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3ia2xh | if we have enough grain and milk sitting in silos around the usa to feed the world why do we give farmers subsidizes to burn it instead of using that money to give it away? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3ia2xh/eli5_if_we_have_enough_grain_and_milk_sitting_in/ | {
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"To stabilize the price. Too much supply will result in price drop which will drive lot of farms out of business which will decrease the supply and cause price spike. \n\nWe are doing this to stop volatility in prices. ",
"Short answer is time and money.\n\nMilk goes bad relatively quickly, and it would be ludicrously expensive to ship it around the world. The people who don't get milk don't get it because *they can't afford it.* Yes, it would be nice if we could just ship it off to anyone who needs it, but who would foot the bill?\n\nGrain is the same, though time is less of an issue, as it doesn't spoil as fast as milk. Money still is the reason that we don't just give it away. It's cheaper to burn the excess than it would be to ship it around the world.",
"Unless I missed something, I don't think they really do that anymore. I know they used to, but there are better ways to do it.\n\nAnyway, the reasons are:\n\n1. Price stabilization. Most foodstuffs are fungible--that is, it's a commodity. It doesn't matter if the grain is grown cheaply in Iowa or wastefully in Alaska, grain is grain. As such, it doesn't matter what a farmer does, how efficient he is, or how wonderful his practices are, at the end of the day the price he gets is the same price everyone else gets. If *everyone* has a bumper crop in a year, *no one* gets all that much money, and it's entirely possible for everyone to go broke at once. Stabilization helps. \n\n2. We *do* ship a lot of food to other starving nations, and we also have many government programs that help feed our own people. The problem, at least with shipping it overseas, is that we risk destroying their own agricultural system. How could a country ever get on its feet if the US just dumps free grain on it every year? \n\n3. Generally speaking, though, we really *don't* burn/waste food much anymore. Farmers have gotten prety good at limiting their own production, or--more likely--converting production to different crops. (I.e. 10 fields of corn in a year where corn is in need, and then switching to 6 corn/2 soybean/2 wheat to match the market needs.) Various co-ops, government programs, crop insurance, and the like all do a lot better of a job of managing food supplies than dumping it.\n\nAgroeconomics is actually pretty complicated, and the reasons rarely boil down to greedy capitalism. ",
"We do not burn grain and dump milk to the river anymore. We pay them to not produce it. We used to have a domestic aid program that used the surplus to feed poor-poorish Americans. I remember eating government cheese, peanut butter and such. It wasn't a bad way to stabilize prices. "
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1qpfiw | why did nature make us intelligent instead of strong? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1qpfiw/eli5_why_did_nature_make_us_intelligent_instead/ | {
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"More efficient I guess. Work smart, not hard.",
"We are actually quite large and strong. We are not as strong as some other primates, but we have a lot more stamina, and we can run farther (although not faster) than just about any land animal in existence. While we lack the innate weapons of other large predators, we can still kill many smaller animals with our bare hands or with extremely simple tools.\n\nThe theories behind the evolution of intelligence are varied. One idea is that at some point intelligence became sexually attractive and so increased over time. A similar theory states that intelligence was used to succeed in complex social environments, and so more intelligent individuals would have more progeny.\n\nSo, to answer your question, we are reasonably strong and have incredible stamina and intelligence. Some scientists have proposed that the shift from strength to stamina (relative to other large primates) occurred when our primate ancestors left the forest and began living in grassland environments.\n\n",
"Nature didn't make us intelligent nor strong. Humans that weren't intelligent enough were just killed off over time.\n\nCompared to many predators you see around today, humans aren't very big. Even the strongest human by today's standards would have difficulty wrestling a bear or tiger. Imagine that, a long time ago, humans were smaller and predators were larger.\n\nHumans relied on cooperation and tools to survive. Strength was great, but if you couldn't function with a group, you got killed. Intelligence was encouraged. Later, the invention of agriculture, permanent settlements, and specialization of roles led to humans thriving.\n\nStrength was still useful, however. Strong hunters and farmers did much better than their weaker counterparts. However, as a whole, natural selection tended to kill off the human populations that weren't intelligent enough to gather food efficiently, ward off predators, and ward off other tribes of humans.",
"I don't agree that we're intelligent *instead of* strong. We're stronger than a lot of animals *and* smarter than they are. ",
"My try:\n\nImagine a lake in the nile delta. Loads of buffalos are there and want to drink from the lake because it is the only one around. One of them, lets call him Waldo, aproaches the lake. He does not mind, settles down and slurps loads of water and is relieved. Suddenly Waldo is hearing a sound. In the next moment he finds himself in the water . A crocodile dragged him in (Waldo is no more at this point). \nThe other buffalos look at Waldo and see that he is in danger. Now they could assume that they are in danger too but they are not smart. \n\nThey are a huge herd, aproximatly 1000 animals. Meaning that when there are 20 crocodiles in there every croc gets with absolute possibility a buffalo and eats him. So the buffalos have still 980 individuals in their herd minus Waldo. Because the animals get more kids than they are dying they have a positive balance of their population. \n\nNow imagine Waldo's friend Peter, who is a *homo erectus* (our ancestor), living with his family and friends approaching the same situation. Peter is sad that Waldo died. Peter is smarter than Waldo so he knows the danger of the scene. So he thinks: \n\"how do i get to drink some of the water without finding myself in the stomach of the reptiles?\" \n\nBecause the crocodiles are dumb like the buffalos they do not think of strategical hunting methods. Peter now could use buckets or dig a well... you get the idea\n\nBecause it was easier to become intelligent than to become stronger, because of the evolutional competition (look up ecological niche) we are intelligent. Why would we fight with crocodiles for some water? We just could trick them or evade aggression. \n\nToday we are at the point where we shape the environment in our will. We use giant excavators instead of shovels to increase our efficiency. Before that we got shaped by our environment. But do not assume that evolution stands still. That is not the case. \n\nAsk if you do not understand. I am not a native speaker.\n\nRIP Waldo 15.11.2013",
"Strong animals would similarly ask \"why did nature make me strong?\" ... but they are not intelligent enough to introspect in such a way and post it on the internet.",
"Hmm. I admittedly haven't researched this a whole lot, and other people have certainly covered facets of this issue better than I could have.\nHowever, my cultural anthropology professor provided me with a very simple explanation (of course biased towards culture) that made a lot of sense to me.\n\nThe one thing that is constant when you're studying evolution is that change happens. That's the constant theme throughout. This means that when a species adapts too well to its environment, and that environment changes (which it will, eventually), that species is either going to decline, die out, or change (if it can within the time frame necessary for survival). Relatively speaking, humans are not very PHYSICALLY well adapted to any specific environment. We don't have very good claws, we can't run very fast, we're not particularly strong (compared to other animals; this is all relative of course but just speaking generally). So the adaptation that humans and hominids developed is culture. Our culture, or 'intelligence', allows us to create clothing for warmth, and fire for warmth and cooking, and build shelters when we cannot withstand the environment as it changes. Culture is a mental adaptation that can change with the environment, and that could be why humans have been such 'successful' animals. Our adaptation is mental, not physical, and therefore it can change in many more ways, a lot faster, than physical traits could, which could help explain why that particular adaptation has worked so well for us compared to a physical adaptation like 'strength'.\n\nAs other comments have stated, there's no real way to 'know', but I found that explanation to be, if nothing else, really interesting to think about!"
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57mpde | when i'm watching satellite tv, is the satellite transmitting all the channels at once for my receiver to pick one or is my receiver requesting a channel to the satellite? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/57mpde/eli5_when_im_watching_satellite_tv_is_the/ | {
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"The satellite transmits everything. Your home equipment certainly doesn't have any way to communicate with a satellite. \n\nYou tune to a frequency similar to regular broadcast. That tuning determines what information received from the satellite actually displays. ",
"The satellite broadcasts all the signals at once; your receiver tunes in to the one that you have requested.\n\nThe clue is actually in the name -- \"satellite **receiver**\". It isn't nearly powerful enough to transmit back to the satellite, you'd need a much larger dish for that. What's more the satellite isn't just sending the signal direct to your dish alone, it's sending it over thousands of square miles, so it has to be a wideband broadcast.",
"They broadcast from a few satellites on horizontal and vertical polarity. Your dish selects which satellite and polarity, but it still **receives many channels at once**. \n\nThe signal going from the dish to the receiver has many radio carriers, and the receiver has to tune to the desired one. Further, within each carrier there are multiple digital streams, each representing one channel. \n\nThey have video on demand as well, but that uses an internet connection."
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3u350z | why do first nations / native people in canada continue to live on reservations where they have poor housing, below par schools and medical access, few jobs, poor quality of life and limited prospects for their children? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3u350z/eli5_why_do_first_nations_native_people_in_canada/ | {
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"Partly culture but mainly land claims. If they all abandoned their reserves it'd be harder for them to claim their treaty rights on the land.\n\nI think this duality inside Canada is a shame though. It's basically apartheid. They live in squalor because of how remote they are but they can't really relocate because of costs (and social issues that prevent them from having paying jobs/money) and land claims. \n\nIt'd be nicer to declare reserves as undeveloped (or less invasively developed) national parks (e.g. prevent destruction of wildlife) and then just make them all part of Canada proper (e.g. natives don't have to hold their flag post anymore)"
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66owsa | what's causing the very high pitched engine noise and bangs usually rally cars produce? | I come across videos of Rally cars, and played Dirt Rally, and in almost every documentation I see Rally cars have a different, high pitch and powerful sound, accompanied by loud bangs. What's happening? different engines or engine enhancments? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/66owsa/eli5_whats_causing_the_very_high_pitched_engine/ | {
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"The high pitched noise is the turbo (basically a vacuum cleaner to suck more air into the motor).\n\nThe bangs are excess gas/air igniting in the exhaust when they let off the gas, because when you are sucking that much air & gas through the motor, it can't stop following instantly when you lift off the accelerator.",
"No sound deadening, long travel heavy duty suspension, and rough terrain all add up to lots of noises you won't hear from circuit racing cars. Also all the components are much more sturdy to handle the punishment of rallying, which leads to a much more heavy handed driving style.",
"Straight cut gears (used because stronger than the quieter helical cut gears used in most road cars)will whine\" at higher road speeds.\nA blow off valve or BOV will vent excess turbo boost pressure when the throttle is closed, this generally produces a high pitched \"squeak\"\nAn anti lag system will delay the ignition after the throttle is closed so that the fuel/air mix is still burning when it enters the exhaust manifold so keeps the turbine spinning so full boost can be made sooner when the throttle is opened again. This makes the loud pops and bangs. Also massively shortens turbo life to around 1000km.",
"I've been a gearhead all my life and a huge rally fan (I sadly live in America where it's hard to partake in anything not football or nascar). I worked on Blackhawks in the army and have been around card ALL of my life... That said I still learned a lot from the responses! "
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5kij60 | why do pets play with/are scared of their own tails? do they not know they're their own? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5kij60/eli5_why_do_pets_play_withare_scared_of_their_own/ | {
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"Young dogs and cats do it because it's fun. They like having fun just like we do. Slightly older pets might do it to get attention from humans since we tend to find the spectacle to be hilarious. If you have an elderly pet chasing their tail regularly, you might want to consider taking them to a vet because it might be indicative of another problem."
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69y5jv | how to choose delicious watermelon? | Hi,guys. Hot summer is around corner. Does anyone know how to choose delicious watermelon by its appearance or something else? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/69y5jv/eli5_how_to_choose_delicious_watermelon/ | {
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"Weight and sound. The heaviest one per size means that they have more water, and usually more sweetness. When you tap on the watermelon it should be more of a dull/muffled thud rather than a higher pitched sound."
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2bngzw | why am i so tired after flying, or other times where i sit all day? | I have been on airplanes most of the day today, but I feel extremely tired. Why is it I feel tired after sitting most of the day, not using as much energy as normal? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2bngzw/eli5_why_am_i_so_tired_after_flying_or_other/ | {
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"I know that, for me, I feel tired when I get off a plane because I just spent the past few hours scrunching in my shoulders and arms and keeping my legs together in order to not encroach on the space of the person sitting next to me. If I were sitting in a regular chair at my office for the same duration of time, I would be able to have a much more relaxed posture. Airplane seats just aren't made for a taller person with broad shoulders, but I'd rather inconvenience myself than get in someone else's space. ",
"Are you staying hydrated? I flew approximately 226,000 miles in the past year and realized staying alert afterward was a matter of hydration many times. \n\nEven then, I always try to be productive on flights because I know that sometimes my body will just want to crash when I get to my destination. ",
"I think it's a combination of:\n\n- Jet lag: East/West travel through time zones put the circadian rhythm out of sync. This causes things like hormonal imbalance and fatigue.\n\n- Dehydration: You may not be aware of how little food and drink you've had throughout your travel as you don't do much physical activity. This causes things such as dizziness, headaches, loss of appetite, tiredness, confusion, and irritability.\n\n- Dry Environment: The air you breathe in an airliner was heated from -30 Celsius to room temp with the engines, so most of the humidity is gone. Staying in this very dry environment is what causes the plane to feel \"stuffy\". This also dehydrates you slightly quicker.\n\n- Low air pressure: Airliners are usually pressurized to the equivalent of 8000 ft above sea level, which means you receive much less oxygen per breath. This causes light headedness, tingling, fatigue, loss of appetite, and nausea.\n\n- Unergonomic Posture: Sitting upright for long periods at a time with very limited exercise is a recipe for aches, pains, and fatigue.\n\nEdit spelling.",
"Being a bird is a rough time. We all have to play with the hand we are dealt. "
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44d4fw | is the human immune system "stronger" now than it was 1000+ years ago? (not including knowledge of simple things like hand washing, etc.) | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/44d4fw/eli5_is_the_human_immune_system_stronger_now_than/ | {
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"Evolution does not change a lot in a thousand years. There is a dance between infectious diseases and their hosts. A really deadly disease kills the host and therefore itself.\n\nWe have found antibiotics that work for a while.\n\nLet me relate a story about malaria.\n\nMalaria is the number one killer of humans. It has done this for a long long time. There are specific malarias for all vertebrates. There are specific ones for humans, several species.\n\nHumans invented DDT. We thought we had malaria licked. DDT was used very widely. There was a dramatic fall in malaria cases for a while. Then DDT resistant mosquitoes developed. DDT not working. It also was doing widespread damage in the environment. It was banned.\n\nLater a new technique was developed. Spraying DDT on the inside of huts killed only the female mosquitoes which had fed on the blood of humans. Resistance would not become widespread. We thought we were winning.\nThe hut wall spraying campaign began. Hut wall spraying only killed mosquitoes on the walls of huts, and cats. The cat effect was noticed by villagers. They liked their cats. Cats kill rats and mice.\n\nDDT also kills wasps that live in huts preying on caterpillars living in the roofs of the huts. The wasps died. The caterpillars thrived. The roofs fell in.\n\nFinally it was noticed that female mosquitoes were no longer always stopping to rest on the walls of the huts. Instead they fly outside first. Evolution in action.\n\nNow bed nets education and permethrin seem the way to go. For now. \n\n",
"In such a short amount of time (evolutionary speaking) there would be almost no innate difference in \"strength\" - by which I assume you mean the ability to combat infection from bacteria, viruses, and parasites etc.\n\nImmune systems need training to get \"better\" or \"stronger\". So exposure is really the only way to improve your immune system. This is as true today as it was 1000 years ago.\n\nStarting from scratch (i.e. a totally new immune system), and given the same exposure to the same infectious agents - you should find no difference in the ability to combat the infection.\n\nThough if you had the ability to time travel - either person in this scenario would likely be doomed. Bring a person from 1000 years ago to today, or take a person today and drop them off somewhere 1000 years ago - and both people would have very poor immune systems in comparison to the native people of that time.\n\nThis is because neither person would have a \"trained\" immune system against anything they would encounter in this time (since bacteria evolves much faster than humans). Both people would likely get sick very quickly, if not outright die from the exposure.\n\nIn short - it's not about which point in time that makes a better immune system, it's about what the immune system is exposed to during that person's lifetime (assuming no other health issues)."
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wp74v | why people enjoy the bitter taste of alcohol | I've always found the taste of alcohol to be quite unpleasantly bitter. How do so many people find alcohol enjoyable at all? Milk, tea, soda, juice,... taste so much better, why aren't they more popular at parties and social events? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/wp74v/eli5_why_people_enjoy_the_bitter_taste_of_alcohol/ | {
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"You know how sometimes you prefer apple juice over orange juice? People also prefer some beers over others. The great thing about beer is that the flavors of it range so much. You can have a nice, smooth beer without any bitterness or you can get a really bitter beer depending on your tastes or the occasion. \n\nPlus, beer gets you drunk.",
"Even though alcohol isn't usually as pleasant to drink as soda and juice, drinking it usually makes people happier and more social. That's why people like to drink alcohol at parties and social events.\n\nAlso, having milk at a party would be a [poor choice](_URL_0_).",
"Depends what alcohol you drink. Some drinks are fruity and sweet. If you drink more expensive, refined spirits, they tend to be less unpleasant to taste.\n\nIf you're talking abour Beer, it can be quite bitter. Tastes do develop, and, frankly, there are some beers that are really tasty, enjoyable to drink for the taste, not the alcohol.\n\nSoft drinks are less popular because they don't get you drunk. Being a bit drunk can be fun. "
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fossrl | how does morse code work | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/fossrl/eli5_how_does_morse_code_work/ | {
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"With silences. A silence the duration of three dots separates between letters, while a silence with the duration of 7 dots separates between words.",
"Morse code comes from a time when we couldn't transmit voice or video over wired and wireless links yet.\n\nImagine having a radio where the only reliable sound you can make is a beep. So we invented a method of using different beeps to represent a message.\n\nMorse consists of 3 symbols.\n\nA dot or short beep\n\nA dash or a long beep\n\nAnd a space or silence\n\nEach letter and number is encoded using a series of these symbols separated by a space to represent the end of a word.\n\nInterestingly a lot of abbreviations we still use comes from Morse. Like MSG for Message, or OK for okay. This was to make it easier to transmit messages. So technically we've been using internet slang since the Morse days.\n\nThe most famous one of course being SOS (Save our Souls) which was used because SOS in Morse is ... - - - ... which was very easier to transmit and very noticeable.\n\nIf you've studied aviation at all you would know that all airports have a 3-digit designation like YYZ (Toronto) which also comes from the Morse days\n\nWhen you get good at it people can listen to morse and translate it live.\n\nThis is a live translator that you can input words and sentences and see what the output would sound like in Morse. You can hear the spaces.\n\n_URL_0_",
"Letters, words, and sentences were separated by increasing amounts of silence.\n\nAlso, telegraph operators would typically write the letters down as they arrived, and if something was unclear you could figure it out by context.",
"It's all about the timing. A dash has to be a certain length of time (something like the time of two dots, I think), and a break between letters is another certain length of time, and the break between a wordis a longer length of time.\n\nIt means that the system can transmit as fast or as slow as you like, because it's about the rhythm and spacing and consistency, rather than anything else. It also means that it's as simple as possible - you can transmit with a \"dot\" that you can only turn on/off once a second (e.g. a lightbulb that's slow to come on), or at 100WPM... so long as a dash is the same length of time as X amount of dots, and the breaks are the appropriate number of \"dot\" pauses.\n\nAnd you only need ONE signal - digital on or off. No guesswork, interpretation, etc. required."
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3ypvwa | who owns the land that roads are on? can you purchase that land? | All roads take up a little bit of land, usually a thin strip of land. Who owns that land? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3ypvwa/eli5_who_owns_the_land_that_roads_are_on_can_you/ | {
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"The exact arrangement varies by location. In some places, the land is owned by the adjacent landowners, but the city, county or state government has a right of way permitting it to build the road. This means that if it were ever stricken as a public road, it would revert ownership to the adjacent owners.\n\nIn other areas, the land is simply owned by the government, and it can use it as it likes. One side effect of this is that the air space above the road is government-owned, too, so you have to purchase permission if e.g. you want to build a walkway over the road."
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2rrqjr | the sports and competition seeding system for playoffs or things like octa/quarterfinals | Why are teams pitted against each other the way they are? Why does the first seed always compete against the last seed? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2rrqjr/eli5_the_sports_and_competition_seeding_system/ | {
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"In some activities this is called the \"power protect\" tournament system. It is to reward the players/teams/competitor with the best regular season or preliminary rounds performance. \n\nThis system is the most likely to produce the two best teams in the final round... Notice that the only way the #1 seed and the #2 seed will ever meet in this tournament will be in the finals because they have been 'protected' from playing each other.\n\n",
"It results in a more likely outcome of a final between the best teams. If you seeded 1st vs 2nd, 3rd vs 4th, etc, then you're guaranteed to knock out one of the top 2 teams in the first round."
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b5pk01 | what does a non compete clause stop workers from doing? | I've been hearing it more and more in movies recently. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/b5pk01/eli5_what_does_a_non_compete_clause_stop_workers/ | {
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"It means you can't go work for a competing company either durring employment and usually for a set period after you leave the company.",
"And it is not legal in many areas.",
"I'm a consultant. I signed a non-compete that prevents me from getting a job with any companies that are current clients of the firm I work for for 15 months. Generally I bill at a higher rate than even the fully burdened cost of a full time employee and that is to prevent companies from using the consulting firm as a headhunter then hiring good people out from under them. \n\n & #x200B;\n\nIn practice, ti actually happens all the time, but the non-compete gives the consulting firm the leverage to negotiate continued contracts or some kind of settlement for the loss of business. I've never seen anyone who really wants to leave get stopped, so in this case it's pretty amicable. (who wants employees that actively don't want to work for you?)",
"A noncompete clause says something like “if you leave our company, you can’t go work for competitors during a defined time period within a defined geographic radius.” The actual competitors will typically be listed, but they may also be described. \n\nThese may or may not be legally enforceable. This depends on a lot of factors, including your state law, your job duties, and how broad the agreement is. \n\nBut even if the noncompete clause *is* enforceable, it may or may not prevent you from working at a competitor. It’s more likely to require you to pay money damages for breaching the agreement. Those damages may be paid by your new employer if you agree with them to do that. ",
"You can’t work in a similar field for a set length of time. This used to be pretty standard for executives in a lot of fields. It was a plot point in Mad Men, for example—the creative director couldn’t just quit and work for another advertising company. In real life, Conan O’Brien quit his hosting job with NBC and then he couldn’t just go and start a new TV host job for some months after quitting. Once that time had passed, he got his current job at a new channel.\n\nHowever, it is increasingly becoming common with low ranking people in companies who get paid very little. This in effect means they can’t leave the company where they work because they can’t work in any other company that uses their skills. When this kind of contract clause is used for people working almost paycheck to paycheck, it means they’re trapped. An executive doesn’t live paycheck to paycheck so can afford to wait out the contract, or have their new company buy out their contract. Like Conan O’Brien could wait 8 months with no job. But Joe the plant supervisor whose salary is $50k/year and has a mortgage, a family, and a baby on the way can’t quit and get a job at McDonald’s but he is forbidden from working as a plant supervisor elsewhere for 3 years.",
"I was downsized by a major company that tried to tell me if I took the severance package I could never work in that field again, anywhere. Completely illegal. I raised sand and they backed down pretty quick. Post employment non competes are illegal in Oklahoma. "
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6b6wwa | why are mortgages so much more common in the u.s. than in other countries? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/6b6wwa/eli5_why_are_mortgages_so_much_more_common_in_the/ | {
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"Why do you think this is?\n\nPeople take out loans for homes in every corner of the globe, they usually cannot purchase them straight up.\n\nA mortgage is just the name of a loan you get to buy a home."
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18ien7 | how do women in burqas pass through customs in an airport? | I'm not trying to be in any way offensive, but how does photo identification work for Islamic women wearing full burqas? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/18ien7/how_do_women_in_burqas_pass_through_customs_in_an/ | {
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"Honestly women in full burqas are a small fraction of all Muslim women. And usually from the poorest Islamic nations. I doubt many of this already small population actually fly. But if they did I'm guessing a female security officer would ask to see them unveiled. ",
"In India they go into a closed booth where a female security officer does any inspection and identity verification."
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9iw7pm | are there any negative side effects to eating a tumor? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/9iw7pm/eli5_are_there_any_negative_side_effects_to/ | {
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"When you say eat, do you mean like eating with your mouth and digestive system or like with your immune system attacking something?",
"I’m honestly not sure how much nutritional benefit could be gained, but it wouldn’t be poisonous nor give you cancer. Only side effect would be grossing out the redditors who read your question, afaik. ",
"No more so than eating non-cancerous tissue of the same cell type.\n\nMammalian cells can’t survive the digestion process, only a few specialized bacteria have that honor. The tumor would be broken down and digested just like any other animal tissue. \n\nAs for how it would taste, that would depend on the type of cell the tumor was made of and how it was prepared, but likely it wouldn’t be very good.",
"I love how this question is tagged “learning” as if anyone here is going to apply this knowledge ",
"I don't know if this applies to humans, but there are known instances of contagious cancers. One example is the Tasmanian devil, who has been decimated by a contagious face cancer. \n\nJust to be on the safe side, I would advise *against* eating a tumor.",
"Biologically, there probably wouldn't be any negative effects, as the tissue would be broken down during the digestion process. Socially though, I would think cannibalism would be looked down on.",
"I had a small fatty, gelatinous tumor removed from my breast called a myxoma and enjoyed it atop a ceasar salad alongside some green olives.",
"I got a piece of fried chicken with a tumor on it. I am no doctor, if this it wasn’t a tumor I don’t know what the hell it was. It looked like regular chicken meat other than the fact it was a strange out of place growth. Ate around it, but I bet it would have tasted like chicken.",
"A tumor is still organic tissue, it would be destroyed in the digestion process, as for the taste, it depends of what kind of tumor and obviously if it's cooked, seasoned, etc.",
" > *What would it taste like?*\n\nPicture this conversation:\n\n < chewing > \n\n\n\"It might be a tumor.\"\n\n\"It's not a tumah.\"\n\n & #x200B;",
"An unusual but interesting question. \n\nAs mentioned, beyond a possible change in texture and possibly taste, i do not expect a particular difference from regular tissues. \n\nI also suspect the cow industry doesn't segregate cancerous parts. That would be very difficult. \n\nIn other words : I'm pretty sure that Macdonald burgers would already have some, very regularly. ",
"Have you been listening to Nirvana?",
"The more important question here, is why? ",
"I read that as \"tuber\" and thought \"No, why are you asking?\" Now I'm gonna go and throw up.",
"Thanks for asking this gross question. I recently found out I'd spent the last little while swallowing semen from a cancerous testicle. And I was mildly concerned but know cancer isn't contagious. I still didn't know if this was different as the cells were entering my body. as I'm not the one seeing an oncologist, I have no clue where to ask. Google mildly reassured it was safe. I'd still like more reassurance.\n\n(the guy didn't know either. Just found out a few weeks ago) "
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1grwsb | why is muhammed ali considered the greatest (or one of the greatest) boxers of all time if he lost five times? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1grwsb/why_is_muhammed_ali_considered_the_greatest_or/ | {
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"Because he was an incredibly polarizing personality and a very, very dominant boxer in his prime. I would suggest watching his fights to understand.",
"It's how you wiin, who you win against and how you come back. Ali did it all in style, entertained and was a good boxer. I think people need to realize that loses in a career meant you went against good competition, or that you got cocky and needed to come back. \n\n He fought what... 60 or 61 fights and lost 5 you say.. maybe a few non decsions. Thats a good record I say.",
"Good answer here: _URL_0_\n\nThe point about not focusing on losses is well taken. If we focused on the negative, we'd all be talking about the fact that Babe Ruth failed to hit the ball more than 65% of the time over his entire career.",
"because of who he beat and he was a great self promoter. People loved to watch him box he was smooth and exciting to watch.",
"You should ask this in /r/boxing to get better answers. ",
"From an article by Max Kellerman. \n > The only heavyweight champion in history to beat more than one other great heavyweight in that heavyweight's prime -- and Ali did this several times when he was no longer at his best! Even if you take Joe Frazier and George Foreman and even Sonny Liston off his resume, Ali still has an argument for greatest heavyweight ever. He beat Floyd Patterson twice, Jerry Quarry twice, Ron Lyle, Ernie Shavers, Jimmy Ellis, Doug Jones, Ernie Terrell, Joe Bugner twice, Oscar Bonavena, and George Chuvalo twice. And this isn't even name dropping because I left out old Archie Moore and Zora Folley, and washed up Cleveland Williams and too many others to mention here. Between 1964 and 1967, when Ali was in his prime, he was the untouchable. Between 1970 and 1978, a faded Ali dominated the most talent-rich heavyweight landscape in history.\n_URL_0_\n\nThe ELI5 he beat a lot of the best fighters of all time while in their prime.\n",
"It's worth mentioning that he is not the consensus greatest fighter of all time.\n\nThat honor often goes to \"Sugar\"Ray Robinson (not to be confused with Sugar Ray Leonard)\n\nI think people are so quick to declare him the greatest of all time because \n\nA) He is one of the greatest ever\nB) He is perhaps the most famous boxer in history",
"For a champion, boxing is largely about ducking fights, fake title bouts against tomato cans, and making challengers jump through hoops to get to you.\n\nAli took on all comers. He fought some of the greatest heavyweights of all time, and fought them often, and lost to a few. He also fought in a few bouts in the late 70s when he was well past his prime.",
"To be the best you have to beat the best. In this way Ali is considered to be so great because he beat many of the other \"one of the greatest boxers of all time\" Sonny Liston, George Foreman, Joe Frazier, etc. Also most of loses came at the very end of his career and the loses before that he avenged. Losing 5 times is also not a big deal when you win 56 times. "
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dghk3k | what does the secretary general of the united nations do? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/dghk3k/eli5_what_does_the_secretary_general_of_the/ | {
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"He or she expresses concerns... sometimes, on rare occasions, they express deep concerns. That’s about it.",
"The title is pretty explanatory. The UN itself is mostly consisting of clerical and administrative staff as it is the member nations who make all the decisions and executes those decisions. The Secretary General is the top most position in the UN and he is responsible for everything the UN organization does. Basically he is the secretary of the UN General Assembly. So when they want to have a meeting they delegate the tasks to the Secretary General."
