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8ry02u | why does mcdonalds have limited time flavors if they are popular? | Doesn't it make sense to keep it as a regular menu item if it's popular? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/8ry02u/eli5_why_does_mcdonalds_have_limited_time_flavors/ | {
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"People will buy more of it. If they think it’s getting discontinued, they will try to eat as much as they can before it’s gone. This makes McDonald’s get a lot of money in a really short space of time.",
"To create artificial scarcity so when they bring it back, there's a frenzy for them. One of the first tools of salesmanship is to *create urgency.* \"Time is running out, act now!\"\n\nSource: Former salesman.",
"They may be popular because they are only available for a limited time. The Shamrock Shakes are only available for 1 month out of the entire year, so it seems exciting and special to get one. If they were available year-round nobody would care much.\n\n\nHere's a fun McDonald's fact for you: the McRib is only available for short periods of time because it's availability hinges on the price of pork. When pork prices fall McDonald's re-introduces the McRib. But McDonald's buys so much pork when they are selling McRibs that it drives the price of pork up -- and that's when McDonald's takes the McRib back off the menu.",
"A fast food restaurant works by having a limited number of items available. The more different ingredients you have, the more space you need, the better trained your staff must be & the more likely something goes bad before it's used.\n\nTossing in a limited-time product only adds a *slight* amount of recipe/inventory and allows it to get the initial rush of sales from the marketing hype before everyone gets bored & doesn't care about Shamrock Shakes on the 4th of July.\n\nSometimes, they're just testing/experimenting with new menu ideas & trying to get feedback before deciding what will become a permanent menu item.\n\nSome products, like the McRib, seem to be related to the availability of raw materials. [There's a very convincing argument that the McRib is only introduced when the price of pork crashes making the sandwich a profitable venture](_URL_0_).\n\nIn other words - Trump's trade war might bring back the McRib as pork farmers have trouble selling to China & Mexico due to new tariffs. ",
"Artificial urgency drives sales... you might go in when you otherwise wouldn't, or might visit more often. Lure you in with a Shamrock Shake and you'll also end up with a Big Mac meal as opposed to you hitting Subway or KFC. But if there wasn't the special item you crave and can't get but for a couple weeks, you'd be less likely to choose McDonald's.\n\nOn the other hand, there are those who are frequent customers who eat multiple times a week and changing things up a bit from time to time helps counter menu fatigue, where they get sick of everything and end up finding a new regular spot.\n\nAdditionally, there are capacity issues where they can only take on so many different, new menu items due to constraints on the kitchen cooking/prep stations, storage, etc."
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5i3wit | why is martial law in a country such a big deal and important news all over the world? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5i3wit/eli5_why_is_martial_law_in_a_country_such_a_big/ | {
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"It is the military taking control, usually temporarily, but in some cases they don't relinquish control because it's easy to rule with force",
"It usually means the country is in political/social turmoil. It's an act of what should be a last resort to keep the peace. However, once you inact martial law it can be hard to take it away because people don't enjoy living in a police state. The reasons that caused the implementation of martial law can be enhanced.\n\nMartial law is essentially when you suspend all other laws and the military/government comes in with overpowering force and takes complete control. This includes any political leadership you had previously, now your government is run by the head of your military.",
"Martial law is the act of the government suspending certain rights of citizens for a period of time. There are two big reasons that this is such a big deal and they are sort of circular; \n\n1) Martial law is usually a last resort by governments (see number 2 for why) to control a situation. So the first reason that it is such a big deal is some situation has driven a government to play a card it should hope to never have to play. That alone is very interesting and news worthy\n\n2) Martial law is a scary concept. As a society, we agree to cede some freedoms to the government (ability to run naked through the streets for instance) so that they may protect the rights we find more important (varies by country but freedom of speech is up there and often goes hand in hand with martial law). When a government imposes Martial law, it is a breach of this contract and raises a lot of alarms. Martial law is a good first step towards a lot of undesirable outcomes such as the rounding up of citizenry, the replacement of governments with less favorable more authoritarian regime styles. Largely, this point surrounds the question of, when will Martial law be lifted and how different will the country potentially look when that does happen?\n\n",
"It means one of two things, both newsworthy:\n\n* public disorder is so great that the military has to step in an take control\n* the government has decided to suspend civil liberties, usually silence the opposition and keep itself in power"
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8tfacs | home come drinking salt water makes you vomit, but having something like chicken broth doesn’t? even though it has water and salt in it | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/8tfacs/eli5_home_come_drinking_salt_water_makes_you/ | {
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"Salt water? 🤔 Like drinking water from the ocean?",
"Pretty sure there's way more salt proportionally in ocean water (and other stuff) than even the saltiest chicken broth."
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m7d8p | what is core strength? | Everyone seems to be preaching on about how important core strength is, but what the heck is it? Why is it so useful? In particular, why is it so important for balance? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/m7d8p/eli5_what_is_core_strength/ | {
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"Put your finger on the middle of your waistline. It should be a few cm below your navel. If you go halfway through your body from there, you will be at a place that is roughly the center of mass for your entire body. Or to put it more ELI5ly you're at the place around which the rest of your body spins when you move around. The area around the center is called the core. You can think of it as all the musculature and skeletal structure from your hips up to the bottom of your ribs.\n\nIf you start there and travel outwards, the further you go, the weaker the muscles are. So every time you need to do any kind of strength based activity, the more you use your core to do it, the more strength you will have to do it with.\n\nSo strengthening your core, means developing the main muscles responsible for you being able to do stuff.\n\nBut, it is also a load of hogwash. In that, your body is smarter about its musculature than you are. If you try to exercise one set of muscles to make them stronger, but you don't exercise the rest of your muscles so that they can help transfer the enormous force that your core can generate, then there's no point in having those huge - and expensive to feed - core muscles in the first place. So those muscles you're focusing on won't get stronger, they'll just increase their endurance. Otherwise the imbalance caused by having strong muscles working with weaker ones could cause you injury.\n\nSo, if you want to work on your strength, find exercises that make you move your whole body. The Absolute favorite is the Squat. But many others are also good.\n\nIt's also worth noting that endurance isn't a bad thing per se, but focusing on one set of muscles at a time, even if you get to all of them individually, will give you less of an endurance benefit than doing a full body endurance type exercise like running or swimming.\n\nAlso remember, that your muscles have to **learn** to work together, so exercising them separately will leave you fit and clumsy.",
"Core muscles are muscles without arms and legs, basically from neck to butt. They help stabilize you during movement, but also help with avoiding injuries by aligning spine, ribs and pelvis to resist more force.\n[Here's](_URL_0_) a more detailed wiki for you.",
"To add to this, the 'core' musculature is usually a reference to the abdominals, which are often separated into the superficial unit, which is comprised of muscles like the rectus abdominus (the six pack muscle), erector spinae and obliques, and the more intrinsic unit, which is comprised of muscles like the diaphragm, pelvic floor, multifidis and transverse abdominus. When these interact properly, they allow you to produce and maintain internal pressure that stabilises your spine and keeps it in a strong, healthy position during dynamic movement. However, many people have lost the ability to activate and contract these muscles properly as a result of chronic inactivity and bad body position (such as sitting). As above, the 'core' needs to be trained as an integrated unit in movement, and its role is essentially to resist motion in order to keep your body in a strong position and provide a base for everything else to move around.\n\nI know it's not really the simple ELI5 explanation but just to add to the good explanation above...",
"Put your finger on the middle of your waistline. It should be a few cm below your navel. If you go halfway through your body from there, you will be at a place that is roughly the center of mass for your entire body. Or to put it more ELI5ly you're at the place around which the rest of your body spins when you move around. The area around the center is called the core. You can think of it as all the musculature and skeletal structure from your hips up to the bottom of your ribs.\n\nIf you start there and travel outwards, the further you go, the weaker the muscles are. So every time you need to do any kind of strength based activity, the more you use your core to do it, the more strength you will have to do it with.\n\nSo strengthening your core, means developing the main muscles responsible for you being able to do stuff.\n\nBut, it is also a load of hogwash. In that, your body is smarter about its musculature than you are. If you try to exercise one set of muscles to make them stronger, but you don't exercise the rest of your muscles so that they can help transfer the enormous force that your core can generate, then there's no point in having those huge - and expensive to feed - core muscles in the first place. So those muscles you're focusing on won't get stronger, they'll just increase their endurance. Otherwise the imbalance caused by having strong muscles working with weaker ones could cause you injury.\n\nSo, if you want to work on your strength, find exercises that make you move your whole body. The Absolute favorite is the Squat. But many others are also good.\n\nIt's also worth noting that endurance isn't a bad thing per se, but focusing on one set of muscles at a time, even if you get to all of them individually, will give you less of an endurance benefit than doing a full body endurance type exercise like running or swimming.\n\nAlso remember, that your muscles have to **learn** to work together, so exercising them separately will leave you fit and clumsy.",
"Core muscles are muscles without arms and legs, basically from neck to butt. They help stabilize you during movement, but also help with avoiding injuries by aligning spine, ribs and pelvis to resist more force.\n[Here's](_URL_0_) a more detailed wiki for you.",
"To add to this, the 'core' musculature is usually a reference to the abdominals, which are often separated into the superficial unit, which is comprised of muscles like the rectus abdominus (the six pack muscle), erector spinae and obliques, and the more intrinsic unit, which is comprised of muscles like the diaphragm, pelvic floor, multifidis and transverse abdominus. When these interact properly, they allow you to produce and maintain internal pressure that stabilises your spine and keeps it in a strong, healthy position during dynamic movement. However, many people have lost the ability to activate and contract these muscles properly as a result of chronic inactivity and bad body position (such as sitting). As above, the 'core' needs to be trained as an integrated unit in movement, and its role is essentially to resist motion in order to keep your body in a strong position and provide a base for everything else to move around.\n\nI know it's not really the simple ELI5 explanation but just to add to the good explanation above..."
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4f0r2u | what can your average u.s. citizen do to change congress? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4f0r2u/eli5_what_can_your_average_us_citizen_do_to/ | {
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"One average citizen alone can do nothing. So the way to institute change is to join, or help create, an organization of *many* people. These people can vote for a different candidate, or raise money to help a different candidate advertise, or write letters telling members of Congress how they wish to see them behave.",
"Find people in your community who cannot get to the polls and drive them there on election day.",
"If you're unhappy with your current Senator or Representative, vote for their challenger. In upcoming Congressional races, for example, we're going to see a lot of \"Bernie Democrats\" trying to unseat \"establishment democrats.\" The success of those races will ultimately impact how Congress supports or sways Presidential initiatives, judicial nominees, and so forth.\n\nAlso, be vocal about who you support and why. You'd be surprised how much simple statements can influence the people who like and respect you."
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o3u2h | what's happening when i exercise | Hello! I've recently taken up running, and I would love to understand how my body turns food energy (either in fat stores or what I've recently eaten) plus oxygen into forward momentum.
Could someone ELI5:
- How the body turns food or fat into fuel
- How the muscles use the fuel
- Where oxygen comes into the mix
- How this somehow translates into me lurching spasmodically along a footpath
- Why this requires me lose all dignity by panting and oozing gallons of sweat
If ELI5 becomes too tricky, I'm happy to adjust to ELI15 | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/o3u2h/eli5_whats_happening_when_i_exercise/ | {
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"Okay! Here we go. Let's see.\n\nBody turning food or fat into fuel! Let's talk about food, and we'll get the fat part in there. That's digestion. Basics of digestion are that you chew up food and break it down, then it sits in your stomach and it gets broken down further. What 'breaking down' actually means is that it gets split into individual bits of steak and potatoes and salad, and then even further from there. Most of this work is done by enzymes and things in your saliva, in your stomach acid, and in your small intestine.\n\nImagine this! Imagine you eat a big plate of spaghetti carbonara. You gotcher meat, your carbs in the pasta, dairy, etc. Imagine each of these is made up of Legos (I know that there is no such thing as Legos, and that they are in fact LEGO (tm) brand building blocks, but bugger if I'm gonna write that each time, so Legos!). Now, inside your guts are enzymes that have specific jobs. One enzyme might just go in and break out chunks of red Legos. Another might take those chunks of red Legos and break them down into the smallest bit of red Legos there are. Your stomach and guts are full of very particular enzymes (and, actually, a host of very neighborly bacteria living in you for a free ride like some old aunt who's actually quite useful by knitting sweaters or something) which take food and break it down into the smallest bits it can.\n\nOnce these bits are as small as they can get, they'll be absorbed by the duodenum, which is the first 10 cm or so of the small intestine, whose job it is to absorb things from the hole that's running through you into your blood. If you wanna get metaphysical about it, this is the point where it goes from being 'food' to being 'part of you', sorta. \n\nNow, to keep on truckin' with the Lego analogy, you've got various different parts. If you're going to need them right then (for energy) you use 'em. If you don't, you put them in bins (fat). When you need them again, you take them out of the bins, but the bins are all the way over in the closet, so you don't get them unless you have to (why we get fat when we keep eating).\n\nOkay, now some of these little bits are quite literally the fuel of the cells. It's what the cells use to keep breathing, in the process called \"cellular respiration\". This is also where the oxygen comes in. A cell will take some glucose (sugar, one of the little bits) and then run it through the electron transport chain. This is the fancy part that we sort of understand band has chemistry involved, but the basics are this: the oxygen you breathe is O2, which is as stable form, but only sorta. So your body cracks that O2 apart, and sudden you've got 2 oxygens by themselves. When an oxygen is by itself, it's got 6/8 electrons. This is bad. It wants all 8. Gotta catch 'em all.\n\nThe electron transport chain is the process where an electron is passed along a chain, and each link in the chain wants that electron more and more, until oxygen, who wants it the most. The act of each link stealing the electron from the previous link creates energy, which the cell harnesses in the form of ATP. That's the unit of currency of energy on the cellular level. So, broad level understanding is that you eat by breaking down food into glucose which the cell eats and breaks down into ATP. Cells can run on that stuff.\n\nMuscles using it! Current idea is the 'sliding filament theory' which is basically this - if you weave your fingers together, they're something like that. Put them together so that your nails are close to each other and there's room between them - that's a muscle relaxed. Now, everywhere your fingers are touching are little paddles, like oars on a boat. When you contract a muscle, those oars use ATP (the cell energy stuff) to walk your fingers against each other and pull the whole thing closer together. The bundles of your muscles pull together and eliminate that space, and then contract.\n\nFun fact! We don't think that they can go in the opposite direction. Like, you can't \"un-contract\" a muscle. What has to happen is that muscle goes slack, but is still in its dense, contracted form. Then an *opposite* muscle (tricep is opposite of bicep, hamstrings opposite your quads) contracts, which causes the original muscle to stretch out again. Do that over and over, and you're lurching along a footpath. This is also why a cramp is bad (besides hurting). It's basically one muscle of the pair having a hissyfit and refusing to play. Not much the other one can do in that circumstance. It's like a kid on the \"down\" side of a see-saw when the kid decided to play on the swings.\n\nAnd, the homestretch. Panting and oozing gallons of sweat. Panting is because you need the oxygen. This whole process - giving fuel and oxygen and turning it into energy - is basically a fire. You're quite literally 'burning' energy, though not in the crackly, romantic, winter's eve kind of way. And your body is full of energy - there's food, there's fat everywhere (no offense), you could even burn muscle if you had to. But the limiting factor is how much oxygen you've got.\n\nYou've got a bit of ATP stored in your cells, ready to go, when you start running. But as soon as you start lurching, you've basically used it up. Let's say 10 seconds' reserve, tops. No prob! Your body can make more ATP, and it can do it *fast*. Just needs oxygen and energy. We've got those. So it starts doing that, sucking oxygen out of your bloodstream, and you're trotting along breathing deeply and enjoying the day. But pretty soon the rate of breathing isn't keeping up.\n\nNow, you're cells can keep on making ATP in the absence of oxygen, it's just *much* more inefficient. I think it's something like 4 ATP instead of 36, something like that. And it's got some nasty byproducts that cause cramps and soreness and other sorts of \"hey, d'you mind pulling over for a second?\" sorts of signs from your muscles.\n\nThe presence of those signals tells your brain to tell your lungs that they're slacking, and that's when you start gulping down air and generally feeling much less studly and much more gimpish.\n\nThe oozing gallons of sweat is related to the same thing - you're on fire! The 'normal' burning level that was just fine when you were sitting there radiating heat into the room has gone up somewhere between 5 and 10 times, so all of a sudden you're a big old pot-bellied (again, no offense) stove, chugging out heat. Your body has very few ways to get rid of it. Sweat is the best one, because what you're doing is pouring water onto your outsides. Water sucks up heat much better than air, and when it sucks up heat it helps it to evaporate and disappear. So sweating is a heat sink.\n\nSoooo . . . ya, too long for a TL;DR, and lemme know if you have more (or more specific or less ELI5) questions!"
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11mzod | depositing a check with your mobile device? | I've seen ads for this service with many of the big banks and some credit unions. I'm totally baffled by it. How does taking a photo of a check enable you to then have money in your account? Its it remotely safe and secure? What are the benefits (if any) beyond convenience? What do you do with the check after you've deposited it? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/11mzod/eli5_depositing_a_check_with_your_mobile_device/ | {
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"When you run a check at a teller, the teller just runs it through a scanner. The scanner interprets the information/numbers and electronically \"requests\" the money from the corresponding bank. The teller makes sure there are no errors, phone checks are looked over by someone somewhere as well.\n\nThere is no benefit except for convenience. Keep the check for a few weeks then you can toss it.",
"All a check needs to be valid is a account number, a bank name or routing number, an amount, and a signature. You could write all that on a napkin or a banana peel, and it would be a valid check.\n\nIn addition, they typically have a unique check number on them. The bank can use that to make sure the same check isn't cashed twice.\n\nAs for security, checks aren't terribly secure to begin with. Anyone with a laser printer can make a fake check, but it is easy to verify on the back end, and a pretty serious crime if you get caught. Allowing someone to submit via a mobile device doesn't really change this.\n",
"I would like to add that, as far as the bank is concerned, an image of the check is the same as the physical check. The other replies have done a good job answering your other questions.",
"I use USAA and can scan or use a smart phone to deposit my checks. As others have said, a scanned image is sent to the bank's computer and the bank has software to verify your account number, the check number, and god knows what else. I just know I usually end up scanning the check about 4 times just to get one image that the bank will accept. \n\nThere is an SSL, and the site is encrypted. I have to enter a password to access my account and then a PIN to do anything with it, so I am guessing it is secure. Once you deposit the check the site tells you to write \"VOID\" on the front of the check and dispose of it. I just put the check in my paper shredder and throw it in my composter that night. "
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8li2i3 | why humans get relief when scratching a bug bite and why the feeling of the relief doesn't last for long? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/8li2i3/eli5_why_humans_get_relief_when_scratching_a_bug/ | {
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"Bugs like mosquitoes release an enzyme in their saliva that dulls pain receptors and allows them a chance they feed undetected. Your body releases histamines to attack the foreign enzymes and a wheal or bump due to excess histamine. When you scratch the nerves are stimulated with a stronger stimulus/signal than the histamines cause. After scratching, the activation energy required to fire the nerves is slightly elevated, as that threshold lowers eventually it drops below the level of stimulus emitted by the histamine and the bug bite sensation returns.\n\n[edit: autocorrect]"
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uadcl | what do ambassadors do? why are countries removing syria's ambassadors? | So obviously its a reaction to recent horrible events in Syria. But is this anything more than a token gesture or might the action of removing Syria's ambassadors have genuine results.
