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365vgm | in a collision, why does it seem like the impaired driver has a higher chance of surviving it than the innocent driver? | Here are some local examples of what I'm talking about; in all three cases, the impaired driver walks away (or has minor injuries) while the innocent driver dies.
[Link 1](_URL_2_)
[Link 2](_URL_1_)
[Link 3](_URL_0_) | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/365vgm/eli5_in_a_collision_why_does_it_seem_like_the/ | {
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"They don't. Several studies have shown that drunk drivers are more likely to be injured or killed when involved in an accident than sober ones. It's a pervasive myth that the opposite is true for some reason, and people have even made up \"just-so\" stories as to why they fare better, such as the notion that a drunk driver is more relaxed. \n\nWhat's really going on here is probably simple confirmation bias: people have heard that drunk drivers are more likely to survive, and so pay more attention to stories where they do. ",
"This is selection bias. The news does not report when just the drunk driver dies and your friend wont recount the time their drunk uncle died and nearly killed someone (the shame). News will cover the death of innocent people prominently and your friends will recount the story. Then we repeat this news story as the court system functions."
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"http://toronto.ctvnews.ca/one-dead-after-wrong-way-driver-crashes-on-hwy-403-1.2377238",
"http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/westbound-hwy-401-near-whitby-reopened-after-fatal-crash-1.2944332",
"http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/hamilton/news/man-charged-with-drunk-driving-causing-death-after-qew-crash-1.2807082"
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8yt4a7 | why is the "world's first ever color x-ray performed on human body" important or interesting when we already have mri? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/8yt4a7/eli5_why_is_the_worlds_first_ever_color_xray/ | {
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"Can you link to the article you're referencing?",
"Medical imaging is fascinating. There are a variety of different techniques, each with their own unique limitations and benefits. Ultrasound, for instance, is pretty cheap, noninvasive, and has basically no side effects. But it doesn't have very high resolution, and cannot resolve certain differences. Conventional X-rays are well-understood, but some things don't show up on them and, like all methods that rely on ionizing radiation, it comes with an increased cancer risk. MRIs give good detail, but they cannot be performed on people with metal implants, like some kinds of artificial joints. This new method not only give excellent resolution, but it can be performed even on people with metal implants."
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40o0h5 | how are curse words bleeped out on live television broadcasts? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/40o0h5/eli5_how_are_curse_words_bleeped_out_on_live/ | {
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"They aren't, if they are bleeped out then the \"live\" broadcast is on a few second tape-delay for exactly this purpose, to bleep things out before they reach air. ",
"There is a delay - it's not really live. Every since the Janet Jackson nip slip there has been a 7 second delay (at least) that allows for bleeping or censoring in _almost_ realtime.",
"there's a few second delay, i believe. \nand sometimes there isnt. so they dont catch it. or they fail to catch it.",
"live tv will sometimes how a delay of a few seconds that will allow someone to hit a button that bleeps out words. I know that makes it 'not live' but it's pretty common"
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40ble7 | how do ebay auctions benefit buyers/sellers as opposed to buyitnow? | I have never had any good experience with auctions as a buyer, you don't know if the price will be less than other instant options, you have to waste a few days waiting for the auction to end only to have last minute bidders take it away from you and the price ending up being almost exactly as much (if not more) than the BuyItNow offers.
I know it makes sense for one-of-a-kind items where the price isn't determined, but for stuff like video games, electronics etc, why are there always auctions? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/40ble7/eli5_how_do_ebay_auctions_benefit_buyerssellers/ | {
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"You can get a better deal buying with an auction but it takes like 10 tries. I've won GTA V for like $12 and COD BOII for like $8, but then sometimes the seller sends you some bullshit about \"sorry, I lost the game, my bad\" and you have to start all over. When I sell a game on eBay I usually do buy it now unless it's an old cult classic. My Shadow the hedgehog for old xbox started a bidding war and it went for like $20."
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1ue4zf | why are phones so much more expensive than other mobile technology??? | I mean really, without a new plan, the Galaxy S4 can run around 700 usd, meanwhile, a laptop can go for as cheap as 300 usd. Is it because they don't really cost that much (and the carrier is still profiting on the discounted price) or is the tech more 3G/4G connectivity that much? Can't you get it on the PS Vita for like, 50 usd more? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1ue4zf/why_are_phones_so_much_more_expensive_than_other/ | {
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"Miniaturization. It's the same reason laptops are more expensive than desktops. It's pricier to make things smaller.\n\nTo a lesser extent, Steve Jobs set the price of the first iPhone based almost purely on his gut feel of what people would pay. It seems to have stuck"
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3jrkzs | why do we 'need' money/funding to do things like cure cancer or find alternative fuel sources or explore space? | If money is a completely human concept why can't we just apply the resources and solve the issue as a whole? It seems funding is just counter productive if we already technically have what we need to do it. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3jrkzs/eli5_why_do_we_need_moneyfunding_to_do_things/ | {
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"So, join the effort to cure cancer. Dedicate the next 30 years of your life to it. You won't get any paychecks.\n\nWhat? Not interested? Well, neither is anybody else.",
"The people who would do it still need to live on food, etc. which still costs money.\n\nSorry, Charlie.",
"Think of how many different resources you need to create a space rocket or biological research lab. Are you going to start an entirely different, moneyless supply line for those resources? And then, create separate, moneyless supply lines for the food, clothing, housing, etc. that the workers in that supply line need?\n\nThe whole point of money is that every step in the resource supply line can optimize efficiency without worrying about where their supply is coming from and where their output is going. Research projects are no different: they need resources, and money is the most convenient way to get it.",
"ELI5: I need money for food water and my house, i need to pay for all of them. My fancy microscope also costs 1000 dollars, and that isnt free. Generous donations cant get you that far. Society revolves around money",
"The 'resources' you speak of, besides the major equipment, consists of a lot of human time and human energy. To expend this energy and time on solving cancer and renewables, people expect to be paid for their time so they can survive and provide for their families."
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4oih78 | what are securities in a financial sense? | I feel stupid but none of the explanations I find online really explain it for me. They just start throwing terms about investments and bonds that I don't understand. Help me, /r/ELI5, you're my only hope. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4oih78/eli5_what_are_securities_in_a_financial_sense/ | {
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"There is a metric fuckton of types of securities these days. Following statement is oversimplification and may not be true for every type.\n\nBasically securities are value (money) that is engaged in something and that was locked by a documentary form that can be traded.\n\nShares are securities that mean that your invested value (money) is engaged in some equity.\n\nBonds, obligations are securities that mean you borrowed money to someone.\n\nDerivatives are securities that mean your value undet set conditions in the future can be (ex)changed.",
"It's really simple, don't try to over think it! A security is simply a tradable financial asset. Securities are just an agreement that represents an amount of value or wealth.\n\nA random banknote, or coin is the simplest security.\n\nStocks, Shares, Bonds and so on are more complex securities, which are usually worth an amount of a company. They still have value, and can be traded and exchanged similar to how you would use a banknote. \n\n",
"A security is effectively a legally-enforceable promise which can be traded, sold, or otherwise exchanged for financial gain. Imagine if I write a legally enforceable promise on a piece of paper saying \"I will, on December 24, 2018, transfer my car to the bearer of this note.\" If a court would enforce this promise, the note would have value, and people might be interested in trading this note. If I take good care of the car, the note might stay at its value. If I was to crash the car, then the promise would now only give the note-bearer the right to take a wrecked car, meaning that people would value the note less and its value would go down. If I was to make improvements to the car, on the other hand, the note-bearer would have the right to take the improved car, and the value would probably go up.\n\nA stock is a legally-enforceable right to own a percentage of a company. A Treasury bond is a legally-enforceable promise by the US government to pay the bearer of the bond money (Which the government sells for money. Government sells the bond, gets money now, and in exchange has sold someone the right to collect money on the bond over a fixed time period)."
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tysbg | if multiple countries economic systems collapse... | ...couldn't we start a new economy at $¥€0. In other words would debt really even need to be repayed? Is it possible that everyone, excluding the richest countries, could create a new financial system. Obviously we'd have to start over without most electronic technology as trading with richer countries would cease. Everything we need can be grown or traded/created, life would be much simpler. What would happen in the event of world economic collapse? To me, money just doesn't seem that important in this event. You're would we manage? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/tysbg/if_multiple_countries_economic_systems_collapse/ | {
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"What about the people who don't produce food? They're all going to starve while you get the economy started back up."
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2vuswd | why has california not legalized pot beyond medicinal use? | I am a California resident constantly hearing about our debt and budget cuts while paying a high amount of taxes. Knowing the amount of tax money pot has given Colorado, I just don't understand why California hasn't legalized. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2vuswd/eli5_why_has_california_not_legalized_pot_beyond/ | {
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"Some of the most well funded anti-legalization lobbies in the state are sponsored by the legal dispensaries and co-ops. They would hate to have inexpensive, high-quality, locally and responsibly sourced cannabis flood the market and ruin their racket. ",
"It was on the ballot in 2010, a non-presidential election year when the progressive turnout isn't great. In 2012, legalization advocates waited to see what kind of bills had a chance of getting passed. 2014 was another non-presidential year and while it probably would have passed, the bill in 2016 can be much more favorable to legalization advocates."
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5ccdyq | why are the search results when googling an unknown phone number so terrible? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5ccdyq/eli5_why_are_the_search_results_when_googling_an/ | {
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"I actually think google intentionally obfuscates results. Back in the day, googling phone numbers worked *awesome*. It was one of the first \"best answer\" things at the top of the page. \n\nQuite suddenly it stopped working. "
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bpu0mb | if christian churches are non-profit / not-for-profit, how do full-time pastors/reverends earn a salary? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/bpu0mb/eli5_if_christian_churches_are_nonprofit/ | {
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"Paying your employees isn't profit. The pastor/reverend is an employee of the church.\n\nI can answer the question in one sentence so technically it doesn't belong here. \n\nAlso, all churches/temples/mosques/synagogues are like this. Christian churches arent getting special treatment. Loaded question much?"
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bh1jvq | why would a ball stop bouncing on the ground | If you drop a ping pong ball on the floor, it will bounce smaller and smaller but eventually stop. Why doesn’t continue to bounce but just at a continuously smaller height. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/bh1jvq/eli5_why_would_a_ball_stop_bouncing_on_the_ground/ | {
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"Lots of reasons. For one, there’s friction introduced from the air that is an additional force slowing it down. Another is that whatever ball you use will deform slightly every time it’s dropped, absorbing some of the energy. I’m sure there’s more reasons that I’m missing but that’s just what I thought of off the top of my head",
"A hypothetical perfectly elastic collision between a ball and the ground in an atmosphere-free environment could create a situation where the ball would essentially continue to bounce forever, yes. It would be simple harmonic motion pretty much the same as an orbit.\n\nWhat is ultimately causing the ball to bounce less is kinetic energy being converted into heat via air resistance and being lost to inelasticity in the material. Basically, the eternally bouncing ball is the perfect situation that we can never quite get to as long as we are dealing with real matter in the real world."
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1nftv2 | people getting red light camera/speed camera tickets | OK, I understand how the cameras work, and the hypothetical reason behind them. The part I don't understand is the legal situation following issuance of the ticket. If someone contests the ticket in court and simply says "I was not the person driving the car", isn't it incumbent upon the state to prove you were? If the camera only takes a picture of the car and license plate, how can the burden of proof be met that YOU are responsible? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1nftv2/eli5_people_getting_red_light_cameraspeed_camera/ | {
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"Depending on your jurisdiction they can just say \"Your vehicle, your responsibility. Don't lend it to a speeder next time.\"",
"different crimes have different burdens of proof. ",
"In most states it doesn't matter who was driving when it went through the red... it's the vehicle owner's responsibility.",
"I JUST got a ticket mailed to me last night, and I can explain this.\n\nAbout a week ago, I went to make a right on a yellow (legal here in CA, and there were no signs prohibiting right on red), and as I was going through the intersection the light turned red. The camera flashed, and on Saturday I received my court summons in the mail.\n\nThe court summons has two photos of the car, one from a distance, and one zoomed in on the plate. It also has a photo of me (my face is clearly visible), and the photo of my wife (who was in the passenger seat) is blurred out.\n\nThe photos are of high enough quality that even if I wanted to deny driving the vehicle, it is obviously me in my car, with my plates (we have front license plates)\n\nNow, I'm going to fight it, but not because I'm denying it as me, but because I did't do anything wrong.\n\nStill, though, the summons (because it's not a ticket) doesn't SAY I did anything wrong, and there's no fine, just a notice to appear. It says that it SEEMS like I was running a red light, and it SEEMS like I was doing something illegal, but it doesn't actually say I was. This is why it's a summons and not a ticket, because there wasn't a live person there to make the judgment call.",
"I'll throw a UK answer into the mix (I'm sure you weren't asking about the UK, but for comparison).\n\nIn the UK, if you get a speeding ticket or something similar, then they write to the owner of the vehicle, stating the date, time and location where the offence took place, and asking the owner of the vehicle to tell them who was driving. The owner of the vehicle is legally required to provide this information.\n\nOnce the owner of the vehicle has replied, they then send the relevant paperwork (most often, an offer of a fixed penalty if you plead guilty to the offence) to the person who was reported as being the driver of the vehicle.",
"You don't get any points on your license for a red light ticket. This makes it more like a parking ticket than a moving violation. If you park your car illegally and get ticketed should it matter who parked it? No, it is the owner's responsibility. ",
"I think it is treated like a parking ticket, where it doesn't matter who left it there; it's the vehicle that is ticketed. This distinction also means it shouldn't affect your driving record, however this can differ based on local laws.",
"Obviously, the exact law varies from state to state, but generally, they take a picture of the car, the license plate and the driver\n\nGenerally, to get around your concerns, a police officer is supposed to check the red light camera picture vs the drivers license picture of the owner before issuing a ticket.\n\nSome states have decided that issuing a ticket to the owner of the vehicle - regardless of who was driving - would be better. They can do this by making it a civil offense (like a parking ticket) instead of a criminal offense (like crashing into the convenience store). Still, this has been contested, but held up by the courts, saying that presuming that the owner is liable doesn't violate due process of law. The courts felt that the owner should know who was driving and be more cautious about who they lend their car to or pass the fine onto the actual driver. [Here's the court case if you're interested.](_URL_0_)\n\nSome states and cities have outlawed cameras due to this problem of identifying the driver. My favorite story is [a guy in Arizona wore a monkey mask](_URL_1_) to obscure his identity for speeding cameras. He has refused to pay the tickets because the photos don't show him to be the driver. I couldn't find an update since 2009, so I assume they're still fighting it.\n\nEDIT: not a conscience store"
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8dvsr6 | - why do the bubble in guinness look like they’re going down? | Do they go down, or is it just an illusion? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/8dvsr6/eli5_why_do_the_bubble_in_guinness_look_like/ | {
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"Actually they do go down. The bubbles in the center of the glass move up, creating a flow of the beer sort of like a hurricane. It’s shaped like a donut and the bubbles on the outside are pulled down and then into the center where they rise and form that awesome creamy beer head. ",
"To expand on other answers:\n\n75% nitrogen, 25% CO2 is used, rather than CO2. \n\nTo be dispensed correctly, Guinness uses a different type of coupler (connecting the keg, the gas, and the tap), one referred to as a \"U System.\" This coupler has a restrictor plate in it which forces the nitrogen blend through small holes, decreasing the size of the bubbles... and the nitrogen mix doesn't dissolve in liquid as easily as standard CO2. Since the bubbles are smaller and don't dissolve as easily, you get the behavior where the bubbles in the middle go upward, creating the corresponding down-flow along the sides.\n\nAdditionally in regular beers, imperfections in the glass help to pull the dissolved gases out of the beer, which is why you'll see spots on the sides (in normal beers, also in sodas) which seem to have bubbles streaming upward from them. With Guinness, taking into account the smaller bubbles and the content of the bubbles (nitrogen doesn't dissolve as easily, remember?), the imperfections in the glass don't bring the gases out of the beer. So... the smaller bubbles ride downward on the current created by the upward movement in the middle."
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2t4lib | i'm watching a live broadcast of the 'state of the union' speech by president obama. as an englishman, i'm not sure who he is addressing and what the purpose of the speech is? | Is it some sort of outline plan for the future or a summing up of what's happened over a past period of time? Is the audience a mix of different parties or is it Obama's own supporters? How do the US public generally view the substance and purpose of the speech?
Thanks for any light you can shed on this!
Edit: thanks for your answers, I'm beginning to understand what it's all about. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2t4lib/eli5_im_watching_a_live_broadcast_of_the_state_of/ | {
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"He is speaking to the combined houses of Senate and Congress.\n\nHe is basically giving them an assessment of the current \"state\" of the \"union\" (United States).\n\nTraditionally it was a way for the President to report to the legislative branch ow the nation was doing. ",
"The State of the Union is the President's annual address to Congress. The audience is made up of the 535 members of Congress, some (but not all) members of the President's cabinet, the Supreme Court, and other notables.\n\nIt's generally a way for the President to set out his legislative agenda for the year.",
"Technically, it's addressed to congress. One of the requirements in the constitution is that the president periodically updates congress as to what's going on and what he thinks should be done. Thanks to the miracle of mass media, it's also addressed to everyone else who cares.\n\nIn \"like I'm five\" terms, the state of the union is kind of like if you cut out the episode and just watch the \"previously on\" and \"next time on\" bits, as they relate to the current state of the union.",
"The State of the Union (SOTU) is a requirement of the Constitution, which says that the President:\n\n*...shall from time to time give to the Congress Information of the State of the Union, and recommend to their Consideration such Measures as he shall judge necessary and expedient...*\n\nThe exact form isn't specified, but it's been as an annual speech to Congress in joint session for most of US history.\n\nThe audience is the House of Representatives, the Senate, the Justices of the Supreme Court, and a number of invited dignitaries and guests.\n\nThe general opinion in the US is that it's interesting, but it's also seen as \"pie in the sky\" stuff- what the President would do if he had all the authority he needed and no opposition. It gives a good idea of the President's view of the country's current status, and his agenda for the next year.\n\nIt's also seen as a chance by both major parties to get in some serious axe-grinding. There will be endless dribbling by various talking heads about what was and wasn't important, who scored what points and so on.\n",
"Not really answering your question, but downloading a State of the Union Bingo card at CNN makes the speech much more interesting to watch!"
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6veti2 | why cannot americans born in us territories vote for president? | I'm Canadian and any notable differences or parallels between American and Canadian territories would be cool to know as well. Cheers. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/6veti2/eli5_why_cannot_americans_born_in_us_territories/ | {
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"A Canadian territory is like a US state. US territories and protectorates are like buddies that tag along with us. Essentially vassal states that the US military watches over in exchange for docking rights.\n\nUS citizens can vote for President wherever they are but being born in a territory or protectorate doesn't make you a citizen who can vote(except PR).",
"Quite simply; because we don't vote for president. \n\n\nWe vote for electors, who then, a month later, actually vote for president. \n\nArticle 2 section 1 of the US constitution states:\n\n > 2: Each State shall appoint, in such Manner as the Legislature thereof may direct, a Number of Electors, equal to the whole Number of Senators and Representatives to which the State may be entitled in the Congress: but no Senator or Representative, or Person holding an Office of Trust or Profit under the United States, shall be appointed an Elector.\n\nSo there are 538 electors (435 from house, 100 from senate, and the 23rd amendment gives 3 to DC) who vote for president. \n\nAmericans in US territories can not vote because they don't live in a state. (A state could theoretically, allow territory citizens to vote in the state election by state law. The constitution says states get to decide how they give out their elector votes.)\n\nIt would take a constitutional amendment to allow Puerto Ricans representation.",
"That is not correct. Americans born in Puerto Rico are US citizens, and if they move to one of the 50 states or DC, they can vote for president. \n\nThe electoral college selects the president. Per the constitution, only states get electors. Later on, an amendment was passed to give DC electors as well."
