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7brhd8
|
how do “free upgrades” for phones work with carriers like at & t, verizon, etc?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/7brhd8/eli5_how_do_free_upgrades_for_phones_work_with/
|
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"They will loan you the money to buy a new phone, and let you pay them back by overpaying for service during the next 12 or 24 months. It's not actually free at all."
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[] |
[] |
[
[]
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679bsn
|
if our part of the brain which records memories shuts down when we are drunk, why is it that we still remember as long as we are awake and/or drunk? why do we only forget after waking up?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/679bsn/eli5if_our_part_of_the_brain_which_records/
|
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"It is said that information is moved from shorter-term memory to permanent memory while you sleep, and that this process is disturbed when you are drunk.",
"There isn't necessarily a part of our brain that \"records memories\" as memories are all encoded and retrieved in different parts of the cortex. Yet the part of the brain that transfers memories from short term to long term is the hippocampus. I'm assuming that alcohol interferes with the function of the hippocampus and therefore memories are way less likely to be transferred from STM to LTM. ",
"Fun Fact: it you get really drunk you can remember everything you forgot from the last time you blacked out. It's a theory known as E=MChammered",
"Drunk people will tell the same story again and again, and not necessarily remember it. I don't think it's sleep that necessarily causes it.",
"great answers from a previous post: _URL_0_",
"There is a deference between being drunk and being blackout (duh), so while I'm not sure about your question, it was explained to me that your brain literally does not record new memories when you are blackout. That is why when someone tells you what you did when you were drunk you might be able to conjure up a fuzzy memory of it, while if you were blackout, nothing will make you remember it.\n\nI think forgetting things while you sleep is just because that happens anyway (like I don't remember all the details of my previous day?) and it is exacerbated by being drunk, making it more obvious."
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"https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/66bruo/eli5_why_do_some_people_black_out_from_drinking/?st=J1WESAMR&sh=00efa676"
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4dlslu
|
the new fiduciary standard set in place by the department of labor.
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4dlslu/eli5_the_new_fiduciary_standard_set_in_place_by/
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"When someone advises you about your finances, the first and most important question you have to ask yourself is: who's interests are they looking out for? Generally speaking, whatever they say is going to be what's best for the person paying them. If they're being paid by their employer, then they're probably going to steer you towards their employer's financial products, even if those products are not the best ones for you. \n\nA fiduciary standard (also known as a fiduciary duty) is a legally-binding promise that your advisor must give you advice that is the best for you. If they steer you towards something that's not the best fit for you, then you can sue them. \n\nThe DOL recently passed a regulation that says that when you talk to someone about your employer-provided retirement accounts, they must follow a fiduciary standard. \n\nIf you're planning to talk to a financial planner (aka a CFP), make sure you look for one that follows a fiduciary standards. They typically advertise themselves as \"fee-only CFPs.\" "
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2i95iv
|
if a flu shot can be statistically effective, why can't we get a yearly cold shot if they are both viruses?
|
I'm sure there is a simple explanation for this, but it still baffles me. If we can predict what flu viruses are going to effect us a year in advanced, why can't we do the same for the cold and immunize people to it?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2i95iv/eli5_if_a_flu_shot_can_be_statistically_effective/
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"The cold virus has many more active variants than the flu virus, and it's impractical to try to create a vaccine for dozens of different variants (the flu vaccine is only for three or four variants, which is all that is needed). \n\nThis is complicated by the fact that a cold is relatively benign. Sure, you'll feel sick for a few days, but that's it. The flu, on the other hand *kills* people (generally the very young, very old, and those with compromised immune systems). Something that kills people is worth the cost of developing vaccines. Something that makes you \"feel icky\", not so much.",
"You are right, the flu and colds are both caused by viruses. Flu is caused by the influenza virus. There are 3 species of influenza (influenza A, B and C). Within influenza A, there are several different types that can infect people, mostly H1N1 and H3N2. The A/H1N1, A/H3N2 and B are the most common influenza viruses that infect humans. These morph a bit each year, but we can make a vaccine that contain these three and it has a high likelihood of working.\n\nColds are far more complicated. There are multiple species of virus that cause cold, including adenoviruses, rhinoviruses and coronaviruses, among others. There are many, many different types of virus in each of these species. For example there are more than 100 known types of human rhinovirus. If you get one of these, your body may be able to fight it off in the future, but not any of the others.\n\nIn addition, we have active surveillance programs for flu - we track human and animal cases in both the southern and northern hemispheres so we can better predict what the next flu season will look like and what viruses are most likely to hit people. We don't do this with colds. Mostly because flu kills about 36,000 people in the US alone, every year. Colds don't.\n\nSo, we can make a flu vaccine with the 3 most likely strains for that year. But it is completely infeasible to make a vaccine that covers many/all of the viruses that cause colds."
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dhr6m0
|
why is organized crime so prevalent on sicily? why do so many of the "families" originate there and not say— corsica?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/dhr6m0/eli5_why_is_organized_crime_so_prevalent_on/
|
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"Perhaps you're taking an American perspective. The Corsican mafia is a significant organized crime player in France. A few famous US criminals trace their heritage to Sicily, but that's dozens of people out of hundreds of millions.",
"Weirdly, it likely had to do with lemons. In the 1700's there was a \"lemon boom\" after a Scottish doctor found that citrus could help combat scurvy. The value of lemons sky rocketed and Sicilian growers had to find a way to protect their commodity plants. Sicily had a week rule of law and so the mafia sort of became a thing to help protect lemon farmers in Sicily from thieves. \n\n\nHere's an [article](_URL_1_). [This podcast](_URL_0_) also talks about it some."
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3ekhbi
|
why does the discovery of kepler-452b is such a big news even though it is so far that we won`t ever reach it ?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3ekhbi/eli5_why_does_the_discovery_of_kepler452b_is_such/
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"Because it very probably is habitable, and the way we know life it is very likely that if a rock is habitable some form or other of life will show up. And with a little bit more luck that life will be intelligent and actually interested in communicating with other intelligent life (like us)",
"Simply put, it's big news because so many people find it to be interesting. Even if none of is will ever be able to travel to it, the discovery excites out imaginations. ",
"Because scientists and non-scientists have been wondering whether there are planets like ours somewhere out there for decades. This discovery proves that Earth isn't so unique, and that is some encouragement toward the realization that human beings may not be alone in the universe. The fact that astronomers were able to identify a planet somewhere out there that bears resemblance to our own provides a sense of optimism in finding more habitable planets and potentially even intelligent life.",
"won't ever is a long time to be.\n\nwhen kepler-452b passed between its star and us, we didn't even know our planet was round. we didn't even know our planet revolved around our star. ",
"What's exciting to me is that this planet is Earth-like, orbiting a sun-like star, and has been in its habitable zone for a few billion years *more* than we've been orbiting our sun. This means there is a very high chance that life has existed or does exist on this planet. A higher chance than any other planet we have discovered AFAIK. That's huge to me. It's exciting. We now know more about our universe. We know that planets that can potentially sustain life aren't quite as rare as we thought. What *isn't* interesting about that?? It's really fucking cool. Yeah, we can't go there quite yet but that isn't the point. Discoveries fuel the flames of discoverers. Galileo was discovering shit in the sky left and right 300 years before humans figured out how to fly. Maybe in 300 years we will have the ability to get to Kepler-452b. But of course that wouldn't happen if no one knew it was there to begin with.",
"I love when people say \"we will never...\" Humanity is built on pushing the limits. We may not make it there in our lifetime, or the next generations, or even the next generations. But one day. I bet you we make it.",
"Its like finding that really hot model instagram! You just creep it from afar... human nature really",
"The discovery, to me, read much more about the technologies they used to find it. The briefing contained a lot of information about how their planet searching system was improving, and how we expect these discoveries to flow much faster.\n\nBesides which, even if we realistically can't go there, that doesn't mean communication with that location is impossible. Seti is looking for signals being broadcast from other stars, but omnidirectional broadcasting isn't as powerful as targeted. Perhaps the next phase of Seti will be to set up targeted transmitters at planets that look promising for potential life.\n\nIf humans have any hope of getting off this planet, we're going to need to stop thinking in time frames as short as 2-3 lifespans.",
"It provides another piece of information on the likelihood of Earth-like planets (the only type of planet we know for certain has the ability for life to exist on) occurring. This gives us more information on the likelihood of habital planets (and also therefore life) existing elsewhere in the universe.\n\nUnfortunately, while others might say you are overstating that we will never reach it, in my opinion you are actually slightly understating it's distance. The Kepler field is sadly so far away that the information we are getting from it simply can't ever be better refined/confirmed using telescopes in our solar system. We have found a planet that could be Earth 2.0, but we can't (and won't be able to) zoom in any better to check what it's composition is.\n\nSo it is a useful data point (the first of it's kind and ~fifth of a slightly more inclusive group) to add to our understanding of the occurrence of types of exoplanets, and it's fun to speculate about what it could be like on it's surface, but unless we send a telescope *relatively* very close to it, we aren't going to learn any more about it.",
"Who says we'll never reach it, sucker?",
"Its not that we will never reach it, its that now we have a point to aim at instead of just flinging shit into space and saying \" I hope this finds something\"",
"It's big news because it's very soon into our study of exoplanets to find an earth-analogue. That means unless it is a magnificent coincidence that defies probability we most likely have a galaxy filled with such habitable worlds. This means the galaxy is most probably teeming with life.",
"if we founds alien animals on k452b and could reach it how long would it be before we started eating said alien animals?",
"The Universe is impossibly gigantic. The fact that a puny civilization on Earth with pathetic technology can look at an infinitely small sample size of celestial bodies and still find Earth-like planets among its galactic neighbors.... shows the huge mathematical probability that we're not alone.",
" > won't ever\n\nYeah and we won't ever fly, leave our atmosphere, or cure any disease so why even bother?",
"This personally excites me a little bit more because, as unlikely as it is, maybe some other species discovered our planet without us being aware of it as well. ",
"Look at it this way. You are the only person on earth. It's pretty sweet, but also kinda worrisome because ya know, you are the only one. Now, you just found out that there might be another person on the other side of the world. You may have no means at this time to go and see this other person, and the voice in your head may think you are crazy for trying to create a device to get to the other side of the world... But...just what if... It's Katy perry and you know, you now have to repopulate the earth and stuff. So that glimmer of hope is what drives you to create some real amazing shit to get to the other side of the world to see if it really is Katy perry. So through all this, it drives innovation and also exploration of your planet on the way there.",
"The discovery of this planet is also just one of MANY potential habitable planets that NASA will be looking at. This planet shows that there are other Earth-like planets out there that could/have/will sustain life at some point. This also (potentially) gets us one step closer to finally discovering extraterrestrial life! I am a firm believer that we are not alone. The universe is infinite. This discovery is huge, and there will be more to come.",
"To many, knowledge is an end unto itself. Getting there isn't really the point; knowing that it's there already tells us a lot about ourselves, including that our place in space isn't unique in terms of our planet's rough size and location relative to our star.",
"Because if they have a device to see us they will see around 600AD which is pretty good considering the size of space. ",
"90% of the information out there is just conjecture. NASA have to justiify their funding and discoveries like this keep them in the news and make them look good to their government funders. \n\nIf they said \"we found a planet 50% bigger than earth, probably rocky\" it wouldn't be a big deal. But if they conjecture \"water\" \"earthlike\" \"alien life\" then it makes the news and boosts their funding justifications.\n\nThats it really.\n\n ",
"Because it's not the Kardasians. \n\nHonestly, Aside from caring for one and other, I believe scientific pursuits and discoveries represent the best of what we can we can do with our higher intellect. Plus, the knowledge leads to more and more improvements in our daily lives.\n\n",
"Because it encourages us all to invest in space. To send people to colonize and better secure our human race from dying out. We will one day have machins that teleport. Give us time . ",
"Nobody seems to have mentioned *why* it is so far away. The first searches for planets looked in the \"easiest\" places to look - they were just trying to find *a* planet. That works but it doesn't answer the question of \"how many earth like planets are there?\" For that you need a big sample without any easy/hard bias. Kepler stared at the same patch of sky for six years and carefully looked at how bright the stars were every 30m. It was watching for *transits* where a planet passes in front of the star, needing at least three transits to confirm. Kepler *wasn't looking* for nearby planets, it was looking for planets orbiting stars in one small patch of sky in solar systems aligned such that we are looking at them edge on.\n\nIt's kind of like counting the number of critters in one jar of water and extrapolating to the whole lake. That Kepler found one good earth analogue and several close matches in that patch of sky using a method that only finds them when we look at their solar system end on allows scientists to make predictions about how common such planets are (very) and how close the closest ones are likely to be (way nearer than the one discovered.)",
"Even going to Alpha Centauri is practically unthinkable, but it's the most attainable within a single human lifetime. What we need is an FTL drive or, at the very least, wormhole technology. Imagine a swarm of automated probes carrying one end of a pair of a wormhole. It could accelerate much harder than one carrying human life, get to a star system after many years, does a survey, deploys the gate, and a starship goes through to conduct a more thorough search. If we also had quantum-inseparability communications, we could direct the probe in real-time. ",
"It's a big news because Kepler spacecraft that made the discovery has fixed field of view which covers only around 0.25 percent of the sky. If they already find something like planet that could be habitable from the tiny minuscule fraction they have studied, one could assume that there is still much more waiting to be find. ",
"One interesting thing about it is that it is so similar to Earth. It slightly larger than Earth, orbits in the habitable zone around a similar sized star to our sun. This planet likely had a similar history to Earth's. It is in the zone where liquid water forms so there are probably oceans there, and since that star is slightly bigger than ours, the heat would be enough to start evaporating the oceans. A similar thing may happen to Earth in it's future, so by studying this planet we could be learning about the future of Earth and Earth-like planets in general.",
"In the life of one generation, we both learned to fly and landed a man on the moon. Think about all we've done in the past 100 years, and how far the next 100 yeaes could take us.",
"Do you like to go to Chuck E. Cheese? How do you know that? You probably have seen that commercial showing all of the cool games, the big mouse show and the saying \"Where a kid can be a kid!\". In order for you to see the commercial, Chuck E. Cheese needs to advertise on TV. NASA, the group behind the discovery of Kepler-452b, doesn't have an advertising budget to show commercials. Instead they need to come up with another way to spread the word on all of the cool things NASA does. So instead of doing commercials they inform the people who do the news about what what they have found in order to let people know. NASA has a budget to create some cool looking images and videos, just like in the commercial and share it for free to the news. The news now has images that are fun and interesting that people may want to look. So NASA gets free news. As long as the images and story are bite size, like the discovery of the planet, then the news will post about.\n\nThis way when Congressman, the people who determine how the government spends the money, ask the people if they should spend money on NASA they say yes. They people are more likely to say yes if they see what NASA has done. This news is also easier to understand than some other missions NASA does. Like you'd probably not find NASA's explanation of how they improve aircraft landing lines very interesting. While images of what planets might look like are more interesting.",
"NASA needs funding and to have that it needs public awareness. The news media needs something to show its consumers. So here we have two things that can both meet their needs by this big news.",
"Am I the only one who remembers when Nasa anounced the discovery of [Gliese 581?](_URL_1_) Earth like planet in \"the goldilocks zone\" with possible water, and life. [Even a fucking movie was made because of it](_URL_0_) It's all speculation, all images are artist interpretations. Not images of the actual thing. Have you ever watched videos of how they detect planets? Little black dots on a computer screen. Hardly anything like the images you see posted online. There is hardly any evidence it would holds water or life. Hell you could assume that Mars is in the \"habitable zone\" but its not now is it? What if these planets are just like mars and nothing like earth? Its all speculation. All the hype will die down eventually. Hell we weren't able to detect plutos terrain until we sent a satellite there so how the well could they know it holds water? Scientists think there might be water under Europa's icy mantle but they are not sure.. They can't be sure about Europa and is not a million light years away. So how are they sure that kepler-452b has water then? Okay rant is over.",
"Because it raises the possibility of life somewhere else in the universe, and that's Big. And besides, you never know when the Alcubierre drive will be built! :P",
"What if there's intelligent life there and they're already watching us?\n",
"\"A society grows great when old men plant trees whose shade they know they shall never sit in.\" We may never reach it, but our decedents will.",
"Because future humans in the 5th dimension will open up a wormhole by Saturn and then tell us where it is by knocking on bookshelf in some little girls house in rural America. I thought that was obvious ",
"Does anyone else believe that this has something to do with NASA's announcement about finding out for sure if there is ET life out there within the next 20 years? Like slowly ease us into it...hey, here is this earth like planet...few years later...we received a signal from the planet...few years later...there may be intelligent life on the planet...",
"We never imagined we could get to the moon.... Now look at us. Going to new planets in the same century, imagine what we will be able to do. I get sad thinking about how I wont be able to witness it.",
"Would finding life on another planet effectively end the religious debates or do religions sort of have a grey area where life can exist on other planets and there still be a god",
"Simply, because we know it's out there, it can spark our human wanderlust. There are *potential* planets for us to go to, exploit, whatever... The more of these \"new worlds\" we find, the more explorers will want to research ways to get there. Sure it's an Everest, or greater challenge right now, but I fully expect renewed interest, and people asking / researching new ways to get there. ",
" > even though it is so far that we won`t ever reach it\n\nwe may not reach it - but later generations may.\n\nWhat ELI5 I want to ask is:\n\nWhy don't you think that this is big news - like, what the fuck is going on in your head that says, ho-hum - no big deal",
"we'll never reach it you say? never is a long time dude",
"Because there's a race of Amazonian women there and it's only a matter of time until they build wooden spaceships to come visit us for some snu-snu. ",
"One day, with some luck and skill, one of our descendants will plant a flag marking our arrival. Then they will probably rub one out in their bunk later that night.\n\nEither we will go extinct or we will spread across our galaxy. I have no idea which is the better option for the future.",
"The discovery of this planet is amazing. Yes we will never reach it. But this tells us that there is defetnetly life out there. just image the possibility of live there .it's the same as earth, billions of years of evolution there on that planet, maybe there is live on that planet and there thinking the exact same thing that we are thinking. I'm just glad that we are able to say that there is a planet like ours out there.\n Because there proably in the same boat as us just wondering and thinking of other life.",
"The basic tenant of most organized religions is that we are special; a singular miraculous life event. Religions have used that idea to promote the folklore that we were created, even ordained, by God to be here with specific intent.\n\nIf it could be shown that life exists elsewhere in the universe, then we could finally scientifically discredit those egocentric views. It would fundamentally change the discourse of society, and is therefore considered one of the most important goals in science.\n\nIt would be as profound as the discovery that the earth is not the center of everything.",
"A goal. No matter how impossible we now have a goal that somehow somewhen we can reach this other planet and perhaps it has more oil and gold than this one we're using.",
"Whoah, won't ever reach it? Have you no hope for technology? I'll bet that in the future there will be tech.",
"We might not ever get there... But what if that planet developed life? And what if we can communicate ?",
"Who knows if that planet really exist in its present time. What we see today is a 1400 light year old planet. ",
"Ever? Forever is a long time.",
"One big thing this has done is give us a new idea of what to look for. We were able to look back at old data and determine that we've already found other \"earths\". We have found 521 other earth's to be exact. That is really cool.",
"Perhaps we won't ever reach it in our lifetime, but chances are that at some point in the distant future we will either be able to travel to these amazing places or at least be able to make some sort of contact with the intelligent life that could be there. To me though, the fascination with space has been there since I was a little kid. I still look up at the stars at night and wonder how many intelligent creatures throughout the universe are doing the exact same thing at the exact same moment. To have found a planet so much like Earth in terms of habitibility is just mind blowing to me. Discoveries like this allow my mind to run wild, and I absolutely love it. ",
"Not intended to be a put down, but are you really young? I ask because it occurs to me that we have been noticing earth like planets for about 10-15 years now and when I grew up in the 80's we pretty much thought it was us and thats it. Believing in life in any form on another planet was like believing in ET. Now we pretty much accept their is life out there. However this is a newer attitude, so maybe thats why its such a big deal, because a big portion of our population (people over 30) grew up thinking this would only be possible in our wildest dreams.",
"From a more vain perspective, if other life could be found out there (such as on this planet), it could debunk the [Fermi Paradox](_URL_0_).",
"Instead of seeing the search for exoplanets as a pursuit to visit or contact life directly, consider it a project to find out more about the probability/prevalence of certain conditions for life.\n\nOnly 20 years ago, humans had no way of knowing how big the chance for extraterrestrial life was. Heck, we didn't event know for sure if other stars had planets. \n\nBy identifying more and more new planets, we will be able to estimate pretty accurately at some point how prevalent earth-like planets are. This is an important factor (albeit not the only one) to how likely it is we're not alone.\n\nTl;dr: it's not about this planet, it's about the likelihood of earth-like planets and thus life in general.",
"Well, you have to think long-term.\n\nEither 1400 LY is trivial or it isn't. It absolutely **does** seem like it will always be a really long ways but *if* that's true then we are pretty much fucked anyhow. In terms of the universe, it ain't that far.\n\nNow, that all said, it is what it is. We are still figuring out this whole \"let's find planets\" thing and there's little doubt that we'll find plenty of smaller, better and more appropriate ones soon enough. We're still fucking about for the most part, even if cleverly.",
"Why am I supposed to be civil to a person named SwankyRapist? I refuse. This was a dumb question that obviously was not researched in the slightest. Said person didn't even attempt to ask the question properly. Screw civility in this case!",
"You are jumping to conclusions suggesting we will never reach it. We have 69 years of space tech. Imagine 2000 years worth.... Or 100,000,....or 1,000,000",
"Never say \"won't ever\"?",
"You should consider reformulating your question as to not include \"won't ever\". I cannot read past that",
"i guess it's too late for this to be visible, but i scrolled down and didn't see anyone make this point, so here goes...\n\nastronomy is largely taxpayer funded. and quite expensive - you need to build and maintain large telescopes. so astronomers have a motivation to increase public interest in astronomy. that way they are more likely to get funding via the usual political processes (national science council, etc).\n\nso there's a kind of feedback loop, where some subject that's thought interesting gets \"sold\" to the public, who then fund more money in that area, which then gets more publicity.\n\nand that's what you're seeing with planets.\n\nthis doesn't mean that the interest is completely \"fake\". the process wouldn't work if there wasn't something inherently interesting in whatever is being pushed. but the strange feeling that something is being over-sold is down to the process i describe.\n\nsource: ex-astronomer.",
"A lot of the comments I see in here are incredibly cynical and short sighted. \n\nThe point of planetary science involves understanding how planetary systems formed, how these systems work and how all their components interact. It is a cross-discipline field including aspects of astronomy, atmospheric science, geology, space physics, biology and chemistry.\n\nIt goes towards answering questions like:\n\n- How did the Solar System form?\n- What are the conditions for life?\n- How does the Solar System work?\n- How does the Sun influence planets and planetary systems?\n- How do planetary systems evolve?\n\n\nThese are questions that stem from the larger questions at the core of all people since we emerged as a species.\n\n- Who are we?\n- Where do we come from?\n- Are we alone? \n\nThe drive for knowledge is the reason we don't live in caves. It is what advances us as a species, and has brought us to where we are today. The Kepler telescope, like the Hubble telescope, will monumentally contribute to our understanding of the universe. As will the James Webb telescope after it launches. ",
"This discovery is an important one for finding the true value of the third parameter in the [Drake Equation](_URL_0_). Every time we get a better idea of how common habitable planets are in the universe, the better we understand just how rare (or dirt-common) our form of life (or intelligent life) is in the universe.\n\nAnd answering that question once and for all might be the most notable event in human history, whichever way the [Great Filter](_URL_1_) works out."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
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[],
[],
[],
[],
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[],
[],
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[],
[],
[],
[],
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[],
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[],
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[],
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[
"http://youtu.be/00MiEqsnopc",
"http://youtu.be/wJXSSYyIVqw"
],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
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[],
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[],
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"https://youtube.com/watch?v=sNhhvQGsMEc"
],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drake_equation",
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Filter"
]
] |
||
4tu12r
|
how did the american south go from being separatist to being super patriotic?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4tu12r/eli5_how_did_the_american_south_go_from_being/
|
{
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22,
3
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"text": [
"The South is very conservative. They don't like things to change. When change is threatened they often decry \"that's not the America we know and love\" and therefore unpatriotic to change anything. \n\n\nSometimes they are right and sometimes they are wrong, but that is not to say that more liberal-minded folks are \"unpatriotic\" for wanting to change something. \n\nIt's a false notion that wanting to improve something is an attack on the thing itself. That's the ego talking. That's the reason most *people* themselves are not willing to put work into improving themselves, because that would first require dealing a massive blow to the ego by *admitting they are flawed to begin with*\n\nWith the \"separatist\" mention I assume you are referring to Civil War era and, well, the abolition of slavery was arguably the biggest change ever seen in the South and drove them to extreme measures against it. Rather than just protest it and vote and shout they *fought* for it. \n\n\nNote: as has been pointed out the abolition of slavery was not the specific or only cause for the Civil War. There were multiple reasons, and on top of that the American Revolution was still \"fresh\" in recent history so people were certainly emboldened a bit when it came to the idea of rejecting authority and forming their own state.",
"After the American Revolution, the 13 colonies were thirteen sovereign states. For the constitution to take effect, a minimum number of the states had to ratify it. \n\nAt this point, the question becomes is the USA a sovereign nation or is it a collection of sovereign nations sort of like the EU? For example, during the war of 1812, Massachusetts kept their militia home and wouldn't join their forces to the federal effort. Several northern states at least considered secession during the Hartford Convention.\n\nIn this climate, people were loyal to their state. Robert E. Lee didn't agree with secession, but his loyalty to the state of Virginia compelled him to lead the army when asked.\n\nAnyway, the Civil War answers the question of whether the individual states are sovereign. With that over with and with transportation making it easier for people to move from state to state, the entire nation has taken more importance than the state relative to what it used to be.\n\nAs a result, patriotism has become more about the nation than the state."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[]
] |
||
9bzn1a
|
why does sound from earphones get softer when you push the earphone further into your ear?
|
Sometimes when I can't hear a sound on my computer, I instinctively push the earphones further into my ear and hold it there but it makes the sounds appear softer instead. Shouldn't sound closer to the cochlear appear louder?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/9bzn1a/eli5_why_does_sound_from_earphones_get_softer/
|
{
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"e56y8g2",
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2
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"text": [
"Sometimes when you do this, you're pushing the speaker into the inner flesh in your ear. Your ear canal isn't a straight tunnel, and the earbuds tend to rest just outside a bend. If you push them in further, you're probably pushing them into the wall of that bend, causing the sound to just transfer through your flesh and bones, making it softer.",
"Sound is just vibrations going through a material (which is why there is no sound in space).\n\nThis is why over-ear headphones have pads that hold the \"driver\" (the magnetic piece that is electrically charged to create the vibrations) away from the canal, creating a pocket of air through which the sound can reverberate.\n\nThis is also why larger in-ear bud pads tend to give you better bass - creating a sealed pocket of air in the canal directly has a similar effect.\n\nEven further, this is why lifting up over-ear headphones _even slightly_ makes them sound like they're far aware, diminishing the bass tones.\n\nBy pushing over-ear or on-ear headphones closer to your ear, you're also pushing _out_ the air from the pocket, removing a lot of the material that was once available for the sound to move through. That means less vibrations reach your ear, and thus the sound becomes distorted or quiet.\n\nContrary to the other comment here, the fact your ear canal isn't a straight tunnel isn't really the issue or cause, and evolution has done a good job at making sure of this."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[]
] |
|
4f7xk7
|
why isn't the end of the european or canadian slave trade a well known date of story compared to the american slave trade? was america unique in having such widespread and condoned slavery at the time?
