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111cgu | what is java? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/111cgu/eli5_what_is_java/ | {
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"I suppose you're here talking about computers and not the dance.\n\n**ELI5 answer :** Java is a programming language which allows to create programs.\n\n\n**Long answer :** Unlike other programming languages like C++, the code is interpreted by another program (called the JVM, Java Virtual Machine) which renders the result. Most programming languages doesn't work like this ; they compile code into binary data which can be directly used by the computer. Java is also a *object-oriented* programming language, but defining the *object-oriented* notion would require another ELI5."
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fts5ry | how are well known illegal tv streaming sites able to stay up? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/fts5ry/eli5_how_are_well_known_illegal_tv_streaming/ | {
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"These sites do one of two things.\n\nThey operate in a jurisdiction where it would be difficult to shut them down.\n\nIf they are ever actually shut down, they simply create a new site and port everything over.\n\nIt's usually a game of whack-a-mole. With law enforcement trying to shut them down but the sites simply coming back up with a new domain name.",
"Many of these sites operate out of jurisdictions where it's difficult to shut down the site. They aren't hosted in US datacenters for example.\n\nThey also obfuscate their ownership. Shutting down a site and holding the people involved responsible are two different things. The copyright holders prefer the later to send a message.\n\nThey are also prolific and easy to spinup/move. If a particular site gets shutdown, 3 will pop up to take it's place within hours, and the authorities are well aware of this fact.\n\nTaking down a major player like the PirateBay seemed like a big win for the authorities but the site was back online within hours under new ownership and in a new location. Then the process of taking them down had to start all over again.\n\nLegal proceedings are expensive and take time, so the copyright holders can't afford to take every single one of these sites to court. Part of the problem is that it isn't profitable to do so, many of these sites have no real assets and are run as a hobby, so you ~~can~~ can't squeeze a multi-million dollar settlement out of them to cover your costs.\n\nSome of the big media companies are finally waking up to the idea that a lot of people don't pirate because it's free, they did it out of convenience. A lot of early piracy was driven by peoples realization that you could download a show and not have to tune in \"same Bat time same Bat channel\" anymore, or have to wait 2 months for that episode you wanted to show to appear in syndication. The way you defeat piracy is to provide a similar and reasonably priced service. People are perfectly willing to pay for a reasonably priced legal content on a streaming service.",
"So what's the point in hosting these?\n\nWho makes (any) money?"
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25itcj | today i read the ocean will rise 4ft due to ever faster melting antarctic glaciers, if this is true how will it affect coastal cities? | Source: _URL_0_
Will cities like New York, L.A., Tokyo, Shanghai, or Hong Kong be parcially under water? Are there any known plans how to combat this, i.e. giant walls? diversion channels or some other method? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/25itcj/eli5_today_i_read_the_ocean_will_rise_4ft_due_to/ | {
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"The authorities who should be planning for this are fixed in \"LaLaLa-can't-hear-you\" mode at present, and will probably remain so until their cities are flooded monthly.\n\nKnowing how engineers work, it will probably be large pumps and high sea walls, which are then largely ignored and eventually fail for lack of maintainence, New Orleans style."
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2nt6c2 | when i accellerate my car, why do i hear high-pitched noise through the aux input when nothing is plugged in? | Whenever i rev my engine when i have an aux cord plugged in but no music playing on my phone or whatever, i can sort of hear the engine over the stereo. Is this because it's producing some sort of radio frequency or what? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2nt6c2/eli5_when_i_accellerate_my_car_why_do_i_hear/ | {
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"Its noise off the generator or alternator.\n\nCords like that aren't shielded like other people have said. Its basically RF interference coming from that because its often not shielded.\n\nIts usually not something noticed, and the stereo itself has filtering to block it. But when you plug something unshielded into it (your aux cord) you're creating an unfiltered path to the stereo, so you hear it."
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2lwyij | can someone tell exactly what it is that obama is doing for net neutrality? | As far as i know, Obama has simply said that the FCC should reclassify Net Neutrality as a Utility. What does this mean for the battle of the net? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2lwyij/eli5_can_someone_tell_exactly_what_it_is_that/ | {
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"It means that Obama put his hat in the ring and took a stance. That being said he cannot compel the FCC to follow what he wants. Basically after using Net Neutrality as part of his platform in 2008, and then staying on the fence about it for a while, he's finally given an opinion. This *could* sway the FCC to fall in line, but that remains to be seen."
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422sbi | why are most/all sniper rifles bolt action? why can't they use a semi-automatic mechanism like most other weapons? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/422sbi/eli5why_are_mostall_sniper_rifles_bolt_action_why/ | {
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"Bolt action rifles are lighter and simpler than semi-automatic rifles in the same caliber, and bolt action is an inherently more precise action type than semi-automatic.\n\nSnipers don't need to put out a high rate of fire, so semi-auto has no benefit to them.",
"I could be wrong on this, but the bolt action rifle would minimize extraneous movement that might alter the trajectory of the bullet. Remember that even small fractions of a degree might be the difference between a hit and a miss, so it's important to keep everything as still as possible. In a semi-automatic mechanism, the movement of the gun as it works to reload a bullet may very well knock your shot off far enough that it would cause a problem. Nothing moves in a bolt action mechanism until you're reloading.\n\nEdit: the bullet has a trajectory, not the gun. Edited for the proper noun. ",
"Making a weapon accurate and make it fire rapidly are two competing goals. If you don't have to care about making it fire rapidly, you can make it more accurate. \n\nIt's really that simple. ",
"A semi-automatic weapon, upon being fired, has the bolt come back, discharges the shell casing, and a new round is inserted into the action. This motion, which occurs extremely rapidly and uses the force of the fired round causes vibrations in the gun that lead to muzzle climb and loss of accuracy.\n\nA round does not leave the gun instantaneously, as the barrel length increases the time to exit increases meaning the slightest muzzle deviation can throw off your shot.\n\nA bolt action does not have any moving parts in the action like a semi-automatic, while the round is traveling in the barrel. This means all the force is exerted on the round, but also there are no other vibrations from auxiliary parts.",
"More moving parts means more opportunities for something to get gummed up or broken. A bolt action would likely hold up to the punishment of being dragged through rugged terrain. The Barrett .50 cal is semi-automatic but it is so big and heavy that it probably won't be taken on those kinds of oporations.",
"Semi-auto sniper rifles in US service:\n\n* Various DMRs based on the M14 (M39/M21/Mk14/M25)\n* The M110\n* The SR-25\n* The Barret M82\n\nSo, they're not exactly unheard of in US service. \n\nHell, Carlos Hathcock shot a Vietcong guerrilla at a range of 2500 yards using a M2 machine gun with a telescopic sight mounted on it. That was a record that stood for over 30 years and **he wasn't even using a specially made sniper rifle**. This alone should debunk the idea that there's any kind of inherent limitation to semi-auto rifles that makes them not suitable for long range work.\n\nAs far as why bolt actions haven't been completely replaced by semi-autos in the sniper role:\n\n1. **They work okay.** The disadvantages in volume of fire aren't really that big a deal on a rifle that's set up for long range shooting. Armys tend to be fairly conservative when it comes to small arms, so \"if it ain't broke don't fix it.\"\n\n2. **There are a lot more \"off the self\" bolt actions set up to fire really big rounds**. Rounds like .300 winchester magnum and .338 Lapua were developed from big game hunting cartridges. AFAIK there weren't any semi-auto big game rifles, but there were tons and tons of bolt actions that could be readily adapted into sniper rifles. Why reinvent the wheel?\n\n3. **Cost.** Getting equivalent accuracy from a semi-auto design costs more money. Despite its reputation the military is weirdly tight fisted about spending money on small arms.\n\nI realize I'm kind of swimming against the tide here, but there are the facts as I see them.",
"Anything which affects the recoil of the barrel as the bullet passes down it will reduce the accuracy of the weapon. An auto mechanism is a lot of small movements that causes the rifle to wobble slightly, so they are not part of the mechanism. Also really good sniper rifles like the Barrett, have a 'free floating barrel'. Which means it is only attached to the rifle at the base, not along the barrel itself. This allows it to remain as level as possible as the bullet passes down it.",
"Also, semi automatic rifles eject the empty shell casing at a high rate of speed. This ruins the snipers cover our concealment.",
"Another reason they use bolt action is so they can be sure that the shell casing can be taken out and taken with them. They try not to leave any evidence of them being there.",
"Bolt actions have fewer parts moving during fire which contributes to accuracy. Even small movements get really big when you get really far out so this does provide an advantage. On top of this the rate of fire isn't as big of a concern for a sniper. If they decide to shoot twice they want to be able to get the next one out asap but you can't pump rounds downrange from sniper distance like you can with a carbine at short-mid distance. If it's not necessary to shoot more than once many snipers are taught not to shoot more than once; observe, shoot, move, observe, maybe shoot again. Of course that goes out the window if they're covering for advancing troops or things like that. \n\nThe gap has been narrowing though and is evident with all the semi-auto sniper rifles and battle rifles set up for long range and capable of sniping (often the same platforms). It's not that semi-autos aren't good enough and can't preform as sniper rifles because they do, see M14 platform snipers, AR-10 (I don't know that this is in widespread military use but it exceeds standard), the dragunov (although IMO it's not quite accurate enough it is in use), etc. It's that it's easier to get a bolt-action up to standards. ",
"My follow up question is why are straight pull bolt actions so uncommon, we've been making bolt action rifles for over a hundred years, surely it's not that hard? ",
"I'm not a sniper, but I'm in a scout sniper platoon in the military. First of all most \"sniper rifles\" are not bolt action. Bolt actions are definitely only used as \"sniper\" rifles, however. The US army fields 3 primary weapons for its scout sniper platoons, right now, for long range precision fire. The m110, m107, and the m24. Two of those are semiautomatic. The m107 is 50 caliber, and is used primarily for targets like vehicles. It can also be used for long range fire but it is not the most accurate. The m110 comes standard with a suppressor mounted, and it is excellent for any mid range firefight. It is also a decent precision fire weapon under 700 meters. A lot of snipers shots are not going to be at super long range unless the terrain makes those kind of shots necessary. In heavily vegetated areas 300 meters is actually a pretty ideal range to engage a target. Bolt action rifles are utilized when absolute precision is key. A bolt action weapon is a lot more accurate at range, and is the preferable weapon for what you are thinking of as a \"snipers\" job. You can absolutely use a semi automatic as a \"sniper\" rifle, and we often do in the military. It just depends on what you have, and what you need for each situation. A sniper rifle is more of a designation meaning it can be used to deliver long range precision fire. ",
"Not all \"sniper rifles\" are bolt action. I won't even get into the whole \"there are only rifles, and snipers, not sniper rifles\" thing. If we are comparing bolt action to gas operated, it is absolutely true that a given round will have lower muzzle velocity coming out of the gas operated rifle with the same barrel length. This is because a small amount of the gas pressure is siphoned off to operate the action. This happens before the bullet leaves the muzzle. This is why a sniper would choose a bolt action rifle over a gas operated rifle. Even a tiny amount of extra muzzle velocity can make a difference. Currently, snipers use bolt action and semi automatic rifles. The choice comes down to preference, the specific mission at hand, and availability. Chris Kyle (American Sniper) used both bolt action and semi automatic rifles during his war time service.",
"Late to the party, and this'll get buried, but I was a USMC sniper deployed to Afghanistan and Iraq between 2007-2010. \n\nMost sniper rifles are bolt-action for two reasons. \n\n1: They're more accurate. Fewer moving parts, fewer things to pull the barrel in any direction. When you're dealing with a target at 300 to 1k+ yards away, even the slightest tick on the barrel will cause you to miss by feet, not inches. \n\n2: Fewer moving parts. More moving parts, more chance for a jam or some other malfunction. When any firearm is gas-powered (using gas from the 'explosion' of firing a round to kick the slide back, eject the spent cartridge, and load a fresh round) as most semi-auto firearms are, it has a great many moving parts. A bit of gunk in the mechanism, wear and tear, or even humidity can cause the weapon to jam and potentially get someone killed. \n\n\nHope I helped!\n\nEdit: Fewer, not less. ",
"Sniper here. And yes as a few people mentioned bolt action is the standard because it is a single round at a time that doesn't \"spook\" your aim. \n\nMy instructor in the USMC told me when shooting long range the ignition should sneak up on you. \n\nThey would often say squeeze the trigger so lightly that you're surprised when it goes off. This was so you wouldn't move at all after you were dialed in. \n\nMultiple shots would defeat the purpose and you wouldnt have a clue how to adjust if you missed. \n\nTLDR multiple rounds will move your weapon and make it impossible to adjust if you missed. \nLong range shooting is about dialing in and not moving until after the bullet Is released. \n\n\n",
"I'm an FFL and Class 3 dealer with contracts for my local police department. The reason why they're mostly bolt-action is because they have a bunch of them in stock and they're cheaper. There are semi-automatic precision shooting rifles in stock already that the military uses, but they are much more expensive.",
"Besides what many have already pointed out about the accuracy and cost of bolt action vs semi-auto, it also comes down to the sniper's job. \n\nBreaking it down Barney style, they sneak around and inflict accurate fire from long(er) distances compared to more conventional forces. This means that volume of fire isn't as important since, after firing a shot, a) the firing position is compromised and you need to relocate, b) firing more than once would give the enemy a greater idea of where the sniper is hiding, and c) the sniper is probably outnumbered (see b). \n\nIn most situations, unless the sniper's position is somewhat in control of friendly forces, the sniper cannot afford to fire more than once in the same position.\n\nAs far as semi-automatic sniper rifles, there are quite a few semi-automatic sniper rifles in the military's arsenal. For example, the [M82A1](_URL_0_) and the [SR-25](_URL_1_). \n\nI hope this adds something to the conversation.",
"/u/MysteriousGuardian17 mostly has the correct answer, however, there is a bit more to it. \n\nWith long range weapons, the absolute central importance is knowing how the projectile is going to leave the weapon. Unless you're using [self-guided projectiles](_URL_3_), your chief concern is making the margin of error as small as possible. The projectile leaving the barrel even a millimeter off center can mean meters off target at long ranges. \n\nSo, the *bolt action* is one configuration as opposed to other methods of operation such as, striker fired, gas operated, short/long blowback, and others. [Please take a look at the video on this page, it has a depiction of how striker fired pistols work](_URL_4_). This depiction is really important because it shows something really important, each method of operating a gun system has positives and negatives. The purpose of your gun will determine which is best. \n\nFor a pistol that you want to conceal, striker fired is *in my opinion* best because there is no hammer or other protrusion to get stuck on clothing. But, as you can see in the video, the barrel must move to accept the next round (among other reasons) it is very difficult to have the barrel return *PRECISELY* to the exact same configuration each time for maximum precision. Therefore, striker fired pistols (or any pistol or revolver for that matter) are going to be significantly less accurate than other methods for distances beyond 10 yards. \n\nSo, with bolt action, there are two main benefits: \n\n1) The barrel and assembly are \"free floating.\" \n2) There are almost no moving parts. \n\n[Watch this video of how an M16 works](_URL_0_) - it is fascinating. The M16/AR15 weapon platform is absolutely the greatest semi-auto weapon there is (vastly [superior to the AK47](_URL_2_) ) and in the function video of the M16, you can see the gas system, the trigger group, and the bolt cam action - those three moving parts (well, the gas operation isn't a moving part, but it is something moving) are going to cause problems. \n\nTake an extreme case of a weapon that fires from open bolt. Almost no rifles fire from open bolt because it is a dumb idea: When you pull the trigger, the bolt then moves forward, chambers a round, goes into battery, THEN fires... Wherever you were aiming when you pulled the trigger is no longer where your muzzle is pointing. \n\n**By the way, if you want to skip ahead to the answer, it is here:** \n\nTo a vastly less degree than an open bolt rifle, a semi-automatic weapon has a few moving parts that a bolt action doesn't. The trigger alone in a semi-auto weapon has to go through a few hoops before the firing pin is actually struck, [look at this animation of a bolt action rifle.](_URL_1_) There is almost no movement of anything between the time the trigger is pulled and the time the firing pin strikes the primer. With fewer moving parts comes a smother and shorter trigger pull and less movement of your muzzle, remember, even a millimeter of movement in your muzzle can cause meters of error at the target. \n\nFinally the free floating barrel permits higher tolerances for the machined parts in the barrel and bolt. So the bolt brings a round into battery almost identically each time. With weapons that are designed for higher rates and volumes of fire at closer ranges, the tolerances aren't as important (the AK 47). \n\n**TL;DR:** The bolt action has fewer moving parts and functions with greater precision. When you're trying to hit a half meter target at a mile away, you need to have the cartridge sitting just the same each time, a very small and soft trigger pull, very few moving parts, and no warping between the barrel and the stock. ",
"The semi-automatic uses some of the energy from each shot to chamber the next round while the bolt action puts all the energy into propelling the bullet. This means with all else equal the bolt action projectile will have slightly more kinetic energy which can make a difference at long ranges.",
"Scout sniper here. Regarding prevalence of bolt action rifles: fewer moving parts, tighter chamber tolerances, and recoil management.\n\nFewer moving parts = fewer malfunctions (extremely reliable)\n\nTighter chamber tolerances = less energy wasted from gas release (among many others)\n\nRecoil tends to be more predictable and easier to manage because the bolt is not automatically cycling through the order of operation after a trigger pull.\n\nFree floating match grade barrels, custom stocks, custom optics calibrated specifically to the rifle, etc. are other perks.\n\nYes, I have employed the M110 Semi Automatic Sniper System extensively, so please don't tell me about the greatness of semiautomatic sniper rifles. I prefer bolt action rifles for the sniper role, but the semiautos are excellent in most situations (and often more appropriate ie urban).\n\n\nEdit: the \"less energy wasted from gas release\" portion results in increased muzzle velocity, due to more gas expanding within the barrel itself and pushing the bullet out with more energy. Most semi auto rifles are gas operated, indicative of gas not exclusively being used to propel the projectile but to cycle the bolt.\n\nOne last thing: this is not always true, but many bolt action rifles have a longer barrel length than their semi auto counterparts. Longer barrel length allows more gas to stay behind the projectile longer and yields higher muzzle velocities than shorter barrels. This is why suppressed rifles have higher muzzle velocity than unsuppressed.",
"Because in real life gas ejection systems for semi automatic guns jam, and unless you physical pull back the slide of the ejection mechanism you can't see if the round is seated properly. \n\n\nSometimes it's an obvious jam... Maybe the shell gets caught in the slide, or the magazine is old/a little off and the spring tension didn't push up hard enough and you have a half seated round. \n\n\nJams happen more in extreme weather, too cold or hot.... Rounds will stick and not seat. \n\n\nAnd a semi automatic has more failure points to create inaccuracies. This is because the firing sequence is 8 steps, which all but 1 (pulling trigger to send the hammer) is performed by Springs and blow back gas. \n\n(Feeding, \nChambering,\nLocking, \nFiring, \nUnlocking, \nExtracting, \nEjecting, \nCocking) \n\n\nThis means the gun will be VERY sensitive to the ammunition in order to properly run 7 steps. \n\n\nIf you watch match shooters, they'll often manually drop in rounds directly through the ejector. Why chance it if you only get ONE bullet. \n\n\n\n\n",
"So just to clarify there are plenty of semi auto sniper systems on the market. The us military uses the m110 SASS. Modern technology there is not a whole lot different between bolt guns and semi autos. Tolerances are right enough for what most snipers do, which is minute of person. One big catch is as a sniper, concealment is the difference between life and death. A bolt system the shooter can control when the empty case is removed and can even do it slowly shielding the case from view. In a semi auto the case is automatically ejected and a single glint from that can cost them their lives.\n\nNow that said bolt guns will always have a very slight advantage because a lot of times you want velocity. All semis use some form of the energy to run the bolt back this reducing the velocity of the projectile.\n\nBolt rifles also have a lot of moving parts so getting the same consistency is hard. Something often said for long range shooters is if you are consistently wrong you will still be accurate. IE as long as you do everything the same you will put the bullet in nearly the same spot. A semi the bolt grabs the round and throws it forward causing inconsistent pressure every time. In perspective accurate shooters load ammo to to overall lengths of .01 inches of each other. The bolt catching the round and slamming it in can cause a slight setback and when we're talking .01 inches it's not a lot of variance. This accuracy is not for snipers, this is for target shooters though.",
"SUPER late, but there are so many completely wrong answers, even from actual ex-military. There's only a few *partially right* answers out of the dozens I scrolled down through. The best I saw was only at +5, from /u/macguyvers_dad, though a lot is left off. (I can't remark on reliability, but just the physics)\n\nI'm surprised no one but that one person has mentioned that you get a higher muzzle velocity with bolt action as you aren't wasting exhaust gases to move back the bolt and chamber a new round. \nA few had partially right answers, noting the tighter tolerances you get, but not the desirable effect that gives of higher muzzle velocity. \nHigher muzzle velocity means the bullet reaches the target faster, drops less, and you have to lead less. This is what people might mean by more accurate, but where really incomplete in their description of how and why.\n\nThat's one of the biggest reasons.\n\nA .50cal has so much energy that it's not a big deal, and that's why most semi-auto sniper rifles in use today are .50cal, whereas a less powerful round sacrifices too much in the way of ballistics to be semi auto.\n\n**So the simple answer is:** muzzle velocity. A faster bullet makes it easier to hit your target from far away. Bullets aren't like lasers. An M16 (assault rifle) has a muzzle velocity of 853 m/s.\nWhen trying to hit something 2km away, there is quite a bit of time before the bullet reaches the target even at around 1000m/s that you get from most sniper rifles. 1000m/s is just the speed at which it leaves the barrel and it slows down. Muzzle velocity is very important, and a bolt action rifle will use the most of that catridges charge to propel the bullet forward.\n\nThe .50cal semi auto rifles are also only around 853m/s muzzle velocity, but because the round are so heavy they hold that velocity for a long time.\n\nedit: I gave the impressions of it ONLY being about the mechanism that affects muzzle velocity, when that's not true. Sniper rifles also tend to use higher power ammunition and longer barrels to match. I replaced it with a comparison using the same ammo.\n\n---\n\nPeople are saying less moving parts making them more accurate, but that's not really true because the bullet leaves the barrel before the bolt finishes kicking back in a semi automatic.\n\nPeople saying how the motion of chambering the new round disrupts the first one leaving the barrel are just wrong and don't get how fast this is all going on. The slowest part is getting the next round into the chamber, which **does** happen in almost every gun *after* the recoil reaches the shooter's shoulder, but this has no effect in a sniper rifle and is just what causes the second shot to be off in fully automatic weapons. With a semi auto sniper, you have plenty of time to resettle before pulling the trigger again. \n\nThis is all really simple and intuitive when you know how guns work. I'm surprised no one gave the answer earlier that I can see.\n\nIf you find a video of a super slow motion sniper shot, you'll see the gun doesn't move until after the bullet leaves the barrel which completely busts what most of the answers said.",
"In addition to what other comments state regarding accuracy, a bolt action rifle will have higher muzzle energy (note: holding constant the ammunition and length of the barrel) than a semi-automatic weapon. In a semiautomatic small arms weapon, some of the energy from the cartridge is diverted to operate the reloading action. In a bolt action, ALL of that energy is behind the bullet.",
"Basically they like to control the speed and instance the brass is ejected from the chamber to avoid being detected, on top of that most designated marksman rifles like the [SPR](_URL_0_) just don't have the same accuracy as any bolt action sniper rifle like the [M24](_URL_2_).\n\nSource: Was Designated Marksman in Infantry squad and used [M14 EBR](_URL_1_)",
"The simplest explanation I can give (others here also hit it on the head) is that a semi auto action has a moving mass inside. Any tiny movement at the muzzle is exponentialy larger at the target (think of a cone or an accute angle, the rife sitting at the vertex). The movement of the action, a breath or an uneven trigger pull can throw off the shot by a millimeter at the muzzle and feet at the target. In a semi auto rifle, after the shot breaks you have the recoil from the shot and then (slightly later) a smaller backward and foreward recoil from the action cycling.\n\nA bolt-gun has two moving parts, the trigger and the firing pin. With a steady hand and an ideal shot the rifle would move once with the shot. There is just less going on to compensate for. It would be like drawing with a standard pen vs. a pen with a swinging weight on the end.",
"A lot of the reason people think this is because that's the way they are portrayed in video games. Because they need a tradeoff in video games, sacrifice accuracy for firing speed.\n\nIn the real world there is nowhere near as much difference.",
"Energy from a fired round is used to to re-set semi auto weapons via blow back. With bolt action 100% is used to power the round to the target. The main reason however is that bolt action weapons are built to finer tolerances where as semi auto's have a lot less tolerance to insure they don't jam.\n\n_URL_0_ Here is an auto weapon firing a single round in slow mo and as you can see there is a lot of movement including the barrel which will degrade accuracy.",
"Well, for one, it is extremely difficult to hit a target at long range in quick succession, so using a semi-automatic rifle would have no tangible benefit in that regard. With most long distance shots, you have only one chance; you have to take into account elements, sight your rifle without any practice shots, and may have a very limited field of view. If something is wrong with your shot, your target will likely move, or be moving, making your next shot exceptionally harder, if not outright impossible. Doing all of the above is a lengthy process, and not something you can do after a high-powered rifle shot, so having another bullet ready to go in a fraction of a second is useless, because *you're* not ready. Precision shooting is slow; careful breathing, a slow, smooth trigger pull.",
"Another reason snipers prefer bolt actions over semi-autos is for stealth reasons, in regards to cleaning up a firing position or hide. \n\nIt's easier to collect brass out of a bolt rifle than a semi-auto one since you can eject the spent casings into your hand and put the brass directly in a dump pouch versus going all around a five foot area picking brass up off the ground. It's important for those long range recon missions to leave no trace of their position after they're done using it",
"The action on a semi-auto (even though it's slight) does degrade accuracy. At 400-500+ yards, just one minute of angle off target is a 4\"-5\" error and in sniping, that's huge. \n\nAnother reason for snipers using bolt actions is sound. There are five factors that cause sound when shooting. The discharge of the round, crack of the bullet breaking the sound barrier, action of the rifle, the brass hitting the ground and the projectile striking the target. \n\nWith a bolt action, you eliminate the action sound and the brass striking the ground. A sniper may use a suppressor which would help with the discharge sound. However, it's not like you see in the movies. Even with a suppressed bolt rifle, there is still a lot of sound once that trigger is pulled. If you ever shot a 22 LR, a suppressed sniper rifle still has that many db's or more. Sound=Bad for a sniper.\n\nThey are not shooting subsonic ammunition for long distance so the crack of that bullet breaking the sound barrier is unavoidable. \n\nThere are other factors but accuracy and stealth are key. ",