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1rdonn | why schrödinger's cat needs to be observed, and why someone/thing needs to be observing everything around us? | Even a wiki page would be great, I just wouldnt know where to begin. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1rdonn/eli5why_schrödingers_cat_needs_to_be_observed_and/ | {
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"It is a bit different than that. In normal physics, when you don't measure something you don't know the value of whatever it was that you did not measure.\n\nWhen you *do* decide to measure the value (you *observe the system*) you find one single value. You deduce that it did have that particular value all along, even at the time when you hadn't measured it yet. Furthermore, when you repeat the measurement you expect to find that exact same value, no matter how often you measure it. Within tolerances of accuracy.\n\nIn quantum physics, this is not the case. You can make measurements, and each time you measure something the outcome can be one of several possible values. The first measurement yields 3, the second and third measurement yield 7, and the fourth measurement yields 3 again. You cannot know in advance what value will be measured, only that it will be one of several distinct values that follow a certain statistical distribution.\n\nThis phenomenon is explained by assuming that before the measurement, the quantum physical system has *several different values for the same quantity at the same time*. In quantum physic speak we say that the system can be in different states at the same time. We do not know what state it is in until we make a measurement (observe the system) and as we make more measurements, we will find different values grouped according to some statistical distribution.\n\nNow, the experiment involving Schr & ouml;dingers cat says that a certain elementary particle has or has not decayed during a certain time. If it has, the cat is poisoned, if it hasn't, the cat lives. Because it is a quantum physical system, we say that the two states (decayed particle/not decayed) both exist at the same time for the system. This translates into the cat being both dead and alive at the same time prior to the measurement. Only after observing the system, one would find that the cat is either dead or alive.\n\nHere is the wikipedia article on this experiment:\n\n_URL_0_\n"
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3vum24 | how can the distance of a light year be consistent? | From what I understand a light year is about 9.4605284 x 1012 kilometers. Also, time slows down when you near the speed of light. Now if someone travelled close to the speed of light for that distance and back again to earth, we'd say "Hey - you've been gone two years!" but that person would claim they've been gone a lot less than that since time went slower for them. However, that would mean that they travelled two light years (there and back again) in less than two years (from their experience of time). Since that's impossible it would seem that the distance of a light year should vary according to the speed of travel. Obviously I'm misunderstanding a concept here, but I'm not sure where I'm going wrong. Any help would be appreciated. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3vum24/eli5_how_can_the_distance_of_a_light_year_be/ | {
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"This is actually a good question.\n\nAnd the problem isn't with just \"light years\". You can apply that argument to any distance.\n\nThe answer is that part of the relativistic effects along with time dilation is length contraction. That is, the closer you are to the speed of light, the more distances are contracted for you. What you measure 1 light year for you, could be 10 meters for me. This is a important result of the postulate that the laws of physics are the same in all reference frames. Because otherwise, as you said, you get some wonky stuff like it taking twice the time to travel a distance d than it should take.\n\nSo not is only time relative, but so is length. If you're going infinitely close to the speed of light, the whole universe will essentially be contracted to almost 0.\n\nHeres a helpful image.\n_URL_0_",
"A light year is a measure of distance, not of time. I can go a light year in a year, or in 50 million years. Nobody says for example, \"what took you so long? You've been gone a mile!\".\n\nTime is really only measured locally. The clock on board the ship and the clock back home will differ when the guy on the ship comes back..so there really is no way you can say they were gone *objectively* two years..it depends from whose perspective. "
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49f601 | when trying to regain balance, why do we lean towards the side that is off balance? | For example if you are walking on a curb and start tilting to the left, your body instinctively shifts weight towards the left. Wouldn't it make more sense to shift weight to the right to counteract the difference in weight? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/49f601/eli5_when_trying_to_regain_balance_why_do_we_lean/ | {
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"Your upper body/head/chest seem to move to the left; this is so that your hips/center of mass will move to the right. Your hips/waist/belly easily counteract the tilt. It is impossible, however, to move your waist to the right quickly without moving your upper body to the left. Does that make sense?"
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3280bw | countries with a president and a prime minister | How exactly does the balance of power in these countries work? Is it the same across the board? For example, Italy and Russia have both a Prime Minister and a President, who is really in charge? What is the difference between the two offices?
I live in the UK, so Prime Minister is usually the highest political office, but for example, in America, it is President, but they don't have a Prime Minister. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3280bw/eli5_countries_with_a_president_and_a_prime/ | {
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" It goes back to the idea that it has been found by experience that a country needs both a head of state and a head of government. A head of state personifies the nation, acts as a focus of national unity, acts as diplomatic host, and is generally just \"there\". A head of government actually runs the country having been appointed by the head of state, either as the result of an election or by however else the country works. ",
"It depends on the country. In France, the president is the top dog. In Italy, the prime minister is the top dog. In Russia, the one named \"Putin\" is the top dog."
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54allt | how were modern day scholars able to translate works written in archaic english (e.g. the canterbury tales) so accurately when the language used is so different from the english today? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/54allt/eli5how_were_modern_day_scholars_able_to/ | {
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"It's actually pretty straightforward, because we have lots of text from the intervening periods. If all you know is modern English and you have to read a text from the 1300s, it's hard, but if you also have studied what English looked like in the 1400s, the 1500s, the 1600s, the 1700s, etc, you can understand all the changes that happened in the language, the grammatical forms that got dropped and what they're equivalent to, the vocabulary that got introduced, and so forth.",
"You have a lot of texts written in Old English, Middle English, Early Modern English, Victorian English, etc., so you can trace the evolution of the language and backtrack. By now, Old English is an easy language to learn since we know so much about it. \n\nThings that help:\n\n* Having the same text in multiple periods (the Bible)\n\n* Having translations of earlier texts done in different times (English doesn't rely on this as much, but for example we know a lot about Japanese and its evolution thanks to people adapting Genji Monogatari every 50 years or so starting the 12th century)\n\n* Having repetitive texts drawn out over the centuries (census data, tax books, etc.)\n\n* Having a fairly straightforward evolution that you can explain using historical context (Sudden French loanwords? Go figure, it was after France became a cool place. Sudden Latin influence? Go figure, it was around the time that the church had a say in written language)\n\n* Having a lot of text to work with\n\nYou can also figure out pronounciation based on linguistic analysis and old songs which use rhymes (Ever notice that Shakespeare sometimes randomly doesn't rhyme? That's recorded language change right there, and you can figure out the pronunciation of old words based on the fact that, in Shakespeare's time, they used to rhyme)\n\nIt's harder with languages that don't have as much data to work with, but fortunately English started writing down things pretty early.",
"There are a lot of differences, but they are well understood differences. \n\nWe can go from Chaucer to Shakespeare to Milton to Defoe to Austen to Dickens, and see how the language evolved in small steps. Once you have a good understanding of each step, you can make the greater leaps between eras."
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1xpdp2 | how does opening a beer with just a refrigerator magnet and a quarter work | Saw a video of a guy opening a beer by putting a refrigerator magnet under it and tapping it with a quarter at the base of the neck. How does this work? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1xpdp2/eli5_how_does_opening_a_beer_with_just_a/ | {
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"It's a trick - a normal fridge magnet and bottle of beer wouldn't do that. I strongly suspect the bottle is rigged before the video starts and the magnet is just a red herring.\n\nIt might even be completely fake."
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e8wh8k | - i saw a ted video today about altering the dna in bacteria to fight cancer. how does one "edit" the dna in something?? | In the video (and similar videos I've seen) they say that they change the DNA to change the organisms' function, but not how they do it.
I know DNA can change through mutation, but how do geneticists alter DNA sequence?? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/e8wh8k/eli5_i_saw_a_ted_video_today_about_altering_the/ | {
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"Kurzgesagt made [the most clear and amazing video](_URL_0_) about how we can use CRISPR to edit DNA",
"So the most common and promising method, which is still pretty early on, is called CRISPR-Cas9. \n\nBasically it’s a modified version of a bacterial defense system. Bacteria basically use it to help cut out attacks by viruses and stuff. The enzyme, Cas9 basically finds strands of DNA that match a certain template and just cut it out to prevent it from causing damage. \n\nScientists realized though that this was programmable. They could give it basically any DNA strand and it could find it and cut it out, either removing it entirely or replacing it with something else. \n\nIt’s still a fairly newish technology, and there’s concerns about if it makes extra changes and what kind of unexpected side effects could occur from changing DNA we don’t fully understand, but it could be some game changing stuff in the not too distant future."
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1yl8u8 | why does the us have less money now than it did in the mid-20th century? | Reading about World War 2 -- It seems like the US had unlimited industrial capacity to produce planes, bombs, aircraft carriers, etc. Has the US government simply shrank, or what's going on? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1yl8u8/eli5why_does_the_us_have_less_money_now_than_it/ | {
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"1. WW2 created a post-war boom for us. We spent enough to stimulate industry and manufacturing, without spending so much that we crippled ourselves with debt.\n\n2. Cold War. We were willing to spend much more because Communism.\n\nEdit: for some reason I thought OP was talking about post-war era. But essentially #2 is true if you replace Communism with fascism. We no longer have an urgent need for military equipment so we don't build it.",
"The US government didn't do all that production; they converted essentially all factories to wartime production...car companies made tanks and engines, pipe companies made gun barrels, airliner companies made fighters and bombers...basically, the entire industrial capacity of the US for *everything* switched to war production. Today, we don't do that. Even after fighting for over a decade in two wars we never switched any significant manufacturing capacity from consumer to military. ",
"The question you're asking is really two parts, or could be asking two different things. Firstly, the question about the US could be asking about government spending or economy (GDP) as a whole. The second question is about the context of WWII and the portion of government expenditure put towards wartime production.\n\nIn response to the first question, it is simply not the case that the US has \"less money\" now. The US is MUCH wealthier on both a gross and per capita (per person) level than it was in the 1940s. This goes for the economy as a whole and for government expenditure. The government to this day continues to spend large amounts on defense, subsidies, aid, and non-discretionary programs like medicare and medicaid. \n\nThe reason it may seem like \"the US has less money\" is because a significant proportion of US (both government and economy-wide) expenditure was put towards wartime goods. Basically the proportion of government expenditure that made up overall economic expenses (GDP) was significantly higher. Partly because the economy was smaller then than today and partly because of the reasons previously mentioned. So, how did the US government pay for it? You may be interested in a primer Keynesian economics and deficit spending, which influenced the Roosevelt administration's economic programs. But a large part was through the [Lend-Lease Program](_URL_0_) where we loaned and sold supplies to almost all of the Allied nations.\nLastly, as far as comparative wealth, there were actually extreme shortages and rationing during WWII, so while there were plenty of tanks and guns, other household goods and foodstuffs were being reallocated to the war."
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1gkp6i | why are there flights that take longer than 12 hours? | When I flew from Chicago to Shanghai, it took 16 hrs. However, since the Earth spins at a rate of 1 rev/day, it seems like the furthest a flight should take for something almost directly around the world is 12 hrs. I think it might be because the atmosphere is part of what spins as well, but I'm not too sure. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1gkp6i/eli5_why_are_there_flights_that_take_longer_than/ | {
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"Earth may spin 1 rev/day, but planes spin with it so the spin of Earth doesn't matter at all. Its just about the speed to get from A to B.\n\ni.e. Why doesn't a boat just take 12 hours around the world?",
" > I think it might be because the atmosphere is part of what spins as well, but I'm not too sure.\n\nThis is exactly it. \n\nThe Earth, the atmosphere, and everything within the atmosphere (within reason) is also spinning at 1 revolution per 24 hours. \n\nBecause it's all moving together, the relative velocity between them is approximately 0 (ignoring wind, tidal currents etc..).\n\nSince the relative velocity between you, city A, and city B is all 0, the fact that the Earth is rotating doesn't really affect the journey time between the cities, as for all intents and purpose (from your frame of reference) they're completely stationary. ",
"If the speed of the rotation of the Earth mattered you would never be able to fly West-to-East because the Earth rotates faster than planes fly."
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6lpg6l | why do we sometimes get the urge to do violent things to cute things? | Edit: Something along the lines of [Key and Peele's comedy sketch](_URL_0_) | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/6lpg6l/eli5_why_do_we_sometimes_get_the_urge_to_do/ | {
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"I think it's probably along the same lines of why we think about jumping off a cliff when we get too close to the edge. We are analyzing outcomes and consequences. It's a totally normal thing to do, it likely keeps us from actually doing these things because we examine the situation and outcomes instead of acting them out in real life and seeing what happens. ",
"Look up the term cute aggression.\n\nA popsci article talks a little about it [here](_URL_0_), but it is mostly speculative as to \"why.\" \n\n\"The study's researchers, led by Rebecca Dyer, a graduate student in psychology at Yale University, dubs the phenomenon \"cute aggression.\"\n\n\"We think it's about high positive-affect, an approach orientation and almost a sense of lost control,\" she said. It's so adorable, it drives you crazy.\"",
"I read an article about this once, basically the first reaction to something cute is extremely positive and the secondary response (violence) is a way of counteracting the super positive reaction.",
"It's called \"The Imp of the Perverse.\" Essentially, it's the urge to do something wrong simply because you can. It's similar to \"Call of the Void,\" but involves outwardly destructive behavior rather than self-destructive. \n\nAs for why it happens, we don't really know for sure. Like /u/phlegming11 said, it could be your brain playing through a scenario to assess possible outcomes. However, it doesn't explain why we actually have the urge rather than just imagining it in our minds."
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3dvim2 | why does it sometimes look like the numbers on my alarm clock are jumping up and down? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3dvim2/eli5_why_does_it_sometimes_look_like_the_numbers/ | {
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"I'm not familiar with the phenomenon you are describing, but I might have an explanation. \n\nWhen you look at an object within a space, your eyes don't look at one point. You see one point, and when you move your eyes to another point it seems your eyes move in one smooth action. What your eyes are really doing, is actually 'vibrating'. They don't go in one direct line towards the next point, but they zigzag to that location. Your brain stitches these images together as a solid movement.\n\nWhen you're falling asleep, your eyes and brain are going into a resting mode. Thus: they will not perform these actions reliably because they don't need to. Perhaps that's why the 'vibration' and or stitching don't work (together or effectively) and you'll see the numbers jump up and down.\n\nHowever, this is merely an educational guess and I hope someone else is capable of providing solid proof.",
"The numbers on a digital clock look like they're constant, but they're actually turning on and off very fast. In actuality, most digital clocks only display one \"segment\" of the number at a time. In a number like 8, which consists of 7 segments, the display rotates through lighting up each segment individually. If your eyes aren't moving, and you're looking at the display, it looks like it's constant. If your eyes are moving, everything gets jumbled around a bit, because the light from each segment is hitting your eye at a different position than it \"should'. You can replicate this phenomenon by looking at a display and clicking your teeth together (or by eating something really crunchy) which causes your eyes to vibrate a bit."
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ab52du | splitting infinitives??? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/ab52du/eli5_splitting_infinitives/ | {
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"An infinitive is just the phrase \"to *verb*\". A split infinitive is when you put an adverb in between the parts of an infinitive. So in your example, the word \"never\" is in the middle of the infinitive \"to grow up\", so it's a split infinitive. Having a split infinitive doesn't mean the sentence doesn't change meaning if you take out the adverb, it's just a description of the order of words in the sentence.",
"The sentence with the infinitive un-split would be \"I was wise enough to grow up while fooling most people into believing I had.\" - the *never* was removed. This looks different from the previous example because the split infinitive is part of a sub-structure of the sentence - \"to never grow up while fooling most people into believing I had\" - which has other verbs (\"was\") before it."
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2894sm | why does a body pillow feel between my legs make sleeping more comfortable? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2894sm/eli5_why_does_a_body_pillow_feel_between_my_legs/ | {
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"My guess would be that it raises your leg which aligns your spine and reduces lower back tension.",
"Without it, your hips are in a stress position when you sleep on your side. With it, your knees are separated, putting your legs and hips in a more natural alignment."
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53e1sg | what is happening at a biological level when someone mentions tequila and you can instantly taste it? | I am interested in how synesthesia of someone verbally articulating something translates into a reflex which in turn translates into a taste, which in itself is a memory. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/53e1sg/eli5_what_is_happening_at_a_biological_level_when/ | {
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"Not an expert, just a guy who reads a lot of science-y stuff. But it's been four hours and you don't seem to have any other responses. I've read that memory recall in our brains doesn't work like a computer. A computer creates some kind of physical structure to store information, then comes back and examines that structure in order to recall the information. Our brains actually have to reconstruct the memories, so recall is a complicated mixture of reading and writing simultaneously. I think the taste sensation is being recreated in your brain."
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5m301z | how did humans create perfectly flat objects prior to the invention of advanced tools/machinery? | If they used necessary contemporary tools, how did they create those tools to be flat?
EDIT: How were these primitive methods of getting a flat surface applied to large-scale constructions and objects? (i.e. furniture, construction materials, etc.) | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5m301z/eli5_how_did_humans_create_perfectly_flat_objects/ | {
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"If you just take two moderately flat stones and rub them against each other in random circles, they will wear away the highest points until they get quite flat.\n\n",
"There are no *perfectly* flat objects being made today.\n\nEven the mirrors on giant telescopes have fluctuations on the surface.\n\nIf one wanted to make a fairly flat stone surface with only stone tools available one could use water in a bucket and grind a disk (or whatever) so that the edges and surface are even with the still water.\n\nMetals can be pounded flat pretty easily. Polish them to see how flat they are and work at it some more if necessary."
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2uawn1 | american tv shows compared to the rest of the world. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2uawn1/eli5_american_tv_shows_compared_to_the_rest_of/ | {
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"They make it into a drama type show to get more people interested. Most Americans wouldn't watch it if it was like the British version because it's not \"interesting\" enough for them. ",
"The amount of American hate / bashing on Reddit is amazing.\n",
"Don't act like we Americans don't notice this shit, too.",
"Most American TV shows aren't like that though. Just silly reality shows are. I mean really, America has produced by far the most good TV of any country.",
"Oh sorry, I thought this was r/ELI5, not /r/thinlyveiledwhiningmasqueradingasaquestion.",
"American living in Switzerland here and I noticed many of the German/Swiss/Austrian/French/Italian channels have American TV Shows, trashy reality shows aside I think most Europeans are fans of popular TV shows. Most of what I watch here is dubbed with the respective countries language. ",
"This issue here is money. \n\nIn America, there is a big difference between Network television and Cable television:\n\n*Network television is broadcast over the airwaves, and can be picked up for free by any television with an antenna. Therefore, the only way that the large television networks (ABC, NBC, FOX, CBS) make money is through commercials. \n \n*Cable television is only available by subscription and people have to pay to view the channel's content.\n\nSince Networks are entirely dependent on commercials for revenue and they can charge more for commercials based on their ratings, Networks are obsessed with attracting the largest possible audience. There is a certain amount of moron viewers who want (need?) to be told what to think/feel. It's not necessarily that they are not able to do it on their own, but it is more enjoyable for them if they do not have to think or analyze what is happening. Even if this is 1% of the audience, the network cannot afford to leave them behind. Therefore, Network show strive to be as attractive and easily digested as possible to appeal to the least common denominator. \n\n\nThere are plenty of American tv shows that do not use cheezy dramatic cues/devices (Breaking Bad, the Sopranos, The Walking Dead, etc.) These shows are wildly popular in America, but are almost always on premium cable channels. Much like cable television in America, the BBC receives some (most?) of its funding independent from commercials. Since these content providers do not have to play down to the idiots of the population and are able to retain more artistic integrity as their revenue stream is more stable.\n\ntl;dr - Networks in America have to make content as easy to understand as possible to attract as many viewers as possible, including morons. "
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1mwxhk | why are some sports teams historically more successful (ny yankees) than others (cleveland browns)? | The yankees have 27 world series wins, the next team only has 11. On the other hand the Cleveland Browns have never even appeared at a super bowl and haven't been to the playoffs since the mid 90s.
These teams were just used as examples. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1mwxhk/eli5_why_are_some_sports_teams_historically_more/ | {
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"It's a vicious circle. Teams that do well earn more money (because they have more fans, have higher attendance, sell more merchandise) and have higher prestige, so they can attract better talent."
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4o65yy | how can ebay sellers send something like 1$ phone cases with free delivery to the other side of the planet, when if i send a small letter to my neighbor it will cost 3$? do they still make profit? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4o65yy/eli5_how_can_ebay_sellers_send_something_like_1/ | {
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"Postal systems in other countries can pay a LOT less than what us westerners pay, ditto manufacturers. The companies that are selling those phone cases pay postage out of the price they receive for their merchandise, and just include it in their markup. So that three dollar phone case consists of 30 cents for postage (which is crazy cheap because it's largely container-shipped so all they have to do is deliver it to the local dock) plus $2.70 that they receive.\n\nThen our regional postal systems receive it once it's unloaded from its container, and have to deliver it as part of their service and receive a small amount of revenue from a central finance-handling organization for international mail for doing so. (Edit: error was corrected)",
"also, a lot of long distance shipping is discounted, because it's put on a ship that was going that way anyway...\n\n\nthink of it like getting a last minute airline seat. \n\nthe plane was going to leave anyway, so they can discount the seat, because at this point ANY money they make on the seat is more profit than they were going to get if it was empty.\n\n\nso it may cost them $100 to send a pallet sized shipment.. but as that pallet sized shipment contains 100,000 cases.. the actual cost of shipping per unit is basically nothing. \n\n\n\n",
"\nPosting in bulk would be the main one. Traders wont just be sending out your phone case, they will bending out hundreds of random bit of tat, and will get a bulk rate for that. \nThe Chinese government also subsidise international postage in order to keep products flying out of china.\n\nI have to admit, I was a little annoyed when It came to selling some old games and DVDs on Amazon or Ebay (One of those). I wanted to list them for the minimum (99p) and add on £1 for postage. Thats about 60 or 70p for the postage and 30p for the envelope - Seems fair to me. \nI was not allowed to post it - Apparently there is a policy in place that DVDs and Games should always have free shipping in order to be competitive. \nNow, If I sold it for 99p and spent all that on postage and an envelope, it ends up being a lot of effort to give something away for free - Or even cost me money, as I'll lose out on ebay or Amazons fees. \nSo Now I have a second hand game that I need to list for at least £1.20 just to break even. I may aswell just throw it out/charity shop it as that would be less effort for the same result. < /rant > ",
"All the previous answers are wrong. The actual reason in that China has incentives for small/medium businesses where they basically pay all shipping of goods. It's part of China's greater strategy to \"shorten\" and expand the logistic between China and the west.\n\nSources:\n\n* _URL_1_\n* _URL_0_",
"Can also be due to postage theft or \"creative accounting\"\n\nAn example is the biggest ebay seller in the world, babz media, destroyed by The royal mail and its lawsuits",
"I'm an Amazon and eBay seller from the U.K. And I can tell you it's largely just the bulk that you're sending. Also, the price of shipping is almost always in the main price for \"free shipping\"."