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249cbx | what is athletes foot and why does it hurt? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/249cbx/eli5_what_is_athletes_foot_and_why_does_it_hurt/ | {
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"Tinea (pronounced: tin-ee-uh) is the medical name for a group of related fungal skin infections that affect the skin, nails, or scalp, including athlete's foot, jock itch, and ringworm (despite its name, ringworm is not a worm).\nThese infections are caued by several types of mold-like fungi called dermatophytes (pronounced: der-mah-tuh-fites) that live on the dead tissues of your skin, hair, and nails.\nThe signs and symptoms of athlete's foot include itching, burning, rednes, and stinging on the soles of the feet. The skin may flake, peel, blister, or crack. \nAthlete's foot doesn't just aggravate athletes; anyone whose feet tend to be damp or sweaty can get this infection. The fungi that cause athlete's foot thrive in warm, moist environments. Athlete's foot is contagious. It's often spread in damp areas, such as public showers or pool areas.\n\n1)Alternate your footwear, particularly running shoes and trainers, so that you wear dry shoes at all times.\n\n2)Avoid borrowing shoes to lower the risk of spreading the infection. \n\n3)Wash towels and bedding frequently.\n\n4)Don't put on socks, before your feet are completely dry. Change your socks. Don't leave them on for extended periods of time. Let those bad boys breath.\n\n5)Wash your feet thoroughly every day, particularly between your toes\n\n\n"
]
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||
5vujd1 | how does my laptop charger convert ac electricity into dc power? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5vujd1/eli5_how_does_my_laptop_charger_convert_ac/ | {
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"There are two main parts to most chargers of this type. \n \nThe first one is a transformer. A transformer is basically a donut shaped piece of iron (or a squared off donut) with at least two sets of \"windings\". Insulated wires coming in from the outlet are wrapped around part of the iron core, forming the \"primary windings\". Another set of wires is wrapped around the other side of the core, forming the secondary. \n \nThe current flowing in the primary windings induces a magnetic field in the core. That magnetic field is carried to the secondary windings, and as it changes it induces a current in the secondary. \n \nBy using different numbers of windings between the primary and secondary, you can either increase (\"step up\") the voltage or decrease (\"step down\") the voltage that is induced in the secondary. \n \nThis simply changes the voltage; it's still AC. \n \nTo change from AC to DC a [rectifying bridge](_URL_0_) made of diodes is used. Diodes only allow current to pass one way, so that circuit configuration results in a DC voltage, albeit one with a lot of \"ripple\". \n \nA capacitor (or several) helps to smooth out that ripple. There might also be a voltage regulator circuit to help hold the output at a steady voltage regardless of the load. "
]
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[
"https://www.elprocus.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/Bridge-Rectifier.png"
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||
pmcp9 | why everyone thinks freud is hot shit? | I recently did his study of Little Hans in my AS psychology class and that is the poorest investigation I have ever heard of. The amount of confounding variables is ridiculous - firstly, the boy is interviewed by his own father (biased), secondly Freud had already come up with his theory before he investigated little hans, so there's bias there because he was looking for anything to support his theory as opposed to observing objectively. Thirdly all of the quotes I've seen from the interview sessions are ridiculous leading questions. It just throws every law of investigation out of the window. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/pmcp9/eli5_why_everyone_thinks_freud_is_hot_shit/ | {
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"The only people who think Freud is \"hot shit\" are the people who have not studied in work in any depth. Most people who have know most of his works do not hold any water in the psychology field today, especially not scientifically. Freud isn't remembered for WHAT he studied, merely that he was, if I recall correctly, one of the very first people to study the unconscious mind.",
"Although he's been pretty well debunked since his life time. The reason you're being made to learn about him is that he was so instrumental in the beginnings of psychiatry. If you continue with the subject you will find an awful lot of the people you have to study wrote *about* his writings. To do psychology without Freud would be like trying to study philosophy without the ancient Greeks. Whether you agree with him or not (most don't) he's the starting point for a whole range of central ideas and debates in the subject. ",
"Yeah, I had to read some Freud for a history of western thought class many years ago. I shut the book with a snicker and a loud \"QUACK\" right when I got to this: \n \n > \"In the products of the unconscious—spontaneous ideas, phantasies, and symptoms—the concepts faeces (money, gift), baby and penis are ill-distinguished from one another and are easily interchangeable\" \n... \n > \"Defaecation affords the first occasion on which the child must decide between a narcissistic and an object-loving attitude. He either parts obediently with his faeces, 'sacrifices' them to his love, or else retains them for purposes of auto-erotic satisfaction and later as a means of asserting his own will\" \n \nYeahhh.... quack."
]
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bdt62l | why do things that scare humans usually makes humans want to know more? | Why do humans want to know more about things they are scared of. For example: ghost-related or supernatural stuff. Or as simple as reading a really scary/creepy story or looking at creepy photos. Why are we more curious once we hear/know/see about it even though we are scared of them? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/bdt62l/eli5_why_do_things_that_scare_humans_usually/ | {
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"text": [
"Because we don't like being scared of things beyond our ability to understand and control, so we seek reassurance that the scary thing is, in fact, normal and non scary.",
"The unknown is the scariest thing for humans, and being knowledgeable about something makes it less scary.",
"I don’t know if this answers your question, but a wise man once told me that we only\nFear that we don’t know\n\nWe fear the dark because we can’t see in it , we don’t know what’s there in the dark\n\nWe fear death when we don’t know what’s to come after\n\nWe fear the supernatural/paranormal because we don’t know much about it\n\nAlso facing your fears and overcoming them is greatly associated with learning more about\nIt or the experience.\n\nMe for example I used to fear bees and wasps but I’ve come to realise that if I don’t bother them they most likely won’t bother me and I’ve been stung by both countless times so I’m not really worried by them anymore.",
"It's a survival trait. By learning more about a potential threat, we can either find out that it is not a threat and that we don't have to worry about it, or we can better assess how to deal with that threat and make it less dangerous.\n\nEven though we know that ghost stories aren't real, that drive to learn more and assess the potential threat still exists.",
"Our ultimate scare is always death or death causing things. Fear of the dark - predator animals with night-vision hunting us down/not being able to see predators in general. Dear of heights- dying of falling. Dear of skulls- means someone died, might mean we are in danger also."
]
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3shgc5 | late night advertisements and tellyshooing. how do they make enough money? | I'm talking about late night runnings of THE NEW ABBS'OMATIC for cut abs in 10 weeks | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3shgc5/eli5_late_night_advertisements_and_tellyshooing/ | {
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"text": [
"Advertising is all about the number of viewers on a channel. \nAfter about 11pm the number of viewers drops off significantly. \n\nA super cheaply made infomercial can contract with a network to show their 1 hr infomercial with a few \"commercial breaks\" for a very low price. Remember the network would otherwise have to fill this airtime with a show that they'd have to pay to broadcast. \n\nGet a some buyers, and they've the infomercial has broken even. A few more and it's profitable. "
]
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[]
] |
|
5j0npi | is it possible for an atom to have over 118 protons and be stable? | If not, why? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5j0npi/eli5_is_it_possible_for_an_atom_to_have_over_118/ | {
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"There becomes too much repulsion between the positive charges of the protons for the nucleus to properly hold itself together. So no it is not likely as the majority of atoms with atomic number of 86 and above are considered somewhat unstable. ",
"It's very unlikely. At the very least these extremely high-Z elements will be unstable to alpha decay, even if they're near the valley of beta stability. And if they have low fission barriers and/or strongly deformed ground states they'll be unstable to spontaneous fission as well.",
"Apologies for no actual explaination but [Island of Stability](_URL_0_) article on Wikipedia has an interesting take."
]
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[],
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"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Island_of_stability"
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193w5k | why republicans exclude millitary spending from budget cuts | When budget cuts are being discussed, they always show concern for millitary budgets. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/193w5k/eli5_why_republicans_exclude_millitary_spending/ | {
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"text": [
"The Republican party believes in having a strong military no matter the cost.\n\nIt's much more complicated than that, but that is the *like I am 5* answer.",
"It's about prioritizing. You pay for what you need and then divvy up the rest for what you want. The easiest way to lose everything is to be overpowered by another force so as a result the Military is seen as the primary necessity. ",
"This may be somewhat dated, but lets consider a hierarchy of needs. We all have things we want but some things take priority over others.\n\nWe might for example want an iPad but our desire for the respect of our peers is greater. So we don't go begging them for money. We might want their respect but if we are starving we will set that aside for the sake of food. Above even that is the desire for safety; if we are in danger if being killed a rumbly tummy takes a back seat.\n\nEveryone has the assumption that they are not in danger for their lives during their day, it is how we get anything done. But from the standpoint of the country, the American view and foreign policy has become based upon being militarily supreme.\n\nPicture for example someone in Europe. If they consider cutting their military it might make them weaker in a fight, but the danger is diluted. They have allies who would back them up. They would petition the UN and bring in the \"world police\". The strength of their military isn't viewed as really that closely linked to their security.\n\nAmericans on the other hand have quite a different view of the world. The \"world police\" is us, we have no enforcing body to petition. Sure, we have allies, but if someone is capable of endangering the US who is going to be able to turn the tide? Canada? The EU? Hardly. We might debate world issues in the UN but everyone knows that when the hammer is dropped it will be US forces providing the weight.",
"One of the few things that the federal government does that is actually in the constitution is to provide for national defense. The vast majority of what the government spends money on, it has absolutely no business spending money on and should be cut dramatically."
]
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5mf7us | how did science prove sleep paralysis? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5mf7us/eli5_how_did_science_prove_sleep_paralysis/ | {
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"text": [
"By detecting the release of two specific chemicals (GABA and Glycine) and observing their interaction with the body. \n\nEdit: Grammar"
]
} | [] | [] | [
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||
2ff7d9 | if two mirrors facing each other reflect infinitely, at what point do i stop seeing my reflection repeat itself? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2ff7d9/eli5_if_two_mirrors_facing_each_other_reflect/ | {
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"text": [
"Glass isn't 100% see through and no mirror is 100% reflective. With each reflection less light is reflected back so in the end the image will appear black.",
"When it is too small to see.",
"If you think about it, you have to be at an angle to see yourself in the mirror behind you, so eventually the reflection will be outside the frame of the mirror. If you are directly in front of it, then you block your reflection from reaching the opposite mirror."
]
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||
2fssom | why is it that people in ancient times seemed to be so much more violent and not squeamish about seeing gory things compared with today? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2fssom/eli5_why_is_it_that_people_in_ancient_times/ | {
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"text": [
"Most simply, because they were.\n\nDeath and gore were much more a part of daily life in times past then it is today.\n\nSlaughtering livestock was something most people grew up with from day one. Disease, war and such things were much more common (and grisly) then they are now.",
"When you live in shit - somewhat literally - and odds are that a child won't live to see age 5 you sort of just get used to it. Plenty of people alive today are also desensitized to it all.\n\nThat said our view of the soldiers of days gone by tends to a be a bit skewed by movies and whatnot. A lot of people were really hesitant to get into a fight and very likely to break as soon as the fight really came to them.\n\nBig armies largely composed of peasants coerced into fighting often had attrition problems because some of the peasants would steal off in the night and risk death for desertion rather than face another battle.",
"If you have to kill your food with your own hands you think in another way about blood.\n\nIf you have to fight a war with a stick you think in another way: f you smash someones head.",
"I grew up on a farm and saw tons of dead animals. We had a nasty dog for a few months who liked to kill the chickens. Whenever we found a bloody pile of guts and feathers we were supposed to tell my dad so he could deal with it. \n\nI've noticed a different mindset between people who grew up like that and people who grew up in city's away from exposure to death. Maybe that's it."
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aup6tl | why is the jurisdiction of the 12 circuit courts so uneven? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/aup6tl/eli5_why_is_the_jurisdiction_of_the_12_circuit/ | {
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"All of the federal courts of appeal were set up based on geography and population at the time, but there has been a lot of population shift since they were established. In the 1980's, the 5th circuit had experienced a huge growth in population and caseload, so it was split in two and the 11th circuit was created. \n\nThere are lots of people who think it's time to split the 9th circuit for the same reasons, but because the appointment of judges has become so political in recent years, it would be take a huge investment of political willpower to do it. It would be characterized as a power grab if either democrats or republicans attempted it. And, for what its worth, many of the people who are most vocal advocates for splitting the 9th circuit do indeed have political motivations: they view the 9th circuit as too liberal, so the real goal is to use it as a way to appoint more conservative judges, rather than fixing an administrative problem of too much workload for one court."
]
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d0ybep | why does water form hydrogen bonds with other water molecules and not covalent bonds? why doesn’t water form hydrogen bonds in a single molecule? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/d0ybep/eli5_why_does_water_form_hydrogen_bonds_with/ | {
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"A covalent bond is the result of two atoms sharing electrons to fill each other's valance shell.(hence the term co-valent) It's a bit like how velcro or a jigsaw puzzle fits together. It's a strong bond, not easily broken, but given enough energy it can.\n\nHydrogen bonding is a result of the polarity of water. Basically a water molecule is made up of one big negative nelly (oxygen) and two tiny positive pollies (hydrogen). The oxygen is so negative it attracts other water's hydrogens to it. Think refrigerator magnets or when you rub a balloon on cloth and stick it to the wall. It's a weaker interaction than a covalent bond but still makes for some interesting effects. \n\nSince the hydrogen bond is an interaction between a positive and negative end of two different molecules, a water molecule can't hydrogen bond with itself."
]
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||
m6uc5 | how facebook knows to suggest my music teacher from 2 years ago with whom i have no mutual friends | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/m6uc5/eli5_how_facebook_knows_to_suggest_my_music/ | {
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"Its possible if you've sent that teacher an email from the same account as the one you've connected with Facebook. It allows Facebook to find people on your email contact list and suggest them to you. ",
"Could be that you have the old school in your profile, and so does the teacher. ",
"I'd like to add that if you have the school you attended on your information, and she has the same school as an employer, that might be plausible.",
"Possible also that Facebook checks more than one degree of separation. That is, though you may not have any mutual friends with the teacher, one of your friends does. Or one of *their* friends does.\n\nHell, it's a small wonder we're not all getting Kevin Bacon suggestions.",
"Its possible if you've sent that teacher an email from the same account as the one you've connected with Facebook. It allows Facebook to find people on your email contact list and suggest them to you. ",
"Could be that you have the old school in your profile, and so does the teacher. ",
"I'd like to add that if you have the school you attended on your information, and she has the same school as an employer, that might be plausible.",
"Possible also that Facebook checks more than one degree of separation. That is, though you may not have any mutual friends with the teacher, one of your friends does. Or one of *their* friends does.\n\nHell, it's a small wonder we're not all getting Kevin Bacon suggestions."
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77z84s | why is austria referred to as an empire in the german language? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/77z84s/eli5_why_is_austria_referred_to_as_an_empire_in/ | {
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"The word rijk in Dutch has multiple translations in English, the word rijk as used in the names for countries should translate to realm and not to empire. So Frankrijk translates to Realm of the Franks and Oostenrijk is The Eastern Realm.",
"Reich literally means \"realm\" or \"kingdom\", not \"empire\". The historical german reichs were specifically empires, but not every reich is an empire.\n\n"
]
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[],
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157l2r | if you travel at the speed of light and turn on a flashlight, will the light of the flashlight go twice as fact as the speed of light? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/157l2r/if_you_travel_at_the_speed_of_light_and_turn_on_a/ | {
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"text": [
"a flash light cannot travel at the speed of light. \n\nall measurements of the speed of light will always agree, no matter who measures, no matter how fast they are traveling."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[]
] |
||
15hq28 | tumblr | My friend was bugging me for months to get a tumblr and i finally did, th only troubleis i dont understand whats happening. What should i do with my blog? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/15hq28/eli5_tumblr/ | {
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"Follow other blogs that post thins you are interested in. You can find blogs by typing your interests into the tag search bar\nfor example.\nTumblr is mainly fandom related, so if you're in a fandom, then search for blogs based on that fandom, then reblog their posts, and BAM! You're running a blog.\nTumblr can also be a place to post your own stuff, you can run a personal blog with posts about your life, etc.",
"You have a feed, kind of like reddit. Except instead of subscribing to different subreddits, you subscribe to different blogs which all go on your feed. For example, if youre interested in art, you can follow art blogs, or whatever. You also have your own blog. You can post stuff by clicking the buttons above your feed, or you can \"reblog\" other peoples things. If you see something on your feed you like, click \"reblog\" and it will be posted on your blog as well. Finding other blogs is the harder part, but just search for tags that interest you, or click \"Find Blogs\" at the side bar"
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3jgpdj | why does it sometimes take a very long time for bad news (like a loved one dying) to sink in? why isn't it always instant? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3jgpdj/eli5_why_does_it_sometimes_take_a_very_long_time/ | {
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"The very first step on the stages of loss and grief is Denial and Isolation.\n\nLearning someone is dying is very hurtful. It is a very natural reaction to deny the hurtful news to spare yourself grief, and to isolate yourself from the news, or sources of news.\n\nPart of it is experience. The very first time you find out someone close has died it is literally one of the worst things that may have happened to you. Actually, the very first time some of us have learned about death we are too young to understand what that means.\n\nSo the very first time you understand what death is, and experience death, it is one of the worst things that has happened to you. It is very hard to understand the permanence of death until you realize you will never see someone walk into a room or call you again.\n\nAn intellectual understanding of death falls sort. So when you are first learning about death you are learning something that is almost a completely new experience that no training can really prepare you to accept."
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aq13n0 | how does intel optane store data that is frequently used to speed loading times up? | I've been looking into Optane a little bit more in depth and this is confusing the hell out of me. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/aq13n0/eli5_how_does_intel_optane_store_data_that_is/ | {
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"text": [
"the optane memory is used for caching. so things that you frequently use will be stored into this cache and be faster since it's optane. what makes optane faster is it's specific type of memory that is much faster than hdd/ssd's and reaching ram speeds."
]
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3dk7ea | why do athletes spank each other? | Edit: I see alot have fallen onto the camaraderie explanation. Unfortunately, I feel unsatisfied. Why not just pats on the back? Why not aggressively shake and rub another's head?
I played multiple sports but I never found the need to slap anyone's ass or felt that my morale or my teams went down as a result of a lack of ass slapping.
