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3tme9n
|
the cause of the awkward silence that happens in classrooms or rooms full of people
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3tme9n/eli5_the_cause_of_the_awkward_silence_that/
|
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"text": [
"This happens quite often where I work in a room setting of 20 people (like if we have time for small talk / banter). Its mainly because no one really likes each other and all conversations are forced.\n\nyeah I work in a hostile environment lol. "
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[]
] |
||
2rha56
|
what is the falcon 9 launch by space x?
|
Just saw Elon Musk's AMA, can someone give me a rundown of what is supposed to happen tomorrow?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2rha56/eli5_what_is_the_falcon_9_launch_by_space_x/
|
{
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"cnfw0ue"
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"text": [
"They're sending a fairly standard payload of supplies and equipment to the ISS; the special bit, however, is that most rockets see the first stage destroyed, it runs out of fuel, seperates, and then crashes into the ocean. This launch is different, it will seperate while it still has some fuel left, and then attempt to land, vertically, like an old 1960's B-movie rocket, onto a platform floating on the ocean. By doing this, the stage can be re-used, and if it can be re-used, the cost of launching stuff into space will be vastly reduced."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[]
] |
|
apusva
|
when in a pc game, how can i tell the sound i hear is from behind with a stereo headset?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/apusva/eli5_when_in_a_pc_game_how_can_i_tell_the_sound_i/
|
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"text": [
"While there are some ways your ear/brain can tell a sound is behind you (slightly muffled sound for instance), I don't think games simulate this.\n\nMore likely, when you are playing a game you are constantly moving the camera, looking around. When you do so, the sound will get louder/appear sooner to one ear or the other, even just slightly and for a brief moment, giving you a cue as to where the sound is. In real life this is the most important tool we have for telling if a sound is in front or behind us (besides visual cues).",
"In real life, you use your 2 eyes to see in 3D. We also have 2 ears which means we hear in 3D too. Our brains triangulate where sounds are coming from by mixing what each ear hears together, each ear won't hear the same thing because you have a head in the middle. If you are hearing a sound, say, directly to the left of you, your right ear will pick up the sound far differently to the left ear because your right ear is further away from the sound source and because the sound had to travel through your head in order to get there. \n\nUsing computers we can simulate this effect. It's called 'binaural' sound and works only through stereo headphones, not speakers. Games involving a 360degree gameplay utilise this for a more immersive experience. "
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
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||
3aa7iy
|
if we're conscious of our own addictions why do we still act on them?
|
Things like pornography, alcohol, nicotine are what common addictions are. If we are not proud of them and want to quit why do we still fall in the trap of them even if we are truly conscious of our own behavior at the time of consumption?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3aa7iy/eli5_if_were_conscious_of_our_own_addictions_why/
|
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"text": [
"Probably because of the PHYSICAL discomfort that comes with the absence of certain addictions. Alcoholics feel terrible if they don't drink because their bodies need the fix at that point. Smokers don't feel \"pain\" by quitting but their emotions do end up being thrown out of whack in the early stages of quitting. Sometimes it's easier to just smoke the cigarette instead of yelling at your friends/family. Not too familiar with porn addiction but that doesn't seem like it would kill anyone or ruin anyone's life either way.",
"One of the most likely cause of addiction for most people is environmental factors and usually the use of drugs and pornography etc is just to escape our own reality. [This article](_URL_0_) explains this well. \n\n \nAn example from the article: \n > During the Vietnam War Time magazine reported using heroin was \"as common as chewing gum\" among U.S. soldiers, and there is solid evidence to back this up: some 20 percent of U.S. soldiers had become addicted to heroin there, according to a study published in the Archives of General Psychiatry. Many people were understandably terrified; they believed a huge number of addicts were about to head home when the war ended. \n > But in fact some 95 percent of the addicted soldiers -- according to the same study -- simply stopped. Very few had rehab. They shifted from a terrifying cage back to a pleasant one, so didn't want the drug any more. \n\n\n \nNow obviously nicotine and alcohol is not as serious as heroin but people are obviously unhappy or stressed etc.",
"Sometimes the upsides outweight the downsides. Or at least we prioritize the upsides.\n\nOther times we are just ignorant, we might be conscious, but it's not all that is behind the will to continue the addiction.",
"I DEFINITELY first started smoking cigarettes socially. It then became a full blown nicotine addiction. Alcohol was more of a right of passage type thing for me and I've never had an addiction to it. ",
"An addiction is a need that does not go away. You may push it off 24 x 7 for weeks until that one moment, that one instant where your defenses fail. Once you have fallen victim to the impulse, the brain rationalizes the decision and subsequent decisions to partake are made more easily. As it becomes clear that the one time failing has become a full on binge, the shame sets in. Now denial is employed as a defense against the shame and use continues without restraint. Eventually you bottom out. This starts the cycle over again.\n\nI have been clean for 10+ years, but I know the whole thing could start over again in an instant.",
"There are many factors but one is that humans don't really \"think\" that much about most of the things we do. We generally overestimate how much we consciously choose to do anything, because it makes us feel better about ourselves to think that we have more control than we really do. We mostly just do what our brain steers us to do at any given moment. \n\nAlso another (of many) aspect is that it shouldn't be understated just how difficult life is in some moments for some people. If you're miserable, and have little hope of having a good life in the future, why not choose to do something that makes you feel better for a short while, even if it might make you feel worse down the road? Also, going back to cognitive biases, humans generally think that they're special snowflakes and that negative consequences are less likely to happen to them than the average person. How do you expect the average person to accurately consider the risks of driving a vehicle when the average person thinks that they're a much safer driver than average? And yeah maybe I'll smoke a pack today, but I know I can quit in the future when I want to, so whats the big deal?",
"Because what we want, and what we should want are entirely different things. Addicts are very often aware that their use causes damage, but find that stopping using is somehow far worse for them than continuing. People get to that place in a variety of ways, but simply sitting and coming to a rational decision regarding health is not one of them. It's better to look at addiction in terms of the context of that decision making than to examine the decision itself, because in isolation the decision to continue to use is always a bad one. ",
"I believe triggers and availability are two elements that factor in. Say for alcohol, if you typically have a drink after work then that can become a habit or \"trigger\". Also, if you buy alcohol for your home then it's readily available and that makes it harder to resist the urge to drink when you want one.",
"Definition of 'addiction': \n > Compulsive physiological and psychological need for a habit-forming substance: a drug used in the treatment of heroin addiction. \n\nLet's break it down: \n\n > Compulsive physiological and psychological need for a habit-forming substance \n\n > Compulsive physiological and psychological need \n\n > physiological and psychological need \n\n > need"
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
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"http://www.huffingtonpost.com/johann-hari/the-real-cause-of-addicti_b_6506936.html"
],
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|
466wze
|
how does a wet/soaked towel dry over a certain period of time?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/466wze/eli5_how_does_a_wetsoaked_towel_dry_over_a/
|
{
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"d02xk6b"
],
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],
"text": [
"The water evaporates into the surrounding air, just like any moisture exposed to air. Same as a wet spot on the floor will eventually dry or the sidewalk after rain."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[]
] |
||
8cuaex
|
why is it that there are 2 enter keys, 2 shift keys, 2 alt keys, etc. but only one tab and enter key on a keyboard?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/8cuaex/eli5_why_is_it_that_there_are_2_enter_keys_2/
|
{
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"text": [
"There is one enter key and one return key. The shift keys are for easier typing if capital letters. I assume the two ctrl keys are there for the same reason. ",
"It's all about typing efficiently.\n\nThe two enter keys exist one for letters and one for numbers, in case you need to hit enter after doing some calculations with numbers.\n\nThe two shift keys (and two Alt keys) exist because you hold shift and type a letter at the same time. When you need to type a capital letter P, you can use your left hand for the shift key and use your right hand for the P. When you need to type a capital letter S, you use the right hand for the shift key. This prevents you from having to move one hand all the way to the other half of the keyboard. (Same goes for Alt keys.)\n\nYou never have to hit Tab and a letter at the same time. Having only one on the left side is fine, because you never have to awkwardly type Tab **and** S **at the same time**.",
"Keys that have interactions with letter exist on both sides to ease their use.\n\nThe Enter key exists in the number pad because inputting numbers is often finished with an Enter."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
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] |
||
695r5s
|
what makes us gassy?
|
I know that certain foods and other things make us gassy, but where does the gas actually come from? I don't imagine that 100%, or even 10% of expelled gas is just swallowed air. I assume the gas is formed somewhere in our body, but where and how?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/695r5s/eli5_what_makes_us_gassy/
|
{
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"text": [
"Chemical reactions! Molecules breaking apart and combining into new molecules. Some of those will include left over gasses. ",
"Gasses :)\n\nSo your intestines are full of microorganisms that do all kinds of things and are beneficial to our health. The way they do this is by utilizing some of the things that we cannot and excreting things that either help us or don't cause us harm. Since there isn't much in the way of oxygen in our digestive tract all of the microorganisms that lice there are capable of getting oxygen from other places and the result of this is that they produce gas. Mostly carbon dioxide but there are other more stinky gasses produced too. \n\nAn example is in people who are lactose intolerant. People who are lactose intolerant don't produce enough of the enzyme that breaks down lactose so a bunch of lactose to the microorganisms in their gut as opposed to being digested. The microorganisms have a field day on all of that easily digestible sugar and produce a bunch of gas and other stuff that irritates the bowels and causes GI distress."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[]
] |
|
41it22
|
why do out door tv antennas need a seporate receiver on top of them?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/41it22/eli5why_do_out_door_tv_antennas_need_a_seporate/
|
{
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"text": [
"If you mean the little (usually black) plastic box on the dipole, that's usually just a connection box where the upcoming coaxial cable connects to the receiving element.\n\nSometimes it contains a masthead amplifier if the signal isn't strong enough to reach the telly without boosting, or if you're feeding multiple sets.",
"Most broadcast signals are weak. Any long conductor can pick up energy from anything, especially close things, it is the inverse square law.\n\nThere are amplifiers which will amplify signals over a broad range of frequencies. They do not tune well so they are amplifying everything in a frequency range. Not very good for amplifying one station. But good for amplifying signals received by an antenna. The length of an outdoor antenna's lead in wire, along with the cost of an outdoor antenna, justifies running power to a linear amplifier, (I thought I would slip that word in) All signals from the antenna are boosted. So the signal goes through the cable having been amplified. it arrives at the tuner amplifier where again the signal is amplified but this time only the desired signal which is exactly the right frequency. The desired signal is tuned."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
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||
551x0b
|
how do mlm like amway work? is there usual success?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/551x0b/eli5_how_do_mlm_like_amway_work_is_there_usual/
|
{
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"text": [
"They work by distributing sales commission based on your ranking (how much money you put into the company) and based on who the customer bought from (if the customer bought from someone \"above\" you in the pyramid, you get less money. If they bought below you, you get more money). There are a lot of youtube videos explaining how it works and it is slightly different per company.\n\nThere is not usually success. At most, about 5 - 7% of people who join an MLM earn more than $5,000 a year. I don't know what \"success\" means to you, but if you mean to break even, here's the math: \nyou will spend 100$+ a month to be able to get a pay-out so you'd need to make $1200 to break even which is achieved by ~30% of those who join. \n\nSo 63% will lose money. Also consider that some people join an MLM merely for discounted product and not in an attempt to make money. \n\nSuccess is not usual, however, I don't think monetary success is usual period.\n\nIf you're considering joining an MLM, it would behoove you to also invest time in some form of training. Especially so you don't scare off your family and friends. There is no way to be \"successful\" in MLM by relying on people you personally know.\n\n(note - basing numbers on Advocare due to its popularity, similarity to other pay structures and it's disclosure policy aka it is easy to find their numbers so they can avoid being sued)",
"No. There usually is not success. To be successful you are encouraged to hold your personal relationships hostage for sales. "
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
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||
5b04og
|
what can one do to help the environment?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5b04og/eli5_what_can_one_do_to_help_the_environment/
|
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"text": [
"Go vegan :) (the easiest and most delicious way to help the environment) \nCompost \nRecycle\nAnd pick up trash off the streets. \nvolunteer with earth corps or a local park restoration \nBuy local produce\nSave bugs when it rains or they're stuck in your house\nDon't kill spiders\nDon't use plastic water bottles - buy a glass one you reuse\nAnd turn the lights off, unplug computers, etc when not in use. \nCarpool and bike! \nparticipate in community events\nDon't buy products with palm oil \nBuy coffee that is sustainable ",
"Don't have children. Reducing the number of humans is a sure fire way to reduce humans impact on the planet. ",
"Eat less meat and imported food, don't fly and drive far all the time, support clean energy and conservation efforts, don't have more than one kid. Easy! ",
"Just in one's daily routine, recycling is a pretty big thing you can do to help out. It keeps material out of the landfill and helps lower material prices. Recycling your soda cans helps lower the manufactures costs and in turn soda prices. Composting is also a big thing we can all do for the environment. It helps build up soil fertility as well and reduces the need for harmful fertilizers. The biggest thing one can do to help out the planet is to take steps in reducing his/her carbon footprint. Walk more instead of driving. Plant trees and other plants to improve your carbon footprint as well as your local scenery. ",
"Agree with other comments, but you can also add to the list - donating money to organizations and politicians that fight for legal, political, and other long term changes to help the environment. "
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
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[],
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||
2idljg
|
would the flight maneuver in the movie flight be possible in real life?
|
The maneuver that i'm talking about: _URL_0_
Would...uhm...anyone survive?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2idljg/eli5_would_the_flight_maneuver_in_the_movie/
|
{
"a_id": [
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],
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"text": [
"Yes. Planes can fly inverted. Though under normal circumstances this would make the plane crash into the ground really fast, in the circumstance in Flight it would likely give you a few seconds of breathing room. Since low-velocity commercial jet crashlands are totally survivable if you are strapped down with a little luck, this might actually work."
]
}
|
[] |
[
"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ugsQQKn0muQ"
] |
[
[]
] |
|
4u8e7v
|
why is the australian government largely ignoring environmental issues in the country?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4u8e7v/eli5_why_is_the_australian_government_largely/
|
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"text": [
"as an Australian , it is rather easy to explain\n\nthe governing Liberal Party (equiv to GOP) are beholden to big business and their own equivalent \"tea party\" lead by moron senator Cory Bernardi , a senator who *somehow* manages to link gay marriage to beastiality (that sadly is NOT a joke) \n\nhowever the Labour party (equiv to Democrats) would be barely any better.\n\nas for the Australian Greens party , they're off in cuckoo land.\n\nbut back to the Libs , they've been going down hill since 9/11 , when Howard was in charge , they put us in lock step with George W. Bush\nin Afghanistan and Iraq.\n\n",
"Our mining industry has massive sway with our politicians.\n\nRupert Murdoch also owns like 90% of our mainstream news outlets and he loves to keep the public in the dark about important issues.\n\nThere's also the attitude of \"fuck it\" that many people here possess as well.\n\nPut those 3 together and you get our shocking environmental policies.",
"We are given 2 shitty parties to choose from in the election. I vote for an independent expecting to make a difference, nope they still give their preference to one of the 2 shitshow parties. What can we do?"
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[],
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||
5nla9m
|
what are the pros and cons to globalism, from an (as much as possible) unbiased perspective?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5nla9m/eli5_what_are_the_pros_and_cons_to_globalism_from/
|
{
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"dcccrly"
],
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"text": [
"Globalization is when various facets of society operate at a truly global level rather than locally or regionally. The following is two examples dealing with trade and culture. \n\nFor trade and commerce that can mean businesses can operate globally and traditional barriers to commerce thrown up by nation-states don't apply. That means you can put your factories where its most cost effective to place and you can hire talent from the world over. \n\nA drawback might be that since corporations aren't constrained by borders then its hard for any one nation-state to enforce its laws over that corporation without that corporation having an easy way to skirt the law by just doing the same thing in some other nation-state where the activity is permitted. Or if people in country A work in a factory they can't exactly move to country B if the corporation decides to move its factory. \n\nGlobalization also means that cultural barriers change and erode. That's great if you're a movie producer who normally only sees distribution in the USA but can now show the movie in Europe and China as well. \n\nBut if you live in a country in Africa and see that all the kids in town don't care about older traditions and instead want to listen to American Music and watch French Cinema then you may not like that. Then again, it's easier than ever to share your cultural tradition in Africa with the world at large. \n\n"
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[]
] |
||
2a29sg
|
why does tiredness fade away when you stay awake too much?
|
I am now awake for about 27 hours straight, because I wanted to confirm that I am not as sleepy anymore than about 5 hours ago. I woke up yesterday at about 1pm. From then on I was awake until now. The most tiredness I felt was around 4-5am, so about after 15h of staying awake, but now after about 27h I don't feel sleepy at all. My tiredness was starting to fade away a bit before sunrise.
So why do I feel less tired even tough I am awake for a much longer time? Does it have to do with my biological clock or something like that which says "When sun rises you rise too" or something like that?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2a29sg/eli5_why_does_tiredness_fade_away_when_you_stay/
|
{
"a_id": [
"ciqrtuc"
],
"score": [
12
],
"text": [
"Second wind (in regards to sleep) is the result of circadian rhythms cycling into a phase of wakefulness.\n\n[Source](_URL_0_"
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[
"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_wind_(sleep)"
]
] |
|
9tbodb
|
how come some books are hard to read even if you know the meaning of each word?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/9tbodb/eli5_how_come_some_books_are_hard_to_read_even_if/
|
{
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"e8v17ne"
],
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"text": [
"Probably. I have picked up plenty of books on subjects that I'm interested in and the style it is written in is just not for me. I'm a reader too.\n\nAlthough some difficult to read books are worth the struggle. "
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[]
] |
||
1usm6b
|
when a cpu is being developed, what are the engineers doing that makes the chip better than the last?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1usm6b/eli5_when_a_cpu_is_being_developed_what_are_the/
|
{
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"Obviously fabrication techniques improve to where the feature size of processors (referenced as things like \"22nm,\" which tells you the width of the smallest features, like an interconnect) gets smaller, letting you increase the clock speed and fit more transistors on a chip. Also, the size of chips can increase as fabrication gets more precise and less likely to have errors on a chip.\n\nHowever, these are just process advances. There's also architectural advances. Here are some.\n\n**Pipelining**\n\nHere's an example of a program instruction \n\nADD R1, R2, R3\n\nThis is written in the assembly language of the processor. It means to add the contents of register R1 to the contents of register R2 and store the results in register R3. A processor might have, say, 32 registers, which are storage locations very close to the processor. When you write a program in a high level language, like C++, and compile it, the compiler turns the high-level language instructions into this assembly code, and then the assembler turns that code into the binary codes that the computer fetches, decodes, executes, and writes back to the registers.\n\nNotice how I said there were multiple phases to the execution of an instructions. First the instruction has to be fetched from memory. This takes time. Then it has to be decoded, where logic in the processor figures out which type of instruction this is and sends the right data to the next part of the process, the execution of the instruction. This would be the logic like the adder for the ADD instruction. Pipelining is the ability of the processor to execute multiple instructions at the same time by executing different parts of them concurrently. So while one instruction is being fetched, the instruction before that one is being decoded, and the instruction before that one is being executed. In a modern processor, even these stages are broken up further to where you might have 20 or 30 stages in the pipeline. This increases throughput, and is much faster that executing only one instruction at a time, waiting for the last instruction to finish before executing the next one.\n\n**Superscalar Architecture**\n\nThe next architecture advance after pipelining is the development of superscalar architectures. A superscalar processor goes a step beyond executing multiple instructions at a time and can execute the instructions out of order. For instance, you might have an instruction that loads data from memory into register R1, followed by an instruction that adds the contents of R2 and R3 and stores them in R4. That memory access takes a long time. Many, many clock cycles. But the instruction after that one is only operating on registers, which are inside the processor, and they're not operating on the register that the memory access is loading. Why not go ahead and execute that instruction while we're waiting on the memory access? That's what a superscalar architecture does. It has additional logic to watch the program flow and it simply dispatches instructions it fetches to the pipeline whenever everything needed to execute the instruction is ready.\n\n**Multitasking** (I know this is software, but I need it to explain hyperthreading)\n\nYou may remember back in the Before Time, in the Long Long Ago when operating systems only supported running one program at a time. If when you were a kid you played around with an Apple II or an IBM PC running MS-DOS, you would load one program to run from the command prompt, and that program would take over all system resources. These early desktop operating systems could not multitask, such as running a music player and a word processor at the same time until Windows 95.\n\nI used the words \"at the same time,\" but really they were not running at the same time. The processors only had the ability to execute one thread of programs at a time, and they rapidly switched between executing instructions for the music player and executing instructions for the word processor many times a second giving the appearance to slow humans that they're running simultaneously. How does it do this without getting confused? Whenever it's time to switch programs and execute a bit of the music player instead of the word processor, the contents of all the registers are dumped to memory. This is the complete program state for the word processor. Then the program state for the music player are loaded from memory, and it runs for a while. This is called a context switch.\n\nThis is great! We can execute two programs at the same time! But whenever we switch from one program to the next, we have to access all that memory. That's expensive in terms of time, and is pure overhead.\n\n**Hyperthreading**\n\nHyperthreading just takes multitasking and moves it to the hardware. The processor has twice the number of registers, but still only one execution path (ie, the adder logic for the ADD example I gave). The processor can dispatch instructions to the execution logic whenever they're ready to go. This means now if one thread is waiting on something (like a memory access), the other thread can dispatch its instructions. Now we can multitask without having to pay for the overhead of the context switch, but dispatching instructions in to the pipeline in whatever order they're ready to be executed. Mad speedup, yo! Having twice the program state storage in the processor is, as far as the operating system is concerned, the same thing as having two processor cores. But since they aren't duplicating the execution logic (like the adder) it's not as fast as having two actual cores, but it's still faster, and looks like two cores.\n\n**Multi-core processors**\n\nYou may ask, \"why multiple cores?\" Well, the obvious advantage is that multiple programs (or multiple threads of instructions from a single program) can make use of the extra cores in parallel. However, there's also an architectural reason for the emphasis on multiple cores. Fabrication techniques have improved to the point where we can put billions of transistors (the fundamental switches in an integrated circuit) on to a single silicon chip (we call this gigascale integration) and run the system clock at several gigahertz (billions of on/off switches per second). But the speed of light (and therefore the speed of an electron through copper or aluminum interconnects) isn't getting any faster, so it could take multiple clock cycles to get from one side of the chip to the other. Nor do we need to operate on numbers larger than 2^64 - 1 very often. This means you won't see much performance increase from just adding wider data paths and more large structures to the processor. Instead, we just put more, simpler, closely spaced cores onto a single silicon chip, and make these available to the operating system and to programmers to enable more threads of execution to operate quickly and concurrently.\n\nHope that helps!"
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[]
] |
||
5z7vyc
|
the internet of things
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5z7vyc/eli5_the_internet_of_things/
|
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"In short: the internet of things is about putting a tiny computer and internet connection into everyday objects.\n\nThis lets you do cool things like program your coffee maker to start brewing coffee before you wake up, or having your bed record how well you sleep and sending that information to the fitness app on your phone.\n\nThere are many interesting, fun, and potentially revolutionary applications for this (imagine if food poisoning could be prevented by having packaging that detects contamination), but there are also some privacy concerns and issues with what happens if there's a power failure/internet outage/hacking and suddenly the smart locks on your door won't open or your carbon monoxide detector gets switched off without you knowing.",
"The internet is not a one place or thing. It is the result of billions of different devices (mostly computers and smartphones) talking to each other and sharing information. The internet of things is just different types of devices hooking up with the internet and sharing their information. \n\nSome devices usually included in the \"Internet of Things\" are smart cars, smart appliances, amazon ordering buttons, and different things all the time.",
"I think it's basically collecting data from almost everything in your daily life, like shoes, doors, fridges etc and having everything interconnected, communicating, and working together to your advantage. From what I remember from computer science at least. ",
"IOT is the label for the interconnection of many things. As connectivity, bandwidth and performance has grown dramatically, the expectation is for devices to connect to the cloud and generate a lot of data; especially autonomous cars. \n\nThis enormous data is an opportunity to create cool new features and capabilities to improve how we live and society functions. \n\n5G is to be an inflection point in IOT."