I don't really know what ambassadors do in the first place to comment on the effectiveness of kicking one of them out. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/uadcl/what_do_ambassadors_do_why_are_countries_removing/ | {
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"Their job is to be the main contact between two countries. \nBefore satellites and phones, if one country wanted to negotiate a treaty or arrange trade, the two kings/presidents/whatever couldn't spend all their time writing letters and traveling to all the countries they wanted to work with. Instead they would have an \"ambassador\" live in the other country with the power to make all the arrangements. Then they just had to send the really important questions and documents to the people in charge. \nKicking out an ambassador is a political sign of extreme displeasure with another country. It's essentially saying \"I don't want to talk to you\".",
"1. Ambassadors present in a country means that you have diplomatic relations of some sort with that country and can communicate directly with it via the ambassador. It generally signals a net positive relationship between two countries.\n\n2. The building the ambassador resides in is considered to be sovereign territory of the ambassadors homeland. So for instance, the german embassy in australia is technically on german soil. This is why we have dissidents able to flee to an embassy of another country and not immediately get arrested by their own government - to do so would technically be an invasion of sovereign territory.\n\n3. Embassies are used to help facilitate tourism by giving tourists a safe haven should something go wrong either legally or whatever.\n\n4. If you pull your ambassador out of a target country, you are effectively saying that you are so pissed off that you wont even talk. This is *sometimes* a prelude to war. Removing ambassadors for any reason is considered a very extreme act because it signals the end of all possible diplomatic discussion.\n\n5. It is extremely rare for a country to kick out ambassadors, but it does happen. Usually because the embassy was housing spies or doing some other action that was harmful to the target country. ",
"They don't view Syria's regime as legitimate so GTFO"
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6u0z21 | why in some countries people just wipe but in some countries they use a bidet and wipe? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/6u0z21/eli5_why_in_some_countries_people_just_wipe_but/ | {
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"Just cultural anomalies. I live in England, and we bought a house recently which came with a bidet. This is unusual in the UK, and we don't use the bidet...we've discussed taking it out when we remodel the bathroom in a couple years, making room for a larger bath, perhaps.\n\n#\n\nHowever, I can objectively see why a bidet would be more desirable, especially if that's what you're used to. If you simply use toilet paper, there will undoubtedly be at least a trace amount of your faecal matter remaining. Realistically, if you're wiping \"until the paper comes away clean\", this should be a negligible amount and it will be 'contained' within the buttocks. It's not as though you 'spread it around'. Also, with daily showering, any sane person will be washing the area between their buttocks with soap and water anyway. \n\n#\n\n**Edit:** This thread has inspired me. May try my bidet out for the first time.",
"It's a cultural thing.\n\n\nI can't imagine how anyone can feel clean just by wiping. When I can only use paper (like when I'm at my job) I feel gross for the rest of the day until I get home and wash properly.",
"There's a large number of contributors.\n\n Origin point and time of the bidet. They were invented in the 17th century in Europe, and thus they would have spread to regional areas as a custom. Generally when people get used to a bidet (particularly one with warm water), they'll stick with it if it's possible and convenient. \n\nCultural momentum. If all the houses in a country have bidets rather than plain toilets, newly built houses will usually have bidets rather than toilets. It's the way things were done, so it's the way things will be done. And some countries even go to the point of requiring it by law.\n\nAttachment to cleanliness. In the same way there are massive differences in how the process of \"bathing\" happen, there are cultural differences in how a person's toilet is approached. Some cultures place a lot more importance and ceremony on acts of personal toiletry like washing and bathing so, like in Japan, they'll lean toward using bidets.\n\nAvailability of toilet paper. Here in Canada bidets really haven't caught on because wood and paper are so available and cheap. In other cultures where there's not such a massively available supply, there's a bit more of a preference to save paper by using a bidet.\n\nAging population. Bidets make clean-up easier and they'll likely become more popular as we have more gray haired people with mobility issues.\n",
"in Islam, cleaning up with water is required, so bidets are basically a very convenient way to accomplish that.",
"In some countries/regions, bathrooms used to be placed outside the house (the most common word for bathroom in my language literally translates to \"bath house\") and on cold days water would be too cold and would be very uncomfortable to use.",
"I'm in America and we use TP almost exclusively, only very fancy places/people have bidets.\nIn short, they (I'm going to assume it stems from the lumber industry because paper) mass produce toilet paper because it's cheap and we have to keep going back to buy more.\nThey want our money.\nBidets are so much better, economically and environmentally. They should really be the standard. ",
"How do you even use a bidet exactly? ",
"Some countries sewer systems aren't built to take toilet paper. I think in parts of Brazil tp has to go in a bin beside the toilet and not flushed",
"Yes it does smudge sometimes and it basically makes me uncomfortable for the rest of the day. :(",
"I saw this post and started wondering since I am Turkish too...\n\nCarry wet wipes with you if you gonna travel abroad.",
"When I was on holiday in Turkey a few years back, another reason we were told is that the sewer system was too small a bore and would clog easily, so they advised using the bidet, drying with toilet paper, which should then go in the bin, rather than down the toilet. Since you were only drying a clean bum hole, they toilet paper wouldn't stink. \n\nWas never sure why a bit of toilet paper could clog a sewer, but my massive turds wouldn't... ",
"Maybe it's just me (and the water pressure I've seen in bidets in the countries I've lived in) but for someone with - ahem - destructive shits, I don't see how they'd work. Like, I'd still *have* to wipe... only it's wetter now.\n\nDisclaimer: I've never used a bidet, so if my assumption is WAY off, that's why.",
"Im Australian. Never seen one in my life, not even in fancy hotels. Though i guess they do exist in some places to please foreigners . Im guessing its because we're the driest country on earth and have to conserve water. ",
"To answer your question, I believe it's a cultural thing. In my country (Argentina) all houses have bidets (the normal kind, not your awesome kind) and about half the population uses them (and defend them to the death) and the other half doesn't.\n\nFrom what I've heard you turkish people are experts in bidets, everyone I know that visits your country praises the design of the in-toilet bidets you guys have.\n\nPicture for those who don't know them: _URL_0_",
"If you have an older house without a bidget in the Philippines, you use a cup with handle (or tabo). Toilet papers are expensive here.\n\nAnd like others from other countries said, it's a cultural thing.",
"In the Philippines they use a dipper to collect water with and use the water to clean orifices.",
"If you don't use a bidet and only using toilet paper (no water) it's like trying to wipe chocolate off your hands with a dry paper towel. It's NEVER truly CLEAN. \nI'm in America and got a bidet seat that replaces the toilet seat ($200) and I've been so happy. Saves on toilet paper too (usually just 1 wipe needed and it's always clean). ",
"To my American brothers and sisters if you got shit on your arm would you wipe it off or clean it with water and wipe it? \n\n\nI'm a American and I bought a bidet on Amazon after using it at a friends house. In American men want to seem masculine and they wanna seem not \"gay\". Most American men then see water going up your ass as gay or weird. They also don't understand how it could be cleaner. \n\nI'm a guy who owns a bidet. \n\n[Astor Non-Electric Mechanical Bidet Toilet](_URL_0_) \n\nBuy this for 24 bucks and you'll never go back plus it takes us a year to use a big package of toilet paper now. ",
"Different cultures have different standards of hygiene, often for historical reasons. In Turkey, you don't wear shoes indoors either.\n\nI live in the UK, so my washing machine is in the kitchen and I shit in the same room as I take a shower. Completely backwards, but that's just the way it is here.",
"The idea of using a bidet spray to cultures that aren't used to it is disgusting as they will imagine getting everything wet, messy, and dirty. Whilst using toilet paper alone to cultures/people who are already using bidets will seem equally disgusting because they will never seem properly cleaned.\n\nAFAIK Muslims have a rule of eating only with their right hand as their left hand is presumably used for cleaning. It's probably that countries more exposed to Islam will tend to wash in addition to wiping.\n\nHopefully one day we will all adopt the [standards](_URL_0_) of Japanese washlets.\n\nEDIT: To include explanations and remove random commentary as I realised this is ELI5.",
"American in Japan. I love having a Washlet. That being said, It's a type of luxury. When I'm in the middle of the wilderness, and \"toilet\" means a hole in the ground with a wooden frame over it, trying to install a Washlet is... not going to happen, and you deal. ",
"The idea of owning a bidet has appealed to me since someone asked \"If you had shit anywhere else on your body, would you wipe it with a dry piece of paper and say 'Thats good enough'\"\n\nUnfortunately I am not a homeowner and this is not an option.",
"Due to being a Mr. Poopy Butthole, I use some toilet paper bundled up and wipe with that. If that fat stack doesn't clean the fudge machine, then I resort to wetting a paper towel and wiping with that. This is all if baby wipes are not already in the restroom. Baby wipes are a life changer. ",
"If you pick up your dogs poop with bare hand and wipe the hand with TP, would you consider your hands clean? It's just a cultural thing even we know dry TP would not be as clean as bidet and most people just don't give a shit.",
"I'm surprised nobody mentioned humidity. I feel like humidity plays a bigger role. Try using tp in hot humid countries like Malaysia/ Indonesia. You get swampy ass every time.",
"I've used an Iranian toilet, the \"bidet\" is a hose on the wall, and it is very cleansing. For it to work optimally, however, you have to squat over a hole, which is pretty difficult to do for a couple minutes at a time for someone who isn't used to it. But I can tell you I've had poop bits fall near or on that hose. So there may be a valid concern over which method, bidet or toilet paper, is more sanitary in a public setting.",
"In my city in India, we use the bidet first to clean and then the toilet paper after to dry it up.",
" > The President of the United States, the big ministers of state, the great bishops and shmishops and big shots everywhere, down to the lowest factory worker with all his fierce pride, movie stars, executives and great engineers and presidents of law firms and advertising firms with silk shirts and neckties and great expensive traveling cases in which they place these various expensive English imported hair brushes and shaving gear and pomades and perfumes are all walking around with dirty azzoles! All you gotta do is simply wash yourself with soap and water! it hasnt occurred to anybody in America at all! it's one of the funniest things I've ever heard of!\n\n-- Jack Kerouac, *Big Sur*\n\nIn all seriousness though, I'm in the UK and it's very rare to see a bidet here. Whenever I've encountered one abroad I have been too unsure about the logistics of it to even attempt to use it. I think I have only ever seen them in Italy and maybe Spain? And in all cases it's been a separate unit like [this](_URL_0_), rather than an integrated one like [this](_URL_1_).\n\nIn the case of the separate unit, what do you do? Like turn the tap on and position your arsehole so that the water sprays it? Wet your hand then use your wet hand to wipe your arse? Wet toilet paper then use that to wipe? I honestly don't even know which way you face when you use it.\n\nAnd if you have an integrated one, how do you avoid shitting on the nozzle? Is it retractable? If you have explosive diarrhoea then surely the bidet mechanism has all manner of nooks and crannies in it that you will never be able to clean all the shit out of properly?\n\nTo someone who is unfamiliar with them it all seems extremely confusing.",
"I think most of the bidet, washing with water and soap, users use paper first, never go directly hand on poo.",
"I lived in India for a couple months. I also have traveled much of South East Asia. Only in Italy did I experience a totally separate fixture called a bidet, most of India and Asia have a hand bidet, which is a sprayer on the side of the toilet, kind of like what you see on a kitchen sink. I missed this so much when I came back to the states, I actually bought one. ",
"If you go to a country where it's 30-40 degrees celcius everywhere (bad AC) you'll understand. The ass sweat make wiping normally quite a pain in the ass (heh). When it's all moist back there a bidet is very nice to get the poo away.",
"The best argument I've heard for a bidet is \"If you got shit on your arm, would you just wipe it off?\"\n\nI think the main resistance to it in places like the US is just not knowing how to use one.",
"If you use a bidet, how do you dry off afterwards? You've got a wet bum, then what? Towel? TP?",
"Maybe I'm late here....but I am American and I shower sometimes 3 times a day (in the summer). I think we're in the bath/shower more often than some of our brethren across the world. Maybe this has something to do with it?",
"Short answer: there are no bidets when you are camping/fishing/hunting in the American wilderness. That and a wet ass is not something that appeals to me.",
"You forgot to add in that a good portion of the world still uses their left hand to wipe, which is where I would speculate that a large number of superstitions came about for southpaws being considered \"*unclean*\" and why in cultures that traditionally eat with their hands you only use the right. ",
"Looks like countries with any sort of bidet/water 'culture' at some point in the past or today are those with superior cuisine - > messier shits ",
"I switched to a bidet last year and will never go back........take this scenario...if I were to take a home depot 5 gallon bucket of mud and walk into Fenway park and just throw it right onto the nice infield grass..........how are we going to clean that up? Are we going to grab paper towels and wipe it off until its clean? or would we bring out the garden hose and rinse it off? easy decision.",
"It seems like people from bidet-using countries think that people from non-bidet-using countries are just walking around with shitty asses, and equally that people from non-bidet-using countries think that people from bidet-using countries are walking around with pristine assholes. We're all over generalizing.\n\nWhen you use toilet paper, you don't wipe once and then shrug, say 'good enough', and pull up your pants. You keep at it 'til the job is done. If we were to compare speed and efficiency, there's no question the bidet would come out ahead, but the actual cleanliness of the asshole in question comes ultimately down to the diligence and fastidiousness of the owner.",
"I grew up in the USA just wiping. Went to Japan, experienced the joy of a Toto Toilet, and I gotta say, we're doing it wrong over here in the States. I will also go so far as to say that even [Japanese traditional squat toilets](_URL_0_) are better than our Western John Crappers. Squat toilets, especially public ones are awesome because you don't need to touch anything (no seat) and you are shitting in a more natural position (squatting) which is better for your cornhole and colon in general. ",
"I live in the US and own a bidet which is always a great convo starter when people come over. The topic comes up of how gross it must be to use a bidet to which my response is \"if you got shit anywhere else on your body, would wiping it with a paper towel suffice or would you also use water?\"\n\n\nIt just comes down to most western countries are hush hush about anything related to your ass. ",
"In Iraq, the Iraqi soldiers trained by the US would use stones to wipe their asses, and these stones would get sucked up in the shitter trucks and fuck up the pumps. Yeah. ",
"In Bali they have a hose near the toilet and the washrooms are soaked water all the time. No toilet paper. Some Asian countries you have to buy toilet paper in the vending machine. Some European countries you have to pay to use the washroom. Canada & United States is mandatory to have a washroom when serving food. In Sydney some places didn't even have toilets (Starbucks, McDonalds) also walked two blocks away from restaurant as owner gave me his condo keys to use washroom. I travel with tissues because every culture is different. ",
"If I could piggy back... Why in some countries do they just wipe with *their hand*? It seems like I would always naturally use something to wipe even if it was just a leaf or something. I wouldn't want poop on my hand. \n\n.... Also, I am from a culture that just wipes, and the bidet is clearly superior. I'm not sure why we don't use them. ",
"That's why you gotta wash your hands with soap and water afterwards. I feel like using a bidet will lead people to think they may not need to wash their hands after because they may think that they didn't really use their hands, so that itself is unsanitary. ",
"Hell, forget the bidet, I'm Romanian and what I really wanna see more often is what we call \"Turkish toilets\" (no offense), which are those things that are little more than holes in the ground you squat over. Now, I believe bidet vs. TP are just cultural flavors that really don't amount to anything important — when you figure out that we've been shitting incorrectly since at least the time of the Romans. The ~90 degs. knees bent position is bad for us and to blame for countless things, including a good portion of colon cancers. "
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2s5d8j | why does the lid start to cave in on a plastic container after i've microwaved it's contents? | Basically, when at work on nights I take a meal in a plastic takeaway container. When I remove it from the microwave, the lid begins to be sucked in. It compresses a fair bit before I eventually get the lid popped off on a corner, and the steam escapes.
Why does the heat/steam pull the lid in? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2s5d8j/eli5_why_does_the_lid_start_to_cave_in_on_a/ | {
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"Is it possible that the plastic is softening a bit and that's why it's drooping? Also, this is the first I've heard of someone leaving the lid on when microwaving."
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30vitn | why do i use my hands to talk? why is it more difficult for me to form my thoughts if i try to not use my hands? | I feel like a large amount of people use their hands to talk, including myself, and I don't know if this has any evolutionary background or just a weird habit that people pick up. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/30vitn/eli5why_do_i_use_my_hands_to_talk_why_is_it_more/ | {
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"Communication largely was/is body language. For example understanding pointing is a good intelligence indicator. ",
"It helps put the emphasis on some word. \n\nYou will see that field reporters tend to bring their shoulders forward when saying key words in their report. \n\nIt's also to keep the other persons attention.",
"This actually depends a lot on the person. Some people are 'hand talkers', others (like me) are not. I actually find it hilarious when I'm on the road and I see someone with the phone in one hand and the other hand waving like crazy, as if the other person can even see it."
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ku3yq | how to overclock a cpu | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/ku3yq/eli5_how_to_overclock_a_cpu/ | {
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"If you're looking to overclock your laptop or a prebuilt desktop system from Dell, chances are that the motherboard's BIOS doesn't support it. In order to overclock a CPU, you'll likely need to have a higher-end motherboard installed in a PC that you've built yourself. I've only done it once, but here's my take:\n\nUsually there are a handful of settings that you can adjust in the BIOS that will run the CPU at a higher speed. Basically you manipulate these settings to increase the clock speed gradually and test the system until it becomes unstable, then back the clock speed off a bit so that you're left with the fastest possible stable system. The settings that need to be adjusted for overclocking vary depending on the CPU type and manufacturer, but the desired result is usually the same: make the CPU faster than it was designed to operate.\n\nOne byproduct of increasing the clockspeed of a CPU is increased heat output. Usually overclocking a CPU will require a user to install third party heat sinks and fans to increase the system's ability to dissipate the heat generated, otherwise the life of the CPU will be significantly reduced.",
"If you're looking to overclock your laptop or a prebuilt desktop system from Dell, chances are that the motherboard's BIOS doesn't support it. In order to overclock a CPU, you'll likely need to have a higher-end motherboard installed in a PC that you've built yourself. I've only done it once, but here's my take:\n\nUsually there are a handful of settings that you can adjust in the BIOS that will run the CPU at a higher speed. Basically you manipulate these settings to increase the clock speed gradually and test the system until it becomes unstable, then back the clock speed off a bit so that you're left with the fastest possible stable system. The settings that need to be adjusted for overclocking vary depending on the CPU type and manufacturer, but the desired result is usually the same: make the CPU faster than it was designed to operate.\n\nOne byproduct of increasing the clockspeed of a CPU is increased heat output. Usually overclocking a CPU will require a user to install third party heat sinks and fans to increase the system's ability to dissipate the heat generated, otherwise the life of the CPU will be significantly reduced."
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1zf8pk | how come astronauts would burn up in atmosphere upon re-entry from space without a landing craft but felix baumgartner was able to jump from the edge of space without getting singed? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1zf8pk/eli5_how_come_astronauts_would_burn_up_in/ | {
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"To borrow [from xkcd](_URL_0_):\n\nSpace is not like [this](_URL_2_) \nRather, it is like [this](_URL_1_) \n\nSpace is not very far away, and falling from it is survivable with limited equipment as Baumgartner demonstrated. But if you want to *stay in space* (i.e. make orbits) you have to move so fast that's not an option any more. You could use your engines to brake while still in space, but it'd require enormously more fuel than air-braking missions (you'd need a lot more fuel at launch to lift all the fuel for braking). So for reasons of practicality and economics, that's what is used. ",
"Astronauts in space are orbiting the Earth at high speed (17,500mph), whereas Felix Baumgartner was in a (relatively) static balloon.\n\nIt's like the difference between jumping off the Brooklyn Bridge and jumping off a boat on the water.",
"Felix was going 1357 km/h \n\nThe ISS is going 27,600 km/h",
"First off, Felix Baumgartner jumped from 39km, space is considered to begin at 100km. The reason that he wasn't singed was that he wasn't in orbit of the Earth. \n\nTo be in orbit he have to be going sideways **very** fast. Coming in from orbit, he would have to dissipate his potential and kinetic energy. Since he just jumped down from a balloon, he only had to dissipate potential energy because he was not moving at orbital speed."
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16jw4k | how do world leaders call each other? | I am curious, as how do they reach to each other even though sometimes they are on the move. Also, how do they talk if they do not speak the same language? Do they have instant translators? What if it is a sensitive topic, what happens then?
Sorry, if this is a lot of questions in the same thread. It's OK if you choose to answer the one in the title. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/16jw4k/how_do_world_leaders_call_each_other/ | {
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"re: Language differences, they have private interpreters (\"instant translators\"). These are people vetted by the country's intelligence service or military so they can be trusted with sensitive topics.",
"I want to know if prank calls take place between world leaders.",
"It's probably quite different from country-to-country and will differ based on what kind of relationship the two leaders have, but the model is that an adviser/aide will contact an adviser/aide in the other leader's office and say 'Hi, we should arrange for a call between my boss and your boss because x y z'. If the two countries involved don't have a particularly close relationship, embassy staff/ambassadors may be contacted to help lay the groundwork at this stage.\n\nI guess in most cases they have to put a persuasive case for a conversation being necessary/desirable, not forgetting that, in developed democracies, NO policy is ever made in these types of calls. This is a really important point which I cannot stress enough: world leaders don't just ring each other to chew the fat and hatch master plans for world domination, there is ALWAYS a clear agenda, lengthy preparatory meetings, book-length briefings and a massive team of advisers on hand to deal with specific details. \n\nIn fact, world leaders probably only speak on the phone in about two or three particular circumstances: (a) to rubber-stamp a policy decision which has been endlessly hashed out at official level, (b) for regular 'keeping up appearances' type calls, or (c) to urgently discuss a developing crisis. Here in the UK, we often know when the PM has had a (b) type call with the President because they will put out a load of press releases about it. For these, and for the (a) type, they will be booked in the diary several months in advance so technological preparations can be made (e.g. the PM's Private Office are not going to schedule a call to the French President about nuclear strategy unless they know he's going to have access to confidential telecoms equipment - basically, that he's in the office at Downing Street or another approved location. So that partly answers your question about how they reach each other).\n\nSo once it's agreed that a call will take place, and it's been booked in the diary for next November, officials/assistants/colleagues will spend a long time and lot of effort putting together an agenda. Sometimes it's clear what's on the agenda ('We need to talk about European fiscal policy' or 'We need to lend you aircraft carriers for use in your military campaign in Mali'*) - other times, agendas will be general and based on what's going on in the world, an opportunity for both sides to say some bland platitudes and possibly indulge in a bit of ideological posturing. \n\nNext step, after the agenda is agreed, will be the preparation of reams and reams of briefing. Nothing either side says in these types of calls is candid or spontaneous. All the 'lines to take' are prepared by policy assistants, strategies, deputies and aides. The leader will learn his or her briefing to a greater or lesser extent, and then repeat it as appropriate.\n\nAll this preparation means that by the time the call happens, it's more or less a formality. It's a question of finding out what's in the other parties briefing materials and what 'line' they are taking on the common issues. There are no surprises, ever. It's just not the context in which anything unexpected can happen. If there are difficult, challenging or sensitive topics on the agenda, both sides will have been briefed about them months in advance and they will both say something quite general which makes their respective position clear. That is not to say that you or I wouldn't find the content of these discussions interesting or surprising, but that any changes in policy position are likely to have been signaled way, way in advance and will be expected and met with the appropriate response. \n\nThere will probably be between 10-15 people in the room at each end, including the interpreter. That's actually a conservative estimate: I worked with a government minister who had about thirty people in all of his meetings (different people have different preferences). For example, there will probably be a one or two secretaries, one or two general strategists/advisers, one or two policy specialists, press officers, note-takers, etc. And if the leader is accompanied by a Minister with responsibility for the area under discussion, that number could easily double. \n\nAs for how the language point works, I don't have any experience of this at all, so I'd be guessing, but I'd imagine that at the 'agenda planning' stage, a lingua franca is agreed, and at least one party gets a translator involved. Even where both parties shared a language but one is speaking their second language, I'm sure they have translators on hand just in case.\n\nFor the (c) type call I mentioned above (urgent calls responding to particular issues like a national disaster, impending war, major diplomatic incident etc), I would expect a similar process but vastly slimmed down. Even where issues are sensitive and urgent, though, I doubt you could arrange a call between say, the Prime Minister and President, in less than a week. It would just be a waste of both parties' extremely valuable time if they got on the phone and found they didn't have the information they needed to make rapid, good decisions. And I still think there will be 5-6 trusted people in the room at both ends, since minutes will need to be taken, lawyers consulted, policies drafted, etc, etc. If they are on the move during an emergency, I imagine they either return to a location they know is secure in order to make/take calls, or use an encrypted mobile phone in a hotel suite which has been checked over by security specialists (who are bound to be part of any leaders' entourage anyway). \n\nTL;DR: World leaders don't have private 1-1 chats on the phone - they are heavily orchestrated and staged occurances. \n\nSource: I have worked in Private Offices at reasonably senior level in the UK government,dealing with people up to and including the DPM :) \n\n*re-enforcing my earlier point, I actually doubt that either of these things are issues which would require a direct leader-to-leader conversation. Policies are proposed and discussed lower down the food chain of government, OK'd (or not) by the leader, and then communicated back down at the lower levels of government/the military (as appropriate).\n\n",
"[World leaders](_URL_2_) like [the president](_URL_0_) are very important people who don't have a lot of time to do things for themselves as they are very busy making decisions. Most of the time if a world leader wants to talk to another they will have their [assistants](_URL_3_) phone another person's assistant when both people are free and set up a phone call at a special time and a special place. \n\nMost world leaders speak a variation of English as it is sometimes considered to be an [international language](_URL_1_). This doesn't always happen though and in special times when a leaders do not speak a common language, they will have another person translate their thoughts by someone who they trust with what they are saying.\n\nGovernments are run by many people not just their main leader. There are not many things that only the very top leaders know and don't tell anyone else."
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1y7oxj | why are the president and vp always from the same party or "the twelve amendment" | **Twelfth*
_URL_0_
So I was reading the constitution and I was a bit perplexed by the 12th amendment, it seems that a majority vote determines both president and vice, so why does the US never have a republican and a democrat in the office at the same time? Or does the winning party of the presidency get to vote on vp alone? Maybe I answered my own question but still the wording of the article throws me off. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1y7oxj/eli5_why_are_the_president_and_vp_always_from_the/ | {
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"The person running for president announces who he would like to be his running-mate (vice president).\n\nThe VP becomes president if the president is somehow rendered unable to do his job. From a vs standpoint that doesn't make much sense to give up the most powerful office to a competitor ",
"The point of the twelfth amendment is that they vote on the vice president specifically. It used to be that they voted for President, and then whoever got second place was the vice president.",
"Back in the day, the candidate with the most votes was the President, and the candidate with the second most votes was the VP. Since they were of differing political parties, I'm sure you can see how they wouldn't always see eye-to-eye, so the Constitution was amended after a couple of election cycles.\n\nThe 12 Amendment sets the precedent that the Candidate selects a running mate who becomes the VP upon winning the election."
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40cziy | if the max amount of money an individual or corporation can donate to a politician is $2700, how can the koch brothers and other millionares donate millions of dollars to the candidate of their choosing? wasn't the $2700 rule put in place specifically so that politicians couldn't be bought? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/40cziy/eli5_if_the_max_amount_of_money_an_individual_or/ | {
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"Yes. They don't donate directly to the campaign in those amounts, though: they donate to the parties and to political action committees (so-called \"Super PACs\" in particular), which have higher limits or no such limit.",
"They are not actually donating to the candidates, but to nominally independent organisations (Political Action Committees) who can't directly endorse a candidate but can certainly tear down other candidates or promote policies that only 'their' candidate is strong on.",
"They are called \"529 groups\" and there are such groups for every candidate and allow for unlimited donations as these groups, by law, must not have contact with the candidate or their party. Basically, they are independent groups that support and candidate and must acct independent of the candidate.\n\nNext time you hear a political add, listen for the \"I'm SoAndSo, and I approved this message\" vs \"SuchAndSuch is responsible for the content of this add\". The first is an ad from a candidate... the second is form a 529 group.",
"Say you are really passionate about freedom on the internet. There are two political candidates. One is pro-CISPA and the other is anti-CISPA. You give $2,700 to the anti-CISPA politician, but you want to do more. So you start a group (called a Super PAC) and spend $5000 on ads opposing CISPA. This happens to help the politician who is opposed to CISPA, but technically it isn't their money.\n\nThe Koch brothers do the same thing, except in favor of conservative causes that they like.",
"A recent Supreme Court ruling created a loophole. \n\nWhile people are still limited by how much they can give directly to a candidate, there is no limit to how much they can give to Political Action Committees (PACs). These groups can't directly endorse a candidate, but they can advocate issues and criticize candidates, which amounts to largely the same thing.",
"The max amount you can donate to a candidate is the $2,700. But the government can't restrict what you do with your money to support that candidate on your own, or to support a different group.\n\nFor example, let's say you love Bernie Sanders, and you make a yard sign for that, should the government count the money you spent on that sign the same as money donated to the official Sanders campaign?\n\nLet's say 10 of your friends really like your yard signs ask you to make a bunch for them. They all give you $20, and you spend $200 making those signs. Should their $20, or your $200, be counted as a contribution to the Sanders campaign?\n\nLet's say you make a commercial and buy some ad time on a local radio station. Should the government be allowed to tell you that you're not allowed to do so? Wouldn't that be an unconstitutional restriction on your free speech?\n\nSo the money people spend on the issues they care about isn't the same as giving money to a candidate. And if the government is going to say that you can't spend money on voicing your opinion, the Supreme Court has decided that such a restriction on the money is the same as a restriction on the speech. \n\nOf course, all this breaks down when you get to the point where candidates are implicitly (or explicitly) coordinating with these organizations because the organizations are throwing so much money at issues. The breakdown happens because an official campaign will gladly let some major supporter incur all the costs of tv commercials, buying ad time, etc. \n\nBut the point still stands, you are free to voice your support for any candidate or issue, and you are free to spend money in connection with voicing that support."
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25oec5 | why am i not ticklish? | I used to be when I was younger now it just kinda annoys me? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/25oec5/eli5_why_am_i_not_ticklish/ | {
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"Upvoted, I'm not either and my GF calls me a robot, I'm curious as well."