What are the origins? Who first smacked their teammates ass? What have been the results of teams smacking and not smacking but instead showing another form of team chemistry? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3dk7ea/eli5_why_do_athletes_spank_each_other/ | {
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"It's a comradery thing. \n\nBeing part of a team, there's a physicality that comes with it. You get changed in the dressing room together, you are all chummy and playful with each other. it's about keeping morale high and a tight knit group plays better together. \n\nBy maintaining that connection via fist bumps, hi 5's (stuff people do normally) hugs & pats on the back/butt (stuff team mates do) you keep the connection going and play better as a team.",
"So your teammate just scored/hit a homerun/touchdown/etc, now he's running back to his sideline and everyone's pumped up. Everyone on your team wants to high five him so he's got 10-40 guys surrounding him all looking to acknowledge his success. He can't give everyone a high five and there is still a game going on. Giving him a smack on the butt is one way to let him physically know you're proud of him without distracting him or yourself from the game or your coach. Non-athletes like to point this out as a reason why all are athletes are closet homosexuals, but it's really all about the culture of your team and your sport. While you're in the game or in that environment, it has no sexual or any other meaning other than good job. Also smacking a teammate on the butt causes zero pain, whereas a high five could damage a sensitive finger or wrist. A punch on the shoulder might sore up a tense muscle. A headbutt...is well...thats really stupid, but sometimes you still see jackasses do it. ",
"I've run track and field, cross country, I've played soccer, rugby and football, and I've played baseball a few times. The ass-slap is kind of ubiquitous.\n\nWhen I was running track, or after a 5k, the ass slap was the most reasonable and easiest way to congratulate somebody. Most of the time they'd either be bent over sucking in air, or with both hands on their head trying to catch their breath. An ass slap is something they'll feel and it doesn't require their attention, and it's well understood as \"Great fucking job\".\n\nAs for soccer, after a goal, celebrations get crazy. Usually the goal-scorer is being swarmed while they themselves seek out the player who gave them a ball in. Generally speaking people have two hands, and there's 11 people on a soccer team. Everyone wants to get a congratulations in so there's a lot of quick fist bumps and ass slaps and elbow bumps and even a few hugs.\n\nEven after a good defensive play the other defenders/goalkeeper will usually move in for an ass slap on the one who made the play.\n\nIn football everyone's wearing pads and a helmet, the ass is really the only exposed part that's open to slapping, plus with huge teams, you usually tend to get huge lines of high-fives and ass slaps.\n\nSo, in short, because the ass is always a viable target, it doesn't require mutual attention, it's not very involved, and it's a guaranteed way to get attention.",
"Growing up it was a common practice but because I'm asian and kind of timid and prolly homophobic at the time, I was committed to not assimilating the practice.\n\nSo I started to try and find alternatives and I actually couldn't find any when I was so pumped up over a great play the other guy made. I thought about slapping his head, his arms, his legs, etc. and they all don't work for various reasons.\n\nThis is never more clear then when a female plays with us and I get pumped over something she does. I almost always end up just patting her proudly on the shoulder, which just doesn't have the same oomph and feel.",
"It's a joke meant to bring teammates together by doing something that would be considered homosexual in another arena but it's okay and funny because they \"obviously\" aren't gay. \n\nhumans bond by impropriety and by treating it as a joke, they are basically censuring actual homosexual acts, in the tacit assumption that it is taboo. it sets the boundaries for the community of players basically (\"we can be this close, but no closer\")",
"Is that why in the Dollar Razor Club commercial, after the guy is emasculated by the clerk, the announcer walks up and slaps his ass? To give him confidence or reassurance?",
"It's just a weird sort of non-sexual intimacy you build with folks when you sweat your asses off and go through the emotional roller coaster of losing and winning together. It's a cheeky (hue) way of physically acknowledging someone in a way you wouldn't with the \"general populace\".\n\nSource: high school football",
"My theory: power/force is generated from the legs/glutes. Glutes are hand level and you slap the source of athletic power in tribute to the athlete's strength. gg",
"If you had the opportunity to grab that many well toned butts, wouldn't you?",
"When you're amped up in these situations you just wanna hit the guy that's killing it. The rump is the best target. You don't wanna injure your teammate after all.",
"Is it ok to do this on CO-ed teams?",
"I read this as \"why do *atheists* spank each other?\"... \n\nThat's it. Time for bed. \n\n\n",
"The other answers here are partially correct, but this is the main reason:\n\nbecause they're all gay.",
"I think a big part of it is the team culture PLUS the fact that the butt is a large meaty area that doesnt hurt to get slapped with force. If a persons hands are occupied in anyway a slap on the shoulder or back might cause pain but the butt is perfect level for a slap and is relatively unharmed.",
"The ass slap extends beyond sports into the realm of the funny as well; its a thing in my high school improvisational comedy team as well.",
"They all have asses made to be spanked and they know it. That's why, and boy is it satisfying.",
"Because they all work out and have nice bums. What do you do to a nice bum? You smack it. ",
"intimacy is an important part of *any* human relationship. \n\nno one touches anyone's ass unless they're A) completely unaware of the boundaries of social interaction or B) completely sure that you and they are close enough friends that you won't mind.\n\nIntimacy is both risky and rewarding. When an athlete smacks another on the butt, it's a way of saying \"good job\" in the most personal way possible.",
"I swear this happens every single day on the swim team. Speedos don't provide much protection against slapping. ",
"If you've ever watched the reality dance competition show So You Think You Can Dance, you might notice the contestants celebrate with way more leaps, twirls, jumps, arms held high, legs kicking than anyone I've ever seen. Given their passion for dance and the ways that they express themselves physically, it makes sense.\n\nAthletes are likewise very physical people. High-fives, back-slaps, forearm bashes, and yes, butt slaps are physical ways of expressing congratulations that might not be as common for other people. If aren't an athlete, but instead a salesperson at a company, \"kudos\" emails might be the norm. If you are an engineer at the same company, \"kudos\" emails might seem shallow and unnecessary.\n\nPeople celebrate in different ways, and it's often an extension of the way they are used to communicating and expressing themselves.",
"For one; it's a comradery thing. Back in the early centuries, Spartans would have sex with younger soldiers in order to build trust with them. This is just a small scaled version of this.\n\nAlso; when you are spanked, it helps create focus. If you ever got patted on the butt after a great play, you can see that you didn't expect it and it snaps you back into the game.",
"Because it turns them on. This boost in sexual arousal is then transmuted into better athletic performance (look up sexual transmutation). The closer the spank is to the anus, the greater the effect.",
"At least in football with all the padding (shoulder/chest) and all that, showing appreciation toward someone's efforts by patting them, doing so on their pads, they probably won't feel it unless you hit them pretty hard. The butt, with little padding, is the best spot to touch someone that they will actually feel it and know it.",
"According to Thad Castle it is to show one's appreciation.",
"Sometimes they smack each other hard because it's funny and they are goofing around. Sometimes, it's just any other display of excitement like a high-five or a hug. \n\nWhen growing up, a pat on the back or a smack on the butt is often a sign of encouragement from family members. \n\nWhen you compete, you all share an experience together and a struggle together for a common goal. After some time, your teammates kind of become a second family. There's a certain bond that's formed when you have to \"go to war\" together against another team and it's only natural for them to treat each other like family.",
"Have you ever spanked a butt? Any butt? I'd pay twenty bucks to spank a butt. Doesn't matter gender race creed sex anything, spanking butts is a good time. Fuck this \"team building\" and \"comradery\" bullshit, spankin' butts is great.\n\nBut only do it on a team because otherwise it's harassment.\n\nButts.",
"It's okay to touch someone on the bum if you are on the same team and you really like each other. Plus, it feels nice. It doesn't have to be weird, even though it sounds weird.",
"Hands get sweaty, and the last thing you want to do is high-five someone who needs to keep their hands dry and get sweat all over their hands. Soccer players do it because they're gay. ",
"I am a woman and not gay, and I still love to to spank a man or see a man get spanked? ",
"Only Americans do that shit. You slap a teammates bum in Australia you'll get punched in the head",
"I asked my sisters Ex-bf about this.\nHe played football and baseball in high school.\nHe said he hated it. He never slapped ass. He also mentioned that he was lucky. Some other guy spoke out right before he was going to and after that people slapped the guys ass all the time.",
"I know what Reddit thinks about feminist/gender theories and so you probably wont appreciate what I'm about to say but since this question doesn't really have one true answer I'm gonna offer one of mine anyway. \n\nSo there's this theoretical construct known as queer leakage which basically means that macho shit and compulsive distancing from \"gayness\" goes so much overboard that it eventually parodies itself by pseudo-homoerotic acts like asslapping, \"bromance\"-jokes, dudes who pile on one another when someone is on the ground etc, all of which are explained with a mandatory, sometimes unspoken: \"I'm so supersecure in my heterosexuality that I can do these things - I slap, therefore I am straight.\"",
"Because jocks like the feel of their buddy's firm buttox in their hand. It's just an extension of the homo-eroticism of the gym shower fantasy. When the cameras aren't on them they french kiss after a decent play. ",
"Full contact sports and martial arts are two of the main ways straight guys are allowed to enjoy each other physically without being looked down on by society.\n\nTruth of the matter is, men, even straight men, wanna rub up against each other and this is their outlet. Of course, none of them ever seem to want to admit it so they come up with weird explanations like \"it increases team cohesion\" or some shit. In fact, they just wanna grip each other's bods for a bit.\n\nSource: straight guy who did martial arts for a while and really got a charge out of the physical contact aspects of it\n\nEDIT: another example would be your classic mosh pit. It's supposedly about transfer of energy, but it's really no more complex than enjoyment of physical contact in a way that is generally accepted. And yes, I'm aware that mosh is not a male-only activity.",
"The same reason you act obnoxious with your dnd friends. It's just the athlete version of it. ",
"It's to show the opposing team, \"i'm not scared of anything, even a good butt pounding in the showers after this game\"",
"In football it's the only place that really makes sense because the head and shoulders have equipment on",
"_URL_0_ \n\nThad Castle expects ass slaps, that's why. ",
"What do you think goes on in the locker room after their all sweaty?",
"I really thought this asked why atheists spank each other.",
"Like OP, I've been an athlete and yet never fell into the cult of butt-slapping. Even in rugby, which features a fair amount of ass-grabbing as part of the game, we managed to get the point across with hi-fives and the like.\n\nThe only thing I can think is that the ass is just a chunk of flesh, and those risks no injury from a smack. Going for someone's shoulder, arm, or head can lead to unexpected tragedy — just image a finger in the eye or accidental dislocation.",
"Well considering this is most stereotypical of football players, let's focus on them. They have a helmet on their head, pads on their shoulders, stomachs, backs, knees, hips, and Johnson. Let's hope no one would resort to tallywacker touching in any sport, but still, worth mentioning. So a tap on the back would go completely unnoticed by the one you're congratulating...they simply wouldn't feel it through all the padding. The only \"reasonable\" place for a congratulatory tap is somewhere on the unguarded parts of the legs or arms. There are some instances of friendly arm-punching, but that somehow doesn't feel right in congratulatory situations, especially if they're still holding onto the ball or something, so that leaves the legs. I mean, you could go for like a calf-tap I guess, but that's so awkward. So, guys just wind up for a slap on the ass because ultimately, you want to guy who did good to know he did good.\n\n**TLDR** - Football players won't feel it / notice it if you tap them on the back because of pads, and most other unprotected areas that they would feel are in awkward-to-reach places. The ass is unprotected (heh) and convenient.",
"Gotta scratch that gay itch somehow.",
"I think there are a few reasons:\n\n1. No real pads there, in any sport.\n\n2. It doesn't require the recipient to know ahead of time, agree, or participate.\n\n3. It's a fleshy spot -- you're not going to really bruise it, bang it, or otherwise damage it.\n\n4. Athletes have bum shoulders, ribs, elbows, hands, etc. -- but nobody's got a bum bum ^I ^keeeel ^me .\n\n5. It's no accident, so it won't be unnoticed or misinterpreted.",
"Pretty sure it is simply the safest place to congratulate someone. In football there aren't any pads there, and the hands are valuable. In baseball they are often carrying a glove or something else and again...hands are valuable. Tennis...racket...hands valuable. Soccer...okay got me there.\n\nReally it is a \"safe\" place to hit and encourage someone. It is hard to hit and accidentally injure someone in the butt, and the target is fairly easy to strike as well.",
"Middle school, elementary school, high school, college, and post-collegiate athlete here. I never understood why people did this I just kinda accepted it. I didn't feel harassed or anything because when the ol spank was used I was usually too keyed up to give a flying j about anything but being as Metal as possible to my opponent. Sport: wrestling. I'm kind of an expert on straight dudes doing inexplicably non heterosexual things to each other (locker room antics, the sport itself is more than just Lycra ass grabbing).",
"Because everyone likes their butts touched, and everyone likes touching butts, and athletes have great butts. ",
"Probably starts from the locker room where guys are always snapping towels and playing pranks to get a laugh. Lot of nudity in there so you get real comfortable real quick. Smacking a bare ass is funny because its fun for the smacker, and it stings but doesn't really hurt the smackee.",
"Yeah, so when I'm trying to tell a high school girl she done good and made a nice outfit and I appreciate her style I get thrown in jail. Fuck this ass slapping team love. It don't work when I need it to.",
"I totally understand why you don't completely buy the camaraderie explanation, although it's part of the story, the reason for the ass goes even deeper.\n\nThe first sport ass spanking started in was [polo](_URL_0_), a sport played on horses that dates back to 350 AD. It is a team sport with two teams of four.\n\nPlayers would often slap the ass of a teammate's horse with their [polo mallet](_URL_1_). As you can imagine that's very painful so it is banned now days.\n\nThe ass slapping didn't start there, no it evolved into a myriad of ass slaps left the majority of the ancient world with flustered cheeks.\n\nThat theme of slapping the ass made its way through generations of sports, and is most common in American Football. ",
"It's shows that you're more than friends you're a TEAM! It is something that you would only do to people you are extremely close too. I did cross country and track for six years and we eventually graduated from butt slapping to dick pinching. Good times.",
"I played football and understood it there. That used to be the only place you saw it. Pads/Helmet cover everything except the butt. You don't feel anything on the pads, and getting smacked a lot on the helmet gets uncomfortable. Smacking a helmet hurts your hand. I understood it. \n\nThen it seemed to spread through every sport, and I never really understood it either. ",
"The reason behind this is when athletes are on the road all season and spend very limited time with their family, they get a little sexually frustrated with no female contact. Instead of hooking up with teammates sometimes they like the quick pick me up of a good old grab/slap of the ass to get their fix. (You didn't put a serious tag)",
"This is quite american - playing rugby in Uk/Ireland, and Gaelic football in Ireland for 20 years, no one did ass spanking. Some hugging after a score, shoulder bumps maybe, but I think ass spanking it pretty american.",
"This can best be explained by a character named Thad Castle from Blue Mountain State. When you perform a good deed or amazing play, it needs to be acknowledged. That acknowledgement comes from the smacking of the ass. \n\nIf you do not smack that ass no matter how gay it may seem (as it will just mean you are uncomfortable with your sexuality or simply means you like dudes), then you are being a rude and selfish teammate. by smacking thy teammates buttocks, you are committing an action you don't necessarily like but do to show how much you respect and acknowledge a great play.\n\nAs for what the origins are, that's like asking who first invented masturbation.",
"Actually, I'm excited to give this one an answer. You see, back in the day, before steroids were orally ingestible, you had to shoot them up. Now, because 90% of the time, you would be surrounded by a bunch of dudes who were going to notice if you had track marks, most athletes injected directly into their ass cheeks in the bathroom stalls. The ass slap started as coaches' way of knowing which of his teammates were juicing without having to ask them or expose them in front of their team mates. ",
"When I first read the title of this post I was half asleep and I thought it was \"Why do **atheists** spank each other?\".\n\nI was like, where the hell can I get in on this action?",
"It actually ties back to the rural roots of American sport, particularly midwestern football and basketball traditions. The tradition originated with people who came from farms and ranches, where it's common to lightly smack a horse, cow, pig, or other animal on the rump to get it moving. From there it became a symbol of encouragement and motivation in sports. If you look more closely at sports team behavior at the high school and college level, coaches and players assume many of the behaviors of a farmer or rancher herding animals.",
"Just like in sex, who doesn't like a nice ass slap?",
"I always understood physical contact zones to correlate with levels of intimacy. Elbows are most reasonable for strangers. Hands and shoulders for people you know better. Asses are fair game for tight-knit teams, fraternal relationships, etc.\n\nIf the players merely shook hands, the relationship would maintain a certain distance or formality. With ass-slapping, the closeness of the bond is expressed and re-inforced.",
"Because it feels good to get a hand full of your friends butt, only to have him come around later and slap you upside the butt. Feels good. Real good.",
"Let me answer your edit:\n\n > I see alot have fallen onto the camaraderie explanation. Unfortunately, I feel unsatisfied. Why not just pats on the back? Why not aggressively shake and rub another's head?\n\nThe answer, and your intuition that the ones given thus far haven't been adequate is because there is more to the story.\n\nGay chicken is a normal part of any bonding between sports team members. There are lines, however, and I think the ass slap represents the apex of gayness allowed to be displayed. A kiss on the cheek is too far, too questionably gay- whereas a shoulder massage just isn't gay enough. \n\nButt slapping is THE go to gay gesture, because it represents the goldilocks zone of gay chicken.\n\nGay chicken draws a lot from passing insults amongst friends. You know you're a part of the comraderie when you're participating in the throwing back and forth of insults.\n\nTalk about someone's mother with a straight face, however, and you've crossed the line. Call someone a poophead, and your shit appears weak.\n\nSo why play gay chicken or engage in insulting each other back and forth?\n\nTrust. Building it is important, and to demonstrate verbally (insults) and physically (gay chicken) that you've set your line that won't be crossed, builds that trust.\n\nThis is evinced by the fact that the ass slapping and insulting tends to come from people of more power in a group, whether that power is abstract (coach to athlete), or concrete (bigger to smaller player). ",
" > Why not just pats on the back? Why not aggressively shake and rub another's head?\n\nNot a definitive answer, but I would imagine an ass-smack implies a closer bond than the other options would. I wouldn't feel very uncomfortable shaking the hand or patting the back of a stranger/acquaintance. An ass-smack, though. You need to be sort of close for that to be acceptable. In that way, it is very different and carries a different meaning than a pat on the back.",
"If you think about how any physical sport entails physical fitness and prowess. The physicality involved in this supportive male-centric environment means there's an overload of testosterone (no pun intended). \n\nTo consider this the set up in their working relationship, only to have their achievements on display in a highly contentious setting, one can understand how people relentlessly honing their physical skillsets might be want of articulate modes of expression.\n\nTo this end, a butt slap is obviously childish. There's a sensuality to a buttslap too that most homophobic sorts would balk at. But when you're proving yourself in simulated warfare, you're allowed that fluidity in your sexuality and maturity. Also, there has to be a convergence of what you can get everyone to get on board with. \n\nTo speak to other commenters, there is a reductiveness to what's available. But the buttslap is all about physical force (think of a high five), and every other part of the body is important. A high five could hurt a hand, a pat on the back could hurt the patter's hand, and a rub/pat on another's head could hurt someone's head.",
" > Why not just pats on the back? Why not aggressively shake and rub another's head?\n\nThat happens too. But you can hit someone's ass a lot harder, without injuring them than then shoulder or head. Or anywhere else at all for that matter.\n\nIt's not sexual at all obviously. But without specifically saying it, you seem to have a low opinion of this like it's taboo or something. Almost as if there should be a 'better' alternative. I might be wrong though...\n\nIt's about being in the moment and just releasing that energy in celebration or support or whatever. You don't go to a rock concert with your favorite band playing your favorite song and just mildly nod your head right? No. You go all out, you jump and sing and yell and get into."
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k1q7g | the difference of the supreme leader and president in iran | Just explain the difference. What does each one do? Who has more influence? Etc. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/k1q7g/eli5_the_difference_of_the_supreme_leader_and/ | {
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"The political situation in Iran is actually pretty complicated at the moment. Technically, the surpreme leader is gods representative, he has the final say in just about everything. The first surpreme leaders had alot of power, but now the power has been shifted more away from the supreme leader. The military is also seperated in two: Theres the revolution guard, whose sole purpose is to protect the revolution (keep Iran an islamic republic). The revolution guard were originally controled by the surpreme leader (The first surpreme leader was the head of the revolution)., however corruption have made them more independent, and nobody knows exactly how much control the surpreme leader has over the revolution guard. The regular military is controlled by the president, however the revolution guard is a far grander force. As of now, you can say that the power is shared between the three forces: The supreme leader, the revolution guard and the president with his military. Who has the most power? No one is really sure of this. If you are interested in knowing more about, why the supreme leader and revolution guard even exist, I suggest you read about \"The islamic revolution in Iran\".",
"The political situation in Iran is actually pretty complicated at the moment. Technically, the surpreme leader is gods representative, he has the final say in just about everything. The first surpreme leaders had alot of power, but now the power has been shifted more away from the supreme leader. The military is also seperated in two: Theres the revolution guard, whose sole purpose is to protect the revolution (keep Iran an islamic republic). The revolution guard were originally controled by the surpreme leader (The first surpreme leader was the head of the revolution)., however corruption have made them more independent, and nobody knows exactly how much control the surpreme leader has over the revolution guard. The regular military is controlled by the president, however the revolution guard is a far grander force. As of now, you can say that the power is shared between the three forces: The supreme leader, the revolution guard and the president with his military. Who has the most power? No one is really sure of this. If you are interested in knowing more about, why the supreme leader and revolution guard even exist, I suggest you read about \"The islamic revolution in Iran\"."
]
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jf3aa | what are mob mentality and group think? can someone explain them and the differences li5? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/jf3aa/what_are_mob_mentality_and_group_think_can/ | {
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"Hmmm, I'll try my best.\n\nImagine some of the worse things you've thought about doing. Being intensely angry at someone, looting a store, setting someplace on fire. Admit it, at one time or another, you've thought of doing something crazy. Mob mentality happens when the barrier between political correctness and crazy acts of violence is broken. Once some people join in, others are tempted to join in, and it just grows.\n\nGroup think is more similar to peer pressure. Humans are a social race, so there is a natural pressure for us to do what others do. If you live in a country where it is perfectly acceptable to slap your grandma as a way of saying \"Hello\", then you will more than likely never think otherwise about it. Group think is less about primal rage than mob mentality.",
"When you're in a room full of people, and everybody is saying the same thing, mad at the same things, scared of the same things...it's really hard to be the one person who doesn't agree. In a Mob Mentality, you decide that the group is probably right, and you go along with the group, even though if you stopped to think about it you probably wouldn't. In a situation of Group Think, you *know* the group is wrong, but you decide not to say anything, even though if you stopped to think about it you probably should.",
"Hmmm, I'll try my best.\n\nImagine some of the worse things you've thought about doing. Being intensely angry at someone, looting a store, setting someplace on fire. Admit it, at one time or another, you've thought of doing something crazy. Mob mentality happens when the barrier between political correctness and crazy acts of violence is broken. Once some people join in, others are tempted to join in, and it just grows.\n\nGroup think is more similar to peer pressure. Humans are a social race, so there is a natural pressure for us to do what others do. If you live in a country where it is perfectly acceptable to slap your grandma as a way of saying \"Hello\", then you will more than likely never think otherwise about it. Group think is less about primal rage than mob mentality.",
"When you're in a room full of people, and everybody is saying the same thing, mad at the same things, scared of the same things...it's really hard to be the one person who doesn't agree. In a Mob Mentality, you decide that the group is probably right, and you go along with the group, even though if you stopped to think about it you probably wouldn't. In a situation of Group Think, you *know* the group is wrong, but you decide not to say anything, even though if you stopped to think about it you probably should."
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1ju3fl | why do things turn to stone over millions of years and is it really stone? | I tried searching for it, but it's hard to find. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1ju3fl/eli5_why_do_things_turn_to_stone_over_millions_of/ | {
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"Check out [petrified wood](_URL_0_).\n\nQuick explanation: organic material is buried which slows down decomposition. Over time water filled with minerals flows through the material and the minerals get deposited on the organic material. After a long time, the organic material finally decomposes, but the minerals are left behind, creating a \"rock\" formed that looks exactly like the organic mineral they were deposited onto."
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5d22u1 | c - linked lists | I'm new to C and I'm still getting my mind around linked lists.
I'm trying to write a code to reverse a linked list and then it hit me. If in a liked list you have to point to the next value of the list, why does when printing it, it gets printed backwards?
What I mean is, this is my code:
typedef struct rotlista {
char item;
struct rotlista *prox;
}* lista;
void addItem(lista *p, char x)
{
lista n=malloc(sizeof(struct rotlista));
if(n!=NULL)
{
n- > item=x;
n- > prox=*p;
*p=n;
}
}
void printToScreen(lista p)
{
while(p!=NULL)
{
printf("\t dado: %c\: %x\n", p- > item);
p=p- > prox;
}
}
And then, let's say I call addItem four times and then I add 1, 2, 3 and 4. When I call printToScreen, I get 4, 3, 2, 1.
Edit: adding more info and code. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5d22u1/eli5_c_linked_lists/ | {
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"Ok. Take a piece of paper out and imagine that as 'memory' in the system (Heap or stack, doesn't matter). Create a single Dot somewhere on the page and write the word \"my program start\" above it. This represents the first instruction of your program being executed.\n\nNow create a single box (around 1\" square) somewhere on the page. That is one node of your linked list. But how does the 'start' dot get to the linked list node? Well, you use a pointer:\n\n LinkedList *ll_head = < Linked List node > \n\nOk. So that's one node. How do I get to the next node? Put a small rectangle in your linked-list node box and write the word 'next node' into it. Then draw another linked-list node somewhere else on the page and draw an arrow from that 'linked list next node' field into that second box. If programming this, realize that the pointer to the head LL node and the pointer to the 'next' node are the same type (IE: if one was initialized int *, the other will be an int * too!)\n\nCongratulations, you have now made a two node linked list. \"But I need to go backwards\"! Well, how did we go forwards? Now, how do you imagine you'll go backwards?\n\nThat's all a linked list is. It's a chunk of memory that holds some useful data and at least one pointer to the next element in the list. If you actually take the time to draw the pictures out of the data structure it *should* make sense to you.",
"So you have a linked list now, which contains a head pointer pointing to the first node pointing to second node and so on. When you're inserting a new node, you're redirecting the head pointer to the new node. And the new node points to the original 1st node. \n\nThat being said, you're inserting every new node into the first position. When you're printing the list, it starts from the node which head pointer points to. So if you insert 1,2,3,4,5. 5 is the newest node and the one head pointer points to. So it is printed as 5,4,3,2,1. \n\nBut there are lots of method for implementing linked list. You can implement one which inserts new node at the end of the list. That way you won't get reverse order when you print the list starting from the head. "
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22hfny | why does dog poop turn white after its been sitting outside for an extended period of time? | And why does it get fuzzy sometimes? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/22hfny/eli5_why_does_dog_poop_turn_white_after_its_been/ | {
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"It's calcified due to excess calcium, probably from eating bones. The rest decomposes and that's left behind.\n\nThe fuzziness is just mould.",
"Sarah Silverman once sang about \"what happened to that white dog poop from the 1970s.\" I remember seeing it around a lot during the 1970s-1980s, but I don't see them around anymore.",
"because of racism",
"It's from cheaper dog foods that are full of ash and crushed bone for filler. It used to be quite common but is seen less as the pet food industry has been forced to up its game and account more for the product and its content."