]
}
|
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[] |
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[],
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||
8is6u7
|
the idea of half-life with pain medication
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/8is6u7/eli5_the_idea_of_halflife_with_pain_medication/
|
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"Half life for medication is the time that it takes for half the taken medication to be eliminated from the body.\n\nIf you take 100mg of a drug with a half life of 12 hours. It is expected you will have 50mg left 12 hours later. \n\nIf you continue to take the drug every 12 hours the rate of elimination will continue to follow this ratio until 4-6 times the half life is reached when the rate of elimination is balanced with the rate of uptake.",
"Pharmacist here.\nThe idea of half life is that in x amount of time, only 1/2 of the medication will remain. With pain medications, many of them are designed to have short half life to allow for easy titration and to reduce overdose/addiction risks.\n\nFor some opioid pain medications, the half life is around 3-4hrs. As in if 10mg/L was present in the blood one point in time, only 5mg/L will be left 3-4hrs later, and 2.5mg/L 3-4hrs after that. This does **NOT** mean that the effectiveness is reduced by 1/2. Half life only relates to **pharmacokinetics** (blood concentration vs time), the other piece of the puzzle is **pharmacodynamics**.\n\nPharmacodynamics looks at drug-receptor effects (effect vs blood concentration). For example, at 10mg/L, the drug binds to the opioid-receptors such as the receptors may be 90% saturated. If there is 5mg, then 85% of the receptors may be saturated. If there is 2.5mg, then 50% of the receptors may be saturated. If there is 1.25mg, then only 10% of the receptors may be saturated. The relationship between drug concentration and receptor saturation tend to be sigmoidal (S-shaped, where there is a threshold of when it works and when it suddenly loses effect.)\n\nCombining pharmacodynamics (logarithmic effect relationship) and pharmacodynamics (sigmoidal effect relationship) tends to give a steady state which then falls off rapidly. This is good because you get a predictable effect for a first bit of time, and the effect is terminated quickly.\n\nAnd of course, there's also the third piece of the puzzle: patient tolerance. Some people rate stepping on a lego 10/10 in pain, while someone else who just got shot says 'tis just a flesh wound.'\n\n**TLDR: just looking at half life of the drug doesn't tell the whole story. Also need to considering drug-receptor binding effects and patient tolerance**\n\nDISCLAIMER: This is just the science behind it, follow what your healthcare practitioner says."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
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] |
||
4u2hep
|
how do hard shutdowns work even if device is frozen?
|
If a device is completely locked up and not accepting any inputs, how are we able to force it to shut down without physically removing power to get the device to start accepting inputs again? I'm talking about holding down the power button on computers, holding down power + home on an iPhone, power + volume on an Android phone, etc.
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4u2hep/eli5_how_do_hard_shutdowns_work_even_if_device_is/
|
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"They work basically as it is a low level function handled by the motherboard that tells the power supply to just cut power, it doesn't tell the OS anything (doesn't give it anything to process). So it basically is just like pulling out the plug (or laptop battery).",
"Outside of the parts of the device that can 'freeze', there's a simple switch. This switch cannot be activated easily, as one would reset or turn off the device too often. Instead it's a simple mechanism that's activated by a combination of pressing a particular button for long or combining it with another button. \n\nOn an iPhone the lock and home button are both connected to the hardware, and both have distinctive functions. But they are also connected to another switch, one that is not affected by the rest of the device, and a simultaneous long press will lead to the battery briefly being disconnected for a moment. No matter how stuck the device is, the switch operates in a separate circuit, and will therefore always work (unless this particular switch also breaks.. which could happen, and one would then need to screw open the iPhone to physically disconnect the battery).",
"These devices often have several layers of systems on top of each other. If the top systems have problems you can still access the lower systems. Similar to how an application might crash but the operating system is still available the computer might crash but there is a separate chipset on the motherboard that is responsible for a lot of low level tasks like controlling the power so you can restart the computer. If you get into servers you might even have another full size computer with its own OS, network, storage and display to manage the server remotely.",
"Device being locked up usually means that your CPU is somehow locked into a task and won't change into a new task, or this task switching is somehow very slow(If times between task swaps rise beyond 1 millisecond, you're gonna start noticing something's up. If it takes like a second to switch between tasks, you're gonna notice the computer is unusable and almost completely unresponsive. Making sure these kinds of slowdowns don't happen is impossible problem to solve in general case, and there is a lot of clever tricks being employed to make it as unlikely as possible that your computer freezes like that, but they may fail due to whatever reason)\n\nPower switch is beyond your CPU. Most power switches are set up so that at first, they just send a message to CPU to tell that power switch has been pressed. Your operating system then deals with this message, showing appropriate menus. However, if you keep it pressed, then the power switch simply, well, switches the power off. This logic happens within or near the power switch itself, outside the reign of CPU. It's very simple and fault-resistant device, other than physically destroying it, you can't really glitch it.",
"**ShortAnswer:** Essentially it is like physically removing power to the device, but it is controlled by a button.\n\n\n**Longer Answer:** The power button on your computer doesn't send a signal directly to what you think of as the actual computer. Instead, it is hooked up to what is effectively a smaller and simpler \"computer\" which controls power to the actual computer. Because this smaller computer is so simple (it only has one job to do), it is pretty much guaranteed not to stop working. As a result, even if your computer stops working, the part that controls power to the computer still works. When you hold down the button for long enough this power supply computer turns off power to the system causing a hard shutdown.\n\nThis also shows the difference between a hard shutdown and a soft shutdown. In the case of a soft shutdown, the main computer is still working (at least partly) and it receives a signal from the power supply computer telling it that it \"should turn itself off\". It then proceeds to save anything that needs to be saved and cleanly stop itself. In the case of a hard shutdown; however, the power supply computer just cuts power to the main computer, so the main computer has not necessarily had a chance to properly save everything. With modern operating systems and filesystems, this is usually not a problem, but there are still cases where a hard shutdown can screw up your computer, which is why a soft shutdown is preferable whenever it is possible.",
"\"The processor\" in a modern computer-based device (PC/laptop, phone, tablet, etc.) is not the only microcontroller inside the machine.\n\nAs well as the main processor running Windows / macOS / etc., there are a bunch of chips doing \"processor\" tasks - but very minimal task-specific things. Often, the software inside these is fixed at time of manufacture of that chip and can never be changed.\n\nOne such chip looks after power management (possibly as well as other functions). On a desktop \"Wintel\" PC, the power supply is always a little bit \"on\" and giving a small amount of power to the motherboard. The power switch on the front/top/etc. of the computer case is connected to the motherboard, and if you press it when the machine is \"off\", the chip responsible for power stuff detects you've pressed it and sends the signals to get the machine to really start up.\n\nThat same chip keeps paying attention to the power button. If you press the power button a little bit, it sends a message along to the operating system - which usually interprets this as a request for a neat tidy shutdown to happen (and in turn, Windows will then tell that chip when it's ready for the computer to be \"switched off\" at the end of shutdown). But if you keep the power button held down for a few seconds, the fairly dumb chip understands that this is a message the user is sending to *it*, NOT to Windows - and it tells the power supply to go back to \"almost entirely turned off\".\n\nThe computer code running in that chip which controls the low level power stuff is not going to be bothered if the software running on the main CPU is all screwed up. If it interprets a signal (like a button) as a \"force power-off right now\" command, it's still able to do that.",
"Some of the answers I don't think are getting to the meat of your question. I believe you are asking, how can a computer or tablet shut down if it is frozen?\n\nThe power button is a physical switch and is directly controlled by motherboard and also used as inputs for CPU. Meaning, even if tasks are locked up inside CPU, motherboard can still perform the vital function of turning on or off with physical switch. The CPU inputs from switch can be used to perform different functions, but the motherboard still has ultimate control over the switch.",
"The power control system only controls the power that goes to your computers components. Very simple task and it's impossible to fuck it up or get confused. "
]
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|
q6js2
|
if gravity is the weakest of the four fundamental forces of nature, how do black holes manage to become powerful enough to destroy or capture everything near them?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/q6js2/if_gravity_is_the_weakest_of_the_four_fundamental/
|
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"Get enough TNT and you'll have enough power to match atom bomb. \n\n\nGravity is a force that is stronger when you get closer. Black holes are not necessarily very heavy, but rather very small. You can get closer to them and feel more force. If you squeezed the Sun or even the Earth, you would get a black hole (in case of Earth it would be around the size of football, IIRC).\n\nBesides black holes are not something that sucks everything around them, but rather something that won't let go of anything unfortunate enough to hit them.",
"The other forces are the strongest at the atomic and subatomic scales.\n\nAt the atomic scale, you're looking at electrons (negative charge) and nuclei (positive charge). The electromagnetic force is dominant.\n\nAt the subatomic scale, you're looking at quarks, which have something called color charge (kind of like electric charge except that there 3 types instead of + or -) and subject to the strong nuclear force.\n\nThese are all stronger than gravitation. However, when you're looking at massive bodies (planets and stars), each body is electromagnetically neutral (and color-charge-y neutral, whatever it's called). For the electromagnetic force to have an influence on planets, they would have to be overall positively or negatively charged, which isn't the case (and not really possible, it would reach equilibrium).\n\nSo gravitation is the only force left playing because it only acts on mass.",
"Because there are sooooooo much mass.\n\nMagnets don't naturally get very strong. Even the magnetism from the sun is quite weak, since it's just *very little* mass tha is *a bit* magnetic.\n\nThe same goes for the other forces.\n\nBlack holes have HUGE amounts of mass, and gravity is the only force that naturally builds up as you gather more of what generates the force in one place."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[],
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||
3x3rm7
|
why is it that every time i check in online to flights over 90% of the seats are unavailable?
|
I try to check in as soon as the time allows (usually 24-36 hours before departure) but I'm never able to get my choice of seats without having to pay for the better seats?
I booked the flight directly through the airline and yet they keep 90% of the seats unavailable during online check in.
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3x3rm7/eli5_why_is_it_that_every_time_i_check_in_online/
|
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"Specifically so you will pay for better seats. Simple as that. \n\nSome people are willing to pay a premium to get the seat they want, so, from the airline's perspective, there is no reason not to capitalize on that. ",
"Many of the seats have been reserved by other passengers, as airlines allow many passengers to reserve specific seats weeks in advance.\n\nMany other seats have been held by the airline for passengers who paid more than you.",
"I can't speak for all airlines but Delta, United, American and JetBlue all let you choose seats when you book your flight. When you check in you just confirm you want the same seat, so it would already be reserved for you.",
" > but I'm never able to get my choice of seats without having to pay for the better seats?\n\nMany airlines reserve those seats for people willing to pay, or people with high frequent flyer status. They get more money from those people, and are willing to hold seats for them as a perk.\n\nAnother way of looking at is you are getting a discount for not being able to pick your seats."
]
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|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[],
[],
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|
4g94wz
|
the dark souls universe (games 1-3)
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4g94wz/eli5_the_dark_souls_universe_games_13/
|
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"You really should play the first one, cursed one. DS1 > DS2 by far. \n\nAlso search /r/Gaming and /r/DarkSouls for lore threads.\n\nAnyway, [spoilers]. Be aware I could be wrong but this is the best I understand it without reading hundreds of lore threads. If anyone wants to correct me go ahead.\n\n* World is slowly dying, people turning undead.\n* The fire is in essence the life of the world, but it's dying out. Think of it like the power source.\n* The Lords of Cinder got a hold of flames and use them to do things like banish dragons and forge their own kingdoms, persue immortality, rule over the dead etc.\n* Fire is still dying out, so the Lords attempt to relight the first fire.\n* Spoiler: It doesn't end well and attempting to relight the flame is essentially an (undead) human sacrifice. e.g Witch of Izalith ends up corrupted by it and ends up spawning demons and half-human demons like Booby Spidergirl and Cute white waifu spider girl.\n* If it dies out, the Abyss will emerge, turn the land into a land of darkness until the flames are relit somehow, if that is even possible.\n\n* The PC, the chosen one afflicted by the dark sign is a sentient undead that loses a little of his flame every time he dies-- becoming more of a mindless hollow. So he gathers souls to repair his own damaged soul/flame, eventually reaches the lordvessel/end and either plunges the world into darkness by not relighting it, or relights it and presumably dies for real, or becomes so much of a hollow that he's literally a shell.\n\n* Thus the cycle begins anew -- the flame supports a new age, people living/dying/becoming undead, until the flame is almost out and people need a new sacrifice.\n\n"
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[]
] |
||
j7emx
|
explain shock to me like i'm 5
|
I've taken first aid and CPR courses, and they always give you warning signs for someone going into "shock" which can be lethal. I asked what shock was in one of these classes and they told us that the body shuts down your organs. Why does this happen? How did a mechanism like this evolve? It seems terribly disadvantageous to risk instant death after suffering an injury.
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/j7emx/explain_shock_to_me_like_im_5/
|
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"It depends on the type of shock. from what you are talking about, i'm assuming what you are referring to is circulatory shock.\n\nyour body is like one big container filled with little tiny tubes and a pump to move the liquid inside the tubes. the tubes are veins and arteries, the pump is your heart and the liquid is your blood. the liquid in the tubes carries oxygen (what you breathe in) and nutrients (food for your body). \n\nthere are 4 different types of shock:\n\n**Hypovolemic shock**: This is when the tubes that carries the liquids break, and the liquid starts spilling out into your body. this can occur when you get a really big and deep cut that actually cuts the tubes.\n\n**Cardiogenic Shock**: This is when the pump stops working all that well, or at all. this can occur when a part of the heart dies (Heart attack).\n\n**Distributive Shock**: \n\nThis is broken down into 3 sub categories:\n\n*Septic Shock*: This is when you get very, very sick from bacteria (microscopic organisms that can make you ill). these organisms cause your tubes to expand, making the pressure inside the tubes decrease, making the pump not work all that well. This is like filling a tube with water. if you have a small tube, the water can be pumped through easily if it fills the entire tube. but if you make the tube bigger, the pump has to work much much harder to move the liquid.\n\n*Anaphylactic Shock*: this is when you have an allergic reaction to something. you probably know what allergies are since your friend billy has a peanut allergy (one of the most common alergies) but i'll explain anyway. sometimes your body doesnt like certain foods or things. your body reacts by releasing a chemical in your body called Histamine. the histamine makes the tubes in your body get bigger. they get so big that the pump has to work a lot harder, like in septic shock. \n\n*Neurogenic Shock*: this is when your spinal cord gets injured. your spinal cord holds a whole bunch of nerves that go from your brain to your body and tells your different body parts what to do. they are like wires on a robot. neurogenic shock happens when the cord gets injured. at the area where the cord is injured and below the tubes relax and get bigger because your body cant talk to those parts. the wires going from your brain to your body parts cant send a signal. this causes the pump to have to work hard again. this is a very rare one though.\n\nfinally we have\n\n**Obstructive Shock**: this is when something blocks the flow of the liquid through the tubes. there are a few different kinds.\n\n*Cardiac Tamponade*: this is when your heart cant beat, because there is too much blood surrounding it. you see, your heart (the pump) has a sac around it called the pericardium. it is only a certain size, and cant stretch like a balloon. it is water tight. sometimes, blood gets in here. if enough of it gets in here the heart cant work all the way because the pericardium is holding it in place. this keeps the pump from working and so no fluid is going through the pumps.\n\n*Pulmonary Embolism*: sometimes, a blood clot or gas bubble keeps the liquid from moving inside the tubes, and regardless of how hard your pump works, the liquid cant move.\n\n\nas for **WHY** your body goes into shock i'll answer that in part 2",
"It depends on the type of shock. from what you are talking about, i'm assuming what you are referring to is circulatory shock.\n\nyour body is like one big container filled with little tiny tubes and a pump to move the liquid inside the tubes. the tubes are veins and arteries, the pump is your heart and the liquid is your blood. the liquid in the tubes carries oxygen (what you breathe in) and nutrients (food for your body). \n\nthere are 4 different types of shock:\n\n**Hypovolemic shock**: This is when the tubes that carries the liquids break, and the liquid starts spilling out into your body. this can occur when you get a really big and deep cut that actually cuts the tubes.\n\n**Cardiogenic Shock**: This is when the pump stops working all that well, or at all. this can occur when a part of the heart dies (Heart attack).\n\n**Distributive Shock**: \n\nThis is broken down into 3 sub categories:\n\n*Septic Shock*: This is when you get very, very sick from bacteria (microscopic organisms that can make you ill). these organisms cause your tubes to expand, making the pressure inside the tubes decrease, making the pump not work all that well. This is like filling a tube with water. if you have a small tube, the water can be pumped through easily if it fills the entire tube. but if you make the tube bigger, the pump has to work much much harder to move the liquid.\n\n*Anaphylactic Shock*: this is when you have an allergic reaction to something. you probably know what allergies are since your friend billy has a peanut allergy (one of the most common alergies) but i'll explain anyway. sometimes your body doesnt like certain foods or things. your body reacts by releasing a chemical in your body called Histamine. the histamine makes the tubes in your body get bigger. they get so big that the pump has to work a lot harder, like in septic shock. \n\n*Neurogenic Shock*: this is when your spinal cord gets injured. your spinal cord holds a whole bunch of nerves that go from your brain to your body and tells your different body parts what to do. they are like wires on a robot. neurogenic shock happens when the cord gets injured. at the area where the cord is injured and below the tubes relax and get bigger because your body cant talk to those parts. the wires going from your brain to your body parts cant send a signal. this causes the pump to have to work hard again. this is a very rare one though.\n\nfinally we have\n\n**Obstructive Shock**: this is when something blocks the flow of the liquid through the tubes. there are a few different kinds.\n\n*Cardiac Tamponade*: this is when your heart cant beat, because there is too much blood surrounding it. you see, your heart (the pump) has a sac around it called the pericardium. it is only a certain size, and cant stretch like a balloon. it is water tight. sometimes, blood gets in here. if enough of it gets in here the heart cant work all the way because the pericardium is holding it in place. this keeps the pump from working and so no fluid is going through the pumps.\n\n*Pulmonary Embolism*: sometimes, a blood clot or gas bubble keeps the liquid from moving inside the tubes, and regardless of how hard your pump works, the liquid cant move.\n\n\nas for **WHY** your body goes into shock i'll answer that in part 2"
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[]
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|
lfm98
|
how haarp apparently "affects" weather and why some people go nuts when you mention it.
|
I've seen a million conspiracy theories about the places but really have no idea how people think it would control weather. Isn't it just a radar station of sorts?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/lfm98/eli5_how_haarp_apparently_affects_weather_and_why/
|
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"People think everything from contrails to genetics have secret evil motives. Doesn't mean they're right.",
"People think everything from contrails to genetics have secret evil motives. Doesn't mean they're right."
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[] |
[] |
[
[],
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|
e44au1
|
why is the colonial acquisition of the americas considered so much worse than other conquests throughout the history of the world?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/e44au1/eli5_why_is_the_colonial_acquisition_of_the/
|
{
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"f96tvug",
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],
"score": [
2,
2
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"text": [
"Idk i think it probably depends on where you learn it from... it’s all about perception. As someone who had my education at a US public school, I went a lot in depth about US history. At early ages, I wasn’t taught that the American colonialism was bad. We learned about it, but basically just what countries were involved and when. However, in middle school and into high school, they started getting more in depth and talking about genocide of native Americans and how Spanish enslaved them, etc. \n\nAdditionally, around the same time, I started to learn a bit about other conquests. We would talk a little bit about them but not go super in depth. We would maybe spend 2 weeks on a particular conquest. I think this limited how much we could learn about them, thus preventing us from hearing just how bad they were.\n\nIdk where you’re from or where you had your education, but from what I know, this is the best reason I can come up with. I think that it’s manly because we learn about the US/americas (assuming you’re from the US) so much more than we do about other countries/areas. This just makes everything seem worse in the Americas relative to other places. Either this, or it was actually way worse than other conquests.",
"I feel that the main reason why the American conquests are seen in a more negative light is because they are more recent, were done by a country that still exists, and because the conquered people still exist.\n\nTake Caesar and his invasion of Gaul, for example. The Gauls are Celtic people that lived in France. The current people of France are not Gauls or Celts (mostly) so it's not like they were personally affected. Whatever Gauls are left in France probably don't care too much because this took place several centuries ago. If they did care, who would they get upset at? The Roman Republic/Empire doesn't exist anymore. Would they get mad at the citizens of modern city of Rome? Would they get mad at the Spain, Turkey, Russia, France, and Austria because they might have inherited the Roman Empire through various circumstances?\n\nThis is not quite the case with the Americas. The conquered tribes still exist today as they did in the past. There are still Sioux, Lakota, Cherokee, etc. living in the USA who are related to people alive when the oppression was at its worse. The US government still exists today. Yes, the government has changed in the last several centuries, but as a legal entity, it remains the same. Ancient Gaul couldn't sue the Roman government, but a Lakota could sue the federal US government. Also, the oppression is a bit more recent. Treaties still exist regarding the native populations. The current natives are only a few generations separated from the natives that were oppressed. In Canada, many victims of the residential schools are still alive. These victims are making noise about the troubles their people faced. There aren't any Gauls complaining."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[]
] |
||
1s08sf
|
what is going in with amazon the past few days, and why are so many people on reddit talking about it?
|
URL or Text Here
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1s08sf/eli5_what_is_going_in_with_amazon_the_past_few/
|
{
"a_id": [
"cdsmxqw",
"cdsqanv"
],
"score": [
5,
2
],
"text": [
"Jeff Bezos (the CEO of Amazon) did a 60 Minutes interview where he announced an R & D effort to switch to drone (unmanned aircraft) delivery of products. This has caused a lot of debate about the technology involved, and how much of the interview was just for PR buzz and not because the product is going to be realistically available any time soon.",
"_URL_0_ \n\nAlso, a better subreddit for this style of question would be /r/outoftheloop they answer questions for current Reddit trends and events. ELI5 is for an explanation on how something works. \n"
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[
"http://money.cnn.com/2013/12/01/technology/amazon-drone-delivery/"
]
] |
|
28x7uz
|
why do bike tires go flat with non use, but stay inflated with daily use?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/28x7uz/eli5_why_do_bike_tires_go_flat_with_non_use_but/
|
{
"a_id": [
"cifcr7s",
"cifcw87"
],
"score": [
35,
4
],
"text": [
"With daily use, the rider re-inflates his tires whenever they start to get low.",
"Until someone else comes along with the correct answer, I was always told when working at a bike shop that rubber was porous, and riding on it compressed it. It took some time sitting to open back up.\n\nI suspect the truth is that you just notice it more after being away for a while because it's a bigger difference. You notice every ride the level of your tires, and when you ride more often the tire pressure lasts for more rides."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[]
] |
||
4im0ym
|
how has mercury maintained it's orbit around the sun?
|
Ok now I understand the high school science class explanation to this being that Mercury has it's own gravitational field and has essentially managed to maintain it's own orbit around the Sun. Even with that oversimplified explanation don't we still take the Sun's mass into consideration? I don't know in exact terms how much larger the Sun is compared to Mercury but it is certainly considerable many times over? I know I could probably google this but I would like to hear if anyone else has ever wondered this! (I will probably look this up on Youtube for a more scientific explanation...)