"Same reason many car drivers prefer manual over automatic - more control over many variables.",
"Doing so would mean spending propulsion force to move the reloading mechanism. \n\nSniper riffles are useful for high precission and long distance hits, so sacrificing automatic reloading for extra firing distance sounds like a good design choice",
"because semi automatic snipers take 3 hits to kill, and bolt action take 2. or 1 if youre on a hardcore server.",
"This is totally going to be lost in the literal shit ton of bad information going around right now.\n\nThe simple answer is that it's what the sniper community demands. The self-image of a sniper is working in 2 man teams, taking out a target, and quietly slipping away. So per-shot accuracy is prioritized at all costs.\n\nModern sniping started with the military shooting teams. Carlos Hathcock was a USMC shooter. The rifle he used in Vietnam was the same as the rifle he used to win the Wimbledon trophy. The Army sniper up until the 90's was the M21, which was a national match M14 with a scope on it.\n\nIraq and Afghanistan changed sniping in two different ways; at least for the Army.\n\n It showed that the concept of 2 men going out alone armed with bolt actions was a dated concept as far as urban warfare is concerned. When your firing position had to be in a city that is occupied by unfriendly civilians, it is almost impossible to stay concealed for long. The battles we were getting involved in required that teams be able to stand and fight to a greater degree, so team size typically got increased to 5 or 6 guys to increase their firepower.\n\nThe other thing that Iraq showed is that a bolt action rifle is not the best tool for the job. The added precision of a bolt action cannot make up for the lack of firepower that a semi-automatic can provide.\n\nAfghanistan on the other hand showed the other extreme. Mountain top to mountain top shots across basically devoid terrain. The top 3 longest record sniper shots have been in Afghanistan. One from an Australian team, one from a Brit, and another from a Canadian. In Afghanistan, the 7.62 NATO M24 proved lacking the range required for many of these engagements.\n\nAs a result of experiences in Iraq and Afghanistan , the Army adopted a 2 rifle solution. A semi-auto general purpose sniper rifle in the M110, and a 300 Winchester Magnum M2010 that pushes their effective range out by about 400 yards. The effects are two-fold; a M110 equipped spotter can comfortably handle targets out to 800 yards, and what used to be considered a difficult long range shot with the M24 is more routine with the more powerful M2010.\n\nThe bolt action still has a niche to fill in large caliber magnums for the militaries of the world. They are proven to be accurate and reliable, which is important for extended long range engagements. ",
"SDM checking in:\n\nYou guys covered a lot.\n\nI Can at least contribute the idea that a/the semi automatic platform of increasingly higher caliber has scaling recoil due to the amount of moving parts and action. \n\nOften times the larger the caliber, the larger the round, the parts needed to cycle the round also go up in both size and complexity. Where-as a bolt action system is largely a universal concept and scales easily enough to almost any system and almost any round. \n\nSemi Automatic designated marksman rifles almost always cap out in size with the 7.62x51 and 7.62x54 rounds for conventional usage, as beyond that the machining required gets bigger, heavier and starts to defeat the purpose as a designated mobile platform for small unit anti personnel use. \n\nThe semi automatic capability allows for rapid fire to enable suppression and a larger combat capability rather than one shot, precision systems. ",
"The bolt action was always considered to be the best choice because when the bolt closes exactly that same way every time and when it is closed the entire receiver assembly is locked up and more rigid than a semi auto.\n\nAlso when it comes to ammunition a lot of serious long range shooters load their own ammo, when seating the bullet they seat it \"long\" so when it is chambered the bolt pushes the bullet into the rifling in the barrel, so every round fired starts from exactly the same place, this can't be done with a semi auto.\n\nAs semi autos have evolved they are getting closer to the accuracy of a bolt action, but the best semi auto still won't beat a bolt gun on paper.",
"Purists will give you a variety of reasons, the primary of which is \"variability\". A semi-auto's cycle involves bolt release outside of the user's control, uncontrolled ejection of the casing that can give away position, variable gas utilization for driving the bolt, slapping the next round into the chamber in a rather uncontrolled manner, continued barrel vibration between shots, heat variability of the chamber and barrel and a host of other factors that simply aren't present in manual bolt system. There's also the issue of specialty loads, which can only really be used with consistent results at the technical limits of the weapon in a manual bolt-action rifle.\n\nHere's the reality: semi-auto condone undisciplined sniping. A good sniper will use a single position, ideally, for a single shot, but more realistically, for a couple. Then they will move to another position if their cover is good. semi-autos tend to force position choice into a single defensible position possibly with a good exit route. At that point, you're not a sniper, but a rifleman. A semi-auto rifle can turn a sniping into an ambush, which are two completely separate things.\n\nA disciplined semi-auto sniper will tell you that a bolt-action rifle is inappropriate on the modern battlefield and, as long as the sniper is cognizant of his weapon's limitations and weaknesses, disciplined semi-auto sniping is just as effective as the bolt-action variety. ",
"I am just guessing but doesn't the energy needed to cycle the rifle take away from the energy that goes into sending the bullet downrange?",
"I am way late and there are a bunch of good answers but one thing they seem to be misrepresenting to the uninitiated. \n\nWhen we are talking about accuracy we mean something more like consistency. Your accuracy with long range rifles is basically dependent on your ability to perform consistently and your knowledge of how your rifle performs in similar conditions.\n\n \"Snipers\" will keep a book or a history filled with shots from their rifle fired in all kinds of conditions (temp, humidity, wind), at all kinds of ranges and even at different angles of elevation. Bolt action rifles lend themselves to consistency much better by design. \n\n\nFirst with bolt action you don't have to use some of the gas to cycle the weapon. This means you get better muzzle velocity which causes the bullet to drop less, make it to target faster giving the wind less time to act on it and means you need to lead a target less. As a general rule, the slower a bullet is moving, the less consistent its point of impact is. (this can change based on twist rates in your barrel and other factors but in normal circumstance is true) \n\nSecond, because the rifle doesn't need to cycle on its own or quickly, every fucking thing in it can be built to much much tighter tolerances. At the distances we are talking anything can throw that bullet off target, specs of sand or dirt, a particularly cold pocket of air etc. The chamber can be built to seat and seal extremely consistently, there is a lot less chance of getting crap in it because you control the cycle and it isn't kicking up a ton of dust by expelling hot air while it's doing it. The tolerances make so much of a difference that a lot of really good marksmanship schools will teach that when you're shooting a really nice bolt action to just put it firmly in your shoulder pocket and only use a couple fingers touching the gun to pull the trigger. However, when shooting a semi they will tell you to crank that mother fucker into your shoulder like it's your job trying to tighten the tolerances and man handle that grip to torque it down even more. \n\nAnother nice thing about them is they are cheaper to manufacture so you have more money left over to use better materials in the stock or\nbarrel. There are also a lot more customization options for bolt actions since they are a much simpler design. Bedding blocks, better chassis, etc. ",
"Bolt actions tend to be more accurate than semi-automatic rifles.\n\nThey also tend to get a bit tighter seal, so their muzzle velocity can tend to be a bit higher.\n\nBolt action is preferred over lever action because a lever is more difficult to operate from a prone (laying down) position, or in a trench.",
"I'm not just late, I'm extremely late, but I haven't seen anyone mention a very big reason.. In the British military, we use the L115a3 (L96) which as most of you probably know, is bolt action. \nWe have to remember that one of the best features of a long distance marksman is being hidden, and undetected from the enemy. Now if we use a semi automatic rifle, all of the effort hiding and concealing your position could be ruined by a highly polished bit of brass being ejected a meter or two out of the rifle, that goes against all 7 S's of concealment. \nNow that we have a bolt action, we can manually remove the round from the weapon, slowly and hidden. \n",
"This topic has already been pretty well beaten into the dirt by the top comments, espeically that there's many semi-auto and even full auto \"sniper rifles\" out there.\n\nBut a couple other reasons I've heard over the years for why bolt-actions are still popular in that role would be:\n\nBolt action allows you to eject the spent casing at a moment of your choosing, whereas any type of auto will eject it automatically. I guess this is sometimes preferable if you don't want brass flying around, potentially giving away your position.\n\nAlso that bolt actions are simpler, and therefore easier to assemble and disassemble, which may be handy if you're crawling through a mile of mud to get to a shooting position. \n\nI have no idea how true either of these really are, just some other things I've heard.",
"Not sure how relevant this is, but for a long time it was cheaper to produce accurate bolt action rifles than it is to make semi automatic rifles. this is probally a large part of why scoped rifles were originally bolt action. \n\nA few points to consider\nSeveral early semi automatic rifles ejected cases upwards. This made for poor usage while scoped as cases can strike the scope, however this was fixed by side mounted scopes for some guns. \n\nEjecting the brass is not always a great idea. It does alow for a quick follow up shot, but it also means you have to find the brass before you move, provided you are worried about someone finding said brass. Brass is also quite reflective and in sunshine it could stand out. \n\nBolt action is a very accurate breech mechanism.\n\nBolt actions are not slow weapons to fire when you have been trained with them. when you take into account the amount of time you will spend lining up a shot, Firing the shot, Re aiming for follow up, and firing again, the bolt action is only just behind the semi automatic in speed, as unlike call of duty you can quite easily pull a bolt without coming away from the scope. \n\nAs someone else mentioned there are many brilliant semi automatic sniper rifles. I think a lot of it comes down to the snipers personal preference and availability. \n\nIF you spent your whole child hood shooting cans with a bolt action .22 then a bolt action might come more naturally to you. If you learnt to shoot with semi automatics then that might be the style you prefer. \n\nIf you are a sniper from Afghanistan then chances are your weapon of choice will likely be the Dragunov for its availability in that part of the world, but if you are a sniper from Australia who learnt to shoot with a .303, chances are you will prefer a bolt action. \n\nThe military from most countries likely has several \"Sniper\" rifles available for different missions. As a marksman part of a squad one of the M14's DMR cousins is probably a better option than a long range bolt action rifle as its more adaptable to changing situations. If your job is to watch a crossroads for a week, then chances are you will be looking for something accurate and easy to move if you are spotted. If your job is to cover a convoy from 1000 metres where you will need to disable pursuing vehicles, then you are probably going to want a heavy duty bolt rifle that fires a round as big as your fist. \n\nSo basically it comes down to personal preference, Availability, and the target. Horses for courses. Your not going to send a guy with a .22 to shoot at tanks, and your not going to send a guy with a .50 to jog through buildings as part of a squad. \n\n",
"A large part of it is the tolerance difference between a bolt action, a semi-auto and the ammunition they use. By their nature, semi-auto rifles need looser tolerances compared to bolt actions because they have more moving parts that need to move a certain way for correction function. By comparison, a bolt action is a much simpler movement and it is operated by hand which allows for reliable function with much closer tolerances.\n\nNow part 2 of this is the ammunition. When you fire a round, the case expands outwards to meet the walls of the chamber of the rifle. This means in semi autos, ammo needs to be sized smaller than the chamber to ensure reliable function. In a bolt actions, rounds can be used that are perfectly sized to the chamber because they can be manually placed into the chamber and the action locked on the round. Precision and competitive long range shooters very frequently use brass from rounds they have fired in their rifle and reload them without resizing the body of the brass. Only the neck is resized and trimmed to specific sizes. The idea is to produce ammo tailored to the rifle firing it. ",
"The ELI5, \"simple\" answer is that **bolt action rifles are simpler, lighter and more robust**. Because long range shooting is about *accuracy* (not volume of fire) the main advantage of automatic loading (increased firepower) is unnecessary at distance and the added mechanical complications only become a potential liability. \n\nThere are certainly semi-autos capable of phenomenal accuracy @ 1000m+ but those guns are more *expensive* and *heavier* than a comparably accurate bolt gun. That's it really. ",
"There are a ton of semi, and even fully automatic rifles that can be used for longer ranged combat. Bolt actions just have advantages that other guns don't have for snipers.\n\nOne of them being, in a bolt action you can manually remove spent ammunition.. This means you don't have to worry about flying brass giving away your cover. Believe it or not that is an actual problem snipers have, especially when enemy snipers are looking for them.\n\nSecondly bolt action weapons are usually (emphasis on usually) a lot less likely to jam due to sand, mud, water, etc and prolonged periods of being in dirty conditions. \n\n",
"Ah I do enjoy the occasional front page gun thread. Nothing like hearing from call of duty commandos for a day or two. ",
"Top comments have it mostly right, but I think it needs some clarification. As with most things in the military, it is part form/function and part psychology.\n\nThere are plenty of sniper rifles that are not bolt action. In fact many militaries use rifles that do not fall into the traditional bolt action type.\n\nOther posts are somewhat correct in that high accuracy rifles tend to try to avoid changes which may effect the ability to put the bullet in the same place. This is the core idea behind accuracy. \n\nAll weapons have certain tolerances that give the weapon the ability to load the cartridge and fire the round. This includes how the the cartridge is loaded, how the weapon detonates the round, and how the round travels down the barrel. Very small tolerances can cause the rifle to be prone to jamming or fouling, which is naturally not a desirable characteristic for a battle rifle. It isn't as much as an issue for dedicated sniper weapons that receive lots of love from the owner. This is not to say it isn't an issue, as snipers still need the weapon to function reliability, but tend to favor higher tolerances which minimize small deviations in how the weapon fires due to the tolerances within the weapon.\n\nAutomatic weapons tend to have have larger tolerances to allow the weapon to cycle properly, but this is not always the case. Some highly accurate special made sniper weapons have high tolerances and little to no deviation in the cycling of the weapon.\n\nBecause bolt action weapons rely on the operator to accomplish cycling the round, there is some reduction of the movable portions of the rifle, which some believe decreases the variables when firing. This is dubious however, and there are plenty of examples of how this can be done just as well by the weapon and minimize movement of the operator allowing easier follow up shots, more on this later.\n\nThis is not to say however that weapons with wide tolerances cannot be very accurate. Periodically even a rifle with wide tolerances will come off the assembly line highly accurate, but even disassembly for cleaning can alter this.\n\nThere is a belief in the sniper community, especially in America that you need a one shot kill sort of mentality and weapon. As such especially for newer shooters it is emphasized that they make every shot count. This is partially due to the expense of the ammunition and partly an inherited cultural trait within the community. It ends up being a bit of a construction of the community which weapons are called sniper weapons and which are called scout weapons, which may be just as accurate but automatic.\n\nSo there you go, it ends up being less important how the weapon operates and how we have learned to view non automatic weapons.\n\nTLDR: There are many sniper weapons that are not bolt action, it comes down to preference within specific parts of the community that have shaped our impression of what constitutes a sniper weapon.",
"I am very late to this party!!! I am a prior member of special operations. A few of the top answers are hitting close and getting things accurately however missing a big point. \n\nBolt action rifles were preferred by my group because they were rarely in a position where there job was cover fire. When we would go on an OP where combat was guaranteed to happen everyone carried semi-auto/burst weapons. 1 person usually carried a fully automatic depending once again on the OP. \n\nSnipers in the field are rarely there to kill. I've been on numerous missions where we approach over X-Time get into position watch for X-Time and then leave over X-Time. We crawl we take cat litter to piss in and put feces in bags. The whole purpose of us to be there without \"ever being there\". If we fire a shot in those scenarios you can guarantee we take our shell casings with us when we go. With a semi-auto you lose track of casings because WHO THE FUCK CARES YOU'RE BEING SHOT AT!!! Have you ever field called brass? It fucking sucks imagine having to do that in hostile territory..... It's not happening. \n\nA Snipers job now a day isn't go an assassinate targets, It's go sit and fucking watch and report. They are the eyes in the field. So for the short answer is control. We need to control everything when we aren't supposed to be somewhere. If you are actually called to take the shot you take that fucking brass with you. Another note in that situation where you take the shot is brass shines. If it ejects without control it's going to hit the sun and cause a flash. Most the time people aren't looking in the weeds for a sniper but after a dude falls around you without notice EVERYONE is fucking looking for any indicator. \n\nThrow away because I don't broadcast this to people on a regular basis and don't need it tied to me.\n\n*Sorry I dont know how to edit\n\nTLDR - To control your environment not just your shot",
"Sniper here- \rSemi-autos are great weapons, but when extreme accuracy is needed they have one specific flaw. They require gas to move the bolt, extract the previous cartridge and chamber the next round. These gases can vary from shot to shot- minimal change, but enough to notice. Bolt actions are more consistent because all gas is exerted forward, and not recycled for the function of the weapon. The shooter manually does the extraction and chambering. This leads to greater recoil felt by the shooter, and also greater accuracy. There are other factors such as volume of fire, but a well trained sniper can have comparable volumes. Sniping is about calculating, and minimizing variables. Gas/chamber pressure included. ",
"Late, so not going to write too much.\n\nI was ranked 4th sharpshooter in my country, many years ago. used almost exclusively [this rifle.](_URL_0_). It looks plain, but it is considered one of the, if not THE best competition rifles in the world. Accuracy of sharpshooting (paper targets) is on a different scale of sniping (shooting people). In a competition, your bullseye is 0.22\" (same size as the bullet), is at 50 M, and you need to put 60 bullets in it, within an hour (there are variations, but this is the standard). for every bullet dead-on you get 10 points, for every MM outside the bullseye, remove a point. my personal best was 597. Enough background.\n\n1. Simple construction, less moving parts, meaning a bolt with a tolerance of 0.001 cm or less. No gas leakage, no slight movement of the round within the chamber.\n\n2. No recoil. All the gas is used for pushing the bullet out the barrel, and no piston traveling back, causing a barrel jump.\n\n3. Barrel needs time to cool down anyway. Hot barrel means a slight change in how the bullet comes out. Also, there is this thing called whipping; after you shoot, the barrel whips, and needs time to straighten again (think a garden-hose, when you suddenly open the faucet, will whip).\n\n4. No need. You don't need to shoot fast, you need to shoot straight. This is better done with a bolt, although there are some rifles using clips and bolts, no need to change what works so well.\n",
"sniper rifles require maybe one shot in 10-15 minutes, depending on the situation, making it semi automatic doesnt add more than it removes",
"My mostly uneducated thoughts on this are;\n < 1000 yards a semi automatic is preferable. Within 600 a follow up shot is quite possible, the SA will be faster. Rounds designed for this range have well established SA platforms to build from. Bolt actions are incredibly simple, and much easier to develop for niche cartridges. Under about 400 the motion of working the bolt could give away your position. After the first shot people will be searching for flashes of movement. \nOver 1000 yards the advantages of a bolt gun start to out weigh the disadvantages. Slightly more consistent head spacing of the chambered round starts to become a factor. Speed of follow up shots is slow no matter what. The military doesn't need 3 million 2000 yard rifles so there's little incentive to invest the time and money in developing a SA platform when custom bolt rifles can be designed much more quickly. SA's need to prove their reliability over years, bolt guns just plain work. Rounds that are effective at these ranges need to be re barreled frequently, which is a lot simpler with no gas tube. True free floated barrels are significant at these ranges. ",
"Semi Auto Sniper rifles are terrible compared to Bolt Action, when trying to quick scope. If you try to quick scope with a semi auto sniper, you will look like a noob, so all the Faze members use Bolt Actions ",
"A bolt action is simpler to manufacture, as well as if made semi automatic there's the need of a gas chamber which is unnecessary added mechanical mechanism and weight. The point of a marksman rifle is to be of a larger caliber, accuracy and mobility. Having a gas chamber means that for a larger caliber the firearm size has to be overall increased.\nBolt Action rifles are well known for their pin-point accuracy, simplicity of cleaning and maintaining, a simple firing mechanism and easy to carry ",
"Easy answer.\n\nBolt action rifles can be machined to tighter tolerances than semi-auto ones can. Tighter tolerances ensure that the round is chambered exactly the same with little variance. In addition, less moving parts equates to a less complex mechanism. Thus, higher reliability. \n\nThis is important for consistency. Which is why serious reloaders are all OCD types who weigh out brass, powder, tips and primers as a sorting process. Trimming and seating are measured down to the .01 and sometimes the .001 range. \n\nMany tight tolerance semi-autos can do .5 MOA. Whereas a match level or custom made bolt-gun can do .25MOA or better. \n\nFor those who don't shoot, that's a difference between a half inch grouping at 100 yards vs a quarter inch group. Scaled out to longer ranges, it equates to a base five inch spread at 1000 yds vs a 2.5 inch spread. \n\nSource: I'm one of those OCD reloader types who shoots bolt guns when accuracy is a must. \n\nThe decision to go with a bolt-gun vs a semi-auto is a tradeoff between accuracy and capacity. While a semi-auto isn't as accurate as a bolt gun, you can put more rounds down-range in less time with decent enough accuracy. ( Decent meaning ~1 MOA ) ",
"because when you quickscope someone, the sound of loading up the next round is much more satisfying",
"Saw some mistakes here.\n\nMy guess is weight, the action of a gun is rated by how much force it can take from a bullet in firing. Bolt action probably can handle more force per weight than semi. The standard assault rifle fires significantlyrics smaller rounds than a hunting/sniping rifle.\n\nYou can't see if you hit targets anyway because the recoil, that's why you need a spotter who can see the vapor trail of the projectile to tell you to adjust course..\n\nI was told by an ex Ranger sniper the rifle is pretty cheap, but the glass scope on top cost 5x the rifle. Don't think it cost.\n\nThe 50 cal sniper semi auto has it's place, but it's heavy as fuk for a lot of purposes. Weight matters when you have lots to carry and want to be stealthy. Google the die difference. There larger and faster round is more accurate, but you don't need to shoot 2000 yard targets all the time.\n\nHuge rifles are impossible to shoot standing, and harder kneeling than smaller ones. That makes smaller ones are more accurate and therefor deadly if you don't have a stationary position with time to set up. I went hunting with a 7mm Mauser while my buddies had magnum rifles. There rifles weighed twice mine, and we're very awkward to carry around. \n",
"Hi there! Army vet. here. \n\nIn short... Most are not bolt action rifles anymore. The Barrett M98B, Barrett M95, M21, M110, US Army SDM Rifles, Navy MK12, M25, and USMC DMR sniper rifle are all Semi-automatic.\n\nThere is no real advantage to a bolt action rifle over a semi-automatic if both are machined with the same tolerances in the chamber and barrel. The bolt and the recoil system have little to no impact on weapon accuracy which is why most if not all sniper rifles in the US military are now semi-auto. \n \n\n\n\n \n\n\n\n",
"I believe a lot of what people are saying about less moving parts means less chance to screw up your shot. It's also true about keeping costs down when manufacturing - more of a \"They don't need it, so why make it\" type of thing.\n\nBut also keep in mind this. The biggest reason Sniper Rifles are bolt action are because they are ***simple***. \n\nSnipers tend to be isolated and remote. They aren't with a bunch of other guys who have spare parts. Bolt action rifles are simple, reliable, and easy to maintain. What good is a gun if it breaks on you, especially if you're supposed to be covering guys a couple hundred yards out? ",
"A bolt action does not need gas to push the bolt back so that gas/energy can be used on the bullet. Plus bolt action is way cooler.",
"One of the key issues missing here is the projectile deformation from semi-auto actions. If you ever manually eject the 2nd unfired round(after firing the first), you'll notice the HPBT is somewhat deformed/damaged. This is personal first hand experience with an older variance SR25 that I used. If you're engaging at 100-500yrds, it doesn't make that much difference but past that, the flight path of the bullet is severely affected. Also, semi guns tend to be heavier so that's another trade off. \n\nMy personal opinion, if it's a target rich/semi urban environment and I'm reasonably near supply/wheels, I'll hump a semi. Reason being, I'm engaging multiple targets quickly and it's in closer proximity. AFG type, I'm using the bolt gun as the shots are much farther out and the 1/8 - 1/4moa accuracy will mean the difference btw hit or miss. ",
"The most obvious reason is that a bolt-action rifle has fewer parts that move during firing, so it throws the shooters aim off less. ",
"The way semi-automatic guns work is that part of the force of the explosion goes backwards, to force the action open and chamber the next round. With a bolt-action, all the force of the blast goes forward into propelling the bullet, making it fly faster and straighter.",
"Accuracy is a function of repeatability. The whole object in obtaining \"accuracy\" is to make this shot the same as the last, and the next shot the same as this shot.\n\nThere are a shit ton of shot to shot variables with a rifle, and the projectile. A bolt action rifle just eliminates variables that you would otherwise have to compensate for, or try to compensate for.\n\nSemi autos have some mechanism for auto loading the cartridge. It could be blowback, recoil, or gas operated, or manual (Gatling gun). Every one of these processes introduce different variables. More variables=less accuracy. ",
"Because semi autos typically use a gas system to cycle another round into the chamber. The gas system is fixed to the barrel and causes movement of the barrel between shots, thereby causing inconsistency and inaccuracy in groupings (multiple shots at the same place). It isn't that a sniper wants a bolt action; it's more that they want a free floating barrel. This means that the barrel attaches only to the receiver (bit where all the bullet/bolt stuff happens). Free floating barrels are almost exclusively bolt action. This allows the barrel to return to as close to the same point after each shot with far greater consistency, allowing a sniper/marksman to put all his rounds to the same spot as often as possible.\n\nI'll note that some snipers do use semi auto rifles for a number of reasons (availability of ammo, the need to engage multiple targets rapidly, attachment options, etc). Actually iirc Carlos Hathcock made a long range kill of 2286m with a Browning M2 machine gun, which is fully automatic."
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32je34 | what, biologically, causes lethargy and feelings of being "in a fog"? why do we sometimes feel this way, even with no apparent health issues? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/32je34/eli5_what_biologically_causes_lethargy_and/ | {
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"We actually are not quite sure what fully causes the feeling of being tired or lethargic. One simple explanation that has the most proof appears to be that a chemical called adenosine builds up in our brain throughout many of our daily activities. Adenosine is the byproduct of many metabolic functions (such as ATP being broken down for energy at a cellular level) in the body, and when enough of it builds up in our brain, we get tired. Similarly, when we drink things that are caffeinated, it blocks adenosine from binding to receptors in our brain and keeps us awake. This is a very simple explanation, you could find further reading here:\n\n_URL_0_\n\n_URL_1_\n",
"Not an anaswer, but just a question to clarify your question. Is there a particular time of day you feel tired and lethargic, e.g. after eating lunch, or a high-sugar snack, then not moving for a long period of time?"