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7ctnp7 | why does basically no one speak latin anymore even though it is used in many popular countries? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/7ctnp7/eli5why_does_basically_no_one_speak_latin_anymore/ | {
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"It is a very slow language with very complex grammar that isn't very intuitive. The sheer amount of declensions, verb tenses, gender words, and verb forms are staggering, and makes for a very cumbersome, formal language. \n\nThe trend for languages is to become less formal over time, which is probably one of the major reasons that people find English so easy to learn the basics of (although the mastery/fluency of English is a little more difficult than some other languages). ",
"Once the Roman Empire fell, there was nobody forcing people to speak proper Latin anymore. The common people, who weren't terribly educated, probably illiterate & didn't have anything like TVs and movies to keep them following the same things, so the language slowly diverged. Over a few hundred years, the language that people in different regions spoke became different enough to be considered separate languages rather than just dialects.",
"As the Roman Empire declined the Latin language fractured in its various regions and evolved into the Romance languages (French, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Romanian). Proper Latin stopped being used in common speech as they started to use these languages and became a language only used by Scholars and the Clergy. While it is still taught in many countries as a secondary or tertiary language, and a number of degrees in college still require it, it is not actually popular as that would require it being a vernacular language and it is not. ",
"All languages change and evolve over time. Latin was no exception: during its existence it went through many changes, evolving from Old Latin to Classical Latin to Vulgar Latin and then Mediaeval Latin, Renaissance Latin and Ecclesiastical Latin. Ecclesiastical Latin is still spoken, but only by the clergy of the Catholic Church and in certain situations (usually in the context of liturgy).\n\nBut also, as the Roman Empire expanded, the Latin language spread out and came into contact with other languages, resulting in the Romance languages of today: French, Spanish, Portuguese, Italian and so on.\n\nIn some areas, the Latin language was much more isolated and so continue to survive in more or less \"pure\" form -- but since these were small pockets cut off from each other, they evolved in different ways. In the Alps, for example, Latin survives as a collection of related languages known as the Rhaeto-Romance languages: one of them, Romansch, is one of the four official languages of Switzerland, while another one spoken in South Tyrol, Trentino and Belluno still calls itself \"Ladin\". Further to the east, the Latin spoken by Roman soldiers posted to Dacia evolved into modern Romanian -- one reason we know this is that many words in Romanian are derived from Roman military slang.\n\nSo in fact, a lot of people do still speak Latin. It's just that in the last 2,000 years or so, it has changed so much it's barely recognizable.",
"By \"used in many popular countries\", which are you thinking of? In any case, with the fall of the Roman Empire, its territories splintered and had no reason to learn latin, as it no longer served any use as a lingua franca. Regions developed their own languages, be it proto French, German, slavic languages, etc. The standardization of a language requires either one nation/empire to enforce its language through control of other regions(seen to some extent with the Russian empire), or one nation being economically and diplomatically dominant so that learning that language, while nominally optional, is necessary to succeed(English being a good example).",
"Lots of people speak Latin. The world has perhaps a billion Spanish, French, Italian, Portuguese, and Romanian speakers.\n\nPeople didn't stop speaking Latin, their Latin slowly evolved to the point it became a distinct language. Academics and clergy preserved forms of Classical Latin as a convenient, ostensibly unchanging neutral language they could share knowledge with. It too, would change over time, diverging from Vulgar Latin, that last form natively spoken that went on to become the Romance languages of today.\n\n "
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3cps66 | where does the earth (or any other planet) find the energy to continue spinning on itself forever? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3cps66/eli5_where_does_the_earth_or_any_other_planet/ | {
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"Energy isn't required to continue spinning, or continue any sort of motion in fact. One of the laws of physics is that objects in motion stay in motion unless acted upon by something else.\n\nSince nothing is really stopping the earth from spinning, it spins.",
"You know how a figure skater is spinning and they have their arm/leg stretch out and they're kinda going slow.... but then they bring their leg and arm in and they speed up?\n\nWhen the earth was being formed all those millions of years ago out of the debris and dust and gas that was floating around our sun, a clump of this junk (which had a rotation around the sun) started to come togehter, bits of junk mutually attracted to each other. As not all of this junk had the same velocity around the sun, or even in the same direction, you had rotation begin.\n\nAs this jink got closer and closer it of course heated up - dust became plasma, became super heated molten rock.... and as it compacted it spun faster and faster, giving the planets rotation as it is.\n\nEventually things reached a steady state - the matter of the Earth, all mutually attracted - could not compress any further and so the earths rotation stopped accelerating. And the laws of motion say an body at motion will stay at motion unless some other force acts on it."
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4hbugs | if animals can distinguish us from our smells, how do they not get confused by the smells of our soaps/colognes/deodorants/etc? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4hbugs/eli5_if_animals_can_distinguish_us_from_our/ | {
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"You kind of answered your own question here. They can smell really well, so they're able to distinguish the difference between you and the Cologne/whatever.",
"To an extent, they do. They could identify you from further away by smell if you didn't wash. ",
"I have read that when cats smell food, they smell every single ingredient. So, where a human would smell warm chocolate chip cookie, the cat would smell the individual ingredients: butter, chocolate, walnuts, sugar, etc. This may also be true of dogs and other animals, idk. When an animal smells a human, it would be the same, sweat, food breath, ingredients in soap, etc. ",
"Suppose I showed you an apple. It's red, it's shiny, it has an easily recognizable shape, and I've even taken the time to write \"APPLE\" across it in permanent marker.\n\nNow, further suppose that after showing you the apple, I went into another room and dipped it in wood varnish. This coating wouldn't be enough to obscure any details, but the color would be a bit darker, the shine would be a bit more pronounced, and the word \"APPLE\" would be slightly blurred.\n\nWould you still be able to recognize it?\n\nScent works in much the same manner for animals. We can mask it or alter it in ways that are pretty profound from a human perspective... but for a creature whose nose is literally 10,000 times better *at minimum*, perfumes, soaps, and deodorants do very, very little to mute our natural aromas.\n\n**TL;DR: Animals can recognize your scent in much the same way that you can recognize a friend wearing subtle makeup.**",
"They smell like we see. We don't get confused by someone changing their clothes, or a road covered with snow overnight. Their sense of smell is so good, cologne is like someone putting on a scarve.",
"To avoid threats, a deer listens and smells for unfamiliar smells/sounds. They can distinguish the difference between orchid lotion and actual orchids. When a deer senses something out of the ordinary, it gets suspicious and leaves (unless it's a buck in rut, looking for a mate). Deer don't recognize our smell, interpret it as a human, and get suspicious. They simply smell something unfamiliar and take off. A cologne would also count as unnatural/unfamiliar. It would spook a deer for sure. ",
"I'd have to ask the animals. I can't tell you what they think or feel but I can tell you what they do. \n\nI wear cologne and there are certain scents I wear every day. My cats do not care about my cologne and if I spray something with it, they will ignore it. \n\nBut my dirty bath towel in the laundry basket, which has my body scent all over it will draw them in and they want to lay on it. \n\nThey also lay on my clothes if they are on the floor but not dish towels. And they like to sniff my shoes, usually with an open mouth like they are savoring it. ",
"The best explanation I heard from a handler of an excellerant detection K9 was that animals have \"higher definition\" noses than us. Where as we will recognize a collection of scents as one thing, animals such as dogs can pick out each of the individual scents. So whereas we might say \"I smell pizza\" a dog would individually smell the cheese, the sauce, the herbs etc. So they can smell you're scent, even with 100 gallons of your favorite Cologne/Perfume masking it to other humans.",
"That's like saying, \"I know you recognize people by sight, so how do you not get confused by different clothes and haircuts?\"\n\nPerfume seems overpowering to us, because we don't rely on our sense of smell, but to an animal with a keen nose, it's just another part of the smell.",
"A dog's dominant sense is smell.\n\nIn contrast, a humans dominant sense is sight.\n\nWhen I was at USARPAC Basic Sentry Dog School, they told us that when a dog thinks of a place, he thinks of the way that it smells. In contrast, when a human thinks of a place, they think of the way that it looks.\n\n > [Dogs' sense of smell](_URL_1_) overpowers our own by orders of magnitude—it's 10,000 to 100,000 times as acute, scientists say. \"Let's suppose they're just 10,000 times better,\" says James Walker, former director of the Sensory Research Institute at Florida State University, who, with several colleagues, came up with that jaw-dropping estimate during a rigorously designed, oft-cited study. \"If you make the analogy to vision, what you and I can see at a third of a mile, a dog could see more than 3,000 miles away and still see as well.\"\n\nUno\n\n[Sentry Dog Handler](_URL_0_) \n\nUS Army, 69-71\n\n",
"Also, if I stick my nose in a butt hole and take a big whiff I would gag. They seem to be just fine despite having 1,000 times better scent receptors. Someone eli5 what that's about.",
"Some animals, like dogs, smell like we see colours. When we smell something, all the smells blend into one. When they smell something, they recognize all individual smells separately, just like the way your eyes work when you look at a bowl of fruit and see lemons, limes, apples, and oranges.",
"Sometimes if I put on a hat in a different room my dog will bark at me when she sees me because she no longer recognizes me",
"My dog does, actually, she's dog aggressive and will go from happily playing with the puppy one day to growling at him every morning for a few days if he pees on himself and needs a bath.\n\nShe also is totally messed up in the head and we're pretty sure her eyesight is messed up, so grain of salt.\n\nIn general terms, though, you still smell the same in the inside (when you talk and breathe) and you still sound the same and walk the same.",
"animals can sense the little details in smell as well as we can immediately recognize visual/audio things (especially when it comes to recognizing faces and voices). think of how easily you identify your best friend's face. what if they smeared a crazy amount of make up or paint all over? you'd still know without a second glance *whose* face it is. And just also see that it looks abnormal. a dog knows a scent as well as you know a face; and the recognition is in the minute detail. perfumes are really blunt and uncomplicated smells that may distract from the subtle details from the scent, but can't make them disappear. just like paint on facial features. ",
"I've been told that animals (like dogs specifically in this scenario) smell individual components to an overall scent. \n\nAnalogy \nLike we smell cookies baking. A dog smells the sugar, eggs, chocolate chips, butter, etc. \n\nSo even with a cologne on, especially if worn enough by a singular human, they may recognize the specific human scent along with the cologne they wear. \n\nFun scent side fact! The reason why we find some people's body odor repulsive or appealing is a biological response to keep us from mating with a relative. The closer related you are to someone, you will more likely find their odor unappealing. Someone you are not related to, you have a higher chance of finding the odor appealing. And other things like pheromones come into play, but just body odor scent is what I'm talking about. ",
"Your room mate has pooped in the bathroom. \n \nYou spray fabreeze. \n \nIs the poop smell gone? I think not.",
"I would think that animals would also get used to the smell of our soaps? I visited a friend recently who was petsitting a blind and deaf dog, and that dog gave 0 shits about me when I first came to the house. I went to the bathroom and used some of the lotion that the dog's normal owner uses after washing my hands, and when I came back in the living room the dog came straight to me and put its head on my lap. I assumed it was because it could smell the lotion of its owner.",
"There's a smell that is unique to you , which you can't even begin to know. A dogs sense of smell is so acute it can pick it through sweat, cologne, soap etc. As someone else pointed out also, a dog doesn't smell the overall pleasant smell of a cookie the way we do - it can smell the butter, sugar, batter etc individually. So basically if you happened to walk through a vat of feces, your dog would still be able to smell you. ",
"Not an answer but on the topic, big cats are attracted to Calvin Klein Obsession for men and wildlife photographers use this scent to lure them. ",
"/u/RamsesThePigeon hit the nail right on the head. Excellent analogy. The smell of your cologne, etc. is just one part of a whole, it's a scent but your own body scent is still there as well. One of the researchers in the behavioural neuroscience department at my university does a lot of work with trauma and fear conditioning, and so she actually wears a different perfume on days that she does this kind of stuff than on regular days so that the rats she works with don't learn to always associate her with something negative. They will recognize a familiar person by HER smell, and the context of the research that day by the smell of her perfume. Their behaviour will actually change in response to the perfume. I think it's pretty neat.",
"Can you identify people in a different shirt by sight? I'd think of it like that.",
"The same way you dont get confused by the taste of carrots in stew - you recognize them even though they're now surrounded by a dozen or more other flavors. ",
"I heard it explained this way: if I put a bowl of chili in front of you, what you smell is chili. If I put it in front of a dog he smells beef, paprika, tomatoes, garlic, etc. That's because his nose is exponentially more sensitive *and* his brain has evolved to be able to discern scents. So while your friend Kevin smells like AXE body spray to you, to a dog he smells like Kevin and AXE. ",
"Animals don't just recognize us by smell. Your dog will see you from down the street and come running up to you. Not one has cited a source for their explanations either.",
"Would you not recognize someone if they wore different clothes?",
"The same reason you don't get confused when Superman puts on his glasses to disguise himself as Clark Kent.",
"Well, perfumes/soaps/colognes usually combine with your own skin scent to create a new scent... so they will recognize you from the unique combination of \"scent+perfume\" instead of just plain natural scent :)",
"ELI5: If I can distinguish people by how they look, how do I not get confused when they change their clothes?",
"We have like 5 million smell sensors. Dogs have 300 million. They also have a gland in their throat to help smell. Their capacity to smell magnitudes more than humans. So it's like looking at different two paintings with several of the same colors. You can tell them apart, right? Even though they share the same colors.",
"Dogs can smell cocaine in someone's colon so they can definitely smell your natural odour....\n\n",
"If humans could smell as well as other animals, that probably wouldn't be too good for our relationships. We could totally smell when another human being lays on top of our mate and we wouldn't be too happy with that. ",
"Wearing glasses or messing with their hair doesn't keep people from recognizing each other. Well, I mean unless you're Clark Kent. It's probably much the same with animals and scent.",
"I don't have serious science to explain this in detail, but I can smell things really well. I can therefore extrapolate and infer how other animals may work.\n\nI can tell you many features about the types of shampoo/conditioner and soaps that people use. Heavy fragrances drive my nose nuts, but I can tell you if your soap has tallowate, glycerin, et cetera. If I am close enough and your soap/fragrance odors are not overwhelming, I can still smell you, but the smell of you is not super unique. I think I can put people smells into maybe 6-8 categories. A thought has occurred to me to actually do a study where I compare the smell of people's nose breath with what comes out the backend. It seems like I might be able to smell some things about people's digestive health from their nose breath... I digress.\n\nIf I can smell what you smell like over the smells of your soaps/fragrances, I would imagine that animals can do the same. The first thing that I usually notice about someone, especially if they are upwind, wearing a fragrance, or have an especially soapy odor, is their laundry detergent mixed with their perfume/cologne (although sometimes the 38 ounces of perfume/cologne is way first) and then followed by their soap smells. It's a terrible bouquet that makes me hold my breath quite often. At many meters I can usually not smell their body unless they haven't bathed within the past 24 hours or so, but, if they haven't bathed recently or have been sweating recently, I can smell them from quite a distance and can tell you their general ethnicity and diet.\n\nHow's that for weird?\n\nTL;DR Your smell is usually not super unique to my hyper sensitive nose. If I can still smell you over the white noise that is soaps, detergents, fragrances, et cetera, then animals with better senses can sure tell better.",
"My guess (and it is a guess) is that it'd be the smell equivalent of putting on a hat. I can still make out your face. You've just got a hat on as well. Animals with such a strong sense of smell would be able to \"see\" both the hat and the face / your smell and the soap smell\nEdit: clarification",
"Ever gone into a washroom after someone had a massive poop but also sprayed lemon air spray?\nIt may have a lemon scent but there is for certain poop lingering heavily about your nostrils. We are the poop and the lemon spray is our body wash/cologne ",
"Imagine a bowl of soup. We're only able to smell the combination of all ingredients but dogs are able to smell all individually ",
"The best ELI5 explanation I know is from a show I watched on tracking dogs.\n\nSometimes an escaped prisoner would find a farm and roll around in cow manure to hide his scent. That would work if they were being tracked by a human. To a human, a person covered in cow manure smells like cow manure. To a dog, he smells, not just like a person, but like THAT PARTICULAR PERSON covered in cow manure.\n\nSo, your dog does smell whatever soap, deodorant, cologne, or whatever you use, but he still smells you under it all, just like you still recognize your friend if he's wearing different clothes.",
"Have you ever walked into a bathroom where someone has used air freshener after a major dump? It smells like a dog shit in a flower garden. You can still smell the shit.",
"Actually, I somehow made it to the pet squirrel forums side of the internet last year and there was much discussion of how bad pet squirrels are at dealing with scent changes. Like, claw your eyes out, bouncung off the walls bad if you use a different body wash or shampoo. Can't verify any of that, but I trust those pet squirrel loving nut jobs. ",
"Someone once explained how a drug sniffing dog can smell Marianas inside a PVC pipe, inside a gas tank full of gas. \n\n\nWhen we smell beef stew we smell beef stew, but when we see it we see beef, carrots, potatoes and gravy. When a dog sees beef stew he sees beef stew but he smells beef, carrots, potatoes and gravy.\n\n\nI've also heard that if you take all our scent receptors and laid them out, they would take up an area the size of a postage stamp, but a dogs is the size of a sheet of paper."
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c7fofv | why do overweight people have higher basal metabolic rates than lean people? | [deleted] | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/c7fofv/eli5_why_do_overweight_people_have_higher_basal/ | {
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" > Most BMR calculators, even on reliable websites, make no distinction between muscle and fat\n\nYes, this is why the calculation is an estimate and not 100% accurate. A bodybuilder is in a very different place metabolically than an obese person, and a simple calculation isn't going to reveal all. It can however be useful in determining when the average person is getting a bit too tubby."
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28jnjg | why is it so hard to get into medical school when there is so obviously a scarcity of doctors? | So here's what I'm thinking. Doctors are paid very highly, which by simple economics means there is a low supply of them. In addition many doctors have to be on call 24 hours a day, and residents have to work incredibly long shifts. However, at the same time medical schools are very hard to get into, meaning there is a very high supply of people who want to be doctors. Why has an equilibrium not yet been found that would result in more, but lower paid, doctors? What is stopping more medical schools opening (or any other solution to this problem) that would help find a more natural equilibrium? Thanks. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/28jnjg/eli5why_is_it_so_hard_to_get_into_medical_school/ | {
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"doctors get paid a lot because medical school is retarded expensive and so is malpractice insurance. Not everyone is qualified to be a doctor and they are in charge of making life and death decisions regularly; the person you put through med school as to be the type of people that are entrusted with making these decisions",
"Being a doctor is hard. They don't want a bunch of sub par doctors",
"Dumbing down the course requirement does not result in quality graduates. It makes it far worse when we can't trust doctors due to the number of less-able ones. It happened here in Australia with teachers a few years ago - you could fail your exams and still get in. Ruined the name and reputation of the profession.",
"Medical school is highly selective and difficult to get through. The required residency is also incredibly tough. Getting certified to practice medicine after its all over is hard.\n\nThe problem isn't that we can't train enough doctors, it's that few people that want to be doctors are actually capable of getting through programs.\n\nWe've also greatly increased the number of not-quite-doctors (e.g. nurse practitioners) that we train and changed regulations to let the practice more freely. It doesnt take 12 years of school to recognize a sinus infection or stitch up a kitchen accident, so we've been able to staff lots of front line clinics with people who can handle common problems.\n\nNurses, OTOH, we have a problem getting enough of. College nursing programs frequently have waiting lists full of qualified applicants and hospitals have trouble finding enough to stay fully staffed.",
"Here in Canada, the College of Physicians and Surgeons accredits medical schools. Without their blessing, graduates can not call themselves doctors. The College is run exclusively by doctors. It is in the College's financial interest to limit the *supply* of new doctors so that doctors can maintain their \"special\" status that allows them to demand $500,000/year. They limit the supply of doctors by limiting the number of graduates (and by adding ridiculous barriers for foreign trained doctors). They limit the number of graduates by placing academic standards to enter medicine (which *many* qualify for) then mandating that qualified candidates pass a so called *interview*. The interview is key. It filters out 9/10 perfectly smart, qualified candidates based on who will not rock the boat and disturb the gravy train. They explain all of this by telling us it is in *our* interest to limit the number of doctors to maintain quality standards.\nTL;DR: Doctors control the number of spots in medical schools. They severely restrict the number of seats purely out of vested self interest that they sell as \"public safety\".",
"Health Care in the United States does not follow some of the basic rules of capitalism.\n\nIn our current system, it's virtually impossible to shop around for a procedure. Most of the time the cost is paid via insurances and is variable behind the scenes, and people can't decline life-saving treatment. \n\nWe also implicitly refuse to accept risk from doctors. It's natural that better doctors make fewer mistakes, but we have no mechanism for accepting higher risk for lower cost. We just sue whenever anything goes wrong ever.\n\nThe basic premise of shopping around, declining to purchase, and weighing cost vs. quality - the things that make basic economics work for so many other things - are totally out the window.\n\nGiven a system where doctors must be infallible, there's an extraordinarily high bar for licensing / legal compliance / etc. Opening more schools to produce more candidates doesn't do anything if they don't pass the licensing / residency / etc. Those that either don't pass the rigors of med school or discover the lifestyle/demands of being or becoming a doctor are to high tend to pivot to be senior nursing staff or physicians assistants.\n\nThe model of taking sharp med students and putting them through the rigors of knowing everything there is to know about biology, then forcing them to be sleep deprived broke 20-30 somethings, then placing them on a pedestal as a god with a bunch of support staff below them after does feel *really* archaic to me in an era of increased specialization and better diagnostic tools... but I digress. I'm just a software nerd, what do I know.\n\nEurope tends to have a hybrid system of socialized emergency care, and optional privatized care for more preventative / elective procedures. That tends to address both ends of the problem a little bit better, and they do have more doctors per capita than the US. Being a bit less of a lawsuit-crazed culture helps too.\n",
"The AMA deliberately restricts the number of accredited medical schools in the US. This, in turn, creates an artificial shortage of doctors that ensures that the doctors that do exist can demand top wages for their services."
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2w3mae | losing color perception when going from dark to light areas | I get that my pupils need to adjust for brightness' sake. What confuses me is that everything goes greyscale for awhile after going from a bright to dark area. Why can't I see colors?
I put ELI5 there this time. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2w3mae/eli5_losing_color_perception_when_going_from_dark/ | {
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"At a basic level, your eyes use two different types of cells to see: cones and rods.\n\nYou use cones primarily when you are in well lit areas. You use rods primarily when you are in poorly lit areas. Think of rods as what you use for 'night-vision'. However, only cones really see color (they're 3 types of cones, a red, blue and green. Your brain combines the input from each cone and bam you got color). Cones also less their response to light when exposed for long amounts of time. This basically means that it sends out less signal for the same amount of light.\n\nNow, when you step in a bright room to a dark one, the cones need time to adjust because they've adapted to receive more light input and they aren't working very well at lower light inputs. You're now using only rods, and they don't gather color information. That's why you see grayscale initially, and that's why you gradually get more color input as more cones adjust to the change in light input."
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4yci5u | why does chewing (gum) increase concentration/productivity? | A teacher of mine told us to chew gum (or something like the back of your pen) when studying as it releases a chemical in your jaw? He also said the reason why you get tired after you eat is because you stop chewing. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4yci5u/eli5why_does_chewing_gum_increase/ | {
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"The action of chewing involves the Temporalis muscle and the Masseter muscle. These cause blood to flow to your brain as you chew, bringing in more oxygen, which causes increased concentration."
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4g803e | if water is always returned via the water cycle back to the earth, why are people getting concerned with "running out" of water? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4g803e/eli5_if_water_is_always_returned_via_the_water/ | {
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"Because that water is mixed up with gross stuff- the totality of H2O on the planet is unchanged, but the amount of fresh water is rapidly diminishing from pollution, irrigation, and divertment. The natural processes that scrub and clean water have been disrupted, leading to less and less usable water."
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286ef9 | why does sleeping regenerate/refresh/recharge is, while laying in bed awake without moving us does not? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/286ef9/eli5_why_does_sleeping_regeneraterefreshrecharge/ | {
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"Because laying in bed awake is generally exactly the same as standing next to the bed awake, or sitting on the bus awake, or watching tv awake. Your brain needs you to actually be unconscious so it can have a moment of low activity to get its housecleaning done. It just can't do what it needs to do while you're still conscious.",
"While asleep, your brain goes through several different cycles, and while we don't really understand *precisely* what they do, we do know that they involve various maintenance healing and mental sorting that is vital to survival. These are only done while you are asleep. Laying in bed awake without moving does rest your body, but it does not rest your mind.\n\n"
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q0o6q | the atomic bomb | can someone explain the atomic bomb, how it works. I have the most basic understanding of chemistry, i'm a biology major. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/q0o6q/eli5_the_atomic_bomb/ | {
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"In chemistry, you about endo/exothermic reactions to make molecules. Normal explosives rely on chemical reactions that release large amounts of energy. All of this energy involves moving a few electrons around leaving your nuclei intact.\n\nWhen you get into atomic physics you're looking at *far stronger* forces involved in holding the nucleus of an atom together. An atomic bomb actually forces atoms to split into smaller atoms. The extra energy/protons/neutrons that were involved in making a larger atom is released - flying off to trigger other atoms to split apart. The energy released is *far* greater than any chemical reaction could be.\n\nPoint of reference - the first atomic bomb used in warfare, [Little Boy](_URL_0_) contained 64kg of uranium but created an explosion equivalent to 15,000,000 kg of TNT.",
"This Disney film, \"Our Friend the Atom,\" is great. Here is one of 5 parts from youtube:\n\n_URL_0_"
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48dic4 | why is english so broken? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/48dic4/eli5_why_is_english_so_broken/ | {
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"English is a bit of a Frankenstein language, stitched together from bits of a couple Germanic languages, French, Celtic, Latin, and Greek. This leads to a hodgepodge of rules, spellings, and pronunciations borrowed from those languages.",
"Speakers of what became the language we love today tried to ingest every other language they came into contact with. "
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1lealp | what is preventing toronto from acquiring an nfl franchise? | Toronto is the 4th or 5th largest city in all of North America. It's a major metropolitan area. It has a sport team in all other North American major pro sports. What is keeping Toronto from getting an NFL team?! | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1lealp/eli5_what_is_preventing_toronto_from_acquiring_an/ | {
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"Football is the only major pro sport that has a viable and independent league in Canada. Toronto already has a CFL team. \n\nIn order for Toronto to have an NFL franchise, they'd have to figure out how to convince the NFL that they could have two viable pro football teams. Toronto is big but it's not that big. They could, of course, shut down the CFL team, but this would likely anger fans so badly that the new NFL team would be doomed from the start.",
"Too many cities wanting a team, too few franchises to fill them.\n\nSomewhere between 30-32 seems to be the perfect number of teams in a major sports league. For leagues such as the NFL the demand for teams and cities that want them exceed these numbers. inevitably some cities get left out, see Los Angeles who hasn't had a team in the Raiders left in '95.",
"The proximity of the Buffalo Bills",
"Because we already have five crappy sports teams here, and we don't need a sixth. ",
"It's because the Buffalo Bills would need to agree to allow another team to impede on their television market. They already have one of the smallest markets in the league, and they would never agree to doing that.",
"There are 2 reasons:\n\n1. Greed. The Buffalo Bills object because they don't want any closer competition. They also try to convince the other owners that they can capture more of the Toronto-area market and make the team (and thus league) more profitable\n\n2. Greed. Companies (even with with Canadian divisions) often won't have those profits count towards their US revenues and profits, and so they don't really get to see the benefit of generating tv numbers and revenues in Canada. The NFL gets huge, national ad revenues, and those advertisers and the broadcast networks paying billions for TV rights don't care as much about the Canadian market since their bonuses are typically for their US performance."
