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4bnif8
|
why is there a huge plume of smoke/vapour/gas at every rocket launch but no plume for some moments after?
|
After watching some rocket launches, in particular the SRB-less ones, I've noticed that for about 10 seconds or so after launch (not particularly long) there is no 'column' of smoke but later on in the launch, the rocket leaves a trail. Why is that?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4bnif8/eli5_why_is_there_a_huge_plume_of_smokevapourgas/
|
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"That's the water vapor from liquid oxygen and the extreme temperature change from launching a rocket. Same thing with the trail.",
"It's actually pretty similar, but when the rocket reaches a higher speed the gasses get diluted very quickly.\n\nThink revving your engine to 4500rpm in your garage vs driving on the freeway at 75MPH. "
]
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|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
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|
95cf1y
|
why does the shoe on my smaller foot, get worn out so much faster?
|
[deleted]
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/95cf1y/eli5why_does_the_shoe_on_my_smaller_foot_get_worn/
|
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"text": [
"Foot size probably isn’t the issue. I’d guess your gait (how you walk) is the culprit. Try walking and pay attention see if you do anything different in one side vs the other."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[]
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|
6vok6q
|
how come magnetic motors aren't used on a larger scale to generate energy?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/6vok6q/eli5_how_come_magnetic_motors_arent_used_on_a/
|
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"text": [
"They are the *main* way to generate electricity. Every large electric generating plant uses a magnetic motor, driven by some power source, to make its electricity.\n\nThe problem is that this power source is not free. ",
"An electric motor in reverse is a generator. When you supply electricity to an electric motor, it turns. When you turn the motor yourself, it generates electricity.\n\nTurning the motor yourself requires you to put energy into it. The magnets push against the electrons in the wire coils, which is a kind of friction. That's what creates the electricity. Where are you getting that energy to turn the generator? Sometimes we use energy from the wind to turn the generator, or falling water through a dam, or gas, coal...steam made from nuclear heat, etc. The energy has to come from somewhere first."
]
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|
[] |
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ces3un
|
why are there so few recumbent motorcycles?
|
If recumbent bicycles are more aerodynamic than uprights, why is the recumbent design so rare for motorcycles?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/ces3un/eli5_why_are_there_so_few_recumbent_motorcycles/
|
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"text": [
"Energy efficiency is critically important in a low-power situation like a bicycle. Add a high-power motor and other parameters like visibility become more significant.",
"While recumbent bikes can be more aerodynamic, the main reason people use them is that they are more comfortable. Instead of having all your weight supported by a tiny seat and your butt, your butt and back take on the weight. Motorcycles are already much more comfortable than bicycles.\n\nAlso motorcycles are thought of as being for cool or tough people. Recumbent bikes are the opposite of that."
]
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|
3mp0c8
|
does the government indirectly fund abortions by funding planned parenthood?
|
I am pro-choice, but I am also aware that due to the Hyde Amendment, government funding cannot be used to pay for abortions unless the mother's life is in danger (at least the way I understand it).
I have difficulty defending/debating my pro-life friends/family because they claim that the government is funding abortions by allocating funds to keep the lights on at planned parenthood, which provides abortions. I guess I'm just not really equipped to get past this point in the discussion.
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3mp0c8/eli5_does_the_government_indirectly_fund/
|
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"No, tax payer money is not used for abortion services. Only three percent of what planned parenthood does as an organization is abortion services and not every planned parenthood facility performs abortions. What the government is paying for is for affordable and typically free women's health care. With conservative oversight as it is, there's no way planned parenthood would risk a penny going into an abortion, they'd get flayed by the GOP",
"You can argue that it does indirectly. They can't spend their government funding to pay for abortions, but perhaps paying for other services with their government funding allows them to spend more of their other funding on abortions. Perhaps more abortions do get paid for because the government funding exists, even though the government funding doesn't pay for them.\n\nOf course, you could go insane if you follow that line of argument too far. Does an income tax cut also indirectly fund abortions because some of the people who now have more money in their paycheck decide to donate it to Planned Parenthood?",
"It's an argument of semantics by that point. You can argue all you want that none of the money that Planned Parenthood uses in abortion-related services come from government funding, but if your opponents considering that government money being used to keep the electricity running or pay the secretary at the front counts as funding abortion then you may as well give up. They are not going to change their mind because they've moved the field posts to something you cannot achieve.\n\nInstead, I would suggest tossing the response of 'so what?'. Because, quite frankly, so what if government money goes to abortion directly or indirectly? Government money has gone to a lot of things that people will disagree with - private prisons, abstinence-only education, supporting Middle East totalitarian regimes, launching guided missiles at a wedding party in Yemen, overthrowing democratically-elected governments, massive tax breaks for oil companies, buying hundreds of battle tanks that the military itself says it doesn't want or need. The list goes on and on. \n\nFrankly, the money spent going towards Planned Parenthood is barely a drop in the bucket. You could also remind them that Planned Parenthood provides a great number of vital services for both men and women including STD testing and cancer screening. And removing PP would do absolutely nothing to decrease the number of abortions...if anything it'll increase it. In fact, the most effective way to reduce abortions is to make contraceptives and sex education readily available to the public, which PP does, but I somehow doubt facts will get you very far..."
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14yldt
|
what is happening in my neck/head physically those rare times when i look quickly in one direction and it feels like a painful electric jolt shoots up into my head?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/14yldt/eli5_what_is_happening_in_my_neckhead_physically/
|
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"That happened to me twice yesterday while sneezing",
"Be more detailed please, is the pain muscular? \n\nAre you describing pain [Here?](_URL_0_) ",
"Are you taking an anti-depressant? This is a common side effect ",
"Any electrical jolt is most likely nerve related. Is it always the same side or both sides? You probably have a nerve right next to or coming out between two vertebrae in your neck that gets jostled sharply and pinches or scrapes on the vertebrae when you snap your head to the side (kinda like certain ways of hitting your funny bone in your elbow, pinches the ulnar nerve), but if you turn it slowly it gently gets pushed aside and doesn't pinch. If it is always under some pressure from the movement of those vertebrae, it will be oversensitized and even more prone to this. I get a lot of these, herniated disc in my neck and also really annoying ulnar/elbow nerve irritation that twinges if I move my arm the wrong way.\n\nEdit: or if not vertebrae, which would make pain go more up the back of your neck and head, could be some other bony junction point scraping. Eeew, sorry that sounds gross."
]
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9h26t1
|
why are humans sometimes able to sense another presence nearby while they are asleep?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/9h26t1/eli5_why_are_humans_sometimes_able_to_sense/
|
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"This has been studied, and it turns out that this is just (A) people using their normal senses, plus a bit of (B) people guessing at random. ",
"We just went over something like this in Psych 101 today. The part of your brain that processes sensory information (I forgot the name already but it's on the bottom of the brain) never shuts off, even when we're asleep. And it's not necessarily an esoteric thing that we know people are nearby, people smell differently than nothing, we can hear them shift their weight from foot to foot while they're standing, and they make noise when they breathe. We just don't notice most of these things while awake because they're the least of our concerns.",
"Because people who didn't notice another nearby presence while sleeping didn't live long enough to have children, or possibly the children were also eaten by the aforementioned nearby presence.",
"How about when you can feel someone staring at the back of your head?\n\nSerious question. What’s the explanation for that? \nI know you all know what I’m talking about. \n\nI’ve heard the explanation that when you turn around suddenly this catches the attention of someone behind you who looks at that moment, but I’ve tried the experiment in reverse as well. I focus intently on the back of someone’s head in a crowd or while queuing and they will turn to look after a while. \n\nIs it still confirmation bias?",
"Noise and smell. \n\nYour brain notices when something is breathing nearby, especially looking at you. This really helps when things like tigers are out to eat you.\n\nYou also notice other noises they make and possibly smell them. ",
"Just because you're asleep doesn't mean your sensory organs are switched off. A noise or smell can wake you. As can your wife turning on the bedroom light every damn time she needs the bathroom."
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7d08wi
|
what happen when a submarine at a extreme depth (like 7 km) get a instantly leak (size of a window)
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/7d08wi/eli5_what_happen_when_a_submarine_at_a_extreme/
|
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"A leak the size of a window, at extreme depth, would certainly kill all the crew members in the effected compartment, however the flooding and damage should be confined to the sealed compartment where the leak occurred.\n "
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5wd5uf
|
why is it taboo to say exactly how a person died?
|
[deleted]
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5wd5uf/eli5_why_is_it_taboo_to_say_exactly_how_a_person/
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"I think it's morbid. What surgery, what went wrong? I've had brain surgery myself and I don't like going into detail about it. And obviously I'm alive. Not all of my friends or relatives know. It's very personal.\n\nI agree that saying \"cancer\" could raise awareness about it. But, again, it's a very personal and private thing to do (dying) and people would not always want to share all details. It's not a taboo.",
"It's a private matter & the personal business of the family. You don't deserve to know just because you liked some of his movies any more than you deserve to know anything else that's going on in their private lives. They're still people & don't automatically forfeit their private lives just because they get famous.",
"It's not taboo. In a great many cases the exact details are given. When they are not, it's simply because the family has decided to keep them private.\n",
"Because its none of your business? They will tell you he died, but there is absolutely no reason to give you all the details. What are you going to do with the information if you have it? It doesn't matter.",
"I've never done a comprehensive survey. However it seems like they commonly don't give too many details the first day after a famous person dies, either because they don't know or just out of a general sense of propriety. Also, the major news outlets often have prewritten obits for famous people so they dont need many details to publish a story that first day. \n\nIf the cause of death is known, (which is almost certainly the case for Bill Paxton) they often come out with a more detailed statement a day or two later. If the cause is unknown, you may never find out, or you many have to wait a few weeks to a few months for an autopsy report. \n\nAs for whether it is or is not the public's business how a celebrity died, I think the simple answer is \"no\" but it's really not strange or morbid to want to know, either. When someone dies, it can make people afraid or uncomfortable in addition to their grief. That is doubly true if the death in question was unexpected. While we aren't owed the information, knowing it can relieve some serious existential anxiety and help people put the event into perspective. Also, some people (like me) cope with stress, fear, and grief by feeding it as much information as they can get their hands on. \n\nSo I'd say your curiosity is understandable. Just try to keep in mind that this was a person who has loved ones and you curiosity needs to take a back seat to their grief. You will likely find out what you want to know if you're patient. "
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1n98r3
|
why do some people want to abolish minimum wage?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1n98r3/eli5_why_do_some_people_want_to_abolish_minimum/
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"The idea is that in free-market capitalism an employer should be able to pay whatever they want to somebody to work in a particular position and if that wage is too low, then the person would find a job that pays better somewhere else. The \"effective\" minimum wage would be wherever the market of employers and potential employees settles after that jockeying of position works itself out.\n\nIf Joe is willing to work for $5 an hour making widgets at my factory but Dave will only work for $8.75 an hour doing the same job, the I would hire Joe (if they're equally qualified). Joe benefits by getting a job that he's satisfied with and I minimize my costs.\n\nIf I want to pay $4 an hour for a widget-maker, then not even Joe will be willing to work for me, so either I stop making widgets or I have to raise what I'm willing to pay.",
"Setting a price floor drives inflation. Prices will rise to capture the available wealth. No matter how much you raise minimum wage, the market will react, defeating the purpose the minimum wage was meant to solve.\n\nI have a salary. Salaries aren't adjusted to compensate when minimum wage is raised. When minimum wage does rise, it devalues my salary, and the subsequent inflation increases my cost of living, reducing my margins.",
"This is right up my alley: \n\n* ___First, we have to understand what minimum wage *actually is* and what it *is not*.___ \n\nMinimum wage is the government forcing employers to fire (or not to hire) employees who cannot produce a certain amount of value. That is, if you can only create $9 in value to your employer per hour (because of your skills/education/experience) and your employer has an overhead cost of $3/hour/employee, he will either fire you or not hire you if minimum wage is $7/hour. \n\nMinimum wage is not minimum income. The government doesn't guarantee that you will earn the minimum wage rate; therefore, it lowers your ability to get a job, increases cost overhead for employers, and then the government just turns a blind eye to your inability to get a job. \n\n* ___Second, we have to understand that necessary relationship between costs and consumption.___\n\nThe costs of a product seems to be pretty straightforward: the amount of money you have to pay to get the product. But in a larger sense, there are many other costs involved. For example, if you feel product A is better than B, you'll buy Product A at the cost of *not buying product B*. So, in addition to the $ you spent on A, you also *spend* the loss of opportunity to consume product B. \n\nThis *opportunity cost* is just one of the many other non-monetary costs of consuming a product or service. On the service side of the economy, if you hire person A to paint your house, you're not hiring Person B; just the same, if Person A is working for you instead of working for someone else, that, too, is an opportunity cost. \n\nI bring up this rather complicated subject just to introduce you to the wide array of *other costs* associated with an economics analysis. You don't need to know them all to get an ELI5 understanding of our position against minimum wage; just understand that there are many more considerations than just how many $/hour someone is earning and all of those considerations impact availability of jobs, number of hours per week employers will give to an employee, etc. \n\nSo, increasing the costs (again, costs means more than just $$$) reduces consumption. This should be general knowledge; but if you disagree, I can continue explaining this point. It is a more complicated matter, but it is a fact which cannot be avoided. \n\nIncreasing the cost of anything reduces consumption of anything; this applies to products (milk, cars, whatever) or services (painting your house, gas station attendants, sweeping the shop floor). As the cost of employing those people increases, the consumption of those services (employment) is reduced (unemployment increases). \n\n* ___Third, we must understand that being against minimum wage is not being against poor people.___\n\nI get this fallacy all the time; but the reality is that minimum wage hurts the poor, first, then hurts everyone else, later. So those of us who are against the minimum wage are actually working to help the poor. The typical response is, \"So you want slave wages?\" No, of course not... but $0/hour is worse than $5/hour. \n\nThose who support minimum wage support $0/hour for Person A so that Person B can earn $8/hour. I think that is wrong. I think it is better that both should earn $4/hour. \n\n* ___Fourth, we must understand that minimum wage was created by racist white union leaders to keep African Americans out of the labor force, and they won that fight___. \n\nAfrican Americans are horrifically impacted by minimum wage. [Thomas Sowell brilliantly explains](_URL_2_) this problem and [points out how after WW2, when minimum wage was not effective](_URL_1_), unemployment among African Americans was much lower. \n\n----\n\n___This is a complicated case, but it is the only moral case: minimum wage must be repealed!___ If you have any questions, let me know. \n\n----\n\nEdit: I want to include this link to this article to expand this discussion of the minimum wage. The reality is that many congresspersons debate individual issues in a vacuum and ignore the fact that economics is a comprehensive study; you cannot debate one issue in isolation. \n\nWith that said, [this article explains the ongoing attempt of employers to avoid PPACA costs](_URL_0_). As I said above, increasing the costs of labor decreases consumption of it. That applies to every cost not just $$$. One must consider economics problems in the totality of the circumstances and not in isolation of just one topic. \n",
"In my opinion, the reason it's being discussed at this point is because employers recognize that in this labor market, they could pay less than minimum wage and people would work for them because they have no better option. When unemployment rates are at their normal rate (around 4.5%), they wouldn't be able to suppress wages because there would be enough competitive jobs that nobody would work for them. That's not the case at the moment, and they want to cash in. ",
"I can't help but think that a lot of companies would pay less than the current minimum wage if they could. I can't believe that servers are still allowed to be paid less than minimum wage, despite making tips. ",
"There are plenty of opinions in this thread that explain why minimum wage is bad, and I disagree with all of them. A businessman will pay as little as he can. We don't have enough jobs right now, so job seekers are effectively forced to take what is offered. Our consumer economy works when people consume, and people eking out a living can't afford to consume much. Abolishing the minimum wage would allow business owners to keep more of the business earnings, while employees would have less to spend. The rich get richer and the poor get poorer. Sound familiar? The more poor people we have, the worse our economy gets, because people can't afford to consume. Eventually our business owner is in a bad way because fewer people can afford to buy his product. To put it another way, look what free trade has done. Employers go to whichever country they can pay workers the least. Unrestricted capitalism turns into exploitation. Minimum wage exists not only to protect workers from exploitation, but also to ensure the masses have enough spending power to keep our economy humming.",
"I've noticed that welfare has not been mentioned anywhere yet. As it stands no a lot of working families in this country are eligible for some type of benefits. If wages were reduced the amount of benefits the government paid out would increase, and the taxes of the corporations would go up. One way or another the company is going to pay because allowing people to starve in the name of profits will never be accepted by the government or the people. A minimum wage allows some of that money to go directly to the employee, allowing them to keep some of the dignity that they would lose if it had to go to the government before reaching the worker. ",
"Effectively, the minimum wage eliminates jobs that are of little value, and that reduces opportunity for workers who have little to offer, such as the young and inexperienced.\n\nEmployment is a transaction where an employee provides work in exchange for pay from an employer. Both employee and employer enter into this transaction freely for their own benefit. The employee values the pay more than their time and effort, so they benefit from the exchange. Similarly, the employer values the employee's work more than the pay, so they benefit from the exchange as well.\n\nWhile there is work that is worth a high wage, there is also work that is if relatively low value. Take for instance the baggers at a grocery store. The owner of the grocery store could have the customers bag their own groceries or they could raise prices and use that added revenue to hire baggers. The owner will naturally choose the option that attracts the most business. If the baggers are relatively inexpensive, then the owner may hire them as they attract more customers than are turned away by the slightly higher prices.\n\nNow, with a minimum wage, in order for the owner to hire those baggers, he’d have to pay at least the minimum wage. That wage may be high enough that, when the prices rise to account for additional cost of the baggers, the store loses more customers than are gained by having the baggers. In that case, it would make more sense for the owner to go without the baggers.\n\nThe reason to use baggers as an example is that you mostly see a lot of bagging jobs held by teenagers. These teenagers have little to no experience, and may not have reputations as hard workers. While they are unable to produce much value for the owner, they do produce some. Even though the wages may be low, these kids aren’t working to make a living, just some spending money. They could start out as baggers, but if they show initiative, they could move into better positions with higher pay. They can even use their bagging job as a reference when they look for a better job elsewhere. They aren’t simply receiving pay for their work, they’re also gaining experience and building a good reputation.\n\nWhen you impose a minimum wage, you eliminate some jobs like baggers, and end up hurting those lowest in the workforce. It’s easy to look at people in minimum wage jobs and think that raising the minimum wage will help them, but you have to recognize that many workers will not be hired in the first place.\n\nWork is like any other item that is bought and sold; an employee is simply trying to sell their work to an employer. \n\nImagine you had a used car you wanted to sell. The government decided that used car sellers were getting bad deals, so they passed a law putting in a minimum used car price of $5000. You may think “Great, now anyone who wants to buy my car has to pay me at least $5000 for it!” Before the law was passed, you had someone offer you $4000 for the car. That person may still really want the car and may pay you the new minimum price of $5000 for it, and you thank the government for the extra $1000 you got for it. On the other hand, that person may decide that the car just isn’t worth the extra $1000 and so they decline to buy it. Now you’re stuck with a used car you don’t need because you can’t find anyone willing to pay $5000 for it. Sure, some used car sellers are getting more money for their cars, but there are many who are simply unable to sell their cars at all.\n",
"Because they live in a libertarian fantasy world where no one would exploit others, and free market jesus will solve all our problems.",
"It will be difficult for you to find an unbiased answer anywhere but especially on Reddit. Not all people who oppose minimum wage are evil corporate raiders. These aren't necessarily my opinions, but some that I've heard.\n\n1. It's a mistake to raise minimum wages during times of high unemployment. Labor is a commodity. If there is an abundance of a commodity then raising its price will only lower its demand.\n\n2. The minimum wage laws hurt exactly those that they're trying to help. Someone willing to work for $5/hr just to gain work experience and find a better job won't be hired because the minimum wage is $9/hr. If I need someone to do a job that isn't worth $9/hr I'll hire someone that whose work is worth $9/hr even though I only needed someone whose work is worth $5/hr. This makes younger people more \"unemployable\" because employers are forced to pay more than they're worth.\n\n3. Employers should be able to pay as little as they can so long as someone will work for that amount. If nobody will work for that amount, the price of the labor goes up.\n\nKeep in mind I'm no economist and am just playing Devil's Advocate. There will be people on Reddit more knowledgeable than I am refuting these points. Like I said, study ideas from different sides of the spectrum and develop an answer that appeals to your reason and your logic.",
"I don't get why the top rated comment answers the exact opposite question asked by the OP.",
"_URL_0_\n\nDon't listen to idk_ok, he's giving his one sided opinion on the matter and throwing in a bunch of BS for support, such as 99% of economists say raising the minimum wage would help. you know who it wouldn't help? All of the people who can't even find a job and all of the newly unemployed people who now can't afford their mortgages."
