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3b2pxs | what are the core beliefs (religious or otherwise) held by isis? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3b2pxs/eli5what_are_the_core_beliefs_religious_or/ | {
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"Step 1: Pretend you are living in the 7th or 8th century on the Arabian Peninsula.\n\nStep 2: Read the Quran and the haddiths in that mindset but don't read any parts of Islam borrowed from any other society in the past 1400 years (e.g. Greek and Persian ideas).\n\nStep 3: Put those ideas into practice but also ignore them when being more brutal and sensationalist than even the strictest reading of the Quran should allow would be more pragmatic and help get recruits. \n\n"
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1ttf69 | the main points on why the nsa "spying" on citizens is bad | When I google, I just see things like "Why did it get so bad" and "Snowden leak bad for US business", but no one actually telling why it is bad.
What is the reason that I should be worried? Perhaps a link to somewhere, if you know a page that explains it well. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1ttf69/eli5_the_main_points_on_why_the_nsa_spying_on/ | {
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"In a democratic government, a necessary part of the machine is that the People are aware of what the Government is doing, and can weigh in and make changes where necessary.\n\nWhat the NSA and potentially other intelligence agencies were doing was conducting surveillance while retaining a level of secrecy that made it very difficult for the People to know what was going on. And if the People don't know how it works, there is no way for the People to ensure its being used properly.\n\nThis raises an issue that Snowden brought to the spotlight - its one thing when surveillance is carried out and you know that its happening. Its another thing entirely when the surveillance is carried out such that its happening under the radar and without any real oversight that would normally step in to make sure constitutional rights aren't being violated.\n\nMost of the 'main points' on the spying are going to revolve around the NSA surveillance program being action on part of the Government to cut the People out of the loop and do what they feel is necessary without submitting to public oversight. And if they have been doing this for one program, there is no way its only happening in one area - chances are the NSA controversy is riding heavily on a growing distrust of how the Government is operating in absence of proper public oversight.",
"The main reason you should be worried is that the potential for abuse is huge. The NSA as it is right now is a little known organization with very little oversight and even less transparency. It's practically a stranger compared to other government departments.\n\nThe FBI tells us how many people it incarcerates each year, for what, and for what purposes. It follows the constitution, miranda rights, regularly PROVES that it follows these things, and is subject to pressures from congress. It's also supposed to be stopping many things that can be akin to terrorism.\n\nThe NSA will not even tell us how many terrorist threats it has thwarted, or how many it has detected, or how many it has failed to stop. It follows the constitution... for Americans only, and is overseen by a secret court no one is allowed to view or speak about. What this amounts to is \"we follow the American Constitution and we aren't breaking any rules, Scouts Honor\". Now they have access to everyone's history for the past few months, texts, facebook, games, EVERYTHING in a format that they can search on a whim at their leisure.\n\nAll you have is Scout's Honor keeping an NSA employee from using the search engine to check out that girl in the Yoga class on the way to work. Discovering she's single, and she's into jazz and frequents the bar downtown, and tailoring himself to be the perfect man in her eyes so he can get with that. Scout's Honor is all that's preventing an NSA employee from finding out that the math teacher in his son's catholic school is gay and threatening to out him to his peers if his son doesn't pass that midterm. Scout's Honor is all that's keeping the NSA from discovering your local senator is cheating on his wife, it'd be a shame if it got out, but we wouldn't out you if you stopped talking about all this NSA stuff.\n\nIs this happening? We have absolutely no idea. All we know is that they have the data to pull it off, stored in a location to look at in their leisure, and most of them probably aren't Boy Scouts.",
"Say you visit a lot of anti-government sites. Say a bastard is elected President and wants to hurt people who are anti-government.\n\nThere you go. ",
"This whole post is most likely designed to create confusion. Looking at the replies so far, if that isn't the intent then a good job is being done of it. The question of why the government secretly spying on its own citizens is \"bad\" is an evasive question because the answer is self evident *as long as you understand that the government is open to corruption and fascist tendencies*. If you don't understand that and believe that the government is beneficent, infallible and sort of like a kind loving parent then you cannot be convinced that the US regime spying in blanket fashion across as much as they can process and then some is inherently *dangerous*. That's the answer. Its simple. Them doing that is simply *dangerous*. See China.",
"Your privacy from the government is more valuable than you think. While you may not be engaged in any illegal activity, there are probably a lot of things you would just assume keep out of the public eye. Think about everyone you know being able to see your emails, hear your phone conversations, see what you're looking at on the internet, etc. Now, imagine you cut someone off in traffic and that guy works for the NSA and has your license plate number. That guy now has unfettered access to the most intimate details of your digital life and decides he wants to cause you some pain. He lets your boss know you've been looking at other jobs. He lets your significant other know that you still keep in touch with your ex. He lets your parents know what kind of porn you like to look at on the internet. He lets your co-workers know about that racist joke email you sent someone years ago. Nothing you've done is illegal, but by exposing your secrets, this guy can really mess up your life.\n\nNow imagine that some of your activities aren't that legal. You've illegally downloaded some songs. The GPS in your phone has tracked that you regularly speed on the roads. Maybe you've defrauded your employer by wasting time on the internet at work. Maybe you didn't pay your local sales tax on something you bought online. There are so many laws and regulations that you're bound to break a few here and there without even realizing you're doing it. Now, imagine someone were determined to prosecute you for every single law you break. They're not prosecuting everyone, just you. Imagine how much that could mess up your life.\n\nThe NSA has all of this information, and an individual inside the organization could do serious harm to you if they use the information maliciously. Even if they come back later and find that the person acted inappropriately, the damage is done. There was nothing in place to safeguard you from a rogue actor within the agency. Maybe they're not even a rogue actor. Suppose you decide to run for office against an incumbent who is friendly with the agency. Maybe your intimate details get leaked and you lose the election. Maybe you're already a member of congress considering funding cuts to the NSA, and they quietly let you know about everything they have on you that could be leaked if you cut their funding.\n\nAll of this is possible because of the wealth of information they have on every single individual in the US. If you believe that every single person who works within the NSA and the wider government is a good person who would never abuse their power or position to keep their jobs safe or destroy the lives of someone they dislike, then I can see why you wouldn't have an issue with this program. I'm not quite so trusting.\n\nThe only real protection against these abuses is to halt the collection of these massive amounts of data. Everything they have, everything they need, could be accessed if they had a genuine need simply by convincing a court that they have probable cause that someone has committed a crime and obtaining a search warrant. Your digital life is no different than your home. Just as they have no right to observe you in your home, waiting for you to do something illegal, they have no right to collect all of this information on you with the justification that you might be a terrorist.",
"This is good material for beginners. If you don't understand the insidiousness of this and many other things going on here these days, you'll just be like one of the commenters on this thread that thinks it's about porn, etc. This involved your basic freedoms, bla bla boiling frogs, bla bla slippery slope.. Take the time to read this fairly short explanation of the overall condition of things below.. _URL_0_",
"It's not bad. It is dangerous. Guns aren't bad, they're dangerous. Allowing the government to collect masses of information about its citizens is inherently dangerous because that data could be mis-used in many different ways.\n\nOn the other hand, what the NSA does is not even close to the biggest data collection program the government runs on its citizens. That would be the personal income tax reporting system used by the IRS. We've had tax returns for nearly a century, and have worked out laws and procedures to keep most of the obvious abusive uses of that data limited and exceptional. We will do the same with the NSA's programs. However, that is like putting safeties on guns and teaching safe gun practices. It doesn't make the gun less dangerous, it just reduces the chances of an accident. Someone could still use the gun to commit murder. And the government could still use the information it collects to suppress liberties.",
"A lot of people talk about *the potential* for the NSA spying to *become bad* but that is a disservice to your question. The reality is that the jurisprudence behind all of this is quite long and complicated, but the very core of the problem is very simple: whenever the government (or its agent) wishes to search you, your home/business, or your property (effects) it has to provide the process which is due to you in that circumstance (due process). \n\nNow \"Due Process\" is one of the largest and most convoluted areas of law with tons of very deep niches and does not lend itself well to an ELI5; however, in almost all circumstances, due process in criminal matters requires a pre-deprivation review by the judiciary (judicial due process) as a check on legislative and executive power. This means a judge reviews the accusations, the evidence the government has, and then issues or declines a warrant. \n\n___Now we come to the problem and why the NSA spying is so bad___. The NSA has the technological ability to spy on any US Citizen, record our movements, record our associations with other people, and has almost zero oversight. The only oversight the NSA has is the FISA Court which is a secret court (records are not publicly available) and the FISA Court is simply a rubber stamp for the NSA. Whenever an executive department has unchecked power, it will abuse it; the NSA has already abused its power by imprisoning reporters and lawyers who are investigating these abuses. \n\nNow, Congress has the power to create inferior Article III courts (don't worry about that distinction) but the FISA court has a record of approving over 99% of all requested warrants (denied 11 out of over 33,000 requests). \n\n**So Congress has essentially gutted Due Process and US Citizens on US Soil are being investigated for crimes which could carry the penalty of death without hearing and without a showing of evidence and without public oversight (because of the National Secrets doctrine).**\n\n----\n\nTL;DR: we're told to trust the government that it can protect us and our privacy (property interest) and that it is not going to misuse the information it gathers; meanwhile it is violating the 4th Amendment and 5th Amendment as a matter of course, has already lied to Congress (in contempt of Congress but they aren't pursuing it), and Congress has recklessly abandoned oversight of the agencies it has created. "
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2eovdb | is there such a thin line between an enjoyable dose and an overdose of heroin as seen in movies? if so, what triggers the sudden reaction of the body when the treshold is reached, and what is the course of events leading to death? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2eovdb/eli5_is_there_such_a_thin_line_between_an/ | {
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"With typical solo use, the line isn't as thin as you'd think from movies. (It's much thinner than for nearly any other drug, though; if you take 10 times your typical dose, you're probably going to die.) The problem is that heroin users can develop a *very* strong tolerance. So if you're a newish user shooting up with long-term addicts, even 2 or 3 times their recreational dose might kill you. There is a reason why, even among people who will try random experimental drugs like it's nothing, heroin and meth are very heavily discouraged.\n\nHeroin overdoses kill you you by stopping your lungs. Roughly, your body overreacts to the drug telling it to shut down pain, and starts shutting down things you need to live."
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9irmi6 | after 10 days of hurricaine florence, why are the rivers continuing to rise and crest bringing new flooding threats? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/9irmi6/eli5_after_10_days_of_hurricaine_florence_why_are/ | {
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"Because during that time, hurricane Florence dropped tons and tons and tons of water on the region and further inland. That water takes time to flow downhill into streams and out to the ocean. As it does so, it combines further downhill in ever greater quantities, rising the level of rivers as it flows to the ocean. ",
"Water can take a while to drain away after falling as rain. Alot will of been absorbed in high ground. Dirt is like a sponge. It is good at holding water but eventually, the water will drain out. \n\nUnfortuanlty it will tend to flow out of the ground at it's lowest point. \nThis can allow area's where it didn't rain to get the worst flooding. \n\nRivers also need to flow. Floods can block rivers with debris (be it mud, vegatiation, cars etc. and this can cause floods to build up upstream. Tides will also affect river flow and chance of flooding as at high tide the difference between the levels are lower slowing the flow \n"
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6odo4n | why do movie studios disclose everything about their movies' budgets and revenue but game studios don't do the same for their games? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/6odo4n/eli5_why_do_movie_studios_disclose_everything/ | {
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"Movie studios generally don't disclose everything about their budgets. The stuff you see is just a publicly releasable number regarding an approximation of the production cost of the movie. Thats just one aspect of the overall process, and its a fundamental part of the movie processes, so its often a pretty well known number, its not secret.\n\nNow, the rest of the money involved in making the movie, marketing it, distributing it, paying people out, all of that... well, you *never* see that publicly, ever. \n\nGame studios are unrelated. Movies are unique beasts. Asking why a game studio doesn't do this is like why asking the grocery store how much it costs to sell you milk."
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34cgio | why kenyans and ethiopians are the absolute masters of marathons / long-distance running? what makes these two countries produce so many male and female world-class winners? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/34cgio/eli5_why_kenyans_and_ethiopians_are_the_absolute/ | {
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"First, every top comment talks about Kenyan distance runners. None of them talk about the Ethiopians, who are just as fast in many events, if not faster. Ethiopians hold or have held many world records (5k, 10k, Marathon, and other assorted distances) and have won many olympic and world champs medals. The Kalenjin tribe certainly has a great deal of depth in its distance running, but by no means does it hold a monopoly when it comes to the top level of the sport.\n\nTherefore, I would like to propose some alternative explanations: Climate, poverty (and related cultural outcomes), and peace. \n\nClimate: Kenya and Ethiopia have some of the best running conditions in the world as far as training goes. It doesn't get too cold, there is moderate altitude, plenty of trails and dirt roads to run on, and so on. \n\nPoverty: People see running as a viable profession in these countries. The cost of living is very low, and there aren't many other opportunities for gaining wealth there. They can run and rest all day without working at Home Depot. People eat very simple foods prepared from basic ingredients and do not consume very much protein, which allows them to stay very skinny and exercise without gaining too much bulk. Running is a cheap and simple non-contact sport and their best athletes are not distracted by basketball/baseball/football or the pursuit of \"well-roundedness\". \n\nPeace: Kenya and Ethiopia have not seen as much conflict as many of their neighbors. Other east African countries like Eritrea, Somalia, and Uganda have had some very fast runners, but I wonder if the lack of societal stability in those countries has made it more difficult for a distance running culture to develop in those places.\n\nOverall, I think there are many places in east Africa conducive to distance running, and I think cultural factors play an important role in its popularity.",
"Altitude and culture. The altitude makes their lungs more efficient and the culture of running is kinda like basketball in the inner city. A way out. ",
"Due to the warm climate, evolution has given those who live in this area an advantage in running. Long, thin legs.\nWhen I lived in Colorado, my next door neighbors were marathon runners by profession, and they were from Kenya. \nI asked them why do this instead of something else?\nThe one who spoke passable English said that while they miss their families terribly, this was far more lucrative than working on a farm for someone else. Kenya apparently has few job opportunities, according to my neighbor.\nWhen they came back from the Boston marathon, I asked them how they did. They expressed deep sadness that they placed only 3rd, 4th and 8th, and as a result were probably going to lose their sponsor, Adidas. Apparently the expectation was that they place higher than 3rd. They trained by running around the block in front of my apartment, which measured almost exactly one mile to within a few feet. They were the nicest neighbors I had, and had such a lack of body fat that you could see the joint seams in their skulls. I've never seen more trim and fit humans in my life.",
"They think there's basically two reasons why this is true. First is that Kenyan people have smaller ankles resulting in lighter legs which need less energy to do the same job. Secondly, Kenyan boys go through a horrifying manhood initiation where the goal is to withstand vast amounts of pain without flinching or making a sound. I'm sure there is much more that influences how well they run but these are two interesting points. \n\nSource: _URL_0_\n\nCut and Run Radiolab episode: _URL_1_",
"This article discusses some things that people have mentioned here. It mentions the idea that the kids start young just by being active, it discusses BMI, body height to weight ratio, how much oxygen they can use. It seems that being super skinny and having a certain body height to weight ratio is important. \n \n_URL_0_",
"I listened to a podcast on this subject some months ago. It turns out that most of Kenyan marathon winners hail from a very small region of the country. In this region, the local tribe(s) have for many generations held a ceremonial rite of passage that the boys and girls would have to go through, which entailed a tremendous amount of pain. Basically, you have to show an insanely high pain tolerance to be validated as a member of the tribe and to have children. Do this over many generations, and the hypothesis is that this population of individuals has that x-factor of being able to persevere and endure pain like none other, thus giving them the advantage in high-endurance sports. Most of us who don't train for such sports don't really appreciate the tremendous amount of pain that athletes go through in training, recovery, and pushing forth the envelope in performance. While this is by no means conclusive, since there are physical/biological characteristics that help these runners in a purely logistical sense, one could definitely argue that those characteristics aren't unique to this tribe. Like the other reasons stated by some users here, neither a high-altitude environment nor an ancestry of long-distance runners are unique to this tribe. There are many individuals/marathon runners with long skinny legs, light ankles, and high VO2 max. It seems that the cultural factor is what is absolutely unique to this population that time and time again produces winning marathon runners. It's what sets them apart.\n\n[Here's the link to the particular podcast episode.](_URL_0_) Now that I mention it, Radiolab is an awesome show to subscribe to, lots of very interesting episodes on random facts of history, science, psychology, etc., and presented in a very captivating manner. 10/10",
"OP, you should look up the persistence hunting theory. It's a theory explaining how early humans might have hunted before tools or weapons. This theory leads us to believe that humans evolved to perfect distance running. Perhaps the people in Ethiopia/Kenya never stopped selecting the best runners. While the other parts of the world put less emphasis on it.",
"The Sports Gene: Inside the Science of Extraordinary Athletic Performance By David Epstein \n\nThis book will answer your question in great detail. An absolutely fascinating read. \n \nEdit: Link _URL_0_ ",
"The majority of Kenyan Marathon runners are from the Kalenjin tribe, as someone said previously their trials to manhood are quite punishing, (so pushing through the pain barrier is inbuilt) but this only tells half the story.\nThe Kalenjins apparently have the best body size for the marathon due to thin ankles and calves. (I live in Kenya and Kalenjins are all quite small, under 5'8\") \nThis article explains that if you look at different body sizes at the start of a marathon you can judge the winners by the ratio of ankles calves etc. _URL_0_ \n\"There are 17 American men in history who have run under 2:10 in the marathon,\" Epstein says. \"There were 32 Kalenjin who did it in October of 2011.\"",
"[The favorable performance genotype will occur more frequently in certain populations, predisposing a greater number of individuals from these populations to elite sports performance. Upon exposure to the optimal environment, which arguably exists more in East Africa than elsewhere, this population will achieve disproportionately more performance success.](_URL_0_)\n\nSo they don't necessarily have different genes, just more of the good ones for long distance running than white or asians do! \n\n[Study: Kenyan dominance in distance running.](_URL_3_)\n\n[Article about Danish study](_URL_1_) where they put three random groups(schoolboys) with no athletic training against each other, Danish , Kenyan the Nandi Hills of Kenya and Eldoret(Kenya as well). \n\nHere are the results;\n\nThe boys were given three months of training and then raced over 10,000 meters. The Nandi Hills boys beat not only the Danish runners, but also the boys from Eldoret.\n\n**Two of the Nandi Hills boys then beat one of Denmark's top-ranked distance runners, Thomas Nolan, in a race.**\n\nThis study is not alone in these findings, [read here for more on that!](_URL_2_)",
"I'm late to the party but we just had a lecture on this during grand rounds. While I've seen a lot of answers that say \"genetics\" I haven't seen anyone explain WHY. So, I thought I would help explain.\n\nThere is a concept well known to physiologists called [VO2 max](_URL_1_). It is calculated using cardiac output (heart rate x stroke volume) and oxygen extraction (arterial oxygen content - venous oxygen content) at the cellular level. This number is expressed in ml/kg/min, and is a very concrete number stating how much oxygen your body can deliver and utilize to tissue per kilo per minute. \n\nInterestingly, this VO2 max is obtained from your genetics. You are born with it and even under very intense training can move this only a couple percentage points. Thus, this is the genetic component. Just as a side note, the average for a male is in the upper 40's, most marathon winners are in the upper 70's, and the highest ever measured was in a [Norwegian cyclist](_URL_3_) at 97.5 ml/kg/min\n\nOf note here is that Kenyan's don't have the market cornered here. A high VO2 max is necessary, but not sufficient to be a world class athlete. So, what else is at play?\n\nA second idea is your [lactate threshold](_URL_4_). This is the percent of your VO2 max that you begin producing lactate, which is the byproduct of anaerobic metabolism at the cellular level. Or, the point at which your body can't deliver oxygen fast enough to keep up demand. Building lactate levels causes cramping, fatigue, and ultimately muscle failure if intensity isn't decreased. \n\nThis is the value that you are building when you regularly do aerobic exercise. Your lactate threshold slowly builds, and you are able to increase the duration and intensity of your workout progressively. [This](_URL_2_) is a basic diagram of the concept. \n\nSo that's one piece of the puzzle. Constant training along with a high starting VO2 max makes for an amazing runner. Interestingly, this also explains why men are typically better athletes than women. The VO2 max difference in the sexes is well [documented](_URL_0_). \n\nSo, what else makes Kenyan's better? Well, nobody really knows from what I can tell. But, I guarantee it has something to do with their high genetic VO2 max, and a hard earned lactate threshold that is a very high percentage of that VO2 max.\n\nHope this helped!"
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32mddp | what is the sovereign citizen/freemen on the land movement? what do they believe, and what is the (quasi-)legal basis for their beliefs? why are their beliefs never held up in a court of law? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/32mddp/eli5_what_is_the_sovereign_citizenfreemen_on_the/ | {
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"\"HERE'S A SECRET THAT LAWYERS DON'T WANT YOU TO KNOW!\" is really the core of it. Basically, they think that if they find the right loophole in the law, they can get away with anything they want to. That if you say \"This court holds no power over me!\" that everyone involved would say \"Oh my, you are correct. You don't have to pay that fine and are free to go.\" Instead of... you know, laughing at you and making you pay anyways.",
"The movement believes that statute laws (laws made by the government) are contractual- they can be opted out of, which both leaves you without restrictions but also drops the protection the law provides. \n\nIt's based on bad interpretations of maritime law, which is itself a complex topic. \n\nThe movement isn't upheld in court becuase someone can't just exempt themselves from the law. "
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82krg4 | why exactly does a cold compress help with swelling? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/82krg4/eli5_why_exactly_does_a_cold_compress_help_with/ | {
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"The cold causes your veins and other fluid carrying structures to narrow off the conserve heat. So there's less room for fluid to collect"
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1bafyf | why are gpus utilized for number-crunching work? | What makes a rig with many graphics cards better than a rig with many processors? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1bafyf/eli5_why_are_gpus_utilized_for_numbercrunching/ | {
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"GPUs are more powerful than CPUs. The difference is that a CPU is better at more things. Think of a GPU as a guy with huge biceps who can curl 50kg dumbells all day but sucks at everything else, while the CPU is a slim, all-round fit guy who can do all kinds of exercises (but he can't curl like GPU, not even close)",
"GPUs are specialized for floating point calculations (values with a decimal point, like 3.14), whereas CPUs are all-around calculation units that \"usually\" process integer values (1, 2, 3 etc.). GPUs are so good in those calculations, because games and other 3D-heavy applications require a lot of these calculations, and as these applications have been getting heavier and heavier, the graphics cards have been developed to meet these requirements. \n\nThe design of GPUs is originally for the 3D calculations alone, but at some point someone noticed \"hey, you can do this protein folding calculation ten times faster with a graphics card!\". CPUs are still \"basically the same thing\" as they were in the 80's, and such, they are still designed for the same purposes. Graphics cards came out in the 90's, but they have been revised a lot more than the CPUs (don't get me wrong, CPUs have been getting better and better because of processing extensions, faster processing speed, bigger caches, cramming multiple cores in a single casing etc.).\n\nP.S: Note that the above is very \"ELI5\"-esque, CPUs can and do process floating point values, and GPUs can process integer values (among other things). :)",
"GPUs are meant to process more amounts very very quickly. They have faster memory, a faster way to deliver the data the GPU cores, and a fast way to move the data out. There is a much more specific way that they are actually designed that they handled the whole process very well, but as I fully don't understand it I won't go into that, but it is the reason why CUDA cores are so awesome, is because they can do what they so thanks to the special tech that is incorporated in them. "
]
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[],
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9c7yhq | rice expands when cooked. where does the water go and why does it happen? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/9c7yhq/eli5_rice_expands_when_cooked_where_does_the/ | {
"a_id": [
"e58pa70"
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"score": [
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"text": [
"The dried rice grains absorb the water.\n\nRice grains are the seeds of the grass species *Oryza sativa*. Naturally they contain a large amount of water, as this helps the seed to germinate. When harvested the grains are dried to preserve them longer. Drying the grains forces water out, and causes the grains to shrink. When you boil them the grains absorb the water and swell up.\n\nRice grains are not a single cell. They are made up of millions of plant cells."