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[]
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bv9f4x | wrinkle resistant/non-iron clothing | What makes clothes wrinkle-resistant/non-iron? Why wouldn't all clothing be made this way? This seems like a relatively modern thing -- why is that? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/bv9f4x/eli5_wrinkle_resistantnoniron_clothing/ | {
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"It depends on the material. Natural fibers like cotton and linen wrinkle easily, though wool does not. Basically, cotton fibers (for example) have little elasticity - check a shirt or jeans, if you can find some with 100% cotton and see how well they stretch compared to other fabrics. They do have a little, but not much. Cotton more than linen, for example. That is why they don't bounce back as easily to their original shape - winkle free.\n\nMost microfibers (like polyester) are the opposite - like sports clothing. It doesn't wrinkle, and has a \"memory\" of it's original shape; as it's really stretchy, it can bounce back to the memory position of the fibers - unwrinkled.\n\nThat's why it seems \"modern\" - we haven't been able to produce microfibers for all that long.\n\nEdit: Not all cloths are made that way because natural fibers have other benefits (e.g lack of smell development for cotton, lightness of the fabric for hot climates for linen) and many people feel more comfortable with them than with synthetic fibers."
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1fg64u | why does the us military have troops out in other countries, when there is not a specific war being fought? | Also, what would happen if we just had all of our troops come home and we focused on making the US better? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1fg64u/eli5why_does_the_us_military_have_troops_out_in/ | {
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"The troops in other countries are there to defend those countries (or those regions). It's like having beat cops out on the street - a few officers walking around can prevent crime.\n\nAs to why it's important, the main reason is that the US economy is *highly* dependent on global trade. It is strongly in the US's interest to maintain connections with major trading partners. That's why, for example, the US has troops stationed in Japan.\n\n",
"Numbers are from [this article](_URL_0_):\n\nGenerally speaking, the US deploys its forces for non-violent reasons for exactly the reason you would expect: to protect its own interests. Anyone looking for a deeper meaning (either nobility, or conspiracy) is mostly trying to find something that isn't there. I'll break down the top regions/nations:\n\n1. Europe: During the Cold War, NATO feared a land invasion from the East Bloc/Warsaw Pact. Because the Red Army *dramatically* (by an order of magnitude) exceeded NATO's continental armies in size, the limiting factor in winning a war in Europe would be the rate at which American forces could deploy. \n\n The Soviets built a large two-pronged naval force designed to block resupply of Europe by America (first, the massive Soviet submarine fleet; and second, Soviet long-range bombers designed to fly from northern Russia to the Atlantic and fire cruise missiles at allied shipping). The response to this was to preposition a large contingent of US troops in Europe, so that even if the Soviets were able to close the Atlantic they would have to face a large American force on the continent. \n\nEuropeans liked it because it strengthened their own defense against Soviet agression and \"committed\" the Americans to a war if the Soviets invaded. Americans liked it because it strengthened their own diplomatic hand against the Soviets (they weren't isolated to the Western hemisphere). \n\n2. Southeast Asia: Immediately following WWII, most of South Asia was a wreck. Imperial Japan had thoroughly destroyed existing political structures in Korea, China and a host of other countries. The only existing Democracy at the time (Australia) didn't have the means or the men (numbers) to enforce regional stability for US trade. In addition, there was the need to enforce the peace treaty signed with Japan. Despite all that, the US's main focus unfortunately was Europe and so within a decade of WWII two of the largest countries in Asia (Korea and China) had collapses politically and were rapidly subsumed into dictatorships. \n\nThe US became involved in the conflict with Korea after seeing how the situation in China played out, mainly motivated by once again Euro-centric anti-communist thinking. Ultimately, it was only by the skin of their teeth that the Americans were able to fend off Chinese forces in the Korean War. Follwing that, the need for a persistent manned presence to stabilize US trade interests in Asia was apparent. It's also worth noting that the US is -by far- more highly reqarded in Korea (where the troop density is probably the highest in the world) than anywhere else. This suggests that this deployment is pretty well-liked in country. \n\nThe US has a large presence in Germany mostly for historical reasons (initially, there was a lot of anti-German sentiment left over from the two world wars, then it was because West Germany was the front line of the Cold War). Other nations have large US contingents for several reasons (convenience, to facilitate the NATO unified command structure and cross training, as a diplomatic tool (not to threaten, but as a \"look, we spend money in your country\" thing), etc). \n\nSouth Korea has 30,000 troops because there is no Korean Armistice, and North Korea has a tendency to fire heavy metal objects at South Korea without first notifying the proper authorities. \n\nJapan has 50,000 troops mostly because of its strategic position as the \"gateway to Asia\" (from the Pacific) - Hawaii is basically the midpoint between the US and Japan, and so the next closest friendly nation that is central to the region is Japan. Historical reasons play a big factor here as well, but with an ascendant and at least non-allied China inertia is not the biggest factor like it is with Germany. \n\n"
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ajmamh | ; why does saliva give grip? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/ajmamh/eli5_why_does_saliva_give_grip/ | {
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"If we went down to a micro-scale, we would see that the vast majority of surfaces we consider to be \"smooth\" (like paper) are not smooth at all, but rather have many bumps and ridges (it would be like looking at a gravel driveway). Due to this, our hands, which have ridges as well (especially finger prints), fail at creating a strong \"bond\" with these smooth materials because we are rubbing ridges against ridges, meeting very little resistance, and failing to fill in all of the valleys in-between these tiny peaks. If we add saliva, we effectively fill in these valleys, and as a result have much more contact, meaning much more grip. \n\n\nThe concept is similar to the use of thermal paste for electronic equipment to draw heat away from some electronic component. While it seems like two solids put together are touching, on a micro-scale, this is rarely the case, unless the solid is very ductile, like a rubber band for example, which can bend and squeeze into gaps better than other materials."
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8iy2g6 | how does the material on the other side of a sticker keep the glue sticky? | How does it keep the glue from drying out? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/8iy2g6/eli5_how_does_the_material_on_the_other_side_of_a/ | {
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"It doesn’t. The glue does in fact dry out (that’s why really old stickers have that crusty yellow stuff if you leave them out for a long time). However, if you’re referencing the waxy paper that the stickers originally come on, the wax paper allows the sticker to not be exposed to the surrounding air, therefor the water in the sticker’s glue doesn’t evaporate, the glue doesn’t dry out, and the sticker remains sticky. Over long periods of time, the glue will eventually dry out, but by preventing most of the sticker’s glue from being exposed to air, it can stay sticky for a much longer time. The reason the sticker can be removed from said wax paper is because the wax is hydrophobic (water isn’t absorbed by it) and so the glue stays to the hydrophilic part (water is attracted), or the glue itself. ",
"I work at a sticker factory. Most of our rolls of sticker paper has expiration date of about 2-3 years. (if the client will use the batch of stickers for couple years then we wont use a 2 year old material) "
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a1sf7o | how do engines run at 5,000 or even 10,000 rpms? | Even at idle an engine may be turning at 1,500 RPMs.
This just seems incredible to me. How does it work? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/a1sf7o/eli5_how_do_engines_run_at_5000_or_even_10000_rpms/ | {
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"Mainstream automobile engines usually redline at about 6-7k rpm. The reason they can spin so fast is because the crankshafts are perfectly balanced, and the pistons and rods are made to be as lightweight as possible. Also the journal jacking oiling system permits much higher spinning speeds than conventional bearings.\n\nDiesel engines cannot rev as high as petrol engines because they are designed from heavier materials (for the extra power) so the inertia from the heavier components doesn’t allow it to spin as fast. (Without self destructing)\n\nImagine a record turntable, with a penny and a paper stamp at opposite edges. As the turntable speed ramps up, the heavy penny will fly off before the lightweight paper stamp. That’s the best analogy I can come up with at this time"
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4j8voa | why is it that in a country where you are not supposed to drink the water (india or china for example) it’s still ok to shower, brush your teeth, and even bath with it? | Why is it that if you drink it you'll get sick, but using it for other functions where you come into contact with it is OK? Unless the danger of drinking it is exagerrated... Or the danger of using it for, say, washing a fruit before you eat it, is understated...
Please & Thanks! | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4j8voa/eli5eli5_why_is_it_that_in_a_country_where_you/ | {
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"It's mostly a matter of amounts. You might drink a few litres of water a day but you won't swallow anywhere near that amount while brushing your teeth. And of course, toothpaste is there to help kill bacteria anyway. Bathing is less dangerous as it is far harder for bacteria to get into your system through your skin unless you have large wounds or bad burns. ",
"I'm not a clean freak or anything but honestly I wouldn't bathe in the water from those countries either.\n\nFrequently in countries like India, Pakistan and China the water will be contaminated with high levels of heavy metals due to industrial pollution or at least higher than those levels usually found within EU/US water systems. \n\nFlint excepted.\n\nThe thing is, it's not just tap water. If the water table is polluted, it could be that these heavy metals are also absorbed by fish or crops, which will then get put on a human plate and thus build up in the human if the food testing isn't that strict. It's called [bioaccumulation](_URL_0_). \n\n\nLet's take India for example: The Ganges river basin is home to about 40% of all Indians. There are literally hundreds of Tanneries producing leather that use chromium during the process. Indian law states that Tanneries must recover the chromium before any waste is flushed into the river. So let's say 50 tanneries just dump their chromium into the river, alongside all the unfiltered human waste that goes in as well-- This could taint the water table from which wells that people and farmers draw their water.\n\n\nScary thing is, people in india believe the river ganges can cleanse sins and bathe in it. Last recorded figures show that the Faecal coliform bacteria in the Ganges was something like 500 times higher than that recommended for bathing or drinking.\n"
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1sxsbi | why do the cfl lights remain dim & flash every few seconds even after being turned off? | I have noticed that you can see a CFL light in complete darkness, it gives out kinda greenish dim light. Also it flashes every few seconds like a camera flash but not that bright. Why? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1sxsbi/why_do_the_cfl_lights_remain_dim_flash_every_few/ | {
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"The inside of the tube is coated with phosphor (glow in the dark). This is what produces the actual visible light. The charged gas (mercury vapor) in the tube produces UV which charges the phosphor and causes it to glow in the visible spectrum. When you turn the light off, the phosphor takes a while to lose it's glow. I don't know why it flickers (I've never noticed that).",
"I'm not sure about the flash, I've never seen it, but my guess would be the capacitors discharging. The after glow is the florescent coating exhibiting small phosphorescent qualities making it continue glowing in the same way a glow in the dark item still glows after exposure. Even old Tube TV s did this.",
"You are using an electronic switch that is made for incandescent loads. \nThose draw some current through, and are know to periodically trigger some CFL and LED bulbs. They do that by letting a small current through, and that builds a charge in the capacitor of the lamp's DC supply, and with enough charge it tries to work for a brief moment, but fails then goes to charge again. "
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of22g | why do americans generally not learn any second languages? | I know it's an *option* in school, but in other first world countries like Japan and most of Europe it's required to learn at least one other language, if not more. Why is this not common practice in America?
I want actual historical or cultural reasons, not "hur dur Americans r dumb". | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/of22g/why_do_americans_generally_not_learn_any_second/ | {
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"I can't really answer your question, but I would just like to say that I think that is changing. Of course I can only speak about where I live (total midwest, no large non-English speaking cultures close by, etc), but it *is* a requirement now to learn Spanish in elementary and middle school. They can choose another language in high school - but they start Spanish in the first grade. ",
"The TA in my first semester German class in college was from Germany. She was fluent in German, English, French and Spanish. She said the more languages she knew the better her job prospects would be in Europe. She also referred to English as 'the language of commerce\" and explained that is why people across the globe learn it. The example she used the first day of class was:\n\nEurope - 10,180,000 square kilometers, ~733 million people, many languages\n\nNorth America - 24,709,000 square kilometers, ~529 million people, 2 main languages: English and Spanish, French in Quebec",
"There is little use for a foreign language in everyday life for the average person. In western states Spanish is useful and encountered in daily life so many more people are bi-lingual.\n\n\n\n",
"The same reason 90% of American citizens do not carry, have never carried and will never carry passports.\n\nIn other words, 90% of American citizens will never leave America... except maybe to go to Canada. Or the Bahamas on vacation.\n\nWhy? Put simply, because America is so goddamn big and has more than enough of *everything* to keep nearly everyone largely satisfied.\n\nFor many Americans, a trip to their state's Capital counts as a huge adventure. A trip to one of the big cities--NY, LA, Chicago--is a once-in-a-lifetime event.\n\nAdd to that a healthy dose of \"AMERICA, FUCK YEAH!\" attitude, which even the most enlightened of us carries deep down in our inmost hearts, and you've got a population who is perfectly content to stay home.\n\nAnd if you never intend to venture out somewhere where they don't speak English, why bother learning anything but English?\n\nThis is not to say Americans are dumb. We aren't. We're just a bit sheltered by and naïve in our own ignorance and hubris, and we have so much of everything that anyone can find something to build their happiness around.",
"Well, only 3 European languages have ever had any sort of major foothold in North America- English, Spanish and French. \n\nSince English has been kind of the world's default language, there hasn't been much needto even pick up a second, let alone more.\n\nMost places in (North) America, you can drive for days and everybody still speaks English. On almost every other continent, the next language group is only a few hours away. Not just the next country, the next language. So, even if you don't need to speak that language, at least their proximity might make it seem important to learn it. \n\nAnd yeah, naiive and hubris. A bit.",
"Most people in Europe speak the language of their own country, the language of a neighboring country, and maybe the language of their largest trading partner. In the US, these are\n\nOwn Country's Language: English\n\nNeighboring Country's Language: English (No one wants to go to the non-tourist parts of Mexico)\n\nLargest Trading Partner's Language: [English](_URL_0_) (I'm a little surprised this isn't Chinese)",
"Because we just don't need to. There are more diverse areas in the United States, obviously. If we live close to one, we learn what we need to from that language. I've never been to England, but I understand there are different dialects from different parts. Same goes for the US. If you're in Appalachia (SE Ohio, West Virginia, Kentucky, etc.) your communication is going to be different than someone from Louisiana or Alabama. We may not have totally different languages, but the different dialects create as much of a language barrier as most Americans will ever have.",
"i really think it boils down to \"we don't need to\". not that i think that's a good thing, it is what it is.",
"Many U.S. high schools require at least 2 years of a foreign language. I promise you we speak Spanish or French better than the kids from Japan speak English, even though they study it for like 6 years. (I've been to Japan, so I would know.)",
"Because it isn't useful for most Americans.\n\nMost Americans can travel hundreds of kilometers in any direction and not find a non-English speaking community. \n\nEnglish is the de facto global language, so even when an American finds themselves in a non-English location, chances are they can find an English speaker.\n"
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egfetk | why does rinsing my car with just the hose not remove dirt but leaving my car out in the rain does? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/egfetk/eli5_why_does_rinsing_my_car_with_just_the_hose/ | {
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"Probably because you don't wash your car with a hose for hours, if not a full day at a time"
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ckxh3q | how does it work for two headed creatures? do they sense things independently? how is the nervous system controlled? do they have diminished intelligence? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/ckxh3q/eli5_how_does_it_work_for_two_headed_creatures_do/ | {
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"I think it depends on where the sever is... if they share a brain, they will not sense, think, or feel things independently. However, if their brains are completely separate they will process thoughts separately; if their heads are the only thing they have two of they will share other neurological and biological systems, and so they will feel the same things (unless the brains process the nervous signals differently, which is unlikely). Since they have separate brains, they will likely learn and adapt to situations similarly but not identically, so they could end up having very different personalities and thought processes."
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1jhv3k | how does workman's compensation work? | Particularly if you are a work-from-home employee that has 24/7 responsibilities (breaking news updates for a blog) | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1jhv3k/eli5_how_does_workmans_compensation_work/ | {
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"I answered how rates are set in another reply. I'll now address the what happens if you are working from home part.\n\nThis is an incredibly murky area of work comp right now, and tends to be extremely variable case by case. For example, I recently saw a claim where an employees house caught on fire while they were working from home and they had smoke inhalation injuries. The fire was started by the employee putting something on the stove and forgetting about it (because they got caught up in their work again). Is this a work comp claim? This will almost certainly be considered one, but if the circumstances were slightly different it would be challenged. Honestly, if this was a bigger claim than it is the carrier would probably try to fight it.\n\nSo, the simple answer to your question is if you are hurt while you are in the process of performing work while at home or anywhere else, it is a work comp claim. In a mixed work/living situation it would be on the carrier to argue your claim that it wasn't covered."
]
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[]
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|
8fmd5i | why does drinking alcohol make you tired? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/8fmd5i/eli5_why_does_drinking_alcohol_make_you_tired/ | {
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"Alcohol interferes with the actions of glutamate and NMDA, two key excitatory compounds that stimulate/regulate activity in the nervous system. They’re sort of like natural stimulants that keep things moving. Alcohol can inhibit the activity of their systems, but it also supports the activity of GABA, the main inhibitory neurotransmitter in the body. \nIncreasing the activity of GABA is like stepping on the breaks while you’re driving. \n\nBecause alcohol affects the entire brain, it will also work on systems of wakefulness and alertness in the nervous system. "
]
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||
1ucpml | why is michael jackson considered the "king of pop?" | I get the fact that he's extremely influential and all that, but what is his genius? Dance/Choreography, Musical talent, etc? I get Jimi Hendrix, SRV, Beatles, Hank Williams Sr., but would like an explanation about him. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1ucpml/eli5_why_is_michael_jackson_considered_the_king/ | {
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"text": [
"He made Thriller. Thriller.",
"Because he redefined pop culture.\n\nHe was the first black musician who broke through the color barrier on MTV. He made MTV a definitive TV channel. Before Thriller was released the music industry was in a crisis, Thriller legitimately helped save it. At one point Thriller was selling 1.4 million albums every 4 days and had sold over 30 million worldwide only 1 year after its release. It's now sold somewhere between 75-100 million and about 32 million just in the US alone, and still ranks in the top 200 albums sold every year in the states where it's selling 140k a year 30 years after it's release. He made music videos compulsive viewing. He is the reason that musicians use group dancers. He's the reason urban dancing is mainstream. He started touring as part of the Jackson 5 aged just 5 years old. He signed on to Motown at the age of 9. He released his first single aged 11. He is the reason the Superbowl half time show is now a thing. He wrote and helped choreograph most of his own pieces. His iconography is huge - you think of a sequin glove, sequin jacket, military jackets, armbands, fedora, surgical mask, loafers, moonwalk, lean, spin to the toes, a dip of a hat and you think of MJ, there aren't any other musicians who have such a wide and immediately recognizable iconic pieces. He donated $300 million to charity in his lifetime. Every single pop musician since Michael Jackson is inspired in some way by him, even if they don't realize it, because what he did is the standard now. He created the benchmark and template for what it is to be a modern pop musician."
]
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[],
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3k4n7k | what is going on over at /r/punchablefaces? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3k4n7k/eli5_what_is_going_on_over_at_rpunchablefaces/ | {
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"/r/punchablefaces is a ~60k community that posts... punchable faces.\n\nHowever, in order to comply with reddits strict no harassment policies, they have had to implement a few rules:\n\n* No black, brown, tan, Asian, Latino, Native North or South American, or Pacific Islander subjects\n* No LGBTQ subjects\n* No subjects with disabilities (physical, developmental, or any other type)\n* No women or non-binary subjects\n* No underage or elderly subjects\n* No socioeconomically disadvantaged subjects\n\nSome have pointed out that these rules mean its only okay to post straight, cisgendered, able bodied, middle class, white males and that therefore they are discriminatory themselves.\n\nThis point has been taken on board and has resulted in [this](_URL_0_) being the only allowed image on the sub, as someone that represents the spirit of the rules without targeting any one race or sex directly."
]
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[
"https://i.imgur.com/BqUMYPg.jpg"
]
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||
c00i38 | where does all the dirt from power washing go? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/c00i38/eli5_where_does_all_the_dirt_from_power_washing_go/ | {
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"text": [
"It's floating in the water kicked off by the power washer. \nIt then usually flows with the water down into the drain."
]
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[]
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||
2sx8c9 | after an android device installs an update it will spend some time optimizing apps. what, exactly, is happening during this process? | ^ | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2sx8c9/eli5_after_an_android_device_installs_an_update/ | {
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"_URL_0_\n\n > When you install an application on Android, it performs some modifications and optimizations on that application's dex file (the file that contains all the dalvik bytecode for the application). It then caches the resulting odex (optimized dex) file in the /data/dalvik-cache directory, so that it doesn't have to perform the optimization process every time it loads an application.\n\nWhen you update the operating system, it might install a new version of Dalvik (the actual software that runs the Android apps), or there might be new optimizations for this version of the OS, so the optimizations need to be performed again."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[
"http://stackoverflow.com/questions/7541281/what-is-dalvik-and-dalvik-cache"
]
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|
mryl9 | why the usa are (or have been) at war in the middle east. | Please refrain from trolling. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/mryl9/eli5_why_the_usa_are_or_have_been_at_war_in_the/ | {
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"The justification (meaning, the reason given by those who made the decision about why the decision was made) for sending troops to the Middle East was:\n\n* Iraq - To stop the use and/or potential use of weapons of mass destruction and overthrow a dictator considered dangerous to the world and his people\n* Afghanistan - To attempt to stop terrorism and terrorism funding and going after those who are responsible for the attacks on the world trade center.\n\nIt's important to note that my use of the word \"justification\" is because it is more clearly answered and not all that debatable, it's more of a historical record. The \"reason\" is more complicated as in any situation there can be other unspoken reasons for doing things.",
"\"They pull a knife, you pull a gun. He sends one of yours to the hospital, you send one of his to the morgue. That's the Chicago way.\"\n~ The Untouchables\n\nAlso related:\n\n\"I can hear you, the rest of the world hears you, and the people who knocked these buildings down will hear all of us soon.\" \n~ George W. Bush",
"The justification (meaning, the reason given by those who made the decision about why the decision was made) for sending troops to the Middle East was:\n\n* Iraq - To stop the use and/or potential use of weapons of mass destruction and overthrow a dictator considered dangerous to the world and his people\n* Afghanistan - To attempt to stop terrorism and terrorism funding and going after those who are responsible for the attacks on the world trade center.\n\nIt's important to note that my use of the word \"justification\" is because it is more clearly answered and not all that debatable, it's more of a historical record. The \"reason\" is more complicated as in any situation there can be other unspoken reasons for doing things.",
"\"They pull a knife, you pull a gun. He sends one of yours to the hospital, you send one of his to the morgue. That's the Chicago way.\"\n~ The Untouchables\n\nAlso related:\n\n\"I can hear you, the rest of the world hears you, and the people who knocked these buildings down will hear all of us soon.\" \n~ George W. Bush"
]
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[],
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4lxqiw | why does drinking alcohol with an empty stomach cause one to get drunk quicker? | Legitimately curious as to why this may be the case. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4lxqiw/eli5_why_does_drinking_alcohol_with_an_empty/ | {
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"It's harder to drink water from a sponge than it is from a cup because you have to squeeze or tear the sponge to access the water. If you imagine that the food you eat is like a sponge that can soak up liquids, then you can imagine how it might take longer for your stomach to access any given molecule of alcohol that's making the food you ate more wet and mushy (just like adding more water to oatmeal)... You put the food in your stomach. You pour some 'drank' in there next, and the alcohol mingles with what's already there. On the other hand, if you eat nothing, but drink a bunch of alcohol, it's less like the sponge and more like the cup: easy access!\n\nAccess to what?\n\nWell, drinking alcohol (ethanol) is interesting because it is absorbed into your blood stream from your stomach (and even some in your mouth). Normally, stuff like sugar has to be absorbed through the small intestines.\n\nConcentration is nearly everything in biochemistry. Drinking more pure alcohol, more quickly gets you more drunk, sooner. One way to accomplish this is by drinking more concentrated alcohol (i.e. liquor instead of beer). But another way to increase the relative alcohol concentration is to decrease stuff that would decrease the concentration! A decrease in decrease is an increase... \n\nAll the food and other stuff in your stomach mingles with the alcohol you drink and decreases its relative concentration. Everything dilutes everything else when you mix a bunch of stuff together. \n\nOnce you realize that the location where that concentration actually matters is in the stomach, it makes sense that diluting a mixed drink by adding more mixer has a similar effect to diluting whatever alcohol you drink by putting some other stuff in there first (food).\n\nInterestingly, the breakdown of alcohol in the body takes precedence over the breakdown of other consumed nutrients. So all the carbs, fat and protein you eat take second place behind alcohol in being processed. So not only is the relatively highest concentration of alcohol immediately available for absorption if you pour it into an empty stomach, but it's immediately and preferentially metabolized as well.\n",
"It means the alcohol gets into the bloodstream quicker as it's processed quicker. Don't know the ins and outs and technicalities but that's the gist.\n\nCorrect me if I'm wrong, Reddit."
]
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39mu1t | if you could know the state of subatomic/quantum particles, could you calculate the future? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/39mu1t/eli5if_you_could_know_the_state_of/ | {
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"There seems to be a degree of randomness inherent in quantum physics. To the best of our understanding the answer to your question is no.",
"That is still a subject of intense debate. It appears that the answer is no, as quantum effects seem to work within certain bounds but completely at random, but we do not currently know if this randomness follows some higher order of law."