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"http://news.investors.com/politics-obamacare/092513-669013-obamacare-employer-mandate-a-list-of-cuts-to-work-hours-jobs.htm",
"http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r4SIEl1j8e4",
"http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b4Ubp7U9Dq4"
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7qnx2q
|
why are performance enhancing drugs illegal?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/7qnx2q/eli5_why_are_performance_enhancing_drugs_illegal/
|
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"text": [
"Because it’s dangerous for your health. Do you want to condone that kind of behavior to middle and high school children?",
"Two factors:\n\n* Some people consider it cheating, like you didn't earn your success\n* Many performance-enhancing drugs are either dangerous or, at least, poorly understood in their long-term side-effects. Performance enhancing drugs are banned for the same reason that helmet in football are required: you might have an advantage ignoring the rules, but it improves the safety for all athletes to have the rules in place. "
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[]
] |
||
6u26vf
|
why are there no hreen, blue, true red or puple mammals? all other animals (insects, reptiles, fish, birds, etc.) come in a rainbow of colors; why are mammals so limited?
|
ELI5: Why are there no green, blue, true red or purple mammals? All other animals (insects, reptiles, fish, birds, etc.) come in a rainbow of colors; why are mammals so limited?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/6u26vf/eli5_why_are_there_no_hreen_blue_true_red_or/
|
{
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"text": [
"Mammals pigment only has the ability to make brownish and yellowish red tints. Most other animals with those vibrant colors also lack the ability but gain the appearance from microscopic variations in their feathers and hair that defract the light in a way to make the illusion of those colors.\n\nAnd then other animals are just cooler than mammals.",
"Generally other animals are bright colored to warn predators of their toxicity. Mammals aren't venomous or poisonous for the most part. They go with camouflage or subdued colors to blend in either to avoid being eaten or to stalk their prey more effectively. ",
"It's our hair that colors almost every mammal, and hair can only come in so many colors: browns, reds, yellows. \n\nNote that \"blue\" in most animals is structural, not pigmented color. The feather/wing/scale is actually microscopically shaped so that it looks blue, unlike our skin/hair which is pigmented. You can find neat pictures of pretty blue butterfly wings backlit, showing they're actually pigmented brown like a drab moth wing. Blue is a really rare color in nature. \n\nGreen is hard, too. Plants do it just fine but we don't grow chlorophyll. Green snakes and lizards are actually structurally blue with yellow pigment. They turn blue when they die and the yellow pigment breaks down, leaving only the structural blue. \n\nStraight red is also hard. Cardinals and flamingos are only reddish from their diet. Koi can't turn gold if they don't eat the right algae.\n\nPurple is also rare (who wants to be purple?), but again, some red pigment and blue sctructural trickery can make it. \n\nHair is not shaped well for sctructural coloring. Unlike a scale or feather or insect wing, it's not patterned and orderly enough for the structural blue trick to work well. But even then, you can find people with natural, very black hair that has a bluish sheen to it, and that's why. For the most part, though, we're stuck with our pigmented colors. "
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[],
[]
] |
|
53oxnz
|
in japan, why have a large number of people lost interest in sex?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/53oxnz/eli5_in_japan_why_have_a_large_number_of_people/
|
{
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"score": [
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"text": [
"There's a few things going on. Mainly that people don't have privacy, people are expected to work themselves to exhaustion and not have free time for socializing. It ends up being that sex becomes too much trouble given the lives they lead.",
"They have bad working conditions, up to 16 hrs/day, especially for young people\n\nThey have extremely poor pay for young people; their working economy is ridiculously top-heavy with pay and benefits for the aging and elderly.\n\nPolls indicate extremely high standards among young women. A majority refuse to date guys who make under a certain salary every month, but the problem is only 5% of young men make that salary.\n\nExtremely high rents and other high costs of living make it extremely difficult for young people to start a family. It's normal to live at home until marriage, so many are simply comfortable to live with their parents rent-free for extended periods rather than take the step of marriage.\n\nProstitution is a legal grey area but in practice is basically legalized nationwide. Any sexual acts other than vaginal penetration are widely available from brothels and delivery services. There are many thousands of creative, themed brothels.\n\nCasual prostitution or \"compensated dating\" is common. A significant percentage of Japanese women have done this at least once.\n\nWomen's concept of sexuality is damaged due to widespread molestation and sexual harassment. A majority of Japanese women have been molested by strangers, often times on their commute to work or in their places of employment. In the 90's the government created women-only public transportation to curb this and allow women to commute to work unmolested, which were immediately filled to capacity by women seeking relief. Rape is much more common than in the US.\n\nObviously, men raised in a society where they feel they have free reign to assault any woman they see have a damaged concept of sexuality as well.\n\nThe men place an extremely high value on young and virginal women. Many men find it horrible to consider dating or marrying a \"used\" woman. There are very common attitudes that women older than 27 are past \"marriageable\" age. Obviously these are extremely unrealistic expectations.\n\nBasically, many people of both genders have unrealistic attitudes and have been wounded by toxic gender relations, and their economy is so stacked against them that marriage is simply not feasible for most young people to begin with.",
"The Japanese have not lost interest in sex. If anything, they are very very passionate about sex. Just take a look at all the Japanese pornography available. What the Japanese have lost interest in is dating. There are a number of reasons for this, but one of the more interesting reasons is the cultural upbringing. In Japan, you are taught to be less of an individual and more of a member of society. This has a lasting effect on not only your work life, but also your personal life. In regards to work, it takes up that much more of your time. When you are working, you tend to sacrifice your personal time for the company whether it be working late or participating in company events. Prior to this, when you are in school you tend to be struggling to continue your education because of the emphasis on placement testing in Japan. \n\nSo between all this time commitment, there's another barrier to dating: how do you meet girls? It's not like America where you can simple go to a bar and pick up girls. Of course there are exceptions, but it is not nearly as common as other industrialized countries. In order to meet a \"nice\" girl, you tend to have to know someone who knows her who can introduce you. It could be her friend, a friend of a friend, or her mom who knows your mom. Someone to create a link between you and her (an no, alcohol is not someone). Consequently, what happens is that meeting girls and having the free time to pursue them is difficult. \n\nContrary to what appears to be popular belief, rape is not \"much more common\" than any other industrialized country. Sexual harassment in Japan is more likely than in America simply because the main mode of transportation are trains. If you've seen rush hour traffic, imagine that except with people all trapped inside an overcrowded rectangular box basically squished up against each other. Just a wild thought, compare America's car accident rate to the molestation/sexual harassment rate and you might find a parallel.",
"Because it's a lot of hassle and because of the educational and financial strains on young people it makes sense to put things like relationships and starting a family on the back burner. \n\nThere are large numbers of young people who are dissillusioned with their prospects for work and living and many of them retreat into a kind of extended adolescence, relying on their parents for support, spending time and money on video games and movies etc. Japan's social pressures can be pretty extreme and from the time these kids start going to school they have tremendous pressures put on them to fit in and be a team player and to put their individual desires on hold if it will distract from excellence. \n\nWhile in the past people have frowned upon loners and 'stay at home' aka people who don't participate in society, the Otaku culture kind of gave the finger to that and enough people were doing it that it kind of became a thing. \n\nIn the US people used to look at video game arcades and things like dungeons and dragons as things for losers or wash outs to enjoy, but video games are main stream now as are comics and movie fandom even though 30 years ago it would have been frowned upon to put hobbies before your job and starting a family. \n\nSome of it is also the discarding of traditional roles. Women don't want to marry a man and be expected to wait on him hand and foot. They have their own careers and many of them are enjoying their independence and furthering their careers. Starting a family is also pretty hard, expensive, and there is a good chance that if they have a kid they are going to have to support them into their 30's. Who wants that?\n\nThe long and the short of it is apathy due to a system that demands excellence and doesn't reward it. ",
"Many young men have realized that life may be easier and less stressful just to marry when they are much, much older and ready to deal with the commitment and responsibilities of that thing which typically is attached to sex (the irksome relationship with a sexual provider and her parents)",
"Not in sex per se, but in sexual relationships. Most Japanese guys I know use prostitutes regularly. And Japan has a huge problem with girls (even of high-school age) prostituting themselves for money. Trust me, there's no lack of sex going on in Japan. ",
"No sex please, we're Japanese - _URL_0_\n\nA recent BBC2 documentary that explores precisely this subject. Goes through the most important elements in this phenomenon. ",
"Due to effect of high expectations from parents, competition in colleges which only drives young men to strive to succeed better in life through work, which obviously affect their chances of meeting another person of the same age, not to mention interests.\n\nLet not forget that sexual harassment exists in the work place too. So getting together with a colleague is pretty hard as well.\n\nCompared to westerners, we don't normally go out to drink. Drinking is normally for work or to meet old friends and rarely to meet someone new.\n\nThere's mix dates but after going for a few, it's really a hassle to mention all your hobbies, your general likes and dislikes over and over again, so it's really a waste of time.\n\nThere's hostess clubs but I rather not go into that, but I'm sure it plays a big part in why we don't mix around much with the other gender.\n\nOh i forgot to mention that the older you get, the chances of you getting married is lower as well. Once you get to an age, it's difficult to get married unless you're richer than god, even then it's a social stigma."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[
"https://vimeo.com/80542212"
],
[]
] |
||
5l73mp
|
why does every car have a different type of battery when every car takes a 12-volt battery?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5l73mp/eli5_why_does_every_car_have_a_different_type_of/
|
{
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"dbtffmr",
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],
"score": [
5,
21,
5
],
"text": [
"Cars with large engines, think V8, require larger starters which require larger cold cranking current supplied by larger batteries. Small four cylinder engines can start with smaller starters which only need small batteries to start the engine. Small batteries are cheaper. People who buy small cars want to pay less.",
"different sizes.\n\nthe bigger the engine, the bigger the amperage is needed for the electric starter motor to turn the engine. the bigger the amp requirement, the bigger battery you need.\n\nbigger batteries also happen to be more expensive and more heavy. so you use the size battery that most appropriately matches your engine starting needs. ",
"Many diesel trucks even have two batteries, one for starting and one for all other 12 volt systems. "
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[],
[]
] |
||
3g0dz2
|
how can cover bands make money off of music not written by them?
|
I go out a see a band, they are profiting off of the music played by Top 40 bands. How is that legal?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3g0dz2/elif_how_can_cover_bands_make_money_off_of_music/
|
{
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"score": [
23,
20,
6,
3,
2,
2
],
"text": [
"The cover bands, or the venues they play at, usually pay a fee to ~~mechanical license~~ [performance license](_URL_0_), which is in turn directed to the rights holders of the music they cover. If mechanical licenses aren't being paid however the cover band is effectively using someone else's music, without permission, to make money for themselves. Live venues however are incredibly difficult to generate revenue from, almost as much as direct music sales, so the losses in this respect probably don't amount to much unless a cover band gains a degree of uncommon popularity.",
"A cover band can legally play songs written and performed by others (that's what makes them a cover band), but royalties must be paid. However, it is the responsibility of the venue to ensure all proper licensing and royalty payments. As a matter of law, the cover band is entitled to assume that the venue has complied with those requirements. (Or at least that is the way it was back when I was a lawyer during the day and a cover band bassist at night.)",
"All live music venues - large concert halls, casinos, dive bars, etc.- have to pay a fee to ASCAP and BMI (and SESAC in Europe). Most of this money is then passed on to the songwriters (or whomever owns the publishing rights). \n\nThese performance rights companies have complicated algorithms that they use to predict how often any given song is being played in public. For example, they know that \"Hey Jude\" is being played, statistically, more often than a song I released on a CD that sold 200 copies 15 years ago. Thus, Paul McCartney gets a much bigger share of the ASCAP/BMI/SESAC income than I do, even though no one knows *exactly* how many times \"Hey Jude\" is being played in public compared to my song.\nThese collected fees also cover music played by DJs, jukboxes, and the bartender's iPod.\n\n\nThe bands performing are paid an agreed-upon fee by the venue (either a flat fee, a percentage of ticket/door sales, or a combo of both), and are not responsible for worrying about paying the songwriters of the material they cover. That's the venue's job, via that flat periodic (annual or monthly, I'm not sure) fee to ASCAP/BMI/SESAC.\n\n\nFor cover bands releasing albums, and for established bands doing cover albums (or even releasing one or two covers on an album of original material) publishing fees are paid directly to the songwriters (or whomever owns the publishing rights) by the band or the record label via a company called the Harry Fox Agency. Honestly, doing a whole album of covers is so expensive, I have never understood how covers albums or tribute albums make any money at all.\n\n\nEDIT: typo.",
"On the same topic, how about the youtubers that get thousands or millions of views for their covers? I see solo acoustic artists with really popular channels just from doing covers. Are they making money off advertisements?",
"Ive played in a few cover bands over the years, never once had to pay royalties for anything. This is in New England, USA fyi.",
"Cover bands draw a crowd and get paid by the bars, clubs and venues. Usually a set fee, through ticket sales or a percentage of the door proceeds. That's the only way they get paid. Organizations like SOCAN, ASCAP etc, collect royalties from bars, clubs and venues, paying a small percentage of that take to the original artists. Most of what those organizations take in, is paid out in salaries to their employees though. The only real way to make money in the music industry now is by putting \"bums in the seats\", ticket sales."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Performance_rights_organisation"
],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[]
] |
|
38yhk7
|
under what circumstance could residents of the united states overthrow the government if said person/organization would immediately be charged with treason and/or imprisonment?
|
It's pretty clear in U.S. Code › Title 18 › Part I › Chapter 115 › § 2385
From _URL_0_
"Whoever knowingly or willfully advocates, abets, advises, or teaches the duty, necessity, desirability, or propriety of overthrowing or destroying the government of the United States or the government of any State, Territory, District or Possession thereof, or the government of any political subdivision therein, by force or violence, or by the assassination of any officer of any such government; or
Whoever, with intent to cause the overthrow or destruction of any such government, prints, publishes, edits, issues, circulates, sells, distributes, or publicly displays any written or printed matter advocating, advising, or teaching the duty, necessity, desirability, or propriety of overthrowing or destroying any government in the United States by force or violence, or attempts to do so; or
Whoever organizes or helps or attempts to organize any society, group, or assembly of persons who teach, advocate, or encourage the overthrow or destruction of any such government by force or violence; or becomes or is a member of, or affiliates with, any such society, group, or assembly of persons, knowing the purposes thereof—
Shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than twenty years, or both, and shall be ineligible for employment by the United States or any department or agency thereof, for the five years next following his conviction.
If two or more persons conspire to commit any offense named in this section, each shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than twenty years, or both, and shall be ineligible for employment by the United States or any department or agency thereof, for the five years next following his conviction.
As used in this section, the terms “organizes” and “organize”, with respect to any society, group, or assembly of persons, include the recruiting of new members, the forming of new units, and the regrouping or expansion of existing clubs, classes, and other units of such society, group, or assembly of persons."
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/38yhk7/eli5_under_what_circumstance_could_residents_of/
|
{
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"cryu5h7",
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],
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2
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"text": [
"The entire point of overthrowing a government is that the usurpers are declaring that the government is not valid, and than none of its laws apply. If they succeed, then they rewrite the laws, and will not be charged with a crime by the new government that they create.\n\nBasically, overthrowing the government is only illegal if you fail.",
"[Here's a fine example of how it might go down](_URL_0_).\n\nWhile much of that plot was never substantiated, and seemingly even more was swept under the rug, I would suggest that you first read this paragraph from the wikipedia page, and then read the rest with this in mind:\n\nThe Congressional committee final report said:\n\nIn the last few weeks of the committee's official life it received evidence showing that certain persons had made an attempt to establish a fascist organization in this country. No evidence was presented and this committee had none to show a connection between this effort and any fascist activity of any European country. There is no question that these attempts were discussed, were planned, and might have been placed in execution when and if the financial backers deemed it expedient."
]
}
|
[] |
[
"https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/2385"
] |
[
[],
[
"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Business_Plot"
]
] |
|
4nq2sm
|
why diamond is a good conductor of heat but not electricity? and what is the actual mechanism of heat and electric transfer?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4nq2sm/eli5why_diamond_is_a_good_conductor_of_heat_but/
|
{
"a_id": [
"d45xkfw",
"d467p6k"
],
"score": [
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2
],
"text": [
"The mechanism for conducting electricity is shared electrons. Metals have electrons shared between atoms in their structure. That makes them good conductors.\n\nHeat conduction comes from atoms bumping into each other, so it's a function of the structure of the solid. Diamonds are uniform crystals, and wood (a poor thermal conductor) is made up of cells with air or water in them.",
"ELI5: Since the carbon atoms are so closely bound, there is a lot of transference of heat through the diamond itself. It's a proximity thing. Atoms so close that they transfer heat quite easily. Since carbon atoms have a near-zero ability/need to exchange electrons with other atoms/substances, they remain one of the most stubborn conductors available. They are a perfect ring of carbon connected to other perfect rings. Why would they need/want interference? "
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[]
] |
||
2dnrxd
|
naturally flavored versus artificially flavored
|
I'm drinking a can of 7UP right now that says "Naturally Flavored Soda"...but sometimes I see drinks that are "artifically flavored" what's the difference? Does sugar only = naturally flavored?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2dnrxd/eli5_naturally_flavored_versus_artificially/
|
{
"a_id": [
"cjr9sy9"
],
"score": [
7
],
"text": [
"Many foods flavors are strongly influenced by a relatively small number of chemicals (for example isoamyl acetate is a major component of banana flavor). \n\nThere are two common ways to get isoamyl acetate, one is to distill it from bananas (doing this results in a natural flavor) the other is to combine isoamyl alcohol and acetic acid with another acid catalyst (these are artificial flavors). \n\nBecause you don't need to buy a bunch of bananas and spend a ton of energy to distill the chemical you want to get a relatively small amount of flavoring artificially made flavors tend to be less expensive than natural flavors, but the compounds are usually identical. "
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[]
] |
|
2m3cip
|
there are often stories of people who have been dead for 20+ minutes and come back to life, how is this possible?
|
We often hear stories of people being dead for significant amounts of time and come back to life, and sometimes, with no obvious consequence. You'd think there'd be sever brain damage etc.... How is this possible? (Latest example: Woman dead for 45 minutes, comes back to life, just fine. _URL_0_)
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2m3cip/eli5_there_are_often_stories_of_people_who_have/
|
{
"a_id": [
"cm0k7zt",
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"score": [
10,
5,
4
],
"text": [
"When she arrested she was surrounded by a team of highly qualified professionals who were able to immediately start CPR and ventilate her. This means that even though her heart had stopped, her brain and other organs were still getting oxygen. CPR in itself doesn't restart a heart, it just keeps the body going long enough for something else to fix it - either through drugs being administered or by defibrillating the heart. From the article it sounds like she was in asystole - ie no heart activity at all. This is very rarely resuscitated. A lot of the times where it is resuscitated, it's purely as a response to drugs that have been given, and these patients often re-arrest and are rarely saveable.\n\nFor someone to be in asystole for 45 minutes and to make a full recovery is incredibly rare, and I don't think the mechanics behind it are very well understood. To give you a rough idea, in the UK, our guidelines for an average asystolic arrest would see us stop CPR after 20 minutes of pure asystole.\n\n",
"Because they were only a mostly dead. Which is still slightly alive.",
"There's a difference between being legally dead (a lot of jurisdictions define that is when your heart has stopped and the doctors don't believe they'll be able to restart it) and being truly dead (your body has ceased all function and will never ever be revivable)."
]
}
|
[] |
[
"http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/to-your-health/wp/2014/11/10/woman-spontaneously-revives-after-45-minutes-without-a-pulse/"
] |
[
[],
[],
[]
] |
|
2bqbrp
|
when seeing an insect, why do we get tingles in our hair mimicking the feeling of an insect crawling on us? is there an evolutionary explanation?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2bqbrp/eli5_when_seeing_an_insect_why_do_we_get_tingles/
|
{
"a_id": [
"cj7v4jt"
],
"score": [
6
],
"text": [
"24 hours per day your brain is constantly dealing with little tickles and itches all over your body, due to your skin drying out, clothes brushing against your skin, hair falling into different orientations, etc...\n\nOn a normal day, your brain just ignores this sensory information because it's completely normal and generally doesn't indicate anything worth investigating.\n\nHowever, when we see an insect, or a television show about insects, or something reminds us about insects, our brains switch into a different mode, saying \"We should be extra alert and investigate these little tickles and itches, because there is a chance that bugs are crawling on us\"\n\nSo, instead of ignoring those tickles and itches like it usually does, your brain alerts you to them and activates your \"swat at it and freak out\" plan of action to try and stop any bugs that might be crawling on you, since you have reason to believe that bugs might be nearby."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[]
] |
||
3j9kt8
|
how come plane crashes make the news when there are thousands of car crashes everyday that kill way more people?
|
Car crashes never make the news unless a celebrity was involved, however plane crashes or disappearances often make the news.