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4im0ym/eli5_how_has_mercury_maintained_its_orbit_around/
|
{
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"d2z5p2k",
"d2z61ls",
"d2z6iob"
],
"score": [
2,
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3
],
"text": [
"Alright Neil Degrasse Tyson is going to explain this to me lol ",
"Mercury is in orbit because it has enough sideways velocity to miss the object it's orbiting, the Sun. If it didn't, then it would have crashed into the Sun billions of years ago and humans wouldn't have named a nonexistent planet",
"To orbit is to fall, but to move sideways so fast that you are constantly missing the ground.\n\nYes the sun's pull on Mercury is stronger than it is on Earth, as it's closer. But Mercury is also moving sideways faster, so it's still keeps \"missing\" the sun rather than falling in to it.\n\nThe same is true for the space station orbiting Earth. It's not actually that hard to send a rocket up to the altitude of the space station, but it would just fall back down again, as the Earth pull is pretty much just as strong there. The key to saying up there is moving really fast sideways, so in the time you would have fallen down to Earth, you have moved so far sideways that the Earth have curved away under you."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[],
[]
] |
|
jhezt
|
why would anonymous want to shut down facebook? and ... what is anonymous?
|
Is it like a philosophical thing against facebook or like a ... hey look what we can do? And, I'm not being funny, who are they? Where did they come from?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/jhezt/eli5_why_would_anonymous_want_to_shut_down/
|
{
"a_id": [
"c2c4oor",
"c2c4oor"
],
"score": [
8,
8
],
"text": [
"I'll explain this in terms of Reddit. On Reddit you have many subreddits dedicated to different interests. For example, ELI5 is dedicated to simplistic explanations of sometimes difficult concepts. There's a website called 4chan which has \"boards\" - think of them as subreddits - dedicated to various interests. While there isn't a front page which aggregates top posts (in fact, there isn't a way to upvote or downvote), each \"board\" lists user-submitted posts, often accompanied by an image, and their respective comments.\n\nWhile on Reddit every commenting user has a username, one of the staples of 4chan culture is that you never need a username to comment, and in fact most people who do comment go without a username. If (read: when) you choose to do so, your name will show up as Anonymous. I'll get back to this later.\n\nOne of the most prominent boards on 4chan is the \"Random\" board, /b/ (just as we would call ELI5 r/explainlikeimfive). The people of /b/ (sometimes called \"/b/tards,\" as we call those who frequent r/trees \"Ents\") are often up to major shenanigans. For instance, many Scientology protesters wearing Guy Fawkes masks were from the board /b/. The visionaries from /b/ who actually do things (like protest Scientology, attack Jessi Slaughter, or attempt to shut down Facebook) are collectively known as Anonymous. One quote associated with Anonymous is \"We are Anonymous. We are Legion. We do not forgive. We do not forget. Expect us.\"\n\nAs for why Anonymous would want to shut down Facebook, you can read this. _URL_0_ tl;dr: Privacy issues.",
"I'll explain this in terms of Reddit. On Reddit you have many subreddits dedicated to different interests. For example, ELI5 is dedicated to simplistic explanations of sometimes difficult concepts. There's a website called 4chan which has \"boards\" - think of them as subreddits - dedicated to various interests. While there isn't a front page which aggregates top posts (in fact, there isn't a way to upvote or downvote), each \"board\" lists user-submitted posts, often accompanied by an image, and their respective comments.\n\nWhile on Reddit every commenting user has a username, one of the staples of 4chan culture is that you never need a username to comment, and in fact most people who do comment go without a username. If (read: when) you choose to do so, your name will show up as Anonymous. I'll get back to this later.\n\nOne of the most prominent boards on 4chan is the \"Random\" board, /b/ (just as we would call ELI5 r/explainlikeimfive). The people of /b/ (sometimes called \"/b/tards,\" as we call those who frequent r/trees \"Ents\") are often up to major shenanigans. For instance, many Scientology protesters wearing Guy Fawkes masks were from the board /b/. The visionaries from /b/ who actually do things (like protest Scientology, attack Jessi Slaughter, or attempt to shut down Facebook) are collectively known as Anonymous. One quote associated with Anonymous is \"We are Anonymous. We are Legion. We do not forgive. We do not forget. Expect us.\"\n\nAs for why Anonymous would want to shut down Facebook, you can read this. _URL_0_ tl;dr: Privacy issues."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[
"http://piratepad.net/nQ61THe8ht"
],
[
"http://piratepad.net/nQ61THe8ht"
]
] |
|
6omp8u
|
if anger is considered such a negative and bad emotion that brings trouble and we need to avoid it, why do we have it in the first place?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/6omp8u/eli5_if_anger_is_considered_such_a_negative_and/
|
{
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"dkiivyd",
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"dkizle1"
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"score": [
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"text": [
"Anger is a holdover from the caveman days. It is a hell of a motivator when you are in a life and death struggle, and prehistoric times were chock full of those.",
"Back in Caveman times, anger/aggresiveness was needed to funnel all your phyisical strenght so you could fight off other tribes or predatory animals. \n\nIt was usefull then, it can still be usefull now\n\n ",
"Avoiding it isn't helpful in the long term. The full range of emotions we experience is what makes life what it is. As much as we sometimes hope for a rosy, fluffy existence, I'm afraid it's the hard times that help us grow.\n\nYou meet people through your life and notice that those who've had a protected, sheltered upbringing (not saying there's anything inherently wrong with that) sometimes struggle when they're faced with a challenge, whereas someone who's had struggles in their past are able to weather those storms because they have the experience and background to know how to deal with it.\n\nSo I welcome the hard times. They help me to appreciate the good times. My distinction is that pain is useful, suffering isn't. Read into that however you like.",
"Sure anger is useful even today. It helps to defend you, it helps to protect you, and it also drives us towards our goals often. ",
"to fight lions\n\nto fight over delicious marrow bones\n\nto fight over resources, women, territory. ",
"You can't help how you feel, but you can (or should) control how you react. Meaning, to me, that in situations that are not fight/flight/life/death we should control and channel anger towards positive results.\n\nMy wife taught me a shorthand formula:\n\nE + R = O\n\n(E)vents plus your (R)eaction results in an (O)utcome. Even in anger, figure out the ultimate outcome you want and react accordingly. And try to use anger as a motivator towards the outcomes you want, not simply as a blindly destructive (if momentarily satisfying) primal action.",
"Anger is the physical reaction to an internal problem, such as insecurities, frustration, etc. Anger can be something you use to recognize this. Using Meditation, you can subdue it. It's natural, you can't not experience it, but you can use meditation to recognize it quicker and quicker and prevent it from becoming physical or manifesting itself externally.",
"Think you might have been mislead a tad. Anger is a wonderful emotion. Without anger what would we be as species? Well as other people have stated we'd be dead for one thing. However we'd also be boring and tame. Ideology ,philosophy ,art ,opinions , passions ,industry ,ect ect. Anger has been a main driving force for many aspects of overall human culture and alot of them are good things. Human rights movements for example, people getting angry that they arnt being treated as fucking people. No emotion should be avoided just for lack of better wording they need to be controlled. You dont want lose your temper if something pisses you off but you dont want bottle that away because it is in fact highly volatile and dangerous to do. You'll need to vent / express your anger in a constructive way. Common sense applies murder ,assaults ,ect ect are not constructive. ",
"Anger protects you from being walked all over and taken advantage of. It's your body's way of telling you hey I'm being treated unfairly and I should do something about it "
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[]
] |
||
2ioect
|
how did humans become civilised?
|
Sounds silly but how did we become a species that learned to communicate, make languages and start to discover the world? Maybe I missed a history lesson but I am very interested to find out where we started!
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2ioect/eli5_how_did_humans_become_civilised/
|
{
"a_id": [
"cl3xomv",
"cl3y321"
],
"score": [
7,
3
],
"text": [
"There's no consensus on how languages started. We evolved over millions of years and most likely had rudimentary hooting and grunts like we see in other animals today.\n\nAbout 13,000 years ago we began growing crops and domesticating animals. That was a big incentive for people to 'put down roots' and start permanent civilizations.",
"Well we as a species evolved about 200,000 years ago in Africa. We would have lived in hunter-gatherer groups consisting very likely of kin (e.g. extended families). We had the ability to use stone tools (this preceded us by about 3 million years), and we had the ability to control fire (this preceded us by about 200,000-800,000 years). These humans would have looked like us (well, like black Africans) and would have been indistinguishable from a modern human. However, it is very likely they did not behave like us. \n\n[Behavioural modernity](_URL_0_) goes back about 50,000 years. For example, a person brought to the future from 50,000 years ago would be able to learn and integrate themselves into our modern society. There is nothing to suggest that they were different cognitively. They would be able to go to school and learn, grasp, and even master all the subjects that modern students do. However, proponents of behavioural modernity would argue that a human from before 50,000 years ago would not have the cognitive ability required to blend into our societies. They did not have the cognitive skills, or possibly the biological or physiological mechanisms required to function like a modern human. They would have not been able to learn language even if we tried to teach them (e.g. like modern chimpanzees)\n\nBehavioural modernity \"is a term used...to refer to a set of traits that distinguish present day humans and their recent ancestors...It is the point at which Homo sapiens began to demonstrate an ability to use complex symbolic thought and express cultural creativity. These developments are often thought to be associated with the origin of language. Elements of behavioral modernity include finely-made tools, fishing, long-distance sharing or exchange among groups, self-ornamentation, figurative art, games, music, cooking and burial. There are two main [hypotheses] regarding when modern human behavior emerged. One [hypothesis] holds that [it] occurred as a sudden event some 50,000 years ago, possibly as a result of a major genetic mutation or as a result of a biological reorganization of the brain that led to the emergence of modern human natural languages. The second [hypothesis] holds that there was never any single technological or cognitive revolution. Proponents of this view argue that modern human behavior is the result of the gradual accumulation of knowledge, skills and culture occurring over hundreds of thousands of years of human evolution.\"\n\nWe have archeological evidence that other hominin species were exhibiting advanced cognitive abilities. For example, Neanderthals made clothes, tools, jewellery and possibly buried their dead. They may have even had a proto-language based on gestures rather than sounds. Often individuals argue that early hominins, like Neanderthals or *Homo erectus* could not have possibly had language because they lacked the physical structures (e.g. vocal chords) needed to make complex sounds. However, we know that people can communicate without sound (e.g. American Sign Language) so that the physical ability to make noise does not exclude a species from having language. The more pertinent question is when did we (as hominins) develop the cognitive ability to have language? Was it a single genetic mutation? Several occurring over hundreds of thousands of years? A reorganization of the brain? Some combination of the two? We don't know, plain and simple. "
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[
"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Behavioral_modernity"
]
] |
|
nzona
|
" how does a engine increase/decrease it's revolutions per minute?
|
Explain this to a 5 y/o who understands the workings of a 2 and 4 stoke ICE.
(And if it is really as simple as to have the spark plug ignite a miniscule fraction of a second earlier or have a miniscule fraction more of gas in the chamber)
kthx
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/nzona/eli5_how_does_a_engine_increasedecrease_its/
|
{
"a_id": [
"c3d7pk7",
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],
"score": [
2,
3
],
"text": [
"The throttle [does it](_URL_0_) it restricts the flow of fuel and air into the combustion chamber",
"First, this is how engines work:\n\nThe main objective of most types of engines is to get a cylindrical rod to rotate. If you can get them to rotate, then you can fit things like gears to make the rotation useful (like driving your car). So how do you get this cylindrical rod to rotate? You have an engine for that.\n\nAn engine is basically a compartment with an interesting kind of a lid. This lid can slide down to the bottom of the compartment if it is empty, but can also rise to the top if there is something inside the compartment.\nSo what we do is let fuel (like petrol or diesel) into the compartment. Because this is in a very little quantity, the lid is almost at the bottom of the compartment. Now, we light up this fuel. When you do this, it heats up the air inside this compartment. Remember how hot air balloons rise up? Same way, the hot air in between the compartment and the lid causes the lid to move up (because hot air needs more space than cold air).\n\nWhat we do is to stop and start the fuel supply. As a result, the air gets heated up and then cools down in a loop..This causes the lid of the compartment to move in and up. There is a rod connected to the lid and when it moves up and down in a straight line, the rod moves in a circular way. This rod is connected to the cylindrical rod that I talked about in the beginning of this post so that it keeps rotating (and eventually helps in doing useful work like driving a car)\n\nNow, when you let more fuel into the engine compartment, what happens is more fuel catches fire in a shorter period. When that happens, air inside the compartment gets heated much faster. That gets the lid over the compartment to raise much faster. The \"loop\" of air getting heated and cooling happens much faster this way, and this causes the cylindrical rod to rotate faster. Now if lesser fuel is let in, air gets heated slower, which means the lid moves up and down slower, and therefore the cylindrical rod rotates much slower. \n\nSo now you know why you go faster when you accelerate - you are simply letting more fuel into the engine compartment. "
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[
"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Throttle"
],
[]
] |
|
1at5d1
|
why does biting open plastic containers, like ketchup packets, "sting" my teeth sometimes?
|
I'm really curios as to why when biting into thin sheets of plastic and flimsy plastic containers to tear them open I often feel a sharp, shooting pain in my teeth.
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1at5d1/eli5_why_does_biting_open_plastic_containers_like/
|
{
"a_id": [
"c90jray",
"c90jx96"
],
"score": [
15,
2
],
"text": [
"These packets/containers actually have metals such as aluminum in them. These interact with your teeth & any fillings you may have:\n\n_URL_0_",
"If I remember correctly, my dentist told me that is a sign of weakening enamel and it's the nerves inside your teeth firing."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[
"http://science.howstuffworks.com/question564.htm"
],
[]
] |
|
2klcl0
|
how does the post office redirect your mail when you change addresses if the info is handwritten on envelopes?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2klcl0/eli5how_does_the_post_office_redirect_your_mail/
|
{
"a_id": [
"clmdckg",
"clmgxg3"
],
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12,
3
],
"text": [
"The post office scans the address and uses optical character recognition (OCR) to digitize the address. The computer then helps sort the mail to the correct destination and can apply any address changes.\n\nIf the writing is too poor/damaged then a person has a look and tries to make it out and sort the package manually.",
"Mail is scanned and an optical system can read most of the mail. From the address it reads it prints on that little bar code on the bottom. What it can't read is scanned and sent to a REC (remote encoding center) where people sit in front of a computer screen and code in the address. If the hand writing is really really bad and a human can't read it, it is reject and returned to sender.\n\nsource: I worked at a REC while going through college."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[]
] |
||
302jiu
|
how do economies grow? if there is more buying and selling wouldn't the net amount of money stay the same, isn't money is only changed from one hand to another?
|
Really confused in general about economics
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/302jiu/eli5_how_do_economies_grow_if_there_is_more/
|
{
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"cpoi1f8",
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4,
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"text": [
"Your (and everyone's) labor also has value. With work, you can change low-cost resources into high-value end products. The more this happens, the more the economy grows.",
"Buying and selling might be zero sum, but wealth isn't. People invent and build all the time to generate new wealth. Similarly, there's also general growth of the population, which leads to there being more available resources (labor) to be used.\n\nFor example, if you take some wood and carve it into a chair, that chair can be worth more than the wood and labor you put into it. Or for a more negative example, if your house burns down, you've just lost wealth and no one's gained anything.",
"Imagine we're walking through the desert. I'm hungry. You're thirsty. If I trade you my Diet Pepsi for your Twinkies, we've 'created wealth' by transforming both the Pepsi and the Twinkies from a lower valued use (neither of us wanted the item we had) to a higher valued use (both of us wanted the item we received)."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[],
[]
] |
|
bqib4b
|
how the moon can drift away from earth despite earth’s immense gravity on the moon relative to other celestial objects
|
[deleted]
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/bqib4b/eli5_how_the_moon_can_drift_away_from_earth/
|
{
"a_id": [
"eo4pz56",
"eo4qd3a"
],
"score": [
3,
2
],
"text": [
"The Moon's gravity causes tidal bulges on the Earth directly bellow it. Because the Earth spins faster than the Moon orbits, the Moon gets pulled along by the bulges causing it to speed up while the earth slows down. Because gravity decreases exponentially most of this effect already happened long ago when the Moon was closer. The Moon will not escape Earth during Sol's lifetime.",
"The moon isn't drifting away from the Earth despite the Earth's gravity, it's drifting away *because* of Earth's gravity\n\nTides are the result of the Moon's gravity causes the Earth to bulge towards the moon. This bulge pulls on the moon a little extra than normal.\n\nThe moon takes about 27 days to orbit the Earth, and the Earth take just 24 hours to revolve around it's axis. The result of this is that the bulge is slowly rotating around the moon but is always a bit in front of the moon so it pulls the moon along and speeds it up(while slowing the Earth down a tiny bit)\n\nIf you're orbiting and increase your speed your orbit will get larger. The same holds true for the Moon. Speeding up the Moon results in it moving away from the Earth at a few cm/year.\n\nNote that the moon is also slowing down the Earth through the same action so they would eventually turn at the same rate, but it'll take trillions of years"
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[]
] |
|
93u24i
|
why are the platypus and echidna the only mammals to lay eggs?
|
Why do only 2 kinds of mammal lay eggs? Pretty much every other kind of vertebrate does.
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/93u24i/eli5_why_are_the_platypus_and_echidna_the_only/
|
{
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2,
3
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"text": [
"Because nature is weird and evolution is fickle. Presumably at some point in the past the ancestor to these two animals laid eggs and it just never got selected out of their genetics.",
"Giving birth to live young has several advantages--it's a lot harder for your offspring to die before they're born if they're developing inside you, as they can't as easily be stepped on/eaten/frozen/boiled/etc. Clearly it has enough advantages that one large group of animals (mammals) and several branches of other trees evolved the trait.\n\nThe general assumption is that the immediate ancestor of all today's mammals laid eggs, and then all branches except the monotremes (playtpus/echidna) evolved live birth. From what I've read, there used to be quite a few different types of egg-laying mammals in Australia/New Zealand, but they mostly all got displaced by marsupials, who give birth to live young. A few stragglers survived in aquatic environments, where marsupials can't live as easily.",
"Fun fact\nWhen the platypus was first encountered by European naturalists, they were divided over whether the female laid eggs. This was not confirmed until 1884, when William Hay Caldwell was sent to Australia, where, after extensive searching assisted by a team of 150 Aborigines, he managed to discover a few eggs. Mindful of the high cost per word, Caldwell tersely wired London, \"Monotremes oviparous, ovum meroblastic.\" That is, monotremes lay eggs, and the eggs are similar to those of reptiles in that only part of the egg divides as it develops.\n\nThe benefits of live young vs eggs are cover in this post from \nbaloo_the_bear\nBoth have their advantages. Laying eggs saves the mother from needing to carry the fetuses for an extended period of time during gestation, and is 'cheaper' in a metabolic sense. Giving birth to live young is more expensive metabolically (meaning the mother will need more food) but the offspring are less vulnerable (and more mobile) than their shelled counterparts.\n\nOne of the major things that has affected the evolution of live birth is head size. One of the reasons human babies are so helpless when born while a deer can plop out and start walking around immediately is that the head size required to fit a human brain is way too big for a human female pelvis to birth. In contrast, however, a deer does not require such a complex brain and therefore it can develop to a higher degree in utero. This is also why babies' skulls are not completely developed at birth, because the skull literally needs to be able to squeeze through the birth canal.",
"It used to be that all animals, including the mammal-like (hairy vertebrate) animals, laid eggs. \n\nThen some mammal-like animals appeared that, through strange luck, gave live birth instead. It turned out that live birth enabled their offspring to survive better in their environment. So they had more offspring than those that stuck to laying eggs. The live-birthers became a significant part of the population. \n\nMeanwhile over in a different environment, there were others of those same mammal-like animals that also, through strange luck, gave live birth. But in their environment, live birth didn't offer much advantage, so they never became a significant part of the population. Every few generations a few more live-birthers popped up at random but for the same reason they didn't continue. The population remained egg-laying.\n\nEventually the mammal-like animals in the first group spread to many different environments, and it turned out that in nearly environment they moved to, live-birthing gave them more surviving offspring than egg-laying. This live-birthing thing turned out to be pretty nifty *for them, in those environments*. For a while there were still egg-layers among each of those groups, but eventually, the live-birthers outbred them, until there were no more egg-layers.\n\nBut that second population just stayed where they were, and for them, egg-laying worked out just fine, because nothing had changed -- they had remained in the same environment. If it ain't broke, don't fix it.\n\nThat's why the egg-laying platypus and echidna live in only a few restricted environments, where live-birth never offered any advantage. But they share ancestry, and other mammal-like characteristics, with the live-birthers who spread throughout the world and became modern mammals, that's why we consider those egg-layers mammals too.\n \n"
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[],
[],
[]
] |
|
1xis7x
|
why does snow seem so much harder to predict than rain?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1xis7x/eli5_why_does_snow_seem_so_much_harder_to_predict/
|
{
"a_id": [
"cfbp59c"
],
"score": [
14
],
"text": [
"It's harder because it happens under a much more specific set of circumstances, and predicting when those circumstances will occur is therefore much more difficult. For rain, all you have to do is look at current saturation levels in the cloud layer and (combined with a few other factors) you can reasonably predict that there will be a such-and-such percent chance of precipitation in a given area. \nFor snow, it becomes much more complicated. Storms are atmospheric disturbances, and to get snow you have to have all the factors of rain, but with temperatures < 0C. Now, that doesn't sound too difficult, but then you have to remember that cold air holds less water vapor than warm air, meaning that just because it's cold doesn't mean it will snow (see Antarctica - it rarely snows there, but because it's cold the snow sticks around forever). \nSnow usually occurs when warm, moist (giggity) air hits a high pressure area of cold air, and then snow will form along the barrier where those two fronts meet. Because you have cold air on one side, and warm air on the other, you have to track not only the temperature, pressure, and saturation levels, you also have to keep track of the direction of the fronts, their (constantly) changing \"boundaries\", and the direction those boundaries are moving. On one side of the line you'll have snow, on the other side rain, and in the middle sleet/freezing rain/slushy mixture. \nHope that helps!"
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[]
] |
||
2oxali
|
why does it feel colder to get out of the shower in the winter than in the summer, even if the inside temperature is the same?
|
If room temperature is kept at the same 72F in the summer and the winter, why does it feel colder getting out in the winter?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2oxali/eli5_why_does_it_feel_colder_to_get_out_of_the/
|
{
"a_id": [
"cms9ze8"
],
"score": [
3
],
"text": [
"I too have given this a lot of thought... Are you perhaps underweight or, to put it bluntly, skin and bones? This would make you more susceptible to the cold temperature in the winter. Is it too much to ask for you to post a picture of your upper torso? I think me and my fellow redditors would be able to help you if you provided us with more insight. "
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[]
] |
|
3w08fp
|
why are buildings/freeways built so slow now compared to before, when there were none of those?
|
How was all of America's buildings and freeways all built before, when now it seems like it takes years to build a freeway overpass or to make a road detoured or build buildings? It seems like it would have taken way longer.