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3d8lao | why don't we build a 'sturdy' camera and throw it into saturn, or jupiter, and transmit what it records back to a space station? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3d8lao/eli5_why_dont_we_build_a_sturdy_camera_and_throw/ | {
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"It costs way too much to make and launch something here and there really isn't that much to record.",
"It's been done with Jupiter, but any camera built would be destroyed by the immense heat, pressure, and gravity that the planets have.",
"The Galileo mission sent a [small probe](_URL_0_) into Jupiter's atmosphere. I don't think it had a camera though, it was mainly focused on gathering information about what the atmosphere was made of. A camera wouldn't do much either; you would see the same color you can see from the surface.",
"I think what OP is asking, is something similar to a tethered camera that we can place in orbit and have it sort of hang down into the atmospheres for observations.\n\nOne interesting aspect of this approach, would be the atmospheric drag that would be slowing the camera end down while the upper portion of the tether continues to orbit at the same speed. This would result in a net loss of altitude for the whole camera craft, and you would quickly lose your satellite.\n\nAnother interesting aspect for this type of craft in orbit, would be the mechanical forces involved, of craft flying thousands of miles per hour, while being slowed by drag at extremely high speeds. The tension in this tether would be immense. (This would be similar to the whole space elevator problem)\n\nYet another odd but interesting outcome of this type of craft, would be the electrostatic forces being generated. Thanks in part to Jupiter's immense magnetic field, you will undoubtedly create electrical build up along this tether that could become problematic.\n\nAlthough, if this is not what you were referring to in regard to a \"sturdy\" camera, then we have sent probes down into the atmospheres of these gas giants in the past. There is not much to gain out of using visible light photographic cameras to observe the atmosphere as the clouds are so thick that you wouldn't be able to see anything that you couldn't see from orbit.",
"Didn't we do something similar with Titan?\n\n[Here it is](_URL_0_)",
"All space probes are destined to be junk sooner or later and they are very expensive. So when they are being sent out they better deliver some worthwhile information! The opinion in the community seems to be that we know too much to justify dropping a few million dollars into Jubiter and besides, there seem to be more pressing missions to undertake. ",
"There have been a few probes dropped into gas giants to explore their atmospheres. They generally don't carry cameras though because there's only a limited amount of time and bandwidth available for the probe to transmit data back out before it gets destroyed by the heat/pressure/etc. Photos and video footage use up a relatively high amount of data compared to their scientific value, so the probes tend to transmit other types of data that the people who designed the probe felt would be more useful. "
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1rywko | when calculating digits of pi, why do we start at the beginning instead of calculating from the last known digit. | When calculating n digits of pi we always start at 3.14159 instead from the last know digit. Why is this? Wouldn't it be advantageous to find the next unknown digits? [BBP formula](_URL_0_) is one used to find the nth digit of pi, why don't we just use this? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1rywko/eli5_when_calculating_digits_of_pi_why_do_we/ | {
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"For one thing, calculating digits of pi is, at this point, just an academic exercise. It's not really good for anything, except maybe as a way to benchmark computing speeds. So doing things the efficient way isn't really advantageous."
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bqfusb | why is there a disconnect between what we're trying to say vs what actually comes out of our mouth. especially when public speaking | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/bqfusb/eli5_why_is_there_a_disconnect_between_what_were/ | {
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"Only guessing, but i would say that we think about what we want so say and not how we say it. We dthink about the message, not the words...",
"ELI5 answer: Your mouth sometimes moves faster than your brain. \n\nYou’ve heard grownups say “Think before you speak,” this is what they’re talking about. We all at times find that our habits of speech can get ahead of what we intend to say. So much of language and communication is instinctual, rather than intentional. Like chewing loudly or cracking knuckles, oftentimes what we say and how we say it comes out without us even realizing it.\n\nThe best speakers—public or just in a one-on-one conversation—aren’t people with faster brains, they’re just very practiced at thinking before speaking."
]
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[],
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6ktl0f | how does uber lose so much money annually? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/6ktl0f/eli5_how_does_uber_lose_so_much_money_annually/ | {
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"Because Uber is undercharging for rides (charging customers less then the net amount being paid to the drivers) in an attempt to force the competition out of business and gain a monopoly, after which they can charge what they want because they'll be the only choice.",
"Uber heavily subsidizes each trip. ie when you book a trip on Uber it costs Uber more than you're paying. Uber has some costs: the biggest is paying their drivers but there are also costs involved in running and maintaining the app and marketing to consumers and recruiting drivers. They're also investing heavily in expanding their business and in developing driverless cars technology. ",
"Uber loses money because they are investing in scaling their business...\n\nThey are spending a ton of money on litigation and lobbying to be allowed to operate, since most urban areas had strict regulations on taxi services. They are fighting law suits, they are hiring lobbyist to pitch legislation changes to allow them to operate.\n\nUber also needs to build a symbiotic network of drivers and passengers in order for their platform to work. Drivers don't drive if there's no passengers, and customers won't use this service is they can't dependably get a ride when they need one. This means sign-on bonuses to drivers and discounts/artificially low fares to lure in passengers to build up a base of supply and demand.\n\nOnce they've established that they can operate legally, and have a base of drivers and passengers, then those expenses taper off considerably and the make profits.",
"I saw a study not that long ago (end of 2016?) that basically looked at how Uber can lose so much money. They found that if they stopped spending money on expansion, and just operated in their current markets, they would be profitable. They are constantly trying to grow into markets, which is very expensive. The idea is that they are \"investing in the future\" and once they are in all these markets, it gives them more avenues for profit. It's about growth basically."
]
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52xvqr | why are flames pointy? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/52xvqr/eli5why_are_flames_pointy/ | {
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"A flame rises because it is warmer than the air around it. The cool air rushes in to push the hot air upwards. However, as the air rises it also cools down. It cools down from the outside inwards. \n\nA flame glows because it is hot enough to generate light. So as the flame cools down, the parts of it that are hot enough to generate light get smaller and smaller. Because it is rising and shrinking at the same time, it forms that pointy shape. \n\nNote that a flame in zero gravity doesn't make a pointy shape, because the cool air doesn't push the hot air upwards (because there is no up). It just spreads out in all directions.",
"Fire glows because it's very hot.\n\nHot air rises, which is why flames move upwards from the candle or log or whatever else is burning. As the air rises, it comes into contact with the cool air of the surroundings. It warms up the cool air around it, and the cool air around it cools it down. So a *gradient* develops, where the temperature is highest at the core of the mass of hot air, and drops as you move outward from that core.\n\nSince the cooler air doesn't glow as much, this appears as a bright glowing core with a dimmer glow to the sides. As the air continues to rise upwards, it loses more and more of its heat, so that bright glowing core gets smaller and smaller. The glowing zone gets dimmer and skinnier as the flame keeps going upwards, eventually dwindling to a point."
]
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1039o2 | why can you only use your thumb/ finger on the iphone's screen? as opposed to your nails or a more traditional stylus? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1039o2/why_can_you_only_use_your_thumb_finger_on_the/ | {
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"iPhones and all modern smartphones use Capacitive touch screens. Rather then detect touch by pressure they use electricity, there is an electric field on the screen of your phone and when you touch it the electricity runs up your hand, through your body, and back down.\n\nThe phone can detect this and determine the location of your finger(s). Since your nails and most styluses do not conduct this small charge they are not detected. ",
"A capacitive touch screen relies on the electrical property of capacitance, the ability of some materials to store energy when they have an electric field applied. Materials which have a lot of water in them usually have the ability to display capacitance, because water is a molecule where the electric charges aren't evenly distributed (it is \"[polar](_URL_0_)\"). Since water is polar, it will try to rotate a bit under the influence of an electric field, essentially storing a bit of energy in the process. \n \nThose water molecules will tend to align one of their charge poles with the opposite charge that is inside the smartphone screen. In the smartphone, this capacitance effect results in a little bit of electrical charge flowing, and the electronics detect that. \n \nYour fingernail or a metal stylus don't contain much water, and they don't have any other properties that tend to make them very capacitave. Most of your body parts have a fair amount of water near the surface, so they will work. You could probably use your nose if you wanted to. But your elbow might not work as well, since there's only a bit of skin and tissue over the bone, and the bone doesn't have as much water content. "
]
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"http://academic.brooklyn.cuny.edu/biology/bio4fv/page/image15.gif"
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5xgc2t | what are bonds, and what is the difference between stocks and bonds? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5xgc2t/eli5_what_are_bonds_and_what_is_the_difference/ | {
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"A Bond is a certification of a debt. Where as a stock is a certification of ownership. So when you buy a stock you become a partial owner of that business. But when you buy a bond, you are buying a certificate that says the bond issuer will pay you back both your money and interest. ",
"Bonds : Local bakery has a great idea for muffin tops. They need 500 for the special muffin top slicing machine and non stick pans. The local bank won't give them a loan because the idea is so new and they haven't been in business for long. But everyone in the neighbourhood is super excited. So the bakery prints out 500 bond certificates that cost $1.00 each and the certificates say that in 1 year from now they can be redeemed for $1.10 at the cash register. "
]
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[],
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fvris9 | how do "multiple year" copyrights work? | Inspired by [this post](_URL_0_); is it that some features got licensed/registered before others? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/fvris9/eli5_how_do_multiple_year_copyrights_work/ | {
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"However, publishers of frequently-updated works, such as software, apparently desire to convey the idea that different versions of their works appear over time, and each is subject to copyright protection. So they provide a copyright notice with multiple years, the first year being the year of first publication.\n\nSuch a notice is not a problem. Even though multiple years are not expressly permitted, the three required elements are present, albeit with some extraneous information.\n\n\n_URL_0_",
"We say that you own a copyright on a singular thing. For example, we say that JK Rowling owns the copyright on \"Harry Potter\". But that's really an oversimplification of how the system works to make it comprehensible for normal people. The reality is that its not the work itself that is copyrighted, but rather the creative elements of that work. So for example, what is copyrighted in Animal Crossing are the visual designs of the characters and maybe some of the dialogue.\n\nBut the individual elements in a video game change because video games are constantly being patched and updated. So if the game was released in 2001 then the game's base content is copyrighted in that year. But if there is a patch in 2002 that adds new copyrightable elements - say a new character is introduced - then that new content has a copyright date of 2002.\n\nYou also sometimes see this in books that have multiple editions. For example, lets say that you buy the 8th edition of a text book, which came out in 2020. The vast majority of the book's content will have come from previous editions. Only the content that is new to the 8th edition has a copyright date of 2020.\n\nLets say that this is a very old medical textbook where the first edition came out in 1890 - it may be that a substantial amount of the content in the 8th edition has been in the book since that first edition and so has a copyright date of 1890. If that was the case, it may be that a lot of that book is actually in the public domain, and only the small amount of new stuff that has been added in more recent editions is still under copyright."
]
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"https://old.reddit.com/r/crtgaming/comments/fvp6tm/time_to_try_this_new_animal_crossing_thing/"
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[
"https://danashultz.com/2013/10/09/copyright-notice-with-multiple-years-legitimate/"
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1qwd5u | why don't above-18s (adults) in usa have the right to determine their choice on alcohol consumption? | An American is legally an adult at 18, has the right to vote at 18, but can only decide whether or not to drink alcohol at 21.
Why doesn't someone 21 and below sue to government to exercise their right as adult to choose to drink alcohol?
I'm not American, and this has always been one of those things that perplexed me.
**Edit:** So I understand that the federal government commissioned a study (which not everyone agrees is accurate) and then strong-armed the states to agree.
And in the intervening years, people just convinced themselves with other arbitrary points like maturity etc. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1qwd5u/eli5_why_dont_above18s_adults_in_usa_have_the/ | {
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"While I don't agree with it, the thought process is this:\n\n18 year old brains are not fully developed. One of the key features missing is risk management. \n\nDrinking creates a lot of risk (Drunk Driving being just one). \n\nTherefore its better to force young Americans to grow/mature more before being allowed to drink.\n\nAgain, I don't agree but that's the argument I've heard. We could try to sue, the problem is that it might easily be thrown out of the Court. The government can make a convincing argument that they have vested interest in protecting the youth of the country and that science supports delaying legal drinking until the person is older.",
"Well, it wasn't always so. I first began legally drinking at age 18, a million years ago (it seems).\n\nAs I recall, there was a law that was passed after a bunch of studies which said that drunk driving age 18-21 auto fatalities were more than all other auto fatalities combined. (I could be totally wrong there, its' just what i rememer) and so they passed a federal law to raise the drinking age. And, the law actually set that certain states who adopted the new age 21 could get additional federal money for road maintenance. So, it tool a little while, but soon all states changed their drinking ages....\n\nSo, suing to get it changed would need to occur in the separate states, since they control the drinking age. ",
"I remember being 18 and thinking that it was such an injustice that I had to wait 3 more years until I could legally drink. Now that I'm 21, I seriously hope they don't lower the age. Don't get me wrong, there are some 18 year olds mature enough to handle themselves while drinking or at a bar. And there are plenty of 21+ people who act like children (especially at bars). But, the influx in 18 fre$h-outta-highschool swag fag shitheads would be more than I could handle. As it usually is, a few dickweeds ruin it for everyone. It's not fair, but that's life. Get used to it, kid. ",
"One other consideration: 18-year-olds are in high school. If they have legal access to alcohol, high schoolers of any age can get it easily.",
"Because we have an over-bearing federal government who will withold federal pork for highway/maintenance if States lower the drinking age. ",
"States had been free to set their own rules regarding alcohol in the wake of the 21st amendment (December of 1933), and most states had a drinking age of 18, while the rest had it set at 21. Drinking ages were falling as the push to lower the federal voting age to 18 finally succeeded with the 26th amendment, but a significant portion of the states still stuck to 21.\n\nNew Jersey was a state with a drinking age of 21, and they border New York, which had it set at 18. This resulted in 18-20 year olds driving over state lines, getting drunk, then driving back into New Jersey, where they caused the havoc and mayhem commonly associated with drunk driving. \n\nTo combat this, New Jersey Senator Frank Lautenberg introduced the Drinking Age Act of 1984. The Act could not force the states to raise their drinking age as such (the 21st amendment left this power to the states), so instead, the law withheld a portion of the federal highway funds from states that did not raise their drinking age to 21.\n\n\"21\" states that bordered states \"non-21\" states supported the bill, and the newly founded advocacy group \"Mothers Against Drunk Drivers\" helped to push the remaining legislators (and president Ronald Reagan) to pass the bill. \n\nThe bill survived a legal challenge from South Dakota, and by 1988... every state in the union had their official drinking age set at 21. ",
"because alcohol consumption in 18-20 year olds leads to erectile disfunction, adultery, devil worship, shrinkage, illiteracy, turning into a minority, suicide, pooping accidentally in a crowded movie theater (or in some cases while in rush hour traffic), and a personality."
]
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3ep7ig | why is it considered moral to put a dog down when it gets rabies or becomes too vicious and endangers others, but immoral when we do the same to a vicious person whose existence endangers others? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3ep7ig/eli5_why_is_it_considered_moral_to_put_a_dog_down/ | {
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"the issue for humans is where to draw that line of \"to be killed\". some people would put that line at drug use, some people not even for mass murderers. Along with that, how do you make sure the process is completely unbaised and 100% right? there have been many cases of the death penalty being used on a person that was later found innocent. Its never a question if a dog has rabies or not"
]
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||
2rm3cb | why hasn't life been replicated in the lab yet? | It seems like we know almost everything of what where the first steps required to create life, why haven't we been successfully at replicating this? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2rm3cb/eli5why_hasnt_life_been_replicated_in_the_lab_yet/ | {
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"I got 2 answers;\n\n1) the ethical ramifications. \n\n2) there's always the possibility that someone has done it, and just not come forward because (see 1)",
"You're right, we can replicate life (e.g. cloning) but we can't create life from scratch. That is to say we have yet been able to create an artificial cell, where all parts are made from scratch. \n\nWe can create some individual components of a simple cell (e.g. amino acids, phospholipid bilayer, RNA) but we can't put them together so to speak. In an analogy we can create all the pieces to build a chair (e.g. legs, seat, back) but we can't put them together in a way that functions. We can't create an [artificial cell](_URL_0_) and then make it alive. \"In the area of synthetic biology, a \"living\" artificial cell has been defined as a completely synthetically made cell that can capture energy, maintain ion gradients, contain macromolecules as well as store information and have the ability to mutate. Such a cell is not technically feasible yet, but a variation of an artificial cell has been created in which a completely synthetic genome was introduced to genomically emptied host cells. (e.g. we take the DNA out of a living biological cell, and insert foreign DNA, and it still functions and is able to replicate).\" This is about as close as we have gotten, lots of people are working on this - but this isn't easy science. You can read more about creating artifical cells from scratch [here: the minimal cell](_URL_0_#The_minimal_cell).\n\n"
]
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"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artificial_cell#The_minimal_cell"
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2j2nsh | bush v. gore. why did the supreme court stop the recount? | I've read it over and over and just don't understand how a STATEWIDE recount violated the Equal protection clause. If anything I believe Gore's request of the four counties to recount was a violation. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2j2nsh/eli5_bush_v_gore_why_did_the_supreme_court_stop/ | {
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"The Court cited the Equal Protection Clause because each county's methods and standards for determining \"the voter's intent\" could vary. Two identical inconclusive ballots could be counted in two different ways if one was in Miami-Dade County and the other was in Broward County, so they ruled that each person's vote could not be given equal protection in a county-by-county statewide recount.\n\nThey didn't demand a new recount because they also ruled that there was no method for completing a statewide recount by the result certification deadline that *wouldn't* violate the Equal Protection Clause."
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4kdsuq | how can the 35-year-old hp-12c calculator still be in production and selling for over $50? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4kdsuq/eli5_how_can_the_35yearold_hp12c_calculator_still/ | {
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"text": [
"Basic math hasn't changed much in a few hundred years, so the calculator probably wouldn't either."
]
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||
3namn5 | how does formalin preserve dead organs? | Is there another chemical that is used for the same purpose? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3namn5/eli5_how_does_formalin_preserve_dead_organs/ | {
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"It stops decomposition. There are a lot of microbes and bacteria that would love to eat up those organs (destroying them in the process). There are plenty of other chemicals that could do that (like bleach). But bleach would also rip apart the cells and, as you might imagine, bleach the pigment out of the organ. A bleached organ with a lot of ruptured cells wouldn't look very nice, though, eh? So formalin is used because it kills bacteria without damaging the integrity of the cells.\n\nIt's also important to note that formalin works by being *poisonous as shit*. It won't preserve LIVING tissue, it'll kill the cells just as easily as it will any bacteria."
]
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|
aplm1o | why are sperm count in men decreasing? | [deleted] | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/aplm1o/eli5_why_are_sperm_count_in_men_decreasing/ | {
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"From _URL_0_:\n\n > The analysis did not explore reasons for the decline, but researchers said falling sperm counts have previously been linked to various factors such as exposure to certain chemicals and pesticides, smoking, stress and obesity.\n\n > In contrast, no significant decline was seen in South America, Asia and Africa. The researchers noted, however, that far fewer studies have been conducted in these regions.\n\n > Richard Sharpe at Edinburgh University added: \"Given that we still do not know what lifestyle, dietary or chemical exposures might have caused this decrease, research efforts to identify (them) need to be redoubled and to be non-presumptive as to cause.\"\n\nSo, the scientists are not sure about it yet.\n"
]
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8iza3q | why can't the human heart "get used to" having to work harder in an individual with restricted arteries, causing it to get stronger under the increased work load like normal muscles? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/8iza3q/eli5_why_cant_the_human_heart_get_used_to_having/ | {
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"well uuuh, it does... If you suffer from high blood pressure or clogged arteries your heart will grow to compensate for it. The issue is that youe heart is a muscle that is constantly active and having high BP or clogged arteries means your heart has to beat stronger which it can do for a while but eventually too much is simply too much",
"Actually it does, by a process called Starling’s Law. \n\nWhen the blood volume in the heart increases (in this case due to the decreased volume of the arteries), the heart expands to compensate and then contracts with greater force to ensure that the same amount of blood continues to flow.\n\nYou see this with short demand increases, like exercise, but when it’s a constant-ish increase over time the heart continues to stretch out but becomes unable to contract back to its original size.\n\nSo in a very basic way, that is how someone ends up left ventricular hypertrophy and/or congestive heart failure.",
"You are really talking about two different things here, without realizing it.\n\nFirst of all, the heart does \"get used to\" having to work harder. If it is pumping against a higher blood pressure (because the patient has hypertension and it isn't being treated), then over time it was develop hypertrophy. This sounds great, right? The heart is stronger! Except the problem is that it will have a harder time relaxing, so it is harder to fill with blood. This leads to congestive heart failure, which is bad. Please note, I'm not going to go into depth with congestive heart failure. Yes, there are two types, and I've only talked about one of them here, but I'm tired and this is ELI5.\n\nSecond, when you talk about restricted arteries, I presume you mean partial blockages in the coronary arteries. The issue here is a lack of blood making it to the heart muscle cells, not lack of strength of the heart itself. The muscle cells can only work so hard with a limited amount of oxygen and other nutrients.",
"It does but it's not a good plan for your heart.\n\nIf you have clogged arteries or anything like that will force your heart to work harder, you'll trigger a morphological change in the heart = > The (generally) left ventricule will get thicker and start to eat the the space for blood. \nSince the space for the blood is reduced, your heart will need to beat faster and faster in order to send a good amount of blood to your organs, you'll also increase the blood pressure to keep a decent blood provision to your organs and therefore will force your heart to work harder and harder and get thicker and eat up more space for the blood and so till the blood pressure gets so high that once the blood arrive to the heart in order to get pumped back into the organism, the left ventricule will get super strecthed and get \"loose\" : Then it will not be able to pump blood and you'll die.\n\nNote that you also have a risk to die of tachycardia because of how quick your heart needs to beat in order to pump blood.\n\n\n"
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1c048q | how are online games (say wow or guild wars, etc) synchronized over all the players' individual games? | When I say "all" I don't mean every single player, but all the involved players. As AnteChronos mentioned, this usually has to do with a certain map or view distance. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1c048q/how_are_online_games_say_wow_or_guild_wars_etc/ | {
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"1. They're not synchronized over *all* players' games. The players are distributed across different \"realms\" or \"worlds\", that are actually different physical servers, and your game is (usually, barring specific cross-server interactions) never updated about players on other server.\n\n2. The server only sends you data about other players that are within your view distance.\n\nSo in short, you only get sent data about nearby players who are on the same server as you, which is a tiny, *tiny* fraction of the total number of players."
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9xe3vo | why do humans feel the need to do things that are bad for us? | Why sometimes can we not help but hurt ourselves or others? Eat too much, lie, cheat, smoke, have a sedentary life style, drink etc... | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/9xe3vo/eli5_why_do_humans_feel_the_need_to_do_things/ | {
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"The majority of those things \"feel\" good. I don't think humans as a whole feel the need to be self destructive. Its more of a byproduct of the things they enjoy. ",
"Because unfortunately our lifestyles have evolved faster than our genes. If you look at humans as animals that went through natural selection just like any other, a lot of our \"destructive\" behaviors made sense in the context of nature and survival, but things became so much more convenient and we haven't yet evolved to really deal with that. Like, our bodies only ever expected to find sweetness in fruits and the like, which were healthy to eat. It never expected that we'd extract sweeteners and put them into processed foods. So our body doesn't \"know\" that it's bad, it thinks it's good, and it rewards us with the enjoyment of eating something sugary, even though it's actually not at all what evolution intended. This applies to many other things, though perhaps not as easily explainable for some things. ",
" > Eat too much\n\nThe body regulates a lot of things for us automatically, blood pressure, volume, oxygen level, water, pH, CNS. Calories are one thing we have to monitor ourselves, and we did passively for the longest period due to cost. In the last 50 years kcal/$ has risen astronomically as so we need to track it manually since we can afford so much.\n\nEvidently, the education on TDEE and proper portion sizes for this is lacking in some parts(America, UK, Australia) and not others(Asia).\n\n > lie\n\nLying is advantageous in many ways and there are levels to the severity. If you're aware of the others lack of information and that fear of consequences is so great then honesty becomes the worst option.\n\n > cheat\n\nThis can mean several things, cheating a test, a video game, a relationship. If the value of the obtained result is greater than the consequence then a clearer path is made. On the subject of cheating a test, the value achieved in a particular mark(or certificate) is held in higher regard than the actual knowledge, the mark or cert has become treated as the goal.\n\n > have a sedentary life style\n\nRegular exercise is painful, energy and time consuming, without immediately benefits. It was always in the bodies best interest to conserve energy for when absolutely necessary, and it was necessary in our hunter gatherer lifestyle far more often than our current one. The default is still to conserve, its a conscious effort to override that.\n\n > smoke, drink\n\nNicotine and tobacco are well documented addictive substances, and [there is some data](_URL_0_) pointing to alcohol being a fast acting anti-depressant, giving you a buzz. Its also extremely easy to produce. The nature of eventually feeling as if your sober self is not the 'real' you is the transition point for user to abuser.",
"in addition to the evolutionary/biological reasons given by others, there's also the \"lack of immediacy\" to most of the downsides. \n\nEven if, intellectually, we know there are downsides to our actions, unless there is a reasonable chance of them being experienced within a short time frame, we disassociate the \"penalty\" from the \"pleasure\". This decreases the perceived future impact of the downside, meaning we are more likely to repeat the \"bad\" behaviour\n\ni.e. if I can get a short-lived feeling from a huge/salty/fatty/whatevery meal, because there is no immediate downside, I can justify it to myself (e.g. it's ok, I'll just eat lettuce for the next two days). \n\nWhen I next feel like a similar meal, I think \"well, it didn't do me any harm last time\" - and before you know it, habit has formed. \n\nIt generally takes a major wake up call (heart-attack, diabetes etc) to shake someone out of these habits (and even then, doesn't always stick)"
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216003 | why are so many people struggling with basic grammar - you're/your, it's/its, there/they're, etc. | I don't consider myself a grammar nazi. Even my title is probably not grammatically correct but I am curious as to why so many people are having hard time remembering when to use _your_ and when to use _you're_. I rarely correct people on this and mostly it's because I am confused while reading their text until realizing they've made a mistake.
