that is born without an inherent preference and just \"picked\" over time.",
"You are NOT ambidextrous by [definition](_URL_0_) it means that you are EQUAL with both hands. I am similar to you, since I eat and write and do a bit more with my left hand I consider myself to be left handed. Honestly just take your pick.",
"People are incorrectly saying you're ambidextrous. This is due to a common misunderstanding about what ambidextrous actually means. A truly ambidextrous person will be equally proficient in all tasks with both hands, this is really rare. What you're describing is \"mixed handedness\", and it's quite common. Basically, for some tasks you use one hand over the other. That you use both hands/arms in your work does raise the question a bit, but I'd suggest that its because those tasks don't require as much fine motor skill as writing, so you simply swap arms when one begins to get tired.\n\n[This](_URL_0_) wikipedia article on cross-dominance explains the distinction a bit more clearly. If you're interested in what category you fall into, try looking up the \"Edinburgh Handedness Inventory\", it's the most common test for handedness as it assesses multiple tasks."
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apmywv | what exactly is in blood and how come some animals are able to survive without it? | Additional question: Why do some animals have different coloured blood? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/apmywv/eli5_what_exactly_is_in_blood_and_how_come_some/ | {
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"Very, very few complex animals do not have circulation. Flatworms, nematodes, jellyfish, sea anemones, and corals are among the species that do not have a circulatory system and thus do not have blood. Their body cavity has no lining or fluid within it. They obtain nutrients and oxygen directly from the environment that they live in.\n\nThe only non-red blood animal I know of is the octopus. Octopus blood is blue because it contains a protein called Harmocyanin. This compares to Hemoglobin in mammals, which is the \"red\" part of mammal blood. (The color actually depends on the amount of oxygen in the blood, but that's a different question.)"
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4f38fd | why does it get harder to breathe when running, even if i try to control my breaths? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4f38fd/eli5_why_does_it_get_harder_to_breathe_when/ | {
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"Every cell in your body needs oxygen in order to properly function, and that includes organs like your heart and lungs.\n\nAs you run, you start burning reserve energy in not only your muscles but your heart and lungs too. As that energy is depleted, both your muscles and your heart and lungs will need oxygen to make more energy. This results in things like increased blood pressure, increased heart rate, and increased breathing rate.\n\nIn effect, your organs get \"tired\" and with that comes difficulty to maintain a steady breathing rate.",
" * Lungs extract oxygen from the air and stick it in your blood.\n\n * Your blood circulates the body and sticks the oxygen in the cells that make up your body.\n\n * The cells of your muscles quickly use up that oxygen during aerobic exercise such as sprinting and new oxygen can't get in fast enough-- this is why your heart rate rises, to get the oxygen around your body quicker.\n\n * Now, as there's no oxygen in your muscles, but they still need to contract and put out power, they switch to anaerobic respiration, which can still produce energy in the absence of oxygen.\n\n * Anaerobic respiration breaks down glucose to produce energy, but produces lactic acid as a side effect, which causes muscle fatigue.",
"Can you explain what you mean by \"harder to breathe \"?",
"Sitting still, you might burn 100 calories an hour. Each of those calories needs a little bit of oxygen, and your normal, relaxed breathing rate can supply it.\n\nWhen you exert yourself, like when you run, you might burn 1000 calories an hour. Each of those calories requires they same amount as before, but now here are a whole lot more of them. Your body demands 10x the oxygen, which means breathing a whole lot harder."
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4ne8ii | i have a question about schizophrenia and alien hand syndrome. its a little long so see inside please | So the idea behind alien hand syndrome is that one side of the brain is somewhat conscious and learns to just be along for the ride, but a brain injury or something happens and then that side gets some freedom. My thought was that maybe people who are schizophrenic / hear voices / have intrusive thoughts have a similar problem. That hemisphere of their brain got some freedom and is now vocalizing itself to the more dominant side of the brain. I'm sure it has been thought of before but I googled to no avail. I'm honestly curious about this stuff. Could someone explain to me why im wrong? Because it sounds kind of plausible. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4ne8ii/eli5_i_have_a_question_about_schizophrenia_and/ | {
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" > So the idea behind alien hand syndrome is that one side of the brain is somewhat conscious and learns to just be along for the ride, but a brain injury or something happens and then that side gets some freedom.\n\nNot quite. Alien hand syndrome happens when the two hemispheres of your brain become disconnected from each other so that they can no longer communicate or pass signals directly between them. Your brain always has multiple parts working together, but when one part can't communicate with the other parts, and when the \"other parts\" includes the part of your brain that allows you to be aware, then you become unable to be aware of the separated part of your brain, and so it can take actions that seem \"alien\" to you. But only because you no longer automatically know what that part of your brain is doing.\n\n > That hemisphere of their brain got some freedom and is now vocalizing itself to the more dominant side of the brain.\n\nExcept for alien hand syndrome to happen, the exact *opposite* has to occur, with the \"alien\" part of your brain being unable to communicate with the rest of the brain.\n\nPlus, there are specific parts of the brain that deal with language, so it's not like any random part of the brain can learn to \"vocalize\". That's just not how brains work."