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3j9kt8/eli5_how_come_plane_crashes_make_the_news_when/
|
{
"a_id": [
"cunesi0"
],
"score": [
2
],
"text": [
"That's exactly it. Car crashes aren't a rare event - if I drive around long enough on any given day, I can probably find a car crash myself.\n\nPlane crashes aren't common. Most of us will never see one.\n\nIt's being unusual, as well as the fact that a *serious* plane crash can kill more than just one or two people that makes it newsworthy."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[]
] |
|
7jlmxu
|
how do allosteric inhibitors "change the shape" of the site of reaction in an enzyme
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/7jlmxu/eli5_how_do_allosteric_inhibitors_change_the/
|
{
"a_id": [
"dr7cl20",
"dr7hl0w"
],
"score": [
2,
5
],
"text": [
"The binding of the inhibitor causes a conformational change within the enzyme, for example altering the position of a few alpha helices. This can cause changes to the active site shape, or even the shape of the region around the active site - leading to the substrate not being able to enter.\n\nHowever allosteric binding can also cause inhibition of the enzyme by other means, such as promoting association with another protein.",
"Enzymes, and proteins in general, are really just sequences of smaller molecular units called amino acids. They are stitched together into a straight chain, and then the chain is folded together to do whatever the protein needs to do\n\nThis folding happens because each amino acid, although similar in shape, is different enough in their composition that they have different structural and chemical properties. Proline is unbending, glutamic acid is negatively charged, lysine is positively charged, etc. And these properties determine how the protein looks in the end\n\nAllosteric inhibitors also have their own properties, chemical and physical. When they interact with the protein in question, they can make use of the amino acids' natural properties and disrupt the folding pattern of the whole protein. Because the folding is determined by effectively all the amino acids, changing how some amino acids contribute can change all the way to the active site\n\nExample: putting two cysteine amino acids close together can form what we call a disulfide bond, which is a really strong connection that is hard to break. If an inhibitor has something that connects even better to cysteine, it can break the bond and cause the protein at that point to unravel"
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[]
] |
||
xnw8g
|
how countries choose how many athletes to
send to the olympics?
|
is it based on size of population or what?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/xnw8g/eli5_how_countries_choose_how_many_athletes_to/
|
{
"a_id": [
"c5o0t8z"
],
"score": [
3
],
"text": [
"You need to meet the minimum qualifications for your sport to qualify for the Olympics, so you can't just show up to be a sprinter even if there's no other sprinter from your country, you actually have to prove that you can run fast (although [occasionally there will be wild cards](_URL_0_) to encourage more underdeveloped countries to participate.). Secondly your need someone from your country to sponsor you, therefore wealthier countries can send more athletes because they can afford to. "
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[
"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eric_Moussambani"
]
] |
|
15wofh
|
what does typing in "https://" before the url do?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/15wofh/eli5_what_does_typing_in_https_before_the_url_do/
|
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"text": [
"The whatever:// part says that you want to communicate using the \"whatever\" method. So https:// says that you want to communicate using the HTTPS method; this is just the HTTP method with a layer of security added.",
"It means that the connection between your computer and the web server that hosts the webpage you are loading is encrypted and secure and can't be snooped on. This is why you use HTTPS URLs when looking at bank websites and when you put in your credit card information to order something online.",
"Imagine a friend calls you. You're multilingual, so you can speak English, French, and Spanish. Your friend isn't, and can only speak English. He knows you can speak multiple languages, so whenever he calls you, he specifies \"English\" before saying whatever it is he has to say. That lets you know that you need to speak in English so he can understand you.\n\nNow imagine computers doing that. You type into the address bar _URL_0_ The computer sends a request to a foreign computer (located at the unique IP address), and the http:// lets the computer know that your computer wants to speak in the HyperText Transfer Protocol language (used almost universally on the internet).\n\nNow, say you and your friend have a secret code you use to refer to each other. Say you called this code \"Secure English\". For instance \"purple\" could mean \"hello\", \"There's a dog down the street!\" could mean \"How are you?\" and so on. Anyone listening to your conversation would have no idea what you're talking about.\n\nNow again, imagine a computer doing this. By typing https:// before the address, you're instructing your computer to speak with the foreign computer in a secret language that only you two know. Anyone listening would see nothing but static.\n\nThis is a gross over-simplification, but I did my best to explain to a five year old!"
]
}
|
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[],
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"http://www.reddit.com"
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||
30gw8k
|
what will happen when the san andreas fault breaks?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/30gw8k/eli5_what_will_happen_when_the_san_andreas_fault/
|
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"text": [
"I live in Yucaipa. Small town right not he fault. It will cease to exist.",
"Hundred thousands of people will die if not millions in the initial quake, and there will more then likely be a tsunami that will cause death and destruction all over the pacific, survivors will flood east taking refuge in huge makeshift camps, the concentration of people will cause crime of varying degree and marshal law will be declared in some parts of USA, Murphy's law kicks in and the tent camps are hit by a \"F5\" tornado...."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[]
] |
||
3axayr
|
what is icann doing on july 7 2015 that effects privacy on the internet?
|
I run a website, but I focus on content and programming (as well as a "real" job), and recently my domain name registrar sent me a link to _URL_0_. I pay extra to a proxy service to keep my name and information off my website's who-is data. How does this respectourprivacy stuff effect me? I would like to know in simple terms so I can make my own decision. Thank you.
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3axayr/eli5_what_is_icann_doing_on_july_7_2015_that/
|
{
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"text": [
"As you know, when registering your domain, you had to give the registrar info such as your name, address, phone number, etc.\n\nThis information is then, automatically, publicly available (see sites such as [this](_URL_3_), [this](_URL_0_), or [this](_URL_1_)).\n\nHowever, as you also know, you can purchase Privacy Protection (/Lookup Protection/WHOIS Protection/Whatever the company calls it) which then hides your home address, phone number, etc.\n\nAs I understand, from reading the page that you linked, [ICANN](_URL_4_) ([Overseers of the internet](_URL_2_)) want to take away the ability for privacy protection for domain holders with sites of \"commercial activity\", meaning business owners will *have* to give away their details publicly.\n\n\n^(*First ever ELI5 answer, so sorry if I didn't do it right!*)"
]
}
|
[] |
[
"www.respectourprivacy.com"
] |
[
[
"https://www.whois.net/",
"http://www.whois.com/whois/",
"https://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/ICANN",
"http://who.is/",
"https://www.icann.org/"
]
] |
|
4s73jh
|
how did calendars across the world come to be based on a 12 month, ~365 days a year pattern? examples: chinese, roman/gregorian, aryan & dravidian. is there a common astrology aspect to this?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4s73jh/eli5_how_did_calendars_across_the_world_come_to/
|
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"text": [
"A Lunar calendar has about 12 cycles to a solar year. Once it was adjusted to account for a 12.5 (+/-) lunar month year we were left with 12 months. Cultures from the levant had reasonably accurate calendars which spread east and west toward asia & europe. I dunno about pre-columbus american cultures, but I suspect their calendars went through the same evolution. It would also be interesting to investigate calendars of early austrailian and isolated island (eg polynesian) cultures.",
"It takes 365 (and a quarter) days for the earth to go around the sun. This means that if you find the day that the sun is at it's highest point in the sky, it'll be 365 days until it happens again. This is a physical fact.\n\nEveryone getting onto the Gregorian calendar (12mo of ~30 days) is a result of cultural factors. It was the calendar of the Roman Empire which made it the calendar of Europe. When Europe was colonizing the world and rapidly expanding international trade, everyone adopted it to do business with out.\n\nMany non-western countries still use their own traditional calendars for internal or ceremonial purposes.",
"The word \"month\" is related to the word \"moon.\" A lunar month -- say from one full moon to the next -- is about 29.5 days. A year is about 365.25 days. So in a year, there are 12 lunar months, plus about 11 days, though of course it's easier if a month has a whole number of days instead of a month being 29.5 days long.\n\nThe western (Gregorian) calendar takes those extra days and sprinkles them throughout the year. In contrast, the Ethiopian calendar has twelve months of 30 days, then puts the extra 5 days (6 in a leap year) in a sort of mini 13th month.",
"'Astronomy', not 'astrology'\n\n :|",
"The 3 easiest ways for any human culture to delineate time into cycles are: (1) the movement of the sun across the sky / the difference between night and day (2) the change of the Moon from wholly dark to wholly lit and back and (3) the seasons, which are indicated by 2 changes: (A) a difference in climate (daily frequency of clouds, rain snow) and day length and (B) the change in not the direction the sun goes, but its arc, one feature of which is its starting point and ending point (these do change, but subtly). You can see (1) leads to days, (2) to months, and (3) to years.\nThere are 2 exceptions that I can think of to these 3 rules. \nFirst, people living on or very close to the Equator would not be able to easily tell any difference in the conditions under (3). People living in the Southern temperate region would see the changes under (3), just in reverse order.\nSecond, I believe people living in the Arctic or Antarctic circles would not see similar changes for at least (1) and maybe more. But there has not been a lot of people doing that. ",
"There are three key astronomical observations that every culture can easily make: a day, a lunar cycle, and a year.\n\nNo matter where you are in the world, a day is a day. A lunar cycle is about 28 and a half days. And a year is about 365 days, and a little over 12 lunar cycles.\n\nYes, there's a common astronomical aspect."
]
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|
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3fd7yv
|
the f-35 tactical fighter is a $391 billion program 15 years in development. the u.s. marines just declared the first squadron to be combat ready. in today's world, why do you need $391b tactical fighter?
|
Link to article about the F35 here: _URL_0_
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3fd7yv/eli5_the_f35_tactical_fighter_is_a_391_billion/
|
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"Each plane does not cost $391 billion. The project is expensive because it will be used by the US Navy, Marines and US Air Force and by many air forces around the world and the British Navy. It is the giant number of planes which will be bought for so many services and so many countries which makes the total cost higher than for planes which are not going to be made in similar numbers.",
"Of course, $391B is for the whole program. Given the heavy R & D required to make such an advanced aircraft, the R & D up front cost is spread over the entire production run. \n\nI think the US armed forces and all partner nations (UK primarily, Canada is waffling), there will be a production run of some 500 aircraft? So each aircraft will only be $780M.\n\n80 years ago in WWII, the best an aircraft designer could hope for is that one of your aircraft could do - in the hands of a skilled pilot - would be to account for 3-5 enemy planes. Or as a bomber, do 20-30 combat missions. All before it too gets shot down.\n\nNowadays, you design aircraft as though they will be your nation's frontline tool to exercise foreign policy for 30-40 years. And the notion that every mission there's a 20% chance of it not coming back is unacceptable. \n\nToday's airplanes, especially military, are ridiculously safe, so over designed around survivability #1, and mission capability #2. All of the engineering required to make such a plane (I didn't mention but Im an engineer and I work in aerospace for companies that make airliners and jet fighters) is justified.\n\nIt costs ~$10-15M to train a fighter pilot. You don't want to throw him in a 40 yr old $5M fighter jet. Any modern SAM missile will eat him for lunch. If you need to drop a bomb on a select target you want the best in there. You want the pilot to come back, you want your plane to come back. To ensure best chances of that plane and pilot coming back, you need to spend the $$.",
"The thing to keep in mind is that the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter program is something of an experiment in \"penny foolish, pound wise\" development - big up-front cost, better long-term efficiency.\n\nPart of the enormous cost of development was designing three different aircraft (an Air Force variant, a Navy carrier variant, and a Marine VTOL variant) that have as many parts in common as possible. The idea is that this will make actual production cheaper; so that many more can be ordered in the long run, and also so that they're easier to repair in the field (if a carrier group is low on a certain part, they can have some flown over from the Marine task force, or vice versa, for example). \n\nAs for whether this strategy actually pays off as planned, we'll just need to wait and see."
]
}
|
[] |
[
"http://in.reuters.com/article/2015/07/31/lockheedmartin-fighter-idINL1N10B18H20150731"
] |
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[],
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] |
|
cqosmi
|
why is the total amount of medicine more important than dosage sometimes?
|
After reading up on isotretione (which I'm currently taking), a lot of studies said the total amount of medicine taken is more important than the dosage you take it in. How does that work?
Now obviously if you need 100mg/kg of body weight and you're taking 10mg a day it's gonna take a lot longer. But it's not like your body is stockpiling it, right?
Another thing: most studies say the cumulative dose should be between 120-150 mg/kg body weight at the end of treatment.[1] While some of them also say a usual treatment lasts for 16-24 weeks.[2] That would mean, someone weighing 60kg would have to take between ~43mg and ~54mg a day(using a 24 week period). Everywhere I have looked 40mg is the highest dosage a doctor will prescribe.
I'm mainly interested in the first point, but if any of you can shed some light on the inconstancy of the other points, I'd be very grateful.
(Sorry for the formatting, I made this post on my phone)
[1]_URL_1_
[2]_URL_0_
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/cqosmi/eli5_why_is_the_total_amount_of_medicine_more/
|
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"One thing to consider is that your body does kind of stockpile medications. \n\nYou can only process so much at one time, so your ability to remove the drug in question is limited. \n\nAnd in general, what you're trying to achieve is an \"area under the curve,\" which assesses how much drug is in your body over time. You do tend to accumulate drug over multiple doses, and it won't be excreted all at once. \n\nThe cumulative dose is a useful shorthand for the amount of drug that the doctor is targeting for you. In cancer therapy, for example, they may understand that a certain dose of radiation is effective at hitting a tumor, and that related to total dosage, because it's an easy shorthand (54 Gy vs 60 Gy, for example). **Going beyond that cumulative dose likely has been found to generate no additional effect, or increased toxicity.**"
]
}
|
[] |
[
"https://www.farmacotherapeutischkompas.nl/bladeren/preparaatteksten/i/isotretinoine",
"https://www.medscape.com/answers/1069804-90352/what-is-the-dosing-schedule-for-isotretinoin-in-the-treatment-of-acne-vulgaris"
] |
[
[]
] |
|
174iby
|
how are buildings over 2,000 ft in height structurally safe?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/174iby/eli5_how_are_buildings_over_2000_ft_in_height/
|
{
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"text": [
"It's mostly about how they are designed. Back then before computers were this powerful and available, you weren't able to simulate how the structure would fare under conditions such as wind, earthquakes, the ground it will be built on, and how the building will act being under its own weight. Nowadays, we can easily design buildings with computer-aided design and engineering programs instead of making blueprints, constructing it, and hoping it won't collapse underneath its own weight. Computer-aided engineering programs with multibody dynamics simulation allow for the simulation of materials (rigid and flexible) and how they would act in relation to one another. \n\nThe largest building in the world for 4,000 years was the Great Pyramid of Giza which was able to not collapse underneath its own weight because the weight is spread out among its wider base. The distribution of weight among a larger surface area means the structure won't sink into the ground as much and it is not top heavy making it not prone to collapse.",
"Is there something specific about 2,000 feet that would make you think buildings taller than it *shouldn't* be safe?"
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
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] |
||
2nwice
|
why are most images from space b & w when we have so many tiny, light, color, high resolution cameras on the market?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2nwice/eli5_why_are_most_images_from_space_bw_when_we/
|
{
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"text": [
"Many images you see of space are not captured with visible light (for various technical reasons, it not always easy or possible to capture certain objects or certain features of objects in space with visible light).\n\nSome images are instead captured using radio, microwave, infrared, ultraviolet or even x-ray light. Only visible light has any association with color. All other types of light have no color (from a human perspective) and we translate these images into monochromatic visible light that we (humans) can see.\n\nSometimes professionals will take these monochromatic images and create colorful artistic renditions of what they think the object(s) would look like in visible light or they may add color to highlight or emphasize certain parts of the object.\n\n~~Also, as /u/riconquer mentioned, bandwidth is also an issue. A raw image file with color is typically 3x larger than one that is black and white. When bandwidth is limited and/or speed is important and/or color is not important, black and white photography may be used on spacecraft even when such spacecraft may be equipped with color cameras.~~ [See /u/SchighSchagh's response]",
"Don't forget that most of these probes reach there targets almost a decade or more after being launched.\n\nRosetta for instance was launched 10 years ago in 2004.",
"Ugh, so many bad answers here...\n\nThe reason for grayscale images are so common in space probes largely boils down to three reasons: \n\n - maximizing camera sensitivity\n\n - maximizing camera resolution\n\n - imaging a specific spectral band\n\nThe vast, vast majority of space-based image sensors used CCD technology. While CMOS has largely taken over in the consumer world for cost reasons, CCD detectors have much better sensitivity and noise performance. CCDs are inherently broadband detectors. If the material (generally silicon) in the detector pixels can absorb a photon, the CCD can image it. This sensitivity range varies upon the exact type of CCD but covers the entire visible light range as well as some UV and varying amounts of IR.\n\nIf you want to take a color image, you've got to create 3 separate images: red, green and blue. Then you combine those images to recreate the original colors that a human eye with RGB cone cells would have seen. A standard commercial digital picture sensor has tiny microfilters on the detector itself. It varies but a typical pattern is for each 2x2 block of 4 pixels has one red, 2 green and one blue filter - one filter for each of the 4 pixels. This 4 pixel block then becomes one color pixel in the final image. (where it is rendered on a screen by clusters of red, green and blue pixels) \n\nObviously, this halves the spatial resolution of the detector since a 2x2 block of detector wells only creates a single pixel. To maximize resolution, space probe cameras generally do not have this sort of microfilter arrangement. Instead, they usually have a rotating filter wheel with various color filters that can be swapped in front of the camera. This allows true broadband monochrome imaging if you use no filter or monochrome color filtered images to be taken. Basically, if you want a color image, you take 3 filtered monochrome images, with a red, green and blue filter and combine the images later to create a color image with twice the resolution you would have had otherwise.\n\nImage sensitivity is also important. Space probes often operate in very low light conditions. Take for example Cassini in orbit around Saturn. Being 10x further from the sun than Earth, Saturn has sunlight that is 100x fainter than here. Also, Cassini is moving very quickly so exposures have to be relatively short or there will be motion blur issues. By taking filterless monochrome images, one can absolutely maximize the sensitivity of an image.\n\nThe last (and probably most important) reason for this sort of monochrome imaging is for specific spectral band information. While the public likes color images, they are often of relatively little scientific value. Knowing that a rock is brown doesn't usually tell you much. In addition to the usual red, green and blue color filters, a space probe camera will have other color filters that are tuned to very specific wavelength bands that don't necessarily correspond to a particular wavelength band detected by our eye cone cells. This is doubly true for imaging outside the visible light range that our eyes have absolutely no sensitivity to. Imaging a rock in a specific UV band may tell a lot of chemical information that a regular RGB color image does not. These spectral band images are sometimes combined into 'color' images even though they are nothing a human eye would ever see. However, they are generally just presented in grayscale to show the image intensity without any misleading color information added even if the spectral band is something our eyes can see.\n\nThis explanation doesn't cover other types of image sensors like X-ray and radio wave imagers but the same reasons still largely apply there as well."
]
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|
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[
[],
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||
6wm2dm
|
are diamonds rare or not? i keep hearing different things from different sources.