]
} | []
| []
| [
[]
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|
||
2hcn17 | why chicago became the symbol of crime (organized and individual) from its early days till now? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2hcn17/eli5_why_chicago_became_the_symbol_of_crime/ | {
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"text": [
"Chicago became the center of organized crime due to the numerous transportation lines that ran through the city in its early days (i.e. robust train network). Being a centralized hub in the U.S., several people/items passed through the city creating an incentive to cheat said system (through skimming items off train carts to sending illegal substances/items to other parts of the country since all cities across the U.S. effectively ran through the city). Economics of scale begin to take hold due to large dollar amounts at stake, said differently larger organizations can cheat and plunder more thereby creating a crime culture.",
"Most of it stems from location of Chicago as a transport hub. That means legal and illegal goods. Drugs are shipped on masse from mexico to Chicago, then divided and sent to distribution to east coast markets. The I-55 corridor is known as drug highway."
]
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[],
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36zz25 | if monetary inflation is a constant force, will the cost of goods just keep going up so that one day average items like a loaf of bread will cost $100 us dollars and cars will cost millions, or will the government make some sort of adjustment? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/36zz25/eli5_if_monetary_inflation_is_a_constant_force/ | {
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"In 1912 a Ford Model T cost $575. Today a low end car costs in the $10-15,000 range, and average in the $25-35,000 range. So in an equivalent time frame in the future it is conceivable that the average car could cost 1.5 million or so. You just get used to the numbers being bigger. ",
"There is occasional deflation, but let me just point out that many purchases in the early part of the twentieth century were done in cents and that we got rid of the half penny at some point in the nineteenth century (it was actually worth more at that point than the penny is today).",
"They'll just keep going up but it's fine. The Japenese currency is already there, it's 121 yen to 1 USD. ",
"Governments sometimes redefine their currency when inflation gets too bad. This is called [redenomination](_URL_0_). [Sometimes they take too long.](_URL_1_)"
]
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"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Redenomination",
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zimbabwean_dollar#/media/File:Zimbabwe_$100_trillion_2009_Obverse.jpg"
]
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|
||
2erews | i have boner after wake up from night sleep? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2erews/eli5_i_have_boner_after_wake_up_from_night_sleep/ | {
"a_id": [
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"text": [
"There are a variety of explanations. \n\n1: The cause of NPT is not known with certainty. Bancroft (2005) hypothesizes that the noradrenergic neurons of the locus ceruleus are inhibitory to penile erection, and that the cessation of their discharge that occurs during REM sleep may allow testosterone-related excitatory actions to manifest as NPT.\n\n2:Evidence supporting the possibility that a full bladder can stimulate an erection has existed for some time and is characterized as a 'reflex erection'. The nerves that control a man’s ability to have a reflex erection are located in the sacral nerves (S2-S4) of the spinal cord. A full bladder is known to mildly stimulate nerves in the same region.\n\n3:The possibility of a full bladder causing an erection, especially during sleep, is perhaps further supported by the beneficial physiological effect of an erection inhibiting urination, thereby helping to avoid nocturnal enuresis.\n\n4: (Anecdotal) The increase in respiration and blood pressure due to waking up and moving, rushes blood through out your body. Some of it ends up in your junk causing morning wood. \n\nSource for 1-3:\n_URL_0_",
"morning wood? has been asked before. General consensus was that multiple times throughout the night you get a hard on. It's your body's way of making sure your penis tissue is healthy."
]
} | []
| []
| [
[
"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nocturnal_penile_tumescence"
],
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|
||
27qefn | strikes, fouls, outs, and basically anything about scoring in baseball | I've been watching some ball the last couple days but don't totally understand it. Wikipedia hasn't been as helpful as I'd hope. Help me, ELI5. You're my only hope. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/27qefn/eli5_strikes_fouls_outs_and_basically_anything/ | {
"a_id": [
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"text": [
"I googled \"baseball rules for dummies\" and found [this article](_URL_0_). If you have specific questions I'm sure someone here will help.",
"If a batter gets three strikes he is out. If he gets 4 balls he gets a free trip to first base. It is up to the umpire if each pitch is a ball or strike but there are specific rules for this area, called the \"strike zone\". Generally it is from the batters knees to the letters on his uniform and over the plate. Anything outside of that box and it's a ball.\n\nIf the batter hits the ball into the foul territory (outside the lines) it counts as a strike but you cannot \"strike out\" on a foul ball. \n\nEvery time a runner crosses home plate that team gets a run. Men can get on base from being walked (as we discussed above) or hitting the ball and outrunning a throw to first base. If the defender throws the ball to the base before the runner gets there he is out. \n\nTo cross home plate you have to get to first, second, and third bases in order. You move up a base when a man batting behind you gets a hit. The faster you run the more likely you are to score because you can run as far as you want after he hits it until the defense tags you with the ball. The must tag you with the ball - they can't touch you with their other hand. The only time the defense can touch you with the \"non-ball\" hand or foot is a force play, meaning they touch first base before you do after you hit the ball.\n\nIf the defense catches the ball in the air you are out and all runners on the bases must go back to the base they started at.\n\nInteresting note - baseball is the only major American sport without a play clock or time limit. \n\nThere are a hundred little rules I did not explain but that the Baseball 101 explanation. I'd be happy to get more specific if you have more specific questions! I played baseball for 12 years (and now adult softball for the past 10) and was an umpire for 6 years.",
"One game of baseball is divided into innings (usually nine, but there are extra if a tie needs to be broken). Each inning is divided into two halves, or frames, so that each team gets one half of batting and one half of fielding. One half is over after the batting team gets three outs.\n\nYou can get an out in a few ways. The common way is to get three strikes. If the pitcher throws the ball and the batter swings and misses, it's one strike. There's also the concept of the \"strike zone;\" if the pitcher throws a ball outside the strike zone and the batter does not swing, it's not a strike (it's called a \"ball\" and if the batter accumulates four of them he can walk to first base), but if the pitch goes through the strike zone and the batter does not swing, it's a strike. Three strikes and you're out and the next batter will come.\n\nIf the batter hits the ball, but it lands in the foul zone (to the right of the first baseline or the left of the third baseline) it's a foul ball. If the batter has zero or one strikes, he gets another strike, but if he has two he doesn't, i.e. you can't strike out by hitting a foul ball.\n\nIf the batter hits the ball and a fielder catches it before it hits the ground, that batter is out and any runners on the field have to go back to the base they started at. Runners can get an out if they get tagged by the ball or if a fielder holding the ball touches the only base they can go to. For example, if the batter hits the ball and someone catches it after it hits the ground, but throws it to first base before the batter reaches it, the batter is out because they have no where else to go. If a runner starts on second base, and the third baseman has the ball, the runner isn't out because he can still run back to second (assuming another runner isn't there) and he would have to be physically tagged in order to be out.\n\nBaseball isn't that complicated once you get the hang of it, but it can be daunting at first, as my wall of text no doubt signifies."
]
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"http://baseball.about.com/od/thebasics/a/basebasicrules.htm"
],
[],
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9cahpg | if i suspend freely a piece of red hot steel in a vacuum, what (if anything) gets hot? the space around it? the walls of the vacuum? and how soon will the steel cool down? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/9cahpg/eli5_if_i_suspend_freely_a_piece_of_red_hot_steel/ | {
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"Due to the absence of particles, conduction and convection cannot occur. Hence radiation is the only method of heat transfer between the rod and the walls of the vacuum and the space around it. (Radiation is also how the sun gives earth heat energy.",
"The walls of the vacuum will heat up, and will in turn radiate heat back, in addition to losing heat elsewhere. If there was no elsewhere it would all end up in a steady state somewhere between the starting temperature of steel and walls. ",
"It depends on the temperature of the radiation in the vacuum.\n\nThat is a 900°C iron bar gives off light that's 900°C, higher temperature results is a higher rate of heat lost. In a supercooled place, like deep space, this is the only light that matters and it's just cools at a rate depending on it's surface temperature. If there is other light it cools (or heats) until it gets to that temperature. The rate is proportional to the difference in temperatures.\n\nIf you have a small steel box that is your vacuum chamber, the champer will get warm as it absorbs the heat and the bat cools until they are the same temperature. If the chamber can cool on the outside then they will and both will eventually reach room temp. If it was perfectly insulated they'd just stop cooling when both hit the same temperature."
]
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1l60lc | what happens to my glass bottles, aluminum cans, and plastic bottles after i go recycling? | Are they melted down and remade into things? Or are they sold back to their respective companies? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1l60lc/eli5what_happens_to_my_glass_bottles_aluminum/ | {
"a_id": [
"cbw31fn",
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"text": [
"Chopped into tiny bits, resold as pellets. Bottling companies mix recycled pellets in with virgin pellets",
"They get taken down to your local recycling centre which there they do some sorting. depending on which product some will be taken down to their raw components some chopped up and used as pellets"
]
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| []
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[],
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3hf19q | how does a 911 responder distinguish between a silent distress call and a butt dial? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3hf19q/eli5_how_does_a_911_responder_distinguish_between/ | {
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"I would assume they do not make such a distinction. They would/should send police to the location of the phone call to investigate. If it was a \"butt dial\" that is a false call and they could be given a warning or given a ticket depending on the discretion of the police. "
]
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8ifeqr | why was/is there a need of the hexadecimal system in programming? | I understand the need of the binary system. The Computer can only understand 1s and 0s but we want to use other numbers, too. So we invented a system to convert the two back and forth.
Any Number can be represented in binary. So why was there a need for hexadecimal? What can the hexadecimal system do that binary cannot?
Is it still used today other than in color codes? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/8ifeqr/eli5_why_wasis_there_a_need_of_the_hexadecimal/ | {
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"text": [
"Binary numbers get very long quickly making it hard for people to deal with. Converting the binary to decimal is a bit of a pain but converting to hex is easy. Each 4 bits of a binary number converts to one hex digit. This makes the numbers easy to convert and easy for people to remember. ",
"Hexadecimal allows you to represent a large chunk of binary numbers with a single character.\n\nIf you want to represent the numbers 0 through 15 in binary, you need 4 digits (0000 = 0 - > 1111 = 15). If you want to represent the same thing in hexidecimal, you just need one character between 0 and F (0 = 0, A = 10, F = 15).\n\nThe reason why you use hexidecimal instead of just converting into Base 10 is so that you can quickly convert between it and binary.\n\nIf you want to represent the number 11010110 in Base 10, you need to do all the fancy conversion. However, if you want to represent it in hexidecimal, you know that the section 0110 is 6, and 1101 = C, so you have 0xC6 (the 0x is prepended to denote that you are using Hexidecimal for the occasions that there are no A-F characters in the result).",
"Hex is a visually easy way to see groups of 4 bits at a time, that's all\n\nFF (255 decimal) is *visually* smaller than 11111111 (also 255 decimal). Also, a 2 digit hex code represents a byte, the basic storage block of everything in a digital computer\n\nSometimes you need to edit files, editing it in hex allows you to see more data on the screen instead of all just 0s and 1s. You want to change a byte? You have a 2 character code for it. You could have a bunch of decimal numbers of 0-255 everywhere and that would work. BUT, what if you want to change HALF a byte (a nibble, which is not uncommon), then you just change one of the hex digits, and that doesn't work well in decimal.\n\nWorks great for RGB color codes (see a comment i made in another thread down below), because the hex value expressed the RG & B way better than anything in decimal.\n\nThis would not work in decimal. 0-9 could not represent a discrete set of bits (3 bits is 8 different values, and 4 bits is 16 different values).\n\nHex isn't better for everything, it just has better applications than decimal for certain operations.",
"Computer engineer here,\n\nHexadecimal is a very, very easy way to organise binary strings. A single hexadecimal character has 16 possible symbols (0-0,A-F); this is precisely the same number of symbols as 4 bits. Ergo, a string of 4 bits can be reduced to a single hexadecimal character. This makes it much easier to read.\n\n0 = 0000\n\n1 = 0001\n\n2 = 0010\n\n3 = 0011\n\n4 = 0100\n\n5 = 0101\n\n6 = 0110\n\n7 = 0111\n\n8 = 1000\n\n9 = 1001\n\nA = 1010\n\nB = 1011\n\nC = 1100\n\nD = 1101\n\nE = 1110\n\nF = 1111\n\nThe hex string 4E5F = 0100 1110 0101 1111. This can be verified simply by looking at the substitutions above.\n\nWhat is the decimal number 4673 in binary? Go ahead, take your time.\n\nHexadecimal is heavily used in real programming (I'm talking assembly and C motherfucker, not that lazy interpreted shit) because it makes it very easy to visualise the flow of memory and manipulating of data.\n\nFor example, some particularly fast arithmetic operations require memory to be aligned on 16 byte boundaries; This can easily be determined by looking at the last character of memory address of the data in question; if it ends in a 0, it is aligned on a 16 byte boundary. If it ends on anything else, it is not aligned.\n\n0000, 0010, 0020, 0030, 0040, 0050, 0060, 0070, 0080, 0090, 00A0, 00B0, 00C0, 00D0, 00E0, 00F0, 0100, etc...\n\nNow try doing that with decimal\n\n0000, 0016, 0032, 0048, 0064, 0080, 0096, 0112, 0128, 0144, 0160, 0176, 0192, 0208, 0224, 0240, 0256\n\nIs the address 476402 16 byte aligned? You tell me\n\nI can tell that the hexadecimal string 6E2B will fit in a 16 bit register simply by looking at it.\n\nThe decimal number 68,235 will fit in a 5 decade register, but those haven't been used in... decades :D. Will it fit in a 16 bit register? You tell me."
]
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2bzgxa | do private military companies (pmc's) abide by military laws and rules of engagement? | Are they totally private or do they have to follow rules? I am almost positive they have to follow the Geneva Convention, so that is not my question. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2bzgxa/eli5do_private_military_companies_pmcs_abide_by/ | {
"a_id": [
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"text": [
"Sometimes\n\nIt really depends on what company you are talking about, what they are doing, where, and who is hiring them to do it. Some follow the letter of the law and some effectively operate with impunity."
]
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| []
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[]
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3fubap | why are straws based from circles and not any other geometric shape? | Say, an hexagon or triangle? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3fubap/eli5_why_are_straws_based_from_circles_and_not/ | {
"a_id": [
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4
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"text": [
"A circle (or cylinder) is the strongest shape for avoiding collapse. So when you suck on the straw it doesn't fold in on itself. \n\nAs a bonus, it's also a very easy shape to manufacture. [Here, watch them do it.](_URL_0_)\n\nIt's also easy to package because there is no wrong way up.\n\nIt's also easy to dispense because they roll against each other without jamming.",
"Circular is the cheapest, using the least material for a given size."
]
} | []
| []
| [
[
"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-MFD4RQ1aek"
],
[]
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8czqee | how does rna editing work? | I've been reading about how octopuses are able to edit their own RNA as a way of evolving. Generally I understand what this means and how cool it is, but I would be very grateful if someone could break down RNA vs. DNA, RNA editing vs. genetic mutation, and how RNA editing actually works. Thanks! | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/8czqee/eli5how_does_rna_editing_work/ | {
"a_id": [
"dxjbpn4"
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"text": [
"I don’t see people responding so I’ll do my best to cover it all. I’m by no means an expert in genetics, as I specialize in microbiology and biochemistry. \n\nRNA vs DNA\n\nSo the simplest way to explain RNA vs DNA is in terms of their roles. DNA, simply put, is for medium to long term storage of information that the cell needs. RNA on the other hand is how the cell takes the data from the DNA and creates proteins from it. The RNA primarily copies the DNA and transports it from the nucleus to the ribosomes to be sequenced into proteins. \n\n\nRNA Editing vs Mutation\n\nRNA editing, in short, is purposefully carried out, as a response to certain cellular conditions. \n\nMutations happen accidentally, and sometimes cause problems rather then solutions. \n\n\nHow RNA editing works \n\nSo I read the study in RNA editing in cephalopods, and I couldn’t find it discussing exactly how RNA editing in these organisms works. I can explain how general RNA editing works, and hopefully that gives you a better insight into the process. I’m not sure of your science background, so forgive me if my description is really basic. \n\nRNA editing in general starts with an mRNA (messenger) sequence that has been freshly created. Other specific strands or RNA, called “guide” or gRNA, will then bind to that mRNA, and give the repair mechanism the template for editing. Then another protein complex will come in, and add or delete individual bases off of the original mRNA, editing it. \n\nIn mammals, and in the cephalopods, you see what is known as A to I editing, where an enzyme, known as ADAR, binds to specific RNA sequences, and removes a functional group from an Adenosine (one of the nucleotides) and converts it into an Inosine. To keep it simple, when the RNA is edited this way, the protein formed is changed, either activating it or inactivating it. \n\n\nI hope this helps "
]
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18nz30 | why does sleeping help when you're sick? | as opposed to like running, which helps pump blood throughout your body | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/18nz30/eli5_why_does_sleeping_help_when_youre_sick/ | {
"a_id": [
"c8gfhx2"
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"text": [
"Your body is weak already and needs a lot of energy to support your immune system in killing bacteria. You can only come up with so much usable energy at a time and if you use some of it to run around, there is less left for healing processes. "
]
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8kjmq2 | why is walking barefoot on grass or dirt (grounding/earthing) said to have health benefits? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/8kjmq2/eli5_why_is_walking_barefoot_on_grass_or_dirt/ | {
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"text": [
"None whatsoever. It’s complete pseudoscience. If you want a good overview I would recommend listening to the Skeptoid Podcast that covers the topic. ",
"I think the less you walk around barefoot in this day and age the better tbh. You can get the same \"grounding\" sensation from just walking around, or by sitting/laying on a sheet in the grass. In some places you can pick up parasites, prick yourself on something awful or leave yourself open to bites so... ",
"As others have said, from an electrical or magnetic point of view it’s complete nonsense.\n\nHowever it’s good for your gait and foot muscles and prevents stuff like flat feet. Probably also good against “athlete’s foot” i.e. fungal infections. We evolved to walk barefoot, caging your feet in shoes can be bad.",
"If someone wants to walk around barefoot, let them. They don't need to convince others.\n\nSome sites that promote earthing have something to sell you. Supplements, oils, raw water. It's just easy content to fill out their \"everything natural is good everything manmade is bad\" blogs.\n\nThe real health benefits would come from being in a good mood, as feeling good has positive health effects. Getting laid also does this, so you can tell your anti-science friend to fuck off as it'll have a greater effect :)",
"it's healthy for the hookworm larvae that enter your bloodstream through the soles of your feet"
]
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2750j5 | what's the difference, if any, between cyborgs, androids and robots? | Are there technical differences? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2750j5/eli5_whats_the_difference_if_any_between_cyborgs/ | {
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"text": [
"A cyborg is a person with robotic components.\n\nAn android is a robot specifically designed to look human.\n\nA robot is a non-human-like machination.",
"A cyborg has organic parts, a robot is mechanical, and an android is a special type of robot that's made to look/act human.",
"All good answers here, but if you're interested in a little history I can explain where the words came from.\n\n[**Cyborg**](_URL_2_) - short for \"Cybernetic Organism\". Officially, cybernetics means \"the study of self-regulating systems\", but it has informally come to mean \"computer stuff\". Hence, cyborgs are organisms with electronic components.\n\n[**Android**](_URL_3_) - Comes from a greek root ἀνδρ, meaning \"man\", combined with the suffix -oid, which means \"looks like\". Thus, they are human-like creations. Technically, only male-like robots are androids. The female equivalent is \"gynoid\". Bonus fact: The word \"droid\" originally came from a shortened form of \"android\"\n\n[**Robot**](_URL_1_) - comes from the word for \"slave labor\" in Chezk. The term was created by a writer who wrote one of the earliest stories about automatons, called [*Rossum’s Universal Robots*](_URL_0_). He was originally going to call them *laboři*, but decided he did not like the work and so asked his brother for suggestions. The robots in the story were not very similar to what we would call robots today, but the word was popularized and became the common term for any sort of automaton.",
"Cyborg= Part Animal/human part electronics\nRobot = 100% robotic, no human/animal components\nAndroid = A robot that has been created to appear human\n\n"
]
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"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robot#Etymology",
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1pel52 | has anyone had sex in space yet? if so, how, and why? if not, why not/is it viable? | A friend and I were having this argument the other day. Googling turned up ultimately very little which leads me to believe it probably hasn't happened yet, but I dunno, I figure there's people out there that know more about space banging than us.
I originally was going to ask if anyone had had sex in zero G yet but I think there *might* be porn made on one of those vomit comet airplanes? Haha. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1pel52/eli5_has_anyone_had_sex_in_space_yet_if_so_how/ | {
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"Husband and wife teams have gone into space. The odds of someone at least attempting it are pretty high. However, NASA says it's difficult to obtain an erection in zero-g because of blood flow problems.\n\nThe \"Uranus Experiment\" series shows zero-g sex filmed on aircraft.",
"Mary Roach researched this for her book Packing for Mars.\n\nHer basic conclusion was maybe a couple had sex in space, but probably not. However there has been a large number of astronauts who have masturbated successfully to completion a great many times.",
"If I were an astronaut I would most definitely insist I travel up there with my hubby. I think if they were to ever send someone to another planet and presuming it would take a long time, they really should send a couple. Although there would need to be some sort of effective birth control because getting prego up there would not be pretty. Giving birth in space? All that nasty fluid flying around everywhere.... ugh. ",
"OP confirmed for never having seen James Bond in \"Moonraker\"",
"I found a [site](_URL_0_) explaining if it is possible or not, They explain it very clearly and sadly it seems like it is not possible/very unlikely to happen if it was possible. The image of zero gravity thrusting...\"oh yeah, ooo yeah, ah ah, (thrust) OH NO HONEY i forgot we were in space... I'll float over to you...\" ",
"I am not sure if it has happened yet or not. Though I think I have seen something about an astronaut couple was gonna try. I even think I saw a video of them velcroing into the sleeping bag things they use up there. I will search for what it is I might have seen. That is not the main point of my comment though. \n\nMy main point is to the comments taking about someone had to have tried. (masturbation even) I would personally doubt this. I know I have seen interviews with astronauts where they talk about practicing on the space toilet ( there is actually a camera in the toilet to help them aim!!) on earth and making sure they know how to use it and focus on using it correctly in space. No one wants to explain why there is brown stuff or yellow stuff floating around the space station. Now think about having to explain what the white sticky stuff is floating around. Masturbation is messy and sex is messier. ",
"Expect \"Gravity\" porn parody to answer this in a not too distant future.",
"I have a good friend who works at NASA - he said that was a primary objective of sending a married couple up to figure out if people could procreate in space. Apparently it's possible. And you can get some interesting positions. But it's very messy, and some people have had erection issues when they've been up there for a while. "
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aunnw5 | why is it we can see the inside of our eyelids when we close both eyes, but not when we close one? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/aunnw5/eli5_why_is_it_we_can_see_the_inside_of_our/ | {
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"Your brain is really good at editing out the parts of your vision that don't have any useful information. In fact, right now you have a blindspot in your vision where all of the nerves come into your eye. But, you don't see it because your brain edits it out. There are tricks you can do to notice things disappearing into your blind spot but normally you can't see it.",
"How often do you notice your blinks? Almost never, unless you are specifically thinking about them. However, if the lights went out for that long (almost a third of a second) or someone covered your eyes, you would totally notice it. It's because your brain has evolved to pay attention to the important things and ignore the unimportant ones. It knows that you are not going to get information when the eye is closed, so it just erases it from consciousness. \n\nIt is the same with closing one eye. It knows that you are not getting info from it, so it just doesn't pay attention. Compare your visual experience with having one eye closed versus having one eye mostly covered up. They are significantly different because the internal system that pays attention to inputs gets turned off when you have no input from one side. ",
"When you close one eye and shine a light at it you can most definitely see the inside of your eyelid. The same goes when you close your eye while staring at something you can only see with one eye. If you focus on just past your nose with one eye closed you can see your eyelid. You can notice it the most when you do what I said at the beginning where you shine a light in your closed eye while the other looks around. \n\nPersonally when I do that I see the corner of my nose and then bright eyelid colored everything. \n\nThere's more info on the open eye so your brain spends more time focusing on that than the usually dark closed eye so you think you don't see your eyelid but you do. And when both eyes closed it's the same information so you process the fact that you are seeing the inside of your eyelids.",
"As I'm sure others have stated, your brain normally works to interpret data and so ignores the closed eye in order to better process information from the open eye. \n\n & #x200B;\n\nI have a lazy eye and astigmatism (weak right eye), so this doesn't work as well for me. If I close my good eye, I see the back of my eyelid with the vision from my bad eye layered on top of it. If I close my good eye, I'm aware of the lack of peripheral vision from my bad eye, but I don't see the back of my eyelid. \n\n & #x200B;\n\nMy brain has developed a bias toward ignoring my bad eye regardless of if it's open or closed. Mainly because the images seen in both eyes don't align properly. If I purposefully try to use my bad eye with both my eyes open, I have a partially transparent, lower clarity image above and to the right of my good eye's image. \n\n & #x200B;\n\nAn extra weirdness is that I'm right handed naturally. However, due to having a weak right eye, there are tasks I perform left handed and others for which I have no preference. ",
"You do see it, but your brain filters it out. To demonstrate: close one eye, and cover your open eye with your hand. Look up at a bright light source that will get through your closed eyelid. If it’s not obvious, start covering and uncovering your closed eye with your other hand (while keeping the first hand over your open eye). The difference in light reaching your closed eye will be really obvious. ",
"I \"see\" a shut eyelid when I close one eye, same as what I see when I shut both eyes. I'm aware it's there, but it's hard to make my brain care about it, I guess? Like all the mental focus is on the one eye, but both eyes are still seeing.\n\nThis is weird.",
"If you try really hard you can do it. Your brain wants to see things, so if it does it will ignore the not things, but you have the ability to look through the eye that you want to. That’s how you can keep both eyes open when you put a camera to your face but still only see through the viewfinder. It’s hard, and it can make your head hurt, but you can do it. ",
"The inside of your eyelids are black?"
