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6j7c12 | why are 99% of ads which are supposed to be funny so unfunny? surely multi-billion dollar companies could afford comedic ad writers? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/6j7c12/eli5_why_are_99_of_ads_which_are_supposed_to_be/ | {
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"They get group tested to hell and back, scrutinized backwards and forwards to eliminate any possible offense, to fit specific demographics, to fit in allotted time,etc. \n\nSmall companies generally do better at this, as they just go with the initial idea (saw a Bigfoot themed ad for a mattress protector that was funnier than the video it was before)",
"Maybe it's because of this?\n\n_URL_0_",
"Try making a joke that is both original and appeals to 95% of the population. It is a no win situation.",
"If you dont find it funny your not the target audience. Believe it or not there are *a lot* of people that fall for the \"sexy horny neglected russian housewife 2 miles from you want to fuck\" adds.",
"Since it hasn't been said yet, there's also an element of making a small, easily fixable mistake, which makes the people watching the ad think about how it could be fixed and thus \"familiarizing\" themselves with the brand"
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4hit4l | why do employers ask to upload resume and also fill out employment history, school information, etc... that is already listed on the resume? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4hit4l/eli5_why_do_employers_ask_to_upload_resume_and/ | {
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"Not all resumes include all of the information they want. My resume hardly says anything about my schooling, and only lists my current position, as my prior employment was in different industries.\n\nResumes are always different, and the job seeker has a lot of wiggle room regarding what they can put on it. Some people add jobs without clear start or end dates, most people don't include contact information for those jobs -- these are all things that the potential employer may or may not want to know.",
"If there was 1 universal template that all resumes complied too... then we could build an automated system to capture everything... hell if there were 10 templates we might be able to construct a system that could work with that...\n\nBut there are tens of thousands of ways to construct a resume. That means that any computer system has either got to be REALLY advanced (re: Expensive) or so complex that it stretches the imagination to its limits (re: Expensive AND Silly).\n\nMuch easier to get the person to fill out the information for them... and it also serves to weed out the people who can't be bothered.",
"The manually entered resume is the first hurdle: most job sites automatically scan that information for things like GPA, relevant work history, and keywords regarding the kind of experience they're looking for. \n\nThose that make the cut are then sent to the second hurdle: to the hiring manager or HR who do an actual manual examination. They may simply review the manually entered information, or look at the resume to see more information (or to see how you present yourself when given flexibility, instead of being forced to follow their form). \n\nIf you impress them there, you then head to the third hurdle: an interview. If it's in person they will almost certainly have your physical resume printed out in front of them; if it's over the phone, they could have either version (or both). ",
"they want the ability to sort, filter, search etc. all of the resumes submitted very efficiently. Rather than having a person extract that information from all the various formats of resumes they receive they ask you to do that form them. It also serves to some degree to assure that they get the information they need.\n\nedit: you also upload your resume (rather than just fill out the form) most typically because \"screening\" (what the structured data is for) gets rid of the garbage applicants, but is not good at finding the best applicants. A resume still allows for a person to convey stuff that matters to the applicant, not just the narrow criteria. This is both because structuring a resume requires some intelligence and also because it allows for (limited albeit) self-expression that can separate the great from the good.",
"The manual entry of the resume allows it to be indexable - so they can filter out candidates who don't meet broad and specific criteria. After that point, the physical resume goes to HR or the hiring manage for further review.\n\nThe first step is making the resume filter-able ",
"One is more a document for the humans to review, while the form data is more standardized for their candidate databases.",
"I have 5 different resume's all regularly updated. Some have no work history and others only have work history geared towards the job. I always do a bit of research on the company and decide which is best to turn into them. ",
"People ask me this question at work all the time. I reply with \"in this section you are going to call out your reason for leaving, reference, their phone, AND the permission to contact them. Then at the bottom where you sign you are formalizing the document and certifying that all what you put is true.\" This kind of permission and contract is not in most resumes.",
"My job does both. The app is for handwriting and to see if you follow instructions. Didn’t hire some good people because they didn't follow instructions to fill out the app.... ",
"You application becomes a legal document which you signed stating availability, work history to be true and accurate. At any point in time prior to or after hiring you, should any information prove to be false they have legal cause for not hiring or employment termination. Having dealt with people who claimed to be available for a specific shift and then suddenly change availability hoping for a better shift with same number of hours the signed application is means to reduce hours or end their employment.",
"The previous answers about getting accurate and consistent information on all candidates does often apply.\n\nHowever sometimes HR/Recruitment teams just buy off the shelf Applicant tracking systems and use them because they paid for them, rather than building and adapting good systems.\n\nThey may not even realize what a painful process it can be for candidates to apply through these badly designed systems. The system may actually put off many applicants from applying, but if enough people still apply it does not matter to the company.\n\nSaying that, having a difficult system to apply through can be a big problem for companies in industries with a competitive labor market, or small companies without much name recognition and can make hiring challenging. ",
"programmers cost lots of money. Not auto filling out forms is free and a just another barrier to entry for those who \"really want the job\"",
"Companies get thousands of online applications. Forcing you to fill them that way makes it easier for them to filter by experience and education and then drop resumes that don't meet the requirements.\n\nIt also reduces the amount of spam they receive.",
"Your resume lists what *you* want the employer to know about you.\n\nThe application lists what the *employer* wants to know about you.\n\nBoth are required because neither one provides a full, relevant picture of who you are.",
"Because they aren't going to transfer that information for you. They figure if you want the job bad enough, then you will jump through their hoops.",
"I always thought it was because of the SIGNATURE PAGE.\n\n\"I attest that to the best of my knowledge, all attached information is accurate and true\"\n\n",
"I forgot where I read this, so take it with a grain of salt. But those online applications are used to weed out poor applicants.\n\nIf you cant spend 45 minutes filling out an online application, do they really want you working for them?",
"A computer uses the filled out forms to narrow down the applicants. Then the person(s) in charge of hiring can go through and check out the more personal resumes.",
"After the top two comments, I'm now wondering what the purpose of a resume is if they can search for specific criteria using their database",
"So they can have the resume for interviews and the form answers to eliminate 97% of the applications. ",
"There are a few reasons, I'll try to simplify them as best as I can:\n\n1) Even the best resume parsing software is not perfect, and cannot be relied upon 100% to pull out all pertinent information from a resume, because of the unlimited potential format that people might submit their resume in. The better job application handling software will at least pre-populate those fields with what it could parse out of your resume, to save you some time\n\n2) Employers and/or recruiters often have very specific requirements laid out for candidates applying to their jobs, and they cannot assume that you have all of that in your resume, so they have to ask you directly for certain pieces of information. Resumes are requested because of extraneous information they may not _need_ about you that they still want to know about you.\n\n3) In the case that all pertinent pieces of information cannot be pulled from the resume, they still need each bit of information sub-divided out so that they can then query/filter on that information when searching for candidates that might be the right fit for the job.\n\nTL;DR - Long story short, is because resumes are too open-ended and have no strict requirements for information, so they must ask for certain bits of information directly, regardless of whether you may or may not have them on your resume.\n\nSource: Work for a company that writes the software that some of these people use to hire you for their job.",
"One more hoop to jump through is one way to filter the massive stack of resumes they get. Some of these positions get hundreds of applications for just a single position. That's not easy for a HR person to deal with. ",
"I've had some occasions where they quite clearly request a resume online, then only to be invited in to fill out a physical application. There must be some reasoning behind it, but it's super annoying",
"So they can easily deal with it electronically without having to read through your resume to find out whether you are qualified or not.",
"Because they aren't using the latest information technology. There is already an easy way to write [resumes that computers can read](_URL_0_) and which can still make a pretty paper resume as well. It's called [XML](_URL_1_). In easy terms, XML means that when you create a document you wrap a label around the various pieces of the document to identify what they are. For example, \n\n < job > \n < jobtitle > Manager < /jobtitle > \n < employer > Acme, Inc. < /employer > \n < period > \n < from > < date > < month > June < /month > \n < year > 1992 < /year > < /date > < /from > \n < to > < date > < month > August < /month > \n < year > 1998 < /year > < /date > < /to > \n < /period > \n < description > < para > Oversaw production\n of large magnets and rocket skates\n for a < emphasis > single < /emphasis > \n customer. < /para > \n < /description > \n < /job > \n\nEventually this approach should replace the current wasteful/stupid/redundant systems.",
"They ask the same thing that's on the resume. It's an extremely annoying process. There really should be a standard for this. ",
"Frankly, I think it's because they do not care about wasting your time. I'm sure there are functional and historical reasons why this happens, but it's totally within their power to change this and make it more efficient. But they don't want to. ",
"Reposting a comment I made in a thread with a similar question:\n\nA close friend is the VP of HR IT for a large corporation. He said that in addition to filtering (gpa, experience, major etc.) this is so they can prove they are being impartial during the selection process and have a record of all people that access the information.\n\nThey can generate \"anonymous resumes\" that exclude attributes that could introduce bias; name being the most prominent.\n\nInformation like graduation year, college sports participation and the like are generalized to statements that don't give information about age, gender and other attributes that could define a protected class of people.\n\nAn example would be \"Notre Dame Football, 4 Years\"; from this you could conclude the applicant was male. This could be generalized to \"NCAA D1 athlete, 4 years\".\n\nThey essentially present the committee or manager that is hiring an employee only the information that has been deemed necessary to fill the role.\n\nAs you continue through selection, your actual resume may be pulled and viewed but this is usually not until you are in the small pool of candidates where all applicants are qualified and will be formally interviewed. \n\nThe software used by his company records analytics on how you fill the forms (both resume and any subsequent questions). The amount of time you took to fill it out, did you copy/paste or answer questions on the fly. Did you immediately submit, or save and review later. If so, how much later and did you make any changes. Were these changes minor or did you replace large sections. ",
"This is just one reason the electronic application process is a frustrating, time-sucking activity. Recent experiences:\n\n1) On a site that fits OP's example, my son successfully uploaded his resume, but the site then pulled information from the resume to incorrectly populate the sections he was supposed to fill out for employment history, educational background, etc. In the section where he was supposed to list his last job title, it automatically filled in the title of one of the supervisors listed on his resume. He had to delete information in all the boxes before he could complete the form with the correct information. \n\n2) One job description listed a specific certification as a preferred credential — but the online form does not provide a section where you can provide that information.\n\n3) One site stated that his application would be rejected if he did not upload his college transcripts before submitting the online form, but there was no section where he could do that.\n\n4) One site required applicants to choose their college or university from a list of all the schools in the state. It was not possible to write in the name of the school; it had to be selected from the drop-down list. My son's school was not on the list, even though it is ~150 years old and Middle States accredited.\n\n5) On a site where he was applying for a job LOADING TRUCKS at a department store, he had to complete a TIMED test involving mathematics, logic, and vocabulary. My husband is a college professor and I am a medical writer, and neither one of us could complete the test in the time given. For a job loading trucks.\n\n\n\n\n",
"The data you manually enter is for the purpose of storing your profile in a database and enable the company to easily sort and search based on specific criteria. Your uploaded resume is your personal representation of your own skills and qualifications. It's not practical to automatically extract your information from your resume for data sorting purposes because everyone formats their resume in their own way.",
"Essentially, it's because those companies place a higher value on their time than yours. Chances are you wouldn't want to work for them anyway. Consider it an asset rather than a hassle and use it to sort them out. Give priority to the employers that respect your time.",
"They want to be able to filter resumes based on experience and education.\n\nThey might get 300 applicants. It's not very effective to completely read every resume and rank them, so an employer would want to skim them first. Manually, they'd have to open each file, scroll to where their education and experience is listed. Less than a year experience? Toss it. No university education? Toss it. University at a well known school for that program? Yes with a gold star.\n\nThat's work a computer can do though, while this guy does something more important. It just turns out that computers aren't 100% reliable at it when everyone formats their resume differently.\n\nSo they ask you to put it in correctly for them, that way you don't get discarded accidentally. Then they also give you a chance to upload your resume because the way you format it and your descriptions are important for a human reader.\n\nEssentially the entered information is for the computer, and the resume/cover letter is for the human reader or interviewer.",
"Because the western world we live in is a ridiculous circus of bureaucracy.\n\nI sincerely hope we get wise to this soon, and realise that efficiency equals instant profit.",
"I work in a healthcare field (Clerical) and when we hire our form does this as well. The overview will help the hiring manager develop a shortlist of applicants. Once the shortlist is generated we then go deeper into the resumes to narrow it down further. Sometimes from hundreds of applicants the number of people actually called for interviews is under 10. Make your application pop, put time into developing those online forms because if those aren't enough to catch someone's attention you might not even have your resume looked at for more than a few seconds. Sad but true. ",
"Just a heads up if you get annoyed as hell with redundancy, your in for a fun time in the workforce.",
"HR, not the smartest people in the business?",
"I was recently looking for new jobs and this shit pissed me off so goddamn much. \"Please wait while we parse your resume file for application information...\" Oh you got it all in completely the wrong fields and I have to completely do it over again? PERFECT!\nEvery fucking time.",
"Your manual entry populates a database they can search, to see if they should look closer - at which point actual people tend to want to review individual resumes.\n\nThey know most of the data is in the Resume, but you are willingly providing free data entry work for them.",
"Adding to this, what is the optimum page number for resumes? I have worked a lot of temp jobs in IT, and have built a pretty significant list of jobs that I've worked. Are there certain things I should highlight or summarize, and what is the maximum number of pages you want to see?",
"It honestly discourages me from even applying to the job. Everything in my resume/cover letter will tell you all you need to know... That's what it's for ",
"I did that and just wrote \"Please see Resume\"\nOr N/A or entered dates 01/99\n\n3 offers accepted one \nrejected •••1st offer and got one back 22%+\n\nBe like Michael, Change the man in the Mirror ",
"In some cases, its because they have some software look at your resume first to catch certain keywords. If those keywords aren't present, you get automatically rejected, no matter how good your resume *actually* is. Some federal jobs do this, because they get hundreds of resumes for one position. The resume you submit doesn't get seen until after this process.",
"Because they're lazy and want you to fill it out in their preferred screening format. Also because making people go through mundane routine tasks shows who is dedicated and who isn't so it's a screening process in itself?",
"While we're here can anyone tell me why tax forms require you to write your your address twice on the same page? I've been tempted to write \"look six inches up\" but I never did because, y'know taxes.\n\n",
"HR staff are invariably unemployable themselves, most can't read a resume. You might as well hand them the Voynich document for all the sense they'll make of it. \n\nAll of the HR staff I've dealt with are vapid, vacant women with an eye on getting a promotion or pregnant. The men are worse, incompetent and vague. You could execute all of the HR staff from any company and no one would notice.",
"Because the HR people are generally lazy pricks that don't think your time is as valuable as theirs so they make you do their work for them. Think about what it takes to be an HR manager. The next best job they qualify for is a fast food restaurant manager.",
"Because hiring personnel are lazy. Their job is to sort and prioritize applicants in order to determine the best candidates for interviews. So they could read dozens of applications, discard the bad, and prioritize those that seem qualified based on key items like experience and education. Or they could have a computer do it in a fraction of the time. They just need to make sure that the computer has all of the information. They don't want to take the time themselves to enter the data into the program, so they just make you do it. \n\nThe resume is pretty useless for online applications. It is a throwback to a time when job hunting meant physically entering each business, speaking with someone, and leaving relevant information behind for them to contact you. It's also useful at job fairs to have a bunch printed up to hand out. But, even if you gain the interest of hiring people at a fair they typically direct you to a website to fill all this stuff in anyway. That's how they put you in their database, and come up with rankings for the applicants. \n\nWhile it makes their day easier, it can end up backfiring. Years ago when I was job hunting I tricked many automated systems into prioritizing me as a top applicant. The easiest way was by using white text on a white background and loading up the document with \"trigger words\" I thought they would be looking for. Example: looking for job in IT so under skills I have invisible list of 50-100 skill words like \"programmer\" or \"database development\". The computer sees that my skills include everything the hiring manager is looking for, so my name goes to the top of the pile. When the manager looks they only see skills as \"good at stuff\" or whatever I typed in black text. I ran with the assumption they would read it, but not worry too much if it looked a little sparse. The computer says I should get an interview, so that's good enough. It worked pretty well. I had lots of interviews. ",
"Because HR are the laziest, slimiest, scum on the planet. They have no idea how to do their own jobs properly, which would be researching what requirements each position should have, what salaries they should pay, and actually reading a resume. Instead they play a game of dice in a computer program, and make the managers do all the hard work",
"I work specifically in this field (HR technology). \n\nThe best answer? The technology sucks right now. \n\nWhile it's possible to make the experience as easy as can be for the candidate, it's difficult to convince a company to spend the money to do so. \n\nI can expand on this of there's enough interest, but I don't want to bore people. ",
"We do it because you could have used a professional service to create your resume. We want to see *your* attention to detail and the ability to follow instructions.",
"I have one, for the past 5 jobs I've had, I was asked to bring in a notebook, a pen, and a paper copy of my resume to the interview. This is after I already filled out their online form AND attached a pdf resume. I honestly don't have a printer and I'm not going to spend 30 cents to print something that you could have printed in your office 5 mins before the interview.\n\nI'm guessing that the notebook was to write down questions and answers? it all seems redundant. If you're calling me in for an interview, it's because you want me to work there. The reason why is because you saw my resume and you know why I want to work there because you read my cover letter. \n\nI've never been to a face to face interview where I didn't get the job. Then again, whenever I apply somewhere I taylor fit my resume and cover letter to the company. I've also never EVER gotten a job by handing out resumes door to door; which sucks because printing out 200+ resumes and taking the bus all over the city for a week is really expensive when you're not working. It was hard to explain to my mom that I had a better chance getting a job sitting in front of the PC in my underwear than dressing like a fucking jehovas witness and going door to door with a \"will work for food\" sign\n\nThis is why I love job websites that allow you to prefill the electronic portion, attach a resume, and lets you apply for jobs super quickly. Recently I was working part time and someone called me while I was at work wondering if I was free because they saw my resume online. It ended up being a piece of shit comission job, but the gesture was appreciated. makes me feel wanted.\n\nI found out the hard way that some places will just flat out deny you if you don't write them a thank you letter; kissing their ass for the privilege of being asked stupid questions like \"what are your strengths\" followed by \"what are your weaknesses\"",
"Its so they can easily put it through their computer sorter it looks for keywords in each section. If you pass the first screening (ie computer screening) then a real person looks at your PDF resume.",
"Hr departments are run by lazy incompetent people. They lazily decide to do this so they can continue to put in bare minimal effort into their job.",
"Being a business owner let me help explain a few fun things for you. \n\n1) Your resume is not your application. Your resume may not have been done by you. Your resume is not a legal document. Your application is. Your application may request similar information as a resume but there is more on the application. Prime example I have an employee get into an accident on his way to the office. He will need medical decisions made. The emergency contact on that application is who I will call. Not everyone is married. Some people don't have living parents anymore. Who do you trust with your medical decisions and try not to make it someone who is across the country. \n\n2) It is a filter. Can you even write? That may sound strange but this matters. I cannot tell you how many times someone comes in with someone else to help them fill out the application. This then leads to can you read? You have a basic level of education but you are possibly illiterate. It happens more then it should. I have seen so many resumes that if it is done by a service i am already leery. I don't need your life history but do you have enough of a skill set to write your own resume. \n\n3) With my company not only do you fill out the application, you will be given a questionnaire that will help asses your level of experience. I have applicants come in and claim that to have to fill out the application and questionnaire insulting? Don't let the door hit in the ass as you leave. \n\nIf you are coming in for an entry level position, I really don't want a resume. Come in fill out the application and tell me that you are willing to apply yourself to a job that is going to not be glamorous for a while so you can build yourself up. \n\nTo many times I have gotten people who claim a certain level of experience and knowledge and experience. Only to be shown they have none of those things. When you are looking for a job, that is your job, do it well. There is a lot of paperwork I have to have to run my company. You can't fill out an application, don't work here. ",
"An application is a legally binding document. A resume is a nicely formatted document to allow hiring managers see your experience. Your application may include sensitive information like your SSN, DOB, etc. that certain people at a company have no business looking at. Hope this helps.",
"I worked for USAA about 8 years ago (gigantic credit union ~17,000 employees under one roof) and was told by someone in the hiring dept that there is a a computer algorithm that sorts the information and can even read the text in an uploaded resume to look for key words that they have deemed vital for a certain position. If your text doesn't contain the key words, your resume isn't even seen by a human. ",
"Because it is hard to convert a CV into their database. And if their database has information such as your education level, years works, location, they can easily do searches on you.",
"Online application processing systems are designed to filter people out, not in. There is a large grading system behind each application system, which is ultimately tied to the job description listed by the company. The ability to upload a resume allows you to match your skill sets, with those requested in the job description. The most important thing to remember is use their words, not yours. These systems look for word matches, EX: Microsoft Word, not MS Word, or Microsoft Office, and look for key words that are important to the company which can be found in their mission statement. It becomes a game. Does your application have the most points, if yes, then you receive an interview.\n\nAlso, for the applications that make you take a test, the more modern versions are able to tell when you aren't answering truthfully and are able to tell if you are answering how you think you should answer, if the threshold is exceeded your application is also trashed. They can also tell if you copy and paste information into boxes, and have hidden timers to see how long you take to complete each page of your application."
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fqpdk0 | how come if your fingers are paralyzed or have nerve damage, they don’t prune, (wrinkle) and why do only our finger tips and toes prune? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/fqpdk0/eli5_how_come_if_your_fingers_are_paralyzed_or/ | {
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"Pruning of the fingertips is a mechanism that is regulated by the nervous system. If there’s paralysis or some form of nerve damage in the fingers, these nerve impulses are unable to initiate the physiological changes that result in the pruning of the skin in that area. \n\nPruning of the fingertips/toes are thought to help improve the grip of these appendages in wet conditions but there are studies that show no noticeable improvements between pruned and non-pruned fingertips in wet conditions and as such, the true reason for this phenomenon is largely still unknown."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[]
] |
||
15zmjf | why ireland separated | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/15zmjf/eli5_why_ireland_separated/ | {
"a_id": [
"c7rb9z1"
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"score": [
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"text": [
"Ireland was a colony of britain for 700 years. In 1919 an Irish independence movement and its military wing the Irish Republican Army waged a guerrilla war on the british army stationed in the country. Now there had been various rebellions and pushes for independence but nothing worked as the british were very good at both infiltrating Irish separatist groups and the had military superiority. But this time the movement was successful in doing real damage to the troops stationed in Ireland. \n\nBetween 1919 and 1921 war raged between the police force/british army and the IRA. Many military historians have concluded that the IRA fought a largely successful and lethal guerrilla war, which forced the British government to conclude that the IRA could not be defeated militarily. This caused a push for peace from London, and eventually a delegation was sent from Ireland to London to negotiate independence from Britain.\n\nThe biggest issue and the reasoning for the partition was the fact that the north of the Island had been mostly populated by planted settlers, or undertakers as they were known. This meant the majority of the population were still very loyal to the crown and Protestant and they had their own particularly violent paramilitary group known as the Ulster Volunteers. Their job was to prevent home rule at any cost. \n\nSo with all this to take into account the Anglo-Irish treaty decided it best that Ireland be split into two separate countries the Republic of Ireland in the south with 26 counties, independent from britain but still be a dominion of the british empire and Northern Ireland the remaining 6 counties to remain completely under the control of London."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[]
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||
1i31gr | what is healthcare reform in america and how will it affect me-a middle class, fulltime worker with benefits? i seriously cannot figure this out and nothing makes sense when i try to find simple explainations. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1i31gr/eli5_what_is_healthcare_reform_in_america_and_how/ | {
"a_id": [
"cb0h2h5"
],
"score": [
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"text": [
"It probably won't effect you all that much, besides offering you more options if you end up losing your job at some point.\n\nThere are some restrictions on healthcare insurance in the future, mostly that you can't as easily have the insurance companies abandon you in some situations."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[]
] |
||
5mvkgz | why do certain drinks (i.e: milk) make you sick in large quantities while others (i.e: water) do not? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5mvkgz/eli5_why_do_certain_drinks_ie_milk_make_you_sick/ | {
"a_id": [
"dc6ov1d",
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],
"score": [
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6,
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"text": [
"How soon we forget (can't believe it's been 10 years already):\n\n_URL_0_",
"Have you ever heard the saying, \"too much of anything isn't good for you.\"? Things such as water can also be harmful in extreme quantities. A few years ago, a football player drank 4 gallons of fluids to stop cramps, and later died from water intoxication.",
"\"lethality dose\" as many said explains is quite well. Everything is lethal in good amounts. So this way the hardest venom wouldn't kill you if you only took like 0.00000000000000000001 mL of it"
]
} | [] | [] | [
[
"http://www.nbcnews.com/id/16614865/ns/us_news-life/t/woman-dies-after-water-drinking-contest/"
],
[],
[]
] |
||
3ipngn | what does a cigarette actually contain? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3ipngn/eli5_what_does_a_cigarette_actually_contain/ | {
"a_id": [
"cuihzd0",
"cuio30e"
],
"score": [
6,
21
],
"text": [
"Mostly tobacco but other \"allowed\" ingredients are added to improve the taste, length of time it burns for etc. Not all of these ingredients are good for you, especially when they are burned and inhaled.",
"They contain processed tobacco, various flavor additives (see link to list posted by u/bulksalty, and the paper \"tube\" or wrap. The paper will vary by brand - it can be rice paper, hemp paper, flax paper, lots of different things.\n\nThe tobacco plant is harvested, cured (dried), and processed down into a pulp that is basically made into tobacco paper. The tobacco paper is sprayed down with flavors and tobacco juice. This is where a lot of the control goes into how much nicotine, tar, etc. Or formerly were called lights vs. full-flavor, etc. The paper is then chopped up and loaded into the paper/filter tubes and packaged.\n\nI read somewhere that one of the most common flavors in American tobacco is maple. The tobacco industry uses so much maple that more is put in cigs than is consumed as a condiment or food flavoring - but don't quote me on that."
]
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[],
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||
92p6h1 | how do red blood cells know when/where to release its oxygen and how does that oxygen find it's way into a cell rather than staying in the blood stream? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/92p6h1/eli5_how_do_red_blood_cells_know_whenwhere_to/ | {
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"text": [
"Conditions in the body are different than conditions in the lungs. In the body Oxygen and hemoglobin become less sticky so oxygen is released. Oxygen also flows from high concentration to low concentration. Oxygen is low in the cells because it has been used up, and high in the blood because it has just been picked up from a trip to the lungs.",
"Oxygen combines with the haemoglobin in your red blood cells to make oxyhaemoglobin. It doesn't then \"know\" when to release, it just isn't very stable and it breaks apart naturally after not very long to make oxygen and haemoglobin again.\n\nSide note: this is actually why carbon monoxide is so bad for you - carboxyhaemoglobin (what is formed when CO bonds to the haemoglobin) is like 300x more stable, so all of your red blood cells get stuck carrying around useless CO and they can't carry nearly enough oxygen.\n\nThis is from GCSE biology like, 15 years ago so I might possibly be misremembering or science might have changed its mind about how stuff works.",
"There are two parts to explaining this :\n\n1. Gas will always flow from where it is high in concentration, to where it is low in concentration.\n2. Red blood cells have special molecules that are designed to carry oxygen from point A to point B.\n\n1. The first step is fairly straightforward. Oxygen by itself, has a very minute amount dissolved in the blood at any time (~1%). This oxygen isn’t enough by itself to supply the body. The remaining 98-99% is carried by your RBCs around the body.\n\n2. RBCs get their red colour from thousands of tiny molecules called Haemoglobin, which are basically protein molecules that hold iron. Haemoglobin is what’s called a tetramer molecule, meaning it has four identical subunits, each designed to hold one molecule of oxygen.\n\nThe ability of haemoglobin to carry multiple molecules is affected by different factors, such as body temperature, acidity of the blood, carbon dioxide levels, and concentrations of certain metabolises.\n\nA lot of scientists measured these factors carefully, and came up with what’s called an oxygen-hemoglobin dissociation curve, which is basically an S-shaped curve that determines how hungry hemoglobin is for oxygen.\n\nThis curve depends on how much oxygen is dissolved in the blood. The lesser the oxygen, the more likely it is that the hemoglobin releases the oxygen. The higher the blood oxygen content, the more likely it is for the hemoglobin to stock up on oxygen. \n\nIn the lungs, all the factors I mentioned above tend to favour the curve to shift to the left. So the blood dissolved in the oxygen, and gets taken up by the RBCs very quickly, while in the tissues, where oxygen is rapidly consumed, the curve shifts to the right, which makes the hemoglobin more likely to give up the oxygen.\n\nTL;DR : The cells don’t know, it’s just glorious biochemistry and physics. ",
"It a chemical ratio. Where your body is low in oxygen, the oxygen is more likely to diffuse (leave) from a high concentration of oxygen (in the blood cell) to a low concentration (in a muscle fibre). \n\nAnd the blood is so tightly packed against the cells that it is more likely to diffuse across into a cell for the same reason - oxygen is quite small so can fit across cell boundaries ",
"Oxygen will diffuse from where it is in a high concentration to where it is in a low concentration. This diffusion principle is the same with all molecules and chemicals. When the oxygenated red blood cells (RBCs) get to your tissues, there is high oxygen in the blood and low oxygen in the tissues, so the oxygen diffuses out into the tissues (the diffusion actually stops when the concentration in the RBCs is the same as the tissues, so not all oxygen is offloaded). When the oxygen-depleted cells get back to the lungs they come in contact with the highly-oxygenated tissue of the lungs and then oxygen will diffuse back into them and oxygenate them again.\n\nIn addition to this there are also other factors at play that alter haemoglobin's ability to hold onto oxygen. Offloading of oxygen in the tissues is also facilitated by the higher acidity, CO2, temperature and concentration of 2,3 DPG (a product of the metabolism of glucose). All of these factors are lower in the lungs so again oxygen binding in the lungs is increased because of that."