]
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[],
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||
2cvy36 | neoconservatism vs. neoliberalism | I hear these terms a lot but I don't really know what they mean. Are they just governmental terms about the conflict of conservatives vs. liberals, or are they bigger philosophical concepts? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2cvy36/eli5_neoconservatism_vs_neoliberalism/ | {
"a_id": [
"cjjuohs"
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"text": [
"When they combine they make neo-fascism."
]
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|
5l397n | why can't clicking the x to close a program in windows act in the same way as clicking end task from a ctrl+alt+del? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5l397n/eli5_why_cant_clicking_the_x_to_close_a_program/ | {
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"The [X] is intended for proper shutdowns and letting close naturally. To prevent data loss and file corruption. Closing the task with Task Manager is a last resort, willing-risk shutdown. It can cause many peoblems like data loss.",
"Clicking \"X\" *asks* the program to shut down. Using the task manager *forces* the program to shut down by just ignoring it and unloading all of its data from memory. \n\nWhen you shut down a program, you want to ask it nicely, because it may have some stuff to do--saving files, closing connections--that could potentially corrupt some files if not done properly. ",
"Imagine if you're playing with a box of Lego. \n\nClicking on the [X] is like neatly putting all the Lego back in the box and stacking it properly in the cupboard. All nice and orderly.\n\nUsing End task is like cramming all the Lego back in the box and tossing it into the cupboard. It's put away, but it's messy.",
"This is actually a simple question with an interesting answer. \nSo, computers can (for the sake of analogy) be thought of like a night club. It's busy, loud, and there's a lot going on inside than you can see from the outside. Processes can enter (start) and leave (end) whenever they like for the most part, but modern computers have systems in place to manage both of these occurrences for the sake of security and responsiveness. \nIn the case of closing applications, hitting the [**X**] is like politely telling a process it's time to leave the club as it's either no longer welcome (not done being used) or acting out (frozen). Most of the time, doing this will cause a program to tidy up, ask if you want to save your work, and then leave/close. \nHowever, sometimes applications will either be too drunk (frozen) or just be mean (poorly made) and won't leave when you ask nicely. So, when you're using task manager or stop-process or taskkill (bouncers) you're basically *forcing* the obstinate process to leave the party. The bouncers don't care if your process left things undone, or didn't save your work; their job is to get it out quickly.",
"Think about it as ending a lease for an apartment.\n\nThe X in the corner is when you handle all the paperwork, pay all your dues, box all your stuff, pack the van, return the keys and shake hands with the landlady before leaving.\n\nEnd-Task is when you refuse to pay, don't respond when they ring the door and refuse to let them in to read the water meter. Eventually they will break down the door, throw all of your stuff in a dumpster, send in a cleaner and try to lease the apartment to someone else.\n\nThe X is the \"sort your shit out gracefully\"-button and the End-Task is the \"I'm really out of patience here, you have to go\"-button.",
"There are different ways of shutting a program down.\n\nOne is like nicely asking a guy at a desk to stop working on whatever he is currently working on, put all his papers in the drawer in his desk, turn of the desk lamp and take his briefcase and go home for the evening.\n\nThe other is like taking a gun and shooting the guy at his desk and throwing his body out of the window.\n\nBoth ways work to make him stop working. One may take a bit longer and the other is more messy and might bring with it some problems when trying to start up the work again. \n\nSometimes when the guy at his desk doesn't listen to you when you politely ask him to stop you really might need to resort to violence and forcefully make him stop yourself, but really it can make a big mess and ruin whatever it was he was working on and should only be used as a last resort, if the guy refuses to listen to you.\n\nWe use the polite asking programs to stop version normally and the brutal making them stop when nothing else works."
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2g900p | what is diminishing returns? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2g900p/eli5what_is_diminishing_returns/ | {
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"Imagine I gave you a chocolate bar. You'd be pretty happy, right? It's tasty.\n\nNow, imagine you had a hundred chocolate bars, and I gave you one more. You wouldn't gain as much happiness from that additional chocolate bar, because it doesn't let you do as much in the way of new things. That's diminishing returns.",
"Imagine that 1 grave digger can dig 1 grave, 8 feet long, 6 feet deep, and 3 feet wide, in 6 hours.\nIf you add 1 grave digger, the team of 2 can dig the same sized grave in 3 hours.\nSo logically you think that 3 grave diggers can dig the same size grave in 2 hours, or that 12 grave diggers can dig the same size grave in 30 minutes.\nUnfortunately once you get too many diggers working in the same grave they start to get in each others way, slow each other down, and simply can't dig a grave in 30 minutes.\nDiminishing returns.",
"You can spend more time and resources on something, and still improve the output potentially, but the efficiency for more committed resources/money/time becomes less effective the more you add after a certain point. You can buy a good graphics card for 300 dollars, and a very good one for 400 dollars and so on. But the difference in power between a 400-600 dollar card is not as much as the difference between a 100 and 200 dollar card. The higher up you go and more you invest, the jumps in quality gaps become smaller and smaller. Ergo, diminishing returns. ",
"it means it takes more input to get the same increase in output. the classic example is velocity. getting a car from 0 to 50 is a lot easier than going from 50 to 100 because of things like air resistance. "
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4lyyml | why do probiotics sometimes cause diarrhea, gas, or other symptoms of ibs? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4lyyml/eli5_why_do_probiotics_sometimes_cause_diarrhea/ | {
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"Probiotics and antibiotics can both affect the amount of 'flora' (helpful bacteria) that live naturally inside your gut. Part of what those bacteria do is help digest things and create important chemicals that the body uses. Bacteria can act almost act like an organ in our body. Cows, for example need gut bacteria to be able to eat grass. We have different bacteria than cows, so we don't get the luxury of eating grass as food.\n\nGut bacteria unsurprisingly have some interaction with our immune system, whose favorite pastime is inflammation. Changes in flora can coincide with changes in inflammation, such that flora can ultimately decrease gut inflammation. But since the body keeps things in a delicate balance, periods of transition can be irritating.\n\nRegarding gas, bacteria utilize a process called fermentation, which chemically results in gas bi-products (carbon dioxide, methane).\n\nUltimately, increasing or decreasing the amount and/or balance of natural bacteria in the gut can cause other changes in response while a balance is being achieved."
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5lnhyz | what would happen to astronauts in orbit if earth instantly disappeared? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5lnhyz/eli5_what_would_happen_to_astronauts_in_orbit_if/ | {
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"They would continue in a \"straight\" line from their current trajectory. Away from the former position of the planet. ",
"THERE'S ONE EVERY SEASON!\n\nAnyways. So all the astronauts and the space station are circling earth, because they're moving at some 17000 mph or something ridiculous. At this speed, the earth's gravity is attracting them, curving their travel towards the earth, but at that speed, as fast as the earth's gravity well can accelerate them towards earth, their velocity matches, so objects continue to \"miss\" the earth. aka stable orbit.\n\nNow take the earth away. Now the orbiting object/astronauts have a velocity of 17,000 mph in a random direction. Depending on what direction its travelling in when the earth gets zapped to Planet Music, this could be towards the sun, into Jupiter, out of the solar system, who knows*. Long story short they wouldn't immediately die, but they'd be flung so far away from Earth (when it wins Planet Music) that getting them back would be impossible and eventually they'd run out of air, food etc.. \n\n\\* should point out that the object would not only have its 17,000 mph vector from its orbit around the earth, but it would also have the Earth's 18.5 mile/s speed around the sun. So.... fast.",
"they would proceed in an outward tangential path corresponding to the moment the Earth disappeared. eventually they would either be caught in the gravitational well of another planet, or become a Sun bound satellite. \n\n"
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6rq0pi | what's so bad about (us) debt collectors? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/6rq0pi/eli5_whats_so_bad_about_us_debt_collectors/ | {
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"text": [
"You're correct. Only issue is that occasionally debt collectors try to collect on debts that aren't legally your responsibility. "
]
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dlg2nw | why was it better for swords to only have one edged blade (like the katana or falchion)? | Just wandering if it was better at all, or if there are disadvantages to having both blades edged. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/dlg2nw/eli5_why_was_it_better_for_swords_to_only_have/ | {
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"Swords were designed for various purposes. Double edged blades were used to impale or stab the opponent. Whereas katanas are curved and one sided to provide a better slicing motion. \nThe shape of the blade provides structural strength. To simplify, the cross section of a katana would resemble a triangle. Impacting a triangle on a point would distribute the force and stop the blade from breaking.",
"Lots of inaccurate answers here.\n\nThe curve on a katana is actually result of the unique heat treatment process developed by Japanese swordsmiths in the 800's AD. The blade is straight during forging and only takes on it's characteristic gentle curve during heat treatment, when it is quenched in water.\n\nDuring this process, heat resistant clay is applied to the spine, called the \"Mune\" of the blade but not the cutting edge or the \"Ha\". The entire blade is heated orange hot. It is then carefully quenched in water edge-first.\n\nThe clay acts to insulate the mune so it doesn't chill as quickly as the Ha during quenching, but remains red hot for several seconds. \n\nQuenching causes tremendous stresses in the edge, this combined with rapid cooling transforms some of the steel in the edge into an extremely hard and brittle crystalline form of steel called \"Martensite.\" However since the spine cools more slowly, little or no martensite phase is formed there.\n\nThis differential cooling also forces the blade to curve slightly due to thermal contraction stresses.\n\nThis makes the Ha extremely hard so it retains an edge well and can survive severe impacts, but the spine is still relatively soft and retains some ductility. This prevents the entire blade from becoming brittle and accidentally fracturing, which was sometimes known to happen. If properly treated in this way, at worst the Ha will chip in places but the Mune will simply dent slightly.\n\nDuring grinding and polishing of the edge, the extremely hard region, called the \"Yakiba\" on the edge can be seen as a wavy line called the \"Hamon\", or literally edge-pattern. The Hamon is another unique and distinctive feature of a traditional Japanese sword. \n\nThe Smith as well as his customers would see the appearance of a Hamon to be a sign that the heat treatment had been carried out successfully. Blades without a hamon would be rightly seen as inferior. Either an inferior steel had been used that didn't have the right composition to harden correctly, or else the Smith had been lazy and had simply quenched the whole blade without taking the time to carefully apply clay, wait for it to dry, then heat slowly to avoid cracking the coating.",
"Without exception every weapon ever made has its strengths and weakness. Straight blades were used for chopping and slashing until they found that a curved blade was better suited for that role but once armor became more economical and higher quality straight swords with longer narrower blades and finer tips became more popular and then as the world turned to black powder and cloth uniforms became the norm curved blades made a comeback for cavalry and officers. And now for katanas, they were without a doubt fine swords but they were a very long way behind the curve for weapons of the time. This was and unfortunate result of the metal that Japan had available at the time. So there were swords made that did what the katana did better and with less effort in production. \n\nIf you ever get a chance look up the Krigemesser or kilij, they are both brutal curved swords and a fine example of straight swords would be something like The Brescia Spadona, Type sword or Ulfberht swords. The two straight sword types are on opposite sides of the straight swords spectrum so you can see the difference in tip design.",
"One more funny reason, that has less to do with functionality but more with economics and what we would today think of as a \"patent loophole\" or so. In the late middle ages, guilds were well established and regulated in what they could do. For example, a swordsmith could make just swords and a knifemaker just knifes. But there's a lot of money in selling weapons for self defense and the knifemaker would really like to get in on that, but he isn't allowed to build swords since that would infringe on guild law, even though he could with his skill.\n\nHowever, a sword is primarily defined to be constructed in one way (tang (grip end of blade) through crossguard, grip into pommel, probaply double edged during that time) and a knife in a different way (single edged, grip is riveted onto tang from both sides, you can still see that on modern knifes), so the knifemaker just makes a big knife and sells it as exactly that, a \"grosses messer\" (german literally for big knife) and even though it is clearly a weapon he is technically doing nothing illegal.\n\nMesser were quite popular with middle-class people and farmers, since they tended to be plain and thus affordable, while beeing very capable as a self defense weapons, since a thug or thief was most likely unarmored and as others have stated, single edged, curved weapons are better for that.\n\nKeep in mind that this origin story is not 100% certain but it is considdered the most likely one."
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3itwvx | why is it so difficult to find video highlights of football/soccer games? | It is super easy to find video highlights of basketball, baseball, and American football games, but when I try to find video highlights for football/soccer matches all I get are stills or commentary. What gives? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3itwvx/eli5_why_is_it_so_difficult_to_find_video/ | {
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"Because of very strict control of (very expensive) TV rights. Rights owners know filter images and videos by the droplet.",
"In short, nothing is for free anymore. Would you wish to see the highlights, you would (you being any broadcaster) would have to pay a lot of money for it."
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2ngs23 | where the fuck were these lonely mountain dwarves in lotr when every one of their allies was battling sauron? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2ngs23/eli5_where_the_fuck_were_these_lonely_mountain/ | {
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"Well, sauron didn'send his whole army to capture minas tirith-he split it into two armies. One went for humans in gondor and the second went for dwarves and humans in lonely mountain(dwarves scouted them) . It's explained in additional chapters in last book",
"Remember in the movies when frodo gets caught in that mini landslide and two evil men check out the area? Notice that those guys are heavily armored: they are not the same people that ride the elephants during the siege of minas tirith.\n\nHeavy Armor = Men of Rhun (north of mordor)\nElephant Dudes = Men of Harad (south of mordor)\n\nIn the books, an army of 200,000 soldiers from Rhun descends on the reconstructed Dale (which was repopulated between the Hobbit and LOTR). The people of Dale take refuge in Erebor (the dwarf kingdom in the mountain) and besiege the mountain. When Sauron is defeated in the south, the men of Rhun lose morale and the forces of dale and erebor take the opportunity to strike the besieging army and rout them.\n\nLegolas alludes to these events happening very briefly on their way to finding the undead army in the mountains."
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aqc3x6 | how do they make weed killer that they can spray on grass and plants that only kill weeds without hurting the grass or plants? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/aqc3x6/eli5_how_do_they_make_weed_killer_that_they_can/ | {
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"There are two major families of flowering plants, called dicots and monocots. There are a lot of subtle differences between them, but one of the easiest ways to tell is the [shape of the leaves](_URL_0_) EDIT: and the way the veins are arranged\n\nGrasses and almost all grain crops, like corn, wheat, and rice, are monocots. Most \"weed\" species are dicots. The most common types of weed killers only kill dicots, and leave monocots unharmed.\n\nOther types of weed killers will kill almost all plants, but they've genetically engineered certain crops to be resistant to that weed killer. If you've planted those genetically engineered crops, you can spray the weed killer all over your field and only the things you don't want growing will die.",
"It depends on the herbicide. \nA lot of \"grass safe\" herbicides are designed to stop seeds from growing. Weeds usually grow fresh from seeds each year, so if you kill the seeds your grass will come back but weeds won't grow. These kinds of weed killers are known as \"Pre-emergent\". \nYou can also find weed killers that are \"broadleaf selective\". These usually mimic plant hormones that most weeds use but grasses don't.\nYou can also take the opposite approach, you use a herbicide that kills everything, but then modify your plant so it is resistant to the herbicide. \"Roundup ready\" crops are an example of this approach. ",
"For killing weeds in your lawn, the most common herbicide is 2,4-D. Most weeds are broadleaf plants which means the growing part of the leaf is exposed (think a flat leaf growing wider). Grasses grow from the root. 2,4-D mimics a growth hormone and when it is sprayed on growing leaves, it makes broadleaf plants grow so fast that they can’t keep up, and they eventually starve to death. The grass root is underground so the growing part of the grass plant is protected from contact with the herbicide. ",
"It depends on the herbicide. Glyphosate will kill both grass and weeds, while dimethylamine kills many weeds, but leaves many common grass varieties alone. Grass varieties differ in certain aspects from many weeds and the different herbicides available make use of these differences to attack some plants but spare others. \n\nIn the case of something like roundup (glyphosate) it kills plants by interfering with the plants use of certain amino acids. It breaks some of the cellular machinery necessary for life. Because it interferes with amino acids that grass also uses, it kills grass. \n\nOther herbicides like dimethylamine work by causing vascular systems in fast growing plants to grow too quickly. Weeds tend to grow faster than grass, and it takes advantage of this fast growth to push it even farther so that growth is so fast that the plant can't circulate nutrients effectively. Slower growing plants like grass are less impacted, although some varieties do grow quickly and could die. \n\nSome weeds are members of the grass family and herbicides that work on them, would also kill most varieties of lawn grass. Here in the South we have problems with Johnson Grass. It's very difficult to kill because any weed killer that could kill it would also kill lawn grass. It has a rhizome so pulling it leaves the root system and it will re-grow later. It also grows faster than grass and most other weeds and its hard on the soil. ",
"In the context of grass and the RoundUp products that you can buy for broadleaf weeds, it has to do with the herbicide being specific for dicot plants (weeds) instead of the monocot plants (grass) like other people have mentioned. \n\nHowever, in commercial farming herbicide is often applied to a field of crops as a mixture with a chemical called a safener. Safeners are meant to keep the crop \"safe\", hence the name, preventing it from herbicide injury. However, an intriguing aspect of this field of study is that the molecular mechanism of safeners is not fully understood. The one thing that we do know is that safeners cause the overproduction of an enzyme called glutathione-S-transferase (GST) that detoxifies the herbicide by breaking the molecule into smaller parts. The signaling pathway that safeners use, however, is the big mystery. \n\nSource: I am a research assistant in a Crop Sciences lab and this is our main focus\n\n ",
"I mean, from what I know about the topic historically, they just redefined what counts as a weed and what doesnt. \n\nClover lawns aren't a thing anymore, because the original weed killers murdered the hell out of them. The existence of weed killer is the reason why incredibly bland monoculture lawns of one strain of grass are so common, they just tended to survive well in the face of weed-killer. There used to be other things in your lawn, but it turned out to be cheaper/more feasible to just say \"those are all weeds.\"\n\nIt's the same way listerine mouth wash invented its own market, by creating \"Halitosis\" out of some vaguely ominous sounding latin for \"bad breath.\" Before they scared people into thinking they had bad breath, listerine was floor cleaner."
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74aiye | what's the difference between ssris and saris? | I know what the acronyms stand for, but I don't know what they actually do and the difference between the two. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/74aiye/eli5_whats_the_difference_between_ssris_and_saris/ | {
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"SSRIs bind to transporters that clear serotonin out of the synaptic cleft. Depending on how selective the specific SSRI in question is, it may or may not have some effect on dopamine and norepinephrine transporters.\n\n & nbsp;\n\nSARIs have similar action on transporters as SSRIs, with the additional effect of \"hitting\" serotonin receptors and possibly dopamine receptors, depending on the specific drug. I used the vague term \"hitting\" because they act as partial agonists (activating the receptors), antagonists (preventing activation of the receptors by serotonin) and inverse agonists (specifically inactivating the receptors).\n\n & nbsp;\n\nThe mechanism for how these binding and activation effects produce the physiological effects is not well understood."
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2as407 | why do mini m & m's taste so much better than regular m & m's? | Or is it just me? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2as407/eli5_why_do_mini_mms_taste_so_much_better_than/ | {
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"I'm going to go with the crunchy outside to chocolate ratio.",
"Just like veal... they're tender and sweet before they grow up :)",
"Because they're smaller, there's less of that waxy, shitty chocolate inside. So you apparently like the crunchy dye-and-sugar shell. ",
"Word to the wise: M & M's use the nastiest, most flavorless chocolate available. If you could remove the candy shells and just eat the filling, it would taste like a chocolate-flavored crayon. The candy shell's not so bad, so by improving the shell-to-filling ratio, you get better flavor.",
"They're covered in a thin candy shell. Surprised you didn't know that.",
"Thin candy shell to chocolate ratio is a good theory. Another is that you probably don't just eat one at a time. So with smaller pieces you eat an amount more to your exact desire at the time. So not only a better Shell to chocolate ratio but a more precise ability to distribute the candy into your hand then hand to mouth.",
"I find the same to be true, mini m & m's are superior, but if you want to make your standard candies better, try microwaving them for 10 to 15 seconds. Makes the shell crispier and the inside a little warm and melty, my favorite. ",
"Because you're a bloody heathen.",
"This is the realest question out there. It boggles my mind. "
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14nz6b | semiconductors | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/14nz6b/eli5_semiconductors/ | {
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"Most things either conduct electricity well, or don't (insulators). Typically, things that conduct, conduct even better at higher temperatures. Semiconductors are substances that can either conduct well or not, based on things other than temperatures. For instance, some only conduct in one direction, some change conductivity based on whether there is light hitting them. Using combinations of semiconductors, you can create small electronic circuits that act according to simple rules. Things like \"if both of these wires that come together are carrying electricity, it will flow out this third wire, but it won't otherwise\". From these simple circuits you can create logic, which makes your computer work.",
"The key principle is the \"band gap\". According to classical physics, if you have an electron in an atom, you can give it just a bit more energy. And that \"little bit\" can be any value. But that's not how things actually work. Since electrons have to obey the laws of quantum mechanics, the electrons in an atom can only inhabit certain energy states. This can lead to what is called a band gap. \n \n\nAssuming you know a little more chemistry and physics than your typical 5 year old: \n \nThe outer electrons on an atom are called \"valence electrons\", and their energy level is the \"valence band\". (It's a \"band\" because it is a range of values, not just one number.) Electrons with more energy than the valence electrons are no longer tightly bound to individual atoms, and they can move around fairly freely within the material. They are said to be in the \"conduction band\" of energy. When a substance has a lot of electrons in the conduction band, the electrons can move around quite a bit if given a good reason to, like an electric field (a voltage). We call those materials good conductors of electricity. \n \nIn most metals, the valence band and conduction band actually overlap, so they have plenty of electrons in the conduction band and can conduct electricity well. In insulators, there's a big energy gap between the two bands...you have to provide a lot of energy to get any of the valence electrons to jump up into the conduction band. The energy levels in-between the two bands aren't allowed due to quantum mechanics. So insulators are crappy conductors of electricity. There simply aren't any electrons with the freedom to move around.\nSemiconductors (like Si, Ge, GaAs, etc.) have a small band gap. Since there is a gap, they normally don't conduct electricity well, just like insulators. But if you can give the electrons a bit of energy to jump up into the conduction band, they are fairly decent conductors of electricity. This is why they are called *semi*conductors. \n \nIt turns out that it is also possible to \"tune\" the band gap of semiconductors by introducing some atoms of another material (a \"dopant\"). And it is possible to get electrons over the small band gap by supplying a voltage. So by doing some band-gap engineering, it is possible to construct structures that will either conduct or not conduct using very small voltages or currents to control their conductivity. We call those structures \"transistors\". \n \nSilicon has a lot of physical properties that make it preferable to other semiconductors. It can easily be oxidized, making an insulating layer. It is cheap and plentiful. It can be \"grown\" into large single crystals that are relatively defect free. It has fairly good thermal properties. Because of these reasons and others, a huge body of knowledge has been developed about how to make circuits using silicon as the main component, and make those circuits cheap, reliable, and high performance. Sometimes Si won't do all of those things well (like very high frequency devices, or lasers), so other materials are used instead."
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59gzq0 | why is sitting close to a monitor for long periods bad for your eyes as apposed to looking at brickwall for a long period | [deleted] | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/59gzq0/eli5_why_is_sitting_close_to_a_monitor_for_long/ | {
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"You're focusing at the same distance for hours on end day after day. The muscles in your eye will hold at that focus and tire. RSI.\n",
"It's not bad for your eyes in that it causes permanent harm. It's bad for your eyes in that you are doing a strenuous activity (focusing on words, scrolling your eyes around constantly, dealing with strongly varying light levels) that can make them tired and cause strain, which is uncomfortable. \n\nThis is resolved by doing something else for a while, so the relevant muscles can rest."
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8t0kll | what the differences between micro and molecular biology | I really don't understand the differences even after looking it up online several times. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/8t0kll/eli5_what_the_differences_between_micro_and/ | {
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"Microbio is like...cell to cell interactions. It's on the level of cell organelles in humans, cells interacting with each other in small colonies, that kinda thing. It's usually interested in viruses, bacteria, etc.\n\nMolecular bio is like protein/molecular interaction level. It's closer to biochemistry in that you're looking at smaller objects than microbio, usually in the context of inside of a cell or inside of an organelle. ",
"Microbiology deals with the study of microbes... Primarily bacteria\nMolecular biology is study of biological molecules like proteins, DNA, lipids...\nMolecular biology is more of a general tool which can be applied to study whatever is your field of interest (like microbiology)"
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ewu8h0 | a mongooses immunity to cobra venom | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/ewu8h0/eli5_a_mongooses_immunity_to_cobra_venom/ | {
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"Your nerves are covered in protein receptors that function like little locks. They also produce proteins, called neurotransmitters, that function like little keys which perfectly match the keyhole that the receptors have. When the correct neurotransmitter goes into a receptor, it \"twists\" and briefly causes a small hole to open up in the cell. This hole allows a small amount of electrolyte into the cell, which causes the cell to briefly turn on. \n\nTo prevent the cell from staying on perpetually, it has enzymes that break neurotransmitters down shortly after they enter a receptor. This causes the hole to close so electrolytes stops flowing in. The cell, meanwhile, is constantly pumping electrolytes out. Now that electrolytes can't flow in, electrolyte levels in the cell go back to normal and it turns off.\n\nCobra venom contains a protein that fits into the \"lock\" on one of the important protein receptors on animal nerves. However, despite fitting the lock, the cobra venom protein doesn't twist so no hole gets opened and the nerve doesn't activate. The cobra venom protein is also different enough from the normal neurotransmitter that the nerve cell can't break it down. This means that the cobra venom protein just sits in the protein receptor without doing anything - blocking it from being used by neurotransmitters. \n\nIf enough of this protein gets into an animal's body, it blocks all of that animal's neurotransmitters. When all of an animal's neurotransmitters are blocked, its nervous system turns off. When an animal's nervous system turns off, it stops breathing and dies.\n\nMongooses are immune to cobra venom because they have protein receptors with a very slightly different keyhole shape than other animals. That keyhole is still similar enough that the mongoose's neurotransmitters can fit in it to function normally. However, its also different enough that cobra venom now just slightly doesn't fit. Because the cobra venom can't get into the mongoose's protein receptors, it doesn't have an effect on the mongoose."