]
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"http://health.howstuffworks.com/wellness/drugs-alcohol/caffeine-awake.htm",
"http://www.news-medical.net/health/What-is-Adenosine.aspx"
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6f345b | how do people remove vocals from a song for adverts for example? | [deleted] | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/6f345b/eli5_how_do_people_remove_vocals_from_a_song_for/ | {
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"Most songs nowadays are composed using layers on a track. So all it really takes is removing the layer. It's trickier with older songs that didn't use this production method.",
"One of my best friends runs a company that sells music to adverts and TV shows and the like. Most bands have an instrumental version of all songs they've recorded, so they can licence them to ads etc. ",
"Little late to the party but I figured I'd add my two cents and hope you see it. \n\nI'm an audio engineer in a studio in Pittsburgh, and before that I worked in a large studio in Chicago called CRC. CRC is one of the biggest independent studios in the country and we did both music and post-production (video games, movies, tv shows, etc.) \n\nWhat other people are saying about layers is correct. You have multiple tracks in a single session/song. When the final mix is done, all those tracks are combined into a two channel mix and very often a summed mono mix so that normal stereos can play the track. \n\nWhile I was at CRC, it was very common for us to finish the final mix, and then do multiple variant mixes that we would then give to the artist. For example, we would print the final mix, then we would turn the vocals up a pinch and print a VOX Up mix, then turn them down and do a VOX Down mix, then mute all the instruments and do an acapella mix and then mute all the vocals and do an instrumental mix. We would give all these mixes to the artist or label and then when someone wanted to use the instrumental track for something like a movie trailer, the artist already had an instrumental mix that they could send right away. \n\nOnce a mix is printed it's damn near impossible to remove just the vocals and not affect anything else. I say damn near because there could possibly be a program out there that could do it, but I don't know of any and I'm not sure how it would be possible. Like you mentioned previously, if you isolate the frequencies of the vocals you're also going to isolate and remove any instrument that falls in that frequency range. \n\nHope this helps! "
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l085z | the mafia and all its groups (camorra, la cosa nostra, sicilian, etc.) | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/l085z/eli5_the_mafia_and_all_its_groups_camorra_la_cosa/ | {
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"I can't give you a run down of all the groups but I can give a general description of the Mafia.\n\nPicture Sicily as a schoolyard playground. Everyone's playing and having a good time, but some kids start bulling other kids. When the teacher is told, they don't do anything and mostly just look the other way. A few kids get together a decided that it's up to them to stop the bullies and make sure that others don't show up. These kids start the Mafia to get ride of the bullies that the teachers won't touch and make sure that more don't show up later. As time goes on the Mafia needs to gather some money because a bully beats up some of the Mafia members. They turn to the other kids they have been protecting and tell them since they are the ones protecting them, that they need to pay for the band-aids. This turns into regular collections for the next time a bully shows up. When some kids complain that there haven't been any bullies for a long time, and refuse to pay for band-aids that aren't being bought(since there are no need for the band -aids the Mafia has been buying soda's for it's members instead). That makes the Mafia angry and they go and bully these kids into paying for the protection. That creates the protection rackets that were the base of the Mafia, eventually they add other criminal enterprises most which began as services like smuggling restricted items. As time went on the Mafia grows in size and eventually inspires other groups to do the same or have Mafia members start their own Mafia.\n\nHope that helps",
" > all they got from Paulie was protection from other guys looking to rip them off. And that's what it's all about. That's what the FBI could never understand. That what Paulie and the organization [i.e. the Mafia] does is offer protection for people who can't go to the cops. That's it. That's all it is. They're like the police department for wiseguys.\n\n- GoodFellas.\n\nthis applies to pretty much any form of Mafia (Russian, Italian, Mexican, etc.) ",
"I can't give you a run down of all the groups but I can give a general description of the Mafia.\n\nPicture Sicily as a schoolyard playground. Everyone's playing and having a good time, but some kids start bulling other kids. When the teacher is told, they don't do anything and mostly just look the other way. A few kids get together a decided that it's up to them to stop the bullies and make sure that others don't show up. These kids start the Mafia to get ride of the bullies that the teachers won't touch and make sure that more don't show up later. As time goes on the Mafia needs to gather some money because a bully beats up some of the Mafia members. They turn to the other kids they have been protecting and tell them since they are the ones protecting them, that they need to pay for the band-aids. This turns into regular collections for the next time a bully shows up. When some kids complain that there haven't been any bullies for a long time, and refuse to pay for band-aids that aren't being bought(since there are no need for the band -aids the Mafia has been buying soda's for it's members instead). That makes the Mafia angry and they go and bully these kids into paying for the protection. That creates the protection rackets that were the base of the Mafia, eventually they add other criminal enterprises most which began as services like smuggling restricted items. As time went on the Mafia grows in size and eventually inspires other groups to do the same or have Mafia members start their own Mafia.\n\nHope that helps",
" > all they got from Paulie was protection from other guys looking to rip them off. And that's what it's all about. That's what the FBI could never understand. That what Paulie and the organization [i.e. the Mafia] does is offer protection for people who can't go to the cops. That's it. That's all it is. They're like the police department for wiseguys.\n\n- GoodFellas.\n\nthis applies to pretty much any form of Mafia (Russian, Italian, Mexican, etc.) "
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109i6a | how do i shop for and buy my first car? | I don't know anything about cars so I have no idea what I want other than safe, compact (for the annoying parking situation where I live and work), and fuel efficient. I have no idea where to start comparing one car to another let alone negotiating a price. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/109i6a/eli5_how_do_i_shop_for_and_buy_my_first_car/ | {
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"Look at a bunch of adverts for cars that are the price you can afford. Keep the price on the cheap side. You are only learning about cars at this stage. Pick out a few that you like. It doesn't matter why you like them for now. Make a note of the milage and age of the cars and what condition they are in, e.g. is the paint work faded or rusty, how \"good\" does it look. \n \nArmed with this information go to a car dealership and ask to look at cars of the type you liked from the adverts or look in the paper/Internet for cars for sale of that type. \n \nIf you find a car of the type you like that is cheaper than your research and has the same milage and looks to be in the same or better condition you may have found your new ride. \n \nThings to watch out for \n \n* Cars with low milage yet the pedals are worn from use\n* Cars with low milage yet the seat belt looks old/worn\n* Cars with signs of repainting. Different colour inside doors, under bonnet, overspray on exaust pipe, etc\n* Cars missing trim, logos, make/model on boot. Boot was replaced after a crash.\n* Cars with missing documentation\n \nIf you can afford it try to do a check online or otherwise on the car to make sure no outstanding finance is owed by the previous owner. If you buy a car form a guy who owes money on it it might be repossesed even though you paid full price for it. \n \nIn general buy an old, cheap but hopefully sound car and use it to learn about cars and driving. Your next purchase will be much more informed. ",
"Shop around and use _URL_0_ to look up reviews on the cars you are looking at.",
"Are we talking about a new car? Visit each reputed maker's website: Honda, Toyota, Nissan, Ford, Hyundai etc. All of them have prices and specs displayed. \n\nMake a spreadsheet listing each vehicles price, pros and cons.\n\nOnce you've narrowed it down to a handful of cars, visit _URL_1_, _URL_0_, _URL_2_ and _URL_3_ and make note of what the average market value of the car is (this is what people are paying for a new car in your area). This does not include taxes and other fees (comes to about $1500-$2000 for a new compact sedan below $20,000). \n\nGo drive each car and get a good feel for it. Take your time and don't let them rush you through it. \n\nNow find out the invoice price of each car (this is what the dealership paid the maker for the car). You should ideally pay as close to the invoice price as possible. \n\nSome dealerships/manufacturers will offer you incentives if you finance through them. Call and ask. Talk to a few banks and see what kind of interest rate you can get. A co-signer with outstanding credit will knock down your interest rate substantially.\n\nFind all the dealerships for your choice of cars and get quotes over email. Now visit them in person when you are ready to buy and offer to pay invoice price. Do not budge. Let the salesman tire out from walking to his manager's office. If they appear hostile or disrespectful, walk away. Google if your state has a maximum documentation fees and don't pay a penny over that. You should pay the tax, doc fee, tag and title fee over the car's price. Refuse to pay any prep-fee or extras like paint guards or tinted windows. You can always get these later.\n\nIf you buy during off-season and have great negotiating skills you could probably get away paying less than invoice price. Keep an eye out for when 2013 models are announced because it means the 2012 models will be that much cheaper in months to come.\n\nAlso take a look at certified pre-owned vehicles. Sometimes you will catch a good deal. Don't bother with cars that have been driven over 15000 miles a year.\n\nDon't trade in your current car. Sell it yourself on Craigslist. Get an inspection report from a certified mechanic. Makes the process easier.\n\nThe bottom line is: Don't rush the process. Remember that you always have the upper hand. Be firm without being disrespectful. ",
"I personally wouldn't buy a car from dealer. If you do and arnt comfortable with confrontation then have a friend be there to help negotiate the deal. The ONE thing I would recommend is always walk away after the test drive for an hour or two (have lunch etc) and think about it. The car will be there if you decide you like it. Also go to a bank and secure prior financing. This can help bargin a deal. You don't and shouldnt give them anything to look at your credit before you decide for sure you are going to buy the car. For two reasons. One multiple credit look ups lower your cradit score, and two if you have poor credit it allows them to leverage that against the price. \nHope this helps.\n"
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6tjkst | why do so many large and small companies prey on the poor and less fortunate by gouging them on everyday items and needs? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/6tjkst/eli5_why_do_so_many_large_and_small_companies/ | {
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"People with low incomes also have the fewest options in what products they can buy. That makes them a captive consumer base and means that companies can charge them more than more affluent people with more choice in products and services.\n\nPoor people are also much less likely to have received a good financial education and are thus easier to deceive with bad deals and fraudulent practices."
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3fxv7r | why are yellow teeth considered unattractive? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3fxv7r/eli5_why_are_yellow_teeth_considered_unattractive/ | {
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"They didn't used to be. Toothpaste and dental care took off though and eventually white teeth became preferable - it equals health and indicates that you take good care of your body and self.",
"Because teeth yellow with age, and so yellow teeth suggests being less youthful. And teeth yellow when not cleaned thoroughly, suggesting worse dental care and dental health."
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6duqtt | what happens in our brains when we hold in emotions and then snap? | I want to know if there are any chemicals or enzymes that release when you suppress emotion and what happens when we finally release it. And then why do we then resort to extreme sadness or anger? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/6duqtt/eli5_what_happens_in_our_brains_when_we_hold_in/ | {
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"\nYour front brain simulates consequences and chooses the best action to take. When you're emotional, this usually means stopping you from doing something like punting your co workers. Sometimes one or multiple emotions become really strong and it takes lots of effort to stop you from acting on them. Effort makes your brain tired, and either it becomes worse at modulating behavior OR the emotions become too strong for the front brain to hold back. Then you have an emotional outburst where the front brain is kinda offline. "
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1p2tdj | how did specific geographic locations become good/high end parts of town and others become bad/dangerous parts of town? | Just strictly from a geographic perspective - for example, why is lower/eastern LA the part of Los Angeles that is dangerous and the western area (Beverly Hills, West Hollywod) the nicer part? Who was responsible for affecting this? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1p2tdj/eli5_how_did_specific_geographic_locations_become/ | {
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"I'm sure you know the three most important words in real estate: Location, location, and location. Nice areas have proximity to some desireable feature--be it parks, the waterfront, downtown, public transit, nice views, historical areas, nice looking bridges, any or all of these things. These desirable features drive up property values, which has the effect of inviting in the rich people and their amenities and pricing out the riff raff. Meanwhile, not nice features such as abandoned factories, power plants, highways, ugly bridges don't do anything good for property values. They stagnate or drop, and these parts of town become the \"bad part of town.\""
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2xuk3x | why is snowden in trouble for whistleblowing? shouldn't whistle blowing be a good thing? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2xuk3x/eli5_why_is_snowden_in_trouble_for_whistleblowing/ | {
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"It's a great thing until someone whistle blows you. Then they're a snitch. \n\nThe government is equating it with giving classified data to the enemy like treason, espionage and the like. Really it's bullshit but that's their reason. ",
"it *is* a good thing, in general. unfortunately, in the case of snowden, it harms the interests of the most powerful government in the world, so they make it a bad thing",
" > Why is Snowden in trouble for whistleblowing?\n\nBecause he broke the law ... \n\nThat you oppose programs he leaked to The Guardian doesn't make leaking that classified information legal. "
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1xyzsg | what would happen if a country launched a nuclear missile on the us? | Like.. Would the US override all radio & tv stations and let people know?
Would they issue a mandatory evacuation? Would they even know where it's gonna land? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1xyzsg/what_would_happen_if_a_country_launched_a_nuclear/ | {
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"The other country would be turned into a glass parking lot. That's the US's official stance on having WMDs used against them. \n\nNo doubt all channels would have a breaking message to seek shelter but it could possibly be too late. ",
"The Emergency Alert System (EAS) would be activated over radio & TV informing people to seek shelter.\n\nDepending on the launch, it may even be destroyed as soon as it went up. The US invests heavily in Ballistic Missile Defense, using a network of satellites, land- and [sea- based radar](_URL_1_) and [AEGIS-equipped ships](_URL_0_). The best time to take out a nuke is on the way up, before the missile's independent warheads split off, so you're only shooting at the one target. More than likely, that country would have at least one warhead screaming down on it very shortly.\n\nIf they don't get it, they'll have a pretty good idea of where it will be headed because they'll be tracking the shit out of it. Even then, they don't have until it reaches the ground because airbursts cause greater damage.",
"Try reading this book called \"Command and Control\". It really goes in depth about America's nuclear history. ",
"We would shoot it down and then America the living shit of that country. ",
"This is all you need to know. Skip to 5:45 \n_URL_0_",
"Iron Man would fly in and divert the missile into an intergalactic portal.",
"Submarine-launched missiles take seven minutes to reach their target, with no indication of who the originating country is (if any, and not a rogue sub). You'd be lucky to have enough time from an alarm to run down into the basement.",
"I don't know, but as a Brit I'm safe, because [this is our programme](_URL_0_). The *ultimate* deterrent...",
"Follow up question... \nIf a missile was launched, what would be the #1 target in the US? \n( if more missiles were launched, what would be #2-5 targets?). ",
"The more interesting question is what would happen if some fringe group got control of a nuclear weapon and launches it on the US?",
"Since the United States is so vast and the potential yield in other countries nuclear weapons would be relatively low, I would say such a move would be ill advised. Even the most powerful bomb ever detonated, the Tsar Bomba, could not deliver a strike powerful enough to deter an American retaliation. Simultaneously with a mass deployment of counter attack personnel, there will either be a retaliation with a low yield tactical nuclear weapons to avoid fallout and collateral damage in neighbouring countries or a blockade followed by a massive invasion assuming it is any of the current nuclear capable countries. \n\nThere will be widespread condemnation from the United Nations and ally countries. A blatant nuclear attack would undoubtedly provoke a powerful emotion known as fear, leading to mass panic. Depending on emergency services and leadership capabilities, chaos can likely be contained within weeks, maybe months. Unless you have the worst propaganda department in the entire world, the armed forces would likely receive a surge of applicants both due to Americans' fierce patriotism (see: days following 9/11) and current economic conditions.\n\nThen comes the ass kicking. It can come in many ways but most probably a tactical strike against the offending countries' military capabilities using a combination of low yield nukes and precision conventional munitions would precede a very careful invasion to replace the leadership and literally take over the country. A rogue nuclear nation can not be tolerated by the international community and there would likely be support for the \"rehabilitation\" of extreme supporters of the offending government. ",
"That country would very shortly cease to exist. We would liberate them. ",
"World War Mother Fucking 3! TEAM AMERICA BITCHES",
"People would die",
" > Like.. Would the US override all radio & tv stations and let people know?\n > Would they issue a mandatory evacuation? \n\nFirst off, let's dispense with all of these. The answer is no. In the event of a nuclear missile launch, there would be 30 minutes or less of warning. MUCH less if it was fired from a submarine sitting off the coast. There is barely enough time to alert the President in matters like this, alerting the public simply isn't part of the plan.\n\n > Would they even know where it's gonna land?\n\nYes. Missiles follow a ballistic path.\n\nAs to the overall question, note that all the other answers are mere speculation. As far as I know, the current US nuke response plan is not public knowledge. \n\nI *CAN* tell you what would have happened if the Russians had launched even a single nuke at the US from about 1961 to about 2003, because I am familiar with a charming little document called the Single Integrated Operational Plan, or SIOP. That was essentially the Pentagon's official war response plan to be enacted upon verification of a Soviet nuke launch, even of a single missile. Upon verification, the President was to be alerted at once, and he had to make the decision whether to hit back or not. The time allotted for that decision might be as little as two minutes (and he might have to make it after having just been rousted from bed at 2 in the morning). You might have heard Presidents making speeches about \"limited response\" and stuff like that, but the SIOP was the only plan the Pentagon had. \n\nIf the President elects to strike back, he gets the current nuclear authorization codes from a briefcase called The Football, which is kept nearby by a military officer at all times. He combines that with his Presidential authorization code, which he is supposed to keep on his person at all times (it was revealed the Bill Clinton actually misplaced his, and was too embarrassed to tell the Pentagon).\n\nAfter that, the plan is simple: launch pretty much every nuke we have at the Russians and a few affiliated locations. By the time Jimmy Carter came into office (the last President I have a hard figure for), the plan called for launching *TEN THOUSAND* nukes, all in the space of a few hours. Obviously, this was before anybody started taking the concept of nuclear winter seriously. But such a strike would have pretty much doomed all mankind on the planet Earth.\n\nAnd if you're not yet scared enough, let me just add that the order to launch a single Russian nuke was *actually issued* once. It was during the most tense part of the Cuban Missile Crisis, and an American warship detected a Russian sub in the area (which was in international waters). The commander of the ship didn't care much for that, so he ordered practice depth charges to be dumped on the sub to force it to surface.\n\nUnder the water, the captain of the Russian sub B-59 had been submerged for several days, and thus had not been in contact with Moscow (this was in the days before ELF underwater communications). He had no idea if war had already broken out or not, so he made the only logical decision a sub commander could make: sink the fucker who's shooting at us. He ordered a nuclear-tipped torpedo fired.\n\nWell, fortunately for the future of the human race, Russian protocol required the three top officers to agree on any use of nuclear arms. The captain and the political officer were all for it, but Vasili Arkhipov, the first officer, argued that it would be MUCH saner to surface and find out what the fuck was happening. The captain and political officer made all the usual Russian threats (bullets, gulags, end of career), but Arkhipov held firm, and the captain eventually surfaced the boat. Thus, the world did *not* end that day.\n\n\n"
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5sm1az | the system for numbering interstate highways. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5sm1az/eli5_the_system_for_numbering_interstate_highways/ | {
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"Even numbers (I-10, I-90, etc.) run east-west, with the number increasing from South to North. Odd numbers (I-5, I-95, etc.) run north-south, with the number increasing from West to East. ",
"Primary routes have two digits. Odd numbered highways run north and south, with lower numbers in the west and higher numbers in the east. Even numbered routes go east-west, with the lower numbers in the south and higher numbers in the north.\n\nThree digit routes starting with an even number are loops within or around a city. Three digit routes with an odd number are spurs into a city. For such three digit routes, the last two digits indicate the primary route they are based on.",
"In addition, three-digit US interstate routes are usually auxiliary routes (with the last two digits referring to the parent), such as a bypass around or through the city, or a short branch.",
"Also related... the US Highway System's numbering is the same way but numbers ascend east to west, and north to south as to not have them confused with the interstate numbers. Hence why in California, for instance, they have US-101 and I-5, and in Idaho, where I live, they have US-2 and I-90. Needless to say, it works well except towards the middle of the US.",
"Adding to the previous responses ... The Interstate numbers get higher the farther north you go. That is why Interstate 10 runs along the southern border. Interstate 94 runs near the northern border. I-90 is to the south of it, I-80 to the south of it, and so on."
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4wekcd | if jehovah's witnesses believe there are such a limited amount of seats reserved in heaven, why do they push so hard to get more converts? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4wekcd/eli5_if_jehovahs_witnesses_believe_there_are_such/ | {
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"Because they believe converting people will get them into heaven. Really, it is just a pyramid scheme.",
"In JW's teaching, the heaven is only for the chosen 144.000. The rest of the follower still stays on the earth which is reformed to be like the garden eden. And the reason they still do door to door marketing of their faith is not because they want to go to heaven, instead, they actually believe wholeheartedly that their teaching is the Truth, the good news so they call, and they're willing to go to extent as far as disowning their children to adhere to their believes."
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2mtcdv | how did diabetics check their blood sugars before personal glucometers? | What was the process? I'm a newly diagnosed Type 1 Diabetic and with the relatively "convenient" pocket glucometers that we have now how much more inconvenient would diabetes be without them? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2mtcdv/eli5_how_did_diabetics_check_their_blood_sugars/ | {
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"Glucose monitors have been around for over 35 years. They were just bigger and slower.\n\nBefore then it was controlled through highly restrictive diets and insulin and oral medicines and everyone kinda hoped for the best. Bloodwork was limited to labs and hospitals.",
"Based on some of my reading on the subject, before meters Type 1's used to \"taste\" their urine to see if it was sweet.",
"Prior to glucometers, you would start with a dosing schedule of insulin and by trial and error you would eventually figure out your optimal dose. You basically had to go by the presence/absence of symptoms(light-headed, fatigued, etc.) or rely on lab results to determine a good dosing schedule for you. Forget about sliding scales and PRN insulin.\n\nEDIT: other poster reminded me that you can *smell* sweetness (sugar concentration) in urine. That is a sign that blood glucose is high and insulin is required, this info could be used to modify a dosing schedule or indicate a one-time dose is needed. I hope they didn't taste it as well... ew",
"Urine test strips were around longer. The main limitation was they'd only detect grossly high glucose levels, around 180mg/dl and above. This could keep you alive, but not prevent long term damage, (generally around 150 or so and above) so complications were a lot more common prior to blood glucose monitoring.",
"Diabetes has been documented to about 1500 BCE in Egypt, India, & China. Oftentimes, either tasting the urine for sweetness, or observing ants becoming attracted to the urine, were good indicators of having the disorder. "
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21tq8f | is there a relative speed maximum, which is equal to 2*speed of light? | Suppose we have two planets approaching each other. Both planets move with speed of light, but opposite direction, decrasing their distance by 2*C / second.
**Being on planet #1, can I say: "I see a planet coming with speed of 2*C ?"** | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/21tq8f/eli5_is_there_a_relative_speed_maximum_which_is/ | {
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"you are missing the concepts of speed of light.\n\nNo matter on the point of view - you can run away from the speed of light of towards. The speed of light stays the same",
"No. Just like light is always measured as travelling at c in all rest frames, massive objects (such as planets) are always measured as travelling at less than c in all rest frames. This is because no rest frame is the 'correct' rest frame, therefore motion has to obey physical laws in all rest frames.\n\nIf, in your example, an outside observer observed two planets each moving towards each other at speed v, which is very close to the speed of light, an observer on one of the planets (i.e. the rest frame of the planet) would observe the other planet moving towards them at a speed greater than v but less than c.",
"1. Outside of a thought experiment, neither planet could travel *at* the speed of light.\n\n2. If the planets were to be traveling at the speed of light, two interesting phenomena would occur.\n\n First, observers on either planet would only be able to see light from objects in front of them relative to the planets' direction of motion. Light from objects \"behind\" them or lateral to their trajectory would not be able to overtake them.\n \n Second, since the \"oncoming\" planet is traveling at *c* as well as any light it may reflect (if it reflects any at all; see above), observers on the other planet would only receive said light at the same moment the implied collision takes place. The planets would be utterly invisible to each other until it was too late...\n\n It might be possible to detect their presence due to gravitational effects of their passage on other objects, but then relativity comes into play: since the planet the observer is on is also traveling at *c*, time dilation (the slowing down of time itself as one approaches light speed) might make any attempt at long term observation useless. Hundreds of thousands of years for a sub-luminal planet may pass in a single day for a planet at light speed. ",
" > Both planets move with speed of light, but opposite direction\n\nAccording to relativity, things don't just have a speed. They have a speed *relative to something else*.\n\nSo if you're on a planet, you might chose to measure the speed of another planet relative to your planet. It will never exceed the speed of light.\n\nOr you might be on a spaceship, observing two planets moving towards each other. Neither of them will exceeding the speed of light relative to you. However, you might observe them approaching each other at a speed that doesn't exceed twice the speed of light.\n\nWhy does this work the way it is? Well, if you were on the spaceship, but I was on one of the planets, then time for me would be running at a different speed to the speed time is running for you. That means that you would see my planet approaching the other planet at something close to twice the speed of light, whereas I would see the other planet approach me at only something close to the speed of light.",
"You have put your finger *exactly* on the difference between relativity and older Newtonian physics. If one object is approaching you from the left at nearly *c*, and something else is approaching you from the right at nearly *c*, *to someone on the left object* you seem to be approaching them at nearly *c*... and the object to your right seems to be approaching them at only an ever so slightly faster rate, but still less than *c*.\n\nIt's that observational difference that leads to all the rest of relativity - time moving at different speeds for different observes, distances being contracted depending on velocity, and so forth.",
"Yes, there is a relative speed maximum. It's, paradoxically, *c*.\n\nThere exists a [velocity-addition formula](_URL_0_) that is a consequence of the special theory of relativity. You can calculate for yourself how fast the planets would measure each other. For example, if both went at half the speed of light, the other planet would seem to approach at four fifths the speed of light (or 0.8*c*).\n\nAs an aside, objects with mass cannot reach the speed of light, since they'd get so dense the energy needed to push them to *c* approaches infinity.",
"Actually, if something was coming at you at the speed of light, you wouldn't be able to see it at all. In order for you to see an object, light from that object would have to reach you before the object itself does."
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amzxa6 | at what point did the first cells decide that it was okay to eat each other? and why? couldn’t they have kept dividing just as the first living cell did? did they divide to survive or just to eat each other? or both? what mechanism even decided those? | [deleted] | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/amzxa6/eli5_at_what_point_did_the_first_cells_decide/ | {
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"They didn't \"decide\". That's a conscious motive that you're applying to the simplest organisms. \n\nThe simple answer is that you need more stuff to make more cells. Just like building a house, you need to get more lumber, bricks, drywall...etc to build more houses. The easiest way to get the biological molecules an organism needs to make more of itself is to consume them from another organism that already has them."
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366fai | how can people steer their bikes when they don't have their hands on the handles? | I can only ride bikes with one or two hands on the handles, but I've seen people who ride bikes effortlessly with both hands in their hoodie pockets. How are they able to steer their bikes without any hands at all? How much practice would I need to do that? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/366fai/eli5_how_can_people_steer_their_bikes_when_they/ | {
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"They lean. \n\nWhen you lean on a bike your center of mass isn't over the wheels anymore. That puts a torque on you and the bike. If your bike weren't moving that would mean you would just fall over. Since the bike is moving and you have a lot of angular momentum, it turns the direction that you are moving. \n\nNOTE BECAUSE THERE IS A LOT OF MISS INFORMATION ABOUT THIS: my answer didn't have anything to do with the wheels rotating. it would work just as well if you were sliding on an ice skate machine as with wheels. \n\nIt anyone would like the math worked out as proof I can do that. ",
"It takes a little practice. There is some mechanical self-balancing in a bike, but a lot of it also comes from the rider shifting their body weight. You can lean into a turn to make the bike tilt enough to turn, but not fall over. First thing you should do, get used to riding straight with no hands. Then, make gradual turns, and as you get better at it you can make tighter turns. As you're learning, I wouldn't keep your hands in your pockets, but close to the handlebars in case you start losing control."
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dq01py | why do you cry when someone asks you “are you ok?” when you are trying not to cry | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/dq01py/eli5_why_do_you_cry_when_someone_asks_you_are_you/ | {
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"because sometimes its the fact that someone is showing you that they care makes it easier for you to let it out",
"I cry because it shows that someone actually cares. Most times I feel hopeless is because I feel I'm all alone.",
"This is such a good question i hope you get a good, scientific answer. Its gotta be something about us being incapable of communicating our emotions without simultaneously expresisng them or something.",
"It is psychological in nature. Crying is a natural sign of weakness, a sign of vulnerablility. Because, think about it. When you cry, can you think of doing anything else? Can you focus on a task? No, right? This is why people try not to cry in public. It 'distracts' them from the important things.\n\nBut when someone asks if you are OK, it is a shoulder to lean on. A crutch to hold. That's why people give up holding tears when they are offered help. As it makes them feel better, while having 'something to fidget with', to better focus, for lack of a better term."
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elepxy | what exactly constitutes the 'art-pop' genre in music? | I don't play music, this sounds really pretentious but I've seen some albums I like under this term (Fka Twigs's Magdalene), but I'm really curious, what separates normal pop from art-pop? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/elepxy/eli5_what_exactly_constitutes_the_artpop_genre_in/ | {
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"There was a time, like in the 70's, when the distinction actually meant something. The radio stations were mainly playing \"pop\" (am stations) and \"rock\" or \"disco\" and \"r & b\" (fm stations)\n\nThe stuff people were listening to that didn't get play on the radio (outside of college stations) was more \"artsy.\" Think The Velvet Underground or Big Star or Captian Beefheart.\n\nToday, this term means very little as most of the new ideas and \"artistic\" approaches to music have been absorbed into mainstream pop culture.\n\nI suppose one could argue that things that are today called \"art-pop\" are *more* descendant from the art-pop of old, and less descendant of traditional western pop music. However, this is no longer a real separate category, it's a spectrum to be used in a descriptive manner (ie this music it more \"arty\" than that music)"
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8u4usi | how are fruit juice concentrates made? if juice comes from the fruits themselves how is it put into concentrated form? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/8u4usi/eli5_how_are_fruit_juice_concentrates_made_if/ | {
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"Juice contains water so you just boil it until that water is gone to make a more concentrated juice"
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8c0wdm | how do remote controlled cars work? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/8c0wdm/eli5_how_do_remote_controlled_cars_work/ | {
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"A radio sends commands to a controller in the car. That in turn sends electrical signals to the various motors and solenoids that operate the mechanical parts of the car.\n\nThis can be super basic in a battery powered car with simple steering, or increasingly complex as you approach full sized gasoline powered vehicles. \n\n",
"An RC car consists of the radio system \\(transmitter and receiver\\), the motor, motor speed controller, steering servo, and battery. Each function like steering and throttle are on separate channels, usually channel 1 for steering, channel 2 for throttle. When you hit the throttle the radio transmitter sends the signal to the receiver on the car. The receiver will send the throttle signal to the motor speed controller, which then sends power to the motor. When you steer, the receiver will send the steering signal to the steering servo which steers the wheels. The battery pack powers everything."
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bdiczk | what's the difference between thermionic emission and thermoelectric effect? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/bdiczk/eli5_whats_the_difference_between_thermionic/ | {
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"Thermionic emission is the ability of some materials to emit electrons more readily when heated. Electronic vacuum tubes (valves) use heated cathodes to take advantage of the effect. \n\nThe thermoelectric effect happens when two different metals are joined. Temperature difference can be converted to electric current and vice versa."
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5c5r5r | even with the advances in sciences, why is meteorology so inexact? | I am aware that it is continuously advancing and improving but in general, why is it still so unpredictable? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5c5r5r/eli5even_with_the_advances_in_sciences_why_is/ | {
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"text": [
"Because the climate is complicated and modeling it is hard and expensive. Being sort of right is good enough and spending the money to be right slightly more often (meteorologists aren't actually that bad at predicting the weather) isn't worthwhile for, say, a news station."
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6g18rh | when a restaurant runs out of something, why is it "86ed"? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/6g18rh/eli5_when_a_restaurant_runs_out_of_something_why/ | {
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"As you'll see in [this article](_URL_0_) there are a number of theories, none of which are confirmed and all of which have problems. \n\nI think as the article states at the end that the most likely answer is that it rhymes with \"nix,\" meaning eliminate or negate. Wouldn't shock me to learn that a bit of rhyming slang just caught on and became popular somewhere, and then ended up in a book/movie and so became popular everywhere. \n"
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6epbg7 | why do we sneeze and why would our body cease all other functions to favor one thing? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/6epbg7/eli5_why_do_we_sneeze_and_why_would_our_body/ | {
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"We sneeze to clear irritants out of our noses. As a multistep process to keep whatever it is out of our lungs.\n\nOur bodies are fallible though, sometimes it overreacts. Like seeing pollen as a dangerous intruder.",
"There is no concrete answer, but the leading theory is that when something irritates the lining of the nose, the brain sends a signal to the lungs to take a large breath and then exhale forcefully. The thought is that since the mucus linings of the nose can be an entryway into the body for infection/disease, if the brain senses something, it would behoove the body to get rid of it immediately."