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4uzlkb | how does the rendering process works in videos? | I use Adobe Premiere Pro and I don't have a clue how that rendering process works. (mostly using H.264 here)
I mean the specific process where the whole composition is rendered in one video. When I just put one video, which will be on youtube as 340p and render it as 4k or smth, it's on 1080p (or higher) on youtube. So how does this process work? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4uzlkb/eli5how_does_the_rendering_process_works_in_videos/ | {
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"\"Rendering\" is just a name for the process of assembling a video in to its final form: all the edits, effects etc. are \"written\" out to a file in the way you specify in APP. \n\nThe rest of your question is about video resolutions, which is a different problem. The rule to remember is to start with the highest possible quality, because losing quality is easy but getting it back is hard. So you would e.g. render to 4k and upload that to YouTube, and let YouTube do the downsizing to smaller resolutions - which is easy for them. "
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d9kul1 | what are the dual "inner rail tracks"? | Sometimes, especially on bridges and in tunnels, railroad tracks have a pair of inner tracks. They don't seem to connect to anything in any obvious way. What's their purpose?
_URL_0_ | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/d9kul1/eli5_what_are_the_dual_inner_rail_tracks/ | {
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"There are there in case of derailment to catch the wheels and stop or reduce the movement of the train sideways.\n\nIf you look at you images and the wheel closer to you would jump the track the wheel on the other side would hit the track in the middle and hopefully stop the sideways motion towards you."
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2xec5z | how does cold weather cause my tires to lose air? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2xec5z/eli5_how_does_cold_weather_cause_my_tires_to_lose/ | {
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"The air is still there... it is just taking up less space because the cold air has caused that air to 'shrink'. Your tire still has the same number of oxygen, CO2, nitrogen, water, etc molecules in it, they are just clumped closer together, which reduces the pressure in your tire."
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rh8mf | montessori method | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/rh8mf/eli5_montessori_method/ | {
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"Teaching complicated concepts in a hands-on method. Examples: using beads and blocks to explain how the number system works, using color association to help children remember continents, having kids use a spoon to move small items from one bowl to another to improve fine motor skills. \n\nI went to a Montessori preschool and years later, I was still able to remember how the 1s beads were red in color and lots of other things. My mom has been a Montessori teacher for 5 years now."
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o0rcm | israel and palestine, specifically why israel's "settlements" aren't called "colonies" | Basically I've been reading up on this whole situation and it appears that Israel is a colonial power just like England was to the United States a few hundred years ago... Why are the Palestinians treated as a lesser people in the UN? and, Why does the US, which the media portrays as having most of the power to illicit change in the situation, not trying to help the Palestian people? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/o0rcm/eli5_israel_and_palestine_specifically_why/ | {
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" > Why are the Palestinians treated as a lesser people in the UN? \n\nThe short answer is because they are essentially a stateless people. It could in some ways be compared to Romani (Gypsies) who, as they have no country to be a part of the United *Nations* are also under represented.\n\nThe real question is why did Israel end up a state and not Palestine. The most concise answer to this question is that the UN granted Israel statehood, and it became a state on borders that were influenced by the Partition Plan. The territories that didn't become Israel, instead of becoming Palestine, became parts of the neighboring Arab states. In this way the Palestinians did not get a state when the region became decolonized, and essentially it is something that is still trying to be rectified.\n\n > Why does the US not try to help the Palestian people?\n\nThis may sound cynical but no country in the world is truly altruistic and the U.S. is no exception. The U.S. sees strategic value in its relationship with Israel and isn't willing to jeopardize that. Right now the government of Israel is rightist so the U.S. can't take a hard line against human rights violations without alienating what they consider to be a key ally in the region. The U.S. has supported all sorts of unsavory states over the years in order to maintain influence, in this sense Israel is really not unique. \n\nThe other reason that the U.S. doesn't take a hard stance against Israel is the presence of a large number of people that live in the U.S., both Jewish and Christian, care a whole lot about Israel and are really offended when people criticize it. This, plus the fact that they are very vocal about their opinions.\n\n > why Israel's \"settlements\" aren't called \"colonies\"\n\nBasically Israel doesn't want to incorporate all of the territory it administers into its actual country for a variety of reasons. The word colony implies that it is a part of the mother country in a more complete and permanent sense. One could make a case for calling the entirety of the occupied territories a colony, but it doesn't really make sense to call just the settler communities colonies. They aren't regions of the occupied territories that are under substantially more Israeli control so much as they are areas where some Israelis have decided to live."