|
Was America the only nation to have so many slaves?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4f7xk7/eli5_why_isnt_the_end_of_the_european_or_canadian/
|
{
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"text": [
"A lot of countries had slavery and slavery has never not sucked. But America had a whole other level of evil to it. Most places slavery was awful but at least was something more like a contract for a job you got sold into that you couldn't escape. In the US it developed into a particular race based thing that mirrored more closely the ownership of farm animals than the traditional forms of servitude that other counties had. \n\nLike you wouldn't want to be a slave in england either, but at least for most slaves in england they were recognized as being humans who had fallen into a perpetual contract, not an animal that could be bred or whatever. ",
"The American slave traeo was particularly large and violent, and thus took a large and violent war to even start getting rid of it. The amount of resistance that the American slave trading had in it is what made its defeat so famous. It started as far back as the signing of the Constitution, at that point it was planned to faze slavery out of the economy like everyone else, but it only got worse. ",
"Britain was also heavily involved in the slave trade. However there were not many slaves in Britain itself (in fact slavery was never technically legal within Britain). Slaves were mostly sent to the Caribbean.\n\nI'd say that the date Britain abolished slavery in the empire probably isn't as well known to Brits as the American date is to Americans. Maybe that's because slavery was something that happened \"far away\" for the average Brit at the time, maybe it's because it wasn't preceded by a major event like the American Civil War.\n\nBut it's not totally unknown either. Slavery is taught about in school (it was for me at least), and that does include the movement to abolish it. So it depends if someone is interested enough in history to remember the details. Although occasionally it is mentioned on Reddit as a dig at Americans, since Britain abolished slavery a few decades before the USA did.",
"The US grew crops like cotton and tobacco that lent themselves more to slavery than those grown in Canada and Europe. \n\nWhen abolitionist sentiments grew in the 18th and 19th Centuries, it was easier for Canada and Europe to adopt them, because their economies were less dependent on it.\n\nThat is also my slavery persisted longer in parts of the the Caribbean and Brazil.",
"I think it's because the US was the last of the big nations, so in a way it *was* unique, for a little while anyway. Upper Canada abolished slavery in 1793, the rest of the British Empire in 1833 (with some exceptions that went away in 1843), etc. while it took the US (as a nation- various individual states abolished it in the late 1700s) until 1865 to make it law.\n\nDepressingly the last nation to abolish slavery was Mauritania. In *1981*, and making it a crime in 2007. Way to finally enter the 19th century Mauritania."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[],
[],
[],
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] |
|
ba0vw1
|
- if im using a portable battery to charge my phone, what makes it charge my phone and not pull battery power from my phone to charge itself?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/ba0vw1/eli5_if_im_using_a_portable_battery_to_charge_my/
|
{
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"text": [
"The battery in the phone and in the battery pack litium ion batteries at 3.7 V and the USB connection you charge the phone width is 5V. \n\n & #x200B;\n\nThe result that the battery pack have a voltage converter that convert 3.7V to 5V and that circuit will only transfer energy in one direction because you have diods in the so the current can only go in one direction.\n\nThe cellphone have 5V in and 3.7V battery so you have dedicated charging circuits and they will work so that the current can only go in one direction.\n\nSo the answer is both are more complex then that battery directly connected to the port on the outside and there is dedicated chips that controller it so the current go in the correct direction.\n\n & #x200B;\n\nIF you just charged two batteries by connecting them in directly to each other you would have the problem you talking about . But battery charging is a lot more complex then that especially for litium ion batteries so dedicated circuit are used.",
"Because the battery pack has different connections for charging and discharging. One port is connected to the circuits to charge the battery, and the other is connected to a 5v supply created from the battery.\n\nSome phones can act as power banks when connected with an OTG cable, which is the one with a socket instead of a plug. These detect the OTG cable, which is wired differently, and change the way they work. "
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[]
] |
||
ck8y1x
|
why does us employment law allow such incredible insecurity?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/ck8y1x/eli5_why_does_us_employment_law_allow_such/
|
{
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"evkj19d",
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"It's actually worse than you think.\n\nThe two week notice is a common requirement for the *employee* to provide the *employer*. IE, if I am an accountant at a company and I want to gracefully quit my job to take employment somewhere else, I should provide a two week notice to my boss.\n\nBut in most, if not all, states, the *employer* has absolutely no legal obligation to give an employee a notification prior to terminating them, except for cases where it's a mass lay-off due to something like a department or factory being closed down.",
"2 weeks notice is a courtesy. It is not a requirement.\n\n > In the UK the execs would be on at least 4 months.\n\nOr what? The beefeaters arrest them and handcuff them to their desks?",
"In the US, we have what is called \\*at will employment\\* . In short, you can't be forced to work. You're not a slave. You're not an indentured servant. Employment contracts that obligate you (and companies DO write these into their contracts) are legally unenforceable nation wide. If I'm working for your uncle Bob and he's all touchy-feely - yeah, I'm quitting, and I'm not going to wait 2 weeks to 4 months to get out.\n\n & #x200B;\n\nThere are a limited number of jobs in the US where you can be legally compelled to keep working, even without pay sometimes - and this is in some areas of public service such as medicine or law enforcement. Even then, the law tries to be as accommodating as possible.\n\n & #x200B;\n\nAs for 2 weeks notice - this is a common courtesy, because people want a good reference for future employment. There is no legal requirement to actually do this. In practice, many people follow the courtesy, or if you're good at your job you may even negotiate a longer period to ease transition if the employee is leaving in amicable conditions. Most people don't actually need to bother, but they don't know it or they're conservative.\n\n & #x200B;\n\nOf course, the employer does not typically grant you the same courtesy, nor does anyone expect it - they will fire you or lay you off on the spot and security will escort you to the door.\n\n & #x200B;\n\nI've been a professional for 12 years and not once gave a grace period across just a few companies. When I leave, it's immediate resignation, and it's never caused a problem. In 12 years, I can't even recall an employer I interviewed with or was hired by that asked for references."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[],
[]
] |
||
cfn4gq
|
why can a high speed 4g signal reach me anywhere but wifi has trouble reaching me in the next room?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/cfn4gq/eli5_why_can_a_high_speed_4g_signal_reach_me/
|
{
"a_id": [
"eub29wv"
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"text": [
"There are 2 factors to consider.\n\nFirst is your surroundings. Radio waves, like a 4g signal or wifi are just electromagnetic radiation, like light. They pass through some things well, but are blocked by others. Having multiple walls, or a big HVAC unit, or a metal building between you and the transmitter can block either signal. Compare that to being outside, where your phone might be on direct line of sight with the 4g tower.\n\nThe other thing to consider is the size and power of the cell tower transmitter vs your wifi router. A cell tower transmitter can be bigger than a person, with a dedicated high voltage line supplying enough power to transmit signal for miles. Your wifi router is much smaller, plugged into a wall outlet, and only designed to transmit 100 feet or so."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[]
] |
||
3wafly
|
why is rt news banned from the subreddit r/news?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3wafly/eli5_why_is_rt_news_banned_from_the_subreddit/
|
{
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"text": [
"It's not news its propaganda as RT is owned by the Russian government. I'm sure that if you posted Donald Trump press releases they would be removed for the same reason.",
"RT is operated by the Russia government, which has a pretty bad record when it comes to freedom of the press.\n\nTheir news is consistently biased, to a much greater degree than other government operated news sources."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[]
] |
||
dagthj
|
why did i born with light-blue eyes and then they turned into a pitch black colour?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/dagthj/eli5_why_did_i_born_with_lightblue_eyes_and_then/
|
{
"a_id": [
"f1po133"
],
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6
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"text": [
"[Eye color](_URL_1_) is caused by a couple things that act together:\n\n* The blue colors are caused by light scattering (bouncing off the liquid in your eye and the shape of your iris), sort of like why the sky is blue even though the sun appears yellow and the light from the sun is white (all colors are included in it).\n\n* Brown and dark brown are caused by a pigment, [melanin](_URL_0_), that your body produces based on instructions in your DNA. Melanin is the same pigment that's produced to turn your skin brown when you suntan.\n\nSo, combining these two factors, if your parents had blue or light colored eyes, you will inherit DNA that causes your iris to produce very little melanin, and your eyes will be some shade of light blue. Otherwise, with more melanin in your irises, you could get shades of green, hazel, brown... all the way to very dark brown / black.\n\nSo, to answer your question, most babies have blue eyes because their eyes haven't produced melanin yet. As they get older, the DNA will kick into gear and their eye color will change."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Melanin",
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eye_color"
]
] |
||
262r71
|
how do holographic projections like the one of micheal jackson work? smoke? or mirrors?
|
I figure they probably had his corpse hooked up to an elaborate pulley system backstage, and then reflected it to the audience using 5 to 12 mirrors.
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/262r71/eli5_how_do_holographic_projections_like_the_one/
|
{
"a_id": [
"chn41qz"
],
"score": [
2
],
"text": [
"Sort of mirrors. It is in fact a slight twist on the very old Pepper's Ghost illusion. You have the main set on the stage, and place a large plate glass panel across the stage at 45°, and place an actor as your 'ghost' in a dark room off to the side. When it is time to reveal the ghost, you turn the lights on in the dark room, and the audience sees the 'ghost' appear, as a reflection off that sheet of glass. \n\nReplace the darkened room and actor with a large TV screen, and you have the Michael Jackson performance. (edit: seems they use a slightly reflective film instead of actual glass.)\n"
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[]
] |
|
bfoc3r
|
how does moisturizer work and why does sticking my hands in water not work instead?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/bfoc3r/eli5_how_does_moisturizer_work_and_why_does/
|
{
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"The moisture in your skin isn’t water. It’s fat (lipids). This is the same reason why dieticians and many moms say, “don’t eat the chicken skin, it’s got fat in it.” Fat makes skin flexible and healthy. Solvents such as alcohol, paint thinner, acetone, etc. can remove fat from skin, causing chapping—or worse, “defatting dermatitis.”",
"Moisturisers tend to 'trap' moisture that's already on your skin or in the moisturiser preventing it from evaporating from the skin surface, and therfore keeping it moist. \n\nIt's one of the main reasons why people are told to apply moisturisers after a bath or shower, to trap the moisture provided by the bath or shower.\n\nIf you just get out of the bath (ie, your hands in hot water from your question) the water evaporates and then your skin is dry again.",
"Moisturizers supply a little bit of water to the skin and contain an oily substance that holds it in. \n\nYears ago, most people used Vaseline (petroleum jelly)—often applied after bathing. Now we use fancier products that feel less greasy. Many also contain humectants (hyoo-MEK-tants), which absorb and retain water. Emollients fill in rough spots and make skin feel smooth but don't affect the water content.",
"Your skin maintains a barrier layer of fats and oils at the surface that helps lock in moisture (water) in the lower layers (skin is made of up different layers). \n\nLots water can wash away this protection, and allow water to leave the lower layers, drying them out.",
"The goal of a moisturizer is to \\_block\\_ the body's loss of water. Typically, it's the fats in your skin (oils -the stuff you wash off) that keeps the water well contained within your skin. Moisturizers fill this role. If you put water on your skin you're likely decreasing this \"barrier\" by washing it away.\n\nWhile some moisturizers are just for momentary effect, any that actually help you get back to equilibrium are keeping water from your body in, not actually adding water. The immediate feeling of smoother moisturized skin is topically other materials that either are or behave like fats.",
"Here's one of the best explanations I found on a skincare brand site.\n\nHydration and Moisturization are two terms that are used very frequently in our daily skincare vocabulary, and we often use them interchangeably considering them the same.\n\nBut are they really the same?\n\nNo, these are two entirely different terms. Our skin requires both hydration as well as moisturization. Before going into the details of these two terms, lets understand some important facts about our skin.\n\nWHAT IS HYDRATION?\n\nAs we all know skin is the largest organ of our body and in terms of chemical composition, the skin is about 60-70% water.\n\nThe skin composition makes it very clear that water is an essential component for our skin. When skin lacks in water, it becomes dehydrated, looks dull, uncomfortably tight and loses its lustrous appeal.The important fact here is - even oily skin types can suffer from dehydration, as water is required by all skin types in the same way. When the water content of the skin is depleted, the results become visible on the skin including less elasticity and rough skin.\n\nHydrated skin looks plumper. The plumpness smooths out fine lines and wrinkles, so your skin looks youthful.Hydration further gives skin a natural radiant glow and it makes every skin cell in your body work at its optimum best.\n\nMOISTURIZING\n\nHydration for skin is as essential as drinking water is for your body. But it doesn’t matter how many glasses of water your skin drinks every day, because if there’s nothing to keep this water in, it’ll evaporate into thin air, leaving your skin dull and dry (back to square one).\n\nMoisturizing helps lock in moisture by preventing hydration from escaping the skin.\n\nThe natural lipid barrier of our skin protects itself from damage and loss of water but if you’re someone who suffers from dry, flaky skin very often, then you may need some extra boost – this is where moisturization comes into play.\n\n\n\nHOW TO HYDRATE AND MOISTURIZE YOUR SKIN?\n\nFor Hydration, it’s crucial to follow the requisite water intake per day. And the daily intake of water should be at least 2-3 liters.\n\nwater drops\n\nAlong with water intake, we recommend the practice of natural hydrators to keep the skin hydrated and youthful. Natural humectants, not only help attract water to the surface of the skin, but also deliver hydration and nutrients to the deeper layers, as well. This helps skin to keep itself hydrated throughout the day.\n\nFor Moisturization, the intake of healthy fats in your diet, including monounsaturated fats and Omega -3 Fatty Acid, is vital. The healthiest way to lubricate the body from inside is with pure ghee preferably from A-2 Cows. Cooking oils made from hand pressed seeds and nuts are also recommended. One can add Avocados, Nuts, Flax seeds, Sunflower seeds, Fish oil.\n\nExternal application of moisturizers over skin is equally imperative. Some of the natural moisturizers are natural oils extracted from various plants – including nuts and seeds. Cold pressed Sesame oil, Almond oil, Coconut oil, Cow’s Ghee, Cocoa Butter, Shea Butter and organic Beeswax are some good examples. These natural moisturizing ingredients help in fighting the signs of aging by locking in hydration in a very efficient way.",
"There are different types ingredients in moisturizers: mainly humectants, emollients, and occlusives. The terms are not mutually exclusive.\n\nHumectants work by drawing moisture into your skin layers. They can draw the water from the environment if its humid enough or deeper layers of your skin.\n\nEmollients work by softening the skin and forming a barrier to water loss. Emollients are occlusives but not all occlusives are emollients.\n\nOcclusives are substances that form a physical barrier to water loss.\n\nA good moisturizer will have different combinations of each. The emollients and humectants will soften the skin and keep it soft and flush while the emollients and occlusives help reduce water loss.\n\nSo thinking that sticking your skin in water will help water retention is logical but it actually speeds up water loss because as the water evaporates, it pulls water out of your skin even faster.",
"Moisturizer has the fats and oils to help repair your skin. Water won't fix your fix skin by soaking in it.\n\n & #x200B;\n\n*Drinking* water can help your skin as it helps your body heal dried skin.",
"Moisturizer is mostly made of oil/fat, which creates a protective layer on your skin. Your skin already has oil on it for the same reason, but it may not be enough especially when it gets washed off by soap. Your skin is constantly evaporating water, and the oils slow this process. If there isn't enough oil, the moisture in your skin evaporates faster, causing it to dry out.\n\nThe reason putting water on your hands won't hydrate your skin is simply because water from outside can't get into your skin. Moisturizers don't hydrate your skin either, they simply slow the rate at which your skin loses moisture, which keeps it from drying out.\n\nSource: a friend created a hand cream and explained the way it works.",
"Moisturizer is like a trap for water. You have bait, which is a humectant, that is, an ingredient that attracts water into the skin, and a box propped up on a stick, which is an occlusive that prevents water from evaporating out.\n\nIf you just apply water to the skin, it simply evaporates and dries. This is also what's happening with the water in your skin (trans-epidermal water loss, or TEWL), so you have to find a way to trap it.\n\nThus, there's two parts in the function of a moisturizer: Humectancy, or the attraction of water into the skin, and Occlusion, or the prevention of evaporation of water.",
"Months ago, someone left this phenomenal comment on a post similar to this question. I appreciate the time, effort, and precision of their work so much that I saved it. I don't have the redditors info, unfortunately, and I apologize if this violates our etiquette. \n\nFirstly, be aware that \"moisturizer\" is a marketing term with no scientific or clinical definition. For all intents and purposes, ordinary old tap water, absorbed into the skin via a warm bath, relaxing sauna or cooling swim, is a \"moisturizer\". That's why your skin feels so nice and soft after those activities ... at least for a while.\n\nSecondly, you must understand that the \"moisturizer\" branch of the cosmetics industry is a high-stakes, billion dollar game played by a thousand vicious competitors who are all forever seeking an edge in the marketplace, and therefore consumer deception is a common, even universal practise. Thirdly, be advised that the vast majority of their research and development expenditures are focussed on marketing and persuasion - certainly not on something as peripheral to their bottom line as producing a better formulation, or anything. In fact, most manufacturers devote far more time, money and energy to designing and producing an attractive container and label, than they ever do on designing, producing or improving their actual product.\n\nAs to your actual question:\n\nBe they the $60-for-a-tablespoon-in-a-crystal-pot variety, the ubiquitous, sink-side blue jar variety, or your drugstore-brand \"family size\" pump bottle of white goo, all commercial \"moisturizers\" work in exactly the same way. They all provide a bit of water that penetrates cell walls membranes (tnx, u/YXAndyYX) to rehydrate and plump up the outermost few layers of dead skin cells that form your epidermis. Typically, their water content is around 65%. In addition, they all contain (@~25%) some sort of grease, wax or oil to trap that water inside, so it isn't just immediately evaporated away again by your excessive body heat ... you sultry thing, you.\n\nIn that regard, the only advantage all those hundreds of modern \"moisturizers\" have over your grandmother's go-to for dry skin - petrolatum, aka Vaseline - is that makers have gotten more sophisticated at finding different formulations and combinations of grease, oil and/or wax that don't feel quite as slippery or greasy to the touch, once the cells have absorbed all they can, and the leftovers remain on the surface of your skin.\n\nThis is the reason why, for example, Johnson's Baby Oil encourages you to slop on their product immediately after you shower: to seal in that tap water you've just absorbed (which needs to be done within 5 minutes of showering, or it's gone), and to ensure that any excess oil you might apply will rub off on your towel and/or your fresh clothes, and thus appear to have been successfully \"absorbed\" by your skin. (What - did you think there was some sort of magic involved? JBO is merely a fine mineral oil with some scent added; buy a store brand and save some money.)\n\nSome expensive products meant for the delicate skin of the face contain a proprietary dermal irritant like CEF. Such products basically inflame the dermis, which causes its cells to temporarily inflate by taking up plasma, which in turn reduces the appearance of facial wrinkles for a few hours (rather like blowing up a withered, half-deflated balloon). But eventually the irritant is neutralized by the body's defences, the dermal irritation subsides and its cells deflate themselves, allowing wrinkles to re-emerge - thus setting up a new and lucrative cycle of product consumption.\n\nThere are many other formulations. Some makers add a preservative like paraben to extend shelf life. Some add a humectant to absorb and trap additional water for a longer-lasting experience. Some add collagen, which is nothing more than un-absorbable connective tissue, typically sourced from that rubbery skin inside eggshells; you might as well rub yourself with actual eggshells, for all the moisturizing benefits topical collagen will provide. Same goes for added keratin, which is mostly sourced from cattle horns and hooves acquired from slaughterhouses. I know: eww, right?\n\nSome products increase their appeal by including pleasant odourants, like rosewater (St. Ives) or menthol (Noxema). Some add vitamins, in the hope they will appear to consumers as being able to \"nourish\" skin (hint: they can't).\n\nBoth useful and useless additions to moisturizers come and go in phases. At one time, sheep lanolin was popular; but it's stinky, and was largely abandoned when less pungent plant-based greases were developed. Chlorophyll was once a widespread addition, though nobody ever got around to explaining its benefits, or the supposed parallels between plant and skin chemistry. A few years ago, PABA was all the rage as a UV-blocking additive, until someone pointed out that the living tissue of the dermis was actually incapable of absorbing topical PABA. In fact, the only way to get it into dermal cells where it could do some good was to drink the damn stuff, eight hours before exposing oneself to the sun. Vitamin E is/was a popular addition, at least until clinical studies indicated it actually had no better moisturizing effect than any other fine, plant-based oil. And the most recent additive fad seems to be hemp oil, Harrelson help us.\n\nBTW, dry skin isn't actually a health issue, unless it's so profound that cracks appear in the epidermis, exposing the living dermis to the outside world and all its microscopic creepy-crawlies. It's really more of a comfort and aesthetic issue. Still, if severe enough, it can interfere with quality of life, and it makes some people quite miserable.\n\nEdit @ 24 hrs: at the request of mods, I provide a couple of citations, below. There's a lot of good info out there, but I would recommend that readers stick to those sites offered by legitimate medical and research facilities, universities with teaching hospitals, and so on. Don't rely on information provided by general interest sites (coughWebMDcough) or any site offering to sell you product.\n\nEven worse for providing dubious information and specious assertions are the commercial web pages of the retail cosmetics industry. If the link has a little \"registered\" symbol in its name, just walk on by. It is revealing that the first 500 or so links provided by any Google search for \"moisturizers\" consist almost entirely of cosmetic manufacturers' websites or industry associations, rather than leading you to legitimate clinical information. It's the same reason why the first thing one encounters upon entering a department store, is the makeup counter. (Hint: $)"
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9vp89p
|
the us senate has special powers the house lacks. what powers are unique to the house of representatives?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/9vp89p/eli5_the_us_senate_has_special_powers_the_house/
|
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"The House can impeach the president. Bills of revenue and spending must originate in the house (there’s a technical workaround but by the constitution they have to start in the house). If there’s a tie for the presidency, the house gets to decide who is the president. The speaker is third in line of succession to the presidency. To name a few."
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cza2l5
|
what is niche in biology?
|
[deleted]
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/cza2l5/eli5_what_is_niche_in_biology/
|
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"The same thing a \"niche\" is in common use--that is, a small, specific area of expertise.\n\nBiologically, a species \"niche\" is just the specific environment for which they are perfectly suited.",
"In practical terms, a biological niche is a source of energy that can be exploited.\n\nFor example, the presence of grass in a plains area represents a niche for an organism that can consume that grass for energy (IE: buffalo).\n\nThe presence of buffalo represents a niche for organisms that can consume the buffalo for energy (IE: wolves and mosquitoes)\n\nIf a niche is not being filled for some reason, it is highly likely that either some organism will mutate to fill that niche or an otherwise foreign organism that can fill that niche will find its way into and expand to fill the niche.\n\nIf multiple organisms fill the same niche, they will be in competition, which may drive natural selection in a variety of ways.",
"An easy analogy is with a company. You could say that a company \"apparent goal\" is to make money, so in order to do it it sells things, but it can't sell anything imaginable, it is not possibly logistically and economically, so it must specialize. This specialization it is at varying degrees. A store could sell clothes and shoes or just shoes. It could sell clothes for the younger or for the adults. Once a company has specialized that it is it niche. If the specialization was one that has demand for its product and nobody has specialized in that way before, in a better way, it would succeed if not it would die.\n\nA niche for the company describes this kind of specialization usually in terms of target customers and product. An online retailer that sell sunglasses for young people that's a niche, a cheap 0.99 store that sells sunglasses has a different niche.\n\nSame for biological species. Its \"apparent goal\" is to reproduce. So they do it by specializing and taking places, behaviors, strategies that nobody has chosen before, because in the case that two species take exactly the same niche a fight without quarter is ensure, where just one species is coming victor and the other one is going extinct.\n\nIn the case again for companies why two social networks like Twitter and Facebook exist at the same time. It is because they are a little bit different, if they were exactly the same the customers would choose the best one.\n\nSo in order to be a successful live being or company you must \"choose\" your niche carefully."
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b7nri1
|
why does an unnoticed wound sometimes not hurt until you see it?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/b7nri1/eli5_why_does_an_unnoticed_wound_sometimes_not/
|
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"Fight or flight response kicks in, just in case you need to flee; so adrenaline is released, allowing you to leave a threatening scene until safe. Once safe, the brain then releases the pain signal.",
"What made you see it? I get lots of \"unnoticed\" wounds that I only notice when I get something in them that hurts (like alcohol gel) ",
"Pain is weird. You can have a lot of pain and little tissue damage (paper cut) or no tissue damage. And you can have no pain and a lot of tissue damage (veterans finding out they have bullets stuck in their head from decades ago). (This applies to MRI and x ray findings as well but a lot of patients insist on getting imaging with non traumatic pain). Pain and tissue damage are related but don't have a one to one correlation. Think about pain as the body's alarm system. If it deems you are in danger, it'll make you feel pain to address it. If it's safe, you won't feel pain. Sometimes you get small little cuts or bruises that you've had previously as well. Your nervous system remembers these weren't that big a deal and won't address it because it's not really that much of a danger to your well being. Or if at war time you're getting shot at, it is more important to get yourself to safety than to make you feel agonizing pain over a bullet wound. ",
"Chances are you first notice it when the pain starts to kick in, and you're just perceiving it the other way around.",
"Part of it can be that the onset of pain is what makes you look at it, even without realising it as both occur close together.\n\nBeyond that though, while endorphins are running (as is the case after injury) you often look without seeing, so to speak. You don't see the cut for the same reason it doesn't hurt yet.\n\n",
"You think it started hurting when you looked at it, but really it started hurting and then you looked at it.",
"Neuronal activity vs what’s happening. Cut your leg. You bleed. Didn’t see and have poor circulation to decrease the likelihood adept sensitivity. Goes unnoticed. Inability to perform at standard. Check on your leg. Oh snap. Your bleeding! There’s a lot of blood. (Like previously aforementioned comments), flight of fight kicks aka sympathometic system aka SMS which works with ya parasympathomimetic system (PSMS) to help regulate shit like your pupils dilating (Darwinism: body innately increases our view of vision by the SMS/PSMS) which is all neural allowing you to respond super quickly for something that happened in past tense. ",
"Our brain is constantly receiving input from dozens of senses. We can't pay attention to all of these signals - we don't have enough bandwidth - so we prioritise certain inputs over others. The brain acts as a gatekeeper: it decides which sensory inputs are important (and so should be attended/paid attention to) and which inputs can be disregarded. \n\nHave you ever been *really* into a computer game and not noticed that you were hungry? Your brain is prioritising the visual and auditory (and maybe tactile) input from the game, and suppressing the input from your neglected/abused stomach. This kinda thing happens all the time, in many situations. \n\nThe same principle applies here. The brain has decided that, for whatever reason, it doesn't really care about the pain signals. However, when you look at the wound, you're bringing it into what we call conscious awareness. You're paying attention to the wound, which encourages the brain to prioritise the inputs associated with the wound. \n\nBit of a sidenote, but this is related to why rubbing an owie will reduce the pain. You're overwhelming the pain signals with \"rubbing\" signals from the same area. The brain doesn't have the bandwidth to process both sources, so it'll reduce the salience (importance) of the pain signals, in order to accommodate and process the tactile (rubbing) signals. ",
"Your brain receives a ton of information at all times from your senses. Too much, in fact. There are processes in the brain that filter out the extra info. There was a study done on LSD recently that indicated a breaking down in this filter is what causes you to trip and hallucinate. Pain is also affected by this filter. During times of extreme stress(an injury) the brain and adrenaline shut off your pain response as a survival technique. Pain is similar to an emotion. Our brains can postpone the pain response until we are in a safe location.",
"For smaller injuries, where fight or flight hasnt been triggered, it is distraction. When you are in the middle of something else you are distracted, whatever you are doing is taking up most of your attention. Once you notice a wound or injury it now has your full attention and nothing is distracting you from the pain signals. \n\nDistraction is a good technique to use to lessen pain even after a person becomes aware of an injury. ",
"The sense of pain is dependant on 2 things:\n\n1. The signal strength of the pain receptor\n\n2. The amount of attention you are directing towards that signal. (filter function) \n\nNumber 2 is the reason why people have different interpretations of pain and why in your example it starts to hurt when you see the wound. \n\nYou are starting to pay attention to an already existing signal. \n",
"I agree with other posters about not noticing it until you feel it being a big factor also depends on the location of the wound. Your hands have a lot higher density of nerves than say your back. Which makes sense since you're using your hands for a lot finer tasks than say your back or leg. \n\n(maybe slightly above age 5 material but a neat graphic depiction nonetheless, check out a cortical homunculus to see just how much of your brain is responsible for specific body parts)\n\nCBF to find the study right now but there was a neurology experiment where people would be repeatedly poked in a spot and asked to signal when the location changed. On hands if you moved the poke ever so slightly it was very easy to tell, on the back it was something comically large before someone would notice. \n\nI used to work in a smelting plant and I'd often feel burns on my fingers through many layers of gloves that didn't even leave a visible mark. Conversely I had no idea I had a fairly large scar on my back until my gf pointed it out much later (I was pretty sure it had to have happened a few weeks to months prior when some idiot bumped me into a very hot rail.) \n\nPut those two together and between \"out of sight out of mind\" plus lower nerve density, you're less likely to notice an area you're not constantly looking at.",
"The short version is that when taking placebo painkillers the patient get a real decrease of pain. The brain, when it expects to feel less pain, will inhibit pain neurons from the spinal cord. It would make sense then that the opposite is true as well, as this case is about.",
"I believe pain is \"gated\" also, in that you can only focus on one source of pain at a time. Usually the thing the brain considers most dangerous. Probably not a great idea to tell people this, but you can use pain in one area (e.g. blunt force trauma) to distract from other sources of pain. \n\nThis is a theory as to why \"cutting\" feels as satisfying as it does for some people as well as anorexia or other attempts to externalize internal pain. ",
"I read in the comments that pain is not registered if it’s not a big deal. However severe trauma can also be painless if the higher priority is to run for your life. I have a story like that and would love to know why it happened. \n\nWhen I was ten I was in a neighbor’s backyard and we would climb a tree and then swing down onto the old style clothes hangers which were metal tubes welded into a “T” shape stuck in the ground. On the horizontal arms of the “T” are flat ended hooks to tie the clothes line. Usually there a two “T’s” facing each other across the yard. This was NW Detroit in 1969. We did this climb up the tree, swing on the bar bit several times but finally I noticed that I could only feel my right hand on the rusty surface of the bar. I’m swinging back and forth like in a trapeze. I look up and see that one of the hooks is impaling my wrist so in essence I’m hanging from one hand a meat hook in my flesh. I felt nothing. No pain whatsoever. I pulled my arm out from the hook and blood spewed out. I jumped down and walked across the street back home. I had my arm horizons palm up and the blood flowed back to my elbow. I was told later I probably nicked the artery. My mother freaked out, wrapped my arm in a towel and drove me to the doctor. I remember sitting on the porch steps looking at the hole in my wrist with my vision narrowing to dine sized but never closing. This tunnel vision went in and out for a while. Still I felt no pain. I felt nothing until the doctor dripped lidocaine in it prior to stitching it up. I always wondered why I never felt a thing. I say this as one of those kids who went crazy if the shirt tag touched him and could feel a grain of sand stuck in his shoe. ",
"The nervous system is a stew of constant returning signals, and the mind uses a lot of different tricks to interpret them. One of those tricks is to use its conceptualization of the world around it in order to determine how to interpret them. Seeing the wound confirms signals that indicate damage, so the mind decides that these signals should be taken seriously.\n\nThis is the same reason your arm hurts when you see someone else break their arm. Signals that should be considered normal get interpreted as pain. It’s also the reason some people get phantom pains, such as the ones experienced by amputees.",
"I’m a Physical Therapist and this is a really good question and relates to what a lot of what us PTs think and talk about with patients day to day. It’s amazing how little we know about pain. What recent research has suggested is that talking to people about how pain works likely will improve their outcomes. So, your question may literally benefit many painful redditers. \n\nPain does not come from pain signals from pain receptors on our tissue. This is often misunderstood. Nociceptors on our tissue actually send danger signals to the brain, not pain signals. It’s up to the brain to interpret those signals as pain. We say pain is an output, not an input. As such, a person’s pain experience can be (and often is) influenced by emotions, stress, and past experiences. If you take two people with back pain, one who injured it in a scary car accident and one who injured it lifting her beloved grandchild, the former will likely have higher pain numbers and a worse outcome. Fear amplifies pain. This is why smart doctors don’t quickly order imaging for everyone with back/neck pain, but rather send them to PT and/or prescribe non-narcotic meds, or wait and see. Labeling your pain as “arthritis” or “a disc bulge” can generate unnecessary fear of movement that can then make pain worse. I can’t remember if it was one research study or a systematic review (a study of studies) that took hundreds of people from the street with no back pain, put them in an MRI, and found bulging discs (or other pathology) in over half of them. Research also shows that MRIs ordered early in their care worsen outcomes. “If I have a disc bulge, it must be really bad and so I shouldn’t play golf anymore.”\n\nThe previous answers stating there is no correlation between the amount of tissue damage and amount of pain are correct. In fact people often have pain without any tissue damage. This is called “chronic pain.” On average, tissue takes 6-12 weeks to heal. In extreme cases it can take up to 6 months. Pain that outlives tissue damage is chronic pain. This is very difficult to treat and often involves conversations like the above paragraph as well as addressing psychosocial factors. Individuals battling depression and anxiety are at higher risk of developing chronic pain. Some clinicians/researchers recommend explaining how pain works to all pre-op patients to help avoid chronic pain down the line. \n\nSo, if you haven’t noticed a wound, there is little nociceptive input and there is no perceived threat from the brain and therefore no pain. \n\n",
"Our body isn't actually very good at \"sensing\" damage or the severity of it. Damage tends to damage the nerves that should be reporting it too, so they won't. lot of tissues also just don't have any nerves that'd be associated with pain, which is why you can have open brain surgery when conscious and only locally anesthetized on the \"opening\"; you won't feel a thing.\n\nTo get around these limitations, our brain uses the same trick as with our other senses; it cross-references what you see and what you hear with what feel. It goes like this.\n\n**You trip and fall, and your brain processes these inputs.**\n\n**Some nerves in your arm reporting something's up could mean a lot of things; lets not panic yet.**\n\n**Huh? A loud crunchy sound? Well, I mean, could have fallen onto a branch or something...**\n\n**Oh, the forearm is bent at ninety degrees. Yeah this isn't right. This is pretty bad. And it hurts a lot. OWIE**\n\n & #x200B;\n\nAnd finally, unrelated point; massive, very dangerous injuries failing to hurt at all might very well be an evolved strategy where the brain might have very definite info about bad harm but simply blocks it temporarily to keep you functioning unhindered rather than further cripple you with pain that's bound to be debilitating eventually. Something punched a hole through your gut? Well, there's probably a very dangerous animal or something; we might need to run away or whatever; lets just ignore that agony for now, and try to figure out how to survive whatever situation we're in right now.\n\nThis is part of the reason why many self defense and combat techniques focus on inflicting pain rather than just destroying parts of the body; pain can be lot more effective at disarming stopping your opponent than stabbing their kidneys or whatever.",
"I actually know a bit about this.\n\nI've suffered chronic pain for 25 of my 30 years. I've been on pain management courses led by consultant anesthesiologists and psychologists, which also give some background on pain and the like.\n\nThe main thing is pain's function. It's a warning of a threat, either the \"something is damaging you\" kind or the \"you're damaging yourself\" kind.\n\nHowever, as with a lot of things, your body doesn't just pay attention to a single factor. In this case, its heavily influenced by 3 factors - the nerve carrying the pain (duh), your biochemistry, and your senses.\n\nA large wound will affect your biochemistry - you'll let stuff into your body that should be outside and you'll let stuff out that should be inside (dirt and blood respectively). So your immune system will begin reacting, sending out \"there's crap here\" signals to prime your white blood cells. If the wound is significant, your body's internal sense of blood pressure will change as the local pressure drops. Obviously there's a lot of these which could factor into this, so I won't go into them all.\n\nThen there's senses. Say you're walking down a major city street. Lots of activity, lots of noise, cars, people, etc. Your body will filter most of that out of the factors. So it won't be looking for danger or damage. But if you suddenly hear a gunshot, your body goes to high alert, increasing your stress levels (this is actually the purpose stress evolved for, not to make us worry about next month's targets). At that point, your body is primed and looking for both threats and damage. So you'll notice things you otherwise wouldn't, be it the guy running along with a pistol who you didn't notice to start with, or any injuries you may have.\n\nThe whole time your body is weighing up all of that stuff. If you nick your forearm on something but its a tiny cut, your body goes \"minor pain response, no change of biochemistry, no seeing/hearing/smelling anything odd\" and basically goes \"doesn't meet a threshold, not a problem\" and filter it out. But stand on a nail and impale your food, then try to take a step, your body is registering a significantly higher pain signal, and it's one that's being triggered again and again. At the same time, your immune system is registering the nail and flagging it as something not supposed to be there, so it flags it to the conscious brain.\n\nTo use a work example, say you're working retail in a place like walmart/tesco (or whatever your supermarket of choice is). If someone spills a little bit of water on the floor, you don't need to take that to the store manager, you just get it cleaned up. But if someone in the warehouse was moving a palette of wine (no idea if wine is transported in palettes, but it works for the analogy) and somehow they crash it and break 500 bottles of wine, that probably does get flagged to the store manager.\n\nIt's worth noting though, that this system is generally effective, but far from foolproof. It's why you hear of people who don't know they've been stabbed until someone tells them.\n\nConversely, it's why I experience chronic pain. I've suffered migraines since I was 5. Because of that, I've taken a lot of painkillers in my life. The basic way a painkiller works is by blocking pains. Your nerves conduct pain from one nerve to the next by producing a neurotransmitter from the first nerve (so the one connected to the foot that just trod on a nail) which moves over to the next nerve, triggering it. The painkiller basically blocks the receptor which looks for the neurotransmitter. Because the receptor is blocked, it doesn't trigger and the pain doesn't get to the brain. But do that too much and the body adapts (life will find a way and all that). It creates extra receptors to detect the pain. But stop the painkiller and suddenly you've got more receptors than normal triggering the nerve. So a small pain suddenly registers as a much stronger signal. So a small twinge in my leg that would barely register to anyone else, feels to me like I've got a railway spike in my leg.\n\nAs to why it's suddenly noticeable, it's almost confirmation bias. Basically, you aren't aware of a cut. Then you notice it and start going \"how did I not notice it? How did I do it?\", etc. Which makes your brain focus more on it, which makes it harder to forget. I've actually worried a minor headache into a migraine before now.",
"(For people who need a more basic explanation then the top comments) \n\nHave you ever been in the middle of clutching a round in a video game or last member of a raid team and manage to beat/win whatever it was you were doing, just to then notice you were holding your breath for more then 3 min straight withought struggling- then take a deap breath at the realization? Yeah same shit. Your brain is ignoring the pain to sharpen your other senses and reflexis as to keep you alive. Pretty much auto pilot. Once you are out of danger and look at the wound or in this case finish the match your brain registers the fact that you are injured and hits you with some pain so you will pay attention to it and fix whatever's the problem."