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4kkf3k | if liquids in containers above 100ml in size can be dangerous (for various reasons), why does airport security dump the contents of said bottle into a bin (with who knows what else) not that far from people amassed in long lines? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4kkf3k/eli5_if_liquids_in_containers_above_100ml_in_size/ | {
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"It could be enough liquid explosive to blow a hole in a plane cabin, but blowing it up in a huge airport in a trashcan would be fairly harmless. ",
"Honestly, you're going to have a hard time finding logic in most of the TSA's guidelines. It's more about security theater than actual security.\n\n_URL_0_\n\nBasically, the thought is that if people -feel- safe and secure, they'll act safe and secure. And if people -think- security is high, they won't try to bypass it. It's not completely useless, but it's also not based in, you know. Facts.",
"From what I know most liquid explosives require very careful mixing before they actually function as such, so if you just dump it all into a trash can chances are nothing bad will happen.",
"I believe the answer is in your question. Airport security is well aware that the liquids are not actually dangerous.\n\nImagine, if you will, that they stop someone and find that the passenger is carrying some TNT, a grenade, and a bottle that reeks of gasoline. It is simply impossible to imagine that they would drop these items into a bin and continue working next to that bin for hours. Naturally, they would demand that the items be stored far away - if only for their own safety!\n\nThe people amassed in long lines, of course, pose a different question: Why is airport security purposefully creating the perfect conditions for a terrorist to cause maximum casualties in an airport *before security*?"
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10z3a0 | why do bytes use metric prefixes (giga, mega, etc) if they don't follow metric standards? | I mean how a gigabyte is 1073741824 bytes, not 1x10^9 like in metric units | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/10z3a0/eli5_why_do_bytes_use_metric_prefixes_giga_mega/ | {
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"Computers like powers of 2, and people decided that 2^10 = 1024 was close enough to 1000 to use the kilo- prefix.\n\nBut then some marketers came along, and decided they could make hard drives look bigger if they used 1000 for kilo instead of 1024. So things got confusing.\n\nThere are some alternate prefices, kibi-, mibi-, and gibi-, that have been proposed use with powers of 1024, keeping kilo-, mega- and giga- for powers of 1000, but they are not commonly used.",
"To elaborate on kouhoutek, computers store memory in 1s and 0s, no doubt you've seen something like 00101101, known as \"binary code\". Well, each 'bit' is actually one of these 1s or 0s, so the code I just showed you is 8 bits in size. \n\nAs it turns out, the number of possible combinations of 1s and 0s I could arrange, is 2 * 2 *2 * 2 * 2 * 2 * 2 * 2 = 2^8 since there are 8 bits, each with a possible 1 or 0 (2 options)\n\nNow, there are 8 bits in a byte, so what I showed you is actually a byte of information. So, a byte is actually 2^8 possible 'information states'. Where what I mean by information state is any arrangement of the eight 1s and 0s in a byte.\n\nSo, if I want to know how many of these possible information states I could have on my (hypothetical shitty cd) that has 1 kilobyte of information (2^10 or 1024 bytes), I can simply calculate: 2^8 * 2^10 = 2^18 . Or for a megabyte, 2^18 * 2^10 = 2^28 You get the picture.\n\nHey! That was way simpler than if I had dealt with a clunky number like 1000."
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6f4zyk | what prevents us from just arranging protrons, electrons and neutrons together in any way we like to create any elements we want and make anything we want out of nothing? | Eli5: What prevents us from just arranging Protrons, Electrons and Neutrons together in any way we like to create any elements we want and make anything we want out of nothing?
I am just curious about what has held back the leap. Because I am under the impression that these particles make all matter so in theory intelligent human life should be able to make whatever matter than want with just particles right? Like if I wanted to make gold out of nothing but particles why can't I? If I wanted to make a iPhone for instance, shouldn't I be able to arrange the particles to make it out of nothing but particles?
Eli5 what's holding this next step back | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/6f4zyk/eli5_what_prevents_us_from_just_arranging/ | {
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"About 7000 nuclides are predicted to exist according to certain calculations in theoretical nuclear physics. Of those 7000, about 3000 have been found in nature and/or produced using particle accelerators/nuclear reactors.\n\nSo we can produce a huge range of nuclear species for experimental purposes.",
"It takes a *lot* of energy to attach and rearrange those pieces. Think about burning a log: you're rearranging the *chemicals* by changing the bonds between different atoms, so that you turn cellulose into carbon dioxide and water (and some other byproducts). Doing so requires you to add energy to the system (a match) and produces excess energy. Or electrolysis, which is using electricity to turn water (H20) into hydrogen (H2) and oxygen (O2), which requires even more energy in and you get less energy out of it than you put into it.\n\nThe bonds between protons and neutrons is *much* stronger. How much stronger? [Here are some atoms being rearranged violently to form different chemicals](_URL_0_), and [here's some protons and neutrons being rearranged violently to form different atoms](_URL_1_). There is a *lot* more energy involved in making different elements compared to chemical changes. The technology to produce that energy and, more importantly, to control it simply doesn't exist at the moment.\n\nEDIT: That said, this is pretty much exactly what particle accelerators do. That's how we \"discover\" more elements: we smash smaller elements together to form bigger elements. We just do that at a very very small scale (a few atoms at a time). But we use larger elements, which require less energy to get to fuse. We could conceivably get smaller elements to fuse, but it wouldn't be economical at all to do so.",
"Basically, we can. There are many different ways to arrange subnucleonic particles into atoms, and we have created many elements that don't exist in nature cause they are very short lived and unstable. But even creating a few common atoms requires complex machinery and a lot of energy, so making a complex device out of them isn't efficient or even feasible, especially since we can just mine a lot of the materials and create the ones we don't have through relatively easy to manage large scale chemical reactions.",
"For one it wouldn't be \"from nothing\" you would still need to isolate particles which is in no way an easy task. Then you have to discover how to manipulate neutrons which is really hard because they dont have a charge so moving them through conventional means is really hard. Then you would have to force the protons close enough together which is really expensive and takes a TON of energy, and also releases a ton of energy which has to be contained or else you have a bomb. Keep in mind that forcing protons together is pretty hard, because they dont want to be near each other due to electromagnetic forces, and the more protons you are pushing together the more energy it requires. TL;DR nuclear-synthesis takes a massive amount of energy that we simply dont have. ",
"Protons, electrons and neutrons are so tiny, it's not like you can get a tweezers and connect them just how you want them.\n\nNo, you have to smash them together at high speeds, millions of times, and hope that you get the thing you want. It's like building an alarm clock by shooting springs and bells and gears at each other.\n\nAnd even after all that work atom smashing work, you typically just end up with a handful of your special new atom. In order to get enough to look at, even just a tiny speck, never mind enough to hold in your hand, you need billions and billions."
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6p35dk | what was the reason to split programs into interpreters and compilers? | I know how interpreter and compiler work but do not understand how they're applied in production. What were the problems they have solved? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/6p35dk/eli5_what_was_the_reason_to_split_programs_into/ | {
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"An interpreted language does not need to be compiled, this means that it is faster to change something and try again, so potentially better for learning to program. These days it's pretty fast either way, though, so makes little difference.\n\nIt's also easier to create a simple interpreted language and interpreter than it is a compiled one and a compiler.",
"Some programming languages are simply interpreted, or compiled. Those that are interpreted read/process the actual written code on the fly, and tend to favor ease-of-development over raw performance. Those that are compiled take the written code, and use it to create a compiled program that can be read directly by the processor. They tend to be more difficult to actually program in, and it's necessary to compile them prior to use, but the tradeoff is raw speed.",
"Compilers came first, they took your code and brought it down to machine code ahead of time so it can run directly on the processor quickly when you needed it to.\n\nCompiling is/was a reasonably slow process and was done on slow equipment so it was good to do it in advance. You could optimize the code during the process as well, reorder some instructions for better hardware usage, and overall just make things run faster\n\nAn interpreted language runs on an interpreter, basically a precompiled program that takes what you've written, compiles and executes each line in order using precompiled function calls. There is little to no optimization being done because the code is read in at run time so if you access your array in a non-ideal fashion you're going to pay the price but a compiler would generally rearrange things so you end up accessing it in an ideal fashion\n\nAn interpreted language is going to be slower, you're running code on top of code and missing out on lots of optimization, but doesn't require precompiling in advance and porting the executable to the target hardware"
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2eunu3 | how do some studies (referenced) come to the conclusion that smoking marijuana is not harmful to the human body? | Smoking anything introduces carbon monoxide into the lungs so, because carbon monoxide has a higher affinity to iron in hemoglobin than does oxygen (which essentially causes lower blood oxygenation levels), shouldn't smoking that sticky green cause AT LEAST a state of very mild anemia? How can you ignore that?
Here's an example of one such study:
_URL_0_
| explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2eunu3/eli5_how_do_some_studies_referenced_come_to_the/ | {
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"Smoking might induce the body to produce more blood than otherwise, but so would doing something like donating blood. Unless we are to accept that the Red Cross is harming donors it wouldn't be reasonable to consider the minor monoxide poisoning to qualify as a harm on such a report.",
"Read the article. It says that marijuana use has no \"significant correlation with health service utilization or health status.\" It's not talking about short-term effects like mild anemia while actually being used. It's talking about long-term indicators. And that's generally what people are talking about when they talk about something's impact on health."
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76vzok | what makes white wines "dry"? | I know that red wines get the color and dryness from the skins being left after the "crush" and the release of tannins, but how does a white wine (particularly a sparkling wine or champagne) get the dryness without the skins and tannins? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/76vzok/eli5_what_makes_white_wines_dry/ | {
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"There is a spectrum of wines! Both red and white have it. \n\nThey range from dry to sweet. That's how you get semi-sweet, etc.\n\nIt's determined by how much natural sugar from the grapes is left in the wine. You can stop the fermentation process early to make a sweeter wine (or add sugar afterwards). If they ferment until there's no sugar left, it's dry.\n\nThat's how you get dry wine.\n"
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1htkf2 | how the mpaa can decide what i get to watch? | How is it their choice? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1htkf2/eli5_how_the_mpaa_can_decide_what_i_get_to_watch/ | {
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"Because all the major movie producers agree to listen to what the MPAA says. There's nothing stopping some rogue producer from ignoring them, but you'd have a hard time finding that producer's movies."
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5780jm | how did samsung not notice note 7s exploding in the testing | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5780jm/eli5_how_did_samsung_not_notice_note_7s_exploding/ | {
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"There are 35 worldwide reports of explosions or fires from Note 7s, 2.5 million were sold. That's 0.14% that have had a problem. Its very possible that its just bad luck none of the phones they tested had the issue."
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6dpo25 | network ports and its exact purpose | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/6dpo25/eli5_network_ports_and_its_exact_purpose/ | {
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"No, no. Ports are used so the **device**, identified by it's IP address on the network, knows which application should handle the data, *not* so that the network knows where to send the data.\n\nIt's essentially the same as a ship harbour - the IP address is the coordinates of the harbour, and the Port is the... well, the port the ship should dock at. \n\nYou shouldn't get multiple applications sending or listening on the same respective ports, however a single application can send or receive on many ports at the same time.\n\nA practical example is the internet. Most HTTP websites are served via port 80, and most HTTPS websites are served via port 443. Other websites, for whatever reason, might be served on another port, a common alternate to port 80 is port 8080. In your web browser you would navigate to _URL_0_ in order to access that resource (note the colon).\n\nThere is a sort of 'good practice' when it comes to assigning ports to applications, but it is not mandatory, and hence the server administrator can select any free port they like to serve data on."
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21tgz2 | israel-palestine war. which country started and why? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/21tgz2/eli5_israelpalestine_war_which_country_started/ | {
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"well, this could be a brief answer to your question _URL_0_ "
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41huc3 | how do payday loans pay so fast? | I'm asking this specifically in relation to Australia, but generalised answers are welcome!
Websites like _URL_0_ seem to be able to transfer 'to any bank within 60mins' or commbank within minutes, 7 days a week.
How is it so fast? Why is it so much faster than virtually any other form of transfer (with some exceptions, obviously)? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/41huc3/eli5_how_do_payday_loans_pay_so_fast/ | {
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"Many Australian banks will offer loan money to customers as soon as they're approved (at least for personal loans, mortgages can be more complex). Transfers between accounts within a bank are also usually instant.\n\nWhat often takes a long time is transfers between banks. [This is complicated](_URL_0_).\n\nPayday loan companies can bypass this issue by having agreements/accounts with the banks so any transfers they make to customers are within the same bank network."
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3k5k0l | why hasn't the united states adopted a propotional representative congress? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3k5k0l/eli5_why_hasnt_the_united_states_adopted_a/ | {
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"It has to do with the federal nature of our government. One of the core goals of our Constitution was to give all regions of the country a voice in the government. The way that that was done was to create a bunch of separate, winner-take-all districts.",
"It kind of has. Part of it (the House of Representatives) is based on a system where the number of seats a state has in there is proportional to that state's population. As populations go up, so do the number of seats. The other house though (the Senate), has an equal number of representatives per state.",
"It goes back to the early days of the country when the US was viewed more as a collection of separate states than as a single country. The issue of representation was a huge issue when writing the Constitution. To oversimplify the situation, big states wanted proportional representation since they'd have the most power. Small states wanted each state to have equal numbers of representatives so they couldn't be pushed around by the bigger states. There were also regional issues and concerns about whether groups of states with similar interests could become too powerful. Multiple proposals were made, but the system that was eventually adopted involved a 2-house legislature with 1 house based on states' populations and the other house giving equal representation to each state. This was known as the Great Compromise of 1787.\n\nIn the modern US, it would be possible to switch to a strictly proportional system. However, it would involve completely changing the way the legislature operates and drastically change the balance of power in one party's favor. Needless to say, one of the parties would lose a tremendous amount of representation, so they'd oppose it strongly. Making such a large change would have to be done via a change to the Constitution itself. The process for doing this involves support from 2/3 of Congress and 3/4 of the states. Needless to say, if either major political party was opposed to such a change or was even mixed, adopting this change would be impossible. "
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yrcxh | modern art...i just don't get it. | If anyone can try to explain it I will forever be in your debt. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/yrcxh/eli5_modern_arti_just_dont_get_it/ | {
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"You know how everyone in your class always tries to colour in the lines? Because pictures always look better when you colour in the lines, right? And the sky should be blue and the grass should be green and if you follow all those rules your pictures will always be pretty. ...And they'll all kind of look like everyone else's.\n\nWell, modern art is that kid that said, \"Meh. I'm drawing however I want. I don't care about your stupid rules. And my pictures are still going to be pretty!\"\n\nPostmodern art is the kid who saw that and said, \"What? There's no rules? Cool! I'm going to pee on my desk!\"\n",
"Let me give it a go. Because the word *art* is so vague, there's pretty much no limit on what humans consider art. Because of this, art is able break free of the bind of \"looking good\". A lot of the weird shit you're talking about (much of the time) is just intended to invoke any sort of emotion, even if it's a bad one. Artists like to try to transfer emotion through visual mediums, even if that feeling is the\"what the fuck am I supposed to feel\" feeling.",
"While we're on the topic... What about abstract art? Now that I really don't understand. Why does a painting of shapes and/or lines - whatever - deserve to be hung in a gallery? Some paintings are visually appealing, sure, but can't anyone paint stuff like that?",
"I find that Modern art is about the process of making a piece, and the relationship the artist has with his/her piece. The audience is not always taken into consideration, nor is profit. ",
"This would be more effective if you gave some examples that seem to make no sense to you and maybe someone can explain the beauty of it with some context, theoretical understanding, etc.",
"art is relative. If it doesn't provoke any feeling or emotion in you, move along.",
"Art today and art from the past are two different things. Art from the past was representation of something and documentation. Meaning art, specifically sculptures and paintings, were meant to seem as close a representation of real life as possible. This was what they used since they had no cameras. Eventually art became more about personal expression. The artist wants the viewer of the art to \"feel\" something or \"experience\" something. For example different colors make people feel different ways. Red elicits anger while blue is calming. So if you see a painting that look like a bunch of random red brush stokes it probably is meant to make you \"feel\" angry or visually show the feeling of anger. While a piece that is a simple blue gradient make you feel tranquil. A lot is left to interruption to make the piece different for everyone's experience. After saying that many people have criticized art for being to abstract being to far out there for any one to get. The way I like to say it is that too much of modern art doesn't make sense unless you read the place card placed on the wall next to it. Often times too art is just an experiment in the medium. The artist wants to know what can be done so they try it. Sometimes it looks cool. It may very well be completely meaningless beyond just being different for the sake of being different and to a lot of people that is great.\n\nedit: words",
"A long time ago, a bad guy invented photography. All the painters were suddenly jobless so they went nuts. Voilá, modern art.",
"After working in an art museum for 5 years I can offer this point of view. If you learn even a basic timeline of art history and the why and how each movement lead into the other. You would find pleasure from a much larger amount of art styles. You would also still not like art that you find to be crap or pointless. But it would eat at you, a lot less since you would better understand why crap (sometimes literally) can be considered art. Hope that helps. ",
"Art is any creation that aims to evoke an emotional response in the person experiencing it. (I'll get to modern art. Bear with me.)\n\nOver the years, this is the most accurate description of art I have been able to come up with. With this definition, I'm desperately trying not to put the concept in too small a box. For instance, some people would use the word aesthetics somewhere in there, but that rules out the art associated with creations people generally don't associate with aesthetics, but that are still art. I even use the word \"creation\" because it doesn't have to be a \"thing\". Art can be a concept itself without a physical manifestation. I even balk a bit at the phrase \"evoke an emotional response\", because within that, I would hold that the lack of emotional response in the viewer/listener/experiencer, if that is what you're going for, is included in this definition. If you want someone to feel nothing, and they feel nothing, you've successfully done art. Ok, whatever.\n\nWhen you think of art you typically think of a painting or music or something along those lines. If you ever get involved in some kind of artistic discipline (for me, it's photography), if you really delve into it you may eventually find that you are attracted more to a particular genre within that artform. You may even find that your interests get narrower and narrower still as time goes on. (You may not, of course.)\n\nAs you chase the dragon, trying to improve your art, you will inevitably ask yourself: what constitutes an \"improvement\", anyway? Maybe if you do the thing you're trying to do it will improve your art...maybe it will make it worse, though. Who's to say?\n\nWell, here's what I think. Like anything else, there is a component of art that is subjective, and this informs whether you personally prefer it or not. But there is also a component of art that is objective, and it is fair to judge art based on that part against a standard measuring stick (which is not to say that this is easy or straightforward). In other words, this informs whether the piece is *good* or not, in an objective sense.\n\nConsider wine to make this clearer. If you taste a wine that has muddy flavors, lacks acidity, and could easily be achieved with any grapes from any plot of land the world over, this is an objectively bad wine. Perhaps you like that particular combination of flavors though, you would buy it and enjoy it. Ok, fine; there's no accounting for taste. Now consider a wine with clear notes of strawberry and pepper, with just the right balance of characteristics that allow those flavors to ring clear as a bell on your palate. This is an objectively good wine. The winemaker really had to know what they were doing to get that out of the grapes. Maybe you hate strawberries, or pepper, or the combination, though. This would be a good wine that you don't like. Fine.\n\nThe same holds true of art. There is a difference between enjoyment (subjective) and appreciation (objective). The objective aspects of art, for me, have to do with communication. (I believe that this communication is mainly accomplished by deft management of the experiencer's expectations, but I'm not sure that matters much for this particular answer.) If the artist is able to convey what they want to convey in all its intended detail (or vagueness), it is good art. If they can convey even subtle nuances, it is great art. If an artist is unable to convey any kind of intention to anyone outside themselves, then it is indulgent art. None of this has anything to do with whether you happen to like the piece or not. If you are a collector, you probably care more about the objective significance of the art and the universality of the piece; if you are buying it for your own enjoyment, you probably care more about the impact it has on you and you alone.\n\nOk, so where does this leave us? You can decide if your art is going to be improved by something based on whether you think it will help communicate to the viewer whatever you're trying to communicate. You do this by playing on the universal qualities of human nature. (This is why exploring the \"other\" is so fawned over in art circles...by exploring what the differences between people are, you can home in on what's the same. You can leverage those invariants to increase the universality of your art.)\n\nAs you explore ways to communicate more effectively through your chosen medium, you begin to focus on technique. If I make a composition like this, what does it do to the viewer's expectation? You eventually begin to understand the language of your chosen medium, and master it.\n\nI believe the exploration of these techniques is where most modern art comes from. If I'm studying composition, for example, I'll try to reduce it to the simplest elements. Playing with those elements can often hit upon one of those universal truths for how people experience that medium, and often that would result in something that's interesting.\n\nFor example, what's more interesting? A frame that is divided by a single line down the middle, or one that divides the frame by the golden ratio? Survey says: golden ratio. So for me, if someone presents a canvas with a single line on it, I'm trying to figure out what they hit upon. I probably don't get it b/c I'm not that good at art, but at least I'm trying.\n\nAnd then there's stuff like a blank canvas, which is just stupid because it's indulgent. Again, my opinion. :-)",
"Well I can try to answer that. Art is not a matter of taste, its a knowledge. I might be wrong but I believe the question you want to ask is about contemporary art, not modern art, because its a common mistake to confuse the two. I'll cover modern art anyway. Modern art is pretty straight forward (guys like Picasso, Monet, van Gogh, etc.). Basically artists were tired of the canons imposed until then, in periods that came before like the Neoclassicism and Romanticism. Many people think those artists lacked the skill to paint realistic paintings, when in fact most of them could do it by the age of 15, thats why they wanted to break the boundaries of painting, sometimes by refusing the tri-dimensionalism, as the Cubism did (not always, because sometimes the Cubism tried to represent the 3rd dimension by painting other geometric planes that the perspective they were representing couldn't see, and also Cubism has an african esthetic because at the time Europe was flooded with exhibitions of african exploration and tribal art, Picasso owned many tribal items), or by the stroke technique, as the Impressionism did, with a more emotional and expressive stroke of the brush (among many other movements with other objectives). The propagation of photography also made the realistic paintings obsolete among many other things that contributed to the Modern art era. Contemporary art is a whole other thing, more confusing because, well, we're living it. I guess you'll need the time distance to understand it completely although many people try to explain it like its an absolute truth. And I guess the unexplainable its kind of an attractive quality of it. although many movements from the early stages of Contemporary art are already studied and fully understood. You have a more personal experience with the piece of art. Next time you go see a contemporary piece, try to get something out of it instead of waiting for it to deliver. I guess its all about that.\n\nI'm a wee bit drunk and english is not my mother tongue, so I apologize for any mistakes. In the morning I'll try to edit this. I'm sorry."
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8nms8a | what keeps mail delivery people from taking your packages? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/8nms8a/eli5_what_keeps_mail_delivery_people_from_taking/ | {
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"Aside from the fact the packages are tracked and logged, it is unlikely an individual would want to risk there income for a £10 loot crate",
"Besides honesty? Nothing except security cameras and the fear of one day finding the police searching their house in response to a suspicious pattern.",
"1) It is a Federal offense to do this, and postal employees have that made clear to them up front.\n\n2) Postal employees have a salary, benefits and pension plan. They have way less motivation to steal. \"Should I risk all my support over the chance of pilfering a cool Funko Pop?\" I doubt many of them even get to the point of asking themselves that.\n\n3) I don't know if every postal location does this, but it is not uncommon for orientation to include being shown footage of prior employee's lives being ruined for being caught stealing mail.\n\n4) the mail handling is not done in private places typically, in fact there are overseers usually who watch the staff. Not only that, but it is not unheard of to have undercover staff checking on them (on the ones who handle the mail). This is also known to postal staff.\n\nSo the summary is risk versus reward makes it a very very unattractive idea to steal."
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naib0 | what exactly causes websites to display special characters incorrectly (often quotes or ampersands) | Example: _URL_0_
I've seen this a number of times. I have some idea of the distinction between unicode and ASCII but I don't see how this could happen. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/naib0/what_exactly_causes_websites_to_display_special/ | {
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"Different character encoding standards. \n\nYour computer only recognizes the number that's being sent, not the character. Computers only understand zeros and ones. A computer will assign each letter a different set of 8 zeros and ones, but problems happen when two computers use a different system of matching these numbers to the letters. Unicode is the most common system, but there are many others. The guy writing the site is using a weird set of numbers for his symbols and probably doesn't know it. \n\nGoogle Chrome was unable to detect what encoding this site is using, but it's not Unicode or the European standard. ",
"On computers, we store text as a sequence of numbers. Each number represents one *glyph* (human letters), but there are many different formats (called *encodings* or *character sets*) to choose from, and each has a different number for each glyph.\n\nWhen we save text on a computer, we don't always save the encoding it uses along with it; if you're saving everything into one format then you don't technically need to. However, if you send your text to another computer (which happens when you visit a website) that is using a different encoding, that computer needs to translate your text before it can show it to its user. If for some reason the second computer guesses the encoding your text is using incorrectly, its translation won't make any sense.\n\nIn the case you've shown, that's what has happened. The reason you're able to read *almost* all of the text is a fluke from the history of text encoding; almost all encodings happen to share roughly 128 glyph numbers in common (the ones used for ASCII), and those happen to include upper- and lowercase English letters and common punctuation.\n\nAnd finally, the reason why those characters in particular are displayed incorrectly is that ASCII only has one type of quotation character for both single and double quotes; this character is used to both begin and end quotations as well as represent apostrophes. Other encodings have both opening and closing quotation glyphs (as well as ASCII's version) which are angled. Most word processing programs use the newer quotation styles, especially Microsoft Word. Articles are often written in word and then copied into *HTML* (web page) documents. HTML documents default to an encoding which doesn't use these newer quotation glyphs directly; instead it has sequences of text which will be replaced with the glyph by the web browser. For example, ' & amp;amp;' will be replaced with the ampersand glyph ( & ). If the person copying the article doesn't replace the special characters with these text sequences, the web browser will try to read them and fail exactly the way it has on that page.",
"Different character encoding standards. \n\nYour computer only recognizes the number that's being sent, not the character. Computers only understand zeros and ones. A computer will assign each letter a different set of 8 zeros and ones, but problems happen when two computers use a different system of matching these numbers to the letters. Unicode is the most common system, but there are many others. The guy writing the site is using a weird set of numbers for his symbols and probably doesn't know it. \n\nGoogle Chrome was unable to detect what encoding this site is using, but it's not Unicode or the European standard. ",
"On computers, we store text as a sequence of numbers. Each number represents one *glyph* (human letters), but there are many different formats (called *encodings* or *character sets*) to choose from, and each has a different number for each glyph.\n\nWhen we save text on a computer, we don't always save the encoding it uses along with it; if you're saving everything into one format then you don't technically need to. However, if you send your text to another computer (which happens when you visit a website) that is using a different encoding, that computer needs to translate your text before it can show it to its user. If for some reason the second computer guesses the encoding your text is using incorrectly, its translation won't make any sense.\n\nIn the case you've shown, that's what has happened. The reason you're able to read *almost* all of the text is a fluke from the history of text encoding; almost all encodings happen to share roughly 128 glyph numbers in common (the ones used for ASCII), and those happen to include upper- and lowercase English letters and common punctuation.\n\nAnd finally, the reason why those characters in particular are displayed incorrectly is that ASCII only has one type of quotation character for both single and double quotes; this character is used to both begin and end quotations as well as represent apostrophes. Other encodings have both opening and closing quotation glyphs (as well as ASCII's version) which are angled. Most word processing programs use the newer quotation styles, especially Microsoft Word. Articles are often written in word and then copied into *HTML* (web page) documents. HTML documents default to an encoding which doesn't use these newer quotation glyphs directly; instead it has sequences of text which will be replaced with the glyph by the web browser. For example, ' & amp;amp;' will be replaced with the ampersand glyph ( & ). If the person copying the article doesn't replace the special characters with these text sequences, the web browser will try to read them and fail exactly the way it has on that page."