So what's the deal? One theory would be the widespread usage of mobile phones and the way their keyboards are designed but that doesn't explain why I am seeing many people using _you're_ instead of _your_. Is it really that hard to learn those basic rules? I am not a native English speaker so I'm probably missing something. Thanks. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/216003/eli5_why_are_so_many_people_struggling_with_basic/ | {
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"Maybe it's because a lot of people now don't read actual books or online stories that are edited and have to have proper grammar. They read text messages, blog posts, and reddit articles that are probably not grammatically correct and either never learn the correct way or just see that other people don't seem to care so they shouldn't have to worry about it either. It's also weird to me when I see people who spend most of their day typing things on a keyboard who still have to look at the keyboard to hit the right letters.",
"Many people simply don't care enough to pay attention to the difference. It really doesn't matter to most people if you use \"it's\" or \"its\" as long as they feel like their point is getting across. For instance, in the sentence that you just read, I could have used \"there\" or \"they're\" instead of \"their\", which are both technically been wrong but turn the sentence into complete nonsense. There is only one \"their/there/they're\" that works in that sentence, so many people don't care which one that they use because they feel like their meaning is unchanged regardless of whether or not they use the correct one.",
" > Is it really that hard to learn those basic rules?\n\nIt's not, but if you don't ever have to write in a formal context, there might not be any incentive to learn.",
"In my experience, English classes didn't really teach grammar theory all that heavily, focusing on \"you do this here\", almost competely ignoring the \"why\". If you're lucky, you'll have it brought up in a foreign langauge course(required in my state), but I've also had teachers there that'll dance the hell away from basic grammatical terminology(like \"umlaut\" in a *German* class). Thus, you learn a number of special cases that are easy to forget instead of a few general rules that'd be far easier to retain.",
"So, before an answer can be attempted, a few misconceptions are going to have to be addressed:\n\n1. What you think of as the things that determine whether a text is grammatically correct aren't actually, linguistically speaking (that is to say, according to the scientific model of language), the things that determine grammatical. That is to say, what you seem to think of as being 'grammatically correct' in English is only correct within a very specific, and very artificial, prestige dialect that, in many ways, has never actually been spoken save by people who are trying way too hard. English, by virtue of its enormous size and many other factors, is a language with very many dialects, and there are some pretty significant grammatical differences between, e.g. Standard Written English (the aforementioned prestige dialect) and African American Vernacular English. The extremely important thing to know is that someone saying something that very ungrammatical in SWE could (and probably is - native speakers of do not make grammatical mistakes very frequently; they have an enormous amount of practice speaking correctly) be perfectly grammatical in AAVE or any number of other very widespread and very well-attested dialects.\n\n2. You're in part confusing orthography with grammar. I say 'in part' because the ubiquity of written language in many parts of the world nowadays has confused the matter. But: the core of language, in many respects, is spoken, and in many (perhaps all) dialects of spoken English, 'you're' & 'your', 'it's' and 'its', 'to, 'two' & 'too' are all homophonous, and there need be no distinction made between them because context can perfectly (or, at least, almost perfectly) disambiguate. This is also the case in written language: notice how you're always able to understand what they meant when someone writes 'you're' in place of 'your', because the alternative - that they are writing is actually what they mean - would result in a grammatically nonsensical sentence. So, because many people who don't spend a great deal of time interacting with written language in a dialect that strictly distinguishes orthographically between those words (e.g. SWE), many people aren't at all used to having to make split-second distinctions between those words, and can often get it 'wrong'.\n\nIn many ways, it *would* be hard for you, as a non-native speaker of English, to understand (at least, directly; the situation is the same, presumably, for non-native speakers of your native language), because you are used to having to be constantly aware of your English, while native speakers have been producing and understanding English since before they have memories of being able to.",
"Spelling is not useful grammar. People are not struggling with it. It is not a pertinent aspect to achieving anything. Developing hyper-accurate yur, yor, you're, and your abilities does not create better grammar. People are pointlessly sensitive to these non-elements of converse. They hang on them expecting the world to stop before they can proceed with understanding something that others smoothly integrate into their consciousness. \n\nCommunication is the transfer of thoughts. If you're having trouble picking up the nuance of other people's messages because they've dropped in a few smoothly negligible grammatical errors that's your problem, not theirs.",
"I can answer the **it vs it's thing**. I always stuff it up, because my mind sees ' as possessive. As such, if I write \"the car lost it's wheel\" that looks correct to me, despite being cognitively aware it's wrong. I have to actually read it as \"it is\" in my mind to get it right."
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37f24e | water vapor vs. steam vs. mist vs. fog vs. cloud | Are these all different names for the same water in air? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/37f24e/eli5_water_vapor_vs_steam_vs_mist_vs_fog_vs_cloud/ | {
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"In a sense, they do just describe water in air, but they also provide you an idea of what that water is like. Basically, different connotations\n\nVapor: gaseous and dispersed\n\nSteam: high pressure/temperature, maybe more tightly packed (Vapor you might not see, steam you would see)\n\nMist: ambient (it's from the natural environment; steam doesn't have this conntation, but it definitely can be from natural sources). Doesn't really obstruct view that much or is only in a limited area. \n\nFog: obstructs view, covers a wider area. \n\nCloud: Altitude is high. "
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333vhg | say i have a bad cold with an impossibly stuffed up nose. no way to breathe through my nostrils. now say i get kidnapped, and they put duct tape over my mouth. would my body react to un-stuff my nose so i could breathe to live? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/333vhg/eli5_say_i_have_a_bad_cold_with_an_impossibly/ | {
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"Not quickly enough, I don't think. One thing I've found that sometimes helps is to just put a finger on one nostril and collapse it for about 30 seconds. Sometimes that clears it up. Assuming they tied your hands behind your back, you might be able to push your nose against a table leg or something to accomplish this in the ~2 minutes you have before you black out, assuming you got a good breath of air first. You could also try just warning your kidnappers first before they tape you, as if they are going to the trouble of kidnapping they presumably don't want you dead in the immediate term. ",
"I wouldn't worry about it. Next time you have duct tape (and preferably no facial hair) take a strip and put it over your mouth and try to get it off without your hands. It's absolutely trivial. The whole \"I have duct tape over my mouth so now I can't talk\" thing is just for the movies. Honestly it's one of their sillier gags since anyone with a roll of the gray, shiny stuff can show how implausible it is. \n\nAs for your actual question in a non-duct-tape scenario, I can tell you that in my experience adrenaline has a lovely head-clearing effect. I wouldn't be surprised if this is a normal reaction to extreme fear. ",
"You know when you're almost done with your braces and the orthodontist gives you those long rubber bands to wear at night that you're supposed to fasten all over your mouth to tighten up the gaps but you can't really open your mouth while wearing them? I had a bad cold and couldn't breathe through my nose - totally had a panic attack after I put them on and realised I couldn't breathe. Cut them off with scissors. ",
"No. Having experienced this first hand during training I can tell you that your nose does not magically unblock itself. You suffocate and pass out. Hopefully your captors notice and remove the tape or you'll just be another body waiting to be identified. ",
"I do a lot of kinky play, and I don't know if all bodies are the same, but I absolutely CANNOT have my mouth covered, filled or otherwise occupied while I have a bad cold. I can't even perform oral sex with a cold, (should I want to).\n\nI can imagine in an intense enough scenario adrenaline would reduce inflammation at least some for some amount of time. But I find I also need more oxygen *(breathe more heavily etc)* when my adrenaline's pumping. \n\nBut I've definitely had to stop kinky activities because I could not breathe and it was just not getting any better. I also would not top in such a case, due to my own experience.\n\n*(Honestly, I was just as scared of literally choking on my own snot as I was of suffocation.)*\n\nDuct tape only works if you go all the way around the head several-many times. (Can rip a lot of hair out though, depending on hair type and removal process.) Just a short piece over the mouth you can work off in a matter of seconds. If you want to make it so the person can't talk you need to immobilize the tongue, muffling screams mostly just needs adequate gap-free barriers.",
"[\"do not gag me, I have a terrible cold\"](_URL_0_) from Infinite Jest. This exact scenario occurs. The victim tears muscles in his abdomen trying to clear even a little bit of one nostril but he eventually expires. Horrific to read.",
"That depends on why your nasal passage is blocked. If it is swollen turbinates then you will probably sufficate. I say this as someone with horrible allergies who had to have them removed. If I had my mouth duct taped over before the surgery I would have suffocated, after I'm good to go now. So if it's mucus I bet it would be fine, but if it is swollen glands in your nose you're out of luck. So I would say it depends on what is blocking on a given instance. Hopefully explains the conflicting answers.",
"Was racing not long ago and my sinuses were completely blocked. Allergies had done their thing and I was an official member of the mouth breather club. Going through a corner the car got loose unexpectedly and after gathering it up I was still getting the adrenaline rush. Sinuses were immediately clear for the next 15 seconds then closed back up after the rush wore off.\n\nExtremely frustrating that the swollen sinuses can be turned off yet my body just doesn't.\n\n\nI'm not sure what the technical term is. Could have been adreneline or some other system doing it's thing"
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d5wqkj | would it be possible to divert the nile to irrigate the sahara? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/d5wqkj/eli5_would_it_be_possible_to_divert_the_nile_to/ | {
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2vb0b0 | when countries like north korea spend money on war supplies like missiles, nukes, guns, planes etc. who sells it to them? | How do they get it?
Edit: Obligatory woohoo! Front page! And r.i.p. inbox | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2vb0b0/eli5_when_countries_like_north_korea_spend_money/ | {
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"The North Koreans have purchased weapons largely from the Soviets/Russians and Chinese over the decades as well as having left overs going back as far as WWII from American and Western manufacturers. They have their own arms manufacturing industry which produces two Main Battle Tanks based on Russian/Chinese designs as well as smaller weapons. Some of the tech was purchased from the Russians when the Soviet Union collapsed nominally as scrap metal, but the North Koreans were able to learn from it to produce their own tanks. The have purchased Scuds (Soviet origin missiles) from Egypt, and now produce their own variant. \n\nAs far as nukes they purchased a lot of the know how from Pakistan illegally. The former head of Pakistan's nuclear program is in prison for selling secrets to the North Koreans. \n\nBasically anyone in the world except the U.S., Japan, South Korea and Western Europe will sell to them. And even some of those countries will sell \"non-military\" items that end up being used in the military (the NKs have a number of German trucks). Depending on how public the deal is, how much U.S. pressures the other country not to sell, and the age/design of the weapons anything could be sold to them. Selling off the last generation of weapons to other countries is a time honored tradition, this is a lot of the stuff NK buys from overseas. ",
"[In reality it's all the same people.](_URL_0_) \n\nIran, North Korea at SOFEX in Jordan purchasing the same stuff from the same people. Only they pretend they don't sell them weapons because it's dual purpose. \n\nSo while the official story is some sort of black market that's not [the truth](_URL_1_).\n\nWatch this video you'll be shocked. Actually watch more of the Vice videos and you'll learn so much.",
"Related question: How is North Korea able to have a nuclear weapons program, develop it's own cruise missiles and advanced weaponry, etc. while it's so isolated from the rest of the world? Where do the scientists and engineers working on these programs get their education?",
"Whoever does it, I'd probably not see it as 'evil' thing to do, it's just bussiness - if I don't sell it to them, there're 5 other guys waiting for this opportunity. \n\nI mean if they get these missile heads from Pakistan instead of China, what it's going to help? NK will end up having more or less what they need and I'll stay dry in terms of bussiness.\n\nWe have been shipping some stuf from Czech Republic to North Korea and I don't see anything wrong about it.",
"The five biggest arms dealers in the world, who by astonishing coincidence are also the five permanent members of the United Nations security council.",
"In N.Korea's case, they've got \"co-belligerent\" friends in Russia & the PRC. In Russia's case, our embargo incentivises them to sell elsewhere. In this instance they capture revenue from N.Korea - not that they'd act any differently anyway. \n\nEven w/o their help, there's always someone who's willing to turn a blind eye to further a political agenda or make themselves rich. \n\nDuring WWII, records found after the end of the war showed that Texaco (yes, the Texas Oil Company) was selling gasoline to \"neutral\" Spain, knowing full well that Spain sold it to the Nazis in Germany and kept the war going years longer than it would have been without their help. Texaco helped fuel concentration camps like Auschwitz, the Blitz, Germany's heavy water experiments, et al. Germany had to have external sources of petroleum, so without outside help from Texaco and others, the Nazi war machine would have ground to a halt.\n\nWithout outside help, the current N.Korean regime would cease to be in relatively short order.",
"They deal with third parties and trade in gold.",
"North Korea is like China's idiot cousin. China is successful and has a lot of money while North Korea does dumb things and can't get things on track. China feels bad that their cousin isn't as good as it, so they give them some stuff in hopes they'll get better... and thus begins a vicious cycle. \n\nRussia will sell you anything as long as they can still out arm you. They've sold weapons to pretty much everyone. ",
"Depending on the nation/warlord/dictator...everyone. Russia, China, France, Germany, UK, US, etc...and arms dealers. ",
"North Korea sells a lot of its ballistic missile technology to countries like Syria, Libya, Iran, Egypt, etc. It's a self-perpetuating industry when you don't feel the need to reallocate funds (to, for example, help feed your starving citizens). This is a big fear about Pyongyang's nuclear program. The government manufactures and sells opium abroad, it sells missiles on the black market, and it is fairly likely that once NK can efficiently produce HUE it will also begin to sell it abroad.",
"This may be a different ELI5, but where does NK get the money to buy any of these weapons? They are resource deficient and from my understanding, have little to no exported goods.",
"Watch this brilliant documentary. It will explain everything _URL_0_",
"Black market arms dealers, rogue nations like Libya, ideological supporters like China, politicrats like Russia trying to keep the West occupied.",
"Russia, usually using Belarus as a proxy seller, and China. They have some domestic weapons manufacturing too but all told they don't actually buy a whole lot of new equipment because they are awash in old comblock surplus from the coldwar era when those same countries were giving the stuff away for free to smaller communist nations.",
"Most weapons sold to small countries and military groups come from arms dealers. When there is a war or if new weapon tech is released, arms dealers get a deal on the old, used weapons. They turn around and sell them to buyers that need weapons. They don't care who it is as long as they get a big sale.\n\nA good movie to learn about this is 'Lord of War'. ",
"Im hoping someone see's this with some knowledge, where does NK get money to purchase things?",
"Probably anywhere and I don't think U.S. arms dealers have any scruples about selling to them though they might have to go through intermediaries. The profit margin has no ethics.",
"Russia, iran, china will sell to North Korea. They also their own military research and manufacturing plants.",
"During the 1980s, North Korea emerged as a significant arms exporter of inexpensive, technically unsophisticated, but reliable weapons. Clients are Third World countries that lack the resources and time to develop these systems.\nThe Middle East has been the major market for North Korean arms, with Iran and Libya making most purchases. Sales to Iran peaked in the early 1980s at the height of the Iran-Iraq war. These sales probably constitute about 90 percent of North Korea's arms exports, making this relationship most valuable. Other Middle East clients probably include Egypt and Syria. Through Middle Eastern arms sales, North Korea gains hard currency, alternative oil sources, and access to restricted technology.\n\nPrecise figures on North Korea's arms trade, economy, and foreign trade balance are not available. Rough estimates indicate North Korea earned over $4 billion from 1981 through 1989. Arms sales during the peak year 1982 represented nearly 37 percent of North Korea's total exports.\n\nBargain-basement prices sometimes conceal commercial and political motives. For example, in April 1986, North Korea made a sizable sale of domestically manufactured rifles to Peru. Peru's government justified the purchase because the price was 75 to 80 percent below world market price. North Korean motives for the sale combined the desire to earn foreign exchange with improving relations and, in this case, increased visibility in Latin America.\n\nThe weapons North Korea exports include large quantities of munitions, small arms, artillery, multiple rocket launchers, tanks, armored personnel carriers, air defense artillery, SCUD-B short-range ballistic missiles, and some naval craft. North Korea also has served as a conduit for selected arms shipments from China, including those to Iran and possibly Iraq. These arrangements provided China with plausible denials of CSS-N-2/SILKWORM antishipping missile sales in 1987 and 1988. China claimed third parties beyond it's control provided Iran SILKWORMs. Arms from the Soviet Union also may have been channeled in the same manner.\n\nAlthough North Korean efforts to gain support in international forums such as the Nonaligned Nations have had limited success, providing military training and advisers to Third World recipients plays a large role in North Korea's foreign political and economic initiatives. Latin American or Sub-Saharan nations that normally do not support either North or South Korean agendas sometimes temporarily support the North to obtain arms or economic help. To such nations North Korea presents itself as a fellow revolutionary struggling with constraints of relations with the superpowers. Small countries, hesitant to commit to a military relationship with one of the superpowers, sometimes find North Korea small enough and far enough away that it does not pose a threat. North Korean earnings from such ventures --- either in hard currency, offset agreements, or political chits to be redeemed later --- apparently are worth the effort.\n",
"Arms dealing corporations that profit no matter who gets killed. And countries who either need income or have no qualms about supplying wars.",
"all these responses remind me of a world like the one in Metal Gear Solid 4. \"War has changed. It's no longer about nations, ideologies or ethnicity. It's an endless series of proxy battles, fought by mercenaries and machines. War, and its consumption of life, has become a well-oiled machine.\" - at least prematurely",
"NATO. You would be surprised how much of the good guys weapons end up in the bad guys hands. At the end of the day, patriotism is out the window. Its all about the mighty dollar.",
"\"Why are you asking?\"\n\n\"...No reason\"",
"We'd sell to North Korea but So Korea has more $...Boeing sold $7.2 billion in 1 deal to So Korea\n\n_URL_0_",
"Everyone who's got surplus, even the US and Israel (obviously not officially). Due to the sanction regime, North Korea can't denounce them even if it gets cheated. Kinda how thieves don't go to the precint for protection from homeowners when they get caught.\n\nBut generally, their inventory is soviet-era hardware from China and the USSR.",
"Saw a Vice documentary once that showed what was Happening in Afghanistan while the US was in there. \n\n\" The final stop was a nearby scrap yard where piles and piles of new engines, tires, generators have been systematically severed from their original vehicles by US military contractors. They are then sold to local Afghani black market venders. Corrupt US contractors then use the invoices to justify ordering more in an endless supply from the Department of Defense. The corruption in Afghanistan rips off the hardworking American people whose taxes are funding this trillion dollar nightmare of a war.\"\n\nBasically in order to fill the budget and get a new vehicle some of these soldiers where scraping while cars because the engine had a Bullet in it. The Tali ban would buy them replace a part and drive them off. ",
"The top comment refers to North Korea specifically. I don't know exactly which countries OP was referring to when he said \"***like*** *North Korea*\", but the good ol' USS of A is the number one arms dealer in the world, having supported at least 25 murderous dictatorships as they \"fought terrorism\". "
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bpj1st | how do printers work so accurately and fast? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/bpj1st/eli5_how_do_printers_work_so_accurately_and_fast/ | {
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"I don’t know what exactly you are looking for as an answer... \n\nThey work accurately because the motor that controls the printing head works in very small increments (typically 96 positions per inch) and the ink injectors can inject extremely small quantities of ink.\n\nThey work fast because the motor is fast.",
"Inventions build upon each other. \n\nIn the early 80's I worked on the first laser printer, the [zerox 9700](_URL_0_), a 120 page per minute, b & w 300x300 dpi laser printer. It was about the size of the car and at the very leading edge of technology.\n\nAs computers got faster, the 600 dpi was possible. Color was added. larger paper. Speed is limited by paper path and need for speed, the 35 year old printer would still be faster than most printers on the market today."
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2r3wve | all the types of steaks, such as sirloin, prime rib, filet, ribeye etc. what should i consider when choosing which one to order in a restaurant? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2r3wve/eli5_all_the_types_of_steaks_such_as_sirloin/ | {
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"Personally, i think ribeye is the best all around for flavor, tenderness, texture and reasonable pricing. Of course, some of that depends on where you buy it, and how you have it cooked.",
"In the US, Beef has 3 unofficial ratings, Select, Choice, and Prime, with prime being the best. This is based primarily on the amount of fat, i.e. 'marbling' within the muscle. \n\nIf ordering a steak at a restaurant, it will either Choice or Prime. (Angus is another variety, similar to choice). Always go for ribeye (bone-in), or porterhouse, (which consists of Strip on one side and Tenderloin on the other, with a bone between). A cut with the bone in provides more flavor in my opinion. \n\nNow if you're really lucky, (and in Japan), Kobe beef is available. This is above prime on the marbling scale and looks delicious."
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2ahzhh | how do genders like genderqueer, genderfluid, etc work? do any scientists believe in them or are they just teens online trying to be special? | If you aren't a hermaphrodite how can you be two genders? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2ahzhh/eli5_how_do_genders_like_genderqueer_genderfluid/ | {
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"It is actually recognized as being something that legitimately happens to people, not just something they're making up. Gender Identity Disorder or Gender Dysphoria are the names given to it in medical and psychological terms.",
"Being a hermaphrodite is the physical issue of having parts of 2 sexes. Being genderqueer means your gender, or how you perceive yourself, has elements of both male and female and may not be predominately one or the other. You could be intersex and genderqueer but you can be one without the other. \n\nWhile many teenagers do identify as genderqueer, this is a legitimate belief and completely exists. Also, teenagers in this position may be trying to gain attention or appear unique, but they also may just feel out of place in traditional gender roles, or continue to identify as genderqueer as an adult.",
"Sex is what you have between your legs. True hermaphrodites are so rare that they basically don't exist; a fetus can go down the male track or the female track or split the difference and wind up [intersex](_URL_1_). So, male, female, none or intersex.\n\nGender is what's in your head, and is something you'd ask an anthropologist, a sociologist or possibly your parents about. It is a social and cultural thing that never translates well. Many cultures have [more than two genders](_URL_0_).\n\n\n",
"The first thing you need to understand is that sex and gender are two separate concepts. Sex is biologically motivated: male, female, or intersex (and transsexuals if you don't count those in any of the aforementioned categories). Gender, on the other hand, is a social construct.\n\nGender roles are historically constituted \"scripts\" that get passed down through the generations. Historically, they have been treated as intrinsically entwined with sex. We are typically taught the scripts from a young age, and repeatedly perform our gender throughout our lives much like actors (metaphorically). \n\nGender characteristics can range from color preferences to hair length to (historically) dominated career choices. If you're gendered as a girl, examples would be pink, long, and nurse, respectively. But the interesting part is that these concepts are (indirectly) taught at such a young age, that they become internalized. Pink actually becomes a little girl's favorite color. And with enough generations and people going through this same process, people grow up to see this relationship between gender and sex as intrinsically linked.\n\nWhile there are probably some teenagers identifying as genderfluid or whatever for attention and probably don't really understand what they're talking about, the concept of genderfluidity has been an important growing academic topic in the past 40 years (read: feminism). It's the mark of a society taking the meta stance, looking back on itself, and realizing that these constructs we've built and vehemently tried to follow for generations and instill in the youth are actually artificial. Not only that, they can be harmful. Think of gendering women to concentrate so hard on social standards of beauty or gendering men to suppress emotion (and this is just scratching the surface). \n\nGenderfluidity is just a new concept that says: \"I don't want my desires, preferences, and allowed actions pre-dictated to me by how my sex has historically practiced gender.\" It's a way of deconstructing artificial restrictions on behavior. When you start to make the idea of gender more fluid, you start releasing these boundaries and categories that you're encouraged to fit within and the idea of gender slowly begins to dissolve away. Gender is really a silly concept when you think about it :)",
"Funny thing, but I'm genderfluid.\n\nI really don't think of the word as some kind of claim about an absolute truth about myself. It's just the most accurate description for how I currently relate to myself, my body, and the world around me.\n\nYesterday, I felt male. By which I mean, I woke up and went \"oh god, get these boobs off of me\", and then later that day I had a nice cry about my girly face and skinny shoulders and tiny hands and how even if I took testosterone, it can't fix that my bones have been permanently shaped by my first puberty. On those days, it can literally take me a full second to realize people are referring to me when they say \"she\", or \"daughter\", etc. If I felt this way 100% of the time, I'd call myself a transguy.\n\nSome days, I LIKE the idea of living as a woman. I actually wear bras, instead of binding my breasts down. I wear that one pair of women's jeans they own. I like my face. I find it pretty. I feel proud of being female, and have the overwhelming urge to outrun a guy, or beat him at boxing, or win a nobel prize in science, or something. Note that my fashion sense doesn't really change between my \"girl days\" and \"boy days\". It's just that on girl days, I like looking like a tomboy/lesbian (though I'm bi). These days, where I'm 100% happy living as a girl, aren't that common. They happen once, maybe twice a month.\n\nMost days, I think of myself as androgynous. Those days, what exactly I want or expect of my body is unclear. I just know that it certainly isn't a woman's body, but a man's body would feel absurd.\n\nI can't say for sure that I'll always be genderfluid. Perhaps one day, I'll end up transitioning to live as male. Perhaps the \"male\" days will fade away, and I'll live as a rather androgynous woman. \n\nI can't speak for every genderqueer person's experience. But I'd say that overall, what unites us is that we're fundamentally uncomfortable trying to live by society's normal definitions of \"man\" and \"woman\". Most people who use the words \"genderqueer\" and \"genderfluid\" and \"bigender\" are younger. But if you look back, you can find older populations that show strong similarities. Many crossdressing men spoke of feeling like they had a \"female self\" that they needed to express. While some butch lesbians saw \"butch\" as simply a descriptor of their masculinity, others saw themselves as occupying a third gender, between man and woman. I've seen some of those people now call themselves \"genderqueer butches\". There have been medical reports for a while of men who self-castrate, because they aren't comfortable with male bodies, but don't consider themselves women.\n\nI only really know of one study of genderqueer people. And it was a population survey of bigender people, which was backing a *proposal* to study how that \"works\". _URL_0_\n\nI'd be happy to answer any other questions, if you have any."
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8tq1hf | why does breathing on glasses before wiping them clean off fingerprints so much better than wiping alone? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/8tq1hf/eli5_why_does_breathing_on_glasses_before_wiping/ | {
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"Breath contains small amounts of water vapour, so when you breathe on the glass you moisturise the glass before whipping it to off. It's like using water to clean glass, but in very small amounts ",
"It’s not the act of breathing, it’s the moisture from condensation that “fogs” up the glass. You’re adding water. Water cleans better than a dry cloth. ",
"Same thing happens when you lick the glasses but make sure you don’t have a peanut butter sandwich in your mouth I did that once and almost veered of the highway "
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3tljlg | how does [family member] once, twice, (etc) removed worked? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3tljlg/eli5how_does_family_member_once_twice_etc_removed/ | {
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"[Here's a good visual.](_URL_0_)\n\nSo your sibling shares the same parents as you. Your first cousins share the same grandparents as you. Your second cousins share the same GREAT grandparents as you.\n\nYour cousin-once-removed is the parent of your second cousins. So their GRANDPARENTS are your GREAT grandparents.\n\nThe GRANDparents of your cousin-TWICE-removed would be your GREAT-GREAT grandparents. See the number of greats and the number of removals line up."
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2sv86k | can some explain the differences in handgun ammunition calibers? | In particular what is different between the major calibers: 9 mm, .38, .40, and .45. Also what are the pros and con's for the average gun owner with regards to home protection and conceal/carry.
Also, what is the differentiation of grain counts of a given ammo. This part I have never understood. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2sv86k/eli5_can_some_explain_the_differences_in_handgun/ | {
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"[This is a decent article on ammo type](_URL_0_). Basically the grain count is referring to the amount in weight of gun powder in each round. A grain being 0.002 ounces (or just under 65 mg). The higher grain count, the bigger the boom (and subsequently more recoil experienced by the user).\n\nAs far as which type of round is better, there are so many variables that come into play with home defense, that I wouldn't feel comfortable saying \"x is better than y\". It sounds like you're new to the world of firearms. I would read up, practice at the range with friends or other people there who can help guide you, and find what you're comfortable with. ",
"Caliber refers to the size of the round, either in a decimal of inches or in metric as millimeters. Of the common ammo used, the smallest is usually the .22, tiny light and cheap but very low stopping power. Unless you hit your target in a very lethal spot they probably aren't going down. Its bigger sibling the .25 packs slightly more punch but really not much more.\n\nThe medium calibers are a bit more efficient at delivering kinetic energy to the target. The 9mm is *very* popular. It's about the smallest round that causes enough hydrostatic shock to have decent stopping power. The .38 isn't much bigger and both have with good penetration compared to the .22 and .25. The 'special' variant of the .38, has a longer cylinder so more propellant, therefor a bit more punch. Both tend to be found more in revolvers, and the .38 Special afaik is ONLY a revolver round.\n\nGoing bigger, the .40 is a very good round combining good range with very good stopping power. You will *know for sure* if you're hit with one. Popular with police. You start, or at least I do, to notice a bit more kick/recoil once you get to this size.\n\nNow we start getting to the big boys. The .45 ACP was used for a long, long time as the standard sidearm round in the US military. Great stopping power; a shot in non lethal spot can sometimes kill just from the hydro shock.\n\nThe .357 and .44 magnums are a bit of a special case that I group together because they are well, magnums. A magnum contains more propellant than standard rounds so pack a lot more punch, which while smaller than the .38 I include the .357 with it's big sister, plus it has more power than even the .38 special. \n\nThe .50 is the biggest I know of and is also a magnum type round. Insanely powerful with a kick to match. The Desert Eagle used by Agent Smith in \"The Matrix\" was a .50 I believe. It's fuck you up.\n\nThere's a lot more to ammunition and I think I already went to long for an eli5 so here we go.\n\nTL;DR - The caliber is the diameter of the round. The bigger the round and the more power used the more dead your target is.\n\n",
"May I ask, what is your interest in guns? Are you looking for this information to help decide on a caliber to get for defense or are you just curious?",
"Typically you will find .38 in revolvers along with .357 magnum. \n9mm, .40 and .45 are the most common semi auto rounds.\n\n9mm pros; cheap ammo, high capacity, low recoil, smaller framed guns\n9mm cons; less powerful than .40 and .45\n\n.40 pros; smaller framed guns, almost as good capacity as 9mm\n.40 cons; snappy recoil, ammo is almost as expensive as .45, power is closer to 9mm than to .45, tends to wear out guns faster\n\n.45 pros; more powerful than 9mm or .40\n.45 cons; lower capacity, higher recoil, more expensive ammo, guns usually have big grips that can be uncomfortable if your hands are small.\n\n.38 pros; low recoil, wide selection of bullets\n.38 cons; limited to revolvers, ammo costs about the same as .40, standard pressure is less powerful than 9mm\n\n.357 pros; most powerful out of all the choices, wide selection of bullets, you can shoot .38 out of any .357 revolver\n.357 cons; limited to revolvers (except for a few very expensive pistols) ammo cost is more expensive, recoil can be painful in smaller guns.\n\nPersonally I recommend 9mm to most shooters. With modern rounds like Federal HST you can give very effective wounds to the bad guys and the difference in power between those five calibers really isn't that big.\n\nAs far as grains, that's just how much the actual bullet (not the case or the powder) weighs. Lighter bullets go faster and heavier bullets are heavier. The design of the hollowpoint matters way more than the weight of the bullet."