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/6wm2dm/eli5_are_diamonds_rare_or_not_i_keep_hearing/
|
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"text": [
"Define what rare means. Gem quality diamonds are definitely not as rare as what the prices they command would indicate. At the same time, remember that most diamonds are mined by desperately poor people without many other options."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[]
] |
||
5tqkif
|
why can crabs live out of water so much longer than fish?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5tqkif/eli5why_can_crabs_live_out_of_water_so_much/
|
{
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"text": [
"Crabs can be divided into three broad categories: aquatic (mostly marine), intertidal, and terrestrial. Each type is able to live only in its own environment. Aquatic crabs have gills and breathe underwater like fish. Take them out of the water for too long and they will suffocate because their gills collapse. Some intertidal crabs are able to breathe both in water (by means of gills) and out of water (using thin areas of cuticle on the leg bases) but they have to stay moist for the cuticle to function. Terrestrial crabs have stiff gills that function well out of water but not in it; if you put them into water with no way out, they'll drown eventually. Some terrestrial crabs, especially those that live in really dry habitats, also have lungs.\nFish, however, can ONLY breathe underwater. They have gills that are in no way accustomed to the air you and I breathe, and because of this, they dry out quickly and die. "
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[]
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||
8wsfgy
|
why are some things “top rack dishwasher safe?” what’s the difference between the top and bottom racks?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/8wsfgy/eli5_why_are_some_things_top_rack_dishwasher_safe/
|
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"It means it’s a more “delicate” item. The top rack doesn’t get as hot as the bottom. The bottom is closer to the heating element and some plastic items could melt. ",
"The majority of dishwashers have the heating coil at the bottom. Putting items on the top rack puts them further away from the heating coil. Some plastics and ceramics can’t withstand the maximum temperature the dishwasher produces at the source and putting them on the top rack is just far enough to not cause damage. Yet there are some items that just can’t take the heat and can’t go in the dishwasher at all. ",
"Yo ho ho! Yer not alone in askin', and kind strangers have explained:\n\n1. [Why are some things only top rack dishwasher safe? ](_URL_2_) ^(_4 comments_)\n1. [ELI5: Why are some things \"Top Rack Dishwasher Safe\"? ](_URL_0_) ^(_2 comments_)\n1. [ELI5: why is it that the bottom rack of a dishwasher is so much hotter that more delicate items can only go on the top rack? ](_URL_3_) ^(_8 comments_)\n1. [ELI5: What is so different about what's happening on the top shelf of a dishwasher than the bottom that leads to warnings to only place certain dishes on the top? ](_URL_1_) ^(_42 comments_)\n"
]
}
|
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"https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2o5ofc/eli5_what_is_so_different_about_whats_happening/",
"https://www.reddit.com/r/NoStupidQuestions/comments/6d97rt/why_are_some_things_only_top_rack_dishwasher_safe/",
"https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5i0r14/eli5_why_is_it_that_the_bottom_rack_of_a/"
]
] |
||
9axjm8
|
why do some pipes make strange noises or vibrate violently when the water is turned on?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/9axjm8/eli5_why_do_some_pipes_make_strange_noises_or/
|
{
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"text": [
"water can't be compressed very much. \n\nIn old pipes, when you shut off the water, all the water that's currently in the pipe is still moving and slams into the valve at the end of the pipe, making a loud sound.\n\nNewer pipes add a little air filled bit above the pipe that the water can flow into instead."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[]
] |
||
32ikwj
|
why people love a zombie apocalypse?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/32ikwj/eli5_why_people_love_a_zombie_apocalypse/
|
{
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"text": [
"A zombie apocalypse means the fall of human civilization as we know it. The new world will be a harsh one where survival itself is a challenge. Day-to-day stresses go from \"how much does gas cost/does that girl like me/my rights are being infringed upon\" to \"I have to go out and kill, skin, and prepare an animal or I'll starve tonight/I have an infected leg wound and no medicine/there's an army of mindless creatures that want to eat me and look like humans that I can kill without guilt.\"\n\nThe thought is interesting to different people for different reasons. Many are interested in zombie fiction because it's an excellent setting to explore psychology, social dynamics, and physical adversity. Some people simply like the idea of being able to kill \"people\" without having to weigh down their conscience. Others enjoy the thought of everyone being forced into a rugged survivalist society. Some would enjoy the destruction of contemporary power structures.",
"civilization can feel burdensome at times. a zombie apocalypse results to a return to our natural state. no more mortgage, car payments, or retirement savings to worry about. all you have to do in a zombie apocalypse is look after yourself and your tribe, which is the only thing most of us care about as it is. "
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
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[],
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89nsgh
|
how come apple will switch to arm processors, while it was always deemed non powerful?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/89nsgh/eli5_how_come_apple_will_switch_to_arm_processors/
|
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"text": [
"Apple makes their own ARM CPUs, giving them full control over the platform rather than needing to rely on Intel to make improvements.\n\nARM isn't *inherently* less powerful than other CPUs, it's just that most ARM processors to date have been designed around being small, cheap & low power. Apple could easily make some super-fast, 16-core beast of an ARM CPU if they wanted.\n\nThere's also a lot of work these days around pushing the *really hard* calculations onto the graphics processor. If you're doing all the heavy lifting with a Radeon or Geforce GPU, the CPU doesn't *need* to be as powerful anymore.\n\nFinally, there's always just the possibility they're flexing their muscles to get get leverage over Intel and they're *not* moving their systems to in-house designed processors.",
"Apple has been rumored to be switching to ARM for *years*. It's an off again on again rumor that seems to restart once every eight months to two years.\n\nThey ain't switching any time soon on their desktops. *Maybe* on the laptops, but... I doubt it. Not for a while.",
"Does Apple have x86 license? If not, wouldn't they have to make a custom ARM cpu? Ive read that Intel keeps x86 locked down to AMD and Intel, and license can't be sold, etc unless Intel grants it? And I don't think they would.",
"Apple is *the* leading designer of ARM processors right now. Every single year they release a new A-series chip that is much faster than the prior year, and much faster than anything else available. The ARM processors they use in their phones are *already* more powerful than the Intel chips they use in some of their MacBooks, and that's with the greater thermal and batter limitations of iOS devices.\n\nSwitching to their own processors lets Apple be in control of their product roadmap, instead of having to wait for Intel to release a new update so they have something available for a new Mac. For a company as tightly vertically integrated as Apple, that's a very desirable goal."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[],
[],
[]
] |
||
2mbr40
|
what happens if you dont abide by the rules and regulations set forth by you local homeowners association?
|
What the title said.
Asking as a person from a country where these or similar are completely unheard of.
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2mbr40/eli5what_happens_if_you_dont_abide_by_the_rules/
|
{
"a_id": [
"cm2qwlq"
],
"score": [
3
],
"text": [
"Many covenants state that the HOA can either fine you, do the work to fix the violation for you then bill you for it, or even put a lien on your home."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[]
] |
|
ba5yzc
|
after so many years of human civilization, how have we not run out of clean water yet? do we keep track of how much clean water is left on earth?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/ba5yzc/eli5_after_so_many_years_of_human_civilization/
|
{
"a_id": [
"ek97180",
"ek972f1"
],
"score": [
4,
9
],
"text": [
"The clean water supply is constantly being replenished as part of the water cycle, as rain.\n\nThere are also many underground springs which may or may not be replenished from this cycle but some of which we don't know the extent of.\n\nWe tend to *make* clean water through our water systems, which is why it is usually recommended not to waste water, since even if it will eventually be reprocessed, water treatment is expensive.",
"If you think back to between grades 3 and 5 you should recall learning about the \"Water Cycle\" where water evaporates from the ocean and rains back down on the land as new fresh water. The sun powers this evaporation and separates water from the salt in the oceans."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[]
] |
||
dhbe7u
|
how does the “overhead car view” camera work?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/dhbe7u/eli5_how_does_the_overhead_car_view_camera_work/
|
{
"a_id": [
"f3lomiq",
"f3m3thk",
"f3m5r94",
"f3n0icc",
"f3ob9kc"
],
"score": [
44,
24,
8,
8,
2
],
"text": [
"Some software stitches together all of the other camera views to make a view of the whole area around the car.",
"Look carefully, you can't actually see anything on top of the car (it's just a stock image to add perspective). There are a bunch of cameras on the sides that have their images stitched together to give what is around the car.",
"Can someone explain this question to me, does it mean Google Maps Street view why the cameracar isn't visible?",
"I have a Nissan Qashqai with 360 degree view.. there are cameras in the front grill, rear tail gate and pointing down from both wing mirrors. The picture of the top down car on the screen is just an imposed graphic, not the actual car and the feed from each camera is stitched together in the right place according to the car graphic which makes it look like a top down view.",
"Math. Lots and lots of math. \n\nIt's got cameras facing in every direction. You can use that video feed and do a whole shit ton of math to build a 3d computer model of the space around the car. Detecting objects, working out their distance and rough size, etc. You also use the video feed to texture it, so you identify the area that's the asphalt and use the video you have of the asphalt to make it look the same. You can see something that works kinda like that [here](_URL_0_). You then do a shit ton more math to extrapolate some of the things you can't see. For example if you can only see one side of a nearby car, you can assume that the top it probably the same colour and fairly flat, and the otherside of the car is going to be pretty symmetrical. So you use that to fill in the bits it can't see where needed. \n\nOnce you've built that 3d model, you can then do stuff with it. In this case they take a prebuilt model of the car (or a car if it's a cheaper system), and place it in the 3d model where the actual car should be. You can also put an artificial camera in it, and move it wherever, and then show the model from that perspective in exactly the same way you can use free camera mode in a video game. \n\nIt hardly produces a 100% faithful copy of the area around the car, but all it really needs to do is give you enough visual data to figure out where you are and make sure that distances are accurate"
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[],
[],
[],
[
"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U0uP4ZiQ2zc"
]
] |
||
16lkv3
|
why is the line item veto unconstitional?
|
I know it isn't a 5 year old question, but wikipedia isn't explaining it sufficiently. To me, it doesn't seem to be an overreach of executive power.
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/16lkv3/why_is_the_line_item_veto_unconstitional/
|
{
"a_id": [
"c7x4mgg"
],
"score": [
6
],
"text": [
"Some parts of laws are designed to work with each other. For instance, Congress might pass a law that lowers taxes on the poor and raises on the rich, as a compromise between people who just want to lower taxes on the poor and people who just want to raise taxes on the rich. If the President used a line-item veto to eliminate only one part of the law, he would basically be rewriting it, and the President does not have the right to write laws."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[]
] |
|
fulmtf
|
please explain this video?¿
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/fulmtf/eli5_please_explain_this_video/
|
{
"a_id": [
"fmdgdd7"
],
"score": [
2
],
"text": [
"eggs run through icecold mud make frozen yolks ?"
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[]
] |
||
3ry2p0
|
whats going on with the data rate on a record player as the needle travels towards the center of the record?
|
I'm pretty vinyl illiterate, but it seems to me that if a record is played at a specific RPM, then as the needle nears the middle of the record, more sound data needs to be transcribed into a smaller space. This makes me think that records would loose resolution for sounds transcribed more near the center of the vinyl... because the needle would be moving with less speed. Is this the case? If so, is the change just negligible? or is there something else going on to make up for the reduced speed of the needle?
edit: I read a post of some dude saying how the record rotates faster as the needle nears the center? (the second post, by Malcolm) _URL_0_
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3ry2p0/eli5_whats_going_on_with_the_data_rate_on_a/
|
{
"a_id": [
"cwsamkt",
"cwsmy5g",
"cwsn5fv"
],
"score": [
8,
3,
2
],
"text": [
"There is no data rate, vinyl is an analog storage medium. Technically it has an infinite data rate so we don't talk about that. \n\nThe signal is etched into the vinyl in a spiral. The edge is the beginning and the center is the end. The width of the groove is more or less fixed, the limiting factor is the radius of the disc and some properties of the signal itself that affect etching. ",
"Effectively the wave form is compressed at the centre, relative to the outer edge, maintaining a constant playback (or recording) rate.\n\nThe surface speed of the needle decreases as it nears the centre, meaning it covers less linear distance. For example, 33RPM at 12\" is around 100 feet per minute, 33RPM at 10\" is around 85FPM.\n\nTechnically, yes, the inner edge of a record is lower resolution than the outer edge. In practice it is negligible, not only due to the relatively small change in effective resolution, but also due to the inherent inaccuracies in the format.",
"The loss of signal by analogue recording on vinyl media exceeds by orders of magnitude and degradation by the tiny amount of surface area reduction between the outside and inside of tracks of the disk. As a data storage device, the vinyl record is extremely crude compared to magnetic disk media where track density management is of huge significance."
]
}
|
[] |
[
"https://www.quora.com/Do-the-songs-recorded-towards-the-outside-of-a-vinyl-record-sound-different-than-the-songs-recorded-closer-to-the-center"
] |
[
[],
[],
[]
] |
|
bb9ycc
|
how can you remove an object from a photo and there be more of the photo behind it?
|
I see this all the time in photo editing apps. I understand computers a decent bit, cameras not at all. But I just can't figure it out. If you take a photo of a beach, but there is a tree in the middle, how can you later go back and remove that tree and the beach suddenly be there as if that was the photo you took all along?
& #x200B;
[Here](_URL_0_) is a good video of what I'm talking about, if you scroll down to the "Get rid of unwanted objects in your photos" heading. Which is about 2/3 of the way down the page.
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/bb9ycc/eli5_how_can_you_remove_an_object_from_a_photo/
|
{
"a_id": [
"ekh9p6f",
"ekha3df"
],
"score": [
6,
3
],
"text": [
"There's a clone stamp tool, that allows you to \"clone\" the background from next to the object over the place, some cleaning up and smoothing and then you have \"removed\" the object.",
"Actually there is no photo \"behind\" the thing you erase, it's just blank space. What editing softwares or people do is to fill the blank space with a thing that resemble the space and merges together with the picture evenly. This can be done many ways, like taking another part of another image that looks like the are you want to fill, or to paint the blank area, manually or with AI.\n\nYou can understand more of that watch a few tutorials about that."
]
}
|
[] |
[
"https://www.pixelmator.com/photo/"
] |
[
[],
[]
] |
|
4rtbvs
|
why are peacocks allowed to roam around at zoos?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4rtbvs/eli5_why_are_peacocks_allowed_to_roam_around_at/
|
{
"a_id": [
"d53yj47",
"d542izo"
],
"score": [
84,
4
],
"text": [
"The risk of a peacock injuring someone is basically nonexistent, and likewise for the reverse. The hype of seeing exotic animals up close is worth the negligible risk.\n\nThe actual risk for free-roaming peacocks is non-zoo predators like hawks, which are getting more common in urban areas and can take a peacock without any trouble.",
" > Presumably they can claw the eyes out of children just as well as any other bird, so why are they allowed out?\n\nI've tried to find any reports of peacocks doing that but failed to do so. They have claws so technically this is possible; on the other hand peacocks only hunt small animals and (to the best of my knowledge) will not try to attack something child-sized unless provoked.\n\nI know that they are big birds so they might seem scary, but the reality is that if one isn't a dick towards them, one doesn't have anything to fear."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[]
] |
||
29r7ed
|
why don't criminal organizations such as the mafia or a street gang allow you to leave?
|
It seems that by not allowing you to leave..... ever, they drastically increase the chances of one who is decidedly done with "the life" to turn rat, in hopes of getting witness protection. Wouldn't it be much more pragmatic for them to take a "don't call us, we won't call you; don't rat on us, we won't kill you" type of approach?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/29r7ed/eli5_why_dont_criminal_organizations_such_as_the/
|
{
"a_id": [
"cinouok"
],
"score": [
6
],
"text": [
"I'm speculating here.\n\nOnce you're in an organization like that you gain access to a lot of information that can be used against them. Whether it be illegal activities, members' identities, or even secret rituals. I can also see it as being we took the time and \"trained\" you, now you owe us."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[]
] |
|
1om9r1
|
why does it seem in most societies that the wealthier people are the better looking they seem? or is this just a misconception? was it always like this in humanity?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1om9r1/eli5_why_does_it_seem_in_most_societies_that_the/
|
{
"a_id": [
"cctc7lv",
"cctca7y"
],
"score": [
3,
5
],
"text": [
"It might just be a misconception, but I think there's some validity to it.\n\nA lot of appearance is simply putting work into looking good. Working out, eating right, that sort of stuff. People with disposable income are much more likely to have the time and means to be able to take care of themselves.\n\nI don't know about *attractive*, necessarily, but it's certainly true that wealthier people are generally much healthier, and I don't think it's too ridiculous to say that healthy people are generally better-looking.\n\nPeople who are wealthy also can afford things like nicer clothes and plastic surgery, which shouldn't be discounted.",
"There are probably a lot of factors at work here.\n\nIt's been proven that good-looking people generally have an easier time in life because people naturally project positive attributes onto attractive people even if there's little to no evidence to support it. Attractive people tend to get hired more often and also tend to get promoted more often. This isn't always true but if you have two equally qualified candidates for a promotion, the more attractive person will typically get it.\n\nThere have been experiments that confirm that people trust attractive people more readily than they do someone who is less attractive.\n\nConventionally attractive people--usually those who have been attractive their entire lives as opposed to those who grew into themselves--will typically be more confident because more people will fawn over them and be more agreeable toward them. You've noticed this in highly attractive women.\n\nAll of these combined with the fact that attractive women will find it easier to marry rich and the fact that attractive people will tend to group up with other attractive people from an early age sort of explains it.\n\nOf course, there are plenty of average and unattractive people who are wealthy, too."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[]
] |
||
5x61p7
|
what made teddy roosevelt so bad-ass?
|
I've heard a lot of stories that are neither here nor there, but any history buffs have the low-down? Thanks in advance!
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5x61p7/eli5_what_made_teddy_roosevelt_so_badass/
|
{
"a_id": [
"defj5vn",
"defk5ok",
"defndse"
],
"score": [
3,
6,
2
],
"text": [
"Not sure what \"made\" him bad-ass, but he generally has that reputation. Roosevelt had a larger-than-life personality and an image that radiated masculinity. I imagine him being a \"Ron Swanson\" kind of character.\n\nAs for specific things he did, he is famous for things like: (1) Fighting in the Spanish American War, (2) exploring places like Africa and the Amazon, (3) getting shot at a public appearance and giving a speech while bleeding instead of going to the hospital. \n",
"Some [explanation here](_URL_0_):Teddy Roosevelt had horrible asthma as a kid; his family tried a bunch of different things to cure him, some helped and others made it worse, but fresh air and the outdoors, and a lot of exercise, helped a lot; he had poor eyesight, which he used as a reason to practice shooting guns to improve his accuracy.\n\nHe was also from a relatively well-to-do family, which had the resources to build him into a healthy, burly, gun-shooting guy.\n\nThis also involved a burgeoning interest in politics, where he tended to be on the war-and-police end of things; he had a positive sense of social justice and worked on cleaning up corruption; he fought in wars and lived in remote North Dakota; he was an all-around tough guy.\n\nThere's lots of books about the guy; go read some. jpbandit's \"Ron Swanson\" equivalency is close, although Teddy wasn't quite as Libertarian; Teddy is probably more comparable to Ron Swanson's alter ego Nick Offerman.",
"He established the first national park (Yellowstone) and essentially prompted the idea of preserving nature, from my understanding. That makes him pretty badass to me. Illustrated that he was a real forward-thinker. And again, he got shot and finished his speech while bleeding. \n\nAlso, this is not as baddass as it is cute, but the whole *teddy* *bear* thing came from him. He was invited on a hunting excursion only to find that the people that invited him had chained, or roped, a bear to a tree. Being the honest man that he was, Teddy saw this as un-sportsman like. He spared the bear, and the media caught wind of it; they made illustrations that depicted the bear as helpless, and started making stuffed bears, which were coined *teddy* *bears*. \n\nMay have got some details wrong as I'm recalling this all from memory, but if it's true I think it's pretty awesome. "
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[
"http://www.healthguidance.org/entry/8931/1/The-Health-Of-The-President-Theodore-Roosevelt.html"
],
[]
] |
|
38v91i
|
how did shakespeare go from being the theater of the common rabble during his time to high culture that's practically mandatory in modern education?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/38v91i/eli5_how_did_shakespeare_go_from_being_the/
|
{
"a_id": [
"cry3xxq"
],
"score": [
5
],
"text": [
"One of the things that we like to teach is historical patterns of thought and the origins of our own traditions. In Shakespeare's time, those histories and origins were the Greek Epics, which formed the foundation of all literature, as well as both Greek and Medieval philosophers.\n\nShakespeare invented a lot of the story arcs and varieties that we see today, as well as many of our words. He's the origin of a lot of our modern ideas about fiction and archetypal stories, so he fills the role that the Greek epics used to. Similarly, we learn about foundations of democracy and historical thought about government as our replacement for the medieval philosophers."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[]
] |
||
2axxqg
|
how do "push notifications" work
|
How is it I am able to get a notification from any one of the apps on my phone at any time even when the app is closed?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2axxqg/eli5how_do_push_notifications_work/
|
{
"a_id": [
"cizv4ej",
"cizvhs4",
"cizws06"
],
"score": [
2,
2,
2
],
"text": [
"Generally speaking you \"request\" things in programming or when working with a computer for that matter. For example when you search for something on google you are making a request for some results. This way of thinking is pervasive in computing. Especially on the internet.\n\nProgrammers call this process the request/response lifecycle. When a traditional app needs more information, for example, do you a have a new email waiting for you? The app will run this tried and true cycle of requesting from the server your mail status and telling you based in the response.\n\nPush notifications switch the model upside down. With the push model your app registers with the sever and anytime you have new mail it just tells you. It does this by pushing the information your way.\n\nUnderstanding the nuance between the two models is a good chunk if application architecture.\n\nCiao!",
"The push notification systems rely on some assistance from Google or Apple.\n\nApps can register themselves to receive push notifications, which will be received by your phone's OS and passed along to the app (waking it up) when received. Apple / Google provide a way for developers to give them a small push-message which they pass along to your phone.",
"There are a few ways a push notification can work.\n\nFirstly, they can really be pull notifications in disguise. A background service regularly checks a server to see whether a notification is ready to be 'pushed' to a program on the phone.\n\nMaybe the background service maintains an open TCP connection to the server, sending and receiving data often enough to prevent the connection being closed. (this seems to be the Google Cloud Messaging method)\n\nThe best option is for the remote server to know the IP address of the client, and send messages to that address. But that is harder than it needs to be - there is usually one or more NAT routers and/or firewalls between the internet and most devices preventing this sort of access. This means that they need to do things like UDP tunnelling to achieve this, and UDP tunnelling needs regular keep-alive messages.\n\nThankfully, that is all hidden from programmers and users needing to use push-notifications. As far as they are concerned, the server pushes a notification to the phone, and the phone opens the app to retrieve the details."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[],
[]
] |
|
1tymjs
|
why do humans still have a philtrum(the depression below your nose and above your upper lip)?
|
Apparently it carries moisture from the mouth to keep it wet and help some animals smell, but it is useless on us so why didn't it fade away long ago?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1tymjs/eli5_why_do_humans_still_have_a_philtrumthe/
|
{
"a_id": [
"cecr82t",
"cecymt8"
],
"score": [
8,
2
],
"text": [
"When humans develop, our cells develop separately on the two halves of our bodies during embryonic development. Kind of like how your left brain and right brain hemispheres are two separate things, joined by the Corpus Callosum (Though that could be another discussion entirely!) Your philtrum is basically the result of your left and right sides of your lips fusing together. When the joining is ineffective, you get babies born with Cleft Lips instead. Hope this helped!",
"Gotta part the moustache somehow"
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[]
] |
|
9969zm
|
how didn't people have bad breath without brushing their teeth in the past?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/9969zm/eli5_how_didnt_people_have_bad_breath_without/
|
{
"a_id": [
"e4l8mhb"
],
"score": [
3
],
"text": [
"1. People did have bad breath\n\n2. People may not have brushed their teeth with what we consider today to be a toothbrush (Bristle toothbrush) but various cultures had various ways of cleaning teeth. Prior to the toothbrush as we know it today, similiar devices were used as far back as 1500 with animal hair for the bristles. Before that, people used chew sticks, cloth and water, or various other things that would remove deposits on teeth. Same deal for toothpaste.\n\n3. Humans, especially americans have a very sugar and carb-heavy diet - If most of your diet is meat, you'll still develop bad breath but not as bad or as quickly."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[]
] |
||
821mol
|
how can every card deck shuffle be unique?
|
I've read that every shuffled deck is almost certainly unique, has never been dealt before and will never be dealt again. And I realize that the number of ways a deck of cards can be shuffled is 52!, a number so large that even Charlie Sheen standing on Chuck Norris's shoulders cannot comprehend it. But in practice, if you take two identical decks of cards, cut them in the middle and shuffle them perfectly, they're gonna be the same, right?