]
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"http://www.betrepublic.com/news/nfl-betting/Black-Sunday:-Super-Bowl-XIII/2009012213182644"
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34kifz | why has china not taken over mongolia and korea but shows irredentism when it comes to tibet, taiwan, islands in south china sea? | Is it irredentism or strategy (economic, military) on the part of China that some places have been taken over by China (except that Hong Kong and Taiwan was historically China). Why has India not been affected by irredentism when it comes to Bhutan, Nepal, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka? Is it because India is diverse? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/34kifz/eli5_why_has_china_not_taken_over_mongolia_and/ | {
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"This is a [progress of China's borders](_URL_0_) through out history.\n\nNotice both Tibet and Mongolia were part of China's Qing (1644 to 1911) dynasty. China's Yuan (1271–1368) dynasty was actually Mongols, which of course includes Mongolia. China broke apart into several warring factions after 1911. Tibet, Mongolia and other outlaying regions became self governing. After communist took over in 1949, their first order of business was to reclaim Tibet, Mongolia, Hong Kong and Taiwan. Taiwan and Hong Kong were both islands protected by the US/British fleet. Russia forced Mao to give up Mongolia as a condition of alliance. \n\nKorea was considered a vessel state to China's ming (1368-1644) dynasty. As in they would contribute soldiers and pay tribute to Ming. But they were always self governing. After China was taken over by the Manchus and established Qing dynasty, Korea did not became a vessel state to Qing."
]
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"http://i.imgur.com/WMSvbjf.gif"
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6kr8ta | if vegetables are good for you, why do soda, chips, and other "junk food" taste better? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/6kr8ta/eli5_if_vegetables_are_good_for_you_why_do_soda/ | {
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"Sugar, salt, and fat are critical for the human body to work. Our brain users more sugar than any other part, salt is needed to conduct electricity, and fat is of course an excellent store of energy. \n\nYou and I are unfortunately a very old model, stuck in modern times. Human beings haven't had a major evolution in 35,000 years. We are essentially designed to be the perfect hunter gatherers, but that's not been our role in a very long time. Our tastes turn us on to exactly what our ancestors needed the most, but in the age of the Big Mac that's exactly what we have too much of. ",
"Back in the day, when humans were living a hunter-gatherer lifestyle, bodies adapted to burn primarily fat and protein, since carbohydrates (via vegetables and fruits) were so scarce. \n\nDue to the scarcity of carbohydrates, our bodies and brains adapted to crave them whenever available for their quick energy source. Our primal brain tasted carbohydrates (e.g. a field of fresh strawberries) and said, \"Woah!! We got some quick energy, eat it up while it lasts!\"\n\nUnfortunately, we still have this primal brain in our heads today. It's in there, and says the same thing every time it gets even a little taste.\n\nAnd the Food Industry Incorporated, filled with biochemists who know how the body works, makes food that capitalizes on these systems by intentionally optimizing the amount of sugar to the [Bliss Point (Wikipedia)](_URL_1_ \"Bliss Point\").\n\nCheck out [r/keto/](_URL_0_) if you're curious about living sugar/carb free."
]
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bfk3q3 | notre dame is getting lots of donations to rebuild and they say it's not enough. wouldn't a world landmark be covered in insurance for catastrophe like this? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/bfk3q3/eli5_notre_dame_is_getting_lots_of_donations_to/ | {
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"From my understanding, neither the maximum amount of insurance possible on the church, nor the insurance bond of the construction company doing the restorations, come anywhere close to the BILLIONS it will take to rebuild."
]
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[]
] |
||
2in9om | what is the difference between knitting and crocheting? | Title says it all. I am just curious what the difference is, because too often I'll ask "oh what are you knitting?" and receive an "UH I'm CROCHETING!" So what's the difference? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2in9om/eli5what_is_the_difference_between_knitting_and/ | {
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"cl3muvs"
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"text": [
"Knitting uses two needles\n_URL_1_\ncrocheting uses a hook \n_URL_0_\n"
]
} | [] | [] | [
[
"http://nerdigurumi.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/05/sideview.jpg",
"http://easyknitting.jodisworld.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/08/needles.jpg"
]
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|
6y32rp | why do smaller animals seem to live shorter lives and larger animals longer? such as a fly compared to a whale | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/6y32rp/eli5_why_do_smaller_animals_seem_to_live_shorter/ | {
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"Typically organisms with shorter life spans have a survival strategy based on rapid and mass reproduction. A fly for example would be expected to grow many larvae to maturity, mate, and lay their own eggs within a month because flies die all the time to various things. If a fly needed to survive for 5 years before it could reproduce then it would never work as the mass of flies required every generation would be impossible to achieved. From the other side it is equally untenable as there is no way to grow a whale up to full size in 28 days. There simply isn't enough available food even if the organism could grow that quickly."
]
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[]
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s05j1 | modern vs. post-modern | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/s05j1/eli5_modern_vs_postmodern/ | {
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"Modernism was a cultural movement that began around 100 years ago. Modernist writers are the folks who rejected big, dramatic stories about glorious heroes defeating sinister villains, chosen people going on exciting adventures, comedies about elaborate social disasters, etc and instead focused on intimate and in-depth characterisation, subtlety, social realism, and on the psychological side of things. If you've ever read Virginia Woolf, she is a great example of modernism; she wrote what was later named \"stream of consciousness\", where the book is just a character's brain being poured out, unfiltered, directly onto the paper. It came about during a time when psychology was just taking off as a field, and took from that. Modernists deliberately broke the established rules or preferences to achieve the impact they wanted; this passage by James Joyce is a great example of all of the above.\n\n > Yes because he never did a thing like that before as ask to get his breakfast in bed with a couple of eggs since the City Arms hotel when he used to be pretending to be laid up with a sick voice doing his highness to make himself interesting for that old faggot Mrs Riordan that he thought he had a great leg of and she never left us a farthing all for masses for herself and her soul greatest miser ever was actually afraid to lay out 4d for her methylated spirit telling me all her ailments she had too much old chat in her about politics and earthquakes and the end of the world let us have a bit of fun first God help the world if all the women were her sort down on bathingsuits and lownecks of course nobody wanted her to wear them I suppose she was pious because no man would look at her twice I hope Ill never be like her a wonder she didnt want us to cover our faces but she was a welleducated woman certainly and her gabby talk about Mr Riordan here and Mr Riordan there I suppose he was glad to get shut of her and her dog smelling my fur and always edging to get up under my petticoats especially then still I like that in him polite to old women like that and waiters and beggars too hes not proud out of nothing but not always if ever he got anything really serious the matter with him its much better for them to go into a hospital where everything is clean but I suppose Id have to dring it into him for a month yes and then wed have a hospital nurse next thing on the carpet have him staying there till they throw him out or a nun maybe like the smutty photo he has shes as much a nun as Im not yes because theyre so weak and puling when theyre sick they want a woman to get well if his nose bleeds youd think it was O tragic\n\nSo part of the goal of modernism was to be \"true\", to be \"accurate\" and show things as they really were, with all the stagey drama stripped away. And that became quite popular for a while. \n\n**Post**-modernism is a movement that popped up in response to how popular modernism had gotten. Post-modernism's essence is basically \"Yo modernism, fiction *can't* be true, *can't* be accurate.\" Post-modernists threw away the goal of realism that modernism had, but also threw away the \"convincing illusion\" goal that earlier art and fiction had. Rather than using fiction to represent reality, or using fiction to create fantasy, post-modernists used fiction to mock fiction, or point out how silly fiction was. The characters in a post-modernist book may be aware of their status as fictional characters, and ask the author to make sure they have good fates. Or the author might just cut a chapter out and say \"Just imagine whatever you want happening here.\" Post-modern artists might just slap their name on a urinal and say \"There, that's my new piece of art.\" It is basically a cultural movement that points out how silly/pointless previous cultural movements are.\n\nModernist/post-modernist movements exist in architecture and other fields as well, but I don't know anything about those. Presumably it is, in some way, the same essential concept as modernist/post-modernist literature.\n\nAlso note that post-modern is a pretty vague term, different people have used it in different ways, so it's not as clear and agreed-upon a label as something like 'romanticism' is. Moe Szyslak defines it as \"weird for the sake of weird\" and in casual conversation, more often than not, that's what it means.",
"Post modernism is a set of values that have been applied to philosophy, music, fine arts, literature, theater, and pretty much every academic field such as anthropology.\n\nModernism is a reflection of the success of the industrial revolution and the building of modern western civilization. It embraces the certainty of science, and truth, and the idea that the world is ordered and knowable. Works of art should be original creations, based on traditional structure.\n\nPostmodernism is a reflection of the chaos and disaster of the 20th century. It suggests that an organised system of knowledge is false, and that no idea can really be objectively true. Works of art should reflect this disorder, and are encouraged to invert, make fun of and sample other works of art.\n\nFrogsfrogsfrogsfrogs is right about postmodern literature, but it might help your understanding if you think of Joyce and Wolfs' chaotic and unpredictable writing as being important precursors of postmodernism, as opposed to the traditionalism of Lord of the Rings.\n\ntldr, modernism = searching for truth, postmodernism = embracing chaos.",
"Since Post-Modernism has been overlooked a little:\n\nIt's important to point out that postmodernism does exist though it isnt a unified \"movement\" in the way Modernism turned out to be, and it is cross-disciplinary in unpredictable ways.\n\nFor example, in literature post-modernism is really \"writing after modernism\" (and not in the style of modernism or any previous periods: the post-modern style). The focus in literature seems to be on the undermining of \"grand narratives\": history, science, etc. In some sense an ironic trivializing of human affairs, which is in the large part quite legitimate. I'm thinking of Midnight's Children here, where the author occasionally invites the reader to doubt the veracity of the reported history, and indeed he inserts factually false information which is brought to the readers intention. The result is that authorship as the principle source of truth or (at least) source of a definitive account is undermined.\n\nIn philosophy post-modernism would be best characterized, i think, by people like Derrida who seek to undermined the semblance of objectivity in a variety of ways. I mention Derrida here because he's claims about interpretation are implicit in post-modern literature: that there is no True interpretation of a text (though some maybe more useful than others), that the Author's interpretation isnt automatically privileged and so on.\n\nFoucault's approach to philosophy, that is, genealogy seems quite post-modern: rather than stepping into disciplines and analyzing their claims from within, you see how they function from without. The philosophy of physics would step into physics to analyze and assess claims about relativity but a genealogist would not care whether the claims were true or false but see how scientists as actors and how society as an arena of discourse (, power, knowledge, etc.) interacted with science's claims about relativity.\n\nIt is for this reason that post-modernism is often confused with a bleak kind of relativism, indeed it seems many philosophy-hipsters who have watched a Zizek youtube video seem to proffer relativism as a badge (and thus slander quite a large group of philosophers).\n\nI've written this out mainly to jog my memory into coming up with something helpful, not to be exhaustive or particularly accurate. \n\nMy conclusion is however, that you may say the unifying characteristic behind post-modernism is the lack of concern for truth.\n\nAs you might expect that's a rather peculiar and dangerous^ approach, some might accuse it of the worst kind of sophistry: just espousing any old idea recklessly (a charge which, incidentally, I think might fairly be leveled at Zizek). But it isn't sophistry, it is just an alternative meta-philosophy.\n\nThe meta-philosophy of the analytics is an attempt to find out something true, of the continentals to find out something worthwhile, and of the post-modernists to find out how something functions.\n\n(In the proper post-modernist style, I should point out that several statements here are rhetorical: designed to be slightly mis-characterizing to express a personal opinion.)\n\n\"New Atheism\" is an interesting arena to look at alternative approaches. Early on everyone was concerned with analytic claims, Sam Harris and Richard Dawkins would talk about the origin or morality, the origin of the universe, the design argument: assessing religion from the inside. Hitchens however, being more literary, took a radically different approach: he rarely discussed the truth of the claims, but asked how they function, namely, how do they affect the mind of believers, their communities and society as a whole. I recall Dawkins later on addressing the question, \"What happened before the big bang?\" with \"I dont know, ask a cosmologist\" - which I found functioned as a rather poignant conclusion to millenia of rationalization.\n\nEdit: ^ many within disciplines (eg. science) have no idea how their claims will function, true or false. Many find it undermining to even ask such a thing, it seems to suggest that the questioner would prefer something thought to be false if that were useful, which may be true of some post-modernists.\n",
"Since everyone here seems to want to write a college essay in the 5 year old room, you might want to check [this](_URL_0_) in the simple wiki.",
"I had an art history teacher who led us to a neat little summary:\n\nModernism is about answers. Postmodernism is about questions.\n\nI'm going to come from the perspective of fine arts, because that's where I know most about the topic. In very abbreviated terms, Modernism was about building systems: systems of thought which could be used to give structure and meaning to the world around you. A very extreme example is the painter Piet Mondrian, whose work you would probably recognize. I like it and find it visually appealing, but if you read his reasoning behind the way he painted, especially when he was doing the stark blue-red-yellow squares he's mostly remembered for, you'll find he had a hell of a developed system of thought behind what he did, even if it was very outlandish.\n\nPostmodernism was about pointing out the inherent limits of structures, about poking holes in ideas without necessarily proposing alternatives. To the postmodernist, \"problematization\" is enough of a goal. Actually, inherent limits are pretty apparent when you look at the work of spare high modernists like Mondrian. It's often messy, chaotic, and appeals directly to the viewer's sense of outrage or visceral reactions - consider something like Pietro Manzoni's *Merda d'Artista* or \"Artist's Shit,\" which was actually just a can of his shit, priced at the equivalent weight in gold. There's not, intellectually, much more to it than that, and I think sometimes the directness of postmodern art throws people off because they expect it to be convoluted and depend on complicated \"systems\" that they don't understand, like some Modernists' confusing work, whereas it often amounts to a kind of whining about a perceived problem in very direct and sensually violent terms.\n\nSome other (possibly) overbroad categorizations of modern vs. postmodern:\n\n* answers vs. questions\n* thinking vs. reacting\n* structure vs. deconstruction\n* distilled ideas vs. chaotic cultural reference"
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wurrd | cryptology | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/wurrd/cryptology/ | {
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"People like to communicate. When we communicate, sometimes we tell each other secrets - things that nobody else should know.\n\nIf you are sending a message containing a secret to somebody you might fear that this message will fall into the wrong hands and the wrong people will know your secret. So to outsmart the bad guys you can modify your message to seem like gibberish to anybody else.\n\nFor example let's say your secret message is \"I'm high\". You can substitute the letter \"h\" with the letter \"z\" and your message will become \"I'm zigz\". You tell your buddy \"listen, I don't want people to know I'm high, so when I write you messages I will swap the 'z' and 'h' letters.\". If the wrong person gets the message they won't understand it.\n\nChanging your message to seem like gibberish to other people is called encoding.\n\nWhen the recipient receives that \"gibberish\" message and turns it back into a meaningful message, we say that he decodes the message.\n\nWell obviously with a little detective work a person might find out that \"I'm zigz\" probably means \"I'm high\". So we use more complicated methods for encoding our messages, usually involving some complicated mathematics. But the idea is the same."
]
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9qjimh | - why does one get cravings? when one quits a drug/behavior, what's exactly happening when one senses a 'craving'? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/9qjimh/eli5_why_does_one_get_cravings_when_one_quits_a/ | {
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"When one does drugs or smoke or eat junk food, our brain responds by giving you a “feel good” feeling. This feeling is caused by chemicals aka neurotransmitters, in our body like dopamine and endorphins. Our brain remembers what caused us to feel this way and knows in the future what it needs to make yourself feel good like before ., which leads to cravings. \n\n\nWith quitting drugs, particularly opiates, painful or just unpleasant withdraw happens because our body grew accustomed or dependent on the drugs to make the body produce the feel good chemicals and it didn’t think it needed to produce anymore of its feel good chemicals on its own. Once the drugs stop, the body takes time to readjust and build its own supply back up on its own. ......in the mean time, the person is in agony. \n",
"Our brains get \"rewired\" when we use drugs, alcohol or develop an addictive behavior. This isn't just to the substance but to the *ritual* involved.\n\nAlcoholics like the sound of a beer tab, or bottle cracking open; gamblers love the feeling of walking into a card game or casino, etc. The ritual becomes part of the addiction. Even smoking cigarettes is as much about opening the pack and lighting up as it is getting the nicotine high.\n\nThe brain associates those behaviors, as well as the chemicals triggered, with feeling good/better.\n\nSource: recovered/recovering alcoholic/pillhead",
"Basically your brain is using the same circuits as are active in extreme hunger, to motivate you to seek the drug the same way you would seek food if you hadn't eaten for five days."
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8rn3yr | why must clothes irons be hot in order to serve their purpose ? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/8rn3yr/eli5_why_must_clothes_irons_be_hot_in_order_to/ | {
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"It's kinda like how you straighten hair the carbon bonds are weak in hair heat allows the breaking of bonds and forms it straight under the flat surface "
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93j3zc | how do lottery ticket companies make sure their workers don't track down the winning tickets that they print? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/93j3zc/eli5_how_do_lottery_ticket_companies_make_sure/ | {
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"A computer prints the numbers on the scratchoff tickets as they roll through the printing presses at a thousand tickets a minute and the machine also coats the tickets with the scratch off coating in the same process. So when they come out of the press all the employee sees is the completed tickets in a giant stack. They have no way of knowing which tickets are winners unless they are upper management of the company who program the software. Those employees are heavily scrutinized at all times to make sure there is no way they can cheat the system."
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||
2q26h2 | why is it so difficult to provide africa with clean drinking water desalination? | Obviously shipping water into Africa from other countries is extremely expensive. What I really mean to ask is why Africa does not utilize desalination to obtain clean drinking water? The continent is literally surrounded by salt water, and the coastal regions receive enough sunlight that solar stills would be highly effective compared to other regions where desalination costs much more. There would be plenty of new jobs available in order to build the infrastructure for this. Many diseases and illness could be avoided with access to clean water, not to mention agricultural benefits.
Make a gigantic solar still (cheaper) or array of mirrors to boil and distill water with heat from focused sun. Too expensive to pump water in? Dig the plant/water farm/whatever 300 feet below the surface about a mile inland, and let the water flow in for free with hydrostatic pressure.
| explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2q26h2/eli5_why_is_it_so_difficult_to_provide_africa/ | {
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"Solar stills might be more viable there than in other parts of the world, but the problem is that they still aren't very viable.\n\nThe parts of Africa that have trouble accessing clean drinking water generally aren't coastal regions, those tend to be quite prosperous areas that have wells or other forms of water.\n\nThe parts of Africa that we see that need help, are sub-Saharan, middle of the continent Africa. Where they can't reach the Ocean.\n\nThis combined with the high amounts of corruption throughout the continent mean that plants would inevitably end up in the hands of someone who would make it hard for the poor to access it. It'd just be another resource for certain group to try and control."
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73ze7h | the universe is expanding, but where is the center of the expansion? is that the point in which the big bang happened? and where are we relatively to it? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/73ze7h/eli5_the_universe_is_expanding_but_where_is_the/ | {
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"Every point is expanding away from every other point. There's no \"center of the expansion\".\n\nImagine an infinitely large rubber sheet, with a 1\" grid drawn on it.\n\nNow stretch out the rubber sheet so that the grid lines are 2\" apart instead, everywhere. Is there a \"center\" to this stretching? Every point is moving away from every other point.",
"The idea is that space itself was a product of the big bang. So every point around you and in the universe was concentrated at a single point at the beginning. This would make every point in the universe the center of the universe.\n\nSo the universe is expanding relative to every point in the universe. A result of that is that no matter where you look from, the universe is always expanding outwards.",
"If you were to bake a fruitcake, you put the raw mix into the oven and it begins to expand and rise.\n\nThe pieces of fruit inside the cake are moving away from each other inside the fruitcake mix. From each piece of fruits perspective every other piece is moving away from it. If there is any center, then the individual piece is it because every other piece is moving away with expansion.",
"This is a common question both [in ELI5](_URL_1_) and is in the /r/askscience FAQ ([once](_URL_2_), [twice](_URL_0_)).\n\nTip: askscience will get you more accurate answers.\n\ntl;dr There is no center. The universe is infinite. Everything expands away from everything else.",
"There is no center. All points are expanding away from all other points. As a result, if you want to get down to brass tacks, the Big Bang occurred at **all** points in the Universe."
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"http://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/qk58k/what_is_space_expanding_into/c3y7opc"
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||
45vxff | if the universe is infinite but empty outside of the "edges", wouldnt gravity curve space so that if you go straight sooner or later you would end up "inside" of the edges again? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/45vxff/eli5_if_the_universe_is_infinite_but_empty/ | {
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"This is one of those impossible scenarios not addressed here.\n\nThere are no real edges. That is hard to understand. Think of it this way. If matter exists there is space around it. So nothing can get to the edge.\n\nWe will never travel to an edge. We will not even travel a billion light years. Not in a billion years will we do this. We can see light which has come from far away. That is it. We can detect radiation from the big bang. It can be detected in all directions.",
"This is a interesting question, the answer is no because we live in a universe with at least 3 dimensions.\n\nThe fundamental of your question is whether if you were in a space ship flying directly away from something massive, would you eventually slow down, then start falling back down? Is it possible to go fast enough to never slow down? The answer is yes, you can actually be moving fast enough away, so that it is possible for the universe to not crunch together.\n\nThe explanation is much more mathy and complicated. So skip it if you don't like that kind of thing.\n\nFirst we need to describe some applied mathematics.\n\nGravity pulls you towards the Earth. It is acceleration, which is changing velocity over time. If we multiply acceleration by time, we get velocity. Think about this (it is a deep statement). Remember that multiplication is just like adding up over and over.\n\nSo now what we want to do is add up all the gravity from here, to somewhere that is 'infinity' away. If we get any number, then we are good, we just need to go faster than that number. If we get infinity, then this means that no matter how fast you are going, gravity will always pull us back.\n\nThe second idea we need to understand is a more simple one. To get the area of a box, we multiply the base by the height. This representation of multiplication as area will be used.\n\n(Have a look at the graph here.)[_URL_1_]. Those are the shape of gravity in a 2d universe (1/x, blue) and gravity in our 3d universe (1/x^2, violet). So to add up all the gravity, we want to take the area from some number (let's say 2) all the way to infinity. [See this picture.](_URL_0_)\n\nIt turns out that the red area is always a finite number (using calculus). Because it is a finite number, this means that if you go faster than this number, all the gravity from where you are to infinity is not enough to slow you down.",
"1) No scientists believe that the universe is infinite but empty outside its edges. If the universe is infinite, then it is \"filled\" relatively uniformly throughout.\n\n2) If it were infinite but empty outside of some edges, then it would have a center of mass and gravity would have pulled all of the matter to this center, making the entire mass of the universe a single black hole. Thus the effect curvature caused by gravity would not be to curve space around but to curve it all down toward this center of mass.\n\n3) If the universe is not infinite, then indeed it would be curved just as you said, and if you go in a straight line you would come back to where you started. There would still be no edges.",
"Reading through this thread I'm imagining this discussion taking place 500 years ago and we're all monkeys grunting and banging sticks to explain our individual understanding of this .\n"
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3g0ndn | how were the victims of the hiroshima and nagasaki bombs "killed instantly"? | I was reading about the Atomic Bomb Dome memorial in Hiroshima, and the Wikipedia article stated that while a large portion of the building was left intact, all of the people inside the building were killed, and I couldn't understand how. I was having trouble finding explanations for the actual mechanism of the "instantaneous" deaths, only being able to find that many people were "vaporized" and the like. So, what actually went on? What's the science behind it?
EDIT: I'm referring to this Wikipedia article: _URL_0_ | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3g0ndn/eli5_how_were_the_victims_of_the_hiroshima_and/ | {
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"The bomb generated extreme heat, around 3000 degrees Celsius and given that humans are mostly water, they literally steam cooked and exploded at the same time ",
"Here's a video. You can see the multiple stages of the atomic bomb detonation. First there's flash, which causes the spontaneous ignition of many materials.\n\nNow a burning can survive having it's outer layer vaporized away. A human has more trouble. Next there's the airblast which can blow away both humans and structures.\n\nThe reason this building survived the blast is because it was nearly directly beneath. Normally structures are build to survive downwards forces (such as gravity) and much weaker to sideways forces. Most other buildings were destroyed.\n\n_URL_0_"
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87t95r | encoders, decoders and transcoders | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/87t95r/eli5encoders_decoders_and_transcoders/ | {
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"Encoder - changes data into a certain format or \"code\". Usually it's to conform to certain standards for displaying the information, such as ASCII being the standard for displaying letters and symbols on computers and other devices, or .mp3 being a common format for audio data.\n\nDecoder - changes the encoded data back into it's original form\n\nTranscoder - changes encoded data into a different code, which is generally faster and more efficient than decoding it and re-encoding it to the new format (although in some cases, that's all you can do).",
"A human example:\n\nEncoder: hear someone talking, write their words down on paper\n\nDecoder: read words from paper out loud\n\nTranscoder: Read words from paper, type into computer without moving your lips.\n\nOr alternatively, transcoder: Read words from paper, translate into French & write down on new bit of paper."
]
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[],
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1l3gcf | why is it not practical for more countries to send a space shuttle to the moon with all the advances in technology since 1969? | I get that it is still expensive, but if the components were affordable in 1969, how is it not much more affordable now with the advances in technology and the reduction in cost for such technologies? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1l3gcf/eli5_why_is_it_not_practical_for_more_countries/ | {
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"Two reasons. First, getting to the moon is *incredibly* difficult. It's not like \"Yeah, it's hard to figure out but once you crack it it's easy.\" I mean it's *incredibly* difficult. The energy requirements are really enormous. You just wouldn't believe.\n\nThe other, better reason is that the moon's a shithole. There's no reason to go there."
]
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204wth | regarding the current event surrounding the missing malaysian airplane, if family members of its passengers claim that they can still call their missing relative's phone without getting redirected to voice mail, why doesn't the authority try to track down these phone signals? | Are there technical limitations being involved here that I'm not aware of? Assuming the plane fell into a body of water somewhere, I'm sure you just can't triangulate onto it like in urban settings (where tons of cell phone towers dotting a relatively small area), but shouldn't they be able to at least pick up a faint noise and widen their search in that general direction? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/204wth/eli5_regarding_the_current_event_surrounding_the/ | {
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"First of all, the family members may not be correct. Second of all, you can't just \"ping\" a cell phone like you see on TV. It just doesn't work that way. Third of all, the way cell phones work, it might not be unusual at all for a phone to ring and then disconnect and not go to voice mail. ",
"Because, realistically, it would be a dead lead. There is absolutely no way any of the crash victim's phones are actively communicating with *anything*, especially not service towers that would allow family members to call the phones. \n\nWhat seems more probable to you: That cellphones thousands of feet under the ocean are some how in active use and accepting incoming calls (as the family members claim) or that either 1) there was some sort of glitch in the communication network wherein the family members heard a ring instead of instant voicemail or 2) grief stricken family members are trying to *do* something in anyway they can, even if it means grasping at improbable straws? \n\n",
"Phones don't really work that way. When you dial a phone number it's sent to the telco. The telco could choose to send you a ring tone while it's attempting to locate the phone. Unable to find the phone it can just send you to voicemail which is located at the telco not on the phone.\n\nJust because you hear ringing isn't a promise that the other phone is actually ringing or reachable.\n\nAlternatively the telco can just sit there and play ringback tone forever because thats how it's configured. None of which is a promise that it can reach the phone.",
"Why are people reporting a plane flying overhead to possibly be the lost plane? It's been days, there's no fucking way it's still flying.",
"I was under the impression that the reason no one was using this to track them was because those whose phones still rung had their calls redirected to another line, so their phones weren't actually ringing, but rather, a landline or work phone. ",
"The first 2 or so rings when you usually call someone is your provider trying to connect to the provider of who you're calling.\n\nAKA: First 2 Rings is AT & T trying to get T-Mobile's attention.",
"The key here is that the plane was equipped with cellular communication hardware, supplied by AeroMobile, to provide GSM services via satellite. If the plane was to undergo a slow decompression due to cracks near the SATCOM antenna ([**which has been reported to be an issue, and would explain the loss of location data**](_URL_0_)), the phones would have rung, but the unconscious people on board would not have answered. The GSM services do not go through the SATCOM to my knowledge.",
"No one here mentioned the social media activity of 3 of the people on QQ",
"The ringing you hear when you call a phone is NOT the other phone. The ringing you hear is sent to your phone by your carrier. They then send a signal to the other phone to make the ringtone/vibrator ring/buzz. Then, when they answer, they connect your call.\n\nThink about it. If I change my ringtone on my phone to a song, when you call me you don't hear that song.\n\nThe phones are still ringing because your carrier plays the ringing sound in your phone when you make a call.",
"If their phones are under water, then how can their relatives still call them? The calls should automatically be transferred to voice mail.",
"A local news channel were discussing about the possibility of plane getting sucked in to A 'Dark Hole'",
"The phones appear to be ringing because they are calling QQ, NOT the phones. For God's sakes, stop this \"OMG their phones are still on\" nonsense. \"Some of the relatives have said passenger QQ accounts (a Chinese web chat service like Gmail Chat) are still online. Tencent, the company that administers QQ, says if a user has not logged out of QQ, but merely turned their phone or computer off, they could still seem to be there, even if they are not. \" source, the _URL_0_",
"You folks have way too much faith in technology. During Hurricane Katrina, my husband was in the middle of the storm, and I was 150 miles north-- I was still pretty much in the shit storm, but I had cell service and everyone within 80-100 miles of the coast (where he was) lost cell service. When I called him, it rang and rang and rang and rang, never went to voicemail even though he had that set up. There was no cell service where he was, so the call couldn't be sent to his phone, and I just heard \"ringing\" when the phone wasn't actually ringing where he was. Hopefully you can see how this principle would apply to the phones on board the plane.\nEDIT-- I removed my \"elite bullshit text sigh\" since it was so very, very way far the hell out of line with internet etiquette. ",
"Waterproof cell phone cases?",
"I learned from this thread that GPS on phones is READ ONLY but that they will broadcast their location to a connected cell tower.\n\nHow about on the satellites themselves? Surely there must be some identifier whenever a phone requests its co-ordinates and surely we can read the logs from the relevant satellites to discover where any phones on this plane with GPS switched on were last seen?"