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3cxhgk | what is a "manic pixie dream girl" and why is twitter so angry about them? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3cxhgk/eli5_what_is_a_manic_pixie_dream_girl_and_why_is/ | {
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"Think of Jersey Girl, or Garden State. The girl is cute but sort of... standard, somehow. Not gorgeous, usually brunette, not hugely busty, but sexy-fun. And she's got problems, of course...she's up, she's down, she's happy but she's got a secret sadness. She takes the hero and pulls him out of whatever his depression is, usually involving another, blonder girl (or J-Lo) or just the sort of...ennui... of a life that is not what he expected.\n\nPersonally, I don't mind it so much, but it's a really over-used character device.\n\nEdit: Nick and Nora's infinite play list, Zoe Deschanel in Zombieland (kind of a spoof on the idea, you see)",
"Manic pixie dream girl is a type of character trope - a bubbly, slightly oddball/eccentric kind of female character that only exists for the male character's happiness and growth. They are usually the romantic interest for your broody / depressed male protagonist. \n\nThe problem with the trope is that these characters are written very shallowly, don't have any real personal motivations and goals (because, really, they are just written to make the protag happy).\n\nA manic pixie dream girl isn't just any quirky female character or love interest though. It specifically if one that has no outside goals. If you are writing a bit of an oddball girl as the romantic interest of your character, that is fine, as long as she has actual depth and flaws and her own goals in addition to the dude's happiness.",
"I can think of no better source to explain it than [TV Tropes.](_URL_0_)\n\nBasically it's a stock character in movies and TV shows that many claim is more a male fantasy than a realistic person.",
"Thanks all. [I think I understand now.](_URL_0_)",
"Any character played by Zooey Deschanel.\n\nBasically, its a cute, outgoing, and eccentric female character that teaches the main character (who is almost always the love interest) that they're being a stick in the mud and that life can be so much more exciting. They break the main character out of their shell and make them happier as a result.\n\nThey usually have no development beyond their quirkiness, and their sole purpose in the narrative is to be the impetus for the main character's development. As such, they're incredibly one-dimensional characters. There is nothing to the character beyond quirkiness and eccentricity."
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2y5g6i | why does jury duty pay so little? | In California it is a fee of 15 dollars per day, only earned after the completion of the second day. Most jurors only serve 1 day anyway. I've also been asked to donate my fees (employer pays for 0 days) to the jury room improvement fund. Ha yea right. Why are these services that we all use and need not able to pay a fair wage as in minimum wage hourly? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2y5g6i/eli5_why_does_jury_duty_pay_so_little/ | {
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"So you don't draw out the trial (deadlock) to get more money.",
"In NY, it's 40 dollars if you are unemployed or make less then that or you work at a very small business. Otherwise, your employer needs to pay for the first 3 days. ",
"Here in the UK you get your travel, food and wages covered. I was on jury for a month and took almost exactly what I normally would take. probably a little less asI underestimated the transport allowance (britis guilt!)",
"in canada, part of the reason is that they haven't reviewed the pay rate since the 60s or something.\n\nand if you talk to you parents, you'll know that back then you could go the pictures for a nickel and still have change left"
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uh90y | how signals, be they cell phone signals or data through internet lines, are transmitted along their medium without becoming overwritten or scrambled by other signals also travel through the same medium. | If data is transmitted through pulses that designate 1's and 0's, how do you get multiple signals going through undersea cables or whatever without totally scrambling the data?
I feel like I'm completely misunderstanding how data transfer works.
EDIT: Thanks for the responses. lex418787 in particular. I think I understand cell towers now, but can anyone explain the internet's system to me? I can see that different frequencies make sense for the cell's radio waves, but does the same apply to electricity? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/uh90y/eli5_how_signals_be_they_cell_phone_signals_or/ | {
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"Cellphone signals work in an way many people don't realize. Cellphone towers don't send data to your phone, they send it everywhere. There is a little *sticky note* on the signal saying \"don't open this unless you are dinklebob's phone\". So, you could build a device that can listen in on everybody's phone calls. It would, of course, be illegal though. I'm not sure if the signals are encrypted, though...",
"There are two main ways.\n\nOne is called TDMA (Time-division multiple access). In this scenario, everyone that's on a particular cell-tower takes turns transmitting data. You might get 1-2ms, and then the next guy gets 1-2ms, and so on in a big circle. The turns happen so frequently that you don't notice it happening. Naturally, if you have too many people then the circle gets too big and people start to notice the degradation of quality. So what really happens is the cell tower doesn't let too many people join the circle, the newcomers just get \"Service Busy\" or \"Service Denied\" on their phones. GSM phones use TDMA (AT & T, T-mobile, etc.)\n\nThe other is called CDMA (Code-division multiple access). In this scenario, each user gets an orthogonal code to use. Think about an xy-graph. You can move a dot in the X-direction (left & right) without affecting the Y-direction (up & down). So, you could have 2 users, one person moves in the X-direction, and another moves in the Y-direction (kind of like the knobs on an etch-a-sketch). Both people can send data at the same time without affecting each other. In the real world, there are many many different codes, and the cell tower can differentiate between all of them. Phones detect which codes are not in use, and when you make a call your phone uses an unused code. However, there are still more phones than codes, so if too many people try to talk then they'll get the \"Service Busy\" message. CDMA phones work on Verizon, Sprint, etc.",
"They DO get scrambled and interfered with by other signals through the same medium and frequency.\n\nHowever, since data is sent through multiple frequency (think of each frequency as a separate channel) we try to send things in such a way as to not interfere with each other. This is why you can have multiple radio stations, but they all are on separate frequencies.\n\nWhen two signals are sent on the same frequency, then we've developed protocols so that this doesn't happen. A basic example, talking over a walkie talkie. On a walkie talkie, only one person can talk at a time because it's a shared frequency. But we have a system, where we talk and at the end we say \"over\". So \"blah blah blah over\" means I'm done talking, you can talk now. \"Over and out.\" means I'm done talking and this is the last communication. In computer equipment, we have sophisticated algorithms and protocols that facilitate this.",
"Physical cables deals with this problem in a way that is very similar at the abstract level to what lex418787 describes for phone towers.\n\nI'm not sure I'd get an ELI5 answer right, but here is the wiki answer: [multiplexing](_URL_0_)."
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1l1ost | is personality part of our genetics? for instance, are we chemically designed to "be who we are?" | Or is it just environment--how we are raised, major life events, etc.? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1l1ost/eli5_is_personality_part_of_our_genetics_for/ | {
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"Nature vs nurture\nTendency is part of our genes\nIe. having genes of a natural mathematician may increase your \"likelihood\" of being a highly logical person.\nPeople can also change in response to the environment(ie experience) \n\nSo really it is not either this or that, but a dynamic interplay between both aspects",
"There is evidence that some of our behaviors are more or less likely due to genetics, but it's unlikely that our entire personality it. The only way to really know for sure would be to have two identical clones raised in different environments and compare their personalities, but due to ethics and a lack of adequate cloning technology we have to settle for the next best thing: twin studies. Monozygotic twins, so-called \"identical\" twins, have largely the same genetic makeup, yet can be very different personality-wise. This seems to suggest that our upbringing and experiences affect our personalities more than our genetics",
"There is a fair bit of debate about but for the most part it looks like it's a combination of nature (genetics) vs nuture (How you were raised).\n\nAs an example consider your height (not personality I know, but run with it). You had a tall dad and a tall mum, genetics has given you a blueprint for being tall. However, you were malnourished as a child and as a result you ended out an average height - it was a compromise between your genetics and the environment you grew up in. It's likely you will never be short, and you will probably be a bit taller than usual, but you won't be as tall as the blueprint said.\n\nThe same goes for someone who has the blueprint for short - they could have the best diet in the world, but at best they will be average and they will never be tall. \n\nThis is how we get a mathematical 'normal' curve of heights. If genes were the only forces at play we would expect to see distinct 'height' catagories - we don't so we know there is something else at work.\n\nNow lets look at personality. There are many studies out there in animals that say certain 'personailty' traits, called in this case behavioural syndromes, are inherited. Think like 'boldness' as a measure of how likely an individual is to run vs attack, or female preference where daughters of a mother who likes red males will also like red males. We may not be able to exactly identify the genes responsible in many cases but the evidence suggests that some behavioral syndromes they are heritable - hence genetic in origin. Even when you foster offspring with different parents to try and understand the effect of environment as well - ie take a baby away and place with different parents, does that baby copy the behaviors of it's biological parents (hence genetic origin) or copy the behaviors of the parents that raised it (hence environmental effect). \n\nWith this all said now consider maybe dangerous pet dog breeds. They are usually bred for personality traits that made them good fighting or hunting dogs - they might have the genetic blueprint that says \"aggressive personality\". However, raise the animal in the right environment and you have a lovely pet. Just as you could have a genetic predisposition that says \"aggressive\" or \"introverted\" the opposite may be true simple because of the environment you grew up in. You may never be as extroverted as someone that had the 'extroverted' blueprint, but you could be more extroverted than the average person. It all comes down to the right combinations.\n\nTL;DR - Think of genes as the blueprint that are highly flexible based on environment."
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7ioa9o | how do we not run out of oxygen with an increasing population and our sources of producing o2 seemingly in decline? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/7ioa9o/eli5_how_do_we_not_run_out_of_oxygen_with_an/ | {
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"Over 80% of atmospheric oxygen is produced by algae and plankton in the ocean. Another 5% or so is from the natural breakdown of the water molecule separating. That leaves only around 15% from land plants. While wild areas are in decline, we also grow a lot of crops. And for reference Corn fields in the USA produce around 4 times the oxygen of the South American Rainforest with less than 1/4 the land usage. So the idea that O2 production is or should be in decline is a misunderstanding of things. "
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2r3rs3 | in a plane crash into water, what actually kills you? | Saw news this morning that some passengers have been found still buckled into their seats. Does this suggest that some die because of drowning, or do all die from blunt force trauma? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2r3rs3/eli5_in_a_plane_crash_into_water_what_actually/ | {
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"Probably a little of both. Sudden deceleration could lead to head trauma which could cause death directly, or unconsciousness followed by asphyxiation. \n\nAlso, unbuckling and escaping would be very difficult if the plane were moving, not upright, filling with water, full of smoke, etc. So if they were awake, they might not have been able to get out.\n\nA lot depends on the angle and speed of the impact. ",
"G-forces. Blunt force trauma. Drowning. Being shredded to little tiny pieces.",
"In the recent Airasia event if the plane made a successful water landing as expected its the 30 foot seas causing your plane to sink and then drowning. \n\n/ shudders",
"Upon the impact, you would likely be killed by a part of the plane or the seats in your general area. If you survive the crash, you could potentially live for a while floating in the sea. If you have been injured, it may be difficult or impossible to escape from a sinking fuselage. In that case drowning is highly likely. If you manage to stay alive for an extended time without being attacked by oceanic predators, without suffering deadly sun-exposure, without starving to death or dying of dehydration, there is a small chance that you will be rescued and survive. ",
"Same thing as jumping off a bridge. It's not the fall that kills you, it's the sudden stop at the end.",
"At anything higher than about 150 mph, water acts like a solid surface -- like concrete. This is why people die jumping off of bridges into water. They actually quite frequently die on impact with the water itself.\n\nSame stuff that kills you in a car accident, but going about 100 to 500 MPH faster.",
"It totally depends on the circumstances. First of all, water crashes are virtually the same thing as land once you reach a little bit of speed. I don't know all the details of the physics, but the difference in the rate of deceleration is pretty negligible. So basically think of surviving the impact as no different from surviving the impact of a land crash. It can happen if the crash is controlled enough, but not from free fall.\n\nAs for what actually kills a person in any crash, first and foremost, it's going to be the effect of deceleration on the brain. Taking an object moving at that speed and bringing it to a complete stop almost instantly is effectively like throwing it at a brick wall. The brain is extremely soft and would get mashed right into a pancake and scrambled against the skull wall.\n\nAfter that, all kinds of things can kill you. If it's a crash that, on land, would have some survivors, then yes these potential survivors are probably more likely to drown if you crash into water. ",
"Even if you stay strapped into your chair and don't get hit by shrapnel the sudden deceleration would kill you. \n\nIts the same principal as death from jumping off of a bridge. As you stop from falling at terminal velocity, the sudden stop into the water may not tear you to shreds, but your internal organs become shredded as the sudden stop jars them loose from the chest cavity and they basically become a jumbled mess. Also, more than likely you'll break some ribs which will turn into shards and will slice and dice the organs as they blend inside your chest. \n\nOn the outside, you'll look look like you died in your sleep. On the inside, tomato puree.",
"If you've ever been cliff jumping or dived off a high five you know that water can feel more like concrete. So imagine a plane hitting water at a few hundred miles an hour.",
"I'm an aerospace engineer, so I'll take a crack at this. Basically, I'd guess the lot died of blunt force trauma. Water is nearly incompressible, and as such, depending on your impact angle and speed, can be as bad as hitting straight concrete. \n\nThere's a Mythbuster episode where they shoot pistol, shotgun, and rifle rounds into the water. The .50 cal rifle round makes it a few inches into the water before shredding apart. Basically, when the plane hits the water, it decelerates rapidly like the bullet, breaking it apart. That deceleration causes injuries like broken necks/internal decapitations, crushed chests, broken limbs, etc. The seats can break loose and smash into the seats or debris ahead. Debris from behind can smash into the passenger. \n\nSurvivors of plane crashes are very rare due to the speeds involved. The slowest most commercial aircraft can fly at are 120 mph or so, most crashes are at much higher speeds than that. Think about how Senna died, and realize that water isn't as forgiving as people might think, and Senna was still in his seat and he looked from the outside to be in ok shape (but had a piece of debris crush his skull in the impact).",
"1. Impact. If the plane hits the water at a sufficient rate of speed, the sudden stop & impact can kill you. \n2. Fire. I'm including suffocation by smoke inhalation as death by fire.\n3. Water. If you can't get to a flotation device / get out of the plane before it sinks, you'll drown.\n4. Exposure.",
"I've been in jet building for years now. This is a hard one to explain. If cabin depression happened and you dont get the BS mask on than you pass out. At cruising altitude you have seconds to put the mask on. Remember, rapid depression means the air in your lungs are sucked out to.\n\nIf the pilot attempts a controlled crash \"Hudson River\" and hits way to hard you can expect spinal chord injuries. The belt is around your waist. Your body slams forward.\n\nIn the case of fire, panic may set in and people can trample themselves and block the path out. Also, unfamiliarity of the planes layout is a problem too.\n\nThere is also the fact that the planes are not designed to survive a crash unlike your Subaru. So on impact ALOT of stuff comes loose and goes forward very fast. \n\nOn the planes I build we also have a shoulder belt like a car. I've done many test flights where we purposely release the pressure to test the auto mask drop feature. Withing around 10 seconds of the mask drop I have gotten severe tunnel vision and had to take a few hits off the mask. "
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68t8r1 | what causes people to refute hard proven facts like the earth being a sphere, etc? can it be concidered a mental illness? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/68t8r1/eli5_what_causes_people_to_refute_hard_proven/ | {
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"[Delusion:](_URL_0_) \n > An idiosyncratic belief or impression maintained despite being contradicted by reality or rational argument, typically as a symptom of mental disorder.\n\nSo not necessarily a mental disorder, but often a symptom of mental disorder.",
" > It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends upon his not understanding it\n\nUpton Sinclair",
"My own opinion is people are bored. Adversarialism can be borne from the socratic debate method taught at most schools.\n\nMix these two together and some people utilise the skills they are taught to entertain themselves by annoying others, validating their behaviour by subconscious reference to the merits of debate.\n\nI think Edward de Bono's thoughts on solving this problem are quite profound.\n\nEdit: grey-mah",
"There are a few things at play:\n\n1. Some people like to be contrarians. Some may achieve this end with some modicum of intelligence but most are in it just to offer a contrary opinion to a widely popular belief. In the event that their unpopular opinion happens to hold some weight, it feels like a massive victory to state something to the effect of: \"See, I told you that Pluto is not a planet!\"\n\n2. There were people who knew that the Earth was round *wayyyyyy* before the Renaissance. In fact, flat-earthers have been a joke for quite some time. Part of it is just a societal willingness of disbelief in scientific data.\n\n3. Some people are hard-wired in the belief that \"seeing is believing\" and yet what we often see are lies/conspiracies. You and I may think this is contradictory, but in essence there is a degree of solipsism in their thinking. *I* need to see it for myself, for only *I* can truly determine whether or not something exists. Get real!\n\n4. As another user pointed out, just simple boredom/rebellion. Why don't they just sail to the ends of the Earth to find out? Because they aren't actually *that* ignorant and/or are probably too lazy and deep down they know that they actually do not believe that the earth is flat.",
"Alright so, there's a thing called \"Cognitive Dissonance\".\n\nBasically, when a person holds a belief and they're given information that counters that belief, they experience Cognitive Dissonance.\n\nWhen that happens, there's only room for one belief and they choose the wrong one. When they do this, no amount of logic or proof that you show them will convince them because to them, it's not true.",
"It often stems from a distrust of authority. This can be brought on by experiences such as legal trouble the person considers unjust, a bad childhood in the foster care system, abuse by police/teachers, etc. \n\nThe problem with a high level of distrust is that authority figures have opinions and information about totally mundane things.... 90% of what they believe/say/teach is objectively true, so if you distrust everything that comes out of a cop/teacher/judge's mouth you end up doubting or disbelieving some perfectly reasonable things. \n\nA \"reasonable\" person may disagree that a 5 year prison sentence is a good way to \"rehabilitate\" a drug user. A conspiracy theorist sees the judge is being unreasonable in *that* situation, and assumes the judge is also full of crap when they say the sky is blue.\n\nBy doubting/distrusting people or groups of people instead of judging information on its own merit, you end up lumping together the correct and incorrect information that come from the same source."
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22j0bx | why haven't any car manufacturers made a hybrid or "earth-friendly" vehicles that are appealing when it comes to looks/design? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/22j0bx/eli5_why_havent_any_car_manufacturers_made_a/ | {
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"Have you looked into the [Tesla Model S](_URL_0_)?",
"What \"looks cool\" is a matter of personal preference. What looks cool to you, may not look cool to me. On that note, Tesla makes some very aesthetically pleasing electric cars.",
"Several manufacturers are now making hybrid versions of previously non-hybrid cars, that use the same bodies/shapes. For the first 5 years or so they were out, I agree completely, but that doesn't seem to be the case anymore. If anything, the ones that still look like that (the original prius) are still being made because some people seem to want their cars to look unique so everyone can see how green they are."
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sl9no | why does reddit look different in firefox and chrome? | I have both browsers on my computer, and sometimes one seems to work better than another (especially with certain websites I frequent). But I don't understand why a website would look so different in two different browsers. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/sl9no/why_does_reddit_look_different_in_firefox_and/ | {
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"Browsers work differently, and they render pages differently.\n\nA website is mostly code, a language that tells the browser how the page should look, and what content it has. It's up to the browser to read what the website wants, and to draw it to screen.\n\n\n(Although a HTML 4 Standard exists), there's nothing that states exactly how browsers have to draw things. \n\n\nIf a website says it wants a horizontal line, that's kind of vague, so the browser draws the line how ever it wants. There are style sheets that can add more meaning to the line, but still, the browser has to interpret what the style sheet is saying.\n\n\nAlso, some browsers have better Javascript engines, image rendered, memory management, caching, etc, etc that will vary performance browser to browser.\n\n\n(Just curious, Reddit barely looks any different between browsers on my machine, is there anything that sticks out?)"