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33g3yw | how do sports teams ensure that the home colors are represented at home games? | I am a HUGE hockey fan. Last night, the Winnipeg Jets' fans were almost entirely decked out in white (despite the fact the team was wearing home dark blue jerseys).
Tonight, the Calgary Flames' fans similarly were all dressed in the home dark red.
How does this work? If I showed up with neutral colors at the door, would they give me a shirt to make sure I fit into the crowd?
If I had an 'away' jersey, would they ask me to leave or move me to a fancy box somewhere off-screen?
In the NHL anyway, the Canadian teams/fans seemed to have this figured out much more than their southern bretheren (no surprise!)
| explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/33g3yw/eli5_how_do_sports_teams_ensure_that_the_home/ | {
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"Because in general, most of the fans are locals. Local fans wear their team colors to the game. There will always be a few fans of the visiting team, but those are a minority.\n\nFor the most part, they don't care what you wear as long as it's not offensive. Especially if you're sitting in an area that's going to get a lot of camera attention.",
"Especially during the playoffs, a lot of teams hand out shirts to every fan at the door. You don't have to wear it, and they won't move you or throw you out if you don't. Also, social media campaigns the day of the event in question will let everyone know to wear a certain color or be prepared to get a free shirt to wear at the game. \n\nSource: I'm a die hard Spurs fan and have gone to multiple playoff games.",
"Fans typically wear the primary home colors. For the Flames this is red, for the Jets, this is the dark blue that they played in. They do this to show support for their team. No, you wouldn't be turned away from a hockey game for wearing the wrong colors. If you look closely at any hockey game you will be able to spot at least a handful of the opposing team's fans sporting their own team's colors. Canadian teams tend to fill their stadiums more with their own fans because Canadians tend to be far more emotionally invested in hockey. In the US there are more people who attend the game just for the experience and not because they are really into the sport at all. Playoff games also tend to attract far more true fans who are more likely to own their favorite team's sweater because the tickets are harder to get and more expensive. \n\nI have attended a handful of games in Calgary, only one of which was against Vancouver, but I saw at least one person sporting Cansucks gear at every game. If you can get into a Flames game wearing their biggest rival's gear when they aren't even playing them that night, they will not turn you away for wearing the wrong colors. Now getting out of the parking lot unscathed after pulling a stunt like that is questionable Lol.\n\nAfter all this, you are probably wondering why the Jets fans wore the away colors instead of the home colors. The funny part is that the Flames are actually the reason. The Flames, and their fans, are very proud of what they call \"The C of Red\" because few teams can pack the stadium during regular season with as much of the home teams colors as Calgary can thanks to their extremely passionate fans. In 1987, the original Jets franchise asked their fans to wear white to home playoff games for a similar effect. They call this \"The Winnipeg Whiteout\". The current Jets franchise (and more likely the locals who remember the original franchise) decided to continue this tradition. The Jets may have chosen to have their fans wear white instead of their home colors because away colors for other teams would blend in which would make it appear that even more people were there to support the Jets. "
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68pqdd | why when websites are finished loading, the page scrolls up/down slightly so that you end up clicking on the wrong thing | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/68pqdd/eli5_why_when_websites_are_finished_loading_the/ | {
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"Because there's nothing loaded on the page, there is an input delay until the entire webpage is loaded. So if there is an offset once the page fully loads, that specific point on the screen is clicked.",
"The last thing that loads on the page changes the location of the rest of the page. For example it might be an image which is of unknown size and the final configuration of the entire page isn't known. Once it loads everything jumps down to accommodate it."
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5jatyt | if boiled water is safe to drink, why do humidifiers need to be cleaned? | Wouldn't any toxins or bacteria that might have accumulated in the basin be left behind when the water boils into vapor? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5jatyt/eli5_if_boiled_water_is_safe_to_drink_why_do/ | {
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"Humidifiers do not maintain a high enough temperature throughout their entire systems to kill all bacteria and the like. they simply warm the water up enough that some of it will leave operate into the atmosphere and increase the relative humidity of the air. The temperature necessary to do this is far below the temperature necessary to kill bacteria and mold.",
"My own humidifier has some sort of sensor in it. Since my water contains a lot if calcium, white crust builds up on the sensor. Cleaning that off keeps it from malfunctioning. \n\nAlso the prescence of water sitting in the basin can start to grow mold since mold spores from the air can fall into it at times. "
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bpjkj3 | how do countries pay other countries? | i.e. Exchange between two states for example when The US buy Saudi oil. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/bpjkj3/eli5_how_do_countries_pay_other_countries/ | {
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"Usually private or (semi private) companies buy the oil, not the state directly. In this case they usually purchase the product on the world market entering a contract for delivery for a certain grade oil. (oil varies massively in types and grades). \n\nThe exchange of money is usually done on what is called the SWIFT network, which connects nearly all banks across the world. Once the contract is fulfilled, the final payment is transfered from whoever bought the oil to the oil company.\n\nYou can access this network at your local bank, but you need some pretty specific information before you can transfer money in this way.\n\nEdit: think an email money transfer. But bigger, slightly safer and more expensive. I believe it's 25 or 30 per transfer? Been a few years for me.",
"Check out the Bank of International Settlement (_URL_0_). It's the central bank for the world's central banks. It has its own currency, and is where country- to-country transactions are carried out.",
"When countries buy things from other countries, they use money just like everybody else, but they have to make two purchases.\n\nFirst, they buy the other country's money. Then they use that money to buy whatever product they want to get from that country. For example, South Korea and Japan buy fighter planes from Northrup Grumman and Boeing in the United States. They go to the bank in Seoul or Tokyo and they buy US dollars from the bank with their won or yen. Then they use those dollars and they buy their planes.\n\nBecause people are constantly buying and selling stuff from other countries, there is a market for currency. Those Korean and Japanese banks buy the dollars from US banks and they use won and yen. In the US, American companies buy Samsung TV's and Sony stereos by going to the bank and buying Asian currency, and then buying the products.\n\nThat's how it works for everyone - individuals, companies, or countries. When China buys US debt (Treasury Bills) they first buy US dollars, and then they buy the T Bills. The US banks sell the Chinese money to Walmart who uses it to buy Chinese products.",
"Money doesn’t actually move between countries. \n\nLet’s say you are in the US and have an account with Bank USA. You buy some oil from Saudi Arabia, and the oil company says to pay their account at the Sand Bank. So you go to your bank and send a SWIFT wire transfer. \n\nWhat happens is that Bank USA has their own bank account with a correspondent bank in Saudi Arabia - say Bank Mecca. When you send money to the oil company’s account at Sand Bank, Bank USA’s account at Bank Mecca is debited - not bank USA itself. And when a Saudi sends money to Bank USA, the same happens in reverse and their Bank Mecca account goes up. \n\nSmaller banks won’t have a big international network of correspondent banks, so they’ll use someone like JP Morgan or HSBC to move it on their behalf. But the principle is all the same.",
"For oil it is not a government to government transaction. On the Saudi side it is, because their government owns the main oil company, so anyone buying oil from them is basically buying it from the Saudi government. The US government is not buying the oil, but US oil companies are. The “agreement to buy” comes in the form of sanctions on other countries’ oil (illegal to buy oil from Venezuela, Iran, etc) or putting higher tariffs/taxes on them. The US goes so far as to enforce INTERNATIONAL sanctions on non-Saudi oil, making it “illegal” for any other country to buy more than a certain amount of Iranian oil. \n\nIn the case of government to government financial transfers from one treasury to another, physical palletized stacks of US hundred dollar bills or gold are shipped.",
"There are the bank transfers others have mentioned, but sometimes money is sent with an actual pallet of cash. _URL_0_",
"Others have answered the question fairly well - technically, logistically, the SWIFT program and bank transfers. More broadly, you must purchase that country's currency and then purchase the goods, as another user said.\n\nIf you want your head to spin, I'd take a minute to read this whole wiki page, and look into the topic generally: _URL_0_\n\nI've been studying political economy stuff for awhile--the Balance of Payments is what Trump talks about when he talks about the trade deficit with China. The BoP has been hugely important throughout the history of international trade, but, as far as my understanding goes, changes that have occurred since the 1970's (i.e. U.S. dropping gold and all currencies becoming fiat currency instead of backed by precious metals) have made the BoP less important--but almost solely because the U.S. has been such a hegemonic force in international affairs that others effectively acquiesce to American economic policy. For much of the postwar era, this has allowed the US to run a fairly constant trade deficit without worrying too much about the ramifications, partly because the US is de facto in charge of institutions such as the World Bank and International Monetary Fund. Today, these deficits are starting to become an economic problem of some form, and they will become an issue in the future as the US dollar slowly loses its overwhelmingly predominant position in global economics. You can look into things such as the 'global reserve currency' and Bretton Woods if you want to know more about this part of international transactions--this article _URL_1_ from a few months ago covers a bit of the potential changes I was just talking about, the head of the Bank of England discussed how China's Renminbi will become a reserve currency in the future. \n\nAs far as I can tell, currency is the major, meaningful, behind-the-scenes issue area that drives a lot of national and international affairs, and which few people even among politicians and economists fully understand. God knows I'm only just getting into it.",
"Fun fact: In the United States, the size of the underground economy in the 1980s was estimated to be $350 billion to $500 billion a year, equivalent to more than 10 percent of the U.S. gross national product. That represented $100\n\nbillion or more in lost tax revenue for the U.S. government. Economists at the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund estimated that a similar 10 percent of the Western European economy and 70 percent to 80 percent of the economies of the former Soviet Union and Eastern Europe were “black.” Most of the money was completely untraceable. \n\nTo illustrate how completely off in the stratosphere and beyond the purview of anyone all of this activity is one need only consult the Balance of Payments tables. \n\nThese tables track global deficits and surpluses—a minus in the U.S. balance sheet is matched by a plus in the Japanese ledger, and so forth. By definition, the world must be in balance with itself. Yet from being approximately in balance in the early 1970s, an inexplicable black hole deficit of $20 billion had developed by 1978, and in 1982 the deficit hit $110 billion. \n\nHow damaging was capital flight to the Third World? In the years 1976 to 1985, $200 billion was transferred offshore by citizens of developing countries. Of that, between 1983 and 1985, the worst years of the debt crisis, $53 billion moved out from the countries that had the hardest time paying off their debt: Mexico, Venezuela, and Argentina. It has been estimated that as much as 96 percent of dollars borrowed abroad by these three countries for things like infrastructure projects and factories ended up in the offshore accounts of private citizens, many in the very same banks that had lent the money in the first place. \n\nIn 1986 Morgan Guaranty Trust, which later became J.P. Morgan, estimated that of the $375 billion in new debt taken on by the ten major Latin American countries between 1975 and 1985, almost half vanished forever as flight capital.",
"The US actually buys most of it's oil from Canada...40% compared to only 11% from the Saudis.",
"All I can gleam from this insane topic is that money on a big enough scale is just a bunch of IOUs and something about cookies.",
"Most of these answers focus on SWIFT bank transfers because your question was phrased in the form of a goods purchase (which typically would not be a state-to-state level transaction). However, there is actually a special \"state-level\" currency (formally termed a \"unit of account\") that is used to build foreign exchange reserves, and also perform certain state level value exchanges, called the \"Special Drawing Right\". \n\n & #x200B;\n\nIt doesn't see much use these days outside of specific international treaties since the original impetus for XDRs (Bretton Woods fixed exchange rates) is basically dead.",
"Others have done an OK job of explaining the mechanics of the private transactions across currencies. However there is hardly a mention of the Forex ( foreign exchange) market. This is where the value of one currency relative to another is determined. The Forex market is the world's latest by with a daily volume of over $5T USD. \n\nIn its simplest term, currencies can be treated as any other good or commodity. It's value is going to be determined by the supply of that currency versus it's demand.",
"Government Departments have bank accounts with normal banks. In Denmark most municipalities and the state treasury etc. have their accounts with Danske Bank. Danske Bank has a department that specially caters to Government Departments, Institutions and Municipalities etc. The demands from these are not very different from a regular business account. I.e. need to receive money, pay salary, expenses, suppliers, borrow, invest, get overviews of who spent what etc.",
"[sometimes they load up an unmarked cargo plane with $400 million in shrink-wrapped pallets of straight cash, homie](_URL_0_)",
"The buyer will notify their commercial bank of the upcoming deal and they will utilize SWIFT (Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication). The famous SWIFT network doesn’t actually transfer money per say, just messages between banks informing them of the transactions to be taken place. The buying can party will purchase the foreign currency on the FX market. This usually incurs some minor transaction costs in terms of broker fees and such that the exchange marketplace and brokerage house (bank, exchange, etc) charges. Then the funds are usually wired to the Seller’s bank and then processed into the Sellers bank accounts. Wire transfers also cost a relatively small fee, domestic transfers are typically cheaper than international transfers, and these transfers happen almost instantaneously. Another thing to note is that with foreign transactions there exists lots of FX interest rate risk that effects the price. Many international deals have payment agreement contracts of 30, 60, 90, or sometimes more days where the buyer has to pay the seller in full from the time of purchase. During this time, the buyers host country or the sellers country could have exchange rate changes (in favor of buyer or the seller, never both) that are caused by changes in their domestic interest rates. So firms dealing with large FX transactions will often utilize the FX Options and Futures market to minimize risk, this can save a firm hundreds of thousands if not millions of dollars when deals are large ($25M+). Sometimes the Buyer may actually profit and lessen the FX cost in total as a result of future interest rate changes depreciating the sellers currency, and thus it cost less for the buyer to purchase the seller’s domestic currency. Hope this helps. I’m a banker and finance grad.",
"United States has been known to pay another country 1.7 billion dollars in cold hard cash loaded onto pallets and crates."
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"https://www.marketwatch.com/story/boes-carney-sees-the-us-dollar-eventually-losing-its-reserve-currency-status-2019-01-10"
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6ugun6 | how can we tell someone is smiling even when talking over the phone? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/6ugun6/eli5_how_can_we_tell_someone_is_smiling_even_when/ | {
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"Two hypotheses:\n\n1. You know the person well enough to know the kinds of things they would smile at. \n\n2. People pronounce things slightly differently when they're smiling, whether it be by their mouth shape or from inflection, that humans can naturally pick up on.\n\nIt's probably the first though. "
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1ablab | what is the difference between techno and electronic? | I admit to being ignorant with the genres, but I just played through Hotline Miami (fanastic game btw) and the amazing soundtrack piqued my interest so now I wanna do a little exploring. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1ablab/eli5_what_is_the_difference_between_techno_and/ | {
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"Techno originates from the 80s in Detroit. It sounds dark, industrial, and sometimes depressing. A good example is Prodigy - Breathe: _URL_1_\n\nElectronic is a catch-all term for all music that uses electronic instruments.\n\n\"Electronica\" is not a genre. It is a marketing buzzword from the 90s when electronic music became more mainstream.\n\nYou can find more information here: _URL_0_"
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"http://techno.org/electronic-music-guide/",
"http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6_PAHbqq-o4"
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3rdolu | global investment banking | Can someone please help the idea of Global Investment Banking click in my head. I will be forever grateful. I searched the thread before, but there has been nothing on the Global Aspect. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3rdolu/eli5_global_investment_banking/ | {
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"An investment bank is a financial institution that advises clients - mainly corporations - how to raise finance. Unlike retail banks, they do not hold deposits and so they aren't your regular high street bank (although many banks do both functions, which the European Union is looking to ring fence in the EU).\n\nInvestment bankers will be approached by a company that is looking to raise finance, which can be done through various ways. They are most commonly achieved through 'going public' (having an Initial Public Offering (IPO) for your shares for people to buy, instead of being a privately held company) or through bond issues (issuing corporate debt for clients to buy). The investment bank will facilitate these processes in order to allow clients to buy up whatever the corporation is offering. Sometimes the issue will be too big that it has to separated between separate investment banks, which is called syndication.\n\nThis is the very crux of investment banking in a very simplified manner. It also covers other aspects - such as mergers & acquisitions (M & A) - but that isn't so important.\n\nAs to 'global', then it really depends on where you are reading this from. If you are looking at programmes offered as graduate jobs, then the 'global' part may mean an emphasis aside from a specific market (i.e. 'domestic' investment banking, EMEA investment banking, etc.). In today's day and age, most financial markets are truly global and only in certain instances will you have territorial designations (asset managers may state their specialism as 'US Equities', for example).\n\nHope this helps! If I haven't explain it well, just ask."