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3w08fp/eli5_why_are_buildingsfreeways_built_so_slow_now/
|
{
"a_id": [
"cxs8kwy",
"cxsdu38"
],
"score": [
2,
3
],
"text": [
"A couple things at play here. The main being that to do construction on a structure that is in use is much more difficult. You can't shut down a major freeway in a big city for weeks to build around the clock, so they have to do partial closures, and generally work off peak hours, like in the middle of the day or over night. Closing down the whole freeway would basically shut down the city. When constructing a completely separate structure, they are able to have multiple teams working around the clock and don't have to worry about redirecting traffic.\n\nThere are also safety requirements now that didn't exist 50 years ago that make construction slower and more expensive.... And much safer.",
"There are lots of reasons.\n\nBuildings in the past, i.e. pre WWII or even pre 1900, where built much more incrementally. People built small building, then over time, added an addition or added a new floor. 20th century building codes and going largely forbid this style of incremental development, which means that the only way to build is to make big bets, but big bets take a long time. In the past, if it seemed like a city was building quickly, it might because thousands of individual land owners were improving their properties. Now, zoning and the NIMBYism it enables locks existing properties in stasis for decades, increasing pressure on the few properties each year that can be built to be as big as possible, which increases political, mechanical, structural and social complexity, which slows down the pace.\n\nAdditionally of course, we don't tolerate so many people dying as part of construction, so it means going a bit slower and more carefully, but I don't think that's the biggest reason.\n\nRegarding freeways, the same considerations of safety come into play, as well as other commenters points about the difficulty of shutting down existing freeways to work on them. However there are other factors that are more important. When they were first conceived, freeways were \"the new thing\" that was going to save the city from the motor vehicle. Almost everyone was excited about them and eager to push past any obstacle, whether social, environmental or financial. For instance, many freeways were built by simply looking for the poorest people in the city or the blackest, or ideally both, bulldozing their houses and building the freeway there.\n\nOver time, excitement about freeways, and especially paying for freeways, has cooled. We've realized that due to induced demand, building new road space doesn't necessary improve things, and without pricing may make things worse.\n\nWe also have a better understanding of how cities work and how freeways can affect neighbourhoods, and reduce the tax base of the city while simultaneously increasing it's costs (by replacing tax paying businesses and homes with roadway). Many cities that built the fewest freeways are realizing that their success in staying financially solvent is because of this, not in spite of it.\n\nFinally, in the beginning, gas taxes were adequate to cover the costs of roadway expansion, however this hasn't been true for many decades. Current costs are being covered by subsidies from general revenue and attempts to ensure motor vehicles are paying the full cost of their infrastructure, whether through increases in gas tax or road pricing, haven't caught on yet. This means that there just isn't money for the kind of road building that might have been done decades ago.\n\nMany cities are realizing that their best financial bet is to actually remove freeways, rather than build more.\n\nHope that helps."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[]
] |
|
5yg5z8
|
why does music trigger vivid memories?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5yg5z8/eli5_why_does_music_trigger_vivid_memories/
|
{
"a_id": [
"deq3drm",
"deqlhv4"
],
"score": [
2,
3
],
"text": [
"I'm no expert but my best guess would be because different music has all types of feelings and moods which can be related to the same moods and feelings in that of \"vivid\" memories. Thus your brain triggers a memory because of their similar correlation.",
"The hippocampus and the frontal cortex are two large ares in the brain associated with memory and the take in a great deal of imformation every minute. Retrieving it is not always easy. It doesn't simply come when you ask it to. Music helps because it provides a rhythm and rhyme and sometimes alliteration which helps to unlock that information with cues. It is the structure of the song that helps us to remember it, as well as the melody and the image the words provoke. "
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[]
] |
||
8c56n8
|
why do ice rinks need brine, if the salt would just melt the ice?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/8c56n8/eli5_why_do_ice_rinks_need_brine_if_the_salt/
|
{
"a_id": [
"dxc7mqf",
"dxc7oqk"
],
"score": [
4,
3
],
"text": [
"The brine has a lower freezing point and is cooled below 0°C, lower than freshwater freeze at.\n\nThis brine is pumped through pipes set into the concrete floor of the rink under the ice. This cools the concrete to below freshwater freezing temperatures and so keeps the ice frozen.\n\nThe brine water never comes into contact with the ice you skate on.\n\nEdit: oh also this is how the ice gets there in the first place. They chill, using brine water, the bare floor to below freezing. Then use deionised water, which sets clear, in thin layers to build up the ice to about an inch thick.",
"Salt doesn't really melt ice. What happens when salt is added to water is the temperature at which water freezes is pushed a little lower, but this only works down to about -6°F (-21°C for everyone outside the US, Liberia, and Myanmar). Past that point you'd need something like ethylene glycol, which is the stuff in automotive antifreeze and works down to about -40°C/F."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[]
] |
||
6iqqnf
|
why do major competitors such as burger king and mcdonalds put their restaurants right next to each other?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/6iqqnf/eli5_why_do_major_competitors_such_as_burger_king/
|
{
"a_id": [
"dj8ct40",
"dj8cyg7",
"dj8dg0u",
"dj8eg5j",
"dj8pq72",
"dj8t9j1",
"dj8yrli",
"dj9axmf"
],
"score": [
13,
3,
46,
6,
2,
3,
2,
2
],
"text": [
"Sometimes putting a restaurant next to an existing restaurant can improve trade for both, as the area becomes known for being a place to go and eat. \n\nThe restaurants capitalize on people not knowing what they want to eat, but heading out to an area they know as a lot of options and deciding when they get there.\n\nI feel like I read this in Freakanomics.\n\nI also found this:\n\n_URL_0_",
"For these big corporations putting locations in spots (and their franchisees), an incredible amount of research goes into exactly where to put the restaurant, cost, population, competition, traffic, laws, all of it. Lots and lots of work go into this, its a major aspect of putting up a place like this.\n\nWell... they do all of this research, and like I said, competition is a factor. They will factor that in. But there's a good chance that the other benefits of the location are just so high compared to other areas, that its still worth their while even if they have more competition close. Even with them there, it could be better than down the street, or 4 blocks over. And remember, there was a reason the other restaurant chose that location too\n\nEven more... it could be a benefit to have them there. Lets say you're down the street and its just as good a location. But a McD next to a BK, maybe McD has research that if people see both they choose McD... which means McD instead of losing customers by competition net to it, will actually GAIN customers, because people who would have gone to BK now will go to McD instead.\n\n",
"It's a state of compromise that is reached between two competitors who try to corner the same market. Look at it this way, imagine a beach with a single ice cream vendor. It doesn't matter much where he stands as everyone on the beach has to go to him to get ice cream. Now a second vendor enters the fray. They start off by taking opposite sides of the beach, and each have access to about half the people on the beach. \n\nBut if one of them wants to get increase his sales, he can move closer to the middle of the beach, which would make his stall stand closer to a larger amount of people, effectively giving him an edge over his competitor. When the other guy sees his, he'll move closer to the middle as well to negate that advantage. Now they could just keep moving around daily in an attempt to try and get an edge over the other, but eventually they'll both just end up settling on standing in the middle, giving them both the same amount of access to the clientele. ",
"Let's say there's two major commercial districts in a town, district X and district Y. Initially, there's a Burger King in district X and a McDonald's in district Y. The two areas have equal foot traffic, and nobody on either side of the town is willing to drive across town for a fast food burger, so the two chains get 100% of the sales in their respective district.\n\nNow, if McDonald's puts a location in area X, they get 50% of the sales in district X and 100% of the sales in district Y, so they do it. The same thing applies to Burger King, so they also open a store in district Y. After this, both companies get 50% of the sales in both districts, equal to the amount of sales they got before either opened up a new chain.\n\nOn the surface this seems stupid, they increased their overhead and upkeep for no net gain in sales, but had they done nothing they would have lost 25% of the town's sales to their competitor, so opening up a new store actually minimized their losses.\n\nThe numbers aren't that nice in reality, but the general principle holds.",
"Along with what the others have said, It's pretty low risk for the new one. \nIf you sell the same product, it's not a difficult job to check roughly how much sales the existing place is doing. If you can see they are doing a lot, then you weigh it up with things like customer loyalty etc (Again, Not difficult for big chains) and then decide if you want to put a unit there. Low risk, but you might only get a bit of the pie. \nIf its a vacant lot with no other burger joint for miles around, there are a while nother set of variables to consider, which could potentially spell more risk, but you get all the pie. \n.\n",
"Marketing professional here.\n\nAll the responses so far miss the most important reason why competitors use the same locations. The real reason is that your competitor is also your partner. Think of it this way, if a large volume of people associate a location with fast food all the other fast food outlets will locate there as well. Why because they know on that on each day you will want something different and that the traffic across the street today will be your traffic on another day.\n\nAs a marketer of commercial shade systems, the other roller shade manufacturers were my bidding competition while on the other hand they were my partner in convincing building management companies to switch from horizontal and vertical mini blinds to visibly transparent roller shades.\n\nOther ways we shared a location is the magazines we advertised in, the media we used, the associations we belonged to, the types of customers we shared, the part suppliers, etc.",
"The explaination I read presents you with a beach in summertime. You and I both have ice cream carts on opposite ends of the beach. People who want ice cream walk to the closest cart, so we each get half the beach. Because I am a smarty pants who is familiar with game theory, I move my cart a few feet toward the center of the beach. Now we each get half of the people between us AND I get everyone toward my original end of the beach, so I start making more money. You move closer to me to even things out, I move closer you again, and pretty soon we are both right next to each other at the middle of the beach, each capturing half the beachgoers as we initially did. Neither of us can gain an advantage at this point because any movement would give the other person more customers. A city is more complicated than a beach, but the same idea applies. Wherever is ideal for one company is also ideal for the other company, and there isn't actually a disadvantage to being right next to your competition unless *everyone* prefers your competition. They both aim to find the best location, and that generally puts them right next to each other, and that doesn't hurt them as much as you might think.",
"Back in the 80's it was because McD's did all the research to find a good place for a store, and BK would go \"Hey, that looks good\" and put one next door."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[
"https://mindyourdecisions.com/blog/2012/10/23/why-are-mcdonalds-and-burger-king-usually-located-near-each-other-fast-food-location-game-theory/"
],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[]
] |
||
9s5hkf
|
how do animals know when it's time to leave "home"?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/9s5hkf/eli5_how_do_animals_know_when_its_time_to_leave/
|
{
"a_id": [
"e8m7qc5"
],
"score": [
17
],
"text": [
"They often don't. Moose calves, for example, leave the cow because she forces them away.\n\nWhen she starts to instinctively feel that she needs to get in some good and solid eating before the nest rut, she refuses to serve the calf any more. And gives it gentle physical nudges until it catches the message and starts to wander off in one direction or another.\n\nSome of them come back for days and get a good and proper kicking for not leaving her alone.\n\nIt's a pretty stressful separation for the calves, and that time of the year has a significant increase in the roadkill statistics because they wander off and do weird things before eventually finding their way again."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[]
] |
||
2easo7
|
hypothetical child support question
|
If one man with an income of $30,000/year decided to father as many children as he could - let's say he fathered 200 babies - would he be forced to pay child support for them all? It doesn't seem like that would even be financially possible to do, let alone while supporting himself, so how would the courts handle this situation?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2easo7/eli5_hypothetical_child_support_question/
|
{
"a_id": [
"cjxoau2",
"cjxobvn",
"cjxoidd"
],
"score": [
2,
5,
2
],
"text": [
"It seems likely that if [they don't pay child support they can end up in jail](_URL_0_). If that's the case for a guy with 22ish kids from 14ish women, I suspect the same would happen with that hypothetical guy.",
"It very much depends on location. Often there is a cap, and the support takes that maximum amount and divides it among the children. The cap is normally a % of income and certainly in some places 50%.\n\n > (b) When the total of the obligor’s basic support obligations exceeds fifty percent of his or her monthly net income, the court may consider a proportional reduction of these obligations. Since, however, the goal of the guidelines is to treat each child equitably, in no event should either a first or later family receive preference. Nor shall the court divide the guideline amount for all of the obligor’s children among the households in which those children live.\n\n_URL_0_\n\nIf you live in pennsylvania.",
"Each state is different, but each child usually gets a percentage of the man's income. So let's say a man makes 2000 per month, and has to pay 10% to the first child, which is $200. \n\nThe second child would get 10% of the leftover money, which would be 10% of 1800, or $180\n\nThe third child gets 10% of the leftover of that, which is 10% of 1620, or $162\n\nand so on.\n\nthe 200th child is screwed.\n\nEDIT:\n\nafter reading a bit, it looks like the children are only entitled to up to 50% of a man's income (again, probably differs by state). So if he made $2000 a month, $1000 of that would be eligible to go to the kids. "
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[
"http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/father-22-children-14-women-sued-support-article-1.1365207"
],
[
"http://www.pacode.com/secure/data/231/chapter1910/s1910.16-7.html"
],
[]
] |
|
7eq25t
|
how can people weld under water?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/7eq25t/eli5_how_can_people_weld_under_water/
|
{
"a_id": [
"dq6vb3v"
],
"score": [
6
],
"text": [
"Underwater welding uses electricity. Electricity flows through the welding cable to the rod to the metal structure being welded and back to the generator. While water conducts electricity a little, it's not nearly as good a conductor as metal or welding plasma. The water cools the plasma, so you need more electricity to make it hot. Of course you need air for the welder to breathe, but that's the same as any underwater job."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[]
] |
||
9b8pqw
|
what does it mean when someone describes something as “kafka-esque”?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/9b8pqw/eli5_what_does_it_mean_when_someone_describes/
|
{
"a_id": [
"e515vxi",
"e5166px",
"e518nqc"
],
"score": [
3,
9,
2
],
"text": [
"The people in charge are insane and everyone is going along with it. Also everything is awful, surreal, and inexplicable.",
"“Kafkaesque” refers to the works by author Franz Kafka, whose central characters in his most famous works are the victims of some inexplicable and unknowable process.\n\nKafka’s literary works are different from a *tragedy*, in which terrible things happen to people for some particular reason: either because of some flaw in the hero, or his or her surrounding society. By contrast, Kafka’s works are ones in which terrible things happen *for no reason at all*.\n\n- In *The Metamorphosis*, a man simply wakes up one day, transformed into a monstrous insect. No reason is found for this transformation, and it ruins his life.\n\n- In *The Trial*, a man is arrested, tried, and convicted of an unknown crime, by an unknown government. The nature of the crime is never provided — neither to the story’s character nor the story’s reader.\n\nIn some ways you might think these are left as *open mysteries*, but it both cases it becomes apparent that even knowing about the reasons for these terrible things happening would not help.\n\nSome things that are actually Kafkaesque in real life: \n\n- girls being raped in some countries and then put on trial for sexual infidelity when they attempt to seek justice; \n- fighting a credit agency that declared you dead due to a clerical error; \n- being “gaslighted”, i.e, having people insist that reality is different than it is in order to manipulate you into doubting your own ability to know what’s real.\n\nThe sense of detachment or disassociation from knowable reality due to a severe and traumatic break in our expectations or trust in our own experience is the *attitude* or *feeling* that something is Kafkaesque.",
"Imagine waking up in a slightly different universe that has slightly different rules. You don't know that the rules changed but every time you break one of those rules the universe becomes a little bit darker and more confusing - going further and further from anything you experienced before.\n\n\nSo now you try making good decisions getting to a better place, but every step you take and every decision you make will be wrong because the rules you know don't hold up anymore. You feel helpless, confused and lost. Even worse everyone else in the universe seems to understand what is happening and why, so you even start questioning your own sanity until you just give up.\n\n\nAt least that was my experience with Kafka, people say it's an accurate description of depression and insanity. So if somebody says kafka-esque they usually mean something that defies expectations in a dark and surreal way. "
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[],
[]
] |
||
1jf353
|
how does china get away with paying it's workers so poorly?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1jf353/eli5how_does_china_get_away_with_paying_its/
|
{
"a_id": [
"cbe0zwt",
"cbe4hyg"
],
"score": [
3,
2
],
"text": [
"The problem isn't necessarily limited to China: There are more workers than there are jobs. \n\nYou don't have a job, and having a shitty job is better than having no job at all, so you take whatever you can. This job you settled for pays you poorly, but you have no room to argue, because otherwise you'll be fired. The company can afford to fire you and anyone else who raises their voice because there are 10 other jobless people behind you who are similarly willing to take any job that they can get.",
"The simple explanation is this: What you think of as a terrible wage is, to a poor, rural Chinese family, a considerable improvement.\n\nWhat you think of as a poor, meager existence is substantially better than the extreme poverty found in much of China. As a result, people are competing to accept jobs with harsh conditions, since they provide a much better livelihood than was accessible to them in the past.\n\nOver time, if China's economy continues to grow, the ranks of the employable-but-extremely-poor will shrink, and more, better, safer and higher-paying opportunities will arise, causing the most capable and willing workers to leave their present conditions for even better ones.\n\nA similar story is happening in India, and it is a few years farther along -- though many parts of India are still incredibly, incredibly poor, working conditions and wages for many have been increasing substantially -- so much so that much of the work that was first brought there is leaving to find other sources of cheap labor."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[]
] |
||
6mrztt
|
when you hold your breath with your mouth open underwater, what is happening internally to prevent water from entering your lungs?
|
[deleted]
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/6mrztt/eli5when_you_hold_your_breath_with_your_mouth/
|
{
"a_id": [
"dk3wzpq"
],
"score": [
3
],
"text": [
"Your epiglottis (a little flap of cartilage in the back of your throat) closes is pulled tight against the opening to your windpipe. This is the same function it provides which allows us to drink without fluid entering our lungs. "
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[]
] |
|
f5eid2
|
what stops anybody else from making their own lottery?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/f5eid2/eli5_what_stops_anybody_else_from_making_their/
|
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"Usually there are laws passed by local government that prevent this, by giving only the government the ability to make a lottery. Simple solution to a simple problem.",
"It's against the law. Organized crime does just as you describe - it's called the numbers racket (or numbers game). [wiki link](_URL_0_)"
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[
"https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Numbers_game"
]
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||
77z0df
|
the term dialectic used by marx
|
As in dialectically related for example!
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/77z0df/eli5_the_term_dialectic_used_by_marx/
|
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"text": [
"It comes from Hegel's philosophy : _URL_0_\n\nThe basic idea is that ideas & society progresses through 3 phases:\n\n1. You've got a popular idea (the *thesis*).\n2. Eventually, the opposite of that idea will become popular (the *antithesis*)\n3. Finally, people figure out a compromise between the two (the *synthesis*).\n\nMarx made some significant changes to the idea but I can't remember what they were off the top of my head.",
"So you've got Socrates' idea of how arguments work through thesis, antitheses and synthesis as /u/ameba spells out above. Basically you talk, you find common ground, and the new common ground forms the basis of your future understanding. Socrates thought you did that until you got to the \"right\" answer, then stopped.\n\nThen Hegel took it to the next step and basically said all thought, all words, and all understanding of everything, but particularly in terms of philosophical concepts, is the consequence of dialectic. We talk, we argue, we come to a shared understanding. That understanding = what we think is the correct answer at that point. Until someone else builds on it by arguing more. So there is no right answer, there's just the evolution of understanding through time.\n\nThen Marx takes it one step further with his concept of *dialectical materialism*. That basically means that if you apply the idea of the dialectic to history and to politics you realise that reality itself is what we decide it is, and so we can change it through argument. Take any assumption you make about the way the world is and Marx will say that that assumption is historical: it is correct now but it might not be correct in future because we are constantly changing our conception of reality through conversation and debate.\n\nSo take the idea that \"Communism is a good idea in theory but it would never work in practice because people are selfish and money oriented\". Dialectical materialism says well that might be true now, but through argument we can slowly shift our idea of reality over time and at some future point people won't be selfish or greedy because selfishness and greedyness are products of our society and culture which can be altered by sustained debate shifting the cultural and historical norms.\n\nI'd need to see the context but I think the phrase \"dialectically related\" I think just uses the old fashioned Socratic sense of the term dialectic. So \"x is dialectically related to y\" means \"arguments about x, eventually led us to think y\"",
"Around the 19th century when Marx was around, philosophy was being turned on it's head.\n\nSince the ancient Greek philosophers discussed the Land of the Forms, and the idea that all things on earth are imperfect reflections of a perfect idea, and the subsequent inclusion of Christian moral ideas into philosophy, Europe developed what Nietzsche would call a Genealogy of Morals, a way in which previous philosophies and ideas were the foundations for the next, and how that caused growth in a particular direction but disfavored others.\n\nOne of these directions was called 'metaphysicalism', like the Land of the Forms. When examining an idea philosophically, you'd examine it in isolation from everything else and from reality itself, developing a model for how the perfect version worked in isolation from surrounding flaws.\n\nAnother, opposing direction, which lost popularity briefly in the middle ages but can be found both in Greece and later, was the dialectic argument. It's been restated a bunch of times, but it's based on a dialogue between two parties who disagree and who try to undermine each other's argument for what is through finding imperfections, flaws, and ultimately contradictions in what appear to be metaphysically pure ideas. Socrates was famous for forcing people to engage in these 'dialogues' with him. One of his most famous examples of this was to consider a heap of sand. In a metaphysical worldview this concept is clear, but in a dialectic, suppose a light breeze comes along and starts to lift sand grains one at a time, at what point would it cease to be a heap? In Engel's view, this speaks to the need to examine the actual numbers, rather than the metaphysical ideas, and consider how quantitative changes can effect qualitative ones.\n\nMarx never actually used the words 'dialectic materialism'; they were coined by others to describe the mode of his work. Many of our arguments in the 19th century for how societies worked were metaphysical, and to an extent you can still see that today. People think about, say, a factory worker, and they imagine a physically healthy and fit man who is raising a family on his salary, and takes the best work he can find, and we examine the capitalist investor who owns the factory and paid to build it, and how he picks the best projects, and pays those willing to work at the lowest rate, but when we start to examine those dialectically and from a materialist standpoint we start to reveal the flaws and contradictions inherent in those ideas. Our conception of the factory owner is incomplete if we don't consider this dialectic relationship to the workers at his factory, and the imperfections in that relationship and how they create the imperfections in the greater whole.\n\nThe most famous example concerns private property. He argues that the collapse of private property is inevitable, on the following basis: Capitalists use property to acquire profit. Profit is an increase in the amount of property you have. That acquisition concentrates private property in the hands of the few, until most do not own property anymore. While in principle, you expect good ideas to be rewarded with value, the reality of the power relationship created by the owner/employee relationship does not allow a fair exchange, and inevitably the factory worker who augments production will not be rewarded the full value of his invention. The concept that anyone, not just the government/nobility may own land, with the rules of a capitalist free market, inevitably leads to a new nobility arising who themselves have the exclusive privilege of owning property. You can't get this from examining just the factory owner or just the laborer, but only from examining the nature of their relationship to one another, by looking for the ways in which in reality they will differ from their 'perfect' forms, and so on. Read the book if you want his full argument in detail.\n\nThe dialectic approach is essentially a rejection of metaphysicalism, the idea that phenomena can be understood in isolation from one another or in a perfect, 'textbook' form. It can be applied to history, economics, sociology, everything. When examining Marx, what they mean to say when there is a dialectic relationship is that there is a common misconception that arises from a metaphysical worldview that examines concepts, ideas, movements, classes, or people in their perfect or ideal form, without considering a third party relationship (the relationship between the factory worker and the grocery store, for example), common flaw (a lack of education in the workforce to know what their options are for selling a money-saving idea and the common willingness to exploit that through disinformation and threats), or simply slow, quantitative changes (how the ability of the free market to operate in a community changes when the ability to own property is in fewer and fewer hands, and more and more people have to try to outbid each other downwards for less and less reward). \n\nTL;DR: when they say something is 'dialectically related', they really mean \"put down your beer, I'm about to blow your mind, because there's something you wouldn't normally think about that'll completely change how you see this topic.\"",
"It just means an internal *necessary* oppositional and *self-contradictory* relationship.\n\nFrom Marx: Use-value & Exchange-value within a commodity.\n\nThis is a dialectic that is supremely confusing because *it is not at all obvious or clear that these are in any way fundamental necessary opposites*. Marx himself is unclear about this, but thinking about it leads to the fact that what Marx emphasizes isn't the whole story of this opposition. One can have use-value without ever having exchange-value—in fact one seems to be able to have it without any society or other people at all. Use-value seems to be not just momentarily, but *conceptually* independent of exchange-value. Exchange-value is very clearly social, yet use-value is not.\n\nSo, first. Use-value is itself economically neutral when taken alone *at face value*. Things can *seemingly* be use-values within social and economic relations as well as outside them. Things can be use-values without being exchange-values. When things are use-values, they have utility for someone, particularly for their holder.\n\nUse-value is *that which has utility for me*. Exchange-value is *that which has no utility for me but utility for others*. When brought into the social sphere, if an object is to be used/consumed by me, it cannot in that use be used by another—thus in things being use-values for *me* they cannot be use-values for *another*. So, first opposition is basic: if I use it, for example, eating a pie, someone else isn't going to be able to eat it. This isn't a dialectic, it's an obvious opposition.\n\nSecond opposition: exchange-value. Things that are exchange-values have no *immediate* use for me, but are useful to others. Here is where the dialectic of the commodity actually exists: in being useless to me, but useful to others, a thing is indeed a use-value to me. A commodity is a thing whose utility *is to be gotten rid of in exchange*. **A commodity is a thing which is useful for me in being useless to me**. Exchange-value *is* a type of use-value. \n\nThere you go, that's a dialectic."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dialectic"
],
[],
[],
[]
] |
|
5c0y9i
|
how has polling become so unreliable and what alternative methods do pollsters have to improve reliability?
