q_id
stringlengths 5
6
| title
stringlengths 3
296
| selftext
stringlengths 0
34k
| document
stringclasses 1
value | subreddit
stringclasses 1
value | url
stringlengths 4
110
| answers
dict | title_urls
sequence | selftext_urls
sequence | answers_urls
sequence |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
3rzvvb | why is there a large backlash against movements like bds (or other anti-israeli sentiment)? | Every article on the subject seems to accuse such movements of anti-semitism and uses vague phrases like "the conflict isn't black and white". I'm not saying I support either side's approach (IMO the whole situation is a sad mess) but Palestine is a tiny, poor state, whereas Israel is wealthy and gets a lot of financial backing/revenue through its relationships with large multinational corporations.
I guess what I'm saying is, if someone is against the conflict in general, how is boycotting Israel anti-Semitic? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3rzvvb/eli5_why_is_there_a_large_backlash_against/ | {
"a_id": [
"cwssi11",
"cwsskmd"
],
"score": [
3,
6
],
"text": [
"Israel was set up as a jewish state. A lot of pro Palestinian groups wish for Israel to not exist and that area be free from Judaism. Which is antisemitic. \n\nWhat it often comes down although condemning Israel actions is not really antisemitic, people who are antisemitic will boycott Israel so they are often conflated.",
"Well. there are several reasons.\n\n1) Its centered on Israel exclusivly, Israel has a much better human rights record then many countries around it, Egypt is currently flooding its border with gaza with sea water to block hamas infiltrations, Jordan killed more palestinians during black september then israel has killed in decades, Palestinians are intentionaly kept in refugeee camps in most arab countries with the intent that the only country that should provide a solution to the palestinians is Israel. So the BDS movement ignores any mistreatment of palestinians commited by anyr other country apart from Israel and also puts the entire weight of the palestinian problem on Israel, TL;DR they dont give a rats ass about any palestinian unless he´s being affected by a jew. \n\n2) They use constant harrasment and intimidation tactics, Many artists that act in israel are harrased and shamed on social media and even in real life by BDS activists, There have been instances in whcih BDS activists have activily assulted and harrased business owners, In south africa a BDS activist put a pigs head in the Koshers food section of a supermarket, and have invited people responsible for terror attacks against civilians, showing that they have little morality as to the methods they use in their fight, TL;DR They bully people to boycott israel and often result to violence and one sided arguments. \n\n3) Their actions seem to be more Anti Israel then pro palestinian, Presenting a scenario where if Israel disappeared tommorow everything in the middle east would magicly fix themselfs ignoring historical context and basis of the conflict, in many cases actually hurting the people they wanted to help, a good example is the west bank soda stream factory which had palestinians and israelis working side by side with both reciving equal pay and equal treatment, but becuase the factory was israeli the pressured the company to close it off and the palestinians were laid off, TL;DR they seem more intent on hurting Israel then actually finding a working solution to the situation. \n\nso basicly in summery\n\n1) they dont give a rats ass about palestinians being opressed in lebannon, Syria, Jordan, Egypt, or any other arab country, Its only news when a jew or a israeli harms a palestinian.\n\n2) they use violent and bully like tacticts to get their way, they have little interest in debate or discurose and their debate tactics seem to be \"i win if i shout the loudest\"\n\n3) They seem to not be interested in any other solution beyond Israel = bad and should disappear. "
]
} | [] | [] | [
[],
[]
] |
|
22ejqu | why does it cost over 10,000 to bury someone in the us? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/22ejqu/eli5why_does_it_cost_over_10000_to_bury_someone/ | {
"a_id": [
"cgm1l3u",
"cgm2cn9",
"cgm6zhg",
"cgm8p43",
"cgman9s"
],
"score": [
2,
16,
9,
10,
4
],
"text": [
"Land isn't cheap. People who are mourning are also not in the most sound mind to shop around. Why would you think about money when somebody you love dearly has just gone from this world. Money is no object when you're faced with loss.",
"There are several factors at work here. The first is professional services. You are hiring a funeral director to arrange and prepare your loved one for burial. The death also needs to be registered with the state and the executor needs paperwork so they can close the estate.\n\nThe is also the facilities. You need vehicles to transfer the body, a sterile preparation room to prepare the body. There also needs to be facilities to host visitations and funeral services. Death notices and clergy also need to be paid.\n\n\nThere is also merchandize like caskets, urns, vaults etc etc.\n\nOnce you combine the professional services, facilities and merchandize you get the prices that you do.\n\nSource: former funeral director",
"Biggest costs: \n\n* Casket: $2000 to $7000\n* Funeral Home Services: $4000 to $6000\n* Headstone: $1000 to $2000\n\nSource: Grandfather's death a couple years ago.",
"An older friend of mine died a few years ago and sadly didn't have many relatives to help/assist with the arrangements. They had already bought one of those pre-arranged plans in the past so basically, the widow just needed to inform the funeral director so they would take care of the details. I accompanied her and was dismayed at the shameless attempts at trying up-selling her on every step of the way. There were selling upgrades on flower arrangements, casket rental -yes, casket rental. My friend wanted for his remains to be cremated to save some dough but that didn't stop the funeral director from pushing a $200.00 a day casket rental. That was a sweet and cheap $800.00 sell. Thankfully, I managed to pry the widow away from the sharks and convinced to let me help her on the flower arrangements and few other purchases that would have sat her back easily another grand. Funeral directors, for the most part, are unscrupulous salespeople who really only care about their bottom line. I am not sure but I suspect they work on commission. ",
"Depending on the type of service you want everything has a fee. For a traditional service you have fees for the following:\n\nPicking up of the body from place of death at home, hospital, nursing home or morgue. Also, if the person died far from home you have those transportation fees.\n\nEmbalming (unless doing direct cremation or for religious reasons)\n\nCosmetizing/makeup/dressing\n\nCasket($400 for cloth covered up to as much as $16k for Bronze and even more for custom)\n\nService/Viewing\n\nLimo's\n\nGrave\n\nCasket Vault (most cities require a vault)\n\nOpening and Closing of the grave\n\nFlowers\n\nGrave Stone/Marker\n\nReception following service\n\nIf you are doing direct cremation with no services it's around $1k in most major cities. \n\nEven cremation is expensive though if you are planning on buying an Urn and/or having a burial of the cremains.\n\nYou can do a hybrid service where you rent a casket for a viewing and have a funeral and then cremation following for less than a traditional service.\n\nYou can of course pre plan your service and lock in at today's prices.\n\nLike others have said funerals are for the living to say good bye. If you have specific wishes for what happens when you die you need to have it in writing. Just get it notarized. \n\n"
]
} | [] | [] | [
[],
[],
[],
[],
[]
] |
||
31dlfm | why are all the olympics money losers except los angeles in 1984? what did they do that all other host cities refuse or were unable to do? | Edit: Looks like I was wrong in my initial assumption, as I've only heard about LA's doing financially well and others not so much. Existing facilities, corporate sponsorship (a fairly new model at the time), a Soviet boycott, a large population that went to the games, and converting the newly built facilities to other uses helped me LA such a success.
After that, the IOC took a larger chunk of money from advertisement and as the Olympics became popular again, they had more power to make deals that benefited the IOC rather than the cities, so later Olympics seemed to make less on average if they made any at all. Thanks guys! | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/31dlfm/eli5_why_are_all_the_olympics_money_losers_except/ | {
"a_id": [
"cq0kwon",
"cq0kyi0",
"cq0mgyh",
"cq0my03",
"cq0n6ay",
"cq0otyh",
"cq0q5g8",
"cq0q734",
"cq0q961",
"cq0qfrj",
"cq0qoef",
"cq0qqqv",
"cq0quvk",
"cq0rmm3",
"cq0rr75",
"cq0rsi5",
"cq0s907",
"cq0shpy",
"cq0sndn",
"cq0su9p",
"cq0sv60",
"cq0t28d",
"cq0t7pp",
"cq0tacs",
"cq0taif",
"cq0tb6k",
"cq0temd",
"cq0tfne",
"cq0ts27",
"cq0tswr",
"cq0tv1l",
"cq0tvkb",
"cq0tvoj",
"cq0tvv7",
"cq0u5s0",
"cq0u884",
"cq0uhk3",
"cq0umhr",
"cq0uose",
"cq0vd6h",
"cq0vw33",
"cq0vz6a",
"cq0w9vf",
"cq0wvyk",
"cq0x2gm",
"cq0x8ig",
"cq0y8o6",
"cq0ybq2",
"cq0ytyc",
"cq0yxak",
"cq0yyjl",
"cq0z58k",
"cq0z7uq",
"cq0zgik",
"cq0zry0",
"cq1079w",
"cq10c7d",
"cq10cvo",
"cq10gl9",
"cq10qce",
"cq114nk",
"cq117oy",
"cq11eo9",
"cq11hpa",
"cq11q09",
"cq11v5y",
"cq12pan",
"cq13770",
"cq139n1",
"cq15rlw",
"cq15x9z",
"cq16b33",
"cq16tjr",
"cq17e82",
"cq17t6f"
],
"score": [
2486,
8,
144,
703,
52,
20,
101,
222,
39,
182,
71,
25,
2,
2,
14,
2,
2,
4,
4,
8,
59,
25,
15,
8,
2,
2,
7,
2,
3,
5,
2,
5,
2,
2,
2,
3,
2,
3,
9,
5,
2,
2,
2,
2,
2,
2,
3,
2,
2,
2,
2,
2,
2,
2,
2,
3,
2,
3,
3,
2,
2,
2,
10,
2,
2,
5,
2,
5,
3,
2,
2,
2,
7,
2,
3
],
"text": [
"As far as I remember, most of the infrastructure was already in place. That's usually the biggest expenditure. ",
"Hope this helps.\n\n_URL_0_\n\nNumber 3 is what you're looking for but the whole article is a good read.",
"It wasn't the only one:\n\n[Vancouver 2010](_URL_1_)\n\n[Others](_URL_0_)",
"Los Angeles was able to reuse a lot of its previous Olympic infrastructure. As well as large stadiums (which many cities around the world have) the Olympics requires a number of speciality facilities for certain events. An equestrian centre for example is unlikely to attract a lot of visitors once the Olympics is over. This has been a particular problem for both Athens and Beijing, as their Olympic facilities are essentially abandoned since the games.\n\nThe other factor of the success in Los Angeles was a high degree of corporate sponsorship. According to Wikipeida they only built two new facilities for the 1984 games, and they were largely paid for by 7-Eleven and McDonalds. In the end they made about $200million profit on the games.\n\nAtlanta's 1996 games also had a high degree of corporate sponsorship, especially from Coca-Cola, so much so that Coca-Cola brands were the only drinks available at the games. According to Wikipedia they made $10million profit on the games, however many critics considered the games in Atlanta to be over-commercialised. Subsequent games have therefore been wary of over-using corporate sponsorship.\n\nMost host cities don't aim to make profit from the games directly, instead they hope that facilities like stadiums will have ongoing use after the games. It is also a good opportunity for the city to upgrade things like public transport, as well as tourism promotion.",
"IIRC an NPR program just talked about this recently in Albany NY (WAMC). \n\nLA, somehow, convinced the IOC to independently cover any over expenditures. They did! Hasn't happened since. ",
"Atlanta didn't lose money after the Olympics either because they whored it all out to sponsors like Coke who were willing to pay for pretty much the entire games in exchange for having their names plastered everywhere.",
"Take Sochi for example. The town really isn't much, yet they essentially built a city of infrastructure around it. They also did it fast which costs more money. The Sochi Olympics cost Russia about 50 billion. Thats difficult to make back, even for a world event like the olympics. Then after they spent all of that money and built all this stuff and used it for a month or two, it's just sitting there now, relatively unused.\n\nIn terms of economics, if it was going to be used for something then it wouldnt be a huge loss but you have massive facilities to house people and constructs built to facilitate Olympic sports in a small town or somewhere where its just going to go unused and not contribute anything back to those who built it.\n\nTL;DR : its a huge money sink with little chance to earn back it's full investment.",
"The Calgary Winter Olympics in 1988 also made a profit. And the facilities that were purposefully built for specific events are all still in use. Calgary has been the primary training grounds for Canadian Winter Olympic athletes ever since.",
"Seoul 88 made $300 million profit. What on earth are you talking about?",
"Does anyone know about the finances to the Sydney 2000 Olympics?\n\nThe infrastructure that was built is used constantly in sporting events & the village for the athletes was sold as residential housing.",
"They limited commercial sponsorship to 30 \"exclusive\" companies to drive up bidding and raised $126 million.\n\nWith the games in LA US television rights went for record amounts, $225 Million for the U.S. Another $68 Million for the international rights, and the committee made the TV companies provide all their own equipment, saving the games tens of millions.\n\nfinally, they did an amazing job with ticket sales, selling 6 million tickets at affordable prices for another $125 million.\n\nFYI, these are 1984 dollars, to adjust for inflation you can basically double the amounts for 2015 dollars.\n\nSee pages 8-10 of the PDF.\n\n_URL_0_",
"Hum, TIL I learned other cities made money too. ",
"They convinced the IOC to cover any costs beyond projected costs.",
"In addition to already having some of the stadiums as others have mentioned, LA reused a lot of the new stuff they built -- the athlete's quarters were converted into student dormitories at UCLA post-Olympics.",
"I remember in Sydney the trains ran perfectly just once, during the Olympics - the government poured money into the public transit system with mountains of staff and heaps of extra police and other public servants doing everything to make the city look awesome.",
"Summary : LA had all the infrastructure and sports stadiums.. And did you see what Jon Jerde used to make em look pretty?.. Scaffolding and colorful tarp for a few thousand bux! Win win! RIP Jon Jerde. You saw things.... ",
"Before I read another comment talking about how Olympics X made Y profit, I just want to point out that \"profits\" from the Olympics are very difficult to judge and extremely easy to twist to meet one's desired result.",
"All these responses and no mention of Pete Ueberoth? He was largely responsible for the economic success of the '84 Olympics. ",
"Any time a topic like this comes up, I enjoy bragging about my state.\n\nColorado was awarded the 1976 winter Olympics.\n\nA referendum was held after we were granted the games... and they were rejected.\n\nOnly location to ever turn down the games... because we've got out heads on straight.\n\nI would have been about 3 years old for the games but still.\n\n(Dick Lamm (former governor) is also an interesting guy. I love that he opposed the Olympics but he also intentionally sabotaged our highway infrastructure based on the notion of preventing growth... we're still suffering today with no \"belt\".)",
"The QE Olympic park was a profit to the UK, it was built in the most deprived areas of the east end, and now its a booming property market. Also the main stadium will fully become west ham United's home ground next year. The athletes village is now commercial flats and the swimming pool occasionally host public swimming times as well as national competitions",
"Salt Lake City in 2002 made money. They had lots and lots of volunteers though. And the infrastructure was already in place the only difference is Salt Lake City decided to have it spread across the entire valley not just at an Olympic Park.\neverything used that then still used today. So they were efficient about it .",
"Beijing, London, Sarejevo, Salt Lake City, Barcelona, Atlanta, Seoul and Calgary appear to have also made a profit on some level as well (not regarding other impacts such as extra tourism and environmental costs).",
"I'm not sure about other Olympics but for London 2012 the Olympics were used to redevelop a huge disused industrial area into a large public park and new sports venues, as well as spending money fixing up the transportation system. So in this case it's not that the Olympics were supposed to make a profit, it's that they were used to make big infrastructure projects much cheaper by paying for some of it.",
"I didn't see anyone post about how much security costs nowadays. I've read that London spent upwards of **$2 BILLION**! Ever since the bombing at the Atlanta '96 Games, and the steady rise of terrorist events, the cost of security is an expenditure that's climbing through the roof. ",
"Huge home advantage population, and enough cars and roads to get them there. California alone contributes a whopping 13% of the national GDP, more than many countries. Also, there's more to see, destination wise, so people visited the Olympics, along with Disney Land, Hollywood, Universal, and so forth. ",
"The LA Olympics were the first Olympics to make money because the organiser, Peter Ueberroth, introduced corporate sponsorship, and a bidding war for the television rights, something that was new at the time.",
"Los Angeles refused to do the Paralympics because that part of the Olympics didn't look like a money maker. The rules were changed afterwards by the IOC: if you want the Olympics you also must organize the Paralympics.",
"Calgary made money in 1988. Quite profitable too. ",
"London almost made money. And would have easily, if they had not consciously made the decision to use the olympics to part subsidize a redevelopment of a huge brownfield area of London. It was a win win really....",
"Here's an article that covers why the 1984 olympics were so successful. _URL_0_\r\rBasically, it was run by businessmen and by citizens not by the government. Together they decided not to build anything that could not be reused and opted to instead upgrade existing buildings. They heavily decorated the entire city so it looked like the entire city was designed for the olympics, without actually having to spend a ton on making infrastructure repairs. It's amazing what they did with some posters and paint. Also, they were the first to strike tv deals for advertising and revenue. And it being LA meant they had everything they needed to make tv ads and broadcasting quickly and cheaply.",
"Patriotism and the cold war. Russia boycotting caused everyone else to got batshit crazy over capitalism.",
"You're asking about the financial aspects of the Games, so I won't address the Munich massacre, but as far as infrastructure, Munich used the Games as the impetus for vastly expanding their subway system, as well as creating a vibrant Olympic park that remains a popular recreation attraction in the city, with numerous sporting events still held regularly in the multiple stadiums on site. The Olympic Village housing adjacent to the park is still being used as well.\n\nSeems pretty successful to me. That said, Bavarian voters recently turned down the chance to host the Winter Games, and become the first city to host both Summer and Winter Games, due to concerns over potential cost issues, so it's definitely a concern.",
"I haven't seen anyone else mentioning this so apologies if they have but the big difference is that LA made a tonne of money on sponsorship because America (and particularly LA) are good at that sort of thing. After the LA games the IOC started taking a much bigger chunk of licencing and merch when they realised how lucrative it was.\n\nLA was a huge turning point for the games for this reason - since then cities have had to turn far more money over to the IOC in exchange for prestige of the event but with far less chance of turning a profit. The Economist ran an article about this recently - I'd link but I'm on my mobile - I'm sure it's googleable though.\n\nArguably it's gone too far - now the only people even applying for the winter games are corrupt messes who can afford to waste a tonne of money for PR purposes. Democracies less able to justify costs are increasingly opting out.\n\n",
"uh Sydney in 2000 made money too. A lot haven't. But a lot have. ",
"Not sure if anyone has mentioned it, but the US and many of our allies boycotted the 1980 Olympics in Moscow. In return, the USSR and some of its allies boycotted the 1984 Olympics in Los Angeles. All of this led to increased interest in the '84 Games.",
"The 88 olympics in Calgary, Alberta Canada did not lose money. In fact I believe they came out ahead. ",
"Buick was a sponsor also. As I read somewhere along the way, previously, transportation for the athletes was a horrible mess. Buick labeled limited edition Centurys as an \"Olympia\" - complete with the Olympics symbol badges, a luggage rack to store their gear, gold wheels, they put a great Bose CD sound system in them and loaned them to the athletes. After the Olympics was over, they sold those cars.\n\nI owned one. I thought it was a [beautiful car](_URL_0_) for that era. I had it for about 15 years and sold it. I wish I still had it.\n\nWho knows, Greg Louganis, Mary Lou Retton, or Michael Jordan might have previously driven my car.\n\n",
"The TL;DR of this is that every time a city builds a stadium they lose huge amounts of money, and the Olympics generally require more than one stadium and are usually facilities no one needs after.",
"What makes you say 1984 was the only one not to make a loss? Wikipedia shows many of the games paid off the debt.. In fact 1984 didn't even make the most profit in history? Seoul did.\n\n_URL_0_\n\n",
"Only FIFA can compete with the IOC in terms of corruption. They demand a Ferrari when a Lexus would work just as well if not better. It's not enough to have stadiums anymore. Now they have to be NEW state-of-the-art stadiums which you'll need to build if you want a chance at winning the bid. LA was able to use all of the existing infrastructure because it was 1984. No way the IOC would award the Olympics to LA today unless they promised to build entirely new stadiums and facilities. Fuck the IOC and fuck FIFA, those greedy sons of bitches.",
"Peter Ueberroth, who later became Commissioner of Major League Baseball, headed the 1984 Olympics.\n\nHis management was financially successful but was not always popular. One of the more controversial aspects was enforcement of the copyright of the use of the word \"Olympic\". Hundreds (thousands?) of businesses were legally compelled to change their names including numerous mom & pop restaurants that had been around for decades.\n\nThere was the beginning of a perceptive shift in how people viewed \"amateurism\". In some sense, the 1984 Olympics were a watershed event.\n",
"Gizmodo has an excellent [piece](_URL_0_) on the subject.\n\n",
"the traffic (or lack there of) that summer was remarkable. the freeways were like a ghost town.",
"It has mostly to do with areas building up to support major influxes of people that will never be seen again.\n\nThat's why Hamburg's bid of being the most 'practical location' due to already present population and infrastructure is making such a big splash in the biddings.",
"Your question is predicated on a falsehood:\n\n_URL_0_",
"I'd say American consumerism can overcome anything.",
"I've seen several answers on here. They are generally correct.\nThe vast majority of the venues were preexisting, in use, and continue to be used, although some have been closed or replaced since. Two venues were required to be built, but they were built using corporate sponsorship money. This is in direct contrast to places like Greece, where public funds were used to build new venues for the games and now serve no purpose.\n\nThe sponsorship model for the LA games has been used every olympics since. The Olympic Partners (TOP) are about a dozen companies that heavily sponsor the games. These corporate sponsors currently are Coke, McD's, GE, Dow, Visa, Omega, Procter and Gamble, Atos, Samsung, and Panasonic. In addition to money, they also donated equipment, tech services, and food.\nThere are different tiers of sponsorship that limit companies on their use of the Olympic symbols and region of advertising. ~40% of revenue generated for the Olympics comes from this model.\n\n",
"Losing money is only one way of viewing it. The long term impacts on a city are more than money. For example, it can speed up development of infrastructure that a city needs (roads, sewers, development of burned out parts of a city, etc). There will not be an easy metric to calculate the return on that investment, but it will have a positive impact on the city long term. Or... At least, it might. The thing about not being able to accurately count those metrics is that we won't know the effect, only hope there is a net positive. ",
"They lose money for the tax payer, but the large corporations make a tidy profit. I'm from the UK, business as usual! ",
"Several had said before, but the ATL games utilized most major cities in Georgia plus Birmingham, AL. Some soccer was played in B'ham, softball was in Columbus, GA, white water rafting was on the Ocoee in North Georgia. The Ted was built for the games then converted to the stadium for the Braves. ",
"I studied this at university a few years ago. I don't remember all the specifics, but I think the gist is that countries pump billions into hosting Olympics and use it as an opportunity to rebuild infrastructure and improve the lives of people living in and around the host city. They refer to this as the Olympic Legacy and they outline it in their long term plan in their bid to host. It usually contains plans for restructuring the city in many different ways in the years after the Games have been held. This helps get the residents behind it and is meant to make the country a lot of money in the long run - enough to make a profit on hosting the Games.\n\nUnfortunately, in most cases these long term plans don't come to fruition or just don't make the country money as planned and the whole thing ends up costing the country a LOT more than they paid. Athens 2004 is the prime example here, which more or less bankrupted Greece.\n\nThere are exceptions though. I think London 2012 will be profitable if it isn't already, but ultimately it's down to whether or not the country can sustain their legacy or not.",
"The Vancouver 2010 Olympics Jr. broke even -\n\n_URL_0_\n\n...plus we got a lot of cool facilities that we use every day. For example, my kids are going to skating lessons today in the facility that was the curling venue.",
"The 1988 winter Olympics in Calgary generated revenue as well.\n_URL_0_",
"We're spending a fuckload of public money on the Pan Am games here in Toronto, and I haven't the foggiest clue why.",
"You need to define \"money losers\" better. Vancouver built a new high speed transit system for example, revenues of which will be collected for the next 50 years. Are we counting the cost of that transit system? Are we counting the revenues? Do we count the increased tourism the city experiences 5 years after the Olympics? There's a general feeling that the Olympics in Vancouver was a very good thing for the city culturally and financially even though on paper it is technically a \"money loser\". ",
"It wasn't just economics, even the residents loved the games - ask anyone who had to drive around that time. They will tell you it was **the only time in the last 50 years there weren't traffic jams** for the entire time.\n\nWhy? Peter Ueberroth (who doesn't seem to be getting any name-checks ITT and is usually credited with making the games the success they were) did two things that really made a difference - he convinced a lot of companies to stagger their shifts so people worked 8am - 4pm or 10am - 6pm and he negotiated with shipping companies (the ports of Los Angeles & Long Beach is the busiest single harbor port in the US) to switch to overnight loading. Apparently it made the truckers very happy because the could just drive in, grab their cargo or trailer and zip out in less half the usual time because they weren't stuck in daytime traffic.\n\nWhy didn't the city convince companies to keep these things in place? Well, in the case of the ports the other people who were happy were all the union **dockworkers** who had to be paid **graveyard shift bonus rates.** And if you were a company that switched to 8 - 4 hours but you had to do business with another company that worked 10 - 6 then you could only conduct business with them for just 6 hours a day (10-4). ",
"They didn't need to spend nearly as much on new facilities. And, that was before the opening ceremonies cost mega millions",
"Forgot Salt Lake City, but that's Winter Olympics so I can understand why you forget",
"A combination of LA having most of the facilities in place and having corporate sponsors. The sponsors allowed Los Angeles to pay off any other costs and also turn a profit. In general the best way to pay off an Olympics is to have as little to build as possible (Have Olympic class facilities in place and good infrastructure) The cities that spend a fortune like Beijing, Sochi and Athens are building from scratch, with major improvements and buildngs to be built.",
"_URL_0_\n\nIt seems that there were more than just the LA Olympics that made money. Check out the chart in the link. ",
"Well war.... Ahem *sarajevo* and land mines....and explosives and stuff....",
"Have you ever watched the Olympics? 90% nonsense and 10% athletics. Way too much pomp and circumstance. ",
"The IOC Usually requires the host city to build a bunch of infrastructure for the games. The host cities usually agree to this despite the fact that the cost of building the infrastructure will never be made up by future uses of it, because hopefully the city can make up revenue through taxes from all the people coming to the city. This usually never happens, but in theory it works, so that is why cities keep hosting the olympics.\n\nIn 1976, Montreal hosted the olympics, and they lost a ton of money, like a ton, the city was practically bankrupted. The next olympic host city to be decided after the 1976 olympics was the 1984 olympics. The only city that put forward a serious bid was Los Angeles because all the other cities were too scared of financial loss. Because Los Angeles was the only option, they got to pull some strings, so the IOC couldn't force them to build all new infrastructure, and LA could use existing infrastructure. Because f this, the had little expenditures, but still got to reap in all the benefits of being a host city.",
"An inability to get people to forget that the economy was horrible (all over), and that the US and USSR was once again on the edge leaning toward letting a small group of men decide that all humans should be erased from existence (nukes)",
"Even though it lost a ton of money on the first go around, there is something to be said for making the Olympics [permanently in Greece](_URL_0_). The structures are there, although falling apart -- due to non use. But the money to restore them and keep them up would have to be less then building new structures from scratch. And it would be an economic boost for them every four years. And unlike most other countries that pay for the Olympics its in an area that is worth visiting even without the Olympic events -- from the Culture of Athens to [this.](_URL_1_)",
"The salt lake city 2002 winter olympics is one of the most successful winter olympics ever.",
"There are a lot of host countries that have to build facilities and such.",
"In short:\n\nL.A. did the 3 R's: Reduce, Reuse, and Recycle.\n\nThey didn't build a whole lot, and just used a bunch of perfectly acceptable facilities at local universities, and even the old 1930s Olympic stadium.\n\nVisually a bit boring compared to the mega projects like you had in Beijing, or Athens. But they didn't go broke trying to look sweet.",
"Infastructure.... They had the arenas and stadiums built already and had a plan to use them long after too!\n\nThat fact that McDonald's and Coco-Cola threw money in was a big reason as well.",
"I remember people saying at the time that Peter Uberroth was a micromanager who drove people crazy but got the job done.\n\nAnd I think this was when sponsoring *really* took hold. To the point that it became expected. I believe the SLC games took this to another level, with high-scale bribery to get the games. The IOC’s level of corruption soared after SLC. That’s just what I remember hearing at the time. ymmv.",
"Probobly the contractors and other people who do stand to make money from it who lobby for it so hard. ",
"Nobody wanted the Olympics by the time LA bid due to the expenses the games incurred. To top it off, there was a tax revolt a few years earlier and taxpayers made it very clear that they wouldn't pay a dime for the Olympics. \n\nThe confluence of those two events led to Pete Uberroth promised the games would be entirely privately funded which changed the dynamic. He spent 5 years organizing the event which at the end, turned a $250 million surplus. \n\nWhen 7-11 decided to become a sponsor, all the major events had been taken and they were left funding the construction of a velodrome. As 7-11's CEO signed the check he asked \"What the hell is a velodrome?\" \n\nIt makes perfect sense that the games be privately funded - the games are business and have no right asking taxpayers to underwrite them.",
"We had a couple advantages here in Los Angeles. First we didn't have to do much construction besides a pool facility and a velodrome for bike racing. The LA Coliseum is still in use today 30+ years later for college football and concerts, saw Rage Against the Machine there, good venue. Most Olympic stadiums rot & rust away disused, the Bejing National Stadium cost one 465 million and hasn't been used since, LA Coliseum cost $13 million adjusting for inflation, seats more people (93,000) and gets used constantly. Third is infrastructure, Los Angeles was already a giant sprawling megacity, unlike Sochi in the middle of nowhere. USA!!!",
"Many good contributions in this thread as to the actual question, but I haven't seen Exclusion zones mentioned.\n\nIt was 84 that really showed the IOC (and FIFA, and every other big events body) that there was huge money to be made in sponsorship, and even more if you could convince the local government to police a large zone around the stadium, hunting down anyone who dared to try and make a profit unconnected to the sponsors and companies contracted to the IOC. \n\nThus as far as the governing bodies are concerned, pretty much every major sporting event since then has been a roaring success, but to the local government, theres far more variables.",
"Maybe a bit late for a response but...\n\nUsually it's not the Games themselves and the venues that cost the nations money but the city 'regeneration' plans. \n\nSince Rome 1960, cities have used the Olympics as a 'catalyst' for their own urban regeneration plans. By this I mean they condense around 30 years of city transformations such as new highways, revitalisation of disused port areas, metro lines etc into the 7 years prior to the Games. So in order to drive these through quickly, millions and nowadays even billions are invested into seeing the projects through. And this is where you see other issues arise such as the forced evictions we seen in Beijing and currently in Rio.\n\nHowever, Montreal 1976 did lose a lot of money attempting to build their Olympic Stadium which was incredibly engineering-ly advanced for its time and this resulted in huge issues and eventually 24/7 work was needed to build it. \n\nLos Angeles used existing venues and did very little outwith the games and marketed the games very well.\n "
]
} | [] | [] | [
[],
[
"http://www.cracked.com/article_19733_5-things-they-dont-want-you-to-know-about-olympics.html"
],
[
"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cost_of_the_Olympic_Games",
"http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/vancouver-2010-winter-olympics-debt-free-vanoc-final-report-says-1.2695994"
],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[
"http://www.bgcv.org/Websites/bgcv/Images/20thAnniversary.pdf"
],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[
"http://gizmodo.com/how-l-a-s-1984-summer-olympics-became-the-most-success-1516228102"
],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[
"http://farm4.staticflickr.com/3493/4019852462_4d8de5a04c_b.jpg"
],
[],
[
"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cost_of_the_Olympic_Games"
],
[],
[],
[
"http://gizmodo.com/how-l-a-s-1984-summer-olympics-became-the-most-success-1516228102"
],
[],
[],
[
"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cost_of_the_Olympic_Games"
],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[
"http://www.news1130.com/2014/07/03/the-vancouver-2010-olympics-broke-even-vanoc/"
],
[
"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1988_Winter_Olympics"
],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[
"http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cost_of_the_Olympic_Games"
],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[
"http://hellenicleaders.com/blog/permanentolympicvenues/#.VSAM2uGyOSo",
"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VIgjnmDmTBA"
],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[]
] |
|
11xbp9 | computational complexity theory | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/11xbp9/eli5_computational_complexity_theory/ | {
"a_id": [
"c6qe2a0"
],
"score": [
5
],
"text": [
"Some problems are really easy to solve, like finding the ace of spades in a deck of cards that has been shuffled. Some problems are a little bit harder, like taking deck of cards that has been shuffled and putting it back in order. Some problems are a lot harder, like figuring out whether some combination of the cards in a hand you've been dealt add up to 50.\n\nComputational complexity theory is about looking at problems and figuring out how hard they are for a computer to solve. Usually this means finding out how long a computer program will have to run to solve it. There are mathematical tools that computer scientists can use to say \"this problem will always take a really long time to solve\", even if computers get lots better or really smart programmers come along.\n\nThere are even some problems out there that we can prove won't *ever* be solved with computers, no matter how fast computers get in the future."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[]
] |
||
essd84 | why are we forced to open our mouth while yawning? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/essd84/eli5_why_are_we_forced_to_open_our_mouth_while/ | {
"a_id": [
"ffc5n09",
"ffc8120",
"ffce2ub"
],
"score": [
30,
9,
5
],
"text": [
"You can learn to overcome the urge to open your mouth... especially if you are in boring classes or meetings where openly yawning is considered rude! It does require controlling the muscles in the back of your jaw and inner ear area - also very useful for equalising the pressure in your ears while flying or diving...",
"You can’t avoid expanding/opening your jaw at least a little bit but you can definitely keep your mouth closed it just takes effort to do so.",