I get that it might be hard to shuffle perfectly, ie, one from the left, one from the right, one from the left, etc. But it's certainly not impossible, or even particularly implausible, I would think.
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/821mol/eli5_how_can_every_card_deck_shuffle_be_unique/
|
{
"a_id": [
"dv6rvy3",
"dv6s0r7",
"dv6sg6j"
],
"score": [
5,
2,
10
],
"text": [
"You said it right, its 52! The number of possible decks ... Its certainly a big number but not impossible, I guess its like the lottery, it's possible but you are never gona win it haha",
"I think the act if shuffling a deck of cards implies that you mix the cards randomly on purpose. The method you have presented is not random. Your method is not really shuffling the cards but just simply mixing them. ",
"Every *proper* shuffle is unique. that is the key here. If you shuffle two decks identically on purpose then that's not very random, now is it?\n\nIf you properly shuffle a deck, and aren't trying to pull gimmicks, then the odds of you shuffling a combination of cards never before seen is almost guaranteed. If you shuffle a deck badly or in some non-random way then you of course are more likely to get a duplicate. \n\nIt's not assumed every shuffled deck is unique, it is just very very very unlikely that they are not. "
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[],
[]
] |
|
4udm8r
|
how come odds are sometimes expressed as 10:50 instead of 1:5?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4udm8r/eli5how_come_odds_are_sometimes_expressed_as_1050/
|
{
"a_id": [
"d5otqcg"
],
"score": [
6
],
"text": [
"They aren't usually, mostly they are expresssed in the lowest form possible. Unless you have a specific set amount of possibilities.\n\nFor example if you have 50 slots. And if you get into any 10 of them you win, if we call it 10:50. We get that. It makes sense. 1:5 makes sense too, but 10 out of 50 is often easier to understand in that case.\n\nSports betting and other stuff isn't like this, and usually is the lowest. It wouldn't be 10:50, it would be 1:5."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[]
] |
||
75kmvv
|
the purpose of modern day knighthood
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/75kmvv/eli5_the_purpose_of_modern_day_knighthood/
|
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"To recognize and publicly show high social contributors.\n\nIt's getting a first place medal. Or citizen of the year award.",
"These days knighthoods are essentially awards for service to your country. Not necessarily for military service, you can also get a knighthood for being distinguished in your field whatever it is. For example Patrick Stewart is a knight for his contribution to the arts and entertainment.",
"It's just an honor/recognition... like being given a \"key to the city\" or a honorary doctorate from a university. Had no real value, but just a way of being recognized for some sort of achievement."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[],
[]
] |
||
5it1up
|
why do humans get excited about doing something that we are not supposed to do?
|
Like lying, stealing, cheating, breaking the law, telling a secret, etc.
What actually goes on in the brain during this process?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5it1up/eli5_why_do_humans_get_excited_about_doing/
|
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"I can't answer the part about the brain, but the examples you mention have to do with there being a benefit to performing those actions. Stealing brings material gains. Cheating brings a higher chance of success. Lying repurposes information for some social or material benefit. And etc. Alternatively, even if the likelihood of the benefits are small, there can be a pleasure in side stepping morality in itself. ",
"These kind of things usually come from evolution. \n\nWhy would doing forbiden things and takig risks would be exciting and how would that be favored in terms of evolution?\n\nWouldn't that have made said individuals more likelly to die and not pass their genes? \n\nWell.. maybe that's actually what made humans become the rulers of the planet.. maybe that \"weird characteristic\" of certain individuals was related to innovation and development of ideas.. intelligence.. progress.. maybe it's part of what make us human and what allowed us to reach the point we are in now.",
"Probably has to do with feeling powerful. Breaking rules means you are breaking free of the restrictions imposed upon you (at least temporarily), hence you are above the system. I work with elementary kids and the ones who break the rules to break the rules tend to do so only when a staff member is paying attention."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[],
[]
] |
|
3zcq2c
|
why do cops touch the back of a car during a traffic stop?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3zcq2c/eli5_why_do_cops_touch_the_back_of_a_car_during_a/
|
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"text": [
"In order to put their fingerprints on it in case anything happens. Also to make sure the trunk is closed so no one sneaks out of it while they are talking to the driver to ambush/run/etc.",
"Cop here:\n\nThe other answers are right.\n\nIt's to put our prints on your car, and make sure the trunk is closed."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[]
] |
||
5rvi5l
|
what has betsy devos done for american education.
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5rvi5l/eli5what_has_betsy_devos_done_for_american/
|
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"text": [
"Ruined it mostly.\n\nShe wants to defund public schools in favor of religious private schools that often lie outright to students, the schools she supports are generally really bad, but really profitable."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[]
] |
||
3g0lqt
|
why is it impossible to keep two beats with your hands and feet
|
I was in the car the other day and I noticed this. Why is it so hard to keep two beats?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3g0lqt/eli5_why_is_it_impossible_to_keep_two_beats_with/
|
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"text": [
"It certainly isn't impossible, it just takes practice.\n\nThe basis of drumming is being able to play different beats with different body parts. The basic 4/4 rock beat consists of hitting the hi-hat on all 4 beats, the bass drum on 1 and 3, and the snare on 2 and 4. So literally the first beat most drummers learn has one hand playing 4 beats per measure, one foot playing 2 per measure, and the other hand playing the other 2 beats per measure"
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[]
] |
|
qy6zm
|
how do graffiti artists spray in such details?
|
Edit: thanks for the advice, guys! It's not like I want to get into graffiti spraying myself, I was just really interested since I walk past some master pieces on a daily basis and I couldn't figure the fuck out how it is possible!
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/qy6zm/eli5_how_do_graffiti_artists_spray_in_such_details/
|
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"text": [
"I imagine that they would use a stencil of some kind, made from cardboard or a plastic. ",
"Check out vinyl cutters. You can do some cool stuff with exacto blades too.",
"Simply put, practice. If you ever have pray painted a house or a car, you would find that it gets a lot easier as you go along. After painting about a few dozen cars or houses, you will notice how wide the spray pattern is and its limits. \n\nThey can also use stencils and tracers to guide them but I think most street spray painters don't.",
"There are two ways to do it, either you use fine tips and hold the can close to the surface, or with a regular or broad tip you cut back in with the paint. This means that you go over your intended spot with one color and then thin out the area with the next color. It really boils down to technique, control, and practice; my best advice is use your shoulder and arm, not your wrist.",
"Practice and these come in handy: _URL_0_\n\nNo one really uses stencils for big pieces. ",
"Hand control plays a large part, but like others have mentioned, specialty tips."
]
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|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
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"http://www.bombingscience.com/shop-tips.htm"
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|
z6o6z
|
how did/why is the usa the leader of the "free world"?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/z6o6z/eli5_how_didwhy_is_the_usa_the_leader_of_the_free/
|
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"USA was the only large country with infrastructure untouched from WWII and the country prospered because there was no real competition. We were also the only country with nuclear technology at the time and the strongest military. Basically the country deemed itself #1 and 'exceptional' and has believed it ever since. ",
"Briefly as I can:\n\n1) Have completely unspoiled land with tons of resources.\n2) Help win a world war.\n3) Help win another world war. Both of these wars weren't fought in America, so they did much less damage to America's economy.\n4) Have a powerful 'unfree' enemy which is expanding very quickly causing all the 'free' countries to desire to band together (~~Norad~~ NATO).\n\nAmerica is the obvious leader since at the end of WW2 they have by far the most powerful military, nuclear weapons, and the largest population/economy of any single country.\n\nEDIT: Free in this context should be read, 'democratic (capitalist) and allied with the US. Also, it should be mentioned that the term 'free world' stopped being so well defined when the USSR fell.",
"For the record as part of the free world, I do not consider the USA as my leader",
"It's a term from the Cold War era, when the world was divided in to two alliances - the USSR (as the largest economy/best military) headed one group, the US the other. The war was very real, but most of the blood was shed by third-world countries. The US and USSR would fund dictatorships or guerrilla armies, and hundreds of thousands died in those wars that went mostly unreported. (Incidentally - that term \"third world\" is also a relic of the Cold War. First World was the US, Australia, Japan and Western Europe; Second World was the USSR and Eastern Europe; Third World was all the countries with less infrastructure where the US and USSR fought their proxy wars).\n\nA lot of the war was fought with propaganda, too. The \"Free World\" was meant as a contrast to the rigid state control of the Communist countries of Eastern Europe/USSR. Certainly, Western Europe and the US were more free for average citizens than the Communist Bloc. The US, however, rarely championed actual democracy - the third world countries that looked to the US for support were among some of the most brutal, authoritarian dictatorships the world has ever known. The best estimates for the dead in Guatemala, ruled by a US-funded military dictatorship, is 250,000 people - mostly American Indian peasants. The Shah of Iran (the leader before the Islamic revolution) developed some of the most sophisticated torture techniques the world has ever known, with help from the CIA. The US backed the assassination of democratically-elected leaders in Chile, Vietnam, Egypt, among others. The USSR did the same, and claimed to be supporting the poor and down-trodden against the imperialist US. Of course, they were just supporting dictatorships that promised to support them.\n\ntl;dr: \"Leader of the Free World\" is a line of propaganda left over from the Cold War.",
"Who said it was the leader ?",
"Something I just wrote for another thread, but that is very relevant here. Note that it's only part of the reason, but it's a big one:\n\nOne of the reasons the US government is so rich and powerful is because lots of people like to buy US treasury bonds, since the US government is so extremely secure; no one is worried it will topple and become unable to buy back the bond with interest. Even foreign governments very often buy US treasury bonds, such as the Chinese. The stability of the government directly affects how much it's able to control the amount of money in the system, which in turn affects exchange rates, which in turn affects the entire global economy. This is one of many reasons why the US is seen as such a super power in the world today.\n\n[Link](_URL_0_) to the rest of the comment."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[
"http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/z6rsu/whats_wrong_with_currencies_based_on_a_fixed/c61yn2h"
]
] |
||
nc8m6
|
starcraft
|
As an Australian I have no fucking idea what it is
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/nc8m6/eli5_starcraft/
|
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"text": [
" > Search first. Use the handy search bar to see if your question has already been answered satisfactorily. If the question has been asked but you don't understand any answers, feel free to ask again.\n\n[Here](_URL_0_) is the search, I did it for you! Basically though it's a real-time strategy game, where you build and eventually fight with a wide variety of units. Kind of like Age of Empires, if you ever played that.",
"Starcraft is a type of game called a real time strategy game, meaning, as the name suggests, the game is strategy based and not turn based. The basic story revolves around 3 races: Humans (Terran), bug aliens (Zerg), and advanced aliens (Protoss). The single player and story are good and all but it's the multiplayer that made it famous.\n\nIn multiplayer players go head to head and try to kill each other. Each player starts with a base and workers, who get resources for the player. As they get more resources, they use the workers to build buildings and more bases. Once they build certain buildings they can use more resources to build units to attack the other player. Each unit generally has a good counter to it players use strategy to take the other player out. This then evolves quickly into insane multitasking, quick decision making, and extremely fast and precise movement with units. All-in-all it's an ever-evolving strategy game that is easy to start, but takes godly skills to master.",
" > Search first. Use the handy search bar to see if your question has already been answered satisfactorily. If the question has been asked but you don't understand any answers, feel free to ask again.\n\n[Here](_URL_0_) is the search, I did it for you! Basically though it's a real-time strategy game, where you build and eventually fight with a wide variety of units. Kind of like Age of Empires, if you ever played that.",
"Starcraft is a type of game called a real time strategy game, meaning, as the name suggests, the game is strategy based and not turn based. The basic story revolves around 3 races: Humans (Terran), bug aliens (Zerg), and advanced aliens (Protoss). The single player and story are good and all but it's the multiplayer that made it famous.\n\nIn multiplayer players go head to head and try to kill each other. Each player starts with a base and workers, who get resources for the player. As they get more resources, they use the workers to build buildings and more bases. Once they build certain buildings they can use more resources to build units to attack the other player. Each unit generally has a good counter to it players use strategy to take the other player out. This then evolves quickly into insane multitasking, quick decision making, and extremely fast and precise movement with units. All-in-all it's an ever-evolving strategy game that is easy to start, but takes godly skills to master."
]
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],
[]
] |
|
2am8oe
|
why are there additional (supposedly harmful) adjuvants in flu shots?
|
My friend is telling me why flu shots are supposed to be bad for you. He says that chemicals like mercury and formaldehyde are added to our flu shots listed as "adjuvants" or substances that enhance the immune response to antigens, or in other words, substances that make flu shots more effective. But he says the twist is is that these substances don't help and do harm, like "injecting proteins causes inflammation". And he also says that studies proved that when we injected without these adjuvants the patients reacted better to the shot.
If so, why do we do this? Or are his claims bullshit?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2am8oe/eli5_why_are_there_additional_supposedly_harmful/
|
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"Kick him square in the ear and then read this: _URL_0_",
"Believe it or not, doctors are not evil demons who are out to infect humans in order to make a profit, no matter what the world would like you to believe. People are actually trying to help prevent disease. Those things wouldn't be in the vaccine if they weren't important.\n\nSo simply put, your friend is full of shit.",
"*Sigh* Your friend is almost completely full of shit. \n\nFirst of all, mercury and formaldehyde are not adjuvants, they're preservatives. Let's start with the mercury: it's ethylmercury under the name Thimerasol. It's only present in miniscule amounts. Ethylmercury is much safer than other forms of mercury, and is quickly eliminated from the body. Formaldehyde is actually a chemical our bodies produce and use in the manufacturing of DNA. It's pretty important to the processes of life. The amount in a vaccine is a negligible fraction of the amount thought to cause any damage, and still less than what the body produces every day. Neither chemical has caused problems in healthy patients beyond local tenderness and redness. Further, vaccines are given into muscle, and slowly release into the bloodstream, so your body is only exposed to a fraction of the dose at any given time. Both chemicals are only in a few vaccines, not all of them.\n\nOn to adjuvants. The only adjuvant used in vaccines is aluminum. It stabilizes the injected vaccine in tissue so that it can spread into the body more slowly. It also activates the immune response much more vigorously than the antigen alone can. These two mechanisms make vaccines much more effective. Again, the amount used is miniscule, and equivalent to the amount of aluminum a baby is exposed to by drinking 1 liter of formula. **By the way, seasonal flu vaccines do not have an adjuvant.**\n\nWith anything you put in your body, there are risks. People with kidney or immunological disorders may be more strongly affected by the ingredients in vaccines, and even experience severe side-effects. Just keep in mind that while mercury, aluminum, and formaldehyde can be deadly in high doses, you're being exposed to more of these chemicals in the air you breath and food you eat than from a vaccination."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[
"http://www.cdc.gov/flu/protect/vaccine/thimerosal.htm"
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|
baosv6
|
how does testing a nuclear weapon in ones own country is considered safe but attacking other country causes mass destruction and environmental problems?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/baosv6/eli5_how_does_testing_a_nuclear_weapon_in_ones/
|
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"Testing of nuclear weapons is normally done underground where no one can be directly affected or in a desert setting where, again, no one can be affected. One nuclear bomb is not going to destroy a country. It affects the direct area of the blast but if that’s in the middle of a 500 mile long salt flat, it doesn’t really matter. Dropping a bomb in the middle of a populated city is what’ll get ya. The former is considered “safe” because it’s highly highly controlled.",
"Nuclear weapons testing is never environmentmentally safe. It's historically unhealthy for the populations of the testing country as well as fallout gets blown by the wind which is hard to accurately predict.\n\nThe closest we've gotten to safe testing is underground, as it doesn't enter the atmosphere. Instead, it contaminates the ground and can taint the watershed.\n\nObviously when used as a weapon against an enemy, you make a point to hit targets, which are generally populated areas since that is where governments and resources are centralised. That is going to kill people immediately and in large numbers as opposed to being detonated in the desert or ocean where its going to be slow and fewer casualties due to health effects.",
"Test also usually only includes your countrys bombs but if you bomb another country, it will probably bomb back unless it is not nuclear armed. Nuclear war and Nuclear testing are events on two very different scales.",
"Nuclear testing is conducted in a controlled manner, in a location far away from populated areas (such as the middle of a desert). A nuclear attack is deliberately targeted towards a population center, with the goal of killing people.",
"ELI5: It's the difference between having experts setting off fireworks outside at a carefully chosen distance from people, and setting them off inside your kitchen. Note that even setting them off outside can sometimes be dangerous."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
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[],
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||
9uuses
|
why does drinking something help when you have to cough even though the coughing is caused by your lungs and not your stomach?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/9uuses/eli5_why_does_drinking_something_help_when_you/
|
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"Depending on the nature of the cough (productive vs unproductive) increasing fluid intake can help. In a productive cough increasing fluid intake can thin out secretions and make them easier to cough up. \nWith an unproductive cough it can alleviate some of the soreness associated with frequent coughing and rehydrate mucosa. ",
"There's a piece of tissue in the throat called the *epiglottis*, which closes off the lungs when swallowing. This is why humans can't breathe and swallow at the same time past the age of about six months. When you swallow, you're literally rerouting things in the body, and breathing is more important than swallowing.",
"Coughing is actually caused by irritation in your throat, not in your lungs. And drinking helps because the liquid soothes the throat. Cough drops just have menthol in them (mint), and the only action they have is to soothe your throat."