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a9paep | why hasnt the last 100 yrs of tech innovation resulted in fewer hours an individual has to work to earn an average life of food, housing, clothes, and amenities? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/a9paep/eli5_why_hasnt_the_last_100_yrs_of_tech/ | {
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"Technology (along with labor movements like unionization) has resulted in fewer hours worked on average. It's been rather gradual, but a hundred years ago a 60-hour work week wouldn't have been uncommon. Wage stagnation is a separate issue, but even with that the average person's probably doing at least as well as their early-20th-century counterpart.",
"Because the lowering of costs has led to an increase in profit margins, rather than in pay. Due to this, a higher percentage of the wealth is passed to the owners and investors of the companies instead of the workers. So while there has been some increases in compensation for the individuals doing work, it has been much slower than the increase in profits to the extremely wealthy.",
"Tech innovation over the past 100 years has absolutely resulted in the requirement to work less hours.\nWhat has changed is people’s expectations of what an “average” is, we have far more creature comforts like cars, TV, cell phones, fast food places, variety of foods available, lower cost to travel (and faster)\n\nIf you didn’t use the goods available through technical innovation which are not a necessity but rather a luxury, you could probably work 50% -80% less than people did a hundred years ago",
"Technological advancement doesn't help the individual worker when the worker doesn't own the company he works at.\n\nIf the workers are the owners, they can go \"great, this tech will let us work half as many hours to keep up production!, sweet\" \n\nBut what happens in the real world is the owners going \"great, with this tech we can fire half of our workers and keep up production, sweet!\"\n\n",
"Because a larger and larger portion of the proceeds go to the owners of capital, and less and less go to workers. \nCompare a graph of median wage and GDP per capita, and you'll see them starting to drift apart. \n\n",
"It did. It's either all or nothing. Some people survive solely on support of the government, others work as much as ever. Perhaps in this century we'll figure out how achieve balance. I have a lot of faith in the younger generation. I'm betting on them to not let dogma, guilt, or religion derail them from the pursuit of a better world.",
"Because working fewer hours isn’t the goal (although there have been huge savings in number of hours required to keep up a home) people want to work to give their life purpose. \n\nInstead the average life’s quality has gone up, massively. The array of benefits and opportunities available to the lowest classes on society now are on par with the highest classes 100 years ago. \n\nAccess to medicine, education, clean water, information, entertainment(!), cheaper travel, retirement savings (aka social security), have all become so much more prevalent and accessible. ",
"On average we consume a lot more. There are effects of exploitation as everyone is saying but there's more to it.\n\nReality is on average how many hours of labor do you require from others. Utilities, roads, food, healthcare, construction, etc. As things get cheaper we want more especially to stay in line our neighbors in a never ending arms race.\n\nSo I don't see it as easy as blaming the man...",
"how many cars, mobile phones, computers, foreign holidays, clothes, books, gadgets did the average person have 100 years ago?\n\nwhat medical treatments were available to them? what entertainments were available? what choice of food did they have?\n\nwhat was the average temperature setting on the average persons central heating during the winter? what about the air conditioning in the summer?\n\n",
"It has. The thing is that people are willing to work more for more. If we wanted similar standard of living, people, for the most part, definitely wouldn’t need to work full time.",
"Nobody seems to be mentioning that \"average life\" has grown a thousandfold. Instead of paying less for the same stuff, we pay the same for more stuff.",
"Everyone else is right but hasn’t mentioned that standards and costs of living have gone up at the same time. Even the poor no longer live in tenements as people live in bigger spaces, have more appliances and utilities, and can enjoy leisures. People *do* have to work fewer hours to pay for the basics that one in the past would have had. ",
"With or without the technology, productivity has always increased steadily. If you measure this as GDP per capita, which is described in a simple form as the total amount of wealth produced divided by the number of people in the country, you will see that regardless of the cause of the increases in productivity, the gains made have gone exclusively to the owners, and the people who actually produce the wealth have gotten a smaller and smaller share of it.\n\nThere is a commonly shared chart that shows the distribution of the GDP gains that points out quite glaringly the fact that worker wages have been stagnant since about 1980, meaning that for the average person who earns a living by working, the amount of money they receive has been exactly the same for almost forty years.\n\nAs bleak as that chart is, it's actually misleading, because what has really happened is that worker wages as a proportion of the wealth they produce has shrunken dramatically in that same period of time.\n\nWhy this is happening is that in our system of economics, we undervalue the labor it takes to produce wealth, and dramatically overvalue the wealth that was used to fund the endeavor initially. So, as a thing becomes more and more profitable, the excess wealth produced, which is profit, goes entirely to the people that own the endeavor to do with as they please. They can invest it in the company, share it with workers, or just keep it. Guess which one they do the majority of the time.",
"If you were content with sticking to the same budgets people lived by 100 years ago you could probably work a lot less.\n\nBut the majority of economic growth the last 50 years has come from the credit institutions facilitating increased spending, and our economies are now heavily leveraged by debt so average people can own housing, cars and afford education and healthcare(depending where you live). If you forego all these newfangled luxuries, stay uninsured and rent cheaply, you can probably survive on working a day or two per week.",
"Some lousy answers here... the diversity of wealth has grown immensely. Look at 3rd world nations that have grown from 100m starving people to billion plus tech rich nations. Only in existing first world nations is anyone missing the improvements.\n\nWith that said, your grandparents probably saw their dishware and radio as extravagant purchases, now a 5\" computer more powerful than the shuttle that landed on the moon is a disposable device.\n\nAlso while tech has advanced productivity, we have new drains, the tech sector employs hundreds of millions, it didn't exist 40years ago.",
"It certainly has resulted in this - if I wanted to live at the level of life that was reasonable for a blue-collar worker in 1918, then I could do it below the minimum wage or alternatively with very few hours per week.\n\nHow much money do you need to earn an 1918 average life of food (before the 1928 promise of \"a chicken in every pot\" - a food budget where you can afford chicken maybe once a week, nor any eating out pretty much ever), of housing (the average housing per person was something like four times less than now. 200 sqft/person on average, with poor laborers having much less than that), of clothes (where you can afford a couple sets of clothes and shoes total, and have to make them last for years before any replacements), being clear that you'll never be able to afford a washing machine, a car, or any household electronics (radio back then, TV now) ? Back then they couldn't afford even that with 40 hours of work, the average hours worked for a basic laborer was 50+, that's before the 40 hour work week was introduced.\n\nThe thing is that currently noone, even very poor people, would not be satisfied with a 100 years old average lifestyle - eating potatoes and cheap produce soup (and having not enough money for as much potatoes as you want), living as a whole family in one room without indoor plumbing, and buying one cheap suit and shoes every five years (and buying a single kids coat, used, that'll be worn by all your kids in order) doesn't take much money or work hours at all. \n\nToday I can clothe myself reasonably (perhaps not the clothes and shoes I'd want but they'd be functional) by spending a day's wages. That'd be ridiculous 100 years ago.\n\nToday a day's wages can buy cheap food to feed me for a month (e.g. USA minimum wage @ 8 hours can buy something like a 50 pound bag of rice *and* a 50 pound bag of beans *and* something else basic). That'd be ridiculous 100 years ago; basic food products took half of your income (_URL_0_), and then you or your spouse still had to spend all the labor to prepare it. Nowadays if you'd have zero income and get food stamps, you'd have more and better food than what you could buy with spending weeks of work 100 years ago.\n\nToday housing that's average 100 years ago would be considered unsuitable for living and condemned - a squatter living in an abandoned house gets the same level of amenities for which a laborer spent 25% of their income 100 years ago.",
"Because your expectation of what an average life should be has grown dramatically.\n\nYou could work 20 or 10 hours a week and afford the low quality of life that was average 100 years ago.\n\nYou actually can't, though, because many aspects of that life are now illegal, because the government has decided that it is inhumane to allow people such a poor life.",
"The number of hours worked per week *is* declining:\n\n_URL_0_\n\nIt’s declining more slowly in the US and UK for various reasons including wanting to show willingness, weaker unions, etc. \n\nFood is certainly cheaper now than 100 years ago and I’d wager that most products are the same. Of course there are extremes — e.g. people living on tiny incomes in places like Silicon Valley— but most people now work less for a higher quality of life. ",
"Ask yourself why the rich have been growing even richer and everyone else, from the middle class to the poor have been getting poorer in the last 100 years. The answer is obvious. Gains in productivity have been seized by the wealthy. ",
"It *absolutely* has. It's just your idea of \"average food, housing, clothes, and amenities\" has gotten much fancier.\n\nI call it the Ramen Miracle: today I can walk into a supermarket and buy enough ramen to keep me from starving for a month, for the price of an hour's worth of minimum-wage labor. Living for a month on an hour's worth of work would have been just mind-boggling for all of human existence until a few decades ago, but we modern humans take it for granted so much that your reaction when I said that was \"ugh, who could eat ramen for a month?\"\n\n100 years ago, the average American had *half* as much personal living space as they do now (smaller houses with more residents). We could afford to eat only about half as much meat, and that was rarely fresh. Most people owned only a couple changes of clothes. The average person didn't have any of the things we consider standard amenities today: a car, a dishwasher, refrigerator, electricity, or a phone. And let's not even talk about health care.\n\nThe average minimum-wage worker today lives a lifestyle that the average person 100 years ago could only dream of. If you wanted to live life today with a standard of living equal to what they had back then, you probably could manage it by working just a handful of hours a week. But you'd have to be crazy to want that.",
"In the last 100 years everything has gotten so incredibly better you cant even imagine it.\n\nI suggest you read George Orwells - The Road to Wigan Pier and then you compare that, to the life we live today.",
"It has. Women don't have to spend half of their waking hours washing clothes manually anymore. Now they can choose what to study and work at, ideally.\n\nSay a nurse. When we have nursebots, women can then work in something else instead of being nurses.\n\nWhat is your kid doing right now? Probably playing fortnight or watching youtube. 200 years ago your kid would be carrying water out of the well for hours, everyday.\n\nIn impoverished third world countries, you can still find people doing this type of work manually. Especially in the rural parts.",
"Because the average has changed. People didn't buy as much / as nice things 100 years ago. We've chosen nicer lifestyles vs fewer hours worked. ",
"It has. We just consume far more and dramatically raised the bar of what is acceptable for spending. The thousands of dollars our family spends on phones, internet, cell service, video games. Netflix, etc, that’s money that my parents and grandparents never spent that way. \n\nMost of it is self imposed spending. because food and housing and clothes are so much cheaper, we spend our money on other things.",
"The amount of time most of the OECD spends working has been declining since 100 years ago. The \"average\" life for most of the OECD is also vastly more than 100 years ago.",
"There’s much more stuff that we need to pay for. 100 years ago, cars and the related costs weren’t commonplace. People weren’t paying for computers, or cell phones, or the service contract for their phone.\n\nAlso, there is an argument that our medical care is not handled in a fair or cost-effective way, but the care we get these days is MUCH more complicated, with better results, so there are good reasons that it’s more expensive than it was in the early 1900s. \n\nSome people in the early 1900s could afford cars, early electrical devices, and good-ish doctors, but it wasn’t expected that everybody could afford those things. Now we feel that people should be able to have all that stuff (they need it to get to work, get a job, have friends, stay healthy, etc), but it’s not easy to afford them all.\n\nThis doesn’t make any other answers wrong or not important, but it’s an extra factor. ",
"Putting housing aside, I think the \"average\" access to food, clothes and other amenities (like entertainment, communication, travel) have all risen drastically over the last 100 years. \n\nThe quality of housing maybe has not risen as much in the last few decades compared to the cost...but if we are looking at a 100 year window I would tentatively group housing (and healthcare) with the others. ",
"Because the population has increased dramatically, resulting in more job competition. This allows employers to keep wages low.",
"It increased production to those in control of the means\n\nModern capitalism has allowed those in control of the means of production to increase their take-home pay exponentially, while modestly egging the workers’ pay along to bide time\n\nThere is no string attaching corporate pay to the lowest-common-denominator employee’s pay, so all the tech innovations led to grand increases in corporate pay. The common employee’s pay remains stagnant to supplement the increasing corporate pay",
"It increased production to those in control of the means\n\nModern capitalism has allowed those in control of the means of production to increase their take-home pay exponentially, while modestly egging the workers’ pay along to bide time\n\nThere is no string attaching corporate pay to the lowest-common-denominator employee’s pay, so all the tech innovations led to grand increases in corporate pay. The common employee’s pay remains stagnant to supplement the increasing corporate pay",
"Because the standard of living that the work buys you MASSIVELY increased. Your average 40 hour a week middle class salary person now lives in a very nice, very large house as compared to 100 years ago, drives at least a decent modern car, and has all kinds of electronic devices. Basically every household has multiple very large TVs and several computing devices, be they computers, tablets, gaming systems, smartphones, what have you. Your average person making $45k a year lives in luxury unheard of by a lay person of 100 years ago. ",
"Because the basis for capitalism is productivity and albeit the promises of industrialization was to work less, not more, we have been let down by a society that discards the idea of well being through non productivity goals. \n\nAlso, considering the dismantling of family and the lives we live alone, we have to work « more » to do the things we should be able to do as a group unit and therefore, after a 8-10 hours workday, we end up working so much more at home, too. ",
"Because people are greedy. More efficient technology means we could be just as productive as we were without it with less effort than before. Instead people work much harder for lower wages.\n[Here's a graph of wages vs productivity from '64-'08]( _URL_0_)\n\n",
"Here's my best effort to keep this at a 5 year old level:\n\nWhen a business finds clever ways to make more for less one year, the next year they are expected to do it again by the people who gave them money to run the business. This cycle repeats every year with businesses looking for new ways to make more money for less. This means there is never a reason to ask people to work less as companies are always looking for more out of their activities.",
"While the average time spent at work has decreased slightly over the last 100 years, I think you are incorrectly thinking about how any company looks at innovation.\n\nCompanies and startups aren't typically looking at the innovation to give their employees fewer hours. Innovative tech simply allows us to automate tasks, or do them faster; as a result, companies have to hire fewer employees to do certain tasks. The fewer amount of employees that don't get laid off as a result of automation can now perform more tasks throughout the day, due to the aid of technology. Its all about efficiency. If no employees are having trouble handling a 35-45 hour work week, I as a manager will keep them there that same amount of time every week, no matter how much more efficient tech makes them.",
"Money. Without control of you what power do the .01% have? None. The more hours you're willing to work for your shells and beads, the more they'll keep you busy, ultimately providing more for them. ",
"The amount of hours you'd have to work to achieve the quality of life 100 years ago has gone *way* down.\n\nIf you want all the extras - Television, internet, computer, car, air conditioning, smart phone, air travel, etc - you have to work more.\n\nWork has gotten more efficient, as you indicate, but as it has the \"average life\" has also increased dramatically.",
"The tech is for the business owners not the workers. In addition to tech that allows them to produce more within a given time frame assuming the same worker efficiency there are tools to help improve 'worker efficiency' which just means how to get workers to do more work in the same time frame.. so modern employees are under more scrutiny then before with employers able to measure and control the employees work habits. Plus, the increased availability of training, education, and transportation employers have much larger pools of potential employees which means they are able to expect more work and be more demanding of individuals to justify their employment. \n\nTech like time-clocks, bar code scanners, electronic door locks allow the employer to enforce stricter controls on employees, even if you work the same number of hours the amount of stress and expectations are raised. Companies like Amazon or Walmart who really have no regaurd for their employees forces other companies that don't neccessarilly want to be heartless to raise their individual employee expectations as well to remain competitive. \n",
"According to David Graeber in Bullshit Jobs, because as a culture we believe that work gives our lives meaning, people who don't work as much are freeloaders and doing something meaningful with our lives is payment enough so it shouldn't be remunerated. As a result, we keep making up jobs to keep people busy. Check out his work if you want to know more.",
"Because for almost all industries, your salary or hours worked isn't necessarily linked to production. To a business, employees are considered a cost. Obviously, for a business to make money, they will want to minimize costs and increase profits. That means they will continue to sell their items for as much as possible, and will pay you as little as possible. The actual time or effort spent building the product has nothing to do with your wages or how expensive a product is. \n\nBasically, there's no incentive for a business owner to pay people more or lower the cost of their product simply because production has increased. ",
"While many people in rich nations do work less than our ancestors, the biggest factor here is inflation. As people make more money, enjoy job security, etc, businesses also strive to increase profits and increased sales. You make more money, the cost of the things you buy goes up. The cost of goods goes up, people need to he paid more money so they can continue to buy stuff. It's a crazy cycle and there's no sign of it ever ending. Think about that the next time someone argues for a higher minimum wage or universal income. ",
"Because lobby-based capitalism actively decreases worker participation in total wealth and concentrates incomes in the 0,1% of the population.",
"The western countries need to wake up and realize that foreign investment in properties are inflating the price of a home to the point where first time home buyers are being priced out of the market. If i were the head of a communist country and wanted to see capitalism fail then i would encourage the wealthy of my country to invest in western real estate and inflate the prices of housing to that point. And if i were a western government i would make it very hard for communist idealism to use our financial and real-estate markets to undermine ours. They know there will be a revolt if a person cannot work there way into a house ever. Having a million dollar mortgage with two people working four jobs and 60 hours a week is not sustainable, and these couples are not spending disposable income because there isn't any. ",
"It has. \n\nYou just require more of everything so the hours have only gotten slightly better. And there are more people competing for jobs so wages haven't gotten better.\n\nIt is called carrying capacity. We increase the carrying capacity with the technological production frontier and then absorb those productivity gains through an increased population.",
"Because profits.\n\nCompanies will make you work just hard enough so you don't quit. We're far more productive as persons but we're also far more profitable as persons. ",
"I've written enormous essay replies on this subject before but the simple answer is that the greater productivity has instead driven higher profits for enterprise rather than translating into reduced hours for the workforce. Why reduce an employees hours by half when you can have them work the same and do twice the work?\n\nThere are other factors, for example the fact that Labour has become devauled through globalisation and the entry of women into the mainstream workforce, but with regards to technology specifically the answer is corporate greed and capitalism means it wouldn't make sense for companies to improve conditions for workers at their own expense. ",
"Instead of fewer hours you use fewer workers and incease the hours and workload of the remaining.",
"In fact the premise is wrong. The last 100 years of tech innovation has indeed resulted in fewer hours an individual has to earn an \"average life of food, housing, clothes and amenities\", measured on the scale of 100 years ago.\n\nHowever, in parallel, the average food, housing, clothes and amenities have changed considerably. We did not, by and large, have packaged food or hot running water, indoor toilets, unlimited showers, modern medicine, 911... We did not have cellphones, the Internet, Walmart, imports from all over the world were a thing of luxury, and there was not a take-out restaurant for miles in any direction, except perhaps in very large cities. Few people had cars. We died about 20 years earlier, on average, mostly from nicks and cuts, and often quite painfully. unless we were wealthy.\n\nSo yeah, average is better. \n\nMeanwhile, marketing has evolved in parallel to cause the average person to want more stuff, that they consume the rest of their available working hours to earn. It's a continuous case of \"keeping up with the Joneses\".",
"Because of standard of living improved. If you want to live in a 800 sq ft house with 1 bulb in the middle of the ceiling, 1 sink, no toilet, etc then you CAN do so while working only a small fraction of your day.\n\nIn short, lifestyles increased to 'use up' the efficiencies created by technology/etc.\n\n\n",
"Because companies kept that extra productivity for themselves, by and large. Corporate profits and executive compensation is at record highs, while people are working longer hours due to \"always on\" work culture (fewer hours than 100 years ago, but more than a couple decades ago) and the average wage is barely keeping up with inflation.",
"G R _ _ D\n\nWould you like to buy a vowel?",
"In the book \"capital in the 21st century\", this is explained by more efficient factories only benefit the owner. For instance, in the coal industry a lot fewer work hours are necessary to run a mine now than 100 years ago, but instead of working shorter days, the mine has fewer workers. The owner of the mine might not get a lot of money as the price of coal is lower, but somewhere someone is benefiting from the increased efficiency. This has lead to the wealthiest 1% now own as much as the bottom 95% globally.",
"Because how the market works. You produce more in the same time, so others can ask more from you",
"The small percentage of people who rule over us have gone from 'extremely wealthy' to 'much more extremely wealthy'. ",
"The individual worker simply doesn't have the leverage to negotiate less hours when there are others willing to work 40 hours a week. It is only through collective bargaining that such major changes can be achieved. That's not happening currently because the labor movement in the US has been reduced to a husk of what it once was as a result of decades of neoliberal policies, i.e. deregulation, austerity, privatization, and \"free\" trade.",
"In short; Capitalism. \n\nWhen a factory owner installs machines that increase the effectiveness of worker hours by 50% they can either share the increased profit that results with the workers, lower the amount of hours needed to earn the same wage, or slash hours and lay off staff without sharing any of the profits. \n\nHistorically the competitive pressures of capitalist economies have favored that last strategy, using automation to enrich the capitalist class and leaving the working class more desperate and out of work rather than with greater leisure. As the number of people without jobs grows so do new opportunities to exploit their labor, as well as a need to find some way to occupy people so they dont have the free time to realize how flawed this society is. So the number of people doing jobs like business law or in the service economy grows in proportion to the need to keep people working. The quality and importance of our jobs declines rather than the number of hours we need to put in.",
"There are a few reasons....\n\n* Women entering the workforce doubled the workforce, driving wages down by half. This also came with a significant reduction in quality of home life, where women normally tended to the home all day, now the home remains empty. In the past women cooked, gardened, tended to household chores, educated and raised the children, and alleviated the stress of the working man, now both parties must work full time and must do all of that home maintenance together during their little bit of free time. This halved the average wage.\n\n* The refinement of technology resulted in a need for fewer workers while also making the remaining work easier and safer, thus increasing competition for those jobs and driving wages down.\n\n* The removal of laws serving to protect the housing market in the USA has lead to the dumping of all kinds of funny money into the US housing market, driving prices sky high. \n\n* An increase in legal-bureaucratic overhead for building and a practical outright ban in many places for building new structures has severely limited availability and increased housing costs and landlord profits.\n\n* The financial markets have*boomed* via legislation and corruption. The ratio to actual producers versus financial workers (people who do not actually serve to create physical wealth) is at an all time high. These people do not produce actual value, no matter how many times they claim they do. There is an insanely large amount of people living off of the rest of society via bureaucracy like never before. Society has recentered itself around gambling.\n\n* Upward mobility has majorly decreased as subsidization of higher education has been pulled out from under the working class's feet. Corporations previously paid near 50% tax on profits, now only paying 35%.\n\n* Insane asylums have been shut down resulting in an increased financial and emotional burden on families all the while the nation's leaders have sent more of our people to needless wars, resulting in an increase of mental instability and violence.\n\n* Public infrastructure isn't being maintained. Instead of investing in a higher quality of\nlife for the general public, we've spent it all on offensive imperial wars.\n\n* Major industries are monopolizing. From news/entertainment to general communications to food and electronics, there is a distinct lack of competition in the larger market. Laws ensuring truth and balanced news reporting have also been removed, allowing news organizations to lie to the people directly.\n\n* Corporations are keeping more and more of the profits when in the past the rate profit rate would be shared with lower members of the hierarchy in order to keep the hierarchy in order. Now that there is little competition there are less organizations to move to.\n\n* Medical costs are skyrocketing due to beaurocracy, from insurance practices to the artificial limitation of production of medical staff. \n\n* All the while everything above is occurring/has occurred, the population is increasing, forcing wages down, increasing population density, decreasing the quality of life as more and more pack into this bureaucratically limited space, while all of our public infrastructure fails under the load, and governments refuse to expand such infrastructure to serve the masses, thus resulting in poorer quality of education.\n\n",
"Henry George explained this phenomenon very clearly and irrefutably nearly 140 years ago in \"Progress and Poverty.\" Essentially, the Law of Rent shows that any increase in production tends to just be taken by landowners, because it mainly increases the DIFFERENCE in production between marginal and advantageous locations, which the landowner gets as rent. That is why the price of land has increased far more than wages or inflation. Consumer prices have increased by about 17 times in the last 100 years, (_URL_0_), and wages have increased about 80 times, but the price of almost any given piece of land has increased many thousands of times.",
"That's because the efficiency these technological innovations brought hasn't been used to lighten the workloads of those whose labor creates value - it has been used to enlarge the profit margins of those who control the means of production. Nothing really complicated about this - it's simply capitalism in action.",
"because we don't live in a socialist society where stuff like that can actually improve your work life without hurting your wages.\n\nthe second technology that can do your job becomes available, since you dont own a stake in the means of production, it just means you will get fired. or you will be given less hours/paid less because \"even a monkey can do your job now\".\n\nthat is the problem with capitalism, the capitalists gotta break the fucking machines just to keep people working to have the money to buy their shit. capitalism is technological stagnation.",
"because of the way late stage neoliberal capitalism works.\n\n & #x200B;\n\nProductivity has RISEN while wages have stagnated.\n\n & #x200B;\n\n[_URL_0_](_URL_0_)",
"Ever since Reagan or thereabouts, almost all gains that resulted from technology and better education have gone straight back to the 1%. Our wages have stagnated and even fallen since, while theirs have skyrocketed.\n\n & #x200B;\n\nThis trend continues, so the question is not \"will the guillotines come out\"? but \"When?\"."
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5benpo | why aren't mob bosses in jail if we know who they are? | This has bugged me for years. Like, I don't get how members of the mafia are public knowledge but don't get arrested. Example: _URL_0_
Someone explain to me how you can be a known crime boss and not get caught | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5benpo/eli5_why_arent_mob_bosses_in_jail_if_we_know_who/ | {
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"Knowing who they are and catching them in the act of a crime are two very different things. Those who become mob bosses do so by being intelligent enough to hide their criminal activities and keep direct ties from being drawn to them. ",
"It might be \"public knowledge\" that somebody is in the mafia, but that doesn't mean you can prove it. Who's going to testify? I don't just mean, who isn't afraid of reprisals if they testify, I mean, who has first-hand knowledge that proves he's committed a crime? Other mafiosos, I suppose, but why would they cooperate? Police investigators, maybe, but what did they actually witness? Victims? A shopkeeper can point out the thug who shook down his store for protection money, but he doesn't really know who sent him.\n\nNone of these are insurmountable barriers- other criminals might testify in exchange for leniency, the police might have discovered copies of the family's records, the victims might have seen the thug's boss waiting in a car outside. But they're not easy challenges, either. Building a strong, convincing case against a crime family is something people spend their careers on."
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5gb30k | if someone is classified medically as "starvation" or emaciated, why can't you just feed them anything to get them to normal weight? | In a few Holocaust books, survivors were not just given "food"-they were given very specific diet (which a narrator said he vomited up) of bread and something else because the Allied Doctors wouldn't allow anything else.