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6w2sgr
|
if i have 8 slices of pizza, and i get full by eating 4, is it more energy efficient to eat all 8 at once or to eat 4 at a time and 4 later?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/6w2sgr/eli5_if_i_have_8_slices_of_pizza_and_i_get_full/
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"I think to get a reasonable answer you need to define more clearly what you mean by \"energy efficient.\" \nIs what you are asking this, if I consumer 1 unit of food twice vs 2 units of food at one sit which requires more energy for digestion? I suspect that one larger meal uses less energy because you do not have to restart the digestive process twice. However I am not sure ",
"What do you mean by energy efficient? The total amount of food you are going to eat is the same (8 slices of pizza) so the energy (calories) is constant.\n\nI am assuming your question is what will keep you full for longer and the answer to that question is you will be fuller if you stop at the minimum amount you feel full and eat the rest later when you get hungry again.",
"It will probably be better to eat in two separate instances. If you just eat more than you \"should,\" it just gets stored as fat. The issue is that your body will make you feel hungry way before breaking fat down. \n\nSo you might feel hungry 2 hours earlier if you just eat 4, but that's more \"efficient\" than storing extra fat then feeling hungry 2 hours later after eating 8 slices. \n\nIf your body does not have a large percentage of fat cells, you'll burn more by fidgeting and will be even less efficient. \n\nThe idea of storing fat from overeating is only useful if you're starved for days or weeks at a time. In today's age when we can eat anything, the old ways of our body functioning for survival make us overweight. But, as we all know, fat people who over eat are still hungry at the same rate as people who are not. Even if they eat more. ",
"The more you eat in one setting, the more you're approaching diminishing returns. If you're really hungry and eat a small snack, let's say that replenishes your energy about half way. Eat another small snack, and now you're at 100%. Continue eating further, and you're not going to get much more benefit out of anything additional. It's sort of like in a video game where you pick up another health item when you're already at 99%. You're sort of wasting it then. It's better to wait until there's more of a need so you can use its full benefit. "
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[],
[],
[]
] |
||
1ns6db
|
why can't we just switch our brains to a new body when our body is dead, so we can live forever?
|
I know it sounds fucking insane and all, but I was just wondering
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1ns6db/eli5_why_cant_we_just_switch_our_brains_to_a_new/
|
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"Your brain dies pretty quickly after clinical death. Even if revived brain damage is quite likely. ",
"Your brain ages too. The DNA-molecules in your brain cells become more and more damaged over time which results in an accumulation of dysfunctional cells.",
"Our brains deteriorate like the rest of our bodies, and if we have worn out one then the other is likely to go soon as well. We don't currently have the ability to attach a brain so that it can control a new body but even if we did, it would just be an old brain in a younger body.",
"There are two big hurdles: making sure that the brain is still viable after transplant and that doctors can actually re-attach the brain.\n\nWhat modern medicine does know is that approximately 15-20 seconds after your heart stops, you lose consciousness. In 10 minutes (20 minutes if certain drugs are used), your neurons are *damaged*, not dead, from oxygen deprivation. Doctors do not know exactly how long it takes for neurons to die from lack of oxygen, only that extended time without oxygen will cause brain damage and the accompanying physiological results. What *will* kill your brain cells, however, is [reperfusion injury](_URL_0_). After cells are deprived of oxygen, the sudden reintroduction of oxygen causes oxidation reactions and release of free radicals (see the link for a paper on it.)\n\nNow, assuming that the brain is fully intact and functional after being transplanted (avoiding reperfusion injury and the like), the issue is connecting it to the spinal cord. Again, I'm assuming that there is no damage due to trauma, infection, oxygen deprivation, etc. Currently, there are no successful means of re-establishing the connection to the spinal cord. Even with oxygen reaching the brain and life support for the rest of your new body's systems, you'd basically be a ghost in a shell."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[],
[],
[
"http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/11054482"
]
] |
|
fauzh4
|
what is high and low fidelity in music?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/fauzh4/eli5_what_is_high_and_low_fidelity_in_music/
|
{
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"text": [
"Fidelity is a measure of how closely a copy matches its source, regardless of the medium. Record albums, JPEGs, DNA -- anything that makes copies has a measure of fidelity, of how precisely it matches or doesn't match the original.\n\nThe higher the fidelity of a recording, the more similar the sound from the recording medium is compared to the original sound.\n\nAn example of a high fidelity copy would be a studio master. An example of a low fidelity copy would be an MP3, in which details have been \"smeared\" into groups of similar details, making a less detailed file that still contains the basic waveform shape changes that characterizes that particular noise. Information has been removed, but the overall gist remains the same.\n\nA zero fidelity copy would be a recording that sounds totally unlike the original. Like, you recorded a pop singer in the studio but your sound file is the noise of a garbage disposal. The correlation between source and copy is so low it is difficult or impossible to see the connection between them."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[]
] |
||
3ztq87
|
why do people only receive a portion of what they actually won in the lottery?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3ztq87/eli5_why_do_people_only_receive_a_portion_of_what/
|
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"text": [
"Taxes.\n\nThat's really about it but that short of an answer will just get auto-moderated into oblivion.",
"1) if you claim a lump sum instead of a 30 year gradual payout you get much less.\n\n2) taxes.",
"In some countries (like the UK) a lottery winner gets all the prize. The only reason for reduction is multiple winners, in which case the full value is split evenly.\n\nIn others, taxes are due on the prize. Given the sums involved, these will pretty much always be the country's highest tax rate. Some countries (like the US) allow disbursement to take place over decades in order to reduce exposure.",
"A few reasons that drastically change the actual net. Multiple winners. Large tax burden on winnings of that size. Opting for a lump sum as opposed to taking payments over a term. The payout over a long term me be a larger; but often is worth less once you take into account inflation and potential personal earnings on the lump sum payment. "
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[],
[],
[]
] |
||
2lv8ag
|
why can't the president order the fcc to abide by net neutrality. _url_0_
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2lv8ag/eli5_why_cant_the_president_order_the_fcc_to/
|
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"[Link to Presidents speech.](_URL_0_)",
"Because despite what Fox \"News\" says the president is not a dictator and actually has pretty limitted power. The FCC is an independent organization, he can't give it orders. ",
"The Federal Communications Commission is an independent government agency, which is a class of government body that is explicitly designed to *not* be under the president's command. He can make suggestions, but it is ultimately the chairman of the FCC who decides what the FCC does.",
"Because then they would actually do it. What you are seeing here is just theater. Obama asks for free and open internet, the FCC goes ahead with its fast lane bullshit, and just like that, Obama has his scapegoat. ",
"Because the president nominated someone staunchly against NN so that he could come along today and say HE wants to support NN only to be stonewalled by the guy he put in charge. It's almost like Wheeler is there to be a bad guy while Obama stands there saying \"Welp. I tried. Still love me Internet?\"\n\nNope. Not at all Obama. You fucked us. One way or another. Classic politics!",
"Do really want that? If the President is personally directing huge changes all it takes is a new guy to completely reverse everything.",
"Because he is no(t) a King or Dictator. Rule of law still applies. No matter how much you like or dislike something.",
"This pisses me off that a cable lobbyist made it to that position in the first place, seriously. I support Obama on a lot of his stuff but that's just a bone head move. Now on to the why Tom Wheeler is being a dickhead also, in the provisions which establish the FCC, the \"mission\" is specifically outlined in the sentence:\n > make available so far as possible, to all the people of the United States, **without discrimination** on the basis of race, color, religion, national origin, or sex, **rapid, efficient**, Nation-wide, and world-wide wire and radio communication services with adequate facilities at reasonable charges.\n\nI think it's pretty clear to an objective observer that net neutrality is a given in this statement, however, Wheeler isn't taking any action because he's in the pocket of big ISPs (former cable lobbyist). Ridiculous.\n\n"
]
}
|
[
"http://youtu.be/uKcjQPVwfDk"
] |
[] |
[
[
"http://youtu.be/uKcjQPVwfDk"
],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[]
] |
||
3rc2x3
|
why are there so many independent candidates for the us elections?
|
I was reading this Wikipedia page (_URL_0_) and After the part with the traditional parties, I suddenly saw a bunch of parties with "candidates" who basically have a 0% chance to win (American Freedom Party, Constitution Party, Cyber Party, Green Party, etc). In countries such as the UK or Israel it makes sense, as the voting system means that even if they don't win, they get seats in parliament. In Israel there are usually 2 parties with people who run for Prime minister and various others who run for parliament, expressing will to take on a specific ministerial role.
But in the US, the voting system is Presidential. So the candidate with the most electoral votes wins. Since the mid 1800s, when the Whig party existed, The Republicans and the Democrats have always dominated, and always it is on of them who wins.
So why do people who know they will get very few votes and maybe if they are a bit popular get 1 or 2 electoral votes (when you need 270 to become president) still try and run for president, instead of running for senate, house, state governor, etc which are offices where they actually have chances to earn seats.
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3rc2x3/eli5why_are_there_so_many_independent_candidates/
|
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"text": [
"A couple of different reasons: \n1) Spoiler Effect. If your campaign is remotely successful, you can siphon enough votes from the major political party closest to your platform and cost them the election. This forces them to change their platform to match closer to what you were running on. You still won't win, but you'll have influence over a major party. \n2) Vote Percentage. It varies by state, but most states have requirements that your party's candidate has to get a certain percentage of the vote to remain on the ballot. A lot of parties are either trying to get to this percentage so they can be on the ballot, or already have achieved this percentage and are defending it to remain on the ballot. \n3) Message. You probably won't win, but you'll at least be putting your message out there. Campaigns from major parties might steal a line and voice their agreement. You may influence other candidates to run in the future. Campaigns can still influence the future of a nation even if they don't win. \n4) You never know. In the 90s a third party candidate was polling equally to the Democratic and Republican candidate. It's possible it could happen again. You'll never know unless you try so why not give it a shot? This line of logic tends to be prevalent among third party candidates and their supporters. \nThere are probably other reasons than these but these reasons are a few I've heard. Hope that helps!"
]
}
|
[] |
[
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_presidential_election,_2016"
] |
[
[]
] |
|
2whscj
|
how a static electricity shock can be up to 20,000 volts but feel harmless
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2whscj/eli5_how_a_static_electricity_shock_can_be_up_to/
|
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"text": [
"Volts don't matter as much as amps. Imaging that colts are the size of a pipe. Amos are the pressure behind the water in the pipe. If you have a huge water pipe, but no pressure, you will have almost no water flow. That is how electricity works too. If you have a ton of voltage, but no real current (amperage) then there will be as little potential as the pipe scenario. ",
"The short answer is most static electricity, while it can have a lot of volts, has low amperage. \n\nDry skin has about 100,000 Ohms. Electricity has to overcome that resistance to create an impact to cause severe injury or death. So when you rub your feet across a carpet it generates electricity but the amperage isn't enough to hurt.",
"The water analogy is very good but maybe it'll be easier to just explain the volts and amps as they are.\n\nVolts are how much force each electron has pushing it through a circuit. You build up thousands of volts by pulling electrons off of the carpet when you walk. But the total number of electrons is low. Your skin also has high resistance, which prevents huge numbers of electrons from flowing through you. Amperage is what hurts. It's the rate of electron flow. So even though each electron has enough voltage behind it to push through your body, there just aren't enough to do any damage."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[],
[]
] |
||
5x0hvu
|
what is lent?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5x0hvu/eli5_what_is_lent/
|
{
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"A period of time preceding Easter (or the Holy Week before Easter) that traditionally involves extra prayer, fasting (giving up some or all food), repentance, atonement, charitable giving, and self denial (giving up things other than food) to prepare spiritually for the Easter celebration. \n\nIt's traditionally described as lasting 40 days long in honor of Jesus' [40 day fast](_URL_0_) in the desert. ",
"Lent is a season of forty days, not counting Sundays, which begins on Ash Wednesday and ends on Holy Saturday. Lent comes from the Anglo Saxon word lencten, which means \"spring.\" The forty days represents the time Jesus spent in the wilderness, enduring the temptation of Satan and preparing to begin his ministry.\n\nLent is a time of repentance, fasting and preparation for the coming of Easter. It is a time of self-examination and reflection. In the early church, Lent was a time to prepare new converts for baptism. Today, Christians focus on their relationship with God, often choosing to give up something or to volunteer and give of themselves for others.\n\nSundays in Lent are not counted in the forty days because each Sunday represents a \"mini-Easter\" and the reverent spirit of Lent is tempered with joyful anticipation of the Resurrection.",
"Only Roman Catholics have to fast from meat on Fridays. Many years ago they had to fast from meat for all of Lent. The Orthodox Church has different fasting requirements. Most Protestant denominations have no fasts. \n\nSome Lutheran church (ELCA) congregations have extra services on Wednesday nights during Lent. The church sometimes picks a book or practice that congregation will read and discuss together (participation is optional). They sing certain hymns, use different liturgy and do not say Alleluia until Easter Sunday. \n\nFasting during Lent makes a lot of sense before modern times. It takes place at the end of winter/ early spring. Most food stores are running empty. There's nothing growing in the garden yet. If you hunt at this time of year, all the animals will be very lean and tough. The wild animals can get over hunted and will jeopardize the next generation of the herds. Cows usually dry up in winter because they are pregnant with new calves. \n\nFat Tuesday / carnival / Fasching is when the Northern European countries had to use up all their fats before Lent. These fats were part of the fasting rules from the Vatican. This was a trade issue as olive oil was not forbidden during Lent. Olives do not grow in Northern Europe. The oil from Italy and Spain traded with the north was low quality and expensive. The main fats used in the north were animal fats such as butter and lard. This was an issue in the reformation and probably explains why Protestants do not have fasting rules. "
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[
"https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Matthew+4%3A1-11&version=NIV"
],
[],
[]
] |
||
em1s1t
|
how can human brain contain and endure many personalities (in cases like did and mpd) that are so different from the "host" and is there a limit to how many different identities can exist in one brain before their personality's "quality" declines?
|
Side question: What do "alters" do when they're not in control? Do they communicate with each other and if so, is it like only through only thoughts or do they exist in an imaginative space and how does that affect the brain?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/em1s1t/eli5_how_can_human_brain_contain_and_endure_many/
|
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"So this may not be the most 'scientific' answer, but I have OSDD-1b, which is a version of DID, everything is the same except there is no amnesia between us, we all share the same memories. DID used to be known as MPD, but BPD (Bi-polar disorder) still exists.\n\nBasically in order for a person to have DID, they must have endured a trauma before the ages 7-9. Of course this depends on the person, but before 7-9, the brain is still developing personality. When a child goes through a trauma, usually repeated trauma such as abuse or brainwashing, their brain can't handle the trauma and 'splits'. Thus resulting in a new personality that is built to handle the trauma. This is often why people with DID have 'trauma alters', these are alters that hold the memories of that trauma whereas the host may amnesia and completely forget they went through any trauma at all. \n\nThe amount has to be at least two distinct personalities, but there is no limit. Some may 4, 50, or even 2500 alters. Non-fragmented alters are full people, with likes, dislikes, different hobbies, different muscle memories (my body has terrible eyesight, but one of alters, Kyle, has 20/20 vision) Alters can be human, ethereal beings who have their own language, to animals and inanimate objects. Fragmented alters are simply an alter who is stuck in a 'fragment' of time, usually reliving certain traumatic memories continuously. These alters rarely front, and often don't have much of a consciousness to begin with. Again, this all depends on the person as DID is one of the most personal disorders out there.\n\nSo your question on inner world- sometimes alters know what's going on inside vs out, but sometimes not. For OSDD, I to describe it as a 'Van'. The driver is whoever is fronting, and co-consciousness is two alters driving together. Close to the front, is shotgun seat, and anyone in the first two rows of seats. These alters can see what's going on, and their thoughts often meld into whoever is fronting. Ever had a thought that just randomly appeared in your head? That's what other alters thoughts feel like, except it's constant and usually 2-3 peoples thoughts at a time. \n\nInner worlds can be complex or nothing at all. A youtuber, 'Acrylic and Aether', his inner world is an entire civilization, which countries and ruling governments, and a language, Aetherian.\n\nOur inner world is just a large house, and everyone has their own hobby rooms. For example Jethro, has an entire music production studio to make his music. \n\nWhen we get close to the front, we have a sort of 'lounge', where we can watch what the body is doing. Often we turn on music and have a dance party when we're bored, and let our 'overseers', Ava and Power, handle the body autonomously.\n\n & #x200B;\n\nHopefully that's helpful and let me known if I didn't answer or explain something enough!\n\n\\-The Unicorn Chaos System",
"*Disclaimer: I am not a mental health professional, just a guy who explains things good so I welcome corrections from people who are more knowledgeable.*\n\nDissociative identity disorder is so poorly understood that many psychologists don't believe it's a real mental disorder *at all*. Skeptics argue that while many, if not most people diagnosed with DID are suffering from *some* kind of mental illness, multiple personalities are not the answer. I'm not qualified to weigh in on that controversy, all I can do is explain what the experts argue about it. Suffice it to say, only a minority of psychologists recognize the disorder and a roughly equal minority are staunchly against it; most are ambivalent or skeptical.\n\nDissociation is something even neurotypical people experience sometimes in response to [usually severe] stress or danger. Dissociation is a detachment from reality, sometimes enough that you feel separated from yourself. It is believed to be a response to stress so that you can take actions necessary for survival without being distracted by emotions and unnecessary details. For example, if your house is on fire you might be distracted by the loss of your cherished memories, or even the loss of your loved ones in the house. You might become paralyzed by the overwhelming sadness and fear. By dissociating, the reality of the situation disappears and it *appears* to be totally unreal: no one is dead, nothing is lost, just go on autopilot which means walking out the door.\n\nDissociation often feels like you are not in control of yourself. Brains are complicated: people often ask even here on ELI5 how your unconscious mind knows something. Well, because *you* know it. You *are* your unconscious mind. Consciousness is an emergent process that arises from all the signals bouncing around through your brain. So, sure, if you dissociate and your conscious mind doesn't register that, say, you're driving a car that doesn't stop the rest of your brain from going through the same unconscious actions you take to drive successfully. But it's still *you*. Think of it like when you're being a terrible, irresponsible driver and texting someone while driving, and even on a slightly curvy road you manage to stay on the road, because you can delegate the task of driving to another part of your brain while you do the \"more important\" task of texting. (It should go without saying that you shouldn't do this, it's dangerous. Don't. This is not an endorsement of texting and driving.)\n\nSometimes dissociation is accompanied by amnesia. Your brain shuts off reality *so* much that you don't record memory of the event. Kind of like when you zone out while driving and when you \"come to\" you realize that you've definitely traveled but you also definitely don't remember doing it.\n\nBetween feeling like someone else is in control of your body and not being able to remember something that evidence shows definitely happened, it can *appear* to someone that literally someone *else* other than their own self is in control of their body when that is not the case. Memory is a lot more fluid than people like to believe: so fluid that you can invent explanations for what happened and believe them so intensely that, in your mind, they are absolute truth. In the case of DID, skeptics argue that *at best* people suffering from DID are creating or altering memories - consciously or unconsciously - to explain gaps in their memory or actions they performed that they did not feel in control of. If it wasn't me, it must have been *someone else* so who is that person?\n\nIf multiple personalities exist, they are allegedly created in response to trauma to help the person compartmentalize and control that trauma. So if someone is attacked and raped, they can separate that part of themselves and say, \"It wasn't *me* that was raped, it was this other not-me.\" Or conversely, \"I was raped but if I become not-me, then I can become someone who was not raped.\" In that way, alters are aspects of a person's mentality that manifest to deal with a problem. Even if DID is a real diagnosis, alters would not be \"real\" in the sense that they are not fully-fledged personalities, they're just invented characters designed to help a person function.\n\nCan they talk to each other? Well, you can talk to yourself. You can imagine a whole conversation with yourself. Did that conversation \"happen\"? You can imagine that a conversation *happened* in the past and act as if that were the case. You can imagine that you have separate personalities and you can act like you do, and you can have a mental pathology where you believe that it's true and act like it's true. Is it true?\n\nSkeptics say, no. It's acting. It might even be a kind of mentally unwell method acting where you truly believe yourself to be a different person. Skeptics say, it's still acting. Proponents say the distinction between acting like another person and *being* another person is not really a meaningful one, especially given that dissociation is *definitely* a recognized thing. Proponents say, if you can dissociate and then act like a different person during that dissociative episode, well, that's a different personality.\n\nTo answer your specific questions, the answer is that it depends on who you ask, but really it's a distinction that may not be possible. They are, after all, all made up and in your head, regardless of how \"real\" they are so they can \"do\" anything you believe them to have done."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[]
] |
|
emdesl
|
how do manufacturers know how many batteries and what type of batteries a product needs?