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f9bfxz | why do cellphone companies pay x dollars for the trade in of y phones when buying a new phone? marketshare? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/f9bfxz/eli5_why_do_cellphone_companies_pay_x_dollars_for/ | {
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"A lot of companies probably get loads of phones at various prices, then mass sell them for their gold inside them, Get more bang for ya buck that way",
"The goal is always to get you to re-up your contract. The trade in terms almost always require you to sign up for another 1/2/3 year contract, so a small $50-100 hit they might take on a trade in is nothing compared to the revenue they assure themselves for the next 1-3 years by locking you in again.\n\nThey can mitigate some of those losses by refurbishing and reselling or recycling those trade-ins, but that is just gravy for them."
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5slzdq | why by do we use exchange rates to represent value of currency (eg: strong vs weak dollar)? | For example, if 1 USD = 1.32 CAD, who cares? What's more important is what $1 can buy, right? If a candy bar costs $1 in the US and $1.32 in Canada, then the is no difference. How do we measure value of currency based on what goods we can buy after we exchange it? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5slzdq/eli5_why_by_do_we_use_exchange_rates_to_represent/ | {
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"Because when you look past the price your paying at the register, the product your buying has its own inputs. \n\nLet's say (making up numbers), a jar of peanut butter costs you 1 USD, while the peanuts in your peanut butter can be purchased for 1 XYZ, and further, 1 USD can buy 5 XYZ's.\n\n\n\nFurther, let's say all the other inputs to the cost of that jar of peanut butter cost 60 cents. So, it basically costs 80 cents to get that jar of peanut butter to the shelf in front of you\n\nNow, things get funky and XYZ currency \"strengthens\" relative to the US dollar and doubles in value. A USD can now only buy 2.5 XYZ's. however, since peanuts are still made in that other country and still cost 1 XYZ. This means that the cost to make that peanut butter has risen by 20 cents. Your grocery store can no longer sell it for 1 USD because there's no margin left in it for them. \n\nLooking at exchange rates at a single point in time doesn't really mean much, but over longer periods of time, while they don't affect you directly, they can influence the final price you pay at the register. \n\nNot sure if this was 5 year old speak, but I tried! :)",
"If you never leave your own country, and never buy anything not 100% made in your country, then it matters not at all. However, this is pretty much impossible, as pieces and parts are sourced from all over the globe, usually based on where the cheapest to get resources are.\n\nExample of how it matters:\n\nImagine I own a Canadian business. I make some chairs, and I buy some chairs, and then sell them to Canadians.\n\nI make my chairs using Canadian materials, which I pay $100 CAD for, and then pay another $100 CAD to my workers to build it. I sell these chairs for $400 CAD to the Canadian public.\n\nI also buy some chairs form the USA. These chairs cost $100 USD for materials, and $100 USD for labor. I can buy them for $200 USD, and then I can sell them in Canada. However, I can't just sell them for $400 CAD. I have to pay for them in USD. But all my sales of these chairs are in CAD! I have to then go to my bank, and say, \"Please take the CADs, and pay this US company $200 in USD.\" The banks then need to figure out how much $200 USD is in CADs so they can pay the US company properly AND so I can price appropriately. \n\nIf the exchange rate is $1.50CAD to $1.00 USD, then I will need to have my bank take out $300 CAD to pay the US company. To keep my margins equal, I will need to charge $600 CAD for that US chair.\n\nIf the exchange rate is $0.50 CAD to $1.00 USD, then my bank only needs to pay the US company $100 CAD to cover the cost of the chair, and I can sell the US chairs for $200 CAD.\n\nIf you were a Canadian person shopping at my store, which would you buy? The $200 US chair, or the $400 Canadian chair? Alternatively, would you buy the $400 Canadian chair, or the $600 US chair? ",
"There are other measurement values such as the 'Big Mac Index' which tracks Big Mac prices across the world. \nIt's a little tongue-in-cheek, but its a nice reference for the average person. \n\nMin wage in the UK is £7.40. A Big Mac at £3.73 is about half an hours work. \nIn the US a Big Mac is $5.06. \nExchange rate is £1 = US$1.25, so that's a UK value of £4.04 \n\nIn Switzerland a Big Mac is 6.50 Francs ($6.35) which has a UK value of £5.07 \n\nSo looking at that, You can see that my pound is quite weak - I'd have to work 40ish mins on minimum wage to afford a Swiss burger. \n\nNow look at the Mexicans. Their Min wage is 80.04 Pesos, which is about $3.90. That's nearly an hours work to get a US big Mac, and maybe hour and a half for a Swiss one. \nThe Mexican Big Mac on the other hand is closer to 45.25 Peso which is about $2.20 and . About Half an hours work locally. \nOn my UK wage £1.76 - Thats closer to 10 mins work for me. \n\nSo If I earn my money in the UK and go to Switzerland I wont be able to buy as much as I'd be able to is I was to go to Mexico instead. \n\nThe amounts above are relatively low, but if you x them by 100 (Say hotel rooms or something), you are looking at significant differences in spending power. \n\nNow, the problem we have is - Who sets the prices for the Big Mac? McDonalds in the designated country do. They base the price on their own economy and tailor it to their own costs and the amount of money that regular people will have in their pockets. \n\nSo, It's important to know what the exchange rate is to see what your spending power is. Years ago the pound was worth $1.7 USD - Which meant i could buy a lot more with my pounds in america (That big mac would have cost me £2.96). Nowadays, not so much. \n\nIf you need further examples, have a look at holiday things in the Philippines (I was looking at Boracay) - the activities there are amazingly cheap for our currencies, but they may represent a fair chunk of the locals earning potential. \nI'm also excited that I'm going to Boracay. Throwing that in there :p \n",
"You are correct that how much a currency is worth is much more complicated than the exchange rate. You would be interested in the metric of [purchasing power parity](_URL_0_). \n\nHowever the exchange rate is a very simple number, and is highly relevant to anyone doing international trade. How many candy bars you can buy with $1.31 in Canada doesn't matter to someone in the US who is trading to Canada. He only cares how many candy bars you can get for $1 USD, and the exchange rate is what matters for that.",
"Ever heard of the \"big Mac index\"? \nCurrency exchange rates are internationally important for exports and imports but actually your (real) purchase power (how much do you have to pay for a certain basket of goods in relation to the currency exchange rate) determines the strength of your economy. "
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2yizt0 | why do dogs suck at hide-and-seek when they have a super sensitive olfactory sense? | [When dogs play hide-and-seek](_URL_0_) it looks like they're only using their eyes. Why aren't they relying on their noses? Wouldn't a dog's sense of smell be able tell them exactly where someone is hiding? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2yizt0/eli5_why_do_dogs_suck_at_hideandseek_when_they/ | {
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"Remember that their noses are so sensitive that to them, the whole house is saturated with the smell of everything. Imagine trying to find one hidden bottle of perfume in the perfume department at macy's - it's just too much sensory input to be accurate in all those \"smells\" - (not saying you stink or anything . . . but to the dog, you probaby do . . . just kiddin')"
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4i6rsu | i understand the first level (employer-employee) of direct deposits but how does it work between my bank and my employer? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4i6rsu/eli5_i_understand_the_first_level/ | {
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"I'm not 100% sure, but I'm fairly certain it is just a simple banking transfer.\n\nYour company runs a \"payroll application\" most likely bought from a vendor like ADP. That application runs through all the information for each employee, pulls out the correct amounts of tax (as specified by your W-2 and the state you are in), then notifies the bank to transfer the funds from their account to yours.",
"Your employer got your account number from you which includes the routing number, everything required to put money into your account. \n\nThen its payroll program used HR and payroll data to determine how much to pay you. \nThen it told the bank to transfer that much cash from your employer's account to your account. It cannot work the other way unless top officials in your bank authorize that.",
"Can you please explain your understanding of what you mean by \"first level of direct deposits?\""
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c20pkp | how does washing detergent work? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/c20pkp/eli5_how_does_washing_detergent_work/ | {
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"All soaps are surfactants. A surfactant is a molecule of which one end is attract to water (hydrophilic) and the other end doesn't like water (hydrophobic) but likes oils and dirt. Oils and dirt stick to the hydrophobic end and are washed away by water which attached to the hydrophobic end.",
"Detergent contains a surfactant, short for surface active agent that creates surface tension so dirt and grease stay in solution and don't redeposit back to the item being washed."
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4lx22u | how come the middle-eastern and asian civilizations got surpassed even though their knowledge and techniques were far superior to those of the western world? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4lx22u/eli5_how_come_the_middleeastern_and_asian/ | {
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"text": [
"A surprisingly short time has actually taken place in which Asian civilizations weren't the top dogs. \n\nIn the grand scheme of things, it'll correct and balance out again.",
"Civilizations rise and fall. By the time the West as we know it was getting on it's feet; the middle-east and east Asia had already had their great civilizations. Because it was mostly safe from invaders and other threats, Europe was allowed to grow and prosper and benefit from ideas and innovations that came from west and east Asia. The opposite is happening now, Western powers like America and the UK are declining massively, and China and India are becoming more and more dominant.",
"This will get buried in the comment, but a good book on this topic is \"Civilization: The West and the Rest\" by Niall Ferguson",
"Greece. We owe everything to the Ancient Greeks - and one Greek in particular.\n\nScientific enquiry is what pushed the Western World ahead (and continues to drive their success). The ability to ask a legitimate question without getting your head chopped off is fundamental to knowledge; and ultimately also to a good government. Furthermore this entire way of thinking can be traced directly back to Socrates. In the entire canon of human history never has one man had so much influence as Socrates did.\n\nEppur si muove (not Socrates, but a fitting quote anyway).\n\n",
"There is a great book by Paul Kennedy called \"The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers\". It is excellently sourced and includes all kinds of cultural, political and economic data. Its first chapters deal with this idea. Basically up until the early 1500's Europe was culturally and technologically behind the Middle East and East Asia. The book lays out a good argument that the changes that occured from 1500 on were due in large part to politics and centralized control...Whereas the Ottomans or the Chinese centrally controlled large empires with quite a bit of cultural and ethnic homogeny, in Europe the nature of the dying feudal system and the plurality of small nation states lead to an environment that acted like an incubator of technology and governance. \n\nIn China, if the Emperor outlawed the crossbow you were basically boned...But if you lived in Baden and the mayor of Baden outlawed the crossbow, you could pick up and leave to another town, city, barony, principality, republic etc, and keep making crossbows. That is a gross oversimplification of what happened but I think there is a lot to the idea that in Europe there was a lot of \"trial by fire\", and the adversity those small city states and kingdoms faced help drive innovation militarily speaking. I'm sure the Catholic church and its desire to spread and win the souls of pagans plays a big part too - But the technology is what eventually allowed that to happen. This is a pretty deep rabbit hole and can include things like the geography of Europe and how its terrain allowed for less easily centralized control by governments, how Europe lucked out when it came to invasion by the Mongols, etc etc etc.",
"Most of the time we blame the Mongols for the decline. the Middle-east were in their Golden Age of technology and culture and China was on the rise as the most technologically advanced civilizations on the planet.\n\nAll of that changed when the mongols attacked.\n\nBecause the Chinese were such an isolated culture, they never shared or formed alliegences with other great natons.",
"itt a bunch of asian born americans who think they know about asian history because of something there parents told them",
"Because of the key word \"Were\". Coming from a middle eastern point of view, we built the foundations of mathematics and people simply expanded on them. We as people are always trying to find new ways to make things better.",
"Wow, I'm late to the game, but I'll give it a go.\n\nThe big part of the reason the western world surpasses other areas is because the west is the first region to achieve *self-sustaining growth.* There is an economist called Thomas Malthus who formulated the principle that populations grew when there was extra food and then they were limited by their inability to produce more food: ie starvation and population crashes. For the most part, Malthus' analysis is correct for the preceding centuries. Again and again we see empires go through cycles: the population grows and then crashes and empires rise and fall with these cycles. When the population grows and there is excess food, the empire is able to tax more individuals and harness produce more from the land. However, at some point the population becomes so high that land holdings shrink--you have to divide your land among your kids--and so your plots of land get smaller and smaller until its not enough to sustain you. When that happens, the population straves, taxes become harder to collect, riots happen, no one is happy. \n\nNow, turn to England. Across Europe in the 1500's onwards, peasants increasingly revolt, rebel, and gain more and more rights. In continental Europe, this often meant they got land, but in England the elites were a bit more organized so peasants were freed from the bonds of feudalism *but they were not given land, the land remained in the hands of the elite.* This had two key consequences. On the one hand, the elites were able to consolidate their land holdings into larger and larger holdings, allowing them to produce crops more efficiently and employ technologies, so agricultural productivity goes up. On the other hand, many of the former peasants move to the cities, feeding rudimentary factories and acting as an industrial basis. However, this is all happening during a bout of the Plague, so England is a high wage economy when this happens. Hence we have innovation in technologyin order to increase your bang for your buck (you pay a person 7 dollars an hour regardless, but with tech advances they're now making 20 shirts and hour as opposed to just 1). And from then we get the rest of the Western world following England. \n\nHere is the crucial thing: across the world there is a divide between peasant and lord, between worker and landlord. Peasants act in self interest. They just want to live and have enough to get by. In times of excess, population increases, and while there is still excess this is great for ruling elite because it means they get more taxes, but once population outstrips the land's capacity to support it (and remember, areas caught in these cycles are those that can't implement efficient tech as they could in England) you get revolts in the base. England, by a fluke, is thrown out of this cycle",
"I haven't seen this yet, so here goes. The Plague helped to jump start the Rennaisance. The Plague decimated European populations, and forced cities and large towns to adopt some sanitary measures (though London still kept its shit in basements until '93). It also forced people to take a good hard look at the complete domination of religion over everyday life. No one has been spared, rich or poor, pious or perverted, God hadn't lifted a finger. Rationality and reason started to creep into the Equation. Also, the fall of the Bizantine Empire in the East had merchants looking for different routes to India and its wealth of spices. The age of the Adventurer took hold. Newfound interest in reason, coupled with a desire to expand power on a crowded continent sent many smaller fiefdoms into conflict. The various European powers coellesced into Nation States. From there they expanded their power out at a time when most of the rest of the world was in decline. \n \nThere are many factors, but chief among them is timing. Empires rise and fall, European Powers rose at a time when world technological development was right on the edge of ushering in an age without decline. Because none of these powers ever properly conquered and coellesced power in Europe, there was never a cease in military advancement, there was always a drive to have a bigger bang than the next guy. While the other world powers became corrupt and stagnated from within, the various European Principalities competed against each other in all things, driving innovation and discovery. Europe'e third rise came right at the right time, and the Western world has held poll position ever since.",
"(honest question) ELI5: In what ways were Asian \"knowledge and techniques far superior to those of the western world?\"",
"The largest contributor to why the western world overtook the east was technology.\n\nIt has nothing to do with the west getting lucky or the east being backwards \n\nBasically China had a highly commercialized economy during the 1600 and 1700's along with a highly centralized state and an ever expanding population providing nearly endless labor. Meanwhile Europe was divided plagued with war and always needed a way to make more of the labor pool they had. This led to western nations adopting firearms as soon as they figured out how to make it efficient. And later on led to things like the steam pump a very underrated invention. It was invented out of necessity to make mining (especially of coal which fueled the industrial revolution) much more efficient. Whereas in China it didn't matter you want to get water out of a mine? Why invent a pump when you can just send thousands down there with buckets. It was a system that worked for them for centuries (pre-dates European coal mining) and never needed to be improved upon because the labor was always present\n\n\nHope this cleared things up I realize I may have started to ramble in there",
"As far as the Chinese go, the biggest factor was the emperor's decree that no one in the kingdom was allowed to build ships larger than short distance-sized units at sown point in time in their history. This virtually eliminated all colonization and intercontinental expansion. After long periods of Chinese exploration, the emperor was very concerned about other cultures degrading pure Chinese culture via inter-mixing, so his decree made the Chinese very isolationist. When the Europeans caught up to ship building technology, they had no such restriction and proceeded to colonize the world, and bring death, by disease, mind you. When Europeans were in mud huts, there are tales of Chinese sea going fleets hat were so vast that they would cover the horizon. They would land and trade, but were forbidden to conquer. It was after these explorations that the restriction was set forth. ",
"I have yet to see any top comments given good answers. Your question is very similar to Needham’s Grand Question, which is the question of how a far advanced Chinese Civilization fell behind.\n\nShort answer: They were never \"far superior to those of the Western world\".\n\nLong answer:\n\n1. People hear something impressive about another civilization then have the wrong image of it. For example Forbidden City of China is impressive, right? But did you know it was first constructed between 1406 to 1420, then was renovated, rebuilt, and had new palaces constructed between 1644-1658, then 1683-1695, and again in 1735 to 1795? Now you compare it with the Louvre (began construction in 1190, had a few major projects over the centuries then finished before 1870), while it doesn't make you feel the Forbidden City any less impressive, you probably won't see the two and think the Chinese were far ahead of the West.\n\n2. People have wrong ideas about the old days in general. In this case, people don't realize how primitive the ancient times were. Water chlorination wasn't a thing till no earlier than 1893. That means drinking water, essential to survival, was a very risky thing till almost yesterday. Think about it, the difference between farmers in 1800 AD and 1800 BC wasn't that big: Better tools, but generally the same methods were being used for thousands of years. It's not until very recent we human race as a whole started acceleration, and that's when other civilizations rally fell behind. It's like you grew up with Mike Tyson. When you were little kids you might've beaten up Tyson a few times, but once he hits puberty there's no match.\nTo give you a better picture, and since many mentioned the Mongols, let's look at the most formidable force in history. They couldn't make almost any of the tools they needed at the time. When they conquered China they didn't even know how to farm so they just used rice and wheat fields as cattle ranches. So called far superior knowledge and techniques were not superior enough to make a difference.\n\n3. The U.S. is only 239 almost 240 years old. Anglo-Saxons didn't come to history stage till 5 AD. The Dark Ages were not the best time of the West. But if you look at the root of Westerner Civilization (many see today's America as the representative), you'll see more than that. Ancient Greece inherited many things from Ancient Egypt, then there's Rome, even during the Dark Ages there were Byzantine Empire. Indeed the fall of Constantinople directly triggered the Renaissance. So the West were doing fine from day one. Yes they might not be the most advanced here and there, and some places had a downfall or two over the time, but as a whole, I wouldn't say the East was really ahead of the West, even less so the Middle East (assuming it's the Islamic Civilization we are talking about here).\n\n4. Many people mistake technology with science. In ancient times when we, the human race, were still very primitive, you could come up some inventions just because you were really smart or lucky. However without scientific method you can't systematically develop whatever you have, as a result in a long run having a few lucky inventions (which you would say it's \"far superior\") don't help you that much. Best example is gun power. While the Chinese invented gun power hundreds of years before Europeans first saw it, they never had the best recipe. As a result, even China started using firearms 600 years before Europe did, thermal weapons didn't really become something meaningful till Europeans mastered them.\n\n**TL; DR**: West was never really left behind. While other civilizations had a few advanced things here and there, or were leading for some time, nothing was meaningful. What meaningful is scientific method, the reason we have modern science and technology, the reason we are here wasting time on reddit. The scientific method that makes us waste time here on reddit is the direct descent of Aristotelian method. Of all early civilizations, only Greek Civilization developed systematic logic and scientific method. And here's my bold statement: If the Western Civilization somehow went extinct and had nothing left, human on earth would still be living in no better than glorified medieval lifestyle.",
"I think what you are asking is why were European countries more successful at imperialism in the past millennium. Check out the book Guns, Germs, and Steel by Jared Diamond. According to the book, Asian civilizations had so much land they did not need to colonize. China even outlawed ship building at one point to encourage investment at home. The book gives a ton more arguments and is pretty interesting.",
"Western cultures used their inventions for science and advancing progress. Eastern, more specifically, Islamic cultures tended to use technology for religious purposes.",
"A single person in China could stifle innovation. A good idea in Europe could be shopped around until adopted. \n\nEx. Colonialism; Gunpowder; Democracy \n\nIf the good idea was not adopted in China, that was fashion. \n\nIf the good idea was not adopted in Europe, that was an invitation to regime change.",
"Religion holds people, countries, regions, etc from progressing. I'm sure there are other factors, but thats my biggest take away from it.",
"Were they surpassed? Can you equate having a greater grasp on technology to achieve a higher level of human actualization. I understand it's just a matter of semantics but semantics matter when it reinforces the notion that the west holds some sort of monopoly on attaining life fulfillment.",
"Important factor for the Arabic world is a rise of several supposed \"scholars\" who claimed that mathematics was work of the devil and that you can only get knowledge from hole texts etc etc\n\nThis idea very quickly stopped the scientific advancements in that part of the world :(\n\nhere is a clip of Neil Degrasse Tyson talking about this which I think explains it well _URL_0_\n",
"I'm going to say that in the case of the Middle-East, it never recovered from the Mongol invasion.",
"Francis Fukuyama wrote about this in the second of his latest two-volume works. He cites the geographic differences between the open fields that allowed quick transportation and control of vast empires without as strong a state apparatus and the mountain ranges and rivers that divided Europe and required strong states to control effectively.\nI think the plague had a significant impact as well, allowing Europe to restructure, rebuild, and centralize almost from scratch.",
" > were far superior to those of the western world\n\nBecause they weren't far superior. Contrary to popular belief, the dark ages weren't a decline for Europe but the transformation from the clan period to monarchy, with the formation of the modern countries originating in the dark ages. They are just treated as a 'decline' because they aren't as well known as classical history or the age of exploration. Saying the Middle East was far superior to Europe doesn't even make sense considering the Middle East was ruled by Greeks, Romans, then Romanized Greeks for a large portion of its history.\n\nAs to why Europe took off? Before industrialization, wealth was created on plantation based agriculture, which does best in warm fertile regions. This is why the fertile crescent, nile river delta, and yellow river valley did well during the classical era. This is also why Southern Europe was wealthier than Northern Europe during the classical era. Trade was dominated by the silk road, which connected China, the Arab World and Southern Europe. With the Age of Exploration that began to change, with transatlantic trade becoming a great source of wealth for Western and Northern Europe. Southern Europe, the Middle East, and China, which were well connected to trade during the Silk Road era but were not connected to the new transatlantic trade routes. Industrialization created another source of wealth, this time far greater than what agriculture alone could provide and sprang up first in Northern Europe. Industrialization did best in regions where labor wasn't already consumed by plantation based agriculture. This shifted the wealthiest regions of the world from warm fertile regions to colder less fertile regions. The Arab World and China were very late to industrialization, which is why they were left behind.",
"In one sentence: the east lacked pragmatism and advanced at a slower rate since the 15th century until around the 20th.",
"Hmm, how to explain this...\n\nOkay, Islam, like Christianity in Europe had a reform movement that was mercilessly crushed by traditionalists and fundamentalists followers which also had the misfortune of chasing away the surviving Arabic and Persian intellectuals who took their knowledge to different countries where they wouldn't be defenestrated.\n\nIn regards to the Eastern world China put more emphasis on trade and wealth building than they did on technological gains in terms of industrialization and militarization. In short, they were more about wealth via trade than they were about technological gains.\n\n ",