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4c00ff | why would a company sell stock and buy it straight back? | I understand it's called crystallisation of purchases but I can't figure out why a company would actually do it. You can't do it for tax purposes as its then deemed a white wash or something so then why do it? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4c00ff/eli5_why_would_a_company_sell_stock_and_buy_it/ | {
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"Sell when it's high, stockholders may start selling too which can bring down stock price, buy it all back again. Profit. ",
"I think its for tax reason. Sell below capital value to realise a capital loss then immediately buy it back.\n\nLink : _URL_0_",
"To realize a loss which lowers the tax burden.\n\nLet's say you buy a share of stock for $100. It drops in value initially, but you believe their product is the best product ever and it will rebound, so you want to hang on to it long term for the capital gain. However, since the price is currently down, you sell your stock for $75 and immediately buy it back for $75. Your portfolio has not changed at all. You still own that one stock. You are still poised to strike it rich once the stock takes off. The difference is now you will pay less income tax since you realized a loss of $25. The loss is written off against your income, thus reducing your taxes. Works the same for companies. For sake of simplicity, this scenario did not take into account the transaction cost for buying and selling the stock. "
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2wqhw5 | who decided the #2 pencil was the one to rule them all? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2wqhw5/eli5_who_decided_the_2_pencil_was_the_one_to_rule/ | {
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"The #2 is a measure of the \"hardness\" of the pencil lead (which is actually graphite, but that's a different thread). \r\r#1 pencils are very \"soft\", meaning they wear fast, smudge often, and it's difficult to keep the writing point sharp. Numbers #3 and higher stay nice and sharp, but make lighter markings, which is why they aren't recommended for machine graded \"fill in the bubble\" forms.\r\rI've used #5 pencils, and I like the sharp points for drawing math equations and graphs. I understand that they are commonly used for drafting. I prefer #3s, or \"extra hard\" pencils which are kinda like a #2-and-a-half.\r\rBut #2 is, for most people, the\"just right\" of pencils, that don't smudge much, stay sharp fairly well, but still make a dark mark when writing."
]
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||
5vkvdk | why can't we just like take a giant telescope and look at the planets that nasa discovered? similar to how our satellites can zoom in on earth. | [deleted] | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5vkvdk/eli5why_cant_we_just_like_take_a_giant_telescope/ | {
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"Satellites take pictures of things from about 100 miles away. A planet that's 40 light years away is 235,100,000,000,000 miles away. So, you'd need a camera that is about one trillion times more powerful than what's on a satellite.",
"Because of fundamental physical limits. If you look at something, you need a mirror with a radius roughly equal to the wavelength you're observing divided by the angular size of the object you're watching.\n\nLets assume we want to at least see continents (~1000km) on those planets and that they're 40 lightyears away. Then we get an angular size of 10^-12 ish. Lets also say we want to watch in optical wavelengths, so we need to observe light with a wavelength of about 500nm. Then we need a mirror with a radius of at least 500 kilometers. Not to mention that the mirror has to be in space, because else the atmosphere would ruin the image.\n\nBuilding something that size in space isn't really feasible at our current stage of technology. "
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e01lf9 | why is it that most of us won't think twice about spending £3.00 on a beer but will hesitate and think far too long about buying something that'll actually be useful and last for a long time? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/e01lf9/eli5_why_is_it_that_most_of_us_wont_think_twice/ | {
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"Instant gratification versus something that has long last impact where the benefit isn't immediately noticeable or required?\n\nYour steam game for example, doesn't just cost you money, it costs you *time* which you gotta invest in.",
"You expect your beer to be gone in 5 mins. Even if it's not good, it won't be terrible, dangerous or cause you problems beyond that time. What you're weighing up is the prolonged annoyance caused by a poor decision.",
"Where the fuck are you getting a beer for £3.00?"
]
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3t3xvg | why do they market toys and collectibles before their respective movies come out? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3t3xvg/eli5_why_do_they_market_toys_and_collectibles/ | {
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"It's better to have them released beforehand, so when people see the movie and get excited they can immediately find them on the shelves in stores, than risk a delay and them not getting into stores when demand is highest.\n\nBack when Star Wars (the original movie) came out in theatres, the toys weren't ready yet. For Christmas of that year parents could give their kids a card printed by Kenner that promised delivery of the action figures in February of the following year, IIRC."
]
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||
1api3p | if the 4th dimension exist does that mean im already dead somewhere/when in time? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1api3p/eli5if_the_4th_dimension_exist_does_that_mean_im/ | {
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"Who said the 4th dimension was time?",
"Well if you are considering the 4th dimension to be time then yes you are dead somewhere in the 4th dimension, unless you plan on living forever.",
"The way I like to think about all these dimensions, is that the one before it is a just a slice.\nSo like a point is just a slice of a line, a line is just a slice of a square and a square is just a slice of a cube. \nNow we're in the 4th dimension, meaning we can fully experience the first three, which we interpret as length, width, and height. We can only experience the fourth, time, as a straight line, continually moving. Now think back to the points, lines, squares, and cubes. If you drag a point, you get a line, if you drag a line, you get a square (Think painting with the edge/line of a paintbrush), if you drag a square, you get a cube.\n\nSo theoretically, next dimension experiences ALL of time at once (Kind of like how we experience all of the lines of a square at once to form a square), so yes, in the next dimension up, you are already dead, but also alive, all at the same time. ",
"The Fourth dimension isn't time, it's just another dimension like length, width, or height. Here's a good way of thinking about:\nA line is an infinite number of infinitely small points placed next to each other, a square is an infinite number of lines with an infinitely small width stacked on top of each other, a cube is an infinite number of squares with an infinitely small height stacked on top of each other, and a four dimensional cube (A [tesseract](_URL_0_)) is an infinite number of cubes placed together in a direction that we don't understand."
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5f92k6 | if i sat in a bathtub of liquor would i get drunk? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5f92k6/eli5_if_i_sat_in_a_bathtub_of_liquor_would_i_get/ | {
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"Not a doctor. Do know several though that work ER. Since \"butt-chugging\" of alcohol is a thing I would be more concerned about the alcohol getting in there. Or just burning like hell on your bits. But if it did make it in, the effect is much stronger than if you drink it, which is why these idiots end up in the ER. \n\n\nI get what you're after though- is absorbing it thru the skin going to impact you. I don't see how it could make it to the bloodstream, which is where it would need to go. But again, not a doctor. I do agree with others in here though that the fumes would most likely get to you regardless as they would be replacing the oxygen you're breathing. I believe that was actually a brief thing- oxygen bar-type with alcohol instead, but I'm fuzzy on whether that was just a rumor. ",
"Im taking anatomy as a premed and i learned about this 2 weeks ago: \nAs someone mentioned earlier, the only way to get drunk this way is if the alcohol enters your butthole. This is because your rectum (butthole) is technically a continuation of your large intestine, which is the one responsible for absorbing water and other chemicals like alcohol. If the alcohol goes into your anus, then it will go into your large intestine without first passing your stomach, small intestine, etc. Which in turn makes you more drunk, but this is dangerous, dont try it!!\n",
"Hansen CS, Færch LH, Kristensen PL. Testing the validity of the Danish urban myth that alcohol can be absorbed through feet: open labelled self experimental study. BMJ. \n > Conclusion \nOur results suggest that feet are impenetrable to the alcohol component of vodka. We therefore conclude that the Danish urban myth of being able to get drunk by submerging feet in alcoholic beverages is just that; a myth. The implications of the study are many though. \n \nFrom this experiment, it would seem that we can't get drunk through our skin."
]
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3rx4ys | difference between enlisted and officers in army and how different are their selection process. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3rx4ys/eli5_difference_between_enlisted_and_officers_in/ | {
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"Almost anyone can enlist, and it's basically the entry level to the military. Officers are required to have at least a bachelors degree, and are placed into leadership positions. The [rank](_URL_0_) system is completely different, and they are also sent to different boot camps to be trained in their respective positions.",
"Commissioned Officers(2nd LT on up to General) are given a commission by their nation's head of state. The President of the US commissions officers. In the past Kings would commission their army's officers.\n\nThere are a few ways to become an officer in the US Army.\n\n1. Graduate from West Point. Graduates are automatically commissioned as 2nd LT.\n\n2. Attend a ROTC program while enrolled at a university and graduate.\n\n3. Earn a Bachelor's Degree, apply and be accepted to Officer's Candidacy School, and graduate from that.\n"
]
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[
"http://www.militaryfactory.com/ranks/army_ranks.asp"
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||
1qurch | why is it that links are repeated on different pages in reddit? | For example, why is it that there will be five of the same link on the next page while scrolling through reddit? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1qurch/eli5_why_is_it_that_links_are_repeated_on/ | {
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"text": [
"Going to the next page asks reddit to give you the 25 links following the link that's at the bottom of your current page. But the rankings of links are constantly changing - if that link has moved up the reddit rankings since you loaded your old page, it can jump over links you've already seen, and you'll get them again."
]
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[]
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|
cqwb7s | if spider webs are one of the most stiky things we know, why do spiders dont get stuck if they get tangled in them? and what aobout nest like spider webs? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/cqwb7s/eli5_if_spider_webs_are_one_of_the_most_stiky/ | {
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"Spider webs are not completely sticky.\n\nSome of the \"silk\" (sorry, don't know the name in English), is sticky, but spider can produce some that are not.\n\nSo, when a bug come in contact with the web, it get glued on it, but the spider, who know where it put the sticky or non sticky silk, can move around and stay on the non sticky part",
"They have small hair follicles on their feet that allow them to move freely on their own web without getting caught."
]
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27y9v5 | - what does it mean when a file is encrypted? | What do hackers do exactly, and how does encrypting things make them unable to do that? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/27y9v5/eli5_what_does_it_mean_when_a_file_is_encrypted/ | {
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"Encryption is the application of complex math to make files look like gibberish to computers and people.\n\nHackers don't just do encryption, your bank does, the NSA does, the Army does, and when you do online transactions, so does your browser.",
"Encryption is mixing up the message, such that it can only be made readable again with a key.\n\nTo explain what hackers do, It might be easier to use an example:\nLet's say you want to send a book to a friend on the other side of the country, but you don't want anyone else to see it.\nYou could stick the book in a box, and send it to your friend.\nA hacker, could intercept the box, open it, and access the book.\n\nYou can also put the book in a box with a padlock on it, and send it to your friend, and send the key in another box.\nHowever, if the hacker grabs both the locked box, and the key, he can open it anyway.\n\nThe last option, is that your friend first sends you a padlock, and keeps the key. You can now put your book in a box, lock it with the padlock your friend sent you, and then send it back.\nEven if the hacker intercepts the box, he cannot open the padlock, and he cannot intercept any keys, since they are not being sent.\n\nYour friend can then receive the box, and open it.\n\nOn the internet, the box, would be a message, and the padlock+keys an encryption.\n\nIn RSA-encryption, one of the most used encryptions today, the padlock and key are both huge numbers, chosen specially.\nWhile the key-number is kept secret and the numbers are long enough, the encryption is impossible to break. (It can be broken, but doing so would take longer than the universe has existed)",
"It uses a code to transform your file so that it cannot be read unless you know the key.\n\nA simple code would be the classic A=1, B=2, C=3 etc code.\n\nYour file might say \"Hello\" then when you encrypt it, it becomes \"8 5 12 12 15\"\n\nWhen someone who doesn't know the code tries to read it, it just appears as numbers, but to the person who uses the correct code it turns the file back into \"Hello\"\n\nObviously actual encryption uses far more complex codes than this example. When they talk about how many \"bits\" encryption is (128 bit/256bit etc), it's actually referring to the length of the passkey. In simple terms the longer the passkey (the more bits in it) the more complex the formula for the code and the harder it is to break."
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373jyk | by what method does google translate detect the language of input texts? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/373jyk/eli5_by_what_method_does_google_translate_detect/ | {
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"Matching words with words it knows from various languages. Also what characters you input. Like, if you were to input the Kanji lettering for the term \"Horse stuffer\", it'd detect that it was Kanji first, then what words it is, then makes the connection.\n\nOr for other roman lettering, it just knows what words belong to what language. Such as \"Pferd Stuffer\" it knows there's no word in english that's spelled Pferd, so it checks it's database and sees that Pferd matches a word in German.",
"Same way you would. You recognizance that the words in this sentence are English words, so you guess that I'm in fact writing in English. Och du ser att orden i den här meningen inte är engelska, eftersom att de är svenska (and you see that the words in this sentence are not English, as they are Swedish)\n\nAnd google can confuse langues sometimes if it only has a limited number of words to work with and the words happen to be the same as words in another language."
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1hvbyk | why do some people cry during sex? is it biological or psychological? both? are there performance or dysfunction related to crying during intercourse? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1hvbyk/eli5_why_do_some_people_cry_during_sex_is_it/ | {
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"If people do actually cry during sex, this would be difficult to explain to a five year old.",
"do you know about *consent*?",
"Sex is very emotional to some people, but you're five, you don't need to worry about that yet.",
"I've cried and laughed during an orgasm. I couldn't help it. The feelings just overtook me an apparently that was my reaction that time. ",
"Overwhelming feelings = the release of tears for some people.\n",
"I can only speak for myself, but if I cry during sex, it's because the sex is so overwhelming, both physically and emotionally, that I need a quick, accessible outlet for it. You'd think that an orgasm would be a good outlet, given the circumstance, but that just makes it more overwhelming, and more tearful. For me, I believe it's psychological. Tears are a quick and easy outlet for *any* strong emotion I have. Rage and bliss are the two big ones.\n\nThere is a huge difference between crying during sex because you don't want to be having it and crying during sex because you don't want to ever NOT be having it.",
"I've cried only after one orgasm, and that was the best of my life. It took me a few minutes to recover, so my boyfriend just cuddled me in the meantime. I think it occurred because the release of that many endorphins coupled with dopamine and oxytocin, created a huge, confused well of emotions that inadvertently came out as crying. \n\nShit felt awesome ",
"My ex girlfriend cried the first 10 or so times we had sex. Very strange to me, as I thought she might have had some kind of sexual abuse when she was younger, but she just ended up being a very emotional girl. ",
"There's no shame in crymaxing.",
"I can't really ELY5 (mostly because I dont have a full enough understanding) but this is taken from this [link](_URL_0_)\n\n\n\"Sex therapists and researchers William Hartman and Marilyn Fithian proposed a physiological explanation for the shedding of tears. They proposed that since an orgasm is triggered by deep stimulation to the uterus and strong uterine contractions, then the involuntary sobbing may be due to the vagus nerve in the brainstem being stimulated. This causes a ripple effect that triggers a cricopharyngeal reflex in the throat.\"\n\n",
"Semi-relevant: Why is it that in nearly every porn video involving an Asian female, she looks like she's crying in pain the entire time?",
"I cry sometimes, though not often. Things are just overwhelming sometimes, especially if I'm \"making love\" and not just fucking. It's emotional, and it feels good, and if it's *very* emotional and it feels *very* good, I cry. It's just because it can be so intense. So unless a person is crying because they have a traumatic memory triggered, or because they're hurt or something, I wouldn't worry about it. Just be supportive and listen and hang on.",
"My girlfriend has cried just after sex twice, it was after the best sex we ever had. During would be...strange.",
"I posted about laughing and crying during orgasm in /r/sex the other day, but this is basically what I think:\n\n\nFrom what I know of the brain (I'm in training to be a psychologist) I think it relates to the limbic system, which is the reward system of the brain. This involves the amygdala, nucleus accumbens, VTA, and pituitary gland, the last of which releases hormones like endorphins. I think the release of endorphins during orgasm mimics a lot of the same hormones that are released when we laugh or cry for joy. This helps to explain why many people also experience intense emotional reactions during orgasm. \n\n\nI think it is mostly biological. There is some \"wiring\" in the limbic system that gets linked together so that when the endorphins associated with orgasm are released they also trigger laughing or crying. As with any nature/nurture question there is some overlap. The person probably has some personality characteristics that also facilitate it occurring. Perhaps openness to new experiences, lack of inhibitions during sex or feeling comfortable enough to let themselves go during the sexual experience (keep in mind this is speculation as there is very little research to back this up). Also, it depends, if this person experiences crying in conjunction with orgasm it is probably the limbic system cross-wiring thing going on; if they experience it not connected to sensation then there may be something else happening. There could be re-experiencing past trauma, they may not want to be having sex or are feeling pressured, they could be feeling insecure, or there may be some unspoken and unresolved relationship issues that the person is thinking about. You'd have to question the person to find out. \n\n\n**ELI5 version: **Okay little guy, I don't know why you want to know about this...but you know how we have these things in our head called a brain? The brain makes up our whooole word, including how we respond to.. ah ahem...sex. Sometimes stuff in the brain gets confused so when we get that really happy feeling other feelings happen too. People shouldn't feel bad about this..There may be other stuff happening too, so people in love should talk to each other to make sure everyone's on the same page....Now uh go play with your legos, mmmkay? ",
"I get tears often when I climax, but not because of emotional reasons. You ever take a bite of food that was so delicious, that you had a visceral reaction to it? Or a piece of music that brought a tear to your eye? When I climax, it feels *so good* that my eyes are watering. It's not crying, it's literally so good, it brings tears to my eyes.",
"My wife has cried during climax twice in the 8 years we've been together. Not out of sadness or joy, just overwhelming emotion she says. I've always wondered how common it was."
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1nbyhw | who owns the united states federal reserve? if it is the government, explain why we need to pay interest on the created money? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1nbyhw/eli5_who_owns_the_united_states_federal_reserve/ | {
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"The Federal Reserve doesn't really have an owner. The leadership is appointed by the government, but the government doesn't claim any ownership rights over the organization or its stuff. \n\nWhy do we do it this way? Well, the Federal Reserve sets what's known as monetary policy (roughly, the policies regarding how many dollars are around), and it's very important that monetary policy be *stable*. If politicians could just print off a bunch of money to pay for things, it would be hard to trust US currency, because you'd never know when it would be devalued by a new wave of printing. The Federal Reserve makes it clear when and why they will print money, so this doesn't happen, letting US dollars be one of the most commonly used currencies in the world.",
"We don't pay interest on the money.\n\nOr rather, we do--the Fed generally gets the money it's created into the economy by buying bonds, and we pay interest on the bonds that the Fed holds--but then the Fed gives (almost) all its profits back to the government. [Last year the Treasury got $75.4 billion of the Fed's $77 billion profit.](_URL_0_) Which is only fair.",
"The Fed owns itself. It is a private bank. It has its chairman appointed by the President, and is expected to answer to the economic policy of the government but is in no way obligated to do so."
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sodii | why fight to have student loans forgiven? | I don't understand why a lot of people want student loans forgiven. Did the government trick students into taking out loans?
It doesn't make sense to me that someone would sign something saying they would borrow money and pay it back and then get upset they have to pay it back to the point where they frame the investor as a bad person.
**edit:** Wow, I really thought there would be a clear cut answer, but it seems a lot of people have different opinions.
Findings:
- Everybody thinks that it really sucks that so many kids have so much debt and most agree that it isn't entirely the students' fault as a group that they are in such a mess (economy, social pressures, etcetera).
- Some people think if you take out a loan, you should have known the risks.
- Others respond that kids so young shouldn't be held accountable for a mistake they couldn't possibly comprehend at the time.
- The counterpoint to that is that ultimately, nobody forced anybody to go to college or to get a degree that has low job prospects.
- A response to that is that kids shouldn't have been fed the myth of a degree automatically putting you ahead in the job game.
- A big majority of people who owe student loans think their loans should be forgiven.
- People who don't owe student loans or have very little debt think loans shouldn't be forgiven or that there might be other solutions.
PraetorianXVII linked [this article from Cracked](_URL_2_) which some may find interesting.
**edit 2:** [bo1024 best characterizes my feelings about the whole thing.](_URL_1_)
**edit 3:** [monkeyballs2 makes a good point](_URL_0_) that forgiving loans might be a bad precedent to set and that it's insulting to people who wanted to go to school, but knew they wouldn't be able to pay off their loans.