"There's a lot of theories about what actually causes yawning. The main two are that yawning increases your heart rate and forces you to breathe, both of which are suppose to wake you up and make you more alert. Plus, the yawn is a subconscious signal to others to become alert themselves, which is why yawning is \"contagious\" even to non-human species.\n\nThere's also a more recent theory that it's your brain cooling itself down. The breathing and heart rate increases are just side effects to get your \"brain juices\" moving and exposed to the cooler air you're sucking in.\n\nSince breathing is an important part of yawning, your body involuntarily opens your jaw to get more air into your lungs. However, you can still voluntarily control your lips during a yawn and not open your mouth."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[],
[],
[]
] |
||
43n6yn | why is cursive writing the default writing style in russia but phasing out in english? | In Russian people always write in cursive which looks different from абвг block letters. Why isn't cursive writing as common in English where many still write the same way as print? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/43n6yn/eli5_why_is_cursive_writing_the_default_writing/ | {
"a_id": [
"czjg4bx",
"czjg6bu"
],
"score": [
3,
2
],
"text": [
"It is easier to write Cyrillic in cursive than in print. Д for example is annoying as fuck to write in print for example. Some people write in a mixed fashion with some parts cursive and some parts written.\n\nSource: Know a Cyrillic language.",
"Writing in general is phasing out in America. Kids younger and younger are getting tablets instead of textbooks in school. Its only a matter of time before you don't need a notebook anymore. \n\nIts funny...when I was in school I was forced to write in cursive until I graduated middle school, some teachers required it in high school (Turn 30 in six weeks). Now, I can hardly read cursive when I see it. The only time I use it is when I realize *lol I can't even write in cursive anymore no matter how hard I try omg look how bad this is how do you make a Q again???* or when I sign my name. "
]
} | [] | [] | [
[],
[]
] |
|
53iazl | how did the us have jurisdiction over japan's unit 731 in terms of exchanging immunity for their research when most of the victims were chinese or russian? | How is that remotely fair? I'm pretty sure the US wouldn't be so lenient if the test subject in Unit 731 were American. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/53iazl/eli5how_did_the_us_have_jurisdiction_over_japans/ | {
"a_id": [
"d7tagpu",
"d7tahnp",
"d7tamkl"
],
"score": [
2,
5,
3
],
"text": [
"Legally, universal jurisdiction seems to cover this. In the case of war crimes any state can claim jurisdiction, because the crimes are seen as a crime against all of humanity. \n\nPractically, when you've just demonstrated the ability and willingness to use the world's first atomic weapons, you can do whatever you want. ",
"The simple answer is that they were arrested by US forces, and it was the US that won the war on Japan. You could certainly argue that it was not \"fair\" that the US got this information, but this occurred at a time when countries would try and take over the world. How \"fair\" it was paled in comparison to national security. ",
"History isn't written by the fair. Its written by the victors. \n\nNazi rocket scientists, nuclear scientists and biochem scientists were also given immunity as long as they come work for the US. \n\nChina was not a world power at the time. Why would anyone care? "
]
} | [] | [] | [
[],
[],
[]
] |
|
4fhh3x | why do we quote actors and their characters they play instead of the writers of the script? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4fhh3x/eli5_why_do_we_quote_actors_and_their_characters/ | {
"a_id": [
"d28t3iw",
"d28t5ol",
"d28t5v2",
"d28u500",
"d28uhs9",
"d28ulz0",
"d28un8r",
"d28vxra"
],
"score": [
37,
12,
3,
37,
2,
2,
2,
2
],
"text": [
"Because most people don't care, it's really as simple as that. Outside of the Oscar's, movie writers get very little attention.",
"From a purely practical point of view, the character/actor provides more context. If you just quote the writer, it could be any character he's ever written about.\n\nIf you are being diligent in your attributions, you would potentially do something along the lines of:\n\n > \"blah blah blah\" - \"Bryan Mills\" *Taken* Dir. Pierre Morel. Writ. Luc Besson, Robert Mark Kamen. Perf. Liam Neeson. 20th Century Fox, 2008.",
"Because the lines are written intended to be spoken by the character, *i.e.* as far as the writer is concerned, that character *did* speak the lines. It's the same way actors talk about their characters in third person during interviews.",
"When a quote is attributed to a person it normally means that person is endorsing the views.\n\nThe thing with writing fiction is that you will often write characters whose views you do not agree with; you may even find their views abhorrent. For example:\n\n > If you can’t protect yourself, die and get out of the way of those who can.\n\nThese words are from *Clash of Kings*, spoken by Sandor Clegane, and written by George R. R. Martin. The important thing here is that the quote describes a view that many would find offensive.\n\nIf I were to attribute that to G.R.R.M., he could rightfully be upset that I am making him appear to endorse the view, when the words were written to characterise Sandor Clegane as an unpleasant and forthright person.\n\nBy attributing the quote to Sandor Clegane instead then we have the context for the quote: we know it came from an unpleasant person, and we know the world they found themself in. (Or at least: we can find out.) It helps us understand the quote better.\n\nIt also does appear to vary a bit by medium. Some authors do tend to have things their characters say attributed to them; for example: [this quote from Ford Prefect](_URL_0_).",
"Take this as an example\n\n_URL_0_\n\nIt is an actor using bad writing that still sounds good. Good acting and directing can usually mask bad writing.\n\nReally good writing and a bad actor sounds bad.\n\nReally good writing and a good actor sounds great.\n\nBad writing and a good actor sounds ok.\n\nBad writing and a bad actor sounds terrible.\n\n\nFor these reasons we usually credit the actor even if the writing is good. Writing is more credited for coming up with interesting stories or scenarios. \n",
"Because attributing the quote to the actor or character is quicker. The other way you be attributing to quote to \"Luc Besson and/or Robert Mark Kamen, probably\". Any way, it's the character who says the line, not the writer. For the same reason, we quote characters in books and not the author.",
"Because with relatively few exceptions, scripts aren't individually written. Even when someone is a leading scriptwriter and/or a famous author, the director and actors often have significant input. \n\nFurthermore, what's written in the script isn't necessarily what winds up in the film. For example, half of what Robin Williams said in his films was improvised. You don't script real talent, you just let it work. And that's going to be especially true of the most memorable lines.\n\nFinally, a truly memorable line is a product of the acting, not the writing alone. Samuel L. Jackson's 'say what' speech in Pulp Fiction isn't memorable because of the writing per se, it's memorable because of the enormous intensity he brought to the delivery.",
"The actual way the dialogue is spoken, and the non-verbal actions are equally important to the words... no different than how you name a song by the performer, not the song writer, the vast majority of the time. And same reason why there are separate Oscars for best screenplay and best film. If only the words themselves mattered, then they awards would be one and the same."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[],
[],
[],
[
"http://www.goodreads.com/quotes/6344-time-is-an-illusion-lunchtime-doubly-so"
],
[
"https://youtu.be/8O1cL36atFY?t=1473"
],
[],
[],
[]
] |
||
4pgxbw | are the numbered designations of armed forces units accurate? ie. were there 100 groups of airborne units before the 101st? or if you're in like, the 473rd battalion of whatever, are there in fact 472 other battalions? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4pgxbw/eli5are_the_numbered_designations_of_armed_forces/ | {
"a_id": [
"d4kskt2",
"d4kslm1",
"d4kt8r4",
"d4ku1sg",
"d4kucn7",
"d4kvspe"
],
"score": [
14,
7,
5,
2,
3,
2
],
"text": [
"_URL_0_\n\nTL;DR - there's no one system to make sense of them. Some are based on history or tradition, others just happen to be the numbers assigned at the time. Arguably, the military doesn't *want* the numbering to make sense.",
"Quoting myself from a similar question:\n\n > \n\n > At this point? Basically one dartboard covered in numbers and one dartboard covered in acronyms. Throw two darts, name unit.\n\n > Really though it's a hilarious mishmash. Units tend to retain the names/numbers of their predecessor unit. So the 177th Air Refueling Wing might once have been the 117th Bomber Wing, or the 117th Reconnaissance Squadron, or the 117th Hula Dancing Platoon, but then they traded in their grass skirts for KC-135s and now they're an Air Refueling Wing.\n\n > Names might also get reinstated to carry on some traditions. A new unit might be formed with the same name/number as a decorated unit of the past. Units may retain their numbers when they transition from active to reserve/guard or vice versa. Numbers may be chosen by a bureaucrat based on some sequential list buried deep in a Pentagon basement, or if the unit is important/expensive/HSLD simply because the number sounds totally bad-ass or can be made to look like a skull on their patch.\n\n > Nobody really understands it, and these decisions are largely made by people who have spent a whole career watching Top Gun and huffing jet exhaust so it really isn't that surprising.\n",
"To add on a bit more to what has been said perviously: Yes the indovidual unit designations are a mix of history and randomnes. Some coming from old militias and what not, but the divisional levels and brigade levels are uniform and each unit usually has a special designation\n\n1st infantry division: Armored Infantry\n2nd Infantry division: mechanized infantry\n3rd infanty: mixed mechanized, armor, and light\n4th: combined stryker, light, mechanized\n\n\nAnd it goes on from there and repeats for the Armored units (1st AD, 2nd AD, ETC), and all the other specialties like armor, artillery, etc.\n\nThe smaller units are subdivided in similar fashons. 1st brigade, 2nd, brigade.\n\nAfter brigade level all shit hits the fan and the numers don't really add up Bc of renaming and designation changes.\n\n",
"There is also the misinformation side of things. Im not 100% on the details, but as an example, I believe Seal Team 6 was in fact one of the first teams made, but its name implied there were many more, as a means to obfuscate how many teams actually existed.\n\nI may be wrong on that specific example, but the concept still stands up, especially in relation to more specialized covert units where concrete details are hard to acquire.",
"In addition to the other comments in this thread, there is a concievable tactical and strategic advantage to having the numbers work as they do. \n\nImagine you come into first contact with a hypothetical enemy and you capture one of thier artllery guns, it's serial number is stamped on the side of the barrel. The serial number reads \"119\" How many artillery guns do you suppose the enemy has? It's at least 119, and probably not in the millions (if it were that high, the chances of finding a very low number would be tiny.) So you make an educated guess, and it turns out the best guess you can typically make is that you have found roughly the median serial number value. I.e., there are maybe 240 guns.\n\nIn order to obfuscate and confuse this type of analysis, German Tanks in WWII had serial numbers which started very high, so even though they were sequential, they gave the illusion that the German Army was better equiped than it really was.\n\nSEAL Team 6 is named such for the same reason. If gave the impression that there were at least 5 other super-elite teams at the disposal of the American Military, when in fact there was only one SEAL Team. ",
"The other comments here explain the random numbers pretty well. I'd just like to add that the USMC names theirs in number order. For example there's the 1st Marine Regiment that contains the 1st 2nd and 3rd battalions ( 1/1, 2/1, and 3/1) then the 2nd Marine Regiment with is own 1st 2nd and 3rd battalions (1/2, 2/2, and 3/2) and it continues on up though the numbers for regiments, some units may have fewer battalions or more battalions depending on what they are but the regimental number order stays the same. Unfortunately divisions don't follow the same principle and are filled with out of order regiments. (1st Marine Division is the 1st 5th 7th and 11th regiments)"
]
} | [] | [] | [
[
"https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/27iz83/eli5_how_were_the_numbers_chosen_for_various_us/"
],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[]
] |
||
bd0en8 | is the suns energy limited, or does it generate energy itself? how does it work? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/bd0en8/eli5_is_the_suns_energy_limited_or_does_it/ | {
"a_id": [
"ekuwd7r",
"ekuwgx4"
],
"score": [
10,
6
],
"text": [
"The Sun's energy is limited. It will start running out in approximately 5 billion years.\n\nThe Sun is made up of mostly hydrogen. The gravitation forces of the Sun cause the hydrogen to fuse together into helium, releasing a lot of energy in the process. Eventually, the hydrogen will run out. The Sun will keep fusing its contents into heavier and heavier elements (helium fuses into carbon, for example) until it can't do that anymore and will become a white dwarf.",
"The Sun produces energy by a process call nuclear fusion. Atoms in the sun join to make new atoms (helium to hydrogen, etc) releasing excess energy. All natural elements on the Periodic Table are created in a star, by fusion. \n\nEventually (5 billion years from now) The Sun will use all its fuel and expand out engulfing the Earth before it degenerates to a cloud of gas. \n\nSome larger stars will collapse in on themselves under their own mass, creating black holes when they die."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[],
[]
] |
||
47qcmu | why does mouthwash sting my mouth but liquor only burns when you swallow it? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/47qcmu/eli5_why_does_mouthwash_sting_my_mouth_but_liquor/ | {
"a_id": [
"d0euyu0"
],
"score": [
4
],
"text": [
"Try rinsing your mouth for a minute with liquor. It will start to burn.\n\nWith mouthwash you have alcohol and the mixture of essential oils that kill bacteria, work as an antiseptic, and removes the biofilm that builds on teeth (plaque). The essential oils come from plants likes mint and eucolyptus; giving us menthol and eucolyptal oils. These oils are the listerine in the mouth wash. These oils are very strong, menthol can cause skin irritation if it is left on too long. "
]
} | [] | [] | [
[]
] |
||
m6sg1 | what is a trust? | What is the difference between leaving something in a Will versus a Trust? What function does a Trust really serve? Why would someone put something (like a house) in a Trust rather than a Will or vice versa? If it has to do with taxes, please explain how. Also, I know that Trusts are usually created because something produces income, but what if it's a house and it doesn't produce income? Is there a point in putting it in a trust? My aunt wanted to put a house in a trust and name herself as trustee and her children as beneficiaries but her attorney said it was a bad idea but she didn't ask why. I'm curious as to why that may be.
TL;DR: What the hell is a trust? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/m6sg1/eli5_what_is_a_trust/ | {
"a_id": [
"c2ykqv9",
"c2ykqv9"
],
"score": [
4,
4
],
"text": [
"Think of a trust as an invisible, perfectly obedient person. You can give this person your stuff, then tell it what to do with it. \n\nYou're thinking: \"Why would I do that?\" \n\nWell, consider what happens when you die. When you die all your stuff and money suddenly needs to be sorted out, including debts, inheritances, etc. This means things like probate often have to happen. In some states it's even required that property spend a month or so in probate after a person's death. It also often means lots of fights between surviving relatives as they try to figure out who gets what.\n\nBut what if InvisibleTrustMan has all your stuff? When you die he *still* has your stuff and continues to do whatever you told him to do with it. InvisibleTrustMan will even do things you told him to do when you die, like make sure your no-good loser grandson gets nothing unless he stays clean for at least a year. \n\nThat's the ELI5 version. Trusts are *incredibly* flexible and essential for wealth management. There are days worth of seminars and trainings you could participate in and still not have a complete understanding. \n\nYou should talk to an attorney and an accountant to figure out what trusts are relevant to your own situation.\n\n",
"Think of a trust as an invisible, perfectly obedient person. You can give this person your stuff, then tell it what to do with it. \n\nYou're thinking: \"Why would I do that?\" \n\nWell, consider what happens when you die. When you die all your stuff and money suddenly needs to be sorted out, including debts, inheritances, etc. This means things like probate often have to happen. In some states it's even required that property spend a month or so in probate after a person's death. It also often means lots of fights between surviving relatives as they try to figure out who gets what.\n\nBut what if InvisibleTrustMan has all your stuff? When you die he *still* has your stuff and continues to do whatever you told him to do with it. InvisibleTrustMan will even do things you told him to do when you die, like make sure your no-good loser grandson gets nothing unless he stays clean for at least a year. \n\nThat's the ELI5 version. Trusts are *incredibly* flexible and essential for wealth management. There are days worth of seminars and trainings you could participate in and still not have a complete understanding. \n\nYou should talk to an attorney and an accountant to figure out what trusts are relevant to your own situation.\n\n"
]
} | [] | [] | [
[],
[]
] |
|
37343y | why do pills come in different forms? (ie. capsules, tablets, etc...) | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/37343y/eli5_why_do_pills_come_in_different_forms_ie/ | {
"a_id": [
"crj9w76",
"crjmke0"
],
"score": [
7,
2
],
"text": [
"It has to do with the form of the drug, and how it should be released over what period of time. Some drugs are put into capsules to delay the release, some are put into capsules to disguise taste, and some are put in capsules to prevent it from reacting to early. Others are left in tablet form because they have none of those concerns, or need to be chewed or dissolved. It is all based in what makes the drug work best and safest. ",
"Pharmacy student here. Just had an exam on this the other day!\n\n 'Standard' tablets are especially common because they are easily produced in large quantities at little expense. However, depending on the nature of the drug, different forms may be selected. \n\nWhen you take a medicine, for example paracetamol (acetaminophen/Tylenol for you US people), you aren't taking a tablet made purely out of paracetamol; the vast majority of what you put in your mouth is a number of other ingredients (*excipients*) that bulk it out, hold it together, and alter the way the drug behaves in the body (*pharmacodynamics*), amongst other things.\n\nGenerally speaking, drugs need to be water soluble, so they can be absorbed and dispersed in the blood, which is water-based. Not all drugs are especially water soluble (hydrophobic, 'water-hating', dissolve better in fats/oils), so the dosage form and excipients selected will have to account for this. Tablets generally aren't the best choice for this; you're more likely to see these in emulsion form.\n\nAlso, a major obstacle in the delivery of medication is that the stomach is pretty damn good at destroying things you put into it with its strong acid. Since a lot of medicines are absorbed in the intestines, past the stomach, the tablet may have to be coated to protect against the acid - otherwise known as enteric coating (if you ever see \"e/c\" on your drugs, this is what it means!).\n\nCapsules are often chosen because they are highly customisable - for example, 'hard' capsules like [these](_URL_1_) are great as they can contain the pure drug inside in powder form, which is great for easy dissolution. As other people have said, they are also great for disguising foul-tasting medications, and are generally considered to be easier to swallow than tablets due to their gelatinous casing lubing its way down your throat. *Sensual*.\n\nSoft capsules like [these](_URL_0_) are great for containing liquid medicines in small amounts, which is useful when a drug would be unstable and separate out if it were scaled up to a full medicine bottle.\n\nSome other variations between medications are essentially for vanity and branding's sake. For example, pretty much everyone knows what Viagra looks like, \"the little blue pill\", and each tablet is printed with Pfizer's (one of the biggest names in biopharmaceutics) logo. Variations in colours and shape between medicines is especially useful for branding, but also great for patients and their healthcare professionals - say, if you have to take six different plain white round pills in a day, there's a lot of room for confusion and potential harm.\n\nYou might also see different shapes of tablet or capsule that have particular mechanical advantages, such as being easier to swallow. Sometimes tablets have a score down the middle so they can easily be cut in half, as sometimes half tablets have to be taken, or people find them easier to swallow if they only have to do it half at a time.\n\nI'm barely scratching the surface here, and there's plenty more reasons why - basically, the form of drug is selected to begin with based upon the physicochemical properties of the active drug agent, and excipients are chosen to get said drug where it wants to be in the body.\n\n**tl;dr**: Pharmaceutical design is complex, the different forms are usually based on the properties of the drug itself"
]
} | [] | [] | [
[],
[
"http://i.imgur.com/BbiTg7O.jpg",
"http://i.imgur.com/5NIZ4tY.jpg"
]
] |
||
3ojcqk | how can i feel like i'm going to pass out, but as soon as i lay down to sleep i feel wide awake? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3ojcqk/eli5_how_can_i_feel_like_im_going_to_pass_out_but/ | {
"a_id": [
"cvxromj"
],
"score": [
4
],
"text": [
"Not being able to \"turn off\" your thoughts can be brought on by stress. Try to let go of the things you are thinking about, either with the help of some visualizations, or physically writing things down as a way to remind yourself that you're setting that thought aside for now. Or google \"yoga relaxation poses\" for some postures that can help bring your heart rate down if you've been active right up until bedtime."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[]
] |
||
25e0l7 | exif data on a dslr. f-stop, shutterspeed and iso. | Can anyone explain what each and everyone of those three functions does, like I´m five years old. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/25e0l7/eli5_exif_data_on_a_dslr_fstop_shutterspeed_and/ | {
"a_id": [
"chg93ts",
"chgcnng"
],
"score": [
3,
2
],
"text": [
"First think about how a camera works digital or otherwise. There's a light sensitive plate in a dark box that is exposed to light. The light causes an image to be \"imprinted\" on the plate. So what are our variables here:\n\nF-stop: This is how wide the hole is that allows the light to get into the box and hit the light sensitive plate. The size of this hole helps to determine what is in focus and controls how much light is let in. \n\nShutter Speed: This is how long the hole is opened. The speed helps to determine if motion is frozen or blurred and, like the f-stop, how much light is let in. \n\nISO: This is how sensitive the plate being exposed to the light is. With digital this isn't in play but with film it's a huge deal. \n\nSo, how do they relate?\n\nGiven a scene you're trying to photograph, there's X amount of light coming towards the camera. You have to figure out the optimum combination of f-stop and shutter speed that will create the best exposure (i.e. details in shadows and highlights). \n\nThere's a ton more to it than this but I'm trying to keep it ELI5. ",
"Take the information in /u/glendon24's answer, and have a play around with this [camera simulator](_URL_0_). Put it into manual mode, play around with the sliders, and snap a picture. The idea is to keep the green arrow at the bottom of the picture in the middle of the chart in order to take a good picture.\n\nIf you increase the shutter speed then you'll need a bigger aperture (and with photography a bigger aperture means a smaller f-number). If it's cloudy or dark then you'll have to increase the ISO to make the sensor more sensitive to light, because if you don't then you'll have to have the shutter open for longer, and then your picture will be blurred."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[],
[
"http://camerasim.com/apps/camera-simulator/"
]
] |
|
57ihkr | the special/general theory of relativity and antimatter. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/57ihkr/eli5_the_specialgeneral_theory_of_relativity_and/ | {
"a_id": [
"d8s9suk"
],
"score": [
2
],
"text": [
"Those are entirely different things.\n\nThe special theory of relativity is based on the discovery that the speed of light is always constant. We've measured the light from distant stars, nearby lasers, pointed our testing tools in every conceivable direction and speed, and we found that the speed of light is always constant.\n\nSo say you stand on a station and I stand on a train moving at half the speed of light. I shine a beam of light forward. The only way to make sure that both me and you measure the same speed of light is if time is moving slower for me on the train. That's what special relativity is: The set of mathematics to describe how time and space work for very fast objects. As an added bonus, the resultant equations give you the famous E=mc^2.\n\nGeneral relativity extends special relativity to explain how acceleration and gravity works. Say you sit in a steel box. You have no way of knowing if the box is sitting still on the surface of the earth, or if it is accelerating at 9.81m/s^2 through space. An accelerating box would cause lightbeams to droop down a bit, so they must also do so in a gravitational field. After some mindnumbing math, Einstein came to the conclusion that what's really going in is that spacetime itself is bending. So the curved lightbeam isn't really curved, it's space itself that's curved. And the way it bends is dictated by the amount of stuff in it. We aren't getting pulled down by a gravitational force like Newton thought, we're actually accelerating up at 9.81m/s^2, which we can do without moving thanks to curved spacetime. Spacetime tells stuff how to move and stuff tells spacetime how to bend.\n\nAntimatter is something out of quantum mechanics. It turns out that every fundamental particle has an evil twin. It's exactly the same, but opposite. Opposite spin, opposite color(quantum mechanical sense of color), opposite charge etc. Mass is a notable exception here, both normal matter and antimatter have positive mass. If you bring a normal particle and its antiparticle together they destroy each other and release energy equal to E=mc^2."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[]
] |
||
2wmzfw | why are conservatives on my facebook talking about being on the brink of world war 3? | Granted they are referencing something that Glenn Beck is saying and he annoys the piss out of me. But what are they basing this on? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2wmzfw/eli5_why_are_conservatives_on_my_facebook_talking/ | {
"a_id": [
"cosc5c0",
"cosc5u7",
"cosdy4k"
],
"score": [
6,
5,
2
],
"text": [
"It's all about fear. Fear is what keeps conservatism going. The fear of losing what you have, the fear of others being able to succeed, fear of anyone who is different. \n\nScum like Murdoch feed this fear as it makes them money and keeps their puppets in power. ",
"It is most likely what is going on with Ukraine and Russia. \n\nRussia has invaded a sovereign country, annex a portion of it (Crimea), rigged elections to attempt to legitimize said annexation, and is now actively attempting to seize more land to establish a land route to Crimea. This not only violates international treaties and memorandums which merits economic sanctions and military intervention, its precedence directly threatens all of the former soviet block and eastern Europe. Russia making power plays also means that they resume their position as enemy of the US which puts us back at the brink of nuclear war. ",
"I'm not saying we're on the brink of WWIII, but there are a lot of things going on now that concern Conservatives.\n\n * Russia has invaded a sovereign nation with plans to annex a portion of it. WWII started with Hitler invading Poland.\n\n * ISIS and other Islamic terrorist organizations are gaining ground and power unchecked by anything the West appears to be doing. \n\n * Iran, whose leaders have promised to wipe Israel from the map, is coming ever closer to being able to develop nuclear weapon\n\nAll this and more are going on and we seem to have a President who appears weak. It was weakness and lack of resolve, namely Neville Chamberlain, that emboldened Hitler and the Nazis to invade Poland and kick start WWII. It was perceived weakness in JFK by Khrushchev that triggered the Cuban Missile Crisis where Soviet nuclear warheads were a mere 90 miles away from US soil. It was, in part, Jimmy Carter's weakness that emboldened the revolutionaries to depose our ally, the Shah of Iran, which lead to the current insane theocracy as well as the hostage crisis.\n\nNow you have a President who, to Conservatives, projects weakness. We let our embassy in Benghazi become overrun without mounting any type of counter-assault. We prematurely withdrew from Iraq, which allowed ISIS to assume power in the aftermath. We sat idly by as our allies in Pakistan and Egypt were overthrown. The DOJ calls acts of terrorism like the Fort Hood shooting \"workplace violence.\" Obama refuses to call ISIS or the Taliban Islamic terrorists. He calls terrorist shootings in a Kosher Deli in Paris \"random.\" Obama is seen as weak and spineless when it comes to Islamic violence. Obama drew a red line in the sand for Al-Assad, which he crossed, and nothing happened. In fact, that lone incident and Obama's weakness to follow up on a threat somewhat propelled Putin from being a backbench player to being front and center again. Conservatives do not see President Obama as strong in the world stage. They see him as \"Leading from behind.\" And in their experience, America's enemies are emboldened when she projects weakness. You can disagree with their assessment if you like, but that is the source of their concern."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[],
[],
[]
] |
|
dmu95p | with all the technological advancements and economic groth why could baby boomer generation universally afford to own houses and todays generation can't seem to afford anything? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/dmu95p/eli5_with_all_the_technological_advancements_and/ | {
"a_id": [
"f54ttf3",
"f54u2ml",
"f54vsfy",
"f54w77h",
"f54wkiu",
"f54y0zq",
"f54ylrf",
"f55a22g",
"f55cewz",
"f55ddxb",
"f55ejy5",
"f55hepa",
"f55hr0r",
"f55hy1k",
"f55i0yr",
"f55iko6",
"f55j5le",
"f55lgiy",
"f55lm47"
],
"score": [
4,
14,
4,
150,
1123,
154,
838,
59,
36,
27,
6,
2,
2,
2,
3,
2,
3,
2,
5
],
"text": [
"I think you need to look at the premise of your question first.\n\nWhat are you defining as the boomer generation, and on what do you base the claim that they could universally own their own homes?\n\nWhat are you defining as today's generation, and on what do you base the claim that they cannot afford anything (or maybe more specifically, their own homes)?",
"There are a lot of different reasons for it and I believe someone on this subreddit already addressed it. Basically, it's mostly because wages did not grow at the same rate as inflation.",
"The primary reason is due to inflation of the currency supply. In 1971 we left the Bretton Woods system, and from that point on you can see a clear stagnation of worker wages, meanwhile worker productivity has risen. It's even more insidious because the pay we do get is worth less in terms of purchasing power than before. This is traced back to the Federal Reserve Act of 1913. The Fed creates currency, more than what should exist in the economy per the rise of products and services (wealth). This causes prices to rise. But there's a lag, and often no direct input towards rising wages with this price inflation.",
"After WWII there was one industrial country whose economy and/or infrastructure wasn't in ruins, America. Additionally the needs of the war meant we were left with excess industrial capacity. As a result everything was cheap and America was exporting like mad. Additionally government made a conciousness effort to continue military spending instead of fully normalizing back to a peace time economy. They did this because they feared a return to pre war economic conditions if the military was returned to it's normal state. America is also really big, which meant land was cheap, now the areas around cities has been developed and land costs more.\n\nAs the rest of the world recovered and/or industrialized demand for American exports dropped. The American economy post war was a house of cards, now it is finally falling. The quality of life expected by Americans was never sustainable and as quality of life increases around the world America is regressing toward the mean.",
"Ten people had a field and produced 15 apples. Everyone got one, the best worker got 2 more and the guy who had the idea of planting apples got three more: 1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,3,4. \n & nbsp; \nThen, they learned how to produce 25 apples in the same field, but changed their economic system and the new distribution is: \n½, ½, ½, ½, 1, 1, 1, 2, 2, 16 \n\nYes, as a society we perform better, and 6/10 people are equal or better than before. But to generate two rich guys and a megabillionaire we decided to destroy the lives of the other 4/10. \n\nAnd in a democratic election, 6/10 people still agree with the new system. 3 because they are richer, 3 because they hope to be.",
"So, this is one of those things where people *really* don't like to hear that they're wrong but - you're wrong, the home ownership rate is essentially flat and has been since they started tracking the statistic in the 1960's. There was a brief increase in the rate of about 5% that occurred in the 2000's, but the 2008 crisis sent the number back to the norm. [You can see the Fed's data on this here](_URL_0_). (It looks like a much bigger increase on that graph because of how compressed it is, but the ownership rate went from ~64% - 69% and then back down to 64% again. That's a decent statistical change but not enough of an actual change that you would have really noticed a difference in real life.)\n\nInflation adjusted wages, on the other hand, are actually at an all time high. *Adjusted for inflation* the median income today is 20% higher than it was in 1980. [Again, the Fed's data on this is here](_URL_1_).\n\nAnd this is where it gets to the whole \"people don't like to hear this\" part of the answer - what you're seeing is not a decrease in the overall standard of living of people in the US. Instead, what you're seeing is a decrease in the standard of living of the demographic that posts heavily to social media.\n\nThat demographic is heavily weighted towards people who were born into a middle class family but have fallen into a lower income bracket. Which is one of the problems with social mobility. People have this expectation that you can only move up - if you were born middle class that's as low as you can go. \n\nThe reality is that social mobility means that some people go up, *but other people go down.* \n\nFor example, if you were born into a family of tradespeople you were born middle class. But if you went to college to get a liberal arts degree instead of apprenticing like your father did then chances are you're going down on the social ladder. What you don't see is that someone who was born poor apprenticed under your dad, and now that person is moving up to occupy what you had considered to be \"your\" economic slot.",
"In addition to what others have said, globalization means that you are not just competing for real estate or rentals against locals if you are somewhere thats attractive job, economy or lifestyle wise. You are competing with highly educated, affluent people from all over the world who want to live, or invest in property where you live. Thats a big reason for the price increases in places like Vancouver, San Francisco, Sydney, London and so on.\n\nRestrictions on owning property as a foreigner have been loosened since the 70s, and people & capital have become a lot more mobile.",
"The reason is that the Boomers are at peak wealth right now. They're all just at the cusp of retirement, which means that the vast bulk of them will never have more money. But you're really asking the wrong question: The important question is this: Why is the price of housing so stubbornly high? After all, it's a market with highly inelastic demand, so you'd think that it would be easy for businesses to take advantage of that predictable demand and build their way to profits.\n\nThe answer, put bluntly, is **ZONING**. Land use law is incredibly arcane and complicated, and with most of the employment centers being crammed into densely populated urban areas, the normally fraught problems of getting permission to build housing, especially the high-density housing which the market needs, has become completely insane.\n\nIf you really want to help your community provide more *market rate* housing (ie: something everyone can use, not just a handful of indigent people), you need to pay attention to your local elections, and support candidates who want to make it easier to build. Barring that, save your money.",
"I have an unpopular, borderline crazy-person theory that I can’t shake. \n\nI often wonder how it is that (Australia) had 25 years of uninterrupted growth, and something like 65 out of the last 70 years of overall economic growth... but i’m paying more for my degree now than anyone in living memory, and this degree will open fewer doors than ever before. How could this be? Surely with so much growth we could afford a bit more student support and mobility. \n\nand then... it hit me. Like a diamond bullet. \n\nWe have had so much growth precisely because we *don’t* support students or the working class. If you want an education (or rather, if you want to pay off your education in a job that challenges you) you have to be ready to fight, fight, fight constantly. \n\nIf people have been proven to be prepared to committ to a two income, 20 year debt to pay off a house, well, why would you expect it to just be given to them? \n\nIf people are prepared to put themselves into debt for the chance - just the *chance* - to join the middle class, why would you make it for free? If they indeed make it to the middle class, they will need to learn to kick down. \n\nAaaanyway. Edit: i’m full of anti-boomer bile, but its all complicated. Plenty of boomers weren’t nimble enough to get on the train, too, and it must be scary af to be a 60 year old single woman with no assets.",