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1t3bfz | as a non american - santa's race? what's up with that? | i saw that fox news lady saying santa and jesus are white. now ok jesus if he existed was a bronze skinned jewish man. but santa, at least in non orthodox countries, usually comes from saint nicholas if i'm not mistaken. now the popular culture santa is a commercialised version of said saint and who like the saint a northen europeans, lives way north in europe or the north pole or something. now everyone over there is usually white. most north europeans are. icelanders swedes, nordic people in general. so i don't understand. like i said i get it with jesus, but with santa? since (like jesus) he doesn't exist i guess he is whatever race the dad impersonating him for his kids is, but in general...... i mean... why are black people upset about an obvious "fact"? the "fact" that the fat dude who lives in the north side of the globe since his first "appearence" has always been white? or...... is it that black people are not upset about santa being a white fat guy and its just the media doing their thing again? i think most people would be more upset about all those poor -slave-worker-aliens-elfs he keeps locked up in his sweatshop up there. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1t3bfz/as_a_non_american_santas_race_whats_up_with_that/ | {
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"_URL_0_\n\nI don't think they're too far off.",
" > i guess he is whatever race the dad impersonating him for his kids is\nis\n\nYep.\n\nThe original article by a black woman pointed out that Santa is a fictional character and can be (and has been) portrayed as belonging to any race, then maybe there should be more diverse portrayals in the US media since the non-white demographics are growing.\n\nThen the right-wing media fell all over themselves insisting that this fictional character is always and must always be pureblooded lily white. *Their* emotional response is what the kerfuffle is about. FNC and other right-wingers always deny being racist yet are strangely threatened by the idea of non-white fictional characters for children.",
"First, actual St. Nick was Anatolian, and was, apparently, most likely a [dark-skinned \"Greek\"](_URL_0_). \n\nNow, for the recent news. An African-American reporter wrote [an article](_URL_1_), talking about how, as a child, it was tough to reconcile \"white\" Santa with her black father dressing up as Santa, and how as the U.S. gets less and less homogeneously white, we might want to make Santa more accessible to all the kids. Her not quite serious suggestion was that he should be a penguin, rather than a person of any color, though in the beginning of the article, she suggests that maybe a better thing to do would be to just say that one of Santa's magic powers, beyond the flying reindeer, is that he can look like any race. You already know about the Fox news thing that followed. \n\nI don't think \"black people\" as a group, or \"white people\" are upset about this. It got a lot of news coverage because it's kind of a silly story that was easy to joke about, and let people talk about things they wanted to talk about anyway (republicans are racist; Liberals are too sensitive; fox news is evil; democrats don't understand reality; blah blah, blah). I will leave it to you whether you think the original author's point is reasonable or not, but that's the status of the question in the U.S.\n"
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"http://www.slate.com/articles/life/holidays/2013/12/santa_claus_an_old_white_man_not_anymore_meet_santa_the_penguin_a_new_christmas.html"
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5qwuro | how do 'fake news' companies make money | Do 'fake news' companies sell ads , subscriptions etc. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5qwuro/eli5_how_do_fake_news_companies_make_money/ | {
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"Adverts on their websites and most likely by selling any information that website can gather from you, too. ",
"Have you ever had to \"Ctrl-Alt-Delete\" on a fake news site because of the 456 billion ads spamming and freezing your computer on each page?",
"Ads.\n\nAdvertising models mean clicks= views= ad revenue.\n\n > I mostly see them in facebook.\n\nIf you click the hyperlink, the web page it brings you to will have ads on them. It's a similarish idea to Buzzfeed- have sensational title, people share it, people see the title and are tempted into clicking to see what the fuss is. You now have eyeballs you can monetize with ads.\n\nThen those new people share it, new eyeballs, more money, etc etc\n",
"Advertisements.\nThe advertisement companies run advertisements on their website and then the company hosting the ads get paid according to multiple values, mostly just how many clicks it gets them. \nGoogle runs an advertisement company called Adsense, where the site puts a piece of code in the side of the website. \nIt generates advertisements and Google pays them based off of how many people viewed the page, and how many people clicked it. ",
"Advertisment is not the only answer. Its no secret anymore that russia (and others too) is heavily funding media outlets that produce fake news in order to create a politicsl climate that benefits them. For example, RT (russia today) is a government owned tv channel. It ran massive pro-Brexit campaigns in Britain prior to the vote because russia is ultimately gaining from any separatist movement (weak unions means weaker opponents). Theyre actually the biggest sponsor of the Calexit movement (california exiting the US). "
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99eisd | what happens to the presidency and political houses if trump is convicted? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/99eisd/eli5_what_happens_to_the_presidency_and_political/ | {
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"Trump cannot currently be tried in a normal court. He must be impeached by the House of Representatives, removed from office via conviction in the Senate which would make him a private citizen again, and then a grand jury could be convened to decide whether or not there is enough evidence to prosecute him for violating a law on the books. \n\nIf this were to happen, Vice President Pence would assume the office of President and serve as our 46th President of the United States at least until January 2021. ",
"It's important to note that impeachment doesn't automatically mean loss of office; the vote to impeach happens in the House of Representatives. A simple majority vote of those present and voting must pass articles of impeachment, which are the formal allegations. When that passes, the president is formally \"impeached\"; after that, the Senate has to try the accused president, with the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court presiding over the hearings (the constitution only specifies this for the President's impeachment hearings; it doesn't say what should happen with other officials who may be impeached)..\n\nConviction requires a 2/3 majority of the senate (currently 67 members) to vote for impeachment, after which the accused will be removed from office; It's important to note that as of this moment, only two US presidents have been impeached, and neither was removed from office as a result (Andrew Johnson and Bill Clinton); The only president who was arguably removed from office by the process was Richard Nixon (who resigned before articles of impeachment could be ratified). \n\nAs for the office of the president... it's most likely that Pence would take the office of President, but having a president actively involved in a very public scandal about the legitimacy of the election that elected him... it is not impossible that there would be some sort of motion to impeach both of them at the same time. It's something that we don't, as far as I'm aware, have precedence for, so while it's unlikely, it's possible that they may try to impeach the entire ticket for the crime of election fraud.",
"The presidency exists no matter what (short of total dissolution of the USA or constitution I guess). If Trump stops being president for any reason before the end of his term the VP Pence takes over and serves out the rest. If VP pence can't do it for some reason then there's a hierarchy (speaker of the house is 3rd) and same thing, they serve to the end of the term. The election happens regardless and anyone who assumes office has to run for reelection. \n\nAs to what would happen to the political parties? Who knows, a conviction of a sitting president would be unprecedented and so would the conviction of a former president. ",
"For a little bit of fun's sake here is a song about the Presidential Succession Line in the event of death. Don't know if the same applies to impeachment of a President, but its certainly an interesting song.\n\n_URL_0_"
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5c616s | why are drones so simple yet helicopters so complex? why not make a large human-transporting drone? | As stated. Some commercial drones can already carry the weight of a human. Why not something similar, with controls as easy as they are? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5c616s/eli5_why_are_drones_so_simple_yet_helicopters_so/ | {
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"The drone you are referring to can fly for 20 minutes and go two miles. \n \nFor miltary use you need a range of hundreds of miles, fly for hours and carry a payload of heavy weapons. The only way to do that is with jet propelled rotors generating thousands of pounds of lift",
"Drones use the lift of each individual rotor to control the [pitch and roll](_URL_0_) of the craft. When it wants to pitch forward, the rotors in the back increase speed and produce more thrust, pitching the front down and moving the whole thing forward. It takes a fair bit of computing power to control the speed of each rotor to exactly how much thrust you need and to allow you to simply push a control stick forward and have the craft know to increase rotor speed in the back. And of course, when it needs to go up, you just increase the speed on all of them.\n\nHelicopters, on the other hand, use a [complicated method of controlling the pitch of the rotors](_URL_2_). The rotors don't change speed. Once they're spun up, they stay going exactly that fast the entire time. When the craft wants to go up, the pitch of the rotor blades is increased so that the rotor creates more lift. That's controlled by the [swashplate](_URL_5_), a disk under the rotor. To go forward, the swashplate is angled so the rotor blades' pitch changes only in *part* of the circle so that more lift is generated at the back of the helicopter and less at the front (actually because of [gyroscopic precession](_URL_4_) the blade angle is changed when it's at the side of the helicopter, not the back...but that's not important right now).\n\nSo you have two different methods of controlling your altitude and pitch and roll. The method helicopters use scales down just fine. But the method drones use *does not* scale up very well at all. Mostly this is because as you increase the size of your rotors, you have to increase the size of your engine, and pretty soon an electric motor isn't good enough, you need a gas engine (most helicopters use a [jet engine](_URL_6_)). The problem is that gas engines don't speed up or slow down quickly and easily. There's a lag time between putting on the gas and the engine revving up, because you've got big heavy metal parts to speed up or slow down. Your rotor is getting much heavier, too, and the inertia makes it difficult to force the rotor to speed up or slow down quickly. \n\nWith drones, being able to very quickly correct your thrust is **critical** to maintaining level flight. The computer in a drone is constantly tweaking the rotor speeds to keep it level. They can get away with it because the blades are small and made of plastic, usually, so they're super light and they use electric motors. When you scale it up to gas engines and large rotors, it just isn't possible to maintain that kind of very fine control. Changing the pitch of the blades, though, is fast and \"easy\" (in the sense that it doesn't take a lot of force, but it's damn complicated), since you're not fighting the inertia of the spinning.\n\nThere's also the problem that bigger blades are more efficient. Small blades have to spin *really* fast to generate lift, bigger blades can spin slower. The flip side of that is that as you increase the length of your rotor blade, you have to account for the fact that the end is going significantly faster than the base, and if you go *too* fast that end breaks the sound barrier and then *terrible things happen*. So not only are large blades more efficient at slower speeds, you need to keep them at slower speeds. There's a point where you're trying to scale up your rotor blades and it's just not worth having four smaller rotors when one or two big ones will do the job better, safer, and with less fuel.\n\nSo the fastest way to control your lift to maintain control of your large craft is to vary the pitch of the rotor blades, which means your blades don't have to be small. And your engine is big and heavy and uses valuable fuel, so you want the blades to be much larger so they're more efficient. And shoving four big huge helicopter-sized rotors onto a single craft is expensive, inefficient, and *dangerous*, so you're better off using [just two to be as efficient as possible](_URL_1_), and those are pretty big and you're not in the military trying to move tanks around, so you probably just need the lift of a single rotor which can be easily balanced with a tail rotor and *oh look* we're back to a normal helicopter!\n\nThere is [the syncrocopter](_URL_3_), which is, apparently, easier to control than a normal helicopter (easy enough for a computer to handle it). The biggest downside to it is that it's much more dangerous to approach from anywhere other than directly in front of it.\n\nEDITS: clarity, adding some links and such. Shoutout to u/MrPennywhistle for teaching me about helicopters with Smarter Every Day!",
"ELI5 answer, helicopters rotor assembly is very complex, expensive and hard to control. With 4 rotors controlling quadcopters is much easier, you use just fixed propellers. Control algorithms are simple too.\n\nWhy don't we use them to transport humans etc? A propellers efficiency at low speed and hovering increases with size. So big helicopter rotor is efficient, small 4 propellers are not. At high speed small propellers get efficient, thus aircraft use smaller ones."
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"http://www.janes.com/images/assets/229/57229/1342432_-_main.jpg",
"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WdEWzqsfeHM",
"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-4OyZZ71RqY",
"http://www.copters.com/aero/gyro.html",
"https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/54/HelicopterSwashPlate_Flat.gif",
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turboshaft"
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g320jn | how does the bond market work? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/g320jn/eli5_how_does_the_bond_market_work/ | {
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"Say I sell you a bond for $100. It's a contract that says in exactly 5 years, bring the contract back to me and I will give you $150. \nSounds like a good deal to you because that's more than what you would get investing your money in the bank so you take it. \nThen after a year, the bank's interest rate jumps up a bit. You think that if they stay that way, you could make more than $150 by putting $100 in the bank instead. \nYou are allowed to sell that bond to someone else and they can then bring it back to me on the same date we agreed on and I'll give them the $150 instead. So you find someone to buy the bond and they are willing to give you $105 for it (they only have to wait 4 years to cash it in now). \nThey hold onto it for a year and then the banks drop their interest rates a lot. Lower than they were 2 years ago. So you go and see the person that you sold the bond to and ask if you can buy it back. But now because you can't get much money in interest from the bank you still think it's worthwhile to pay $120 to buy the bond back. \n\nTL;DR a bond is kind of like a fixed rate investment which can be traded.",
"The bond market is made up of several markets: the Treasury bond market, the corporate bond market and the municipal bond market or just a few. When looking to invest in stocks, bonds, or commodities, be very careful and do a lot of research before you jump right in. It is also recommended that you seek the help of a professional to assist you in navigating these waters until you understand what you are doing. Even then, fortunes have been made and lost in mere seconds. That being said, here is a brief layout below. \n\nThe bond market itself moves when expectations change about economic growth and inflation. Not to be confused with stocks, whose future earnings are a best guess at that, bonds make fixed payments for a certain period of time. Investors decide how much to pay for a given bond (A certain amount of fixed payments of a certain length) based on how much they expect inflation to erode the value of those fixed payments.\n\nWhen higher inflation is expected, less will be offered for bonds. When lower inflation is expected, more will be offered for the bonds. Typically speaking, lower prices correspond to higher yields, and higher prices correspond to lower yields. So when prices fall, yields rise, and when prices rise, yields diminish.",
"Can I just go to my bank and ask to buy a bond? (Serious)"
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49g478 | why is it that whenever i'm wearing my glasses, the edges of all objects are surrounded with a very thin blue edge on one side and a very thin orange edge on the other? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/49g478/eli5_why_is_it_that_whenever_im_wearing_my/ | {
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"It's explained in [this recent post.](_URL_0_)",
"Are you sure you're not wearing 3D glasses?",
"Chromatic aberration.\n\nBasically a lens will bend different wavelengths (IE colours) different amounts, so light spreads out into a rainbow (like the cover of pink Floyd's dark side of the moon) - this gives you the odd coloured halo to the sides.\n\nIt can be counteracted to some degree with the optical design, materials and coatings used, but the stronger the prescription, the more you will see the effect.\n\nI always find it particularly noticeable with strong coloured lights like they use on stage, which is annoying, but ultimately something you just have to live with if you want to be able to wear glasses and see clearly..."
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6vjzac | what is money dumping and why is it illegal? | [deleted] | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/6vjzac/eli5_what_is_money_dumping_and_why_is_it_illegal/ | {
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"'Dumping' has a few different definitions in economics, finance and trade, esp in an international context. Can you be a little (or a lot) more specific?"
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5x0x0q | can you create a flashlight bright enough to shine completely through a person? | So i was taking a minute with my flash on my phone, and was struck by how it was bright enough to go through my finger to the point where some of the light reached the table beneath it.
I was wondering if a flashlight could be made bright enough to go completely through people? Why or why not?
Thanks for satisfying my curiosity, reddit community! | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5x0x0q/eli5_can_you_create_a_flashlight_bright_enough_to/ | {
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"No. The light is shining through the translucent parts of your finger - not the bone. The visible spectrum can't go through bones. "
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8xug7d | if an old person gets a lung transplant from a teenager who dies, can they live a longer life because the organ is younger? (longer than say if they got a persons lungs who was older) same goes for a heart or liver etc. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/8xug7d/eli5_if_an_old_person_gets_a_lung_transplant_from/ | {
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"We don't really know for certain but the answer is most likely no. Death by old age is actually death by cancer as our DNA wears down and wears down and becomes easier and easier to mutate. If you were to get a completely new body then you would have younger cells and the chance of developing cancer due to old age would definitely be lower for these younger cells. But there are plenty of other ways to die too. Transplants agitate the body and you're not going to get a perfect match even by identical twin. The immune system tries to kill implanted organs so immuno-suppressant drugs are necessary to prevent the immune system killing you. This also turns off your immune system's ability to respond to pathogens though too, so you become much more susceptible to disease. So while you could theoretically live longer with a younger body, the amount of stress this would put you and your immune system through would kill you.",
"If we're talking about flawless transplant with no problems, then yes, people with younger organs have a certain chance of living longer. For example, if you have a new heart. But don't forget that your brain and the rest of your body will still be old and prone to various failure. And you can't transplant your conciousness to another brain.",
"Not necessarily. Transplanted organs don't generally last as long as if you had the original in place. Because your body is a hostile environment to it, even with immunosuppressive drugs, it will experience wear and tear due to rejection, that weakens the organ itself. In other words, except in some few cases, your body wants to murder the new organ.\n\nBeyond that, the immunsuppressives aren't specific to protecting the organ, and can have significant side effects which themselves are harmful and even potentially fatal. ",
"All other things being equal, a patient that receives a \"young lung\" transplant is likely to live longer than a patient that receives an \"old lung\" transplant. But the patient is unlikely to live longer than another person who didn't need to have a transplant in the first place, because of transplant rejection and immunosuppressant medication, as others have mentioned.",
"Probably not. Even on antirejection drugs, rejection damages transplants rather quickly, and lung transplants have some of the shortest survival times on top of that.",
"There are many facets that go into someone dying. A new set of lungs from a young person is going to have less “wear and tear” (generally speaking) than an older persons lungs. That doesn’t guarantee longer life however. The DNA in our cells have little time bombs on them called telomeres. Once the telomeres get too short the DNA replication machinery in our cells says “hey we can’t copy this” and they instruct the cell to die instead of copying faulty DNA. Eventually we run out of cells to regenerate these dying cells, and old age begins to take over. Our body becomes less effective at fighting infections, clearing waste, digesting food, and doing other things that are essential to life. A set of lungs from a young person would have longer telomeres, but that wouldn’t stop the rest of the body from taking its natural course. \n\nAs a fun fact, cancer cells often has an enzyme called telomerase which extends the telomeres, giving cancer cells immortality. It’s one of the things that makes cancer so dangerous. ",
"Picture a garden hose and nozzle that have aged and are beginning to deteriorate. Then one day the nozzle breaks and so you go out and buy a new one. The nozzle is working very well, but you also know that it is only viable as long as the hose works. If the hose breaks, springs a leak, ruptures, etc, the nozzle is no longer useful. The length of survival depends on the condition of the hose at that point. ",
"Nope. Usually lung transplant patients don't live too long , for a number of reasons regardless of the age of the donor organ. \n\n(Median survival 5.8 years)\n\nThat being said, younger donor organs are associated with increased survival after transplant than older donors. \n\n",
"There is technically an upper limit to how old one can be, and its around 105; this is because of the thymus. The thymus is an important organ part of the immune system, its where T-cells mature. T cells are one of the most important cells fighting off pathogens in our body. For reasons unknown to mankind (as far as Im aware), the thymus shrinks shortly after birth every year ever so slowly - thymic involution. It shrinks by about 1-3% each year, starting to shrink before even puberty. Everything in biology is about structure and function... so as the structure shrinks, the function is negatively impacted as well. The result is, as we age, our thymus is slowly disappearing... and our immune system becomes \"weaker\", more susceptible to disease and incapable of fighting off illness as powerfully/quickly as it could before. \n\nHYPOTHETICALLY (in reality obviously a lot sooner), 105 years is how long it takes before the thymus basically becomes so small and \"atrophied\", it loses its function completely. After that, we basically are in a boat similar to AIDS ... the simplest thing can, and probably will, be deadly. \n\nAs i was writing this, i was 99% sure we cannot transplant a thymus. Apparently tho, we can. BUT, just because we can, doesnt mean its an option for nearly all cases. ",
"It's like putting a brand new water pump on your 200,000km engine. Your water pump probably won't fail for a while, but there are a dozen other things that will.",
"Liver and kidney transplant recipient here. The liver is a resilient organ that can regenerate if not severely damaged so the donor age isn’t a factor really. Fun fact: if you get a liver and kidney from the same donor the liver protects the kidney so anti rejection treatment focuses on the liver more. "
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1j0gxx | what does bias mean? | English is not my first language.
Yes, I may be stupid. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1j0gxx/eli5_what_does_bias_mean/ | {
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"When the word bias comes up, most of the time it refers to defective judgement.\n\nFor example, you will often see people in gaming communities hate one game over another. I like BF3 rather than COD. If a person came to me and asked what the best FPS is for a new player, I would insist on them starting and staying with BF3. Yet, in reality, COD is actually better for beginners.\n\nI will lie to people, not on purpose, about how inferior COD is because of my bias. You can show me evidence that proves COD is better, but I will deny it just because of how attached to BF3 I am.",
"Bias is your inclination to one side or the other when talking about a subject based on your experiences. \n\nWhenever you give an opinion, there will be some sort of bias involved.\n\nWhen a teacher says \"Teachers should be paid more\", there is an amount of bias involved. Of course he thinks teachers should be paid more, he's a teacher. But if a teacher can accurately list a set of pros and cons without letting the fact that he's a teacher get in the way, and then conclude that yes, teachers should be paid more, then he is not being biased. Or at least, the bias has been reduced.\n\nIt is extremely hard to talk about a subject without bias. This usually involves speaking using facts and facts only. Unfortunately, this is a problem because we all look at the world around us in terms of our own life experiences.\n\nFor example, if I say the PC is a better gaming option, and only have a PC at home, then I'm biased. I have not tested all the gaming options out there, all the consoles, etc and deduced, from all the facts, that the PC is the better option.\n\nWhenever someone states an opinion, it is safe to assume that bias exists there, sometimes hidden, and it is important to investigate that bias.",
"Technically it just means that a person, group, or system favors one outcome or a set of outcomes over rest of the possible outcomes. Say you have a loaded die that rolls sixes much more often than a regular die. You would say that the die is \"biased\" toward rolling sixes since an unchanged die would roll far fewer. \n\n",
"In case you're looking for a technical (i.e. electronic) definition, a bias is a constant offset of a value (a number always added to it), either intentionally as part of a circuit design or unintentionally as part of a signal that may need to be removed.\n\nFor instance, amplifier chips whose power pins are connected between +9V and 0V (ground) will amplify a signal that comes in with positive voltage well, but won't amplify well (it will distort) if it receives a negative voltage. In that case, the amplifier needs to be biased so it can amplify incoming signal even if it \"swings\" from + to - and back.\n\nOn the other hand, if you have a signal coming into the amplifier that \"swings\" around some voltage (such as +1V) instead of around 0V, the amplifier might distort again, so that signal needs to be de-biased (the constant value removed)."