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7n82bq | the protesting in iran, what is it over? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/7n82bq/eli5_the_protesting_in_iran_what_is_it_over/ | {
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"*This is based on a limited amount of information on the subject and while it is based on reputable sources, I may have overlooked or missed some information. If you see something wrong or in need of an update, please reply and I will edit my post after confirming.*\n\nThe starting point seems to have been falling living standards, or at least that is being cited, but the protests quickly spread and became more and more political, calling for an end to the theocratic system. This has, understandably, pissed off a lot of people, mostly the IRGC, the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps, a militia organization dedicated to retaining the Islamic order in Iran, who have threatened use of force against protesters. There have been some casualties in the last 24 hours, but the cause is unclear, as protesters claim security troops opened fire, and security troops blame protesters and foreign agents.\n\nIn further concerning information, about 7 hours ago large numbers of unidentified aircraft were seen leaving Iran, some of these having seemingly disappeared from radar since while others have continued towards Azerbaijan and Armenia, and yet others have landed in various airports around Iran. It is currently unclear if these are flights seeking refuge, fleeing leaders or IRGC troop movements, potentially all of those. A video allegedly showing Iranian troops moving towards Mashhad, transporting what appears to be S-300 SAM systems, surfaced yesterday, but its authenticity hasn't been confirmed, nor how it would connect to the events.\n\nAs for expected results, it will depend on how much popular support the protests really have. If IRGC starts a proper crack-down, that could be the tipping point that either leads into an open revolt or into the protests being suppressed. The protests are the biggest since 2009, which is saying something about the intensity. POTUS has issued a statement calling for Iran to oust current leadership, so at least they likely believe something will come out of these protests.\n\nBased on a source living in the country: Things have been awry for a while now. This issue started months ago due to jobs getting scarcer and scarcer, and the protests and riots are mostly poor people. Seems like the issue has been brewing for several months at the very least, and has now reached boiling point. Things are getting serious, but there is no indication yet of where this will lead.\n\n**Following several hours of rumours and a denial by the protocol office, Fars has now stated the Iranian president will release a pre-recorded message, assumed to do with the protests. As of now, the president's office hasn't confirmed this. Potentially tonight, although no times have been given yet. ISNA has said president Rouhani will address the nation on Sunday evening. No official confirmation. \n\nIranian authorities are reported to have blocked access to Telegram messaging service after anti-government accounts were not locked down despite Iranian demands. Iran has also blocked Instagram to \"maintain peace\". Both of these reports come from Iranian State TV, so personally I believe them to be credible.**\n\nEdit: Almost forgot the expected results. Added that.\nEdit 2: Got in touch with a friend living in the country. Updated with their views. Bolding the latest update, so if you're checking back, it's easy to find.\nEdit 3 (15:10 UTC): Updated to reflect developments of the past few hours. Will continue to observe and update. ",
"From what I read, the protests are generally about high unemployment, rising prices for food and government corruption. There wasn't a specific spark that started the protests.\n\nThey have been in the making for quite some time. The Iranian economy has been struggling, social inequality is rising, women demand equal rights, the government is quite corrupt, etc. Usual issues to spark protests.\n\nThe Iranians are particularly upset now because they had hoped for a better future after the Iran Nuclear Deal. It was promised that billions of frozen assets would pour into the Iranian economy. So far it seems like only little has actually reached the Iranian people.\n\nWhat will happen?\nThe protests seem to be a civil rights movement, not a revolution. They will probably be calmed by promises and measures to lower prices, grant more civil rights, and take measure against corruption. If the people protesting trust that, time will tell.\n\nThe other possibility would be a brutal suppression which could either succeed or trigger a revolutionary movement. I don't think this is likely, though.\n\n"
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4arjkh | why does the same bottle of iced tea sometimes taste bitter and sometimes taste sweet? | I usually drink a bottle of sweetened iced tea in the morning over the period of a couple hours. Sometimes it tastes bitter, and then an hour or so later it tastes sweet. Why does this happen despite me not eating or drinking anything between sips? If nothing in my mouth changes, why do I percieve the tea to taste differently? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4arjkh/eli5_why_does_the_same_bottle_of_iced_tea/ | {
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"Depends on how long the sweetener has been settling. Shake your drink every time before you take a swig and it should be consistent. "
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] |
|
ffapm9 | how does a bot on this website scan all comments continuously for keywords to find relevant comments to reply to? | [deleted] | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/ffapm9/eli5_how_does_a_bot_on_this_website_scan_all/ | {