|
For example, my son received a toy Yoda as a Christmas gift that takes 4 AA batteries. How did they determine it needed 4 AA?? Why not 2 D batteries?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/emdesl/eli5_how_do_manufacturers_know_how_many_batteries/
|
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"AAA, AA, C, and D batteries all operate at around 1.5 volts. If your device requires 6 volts, you need four of those, no matter what type.\n\nThe only differences between a AAA and a D are size and capacity. If you have a small device that doesn't need much juice, you use AAAs. If it is big and you want it to last a long time, you use Ds. If it is small and it needs a lot of energy, you change batteries a lot.",
"The electronics engineers consider two parameters, voltage and current. Higher voltages can energize larger objects, and your toy might need that to light a light bulb. Higher currents can do more work.\n\nTo get more voltage, since battery chemistry isn't something the toy designer can change, you need more batteries. 4 gives you 5.5V and 2 only gives you 2.7V. Bigger (diameter) batteries provide more current, for a constant chemistry. So, buttons are least, then AAA, then AA ... then D then lantern batteries. There are thousands of different batteries, depending on what you want to optimize.",
"They both give the same amount of voltage and both will work... It’s just a matter of how long you want the product to last vs weight of the product ( the D2’s hold more capacity )\n\nAs this is a childs toy, you want it to weigh as little as possible but run just long enough not to get annoying where you have to change batteries every day.\n\nMore capacity generally means more weight in the real world. Solve this problem and you’ll be a millionare/billionaire.",
"Batteries have two characteristics we care about: Voltage (potential energy difference between the + and - end of the battery) and capacity (measured in milli-amp hours). Both AA and D batteries provide 1.5 Volts each, but with different capacities. The circuit designer has calculated what the power usage of the circuit is, so they know how long a particular battery will last. Size and weight are also both factors, as 2 D cells are significantly heavier than 4 AAs. \n\nThere's also that fact that by connecting the batteries in different ways, you can combine the characteristics in different ways. When connected in series (the + of one battery connects to the - of the next, so all the batteries are in a line), the voltages add together, but the capacity stays the same. So the 2 D cells could be made to provide 3V with the same capacity of 1 D cell. The 4 AAs could provide up to 6V at a single AAs capacity. \n\nThe other way to connect them is in parallel (all the + connect together, and all the - connect together). This keeps the voltage the same, but adds the capacities together. So your 2 D cells, could provide 1.5V at twice the capacity of 1 D cell. The AAs would provide 1.5V at quadruple the capacity of a single AA. \n\nOne thing you can do with 4 AAs that you can't do with 2 Ds is a combination of series and parallel. Connect the AAs into two 2-battery series, then connect those two in parallel. That gives you 3 Volts at twice the capacity of a single AA. \n\nMost electronics nowadays require a minimum voltage of 3V, so at least 2 batteries will be needed, regardless of AA vs D. The deciding factor comes down to how much capacity is needed to give a reasonable amount of playtime, while not being too heavy for a child's toy. A D battery provides 6 times the capacity of a AA, but also weighs 6 times as much. So 2 D batteries in series gives us 6x the capacity at 12x the weight of a single AA (remember capacity doesn't add when the batteries are in series). The AA hybrid circuit gives us 2x the capacity at 4x the weight of a single AA. So a 2 D-cell Yoda will last 3x longer, but will also be 3x heavier. If it's a motorized toy that will have to move that weight, that can make a significant difference. \n\n & #x200B;\n\nIn short, you probably could power that toy with 2 D-cells, but it would be a lot heavier to get battery capacity that you may never need."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[],
[],
[]
] |
|
5jcv6j
|
what exactly kills a pedestrian when they are hit by a vehicle?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5jcv6j/eli5_what_exactly_kills_a_pedestrian_when_they/
|
{
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"Impact of the vehicle as it hits the body causing momentum to pass through the object. Crushing bones, and organs on impact. Internal bleeding and if the skull is damaged same applies to the brain. \n\n",
"Picture an orange. It has those tiny \"beads\" of juice inside, right? Now, if you gently push an orange, it starts to slowly roll. You can roll it as hard as you want.\n\nNow imagine what would happen if you hit it with, say, a golf stick. It would reach it's destination much quicker - that's for sure. Also, the internals would be broken down and soft. Some of the \"beads\" would break and spill their juice.\n\nNow imagine that the golf club is the car, and the small \"beads\" are your internal organs.",
"The impact damages vital organs and ruptures blood vessels as well causing internal bleeding or even external bleeding depending upon the impact. The blood loss or the loss of a vital organ is what kills most people"
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[],
[]
] |
||
4okigl
|
instructions given to pilot by co-pilot in rally car racing.
|
50 flat left
easy left maybe
30 long easy left
How does the driver use this information?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4okigl/eli5_instructions_given_to_pilot_by_copilot_in/
|
{
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"I have very little exposure to Rally racing, but:\n\n50 and 30: Yards or meters. Driver has 50 or 30 meters to drive until the next turn.\n\nleft/right: The direction of the turn.\n\neasy/hard (also expressed as numbers, 1-6 if I'm not mistaken): Severity of the turn, indicating how much the driver will need to slow down.\n\nMaybe?: Basically the call is uncertain. Either not 100% known, or may have changed since notes were last taken.\n\nNot QUITE solid on the \"flat\" thing. I THINK it means that the \"50\" in your sentence is flat ground; no jumps or crests. \n\nSomeone with more experience can probably answer better than this, Maybe.\n",
"I'll break it down in parts.\n\n > 50 flat left easy left maybe 30 long easy left\n\n\n50 means the distance to the next corner, in meters.\n\nFlat left describes the corner itself. In this case it's a corner that can be taken with full throttle. Some drivers use a number system, for example from 1 to 5, where 5 would be a flat out corner and 1 would be very tight one.\n\nEasy left maybe means that while fast, not completely flat out, and has possibly a stone etc. on the inside.\n\nThe rest I think you can manage yourself.\n\nIt's worth noting that each driver has his/her own preferences when it comes to notes. Some want the notes well in advance while other like them quite late, almost at the corner. And there's no standardised system. Some like notes like described in what you posted, some like rating the corners based on numbers. Some guys even use two languages in their notes.\n\nSo the drivers hear the above notes, and applies them. He might go flat out in the first corner and then brake a bit for the next. If he needs to catch the guy in front, he may cut that corner a bit or take it flat out or both.",
"One interesting addition which is often overlooked. \n\nUsually, for safety reasons, distances less than or equal to 100m are called in multiples of 20. Distances greater than that are specifically not.\n\nE.g. 20, 40, 60, 80, 100 But then 110, 130, 150, 170 etc.\n\nThis prevents a misheard note causing a massive accident - e.g\n 40 could misheard as 140, causing a flat out boo-boo...\n\n\"Odd\" number = far away. \"Even\" number =close. Easy to remember and becomes second nature quickly.\n\nExceptions are 200, 300 etc as the word hundred is called, which is difficult to mishear.\n\nEdit - oops i thought this was in rally subreddit. So to summarise my post as an ELI5, far away roundy number make big bang."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[],
[]
] |
|
6dojkx
|
how is gravity not faster than the speed of light?
|
If i drop a ball on the ground, every atom that composes the earth is instantly impacting the strength which with the ball is pulled to the earths mass.
A relationship between a single atom on the other side of the planet and the ball dropped is formed as if in an instant.
If you have spiral arms of a galaxy, the strength which with the arm is pulled to the center is a summary of every atom of that galaxy.
I could go on for hours talking about these absurd effects at a distances far larger than light can cover but somehow is instantly calculated by mass and gravity.
How is gravity not faster than the speed of light?
EDIT: Thanks for the responses everyone, this was awesome.
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/6dojkx/eli5_how_is_gravity_not_faster_than_the_speed_of/
|
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"Your initial premise is wrong, the pull of the earth is not instantaneous. Say the sun disappeared, we would not see this for 8 minutes as the light has not reached us but importantly we would remain orbiting the point where the sun was for 8 minutes because gravity can only propagate out at the speed of light.",
"This is a very perceptive question.\n\nYou have touched on one of the fundamental flaws of Newtonian gravity: the fact that it is \"non-local\".\n\nWe know that the speed of light must be constant in all frames of reference, and yet Newton's formulation of gravity requires that gravitating bodies *instantaneously* know where everything else is, as you mention in your question.\n\nSo one of the motivators of general relativity was to develop a *local* theory; i.e. one in which the effects of gravity on a body are simply the results of some feature of its IMMEDIATE surroundings.\n\nAnd so we describe gravity as the effect of *curved* spacetime. We imagine that all masses cause a curvature in spacetime around them, and this curvature distorts the paths of other bodies in the vicinity.\n\nSo the \"gravity\" felt by a body is simply the effect of the curvature of spacetime in its immediate region. This removes the issues of non-locality since no information needs to be transmitted at higher-than-light speeds.\n\nI hope this explanation helps, feel free to ask follow-up questions.\n\nEdit: I've mentioned this a little lower down in the comment chain, but it is an important point which belongs here too: *changes* to curvature propagate at the speed of light. i.e. if, through some truly epic disaster, the sun suddenly popped out of existence, we would not encounter the effects until about 8 minutes later. This is due to the fact that *information* cannot travel faster than light (in a vacuum).",
"The ball starts falling immediately because Earth has been around already before you dropped the ball. The galaxy has been around for a long time as well.\n\nIf you have a ball floating around in space and make a planet magically appear next to it, the ball would *not* directly fall towards it. The delay would be tiny (the speed of light is fast), but not zero.",
"Gravity is also bound by the speed of light. Any causality is bound by the speed of light. If the sun disappeared this very second, the earth would feel the effects of the sun not being there after 8 mins, NOT instantaneously. There is no \"instantaneous\"",
"Gravity is not instantaneous. It propagates at the speed of light.\n\nWhen you hold a ball, it *already* wants to fall. Gravity has been affecting it all along. The atom on the other side of the planet had *already* been pulling on the atom in the ball. The only thing that changed when it fell was that you let it go.\n\nIf the atom on the other side of the earth were to suddenly disappear, the atom in the ball would not feel it until 0.042 seconds later (speed of light fast). It would get a *little* lighter in your hands.\n",
"There are a lot of good answers here, but I'll add my bit. Think of the example where you have a ball on a stretched out bedsheet and the curvature of the sheet represents the gravitational field. Any movement of the ball will change the field, but it will cause ripples in the sheet that move at a certain speed. This is the wave speed and the universal maximum is the speed of light. This is how electromagnetic fields work, and as it turns out, gravitational fields.",
"i always thought of it like: the speed of light is actually the max speed of spacetime. so everything within spacetime is limited to that speed. the curvature of space can move at max speed because it is massless and spacetime imposes something like friction to mass because it distorts it, which requires more energy to move faster (infinte to get to the speed of light). when mass is pure energy and no longer mass it is light and thus rides along the max speed of spacetime because it has no resistance. this is just how i think so in sure ill be criticized for not having sources. so gravity really is just a ripple in spacetime which is what defines the speed of light and not the other way around.",
"The speed of light is kind of a bad name. A better name would be 'the speed of causality'. This speed is the fastest that anything can move or affect any other thing in the universe. It just so happens that light travels at the maximum speed allowed by the universe.\n\nOne way to think of it is in terms of the particle physics model. The sun sends out light in particles called 'photons', but it also sends out gravitational force in the form of particles called 'gravitons'. Both of these particles can only travel to Earth only as fast as the speed of light."
]
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|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
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[],
[],
[],
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] |
|
1r16sx
|
why don't planes fly straight to their destination on a map?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1r16sx/eli5_why_dont_planes_fly_straight_to_their/
|
{
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"Two points: first, when you see a curved line on a map, that's because the world is round while the map is flat. They're actually flying in a straight line, it just looks curved when it's translated to the flat map. The second point is that sometimes due to airport traffic or weather conditions they may not be able to take the absolute shortest route.",
"Look at the plane's route on a globe, rather than a flat map, and you'll see that it's usually a straight line. Then you'll understand that it's actually the *map* that's curved. Or, to put it another way, the map *curves the ground* that it's mapping. Because the actual ground that's being mapped is on the surface of a ball, you have to twist and squeeze it somehow to get it into a flat map. So, if you draw a straight line on a globe representing the route a flight took, and then you twist and squish and curve the surface of the globe to turn it into a flat map, you'll find that you've turned that straight line into a curve."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[]
] |
||
4cok7a
|
why does fashion matter? what is the point?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4cok7a/eli5why_does_fashion_matter_what_is_the_point/
|
{
"a_id": [
"d1k2zjz"
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"text": [
"Fashion serves a variety of purposes. High fashion (run way shows) is a form of art. Fashion is used to express belonging to a group or separation from a group (which since we are a tribal species is generally important to us.) It is used to project a sense of our values. Wearing a suit doesnt make you a better business man and a tie die shirt doesn't make you a stoner, but choosing to wear a suit vs. A tie die shirt to your first date or your job interview says something about how you want to be perceived.\n\nOf course it would be better if we had enough time to judge everyone based on their values and how we choose to live our lives. But life doesn't always afford that luxury and we are forced to make snap judgements about people all the time. Fashion is at least a maliable choice, compared to things like height, beauty, race, accent, and a dozen other factors that we can't impact."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[]
] |
||
45y9aa
|
what drives economic growth for middle class americans?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/45y9aa/eli5_what_drives_economic_growth_for_middle_class/
|
{
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"Growth in per capita productivity plus labor demand. Productivity determines (broadly) how big the pie is, and labor demand determines how much of the pie goes to workers and how much goes to their employers. Both are necessary for middle-class wage growth: mostly commonly you see economic stagnation in countries with no or little *productivity growth*, but in the USA in particular, for the last 25-50 years there has been relatively weak *labor demand* even when the pie is getting bigger. \n\nThe exact causes of this weak labor demand are tough to untangle because there are several good candidates. Some people think the Federal Reserve is just incompetent (it prefers to keep inflation low even though that hurts job growth). Other people blame immigration (when you add 40-55 million new people, most of them working-age, you add to the pool of people looking for jobs, and that increased supply drives down wages). And there are other, less likely theories besides."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[]
] |
||
7bcnan
|
what are the causes and consequences of the recent purging of multiple saudi princes?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/7bcnan/eli5_what_are_the_causes_and_consequences_of_the/
|
{
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"It seems that Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (MBS) is strengthening his position in the Royal Family . The accused may actually have committed offences, but they may be the sort of offences that are traditionally overlooked for minor royals in Saudi Arabia. The charges may also be completely fabricated.\n\nThe Crown Prince isn't eliminating direct rivals - he is heir to the throne and has been appointed to that position by the King, only the King can remove him. He is eliminating people that don't agree with his more moderate approach to social reform in the country. He is responsible for \"Vision 2030\", a plan to restructure the Saudi economy to reduce reliance on oil and make it more resilient. This is important because the Saudi economy is in danger of collapse owing to drops in the price of oil and extravagant public spending. Many see the modernizing policies of the UAE as a necessary model for Saudi's future.\n\nMBS has restricted the powers of the religious police, sponsored public entertainment events (which are usually heavily restricted in the country), and was probably behind the removal of the driving ban for Saudi women. This \"liberal\" approach puts him at odds with the country's religious authorities.\n\nThe Saudi state is split between the royal family (the House of Saud) and Wahabbist religious clerics: the royal family runs the country whilst the clerics ensure that Saudi Arabia is morally and religiously proper as the home of the two holiest sites in Islam. In theory one cannot rule without the other, but Wahabbism's position as a hardline Sunni sect has led to it being aligned with the Islamist policies of Al Qaeda and ISIS.\n\nThis has put the clerics in a difficult position, especially in the face of growing evidence that the Saudi state has funded terrorist groups (Saudi citizens have been providing private funding to terrorist groups for decades); arguably the Wahabbists are more vulnerable now than they have ever been. MBS has been highly critical of Saudi religious doctrine of the past few decades, but needs to ensure that his position in the Royal Family is unassailable before he can properly take on the religious authorities. At the age of 31 (with the King aged 81) he has the potential to lead Saudi for decades and mould it in his own vision despite the Wahabbists.\n\n**Summary**: Saudi Arabia needs economic reform and its hardline theocracy prevents this from happening. It is overly dependent on one industry, prevents 50% of its potential workforce from contributing to the economy, is becoming a pariah in international relations, and is becoming a less attractive location for companies to operate in. MBS wants to change this, but to overcome the disapproval of the clerics he needs to be completely in control of the Government.",
"I am no expert but I have been reading around about this, so lots of people are saying this was done by Crown Prince Mohammad Bin Salman in order to consolidate power in the monarch and away from the religious establishment, others are also saying that he is trying to get rid of the 'radical' element of the family who are funding these terrorist groups, although that might be wishful thinking.\n\nI am not sure what will come of it but so far MBS seems to be a bit of a mixed bag (from a western perspective) as his domestic policy ideals are quite good, letting women drive and looking to continually improve women's rights withing the kingdom and to really diversify the Saudi economy so that is isn't so oil dependent.\n\nHe is also quite militaristic, which in itself is not a bad thing, having a western aligned powerful Arab country in the region is a good thing but he has been the one leading the Saudi coalition in Yemen and that isn't really going that well, the on-going issues with Qatar also seem to be a bit funny in that it puts the USA in a weird position given their relationship with Qatar.\n\nGoing forward he is certainly going to be interesting to watch, it is always going to be a good thing if he is going to go after Terrorist groups funded by Iran but it really does seem like a crazy time in the KSA right now.\n\nSorry if this wasn't the answer you are looking for, I am no expert, just somebody that keeps up with the news in the region."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[]
] |
||
1wwq0s
|
why are there no canadian teams in the nfl?
|
Obviously there's the CFL. But we have Canadian teams in the NHL, NBA, and MLB. Why is the NFL different?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1wwq0s/eli5_why_are_there_no_canadian_teams_in_the_nfl/
|
{
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],
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"text": [
"In the past, Canada has pushed back on American football leagues setting up franchises in Canada in order to protect the CFL - in the 70s, they even debated a bill in the Canadian parliament to ban it, but dropped it when the team that was considering the move chose to go somewhere else.\n\nWith that said, apparently the Buffalo Bills have a decent fan base in Toronto, and they play a home game there each year."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[]
] |
|
azniyh
|
why does rent keep increasingly so rapidly?
|
Why does rent keep increasing so rapidly? For context I live in Ottawa, ON. After making plans to move it has come to my attention that in just under two years many apartments are now renting for $100-200 more. I tried to google this questions but there seems to only be articles discussing the rent increases and not why they keep occurring.
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/azniyh/eli5_why_does_rent_keep_increasingly_so_rapidly/
|
{
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"ei92k2y"
],
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2
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"text": [
"There are a variety of factors. \n\nOne would be supply vs demand; if the supply is not enough to meet demand, then prices go up. Ottawa has experienced rapid population growth lately (much like other Canadian cities) which is driving the demand for more rental units. At the same time the real estate industry has been shifting to the creation and sale of condo units, meaning there hasn’t been much supply generated to cover that growth. In fact I wouldn’t be surprised if rental units were taken off the market to be converted to AirBNB rentals or sold as condos. \n\nAnother factor would be the burdens of renting increasing - property tax, cost of maintenance, so on. So to recover their costs, landlords increase pricing accordingly. This could especially be true as rental properties are generally older buildings and as property values increase. "
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[]
] |
|
af7ufz
|
how can smartphones manipulate every single pixel on the screen through a thin ribbon cable with a few electricaö connections?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/af7ufz/eli5_how_can_smartphones_manipulate_every_single/
|
{
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"There isn't a single wire for every pixel on the screen. The graphics system will send information about what is on screen in small batches and the display processor takes this and controls what's actually on screen.\n\nTo greatly simplify the process, the graphics system may only send a single pixel at a time but it sends one million of these per frame that needs to be drawn. The information is sent left to right, top to bottom. If you have a really fast camera you can actually watch the screen change, pixel by pixel.",
"ELI5: The ribbon cable does not directly control the pixels on the screen. \n\nELI5+:The ribbon cable transmits data frame by frame, one bit/byte of data at a time depending on whether it is parallel or serial, which are stored in memory on a display driver chip. This chip does nothing but read frames of data from the memory, and uses some fancy electronics to display it to the screen.\n\nBeyond the ELI5, here is an incredibly simple version of a display driver chip that displays data to an 8x8 screen:\n\n_URL_0_\n\nAnd an image showing it hooked up:\n_URL_1_\n\nThe port labeled MOSI in the white box is where the data comes from the processor. The display driver chip (labeled MAX7219) then displays it to the screen, so the processor doesn't have to do all the work.",
"I haven't seen a good accurate reply on here. \n\nScreens don't update every pixel all at once, they will scan through each line of pixels from top to bottom like an old tube television. They do this through a process called multiplexing.\n\nSince you need 2 wires to complete an electric circuit, a voltage and a ground, you are able to disconnect either one to turn off the pixel. Multiplexing is the process of manipulating the ground connections to select a row of pixels to be updated. \n\nTo give an example of the multiplexing process let's use a 5x5 grid of pixels, each pixel can either be on or off. First you will need to split this grid into rows and columns. You will make have five horizontal rows, each one having 5 pixels. And 5 vertical columns, each one also containing 5 pixels. \n\nNext you connect all of the pixels in a row to a ground line, and each of the pixels in a column to a voltage line, so that the voltage and ground lines run perpendicular to eachother. What you will end up with is 5 voltage lines and 5 ground lines, a total of 10 wires. \n\nLets say that you wanted to only light up the pixels around the edge of the screen. Great, so you see that the first row of pixels needs to be lit, so you connect all of the voltage lines and only the first ground line. The first line lights up just how you want, perfect. So you move on to the second row. Great, you see that the first and last pixels need to be lit on this row. You see that the voltage lines for the first and last pixel are already connected, so you connect the second ground line. But here's the problem, every pixel in this row is now lit up, not just the end pixels. So you try disconnecting the middle 3 voltage lines, only to find out that those pixels also turn off on the first row, so that won't work. You will need to find a different solution.\n\nThis solution is multiplexing. As it turns out, you don't need to keep the pixels turned on all of the time, Human eyes can only detect a change so quickly. So you will 'scan' through the image you are trying to create. To do this you start with the first row. Just like before you connect all 5 voltage lines and the first ground line, the correct pixels now light up. Perfect, now you move onto the second row. This time you disconnect the first ground line, turning off the previous line. Now you can disconnect the middle three voltage wires and connect the second ground line. Only the outer two pixels light up, and you can move onto the third row. You disconnect the second ground line, update the voltage lines to what they need to be, and connect the third ground line. Keep doing this process of cycling through the ground lines until you reach the end, and voila you've slowly updated the pixels to what the need to be. The only issue is that a human cant do this fast enough by hand, but if you swap out the human for a dedicated chip, it becomes possible.\n\nOn the little flat flex cable that connects the display, there will be one or more of these little chips that does this multiplexing process. This chip will accept binary inputs from just a couple of connections, interpret which line to update, and output the correct signals extremely quickly. On modern displays with color and brightness, it's the same theory but more wires. Instead of 1 voltage per pixel you will have 3, one for red green and blue. And by varying the voltage, you can adjust the brightness of the pixel. \n\n"
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[
"https://www.maximintegrated.com/en/products/power/display-power-control/MAX7219.html",
"https://howtomechatronics.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/MAX7219-8x8-LED-Matrix-Driver.png"
],
[]
] |
||
38tcjw
|
what recourse do kickstarter backers have if the people they funded just pocket the cash, and why does anyone fund projects when they don't receive some kind of equity in them.
|
I just don't understand Kickstarter in general, I guess.
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/38tcjw/eli5_what_recourse_do_kickstarter_backers_have_if/
|
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"text": [
"Think of it the same way as you would donating to a campaign. With Kickstarter the idea is just as important as the product. Some of us donate to help first time inventors, small business, promote ideas, ect.. Most time when you donate to a Kickstarter you're not doing it for a perk. If i was making an investment with my money to pay me back i would buy stocks or a mutual fund.\n",
"There's no equity because Kickstarter funding isn't an investment. You should effectively see it as a pre-order where you accept the risk that the project may fail. You want to see a product made, and you're effectively paying upfront for a copy of the product in order to make it possible for the product to exist. It's not quite what's happening legally, but it's pretty much how you should view the decision to fund a project (unless you do just think the project would make the world a better place and want to give them your money, I suppose).\n\nIf they just pocket the cash then they've broken the terms of [the contract under which they obtained it](_URL_0_) and the backers could take legal action. If they make a genuine effort to complete the project and fail then that's the risk you took.",
"Hi - Kickstarter project runner here. I've raised more than $1.4 million on Kickstarter.\n\nYour recourse against a project is mostly suing for fraud. Depending on how large your pledge was you are most likely going to have to sue in small claims court.\n\nThe bar for proving a fraud occurred is quite high. You'd have to show that the project runner never made even a basic effort to complete the project and deliver promised rewards. To do that you'd likely have to find a \"smoking gun\" of some kind - an email communication with a third party for example, or an indisputable action like taking the money and taking no project-related actions at all.\n\nBacking a Kickstarter is akin to making a pledge to support a worthy cause like Public Broadcasting. The Reward mechanism isn't supposed to be a dollar for dollar transaction (which is why Kickstarter is clear that it is \"not a store\", and why they never use the words \"buy\", \"purchase\" or \"sell\" with regard to projects, rewards and pledges.) Think of it like making a $100 donation to NPR in exchange for a coffee mug and a 3 Tenors CD; what you're doing is supporting NPR. What they're doing is sending a little of that value back to say \"thanks\".\n\nThe whole point is to help cool things get done that can't get done any other way. Some people see a value in trying to help cool things become real and that value is what they are getting in return for their pledge. It's not an investment and it's not a sale. It's a third thing, \"patronage\"."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
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"https://www.kickstarter.com/terms-of-use#section4"
],
[]
] |
|
12h7f3
|
why is it that americans get so worked up by socialist reform, but they don't care when their money is getting pissed away on things like war and bailouts?
|
That's not to say that nobody cares, but I remember when Obamacare came about, Republicans lost their shit. Why is that so much worse than, say, the war in Iraq?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/12h7f3/why_is_it_that_americans_get_so_worked_up_by/
|
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"It's an ideological concern. Many of the people who were against Obamacare were against the bailouts too. TARP Was very close to not passing because of those ideological concerns.\n\nThe people concerned with socialism are not concerned with the wars because the wars have nothing to do with their ideological concerns. \n\n You've presented a false dichotomy. It's not the budget they're worried about when it comes to socialism. ",
"The bailouts are loans and are being repaid (with interest) by those that received them. Also, if the auto companies were not bailed out, they would have gone bankrupt and China would have bought GM, Chrysler, and the rest, leaving only Ford and the sole remaining American-owned auto maker. \n\nI don't think any Democrats or Republicans would have been happy with this outcome."
]
}
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[] |
[] |
[
[],
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|
2r5t29
|
why do we eat on only one side of our mouth?
|
Why is is we do we eat on one particular side of our mouth, instead of eating of eating with both sides of our mouth?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2r5t29/eli5_why_do_we_eat_on_only_one_side_of_our_mouth/
|
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"I use both sides of my mouth when I chew. Why would you only use one?",
"i don't know, but i am doing it as i eat a bag of peanuts right now.",
"It's just easier. I had the same question a while ago so I tried to chew with both sides at the same time and it's simply easier to grind into things when you focus the pressure to one side.Now if the question is why do you choose which side then I would assume it has something to do with handedness."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[],
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] |
|
frm9g3
|
the difference between mutual funds and stocks in general.
|
I have an engineering background and I'm not well versed with the economic part of things just yet. Also, many people have tried explaining it to me in vain!