"I’d also like to point to the rise of suburbia post-WWII, and it’s comparative fall in recent years... and actually now we’re on the uptick again. This ties in with having children later.\n\nIn NYC for instance, post-WWII we saw returning soldiers move out of their cramped apartments in Williamsburg and Park Slope and the Lower East Side and Alphabet City and move to Long Island, Westchester, New Jersey. When their kids grew up, there was still room in these places, somewhat more expensive but still affordable. \n\nMillennials reurbanized. Massively. They’re having children later than previous generations so don’t necessarily need as much space. They prioritized shorter commutes and “cool” neighborhoods. This lead to an explosion in housing costs. Where 30 years ago you could buy a multi-unit building in Williamsburg for 50k. Same building sold in 2017 for 3 million. The demand was so much higher.\n\nIn the context of rising home prices in urban cores, suburban home prices are remaining relatively stagnant, at least since the 2008 bubble. This will again change as millennials start having children and need more space - but be tempered by boomers moving to low tax south or southwestern states to retire in.",
"Don’t forget the additional monthly costs of modern life. In the 1980s I didn’t have cable, internet, cellphone, Netflix and a half dozen other monthly costs. Also no money really spent on electronics. We had a tv and a hifi. That’s about it.",
"Expectations have gone up. Baby boomers expected to have a small place without a lot of stuff and subscriptions. Per-person square footage is double from the early 80s, plus garages on nearly all homes (less than half in 1973). _URL_0_",
"Because the Boomer generation (people born between 1945 and 1965 roughly) discovered that they could profit significantly by passing laws that would enrich them personally, at the expense of the next generation coming up through\n\n & #x200B;\n\nPrevious generations typically did what was possible to encourage and build the country along with them, while sacrificing some of what they have. Some examples include:\n\n\\- Expanding safety nets like Social Security\n\n\\- Nearly free/low cost higher education\n\n\\- Unions which were invested in the area\n\n\\- Manufacturing companies being pillars of the community and remaining in place for decades.\n\n\\- Tax rates which scaled based on income.\n\n & #x200B;\n\nWhat changed was that the rich realized the social contract wasn't benefiting them as much as it could be, and they could see an amazing return on their investment by paying the gov't a few dollars to save a ton of dollars, moving plants to other areas, and taking advantage of globalization to earn more profits.\n\n & #x200B;\n\nSo what we are seeing in full effect now is 40 - 50 years of greed driven economics, designed to do exactly what it has. The money is concentrated at the top, everyone not in that top group is providing inexpensive labor to ensure those people at the top remain there, and the newer generations moving through are being held responsible for this pyramid as if they built it...",
"Simply because you can only grow if there's space left to grow into. Technological progress has slowed down because the obvious and cheap solutions to problems are becoming exhausted. Housing availability has reduced and prices have increased because the best areas to live in are overpopulated. What used to be a highly chaotic, open economy with high social mobility is now much more rigid and stable. Thing is, all economies eventually reach an equilibrium where growth dwindles, even simulated ones. The only way to find growth then is through new instability - wars, natural disasters, a new technological paradigm, etc.",
"Because boomers didn’t own all they do right out of college!!!! They struggled and saved and scraped their way to a more comfortable living. And millennials were told that they’d have their dream job right out of college. And whiny millennials are lashing out that they aren’t making 100k and living in a great house.",
"Am I the only millennial surrounded by other millennials buying houses and cars and taking vacations? Who is this destroyed generation? I know college kids that make more than me out of school and I'm doing fine.",
"Because inflation is higher than salary increase.\n\nI made 700€/month about 10 years ago, and a normal house in my hometown would cost about 150000€. Today, if I had the same job in the same place, I would still make about 700€/month, but a house there now costs 300000€ instead of 150000€.\n\nReal estate prices increased 100%, salaries increased maybe 3%.",
"In Accounting, you learn that company main goal is to earn profit.\n\nLets say we have 100 resource(money/food/etc) spread evenly among 100 people\n\n5 People decided to make a shop and earn profit. They start accumulating resources from the rest of 95 people. This is happening for hundreds of years\n\nNow, 5 people have a total of 50 resources and the rest of 95 now only have a total of 50 resource.\n\nI believe the top 1% is enjoying all of the \"technological advancement\" by employing it on their company",
"It has a lot to do with the flow of wealth. As corporations, banks, and other for profit organizations prioritize profits over the benefit of their products and affordability of them, things like this will continue to become something that only the haves have and the have nots progressively don't have. \n\nI've seen the posts that say it's globalization, and I disagree. I think it's corporatization. As long as there are less laws to stop big money from getting bigger, it'll always do everything it can to get bigger, and that often means giving less to others. \n\nEspecially those with no money."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[
"https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/RHORUSQ156N",
"https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/MEHOINUSA672N"
],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[
"https://www.businessinsider.com/houses-median-square-footage-chart-2015-6"
],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[]
] |
||
559kw0 | how can a few tiny crystals of fentanyl can be fatal | [deleted] | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/559kw0/eli5_how_can_a_few_tiny_crystals_of_fentanyl_can/ | {
"a_id": [
"d88pjd4",
"d88ui1x",
"d88x3v3"
],
"score": [
3,
3,
3
],
"text": [
"To answer your question we'd need a more specific measurement, ideally in micrograms. \n\nBut that may be part of the answer you are looking for. Fentayl is an extremely potent narcotic. It has an effective dose at 1000 times lower doses than other narcotics. Similarly, a lethal dose of Fentanyl can be quite small.\n\nFentanyl is not taking by mouth. Are talking about injecting or snorting?\n\nA 10mg IV dose of Morphine is not uncommon for people in pain, but would be fatal if it were 30mg IV Fentanyl.",
"In general, every drug (as in, pharmaceutical drugs, recreational drug, whatever) is a synthetic, synthesized or purified substance that creates a certain physiological effect when inside your body, usually by connecting to proteins in the outer wall (membranes) of cells. Those proteins are called receptors and, with that connection, they create a certain effect within the cell (for example, triggering the production or secretion of a certain substance).\n\nFor example, antidepressants, commonly, connect to specific receptors in neurons and thus increase the availability of serotonin, increasing energy, improving mood etc. Substances and cell membranes have a certain 'affinity', as in, they atract each other, but this affinity is very variable from drug to drug or even from type of cell. \n\nThose substance-cell relationship happens all the time, not only with drugs, but most substances in your body, such as hormones. \n\nFor example, insulin connects to receptors in the cell and, basically, 'open a gate' for sugar to come into the cell from the blood. If your insulin is too low, this 'gate' won't open and your cells will be starving for sugar, even though your blood is full of sugar that can't get into cells. Or, for example, if your receptors are insulin-resistant, you'd need more insulin in your body to create the same effect, because of a 'malfunction' in your insulin receptors. Thus, your cells will lack sugar just the same.\n\nThis connection between substances (molecules, really) and receptors are basically random. You can imagine a swimming pool, and the substance, or drug, is dissolved in the water, while the receptors are in the wall on the pool. Drug molecules are bouncing all over the place. If the drug molecule and the receptors are near enough, they connect, and it's effect starts. There are several mechanims that regulare this connection and also that can terminate it, usually with enzymes.\n\nIf you increase the concentration of a drug is this 'pool', you increase the chance of the drug molecules and the repectors binding, thus increasing the final effect. But also, if the drug is such that the affinity between drug and receptor is extremely high, even a low dose will cause a huge effect.\n\nFor example, two drugs can act on the same receptor. Drug A has a much higher affinity than Drug B. In a similar dose, drug A will cause a stronger effect, generally. You can even have drugs compete for the same receptor, and those with higher affinity will get the most receptors. That happens with, for example, Ketamin and S+ Ketamine. The later is two times more attractive to the receptors than the former, and thus roughly half dose is needed to achieve the same effect.\n\nI hope that helps. I'm a veterinarian, and this topic is quite interesting. I'm not being 100% specific on things, just trying to create a good general explanation. Any questions, I'll be glad to help.",
"Fentanyl is an opioid, a drug that acts on a particular set of receptors in your nervous system. These receptors are involved in lots of different processes, one of which is pain sensation. For this reason opioids make good pain killers. But current opioids also affect other processes, like the operation of the gut (often leading to constipation) and the regulation of breathing.\n\nYou don't have to think about breathing, you just do it. This is because a very primitive, unconscious part of your brain keeps monitoring how much air your body needs and causes you to breathe in response. You can affect this response consciously but under normal circumstances if you become unconscious your brain will keep you breathing as log as nothing either locks your airway or interfere with your nervous system or your muscles.\n\nOpioids, as well as fighting pain, relax you (\"sedation\"). One of the the things they relax is your automatic breathing reflex. Too much opioid will shut down your breathing reflex. If it shuts down for long enough (or eve goes slow enough for long enough) you will stop getting enough oxygen to keep your heart functioning, causing it to stop pumping. Your circulation will stop and your tissues will start to die, including the part of the brain that regulates the breathing reflex, and you never recover. An added effect with the opioids is they put you to sleep, and if you sleep very deeply you may also block your airway (by how you position your mouth, head, neck etc) and not be able to wake up and unblock it.\n\nAs someone said above opioids do this by attaching to proteins on the surface of your cells. The effectiveness of the opioid depends partly on how strongly it affects he receptor and also what percentage of the time it spends attached to a receptor before getting detached again. If the opioid molecules only activate the receptor weakly and are only weakly attached to it then you need a lot of that molecule to fight your pain (or shut down your breathing reflex). If the opioid activates receptors very strongly and attaches strongly to them then it won't take much.\n\nFentanyl is a very potent opioid, so very small quantities have a big effect. In clinical practice it is dispensed in lower co cent rations and volumes to reduce the risk of overdose.\n\nApologies for typos, typed on my phone."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[],
[],
[]
] |
|
3i0cte | if google has a market cap 10x that of direct tv why are they having such a hard time laying infrastructure | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3i0cte/eli5_if_google_has_a_market_cap_10x_that_of/ | {
"a_id": [
"cuc5s5x"
],
"score": [
6
],
"text": [
"DirectTV hasn't laid any infrastructure at all. They're entirely focused on providing TV/audio streams by satellite. They only offer internet packages as a middle man, so you'd actually be buying from Verizon or CenturyLink. Well, now it'll all be AT & T, given the merger.\n\nIn general though, the issue isn't money, it's legal. The local government may have provided some provider or another with a regional monopoly, effectively prohibiting Google or any new provider from laying the necessary infrastructure.\n\nEdit: To add, Google/Alphabet's primary focus is still its search engine and other online services. Even if its market cap is 10x that of a competing IP, it's probably focusing much less than one tenth of its assets on the new Fiber subsidiary."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[]
] |
||
439alg | why do we like shiny stuff? | Like... why have we ALWAYS liked shiny stuff? Mirror polished cars, chrome, gold, silver.
I understand that some of our cultural heritage is that shiny = expensive, you can afford the materials, or the craftsmanship or the maintenance of shine.
But... Before that?
Before gilded, mirror polished armours, before iron age high polish swords and shining, glimmering jewelry. Before the burning bright bronze armours making historians of ancient greece speak of "Men of bronze" and before the lavish treasures and polished stone of ancient egypt.
We still liked it.
There are seashells found (and assumed to be currency) in ultra-early trade civilisations found in South America.
Why do we like shiny stuff? Like, inherently, appart from cultural inheritance and whatever else may be part of nurture. What is it in our nature that makes us like all things glittering and shining and reflective? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/439alg/eli5_why_do_we_like_shiny_stuff/ | {
"a_id": [
"czggikp"
],
"score": [
11
],
"text": [
"I can only speculate, but I'll bet it has something to do with water. A wandering tribe of cavemen would have welcomed the sight of the sun glistening on the surface of a lake. "
]
} | [] | [] | [
[]
] |
|
byzmn2 | why is it so easy to fall asleep on crouch unintentionally than to fall asleep in bed intentionally. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/byzmn2/eli5_why_is_it_so_easy_to_fall_asleep_on_crouch/ | {
"a_id": [
"eqo3qxc"
],
"score": [
3
],
"text": [
"Great minds think alike. Ahoy, fellow redditor. Yer not alone in askin', and kind strangers have explained:\n\n1. [ELI5: Why do you fall asleep much easier on the couch watching TV (or anywhere other than your normal sleeping place) than in your normally used bed? ](_URL_1_) ^(_57 comments_)\n1. [ELI5: Why is easy to fall asleep on the couch unintentually, but harder to fall asleep when you move to your bed? ](_URL_2_) ^(_9 comments_)\n1. [ELI5: falling asleep on the couch/in a chair - you go to your bedroom to call it a night and then you're wide awake. ](_URL_0_) ^(_11 comments_)"
]
} | [] | [] | [
[
"https://np.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/21qi8g/eli5_falling_asleep_on_the_couchin_a_chair_you_go/",
"https://np.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1iw4kp/eli5_why_do_you_fall_asleep_much_easier_on_the/",
"https://np.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/a28hp9/eli5_why_is_easy_to_fall_asleep_on_the_couch/"
]
] |
||
acupp6 | why is there such a strong stigma against romantic/sexual relationships with a large age gap (15 years+ difference)? | [deleted] | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/acupp6/eli5_why_is_there_such_a_strong_stigma_against/ | {
"a_id": [
"edavong",
"edaw0ui",
"edaw3iw",
"edaw4h1",
"edawpto"
],
"score": [
2,
22,
4,
10,
2
],
"text": [
"My sister and her boyfriend are 15 years appart. There is the same age gap between her and her boyfriend and her boyfriend and our Mum. I think the stigma comes for western culture always going to extremes. When there is a huge age gap like there is always one person that says \"well what if you met 10 years ago when she was 15 and you were 30? What about 15 years ago when she was 10 and you were 25? Funnily enough across the other side of the planet there is a heavy culture of marrying women young but their partners are older men that own houses and can support a family.",
"I think it’s because it can imply an imbalance of power within the relationship. And because the power may be unequal this might lead to one side being taken advantage of. \n\nThe other reason is because with significant age differences there is also the possibility of parent-child dynamic type relationship. ",
"As a society, we think of ideal couples as being from the same generation. It's weird to have your daughter (even as an adult) going out with your best friend.\n\nPart of the reason the stigma persists is the fact that we protect our children far beyond puberty. If you were old enough to no longer be protected when she was born, it's like you waited for her to grow up. Which would be creepy.\n\nA lot of the \"rules\" (not that we always follow them) are based on the rule of half your age plus seven, which if followed limits 16 year old girls to dating 15-18 year old boys. And it limits 30 year olds to dating 22-46 year olds.\n\nIt's perfectly legal for that 30 year old to date an 18 year old, but people find it a little creepy. Because you haven't been in high school for over a decade, and she's probably still in it.",
"It is often a concern about power dynamics. Typically the older person has more resources or authority which can be used to coerce the younger party. Likewise, manipulation is a concern. This tends to be for when the younger party is 30 or younger.\n\nThere is a point where that age gap isn't considered such a big deal. Although there can be some question of whether the relationship is for emotional reasons or material gain depending on the circumstances.",
"Yes, there are examples of success. But generally speaking the downside comes from the difference in life experience and maturity. \n\nPresumably the older has more life experience, wisdom and emotional maturity. This can be advantageous to the younger but also harmful to them as the younger person wont develop from experience and gain age appropriate wisdom on their own. That's the \"healthier\" version of the downside. \n\nIn addition, the older partner's wisdom can be used to manipulate (intentionally or not) the younger partner into situations they are not emotionally or intellectually equipped to deal with. \n\nSometimes it can work, but the dynamics of large age difference often devolves into dysfunction.\n\n "
]
} | [] | [] | [
[],
[],
[],
[],
[]
] |
|
n8zo3 | dada or dadaism | the title says it all i have tried to get my head around it but can't ? can any one help ? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/n8zo3/eli5_dada_or_dadaism/ | {
"a_id": [
"c37832f",
"c37832f"
],
"score": [
12,
12
],
"text": [
"It is basically a cultural movement that started in Switzerland, Zurich to be precise, during World War One. The people of this movement, the dadaists, used well known art forms like visual art, theatre and literature to express their disregard for the war, they created anti-art (using those known art forms, but questioning them in the process of using them). It was also a way to \"ridicule the meaninglessness of the modern world\", meaning to push boundaries and question/make fun of everything the society/the state thought to be important, but the dadaists thought to be meaningless (like the war).",
"It is basically a cultural movement that started in Switzerland, Zurich to be precise, during World War One. The people of this movement, the dadaists, used well known art forms like visual art, theatre and literature to express their disregard for the war, they created anti-art (using those known art forms, but questioning them in the process of using them). It was also a way to \"ridicule the meaninglessness of the modern world\", meaning to push boundaries and question/make fun of everything the society/the state thought to be important, but the dadaists thought to be meaningless (like the war)."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[],
[]
] |
|
5uylhw | why are some gymnastic/flexibility moves so easy as a kid but really hard as an adult? | I'm thinking mainly of cartwheels/handstands/headstands/the splits etc. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5uylhw/eli5_why_are_some_gymnasticflexibility_moves_so/ | {
"a_id": [
"ddxuavx"
],
"score": [
11
],
"text": [
"Ossification, that is the conversion of the more flexible cartilage with bone, does not end until adulthood (and even then, much of it takes place well into mid adulthood, such as in the skull). \n\nAt the same time, ligaments and muscles that keep joint movement in check grow stronger and less permissible of extreme movement. \n\nThe latter can somewhat be countered with exercising and training (that is, stuff like yoga), however not entirely... and that's not a bad thing. Gymnastic flexibility is somewhat unhealthy in the long run, as people who have hyper mobile joints are more prone to dislocations and wear and tear of their joints. Many gymnasts retire early due to injuries and overuse.\n\nTo put it simply, some of the reduced flexibility helps to stabilize the joint along its strongest axis and protects it from arthritis and dislocations. \n\nEdited slightly after thread restored."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[]
] |
|
62wxcg | difference between terrorists and revolutionary | Hello,
I am asking myself for quite a long time where the difference between terrorism and revolution is.
What started to happened in France in 1789 is known as one of the biggest and most celebrated revolutions of our time. But it was also one of the bloodiest civil wars I can think of. They were very angry, killed anyone who seemed to be a Nobel, Destroyed a lot of buildings and did even public executions.
The most known terrorist is Osama bin laden. He was the leader of the terroristic group al Quaida, which commonly known wanted to destroy western lifestyle and was the enemy of the u.s.a for years.
The worst thing they did was the attack at the World Trade Center and they did public executions too.
So violence is a key property of both.
There are two differences between them.
Its the ambition ... and that one of them won the fight and one lost.
So History tells us to be terrorists till we achieve our goals and call us afterwards revolutionary?
I don't want to offend anyone or anything. I do not like what any terroristic group these days do. I hate those a..holes. In my opinion not even one civil loss is worth a revolution.
But sometimes I get really angry when I watch or read news and start thinking of a way to change the world. But even without killing anyone and just sabotaging Big companies like nestle they would call me terrorist.
Or if I fight against government course i think they aren't worth anymore to serve for our people because they do not think a second about their people and do only try to save their money and power I would get called terrorist again.
The things I mentioned are only examples.
I do not see any difference between terrorists and revolutionary that would explain this classification.
I hope you could understand my problem and answer my question.
I am sorry for my English it is not my first language.
Thank you for reading
| explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/62wxcg/eli5_difference_between_terrorists_and/ | {
"a_id": [
"dfpoxw3",
"dfppb37",
"dfprjkt",
"dfpu0ql"
],
"score": [
4,
2,
2,
2
],
"text": [
"It's just about how you frame the story. Someone fighting for beliefs that I hold is a good guy. Someone fighting against my beliefs is a bad guy.\n\nThe terrorists think they are good guys. They would use positive words to describe themselves.\n\nIf you tried to disturb the operations of a lawfully company, I might think you are a bad guy. Certainly the owners of the company would think you a bad guy. They would use negative words to describe you. \n\nRight and wrong do exist, but it is not always clear what is right and what is wrong. Edward Snowdon is a good example ",
"If someone is fighting a system whether that be political or economic, they will have their supporters and they will have those who support the system.\n\nThose who support the system call them terrorists\n\nThose who also want to fight, change or bring down the system will call them revolutionaries.\n\nGoing to your example of the French revolution, at the time many people (especially the nobility) would have looked on them the same way that you look at Bin Laden. Similarly those who currently want to bring down America in the name of Islamism may describe Bin Laden as a revolutionary",
"There isn't a 'difference' because the two things are not mutually exclusive, and in fact lead to each other a lot. A terrorist is anybody who uses illegal violence, generally against civilians, to attempt to achieve a political goal, and a revolutionary is someone who tries to bring about a great political change. Not all terrorists are revolutionaries and not all revolutionaries are terrorists, but you could definitely say that most terrorists are revolutionaries and that many revolutionaries are terrorists.",
"A revolutionary is someone who is trying to overthrow the political or social system and a 'terrorist' is someone who uses terror to further their political agenda. By terror I mean the use of violence to cause fear in the target population. Revolutionary movements sometimes use terrorism but not all terrorist are revolutionary. \n\nIt's a bit of a false dichotomy to say one is good and one is bad. They are plenty of examples of \"bad\" revolutionaries, think Iran. And even some examples of \"good\" terrorist, think the German and French resistance movement of WWII. \n\nDon't get me wrong, terrorism is an extreme method and its use deserves to be criticised harshly. But it's also important to look at the ideology and beliefs of the group behind the action of you're trying to make a moral judgement. "
]
} | [] | [] | [
[],
[],
[],
[]
] |
|
455v9o | how does duty free in the airport work? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/455v9o/eli5_how_does_duty_free_in_the_airport_work/ | {
"a_id": [
"czversc",
"czvertz",
"czves3w",
"czvf17d",
"czvfnj4",
"czvir53"
],
"score": [
35,
5,
10,
20,
8,
3
],
"text": [
"Generally it is cheaper as since it's for export only there isn't any state/local taxes on it.\n\nAlso if flying now and you want booze, you need to get it after the security check point which means about the only place you can get some to go home with is at the Duty Free.",
"when you bring things into a country from another country over the allowed limit, you are charged tariffs (tax) by the customs of the country you enter if you declare them. if you don't delcare them and they find out, you will be fined and/or have the items confiscated. \n\nif you buy duty free. you can take them into the destination country without paying the tax and without limitation.",
"If you're on a flight leaving the country, the store is allowed to not charge you taxes. That can result in significant savings. But remember, the Duty Free stores are located in the airport, and there's little competition...so it's not like you're getting great pre-tax prices.",
"Other answers are correct, but they are also a hold over from when duties and taxes were huge. You used to be able to save a ton of money on cigarettes and liquor because import taxes were so high. Most of those duties have gone away in the West because of NAFTA and the European Union.",
"You are allowed to import a a certain amount of goods (up $800 worth in the US I think) without paying taxes on them.\n\nBusinesses are typically not required to charge taxes on goods that will not be used in that country.\n\nBuying duty free exploits this loophole, allowing you to buy something abroad and bring it home without paying taxes in either country.",
"Depends on the airport. In my experience, booze in Singapore can be 50 % off, while Hong Kong is about the same as if I buy local."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[]
] |
||
6kope8 | why does wood have knots? | Why do wood boards (like a 2x4) have knots (the dark hard circles)? Why are the knots so much harder than the rest of the wood? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/6kope8/eli5_why_does_wood_have_knots/ | {
"a_id": [
"djnmd7x",
"djnot80",
"djnqhgy",
"djntr4k",
"djntswg"
],
"score": [
234,
53,
12,
51,
17
],
"text": [
"Wood like 2x4s come from the trunk of a tree. The knots in wood are where branches were when it was a tree \n\nEdit: as to why its harder, i dont know 100% but id bet its got something to do with the grain in the wood changing and possible friction from the expansion of the diameter of the branch itself\n",
"My first job was pruning pine trees. Initial prune was to six feet and second to sixteen. \n\nBy removing branches at early stages of growth when the tree is cut and milled twenty odd years later the timber from that part of the tree only has small or no knots.",
"In the tree a knot is either the base of a side branch or a dormant bud. A knot (when the base of a side branch) is conical in shape (hence the roughly circular cross-section) with the inner tip at the point in stem diameter at which the plant's vascular cambium was located when the branch formed as a bud.",
"first, a branch grows off of the main trunk. then, as the tree ages, the main trunk gets thicker by adding layers on the outside. so a knot is what used to be a small branch of the tree that got cemented inside the trunk as the trunk got larger. \n\nthe knots are harder for multiple reasons. \n-they feel harder to a saw blade because their grain is running in a different direction\n-their grain is often more tightly packed than the rest of the wood, due to the tree \"growing into itself\" \n-there is often more sap in the knots and this is just what i've found, and have no idea why ",
"This image from Giuseppe Penone artwork shows the young tree branches incorporated into the mature tree. Those branches become knots in the tree when cut into boards. They are harder because they are older, denser, and contain more resin.\n\n\n\n_URL_0_"
]
} | [] | [] | [
[],
[],
[],
[],
[
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giuseppe_Penone#/media/File:Giuseppe_Penone_The_Hidden_Life_Within.jpg"
]
] |
|
1tvtg8 | if we redistributed the world's wealth equally amongst its whole population, how much would everyone have in their bank account? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1tvtg8/eli5_if_we_redistributed_the_worlds_wealth/ | {
"a_id": [
"cebxj71",
"cebxluc",
"cebxrj6",
"cebxsoy",
"cebxsqn",
"cebyy5g",
"cebz31c",
"cebzdxk",
"cebzgxt",
"cebzhtm",
"cebzso2",
"cec038n",
"cec0te3",
"cec0zha",
"cec1a5k",
"cec1aod",
"cec27l5",
"cec27wt",
"cgaa8y5"
],
"score": [
16,
7,
385,
49,
14,
3,
2,
2,
2,
3,
15,
27,
2,
3,
2,
2,
2,
2,
2
],
"text": [
"Bonus Corollary Question: How long would it take for the wealth to redistribute itself back to inequality?\n\nIn other words: rich people don't need much stuff. Poor people need lots of stuff. Therefore, poor people will spend the money faster, and people who manufacture/distribute/sell goods will end up with more money than the people who needed to buy stuff. How long would t take to get right back to where we are now?",
"Around $4625.\n\nThe WorldWeathReport estimates global wealth at $33 trillion. \nThe global population is estimated to be 7.134 billion people.\n33,000,000,000,000 / 7,134,000,000 = $4,625",
"Well, the total world wealth is about 240 trillion. There are multiple sources that give different values, but this is the newest and they're all roughly 220-240. _URL_0_\n\nThere's about 7 billion people in the world\n\nSo if we sell everything off and redistribute it, we come to the glorious total of $34,285.\n\nKeep in mind, of course, a bunch of caveats. \n\nNot all wealth is the same; it's wealth, not income. Property or a factory is an ongoing money-maker, while gold/oil/etc sitting in a vault somewhere isn't. A house has utility but isn't income. (Generally speaking, of course.) And so on. So we are strictly looking at cash value.\n\nThis is per individual, so it includes children and spouses. A family of four would get a little over $137,000.\n\nAnd, of course, different areas have different standards of living. 30 grand is going to get you a lot farther in Bogota than it will in Manhattan. \n\nEdit: you know, for a theoretical question, you guys are REALLY hung up on the practicality of this idea. No, I don't know how this would happen in real life because it's impossible.",
"Taking these two sources:\n_URL_1_\n_URL_0_\n\nGive us $241 trillion as the estimated global wealth and 7.13 billion people. That leaves you with about $33,800 per person. And would be only $33k *per person.* Businesses, governments, industry, etc. would have literally no wealth and would cease. And that's just basically a cash amount you'd get handed after you threw all your equity, real property, cash, savings...*everything* \"into the pot.\"",
"It all really depends on what you mean by \"wealth\".\n\nIf you mean cold hard cash (M0) it's somewhere around $5 trillion (USD) so divide that by 7.2 billion people and you end up with $694 each.\n\nIf you mean cash and easily accessed money like checking accounts (M1) then it's about $25 trillion and that's about $3471 each.\n\nIf you mean cash, checking, savings and CDs (M2) then it's about $60 trillion and that's about $8330 each.\n\nAnd if you mean cash, checking, savings, CDs, company holdings, material goods, and all that stuff it's pretty much impossible to calculate.\n\nSources:\n\n_URL_1_\n\n_URL_0_",
"I'd also like to point out that some of wealth figures used in these sums include fixed assets such as infrastructure that can't be realistically redistributed into a cash sum, so the actual outcome is even lower than you see here. ",
"You'd like that, wouldn't you, commie.",
"Wealth is a measure of all assets, (think land, cars, factories, clothes, etc) not just liquid cash. Total world income is around $7,000 a person on average while average wealth would be more like $30k-$35k per person. This also does not take into account that a lot of wealth is held by governments. Because most of the world's wealth is not easily divisible, it's difficult to accurately imagine what such an evenly wealthy society might actually be like.\n\nSource: half remembered things from an Econ major who's on a phone and can't properly look things up.",
"the better question is how long would it take for the people who were \"rich\" and the people who were \"poor\" to get back there again.\n\ni'd say a month max\n\nspinning rims and gold teeth **everywhere**",
"TL;DR not enough for everyone to be happy.",
"Just want to say, money is not wealth. Wealth is your house, your car, the roads, the electricity and fresh water infrastructure, your fridge full of food, and the grocery store full of food down the road.\n\nAnd wealth is not of limited supply. That is, wealth is created by effort. Buy an old car for $3000, put sweat and effort into fixing it up, now it's worth $5000. You've created $2000 of \"wealth\" out of thin air.\n\nIn short, distributing money is not the same as creating wealth, in fact, I would suggest distributing money might even destroy wealth.",
"ELI5 turned into AskReddit#2, what's the point of this sub?",
"$12,400 USD, using GDP of the entire world: [Gross World Product](_URL_0_)\n\nEdit: I'm not the only one to come to this conclusion in this thread.",
"For the record, I think OP meant wealth as in a $ amount",
"If the whole world's economy ceased to function your money would be worth nothing. The answer is irrelevant.",
"Similar question: how would this work if we distributed the wealth of each country evenly amongst its citizens? Mostly curious about America because that's were I live, but I'd also be curious to compare the numbers to other countries. ",
"About tree fiddy",
"I think something that should also be noted is the economic concept ~~that I can't recall the name of~~ of reserve banking (thanks /u/HeisenbergKnocking80,) but basically says if you borrow one dollar from the bank, it creates (I believe) up to $1.90 of money to be spent in the market. The underlying concept that if the bank lends you one dollar, you have the dollar to spend, and the bank, assuming you will eventually pay them back, can loan up to (again I believe, I'm not 100% sure) 90% of that money to someone else. So you borrow a dollar, you spend the dollar you've added $1 to the economy, the bank then lent out $0.90 to your neighbor assuming you were going to eventually give them the dollar, and your neighbor spends their $0.90 adding that to the economy, so the bank has essentially added $1.90 to the economy. This functions well in the U.S. for the most part. This was a huge contributing factor in the 2008 recession along with the housing bubble bursting (although this was a huge part of the housing bubble). So the actual money sitting in your bank account isn't the actual \"money\" you have. That is to say if everyone went right now to pull their money out of the banks, the banks wouldn't have enough cash because of this concept. I did my best to explain this simply, but that concept is a fairly difficult one. (I apologize for any grammar issues also, I'm not perfect.)\n\nEdit: updated name of concept",
"I think you asked the wrong question. Money is purchasing power. If you split with everyone, you completely changed the value of money, so the answer is meaningless. \n\nWhat you need to do, is count the number of all things that are produced, and split those evenly among the people, and then see how much of everything everybody can get. \n\nBut, even that, is not completely fair, because right now we spend money and resources on building mansions and supercars, whereas if split everything, those resources would instead be spent on other more basic needs. The earth is however, limited with how much food it can produce, and things like that. \n\nThe short answer, as far as I can tell, is that we wouldn't get a whole lot. We are too many people. But we would get enough.\n\nI would estimate in purchasing power dollars that you're thinking, per person, which is rough because includes 2 year olds, and stuff like that, in and around 15,000$ each. It's not a whole lot. It's not luxurious, but your basic needs are met. Everything would have change though. I don't think we could own our own cars, and stuff like that. We'd have to get some sharing system. \n\nA large portion of the money people spend go towards production. People have cars, and stuff like that so stuff can be more efficient. We'd lose some capacity to produce that way, but we'd gain in adding many more people to the productive work force also. \n\nSo, it is hard to tell, even if you look at it that way. I could be way off. It could be much better than that, and it could be worse. But that's my best guess, for whatever that's worth."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[],
[],
[
"http://www.cnbc.com/id/101105809"
],
[
"http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=population+of+the+earth",
"http://www.cnbc.com/id/101105809"
],
[
"http://www.worldometers.info/world-population/",
"http://gizmodo.com/5995301/how-much-money-is-there-on-earth"
],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[
"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gross_world_product"
],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[]
] |
||
881y7a | how do species without a brain process information and make decisions? | We worked with planaria (organism without a brain) in lab yesterday. We put them in a dish that was half one transparent color and half clear. When exposed to light, the planaria moved to the darker location. Why is this? How do organisms' sensory organs initiate a decision to move to a darker area without a brain to control them? Do we have tools to measure their behavior?