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4cjb3i | passports and traveling abroad | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4cjb3i/eli5_passports_and_traveling_abroad/ | {
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"Passports are known to have existed as early as 450 BCE, so it's not a new thing. They've probably been a thing as long as there have been separate nations."
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21wqnk | why don't doctors just run all the possible tests on a patient (including the full-body ct scan) to get the right diagnosis and instead discuss the possible diseases with their colleagues? | I know there may not be time to do a lot of tests when a patient is in a very serious condition but why don't doctors just run all possible tests with patients who can wait? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/21wqnk/eli5_why_dont_doctors_just_run_all_the_possible/ | {
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"E. g. in my country, there are four PET/CT cameras. The population is around 5 and a half million. ",
"Tests do not come without risks. The C-T scan gives the patient a fairly high dose of radiation - as do many of the other imaging methods. Tests also have false positives, which lead to more high-risk tests, or high-risk treatments for something the patient doesn't have.\n\nIn addition, many diseases should be treated in a timely manner, and extra tests take extra time."
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3calv5 | 'kony 2012' seeming to grab the whole world then around a month later all went quiet | The first video got over 100 million views and plenty of coverage. The follow up got around 2 million and little to no coverage. What happened? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3calv5/eli5_kony_2012_seeming_to_grab_the_whole_world/ | {
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"Didn't the Kony guy have a mental breakdown and start running through the streets naked?",
"Because they didn't really offer a follow up outside of \"share this video\". And Kony was being dealt with, most people just didn't know about it. It was like people saying \"McVeigh 2012! WE gotta catch Timothy McVeigh before he strikes again!\". "
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37hxas | why is love so important for human beings? | It seems like there's nothing more important to every person than the positive/negative effects of love. Why? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/37hxas/eli5_why_is_love_so_important_for_human_beings/ | {
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"Because love is a lovely feeling to have. it's wonderful to be in love with someone that loves you back.\n\nin addition to love being absolutely lovely it also lets us bond with our mate, encourages us reproducing with them, keeps us together to care for the offspring, and makes sure we want to keep each other safe and happy. ",
"Two reasons: \n\n1) Humans are social animals. Having someone to care for and someone to care for you is historically essential to our survival.\n\n2) People confuse lust and love. Just as an addict convinces himself he doesn't have a problem, so too do the horny convince themselves they are in love. The desire to mate is also essential to our survival, but the selection of a mate in modern times is more sophisticated than just sex.",
"Love is a neurochemical response to stimuli, just like any other emotion. In this case, the stimuli stems from an unconscious reproductive strategy:\r#\rGenerally speaking, raising children is hard. Our ancestors whose parents teamed up to raise them were more likely to survive than those whose parents separated after copulation and/or abandoned them after birth. \rThe parents that teamed up probably did so because they had a random mutation that caused them to feel something similar to what we now call \"love\". Since their reproductive efforts were more successful, they passed more and more \"love\" genes into the next generations until it became a nearly universal human trait.",
"It's actually something along the lines of this:\r\rThroughout our lives we experience many things that make us happy, and all of these things cause our brains to release Endorphins, causing us the feeling of happiness.\r\rWhen we love someone or something, its because that thing is valued to us somehow, usually its linked to survival- food, sex, safety- all of which we relate to people in some way. Therefore when we experience these things, and they aid our survival, our brain releases a giant amount of Endorphins, to make us experience what we perceive as love, causing us to want it more in order to motivate us to survive.\r\rThis is why we love things like beds, foods, and other people. It's our brain releasing a drug that will actually make us addicted to that thing, in order to control us into eating, sleeping, and reproducing."
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1zpxxw | if cadence watches helped reddit to pay 19.67 of server time since 2010 thru ads, why did reddit made the gold campaign to pay its server? | Front page has an ads saying Cadence helped Reddit to pay over 19 years of server time and Reddit still needs money. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1zpxxw/eli5_if_cadence_watches_helped_reddit_to_pay_1967/ | {
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"If reddit ran on a single server, then 19 years of time would cover them for, well, 19 years.\n\nIf reddit ran on 19 servers, then 19 years of server time would cover them for a year.\n\nSo, it's really a matter of how many servers reddit uses to serve this rather large user base. I guarantee it's not one.",
"So when you go to church and some rich nice guy puts $1000 in the collection plate, do you put your $5 back in your pocket?\n\nThe one thing has nothing to do with the other. "
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2w0tyz | what are the duties of military personnel stationed in peaceful countries. | For example American military personnel stationed in South Korea or Japan. What are their responsibilities and duties. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2w0tyz/eli5_what_are_the_duties_of_military_personnel/ | {
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"There are lots of things to do around the base like maintaining equipment and routine training. There are hospitals to run, jeeps to clean, and paperwork to fill out.\n\nHowever their main duties, i.e. the reason they are there is first place, is to be ready in case something happens. Something may happen that at least a few of them need to be mobilized at an hours notice. Most of the time it is to help with some sort of disaster but in theory they could be the front line for a war with North Korea. \n\nThat might seem very unlikely but the fact that they are there and that they are ready is a large part of the reason that such a war is unlikely. ",
"It depends on what their job is. A lot of combat-related positions will spend most of the time training, but they're usually near a combat region. If you're in logistics, then there's a ton of crap that needs to go on behind the scenes; paperwork to fill out, people to speak to, etc. If you're support, then you probably spend most of your time checking and re-checking things, cleaning, loading, stacking, etc. ",
"You can still train in other countries, but you are closer to possible points of conflict, giving our military a quicker response. It can also act as a deterrent in some areas.",
"You are either training for why you are there (via exercises, coordinating with allied forces, etc.) or supporting those doing said training (such as logistics, maintenance, medical, etc.)"
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vls2j | why is the us immigration process so complex? | How has the immigration procedure changed over time and what are the current steps to become a US Citizen? Furthermore, why can't the government figure out the problem and fix it? Nevermind your political or moral affiliation. Gimme the facts. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/vls2j/why_is_the_us_immigration_process_so_complex/ | {
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"The US is actually one of the easiest country to immigrate to, some country simply will not let you become a citizen, ever. No country will just let anyone in and there has to be a highly selective process in order to protect the interest of their own citizen workforce. ",
"_URL_0_ is a great infographic explanation.",
"I became a citizen recently. I've been in the us for fifteen years now on a permanent resident card (AKA Green Card).\n\nHad either of my parents become citizens before I had turned 18, I would have become a citizen. (From what I remember, this only recently became a law) However, since we've been a bit too preoccupied with other things, I had to go through the process myself.\n\nI had to fill out a very extensive form, detailing where I've lived, worked, and schooled for the past several years. And I mean, down to a 'T' in terms of dates. Starting and finishing days of school, employment, etc. This form was called the N-400.\n\nI can't remember how much it cost exactly, but it was close to 700 dollars.\n\nHere's the fun part, if you screw up the form, you don't get your money back. This is why there exist a lot of places that will double check the form for you (For a fee) to make sure you don't get screwed over.\n\nAnyhoo, after all that was said and done, I got a letter stating when I would go downtown to meet with the officer of the court, who would give me my test.\n\nI took a written test, a spoken test, and an oath in front of the officer. A few days later, I went to the ceremony with about 150 other people, where we received our certificates.\n\nHope that sated part of your curiosity. I don't really know how it's changed over years, just what I went through.",
"It's a pretty simple numbers game. The number of people wanting to come to the US is far higher than are being let in, so they come up with ways to decide who will get in, e.g. country of origin, education. So if you're a high school drop out from China, you're not getting in legally anytime soon. Another point that I can't prove, it seems the high cost of applying serves as a filter of those who won't become taxable workers, i.e. above the tax exemption line. \n\nIn terms of actual process you first have to snag a visa, usually through an employer or university. The need for sponsorship serves as another filter to prove you're going to be a contributing member of society. Then you fill out an an application for permanent residency (green card) that will allow you to stay here until you fulfill the residency requirement of 5 years. Many people get stuck at this point because they were given a visa but because they're from say India it may be a decade before they get a green card under current quotas. If you get permanent residency, It used to be you could just keep renewing your green card every 10 years till you die, however they've added clauses stating you must be \"actively seeking citizenship\" to get it renewed so 20 years is probably the max you can stay now before being forced to apply for naturalization (citizenship), though it's a convoluted and ever changing policy. \n\nNow the end game, Naturalization. If you make it this far, you probably can become a citizen within 6 months and $700 in filing fees, in the best case scenario. Unfortunately many people don't end up in that situation. When surveying all these potential hiccups many people choose to enter illegally instead. Which leads to further limits on entry to compensate and the vicious cycle continues until you end up with what we have today. \n\n",
"\"Why can't the government figure out the problem and fix it?\"\n\nAre you seriously asking that here?",
"The reason why immigration is such a long and difficult process is because it says, in essence, that **citizenship is valuable. Not everyone can get it. And if everyone got it, there would be no reason to be an American citizen anymore.** It's like giving everyone free money. It would simply deflate those that had money. Giving every person that jumps across the border of the United States and touches the ground saying, \"I'm here!\" would cause a nightmare that is worse than the current one we're facing with illegal immigration.\n\n If we set up a system where anyone in a flightpath to the United States could get citizenship in a year, then our borders would be filled with unskilled labor coming across the borders, and it would have an instantaneous negative economic impact.\n Giving instantaneous citizenship would disrupt elections, as foreign powers could influence our elections in a few years, and overturn our government. Having a high influx of unchecked, single year citizens is also a national security issue.\n\n In short, the immigration arguments people give you are terrible. Most advocates would say, give status to everyone already.\n And a year later, when a 100 million people are clamoring to be US citizens, throwing elections, having people who are one year residents sitting in congress, and who don't really respect what it is to be an American, but simply want the perks without the trouble, then, you'd easily see why immigration in almost EVERY nation that is industrialized is difficult to get in to. \n\n Industrialized nations have nothing to gain throwing the floodgates open.\n \n If America is an evil empire, then the rest of the industrialized world is an evil empire as well.",
"As someone that just went through the entire process, roughly 9 years, I can tell you that the legal process is not that complicated, its everything else that surrounds it (cost, time, etc). With a half decent attorney it will run about 15k to 20k after all the fees and travel. The quickest and easiest is to marry someone who is already a citizen and from personal experience Political Asylum is the longest and the most dragged out one. Hope this helps.",
"Immigrating to the US is extremely easy. When I was 4, my family immigrated to Australia from South Africa. It took years to get approval, despite having extensive family in Australia, and the process was so expensive that my family had to basically start over financially once we were finally allowed into Australia.\n\nBy contrast, I moved to the US as an adult. I came on a tourist visa, and applied while in the country (overstaying my visa in the process, the situation was complicated). Despite the unorthodox entry, my approval was practically a rubber-stamp. We hired a lawyer to help us with the forms and background check, but we probably could have managed with no more than some advice from the internet, and the process itself didn't even cost all that much.\n\nIf the US didn't have lax immigration laws, it would be very unlikely that it would absorb the enormous absolute numbers of immigrants that it has over the decades (and continues to do so today). I am not aware of any country which has accepted larger absolute numbers of immigrants (though some countries have larger immigrant populations as a fraction of their total population).\n\nThat being said, the process of deportation in the US *is* extremely complicated. The process can involve detention in an immigration prison for months at a time or even longer. One of the reasons for this is that, even though being deported involves being imprisoned, it is treated by law as a civil, rather than a criminal matter. On the upside, this means that a deportation does not result in a criminal record, but on the downside, it means that a person undergoing deportation proceedings is not entitled to the due process rights that they would have if they were being prosecuted for a crime. So, you can be imprisoned without trial, and held in a facility unknown to your family and acquaintances, without contact with the outside world or a lawyer.\n\nDespite the fact that Americas immigration system is quite forgiving compared to most other countries, there are a few kinks. One well-known one is work visas which require an employer as a sponsor of the immigrant. These visas are what allow many highly-educated foreign citizens to live in the US and work in the technology industry. There are not enough qualified Americans to fill their roles in the economy, so it is obviously in the interests of the US (and those industries) to maintain the availability of these visas. Nonetheless, for political reasons these programs have been altered to make them more restrictive. Where there are cases of immigration law in the US being unreasonable, it is safe to say that the cause is usually political, spurred by people who for one reason or another do not want the United States to accept more immigrants.",
"Because the US offers certain welfare benefits. If it were easier to become a citizen, these programs would be completely unsustainable. Slowing the legal immigration rate is a calculated hypocrisy.\n\nThere is also a added difficulty in becoming an american citizen to placate xenophobic constituents whom fear that a glut of labor will depreciate their own value in the labor markets."
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1onxdc | why are things animals build (anthills, beehives) consitered 'natural', but things humans build (roads, houses) consitered unnatural? | Aren't humans just advanced animals? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1onxdc/eli5_why_are_things_animals_build_anthills/ | {
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"Because we, as humans, find is useful to distinguish between things that we've made and things that other animals made. \n\nIf you want a less egocentric reasoning, due to technology, humans are able to make widespread changes to the Earth in ways that the biosphere hasn't had time to adapt to. There are consequences from that fact that are worth discussing and differentiating from \"natural\" activities.",
"Because the definition of natural is not made by humans. Of course this is pretty much a stupid definition but this is just what the word means."
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4ie5wk | how is a wind turbine able to spin with minimal wind given its enormous size/weight? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4ie5wk/eli5_how_is_a_wind_turbine_able_to_spin_with/ | {
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"Due to the marvels of engineering. The wind tourbine simply has the ideal proportions in order for it to spin, even in gentle breeze. It simply covers the maximum area based on it's size. Now it might look like it spins slowly, but in reality it generates enourmous ammounts of electricity, simply because of it's size.",
"Because even when the wind is blowing slowly it is moving an enormous mass of air and to that requires a massive amount of force constantly being applied, the large surface area of a turbine uses that force to turn the blades."
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6b03yl | at what point after putting ice cubes in a glass of water is the water at its coldest? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/6b03yl/eli5_at_what_point_after_putting_ice_cubes_in_a/ | {
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"When you put ice cubes into the water, they'll quickly heat up to 0°C, and stay there until they melt. The reason is that it takes about ten times as much energy to melt ice at 0°C than it takes to heat it up from -18°C freezer temperature to 0°C.\n\nYou can test if an ice cube is already at 0°C by taking it out of the water. If the water at the surface freezes and the ice cube is sticky, it's still below the freezing point. If the water remains liquid, it has already heated up to the freezing point, where it's no longer able to freeze any water. This usually takes only a couple of seconds.\n\nSo typically, you can expect the water to be coldest when you give it a good stir and all the ice cubes have heated up to 0°C. It will then heat up as the ice cubes melt, although it will remain very close to 0°C for a long time if there's a lot of ice in the water. "
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214w1j | why can't anything travel faster than the speed of light, if black holes are strong enough to pull light in? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/214w1j/eli5_why_cant_anything_travel_faster_than_the/ | {
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"Why would the attraction of a black hole make anything travel faster than light?"
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aoa43v | how and when to properly use colons (:), semi-colons (;), dashes (-), and commas (,) in a sentence. what differentiates them from one another? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/aoa43v/eli5_how_and_when_to_properly_use_colons/ | {
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"A colon is typically to designate you plan to talk about a series of things, such as: examples, phrases, and things you are listing.\n\nA semi-colon separates two totally different sentences that each have their own complete subject and verb. A lot of people think they're kind of unnecessary and that you can split both sides of them into two sentences; it can be nice if the two sentences are so related that they support each other, though.\n\nA dash - similar to a comma - creates a pocket of the sentence that calls your attention to it without totally breaking the flow of a sentence. The dissonance it creates is a little intentional - in a good way.\n\nA series of back to back commas, as used here, is similar to the dash in that it provides a small additional thought that can clarify or add to your sentence. The deviating phrase is usually talking about the object that came just before it.\n\nOtherwise, commas can be used in many ways. You see by this example, it can be used to separate a segue from the thought it's seguing to. It can also be used to prop up a minor interjection. (For instance:) Ouch, this is getting kinda long. Yikes, I hope I'm not rambling. You can also use them to designate a pause, especially in a place where you'd take a second to pause between parts of your sentence in out-loud conversation.",
"A colon is used to introduce a list. \"There were three winners in our poll: blue, red, and yellow.\"\n\nA comma can be used to separate items in a list, such as the colors above, or used to separate dependent clauses in a complex sentence. It is also used for an apositive such as \"This is Jessica, my best friend.\"\n\nA semicolon is used to joint two independent clauses. \"I love Logan; Logan loves me.\" It can also be used as a \"super comma\" to separate items in a list where the items themselves have a comma in them. \"The Dow Jones Industrial Average comprises 30 companies such as The Home Depot, Inc.; Walgreens Boots Alliance, Inc.; and The Travelers Companies, Inc.\"\n\nDashes come in two varieties, the en-dash (–) and the em-dash (—). Strictly speaking, the em-dash should be twice the width of the en-dash, but it really depends on your particular font on how they're rendered. An en-dash is used to show range. King George VI reigned 1936–1952. An em-dash can be used to show a sudden break (typically used for dialog where someone stops talking mid-sentence), or is used as a pair around a parenthetical or aside. \"I was talking to that cashier—you know the one—at Kroger and she said there was a sale on apples next week.\""
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18eg53 | critical reasoning - philosophy. | I'm having the hardest time fully understanding Critical Reasoning. I don't know why, i'm normally good in Philosophy. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/18eg53/eli5_critical_reasoning_philosophy/ | {
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"I have no idea what you're asking."
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dcoj48 | what is the goal of bacteria or viruses that make humans sick? why do they weaken their host? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/dcoj48/eli5_what_is_the_goal_of_bacteria_or_viruses_that/ | {
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"They all \"want\" to live, divide and spread. They basically use your body as food and a living ground and a factory (viruses). Often the symptoms of a disease are just a side effect of them using your body and it fighting back (e.g. pain, fever), but sometimes the symptoms help spreading them (sneezing).\n\nEvolution plays a big part here:\n\nOver the long term, it is against the interest of pathogens (bacteria, viruses, etc.) to kill or damage its host body, since a dead human does not move around, limiting the chances to spread to other humans. We see that usually diseases become less damaging the longer they have infected humans (decades to millennia). AIDS viruses already have become less deadly. Ebola on the other hand is a very deadly disease, but quite rare, because people die before they can spread it a lot.\n\nOn the other side is the common cold. Theses viruses are so successful, because they only make you sneeze a lot, but leave you enough energy to still go everywhere. They are the most \"successful\" disease, and due to their adaptation to the body, only make you sick a little bit.",
"That's not their goal. The only thing they want to do (and \"want\" is the wrong word, since they do not have any kind of thought process that leads them to want anything) is reproduce. That's it. It's an extremely powerful feedback loop - if a certain characteristic leads to increased reproduction, that characteristic is retained, enhanced and passed on. If it leads to less reproduction, that characteristic eventually disappears.\n\nAlso, the bacteria and viruses don't actually cause fever or excess mucus production or other symptoms - it's the body's reaction to the invaders that produces these symptoms. There are countless bacteria and even small insects that co-exist peacefully in the human body - they live in our guts, bloodstream, hair follicles, etc., and the body does not go haywire in response. These organisms (and we humans) have evolved to \"live together\" so to speak. These organisms tend to be beneficial (like digestive system bacteria) or at least neutral (eyebrow mites), meaning they don't consume so many resources from us that they threaten our ability to live and reproduce.\n\nCombine these concepts and we get a system where the body \"over-reacts\" to invaders that haven't yet \"learned\" how to live in us without causing a ruckus.\n\nAnd then we have certain creatures that produce toxins as part of their existence (like botulism bacteria) but that's an entirely separate discussion. Those creatures aren't \"trying\" to live inside us - they're perfectly \"happy\" elsewhere, but every now and then they get into our food supply and if conditions are right, produce a powerful toxin that greatly harms the body. But that's not the same thing as a bacteria or virus that's looking to use our bodies as a host.",
"It is like asking what goal humans have for climate change. They are trying to multiply and consumption/pollution has been a byproduct."
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5wo9mi | how do we calculate the fat and protein percentage in meat? | How do we accurately know how much fat, protein and carbs there is in the food we eat? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5wo9mi/eli5_how_do_we_calculate_the_fat_and_protein/ | {
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"As far as I understand it, as a 5 year old myself, it's based on a calorimeter reading, which is essentially destroying an identical food in a controlled chamber to evaluate its energy potential (calories are a measure of energy, actually representing kilocalories) based on heat changes, combined with density and weight values already known. So, for example, a 12 oz sirloin can be calculated as we have the weight, a volume, and with those we have overall density.\n\nUsing measures we already know about the difference in density for fats and proteins, we can actually use the weight of the food compared to the volume (a volumetricly smaller 12 oz steak is leaner than a larger, fatty steak.) And we can double check using the calorie count (proportionally, fats are worth 9 cal and proteins are 4) to confirm measurements, as I understood in my high school chem class.\n\nEdit: was corrected on proteins and fats. Thanks!!"
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1t5nt2 | humble bundles.. and how it works from the game developers' perspective. also.. how much does each dev get from a bundle? | I have always wondered.. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1t5nt2/eli5_humble_bundles_and_how_it_works_from_the/ | {
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"Not sure about the first question, but the amount the developers get is determined by the buyers themselves. When you buy a bundle from the site you can choose how to split the money between all the developers, the charities and the humble bundle site."