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/frm9g3/eli5_the_difference_between_mutual_funds_and/
|
{
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"text": [
"Basically, a stock is where you buy a tiny piece of a company like Amazon or Microsoft or Starbucks. When you buy stocks, you own a small percentage of the company. You become a shareholder, but you don’t have any power unless you own a lot of shares. You make money if the company does well. This could lead to short term profit or long term gains, depending on the company and the economy. Buy low and sell high is the strategy. \n\nA mutual fund is a group of stocks that someone else puts together and you can invest in. You don’t own the shares directly, but rather a piece of the company that owns the shares (ie the fund). Your profit and loss depends on the performance of all the stocks the fund owns. So if a few go down and a few go up you still break even. This makes them much safer but also lower profit margins.They’re professionally managed and come with their own rules and fees, so they’re usually better for long term investments. \n\nThey’re both legit ways to invest. Stocks usually have higher risk and bigger rewards. Mutual funds tend to be safer bets but lower rewards."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[]
] |
|
6s92hm
|
why do toilets(in america) use clean potable water?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/6s92hm/eli5_why_do_toiletsin_america_use_clean_potable/
|
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"You'd have to build a separate plumbing system for toilets, incurring additional expense and complexity within the walls. ",
"In order to use non-potable water in our toilets it would require plumbing our houses and cities with an entire separate set of pipes for the other water source and to ensure they can never mix by accident. This is a large cost when we could just clean some more water instead.",
"Water treatment is actually pretty cheap, whereas running another set of plumbing or having a built-in greywater system is more expensive.\n\nThere are places where the true cost of clean water is not really factored into the price (e.g. the desert southwest) and in some such places people are beginning to install greywater systems so they can save water and be more environmentally friendly.",
"Because it is much much easier to just use fresh water than it is to drain everything into a gray water tank, separate major contaminates from that water, install pumps to bring that water to the toilet, and you would still need to hook up fresh water to it as a back up in case you run out of gray water. Water isn't so scarce that installing all that would be worth saving 3 gallons per day. ",
"Our potable water supply is one thing I think we take for granted in North America. Using gray water would be waay better of course. \nYou CAN get toilets that are specifically designed to use gray water, or some toilets that have the sink right _over_ the toilet for this purpose. Its just specialty bathroom ceramics (therefore $$$) and additional plumbing $$. \n\nIf we were to have a separate supply system to take say industrial gray water (industrial outflow, water from laundromats, storm sewers etc.) - which would be ridiculously expensive to put in - then you have to worry about where the water came from. Last thing you want is hazardous chemicals dumped accidentally at the soap plant to vent fumes through every toilet in town. So now you're into water testing and quality analysis and maybe pre-treatment... hey, we already have a water plant that does that. \n\nGood idea in practice, essentially doubles your water supply infrastructure.\n\nNo, the only way to do this on a practical home level would be for you to collect your rainwater in a cistern with solar pumps to move it to a tank in your attic. You'd still need to change the feed for your toilet and run new lines to each bathroom but its doable. ",
"Because the water sits there, in the bowl, between uses, it has to be clean. Otherwise the toilet is just a cesspool (pun intended) for all manner of germs.\n\nThe other major reason is that it is easiest to replenish the water after flushing from the tap, though chemicals like bleach are sometimes added in the tank to help the water stay \"clean\". However, when you do that, the water is most certainly not potable.",
"Grey water still stinks. You want your bathroom constantly smelling like sewage? ",
"Because then we would need another entire system to bring dirty water in for your toilet. As it is, a building only needs clean water in, dirty water out. This is easy to design. Otherwise, you'd need clean water in, dirty water in, dirty water out, and the dirty water in would need to be totally separate to avoid contamination. \n\nAlso grey water can carry lots of diseases and animals drink out of the toilet all the time. ",
"Because then we would need another entire system to bring dirty water in for your toilet. As it is, a building only needs clean water in, dirty water out. This is easy to design. Otherwise, you'd need clean water in, dirty water in, dirty water out, and the dirty water in would need to be totally separate to avoid contamination. \n\nAlso grey water can carry lots of diseases and animals drink out of the toilet all the time. ",
"Because it would be extremely expensive to run a second set of pipes to every house and building to use for toilets. You would also have to have a second sewer system that only handled grey water instead of black water (sewage) that supplied the water for this new system. ",
"Two points: 1. Mine doubles as my dogs water bowl. 2. My bidet needs a clean cold water line. I don’t want grey water shooting up my butt.",
"I had a grey water system for toilet for about 10 years. Not my house... This is only sink and shower water. The bowl was uncleanable. Nasty. We finally removed the system and replaced the toilets. It's ok for gardening if you watch what you run down the drain...",
"Avalon, on Catalina Island (off the coast of Los Angeles), uses briny water for its toilets. The city uses a desalination plant to create its fresh water. To reduce production costs, the whole city has 2 supply networks: one for fresh water, and one for a briny mix of fresh and salt water.",
"I used to work on a small island where fresh water was limited. There *had* been saltwater supplied directly to the toilets, but maintenance was a big issue.The site was built before plastic plumbing was available. So the toilets were connected to fresh water. \n\nSome years later, during a major rebuild, grey water flushing *was* considered, but was rejected due to complexity and maintenance issues. New low-flush toilets extended an improved fresh water supply. ",
"I was just thinking about this the other day. I was a an event and had to used the restroom. When I went to use the urinal, there was a gigantic sign in front of it that read \"THIS STADIUM USES RECYCLED WATER. DO NOT DRINK FROM URINAL\". In all caps like that. So does this mean some stuff in america is allowed to use this type of system?",
"I asked the same question at a party last weekend of a person who designs water systems. In the west, we don't own our water. Once we use the water it has to go down stream to Vegas and California to fill all those fountains and water those almond trees. We don't have the rights to re-use the water. Vegas DOES have a grey water system because they own the rights to re-use the water.",
"In the US clean water is cheaper than piping a second water supply or buying systems to reuse water. It's one of those things that might pay itself off over a life time for personal plumbing or several generations for city infrastructure, but people are not willing to take on the cost when they may never see the benefit.",
"In addition to what the others have said, at least in florida, we were taught to use the toilet as a backup fresh water supply in an emergency such as a hurricane. ",
"Clean water is extremely cheap. An entire second system to collect and then reuse gray water would be extremely expensive in comparison. \n\nGray water would be very wasteful. ",
"Because it would smell otherwise?",
"There is already some good answers but here is my take on it:\n\nGrey water need to come from somewhere. If it is from your own house then you still need some filter to remove some dirt and contaminant, plus kill the bacteria and virus that would grow in that water. Plus it would require a tank and a pump and extra space and extra piping.\n\nYou could have a toilet-sink combo. I have seen them, but they are expensive and you would use more water than what is used by the sink, so would need to complement it with mostly clean water anyway...\n\nThen you could collect rain water, which still need to be filtered and all...\n\nNext is the city provided grey water. This would be great, except that you need to double the water infrastructure, double the maintenance, double everything including the leaks! The leaks can be a significant amount. Montreal for example lose I think about 30% of the water via the leaks. Double the infrastructure and you now leak 60% of the total water distributed!\n\nAnd why you need to treat the grey water? There is the odour of course, but as I said, bacteria and viruses. You take a dump, it splash back, and now you have some unknown bacteria and virus on you. You flush and there is always some water that splash, releasing some virus and bacteria in the air.\n\nYou would need to kill all that, and remove it so the left over do not feed on the dead bacteria and the bacteria population come back as it was. You would still need to put lots of chemicals to keep it low, which is some extra cost...\n\nFinally, even in the best case, it would cost the same or more to provide the grey water.\n\nIn reality it would just cost quite more money.\n\nThen we could go to the environemental side of this. With clean water only, the dirty water from the lake/river become almost pure, then used, then refiltered and released cleaner than what the grey water would be. If you have grey water, it would also have to be filtered that much, so it basically transfer the filtering at the sewer treatment plant instead of the drink water plant...",
"I mean I would guess one of the reasons is so that our pets and children wouldn't get poisoned from drinking toilet water.",
"Basically because putting in all of the pipes to source water from somewhere besides the wastewater treatment plant or to use water that isn't as clean as the water from the wastewater treatment plant would be too expensive.",
"Where I live, we have plenty of water, so we don't need an entire second system of water supply and collection. My region extracts approximately 4/10 of one percent of the available groundwater. There literally isn't a need for it. Ever time I bring up the fact that I live in a place with a super abundance of constantly renewed ground water, and that there isn't a need for water saving where I live,I get down voted. I can't help That I live in an area with plenty of water. It is a fact.",
"It would take Water companies billions of dollars to build an entire gray water system just for flushing your toilet. it would cost a lot of money for homeowners because they will need to adjust their already built pipings to the new system.\n\nIt's not so bad. At least we're not draining our waste into rivers like they do in 3rd world countries. I've seen it first hand and it's sad. ",
"Because where do we get unclean, unpotable water in our plumbing system?",
"The whole theory behind \"grey water\" toilets seems silly to me. Once the water leaves the toilet and goes to a processing plant the water eventually gets treated and returned to the ecosystem. Once water goes down the drain it isnt simply gone forever.",
"My former condo in Victoria, BC had its own treatment plant, and the whole thing was purposely-built to high environmental standards. _URL_0_\n\nSomewhat ironic since the City of Victoria has exactly zero sewage treatment, and it pumps millions of gallons of raw sewage into the Strait of Georgia every day. ",
"I once worked at a very environmentally conscious company. When we built a new office, we decided to use grey water for the toilets and for the lawn sprinklers. The \"grey water\" was basically rainwater that was collected and stored in a large underground cistern. The system was relatively simple to design and while it certainly cost more than a regular plumbing system, it was not outrageous. The real obstacle to our proposed system was the county permitting agencies. They were strongly against the use of grey water in any indoor plumbing use. We explained again and again that the grey water was only going to be used in toilets, so what's the big deal?\n\nEventually, we won out with a small compromise. We could use grey water for the toilets, but we had to hang a sign prominently above each toilet that said \"Non potable water. Do not drink!\". ",
"Plumber here, this would be a terrible idea. The idea of grey water being used as toilet water is simply unsanitary. It would be highly unsafe to have 1.6 gallons of bacteria filled water releasing germs and could spread disease. Most of the country has no problem in terms of fresh water shortage. Even California seems to be doing better in that regard. \n\nTry it yourself. Shit in your toilet and leave it there and you'll find your answer quickly. ",
"I worked on an island where we had separate potable water and grey water (mostly captured rainwater) systems so I know it is feasible, but the answer is pretty simple. Throughout most the U.S. we already have a potable water infrastructure, and although fresh water is in short supply in some areas, it is still cheaper then installing an entire separate secondary system for grey water. ",
"The amount of water used in toilets is a drop in the bucket of our total water consumption. This, coupled with the fact that the water cycle in North America regenerates quickly means that it doesn't really matter. \n\nIn the grand scheme of things, the water you use at home has no real effect. (except specific areas and/or drought)",
"I just showed my uncle, a plumber, a toilet in Japan with a sink above it, that drained the soapy water into the toilet tank for a flush. His response:\n\n\"Do you know how often you'd have to clean your toilet?\"\n\n'Murica.\n\n_URL_0_\n\nIt's a little awkward, but actually ingenious.",
"While a lot do, some buildings don't use them. In places like San Francisco, where water scarcity is becoming an imminent problem, building codes are requiring that grey water / process water be used in municipal buildings. San Francisco is even going so far such that buildings over a certain size (I think 250k square feet) must even (or soon will need to) recycle black water. That's sewage, folks, and they're pioneering solutions to reuse that water in a healthy way. \n\nWe take it for granted; however, some areas are recognizing that we may not have clean water access in the future, especially after natural disasters, and they are preparing themselves.",
"Infrastructure and taking potable water for granted are the primary reasons, as everyone has already pointed out. \n\nSecondly, grey water does offer some degree of risk if not handled properly. There's a fair amount of material that you wash down the drain and might not want in a reservoir in your house. Think pathogens, parasites, fecal material, chemicals. No, you're not going to drink that toilet water, but having pool in your bathroom offers some risk (especially risky in hot climates/seasons and with infrequent use). Having a grey water system requires some serious behavioral changes to be done properly, and not wanting to change habits is a big deterrent. ",
"tldr:because that would be stupid and pointless.\n______________________\ncause thats whats already piped into your house. clean in, dirty out. \n(besides, the whole \"wasted water\" thing is silly nonsense outside 3rd world or some smallish islands. water treatment is really cheap, running a whole second set of pipes through the house is not. and that clean water isn't going to be sent far away to places that need it anyway(far more cost effective to set up new treatment plants there than ship water out, nobody does that.))\nalso, grey water *isn't clean*. you don't want that stuff sitting around in your house.\n(unless you're real selective about the source standing grey water=smell/fumes in the air + corrosive chemicals and sentiment building up in the pipes. you'd almost want to build a whole new treatment plant to halfass purifying it) \n(edit- and the realistic environmental impact is negligible anyway too)\n______________________________________\nedit- change \"fist world countries\" to \"at the very least the entire continental united states and canada\" since allegedly some traditionally first world nations still have trouble with an maintaining adequate supply of clean water ;) (just messing with you australia) but op specified america anyway so the answer still works for the question asked.",
"I've read somewhere that Hong Kong uses seawater in its toilet plumbing. Could somebody who knows chime in and confirm/deny? \n\nI wonder how the logistics of that would work - would the piping and pumping in new buildings be complicated to plan out?",
"In addition, to other answers I'd like to point out, for most people in the country potable water is in near infinite supply. Almost the entire midwest have massive water tables underground, that on top of modern water reclamation facilities means generally speaking none of us have to worry about running out of drinking water.\n\nI'm sure a lot of us remember commercials telling us to turn off the faucet while brushing our teeth and so on. These ads were mostly for people in places with more limited water supplies like California or Arizon. (Mostly California as that's where the commercials were made)\n\nI personally have well water that is pumped out of a well that has been going strong since 1909, the water starts only about 8 feet below ground and goes on for at least 30 feet. It's connected to the same water table as pretty much every local municipality water supply, dam, and lake within 30 miles. If I want to leave every tap in the house on while I read War And Peace it doesn't matter. It's all going to go out into my septic tank, through the fingers and gets reabsorbed by the water table.",
"Do you live somewhere that is not using potable water for that? I'd be interested in hearing why such a system would exist on any large scale. Clean potable water is super cheap (even after the huge markup from the municipality). You can abuse how much water you use, and it wouldn't put a dent in most people's budgets. The cost to have a separate grey water system would be pointless in most places. Our sewers also need a certain amount of water flowing through them to function properly. ",
"Because daddy is lazy and mommy thinks it's icky. \n\n\n(It's mechanically and financially more feasible for construction and maintenance, it is crystal clear and doesn't smell (aesthetics), and generally we've had plenty so we haven't been incentivized towards conservation)",
"We actually did this in Afghanistan. We what to recycle all of our water over there, so they would use whitewater for showers, sinks and laundry, then they used grey water for toilets, cleaning and spraying the roads to keep the dust from kicking up. Blackwater was recycled and made back into whitewater. I think. Drinking water was separate. It's a lot easier to implement when there's no physical infrastructure. ",
"Tldr: it would cost too much money in a country with a relatively cheap and large supply of fresh water.",
"Because if its not, you would have infectious and dangerous pathogens sitting in a bowl of water in your house that actually aerosols outwards when flushed, spreading infectious mis and spray through the entire house. \n\nPeople would become very sick, and there are some places that use \"gray\" water but they tend to reek of high hell and have some infectious materials in them as well.",
"The answer to this is simple. \n\nInstalling a second infrastructure system to pump gray water just for toilets would be more costly and wasteful than just using the clean potable water that is pumped to every home as it is. Also, the water waste due to toilets is negligable when considering other water uses such as showers, lawn care, dishes etc... \n\nPeople often forget that there is a massive underground infrastructure required to get clean water to each home. It requires deep wells with industrial pumps to pull that fresh water up from aquifers. And then, it requires booster pumps to maintain water pressure and keep the water flowing throughout a municipality. Now imagine trying to add a completely separate system just for gray water. The environmental impact and supposed benefits of a gray water system quickly become moot in comparison to the waste of energy required to support the separate system. ",
"We already have the infrastructure to clean water and then deliver it to houses. It's far cheaper to deliver more-clean-than-necessary water then it is to create an additional parallel infrastructure.",
"My grandmother's house used water collected from rainfall. The house was probably built in the 50's in rural Kansas. There was a holding tank dug into the ground near the house that all the gutters fed into. That water was pumped to the house for the toilets. Grandma was a young child during the depression. I never knew her to let anything go to waste. Not even the rainwater. ",
"About 10 years ago, I used to work in Business Development and Engineering for a district steam company. We had 13 miles of supply piping, but the condensate was not returned back to the plant. Most customers just sent that water down the drain. However, I used to tell all of my customers that the water was clean and could be used for any non-potable use.\n\nThe main thing preventing usage was the piping costs. However, in cases of new construction, I found that several clients took advantage of this \"free\" water. One client pumped it to a holding tank on the roof and that was the primary source for toilets. They had a valve on the domestic water line that would be engaged if the holding tank emptied out and for the summer when steam usage was generally non-existent. I also had a few clients that used the water for power washing plaza areas or for water fountain make-up water. \n\nThere was some code requirement that did not allow usage for irrigation, but that would have also been a good use of the condensate. However, I was dealing with a built up downtown area, so irrigation needs were minimal even if allowed.\n\nOn a related topic, a much higher percentage of clients used the condensate to pre-heat their domestic hot water since getting the energy out of the condensate can be easier than using the condensate water itself. \n\nBest of luck,\nSol Rosenbaum, PE, CEM, CPMP\n\nI have written some articles on LinkedIn geared towards young engineers I think you might enjoy. I’d really appreciate it if you could have a look and give me some feedback on my articles. The link is _URL_0_ \n",
"Because it would be an absolute nightmare to install and maintain and the benefit provided would be entirely eliminated. Operating two entirely separate water systems to carry potable and grey water would be many orders of magnitude more expensive than simply using potable water for tasks which could otherwise use grey water.",
"Some commercial buildings do this. It's probably not economical for most homes though, you'd have to catch the water used in the sink, hold it in a tank, then pump it back up to dedicated toilet only lines.\n\nIt also really depends on where you live. If you live in the Great Lakes region, then there is basically no such thing as wasting water, since the water comes out of the lake, you use it, and it goes back in. The cost of treatment (monetary and environmental) isn't very high. On the other hand, if you were in say the outskirts of Pahrump or Amargosa NV, that might be a different story.",
"Fresh water is cheap, and plentiful. Even here in the desert of Utah, residential use of water makes up only a small fraction of total water use, with the vast majority going to agriculture and another 5-10% or so going to water lawns. \n\nEvery 5 gallons of fresh water costs me $0.01 on my water bill. My toilets are the low 1 gallon flushes. So I'll happily pay the $1 to $2 a month for toilet water opposed to the maintenance costs of running dirty water instead. ",
"The most efficient system I've been able to design takes waste water from showers & sinks condensates, washer etc and drains to a small settling tank, bout 500 gallons. The overflow goes to an ejection pump system that pumps to a tank at a high point to gravity feed all the toilets. That tank requires overflow switches to tell the ejection pump to stop pumping when it is full at Wich point a bypass valve opens to pump into the sewer system. This whole thing is easily 5-8k on top of 7k system. Not to mention all code violations required to accommodate this....aaaand you've stopped reading by now because this is boring as shit. \n At the end of the day all this extra juice and material negates any environmental benefit. Low flow toilets only use 1.2 gallons per flush. The sink in the tank is a good idea but it's illegal by universal plumbing code. \nSource: I own a plumbing company.",
"I work in a local government where a lot of our buildings use reclaimed water for irrigation / toilets. One of our buildings sits in a path where water is constantly trying to intrude due to a nearby hillside springs. To keep it from flooding, water is constantly pumped from under the building out to a nearby storage tank where it is stored to use for irrigation and flush water. This water runs through a small salt chlorine generator before it gets used. This system can be bypassed by normal city water if for some reason the ground water dries up (which it never does due to previous mentioned springs).\n\n",
"at least in the western US, the prior appropriation system makes it very hard to legally use grey water. \"return flow makes the river go\"\n\nCU Boulder had to fight for years to even use our grey water system half the time it was designed to run. Denver Water is giving everyone else the middle finger right now, and is using black and grey water in their new headquarters. \n\nGrey water is also an expensive retro fit.\n\nAs a hydrologist, I hope to see more grey water use in the future. We spend a lot of money treating water",
"It's simpler that way and we've always had limitless access to nearly free drinkable water. I mean, would you pay an extra $30,000 for your house to use gray water instead of drinkable water, when it costs only $150 per year to use drinkable water?",
"I'm thankful for clean toilet water when my poop plops and the water splashes onto my cooter, violating me in the process. It's gross enough having toilet water splash me, I wouldn't want.. Who knows what! Splashing my woman-hood when tragedy strikes.",
"We typically only have two pipes that enter and leave our house. You have a water pipe (clean potable water) this connects to all your faucets, shower, toilet, etc. and you have a sewer pipe that all these water sources drain into. Basically it wouldn't be economical to have a grey water station and grey water pipes. 1/3 more infrastructure piping and source building to do the same job as one. Also think about what you would even use grey water for only toilets? Plus idk if you've ever camped in a camper that had a grey water tank but when it overflowed it stinks super bad. All that shower and sink juice coming out of the drains almost makes sewage smell better. ",
"As a plumber, reading this OP and a lot of the replies was extremely stressful.\n\nThat sink/toilet thing is stupid and impractical.\n\nSeptic tanks dont send your poop into a leech field. The tank holds the solids and they need to be pumped out.\n\nToilet bowls hold water to keep sewer gas from coming up through the toilet and stinking up your house. This is also why all sinks and floor drains have traps on them.\n\nI have been in thousands of houses and it is more of a surprise to see a clean toilet, rather than a dirty one. Bathrooms are disgusting as it is, so why add untreated, dirty sink water or whatever gray water could be, into that mess.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n",
"greywater can be very unhygenic.\n\nwhile grey water pumping out on lawns and gardens may be an acceptable form of use, recycling grey water is less so. Storage results in bacterial growth, even if the residence time of the storage tank is low.\n\nWorth noting the definition of grey water varies: some councils define grey water as 'water from laundry' and exclude shower water, handbasin water and kitchen sink water. Others include laundry/shower water but exclude kitchen sink water. (actually I think all exclude kitchen sink water)\n\nfor the volume of water saved, it's generally not worth the cost of plumbing, low flush toilets have a bigger gain / cost.",
"Many european countries do that, too. We do use clean 'drinkable' water for toilets in Germany ",
"Is this an American thing? I thought every first world country used potable water in toilets",
"We treat water on such a massive scale, and so cheaply and effectively, it simply costs less than running a second pipe. ",
"Maybe the costs of using clean water are cheaper than the costs involved with having a second line to houses for \"Grey water\".",
"Clean drinkable water isn't seen as a luxury in the US. We find it laughable that someone would put water in a bottle and charge $1 for it. We expect it to be free at restaurants and spend little time on conservation of it. It's considered a \"right\" rather than a resource, so we don't spend extra money or time trying to conserve it. ",
"When I was in the US Army in South VietNam, we used non-potable water for showering. I suppose we used it for flushing too, but I don't remember being told that. (We may not have even had flush toilets.)\n\nThis wasn't my regular duty station, but where I was temporarily housed while I was being processed out to go to the big hospital in Japan.",
"My families company actually sells and installs a NSF 350 certified Gray Water System. It allows you to legally reuse your Gray Water for flushing toilets, spray irrigation, etc.\n\n_URL_0_",
"Just America? I've never seen a country where the water from the toilet was different from the one coming out of the faucet.... And I've traveled around the world...",
"The bigger question is why do American toliets have so much water in them? I always freak im goin to tea bag it and/or get splash back. Its just so excessively full compared to NZ",
"Most of the 1st world uses potable water for everything. It's not just the US. It's easier to have a single pipe delivering the water, than to have separate pipelines for toilets and one for kitchen, washing machine etc. Potable water has practically an infinite supply anyway.",
"I live in Southern California, and I am seeing more \"reclaimed\" water used for things. Our new buildings here have reclaimed water toilets (that also use less water), and all the landscaping has signs pointing it out that it's using reclaimed water too. ",
"Our copper plant did in fact use grey water. It was recycled water from cooling our milling machine, and after going through our chilling towers and reverse osmosis stations it was sent to the John's. We had 8 people get listeria in a year. Even had the CDC come and visit. ",
"At least in the Midwest, water is so cheap and accessible, that it doesn't really make sense to install a new system. Additionally, the water in the Midwest is pretty much a closed system in that much of the water never leaves the Great Lakes or the tributary rivers.\n\nWhat a lot of people forget is that the Midwest was once a giant swamp. It got drained a couple hundred years ago, but there are still massive ditches that run next to every road. When it rains even the slightest bit, those ditches (6-12ft deep) fill right up, and the ground oozes water because it is already soaked from the water table 1 foot below the surface.",
"Using grey water to flush my toilet sounds primitive and nasty. Who wants nasty doo doo water splashing their ass cheeks every time they drop a deuce? Or when it pops back up and hits your cornhole. Why would i want to replace that experience with grey water? Wtf?",
"I live near the great lakes. Here, we essentially have unlimited potable water. The water we use is treated and put back into the lakes. The lakes, as well as the surrounding aquifers have enough water that we'll never be able to pump fast enough to dry them out. There is no need to use grey water. ",
"Some African countries do the same. I know. I live in one of them and have visited others... Valid point, but not only true for the US",
"Apparently not all places in the US use potable water. I was out in CA and there were signs above some toilets warning not to drink out of of them. ",
"The short answer is it's really not that hard or expensive to treat large amounts of water for potable use and there's plenty of it. Even in areas where water is more scarce it's rarely true that conservation in the home has any effect on the supply. ",
"This seems obvious. There's only one source of water coming into your house. Wouldn't want it to be gray water to drink, bathe, and cook with, would you? I know a contractor that installs gray water systems, so you can recycle your own gray water from showers and laundry to water your yard. But I don't think there's any practical way to divert it to your toilets, except with buckets.\nDuring the CA drought the last few years, we used shower warm up water gathered in buckets to water plants and sometimes flush toilets. Only saved maybe 20 gallons per week, though.",
"It's because it's more economical to have only one line of water coming into a building. An entire network for grey water means additional complexities for not a whole lot of utility. \n\nSee, in societies, we have this tendency to add complexity to deal with problems. Poop near your house a problem? Let's make a sewer.\n\nIt's too far to walk to get some fresh water? Let's make a water system.\n\nWant to have electricity to provide all the utility that that brings? Let's add power network.\n\n\nBut each of these systems has a build cost, and a maintenance cost. \n\nSo now, we want to add a new water line, but this water is non-potable. So now we need identifiers for each line, that needs to very diligently documented (imagine the disaster if a plumber mistakenly hooks the grey line to your fridge water line, that will NEVER be purged, even if you don't drink any). Additionally, these people need new training, new manuals and new techniques need to be implemented (often just modifications of old procedures and techniques). You also need to have a pump system to push this grey water to your house, you need a source of grey water, which will mean have a multi-step purification system externally. (Think of the steps as: White Usage, First Treatment Step, Grey Usage, Second (Final) Treatment Step, Return to White, cycle) and this system would require ANOTHER sewer system to separate the grey waste to be turned white from the white waste to be turned grey.\n\nAll this to poo in dirty water. Do you want to pay MORE for water?\n\n\nAs much as pooping in dirty water makes *intrinsic sense*, it's really for the best that we use the fresh water. If you truly want to poo in dirty water, as /u/tezoatlipoca stated,you can simply get Sink-To-Toilet systems, but these are really expensive to buy and implement. Most standard bathrooms will have a hard time fitting these systems with the counters, showers, and toilets, without having a major rework of the bathroom. ",
"Here in Australia new houses need to use tank water or other grey water for flushing the toilet and watering the garden.\n\nThere is even a water recycling scheme in Western Sydney: _URL_0_\n\nThe main issue with using grey water to water the garden is that salt levels build up from the washing powder. Also tank water sucks for washing clothes.\n\n_URL_1_",
"Because pets drink from toilets, and despite the best management of parents, children play in toilets. \n\nIf that was grey water the health risks go way up and now developer in the US wants to face a lawsuit for that kind of risk. \n\nSo it's clean water instead. \n\nAnd in a pick. Like if there is a flood, you can draw from the tank for boiling. About 5-7 gallons back there. ",
"As a baby i think i was slightly autistic and i drank toilet water and bathed in it when i could",
"The simplest reason is cost, it is much much cheaper to just run one line to house and use the same water for drinking and cooking as you do for bathing and flushing, running a separate system just wouldn't be cost effective\n\nA better option would be to capture run off from baths and showers in the house into a holding tank then use this to flush but the work to install this kind of system yet again involves alot of upfront cost and takes years to recuperate, It is along the same reasons as why more people do not have solar panels, upfront cost is too high and savings take too long to pay back the outlay",
"There's already a water system in place for drinking water, so lets just use that to save money and time than having a seperate special grey water one for toilets.\n\nMake clean water cost much more $$$ and you might convince people to start saving it for drinking...",
"Honestly if the people who built/maintained my apartments tried to manage two separate *incoming* water systems, I would have died of dysentery already.",
"So when the splash back hits my bare ass and hoohoo I don't need to seek medical attention, just psychiatric for the trauma it caused me mentally. ",
"I have seen a number of lake cabins in Maine that use the lake water for the toilet. \n\nThink of the plumbing network that would have to be devised to make it possible to run separate water to the toilet. Even if you used the drain water from your own home, does the average household generate enough waste water to keep the toilet full? Most don't. \n\nKeeping toilets clean would be harder than it is now as well. ",
"Do other places not?\n\nMore than once I have seen dogs happy to have fresh clean cold water 24/7... \n\nBasic survival rules say when ya lose the water, dont use/flush the toilet, that tanks got days worth of life saving water in it...\n\nOmg how hard is it to maintain a clean throne when the damn flush water is dirty!? I would develop a complex over that shit.... no pun intended...",
"Hm. In Central Europe We use clean water cause there's literally no other supply lines then drinking water. I assume similar goes for US?",
"It's just cheaper to plumb in fresh water than recycle grey water, water is pretty cheap and toilets don't use nearly as much as they used to.",
"I live in Belgium and here it is mandatory to haven rain water collection at least on new houses but lots of people install it to save money because clean water is very expensive. This is connected to toilet and washing machine and also extra taps for getting water to wash the floor or water the garden.",
"Water? Like, in the toilet?",
"We have excess clean water in the us and using one water type(clean water) for all appliances means cheaper plumbing and less complications.\n",
"Because people don't want nastyass used water stinking up their bathrooms and splashing on their cheeks when they drop a stinkfudgie. ",
"Most people would be put off of they had dirty looking water.\nIt's also a barrier to cross contamination. That is, accidental connections between potable and waste water.\nThere's probably regulations in most places mandating clean water for all human uses, and the virtue of it is that we almost never have any problems with water borne diseases. \nBe thankful you live someplace where that's all you have to complain about or criticize.",
"What I'd really like to know is why American toilets have such a huge volume of water in the bowl and water trap. Most have much lower, smaller quantities, but American ones seem to want to give you the impression of taking a dump into a lake or something.",
"Where I live pretty much the whole water supply is mountain runoff into gravity-driven pumps. If the water's coming in anyway, it seems more cost effective to just go with what we already have. It rains a ton though, so rain collection could be a good option",
"Have you played The Long Dark ? \nWe drink from the toilets...",
"There is 1 water main that can be pressured on your street and one gravity fed cement pipe that carries your shit away. \n\nCan you imagine the cost and pain in the ass it would be to dig up every street in the US to put in a gray water delivery pipe and then pipe that to each house ONLY for your toilet(s). ",
"Because greywater *stinks*, really bad, and you don't want a stench like that sitting in your toilet bowl.",
"Storing non-potable or grey water in a tank in your house isn't really a great plan if you can help it. ",
"The water coming into your house is used for everything the same water going into your toilet is the same that comes out of your sink/shower. Generally there's a line in and a line out for waste. It's simpler for one. ",
"TL:DR we have so much clean, potable water it's more trouble *not* to use it. We are all privileged on this blessed day",
"Because we don't have a running source of dirty water connected to every home. This would be literally the only use for it.\n\nAnd the only reassurance you have when that water splashes up on you is that at least it's clean.",
"My uncle was 85 when he fell in the bathroom and couldn't get up. He lay there on that floor for 3 days before my grandfather broke down his front door looking for him and found him laying between the tub and the toilet.\n\nThe only thing my uncle could reach was a washcloth and the toilet. He would fling the end of the washcloth into the toilet to get it wet, and then sucked the water out of it to stay alive.\n\nGood thing it was potable water...",
"Water here is cheap, plentiful, and a renewable resource. That is why we use it in ways that seem wasteful to some. Water shortage is a local issue, not a global issue.",
"Question: Where would you *get* the grey water for the toilets? Because the main reason we use potable water is because that's the only water our houses *get*."
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"http://www.digsdigs.com/photos/2016/07/toilet-sink-combos.jpg"
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"https://www.sydneywater.com.au/web/groups/publicwebcontent/documents/document/zgrf/mdq2/~edisp/dd_046179.pdf",
"http://www.sydneywater.com.au/SW/your-home/using-water-wisely/greywater-reuse/index.htm"
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mht6e
|
why does ron paul get virtually no media coverage and support from conservative news networks?
|
I'm from New Zealand and have been semi-following the bid for the republican nomination. It just seems odd to me that Ron Paul, who appears to be the most consistent candidate in terms of policy and support gets slammed in the media.