|
I assume the game has changed in the Internet era, but why hasn't the ability to reach more people improved polling reliability? Has there actually been a drop in reliability or am I just noticing the inherent inaccuracy now at crucial moments (POTUS, Brexit)?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5c0y9i/eli5_how_has_polling_become_so_unreliable_and/
|
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"It appears the DNC collaboration with news media may be a concern. When you stop looking at the science and instead attempt to interpret the results for the candidate you favor, your work becomes less accurate.",
"Part of this is just the problem of polling being good at picking out general relationships, but bad at hidden trends.\n\nSo you look at the votes of likely voters. Well how do you determine who likely voters are, well you look at previous elections...\n\nBut who actually turns up varies a lot from year to year and is hard to predict. Especially when huge numbers of people this year were undecided right up until the last minute, predicting how they will break becomes very difficult.\n\nit looks like this year most of those people decided to give traditional politics a big \"fuck you\". I actually thing this election was just as much an indictment of the Republican establishment as the Democratic one.",
"Look at fivethirtyeight, Nate Silver's site. He's a poll aggregator who runs simulations and he got all 51 \"states\" correct in 2012 using his method.\n\nHe has said that the biggest problem with 2016 was that the races in each state were closer than 2012 (meaning within margin of error on polls), and a lot more people identified themselves as \"undecided\" than before which is not good for doing simulations.\n\nThat said, up until the election, he was catching a lot of flack from the left for giving Trump too much of a chance.",
"The classic problem with surveys has to do with flawed sampling methods - internet users, for example, tend to skew younger, so unadjusted online polls will usually have biased results. Pollsters are well aware of this, though, and have developed really good methods of accounting for what types of people respond to what types of polls. Most of the time, then, it isn't a major factor for pollsters because they know how to correct for it.\n\nThe unreliability that an election like this reveals, however, has to do less with getting the correct sample and more to do with identifying the correct population. When pollsters take a sample of a group of people, they work hard to make sure that that sample is a good representation of the actual population they're sampling - are the age/gender/race/political affiliation/etc. breakdowns matching what they expect, in other words. The difficulty isn't in sampling methods, but in matching those samples to the population; in order to do that, you have to know what the population from which you're sampling looks like, and that changes in unpredictable ways.\n\nIn the U.S., for example, there's no law requiring everyone to vote. Because of that, the demographics of the \"likely voter\" will change from election to election, and can be based on factors that change over the years and even shift wildly during a single election season - when the news broke about the FBI investigating more emails from Hillary, for example, some voters are going to become less likely to vote, while others become more likely to vote. That makes it a shift in the population of \"likely voters,\" which is REALLY hard to model because there's simply no way (as of yet) to model the impact of micro-events like that.\n\nThe reason for the polling misses this season seems to be that Trump's supporters came out at a very high rate, compared to their past voting habits; uneducated voters, for example, historically vote at lower rates than educated voters, which most pollsters failed to factor into their calculations (not because of intentional bias, but because they're trying to limit potential variables that typically don't shift). Trump, however, really appealed to certain segments of the population that don't usually show up at polls to the level that they did this election season.\n\nLook at the USC Dornsife/LA Times tracking poll over at _URL_0_ that took a lot of flack over the past year for consistently showing a Trump lead, and for their final calculation of a 3% Trump margin of victory - their method of weighting each response based on likeliness of voting (i.e. \"level of enthusiasm\") affected their data in ways that other pollsters didn't account for, and that variable likely played a significant role in the final results.\n\nLike any science, polling has come a long ways, but it still has a long ways to go. Pollsters treat every election as another set of data points, and the irony of the majority of polls being wrong is that it's going to make the science as a whole that much stronger because of it.",
"Well, it looks like Hilary got the most votes, so polling for that was accurate. But the way the votes are distributed matters a lot for the US presidential election. Each separate state being polled adds to the error rate, which means you can get the overall election result wrong, while getting the relative rations of votes about right.",
"So lets start with the premise that the polls leading up to this election didn't have to be wrong to get the result observed.\n\nFiveThirtyEight had trump with about a 30% chance of victory going into this thing. They are just a pure data outfit and it could be that if we ran an election with the exact same polls twice more Hillary could have won both times.\n\nThe important thing to understand about a poll is that it is a probability distribution. It gives a result that says \"Hillary +2* with a +/-2% margin of error 95/100.\" This basically means that \"Hillary +2 is just a probability distribution with its mean at the +2 mark for Hillary. The odds are that Hillary is actually not exactly +2, but instead somewhere in the range of dead even to four points ahead.\n\nIt is unlikely that you could take fifty polls, which all show Hillary up by 0.1% to 2% and it would turn out that trump actually wins (though narrowly), but it is absolutely within the realm of possibility.\n\nOn top of that a lot of polls are sloppy with how they do things, and a lot of polls reported don't actually speak to the outcome of the race. National tracking polls for example are meaningless for determining who win's the presidency.\n\nThe question is, who wins states controlling 270 electoral votes? And while a national poll might be informative on the topic, it is a proxy for what we really want to measure.\n\nThink about it this way... \n\nIf instead of having their margins of error expressed as numbers, what if the polls used a black line that was as wide as their margin of error, and when you overlap all the polls on top of each other the middle ground of the chart, distinguishing a trump win from a Hillary win, is simply a black pool of ink. Would you say the polls were wrong if the data was presented that way?\n\nIn fact the evidence is that the polls were right. Trump did something very odd just before the election running up to Michigan to campaign there. He MUST have had some polling showing him with a shot at winning it, and it looks like it was a very prudent investment of his time.",
"One thing that may not have been accounted for is that due to how **INCREDIBLY** negative both sides were about each other, many people declined to participate in polling. Because stating you intend to vote for one candidate has half of the country immediately going \"how effing DARE you support them!\"\n\nI think America's Christian population, particularly due to their stance on abortion, is a possible example of this. Say Candidate R has said and done some gross things that don't jive with your faith... but you believe Candidate D supports \"killing babies.\" That makes it really hard to wear one of those red baseball caps in public, but even harder to vote against him in the booth.",
"Not everyone is completely honest or accurate when they answer polls.\n\nSome people end up voting who didn't think they would. Others change their mind. \n\nThere's relatively little to fix this and it biases the polls.",
"The idea that Brexit was unforeseen is false - polls leading up to the day had the odds at somewhere between 48% and 52%."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[],
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],
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[],
[],
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|
3u6t37
|
why are lg's 55" and 65" tv's $3500 difference in price?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3u6t37/eli5_why_are_lgs_55_and_65_tvs_3500_difference_in/
|
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"text": [
"The oled technology is still relatively knew which means that it can still be quite costly to make that extra 10 in. \n\nOther note . with both tv's having the same pixel count you will get a better picture out of the 55."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[]
] |
||
1wy9rh
|
gel nail polish vs regular?
|
What is the chemical difference between "gel" nail polish that lasts longer by binding to your nails, rather than normal polish that just sits on the top of your nails? Why is it not more widely used? Does it impact the wearers health more than regular polish does?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1wy9rh/eli5_gel_nail_polish_vs_regular/
|
{
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"text": [
"I don't buy gel polish because you need to buy a UV light in order to harden it. Reviews I've read say gel polish lasts for about two weeks, which is not that huge a difference if you are very good at applying normal nail polish. In the nail polish sections of stores that I've been to, about 1/10 of all the polishes are gel polish. These could all have to do with why gel polish isn't more popular. \n\nI found [this article](_URL_0_) on Google about the health effects of gel polish. It looks like it's mostly just worries about chemicals and UV radiation. Normal nail polishes may contain bad chemicals too. For example, the popular fast-drying topcoat, Seche Vite, contains toluene. I am not sure if there is a significant difference in how bad for you gel vs. normal nail polishes are. "
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[
"http://www.huffingtonpost.com/dr-susan-taylor/gel-nail-polish_b_1333236.html"
]
] |
|
39jrlw
|
what happens when a currency 'dies'?
|
Like Zimbabwe's about to experience?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/39jrlw/eli5_what_happens_when_a_currency_dies/
|
{
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"Typically the government prints a new currency, and for a limited-time period, they offer you to exchange the dying currency with the new one. In Zimbabwe's case, they abolished their old currency in 2009 and just started using foreign countries' currencies like US dollars and South African rands. People stopped using Zimbabwean dollars long ago because of hyperinflation, the money lost value so quickly that within a single day a Zimbabwean dollar lost half it's value. The government at one point was printing bills worth Z$100,000,000,000,000 (one hundred trillion). "
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[]
] |
|
81apzj
|
pressure and fluids - why lowering the pressure pulls fluids?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/81apzj/eli5_pressure_and_fluids_why_lowering_the/
|
{
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"Lowering the pressure doesn't \"pull\", it reduces resistance to pushing. Lowering pressure at the top of a straw for example allows the atmospheric pressure on the surface of the fluid outside the straw to push the fluid up the straw until equalized.\n\nVacuums don't \"suck\", there is no such force."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[]
] |
||
2nfd40
|
why astronauts don't seem worried about liquid floating off into iss or shuttle paneling whenever we see footage of them drinking or experimenting with liquids. wouldn't a stray drop or two cause a short?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2nfd40/eli5_why_astronauts_dont_seem_worried_about/
|
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"Surface tension will keep the big drops together, and the astronauts plan to eat those. As for the very small droplets, they're not particularly more likely to cause a short than the sweat or humidity in their breath since they'll have a harder time getting behind the panels that cover sensitive electrical equipment. Also, those small droplets will evaporate quickly.",
"Equipment on the ISS is designed with this sort of thing in mind."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[]
] |
||
1xrqci
|
apparently, foreign governments hold about $4.5 trillion of us debt. how is this possible?
|
What I'm confused about is how this occurs, what the ramifications are and how it is eventually solved.
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1xrqci/eli5_apparently_foreign_governments_hold_about_45/
|
{
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"By purchasing government bonds -- just like people inside the country can do.\n\nThe Treasury Department issues bonds, that are paid off at after a specified time at a specified interest rate.",
"It happens when foreign governments buy US bonds. The US is seen as a very safe and stable investment so lots of other countries park excess cash in US bonds. \n\nThe ramifications is a lot of other countries have a very strong interest in the US dollar remaining strong and the US economy staying healthy. \n\nIt doesn't really need to be resolved...the US is capable of paying all the interest and maturing bonds under current conditions. The concern is that the debt keeps growing because the US keeps running a deficit. Eventually, the debt could get big enough that the US could no longer make the payments. That would be bad. "
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[]
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|
2dmweo
|
why do companies like google and microsoft spend so much money on, and care so much about you using, their web browers they give you for free?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2dmweo/eli5_why_do_companies_like_google_and_microsoft/
|
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"text": [
"Well in Google's case, because they make boatloads of money off the ads placed next to your searches. Literally everything Google does is to get you to use a service they can put an ad next to.",
"The data they collect from you has value.",
"To improve the web experience. By making browsers faster and adding features, it becomes much more interesting to surf through the WWW. \n\nThis generates more traffic and therefore more income through advertising. Chrome uses your data (mostly traffic) to improve advertising and user experience. Google also is one of the main actors in improving web solutions and development of web languages (such as HTML5)\n\nMicrosofts IE is the default browser of windows. Every windows-own program uses the internet explorer to show their web-content (such as (online) help/support etc.). If you write a program for Windows with a built-in web-interface it uses the IE (by default) to show your page, as long as you don't build your own internal browser.\nAlso, IE is a business solution. Most company internal networks can only be accessed by IE, as it provides all features needed. Windows needs the IE, otherwise many programs wouldn't work. That's why you can't remove or replace it.",
"You are not their customer. Their customers are the advertisers who spend money to get access to data about your browsing habits to serve you customized ads. For Google, getting people interested in Chrome is like a mining company looking for more veins of gold.",
"It helps if you think of the browser as a platform (in googles case). Chrome allows functionality that is very beneficial to google. Yes they cache searches and use data to provide powerful search suggestions and ad placement. But they also allow the purchase of applications through the chrome store. Chrome has become a market place. Chrome extensions allows other companies like eBay or Amazon to integrate with their platform as well.\n\nIts a platform for which Google can do whatever they want related to the web browsing experience.\n\nAlso making it free allows accessibility to be off the charts and adoption to skyrocket.",
"They have some control over the default settings (most notably which search engine is used when you type 'blueberry pancake recipes' into the browser). This gives them ad revenues. \n\nThey also track, well, just about everything they can through these. Which sites you go to, the settings you choose, certain inputs on certain sites... it's fairly endless. ",
"Two major reasons. \n\nFirst, ability to set the default search provider - so their advertising service can capture revenues. \n\nSecond, the more users a web browser has the greater it's influence for future direction of the web and it's tech. \n\nApple for example, with its safari mobile browser forced many companies to adopt html5 over/in addition to flash. ",
"The main is reason is default search. When you install a chrome or ie the default homepage search is either google or bing. The VAST majority of users don't change that because they don't know/care to change it. Every time a user makes a search google and MS do make money of the sponsored ads, so while they give the browser for free they make boatloads off the default search option. This is also how all those toolbar companies make money as well. When you install a toolbar they automatically change your homepage to their default search (which is usually an affiliate of google or Microsoft).\n\n\nSource: I used to work for a massive toolbar company.",
"_URL_0_\n\nIt was about control. Microsoft was not really keen on competition, probably still aren't. ",
"Everyone on this thread is talking about ads and personal data, but none of that gets sent unless you install a toolbar. \nThere are two primary reasons why Google and Microsoft invest in browsers: \n\n1) Default search engine-- Google and Microsoft will monetize you agree you search, that's why Google pays big bucks to Firefox to be the default search engine (plus huge market share of searches draws in more advertisers into an ad auction which drives up the prices and profits)\n\n2) A voice in the future of web standards. The tech giants want a seat at the table when determining how new technologies like HTML5 are developed and standardized. If you own the software that renders most of the internet, you have more control over where the future is headed)\n",
"Why has no one given the right answer?\n\nControl over programming languages.\n\nInternet Exploerer tried to monopolize the development market by creating propriety languages and compatibility with their software development tools. Since they figured they owned the desktop space, it was a way of forcing people developing websites, to incorporate their technology, use their development environment, and use their server software.\n\nIt didn't work. Thanks to Linux, Apache, PHP, MySQL, and JavaScript\n",
"Some companies want to protect their main business like a moat protects a castle. In Google's case search results and ads are the castle and the browser is the moat. Having control of mainstream web browsers (I believe they also fund Firefox) limits the damage competitors like Microsoft can do if they try shenanigans. \n\nYou'll note that Microsoft HASN'T tried browser shenanigans in awhile. Some would say this is because of competition like Chrome and Firefox. If they started screwing with users (like they have in the past when they had more of a monopoly), users would simply switch browsers. Having competition keeps them honest, which makes sure users are free to choose Google.\n\nHaving a large user base with Google as the default search engine helps too.",
"Beyond the point that Google makes money off of personalised adds, they can use the data generated by users (such as number of mouse-clicks, input in google maps and search options) for secondary uses such as the enhancement of google translate, the optimisation of trafficking routes in google maps and further big-data analyses that can either be used by Google themselves or by partners.. Google is one of the few companies that is vertically integrated in big data analysis; being able to generate, analyse, and give economic value to data such as mouse-clicks of millions of users in their web applications.. \n\nHope this clarifies how Google makes individual use of their products free while being able to generate economic value by combining all the generated data",
"Has anyone actually bought something based on an internet ad?",
"It varies, and the history behind each one is different.\n\n**For Microsoft**, Windows and Office is their cash cow. Anything they can do to make that experience more sticky, the better their future is. Microsoft was hyper paranoid that another company would come along and squash them.\n\nWhen the world wide web started becoming popular, it also helped prop up a new company, Netscape. People were predicting this new era of internet usage would eventually make operating systems less relevant. People could just work on any device, no matter the OS, and have the same experience.\n\nMicrosoft saw this as a direct threat to Windows, so they used a strategy called \"embrace, extend, extinguish\". Embrace the idea of the internet, extend Windows to support it and lock it in as an OS feature, and extinguish the competition. Part of the strategy was to get so big, they could dictate standards, instead of adhering to the industry standards allowing that cross platform experience.\n\nAnd they succeeded. Internet Explorer became dominate in the browser space, and ultimately their methods were ruled illegal. This was due to Windows being seen as a monopoly in the OS space. Having a monopoly is not illegal, but abusing power when having one is. The web suffered for it for years.\n\nMicrosoft is still digging out of the hole they dug too. So much of their own products only worked with IE, and with non standard web code. IE today now has to lie to web sites saying it's something else just to be served standard code now. And they are playing catchup in the feature space, because IE stagnated once they thought it was good enough.\n\n**For Google**, Chrome is their platform to bring the best experience to the user for their products. The more users using Google, the more ad revenue they generate. Ads are Google's cash cow. They also want first mover advantage, where they can drive the industry to newer standards while Chrome has better support then the competitors. Google is doing everything in their power to speed up any aspect of web browsing. Why? Well, part of it is the engineering challenge and the reward their engineers mentally feel for advancing the tech. But the business reason is a faster experience also brings more ad views.\n\nChrome is also more of a platform then it is a web browser. It's the core of a Chromebook, and it helps drive people to use more Google specific services. Their \"stickiness\" is getting users to store data with them, making it a higher cost of time to switch away. By spreading that \"platform\" to any OS, Google can offer their services to people even when they don't use a Chromebook or Android.\n\n**For Apple**, they want users to have a good experience using their products. That way they come back and buy more products in the future. For Apple, their cash cow is selling hardware to end users. Safari mirrors the strategies the rest of Apple is also working on to make customers happier. Customers want laptops with better battery life, so Safari is one of the most power efficient browsers around. Apple believes ads and privacy concerns make for less happy customers, so they try and help with sensible out of box defaults. (Safari blocks 3rd party cookies used for ad tracking by default as one example).\n\nApple is also hyper paranoid about needing to depend on other companies. It's burned them in the past, so it made sense for them to build their own browser. The agreement with Microsoft wasn't going to last forever, and it wasn't guaranteed that anyone would target OS X for making a good browser. Internet usage has been the primary reason people buy computers for a while now.\n\n**Why free?** Initially Netscape charged for their browser, but offered free trial versions to get people onboard. They avoided being nagware, mostly wanting to generate revenue from companies buying licenses for all their workers. Microsoft wanted to extinguish Netscape, so they wrote off the cost of making IE against the entire Windows OS. They would offer IE for free, then eventually bundle it in. Microsoft's goal was to cash starve Netscape and run them out of business. Ever since then, a browser's value in peoples mind has been $0. In Microsoft's mind, that rose the bar so high that no one would compete, since they couldn't make money selling it. Microsoft's blind spot here was two fold though. They didn't see online advertising becoming a big thing back then, nor did they foresee the massive rise in open source software. Both of which rose as possibilities to try and compete against Microsoft's monopoly.",
"1.Today web browser is more or less the most used software on all operating systems. So you would like people to use your browser.\n\n2. Adoption of web standards is mostly dictated by the fact that a popular browser supports it or not. If you look at from the other way, a browser can shove whatever web standards it wants if it has sizable monopoly.\nE.g. Activex was mostly IE only and survived for a long time because IE had huge user base. From a technology company's perspective this means a lot of power. \n\n3. Recently web browsers have also become app stores. That means business.\n\n4. Searching companies want to make sure you always use them.\n\n5. Lot of mobile apps are just websites made to look like standalone apps. They too are rendered by a browser.",
"Chrome - \n\n* User Installs Chrome\n* Searches for \"product X\"\n* Search results contain some ads\n* User may or may not click on ads\n* Same user then intalls some app on his phone\n* That app uses Google Ads\n* Google shows ads similar to product X\n* User goes \"Wow I was searching for this yest.. it found me.. destiny..\"\n* Google gets money\n* They share revenue with App dev\n* Win-win\n\nMicrosoft\n\n* Fuck that was cool.. I want to do it too..\n* Makes bing\n* Now wants people to use bing\n* Makes IE better so that people use bing be default\n\nFacebook\n\n* You use too much AI and scrapping websites\n* We can use power of people\n* We connect them\n* We understand them\n* Then we sell them something they may like\n\nAlso for Chrome\n\n* Chrome browser and chromium OS share lots of code. \n* Chromium OS is free \n* People make Apps for Chrome\n* One day google tells, your apps can run on Chromium OS as well..just like that\n* Someone tries this OS.. and most of his fav apps are already there..\n* Windows gets a little more fucked\n\nSometimes it not's about making more money. It's about maintaining the market share until the other one gets fucked and leaves",
"Simple, to data mine you. \n\nWhen you install a recent version of Internet Explorer and you enable default settings, you are consenting with Microsoft logging every URL you access. Since most services are restful meaning most of the operating parameters are in the URL, there is an absurd amount of information just in the URL logs for each user/machine. From that they can infer what kind of shopping you do and where are you going on vacations. It's actually kind of scary the amount of information they know about you. ",
"This was a topic I wrote about extensively when I was the Co-Editor of _URL_1_ and still talk about on CNBC.\n\nAll of the explanations here are good, but they don't quite hit the point. WaitingForGoatMan is closest.\n\n\nBack in 2009, I called it \"The Google Revenue\" equation, and it goes something like this:\n\n\n\"Revenue = Amount of Time on the Web\"\n\nStupidly simple, but let me explain. Google makes almost all of its money from advertising. You see them on Google search results, you see them on other websites, you see them on mobile, you see them EVERYWHERE. The more ads you see and click, the more money they make. \n\nBut all that gets nerfed if you're on a slow connection. If you're on a slow connection, or have a slow browser, or do things on your computer that aren't on the web, Google makes less money. So almost everything that Google does that isn't advertising -- Android, Chrome, Google Fiber -- is designed to keep you on the web for longer. It doesn't matter where on the web -- just in your browser. Google made Chrome originally because Google wanted to speed up all browsers and thus increase its revenue. By putting out its own browser, competition like Microsoft and Mozilla (Firefox) had to speed up their browsers to keep. The same thing is already starting to happen with Google Fiber.\n\n\nSo while I'm sure Google uses some data on browsing habits for ads, the bigger reason for giving away Chrome and Android for free is to make stay on the web longer, because the longer you're on the web, the more money Google makes.\n\n\nThat was a bit more than ELI5, but I thought you all would appreciate it.\n\nSource: _URL_0_",
"In the past, Netscape Communications Corporation pulled Microsoft into building a browser. Netscape was making a bunch of money from distributing their browser through ads, but also through licensing deals with enterprise organisations. They were also making and selling server software - something which Microsoft didn't like. They made IE in the first place largely to crush Netscape so that Netscape couldn't continue to sell its server software and steal Microsoft's market share.\n\nLater (around 2000), they realised the value in using the underlying technology to simplify how Windows displayed a lot of stuff. It wasn't entirely ready, but they had to put the effort into making the browser work and they didn't want any other companies to get the foothold that Netscape almost did, so they kept it in there. That almost got Microsoft split up into 2 smaller companies by the US Department of Justice, as it was an anticompetitive move, again designed to prevent competitors from being able to get people to run their browsers on windows. Similar things happened in the EU, where people get to pick whether they want IE or want to use another browser.\n\nMeanwhile, Google made it big. They built their business on the web, primarily as a company in the advertising space. Search became a way to drive advertising revenue. More information about people means that they can more effectively advertise to you (that's why lately they've been shoving more overt \"sign into google now!\" logins everywhere into the product), so they started developing online services which would allow them to more effectively display ads to you (and get you to spend more time on sites with Google's ads so that you see more of them). These online services had subpar user experiences when compared with desktop applications, and the browser market was a little fragmented (ie it was difficult to build stuff that worked everywhere in the same way). \n\nChrome was likely first released for three reasons - to make javascript (and hence their web applications which cause you to see more ads) faster; to put a default of google search into more users' browsers (the majority of people don't change default settings); and to buy a seat at the web standards committee's tables (or to just push their own [sometimes incompatible] functionality whenever they wanted to consumers). Microsoft had no interest in making javascript fast, and thought it could basically \"kill\" the web for real-time interactive applications by keeping it slow. Google needed javascript to run fast, and that was one of the major advantages of Chrome - it was damn fast in comparison to everything else. For Google, chrome was really about taking control of how their web applications (and ads) got displayed, and to get control over making that experience better.\n\nChrome has transformed into Google's foothold on most people's computers - they can create their own web-like sandbox and make money by selling applications to consumers or via ad revenue on those applications. On a level, they've become like Microsoft - trying to push their technology for market share.\n\nOpera was trying to make money directly, somewhat like Netscape.\n\nFirefox is owned by a non-profit who are ideological.\n\nMany of the other browsers fall into one of the above categories - they want to push their technology on you; or they want to push their ads on you; or they want to sell their browser (or associated products/services) to you; or they are ideological.",
"Old Coworker and Ex Google Engineer once put it to me very simply (When asked about motivations for the changes being made to the product offering by google that my company uses. We are the 2nd largest digital marketing firm in the world) \n\nIts all about the data\n\nFor internal use only, of course, but the data you provide via your browsing and browser usage is a huge competitive advantage for google. The fact that they drive you to their search page where they can actually capitalize on your usage is just an ancillary benefit. At least, in their minds it is ancillary.\n\nThink of it this way, as google. Fuck money, we have enough of it. what is going to inform our business in a way that will ensure our success in the long run? User data. \n\nThis user data has led to the growth of all chrome related revenue streams including the app store.",
"They get very significant referral fees from everyone using that little search field that redirects you to Google/Bing/etc.",
"Having lots of users gives you a lot of power, which you can leverage towards your real revenue streams.\n\n**Google** makes money off web advertisements, so they want the web experience to be as good as possible. They don't necessarily care if you use Chrome, but developing features and compatibility with HTML 5 forces all other browsers to keep up.\n\n**Microsoft** makes money primarily from desktop software, or at least they used to. This is why for a long time they did NOT want the web experience to be great, so when the vast majority used Internet Explorer, they did not have any interest in improving it. This strategy paid off for a while, but eventually people started switching away from IE and IE was forced to keep up again.\n\nContrary to other posts in the thread, NEITHER browser is selling your browsing history, or at least that's not a significant part of their business model.",
"Nearly all of Google's revenue comes from its search engine. Chrome's default search engine is, of course, Google. This means people who use Chrome, use Google for searches, and thus, Google makes more money from its advertisers.\n\nThis is also a major reason Google got into the phone software business with Android. More and more searches are down through mobile devices, so it was important for Google to be the default search engine on as many phones as possible.",
"Google is an advertising company. Their revenue comes from selling targeted advertising. To make their advertising more effective and therefore more costly to their customers they need to build a profile of the user who is searching the web. The best way to do that is to track browsing habits of that use, search habits, email habits, and phone habits. If you are using Google Chrome, Gmail, Google Maps, and Android Google knows a hell of a lot about you. That information is not sold to advertisers but used to increase the price of advertising that Google charges. \n\nAdvertisers are willing to pay much more if they know a particular person is most likely interested in a product they are selling. Targeted advertising, which Google specializes in, is much more lucrative.\n\nGoogle's entire business is around attracting more users to their services so that they can build a better profile of those users to sell more ads.\n\nThe Microsoft business model is around selling products, services, and devices. Their interest in developing a browser revolved initially around controlling the market and controlling web standards to their own benefit. Advertising was never really a concern until Google came into the picture and started threatening to encroach on Microsoft business territory (through Google Docs, Android, Chrome OS, Chrome, etc). Now it seems Bing and IE exist to attempt and take users away from Google for the sole reason of hurting Google's main business with a side effect of maybe making a few dollars. Microsoft is not and never will be an advertising company.\n\nSo really two very different reasons from two very different companies.",
"The Internet doesn't operate on a perfect set of compatible standards. Both companies also run web platforms. Having users using your browser allows you to give them a better user experience and add in features that are not in the official web standards.",
"A lot of answers are focusing on the upside of providing a free browser, but I think the key motivator was to avoid downside.\n\nImagine if you're Google - 99% of your revenue comes from people interacting with your product (search) through a browser. If you're faced with the prospect of a key competitor (Microsoft) controlling 80/90% of browsers, then you could be rightly concerned.\n\nThat's a risky position for a $400bn company to be in. Microsoft could hurt them in a number of ways, either intentionally (remove Google as default search option) or unintentionally (a shitty browser experience = fewer searches = lower revenue).\n\nSo they have the option to either allow a key competitor to control the only gateway to their product, or they could spend a small portion of their operating expenses on building their own.\n\nThere's also benefits there that they can drive more competition in browsers, improve speeds, improve standards and increase internet usage ... all of which benefit their core business of search.",
"In Google's case if you like Chrome you might give Gmail a try, you might buy an Android device, whatever it may be.\n\nIf you like one of Google's products it may entice you to use / buy more of their products. This equals more ad revenue and more revenue from app purchases, software purchases and hardware purchases.\n\nSame can be said about Microsoft, but who the hell likes IE or Windows Phone...\n\n",
"Web browsers are the gateway drugs of the internet.",
"To have control over your default search engine is a hugely powerful thing because people tend to use what's in front of them. Google has paid Mozilla 100's off millions of dollars to make them the default search engine in FireFox ($274m in 2012, but probably less now that Chrome is #1). \n\nSo that reason alone is worth making a browser, but there are others as well. Google has their app store, which they are trying to make cross platform as much as possible, and that is a much more doable task if you have a browser on all platforms. \n\nThey also have a massive vested interest in making the internet more usable in general, which is part of the reason they are working on bringing super fast broadband to new markets.\n\nIt's actually quite crazy they didn't make a browser sooner.",
"because they can sell your interests and things uve looked up to ad companies",
"Every single thing you do on your browser is recorded and sold to customers. Remember, if you aren't paying for a product, you are the product. That's why browsers are free.",
"This is easy. Advertising. The more people use chrome, the more peole will be looking at their ads. So when they go to a prospective advertiser, they say \"Well we have 50million more users than IE so an ad here will cost you $50million more.",
"Razors and blades.",
"\"If you are not paying for the product, you are the product\"",
"We have a saying for this: If you don't pay for it, you are the product.",
"Microsoft makes IE because most MSN page views and Bing searches come from IE users who never change the defaults. Google makes Chrome so that people will use Google Search and other Google services by default. ",
"cuz if u use their website they get to spy on everything u do, then they sell the spy info to other companies for even more money than they spent to get people to use their website.",
"The owner of the browser gets money from several other sources that bid to get their products set as defaults.\n\nThe search bar default search engine, the default homepage, toolbars...\n\nAnd in the case of chrome they also sell user browsing habits (they say they make it anonymous)",
"Different companies will have different reasons.\n\nBack in the late 90's early 2000's microsoft wanted to embrace and extend the internet.\n\nWhat I mean was if the internet used open standards like HTML microsoft saw this as a threat to windows. If all a computer did was get on the internet and the internet was open this means that you could run linux, mac, any operating system with a web browser.\n\nSo microsoft tried to get everyone to use internet explorer then tried to get everyone making websites to use their own proprietary non-standard plug ins and coding like active x.\n\nAlso Microsoft purposely made IE render things weird and in non-standard ways. So if you designed your website correctly IE would display it wrong. This forced a lot of people to code their website for IE, what in turn made other browsers display it wrong.\n\nSo in short Microsoft wanted have the only useable web browser with things like active x on every web page.\n\nIf that would have happened linux, MAC, Andriod would be worthless as they do not have IE so you could not even browse the web on the OS;s what would force you to use windows so you could have IE.",
"As my advertising professor once said, \"If it's free, it's not the product - you are\".\n\n",
"too many people are answering 'ad revenue'. but let's make a distinction, ad revenue comes from the search engine, not the browser. i think the advantage of pushing your own browser is that you default the search engine to yours, increasing your ad revenue. \nof course, keeping users within your own eco-system has other advantages, such as plug-ins and their associated revenue, etc."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[
"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Browser_wars"
],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[
"http://mashable.com/2009/07/11/google-equation/",
"Mashable.com"
],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
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] |
||
1lvm1d
|
why does almost everyone seem to acknowledge that the us government is very corrupt but simultaneously believes it's still somehow subject to voting? if the government isn't trusted in everything else, what makes people trust it to have honest elections?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1lvm1d/eli5_why_does_almost_everyone_seem_to_acknowledge/
|
{
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"cc36ndy",
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"score": [
3,
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"text": [
"That is a good question. I bet you will have a difficult time getting an answer that is not a little wishy-washy.",
"Who says anyone trusts it to have fair, honest elections?"