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6a64mw | when is self defense legal in the usa? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/6a64mw/eli5when_is_self_defense_legal_in_the_usa/ | {
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"You are justified in using force to stop the credible threat of imminent force against your person. For example if you were struck and you needed to fight back to prevent further attack it would be justified.\n\nOn the other hand if you were just struck once and had no good reason to think the attack would continue, your striking back would not be justified. If you could have just walked away like you did later, you could be charged with battery.",
"It varies by circumstance and by school, but generally speaking you are equally at fault if you fight back at all while on school grounds. You could catch 4 right hooks to the jaw, but if they catch you even shoving them off you that could be grounds for punishment. "
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1jlkwq | why does canada have such high gas prices? | They say we're amongst the most oil-rich nations in the world, yet we're paying twice as much for gas as we were 10 years ago. And also paying more than the countries we're selling oil to. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1jlkwq/eli5_why_does_canada_have_such_high_gas_prices/ | {
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"America is paying twice as much as we were ten years ago, too... ",
"Higher taxes mostly. Part of that and the general higher prices are due to the face there are fewer Canadians and just as much land.",
"Because taxes. \n\nGas is about 10 cents cheaper in Alberta than Saskatchewan, because of higher taxes. Don't they still have those stickers on the pump which breaks down the gas price? Tax is about half of it. US gas has less tax, plain and simple.\n\nYou're paying twice as much today because of inflation and a high oil market price. Why should an oil company sell for less than what they can get on the market?",
" > They say we're amongst the most oil-rich nations in the world, yet we're paying twice as much for gas as we were 10 years ago.\n\nCanada has a lot of oil, but your car runs on gas. They have to sell oil to the US to be refined, then buy back the gasoline.",
"* Taxes.\n\n* Canadian oil is refined in the USA.\n\n* [But mainly taxes](_URL_0_).\n\nFurthermore on the tax comparison:\nThe USA has 10x the population of Canada but only 6x the total roads. That means for every km of road, Canada has 6 people paying to support it. In the USA, it's 10 people. Canadian roads are also more expensive to maintain per km. (Winter wrecks roads.)\n\nCanada pays for basically all the roads via the gas tax (using just a fraction of it). In the USA the roads are only [51% paid for](_URL_1_) by their gas tax *+ tolls*. Other sources of tax revenue pays the rest.\n\nSo to make it equal between the USA and Canada, Canada would have to destroy 40% of the roads, move south by 20 degrees and the USA would have to double it's [tax on gas](_URL_2_) per volume (raising pump price by 11-14%) and get rid of almost all their toll booths.",
"Two reasons, first taxes, second, the price of oil.\n\nUnlike say.. Saudi Arabia (or even poor countries that don't have oil), the government doesn't subsidize oil prices to boost economic activity in canada. Refineries here, and in the US pay the price of oil that is well, the price of oil. Usually because of bulk discounts and a few things they never pay the oft quoted 'price of oil' that's all over the place, but they still pay a percentage of it.\n\nSecondly is taxes. Canadian taxes on oil are quite low by western standards, mostly because too many people would just drive across the border to the US and fill up there and drive back, and that becomes a nightmare to police. You'd have illegal fuel smuggling problems etc. etc. etc. \n\nBut, while our taxes are low by western standards they are high compared to the US. Of course we don't have many toll roads (and the people who made the 407 deal should be in jail) the way the US does etc. So the money needs to come from somewhere to pay for those things. We've decided, (rightly or wrongly) that we're going to get that through fuel taxes. \n\nOh and inflation naturally. \n\nCumulatively since 2003 inflation has been about 20%, the price of oil in 2003 was 28 dollars, the price today is more like 86. \n\nAnd keep in mind, as much as we have a lot of oil in canada, it's almost all the expensive variety. ~70 dollars a barrel to extract kind of expensive. Partly because of the type of oil and partly because it's in the middle of nowhere and unfortunately on land, which makes getting the oil anywhere expensive, and getting people to mine it expensive. "
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yr4f2 | why is counterfeiting and copying is so rampant in china? | I keep seeing articles like [this dude having his game engine stolen](_URL_0_). Or finding out that they make [counterfeit cigarettes](_URL_2_). Or even [fake Viagra](_URL_1_).
But why is it such a common practice within the country? Is it because there's little to no enforcement? Is it because copyright law in China is very lenient? They don't seem to be a country that lacks innovation, they're credited with the inventions of gunpowder, papermaking and printing. Did something change along the way? Why so many counterfeits?
| explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/yr4f2/eli5_why_is_counterfeiting_and_copying_is_so/ | {
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"It is not a lack of innovation...it is just about money.\n\nMost of what China manufactures is for export, that's the backbone of their economy. So long as it makes money, and don't hurt Chinese companies, the government doesn't put a lot of effort into enforcement.\n\nThis is a huge point of contention with other countries, China's unwillingness to enforce intellectual property laws.",
"It is extremely easy to copy a popular product. People will buy your product thinking it is like the original (while it may or may not be), without you having to spend any money on design or even marketing. The counterfeiters of China are only doing what makes them a lot of money for very cheap.\n\nThe real question then is why does similar counterfeiting not happen in other places?\n\nFirst world countries have laws preventing people from doing that, as well as punishment systems that work well. This prevents people from trying to break these laws.\n\nSimilar laws are either non-existent or poorly enforced in places like China and other south east asian countries.",
"One issue that people don't mention is the mindset with regards to property rights and intellectual property. \n\nHaving been a Communist regime (and still politically, if not economically so), in China, the whole individual \"I built this\" mentality, and respect for the ingenuity of the individual isn't as mimetically inculcated in the society. It's all about ~~get bitches~~ \"find stuff, make money\"--who came up with the item isn't as important as who expends energy to make and sell it. As long as it doesn't affect China adversely, it's not a big deal."
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"http://abcnews.go.com/WNT/story?id=130381&page=1#.UDeEvaB1OSo",
"http://www.cracked.com/article_19742_the-5-most-insane-examples-chinese-counterfeiting_p2.html"
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2mamwq | why are all of the walmart employees going on strike? | I understand that it's very low paying. But then why not just quit and find another job? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2mamwq/eli5_why_are_all_of_the_walmart_employees_going/ | {
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"There are Walmart strikes every single year at Christmas time. Walmart employs 1.4 million people in the US alone. If 99% were happy, and 1% of the employees were unhappy that is 14,000 unhappy workers. When 14,000 people do something, or are threatening to do something, it gets national attention. \n\n(Clearly these numbers are just to make an example for the sake of showing the scale of employees Walmart has and does not reflect any kind of actual data on employee happiness)",
"1. The economy doesn't work like that. There aren't a lot of jobs in a lot of places. Unemployment may be back to relatively close to pre-2007 but the jobs that have been coming back have been created have overwhelmingly been low wage jobs. Throw onto that the fact that they put many small businesses out of business since they can't compete with the prices at Walmart, and Walmart can only sell at those prices by paying poverty wages at nearly every level of their operation. \n\n2. Why not? Somebody has to stand up to Walmart, and politicians won't. All Walmart cares about is making money, and they don't make money if workers don't work. They are using collective action to make Walmart listen and respect their right to form a union. Walmart pretty much by policy violates labor laws every day by firing pro-union workers, telling employees not to talk about how much they make, and even making people work off the clock. \n\n3. Service work us the new bedrock of our economy. You can't outsource it. It's here to stay. We can decide to make those jobs good middle class jobs. You probably think of jobs in manufacturing as solid middle class jobs. Well, until workers in the 20s and 30s started striking in the steel mills, paper mills, etc., those jobs were the worst, most dangerous, lowest paying jobs around. But those workers fought to form unions, make their voices heaed, and made a whole new class of middle class jobs that led to the great expansion of the middle class in the 50s and 60s. We have the opportunity to make that choice now. And right now, wealth inequality is at levels we haven't seen since 1929, so it seems like as good a time as ever. ",
"Walmart tends to drive other small businesses away. Especially in smaller towns, there may not be much option to move elsewhere. And from what I have seen, economists say that for a few extra pennies on each item, they could pay all employees full-time living wages.\n\nThey chose not to do this, and the employees feel they should. Walmart is also infamous for silencing labor organization efforts for their stores.",
"Ill chip in here with some counterpoints I think are worth noting:\n\n1. A worker has no right to unionize. The employer can (and in most cases will) fire each and every employee who tries to unionize. It's not a violation of labor law\n\n2. Unions are not always what they are cracked up to be. Union started in the steel mill and were definitely necessary at that time because there was no minimum wage, there was no OSHAA safety requirements. These days, unions can be a huge liability. GM and Chrysler suffer under the burden of their unions. Unions, like government jobs, prohibit the employer from firing shitty employees. Unskilled laborers command much higher salaries and have no incentive to actually be better at their jobs. GM cannot compete with Toyota (who pioneered continuous improvement as well as anti-unionization in the auto industry) as an example because Toyota provides a better product (incentivised productivity of its workforce) for a lower price (not having to pay unskilled labor high wages).\n\nIts very easy to say \"corporate greed down, unionized workers making $15 an hour up,\" but its not that simple. Unions bring much as much bad as they do good to a company and, depending on the market, can tilt the scales the wrong way. If a company has to pay high wages to a unionized workforce full of shitheads it can't get rid of, the company will fail and everyone will be out of work."
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azaltp | set theory in mathematics. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/azaltp/eli5_set_theory_in_mathematics/ | {
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"Sets are collections of objects. Set theory is a formal way to look at \"collections of objects\" and apply math to them (define what it means to add, subtract, multiply, intersect, etc.) these things. Why? Because it's useful; some things in reality are related and could be grouped together as a collection, and being able to do math with them opens the door to doing other sciences with them.",
"# Motivating example\nSuppose somebody told you: \"Did you know that every day of the year is the birthday of a US president?\" Would you believe it?\n\nNow, maybe you happen to be a US history buff and you know every presidential birthday by heart. Then you could just say that nobody's birthday was on December 25th, for example. And that definitely settles it – every day of the year can't be the birthday of a US president because no president was born on the 25th of December.\n\nOn the other hand, maybe you're not a US history buff, so maybe you thought of a different solution instead which requires almost no knowledge about US presidents. As of today, 45 US presidents have held office, so there can't be more than 45 US presidential birthdays. But there are 366 possible dates for birthdays to fall on, so obviously there can't be a president for each one! It's just not possible.\n\nNote that there is a qualitative difference between these two arguments. The first argument uses knowledge about every individual president (each person's birthday), and uses that knowledge to claim something about the collective. The second argument doesn't use knowledge about any particular president at all, but instead uses only knowledge about the collective (there have been 45 presidents in total).\n\n# Sets\nNow, let's get to sets. A **set** is the mathematical abstraction for a collection of things. To borrow an analogy from famous mathematician Paul Halmos, a set is basically like an abstract box. You can put objects into the box, and you can check if a particular object is in the box or not. So you can have a set \n{1, 4, 5} \nfor example. (That's one way of writing simple sets; curly brackets and then list what's in there.) And importantly, just like a box can contain another box, a set can contain another set. So although it may look ugly, \n{{1}} \nis actually a valid set, and it's *not* equal to the set {1}. Why? A box containing a hat is not the same thing as a box containing a box containing a hat!\n\nAnother way of writing sets is with so called \"set builder notation\". It basically works like this: \n{n | n is an even prime} = {2} \n{p | p is a US president} = {George Washington, John Adams, Thomas Jefferson‚ ..., Barack Obama, Donald Trump} \n{x | x^(2) = 1} = {-1, 1} \n{y≥0 | y^(2) = 1 } = {1} \nThe way you read this notation is \"the set of all n such that n is an even prime\". The first two examples probably do a poor job of motivating the notation, but hopefully the last two examples motivate it better.\n\nAnyway, let's get to the point. It turns out to often be very useful in mathematics to talk about the collection of *all* things as opposed to talking about each individual one. You can form the set of all US presidents {p | p is a US president} and the set of all allowed calendar dates {d | d is a calendar date}, and then you can compare their sizes (using the notation \\#S for the size of S): \n\\#{p | p is a US president} = 45 \n\\#{d | d is a calendar date} = 366 \nThe sizes are different, so they're different sets! Since the second one is bigger, it must contain some object which is not in the first.\n\n# Set theory\n**Set theory** is the study of sets. It was invented in a [groundbreaking paper][cantor1874] by Georg Cantor in 1874. In this paper he comes up with a way of defining \"size\" for infinite sets (!) in a way that is mathematically consistent. His idea was simple: two sets should have the same same size if you can pair each element from the first set with a unique element from the second set. As an analogy, think of forks and knives. If you've laid the table for your guests and by every seat there's one fork and one knife, then you immediately know that there are equally many forks as there are knives on the table without counting them. You don't at all need to know how many forks there actually are on the table, nor how many knives. But if you counted 17 forks, you could say right away that there were also 17 knives.\n\nWe can use this definition of size to prove many counter-intuitive results. For instance, there are as many positive integers as there are integers (of any sign). Just pair them up like this: \n1 ↔ 0 \n2 ↔ 1 \n3 ↔ -1 \n4 ↔ 2 \n5 ↔ -2 \n6 ↔ 3 \n ⋮ ↔ ⋮\n\nThis might seem crazy the first time you see it, since one set entire contains the other, but that's actually the only sensible way we can talk about the size of infinite sets! Similarly, there are actually [as many rational numbers as there are integers][cantor1891]. (Rational numbers being fractions of integers like 1/2, -3/4, 2/1, etc.)\n\nSo why is this useful? And what was so groundbreaking about it? Maybe you've heard the famous story about √2: The Pythagoreans (the followers of Pythagoras in ancient Greece) famously believed that all numbers were rational. The integers formed the basis for all numbers, and ratios of integers (fractions) filled in the gaps. As such, fractions were also beautiful and divine. The legend goes that Hippasus proved that √2 could not possibly be a rational number. The Pythagoreans tried to keep this dangerous secret from getting out, and when Hippasus divulged it to the general populace he was executed.\n\nAnyway, time passed, and people got used to irrational numbers. In the 16th century, European mathematicians were obsessed with polynomial equations like x^(3)-3x+1=0. Usually these had irrational solutions, and mathematicians were used to that. But again, one might ask: maybe *all* numbers are of this form? Maybe all numbers are the solution to some (maybe unknown) polynomial equation? Such numbers are called algebraic numbers. It took until 1844 before Joseph Liouville proved that there existed numbers which *weren't* algebraic, and in 1851 he produced an example – the first ever example of a so called [transcendental number][transcendental]. In 1873, Charles Hermite proved that the famous constant *e* was transcendental too.\n\nHowever, since so few transcendental numbers were known, the question remained as to how common they were. This is what Cantor settled in his 1874 paper. He proved using his notion of set size that there are as many algebraic numbers (i.e. numbers that are solutions to polynomial equations) as there are integers. However, the set of all real numbers (anything that can be written with a decimal expansion) was bigger! Although the sets are infinite, Cantor could argue in a way that made complete sense that the size of the set of all algebraic numbers was smaller than the size of the set of all real numbers. In other words, \"most\" real numbers are transcendental! This brings us back to where we started, with presidents and dates. Although only a few transcendental numbers were known (just like I only know a few presidential birthdays), I can be completely certain that there are more transcendental numbers than there are algebraic numbers, because I can compare the sizes of the two sets.\n\nIf you want to know more about sizes of infinite sets, I've [answered an eli5 about that before][oldpost]. Also note that this post is barely even scratching the surface of set theory. If you want to know more, you might want to read [this short summary on the history of set theory][history]. It's also important to note that Cantor's original notion of set was logically flawed, as demonstrated by [Russel's paradox] [russels-paradox] (does \"the set of all sets not containing themselves\" contain itself?), which lead to the creation of axiomatic set theory, which does away with these inconsistencies. Axiomatic set theory is considered by most mathematicians to be the foundation for all of mathematics, and this framework doesn't even need to know what a number is at all! Instead, *numbers are defined in terms of sets*, which is very mind boggling.\n\nAnyway, I guess I have to end this somewhere and this seems like as good a spot as any. I hope the answer was at least slightly useful.\n\n[cantor1874]: _URL_3_\n[cantor1891]: _URL_2_\n[transcendental]: _URL_1_\n[oldpost]: _URL_5_\n[history]: _URL_0_\n[russels-paradox]: _URL_4_"
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"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georg_Cantor%27s_first_set_theory_article",
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russell%27s_paradox",
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1qn5em | 'critical mass' in nuclear plants | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1qn5em/eli5critical_mass_in_nuclear_plants/ | {
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"A critical mass is the smallest amount of fissile (material that is capable of sustaining a chain reaction of nuclear fission) needed for a nuclear chain reaction."
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2yfhna | how can a tiny magnet be stronger than the whole earth's gravity, when i pick up a little peace of metal from off the ground? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2yfhna/eli5_how_can_a_tiny_magnet_be_stronger_than_the/ | {
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"Short answer: gravity is actually really freaking weak compared to things like electromagnetism and the weak and strong atomic forces.\n\nHowever, gravity is also mono-polar. What this means is that while you have north and south magnetic poles and positive and negative electrical charge, there is no anti-gravity that is paired to gravity.\n\nTherefore, at the larger scales, the stronger forces end up canceling each other out with their opposites while gravity just continuously adds up, not giving a fuck."
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1bv3fy | american psycho | i just watched this movie, and i really enjoyed it, but i didn't quite grasp it so yeah, your explanations will be greatly apreciated | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1bv3fy/eli5_american_psycho/ | {
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"What don't you understand? ",
"I haven't read the book, but I watched the movie and listened to the commentary afterwards. The director pointed out that almost every character in the movie is so vapid that they are barely even real people. The whole scene about the business cards shows how simple and unoriginal those guys are. Also, Bateman takes his inspiration from watching TV. He murders someone after watching a horror movie, and he has sex with the 2 girls after watching porn. The point she was trying to make was that all of those successful people were just clones of each other who couldn't do anything unless they knew people would recognize it. Bateman is just a little further off the rails than the rest. Those guys are so interchangeable that even his confession is taken as a joke because people can't tell Bateman from any of the others.\n\n",
"I still don't understand and I've read this whole thread. ",
"My take on the movie was that we are seeing it from Bateman's perspective, so we don't actually know whether or not everything that happens is real. He's also definitely insane.",
"This won't actually be for a 5 year old, but a 5 year old should be nowhere near this book nor the movie. The author that wrote American Psycho, Bret Easton Ellis, is known for a common theme in all of his books. Simply put, they are about the detachment prevalent in modern society. Specifically the effect that wealth and privilege can have on people. No one has friends only acquaintances. People are only as important as what they can do for you. Image is more important than substance. \n\nFor simplicity I'll only deal with what's in the movie. \n\nIn American Psycho the main character is pretending to be a human. He takes everything way too far because he is over acting. From the opening you see how obsessed he is with appearance and the massive overkill regarding his whole shower procedure. He is pretending to work. His father owns a competing firm and it's alluded that they have Patrick as an employee simply because of his fathers name. He pretends to have a fiance, who of course is completely fake too, otherwise she wouldn't survive long around him. He pretends to have sexuality. He has no clue what it is to love someone let alone to even like someone. \n\nPatrick is filled with rage because he feels cheated. He can see all around him what humanity is supposed to be and he just isn't \"that\". He knows that it's getting worse and worse, and is afraid that he will be caught. He isn't afraid of going to jail or dying, but rather he is afraid of being exposed as a fake person, as a \"phoney\". \n\nTo answer your specific question regarding the scene where he calls his lawyer. He thinks he's about to be caught, so he calls his lawyer and admits everything he can think of. The lawyer thinks the caller is someone other than Patrick playing a joke. He never takes it seriously because to him Patrick is just some bland rich guy who looks and acts just like 10,000 other bland rich guys. Later when Patrick sees the lawyer at a party he begins to freak out. When he asks the lawyer about it the lawyer, not realizing he is talking TO Patrick, laughs about the ridiculousness of it. Because Patrick is so normal. Both of these types of things are common themes in the movie and book. People constantly remark how normal Patrick is, people constantly mistake him and others for someone else. They all look and act alike.\n\nIn my opinion the movie is about how easy it is for a passionless sociopath killer to blend into society because of how uncaring and superficial we all are. If you likes the movie of course read the book. If books aren't your thing then at least watch Less Than Zero and maybe The Rules Of Attraction.",
"IT\"S ALL IN HIS HEAD."