All organism examples welcome. Planaria just prompted the question for me. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/881y7a/eli5_how_do_species_without_a_brain_process/ | {
"a_id": [
"dwh71ah",
"dwh735f"
],
"score": [
9,
4
],
"text": [
"It doesn't necessarily make a decision.\n\nConsider plants growing towards the light. They produce a hormone called auxin, throughout their bodies. Light falling upon the plant alters the distribution of this hormone, causing it to concentrate in cells that are less impacted by sunlight. The presence of this hormone promotes elongation of cell walls. So the side of a plant stem, for instance, furthest from a lightsource gets longer than the side closest. The result is the plant tilts towards the light source, or \"Grows towards the light.\" This doesn't involve any decision making, but the input of a stimulus: sunlight. \n\nWhy this happens in the first place is as a result of natural selection, in that it arose and provides a survival benefit (in this case specifically, getting access to more light instead of growing wastefully in any direction).",
"There is no \"decision.\" It's like a machine, albeit a biological one. The exposure to light initiates chemical reactions within the cell which, in turn, results in mechanical reactions. The end result is it moves away from the light."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[],
[]
] |
|
5x9xdx | why does applying vinegar stop the pain from a burn? | I know that it has to do with the ph levels and stuff... but this is not an easy topic to Google...
Yous guys are smart, so whaddaya say? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5x9xdx/eli5_why_does_applying_vinegar_stop_the_pain_from/ | {
"a_id": [
"degg0k7"
],
"score": [
2
],
"text": [
"Chemical, or heat burn? "
]
} | [] | [] | [
[]
] |
|
3lcwva | how does the loose white powder in a kraft easy mac container help the noodles cook faster? | The packaging on a Kraft Easy Mac container says that the white powder mixed in with the noodles (not the cheese packet powder) is important for helping the pasta cook. But how does this work? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3lcwva/eli5_how_does_the_loose_white_powder_in_a_kraft/ | {
"a_id": [
"cv58f7p"
],
"score": [
3
],
"text": [
"It's food starch that thickens the water, thereby preventing the water from spilling over.\n\n_URL_0_"
]
} | [] | [] | [
[
"http://m.huffpost.com/us/entry/5730236"
]
] |
|
4eua05 | what does each d4, d3, d2, and d1 do with my car, and when should i switch to them? to narrow down, regular 4 door car. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4eua05/eli5_what_does_each_d4_d3_d2_and_d1_do_with_my/ | {
"a_id": [
"d23f0i5"
],
"score": [
3
],
"text": [
"On your gear shift?\n\nThey're just different gears. I'm assuming your car is automatic and has a standard \"Drive\" gear.\n\nThe gears 1-4 just allow you to tell the car what gear you want it in.\n\nThis really doesn't offer too much of an advantage in normal everyday driving. The only time you'd need to manually select gears is going up or down long, steep hills or driving in snow.\n"
]
} | [] | [] | [
[]
] |
||
5zfmxs | how does the immune system retain its memory after blood loss (blood donation, blood loss due to injury etc.) | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5zfmxs/eli5_how_does_the_immune_system_retain_its_memory/ | {
"a_id": [
"dexpkid",
"dexpnyi",
"dexrath"
],
"score": [
2,
3,
3
],
"text": [
"The antibodies for the diseases you've had live in small amounts all throughout your blood stream. That's why the doctor can pull just a small vial of blood from your arm, run tests, and tell you every major disease that you're immune to.\n\nSo unless you lost ALL of your blood or had it all replaced by blood transfusion, you're not going to lose your immune system antibodies.",
"Say I have a factory that makes chairs. I put 100 finished chairs in a warehouse. The warehouse burns down and all the finished chairs are destroyed. But I still have the factory that makes chairs. I still have the blueprints to make new chairs. It'll take me a little bit of time, but as long as I don't go bankrupt, eventually I'll get back to 100 finished chairs.\n\nIn the same way, there are special stem cells that live in the bone marrow. Their job is to make new immune cells. Some of those cells go to another organ called the thymus to be \"educated.\" Even if you lose a bunch of immune cells, the cells that make and educate them are still ok. As long as you don't die in the meantime, eventually they will make more.\n\nYou can lose a little blood (like when donating) and be fine. You can lose a lot of blood (like from bleeding out) and be fine (if you get medical attention in time.) The real problem is if you have to get a lot of chemotherapy (to fight cancer) and it ends up killing your bone marrow. Then you'll need a bone marrow transplant. It's usually still better than cancer though.",
"/u/firingallcylinders has explained this well. Unless your entire body was drained of blood, you would not lose immunity. Anti-bodies and the cells associated with protecting you from infection are located in every single part of your body - Blood donations and even bad injuries will not cause you to lose enough blood to lose immunity, since you'll have more of those blood cells that are aware of the antigens (infections) and will know how to combat them on the other side of you body. \n\n\nNew white blood cells will be produced and the ones associated with \"remembering\" infections will learn from the pre-existing cells. Thus, as long as you are not completely drained of blood, you will be fine.\n\n\nThat said, it is possible to lose immunity through other processes - Some antibodies are not naturally produced in the body and must be received via injection and are eventually lost, It is possible to lose immunity due to aging, and blood transfusions on a large scale that did not have the same anti-bodies as your own blood might make it hard to replicate the antibodies."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[],
[],
[]
] |
||
4t4372 | why the water in the shores of the french riviera, like nice, have a more light blueish color more then other coastlines in the mediterranean? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4t4372/eli5_why_the_water_in_the_shores_of_the_french/ | {
"a_id": [
"d5egani"
],
"score": [
2
],
"text": [
"I am not familiar with the region, but I know of several regions that have blue-ish water due to coccolithophores.\n\n_URL_0_"
]
} | [] | [] | [
[
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coccolithophore"
]
] |
||
1j3alt | how do bad games get made? | I dunno how to word this better, but how is it that a bad video game can go through so many people and still get released. There have to be play testers that know the game is horrible, and the producers and stuff have to know the kind of game they're making. So how does am awful game make it to release? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1j3alt/eli5_how_do_bad_games_get_made/ | {
"a_id": [
"cbanmsv",
"cbanpz1"
],
"score": [
2,
7
],
"text": [
"i think most testers are just searching for bugs. and when the game is 99% finished the company wont waste all their work..",
"It might be cheaper to finish making a bad game and selling a few copies of it, than to pull the plug on a project and ensure that all money already invested is lost.\n\nAlso people may have reasons to not speak up:\n\nGame testers might want to be hired again, so moaning about the game being \"bad\" might not be a wise thing to do. It might not be their job, even, to point out that the game sucks.\n\nMany people might be hired for a particular project. If the project get canned, they're out of a job. So they won't say anything. Even if they keep a job, they would ave been part of a failed project. Doesn't look good. Managers don't want to b e responsible for failed projects, either.\n\nLast but not least: I wouldn't rely too heavily on the idea that people know what they are doing in general, or that people who have big money related decisions to make understand the product/service they control."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[],
[]
] |
|
3iyw1p | i have astigmatism and myopia. why are blue things more blurry than other things? | This applies especially to neon or led signs. Blue neon signs are almost impossible for me to read, while other colors are less blurry. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3iyw1p/eli5_i_have_astigmatism_and_myopia_why_are_blue/ | {
"a_id": [
"cukwcbc"
],
"score": [
5
],
"text": [
"This happens to everyone to some degree, not just people with vision problems. Even cameras and telescopes have it: it's called [chromatic aberration](_URL_0_).\n\nAs you may know, the lens in your eye focuses light onto your retina. Lenses work by bending the light waves and an image is in focus when the light rays converge. But different colors of light bend at different angles causing some colors to be focused while others are not. Red light might be focused perfectly while blue (being on the opposite side of the spectrum) is out of focus.\n\nFor your eyes, the aberration is more acute. Red light is slightly out of focus and blue light is much more out of focus."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chromatic_aberration"
]
] |
|
3sdf6z | why/how do our bodies "get used" too certain things such as temperatures of a pool and loud concerts | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3sdf6z/eli5_whyhow_do_our_bodies_get_used_too_certain/ | {
"a_id": [
"cww9t22"
],
"score": [
2
],
"text": [
"Everything you sense, be it temperature, smell (olfaction), touch, pain etc., is picked up by what's called a sensory receptor, which is often specialised to one type of stimuli.\n\nSome sensory receptors are tonic of nature, while other are phasic.\n\n\n\nPhasic is derived from greek *phasis* (phase), meaning that the response (output) from the receptor according to incoming stimuli adapts to changing conditions in a timely manner. Can be quick or can be slower. What you'll find in [this image](_URL_0_) are phasic receptors. The pink graphs are meant to mimic a stimuli that is applied over time and then removed once again. The green graphs are the body's response in a phasic receptor, depending on how quickly the receptor is adapting.\n\nWhy would you have a phasic receptor then? Some sensory information is partical to alert us of changes, but we really don't need a constant reminder. The olfactory system adapts very quickly to change: It's nice for us to be able to sense different smells, but in a constant ranking of information processing, I really don't need to keep noticing the smell of the food I am cooking or the fact that my co-worker is sweating a lot today.\n\n\nTonic receptors, on the other hand, is derived from *tonos* (stress, tension). These receptors will not adapt at all or adapt very slowly to changes in the sensory environment. See [this image](_URL_1_) in relation to the one of phasic receptors. Here you'll see an applied stimuli as the red curve, while the spikes on the black graph is activity in the receptor. As you'll see, the activity is highest once the stimuli is applied and increasing in size, however, while a bit decreased, the response stays constant while the stimuli application is also constant. No adaptation in comparison to the phasic receptor.\n\nWhen is a tonic receptor practical for the body then? Say you're in a bad situation for some reason and you're in pain. Perhaps you somehow placed your hand on the stove. You'll feel the pain, but due to you being a bit dense and placing your hand on the stove in the first place, you won't remove it immediately. Had pain receptors been phasic, the painful sensation would cease to exist and you would no longer be alerted that your hand is in danger of being damaged. However, pain receptors are tonic receptors so they'll keep alerting you until you decide it might be a good idea to withdraw your hand.\n\n\n**Edit:** Due to my morning commute coming up, I did not have time to include explanations of central adaptation (top-down), where a receptor is giving response, but the central nervous system is filtering the information. Fun fact off the top of my head (I can't quite determine the origin of the following. Must've heard it at a lecture): People suffering from ADHD do not have an adequate amount of this central filtering, which actually accounts for a lot of information filtering in the body, and thus, they are absolutely bombarded with information from the peripheral parts of the body, attributing to their abnormal condition. I should probably also add a TL;DR at some point."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[
"http://humanphysiology.academy/Neurosciences%202015/Images/4/phasic%20vs%20tonic%20generator%20potentials.jpg",
"http://7e.biopsychology.com/vs/vs08/vs0804.png"
]
] |
||
18k3o2 | taiwan | I know that the island of Taiwan has declared itself independent from China, calls itself the Republic of China and the PRC disagrees. I know there is more to it than that but I'd like to understand the general situation better. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/18k3o2/eli5_taiwan/ | {
"a_id": [
"c8fh4xy"
],
"score": [
8
],
"text": [
"After WW2, there was a communist rebellion, which started a civil war. Eventually the communists gained control of the mainland, while the old government fell back to Taiwan. Neither side has lost yet.\n\nThat's pretty much it."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[]
] |
|
ciev5s | why can my brain recognise four objects without counting, whereas if there are five objects, i have to split them into a three and a two? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/ciev5s/eli5_why_can_my_brain_recognise_four_objects/ | {
"a_id": [
"ev4iz00"
],
"score": [
25
],
"text": [
"This is called \"subitizing\" and is actually really cool. Basically, they're two different processes. Counting is a very manual deliberate and conscious process. Subitizing is based on your brain's object tracking systems--how many moving objects you can keep track of at once. Even if the objects aren't moving, your brain is using that same process of \"these are things I want to focus on and keep track of\". \n\nYou can also increase the number of objects you can immediately identify with training. Video games are one good way, but 6 is probably the upper limit"
]
} | [] | [] | [
[]
] |
||
d11z84 | why do our intestines occasionally decide w/o warning that it’s time to go and you’ve got less than 5 minutes to find a bathroom? | [deleted] | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/d11z84/eli5_why_do_our_intestines_occasionally_decide_wo/ | {
"a_id": [
"ezg6hav"
],
"score": [
6
],
"text": [
"I am assuming you mean diahorrea? The reason why is because something has reached your intestine that shouldn't have, such as somewhat rancid meat or something, so your body wants to get it out as quickly as possible before it can do serious damage, now your body can't just flush out the bad stuff it has to be all or nothing, which is why diahorrea is watery, because water is absorbed in the intestines. The reason why you might need to go multiple times in a short period is because of that all or nothing point, your body won't stop until your empty."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[]
] |
|
8lj9nh | could being electrocuted by a taser damage or stop your heart? if so, how do we mitigate the risks? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/8lj9nh/eli5_could_being_electrocuted_by_a_taser_damage/ | {
"a_id": [
"dzfx05m",
"dzfy0qk",
"dzfy3wk",
"dzfzm9j"
],
"score": [
10,
3,
3,
5
],
"text": [
"Yes, [Reuters ](_URL_0_) did an entire investigation about it. Over 150 people killed by teasers during their investigation. ",
"Yes it can stop your heart and there are various cases of people being hit by them and dying, including physically fit athletes.\nThere is no real mitigation used when deploying tasers, they aren't considered lethal force but like any other weapon used by police forces they are designed to incapacitate someone.\nSo in theory, theory the only mitigation is the officers judgement and training.",
"Yes, tasers have killed people. The risk is mitigated by limiting the current transferred through the wires to the person. Alas, humans are not all the same, and individual variation makes this difficult. Most people who are tasered are uncooperative, and that also makes precision delivery difficult.",
" > **ELI5: Could being electrocuted by a Taser damage or stop your heart?**\n\nYes\n\n > **If so, how do we mitigate the risks?** \n\nDon't get tased."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[
"https://www.reuters.com/investigates/section/usa-taser/"
],
[],
[],
[]
] |
||
6sylbm | how does infection cause elevated blood glucose in diabetics? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/6sylbm/eli5_how_does_infection_cause_elevated_blood/ | {
"a_id": [
"dlgnph7"
],
"score": [
3
],
"text": [
"Infection causes a stress response in the body by increasing the amount of certain hormones such as cortisol and adrenaline. These hormones work against the action of insulin and, as a result, the body's production of glucose increases, which results in high blood sugar levels."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[]
] |
||
4flgys | how to properly order at starbucks | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4flgys/eli5_how_to_properly_order_at_starbucks/ | {
"a_id": [
"d29vr9y",
"d29vt2l",
"d29xi8e",
"d29ydc6"
],
"score": [
6,
4,
2,
2
],
"text": [
"Don't play their stupid game. I order a large coffee. If they ask me if that's a venti Peak, I give them a nod. I only hit Starbucks if there is nothing else around, their coffee tastes like it's made by filtering hot water through burnt, dried cat turds.",
" > Baristas typically grab type of cup (hot or iced) in the size you want—tall, grande, venti and sometimes trenta—then mark the boxes on the side of the cup from top to bottom. To minimize errors when taking your order, it's easiest if you order like this:\n > \n > Hot or iced\n > Size\n > Decaf\n > Number of shots (if any extra)\n > Number of pumps of syrup (if you're that specific)\n > Type of milk\n > Any extras (mo' whip, mo' deliciousness)\n > Drink type (latte, Frappuccino, etc.)\n\n[Source](_URL_0_)\n\nAlso my ex used to work at Starbucks and I used to know this stuff cold since I was in there every day. Had to look it up to be sure now. \n\nMy drink is a hot venti quad breve white mocha.",
"Just go with small, medium or large. They know what you mean in their terms. After that say what drink you want and any additions. For me, I usually say either \"a large chai latte with whole milk\" or \"large London fog with whole milk.\"",
"Rule 1-- Don't be a jackass (edit: to the barista. Your question here is good/ok.)\n\nRule 2-- Don't worry about not knowing how to order, no need to hem and haw at the register.\n\nBaristas don't forget English just because they put on an apron and clocked in.\n\nExplain what you want (temperature, size, drink type, any other additions or modifications). The barista can translate into Starbucksese and get it for you as long as you are clear. Answer any questions--they don't ask because it's fun, they ask because there are a million combinations and modifications and want to be clear which you want.\n\nRule 3--If you are uncertain whether your drink is the one on the handoff plane, ask. There are often a lot of drinks and they don't always get handed out in the sequence they were ordered--some take longer than others to make. It's ok to ask \"Hey, is that the medium chai with vanilla?\" And they will either say \"yes\" or \"no, I have that one on the bar right now, it's up next\"--or something similar.\n\nIf it doesn't come out quite how you expect, politely explain what needs to be different and let them remake it.\n\nExample: \n\n\"I would like a hot brewed coffee, please, large size\" and they should hand out a venti [roast name] to you.\n\n\"I want an iced tea, something like an arnold palmer--can you add any sugar?\" And they should hand you a [size] sweetened Black-tea Lemonade.\n\n\"Do you have those milkshake like things? Yes? Can I get a large one with coffee, white chocolate flavor, non-dairy and no whip?\" And they will ring you up for a Venti Soy No Whip White Mocha Frappucino.\n\nDon't worry about the lingo, just explain what you want as succinctly as you are able and they will translate what they can and ask any clarifying questions, just like ordering anywhere else :)."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[],
[
"http://www.delish.com/kitchen-tools/a43119/mistakes-youre-making-when-ordering-starbucks/"
],
[],
[]
] |
||
efx7iw | bandwidth - how does a satellite send down hundreds of channels of high definition content to televisions all over the country, but my 1mbps in the connection gets bogged down by five smartphones? | Question from my grandad to his 'techy' kids at Christmas. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/efx7iw/eli5_bandwidth_how_does_a_satellite_send_down/ | {
"a_id": [
"fc2xwo2",
"fc2y2p3",
"fc35u1g",
"fc38k7c"
],
"score": [
18,
10,
2,
3
],
"text": [
"Think of broadcasting television channels like a movie theater. Each individual theater can display a movie to to huge numbers of people, only limited by how many seats there are and how bright the screen is. If the screen was bright enough and there were enough seats, everyone on earth could watch a movie off that one screen.\n\nBut when it comes to sending and receiving data to and from a single person, it's less like a movie and more like a phone call. That single satellite up in space can only switch back and forth between separate phone calls so quickly before it's overloaded.\n\nSo in other words broadcasting is easy. Individual communication is hard.",
"The most important thing to note is that television is a broadcast, while internet is a communication protocol. This is relevant, because the satellite only needs enough bandwidth to send 1 copy of each channel. Everything watching TV is just tuning in to the single copy that is being sent out.\n\nInternet, on the other hand, is communication to individual people. If 5 people want to watch a Youtube video, that video has to be sent 5 times, once to each person. In order to make this usable, the *massive* bandwidth that exists gets split up between everyone.\n\nIn practical terms, this means that satellite TV probably has Gigabytes of bandwidth, hence how it can support so many channels. The internet *also* has Gigabytes of bandwidth, but that is shared among many people, so your \"share\" is only 1MB",
"Because it is one-way communication. 50,000 people at a sporting event can hear a single announcer. But if you handed out 50,000 microphones, it would be a cacophony. \n\nBandwidth in one-way communication is just about output because adding another receiver has very little impact on the ability to transmit. But with two-way communication, your output is my input, and the number of people receiving becomes a limiting fact.",
"So traditional TV is done what’s called Over-The-Air (OTA) as well as Cable and Satellite.\nIt’s really a one way communication, the Aerials in your area, cable company, and Satellite TV provider BLAST their signal out to anyone who is can/is allowed to hear the signal. \n\nWith the internet, you have a two way communication. Download and Upload, in addition you have many devices downloading and uploading at the same time. When that signal is blasted from the Internet Provider it isn’t meant for the masses, it’s meant for the device that asked for the information- and the data coming has to play nice with everyone else’s data, even if that means slowing down or even getting interference and dropping some data. The thing is it’s so fast that your device can ask for that data again or even better- correct that data and get you what you need. \n\nSo your 1Mbps like connected to 5 smartphones is basically acting like a slow freeway at this point. If all smartphones want to us the 1Mbps at the same time you’re going to have problems. Routers and other networking hardware have software built in that can dedicate a certain amount of data to a device for a consistent experience, coming from a 1Mbps that route would probably make things worse.\n\nYour TVs (and phones) work fine due to their connection being on a different platform and only having to receive the signal."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[],
[],
[],
[]
] |
|
1z2hx9 | why don't we consider elements other than carbon and silicon as the building block for life. | Whey don't we consider elements other than C and Si as the building block of life. to further clarify, Life as I refer to is a process of multiplication and sustenance of a process. In this context even fusion on Sun can be considered as life where a process is sustaining/multiplying and even evolving (After H is exhausted, elements from the earlier fusion like He etc will go on to form C and Fe and so on) | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1z2hx9/eli5why_dont_we_consider_elements_other_than/ | {
"a_id": [
"cfpx7ev",
"cfpx82x",
"cfpx8qn"
],
"score": [
3,
3,
2
],
"text": [
"Because that's not life. That's a nuclear reaction.\n\nLife is where something is living, a fire is not living, a nuclear explosion is not alive.\n\nThe reason nothing larger than carbon or silicon are considered is because the arrangements for the elements larger than that, that keep the +/-4 charge are too unstable and have arrangements of valences that don't allow for easy bonding.",
"Because other atoms don't form covalent bonds with themselves.\n\nCarbon (and the elements beneath it on the periodic table) have a nucleus that pulls just hard enough on its electrons to allow it to \"share\" electrons with other atoms of the same variety. \n\nEdit: The intrinsic complexity involved with life needs big molecules, and big molecules are formed easiest with molecules that are self bonding.",
"I don't think silicon is considered one of the \"building blocks of life\" outside of science fiction. Hypothetically it's similar enough to carbon in its binding properties, but we've never encountered a silicon-based life form.\n\n\"Life\" has a pretty specific definition in the scientific context. The organism has to do certain things like reproduce, grow, actively adapt to its environment, and evolve over time.\n\nSo the way you define life, I guess things like fusion can be considered life, but the scientific community has a much more specific definition, and organisms that fall within that definition seem to universally use specific elements."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[],
[],
[]
] |
|
ct9s9u | how does making a donation offset your carbon footprint? | With all the blow back from the celebrities taking private jets and then responding with "I made the appropriate donation to remain carbon neutral" I can't find anything unbiased to tell me how this works? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/ct9s9u/eli5_how_does_making_a_donation_offset_your/ | {
"a_id": [
"exjizx5",
"exjkdh1",
"exk4ten"
],
"score": [
3,
3,
2
],
"text": [
"Well, you would plant trees. The trees take in CO2 and exhale O2, and the carbon is used to build the structure of the tree. Any plant will do, but trees are the most common.",
"Some airlines will let you buy offsets. They pay another business to plant trees or do another carbon-reducing project.",
"Long story short, it doesn't do anything.\n\nThe celebrities make these donations to be able to say that they are helping, but the carbon credits are not a well regulated industry and there is very little insight into what they are doing with the money.\n\nThe important thing is that it's considered a charitable donation for tax purposes and famous rich people have good accountants that will use charitable donations to reduce the amount of taxes that they have to pay. So basically they were already planning to give away that money anyway."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[],
[],
[]
] |
|
5q5m00 | how will the proposed wall solve any of america's problems? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5q5m00/eli5_how_will_the_proposed_wall_solve_any_of/ | {
"a_id": [
"dcwhfvq",
"dcwhtmp",
"dcwi9xm",
"dcwicjr",
"dcwiyn1",
"dcwjdbb",
"dcwmen9",
"dcwmwxb",
"dcwqg4u",
"dcwqy43"
],
"score": [
12,
8,
56,
12,
2,
5,
2,
4,
2,
3
],
"text": [
"Well it will provide some temporary economic stimulus plus a permanent improvement to the ladder industry.",
"Some people believe illegal immigration is a drain on the economy, where illegal immigrants are consuming gov't services at rates that exceed the economic benefits they provide.\n\nThey also believe that building a wall will stop illegal immigrants from entering the country in the first place.\n\nNote that both believes are highly controversial.",
"Mostly, it will make us feel better, because we've already forgotten about the large fence between our countries that at the least isn't very safe to put a ladder against. \n\nIt will make it marginally harder for the 5% of illegal immigrants that cross the border outside of a checkpoint to get into and out of the US. The other 95% cross the border legally, but then stay illegally after their work/vacation visa expires. \n\nSee, there are plenty of programs for companies to hire migrant workers on a 3-month work visa, which is more than enough to get someone over the border. They do their work as a legal immigrant for 3 months, then are supposed to head back home. \n\nOr the family of Mexicans that want to spend a nice weekend at Disney World that got \"lost\" on their way back to the airport. There's really nothing stopping them from simply not going home and hanging around in the US until someone makes them leave. \n\nHang around long enough and you can apply for legit citizenship. Especially if you can pop out a baby on US soil. \n\nI'm genuinely hoping the wall becomes a metaphor for spending $60bil on Immigration enforcement reform instead of a giant concrete dong along our border. That kind of money could have an Immigration officer following up with every visa, verifying that folks actually left when they said they did. \n\nIf we're going to go full-retard on curbing illegal immigrants, it would be nice if we could be smart about it. ",
"It won't, it's a scapegoat. People don't just cross the border to come into the U.S, people come on boats and planes and over stay their visas. \nIf you want more security train better law enforcement, help fight isis, stop all plane travel ? The people behind 9/11 didn't cross through the Mexico US border, they all came here on visas. \n\nThe wall is more of a symbol, for security and nationalism. If the economy improves or good things happen \"see the wall was great\" if the economy tanks \"those dam democrats and backstabbing republicans undermined how big/tall/great the wall could have been.\" ",
"It will be a great help with getting you that high paying landscaping job you've always wanted.",
"A fence and INS agents patrolling it (what we have now) is good and could probably use some additional resources but a literal massive wall will do very little additional good, it's very questionable if it would do enough to justify its expense. While it may help stop a casual border-crosser the method of crossing would soon adapt to counter it. It may stop the very poorest of the poor but most workers come across the border with temporary visas and they simply overstay the visa, and about half of the people currently doing just that come in through the airport. That sort of thing would increase a lot. Which border-crossers get in would change but how many get in wouldn't change very much.\n\nSome massive wall is not a very good idea in the real world.",
"It will most likely force the reality television show \"Border Patrol\" to be cancelled... and THAT my friend is the only good it will do for our country.",
"It won't. The wall is a lie. It might make it harder for people to immigrate, in the sense that they will spend more time scaling it or digging under it, and are more likely to get arrested. But this won't actually solve any real problems in America.",
"It's about projecting national glory and a psychological weapon to potential refugees.\n\nHistorical example: Hadrian's Wall. The stone was/is far, far smaller than the wall Trump proposes, and to be honest it barely stopped any Picts invading (they used ladders when they were impeded). But it was about the glory of Rome and sending a message to barbarians. It's a transcendental sentiment.",
"solve which problem? illegal immigrants? it won't.\n\nbut it will solve the problem of hundreds if not thousands of constructor worker jobs. at least...until the wall is finished. and instead of paying the constructor workers, we'll have paid billions to the most profitable construction companies owned by friends and associates of your Congressman or Senator. "
]
} | [] | [] | [
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[]
] |
||
1iabl3 | why don't/can't motor vehicles have spherical wheels like in "i, robot"? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1iabl3/eli5_why_dontcant_motor_vehicles_have_spherical/ | {
"a_id": [
"cb2isfd",
"cb2iwt8",
"cb2mmhm",
"cb2nxjv",
"cb2o9x6",
"cb2orzd",
"cb2uk5m"
],
"score": [
84,
26,
5,
3,
12,
4,
2
],
"text": [
"A spherical wheel just isn't practical. A sphere is going to have a small contact patch for the size of the wheel compared to a normal wheel. They would be hard to manufacture as well. \n\nA car COULD have spherical wheels, but it just doesn't make sense to have them.",
"Partly because nobody ever developed one until recently, Mostly because of practicality. There's little contact with the ground, it would rely on friction based movement more than motors, and I think braking would be a bitch. It would spin on a dime, but stopping it would be a whole different story.\n\nWith that said, a few college students were/are working on a prototype spherical wheel motorcycle (I'm typing from my phone, so I just copy+pasted link below). They have a website of you're interested in more details (should be in article). There was even a post on reddit a while back on /r/motorcycles\n\n_URL_0_",
"I do not know how a truly spherical wheel would attach to the car.\n\n_URL_0_\n\nWas a link posted somewhere else in this thread. The amount of force possible by using a traditional axel is going to be much greater than the system devised for that sphere. Traditional wheels just provide a much more practical force-weight issue than a sphere.\n",
"if you look at the way the cars in I Robot move, they can move both forwards and sideways... which begs the question: what are the wheels connected to? If they're connected to an axle, that makes them no different than normal vehicles, which means the logical conclusion is it must be some sort of electromagnetism applied in a similar way to a motor, except the motor axle is the actual wheel, and the car's chassis basically floats on its wheels. Now, the obvious problem to this is: if we put 4 motors that powerful (1 per wheel) and that exposed onto a car, wouldn't any metallic objects get sucked in and start shooting around in snyc with the motor? That... would be pretty destructive to both the car and its environment.",
"Surprised no one has mentioned the space issue. Consider the volume of a sphere vs. a cylinder (normal tire). You'd have to sacrifice that much more space under your hood, (not including your redesigned suspension system).\n\nAlso, I always thought it was completely ridiculous in \"I, Robot\" when he parks his car at US Robotics and a crane are grabs it and turns it vertical to put it in a storage hangar (like a coat). That would be AWFUL. Think of all the loose items you have in your backseat or trunk, the loose change in your cup holder, or an actual drink. SPLAT, it's now all over your windshield.",
"Along with the other answers about the size of spheres, drive mechanisms, and contact areas with the ground, spherical wheels have more mass and, what physics calls, a higher moment of inertia. \n\nTo understand the moment of inertia part, think of the last time you spun yourself in a swivel chair. If you keep your legs tucked in close you spin faster but when you stick your legs out you slowed down. The farther away weight is from the spinning point the more energy it takes to make it spin. This means that spherical wheels (unless they were super light) would take more energy to roll and so your gas mileage would be worse. ",
"Here's the [car](_URL_0_)."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[],
[