Hospitals, for children with abusive homes where the child is medically considered "starved", they put them feeding tubes with some concoction until I think two weeks? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5gb30k/eli5_if_someone_is_classified_medically_as/ | {
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"Basically, your body is very weak when you haven't eaten for a long time. Certain foods require more effort for your body to handle than others, so to avoid risking you hurting yourself by eating foods that your body doesn't have the energy to safely handle, they try to ease people who haven't eaten in a while slowly back to health with softer foods until they build up their strength. ",
"When you have starved for a long time your body becomes dangerously low on various minerals including phosphorus, magnesium, calcium, potassium, etc. \n\nWhen you start refeeding a person who has been starving, the body engages in anabolism (building of tissue) which further depletes the already low levels of phosphorus, magnesium, calcium, potassium, etc. This results in an extremely low level of these minerals which results in death. It'd be like if you had $5 in your bank account but then decided to renovate your bathroom, you would rapidly deplete whatever minor stores of money you had left. \n\nSupposedly giving someone half their daily caloric intake via milk as well as a multivitamin for the first few days before feeding them calories above maintenance is a good way to avoid this problem. Milk is high in potassium, phosphorus, magnesium and calcium. So that'll replenish stores a bit and make anabolism less dangerous. ",
"There's a problem called [refeeding syndrome](_URL_1_) that can kill someone during the first ~4 days.\n\nWhen a person is starving their body changes from breaking down starch (and sugar) to breaking down fat from the cells, and a lot of other normal processes stop (like breaking down old red blood cells, or building muscle). Many minerals in the body can become depleted when this happens, and insulin levels drop to almost nothing (since insulin is a signal for the cells to eat sugar).\n\nWhen a person starts eating again, blood sugar jumps, which causes insulin levels to increase, which restarts the production of fat and muscle, which consumes phosphates, magnesium and potassium. Unfortunately all of these are very low, so the little that are left get used up quickly and the person can die.\n\nThese days we can just monitor mineral levels in the blood, and give IV supplements whenever anything drops too low.\n\nThere is a case of a person who didn't eat for year to lose weight. He even did [an AMA](_URL_0_). In that case they monitored his minineral levels while he was fasting, so they never dropped too low so refeeding wasn't a danger.\n"
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"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Refeeding_syndrome"
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8t2x6q | what exactly makes a "good" gaming computer that makes it run fast, smoothly, and look nice? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/8t2x6q/eli5_what_exactly_makes_a_good_gaming_computer/ | {
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"Processing power, both graphically and computationally combined with speed of access to memory.\n\nMore calculations performed by the computer per second translates directly into more frames or more detail in each frame.\n\nRunning fast comes from a fast CPU and fast retrieval of information from memory and storage.\n\nRunning smooth comes from high frame rate, which generally comes from the GPU.\n\nLooking nice comes from high detail in each frame, which also comes from the GPU.",
"CPU: Handles most of the processes that the computer runs. This is the main reason for a computer to run fast and smooth.\n\n \nGPU: Handles the processes related to graphics. It's essentially a CPU that's dedicated to producing graphics so it doesn't get bogged down by the other processes a CPU handles. This is what makes things look nice.\n\n \nRAM: Higher RAM, more processes can be run at a time. This is basically the capacity of how many things your computer can do at once. \n\n\nOther than those three, the rest of the system can be pretty standard as long as they're compatible with each other. \n",
"I'm gonna get a bit detailed but I'm assuming you know absolutely nothing about computers, so here's a crash course: \n\n\nFirst off, you need to provide power for all the parts. You need to do so reliably (no drops/jumps) and efficiently (don't waste electricity) so a quality power supply is needed for moderating how power is taken from the wall and distributed to all the parts to make sure they're able to do their jobs. Fancy gaming parts tend to require more power, so you need a power supply that is able to handle and deliver all the power necessary. \n\n\nSecond, you need something for everything else to plug into to communicate, the streets that all the data will travel along. This is the motherboard, and it can also have other built in features like wifi. This part simply needs to be reliable and support the other parts. Higher end motherboards will allow other parts to run faster. \n\n\nThird, you need code to run, the data. The problem with storing data is that the faster the technology is, the more expensive it tends to be. It would cost too much to store everything in the fastest technology. So, it's better to use cheaper technology to store mass amounts of data, like a warehouse for a store. These are your hard drives. They use lower-end technology so that they can store more data for less money. However, they're actually slow to work with, and much like a warehouse, they merely store the data before it's actually utilized. Some technology strikes a balance, such as solid state drives, which are faster but cost more money. You basically need to find the right balance of price/performance for your mass storage. \n\n\nThen you have your workbench, where the code is actually loaded to be utilized. This is your RAM. You want fast RAM to be able to move code in and out of it quickly. You also want fast hard drives to be able to load code out of storage into RAM as quickly as possible and to put it back when necessary. Active programs you're running are typically in RAM, on your workbench, so that the processor can interact with that code faster than it would if it were in storage. However, RAM is much more expensive, so we only have so much of it, just enough to run the amount of programs we think we'll need. Any space we don't have in the workbench means we need to temporarily move something back into storage until we need it again, so not having enough space and/or having too slow of storage can be a nightmare on performance. You'd want to have a big enough workbench, but if it's any bigger, it doesn't really do much, it's wasted space. \n\n\nAlright, then you need to actually process that code. There are two places primarily that is done. For simple math problems and directions for how a program is supposed to run, it's run in the processor. Processors have cores and they have a speed they run at. You can imagine a core as a person, each one is able to handle a task. You're able to run more processes simultaneously with more cores, which means your computer can get more work done at once, but as far as gaming goes, the game needs to be able to tell the processor to delegate work to different cores. The code itself needs to tell each person what its job is in order to truly get a performance benefit out of it. Otherwise, as far as a single process goes, say it can only be handled by one core, then what matters is its speed and efficiency. Now, several factors play into efficiency, but for the sake of simplicity, you can expect speed to be pretty linear. Something that runs at 4Ghz will be twice as fast as something that runs only at 2Ghz. The speeds actually get more complicated, they can change depending on the situation, but for the most part a good gaming PC needs a processor that can go really fast when it needs to, preferably for a long time. \n\n\nI should also add on here that having such fast components and numerous cores will make the parts very hot. Imagine a closet full of people. The more people you have and the harder you have them working, the quicker the room will get hot. When people get hot, at best they start to work less so they can cool off, at worst they faint from exhaustion. Ideally that closet needs good ventilation to take the heat they generate away. Same with processors. You need a good cooling solution to take that heat away, else the processor will slow down or even shut down completely. Fundamentally, they all work the same way. Heat is transferred either by metal pipes or by water away from the processor, spread out over a large area of metal fins, and then typically a fan blows air through the fins to take the heat away and into the air, eventually out of the case. \n\nThe other place data is processed is in the graphics card. Graphics are actually a bunch of simple computations. For simplicity's sake, imagine that each color is on a brightness scale from 1-10. Each pixel might start off as red with 8 brightness, but then the graphics engine says \"well, anything in this area is a little darker because it's in the shadows\" so a punch of pixels need only a small change to their brightness. Instead of the CPU's approach, which tries to calculate just a handful of things at a time very, very fast, GPUs do the opposite, they try to calculate a ton of things at once but less fast. So thousands of pixels will all have their brightness increased or decreased a little. Otherwise, the same things that apply to the rest of the computer apply here. They have their own workbench, video RAM, where they need to store their graphics data. They also can do more if they run faster and have more cores available. But they also get really hot and will slow down if they're not cooled, so a good GPU has a very fancy system of heatpipes, fins, and fans to help keep them cool. \n\nAs for peripherals, these can matter too. To cut to the chase, you want things that can also process the information they get fast and reliably so that things work smoothly. I can get more detailed with these if you want, but I've already written a wall.\n\ntl;dr: The power supply needs to deliver enough power, the CPU and GPU should have enough cores and a fast enough speed to handle the tasks you throw at them, you should have enough RAM to hold all the programs you'd be using at once, you should have a good motherboard that supports all the features you'd want out of it and from your other parts, you'd need a good storage solution that holds onto enough data without breaking the bank, and finally you need eough cooling to keep all these demanding parts from overheating. "
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2jny1t | why do my symptoms of depression go away while exercising and for a while after, but if i exercise for too long they get worse? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2jny1t/eli5_why_do_my_symptoms_of_depression_go_away/ | {
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"Exercising releases endorphins into your blood stream which can make you feel better. It's a powerful drug that is natural in your body and often makes people who are depressed feel better. It's also why people hurt themselves either by cutting or burning. Exercising is a positive outlet to make yourself feel good. I couldn't tell you why it's making you feel worse. It may just be your body telling you it's had enough."
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7fvgki | which country's alcohol laws apply on an international flight? | As an 18y/o from New Zealand (where 18 is legal to buy alcohol), I was recently on a flight to the USA and was unsure as to whether I was able to buy alcohol or not. What are the laws about international airspace and whatnot? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/7fvgki/eli5_which_countrys_alcohol_laws_apply_on_an/ | {
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"While on the ground, an airplane is governed by the laws of the country it's in. When in the air, those laws don't apply and it's up to the airline. Typically, airlines choose to follow the laws of their home country (so US airlines will require you to be 21 to serve you alcohol everywhere in the world), though there's nothing that says they're required to.",
"They'll follow the rules of the country of residence of the airline, except when on the ground at which point local laws apply."
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6kt645 | how do judges determine who wins a boxing match? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/6kt645/eli5_how_do_judges_determine_who_wins_a_boxing/ | {
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"The scoring system works like this: every round, the judges will score both fighters. Usually, they award 10 points to one fighter and 9 to the other. If a fighter gets knocked down, they lose one point. The judges can score a 10-10 or a 10-8 when no knockdown has occurred, but it's less common to see that, and judges usually see something that will give the edge to one fighter over another in a potential 10-10 case.\n\nAs for what they're looking for, they're looking for the dominant fighter. The fighter who is controlling the pace of the fight, who's attacking effectively, who's getting clean shots in, who's defending against his opponent very well. A fighter may throw lots of punches, but if they're not connecting, or if the opposing fighter's defense is really good, then it doesn't matter. \n\nSince the scoring is done per round, score winners tend to be the fighters that were consistently dominant throughout the fight. If a fighter was on the losing end for most of a fight, came back very strong at the end, but didn't get a knockout, then that fighter will still likely lose by score. ",
"Simple and concise explanation \n \n \n**Professional Boxing**\n \nThe scoring system used in professional boxing is called the 10-Point Must System. These are the basics for scoring a round:\n \n- Judges score on a 10-point scale. Most rounds will end 10-9, with the more dominant boxer receiving 10 points, the other receiving 9.\n \n- If a boxer is knocked down, he loses a point. If a boxer is knocked down twice, he loses two points. If both fighters are knocked down, the knockdowns cancel each other out.\n \n- While uncommon, if a fighter completely dominates a round but doesn’t score a knockdown, a judge can still score that round 10-8.\nIf a judge deems the round completely even, both fighters receive 10 points.\n \n- When the referee sees fit, he can take away a point or two for an intentional foul; he can do the same for unintentional ones, but that usually occurs after at least a warning.\n \nWhile you’d probably do well relying on the eyeball test to determine the winner of each round, it helps to know what a judge is looking for. These are the things that help determine which fighter won a round:\n \n- Effective Aggression – Being aggressive gives the impression of dominance, but unless the boxer is landing shots and not constantly getting countered, it’s not exactly “effective.” Judges look for effective aggression, where the aggressor consistently lands his punches and avoids those from his opponent.\n \n- Ring Generalship – The fighter who controls the action and enforces his will and style.\n \n- Defense – How well is a boxer slipping, parrying, and blocking punches? Good defense is important.\n \n- Hard and Clean Punches – To the untrained eye, it can appear as if a boxer is landing a lot of shots, when, in fact, most are being blocked or aren’t landing flush. A judge needs to look for hard shots that land clean.\n \nIf a fight goes this distance, the result is determined by the scorecards. Here are the possible outcomes:\n \n- Unanimous Decision – All three judges had the same fighter scoring more points.\n \n- Split Decision – Two of the three judges had the same fighter scoring more points (the winner), while the other judge had the other boxer scoring more points (the loser).\nMajority Decision – Two of the three judges had the same fighter scoring more points (the winner), while the other judge ruled the contest a draw.\n \n- Draw – A draw can occur when either two of the judges rule the contest a draw, or it can happen when one judge scores the bout for one fighter, another judge scores it for the other fighter, and the third rules it a draw.\n \n**Amature Boxing**\n \nMethod of Scoring\n \n- A judge is advised to fixate in between the two boxers; do not develop a tendency to study or follow just one of the boxers.\n \n- Amateur boxing is scored on a point system, not on a round basis.\n \n- The winner is decided on the majority of judges, i.e., 5-0, 4-1 or 3-2.\n \n- If a boxer, in the opinion of the referee, is being outclassed or is receiving unnecessary and excessive blows, the bout shall be stopped and the opponent declared the winner.\n \n- If one boxer has a 20-point advantage (for Open and Under 19/Junior men), or a 15-point advantage (for Women and Junior Olympics/Cadets) over their opponent, the bout must be stopped except in the last round, and the boxer with the advantage is declared the winner.\n \n____________________________________________________________________________________________________\n \n[Source 1](_URL_0_)\n \n[Source 2](_URL_1_)",
"One thing that these comments are overlooking is that the top criteria are damage and volume. Aggression and ring generalship are far less important than landing more impactful shots than your opponent.",
"Holy heck, for a brief and concise explanation I just learned a metric f-ton about boxing. One question, they have 3 judges to break ties, what keeps 2 of them from coming together and fixing matches, or is this common?",
"I suspect many answers have been deleted by the mods because they don't deal with the technical aspects of how scoring should be performed.\n\nHowever, the question posed here was \"How **do** judges determine who wins.\"\n\nThe word \"do\" is an important one, and makes the answer slightly different than if the question was phrased, \"How **should** judges determine who wins?\"\n\nThe top answer has done an effective job of answering how judges \"should\" score.\n\nBut boxing does have an extensive and well documented history of controversy, where how the judges \"should\" score does not always equal how they \"do\" score. There are many factors that contribute to the discrepancy between the \"ideal\" and \"real\" results. There factors can include limited viewing angles for judges, corruption (bribery), national favoritism (especially in the case of Olympic matches), etc. \n\nThese controversies are not at all rare in boxing. In fact, they are so common that the answer to this question would not be complete without acknowledging their existence.\n\nSources:\n\n_URL_2_\n\n_URL_1_\n\n_URL_0_\n\n",
"It’s worth bearing in mind that judges literally see a different fight to what we do, they don’t get to see every angle of action, they don’t get to see slow motion replays, they don’t get commentary that can subliminally influence who we think is dominant, they often get blindsided during fights, they can’t always be 100% sure if every punch lands or not and they certainly can get influenced by home town support for a fighter.",
"Three judges watch a boxing fight. Both fighters start with 10 points. The boxer that the judge thought lost the round loses one point. The judge deducts a point for every time that the fallen boxer goes down within a round.\n\nAfter the rounds are over (big fights get twelve) the judges sum all the points. The boxer with most points wins.",
"In theory: the winner of each round wins the round 10-9. If a knockdown was scored, then the fighter who is knocked down loses a point, and thus his opponent wins the round 10-8 (can also be 10-7, 10-6 rtf depending on how many Knockdowns were scored). At the end of the fight, all the round points are added up and the fighter with the most points wins.\n\nIn reality: whoever the judges want to win wins."
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"http://bleacherreport.com/articles/965780-13-most-shocking-scandals-in-boxing-history",
"https://www.si.com/boxing/photos/2012/06/11controversial-decisions-in-boxing-history"
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2ckuei | why won't my printer print in black and white if one of the color cartridges runs out of ink? and why do the color cartridges run out if i only print in black and white? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2ckuei/eli5_why_wont_my_printer_print_in_black_and_white/ | {
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"You don't print in white.",
"Because they make money on the ink. That is why I bought a laser printer",
"Running a printer with empty cartridges can cause damage: \n_URL_0_\n\nThe printer does not know in advance whether the file the is sent to it from the computer contains any color or all-black pixels. It just processes them one at a time and sprays whatever color the file says to spray when it gets to that pixel. So making sure that there is some ink in all the cartridges prevents you from accidentally causing damage.\n\nWhen you use your printer you hear a lot of buzzing and banging before it starts printing and then again after it finishes printing. This is the printer cleaning the print heads. It sprays ink through them to make sure that they are unclogged. It cleans all the heads and thus uses all colors of ink.\n\nIf you are going to be doing a lot of printing exclusively in black and white, buy a black and white printer. This feature is not common in inkjets but is quite common in laser jets.\n",
"To answer your second question, while text files are printed out in 'true black,' some images print out a 'composite black' which is a mixture of black, cyan, yellow and magenta. If your computer registers what you're printing as an image (which can happen with some PDF files), it may use composite black instead of true black.",
"Color printers work by layering cyan, magenta, yellow, and black (CMYK) to make whatever color you're trying to print. Most printers are set, by default, to use all these colors to most accurately portray what it is that you're seeing on the screen. The black colors that you see on the screen aren't usually true black, but actually a composite black, which is made up of other colors to appear black.\n\nIn short, if you want to use black ink only, there's almost always an option you can check when printing that says \"black and white\" or \"print as text (this option might just use less ink overall, and not specifically only use black ink).\"\n\nEdit: Selecting that option, whatever it's labeled as, should solve both of your problems. Your printer won't think it needs CMY cartridges to print, and your color cartridges won't be wasted by printing basic text documents.",
"Ex HPer here, so this only pertains to HP printers (or more specifically their drivers). If you print a black and white doc in normal or best mode, the printer uses blue and black ink. There's an option to print black-only, which will not send any data to the color ink cartridge. As far as the Epson, I find it hard to believe that the printer can actually detect when any of the three colors of ink are actually out(or dry), but is instead relying on a \"print time\" or \"time since last cartridge replacement\" counter. In either case, telling the printer that you replaced the color cartridge, but by actually just putting the old one back in, should fix the problem for a while. There is no true feedback loop built into the printer to tell if the ink is really getting to the page or not, so I'd give that a try. If Epson is truly somehow managing to get their customers to pay good money for color cartridges, even when the user doesn't need one, that sounds like a nice class-action lawsuit for some industrious lawyer out there...",
"I read somewhere that a certain coloured pattern must be printed, even on black and white that can signal that this document is a copy and perhaps even to identify your printer - as an anti-counterfeit measure. ",
"I used to work for HP about 8-9 years ago. I'm not sure if the following is still the case today though. \n\nAs others have mentioned, there's the priming and cleaning of print heads pretty much any time you turn on the printer and after not having printed for a specific amount of time. This ensures consistent cartridge performance but trying to make sure none of the print heads would get clogged. \n\nHowever, colour ink is still used when printing black text. Basically, an engineer told us (as far as I can remember) that the printer will print with the dye based colour inks first (I think he mentioned Yellow as the most common colour used) and then overlap it with the pigment based black. Apparently, this allowed the ink to \"dry\" a lot more quickly. Dye based inks would get soaked up in the paper while pigmented inks tend to sit on top of the paper. \n\nBut at the end of the day, ink is one of the most expensive things on the planet with regards to price by weight/volume. So basically, anything that would make you buy more ink was always viewed positively in HP's point of view. ",
"There are many reasons for this. Here are just some of them:\n\nEvery color printer prints a series of light colored dots that uniquely identifies the printer. This is to allow law enforcement to track a print job back to a make, model, and possibly even the person who bought the printer. This is to help in the tracking down of counterfeiting as well as for instance ransom notes.\n\nPrint cartridges need to be primed before using them. This is to keep things consistent. It also means that every ink gets used during the priming process.\n\nThe black your printer prints is made up of the blank ink as well as the other inks. This gives a truer black as well as ensures the color dries faster.\n\nYour color inkjet printer is actually a highly complex mechanical device. They sell them for less than the cost to manufacture them. The way this business model works is that they make up the loss by selling the cartridges at an insane profit margin.\n\n\nIf you really want to just print black, get a black and white laser printer. The up front cost will me higher than that cheap 59 dollar color model, but you will pay considerably less per page. The savings add up very quickly. It will also be faster and more reliable.",
"Because of the potential to use high res color printers in a wide variety of crimes, laws were passed that require all printers to leave identifying marks on all pages printed. Most manufacturers use yellow or magenta to make the identifying marks, and will apply them alongside or above/below black ink in a way that law enforcement can later reveal."
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3jita9 | how does whipping cream create butter? | I know whipping cream makes whipped cream (duh) but if you keep beating the cream it turns into butter. Isn't "whipping" just adding air? How does cream get from light and fluffy whipped cream to dense butter by "adding air"? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3jita9/eli5_how_does_whipping_cream_create_butter/ | {
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"cream is fat suspended in water (along with a lot of other stuff)\n\nWater and fat don't normally like to mix, but it can be achieved with what is called an emulsion- milk and milk products like cream are natural emulsions\n\nWhen you whip the cream too much, you break the emulsion, and the fat is able to separate from the water and clump up as butter.",
"Cream consists of little 'bubbles' of fat surrounded by liquid. \nWhipped cream is a foam that also has little bubbles of air in the liquid. \nHowever, if you keep beating on the cream, then the bubbles of fat start to combine and crash out of the foam. Without the fat acting to 'stiffen' things the liquid can't keep the air trapped. This causes the fat to form butter, and the liquid to form buttermilk, and the air to escape."
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3va0i7 | how hard would it be to combine google maps and (e.g.) gta5 engine to engine to make (e.g.) london in a game? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3va0i7/eli5_how_hard_would_it_be_to_combine_google_maps/ | {
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"Pretty hard, the elevation isn't perfect and the buildings would be terribly choppy. You would be better off just making London from scratch, you would be putting in about as much work.",
"Define \"game.\" Could you make some really simple, janky, top down game like the old GTAs before GTA3? Maybe, but it would be broken as hell. It wouldn't be smart enough to know an overpass from a building, so you'd have a ton of dead end streets without hand tailoring the map.\n\nIf you're talking about an actual GTAV walk around the city and get in cars game, impossible. There's not enough data for the game engine to know anything about the geometry of the world.\n\nFinally, if you mean simply using the map of London as the blueprint for hand creating a digital city, then it's doable but the problem is real world cities are bad for games because they're designed with real world concerns like traffic and infrastructure. ",
"I remember hearing a rumour that games that involve illegal road racing tend to avoid using the layouts of real cities because users might be tempted to try to test out their game times against the real thing. ",
"The basic problem is that google maps is just a map. Sure you might be able to use a map of roads to make a game, but it is pretty boring. To make GTA, you need to know things like were are buildings, what is a bridge, where a police station is, ect. You would have to manually put all of those into London. A great example is [class three outbreak.](_URL_0_) In that game, you can create a map using google maps, but you need to tell it where buildings and walls are. Another example is the game real world racer (which is no longer playable). It was a racing game that used google maps. They had to take every map they wanted to use, and modify it before it could work. Overall, it takes just about the same amount of time to convert a map into a playable game as it would to create the game from scratch"
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3up54q | why do feminists have a problem with people calling themselves egalitarians? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3up54q/eli5_why_do_feminists_have_a_problem_with_people/ | {
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"Implicit in saying \"I'm not a feminist, I'm an egalitarian\" is the that you're implicitly saying \"Feminism is crap because it only cares about women\".\n\n...and if **you're** not saying that, there's a long string of really shitty people making superficial attacks on feminism using the exact same words."
]
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3qwt9w | why can you be punished for refusing to take a drug/breathalyzer test? | [deleted] | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3qwt9w/eli5_why_can_you_be_punished_for_refusing_to_take/ | {
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" > Like if you're applying for a job and refuse to take the drug test that they require, it can disqualify you. \n\nYou can be disqualified from a job for any reason that is not a \"protected status\", such as gender, race, religion, pregnancy, martial status, etc. \"Refusing to take a drug test\" is not a protected status.\n\n > Or if a police officer pulls you over and you refuse to take a breathalyzer test, you can be arrested.\n\nThere are things called \"implied consent laws\". When you applied for a driver's license, you implicitly agreed, among other things, to always consent to brethalizer and/or field sobriety tests. So by refusing, you are breaking the law, and can be arrested. So \"innocent until proven guilty\" doesn't even apply here, because you are guilty of refusing a legally-required sobriety test."
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3bj256 | obviously religious freedom and laws sanctioned by the state will sometimes clash. please explain how and why federal laws must take any form of religious freedom into account when it comes to governance and legislation. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3bj256/eli5_obviously_religious_freedom_and_laws/ | {
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"Why: \"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof;\"\n\nHow: the Lemon test - \"First, the statute must have a secular legislative purpose; second, its principal or primary effect must be one that neither advances nor inhibits religion; finally, the statute must not foster an excessive government entanglement with religion.\"\n\nTheoretically, federal laws shouldn't violate the First Amendment, and the lemon test is the criteria by which laws are judged in order to see if they violate the FA. I hope I've understood your question, and answered it."
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1tw1a7 | why does everyone keep calling birds dinosaurs? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1tw1a7/eli5_why_does_everyone_keep_calling_birds/ | {
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"Because birds are dinosaurs. It's a fairly obvious answer. \n\nDinosaurs are split into birds and nonavian dinosaurs. Birds are currently the only group of living dinosaurs. ",
"As time moved forward, dinosaurs evolved in two directions; avians (birds) and non-avian reptiles. Avians evolved into what are now birds, non-avians evolved into reptiles. This evolution also helps to explain the idea of bright coloration and plumage thought to be on many dinosaurs."
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66fw5f | if you were shot in the back of the head from close range (completely unaware) and died, how much of the gunshot noise would you hear before you passed away? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/66fw5f/eli5_if_you_were_shot_in_the_back_of_the_head/ | {
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"You'd never know anything about it. Never mind how fast the sound travels, it takes your brain a substantial amount of time to hear and react to the sound, even if we're talking just the startle reflex reaction to a loud noise."
]
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3qabne | mind-body problem and qualia. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3qabne/eli5_mindbody_problem_and_qualia/ | {
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"We can (not fully but pretty well) describe how nerves are able to take in inputs, move them to the brain, and where they are processed into sensations.\n\nWhat we have failed to describe physiologically is how those senses are turned into what we *actually* see, hear, feel, etc. For example, why certain wavelengths are processed by our head as the actual color \"Red\" or why pain feels like it does. Those descriptive sensations are called Qualia. We not only don't know why they are like they are, but we also don't know if everyone shares the same Qualia. While the wavelength is the same, one persons \"Red\" might be another persons \"Blue\" and we have no way to test this.\n\nThis creates a separation of mind (also called spirit or soul in this context) and body where the mind is able to make these qualia sensations we can't describe in the physical body.",
"This is a good question because this problem is so often confused by the public. To understand this more fully, there are three primary papers one ought to read: (1) Thomas Negal's [\"What Its Like To Be A Bat\"](_URL_2_), (2) Frank Jackson's [\"Epiphenomenal Qualia\"](_URL_1_), and (3) David Chalmers' [\"Consciousness And Its Place In Nature\"](_URL_0_).\n\nIn (1) Negal argues that the echo-location sensory systems of bats make them alien creatures to us. He continues that, \"no amount of physical information can tell us what it is like to be a bat, and indeed that we, human beings, cannot imagine what it is like to be a bat.\" There is something it is like to be a bat, but we will never know what that is--at least not by knowing the physiology of bats.\n\nIn (2) Jackson further develops Negal's idea into the \"knowledge argument against materialism\", where he essentially makes the point that no amount of 3rd person, objective knowledge about a conscious being (say, e.g., a complete neuroscience consisting of a perfect physical description of a person) will produce knowledge of that conscious beings first person, subjective qualitative experience.\n\nIn (3) Chalmers gives a very good detailed analysis of all the arguments and positions on the matter and delivers his philosophical zombie argument against materialism. \n\nBut one can get the basic idea of the problem here: The controversial claim is that \"mind states are identical to brain states\": i.e. that \"mind = brain.\" The problem with this identity statement is that it is not obviously true, like for example the identity statement \"water is water\" or \" x = x\". Furthermore, it doesn't appear to be true on further empirical investigation, like for example the statement \"water is H20.\" \n\nIn fact, it seems not even possible to conceive of an actual identity that \"some brain state x = some conscious state y.\" (Try to conceive of a particular painful experience, for example, through purely neuro-physical concepts of the brain and nervous system.) All neuroscience has succeeded at so far is establishing strong *correlational* relationships (not identity relationships) existing between mental states and brain states. See any neuroscience text book for evidence of this. Thus, argue some, mental states--i.e. 1st person qualitative states (qualia)-- are not physical states, but they are something else. \n\nAnd this is basically the mind-body problem, the \"Hard Problem of Consciousness\": the gap between our subjective knowledge of perceptual experience and our objective knowledge of brain function seems so unbridgeable that it is evidence of a real metaphysical distinction."