**edit 4:** [There should be a line drawn between those who should have known what they were getting into and those who had a superb plan, but unforeseeable consequences squandered them.](_URL_3_) | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/sodii/eli5_why_fight_to_have_student_loans_forgiven/ | {
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"For what it's worth, I agree with you, but I'll try to explain the mentality behind it - today's 20-somethings were brought up their whole lives believing that college was the ticket to a bright future. You did decently in high school, went to a respectable college, and got a suitable white collar job that put you squarely in the middle class.\n\nForget for a moment that this mythos isn't and never has been entirely true - an English degree didn't directly lead to a job any more in 1985 than it did in 2005 - but this belief in the merits and inevitability of college has been pounded into everyone's heads over the last 20 years, leading to skyrocketing enrollment rates.\n\n...but also skyrocketing costs. Since the 1980's, college costs have risen 2-3x the pace of inflation, leaving the '00s graduates with a lot more debt burden than previous generations. At the same time, because of the recession, opportunities are much scarcer for college grads at any point in many decades. Yes, it's still more likely you'll be employed if you have a college education than if you don't, but it's also much more likely you'll be underemployed, running a register at Banana Republic instead of working in the field of your degree (that $10/hr doesn't help much when you have 6 figures worth of student loans.)\n\nSo in summary: recent grads have had the desirability of a college education driven into their heads since elementary school. They followed that advice and went to college, taking on more debt than ever before, only to graduate and find that the jobs weren't there. You mention that it's not like they were tricked, but a lot of them feel like they were. I definitely don't think loan forgiveness is the solution, but I can't blame them for being frustrated.",
"Let me try and explain it a different way. Remember when Mom and Dad bought a house that cost three times their allowance? Well Mom and Dad (as voters) complained and many plans were created to help them out of the mess they go into. They claimed that the banks lied to them, used deceptive practices, and therefore the people who took out bought houses they couldn't afford were not responsible.\n\nFlash forward to \"student loans.\" Many of the same banks use the same deceptive practices to sell loans to kids that they can't afford. These kids become adults and realize that when they were 17 (too young to vote, too young to buy a house, too young to even have a credit card) they were sold something which they could not afford. \n\nIf you sold a house to a 17 year old, would you be surprised if they regretted it when they were 27? If you were a bank selling houses to 17 year-olds would you take advantage of the situation in order to make more money for yourself?\n\nBut I think the real problem isn't that everyone wants their student loans forgiven. They would simply settle for a middle class job. 30 years ago, there wasn't this same notion of \"paying your dues\" in an unpaid internship. Unpaid internships of 2012 were once called-entry level jobs. These difficult barriers result in students taking on even more loans, and with an ever-increasing amount of kids looking for opportunities at any cost- they're taking the unpaid internships, leaving no incentive for companies to once again hire entry-level employees. \n\nSo you have a generation with huge amount of debt. Highly limited job prospects, no promise of pensions, very little health insurance- they see the deck as stacked against them. So this is why they're asking for student loan forgiveness. Unemployment (and underemployment) among people 30 and under is becoming epidemic.\n\nand I find it confusing that the same people that felt that that government owed them something for taking out their sub-prime mortgage are so confused why young people think that their loans are an unjust burden.\n\n//okay, started LI5, ended on a soap box. But there's an explanation that's a bit different than the other top level comment. ",
"It's a combination of a few factors:\n\n* A college education is viewed as compulsory by many people\n* A college education is very expensive, and loans are easy to obtain\n* Student loans are NOT forgiven in the event of bankruptcy\n* Most 18-year-olds are not sufficiently financially savvy to realize the consequences of massive amounts of debt (and overestimate the ease of paying them back)",
"Because it's the biggest drag on the housing market right now (huge amount of kids who graduated in the past 5-10 years are living with parents, and not buying homes, mostly because of their student loan debt). Some would argue that means it's the biggest drag on the economy",
"While the government did not trick students into taking out loans, when the government gave out loans so every student would have a chance, every school raised their tuition by the exact amount as the loans",
"The same government is providing relief to others like homeowners. Semi-same situation applies: investment in a home vs an investment in your future. Things didn't work out and now you are underwater with no realistic way out. Difference is: homeowners can get government assistance, and worst case, can jump ship and file bankruptcy and start fresh. You can't escape student loans.\n\nMind you, I think it should be impossible to get completely off the hook in either situation, but I do think relief of some kind should be available.",
"Because many folks believe (with corroborating studies) that it's harder to get a job good enough to pay off your loans now, because of the economy.",
"I feel like making the situation more reasonable for students is the right thing to do, but I would be kind of annoyed if there was a mass amnesty of all student debt. I worked hard in high school and college at shitty jobs while saving nearly every penny, went to a public school (it was the best school I got into, but if I had got into Stanford I probably still would have opted to go to my alma mater to save money), accepted crappy living situations and took handouts from my awesome parents and other wealthy family members + 10k in loans. I hustled my ass off to get a good job (that shit doesn't happen automatically with a political science degree) and now I've got everything paid off, and I fee accomplished. I know I started off with a lot of big advantages, but I had a lot of friends in school who were spending loan money on cars and Iphones and concerts and did poorly in school, turned down extra work shifts out of laziness... They shouldn't have to be broke for the rest of their 20's but its not fair to just erase their debt.",
"From what I understand there's a combination of things going on that make student loan forgiveness very attractive to freshly graduated, and previously graduated students. First, student loans cannot be dispersed through bankruptcy. That means that when you no longer have any money and are going deeper into debt, owing more and more, you can't get rid of it at all. There are very few things in America that have this kind of protection. \n\nNow let's put this into perspective. Teachers make relatively little money compared to say, engineers, but they fulfill a mandatory part of modern society, in that they educate our youth. The basic skills that they need are taught regularly by people that in many states have to have at least a bacholars or masters level degree to become certified. Then they have to substitute for several years before they can get into a full time position. They are choosing to become teachers. It's a choice, I get that. However, punishing them for fulfilling a necessary role in society doesn't seem appropriate to me. That's why the loan forgiveness programs are important. Without them, people that fulfill a necessarily societal role would not be able to survive under their loan debt. If they can only pay their loans, rent, and utilities, then rely on the community for food, then they're creating, arguably a net loss for the community. \n\nThere's also a mentality of sorts that comes to mind regarding this issue. The \"I got mine\" style of thinking. This can be characterized by looking at the people behind the counter at starbucks. A good friend of mine has passed the bar exam, but is still working as a barista because no one is hiring lawyers. No one can afford to sue. The economy has taken a nose dive and accordingly, the money people would spend on litigating is pretty much gone. Sure lawyer is a high power profession, but you have to work in it to be able to do anything. We could also look at doctors and see the same results. These are people that have several hundred thousand dollars in student loan debt. They're working to save lives, but are forced to carry malpractice insurance in the hundreds of thousands of dollars, pay their student loans, work shit hours, and continue their education. The American dream is viable for them, in maybe twenty years. Yet, as soon as they graduate they're fulfilling a societal necessity. They're helping keep this country running and people working. If even a fifth of their loans are forgiven that's a huge amount of money and potentially hundreds of thousands of dollars that would go back into the community rather than into the hands of a corporate giant somewhere.\n\nAnother part of this is that society right now is more service based than production based. Skilled labor jobs are disappearing. Though, there is some suggestion that manufacturing may be coming back to the US. Without some kind of higher education, technical school, what have you, most people will not be hired for anything more than a minimum wage job. Minimum wage is not enough money to sustain a household on. People that go on public assistance then cost the country a lot more than they would otherwise. This leads to another cycle. People that go on public assistance get propped up, then once they're almost ready to stand on their own the props are removed prematurely. That extra few hundred that would have gone to paying the housing costs is gone leaving the person behind on their rent again. Then once their credit tanks and they lose their job they're back on public assistance. This happens to people with degrees and to those without them. However, if you can remove a portion of the debt through forgiveness it alleviates a lot of the strains. This doesn't necessarily mean that people will be able to get off public assistance, but with a little more help it might be more viable. \n\nBasically, what I'm trying to point out is that these student loans, even when they're paid for and the person has a good job, are bad for the communities as a whole. Money that would have, otherwise, gone to businesses in the local area is being diverted to large corporations that then take the money and invest it in other big corporations. It limits the growth of the community.\n\ntl;dr: It costs more in the long run, both in growth in the community, and to the economy to not forgive the loans.",
"Let's think of it this way, I don't have loans from undergrad (I am grateful to the foresight of my family putting away money from my birth to put me in this position) *however* I do have loans for my masters which was necessary to put me on a career track, everyone talks about 100k for a degree in English which is ridiculous, if you are poor enough to need that much aid you will get grants if you are rich enough to not be able to get it you can probably afford it, plus schools that cost that much (USC, Harvard, etc) have huge endowments which allow them to give out their own private grants \n\nI personally owe about 45k for a masters in social work and am making about 53k a year\nCan I make my loan payments? Sure\nCan I pay my rent? Sure\nBut I'm 28 and the prospect of buying a house where I live is not even fathomable to me\nIf I didn't have to pay 500 dollars a month to the government it might be a slightly more realistic dream, but because I work in a particular field, for a county contracted agency, in a low income area of town, and work bilingually so I can apply each year to have 10k forgiven \nI know I signed up for the debt and am paying it dutifully back but they're also willing to look at certain careers (ie social work teaching and some others) and look at the need being fulfilled and help us out a bit",
"Bob the banker likes cookies. Bob likes cookies sooo much that he spent his entire allowance on cookie dough! But, Bob has a problem. You see, Bob doesn't know how to make cookies. Do you like cookies?\n\nBob is friends with Betty the Baker. Betty knows how to cook the best cookies in the whole school. But, Betty has a problem too! You see, Betty doesn't have an allowance to buy dough with which to make cookies. Do you have an allowance?\n\nBob and Betty work out a deal with each other. Bob will give Betty enough cookie dough so that she can make ten cookies! In return, he asks for one cookie a day for eleven days. Do you think Betty made a good deal?\n\nThe next day Betty comes to school with ten cookies. She gives Bob a cookie like she promised. She eats one for herself. Because everyone knows Betty is the best baker in school, her friends buy the remaining eight cookies from her. She makes enough money selling her eight cookies to buy dough for ten more cookies. Betty now has a successful business!\n\nNow Bob has one cookie a day, but he wants more. The only other person in school who knows how to bake is Scumbag Steve. Bob doesn't know Steve very well and hasn't tried Steve's cookies before. Betty tells Bob that Steve shouldn't be trusted. Bob is kinda scared, but he really likes cookies and Steve promises that everything will be alright. Bob trusts him and gives him enough dough to make ten cookies. Did Bob make a good deal?\n\nThe next day at school Betty gives Bob a cookie like yesterday but Steve says that he lost the dough and can't give Bob anything. Is Steve a bad person?\n\nBob is angry, and demands his cookie from Steve. Bob tells his Uncle Sam and his uncle also gets mad. Together they go to Steve's house. When Steve opens the door, Sam punches Steve, goes inside, and takes all of the food Steve has. Did Steve deserve to be attacked over a broken promise? ",
"No cuts, no fees, education must be free!\n\nIt's down to a difference in beliefs. Education is a human right, just like food, housing, and healthcare. Things like that should all be provided for on the basis of need.\n\nThe reason why we can't do that is because a small number of people are being very selfish. You know how you hate it when the big kids gang up and bully the little ones? That's what a small number of grown-ups do too. Everything is nicer when we work together and share, so when you grow up be nice and don't be selfish!",
"Studying music business know and this surprisingly adapts very well. A big concept we learn is \"But Where Do I Sign\", meaning, most artists skip reading the 30+ page contract that looks like gibberish to them. This applies to students. \n\nMost students know alot about what they are signing, yes they can read 12.5%, that's a number and yes they can read they are taking out $40,000...but they don't understand it. Or maybe they don't want to. Maybe it's that hmm well when I graduate I will be able to pay all that off easy since I'll be making way more money than that!\n\nBut uhoh! that small % they didn't realize was monthly...and now they are stuck paying interest on a balance that keeps rising! And what's this? Their position isn't starting at 60k/year or 80k/year....they are starting entry level which was a bitch to get hired to in the first place for anywhere from $10-20/hr. \nNo, noone tricked the students into anything. They just really abuse a situation, but who can blame them. How many graduates are still kids that don't take on the responsibility of paying these off? Someone got fucked. \n\nMaybe a highschool course on HOW TO DEAL WITH THE REAL FUCKING WORLD would be something greatly recommended. \n\nAnd so here is my parting advice:\n\n**TL;DR: Save money for a year or two, get financial aid and grants, and keep loans to a minimum. This will save you a LOT of money, and not fuck over everybody(yourself, the loaner, other people that will take on the burden of supporting you) just because you didn't want to do the maths and just signed for the money.**",
"Just a related PSA: \n\nThe Student Loan Forgiveness Act *is not forgiveness of loans as you think of it*. \n\nIf you get federal student loans, there are several plans to pay it back over time. One such plan involves working in the public sector, such as a teaching job, for a minimum number of years and making payments for 10 years, based on your income. After those 10 years, if you've met the requirements the entire time, the remainder of the loan is forgiven. \n\nWhat the law they are trying to pass does is increase the eligibility. You'd *still* have to make payments for 10 years, but more people who have to take a plan that is less per month will qualify. \n\nIn this sense, forgiveness is a bit of a misnomer. People will still have to pay a ton of money towards the loan, and it's 10 years of very little extra money. Some people argue that there's a big chance for fraud, but that'd be true whether the law passed or not. ",
"Because my $20k in student loans isn't shit compared to a $600,000 patriot missile. Either way I'm paying mine back and don't expect anything, but it would be nice if they re-prioritized our spending.",
"The economic side of things (which has nothing to do with whether or not loans are a good or bad idea) is that forgiving some student loans would immediately inject cash into the economy. Pay 20% of your take home pay towards student loans? If you didn't have to, you'd see 20 and 30 somethings buying more houses and starting families sooner. More house ownership equals more local government revenue. \n\nI'm not sure I'm in favor of a middle-class bailout (which is what this would amount to), but it's not just about the individual who took out loans. The benefit to the larger economy is what would actually make this happen.",
"I don't want my loans forgiven, I just want my interest rates to not exist and to not have a minimum payment be $345. At the end of me paying loans off I will have paid almost double what I took out to begin with.\n\nLike most people are saying here, as 17 year old kids I don't think we realized that with interest that 35k loan would almost double by the time we paid it off. After x amount of years of deferment, forbearances, phone calls, mailing in pay stubs, proof of employment and struggling to pay the \"minimum payment\" of $320 a month having that forgiven would be a burden of so many peoples backs. \n\n",
"I love how instead of trying to come up with solutions we just go \"well the problem shouldn't have happened and it's not my fault so, uh yeah\"\nas if the problem will somehow go away just because it isn't our fault. \n\n\n\"oh the teens were just irresponsible with taking out loans. Maybe they should have been more responsible. I was responsible. Why weren't they?\". Yeah, OK, we still have a lost generation of underemployeds with thousands of dollars in debt that's just going to get larger and have hurt the economy more if we don't do something about it. People who want student loans forgiven are at least offering a solution.",
"The real problem, I think, is the preposterously high interest rates. Right now I have loans that are upwards of 7% - and that is ridiculous. \n\nAlso, having an educated society is good for that society. Education breeds innovation which drives new economies. If we are the only country doing something (like going to space) then we have jobs that CANNOT be outsourced, because no one else can do it. Same thing for when the internet started. So, basically, we want to encourage people to be forward thinkers, and skyrocketing school costs and loan troubles are distinctives, and that's not good for us as a whole.\n\nI say the answer is providing super-low interest rate loans so that recent students can get out from under their debt and contribute to the economy more fully. ",
"Lots of good answers here. You seem to be asking whether student loans are the students' fault. Well, I just want to tell a quick story about incentives. Like a Vonnegut there are no villains in this story, just people.\n\n* **Companies.** Companies want to hire the best workers they can. If you have the choice between someone with a degree and someone without, you don't *know* who will be better. But if you have to pick, you might as well play it safe and pick the one with the degree.\n* **Government.** The government wants to have lots of college grads, because then it has an \"educated workforce\" and is \"competitive\" with other countries. But it's expensive to fund education, and politicians who overspend aren't popular nowadays. So states and feds offer loans even as they cut funding to schools drastically.\n* **Banks.** A college loan historically is a great investment. People generally (used to) graduate, get a job, and pay it back. Banks are (or were) very happy to give out these loans, and they're big loans that get milked out over many years after graduation.\n* **Colleges.** Their #1 priority is to be \"competitive\" and move up the rankings. This means expensive projects, high-profile sports and campus construction and programs; it means adding activities, building student centers, doing anything you can to differentiate yourself. But these things cost. And in a tight economy, state and federal governments aren't funding schools as much as they used to. The result is that you have to keep raising and raising your tuition. And you'll be fine, because there's still lots and lots of kids who need to go to college. So as prices go up, demand doesn't drop. So you have to keep raising those prices.\n* **Parents.** You want to see your kid be successful and get a well-paying, not too strenuous, prestigious white-collar job. That means college, no questions asked. You raise them to go to college as a given.\n* **Kids.** It's simple: do you want a job or not? It doesn't matter how much college costs are increasing or how ridiculous the loans are. There are only so many jobs out there, and for most people, you're still better off with the huge loans and the degree than without either. So what are you going to do? You don't have much of a choice. You'll pay the ridiculous costs and take the loans, cause it's still better than the alternative.\n\nI don't see anyone to particularly \"blame\" in this situation, but I do see the end result: a generation in huge debt and low on jobs. That won't be good for anyone in the next 20ish years. People seem to want to talk about who \"deserves\" what and what's \"fair\". I don't see any villains here, just a bunch of people trying to make the best of a bad situation and an end result where everyone loses, no matter who you blame.\n\nBut the question is, what do we do about this situation?\n\nAnswer: I don't know.",
"I'm sure this has been touched on, but for me personally I feel like government has pushed to cut funding on education which forces schools to charge more. Then you have the government more than willing to give as much in student loans as possible which in turn leads schools to raise tuition because they know the students will just take out more loans. Then even if you do manage to get out with lower student loans than most you're still not graduating and moving into a stable job market. Also it just blows my mind that someone could work part time and a minimum wage job, and graduate debt free only about 30-40 years ago.",
"Let's look at this from a macro point of view.\n\nCollege graduates are getting more and more underemployed. Tuition costs are rising. This is a dangerous combination.\n\nDo we want the future kids of our society to start choosing not to go to college? That's bad for the future, that's bad for our economy.\n\nThe fact that we're profiting of off the youth's NEED for education is a terrible thing. No, I don't believe all student loans should be forgiven. However, I do believe that student loan interest should be subsidized by government funding. \n\nIf I borrow $50K to get an education to be a more effective contributor to society, then I should be responsible for paying every cent of it back. However, telling me I need to pay $30K on top of that in interest with a 50% chance that my degree won't land me a job - that's a risk that many kids/families won't be willing to make. We don't want our future kids choosing to be under-educated.",
"I don't know if this idea has been put forward by any of the other comments but there is another aspect to this issue that I think may be worth discussing.\n\nWhile many young adults do go to college to get a degree in order to try and secure a job in the future, there are also those who go to college basically for the experience. These are students who undertake studies in communications, anthropology, history or english simply because it's the easiest way for them to BS their way through college.\n\nThese students rack up thousands of dollars to earn a degree in a field that really has nothing to offer them and end up being cycled into lower-income jobs. They may be college educated, but in severe debt for a degree they probably could have done without and for those, I have little sympathy.",
"Well when youre 2 years from graduating with a degree and tuition is increasing 20% each year you aren't exactly going to quit. ",
"forgiving student loans gives an unfair advantage to people who didnt pay for school, people who didn't sacrifice to pay off their own loan. lots of smart kids didn't go to school because they couldnt afford it, making it free after the fact severely fucks those people over. there are a lot more job opportunities for people with degrees, just cause the economy is shit now doesn't mean it always will be, those degrees will be plenty lucrative when the economy bounces back. There are countries where college is free for the qualified the determined and the willing. Italy has a merit based university system i admire, perhaps we should implement that. But to retroactively forgive debt is a big fuckyou to the responsible hardworking people who payed off what they borrowed. It sets a bad precedence and encourages fiscal ridiculousness. Roll back the tuitions to where they were 20 years ago if you want to help students.",
"LOL reddit thinks college kids are too immature to handle their finances but thinks the drinking age is absurdly high.\n\nNews flash people: you are an adult and you must deal with the consequences of your actions!",
"Because people always, always, always want something for free.",
"Thanks a lot for the cliffs OP, appreciated.",
"Many people are saying that the individuals taking out the loans knew the risks and should therefore be responsible everything they borrowed. This is very true. However, it should be noted that many individuals signed onto something with different expectations. I am a great example of this. I attend a professional/graduate school in Pennsylvania. During my application process we were told numerous times that the PA government provides credits to students that attend professional schools within their home state. $8000/year to be exact. Many state governments offer these to students who attend professional school in their home state. If a state doesn't have that professional school they often give hefty amounts of money for students to travel to other states as long as they come back to their home state and practice for a given period of time. Anyway, that's $32,000 over 4 years, which my degree is. Right after being accepted, we find out that legislation has changed and professional school students will only be receiving $800 dollars for the first year and $0 for every year after that. Meanwhile, students from North Carolina attending the same school are given $12,500/year as long as they go back to NC to practice for I believe 5 years post graduation. \n\nI went into school expecting $32,000 with interest less debt because I attended a school in my home state. Now I pay more than many students coming from out of the state. \n\nI'm fully aware that I'd be paying off loans until I'm in my 50's, but just not the amount it has become. And with tuition rising every year since I have started, the amount of money seems almost insurmountable. I'll take any form of government forgiveness that comes if it means not having to write a check every month for schooling I completed 30+ years ago.",
"I had to pay all mine back and it substantially limited the other things i could have done with that money for a long time. I think its absurd that people think they can wiggle out of it and make everybody else eat their irresponsibility and inconvenience. Everybody knows what borrowing means. Gotta pay it back. Don't play the dumb weakling who can't do hard things. ",
"While I'm all for forgiveness, I really believe they should make Student Loans like other debts, so if you do declare bankruptcy because of the job market and your six figure students debt, the loans go away the same way they forgave billions in dept from the housing crisis."
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"http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/sodii/eli5_why_fight_to_have_student_loans_forgiven/c4ftf6e",
"http://www.cracked.com/blog/5-ways-we-ruined-occupy-wall-street-generation/",
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1u3rv9 | why does it feel good to sleep in the fetal position decade after being in the womb? | Why do some people continue to sleep in the fetal position decades after potentially developing new sleep habits? Speaking on a personal note, I love to sleep on my side with my arms crossed in an X with my legs curled up (preferably pressed against my SO) with my feet crossed as well. I understand that our vital organs are more protected in this position, but why (or how) does this potentially effect our comfort levels during sleep?
EDIT: Please ignore the typo in the header. Should be decades, not decade. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1u3rv9/eli5why_does_it_feel_good_to_sleep_in_the_fetal/ | {
"a_id": [
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"It's a psychological thing; regression. The fetal position inside your mothers womb is a safe, warm time in your life so subconsciously you go back (regress) to that time of safety and so on.\n\nSource: 1 intro class of Psych last semester."
]
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6fvmcj | feeling weak while having a cold. what causes that? | Hello!
We all have had a cold. Sympthoms vary: sore throat, runny nose, raised temperature... and above all that "general weakness" affecting whole body. I have that right now without any other sympthoms (had them before though :D), and it got me thinking: what is my body doing now, when all other sympthoms are gone? Why, altough I skipped all exercising for few days, I feel soo tired, yet not sleepy? And why does it get worse in the evening?
Cheers and thanks in advance! | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/6fvmcj/eli5_feeling_weak_while_having_a_cold_what_causes/ | {
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"Your body is spending so much energy on fighting the cold that it doesn't spare energy for much else. A proper immune response requires a bit of energy, and fighting infection becomes job 1 (aside from breathing, heart function, etc.). Your immune system is activating chemical and cellular systems that are normally dormant.\n\nAdditionally, a raised temperature means that some regular enzymes may not work as well. Enzymes are picky about temperature. Changing from your body's normal temperature (usually 36.5–37.5 °C or 97.7–99.5 °F) can cause some enzymes to become less active, erratic, or even dysfunctional-- leading to a general feeling of lethargy."
]
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628jaa | what causes photos of screens to look so bad? | Title, and also the way that the patterns can change when you zoom in and out of a photo | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/628jaa/eli5_what_causes_photos_of_screens_to_look_so_bad/ | {
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"It's called the moire effect.\n\nCameras have pixels, and those pixels are arranged in symmetric rectangular grids. Displays have pixels, also arranged in symmetric grids. When those grids perfectly align, the image is fine. However, if the grid is off a little then camera pixel A sees display pixel A and a little bit of pixel B. Then camera pixel B sees display pixel B and a little more of pixel C. This small disturbance produces waves of uneven intensity in the image. Since the automatic gain control in the camera looks at the whole image, it can't eliminate the intensity waves. The result is dark bands across the camera image.",
"Photos of screens look bad because computer screens use pixels to display images. This makes them essentially an array of colored dots in a regular pattern, a grid. Digital cameras also have sensors in a grid. When you take a picture of the screen with a digital camera, it produces a [moiré pattern](_URL_0_) where the grids perfectly line up in some areas and not at all in other areas. Distance and angle of the photo affects this so that's why the pattern changes when you zoom in and out."
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4686ex | how does the conservation of mass and energy, and the expansion of the universe correlate/allow for the other? | If matter and energy can not be destroyed or created, only changed, how do we explain the expansion of the universe? I understand things are getting more spread out, but something has to be occupying all that extra space, doesn't it? As far as I knew there's no such thing as nothing. All of space consists of something quantifiable doesn't it? Also, do these conservation laws also exist for the other elements of the universe like dark matter or anti-matter?
Edit: Apparently we need Stephen Hawking himself to answer this question as there doesn't seem to be a cohesive agreement on what solution makes sense. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4686ex/eli5_how_does_the_conservation_of_mass_and_energy/ | {
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"You can have nothing. That's what a vacuum is, the absence of something. While space is not a perfect vacuum, it's pretty close. So as space expands, you get a bigger vacuum."
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dyyww0 | cocaine | So I read the post "[ELI5 LSD](_URL_0_)" and I was curious so I searched for some other drugs on the subreddit. While searching for cocaine I didn't really find a good explanation like I did for the LSD thread.
So I am wondering... What is cocaine and what does it do to your brain when you take it, and also what harm can it do to your body after extended use? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/dyyww0/eli5_cocaine/ | {
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"Cocaine basically causes loads of a chemical called dopamine to be produced and this chemical is normal produced in small amounts that then produces a signal that is turned into an action the amount of dopamine affects how big the signal is. This over production of dopamine means BIG signals are constantly being made and the nervous system goes into over drive and you feel high.",
"Fun fact: Cocaine is actually a local anesthetic medically. It is used a lot in facial surgeries to stop or help slow bleeding down in the nose and throat. Pretty effective stuff considering it provides numbness and pretty strong vasoconstriction (blood vessels tighten down reducing flow). The problem is that it ramps everything up and is like snorting adrenaline. It isn't quite that powerful, but same idea mostly. This is a stress response in your body and isn't good to expose yourself to that kind of workload regularly. It also stimulates the part of your brain that is activated when you make money."
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2nsj3u | why is it that mac operating systems rarely need to be updated yet windows seemingly needs to be updated every few days? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2nsj3u/eli5_why_is_it_that_mac_operating_systems_rarely/ | {
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"OS X does need to be updated~~graded~~ fairly often. The thing is, Apple makes it a fairly seamless process. Rarely does an update require a restart, for instance, while Windows updates tend to be very intrusive. If you select autoupdate for both systems, you rarely notice an OS X update, while Windows will kick you in the face and force you to submission every time it wants to apply an update.\n\nThat, and the fact that, for many different reasons, OS X tends to be a more stable environment than Windows.\n\n"
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5fr7ox | what causes naturally "good" or "bad" memory retention in a person and why is there a difference? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5fr7ox/eli5_what_causes_naturally_good_or_bad_memory/ | {
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"Since you're talking about memory retention, I'm going to skip over short-term memory, which naturally decays.\n\nTo start, the idea of having a *perfect* memory is a bit of a lie. It's totally normal to not remember every little detail. Memory itself is also a bit of a lie: your brain fills in the gaps if it needs to, distorts facts or details along the way, and flat-out jettisons some information. The experience of memory is quite subjective. Someone who believes that they remember things easily, whether that's true or not (since memory is also a bit of a lie), will claim to have a great memory. Someone who is caught up in the normal blank spaces might think that they have a terrible memory, even when there are probably in the normal range. It's normal to remember some things very well, and other things not so well. In reality, most people are more or less on the same playing field.\n\nA lot of memory retention simply comes down to observations and engagement. If you aren't actively engaged in observing things around you, you aren't going to retain those things. If you're sitting in the car, staring at your phone, you aren't going to remember the scenery passing by because you aren't really even looking at it. If you look out the window and really focus on what you see, you'll remember much more of the trip. This is partially why most people remember things more easily when they write information by hand: you are engaged with the information more deeply, so it's easier to recall. There are a million little memory tricks and \"hacks\" out there, and most revolve around making information more meaningful (mnemonics, repetition, connecting details, etc.). \n\nIt's normal to forget where you put your keys (once in a while). It's not normal to forget what keys do. Problems with memory retention and recall can happen when connections in the brain start to break down, when neurotransmitters aren't quite right, when a physical traumatic injury damages the brain, etc. Here are some examples:\n\n- Mental illnesses like depression and anxiety disorders, and psychotic disorders.\n- Drug and alcohol use.\n- Poor sleep.\n- Little or no physical activity.\n- Some vitamin deficiencies.\n- Brain injuries. \n- Some medications, especially things like benzodiazapines.\n- Neurodegenerative diseases like Alzheimer's disease.\n- Other physical illnesses.\n- Aging.\n"
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1luxq8 | how do they decide, during sports broadcasts that vary in length, which ads to play? | I was thinking of this last night during the Broncos/Ravens NFL game. The game started 1/2 late, yet they had plenty of ads to play.
Do the companies buying ads have the option to be played only if there is extra time? Are there companies that pay for particular spots of the game, like right before kick-off? Are there companies that pay for ads only to be played if they have time, and don't pay otherwise?
I looked in the ELI5 history, and didn't see any questions like this. My apologies if it is a repost. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1luxq8/eli5how_do_they_decide_during_sports_broadcasts/ | {
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"They buy ads based on when they show in the game, not for a specific time. So I may set up a deal with them for an ad at the end of the first and third quarters, plus a commercial for halftime. \n\n",
"First of all as stated by the other person ad placement is all based on point in time based on the game, not a specific slot of time during the time allotted for the game. Second if an ad is not aired the contract for that airing is nullified and no money is paid to the channel or broadcast contracts, this is because you cannot predict when ads can be aired or exactly how many ads will be aired during that 3 hour window given to the game broadcast."
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3jyrmd | what mass an object should have so objects start orbiting it? | Or the correct question would be: what mass should an object have to create a gravity?
UPD: I have additional stupid questions from me:
1. In theory, if to an object add some speed in the space, will it move the same speed for ever (if its not affected by gravity from any other planet).
2. Does the speed of radio wave differs in the space and on earth?
3. How does engine work in the space, there's nothing to draft off? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3jyrmd/eli5what_mass_an_object_should_have_so_objects/ | {
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"Any object that has mass has a gravitational field. You have a gravitational field. A feather has a gravitational field. Those fields are, however, extremely weak.\n\nYou could in theory, have an object orbiting around you, but in order to do this you'd have to be very far from any larger gravitational fields (such as that of Earth) that would disrupt it. The radius within which an object can orbit a body that is itself orbiting a larger body is called the [Hill sphere](_URL_0_). It depends on both the mass of the two bodies and the distance between them. For example, Earth has a Hill radius of about 1.5 million km. Objects within that radius can form a stable orbit around the Earth. Outside that radius, the orbit would quickly destabilize and the object would end up orbiting the Sun instead.\n\nIf the Hill sphere is smaller than the size of the object (as is the case for most spacecraft in Earth orbit), then that object cannot have a satellite - the gravitational field is dominated by the mass of the heavier body.\n\nThe other constraint is the shape of the object - a spherical bodies of constant density have a gravitational field that turns out to be equivalent to a point mass. All orbits around such a body are stable. If the object is irregularly shaped, or it's mass is not distributed evenly, then orbits may not be stable, and the satellite may end up crashing into the body.",
"To answer your other questions:\n\n1. Yes, it will move forever, because there is no resistance from air or something.\n\n2. Yes, the speed of radio waves is slightly different. Radio waves are just a form of light, so radio waves move with the speed of light. As with any wave, the speed of that wave depends on the stuff it moves thru. So light thru air moves slower then light thru vacuum (= space).\n\n3. A normal internal combustion engine (as in a car) doesn't work in space because it needs the oxygen in the air. And since there is no air in space the engine doesn't work. But, if you could supply it with oxygen, from a tank or something, it will work. \n\nEdit: spelling is difficult"
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54vs81 | why are all cells considered to be living structures? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/54vs81/eli5_why_are_all_cells_considered_to_be_living/ | {
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"The cells have all the traits we associate with living things. They eat food, they procreate etc. The cells in the human body isn't all that different from the cells of single cell organisms."
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1ubluu | what happens to people in colorado who were already convicted of marijuana - related offenses? | What happens to people who were convicted of something that is no longer illegal?
EDIT: thanks for the quick replies! | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1ubluu/eli5_what_happens_to_people_in_colorado_who_were/ | {
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"You serve the remainder of your sentence. The change in law does not make something retroactively legal.",
"Nothing. \n\nThey were convicted of a crime. That fact that it is legal now doesn't mean it was any more legal then. ",
"You can't change a law and have it apply retroactively in the US. The convictions still stand as the actions constituted a crime at the time.",
"regret is what happens",
"Well technically it's still illegal to buy marijuana from certain shady individuals so their convictions are valid regardless. ",
"Related to this question though is the recent grant of clemency to crack cocaine sentences by the president. Could these people seek to be pardoned/granted clemency?",
"For all you ex post facto people who say they committed the crime so they still have to do time:\n\n\"Ex Post Facto clauses \"forbid the application of any new punitive measure to a crime already consumated, to the detriment or material disadvantage of the wrongdoer.\" (Lindsey v. Washington (1937), Calder v. Bull (1798)) There is, however, no constitutional limitation on retroactive application of criminal legislation which mollifies criminal sanctions.\"\n\n_URL_0_\n\nThe Colorado Legislature decided not to include retroactive ameliorative relief in the new law. That's the only reason it's not retroactive.\n",
"If you know something isn't allowed and you still do it, there are consequences for that. Now that marijuana is legal, it doesn't mean those people didn't commit crimes",
"Several counties here (I'm in Colorado) dropped all the cases on the books when the vote passed (even before it was law), some of the more... conservative counties did not. So it was a mixed bag.\n",
"Well since marijuana is only legal through certain vendors who are licensed, one would think that people selling it illegally would still be punished.",
"Nothing. They broke the law. ",
"They are in prison for violating the law, not for posession of marijuana. They *still* violated the law, so they still have to serve out their sentence."