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[]
] |
||
8bwf6y
|
how are companies like metropcs and t-mobile able to say they cover 99% of americans?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/8bwf6y/eli5_how_are_companies_like_metropcs_and_tmobile/
|
{
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"dxa7luz",
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"text": [
"Why do you believe they can't say this? and why do you believe it isn't true? Both companies have coverage in nearly all of the US.\n\nPlus marketing people are great-- they will find a way to make that statement true.",
"Likely based on maps of coverage area, overlaid with maps of where people live. The accuracy of either type of map isn't perfect (if coverage is blocked by a very specific hill in an otherwise-covered area, for example). But it's feasible to cover *basically all* of a big city, and these small urban areas contain a huge portion of the population. For that reason 99% isn't an unbelievable number-- the question is how they figure it out.\n\nIt is unlikely that they could (or want to) know how useful their coverage is to people on their way to/from work, or on trips. More than 1% of people will *sometimes* lose signal. It's most likely they're just checking whether homes are covered. \n\n"
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[]
] |
||
1j2bya
|
diffie-hellman key exchange
|
I searched and found this asked a couple times, but no good answers. Anyone?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1j2bya/eli5_diffiehellman_key_exchange/
|
{
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"cbaeaj8",
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"text": [
"In cryptography, one often relies upon a shared secret to enable secure/private communication. DH key exchange is the solution to a problem in cryptography: How do distant parties agree upon a shared secret (a \"key\") without anyone else knowing what it is? If they were together, one could just whisper it in the other one's ear, and that might be secure enough. But if they are not near each other, how can they agree upon the secret in a way that it can't be intercepted by a snooper? After all, they haven't yet set up a secure communications link. If the snooper learns the same shared secret that they use, then he will be able to decrypt all of their subsequent communications. \n \nDH is a method for each of the two parties (call them Alice and Bob) to provide some numbers that will be used to generate the key. But due to the difficulty of reversing some of the math that they do, a snooper (Carl) doesn't have enough information to easily create the key himself, even though both Alice and Bob do. It's a little trick of modulo arithmetic that enables this. \n \nI can't describe how the math is done better than the [description portion of the Wikipedia entry](_URL_1_). \n \nIt also contains a [picture](_URL_0_) which might help with a very useful analogy. Alice and Bob only have to mix \"paint colors\" together to get the same color (key). Even if he knew what colors (numbers) both Alice and Bob exchanged, Carl would have to *separate* paint colors to get the same one (the same key), and that's pretty darn hard to do. ",
"So, two people (Alice and Bob) want to establish a shared secret over an insecure channel (where there might be eavesdroppers). So they communicate and establish a base number they both have, let's call it X, as the base.\n\nThey both then pick a secret number, Y for Bob and Y' for Alice. (the tick mark means that it is a different value but it's plugged in to the same place in the equation being performed)\n\nEach one combines X with their secret number, using what's called a one-way function, a mathematical function where it's easy to put in two numbers X and Y and get the result Z, but *ridiculously hard* to figure out what X is if all you have is Y and Z, or what Y is if all you have is X and Z. This is crucial. \n\nIt's like if everyone knew how to multiply but no-one knew how to divide, and had to search through millions and millions of multiplications to work out what the proper division of, say 123456789 / 3.234187 was. What multiplies by 3.234187 to make 123456789? And, What if you were limited to trying to multiply random numbers to figure it out, and every time you did so all you were told was \"correct\" or \"not correct\"? \n\nSo Bob sends Z to Alice and Alice sends Z' to Bob. \n\nBob then adds his secret Y to the value Alice sent, Z', and gets **W**, the shared key. Alice adds her secret Y' to the value Bob sent, Z, and gets **W**, the shared key.\n\nAnd anyone who doesn't have either Y or Y' can't easily reverse engineer them from Z, so they can't know what **W** is.\n\nAnd, interestingly, Bob doesn't know what Y' is and Alice doesn't know what Y is.\n\nSo, to recap, they agree on X. They decide on their own secret Y values and run X and Y through a *one-way function* to get Z, which can't practically be used with X to figure out what Y is. Then they add their own Y values (Y and Y') to Z and get one shared value for W, the key."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[
"http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/46/Diffie-Hellman_Key_Exchange.svg",
"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diffie%E2%80%93Hellman_key_exchange#Description"
],
[]
] |
|
534do6
|
why do we roll our eyes back a certain things like lame jokes?
|
?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/534do6/eli5_why_do_we_roll_our_eyes_back_a_certain/
|
{
"a_id": [
"d7pz6kb"
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"text": [
"You've picked it up by watching others in your culture do it. There's no biological reason, it's just the \"appropriate\" response to convey your feelings in certain situations. It's like how you clap to show approval or nod your head 'yes', or shake your head 'no'. The response in other cultures may be different. "
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[]
] |
|
6msqcm
|
if the existence of jesus can’t be proven/isn’t widely accepted in the scientific community, why do we still use bc (before christ) to measure time?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/6msqcm/eli5_if_the_existence_of_jesus_cant_be_provenisnt/
|
{
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"text": [
"Science measures time in seconds, milli seconds etc. \nBC and AD are to describe a year rather than measuring anything. ",
"At this point, because it would be too difficult to switch off, and there would be no benefit to doing so. \n\nAll our records are essentially written in AD/BC formats. Due to globalisation, even cultures who aren't Christian will use the AD/BC calendar date. Many have switched to the CE/BCE naming style to avoid religious implications, but 2017 CE is the same as 2017 AD. \n\nThe big question is, of course: to what end would we change it? Sure, we *could* switch to an entirely different date system, but why? The cost would be enormous, and what would we benefit? And what would we switch to? That we live in 2017 is entirely arbitrary. What new reference point would we use that would gain the same kind of near universal acceptance that the current calendar has? Whatever new year 0 we pick would be just as arbitrary as the one we currently have, so why bother at all? \n\n[As a side note, the historicity of Jesus is broadly accepted amongst most scholars.](_URL_0_) There is, of course, some debate on this, but in academic circles, there is general consensus that it is more likely than not that there was a historical figure known as Jesus of Nazareth who became the centre of the religion that would become Christianity. ",
"Picking **any** year as the epoch for our calendar is completely arbitrary will be tied to the culture that chose it. Western European culture has been using *this* calendar system for over a thousand years because it was made popular by the Romans. Since they're the dominant force in world military, economic & cultural power, it's taken over everywhere else and there's no real reason to switch to anything else because everything is is *also* completely made up bullshit.\n\nIt's commonly referred to as CE/BCE ((before) common era) by people that are bothered by this."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historicity_of_Jesus"
],
[]
] |
||
a9jeei
|
why does the cold air feel "cleaner"?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/a9jeei/eli5_why_does_the_cold_air_feel_cleaner/
|
{
"a_id": [
"ecjurwh",
"eck6ok9",
"eck86u6",
"eck8hwb",
"eck9fyp",
"eck9q49",
"ecka64k"
],
"score": [
2075,
344,
3,
7,
5,
8,
8
],
"text": [
"Your sense of smell works better with warmer air. Cold air will seem almost entirely devoid of smell. We associate a lack of smell with clean air.",
"It IS cleaner. Bacteria that break down organics and cause rot are dormant in the cold. That means things that would normally be breaking down and releasing smells like dead animals, leaves, trash, etc. are not breaking down. Your sense of smell isn't affected but there's less in the air to smell.",
"Clearly you've never been to Salt Lake City in the winter. We get cold air inversions and the air pollution just sits in the valley until a cold front blows it out. It gets so bad you can taste it. Definitely doesn't feel clean. :(",
"Air is far cleaner as most moulds and micro-Organic material are present in concentrations that are orders of magnitude below concentrations during warmer periods and seasons. ",
"I never really thought it felt cleaner. Just crisp or sharp. I think that's due to the larger temperature difference to your body compared to warmer temperatures and the dryness of cold air. I think humidity plays a bigger role in that though. ",
"Colder air carries less humidity than warmer air. It's easier to breathe. Also, colder air carries less scent.",
"I hate being cold. But there's something about a cold, void breeze running across you that just feels so humbling. It's so silent out in the country. Nothing going on. It's like a closer feeling when you stare blankly into the stars and kind of get taken out of yourself and realize how small you are. "
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[]
] |
||
1900gj
|
why do coaches of various sports dress like they do during games?
|
Basketball, hockey and soccer coaches wear suits; baseball coaches wear the team uniform; football coaches dress like your dad at a golf game, etc. Why the divergences?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1900gj/why_do_coaches_of_various_sports_dress_like_they/
|
{
"a_id": [
"c8jiv5r"
],
"score": [
2
],
"text": [
"I think a lot of it has to do with what the coach is doing. During a game Basketball, Hockey, and Soccer coaches just stand there and coach the game. They present themselves as professionals and wear a suit for the same reason I wear one at my job. Football and baseball coaches are more hands on. They actually warm up with the players which you really can't do in a suit. Most of them wear team related apperal, however some wear their clothes like a brand (the Patriots coach Belichick wears the cut off sweater every game now because thats what people know and expect)\n\nWhy do baseball coaches wear the team uniform instead of just a sweatshirt? I have no idea, I'm not a big baseball fan. "
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[]
] |
|
2evon1
|
why do i stutter when i drink?
|
I've always had shuddering problem, but seem to be fine until I've had a couple beers. After all the therapy, why does it still surface after drinking?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2evon1/eli5_why_do_i_stutter_when_i_drink/
|
{
"a_id": [
"ck3e0cw",
"ck3erhw"
],
"score": [
2,
5
],
"text": [
"Two things might be happening.\n\n1.you're getting relaxed, you think much less about what other people think about you. \n\nAnd or\n\nYou're motor control goes downtown. \n\nSo expect moderate drinking to ease stuttering, and serve drinking to let you loose motor control.\n\nThere's no research on this study.\n\nSource from, guy who stutters and took speech impediment classes since elementary.\n\nIts not a big worry just like alcohol can make a man slur will make a man stutter just as much.",
"Alcohol increases the production of neurotransmitters in the brain that slow down brain activity. If you have a stammer, the brain won't be able to carry out whatever learned mental processes are required to control it (in much the same way people who are otherwise perfectly eloquent start slurring their speech)."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[]
] |
|
dxz8bv
|
why are some books completely mispriced on resale marketplaces?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/dxz8bv/eli5_why_are_some_books_completely_mispriced_on/
|
{
"a_id": [
"f7xhppa",
"f7xhw1i",
"f7xi0if"
],
"score": [
2,
2,
2
],
"text": [
"Was it the same edition? Were the books you’re looking for known for something? The only reason I can think of for the same book selling at that different a price are two:\n\n1) They are technical books, which makes for higher prices for newer editions;\n\n2) Old editions of some classic literature may sell higher than newer ones out of having “original” mistakes, different wording bla bla.\n\nThe reason for those being down at the list could be due to filtering when searching... that’s what I understood from your question anyhow. If I misinterpreted it, my bad!",
"So, sometimes on online book resellers, the person selling the title is using an automated program to manage how to price their stuff. They may tell the program \"Set the price for this book to be 5% higher than what anyone else has it listed for.\" The problem becomes that sometimes, if multiple people are using programs like that, the automated programs will compete with each other and keep raising the prices. \n\n\nLikewise, many people will put a really high price for a book if they are the only person with a copy, thinking \"If someone REALLY wants that book, they'll be willing to pay $100 for it since I have the only copy available!\" But then they don't update their prices when other people start listing their copies for sale, and it turns out that the going rate for the book is much lower.",
"I e heard of a tactic to list something for a really high price when not in stock, to keep listing live for search purposes. without worry of selling item not in stock — or worst case, then buy from other seller for less and send to buyer. When item back in stock, lower price to where it’ll sell."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[],
[]
] |
||
amubv9
|
what does offsides and icing mean?
|
Went to some NHL games with my family and I was too embarrassed to ask. Thanks for any responses!
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/amubv9/eli5_what_does_offsides_and_icing_mean/
|
{
"a_id": [
"efolqb8",
"efolz61",
"efome3m"
],
"score": [
6,
2,
2
],
"text": [
"Offsides in hockey is when a player crosses the opponents blue line before the puck does. This is to avoid people sitting at the net waiting for a pass.\n\nIcing is when a team shoots the puck past the midline and blue line and no one touches if. This is to avoid being able to just shoot the puck down to the other end to clear it. \n\nHope you enjoyed the game!",
"Offside is when a player enters the opponents zone before the puck. The puck has to be across the thick blue line before the player completely is. And I say completely because they can actually have one skate in, just not both. If the puck leaves the zone, all players have to leave the zone, and again the puck has to be the first one in. The only exception is if the defending team brings it back in themselves. \n\nIcing is when a team shoots the puck across the center ice line into the opposing end, across the goal line. The goal line isn't just where the net is, but the entire length of the ice. And actually if it goes in the net, it's a goal and not icing. But if the team that shoots it is also the first team to touch the puck, there's no icing. Only if the defending team touches it first. There's also no icing if the team that shoots it is short handed (has a penalty), or if the linesman feels the defending team could have touched it but instead didn't in hopes of an icing call. ",
"[Offsides](_URL_1_) -- attacking player advances too far in front of the puck. It's sort of a two-phase penalty in the sense that a player can be offsides (ahead of the blue line on the ice before the puck), but it only gets called if the puck also then travels into that zone while the player(s) are still there. IF they clear out before the puck gets there, then the penalty conditions don't exist anymore and play continues. \n \n & nbsp;\n \n [Icing] (_URL_0_)-- Puck advances too far ahead of team that shoots it. Basically if a player is in his own goal's end of the ice and moves the puck all the way to the other goal line without it making contact with any players on either team in the other team's half of the ice before getting there. Note there are some stipulations. Doesn't occur if the team is short handed ( < 5 players on ice due to penalty) and doesn't occur if the opposing team *could* get the puck but chooses to let it slide for a stop in play."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[],
[
"https://www.rookieroad.com/ice-hockey/basics/icing/",
"https://www.rookieroad.com/ice-hockey/basics/offside/"
]
] |
|
19abyk
|
why are wedding dresses white?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/19abyk/eli5_why_are_wedding_dresses_white/
|
{
"a_id": [
"c8m7v49",
"c8m99tr"
],
"score": [
16,
3
],
"text": [
"Because Queen Victoria wore a white dress when she married Albert in the middle of the 19th century. A white wedding dress became fashionable, then the fashion turned into a tradition.",
"And just to add: not *all* wedding dresses are traditionally white. For example, chinese wedding dresses are **red** (the colour for 'good luck').\n\nOf course, the Western tradition is now spreading, but that's quite a recent turn."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[]
] |
||
3fnk9q
|
physical side of the internet.
|
I mean, I obviously know the internet is, but I don't know the physical side. All I know is waves from somewhere reach my modem and those waves reach my computer lol.
Also what is the physical side of websites? Or are they all code that is loaded?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3fnk9q/eli5physical_side_of_the_internet/
|
{
"a_id": [
"ctq8002",
"ctq80bq"
],
"score": [
5,
2
],
"text": [
"The internet is (to oversimplify it slightly) a bunch of wires that connect every computer on Earth. When you open up a web browser and type in _URL_0_, your computer receives a web document from a server (which is basically a big fancy computer whose main purpose is to host web documents) encoded in HTML or some other language, which is then decoded by your browser and presented to you as a web site.",
"The physical side is other computers connected by cables.\n\nWhen you go to a website, you are sending a signal across cables to a physical computer that has the webpage files on it. It sends you the webpage files and your computer displays them."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[
"www.reddit.com"
],
[]
] |
|
3uaabu
|
how can parasitic infections control minds?
|
Just watched a doco where ants got infected my fungus spores which made them leave the colony, climb a tree then die. How does this happen?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3uaabu/eli5how_can_parasitic_infections_control_minds/
|
{
"a_id": [
"cxd7ee6"
],
"score": [
11
],
"text": [
"The parasite has been evolving along with the ants for so long that it has evolved the ability to cause specific behaviors by messing with the ant's brain. It likely either uses some sort of chemical agent to activate a series of behaviors in the ant or it may also directly rewire the brain. I don't know how well understood the process is.\n\nThat said, there are no such parasites for humans. The closest we have is Toxoplasmosis, which comes from cats and may actually cause schizophrenia in certain cases. It's not actually supposed to be a parasite of humans, but of rats, which is why there are odd effects in a toxo infection."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[]
] |
|
6p1fn2
|
what is the benefit in having hairs in your butt crack?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/6p1fn2/eli5_what_is_the_benefit_in_having_hairs_in_your/
|
{
"a_id": [
"dkltt8w",
"dklu49j",
"dklu8ys"
],
"score": [
13,
18,
4
],
"text": [
"You know how your hairs allow you to feel if a bug is crawling on you? \n\nLike if a bug hit your nose hairs, you'd smack it out so the bug didn't crawl up your nose.\n\nSame concept, except with your butthole.",
"The body hair prevents chafing from skin rubbing together. Preventing chafing is the main purpose of pubic hair so your legs, butt cheeks, and genitalia don't rub together and get chafed. It's not like scrotum hair ever kept anyone warm in the winter. \n\n",
"SciShow has a video that goes through the reasoning behind this and describes the possible reasons, but outlines that we really don't know why we have hair there. [Why Do We Have Butt Hair? (SciShow)](_URL_0_)"
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[],
[
"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BgsdhmLrLPA"
]
] |
||
9oit98
|
why pain from dry socket onsets couple days after teeth extraction?
|
If dry socket is caused by nerve endings being exposed due to failure of blood clot formation, why is the pain not immediately felt until couple days after teeth extraction?