]
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[],
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[],
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||
3eho5c | why must class action lawsuit commercials have to stress "i'm a non-attorney spokes person" | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3eho5c/eli5_why_must_class_action_lawsuit_commercials/ | {
"a_id": [
"ctf1drn"
],
"score": [
5
],
"text": [
"Giving legal advice without a license is a crime, and paying people to speak for you without disclosing it is a violation of legal ethics."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[]
] |
||
2na751 | how come radio is free with advertisements, but tv has a paid subscription but still has commercial advertisements? | And why are commercials always 100% louder than the show? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2na751/eli5_how_come_radio_is_free_with_advertisements/ | {
"a_id": [
"cmbr80l",
"cmbrg9m",
"cmbshf1"
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"score": [
9,
5,
3
],
"text": [
"Television was originally free with advertising, before the predominance of cable. In fact, you could hook up an antenna to your TV right now and still get the network broadcasts and local PBS stations for free. (Probably some Spanish language channels, too)",
"Broadcast TV is free. In fact, with the right antennae (and an HDTV, of course) you can get broadcast HDTV for free.\n\nCable companies charge lots of money because they have a relatively huge infrastructure they need to support, whereas broadcast stations only need a transmitter. That and they want to make a lot of money.",
"Broadcast television is still free. Plug in an antenna, and receive local channels. \n\nRegarding cable, it's because there are higher costs than your cable subscription pays for. Shows like Sons of Anarchy, channels like TNT, sports coverage on ESPN, etc... cost A LOT of money to produce. So accepting advertising more or less subsidizes your cable bill so it's not higher."
]
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[],
[],
[]
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|
3mnvuw | do bald people wash their heads with shampoo or body wash? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3mnvuw/eli5_do_bald_people_wash_their_heads_with_shampoo/ | {
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"text": [
"Well, I can't speak for the other bald guys, but I just go with water. That seems to do the trick just fine. ",
"I wash my head with a special shampoo to reduce the excess of brightness produced by my sweat. Sounds funny but it's true.",
"Most people probably either use soap of some kind, or just water. I, however, use lemon scented floor cleaner, followed by Turtle Wax.",
"Body Wash??? Nobody actually uses body wash.... Do they? "
]
} | [] | [] | [
[],
[],
[],
[]
] |
||
4cwb2m | why would anyone get a credit card with an annual fee when so many cards have no annual fee? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4cwb2m/eli5_why_would_anyone_get_a_credit_card_with_an/ | {
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"score": [
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"text": [
"it depends if the \"value added bonus\" you get for the fee is worth the added fee. \n\nfor example many fee credit cards give free travel insurance, or a concierge service. \n\nif you think that that's worth the extra fee, then it's worth it. ",
"Often the benefits, if you use them, outweigh the fee. If you have to pay $95 for a card fee, but get hundreds of dollars of free airplane tickets or fuel or something a year, it cancels it out. ",
"Some cards with an annual fee offer more attractive benefits than ones that don't. For example, a credit card affiliated with an airline's frequent flyer program may earn the user miles and give them access to the airline's airport lounges, and these benefits may well exceed the cost of the annual fee for a heavy traveler.",
"Usually you can get one that has a higher tier of features than you could qualify for with the credit you have. \n\nLike either you have X credit level and get features for free or else you have credit lower than X and can pay to get the features. \n\nIf you qualify you all the features you really would use at the credit score you have you should definitely not pay an annual fee. If there is some high end feature that you really might use a ton but you don't qualify for a card that includes it maybe you'd be willing to pay extra. ",
"In addition to what others have said about extra added benefits you might get from a card that charges an annual fee, sometimes a card with a fee is all that you can qualify for, due to poor credit.\n\nRight after my bankruptcy, the only credit cards I could get approved for were either secured (ie: I give them $500 up front, and they let me access up to $500 on my card), or carried an annual fee.\n\nAfter re-establishing my credit a bit, it was much easier to find credit cards that didn't carry an annual fee.",
"Cards with fees tend to have perks.\n\nI travel for work, and rack up tens of thousands of dollars in travel expenses a year. Something that gives me cash back or miles or points is going to be worth an annual fee.",
"I pay $450 a year for my AmEx Platinum card. I like the benefits and to me, it's worth the fees. Follow r/churning and you'll see that there are annual fees you will want to pay for cards you want. 4/14 of my cards have annual fees.",
"It's valuable to the...shall we say upper echelon of society? Those that travel a lot get a lot of use out of the concierge services frequently provided."
]
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40pgyc | how do cold sores go from lying dormant for weeks or months, to breaking out and spreading, seemingly in a matter of seconds?! | Actually, I can usually feel the cold sores popping up in the moment. It's freaky as shit when I feel the tingling around my lips, and depressing as hell when I feel the inflammation, but also pretty fascinating how fast it all happens! | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/40pgyc/eli5_how_do_cold_sores_go_from_lying_dormant_for/ | {
"a_id": [
"cyw32iv"
],
"score": [
2
],
"text": [
"Cold Sores are herpes. Two types, HSV-1 and HSV-2. Type 1 does cold sores, Type 2 usualNo fear though, in the United States, 57.7% of the population has it. This causes cold sores. HSV-2 is usually genital ones, 16.2% in the US have this.\n\nType 1 is no big deal, just cold sores. Usually given to children by parents kissing them, it transmits through the mouth and doesn't need sex. Type 2 is transmitted mostly through sexual activities.\n\nSo they're popping up so fast and feel weird because it's technically a Herpes-simplex"
]
} | [] | [] | [
[]
] |
|
183kzo | how can you hold a sparkler up to your hand and not get burned? | I don't understand how something can have a high temperature but not very high heat. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/183kzo/eli5_how_can_you_hold_a_sparkler_up_to_your_hand/ | {
"a_id": [
"c8bc23j",
"c8bf6uz"
],
"score": [
2,
2
],
"text": [
"The spark of a sparkler is a very concentrated point of heat, so it dissipates rather more efficiently than larger sources of heat such as a naked flame on a candle (for example). The amount of heat it can put out is relatively smothered by the volume of air around it.\n\nRest assured, if you touch it or get too close to it, you can still get very readily burned. Always side with caution and don your gloves.",
"Temperature is a measure of average kinetic energy.\n\nHeat is a measure of _total_ energy.\n\nTherefore, you can have a very small collection of very hot things, but it ends up not burning you.\n\nThink of it this way: one drop of boiling water - it's hot, 100 C actually, but it doesn't have much heat. Now imagine a swimming pool full of 50 C water. That's too hot to take a comfortable bath - but it's not as hot as boiling water. It has more heat though - how much energy would it take to cool one drop of 100 C water to room temperature, compared to a swimming pool full of 50 C water?"
]
} | [] | [] | [
[],
[]
] |
|
60gxme | what's preventing the us from just not paying their debt to china? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/60gxme/eli5_whats_preventing_the_us_from_just_not_paying/ | {
"a_id": [
"df69d1t",
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9
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"text": [
"I'm not sure I understand the question. The U.S. is paying its debt to China (and everyone else). Outside of a few post-revolution and reconstruction-era hiccups, I don't think the U.S. has ever missed a bond payment.",
"If the US doesn't pay the debt, then others will stop purchasing US bonds.\n\nThe US can borrow money very, very cheaply because it *always* pays the debts. If they stop paying, they won't be able to borrow money as cheaply.",
"Something the rest of the posters haven't explained is that our debt to China is mostly just treasury bonds they have bought, which they can trade in for dollars as a set time in the future. It's the same treasury bonds your grandmother may have bought you when you were little. The government offers them for sale to anyone because the government can usually make more off of the borrowed money than it has to pay in the future. China owns a large part of our debt because they bought our treasury bonds, not because we went to them begging for a loan or something.\n\nWe pay China back because we want to honor our bond obligations so people keep buying them in the future. Even if we had a \"don't pay China\" policy, China could just sell the bonds at a slightly reduced rate to another country who would then cash them in."
]
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[],
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||
3zoklq | how los angeles flourished despite being built in a desert | 2nd largest city in the US, but seems to constantly be in a drought crisis. How did LA get so big with these kind of water issues? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3zoklq/eli5_how_los_angeles_flourished_despite_being/ | {
"a_id": [
"cynsaew",
"cynsale",
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"score": [
3,
3,
5
],
"text": [
"In the early 1900's, Los Angeles built a 400 mile long aqueduct to carry water from the north to the city. This allowed the population to boom without any concern for water. Right now, we only have water concerns because the entire state is under a severe drought. But with normal rain and snowpack, and responsible water use, LA is fine. ",
"LA has always had water problems, but sourced their water from other places. One of the more controversial water sources was the Owens Valley, and how the LAWD was essentially stealing the water from that region. This became known as the [California Water Wars]( _URL_0_), where the person who came up with the idea to take water from the Owens Valley (which was thought of as the Switzerland of the West), he was banned from getting water in many other places because of his aggressive behaviors. \n\nLAWD took so much water from Owens Valley that Owens Lake has been dried up. If you look at [Google Maps of Owens Lake](_URL_1_), you see a pretty large lake. But if you switch to satellite view, you see a dead, dry, weird-colored piece of land. The sediment from the bottom of the newly depleted lake was being blown into the nearby towns causing exceedingly high diseases and illnesses. LAWD has been under court order for years to start returning that water, but they haven't done anything but delay. Now they've taken too much water, and doesn't know where to get the water from. People forgot that Los Angeles is a desert, and water isn't free. \n\nThere ought to be a documentary of the California Water Wars. Every time I go to the Eastern Sierra and pass by Owens Lake, drive through Lone Pine, the place looks like a desolate area. Interestingly enough, Crystal Geyser water comes from there (I pass by the plant many times). That's the brand of bottled water I buy (or the private-labeled version from the same source: CG-Roxane in Olancha, CA) ",
"Short answer: [William Mulholland](_URL_2_).\n\nLong answer: William Mulholland is to the Los Angeles water system what Robert Moses was to NYC's highway and transportation network. Under Mulholland's reign, just about every single nearby river and stream was dammed and diverted for either flood control, water storage, or both - one dam in particular, in fact, [led to his resignation](_URL_3_), though we know now that there was no way he or his contemporaries could have anticipated his failure. Additionally, he recognized that nearby water sources would never be enough and began construction of the Los Angeles Aqueduct, which - as someone else already pointed out - drained Owens Lake dry and nearly drained Mono Lake as well when the aqueduct was expanded in the late '60s. He also conceived of the [Colorado Aqueduct](_URL_0_), though it wasn't built until the '30s. Additionally, there's the [California Aqueduct](_URL_1_), which diverts water from the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta, though most of that water goes toward growing tasty things in the San Joaquin Valley. \n\nLong story short, Los Angeles gets its water from far away rivers and streams and diverts them hundreds of miles to support a metropolitan area of 19 million."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[],
[
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_Water_Wars",
"https://goo.gl/maps/oVp3M6i6uFq"
],
[
"https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colorado_River_Aqueduct",
"https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_Aqueduct",
"https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Mulholland",
"https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/St._Francis_Dam"
]
] |
|
40qx84 | life before clocks/alarm clocks. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/40qx84/eli5life_before_clocksalarm_clocks/ | {
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"text": [
"The roosters crowed on the farm. The sun rose in the east. Our bodies have a pretty strong natural clock. ",
"In the cities at least, you had [knocker-uppers](_URL_0_), which is a great name for as job. Outside of that you pretty much had to rely on somebody being awake to wake you. ",
"They woke up when the sky started to get lighter, and went to sleep when things got darker.\n\nFor the vast majority of people, the work they were doing was not really time dependent on a day to day basis. Most people were farmers, and before industrial farming technology, neither the people buying the product, the people paying for the labor, or the crops themselves cared if you planted the seeds at 10:00 or 10:07.\n\nPeople still had a *general* idea what time it was during the day based on the position of the sun.",
"During the Industrial revolution, there would be a person called the Knocker-Up. This person would go house by house, hitting the windows of civilians with a long stick until they woke up. ",
"People also went to bed fairly early most nights as it's not that fun to be up in the dark. "
]
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[],
[
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Knocker-up"
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||
3yzbpp | why do some sites require you to enter your age to confirm if you're an adult if it's so easily circumventable? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3yzbpp/eli5_why_do_some_sites_require_you_to_enter_your/ | {
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"text": [
"just a legal formality. Its so if they get asked about it by the law they can say \"well we tried to keep underage people out, its on them for lying about their age\", otherwise they dont deeply care. ",
"It's a requirement by law that the website must attempt to discourage underage viewers but the site can't be held responsible for a viewer lying to the site about their age. ",
"The follow up question is, why can't bars and restaurants use the same low standards?",
"It worked on me when I was under 18, I clicked I was not of age, but I was pretty damn vanilla.",
"follow up question , if a website had proof a user was younger than the minimum age required to sign up do they have to do anything about it like remove and banned the user or can they just ignore it & not get in trouble?",
"It's basically a \"Well they said they're xx age, give us a way to actually force them to prove it\" kind of thing. ",
"There is very little else they can do. Can't ask for credit card number - not everyone has them; many people don't trust you enough to give them out.\n\nCan't ask for SSN - what if you're not American?\n\nIn fact there is no reliable, secure and easy to code way to detect someone's age. At least if they do this they claim they *tried* ...."
]
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6mzos1 | why do some fruits vary in taste such as watermelon and cantaloupe? | When I eat a Red delicious apple it tastes the exact same every time, when I eat a "good" watermelon it tastes completely different than a "bad" one. I've even had two melons I grew harvested at the same time and one was bursting with flavor while the other was below average. Is this strictly due to ripeness? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/6mzos1/eli5_why_do_some_fruits_vary_in_taste_such_as/ | {
"a_id": [
"dk5m4jm"
],
"score": [
4
],
"text": [
"Your Red Delicious apple was selected from thousands of varieties of apples to survive the transportation journey from the orchard to the store yet remain ripe and delicious. Many other of the apple varieties would not do this. Some varieties were grown specially to survive an ocean trip on a sailing ship and be delicious on the streets of London.\n\nYou are missing truly good tastes if you only shop chain grocery stores. But to obtain a variety of apples is now impossible. Heirloom varieties are being preserved but marketing them in chain groceries will not work.\n\nMelons from the same vine will ripen at different times, especially those grown in gardens and picked individually. As you noticed, melons will peak in flavor and go beyond that quickly. Most popular apples will survive a winter of storage."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[]
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|
6wm5zc | what happens to the flooded cars after a major flood? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/6wm5zc/eli5_what_happens_to_the_flooded_cars_after_a/ | {
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"They are a complete loss in most cases, cleaning and reselling them usually gives pretty big title flaws. If people don't check, some unscrupulous dealer might sell a few of them, but most people check.",
"From what I remember after hurricane Sandy, the cars that were floating around tunnels and underground parking garages are indeed written off by their insurers. However they are also scooped up, cleaned, and somehow find their way to ethically questionable used car lots that attempt to resell them. Usually along with a predatory car loan to people who can't afford it. The cars from Sandy have probably been repossessed and resold several times by now. ",
"It's a real problem.\n\nThe cars are mostly ruined. Once a car is submerged in water, it's basically done. While a good mechanic can clean it up so it runs again, it'll never run 100% and with a large groundwater flood the water gets contaminated by sewage or oil and that water can really fuck up a car. The real problem is that once the insurance companies pay out the cars often end up on the resale market.\n\nSomeone buys dozens of cars in the flooded area for cheap, gets them running (often only temporarily) and takes them across the country to resell. The buyers often never find out until they go to register the car and find it's a salvage title (if they find out). \n\nPeople in the flood area know that flood cars are going to be on the market and they know to be suspicious of good deals. But in other areas of the country people don't know. \n\n_URL_0_\n\n_URL_1_"
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71x64l | how did it happen that the population of oman upwards of age 25 contains a lot more men than women? | After seeing the [source](_URL_0_) of [this](_URL_1_) post, I noticed a hugely assymetrical distribution in the data for Oman.
Can anyone explain me how this happened?
Edit: some neigbouring countries like UAE and Saudi Arabia have similar distributions but maybe not as extreme.
Except for this region I haven't found another in the world where this is the case. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/71x64l/eli5_how_did_it_happen_that_the_population_of/ | {
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"Lots of migrant workers. Oman is a rich country thanks to oil. Lots of people from other countries come to work there and send money back home. It is usually men that do this.\n\nOver 40% of the population are migrants, mostly from India, Pakistan and Bangladesh.\n\nOther gulf countries have a male skewed population for similar reasons.",
"High levels of foreign workers, who are almost exclusively male. Many of the oil rich countries are so wealthy that nobody who is a citizen has to do manual, dirty jobs so they have to allow guest workers in to do those jobs no citizens want. "
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"https://www.populationpyramid.net/oman/2017/",
"https://www.reddit.com/r/dataisbeautiful/comments/71qyhf/age_distribution_for_the_10_largest_countries_oc/"
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8d05or | why does an extremely bright source of light cause the surrounding area to appear dark? | I assume it is due to our eyes adjusting for the contrast of the difference in brightness? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/8d05or/eli5_why_does_an_extremely_bright_source_of_light/ | {
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"Yes, this is exactly it.\n\nYour pupils expand and contract according to the amount of light you receive. When you see something very bright your pupils contract, making everything darker. ",
"The pupil thing. But...\n\nAlso we don't perceive color per se, we perceive it relative to its environment. Have you ever noticed that a screen projector can't display black, since the screen itself is white.",
"Our eyes have something called “dynamic range”, which is basically how light and dark we can perceive things before they’re just a blinding white or an impenetrable black. Our eyes and brain can adjust where on the brightness scale that range is placed to a degree, by our pupils opening and closing and the brain ramping up or damping down the “volume” of the incoming signals from the optical nerve. This means that in a dark tunnel, we can see the ground around us but the end of the tunnel just looks bright white, because your pupils are open wide and the signals from our eyes are being pumped up a notch. Outside the tunnel on a bright day looking towards it, we would see everything around us normally, but the tunnel itself just looks like a dark hole, because your brain and eyes aren’t able to perceive the bright daylight and the dark tunnel at the same time.\n\nThis is also why it sucks when someone turns a light on at 2am; your brain and eyes need time to recalibrate for the new lighting.\n\nThis is a pretty fun quirk of our physiology, and comes into play in developing video games. Pre-mid 2000s, people would render game graphics on one fixed brightness range, so deep black was the darkest colour your monitor would show and pure white was the brightest colour. This meant that in, say, Half Life 2 circa 2004, you’d not have the whole “blinding light of coming out of a tunnel” moment. It feels a little unnatural.\n\nThen people started thinking, “what if we render graphics in a brightness range far wider than our monitors can display, but select a range in the middle and use that to display on screen”. HL2 The Lost Coast was a tech demo for such an idea. It renders graphics in a wider brightness range than can be displayed, then selects a dynamic range within that based on what’s on screen (are you looking at the sun or the bottom of a dark pit?) and uses that range to decide what goes onto your monitor. It required a bit of thinking about how human eyes and brains work to get behaving properly, but now it’s pretty much universal in games. \n\nThis was known at the time as high dynamic range (HDR) rendering, but when you see HDR mentioned now it generally means something filmed with or displayed with a broader range of brightness levels than traditional HD monitors can display."
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1sb9l2 | how is it possible that the little birds are not all frozen solid right now? | It's hard for me to believe that a little ball of fuzz can keep a little bird from becoming a chunk of ice. Their feet at least must freeze every night. It's not extremely cold where I live, but it has been below freezing most of the week. A few days ago, I actually saw a hummingbird going over what was left of a honeysuckle bush. Now we've got a foot of snow. Surely he's dead by now, right? And what about extremely cold climates? These birds must have antifreeze in their blood? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1sb9l2/how_is_it_possible_that_the_little_birds_are_not/ | {
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"Birds can store a lot of air in their feathers, which insulates them from the cold air. ",
"Penguins have special circulatory system in their feet where the cold blood flowing back to their bodies is warmed by the blood going to the feet.\n\nThe legs in general are very resistant to cold, and operate normally when barely above freezing. \n\nI'm assuming most of this goes for your everyday avians, too.",
"Very high quality sleeping bags for humans are made with bird's feathers. It's all about trapping air around you, that is warmed by the body, and protects you from the colder air outside."
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318rwi | why when i'm nervous do i have more bowl movements than normal? | Why?!?!? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/318rwi/eli5_why_when_im_nervous_do_i_have_more_bowl/ | {
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"Voiding the bowels when under stress or danger is part of our evolutionary heritage, although the exact reason is unknown. One theory is that it \"lightens the load,\" allowing you to run or fight more effectively. This is unlikely however as the weight difference before and after is negligible. "
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1utjmc | what is a hacker and what differentiates a good hacker from a great one? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1utjmc/eli5_what_is_a_hacker_and_what_differentiates_a/ | {
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"A good hacker is one who gets good press coverage when they're caught. A great hacker is one noone knows exists.",
"It all depends on what you mean by \"hacker.\"\n\nTraditionally a hacker was a person that like to take things apart to figure out how they worked. \n\nNow, when people say hacker, they are usually talking about a cracker. These are the people that test and try to bypass security checkpoints. They are usually divided into the \"White Hat\" & \"Black Hat\" categories with a grey area as well.\n\nWhite Hats are usually the on the good side. These are the people that test and find vulnerabilities and try to improve the securitiy systems to make them even better.\n\nBlack Hats are on the opposite side. These are what the media usually refer as the \"hackers\" though they are really malicious crackers. They attempt to find vulnerabilities to get into protected systems for their own purposes. They may use this to gain access to data or information that they are not intended to have. For example stealing credit card and customer's personal information from businesses.\n\nThings are never always black and white though, so of course there are the gray hats, which fall under both categories depending on the situation on hand. They may use their skills to improve some systems why also taking advantage of other systems."
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1ris3t | how much does a cloud weigh and how does it defy gravity for so long? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1ris3t/eli5_how_much_does_a_cloud_weigh_and_how_does_it/ | {
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"A cloud is made of many tiny, individual water drops. its total weight is huge, but since each drop is separate, they can all remain floating together, just like dust in a room. ",
"The weight of a cloud all depends on the amount and types of molecules inside it; pure water, some dust particles, etc. will all change the mass.\n\nThey float because each individual particle is so small they don't have any substantial \"fall velocity.\" Similar to how you can see dust particles floating in the air through a beam of light, for example. ",
"Depending on size, clouds can weight a lot. Perhaps thousands of tons of water for large storm clouds. However, they typical density is very very light (less than the weight of a paper clip per cubic meter). The water droplets are small enough that air currents affect them much more than gravity, allowing them to stay aloft. Of course, if the droplets begin to condense into larger droplets, they do fall to the ground as rain or other precipitation.",
"You are imagining clouds wrong! Here's the thing: \nClouds are simply **tiny** water droplets floating in the air, very similar to fog. In fact, fog is only a cloud that is hanging very very close to the ground.\nThe reason clouds appear pasty white is that they are so incredibly huge they seize to be transparent. Imagine the furthest distance you can see during some regular early morning mist or fog. That is about the thickness of one ordinary cloud. And many are much more massive!\n\nAlso, there are a lot of different types of clouds, in all sorts of shapes, floating about majestically in different altitudes. You can't assign one weight to clouds, because they can go from teeny tiny to astronomically big. "
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1iqxam | eli: why do dogs eat grass when they're about to throw up? | My dogs getting older and she vomits more frequently. I was curious to the nature of this process. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1iqxam/eli_why_do_dogs_eat_grass_when_theyre_about_to/ | {
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"Dogs cannot digest grass so it irritates the stomach, working as an emetic, and causes them to vomit. \n\nIt is similar to humans using activated charcoal. "
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a25mtw | how my dash cam knows there are red light cameras ahead. | My husband says it visually detects them but sometimes it will say there's one ahead when we're on an highway overpass - where there's no red lights let alone cameras. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/a25mtw/eli5_how_my_dash_cam_knows_there_are_red_light/ | {
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"All red light cameras must be of public knowledge. So if your dash cam is connected to gps, it has them marked on the “internal map.” My radar detector does the same. "
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8iean5 | what caused the consistent physical attributes amongst different races? | For example, did Asians develop their eye shape because it had a specific advantage? Why do Caucasians have skin that is highly susceptible to sunburn?
I understand that humans are all the same ‘species’ but I don’t understand when these vast differences developed, or why.
Please note I don’t intend for this to be racist whatsoever. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/8iean5/eli5_what_caused_the_consistent_physical/ | {
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"What if I told you there was only one race? \n\nEvery difference mentioned is environmental adaptation, Genetic mutation, and survival of the fittest.\n\n\nBeing a redheaded Caucasian with fair skin I can tell you I uptake vitamin D much more redily than other skin types. This is due to the fact that my ancestry is northern European. The Sun there isn't as bright and there's a lot more clouds so I had to get better at taking vitamin D from sunlight\n\nHowever, I've always been interested why we don't know where RH- people came from. There are zero RH- primates for them to have evolved from. \n",
"One thing I'd note is that they're \"consistent\" because we often use them to *define* race. 'Black' people are considered black because of the color of their skin. Yet both a black and white person could be the offspring of a mixed race couple, and those siblings would be much more genetically related than me and some random other white person, so there's not really some 'distinction' there other than the characteristic itself. Beyond that, even our presumptions can be wrong. Epicanthic folds, the 'eye shape' you refer to, exist in populations beyond what we'd likely classify as 'Asian,' nor does every person of Asian ancestry have them.\n\nI just wanted to point this out in that what we view as 'consistent' isn't necessarily, and where there is consistency, it can simply be because *that feature* is the one being used to define race.\n\nMore specifically to your question, it is possible that the shape we tend to associate with Asian eyes is normal, as epicanthic folds are normal in fetuses of all races. It is possible that its disappearance in other peoples (or its retention into adulthood) is a result of mutation, and at any rate it may not pose any advantage or disadvantage. \n\nLighter skin is thought to possibly be a mutation which benefits people at higher latitudes. We produce vitamin D in part through absorption of ultraviolet light from the sun. Dark skin tends to dissipate this light, which is useful near the equator, because too much intensity damages our cells. \n\nHowever, as you get further north/south, the light hits us at a greater angle, and delivers less intensity to us. Thus, if you dissipate it strongly, it may impede your ability to produce vitamin D. So mutations that lighten the skin present less problems (the lesser intensity means less sunburn), and produce an advantage (superior vitamin d synthesis) which could lead to positive selective pressure. \n\n\n",
"Usually it's just the result of genetic drift and sometimes the founder effect. Obviously things like living closer to the equator have an affect on melanin production, but more often than not the physical differences are the result of genetic drift and interbreeding from within the same population over thousands of years. \n\nFor example, the average height of Mexican men is 5'7\" but there's no inherent or obvious benefit for being short, and it was most likely the result of genetic drift (i.e. short people outnumbered tall people and eventually those genes dissipated). ",
"There are 4 main suggestions:\n\n1) Natural selection. This is where there is some advantage to a trait in a particular group. This is most easily seen in skin colour: near the equator dark skin is good to protect from ultraviolet radiation; near the poles lighter skin is good to produce vitamin D under sunlight.\n\n2) Sexual selection. This is where a trait spread because it makes you more likely to have babies e.g. because you are more attractive. Humans tend to prefer to mate with others from their race, so slight differences between races may get exaggerated through sexual selection.\n\n3) Genetic drift. There is no actual advantage to a trait, it's just that the genes for it become spread through the whole group by chance. This is only plausible in very small populations. There may be some examples of this (e.g. the Pitcairn islands population derives from a dew people a few hundred years ago), but I don't think it is for whole races.\n\n4) Genetic pleiotropy: this is where a gene does affects than one thing. So a gene may give you some advantage so it spreads, but it also happens to cause something else to change, perhaps a physical trait. There is no advantage to it, but the trait spreads on the back of the other advantage.\n\nAs for the epicanthic folds of East Asians specifically, we still have no idea why they evolved as far as I know.",
"Epicanthal folds (thin eyes among east asians) are thought to be a sexually selected trait. A population favored them and it spread as sort of... genetic fashion. \n\nSkin color is an adaptation to prevent skin cancer or promote vitamin D production. ",
"Sometimes it serves a purpose, sometimes it used to serve a purpose and is now just genetic leftovers.\n\nFor example, light skin allows people with low vitamin D diets (farmers as opposed to hunters and fishermen) who live in areas with low sunlight (Scotland in the winter) to better synthesize it from sunlight. People who live in areas with ample sunlight or who eat a lot of meat are better served by darker skin that protects them from the sun, which also allows them to better synthesize some B complex vitamins.\n\nWhen you consider how much migration and intermixing that occurs, traits the evolved in one sort of climate can easily find themselves in another where they no longer serve a clear purpose.\n\n",
"The word \"consistent\" is a weird term to use. A better word would be \"different\" or \"differing.\" Not sure why you would pick it.\n\nBut to answer your question, the answer is environment. The different environments where certain peoples lived altered the biological chemistry of those tribes over periods of hundreds and thousands of years. When people split off in Africa and traveled to other places through both land and ice bridges, the new environments they encountered forced them to live certain lifestyles that over time they adapted to live in more effectively (evolution).\n\nAsian people traversing the Himalayas dealt with strong winds and lots of dust in the air, which resulted in the typical Asian \"eye slits\" you see today. They had to adapt the harsh environment of living in mountains and winds.\n\nAfricans who, well stayed in Africa dealt with extremely harsh sunlight with little shade (though it's not exactly known why they simply didn't live in areas with more natural shade) and of course their skin color blackened to what we see today.\n\nThose who lived in South America, particularly the Aztecs and... I *think* Incas, due to their living in such high altitudes actually developed larger lung capacities to deal with the lower oxygen content in the air (when you breathe in less oxygen per breath, it helps to increase the amount of air you can breathe in at a time). The Aztecs, before their annihilation by the Spanish, had 25% larger lungs than their Spanish counterparts.\n\nAnd the list goes on and on. Disease, weather, environment, food supply, basically the world around people determined the characteristics of tribes of people during ancient times. Now, with a global and mixed world, we see less and less differences between people and more mixed characteristics in people. "
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37q5e5 | how can the recent droughts and floods in texas both be caused by climate change? | The years-long drought and the recent mass rain fall in Texas have been blamed on Climate Change, how is it possible that both of these are caused by climate change, man made or not? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/37q5e5/eli5_how_can_the_recent_droughts_and_floods_in/ | {
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"The key word is change. Not necessarily \"drier\" or \"Wetter.\" The actual impact to a particular region's climate varies on a lot of factors, and climate change is becoming one of the players there, but it isn't the sole factor. As such, you can see differences in how climate change impacts a region. \n\nFor instance, global warming can increase the rate at which water evaporates from a land surface, decreasing the availability of water down through the drainage basin of a river. \n\nOn the other hand, it can also increase the evaporation from the ocean, increasing the availability of rainwater for adjacent regions. \n\nBut because the Earth isn't 'perfectly shaped' increased availability in one place doesn't necessarily cancel out decreased availability somewhere else. \n\nThe primary take-away of climate change is an increase in what we consider 'severe' weather. ",
"Think of it like driving your car... you're cruising along smoothly with tires meeting asphalt. Roads seem fine so you speed up. Then you hit a patch of ice, which throws off your straight ahead course. You fishtail in both directions, first to the right and then to the left, before evening out again and re-gaining your path.\n\nSimilar kind of thing, where changes in the climate throw off the smooth path and we get violent, sudden extremes of hot and cold, wet and dry, before course correcting for a time. But we're seeing the danger of hitting the slippery patch and continuing to speed up."