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junob | li5 a foreigner with a simple question about american politics. | Since people seem to be losing faith in Obama and I definitely did months ago, what with him ignoring or forgetting his pledges and being the worst negotiator on earth, it seems that most of you think he's the only choice, since the republicans are scarily moronic why cant you just replace him from the same party? it's a really simple seeming thing, is there a rule against it, or do the democrats not see it as a possibility.
**EDIT** thanks guys, I get why it wouldn't be helpful or at least be very risky. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/junob/li5_a_foreigner_with_a_simple_question_about/ | {
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"There is absolutely no rule against a a candidate challenging a sitting president from within his own party. However, It is rarely attempted seriously, and no candidate has ever succeeded in winning his party's nomination over a sitting president. \n\nOn multiple occasions, however, it has *almost* worked. In fact, it has had a major effect on American politics. The fear of a primary challenge from Robert Kennedy, or a similar anti-war candidate, was one of the many factors that led Lyndon Johnson not to seek the Democratic nomination in 1968, effectively ending his presidency, and leading to the legendarily bitter [1968 Democratic Convention](_URL_0_). Eight years later, Gerald Ford faced a very strong challenge for the Republican nomination by Ronald Reagan, who won wide national support to unseat the president, but fell just short of winning the nomination, allowing Ford to be defeated in the general election by the Democratic candidate, Jimmy Carter. Carter would himself face a fierce Democratic rival four years later in 1980, when the late Ted Kennedy ran against the president. Carter won the nomination, but lost in the General to none other than Ronald Reagan. \n\nEach of these cycles was very bitter and divisive for the parties at the time. The chief reason no one is running against Obama, and that nobody ran against Bush, is that a strong primary challenge against a sitting president significantly weakens the party by dividing its voters, and has therefore effectively made it impossible for that party to win re-election. A generally poor or ineffective presidency, such as those of Ford or Carter, has historically led to a sweep by the opposing party. However, unpopular or divisive presidents (Harry Truman or George W. Bush, for instance) have managed to save themselves and win re-election quite often by proving during the campaign that their opponent is an even worse option. \n\n\n\n",
"There is absolutely no rule against a a candidate challenging a sitting president from within his own party. However, It is rarely attempted seriously, and no candidate has ever succeeded in winning his party's nomination over a sitting president. \n\nOn multiple occasions, however, it has *almost* worked. In fact, it has had a major effect on American politics. The fear of a primary challenge from Robert Kennedy, or a similar anti-war candidate, was one of the many factors that led Lyndon Johnson not to seek the Democratic nomination in 1968, effectively ending his presidency, and leading to the legendarily bitter [1968 Democratic Convention](_URL_0_). Eight years later, Gerald Ford faced a very strong challenge for the Republican nomination by Ronald Reagan, who won wide national support to unseat the president, but fell just short of winning the nomination, allowing Ford to be defeated in the general election by the Democratic candidate, Jimmy Carter. Carter would himself face a fierce Democratic rival four years later in 1980, when the late Ted Kennedy ran against the president. Carter won the nomination, but lost in the General to none other than Ronald Reagan. \n\nEach of these cycles was very bitter and divisive for the parties at the time. The chief reason no one is running against Obama, and that nobody ran against Bush, is that a strong primary challenge against a sitting president significantly weakens the party by dividing its voters, and has therefore effectively made it impossible for that party to win re-election. A generally poor or ineffective presidency, such as those of Ford or Carter, has historically led to a sweep by the opposing party. However, unpopular or divisive presidents (Harry Truman or George W. Bush, for instance) have managed to save themselves and win re-election quite often by proving during the campaign that their opponent is an even worse option. \n\n\n\n"
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2bsai5 | where does background radiation in space come from? | Hi guys.
i was reading up on astronauts and their suits, and how they have to be proofed(if that's the right word) against the radiation in space.
what i wanted to know was, what is the source of all this radiation?
is it the reactions in stars? or something else? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2bsai5/eli5_where_does_background_radiation_in_space/ | {
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"Well there's cosmic background radiation all the way from the Big Bang, but there is a ton of radiation in space from stars. If the vacuum of space didn't kill you, going into space without a suit would cause you to do quickly from the radiation. ",
"Our atmosphere protects us from the sun's radiation. When astronauts are floating around outside that atmosphere, they don't get the benefit of that protection so they have to bring their own.",
"There are many different ways radiation could affect astronauts, depending on where they are. \n\nFirstly, the sun produces a large amount of radiation, which it releases in its solar wind, as well as larger bursts which are more dangerous, including [Coronal Mass Ejections](_URL_1_). This makes it dangerous to travel out into interplanetary space. Earth is protected by its magnetic field, but higher up the strength of the field decreases, lowering the protection. Even in Low Earth Orbit, the dangers are increased. \n\nThe magnetic field produces a tail of charged particles that can spray behind the Earth as it moves, including the surface of the moon.\n\nAnother major concern is the [Van Allen belts](_URL_0_) which are several bands of ionised particles trapped in the Earth's magnetic field. They pose a threat if they are travelled through repeatedly, building up exposure over time. At present, astronauts in the ISS are below these. \n\nThere is also radiation coming from interstellar space - from other stars, the galactic hub, unknown sources such as cosmic rays, etc., but they generally aren't as big a concern for everyday activity.\n"
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wh733 | what exactly does a modem do? | I tried reading the wikipedia article and my reaction was pretty much [this](_URL_0_) | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/wh733/eli5_what_exactly_does_a_modem_do/ | {
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"A modem (modulator-demodulator) converts a digital signal(1s and 0s) into an analogue signal(electrical signal that can be transmitted by either cable or telephone lines depending on the type of modem) and vice versa. ",
"Existing network systems, like phone lines and coaxial for cable TV, don't work well with a purely digital signal because of the sudden jumps from high (1) to low (0). A modem modulates the signal into frequencies that can easily travel across the network. IIRC, it uses one frequency for 1 and another for 0, effectively turning a digital signal into an audio signal. Phone lines are made to carry audio so the signal passes through them without any problem, then gets demodulated at the other end and turned back into 1s and 0s. ",
"It just translates one type of signal to another.\n\nIn the old days a modem would be the guy at the telegraph office tapping out the Morse Code. Since the telegraph wires can only carry beeps, the modem (in this case the person) translates words to beeps.\n\nNowadays, we have small boxes that do the translating, and instead of translating simple words to beeps, we translate digital signals from computers to analog signals that travel through telephone wires or coax cable.",
"so you have a cup on one end of a string. and on the other end of the string is your friend with a cup(You two are the computers, the cups are the modems). you want to send a message to your friend(this is like when you go to click the start game button in one of your disney junior games). Now you are going to speak into your cup. the sound hits the cup. vibrates through the string. the vibrations hit the cup and turn back into your voice. Then your friend hears the message.\n\nam i doing this right?"
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39n8iu | why do people seem to get better, or "rally", right before they die? | How come some people seem to get better right before they die? I've seen this in both of my grandfathers as well as relatives of friends. I never quite understood how someone could be on the verge of death then feel better only to die a short time after. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/39n8iu/eli5_why_do_people_seem_to_get_better_or_rally/ | {
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"Some of the time it's because the medications were stopped. Chemotherapy especially has a lot of terrible side effects and its stopped if its not helping the prognosis.\n\nSide effects stop, person feels better from that, but initial disease continues.\n\nThis is one reason.",
"When an elderly friend of mine was dying from COPD, his hospice visiting nurses said that usually a week or two before death, people will get very active or agitated or even irritable - it seems to be the body's last burst of energy. In Jim's case, he decided \"we\" were going to start a fishing business. And he kicked me out, saying he (not ambulatory, incontinent, and had difficulty breathing just sitting there) could take care of himself. Later that evening he apologized, and a week later he wasn't able to get out of bed anymore. Week after that, he died peacefully."
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4se5na | what does the epa do and what are the consequences of removing it | The big ol Don says that if he is elected he will remove the EPA so I was wondering what are the consequences of this and why he wants to remove it. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4se5na/eli5_what_does_the_epa_do_and_what_are_the/ | {
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"The EPA is the agency in charge of Environmental Regulation in the United States. \n\nThe most important part of this is what is an Agency in the US? Let's say congress enacts and the president signs a fairly broad law saying \"All dangerous pollutants will be banned under the jurisdiction of the EPA\". That's it. Cool, that seems like a pretty noble goal. But how does that get enforced? In the US, congress merely has the ability to legislate. The president, the executive, has the power to make sure that the laws are carried out properly and to appoint people with the advice and consent of the senate. The supreme court gets to decide controversies in the law. That's pretty much all the constitution says in terms of governing. The actual practice of governing was mostly left ambiguous. How do laws work that don't just work automatically? That's where agencies come in. (Also, I'm gonna use the word jurisdiction a bunch, but that basically just means the area over which somebody has the right to make decisions). \n\nAgencies are a sort of 4th branch of government that has a mix of executive and legislative power. So, going back to our example, what the hell does \"dangerous\" or \"pollutant\" or even \"banned\" mean? If that is left ambiguous in the statute that congress passed, that all could be left to agency interpretation. The agency can hold small scale votes and hearings (called notice and comment periods) to get a sense of what the public thinks, and then can impose regulation to declare that. So, an agency can hold a notice and comment to determine that atomic sludge is a dangerous pollutant and can assign non criminal fines to anyone possessing it all on their own. Furthermore, the agency can set up enforcement systems to make sure people don't have toxic sludge. \n\nCongress however gets to say what areas of law go to what agencies, and even what agencies exist. So, generally speaking, any sort of environmental law that gets passed will be given to the EPA to oversee and enforce. It's important to note that they can't go beyond what congress sets out for them. So, using the example of the law I passed above, they couldn't regulate the internet to keep net neutrality (but the FCC, another agency, could because it's within their jurisdiction). \n\nRealistically, the Don can't remove the EPA all on his own. If he is elected president, he could appoint someone who has a hostile view of the EPA as the head of the EPA to slow down it's works. However, it would be illegal if the person acted against the laws of congress. So, say congress passed a law saying \"factory emissions must be regulated\", the Dons EPA would still have to regulate factory emissions. But, if the law said \"within the discretion of the EPA to regulate certain pesticides\" the EPA could arguably say \"fuck it, let's not regulate any of them.\" \n\nFor the Don to truly remove the EPA, he would also need congress to enact legislation to do that. While there may be enough republican legislators hostile to it, I don't see that happening any time soon. \n\nIf he did manage to remove it, there would be not clear mechanism to enforce a variety of environmental oriented laws. Or, the exercising of those laws would get more closely wrapped up into the executive giving the president more direct say over the execution of those laws. \n\nAlso, some people are very hostile to the modern idea of the agency in the US. Libertarians and right-leaning people see it as an example of the ever expanding powers of the federal government which makes them nervous. They also argue that because it's not expressly in the constitution they shouldn't exist. Furthermore, they tend to see them as hurting the little people, because there are tens of thousands of regulations and most people don't know all of them, even ones that apply to them, especially for small businesses. Furthermore, the low level employees of agencies can sometimes represent the worst examples of government bureaucrats. \n\nOn the other hand, liberals and the left leaning see them as a vital and necessary part of good governance. They see the constitutional argument as absurd because of the necessary and proper clause (basically saying the government can make any laws in attempt to carry out its proper duties). Furthermore, at the top of agencies are usually very smart people with lots of expertise in their area with a strong passion for the area. This means that people who really know the topic can be put in possessions to make important decisions about them. Furthermore, it allows congress to be a bit more free in their creation of legislation because they don't have to work out every kink or issue. The agency can fine tune the laws to make sure we promote the best society. (Personally, I'm of the liberal view point). \n\nThis was probably a little more high level than ELI5 (maybe ELI15). Feel free to ask anything to clarify. And for sources, I'm currently a JD about to take the bar exam in NY in two weeks with a particular interest in agency law and intellectual property. \n",
"The EPA (Environmental Protection Agency) does exactly what its name implies, protects the environment. They do various things such as setting regulations that products/vehicles in the United States need to comply with. They also regulate the water, etc. that we receive.\n\nGiven Donald Trump's previous standpoints I'm going to say he wants to remove the EPA to do away with the regulations they impose. This would create a freer market and allow companies to make affordable products- though they may not meet the requirements. Along with this they use tax payers money to operate and it would eliminate that cost and allow the funds to be used elsewhere. \n\nThe consequences could be bad, as his whole basis to get rid of them is that global warming is not true (which is another debate in itself). \n\nOf course we need some regulation on our water, etc. so the EPA could never be truly dismantled, or not replaced with something similar.",
"You know how you cannot dump lead acid batteries in the river? The EPA is one that makes a lot of those rules, and enforces them. \n\nMany regulations regarding dumping waste (including water run off, air borne pollution, and anything that could contaminate soil) is usually either directly created by the EPA, or is something that the EPA regulates. Their main function is industrial regulation though: preventing companies from dumping toxic material in ways that are hazardous to human health, and preventing companies from selling products which are similarly dangerous to human health and/or pollute. \n\nBecause the EPA mainly regulates business, some members of the Libertarian ideology and Alt Right have gotten it in their heads that the EPA is harmful to businesses. There's usually some comment in there about onerous regulations from faceless bureaucrats. \n\nHaving said that, removing the EPA without replacing it with some other organization that can create and enforce environmental regulation would be frankly about the worst fucking thing. Aside from talking about global climate change*, the EPA (and similar entities globally) exist to prevent things like [London's Great Smog](_URL_1_) and the [Cuyahoga river fire](_URL_0_). There are hundreds, thousands, of massive incidents of environmental disasters as a result of businesses doing very obviously bad things, many of those incidents resulting in numerous deaths.\n\n\\* And it's fucking real. If you think it's fake, you're an idiot and wrong. Full stop.",
"Mr. Trump and his ilk will tell you how the EPA is an imposition on to your life, introducing taxes and regulations where there were none before.\n\nAnd they are right....... except that the only reason for the EPA is all the pollutants you are being forced to consume in your air, water, and food in the first place. If they want to do away with the EPA, that's easy - stop polluting and it becomes irrelevant. However I suspect they want their cake and eat it too.\n\nA purely libertarian state would not look like \"today but with less rules\" it would be \"you can't run your car without first negotiating a contract with everyone within 100 miles specifying how much you'll compensate them for the pollution, noise and risk you want to introduce\""
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1smxv1 | why do helicopter blades make the choppy sound they do when they are spinning around at a constant speed? | If they are turning at the same rate, shouldn't they just make sort of a buzzing sound and not a pulsing sound? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1smxv1/eli5_why_do_helicopter_blades_make_the_choppy/ | {
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"The pulsing sound happens because the blades aren't turning very fast, so your ear can hear each one as it comes around. If they spun at the same speed as normal aircraft propellers, this pulse would happen so fast that it wouldn't be detectable.",
"Real simple version: Each time one of the main rotor blades goes by the tail rotor there is an interaction between the flow coming off each. The down flow from the main rotor crashes into the sideways flow from the tail rotor.About the worst case is a 2-blade main & a two-blade tail, both turning slowly. Which is why the Viet Nam-era Huey had such a distinctive sound. Supposedly they do make a buzzing sound if they don't have a tail rotor. \n**all info stolen from [here](_URL_0_), no idea how accurate.",
"What you are describing is called blade slap. The primary cause is a rotor blade flying through the vortex of the blade before it. It's usually most prominent when you are pulling a lot of power and descending. Basically your rotor disk is flying in your own dirty air. To stop it you reduce power and climb (reducing airspeed in the process) or some combination thereof. In some helicopters the blade tips reach mach speeds, and this can intensify the sound but isn't a direct cause. I've heard engineers argue about that. I have my private pilot license and flew a Robinson R 22 in and out of my parents neighborhood a lot. Noise abatement was important so I tried to maintain flight profiles that were quietest. I was also an airframes mechanic on cobras and Hueys, and my grandfather worked for Lycoming / US Army on the first Hueys.\n\nTo my knowledge it has nothing to do with airflow interaction with the tail rotor, or RPM. You hear the same sound at a higher frequency when a turboprop reverses blade pitch. You also hear it out of your tail rotor when it is chopping dirty air.\n\nTLDR: blades going through your disturbed air causes blade slap.\n\nSource, since I don't have my handy flight instructor texts... handy.\n_URL_0_\n",
"How do they make \"stealth\" or less noisy helicopters? \nWhy can I tell the difference between news helicopters and military just based on sound?",
"came here all \"i'm a helicopter pilot, I can help\". left here all [\"maybe i can't\"](_URL_0_).",
"because an airplane works with the air to achieve lift. a helicopter beats it into submission.",
"Aeroacoustician here. while blade slap can certainly cause a chopping sound I expect what you're referring to is that characteristic sound helicopters make when simply flying through the air. this sound is not related to a blade passing through dirty air but rather due to the rate at which the blades spin. (blade slap is only present when a helicopter flies in its own wake, but the mechanism I'm talking about is always present). assume the blades are evenly spaced and youre standing still, then the rate (or frequency) at which a given blade is moving toward you is constant. as a blade moves through the air it forces the air out of the way, creating a pressure front. it is this pressure, reinforced by each blade, that you perceive as noise and which generates the chopping sound you're asking about. "
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1fet8z | how did early lifeforms know how to procreate? | I know this seems like a silly question, but let me expand on it. Humans, to my understanding, aren't born with the knowledge of what sex is, hence sexual education. That knowledge isn't ingrained into us from birth, we are taught.
But, life obviously would have died off very quickly if we didn't procreate. And animals seems to just *know* how to have sex, no matter the species. So how did sex start exactly? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1fet8z/eli5_how_did_early_lifeforms_know_how_to_procreate/ | {
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"They just kind of figured it out. The ones that didn't figure it out didn't reproduce.",
"The earliest life forms didn't have sex. They were called asexual, meaning that they didn't need sex to reproduce. Sometimes they just divided and formed copies of themselves. \n\nSexes came about because when you split up the work of creating a baby, it's easier on each individual organism than it would be if each of them had all the parts themselves. See, they've each got less to take care of.\n\nThe thing is, though, neither thing can make a baby on their own, so they need the other. If they try to do it on their own they'll just fail and eventually die childless. They also need some kind of incentive or reason to reproduce, call it a sex drive. The ones that had it kept making more babies that had it.\n\nHow do they know what to do? Well, I shouldn't be telling you this considering how young you are but it just feels good when you do it right and those things learned to do what felt good. Kind of like how if you have fun playing a game you'll play that game more often, and you'll sometimes find even more fun things to do in that game. ",
"Humans may not know what sex at birth is but I don't think you'd have to tell them in order for them to figure it out. We're not sexually mature at birth, but that's what puberty is for.\n\nSex is advantageous not because it's easier on each individual, but because it allows for much faster evolutionary progression because you have multiple possible combinations of each parent's DNA instead of only relying on mutation.\n\nOrganisms of a species that started to mix their DNA with each other were much more likely to develop necessary adaptations, and so they began to devote more resources to the mixing of DNA.",
" > Humans, to my understanding, aren't born with the knowledge of what sex is, hence sexual education \n\nI think humans have a natural instinct to mate. We don't need \"sex education\" classes to teach us. We would figure it out.",
" > Humans, to my understanding, aren't born with the knowledge of what sex is\n\nThat's not really true. When I was a kid I had no idea what sex was but I still wanted to see women naked and it felt good to touch my wee wee. I'm sure I would have figured it out."
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6gsylk | why does tan/sunburnt skin appear lighter briefly after pressing down on it? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/6gsylk/eli5_why_does_tansunburnt_skin_appear_lighter/ | {
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"The skin is red due to increased blood flow near the surface. By pressing down on the skin you force blood out of the thin capillaries, similar to squeezing a sponge. In doing so you reduce the visible blood and change the color."
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4m59o0 | why can we open our eyes during sleep paralysis | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4m59o0/eli5_why_can_we_open_our_eyes_during_sleep/ | {
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"My eyes have always been open when this happens to me. As far as I know, having your eyes open is part of it.\nI read this as \"why *can't* you open your eyes.\" Backwards answer, huh.",
"You are actually paralyzed by a special node at the top of your spinal cord, which connects everything from your neck down. Your face and eyes, however, are controlled by the facial nerve, which connects directly to the brain, bypassing that node entirely. ",
"Another thing to note is that your brain does this to you body so you don't move around and get injured. "
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1mctis | how do they determine "viewers" for certain tv shows or event. do i have to watch certain percentage of the show to be counted as a viewer? or does it mean that i could literally tune in for couple seconds and be counted as a " viewer". please explain. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1mctis/eli5how_do_they_determine_viewers_for_certain_tv/ | {
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"Both are right of the Nielsen Ratings system. Basically, the company uses census information to find homes that contain certain types of \"families\". Those families are gives boxes that are attached to their televisions and their phone lines. Data on every channel change is recorded and sent to the main site. That is how information is gathered so quickly. The families also fill out \"diaries\", which are part of a more \"precise\" report later. \n\nIf I may add my own opinion, there is an inherent flaw in the system. A family of four will represent over 10,000 viewers (more in densely populated cities). So, the Nielsens may say that only 1 million watched Firefly, but if you spend just 5 minutes of the internet you can find SEVERAL million that watched. Network programming is chosen mostly by two tired parents who just want their kids to be quiet for a few hours. That is why quality programming is so hard to find.",
"There are about 20,000 families that have equipment in their homes to monitor what they watch. They're paid a small amount of money for their trouble. Unfortunately, it's very inaccurate as certain types of people are more likely to agree to participate than others. Nielsen has also historically left out certain groups of people like college students. "
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7moqkj | how do machines place each individual pixel on a screen? | There are a LOT of pixels on screens now, millions. I really wanna know: how can machines can be so precise and so fast to place millions of lights on a machine? Does it take a long time? How does it not make many mistakes? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/7moqkj/eli5_how_do_machines_place_each_individual_pixel/ | {
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"The pixels are put on the screen in the display factory. All the pixels that aren't in the right place or don't work are not sold to customers. (Actually, most displays are allowed to have 3-6 failed pixels.)\n\nYour computer is simply sending color data that the display circuitry turns into voltage to control the crystal polarization that lets a fraction of the available backlight out.",
"First, your computer just does math at a speed you you cannot imagine. A 3 GHz processor, like an average desktop computer, can theoretically make as many as 3,000,000,000 calculations every second. That's more than enough to draw 2,073,600 pixels 30 time a second. (1080x1920 resolution at 30 frames per second.)\n\nThis is further aided by having a graphics card, which contains its own processor that's optimized for drawing things on the screen. The CPU (brain of your computer) can delegate the graphics portion of a program to the graphics processor, (GPU) and focus on other processes in the program.\n\nAs for mistakes, they happen all the time, you just don't notice them very much, as any given frame is gone within 1/30th or less of a second. You you've had graphical glitches in games or even just stuttering frames on you screen, you've seen a time where the program running might just be too much for the hardware to handle.\n\nEdit: if you're asking about the manufacturing side of things, remember that each pixel isn't a distinct light, but an adjustable filter made out of liquid crystals with a backlight of LED's behind them. There are far more pixels that LED's in a display, so its not as if each pixel has to be placed individually. "
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1sh5ax | when a homeless person requires emergency surgery in america - who picks up the tab? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1sh5ax/eli5_when_a_homeless_person_requires_emergency/ | {
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"They are given a bill, but when it's clear they won't pay it the hospital pays for it, and to cover the cost they charge insured people (and their insurers) slightly more."