]
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|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[],
[]
] |
||
8iqzi1
|
how is 'low chlorine' salt any better for us than normal sodium chloride? is it actually anything to do with the chlorine?
|
EDIT: Sorry, I meant 'Low Sodium' salt
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/8iqzi1/eli5_how_is_low_chlorine_salt_any_better_for_us/
|
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"text": [
"Low chlorine salt has less sodium in it, it’s usually called low sodium but it’s the same thing. It’s salt mixture that has potassium chloride in it either mixed with sodium chloride or just potassium chloride on its own. It’s for people who need to reduce their sodium intake for heath related reasons."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[]
] |
|
1mge7a
|
perfect forward secrecy
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1mge7a/eli5_perfect_forward_secrecy/
|
{
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"text": [
"PFS involves using a master key to secure a negotiation for each session to determine a session key - using mathematical operations to exchange some information in a way that anyone eavesdropping on the exchange cannot reconstruct what each endpoint agrees upon for the session key.\n\nThe session key is used for a limited amount of time, and then thrown away.\n\nThis way, if the master key is compromised, the keys used to secure each session are not, and if a particular session key is compromised, the others are not, and collecting all the traffic to cryptanalyse it later encounters the problem of having to crack multiple keys, instead of compromising just one."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[]
] |
||
6ula89
|
how do people sign up/ be assigned to highly secretive and special organizations and jobs like a spy or people who work at area 51? how do you climb the ranks?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/6ula89/eli5how_do_people_sign_up_be_assigned_to_highly/
|
{
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"text": [
"Go to work, be intelligent, KEEP YOUR FUCKING MOUTH SHUT, do your work well, have the right personality type, get noticed for how little you're noticed. \n\nProfit!",
"For secret military projects it's fairly straightforward. You go get a degree in a desirable field, get a job with a defense contractor or government agency, and then if you have the skills and you have the right background to get a TS clearance you'll get assigned to (or requested for) a project that fits your skills. \n\nThe CIA openly recruits. If you want to take a crack at being a spy you can go apply right now on USA Jobs."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[]
] |
||
abw8y4
|
why is walmart seen as a lower end shopping experience but in other states, like utah, walmart is top tier experience?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/abw8y4/eli5_why_is_walmart_seen_as_a_lower_end_shopping/
|
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"The quality of the Walmart experience (friendly employees, clean stores) varies on the demographic of the location.\n\nIn smaller towns, Walmart may get the best employees. In big cities, Walmart has to deal with the worst of the unqualified for retail employees.",
"Walmart is surprisingly responsive to local economic pressures, for a company so large. They're able to do that because they have been able to remain on the cutting edge of retail data analysis.\n \nIt's somewhat more expensive to have a 'nice' store. You have to pay more people to clean and straighten the shelves and you have to do more regular maintenance, etc.\n\nIn a major metro area, there's a lot of competition. Wealthy shoppers can afford to go to upscale places. Walmart could spend a lot of money trying to be NICER than Target and Whole Foods to compete... but fierce competition for a few people is expensive. It may make more economic sense to essentially let the higher end stores have the top 20% of shoppers (by income) and just focus on the 80% who are more price-conscious. They're only going to keep the Walmart clean and nice enough to keep those shoppers in the 'market segment' they're targeting from going somewhere else. So... lower standards of cleanliness and organization.\n\nIn a less urban environment, there are fewer people to pick from and less competition from other high-end retailers.. so you may design that Walmart to try to appeal to a higher-income clientele. \n\nEvery Walmart in my city is different. They vary by size and layout. The prices are different. The other shoppers are different. The entire experience is tailored to the people they're trying to attract to that particular store. That comes back to the data analysis thing I mentioned first. Walmart is EXCELLENT at understanding what they need to do to maximize the profit at every individual store. They put a LOT of time and money into doing some of the most in depth consumer psychology research possible. I took a tour of a Walmart data center way back in 1998 and was floored. They had computers that constantly varied the cost and placement of each item in the store and tracked how those changes affected sales and profit. I can only IMAGINE how that sort of system has evolved in 20 years.\n\nTo simplify further... each store has an ideal number of people it can serve well. Let's just make up a number and say it's 25,000 people. If fewer loyal customers exist, space and effort (and money) are wasted. If more than that number shop there, they can't keep the shelves stocked and the aisles are too crowded. So Walmart designs each store to try to attract 25,000 loyal customers. If they NEED to make it fancy and clean to do so, they will. If they don't, they won't. "
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[]
] |
||
6w96bg
|
how and why does plaque form on the teeth?
|
Interesting question I had whilst brushing my teeth this morning... Can anybody explain this?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/6w96bg/eli5_how_and_why_does_plaque_form_on_the_teeth/
|
{
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"text": [
"Your mouth is full of bacteria. They eat fermentable sugars left over from your diet. They stick to surfaces in your mouth, multiply and secrete a goo that allows them to stick together and form what is also called a biofilm. The dry weight of plaque comprises about 70% bacteria and 30% secretions. "
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[]
] |
|
5yoh7y
|
how do backup power supplies (ups) switch to battery mode when the electricity is cut so fast that my computer does not shutdown from the power loss?
|
I thought even microseconds of power loss would shut down a PC?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5yoh7y/eli5_how_do_backup_power_supplies_ups_switch_to/
|
{
"a_id": [
"dero0ui",
"derthv0",
"desjn6u"
],
"score": [
7,
3,
2
],
"text": [
"There are a couple of ways. You could have a switchover to battery power which takes 10 milliseconds or so and cover the gap with capacitors. Or you could have incoming AC converted to a DC line on which the battery resides, then back to AC for output. In that case the battery is *always* on the line and there isn't anything to switch at all if the incoming AC power supply is cut.",
"A half cycle of 60 hertz AC is 8.3333 milliseconds, so microsecond dropouts aren't a problem on the AC side. A microsecond on the DC output of a power supply wouldn't be a problem because there are motherboard capacitors which would supply power during that brief loss. A microsecond loss at the power pin of an IC would cause a problem. \n\nMost power supplies have a hold up time under full load of 2 cycles of AC loss. That's 33.33 mS. That's enough time for the typical UPS to sense the outage and switch to inverter mode. On-line UPS are always in inverter mode, so there is zero dropout. ",
"Depends on the ups. Some just switch very quickly. In others the plugged in devices always run off the battery and the battery is constantly charged. Then when the power goes out, the battery stops charging and the devices continue to function off the battery. "
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[],
[]
] |
|
2oap5i
|
how do some people acquire "accents" like the "surfer dude" or "valley girl" accents despite not having those accents in childhood?
|
I work with children and teens of all ages all over California and I noticed that these types of accents only start coming out around middle school and later. I see kids exhibit regional (i.e. Different types of New York, Southern, different regional accents from their home countries) accents at an early age, but accents like surfer or valley come out much later. What makes these accents different and how do they develop them?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2oap5i/eli5_how_do_some_people_acquire_accents_like_the/
|
{
"a_id": [
"cmlbscg"
],
"score": [
4
],
"text": [
"Social accents are more malleable than regional accents, but their source is the same. The child hears people in his social \"in group\" speaking and he speaks in the same manner to demonstrate that he is in the same group. \n\nUnlike regions, where children have little choice, social groups are more-or-less a selection. Socio-economics, race, and location establish boundaries, but within that, a child is free to chose what group to be a part of or aspire toward.\n\nSkateboarding and cheerleading seem to have spread surfer/valley girl speak inland from southern California. So locally you can have kids who have no interest in surfing speaking like surfers because of long-term accent migration."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[]
] |
|
6e31cc
|
game developers trying to utilize multiple cores on a cpu
|
How come came while PCs have come far in development going way past the 2-4 core mark up to now, 16+ cores on the high end, video games tend to not adapt and can't utilize this extra hardware for a smoother performance to end end user?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/6e31cc/eli5_game_developers_trying_to_utilize_multiple/
|
{
"a_id": [
"di794fl"
],
"score": [
5
],
"text": [
"The reason why this doesn't happen as often as it could is because multi-core programming is very complex. You need to make sure that no data is modified by two core at the same time, because this can cause corruption, crashes, etc.\nSo, you need to use things called \"Mutexes\". This allows a thread to modify data without that data being modified by other threads.\nIf another thread wants to access that data, it need to wait until the mutex is unlocked.\n\nProgramming and debugging multi-core code adds a lot of time to a project, and, contrary to what you may think, there may not be much of a performance boost.\n\nThis is because most games are highly interconnected, this means that the multiple threads are spending a lot of time waiting for mutexes, which means they are not processing, in effect, they are being wasted.\n\nUsing multiple cores can make a big difference for things like Terrain, since this is largely an isolated system, so it can use a core all to itself without interacting with the rest of the game much.\n\nThe other reason is that the vast majority of the work in a modern game is being done by the GPU, not the CPU, so there is no real need to improve the performance of the CPU.\n"
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[]
] |
|
2p0igk
|
if the sun exploded right now, would we live long enough to experience the resulting darkness?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2p0igk/eli5_if_the_sun_exploded_right_now_would_we_live/
|
{
"a_id": [
"cms79s6",
"cms7gio"
],
"score": [
8,
9
],
"text": [
"Define \"exploded.\" The sun isn't massive enough to go supernova, so it isn't going to explode. Eventually (5 billion years I think) it will expand beyond Earth into a Red Giant then eventually shed it's layers and turn into a brown dwarf. However, let's say the sun does gain the mass necessary to super nova. The answer is no. A super nova would wipe out our solar system one way or another. \n\nedit: fixing typos",
"There's a Vsauce video on this subject - [here](_URL_0_), definitely worth a watch."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[
"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rltpH6ck2Kc"
]
] |
||
9r8gvv
|
why is it that when putting somebody on speaker phone when calling them, the microphone doesn't pick up their voice - resulting in them hearing themselves talk?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/9r8gvv/eli5_why_is_it_that_when_putting_somebody_on/
|
{
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13,
3,
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"text": [
"There's a circuit or software in speakerphones that does *echo cancellation*. The details get a bit complicated because it has to handle things like different-sized rooms and distortion, but basically the idea is that the system looks at what the speaker is playing and then attempts to cancel that same sound out of what's being picked up by the microphone.",
"The phone knows what signal it is outputting to the speaker, and knows to subtract that signal from what it's getting from the microphone.\n\nWhen the phone doesn't know this, you get an echo - this happens when people call in to the radio, and leave their own radio playing during the call.",
"Older cellphones and cheaper ones did do that. I know because an old job I had had me dealing with customers on the phone and occasionally they'd call with me on speaker phone. I remember a few times I couldn't talk because hearing myself was so confusing. Told them to take me off speaker or call back later. ",
"This actually does happen whenever my partner calls me from her car. I'll say something and then about a second later my awful voice will come back through my phone and completely distract me from what I was saying. Drives me bonkers.",
"Not sure how i would explain it to a 5 year old but literally you just subtract one signal from the other.\n\n It might be easier to visualise if you remember that you only ever hear one 'sound'. The separation into different sources, voices and directions is done in your brain.\n\nYou can subtract and add sound signals almost as easy as any other addition and subtraction. "
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[],
[],
[],
[]
] |
||
ul3r3
|
why the hell does my cable box/ dvr take forever to change channels? why does it make me wait no matter what i ask it to do?
|
Can't they put better processors in them? Or more memory? It's 2012 for cryin' out loud! These things suck!
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/ul3r3/eli5_why_the_hell_does_my_cable_box_dvr_take/
|
{
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"c4wb9gd",
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3,
2,
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"text": [
"On some, the tuner going to another channel is slow because of the remote. In order to avoid false changes, the remote codes for each digit are transmitted very, very slowly. \n \nMy old Gen1 Tivo had the ability to set the remote codes to be fast/medium/slow for this reason, since it was relying on an \"IR blaster\" to tell the cable box to change the channel. It was a crappy design and was prone to changing to the wrong channel if there was bright sunlight in the area. \n \nIn general, most cable boxes and DVRs can change channel quite rapidly once they get the code from the remote. My new Tivo does.",
"Call the company. It could just be a simple problem. My Directv box was taking about 5-30 seconds to change channels, and when I called they told me to reset it (best fix in the world) and it was instant. ",
"The real reason is there is no demand for the latest technology to be put into cable boxes. Cable companies either provide the boxes for free or charge a monthly rental fee so they don't care whether the tech that runs them are five or even ten years old. This is also because cable companies are monopolies and have no reason to upgrade their cable boxes unless it benefits them in some way."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[],
[]
] |
|
1yv2q5
|
what can happen to you if you move to another country to avoid your credit debt?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1yv2q5/eli5_what_can_happen_to_you_if_you_move_to/
|
{
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"cfo14an",
"cfo3n0q",
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7,
7,
8
],
"text": [
"Depending on which countries are involved, getting sued (or having a judgment against you collected) across national lines is not necessarily impossible. It's often a slow and expensive process though, so your creditors may only bother if the amount of money is large enough.\n\n(This is really not so different than what happens within a country -- they send you to collections and try to put pressure on you in more mundane ways, and only sue you if everything else fails and it's worth the expense.)",
"When I moved out of country for my job, I simply \"overlooked\" the fact that i had to some speeding ticket and a small credit card balance remanding. Whenever i come back to visit I dont have a valid driving license and DMV insist that i repay the tickets along with their fine. I think i missed a court date as well, because the first time i came back to visit, i filed for a court date because for the first one it makes your license valid again until you dont go to your date. Then i got a bench warrent what really wasn't of my concern at the time. Credit card wasn't a big deal at all, i Think it was some type of Visa and i got a visa here as well without any issues at all. After all that i Think around 10 years later, now that im in my 30's, i repaid everything and deemed it was a big mistake. ",
"Nothing from what I gather. \n\nI moved from North America to Australia and skipped out on a ton of debt. It all really started from a recent car loan that I was unable to get out of. I was moving as a job transfer to a 6 figure job in Australia and had a recent 30k loan on a used vehicle. To sell the car I'd take about a 5k loss, which was ok by me but unacceptable for the loan company. I couldn't simply sell the car and pay off most of the balance and pay the remaining balance over time. \n\nI told them clearly, I'm leaving.. not coming back and I will abandon the vehicle if this doesn't get sorted. Of course it didn't, so I left the car on the side of the road. Between that and the \"fuck the banks\" mentality of the time I wrote off all my other debts and made sure the CCs were maxed. \n\n\nFast forward to Australia and not a single problem. I got here and immediately bought a 65k BMW and was issued new credit cards with 5 figure credit limits on them. \n\n\nWhile I'm sure it's not impossible for them to come after you in some way, it's unlikely. Your debts will be wiped from your credit profile in 5-7 years depending where you're from. Else you can address them when you get back (or not). \n\n\nI didn't overlook anything In my situation. My reaction was directly related to the creditors unreasonable approach to solving my situation appropriately. Fuck those guys, they can suck my dick. "
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[],
[]
] |
||
2uvm2k
|
how is it possible that china copies and sells copyrighted stuff and be a member of wto at the same time ?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2uvm2k/eli5_how_is_it_possible_that_china_copies_and/
|
{
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2,
13
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"text": [
"China are very powerful as an economic entity & the world needs China much more than China needs the rest of the world. Countries that enjoy that kind of political position can get away with quite a lot. ",
"Sued by who and where?\n\nA fun one to do a background study on...hold on...memory fog...\n\nI think it was Martin guitars. The way their system of ownership/patent/laying claim to names goes, if you made it first here in China, you get it. Well, folks were already making fake Martins. So, when they wanted to open a plant in China to manufacture guitars, under a condition that they'd get rid of the \"counterfits\", they lost that fight. \n\nIn one way of looking at it, what we'd presume to be the original was the later generated import. In relation to the current time of sorts.\n\nNot defending it by any means, I know alibaba has gotten some heat over items they've sold/etc.",
"That's not state-sponsored copyright infringement. It's criminal behaviour by individual Chinese criminals or criminal organizations.\n\nPeople in America pirate, produce and sell copyrighted works too."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[],
[]
] |
||
5b85k5
|
between reddit, facebook, twitter, and online school, i probably read tens of thousands of words a day. how is this so different to my brain from reading a book?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5b85k5/eli5between_reddit_facebook_twitter_and_online/
|
{
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"text": [
"The words in a book are at least filtered through an editor, or some form of editing group. \n \nWords you read on the Internet are fraught with peril.",
"Attention span.\nOn internet, the longest, same-subject reading you will do is likely a 5 paragraph article. On reddit, you usually read a paragraph, and/or comments that add up to a couple paragraphs. This trains your brain to think hard about one thing for a short period of time. \"I want a conclusion within 10 minutes.\" Creates what some categorize as \"ADD.\"\n\nA book captures your attention for hours, get a break, and then on for maybe a week or more. The book isn't always about one specific subject, and you have breaks, and are able to have more semi-subconcious thought. \"I want to think about this for awhile, having small realizations along the way, with a solid conclusion at the end.\"",
"Because social media tends to be less, let say, stimulating in a literary. You emulate the vocabulary and syntax you have read recently, intentionally or not. You will write better if you read books that contain a more eloquent prose. Social media is filled with sentence fragments and simple sentences.\n\nI can attest to this. I used to be a very good writer in high school and undergrad. Since starting medical school, I haven't read a single book (including textbooks!). It's entirely lecture slides, sentence fragments, and my personal fragmented notes. I have noticed a huge decline in my writing ability. It's much more simplistic. ",
"Depends on what portion of Reddit, Facebook and Twitter you are referring to. The linked news articles or the discussions of them?\n\nThe discussions on Reddit, Facebook and Twitter are not reading as in reading the linked news article or printed book or printed newspaper. As discussions, one or more participants are involved and you are one of them. Just like oral discussions it involves banter, sarcasm, innuendo, agendas, straw man diversions and humor mixed in with opinion, facts, and informative data.\n\nReading a book involves understanding the thoughts of one person who wrote the book. There are no distractions. Its either a merging of minds or a conflict between you and the writer, but there is no discussion involved. You cannot question the writer. The writer is authoritative as in commanding and self-confident and is likely to be respected and obeyed whether you agree with the writer or not. And the message is consistent and not messed with by others by interjecting a comment. And books tend to be written to be compelling in order to get you to complete the book. However, not all books are written as well or are as authoritative or truthful. They are not any better than the BS found online. The difference is there is lot more of it online because the Internet made us all publishers."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[],
[],
[]
] |
||
jhiac
|
how do videogames cost money to make? aside from paying employees.
|
I always hear things about how companies can save money by not debugging or stepping down graphically but how does stuff like this cost money?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/jhiac/eli5_how_do_videogames_cost_money_to_make_aside/
|
{
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"text": [
"You answered your own question. It takes a /lot/ of man hours to debug a piece of software as large as a console video game.",
"* Equipment to develop the game on.\n* Employee salaries (artists, programmers, writers, etc.).\n* Constant costs (office space, rent, power, etc.)\n* Licensing fees (many games use already-created game engines); Ogre3D, Source Engine, etc\n* Bandwidth/Distribution/Marketing costs\n\nJust a few.",
"Salaries are the biggest expense for a software development company. These are rough estimates for Southern California yearly salaries.\n\n* Project manager: $130,000\n* Senior Software Engineer: $120,000\n* Software Engineer: $50,000 - $100,000\n* Art Director: $130,000\n* 2d Artist: $40,000 - $100,000\n* 3d Artist: $50,000 - $100,000\n\n\nThrow a half decent team together and you have over $100,000 in salaries per month. If they're employees add approx 25% to that for taxes, workman's comp. etc... Freelancers pay their own taxes.\n\n\nThrow a medium size team together and you can see $300k monthly expenses without trying.\n\nIf you add on the other components that others have mentioned you can see how it becomes extremely expensive to spend 2 years developing something.\n\n\nNot that I condone it but one can understand why companies often try to take shortcuts. In the long run it's a hindrance but in the short term it pleases the entities that write the checks.",
" > stepping down graphically, but how does stuff like this cost money?\n\nThe more detailed and elaborate the graphics, the more time has to be spent creating them. You don't just slide up the detail meter when creating a model, if you want it super-detailed, you have to have someone create every little detail on it, spend time getting the animation just right, doing motion capture, making things separate so that the clothes flutter in the wind, etc. You have to tweak the physics engine and create items independently of each other so that they move well and look real. It takes skill and time. If you step down your graphical ambition, you can just paint all that stuff into the background texture, make things immobile, have the animation guy take his best stab at it and then leave it (no money in the budget to let you motion-capture a human and spend 4 tries getting it right!), paint a simple skin and solid color clothes texture rather than have separate items with tears and scars, etc.\n\nSo yes. It's mainly time, it's the money spent on the employees.",
"You answered your own question. It takes a /lot/ of man hours to debug a piece of software as large as a console video game.",
"* Equipment to develop the game on.\n* Employee salaries (artists, programmers, writers, etc.).\n* Constant costs (office space, rent, power, etc.)\n* Licensing fees (many games use already-created game engines); Ogre3D, Source Engine, etc\n* Bandwidth/Distribution/Marketing costs\n\nJust a few.",
"Salaries are the biggest expense for a software development company. These are rough estimates for Southern California yearly salaries.\n\n* Project manager: $130,000\n* Senior Software Engineer: $120,000\n* Software Engineer: $50,000 - $100,000\n* Art Director: $130,000\n* 2d Artist: $40,000 - $100,000\n* 3d Artist: $50,000 - $100,000\n\n\nThrow a half decent team together and you have over $100,000 in salaries per month. If they're employees add approx 25% to that for taxes, workman's comp. etc... Freelancers pay their own taxes.\n\n\nThrow a medium size team together and you can see $300k monthly expenses without trying.\n\nIf you add on the other components that others have mentioned you can see how it becomes extremely expensive to spend 2 years developing something.\n\n\nNot that I condone it but one can understand why companies often try to take shortcuts. In the long run it's a hindrance but in the short term it pleases the entities that write the checks.",
" > stepping down graphically, but how does stuff like this cost money?\n\nThe more detailed and elaborate the graphics, the more time has to be spent creating them. You don't just slide up the detail meter when creating a model, if you want it super-detailed, you have to have someone create every little detail on it, spend time getting the animation just right, doing motion capture, making things separate so that the clothes flutter in the wind, etc. You have to tweak the physics engine and create items independently of each other so that they move well and look real. It takes skill and time. If you step down your graphical ambition, you can just paint all that stuff into the background texture, make things immobile, have the animation guy take his best stab at it and then leave it (no money in the budget to let you motion-capture a human and spend 4 tries getting it right!), paint a simple skin and solid color clothes texture rather than have separate items with tears and scars, etc.\n\nSo yes. It's mainly time, it's the money spent on the employees."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[]
] |
|
5gh1la
|
why do digital cameras use shutters during video?
|
It seems like with storing something digitally, the shutter would just be able to remain open and store what the sensor is seeing at a constant rate.