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1kn1v7 | why women feel embarrassed if seen in their bra and under wear but completely content with a smaller bikini? | I understand how where you are plays a role in this but what's the psychology behind these events?
EDIT: I marked this as explained its not showing up on my mobile. I have better understanding of this subject, thanks for all the great answers. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1kn1v7/eli5_why_women_feel_embarrassed_if_seen_in_their/ | {
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"Society can deem appropriate whatever it sees fit, given enough time.",
"This is my opinion of it: \n\nUnderwear is usually only seen in intimate settings, with very few people around (so there's more focus on the individual). Bikinis are public clothes, something worn with the intention of being seen, and usually worn where everyone else is also scantily-clad. The intimacy of underwear is why there's embarrassment if someone accidentally sees it (like if her skirt flips up or something). ",
"I'm not sure it goes any further than setting and context.\n\nAs a man, it's probably the same reason I would feel embarrassed as fuck if for some strange reason I was shirtless at work or school, yet am comfortable shirtless at the beach.\n\nThink of it this way, would said woman feel comfortable in a bikini if she was sitting in class, or in a job interview for an accounting position?",
"A woman expects to be seen in a bathing suit. She may of even picked it out to draw attention to her body. It's sexy and revealing but not normally considered intimate. Bra and underwear is normally the exact opposite, she more than likely purchased it for the sole purpose of making her feel sexy for herself or for being intimate with her partner. The bathing suit is for public the underwear is for private and she wants to keep it that way.",
"It's because of social conditioning to make men and women feel bad about sex and their bodies.\n\nBras and guys in underwear are for special people who you spend time with. Bikinis and swim trunks are for the beach in public. It's hammered into you from birth. Mental conditioning is hard to break, and you usually only get over it by simply being out in public in a bra or your underwear for extended periods of time, essentially desensitization.",
"Because the world tells them that they should be embarrassed by it and not wearing a swimsuit/bikini because it is 'normal'.\n\nI swear we humans tend to create these rules and maintain them because it makes it fun.\n\nI mean... imagine what erotic media would be like if we all walked around naked all the time anyways? I bet it would be pretty boring.",
"It's not just women. As a competitive swimmer, I routinely wear a speedo to train in. But I wouldn't be caught dead in tighty-whities.",
"Are you comfortable hanging around the swimming pool in your underwear?\n",
"As a woman, it's all about the reactions and judgements of those around me. If you saw a woman walking around in a bra and underwear, what would your opinion be? Would you draw attention to her? \n\nRepeat that thought experiment with a bikini.\n\nBasically, I dress in a way that I deem appropriate for the situation. Who decides what is appropriate? You.",
"Something something autonomy vs getting caught in a private setting",
"In addition to what other people have said, its also because a bikini is actually a lot different to me then bra/undies. I wear rather plain bras most of the time, not cute printed/colored ones. So I'd say I would feel embarrassed because my bra was not meant to be seen, but I picked out a bikini based on the fact that I expect to be seen in public with it on. I also think that this question is generalizing all women. I know plenty of girls who wouldn't care, and a good number that would. Depends on a variety of factors.",
"i hate to say it but period panties and absolutely disgusting work bras",
"because they get a different response from men",
"Its entirely based on societies opinion of what's acceptable. If society felt that having less than 3 pairs of earrings on in public was embarrassing people with less would feel... naked. to some degree, but only in public.\n\nNot only that but you will judge others based on societies opinion of what's normal as well. What ever you are raised to think is socially normal will be your comfort zone(usually). If you or anyone else steps outside that zone no matter how trivial it may seem, there will be an emotional response by all parties involved or present.\n\nExamples.. \n\nA man in a pair of womens hot pants or a mini skirt at the supermarket on a hot day.\n\nA person brushing their teeth in public.\n\n\nA woman in her dressing gown at the cinema.\n\n\nAll simple and perfectly reasonable things but outside of most social norms. \n\nSociety dictates for the most part how we feel in situations. Over coming it's power to do that is difficult at best. ",
"I've noticed that a lot of bikinis have more padding and a little more cover than typical female underwear. Its also a psychological thing. Underwear is essentially not wearing anything, whereas a bikini was designed with the purpose of being worn to the beach. Typically they are reserved for the beach only as well, many women will bring a dry T-shirt to wear if they go into a store or other setting (but many less modest women will not).",
"I believe back when the bikini was introduced the creator had to pay prostitutes to wear them off, because 'decent' woman thought that they were too revealing and immoral.",
"I asked my girlfriend (Ah she doesn't read reddit), and her response, was:\n\n\"My underwear has see through bits. My bathing suit does not. Underwear has become a lot more risqué than a bathing suit I would wear, bikini or not, to the beach.\"",
"tl;dr: Consent is the issue.\n\n",
"I think it's because bikinis are made of a thicker material than underwear, so they don't feel as revealing. Any type of underwear or bra is going to be made of a thin, breathable fabric because they are meant to be worn under clothes. So when someone is seen in their underwear, they get emberrased because they feel like there are being seen naked, since underwear is always under their clothes, and because the material is so thin. ",
"I don't really understand this either. One time I was walking around Vegas and we ended up at a pool so I just took my shirt off and wore my bra in. The men went gaga.",
"context, environment, social norms. \n\nI'm a guy and I feel very comfortable shirtless on a beach, but I usually wont' walk around the city shirtless on a sweltering hot day in the summer because it seems weird to me, even though other people do it. Same thing, really.",
"This is a matter of context, practicality and social implications attached to clothing. \n\nSwimwear is very different to underwear. Swimwear is supposed to be comfortable, its supposed to be protective of damage to skin if the individual is concerned with sunburn and skin irritation, and it is designed to be aesthetically pleasing and nice looking seeing as everyone in public will see it. It is an item of clothing that YOU choose based on how YOU feel comfortable in terms of being seen by ANYONE. \n\nUnderwear, however, is different as you only wear for yourself, (I'll talk about lingerie and other ones you plan to wear for your partner etc in a bit) You buy underwear based on what looks best under certain clothes, for example a g-string is for when you plan to wear a tight skirt with slight sheerness. You wouldn't want others to see you in that, because you may not feel comfortable with your body in it, or simply how it looks. It has a purpose and that's why it is purchased, it is not intended for public or unknown audiences. Shape-wear is also included in this category, you don't want others seeing your fat compressed in tight fitting and skin coloured clothing because its not flattering, but it makes your figure look great when you wear a fitted dress. It serves a practical purpose and you don't want it to be seen. \n\nLingerie and the fancy looking pieces of intimate underwear that you buy are for an intended, specific audience. It is for your partner (or whoever you choose to wear it for) and that person only. You choose it with their taste, your taste and the level of comfort (or lack thereof) in mind. It has the purpose of making you look desirable and presentable, for a SPECIFIC individual or group of people. \n\nThese are the basics. You would wear your swimwear in front of your uncle because you don't have a problem with wearing clothing suitable to the activity you are engaged in, and you know the social implications of wearing swimwear isn't to sexually attract and to imply intimacy. It has a practical, everyday use, and you'e comfortable with that. You won't wear a lace bra with matching panties in front of your uncle though, because the implications of that are the complete opposite. That's an extreme example, obviously.\n\nTLDR; Social implications, practicality, audience. If you don't get it, read the damn thing. ",
"My Girlfriend says it is because underwear is more transparent and thinner in general. Bikinis have a special fiber in there, so even white ones don't get transparent and don't stick to your skin. \n\nIn underwear i can clearly see the outlines of my girlfriends \"treasure chest\" ",
"same reason men don't want to be seen in boxer underwear, but are ok in swim trunks",
"Well...\nSituation: A woman is caught in her underwear. She might be uncomfortable because 1) she would not be comfortable with her body at all (many women are too self conscious to wear bikinis) 2) you've caught her unprepared (she might not be as shaved as she'd like to be, she's not wearing her nicest underwear) 3) she's not in a situation where revealing \nclothing is appropriate (example: she's wearing a skirt in an office building when her skirt is pushed up to reveal her underwear) and 4) she's not comfortable around you! If you walked in on a woman changing, that setting (the two of you, alone) is much more intimate than a public beach or a pool party.\nThere ya go",
"I am a woman and i don't necessarily feel embarrassed when seen in my bra and undies its just the 'surprise' part that makes me shriek or startled. Personally I wear swimsuit tops a lot bc it's so much more comfy. And I would walk around in my bra and panties if society would let me. ",
"IMO, it has to do with the context of the situation. Underwear is shown only to certain people in certain settings, while bathing suits are made for public settings and showing off.",
"A man here just offering an observation. Surely bikini is a conscious choice, made by women who are comfortable with their bodies, it's a conscious decision that \"i'm going to show a lot of skin today\" being caught roaming around in your underwear is a very different context?",
"When a woman is wearing a bikini, she is choosing to be seen in revealing clothing. When she is in her underwear, most often she is not making that choice to be seen in such clothing. It's about women having control over their image and identity. Same goes for men with boxers and swimming trunks being equally revealing. ",
"I was sitting on this question for a while as well. Think about this from a man's point of view: wouldn't YOU feel a little awkward wearing only your underwear in public? Revealing underwear is just as taboo to men as well as women.",
"The material is completely different. The bikini is much more thicker than the everyday underwear. ",
"it's just another useless social construct. Society is ridiculous and it always will be. Also, most women who don't want to be seen in their underwear don't want to be seen in a bikini either. ",
"There's a lot of great answers in this thread. Peronsally, I think it's really interesting how culture slowly evolved to accept bikinis as common place--I'm just going to drop a nice seminar video describing that history. \n\n _URL_0_\n\nIt's SFW. And hosted by a former Power Ranger. ",
"clothing is a form of communication, along with body language, facial expressions, sighs and other noises which aren't officially words, like a language different clothes have different meanings\n\nbikini = beach, swimming, happy fun time\n\nunderwear = I have just taken my clothes off",
"I think it also has to do with the bikini feeling reinforced with layers inside the cups and the bottoms. Girls don't \"feel\" exposed because the garment is designed to be worn alone.",
"It is because society teaches us that it is ok to be seen in a bathing suit, and not in your undies. That simple.",
"The same reason a guy might feel embarrassed being seen in boxers but is fine with wearing swimming trunks or a speedo.",
"Imagine yourself using the computer. If someone walks in from behind you and asks what you're looking at, you might be startled, even if it's not pornography. However, if they ask you to look something up on the computer, you'll let them stay by your side and you won't be shy about it, even though it's the same computer. What's different is the situation.\n\nBikinis have a set of purposes: look good even when wet and stay on. Lingerie on the other hand just need to look sexy, and it can even be semitransparent. There was an opinion that bikini is fine because the woman is ready to show off (shaved and such), but that's not why. A woman in lingerie can be as show-ready, or more often than not better prepared, than women in swimsuits. The difference is situation and mentality; let me assure you, even the sexiest woman will be startled and embarrassed if walked in on.\n\nSex is, for most, a private part of our lives. We don't tell our coworkers about what position you tried last night or what toys you use in bed. Lingerie is a part of that secrecy, something kept secret between lovers to give the partner a sense of exclusivity. How boring would it be if there was no excitement about what she's wearing under there?\n\nNo wonder why one of the first things men ask their partners on the phone is \"so... What are you wearing?\" It's a privilege, not a right!",
"The reaction time to being seen in underwear is suggesting no logical reason behind it (i.e. plain underwear, hairy body etc). A woman in super expensive underwear, shaved, bathed etc expecting to be seen in underwear by a new lover will still have the same reaction when accidentally seen by someone else. I believe it comes down to conditioned expectation. Dressing in a bikini you prepare mentally to be seen almost naked by random people. At all other social occasions you are not mentally prepared to bee seen almost naked by random people.",
"You're forgetting the obvious. Unless you're being intimate with this woman (in which case it is unlikely that she will feel embarrassment), then seeing her in her underwear means that you have walked in on her changing, *in her own personal space, when she did not expect to be walked in on*. Either that or you fucking sharked her, or her clothes magically fell off. No, the most likely explanation is that you walked in on her changing without your permission... Of course she's going to be embarrassed. Because you're invading her private space where she expected to be alone.",
"its all about perception. Same reason a guy who kills many people in war is a hero and a serial killer in a normal situation.",
"Here is a list of video links collected from comments that redditors have made in response to this submission:\n\n|Source Comment|Score|Video Link|\n|:-------|:-------|:-------|\n|[roccco](_URL_16_)|10|[Trumpet - Simplifying Summer - Togs or Undies?](_URL_5_)|\n|[annaloser](_URL_9_)|6|[New Zealand - togs or undies - you choose](_URL_3_)|\n|[JustaNiceRegularDude](_URL_13_)|3|[Jessica Rey - The evolution of the swim suit](_URL_15_)|\n|[anxdiety](_URL_4_)|2|[Amanda Palmer - Map Of Tasmania](_URL_7_)|\n|[nocubir](_URL_10_)|2|[Trumpet - Simplifying Summer Undies Bathers](_URL_0_)|\n|[SatansDancePartner](_URL_1_)|1|[Billy Madison learns Veronica Vaughn Teaches third grade Jackpot](_URL_6_)|\n|[Rho_Cassiopeiae](_URL_8_)|1|[Steven Pinker: Human nature and the blank slate](_URL_11_)|\n\n* [VideoLinkBot FAQ](_URL_14_)\n* [Feedback](_URL_12_)\n* [Playlist of videos in this comment](_URL_2_)",
"I asked my friends this once and my buddies gf who is usually so quiet and sweet pipes up \"because you don't get crotchless bikinis\". I thought that was an awesome response!",
"You typically select a bra to make the clothes over it look good even if it doesn't look good on its own. The bikini is the clothes, you select it because it looks good on you. I don't want to go out in spanx either.",
"i'd just like to point out that i don't feel comfortable in either and often wonder how other women can. ",
"Not all women are comfortable in a bikini. I wear a dweeby one piece. (Actually its really cute.)",
"Because shame is something taught by your culture. It doesn't have to make sense.\n\n(I read somewhere that the natives of some tribe somewhere that we would consider \"naked\" would be embarrassed as hell were you to see them in what *they* consider \"naked\" - i.e. without a piece of string tied around their waist.)\n\nIt's not about what you can and cannot see, it's about what is considered decent.\n\nAlso: Context matters.\nI have no problem going swimming with just a pair of shorts on. Chances are, I'd feel a little strange - to say the leas - if I had to sit in the office without a pair of pants and a shirt on.",
"I buy my bathing suits with the specific intention of others seeing me in them. I buy my underwear with the specific intention of one or two people seeing me in them. \n\nIf others outside of those one or two people saw me in my underwear I would feel like my privacy had been compromised. In my mindset, my underwear is for private and intimate occasions as opposed to a bikini which is for public affairs.",
"Context, it's the same reason why you are not allowed to wear anything on a nudist beach; they don't mind being naked, since everyone is.",
"Basically what I'm gathering from the responses is that it's just cultural conditioning. ",
"Can we see some examples of what OP is talking about?",
"it is kinda the same reason why men would swim in swim trunks or swim slips but wouldn't go around with their boxer or slips alone. one is a swim wear. you don't feel uncomfy wearing it because as the name states you can wear it swimming. the other one is underwear. which means you wear it \"under\" something.\nnah, i guess it's just perception and social habits. nothing too deep.",
"I will add that the fabric of underwear is more revealing in most cases. Thinner fabric for bottoms. ",
"Personally, for me it's the fabrics. Most bathing suits have thick fabric and underlining that will obscure things like nipples and pubes. My dainty under things are sometimes lacy, have see through material, etc. So there's a huge difference with what I'm displaying to the public in my panties vs my bathing suit. \n\nNow if I had to stand on a street corner in boxers and sports bra, no biggie there.",
"As a woman I really pisses me off that my guy friends can and will go bare chested when it gets hot out but If I get down to a bra they look at me like I've grown a third head. ",
"I just think clothing has a context and if it is viewed outside of that context, it is embarrassing. If you saw me in a business suit at the beach, I would feel like an idiot. If you saw me in my PJs at work, I would feel like a complete bell end. \n\nObviously with bikinis, you are showing more skin, but you are surrounded by other people doing the same, so it is not as bad.",
"Context is everything.",
"My underwear: super ratty and weird. It doesn't match and (apart from the bra) isn't all about being flattering. Also, a lot of my bras are lace, and so are not at all good at hiding things. They give me support (surprisingly- It took a long time for me to believe that a bra with no padding could be as supportive or more than one with, but it is true) but I would NEVER think of it as providing the same coverage as a bikini. A smaller bikini would still cover things more. \n\nAlso, some people don't wear bikinis, so it's not \"Why women\" but \"Why bikini wearing women.\" Some of us like one pieces, or tankinis, or the cute ones with the little skirts, or the more competitive looking ones, or a bikini top and a sarong, or they'll wear the bikini in the water and then put on a cover, or any number of things. \n\nAlso, there's the whole silly \"bikini season\" type thing. Getting ready to display your body for most women involves a lot of crunches, pushups, dieting, and oh lawd SHAVING. Some women get pretty obsessive about it. I have a friend who is a model. So you'd think that she's pretty used to displaying her body, right? She was always fretting about how much she'd need to exercise and get in shape before she wore a swimsuit in public, just because her tummy area- while in no way big or even protruding in any way- was a little soft looking. It wasn't as perfectly flat as she wanted it, so she felt uncomfortable. Also, interestingly, we went swimsuit shopping and while she had no problems with a lot of the bikinis she felt a little uncomfortable in a one piece swimsuit with large cutouts on the side. More coverage than a bikini, but the way it was cut and the shiny bronze fabric made her feel like it sent a different sort of message. She also tried to avoid swimsuits that looked like bras, just because of the association. ",
"Context. Bikinis are socially acceptable under most contexts, and items women choose to expose themselves in to everyone, just like a man does his own bathing suit. Underwear is what you wear under your clothes primarily for hygienic reasons. If it's sexy underwear it's reserved for an intimate setting with a chosen person, if it's not then it's underwear you probably wouldn't feel confident in to any old person. \n\nYou'd probably feel at least a little uncomfortable trying on a bathing suit at the mall and walking around the store in it (regardless of gender). That's a good example of it.",
"I think it's a cycle. People act embarrassed when they catch you in your underwear, so it makes you feel embarrassed and vice versa. Just cultural norms",
"I think it has a lot to do with context. Most are dressed in bikinis, so the woman herself doesn't feel like a black sheep. If caught in panties on an airport, this is a completely different matter!\n\nSpeaking of black sheep, a guy who've recently tried out nudist beaches says he felt less naked when actually naked, than when on a traditional beach and clothed. This is also about the context, and very good food for thought! On a textile beach, people observe _what_ you've dressed yourself with, and pay special attention to the body parts _not_ dressed – underboobs, underbutts, whatever. You're observed, scrutinized. On a naked beach, however, all are equal.",
"A woman in a bikini is wearing it deliberately, and the amount of skin she is showing is intentional. But when she is fully dressed, having her bra and underwear be visible through her clothes can make her feel like she is being taken advantage of, since she was trying to cover those garments and is not putting her body on display in the same way. ",
"Woman here, and I actually don't understand it. I don't care if you see me in my bra and underwear, because it covers more than a bikini.\n\nI'm not 100% sure if this is because I had to change in front of a lot of people during high school and now college (theater department and band), but either way, I don't care.",
"Because it's not about what someone is wearing, it's about privacy. If I choose to wear a smaller bikini on the beach, it's because I want to do that. If someone sees me in my bra and underwear when I don't want them to, it's highly likely they've bust into my room without knocking or something. ",
"Usually when someone sees you in your underwear or bra it's by accident or through a slip of the clothing, whereas beach attire is meant to be seen., thus carrying a stigma. Plus I think they would be more embarrassed on the beach if everyone else wasn't doing it. YAY FOR SOCIAL EXPECTATIONS.",
"Culturally, bikinis/swim trunks are another form of clothing, just for a specific occasion. So its okay to walk around like that, seeing as its just clothing, right? Undergarments are under your garments, hence the name, and not generally supposed to be seen in a cultural sense. The difference between the two doesn't necessarily have anything to do with the amount of cloth the person is wearing, though for some women this may be the case, as with some men. Its a behavior defined by human culture and taboos, not by the amount of cloth. Thousands of years ago, people sure weren't embarrassed to be seen nude, as this was the social norm, as it continues with some cultures today. This is just my personal take on it though.\n\nThough, so be fair, undergarments do have their specific occasions... but that's a more private and personal one.",
"I think it's because of the thickness. Swimsuits are a lot thicker (fabric wise) than panties. Also, swimsuits are meant to keep everything in place, despite the movement of swimming. Panties? Not so much. They are generally very flimsy and can move out of place easily. ",
"As a woman, I feel like a bathing suit bottom hides the shape of my mons vernus (sp)/ camel toe/ beef curtains and tucks them all into place a bit better than undies",
"I don't feel comfortable in a bikini either.",
"Hey it's the same for guys. We wear only shorts at the beach. But would you wear only shorts at your work? Or the library? You'd likely be embarrassed because you're sticking out like a sore thumb.\n\nPlus when a woman puts on a bikini, she is willingly prepared to be seen in a bikini. Her mind is set and prepared. However if she's at her job and a button pops loose suddenly revealing her bra, she's not prepared for it. And it's probably embarrassing!",
"I read this thread when there were only about four comments, and I thought it was answered very well at that time.\n\n770 comments later... ",
"I think it's a social norm/perception thing. Growing up, I knew plenty of people who did karate or were in the Boy Scouts and were all gung ho into it, but they were all embarrassed when caught in their gear in the \"real world\". There is no real difference - just a perceived difference created by social norms."
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2z9uio | why do certain trials, like james holmes, take years when they are essentially 100% guilty? | The shooting happened in 2012. It's almost three years later but it hasn't gone to trial yet. Why does this happen? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2z9uio/eli5_why_do_certain_trials_like_james_holmes_take/ | {
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"Getting ready for trial takes time. There are numerous activities that need to be performed before either side is ready to argue their case (depositions, evidence gathering, pretrial motions, jury selection, etc.). Each one of these events involves coordination and preparation and it is rare that the prosecutors or defense attorneys are working on just that one single case.\n\nWhile one of the goals of the justice system is swiftness, the most important goal is fairness. Sometimes that just takes a while.\n\n",
"The judiciary system in the US has a lot of people.\n\nIn a case where it's essentially proven that someone is guilty, they can afford to delay it because there is virtually no risk of a situation arising where someone is being falsely imprisoned, so they deal with more pressing cases first.\n\nAlong with the fact that Holmes is undergoing psychological testing to see if he is truly sane or not, along with the defence trying to gather any possible evidence they can for the defence.\n\nWhile it would seem easy to simply walk him in and have the jurors say \"GUILTY\", the system in place has numerous checks and double checks and triple checks so that the majority of cases are handled properly. This means that rare cases get caught up in it and trials get delayed.\n\nFun Fact, when I googled \"Does Colorado have the Death Penalty?\" the first link said this\n\n\"But even if Holmes is convicted and sentenced to death, it may be decades before he would face lethal injection. In the 37 years since Colorado reinstituted the death penalty, only one person has been executed. Gary Lee Davis was executed in 1997.Apr 1, 2013\"",
"Well, there's a few things at play.\n\nFirst of all, this was a heavily publicized case. The average person knows a good amount about it and is likely to have some bias. Jury selection is a challenge here; no matter who's on trial, we need a jury that is able to be impartial and emotionless, weighing evidence and testimony, rather than any hearsay or impassioned media reports.\n\nAs far as the actual trial... He's not 100% guilty. We're about 100% sure that he killed those people, but a plea of insanity is a plea of \"not guilty.\" The trial isn't to determine if he caused the deaths of people in a movie theater - the defense won't even touch that point. The trial is to determine if he was insane or if he is a murderer of sound enough mind to be called guilty. Each has their own consequences. This requires a lot of investigation and psychological examination, which delays the trial."
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2tw1ag | why is it that if i walking through a neighborhood that the smaller dogs are more likely to chase me than the bigger ones? | Ex. When I jog it seems like the chihuahuas are always the ones chasing me while the German Shepherds hang back. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2tw1ag/eli5_why_is_it_that_if_i_walking_through_a/ | {
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"Maybe they're just compensating for their small size. ",
"Bigger dogs are more often than not reprimanded for acting aggressive whereas little dogs are just laughed at and is viewed as being \"cute.\" Therefor they weren't trained to not do it. "
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498czx | why is it harder to cup water with your non-dominant hand? | Today I was trying to cup water from the faucet with my left hand and couldn't hold as much water than my right. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/498czx/eli5_why_is_it_harder_to_cup_water_with_your/ | {
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"Everything is more difficult in your non-dominant hand, you don't have the same level of fine motor control, dexterity and eye-hand coordination. "
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|
8h4hc6 | what is a covered bond? and how do they work? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/8h4hc6/eli5_what_is_a_covered_bond_and_how_do_they_work/ | {
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"Covered bonds are bonds that are secured by an underlying pool of assets, known as the cover pool. Investors buy covered bonds and so they have claim on the underlying pool. The underlying pool (typically mortgages or loans, but can also be ships, aircrafts, etc) generate cash flow, and that cash flow is passed on to the covered bond holders."