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/mht6e/eli5_why_does_ron_paul_get_virtually_no_media/
|
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"He has some policies that run against the common themes of the republican party. Specifically he frequently speaks in opposition to huge military spending. This is enough for many people to think he couldn't be elected in a primary.",
"Ron Paul is unelectable to the presidential office. He's too extreme, and if he was ever nominated to the Republican ticket, he would lose all the swing voters. In American politics, swing voters are probably the most important demographic to win. Paul cannot win them - so Paul will lose. \n\nRon Paul is consistent, yes, but to many Republicans, Paul is far too weak in terms of foreign policy. Traditionally the GOP has been about strong military. Paul is the opposite. Paul wants to go back into ~~isolationism~~ Non-interventionalism. This is in direct opposition to the GOP platform and a significant portion of American Conservatives. \n\nFinally, Paul is known to us Americans as a \"Libertarian\". This means he's in the left political wing in terms of social policy but in the right wing in terms of economic policy. In contrast, the GOP and the average conservative is in the right of both social and economic policy. This means Paul will have little to no support from the Social Conservatives, a large and influential segment of the Republican Party. \n\nSo let's review:\n\n1. Paul loses the swing voters (too extreme)\n\n2. Paul loses the base social conservatives (too liberal)\n\n3. Therefore Paul will most likely lose any general election, and will most likely lose the primary. ",
"If you look at the Republican primary and who is running, they all have extremely similar platforms (other than Paul). Paul is a frontrunner now, with the other 4 basically splitting the what I will call the \"crazy\" vote: the kind of people who give a huge cheer for executions, love a good war, and want to outlaw abortion and such. But as the campaign continues, slowly the others will drop out as they realize they aren't going to win. And when they do, they will say something like \"I realize that I can't win, and I now support X for the nomination.\" Their voters will then switch to the next person.\n\nBecause Paul sticks out like a sore thumb, I think it is very unlikely that he will get to be Mr X and score that support. I think it is very unlikely that those voters who supported the other candidate will switch to him over the rest. And he will sit there at a solid 20-25% of the vote, while the rest climb up past him. He did this last time he ran. And the time before. And the time before. He has an amazing base... but its 20%, and it never grows. He never takes the majority.\n\nSo, since the media has seen this time and time again (he has run for president before a few times) and because he is so unlike the rest of the candidates who all share very similar platforms and split the vote between them... they ignore him. He will be consistent to the very end, but you need to gain voters to win, not just keep a consistent 20%.",
"He consistently gets less than 10% of the vote, and is consistently absolutely insane. He's completely irrelevant, hanging in the race for the sole purpose of letting internet neckbeards stuff his retirement account.",
"He has some policies that run against the common themes of the republican party. Specifically he frequently speaks in opposition to huge military spending. This is enough for many people to think he couldn't be elected in a primary.",
"Ron Paul is unelectable to the presidential office. He's too extreme, and if he was ever nominated to the Republican ticket, he would lose all the swing voters. In American politics, swing voters are probably the most important demographic to win. Paul cannot win them - so Paul will lose. \n\nRon Paul is consistent, yes, but to many Republicans, Paul is far too weak in terms of foreign policy. Traditionally the GOP has been about strong military. Paul is the opposite. Paul wants to go back into ~~isolationism~~ Non-interventionalism. This is in direct opposition to the GOP platform and a significant portion of American Conservatives. \n\nFinally, Paul is known to us Americans as a \"Libertarian\". This means he's in the left political wing in terms of social policy but in the right wing in terms of economic policy. In contrast, the GOP and the average conservative is in the right of both social and economic policy. This means Paul will have little to no support from the Social Conservatives, a large and influential segment of the Republican Party. \n\nSo let's review:\n\n1. Paul loses the swing voters (too extreme)\n\n2. Paul loses the base social conservatives (too liberal)\n\n3. Therefore Paul will most likely lose any general election, and will most likely lose the primary. ",
"If you look at the Republican primary and who is running, they all have extremely similar platforms (other than Paul). Paul is a frontrunner now, with the other 4 basically splitting the what I will call the \"crazy\" vote: the kind of people who give a huge cheer for executions, love a good war, and want to outlaw abortion and such. But as the campaign continues, slowly the others will drop out as they realize they aren't going to win. And when they do, they will say something like \"I realize that I can't win, and I now support X for the nomination.\" Their voters will then switch to the next person.\n\nBecause Paul sticks out like a sore thumb, I think it is very unlikely that he will get to be Mr X and score that support. I think it is very unlikely that those voters who supported the other candidate will switch to him over the rest. And he will sit there at a solid 20-25% of the vote, while the rest climb up past him. He did this last time he ran. And the time before. And the time before. He has an amazing base... but its 20%, and it never grows. He never takes the majority.\n\nSo, since the media has seen this time and time again (he has run for president before a few times) and because he is so unlike the rest of the candidates who all share very similar platforms and split the vote between them... they ignore him. He will be consistent to the very end, but you need to gain voters to win, not just keep a consistent 20%.",
"He consistently gets less than 10% of the vote, and is consistently absolutely insane. He's completely irrelevant, hanging in the race for the sole purpose of letting internet neckbeards stuff his retirement account."
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32ma1h
|
what is a "water footprint"? what is the water footprint of 1/4 pound of beef?
|
The amount of water we use to make a quarter pound of beef seems pretty disputed and I've had trouble figuring out what the water footprint is.
Explained! Thanks thedrew and palcatraz for answering both parts of my question!
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/32ma1h/eli5what_is_a_water_footprint_what_is_the_water/
|
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"It is about 1900 liters (475 gallons) per 125 grams (1/4 lbs.). That is the water that needs to be used in order to grow, harvest, and transport the feed and the water necessary to grow, slaughter, and transport the cattle.",
"The water footprint is the amount of water needed to produce a quarter pound of beef. That include the amount of water needed to keep the cows, to grow the food for the cows, to run the farm, to run the slaughterhouse, whatever water is needed in the further processing etc etc."
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1k5goy
|
why is self-plagiarism an issue in academics?
|
For example: If I am given an assignment to write a 10 page report on the behavior of goldfish, and I just so happen to have written a similar report a couple years prior... why is re-submitting it (to a different professor or class) such a no-no?
EDIT| Answer: It's not the destination (final report), but the journey (work or process involved), that is important.
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1k5goy/eli5_why_is_selfplagiarism_an_issue_in_academics/
|
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" It doesn't matter whether you are plagiarizing stuff you wrote a year ago or stuff someone else wrote - it still means you aren't doing the work.",
"Students can purposely choose to take similar electives and skate through the courses without learning or doing work. ",
"In academic writing, the assumption is that uncited ideas are a new contribution to the field, even if it was your idea in the first place. It's just a report for a class, but they want you to get used to the style.\n\n(And if you quoted and cited an entire paper, you didn't do any work for that class.)",
"Several people are responding about 'you not doing the work'. If this scenario were to occur, I would think it is primarily the fault of the instructor. \n\nThere are seldom good reasons beyond laziness to give assignments that are so general that they would overlap with those assigned in another class. If the assignment is sufficiently specific, this shouldn't be an issue.",
"SOURCE: I am a college professor and published academic.\n\nSeveral people have already said \"you're not doing the work\" to which OP is responding, \"I did the work earlier and isn't the point just to be competent anyway?\"\n\nWell, yes and no.\n\nThe fact is, if you asked ten educators the purpose of education, you'd probably get fifteen different answers. Teaching you about specific subjects is one purpose. Teaching you \"how to learn\"--that is, how to approach new material in a self-beneficial way--is another. Yet another is economic: part of going to school is learning to deal with authority, to perform seemingly pointless tasks, and to jump through hoops (so to speak). Giving you a diploma or a degree is one way of telling employers, \"this person can do assignments.\"\n\nSetting aside the cynical explanation, though, and returning to the purely pedagogical one: there is value in repetition. If you learn to play a single song on the piano, you will get very good at that song, but you will never become a concert pianist. If you lift weights only one time, you will never get stronger. If you turn in the same paper two or three or four times, you have only \"done the work\" once, when the real educational value is to be found in \"doing the work\" over and over again.\n\nThat's why it's generally disallowed by teachers and professors: because it's \"cheating\" yourself out of the experience the class is supposed to provide. That said, as a graduate student I have (sparingly) quoted my own previous work in new papers, complete with citation, and have never been criticized for it.",
"It has already been pointed out that in professional academic circles it's basically repeating yourself, which is annoying and misleading. If you had 3 good ideas diluted by 40 bad ones, and then 10 years later you just publish the 3 in one paper without pointing out where it comes from, it misrepresents the quality of your work.\n\nBut for you, I would say the 'problem' is that you arnt getting your 'brain exercise' for this. You're report on goldfish is boring and no one gives a shit. Especially your prof. He gains nothing from you writing a big long paper. He actually has to spend Saturday reading the dumb thing. He'd rather be drinking. He makes you do it for *you*. It's like saying that because you did pushups in middles school, you never had to do them again. Doing the work, submitting on a deadline etc. are useful skills that will help *you* succeed and be a valuable member of society.\n\nSo go ahead and dont do the work again, that's your choice. But you arnt gaming your way out of anything, you're screwing yourself out of the chance to practice discipline, critical thinking, and adherence to a schedule. It's entirely your call if you want to do the work. These choices determine what kind of person you'll grow into, and what that person will be capable of. It's not like you hurt anyone else by handing in your old work. But it's not the best way to get what you're paying for in this class.\n\nTL;DR: School is pointless if you dont do the work. You're wasting everyone's time, including your own.",
"warning PDF:\n_URL_0_\n\nThe short version:\n\nIn the real world:\nIt's because often someone else besides yourself owns or has otherwise been given rights to your work. \n\n*I should also add that in academics it's not always desirable to duplicate information, it can hamper the peer review process. For instance it's its a lot easier to discover fraud or errors in a single article than it is to point out the same about 50 generally similar articles. Instead we tend to reference earlier works instead of re-incorporating them. It just keeps things simpler. Sort of like a built in version tracking system.\n\nIn school:\nIt really serves no useful purpose, it's often either about preparing you for real life by forming habits, or just simply they want you to do it again.\n\nIn any case it's bullshit through and through, and there are cases where self plagiarism is totally appropriate. But sometimes bullshit is the law...",
"I'm faculty with an MD,Phd\n\nThere are two basic issues with self-plagiarism. The first is that any work an academic produces for primary literature is supposed to be original unless otherwise stated . Wherever it is not, the original source, if available, should be cited. Second, if you are rehashing previously published material through plagiarism, you are failing to cite the previous literature which misleads the reader into believing it is a new thought. \n\nThis being said, there is some leniency given in grant applications (since they are never published and methods portions of primary literature.\n\nFinally, when you poll academics on the issue, you will get a variety of responses as to the seriousness of self plagiarism. For some, any plagiarism is a serious offense. Most, though just say to avoid it in your published materials to the best of your ability. ",
"I'm also a college professor. There is an issue in terms of accreditation, which is what allows a college to accept federal money. The agencies that grant accreditation establish the number of contact hours per credit hour awarded. This, to a certain extent, includes the amount of time spent on work outside of class. No one checks the amount of time, but faculty are responsible for showing diligence. Therefore, if a student is allowed to turn in work already submitted for another course the number of contact hours will not add up as intended. Think of it as a condition that helps a contract remain valid.",
"Unless you have improved zero for the last few years, chances are, last year's paper on the exact same topic *sucks*.",
"Really? I've found that using the same paper, but updating it for the increasing requirements of the course is a perfectly valid course of action. I wrote a paper in high school on ant behavior, then used what I learned from writing that paper to write a better one for English 102, and an even better one for intro biology. I guess it isn't really plagiarism, as each paper was unique, due to varying requirements for each course. Still, they were on the same subject, referred to the same sources, quoted the same passages. \n\nThen again, I studied engineering, soil didn't have so many classes that required writing a paper every week. The temptation to just turn in the same papers for different classes would get overwhelming when you have three papers on similar topics all due for three different classes the same week...",
"Late to this one but there's an additional point that's not been made, so far as I can see, that's worth making.\n\nWhen you sign up for college, you agree to honor the student code of conduct. You can call this bullshit or not, your call, but traditionally colleges and universities pride themselves on the character of their alumni. You become a \"Winston man,\" \"a Screaming Eagle,\" or wtf they pride themselves on.\n\nStudent codes of conduct have a lower standard of evidence. I forget the exact legal terms here, but if you need, say, \"clear and convincing evidence\" in a court of law to be convicted of, say, dumping soap in the college fountain, in the university kangaroo court they only need \"preponderance of evidence\" to punish. Just as lawyers are held to a higher standard by their bar, so are students held to a higher standard by their code of conduct.\n\nThe code of conduct is a big deal. Students regard it as a EULA to click through. Most faculty have no idea what it is, or why it's important, until perhaps a favorite student runs into trouble.\n\ntl;dr Pretty much ALL student codes of conduct forbid what we are calling here \"self-plagiarism.\" You do new work for each class. The learning experience etc. is why this matters, but the fact that nearly every student code of conduct forbids this should carry some weight with professors and students. Historically and traditionally, you don't go to college to learn short-cuts and shirk responsibility. \n\nThe idea of doing the least amount of work for the best possible grade is super childish and self-defeating. If you don't ever get that, it's your loss.",
"\"one who does the work is not the one who is relieved he is completed, but enlightened\" - Abraham Chekhovian ",
"You are student and most likely are not credible. Your work has never been published and therefore worthless. Using material from that kind of source is foolish. However, I could be wrong and you just might be a literary genius."
]
}
|
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[
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[
"http://www.ithenticate.com/Portals/92785/media/ith-selfplagiarism-whitepaper.pdf"
],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[]
] |
|
2g99jr
|
why do people say that a giant creature like godzilla wouldn't be able to support itself?
|
Wouldn't a giant creature also have Giant muscles and bones to support it's huge size?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2g99jr/eli5_why_do_people_say_that_a_giant_creature_like/
|
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"text": [
"Yes, but any material, including bones, has a maximum capacity beyond which it will break, shatter, or collapse in on itself. This is due in part to the [square-cube law](_URL_0_), which says that size and weight do not scale linearly as they increase.",
"[The Science of Godzilla](_URL_0_)",
"Think of a bone. Now the bone material has a certain strength. That bone's total carrying ability can roughly be summed up as:\n\nMaterial Strength X Material Cross section = how much total you can carry on it.\n\nNow if you doubled the size of a monster, it gets twice as wide (great, now have 4 (2 X 2) times as much cross section). but it also gets twice as tall. Thus all the stuff about that bone is 8 times as heavy ( 2 wide X 2long X 2 high). Since this happens, as you get larger and larger you need to make things wider at the base.\n\nThis is also important in designing very tall buildings, since you need to put more and more of the base into material supporting the stuff above it then the lower levels have less floorspace.\n\nTLDR. Things get heavier faster than they get stronger"
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[
"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Square-cube_law#Biomechanics"
],
[
"http://www.apeculture.com/movies/godzilla.htm"
],
[]
] |
|
cxn20e
|
how do venus flytraps kill the insects?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/cxn20e/eli5_how_do_venus_flytraps_kill_the_insects/
|
{
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"eym5ghy"
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"score": [
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"text": [
"Once the insect is trapped inside the plant secretes digestive juices. The insect is suffocated and dissolved."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[]
] |
||
4dhfke
|
why is encryption such a big deal?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4dhfke/eli5_why_is_encryption_such_a_big_deal/
|
{
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"text": [
"Let's start with what encryption is. If I send you a letter on a postcard, anyone who handles that postcard along the way can read what I wrote. They same is true of electronic communication. Encryption is writing the postcard in a secret code, so that only you and I know what it says.\n\nSome people want to able to monitor what people say. Those people might want to monitor what you say so they can show you better advertisements, or to try to catch people who want to hurt others. Or they might want to use your information to hurt you. Some people might claim they are monitoring it to help/protect you, when they actually want to hurt you.\n\nBut, people like privacy. Even if the monitoring is supposed to protect them, they feel like they have a right to privacy. In some countries they have a legal right to privacy. Other people claim it is a human right. And no one wants to get hurt by someone who got access to their information.\n\nSo it's a big debate between privacy and protection, with lots of smaller debates about money and services."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[]
] |
||
4dzy7l
|
what exactly are the men in the dot (dept of transportation) doing when they set up their tripods on the side of the roads?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4dzy7l/eli5_what_exactly_are_the_men_in_the_dot_dept_of/
|
{
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"text": [
"Surveying land inclines, heights and depths to plan our new roads?",
"Surveying. They are using known marked spots to make measurements about where property lines are/should be - elevation of the area - existing topography - where underground things are - etc. They use these measurements to know exactly where a road should go, how it should curve or bank, how and where it will drain, where a sidewalk can be put in, where to dig for underground drainage pipes or utilities - everything about a road and all the stuff that's beside/under it has to be planned out exactly so it all works together and they'll have the 'blueprints' for future reference when they have to go back and do repairs or replace things.",
"I used to build above ground swimming pools and we used them to check the grade of the customers backyard.\n\nThe tripod we used was an monocular type of thing, I've heard the new ones have lasers on them. But essentially, one guy stands ruler planted on the ground, while the guy at the tripod takes a measurement on that ruler. The person with the ruler now plants it in a new spot, and the guy at the tripod takes a new measurement. \n\nBased on the two measurements you took, you can tell what kind of grade the land your surveying is on. \n\nFor example, the second measurement you took is 3 feet higher than the first measurement. Therefore there is a 3 foot grade from point A to point B.\n\nPS I've had some beers, so I probably butchered my explanation. But If you have anymore questions, I can do me best."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[],
[]
] |
||
4d7bmu
|
the massive leak earlier today that implicates people like putin, messi, and the prime minister of iceland (among others). what was it, and why should i care?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4d7bmu/eli5_the_massive_leak_earlier_today_that/
|
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"text": [
"Can you clarify exactly to what leak in particular you are referring?",
"To clarify, what exactly are the implications of this for the common middle classed man, and why this information is so big. ",
"It shows that many powerful people have been using offshore companies to do such crimes as tax evasion, drug trafficking, human (!) trafficking, and others. You should care because laziness will not stop this. People will continue to be trafficked, bombed by planes bought with money used in tax evasion, and be addicted to horrible drugs unless the public gets off their ass and gets this changed.\n\nI have no experience with anything pertaining to the subject that this scandal deals with, but I read the article and that's where this is coming from.",
"Also, who do you give the information to when leaking? A single person cannot process all of the information which means that only large organizations are options when leaking.",
"There are some good ELI5's on the appropriate threads. \n\n\n/u/Jaredlong on /r/worldnews:\n\n > Taxes sure do suck, right? Imagine how much money you could keep if you simply didn't pay them. Generally, for businesses, they only pay taxes on their profits, so what if you could hide some of those profits from the government? After all, they can only tax money they can prove exists. One method for lowering profits, is to increase spending, by re-investing in the company, making higher quality products, maybe even paying your employees more, OR you can \"spend\" that extra profit buying fake services from a fake company. What has been happening in Panama is a company has been selling these fake businesses, that corporations then use to make massive fake transactions. Officially, the taxman sees money flowing into these fake businesses, but now we all know for a fact that those fake businesses are in fact fake. This accounts for potentially several trillions of dollars worth of money that should have been taxed, but has been illegally hidden.\n\n_URL_0_\n\nIt must be noted that this summary of 'shell companies' is just one part (although a large proportion) of this investigation. The data leak includes 2.6 terabytes of information comprising of different crimes and issues that have been broken by a multitude of people and companies. \n\n\nAs for why we should care, well that's up to you as an individual. If you care that laws are being broken and manipulated by those that enact them, enforce them, and pretend to live by them, then you should.",
"First things first, it's too early to get a real grip on how big it is, and what the implications are. What we have seen so far is like the trailer for a movie, not the movie itself. \n \nIt's going to take some time before we can draw truly useful inferences. The picture will be much clearer tomorrow, after the intelligentsia has had 24 hours to digest it. A lot of important people will be pulling all nighters tonight. \n \nAnyone who pretends to know much more than that right now is talking through their hat. "
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[],
[],
[],
[
"https://www.reddit.com/r/worldnews/comments/4d75i7/26_terabyte_leak_of_panamanian_shell_company_data/d1oc7c6"
],
[]
] |
||
1m920r
|
why are electronics so cheap?
|
For about 15 EUR, I can get a simple mobile phone. That is, a small, highly integrated high-tech device with a digital transceiver with a range of dozens of kilometers, a backlit color display that in itself is a marvel of technology, a microprocessor (i.e. a small magic box that calculates stuff millions of times per second), and an advanced battery to power it all.
That is about the same price I would pay for cheap pyjamas, which are nothing than pieces fabric cut and sewn together.
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1m920r/eli5_why_are_electronics_so_cheap/
|
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"You're overpaying for pyjamas. \n\nBut the phone is cheap because it is mass-produced. Economies of scale allow for millions of phones to be made as cheap as possible. ",
"I'd bet that price is probably subsidized somewhere along the line, probably by the mobile phone carrier. They are willing to have you pay less for the phone so that you will pay them something every month for the service. \n \n15 EU is cheap even for a simple phone, unless it is a used phone. In that case, the price was subsidized by the original owner. \n \nBut in general, electronics are cheap by scale of production. One of the most expensive types of components are the integrated circuit \"chips\", and they are made hundreds or thousands (or even tens of thousands) at a time on a silicon wafer. By continuing to make them smaller and smaller (and on bigger and bigger wafers), they can be made cheaper (or to do more in one IC). There's a lot of technology that goes into doing that, but the cost of developing the technology gets amortized over a lot of different types of products. ",
"The cheap labor available over seas. The people who make most of our electronics get paid a wage that would be illegal in the US, and I mean far below the legal minimum."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[],
[]
] |
|
2hl48b
|
why do guys who work construction/haul heavy equipment need manual transmissions?
|
I've asked my friends this question many times and every answer seems different or contradictory.
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2hl48b/eli5_why_do_guys_who_work_constructionhaul_heavy/
|
{
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"text": [
"Manual transmissions are more durable (simpler, less moving parts to go wrong), cheaper to make, provide more control, and are capable of more torque than automatic. ",
"Automatic transmission add massive weight to a vehicle. The more the vehicle weighs, the more of its energy it has to spend moving itself instead of moving its load. \nManual transmissions are also more fuel efficient.\nAutomatic transmissions also consist of many parts that if put under stress can break. In construction, the less stuff that can break, the better.",
"They're just cheaper. That's it. All of the drawbacks to automatic transmissions have been eliminated, except that they are more complex, so they cost more.",
"Heavy equipment uses a much different set of gear ratios and gear spacing than a car - some cranes have two transmissions, and most heavy trucks require double-clutching so you don't wear out the gearbox (clutch in, shift to neutral, clutch out, clutch in, shift into gear, clutch out).\n\nThe other issue is simply cost - equipment with manual transmissions are cheaper to buy, simpler to maintain and usually more fuel efficient. Virtually all of our site vehicles have standard transmissions (except for the ambulance and the fire response vehicle).",
"To dispel the urban legend, no automatic trucks are no less powerful than manual transmission trucks. Most automatic trucks actually have a built in way to transform them into manual transmission if you choose to. You can pre-select whatever gear you want in an automatic transmission truck.\n\nThe biggest difference is price. Most people want to buy the cheapest possible trucks with the best possible performance for what they need. Automatic transmissions are more expensive and give no better performance than manual transmission. The automatic trucks are becoming more and more popular because the average age of professional drivers and operators is getting higher and higher."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[],
[],
[],
[]
] |
|
3ggbgf
|
why doesn't everything seem brighter when my pupils are dilated?
|
My basic understanding is that your pupils regulate the amount of light that enters your eye by dilating or contracting depending on the level of brightness in the environment. Certain things make your pupils dilate though (drugs, emotions, medical conditions) but when this happens everything isn't brighter. I found an answer that said your brain will compensate for it but if that's the case then what function does your pupils actually serve?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3ggbgf/eli5_why_doesnt_everything_seem_brighter_when_my/
|
{
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3
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"text": [
"Everything does get brighter, and this effect is apparent in a dark place. So it does serve a function. But yes your brain can compensate a little if things get too bright. ",
"The brain compensates in terms of how it processes the images. But large amounts of light, and especially large amounts of UV, can damage the physical structure of your eye. Your brain doesn't compensate in a way that protects the eye, so the pupillary response is still important."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[]
] |
|
bdz2s6
|
please explain why riding in an elevator i have no internet connection. then when the elevator stops i immediately have my videos play,load up etc.
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/bdz2s6/eli5_please_explain_why_riding_in_an_elevator_i/
|
{
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"text": [
"You are inside a metal box, encased in a concrete or cinder block shaft. Radio signals have a hard time penetrating that. But once you 're stopped and there are less solid enclosures some radio waves can get to your phone"
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[]
] |
||
bz753z
|
how does the atmosphere hold in gasses.
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/bz753z/eli5_how_does_the_atmosphere_hold_in_gasses/
|
{
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"text": [
"I don’t think it’s the atmosphere that hold the gasses, it’s the gravity that holds them thus creating the atmosphere",
"Gravity. \nThe gas molecule has to be going faster than Escape Velocity to leave, otherwise it falls back to the planet. \n \nSometimes though, a molecule gets hit by charged particles from the sun so hard that they reach escape velocity and leave forever. \n\nThe Earth is special in that it's one of two planets in the solar system that has a magnetic field that can deflect these particles before they hit the atmosphere."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[]
] |
||
6wb703
|
what is the reason some houses crackle and pop when people walk around?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/6wb703/eli5_what_is_the_reason_some_houses_crackle_and/
|
{
"a_id": [
"dm6ql2f"
],
"score": [
2
],
"text": [
"its just movement in the structure of the house as you walk around and the weight shifts. You know how a stair can squeak when you step on it? its just that, but bigger."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[]
] |
||
3yqx4v
|
the advantages of 2 blade vs 4 blade rotor blade helicopters.