& #x200B;
With the following two conditions
& #x200B;
1) Analgesic wears off
2) Blood clot has not been formed yet / no blood clot can be formed.
& #x200B;
these should be sufficient to trigger the dry socket pain within a day of teeth extraction, why or why not?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/9oit98/eli5_why_pain_from_dry_socket_onsets_couple_days/
|
{
"a_id": [
"e7uhyoh"
],
"score": [
6
],
"text": [
"The thing with dry socket is, normally, right after your teeth are extracted you obviously bleed and a blood clot will form. That's why they tell you to keep gauze in your mouth for several hours after the procedure. To help those clots form. If during the recovery period you do anything like sucking through a straw, eat something that's not soup, etc. Those actions can make the blood clots fall out and thus the pain of dry socket starts. Though I imagine if blood clots never formed in your extraction sites then the pain would start after your oxycodone or hydrocodone wears off. Which they normally only give you a few days worth soo. My extraction sites were sutured closed so fortunately I never experienced dry socket"
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[]
] |
|
3pgupy
|
why do people think the iraq war was about oil when economically the war has cost 1000x more than any covert oil extraction could produce?
|
Covert because they would not be able to make it public due to negative impacts/public outcry...
Edit: Answered; it is more about controlling who buys the oil, at what cost and to who rather than directly packing it up and shipping it home.
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3pgupy/eli5_why_do_people_think_the_iraq_war_was_about/
|
{
"a_id": [
"cw66xvc",
"cw672fs"
],
"score": [
2,
3
],
"text": [
"Because it didn't cost the people who were making the money. If you can spend $1 billion in public dollars to make $1 million of your own, that's worth it if your own wealth is all you care about.",
"First you need to understand where the money the war has cost actually went. It financed US companies developing and producing gear. It financed the salary of US civilians and soilders the like.\n\nSo if you really want to know how much the war has cost you actually have to look at how much money actually left the US system, instead of being redistributed.\n\nThat is the figure you need to compare to the benefits gained. And the benefits gained are not actually pumping the oil (even though western companies actually and officially do / did that) but to have a government in place which is in favour of you, as opposed to a government which is not in favour of you.\n\nAdditionally, if you have oil you make bank - we know this. It is not in the best interest of the US forgein policy to have a government / dictator / system making mad bank which could potentially be(come) a threat to them.\n\n(Sry for typos - not my native language)"
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[]
] |
|
3f5pn7
|
why is pink treated as it's own colour when light blue and light green don't?
|
It gets its own name and place in culture and I'm curious why. Is it actually because it has a name in the first place? Or does it have a name because its treated differently?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3f5pn7/eli5_why_is_pink_treated_as_its_own_colour_when/
|
{
"a_id": [
"ctlib4p",
"ctlio27",
"ctlq6r2",
"ctlqqfn",
"ctm047b"
],
"score": [
36,
31,
6,
3,
2
],
"text": [
"I think it's a cultural thing. There are some cultures that have more words for green than we do in English, and as a result people from these cultures have a much easier time picking out one different green from, say 9 samples of the same green, and 1 slightly different. The example that I read about went on to explain that on particular culture didn't have as much use for the word blue, and as a result found it as hard to pick out the blue colour from all the greens as we would to pick out the ever so slightly different (to our minds) green. [Read more about this here](_URL_0_). (Sorry if I got some details wrong, I couldn't be bothered to read through the article again, but I did find it for you, so that's something.)\n\nSo pink is called pink and not light red. It's kind of like feedback loop. You're told something is different, so you perceive it as more different, and it reinforces the idea. Consider this, too: brown is just dark orange, but no one ever really talks about dark orange, because most of the time, they don't realise that it already has a name, and never consider the colour. I know, I know, you'll say that brown is a mix of all colours because that's what happened when you were a child and mixed all the paints together. But open up photoshop or some image editing software and set a colour slider to a nice bright orange. Then add more black to the orange and you'll see that it just becomes brown before turning completely black.",
"Because it's named after the flower called 'pink', and it's a pale red, as opposed to a light red.",
"turquoise (a kind of light blue) is sort of it's own color. Mint (light green) less so, but is still recognized as a color ('I'd like this shirt in mint')",
"I suspect that someone can explain it in better detail than I can, but here goes. \n\n As others have stated color \"perception\" has to a far amount to do with culture/upbringing. Which is correct. Particularly in how colors are \"divided\", or what a color *is* exactly.\n\n A classic anthropology/sociology test shows participants a grid that has been subdivided so that each box is a distinct shade and the whole makes up a rough picture of the visible spectrum. Then participants are asked to divide up the grid; drawing lines where they percieve the boundary for each different basic color is. It's a fairly fascinating subject; and one if the more interesting findings of tests this like,this along with other avenues of investigation into the subject, is that many cultures do not draw disintinct differences between blue and green.\n\n Perceiving one color of different shades where many cultures, including most western cultures would see two. There's other differences and patterns; but this one prehaps may partially answer your question. It may be slightly different that we divide green and blue distinctly at all, let alone divide them further. The pink/red distinction seems like it may be more likely due to primarily social causes though. ",
"It depends on culture. In my native tongue, pink is called *light red* just as *light blue* or *light green*."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[
"http://uk.businessinsider.com/what-is-blue-and-how-do-we-see-color-2015-2?r=US&IR=T"
],
[],
[],
[],
[]
] |
|
9pv5lc
|
why is it difficult to pee when under the influence of opiates ?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/9pv5lc/eli5_why_is_it_difficult_to_pee_when_under_the/
|
{
"a_id": [
"e84h688"
],
"score": [
2
],
"text": [
"Counter question: How does OP know?"
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[]
] |
||
3b3ag2
|
why do the appearance of things change the longer i stare at them?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3b3ag2/eli5_why_do_the_appearance_of_things_change_the/
|
{
"a_id": [
"csiheg9"
],
"score": [
2
],
"text": [
"I'll take this one. Your brain is like a computer. It is taking in a LOT of information through your eyes, ears, nose, skin, and tongue. It speed tracks a lot of this information by recognizing things that you've perceived before. You may glance at an orange and your brain says, \"I've seen this before\" and just fills in any missing information about the looks of an orange that glancing didn't show you. But if you actually stare at the orange you see details that your fill-in didn't draw."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[]
] |
||
614j2c
|
why do you rarely come across dollar bills with rips in them even though they are really easy to rip?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/614j2c/eli5_why_do_you_rarely_come_across_dollar_bills/
|
{
"a_id": [
"dfbmjem"
],
"score": [
3
],
"text": [
"When banks come across damaged bills, of any denomination, they send them back to the federal reserve, which takes them out of circulation and replaces it with a new bill."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[]
] |
||
4d5dev
|
how are we sure a black hole doesn't have a surfaces just past the event horizon?
|
[deleted]
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4d5dev/eli5how_are_we_sure_a_black_hole_doesnt_have_a/
|
{
"a_id": [
"d1nvox1"
],
"score": [
6
],
"text": [
"We aren't. It's impossible to say what's beyond the event horizon for certain because physics packs up and goes home past that point."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[]
] |
|
zxund
|
why do women shave their legs, but not their arms?
|
Just wondering
Edit 1: Sorry for my sweeping generialization in the title. I know some women shave their arms. Just wondering why some and not the others.
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/zxund/why_do_women_shave_their_legs_but_not_their_arms/
|
{
"a_id": [
"c68nacs",
"c68nbja",
"c68ng6i",
"c68p4bu",
"c68pt1o",
"c68rwud",
"c68sew6",
"c68tq2e",
"c68ucq7"
],
"score": [
27,
5,
10,
9,
5,
2,
2,
6,
3
],
"text": [
"A lot of women actually do shave their arms! \nAlso, Some girls have lighter hair on their arms then they do on their legs.. Making it pretty pointless to shave them. ",
"some girls do shave/wax their arms. The ones who do not might not have a lot of arm hair or it's harder to see (lighter color, thinner, etc). also, social norms. ",
"Hair does not tend to grow very thick on the arms, and if it does they very well might. ",
"No one rubs their dick and balls on a woman's arm",
"In the social world, clean/shaved/smooth legs are attractive on a female. The arms, not as much.",
"1. Arm hair tends to be thinner, lighter, and finer, making shaving unnecessary.\n2. Women tend to wear transparent hosiery on they legs, which makes hair much more noticeable.",
"Longish arm hair is more generally accepted than long leg hair. ",
"Personally, I have the arms of a fracking gorilla if I don't shave them. Light skin + dark hair do not make for attractive arms. It's much easier to just shave them. Curse you genetics for my hairiness! ",
"Because women shaving, outside of their pubes, is a pretty new thing in context. Women started shaving their armpits as they started wearing more sleeveless dresses as they started going through changes in sexual status. Think early-ish 1900's. At first it was seen as weird and different, as all new things are. Over time it was the norm. \n\nAs time progressed, and more scandalous bathing suits and fashion came around, higher class women decided to shave their legs as well, it looked cleaner and let them wear higher dresses without looking like a man. Think mid-1900's. Over time that's become the norm for most girls as well. \n\nThere is of course the counterculture, like hippies, that still choose to not shave anything. There really isn't a benefit to shaving, that I know of.\n\nNow we're at a point where being hairless is in again. But most women have arm hair that blends in with their skin. Like the hair on their faces. (I said most). So there is no need to shave. But more and more are starting too, even some men are picking up on the trend. Given time, shaving their arms may become the norm as well.\n\n **TL;DR: Shaving your legs is relatviely new, and shaving your arms hasn't become the norm yet. There's no rush, because most girls don't need to**"
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[]
] |
|
f06ru4
|
what actually is a carat and why/how do we “measure” gemstones with it?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/f06ru4/eli5_what_actually_is_a_carat_and_whyhow_do_we/
|
{
"a_id": [
"fgrup75",
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],
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53,
9
],
"text": [
"It’s a unit of weight. It’s equal to 200 mg since 1907, but from 1881 until that point it was 205 mg. Before that, most countries had their own unit of weight called a carat that varied between about 180mg and 215 mg.",
"To add to the existing explanation..\n\nThe carat is a traditional measure of weight in the near east (Israel, Palestine, Syria and so forth). It was originally based on the weight of Carob seed. The word carat is derived from the name of the seed in many near eastern languages.\n\nBonus fact, the late Roman empire used a coin called the Solidus as its main gold coin. The solidus weighed 24 carats (or karats - a spelling closer to the greek that the late Roman empire spoke). It became customary in the late Roman empire to refer to the purity of gold in terms of carats of pure gold per solidus. And we still do."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[]
] |
||
16iwvf
|
why do some parasites kill their hosts? if the parasite wanted to live for as long as possible, wouldn't they allow the host to live?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/16iwvf/why_do_some_parasites_kill_their_hosts_if_the/
|
{
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"c7wgk6d",
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"text": [
"Mostly they don't. It's an evolutionary balance, and it doesn't always work out. If the parasite eats too little, it may starve and not create future generations of parasites. If it eats too much, it kills the host, and fails to create future generations of parasites. So for the vast majority, they have found the balance.\n\nSome have found other routes, such as being infectious in death, or using multiple steps, or passing through digestive waste. For the most part, though, they just find the balance.",
"\"Success\" as a lifeform isn't defined by how long each individual organism lives, but rather by how effectively its genetic material is passed on to the next generation. If a parasite (strictly parasitoid if it kills the host) lays eggs inside a host organism, the larvae have a ready supply of food when they hatch. They can gorge themselves all they want, and be assured of sufficient nourishment that they can then spin a cocoon and pupate, ready to emerge as adults that can reproduce.\n\nIf we imagine some variant species that only eats some of the host, in such a way that the host remains alive, it'll take longer for this species to reach a state where it can pupate into its reproductory stage. This species will therefore actually reproduce slower by allowing its host to live."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[]
] |
||
4ey7zk
|
why does the face turn grey, green, or lose color right before throwing up?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4ey7zk/eli5_why_does_the_face_turn_grey_green_or_lose/
|
{
"a_id": [
"d24d6iz"
],
"score": [
44
],
"text": [
"This has been asked before here is the answer. \n\n > The blood is rushing away from your face and towards the vital organs, like in most stress responses we have. The green color, I believe, is a combination of Caucasians' yellowish skin tone, combined with the blue appearance of the veins under our skin. Our veins are not actually blue, but refraction of light in our slightly transparent skin can give them that appearance. The combination of the two gives the illusion of green skin. When blood is more present, it evens out to a \"neutral\" skin tone.\n\ncredit to /u/tesformes"
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[]
] |
||
9nam7f
|
why do electronic cigarettes use glycerine/pg instead of just using water?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/9nam7f/eli5_why_do_electronic_cigarettes_use_glycerinepg/
|
{
"a_id": [
"e7ks1os"
],
"score": [
6
],
"text": [
"Have you ever tried inhaling water? It doesn't do very good things to you. \n\nAdditionally PG and VG are very good and carrying flavour. "
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[]
] |
||
c3vgg1
|
how exactly computers work, and what exactly computer code is. i've been trying to wrap my head around how they work and what the applications on them actually do. additionally, how do websites work?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/c3vgg1/eli5_how_exactly_computers_work_and_what_exactly/
|
{
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"text": [
"Computers operate on the most basic level by using binary code. Basically 1 means in and 0 means off. This is extremely simplified but essentially what happens, as each 1 and 0 switches on or off a specific parameter or electrical \"gateway\" so to speak inside the computer circuit board. \n\nOver the years we have built over this binary code to make things easier to not only build but understand. It's almost like instead of saying 1+1+1+1+1+1=6 we have built it up where computers can now understand 3+3=6. Another analogy would be instead of using a whole paragraph of Latin to describe that one flower is purple in small clusters with tiny leaves in many quantity, we can now just input \"lavender bush\" and it will be understood.\n\nThis is a very rudimentary explanation but I tried to make it as simple as possible. Remember the first computers were operated by cards that either had a whole punched or not punched to tell them how to operate.",
"At a very, very basic level, computers are machines made up of electricity and switches - think light switches. These switches can be in the \"off\" position or the \"on\" position. The more switches there are, the more combinations there can be (e.g. \"on, off, on\" vs \"off, off, on\"). In computer terms, we can have these positions be represented by numbers (binary - 0 and 1). From there, we can start linking switches together to create [logic gates](_URL_0_). Then, you can link together logic gates to allow for more complex data to be calculated.\n\nThe switches are used to control the behavior of the computer via code. Most modern code is abstracted away from controlling the switches directly and instead uses more user-friendly, easy to understand language and terms. So, it ends up looking less like \"supply electricity to switches 1-2\" and more like \"set apples = 3.\"\n\nApplications are layers upon layers of code that all work together to perform functions for the user. Want to enter your name into a field? Well, that field is going to be backed by code giving it the appearance of a place to type something in and more code giving it the ability to take what you type and save it somewhere else. \n\nWebsites are the same thing, they just don't \"live\" on your computer. When you go to a website, you're \"visiting\" an application that exists on another computer somewhere.\n\nFor a far better (but longer) explanation of computers, I highly recommend checking out the [crash course youtube series on computer science.](_URL_1_)",
"A computer is fundamentally an arithmetic machine. At the heart of the primary component (the Central Processing Unit - CPU) is an Arithmetic Logic Unit - ALU. This can only do simple operations - addition, subtraction, shifting, moving, and comparison. Technically it can also multiply and divide, but these are fundamentally just repeated additions or subtractions.\n\nYou will have heard that computer data is stored in Binary, which is ones and zeroes. What this really means is that it is stored and transported in electronic circuits which are either on (one) or off (zero). So to do a calculation you feed your two numbers into the ALU on the data circuits, and on the control circuits you tell it what calculation to do, and out the other side comes your result, which you tell it where to put. \n\nSo at its basic level a computer does nothing that a human being can't do themselves; what's clever is how you decide to use that information; and what's powerful is the scale of just how quickly you can do it. Your mobile phone's CPU will be spitting out results to calculations like those over a billion times a second. It's so fast that in the time it takes your computer to perform a single calculation, light can only move around a meter, or less for very high end CPUs.\n\nAs to computer code, well it's all zeroes and ones too, eventually. At that very low level it's called machine code, and it literally shows the on/off state of each control line for the CPU, and sometimes the data lines too (but most of the time the data lines are fed from data storage registers). A slight higher level is called assembler code; this is a little more human readable, but still literally describes every step in complete detail such as: \n\n ADD R1 R8 R24\n\nWhich might mean \"Add the contents of register 1 to the contents of register 8 and put the result into register 24\"\n\nA level higher and we get to something much more readable:\n\n a = b + c;\n\nWe no longer worry about exactly where a, b, or c are stored, we leave this up to something called a compiler. This takes our code and converts it into the assembly and then to machine code.\n\nNow for the clever bit. In order to get them to do things like show pictures, connect to the internet, play games, it's all about how we choose to interpret that data. Here's something you can try yourself; make a copy of an image file, and then change the .jpg at the end to .txt instead. Windows will complain, but just agree. Now try to open that file - see how your notepad is full of lots of different characters? You've just told your computer to interpret data that was intended to be a picture as text instead. And this is what happens in all sorts of ways inside your computer; we say that a particular piece of data is for the screen, and we make a screen that interprets it in the right way; we say that another piece of data is the location of a tree on the map you're playing, and we make the game interpret it that way. But it's just a string of zeroes and ones at the end of the day.\n\nPull all of these clever things together, and you can connect to the internet and download a webpage. First your web browser asks a Domain Name Server (DNS) for the right numbers; the _URL_0_ that you type into the address bar is meaningless to the computer, and the DNS returns an Internet Protocol (IP) address for the server of the website you want to access.\n\nThe website server then sends a HyperText file back to you. This is what the HTTP stands for at the beginning of website addresses; Hyper Text Transfer Protocol - it's a way of sending and receiving the data that describes a website. So it tells your browser what colours to use, what lines to draw, what images to download and where to put them in order to display the page. Take a look, go to a website, right click and you should see an option for \"view source\"",
"Since other people have more or less answered \"how computers work\":\n\n**What computer code is:**\n\nComputer code, or computer programming, is a way of giving instructions to a computer in a way that can be easily translated from something a person can understand to something a computer can understand. Take this example in the C programming language:\n\n int a = 1;\n int b = 2;\n int c = a + b;\n\nThis example means \"Create a number variable named a, and put the value 1 into it. Then create a number variable named b, and put the value 2 into it. Then create a number variable named c, then add the value of a to the value of b, and put the result into c.\"\n\nBecause of the very standardized way that programming code is written, it can be translated by something called a compiler into the binary numbers that represent the steps of the program to the CPU.\n\n**How a website works:**\n\nA computer somewhere on the internet runs a program called a web server. It communicates via the HTTP or HTTPS protocols (those appear at the front of a URL to specify what protocol to use) and just sits there listening for requests. If you connect to _URL_0_, for example, then your web browser will send a GET request for the front page. The webserver knows where the front page is because it is linked to a folder called its base directory (directory is a more technical term for a folder). The base directory contains a file called index.html (index being a keyword for the main file for that folder). So when your web browser makes a GET request for the front page, the web server will respond by sending you back the index.html within the base directory. If you were to click a link, for say, _URL_1_, your browser will then send a GET request for the index.html within the directory /r/explainlikeimfive, which means that within the base directory there is another directory named r, and another directory inside that named explainlikeimfive, which contains an index.html.",
"Short answer: magic. Longer answer: layers of abstraction. Lets start at transistors because they are easy to research and how they are made is not important to understand computers. \n\nWith transistors you can make not, nor, nand circuits. They are basic building blocks of every logic operation. With them you create flip flops (memory), adders, multiplyers, etc. With these circuits you can make ALUs (arithmetic logic units) basicaly calculators. Add some circuits for specific tasks and you have CPU. With CPU and some storage option you have a computer, that is where computer code comes in.\n\nComputer code in its lowest form (machine code/assembler) tells cpu what to calculate, some other stuff like shifting values but mostly calculating. The further you go from assembler the more layers of abstraction there are. Eg c has few layers (often one), python or javascript have many layers (python was first writen in c and later they started using already writen stuff to write even more and more). When you write code you dont need to think how will CPU understand what you wrote, you have programs that are there to make it understand.\n\nWhat applications do depends on application. In general they help user to achieve a goal. Eg excel to calculate some spreadsheets or email client to send a message to another user.\n\nToday websites are very complex beasts and understanding how they work is best left to trained monkeys, errrr I mean developers. In their simplest form they have a server and user. Server is computer that houses the website, think a lemonade stand. A user is a customer, think a thirsty developer. When a thirsty developer wants lemonade he goes to lemonade stand and asks for a glass of sweet nectar of gods. The server gives it to him and he uses his mouth(web browser) to convert lemonade to a form usable to his body. \n\nThis field is very complex like any other, so it is best not to ask questions with words exactly when asking general questions. Noone can tell you how computer works exactly because to understand how they work EXACTLY you need to know physics of electricity, semiconductors, signal propagation, etc. And metric ton of math. My sugestion is to research how to ask a good question and figure out what you realy want to know because I highly doubt that these answers truly answered that.",
"I'll pile on to what's been said with a different answer that hopefully gives a more high level understanding.\n\nA computer works by doing something ridiculously basic, but adds layer after layer of complexity as it gets closer and closer to a person interacting with it. \n\nComputers are very complex, as many have said, but they didn't start out that way. Over the years, they have added more and more layers to the point where today, most everything you do as a computer user goes through dozens of these layers.\n\nThe lowest layer is the binary code which has already been explained. That's the really basic stuff the computer can deal with extremely efficiently. But while binary code might be \"easy\" for a computer to work with, it's actually super tedious and not at all straightforward for anyone who isn't proficient in it. All these layers are needed to make it easy for a person to do something with it.\n\nLet's start at the highest layer now and work our way down. I won't explain these things in any detail, but it'll give you an idea of how the layers work together to go from user-friendliness to binary code.\n\nSo, at the top, we have...\n\nThe Application/Program/App - that's what you are using now. It's the web browser, phone app, or program on your PC.\n\nThese apps are created by programmers who utilize the next layer, which has many names, but let's call it a software library. This is like a toolbox that they can use to piece together different pieces of functionality into a single app. \n\nThat library is built on lots and lots of smaller libraries\n\nThose smaller libraries are built by other programmers who know how to expose different parts of the computer's operating system (yet another layer down the chain) to programmers.\n\nThe operating system (OS) exposes its functionality to programmers in the layer above. At this level, the programmers are able to do stuff with loading/saving files, network transmission, displaying stuff to the screen, playing sound through the speakers, etc...\n\nInside the OS, each of these areas of functionality is programmed by talking to the next layer down which knows how to work with each of the computer's hardware components (things like the hard drive, flash card, display/screen, mouse, keyboard, network card, etc..) These things are called 'drivers'\n\nThe drivers are programmed to talk directly to the hardware that they are designed for. \n\nBelow the drivers, you have the actual hardware like the screen, the disk drive, the printer, etc..\n\nIn the case of the screen, the driver that knows how to talk to the screen hardware (which includes the video card and the monitor) is the display driver. \n\nThis does a bunch of stuff, but if you start at the highest layer, and work your way down to this point, you can maybe see how an app programmer might be able to get something to display on the screen. All of those layers in between make that possible. \n\nThis is so very oversimplified, but I took the question to mean more about how does everything fit together rather than super amounts of detail on how it all works.\n\nAnyway, if there's one topic that has enormous amounts of coverage on YouTube, then this one is it. You should be able to find more detail there."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[
"https://www.tutorialspoint.com/computer_logical_organization/logic_gates.htm",
"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O5nskjZ_GoI&list=PL8dPuuaLjXtNlUrzyH5r6jN9ulIgZBpdo&index=2"
],
[
"www.reddit.com"
],
[
"www.reddit.com",
"reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive"
],
[],
[]
] |
||
1bl7lw
|
why did the dreamcast never take off?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1bl7lw/eli5_why_did_the_dreamcast_never_take_off/
|
{
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"The Dreamcast was weird. The controller was oddly shaped (although Nintendo has proven time and time again that weird controllers sell). Your memory card went in your controller (which could house two) and had a little screen and buttons on it. \nBut more importantly, it was released in the middle of the console cycle. Consumers already had an N64 or a Playstation, and were looking forward to the Gamecube and PS2. There weren't enough Dreamcast exclusive titles that were worth buying, so people stuck with the consoles they had already and just passed by the Dreamcast.",
"A big reason the Dreamcast never really kicked off (in America) was due to a lack of support from EA, specifically their sports games.",
"I don't have much to add, except that alot of the games were odd niche titles. Seaman, Samba de Amigo, etc. No blockbuster mainstream franchises on the same scale as Metal Gear Solid.\n\nThe Dreamcast *community*, though, was definitely quite vibrant. As the internet grew, the fan-driven Dreamcast community rallied around all the weird little custom mods and really bolstered the growth of review sites etc.\n",
"Adding to others Sega had also burned a lot of bridges and lost money with the 32x, Sega CD and Saturn machines. They lost a lot of third party developers because this and the console never quite got the support it needed and Sega was tainted by its fairly recent mistakes in the public eye as well.\n\nThe launch was also hampered when the online components of the system were too overloaded and no one could use it (sound familiar? diabolo 3, simcity *cough*), though they were eventually sorted out.\n\nAny momentum the console had was thoroughly stopped by the release of the Playstation 2 which also had the benefit of being a DVD player which most people didn't own at the time; they tried this ruse again with blu-ray in the PS3 as it had been so successful with DVD on the PS2. It mainly ran on the coat tails of the previous PS1 success as for the first year of the PS2 it really had no good games at all, it's launch games were pathetic and it was massively over hyped.\n\nSega didn't have any of that to sustain it, while now regarded as one of the great consoles, almost avant-garde in the mainstream console market at the time, it just couldn't compete with Sony and it's massive cash reserves, excellent marketing and huge third party developer support.\n\n",
"Don't let other people misinform you; the Dreamcast **did not fail**, it was discontinued because *SEGA* failed.\n\nHere's an interview from Peter Moore, who was the head of SEGA Of America at the time, who said the following:\n\n_URL_1_\n\n*\"We had a tremendous 18 months. Dreamcast was on fire – we really thought that we could do it. But then we had a target from Japan that said – and I can't remember the exact figures – but we had to make N hundreds of millions of dollars by the holiday season and shift N millions of units of hardware, otherwise we just couldn't sustain the business.\"*\n\nThe Dreamcast had an extremely successful launch and launch year. The problem was that SEGA was strapped for cash and he was told that it would have to sell a huge amount for them to stay in the console business. Remember that the PS2 had ridiculous amounts of marketing and hype behind it; SEGA simply couldn't afford to tackle the PS2 launch unless the Dreamcast was very successful for the time. How do I know that the figure was unrealistic, when Peter Moore never specified what it was? Saturn/32X/SEGA CD:\n\nSEGA had, at that point, had racked up ridiculous amounts of debt on failed, ill-conceived hardware and in 2002 (a few years after the DC was discontinued), even after [a nearly $700 million donation from Isoi Okawa](_URL_0_), they couldn't be pulled out of their financial hole because they were bleeding almost that amount each year, so they announced their complete shift to third party development.\n\n**TL;DR: The Dreamcast didn't fail SEGA, SEGA failed the Dreamcast.**",
"1.Sega fanbase diminished after the Genesis/Mega Drive era.\n\n2.Sega Saturn was overshadowed by the Playstation.\n\n3.Dreamcast was released in the middle of the 32/64 bit era.\n\n4.A lot of gamers were waiting for the PS2.\n\n5.Sega was in financial trouble in the middle of the Saturn lifecycle in 1997-98."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[],
[],
[],
[
"http://edition.cnn.com/2001/BUSINESS/asia/03/18/tokyo.okawalegacy/index.html",
"http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/gamesblog/2008/sep/11/gamesinterviews.microsoft1"
],
[]
] |
||
16u8hy
|
what keeps objects separated?