"http://www.gizmag.com/spherical-drive-system-omnidirectional-electric-motorcycle/24095/"
],
[
"http://www.gizmag.com/spherical-drive-system-omnidirectional-electric-motorcycle/24095/"
],
[],
[],
[],
[
"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Audi_RSQ"
]
] |
||
8bcdw8 | why can you drive a car when the parking brake is still on? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/8bcdw8/eli5_why_can_you_drive_a_car_when_the_parking/ | {
"a_id": [
"dx5lg6k"
],
"score": [
3
],
"text": [
"It's strong enough to resist the pull of gravity on a moderate slope, but not strong enough to fully resist the stronger pull of the engine in first gear."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[]
] |
||
dobfmr | how does the fact that qubits can be both 0 and 1 at the same time allows for faster computations? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/dobfmr/eli5_how_does_the_fact_that_qubits_can_be_both_0/ | {
"a_id": [
"f5lr9va",
"f5lrvc9",
"f5lwofs"
],
"score": [
3,
7,
14
],
"text": [
"That's not the factor that makes the difference, it's a side effect of that difference.\n\nQuantum computers don't work the same way as regular computers. Regular computers have a bunch of instructions, ADD, SUB, MUL, ... and programs are built by assembling a sequence of these instructions that calculates the answer you seek.\n\nQuantum computers define answers by layering pieces of the problem on top of each other. Oversimplifying, instead of ADD then MUL then SUB the program defines the answer as A while B while C, where A,B,C are relationships between the inputs. \n\nAnother analogy is to think of a quantum computer as a computer that does one \"instruction\", but the complexity of that question can be very large.\n\nSo far, quantum computers are tiny and regular computers are gigantic (or humongous if you think of regular super-computers). That said, there are things that quantum computers can do super fast. Not interesting things, like break Internet encryption, mind you but as time and research goes on it's likely that someone will find an interesting problem that quantum computers are better at.",
"What a quantum computer does when you ask it a question is it calculates all possible answers, simultaneously. When you read the response, you get one of those answers back, at random.\n\nThis in itself is not useful. However, if you design the quantum computer in a special way, you can have the \"wrong\" answers cancel each other out, leaving only the right answer(s) behind. When you then read the response, you only get the right answer.\n\nFor example, I want to know a factor of the number 30. I ask my quantum computer. What it does is basically divide 30 by all the numbers from 1 to 30. If I measure the response like this, I'll get one of those answers back at random.\n\nBut if I design the computer to eliminate the wrong answers, then measure the response, I'll get back one of the right answers back, at random.",
"Quantum computer can evaluate combination of inputs. Let's say you have two people that say either yes (1) or no (0), and you have to decide whether they agree with each other. \n\nOn classical computer, you ask the first one, then you ask the second one, then you compare the answers. You needed to ask **two times.**\n\nOn a quantum computer, you can ask both of them at once. Or, better said, you can ask a \"combination of them\". You ask *first one + second one.* The answer will be precisely the thing you want: \n\n* 0 + 0 = **0** (mod 2)\n* 1 + 0 = **1** (mod 2)\n* 0 + 1 = **1** (mod 2)\n* 1 + 1 = **0** (mod 2)\n\nSo, if the *combination of the people* answers you **0**, it means they agree with each other. If the combination answers you **1**, it means that they disagree. So that means asking **one time** was sufficient. \n\nKeep in mind that you don't have any information about their answers: \n\n1. If they agree, you don't get to know what they agreed on.\n2. If they don't agree, you don't get to know who of them said yes/no. \n\nHowever, this information is useless for your goal, all you need is some kind of aggregated information about all people."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[],
[],
[]
] |
||
6u3wak | why are there super long words when some shorter words (ex: jeb) don't have any meaning? why not assign the shorter one a meaning? | [deleted] | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/6u3wak/eli5_why_are_there_super_long_words_when_some/ | {
"a_id": [
"dlppxl0",
"dlppzzq"
],
"score": [
7,
2
],
"text": [
"Long words are often put together with different roots that point to their meaning. For example, take one of the longest words in the English language: antidisestablishmentarianism. Let's break it down:\n\n* Anti- means against, so it's against disestablishmentarianism.\n* -ism implies some philosophy, so we know that it's opposed to the philosophy held by disestablishmentarians.\n* -arians implies a member of a group, in this case the group of disestablishment.\n* -ment turns a verb into a noun, so disestablishment is the noun form of the word disestablish\n* dis- means to undo, as in dismantle. In this case, it's undoing the verb establish\n\nThe only thing we can't figure out from the word itself is the establishment of *what*. It turns out that this is in reference to the Church of England.\n\nWhen you put it all together, you can figure out that antidisestablishmentarianism means that it is the philosophy opposed to undoing the establishment of the Church of England.\n\nYou could replace it with the word jeb, but it would be very difficult to know what it meant, especially because it's not a very commonly used word. You'd have to explain the word pretty much every time it came up.",
"Usually those longer words have their roots in smaller words, or use well-known prefixes or suffixes that help convey their meaning. \n\nIf I don't know what the word \"jeb\" means, then it might be hard to figure it out in certain contexts, because there are no clues in the word itself. But if I don't know the meaning of everyone's favorite long word, \"antidisestablishmentarianism,\" then I can suss out:\n\n1. Anti- means \"against\" like \"antisocial\"\n2. Dis- means \"separate\" like in \"disconnect\"\n3. Establishment is a word I know! It means \"organization\" or \"institute\"\n4. -arian means \"relating to people\" like in \"vegetarian\"\n5. -ism means \"practice or belief\" like Judaism\n\nSo I can put all of that together and figure out that this big long word means something along the lines of \"the belief of people who are against separating some establishments\" which is pretty close to its actual meaning, \"opposition to the separation of church and state\" (usually in the context of the Church of England).\n\n"
]
} | [] | [] | [
[],
[]
] |
|
c3pm5i | why do americans talk differently than brits, even though they emerged from them only a few hundred years ago. | I feel like in any documentation or representation of the 19th and 18th century of the US people talk the way they do nowadays, in an American accent, not a bit of British. Did the Brits that came to America already talk that way? How can an accent shift so fast within such a short period of time, and at what point exactly did that happen? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/c3pm5i/eli5_why_do_americans_talk_differently_than_brits/ | {
"a_id": [
"erscr6q",
"erscyc6",
"ersddgm",
"ersg6zy",
"ersjix9",
"ersoted",
"ersr6si",
"ersu4o0",
"ertsuuk",
"eru9l28"
],
"score": [
20,
10,
32,
56,
8,
3,
10,
3,
2,
2
],
"text": [
"There is some indication that the 18th century British accent was actually closer to an American accent. For example, words like y'all or geetar came from British calvary men.\n\nThen when people came to America they were no longer talking to and being influenced by British speech patterns. So whatever changes occurred in Britain were lost in America and vice versa.",
"I've always heard that Brits developed the modem British accent after the war as a way to distinguish themselves from Americans. Like a social\\intellectual FU to Americans for leaving or something\n\n\nEdit: original source below. I remembered it almost correctly\n\n_URL_0_",
"I think the British dropped \"r\" came after the colonisation of the Americas. In the time of Shakespeare the r sound was still in use. _URL_0_",
"Bear in mind that there are 150 British accents.",
"The British were not the only group to settle the US. Over a few hundred years of Germans, Dutch, Swedish, etc coming and learning English contributed to the current accent.",
"Check out the usual suspects in this thread who fantasise that \"the\" British accent is a thing, as opposed to the reality of dozens of extremely different accents.",
" > How can an accent shift so fast within such a short period of time\n\nA few hundred years is not a short time when it comes to accents. It's generations and generations of people! It's more than enough time for accents to shift.\n\nAnd remember there's effectively twice that amount of time, because American accents have had a few hundred years to diverge on the one side, and British accents have had a few hundred years to diverge on the other side.",
"The short version is that, back in the 18th century, the overwhelming majority of Brits and their colonists sounded like New Englanders do today. After the war, British shifted away from that accent and towards modern Received Pronunciation, which ended up being the accent that all *other* British accents kinda-sorta emulate.\n\nMeanwhile, in the US, New England/New York English remained the dominant language of politics (alongside Southern English before the Civil War), until the development of TV and Radio as mass media. At that point a particular accent of English from the Missouri River Valley became the primary accent, in major part because that particular accent of English has basically no accent whatsoever, and is easily understood by almost all English speakers.\n\nThis is also why a huge swathe of TV news anchors in the US are from the Dakotas, Nebraska, Iowa, Kansas, or Missouri; they grow up naturally speaking that particular accent of English, or one of the related accents that just slightly drift away from it, and so they don't have to adjust their accent much (if at all) when on the air.",
"In fact, I heard recently that the American accent, especially in the South, is actually closer to the British accent during the colonial days than the British accent we are familiar with. They are the ones who diverged the most while we mostly kept talking the same, with a few changed hear and there. \n\n\nRegardless speech actually changed very very quickly which is why both America and Britain have hundred of distinctive accents in each.",
"There isn’t AN American accent, or a single English accent. There isn’t even a singular Kiwi accent, despite Americans et al being barely able to distinguish us from Australians. (Just FYI, Americans trying to do a Kiwi accent usually sound like Afrikaners to us). \n\nGeographical accents develop really fast, Kiwis sound nothing like anyone else and we’ve only been a country for 170\nyears. \n\nAll the “that’s what Brits used to sound like” comments are bollocks. Regional accents are influenced by where settlers came from, but they’re not the same. There was nowhere in the UK that had a Kiwi accent in the 1850s."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[],
[
"https://curiosity.com/topics/the-american-accent-is-older-than-the-british-accent-curiosity/"
],
[
"http://www.bbc.com/culture/story/20180207-how-americans-preserved-british-english"
],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[]
] |
|
343998 | what happens to people who are caught on film stealing/rioting? | When there are riots etc, do individual participants who break the law on film (journalists, security cams, photographers, social media) - stealing, vandalizing, assaulting, etc - get charged with crimes? Are there generally different charges levied in situations like Baltimore? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/343998/eli5_what_happens_to_people_who_are_caught_on/ | {
"a_id": [
"cqqttpl"
],
"score": [
3
],
"text": [
"No. If you break the law, you break the law. If they have the suspects on film it just makes it that much easier to catch them."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[]
] |
|
17537l | how do i make money by buying a country's debt? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/17537l/how_do_i_make_money_by_buying_a_countrys_debt/ | {
"a_id": [
"c82a5a3"
],
"score": [
5
],
"text": [
"In simplest terms, you make money by buying a thing at one price, and selling it at a higher price.\n\n\"Sovereign debt\" is basically about what money people call \"liquidity.\" Liquidity is access to money. If you have a lot of money — either actual currency, as in banknotes and coins, or money on account at a bank — then you have a lot of liquidity. If you don't have much money, you don't have much liquidity … although you may have other things of value that you can use to *get* money.\n\nA government — one that's working well, anyway — has something of intrinsic value: it's called \"faith and credit.\" This is a very old, but very nebulous idea. It basically means that the government in question is \"good for it.\" The government in question is something you can trust.\n\nSo sovereign debt is about a government exchanging its faith and credit for money, then using that money to do stuff like build a road or invade Nazi-occupied France or whatever.\n\nIn order to do this, to exchange faith and credit for money, a government creates and sells things called *bonds.* A bond is basically just a physical representation of the government's faith and credit. It's a piece of paper — though it isn't actually an actual piece of paper any more; we use computers for this now — that represents value. The government might, for example, issue a particular bond that says \"In exchange for $100 today, you can redeem this bond for $110 a year from today.\" That's worth something, because again, the government has faith and credit: the government's *good for it.*\n\nSo you, with $100 in your pocket, go to the government and buy that bond. You've exchanged your cash for something which *isn't* cash but which has value … a *greater* value than the cash you paid for it.\n\nSo, in essence, you have already made money. The total value of the *stuff* you own now is greater than it was before you bought the bond. Good for you.\n\nOf course, this brings us right back to liquidity again. Since you used all your cash to buy that bond, you no longer have any money. But you do have something that's worth money. That means you have two options. You can either wait until the bond \"matures\" (as it's called) and redeem it for its face value — $110 — or you can sell it right now to somebody else. Say I have $105 in my pocket; I might offer to buy your bond — for which you paid $100 — for $105, knowing that it'll be worth $110 when it matures. If you need cash *now* — that is, you're in a *liquidity crisis* — you would be well served by taking my offer. You'd get more money than you had to start with, meaning you made a profit, but you'd get less than you would've gotten if you'd been able to wait. I, on the other hand, paid more for the bond than I would've if I'd bought it directly from the government, but I'll still make a profit on it when it matures.\n\nSo the short answer to your question is that governments sell bonds, and bonds are valuable things. You make money off government bonds by buying them at one price, then either waiting until they mature or selling them on the open market for more than you paid for them.\n\n(You will never make a *lot* of money this way; bonds aren't designed to be profitable, really. They're designed to be a secure store of value, meaning you can store value in bonds and know that you won't lose value over time.)"
]
} | [] | [] | [
[]
] |
||
13b5vv | law of independent assortment and law of segregation | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/13b5vv/eli5_law_of_independent_assortment_and_law_of/ | {
"a_id": [
"c72g7h6"
],
"score": [
3
],
"text": [
"To sexually reproduce, (how most complex life has children), you need to mix half of your DNA (the instructions for how to make you) with half of your partners.\n \nYour body does this by making cells that only have half of your DNA in them (unlike every other cell that has all of it). Your partner does this too, and when you sexually reproduce, this combines the two into one cell with a whole set of DNA.\n\nMendels laws come into play when we talk about *how* the DNA decides what traits (like your eye colour, how your ear lobes look etc.) are passed on. The traits are governed by pairs of genes (places on the list of DNA that says what the body needs to make to cause a certain trait). It takes two genes to decide whether or not, or how a trait is expressed. These two genes are called alleles, they govern the same trait (eg. hair colour), but they can lay out instructions for it differently (blonde, brown etc).\n\n**NB**: Mendel's laws (the guy who discovered them by spending his life growing and monitoring pea plants) only apply at the *time the gametes are being formed*.\n\nThe Law of Segregation says that when a gamete is being made, a chromosome pair (the chromosomes are each half-lists of DNA instructions in your cells) has to split. This means that one chromosome's *allele* for a certain trait has to be segregated from the other.\n\nThe law of independent assortment is the very similar, but it is used when more than one allele pair is being looked at. The law says that when allele pairs split (when the chromosome pairs separate), they separate without paying attention to how the other pairs are separating. It doesn't matter to pair 1 how pair 2 separates.\n\nThis also means that when the gametes from either partner are joined up again, all of the traits are passed on independently, in other words, your hair colour doesn't depend on how your ears look, because the two are goverend by different alleles.\n\nThe Law of Independent Assortment doesn't apply when the two different allele pairs lie on the same chromosome however, because if you separate the lists, the two alleles are being separated together.\n\n\n\n\n "
]
} | [] | [] | [
[]
] |
||
5cjog4 | what is good or bad about protectionism? who are its winners and losers? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5cjog4/eli5_what_is_good_or_bad_about_protectionism_who/ | {
"a_id": [
"d9x0oy8",
"d9x0vuk",
"d9x5um7",
"d9xacsi",
"d9xd658"
],
"score": [
25,
7,
3,
2,
5
],
"text": [
"To understand what is happening at the grand scale, consider what happens when you and I freely engage in trade. I give you things you value more than I, while you give things I value more than you. As a result, both of us end up with more value. So when you place impediments in the way of such trade, you decrease the amount of potential value - money - that is being made. As a result, protective trade barriers tend to have a negative economic effect when considered in isolation.\n\nNow imagine a scenario where you feed your family by selling widgets. Your neighbor comes along and starts selling widgets, but at a slightly lower cost, taking all of your business. Despite the fact that people *in general* win in this scenario - they're getting cheaper widgets, your neighbor is becoming prosperous - you *personally* lose a great deal since your ability to make a live is wrecked.\n\nAt the grand scale, this doesn't happen with individuals so much as entire industries. The textiles industry, for example, is almost absent in virtually all developed nations. Because textiles are one of the easiest industries for low technology nations to engage in, newly industrialized nations tend to out-compete developed nations. The shape of the modern textiles industry is one where developed nations tend to take the lead in design, sales and distribution while developing nations perform all of the labor. But if you're a person with a skillset that doesn't include design, sales and distribution but does include actually making textiles, this leaves you without a career.\n\nThe flip side of this coin would be automaking. Building automobiles is a complex, technical process with considerable design elements and a high barrier to entry. In a perfectly 'fair' competition, it's extremely difficult for developing nations to compete with the developed world. So if you're in a developing nation and want an auto industry, you tend to enact protections to favor local industry that could not otherwise compete.\n\nIn the developing world, the second type of protectionism is an almost pure win because you're really just giving up what most of your people can't afford anyway.\n\nIn the developed world, the effect of protectionism ends up being more of an \"everyone suffers, not just the poor\" effect. Let's assume the U.S. enacted massive protectionist efforts against textile manufacture. While this would bring textile jobs 'back home', these jobs would be bare minimum wage jobs that barely allowed someone to support themselves. It would also dramatically raise the cost of textiles in the U.S., meaning that the people working at those minimum wage jobs would have greater expenses than they otherwise would. So the new textile worker would have been slightly better off if they just kept their job stocking shelves at Walmart and not had the protective barrier in place.\n\nHowever, the textile manufacturer with a small office containing only skilled workers overseeing a global operation primarily conducted in foreign nations would get hammered by such rules. They'd see their customer base drop from a world-wide customer base to a national one.\n\nThis is why you don't really see much actual support for protectionism except as rhetoric. The higher up the industrial ladder a nation is, the more it suffers from protective barriers. However, developing nations can't realistically 'develop' in the first place without the infusion of cash and expertise from the developed world that requires lowering trade barriers.",
"In general, protectionism has proven to be bad historically for almost everyone involved. But there are reasons to suspect that this time may be different from the others.\n\nProtectionism in the form of tariffs dates largely to the colonial period, where Britain sought to protect the value of it's trading companies in London such as the East India Company. To do this, they put tariffs on their colonies, forcing Americans to pay more for goods produced in France or Germany than they would for goods produced in British colonies. When the British price would have been cheaper, the tariff had no effect, but when the German price would have been cheaper, Americans were forced to pay extra for goods. The benefits of this policy were reaped exclusively by the owners of the trade companies that the laws were intended to protect, and their paid cronies in parliament. This would be like if Congress passed a tariff on goods produced by companies not traded in Wall Street - it would benefit the elite at the expense of the people.\n\nProtectionism saw another rise early in the great depression. People felt that jobs were scarce at home, and they saw that goods from abroad were being imported. Each country thought that if they just stopped imports, then people would buy domestic goods, and the jobs would come back. Unfortunately, every country ended up doing the same, and the net result was that all of the benefits of trade were lost. It collapsed the world into the darkest depths of the great depression, signing the economic death warrant of the world. Many people feel like this would be the result of trying to use protectionism to keep jobs in the country, but at the time there was no such thing as a 'minimum wage'. This is analogous to passing tariffs on European countries and other places with similar minimum wage laws to the United States.\n\nIt is untested yet whether it would be beneficial for modern western nations to pass protectionist laws. We've seen in the past that they can be very dangerous, creating artificial monopolies and higher prices, and eliminating trades that are valuable to both nations, making iron-poor nations struggle to access steel, food-poor nations struggle to access food, and so on. But at the moment, only Western nations have strong laws on labor rights and minimum wages. There is some argument to be made that companies use cheap third world labor as a means of circumventing those laws, and that limited tariffs against countries with inferior work safety laws and minimum wages to America might actually help Americans work. Essentially, to treat the US government as a giant union that blocks employment of non-unionized workers around the world. \n\nThis appears to be Trump's plan. Whether it can be achieved without the pitfalls that lead previous protectionist plans to catastrophe, and whether there are other pitfalls that we haven't experienced yet, remain to be seen. Free trade has been the balancing and normalizing force in our world for some time, and has been a force for industrialization and progress in the third world and the emerging global middle class of Brazil, China, India, and others. It's a tremendously risky plan, but we cannot say with certainty that it will fail, or whether the idea of a 'unionized tariff' against countries with poor wages and low regulation will create a better world.",
"Economic protectionism usually comes in the form on tariffs on imports of certain products. They work by adding a cost to imported goods to make the domestic version of those products more price competitive. For example if a board of lumber from Canada costs $1 to produce and in the US it costs $1.20 to produce, if you need lumber you will buy the $1 lumber. The US could apply a 20 cent tariff to imported lumber so that lumber from both places costs a US customer $1.20 now and there is no longer a preference on the cheap Canadian lumber. \n\nThe problem with tariffs is that consumers bear the burden and necessarily buy less of that product as the price has now effectively increased for them. If they are buying less, producers will produce less and you have shrunk your GDP and potentially reduced employment.\n\nTLDR - Tariffs are one of the most common protectionist economic tools and while they might prop up a less efficient domestic industry, they hurt consumers and lower national GDP.\n\nThere are other protectionist economic tools, like import quotas and subsidies but both similarly cause a burden on consumers. Quotas create scarcity and therefore higher costs and subsidies are paid for by tax payers.",
"In the short term, if a product is protected:\n\n* winners - producers, sellers, those whom they buy from, local economies in general, black markets\n* losers - consumers who pay more, other industries that face retaliatory protectionism\n\nIn the long term, usually everyone loses. A product gets protected because it can't compete on an open market. Protectionism doesn't fix this, it just makes consumers pay extra to prop up businesses, and gives those businesses no incentive to improve. Over time, that competitive gap widens, more protective measure have to be enacted, until consumers refuse to pay, either through political change or black markets. At that point the entire industry fails all at once, resulting in far more hardship.",
"Trade generally improves efficiency and lowers prices for consumer. It also lowers margins. \n\nThis comes at the cost of redundancy and resilience. \n\nThe Netherlands found this out the hard way during WWII. They had such good trade with the rest of Europe they were no longer self sufficient for food. They could make more money growing tulips than food.\n\nAfter the war started and borders closed, they discovered very quickly that you can't eat tulips.\n\nOther countries in Europe learned similar lessons.\n\nThis is one of the reasons that European agricultural protectionism won't go away during our lifetimes."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[],
[],
[],
[],
[]
] |
||
dhb7yl | why is the drunk driving problem so big in u.s.a., when european countries have a much younger drinking age and not as high numbers? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/dhb7yl/eli5_why_is_the_drunk_driving_problem_so_big_in/ | {
"a_id": [
"f3lkpy6",
"f3lx57d",
"f3m07ei",
"f3m2g3b",
"f3m89hb",
"f3nip6k"
],
"score": [
97,
22,
7,
2,
2,
2
],
"text": [
"We drive more. Euro cities have a walking/mass transit culture and we don't because we're huge. I'd wager drunk driving is much lower in a walking city such as new York. Nobody walks in a city like la. We are made up of suburbs and spread out cities and large expanses of rural areas.",
"Europeans have public transportation - and it’s culturally normal for the majority of citizens to use it regularly. Americans mostly either don’t have access to good public transport, or don’t want to use it. As a result we drive a LOT more miles in cars every day than Europeans do. That’s going to add up to a lot more drunk driving.",
"What source are you making this statement from, i never went to the USA but in my tiny country, Portugal, theres definitely a problem with drunk driving, most young and old people will pick up their cars after a heavy night of drinking. Also public transports are not open or are very limited during the night so its taxi or uber or sleep in the car until morning. We also have a lot of alcoholics that drive daily under the influence, so much so that its a common sight seeing old people ordering shots at 6 in the morning when the coffee shops open. We had 508 dead on the road in 2018 with a 10M population. [_URL_0_](_URL_0_)",
"Driving in Europe is expensive and difficult to get a license and drunk driving is a quick way to lose it and in general they start driving in Europe at a slightly older age. Most governments in Europe run big drunk driving campaigns and in general it is not socially acceptable to drive drunk.",
"It doesn't seem as culturally unacceptable to drink drive in the US as the UK.\n\nI remember being shocked the first time I saw a scene in Scrubs where Dr Cox gets hammered at a bar then drives home. That wouldn't happen in a UK made show.",
"I'm from Germany where the legal drinking age is 16 but I've studied in the US so I'm somewhat familiar with the cultural differences. I'd be willing to wager that along with what the others have said (public transport/closer proximity to pubs) it's also a matter of knowing your limit by the time you get your driver's license. Most of us have been drinking even before age 16 and so by the time we reach 17/18 (when we can first drive) we are pretty familiar with the effect that alcohol has on us. In contrast, in the US the drinking age (most places) is 21 but you can get your license much sooner. This means that you have lots of younger adults who know how to drive but aren't \"experienced\" at drinking. When they start drinking (usually in college from my experience) they tend to overdue themselves and underestimate the effects of being intoxicated so they are more prone to get in a car and drive while drunk. Alongside this, there is a lot of peer pressure in college to be cool and some students get coerced into drunk driving by friends, classmates, etc."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[],
[],
[
"https://www.pordata.pt/Portugal/Acidentes+de+via%C3%A7%C3%A3o+com+v%C3%ADtimas++feridos+e+mortos+++Continente-326"
],
[],
[],
[]
] |
||
20szqd | how do small businesses survive against big ones. | E.g. how do small fast food restaurants compete with places such as mcdonalds. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/20szqd/eli5_how_do_small_businesses_survive_against_big/ | {
"a_id": [
"cg6feal",
"cg6fmj2",
"cg6k0lv"
],
"score": [
3,
22,
2
],
"text": [
"On a market-to-market basis. Each store has X expenses and Y revenues. As long as Y is larger than X, that store will survive and will be more or less \"successful\". It's true for every McDonald's restaurant - every individual store has to be profitable or they'll shut it down. If you open your own restaurant, all you need to do is find a way to convince people to eat at your place instead of anywhere else. It's hard to compete on prices alone because big chains tend to benefit from economies of scale, but you'll find that smaller restaurants usually have greater variety, better customer service, or some other feature that gets people to come to them. In some cases, people will eat at a smaller restaurant just to benefit local businesses.",
"Quality, Customer loyalty, Choice, Service, Flexibility, Culture\n\nQuality: Serve a better burger and fries. Make the burgers on site use real bacon and cut the French fries yourself. Your combo costs 8 bucks but it's a full 1/2 lb burger with crisp bacon and melted swiss and the fries are hot and fresh and use coarse sea salt or a seasoned salt rather than the fine powdered stuff you get at Mcdonalds.\n\nCustomer Loyalty: I know several small burger joints that have been in business at the same location for 40-50 years. My grandparents ate there my parents ate there I ate there as a kid and I eat there as an adult. \n\nChoice: When discussing where to eat most people only give each restaurant vote even if there are 20 Taco bells nearby and only one Juans taco shack. Taco bell and Taco shack get the same number of customers per location.\n\nService: Small businesses often have the owner or a close relative of the owner on site. This is generally less true for franchises. Everything that small business owner has is tied into the business and they give it their all to make customers happy and want to come back. While a manager at a chain restaurant has considerably less investment in insuring customer happiness.\n\nFlexibility: A Mcdonalds franchise costs nearly a million dollars to start depending of course on location and some other factors. A local burger joint costs a 20,000-100,000. If the burger joint sees a good location they can move in instantly and set up shop across the street from their old store while Mcdonalds has to check if the franchise rights will allow them to move. In another scenario say the owner of a small restaurant discovers amazing footlong bratwurst one day. They can be on his menu that night to see if the customers like them. Mcdonalds has a set menu with very little room for deviation.\n\nCulture: This is tied to the customer loyalty but is more community oriented. Some places don't want a mcdonalds in their community. Resorts and Vacation destinations often limit the ability of large restaurants to move in because there is a negative stigma attached to the culture around Mcdonalds. \n\n",
"Would like to point out that a \"small business\" isn't necessarily as \"small\" as you think it is. What defines a \"small business\" is a different set of standards depending on what market the business operates within.\n\nSo, for an arbitrary made up example, a clothing distributor/whole seller is a small business if it does less than $5 million in gross receipts in a year, while a clothing retail store is a small business if it has less than 20 people. In this example, the clothing distributor can have 1,000 employees and as long as it makes less than $5 million is considered a small business. The clothing retailer can make $25 million in a year, but have 10 employees and is considered a small business.\n\nOnce again, those numbers are completely made up and not reflective of what the true numbers are, but gives you a better idea of what can be meant by someone when the words \"small business\" is thrown around.\n\nFor more accurate info, check out this link: _URL_0_ It pertains mainly to the USA."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[],
[],
[
"http://www.sba.gov/category/navigation-structure/contracting/contracting-officials/eligibility-size-standards"
]
] |
|
5qaurn | why is abortion so heavily regulated by the government? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5qaurn/eli5_why_is_abortion_so_heavily_regulated_by_the/ | {
"a_id": [
"dcxp7u8",
"dcxp94u"
],
"score": [
3,
2
],
"text": [
"Many people believe that abortion is morally equivalent to murder, or at least a form of murder.\n\nAs a result, they advocate policies that they believe will reduce the number of these acts or punish the people who conduct them. \n\nThe reason it seems like there is so much government involvement is because a large number of people disagree with that sentiment. This isn't the case with things like, say, murder or even the use of hard drugs. As a result there are far more areas where the groups come into conflict when it comes to policy, so you see it more.",