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2wev4y | would i lose more weight on 1500 calories of healthy food or 1000 calories of junk food? | I keep reading a lot of conflicting articles. Some say it doesn't matter what you eat, a calorie deficit is all you need to lose weight. Others say 100 calories of burgers and fries is VERY different from 100 calories of fruits and veggies. Just curious. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2wev4y/eli5_would_i_lose_more_weight_on_1500_calories_of/ | {
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"1000 on junk food is faster however such a deficiency in calories would be a serious health risk.\n\n > Others say 100 calories of burgers and fries is VERY different from 100 calories of fruits and veggies\n\nThis is true, but not in terms of weight loss. They differ in how healthy you'd be.",
"A calorie is a unit of energy, and it's the same no matter where it comes from. It's like this. A dollar from the bank is the same as a dollar from your mother's purse. (Canadian dollars don't count) When they say the calories are different, they probably mean the nutrients that go along with those calories. Fruit and vegetables are probably healthier for you than most junk food.\n\nBasically, the general consensus is that you store extra calories in weight, and bring deficient calories from weight. So no matter the food, you'll probably lose weight faster from 1000 calories.\n\nHowever, there are those who claim that you can consume all the calories you want without gaining weight. They say as long as you're low on carbohydrates and high on fat, you can eat all you want and sit around all day without gaining a pound. (eg. Atkins Diet) I won't go into much detail, but their logic is that if you stay away from carbs, your body won't store as much calories as you eat. This is great and all, but it's all just a theory and there hasn't been much evidence over the years to support it.\n\nTL;DR) A calorie is a calorie, even when there's no nutrients there"
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3rj0zz | is a strong us dollar good or bad for the economy? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3rj0zz/eli5_is_a_strong_us_dollar_good_or_bad_for_the/ | {
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"Good for imports bad for exports. The US is a net importer, so overall it's probably a net positive for the economy, but don't try telling that to export-oriented industries.",
"A weak dollar is good for exports because it makes our goods/services cheaper to country with a relatively strong currency. A strong dollar is good for those who travel and those who import goods/services. ",
"A strong dollar means that either another currency has depreciated relative to the dollar or the dollar has appreciated relative to other currencies. In both instances it means that it takes more of another currency to buy dollars, or you can buy more of another currency with your dollars than you could before. Your currency is, literally, worth more.\n\nThere are a variety of implications of a strong (or weak) dollar that are both positive and negative. In the case of a strong dollar, it means that consumers and tourists will be paying less for products they buy in the US because of the currency's relative strength compared to others. However, foreigners will be put off US manufactured goods and services because they are expensive compared to their weaker currency. This can then lead to manufacturers relocating abroad to lower costs, etc.\n\nLike a lot of economic and financial issues, there isn't a default answer.",
"Companies that have costs in dollars but revenues in foreign currency are really hurting. Also companies that earn money in a foreign currency but report earnings in dollars are having a hard time. The companies that come to mind are ones like P & G, S.C. Johnson, Colgate.",
"it's good for the US economy because most of the US GDP is generated from consumption and a strong dollar means consumers can afford more imports.",
"It is good and bad, depending on who you are. \n\nA strong dollar means that imports will be cheaper, but exports will be more expensive for others.\n\nA strong dollar means that tourism for Americans will be cheaper, but tourism for those coming to America will be more expensive.\n\nEverything has positives and negatives, and it is not productive to blankly label something as good or bad. Good and bad is only useful for those who want a certain outcome to become reality.",
"There are two ways to look at the effects of a stong US dollar and the effects on the economy. \n\nFirst, the effect on the US economy. There are different ways to view the effects on the US economy, it depends on your starting point. The effects on people within the US is clear. When the US dollar becomes stonger, people with money or a lot of money profit from it, they can buy more items. People without money or with a small amount of money don't profit from it, it will be harder to get a job or raise because there are less people buying items from the US. \n\nSecond, you can look at the world economy. Mostly it will balance out. Items are still bought but only in a different country. There are expections on this rule and that is when for an instant the US decides to keep the dollar strong or weak. This an be done by decreasing the amount of dollars or increasing the amount of dollars. Both can't be done indefinitely and will cause after some time serious problems for the world economy. \n\nDecreasing the amount for dollars can be done by buying dollars back and lock them away or destroy them. This costs, obviously, money to buy the dollars back. The US can increase her dept or trade the dollars for other valuta they have in reserve. Increasing the dept can only be done as long as you can pay the dept back. As long as the market believes the US are able to pay the dept everything will go well. When the market stops believing the US can pay her depts, people start rejecting the dollar which will mean the dollar will become worthless. The economy in the US will collapse and everything linked to the US economy will fall. \n\nIncreasing the amount of dollars can be done by printing more dollars. Printing more dollars and a weaker dollar means more people will want to by items from the US. Therefor the demand for US items increases and the items incease in price (overall this will lead to inflation). To much inflation will also lead to a worthless dollar. This is because when overall price of items rises people will buy more which inceases the inflation and causing a circle (rising price - inflation - more demand - rising price). ",
"Speaking from the perspective of a Canadian who lived next to the border (expat currently in AU) and who would go south with parents for gas and groceries (TJ's FTW, so much good stuff), we would go more often when our dollar was more than theirs. It means more people from countries with a currency stronger than the others would go do business in the weaker currency country, which stimulates that country's economy.",
" > Is a strong US dollar good or bad for the economy?\n\nYes.\n",
"A lot of the answers here are vastly oversimplified. The problem is not a simple export/import scenario. A strong US dollar has many and far reaching effects besides the piddling amount we trade externally. The effects are unique to each industry segment, and their extent is not agreed on. The general consensus in finance (probably biased) is that a weak dollar is better than a strong one.\n\nLets take commodities companies (steel, coal, oil, etc.) as an example:\n\n1. A strong US dollar **makes commodities cheaper**. Every % increase in the price of a dollar is a % decrease in the price of many internationally exchanged commodities. For example, if the dollar improves 2% against all global currencies, then the value of oil just decreased by 2% within the US. This is not a function of international trade, it also affects internal trade.\n\n2. **Commodities companies are damaged**. Now, a 2% decrease seems small, but profit margins are often pretty thin in a lot of commodity companies; that could be 40% of their net profit. Whatever the magnitude the same things happen, just to different extents.\n\n3. What does this mean? **Layoffs, pay cuts, etc.** depending on the magnitude of the change. Companies attempt to go \"leaner and meaner\" or whatever the buzz-word is at the time. This also ripples outwards, the company is almost certainly a client to many domestic service providers.\n\n4. **Exports decline**, both as a result of lowered production and lower demand for a more expensive product. Contracts may be affected in the long run to account for a strengthening dollar. \n\n5. **Imports also decline**, because there is less money going around. Employees aren't demanding foreign products, and the company is too poor to be buying excess inventories. \n\n6. **Velocity of money declines**, meaning simply that people dont spend as much, as fast. Lower wages and higher uncertainty. This damages the overall amount of money in the economy.\n\n7. **GDP declines**, as a result of velocity, imports, and exports declining, the overall effects of a strong dollar, *regarding commodity markets specifically*, is to weaken our GDP.\n\nNote that the above is not gospel, some would disagree on the nature and extent and causation. But the fact is that, like many economic questions, the answer is complicated. In other spaces or industries the effect might be the opposite, or sort of similar, or just completely different. It is explicitly **not** only about imports and exports. In the above example, nobody gives a flying [expletive] about us being net importing or net exporting, it hurts literally everyone in with a stake the commodity space.",
"Currency strength is a measure of how much value a country produces, relative to other countries. \n\nFor example, lets say there is an island that produces 100 bulldozers and has $100 in total currency on the island. That means $1 is equal to the value of 1 Bulldozer. Now there is another country that produces rice. The exchange rate will adjust so that $1 will by an amount of rice equal in value to 1 Bulldozer.\n\nNow, lets say the island makes a technological improvement that allows them to produce 200 Bulldozers. The amount of dollars hasn't changed. So a bulldozer is now worth $0.50. But its \"true value\" hasnt changed. And people in that country can now buy a Bulldozer's worth of rice for half as much. The dollar has strengthened. It results naturally by a country improving production. It is an indicator that everyone in that country is getting wealthier. So its not the strength of the dollar that makes thing s good, its the fact that everyone is actually richer (more stuff, same amount of work).\n\n\nUnfortunately, the amount of currency isn't static, its manipulated by central banks. So the strength or weakness of a currency doesn't always mean an increase in output value or that people are becoming wealthier. So its possible for a currency to strengthen while a nation is actually becoming poorer."
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ejvs9d | how come 500 million animals died in the australian fires? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/ejvs9d/eli5_how_come_500_million_animals_died_in_the/ | {
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"They took the density of all animals over certain areas (an estimate) (not including bugs/insects) x area affected by the fires then they got to that number. The actual number might be much higher or much lower.\n\nHere's a summary of how they got the density in the first place:\n\n[_URL_0_](_URL_0_)\n\nThey took samples in an area for various purposes over the years and estimated how much of each animal is present in that area, no one actually knows the real numbers of course.",
"From [_URL_0_](_URL_0_)\n\n > It estimated that there were an average of 17.5 mammals, 20.7 birds and 129.5 reptiles per hectare (10,000 square metres, so a square 100m on each side - about the size of a rugby pitch). \n\nIf you do that calculation you ger around 480 million. But is it said in the article that large animals like kangaroos or emus and many birds can escape the fire. The number of animals per hectare is also an estimation and especially for reptiles, it is quite uncertain.\n\nThat is only vertebrate and if you include insects, spiders, etc that are animals you will ger a lot more killed"
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9c2eiu | how is an internal 3d representation of the video game world translated to what we see on screen? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/9c2eiu/eli5_how_is_an_internal_3d_representation_of_the/ | {
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"It’s usually done by multiplying together three different matrices. \nFirst a Model matrix which describes the orientation and translation of the object in relation to a fixed coordinate system.\n\nSecondly a View matrix which describes the Viewers (Cameras) orientation and translation in relation to the same fixed coordinate system. \n\nAnd thirdly a projection matrix which describes the field of view, near/far planes and aspect ratio of the target 2D surface.\n\nBy multiplying these three matrices together (in the correct order), you end up with a matrix which can be used to transform any 3d point of said object into 2D space coordinates between -1 and 1. \n\nThe spitting out of a 2D array of pixels are not part of this algorithm, that is the job of the rasterizer which makes use of the newly created 2D coordinates in order to generate the pixels shown on screen, and can be achieved in many different ways.\n\nNot sure exactly how ELI5 this answer is. It’s a tough topic to explain to a fiver :)\n\n",
"None of these comments are ELI5.\n\nThe principle behind all current real-time rendering is rasterization. All things within games are made of triangles and these triangles are \"projected\" onto your screen depending on your view. Think of it like holding a flashlight towards an object and drawing the shadow. Once you have this projection you still have to find out how this projection translates to pixels. One way to do this is the Scanline method although this can't be quickly explained.",
"Hi, game engine developer here.\n\nIt's probably best to explain the _entire_ process, not just what happens on the graphics card as you're asking - especially since this is a hard subject to 'ELI5'. That's also why this will be a bit long, so buckle up. Also, apologies for any holes in the answer - 3D/graphics theory isn't necessarily hard, it's just _broad_, so covering all of it while I have my morning coffee isn't the easiest thing to do.\n\nAlso, I went over the 10,000 character limit so the second half of this response was added as a comment reply. If you understand what mesh data, textures and shaders are already, skip to that comment. Otherwise, keep reading.\n\nLet's start with the computer itself. There are two major pieces to consider when talking about the \"graphics pipeline\", or the steps in drawing a single \"frame\" in a video game: the CPU (your computer) and the GPU (your graphics card) - which stand for Central and Graphical Processing Unit, respectively.\n\nIn all games/game engines, the vast majority of game logic is happening on the CPU - that is, the part of the computer that \"thinks\" about your keyboard/mouse input, talks to the internet, decides what to do with that button you just pressed, how much damage to deal to the enemy you just shot, etc.\n\nThis sort of logic usually happens in what is commonly called an \"update loop\", or some code that runs over and over again in order to decide what's actually happening in the game:\n\nDid an enemy just see you? What should it do next? Are you holding the W key? Does that make you move forward? How far? Did that bomb just explode and shoot a car into the air? What's the car's new position? Is it rotating? Are there physics involved?\n\nAll of these are questions that have to do with the game logic and generally run many hundreds of times per second in order to keep the game feeling responsive and up-to-date.\n\nMeanwhile, there's the \"render loop\". Of the two common loops (update and render), this loop is fairly straightforward. Depending on the player's graphics settings (e.g. some games offer V-Sync support, which limits framerate), this loop runs once for each \"frame\" in a game.\n\nA frame is a single, motionless picture of a video game, a movie file, or a gif image for example. In video games in particular, each frame is re-calculated, or \"re-rendered\", from scratch each time one needs to be displayed.\n\nGame engines generally take the current \"state\" of a game (what is calculated by the update loop I mentioned earlier) - usually the positions, or \"transforms\", of each thing in the game - and use those positions, rotations, and scaling (how big it is) to instruct the GPU (your graphics card) to \"draw\" or render that frame using all of that data.\n\nFurther, everything that is sent to the graphics card has some data attached to it. There are many different types of data, but the most common types (at least for 3D games) are:\n\n- mesh data (3D models)\n- texture data (images, though not _only_ images - many of which are added to \"skin\" a mesh)\n- shader programs (actual programming code that can manipulate the graphics directly on the GPU instead of bogging down the CPU)\n\nMesh data is a bunch of 3D model data usually created in a 3D modeling program such as Blender, Maya, 3DS Max, ZBrush, etc. by a 3D artist. I won't go much into how they're created, but instead leave it at this data holds what are called \"vertices\" (singular \"vertex\") that have a position in 3D space relative to an \"origin point\" (the vertices' positions being \"local\" to the origin point). The origin point is what is used to calculate the 3D model's position in the game world itself.\n\nFor example, if a Terrorist from CS:GO is positioned at {10,0,20} in the map, and the tip of his nose has a vertex at {5, 100, 0}, then the *actual* position (or what's called the \"global position\" or \"world position\") is {10+5, 0+100, 20+0} or {15, 100, 20}. Note that these are {X, Y, Z} positions for 3D space.\n\nMultiply that whole process by thousands, if not millions or (in modern days) billions of vertices."
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qn2gx | why do laptops run demanding programs smoother on ac as opposed to battery power. | I've noticed that when I run games/music production software, on battery power, they run sluggishly. However, when I plug in the ac cord, the programs immediately run smoother. Why is this? Does the battery not give off sufficient power? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/qn2gx/eli5_why_do_laptops_run_demanding_programs/ | {
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"The people who design computers make them do lots of clever things to save power when they're running on battery power instead of AC. One of the things they do is run the processor more slowly, so that it uses less power. Just like driving your car at 130 miles per hour on the freeway will use more fuel than driving at 56 miles per hour on the freeway over the same distance, making the processor run slower will also use less power than running it faster. Similar tricks are done with other parts of the computer too, like turning off the hard disk if you don't use it for 30 seconds - spinning the disk inside a hard disk is a huge power drain.",
"This is known as [frequency scaling](_URL_0_) or CPU throttling. The processor allows for separate 'levels' of operation in which the frequency is adjusted. \n\nYour operating system determines that you are currently running on battery power, so it tries to reduce the energy consumed by lowering the frequency on the processor. When you plug the AC power back in, it bumps the frequency back up.\n\nThis is done so that the consumer can continue using the laptop for longer. It would be quite annoying if your laptop ran out of power within half an hour.\n\nYour OS should also come with the option to avoid this sluggishness when on battery power. You will be able to go into something like 'power options' and keep performance up even when on battery power, at the expense of having to recharge sooner. \n\nIf you are on Windows 7, you can left click the battery icon in your system tray and choose 'high performance' when you're on battery mode. "
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3sg7as | if a one time infection by certain viruses (e.g. chicken pox) usually leads to immunity, why can other viruses recur in the same person countless times? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3sg7as/eli5_if_a_one_time_infection_by_certain_viruses/ | {
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"They can't, but what happens is that what we call the common cold for example isn't one virus. It's dozens and dozens of different strains of roughly the same virus. When you get sick and then heal from the cold, you have immunity against that particular strain. Not against the hundreds of others one that are still out there. ",
"It all depends on the virus.\n\nSome, like the one that causes chicken pox, tend not to mutate much so the body can build up an immunity that will remain valid.\n\nBy comparison, the common cold is caused by a group of viruses that mutate very rapidly. You never get the same cold twice... but there are an ever growing number of variants to get!",
"Well, this can be for many reasons. Viruses and other microbes change just as much as we do, so you may grow immune to a virus but some of that virus may change just enough to circumvent your immunity. Also, there are thousands of types of viruses to begin with, so we are at a disadvantage from the get go.\n\nedit: some viral infections can become chronic, meaning you always 'have' the virus in you, but it flairs up from time to time. This is actually what happens with chicken pox, a varicella virus, you can't usually get chicken pox again but you can get Shingles, which is caused by the varicella virus, which does not leave your body after the infection.",
"Imagine a burgler going through a neighborhood that doesn't lock their doors. They might be successful until the community decides to lock their doors. Now the same or other burglers might improve their methods by using unlocked windows, or picking locks. Next time, another thief decides to act as a garage door consultant and learns the radio frequency of your door. Since viruses reproduce so rapidly their chances for beneficial evolutionary change is huge compared to ours. So, they may develop better methods and strains that are completely different from what they were 10-20 years ago when you first encountered them.",
"It's called evolution. Some viron mutate their genetic code. Like Flu mutates a lot so we need a new shot every year. \n\nOther viruses like HPV or Polio don't mutate that much, so a vaccine from 1990 and one from 2015 will be just as effective."
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3xukep | why are home games so important in sports, and why do analysts make a big deal when a team loses at home? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3xukep/eli5_why_are_home_games_so_important_in_sports/ | {
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"I'm not an expert but here is my 2 cents. I can come up with two reasons;\n\nPlaying a home game, the crowd will most likely be in your favour. This is a huge mental boost and cannot be underestimated.\n\nIn some sports, like football (soccer .. ), there are no strict rules on the geometry of the terrain. The length of the field should be between 100 and 110 m. The width of the goal between 7 or 9. (Don't quote me on the numbers I have no clue, I just know they are variable.) Training on that field gives you an edge over other teams.",
"There are a number of real home field advantages, one of the biggest being in every sport, having the crowd at your back. A stadium that is silent when you score is a lot less mentally exhilarating than a stadium that roars when you score.\n\n It also means you didn't have to travel to play the game. Travel takes a toll on people, even professional athletes. No one likes to get off a plane and do anything. Now think about getting off a plane and playing a sport professionally. It sucks. \n\nFinally, some sports have rules advantages when playing at home. I know in hockey, you get the last chance to change your players before each puck drop. This gives you better match ups against the other team's best players. In baseball, the home team bats second. This gives the home team a chance to come back when losing, especially in the final inning, but the away team always has to simply retain a lead. ",
"Teams typically have an advantage playing at home. Crowd noise, field configuration, even specific rules they all benefit the home team.\n\nCommon wisdom says if you can win at home, and go 50-50 on the road, you'll have a shot at the championship. If you lose at home, you need to question your championship aspirations.",
"In addition to the factors listed, there are some interesting research going on in the psychological impact of the crowd on the referees' decisions. \n\nOne particularly vivid example was showing referees video of questionable tackles (soccer / European football) on video. The same incident would be packaged as video where the crowd cheers after the tackle (defender at home), the crowd boos after the tackle (defender on road), and with no noise (control).\n\nA referee would be shown the series of videos and asked to judge whether the tackle was clean, foul, yellow card, or red card.\n\nDefenders who were \"on the road\" were more likely to receive red and yellow than defenders who the crowd supported. ",
"Sports teams are well oiled machines. The competitive advantages between winning and losing come down to a very small set of circumstances. A few extra hours of rest, preparation time, and not having to travel can give that team an advantage over the one that does. Also factor in sleeping in your own bed, the comforts and routine of playing where you're used to playing and the crowd cheering for you and it gives a distinct edge to the home team."
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99uisb | how come there are still old us bills that look crisp, clean, and almost unused? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/99uisb/eli5_how_come_there_are_still_old_us_bills_that/ | {
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"Issued doesn't mean it goes around alot. You can take a freshly printed bill and withdraw it from the bank and just never spend it. Some people keep an emergency stash of money in their home. They don't touch it for years until they need it for an emergency.",
"Assuming this is a US discussion, are you talking about bills printed in 2013, or bills printed carrying a \"series 2013 designation? For the latter, bills for circulation with that designation were printed as late as early 2018. \n\n\nThat being said, a stack of bills could, for whatever reason, sit around in a safe, ATM, someone's matress, or somewhere for months or years undisturbed. "
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57m7f1 | the latest wikileaks email dump | [deleted] | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/57m7f1/eli5the_latest_wikileaks_email_dump/ | {
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"Long story short some key people in the Democratic party had their emails published publicly and what it showed was that the many in the media and the DNC have been in the tank for Hillary's campaign from the start. It shows what goes on behind the scenes in establishment politics and how the system is rigged for the candidates the establishment supports. It also shows how the media is often complacent and chooses sides with Democratic party. It also shows that at least one debate was rigged with Hillary's campaign receiving the questions ahead of time to provide her with a huge advantage over her opponent. It also shows how strongly super-delegates were attacked if they would not support Hillary Clinton.\n\nIt's really nothing that most people haven't already figured out, but it's one of those things.. like nobody wants to know how the sausage is made. This peeled back the curtain and showed the public what happened behind the scenes. The majority of the mainstream media isn't covering the details of this leak because much of the mainstream media could eventually get burned as more emails come out. Also, it would be a negative story for the DNC at a time when most of the major editors and organizations have already publicly endorsed Hillary Clinton and made public they don't want Donald Trump to win. In the world of newspapers there's something like 80 - 3 in support for Hillary over Trump.\n\nThese emails show that the system was rigged to support Hillary in the primaries and even in the general election there is corruption that the DNC/Hillary are beneficiaries of.\n\n_URL_0_"
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1pvtx1 | how some gifted humans are able to perform extremely difficult calculations in their head? | Today's Google Doodle is celebrating the birthday of Shakuntala Devi AKA "The human computer". from her wikipedia page:
> *On June 18, 1980, she demonstrated the multiplication of two 13-digit numbers 7,686,369,774,870 × 2,465,099,745,779 picked at random by the Computer Department of Imperial College, London. She correctly answered 18,947,668,177,995,426,462,773,730 in 28 seconds.*
Can someone explain how some people do this, or do we not even know?
Edit: formatting | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1pvtx1/eli5_how_some_gifted_humans_are_able_to_perform/ | {
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"Overly simple answer: A lot of math can be boiled down to simple procedures that the brain can more easily process. You already know a few of these tricks. One of the most basic is that when you multiply any whole number by 10 you just tack another 0 on the end. Most mathematical functions can be broken down like that into rules and methods.\n\nNow, one popular theory is that people have a 'working memory'...think of it like the scratch paper of the brain. Some people simply can retain more information in their active thoughts then others and sort of...hold it there for use. Ms. Devi for example could hold a ton of information in her head without forgetting it.\n\nCombine the two and she's just extraordinary at doing the math in her head. It's not like she magically knew the answers. She still had to do the mental arithmetic. That's why it took her 28 seconds or 50 seconds to figure out the answers.",
"I used to do human calculator tricks, nothing at that level, but I was pretty good.\n\nIt is a matter of practice and technique. Not that what she did wasn't remarkable, or that just anyone could do it...but with the right technique, a reasonably bright person could multiply two 6 digit together in 28 seconds without too much problem.\n\n "
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4hb2o3 | how does high productivity mean lower unit costs? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4hb2o3/eli5_how_does_high_productivity_mean_lower_unit/ | {
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"Pretend you need to earn $100 per day to live your life. \n\nIf you made 1 item a day, you'd have to sell that 1 item for perhaps $150, $50 for the materials, facilities, and other expenses, $100 for your labor.\n\nIf you were more productive, and made 2 items a day, you could perhaps sell them for $80 each, with a daily revenue of $160. So $30 each for the variable and fixed costs, and $50 each for the labor.\n\nIf you made 3 items, you could sell it for maybe $60 each. As you make more items, the fixed costs, such as rent of the building, tools, are spread across more items. You're also spending less labor-hours per unit. So while the cost of the raw materials might remain the same, many of the other costs decline. "
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69uerr | why is it so easy to fall asleep watching the tv but radio or simply waiting to fall asleep don't have the same effect? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/69uerr/eli5_why_is_it_so_easy_to_fall_asleep_watching/ | {
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"Watching TV can help take your mind off the worries of the day. It takes your focus off the upcoming day, the stresses of the day you're wrapping up.",
"i have always found this puzzling. I can never fall asleep if there's noise somewhere. While my father almost always falls asleep on the couch while the TV is blaring. When I visit him, I usually have to sneak to the living room and turn down the volume so I could sleep. If he wakes up for a moment during the night, he turns up the volume again. I swear he almost never uses his king-sized bed.",
"This has to do with the way the brain tries to shut down. Our consciousness watching TV is in a very relaxed state because of the ease of watching and, because of the uninhibited comfort it can be very easy to slip into sleep. When trying to sleep, certain distractions such as words or loud music over the radio can make it hard to stop paying attention to the slightest details in the sounds over the radio, making sleep unreachable. Waiting to fall asleep is focusing on a goal that has to do with leaving consciousness. Again very hard, Try closing your eyes and thinking about what you did today before attempting a good nights sleep."
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5vvg3e | how does getting rid of net neutrality improve competition in a way that benefits the consumer? | I've been seeing this argument from the dawn of time and never understood it. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5vvg3e/eli5_how_does_getting_rid_of_net_neutrality/ | {
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"This question cannot be answered because the premise is false. It does not improve competition in a way that benefits the consumer.",
"Getting rid of Net Neutrality does NOT benefit the consumer. \nCGP Grey have made a 3½ minute video about it, that is vary easy to understand. _URL_0_ \n",
"It does not benefit the consumer. It arguably hurts companies creating content.\n\nIt does, however, benefit ISPs--and it does so bigly.\n\nThis is worth writing or calling your members of congress (State AND National).",
"Lets say you watch pay for a subscription to stream movies on website A, but website A is lacking in the anime department. You figure there are a lot of people like you, so you make your own website, B, that for a fee has all the anime you could ever want. You negotiate with the providers that own the rights to the anime, make an experience that's easy to use/find titles, buy a domain, advertise, you're set! Except...how do people get to your site? The internet. Under net neutrality, the internet provider *has* to treat websites the same (load them all the same rate, etc.), so both website A and B load just as fast (way oversimplifying, there is some nuance with back end servers and all that), so in theory, all the anime fans can say \"hey B is super great it has all the anime that I was missing with A!\" \n\nThis then would cause A to realize that B is taking customers from them because they don't have anime, and A adds anime titles to compete for those customers back. Launches a big advertising campaign, the works. B obviously doesn't want to fall behind, so it adds live streaming of *new* anime as it airs in Japan for diehard fans. And back and forth, constantly competing for customers in an arms race. Customer wins here because no matter which option they choose, the other will always be trying to improve to get that customer. \n\nNow, the scenario without net neutrality: Internet providers become virtual gatekeepers. They *can* treat websites differently, and say \"hey, A is willing to pay us $1M per year so we load their website at full speed, we'll do that.\" Meanwhile, B is trying to gain traction and make money, and can't afford to pay $1M to Big Internet. So what happens? Big Internet says \"bummer...you're on our 'so slow dial up would've been a better choice but it'll still load eventually' speed if you don't pay up.\" And Big Internet isn't a bad guy for doing this! Yes, its totally exploiting their position of power, but literally *every* company would do this, simple economics. If a company *can* and *will* pay for preferential treatment, profit off of it. So then, what happens in the long run? Customers think B sucks. They say \"it loads so slow!\" or \"Who cares if its a live stream if I can't get it to open before next week?\" and they abandon the site. A then gets all the traffic and, yay A will keep catering to these customers! Right? Wrong. Now that customers essentially don't have a choice (site that actually loads, vs one that's slower than Verizon to adopt unlimited data), A has no incentive to improve its selection. They essentially become a monopoly which, like Big Internet, can do things that make sense economically, but are overall dick moves. \n\nThe idea with net neutrality is that it protects the \"little guys.\" And what might be \"little\" now may not be in a few years. Amazon? Started as a book store. Now it sells everything. But if there were another, richer book website when Amazon started up (call it \"Nile\") and net neutrality weren't in place, Amazon never would've gotten off the ground and we'd probably have a mediocre Nile experience with books at overall meh prices. \n\nGetting rid of net neutrality **doesn't** improve competition. It hinders it. Those arguments are propaganda by Big Internet that want to line their pockets more. They'll say things like \"net neutrality forces us to give bad service\" and all that, which simply isn't true. What ***is*** true is that ***without*** net neutrality, they could give the best service only to the highest bidders, leaving new sites in the dust without a chance to ever compete. \n\n**TL;DR:** The only people saying getting rid of net neutrality is a net positive for the consumer are part of Big Internet (and the politicians they fund). It's like TurboTax saying a complicated tax code is good for US Citizens, when in reality it's good only for them. ",
"Getting rid of net neutrality benefits the large actors with big bank accounts. This will only be detrimental to consumers, and the development of internet as a whole.",
"A bunch of us users (programmers, communication professionals and artists) decided we have a better way to improve learning by enabling students to digitally experience history and science for themselves. So we create a whole lot of 3D interactive satellite maps on [ClimateViewer 3D](_URL_0_) that take students to places they can't go, where they can zoom in close on ancient ruins in other countries or the fracture zones, hydrothermal vents and cold seeps, and submarine topography deep in the ocean. Maps that link to articles on various universities, government agencies, media articles and research papers. Maps that trace the routes of famous explorer expeditions and be able to read page-referenced quotes from books written by the explorer for each placemark plotted. But to do that takes a lot of memory and sharing. Maps that are offered for free. A map system that enables the online user to combine say a map of the 100 year old Koppen Climate Classification System with either NOAA's 24-Hour Radar map or NOAA's METAR Wind Speed and Direction map or NOAA's Cloud Top Temperature map in order to understand how much the climate has changed in over 100 years.\n\nBut to do that takes a lot of memory and sharing. And it involves, just like Reddit and Google News, the quoting and linking to information on severs of various companies while at the same time driving traffic to those sites and companies. And sharing copyright-free books like Google Books, Gutenberg books, etc. And we have figured out how to offer hundreds of maps and control the memory for even the slowest of computers.\n\nAll this is being done for free, no one is being paid to do this and it relies on donations to pay for the servers, etc. Under net neutrality it is all possible to educate worldwide. As a result, these maps have been linked to by schools and universities, the UN Information-based Disaster Management and Emergency Response (UN-SPIDER), media articles in TheNation, The Atlantic and a Smithsonian blog article.\n\nTake net neutrality away and this all disappears because all the sources will want to monetize the heck out of it."