"a_id": [
"fjx9q5s"
],
"score": [
9
],
"text": [
"Using reddit's API. See this link: _URL_0_\n\nIt contains the latest comments (which you can see when you go to _URL_1_) in a format that is compact and easily parsable by a computer program. Each entry in this page contains the actual content of the comment and various metadata, including when the comment was posted, who posted it, the original link to the comment, the comment and post's unique identifiers, and such. The bot can use the IDs to post a reply to the comment (again using the reddit API)."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[
"https://api.reddit.com/r/all/comments/",
"https://www.reddit.com/r/all/comments/"
]
] |
|
fq91dc | how come we can see the sun for the first couple minutes after it rises without it being so bright? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/fq91dc/eli5_how_come_we_can_see_the_sun_for_the_first/ | {
"a_id": [
"flp85ya"
],
"score": [
14
],
"text": [
"Because of the Earths curvature (come at me flat-earthers), the sunlight goes through dozens of miles of atmosphere, being dispersed and reflected, when it's lower on the horizon vs when it's high up (only about 2 miles.)\n\n & #x200B;\n\nEdit: Graph giving a general idea of how this is works\n\n[_URL_0_](_URL_0_)"
]
} | [] | [] | [
[
"https://i.stack.imgur.com/wl1Z4.png"
]
] |
||
jjbkz | what is the reason for the statute of limitations ? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/jjbkz/elif_what_is_the_reason_for_the_statute_of/ | {
"a_id": [
"c2cl703",
"c2cmlit",
"c2cmwoi",
"c2cl703",
"c2cmlit",
"c2cmwoi"
],
"score": [
77,
5,
27,
77,
5,
27
],
"text": [
"You have a right to a fair trial. If the government comes to you and states that 25 years ago you stole a TV because you still have that TV in your home, it is unlikely that you still have the receipt to prove that you purchased that TV. \n\nAt some point the ability to prove you did something or provide evidence that you did not do something is so hard it is not worth it for a lawsuit. Witnesses move and memories either fade or get mixed up.\nThe statute of limitations allows life to go on without needing you to hoard receipts and worry about maintaining permanent alibis.\n\nHowever some crimes, like murder do not have a statute of limitations because no matter the inconvenience of tracking down evidence, society has decided that a criminal must be punished for certain crimes.",
"To extend the question, for what notable crimes is there a statute of limitations? For what notable crimes is there NO statue of limitations?",
"Like you're five:\n\nTimmy tells your teacher that you hit him on the playground yesterday, and he has a scar above his eye to prove it. Your teacher asks Bobby and Susie if they saw you hit him, they said that you didn't hit him, he got the scar from falling off of the swingset. So the teacher doesn't believe Timmy, and you don't get in trouble.\n\nNow let's say that you're in 3rd grade. Timmy tells your teacher that you hit him on the playground back when you were in Kindergarten, and he still has a scar above his eye to prove it. You know you didn't do it, but Susie moved to another school, and Bobby doesn't remember how Timmy got that scar, but he remembers you yelling at him one time. So the teacher believes Timmy, and gives you a detention.\n\nIf there was a statute of limitations on hitting people, you wouldn't have been punished in third grade. Timmy had plenty of time to accuse you of doing something, and it's not fair that you should have to keep reminding other people that you didn't hit him for the rest of your life.",
"You have a right to a fair trial. If the government comes to you and states that 25 years ago you stole a TV because you still have that TV in your home, it is unlikely that you still have the receipt to prove that you purchased that TV. \n\nAt some point the ability to prove you did something or provide evidence that you did not do something is so hard it is not worth it for a lawsuit. Witnesses move and memories either fade or get mixed up.\nThe statute of limitations allows life to go on without needing you to hoard receipts and worry about maintaining permanent alibis.\n\nHowever some crimes, like murder do not have a statute of limitations because no matter the inconvenience of tracking down evidence, society has decided that a criminal must be punished for certain crimes.",
"To extend the question, for what notable crimes is there a statute of limitations? For what notable crimes is there NO statue of limitations?",
"Like you're five:\n\nTimmy tells your teacher that you hit him on the playground yesterday, and he has a scar above his eye to prove it. Your teacher asks Bobby and Susie if they saw you hit him, they said that you didn't hit him, he got the scar from falling off of the swingset. So the teacher doesn't believe Timmy, and you don't get in trouble.\n\nNow let's say that you're in 3rd grade. Timmy tells your teacher that you hit him on the playground back when you were in Kindergarten, and he still has a scar above his eye to prove it. You know you didn't do it, but Susie moved to another school, and Bobby doesn't remember how Timmy got that scar, but he remembers you yelling at him one time. So the teacher believes Timmy, and gives you a detention.\n\nIf there was a statute of limitations on hitting people, you wouldn't have been punished in third grade. Timmy had plenty of time to accuse you of doing something, and it's not fair that you should have to keep reminding other people that you didn't hit him for the rest of your life."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[]
] |
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