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anmgrl | why is it soothing to breathe in with your mouth after eating something super spicy? and why does is hurt more while exhaling? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/anmgrl/elif_why_is_it_soothing_to_breathe_in_with_your/ | {
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"Cool air in. Warm air out. The same reason cool water soothes a burn and hot makes it worse. The air on your lungs is warmed by your body and isn’t as cool as the air coming into your mouth. ",
"When you eat something spicy, the normal temperatures in your mouth that your body wouldn't have perceived of as \"hot\" are suddenly considered hot.\n\nThis is because the molecule that causes spice, Capsaicin, \"hyperactivates\" thermal receptors\\* on your tongue.\n\nCapsaicin itself is actually not hot - it just happens to be able to bind to this receptor, which makes the receptor think that what normally activates it, is present (ex: heat). So if this thermal receptor is activated, it relays its usual message to your brain: \"it's hot right here!\"\n\nBreathing in through your mouth rushes colder air from the outside over your tongue, in-turn deactivating some of the hyperactivated thermal receptors.\n\nBreathing out through your mouth rushes hotter air from your body (\\~98.6º F on average) over your tongue, in-turn further activating the already hyperactivated thermal receptors.\n\n & #x200B;\n\n\\*(thermal receptors are receptors that open in response to heat, and are generally used to tell our brain: \"Hot!\")"
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4deq19 | - why does it matter how much a presidential candidate raises for campaign contributions. isn't it associating votes for money? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4deq19/eli5_why_does_it_matter_how_much_a_presidential/ | {
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"The media portrays a candidate's ability to raise money as a signal of several things:\n\n* 1 - Their base is happy with them.\n\n* 2 - Wealthy people think the candidate is viable.\n\n* 3 - They have a good organization of campaign staff supporting them.\n\nIt's all a sort of feedback loop. The better a candidate does, the more money people are willing to donate because they think their money will be well spent on a candidate that wins. And the more money a candidate raises the better people feel they are doing. \n"
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7w7pd8 | why does the u.s. grow so much corn? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/7w7pd8/eli5_why_does_the_us_grow_so_much_corn/ | {
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"It is very very heavily subsidized by the government, so very profitable for farmers. There is a documentary called \"King of Corn\" on it, which I personally think is really biased, but they do cover the facts.\n\nBasically the downside is that corn quality is way down, crop diversity is way down, 85% (or so) of our food has corn in it, a bunch are GMOs (which isn't inherently bad but monsanto is shady as fuck), and high fructose corn syrup allows everything to be super sugary for cheap.\n\nThe upside is that we as a society used to spend an average of about 50% of our income on food. That number is now like 10-20% and that is pretty much directly attributable to the decreased cost of corn. More disposable income leads to a pretty drastic improvement in quality of life.",
"Because we do a lot with corn. It's used to eat, to feed to livestock, to make oil and sweetener, to distill into ethanol, etc. Corn is native to this part of the world and it grows well. Why *wouldn't* we grow so much corn?",
"There are a number of reasons we grow so much. About 40% of it is used to feed livestock. About 30% of the corn is used for ethanol. About 15% is exported. About 5% for high fructose corn syrup and sweeteners. And the rest goes into various other things like cereals, seed for the next year of crops, etc. \n\nAnother important thing is that the US government subsidizes corn. "
]
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[],
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d8ped7 | why do characters in games have a separated "graphic model" and a "hit box model"? why can't the graphic model be used to detect hits? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/d8ped7/eli5_why_do_characters_in_games_have_a_separated/ | {
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"Actually I can't be sure about my own answer too, but I can say that using the Graphic model as a hitbox would be expensive for devs and bad for the game performance. Character models have tens of thousands of \"polygons\" (AFAIK, The elements that compose the model) . Using polygons to determine whether the character is hit or not, would be intense. Hitboxes are made of just 6 polygons and it gives the adequate accuracy for hit detection. And they are lite, performance wise.",
"There's probably multiple reasons, to start though hit detection can be expensive depending on the complexity of the model and the speed of the game (the faster things move the more often you have to check and the less time you have to complete that check). \n\nThe more complex the \"hit detection\" model, the more intensive it is to check. Take two spheres for example. If you know the center point and radius of both spheres, all you need to do is ask \"Is the distance from center A to center B equal to or smaller than the radius of A + B?\" If the answer is yes, the objects have collided. This gets slightly more complex with rectangles, but it's still pretty easy. \n\nNow if you change one object to a polygon with 800 sides/polys (a very simply character model in modern times). You now have to check the position of all 800 sides to determine if it collided with another object because you don't have a single \"center\" for all polygons and can't simply check distance from a non-existent center.",
"Most 3D objects have less complex physical models, as 100% accurate models are not necessary and also use a lot of resources. The more curves/vertices that a physics engine has to account for, the more CPU resources are spent, and the slower the game will run.",
"Because in most cases you don't need to know exactly which pixel hit which finger on the model, you just need to know if you're inside the general area of the hand. it's much quicker, easier and cheaper computationally to calculate \"Do these two boxes intersect\" than it is to calculate \"Do any of these million vertices intersect with any of these other million vertices\". For most applications you don't need your hitbox to be the same size and shape as your graphic model.",
"Besides the \"faster\" answer there's also the \"you don't actually want that\" answer. Like if a character has big spiky hair, you probably don't want them to die when a bullet hits some hair sticking out of the model. The same reasonably goes for anything else on the character model that isn't the actual person, such as clothing or held weapons.\n\nOn the other hand you might want a hit box that's bigger than the actual character would be. Like if the enemy is a skeleton you might not want people to actually have to hit a bone with their bow and arrow, and to treat them as if they had the same hit box a living person does for gameplay reasons.\n\nThen there's that some games can have partial immunity and want to know what part is hit. Like if the character carries a shield, then a hit to that part doesn't count, or counts differently and you want to know that."
]
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4jl24l | why most clothing manufacturers don't make women's pants with specific widths and lengths like men's pants. | My wife is about 5' even, which is fairly short, and always has a problem with her pants being too long. It boggles my mind as to why clothing brands wouldn't manufacture women's pants with specific lengths in mind. Not all women are the same height, right? (sarcasm) | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4jl24l/eli5_why_most_clothing_manufacturers_dont_make/ | {
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"There are different schools of thought on this but these are the main 3 I learned in school/work:\n\n*Women's clothes have incorporated more and more stretch/spandex material which gives, quite literally, more wiggle room when it comes to sizing. \n\n*More and more of your clothing is coming from China/Vietnam and they do not have a standard set of measurements (a size 8=so many inches) and you can basically set a size range for yourself as a company/designer. If your customer tends to be a little bigger, then you can up the measurements on every size of the garment while still having a recognizable sizing scale. Every company will also have a \"fit model\" who is about a size 6/8 and they will scale sizes down and up from the measurements taken from the garment that fits this model. \n\n*Women tend to carry fat in a BUNCH of different places compared to men. Sizing for women from bust point to waist to hip is a nightmare (I'm currently 3 different sizes in all of those points) so having a numbered sizing scale (size 2,4,6 etc.) allows for a range of inch measurements underneath each size. They also create these sizing scales typically on a woman who is fairly proportional (the fit model is the adequate weight for her height) so if you've got a bit of junk in the trunk or you're a bit top heavy, most fast fashion companies are not going to be able to compensate for that. \n\nSorry that went on forever, I hope I answered your question. \n \nSource: I have a bachelor's degree in merchandising with a focus in apparel"
]
} | [] | [] | [
[]
] |
|
c001dk | what exactly happens during the process of making glass so it gets transparent? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/c001dk/eli5_what_exactly_happens_during_the_process_of/ | {
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"text": [
"When light is absorbed by a material, the electrons are struck by a photon and jump up one or more energy levels. However, it has to be struck by a very specific frequency of light in order to be absorbed. Most opaque materials can absorb a huge range of frequencies within the visible spectrum. Glass, however, cannot absorb any of the visible frequencies of light.\n\nIt's like picking up a ball (electron) and putting it on a shelf (energy level). You (the photon) can only reach up so high; if you can't reach, there's nowhere to place the ball (electron) except the floor (ground state). Since you didn't put the ball on the shelf, you didn't exert yourself (get absorbed), and could move on to find a different ball and shelf pair (atom). If all of the shelves are too high, you'll walk through the warehouse full of shelves (the material) without ever lifting a ball up, and someone will see you exit the other side.",
"Heat, heat happens. The ingredients of glass are heated to the point they fuse and most impurities are burned off. The cooled result is transparent. Think of a hot glue gun. The cold sticks of glue are opaque, yet the hot glue oozing from the tip is clear. The glue however dries opaque because the heat applied is not enough to remove the impurities."
]
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[],
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||
6pcqmy | why are some large cities like austin, tx, chicago, il, and atlanta, ga so under-represented in most media? | It seems like most of the west coast, New York, Miami, etc are all pretty well represented. It occurred to me that I don't really have a good feel for many of the US's larger cities though. Texas for example has so much going on, and do many people but all you really see of it in movies is oil fields. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/6pcqmy/eli5_why_are_some_large_cities_like_austin_tx/ | {
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"text": [
"Do you mean TV and movies? Chicago does get represented a fair amount... but in general, they pick locations where there is interesting scenery, urban cityscape, and where people could have applicable jobs. Also, practical considerations about being able to film are considerations... LA and NY obviously have the easiest ability to film due to local industry, Miami has scenery of tropical location, warm so can film year round. Cities like Atlanta, Dallas may be large but are pretty devoid of interesting scenery/settings... setting a movie in a cookie cutter apartment complex, subdivision, office park isn't interesting and you don't want to just keep showing the same couple cool buildings.",
"Think of this from the other way. That is why are most TV shows set in LA or NY, and not say Phoenix, AZ or Pittsburgh, PA.\n\nWell, here's a few reasons: 1) Most TV is shot in LA or NY. 2) Most people who work in the TV business, production or otherwise, live in LA or NY 3) LA and NY are the two largest markets in the US, which means you already have a built in, very large audience for setting your show there [Chicago is market #3 and actually get a good sized portion of TV, as there is studio production there too] 4) Since most production is done in LA/NY, doing remote production in Austin or Memphis can get difficult and expensive (side note, for tax and financial reasons, you often see shows shot in Albuquerque, NM or Vancouver, BC as you can shoot cheaply there, though the shows are generally not set in those locations)\n\n",
"There are basically three ways to go when picking a city:\n\n* NY or LA, because they are kind of the default choices\n* A city with distinctive character your show is all about, like Miami, New Orleans, San Francisco, or Boston\n* Genericville, USA, where you want the city to fade into the background...*Community* took place in a suburb of Denver, but you would never know unless you looked closely\n\nAustin has a lot of character, it isn't that big and overshadowed by Dallas, Houston, and San Antonio. Atlanta and Texas in general, fall into that gap between distinctive enough and generic enough. Also, southern accents would be problematic, viewers would expect most everyone to have an accent, but doing so would make it less generally appealing without turning it into something about cowboys or rednecks.\n\n[Chicago](_URL_0_), actually has a lot of shows set there, but since it often serves as Genericville, it isn't as noticeable. *ER* was set in Chicago, but you would hardly know it."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[],
[],
[
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_fiction_set_in_Chicago#TV_shows"
]
] |
|
1k3xk2 | what is the limit to seeing back in time? | I know that astronomers are seeing further and further back in time. I also read that after the Big Bang, the universe was dark (or opaque) for a while until the first stars formed. Therefore, if one could see back in time to shortly after the Big Bang, you would not be able to see anything, right? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1k3xk2/eli5_what_is_the_limit_to_seeing_back_in_time/ | {
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"text": [
"You cannot see past the part of the universe expanding faster than the speed of light\n\nEssentially imagine yourself on a endless roll of carpet.\n\nIf the speed you can run at is 5mph, and the carpet unrolls at 6mph, you will never get to the end of the roll, it will forever unroll and get further and further away from you.\n\nThis explanation is somewhat convoluted but i believe it's the gist of it.\n\nIf you swap the unrolling carpet for the expansion of the universe and the running person with the speed of light then you have the limit to seeing back in time."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[]
] |
|
5buidr | why are the ₹500 and ₹1000 notes being destroyed in india? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5buidr/eli5_why_are_the_500_and_1000_notes_being/ | {
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"text": [
"My very limited understanding coming from reading some of these news articles is that India has a large problem with counterfeit notes, those two denominations being the most popular.\n\nIn addition, criminals operate with cash-only, which is easier to not report on taxes. In fact, a few months ago, an amnesty scheme was in place that allowed people to report their earnings and not receive charges.\n\nBy forcing those bills to be turned in, counterfeiters will lose a lot of power, and tax evaders will either lose cash or will likely face investigation.",
"The main stated reason is to target \"black\" or untaxed money.\n\nWhat the government is really going after is the hard cash that circulates off the books. By making the current 500 and 1000 rupee denominations illegal tender, anybody who has large sums of money stored in these currencies will have to go to the bank with their PAN card as well as their national ID card, otherwise their money is worthless.\n\nThis lets the government record how much money is being exchanged by an individual, and also lets them look at that money with regards to their tax payments and income returns. \n\nIf they find a discrepancy, say, a person makes 100,000 a year, but comes to exchange 300,000 worth of money with no explanation as to where that income has come from, odds are it's not legal, because no Income Tax has been paid on that. It's an extreme example, but it's just to illustrate a point.\n\nAt the same time, the government plans to roll out new denominations of 500 and 2000, ~~which are supposed to have more effective tracking technology in order to know exactly where the money is going. These new notes are supposed to have chips in them that can be found by satellites. If they find a large number of these notes accumulating in one place, it's probably being laundered or kept off the books, which would help the IRS and police raid any black money sites.~~\n\nEdit : The bit about the chips is really an unfounded rumor. Sorry about putting that in there. One thing that's for sure is the Reserve Bank of India will be issuing new redesigned notes, which they will be able to keep track of based on the number they've printed and the serials.",
"They're not being *destroyed*. They're just all being nullified/no longer holding legal tender. That means that current 500rs and 1000rs notes don't have any value anymore as of tonight (20 minutes ago, 12AM). We can still get them deposited into banks, but physically, they're pretty much void. This is all being done in an effort to tackle black money and corruption, as well as to end the circulation (hopefully) of counterfeit money.",
"In India there is a huge amount of \"black\" money. For example, if someone buys a house, theyll pay 1/3 of it on the books, and give 2/3 cash (extreme example, but it happens quite a bit). Modi is trying to force all that untracked, untaxed, illegal money to be put into banks and become tracked. So all that cash someone has hidden somewhere has to be traded in or deposited now, or it will become worthless. Its genius, really.\n\nSource: am indian"
]
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||
a4kdqu | why do jehova's witnesses have a bad rep? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/a4kdqu/eli5_why_do_jehovas_witnesses_have_a_bad_rep/ | {
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"text": [
"I think it’s because the religion can be controlling by modern standards. Some examples include the refusal of certain medical procedures involving blood transfusions and forbidding most mainstream cultural celebrations like birthday parties. I’m sure that like most religions there exist a variety of interpretations though so maybe not all follow those restrictions ",
"Ich selbst lebe in Österreich(nahe Gänserndorf, falls Dir das was sagt) und hier ist es genau so. Das Problem mit denen ist, dass sie einfach-wie jeder anderer Tür-Makler - nerven. Wir haben kein interesse daran. Aus Ende Schluss. Und wenn sie dann nochmal, teilweise am Samstag/Sonntag in der Früh kommen und wecken ist das halt nicht sehr angenehm...",
"They annoy people by spreading their message. \n\nThey don't celebrate anything, so if you have on at work like I did, he didn't participate in anything. No birthdays, no newyears... So they place themselves outside the social gatherings and won't wish anybody a happy birthday and even reject your cake or treat.\n\nAnd most important, they oppose certain medical treatment. So if a Jehova needs a blood transfusion to live, they'll rather die (or let their kids \"in the hands off god\") instead of accepting blood. This pisses me off.",
"For me, the door to door shit is annoying, they're dumb af for refusing medical treatment, and boring af for not celebrating anything. What infuriates me is when they force all of this onto their kids, and won't allow their kids to get the medical help they need. Any parent who would rather let their kid die in the name of \"religion\" deserves to have their kids taken off them. If an adult refuses a transfusion for religious reasons, we'll, it's stupid, but they have the right to refuse medical assistance. Withholding medical assistance from a child is abuse.",
"They treat anyone who leaves the church absolutely horribly. They're more of a cult than a religion",
"Many people regard them as a brainwashing cult who removes the individualism of its members and their capacity for free thought. Anyone displaying anything contrary to their values is expelled an isolated from their family and friends."
]
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||
7mhgs5 | as stupid as it sounds, why can’t the us keep selling bonds and increasing the national debt? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/7mhgs5/eli5_as_stupid_as_it_sounds_why_cant_the_us_keep/ | {
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"text": [
"This is exactly what we are doing all the time. How are you thinking this is different...?",
"If people were willing to buy the new bonds, then they absolutely could. In fact, that's exactly what happens every year - many old bonds are paid back with the money gained from issuing new bonds.\n\nThe entire concept of government debt through bonds is a gamble: people buy bonds because they're confident that they'll be paid back when the bond matures. If that confidence disappears, nobody will buy new bonds, and the government will have a debt crisis.\n\nFor most countries, this is a very safe gamble. Strong governments are a very safe place to invest your cash. The USA, for example, has never missed a payment, *ever*. So people are quite confident in US bonds, and the US would have to go *waayy* farther into debt than it is now for people to lose that confidence.",
"Absolutely nothing stops the US from doing this, other than the willingness of people to buy the bonds. At the moment and for the near-term foreseeable future, US treasuries are the safest inflation hedge available on the market and demand is gangbusters, so the US has absolutely no problem financing its debt by selling more of it.\n\nThere's nothing 'illegal' about it, it's 100% the willingness of people to buy the bonds that allows the US to sell them at rock bottom interest rates."
]
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[],
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||
caboas | what massage therapists mean when they say i have “a lot of knots”? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/caboas/eli5_what_massage_therapists_mean_when_they_say_i/ | {
"a_id": [
"et7jrga"
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"text": [
"A knot is a spot in your muscle where tension is \"stuck\" causing the muscle to be tense all the time which has a negative effect on the body an possibly cause pain."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[]
] |
||
61e3wz | why, despite all the advances in browser technology, does the screen still jump when an off-screen image or other part of the site loads? | If I'm reading a piece of text, I expect to stay on it. Something loading off-screen (common now that sites are so big and load lots of stuff via AJAX) shouldn't bounce me to a different position on the page. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/61e3wz/eli5_why_despite_all_the_advances_in_browser/ | {
"a_id": [
"dfdtkkm"
],
"score": [
18
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"text": [
"Because your browser still doesn't know how big that image is going to be until it downloads it, so it has no way of knowing how much space to leave. The people who design the website could plan for it, but many of them don't. "
]
} | [] | [] | [
[]
] |
|
1d9lfd | why carbohydrates are at the bottom of the pyramid and sugar at the top, when they're basically the same thing (glucose)? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1d9lfd/eli5_why_carbohydrates_are_at_the_bottom_of_the/ | {
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"text": [
"Because the food pyramid is bullshit and was mainly promoted by American farmers and the United States Department of Agriculture, who, as you might guess, wanted to sell more of their products.",
"Because the food pyramid is about moving US Agricultural products, not about healthy eating.",
"The food pyramid has been changed to a plate, but I'll answer your question. There is a difference between whole grains and refined grains and simple sugars. Remember that whole grains provide a lot of protein (sugar doesn't). They also provide vitamins, minerals, and fiber. You're right tat our bodies breaks the complex carbohydrates down into glucose. However, if you eat more protein than your body needs, your body will also break that protein down into glucose for energy (and store it as fat if you don't use that energy).\n\nWhole grains are an important part of your diet. Simple sugars, which really provide no nutrition (just energy/calories) are not."
]
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[],
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||
8arvum | should we wash fruits and vegetables before refrigerating or right before we eat them? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/8arvum/eli5_should_we_wash_fruits_and_vegetables_before/ | {
"a_id": [
"dx12y0s"
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"text": [
"Before eating.\n\n\nGenerally speaking most fruit and veg live longest being kept in a cool, dark and dry place.\n\n\nWashing them before refrigerating increases the risk of you putting them in the fridge slightly damp which will (generally) speed up quite significantly how quickly they spoil."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[]
] |
||
16ka4u | what happens if they don't raise the debt ceiling? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/16ka4u/eli5_what_happens_if_they_dont_raise_the_debt/ | {
"a_id": [
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"text": [
"if they don't raise the debt ceiling, they can't pay their bills by loaning more money anymore.\n\nSo they have to either pay lower bills (cut spending) or get more money from other sources (taxes).",
"There would be a Federal shutdown and people would overestimate how horrific it would be (like Y2K virus).\n\nBut ultimately the \"debt ceiling\" and the \"fiscal cliff\" are tiny hiccups compared to what's coming. The US will default, and the unemployment will rise to astronomical levels while the purchasing power of the dollar falls drastically. This is due to the fact the US isn't able to finance its obligations long-term, and is borrowing the majority of its yearly-spending. In order to avoid this, it must cut nearly 2/3 of the budget. But that will not happen.",
"I want to give a sarcastic response and a serious response - but I cannot do the serious response right now - I'll come back later. \n\nSarcastic: What will happen? The people will learn that the government is irrelevant. "
]
} | [] | [] | [
[],
[],
[]
] |
||
3ay0ok | why i can't recharge normal household batteries? when they build them they charge them, so why can't i? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3ay0ok/eli5_why_i_cant_recharge_normal_household/ | {
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"text": [
"They don't charge them when they build them. The current is generated by a chemical reaction, and the batteries are built with the required ingredients for the chemical reaction. They don't build an empty battery and then charge it up. When you make a \"battery\" by sticking nails in a lemon, you don't have to charge up the lemon first.",
"You can actually charge normal household batteries, the problem is that they can get all explodey if not done right. That is why modern chargers won't let you. Some of the really old battery chargers will let you and the batteries can heat up relatively quickly, though I was known to charge batteries for the TV remote when they died. A 5 minute charge would last another month in the remote at the time.\n\nAlso at one point Energizer did come out with an Alkaline battery charger (supposed to only use their batteries - don't know if they were truly special, or just marketing).",
"Other commenters have already gotten at the gist of the answer to your question. Batteries essentially maintain a chemical reaction that lasts for a period of time, creating an electric current in the process. Recharging reverses the reaction to reform the original compounds that created the current, and this can be done with any battery cell. With alkaline cells one of the byproducts that can be formed is hydrogen gas. Recharging also produces heat which leads to an explosion - which is incredibly dangerous given what is inside those cells. Luckily most have a fail safe region that allows the hydrogen gas to be released without incident - however some of the electrolyte solution can also leak out as well. This is a hydroxide solution (often potassium hydroxide), which is incredibly corrosive and can not only corrode the battery, but can also burn you when you attempt to handle it. Depending on the charger you use, sometimes you can mitigate the risk of hydrogen gas production, but in general it's just safer to throw used alkaline batteries away or buy batteries made specifically for recharging. "
]
} | [] | [] | [
[],
[],
[]
] |
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