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cd7yzd | why do our energy levels go down when we're depressed? | Depressed people I've seen generally feel more tired and fatigued than usual and end up sleeping more than usual. Why is this? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/cd7yzd/eli5_why_do_our_energy_levels_go_down_when_were/ | {
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"From an article on Medical News Today: \"People with depression are more likely to experience fatigue, and people with chronic fatigue are more likely to become depressed, creating a cycle that can be hard to break. Potential causes of depression fatigue include sleep problems, diet, stress, and even the medications used to treat depression.\"\n\nBecause depression messes with the chemicals in your brain, it can not only affect your thinking but your other nervous system functions as well.\n\nThink about when you were super tired, like maybe pulled an all-nighter or had the flu and could barely make yourself move. Depression can sap your energy with the same effect, by interfering with your brain's ability to regulate energy in the body. It can cause flu-like body aches, for instance.",
"Depression in many ways puts your body through the same processes that a lot of physical illnesses do. One part of that is that both are associated with the release of what are called pro-inflammatory cytokines in your body. Like the name implies, these are chemicals that cause inflammation in your body. Evolutionarily speaking, what humans and other animals do when they are sick is retreat and rest. They retreat because they are weak and wouldn’t be able to defend themselves against enemies. They are fatigued because their body is fighting off whatever is making them ill, and sleep more to reserve their energy. A lot of other stuff can happen here as well, but essentially your body shuts down everything that is not necessary for your immediate survival (sex drive? being able to solve super difficult sudokus? you don’t need that right now!) Collectively these are called sickness behaviors, and they developed because they are adaptive for your survival. Only with depression things get a little trickier because there is no obvious virus or bacteria to fight off. But essentially you’re body is confused but trying to help the best it can: it can hear the alarm bells ringing, and the alarm signal sounds a lot like being physically injured.",
"The top comment summarizes it really well but I wanted to add one thing.\n\nThere are a lot of medical conditions that cause depression as a side effect. For example, hypothyroidism (thyroid is under functioning) and Cushing's disease (there's too much cortisol/steroids floating around). \n\nBoth of these conditions can also cause things like fatigue. So, in those cases, it's not just the depression that's causing the lack of energy; it's that a medical condition is causing both depression and fatigue independently.",
"Some researchers conceive of mood disorders as the variation of three things:\n\n\\- Mood, as in good mood or bad mood\n\n\\- Energy, as in bouncing off walls or can't get out of bed\n\n\\- Intellect, as in think quickly or being stuporous\n\nIf these all vary in sync you get classic mania or depression. Various combinations give you other symptoms, like low mood with high energy is the very dangerous \"mixed state.\" Here's an article about it - skip straight to the graph:\n\n [_URL_0_](_URL_0_)"
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4v71pa | why is it not a good idea to give people who are starving as much food as they want? | I remember reading something in an old history class talking about those who were deeply malnourished in concentration camps. It was mentioned that some of them died after they were released because the Allies gave them a bunch of food and they basically "ate themselves to death". How did this happen? Could something like this actually happen? Am I remembering this read incorrectly?
EDIT: Thanks all for the answers. Explained! | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4v71pa/eli5_why_is_it_not_a_good_idea_to_give_people_who/ | {
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"It's called refeeding syndrome.\n\nEssentially, their entire body has gone into starvation mode that is optimized for survival under conditions of extreme food shortage. Minerals such as phosphate, magnesium and potassium are already extremely low throughout the body, but to keep the body alive the concentrations in the blood is kept at normal levels. When overfeeding a starved patient, this changes.\n\nWhen you suddenly feed then, it signals the body primarily through insulin to start an immediate high uptake of glucose, amino acids etc. from the blood. Because of the way these nutrients are usually processed in biological pathways, and demands inside the cells, this consumes phosphate and potassium (fun fact: A treatment for having too much potassium in the blood can be to administer insulin and glucose) to a degree that can be life threatening as they are pulled from the blood to meet demands in the cells.\n\nWe absolutely need these minerals and molecules to function. ATP which is the most active energy transport molecule contains phosphate and using this up in a period of starvation can be disastrous. As for potassium, a low concentration in the blood can trigger a heart attack. It also triggers a fall in blood calcium due to increased cellular activity.\n\nIn simply terms, you run the risk of killing these people by moving essential factors from the blood to the cells when they're already critically low.\n\nTherefore you need to monitor the blood chemistry closely and not overfeed patients who have been starved for long periods, including extremely anorexic patients.",
"IIRC It's called refeeding syndrome. A guest lecturer of IV nutrition explained it last year. When someone is malnourished their body creates a new homeostasis for electrolytes trying to keep enough in cells and the blood. As the person eats, their body releases mass amounts of insulin to try and use all the sugar. All the electrolytes also begin to move in and out of cells trying to quickly stabilize. This causes all kinds of havoc like coma, organ failure, and the most common cause of death, heart arrythmias."
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1nf8zy | how a waiter can lose money if someone doesn't tip | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1nf8zy/eli5_how_a_waiter_can_lose_money_if_someone/ | {
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"A waiter's employer usually pays them around $2.50/hour. If they do not make the equivalent of minimum wage with tips their employer is legally obligated to reimburse them. \n\nHowever, servers generally make more than minimum wage every hour in tips, meaning getting reimbursed up to minimum wage because of shitty tippers means they are making less per hour than they usually would. ",
"This as commented on yesterday. But basically there appears to be several factors. \n1) Waitstaff are paid at below minimum wage, as government assumes tips and thus they factor in tips to their minimum wage levels. Ex. In Ontario minimum. Wage is 10.25 I believe, wait staff are paid 7-8 from the business, rest is from tips. \n2) Of their tips they are required to share with bus staff, bar staff and even kitchen and Management staff, though management taking a cut is frowned on. This is simply done by assuming everyone tips, and taking 3-5 percent of the bill total for those staff. Also they add I was told 10% of total value of the bill to their pay stub for income and unemployment taxes. They biggest visible on hit is that bar bus pool, but in a busy restaurant a server can see their base pay eaten by the assumed tip wage of 10% total food served. \n\nSo bottom line, servers live off tips and not getting tips does cost them. ",
"Some servers are required to enroll in IRS programs like [TRDA](_URL_0_) or [GITCA](_URL_1_). The programs apply a par value to the average amount of tips you are expected to earn and then automatically claim them as taxable. This can be a benefit or burden.\n\nFor example, if the par value is assumed to be 15% tips, but the servers brings home an average of 20%, then they didn't have to claim 5% (thus, a benefit). However, if the server only brings home an average of 10%, then the full 15% is still automatically deducted, which hurts them.\n",
"Being a server myself, this is how i lose money by non-tippers. \n\nI get paid a base rate of $2.13/hr. All of the rest of my money comes from tips. Now imagine in a busy restaurant, all service comes from your waiter, but your waiter has various other employees backing him up, i.e. a busboy to clean tables, or a bartender to make drinks. These people are usually tipped out a percentage by the server for their help, based on the sever's sales for the shift. \nNow imagine that your bill were to be $100, and the server will have to tip out $2 from the money they make. If you are a really crappy tipper and leave only $1, then the server has effectively lost a dollar by serving you.\nBut it gets worse. All of your tips still have to be taxed, which is where that $2.13/hr comes in. I have received multiple $0.00 paychecks because that base rate was not enough to cover the amount i owe in taxes on my tips. And in all likelihood, any amount that wasn't already covered by that base rate will be taken out of my tax return at the end of the year",
"Taxes and tip outs aside, there's also a matter of real estate. If your sit down at a table in my section, you're basically renting that seat for the time it takes you to finish your meal. Say I have 5 tables in my section, I can anticipate turning over those 5 tables 3 times over the course of my shift, and make $5 in tips per table. That's $75 night. But, if one of those customers stiffs me, I've just rented out one of my tables to someone who isn't going to pay when that seat and effort could have gone to someone who would. "
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7blm0n | why is it that sitting for extended periods can cause blood clots but laying down sleeping for 6-8 hours a night doesn’t? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/7blm0n/eli5_why_is_it_that_sitting_for_extended_periods/ | {
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"When you sleep your blood does not have to flow upwards, your body is mostly straight and you are still moving alot in sleep. So If your leg is broken and you can't move a little your chance developing cloths is higher. That's why they give you shots in hospital every day. While sitting the legs aren't moved much, they are angled and the blood have to flow upwards. ",
"It can? Maybe happens less Often but thé Point being is that you need to move to lower it's risk. If you wake up, site for 8 hours and go to bed again you higher thé risk.\n\nMaybe also because blood lowers to the legs when sitting. More blood there with less pressure on it. Cloths can form more easily?",
"Sitting is not a \"natural\" position - we haven't been doing it for very long in evolutionary terms, so it can cause problems due to how our bodies are shaped. \n\nFor most of human history, and still in very poor and ancient cultures, people would squat instead of sitting. We evolved buttocks because they store fat to burn when walking or running, not for padding to sit on.\n\nLying down, however, *is* a natural posture for us that doesn't interfere as much with circulation.\n\n",
"In sitting your blood has to work against gravity to go back up. In lying everything is the same level and doesn’t have to work as hard to go to your feet and back.\n\nAn extra fun fact: clots in your calves can go to your lungs and kill you that’s why it is important to prevent them ",
"Neglecting the aspects of moving and such that everyone else is mentioning,\nHere's a basic principle.\n\nPressure = Force/Area. \n\nThe more area you have, the less force that area is subject to. \n\nBloodclots are caused when the pressure forces the blood vessels closed, or prevent flow of blood. \nWhen you are sitting, the pressure(on just your butt area) on such a small area prevent blood from moving and therefore, you end up with blood clots. \nWhen you are sleeping, the pressure is distributed much more evenly. (more surface area, Your back, legs, head, etc.)\n\nNow to the sciency mathy parts. rounded to really nice even numbers just because i'm lazy, but its close enough.\n\nIf you divide you butt are by weight. That comes out to the pressure you exert on the are. It averages out to something like 15mm hg (there's math behind this and i'm pulling number out of my butt.. literally :P ) \nNow we all know that flow needs a pressure difference in order to move. (gravity, pressure, concentration, etc)\n\nThe pressure difference between the arteries and the venous system is just about 10 mmhg. \n\nSo.. when you sit down, you exert 15 mmhg of additional pressure prevent blood flow to leave an area, and that's why you end up with blood clots. When sleeping, the area is more distributed, the pressure less, and less blood clots. \n\nOnto the Yes i know.. but what about... \nBedsores. (yes.. certain areas carry more weight. If you don't end up moving, blood clots and flow issues.\n\nThe LEGS MAN, What about the legs!!!! Her legs, and right where her legs meet her back. That - actually that whole area. That and - and above it.\n\nGravity. Yes.. Gravity plays a part. Reminds me of a story...\n\n",
"Sitting doesn't cause blood clots by itself. The danger of a pulmonary embolism is when someone has an injury like a torn calf muscle and they go on say a long plane flight, a blood clot could grow larger than usual because of lack of movement and then break free, travelling to the heart and stopping blood flow causing a heart attack. Normally the blood clot never gets that big because with regular movement smaller bits will break free and get absorbed by the body. \n\nAt least that's how it was explained to me by a doctor that was an expert witness in a legal case where I had to design the visual representation (animation and stills) for the jury. Dude was suing his doctor because he flew to Australia with a tennis injury and almost died because of a pulmonary embolism. Said his doctor didn't properly warn him to get up and walk around every so often to keep the blood clot from getting too big. Don't recall if he won or not, but that's why they say to get up and walk around on long flights, in case you have an injury that could cause a clot to grow while sitting for long periods.\n\nI have no idea if this is a danger while sleeping too, but I would think that with normal sleep movement it wouldn't be an issue since you're constantly changing positions while asleep.",
"This is called a deep vein thrombosis and its more common after surgery, during travel, and in people who are at greater risk for it due to blood conditions and platelet count. \n\nThe changes undergone in the body after having surgery can increase clotting and the chances of having a clot. This is made more likely by being more sedentary when recovering due to pain and mobility so it's important that people get up and walk at set schedules, even if it hurts. Patients are often given heparin injections to thin the blood after surgery, even going so far as to have patients self inject for days after being released from the hospital. \n\nSitting for long periods isn't great for the body, but under normal conditions it isn't that bad. However when traveling for long periods of time, crammed into small and uncomfortable airline, train, or bus, seats, coupled with the seating position, circulation problems from seat design, and that at many times people are discouraged from getting out of their seat, people are more likely to develop them. Blood also tends to pool in the lower extremities when seated for long periods. Imagine a 20 hour flight to Australia in coach, where you can only get up and move around sparingly due to tightly packed seats. Outside of restroom breaks you might not get up at all. \n\nLaying down in bed doesn't put so much pressure on the thighs and cause blood to pool in the legs. It also doesn't affect circulation in any negative way unlike sitting. Standing still causes blood to pool in the lower limbs, however the action of walking helps with circulation and the muscle movements and motion help stimulate blood flow. ",
"Well laying down for an extended period will eventually also lead to thrombosis. However sleeping usually does not trigger thrombosis because:\n\n\n1. While you are sleeping you still sometimes move your legs, activating your muscle pumps and reducing the risk of thrombosis. \n\n2. Blood does not have to flow upwards like in a supine position.\n\nAnd thrombosis after sitting for extended periods of time is usually in tight spaces (e.g. planes), where the veins are additionally compressed externally - this is also known as “economy class syndrome”. \n",
"I have a followup ELI5 - When people wear the compression socks to help with circulation, how does it not just cut off or restrict blood circulation to the feet? Are compression sleeves a good thing to wear in general if you sit for long periods of time? Does it actually help?",
"Is sitting down cross legged just as bad as sifting down normally?",
"To answer this, we should first take a look first at the circulatory system’s method of flow.\n\nThe blood comes out of the heart and into the aorta and arterial system. The arteries are much thicker because of their more robust tunica media layer. That’s basically a smooth muscle layer that handles the high pressure, and in the case of the arterioles (medium sized arteries), it changes tone to effect your blood pressure.\n\nOnce the blood goes through the capillary level (where it moves more slowly to accommodate oxygen, CO2, and metabolite diffusion), it goes into the venous system to make its journey back to the heart and lungs.\n\n***CUE Part where DVTs (deep vein thromboses) happen\n\nThe venous system is composed of very floppy vessels with valves to help prevent backflow of blood. It has a much thinner tunica media and it depends on the contraction of skeletal muscle (the voluntary muscles you use to walk) near it to help with blood flow when flow fights gravity (returns to the heart). If blood isn’t moving fast enough, the clotting mechanisms kick in and you get a thrombus (fancy pants word for clot).\n\nWhen you’re sleeping, your legs are more or less at the phlebostatic axis (on a horizontal plane with your heart), meaning return flow is *much* easier because you aren’t fighting gravity to get that blood back up to the heart. When you sleep, your body moves a tiny bit to keep venous return flow going, but the gravity is your most influential variable. With the gravity being alleviated, you aren’t usually laying down long enough to make a difference. If you’re down for more than a day or two, we start to treat it a bit.\n\n*In the hospital, we use some anticoagulants (anti-clot meds) and powered compression devices to simulate skeletal muscle contraction. This is mostly because people are in bed for days at a time without a lot of motion while recovering. The tops of the beds also tilt up, so gravity makes an appearance again. This is why nurses put pillows under the knees or slightly elevate the legs (some nicer beds can do this) so the hips are the lowest part of the body (not with a straight knee as that actually inhibits flow as well—I’ll get into that at the bottom). Minimizing the effects of gravity helps the venous circulation even more than the compression machines by themselves.\n\nQuadriplegic people bound to wheelchairs often have tilt chairs because they get almost no skeletal muscle activity in their whole body.\n\n**Answer time/ TL;DR** When you’re sitting for prolonged periods, your skeletal muscle activity is low, but because you’re flighting gravity, your blood has a tendency to push into the venous walls and expand them (remember they’re floppy), causing a decrease in flow velocity due to a widened vessel. It’s like taking the sprayer nozzle off a garden hose. The change in diameter causes an inverse change with regards to flow even though the same amount of fluid is going through. When the blood is allowed to slow down like this, it causes an increased risk of clot.\n\nYou may be wondering why a clot is so bad. It can break away and float to your lung, causing a Pulmonary Embolus (PE) and killing part of your lung. It could float to your brain and give you a massive stroke. It could also block your coronary circulation and give you a heart attack. All three of those can kill you.\n\nGetting up frequently on flights helps decrease the risk for clots. Couple that with compression socks/sleeves/tights (the leg is more at risk than the thigh and is the more important part for compression), and that usually reduces the risk of clot formation *dramatically*. Also to note, compression shorts aren’t a good idea because they prevent a backflow as the blood goes from the uncompressed leg to the compressed thigh. Distal is more important, so the compression should be greater there and should decrease as it gets more proximal to your body (distal = further from heart, proximal = closer).\n\nIf you have clotting disorders, consult your physician before flying. If you’re on birth control or pregnant, it’s a good idea to get your PTT/INR checked regularly (clotting factors). This is purely educational and not a substitute for medical advice.\n\n*As promised: the straight knees thing! Straight knees actually cause the veins to bend a tight (but small) turn. Think of it as a kink in the garden hose that causes resistance in the vessel. When people pass out from standing with straight legs, this is why.*\n\nHope this helped! I love physiology! Let me know if you have questions! Again, this is just for educational purposes.\n\nPlease excuse any typos/autocorrects. I did this on my mobile.\n\nEdit: Yay Gold!!! Thank you so much kind stranger!!!! I’m stoked to figure out what it does 😁",
"How do people who are chronically confined to a wheelchair deal with this?",
"See, I'm a hemophiliac, which means my blood is super shitty at clotting.\n\nThat means I actually have an advantage when it comes to any task or activity that is sedentary for long periods of time! Can't build up a deadly blood clot if I can't can't clot to begin with!\n\nThat pretty much makes me the Ubermensch of any office setting.\n\nI'm just going to sit here and smile at my screen smugly knowing that there's nothing anyone can say at this point to deliver any sort of come-uppance.",
"Physiologist here: \n\nBlood tends to clot when it stagnates (i.e. isn't flowing very fast). \n\nYour heart pumps blood from it to the rest of the body under high pressure in arteries. By the time the blood reaches the distant parts of your body (e.g. fingers, toes) and passes through the capillary bed (small network of blood vessels that connect arteries and veins), there is very little blood pressure remaining - not enough, for example, to move blood from the feet to the heart when the blood is working against gravity (when you are standing or seated). Blood is mostly water (it's heavy) and it takes quite a bit of pressure to move it from your feet to your heart when you are sitting or standing - as your heart is located at least a meter or more above your feet. \n\nTo help move blood back to the heart when you are sitting/standing, your veins have one-way valves in them. Muscles surrounding these veins contract, squeeze the vein, and the one-way valve ensures that blood in the vein only moves towards the heart. When you are normally sitting or standing, periodically moving your legs causes your leg muscles to contract, squeeze veins that run through/near them and help to pump blood back to the heart. \n\nWhen you're seated , your leg muscles are normally relaxed. Those leg muscles, therefore, aren't frequently contracting and relaxing as when you are standing/walking and shifting your feet; they aren't pumping a lot of blood back to the heart. Blood tends to pool in your feet/lower legs, and this can cause blood clots to form. \n\nWhen you're sleeping, you typically are lying down. Blood in your lower extremities is typically only a few centimeters lower than your heart. It doesn't, therefore, take much energy to get that blood back to the heart. The small amount of pressure in your veins is typically sufficient to push the blood from your lower extremities to your heart when you are lying down. \n\n\n\n\n",
"Just throwing this out there... what about people on wheelchairs? They’re not dying of heart attacks more often are they?"
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1jd2h0 | how do i get fruit flies when i wash my produce when i bring it home and don't leave the window open? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1jd2h0/eli5_how_do_i_get_fruit_flies_when_i_wash_my/ | {
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"Follows you through the door, gaps in the window, tiny cracks and and holes etc. ",
"I'm assuming you mean Drosophila melanogaster (_URL_0_) or one of its relatives as opposed to other fruit fries (if you are referring to the agricultural pest, they may come from eggs laid in fruit). These flies likely get into your house via small holes in the exterior, cracked or opened doors (even just while someone is entering/leaving), or other small openings. Houses, especially older ones, aren't known for being airtight enough to keep out small insects."
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676olv | how does my body know which muscle i'm telling it to flex, or limb i want to move? | I'm fairly high, so if this is dumb I'm sorry but I'm pretty sure it's fairly not dumb | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/676olv/eli5_how_does_my_body_know_which_muscle_im/ | {
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"This is the most simplistic way I can think of to explain this; your brain has connections between neurons called synapses. Synapses carry electrical signals across neurons and parts of the body move based on the intensity and frequency of these signals. When you \"want\" to move something, the synapses fire in the part of the brain that controls that something and signals are sent from the brain, through the nerves in your body to the muscles in order to move that something.\nSo basically, you actively select which part to move (unless you have a muscular disorder such as chorea) and your brain will fire neurons in that area of your brain. The same thing happens when you are touched but in reverse. A stimulus activates nerves where you are touched and those nerves communicate to the part of your brain \"in charge\" of that body part.\nI hope that helped! It's a complicated process!\nEdit: Spelling because I didn't pass 5th grade English. ",
"Watch a baby. It stares at its hands as it wiggles its fingers. It shoves its hand in ins mouth. It rubs its feet. It touches its face. \n\nWhat you are seeing is the brain wiring up the *feelings* in the brain from the nerves with what actually happeneds. \n\nBabies are like little scientists, doing experiments on their bodies, testing what happens, and learning from it. "
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165oud | why bacon is seen as a manly food and seen as the best food ever? is it it's high calorie and fat content that makes it extremely palatable to humans? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/165oud/why_bacon_is_seen_as_a_manly_food_and_seen_as_the/ | {
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"Because its tastes delicious.",
"it's the kind of food that provides the energy and motivation to smash a wild animals head in with a rock (and let us as a species become awesome)",
"Because the people that like it dont judge taste by how many calories or grams of fat. We judge taste by simply the smile it brings to our face when we eat it"
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a8ilsq | why does the act of burning fuel at the buttom of a rocket make it move? what causes propulsion? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/a8ilsq/eli5_why_does_the_act_of_burning_fuel_at_the/ | {
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"It’s like blowing up a balloon and letting it go, the air escaping the balloon makes it fly. Now imagine the balloon can keep creating air by burning fuel.\n\nThe liquid fuels combine to becomes gas, and more gas molecules are created, as well as being. Heated up by the reaction. The new hot gas must go somewhere, and there is only one outlet so the hot air is ejected from the bottom.\n\nSince hot air is ejected from the bottom, by Newton’s third law, the rocket must also accelerate upwards.",
"\"For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction.\"\n\nWhen you fire a gun, the bullet flies forward and the gun kicks backward into your shoulder. A large enough gun would knock you backward. When a rocket burns its fuel, it squirts it through a nozzle so that it is going really fast, faster than the speed of sound, if the nozzle is shaped just right. All that fuel flying backwards, or down, \"kicks\" the rocket forward, or up, just as the bullet kicks the gun back. In fact, you could build a \"rocket\" out of a bunch of machine guns and make it fly if you did it right. About 40 AK-47s firing downward would lift you off the ground if you fired them all at once, and keep you flying until you ran out of bullets, about two seconds later.",
"As I understand it, it's based on conservation of momentum. The rocket is losing mass through burning fuel and in a sense is \"pushing\" off of the fuel as it burns. As the fuel gets slung back, the rocket gets pushed forward.\n\nThe same goes for some RCS thrusters that let spacecraft change their orientation through expelling / burning compressed gas",
"thrust is what causes propulsion. you know how a gun works right? a small controlled explosion launches a projectile in the only direction that's unobstructed. thrust is the same thing, except the duration of the explosion is controlled too.",
"Newton's 3rd law: Every action has an equal and opposite reaction. You push something, it pushes back on you with the same force. You can test this at home if you have a rolling chair or skateboard something stable with wheels. Place the chair on as smooth a surface as you can find, grab something reasonably sized (not big enough to break or cause damage when you throw it) and have a seat. Now throw it in front of you as hard as you can. You'll notice the chair/skateboard/whatever moves backwards. A rocket is just pushing exhaust out the bottom with tremendous speed. The exhaust pushes back on the rocket, making it go in the opposite direction. "
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erdlb0 | on old fashioned ships from the 1600s pirate times etc i’m guessing they had fires to keep warm how did they keep these safe and protect the wooden ship from burning? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/erdlb0/eli5_on_old_fashioned_ships_from_the_1600s_pirate/ | {
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"In the age of sail, ship's cabins were poorly ventilated, and dozens (or even hundreds) of men would keep the cabin more than warm enough with their body heat alone when they were sleeping. When walking about the deck of the ship, warm clothing was about all that could be relied on.\n\nShips were extremely flammable, with not just wood and cloth but also tar for waterproofing the ship. \n\nWhile there were ovens introduced later on, they were more for cooking and were not designed for heating the ship.\n\nYou can find more info here: [_URL_0_](_URL_0_)",
"As someone has already said, fires weren’t really used for warmth, but ships even in the 1500s had a brick kychen down in the hold for cooking. They would only be able to use this in fair weather as the hatches would need to be open to let the smoke out. Most of the time food was dried or salted or more likely simple thrice baked biscuits.",
"The British Navy adopted [Brodie Stoves](_URL_0_) from 1781to 1819 for cooking on most royal navy ships. Before that they did have other types of firehearths.",
"There were seldom open fires on a ship due to the extreme danger that a fire represented. For certain specialized cases (e.g. whalers rendering whale oil) there would be fires that were carefully watched. \n\nEven matches were a significant danger. The term \"the smoking lamp is lit\" was still used up until recently in the Navy to indicate that smoking was allowed. This came from the days when a literal lamp was provided for sailors to use in lighting their pipes or cigars. No lamp, no smoking.",
"The worst were whaling ships. The decks were covered in oil and blubber renderings. There are many reasons working on a whaling ship would be miserable (operating in cold regions), but the restriction on fires for heating would be brutal."