"I'll preface by saying this has no ELI5 answer. It's immensely complex and no single internet post can answer it. You could spend decades on a doctorate thesis on this topic and never completely answer it (it's too broad a topic for a thesis besides).\n\n[I'll also refer you to this AskHistorians post, which is their go-to link in their FAQ](_URL_5_)\n\nPeople bring up *Guns, Germs, and Steel* to answer this question a lot. While GGS brings up several very interesting ideas, it is crippled by some serious flaws, primarily Eurocentrism. While a geographical approach to the question is a very plausible one, it is not the sole factor in why the West became preeminent. Europe was not the only region where there were many domesticable animals, fertile lands for agriculture, and densely-populated cities ripe for disease existed - China, India, and the Fertile Crescent fit these factors as well, among others. Cultural factors played a heavy role as well.\n\nOthers in this thread have brought up constant instability and war as a reason for the rest of the world \"slowing down.\" While China and India were certainly no strangers to civil war, Europe was wracked by near-constant wars between their diverse states and dynasties throughout its history. In fact, the frequency and centrality of war in European culture was a major factor in its rise to global dominance.\n\nAnd finally, others in this thread have brought up the Mongols as a means of \"slowing down\" the rest of the world. While the Mongols played a major role in the history of East Asia and the Middle East and Western Europe was spared, an invasion by a steppe horde - no matter how destructive - will permanently halt the development of a civilization. Europe didn't stop dead after various migrant tribes radically altered the Roman Empire. China didn't stop dead under the Yuan Dynasty. India didn't stop dead under the Mughals. And the Muslim world didn't stop dead after the Mongols visited (*cough* Ottomans *cough*).\n\nFinally, science and technology aren't a semi-linear tree like in the *Civilization* series. Especially back in the days before the Industrial Revolution, you don't research something with the intent of producing an extremely specific result. Most technological innovations come entirely by accident, a side-effect of trying to produce something else entirely.\n\nPerhaps the closest thing to an ELI5 answer to this question is that **Europe was a perfect storm of socio-cultural and economic circumstances at the perfect time**.\n\n* For most European proto-states, social status and social structure revolved *heavily* around the ownership of private property. Owners of land held all the power of most European societies, and as the Middle Ages progressed into the Early Modern Era more emphasis was placed on the refining of inheritance laws and consolidation of more land. For example, in England the [enclosure system](_URL_1_) became important during the Early Modern Era, as wealthy landowners pushed off poor tenant farmers and consolidated their lands for their direct use and control.\n* Additionally, during this time economic and social forces began pushing peasants and serfs into cities for better opportunities. The [Black Death](_URL_2_) (itself carried to Europe by a combination of the Mongols and trade with the Far East) caused a continent-wide shortage of labor, which led to landowners lowering rent prices to attract peasants to work their land, which allowed lower-class families to actually keep more of their harvested crops, sell the surplus in the cities, and pocket the profit. This led to massive social upheaval to the old feudal order in many kingdoms, for example the [Peasant's Revolt of 1381](_URL_0_) in England. This was a key development in the rise of a middle class in Europe.\n* The intertwining of property ownership with social status bred a landowners-as-martial-caste society, and heavily encouraged warfare between landowners as a means of gaining more wealth and power. For example, the [Estates system of France](_URL_4_) - Those Who Fight, Those Who Pray, and Those Who Work.\n* Catholic Christianity dominated Europe, a religion that placed incredible importance upon the conversion and baptism of non-believers to literally save their souls from damnation in the afterlife. This leads to an emphasis on believers to bring their religion to foreign places.\n* Europe was a global backwater when it came to resources and global trade before the colonial era. Even after the European colonial empires formed, a great deal of European trade involved pouring currency into foreign markets for luxury goods. For example, the [Opium Wars](_URL_3_) of the 19th century were triggered by Chinese hoarding market share of silver traded to them by the European powers in exchange for luxuries such as tea or porcelain; the British sought to break this drain on the silver market by introducing opium to China; opium addiction became an immensely destructive epidemic in China and the Chinese authorities attempted to ban its import and use; Britain retaliated militarily.\n\nCombine all the above factors and you get a culture that:\n\n* Pushed individuals to obtain as much new land as possible to attain greater social status and power\n* Had an emerging middle class that sought social mobility\n* Trained its landowning upper class in warfare for purposes of obtaining land\n* Encouraged the followers of the local religion to convert non-believing foreigners\n* Had a thirst for resources to fuel constant local war efforts and acquire luxury goods from other regions\n\nA perfect storm for the formation of colonial empires.\n\nAnd this by no means comes close to fully answering this question. I haven't even touched the Protestant Reformation (arguably the most important event in European history).",
"If you are referring to modern government that most of it derives from the conflict between church and state that existed from about the 7th or 8th century onward. \n\nThere was a long fought battle, sometimes bloody, over who had the direct line of authority from god, Popes or Kings? It is in the guise of this debate that much writing and much deliberation that would become the foundations of modern government would arise. \n\nSomewhat ironically the answer to the secular rulers' question on how to explain the basis of their authority without turning to god, with whom the Papacy surely had a superior claim, came from a time long before Europe rose to any prominence. Aristotle's Politics was 'rediscovered'. This was a bit of a problem, he being a pagan and all, but a theologian by the name of Thomas Aquinas translated the works and reconciled them with western culture. \n\nPolitics argues that the origin of authority comes from a social pact between ruler and ruled. His observations note that government was independent from religion and a natural invention of man to serve his needs. From these ideas government separated from the church but kings also signed their doom for they had given rise to the idea that a king is but a corporate body representing an entire kingdom. In the centuries to come people would extrapolate from Aristotle's ideas and reinvent democracy as representative bodies became more and more powerful and more and more, in theory, egalitarian. \n\nI argue that this is what differentiates the west from the rest of the world. Neither Asia, Africa, nor the Middle East have had the centuries of personal development with all of the legal concepts that we consider an essential part of freedom and human rights. ",
"The state of science and technology in Europe during the Medieval period tends to be very played down, the notion of primitive Europeans and an amazingly advanced East just seems to be a narrative people find fun. People seem to demand little intelectual rigore when suporting this narative for example all evidence for the antiquity of Chinese gunpowder [turns out to be rather shaky]( _URL_0_)",
"Short answer is that Islam took care of the advances made in the Middle East (Al-Ghazali and his 'intellectual' descendants). And China not only turned inward, but never had the scientific and mathematical advances/culture that had existed in Greece and in Iraq/Iran.",
"Copied from googling.\n\n\nChina was centrally controlled by a leadership that made a deliberate choice to focus inward and turn it's back on the world and technology. So just as the Renaissance was waking up Europe, China was going to sleep. The Arabs were very advanced through much of what was in Europe the dark ages, but they were devastated by the Mongols and never truly recovered. The Turks were corrupt to a point where they were stagnant. \n\nIndia was too divided. There were no true long-lasting nation-states. Most of the Empires had little to no coastal territory, and were primarily concerned with land expansion. The states that needed new territory, didn't have the resources. The states that did have the resources, had no interest. \n\nThe west on the other hand had a lot of both commercial and military competition, and an explosion of intellectual inquiry. There was no power suppressing progress. It has the right kind of society/culture that encourages its growth, so it is the way people think that makes them more advance. \n\nEurope's (and the Iberian nations in particular) unique situation fed the Voyages of Discovery, and those voyages led to new economic prosperity, surpassing that gained during the crusades. At the same time, the Byzantine Empire had fallen, and many of its intellectuals and artists fled to Western Europe, in particular Italy. This led directly to the Renaissance. Basically, Europe got lucky.\n\n",
"Most of history is a story of one group or another leapfrogging the others to get ahead for a period of time. Like the hare in the fable, people who get ahead often get complacent until someone else gets ahead of them.",
"It's not clear what you're referring to with 'knowledge and techniques'. The biggest reason why Europe thrived over the last several hundred years versus the East was the [Mongol invasions of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries.](_URL_1_) The West may have succumbed to the same fate (Mongols made it as far as [Kiev, Poland](_URL_0_)) but due to the death of the Mongol ruler, the horde was recalled to the East before they could lay waste further in Western Europe.",
"QI (tv prog) mentioned one time about China drinking out of ceramic cups... while western world were drnking out of glass... glass is used so much in technology that we advanced on.\n\nThis is a shit summary but Im tired",
"Innovation/knowledge creation tends to be a function of the number of people and how easy it is for them to communicate. The Western World tended to be rather open with communicating with each other and sharing knowledge. A lot of Eastern Civilizations did the opposite. They viewed the outside world as dangerous and became insular*. This stemmed their ability to innovate and in turn made them fall behind.",
"The steppe tribes did it. \n\nThere were lets say 5 major areas of power.\n\nEurope. India. Asia. Middle-East. Byzatine Empire (Eastern Roman Empire centered in Greece/Anatolia.)\n\nThe Middle-East was ravaged first by the Seljuk Turks (who were fanatically religious steppe tribes.) The Seljuk Turks closed off access to Jerusalem to Christians which angered the Christians (causing the Crusades) and the other Muslims (as it went against Islamic law.) During the crusades the Seljuks fought the Byzantines, the Fatimids (Egyptian Muslims), and the Crusaders. This led to a huge stagnation in development. They were then COMPLETELY ravaged by the Mongols (first under Genghis, later under Timur.) Between all of this the Middle-East has never quite recovered.\n\nIndia was ravaged by the Muslim conquests, and then later on by Timur. They were then ALSO ravaged by the Mughal conquests, and then were torn between the British and the Mughals. India never really had a chance to develop and was constantly being traded between conquering powers.\n\nAsia (well, China) turned inwards. 1400's technology was in many ways inferior to 1200's technology due to the Mongol conquests. Then later on the Manchu conquests (another steppe tribe) that formed the Qing dynasty. Then the Qing (who were not Chinese, they were Manchu ruling over the Chinese) decided to sort of just sit on China and rule it until they were overthrown in the early 1900's.\n\nThe Byzantine Empire suffered huge loses to the Seljuk Turks and many Turks settled in Anatolia (modern day Turkey) during this time. Although they managed to reclaim this land it was mostly razed to make room for the horses of the Turks. Later on the Latins (mostly Genoa and Venice) of Italy backstabbed the Byzantines during the Fourth Crusade and sacked Constantinople (the Capital of the Byzantines and arguable the most important city in the world at the time due to it's control of trade, center of learning, and other important factors.) After the collapse of the Byzantines the Ottoman Turks emerged as the dominant Turk power in Anatolia, and the Ottoman Turks then took over the former Byzantine lands. This is a large reason why the Ottomans were so dominant over Europe until the 1600's. But then the Ottomans too became stagnant and corrupt and content with their position thinking \"we're the strongest, we'll never not be the strongest!\" until their stagnation led to them not being the strongest and being conquered by European powers (largely Austria and Russia.) \n\nIN EUROPE... none of this happened. The Mongols pushed in to Hungary and the Hungarians managed to hold them off there (due to a large number of factors all helping the Hungarians out.) The Hungary region was mostly depopulated in the Mongol wars, but it wasn't even 10% of the population lost in the Middle-East. Europe basically became last man standing from the steppe tribes invasions. Europe was also INCREDIBLY warlike at the time, more so than anybody else. Their love of war caused them to take whatever new technology came to them and refine it. War causes technological progress. A big difference between steppe tribe wars and European wars is that the Europeans weren't slaughtering everyone in their path. The steppe tribes were notable for wiping out entire cities and areas of population in their conquest. People can't advance without people. \n\nTo put this all in to perspective: It's said that Genghis wiped out 10% of the world's population. Timur wiped out 5% of the world's population. The Seljuk Turks didn't really wipe out population but their fanatical zealousness for Islam caused technological stagnation. None of these massive loses of population really effected Europe. ",
"History major here.\n\nThe way my professor explained it was a concept called the great schism. Up to the 1700s and 1800s, China produced the goods others wanted, and didn't have a need for new technology because they had a civilization that was almost 5000 years old at the time. But, the western nations knew that they needed bargaining chips with Chinese trade, which was in no way stable, and they went through many means, which, due to the fractured nature of Europe, required maximizing manpower. This lead to mass production. However, at the same time there was a desire for new trade routes to cutout the ottoman middle man. This led to the discovery of America (they knew the world was round, Columbus just miscalculated and got lucky) and the most important part of that discovery was silver. The Chinese wanted silver bad, and their control of mines in South America led to increasing western influence. So as the west was getting new technologies and the Ming were focusing on traditional values, the Spanish and later the British were destablizing trade. There are other reasons, such as the many internal power struggles and fights, but the biggest reason is that for a long time the Chinese didn't need heavy industry and didn't need European goods, and when they needed European goods they continued to believe their methods of production were fine and they weren't.\n\nHowever, I may be missing some things here from a combination of starting my sophomore year in college in the fall and being on mobile, so if there are any questions feel free to ask.",
"What you're talking about is sometimes referred to as the \"European miracle\" The term is a little cringy but, I promise it's not related to loony white supremacy fantasies. The spread of enlightenment ideals led directly to the industrial revolution, which started in England. The reason it started in England, and not anywhere else is a mixture of luck and government. Steam power had been discovered previously in a lot of places, Egypt and China for example but, because slaves existed, it was just a curiosity. England was \"lucky\" because it had a lot of coal that was easier to get to because of where it's prehistoric forests were. Coal as a source of energy is much much denser than wood. So, England has more energy, for less effort than its competitors. France has similar coal deposits but because of the way their government worked at the time, it wasn't as easy for people to get financial backing to build a machine. To give it a modern spin, imagine if the political environment of say India, made it possible for some new, super dense type of energy to be produced, Fusion or whatever. While the rest of the world scrambles to catch up with Indias innovation, they shoot \"ahead\" because they've got more energy than everyone else. Today of course, it wouldn't happen like it did back then, but, you get the picture. ",
"I would like to add to this question. How did quality of life compare between e.g. Western Europe and Asia in the past? For example, was it better to be your average Industrial Age workshop slave, or a Indian worker? Was it better to be a British peasant or a Chinese peasant?\n\nClearly there were often times (the black death, the Irish famine, etc) when, given the choice, you would almost certainly opt for Chinese peasant over Irish peasant.",
"I also read an explanation in Jared Diamond's \"Guns, Germs and Steel\" about this.\n\nBasically, China had 3 major rivers that extended West-to-East. The Huang, the Yangtze, and the Canton rivers. \n\nThese 3 major rivers was ultimately the driving force that allowed China to become unified. China covers an area larger than Europe, but yet it's language, writing, and traditions covered and spread through the entire country, unified for the most part by an Emperor.\n\nEurope, however, remained fractured. Cities formed and developed their own languages and customs, which also lead to constant warfare between them. Europe actually prospered as a result of this constant warfare, because it makes them think of new ways to win wars and invent things to get an advantage over their neighbor.\n\nThe 3 major Chinese rivers are the reason why China became a unified empire. Language, customs and the Emperor's mandate was able to spread peacefully as people carried it through the vast Chinese country side. Once China remained a realtively-stable unity under an Emperor, it became suspicious of outsiders who did not see the world as they did, and they closed themselves off from the rest of the world.",
"This isn't an explanation, because I have no idea how true it is, wondering if anyone can confirm what I thought the answer was as most of the answers here seem to say it was the Mongols. I vaguely remember reading/hearing somewhere that Eastern civilizations early development of porcelain, pottery and paper hampered their technological advancement. \n\nThe western world instead produced glass to solve the same problems that Asia solved with pottery and wood. The difference was that the need for containers for food and liquid that drove these discoveries led to nothing but those things for Asia, while for Europe the discovery of glass led to lenses, telescopes, glasses, test tubes (because glass was inert while pottery was not); which in turn paved the way to advancements in chemistry, physics, navigation, mathematics, etc.\n\nIs there any truth to this?",
"There's a very good and interesting theory that is that the Chinese drank tea. Because they drank it in clay cups or 'china' they never got around to inventing glass, they used paper for windows... Invention of glass in Europe led to microscope, telescope and chemistry since glass does not react to most chemicals. Also glasses could be made to make sure that wise people and academics could use their knowledge and skill of reading and writing a few more years. ",
"* The Mongols conquering Baghdad. They destroyed all the books in the House of Wisdom. \n\n* The Crusaders destroying the libraries in Jerusalem, Gaza, Tripoli.\n\n* The Spanish Inquisition burned one million books in Grenada *in one damn day!*\n\n* Destruction of the Royal Library of Alexandria.",
"Because the west ( europe ) discovered the americas. Simple as that. \n\n\nThe central theme of all civilizations are resource acquisition ( land, fuel, people, etc ) and resource exploitation. Europe was able to steal a few continents, exterminate the natives and seize all their wealth along with stealing the labor of millions of black slaves. This led to an incredible wealth increase in europe which was parlayed into technology ( industrial revolution, exploitation of oil, etc ).\n\n\nIf the americas never existed and columbus was able to sail directly to china/india/etc, then the world would be a much different place. \n\n\nHuman beings are like bacteria. Bacteria's ability to grow, spread and form more complex networks is entirely depended on resources ( energy source ) that are available. If the resource gets taken away or disappears, the bacteria population and it's \"civilization/network/etc\" crumbles.\n\n\nAlso, all civilizations wane and wax. No area remains dominant forever. ",
"You should check AskHistorians' FAQ, this is a very common question. There's also been a lot of books debating the reasons. Let's just say it's not as clear cut as many of the answers here make it sound like. ",
"i don't think the Middle-East and Asia were so much superior to Europe as many seem to think. \n\nI mean there was the Roman Empire in Europe and it was one of the most advanced countries for a very long time. With modern cities/infrastructure/military/administration. You could say the Romans were already superior to said regions at that point.\nthe Arabians had the good fortune of being located so that they border Europe India and were close to China, so technology knowledge reached them quick. They also took advantage of the declining Roman Empire and conquered everything between Persia and Spain (back then advanced regions) gaining lots of knowledge by that. Like most Middle-Eastern Empires they collapsed rather fast after their conquests stopped and got caught up in infighting.\nChina had the misfortune of being conquered first by the Mongols and then by the Manchus. They eventually set the country on a course towards isolation.\nIndia simply collapsed into small states after the Mughals and Marathas. They were unable to properly defend themselves against the British (though there still was some tough fighting).\n",
"Here is the snippet of the explanation made by others on QI by Stephen Fry. [Link](_URL_0_) He mentions that the Chinese fell behind because they didn't manufacture glass which was used in technological inventions such as telescopes, flasks (for inert chemical reactions) and spectacles, which would have allowed those with poor eyesight to continue studying.",
"One thing people often overlook is that Europe also came up with financial and legal innovations that other geographies lacked- the invention of the limited liability corporation, a modern banking and financial system, and capitalism. That last one is probably the most important, as it allowed anybody to become rich and greatly incentivised people, not to go to a royal court and get money from the King, but to use their own talents and sell that. \n\nTo pick a country I know better, while China had incredibly advanced technologies way, way before Europeans ever even thought about things like gunpowder, paper, printing etc, China had no social framework for commercialising this. \n\nOf course I don't mean to overlook tons of other factors, like the Industrial Revolution, historical reasons like wars and China's political system, but an appreciation of a modern legal system that protects your inventions and ensures a limited liability corporation, this gets overlooked a lot when these questions come up on Reddit. ",
"These answers are all horrible. If I were you, I'd ask this in /r/AskHistorians, you're going to get a much better answer.",
"1. Ideal geography\n2. the new world\n3. during the 1400s-1500s, much of the world was in recovery mode, internal strife, or isolation except europe\n4. colonization snowball effect\n5. industrialization snowball effect",
"(1) Industrialization : Use of steam and coal as energy sources and starting factory system. This lead to a sudden advance in farming techniques, mining techniques, transportation and modern weapons manufacturing.\n\n(2) Colonization : Exploration, colonization and claiming lands, and then trading resources between these parts (ie, getting resources from far-away regions and joining them to make products). Also naval expansion, as opposed to just land expansion.\n\n(3) Luck : Many instances in battle and trade treaties which favored Europeans, because at the specific point in time, the local political system in Asian countries was weak and fractured.",
"I highly recommend watching [Niall Ferguson's Miniseries on the subject.](_URL_0_)\n\nEssentially he says it boils down to 6 issues:\n\n- Competition (While China did extremely well early on, it didn't translate into much competition amoungst their local rivals, whereas in the West was so tightly packed that countries had to explore and colonize to succeed)\n- Science (See Competition: Better compasses, better tech were all because of competition)\n- Property (Allowing people to become landowners)\n- Medicine (exploration lead to new diseases, which led to better medicine)\n- Consumerism (See Competition again: People want the best goods, so they 'fight' over them, businesses want to get the most customers so they try and make the best product)\n- Work (Work Ethic to be precise, mainly driven by Protestantism)\n\nHe uses all of these reasons to show how the West overcame the East, but while also explaining how the West has currently stagnated allowing the East (mainly China) to quickly pull itself even due to Westernization",
"Because the idea that Middle-Eastern and Asian civilizations were far in advance of the Western World is revisionist history with no basis in reality.\n\nIn reality, Europe was an extremely advanced region, as were the Middle East and China. This is especially true when you look at the whole region around the Mediterranean Sea, which traded amongst itself and were part of many contiguous empires. The Egyptians were very early and very advanced, and helped spur the development of other regional civilizations. The Persians kept pushing into Asia Minor, and the Greeks and Romans were both very advanced civilizations. After the fall of the Western Roman Empire, the Eastern Roman Empire remained a major civilization. By the time the Eastern Roman Empire was in decline, the Carolingian Empire was rising up, and there were a number of major advancements in technology - better armor, metallurgy, weaponry, stirrups, ect. - which resulted in Europe continuing to develop during the Dark Ages. Knights were covered with mail by the 11th century, which was pretty advanced armor, and by the 15th century that had developed into full plate, which was by far the best armor of the era.\n\nThe Chinese and Middle East were not primitive by any means, but the idea that they were vastly more advanced than Europe is historical revisionism; at best, they got slightly ahead at times, but often were on par or slightly behind. By the 15th century the Europeans had better weapons, armor, ships, printing presses... really, better *everything*.\n\nThey then proceeded to build massive oceanic trade routes and colonize most of the world.\n\nThe idea that the Europeans were behind is historical revisionism with little basis in reality; the Europeans were very technologically advanced. Remember, the Mongols managed to sweep across most of Asia and the Middle East, but when they invaded Europe, they lost battles like the [Battle of Samara Bend](_URL_0_) (and also lost the Battle of Ain Jalut, another Mediterranean world battle). The resistance of the Hungarians continued until the point where the Mongols, after the death of Ögedei Khan, eventually gave up and stopped pushing further. The Mongols failed to occupy Hungary and Croatia in the long term, and combined with their losses in the Southwest, that marked the end of their expansion.\n\nIt is hard to know if the Hungarian and Croatian resistance to their expansion caused this, or if they gave up because of the death of Ögedei Khan, or if their supply lines were just stretched too thin and Europe was a poor place to invade in any case, but in the end, the Mongols never did take Europe.\n\nIt is hard to say that the Asians and Middle-Easterners were significantly more advanced than the West. The West also had the advantage of having a massively superior alphabet; the Chinese invented the printing press, but the Western one was not only better, but it also had vastly fewer glyphs to contend with, making it easier to print books and manuscripts and newspapers and suchlike.\n\nTL; DR; The reason that the Middle-Eastern and Asian civilizations were surpassed is because they were never very superior to Europe, and may never have been superior at all.",
"At the same time as europe started to free itself from the religion the middle easter countries started to become more and more islamistic. While europe moved from dark age to age of reason the middle east moved from being the leaders in technology to book burning.\n\n_URL_0_\n_URL_1_\n_URL_3_\n_URL_2_",
"When Genghis Khan invaded the middle east, he destroyed more or less everything of educational value. Including killing intellectuals, burning temples libraries, and destroying every book he could inside the libraries. Historians have estimated that this set the middle east back around 2000 years.",
"many of those countries practiced isolationism and had very distinct gaps between rich and poor. They also participated in very few wars compared to the west. This conglomerate of factors led to little need or want to innovate leaving these countries far behind there western counterparts. \n\nplease someone correct me if I'm wrong but those were the main factors stressed in AP world",
"my favorite show about technology and innovations how they moved and developed (often with the help of multiple cultures over time) was a BBC show from the late 70's called \"Connections.\" Check it out, it's fucking awesome. _URL_0_"
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"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enclosure",
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Consequences_of_the_Black_Death",
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opium_Wars",
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Estates_of_the_realm",
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"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Age_of_Enlightenment",
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Science_in_the_medieval_Islamic_world",
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islamic_attitudes_towards_science#Classical_science_in_the_Muslim_world",
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islamic_Golden_Age#Decline"
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"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QAGMNVluHs4&list=PL-teo99ENSypJDyeXmEpLOxWMB9UVPbOS"
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djmbmz | what is the point in separating the armed forces into army, navy and air force when they all have their own foot soldiers, planes and ships? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/djmbmz/eli5_what_is_the_point_in_separating_the_armed/ | {
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"In the US it's largely tradition, other countries may have other reasons like intentionally weakening their military to prevent coups.\n\nThere's also an argument that can be made that having separate branches with specializations allows them to be better at their jobs by focusing on a narrower set of missions rather than trying to do everything.",
"While each branch does have land- naval- and air units, they are each specialized in their own branch.\n\nThis means their forces also receive specialized training, and will be used mostly for mission relating specifically to their element.\n\nFor example, navy jet pilots are trained to take off and land on aircraft carriers, which is foreign to air force pilots. In return, air force pilots are much more trained in air-to-air dogfighting combat.\n\nThe army and air force may have foot soldiers and ships as well so that they can respond to various scenarios, but when a mission takes place on water, the navy will be called in first due to their specialized naval training."