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5gh1la/eli5_why_do_digital_cameras_use_shutters_during/
|
{
"a_id": [
"das5jvx"
],
"score": [
6
],
"text": [
"Are you referring to a mechanical shutter? If so, which digital camera are you referring to that has a mechanical shutter?\n\nEvery digital point and shoot, digital camcorder, and DSLR I've ever heard of use an electronic shutter while recording video. The electronic shutter is simply software collecting light on the sensor, then discharging it to storage - no moving parts.\n\nMechanical shutters simply cannot move fast enough to activate 24 to 30 times per second. Instead, the electronic shutters are used since they can activate much, much faster.\n\nYou must have *some* type of shutter, otherwise you'd capture a single blur, rather than hundreds or thousand of frames that can be played back as video."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[]
] |
|
5sgn95
|
employers of reddit: why do you put "minimum work experience of x years required" into entry-level job postings?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5sgn95/eli5_employers_of_reddit_why_do_you_put_minimum/
|
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"text": [
"When making a hiring decision, a lot of it can be a gut feeling. How well will this person mesh with the existing team?\n\nSo, part of the decision is objective, like qualifications, and some is subjective, like my example above.\n\nThe problem comes in when someone feels that the hiring decision may have been made based on illegal reasons -- \"we don't want to hire a woman\" or \"No Jews in our workplace\" or \"I'll never hire a Hispanic\".\n\nI'm not saying that decisions are never based on those reasons -- there is a reason they are specifically prohibited by law. But when the deciding factor is subjective, like \"wouldn't be a good fit\", it could open the door for a lawsuit, or at least some letters to the EEOC to harass the company.\n\nOne way to help prevent this is to list requirements a little above what you need. An employer can always justify \"They didn't have all of the qualifications, but they impressed us and we hired them anyway.\"\n\nThe point? If you want the job, apply for it. If they want two years of experience and you don't have any? Apply anyway. Let the employer worry about that. A generation ago it would only cost you paper and a stamp; today it doesn't cost you a dime.",
"A job description is typically one of two things: either a wish list of features that the company wants in a new hire, or a summary of what the previous employees had when they realized that they needed to hire more people to fill that role.\n\nTo that, add in that the person writing the requirements generally isn't the person doing the actual hiring, who isn't the person actually in charge of that potential new employee. Misconceptions and miscommunications abound, especially at big companies. It's actually not unusual for a manager to laugh at the descriptions put out by HR for positions in their own departments.",
"I once saw a job posted online as an \"entry-level\" position for which, between 10 different categories of experience required to apply, they expected applicants to have a total of 60 years' worth of experience. I may be wrong, but I think the reason why this is done is simply to cut down on the number of applicants. You have to imagine that, for every job posted with the entry-level designation and no particular required experience, the HR department would have thousands of applications to sift through.",
"I'm ball parking here but entry level is often defined as: 0-5 years exp. Mid-level: 5-15, Senior-level: 15+. A common misconception is that \"entry level\" is straight out of school when its not.",
"So they can say that no one in the US qualifies for the position and it can be given to an H1-B Visa applicant. "
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[],
[],
[],
[]
] |
||
1tlx43
|
how can my farts smell like food that i've eaten less than 10 minutes ago?
|
I thought digestion was supposed to take a lot longer than that?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1tlx43/eli5_how_can_my_farts_smell_like_food_that_ive/
|
{
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"text": [
"farts smell like poop. were you eating poop?",
"If you eat a regular diet, it could just be a coincidence (if you ate corn every day for three days, for instance). You could have a spastic colon. Which one is correct depends on data I don't yet have. ",
"It could be, you're even still smelling what you had recently eaten, but in a new context, as it's scents still linger in your mouth or upper GI. Or, those sensory pathways are still heightened (the same way sight can be tricked by staring at certain images, like red filters or alternating lines, then looking at something else). Since you've recently smelled it, your brain still expects to smell it.",
"It can't be what others have mentioned so far, I get that weird asparagus pee smell in a matter of minutes after eating it. This happens when I haven't eaten it in months, and the smell is distinct from the actual food. I realize the mechanisms for urination can be different from poop, but I've also pooped out things I ate less than half an hour before (usually diarrhea from heavy drinking night before). I'm guessing it has to do with irritated GI tract not absorbing food. Still, it's interesting that something can pass through your system that quickly, when it normally takes things many hours or even days to fully move through.",
"My farts kill smaller animals, it's the fiber \n",
"I get this when I eat Mongolian, If I'm not home in 15minutes. I'm gonna need new underwear/pants. Leading up to the eminent bathroom explosion my farts smell exactly like my Mongolian. Literally just like it, smells the same going in as it does going out. Turns out, I had a MSG intolerance. Took me 5 years to realize this. ./dumbass "
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[]
] |
|
4wldkx
|
what are whips, as used by the likes of cowboys and indiana jones, actually used for?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4wldkx/eli5what_are_whips_as_used_by_the_likes_of/
|
{
"a_id": [
"d67w5y0"
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4
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"text": [
"Whips as used by cowboys, or carriage drivers is not used to strike animals. It is used to make a loud noise to a side of an animal or behind it in order to change the direction it is traveling in. Cattle, horses, and most animals naturally move away from sudden loud noises, and that is exactly what a whip crack is. They will also often start to run or move faster because of it because you are triggering the fight or flight response and being prey animals first instinct is the flee. "
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[]
] |
||
1x7k57
|
how could two states in the united states be combined into one?
|
For example, what would have to happen in order for North Dakota and South Dakota to be combined into one single state (Dakota)? From what I've read, it would require approval by Congress, but what else?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1x7k57/eli5_how_could_two_states_in_the_united_states_be/
|
{
"a_id": [
"cf8snzq"
],
"score": [
4
],
"text": [
"Article IV, Section 3 is the relevant part of the Constitution here:\n\n > New States may be admitted by the Congress into this Union; but no new States shall be formed or erected within the Jurisdiction of any other State; nor any State be formed by the Junction of two or more States, or parts of States, without the Consent of the Legislatures of the States concerned as well as of the Congress.\n\nSo yes, approval by Congress, and the approval of the legislatures of both states."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[]
] |
|
57itny
|
how do tv shows and movies get such perfectly matching speech and lip movement over multiple takes?
|
I was watching an episode of Peaky Blinders and they did a close up on a female characters mouth. The shot took place in a busy room and I assume took multiple takes, but the audio of the character was clear and free of background noise, and was matched perfectly to the lip movements. How do they do it?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/57itny/eli5how_do_tv_shows_and_movies_get_such_perfectly/
|
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"Quite often they do what is called \"looping\" - that is, the dialogue is recorded *after* the fact. That way the actor can match their speech to the video. ",
"A directional mic would have been close to the actor; as close as possible without being in-shot. They would have called for quiet on the set with only as much other action going on as required by the camera angle. You said it was a close-up on a mouth; was there even other action visible?",
"I was an extra a few times. There are mics close to the actors speaking to pick up their lines. Everyone in the background is supposed to be totally silent. They move their mouths but say nothing. We had to take our shoes off because everyone was walking in a hall and the footsteps were too loud. that's how you get background movement but only pick up the main actors. There is also something called dubbing. that's when the actor will watch themselves in a sound studio and rerecord their lines.",
"First off, that's what the \"clap board\" is for. Swinging the little lever down to make a single loud click that coincides with the visual clue of the two pieces meeting produces a sycnronization point in both the audio and visual recordings so that they can be synchronized later.\n\nSecond, in the gold standard the audio is captured \"live\". So if you have, say, a scene in a croweded dance bar... and you watch the making-of... you hear the principles talk and the susseration of moving feet, but there is no music or actual talk from other sources. It's easier by far to add the background hubub and music and such than it is to add the principle voice. So the actors are _yelling_ _over_ non-existent sounds... I think I would find that very hard to do without cracking up, but it's a necessary part of the craft.\n\nNext there's \"looping\" where the actors repeatedly re-record dialog for clarity or correction.\n\nFinally the \"sound editor\" micro-matches all that. He takes the best recording for the best takes and can \"jog\" the audio forward and back by large and small amounts until it \"looks right\".\n\nA good sound editor can overcome a lot. A crappy one can ruin a perfect take.\n\nAnd you can often tell cheap from well-financed pieces from sound design and editing alone. It's a black art after a certain point.\n\n\n",
"Most of what you see on screen is recorded in ADR (automated dialogue replacement). Most of the time especially when scenes are shot as exteriors due to issues with sound from weather, cars etc. they remove the audio and replace it later. The actors come in a recording room and as they watch the play back they say their lines. This way you get nice clean and crisp audio. ",
"They can use hypercardioid mics that don't pick up far away audio nearly as much as close audio. \n\nThe background people are extras, they might look they are talking but they aren't (unless told to). \n\nOr they just did it in ADR (automatic dialog replacement). The original actress re-recorded her lines in a studio. She listens to the original audio and matches it. ",
"I am a 2nd assistant camera. One of my jobs is to \"slate\" every shot. The slate is the clapper you see in movies about making movies. Most people use electronic slates these days that display the \"time code\". When the slate claps, the time code freezes on screen for a moment. The sound is easy to pick up in audio and can be synchronized easily with the video."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[]
] |
|
8h8vmh
|
how is it that we can tell the difference between watching a recording of a completely still scene, and looking at an actual still image?
|
Or can we? It feels like there is something lively looking,maybe a slight flicker of the light, in still video footage whereas actual still images lack this.
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/8h8vmh/eli5_how_is_it_that_we_can_tell_the_difference/
|
{
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"text": [
"If you take multiple pictures of the same scene they will be slightly different. There is away noise in a image senor the captured images will not be the same.\n\nSo a video will not be a stream of identical images but almost identical images.\n\nIt is also likely that the video compression algorithms result in that the noise result in a bit different compression for a larger area. So the result is that the videos changes a bit over time but the still image is identical all the time"
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[]
] |
|
szu44
|
why is israel such a partisan issue in the us?
|
Why have the two parties taken such a hard line stance on it?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/szu44/why_is_israel_such_a_partisan_issue_in_the_us/
|
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"text": [
"Well, little papabusche, let me tell you a story. \n\nOnce Upon a Time, there was a big strong Giant (USA) who befriended a little gnome (Israel). The little gnome was new to the forest, and there were a lot of creatures that wanted to eat it. The creatures also didn't like the Giant, but the Giant and the creatures were too far away from each other to seriously hurt each other. Then the Giant saw the creatures picking on the little gnome, and decided that helping the gnome would be to both of their advantage. With the Giant's help, the little gnome was constantly beating his former bullies. Finally, the gnome became powerful enough to start bullying some of the other creatures, which had once bullied him. \n\nAnd there lies the problem for the giant, kids. The Giant wants the little gnome to succeed, but he is also afraid that the gnome has become a bully too, and so he feels that the bullying must be stopped. The political parties in the united states are sort of similar to the Giant. The Republican Party remembers that the Gnome was the Giant's friend from the very beginning, and was acting as the Giant wanted when the gnome first came into the forest. The Democrat Party believes that bullying is not okay even if our friends do it, and think that while the Gnome may be the Giant's friend, the Giant needs to tell the gnome to calm down and not be so mean to the other forest creatures. What do you think, little papbusche? What should the giant do?\n\n*I realize that this is a much more complex issue, but this is what I believe is in the heart of it all. If you disagree, come up with your own metaphor.*",
"There isn't much divergence in the stance of both major parties; Republicans generally support Israel unconditionally while Democrats support Israel but try to moderate its actions behind the scenes. For Democrats, Jews are an important bloc of voters and their interests outweigh the human rights activists. For Republicans, many evangelical christians think that having a \"unified\" greater Israel will start the End of Days. For war hawk Republicans, Israel is our most important ally in the Middle East and against terrorism. AIPAC, the major pro-Israel lobbying group (actually the only powerful Israel-Palestine lobbying group), has lots of money to spend in elections on either side of the aisle.\n\nThe reason this issue is so hotly debated is because Israel's occupation is either really bad or justified: the medicine is killing the patient or its slowing the disease. Those who support Israel generally do it unconditionally for religious or political reasons, while those who are against Israel think that its treatment of Palestinians is inexcusable. Pro-Palestinians Americans think that Israel is committing horrible acts that need to be stopped and that they are a big reason for terrorism and resistance. Pro-Israel Americans think the situation of the Palestinians is overblown, that Israeli control is justified, and/or any unilateral action will encourage groups like Hamas to grow bolder (Hamas controlling Gaza doesn't help).\n\nThe problem is that Israel keeps going farther away from what the Palestinian advocates want, so the divide grows even larger. It is getting to the point that the plan that both sides agree is the solution--two states--will be impossible because there will be too many Israeli settlements in the West Bank to create a separate state.",
"I think the shortest and most direct answer to this is: because judaism is a culture as well as a religion. Every other complication more or less stems from this crucial fact. I grew up in a predominantly jewish suburb, and most of my friends are jewish. I taught at a jewish private school, have dated jewish women, and in general am not coming to this conclusion from a place of ignorance or intolerance. I do not have anything negative to say about the jewish people or about the jewish faith; just want to state that the fact that cultural / religious overlap is the cause for most of the problems in the middle east and the weirdly erratic reaction to the situation from the US and others.",
"It's actually not a partisan issue at all. If you look at gallop or pew polls the majority of Americans agree with the two state solution. \n\nAlso, most Americans are also against sending \"Foreign Aid\" to a wealthy country. \n\nA better question is \"Why is the press partisan in the issue?\"",
"Short answer: it isn't. Unless you meant \"partisan\" as in public opinion is divided. But in terms of party platform, Republicans and Democrats almost unanimously agree, they just argue on dotting the eyes and crossing the t's pretty much. (Example: they both agree the US should act as a deterrent to stop an Iranian nuclear against Israel, they disagree on how vocal the US should be about it). \n",
"It isn't very partisan. That means that the parties differ strongly from one another on an issue, but in this case, both parties are tripping over each other to kiss Israel's ass."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[]
] |
|
32uj6g
|
how do the actual robotics for the bb-8 droid work as a practical effect?
|
Everyone's saying magnetics and ball bearings. Hoping an engineer can help us out here.
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/32uj6g/eli5_how_do_the_actual_robotics_for_the_bb8_droid/
|
{
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"text": [
"While the details haven't been released - to my knowledge - [here's a relevant xkcd](_URL_0_) that helps explain the concept.\n\nBasically, inside the large bottom sphere is a 3 or 4 wheeled vehicle. When those wheels turn, they rotate the sphere under them. The \"head\" is attached to the top of the sphere via magnets and allowed to roll via ball-bearings. Obviously, BB-8 has some extra controls to rotate the head and move it up/down."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[
"http://xkcd.com/413/"
]
] |
|
5mkd9p
|
what is the purpose of having different wine glasses in restaurants?
|
I just went for a dinner at a relatively high class restaurant, and there were 3 different wine glasses for each person, along with a glass for water.
Why is there a need for more than one type of wine glass, and is there a purpose in making the glasses in different shapes and volumes? Does it affect the overall drinking experience for different wines?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5mkd9p/eli5_what_is_the_purpose_of_having_different_wine/
|
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"text": [
"Next time you have the chance, pour the same red wine into a \"white wine\" glass AND the red wine glass. Give them a minute to settle in the glass and taste both. \n\nThe red wine glass is generally bigger/wider which allows for more air to touch the wine, which opens the flavor profile up. I'm not too sure of the effects of the white wine glass on the white wine....not really a fan of it.",
"The different shapes and volumes for specialized wines glasses are used to accentuate the aromas for each particular wine type. Smell is a very large component to the experience of taste, and the specific shape and size of the glass influences the concentration of wine aroma you smell when you take a sip. Most wine glasses have a variation of the tulip shape to help capture the aromas. The long stem is designed to prevent your hand from heating the wine as you hold the glass.",
"Skeptic, inexperienced wine taster and rational person here.\n\n[Wine tasting is bullshit](_URL_0_) and [Wine tasting is ludicrous](_URL_1_). There are certainly better and more empirical articles I've read over the years but those were the ones I pulled up quickly.\n\nIf you drink the same wine out of different glasses and have a different experience, kudos to you. I am open minded but that is most likely a placebo effect. Even world class wine tasters will drink the same wine twice and can't even reliably distinguish *red vs white*, much less cheap vs premium and certainly can't recognize it as the same wine. Wine tasting is bullshit. Yes, wines taste differently, just as Coke is different from Pepsi. Wine may even have a slightly different taste based on the shape of the glass...but probably less so than a Cola from a can or a glass or a plastic bottle poured into the same cup. It seems that world class experts base their judgment on wines based on random things such as *the time of day* and [*what they're led to believe about the wine*](_URL_2_) more so than the actual taste.\n\nMy opinion? Hoity toity people like to pretend there is a difference between glasses because it makes them seem more refined and cultured than the rest of us plebians (including the scientists and doctors among us of which I am both).\n\nScience suggests otherwise."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[],
[
"http://io9.gizmodo.com/wine-tasting-is-bullshit-heres-why-496098276",
"https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2013/jun/23/wine-tasting-junk-science-analysis",
"http://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2011/10/you-are-not-so-smart-why-we-cant-tell-good-wine-from-bad/247240/"
]
] |
|
3i2izy
|
why do some developed nations (uk, france, germany, etc) have large populations of migrants, but other developed nations (e.g. japan) have very little?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3i2izy/eli5_why_do_some_developed_nations_uk_france/
|
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"Doesn't Japan have stricter laws about immigration and naturalization?\n\nI would be surprised if there wasn't an illegal underground market for undocumented workers, however, like in Qatar, or UAE, or Saudi Arabia, you are treated like dirt and expelled after your work visa expires.",
"I'm no expert but I think in Japan's case it's a remnant of their isolationist policies. For hundreds of years they actively resisted globalisation and immigration/international trade (until the Americans rocked up in battleships and forced them to open up).\n\nThis has shaped their culture into one that's very exclusive and wary of foreigners - expats who've lived in Japan for years, speak the language, and even married Japanese people have claimed they still feel like outsiders.\n\nEurope, on the other hand, was the pre-American \"land of opportunity\", especially after decolonisation of Africa and Asia. As such, they already sort of established themselves as immigrant destinations and multicultural hubs. They were, and arguably still are, the \"centre of the world\", so it makes sense that everyone would want to move there if their own countries have issues - especially where colonialism has left some cultural similarities (Algerians and France, Indians and the UK, Indonesians and Holland for example).",
"Most Japanese don't like the idea of large populations of non-Japanese living in their country, so they have made it extremely hard for them to get in legally. In addition to being an Island, Japan is also rather far away from the places most refugees tend to come from these days (i.e. Africa and the Middle East), making it exceptionally hard for illegals to reach.\n\nWith Japanese birth rates being as low as they are (second lowest in the world), the country is facing serious labor shortages in key industries, as well as a collapse of the pension system. According to the UN, Japan would have to admit 17 million immigrants by 2050 in order to maintain its current population size and working-age population.\n\nI think I read somewhere that they only admitted around a million immigrants over the last 20 years, so something will have to change. They have three choices, really: make more babies, increase immigration, or face a slow, gradual death.\n\n",
"Migrants choose countries in which they can easily get by on themselves: same language or easy to learn, have a history of legal immigration which means there is already a population from their country there and therefore similar culture. France, UK, Italy...\nOr countries that have large immigration programs to accept migrants and help them settle down. Sweden and whatnot.\n\n I don't really know where Germany would fall.\n\nJapan has neither and is quite far from countries with emigrants (Europe is much closer to Africa and the Middle East).\n",
"Japan has been for a long time very xenophobic. It's getting better with the younger generation, but the younger generation is pretty small and Japan is a very old country going by mean age. Most Japanese people alive today grew up when their parents were calling Koreans and Chinese people dogs and had never seen a single white person during their formative years. On top of that, Japanese is a very hard language for non native speakers, full of intricacies and complex standards for social interaction, just like their culture so it's very difficult for a foreigner trying to integrate and they can come across as offensive very easily.",
"I always thought it was because all the war torn countries these people are fleeing from are within sailing distance of Europe.\n\nNaturally they end up in Greece, Macedonia etc but as these countries don't have the 'great things' promised to them, the migrants... Migrate to wealthier countries ie the UK, France, Italy, Germany etc!\n\nProbably wrong but that was my reasoning!",
"I lived in Japan for ten years. Japan isn't interested in bringing in foreigners. It has brought in some from South East Asia for critical roles, such as nurses, and prostitutes, but mostly it doesn't want people to stay. It's difficult to immigrate there. To get a working visa you need a company sponsor, and the company needs to demonstrate why a foreigner is required for the position, and why a Japanese person can't perform that role. \n\nEven for a spouse visa, if you're married to a Japanese person, you need a sponsor for your residency permit - somebody has to be your guarantor, and they're responsible for you if you break any laws or cause any damage etc. You also need a Japanese sponsor to rent an apartment. And if you have kids, it's kind of awkward because when a child is born, they're added to a family registry, and of course foreigners don't have a family registry, so the child is added to the Japanese side with the foreign parent's name, but it sort of breaks the family registry thing. \n\nEvery industrialized nation would lose population if it weren't for immigration. It's the only reason that industrialized nations are gaining population. Japan is the exception, and is starting to see a reduction in its census numbers. Last year Japan's population shrunk by 250,000 people, and the year before by about 100,000. The trend will continue, and it may be the only industrialized nation that's seeing a drop in population. ",
"Because Japan has a strict immigration policy. Unskilled people can't come and work there, you need to be skilled and know what you are doing. \n\nAll countries should do this.",
"The UK has horrible immigration rules, a lot of Americans really struggle and the reason why it has problems is because of the EU. It maybe the same for France and Germany too, I'm not sure. \n\nThe EU rules override the UK rules and its a main talking point. \n\nBeing a brit, I don't see any issue with immigration, as long as the books are balanced, the tax is paid and the strain on the NHS is less severe than currently. \n\n",
"I haven't seen it mentioned in the top comments but UK, France and Germany are all part of the European Union. This makes immigration a lot easier as people can enter through Eastern Europe and then have more or less unrestricted passage to western Europe where there are good job opportunities, benefits and healthcare. This means that even when we want to exclude foreigners (see: Nigel Farage), we don't have as much power to enforce it. And thats just counting the legal immigrants. \n\nSource: I'm a Londoner but both my parents are migrants who came to England on work visas. Also, a quick google of \"European union Schengen agreement.\"",
"I actually wrote a letter to the UNHCR about 15 years ago about this and was told countries with predominantly European (white) ancestry including Australia, New Zealand, US, Canada were considered resettlement countries while Japan was not due to its desire to retain cultural integrity.\n\nI took that to mean Western cultural integrity was not important, and found the UNHCR to be racist. With Japan losing population, there's no excuse for them to not do their share.",
"The UK and France had colonies (India, Africa, Middle East), and their migrant population is mostly from those ex-colonies. What makes this easier is also that people from the colonies speak the language (Algerians speak French, Indians speak English, for example).\n\nThe UK invaded those countries in the past and had to make up for it later by allowing people who had their countries ruined to come and live in the UK. This is not the whole story, but it plays an important role in why people from specific countries ended up in other specific countries and not others within Europe.\n\nA friend of mine applied for UK nationality and she had to learn the history of all this, and this is what I remember her telling me.",
"Because some nations like Japan care about preserving their cultural integrity. Others like Sweden don't and are glad to become.minorities in their own cou tries.",
"You say \"other developed nations (e.g. Japan) have very little\" but Japan is pretty much the only developed nation that doesn't have substantial immigration, so perhaps your 'e.g.' should be 'i.e.'. \n\nNote that Japan is currently enduring it's worst ever recession that has currently lasted over 20 years and has experienced much less growth than other OECD nations. Maybe if they allowed more migration they would be doing better.",
"_URL_1_\n\nHave a look at a sorted list by the rightmost column (population density for arable land). \n\nSouth Korea, Taiwan and Japan stand out has having vastly more population density per arable land than essentially any other big country, and the other big (ish) dense places that aren't city states - UAE, Peurto Rico, Kuwait, and Oman all have their own somewhat obvious circumstances. \n\nJapan faced a serious crisis with a population that tripled in a century - and that happened in about the 1940's. \n\nSince Japan started rapid development (in the 1870s) they haven't really had space. 1870 Japan had a population of about 45 million (_URL_0_), putting it about on par in terms of density with the United Kingdom... of 2015. \n\nJapan has also has a policy of not really counting citizens as anything other than Japanese. If you have Japanese citizenship you are considered Japanese ethnically - which basically undermines the question of 'immigrants in Japan' because if they accepted immigrants at some point in the semi distant past (say prior to 1900) you wouldn't really know.\n\nThe UK and France particularly also had empires, and London has historically been one of the most multicultural places in the world. The best and brightest from all over the empire basically. \n\nGermany had a fairly short lived empire (with african and pacific colonies and friendly states in south american), but their story is completely different. After WW2 they had massive internal migration from the former germany to the new modern german borders - which for a while was enough people for anyone to handle. Then all those people led to a massive economic expansion, and they needed workers. So they started getting them. And once you start getting workers, it basically becomes self fulfilling. A company says 'we need 10 000 workers, and there are only 8000 germans so we need 2000 immigrants'. 10 years later they say 'we need another 10 000 workers' and the 2000 immigrants worked out ok last time, so 7000 germans, 3000 immigrants (or whatever the numbers are). \n\nJapan feels (possibly rightly) that the country should have less people. The UK and Germany feel like they should at least stay roughly the same size or just grow slowly and moderately. Different outlooks for different countries. \n\nThat's all ignoring the effects of the EU - which creates a single open labour market in Europe, allowing Germany and the UK to attract the best talent from within europe. \n"
]
}
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[
[],
[],
[],
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[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
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"http://www.populstat.info/Asia/japanc.htm",
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_real_population_density_based_on_food_growing_capacity"
]
] |
||
aiojqe
|
why do companies need to make more every year?