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6k6k0n | if our nose and mouth are connected, why do we sniff some drugs and swallow others? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/6k6k0n/eli5_if_our_nose_and_mouth_are_connected_why_do/ | {
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"The ones that go up your nose usually don't go down into your stomach. Sniffable drugs are intended to be absorbed through the mucous membranes that are up in your sniffer. Not all chemicals can be absorbed in this way, some have to be absorbed through the stomach or intestine."
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3ep7fd | why does vimeo's 720p look better than youtube's 1080p? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3ep7fd/eli5_why_does_vimeos_720p_look_better_than/ | {
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"Compression ratio. Basically YouTube gets so many views per day the data rates would be astronomical to send uncompressed but vimeo is slightly less pouplar so can have a better bitrate of video. \n\nBasically it's all to do with bitrate compression. If I upload a 2gb video to YouTube and then download it again I'm not going to get the 2gb file. I'm going to get 2-300 mb file back. ",
"Bitrate. I don't know what Vimeo streams at, but 1080p 30fps on YouTube streams at a max of around 3.8Mbps (depending on the original file size). \n \n1080p 30fps on Netflix is 5.8 Mbps (if using Safari or IE for your web browser), and apps like HBO Go/Now streams 1080p 30fps at around 8Mbps. \n \n \nTo give you a frame of reference, 1080p 24fps on Blu-ray ranges from 24-36 Mbps usually (32 Mbps being average). \n \nEach tv provider is different, but I have FiOS and they broadcast at around 10 Mbps, you can zoom ~50% in on 720p channels and it still looks decent.",
"Vimeo content creators are generally industry professionals who know how to properly deliver a file to Vimeo. They usually deliver a ProRes QuickTime file or another properly compressed codec.\n\nYouTube creators are more likely the general public who are uploading highly compressed files to start with which are compressed again by YouTube. Most people (even professionals) don't realize you can upload professional formats to YouTube such as ProRes. When I upload high resolution ProRes file from a good source (like a red or Alexa camera) it looks pretty damn good. "
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6usm5v | why does fox allow their shows to make fun of the network? | [Example](_URL_0_) | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/6usm5v/eli5why_does_fox_allow_their_shows_to_make_fun_of/ | {
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"Your taking a few, super specific examples of shows that do this. These are very much the exception, considering Fox has had thousands of shows. And even in these examples, they are often \"fun\" or parody and not derogatory (although the Simpsons has pushed it).\n\nHere's each:\n\nThe Simpsons - They have a specific clause in their deal, that was made very long ago that the network does not get oversight on this stuff and they can do whatever. They have used this to poke fun at Fox their entire run. But if you watch it, none of it is that crazy, its more fun and funny.\n\nFuturama - Made by the same people as the Simpsons, with similar contract stuff, and its just done for comedy and fun, nothing more than one-off nonsense jokes.\n\nFamily Guy - In the very tiny amounts they do it, its generally parody and fun, not derogatory.\n\nMarried with Children - This was **the** show on Fox, and when Fox was a new network, and doing new and weird stuff that didn't work out, everyone was telling these kinds of jokes about Fox. They also talked a lot about TV of the show, so this was a bit of an inside joke, they make fun of Fox, and are on Fox.\n\n",
"Fox, like most TV companies, cares formost about money. If the show's jokes can get a laugh out of the expense of Fox, that just adds to the people who may stick through the commerical break. Furthermore, Fox's ability to take a joke could attract other shows, which could increase profits further. \n\nTL:DR: As long as there's no serious critism on Fox, they just like the money.",
"Fox news makes money doing their stuff, Fox TV shows make money doing their stuff. As long as both are making money fox is happy."
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66dcx8 | why are cartoons primarily considered as being "for children" in the modern day? what happened? | I know cartoons tended to be a normal thing for adults to watch in the 1930s or so. Why did that change? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/66dcx8/eli5_why_are_cartoons_primarily_considered_as/ | {
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"I don't know why it changed but cartoons seem to be coming back as something acceptable for adults. As you can tell epic tales not possible with live actors far cheaper.",
"The answer is \"Saturday Morning Cartoons\". \n\nIn the 70's and 80's, Toy manufacturers and their marketers figured out that they could make half hour long commercials for their toys, run them on saturdays when kids were off from school, and profit.\n\nDuring this time, the cartoon business was essentially an extension of the toy business.",
"There was a moral panic in the US after WWII, part of the larger Red Scare, where comics were accused of brainwashing kids into becoming antisocial criminals (c.f. *Seduction of the Innocent*). After that the old way of doing cartoons, with jokes that both adults and children could get, was erased. Thereafter, cartoons were aimed at children only (with exceptions like Ralph Bakshi) and dropped in quality creating the impression in American culture that they were just for kids. "
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dmu0fl | how on earth do weapon suppressors work? do they really decrease penetration/range potential of a bullet? without it overheating, how long would it take for it to break? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/dmu0fl/eli5_how_on_earth_do_weapon_suppressors_work_do/ | {
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"Suppressors work like car mufflers. They capture the explosion and expanding gasses. They do not actually effect the projectile. Suppressors are actually built quite solid. I recommend lookin up iraqveteran888 on YouTube for a more knowledgeable souce."
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9u1p50 | how would you explain how short a human life span is in comparison to the age of the universe? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/9u1p50/eli5_how_would_you_explain_how_short_a_human_life/ | {
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"If the entire history of the universe was condensed into one calendar year, humans wouldn't even show up until December 31st. Modern civilization wouldn't show up until the last 14 seconds of the year. ",
"Explain, or exemplify?\n\nOthers seem to exemplify it pretty well. But to explain it - why would nature make us old? Animals that only breed once they are 100 take much longer to natural-select their beneficial mutations to prominence than animals that breed earlier. And once an animal is past breeding age - nature has no use for it."
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8vir2c | could scaring a person in anaphylaxis - along with benadryl - create enough adrenaline to hold the person over to get to an epipen? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/8vir2c/eli5_could_scaring_a_person_in_anaphylaxis_along/ | {
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"Person is already scared they are going to die. (duh)\n\nHistamine release that has occurred by that time is already too massive to be so easily counteracted that benadryl would work."
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5klnid | why is the option to invert colors on certain electronic devices usually under the accessibility section? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5klnid/eli5_why_is_the_option_to_invert_colors_on/ | {
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"Because inverting colors can be helpful for people with a sensitivity to brightness, it can make text and images easier to distinguish for some people with color blindness, and easier to make out for some people with low vision.\n\nIt's under Accessibility, because it is a feature designed to make the device more accessible to those with certain disabilities. "
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6acpor | where the science of electric forcefields meets science fiction. what is possible, what is not? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/6acpor/eli5where_the_science_of_electric_forcefields/ | {
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"I read a good straightdope once, that said the easiest way to build a forcefield would be to create an immobile sheet of electrons. This would impede progress due to the Pauli exclusion principle, which means it could potentially stop aggressors and even bullets. The easiest way to make one is to build a wall, you can use bricks, metal, whatever you're feeling. \n\nNone of the other fundamental forces are particularly useful for the idea of a forcefield. Gravity is incredibly weak, and to make a significant gravity field you basically need a planet's worth of mass. The strong and weak forces operate at such small ranges that it wouldn't be able to interact with any of your objects you want to 'stop.'\n\n'Electric forcefield' doesn't really say much to me. It's two words assembled together, but not a meaningful concept as far as I can tell. Even if we assumed such a field could be generated, I suppose the biggest problem is a *lot* of weapons work just fine with no circuits at all. Many guns are simply chemical reactions. You can't short circuit those. "
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38ce09 | how can telescopes capture close up pictures of planets without any obstructions in the picture? wouldn't you be able to spot out debris such as meteorites and such? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/38ce09/eli5_how_can_telescopes_capture_close_up_pictures/ | {
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"Do you mean \"why don't we see stuff in the way between us and the planet\"? If so, it's because those objects are much, much too small to be seen by telescope at the distances we're talking about. In principle, we could see them, but they're just too small to disrupt the picture at all."
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406chi | why are humans said to be the only species on earth to be self-aware and able to think philosphically? | And at which point in evolution did this capability come? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/406chi/eli5_why_are_humans_said_to_be_the_only_species/ | {
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"They aren't. Several other mammals are self aware. You can tell by seeing if they recognize themselves in a mirror. You put a silly bow on their head, show them in a mirror and see if they think their is a bow on THEIR head.\n\nIn terms of philosophy...it is hard to tell, but many animals have a sense of fairness.",
"/u/Forestman88 has answered regarding self-awareness,\n\nPhilosophy may be thought of a type of abstract though, some primates can seem to have abstract thoughts. Philosophy probably remains a human trait, possibly extending to the extinct members of the genus.",
"Other great apes, and indeed other species do have consciousness or awareness of self. That is they can distinguish the self from the other, they know they have experiences that are unique and distinct from other individuals. One way that we have determined this is through the [mirror test](_URL_0_). About half a dozen species have past the test, including humans who are about 18 months or older. However, its worth noting that this test is biased towards visual animals, and doesn't work well for species that rely on other senses. Just because an animal fails the mirror test does not mean it lacks consciousness. Finally, language is not required for self-awareness.\n\n**Long Answer: What makes humans unique?**\n\nAnimals are complex beings, and scientists for the past few decades have come to understand that the divide between us and them is not black and white, but rather a continuum of shared abilities. Animals exhibit a lot of similar behaviours and can even do things that we can't do (even on a cognitive level). They have morals; they have emotions; they make and modify tools; they can solve multi-step problems; they have culture and traditions; they can lie and cheat; they know when they are being treated unfairly; they mourn the dead; they have complex communication systems; they feel empathy; and some recognized themselves in a mirror and are able to distinguish self from other. So these aspects of intelligence and cognition, and very likely many other aspects that we have not fully explored, are not unique to humans. Given the complexity of other animals, it is very likely were are not the only species to have consciousness, that is to say other animals also have theory of mind. It may be more akin to the consciousness of a 3-5 year old, but none the less, they still know themselves from others. So what does make us unique? What led to our unique kind of intelligence?\n\nWe know of some factors that contributed to our awareness and unique intelligence as compared to other living species. It is important to know that this is a very active area of study in many different disciplines (psychology, biology, animal behaviour, psychiatry, physiology, anthropology, neurology, linguistics, genetics, archeology...).\n\n* **Traits we inherited from our distant ancestors.** Obviously all species are a cumulation of inherited traits. Who we are today is largely due to who \"we\" were in the distant past. We inherited a strong tendency to be a very social species from our mammalian ancestry. Mammals are social beings, humans included. We inherited opposable thumbs from our early primate ancestors. Humans are not the only species with opposable thumbs so it is not a trait that is unique to our species. However, the inheritance of thumbs enabled us and the other primates to develop fine motor skills like precision grip. This enables us to manipulate objects, and make/modify tools. Humans also inherited an upright bipedal posture from our early ancestors. Humans are not the only bipedal species (after all, all birds are bipedal!) but our upright posture has given us many advantages, namely that it frees our hands to do other tasks.\n\n* **Brain/body size ratio** is a somewhat useful indicator of how intelligence a species is. The correlation is decent among related mammal species, but it breaks down when applied to distantly related animals. \"It underestimates intelligence in heavy animals like horses and overestimates small animals like mice and birds. Larger animals will typically also require larger brains simply to process and control the additional information that larger nervous system generates. You also have to consider what the animal's brain has evolved for. Bird's typically have very large brains for their body but may not be exceptionally smart. A lot of that large bird brain is used for flight calculations and isn't available for higher level processing. Fruit flies have enormous brains compared to their mass, but that brain is simply too small to have any real thought processes. Humans are highly intelligent because they have an extremely large brain for their normal body mass and that brain has evolved specifically to perform complex thought.\"\n\n* **Two cognitive traits thought to be unique to humans** - *shared intentionality* and *cumulative culture*. Shared intentionality goes one step further than being able to solve problems as a group, it involves anticipating the needs of others and the situation in order to solve a common goal. This requires incredible foresight, flexibility, and problem solving skills. It requires an almost hyper-sociality group structure. We couldn't stick 100 chimpanzees on a plane and expect it to land in one piece...but you can stick 100 human strangers and all, for the most part, get along just fine. This level of cooperation is rarely seen among other animals (save for the Eusocial insects, naked mole rats, and perhaps Callitrichid monkeys)...my point is we have a shared intentionality that allows us to be hyper-social and cooperative. *Cumulative culture* goes beyond the cultures exhibited by other animals. Other animals have culture where [non-essential] traditions are passed on from one generation to the next and can be modified slowly over many generations. Humans also have traditions, but these are past on much more easily between individuals. Moreover, these traditions are quickly modified, almost unlimited times within a generation. We are able to rapidly build upon the ideas of others and modify these ideas to suit new problems. Moreover, our adults, as compared to the adults of other species, are much better at learning and retaining new skills or traditions. Generally speaking, the age old adage \"you can't teach an old dog new tricks\" applies well to the non-human animal kingdom.\n\nThese two traits, *shared intentionality* and *cumulative culture*, led to the development of other aspects of our being which are unique (e.g language). Everything else that we can do is just a happy by-product of these two traits: being able to go to the moon, or build a super dam, or create art, or think in the abstract, maths, industrial agriculture...Those things are by-products of our level of cognition. Our uniqueness is derived from shared intentionality and cumulative culture plus a couple of random physical traits that we were lucky enough to inherit from our distant ancestors - a big brain, bipedalism, and opposable thumbs. We are not the only species with a large brain-to-body ratio, we are not the only bipedal species, and we are certainly not the only species with opposable thumbs - these are physical characteristics that we inherited from our distant primate ancestors. These traits built the foundation for what was to come.\n\n**When exactly does consciousness begin in a life form that is capable of it?**\n\nFirst, it isn't like a light switch one day its off the next day it is on. It is a gradual change of the brain and central nervous system over time. We know that infant humans are born without a consciousness that this develops slowly from the time of birth over the course of many years, well into early childhood. For example, young children and toddlers can't lie. This is because they have yet to grasp the notion that other individuals have thoughts and ideas that are distinct from their own. They think everyone experiences and thinks what they do. But around the age of three the ability to lie begins to develop because they begin to understand that their thoughts and experiences are distinct. We know that some animals are also capable of deception and cheating - which is really interesting because among other observations it indicates to us that they have an understanding of self being distinct from other. There are other cognitive abilities that develop over time as well. For example, young infants cannot pass the [mirror test](_URL_0_). This ability develops around 18m in humans, but deception not until later. So you begin to understand how two measures of self-identification develop at different times within humans. There are indeed some species that pass the mirror test - dolphins, many primates, birds like crows and pigeons, elephants...do they have consciousness? Well passing the mirror test seems to suggest that they do, but is their consciousness like ours? How can it be different? Its worth noting that the mirror test is biased towards species that use sight as their primary identifier. If you took an animal who relied more heavily on other senses and failed the mirror test it wouldn't exactly tell you much. That animal could easily pass another test, better suited to their abilities (e.g. smell for rhinos).\n\nMany other cognitive abilities develop over the course of infancy - language, spatial skills, memory, tool use...these all come together to form the conscious human. In other species other things may come together to form the conscious elephant, or the conscious chimpanzee. In nature there is more than one way to solve a problem, and the problem of \"consciousness\" has very likely been solved in different ways. So if we are just looking for animals that exhibit the traits we deem responsible for human consciousness then we might miss some that have other traits that are unique to theirs. We do know about a few traits that are unique to human consciousness that we haven't found in other species - shared intentionality and cumulative culture. I could go on, but this post is pretty long as it is, suffice to say that consciousness develops over the course of infancy in both humans and other conscious animals.\n"
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204v0u | re: reporters / paparazzi who follow people around despite their clearly expressed wishes not to. is that legal? | A similar post here addresses the legality of taking photos in public, which I understand is perfectly legal: _URL_0_
I also understand that getting restraining orders against a horde of random people you don't know is impractical.
The part that I don't understand is: One can just follow anyone around, all the time? One can jump out at them, screaming questions? (What's your opinion on < embarrassing subject > ? Is it true that your husband has stage 4 cancer?!?!) One can keep doing this after the person states they don't want to? This seems wrong. The closest legal thing I can think of is harassment.
Even if they just stood there, saying nothing, but were following you around or waiting on you to leave your house, it seems abusive and discomforting.
It seems like you shouldn't need to get a restraining order to disallow this sort of behavior. It's easy to spot when it happens, and calling the cops should fix it.
edit: Good example I can think of is the recent unveiling of the alleged bitcoin creator, an old guy. They barged into the restaurant where he was talking to a reporter, literally chased the guy across town in his car, chased him into the reporter's office building, up the elevator. They also publicized the location of his house: _URL_1_ | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/204v0u/eli5_re_reporters_paparazzi_who_follow_people/ | {
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"Not being one of them, I can only address a piece of the legality allowed to other media. You can't keep the public out of a public space. Regardless of your profession, you have the same right to walk on a public sidewalk, come into a public place like a business, street or park, and, yes, walk up to someone and ask them a question as any other human being. They don't have to answer, but you can't keep someone from talking or following someone around simply because you don't like them or what they do. (sorry, I'm talking about the US. I don't know about other countries).",
"From what I know of US law, celebrities and public officials lose some level of privacy simply by being in the public eye. So yeah, people can just follow them around. But those people aren't allowed to break any laws, like burglarize the celebrity's home or whatever, and a celebrity's bodyguard might deter some people from getting too close. \n\nIf a paparazzo was found to be breaking the law or to be a nuisance, the celebrity might be able to file for a protection order against that particular person. But it's not only impractical to get one against a horde of people -- it's impossible. When you get a restraining order against someone, you have to name the person. \n\nAs for the example you gave, it's legal as long as the guy wasn't trespassing or speeding. Publishing the location of somebody's house is likely legal, but it might not be ethical. ",
"As loathesome as paparazzi can be, they are necessary. They are freedom of the press's worst case scenario.\n\nAny law that would restrict them for bothering a celebrity would also restrict legitimate journalists from investigating a corrupt politician. We don't want to make it any easier for them to hide. And the paparazzi is the price we pay for this."
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"http://www.slate.com/blogs/future_tense/2014/03/06/satoshi_nakamoto_car_chase_bitcoin_creator_pursued_by_media_as_joe_bel_bruno.html"
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17nmxc | how a windup/ kinetic-powered watch stores energy | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/17nmxc/eli5_how_a_windup_kineticpowered_watch_stores/ | {
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"Think of it as a rubber band. When you twist it you add energy. When you release it the energy is released. Instead of a rubber band they use a [mainspring](_URL_0_)"
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jfgop | singapore | Why is it described as "the only shopping mall with a seat in the UN", "Disneyland with the death penalty". | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/jfgop/eli5_singapore/ | {
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"Hehe that's a first time I've heard that phrase living here all my life... \nIn short, it's like a teensy weensy version of the USA, minus any of the amendments to our consti... ~~oh fuck it, who upholds any of that nowadays...~~",
"**Disneyland with the death penalty**\n\nLife is pretty damn good in Singapore. The cost of living (save for homes and cars) is affordable. The island is well-lit and generally safe. Shops open until late, and amenities are convenient. \n\nHowever...\n\nOur laws say that if you traffic in drugs, you hang. No discretion on the part of the judge - the death penalty is mandatory. And if you're holding more than a certain amount of the drug, you are *presumed* to be trafficking unless you can prove otherwise. We used to have the highest per-capita execution rate in the world, but I believe the number has gone down in the last decade. \n\n**The only shopping mall with a seat in the UN**\n\nI haven't heard this one before... I don't think it's accurate. Shopping is pretty big here for tourists, but all locals know that Singapore is more food heaven than shopping mall. ",
"I always thought Disneyland with the death penalty made no sense. It's not like LA, Orlando or Tokyo (and soon Shanghai) doesnt have the death penalty... and we didnt even have a theme park till very recently, and it's not even Disney. I guess that has to do with drug laws with MANDATORY death penalty, but this is the norm is South East Asia. \n\nI guess Singapore is like Disneyland, when compared to the rest of South East Asia...child safe sanitised like a theme park, but yet, we have the same brutal laws as the rest of South East Asia.\n\nAs for shopping mall... while we may not have cornered the market as to the number of shopping malls (as compared to Hong Kong or Tokyo), the lack of alternative entertainment to shopping malls is probably the most unique part of Singapore. There are very little things you can do to spend a weekend out, except at the malls.\n\nHow I would describe Singapore? It's like a Tea Party's wettest dream come true. Low income taxes, businesses free to do almost anything, almost no social programmes to speak of, oversized military (when fully mobilised, Singapore has one of the largest army in the world, despite being one of the smallest country in the world, both in geography and population). \n\nExcept where it comes to religion/ethics. Probably the most liberal abortion laws in the world, spreading religion is strictly curtailed in the classroom. Then again, we practice aggressive censorship and gay anal sex is still a ten year in prison illegal. Hetero oral/anal sex was illegal till just about 5 years back.\n\nI think the Tea Party will love Singapore.... as long as they dont think about all the aborted foetuses....",
"Disneyland is meant to be the happiest place on earth, but behind the scenes are a gazillion rules and regulations. If you are a character, you must learn to talk, sign, wave like the character, when you're out of costume, you're not even supposed to admit that you play the character. Dirty/uncleaned costumes, shared underwear, lots of people with crabs. A really strict points system, if you're even the slightest bit late you clock up points. Strictly no internal dating. Apparently there's also internal hierarchy where princesses get better treatment than the full fuzzy suited people. If someone can find it, there's this article by a former jack sparrow revealing some of the more icky bits. *Original article is gone, best i can find is [this](_URL_0_).\n\nIt's basically a happy, clean, very well maintained image with draconian rules and sometimes ridiculous bureaucracy behind the scenes. Disneyland, that is.",
"In jest:\n\nSingapore is like Christianity; you have the Father, the Son, and the Holy Goh.\n\n",
"Hehe that's a first time I've heard that phrase living here all my life... \nIn short, it's like a teensy weensy version of the USA, minus any of the amendments to our consti... ~~oh fuck it, who upholds any of that nowadays...~~",
"**Disneyland with the death penalty**\n\nLife is pretty damn good in Singapore. The cost of living (save for homes and cars) is affordable. The island is well-lit and generally safe. Shops open until late, and amenities are convenient. \n\nHowever...\n\nOur laws say that if you traffic in drugs, you hang. No discretion on the part of the judge - the death penalty is mandatory. And if you're holding more than a certain amount of the drug, you are *presumed* to be trafficking unless you can prove otherwise. We used to have the highest per-capita execution rate in the world, but I believe the number has gone down in the last decade. \n\n**The only shopping mall with a seat in the UN**\n\nI haven't heard this one before... I don't think it's accurate. Shopping is pretty big here for tourists, but all locals know that Singapore is more food heaven than shopping mall. ",
"I always thought Disneyland with the death penalty made no sense. It's not like LA, Orlando or Tokyo (and soon Shanghai) doesnt have the death penalty... and we didnt even have a theme park till very recently, and it's not even Disney. I guess that has to do with drug laws with MANDATORY death penalty, but this is the norm is South East Asia. \n\nI guess Singapore is like Disneyland, when compared to the rest of South East Asia...child safe sanitised like a theme park, but yet, we have the same brutal laws as the rest of South East Asia.\n\nAs for shopping mall... while we may not have cornered the market as to the number of shopping malls (as compared to Hong Kong or Tokyo), the lack of alternative entertainment to shopping malls is probably the most unique part of Singapore. There are very little things you can do to spend a weekend out, except at the malls.\n\nHow I would describe Singapore? It's like a Tea Party's wettest dream come true. Low income taxes, businesses free to do almost anything, almost no social programmes to speak of, oversized military (when fully mobilised, Singapore has one of the largest army in the world, despite being one of the smallest country in the world, both in geography and population). \n\nExcept where it comes to religion/ethics. Probably the most liberal abortion laws in the world, spreading religion is strictly curtailed in the classroom. Then again, we practice aggressive censorship and gay anal sex is still a ten year in prison illegal. Hetero oral/anal sex was illegal till just about 5 years back.\n\nI think the Tea Party will love Singapore.... as long as they dont think about all the aborted foetuses....",
"Disneyland is meant to be the happiest place on earth, but behind the scenes are a gazillion rules and regulations. If you are a character, you must learn to talk, sign, wave like the character, when you're out of costume, you're not even supposed to admit that you play the character. Dirty/uncleaned costumes, shared underwear, lots of people with crabs. A really strict points system, if you're even the slightest bit late you clock up points. Strictly no internal dating. Apparently there's also internal hierarchy where princesses get better treatment than the full fuzzy suited people. If someone can find it, there's this article by a former jack sparrow revealing some of the more icky bits. *Original article is gone, best i can find is [this](_URL_0_).\n\nIt's basically a happy, clean, very well maintained image with draconian rules and sometimes ridiculous bureaucracy behind the scenes. Disneyland, that is.",
"In jest:\n\nSingapore is like Christianity; you have the Father, the Son, and the Holy Goh.\n\n"
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ygvtv | what happens when the eurozone breaks up | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/ygvtv/eli5_what_happens_when_the_eurozone_breaks_up/ | {
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" > What happens **IF** the eurozone breaks up",
"I think you need an If here.",
"Sorry I don't know howto ELY5 so this is my best shot\n\nOption 1. Greece Exit (GREXIT).\n\nSo Greece leaves the eurozone, it's currency is now the New Drachma, Drachma2.0 whatever, the balance sheets of of pretty much all Greek banks and non-financials have been completely destroyed by the uncertainty and speculation leading upto the exit. Drachma2.0 will begin to devalue sharply vs EUR or USD however all bonds, insurance contracts and stuff that pension funds/banks/small companies/government uses would already have been redenoninated into Drachma2.0 at it's higher rate (Only the things covered by Greek law can be redenoninated into Drachma2.0 and some of the government debt is covered by British law). This is kind of the ideal situation for bank runs, people will have little faith in banks who have terrible balance sheets in an very unstable currency, the main thing is this won't be like the bank run on Northern Rock where people were nervous but queued this will be like Argentina bank runs. So basically pain for everyone in Greece for the short term however the devalued currency will make Greek businesses able to compete so the is the possibility for very rapid growth after the initial extreme pain, notes I have seen project 10%+ GDP growth. What happens outside of Greece is anyones guess\n\n\nOption 2. German Exit (GEREXIT)\n\nGermany leaves and forms the Deutsche Mark 3.0, it's value increases a lot because of Germany's balance of payments and desirability as a reserve currency. The Bundesbank is probably going to have to defend it's exchange rate the same way Swiss Nation Bank does for the Swiss Franc right now. German bond yields will probably go very negative and the increased value of it's currency could make things difficult for exporters. In the rest of the eurozone other northern european countries many join germany in using the Deutsche Mark 3.0 or create their own currencies, but really no one knows. GEREXIT is a much more chaotic option than GREXIT and will probably leave everyone the EU in a much worse state.\n\n\nOption 3. Euro2.0\n\nEveryone argees the Euro in it's current design has failed so European politicians get their shit together and form a new monetary union that includes things like balance transfers from Germany and north Europe to the south until they can balance their budgets as well as greater fiscal control and common borrowing (eurobonds etc), Germany inflates wages so that the rest of Europe can compete and everyone lives happily ever after.\n"
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1hdfns | the tour de france. | It's a team sport, an individual sport, there are leaders and stage leaders and overall leaders and "the peleton." How do they all fit together? Also: Don't care right now about the politics/doping stuff. I just want to know how to watch it when I'm watching it on TV.