|
Why doesn't everything stick together if everything is made out of the same elements? I know some elements attract and some don't, but for some reason I can't grasp that all life and objects somehow hold their own shape against one another.
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/16u8hy/eli5_what_keeps_objects_separated/
|
{
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"c7zeoho",
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"text": [
"I think Richard Feynman does a great job of explaining this (like you are five) when asked about the nature of magnetism. Sorry that I can't give you a good answer myself, but this video probably has exactly what you are looking for: _URL_0_",
"As we're all made up of atoms, and these atoms have hugely vacant spaces, we should slip past each other like two schools of fish. But when we touch another object we don't actually touch it, and it's electrically repulsed by us (though it may be magnet, not sure in this). Bill Bryaon explained it well in a short history of almost everything."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[
"http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MO0r930Sn_8"
],
[]
] |
|
55itqw
|
when dna evidence proves a convicted person could not have committed the crime, why are they not automatically released?
|
[deleted]
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/55itqw/eli5_when_dna_evidence_proves_a_convicted_person/
|
{
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"text": [
"I think the first part of this is that we need to distinguish between justice and the justice system.\n\nIf someone is exonerated, for whatever reason, what usually happens is that prosecutors have the right to retry the case with whatever other evidence they had. Exoneration does away with the conviction but not the charges. When facing a retrial, if the underlying crime is serious enough, bail may be denied.\n\nOccasionally, you have a case where someone if faced with a [Hobson's choice](_URL_1_). Accept a retrial and face the possibility of being convicted of the same crime with whatever viable evidence remains or accept parole and a felony conviction on one's record. See the case of [Keith Cooper](_URL_0_).",
"DNA evidence, even though it's come a long way, isn't magic. If someone said in court \"This match is 99.9% accurate!\" in an area with 1,000,000 people, that means 10,000 other matches exist. If it were 99.99%, it'd be 1000 people. If you were on trial for a murder you didn't commit, and you knew there were possibly one **thousand** other potential matches, would you feel so secure about DNA testing?\n\nYou often need a lot of physical evidence with DNA on it to mean anything. DNA evidence very rarely \"proves\" something - that's the lawyer's job. Rather, it suggests to a very, very, very accurate level what might have been. Might.\n\nMake no mistake - DNA evidence is crucial and we should make every effort to improve it - it's just not magic like people think it is in movies."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[
"http://floridainnocence.org/content/?p=13430",
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hobson%27s_choice"
],
[]
] |
|
8lppv1
|
how does the music synchronize with the action in classic cartoons?
|
In shows like Looney Tunes and Tom and Jerry, it always blew me away that every episode had an original orchestral score that always accentuated the action and was always perfectly in sync to the cartoon, especially in an age before sophisticated audio editing software. What was the process behind writing the music for each episode and then synchronizing it to the cartoon or vice versa?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/8lppv1/eli5_how_does_the_music_synchronize_with_the/
|
{
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"text": [
"Typically the cartoons were designed to synchronize with the known beat of the music.\n\nEven so, sometimes a live orchestra would play the music for recording while watching the newly made cartoon, to ensure they hit the high points at exactly the right moment.\n\nDisney's *Fantasia* is a whole feature-length animated movie built this way.",
"Not sure about Tom & Jerry or Disney, but most of the Looney Tunes shorts were scored by Carl Stalling. What he would do, is meet with the animation director and get a general sense of how many scenes there were, how long each scene lasted, the plot and any important comedic or dramatic beats. He'd do a preliminary score, and then when the animation was completed, use a metronome to get down the exact timing of the animation, and then edit his score to match (change tempo, add/remove measures, etc.). Then, the piece was recorded by Warner Brothers' house orchestra.\n\nOTOH, the awesomely weird Fleisher Brothers would often take the exact opposite approach. They would start with a popular recording, and base the animation around that, to the extent of inventing rotoscoping so they could animate the performance styles of Cab Calloway & some of their other featured musicians."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[]
] |
|
18yxlb
|
what's the deal with these places wanting me to switch my electric provider?
|
I must have like 8 FB friends now who all "own their own business" and want me to give them my electric bill because they can save me money. What's the deal with it? Anything I should be concerned with if I do it?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/18yxlb/eli5_whats_the_deal_with_these_places_wanting_me/
|
{
"a_id": [
"c8j9p1u",
"c8jb3eq"
],
"score": [
2,
2
],
"text": [
"It is a pyramid scheme. Like cutco knives or that make-up one (Mary something?). You can certainly make money, but off of your friends and family.\n\nMy advice is to not get involved. Just smile, nod, and say no thanks when asked. Keep your friends, keep your money; win, win. ",
"In many places, the electricity market has become deregulated.\n\nThe US has a national power grid. The companies that own power plants will sell the electricity they generate to other power companies, and then those other companies are the ones that turn around and provide that electricity to you.\n\nAround the country recently, most states have forced deregulation in the market. Where it used to be that the company that generated your power was the same company that delivered your power and you had no choice in the matter, now many areas allow the customer to choose which power generation company will provide their power. This means that companies now can compete with each other and it benefits you the customer by having to pay a lower cost.\n\nAs a real world example, my power computer is PECO, which is a subsidiary of a company called Exelon. It used to be that all my power came from Exelon whether I wanted it or not, and it cost me .011 cents per watt. Then the market became deregulated and I signed a deal with Champion Energy to provide my power at the cost of .0085 cents per watt. My utility company is still PECO, as they maintain the power lines and read my meter, but the place of origination changed.\n\nNow, to your issue. Your friends are probably part of some program that these companies have in place that will give them a kickback if they get you to sign up with them.\n\nIt's probably no harm to talk to one of them, as long as you understand what they are actually trying to get you to do before you sign any contracts. At worst, you may get put on some mailing list."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[]
] |
|
6zum7i
|
how did the us expand the landline phone network to every household?
|
With the conversation heavily surrounding Title II and net neutrality now, what are the parallels and what are the contrasts between the lack of broadband in every household today, and the lack of a phone line in every household back in the early 20th century?
More specifically, how were phone companies incentivized to build into every household? We're they expanding under Title II?
If they were, aren't we in a parallel situation today? Won't we have broadband internet in every household "eventually" even if these big companies are working under Title II for broadband internet? If not, then under what circumstances did telephone companies work to expand the phone network to every single household? And how can we get that to happen to broadband internet?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/6zum7i/eli5_how_did_the_us_expand_the_landline_phone/
|
{
"a_id": [
"dmy5cjw",
"dmy7nad",
"dmyhg3j"
],
"score": [
2,
2,
2
],
"text": [
"The two major differences are, users of the phone network generate all the content, and there was only one phone company. The phone network becomes more valuable (users have more people to call) the more users connected to it. It was very strongly in AT & T's interest to get everyone connected to the phone network, because it made the phone network that AT & T owned more valuable. \n\nThat incentive doesn't exist for broadband providers, who are also concerned about maximizing their more valuable television signals business. ",
"One short answer is that they didn't get landlines to every house. My sister in rural Idaho, for example, had to pay thousands to the local phone company in order to get landline service.",
"Because the federal government, under the auspices of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), has been pushing for \"universal service\" in the context of landline telephony as part of its overall regulation of the telecom industry since the enactment of the Telecommunications Act of 1934. That Act made it official federal policy to promote universal access to landlines. The FCC has been promoting that goal in a variety of ways since that time, most notably with the formal recognition of the Universal Service Fund in the Telecommunications Act of 1996. Less formal mechanisms existed before then.\n\nGoogle the USF and \"universal service\" generally and you should find good links pretty quickly."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[],
[]
] |
|
blpti6
|
public transport in the usa
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/blpti6/eli5_public_transport_in_the_usa/
|
{
"a_id": [
"emqcj35"
],
"score": [
2
],
"text": [
"A lot of cities developed and grew around the idea of personal vehicle ownership, and many cities' existing streetcar networks were torn up to allow for a bus network instead. \n\nFast forward to present times, and heavy passenger rail lines are largely reserved to only the biggest cities, and a lack of dedicated infrastructure puts buses as a natural victim of traffic congestion. A lack of funding often prevents much from being done."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[]
] |
||
2erqdj
|
the argument that the universe as we know it is a 2d hologram.
|
I just don't understand that we can't confirm that its not. Things seem obviously 3D to me.
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2erqdj/eli5_the_argument_that_the_universe_as_we_know_it/
|
{
"a_id": [
"ck2bl40"
],
"score": [
3
],
"text": [
"[here](_URL_0_) is a good explanation.\n\nNow for your other question \"things seem obviously 3D to me\". It doesn't matter how things look to you, your brain could be interpreting information in whatever way, anything is possible.\n\nFor all we know, our entire universe (and you) could be a simulation in some kind of computer. And there is no way to know."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[
"http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1sl6jf/eli5_the_theory_that_the_universe_is_a_hologram/"
]
] |
|
52199o
|
why do aussies get upset when called "sir" or "ma'am"?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/52199o/eli5why_do_aussies_get_upset_when_called_sir_or/
|
{
"a_id": [
"d7gl7wh",
"d7glahp",
"d7gle17",
"d7gltlt",
"d7glwi4",
"d7gm88t"
],
"score": [
8,
4,
4,
2,
8,
2
],
"text": [
"As an Australian, this is completely news to me. Sounds like someone is pulling your leg, or you just live in area full of ass holes. ",
"I have never met anyone that dislikes being called sir or ma'am unless it's done sarcastically (born and live in Australia, albeit Victoria). I guess with police it would be the risk it sounded sarcastic?\n\nI mean it is certainly uncommon for people to say sir/ma'am rather than Mr/Mrs/Ms/Miss ____ but I've never met a person that has an issue with it beyond the polite 'oh just call me ____' type of thing.",
"As another Australian (Melbourne), I've never heard of it being bad to call someone (including a police officer) sir. Ma'am, in my experience it depends which female you ask. It does have some connotations of 'old' and sounding distinctly American. I'd sooner call a female miss or madam. ",
"Australians or Austrians? Aussies will respond to anything you say towards them I doubt that ma'am and sir would be upsetting for them ",
"I'll have a go at answering. I think it's accurate to say that Australians in general don't like it, although the degree of negative response will vary from person to person.\n\nThe first thing to say is that the negative response may have something to do with you being American. Australians (and I imagine this is true of other small countries) are aware that our language and culture is pretty delicate, especially in the face of American culture. I'd estimate that there are about 450 million native English speakers in the developed world, and over two-thirds of them live in the US. Australians are often concerned that if you bring your dialect over here it'll exterminate the local stuff.\n\nThat's one point, but the major issue is probably something to do with Australian culture. American culture values individualism, but it also values hierarchies. I've lived in both countries, and, anecdotally, the elderly, police, soldiers, businessmen, and yes even politicians are respected more (or at least, are treated with more respect). Australian culture has these features too, but it is also predicated on no one being any better or worse than anyone else, no matter who they are. That's why everyone calls everyone else \"mate\" - it's a kind of [memento mori](_URL_0_) for the rich and powerful, to remind them that they're not entitled to special treatment just because they're older or richer or wearing a uniform.\n\nTo take the cop example, there seems to be a much wider gulf between the police and the people in the US. When a man puts on the uniform, he becomes the office it represents, and should be treated accordingly. In Australia, on the other hand, cops are citizens first and office bearers second, so you talk to them on equal terms and you expect them to be straight with you in return. It's just different cultural expectations. Another example is one you've probably already noticed, that Australians tend to sit in the front seat of a taxi whenever they catch a cab. The reason for this is simple: snobs sit in the back seat and allow themselves to be chauffeured; fellow-citizens recognise a person doing a job, and treat them as equals. This approach is slowly falling out of favour, especially in the big cities, and some people will attribute this (implicitly negative) cultural change to the influence of American film and TV (see para 1).\n\nSo, to cut a long story short, this attitude is so deeply ingrained that the only time you do actually hear someone use \"sir\" or \"ma'am\" is when they're taking the piss. If you use these expressions without proper context, most people will think they're being lampooned and react badly. Terms of respect are used, but they are often only used when the person concerned demands it. This perpetuates the cycle because Australian culture is not alone in judging that the person who demands respect the most often deserves it the least. \n\nI hope this was helpful - I'm Australian but have lived in the US on and off, and I've had a few encounters of my own that have given me the impetus to develop this theory as much as I have. ",
"I spent a lot of time thinking about this exact question while I was living in the US. \n\nWhat I think is going on is different attitudes about talking to strangers. In Australia its perfectly normal to start a short conversation with the person at the checkout or the person next to you in a line. In the US when I tried it, people looked at me like I was insane. \n\nIn the US people seem to use sir or ma'am a lot when talking to strangers. Its like they're showing extra respect to make up for the fact that they're being rood by having a conversation. In Australia, it's not considered rood, so the extra formality seems weird. "
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[],
[],
[],
[
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Memento_mori"
],
[]
] |
||
5v16ls
|
why can animals recognize their owners in person, but can't over the phone or on video?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5v16ls/eli5_why_can_animals_recognize_their_owners_in/
|
{
"a_id": [
"ddyfczq"
],
"score": [
6
],
"text": [
"Much of animals' means of identification is through smells/pheromones, which clearly don't transmit over video."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[]
] |
||
bnhoft
|
if photons travel with constant speed and direction, why does light fades away over distance ?
|
Sorry if this title isn't grammatically correct, English is not my native language
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/bnhoft/eli5_if_photons_travel_with_constant_speed_and/
|
{
"a_id": [
"en5qj09",
"en5qwpj",
"en5uocv"
],
"score": [
4,
2,
3
],
"text": [
"It is called the inverse square law, basically the light spreads out over a larger area as the distance from the light source increases. _URL_0_",
"The fading of light is primarily due to something known as the [\"inverse square law\"](_URL_0_). There are also other effects (particles in the atmosphere will absorb some of the light, and in deep space, dust clouds will absorb some light as well). But, from what you're asking, it sounds like the inverse square law is the core answer you're looking for.\n\nAs for what it means, its basically how the photons spread out as you get further and further away. If you have something like a sun, its shooting photons out in all directions. these photons will all continue to go in constant speed in all diriections, and thus you can think of the light from the star acting as a constantly growing sphere. But the key thing to remember is, that the number of photons remains the same, even as the sphere grows (because the photons were created in the star).\n\nSo why does it get dimmer? Imagine you've just frosted a cake. Now imagine that you've got a cake twice a large that you need to frost with the same amount of frosting as the first. You'll need to spread the frosting much more thinly than you did the first time. If another, even bigger cake comes along that you need to frost, you'll need to continue spreading the frosting in progressively thinner coats.\n\nThis is the same thing as with the light. As the sphere of emitted light grows larger and larger (as the photons get further and further from their source), they get more and more spread out. [This picture from the inverse square law wikipage really shows it perfectly](_URL_1_)\n\nNow, if you could create a light source where the photons don't spread out like that, then it would not get dimmer with distance. This is what lasers are. Lasers emit light where the photons are all emitted parallel to one another and so they do not spread out with distance. (This is why a laser pointer appears to remain the same brightness on the wall, no matter how far away you move the pointer. Compare it with a flashlight which behaves very much like the image above. The further you move a flashlight from the wall, the wider the light spreads, thus the photons are spread more thin across the wall, and the dimmer it appears to be)",
"Imagine a shotgun being shot at a target on a wall from close range - the scatter of bullets is close together. Move further back and shoot again - the bullets are scattered further from each other.\n\nNow imagine the bullets are photons and the target is your eye - the further away the shotgun (photon source) gets from the target (your eye), the less bullets (photons) that actually hit the target (your eye) therefore the dimmer the source appears."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[
"https://youtu.be/HcsOngKjtKI"
],
[
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inverse-square_law",
"https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/28/Inverse_square_law.svg"
],
[]
] |
|
bdpaoz
|
why would old structures like norte dame or sisten chapel take awhile to restore. don't we have 1000 times better architecture technology? what makes them hard to restore in the case of notre dame i hear it might take years.
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/bdpaoz/eli5_why_would_old_structures_like_norte_dame_or/
|
{
"a_id": [
"ekzvzo9",
"ekzwgme"
],
"score": [
7,
2
],
"text": [
"Restoration is painstaking work, because the goal isn't just to build something, it's to preserve as much of the original as possible, while filling in the missing parts.\n\nThe first question is how much filling in do you want to do? The argument for minimal restoration (make the structure safe, prevent further loss) is that the artworks of the past should be preserved as best as possible, but nothing should be added that might detract from them. The argument for a full restoration (do whatever it takes to make it like new) is that you are bringing the structure back to the state its builders intended it to be seen in, and that trumps preservation of worn, damaged, or partially destroyed works. And of course there's arguments for every tiny step between those extremes.\n\nThen comes actually doing it, and hoo-boy. Do you know how many master stonecarvers, or stained glass makers, or fresco artists are still around? The answer is not many. An extensive restoration of a structure like a major cathedral might require re-learning of artistic disciplines that have been extinct or nearly extinct for centuries.",
"Using modern building techniques isn't the same as restoration. Some of course, but restoration suggests rebuilding the cathedral with similar construction materials; using stone from the original quarry, hand chiseling it, immense work by sculptors, marble, real gilt, artisan woodcarvers, stonemasons, the same source wood, the stained glass, plasterwork, etc.\n\nThese artisan skills are also more rare. When the Washington Cathedral was damaged during that earthquake is the only comparison I can make.\n\n [_URL_0_](_URL_0_) \n\nThat doesn't count the artwork. I grieve over it ... I truly do. I'm a fine art oil painter but it will take multitudes of masters to replicate the works that were lost ... not even sure they would consider it. The Catholic Church has one of the most valuable and extensive art collections in the world. Surely they could move some to Notre Dame. \n\nI visited in 1999 and have no idea what fire does to Carrara marble, the Pieta, dozens more ... it's the artwork that is irreplaceable ... the artwork. Makes me terribly sad."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[
"https://www.npr.org/2018/12/20/678335148/chip-by-chip-restoring-the-damaged-washington-national-cathedral"
]
] |
||
bz2toy
|
why do some file transfers have such variable transfer speeds?
|
like for example if there is a lot of smaller files, it seems to really make the transfer speed slow down. but some transfers in general seem to have completely random transfer speeds, why aren't they able to use the full bandwidth of the connection?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/bz2toy/eli5_why_do_some_file_transfers_have_such/
|
{
"a_id": [
"eqpe595"
],
"score": [
5
],
"text": [
"Fragmentation and connection protocol message size limits.\n\nWhen files are stored in a drive the drive allocates contiguous blocks of data to most files if they need it. But if you have lots of small files the drive needs to search for them all over its memory to then copy them to the bus and send them to their destination.\n\nSearch, find, copy, send. Search find copy send. Over and over for many files vs 1 long stream of continuous data.\n\n & #x200B;\n\nIn addition when being sent over network or even local protocols, they have a max message size, so the device will cut up the file being transferred into:\n\n1. Header (what is the file, how big and where is it going)\n2. First chunk of data\n3. Second chunk of data\n4. Thir... you get it\n5. ...\n\n?. End of File\n\nWhile sending these messages, sometimes the computer needs to check to see if the connection is still alive... so stop transfer (rather pause), check, wait for reply, continue with a new header that also says 'I'm part of the previous message'.\n\n & #x200B;\n\nThis happens very quickly in many many small messages, so you can see how the connection might flutter up and down in speed if it has to stop and go."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[]
] |
|
8xkofq
|
when shrinking a picture on the computer, how does the computer know which pixels are important in keeping the thumbnail looking like the original picture?
|
[deleted]
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/8xkofq/eli5_when_shrinking_a_picture_on_the_computer_how/
|
{
"a_id": [
"e23ur2v"
],
"score": [
7
],
"text": [
"In general, downsampling an image doesn't keep pixels from the original image. It averages out multiple pixels to generate a new replacement. This is why hard edges can end up looking soft and worse defined after a downscale has occurred.\n\nIf you want to turn a 100x100 image to 50x50, a simple thing to do would be to take every 2x2 square across the entire image and, for those four colours, try and find the closest colour to all four provided pixels. In a general image there won't be much colour variance and it'll be easy (for example, taking 4px of my red shirt will likely return a red pixel, even if there's slight shadow on bits of it).\n\nOf course, you'll get terrible results if you try to do this on an image of alternating black and white pixels, as the result of my simple method above will just entirely be a single shade of grey. Some things can be done about this in terms of sampling and edge detection, with the intent of preserving features, but these are more advanced."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[]
] |
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