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3yqx4v/eli5_the_advantages_of_2_blade_vs_4_blade_rotor/
|
{
"a_id": [
"cyfvzny"
],
"score": [
7
],
"text": [
"More blades = more lift but also more mechanical complexity. The fewer blades a rotor has, the more efficient it is, because each blade creates turbulence in its wake, which decreases the efficiency of the following blade. 1-bladed rotors aren't very practical, so 2 is the minimum. You typically see 2-bladed rotors on small, light helicopters because such rotors are simplest and therefore also cheapest and most efficient.\n\nNow when you make your helicopter heavier, you need the rotor to provide more lift. You can get that by making it bigger and rotating it faster, but that only works up to a point. The tips of the blades can't go supersonic, otherwise you get a sudden, large drop in performance with a lot more power required, higher stress on the blades, lots of vibrations, huge noise, etc. So the only solution is to add more blades to the rotor. This makes it more mechanically complex (= expensive), and you get a diminishing returns effect since each additional blade provides extra lift but also forces all the other blades to be closer together, decreasing their efficiency. You don't really see helicopters with more than 7-bladed rotors because at that point adding another blade would hurt more than it would help."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[]
] |
||
1mwt39
|
when performing live, do vocalists do anything to ensure that they don't cough or sneeze?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1mwt39/eli5_when_performing_live_do_vocalists_do/
|
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"text": [
"I would like to also know what they do to keep themselves from burping as well. As a singer I sometimes find myself needing to burp at the worst possible times in a Song. ",
"I've never ELI5ed, but I used to get chronic sinus infections (about once a month) and would perform anyways. Claritin D or similar would help clear my sinuses but unfortunately the antihistamines would dry everything out. So in addition to staying ridiculously hydrated, I'd use Biotene (mouthwash, spray, toothpaste) to counteract the dryness. If the sinus infection was *really* bad, antibiotics and steroid-based nasal spray or even sometimes Prednisone was prescribed to clear things up fast so I wouldn't croak (ha) during a show. Thankfully I haven't had to go that route in over a year, but that's the beauty of performing live... It's REAL, but you HAVE to take extremely good care of yourself or the audience suffers the consequences at some point (and you do too, but they're the ones who came to see you).\n\nA few years ago before I knew how to handle sinus infections / being sick / extreme vocal care I remember having one of those coughing fits where you choke and your eyes water and you can't breathe until you can get enough air to \"cough it out\"... right in the middle of a show. The band kept playing while I ran behind a speaker and chugged water until it stopped (they knew I was sick at least). The show went on but I went on a vocal care learning rampage after that and it never happened again.",
"Problem is you can't avoid it if it's due to a fly hanging around your mouth every time you need to breathe (inhale)."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[],
[]
] |
||
3k24ki
|
why are so many convenience stores run by indian and arabic americans?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3k24ki/eli5_why_are_so_many_convenience_stores_run_by/
|
{
"a_id": [
"cuu6hux"
],
"score": [
2
],
"text": [
"It's a relatively inexpensive small business to start. They're easy to run, even with a limited command of the language. They're very likely to be successful as long as you're willing to put in long hours. They're not seen as prestigious enough that many natives want to run them.\n\nConvenience stores are often run by whatever immigrant group is abundant in the area."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[]
] |
||
2f4tau
|
how much money did the united states make off of iraqi oil after the invasion? did it cover the costs of the war?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2f4tau/eli5_how_much_money_did_the_united_states_make/
|
{
"a_id": [
"ck5x031",
"ck5xsei",
"ck5zgwt"
],
"score": [
7,
3,
2
],
"text": [
"The US was already exporting oil from Iraq before the war (through the oil for food program). No reason to invade for oil.",
"The U.S. did not invade Iraq for oil. That is just a bunch of liberal BS. \n\nThe U.S. invaded Iraq because of bad intelligence created by Iraq. Iraq had an agent spread information to the U.S. and European countries that Iraq had chemical and possibly biological weapons and was working on at least a dirty bomb. The U.S. got the info and asked various European countries if they had independent verification and they said \"Yes, we can confirm\". The problem was that the same person who provided the U.S. the information also provided the information to the European countries AND because of how intelligence agencies work, there was no mention of where the information came from on either side. \n\nThe reason for the disinformation was that Hussein was trying to prevent an attack/invasion of Iraq by lying about having these weapons of mass destruction and being willing to use them. This bluff failed miserably and resulted in exactly what Hussein didn't want.\n\nTL;DR: Not oil, Iraq bluffed by having a guy say \"They gots killer bombs and will use them\", bluff called by U.S. and co., Iraq has a bad time.",
"I don't know if you're an idiot or just to young to remember, but the Iraq war wasn't about oil. After 911 americans were truly scared. They thought that this kind of thing was going to happen from now on, that their way of life was truly in jeopardy. Now give it more than a decade and some political spin doctors and this is what we have now. I swear people have such a short memory."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[],
[]
] |
||
n3ksn
|
the runout of ipv4 addresses and how it's possible to open up a whole new set of domain names (.xxx) while it's happening
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/n3ksn/eli5_the_runout_of_ipv4_addresses_and_how_its/
|
{
"a_id": [
"c35zspt",
"c35zwzk",
"c3602fg",
"c361l93",
"c35zspt",
"c35zwzk",
"c3602fg",
"c361l93"
],
"score": [
11,
9,
3,
3,
11,
9,
3,
3
],
"text": [
"Multiple domain names can point to one IP, so more domains != more IPs.",
"everyone with direct access to the internet has a specific number called an IP address. very few of these people have domain names, which are just words--like _URL_0_--that point to their number--the IP Address. a DNS server matches the two together.\n\nthe numbers, IPv4 address, can only go up so high, to 255.255.255.255 from 0.0.0.0 with some special numbers that can't be used. domain names can be just about anything with a certain extension, like .xxx. so these are virtually unlimited.",
"There are a lot of IPv4 addresses but we've almost used all the major \"groups\"; the \"groups\" themselves will have all the addresses in them handed out relatively soon.\n\nHowever, the creation of a new TLD (top level domain) doesn't necessarily mean anything... sure, people want new .xxx names, and they might need new IP addresses for their servers, but other people are already getting internet for the first time (new IP address) and getting new domains/servers (new IP addresses).\n\nThankfully, we have IPv6 which mathematically speaking should last us a very long time. It's not fully implemented by everyone and we really should switch at some point soon, but people will probably keep using IPv4 for a long time.",
"Like you're Five: when you go to your friend's house, what info do you need to give to your parents?? The address (Domain Name) because nobody would go out and remember civil lot number (IP address). So, what if the city extends with a new street in an old section? They get new street name and number, everyone his happy. But most of the time, they just cut the terrain into lot a, lot b, lot c without a new number ( you can easily run multiple websites and domain on one unique server with a static and unique IP), so, basically the city doesn't care that it has no more possible lot number, cause she just split one in the street without caring.",
"Multiple domain names can point to one IP, so more domains != more IPs.",
"everyone with direct access to the internet has a specific number called an IP address. very few of these people have domain names, which are just words--like _URL_0_--that point to their number--the IP Address. a DNS server matches the two together.\n\nthe numbers, IPv4 address, can only go up so high, to 255.255.255.255 from 0.0.0.0 with some special numbers that can't be used. domain names can be just about anything with a certain extension, like .xxx. so these are virtually unlimited.",
"There are a lot of IPv4 addresses but we've almost used all the major \"groups\"; the \"groups\" themselves will have all the addresses in them handed out relatively soon.\n\nHowever, the creation of a new TLD (top level domain) doesn't necessarily mean anything... sure, people want new .xxx names, and they might need new IP addresses for their servers, but other people are already getting internet for the first time (new IP address) and getting new domains/servers (new IP addresses).\n\nThankfully, we have IPv6 which mathematically speaking should last us a very long time. It's not fully implemented by everyone and we really should switch at some point soon, but people will probably keep using IPv4 for a long time.",
"Like you're Five: when you go to your friend's house, what info do you need to give to your parents?? The address (Domain Name) because nobody would go out and remember civil lot number (IP address). So, what if the city extends with a new street in an old section? They get new street name and number, everyone his happy. But most of the time, they just cut the terrain into lot a, lot b, lot c without a new number ( you can easily run multiple websites and domain on one unique server with a static and unique IP), so, basically the city doesn't care that it has no more possible lot number, cause she just split one in the street without caring."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[
"reddit.com"
],
[],
[],
[],
[
"reddit.com"
],
[],
[]
] |
||
3n973q
|
diffrence between myth vs story?
|
Let's say I am trying to explain a story/mtyh about a guy turning into an instect and shaared his horryfying experiences as an insect in a diary form of writing, is this a myth/story? Is it a modern myth?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3n973q/eli5_diffrence_between_myth_vs_story/
|
{
"a_id": [
"cvm037i"
],
"score": [
2
],
"text": [
" > story/mtyh about a guy turning into an instect and shaared his horryfying experiences as an insect in a diary form of writing\n\nThat's Kafka's [\"The Metamorphosis\"](_URL_1_). Great book. Its a story, written in 1915. \n\nGenerally, 'myths' go back so far we often aren't aure where they come from. People also talk about 'modern myths' or ['urban legends'](_URL_0_)', like those \"freind of a freind\" stories (FOAFtales)\n\nIf we know who the author who created it is, its usually considered a 'story.'"
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Urban_legend",
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Metamorphosis"
]
] |
|
cm2eev
|
face becoming red when we strain
|
I remember back in school a bunch of us would strain super hard to see who could make their face the reddest, how does this happen?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/cm2eev/eli5_face_becoming_red_when_we_strain/
|
{
"a_id": [
"evzhhya"
],
"score": [
7
],
"text": [
"You are basically tightening your muscles, which than squeezes your veins, pushing alot of blood into your head, which is the red color you see.\n\nEdit: Spelling"
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[]
] |
|
639xgx
|
why would someone want to hack your webcam?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/639xgx/eli5_why_would_someone_want_to_hack_your_webcam/
|
{
"a_id": [
"dfset94"
],
"score": [
2
],
"text": [
"Any number of reasons.\n\nFirst; you would be surprised at the things you do when you believe no one is watching and you'd be surprised at the information you may divulge when you think no one else is listening.\n\nA lot of people have their computers in their room and therefore the computer is privy to a significant amount of private and intimate moments.\n\nMost people that hack webcams do it with the intent of blackmailing the victim for personal gain whether it be financial or for pure pleasure. Others may target a specific individual to gain some sort of knowledge whether it be hoping to overhear financial related information or tap in on business related conversation. "
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[]
] |
||
6k0zhc
|
redshift, how do we account for our own relative movement?
|
If redshift tells us the universe is expanding from a single point, wouldn't light closer to the origin be moving away from it in the same direction as us, and therefore have no shift, or less shift? And if we look through that space to light moving in completely the opposite direction as us, wouldn't our movement cause it to shift more?
Edit: by "light moving in completely the opposite direction" I meant light originating from a source moving in the opposite direction.
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/6k0zhc/eli5_redshift_how_do_we_account_for_our_own/
|
{
"a_id": [
"djifi8p",
"djigacq",
"djigbnf"
],
"score": [
3,
3,
3
],
"text": [
"The theory in no way suggests everything is expanding from a single point. Rather, all distant objects are receding from one another. Think of it more like a loaf of raisin bread. \n\nIt's stuck full with raisins, and as it heats the entire mass expands, so there is more space between any two raisins than there was before. Even if your loaf of bread is infinite (and so has no center) there is more space between raisins as the loaf cooks in your (remarkably large) oven. \n\n > if we look through that space to light moving in completely the opposite direction as us\n\nWe can't see light moving in the opposite direction of us, because we can only collect light that arrives *here* at our optical instruments. Light moving away from us is light we will never catch up to, and we will never see any image it forms. ",
"The universe isn't expanding from a single point. Space itself is expanding, dragging stars and galaxy with it. So every point in the universe is getting farther away from every other point in the universe (except if the gravity between object is stronger than the expansion, aka if they are too close to each other).\n\n",
" > If redshift tells us the universe is expanding from a single point\n\nRedshift tells us the universe is expanding from *us*. It is established relative to the point of observation: our galaxy.\n\nYes, objects that are not moving relative to us aren't red-shifted and objects that are moving toward us (relatively) are blue-shifted."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[],
[]
] |
|
1ywyi0
|
why do we turn our heads slightly when trying to understand something
|
I know there has to be some scientific reason for it. I often find myself slightly tilting my head in class when trying to pay attention. I've seen animals do it too which makes me belief theirs a biological advantage to it. Any help would be great
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1ywyi0/eli5_why_do_we_turn_our_heads_slightly_when/
|
{
"a_id": [
"cfokj55"
],
"score": [
4
],
"text": [
"The thing about our body language is that it is more symbolic than we realize. Sometimes when we try to remember something we sort of look around, as if we are searching around for the memory. This is half learnt behavior (we see others do it, and mirror it) and half physical reenactments of mental processes. When you tilt your head while trying to understand something, you are literally trying to see things from a different angle (whooooosh mind blown, right?)\n\nDarwin wrote a lot about these processes of symbolic meta language in both humans and animals, if you're interested to learn more, pick up his book \"The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals\"\n"
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[]
] |
|
9mhuq1
|
how does the “bounty hunter” system work in the u.s?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/9mhuq1/eli5_how_does_the_bounty_hunter_system_work_in/
|
{
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"e7ep5ps",
"e7epjro",
"e7eplfo",
"e7ey2x8"
],
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2,
6,
43,
10
],
"text": [
"I was told it works similarly to a PI license, but that was 10+ years ago and state by state case.",
"You get a license in the State (or States) you operate in similar to a Private Investigator, or Security Guard that grants you some of the authorities normally reserved for police in extremely limited scope of pursuing your bounty. When it comes to making a mistake and harming someone that is not the bounty, they generally have very few protections and are just common citizens in regards to that. Though some do carry special insurances that cover property damages they may cause. ",
"When you're charged with a crime but have not yet gone on trial, you may be released on bail -- a sum of money given as a deposit to ensure you'll turn up for your trial.\n\nSince people rarely have access to the large sums, bail bonds can be used... a bail bondsman puts up the amount of the bail, and you pay them a 10% fee. If you skip out and they are on the hook for the money, then a bounty hunter to track you down in return for a portion of the funds.\n\nSo let's say you're arrested and the bail is set at $100k. A bondsman puts up that money, and you pay him $10k. You flee the state, so the courts keep their $100k...but if a bounty hunter can locate you and bring you back to stand trial, they'll get their $100k back, and pay the bounty hunter a percentage -- say $20k.",
"After you are charged with a crime but before your trial or plea of guilty, you may be able to be released from jail if you put up an amount of $$$$ set by a judge. This is a bond. Very serious crimes and people who are “flight risks” either have to pay really large bonds or don’t get one at all. Once you show back up to court and your case is resolved (either by plea, trial and verdict, or dismissal) you get your bond back. \n\nAnyway bonds are still high. So if you don’t have the cash to pay the court the bond, you can get the services of a bail bondsman. For example, if you steal a car, get caught and charged, and the judge sets a $10,000 dollar bond. You don’t have 10,000 in cash to give the court. So you pay a bondsman 10% of the bond, $1000, and he puts up the 10,000. The trick is, when you go to court and get the bond back, the bondsman gets it all. Your $1000 is gone. You have the choice to stay in jail, put up the full bond and one day get it back, or lose 10% to a bondsman. Again most people don’t want to wait 3-4 months in jail, and most don’t have the cash on hand needed to pay the full bond. So bail bondsmen are very busy. \n\nHere is the thing, if you skip your court date, a warrant will be put out for your arrest. And usually your bond if forfeit to the court. If it was a bondsman who bailed you out, he’s out the bond too if you skip. So it’s in the bondsmans interest to make sure your ass gets to court, or is caught and returned to court if you do get a warrant on you. \n\nSo bondsman hire bounty hunters who will track down, find, detain, and return to the court’s persons who skipped bail on their bonds. Bounty hunters can get a % of the recouped bond or may just work on a commission. But the job is the same. Find people who were charged with crimes, bailed out, and skipped their court dates. \n\nThey do this because while cops are always running the names of people they interact with for outstanding warrants, the cops are often to busy to hunt down all but the most dangerous fugitives. Plus, there’s a financial incentive for bondsman to get their clients to court. \n\nThe laws vary state to state but typically a bounty hunter has to be registered or licensed to do that work, under go background checks, can’t use lethal force (except in-self defense), maybe has restrictions on how they can detain fugitives, and if/when they can go on private property without permission of the owners. \n\nIt can be dangerous work but shows like Dog hype it up. It’s usually hunting down nonviolent property and drug criminals at their aunt’s apartment. Like I said, murder, repeat violent offenders, those who have run before don’t get bonds. Still their targets aren’t going to be happy about going to jail so bounty hunters keep their guard up. But it’s it someone they think will be violent, they don’t run in Dog style, you just call the sherif’s department after you found the fugitive."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[],
[],
[]
] |
||
bhxzcl
|
will someone please explain the origins of british tea culture and it modern significance ( if any).
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/bhxzcl/eli5_will_someone_please_explain_the_origins_of/
|
{
"a_id": [
"elwk7yv",
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],
"score": [
4,
2
],
"text": [
"The British creation story states that the seas were all once tea that turned to water when Gary Lineker dunked the first biscuit.",
"Actually, drinking tea socially was introduced to English society by Catherine of Braganza. The Portuguese queen of Charles ll. \n\nWhen Catherine arrived in England, tea was being consumed there only as a medicine, supposedly invigorating the body and keeping the spleen free of obstructions. But since the young queen was used to sipping the pick-me-up as part of her daily routine, she no doubt continued her habit, making it popular as a social beverage rather than as a health tonic."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[]
] |
||
dqgzu9
|
why do "light beams" appear from light sources when you squint, especially in a dark environment?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/dqgzu9/eli5_why_do_light_beams_appear_from_light_sources/
|
{
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"f63xuj8",
"f63y64u",
"f64w23s",
"f655j05",
"f65fpmb",
"f65zm63"
],
"score": [
246,
17,
2,
8,
59,
4
],
"text": [
"It causes your eye to be less spherical and creates an astigmatism (temporarily).\n\nI know this because the light beams were always there until I got glasses that correct my astigmatism.",
"When you squint, you're pushing the \"tears\" on your eyeball together between your eyelids. This makes the liquid bunch up enough that it creates a \"bump\" of water that acts as a kind of lens between your eyelids that changes how the light enters your eyes. Your eyelashes being in the way of that light also causes different optical effects which is why the \"beams\" usually point up and down and not side to side.",
"Could it be due to diffraction?",
"It is actually your eyelashes creating diffraction spikes. If you nudge your eyelashes while looking at a phone torch you can test it out (not too close or bright though. Also, I used to think it was astigmatism but that more causes angular slanted lines in one direction whereas diffraction spikes are from a range.",
"Optometrist here. Looks like the topic of astigmatism has been well addressed in terms of defining what causes the light beams. It’s true that the horizontal line isolated by your eyelids narrowing cause astigmatism by pushing your tears together to form a secondary “cylinder” lens, but the question then, is why? Astigmatism is induced several different ways naturally for humans, and that is one of them. Exerting focusing effort (known as accommodation) also induced some astigmatism, which, categorically is the same kind of astigmatism induced by squinting. This astigmatism type (oriented horizontally) actually creates an optical effect which helps us see certain objects more clearly by warping them, and thus marginally enlarging them. This is not to be confused with the “pinhole effect” also created by squinting which limits light rays to make things more clear by eliminating the peripheral rays (most blurry). \n\nSnakes and cats, alternatively have VERTICAL pupils which induce the opposite orientation of astigmatism, which help them focus on a horizontal line with objects slightly vertically warped/elongated to help them see their prey along a horizon better.",
"Hands up who else read this then squinted at their nearest light source?"
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[]
] |
||
3jyxz7
|
how there's more stars than sand on all the beaches on earth, but more atoms in one grain of sand than all the stars in the universe...
|
Aren't there atoms in various star formations as well? I just can't wrap my head around this 'fun fact'.
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3jyxz7/eli5_how_theres_more_stars_than_sand_on_all_the/
|
{
"a_id": [
"cutevja"
],
"score": [
3
],
"text": [
"The number of atoms in a grain of sand is greater than the number of stars. It's not greater than the number of atoms in the stars.\n\nStrictly speaking you should limit it to \"visible universe\" too, since the number of stars in the whole universe may actually be infinite."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[]
] |
|
3eun10
|
how do soft drink companies fit so much sugar into a bottle without increasing viscosity?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3eun10/eli5_how_do_soft_drink_companies_fit_so_much/
|
{
"a_id": [
"ctik2ky"
],
"score": [
3
],
"text": [
"You'd be surprised how soluble sugar is in water, simple syrup is equal volumes sugar/water for example."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[]
] |
||
ckflwv
|
we all know that visible light is only part of the electro-magnetic spectrum, and an object that we perceive is blue is reflecting blue light. are there objects that reflect infrared or ultraviolet light? if so, how do we perceive them as a visible color?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/ckflwv/eli5_we_all_know_that_visible_light_is_only_part/
|
{
"a_id": [
"evmtolu",
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],
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4,
2,
3
],
"text": [
"Yes of course. Most clear plastics, for example, do not allow most UV to pass. That's why you can get a UV screen on your car that protects you from UV light. Or your glasses. But it's invisible to you since you only see visible light. \n\nWe don't see infrared or ultraviolet, so whether something absorbs or reflects, or is opaque or translucent to UV, is not discernible to our eyes. \n\nAs another example, humans look very, very different under other wavelengths when we wear sunscreen.",
"Sunscreen blocks UV light but is invisible to us. If you watch someone put on sunscreen through a UV camera, they turn black, because to the camera the miscorscopic layer of cream on the skin blocks most of he UV, making it black on a uv camera.\n\nFlowers have many patterns on them we can't see, but are visible to insects that can see UV\n\nRed hot iron is so hot it emits visible light.. but a frying pan at 400 degrees is black. It would be glowing hot if you could see infrared light.",
"Yes there are. We don't perceive them as anything outside of visible light, however, since we lack the receptors to. Some flowers reflect uv light and look more inviting to insects that can see it."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[],
[]
] |
||
3be2ee
|
why can't we produce synthetic gasoline ?
|
We are able to make complex molecules in labs, so what's the reason for this ?
Edit : I know it wouldn't be a leap toward ecology, just wondering if it has been done and how. There is surely a powerful lobby which could benefit from such a technology.
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3be2ee/eli5_why_cant_we_produce_synthetic_gasoline/
|
{
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"cslazi5",
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"cslbb6k",
"cslbmta",
"cslfqp6"
],
"score": [
4,
71,
3,
7,
3
],
"text": [
"We have, it's called biofuels. There are also many other processes used for making all sorts of homogulus compounds. The problem is your standard \"gasoline\" is cheap and easy to make unlike other processes. The simplest way would be to make any form of alcohol however it isnt as combustable so you would take something like ethanol and dehydrate it to make ethane; one of the many hydrocarbons present in gasoline. \nI'm currently studying a2 level chemistry so my knowledge isn't huge and I may not be 100% right but that's basically it.\nTl:Dr you can but it is more expensive and people choose not to.",
"In addition to the cost involved, it's important to remember that gasoline is a molecule that can be burned to release energy. In order to create that molecule you have to put an equal amount of energy into it. That energy is stored in the form of chemical bonds. So burning the fuel breaks up the bonds and releases energy. But to create the fuel, you would have to put those bonds together, which means putting energy into it. If it's not biofuel then that energy would have to come from some other conventional source. Since our technology is not flawless, creating the conventional source of energy results in a net loss. Meaning that more energy is put into a power plant than comes out. \n \nSo to create gasoline with a conventional power plant we would have net energy loss. ",
"gasoline is just a convenient source of stored energy. the sun and earth spent however long dumping energy into it and turning it into what it is today. plastics aside, generating it would be fairly pointless because we would have to supply all that energy to make the gasoline to begin with. \n\nthe real trick to replacing gasoline is to either find a way to generate fuel by tapping into currently unused energy (bio-diesel is trying to do this with the sun), or finding the most efficient way to store energy we can already make ourselves (this is what hydrogen and electric cars are aiming for) ",
"Germany did it during WW2, and their [Fischer-Tropsch process] (_URL_0_) is still used in several countries, including South Africa's [SASOL] (_URL_1_) industry. ",
"We can, but it is more expensive and takes more energy than just separating the bits and pieces needed to make gasoline from the molecule-soup that is crude oil. Gasoline itself isn't one single molecule. It is a soup as well. Sure there are some bits that have to be synthesized, but mostly it is made of molecules that are separated from the more complex mix that is in crude oil. "
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[],
[],
[
"https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Fischer–Tropsch_process",
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sasol"
],
[]
] |
|
49kxpb
|
hand-rolled tobacco vs cigarettes
|
I would like to know how hand-rolled is different than pack of cigarettes? Explanations for both ingredients, chemicals and long/short-term harms to health will be appreciated :).
Thank You for your time.
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/49kxpb/eli5_handrolled_tobacco_vs_cigarettes/
|
{
"a_id": [
"d0sm68a"
],
"score": [
2
],
"text": [
"Rolling tobacco tends to be a little moister than premades, so it might have a little more humectant (water-retaining chemical) in it. Other than that, it's pretty much the same stuff. For example, you can get both rolly tobacco and premades with no added chemicals, just tobacco. Or you can get menthol tobacco in both forms.\n\nRolling your own isn't better for you, if that's what you're trying to get to. "
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[]
] |
|
c3eflj
|
how does cpu cache mapping works?
|
I know there are two types: direct and associative. While I got the point of associative I don't understand direct mapping on cache.
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/c3eflj/eli5_how_does_cpu_cache_mapping_works/
|
{
"a_id": [
"erqova9"
],
"score": [
2
],
"text": [
"There are varying different levels of associativity, but on the extremes are direct and fully associated. Direct cache requires the address space of the cache directly map the address of the real device. This is faster and less complex, but the cache is fixed to that direct address space. \n\nFully associated on the other hand, allows you to map each word of memory to a space in the cache. This is slower and more unwieldy, but allows you (or a cache controller) to cache exactly the memory you need."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[]
] |
|
n1nry
|
how is the usps funded?
|
I always thought it was a strictly publicly funded operation, but recently heard it's public-private. So reddit, what's up with the post office?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/n1nry/eli5_how_is_the_usps_funded/
|
{
"a_id": [
"c35kgxh",
"c35kibc",
"c35kgxh",
"c35kibc"
],
"score": [
5,
17,
5,
17
],
"text": [
"It's actually neither. The USPS is an independent agency with no direct funding; it gets some subsidies to deal with overseas voters, but other than that the only federal funds it recieves are what it charges for sending mail.",
"The USPS is entirely self funded. If not for a Congressional mandate that it prepay it's benefits for the next 75 years it would turn a profit.",
"It's actually neither. The USPS is an independent agency with no direct funding; it gets some subsidies to deal with overseas voters, but other than that the only federal funds it recieves are what it charges for sending mail.",
"The USPS is entirely self funded. If not for a Congressional mandate that it prepay it's benefits for the next 75 years it would turn a profit."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[],
[],
[]
] |
|
28640e
|
google has "no search results"
|
Is it really finding NOTHING? There must be some article with my search. Does it filter?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/28640e/eli5_google_has_no_search_results/
|
{
"a_id": [
"ci7rnnd",
"ci7wl2h"
],
"score": [
3,
2
],
"text": [
"Depends on what your search is and how you're filtering it. If you're being hyper specific and are searching for exact matches, then it's completely reasonable to not have any results. ",
"Google uses something called a crawler that goes through sites and takes note of the words on it. If you make a site, you could tell Google to ignore it or Google might just ignore your site altogether (there are tons of new sites and pages every day and I don't think Google can even track all of them). So if you're searching for something specific, it's likely those reasons or it just hasn't found it yet. "
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[]
] |
|
d52u2c
|
why do our teeth feel super cold when we bite into cold things? why does it sometimes only affect bottom teeth/top teeth?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/d52u2c/eli5_why_do_our_teeth_feel_super_cold_when_we/
|
{
"a_id": [
"f0j6kt9"
],
"score": [
3
],
"text": [
"Inside each of our teeth is a little jelly filling called the pulp. The pulp has blood vessels and nerves in it. The nerves allow you to feel temperature as well as being able to tell where your teeth are. How thick your tooth is can make your teeth more or less sensitive to cold and also cracks and cavities can make them more sensitive too even if they’re too tiny to see.\n\nBased on the shape of your top or bottom teeth, they might be thinner or thicker so that might affect it. Or it could be that some people don’t brush top or bottom as well as the other."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[]
] |
||
4nya2g
|
how do corporations in the us (mostly food service) get away with not giving employees a lunch break on an 8 hour shift?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4nya2g/eli5_how_do_corporations_in_the_us_mostly_food/
|
{
"a_id": [
"d47yqak",
"d47yvpf",
"d47yxhn",
"d489mlu",
"d48d0xv"
],
"score": [
2,
4,
5,
2,
2
],
"text": [
"A lot of people working for fast food companies might not have the resources to fight back, especially if they don't know the law or they fear reprisal. As well, some jurisdictions can have loopholes the company will take advantage of, or violations may result in fines that are easily paid off. Basically, employees aren't in a position to report, and companies may not have the incentive to change.",
"Not every State has a law requiring a break. Some States do, but only if you shift is longer than 10 or 12 hours. \n\nYou also have the fact that many who are in States that do require break do not know they have the right to report their company, do not know who to report to, or fear being fired or maltreatment to try and get them to quit. ",
"Anywhere that's big and corporate is pretty hardcore about making sure you take your breaks because they know they'll get sued for violating labor law. When I worked at McDonald's, skipping a required break was cause for disciplinary action.\n\nIt's small, understaffed, independent restaurants where the staff seldom get proper breaks.",
"In California a company can do it by paying for the time worked. You get paid for the actual time and over time as well.",
"I work for a nation wide pool supply chain, up until a month ago it was just me and another guy at the store, even though we went to 8+ hour days in March, we routinely still work 10+ hour shifts alone without lunch break or even bathroom breaks covered, I've talked to my manager, and my district manager, everyone just acts like this is normal but I hate it, I don't enjoy working more than 8 hours a day regardless of money, and I hate not even being able to shit in peace while on the job"
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[],
[],
[],
[]
] |
||
z5uky
|
the pros and cons of fiat currency, and representative currency
|
I'm aware of what they are, but I don't know their economic significance.