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9e1vxu | this siphon water experiment | Hey can someone break down this experiment? _URL_0_
I understand that this is a siphon, but whats the point of using the water bottle that is filled with a bit of water? Also what forces are causing the water to be able to move from the higher cup to the lower cup and not stay inside the bottle? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/9e1vxu/eli5_this_siphon_water_experiment/ | {
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"The force causing the movement of the water is pressure and gravity. \n\nwhen you suck on a straw, you are creating a low pressure area in your mouth, this causes whatever you are trying to drink to flow through that straw, because the air pressure on the surface of the liquid is pushing down on it, and you sucking on your straw is giving it a place to go.\n\nOK, about the video:\n\nThe water in the bottle is there to start the process. It's high up, and gravity causes it to start flowing into the lower cup. As it does this, it is making more room in the bottle than it had to start. It is effectively sucking water out of the bottle. It's creating low pressure, a vacuum. This \"sucking force\" then continues to \"suck\" the water from the higher cup. This happens because of the air pressure pushing on the higher cup's water is high enough vs the low pressure in the bottle to push the higher cups water up a bit, so you get that fountain effect. Then, the water in the bottle just continues to go down the blue straw, which continuous to \"suck\" the bottle and thus the higher cups water.\n\nIf there was no water in the bottle to start with, then you really just have a straw in a cup. A weird straw with a bottle on it, but just a straw. There's no difference in pressure, so the higher cups water has no where to go.\n\nActually you CAN start with no water in the bottle, but then you have to suck on the blue straw to start the process. Get the water to hit the blue straw, then the process will become self sustaining until the water is all, or mostly all, in the lower cup.\n\nEDIT: if you got 20 min to kill, here's [cody's lab building and testing a mercury vacuum pump like in the olden days](_URL_0_). It's uses some of the same principles.\n",
"So you understand that it's a siphon. You could siphon between the two glasses if there was just a single tube.\n\nThe bottle doesn't actually change anything - it could just as easily be a rubber hose connecting the two straws. When the water drops out of the bottle, it creates a vacuum, sucking water into the bottle from the upper glass. The only reason you start with water in the bottle is because you need to have the siphon primed (full of water) in order to get it going."
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2h2tim | what is the definition of life? | Like how is it different from that thing it was right before it mutated into life? And do we know how this happened already? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2h2tim/eli5what_is_the_definition_of_life/ | {
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"All known life has a few things in common, organisms (things that are alive) have these in common: they're composed of a cell or cells, undergo metabolism, maintain homeostasis, grow, respond to stimuli, and reproduce. There are a few things that seem to do a few but not all of these processes, like viruses, which is why they're classified as nonlife or as some kind of intermediate gray area between life and nonlife.\n\nWe don't necessarily \"know\" nonlife mutated into life sometime in the past, but we view it as the most likely scenario because we do know that the Earth once had no life, and now, today, it does have life, and also because we know the processes it would have to undergo are theoretically possible. "
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pe9h9 | category theory. | A friend of mine is teaching himself category theory and tried to explain it to me, but he's much further ahead of me. Is it possible to understand it without much formal education in higher maths (I have some background in Multivar Calculus, basic linear algebra, basic real analysis, basic set theory)? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/pe9h9/eli5_category_theory/ | {
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"First, let's start with a couple of examples of what math subjects are like.\n\nIn Real Analysis, we start with some set of Real numbers and first we learn some stuff about them. After we know some of their properties, we then look at functions from real numbers to other real numbers, and we begin to ask questions about these functions. For example, are these functions continuous? Differentiable? Do two functions, *f* and *g*, behave nicely under operations like pointwise addition (*f*+*g*), pointwise multiplication(*fg*) and composition (*f*(*g*(x))). Basically, the study of functions on real numbers.\n\nIn Calculus, we begin with a bunch of (usually continuous, but they need not be) functions and learn a bit about them. Then we look at these two operators d/dx and ∫*f*dx that send differentiable functions to continuous functions and vice versa. (Someone could probably point out some technicalities in that Riemann integrals can operate on piecewise continuous functions and Lebesgue integrals can even work on functions with up to a countably infinite number of discontinuities, but they would be a nerd for pointing out such petty details) Then we begin to ask questions about whether multiple derivatives make sense, whether these processes are invertible, and how the set of functions changes on each apllication(ie the set of continuous functions is larger than the set of differentiable functions, which is smaller than the set of twice differentiable functions) and so on. Basically, the study of derivatives and integrals on functions.\n\nIn linear algebra, we begin by looking at some things called vectors that live in a vector field. After learning some of the ways they interact with each other through addition and scalar multiplication, we then ask questions about linear operators that relate some vectors to other vectors so that these structures are preserved. For example, are these operators bounded? Compact? How do they behave under composition? Basically, the study of linear operators on vectors\n\nNow, if we ignore the jargon terms then all the above paragraphs are essentially the same. \n\nCategory theory then is basically doing this same process abstractly on potentially unknown objects. That is, it is the study of morphisms(a fancy word for functions) acting on objects(which live in some category, hence the name). The goal, in some sense, is to work out the least number of properties we need to know about the category to know something about the morphisms. \n\nIn turn, we might then be able to sum up many branches of math at once, and say that since both the real numbers and vectors have property A, the morphisms on these categories, functions and linear operators must have property B, and this might save us work if a new branch of math was to open up. More mathematically, it also helps highlight the similarities and differences between various branches of math, and show us deep symmetries that we didn't notice before."
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2lr27z | what is/are the difference/s between the arabic, turkish and persian people? | I know it's similar to how Japanese aren't Korean and Serbians aren't Croation,I tried finding more info but every piece of info is biased. Can someone elaborate more on this info, social, cultural, geneology etc perhaps including famous empires of each race/culture and famous contributions/people | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2lr27z/eli5_what_isare_the_differences_between_the/ | {
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"All of them have a different language.\n\nArabic and Persians are very much oriental people, Turks are more \"western\".\n\nArabic and Persians ancestors always seems to be in the place they live now.Turkish people ancestors are from Middle Asia.\n\nYou can find more \"sub-races\" or basically races in Turkey(so much different appeareances, like some brunette people like Arabic or some Turks like from Scandinav)\n\nAbout social in Saudi Arabia and Iran have some rules because of Islamic goverment. Womens Sexual things etc. (the mysterious ninja womens!) In Turkey this is not a rule thanks to being a secular country(this is looking to be end in few years)\n\nAbout Empires, Ottoman Empire was \"Turkish-based\"(thats not a thing after 400+ years because of the mom of the kings. they was from other races)And the Empire was ruled these people for more than +500 years.\n\n\n\nPS:I tried to explain something with a bad english pls dont mind some mistakes :)\n\nEdit:I'm from Turkey.\n",
"Turks came from the Central Asian steppe as nomadic horsemen in late 1st/early 2nd millennium, taking over what had been the Byzantine, or Eastern Roman, Empire completely by the 15th century. The first Turks were Seljuk Turks; later came the Ottomans who created an empire that ruled much of the Middle East until WW1. They spread into South-Eastern Europe also. The Ottomans and Seljuks were Muslim; earlier Turks had been pagan or Christian even. They have their own Turkish language. Turkic peoples still live in Central Asia, notably in Turkmenistan. Azeris are also Turkic culturally, speaking a Turkic language, albeit including an admixture of Persian and Caucasian elements in their ethnic make-up.\n\nThe Arabs came from Arabia, where they existed as tribes that were not unified to spread their influence until the arrival of Islam with Muhammad in the 8th century. Arab armies then spread as far as Central Asia, conquering and converting all in their path very rapidly. This empire was later fragmented and lost; however they remained a largely Muslim people. Prior to Islam they were pagans, Christians or Jews. Like Jews they are a Semitic race and consider themselves children of Abraham. The Romans had extensive dealings with them as did the Persians and everybody since. They currently occupy Arabia and large swathes of Asia Minor outside Iran and Turkey as well as North Africa. They have their own Arabic language.\n\nThe Persians's recorded history goes back much further than either the Turks or the Arabs. They are an Indo-Aryan race that originates in what is now Iran and their culture dates back to early-Classical times, when they are famous for fighting with the Greeks. At times the dominant group, and hence the name of their empire, has been the Persians, Medes or Parthians, although all groups are now merged into the Iranian people. Other Persian empires have been named after the ruling family, as per the Ottoman/Seljuk Turkish Empires, including the Sassanid and Achaemenid Empires (which were many centuries apart.) the Persians were mainly Zoroastrian until they converted to Islam. As Muslims they are mainly Shia. They too have their own Persian language. The Kurds are a Persian people, although culturally distinct from modern Persian Iranians.\n\nThere are many cultural similarities between all three cultures due to the shifting boundaries of their Empires over thousands of years and shared Muslim faith.\n\nI could go on and on, but hopefully this gives you some insight and a fairly simple précis to aid further research of your own. It's a fascinating region and set of cultures!\n\nEdit: added that Seljuk Turks were also Muslim for clarity... Turkish people were originally pagan pre-Muslim era and some Turks living in Anatolia under Byzantine rule were Christian; however, both the Seljuks and Ottomans were definitely Muslims (although this did not prevent the Seljuks from enjoying very good relations and close alliances with the Christian Byzantines at various points, in between the times they fought...) \n\nAlso added a little information about other Turkic peoples, although having done so I notice that /u/HannasAnarion has done so in greater detail below rendering my edit somewhat superfluous :)"
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1iyf4t | why are black holes not infinitely bright? | If a black hole has already consumed all nearby matter and is not changing in size, wouldn't there be an angle at which incoming photons would get permanently caught in orbit? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1iyf4t/eli5_why_are_black_holes_not_infinitely_bright/ | {
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"If the photon is permanently caught, it cannot make it to your eye.",
"I'll try to clarify what I think is the main point of confusion:\n\nPhotons are not bright in the sense that you can see one flying past you. The **only** way to see a photon is for it to collide with your retina, thus adding energy to specific molecules in your cone or rod cells, causing them to change shape and trigger an electrical impulse to your brain. Objects that look bright do so because they emit lots of photons that enter your eyes and hit your retina.\n\nThis plays into another common ELI5 question of \"could you see a laser in space\". The answer to that is no, not unless the laser hits something and some of the photons bounce off that something and into your eyes.\n\nLikewise, you could not see photons in orbit around a black hole unless they left that orbit and hit your eyes."
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2vshz3 | how is my brain able to go into this zoned-out "auto-pilot" state while i'm driving, yet i get to my destination safety with no real recollection of the trip? | I'm obviously not veering all over the place or putting anyone else in danger. It's like my brain goes into it's own cruise control. What is actually going on when this happens? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2vshz3/eli5_how_is_my_brain_able_to_go_into_this/ | {
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"It's not something you need to focus on any more than you need to focus on walking. Your brain is good at internalizing things and deciding not to remember unimportant things, so you can usually split your focus while walking biking or driving because you've had so much experience doing it that you don't need a conscious effort to keep balance when walking or follow cues from signs while driving or whatever.",
"Mostly habit and behavioral memory. You've spent a lot of time driving, so your brain knows what to expect from the experience. When what you experience matches those expectations (normal driving conditions, for instance), your brain accesses that experience and carries out whatever task you've associated with it. \n\nSo, your brain sees that you're on the road and knows you need to stay between the lines, travel at a certain speed, etc. Combine this with the muscle memory used for the physical act of driving (how you know how to keep the gas at a certain level to maintain speed without actually checking the dash), and it results in the \"autopilot\" state. \n\nWhen something *doesn't* match those expectations, like the car in front of you stopping abruptly, you'll often \"snap\" back, and your brain will need to problem-solve in real time rather than drawing on habitual behavior. \n\nI'm not a psychologist, so others please correct me if necessary. Some good discussion on this subject (if a lot more technical), [here](_URL_0_)",
"Psychologist here. This happens for essentially the same reason that you Can \"zone out\" while you're walking around, not stumbling or colliding with things. These tasks are called \"steriotypic repetitious movements\" and they are actually controlled by a different part of the brain after you've fully learned the skill! When you start to learn any skill, like riding a bike, your cortex is the part of the brain doing the work of figuring out how to coordinate your muscles appropriately. Its complicated at first, and it involves your full attention, just like when you learned to walk. However, over time your cortex figures out exactly which muscles need to coordinate in exactly the right way, and it basically \"saves\" that motion in memory. When you go to do that action again after its already been learned (or saved) a cool thing happens, the cortex isn't nearly as involved anymore, now it's more subcortical (aka below the cortex, so deeper in the brain) regions that control the movement. The result? Now you perform an action while your cortex is free to think (or not think and \"zone out\") and forget you're actually doing anything complicated at all. \n\nEDIT. Thanks for the Gold :) ",
"Look up reticular activating system. once the trip is known to you, your brain processes it without shoving every detail in front of your conscious mind, instead you only get signals for the 'dangerous' stuff. You RAS processes the minute-by-minute stuff and just dumps the not-interesting stuff instead of giving you a signal on it. (this is the same reason you don't hear all conversations in a crowded room, but DO hear when your name is said... you're RAS always alerts you when it thinks it's heard your name.)\n\nIf the conditions are unsafe of you've been startled, your RAS will suddenly become more paranoid and post signals all the way along because you're conscious mind has decided to pay attention because something is dangerous out there.\n\nOn the other hand, when you start out with a positive thought for the day and intention to have a better day, you program your RAS to look for links and associations and that's why positive mantras work to make your life better.\n\n",
"I think it's mostly that the brain discards uneventful memories. You have in all likelihood been driving safely and attentively but your brain doesn't see the need to retain the detail of yet another uneventful commute.",
"Your brain works in a hierarchical way, where visual stimulus is processed by the lower level, patterns are formed, and compared against expectations. For instance, if you see nothing but the dotted line and trees moving, those are all predictable stimuli that can be handled by the lower levels. But if something a bit unexpected happens (like a lane merge or a turn), it forms its own patterns and gets processed by a bit of a higher level. If you've seen a million lane merges, then you can still process this without it running too high up the hierarchy. \n\nIf you saw something completely unexpected at all levels, like a car coming toward you on the highway, it wouldn't be expected at any level, so no level would be able to handle it, and you would have to get consciously involved - this is when you're snapped to attention.\n\nThink of your brain like a big company, and your consciousness is the CEO. When everything's running smoothly, the cashiers and stockers can handle everything without any issue. If an issue arises, a manager or branch manager might have to get involved. But when something happens that no level of authority can handle, it gets escalated and escalated until the CEO has to get involved. \n\n",
"Consciousness it's a trick of memory. You are skilled enough in it that you don't require memory processing anymore, so you are effectively unconscious during the trip. We do not need consciousness for most activities we do.. It's just a trick our mind plays on us.",
"Your subconscious does 99% of everything for you once you've learned how to do it.",
"Ok, going to post something scary but it seemed this was the most appropriate place for it.\n\nI drive a lot. I'm not a truck driver, OTR or anything like that, but I travel for my work. Different states, different countries. I have driven on both the left and right sides of the road (where appropriate) equally well.\n\nI do the 'black-out' thing quite frequently. Long trips, or slowly sorting through traffic, etc. I drive well, I drive safely, I anticipate other drivers and have avoided numerous potential accidents due to other drivers. I have led coworkers and other drivers who can attest to my safe driving.\n\nHowever, I frequently do not remember my trips...at all. I frequently find myself at the end of a long drive, tucked into a parking space, or somewhere safe, as if I intentionally parked there. But yet I have no recollection of any of it. I may have driven past my exit, my street, or my house...or sometimes taken an earlier exit and 'camped out' somewhere. Only to wake a few hours later wondering what happened.\n\nThis seems a little more than just \"highway hypnosis\" and not just blind luck. So is there a deeper level to this RAS or what?",
"I deliver pizza but I don't go into zone out stage when working probably because it's always a different road. When driving to school and work I'm always zoning out but driving fine was actually going to post an ELI5 like this other day. So thanks OP aha",
"The autopilot feeling does not come from \"not being aware\" that you are driving. In fact you are perfectly capable driver. The difference is that your brain will not register the trip in the memory. You still see all the things that happen and can react to them - it's just that it's the same stuff again and again. Your brain does not need to encode it. ",
"I often do this, but I assume that if there was something out of the ordinary, something that caught my conscious attention, I would remember it.\n ",
"Imagine spending all your time focused on every activity you do through out the day. You would have no time to yourself and your brain would be exhausted. We naively feel like we genuinely put all of our brain power into all of our thoughts or actions when the reality is much different. Our brains prefer to be spending time thinking about other things than the action we're doing day in and day out, driving is no different.\n\nThe reason it seems so weird is a combination of two things, one is the idea that we think we have this ever present control over our thoughts and we like to we think about everything we do in detail. We don't, not in detail at least. The other is that fucking up while driving has some potentially shitty ramifications, so we value the action of driving safely and catching ourself not thinking about driving seems scary. When you realize you have probably auto-piloted to most of the places familiar to you, you begin to no longer associate day dreaming with bad driving.",
"OK I know the actual answer:\n\nThe brain, being an electro-chemical organ operates at different frequencies that induce certain states of mind. Alpha, Beta, Theta, Delta (and maybe a new one called Gamma). \n\nThese different brainwaves are responsible for different the types of consciousness that we encounter. Beta is the most common state, normal waking consciousness, where you brain is encountering something stimulating. Alpha is that point when you just begin to let go and zone out. Delta is when you are in a deep sleep and is the slowest frequency. \n\nAnd then there is Theta: \n\n > This frequency range is normally between 5 and 8 cycles a second. A person who has taken time off from a task and begins to daydream is often in a theta brainwave state. A person who is driving on a freeway, and discovers that they can't recall the last five miles, is often in a theta state--induced by the process of freeway driving. The repetitious nature of that form of driving compared to a country road would differentiate a theta state and a beta state in order to perform the driving task safely.\n\n > Individuals who do a lot of freeway driving often get good ideas during those periods when they are in theta. Individuals who run outdoors often are in the state of mental relaxation that is slower than alpha and when in theta, they are prone to a flow of ideas. This can also occur in the shower or tub or even while shaving or brushing your hair. It is a state where tasks become so automatic that you can mentally disengage from them. The ideation that can take place during the theta state is often free flow and occurs without censorship or guilt. It is typically a very positive mental state. \n\n_URL_0_",
"This shit actually scared me when I used to drive. I'd get to the school parking lot and all and as I open the car door I realize \"Holy shit I just spent the last half hour thinking about anime I could've died.\"",
"As someone living in LA, what is this auto-pilot mode you speak of?",
"Sometimes when I pull up into my driveway, I have to think if I ran any red lights or stop signs. The fact that a cop hasn't pulled me over means I'm good. ",
"An essential part of this function is managed by the Reticular Activating System, which is a primitive (like right near the brain stem) part of the brain that manages sleep/wake cycles and stuff. Rather than me typing how it works in detail I will provide you [this unofficial link.](_URL_0_)",
"I have no answer here. Just a fellow redditor who experiences this and it scares the shit out of me. For me, I can feel when I'm about to go into this \"zoning out\" mode. Its not like sleep, or hurt or any thing, its this feeling I can't describe. Whenever I feel this, I pull over and slap the shit out of myself. Other drivers don't deserve my zoned out driving.",
"No idea. I just wish I knew why I keep finding blood stains on my car after I go for a drive. ",
"Is it unhealthy that I am like this a lot of the time at all? I feel this way at the end of most days. It worries me. ",
"I don't understand the people that get so sanctimonious over posts like this. Everyone knows and can relate to what the OP is talking about. Why people feel the need to get all \"well if you're driving without counting all possible dangers, you're an irresponsible idiot\"...I don't understand. I appreciate some people have experienced an accident at the hands of ACTUAL reckless driving, but that's not what we're talking about. The pedantic opportunist levels are too damn high sometimes. ",
"There is this book called - The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicamaral Brain. It's an interesting book. He talks about what you bring up. I think his argument is that mostly we *aren't* conscious when doing stuff like driving, or much of our daily life.\n\nHe takes this idea and goes off on it. Like I said, interesting book. Have no idea how accurate it is scientifically..",
"When you were a toddler you had to THINK about placing each step. Then you learned to navigate without thinking. If a cat ran out in front if you you tripped. Now that you're more practiced at walking you can chew gun and think about other things at the same time as walking AND if a cat walks out WHILE you're chewing gumwalking you navigate without harming kitty or yourself or others.\nSame as driving.",
"While the real answer is from /u/tellcastr101, I just wanted to say that good driving habits (being a good driver in general) is also a factor here. If you were a crappy driver that didn't pay attention to the road when not 'zoning out', you'd probably be in an accident by now. ",
"It's called complacency. You get so used to driving the same road every day, you start relaxing and not worrying about it and allow your brain to wander. It's so routine, you don't feel like you have to really focus on it. And it's not you doing it, but the brain is designed to automate repetitive behavior, so it happens without you even realizing. "
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6hnp9r | why isn't herbalife illegal company | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/6hnp9r/eli5_why_isnt_herbalife_illegal_company/ | {
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"Because it actually offers real products for sale whereas, pyramid schemes do not according to the US FTC (Federal Trade Commission). Therefore, it is categorized in the MLM (multi-level marketing) organizational category, which is a legal business and not a pyramid which is illegal.\n\nAlso, MLMs make money by enrolling people into their organization + selling products to those people rather than a pyramid which just makes money from enrolling people (no product to sell).\n\nThe fact that MLMs are legal though baffles me as they just take advantage of lesser people by selling them false hopes and setting them up to fail and burn bridges in their personal lives.\n\n\n"
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3jqfjx | the difference between the german chancellor and the president of germany | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3jqfjx/eli5_the_difference_between_the_german_chancellor/ | {
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"The President is the head of state; the chancellor is the head of the government. The head of state refers to a largely ceremonial role -- that's the person who meets other countries' diplomats and royalty, attends non-policy-related diplomatic events, and ceremonially enacts laws by signing them (without the power to veto). The head of the government is the chancellor. They have real power to enact policy, propose laws, and control the bureaucracy and administrative state.\n\nIn the US, these are unified (the President does both roles), but most countries have separated them. In England the Queen is the head of state while the Prime Minister is the head of the government; same in Japan. In Russia they have a President and a Prime Minister, with the President as head of state."
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d7nap7 | why can't we live just off of sunlight energy? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/d7nap7/eli5_why_cant_we_live_just_off_of_sunlight_energy/ | {
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"Biologically? Even plants can't live off sunlight alone, and they sit around all day. They still need essential nutrients and water from the soil, despite the fact that they don't move.\n\nCold-blooded animals (like reptiles) move little and do get some energy from UV light. That's why you might see lizards sitting under a big blue lightbulb in pet stores. However they still need extra sustenance to thrive and grow.\n\nWarm-blooded animals like us humans use a lot of energy. We're constantly heating our bodies, and we move around all the time. We simply need more energy than can be collected from sunlight alone.",
"ELI5: Your body needs food, and sunlight isn’t food. Sunlight just gives plants a little help making their own food, and then we eat those things as our own food. \n\nELI’mInCollege: (Also, if someone ends up reading this that knows more about this subject than I do, please correct me). My understanding of why we can’t do it comes down to the cellular level, and the production of a substance called Adenosine Triphophsate, or ATP for short. \n\nIn very simple terms that is glossing over a LOT of other steps, your body runs on ATP, and that’s where your “energy” really comes from. Each cell produces ATP, but you have an astoundingly small amount of it in your body at any given moment - I think something like half a gram - that is also used nearly as quickly as you produce it. The average human will actually go through close to 80 lbs of it per day, but most of that weight is actually cycled in and out of your body through cellular respiration. Without ATP, you die very quickly, which is why poisons like cyanide kill you within seconds; it stops ATP production (or something). \n\nThe cellular respiration is where your question comes into play. In a normal situation, your body needs (all sorts of stuff really) to function properly, but without Carbon, Hydrogen, and Oxygen, or carbohydrates, your body can’t produce ATP. And then you die. And while sunlight is essentially the purest form of energy we can access, we can’t actually live without other stuff. \n\nIt’s a really big, really complex subject that absolutely rocks your world the more you learn about just how precarious and precise life really is."
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f2bhbh | the way i understand aging, is that cells make a slightly less perfect copy of its predecessor each time until its eventually “no good” and we just fall apart and die, if we could find a way to make cells reproduce or clone perfectly, would we be able to live forever? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/f2bhbh/eli5_the_way_i_understand_aging_is_that_cells/ | {
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"That's just part of it. Aging is a complicated process with several factors at play. The ends of each chromsome, called telomeres, gets degraded progressively each time the cell divides. Eventually the degradation gets to the actual sequence you care about and the cell is no longer viable. This is a very basic biological clock for the life of a cell. But aging affects the whole organism. Cells get damaged due to all sorts of reasons, like UV from sunlight and oxidative stress from metabolism alone. And when damaged a cell often commits suicide. We don't have an infinite reservoir of cells, some specialized cells have only a limited number of stem cells. And when the we run out, renewal runs out. Besides that, you have many many processes that affect us gradually at the big picture level. Like nephrons (filtering units in the kidney) get less and less over a life time. These are relatively big structures made of many many cells so if they're gone they're really gone. Then you have things like atherosclerosis, plaques accumulating in your vessels, hardening them and narrowing them. You get strokes and ischemia and die from heart or brain issues. Or you may get proteins aggregating just due to random chance of misfolding, this happens in the brain and almost everywhere else. And we're horribly bad at dealing with aggregates so they end up killing cells and you eventually. Then you got random mutations that are bound to once hit critical genes that then cause cancer. I barely even scratched the surface here, fixing a cell by allowing it to renew its telomeres has been investigated before. But the risk of cancer is too high. And even if it wasn't, we got a million other things that are bound to go south over a lifetime. We're simply not built to forever, if you want to be immortal you have to change your body altogether."
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ch7r9y | is there a radio frequency camera? | I just wondered if you could built a cameralike device to view radio frequency emmiting objects. Lets say in the 2,4 GHz range like wifi antennas.
I mean you could take a directional antenna and scan across the view like a radar. Or maybe use a grid of antennas and interference like Radiotelescopes do. But is there a way to focus RF and detect it with some kind of detector which works more like a photoresistor.
So you would need a RF lens and a RF detector. Does something like this exist? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/ch7r9y/eli5_is_there_a_radio_frequency_camera/ | {
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"Yes, a radiotelescope is such a device.",
"Yes, but the resolution is limited by the wavelength. Radio telescopes use multiple dishes and interferometry for increasing resolution, but they need to scan just like single dish telescopes. \n\n[Micro bolometer focal plane arrays](_URL_0_) are becoming used for radio astronomy, but are limited to short wavelengths. Other multi-sensors like the 21cm Multibeam Receiver at Parkes have only 13 sensors which are the equivalent of pixels."
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"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Focal-plane_array_(radio_astronomy\\)"
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6sm2a8 | why college football schools needs that large stadiums (90k+ attendance)? | Univeristies plays about 6-8 home games at home during football seasons. Some of the stadiums hosts football games from high schools or bowl ganes - but the other big ones? For 8-9 months - that large stadiums generate costs. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/6sm2a8/eli5_why_college_football_schools_needs_that/ | {
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"Because each of those games brings in a ridiculous amount of money, and there aren't very many costs associated with the stadiums when they're not in use. They're mostly outdoors, so electricity usage is pretty low, and it's not like they have to pay the staff year-round.",
"Those large stadiums also generate tons of money... they build 90k seat stadiums because they can fill them up with fans paying money for tickets, buying nachos and soda inside, etc. And often the stadiums are paid for, or substantially paid for, by donations from alumni, etc.",
"It's a cultural event and an instinctual human need. The school, the football team, and the fans are all willing to pay for the stadium to sit there during the empty months because of how big an event it is. People want to be around each other, and 90+ thousand fans want to be there for the games.\n\nThere are even more extravagant examples: the Texas Formula 1 track was built for a single, once-a-year event (though it hosts smaller events when it can). There's also the Olympics where countries spend enormous amounts of money to build stadiums that will only get used once at their max capacity.",
"For a major university with a 90k+ stadium they sell tickets for 100+ a seat. Increasing your size from 60k to 90k can increase your ticket revenue by 18 million a year, maybe even more, despite the fact that a 60k stadium and a 90k stadium sit on a piece of land that's roughly the same size. If your school is capable of filling a 90k stadium they'd be fools not to have one.",
"The supply (90,000+ capacity stadia) exists because the demand exists. Some universities lose money on their football programs, but the big name ones--Alabama, Florida, Southern Cal, Ohio State, Michigan, LSU, Georgia, Texas, Oklahoma--make tons of money. Tickets sell out years in advance, for $100 per ticket in some cases. They also make tons on media deals. Most D1 colleges also have huge student bodies--30,000 or more--which means they need to give a big section to the students at a discounted rate. So they need an extra 60,000 seats to sell to alumni and the general public to make their money. \n\nYour average college football stadium is pretty old, too. The stadium at my alma mater was built in the 1920s and has been expanded since then. They're nowhere near as nice as what you'd find for an NFL or MLB team, pretty much just concrete, stairs, and some walkways with concession stands. They're almost all outdoors--I can't think of a major blueblood or semi-blueblood team that has an indoors one, in fact. So upkeep is loads cheaper than an indoor one with HVAC systems and all that jazz. "
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Subsets and Splits