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19mdo5 | what is the sequester and why is an issue right now? also, how can the us senate not have a budget 4 years in a row? | As an American living abroad, I haven't been following a ton of issues but I've been seeing this in the news and it seems pretty serious. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/19mdo5/what_is_the_sequester_and_why_is_an_issue_right/ | {
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"The sequesters are a series of cuts across the board of US spending that were designed to be particularly painful for both parties so that they would actually agree to compromise to a less painful deal that would cut spending/raise money.\n\nHowever, this idea did not work out as proposed and both parties were unable to come to a deal and the sequester took place.\n\nThe US is operating on the last budget they passed which IIRC was in 2009. We technically have a budget just not a current one. This is bad for a variety of reasons. Imagine using your budget in 2009 for this year. Odds are priorities will have changed and you would find it difficult to operate under it.\n\n",
"The sequester is an agreement made a while back when Congress couldn't agree on how to deal with America's large deficit. The idea was that if they passed a rule that if they didn't come up with a decent plan then measures would automatically occur that would be so terrible that it would force them to compromise. It was called the Fiscal Cliff.\n\nIn January they dealt with the tax/revenue side of the Fiscal Cliff and passed tax hikes. At the same time they agreed to delay the spending cuts part of the Fiscal Cliff until March those spending cuts are called the sequester.\n\nIt then became a game of chicken each side waiting for the other to blink. Neither side has. Democrats are insisting on a tax hike for the wealthy to be part of a spending cut agreement, Republicans insist that they already compromised by agreeing to tax hikes in January and don't want to increase taxes more.\n\nMarch 1st was the deadline for the seqester to be enacted and while many parts of the government are off-limit to cuts (VA, social security, food stamps) much of it is and instead of a prioritized spending cut list spending is being cut across the board. If it only lasts a few weeks not much will be noticed but if it lasts a month we'll see disruptions in construction and airports as well as federal employee hours being cut.\n\nEconomists agree that spending needs to be cut. They also agree that the sequester is a terrible way to do it.\n\nAs for not having a budget for 4 years the budget is simply a policy plan not a spending or appropriations bill. So money is still spent. We just have no large plan on how to spend it. Terrible way to run an organization but money still gets spent so it's not really needed."
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5vikzn | how come we can capture video in slow motion, but not sound? | [deleted] | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5vikzn/eli5_how_come_we_can_capture_video_in_slow_motion/ | {
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"We don't capture video in slow motion. We capture video in real life speed. However the video camera has such a high frame per second recording that if we slow down the footage your eyes still can't see the individual frames and it looks like a (slowmotion) video. \n\nWith sound we can do the same. We can capture it with fast enough device. Which is all/most audio captures otherwise it wouldn't be able to record the high frequency bandwidths. Now the slowing down part of the footage/audio track. If we slow down the audio the frequency of the individual tones are also slowed down. And thus the sound we hear changes in tone. Kinda like how a low-fps video slowed down will result in a picture slide show. You can alter the change in tone with smart algorithms that correct the tone. They have various names, tone/pitch manuiplatots/correctors, etc. Applying those corrections to pitch/tone you will get a slowed down audio track that sounds normal. "
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9ayi82 | human skin only varies from a light cream to a dark brown. is there a particular reason that there are no other variations of skin colour? i.e blue, red, green, etc. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/9ayi82/eli5_human_skin_only_varies_from_a_light_cream_to/ | {
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"Other colors ARE possible, through genetic mutations. Look up the Kentucky Blue People.\n\nBasically, remember that for something to change biologically requires 2 things: a mutation, and then for that mutation to be advantageous enough for the individual to propagate themselves.\n\nA tribe of people in a jungle environment may, through some odd means, develop a mutation that turns their skin more of a green/olive shade. This helps them naturally blend into their environment, both helping them avoid predators AND stalk prey. BUT, if no mutation triggers this skin tone change, then it does not matter how much of an advantage it would provide - it still will not happen.\n\nNow, flip it. A genetic mutation happens now, causing people from the same genetic background to grow gills. (Whatever, going for extreme example). Modern society does not provide the means for such people to gain a significant survival advantage at all. Also, most people would find such a change to be very disturbing, and would actively avoid such individuals. Some extremists might even take violent or political action against them. This isolates the population, and without anyone willing to intermarry with them, eventually they stop breeding and die out. So that oddball mutation never propagates itself.",
"Because ELI5: In general our skin colors come from the amount of melanin present in our skin. There are multiple kinds of melanin but in general they are a brown or black pigment. The more melanin, the darker the skin. The amount and type of melanin varies among people for reasons like genetics and environment. ",
"I believe there are two major types of melanin in humans that give us our wide variety of colors and tones. Eumelanin, which gives us a brown color, and pheomelanin, which gives a more reddish tone. The amount of each present in any individual determines what color they turn and how they react to the sun. I believe this is why some people have a more yellowish tone while others have a more pinkish tone. Usually eumelanin is present in darker folks and pheomelanin is present in lighter folks, but it’s not impossible for the reverse to be true.\n\nI’m guessing the reason why we don’t have any other colors we could take on might have something to do with our environment and the current atmosphere we live in. Maybe if there was more of another element in the air and we developed a resistance to it, then our skin might’ve evolved to a different color. I guess since we evolved from a mammalian standpoint instead of a lizard standpoint, we just ended up with creamy and brown colors."
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33mzwf | my company's 401k, specifically the part where i become "fully vested" after a few years. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/33mzwf/eli5my_companys_401k_specifically_the_part_where/ | {
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"So you put in money into your 401(k)... that money is yours.\n\nBut in your case, your company also puts in extra money that is not yours, presumably through \"matching\". That money is *not* your money... at least not immediately. Instead (to encourage people to stay with the company) it is \"vested\" over X numbers of years. As an example, my company has a 4 year vesting period. That means that if I leave after 1 year I get all the money I put into my 401(k)... plus 25% of the amount my company put in. \n\nAfter 4 years you'll be fully vested and you'll take 100%. Keep in mind that this is not a rolling process. Once you are \"vested\" the company's contribution is your money when it goes into the 401(k).",
"Your company is offering to match your contributions somehow. You out in $1, company matches $0.05 but they want you to stay longer, not jump ship. So if your vesting period is 5 years, The part that the company matches would incrementally be given to you. After year1, 20%cent is yours. After year 2, 40% is yours. Once you're fully vested after year 5, all of the match is yours",
"Generally a company will match part of what you contribute to your 401k. For example, for every $1 you put in they will put in 50 cents, up to some percentage of your normal salary. However, in order to discourage people from leaving for other jobs the money that your employer puts in during the first few years of your employment doesn't become your until you've worked a specified number of years. \n \nFor example, lets say in your first 10 months of employment you put in $5000, and your employer puts in $2500 at the match. If you quit after 10 months you get to keep the $5000 you put in, but your employer would take back their money. However, if you continued to work for the company fore several years before you quit then you would get to keep all $7500."
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aqz2wy | how does youtube's algorithm work? | [deleted] | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/aqz2wy/eli5_how_does_youtubes_algorithm_work/ | {
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"YouTube uses machine learning to determine the best videos to recommend to you, based on several parameters, such as what you liked and disliked, view time, and probably other factors as well. Try watching a channel you're not subscribed to for a some time and you'll see those videos on your recommended. As far as I know the basis on suggesting what you want is determined by watch time. If YouTube thinks you'll watch a video for 40 minutes, it will be more likely to recommend it then a video which you'll probably click away after a minute."
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29zhpf | why does my body "get used to" cold water, but not cold air? | I can swim in a cold lake for a few minutes and get so used to the water that it may as well be warm. Why doesn't this work with cold air? I don't "get used to it" when I stand outside and it's chilly. Is it biology? Different response by the skin? Thanks in advance for any answers. :) | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/29zhpf/eli5_why_does_my_body_get_used_to_cold_water_but/ | {
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"Your body has a system (the limbic system to be precise) that, when you're cold, compresses the capillaries in your extremities that pushes the blood to your torso and head in order to keep your vital organs from being damaged by the cold. When this happens your fingers and toes go numb and your torso is kept a little warmer.\n\nI'm guessing that in the water vs air comparison you're making the water is cold enough to trigger your limbic system and the air is not. I'm not an expert on this subject so someone might have a better explanation than I.",
"It is to do with heat transfer and thermodynamics: when you get cold it is your body losing heat. Your body has a variety of mechanisms that work to change the body so that if it is losing heat it will gain more heat and try to stop losing any additional heat. Heat is first detected by heat receptors all over your skin, and possibly on some specialised areas of the inside of your body too, these receptors will let off little electrical impulses when they sense a change in temperature and these go to your brain via neurons and in turn your brain will create a response to change it ('Homeostasis' is the word for it, your body does some pretty fucking rad stuff when it comes to this). So, when your body is cold is does a variety of things mostly via hormones and electrical impulses including: \n\n- you get a sense of feeling cold and that will have an effect on your behaviour - you'll want to get warm (psychological effect)\n- your skin will go cold and pale, this is because your brain will release hormones and neural signals that will act on the muscles surrounding the blood vessels that control blood going to the skin or not. The muscles contract and basically squeeze the blood vessel shut a little bit so less blood can get through (the opposite happens when you're cold, and also when you blush). Because less blood can get to the skins surface where it is cold there is less heat within the blood to be lost - it conserves heat.\n- you shiver, this is an involuntary muscle contraction - when muscles contract they generate heat and so the body uses muscles to generate heat when it needs it.\n- a variety of chemical changes will take place, including the increased burning off of fat and glucose.\n\nThere are other things too! But basically, in answer to your question, it's a combination of the thermodynamics of the environment and the body aswell as the humans biology, i'll try to explain:\n\nSo: when you are in cold water you are surrounded by molecules in a state of liquid, in particular - water which is a highly organised structure. This means that every inch of your body is surrounded by particles, which aren't moving very fast (relatively) towards or away from you, which means when one of those molecules gets your heat, it stays there for a while and doesnt carry it away until another one gets in touch with you.\nIn air however, the molecules are moving alot faster and therefore when one hits any part of your body it takes away energy and moves on, and then another comes, and another and another, and this all happens much faster than in water. that's why its even more cold in the wind. but even at an atomic levels the molecules are moving a lot faster because they are less organised and have more energy than water which has less energy and doesnt move quite as much.\nIn the water your movements will also help generate energy - and because it is less cold your body's reactions to the cold are actually enough to counteract the change, but in the air it isnt so you carry on feeling cold!\n\nHope that makes sense, it wouldnt suprise me if it doesnt!",
"You do get used to it. I live in North Dakota and haven't had a coat in the last three years."
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1b2c39 | what happened to all the giant land animals? | [A TIL today](_URL_0_) talked about a now extinct 10 foot tall great ape. There were also links to now extinct giant birds and sloths, 2, 5, or even 10 times larger than what exists today.
What happened to all these big creatures (don't forget dinosaurs)? Are we evolving to be smaller? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1b2c39/eli5_what_happened_to_all_the_giant_land_animals/ | {
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"Dinosaurs were doing great until the mass extinction brought on by an asteroid.\n\nSince then, millions of animal species of all shapes and sizes have come into being and gone extinct. Many of these species died out for reasons having nothing to do with their size. Others died out because they didn't evolve to cope with changes to their ecosystem. Others evolved to be smaller and managed to escape extinction because of it. Others just evolved to be smaller because they could.",
"Elephants are pretty big."
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6f9012 | raster over vector based graphics? | Why is Raster the most common graphics format? I would think only having to process the changing parts of a screen would be less demanding than generating a whole screen constantly | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/6f9012/eli5_raster_over_vector_based_graphics/ | {
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"Getting your display to show something involves a number of layers, each of them doing their own thing.\n\nThe display itself is rasters because that's the physical construction - you have LCD laid out in a rectangular grid. It directly renders those rasters from a highly parallel stream of data.\n\nThat highly parallel stream of data is generated by your video card/hardware from a frame buffer (which is laid out in the same pattern as the screen).\n\nHowever, that frame buffer is rendered via both raster and vector processes to minimize the data exchange along the microprocessor bus. Note that both the raster and vector information is 'only part of the screen'. If your O/S wants to draw a window and leave everything else alone, it only sends the raster data for that particular window rather the entire screen.\n\nNow, there are vector displays that are designed to render vectors specifically. But they don't really have much color depth and they can't display complex patterns easily."
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m7yx1 | the market scene in "trading places" | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/m7yx1/eli5_the_market_scene_in_trading_places/ | {
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"This is one of my favorite movies, so I can take a swing:\n\n\nEddie Murphy and Dan Aykroyd work for Duke & Duke. Duke & Duke makes money by buying and selling commodities, such as pork bellies, gold, and frozen concentrated orange juice. For example, if they believe that pork belly prices will rise, they will buy them now and sell them later (if you're not actually five: they don't actually buy and sell meat, but rather contracts to buy or sell meat at a certain date for a certain price).\n\nAnyway, Duke & Duke are corrupt, and bribe a government official to get an early copy of a crop report, which will dictate whether the price of orange juice will go up or go down in the future. If the crop report is good, there will be many oranges, and so the price will be low. If the crop report is bad, there will be few oranges, and so the price will be high.\n\nAykroyd and Murphy give Duke & Duke a fake crop report, which says that crops sustained substantial damage, and so the price will rise in the future (though the real report says that crops are fine, so the price will fall).\n\nSo, at the beginning of the scene, Duke & Duke is under the false impression that prices for orange juice will rise (since the crop report that will be disseminated later in the day will have bad news for oranges). So, they want to buy all the oranges they can, since the price in the future will be much higher after the report is announced.\n\nAykroyd & Murphy know that the crop report will lower prices, so they instead sell oranges to people at a high price, intending to buy them back at a much lower price (this is a complicated transaction called short selling, since really they sell their oranges without actually owning them, and then buy oranges so that their position is zero).\n\nSo, right before the real crop report is issued, Duke & Duke have bought a huge number of oranges at around $100 per orange. Aykroyd & Murphy have sold a huge number of oranges at around $100 per orange.\n\nThe real crop report is issued, which states that crops are flourishing and oranges are plentiful. By supply and demand, oranges are cheap. This sends the price plummeting.\n\nDuke & Duke now sells all of the oranges they have at around $20 per orange, meaning they lost $80 per orange, and since they bought a huge amount, they're out of business (really, they don't have the cash to settle, and so they need to liquidate their assets, such as auctioning off their set on the exchange).\n\nMeanwhile, Aykroyd & Murphy bought a lot of oranges at $20 and sold them at $100 (even though they sold before they bought, but leave that aside), and so made a fortune, allowing them to retire to some exotic island locale while destroying Duke & Duke.",
"They are trading futures on frozen concentrated orange juice(you could read more about futures here _URL_0_). The old guys were suppose to receive an advance copy of the crop report on oranges. The crop report is essentially an estimate of whether their is going to be a shortage or abundance in the crop. A shortage would cause the prices of these futures to go up. Since Eddie Murphy and the other guy swapped the advance copy of the report which stated that there was no shortage, the two old guys assumed that their was a shortage and once the crop report came out traders would buy as many futures as they can and this would cause the price to rise. To prepare for this the old guys bought as much futures as they could before the announcement came out. Eddie Murphy and the other guy waited until the price was high enough and then started selling futures. Once the crop report came out that there was no shortage all the traders started selling sending the price plummeting. Eddie Murphy and the other guy then bought back all the future contracts, so instead of buying low selling high, they sold high and bought low. \n\nI hope this helps, and I hope I remembered it correctly it's been a while since i watched the movie. ",
"Well, keep in mind we're talking about trading in \"futures\" which is a little different from buying and selling a commodity (or a stock) directly. A future represents a **promise** to buy or sell the commodity (in this case orange juice) at a specified price, at some future date. This promise is a contract that must be filled at that date, even if it results in a personal loss.\n\nSo if, for example, I believe the price of orange juice will go up, I want to make futures contract to \"buy\", *now* at a lower price, so I can turn around later and \"sell\" the contract to someone else at a higher price, and make a profit. On the other hand, if the price will go down I want to buy a futures contract to \"sell\" at *today's* price, so that when the contract is due, I can buy at that lower price to fulfill my contract, and take the difference in profit.\n\n(Apologies, but the entire concept of futures trading is probably beyond 5-year-old level. This is the best I can do)\n\nNow, in the climactic scene, both the good guys (Ackroyd and Murphy) and the bad guys (the Duke brothers) are acting on illegally gained information. The difference is that the bad guys have been given a false report, saying it's been a bad harvest, so they think the price will go up. The good guys know the harvest is fine, so the price will be steady or possibly go down.\n\nAlso the good guys know what the Dukes will do, so they can play the market to essentially take the Dukes' money.\n\nWhat actually happens is this: \n\n1. The Dukes think the price of OJ will go up after the report is released, so they start to buy up futures contracts. Basically they want to \"corner\" the market, meaning that they will own most of the OJ, so later in the day everyone will have to buy from them at the higher price.\n\n2. All the other traders see the Dukes buying up contracts, so they think they know something, which sparks a bidding frenzy that drives up the price.\n\n3. Ackroyd and Murphy start buying \"sell\" contracts when the price has reached what they think is the maximum -- the opposite position from the Dukes. Now, if they price did go up they'd be in trouble since they'd have to fulfill those contracts by buying OJ at an even higher price.\n\n4. The report comes out, and everyone realizes the supply of OJ will be normal. Now everyone who has bought OJ high wants to sell off because they know they're going to lose money later to fulfill those contracts. Selling frenzy.\n\n5. When the price has dropped low enough, Ackroyd and Murphy start buying (remember they have to fulfill the \"sell\" contracts they bought earlier). As long as they purchase enough to cover their contracts, they can keep the profit.\n\n6. On the other side of the coin, the Dukes now have to cover contracts to buy OJ at a inflated price, which they'd have to sell at a much lower price. They don't have the money to cover this, so they go bankrupt.\n\n7. In the movie, Ackroyd and Murphy's characters \"sell\" OJ at $1.45 per unit and \"buy\" it at $0.22 per unit. This means they make a profit of $1.23 per unit. It's strongly implied that they did a lot of this on \"margin\" (like a temporary loan) so they could invest much more than the actual amount of money they had on hand. Otherwise they wouldn't have been able to bankrupt the Dukes.\n\nNow at no point does any physical orange juice actually change hands during this transaction. It's all buying and selling contracts to buy or sell OJ at some future date. But this sort of thing goes on every day in the market, on thousands of different commodities. ",
"This is great and I appreciate the attempts to explain an admittedly complex process. I remember the first time I watched this movie I had no idea what was going on, but knew enough from reactions of the actors to know that the Duke brothers were getting screwed somehow. I think I must have been 13-14. In the intervening decade and a half I found websites like [this](_URL_0_) explaining what was going on.\n\nIt's really a great movie and not just because of prime-of-her-life Jamie Lee Curtis boobs.",
"Can someone explain to me how this is not gambling?",
"I love this movie, but the thing that I don't get about the end is not what they were doing at the end but *how* they were doing it. People are screaming and throwing papers all over the place. Where is the system in this? There's no note taking of how much someone buys or who the person even is. How would anyone know whether you bought or not?\n\nI'm presuming this is a Hollywood cliche of a stock exchange and it isn't actually like that...",
"_URL_0_\n\nmy answer from that thread:\n\nthey were trading commodities, which is not like trading stocks at all.\n\nthe commodity market exists to insulate farmers and raw materials producers from fluctuations in the market. if you own an orange grove, and you can produce 50,000 gallons of orange juice in 6 months, you don't want to risk bankruptcy if the price of orange juice goes down. so you sell a promise to deliver 50k Gal. OJ in 6 months for $50,000 today. that takes all the risk away for the farmer.\n\nthe buyer might be a food company like Tropicana - they pay $50,000 for 50k gallons of OJ in 6 months and they also don't have any risk of running out of orange juice, which would hurt the company.\n\nso for 6 months this trade is sitting there gathering dust. the commodity market (mainly in chicago but with trading floors in NY and SF among other places) allows people to place bets on that 50k trade. if you think the price of OJ will go up in 6 months, you can buy the contract from Tropicana and they make a profit today, and if your bet is right in 6 months you get 50k gallons of OJ from the farmer (who was paid by Tropicana 6 months ago) and can sell for more than the $50k you paid, thus making a profit.\n\nor if you think the price of OJ will go down, you can sell Tropicana a contract of your own for $49k today that you will give them 50k gallons of OJ in 6 months, and they buy from you instead of the farmer. then in 6 months you buy 50k gallons and give it to Tropicana. if the price dropped, you made the difference between the old price they paid you ($49k) and the price you paid today.\n\nit gets a lot more complicated - these trades i explained are calls and puts but you can have options on them, and options on options and calls and puts on options, and so on. it gets pretty complicated.\n\nunlike the stock market, the commodity market is zero-sum. that means every time someone sells 50k gallons of OJ, someone else has to produce 50k gallons of OJ. because the start and end price of the OJ was set by the farmer and tropicana, every future trade on that 50k gallons has a winner and a loser - the 50k gallons of OJ will never turn into 50,001 gallons.\n\nbut the big difference is that every trade is on 5% margin. when you go to the stock market, generally you need $50,000 cash to buy $50,000 in stocks. commodities don't work that way. because the physical goods back up every trade (i.e. even if you lose money you still have the actual orange juice) you are allowed to leverage your money up to 20 times its value. so $2,500 cash could get you that $50,000 OJ contract.\n\nthis means a small change in price has huge consequences. if you bought 50k gallons of OJ for $50k dollars ($1/gallon) and the price goes up 5 cents/gallon (5%, a pretty small change) your $2500 investment just made 50,000 * 0.05 or $2500 - your entire investment back. it's relatively unheard of for a stock to double in value in a day but due to margin investing on the commodity market, doubling (or more) in value in a day is commonplace. this is how hillary clinton famously made $100,000 in a single day investing with a small amount in the 1990's.\n\nbut the price can also go down - if orange juice drops to 95 cents per gallon, your $2500 investment is gone - and if it drops to 90 cents/gallon, you will have to pay $2500 just to cover your investment.\n\nthis is what happened in the movie. the rich brothers bought a lot of orange juice (many millions of dollars worth) on margin and when the price crashed (because the farming report predicted a surplus of OJ) they not only lost the money they invested, they lost a big multiple of it. when they had a \"margin call\" (the exchange demanded they cover the other 95% of their investment) they couldn't afford it and went bankrupt.\n",
"This is one of my favorite movies, so I can take a swing:\n\n\nEddie Murphy and Dan Aykroyd work for Duke & Duke. Duke & Duke makes money by buying and selling commodities, such as pork bellies, gold, and frozen concentrated orange juice. For example, if they believe that pork belly prices will rise, they will buy them now and sell them later (if you're not actually five: they don't actually buy and sell meat, but rather contracts to buy or sell meat at a certain date for a certain price).\n\nAnyway, Duke & Duke are corrupt, and bribe a government official to get an early copy of a crop report, which will dictate whether the price of orange juice will go up or go down in the future. If the crop report is good, there will be many oranges, and so the price will be low. If the crop report is bad, there will be few oranges, and so the price will be high.\n\nAykroyd and Murphy give Duke & Duke a fake crop report, which says that crops sustained substantial damage, and so the price will rise in the future (though the real report says that crops are fine, so the price will fall).\n\nSo, at the beginning of the scene, Duke & Duke is under the false impression that prices for orange juice will rise (since the crop report that will be disseminated later in the day will have bad news for oranges). So, they want to buy all the oranges they can, since the price in the future will be much higher after the report is announced.\n\nAykroyd & Murphy know that the crop report will lower prices, so they instead sell oranges to people at a high price, intending to buy them back at a much lower price (this is a complicated transaction called short selling, since really they sell their oranges without actually owning them, and then buy oranges so that their position is zero).\n\nSo, right before the real crop report is issued, Duke & Duke have bought a huge number of oranges at around $100 per orange. Aykroyd & Murphy have sold a huge number of oranges at around $100 per orange.\n\nThe real crop report is issued, which states that crops are flourishing and oranges are plentiful. By supply and demand, oranges are cheap. This sends the price plummeting.\n\nDuke & Duke now sells all of the oranges they have at around $20 per orange, meaning they lost $80 per orange, and since they bought a huge amount, they're out of business (really, they don't have the cash to settle, and so they need to liquidate their assets, such as auctioning off their set on the exchange).\n\nMeanwhile, Aykroyd & Murphy bought a lot of oranges at $20 and sold them at $100 (even though they sold before they bought, but leave that aside), and so made a fortune, allowing them to retire to some exotic island locale while destroying Duke & Duke.",
"They are trading futures on frozen concentrated orange juice(you could read more about futures here _URL_0_). The old guys were suppose to receive an advance copy of the crop report on oranges. The crop report is essentially an estimate of whether their is going to be a shortage or abundance in the crop. A shortage would cause the prices of these futures to go up. Since Eddie Murphy and the other guy swapped the advance copy of the report which stated that there was no shortage, the two old guys assumed that their was a shortage and once the crop report came out traders would buy as many futures as they can and this would cause the price to rise. To prepare for this the old guys bought as much futures as they could before the announcement came out. Eddie Murphy and the other guy waited until the price was high enough and then started selling futures. Once the crop report came out that there was no shortage all the traders started selling sending the price plummeting. Eddie Murphy and the other guy then bought back all the future contracts, so instead of buying low selling high, they sold high and bought low. \n\nI hope this helps, and I hope I remembered it correctly it's been a while since i watched the movie. ",
"Well, keep in mind we're talking about trading in \"futures\" which is a little different from buying and selling a commodity (or a stock) directly. A future represents a **promise** to buy or sell the commodity (in this case orange juice) at a specified price, at some future date. This promise is a contract that must be filled at that date, even if it results in a personal loss.\n\nSo if, for example, I believe the price of orange juice will go up, I want to make futures contract to \"buy\", *now* at a lower price, so I can turn around later and \"sell\" the contract to someone else at a higher price, and make a profit. On the other hand, if the price will go down I want to buy a futures contract to \"sell\" at *today's* price, so that when the contract is due, I can buy at that lower price to fulfill my contract, and take the difference in profit.\n\n(Apologies, but the entire concept of futures trading is probably beyond 5-year-old level. This is the best I can do)\n\nNow, in the climactic scene, both the good guys (Ackroyd and Murphy) and the bad guys (the Duke brothers) are acting on illegally gained information. The difference is that the bad guys have been given a false report, saying it's been a bad harvest, so they think the price will go up. The good guys know the harvest is fine, so the price will be steady or possibly go down.\n\nAlso the good guys know what the Dukes will do, so they can play the market to essentially take the Dukes' money.\n\nWhat actually happens is this: \n\n1. The Dukes think the price of OJ will go up after the report is released, so they start to buy up futures contracts. Basically they want to \"corner\" the market, meaning that they will own most of the OJ, so later in the day everyone will have to buy from them at the higher price.\n\n2. All the other traders see the Dukes buying up contracts, so they think they know something, which sparks a bidding frenzy that drives up the price.\n\n3. Ackroyd and Murphy start buying \"sell\" contracts when the price has reached what they think is the maximum -- the opposite position from the Dukes. Now, if they price did go up they'd be in trouble since they'd have to fulfill those contracts by buying OJ at an even higher price.\n\n4. The report comes out, and everyone realizes the supply of OJ will be normal. Now everyone who has bought OJ high wants to sell off because they know they're going to lose money later to fulfill those contracts. Selling frenzy.\n\n5. When the price has dropped low enough, Ackroyd and Murphy start buying (remember they have to fulfill the \"sell\" contracts they bought earlier). As long as they purchase enough to cover their contracts, they can keep the profit.\n\n6. On the other side of the coin, the Dukes now have to cover contracts to buy OJ at a inflated price, which they'd have to sell at a much lower price. They don't have the money to cover this, so they go bankrupt.\n\n7. In the movie, Ackroyd and Murphy's characters \"sell\" OJ at $1.45 per unit and \"buy\" it at $0.22 per unit. This means they make a profit of $1.23 per unit. It's strongly implied that they did a lot of this on \"margin\" (like a temporary loan) so they could invest much more than the actual amount of money they had on hand. Otherwise they wouldn't have been able to bankrupt the Dukes.\n\nNow at no point does any physical orange juice actually change hands during this transaction. It's all buying and selling contracts to buy or sell OJ at some future date. But this sort of thing goes on every day in the market, on thousands of different commodities. ",
"This is great and I appreciate the attempts to explain an admittedly complex process. I remember the first time I watched this movie I had no idea what was going on, but knew enough from reactions of the actors to know that the Duke brothers were getting screwed somehow. I think I must have been 13-14. In the intervening decade and a half I found websites like [this](_URL_0_) explaining what was going on.\n\nIt's really a great movie and not just because of prime-of-her-life Jamie Lee Curtis boobs.",
"Can someone explain to me how this is not gambling?",
"I love this movie, but the thing that I don't get about the end is not what they were doing at the end but *how* they were doing it. People are screaming and throwing papers all over the place. Where is the system in this? There's no note taking of how much someone buys or who the person even is. How would anyone know whether you bought or not?\n\nI'm presuming this is a Hollywood cliche of a stock exchange and it isn't actually like that...",
"_URL_0_\n\nmy answer from that thread:\n\nthey were trading commodities, which is not like trading stocks at all.\n\nthe commodity market exists to insulate farmers and raw materials producers from fluctuations in the market. if you own an orange grove, and you can produce 50,000 gallons of orange juice in 6 months, you don't want to risk bankruptcy if the price of orange juice goes down. so you sell a promise to deliver 50k Gal. OJ in 6 months for $50,000 today. that takes all the risk away for the farmer.\n\nthe buyer might be a food company like Tropicana - they pay $50,000 for 50k gallons of OJ in 6 months and they also don't have any risk of running out of orange juice, which would hurt the company.\n\nso for 6 months this trade is sitting there gathering dust. the commodity market (mainly in chicago but with trading floors in NY and SF among other places) allows people to place bets on that 50k trade. if you think the price of OJ will go up in 6 months, you can buy the contract from Tropicana and they make a profit today, and if your bet is right in 6 months you get 50k gallons of OJ from the farmer (who was paid by Tropicana 6 months ago) and can sell for more than the $50k you paid, thus making a profit.\n\nor if you think the price of OJ will go down, you can sell Tropicana a contract of your own for $49k today that you will give them 50k gallons of OJ in 6 months, and they buy from you instead of the farmer. then in 6 months you buy 50k gallons and give it to Tropicana. if the price dropped, you made the difference between the old price they paid you ($49k) and the price you paid today.\n\nit gets a lot more complicated - these trades i explained are calls and puts but you can have options on them, and options on options and calls and puts on options, and so on. it gets pretty complicated.\n\nunlike the stock market, the commodity market is zero-sum. that means every time someone sells 50k gallons of OJ, someone else has to produce 50k gallons of OJ. because the start and end price of the OJ was set by the farmer and tropicana, every future trade on that 50k gallons has a winner and a loser - the 50k gallons of OJ will never turn into 50,001 gallons.\n\nbut the big difference is that every trade is on 5% margin. when you go to the stock market, generally you need $50,000 cash to buy $50,000 in stocks. commodities don't work that way. because the physical goods back up every trade (i.e. even if you lose money you still have the actual orange juice) you are allowed to leverage your money up to 20 times its value. so $2,500 cash could get you that $50,000 OJ contract.\n\nthis means a small change in price has huge consequences. if you bought 50k gallons of OJ for $50k dollars ($1/gallon) and the price goes up 5 cents/gallon (5%, a pretty small change) your $2500 investment just made 50,000 * 0.05 or $2500 - your entire investment back. it's relatively unheard of for a stock to double in value in a day but due to margin investing on the commodity market, doubling (or more) in value in a day is commonplace. this is how hillary clinton famously made $100,000 in a single day investing with a small amount in the 1990's.\n\nbut the price can also go down - if orange juice drops to 95 cents per gallon, your $2500 investment is gone - and if it drops to 90 cents/gallon, you will have to pay $2500 just to cover your investment.\n\nthis is what happened in the movie. the rich brothers bought a lot of orange juice (many millions of dollars worth) on margin and when the price crashed (because the farming report predicted a surplus of OJ) they not only lost the money they invested, they lost a big multiple of it. when they had a \"margin call\" (the exchange demanded they cover the other 95% of their investment) they couldn't afford it and went bankrupt.\n"
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"http://www.investopedia.com/terms/c/commodityfuturescontract.asp#axzz1dLia5el1"
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4e6u60 | why does oil smoke when heated instead of boiling like water does? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4e6u60/eli5_why_does_oil_smoke_when_heated_instead_of/ | {
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"Because it's burning. Oil is a complex organic molecule which can't really go into gas phase the way that water can. Instead, it just falls apart when you heat it.",
"Majority of \"stuff capable of burning\" does contain carbon and that's also the main difference here, oil does contain carbon that does react with oxygen when heated (oxidizes) while water does not and thus does not react in such manner",
"The temperature at which it would boil is higher than the temperature at which it spontaneously starts burning if there is oxygen around, so it smokes and eventually catches fire long before it boils. If you did it in a vacuum it would probably boil if you got it hot enough though."