"A lot of people believe that abortion is murder, and that when a baby is aborted, you are murdering that baby. Given this, it is no surprise that they want to use the law to eliminate abortions.\n\nThe sad thing is that many of the same people who believe abortion is murder, are also against sex-ed and easy access to birth control, two things that have been shown to dramatically decrease unwanted pregnancies."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[],
[]
] |
||
99dj6w | ; other than tax evasion, please explain exactly what crime cohen committed in relation to trump and what crime trump may have committed in relation to cohen | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/99dj6w/eli5_other_than_tax_evasion_please_explain/ | {
"a_id": [
"e4mtn3o",
"e4mtrmt",
"e4mv4qj"
],
"score": [
5,
6,
3
],
"text": [
"Cohen spent money to influence the outcome of an election, by suppressing undesirable information, in excess of the spending limits defined by the federal election commission. If if could be **proven** that Trump ordered him to do this as his attorney-in-fact, then there might also be a disclosure violation by Mr. Trump. Indicting a sitting President in unprecedented, so who knows what the courts might decide, but unindicted Presidents have been impeached.",
" > [Cohen] told a judge in United States District Court in Manhattan that the payments to the women were made “in coordination with and at the direction of a candidate for federal office,” implicating the president in a federal crime.\n\nThis is a campaign finance violation, which is a type of felony. Basically the money Cohen paid the women who allegedly had an affair with Trump is considered a donation to the campaign and wasn't reported as such, since if it had been reported it would've been flagged as illegal.",
"\nCohen arraigned for 2 separate women to be quietly paid for silence about sexual affairs with Trump, which is not necessarily a crime. Cohen has claimed under oath that this was done with Trump's knowledge and direction in order to influence the election (prevent the negative press right before voting day.) Because they were intended to influence the election, both instances are the equivalent of making a donation to the campaign and both are well above the amount that can be donated in one lump sum. The prosecutors had to tell the judge what evidence they had that Cohen's claims were true and, without actually showing it, the prosecutors described what they had (emails, bank records, invoices,…), and that was enough to convince the judge that, 1 - The crime occurred and 2 - To accept Cohen's guilty plea for it. Cohen is now convicted of it and has implicated Trump as a co-conspirator in the crime. If that can be shown to be true (and the prosecutors, under oath, claim to have a strong case that they can show that it is true) Trump is as guilty as Cohen, the person now convicted of the crime."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[],
[],
[]
] |
||
38m2dd | australia. did it really start as a place to exile criminals and lepers and how did it become full of seemingly normal people (and not a completely lawless society full of the offspring of criminals)? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/38m2dd/eli5_australia_did_it_really_start_as_a_place_to/ | {
"a_id": [
"crw1v4k",
"crw24ox",
"crw44mw",
"crw4l0w",
"crw4v8o",
"crw4x3p",
"crw4z8c",
"crw5atg",
"crw5uxo",
"crw75eh",
"crw7cg1",
"crw8gn6",
"crw8xct",
"crw9s5g",
"crwa73f",
"crwade8",
"crwcsny",
"crwdg4m",
"crwf7rg",
"crwgpnc",
"crwjta3",
"crwodiw"
],
"score": [
2,
68,
2,
130,
3,
8,
12,
6,
14,
3,
16,
2,
3,
2,
2,
2,
3463,
4,
12,
2,
7,
3
],
"text": [
"Most people shipped to Australia were either petty criminals, or people in debtor's prisons, or people falsely accused of crimes.\n\nThe harsh environment there killed quite a few people. What survived built up a national character of extreme ruggedness, competitiveness, contempt of Britain, etc.\n\nThat is why you will find Aussies doing extremely well in various competitive sports.",
"Australian here! \nThe English sent their convicts here when their own prisons were getting too full. As time went on more people from many other countries moved and were tricked into moving to Australia as the government would claim that Australia had very fertile soil and was free and cheap and had lots of room etc... So then there were convicts in prison and people immigrating to Aus therefore things needed to be built (schools, houses, courts, shipping docks), laws needed to put properly enforced and eventually Australia became a federation in 1901 because the UK was pissing us off and it took approx 6 months to get anything approved by the English so we just did stuff and asked for permission after. The lepers weren't sent here people just got sick and would usually be left on islands off the coast to prevent the rest of the colony from getting sick.\n\nThe reason we're not lawless is because we have always had laws from England and we wanted to become our own people and beat England at their own game basically. When people left prison they didn't ant to go back to the UK so they would rebuild their lives here and get a job and have kids and send them to school etc... so we had laws and cops and prisons so yeah. Hope that helps. There's a lot more to it but you can use wiki for that. ",
"It was a convict colony for a time, but starting in the 1800s settlers started coming to find gold and farm.",
"This thread is full of half truths. The reality was a massive gold rush never seen before. Australia's population tripled in the 1850-70s because of it, and people from all over the world came to live here. If you thought the Californian gold rush was big, ours was much bigger. There's actually a storey that some gold explorer stumbled upon a great mound of the stuff. Unable to carry it all himself he went to the closest town to get some more help and equipment, but could not find the place again.",
"Australian but not a history expert here. It started out as a penal colony, and the english claimed the land was inhabited by strange people. Despite this the English government at the time ordered that the new colony try and be friendly to the natives, however at the same time they told them they were to find land and set up camp. What they did not realise that while the land was not in use, it was claimed by the Aboriginals. This is because most of them migrated during different times of the year and then came back when the season was right. Eventually they came back and the governor at the time saw them as a threat and told them to stay away. However they kept on coming back. This led to more soldiers arriving with more guns and a giant war. The next part of this is that after you served your sentence you could either return to England (something almost nobody did) or stay in Australia and help set up the place. Most people got sent to Australia for incredibly minor things due to prison over crowding and food shortages in England, very few were considered to be dangerous. So combined with all the guns, and people who were really just wanted to get on with their lives you ended up with the foundation of Sydney. Which led to a proper local government being founded. Of course this is my understanding, feel free to correct me.\n\n[Side note] Melbourne was the result of people sick of Sydney conditions (As the weather can be a lot like England, and its easier to farm in). Melbourne however was considered to be an illegal city by the governor of Sydney, but he had little control over it so he left it alone.",
"So the child of a criminal is also a criminal?",
"I think an overlooked fact worth considering here is the way rehabilitation and treatment of prisoners was handled. Most criminals can be easily rehabilitated into the community if they are treated correctly and encouraged/rewarded to do so. In the days of colonization it required a lot more trust and responsibility to be put back on criminals as far as prison management was concerned. This in essence led many small time crooks the opportunity to make something of themselves. Today's western society (with exceptions for many European countries) are failing miserably at rehabilitating those that commit crimes.",
"A lot of criminals are born of lack of economic opportunity. Remember also that being a debtor could be a crime in the past. Most criminals typically obey laws like everyone else, and break some in the course of enriching themselves, like politicians, bankers, etc. I have been to a penal colony in the Philippines, where prisoners are sent for crimes including murder. The prisoners are free to walk around, and it's actually a tourist attraction. Most criminals are pretty much the same as everyone else. American type incarceration helps turn more of them into crazed animals, I'm sure.",
"It started of as a prison colony because British prisons were full. It was under the rule of Governor Arthur Phillip who had a group of redcoats to act as police. More and more prisoners came out and when there sentences ended they became farmers and other working roles in the colony. Eventually free settlers came out as well to get away from the poverty and hardships in England.\n\nThen in 1851 the gold rush started in central Victoria that brought a huge influx of European and Chinese emigrants boosting the population and economy. \n\nThen in the late 17th century the governors of Queensland, Victoria,New South Wales started petitioning the British for self rule as the delay in getting permission for various things was tedious. Then in 1901 Australia was granted the ability to self rule and became an independent nation with loyalty to Britain.\n\nThe other states and territories eventually joined in at later times.\n\n\nAlso Australia wasn't a lepper colony. It did have leppers and later built lepper colonies on islands and such to hold them.",
"Yeah my great (x2) grandfather was charged with forgery at like 15. He was charged again with crimes he committed upon arriving, but was eventually released and granted a few thousand acres. He went to do some serious dairy farming and made quite a business out of it.\n\nI guess you could view Australia as a bit of a social experiment. I.e. work hard to correct your past mistakes, and you will be rewarded with land provided you promise to obey the King's Laws.\n\nIn all honesty, pretty sweet deal. There was no reason to recommit offences I suppose, you had a reason to live, a family you could raise and a new land of opportunity (and eventually gold) to flourish in.",
"Check this out OP.\n\n_URL_0_\n\n\"Britain had been shipping convicts to America for decades before they started sending them to Australia. In fact, it was precisely because of America’s fight for independence that the Brits had to start sending their criminals to Australia. But from 1718 until 1775, convict transportation to the American colonies flourished. Some estimates claim that almost 10 per cent of migrants to America during this time were British convicts.\"",
"No opportunity in UK, steal bread just to feed family, get 5 year prison sentence, get given land to farm after your released because there is a fair bit of free space, chill out because you have your own farmable land in a place with nice weather. \n\nThe people who came here as criminals did so out of necessity and once they had ample opportunity to fend for themselves here they didn't re-offend. You'll find it wasn't a penal colony for very long, then people started coming here (initially, just from Britain) because again, they figured they'd have more luck than digging for coal / working in a shipyard in the UK / Ireland",
"Well some would say Australia started about 50,000 years ago when the indigenous population arrived here... but Im no scientist.\n\nAlso its not like they just sent a boat full of prisoners over here by themselves and said \"see ya\"... They sent british troops as well mang.",
"One of the reasons why the New South Wales colony was established was because the UK had just lost its major penal colonies, this led to a pivot to the east. India became the focus of the British Empire from 1783 onwards, not the Caribbean islands which were the most profitable colonies at that time due to the roaring sugar trade ( and the terrible immoral, evil slave trade).\n\nWhat happened in 1783? The 13 colonies rebelled with the help of the French. This meant that that the UK needed a new destination to help deal with the overflowing prisons and jails.\n\nPersonally, we know that one of my ancestors stole a bag of lead and another stole some cutlery. That's how they obtain their 'ticket' on the Second Fleet (I think).\n\nFun fact: At one point Rum was the currency for the NSW colony and there was even a rebellion over it.\n\nAlso due to the gender imbalance, sexuality in colonial pre-federation Australia was less prudish than Victorian Britain. ",
"1. Britain did the same what would eventually become the USA. The major difference is that Colonial Australia started as a Penal Colony and eventually free settlers came here. \n2. Not everybody who came here from Britain was a convict. There were dozens of immigration pushes through the centuries. ",
"Despite the common stereotype of australians as lawless, we actually quite like following the rules.\n\nBasically, The English sent convicts to takeover the land. It remained a British colony until 1901. The British by this time were very good at empire, and maintaining law and order through setting up public institutions and putting in men to run them.\n\n1901 Australia became an independent nation. Rather than going the civil war route, they did this by a peaceful act of British parliament. The first act of parliament was to set up a White Australia Policy. \n\nThis policy was to make sure we had a stable society by choosing who we want joining Australia. By this time Australia was quite an urban society with middle-ish class, faux and actual British affectations.\n\nSource: Chinese Australian.",
"The History of Australia is a pretty kick ass thing, and parts of our history even turn up in things like Sherlock Holmes stories. \n\nSo Australia as a nation consists of Aboriginal History, Cook and the subsequent first fleet, the gold rush, federation and then the past 114 years- we're a young nation, kind of like our big brothers United States (who had a fight with Dad and moved out, kind of prompting us into existence) and our other older (half) brother Canada. \n\nWe'll skip the Aboriginal History, because as interesting as it is, I don't feel it's pertinent to your question as you're addressing the mainly white colonial history of Australia.\n\nSo the way it goes is that after the Portugese and Dutch found the Western Coast and thought it was pretty shit house, the Brits decided to send out their man Capt. James Motherfucking Cook (middle name might be inaccurate) Cook went out with his crack team of sailors and found the East Coast, which they all decided was far less Shit than the west coast that those smelly mainland European Colonial Powers found, and they figured it'd be a good place to start a Colony. It was close to India and the Spice Islands, and (as far as they were concerned) no one lived here. It was perfect. This was in 1770\n\nNow after dropping his maps off back home to England Capt. James M.F. Cook was killed by some pacific Islanders (as was the fashion for British Naval Officers at the time) namely the Hawaiians, who's King he tried to kidnap and ransom after some of the cheeky Hawaiian buggers knicked one of his boats \n\nSo about 18 years later, after the British fucked about having a fight with our big brother Thirteen Colonies- who by that point had moved out and changed his name, the First Fleet arrived to set up a Penal Colony in what the British called New South Wales- because hey, what's a better place to send a bunch of dissidents you don't like very much to a Place that you named after a nation of people who didn't like you very much? The First Fleet mainly composed of petty to minor criminals (with the occasional big criminal who just got caught for something stupid) Administrators, Marines and police, and a couple of free settlers as well. \n\nNow the common misconception is that New South Wales was a place that was essentially an entire country populated by an HBO prison drama. But the people on the first fleet were generally poor people who were just trying to make it till tomorrow in a pretty shitty England. Not the cool England with food and lights and carpets, but the type of England that was grimy and not very well fed or clothed. But alas, criminals they still were. \n\nWhat a lot of them got though was a second chance. Help build the colony- serve your sentence in this beautiful sub tropical paradise and you'll get some land and become a land owner. Score. Those who didn't play along generally got shipped off to more shithouse prisons, Like St Helena Island off the coast of what is now Queensland, or Port Arthur down in Tasmania- which was even worse because the only people you could have sex with down there was your family (I'm pretty sure it was in their Colonial Charter)\n\nBut I'm jumping ahead. New South Wales Eventually became too big to be governed effectively. So the colonies of Queensland and Victoria were founded. Shortly after Victoria was founded the Collingwood Football Club came into existence and just pissed everyone off. \n\nSo You've got all these convicts who are making money. Some doing Cattle Farming, some doing sheep farming, some even lucky enough to be in the sugar cane industry. They were making a shittonne of money, and in typical former convict fashion going home to Old Blighty and sticking two fingers up in the forms of stacks of pound notes. Seriously these people were getting rich, so free settlers came. Now you had a mix of convicts, reformed convicts, military and free settlers. Some of the free settlers thought they were better than everyone else and they refused to mingle- so they founded South Australia (and they can fucking stay there).\n\n At some point Perth/Western Australia was founded but it's so far away it might as well be another country.\n\n**So what does all of that have to do with answering your question?** \n\nWell the key thing is that convicts were able to make something of themselves with a second chance. Something they wouldn't have had back in England. They just would have been thrust back into the same cycle of poverty that sent them to Australia in the first place. What they got by being sent here forms what is (in my opinion) quintessential building blocks of the Australian personality. The Ideals of \"A Second Chance\" and \"A fair go.\" \n\nThe Convicts got a second chance to make right with their lives, and got given a fair go afterwards. We toiled together as a bunch of peoples essentially stranded in the middle of nowhere to make the best of it. When those convicts figured out there was a lot here for everyone, they brought people from back home, and sure there was some animosity (some people don't take kindly to being shipped 3/4 of the way around the world to be put in prison) but the free settlers were given a fair go. During the wars, we took in European refugees and gave them a second chance, hell it's how we ended up with the biggest Greek population in the world outside of Greece. We did the same for refugees from Vietnam. Second chances and fair goes at life. We still do it today (though lets not get into any arguments about the turn back the boats policy- that's a bunch of disassociated fat cats in Parliament making decisions and spinning it with fear) but the premise is still there. If you come here we do our best to give you a second chance at life, and our best to give you a fair go of things.\n\nNow that doesn't mean we didn't monumentally fuck up. Remember the Aboriginals who we thought weren't a thing? Well they were a thing and they got treated pretty fucking badly, about as bad as the Native Americans and Canadian First peoples, and we're only just trying to fix up that shitstorm of a mess now-ish (within about the past 30 or so years). But the idea is there. \n\nWe still do however keep a lot of the larrikin spirit that came from the convicts. We love to take the piss out of England and beat them at sports. We still love em. Fuck, Lizzy's still on all our coins and one of our notes. Plus we recently knighted her hubby: Sir Prince Phillip, Duke of Edinburgh. We'd still go to war for them if they asked us (nicely). Just like we'd go to war for Big Brother America when he asks, cause then we get to hang out with big brother Canada. So there's still that convict larrikin stick it to the man spirit there, it's a part of our identity, but because of being given a second chance and a fair go in our early days, that's what stopped us from devolving into an anarchist wasteland. \n\nTl;Dr- what you didn't read it, go back and fucking read it. \n\n**EDIT**\nWell a guy goes to work then for a sleep and this fucking blows up. Thank you for the gold, and I'll answer any follow-up questions in time.\n\n**edit** Girt\n",
"On the 16th January 1793, on the transport Bellona, the first free settlers arrived in Australia. Many more soon followed, Indeed from 1815 the Colonial Government actually decided to promote free migration by subsidising transportation costs. By 1830 the number of emancipist and working migrants had risen to such an extent that the number of free settlers exceeded the number of convicts for the first time. From 1830 the numbers of convicts being transported dropped off dramatically, while the numbers of free settlers soared due to a number of factors, including the effects of industrialisation on the English working poor, the potato famine in the 1840's and then the gold rush from 1851. Up until 1850, a total of 187,000 free settlers migrated to Australia. As opposed to approximately 160,000 convicts between the first settlement in 1788 and the ending of transportation in 1868. So basically most of us are descended from people freely willing to make a better life for themselves, not convict scum. Source: Family came out in 1828, as farmers, and a few years studying this subject at University. I'm only joking about the convict scum, many were simple folk trying to get by by pinching an handkerchief or two, or Irish revolutionaries.",
"Yes it did, but just because someone breaks a law once doesn't make them a law-breaking maniac. Crime is very often encouraged by desperation or impulse. \n\nDrop these desperate people into an environment where they can thrive and there's no reason to commit crime. Not that crime ever goes away entirely, but why steal when you can provide your own comfortable living?",
"There were a lot of settlers who also joined the convicts for either the excitement of building a new country, or even just cheap land. A huge number of immigrants followed over the years, explaining some of Australia's large multicultural nature (a lot of these were British anyway). As far as the criminals go, a lot were sent off for relatively petty crimes, often stealing bread etc, so a great deal of them weren't \"completely lawless\". ",
"You realize crime isn't *hereditary*, right? ",
"An Australian immigration and border services agent is interviewing a traveller who is trying to enter the country: \nAgent: \"purpose of your visit\"?\nTraveller: \"pleasure\"\nAgent: \"have ever been convicted of a crime for which you have not been pardoned?\"\nTraveller: \"No. Sorry. I didn't realize that was still a requirement\""
]
} | [] | [] | [
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[
"http://www.gizmodo.com.au/2015/05/britain-sent-thousands-of-its-convicts-to-america-not-just-australia/"
],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[]
] |
||
60sf4e | new to online gaming, what are ping and latency and how does it impact my gaming experience? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/60sf4e/eli5_new_to_online_gaming_what_are_ping_and/ | {
"a_id": [
"df8xn54",
"df8xtry",
"df8y2g1"
],
"score": [
3,
3,
2
],
"text": [
"Ping is how long it takes information from the host to reach your computer. You always want the lowest ping possible. Anything over 100 can start to really disrupt gameplay. ",
"When you ping a server (in this instance a gaming server) your computer simply sends out a signal and if the server is there it will respond and that round trip is your \"ping\". This is measured, hopefully in milliseconds.\n\nLatency is a step up from ping and attempts to capture \"quality of connection\". Its basically saying when i send an input to the server, how long does it take for me to get a correct output. In network connections there is A LOT happening which may result in dropped packets, multiple messages passing back and forth to ensure both parties are on the same page etc. Latency measures the quality of the communication between the two.\n\nLag is a result of high latency. ",
"Ping is your latency, or how long it takes to send and receive packets (information). Ping generally relates to milliseconds, or MS, 1000 ping = 1 second delay, 500 ping = .5 second delay. \n\nWhen playing games you want the lowest ping possible, that will increase responsiveness and decrease the chance of rubber banding (going forward, then snapping back into place, usually caused by high ping or lost packets). "
]
} | [] | [] | [
[],
[],
[]
] |
||
2b75cq | airport management | How do airports work?
Who funds them? Is it the airlines that use them collectively paying for the airport? Is it the shops inside that pay for it?
How is allocation of gates and terminals done? Do airlines pay to have their own gates that they can do as they wish with or do they switch around to whatever is available?
Who pays for the security and other staff of an airport i.e. those not affiliated with a specific airline? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2b75cq/eli5_airport_management/ | {
"a_id": [
"cj2gdzw",
"cj2hvbq"
],
"score": [
6,
2
],
"text": [
"This varies from airport to airport, and from country to country.\n\nIn the UK, airports are all privately owned. It's down to the individual airport's management to work out a business plan, but as you suspected, this will include charging airlines to use the airport, and charging shops to operate in the airport.\n\nAt larger airports, the shops will be the biggest source of revenue. A common trick used by Ryanair (Irish low-cost airline which operates mainly out of the UK) was to go to a very small airport with few, if any, jet movements. They'd say to the airport management \"we'd like to operate 6 flights a week out of your airport. Each of these will have up to 180 passengers, who are each paying for car parking and using your shops. That's a lot of extra revenue for you, so if you want that recent you'll not charge us any fees for using your nearly-dead airport, and you'll arrange cheap fuel for us. That will get your airport known, so other airlines may move in soon too.\"\n\nAs for gates and terminals, airlines have to appoint a \"handling agent\" to do this for them. Most airports have a choice of handling agents, but typically there'll be one for airlines and one or two for private flights. Smaller airports might only have one handling agent, and very small ones may handle the aircraft themselves. Check out Servisair, one of the biggest handling agents in the world, for an example.",
"Landing fees are the main way of funding an airport. Typically they are calculated on the weight of the aircraft and the passengers on board. There are also overnight parking charges. Some countries add a ticket tax for airports or allow the airport to add a ticket tax. \n\nA big wide body landing at a major airport (such as London Heathrow or JFK) may pay $3000-$4000 in landing fees.\n\nIf an airline has a hub at the airport, they might pay for part of the construction of their terminal. \n\nThe exact allocation of gates/terminals is dependent on factors often unique to the airport and the situation it has, existing contracts with carriers,etc. In the US airlines get their own gates typically, but in other countries (and some international terminals in the US) shared gates are the norm, except in hub terminals (where one airline dominates.) A newish trend is large terminals being shared by the big alliances, such as One World.\n\nIn crowded airports gate allocation is a messy business. Airlines may trade gates between each other. \n\nUnless the security is provided by the government (the current practice in the US, paid for via passenger ticket taxes) then the airport would via its landing fees.\n\nLondonPilot touched well on the revenues from shops, which plays a big role in private airports. While privately run airports are the norm in Europe, the airports here in America are run by city governments or government port authorities. \n\n"
]
} | [] | [] | [
[],
[]
] |
|
bf1ahz | why and how do we physically feel our hearts when we have strong emotions? like in the phrase "my heart skipped a beat" or "my heart dropped" for example. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/bf1ahz/eli5_why_and_how_do_we_physically_feel_our_hearts/ | {
"a_id": [
"ela9ya1"
],
"score": [
5
],
"text": [
"your body doesn't take chances. So when ever any kind of stress comes along (Physical or emotional) it does the same thing: gets ready to act.\n\nyou feel it change suddenly because that's exactly what happens. It immediately changes how fast and strong its beating to supply your body with more energy to deal with whatever might happen. You interpret this sensation as skipping a beat, but its just an illusion.\n\nWhen the change is gradual like with exercise you never really notice it. Its when it changes abruptly that its jarring."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[]
] |
||
33hayc | how do animals at the zoo get their exercise? | I was looking at the Siegfried & Roy's Secret Garden in Las Vegas (_URL_0_) and the encampment is so small. How in the hell do they get their exercise? How the hell is this legal? How depressed are these animals? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/33hayc/eli5_how_do_animals_at_the_zoo_get_their_exercise/ | {
"a_id": [
"cqkuodc"
],
"score": [
7
],
"text": [
"They don't get nearly enough exercise. Many wild animals in zoos are incredibly unhappy. It is legal because no one gives a fuck. "
]
} | [] | [
"https://youtu.be/zRyq8bqsucA?t=27"
] | [
[]
] |
|
argj5b | why do different baby carrot brands taste so differently? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/argj5b/eli5_why_do_different_baby_carrot_brands_taste_so/ | {
"a_id": [
"egn496s"
],
"score": [
2
],
"text": [
"The flavor of food can vary depending on where and how it was grown. Soil quality can have a big impact on flavor."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[]
] |
||
50m936 | why does it seem so common to see quotes where a word has been added in square brackets, but the quote [wouldn't] have originally made any sense without that word? | It feels like it's way too common to see quotes where whoever is presenting it adds in words that weren't originally there to clarify the quote, but they seem like necessary words for the sentence they're in to make sense. The only thing I can come up with is that people are sometimes transcribing poor audio recordings and some words aren't audible. Besides that though, it doesn't really make sense to me why so many quotes are missing [words] that no person would omit.
| explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/50m936/eli5_why_does_it_seem_so_common_to_see_quotes/ | {
"a_id": [
"d7563qv",
"d7564q7",
"d758ela",
"d75afls",
"d75c4cm",
"d75q87s",
"d75t6ci"
],
"score": [
62,
11,
3,
150,
5,
2,
2
],
"text": [
"Usually the context is in the situation of the speaker, or said at a different time. For example, two people are next to a bomb. The timer is running out. One person says, \"It's going to explode soon!\" Later, the other person writes about it, and quotes the speaker. But if the reader wasn't there, they don't understand what is going on. So the quote becomes: \"[The bomb is] going to explode soon!\" ",
"One reason is where the writer has changed a word because of the context the quote is being used in eg use of pronouns or change of tense from past to present or vice versa\n\n\nFrom WWU library:\nSquare brackets are used around words that are added that are not part of the original quote. For instance, you might have a source that says \"Brenda and David went to the store,\" but you only want the quote to refer to David as a pronoun in your quote. So you should change it to \"[He] went to the store.\"\n\n",
"The convention is supposed to ensure accuracy when quoting someone.\n\nYou aren't supposed to edit the quote if you are quoting someone, but sometimes if you just word for word quote a person it doe not make as much sense as you would like.\n\nFor example you might be quoting some person and the relevant quote does not actually name the person and just uses pronouns or nicknames. When the quote was said or written it was clear who was meant but if you only quote the single sentence you need to clarify who was meant so you substitute the name of the person.\n\nAt other points you will only quote part of the sentence because you want to be concise, but if you put the relevant part alone it is no longer grammatically correct. At that point you include an ellipses [...] for words you have left out and include other words in brackets to make the whole sentence flow right again.\n\nOf course it is assumed that you do not actually change the real meaning of the sentence with those edits.",
"There are fundamentally three different reasons for changing or adding words in a quote, indicated by the square brackets:\n\n* Change of person or any similar grammatical change that doesn’t alter the meaning, only the perspective:\n * “this is my fault and I intend to remedy it”\n * *Quote:* He said “this is [his] fault and [he intends] to remedy it”\n\n* Filling in information that would be available from context in the original source:\n * “I painted this picture, and a merchant offered to pay $100,000 for it.”\n * *Quote:* In an interview, the artist revealed that “a merchant offered to pay $100,000 for [the picture].”\n\n* Fixing spelling or grammar errors made by the original, especially words that are missing but obviously intended:\n * “I tried to escape the burning building by running the stairs.”\n * *Quote:* “I tried to escape the burning building by running [down] the stairs.”\n\n",
"It means that the exact quote was part of some larger conversation, and has something that wouldn't be well understood without some information from earlier in the conversation.\n\nFor example, imagine a reporter who asks a politician for some thoughts about bill number 1142, and the reply is, \"it's a complicated piece of legislation, with lots of moving parts we're considering.\"\n\nIf the final story isn't going to include the question, but should include the quote, it's will be unclear, so they'll replace that pronoun and use brackets to indicate the paper changed the speakers words so the reader could understand the quote we used. The final quote would be: \"[Bill 1142 is] a complicated piece of legislation, with lots of moving parts we're considering.\"",
"Sometimes, in translations, the word is necessary in English, but in the original language, the word is unnecessary and doesn't actually exist. This can happen with gendered languages or in languages that have different modes and parts of speech that don't exist in English.",
"**Original quote:** \n\n\"When I eat at In-n-Out, I order my burger without onions. They give me gas\".\n\n**A 100% literal but highly misleading thing to print in your newspaper:** \nExplaining his In-n-Out preferences, Mr. Uiuctodd said \"They give me gas\".\n\nIn the original context, the pronoun obviously refers to onions. When removed from context, as quotes inevitably are, the pronoun is ambiguous. The reader will naturally link it to whatever noun happens to be nearby in the new context. In this case, it would likely be interpreted as referring to In-n-Out.\n\n**How to quote it while preserving meaning:** \nExplaining his In-n-Out preferences, Mr. Uiuctodd said \"[Onions] give me gas\".\n\n\nThe editor is giving the reader information here. He is telling them that this isn't exactly 100% what was said. But it is mostly what was said, edited slightly to be faithful to the meaning.\n"
]
} | [] | [] | [
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[]
] |
|
27vysm | in the uk or places with a 3+ party government, how does it work to "form a government" | I'm in the US, and you hear about coalitions "forming a government" in places like the UK. Research seems to simply point me into the intricate details of government structure in UK, Japan, Germany etc.