Edit: Here's a perfect example of what's confusing me. Commentator just said: "(COMPETITOR NAME) was just told to fall back and link up with his teammates." Who told him? WTF would you want to "fall back" in a race? Thanks in advance. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1hdfns/eli5_the_tour_de_france/ | {
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"Hey guys, have some meager upvotes for your time and thoughtful comments. Thanks so much. ",
"The main competition is to finish all the stages in shortest total time and the one having the yellow jersey is the one who's leading that.\n\nThen there are 3 other competitions wihtin the main competition:\n\nPoints classification or the green jersey: you recieve points if you're among the top finishers. So the winner might get 45 points, second guy 35, third 30 etc. Sprinting specialists usually end up with the green jersey.\n\nMountain classifcation or the polka dot jersey: riders get given points when the reach specific climbs. The harder the climb, the more points.\n\nYoung rider or white jersey: same as main competition but the rider has to be under 26 years old.\n\nAnd finally there is a team competition where they add up the times of each teams 3 best riders of each stage. This team rides with yellow background on the numbers.\n\nAnd now for a little basic tactics. The peloton is what you call the \"main bunch\" and usually you see breakaways of small groups trying to outrun it. This is hard because most of the time it much easier to ride in the peloton because you can take cover from some wind behind the front. This means that on an ordinary flat stage the peloton can gain roughly 1 minute per 10 km *when they want*. But they usually leave the breakaways alone until the end comes close enough and then start reeling them in. If they did it directly they would just risk yet another breakaway.\n\nAnd then there is the problem with trying to figure which teams should do the most work when chasing them. If team A, B and C has riders in the breakaway then they're not going to help catch them. And the other teams try to figure out which team has the most to win/lose if the breakaway isn't caught and expect that team or teams to do the most work.\n\nAnd the teams major job is to support their best rider. So they have support riders (\"[domestique](_URL_0_)\") who are trying to do what they can from fetching water to falling back and helping the rider catch up with the rest. The one who told the rider to fall back was probably the sports director of the team who rides in the team car and trys to figure out a strategy for the race. They are generally retirerd cyclists.",
"The Tour de France is a largely team sport. Within each team, each racer plays a unique role. Some are designated to supply the team with food and water (they will go back to the team car, stuff as many supplies in their jersey and bottle carriers as possible, then bring it to the team. Think of them as the pack mules). Others are there to pull the team along, they will be out in front of their group, pulling the team along taking most of the wind. Some will dash out to the front of the race, trying to earn points in other categories (I will explain these later). Then, of course, there is the designated winner in the team. This is the one racer, usually the strongest and best chance of winning, everyone else supports. They will pull him along and let him do less work, carrying him to the end. He can conserve his energy then unleash it all at the end when it counts in the final sprint. These are the racers people know by name. To answer your question about the commentator, the team manager (he sits in the team car with the spare bikes/supplies) told a racer to get back to his team, perhaps they were getting tired and needed him to share some of the effort. Drafting and cutting down on wind resistance is essential in these hundred plus mile races, every bit counts. Finishing times are based on when you cross the finish line. If you are part of the peleton, the main group, everyone will receive the same time. If you crash within a certain distance of the finish line, you will receive the same time as the peleton.\n\nNow, there are essentially four jersey colors which are important. Yellow, considered the leader, is awarded after each race to the person with the lowest cumulative time. The polka dotted jersey is given to the \"King of the Mountains.\" Points for this category are awarded to the racer who reach the summit of different points along the track quickest. The green jersey is awarded to the sprinters who reach certain checkpoints on different days first. The white jersey is awarded to the rider under the age of 26 with the best overall time. Each of these jerseys are based on cumulative scores/times and can change hands after each day. Some teams are out to win the whole competition (yellow jersey), other lesser teams will aim for other jerseys (green, polka dot, and white). \n\nHope this helps, and enjoy the racing!"
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3thkgn | how is bosch's stock trending around $19,000 per share? | I'd imagine there's some really basic explanation, but I'm wondering seeing as though other companies like Google trend around $700 per share. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3thkgn/eli5_how_is_boschs_stock_trending_around_19000/ | {
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"The absolute cost per share of a stock is a relatively meaningless number. You can divide a company into whatever number of shares you like, and that number can change over time (and does, when companies do stock splits or merges). If a company has a high price per share, it basically just means that they haven't done very many (possibly any) stock splits in the past, so there are relatively few shares of stock outstanding. If they were to split their stock 100:1, the shares would be worth $190 each but there would be 100 times as many of them, so the company would be worth the same amount of money.",
"Price per share doesn't mean much without knowing how many shares exist. If a company is worth one billion dollars and they only have one share, that one share would be worth one billion dollars. If they had one billion shares, each share would be worth one dollar. The number of shares multiplied by the price per share gives you the total value of the company and that number is called the \"market capitalization\" (usually, just \"market cap\").",
"I don't think it's 19,000 dollars. I believe the stock trades on the Indian stock exchange and is priced in rupees. If you thought $19,000 was large for a stock then checkout Berkshire hathaway's price.\n\n"
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ajbhdm | why military coups don't happen often in democracies? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/ajbhdm/eli5_why_military_coups_dont_happen_often_in/ | {
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"Dont happen as often...\n\nBut authoritarian states are more likely to have coups since they relay heavily on both police and military (and many times a mix of both) to retain control, \n\nSo In a democracy or a free state, the police is controlled in a civilian manner and the army has political and civilian oversight, while in Autocracy the millitary and police tend to have less oversight, to make their job easier...\n\nSo its easier for higher ups in the army to roll out the tanks and get rid of the army.\n\n\nA good example is Turkey, Turkey has had several coups, even while being a democracy several Islamic themed parties in the past have tried to impose more autocratic rule and were overtrown, while the current president before starting his reforms and road towards autocracy first took the time to dismantle the control over the army and replace key military leaders to people loyal to him to prevent this. \n\nAlso popular satisfaction in autocracies tends to be quite lower, so they wont bother if the army goes out and kills the president. "
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a8kq3t | when toddlers talk ‘gibberish’ are they just making random noises or are they attempting to speak an english sentence that just comes out muddled up? | I mean like 18mnths+ that are already grasping parts of the English language. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/a8kq3t/eli5_when_toddlers_talk_gibberish_are_they_just/ | {
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"My understanding is it’s still like a machine coming online as the brain forms connections neurologically, or like muscles during exercise. \nEdit: a little of both?",
"It’s usually just them learning and playing with all the noises they are capable of vocalizing. You will also notice that pronunciation improves greatly over the next few years as they gain better coordination of their mouth and vocal muscles ",
"You ever noticed how Very you g Kids tend to Start sentences over and over again, and they get a little longer each time they do so? That is a kid learning how to Form sentences. Works kind of the same way with words, try learning a new language like arabic, at first your words will be butchered but you get better every time",
"The word for mother in many languages is some derivation of a “ma” sound. And not just those with the same root language: \n\nMandarin: mãma \nHindi: māṃ \nArabic: māma \nNavajo: amá \nSwahili: mama \nPolish: mama \nAramaic: imma \n\nThe theory is that “ahh” is an easy sound for babies to make, unlike those that need a tongue against teeth. Just keep your lips together for a moment too long — like if you’re nursing — and it comes out mmm-ahh. \n\nSo maybe it’s not gibberish trying to sound like language, it’s language coming from gibberish! ",
"Both. All kids develop differently both physically and mentally. Some gibberish is the child truly talking but still not able to form the words or thoughts correctly. Sometimes gibberish is purely exploring the noises they can make because it is fun. I’m mean, they are learning a language and figuring out how their bodies work. I’ve noticed with mine (who started talking early), every time she is making big developments mentally, her speech gets a little jumbled as she’s trying to learn how to use words in a more abstract way. When she was 1.5 years old, I was putting her to bed she said, “I’m bored. I have nothing to do...” she sounded like an 8 year old. Next day she was running around screaming like a normal 1 year old.",
"At 18 months it kind of depends on the kid.\n\nBabies babble initially because they can make the sound (like on Reddit when someone posts a meme with someone saying “I dunno what to do with my hands”....so they fumble about). In the early stages of babbling, it usually occurs because the baby discovers it’s possible to do those things so they just do it (maybe it sounds funny/feels funny/produces spit bubbles which are hella rad).\n\nAs babies grow, their sounds become more complex as described in one of the earlier comments. The more a baby babbles, the more opportunities that baby will have to understand that when they babble, something cool usually happens (baby babbles - parents babble back or pick baby up because they’re happy the baby is making sounds...these things usually encourage more babbling). Over time the baby will learn that specific sounds will bring certain results (“mama” calls for mother, “dada” calls for dad, “baba” gets you a bottle, and etc).\n\nEventually you get words and stuff.\n\nFlip side: say you have a baby with a disability and at two years old they completely stop talking/making sounds. Go back to babies babbling because they realize they can, and eventually learn they get something out of it, right? Those babies with a disability may still babble because they can, but eventually when they’ve done it long enough they may not understand why it’s rewarding to continue doing it. If you continue to do something and not enjoy it, you will eventually stop doing it. This typically takes place over a long course of time (when parents say it suddenly stopped...I often wonder if it slowed down subtly without anyone noticing until one day the house was totally quiet). Other times kids may lack the oral motor muscles to make sounds so they stop as well.\n\nTLDR: Babbling at first is something fun and different to do. Eventually it becomes a legit attempt at functional language because the baby learns they get something out of it. \n\n",
"I don't know the psychology or linguistics behind it, but anecdotally I can say my 4 year old seems very specific in what she's saying even though I can't understand her most of the time. Even a year ago. She looks right at you and just rattles off gibberish. There are many cases where I just have to know what she's referring to even though it doesn't really sound like the English word for it. For example, she watches this cartoon \"PJ Masks\" but she calls it \"M'mets.\" No \"P\" or \"J\" sound at all. Maybe it's \"my masks?\" I don't know. \n\nI joke that she accidentally picked up the wrong language by watching too much YouTube. ",
"Lots of big words are super strange and weird, and really really hard to say. So in order to be like mom, dad, and your cool big brother you gotta come up with big ol' words like they do to splain' stuff. Maybe some day you'll talk big, ya just gotta keep trying and play with words.",
"They’re practicing the cadence and tone of language, like the way the voice raises at the end of a question in English. This is just as important as vocabulary and grammar. Source: I’ve worked as an ESL teacher and tutor. In pronunciation and accent training, you practice sentences that just contain “duh-duh-duh” or other nonsense sounds - just like toddlers!",
"I haven't seen anyone mention the inflection aspect of speech. There's been a lot of talk about the fact that little ones are playing with sounds and syllables they can physically form, but that's only half the equation. You can communicate a lot about your mood with emphasis and inflection even if your words don't make sense. Even your dog understands inflection. If you listen to little ones babble, you'll hear them form different types of sentences. They ask questions, they tell jokes, they object, they tell you they're scared or tired or hungry, and they don't even need actual words. There's a lot of communication in our speech that has nothing to do with the actual words.",
"What you are describing is called jargon babbling. (Not sure where sophisticated babbling came from, but perhaps that's used in another part of the world.) This is when children practice the overall sound of language-the rise and fall of sounds in sentences. This is called intonation. Just like you may be able to approximate how someone speaking Spanish or Chinese or any language sounds without knowing any specific words in those languages, this is what children are practicing. It's a vital stage that helps children learn how to combine words into phrases and sentences as their vocabulary grows. \n\n\nAs they progress they begin to jargon with real words thrown in and eventually move to actual phrases without jargoning. This is also something that we encounter in children who have more that they want to say than they're developmentally capable of saying. So instead of breaking it down into a few words that don't convey their whole meaning, they tell the whole story-but don't realize that their listeners don't understand them without words. This can be incredibly frustrating for the kids but usually passes quickly as they learn that they can't communicate what they want that way.\n\n\nSource: I'm an early childhood speech-language pathologist.",
"After the babbling and pre-speech phase, children go through a stage of repeating or parroting phrases that they have just heard. This appears to be especially the case when they hear a word said emphatically, which may be why they are so quick to repeat any swear words said in their vicinity. The best example I came across of parroting was when my two and a half year old daughter was playing in the front room while we were watching the television news, suddenly and quite absent mindedly, she said: \"unprecedented in the history of the Northern Ireland peace process\". She is now 17 and wants to study politics and law.",
"StinkFingerPete gave a very good developmental explanation. All of that is true, but in observing my children, and attending child development classes, there is one more thing. The *back and forth* babbling that parents and their children do is as important as the tongue and oral muscle strengthening. It teaches a child the give and take of a normal conversation, how to wait for a response and then respond in kind.\n\nSo, I've been told that they *are* learning about sentence structure and making conversation during babbling time. And to them, perhaps they are trying to tell us stuff that just gets muddled.\n\n",
"A child's receptive vocabulary (Words they understand but can't produce due to physical limitations) shows us that they understand far more than what their productive vocabulary (words they can produce) can. This means that, whilst they are babbling, their physical limitations are holding them back so it sounds like gibberish and almost just like speech. Although with more practice and development they will be able to produce the phoneme. However, at 18+ months they should be in the holophrastic stage. This is a stage in which they use one word to convey many meanings and context must be applied to ascertain as to what they mean. TIL They're practising language pretty much, and the reason it sounds like gibberish is due to their physical limitations.",
"I haven't seen anybody mention this, but there's a feature of language called \"prosody.\" Prosody is, loosely, the \"melody\" of a language. The rhythm, the cadence, the intonation and stresses within a sentence. Babies babble in the prosody of the languages they hear most. Around 12-18mo, babies start to really grasp the prosody of their native language, and their babbling starts to follow that structure. That's why a baby will come up to you and say something that definitely *sounds* like a sentence, but doesn't include any recognizable words.\n\nAnd when they do that, they might be trying to communicate. You can tell if they're making a statement or asking a question. Babies understand that language is for communication. They just don't have the vocabulary yet. But they also might just be amusing themselves. And they might not be saying anything in particular - they may just want positive attention for trying to communicate. They're practicing talking, and trying out their new skills, so talk back. \"Oh yeah? Is that so? That's very interesting.\" Etc.\n\nAn additional fun fact: Prosody is one of the biggest factors of an accent. For example, English spoken with an African accent has a very distinct rhythm to it. In fact, most languages spoken with an African accent have that same rhythm. Accents also have to do with pronunciation and stuff, too, but prosody is a big part. Especially for people who learned other languages as adults, because it's very hard to consciously force yourself to speak in a different rhythm. That's one of the reasons immersion is the best way to learn a language, because the prosody comes more naturally when you're surrounded by it all the time. ",
"The gibberish heavily resembles the structure of the language they are familiar with. There is a difference and we know this because when schizophrenics claim to be speaking dead languages that no one can confirm we know that the languages are fake because we can analyze the structure and patterns of the sounds they make and determine whether it fits a coherent linguistic pattern. When toddlers speak gibberish it fits more and more of their parents' linguistic patterns as they age. It's different from schizophrenic gibberish. It's been proven that babies actually hear speech in the womb and come out crying in specific intonations and rhythms based on the parents' language. In English at the end of a question we speak \"up\". When someone says \"Are you here?\" they use a different inflection at the end of the sentence than when they say \"I am here.\" Certain languages do this more and differently than others and babies hear this in the womb. French babies come out crying \"up\" and German babies come out crying \"down.\" They start grasping these subtle patterns at a very young age and can't help but start to imitate them. Chomsky makes a good case that a large portion of language is innate and that we couldn't make truly random sounds with all the incentive in the world. ",
"I have 22 months old twins, a boy and a girl. We treat them equally. The girl is definitely more talkative, she has a very wide vocabulary and is currently experimenting with three syllable words. The boy speaks but only uses expressions he needs for himself, like *mama*, *come*, *Aki* (his nickname), etc. He doesn't want to repeat if you ask him so. They both also babble a lot, and you can see it's sometimes experimenting and sometimes you can see their effort of trying to pronounce it correctly.\n\nOne more thing: the boy prefers to show you what he wants, e.g. few days ago he wanted to go on terrace but it was dark. Now, he learned how the light switch works but since he can't reach it, he took someone by the hand and then \"throw\" the hand at the light switch. When the light was on, he was on his way to open the door to play on terrace. My point here is that the girl would simply say *light*, while the boy chooses the non-verbal way. Every kid develop at its own pace and in its own way.",
"I'm half afraid I'll get deleted for not saying this just right, but here goes. Kids develop receptive speech before they develop expressive speech. What this means is they learn to understand you before they learn to talk to you. The understanding part comes before the mouth and voice coordination develop.\n\nThis is why hearing babies will say things in sign language and know exactly what they're saying, months before they can speak reliably in complete sentences. It's also why little kids throw tantrums when you don't understand what they're saying. It's also why, when you have children, you must speak to them frequently and name things they point to and read to them a lot and so on, and *don't* use the TV as a babysitter... they need to actually, physically, see for themselves how a three-dimensional real-life adult right in front of them forms words.\n\nSo, yeah. TL;DR a toddler knows exactly what she's trying to say when she babbles at you.",
"I’m a speech language pathologist so I might be the most qualified to answer this. Babies speak their first word around 12 months. After that, they continue to develop language and words. However, they can only form a limited amount of sounds around 18 months so they are in fact attempting to speak words they’ve heard the parents say but since they cannot produce all the sounds needed for the words it comes out as “gibberish” ",
"Hi! Soon to be SLP here. :) Between 16-24 months it’s common for kiddos to use protowords, which are “real words” in the sense that they are used consistently for the same object, but aren’t a real word. For example, baba for bottle. Sometimes they’re more obscure like pip for a nooky. \n\nToddlers syntax is pretty simple and minimal (one to two words at a time, like “mama ball” or “daddy hat” and generally only makes sense in context).\n\nIf a toddler is using longer strings of sound, like gibberish :), it is likely meaningless. They are imitating using the adult language that they see us using, which is developmentally important! This allows them to practice using different intonation and prosody to convey a message, but there’s likely no intended meaning behind the gibberish as neurologically they are not yet able to form complex syntax yet!"
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8f1g1r | what's the role of each of the multiple gaming companies that's working on the same game? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/8f1g1r/eli5_whats_the_role_of_each_of_the_multiple/ | {
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"Bandai Namco is the publisher of Dark Souls, they market and fund development of the game. FromSoftware is the developer, they're the ones who design, write and build the game."
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39sgvz | why do we accept when someone identifies as another gender than their physical one, but not if they identify as another race? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/39sgvz/eli5_why_do_we_accept_when_someone_identifies_as/ | {
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"Like lots of other anatomical features, the brain is sexually dimorphic (slighy different for males and females.)\n\nThe brains of people of different race or ethnicity do not differ in anatomy.",
"Well, its not gender so much as biological sex. \n\nSeeing as how there is a biological basis for sex but not really for race you aren't comparing apples to apples. "
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3i2igv | how does masturbation work in space? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3i2igv/eli5_how_does_masturbation_work_in_space/ | {
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"What about it wouldnt work. What part of masturbation do you think would not work in space?",
"Eh? Unless I'm doing it wrong, I think it works the same. As long as you have whatever protection you need for a trip to space you should still be able to peel your eel in the traditional earthly way. When you blow your stack you may need to swim/fly away from it.\n\nI have a feeling I've missed your point.",
"Same way it does on Earth. You pull your chubby until you're happy then you go about your day.",
"In our usual Earth gravity, blood is being pulled down, which our heart and blood vessels are used to dealing with, constricting in the legs to avoid blood pooling down there. You can't just tell your body to stop doing that when you're in space's microgravity, so blood tends to pool in various parts of your body especially when at rest (e.g sleeping). Astronauts often wake up with raging boners because of the blood pooling in the corpora cavernosa of the penis.\n\nOther than that, astronauts are not teenagers and probably can live for a while without spanking the monkey, but if they need the urge, they can just do it normally."