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1iheer | retirement plans such as 401k | I know with a Roth type you will pay taxes before and a traditional you will pay taxes after but my question is in the end will they both equal out to the same taxes paid and what are the major differences ? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1iheer/eli5_retirement_plans_such_as_401k/ | {
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"I can't tell you if they even out but you are talking about a traditional IRA versus a Roth IRA. These are not part of a 401k they are completely different parts of the tax code. IRAs are ways for individuals to save for retirement, a 401k is sponsored by your employer and can receive tax deferred money from both the employer and the employee. "
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3jvpnf | "only 23 people are required in a room to have two persons same birth-date" please explain this phenomenon in simple logic. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3jvpnf/eli5_only_23_people_are_required_in_a_room_to/ | {
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"It's actually \"only 23 people in a room are required to have a *50% chance* of two people having the same birthday.\"\n\nBasically it works because it's possible that any two people have the same birthday, which might be any one of the 365 days in the year, not just one specific day.",
" > Here's a key fact that's important for intuitively understanding all of this: \nThe number of pairs of people in a room is a lot more than just the number of people in a room. \nFor example, say there are 6 people in a room, call them A, B, C, D, E, and F. \nHere are some of the possible pairs of people who may or may not happen to have the same birthday. \nA and B \nA and C \nA and D \nA and E \nA and F \nB and C \nB and D \nB and E \nB and F \nC and D \nC and E \nC and F \nD and E \nD and F \nE and F \nWith 23 people in a room, it turns out that there are 253 different pairs of people. And we're just talking about some pair with the same birthday, somewhere in that list of 253 different pairs.\n\n \nThis might be a little over ELI5, but I think it is a good explanation. \n \n > This is called the Birthday Problem. The difficult part of the problem is that you naturally start thinking about individuals, when in reality you should be thinking about pairs. \nSo, let's give every person a number. Person number 70 might have the same birthday as person number 69, or 68, or 67, and so on. Person number 69 (who has already been compared with 70) might have the same birthday as 68, or 67, or 66, and so on. So the total number of possibilities is 69+68+67+...+1=2415. That's a big number. And while it's not the same as pairs picked randomly, since it's coming from the same group, it's easier to think about that way.\nSo, let's take it abstractly. If we assume that all birthdays are equally likely, and no shenanigans like leap days or twins, we can calculate how likely it is for people to not have the same birthday. Let's define each of our probability events as the person we're looking at not having the same birthday as anybody we've looked at before. So, with that in mind, let's iterate through our group of people. \nPerson number 1: well, we haven't tested anybody yet, so we know for sure that this person doesn't have the same birthday as the people we've asked yet, so our probability is 1, 365/365. \nPerson number 2: we've looked at 1 person so far, and there are 364 days in the year that aren't person1's birthday, so the probability that they are not the same is 364/365 \nPerson number 3: same reasoning, 363/365 \nOn down to 295/365. \nSo now we've got a whole bunch of probabilities for how likely it is that each person as we went down does not have the same birthday as anybody before. Let's put them all together to get a group probability. \n365/365 x 364/365 x ... 295/365 = 0.00084042 \nThat's the probability that the people don't have the same birthday. To get the probability that they do, you just flip it: 0.999159 \n\n\n_URL_1_\n\n_URL_0_\n\nELI Stats Major: _URL_2_\n\n\nYou can also google \"Birthday Problem\"",
"Because with 23 people there are 250ish birthday pairs and because if a and b don't share a birthday and a and c dont share a birthday that raises the odds slightly that b and c will share a birthday, so 250 pairs are enough that its a 50% chance.\n\nMost people's gut instinct is to think of the times when *they alone* shared a birthday with someone which is far less likely."
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6ju9go | how do ships "suck" water away from coastlines? | For some context: _URL_1_
I've looked around and haven't found any reasonable explanation so far. There seems to be a variety of effects caused by water moving faster under the hull of the ship while in shallow water, but I can't quite wrap my head around this.
(A quick summary of some of these curious effects: _URL_0_) | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/6ju9go/eli5_how_do_ships_suck_water_away_from_coastlines/ | {
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"The ship displaces a lot of water. It pushes a lot of water higher in front of it. It has a 'hole' in the water behind it. In this case the ship first pushed a lot of extra water into that cove when it approached, then the water rushed in behind the ship to fill the 'hole'.\n\nWhen the water went to go fill in behind the ship it left less water in that little cove. \n\nIt all balanced out shortly after the ship passed."
]
} | [] | [
"http://www.marineinsight.com/marine-navigation/how-squat-bank-and-bank-cushion-effects-influence-ships-in-restricted-waters/",
"https://youtu.be/q2OQOAFq-hY"
] | [
[]
] |
|
2r1g3e | if it really is so easy to ddos xbl/psn. why aren't more people doing it? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2r1g3e/eli5_if_it_really_is_so_easy_to_ddos_xblpsn_why/ | {
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"becouse it requeres huge botnet and its criminal activity.\n\nthats like saying if its so easy to shoot a person, why more people arent doing it.",
"It's exactly as easy as it is to get a bot-net. A DDoS only works if you have more bandwidth than the target. (Or at least ~95% of the target so that it's really slow and crappy for anybody trying to use it.) \n\nSince you don't want to lead people to your house, and you don't likely have enough bandwidth on your home computer anyway, the only real option is to set up a large network of infected computers that respond to your commands, and you tell them to each spam the target. \n\nSetting up such a network requires some lack of ethics and some good computer security knowledge.\n\n"
]
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[],
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||
45tatu | who's coming to collect when it comes to the u.s. deficit? how will they do it? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/45tatu/eli5_whos_coming_to_collect_when_it_comes_to_the/ | {
"a_id": [
"czzzs81"
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"score": [
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"text": [
"No one has ever had to \"demand\" payment on US debt. You simply say \"here is my matured treasure bond\" and you get your money back.\n\nExcept for debt payments suspended in times of war, the US has never failed to repay its debts on time."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[]
] |
||
5v4fn0 | what happens to our bodies when someone makes us jump? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5v4fn0/eli5_what_happens_to_our_bodies_when_someone/ | {
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"Your brain thinks there is an immediate danger and tells your body to suddenly release loads of adrenaline and activate a part of your nervous system called the sympathetic nervous system which deals with the fight or flight response. \n\nThis has the effect of increasing your heart rate, making you more alert, making your hairs stand on end, breaking down energy stores so there's lots of glucose for muscles, dilating your pupils and a bunch of other effects. All of these effects are designed so that you can fight or run away as effectively as possible. \n\nWhen we realise that there isn't any danger, we downregulate all of the above effects. "
]
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[]
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||
3v657u | why doesn't the us fed just keep interest rates at a sustainable rate rather than extremely high and extremely low? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3v657u/eli5_why_doesnt_the_us_fed_just_keep_interest/ | {
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"They use interest rates to actively affect the economy.\n\nBanks lending too much money, leading to increased debt and potential for an economic collapse if things keep growing too fast? Raise rates to make it very unattractive to loan money to slow down loans.\n\nPeople too conservative with the cash and economy growth slowing? Lower rates to make it really cheap and easy to get loans, inspiring banks to loan more money and people to spend more.",
"When you're driving a car, even on a highway where you don't have to stop, you don't simply press your foot on the accelerator and leave it in one position. You are constantly making small adjustments to add or reduce the power of the engine. This is because the road is not perfectly flat, it has ups and downs which you have to adjust to.\n\nIn that analogy, the road would be the general economy, and the accelerator is interest rates.",
"Because getting large groups of people to act a certain way is very difficult. It's like herding cats. Actually, it's worse than herding cats - it's herding humans. \n\nYou'll notice this same trend in election politics. We have two parties here in America, and on both sides are represented an extreme left and an extreme right. What the majority of people fall into is the moderate middle, but in order to have a middle you have to have extremes.\n\nIf interests rates are too low, people will take advantage and borrow too much. If they're too high people will borrow too little and money won't move. Adjusting the interest rates to extremes is a tool that will drag large groups of people in a certain direction so that actual behavior will be affected. There is political will in the extremes.\n\nThis is why I will never invest in the stock market or mutual funds after 2008. The house always wins."
]
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[],
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||
dutr0h | how does a fingernail let go of the skin under your fingernail without hurting? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/dutr0h/eli5_how_does_a_fingernail_let_go_of_the_skin/ | {
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"It's not the nail that lets go of the skin, it's the other way around: the skin has to let go of the nail. Nail gets pushed as it grows, but isn't technically the one \"Holding on\" as it were",
"The part of your finger that the nail attaches to is called the *germinal matrix*. The base of your nail (where the nail starts) is called the *nail bed*.\n\nThe germinal matrix is a very unique and delicate structure. It holds your nail down but allows that growth movement you’re talking about. It’s not just “skin”, it’s a special surface.\n\nSource: I learned all about it when I badly damaged mine on one finger and had to have surgery to remove the nail bed (because when your germinal matrix is fucked, your nail **doesn’t** do the awesome attachy thing and just hangs free from the nail bed forward. Ew. I didn’t want that!)\n\nEdit: (I wrote this out and the person who tried to correct me that germinal matrix was wrong and is part of your brain deleted their comment before I could respond)\n\n > Nail matrix. Germinal matrix is part of your brain.\n\nYour nail has one, too. The germinal matrix is part of the nail matrix and is one of the [so far] untransplantable parts of humans.\n\nSource: _URL_1_\n\nSource: _URL_0_\n\nSource: _URL_2_"
]
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"https://www.healthline.com/health/nail-matrix#diagram",
"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/10597925",
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nail_(anatomy)"
]
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1d82y5 | why is blackberry so commonly used in workplaces and why businesses would choose the z10 over iphones or android? | I don't understand why Blackberry's are still popular and how they got their identity of being so common in the workplace. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1d82y5/eli5why_is_blackberry_so_commonly_used_in/ | {
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"Its actually a relative few people in the world who enjoy technology. BlackBerrys became a necessity when they came out, and a lot of people struggled to learn them. These are people who dont want to learn new things, they dont want to learn android or ios, even if they are far superior. Google \"luddite\". I know, its ridiculous, but its true",
"Blackberry offered the first all-around corporate communications solution.\n\nIf you have a Blackberry, your company can lock it down, erase it, deactivate it, et cetera, all remotely. The BB infrastructure allows for a lot more control over the phones.\n\nAndroids and Iphones don't, at least not yet.",
"Many tasks require less steps (or less money) on a BlackBerry device. Let's say that you often call \"Amanda\", as she is your manager. On an iPhone, you hit a button to wake the phone, swipe to unlock, open the Phone app, flip to her name, and call her. On BlackBerry, you can hold the A key and the phone will ring, directly from sleep. Will it play Angry Birds? No. (Well, the new ones can, but that's a different topic.) But, if the objective is to have a mobile device that excels at communication or productivity, the correct solution is a BlackBerry. The newest one is a Z10.\n\nBlackBerry Balance is also a Godsend in a BYOD world."
]
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1zm3i4 | how are big buildings like the hotels in vegas air conditioned/cooled? | These buildings are big enough to where standard a/c units couldn't possibly be practical so how are they cooled? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1zm3i4/how_are_big_buildings_like_the_hotels_in_vegas/ | {
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"with big ol airconditioners that go everywhere.",
"Industrial grade AC. The units are not the same small units that we see at home or office. Such big buildings are chilled by cooling water which is then used to cool air which is circulated inside the building. The heat exchange between the water and the air renders the water very hot, which is then cooled in cooling towers. Most of the times the cooling system is housed in a separate building by itself because of the noise it generates. \n\nWikipedia will be a good source for more information. "
]
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|
2rv0z6 | why does the exact same post appear as the 4th post on the first page and the 27th post on the second page and the 53 post on the 3rd page? | Literally the exact same post can be at two positions at once. It happens all the time. The numbers I posted are arbitrary but, for example, right now there is a post about an ant moving a sphere of water. On the first page and the second page. Why? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2rv0z6/eli5_why_does_the_exact_same_post_appear_as_the/ | {
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" > there's really no such thing as \"pages\" on Reddit. Instead, you're saying \"give me the links (from my current 50 subreddits at this time) #1 to #[page size] as ranked by voting right now at this exact moment\"... When you go to the next page, you're saying \"give me links #[page size] to #[page size2] *at this exact moment\"... This is why you may see duplicate links from page to page! A link that was #23 a minute ago may be #26 now because of people voting things up and down"
]
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|
1s1qf0 | eil5: why do cable and internet companies make their services cheaper if you bundle a land line you don't use with it? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1s1qf0/eil5_why_do_cable_and_internet_companies_make/ | {
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"They make more money. Consider Im a store and I normally make $10 per item when you buy 2 of them so I profit $20. But if I can sell you 3 items by offering you a $2 discount on each then I make $24 profit at the end of the transaction. It's logical for year store to try and make $24 instead of $20 especially if you would never use the last item normally."
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||
1676of | coding: what exactly is it? and how important is it to the creation of a video game? | if you're designing a video game, what does coding do in that process? is it difficult to learn coding? are there multiple types of coding? how would one go about learning? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1676of/elif_coding_what_exactly_is_it_and_how_important/ | {
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"R/learnprogramming. \n\nTl;Dr all games have rules and instructions that a) tell the computer how everything works, like the graphics and the controls and such and b) control the logic of the game. Coding is the practice of speaking to the computer in a way it can understand. It's easy to get started doing, and how challenging it gets depends on how complicated you want to get. Full out games are pretty complex, requiring lots of abstract thinking, but smaller games like tic tac toe are pretty simple. See the above sub reddit for more. ",
"Coding (or programming) is absolutely essential to any piece of software, as it's how software is made. I'll call it programming as it's the more 'professional' term. Programming is basically writing a set of instructions for the computer to follow in order for the program to work. In programming there a several languages - programming languages, that have their own syntax and structure. Examples include Java, C++ and Python. This is an example of a Python program that prints a message - 'Hello World':\n\n > > > print \"Hello World\"\n\nThat's pretty much the simplest program known to man, and it can be executed differently depending on the language. This is Java: \n\n\n class HelloWorldApp {\n public static void main(String[] args) {\n System.out.println(\"Hello World!\"); \n }\n }\n\nAs you can see it's a more complicated syntax than Python. Both languages have their strengths and weaknesses, so it's important to choose the right one for the task. It's also important to remember that real programs (or sets of programs like games) have thousands of lines of carefully checked and formatted code.\n\nIf you're interested in learning more, head over to _URL_0_ . You'll learn a scripting language called Javascript first, but you can move on to more complex languages after that.\n\n**Edit**: You're right tomjen, removed."
]
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1of7ok | what is the difference between assault, aggravated assault and battery? | Title says it all | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1of7ok/eli5_what_is_the_difference_between_assault/ | {
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"Assault: Threatening to harm someone (or make unwanted physical contact). For instance, if you tell someone, \"You'd better get out of here before you get hurt,\" while walking menacingly toward them and cracking your knuckles.\n\nAggravated assault: Attempting to cause grievous bodily harm, regardless of whether or not you succeed. For instance, attempting to stab someone, but missing.\n\nBattery: *Actually* harming someone (or making unwanted physical contact).",
"Threats alone don't amount to assault. Assault is actually defined as intentionally placing someone in apprehension of an unwanted physical contact. Aggravated assault is assault taken up a notch- attempting to cause serious physical harm. Battery is occurs when someone actually makes unwanted or nonconsensual physical contact that causes harm. "
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6nu80h | with no atmosphere to propagate a shock wave, are explosives in space actually even lethal? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/6nu80h/eli5_with_no_atmosphere_to_propagate_a_shock_wave/ | {
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"The gas from the explosive itself will propogate a pressure wave a short distance, but range will be severely limited by the extremely low ambient pressure.\n\nAt a moderate distance shrapnel would be the greater concern because it won't slow down or stop in space. The shockwave would still cause damage at short range.\n\nDepending on the bomb, thermal radiation may also be a concern."
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26807x | if my urine is completely clear, is it still urine or just excess water being dumped? | I drink lots of water and it's very rare that I have yellow urine so I always wonder. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/26807x/eli5_if_my_urine_is_completely_clear_is_it_still/ | {
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"It comes from your bladder so it is urine, even if the urea content is very low. Urine usually is mostly water, otherwise you would pee paste.",
"As far as I know, its still urine. The fact its clear simply means you are properly hydrated.",
"I can't give you an in-depth answer but, the main reason(that I know of) for your urines colour is the concentration of the toxin urea(it's yellow if you hadn't guess), when your body has an excess amount of water the concentration of urea in your urine is less so it appears clear and when you have a lack of water the concentration is higher hence the yellow colour. Hoped this helped :).",
"It's definitely urine since it is secreted from the kidneys through the process called \"urination\". The kidneys extract the toxins from the blood and extract excess water too. So if you drink a lot, the toxins and urea are more diluted in the volume of liquid secreted by the kidneys and urine looks clearer..."
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4ryuvo | why is there a sudden rise in nationalism in english speaking countries? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4ryuvo/eli5why_is_there_a_sudden_rise_in_nationalism_in/ | {
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"I don't know, but I've got a hunch: Our grandparents who lived through the second world war are dead or dying. This means the living memory about the horrors of nationalism is also disapearing. ",
"It seems very sudden, but it has not been.\n\nNationalism kind of waits for an opportunity to present as a solution rather than as a problem. The recession and the fallout, the lost wages, the lost professions, have been very hard for many groups in Europe, the UK, and the US. Nationalism presents a simple answer: \"If only they weren't here, we could do this together.\"\n\nSimple answers are very attractive when you are desperate, and whatever one can say about those who have been screwed over by the global economy these days, they are desperate. Nobody at age 50 with a bad back and a high school diploma is getting back into the workforce... unless the workforce is absolutely on its knees.\n\nI will say that it's not only English-speaking countries or white people, either. There is nationalism across the world right now as people adopt ideologies that give them something to believe in, to fight for, that is tangible and comprehensible to them.\n\nThe fact that almost none of us (since like 99.999% of the world is descended from serfs and peasants and slaves, if not more) were better off in the past is not a deterrent from nationalism. Because people don't want relative wealth. They want to feel like they are doing okay, and being a big or even medium fish in a small pond of your little exclusive national group pond is a much happier place to be than being a little fish in a huge global ocean.",
"It is not just in English speaking countries. It is happening throughout Europe, and has been simmering for decades in the US. The apparent rise can be seen as a reactionary response to the sudden tide of immigration across Europe. The stories of violence and sexual assault that has come with the sudden immigration has combined with some people's long held resentment of those joining one's community and gaining access to prosperity one might believe would otherwise have gone to oneself. All of these factors can lead to a general distrust and dislike of those who one might consider to be outsiders."
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1nyuts | how does the nuclear fusion produce cheap, reliable energy and eli5 how the new data produced in livermore, ca help us? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1nyuts/eli5_how_does_the_nuclear_fusion_produce_cheap/ | {
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"_URL_0_\n\nOriginal story in which I am inquiring..",
"Currently it does not, but the hope is that we can figure out how to start fusion in some capacity so it can run on it's own. Similar to how nuclear fission (that's with an i) happens right now with a trigger and then it just goes off until the fuel being used is depleted.",
"It's late and I'm tired but I'm gonna give you a very brief answer to tide you over until someone who knows what they're talking about chimes in. There's an equation you might recognize, E=mc^2 . It says that the energy in a given amount of mass is equal to that mass times the sped of light squared, which is a really big number. Most sources of energy we use today don't even get close to using all the energy that's possible in a given amount of mass. I don't know what the numbers are, but let's say that burning coal gives you .00000001% of the total energy in a chunk of coal, and fusing that same coal would give you 10% of the energy in it. That's A LOT more energy. Fusion is really tough to get going because it requires that you get the subatomic particles smashing into each other really fast, and that's tough to do on Earth with modern technology. That's why we have to zap it with a shit ton of lasers - the lasers impart energy onto the subatomic particles that allow them to go even faster, and they eventually smash into each other (\"fuse\"), combine, and release around 10% of the energy that their mass allows for. \n\nSo basically, smashing stuff into other stuff causes it to stick together, but the stuff that sticks together weighs a little less. That \"missing\" weight is turned into energy. This would be a cheap form of energy because it's so efficient (probably for other reasons as well but like I said before, I'm not an expert, it's late, etc). The new data from Livermore, as I understand it, is important because before they'd put, say, 10 units of energy into causing the fuel to fuse, but they'd only get 9 units out. For the first time, they put in 10 units, and got out 11 (Spinal Tap yeah yeah blow me). This is an important step towards actually being able to harness the power of fusion instead of just blowing things up for fun.\n\nThis is probably not formatted in a manner that's conducive to understanding nuclear physics, which is notoriously difficult. I'm not a pro so if there's any information that's wrong (the numbers are all made up but illustrate broad points) then correct me in the comments, I'm not gonna edit this for a while. Hopefully this helps until someone smart comes along."