|
Why is it that big companies feel the need to make more money every year? Isn't there a point where it becomes impossible to grow from last year?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/aiojqe/eli5_why_do_companies_need_to_make_more_every_year/
|
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"text": [
"Hopefully a company is making a profit from its efforts which it can either distribute as dividends or reinvest in itself. Often the idea of reinvestment is desirable both for tax reasons (growth in value of assets being taxed later and less than direct dividends) and because doing otherwise would imply the company isn't a good investment.",
"Big companies are often owned by a bunch of folks who demand that their investment be repaid at a high rate of return every year. They were also promised to make increasingly higher returns every year by the big company who took their money. If the big company doesn’t make more money for the investors, the investors then can ask for their money back and invest it somewhere else where a better increased return is again promised. That big company will then lose money by giving it back, and other investors will be scared that they, too, will lose their money and now everyone will want their money back and that will bring down the big company as it won’t have enough money to return to them after paying the employees and cost of doing business.\n\nThat is why big companies need to keep making more money every quarter i mean every year. ",
"Companies are competing with each other for investment dollars, which they need in order to continue existing. Investors, like any consumer, are largely motivated by the best return on their investment, i.e., the company that can given them the most in return for their investment. People who buy stock in companies get to choose what stock they buy. The larger the return a company can offer for that investment, the more attractive the investment becomes. Making money (profit) allows the company to return some money back to the investors in the form of dividends, or, to increase their stock price by making new, more, or better products. An increased stock price is also a return on investment, because the original shares can now be sold for more money.",
"Some companies need to constantly grow so they are protected against unexpected losses. For example, the company I work for is a healthcare ad agency, and they constantly try to win more business because they might lose existing business at any time for a variety of reasons ranging from the client wanted to use a different agency to a drug was found unsafe and can't be sold anymore.\n\nEven a company that is perfectly balanced and never gains or loses business still needs to make a little more each year just to keep up with inflation."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[],
[],
[]
] |
|
2xmnmf
|
how come a lot of styles 50 or so years ago dated very well, yet a lot of styles from only 20 or 30 years ago seem to have aged horribly?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2xmnmf/eli5_how_come_a_lot_of_styles_50_or_so_years_ago/
|
{
"a_id": [
"cp1geih"
],
"score": [
6
],
"text": [
"Actually, that seems to be the standard cycle. From my experience.\n\nIn the 70s retro-style/fashion from the 30s was \"in\".\nToday, it's from the 60s. \n\nIn the 70s and 80s, 60s style/fashion just looked ridiculous.\n\nGive it 20 or 30 years, and we'll be reliving the 90s. Get your flannel shirts ready!"
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[]
] |
||
fs1dih
|
why can’t you tame any animal? what does an animal need to have to be tamed?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/fs1dih/eli5_why_cant_you_tame_any_animal_what_does_an/
|
{
"a_id": [
"flz3xc4",
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],
"score": [
2,
2,
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"text": [
"You can tame just about anything. There are people who tame Tigers... but it really doesn't serve much of a purpose beyond \"wow that's cool.\" And beyond not serving a purpose, it might accidently get you killed. So you generally don't see random animals getting tamed too often.\n\nHowever I suspect your more interested in domestication: farm animal types that have been specifically bred to be useful for humans.\n\nAnd for that, there's a pretty simple [checklist put together by CGP Grey.](_URL_0_)\n\n - Friendly: won't try to murder you.\n - Feedable: doesn't compete for your food (i.e. herbivores or non-picky omnivores)\n - Fecund: short reproductive cycles with many offspring (i.e. no pandas)\n - Family structure: If you own the alpha, you own the back.\n\nThese features allow for humans to capture entire packs (or at least large sections of a pack) and selectively breed the animal to change it so that it's better for us. Fluffier sheep, beefier cows, breastier chickens, bristly boars to pink pigs, etc. This was especially important back in cave-man days. And by the time we advanced to present days, domesticated animals were already domecticated.\n\nSure, we could probably domesticate elephants now, if we really wanted to... but it wouldn't give us any advantage over already-domesticated animals, and the cows have a couple-thousand-year head start.",
"I heard somewhere that all dogs can be tamed, but ones that have been truly domesticated have changed their genes and cause their ears to go floppy. Ones that are not domesticated and have stiff ears will revert to their natural tendencies of left unattended too long.",
"You could, theoretically \"tame\" any animal, given enough patience and time. It is simply a matter of breeding the animal for the desired characteristics.\n\nThe difficulty, then, comes from how easy it is to manage the animal in order to breed it, and the degree to which it already possesses the desired characteristics.\n\nFor many animals, these difficulties don't mean it is *impossible* to tame the animal, just that it isn't worth the effort."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[
"https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=wOmjnioNulo"
],
[],
[]
] |
||
262oer
|
why does the "mind palace" method of remembering things work?
|
As I understand it, it creates connections between neurons in your brain, thus making it easier for you remember certain things later on when you need to. However, I have trouble wrapping my head around core concept of just what it is to build a mind palace and use it effectively.
EDIT: Thank you to those who answered! I understand now! Mind blown and whatnot.
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/262oer/eli5_why_does_the_mind_palace_method_of/
|
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],
"text": [
"It gives method to madness.",
"Humans' spatial memory (their ability to remember the arrangement of objects in space) is better than other forms of memory. A mind palace is a sequence of memories - symbols representing memories - arranged on a familliar path. \n\nAs for using it effectively, the key (for me) is visualization and later reinforcement. Visualization includes imagining not just the look of a symbol, but the sounds its makes, its texture, etc. And unless you're in some memory contest, make sure to linger on that image maybe longer than you feel is necessary. \n\nThen make sure to revisit it later on if you don't want to forget it (the memory might seem stuck in your mind for good, but after a few months, unless you use the information enough times, it will fade).",
"Here is how I learned it. Say you wanted to remember a class schedule. (Judt to be simple.) Now picture the front door of your house. Picture a small chalkboard sign hanging on the door with numbers on it. Next walk into the house and you see a dog playing with a tennis ball. Now walk into your kitchen to see dinner cooking. Then to the table where you see Gearge Washington playing cards with Putin.....\n\nNow if you rewalk through your house again from the beginning you can easily see that you first have math, then PE, lunch and finally history. Make sense?\n\nThat was really basic but you can imagine all sorts of things in different rooms in your house and remember very complicated things easily.",
"To expand this question a little: there are essentially two tricks that professional mnemonists use, usually in tandem, and they work in slightly different ways. \n\nThe first trick involves advance preparation. Say you have to memorize a lot of digits. You will have already prepared in advance a set of people that correspond to each two digit number (e.g. 42 = Rihanna). You'll do the same thing with verbs (12 = dancing), and objects (91 = water balloon). Then, when you hear the 6-digit string 421291, you'll imagine Rihanna dancing on a pile of water balloons. This is basically a lossless data compression technique--you're converting six data points into a single data point, from which the original six can be easily retrieved.\n\nThe second trick is the one you're referring to, the mind-palace. This is about facilitating recall by activating one of the most developed and oldest skills human beings have--visual navigation in familiar environments. Numeric reasoning is a pretty new achievement on the biological scale, so we really suck at remembering numbers. At the other end of the spectrum, humans are very good at the kinds of recall that helped our ancestors get laid or find food (facial recognition and spatial memory). The mind-palace is about translating data our ancestors would have ignored into data our ancestors would have found useful.\n\nSemi-related other point: storing data spatially is useful in a lot of other applications where human usability is important. Maps are much more useful than lists of directions. Trees make for more intelligible code than long, nested if/else statements."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[],
[],
[]
] |
|
4mqonp
|
is there a finite amount of potable water? if so, what terms would completely deplete it? can the finite amount be used to make more?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4mqonp/eli5_is_there_a_finite_amount_of_potable_water_if/
|
{
"a_id": [
"d3xk3zz"
],
"score": [
2
],
"text": [
"There is a finite amount of water. Saltwater can be treated to make potable water but it's still limited. We couldn't make more unless we utilized chemical reactions like hydrogen peroxide, etc. "
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[]
] |
||
brsbs7
|
what is a 'narrative' when it comes to claims about reality?
|
I have been hearing the word narrative thrown around a lot in the news and in counter-news articles.
umm, reality isn't a storybook - so what does this even mean?
Note: I did a quick search about narrative first and found only [one relevant eli5](_URL_0_), but I don't understand it... so if we're actually talking about the same thing then I need an ELI5 on their ELI5
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/brsbs7/eli5_what_is_a_narrative_when_it_comes_to_claims/
|
{
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],
"score": [
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2,
2,
5
],
"text": [
"So I think there is a confusion of terms here (or conflation is probably more accurate).\n\nWhen it comes to facts (ie gravity pulls objects with mass toward each other) there isn’t such a thing.\n\nHowever political issues, say abortion, has some gray area as far as when a life is a life, people cherry pick what information they use to support their arguments thus supporting their belief in their narrative.\n\nBasically the same idea as a documentary. They clearly interviewed real people and found actual documents, but which parts of the interview they use and which parts of the document they put on the black screen between scenes is used to support whatever narrative the film is putting out there",
"Everything is framing.\n\nUnderstanding reality in a complete and holistic manner is literally impossible. If it weren't, we'd be able to predict the future. There are too many variables and strands. \n\nSo framings are used that lend weight to certain movements to explain the \"why\" of an event.\n\nEven if you think an objective reality exists, your understanding of it is necessarily and subconsciously given coloration by your own life and experience. You will pay attention to the events that most impact you and mostly ignore the rest.\n\nLook at how historical events seem to change in 'meaning' when reframed. The American Civil War, for example, can go from \"a righteous fight by the North to end slavery\" to \"a fight to protect the South from the North\" to \"a really complicated quagmire but the South was definitely the most wrong\". That's all narrative difference. \n\nNow postmodernism seeks to reject grand narratives, which you seem to at least consciously do. Metanarratives state that the entirety of the world is governed by a narrative; that there is an essential struggle or human nature towards an end.\n\nNarratives are also linked to societal legitimacy. \"The rich are rich because they deserve it because they work hard\" is a narrative. Another is \"the rich are rich because they exploit the working class.\"\n\nThere's still a lot to explain past that but hopefully that's not a bad primer.",
"There are, in any given story, literally infinite facts that you can focus on, but only finite time to talk about them. So for a story about a shooting, do you talk about the shooter's religion, or his political views, or his mental health, or the color of his hair, or the temperature that day, or anything else? \n\nNews organizations have to make a choice on what to focus on. There's only one front page, and a headline can only be a few words long. So, as an editor, do you make the headline \"White man shoots 10 black people\" or \"atheist shoots 10 church goers\"? \"Mentally disturbed man goes on rampage\" or \"Gun enthusiast goes on rampage\"? \n\nThe facts you focus on determine your narrative. Was this the story of an evil white man brutally murdering 10 innocent black people? Or was this the story of a mentally disturbed kid who acted out in the worst possible way? And the narrative of this story generally fits into a larger narrative about the world. \n\nSome news outlets try very hard to minimize the narrative they present, but it's impossible to completely avoid. Other news outlets try really hard to present a certain narrative, which you might not even notice if you're in their bubble.",
"It's the interpretation or \"spin\" you put on a story or a situation. Choosing which facts to include in the story and which to leave out, choosing how to describe people or their actions, and choosing whose perspective to take, are all part of turning a factual account into a narrative.\n\nThe term is usually used in discussing politics. But you are also \"controlling the narrative\" or \"serving the narrative\" whenever you use stories to persuade people or get them on your side about something. \n\nYour resume is a narrative about your career and skills - you're going to include jobs and accomplishments that make you look good, and leave off or minimize ones that make you look bad.\n\nYou can even see people framing a narrative in subs like AITA - the first version of a story usually makes the teller look really sympathetic and the other person look bad. If more details come out in discussion, the situation can look different."
]
}
|
[] |
[
"https://redd.it/b8utov"
] |
[
[],
[],
[],
[]
] |
|
2zan13
|
since the majority of office-workers use visually-rudimentary applications (spreadsheets, word processors, etc.), why don't computer manufacturers develop kindle-like eink desktop monitors in order to reduce eyestrain?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2zan13/eli5_since_the_majority_of_officeworkers_use/
|
{
"a_id": [
"cph5kyd",
"cph6evw"
],
"score": [
8,
3
],
"text": [
"eInk doesn't have a particularly good refresh rate and loses significant amounts of resolution if you want color (and very limited color depth at that).\n\nHowever, from an employer standpoint, the real value would be the dramatic drop in power consumption such a changeover would entail.",
"Because of market factors and lack of flexibility.\n\nLet's suppose you took your idea to the next level and designed one and took it to market. Those first few monitors are going to be expensive because their is not enough mass production in place to drive costs down. There's no volume in them yet and it needs people to go \"Hey this is a good idea\" and buy them to the point where production becomes commercially viable. If nobody buys your products its going to go away. This has happened with things such as HD-DVD, Betamax and millions of other products that never quite made it because they didn't achieve the market mass required.\n\nThe reason these e-ink screens might not achieve such a mass is because they are very limited in use. E-Ink screens are very, very slow to refresh. Fine for reading a book but it makes them pretty awful for text entry and so on as most people will testify to when trying to do a search on their Kindle. Plus entering text completely eliminates one of their advantages which is low power consumption. Every time the screen gets updated with a new character the screen has to be refreshed which uses power. Admittedly it is less than a normal monitor but its still power use all the same (And it looks awful at an average typing speed). Finally, a normal screen is just so much more flexible in the range of things it can do. If it was suddenly decided that everyone in the office needed to use a new app that had graphical features, you would be pretty stuffed with an e-ink screen whereas with a normal screen you could just crack on.\n\nE-Ink has it's places, but until the technology advances from how it currently works, its in devices that rarely update their screens such as phones, e-book readers and device status displays."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[]
] |
||
b61d81
|
what are the most harmful things we're doing to our planet
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/b61d81/eli5_what_are_the_most_harmful_things_were_doing/
|
{
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"ejhbvkt",
"ejhbx6l",
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"score": [
2,
2,
3,
2
],
"text": [
"Extracting carbon from the ground, converting it to CO2, and changing the chemical makeup of our atmosphere. \n\nOtherwise known as burning fossil fuels. ",
"Electing or allowing leaders to run the planet who have no concern for the global well-being but only their own short-term gain. ",
"Religion is the most harmful thing to this planet.\n\nIt's built-in that not only can you not get abortions if you accidentally get pregnant, but hey, you should be having as many children as possible to *spread* the religion. That was all fine and good 2000 odd years ago when the world was still reaching capacity, but the exhortation doesn't hold water anymore.\n\nPeople that have 6 or 8 or 12 kids should be flogged for acting so self-important. The planet can't handle that kind of selfish behavior anymore.\n\nEvery one of those kids increases our carbon footprint, and it's *super* great to develop and implement solutions to help reduce our carbon footprint, but the bigger issue by far is how many humans we have *making footprints*.",
"Trashing the oceans. Overfishing, dumping waste, plastic garbage patches and microplastics, underwater noise pollution. Most other human activities that negatively affect land and air are being addressed, with some success. Ocean health is still the wild, wild west. "
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[],
[],
[]
] |
||
6qvqet
|
how does salt dry or dehydrate things?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/6qvqet/eli5how_does_salt_dry_or_dehydrate_things/
|
{
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"dl0b5hc",
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3,
2,
4
],
"text": [
"any substance which is capable to absorbing water dehydrates\n\nbtw: sugar would also dehydrate things, think of dried sugared fruits!",
"When you place an ice cube in a glass of water, the ice cube will melt and the water will cool down until the system reaches a stable, homogeneous temperature. This is called \"thermal equilibrium\". But it's not the only type of equilibrium there is.\n\nIf you place a spoonful of salt in the bottom of a glass and add water, the salt will disolve until the system reaches a stable homogeneous concentration (or level of \"salinity\").\n\nIf you put salt in contact with something that has water in it, water will flow *out of the ham leg* and towards the salt to decrease the \"salt\" concentration in that spot. You can't have a lot of salt and a lot of water next to it and expect them not to mix. They are not in equilibrium. \n\nSame happens if you add sugar to your strawberries, the water inside the strawberries will flow towards the sugar to reduce the concentration \"outside\" and have a homogeneous sweet-water concentration everywhere.\n\nThat's also the reason why you shouldn't drink sea water. Your cells release their own water in order to reach an equilibrium with the extremely salty water you are drinking.\n\nCheck this [link](_URL_0_)",
"The effect of salt drying things is called osmosis. Just think about the pure salt as a solution, but there is no water inside. The basic principle is, that water always wants to dissolve and dilute compunds like salt or sugar. If you now put salt on a piece of meat, the water thinks \"Oh hey, the concentration of salt on the outside is much higher than in here. I have to get out there to try an delute it to obtain an uniform concentration of dissolved salt.\"",
"As stated, it is because it has the ability to absorb water. [Osmosis](_URL_0_) is the name of the mechanism for it.\n\nBasically, the difference in the concentration of substances on one side of a barrier to another, like your skin separating your inner membranes and tissues from the outside, causes a shift in chemical equilibrium. Because the salts and solids can't flow free through a membrane, water will transfer through the membrane to try and reach an equilibrium from what is called osmotic pressure.\n\nPoint is, putting a lot of salt on the outer surface of something like an orange slice, it causes water to be pulled from inside the slice, to try and achieve equal levels of moisture. That's a lot of how and why salt was used as a preservative."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Osmosis"
],
[],
[
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Osmosis"
]
] |
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