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32tfog | why doesn't ram let go of unnecessary memories | [I made a diagram to explain my question visually](_URL_0_). Why can't RAM let it go? The reason I struggle to comprehend RAM is because often times games run buttery-smooth for the first 5 minutes or so on my Surface, but then I get the paging file slow down. Why can't games(or any tasks) just store necessary things in RAM, but everything else that's rendered for seconds, get rid of immediately? Shouldn't there be some sort of prioritization of objects rendered or something that tells the RAM/GPU: "Hey just keep this for a split second while its displayed, and then forget about it?" | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/32tfog/eli5_why_doesnt_ram_let_go_of_unnecessary_memories/ | {
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"Because the programmers didn't give the computer permission to \"let go\" of their memory yet. Computers aren't smart, they'll happily run themselves off a cliff every time you tell them to. If the computer is running out of RAM but the computer hasn't been given permission to free any of that memory it won't free it. It doesn't know whats necessary or unnecessary and neither do you so it holds on to all of it until it gets permission to free it.",
" > something that tells the RAM/GPU: \"Hey just keep this for a split second while its displayed, and then forget about it?\"\n\nYes, there is. But the computer has no way of knowing what's important and what isn't. The programmer that made your specific program gets to decide that. So if they've written bad code that uses up too much memory, that's on them. \n\nAnd if something's only used for a second and then gone, most likely it will, indeed, be removed from memory. In most languages like C# and Java, that happens automatically. Variables that are no longer used at all are removed automatically (this is called garbage collection). In some languages, like C, the programmer has to manually do that. ",
"It tries, but the computer has no idea what memory it's going to need in a few seconds so it tends to be wrong on occasion. If it's wrong one time in one hundred, that's often enough that you'll notice the slowdown. The programmer could be very careful about freeing memory whenever possible, but that's incredibly difficult to do when you don't know how much memory you'll have (and will result in slowdowns when running on computers with more RAM). In addition, your computer is running many programs at once and has to swap the memory used by different programs out several times per second. So something the programmer thinks might still be in RAM may have been paged to disk while another program did its thing.\n\n This is one of the advantages that console games have over PC games- developers know how much RAM they have, they know how long it takes to load the file, and they know nothing will interrupt their RAM usage. That sort of control lets them optimize the game to load things exactly at the right time and get rid of them at exactly the right time to make the game run smoothly. It's why Halo 4 looks way better than any PC game that would run on the same spec hardware. And it's why GTA V can run on an Xbox 360 with 512MB of RAM but requires 4GB on a PC.",
"**Virtual Memory**\n\nVirtual memory is an address space in which every addressable location can be used, regardless of how much physical memory is available on the machine. For example, a program can access the virtual address at 16GB even if the system only has 4GB of physical memory.\n\nThis is made possible by *mapping* those virtual addresses that are in use to physical addresses in a backing store (usually physical memory), or sometimes several backing stores (physical memory and a disk drive).\n\n**Pages**\n\nTo map every single virtual address to a physical address would require a mapping that's as large as the virtual memory itself, so instead *chunks* of memory called *pages* are mapped. Pages are often 4kB in size, though larger page sizes are of course possible. The mapping between a virtual page and a physical page (e.g. the virtual page at the 16GB address might be mapped to the physical page at the 2GB address) is maintained in structures called page tables.\n\n**Swapping**\n\nWhat you're referring to is called swapping. Often physical memory (RAM) and a hard drive are used as the backing store for virtual memory. The area on the hard drive used to do this is called the page file, the swap partition, or the swap space.\n\nSince physical memory is much faster than a hard drive, it is the preferred location for mapping pages, however when more virtual memory is being used than there exists physical memory to support it, some pages must be *swapped* out to disk to make space for allocating new pages in physical memory.\n\nWhen a virtual page that's actually stored on the disk is accessed by a program, it must be put back into physical memory again. This may cause an existing page in memory to be swapped out to disk to make room.\n\nSince reading from or writing to disk is *very* slow in comparison to reading from or writing to memory, swapping pages in and out from the disk is very slow, and the Operating System tries to minimize it or avoid it if possible. This is one of the reasons why, when your computer starts to run low on physical memory, it becomes very slow: programs end up having to wait for a long time while pages they need are swapped back in from disk to memory, and the Operating System spends a lot of time writing pages back out from memory to the disk.\n\n**Page Replacement**\n\nHow does the Operating System decide which page of physical memory to swap out to disk when space is required? This is called a *page replacement* strategy, or algorithm. There are many, each with different advantages and disadvantages, but here are a few examples:\n\n* **LRU** (Least Recently Used). The page in physical memory that is that hasn't been accessed for the longest period of time is swapped out to disk to make room for a new one.\n* **NFU** (Not Frequently Used). Pages which have been accessed the least are swapped out to disk.\n* **Random**. The page that is swapped out is chosen at random.\n* **FIFO** (First in, First out). When a page is first placed in physical memory, it goes to the back of a queue. When a page reaches the front of the queue, it is swapped out to disk the next time a page swap is required.",
"Expanding on what TenTonApe said:\n\nWhen you write programs, you have to plan for every possible thing that could happen in advance -- you don't get to be there responding in real time. It's like if I was trying to give a really stupid person detailed instructions on how to go to the store and buy some milk for me. I can take the trip 100 times myself first, write down every obstacle I ran into and what to do, test out my instructions on other stupid people, but inevitably SOMETHING is going to happen that I didn't plan for and the stupid person is just going to stop right in the middle of the street confused and cause a big pileup. Most programming is like this, but big programs where memory management is a big issue --- such a headache. It's a give and take, the more code you write that plans for these kind of things, the longer it takes your code to run. You have to strike a balance, perfectly correct/thorough code that takes a long time to run ALL THE TIME is not preferable to almost-perfect code that runs a lot faster most of the time",
"First and foremost a lot of applications/games are very poorly written when it comes to memory handling. Years ago programmers were limited by drive space and memory. Those days are essentially over. This leads to bloated applications and memory leaks.\n\nIt's not all the applications fault though. Your OS does true multitasking. Your other applications are still working and retrieving information from memory. Phone OS's like Android and IOS are better, because they aren't truely multitasking OS's (I know there are apps to let you do it).\n\nLastly, information is written by an application at specific memory addresses. It expects specific data to be where it left it.",
"Whwn you put it like that, RAM sounds a lot like my ex.",
"Programmer here.\n\n > Why can't games(or any tasks) just store necessary things in RAM, but everything else that's rendered for seconds, get rid of immediately?\n\nWe do, and if not immediately, we let the \"garbage collector\" take care of it.\n\n > Shouldn't there be some sort of prioritization of objects rendered or something that tells the RAM/GPU: \"Hey just keep this for a split second while its displayed, and then forget about it?\"\n\nThere is, and we do that, but it's not always possible. In some cases, you just keep reusing the previously allocated memory area, which must therefore be kept active all the time.\n\nAlso, keep into account that ram is shared between processes. If you have another process that wants RAM, the operating system will take other processes' stuff in RAM and shove it on the disk. The game can be as optimized as you want, but if another process wants to allocate more memory because it's badly written or needs a lot of it, there's nothing you can do about it. The OS will take your game and slam it down.\n",
"I doubt your games are slowing down because of paging - throttling (GPU & CPU) is more likely.",
"How is the computer supposed to know what is important and what isn't? \n\nPretend you are playing one of those open world RPGs. You pick up a rusty sword hilt back in the opening sequence and throw it in your inventory.\n\n40 chapters later it turns out that rusty sword hilt can be reforged into your legendary weapon. It was important. Except that without context you sold it to the first vendor you ran in to.\n\nA computer has no ability to know what is important and what isn't, when data may be needed again, etc. Just because a variable value isn't used in the next 5 milliseconds doesn't mean it won't be needed later, maybe much later. It's the *job* of the RAM to hold onto data until the program tells it to stop. If that command never comes or the command comes but is processed incorrectly (memory leak), that data sits there taking up space.\n\nMemory bugs or poor memory management practices are much more common in modern software. used to be you only had a couple of kilobytes of memory and every last address was critical. Nowadays most apps assume you have have gigs of memory so the cost of really tightening up the code to be as memory-efficient as possible is on the losing side of a cost-benefit analysis. Get it to run withing acceptable tolerances is \"good enough\".",
"Lets fix your diagram. Data is not water. RAM is not a cup. Hard drive is not another bucket.\n\nData is a book. RAM are the shelves in the library. Hard drive is the archive vault on the other side of the building.\n\n > Why can't RAM let it go?\n\nRAM holds Data. That's all it does. It does so until it isn't powered, and then the data fade from existence. RAM can't \"forget\". It can't do that. It's not made to do that. The closest you get to \"forgetting\" is when the program running stops caring about the contents of some RAM.",
"Because in the end, memories are all it has. Letting go of the past would be too painful, forgetting her would be too tragic."
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2fcfay | if mckayla maroney and liz lee where underage at the time there nude photos where taken, why are they not being immediately arrested for taking and distribution of child pornography? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2fcfay/eli5_if_mckayla_maroney_and_liz_lee_where/ | {
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"Jesus your user name :/\n\nMostly because it's really, REALLY stupid to arrest kids for what they do with their own bodies. Most governing bodies know this. It would also be hilariously bad PR to arrest someone who's privacy was so violated for distribution of child porn.",
"Of the photos released, there has only been one nude. Which people date to after her 18th birthday. In the letters the attorney sent to sites to remove the photos, it only said, \"underage in several photos\". So that means they are including the non-nude photos, in the underage label. My best guess is they're using that, so no one will even attempt to release any of the nudes. "
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487yyz | sound editing vs sound mixing as an oscar category. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/487yyz/eli5_sound_editing_vs_sound_mixing_as_an_oscar/ | {
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"**Sound Editing**: Finding/making the sound effects, which may include manipulating (editing) them to fit. For an example, all the chainsaws and stuff in Mad Max or Godzilla's original roar being made from \"a double bass, using a leather glove coated in pine-tar resin to create friction...They'd rub it against the string of the double bass to create that sound.\" \n \n**Sound Mixing**: How they are incorporated (mixed) into the film. For an example (not this year though), [the cafe scene in Inception](_URL_0_)."
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"http://youtu.be/_bsGUOVTA84"
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bc7zdt | why do supermarkets sell meats in a refrigerated space as opposed to a freezer where the meat would last longer? | [deleted] | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/bc7zdt/eli5_why_do_supermarkets_sell_meats_in_a/ | {
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"A lot of people want to cook the meat that day or the next and don't want to have to thaw it. Also, fresh meat vs frozen is preferred for most due to taste and texture that changes when frozen.",
"There's the issue of the water in the meat. When water freezes and then thaws, it can damage the meat, ruining a good piece of meat and making it far worse quality.",
"The same reason that they offer fresh vegetables and don't only sell canned/fozen: fresh food is (typically) preferred for texture and flavor."
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len38 | why there needs to be separation of ncos and commissioned officers? | Wouldn't a an army in theory work better if everyone had to prove themselves as a Sergeant before becoming a Officer?
As I understand it it's a throwback to the times of aristocrats and landed gentry become career soldiers, but wouldn't a purely meritocracy based promotion system work better? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/len38/eli5_why_there_needs_to_be_separation_of_ncos_and/ | {
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"I don't think it's the official reason, but I've always seen it as similar to when an NCO gets a commission, and they transfer him to a different unit. The enlisted who served with him before he was an officer may not respect him as an authority figure, and just see him as their old buddy, Staff Sergeant Nutsack.",
"Commissioned officers and Non-commissioned officers have different jobs. NCO's would need to know more about troop welfare and must have technical and tactical proficiency in their designated job whereas a commissioned officer is a leader and is more of a logistics supervisor. Although they are trained to lead in a fight, which they are taught very well and are very capable, they are more about movement than engagement. \n\nOne must prove their ability in their tactics to become an NCO whereas one must prove they have the ability to see a bigger picture to be commissioned.",
"The historical but still technically true answer is that a commissioned officer is bestowed with their authority through the sovereign or in the case of the United States, the president. That is the meaning of the term commissioned, someone receives a commission from the president to be an officer. A non-commissioned officer's authority is bestowed on them by commissioned officers, or more practically and accurately, by the needs of the situation.\n\nThe structure is a wartime structure and makes more sense in that context. The president commissions officers to run the military, the officers can't do all the work themselves so they select some people to themselves promote and give some of the authority to.\n\nThere are likely some ways to reason why this organization method still makes sense in peacetime, but I would think the most compelling argument is that having two different organizational systems for wartime and peacetime is just too much of a nightmare to actually do.",
"Veteran here; and my first thought was 'BECAUSE IT'S THE MILITARY, THAT'S WHY!!!'\n\nBut seriously, thisnameoffendsme's answer was pretty much spot on.",
"I don't think it's the official reason, but I've always seen it as similar to when an NCO gets a commission, and they transfer him to a different unit. The enlisted who served with him before he was an officer may not respect him as an authority figure, and just see him as their old buddy, Staff Sergeant Nutsack.",
"Commissioned officers and Non-commissioned officers have different jobs. NCO's would need to know more about troop welfare and must have technical and tactical proficiency in their designated job whereas a commissioned officer is a leader and is more of a logistics supervisor. Although they are trained to lead in a fight, which they are taught very well and are very capable, they are more about movement than engagement. \n\nOne must prove their ability in their tactics to become an NCO whereas one must prove they have the ability to see a bigger picture to be commissioned.",
"The historical but still technically true answer is that a commissioned officer is bestowed with their authority through the sovereign or in the case of the United States, the president. That is the meaning of the term commissioned, someone receives a commission from the president to be an officer. A non-commissioned officer's authority is bestowed on them by commissioned officers, or more practically and accurately, by the needs of the situation.\n\nThe structure is a wartime structure and makes more sense in that context. The president commissions officers to run the military, the officers can't do all the work themselves so they select some people to themselves promote and give some of the authority to.\n\nThere are likely some ways to reason why this organization method still makes sense in peacetime, but I would think the most compelling argument is that having two different organizational systems for wartime and peacetime is just too much of a nightmare to actually do.",
"Veteran here; and my first thought was 'BECAUSE IT'S THE MILITARY, THAT'S WHY!!!'\n\nBut seriously, thisnameoffendsme's answer was pretty much spot on."
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3mu2pf | why is grief sometimes sexy? | [deleted] | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3mu2pf/eli5_why_is_grief_sometimes_sexy/ | {
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"text": [
"Vulnerability is often viewed as a feminine trait. In the case of a widow, a man may see her as available and subconsciously see her as being in need of a new provider. "
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rs0ek | duty-free shopping | ...and why it's apparently only at the airport. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/rs0ek/eli5_dutyfree_shopping/ | {
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"so what's to stop anyone from buying it and then giving the bag to someone leaving/flying within the country?"
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4e6uq3 | how do chickens have eggs with babies in them? how do the male chickens fertilize the female chicken's egg? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4e6uq3/eli5_how_do_chickens_have_eggs_with_babies_in/ | {
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"The hard shell forms after the fertilization process happens. Before then, the egg is just a tiny cell in the chicken's reproductive tract.",
"Pretty similar to the way mammals do it, but roosters don't have penises. They have a \"cloacal opening\", that they rub on each other and sperm comes out and gets in the female. Then the egg is laid.",
"Birds have a single opening instead of two. Their feces, eggs, and urine all come out of the same hole called a *cloaca*.\n\nThe male rooster will mount the female and insert their cloaca (which can protrude a little) into the female's cloaca. When they ejaculate the sperm will then travel up her oviduct (similar to our fallopian tubes). As an aside, birds do not have a vagina/uterus and they only have one ovary-oviduct. Anyway, the sperm go all the way up the oviduct and hang out in the infundibulum. The infundibulum is like a sac which 'catches' the egg that bursts off the ovary. Imagine a basketball hoop with a tube under it...the ball (or egg) is caught in the hoop (infundibulum) and is funnelled into the tube (oviduct). As the egg passes through the infundibulum the sperm fertilize it. At this point the egg is naked and does not have a shell so the sperm easily penetrate the outside layer to fertilize. The fertilized egg passes down the oviduct where, at different points various layers of the egg shell are added. It can spend over 20 hours in the oviduct getting the shell layer on. Once the egg shell layer is added the egg will pass out of the oviduct and out of the cloaca. Voila! you have a fertilized egg. \n\n",
"I have had to explain this to a 5 year old. The rooster mounts the hen (she will often lower herself to make this easier). The male parts are inside the rooster and a sperm packet is sent out of something called a cloaca. He guides this along with the help of his tail feathers. The sperm travel up the hen's cloacal opening to her oviduct (where the eggs are produced...she may have more than one egg in different stages). egg itself only has a membrane at this point, not a shell. The sperm travel through the membrane to what we know as the yolk. An instant chemical change takes place. In any of the cases, whether it is fertilized or not, layers of the shell begin to form, but are malleable (soft) until it leaves the hen's body. As soon as the egg is 'laid' the contact with the air causes it to harden (this happens very quickly). Something on the outside of the shell, called a bloom, allows the shell to 'breathe', that is, air can pass through. You can sometimes tell that an egg is fertilized because sometimes (not always) there is a bullseye shape somewhere on the egg where the sperm entered. Hope this helps."
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69vlp6 | why are there different hunting seasons for different animals? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/69vlp6/eli5_why_are_there_different_hunting_seasons_for/ | {
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"You generally can't hunt animals when they are raising their young. For example, deer have their young in the late winter/ early spring, so therefore deer hunting season is in the fall. Nuisance animals, like wild boar, do not enjoy such protection and therefore there is no hunting season. It is legal to hunt them all year long."
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21o1vq | why isn't amoled/oled display technology incorporated into monitor/tv displays? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/21o1vq/eli5_why_isnt_amoledoled_display_technology/ | {
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"It is. Samsung made TV based on oled. \n\nNow we don't have technology cheap enough to create display big enough to be competition to LED/plasma. Price of oled TV would be now magnitude higher than \"regular\" TV. "
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2laqlt | how do resonance tones create geometric shapes? | From [this video.](_URL_0_) What's going on here? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2laqlt/eli5_how_do_resonance_tones_create_geometric/ | {
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"Ever drop something into water? You create a wave on the surface, that goes untill it hits the edge of water, and then it bounces back, right?\n\nIf your wave does not resonate, then the high point of an incoming wave will be a low point (or somewhere in between) of the wave bouncing back from the edge. So, put together, they will mess eachother up, and equal out.\n\nIf the wave you make resonates, then the high point on your wave will overlap with the high point of the wave bouncing back from the edge. So, the wave will be twice as high (and low)\n\nNow, if you make a wave that bounces, and bounces again, and again, and again, and all those waves add together, that's called a standing wave, and what you see in the video is the low points of a standing wave."
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2em5ws | are trees that look "half dead" still alive? | When a tree has only about half of it blooming while the other half are completely dead branches, is it dead? diseased? or just weird? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2em5ws/eli5_are_trees_that_look_half_dead_still_alive/ | {
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"The root system probably got damaged. Certain parts of the roots will only feed certain parts of the tree, if it can still produce leaves it is still alive.",
"A tree can be half dead. The top may still be alive but the bottom may have been damaged by disease or bugs or rot. The trunk of a tree is mostly made of tubes to allow water and nutrients to move around. This happens by pressure so the tree trunk doesn't need to have new living cells. Only the outer most layers in a tree are dividing. The inner layers are hardened in place. "
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5y32d1 | how does jumping work? | I'm not asking HOW to jump; I can jump perfectly fine. I'm asking what about the jumping motion causes someone to lift off the ground. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5y32d1/eli5_how_does_jumping_work/ | {
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"You're applying a net downward force that's greater than your weight. \n\nSince the floor pushes up against you with the same magnitude of force that you push on it, and since the floor certainly isn't going anywhere, this means that you are pushed up off the floor. Gravity then takes over and drags you back down.",
"Inertia! when you crouch down to prime for a jump, you're lowering your center of mass. \n\nWhen you extend your legs to actually jump, they can only push you as far as they are long (as soon as your legs fully extend, that's it. You're not going anywhere) \n\nInertia takes over at this point. Your mass, previously lowered, is now moving upward at a rate determined by your legs' extension. Since you're already in motion, your mass wants to stay in motion [(Newton's First Law)](_URL_0_) and your body travels up, despite your legs no longer pushing you that way. \n\nEventually, gravity catches up with you and you fall back down \n\n",
"You crouch, then straighten up quickly, by which you give yourself an upward going velocity. Then by inertia you keep moving upwards according to Newton's first law. It's gravity that gives you a negative acceleration of 10 m/s, i.e. it keeps slowing you down to zero and then even reverts the direction of the initial velocity so that you start going downwards towards the ground again."
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nhjzx | how does invisibility work? how do you make something invisible? | I want a simple explanation for invisibility in general! Hope someone's up to the challenge! :) | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/nhjzx/eli5_how_does_invisibility_work_how_do_you_make/ | {
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"If anyone in this thread actually knows I encourage them to build an invisibility device rather than tell us about it. They'd make a lot of money.\n\nWe can't make things invisible, really. There are a number of sort of 'cheating' methods. One is to strap a screen to the front of someone and a camera to the back. The screen plays what the camera sees, so you sort of see through them. It's not very practical though.\n\nIf any invisibility devices were invented, they'd probably involve something that could bend light completely around it, which nothing we know of yet does.",
"For something to be \"invisible\" all light would have to pass around or through it without distortion. Nobody has accomplished this in real life so far. The best/closest efforts so far try to capture the light on one side of the object and project it on the other side. (Think of it as walking around with a big t.v. screen strapped to your front that projects what's behind you. )\n \n\"true\" invisibility is probably impossible. You'd need to relay all energy spectrums, not just light. Arguably, if you didn't absorb or emit any energy at any wavelength, you'd be effectively outside space/time and therefor unable to interact with it. ",
"If anyone in this thread actually knows I encourage them to build an invisibility device rather than tell us about it. They'd make a lot of money.\n\nWe can't make things invisible, really. There are a number of sort of 'cheating' methods. One is to strap a screen to the front of someone and a camera to the back. The screen plays what the camera sees, so you sort of see through them. It's not very practical though.\n\nIf any invisibility devices were invented, they'd probably involve something that could bend light completely around it, which nothing we know of yet does.",
"For something to be \"invisible\" all light would have to pass around or through it without distortion. Nobody has accomplished this in real life so far. The best/closest efforts so far try to capture the light on one side of the object and project it on the other side. (Think of it as walking around with a big t.v. screen strapped to your front that projects what's behind you. )\n \n\"true\" invisibility is probably impossible. You'd need to relay all energy spectrums, not just light. Arguably, if you didn't absorb or emit any energy at any wavelength, you'd be effectively outside space/time and therefor unable to interact with it. "
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1rh898 | what is the difference between regular speed and ground speed for aircraft? | I recently flew from California to Florida via Southwest Airlines. During the flight they offered a flight tracker online that updated every thirty seconds. It showed where we were and our speed. It said our ground speed was around 600 mph. It seems to me like the rate at which we are moving should be measured the same way whether we are on the ground or in the sky. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1rh898/eli5_what_is_the_difference_between_regular_speed/ | {
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"The plane's airspeed is how fast it's moving relative to the air around it. The ground speed is how fast it's moving relative to the ground.\n\nSo, for instance, if the wind is blowing in the same direction the plan is traveling, it can reach a higher ground speed, because the limits of the engines have to do with how fast the plane is moving *in the air*.",
"The reason we have airspeed and groundspeed is because they serve different purposes. For an airplane to gain lift (fly) it has to move through the air at a certain speed so that the wings will work. To make sure we are at that speed and not coming close to falling below it, we measure airspeed. This is how fast the plane is moving through the air. If air never moved anywhere and stayed in the same place all the time, then airspeed and groundspeed would be the same thing. However, air also moves! We all know that. We call it wind! The airplane is a part of the air mass in the same way that a fish is a part of the water mass. A fish can swim through the water at a certain speed *relative to the water*, but if that water is itself moving with respect to the earth, then fish's speed with respect to the earth is *also* changed the same amount. So if our airplane (a sky-fish!) in the air is flying north at 50mph through the air, and the air itself is moving 10mph *south* relative to the earth, then we have two speeds happening to our aircraft. We are going north at 50mph through air, but only 40mph over the ground, because the air itself is pulling us back as we move forward!\n\nGroundspeed allows us to calculate how long it will take us to arrive at a given destination, and is particularly important so we can make calculations for fuel consumption. Our airspeed is important because the plane will behave differently in the air depending on its speed. Too fast and we could stress or damage the airframe. Too slow and we risk losing lift and \"stalling\", which is basically falling out of the sky (don't worry, we can recover from those easily!)."
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4xnphw | how do groups like neo-nazis and the kkk still manage to recruit people? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4xnphw/eli5_how_do_groups_like_neonazis_and_the_kkk/ | {
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"text": [
"As long as an idea exists, there will be followers. There are even people who have the ancient Greek gods as a religion.",
"Hate breeds hate. Lots of people are a product of their environment or fall into the wrong crowd.",
"Just because you find it nonsense doesn't mean the same applies to other people. Those groups have a long going heritage and their ideas are far from forgotten. Just check any Nazi era German march on youtube and see the comments if you want to have a clue on their size.",
"Everyone has problems in their life. Dealing with those problems is tough - especially when you're forced to accept that those problems are the outgrowth of your own actions or fundamental features of the world.\n\nSo along comes someone and tells you its not your fault. You can't get a date because blacks are stealing all the white women. The police are out to get you because you're black. The Europeans are preventing you from succeeding because they hate Muslims. The Jews control all the money. Men are trying to keep women barefoot and pregnant. And so forth.\n\nNo matter how silly the reason is, the underlying message: \"it's not your fault - blame that group over there\" is incredibly tempting. You *want* to believe it and once you've accepted the reason, it's very difficult to break free of your illusions and confront your own contribution to your life's problems."
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