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22xgsg | what exactly is happening to your legs in restless leg syndrome? | That feeling you get in your legs when you're laying down and you HAVE to move them because they feel so uncomfortable, but it really never goes away. Why or how does that happen? What can you do to make it stop?
edit: just wanted to thank everybody for their comments and suggestions :) i'll be sure to try some of them out. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/22xgsg/eli5_what_exactly_is_happening_to_your_legs_in/ | {
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"There are a wealth of different reasons that doctors will give for why RLS happens and what causes it in a specific person (ie. iron deficiency, dopamine problems, etc.). For me, it seems to run in my family. I fought/tied to ignore it for years until my husband said it was like trying to sleep beside someone who was dancing ... all night long. I take Mirapex now, just have to be sure to take it before the first twinges start. ",
"I will get it if I take too many OTC sleeping pills. The active ingredient is Diphenhydramine HCl, which is an antihistamine (essentially exactly what they put in Benadryl). \n\nSo anyway... build up resistance, take more than recommended dose, and at some point I get drowsy *and* my legs go nuts. It really is extremely uncomfortable.\n\nI know some people say RLS doesn't exist, just another diagnosis looking for a pharma profit, etc... I know better.",
"Restless legs syndrome is caused by an imbalance of dopamine, a chemical that transmits signals between nerve cells in the brain. It is usually genetic, about 60% of people with restless legs have a family member with the condition. Although anyone can have restless legs syndrome, it is more common in older adults and women. In fact, about 40% of mothers experience temporary restless legs syndrome during pregnancy. Health conditions such as diabetes, iron deficiency, rheumatoid arthritis, and kidney failure can also trigger restless legs syndrome.\n\n-NHS info",
"Is this always RLS? I ask because I'm terrible for not keeping my legs still (my legs are jiggling as I type this) yet I suffer from epilepsy and take clonazepam...which is apparently used to treat RLS....",
"I've had RLS since I was very young. I'm a very fit 35yo male and remember it as a child feeling the aching in my leg bones and I needed to constantly stretch them. To this day it's on and off with no warning. I find its worse when I sleep in a hot room so I've learned to keep my place nice and cool at night. ",
"I was prescribed a drug called Requip (sp?) which I believe is a parkinsons drug",
"The exact cause of RLS is not known but it seems to be due to a lack of dopamine in the peripheral nervous system causing a misfiring. It is often caused by poor blood circulation or high blood pressure. This can be due to low iron, low magnesium, or low b vitamin level. It can also be hereditary. \nSo go to the doctor and get you blood levels checked you may just need to supplement. Also, buy some compression socks to help with circulation. Some people take tenex at night for it while others have to take pharmaceuticals like ropinorole or mirapex to increase peripheral dopamine. \n\n[Check out this PDF on it](_URL_0_)\n\nOh, it can also be made worse by standing on your feet all day or sitting all day. ",
"My legs don't actually move, but I have a very strong urge to jerk them really hard, like I am about to kick a soccer ball for a penalty kick. \n\nAnyways I was under the impression that it has more to do with nerves misfiring. ",
"I don't know what causes it, but for anyone in here suffering from it and Mirapex hasn't worked I will tell you what worked for my wife: A bar of unwrapped soap placed under the fitted sheet placed at the foot of the bed.\n\nI don't know why it works for her. There is no legitimate science behind it (as of this writing). But I no longer sleep next to a leg blender.",
"That's the $10,000 question. I've suffered with it since my first memories. My very first memory is standing in my crib (I assume I was around 2 maybe) crying because my legs wouldn't stop feeling weird and twitching. I'm 40 now. Mine is severe. I go in 6 weeks cycles and towards the peak the sensations are not limited to my legs. It will sometimes affect my arms and my chest (the chest is the absolute worst place ever for it, btw). Because of this, I suffer from chronic insomnia and it is not uncommon for me to go up to 72 hours without sleep during the peak. On average I go at least 24 hours each week without sleep. I have no abnormal results from MRIs, my dopamine levels are good as well as my iron levels. I exercise regularly and I do deep tissue massages on my legs before bed each night. Let me tell you, life is hell when you dread going to bed. I cannot stand the whole process of bedtime/sleep. Because I know I will battle RLS for at least 4 hours (on a good night) before I can fall asleep. ",
"I just saw a vascular doctor this morning say vascular disease can be a huge culprit for RLS. Also neuropathic nerve pain from diabetes or spinal problems can cause RLS. It feels very much like akathisia and the person can't sit still they need to move constantly.",
"I have crazy Restless Legs - mine don't feel like I have to move them, they just jerk around all on their own. My mom's, brother's and son's do the same thing. Anti-depressants make things worse. Clonazapan helps, but the thing that stops it cold is this Bio-CMP stuff. Calcium, Magnesium, Potassium. I take one or two before bed (or when ever the jerks start) and I can sleep, and so can my SO! It's all natural, no side effects, no weird stuff I can't pronounce - just minerals. It's just a Miracle Cure of the Future for me and my family. (No, I don't get a kick back.)\n\n_URL_0_",
"[The NCBI has a good page on RLS, that helps explain what we know about it.](_URL_0_) That being said, we don't know much about it. Current theories speculate toward it being a problem with brain cells managing dopamine, a neurotransmitter involved in muscle movement.\n\nRLS is often associated with other medical conditions, such as Parkinsons, diabetes, chronic kidney disease and iron deficiency. It can also occur in people who take certain medications (calcium channel blockers, neuroleptics, lithium), or drink a lot of caffeine.\n\nThe page offers a variety of treatment options and when you should seek medical help. It is a condition that we understand very little about, and personally I wouldn't bet any majority of research is going in to the area outside of other neurological studies. The areas that typically get funded the most are those big impact diseases and conditions; diabetes, cancer and recently Alzheimer's research groups are areas of research that receive a lot of attention.",
"Diet colas with aspartame in them can make it worse.",
"There is no consensus on what causes RLS. For some people, including myself, nightshade vegetables are a trigger. I cannot eat potatoes, tomatoes, or peppers. A chemical in these vegetables seems to cause attacks (they also trigger flare ups in people who have arthritis). My attacks happen at night, usually after I've been in bed for an hour or so.\n\nI can feel them coming on, it happens gradually. It starts with the need to move my feet. Nothing big, just move them back and forth or wiggle my toes. Then I start to feel it on the inside of my legs. It's almost as if I can feel my leg muscles moving.....but my legs are perfectly still. Pretty soon, I am moving my legs on purpose, but only because I HAVE to. It's not involuntary, I control the movement. It's like I have to make my leg move to match the \"movement\" that is going on deep in the muscle. It's very hard to explain. \n\nI did take 5mg of Valium whenever I felt an attack coming on. But that can be addictive and since I get the attacks once or twice a week, I didn't want to risk it. Now I take 700 mg aspirin once I start to feel the \"movement\" in my leg muscles. My symptoms are usually gone in 20 min. If I catch it early enough, 325 mg is usually enough. Sometimes I need 1025 mg if it's really bad. Yes, I am aware that there is potential liver damage from taking so much aspirin, but so far it's the best OTC/ at home solution. My doctor said that if the attacks get too severe, I could try Parkinson's medications. But, that is a last resort.\n\nI can feel a small attack occurring in my right calf and thigh right now. It's easier to deal with and ignore during the day. I can usually get through a daytime attack by just waiting it out while forcing myself to relax and breath deep. Nighttime attacks are much, much worse. I can't wait those out. Sometimes I'll cry if it gets too bad.\n\nI hate RLS. I wouldn't wish it on anyone.\n\nEdit: words",
"My ex claimed she had/has RLS, but whenever she went to bed she wouldn't move at all. She would complain that I couldn't keep my arms,fingers, and legs still at night. I believe I have restless body syndrome. Its like an itch, if you don't scratch it, it gets worse. My body just wants to keep moving no matter how tired I am, if I don't move the effected body part it starts to ache and hurt, sometimes starts throbbing. \n\nMy ex was a pill popper, i think she was trying to get something to get high on. She got mad that I told the Dr that she has no problem sleeping and doesnt move a lot once in bed. She then complained to the Dr that she needs sleeping pills cause my constant movement kept her up at night. Last I heard she is still claiming to have it and Drs aren't giving her the right meds. For me if I smoke some sweet maryjane I just melt into bed and don't feel the need to move my body. ",
"I've been dealing with RLS a few nights a week for about 15 years now. Taking Multi Vitamins when i first start to notice it usually works pretty well for me. ",
"So this is a thing. I had this when laying on my back. I did not even know this has a name, I tought it is not THAT common. This thread just saved me nights I guess. I will never forget, it's Restless Leg Syndrome. Thanks.",
"Meijers sells a product called Restful Legs. Works for me. ",
"This is no joke, people with RLS, eat a banana! It helps",
"Okay, so everything that you do is controlled by one part of your body: your brain. Imagine that your brain is a city called Brain City. Brain City is divided into different sections based on the body activity that they control: the Cognition District, the Motor Quarter, the Reflex Precinct, etc. \n\nIn order to execute an activity, the systems that govern each involved section of Brain City must approve and send a neurotransmitter to the action site. Think of neurotransmitters as keys that open locks that the brain must open in order to perform an activity. Different activities have different locks, which require different keys, so you end up with a variety of neurotransmitters.\n\nFor example, whenever you want to raise your right arm into the air, a very complex biological bureaucracy is doing a lot of stuff behind the scenes:\n\n1. Certain neurons (brain cells) activate (\"fire\") and send a neurotransmitter called dopamine to the Motor Quarter, Office of Motor Control, Department of Arms, Right Arm Division.\n\n2. Dopamine unlocks all of the processes involved in raising the right arm.\n\n3. With these processes open, impulses flow into the arm muscles and cause the right arm to raise.\n\n4. In the Cognition District, there is a little guy named Consciousness who considers himself to be the person who controls Brain City. Consciousness notices the neuron and neurotransmitter activity. \n\n5. Consciousness compares the pattern of firing neurons and releasing neurotransmitters to its record of past events in Brain City, and concludes that it matches the pattern that occurs whenever the brain wants to raise the right arm.\n\n6. Consciousness makes an announcement to the rest of Brain City over a loudspeaker: \"I WANT TO RAISE MY RIGHT ARM.\" We call these announcements \"thought.\"\n\nNotice anything counter-intuitive? That's right, we don't normally think of conscious thought as occurring AFTER a voluntary motion. But studies have shown that this may indeed be what happens, and that many of the things we believe to be consciously chosen actions are actually activated in the brain a fraction of a second BEFORE the section of our brain responsible for cognition.\n\nSo, with Restless Leg Syndrome, what's happening is that something is preventing the brain from using dopamine to properly unlock all the locks on the processes that control motor movement in the legs. This may be caused, for example, by an iron deficiency, as iron is involved in the creation of dopamine. And because the brain can sense that something's wrong with the legs' motor function, it triggers a stress response in the autonomic nervous system, leading to feelings of pain, discomfort, and an urge to keep moving one's legs (possibly related to the fight-or-flight response).\n\nTo make it stop, you can take a medication called a dopamine agonist (e.g. Mirapex) that will perform the function of dopamine (unlocking the locks), even if there's not enough dopamine to do so. \n\nEDIT: Thanks for the gold, stranger! You are fantastic!",
"Any tips for combatting RLS in planes or long car rides as this is where I normally experience it?",
"I've had RLS on and off for years, and I sympathise if you're currently suffering from it, because it's torture. \n\nI take Ropinirole if I'm having a particularly bad bout of it, but I don't like the woozy feeling side effects.\n\nMasturbation provides temporary relief (heh). Sex is better (heheh). \n\nI've found that legs day at the gym or cycling generally makes it worse. Curious that some find it relieving. \n\nOne thing that works for me is wearing light jogging pants to bed. I think maybe having something on the skin and being slightly warmer than when naked keeps it at bay somehow. \n",
"What exactly is RLS, tried googling but more confused. I've always had this issue where if I'm sitting down my my leg wants to shake up and down non stop. Also I tend to get leg & foot cramps as well as lower leg soreness. I always thought it was done consciously but realized that it just slips right into a shake.",
"I was diagnosed with RLS as a teenager - which is uncommon. Most people that suffer from RLS are seniors. \n\nCome to find out, I'm ADHD (emphasis on the H). I didn't find out until I was 30, but my constant leg shaking/moving ceases when I'm taking my medication. \n\nAs an aside, I was also pre-hypertension. Turns out it was from anxiety caused by my ADHD. My BP is perfect now. \n\nAnd to think, I endured all sorts of testing and medication before a doctor actually figured it out. ",
"I must have the opposite of Restless Leg Syndrome. I'm paralyzed and can't move either leg. I have Restful Leg Syndrome.",
"I have had RLS since I was a child. At times it was excruciating. It was always dismissed as \"growing pains\". Leg flexing would bring temporary and little relief.\n\nAs I got older, I found potassium to eliminate them almost altogether, accompanied with a large glass of water. Still works like a champ when it happens now.",
"In general, any disease or condition with the word \"Syndrome\" or \"Idiopathic\" means we don't have a good understanding as to how or why it occurs.\n\nWhen you see a lot of explanations for a disease or condition, it usually means these are all *proposed* etiologies/reasons.\nSame goes for disease treatments. In general, when you see a lot of treatments for a disease, it usually means none are great/ideal in treating the condition.\n\n",
"I've found wrapping a heating blanket around my leg(s) really helps. I'm not sure if what I have is RLS though.",
"God, I've had it in my shoulders and my elbows before. Murder me, please.",
"I don't have a suggestion, just wanted to thank you for bringing this up, I've had RLS for so long and it's been so frustrating. My doctor won't do anything for it so hopefully peoples suggestions in this thread will, thank you :) ",
"This will get buried but magnesium helps mine. Buy some epsom salt. When your legs are jumpy dissolve some epsom salt in the water and soak your feet in it. Gets rid of it pretty quick for me. ",
"I had RLS while pregnant, and it mostly went away once I started taking iron supplements.",
"Liquid magnesium rubbed into my legs does the trick for me.",
"I stretch my leg muscles out when that happens and it goes away. ",
"I've taken Tegretol, Mirapex, and Sinamet for RLS and each worked fairly well but made me very sleepy the next day. I now get good results from 200mg of Potassium or Jim Beam, depending on the time of day. Major triggers for me are foods with lots of Calcium, citric acid, or one of the 'B' vitamins.I think it's B3, but I avoid them all where I can.",
"~*ahem* ... *psst* ~\n\n^^An **ORGASM** ^^will ^^make ^^it ^^go ^^away",
"What I do for my RLS is::\n\n1) stretch the calf muscle of one leg. \n\n2) with the muscle stretched, take 12 deep long breaths. You'll tingle and hyperventilate slightly.\n\n3) on breath 13, inhale and hold about 15 to 30 seconds.\n\n4) slowly exhale.\n\n5) repeat this on the other leg.\n\n\nA cure, it's not, but it'll often get you past that hump so you can get to sleep.\n\nFYI, don't try this if you're prone to epileptic seizures. Hyperventilation is used to induce seizures. \n",
"Ever have that itch inside your head behind your eyeball? The one that drives you crazy and there is no way to scratch? That's what RLS is like, and the only way to scratch the RLS itch, is to allow your legs to move.",
"I have had RLS for several years now. I got to breaking point and decided enough was enough and asked my doctor to refer me to a sleep clinic. However, this is complicated because it turns out that I also have sleep apnea. I have recently been treated for the sleep apnea with a CPAP machine. My sleep remains disturbed but is refreshing now and the exhaustion has gone. I still have RLS but it is much milder and I can't help thinking that the deoxygenation I had been undergoing every night before treatment was responsible for some of my problem. If you have both get some treatment for the sleep apnea. It is at least some relief from the hell that used to be nighttime.",
"Rls is the cause of so many late night reddit visits for me. And here you are! I had heard about iron causes before with limited results for me, not mg though. Thanks!",
"Wow, I thought this was a made up thing. Like, wow. This is a real condition?\n\nTIL.",
"Thank you for this post. I've never gone to the doctors but I know my legs and feet are behaving strange since many years ago. The discomfort worsens if I wear shoes for long hours plus the moist from the sweat I wish I could cut them off! Even with only socks for some hours, I could feel \"waterfall\" going through my feet. I've read most of the comments and I am going to take magnesium, iron and dopamine as suggested, as well as compression socks. Will keep track of this.",
"I get bouts of RLS (and occasionally restless arms, yuck). It seems random, but is mostly evenings. I'm disabled, have lots of chronic conditions. \n\nWhat are some good ways to handle an episode when it starts? I have restricted mobility so exercise is very limited. I normally take diazepam if I have some, but that's not always ideal. ",
"Hey, look, I read most of the posts here, and they are all rather 'deep' in either a scientific/religious/philosophical sense, which is great. \n \nPractically? \n \nI had the same problem, and it became TERRIBLE. I appreciate that there is a difference between RLS and leg cramps, have had both. \n \nBut, what I can tell you, is that through trial and error, it is the ratio of: \nmagnesium / potassium / sodium which is at play. \nPLUS: Calcium . . . calcium play a crucial role. \nI would get a blood test, just to see where you are with those three. \nThen, experiment, experiment, experiment. \nBest sources of all three is natural food. \n \nI now have NO RLS anymore. It may creep back once every six to twelve months, just a small twinge, but, quickly resolved through supplementation. \n \n",
"Throughout most of this thread you guys are mixing up restless leg syndrome (RLS) with periodic limb movement during sleep (PLMS) - the former is about what you feel (awful feeling in the legs / need to move them) and it happens while awake - often at night or when sleepy. PLMS is the repetitive kicking while asleep. Most people with RLS also have PLMS but the reverse is not true at all (PLMS is super common with age - up to half of the elderly may meet criteria). A lot of folks have PLMS but wouldn't know it except they sleep poorly or their partner tells them they kick constantly. "
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4mgfjb | what happens if neither presidential candidate can continue to run? | What would happen if both candidates are incarcerated, assassinated, or for whatever reason had to step down?
I know new candidates would have to be chosen, but how would this occur? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4mgfjb/eli5what_happens_if_neither_presidential/ | {
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"The parties would probably each hold another convention. In fact, that's probably what would happen if only one of the two nominees could no longer run, provided there was sufficient time.\n\nPolitical parties are private entities, so there isn't a specific clause in the Constitution or anything to tell us exactly what this would look like. It would just be up to party leaders to work something out, and each party probably has a contingency plan for this locked up somewhere.",
"Short answer: it's very complicated.\n\nIn the early phases of the election, matters such as these are primarily controlled by state law and/or policies of political parties, which means that results may vary from state to state.\n\nIf a candidate dies (or becomes incapacitated) before the general election, then it's possible that state ballots will be changed. Each state runs its own election and sets its own ballot rules. Typically, people are voting for a political party's \"ticket\", which includes paired candidates for President and Vice President. Most states would probably accept the VP candidate or allow the candidate's party to select a successor.\n\nIf a candidate dies after the general election, but before the Electoral College meets, then federal law theoretically allows the electors who vote for whoever they want. In practice, though, the electors are usually bound by the laws of their state and the pledges they've made to their political party, and so it's once again likely that the parties would support the VP candidate or select a successor.\n\nOnce Congress has counted the Electoral College votes, the matter is controlled by the 20th Amendment to the Constitution, which specifies that if the \"President elect\" dies or becomes incapacitated, then the \"Vice President elect\" will become their successor.\n\nThere is a window, after the EC has voted but before Congress has counted those votes, where there is technically no pre-defined outcome. Sanity would probably suggest that the VP elect remains the successor in that scenario."
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2pn8yk | what exactly is being a stock broker and if they make so much money, why doesn't everybody become one? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2pn8yk/eli5_what_exactly_is_being_a_stock_broker_and_if/ | {
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"They are salespeople. They earn a commission on what they sell. What they happen to sell are millions and millions of dollars of financial products, so their commissions are enormous.\n\nVery hard job to get (well, its easy to get a job as a broker, it's just hard to get a job as a broker with clients who actually generate enough business to make a meaningful commission.)\n\nThe top investment banks recruit the very best graduates from the very best universities. Working your way into that system from the outside is extraordinarily difficult.\n\nIf you're interested in what is a pretty realistic look at the kind of hustle required, I highly recommend Will Smith's movie \"The Pursuit of Happyness\" and the autobiography it was based on.\n\n_URL_0_",
"Becoming a wealthy stock broker is very hard because it means you need a lot of rich clients. ",
"A stock broker sells stock in publicly traded companies. Because of the laws governing stocks, you and I can't just buy stock like buying a loaf of bread. The broker acts as our agent to buy and sell the stocks we own. The broker charges a commission whether we buy or sell, whether we make money or lose money. Every transaction makes money for the stock broker.\n\nIf you really want to make piles of money, don't be a stock broker, be an investment banker. They make the stocks that the broker buys and sells. I-bankers make 20-100x what brokers make.",
"Maybe not exactly what you're looking for, but I think if this topic intrests you, then you would really enjoy [this series.](_URL_0_)\n\nIt's called million dollar trader. Basically some hedge fund manager takes 8 random civilians and gives them 1 million dollars to invest in the market.\n\nIt's additionally interesting because this was right after the 2008 collapse so the market was really crazy at that time."
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m1zsa | the superposition of atoms | This might be a question for R/science as well, but I've never been able to wrap my head around the idea of particles being in ALL the places. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/m1zsa/eli5_the_superposition_of_atoms/ | {
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"Atoms do not have (a noticeable) superpositon, it's the things that make up the atom that do, one type of these strange thingys are called electrons.\n\n\n\nLets step back a little. How do we know where anything is? Well by looking at it of course. But what if whatever we're looking at doesn't have very good \"edges\". Take a wave (the kind in the ocean) for example. Can you say exactly where the wave is? Nope, you can't really. How do you define the edge of the wave? The wave's effect on the water will get less and less on the water around it, but it would be pretty much impossible to say where that effect stops. We cannot say where the wave is, only where it is most concentrated.\n\n\n\nNow here comes the hard part. The thingys that make up the atom (like the electron) are waves too! Why? Well for that we have to explain why we can never find out exactly where the electron is, just like the water wave. \n\n\nGo back to how we know where anything is, by looking at it. For that we need light. To us, light is just this **really** tiny packet of energy that our eyes pick up and magically turn into colours. But to a **really** tiny electron, these packets of light are **really** big. So when we shine a light on the electron to see where it is, the light scatters the electron so much we can no longer tell exactly where it is, it is a wave. We can still tell how fast it is moving though, just the same way as we can tell how fast a water wave is moving towards us.\n\n\nLuckily there are some really clever scientists out there who managed to get around this problem (kinda). We just build a **really** tiny hole in a thin sheet of metal. So thin that only 1 electron could fit through. If we detect the presence of an electron on the other side of that sheet, we know that the electron must have been in that hole, we know where the electron has been! The wave has been *collapsed* into a single place. This is called superposition.\n\n\nHowever because we are not allowed to see the electron, we can no longer tell how fast it is going. We can never, and I really do mean never, tell, at the same time with 100% accuracy, where the electron is and how fast it is going. But when we do know where the electron is, we have the superposition.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nOf course, this is all pretty crude. But then again, you are five years old :)",
"Atoms do not have (a noticeable) superpositon, it's the things that make up the atom that do, one type of these strange thingys are called electrons.\n\n\n\nLets step back a little. How do we know where anything is? Well by looking at it of course. But what if whatever we're looking at doesn't have very good \"edges\". Take a wave (the kind in the ocean) for example. Can you say exactly where the wave is? Nope, you can't really. How do you define the edge of the wave? The wave's effect on the water will get less and less on the water around it, but it would be pretty much impossible to say where that effect stops. We cannot say where the wave is, only where it is most concentrated.\n\n\n\nNow here comes the hard part. The thingys that make up the atom (like the electron) are waves too! Why? Well for that we have to explain why we can never find out exactly where the electron is, just like the water wave. \n\n\nGo back to how we know where anything is, by looking at it. For that we need light. To us, light is just this **really** tiny packet of energy that our eyes pick up and magically turn into colours. But to a **really** tiny electron, these packets of light are **really** big. So when we shine a light on the electron to see where it is, the light scatters the electron so much we can no longer tell exactly where it is, it is a wave. We can still tell how fast it is moving though, just the same way as we can tell how fast a water wave is moving towards us.\n\n\nLuckily there are some really clever scientists out there who managed to get around this problem (kinda). We just build a **really** tiny hole in a thin sheet of metal. So thin that only 1 electron could fit through. If we detect the presence of an electron on the other side of that sheet, we know that the electron must have been in that hole, we know where the electron has been! The wave has been *collapsed* into a single place. This is called superposition.\n\n\nHowever because we are not allowed to see the electron, we can no longer tell how fast it is going. We can never, and I really do mean never, tell, at the same time with 100% accuracy, where the electron is and how fast it is going. But when we do know where the electron is, we have the superposition.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nOf course, this is all pretty crude. But then again, you are five years old :)"
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2effu5 | why do cats not bleed when they are given sub cutaneous fluids. it's still a needle in their skin? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2effu5/eli5_why_do_cats_not_bleed_when_they_are_given/ | {
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"1, Needles in *skin* rarely bleed, try it on yourself. Its needles in veins that bleed, and needles in arteries that bleed more.\n\n2, as humans, our skin is fairly well attached to the muscle and bone and whatever beneath. Dogs, cats, bears, rodents... not so much. Theres a lot of free space in there that is mainly just fat and extra skin, not a lot of bloodflow (like would be found in a muscle)\n\n3, a paw or a face *will* bleed more.\n\nSource: have stabbed a lot of fuzzy things. "
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776oxu | why are fungi considered neither plant nor animal? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/776oxu/eli5_why_are_fungi_considered_neither_plant_nor/ | {
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"They aren't plants because they don't engage in photosynthesis and their genetic ancestry has them more closely related to animals.\n\nHowever, they are still sufficiently different from animals that they aren't animals either. Animal cells don't have cell walls (fungi do), animals have sensory organs and can move, fungi can't.",
"Like plants, they have a cell wall, which is a durable framework that supports the cell, which animal cells do not have. Unlike plants, this cell wall is made of chitin rather than cellulose. Animals though use chitin to make hard shells, which is what insect exoskeletons are made of. Fungi reproduce similar to how simple plants do, by spores. Yet they cannot synthesize their own food like plants can. Like animals, they have to take in food. However, they are also immobile for the most part, like plants. They rely on the environment to move around, where as even simple animal cells can move on their own power.\n\nSo they have attributes of both, but are not quite one or the other. "
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2yi0yk | how long would power grids stay up in an area who's power comes from hydrostatic electricity if a "last man on earth" situation arose? | How long would power grids be up? Is it possible a place like Navada who's main power comes from the Hoover dam be up much longer?
*I don't know electrical infrastructure*
First asked [here](_URL_0_) | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2yi0yk/eli5_how_long_would_power_grids_stay_up_in_an/ | {
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"If you suddenly find yourself as the last man on earth, power wouldn't really be that much of a problem. As you don't need the power from the hover dam to power what you need.\n\nJust find yourself a generator and a gas station and you will have power for a long time.",
"The grid would fail incredibly quickly. There are operators constantly deciding how many generators need to be online. With nobody present to help match output to load, the entire power grid would simply blackout. Probably within minutes, certainly within a day."
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2lza05 | what exactly do economists do to "seasonally adjust" unemployment figures | I mean, I get the basic premise that there tends to be more hiring at certain times of the year, but what do they do to the numbers to "normalize" them? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2lza05/eli5_what_exactly_do_economists_do_to_seasonally/ | {
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"It's pretty chill, iirc.\n\nStep 1: Data\n\nYou want the average unemployment each year for 10 years or so, and the average unemployment during the test season for each of those.\n\nStep 2: Ratios\n\nIn each year, figure out how much bigger or smaller it is than usual during the season. Like, if it's 1.1-1.3 times the unemployment rate for the year. Then average those to make a 10-year seasonal adjustment rate.\n\nStep 3: Division\n\nDivide the actual rate right now by the average seasonal adjustment ratio you made above. At this point, you're done for that data point. You have the seasonally adjusted unemployment rate. But it's boring on it's own, so..\n\nStep 4: Comparison\n\nDo the same for the previous seasons, going back 6 months. Feel free to vary what you define as a 'season', too - smaller seasons give more accurate results but take more work.\n\nStep 5: Profit\n\nNow you can see what the unemployment rate is really doing, adjusted for seasonal variables! Well, not perfectly precisely, because there's always factors that only influence the rate once, but better than just taking the rate."
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3jp1n6 | why do soldiers wear watches with dial underside of wrist instead of over wrist? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3jp1n6/eli5why_do_soldiers_wear_watches_with_dial/ | {
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"For us mechanics I did it because it would get in the way more often if it was on top of my wrist rather than in the \"elbow\" of my wrist. Cellphones are a huge no no on a flightline, and that was a big reason to get a watch.",
"Worn on the inside of the wrist, it's less likely that the glass face would reflect light and potentially give away a soldier's position. \nI wear my watch this way as I find it easy to look at my watch with something in my hand, in particular, a drink. ",
"Another reason: If you're holding your rifle with your left hand under the barrel (palm up, in other words), the underside of your wrist (and thus your watch) is pointed at your face so you can easily glance at the time.\n\nGuitarists wear their watches this way for the same reason."
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9jv007 | why do pawns in chess that cross the board get to choose something other than the queen? why would you choose something inferior that has less moves? | I understand some some might choose to promote the pawn to be a night for its irregular moves and different strategy, and that is probably an exception. But why would a player choose to promote its pawn to either Bishop or Rook when a Queen can do both of those jobs? Why is it an option, if everybody chooses Queen anyways? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/9jv007/eli5_why_do_pawns_in_chess_that_cross_the_board/ | {
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"It's not exactly known but it probably dates to the fact that chess has had the promotion rule longer than the modern queen.\n\n\"Queens chess\" is the modern chess rules, because the last major rules change was the modern movement for the queen, before then the queen moved just like a king (except it couldn't castle and could be captured like any other piece).\n\nUnder those rules bishops and rooks were the only \"sliders\" that could go any number of squares in a direction, in that case you had to pick one or the other, or a knight.",
"Underpromotions are rare, underpromotions to anything but a knight are rarer still.\n\nThe main reason to underpromote to a rook or bishop is when promoting to a queen would result the other side having no legal moves, which is a draw. A rook or bishop does not create the stalemate, allowing the game to go on.\n\nAlso, some people play with a house rule that says you can only promote to a piece that has already been captured, largely because if you only have one chess set, you are unlikely to have spare queens laying around. This is not an official rule."
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bm602w | how do smartphones maintain their touchscreen capabilities with a glass/plastic screen protector? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/bm602w/elif_how_do_smartphones_maintain_their/ | {
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"They work by capacitance. A capacitor is, at its simplest, two parallel plates which can accumulate electric charge. No direct contact is required as long as the distance is small. If the gap is too high, it won't work.",
"Most modern smartphones have a capacitive touchscreen. Very simply put, this means that there is a very minute electrical charge on the touchscreen. As the human body is conductive, this will cause electricity to leak away. The location of the touch is then determined by comparing the voltage change in each corner of the screen. The bigger the change, the closer the touch to that specific corner.\n\n & #x200B;\n\nA screen protector is so thin, and usually made of 'electrically transparent' material, that it won't keep the electricity from leaking away through your finger."
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9e2v60 | what's the structural difference between regular glass, pyrex and corning gorilla glass, etc? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/9e2v60/eli5_whats_the_structural_difference_between/ | {
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"Pyrex, used in high temp laboratory glass and high temp cooking, is borosilcate; it has a percentage of boron blended into the batch.",
"Everything we commonly think of as glass is mostly made of silicon dioxide, also called silica. This is the same thing that makes up the bulk of ordinary sand. Glass made of pure silica would be something like quartz, which is a natural mineral but can also be man-made.\n\nAlmost every type of glass you use will have small amounts of other minerals mixed in to give it different properties. A common household one is called soda-lime glass and has sodium and calcium minerals in it too.\n\nGood cookware or laboratory glassware like older Pyrex has minerals with the element boron added, and these make it so the glass doesn't grow or shrink much when you heat or cool it. Heat does not travel very well through glass, so if you put a thick dish in the oven the outside surfaces heat much faster than the inside. If the outside tries to grow or shrink but the inside doesn't, the stress can make it break suddenly when you heat or cool it.\n\nGorilla Glass needs to be very hard and scratch-resistant, so they add slightly different minerals. They actually swap some of the sodium in weaker household glass for potassium. Since potassium atoms takes up more space than sodium atoms, they squish all the silica between them closer together, making the surface feel harder to scratch."
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d53dlt | ; why does lying down make you less nauseous? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/d53dlt/eli5_why_does_lying_down_make_you_less_nauseous/ | {
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"In nature, nausea is almost always caused by food poisoning. Motion sickness is very hard to get by chance without a mount or a vehicle. \n\nNausea makes you want to stop doing what you are doing, throw up, and lay down. Throwing up is good for treating food poisoning. Laying down just general makes you safer because you cannot fall. So it is a safety thing when you are disoriented. \n\nThat makes laying down a good response to getting motion sick as well.\n\nIt is not very useful but it is somewhat useful and rarely harmful."