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/z5uky/eli5the_pros_and_cons_of_fiat_currency_and/
|
{
"a_id": [
"c61pi54",
"c61pio3"
],
"score": [
2,
2
],
"text": [
"A fiat currency is a currency declared to be one by the government and for which the government accepts as payment of taxes, as well as decrees as being legally usable to settle debts.\n\nNow the advantage of this is that the money supply can be managed elastically, but the disadvantage is that if a government cannot otherwise borrow money to pay ongoing expenses, it can print the money instead (think Zimbabwe).",
"Fiat currency gives the government much more control over the money supply. So if you think the government is at least mildly competent, you want fiat currency; it will allow them to make the economy much more stable, avoiding the kind of hard cyclic recessions we saw in the last periods of commodity-backed currency.\n\nOf course, if you think the government can't be trusted at all, you'll want commodity-backed currency for precisely the same reason."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[]
] |
|
3tok37
|
i have noticed people who have nothing in common, even different nationalities, are look alikes. is there a pattern in nature?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3tok37/eli5i_have_noticed_people_who_have_nothing_in/
|
{
"a_id": [
"cx7wdqc"
],
"score": [
2
],
"text": [
"I remember reading in a Psychology textbook that face types are generic, so assuming that was correct, there are shared face types and shapes across the world."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[]
] |
||
11my7z
|
can someone please explain feminism without going on a guilt tripping feminist rant
|
as a dude, im all about equality.. but whenever i ask a feminist anything about feminism.. they start ranting like im a bad guy and their the victim.. trying to make me feel bad and throwing all sorts of accusations and shit that really makes me not like the movement... help me understand
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/11my7z/eli5_can_someone_please_explain_feminism_without/
|
{
"a_id": [
"c6nw18i",
"c6nw85l"
],
"score": [
5,
4
],
"text": [
"Feminists generally want 'equality' - i.e. for men and women to be treated identically and to have the same opportunities (some groups add on that they also want women to be treated equally whilst 'keeping their femininity' i.e. not having to act like men to be treated as equal to men)\n\nThere is a long history of women being viewed as different or 'lesser' than men. This ranges from roles at home (housewife, cook, child-carer), roles at work (secretary, nurse, teacher), roles in society (not so into sports, more into fashion) and so on. A lot of this has been ironed out in the last few decades so that now it's not unusual to meet a house-husband, or a female doctor or whatever, but what remains is a lot of the traces of the previous mindset.\n\nFor example, I work in a hospital, and it's very rare for anyone to refer to an unknown doctor as 'she', pretty much everyone will use 'he' if they don't know the doc is a woman. Similarly, pretty much everyone will assume that an unnamed nurse will be a woman, even though there are loads of male nurses in my hospital. Now, personally, I don't take offence at this, and I see it as often just down to speed of communication. it's faster to say \"which doctor is he?\" than \"which doctor is he or she?\" The choice of pronoun doesn't bother me much, but some feminists get irate about it because they see people making these choices as evidence that society is not 'equal'. \n\nAnother example would be words such as 'love' or 'dear'. I often get called these things by the patients I treat, whilst my male colleague doesn't get the diminutives. Again, personally I'm not fussed, but some people might believe that they're given a pet name because they're being patronised or belittled. This belief makes them angry and frustrated that they're not treated exactly equally as their male counterparts.\n\nOne of the huge big problems is that people usually only 'see' inequality (as they perceive it) if it affects them. So women complain about being patronised and made fun of, while men complain about...well.. being patronised and made fun of (for example the old \"silly man can't do the cleaning! good thing he has [Cleaning Product] to make it easy for him!\" adverts can be seen as sexist against men). Both sides are correct and both sides often find it difficult to believe that the other side has it as hard as they claim. \n\nFinally, there are a subset of 'feminists', who think that because women have been treated badly in the past, it excuses treating men badly in the present, or even 'feminists' who go way beyond wanting equality and believe that women are superior to men and that women should have the powerful position in society. These people give feminism a bad reputation for irrationality and 'wanting it all'",
"From [wikipedia](_URL_0_): \"Feminism is a collection of movements and ideologies aimed at defining, establishing, and defending equal political, economic, and social rights for women.\"\n\nIt is really that simple. If you support equal political, economic, and social rights for women, you are a feminist.\n\nNow, as the definition above alludes, there are a wide variety of movements and ideologies that all have their own definition of what feminism means to them, and that is where things get complicated.\n\nIf you click through the to wikipedia and read the full article you will see that it contains a massive body of thought on the movement.\n\nUnfortunately, things are also complicated by the fact that as a male, you benefit in many ways from the status quo of inequality. You will have an easier time rising to higher positions in your career, as many companies fear having someone who might become pregnant in upper management. You might get paid more for doing the same job as a woman of equal ability. Male characters have more active roles in movies, your teachers will expect you to be better at math than your female classmates, etc.\n\nThe list goes on and on, and in many cases the inequality will not be obvious to you, because that is the culturally accepted norm. Whether you realize it or not, you likely take advantage of this inequality from time to time.\n\nThat is not your fault, and no one should try and make you feel guilty for something you have not done on purpose; but, if you do believe in women's rights and equality, you should try and make an effort to be more aware of areas where women are not treated equally in your life.\n\nA good exercise is to simply reverse the genders in a given scenario and think about whether anything changes about your perception. If gender makes a difference, then something is possibly wrong about the situation."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[
"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feminism"
]
] |
|
3baikb
|
what happens to my body when i eat a whole bag of gummibears?
|
safety first
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3baikb/eli5_what_happens_to_my_body_when_i_eat_a_whole/
|
{
"a_id": [
"cskdmdf"
],
"score": [
4
],
"text": [
"Your pancreas notices the big amount of sugar and tells itself that it needs the help of his buddy insulin to work that off, quickly. Insulin rushes to help your pancreas and gets all the sugar in your stomach worked out, but we have the evil villain Liverus snape that says \"WOW with all this insulin I can store all the food you just ate as fat > :] \" \n\nTL'DR - Large amounts of sugar lead to increased insulin which the again leads to your liver being able to store all the energy as fat very quickly. "
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[]
] |
|
1p16x4
|
why do lengthy terms of service (tos) for websites like facebook or twitter stand up in court despite 90% of users not reading or understanding the document?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1p16x4/eli5_why_do_lengthy_terms_of_service_tos_for/
|
{
"a_id": [
"ccxosvz"
],
"score": [
9
],
"text": [
"They actually often don't stand up in court, at least not when the case is Big Giant Corp. v. Small Individual. There are special rules for \"boilerplate\" in contract law, and one of the most active areas of legal scholarship today is how to deal with the proliferation of lengthy terms of service. \n\nOne theory, for instance, basically invalidates anything hidden in this kind of boilerplate that the party signing would not expect to be in the contract. So, since you'd expect there to be something that prevents you from, say, stealing their data, you're bound by the language they put in there. But if they tried to put in a paragraph that transferred ownership of your car to them if you log in on a Tuesday, that would likely be seen as invalid. \n\nThe general rule that you are bound by what you sign, as though you had read it, isn't dead, but there are exceptions for things like this when one party isn't as \"sophisticated\". Contract law isn't as unforgiving and legalistic as its reputation would suggest. "
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[]
] |
||
ekypj9
|
why can't we make cigarette filters out of cotton?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/ekypj9/eli5_why_cant_we_make_cigarette_filters_out_of/
|
{
"a_id": [
"fdeg2s6",
"fdeg423",
"fder75s"
],
"score": [
6,
2,
2
],
"text": [
"Safety. Cotton is flammable, and it could ignite and burn the smoker. The filter material they use now is also flammable, but only to open flames, whereas cotton would catch fire off of the embers.",
"They do. RAW makes cotton filters for those who roll their own. RJ Reynolds and Phillip-Morris only give a fuck about one thing: Money. It costs much more to make billions of cigarettes a year with cotton instead of cheap synthetic material.",
"Roll your own - cotton filters are available. The ONLY way to get cigarette companies to stop using the cheap (but effective) filters they use is to stop buying cigarettes made with them. There is no other option."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[],
[]
] |
||
3360t3
|
how did navy ships aim, and hit their targets during ww2?
|
Some of the battles took place up to 10 miles.
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3360t3/eli5_how_did_navy_ships_aim_and_hit_their_targets/
|
{
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"cqhuoqa",
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"cqhuzsm",
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"score": [
23,
8,
8,
2,
2,
4
],
"text": [
"They used mechanical computers. These were clockwork devices that computed the proper angle for the guns based on range estimates provided to fire control, and used inputs from sensors that determined the speed of the target and the firing ship, air pressure, etc.\n\n_URL_0_",
"Huge amounts of testing, practice and calculations prior to that time. \n\nX Weight of projectile with Y amount of explosive with AA gun aimed at NN degrees elevation means projectile lands in Z location. factoring in wind, roll of ship and other factors. Spotters (if available) then radio/signal back how a round missed if it did. Of course in the case of trying to hit other ships (moving targets) the ships are also moving relative to each other so that is also factored in.\n\nAs is often the case the military had for decades prior to WW II led civilian use of calculating machines. Much of the early use of computers was calculating ballistics. ",
"Targeting for ships in WWII varied based on the class and gun used. At the low end traditional iron sights are used for the smaller machine guns and other AA guns. Larger guns like the main guns on a battleship have two [range finders](_URL_0_) on either side. The ship would also have its own [range finder](_URL_1_) not tied directly to a single gun. More modern or modernized older ships had radar that worked in conjunction or in place of visual range finding. This was actually an advantage U.S. ships had in some battle against the Japanese. Japanese destroyers didn't have radar until 1943. We also saw this when the USS Washington wrecked the Kirishima at a range of 18,500 yards (10.5 mi) at night.\n\nAs far as 10 miles the distance to the horizon is determined by the [lighthouse formula](_URL_2_). Ships, even after the end of the days of sail have tall masts so they can spot things further away. An Iowa class battle ship is listed at 209' from keel to mast top, about 28 feet of that is under water. Thats 181' off the water at the top. For an observer there the horizon would be more than 15 miles away. The ranger finders are a little lower than that but at 73 ft off the water they would see 10 miles out.\n\nMost large ships also came equipped with spotter planes that could be used to determine rough distance or spot ships further out for later attack.\n\nDeep in the ship would be the plot room that would take data from the range finders and calculate the range. Some of the first computers were developed for this purpose.",
"a projectile's motion is pretty well known. it follows physics. you know the mass of the projectile. you know how much powder you're going to put behind it. you know approximately how fast it's going to leave the muzzle of the gun. after that, a high school physics student would be able to tell you at what angle you have to shoot to hit a target X distance away.\n\nbut with windage, it's just a matter of test fire, document, repeat test fire document. until you have a big table of measurements. then when the sailors know the range and windage, they just lookup from the documented table so they don't have to do the math.",
"What everyone else said, plus an old fire control chief told me that the origin of the phrase \"shoot the moon\" came from sighting in the guns. In order for the guns to be calibrated parallel together they needed a target with infinite range. The moon isn't really infinite, but it is close enough so they'd sight on the moon.",
"[Here](_URL_0_) is a pretty detailed video that explains the mechanical fire control computers used in the WWII era. They were actually extremely complex and accurate. They were also designed to be very quick. Really pretty impressive considering what they had to work with. We would take it for granted that electronic computers / sensors / controls are available that make these kinds of systems pretty straightforward now days. A lot of thought went into figuring this sort of thing out without that kind of electronic technology."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[
"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_I_Fire_Control_Computer"
],
[],
[
"http://mathscinotes.com/2013/08/battleship-rangefinders-and-geometry/",
"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Armament_of_the_Iowa-class_battleship#/media/File:Mk38_Director.jpg",
"http://www.boatsafe.com/nauticalknowhow/distance.htm"
],
[],
[],
[
"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bOwKh9XLO1c"
]
] |
|
31l3u3
|
why can they make vitamin c tablets taste like orange candy, but every other medication i know ranges from tasteless to disgusting?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/31l3u3/eli5_why_can_they_make_vitamin_c_tablets_taste/
|
{
"a_id": [
"cq2oyn0"
],
"score": [
2
],
"text": [
"One reason that I've seen suggested (no source off the top of my head, sorry) is that making medicine taste bad makes it more difficult to abuse. Children in particular would be less likely to injure themselves by consuming too much of something that tasted terrible. It would also dissuade people from trying to get high off of medicines, like how they add bitter taste to compressed air."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[]
] |
||
69tmv3
|
how the french government will work/function considering macron's en marche is in power with no seats
|
So they've voted for a person, not a party - how does he push things through? Is his power limited because of this?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/69tmv3/eli5_how_the_french_government_will_workfunction/
|
{
"a_id": [
"dh9bhe0",
"dha0x6f"
],
"score": [
3,
2
],
"text": [
"There will be legislative elections a few weeks after Macron takes power, with En Marche! running lots of candidates. Coalition government is the rule in the French legislature, with a group of either leftist or rightist parties forming a majority. Macron has said he will not form a coalition with either the Socialist Party or the Republicans (the largest left and right parties) in favor of a new start to French politics, so this may get interesting.\n\n_URL_0_",
"He won't be able to. It will be very much like the situation in the US if the President was an Independent.\n\n*Personally* I think En Marche! will get hammered in the legislative elections as voters return to their usual parties: the vote for Macron was more against the main stream candidates than against the mainstream Socialist and Republican parties."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[
"http://www.huffingtonpost.fr/2017/04/29/emmanuel-macron-refusera-toute-coalition-avec-le-parti-socialiste-et-lr_a_22060970/"
],
[]
] |
|
32mhp0
|
whats the catch in buying these homes that apparently costs "less than $100" in detroit?
|
Surely there must be something I'm missing.
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/32mhp0/eli5_whats_the_catch_in_buying_these_homes_that/
|
{
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"cqcklgb",
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"cqckua9",
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34,
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9,
4,
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2,
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"text": [
"That they are in Detroit?\n\nActually, I'd like to know, too. Could you post a link?",
"They're in Detroit. Enjoy paying thousands in taxes every year for a condemned home in a ghost town",
"Basically, they are in a place that's so unpopular that houses sell for 100 dollars. ",
"So my question is ...is the whole city of Detroit fucked up? Like I've seen very cheap prices for years now but never been to Michigan. ...surely all Detroit can't be crime...can it?",
"These houses are in poor conditions in area of the city where nobody lives. Most people think \"poor condition\" and think how bad could they be?\n\nThese houses are the types that require $10,000 in plumbing wok just to have running water in the house. another $8,000 to have electric. $15,000 to replace the roof. Every window in the house needs to be replaced because they are broken or missing. No working HVAC system. Most have water and/or mold damage issues.\n\nYou have to fix all of these problems before you start to even think about carpeting or repainting or anything cosmetic. ",
"The catch, usually, is that you don't get to keep the house unless you bring it into compliance with modern building codes. They want you to *repair* the house (and live in it), not just snap up cut-rate land parcels.\n\nThat sounds reasonable enough, but when you look at the details, there's a problem. Even when they were new, these houses wouldn't have met modern code. The electric is all two-wire, the plumbing is ancient (even if the copper pipes haven't been ripped out of the walls and sold for scrap), and the roofs need huge repairs. To meet the criteria to keep the house, you're looking at at least $20,000 in repairs and improvements, if not more. And there are livable houses in Detroit for $20,000 or so, if you want to buy a normal house, instead.",
"The 'catch' is you have to pay all the back taxes to the city. Sure the homes are in disrepair and/or being squatted in, and it would, 9 out of 10 times, be easier and cheaper to knock down and rebuild from scratch. But good luck doing that in an area where your 'investment' is guaranteed to be broken into and looted if you're not present and living there.",
"1) The house isnt worth $100 (needs to be torn down)\n\n2) You will owe back taxes typically (although there are exceptions)\n\n3) The neighborhood may not be one you want to live in.",
"So there's 3 processes here that are different.\n\n1. There are lots of regular market uber cheap properties. Mainly because they are in either unsafe locations or in trash condition. Buy just like any other place in the country but it's cheap. \n\n2. The mayor created an auction process to auction off houses starting at $100. It's absolutely possible to buy them at $100. HOWEVER you take on the legal requirement to bring the house up to code. Which regulations are absolutely insane. You are guaranteed to be getting forced to dropping $50,000 in less than 1 year. If you dont meet code they take complete ownership of the house out from under you. If you got 8/10ths complete and dropped $40,000. Detroit is taking the home back and you're fucked. This is most likely the $100 houses you heard about.\n\n3. Adverse possession. You can file paperwork at city hall for around $15 and take possession of basically any house which has been abandoned. In 10+ years you can request from the city that you are the rightful owner of the house. ",
"I've wondered about this too, but in a slightly different context: Why not buy up a bunch of contiguous houses, and just level them and sit on the real estate waiting for the area to recover.\n\nIs this a thing? Are investors already doing this?",
"The only catch is you have to live in Detroit."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[]
] |
|
34qkgl
|
how can a laser turntable be analog?
|
_URL_0_
"This virgin audio information is then reproduced without digitization maintaining true analog sound as close as possible to when the master tape was recorded."
Doesn't the wavelength of the laser need to be read by a program which interprets the results and then turns them into speaker sounds?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/34qkgl/eli5how_can_a_laser_turntable_be_analog/
|
{
"a_id": [
"cqx43qo"
],
"score": [
2
],
"text": [
"For some reason you assume that a program is needed to interpret the data collected by the laser, but a vinyl record always contains the end result, so there is no work for a computer program to do. Having a laser in the system doesn’t change how a vinyl record works."
]
}
|
[] |
[
"http://www.decodedmagazine.com/the-eip-laser-turntable-plays-records-without-touching-them/"
] |
[
[]
] |
|
74fhhi
|
why do certain species of animals go extinct while others live for a long time?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/74fhhi/eli5_why_do_certain_species_of_animals_go_extinct/
|
{
"a_id": [
"dnxu0zn",
"dnxu714"
],
"score": [
2,
3
],
"text": [
"Some species of animal are better able to adapt to their environment and adapt to changes within that environment. it often depends exactly on what is changing to determine what species will be more affected than others. \n\nAs a general rule, for example, huge animals require areas to roam in to eat all the food they need. Anything that happens that affects that (whether it is something like weather which changes the amount of food that is grown, or a change in the environment that cuts them off from where they would used to get food) can have pretty dire consequences for them that many smaller animals in that same environment won't feel.\n\nBut on the flip side, being small of size can be disastrous if a new predator enters a certain areas because you are more likely to fall within that predator's food chain and as a species you might not necessarily have what it takes to deal with that predator.",
"This is vague question. So far \"scientifically\" no species has shown that it will not go extinct, whilst millions have. Therefore we can assume with a great degree of confidence that ALL SPECIES WILL GO EXTINCT. (Sorry, but that includes us!) The only real question is about how long - which is implied in your wording.\n\nSometimes environments change, and this change can be rapid on a geological scale. Some organisms are better suited to this change and so survive. Some are hardy and so feel the change less. Some mutate more and so can be more quickly evolved to better suit the new environment. \n\nSome changes better suit a small number of organisms whilst killing the rest - for example free atmospheric oxygen given off by algae was a poison to virtually all life, yet this enabled complex life to form. \n\nMost large animals became extinct after man got to that area. Don't believe the \"ancient man living with one with nature\" BS that is so popular. Man came to Australia - dozens of large, tasty animals became extinct at that time. Man came to America and strangely coincidently large tasty animal became extinct... This is shown all over the world!\n\nSo to live for a long period I would suggest have a robust and wide gene pool to allow adaptations that have already happened to take hold, to have a reproduction method that allows for a small level of change with each generation (too much though and your offspring die before reproducing themselves) **and most impotantly** try not be tasty or palatable...\n "
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[]
] |
||
1mddt2
|
why american companies are involved in their employees' healthcare
|
I'm British and have an American coming to stay, he was complaining about religious companies having to provide controversial birth control to their employees, and I don't understand why American healthcare acts through companies.
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1mddt2/eli5_why_american_companies_are_involved_in_their/
|
{
"a_id": [
"cc84mnh",
"cc84mop"
],
"score": [
2,
2
],
"text": [
"Basically it's making life a little easier for us. Instead of an individual paying a massive amount of health care (my company pais $8,000 a year per person) the companies we work for offer to pay a percentage. Without these companies helping us out, we would not be able to afford health insurance.",
"Because unlike most if europe, they dont have universal healthcare so they have to have to go and get private insurance and while most give health insurance with the job, some jobs adds some limitations on your insurance or else you lose it"
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[]
] |
|
8s56b7
|
what’s the difference between assisted suicide and euthanasia?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/8s56b7/eli5_whats_the_difference_between_assisted/
|
{
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"e0wn7n1",
"e0wncin",
"e0wo494",
"e0x86lh"
],
"score": [
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3,
14,
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],
"text": [
"Assisted suicide sets you up with a device/drugs to end your life, but leaves it up to you to \"pull the trigger\" so to speak. Euthanasia would be a scenario where the doctor/someone else actually carries out the deed for you. ",
"I want say that assisted is just that, you get everything ready for them and they push the button or whatever. While euthanasia would be more like doing it for them. ",
"Assisted suicide is either in hospital or at home situation where a Dr will give the patient the ability to overdose on a prescribed medication. Usually morphine or another pain medication. The Dr won't advise them to do this, but will simply explain what can happen with an overdose and leave the medication in their power to use as they see fit. This way they're not legally held responsible for the outcome. This is often used in terminally ill patients who have expressed to the Dr how they wish they could stop the pain and just die. Not all doctors will do this since it's a morally grey area and some argue that it goes against the vow to 'do no harm'. But it is common enough for the general public to know it exists, even if that's not what it entails.\n\nEuthanasia is not common and is illegal in most places where humans are concerned. I don't know the legal stuff behind it in places that do allow it, but I'm sure it requires signing concent forms and perhaps a psych evaluation/therapy to make sure the decision is what the patient wants. In animals, there is a medication called euthasol that they give (sometimes after an induction/sedative injectable) that is an overdose of a mixture that includes barbiturates. This stops the heart within a minute after the injection into the vein. This is also similar to the lethal injection inmates get from what I gather.\n\nBecause of the ethics behind doing no harm, euthanasia is a very controversial subject and from what I gather, very difficult to have done. It is really only considered for terminally ill patients. \n\nHoped this helped!",
"Belgian doctor here, pitching in.\n\nAssisted suicide has been correctly explained here: the doctor gives the patiënt a prescription for a medication which, when taken, will lead to death. These medications come in a government decided standard. This does not exist in Belgium so I can't give any information about correct procedures that need to be followed beforehand.\n\nI do want to clear up some confusion about euthanasia, though. This is a subject which is legally decently well regulated in Belgium and has to go through some strickt procedure. The main thing to know however is that the patients choice always comes first. So it's not the doctor, not the family, not the medical presentative who can make this choice, this is not legally possible. Only an awake patient, who is clear of mind, can decide to ask for euthanasia. Patients in a coma, who do not have a recent written and documented euthanasia request can not be euthanised. As an aside, by this definition, animals can't be euthanised either because animals can't chose to have their suffering ended.Other conditions have to be met before people get to be cleared for euthanasia though:\n\n\\- The suffering has to be unbearable > This is mostly decided by the patient, though a psychiatric evaluation is usually performed too.\n\n\\- The suffering has to be untreatable > So long as the patient has a chance of recovering from the underlying condition,the request for euthanasia can't be accepted.\n\n\\- 3 doctors, including 1 specialist in the area of the underlying cause need to agree that all conditions have been met. None of these doctors may stand to gain something from the euthanasia.\n\nIf the request for euthanasia has been accepted, a doctor will administer a medication which will lead to a quick painless death for the patient. The patient of course has a right to delay this for as long as he/she wants. The no take-backs approach doesn't apply here.\n\nThere are other modalities to approach a patiënt who doesn't meet all conditions, but that is beyond the scope of this question."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[],
[],
[]
] |
||
1tcckx
|
what is the correct interpretation of the 1st amendment? (specifically the freedom of speech part)
|
In light of the whole Phil Robertson ordeal, I am confused. A lot of people are claiming that A & E violated Phil's first amendment right to freedom of speech when they fired him for his remarks in GQ. I *think* that Phil is not protected under the first amendment with his ties to A & E. Therefore, I *think* that Phil's first amendment right to freedom of speech protects him from the government, and this whole ordeal has nothing to do with the first amendment. Are my thoughts correct? Does the 1st Amendment only protect citizens from the government?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1tcckx/eli5_what_is_the_correct_interpretation_of_the/
|
{
"a_id": [
"ce6ipre",
"ce6is59",
"ce6k6n6"
],
"score": [
8,
13,
2
],
"text": [
" > Does the 1st Amendment only protect citizens from the government?\n\nYou are correct.",
"You're correct. Anyone who says A & E violated his First Amendment Right is completely and utterly incorrect. \n\nFor there to be a First Amendment violation, there must be some kind of government action. This is obvious from a plain reading of the First Amendment, \"Congress shall make no law . . . .\" It says nothing about the actions of private individuals.\n\n_URL_0_",
"You have the right to say anything you damn well please and the government can't stop you. \n\nEveryone else (minus the government) still has the right to hold you accountable for what you've said. "
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[
"http://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/state_action_requirement"
],
[]
] |
|
95fzzk
|
what are officers really doing during a traffic stop, while they sit in their car?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/95fzzk/eli5_what_are_officers_really_doing_during_a/
|
{
"a_id": [
"e3sev04",
"e3sezbl",
"e3sfds2"
],
"score": [
15,
3,
3
],
"text": [
"Not a cop, but a cop friend told me that it's a combination of running your license and registration through their system to make sure you don't have any outstanding warrants, the car isn't reported as stolen or any other problem that would make it illegal to drive (ie: salvage title), as well as writing out the ticket and potentially writing down everything you've said thus far in case you show up to contest the ticket in court.",
"They're usually calling back to dispatch headquarters and running your license, plates, and registration to make sure they're not stolen/forged and to check to see if you have any wants/warrants.\n\nIn some places the officer has direct access to that via his in-car data terminal, but most of the time they have to contact dispatch who has to run the search and report their findings to the officer.",
"It's been a while since I was a cop, but once we have your license and registration we run your name, license number, and DOB for a \"wants and warrants\" check, as well as to see if your license is suspended. We run the vehicle registration for stolen vehicle checks, to see who's registered as the owner, and to see if the registration slip you gave us has the correct information. (Back in the day, we had to radio that into the dispatcher, who would look that up for us. Today, we can enter the data into the MDT in the car, and get it back faster.)\n\nIf you come back with outstanding warrants, we make the arrest on the warrant. If your license is suspended, depending on the state, we'll probably arrest you, too. If the registration info differs from the registration slip you gave us, we now have probable cause for more investigation--and you're probably getting arrested. If the vehicle comes back as stolen, we get to investigate more--and you're probably getting arrested.\n\nBasically, we're checking all of the information we gathered from you to see if there's probable cause to arrest you for something. If there isn't, then we just write the ticket, and send you on your way.\n\nYou'd be surprised how many dirtbags go back to jail for failing to signal a turn or having expired tags."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[],
[]
] |
||
72dv4f
|
what are the controls on the earth's crust floating?
|
On the one hand I know that Earth becomes denser as we go further down, i.e. the cores consist of nickel/iron/heavy elements. As a result, the outermost layer would be the lightest. But the crust is surely very similar in composition to the upper mantle, so the difference in density due to composition shouldn't be much?
So, with the crust being cooler and therefore denser than the underlying material, I'm not entirely clear on why it "floats".
I was wondering if someone could clarify for me the relative importance of the following in "keeping" the Earth's crust on top:
1. The upper mantle/asthenosphere is so viscuous that "sinking", in the way we're familiar with the concept from water, doesn't work
2. The density difference between crust and mantle is big enough (but if so, then where and why does the differentiation occur?)
3. The many things I've surely missed :)
Thanks in advance!
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/72dv4f/eli5_what_are_the_controls_on_the_earths_crust/
|
{
"a_id": [
"dnhr4kq",
"dnhrku3"
],
"score": [
2,
7
],
"text": [
"Tectonic plates are able to move because the Earth's lithosphere has greater mechanical strength than the underlying asthenosphere. Lateral density variations in the mantle result in convection; that is, the slow creeping motion of Earth's solid mantle.\n\nYouve made a fairly common (and understandable) mistake: The asthenosphere is not part of the upper, solid mantle. It makes up the space between the upper and lower mantles. ",
"It's mainly (2). \n\nViscosity certainly isn't the preventative factor, because that's essentially how plate tectonics works (where cool, dense oceanic crust is subducted beneath lighter continental or oceanic crust). The entire earth, apart from the outer core, is solid, but the outer mantle has a low enough viscosity to allow flow to occur over geological timespans. \n\nThere is a compositional difference between the upper mantle and crust. It's not *huge* and there is debate as to where this boundary actually is depending on whether you're a seismologist, geologist, geochemist or physicist, but the density without a doubt increases as you get deeper so apart from at plate boundaries, the [density structure is stable](_URL_0_).\n\nAs for why, it's because of the chemical differentiation that occurs when you melt the mantle. As you may be aware, the melting behaviour of systems with more than one component (e.g. mantle) is complex. The solid does not all melt at once. Instead, you form a liquid which often has a different composition from the melting stock. \n\nIn the case of the mantle, this liquid is more silica-rich than bulk mantle so as long as you only melt small fractions of the upper mantle ( > 30% melt only occurs very rarely), when that liquid crystalises, you form a rock with more silica-rich phases (e.g. more plagioclase, less olivine), which also happen to be less dense. This is the reason why oceanic crust, the densest part of the crust, is less dense than the upper mantle. "
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Structure_of_the_Earth#/media/File:RadialDensityPREM.jpg"
]
] |
|
1r6uu5
|
why can't i put a playstation 4 disc into a playstation 3 if they are both blu-rays?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1r6uu5/eli5_why_cant_i_put_a_playstation_4_disc_into_a/
|
{
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"cdk6gln",
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"cdk6ybr"
],
"score": [
3,
3,
7,
2
],
"text": [
"you can, it just wont play",
"You can, technically. ",
"It will be able to read the disk, but it won't understand the language of the data on it. \n\nI can give a Chinese man a letter I wrote on paper, but he won't be able to read it. ",
"Why can't an boy read a German book if he can read an English book? Just because he can read the words doesn't mean he understands words written in a different language."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[],
[],
[]
] |
||
b44evh
|
why do people say if aliens looked at earth with a telescope, they would see dinosaurs?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/b44evh/eli5_why_do_people_say_if_aliens_looked_at_earth/
|
{
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"ej41clh",
"ej41iei",
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"ej4570r",
"ej498g7"
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3,
4,
17,
4,
2
],
"text": [
"Because the distance from Earth to other planets is immense. It takes so long for light to travel there, only the light from our distant past has had the time to make it there.",
"Because of the speed light travels in relation to distance. Every star we see in the night sky is from so far that we’re seeing the light from many thousands of years ago. Were there a civilization with a powerful enough telescope to see the Earth in detail, the light and therefore images seen by them would be from far back in our history. ",
"If the aliens lived 100 million light years from Earth, when they looked at Earth they would be seeing 100 million year old light i.e. the photons hitting their eyeballs allowing them to see Earth, took 100 million years to get to those eyeballs. ",
"Let's talk about light for a second, and in talking about it, we'll answer your question.\n\nLight, like all things that move, has a speed. It's roughly 300,000 km/s. That means, even though light is unimaginably quick, it does take time to get from point A to point B.\n\nYou might be familiar with terms like light-minutes and light-years to describe vast distances. The Sun, for example, is eight and a half light-minutes from Earth; this means that even moving at the speed of light, it takes eight and a half minutes for a photon to get from the Sun to your eye.\n\nCrucially, this means that the photons you're seeing that make up the sun were released eight and a half minutes ago, meaning *you're seeing the Sun not as it is, but as it* ***was*** *eight and half minutes ago.*\n\nYou can extend this as far as you'd like. Alpha Centauri, the closest star system to Earth, is about 4.3 light-years away. The light that we're seeing *right now* was released from Alpha Centauri 4.3 years ago.\n\nSo, if an alien seventy million light-years away pointed his telescope at Earth, they'd be seeing *right now* the light that was released from Earth seventy million years ago; they'd see our planet as it was back then.\n\n(Coda: Yes, this does mean that things we see in the night sky \"right now\" may not actually be there anymore.)",
"Because people misunderstand physics all the time. \n\nIts very nearly impossible to make a telescope large enough to see a planet as more than a single dot from even a few light years away, never mind surface features of that planet. \n\nAt over 65 million light years, the distance necessary to see dinosaurs, there are *no* materials - even diamond - that would allow you to build a telescope large enough to see even the largest dinosaurs without being crushed *by its own gravity*. \n\nYou'd need something like an artificial black hole to produce a gravitational lense for it to be even hypothetically possible, and here's the other problem: if there aren't aliens closer to us than 65 million light years, chances are we're alone in the observable universe. \n\nBut yeah, ignoring basic physics, light travel at a finite speed and stuff in space can be very far away. For example one of the stars you can see in the nightsky if there's no light pollution around you sent out the light you see over 16000 years ago. ",
"If these aliens were traveling at the speed of light towards earth while looking through their telescope would they see people moving twice as fast as we would would perceive?"
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[]
] |
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