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6zum2y | i understand 4th dimensional space. but what exactly is 5th dimensional space? does it exist outside time and space? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/6zum2y/eli5_i_understand_4th_dimensional_space_but_what/ | {
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"The universe, as far as we can tell, has 3 dimensions of space and 1 of time. If there were 4 dimensions of space instead, everything would be the same except there would be another independent direction to move in besides up/down, left/right, and forward/backward. That's all dimensions are: directions to move around in. There's no difference in principle between having 3 spatial dimensions and having 473 spatial dimensions.",
"A way to envision dimensions, I take this from Flatland.\n\nImagine a dimension that is your desk. Objects can move freely across the desk, but cannot come up off it, nor down below it. They are stuck.\n\nIf you, as a 3d being, were to push any one of those objects in any direction up or down from the desk, they would suddenly find themselves in a brand new infinitely large existence, but without anything they had before, because all that is just a tick in a dimension that the object cannot interact with. So for it, the entire existence it was part of is now gone. And it cannot move back into it.\n\nIt would be as if we move in a direction, a direction which we cannot conceive of because everything, our thoughts, language, existence, ALL experience, is in 3 dimensions. Having a 4th is unimaginable. To us it would be as if suddenly the universe disappeared and something else took its place.\n\nThere are hypothesis that we do see interaction when light from the 4th dimension intersects with light in our dimension causing a collision & release of energy which we can detect.\n\nEdit: typos.",
" > ELI5: I understand 4th dimensional space. \n\nHow can you understand 4d, but not 5d? Here is my suspicion: If you mean \"time\" as fourth dimension there is a problem, as that is *not* 4 dimensional space. It is three dimensions and time, and \"time\" isn't actually a proper dimension, just the result of things happening in 3d-space.\n\nHere is my take on \"time\", and what \"time\" and \"space\" actually mean. It also ties into entropy a lot, and sorry for the wall of text but I think we need to dive a bit deeper into this:\n\n---\n\nLet me start with the Big Thing, please stay with me: Time does not exist as actual dimension. Time is an illusion of \"stuff happening in the physical world\". \n\nImagine yourself to be in a room where no outer stimulus comes in. No light from a window, no sound from the other side of the door. Now, there is also nothing in the room itself that changes, no water tap with dripping drops, no breeze from a ventilator, no dust settling, no nothing. How could you tell that \"time\" passes? \n\nYou feel your own heartbeat, you feel your breathing. If you wait long enough you feel the need to eat, to drink, to sleep, to go to the toilet. If you wait long enough your nails and hair grow. But let us assume for some reason you do not have to, you just sit there and... sit there. How could you tell \"time\" passes?\n\nYou cannot - unless you move your hand. Unless you get up. Unless you take an object and let it drop so it falls down. \n\nNow you suddenly can tell *something happend*. A moment ago you were sitting on the chair, now you stand. The physical space has changed and there are two states, one before you got up and one after. If you let something drop you create a whole lot of differing physical states in space: you have a thing in the hand, it drops, it drops further, it drops faster and faster and faster... and it hits the ground and rolls under the bed.\n\nBy observing what happens in the physical space you can tell a passage of what we now call \"time\". You can also tell that \"the time it took you to move your hand was shorter than the time it took you to walk through the room\", this means you somehow start to quantize a new observable beyond mere \"where is an object in the space I am in\" in the universe: time. \n\nOur observation of time is very unprecise. Everyone knows that \"time flies if you have fun\" and stretches and strechtes if you are bored - on the other hand in our memory the day where we had lots of fun and did a lot of thing was much longer than the one we just waited out. To remedy this we build machines that repeat the same movement in space as precise as we can. \n\nA pendulum swings. A water drop dripping down from a defined opening (i.e. a water clock). A spring is wound up and makes some axis turn which moves a digit. We then count the repetitions and say \"Ok, 60 of those is a minute, and 60 of those is an hour\" or similar. The most simple clock is the sun, we say \"If it is right above and then again, we call it a *day*\". If a season repeats because earth fully turned around the sun we call it a *year*. \n\nSo far so simple. We get the impression time exists because \"stuff\" happens around in the universe - and that includes our cells that grow and die and finally we grow and die as that is just chemical (fundamentally physical) proceedings in space. \n\nNow for entropy: \n\n---\n\nIn the most simple approach entropy is a measurement of \"Order in the Universe\". In very broad strokes: The higher the entropy the less ordered is the universe, meaning there are more states. A piece of wood has a lower entropy than the burned piece of wood. Now, in physical space things only happen *on their own* where the entropy is increased. So a ball falling down happens on its own because it increases the entropy. You have \"ordered\" energy in the form a ball lying on a table. If it falls down it loses that energy by disturbing all the air molecules it falls through, it hits the floor and makes all those molecules in it vibrate, the ordered energy from the ball on the table is now very, very unordered all over the room and this means: the entropy in the room has increased from state 1 (ball on table) to the new state (ball has fallen down). \n\nWe call this \"Energy is scattered all over the place and thus entropy increases\" as \"time moves forward\". Because, on their own, balls do not fall up back on the table, cells do not \"undie\", a set of fallen deck of cards does not order itself again. Because that would require the entropy in the room to decrease again and the room taking a \"more ordered state\" (meaning the cards are not lying all over the place but are nicely on a stack, possibly in a specific order, i.e. all colors together etc). \n\nI wrote that entropy does not decrease on its own but you very much could go around and pick up the ball or the cards again, you might even order them again and put them back on the table. So you cheated entropy? You restored the highly ordered state of energy again? Yes, indeed, you did. But by that you increased the entropy in the room due to moving around, calling energy from your muscles and turning them into heat that now is in the room. You ordered the system of \"ball and table\", but the *total* entropy in the room (universe) went up - and as such you can tell that \"time has passed forward between state 1 (deck of scards scattered) and state 2 (deck of cards neatly on the table)\". \n\nNow one thing missing from your question: Muller writes about \"improbable\". Imagine the room has a billion billion billion possible states where the ball is on the floor, the air molecules it shoved aside are scattered, the molecules in the floor have swung and all the ball's energy has dissipated as heat and increased the entropy. Of course (yes, of course!) there is the hypthetical case where all the molecules are just randomly happen to just move in the reversed direction, all the air goes back where it was, all energy, by pure chance, transfers back in the ball and it comes to lie back on the table. That totally can happen and in that case you would observe the ball... uhhh... falling (?) back onto the table. \n\nIn that case the entropy in the room (universe) would indeed have decreased on its own, you now had a - from an energetic point of view - more ordered state. Time would have moved \"forward\" but the entropy would have decreased. Yes, that is possible. It is just that the chance for that is 1 to a billion billion billion so we simply do not observe that in the macroscopic world. And that means \"it does not happen\" but if you are mathmatically correct, as a physics book should be, you say \"it is highly improbable\". \n\n---\n\nNow what with the actual \"4 dimensional space\". Imagine 1d to be a line. I can tell you where you are by giving you a coordinate, for example you stand at \"56 meters from zero\" or \"-2 meters from zero\". This position is called \"x\".\n\nNow, 2d adds another line, in a right angle from the first. You can now stand on a plane and I can tell you where you are by giving two coordinates, one on one line and the other on the other. Let us call them \"x\" and \"y\". I could tell you are \"56 meters on the x-line from zero and 3 meters from zero on the y line\" and you would know where you are standing in that 2d-plane. \n\nIf you add a third line that needs to be in a right angle to BOTH of the other lines, you get a height. This is our 3d-space, and you know where you are if you know your position relative to zero and you can conveniantly tell that by knowing you are x, y and z along the lines. Maybe at 56 from x, 3 from y and like 10 meters above the ground. You know where you are in space and we can start to calculate positions of all kinds of physical objects, for example ones that fall, and derive the laws of physics from them, e.g. the law of gravity. \n\nNow, what happens if you add a fourth (and fifth and... tenth) dimension? Well, in our 3ds-space, where do we add the next coordinate? When we simplified to 1d and 2d, we could easily do it. We just used less dimensions than we have. But where to put a 4th and 6th spacial line? We cannot, as we only think in 3d, our brains are only made for 3d, our lives only happen in 3d. \n\nWe very fundamentally cannot imagine 4d-space, but we can make an analogy: Imagine you are a person living in flatland, in the 2d-plane and suddenly someone comes along and tries to tell you about a \"mystical third dimension that goes... *up*\". What is this \"up\" he talks about? You have no way to tell what this \"up\" is and it gets even more confusing: imagine there is a ball that bounces on the plane of flatland. You could observe a dot that gets bigger and bigger as the ball contracts, and then smaller and vanishes when it goes up again. For us that is trivial to understand, but for a flatlander that is a big mystery. Not only does he not understand where the ball comes from (from higher dimension!) but he might not even know what a \"ball\" is and why it would do what it does. \n\nTo imagine a 4th spacial dimension imagine a safe with money in it. And someone grabs in through the 4th dimension and takes it. Imagine a flat-earther and his box, which would be a square drawn on the ground and that would be a solid barrier for him, he cannot get in. But you can take whatever is in there through the 3rd dimension without issues.\n\nIt might be our world has more than three dimensions. We would be flatlanders trying to understand the bouncy ball that creates some very strange phenomenon in our world. \n\n---\n\nOur brains are not made to understand higher spaces, but luckily, math allows us reach it with other means. In math there is nothing that stops us and opening more dimensions by just adding coordinates, for example \"x, y, z, w, v\" for \"five dimensional space\" and we can try to find calculations that explain what happens in our 3d-world. ",
"Time is not a dimension in the same way the other 3 are. \n\nI had trouble imagining a 4th spatial dimension until recently, and then I saw the following example:\n\nImagine you are looking at a box (square) drawn on a piece of paper. That square and anything else drawn on the paper is in two dimensions. If you draw a ball inside of the square (a circle), it is completely enclosed and cannot be taken out of the square in those two dimensions without intersection with one of the sides of the square.\n\nHowever, if you lift that 2D ball in the third dimension (the one you see as the observer in the experiment), you can make it \"fly\" above the square walls and put it on the other sides without intersecting the square sides. For you, the ball went above the square walls, but from the 2D point of view of the square and the ball, the ball seemingly phased through the walls because there is no such thing as height.\n\nNow imagine the same thing with a box in 3D and an actual ball. If you put the ball in the box and close the lid, the ball cannot escape the box. However, in the fourth dimension (not time, the actual 4th spatial dimension), you could move the ball out of the box by pulling it in this new dimension and for us 3D observers it would seem like the ball phased through the box walls."
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24f7tr | why does my phone's battery drain so much faster when it's hot? | Maybe I just have a defective phone...but it seems like my phone loses battery much more quickly in the heat. Is this based on anything? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/24f7tr/eli5_why_does_my_phones_battery_drain_so_much/ | {
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"Lithium-ion batteries perform well at elevated temperatures; however, prolonged exposure to heat reduces longevity. You've probably shortened your battery's life permanently through excessive exposure to heat. Time to get a new one."
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6mf9ro | why are governments often referred to by their country's capital in news articles? | For example, a news article might read "Moscow today announced..." or "Berlin says that...". | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/6mf9ro/eli5_why_are_governments_often_referred_to_by/ | {
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"Because there are not enough government names. \"The Prime Minister said ...\" could be any of dozens of people. Using their given name sounds like they are just an opinionated person, it doesn't carry the prestige of their office. Name plus title takes too many letters for headlines or intro taglines.\n\nIt's a little easier in the US, because \"The White House\" is pretty unique, as is \"Downing Street\" or \"the Kremlin\" . But that doesn't generalize to everywhere.",
"It is referring to the more specific area of the country where the decisions or actions come from. \n\nDecisions on a state matter come from the state capital."
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4kkygu | why haven't avocados been bred to have tiny pits? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4kkygu/eli5_why_havent_avocados_been_bred_to_have_tiny/ | {
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"You can't just \"breed\" things arbitrarily to have whatver quality you want. You have to find one that naturally mutated that feature, then breed that plant. For example, no one bred seeds out of grapes. They found a grape vine that mutated to grow no seeds, then they grafted that vine over and over until seedless grapes were widespread.\n\nTo get avocados with tiny pits, you'd have to find a plant that grows tiny pits, then breed that plant. Until we find that plant, we can't breed avocados with tiny pits.",
"They have. When giant sloths were still the main consumer of avocados the pit was almost twice as big as they are now.",
"You are all thinking of this backwards! The avocados most of us see in grocery stores are just one kind. There are much bigger ones, but The Man is keeping them out of mainstream grocers. Here is a TIL for you _URL_0_"
]
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z3ffe | is it better to put your computer on standby, hibernate or turn it off after every session? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/z3ffe/eli5_is_it_better_to_put_your_computer_on_standby/ | {
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"Depends on your criteria for \"better.\" \n\nLess power used would mean hibernate or powered down. Faster startup would mean standby.\n\nGenerally most modern operating systems don't require frequent rebooting, but if yours is older it may make sense to power down as this would combine rebooting with something you do at the end of the day anyways. ",
"I was always under the impression that if you frequently use an electronic object, it's best to always leave it on standby/hibernation. This is because of the heat generated as you're using the computer, which causes the metal in it to expand and later, contract while cooling/off. If you are turning your computer on/off multiple times a day, these multiple expansions and contractions can cause physical stress which degrades the lifetime of the computer. \n\nI might be wrong though. Would love to have this confirmed/rejected!",
"I've heard not to hibernate if you use a solid-state drive. ",
"I moved last week, and now every time my computer hibernates, it shuts off my mouse and keyboard and won't turn back on, unless I turn the power off in the back, and turn it on. This is irrelevant to this, but maybe someone reads this and can help me fix it :s",
"definitely put it on standby/hibernate, however at the end of the day/night when you're done using it make sure to turn it off until morning when you need to use it again. there's no sense in leaving it on and wasting power for that long",
"It comes down to your preferences, that's why there's so all the different options. Your computer components will most likely never fail due to heat cycling or starting and stopping and save a hardware defect will be obsolete before their mechanical life expires.\n\nEach successive step you asked just uses less power and takes longer to complete. Hibernation is great for laptops if you leave work open but it does make a lot of writes so keep frequent backups if you have a solid state drive because consumer-wise their longevity is the most untested of all computer hardware. I use sleep on all my systems since it's almost instant-on.\n\nDepending on the age of your system and it's specs, here are some rough comparisons with a rough yearly electrical bill expense (@ 8.7c per Kilowatt Hour)\n\n\n* On/idle 24 hours a day (screen off - don't use screen savers unless you like pretty pictures): 60-250 watts | $45-$190\n\n* Sleep 24 hours a day (monitor off): 5 watts | $1.91-$3.81\n\n* Hibernate: 1ish | less than a dollar a year",
"This doesn't really belong in eli5...",
"Wait... You mean to tell me that you actually get OFF of your computer???",
"Depends.\n\nLeaving it on uses the most power, but allows you to keep running things in the background. (Downloads, defrag, virus scan, whatever it is you're doing.)\n\nStandby uses less power, but still some. It allows a much quicker resume, because everything is still in RAM.\n\nHibernate is equivalent in power to turning it off, but none of your programs will know the difference. This is especially useful if, say, you need to unplug a desktop temporarily, or as a last resort when a laptop is out of power or a UPS alarm goes off.\n\nHibernate takes time to resume, sometimes as long or longer than just booting up fresh, but also sometimes much faster.\n\nShutting down means all your programs have to close, which is probably a good thing to do fairly often. Some programs get buggier and use more memory over time. If you're like me, you *also* do this -- I always end up with too many tabs open, so an easy solution is a completely blank slate every now and then, and a reboot is as good a time as any.\n\nProbably the most important reason is that every now and then, you'll get an update or software install that requires you to reboot in order to stay secure. If you've always hibernated, even, let alone sleep or standby, you might have a ton of stuff open, and it'll be a hassle to get everything back the way it was, so you put it off, and start one of those stupid Reddit threads about Windows asking you to reboot to install updates. On the other hand, if you shut down often, you'll develop habits that make re-opening everything easy enough, and even if you're incredibly lazy or impatient, you can still have those updates install when you shut down for the night. (Shutting down for the night, and then starting up the next day, counts as a \"reboot\" for Windows.)\n\nIt also depends what a session is. I'm in school, so I have my laptop on standby going between classes. But when I'm done for the day, or sometimes just between classes and home (where I'll plug in a monitor and start fresh), I shut it down. I used to use hibernation to switch OSes (I dual-boot), but that was more trouble than it's worth -- with SSDs, rebooting is fast enough anyway, and most programs are getting smarter about being able to save a session. (If I really cared about my last Chrome session, I'd click \"Recently Closed\" on the new tab screen, and then click the \"50 billion tabs\" at the top.)",
"If you use Full Disk Encryption (FileVault, TrueCrypt, BitLocker) then it's best to shut down because the encryption isn't worth anything if the computer is on.",
"**Sleep**: You want your computer to come back on quickly and you don't mind a minor hit to your electricity bill (~$5 / mo).\n\n**Hibernate**: You want to turn your computer off, but you don't want to close all applications / folder windows.\n\n**Turn off**: You want a clean reboot, or otherwise don't care to hibernate. May be faster than hibernate, too.\n\nDon't use sleep if there is a good chance the computer will be unplugged. It's not particularly dangerous but the result is that your computer will turn completely off.",
"Standby uses the most power but comes up quickest. Leave a laptop unplugged in standby long enough and the battery will die. This reduces battery life if you let it happen a lot, hyber is better. There is no reason to cold boot unless you have stability issues. (Once a week would be prudent)"
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f0qp4x | why do some playstation one game discs have a blue coloring while others are black? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/f0qp4x/eli5_why_do_some_playstation_one_game_discs_have/ | {
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"They just look cooler and made it easier to identify counterfeits. I very much doubt the PS2 can identify disc color.",
"I don't remember those being blue, but some ps2 ones were. IIRC it was the earlier discs [before they were proper DVDs that were blue](_URL_0_)? Like some release games - only one I remember for definite was Tekken Tag Tournament",
"ITT: Everyone talking about the PS2 instead of the PS1 (or PSX). This issue was discussed in a previous ELI5 that I will link below.\n\n_URL_1_\n\n\n\n*Real answer:\nSony thought that coating the discs in a black film would make piracy more difficult. There was a twofold (one of which an erroneous assumption) reason for this: One, that coating discs after burning them in a black transparent film was very difficult to nearly impossible to do outside of a manufacturer/factory and this would let a buyer know immediately if a disc was counterfeit or not. Black; made in the factory, silver; a burned disc.\nThe geniuses at Sony also thought that it would make CD ripping more difficult and that the black coating would somehow interfere with the ripping process... Which was stupidly never the case and obviously did not prevent ripping of any kind. I've read online that back in the day some CD drives had issues ripping a PS1 disc, but nothing I can verify or say with surety.\n[/r/retrogaming](_URL_0_) may be of more help and give more accurate information, but I know I'm pretty on with the reasoning. Long time gamer and PS1 collector and this was pretty common knowledge upon the original Playstation's release. The explanation for the black coating was covered by gaming magazines of the time.\n*",
"Former Sony employee here. I worked in the Replication factories where PS1, PS2 and PS3 games were made.\n\nPS1 games are constructed like CD's. One thick Polycarbonate wafer is injection molded with data on the label side. That side is metalized then a protective coating is spun over the metalization. Then the label applied.\n\nPS2 games are constructed like DVD's. Two thinner wafers are injection molded with data on one side, then metalized and adhered to each other, data sides in. The label is applied on the \"B\" side wafer.\n\nPS3 games are constructed like Blu-ray discs. One thin wafer is injection molded with data on one side then metalized. Additional layers are spun-coat then stamped and metalized on top, and a final protective layer is spun on the data side and the label is applied on that side as well. A protective hard coating is then applied to the read side.\n\nThe polycarbonate used in PS1 discs is just dyed a very, very dark blue that looks black. Since the wavelength of the laser diode in a CDROM drive is 780nm (near infrared), the signal isn't attenuated by the dye. It serves no purpose other than to look different from other discs. In fact, Sony piloted a program for music CD's that used the same resin and a novel printing method on the label side to simulate the appearance of a vinyl album. They played in normal CD players with no issues.\n\nThe polycarbonate used in PS2 discs was again just dyed blue, slightly less dark than the PS1. It again serves no purpose other than to differentiate the discs from PS1 and other discs. The wavelength of a DVD-ROM drive is 650nm (red) so again no signal interference occurs.\n\nThe copy protection method used in PS1 and PS2 discs do not rely on the dye; rumors to the contrary are false.\n\nSince the PS3 uses Blu-ray technology, with a 405nm wavelength (violet) Sony couldn't dye the polycarbonate and instead left it clear.\n\nThank you for coming to my Ted talk."
]
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"https://www.gamespot.com/forums/playstation-2-314159270/why-are-some-ps2-game-discs-blue-25534846/"
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"https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/409s05/eli5_why_are_playstation_1_discs_black_while/"
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[]
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||
2qoa3h | what did de blasio say to piss of the cops that they turned their back on him? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2qoa3h/eli5_what_did_de_blasio_say_to_piss_of_the_cops/ | {
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"He said something mildly critical after the cops tackled and choked an unarmed fat black man to death for selling black market cigarettes."
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||
2sl34f | how, when, and why did it seem everyone decided white was the go to color for toilets? | I know you can buy toilets in a vast range of colors, but why are white colored toilets, and to a lesser extent bathtubs and sinks always come stock in plain white? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2sl34f/eli5_how_when_and_why_did_it_seem_everyone/ | {
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"text": [
"Toilets are generally ceramic, and ceramic is white unless it's dyed some other. Dyeing ceramic is expensive, so a non-white toilet will be more expensive and is therefore more likely to be found in homes than public bathrooms.",
"Most waste is easy to spot against white. If your toilet was some odd color it'd be slightly more difficult to tell if it was dirty. It's probably the reason they aren't ever patterned too.",
"There is actually a podcast about this topic:\n\n_URL_0_"
]
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"http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/112/ladies-and-germs"
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|
230gft | what would happen if i soaked my body in a tub of vodka? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/230gft/eli5_what_would_happen_if_i_soaked_my_body_in_a/ | {
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"You would likely absorb enough to kill yourself. But before that happened, you would get drunk and sparkly clean.",
"And if you want to get right fucked, open your eyes under~~water~~vodka",
"You can absorb alcohol through your anus, and it is very efficient, since it goes straight into circulation before it hits the liver.\n\nI would imagine that you would absorb enough to kill you fairly quickly.\n\nEDIT: Everybody asking about this - it is extremely dangerous. Alcohol is a lot more volatile and less viscous than water, so it could very easily be introduced into your arsehole if you were sat in a tub of it.\n\nAlso, never try this at home - normally when you drink alcohol, it gets to the liver on it's first pass round the bloodstream, and a lot is eliminated. When administered rectally, it circulates round a lot more of your body before reaching the liver, so it becomes A LOT stronger. Also, you lose the ability to vomit out the alcohol if you've had too much, so it cannot be eliminated from the body.\n\nA lot of people have died trying it.",
"You would get turnt up, but seriously alcohol poisoning ",
"You'd probably pass out from the fumes first, then drown.",
"Ya I could see you getting alcohol poisoning, but how quickly? I remember when I was younger I was at this shady place all baked out and some guy had me stick my thumb in moonshine.... dont recall it working though, not sure if relevant. ",
"You'd become next level Russian. ",
"You'd most likely die, but on an upside, there's a Darwin award in it for you.",
"Every single little cut will start burning vigorously because of desinfectation. Because it is Vodka it won't be so efficient, but you'll fucking feel it.\n\nAnd people already mentioned anus chugging so...",
"It would burn your pee hole. A lot.",
"My peehole hurts thinking about it.",
"You should start experimenting with mice, then begin clinical trials",
"[Probably nothing.](_URL_0_) Although you may become nauseous due to breathing alcohol fumes.",
"Any serious explanations on the working of this? I get it, you would die but how? I see skin absorbs, the anal regions and so on. What about length of time it takes. Do you need to soak for 30 minutes or will it be too late after 1 minute?",
"Times are really that hard in Russia right now, OP?",
"You would immediately become Russian.",
"YOU WOULD TRANSCEND THIS MORTAL PLANE INTO SOMETHING GLORIOUS ",
"I think the first step would be saving up enough money to buy enough alcohol to fill a bathtub, which, is exactly the kind of thing a savings account was invented for",
"Holy shit at first I thought it said 'covered my body in vinegar'\n\nI was wondering why on earth you would get drunk and die off vinegar.",
"You'd get alcoholed",
"nothing you'll be fine.... now jump on in there!",
"You would spontaniously appear in a Lil-Wayne music video on Mtv.",
"You would kill all the natural flora on your skin. And as a result you may get some weird opportunist topical infection. Also it would dry out your skin, and prolly make it unhappy in general like a rash, irritability. It would be fine after a few days though I think. \n\nAll the people saying you would get drunk from absorption through the anus, there is this thing called sphincter that keeps stuff like that from happening. Unless he injects the alcohol into his anus this wouldn't happen.",
"Russia would give you honorary citizenship",
"Given that I dunk animals in ethanol to preserve them, I'm going to say you'd get pickled. Alcohol dehydrates skin. You'd have a bad time.",
"Your anus and genitalia would burn like the hinges of hell's gate. ",
"Someone would actually drink your bath water. "
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9ayc01 | what makes us emotionaly numb when we are depressed? | And how does it come back? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/9ayc01/eli5_what_makes_us_emotionaly_numb_when_we_are/ | {
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"Emotional numbness is one of the key markers in the first step of diagnosing things like major depression, but also PTSD and depersonalization disorders and they sometimes have different causes. \nWith depression, it's often heavily influenced by the imbalance of chemicals in your body and brain like serotonin, norepinephrine, dopamine, and oxytocin to name a few. These levels become so low that you lose the pleasure and excitement reactions to things that usually make you happy and instead, you don't feel anything. That's why you're usually asked the 'have you lost interest in things that you usually enjoy doing' when being seen for mental health. There are a ton of ways to help yourself and get professional help to work through depression and treat it until you're symptom free, so don't give up.\n\nIn cases of PTSD and the like, it's more commonly a coping mechanism. The feelings from the associated trauma and its triggers are so intense that your brain decides that it's in its best interest to not address that feeling in order to survive. This isn't a bad thing! Often at the time the initial trauma occured, if your brain has triggered this kind of dissociation, it was a necessary coping mechanism to protect you and your mental health. If you are still experiencing symptoms of PTSD once the trauma is over, therapy is important to help teach your brain that it's okay to use other, more appropriate ways to deal with day to day emotions. \n\n\n\nAs for your question about how it comes back, that depends on the cause. You can certainly do some things yourself to try to jump start your happy chemicals, like doing light cardio every day for a few weeks, getting enough sunlight, taking a multivitamin- all things that are essential to helping you maintain a healthy cycle of production for these chemicals. \nIf you are still struggling after a few weeks of this OR experiencing worsening symptoms like panic attacks, severe lethargy, hostility, having suicidal thoughts, get in to see your doctor. Our brain and our genetic make up is entirely unique, so sometimes we will have trouble balancing our chemicals. To expound, because of that uniqueness, it will likely take a few or even more than a few different tries to find the right medication for you. Not only do they all act a little different, but there are many different classifications of these medications that specialize in specific chemicals and receptors in your brain, so an SSRI which mainly deals with serotonin reuptake will not perform the same function as an SNRI which mainly deals with norepinephrine reuptake, to only mention a few catergories. The most effective treatment in most cases is therapy and medication when needed. \n\n\nHope this helped. "
]
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[]
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|
wfe9z | why pug's tails curl. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/wfe9z/eli5_why_pugs_tails_curl/ | {
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"Some say humans bred them that way because we liked it and it has no other purpose.\n\nOthers say it's because pugs are short so we bred them to have curly tails so that it wont drag on the ground. This makes sense because animals tails are a part of their spine so you'd want to keep that out of danger.\n\nExtra fact: When a pug is excited it's tail curls up tighter than usual and when it's relaxed or sleeping the tail uncurls. If your pug is awake and it's tail is uncurled then there's something wrong with it.",
"I misread this as \"why pig's tails curl\"\n\nWhile I'll be happy to find out about pugs' tails, now I'm going to wonder about why pig tails curl..."
]
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[],
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||
46pxv7 | why is it that the larger dominoes fall slower? | Is it because the momentum given to the larger domino is lesser? But isn't the momentum compensated by the fact that the smaller domino has a greater velocity?
& nbsp;
[Domino Effect](_URL_0_) | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/46pxv7/eli5_why_is_it_that_the_larger_dominoes_fall/ | {
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"text": [
"The bigger something is, the more inertia it has. That is to say, the harder it is to get it to stop doing one thing and start doing another.\n\nIn this case it would be stopping it from just sitting there and making it fall over.",
"The bigger something is the more intertia it is. \n\nAlso the bigger it is, the wider its center of gravity is, the more stable it is, "
]
} | [] | [
"http://i.imgur.com/ExZxmNA.gifv"
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[],
[]
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|
29ayra | why does some cheese cost so much more than others when they all seem be made of milk & bacteria and are made the same way? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/29ayra/eli5_why_does_some_cheese_cost_so_much_more_than/ | {
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"text": [
"Many time and resource consuming factors can go into making a cheese, and ultimately the price of a cheese. For example, some cheeses are aged, meaning they must be stored and preserved and therefore cannot be produced as quickly, meaning a more expensive cheese in the supermarket. Some cheaper cheeses aren't even 100% cheese, and have filler added.",
"Cheeses are not all made the same way, or from the same milk. Some need milk with higher or lower fat content; some need to be aged for as much as several years (sometimes in rare, naturally-occurring caves). Some need to be made with sheep or goat milk. Some can only be made in a tiny district in France, because that's part of the definition of Roquefort. Some need to be smuggled into the United States illegally (and at exorbitant cost), because they're a revolting Corsican cheese that contains live maggots."
]
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[],
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||
4si9xa | how do the algorithms work that convert audio to a faster speed without changing pitch? | I know there are many explanations available online, but I have not found one that is truly ELI5 worthy. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4si9xa/eli5how_do_the_algorithms_work_that_convert_audio/ | {
"a_id": [
"d59l1f6"
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"score": [
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"text": [
"Imagine you have a tape of someone playing a song on a piano. If you play the tape fast, the pitches are all higher, which you don't want.\n\nBut since you're a really excellent musician yourself, instead, you listen to the notes and write sheet music for the song, then you play it yourself on a piano at the faster speed, and the pitches are correct.\n\nThe way audio speed compression works is sort of a general purpose version of that. Any fragment of audio can be decomposed into a sum of many sine waves at different frequencies; you just have to do that, then produce a shorter fragment that has the same frequency composition."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[]
] |
|
787n5t | why do you see a normal picture after looking at a negative picture and then at a white background? | [deleted] | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/787n5t/eli5why_do_you_see_a_normal_picture_after_looking/ | {
"a_id": [
"doro2ud"
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"score": [
2
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"text": [
"Your retina has light sensitive pigments. When light strikes them it causes a chemical reaction. The pigment is saying \"I have been struck by a beam of light to which I am sensitive. I am bent out of shape.\" Its nerve sends the signal to the brain. I takes a while for the pigment to bend back into shape. During that time the retinal is less sensitive because the pigment is bent out of shape. But not all of the sensitive cells react to the same light. The image is sort of burnt into your retina for a brief moment."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[]
] |
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