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38ji1t | why is it illegal to deface united states currency yet those penny smashing machines are at every zoo and museum? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/38ji1t/eli5_why_is_it_illegal_to_deface_united_states/ | {
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"It's only illegal if you are going to buy something with a defaced piece of currency. No one is going to use those smashed pennies to buy something.",
"When it comes to coins, the law is against fraudulently altering the coin. If you're not doing it to defraud somebody, it's okay. It's less relevant today, but back when coins were made of valuable materials, people would shave off the edge of a coin so that it still appeared to be normal, but the shavings would be worth something. (It's a reason they started making coins with those rough edges, so that it'd be more obvious when that happened.)",
"The laws for defacing coins and paper money are different, as coins and paper money come from different backgrounds. A long time ago when the legal framework for this was being set up a coin was owned by the person who holds it. They are free to use it to do whatever they want; it's just struck in an easily recognizable pattern to help people know how much silver (or other metal) is in it. If you wanted to melt it for your silver (back then; it's no longer legal EDIT: only for pennies and nickels) then you were allowed to.\n\nPaper money, though, was owned in part by the government. It was a way for you to exchange the paper for the coin that actually backs it, which you can see when looking at certain old bills. They will say something like \"This Certifies that there is on deposit in the treasury of the United States of America One Dollar in Silver Payable to the Bearer on demand.\" [pic](_URL_0_). Here the bill is just your claim check on the silver that you actually own. As such, the government has an interest in keeping you from destroying that bill.\n\nThus we wound up with two different laws. For coins you can do whatever you want with it, *unless* you are doing something *fraudulent*. That is to say, the defacement law doesn't care if you squash a penny since you're not going to then go on to try to convince someone that that penny is actually a new dollar coin. Separately, there was a law that makes it illegal to simply melt US Coinage, but a penny presser isn't melting the coins so this doesn't apply.\n\nWith paper money, though, it is illegal to simply deface the bill, provided you do so with intent to make it unfit for being reissued. This comes from a time where you could have taken a bill, defaced it, redeemed it, and now the government has a crappy, defaced bill that they can't reuse so they have to print another one to replace it. These days much the same process happens—when you deposit a bill at a bank they will take note of damaged ones and remove them from circulation, replacing them with fresh bills. If coins were legislated under the same laws as paper money then a coin smashing machine could be illegal, as it certainly renders the coin unfit for reissue, but luckily coins are still under the old laws, despite the fact that neither coins nor paper money derive their value from their material costs these days. ",
"I looked this up a while ago so if I remember correctly... It's your money and you can do what you want with it. If it is defaced though, it does not have to be accepted by others as legal tender.\n\n^edit:_grammar",
"So, should I turn in my 4 yr old daughter to the police? She cut up a $50 bill into about 10 pieces a couple weeks ago. Luckily, the bank took it and gave us a new $50, and she got a lesson in the value of money. Technically, though, she's probably a felon.",
"They don't actually break the coins, they just pass through a peice of metal and then keep your money... Or at least that's the case in the UK!",
"It isn't illegal to deface money like that or to put a stamp on it, it's illegal to change it so it looks like a different value. If you try to make a $1 bill look like a $20. ",
"In Australia, at least, it is because [pennies](_URL_0_) aren't currency any more - so museums use penny squashers on them, even though they are possibly worth more than our current smallest coin, the $0.05c",
"That's only half of the law. It's illegal to deface currency *for the purpose of committing fraud* \n \nYou can't try to print extra zeros on a $10 bill in order to use it as $100. ",
"I watched a man refill one of those machines one. He took all the quarters AND pennies out of the machine and added blank copper disks into the machine that were already flattened to the oval shape. Perhaps there are some machines that used to smash pennies, but the modern one I saw didn't.",
"In the US, it isn't illegal to deface currency, although many people think it is. It's illegal to deface it with the intent to defraud, like to make a 10 look like a 100.\n\n[18 U.S. Code § 331 - Mutilation, diminution, and falsification of coins](_URL_0_)",
"is this in response to the transformer question?",
"\"Whoever **fraudulently** alters, defaces, mutilates, impairs, diminishes, falsifies, scales, or lightens any of the coins coined at the mints of the United States, or any foreign coins which are by law made current or are in actual use or circulation as money within the United States;\"\n\nThe key word there is \"fraudulently\". Since you are not fraudulently trying to alter the face value of the coin or profit from the base metal, it is considered OK. \n\nIf you want to melt a penny because you think its cool, that is OK. If you then try to pass it off as something higher in value than the face value of the penny, it becomes illegal.\n\n_URL_0_",
"Simple answer, it is only illegal to deface currency if you are doing it to make it look like other currency. If you make a $5 look like a 20, the feds will come after you. Draw on Abe's hat all you want and you will be okay. ",
"Growing up we would clench a penny in our buttcheeks and walk around the mall getting all hot and sweaty. Being middle-school aged, we also weren't really that concerned about hygiene. We would wait until we got in a high traffic area and relax ass enough allow the stank currency to roll down a pant leg and perfectly deposit onto the floor. We called them \"Pennies from Heaven\". ",
"It's against the law to alter a coin to defraud someone. If you stamp a coin or a bill it is not illegal.",
"Did OP see that comment about the penny smashing machines in the other thread? haha",
"_URL_0_\n\nThis is a photo of a sign I saw on a penny smashing machine. It seems to sum up the policy pretty well. ",
"From a moral perspective, taking money out of circulation entirely (the coin smashing machine) doesn't potentially cheat someone else in the same way as if you were re-circulating potentially unusable monies, which would seem to be the logical reason to make an anti-defacing law. The smashed pennies are obviously novelty, and don't risk cheating folks.\n\nAnother possible reason is that coins traditionally derive their value from a weight of metal which is harder to alter than if value is largely on visual trust in a denomination of bill, as with paper money. You still have all the zinc of the smashed penny there.\n\nIn addition, the penny by itself as a unit has a culturally insignificant value, preventing incentive to police its status.",
"Be careful if you take your souvenir pennies home if you are from outside the U.S. The penalty for carrying more than five dollars in small change out with you is FIVE YEARS in prison. A year for every dollar.\n\nThe joy and fairness of a for-profit prison system.",
"Firstly,\n\n_URL_0_\n\nSecondly,\n\nI made a subreddit for this: _URL_1_",
"Guys, guys, guys listen! Listen!! Get rid of your pennies. At first I was like \"Whaaat how will the world function if we have no coin representing the smallest monetary value\". The answer? Fucking fantastic.\n\n\n-Canada",
"It's not actually illegal to deface American currency. It's illegal to use American currency to turn it into other currency, like if you melted down U.S. pennies to make Canadian pennies, or to deface it with intent to defraud, like making a $10 bill look like a $100 bill. \n\nI think there is a law about imprisoning people who deface bills, intent to defraud or no, but it's rarely enforced unless fraud is involved because really, who cares. Especially if the bill can still be used (like, a dollar with a \"Where's George\" on it is still able to be used). In the U.S., there are a lot of defunct laws that are still on the books, because it's a lengthy process to have a law removed; it's easier to create a new law nullifying the old one. \n\nThere are several artists who work with legal tender as a medium, put their names on it, and have no issue, so. \n",
"I really don't know what all this nonsense about the silver standard is about. It's got nothing to do with what you're talking about.\n\nIt's illegal to destroy paper money because if you can produce 50.01% of a partially destroyed paper bill intact, the Mint will replace it. And that can get expensive to keep replacing old bills. Plus there's the possibility of attempts at fraud. Say, you take two bills and cut them into three pieces:\n\n2/3 of one\n2/3 of the second\nand 1/3 + 1/3 of each, stitched together and made to look like the same bill.\n\nIf you actually made that work and passed it off (it's harder than what I just described - that's why bills have serial numbers & such), then you've taken $2 and turned it into $3, and it's the US government who makes up the difference. So they make it illegal to do such stuff.\n\nIt's illegal to destroy coins for a simpler but very similar reason. During certain times in the history of this country, copper and zinc prices have been high enough that the constituent metals that go into the penny are more valuable than $0.01. So if you took a hundred pennies and melted them down, you'd have have more than $1 worth of precious metals. Guess who makes up the difference? Yep, the US Government. So they made that illegal.\n\nThat's why the re-work the metals that go into the penny, from time to time, reducing the amount of more valuable copper in exchange for zinc. For example they re-worked the formula for a penny in 1982. A penny from pre-1982 is currently worth ~$0.02 in raw materials, while a post-1982 penny's worth ~$0.006.\n\nPlus, even though the metal is only worth 0.6 cents, it costs about 1.8 cents to produce and ship the damn things. So if people go around destroying large numbers of pennies it costs the government even more to replace them.\n\nAnyway, those are the reasons why it's illegal to destroy currency. (And to move large amounts of pennies out of the country. Lest people carry tons of pennies to Mexico, melt them down there, and bypass the law.)\n\nWhy is it OK to smush one penny? Because *who cares*. Because the laws are in place to deter fraud, not stop some kid from squishing a penny. Because in the history of those machines, how many pennies have they smushed?",
"My \"guess which reddit thread spawned the question\" is back again!\n\nI'm guessing the AskReddit \"what would be the worst machine for a transformer to turn into\" thread is it. ",
"It is illegal to deface US currency only if you then try to use it as currency. Technically it is illegan to draw a mustache on Washington and then try to use it to purchase an item. ",
"There's an exemption in the law if the mutilated coins are not used fraudulently (e.g. for counterfeiting).",
"I don't know for sure about you Americans, but in Canada, we just use American pennies in those machines. It's not illegal for us to destroy YOUR money HERE. I am guessing that in the States, those machines use Canadian pennies. ",
"_URL_0_\n\nIf you actually searched before submitting, you'd know the answer. It's not illegal to deface US currency.\n",
"Here in Canada you put in a coin, usually at least 25 cents, and it goes into a separate holding container while a copper chip get fed into the machine, not a real penny, but something resembling one. ",
"[So long, smashed penny. I'll see you again next time I move.](_URL_0_) \n\n",
"I love collecting smashed coins... Its my memorabilia I collect. I can post a picture if anyone is interested.",
"Is it still legal tender after smashed?",
"A better question is why the hell do we still have pennies?",
"Better question, if you can't deface currency, is it really your property?",
"The short ELI5 version is it's not. It's illegal to deface currency *with the intent to defraud* by defacing it.\n\nYou can cut it up to make a necklace or smash it flat, but you can't write \"10\" over the 1s of a 1 dollar bill.",
"The law isn't about stopping normal people from doing things to small amounts of money. It's about stopping big, rich groups from trying to change the value of the dollar by permanently changing the money supply. Also (in fact, mostly) about stopping people from reprinting new faces on currency paper.",
"Those machines don't actually smash the pennies you put in. They keep them and smash a reserve selection, basically objects with the same dimensions, but unmarked. You receive those, and your deposited coins are stored and collected later. \n"
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2pddsq | with airspace so vast, why are there so many mid-air collisions and near-collisions? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2pddsq/eli5_with_airspace_so_vast_why_are_there_so_many/ | {
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"I am not sure what you mean by \"so many\" as such things are rare. But almost all such collisions take place near airports, where the airspace is much more crowded.",
"Actual knowledgeable answer here. They are rare, but the reason so many happen is usually heavy air traffic at airports w/ miscommunication, but another large part of it is that planes automatically fly at a set path between destinations, and the computers on board maintain that altitude while perfectly following that path. Planes traveling opposite, (say the first is flying A to B, while the second if flying B to A) often fly the same course, but at a different elevation. So while plane 1 is headed to A from B, plane 2 is headed from B to A, so plane 1 will fly at 31,000 ft, while plane 2 flies at 32,000 ft. Keep in mind, the courses are still almost identical. So, in the rare cases air traffic control goofs, plane 1 and 2 will be flying at opposite directions at 32,000 ft. The on board computers keeping them on that course are so accurate that they could collide. Most often then not however, even on a rare instance like this they will still be too far apart to collide. But, if they do happen to be within 100 ft of each other, odds are they will collide."
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81xqen | how does the removal of amygdala affect someone? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/81xqen/eli5_how_does_the_removal_of_amygdala_affect/ | {
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"The amygdala is the emotion centre of the brain, so it can mess with certain functions such as feeling emotions, for example fear. It could also make it difficult for the person to recognise emotions in other people, so if someone else was experiencing fear, they would find that difficult or impossible to distinguish between that and any other emotions.",
"well its your centre of emotions, emotional behaviour and motivation, so its not going to get removed. A woman who had only a small part of hers removed as part of a treatment for epilepsy [developed hyper-empathy](_URL_0_)",
"Well the amygdala does a lot. Broadly, it is involved in emotions, but this covers a staggering array of things, from regulation to social behavior to perceiving other people's emotions to memory.\n\nFirstly, the amygdala plays a major roll in fear perception. If you put a monkey in a cage, and put a peanut outside the cage, after some time the monkey will reach out of the cage and grab the peanut. \n\nHowever, if you put a fake snake outside of the cage, the monkey will take significantly longer to reach out and grab the peanut. **However**, if you destroy the central region of the amygdala in a monkey, they will no longer take the extra time to reach out and grab the peanut. \n\nAdditionally, when healthy monkeys see a snake, they start to exhibit a stress/fight or flight response. Amygdala lesioned monkeys do not do this. It seems that without the amygdala, monkeys lose the ability to fear the snake.\n\nThe amygdala also plays a role in perception. If you show people a \"trustworthy\" and an \"untrustworthy\" face, they will have greater amygdala activation to the untrustworthy face, suggesting that the amygdala has a role in avoiding \"untrustworthy\" individuals.\n\nIn fact, when asked to identify a set of faces as trustworthy or untrustworthy, healthy people could do it pretty well, but individuals with damaged amygdalas couldn't at all; they were simply unable to distinguish between the two.\n\nThe perceived stimuli doesn't even have to register in conscious awareness. When researchers \"flashed\" fearful faces to participants too quickly for them to consciously process, they **still** showed increase amygdala activation.\n\nThe amygdala also plays a small role in sexual function. When a male rat detects pheromones released by female rats in estrous, they start a signaling pathway that passes through the amygdala; without it, male rats could not get an erection. Additionally, men and women both experience amygdala activation when they are watching porn.\n\n**All of the above suggest that the amygdala is closely linked to arousing stimuli in general, whether it is positive or negative. Furthermore, the amygdala has a huge role in regulating memory**.\n\nThere are two kinds of memory I'll discuss here. Firstly, declarative memory is any memory that you can verbalize. It ranges from \"When I was 6, my first grade teacher put me in time-out for eating crayons\" to \"George Washington was the first president of the United States\". The amygdala plays a role in regulating these kinds of memories.\n\nThe amygdala also is deeply connected with nondeclarative emotional memory. This is the sort of memory that you can't consciously verbalize, but it's more of a \"I like this thing\" or \"I dislike this thing\". I'll talk about this one first.\n\nI'll preface this with a (very very very) brief lemma: The hippocampus is required for basically all declarative memory. Individuals with hippocampal damage cannot form any new memories. They will forget everything they learn within 5 minutes of learning it. \n\nSo, modulating emotional memory...\n\nIf you scare a rat, it will exhibit a \"fear response\" where it freezes motionless for a few seconds. You can condition a rat to exhibit a fear response to a tone pretty easily by playing a tone, and then giving the rat a minor shock.\n\nEventually, with enough of these pairings, the rats will start to freeze when being exposed to just the tone. It turns out that if you damage a rat's amygdala, they won't ever have a fear response to the tone; they just don't seem to have the ability to \"remember\" that the tone is scary. However, **even rats without their hippocampus can remember the tone is scary**. This is really really big, since again, the hippocampus is linked to EVERY form of declarative memory. So these rats presumably cannot remember anything, including ever being tested-- but they can still remember the tone as being bad.\n\nThese experiments have also been done on humans, and the results are incredibly similar. Humans can learn to associate a tone with a shock, unless their amygdalas are damaged, in which case they can't. Even patients with severe hippocampal damage, who can't remember what they did 15 minutes ago, could learn this association. **Thus, it is clear that the amygdala plays a major role in helping you learn to associate things with negative stimuli. Without it, you cannot do this type of learning.**\n\nNext, the amygdala plays a major role in **modulating declarative memory**. When you see a stressful stimuli, your amygdala releases a hormone called norepinephrine to your hippocampus, increasing its activity. It also triggers a complex pathway that I won't go into much detail here, but it eventually causes your adrenal glands to release the hormone cortisol to all parts of your brain, including your hippocampus. These two hormones can increase your memory of certain events.\n\nSo, first, an example with an experiment...\n\nResearchers did this experiment where they told a \"story' to research participants, complete with pictures. One story was a neutral story, summarized quickly like this\n\n*\"A mom and her son leave their house, and go to a place. Makeup artists simulated an injury on the boy, and they have a good time. They then leave to go back home\".*\n\nThe other story was a emotionally arousing story, like so\n\n*\"A mom and her son leave their house, to go to a place. The son gets hit by a speeding car, and is gruesomely injured. They go to a hospital, and the boy is barely saved. They then leave to go home\".*\n\nInterestingly, **people remember the middle of the 2nd story better than any other part of either story**. It seems that eliciting an emotional response with graphic pictures and a shocking story makes people remember the event better than otherwise. Unsurprisingly, individuals with damaged amygdala's do not get this boost in memory\n\nIn a separate experiment, it turns out that individuals who viewed emotional stimuli had greater amygdala activation than individuals who viewed neutral stimuli. Additionally, among the individuals who viewed the emotional stimuli, the greater their amygdala activation, the better they remembered things.\n\nAnother example I'll bring up a study where individuals learned a list of words, and then some watched a funny video 0, 10, 30, or 45 minutes after learning the words. It turns out that the sooner you watch a funny video, the better they remembered the words a week later. \n\nHowever, while active amygdalas do increase the amount of stuff you remember, if they become too active, then memory actually decreases. This can be seen in cases of \"blacking out\" traumatic memories. \n\nIndividuals with PTSD have overactive amygdalas, and this causes excess cortisol to be produced. It turns out that cortisol is negatively correlated with hippocampal volume, and that hippocampal volume is correlated with memory, suggesting that too much amygdala activation causes too much cortisol release, which actually impairs memory.\n\n**tl;dr**: Emotions and memories and stuff.\n\n\n"
]
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[],
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"https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/13554794.2013.826695"
],
[]
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||
6zv4i8 | what is the rohingya genocide, and why is it happening right now? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/6zv4i8/eli5_what_is_the_rohingya_genocide_and_why_is_it/ | {
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"Myanmar (formerly Burma) is a largely Buddhist and Burmese country. There is a small minority of Muslims, centered in one particular region, called the Rohingya. The story the Buddhists tell is that the Rohingya are recent immigrants from Bangladesh and don't belong in Myanmar. However, the historical record shows that Rohingya have lived there for centuries. But the Burmese Buddhist majority is kicking them out and/or killing them. Presumably their land will be given to Burmese."
]
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[]
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||
rxtpb | gnu general public license (gpl), | version 2, ifanyone wants to get specific. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/rxtpb/eli5_gnu_general_public_license_gpl/ | {
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"Have you tried reading the preamble? its quite well written in non legalese ",
"It sets up a scenario like this.\n\nAlice makes a computer program that does XYZ. She releases it online under the GPL license, which means she also gives away the source code to that program. The source code allows anyone to see how Alice made her program.\n\nBob downloads Alice's program and source code. But he thinks it would be better if the program did ABC in addition to XYZ. So he changes the source code to allow the program to also do ABC.\n\nNow, if Bob publicly releases his program, he is legally obligated to give away the source code as well under the GPL, because his program is based on Alice's program. When Alice released her program under the GPL, the rules say say that if you take Alice's program, make changes, and then release your modified version, then you also have to release it under the GPL and give out the source code for your modified version.\n\nBasically, it's kind of a protection on open source software. Without the GPL, anybody could take an open-source program, change it, and then sell it to other people without giving them the source code. (Side note: this is how Apple OS X is so awesome. They took open-source software called BSD, made some changes to it, and then released their software without releasing the source code).\n\nBy releasing code under the GPL, it ensures that the hard-work done by open-source programmers won't be taken and made closed-source by someone else."
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[],
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26n35l | why can blockbuster movie sequels be so much more profitable than the original? | Is there a huge proportion of people who have only seen Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Pt. 2 or Iron Man 3 and not the previous films? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/26n35l/eli5_why_can_blockbuster_movie_sequels_be_so_much/ | {
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"If the first movie is really good, it creates much more anticipation for the following films. ",
"The home video business is very lucrative. Films that underperform can have a second life on DVD. In many cases, it turns them from flops to cult hits. See: Office Space, Fight Club, Blade Runner. Same thing with syndication rights: When a move airs on premium cable, or even channels like TBS or FX, its potential reach grows farther and farther, especially since home viewing inspires more people to watch at once. \n\nIt's the reason Breaking Bad had a series average of about 2 million viewers and its finale went on to be watched live by over 10 million people after both word of mouth and lucrative Netflix rights took it from cult hit to outright hit. "
]
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[],
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|
3oed3q | why do we see super tiny rainbow dots zipping around in our view when looking at a neutral scene? | Take for example, looking at a clear blue sky unfocused. Those little tiny dots of rainbow. Another post about flashes of light with eyes closed reminded me. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3oed3q/eli5_why_do_we_see_super_tiny_rainbow_dots/ | {
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"They shouldn't be a rainbow, they should be basically white -- but if it looks like a bunch of little insects zipping around sort of in circles around the center of vision, what you're really seeing are your own white blood cells moving through the capillaries in your eyes.\n\nI don't know about the rainbow thing, though. You should ask your eye doctor about whether that's normal.",
"It's called an entoptic phenomenon. It's totally normal, but most people only become aware of it well into adult life, and assume there's something wrong with their eyes. It's caused by white blood cels in the blood vessels near the retina.",
"You could be seeing the blood flowing through the vessels of your retina, the light-sensing region in the back of your eye.\n\nHuman eyes evolved in a somewhat \"inverted\" way where the nerve cells that receive and transmit the signals are actually on TOP of the light sensing cells. These nerve cells require blood for oxygen and nutrients. The blood flows through blood vessels of varying thicknesses that can block light from reaching your light sensing cells.\n\nThe reason why we don't normally see them is because our brains cancel out the information. However, when we look at certain things such as a uniform color sky, our brain doesn't properly cancel out the signal so we can see the blood flow.",
"You might be experiencing visual snow _URL_0_ I have that and mine is red and blue"
]
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[],
[],
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"https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Visual_snow"
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|
3bjfz3 | why is it impossible for large crowds to keep a consistent rhythm without a clear leading percussion? | This is a phenomenon that occurs at any festival or football match. When clapping, or shouting a word in a rhythm, the crowd will start going faster and faster until its all a jumble and dissolve into applause. Why? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3bjfz3/eli5why_is_it_impossible_for_large_crowds_to_keep/ | {
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"text": [
"As a musician all I can say is that it's human condition. Without direction to your tempo everybody gets faster. No matter who it is they get faster when they don't pay attention to conductors or the drum line. Also, the drum line drives the beat so without a percussion section all might as well be lost (jk that's not nearly true) but I'd just go as far as to say it's human condition",
"I am going to piggy-back on this question and ask if it has anything to do with the amount of time it takes for sound to travel...If I am on one side of the stadium, i will see the clapping take place, but I don't hear it at the same instant...but if the tomahawk chop is playing, then everyone is on beat. "
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[],
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|
266tap | why don't officers aim for an extremity when dealing with a possible threat instead of aiming to kill? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/266tap/eli5why_dont_officers_aim_for_an_extremity_when/ | {
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"cho7jkd"
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"text": [
"Dead man can't sue.\n\n\n\ntbh... i never understood that either. Perhaps its harder to hit an arm and if you only got 1-2 shots to fire, you want to make sure you stop the perp."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[]
] |
||
7fmsqt | how does one person compose for an orchestra? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/7fmsqt/eli5_how_does_one_person_compose_for_an_orchestra/ | {
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"Playing the instrument really isn't all that relevant, because the parts are generally written in the same format regardless of what instrument they're for. In theory the composer really only needs to know what the instrument sounds like, as opposed to actually knowing how to play it.",
"It’s actually not that hard. And most music programs give you exposure to learning how to play the other instruments at least on a basic level...at least mine did. I wasn’t a composition major, but I had to write music for theory class & it’s just like writing a song. Then you take it apart & assign different parts to different instruments. When it comes together and is played, it’s magical. ",
"Music theory (which is what composers study) isn't the same as the ability to play an instrument. A solid understanding of music theory allows a composer to create sheets of music without having to hear it played back, while knowing that it will sound the way they want it to sound.\n\nThere are drawbacks to not being able to play the instruments, of course, and that comes when the final draft of the composition is ready and the composer then has to hire/find an orchestra to play it, so he can tweak parts here and there. With the advent of music programs for computers, though, this part becomes less relevant. You can just plug your stuff into a machine and hear what it would sound like.",
"A few ways! \n\nFirst off, a lot of studying composition is listening to music. Listening to music live is preferred, but recordings will work in a pinch. Also, it's generally preferable to listen with the score open, and listen a few times. Obviously doing all of this at once is kind of hard(Most orchestras don't hand out scores and then play a piece multiple times). Doing this is super useful because it gives you ideas of how other composers do things with the sounds that they have at their disposal. Also, there are some composers that have really great uses of specific instruments. Often it's because they play that instrument, but sometimes it's just because they're good at orchestrating for that instrument. Sometimes there's also just specific pieces or parts of pieces that are good. Stravinsky's Rite Of Spring is the most obvious example, where if you want some kick-ass bassoon writing, well, listen to the opening of Rite of Spring. If you listen to a bunch of different composers and a bunch of different pieces, you'll start getting a pretty good idea of what instruments all sound like in common combinations, and some ways that the instruments work well.\n\nSecondly, there are books for this sort of thing! Orchestration books are great, they often give you the extreme ranges of instruments, the sweet spots of instruments, and some general notes about the instrument(e.g. \"This instrument can very easily play quickly, but struggles with large leaps. It's lower range has a thin sound, and can only play quietly. It starts sounding more full, with a piercing windy tone in the mid-range, and becomes extremely piercing in the high range\"). They're not a complete substitute for listening, but they're a good reference to use. They're also great for reminders in the moment. Some good ones will also have some cool extended technique notes, like notes on all the different types of mutes, or I had one book that had literally all of the common banjo tunings and some notes on fingering for it. Orchestration books are ok for \"This instrument should do x, y, and z\", but super great for \"This instrument can't do x, y, or z\"\n\nThirdly, composers will write a lot of music, in school and just generally. Most composition programs very specifically have composers hearing performances of their music as well. This does two things. First, it shows composers what they're doing wrong real quick, since either performers won't be able to do what's written, or they will but it will sound wrong, or it just won't happen the way the composer thought it would. Secondly, it really helps composers learn how to translate what they want things to sound like to what things will actually sound like. Performers are often also pretty good at saying \"Hey this doesn't work\" or \"This part is good writing for my instrument\" This is also important with basically everyone composing on computers now. Computers give you a very, very bad version of what you've written, so it's incredibly important to learn what things will really sound like compared to what Sibelius wants you to think they sound like.\n\nFourth, composers cheat a lot. I play piano professionally as well, and I used to play F. Horn. I've played a few woodwind instruments as a hobbyist, and I can play bass badly. My brass writing is way better than my woodwind writing, which is way better than my string writing. My piano writing is probably my best instrument to write for. If I'm trying to really nail any part of a piece and I have brass available, I will probably use brass, because I can be very confident that it will sound exactly like I want it to sound, it'll make the brass sound cool, and it'll make the brass players happy. It's really easy to use what you know to write what you want.\n\nMost importantly, there's a really cool thing about music composition that basically does give composers a super power. Music is performed in time, but written out of time. This means that what you hear as an incredibly interconnected piece of music where parts seem to flow to and from each other seamlessly, in an amazingly intricate thing was probably written across, like, months. And it was probably written and re-written like a billion times. What might end up sounding like a cool colour-shift sort of thing with instruments handing off parts and combining in cool ways may have been planned that way, and also may have been the composer looking at a line, singing it to themselves, going \"Oh I'm out of breath\", and ending up with a cool orchestration to get around the breathing issue. Or it might be them going \"Oh, the bassoon has a 48 measure rest and they're going to be mad at me if they don't play soon. Bassoon solo!\" Or it might be them listening to it back in Sibelius and going \"I'M SO BORED\" and changing it up."
]
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||
5gr4xk | xbox download speeds | My internet speeds from speed test is 273 down 60 up. But on my xbox 1 it sits around 150 down.
I have a download going right now (Dead Rising 4) and the speed was around 40-50 down. After I completely hard reset the console it's averaging 130-140.
I guess this is a 2 stage question, why is the connection far better on my pc compared to the X1 even though they are both hard wired? Why does the download go quicker after fully restarting the console? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5gr4xk/eli5_xbox_download_speeds/ | {
"a_id": [
"daugihi"
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"score": [
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"text": [
"You are not only limited by the speed of your internet connection, but also the speed at which the remote server is willing or able to send you the data.\n\nThe smart money is that Microsoft has capped their connection speed from their servers to the consoles at about 150."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[]
] |
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