Is the coalition anything more than two parties saying they will work together to pass laws? How is the government formed, as opposed to saying they are cooperating to make it function? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/27vysm/eli5_in_the_uk_or_places_with_a_3_party/ | {
"a_id": [
"ci4wad3",
"ci4wezl",
"ci4wmsw",
"ci4wnsb",
"ci4yv98",
"ci4zcld",
"ci4zv92"
],
"score": [
8,
2,
2,
2,
2,
2,
2
],
"text": [
"I think you have the basic idea. Part of the confusion is one of language -- in the US, when we say \"government\" we mean the permanent bureaucratic institution -- what people in some other countries might refer to as civil service or some other term.\n\nIn a parliamentary system, what we think of as the executive and legislative branches are intertwined. That's why when we hear phrases from foreign media like \"the government is being dissolved\" it sounds pretty dramatic, because in the US vernacular, that's equivalent to anarchy.\n\nSo, when they say they are \"forming a government\", it means that the an agreement has been reached by enough of the parties to set up how things will be run, so that they have a majority of the votes in parliament to make it happen.",
"In the UK we have two chambers like the US, however they aren't equal. The House of Lords (HoL) is the upper chamber, the equivalent of the senate, but isn't elected and is instead made up of appointed life peers by the government. When the make up of the government is spoken about the HoL is normally ignored. \n\nThe UK Government is directly formed from the house of Commons, the equivalent of the house of representatives. In the case of the UK the executive (the cabinet and prime minister ) are taken directly from the HoC and are able to vote there, rather than the Presidential system where the president is elected seperately and has no formal vote. \n\nLike the US the UK has constituencies, each which elect an MP (a representative). The party which has a majority of MPs becomes the Government of the day. In the case of the UK if no single party has a majority of MPs then two parties can agree to work together with each other, with the party with the most MPs becoming the major partner of the coalition. So in the case of the UK at the moment two of the parties (the conservartives and the liberal democrats) decided to form a government together, they then put this proposal to the Queen, who agreed to it and they formed the Government. In the UK the two parties have signed a formal agreement where they agree to work together until the end of the term in 2015.",
"If a party does not win an outright majority it may partner with another party to reach a majority. In the UK the house of commons is the body that legislates, this house is made up from MPs (members of parliament) who were voted into their position by individual constituents (a local government district). When policies are voted on it goes to the house of commons where each MP votes for or against, most of the time MPs will vote on party lines but when their is no majority coalition governments will have deals in place. Perhaps party A wants to pass a healthcare budget they will say to party B give us the votes for this and we will ensure you have the votes for a policy that you want passed. Obviously the party with the most seats in the house of commons is at an advantage so they are able to get better deals.",
"Alright, let's look at Israel, because their system is pretty good at explaining the concept.\n\nIsrael has a parliament with 120 seats. To form the government, your party must have the majority of those seats, at least 61 seats.\n\nThe problem with that is that there are about 11 parties in Israel, so that's ridiculously impossible.\n\nSo, what the parties do is form a coalition. If Party A got 30 seats in the election, and Party B got 31 seats in the election, they form an alliance, and now the AB Coalition has 61 seats, a majority.\n\nThis system means it can take a few weeks for a government to form.\n\nThe benefit is, this system ensures much more of the population is represented in the formed government.",
"The amount of policy agreed upon during the formation of the coalition also varies between countries. In the Netherlands, traditionally a large amount of the policy which will be put to vote is agreed upon in an governing agreement, which can diminish the power of the legislative branch, these negotiations are not public. \n\nThe previous coalition here was a minority coalition: this meant that 2 parties agreed upon a governing agreement and decided on the composition of the executive branch while their combined number of seats was 52 (24 seats short of a majority), so they had to negotiate a majority vote for every single bill put to vote.",
"Keep in mind that coalitions aren't so common in the UK since the UK (as well as the USA) use the \"first past the post\" (FPTP) election system. \n\nThe UK is the only country in Europe which uses this outdated voting system. Other EU countries use a much more just \"proportional\" voting system which wastes far fewer votes. \n\nWith a proportional voting system, there is almost always a need to form a coalition in a government since just two parties don't dominate as in a FPTP voting system. \n\nExamples of good coalition building are in the Netherlands, Germany and in Switzerland. Sometimes coalition building can go wrong, as in the case in Belgium where it can be very difficult to make a consensus, upon which a coalition can be built. \n\n",
"Here in Denmark, there is two sides, with the parties under them. Left block and right block, blue block and red block, liberalist block and socialist block. The parties in each block then decide which minister of state (I guess this is what you would call it, let me know if I am wrong though) candidate they want to support. The block that then gets most votes (the sum of the parties voted for) wins, and get to have their candidate be minister of state. There is a party between the two blocks, and they usually decide who to support."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[]
] |
|
2gwug0 | how do directional laser sensors for people counting work? | So a laser would go across a doorway and whenever the beam is obstructed it adds to the count. There would be two lasers (one after another) by the doorway to gain directionality. If the front laser is blocked before the back laser that indicates someone is entering. If the opposite occurs (back laser is blocked before the front) that indicates someone is leaving.
How would the sensor be able to allocate the people to entering or leaving based on which laser was obstructed first? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2gwug0/eli5how_do_directional_laser_sensors_for_people/ | {
"a_id": [
"ckn9dow"
],
"score": [
2
],
"text": [
"There's a bunch of different ways that could be accomplished but the easiest would probably be to just record the times each one is broken and sort it out with software. If the time for the outer one is first add one to the incoming. If the time for the inner one is first add to the outgoing."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[]
] |
|
43te5t | why don't we just elect the president via a delegate system in lieu of primaries? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/43te5t/eli5_why_dont_we_just_elect_the_president_via_a/ | {
"a_id": [
"czktbot"
],
"score": [
2
],
"text": [
"What do you mean by \"delegate system\"?"
]
} | [] | [] | [
[]
] |
||
a9ax6s | how do tool-assisted speedruns work? | To me, assisted implies that there is a human element to it, but how do the tools "assist" the run without completely taking over? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/a9ax6s/eli5_how_do_toolassisted_speedruns_work/ | {
"a_id": [
"echua2q",
"echuhzk"
],
"score": [
2,
6
],
"text": [
"You can be assisted by inanimate objects. A crutch is an easy example of an assisting device.\n\nFor games it can be things that let you play the game frame by frame (for things like the old super mario), or autoaim, or a bunch of other things depending on the game.",
"Imagine if you could pause time, evaluate the outcomes of any given action, choose the best course of action, and then advance time by the smallest increment possible and repeat.\n\nThat's the idea of Tool Assisted Speedruns. They are not designed in real-time gameplay: rather, the inputs are carefully selected frame-by-frame to gather a specific result.\n\nThe human part is the design and execution of an ideal route. The emulator (or device inputting to a console) just has a specific list of what buttons to press at what time."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[],
[]
] |
|
4lm263 | is there a genetic explanation for why some people can have a ton of energy throughout the day while after a 8 to 5 shift i just want to crawl in bed and sleep? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4lm263/eli5_is_there_a_genetic_explanation_for_why_some/ | {
"a_id": [
"d3of5tr"
],
"score": [
5
],
"text": [
"Everything plays a factor, exercise, proper diet, enjoying your job, getting up and moving throughout the day, proper nights sleep, everything possible can affect your body. \n\nEveryone is different, if I don't work out in the morning I feel tired throughout the day, but my friends are the opposite and can only workout at night or they will be too tired."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[]
] |
||
3jw77v | the purpose of a maestro. do bands or orchestras actually need one? | [deleted] | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3jw77v/eli5_the_purpose_of_a_maestro_do_bands_or/ | {
"a_id": [
"cussmqs",
"cust6d1"
],
"score": [
7,
4
],
"text": [
"He (or she) essentially sets the pace, keeps everyone in line (volume from the different sections, the speed, balance of the entire orchestra), directs each section to cool it when they need to hear a soloist etc. a little more clearly. \n\nEveryone on the group/orchestra looks at him, therefore everyone is on the same page.\nThis is needed as say for example you're in the middle of 10 other people blasting out your sections aspect of the piece, you haven't got a clue what the rest of the orchestra ate doing and if you're too loud / quiet / fast / slow in comparison to the entire performance. \n\nThe maestro is the one guy who has an objective opinion on all of the musicians and hence able to direct them to be a cohesive and awesome sounding unit.",
"The maestro is the artistic director of the orchestra. The conducting part you see during a performance is actually the least important thing he does.\n\nIt's the conductor who decides how the music will be interpreted, and then coaches the players to perform to that interpretation. Two different conductors conducting the same piece of music with the same orchestra will produce two different performances.\n\nReally, the conductor is no different than the director in a film or the theater.\n"
]
} | [] | [] | [
[],
[]
] |
|
6z1uzh | how and why do cemeteries arrange their plots so close together? | I have this question every time I see a cemetery, all the headstones/crosses are so close together. The average length of a casket is 7 feet and I’m just baffled.
Are they lying on top each other? Is it just a headstone? Buried cremated remains? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/6z1uzh/eli5_how_and_why_do_cemeteries_arrange_their/ | {
"a_id": [
"dmrtysm"
],
"score": [
9
],
"text": [
"They are not lying on top of each other, at least in the US. A plot here normally has 6 inches to a foot on each side of it to separate it from the other plots, but some older cemeteries which were dug by hand have a larger buffer. \n\nLand is expensive so they make the plots as small as they possibly can in order to sell as many as possible. "
]
} | [] | [] | [
[]
] |
|
6gpd0z | were ancient egyptians, african or middle eastern? | Basically what I am asking is, how historically accurate is Assassin’s Creed: Origins? The community seemed very divided on the character’s heritage and I am not a history buff. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/6gpd0z/eli5_were_ancient_egyptians_african_or_middle/ | {
"a_id": [
"dis1qfo"
],
"score": [
5
],
"text": [
"All of the above.\n\nSeas were not barriers to ancient societies, but highways. Along the north of Africa, the Middle East, and for a while the South of Europe, Mediterranean features were common. People travelled and moved in those areas.\n\nEgypt pushed south as far as Ethiopia, and people of the darkest shades of skin were also Egyptian.\n\nPrior to the colonial age, humanity didn't really believe there was such a thing as race. As such, empires like Egypt were multiethnic and multiracial, with people in an area being whatever colour they happened to be. Some cities in Egypt were predominantly Mediterranean, others dark skinned, and others were a mix.\n\nStatues of Pharaoh Dynasties show features that are sometimes Mediterranean, sometimes African. The families that ruled sometimes hailed from upper egypt, and sometimes from lower egypt.\n\nSo, really, in the same way that Belgium is both German and French but also it's own thing, Egypt was both African and Mediterranean and also it's own thing, and didn't have a racial divide."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[]
] |
|
9rwjo5 | why do shoes with heels make such a loud noise when people walk in them? | Like not even just thin stiletto type heels, chunky heels and wedges make the noises as well. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/9rwjo5/eli5_why_do_shoes_with_heels_make_such_a_loud/ | {
"a_id": [
"e8k6ca2"
],
"score": [
7
],
"text": [
"Compared to, say, sneakers, the sole of heels is very hard most of the time. And hard things (sole) hitting hard things (ground) make a louder noise than soft things (sneaker sole) hitting hard things (ground).\n\n// edit: The same is true with a lot of dress shoes. They have a hard sole as well and are about as equally as loud when walking."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[]
] |
|
4j1ggn | when ants bite a human, do they know they are biting a living thing? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4j1ggn/eli5_when_ants_bite_a_human_do_they_know_they_are/ | {
"a_id": [
"d32u20l",
"d32ucmv",
"d32ucrh",
"d32yaru",
"d335v1f",
"d336hv9"
],
"score": [
2,
22,
111,
29,
16,
2
],
"text": [
"It´s doubtful that they have a concept of living / not-living thing like we do. They are however aware that we can move and react to them.",
"Yes, certainly. They are not biting you to try to eat you. They are biting you to attack you, to remove a threat to their hive/colony by either killing you or driving you away.\n\nMany ants aren't even \"biting\" in the sense of a mosquito or spider bite. Some ants bite to make a small hole, then spray acid into the hole. Other ants (including fire ants) are actually using an alkaline-tipped stinger instead of their mouth.",
"It's likely just a threat response. Some Activity Disturbs me enough = Bite.\n\nAnts aren't likely to have any complex thoughts. ",
"By human standards an ant has essentially zero brain. It is unlikely that an ant is even aware of what it is doing, and extremely unlikely that an ant can understand a concept like whether a thing is living. In mental terms an ant is better understood as a machine, around as smart as a Roomba vacuum cleaner. ",
"Every time something on Reddit comes up regarding insects and their \"minds\" the general consensus is they're all programmed like little robots and don't actually \"know\" or perhaps experience anything. Then someone comes and points out that humans are probably like that too, just highly advanced programming.\n\nIt's crucial to remember that is only an assumption. We don't know what ants know or experience. We don't even know how a program can be a human mind. It's just a convenience now that we have machine learning and complex computational algorithms to draw the analogy that every living mind is simply a form of that.\n\nBut that's all it is. An ASSUMPTION. It may very well be true that life is nothing but an algorithm, and it may very well be true that it is more than just that. It's when we assume we have it figured out that we close ourselves to expanding knowledge and understanding.\n\nDisclaimer (because this is Reddit and I know the hivemind well): this is not coming from a place of religiosity, but logic. I am personally an atheist.",
"ELI5 answer: ants are so tiny that they don't have enough brains to even know what they are biting. Ants will bite either to attack food or in self defense, and the result is always the same. You can get an ant to bite a metal pin in the same way you can get it to bite a grasshopper. "
]
} | [] | [] | [
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[]
] |
||
16nhxa | why do nickels have smooth edges while other coins don't? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/16nhxa/eli5_why_do_nickels_have_smooth_edges_while_other/ | {
"a_id": [
"c7xmn3c",
"c7xmpyn",
"c7xr5ax"
],
"score": [
14,
5,
4
],
"text": [
"I'm not sure why nickels don't have rough edges, but I can tell you why others do.\n\nIn a nutshell, U.S. coins were sometimes made out of valuable metals like gold or silver. If you trim the edges off all the coins you find, you can start collecting a decent amount of metal shavings that you can sell for profit, and since the coin is only barely smaller than before no one is the wiser. Putting ridges on the coin's edge means that if you trim off the outside edge people will notice and you get in trouble. ",
"Nickles have smooth edges because they do not contain any \"precious metals\" which are metals that are very rare and have a high economic value. Dimes, quarters and half dollars all have ridges on the edges because they used to be made out of silver. The ridges prevented people from shaving the silver off the coins and making money from it. If a coin that is supposed to have ridges, doesn't, they are going to know that it was shaved off for it's silver. Nickles don't have the ridges because they are not worth as much as a dime or a quarter, in terms of what its made of. \n",
"Each coin edge has a different pattern or texture so that blind people can distinguish the difference."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[],
[],
[]
] |
||
27pmh5 | what being "spiritual" but not religious means? | Obviously this changes from person-to-person, but generally what do people mean when they say that they are "spiritual?" | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/27pmh5/eli5what_being_spiritual_but_not_religious_means/ | {
"a_id": [
"ci33xb3",
"ci33y0c",
"ci34bqo",
"ci34et4",
"ci358f8",
"ci3a6xp"
],
"score": [
5,
5,
46,
4,
3,
4
],
"text": [
"It generally means that they believe in outside supernatural forces that impact our lives, but they do not subscribe to any of the major religions.",
"to believe in *something* but not in man's representation of that *something*. for example, people that believe in ghosts, god, angels, fate, karma, etc. without going to church, believing the bible or anything like that.",
"When people say they are 'religious', it generally means they can put a name/label to their beliefs (ex. I am a Christian/Muslim/Buddhist/etc). When people say they are 'spiritual', it usually means they believe in a higher power/supernatural forces but don't have a name for it (ex. they believe in miracles, but they don't think that 'God' or any specific deity is the cause of those miracles).\n\nBasically, a person who is religious is almost always spiritual (ex. a Christian believes in Jesus Christ AND miracles), but a person who is spiritual is not usually religious (ex. a person who believe in miracles but NOT Jesus Christ).",
"They believe in a nebulous 'higher power', but don't worry about the details and rituals involved in organized religion. ",
"It can mean that they believe in God and the Bible but do not attend an established church.",
"Folks with their own ideas about God, heaven and hell, and a moral code.\n\nTL;DR They are in charge of their own karma."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[]
] |
|
3n58s4 | what are birds doing when they fly around in crazy, beautiful, yet chaotic formations? | I've seen this the past two evenings at dusk outside the Milan train station. Lots of birds flying together, sweeping to one side of the sky, swooping back to the other. It's very beautiful and they appear to be in unison. It's not any sort of definable formation. It's just that they're all moving left, right, back and forth together. What are they doing? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3n58s4/eli5_what_are_birds_doing_when_they_fly_around_in/ | {
"a_id": [
"cvkxxoy"
],
"score": [
2
],
"text": [
"Different species of birds flock together for different reasons, so depending on what species you were looking at they could have been foraging for insects, or moving en masse for protection, warmth, aerodynamics, or as a mating behavior. \n\nThe complex movements and formations they make are called *murmurations*, and it's only very recently that we've begun to understand more about how they work. It seems each bird is only reacting based on a few very simple rules that can be roughly summed up as 'do what the nearest seven other birds are doing'. In this way the movements of a flock are emergent patterns that ripple through the flock in waves. The same behavior is seen in shoaling fish and to a smaller extent in herding cattle and even in human crowds. "
]
} | [] | [] | [
[]
] |
|
5woi3m | why the uk never made their overseas islands integral part of their country? | Why the UK never had any interest in converting any of their possessions into integral parts of their country?? and they created a complicated multiple layers of citizenship (British Overseas Territories citizens,British Overseas citizen,British subject,British National ) all have different passports etc... For example Almost all overseas possessions of France are part of France and all have a single french citizenship. A person born in mainland France or Tahiti(french Polynesia) have the same french passport and citizenship.
| explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5woi3m/eli5_why_the_uk_never_made_their_overseas_islands/ | {
"a_id": [
"debmwks",
"deboc1f",
"debscsi",
"debtaud"
],
"score": [
5,
2,
3,
3
],
"text": [
"In this case France is the odd man out. Most countries with oversea territories have different level of citizenship, different set of laws and different tax rules. There is some sort of superiority and ownership over these territories that is not part of the country but rather owned by the country. In the same way that a company do not allow the workers to vote in the board meeting a country do not usually allow their subject territories voting rights. However it is more complicated then that as there needs to be managers over the territory who may want to keep their citizenship and there may be loyalists who you might want to grant limited citizenship for their work, etc.\n\nAs for why France got away with the difference between real French and a French subject in a colony it is because of the revolution and considering everyone equal.",
"Before 1983 there was a single \"Citizen of the United Kingdom and Colonies\" status. The decision to split that into British Citizen and British Dependent Territories Citizen (later British Overseas Territories Citizen) seems to have been largely motivated by concern that the return of Hong Kong to China would lead to mass immigration to the UK.\n\nSince 2002, the distinction has been weakened, and a person born in an Overseas Territory will normally be both a British Overseas Territories Citizen and a British Citizen.",
"There is no politcal will in the overseas teritories to become more intergrated nor is there any to leave. \nBermuda \nInderpendance 1995 \n74.1% Agaisnt 25.9% For \nFalklands \nSoverignty Status 1986 \n96.5% British, 2% Inderpendant, 0.3% Argentine \nSoverignty Status 2013 \nRemain UK Overseas teritory 99.8% No 0.2% \nGibraltar Soverignty Status 1967 \nBritish 99.6%, Spanish 0.3% \nGibraltar Soverignty Status 2002 \nNo to joint Spanish-UK power share 98.5% \n \nWe can not and will not force the hand of the good people who live there.",
"Prior to the Liberal revolution in the 18th century (the \"Age of Enlightenment\" which culminated in the US seceding and the French Revolution) most European states thought of \"colonies\" in fairly similiar terms. Treatment may vary, but it was situational and not related to any kind of overarching \"philosophy\" of government.\n\nAs liberalism swept Western Europe though this sort of naked exploitation fell out of favor. European countries would continue to exploit colonies, but just not so \"nakedly\".\n\nThe French experience was heavily informed by their revolution. It focused on the equality of all men. So in order to morally justify colonies everyone had to be French. Algeria wasn't a \"colony\" anymore than Provence... theoretically (practice was clearly different than theory of course).\n\nBy contrast the British experience was more informed by the US revolution. They took a more paternalistic stance, I.e. \"The white mans burden\". They argued they weren't really holding colonies at all, so much as \"grooming them\", \"developing the people and the land\", all for some theoritical future point where they'd finally be \"civilized\" enough to be set free.\n\nIncidentally this was the US approach as well, which is why the Philippines was liberated post-WW2 and why Puerto Rico has such an odd position with the US."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[],
[],
[],
[]
] |
|
31tzhy | why do my feet feel sore and raw for days after walking around in wet shoes/socks for more than an hour? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/31tzhy/eli5_why_do_my_feet_feel_sore_and_raw_for_days/ | {
"a_id": [
"cq4yo97"
],
"score": [
3
],
"text": [
"There can be many reasons for this. Water can seep into the skin, and it can also dry skin out, causing friction and pain.\n\nIn WW1 soldiers who lived in wet boots often had the soles of their feet rot off because water would also cause molding from the *inner layers* of skin under the epidermis. \n\nOne thing they teach you in the military now is to ALWAYS air your feet when you can, and make sure you keep them dry and routinely change your socks. \n\nThe term is \"trench foot\" to be exact, google it if you're curious. "
]
} | [] | [] | [
[]
] |
||
3xh4j1 | what happened to the swine flu (h1n1)? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3xh4j1/eli5_what_happened_to_the_swine_flu_h1n1/ | {
"a_id": [
"cy4l1g8",
"cy4nbi2",
"cy4u3ue"
],
"score": [
80,
4,
3
],
"text": [
"It's only a scare when it is novel (new), has not had a vaccine produced for it yet and is highly contagious. It is now in every vaccine batch and is nothing to be scared of.\n\nEach hemisphere of the Earth (northern and southern) develops the flu that will appear in the opposite hemisphere's next winter. The goal is to identify and develop vaccines for all strains in time for the next flu season. Sometimes a highly virulent strain appears and spreads very quickly before a vaccine can be developed for it. When that happens, it is scary. ",
"Still a problem in some places:\n\n_URL_0_\n\n_URL_1_\n\n_URL_2_",
"I was a student at the high school where it broke out. \n\n\nThe school was quarantined after the nurse called the CDC. People who were sick were immediately prescribed tamiflu. Tamiflu, however was not carried by many pharmacies (I think there was a shortage at some point). \n\n\nMy school is located on this large strip that's home to four other schools (could be more, I only passed by a few on the bus route home). The Q76 would be packed with students from all of these schools. \n\n\nI can't remember which schools were closed down for how long. But we had a week off. The students and teachers who were really sick were still in the hospital. Hand sanitizing dispensers popped up all around the building. \n\n\nIt didn't disappear, really. We just battened down our hatches and dealt with it. "
]
} | [] | [] | [
[],
[
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2015_Indian_swine_flu_outbreak",
"http://www.stabroeknews.com/2015/news/regional/12/19/29-confirmed-cases-swine-flu-tt-year-three-deaths/",
"http://www.todayszaman.com/anasayfa_swine-flu-death-toll-in-turkey-rises-to-42_376222.html"
],
[]
] |
||
2ack4z | when going up a hill in a car, do you get better gas mileage giving the car more gas or downshifting? | Say you are going 40 mph in 4th gear in a car when you hit a steep hill that the car needs to climb. Is it better for gas mileage to maintain 4th gear while giving the car more gas? Or is it better to downshift into 3rd, using less gas but also increasing engine rpms? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2ack4z/eli5_when_going_up_a_hill_in_a_car_do_you_get/ | {
"a_id": [
"citqrrq",
"citsz8u"
],
"score": [
4,
19
],
"text": [
"There is a reason semis have so many gears. In general, fuel efficiency is a function of RPMs. Generally, If you run high rpms it burns more fuel.\n\nIt may not be better for your car, or for you, but if your question is only \"when do I get the best mileage\" the answer is knowing the RPM band that delivers the best mileage and staying in it.",
"There is **A LOT** of bad science here, including the top voted answer by heit88.\n\n--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------\n\nRefer to [Here](_URL_0_) to see an engine fuel efficiency map.\n\nWhen you demand a constant speed of your car, you are demanding a constant power output. This desired power output to maintain whatever speed you want going up the hill is what determines where you are on the Y axis of the map I linked above. Ignore what BMEP is, it is just the power you want from the engine.\n\nNow that you are fixed along the Y axis, as you change RPM you move left and right along a straight line that meets the Y axis at the power you want.\n\nThe intersection of the RPM you are driving at, and line you drew from the desired BMEP, shows you what your BSFC is. This number is how much fuel you use for the power put out. The lower the number is the more efficient at using fuel your engine is. Red is the most efficient on the map I linked, blue is bad, and purple is the worst.\n\nSo lets say you want power from the engine at the 100 BMEP point (to say, go uphill constantly at 70 mph). Draw a straight line across the map from the 100 BMEP point on the Y axis. As you start out at low RPM, you are at medium fuel efficiency (in the green area). As you increase your RPM to 1500, you enter the red zone which is the most fuel efficient. As you further increase your RPM out of the red zone, you enter back into the green and blue zones which again means medium fuel efficiency. At high RPMS your fuel efficiency drops off into the bad range. As you can see if you read the numbers in the regions of the map, you will use 50% more fuel at 6000 RPM than at 1500 RPM just to maintain your speed at constant power. Also, as you lower RPM, you will use 20% more fuel at 500 RPM than 1500 RPM.\n\n**TLDR; your engine has an optimum range to operate at. If your RPMs goes lower or higher than this range, you will lose efficiency and use more fuel. Operate in the gear that puts your RPM within this band.**"
]
} | [] | [] | [
[],
[
"http://i490.photobucket.com/albums/rr266/TestDrive100/CombinedBSFCOverlay21.jpg"
]
] |
|
1qdcsc | why don't apple, samsung and co. integrate a qr-code-reader into their camera-app? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1qdcsc/eli5why_dont_apple_samsung_and_co_integrate_a/ | {
"a_id": [
"cdbophd",
"cdbou0j"
],
"score": [
3,
2
],
"text": [
"Windows phone 8 has this \r\rSource, I have a Lumia 520\r\rI know this doesn't directly answer the question but it shows that it is possible",
"Because they don't offer anything useful enough to be 'baked in' to hardware.\n\nThey aren't much quicker than a custom url. E.g. Say you wanted to point someone to this Reddit, you could do one of two things:\n\n1) create and upload an image of a QR code. To access it somebody needs to a) know what they are, b) install an app or open their phone's inbuilt reader c) point it at the QR code and wait for it to focus and read it and d) follow the link.\n\nOr,\n\n2) set up a short url like _URL_0_ (fake link) or a vanity url _URL_1_ which a person can type in.\n\nOne of them has many more bottlenecks at which you will lose people due to them not understanding the process, not having the right functionality or just not caring enough to jump through all the hoops.\n\nLast year I sat through a marketing review meeting for a MAJOR international company, who spent a huge amount of money on an advertising campaign. The ad agency were massively into QR codes at the time.\n\nOne five-figure ad campaign had, they boasted, brought more QR code referrals in than any previous one. Total number? 27 people used the code.\n\nQR codes are hugely over-complex, gimmicky and difficult compared to either typing in a URL or, as 95% of people now do, typing the brand or product name into the Google search bar."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[],
[
"bit.ly/gh5Dgs",
"reddit.com/WhyQR"
]
] |
||
48dp7m | why is it still so difficult to definitively determine the source of major rivers like the nile and yellow river? | I just watched [this documentary](_URL_0_) about the recent alleged discovery of the source of the Nile river, but apparently there's some controversy over whether they actually found it or not (I find it hard to believe that anybody could really contend with those results, but there it is).