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6vg6gq | when could the united states debt become a major issue for all citizens? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/6vg6gq/eli5_when_could_the_united_states_debt_become_a/ | {
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"Not soon. Our national debt is only about equal to our annual GDP, depending on how you measure it.\n\n_URL_0_\n\nWe could start paying it down if we wanted to, and certainly can afford the interest.",
"Considering that MOST of the debt is actually owed to the citizens... it's not really the international big deal that it seems. \n_URL_0_\n",
"With a fiat money system, that's hard to say. There won't be a large scale economic crisis unless the \"full faith and credit...\" of the issuing entity (in our case the Federal Reserve) threshold is breeched. But think of all the things we've currency-printed our way out of in recent history without sinking the dollar: the S & L crisis, the Dot Com crisis, the Sub-Prime Lending crisis, bail-outs, multiple stimulus spending packages, etc. Not to mention the wars: Vietnam, 2 Gulf Wars, and a bunch of other assorted military interventions, all payed for by the printing press.\n\nPeople usually say that the debt is not a problem as long as we can continue to service the debt. Servicing the debt in this case merely means printing more fiat currency to do so. Taxes are merely reductions in the money supply so that it can be inflated and spent all over again. Bonds are longer term decreases in the money supply until they come due and can be payed back with weaker dollars than the original purchaser put in. The only way that I can foresee a major issue ensuing is if we get seriously out whack with the other fiat currency debtor nations. But everything being equal, the USA has more maneuvering room on this. Having the #1 economy in the world has its privileges."
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1hgva6 | why is the loss of a language a bad thing? | In TIL, [I learned that the last two fluent speakers of an indigenous language refuse to speak to each other](_URL_0_). I also learned that there are people who are there to try to keep the language from dying. I also learned that there are people in the comments of that thread who see the loss of a language as a great sad thing that somehow needs to be arrested.
Given that a language is not a living and sentient thing, why is the dying of a language a bad thing? Does anyone feel emotion that Latin is dead? How about Slovincian? Or Mochica?
I get that linguistics people might have a pet interest in such a thing, but is there any good reason that regular folk who just happen to learn about the existence of a language in the short period of time before it (possibly) dies should feel actual sadness about it?
(In the spirit of this particular sub, I want to note that while the above probably reads like I lean towards "who cares", I'm very open to learning why I would or should.) | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1hgva6/eli5why_is_the_loss_of_a_language_a_bad_thing/ | {
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"\"Bad\" is subjective, so obviously you will get different answers.\n\nBut the primary difference is this: Latin is not dead. Sure, it's no longer used in daily life, and speakers are *rare*, but they exist. People can still 'get it', and it can be learned.\n\n'Lost' languages, however, can never be fully recovered. There might be some written fragments, but they are incomplete at best. And any English speaker can verify that 'seeing' a word doesn't always help you 'pronounce' it. And as [Lera Boroditsky](_URL_0_) notes, different languages actually shape different cognitive patterns and ways of thinking (she has an awesome YouTube video on this topic; go look for it!).\n\nIt simply passes into obscurity to the point where we actually *lose* information about it. It becomes a part of human history that we *cannot* pass on.\n\nAnd that's the point. It's not about our ability to communicate right now. It's about our ability to preserve a record of our world for future generations. For a time when you and I have been dead for hundreds/thousands of years, and a historian looks back to ask \"what were they like?\" They will only ever have access to a *smaller* set of information than that which actually existed.",
"Latin didn't really die in the same way the other languages you mentioned did. Instead, it evolved into Spanish, French, Italian, Portuguese, Romanian and a ton of other languages which, altogether, are spoken by about 10% of the people in the world. For that reason, I doubt too many people cried when Latin didn't die, because in reality it happened very gradually as each generation spoke slightly different from their parents. It's comparable to how we speak versus how Shakespeare spoke. Latin is just a really old form of Spanish and French (etc). For that reason, Latin is not really considered to have [died](_URL_1_).\n\nThe reason why a dying language is a bad thing is because 1. it makes translating things much more difficult, which means we may lose out on a lot of history and 2. loss of *culture*\n\nLanguage is one of the strongest glues that hold cultures together, and when a culture loses that, they lose a lot of their identity. A good example of why this is problematic is with Native American culture: crime is high, drug abuse is high, unemployment is high, depression and suicide rates are high, generally because they lost their culture, and keep losing it (or at least that's the perception), so there isn't really any set-roles in society and people don't know whether to \"betray\" their culture and have a \"normal\" American life or stay with their culture and suffer. \n\nIf Native American languages had survived and remained as important as they are, their cultures would be much more cohesive and the multiplex problems they would face would be reduced a bit.\n\n_URL_0_\n\ntl;dr: cultural cohesion and identity"
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czgpf3 | why will a gif play normally the first time but may stop and need to load when it repeats? | I often see gifs on Reddit and then go to show my wife only to have the gif get stuck loading on the 2nd play through. Shouldn't the gif be completely loaded after the first time it plays all the way through? This happens on mobile and PC | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/czgpf3/eli5_why_will_a_gif_play_normally_the_first_time/ | {
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"When you create a gif in Photoshop or similar programs, you can determine if the gif should loop once, twice or over and over. The other possibility would be the browser or OS you are using as certain preferences could limit the times a gif would loop."
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2ocu6r | how are school history books legally allowed to print known false/half-true information? | For example, the whole Christopher Columbus story. Most of it that we're taught in school is either false or leaves out all the parts where he did absolutely horrible things to the natives.
How are textbook companies legally allowed to print, and therefore teach our children, factually incorrect information? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2ocu6r/eli5_how_are_school_history_books_legally_allowed/ | {
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"You can legally write anything you want about Columbus. \n\nAnd a school board can then choose whatever books they want to approve for textbooks.",
" > Christopher Columbus story. Most of it that we're taught in school is either false or leaves out all the parts where he did absolutely horrible things to the natives.\n\nAs far as I know, nothing the books print is incorrect.\n\nThey print that he was looking for a shorter trade route to India. They print that he landed in El Salvador. They print that this was the first major European interaction with Native Americans. They print that this led to the death of millions of Natives.\n\nThey don't claim that it was sunshine and rainbows. They don't claim that he brought civilizations and prosperity to the Natives. They don't claim that it was ultimately good for either side.",
"This is why as a kid I used to love the Horrible Histories books. They told it like it was!",
"There is no law that requires books to tell the truth, and if such a law were to be enacted, it would present truly terrible difficulties, because there is a tremendous amount of debate and uncertainty about exactly what the truth is. I will go so far as to say that there is not a single assertion you could make, on any subject, whose accuracy I could not find some way to challenge. We see this all the time in legal trials. If O.J. Simpson could be found not guilty of murder despite an overwhelming amount of evidence that he was guilty, we can challenge pretty much any conclusion about anything. Hence, every book would be open to challenge that it contains incorrect information and is therefore illegal. This problem would be so severe that it would become impossible to publish books at all; nobody could afford all the resulting litigation.",
"Because the most influential textbook buyers are generally in conservative areas (Texas, I believe). They can refuse to accept textbooks until the publishers make the changes that they require (downplaying slavery and global warming, and suggesting that the country was founded as a Christian country, and that evolution is just a theory - things like that). These aren't scientists or educators making these decisions, just regular people trying to promote what they believe should be in their kid's textbooks. And once those textbooks are accepted, the rest of the nation buys the same ones. ",
"Being a history teacher, let me shed some light on this. The business of textbooks are highly politicized and, of course, they are mostly concerned with money. Because certain states what to put in or omit certain things from their history, then they need a book to fit that. Textbooks are expensive, and because most places don't buy new books for ten, twenty years, it's a big deal to get the job. \n\nAlso, the people writing these books are typically not historians. They are merely people who are good/fast at writing, but it takes a certain kind of research to put together a coherent and logical historical thesis. (Every academic field requires slightly different skills, after all.) Beyond that, textbooks are tertiary sources; they get their information from other books written by historians/other textbooks. Because they take secondary sources at their word as opposed to going back to the original primary sources, it allows history to be muddle up a bit. \n\nHowever, I can't blame textbook writers entirely here for certain myths like that of Columbus. For a long time, up until very recently (a little after the turn of the century, recently), history was seen as story telling, not research. Somewhere along the line, a historian wrote the myth of Columbus. (Pretty much every American myth like George Washington and the Cherry Tree, came from a historian writing a good story at one point or another.) This faulty information gets passed along partially because it sounds better than the truth, partially because again, textbook writers are not fact checkers. \n\nFinally, at least referring to American education, history is seen as a way of passing along patriotic morale to the next generation. We like to twist our history into one of progress, where even if we made mistakes we can sweep them under the rug because either we were trying to help or \"we're better now.\" Some people seem to think that children cannot grasp that good people can do bad things, or that your government can make horrendous choices. If you want to learn more about this, check out the book *Lies My History Teacher Told Me.* It goes into great depth about how American history textbooks twist information to fit into their ideals, as opposed to presenting the facts. ",
"Lots of people complain about incompleteness in textbooks. That, however, is not a crime. If all relevant detail were added to history books to give an exhaustively balanced view, then school history books would be 3000-page, 6-volume sets. All textbooks are reviewed by committees before adoption to see if the books meet the standards they are expected to satisfy.",
"It's important to remember that history textbooks are *narratives*. They tell a story. They present facts, along with context and perspective, and try and weave it together in a coherent message.\n\nIf a textbook was simply a list of indisputable facts, no one would read it and no one would learn anything if they were forced to. \n\nBecause of this, there's a good bit of leeway. You have to emphasize certain things and leave out other things. Sometimes this is political, but just as often it's simply because there isn't enough time. If high school history did a detailed analysis of every step of history, you'd maybe--*maybe*--reach Andrew Jackson by the time you graduate. \n\nAlso, history is discovering new things all the time, and new research is being done. 20 years ago John Adams was a blip. Now that his reputation has gained significant positivity, history books might spend some more time with him.\n\nAnd finally, there is the role of the teacher. If history books were meant to be all-inclusive, why not just make it study hall? The teacher is there to emphasize things that need filled in; different students have different familiarities with different things, so no one textbook is going to be universally helpful. My textbook 25 years ago did detail how horrible Columbus was, but it was maybe a paragraph, and our teacher filled us in with all the relevant details. \n\nSo to answer your question: it's very rare that textbooks actually lie. There may be omissions made, but that is usually less out of political malice and more a judgement call. I won't deny that there's some politicizing in the industry, but it's not nearly as rampant as people believe. A textbook everyone agreed on would be so complex and convoluted that no one would learn anything.",
"History isn't a hard science and is generally not free of bias. Someone had to write all the history, and unless there are accounts from virtually all relevant perspectives, you're left with a biased history. Historians then often, unwittingly, propagate that bias because their history is based on only a couple sources. Great example is Edward Gibbon's Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, which is the most notable history of the Roman Empire. It's great, but rife with statements that turn out not to be true, as his history is based on accounts of Emperors which were often written by historians in the Emperors' own employ.\n\nAs a more modern example, there was a Russian guy in my lab when I was getting my PhD, and we talked at length about our knowledge of WW2. Not surprisingly, he pointed out that many Americans believe that they single-handedly won the war, while he said most Russian students are taught that they did. Obviously the truth lies somewhere in the middle.",
"My history professor said these profound words. \"Remember, history was written by the winners\" and it really explains alot.",
"In history, there is no one real truth. Yes there are dates and facts, but the significance of each fact to explain social relevance of an event can be cherry picked. The official date of the start of the civil war is not contested, but the impact, why it happened and key players are subjective. History is an argument, it's not a science. This allows bias and unpopular arguments that have specific agendas to make their way into history books.",
"kinda like how the Japanese leave out details of their atrocities committed during ww2 in their textbooks. ",
"Indoctrination is politically important?",
"I am in University and I took a course last year on the 'Philosophy of Education.' A lot more goes into schooling and particularly public education than the noble pursuit of knowledge. As pointed out by others, it has a lot to do with nationalism and patriotism. Not always in a bad way, for example in America we try to democratize our learning system as well as our learning as to reflect our democratic principles and ideals.\n\nThe real kicker though comes in the fact that schooling is largely seen as an economic vehicle. Largely school revolves around inculcating and reinforcing the values and skills that employers would like upcoming generations to possess. I'm trying to not to be too cynical about it, but in the end this is basically to say that schools are aimed to sort of funnel everybody down the same shoot all the way from childhood curiosity into debt-ridden, job-seeking adult. This is the machinist aspect of schooling anyway, this is leaving out the aspect of free (tax-based) education, benevolent teachers, etc. \n\nI tried to give a coverall explanation, but schools have pressures coming from every angle from employers saying that they want a more docile workforce, to state school boards issuing textbooks that reflect their own particular views, to regular parents complaining to the school and consequently the school board that they don't want their kids learning about evolution because it challenges their religious beliefs. \n\nEdit: Since this seems like a thread that would care, I just want to make it known that I have learned in college-level courses, which have legitimated my own beliefs, that there are, as the textbook I am referring to puts it, \"undemocratic powers\" in the United States that heavily influence public education. While I will not pretend to know there specific goals and incentives in doing so, I think that it is fairly transparent that their interests are not the interests of the average U.S. citizen that wants to be educated on the way the world works. ",
"There are several different answers to the question.\n\nThe first is that often misinformation is the simple result of compressing a story and discarding details to make it suitable for K-12 education time, ability and interest constraints. A complete and detailed account of the American Revolution (for example) is a subject that could take many hundreds of pages of text to exhaustively cover even as a compiled work to say nothing of the volume of text used to create the historical narrative in the first place! As you discard details, only salient and incredibly relevant points are kept. The exact cause of the American Civil war is thus often boiled down to a question of slavery which, will not accurate, does strike at the beating heart of the issue without having to expend thousands of words covering issues of states rights, economic considerations and all of the rest of the details that provide a more accurate picture.\n\n\nThe second is that History is rarely \"solved\" and often particular versions of events are contentious even among experts in the field. Often there is a version of a story that is accepted as being valid until new sources are discovered that cause one to re-examine various details of an accepted narrative and many times the information that exists lends itself to multiple interpretations. During incredibly chaotic times, even first hand accounts of a known event can vary wildly and the march of time alone is sufficient to destroy many valuable sources of information that might serve to clarify. If you take Rome as an example, you'll find that huge periods of the history of that empire exist with unanswered questions and conflicting interpretations. The crisis of the 3rd century is a confusing mess even for experts and thus while there is an accepted general narrative huge chunks of the story don't really have a correct answer. Somewhere in the early 300s BCE (generally thought to be between 387 and 390 BCE) the Gauls sacked Rome and thus anything that happened in that empire before that point has no more rigor than your average myth.\n\nFinally there is always the chance that one would use history to reinforce some cultural idea. So even in cases where a narrative might be fairly complete, you can often detect a bias. In one example I can recall in an entry level college history course, the allied bombing of Dresden was described in nearly clinical terms - when it happened and what happened using facts without any editorial words. Yet the V2 rocket attacks on London, which resulted in far fewer casualties, were described using the word \"murderous\".\n\nFinally, depending upon the state, the process for selecting books varies. So not only do you have issues resulting from the difficulty of piecing together the past and various potentially conflicting agendas regarding what you want to teach, often there is no high level and relatively impartial arbiter determining what route to take. So you have lots of different versions of a story that vary for reasons from legitimate lack of information necessary to achieve a reasonably unanimous backing of a narrative to attempting to push a social agenda to simply having to discard details for the sake of brevity that can easily cause bits of the narrative to change all being chosen from by people with their own agendas and their own ideas who are often not constrained by any attempt at academic rigor.",
"Basically Texas, Florida, and California have an agreement with the US textbook industry to use the books they produce. The American textbook industry comprises of four companies that compete in selling books. All the other states suffer from this since these are the only books produced.\n\nThere's a very informative interview with bill Bennette starting at 22:40 min into this skeptics guide to the universe podcast episode: _URL_0_\nHe is an avid fighter against the diminishing quality of American textbooks.",
"Because stupid politicians are the ones who decide which books to use, rather than educators who aren't in the middle of undressing for a furious fuck session with their bibles.",
"If it was illegal to be wrong, every single person on the planet would be in jail. ",
"Most of the Christopher Columbus misinformation arose due to the popularity of A History of the Life and Voyages of Christopher Columbus. Which had a lot of fantasy to generate American patriotism. Since then it has been passed on as fact (ex. columbus thought the world was flat).",
"ELY5? In America: Freedom of Speech. You can write a history book right now if you want. Your Columbus can be a psy vampire.\n\nEdit: ugh. Typos and other assorted bullshit. ",
"Because all the adults involved in making these decisions, including \"The Government,\" even though they may seem all-knowing and powerful to young people, are just as clueless as anybody else, and are making it up as they go along. Plus they are still subject to the same stupid petty desires and hangups as anyone else.",
"The purpose of education from K-12 is more or less indoctrination into the values, customs and narratives that contemporary culture expects you to internalize. We recognize a political bias in science texts when young earth creationists use them to push an agenda but it is harder to come to terms with the same process in history texts. \n\nI don't believe there is a room full of lizard people making sure you make america look great in the texts so much as there is certain 'expectations' from those tasked with production and purchasing of the books. More likely than not the people in charge of buying either don't recognize the half tuths for what they are or have already internalized the states story and thus don't see a problem with continuing to teach it. \n",
"Probably the same reason 1-2=-1 was marked wrong on my first grade subtraction test.",
"Historian here. The way history is recorded and taught has long been a source of conflict, as the version that gains favor tends to have political and ideological implications. People's beliefs about the past amount to competing realities, if you really think about it. In the U.S., for example, it's usually those who adhere to right wing ideology that want to believe the positive spin on Columbus. Historians tend to refer to these versions of the story as \"whiggish\" or consensus history. \n\nOne thing that you come to realize when you study history is that everybody is the 'good guy' in his own narrative. For Columbus, the search for gold and people to enslave was to them a 'good.' One thing we learn as human beings when we confront stories like these is that humans can be very animalistic. States of war can exist informally in places you don't expect to find them. Empires that plunder and kill simply see themselves as the 'winners' in an ambitious campaign or struggle. Moreover, our capacity to dehumanize the 'other' can be shocking.",
"In this thread I'm noticing that a lot of people are not distinguishing between binary questions about events -- e.g. debates about whether something happened or didn't -- and judgments and interpretations of events (i.e. was it a good thing or a bad thing, or was it this or that cause which brought about a given result, etc.). The topics that historians tend to write about are the ones for which a good argument could be made (and defended) for either side. \n\nOn the issue of Columbus, we could pose a broader question about whether Late Medieval and Early Modern imperialism were on balance a good thing, and inevitably we'll arrive at a follow-up question, \"Good for whom?\"\n\nWhat I'm getting at is that so-called objective facts about the past are often inaccessible to us. The past is just a present memory. In other cases, the events are accessible -- if they were recent and recorded on film for example -- but they build into other questions and arguments about the past. \n\nEven some of the most controversial topics in science amount to controversies over natural history -- arguments over the existence of God, evolution, the origin of the universe, etc. Again, it amounts to the relative inaccessibility of the past. One problem of history is that it has only matured as a discipline in the last 100-150 years, much like the physical and biological sciences. This means that the further back in time you go, the less reliable and plentiful the sources tend to be. Much of what Herodotus wrote, for example, referenced hearsay and myths that wouldn't even be considered reliable sources by today's standards. \n\nSo on the one hand, it makes history interesting. On the other hand, it can make it quite frustrating -- especially when you find that some people simply want to believe the lie. ",
"For the same reason that NBC (Richard Jewell) CBS (\"fake but accurate\" Texas Air National Guard memo), etc. can broadcast false information."
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5uy2yp | how did they assign zip codes to us cities and towns? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5uy2yp/how_did_they_assign_zip_codes_to_us_cities_and/ | {
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"That is not how the zip code works. Before the zip code people used what where called postal zone numbers. And they would be put after the city on the envelope. Like \"New York City 19, New York\" 19 being the postal zone assigned to that city. Well later they changed it to a 5 digit number to be put at the end of the mailing address. The first 3 digits are for the section center facility(scf). Each zip code is specific for the scf that it's going to. And the 2 digits at the end are for the original postal zone. It's just a further way of sorting the mail efficiently. ZIP Codes are numbered with the first digit representing a certain group of U.S. states, the second and third digits together representing a region in that group (or perhaps a large city) and the fourth and fifth digits representing a group of delivery addresses within that region. "
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86qsyd | why is it difficult to keep your eyes wide open when you look straight up at the sky? | You always squint and feel this urge to blink and look down immediately? And to be clear it's not looking at the sun lol - even at night it can be difficult? Is it something to do with gravity and the fluids in your eyeball? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/86qsyd/eli5_why_is_it_difficult_to_keep_your_eyes_wide/ | {
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"Because it is bright. The sun is up there. \n\nThe sky itself is made up of gas that scatters light. Even though it is not as bright as looking directly at the sun, it is like looking at a TV screen very closely. The sunlight hits the moisture in the air and diffuses toward your eyes. \n\nYou've probably seen an even more noticeable version of this on a bright day after a stow storm. If you walk outside, you can experience certificate snow blindness. The white snow surrounding you reflects the sunlight and gives a bright diffuse light. \n\nAnd at night, if you are in relative darkness, and your eyes have adjusted, the moon diffusing light through the sky is still the brightest source. You're still looking at a light source directly. "
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20u7rz | under obamacare, you can stay on your parents' insurance plan until you are 26. does that mean your coverage ends the day you turn 26 or 27? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/20u7rz/eli5_under_obamacare_you_can_stay_on_your_parents/ | {
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"You must be under 26 to be on the plan. So when you turn 26, you will be kicked off.\n\nEDIT: [Here is a source](_URL_0_)\n\n\"When you apply for a new plan in the Marketplace, you can sign up your **under-26-year-olds** directly. Be sure to include them on the list of people to be covered.\"",
"You lose coverage on your 26th birthday."