Edit: I can't believe there are people who thought my above reference to the Top Gear special as a serious documentary about the real source of the Nile *wasn't* a joke. It's Top Gear. Come on. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/48dp7m/eli5_why_is_it_still_so_difficult_to_definitively/ | {
"a_id": [
"d0iszyz",
"d0it9c5",
"d0iueob",
"d0iumka",
"d0iuxkc",
"d0iyuve",
"d0j1pae",
"d0j26er",
"d0j2yv3",
"d0j37oz",
"d0j383c",
"d0j4sxj",
"d0j56d1",
"d0j5u8r",
"d0j6g4b",
"d0j6jb6",
"d0j792y",
"d0j7mvw",
"d0j8h6y",
"d0j9lx9",
"d0j9nj2",
"d0jb098",
"d0jbmkc",
"d0jfrav",
"d0jk5jz",
"d0jktwr",
"d0jtpai"
],
"score": [
339,
118,
2066,
33,
86,
4,
9,
3,
3,
5,
5,
21,
2,
2,
9,
2,
15,
3,
18,
2,
3,
11,
5,
2,
3,
2,
2
],
"text": [
"Which creek, drainage, stream or other water source is the river and which is just a feeder? Lot of options to debate there.",
"The \"source\" is a man made construct. There is rarely, if ever, a single source on the smallest scale.",
"Because hundreds of rivers merge to form these big rivers. So technically there are numerous sources.\n\n",
"The Nile is the world's longest river. There are literally thousands of smaller rivers and streams that flow into and out of it. It doesn't have a single source, though it's primary source is Lake Victoria.",
"Because are many different definitions of \"source\":\n\n* longest path to the outlet\n* path of greatest water flow\n* greatest altitude drop\n\nEven with in these there is room for debate. If 60% of rivers flow breaks up into a dozen short tributaries, when 40% is river that flows for another 200 miles, which is the source?\n\nAlso, many of these factors can change seasonally or from year to year. At some point your are dealing with tiny creeks on the border of the watershed, a tree falling or a small landslide can completely change their course.",
"Something you may not be aware and something that illustrates the complexity of the situation:\n\nThe hydrological source of the Mississippi river is not in Montana as we have been taught. If we use hydrological definitions, the source of the Mississippi is actually somewhere in northern Pennsylvania. That's because the Ohio river is larger than the Mississippi river where the two join, thus making the northern Mississippi a tributary of the southern Mississippi.\n\nThe geological source of the Mississippi is still in Montana because it's generally measured by distance from the mouth of the river. But, technically, the Mississippi is much shorter than the records would show.",
"Because it's hundreds or thousands of streams and rivers that flow into it.\n\nThe way the \"start\" of a river is determined is by following the largest tributary upstream. So if two small rivers (river g and river h) merge to form river X then which one is a continuation of river X is determined by which (g or h) is bigger. Ok, so, no big deal right. Do some measurements. River h is 1200 gallons a second and river g is 900 gallons a second, so river h and unknown river X are Technically the same river. Easy peasy.\n\nBut then what happens when river h splits into tributaries a & B, and a splits into c & d and b splits into e & f and all those split into two and all those split into two. \n\nBasically you'd have to measure the gallons per time unit of thousands streams and rivers. Some of them might just be seasonal streams too (common in mountains) so that throws a whole fucky element in there. \n\nGenerally people are happier to say \"this river becomes proper river right *here* but water keeps feeding in for mile and miles upstream.\"",
"They have a lot of tributaries and it can get difficult to determine which one is actually the main river. This can get further complex based on what metrics are being used to determine which path is the main river or not.",
"So whenever a river is categorized based on their size, it's based off of whether or not something feeds into it. There's 2 ways for them to be categorized. \n\nThe first is when 2 lesser streams come together they form a stream one category up ie the meeting point of 2 cat 1s is a cat 2. From they're any meeting point raises the category by one. \n\nThe second is when categories are only raised when the category is only 1 less than the previous category. In other words two cat ones meet and they become a cat 2. Now, the category of the resulting steam only increases when there's another cat 2. So if our cat 2 steam hits a single steam, it's still a cat 2. If it hits another steam made of 2 streams then is a cat 3. \n\nWith that, it's easy to see how a river as mind blowing huge as the Amazon and Nile, which have hundreds and hundreds of streams and rivers feeding them, have no \"single source\" but have hundreds of feeders. \n\nThis isn't too say rivers never have single sources. The San Marcos river in Texas, for example is sourced directly from the ground straight out of the Edwards Aquifer. ",
"Because denial ain't JUST a river in Egypt, it's also a series of interconnected bodies of water further upstream.",
"TIL the source of the Nile is difficult to find. A decade ago I had visited Jinja a ~~small~~ town in Uganda on the banks of Lake Victoria. They had told me that the source of the Nile was from this point in Lake Victoria. I just googled it and it looks like this is where the White Nile started but it was fascinating to read about the various segments of the Nile and the rivers feeding into Lake Vic.\n\n*deleted small after u/BosstheVisigoth pointed out my error.",
"The true source of all rivers are rain catchment areas, which have borders that run along the ridges of mountains and most elevated points of planes, and if it's a drain pipe, then the catchment area is likely nearby roads, roofs and parking lots. Granted, it's not as fun as going somewhere and pointing at a trickling stream, shouting \"TINY STREAM SOURCE OF MIGHTY RIVER\". But the truth is, if you somehow pump out all the water at the source, the rest of the river would be almost completely unaffected.",
"You watched Top Gear. They stage most of their stuff. Don't get me wrong, I love it, but I think it's about watching the guys be really dicky to each other.",
"Rivers often have multiple sources, and some part of their courses may be underground. Once you get really far up a river - especially if it doesn't start at a particularly high altitude - you're chasing down little streams and muddy meadows. \n\nIf the water that feeds into a river is distributed enough, \"source\" is a fallacy and \"discovering\" it is nothing but entertainment with no scientific significance. You're discovering one of the mud puddles or little springs that's in a general region from which the waters feed a river.\n\nActual, clear \"sources\" tend to require very stark landscapes and water coming from mountain glaciers. If it's just trickling down from wet highlands in a bunch of little streams, the word doesn't mean anything.",
"Aquathropologist here.\n\nA very interesting question. The answer, like many have mentioned, dates back hundreds, thousands of years. Back when the world was still young and the continents were as one, Pangaea was riddled with thousands upon thousands of rivers. As the continents began to shift, the plate tectonic duodidecium slides caused each river to widen and widen.\n\nWhat results is a beautiful, occasionally haunting and intricate history of the birth, life, and(in most cases) death of all the rivers of the world. So what we know as the Nile today, was probably part of the river Negelius back then, which in turn flowed into the Praksis and the Solum.\n\nThe more tenacious rivers became oceans, some stagnated, and some no longer exist -- perhaps a lesson these magnificent bodies of water intend to pass on to us as humans.",
"Visualise a river delta at the end of a large river, now reverse that image in the mountains at the start of the river, there's your answer",
"3 middle aged men in cheap estate cars found it not too long back.\n\n_URL_0_",
"I thought we closed the books on the nile. I clearly remember TopGear figuring it out.... Lol",
"Have you not seen the Top Gear Africa special? They search and find the source of the Nile! It's a great episode! ",
"Why don't they just use google maps? Give me 15 minutes & I'll find it! ",
"Was the \"documentary \" called Top Gear?",
"Here's an attempt at a \"Like You're 5\" answer: Rivers are like trees. Look out at a tree. See how there are many many leaves on the tree but only one trunk? The leaves produce food for the rest of the tree and feed it down to the trunk. Just as you need many small leaves to do this for one tree trunk, a river needs many small sources of water (the leaves) to become a big river (the trunk). So, asking \"what is the source of this river\" is like asking \"which leaf on this tree is most important?\" There are many options, and it's entirely up to the onlooker to decide.",
"Grab a sponge, soak it in the sink, raise it out, then squeeze it. Which part of the sponge is the \"main source\" and which part is just helping?",
"Most rivers don't have a single point source. Instead, they tend to drain a watershed area. Imagine a large plastic tarp spread out on the ground with wrinkles and bumps in it. Use a garden hose to spray water on it, and the water will pool in some places (lakes) and in other places it will rush to the lowest place and create streams of water (rivers) to the edge of the tarp. The end of the river - where it exits the tarp - is easy to find. The beginning is more arbitrary because the water is coming from the entire area along the way.",
"Does anyone else find it humorous that he referred to an episode of Top Gear as a documentary? ",
"As you journey upstream, every time splits into two sources, you must make a decision as to river/tributary. Easy enough when a smaller stream joins a larger river. But when you have two equal stteams, which is \"the river\" and which is not. Volume? Length? Size of each watershed? Local tradition? All of these choices share the fact that they are arbitrary and there is no science involved. As you get to smaller and smaller streams and the number of choices changes exponentially, differences of opinion occur. In truth nearly every great river has tens of thousands of sources where you could drop a rubber duck and launch him to the sea. Which is the primary source is just that hard to pin down. ",
"Which leaf comes directly from the trunk of the tree?"
]
} | [] | [
"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QB3cRTRvV_0"
] | [
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[
"http://i.imgur.com/6M1gu9H.jpg"
],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[]
] |
|
22n5k7 | curious european, why does cleveland suck? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/22n5k7/eli5_curious_european_why_does_cleveland_suck/ | {
"a_id": [
"cgofqcw",
"cgofqqx",
"cgofvs2",
"cgogl89",
"cgohfj0",
"cgohfk0",
"cgohnei",
"cgohq8n",
"cgoilfv",
"cgoj3uh",
"cgok40s"
],
"score": [
5,
10,
20,
3,
6,
8,
6,
3,
2,
3,
2
],
"text": [
"They all miss LeBron...",
"Cleveland ROCKS! Haven't you ever seen the Drew Carey Show?",
"To quote Tvtrope's article on Cleveland (yes, Cleveland is considered a trope):\n\nKnown in some circles as \"The Mistake By The Lake\" (namely, Lake Erie) or \"The/Tha Land,\" Cleveland is the largest urban area in Ohio. Located on the state's northern coast, it's often considered a Wretched Hive and a Place Worse Than Death, a joke that's been ongoing for years. Many recent polls and news articles only reinforce this image, as it was once rated the most miserable city in America. It was also the original Trope Namer for Aliens In Cleveland, as the city is considered by many the image of mundane mediocrity (at best). \n\nPossibly the biggest reason why this goes unchallenged is because all but the most anal-retentive Clevelanders have a sense of humor about it; they'll tell you themselves how Cleveland is America's Butt Monkey. With the brutal winters, massive urban decay, a river that was once so polluted that it caught on fire thirteen times, several political scandals leading to multiple FBI raids, and the fact that road construction is never finished (also a staple of Ohio in general), most residents have no illusions of being in paradise, and rely often on Gallows Humor. Some choose to stay, however, as the city has a low cost of living, a growing healthcare industry (the world-renown Cleveland Clinic and University Hospitals), and decent nightlife. It can even be called a mini-Chicago, due to its patchwork of ethnic neighborhoods, midwestern atmosphere, public rail that's both elevated and underground, and division by a major river (east and west in this case, with people on either side almost never going further than downtown). ",
"I'm from Cleveland, it's really not that bad. We just like to joke about it.",
"This will explain everything:\n\n_URL_0_",
"I lived there for 40 years. \n\nCleveland was the 6th largest city in the US at one point. We poured a quarter of the steel that went into the Allied side of WWII. The Beatles played one of their very few US shows there. Our sports teams used to dominate.\n\nThat glory faded as American manufacturing left. Half as many people live there as compared to 50 years ago. The jobs are gone, the money is gone. There is disappointment everywhere. \n\nIt's symbolic of the decline of America. ",
"I was raised on the Drew Carey show, which told me that \"Cleveland Rocks\"",
"One reason is all our sports teams either plane out suck, or give us hope then suck. We haven't won a championship in anything since 1964. Also our river caught fire a few times, but hey at least we're not Detroit. ",
"It doesn't! It just gets a bad rap. The real only thing bad about Cleveland is the weather. Winter last forever! I'm from Cleveland. Did you know it used to be called \"the best location in the nation\"?\n\nThe greater Cleveland area is full of life. Every suburb has it's own distinct look and feel. You can find amazing food in any direction. From mom and pop shops to Michael Simon's \"Lola\" in Tremont. \n\nNight life is bustling with several strips in DTC alone ...W6th, E4th, W25th. Tremont and Ohio City are the uppity area. \n\nSunsets on the lake are a daily beauty! I live in Denver, CO now and sunsets here just don't compare. I mean mountains are cool and all but you can't actually watch the sun set under the horizon with these damn mountains in the way ;)\n\nIf you have the credential you will find a good job. If you try to have fun you will have fun. My favorite place in all of Cleveland is the Art museum. I have been to 4 or 5 art museums and it is actually one of my favorites. And it's free! Can't say that about Denver ;) ",
"To quote Yakov Smirnoff\n\n\"In every country, they make fun of city. In U.S. you make fun of Cleveland. In Russia, we make fun of Cleveland.\"",
"I really thought he was asking about the Family Guy character. "
]
} | [] | [] | [
[],
[],
[],
[],
[
"http://youtube.com/watch?v=oZzgAjjuqZM"
],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[]
] |
||
cx20cv | how do animals like fish, who have no way of seeing themselves, know to stay and mate with their own species? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/cx20cv/eli5_how_do_animals_like_fish_who_have_no_way_of/ | {
"a_id": [
"eyhrf92"
],
"score": [
7
],
"text": [
"Animals don't look at themselves first to figure out what they find sexually attractive. They just know what they like, and evolution means that tends to be things of their own species.\n\nDid you look at yourself and think \"Hmm, I am a human so I guess I should like other humans,\" or did you just get attracted to certain traits?"
]
} | [] | [] | [
[]
] |
||
9qgpwt | how is power restored after an outage caused by damaged poles or power lines? | Near my home this morning, a car crash occurred at an intersection, and a power pole was hit and split in half. The power company said there were power lines in the road. This caused a power outage to about 1300 people. After about an hour, crews had restored power to those affected by the outage, but they said that they still needed to repair the broken pole and equipment. If they didn't fix the pole yet, then how was the power restored? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/9qgpwt/eli5_how_is_power_restored_after_an_outage_caused/ | {
"a_id": [
"e893uoa",
"e893vud",
"e8990bd",
"e89ptfb"
],
"score": [
11,
2,
9,
2
],
"text": [
"They fixed / replaced the wires that were broken, and strung them up between the poles that were left intact, with perhaps a temporary pole or suspension wire to hold them in place until the full sized permanent pole is ordered and placed into the ground.\n\nA residential area is also a \"grid\" (that's why it's often called the power grid), which means that there are multiple connections available and they can re-route the electricity much like they re-route cars to go on alternate roads until the main road is re-paved or whatever.",
"A downed power line is like tripping over a cable and pulling a plug out of an outlet. The safest procedure is to shut off power on the line, mend it and in the meantime, redirect power from another grid. This could be compared to taking the unpluged plug and plugging it in to a closer outlet for convenience! ",
"So there are a 2 ways that this can happen. \n\n1. Temporary line failure- when an object is obstructing the line such as a branch falling on it or something like that. The line itself is not immediately damaged and service can be restored once the obstruction is removed. Newer power lines have special sensors that can shut off the voltage in a line section if this happens, so that the line doesn’t burn out. \n\n2. Permanent failure- when the line itself is damaged and must be repaired or replaced to restore power to the line. Caused by the line burning out or being torn down in a storm. This method of failure will take longer to remedy. \n\nHowever, in both cases power is restored by rerouting power from other lines. It is easier to picture from a drawing but I will do my best here. In general, power lines are very redundant and can be routed in many different ways to accommodate different electric loads. \n\nThink of it as train tracks with the power being the trains. At any given time, the tracks are oriented so that each track is continuous, but the tracks can be realigned at certain junctions to allow trains to transfer to a new track. If a section of the track is damaged, anything farther down that track can not be reached by a train. But then the track next to it is switched later on down the line so that trains from that track can transfer and reach the original destinations of the first track. \n\nBy rerouting the trains, only the damaged section can not be reached by the trains. The tracks will stay in this orientation until the track is fixed, then it can be returned to normal. \n\nIn your particular case, your power was likely not directly attached to the damaged section so you were able to receive service from a different power line that had been switched. There were probably some folks who had to wait until the power line was fixed because they were directly attached to it. ",
"Most power systems are redundant. From the highest voltages down, each substation is normally fed by multiple sources. A generation station doesn't just feed one area; rather, it inserts power into \"the grid\", which is a term for all of the substations, interconnecting lines, and customers in a region.\n\nLines carrying super high voltages often have an identical line going alongside them to the same place. So if one line goes out (what is called an \"n-1\" condition), the other parallel line, or a line from another distant source, can usually pick up the slack. When you get to 2 or more lines out, then you're looking at load shedding or other interruptions. However, during most conditions the load can still be carried; system operators or automated programs called \"remedial action schemes\" can make these decisions and act quickly to minimize disturbances to the grid. Huge circuit breakers at these stations can remove a line at both ends if there is a fault that requires it to be taken out. Communication paths and SCADA (supervisory control and data acquisiton) systems can synchronize actions at both ends of a line, tell system operators what's going on, enable them to efficiently dispatch crews to repair problems, and allow them to issue controls remotely to take care of smaller problems.\n\nDistribution lines (that go to houses and business/industrial customers) are likewise normally fed by two or more local substations (the exception being rural areas, where the lines often form radial \"spokes\" out from a station.) Distribution circuits can further be sectionalized by line switches and pole-top circuit breakers so that the maximum number of customers can stay up.\n\nIt may have been mentioned already, but most lines have some sort of \"reclosing\" scheme, where if a line draws too much current and trips a circuit breaker, the breaker will attempt to close again automatically in about 15 seconds. If the fault is still there, the breaker will normally open again immediately and stay open (\"lockout\") until the line is patrolled. This minimizes interruption when, for instance, a branch falls, causes a short circuit, then falls out of the wires without damaging them. Other common occurrences include critters getting fried and errant metallic balloons."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[],
[],
[],
[]
] |
|
1sdwwd | if the earth gets too hot because of global warming in the next 100 or 200 years, do you think it is possible and practical to shift the earth to a higher orbit with respect to the sun and thus moving us farther away from the sun's heat? | what would be the energy required to change the orbit of the earth significantly? Do we possess or have the capability of possessing this kind of energy in the future?
What are the complications you think can occur if such a thing actually happens? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1sdwwd/eli5if_the_earth_gets_too_hot_because_of_global/ | {
"a_id": [
"cdwl59r"
],
"score": [
2
],
"text": [
"The Earth is pretty massive. Its mass is 5.97219×10^24 kg. "
]
} | [] | [] | [
[]
] |
|
4shf90 | what is the reason why brand name cereal companies don't sue the generic brands that are obviously complying them? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4shf90/eli5_what_is_the_reason_why_brand_name_cereal/ | {
"a_id": [
"d5994wx",
"d599kjk",
"d59gso3"
],
"score": [
8,
15,
8
],
"text": [
"Most of the time they are the ones making the generic brand cereal. They do so in order to test new products, ensure they have bulk production high enough to handle their name brand demand, to funnel slightly damaged but still edible product, and to simply make more money. ",
"There is nothing about Fruit Loops that is patented or copyright protected, other than the trademarked name. Recipe's are considered trade secrets, so they are not revealed, but are free to be reverse-engineered should someone want to.",
"You can't copyright food. What if Campbell's sued your grandma every time she made Chicken Noodle soup?"
]
} | [] | [] | [
[],
[],
[]
] |
||
9mire8 | how are tariffs different than taxes and won't these ultimately fall to consumers to pay? who's the beneficiary of the tarrif revenue? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/9mire8/eli5_how_are_tariffs_different_than_taxes_and/ | {
"a_id": [
"e7ewpyc",
"e7ewsot",
"e7f4ryb",
"e7fuqx6"
],
"score": [
15,
2,
2,
2
],
"text": [
"Yes, consumers end up paying the price ultimately. They are a type of tax, charged to imported goods. They are supposed to benefit domestic producers of the same/similar good. For example, let's say US made steel costs $100/ton, while Korean steel costs $80/ton. Manufacturers needing steel will be likely to buy the Korean steel to reduce their manufacturing costs. But a 30% tariff would raise the price to $104 and make the Korean steel more expensive than the American steel. This may help the American steel maker, but the costs of the products would go up, and get passed on to the consumer.",
"Taxes are paid on all goods sold in a nation. Tariffs are paid when you import goods in to a country. The beneficiary when you raise tarrifs is the national industry\n\nThe idea is: if tariffs are higher, fewer consumer goods get imported, meaning there will be less competition for national industries\n\nOf course, the problem comes when industries need imported materials and now how to pay more for those, and in turn charge more for the final product\n\nHistorically it ends up being a lose-lose for all however, as both industries and consumers get charged more. and revenue increase is usually not significamg",
"You are asking about [economic incidence.](_URL_2_)\n\n \n\n\nLets look at our [textbook competitive market.](_URL_8_) To model the effect of a tax, you drive a vertical \"tax wedge\" into the graph. The length of the 'tax wedge' is the size of the tax. The top part of the wedge hits one curve, the bottom the other. [Like this.](_URL_0_)\n\n & #x200B;\n\n & #x200B;\n\nThe \"incidence of the tax\" depends on the slopes of the supply and demand curves. The more [elastic](_URL_10_) or horoztonal the slope, the less of the tax will affect consumers ( at least in terms of price). This is because consumers will simply switch to a comparative, non-tariffed good. The incidence will fall onto producers instead. \n\n & #x200B;\n\nIf a good is [inelastic](_URL_9_), the change in price due to the tariff will have little effect on how much is bought, so consumers will absorb the majority of the cost. \n\n & #x200B;\n\nA simple example is [chewing gum](_URL_4_) vs [insulin](_URL_6_). Lets pretend we import both, and lets assume, not unreasonably, that the demand for chewing gum is pretty elastic, and that insulin is fairly inelastic. In other words, if the price of gum rises, people will by something else. If the price of insulin rises, people will pay it anyways because they don't have a choice. \n\n & #x200B;\n\nIn [elastic demand](_URL_1_), notice how just a small notch upward in price (y-axis) leads to a large backward movement on quantity (x-axis.) In [inelastic demand](_URL_3_), a rise in price leads to less of a change in quantity. \n\n & #x200B;\n\n & #x200B;\n\nThis video, and the series generally, will hopefully help you visualize what is happening: [who pays the tax?](_URL_5_) This [r/badeconomics](_URL_7_) thread will also hopefully clarify things.",
"The short answer is no one wins a tariff war: not the industry, not the government, not the bystanders.\n\n & #x200B;\n\nSay Hersey's Chocolate was being out competed by a foreign chocolate company. Passing a tariff on chocolate imports would allow Hersey's chocolate to compete by making their competitors more expensive, and Hersey would likely hire more workers to make chocolate chips. \n\n\nBut, because chocolate chips were now more expensive to buy, industries which use chocolate as a raw material would suffer and either layoff workers to cut cost or raise prices to protect profit: probably both. This would make chocolate chip cookies or Girl Scout Thin Mints™ more expensive, and then no one wins. \n\n\nPlus, if we passed a tariff on chocolate, you can bet the chocolate exporters would retaliate with tariffs against our goods, which would hurt other areas of our economy: if they put a tariff on Jelly Beans, Willy Wonka might lay off just as many oompa loompas for JB production as he hires for Chocolate production. \n\n\nAnd, because prices are higher due to tariffs, less goods are sold, meaning the government takes in fewer taxes. \n\n\nSo, while tariffs are an arguably important tool in producing government revenue (like any other tax), no one wins a tariff war."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[],
[],
[
"https://pressbooks.bccampus.ca/uvicecon103/wp-content/uploads/sites/58/2016/11/Screen-Shot-2016-12-23-at-8.12.39-PM.png",
"https://qph.fs.quoracdn.net/main-qimg-1d509652858aad61c3283c78ed7f302b",
"https://www.investopedia.com/terms/t/tax_incidence.asp",
"https://keydifferences.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/inelastic-demand.jpg",
"https://pkuparlor.files.wordpress.com/2014/05/sugar-free-gum.jpg",
"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1H5uU_6Ax_4",
"https://i.dietdoctor.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/Screen-Shot-2017-02-09-at-8.04.14-AM.jpg?auto=compress%2Cformat&w=775&h=466&fit=crop",
"https://www.reddit.com/r/badeconomics/comments/5rdh5s/who_paid_for_the_wall_assuming_everything_is/",
"https://www.thoughtco.com/thmb/AjTkGlgUNB9OxMv8FtxUY03Vw-Y=/271x252/filters:fill(auto,1)/competitive-markets-1-56a27d903df78cf77276a41f.JPG",
"https://www.economicshelp.org/wp-content/uploads/2008/05/inelastic-demand.jpg",
"https://www.economicshelp.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/price-elastic-demand.png"
],
[]
] |
||
2rql9y | the difference between 59hz and 60hz refresh rate for monitors. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2rql9y/eli5_the_difference_between_59hz_and_60hz_refresh/ | {
"a_id": [
"cnib62t",
"cnibqaa"
],
"score": [
8,
3
],
"text": [
"One refreshes 59 times a second and the other refreshes 60 times a second.",
"On windows the 59Hz refresh rate is actually 59.94Hz, this is twice the NTSC refresh rate and it is there for backward compatibility."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[],
[]
] |
||
c66cys | why can you not get the same cold/virus twice, how are antibodies so powerful? | Say you get a nasty virus, puts you down for a solid week. Unbeknownst to you, a month later you are exposed to the same strain somehow. It enters your body and tries to do its thing but then antibodies come in and send it back to oblivion. How does the virus not have enough time to cause even a little damage? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/c66cys/eli5_why_can_you_not_get_the_same_coldvirus_twice/ | {
"a_id": [
"es6dz6j",
"es6e2ta",
"es6en1p"
],
"score": [
2,
9,
3
],
"text": [
"Well initially when it came into your system it did do damage, by making you sick. The time you spent getting better, was your white blood cells and such working to fight off the virus and create antibodies to defend yourself against that virus. At this point they come out fully armoured and start BOPPING virus bois. Then when the virus comes back to the gates of your body like \"Hey its us, you guys wanna party?\" these Antibodies come out guns blazing, Keannu Reeves style and tell them to eat shit. Then u are safe. Antibodies protec\n\n & #x200B;\n\ndisclaimer: Im not a bio major, this is just my opinion",
"What we see as \"being sick\" is often the body's way of getting rid of diseases. This is part of our innate immune system, but it doesn't always work so well.\n\nOnce your body makes antibodies, that's part of the adaptive immune system. The antibodies \"tag\" the virus so that killer T-cells can get rid of them. So instead of trying to flush it out (runny nose etc.) or make it uncomfortably hot (fever), the adaptive immune system grabs and destroys the virus.\n\nYou could see it as the difference between having an alarm system and having someone on hand to arrest the thief. Both will stop your stuff getting stolen, but the alarm system won't stop your window being broken.",
"Not a professional, but I can tell you this: it's less of \"the virus is slow on the second infection\" and more of \"the body reacts very slowly on the first infection\". On the first infection, your body views the virus as a 'foreign object' as it has never encountered the strain before. Thus, it will take time for the body to 'study' and 'remember' the structure of the virus (proteins, antigens, etc). Synthesis of antibodies are specific for each types of virus and thus a new antibody for the strain will take some time. For the second time, your body can recognize and 'remember' the structure of the same virus (remembered by memory T cells) and can immediately synthesize the antibody in a very short delay."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[],
[],
[]
] |
|
4hazth | how do paleontologists differentiate dinosaur carnivore species? | Most dinosaur carnivores look the same to me, with the same shape and form. How do paleontologists know which ones are different species and how do they know if one fossil is just a variation of a species and not a new one altogether? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4hazth/eli5_how_do_paleontologists_differentiate/ | {
"a_id": [
"d2orx40"
],
"score": [
3
],
"text": [
"Do sheep and horses look the same to you?\n\nThere are major fundamental differences between many of them, and more subtle ones between species within the same genus. It is simply a case of careful description. "
]
} | [] | [] | [
[]
] |
|
1u5yel | would it be possible or plausible to add a letter to the alphabet? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1u5yel/eli5_would_it_be_possible_or_plausible_to_add_a/ | {
"a_id": [
"ceetcu1",
"ceetid7",
"ceetsat",
"ceeu5tn",
"ceeuff6",
"ceev1yg",
"ceevvn6",
"ceey08y",
"cef0gz8",
"cef42bn",
"cef7ame",
"cef9r5v"
],
"score": [
2,
28,
3,
3,
5,
26,
6,
9,
2,
2,
2,
2
],
"text": [
"sure, but what would the point be? You could add a letter to represent any sound you wanted (\"th\", \"sh\" etc.) but do we need it?",
"The fact is that in the english language it would be more prudent to remove a few letters. All of the phonetics required in the english language could be produced with fewer letters than we have in our alphabet. An alphabet which covered every phonetic instance in english would be far too expansive for practical purposes, so going in that direction would be a bad move. \nOn top of this, technology has had the effect of causing us to use less language to convey more information, ie: roflmao. So it seems that the tendency of our culture is going to be to simplify language, not expand upon it. Unless you include technical language. That will likely increase even as much of our language simplifies. ",
"In 1955 the letter å was officially added to the Danish alfabet. It represents the sound that 'aa' makes in the Danish language.",
"Possible yes, plausible, no. There have been many attempts to change the alphabet in the last few centuries (including an [attempt for a letter to represent the word \"the\"](_URL_0_)).\n\nUltimately, these have failed for various reasons, one of which is the inertia of the alphabet since wide-spread printing and digital communication.\n\nOn the other hand, grass-roots changes to the alphabet have been common. Texting and internet language is an example of this. You are probably familiar 2 where it means \"to\", \"two\", and \"too\". (WaNNA go 2 dA parTAY? I wOuld lke tHAt 2!) In a loose sense, the number 2 has become a new \"letter\" in the alphabet, and others.",
"Why not? the Scandinavian countries use an alphabet with 29 letters (Æ,Ø,Å)",
"I'd like to re-introduce a few letters. English had additional letters at one point until the Norman Invasion began to bring in French spelling for English words. This later intensified with printing technology developed on the continent and lacking the distinctive English letters. We had:\n\n* Ȝ called yogh, represented the \"gh\" in night, though, neighbor\n* Þ called thorn, represented the \"th\" sound in thin\n* ð called edh, represented the \"th\" sound in that\n* Ƿ called wynn, represented the \"w\" sound (at that time there was no \"w\")\n* æ called ash\n\nI personally think we should re-introduce these back into the language.\n\nNote: eth and thorn were not always strictly distinct and often were used interchangeably.\n\nEDIT: fixed format",
"It used to be that & was a letter that meant \"and\".\n\nThe word ampersand came from when people would end the alphabet with \"and, per se, & \".",
"I'd be all for it except that it would totally mess with the alphabet song.",
"Please. Most people don't use the existing 26 properly...",
"There's a great video about this sort of thing [here](_URL_0_). Essentially, the bit at the end tries to answer this question. We have pretty much standardised education and computer systems (keyboards and unicode/ascii) around the English speaking world, so it would be more difficult to change now than it has been in the past.",
"Many people have proposed revisions to the English alphabet, including playwright George Bernard Shaw. There are redundancies currently found in the language (C and K or S, I and Y to name a couple), but English also requires the use of the same letter or diphthong (a combination, like \"ng\" or \"sh\") to make more than one sound. Shaw illustrated the rule exceptions and ambiguities is the constructed word \"ghoti\", pronounced like \"fish\"; the \"gh\" from \"enough\", the \"o\" from \"women\", the \"ti\" from \"caution\". One of the more fun (and, IMHO more appealing/usable) is the [Renglish Latin](_URL_0_) writing system.",
"We should eliminate the letter C. It could be replaced by K's and S's in all circumstances"
]
} | [] | [] | [
[],
[],
[],
[
"http://www.breakingnewsenglish.com/1307/130711-alphabet.html"
],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[
"http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SVWvkZbhgAc"
],
[
"http://www.omniglot.com/writing/renglish.htm"
],
[]
] |
||
dq10pr | why do our hands get sticky if we wash them and let them dry without using a towel? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/dq10pr/eli5_why_do_our_hands_get_sticky_if_we_wash_them/ | {
"a_id": [
"f5zyptg",
"f5zzsfc"
],
"score": [
5,
2
],
"text": [
"This sounds like a personal problem.\n\nIf you've properly washed your hands, then they shouldn't get sticky after air-drying.\n\nIf they do, it's because they had something sticky on them that didn't get washed off, and gets sticky again after the water evaporates. If you dry your hands on a towel, you're wiping the sticky stuff off.",
"This is not a thing unless you're washing your hands wrong, not rinsing the soap off, or your water is contaminated with something sticky. I'm not sure how else to help you with that."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[],
[]
] |
||
2ql3oe | why is telephone clarity so low compared to the audio of live tv? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2ql3oe/eli5_why_is_telephone_clarity_so_low_compared_to/ | {
"a_id": [
"cn736ok"
],
"score": [
2
],
"text": [
"Most of it has to do with data compression. When the mobile networks began changing from analogue to digital almost a decade ago, it also changed how calls were handled. They became digital streams of bits and bytes. This meant that if there was a change in connection, the data loss could cause the call to be choppy or drop. To remedy this situation, phones were designed to switch to a different codec as signal changes fluctuated. The codec was a form of compressed voice data, designed to travel at the same speed without data loss to the network backbone, where it would be decoded and recompressed for transmission across the network. \n\nSince there hasn't been much demand for a change, carriers haven't really made any changes, until now. With 4GLTE networks carriers are starting to transition once again from digital voice streams to IP Telephony. VoLTE (Voice over LTE) is the fundamental technology, but carriers are deploying it as Advanced Calling (Verizon), HD Voice (AT & T and T-Mobile, although a form of their HD Voice offering exists via HSPA+), or silently (as MetroPCS did back in 2012.) Part of the reason for compression has to do with how much bandwidth is available for the voice streams. \n\nTo contrast, live TV is compressed to Megabits per second (rather than kilobits for mobile telephony). Cable providers compress HD TV-shows to around 3-5Mbps that is used to carry visual data and digital audio. Over the air TV is uncompressed and HD TV-shows can consume all the bandwidth necessary (made available if they operate sub-channels) carrying uncompressed visual data, and uncompressed digital audio. "
]
} | [] | [] | [
[]
] |
||
18759f | pinterest | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/18759f/eli5_pinterest/ | {
"a_id": [
"c8c78k5"
],
"score": [
5
],
"text": [
"Pinterest is a place to share links (called \"pins\" there) with each link being represented by a picture from the page and a description of your choosing. You can sort the pins into different categories (called \"boards\"). You can choose to allow other people to see your pins and boards so they can share links and post your pin on their own board. "
]
} | [] | [] | [
[]
] |
Subsets and Splits
No saved queries yet
Save your SQL queries to embed, download, and access them later. Queries will appear here once saved.