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6pik24 | how do subcommittees in the us legislature work to get a vote on something? | We all learn in school how a bill gets introduced and eventually becomes law but there's piles of committees that seem like they control what gets to be voted on. How does that part of it work? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/6pik24/eli5_how_do_subcommittees_in_the_us_legislature/ | {
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"The committee said are created by congressional rule. In the House of Reps the Speaker gets a bill and assigns it to a committee or subcommittee, he can also theoretically send it straight to the House floor for a full vote, or just sit on it and send it nowhere. Once in a committee, the committee investigates the bill by calling witnesses and holding debate. They then hold a vote on whether or not to send it to the floor for a full vote. Regardless of what they decide the Speaker can send it to the floor if he wants or refuse to schedule a vote if the committee votes to send it to the floor. The Senate works in a similar way with the Majority Leader having the power that the Speaker does in the House.",
"The US Constitution gives congress the power to set the own rules of deliberation. \n\nCongress can only vote on so many bills, so they use subcommittees to examine and weed out the bills that are unlikely to pass before a full congress. "
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4fcscw | why is lead so much more poisonous than other metals? | I've been using an aluminum rake for my yard and a lot of the aluminum dust comes off on my hands. Why is this not considered highly toxic if the aluminum dust can easily get into my lungs? Same with other metals. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4fcscw/eli5_why_is_lead_so_much_more_poisonous_than/ | {
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"Before we discuss lead, what do you actually mean by \"aluminum dust\"?\n\nAluminum oxidizes and forms a whitish coating that prevents further oxidation (rust).\n\nIs this what you're referring to?\n\nOr do you have silvery paint left on your hands after raking?\n\n",
"There are other metals that can be extremely toxic such as cadmium, Lead just was/is widely used and therefore lead poisoning is a lot more common than other types of metal poisoning.",
"Lead is not really the most toxic metal.\n\nKeep in mind that arsenic and mercury are metals too.\n\nWhat makes lead so special is that it sits in a sweet spot between stuff that is really bad for you (most heavy metals are) and which exist in large quantities and has useful properties.\n\nYou won't built tools or stuff like water pipes out of arsenic, but lead is a good candidate for that.",
"First of all, any form of dust in your lungs is bad. Aluminum included. \n\nSecond, Lead ions can take the place of other metals used in enzymes / organic processes, such as iron, calcium and zinc. This breaks the enzyme, and the worst affected is ALAD which is responsible for the synthesis of blood.\n\nSo in ELI5 terms, picture yourself baking a cake. You're supposed to use a spoon to mix all the ingredients together. You've got a wooden handle, but it turns out the head is a plunger. And you're trying to blend eggs, milk, flour and sugar together with a plunger head. Nothing is properly blended and your day is ruined.",
"Before lead, the substance you're encountering is likely just paint. Aluminum dust can be dangerous. It's pretty bad to inhale, it'll irritate your eyes, and it's a pretty strong oxidizer. That said, aluminum dust isn't something you just run across, it has to be made, by grinding up aluminum.\n\nThat said, lead is toxic because of how your body handles it. Lead will act very similarly to other atoms in your body, replacing them. This can starve your cells of key nutrients.\n\nAny and all dust is something you want to avoid inhaling. Metal in particular can be nasty, there's lots of issues. Vaporized metals are dangerous, too. One consequence is [metal fume fever.](_URL_0_)",
"There are actually many, many metals that are poisonous, lead just happens to be the most common of them.\n\nThe issue is your body has no easy away to get rid of lead once it enters your system. It just builds up and builds up until it causes problems.\n\nGram for gram, other methods might be as toxic, but your body is able to eliminate them from your system.",
"Normally toxins are removed by your liver and kidneys. So small amounts of some other toxins (like alcohol for example) can pass through your body naturally without long-term consequences. Because your body has no natural system to eliminate lead, even microscopic quantities can accumulate significantly over the duration of your entire life. The expression \"there is no safe dosage of lead\" is because there is no amount of lead your body can naturally remove. \n\nLead acts on the body by interfering with the action of nerves which leads to muscle weakness and eventually paralysis. Lead similarly affects neurons in the brain which results in reduced IQ scores. \n\nLead was commonly used in industry because it was easy to work with and durable. In the early 1900's it's improper handling was linked to disease and over the next few decades was largely banned from unsafe use. Despite this, some artifacts (like lead pipes) installed prior to the regulation are still around today.",
"Stuff that's invited into the night club called your body can get in and leave because they are on the list. Lead is really good at dressing up like the guys on the lost so it can sneak past the bouncer and get in. Once lead gets in to the party though it never wants to leave and it's so strong the bouncers can't kick it out. So lead just hangs out and drink all your booze and this is especially bad for new nightclubs who can't handle the revenue loss (children). ",
"ELI5 from someone who doesn't understand the complexities: Our bodies are made of tiny molecules all stuck together like lego bricks. Heavy metals can be toxic in tiny amounts that build up over time or can be dangerous in any dose. This means is that every now and then when your body is making new lego shapes out of molecules it accidentally picks up a small piece of knex instead.\n\nThe lego doesn't fit properly with the knex (the metal) and so the result is a broken shape that you body will try to jam in amongs the correct shapes. Sometimes this wrong shape is so badly made that it breaks apart other shapes it touches, or produces strange results that the body wasn't expecting. Like death!"
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6smdyj | how are hackers able to hack into major companies, steal tons of data, and get out without a trace? | Specifically the recent HBO hack where hackers got away with 1.5 TB of data. How did this not raise a flag at HBO? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/6smdyj/eli5_how_are_hackers_able_to_hack_into_major/ | {
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"Companies have security measures commensurate to their perceived risk. Sure, some GoT scripts leaked, but that's not going to keep people from watching.\n\nHBO can't afford the sort of IT that would be more hacker resistant. Even the NSA has insiders who leak stuff, that's a much harder threat to deal with that simple hackers.",
"First of all, when you 'steal' data, you don't actually 'steal' it. You replicate it. Unless you work at a highly secured site, the IT professionals aren't likely to track access down to this level. If the Vice President of Marketing wants to download 1.5 TB worth of Game of Thrones scripts, so be it. At most, your standard IT department will track *traffic* to see if there's unusual activity - but most of the activity they track will be external (i.e.: over the Internet) and if you've penetrated the company deeply enough, they can distribute the load across many accounts.\n\nIn terms of 'how they do it', normally it's an issue of sneaking malicious code onto machines on the internal network. Most people who use computers professionally do not take particularly good security precautions, on the presumption that their IT department deals with that. IT departments at low-security places like HBO also tend to prioritize convenience over security.\n\nSo what happens is that a company like Google, Apple or Microsoft is informed/discovers an exploit. They keep this private until they issue a patch to correct it. At which point the exploit is public knowledge but many people will not yet have the patch to protect against it. Since updating an entire company's worth computers is a massive nuisance not only to the IT department but also the users of those computers, you'll often see companies going weeks or months without critical security patches.\n\nYou also generally can't lock the barn door after the cows are gone. Once the malware has gotten in through the exploit, it's there. Fixing the exploit won't remove the malware. Detecting the malware is also a very reactive process. Only once someone has found and submitted malware to a database can most anti-virus programs detect it - at which point it's almost certainly too late for the people who were initially targeted.\n\nThere are also more subtle tricks you can use. For example, a company like HBO almost certainly has regular backups of their servers. There's a good chance that some element of this backup process electronically submits the information to a remote server. If you've got malware in the system, you can simply redirect the backup to your own computer and then forward it to their server. This is similar to a man-in-the-middle attack (although not strictly so, since it involves compromising one end of the communications). With such an approach, the internal IT department can't even tell from traffic charts what is going on - they expected that large transfer of data.\n\nThe fundamental issue is that good security is actually quite easy - it's just incredibly inconvenient. Think about it in terms of physical security. If you want to make sure no one breaks into your home, you can enclose your home in a solid concrete bunker with no openings. Anyone who wants to boost your TV will have to do so with jackhammers and wake the entire neighborhood. But actually *living* in a house entirely contained within a no-access concrete shell would be a nuisance. The same is true with electronic security. Highly secured sites are also incredibly inconvenient sites. If you work at a secured site, you'll have to surrender your phone and all electronics (including items like flash drives) when you enter. You can't browse the web while you're in the building because there are no connections to the larger Internet. If you want to take home some work, you'll have to fill out paperwork in triplicate just so some IT guy will get around to giving you a copy a few weeks from now. HBO executives don't want to live like that, so they end up with their data stolen every now and then.",
"At your house, you have a security system. One of your windows is not covered by the security system, but you don't know that. It's something overlooked.\n\nYou're out at the movies. If someone went through that window and took a photo of your stuff (didn't take your stuff) and then left by that window, and closed the window, when you came back from the movies, would you notice? Is there any way to know someone took a photo of your TV?\n\nIf your security system was working on that window, there would be a record of \"activity\" and then you have to assume what happened specifically. \n\nThe big deal about information security is that only one thing needs to be missed (or not getting properly watched). And this could be something that was working fine before, but some employee wanted to stream game of thrones from somewhere and opened up a hole in security that went unnoticed. IT departments at large companies are like cat herders. It's incredibly difficult to make sure the employees aren't unintentionally sabotaging the company by responding to phishing emails or doing something \"innocent\" by going to a website."
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6m9smu | for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction | To a total layman this would imply that nothing ever moves. However, this obviously isn't the case. I like to think I have an idea of how it works, but when I try to contemplate it I find I don't. To me, it sounds like the law of inertia, but it isn't. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/6m9smu/eli5_for_every_action_there_is_an_equal_and/ | {
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"Imagine standing on a skateboard and throwing a ball. On one side, there's the force that sends the ball flying (the action). On the other side, there's the force that makes you skate backwards (the reaction). \"Nothing would ever move\" if those two forces acted on the same object, but they act on different objects (the ball and you respctively).",
"Whenever you push something in one direction, you will push something else into the opposite direction. For example, if you jump, your feet push down against the ground, and you will be pushed upwards. Likewise, a car pushes the road backwards and itself forwards. An airplane pushes air backwards and itself forwards.",
"This is Newton's third law, and the objects involved are frequently called Newton's third law pairs. The reason people get confused by this is usually because they don't consider that this rule only applies when you have what's called a closed system, where energy isn't getting added or removed. \n\nFor example, if I hit a baseball with a bat, and you just look at the ball, kinetic energy is added to the ball in order to make it move. The ball by itself isn't a closed system, so we can't apply the rule. The bat and the ball together could be a closed system (if we forget about gravity for a bit), since the energy gets transferred from the bat to the ball to change it's movement but together the amount of energy and momentum the bat and ball have before the hit is the same as the energy and momentum the bat and ball have after the hit. The effect of hitting the ball with the bat at the moment of impact is that the ball gains momentum, and the bat loses the same amount of momentum - this is your equal and opposite reaction.\n\nThere is a problem that they like to give intro physics students about a cart and a horse - if the cart and horse are attached together by a rope harness, and the cart pulls on the horse with the same amount of tension as the horse pulls on the cart, how does the cart move? This is again a problem with not understanding the system. As a system, the cart does not move *relative to the horse* so it is incorrect to say that the cart moves if you are just considering the cart and horse. If you were sitting on the cart, the horse would not appear to move. Instead, you need to consider how the cart moves with relationship to the earth, and your system is the cart, horse, and earth. There is a force of friction under the cart wheels that allows the cart to move forward, and the amount of momentum the cart gains by moving forward is lost by the earth; that is the equal and opposite reaction. We don't notice this in everyday life because the cart is much, much, much smaller than the earth so the momentum change by the earth causes a trivial change in speed for the earth, even though it allows a big change in speed for the cart.\n\nEdit: grammer corrections"
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2whrx6 | what is 'hedging' (international security/strategy) | I have heard this term specifically in relation to international relations and security/strategy. For instance 'nuclear hedging' or the US 'hedging' strategy in East Asia. Could someone who has knowledge in this realm explain what 'hedging' means. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2whrx6/eli5_what_is_hedging_international/ | {
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"The simplest explanation would be that a hedge is a bet that something bad or counter to your interests might happen and you taking steps to mitigate the risk. An example is airlines negotiating long term contracts for fuel to insulate themselves from price spikes and then hoping they end up saving money. Insurance (of any type) is another example.\n\nThe downside is that if you're wrong, the best case scenario is you lose whatever you invested."
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1v3u8p | why are textbooks so expensive in the united states and why hasn't this been remedied? | I'm studying at university in the United Kingdom and have friends in the US who complain a lot about the textbooks they have to buy and the cost of them. The costs seem absurd.
I compare this against the UK where I haven't had to buy a single book for a three year course in Physics and Philosophy at a prestigious university. I'd estimate that 70% of my required reading for all my modules is available free online through my library membership and the other 30% can be borrowed from my library.
Do americans not use libraries (I doubt this is the case) or are they not available?
A few of my books say on them "For sale only in Europe, Africa, Australia and Asia" which leads me to believe that for some legal reason they can't be sold in North America. Why would this be the case? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1v3u8p/eli5why_are_textbooks_so_expensive_in_the_united/ | {
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"Price discrimination by the publishers. They can sell higher in the US, so they do. A budget for textbooks is included in any US university's financial aid packages, student loans, etc. \n\nThere is also an aspect of subsidy going on; textbooks can be sold internationally much more cheaply in part because they're being covered by the high revenue from the US. ",
"\"We're so smart, that we can't afford education\"",
"Remedied? It's by design. Universities in North America are a BUSINESS, and their job is to extract as much money from the students as possible.\n\nOne way is to ensure that the textbooks you purchase are made obsolete after a year, so that you can't sell them to the next year's students. Even 35 years ago - this is not hyperbole - you would be ordered to replace your accounting textbook with a new one the following term, because three or four lines of text had been altered for the new edition.\n\nAs [other have noted](_URL_0_), this is going to end badly:\n\n > Young people in America are bombarded with the message that they won't find meaningful employment without a degree (and sometimes a graduate degree). \n\n > Meanwhile, universities have increased their fees to astronomical levels, far ahead of inflation, and lenders (including the universities themselves) offer easy credit to students as a means of paying these sums (for all the money they're charging, universities are also slashing wages for their staff, mostly by sticking grad students and desperate \"adjuncts\" into positions that used to pay professorial wages\n\n > **These debts are turned into securities, and represent the backbone of yet another subprime bubble in America,** one that is due to explode soon, as more and more Americans find themselves drowning in student debt and faced with the prospect of having their wages garnished all the way through to social security.\n\nAs for reselling books in North America, it was declared legal just a few months ago:\n\nArs Technica: [Supreme Court upholds first-sale doctrine in textbook resale case](_URL_1_)\n\n",
"To play devil's advocate (for those saying how bad the textbook arena is), all of the textbooks I'm required are on course reserve. This is basically where the professor allows for a copy of the book to be rented at the University Library.\n\nAlso, I've had multiple classes where the professor continues to use the old edition that costs thirty dollars (vs ~150). For every textbook that was super expensive, I was able to torrent it. There were only a couple times throughout my 4 years of college that I've actually needed to buy a 150-200 dollar textbook.",
"i attended an \"I.T. tech\" institution and there were many problems with our books. The Windows trilogy of books were sold as the complete edition, yet were the abridged edition. A fellow student and myself were talkng and noticed that some questions in the back referenced pages that were not there. All of the books were sold at full price.",
"I'd like to add that the egregious amounts of money Americans pay for textbooks typically do not go to the authors. THe most generous figure I've seen was about 15%, but most are closer to 10%. I used to work for the authors of a well-known American politics text.",
"Think about it this way, a textbook is written by a collection of highly educated people who specialize in the topic. Not only does it take loads of time for the authors to come up with the material, it then needs to be edited and published. The entire process is very tedious and very expensive. You're paying more for the production of the book rather than just the printed pages like you would with a novel or something of the like.",
"How do professors check if the book is the newest version? Do people go around and compare the ISBN numbers? Will you get kicked out of class if you have the \"wrong\" book on your desk? and what for do you need a book in a lecture at all? When I was studying, I listened and took notes during lectures.",
" > For sale only in Europe, Africa, Australia and Asia\n\nNot enforceable. You own the books, and may sell them wherever you feel like it, applicable to both people and companies.\n\nNow, if the book publisher decides to stop selling you the books because you were selling them, they can."
]
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"http://boingboing.net/2011/10/07/122076.html",
"http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2013/03/thai-student-protected-by-first-sale-supreme-court-rules/"
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37kx8v | why does gorilla glass shatter so easily when you drop your phone but seem indestructible in their demo videos? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/37kx8v/eli5_why_does_gorilla_glass_shatter_so_easily/ | {
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"Advertising would never show the product being damaged, that wouldn't be a good advertisement, would it?\n\nPersonally, I've owned 3 phones with gorilla glass screens, and have never had one shatter, despite occasional falls or knocks. I'm not sure what you mean by \"shatter so easily,\" but I've never had one shatter at all, much less scratch, and I don't have a protective case/screen cover. I dented the body of my S4 but the screen never had as much as a scratch.\n\nI think the better question is: what on earth are you doing to your phone to shatter it?",
"Gorilla Glass is a brand name for Corning's tempered glass. Tempered glass is very strong when you hit it from the front, but if you make a tiny nick on the edge the internal stresses cause the glass to instantly shatter.\n\nThe demos you see always test the front surface and never the edges. When you drop your phone, it's usually an edge strike that causes the damage you see.",
"Gorilla glass is scratch and impact resistant glass, meaning that it works against scratching your screen and if you hit it on the face with something, like if you were to drop an object on it. If you drop the phone, you're impacting it from the side where it's weak, so yes it'll crack.\n\n\"Advertising at its best\" comments here are bullshit. Take off your tin foil hats. They advertise it as scratch and impact resist, which it does wonderfully. ",
"How the fuck are you people breaking phone screens with Gorilla glass? Buy a goddamn $60 case for your $600 smartphone and stop being butterfingers, sheesh!",
"My iphone 4 lasted 4 years before dropping it on an edge not protected by the broken plaristic case. My new phone got otterboxed. Here's to another 4 years with an s5."
]
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40sc32 | why people that are iron deficient... | Why do people that are iron deficient have black eyes usually? My friend told me he visited the doctor yesterday and told the doctor that he thought it might be because he has a late sleeping pattern but the doctor said that it's probably due to an iron deficiency.. I'm curious how this makes sense? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/40sc32/eli5_why_people_that_are_iron_deficient/ | {
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"cywrdku",
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"Iron is a necessary part of the blood which helps carry oxygen throughout the tissues. Not having enough iron means that you are less efficient at spreading oxygen throughout your circulatory system. A common side effect of this is fatigue, which can be visible through dark rings under the eye. I don't think anaemia actually causes the eye bags, but it causes fatigue which causes eye bags.",
"As previously explained, iron is needed in your blood. As women lose blood during their periods, if they do not eat enough iron they get iron deficient and that is why it is more common for women to experience iron deficiency compared to men.\n\nPeople who don't eat much meat I.e. vegans and such may also have iron deficiency more commonly. "
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1muzho | why the 3d in movies and stereograms looks so different from 3d in real life? | I was playing with some stereograms today. The kind that are two pictures next two each other, not the blurry static ones that I'm convinced are a huge joke.
There's a definite 3D effect in there, but it isn't anything like in real life. It's much more defined. It actually pops out and has a definite feel of depth. Same with 3D movies. Whereas 3D in reality doesn't look any different from a picture.
So... Is the 3D we see in movies and stereograms actually 3D or what? I need some explaining. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1muzho/eli5_why_the_3d_in_movies_and_stereograms_looks/ | {
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"Your eyes use focus in addition to disparity to sense depth. A stereogram only uses disparity to simulate depth. If a photo is taken with infinite depth of field, then more of the image will be in focus than you are used to. This will create a hyperrealistic feel to the 3d image.",
"Just chiming in to say that autostereograms are NOT a joke. There's just a very specific technique you need to use to look at them. The [Wikipedia page](_URL_0_) explains it quite well.\n\nInterestingly enough, once you get the hang of autostereograms, they look a lot more natural than most of the other 3D things around.\n\n"
]
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3br9jj | the "illusion of knowledge" | Stephen Hawking once said that "The greatest enemy of knowledge is not ignorance, it is the illusion of knowledge." It's my understanding that now that information is so accessible (internet, iPhone, et al.) it's impeding our thought processes. I've been thinking a lot about the "illusion of knowledge" and that I am guilty of it, but what's the easiest way to describe it? How do we fix it on a personal level and as a society?
**EDIT: I want to know: how do we remedy the "illusion of knowledge" in our society and on a personal level?**
| explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3br9jj/eli5_the_illusion_of_knowledge/ | {
"a_id": [
"csopxd8"
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"text": [
"What he was saying is that the \"illusion of knowledge\" is thinking that you know everything on a subject. That prevents you from seeking out new ideas or trying to understand a subject further; why would you as you already know everything?\n\nIgnorance means that you acknowledge that you don't know everything, so you are willing to seek new information and entertain new ideas when the come along."
]
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2jl4mr | how does the whole basketball and american football seasons work? in terms of how many teams in league, the whole playoff thing, all of it! | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2jl4mr/eli5_how_does_the_whole_basketball_and_american/ | {
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"**NFL**\n\nThis will be an order of hierarchy thing.\n\n1. One League\n2. Two Conferences (American & National)\n3. Four Divisions\n4. Four teams per division.\n\nA total of 32 teams. 16 in each conference = 4 teams x 4 divisions.\n\nIn comparison to other tournaments.\n\nSuperBowl = Final\n\nConference Championship = Semifinal\n\nDivisional Playoffs = Quarter Final\n\nWild Card Playoffs = Round of 16 (kind of)\n\n-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------\n\nThe basic idea is to get the best Win-Loss record possible. Each team plays 16 games over the regular season.\n\n\n\nNow for one Conference only. *The same thing happens in the other conference*\n\nThe best team in each division makes the playoffs (4), so do the two remaining teams with the best record. Based on their record they are seeded 1 through 6.\nSeeds 1 & 2 get rewarded by \"skipping one round\".\n\n*Wild Card Playoffs*\n\nseed 3 vs seed 6\n\nseed 4 vs seed 5\n\n*Divisional Championship*\n\nThe original seeds 1 and 2 that got to \"skip\" the previous round and the winners from the Wild Card games. Again matchups decided by each teams record\n\n1 vs 4\n\n2 vs 3\n\n*Conference Championship*\n\nThe winners of each game face each other. The winner is crowned Conference champion and gets to play the Superbowl\n\n*Super Bowl*\n\nNational Conference Champion vs American Conference Champion.\n\nThe winner from this game is the real Champion.\n\n*edit: formatting*"
]
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2g0qex | how they print pictures onto cakes | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2g0qex/eli5_how_they_print_pictures_onto_cakes/ | {
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"text": [
"Fill an inkjet printer with special \"ink\" made of food coloring. Print your design onto a waxy paper. Set the paper on top of a frosted cake and press down. The colors from the picture get transferred to the frosting.\n"
]
} | []
| []
| [
[]
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|
||
bc82x7 | why are guns with long barrels like rifles more accurate at long range than handguns? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/bc82x7/eli5_why_are_guns_with_long_barrels_like_rifles/ | {
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"Three main reasons:\n\n1. Sight radius: A longer distance between the front and rear sights allows for more precise aim.\n\n2. Stabilization: Most modern firearms stabilize bullets by spinning them with grooves carved into the barrel (rifling). There is a certain minimum distance of rifling required to stabilize a bullet, and it is dependent on a lot of different factors.\n\n3. Velocity: A longer barrel allows more time for the powder charge to fully burn, which means more push for the bullet. Faster bullets have less opportunity to drift off target before they hit.",
"Longer barrel means the expanding gases build more pressure for a longer period of time which leads to higher speeds. The longer barrel also has more rifling which spins the bullet. The higher speed combined with the higher spin rate means that the bullet is less affected by wind, humidity, etc."
]
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5sx41m | why do american school busses not have flat fronts? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5sx41m/eli5_why_do_american_school_busses_not_have_flat/ | {
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"Some do. As to the visibility, most school busses have an arm that automatically swings open from the front of the bus to force a walk forward to get around it. Also, most bus routes are built to have the children not crossing the street if possible. ",
"For starters, most school buses with a nose are older models. Flat front designs are fairly modern. A lot of school districts simply can't afford to update their models to the newer version/ it's cheaper to buy the older design. \n\nSecondly there are somewhat naive concerns with flat front buses due to where the engine is located. Having under the kids = parents are afraid of engine problems harming their children. \n\nFinally, and this ties into the first point, it's easier to make sure the fleet stays homogeneous for repair purposes and for aesthetic reasons.\n"
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2ixpdr | why do you have to check in for your flight if you already bought a ticket? | They have your money. They know you plan on being there.
I tried checking in 5 minutes later than I was allowed apparently, lost my first class seat, and now I'm on standby. I still made it to the gate in time for my original flight, but they weren't having it.
What gives, reddit? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2ixpdr/eli5_why_do_you_have_to_check_in_for_your_flight/ | {
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"I'm guessing they want to know whether or not you're actually going to be on the airplane or not. Because someone could buy a ticket 3 months ahead of time, but then not show up for the actual flight for whatever reason. When you come to the airport a few hours before the flight, check in, and go through security, it is almost certain that you'll be on the plane.",
"Well I know when people don't show up they can sell the ticket for cheap. Then they get your money and someone else's money.",
"Because they oversell flights assuming/hoping that not everybody shows up. If you have 100 seats and sell 105 of them figuring that 5 people won't show up then you just made 5% more money for free"
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1re1k0 | why can't some people roll their r's and/or curl their tongue? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1re1k0/eli5_why_cant_some_people_roll_their_rs_andor/ | {
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"Some people can't curl their tongue because they are literally missing the muscle band that enables that action. There are genetic variations in everybody, and this is just another one of them. Same reason why some people can wiggle their ears."
]
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bdpas4 | why is natural selection described as "survival of the fittest" when it is clearly "failure of the weakest?" | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/bdpas4/eli5_why_is_natural_selection_described_as/ | {
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"Modern biology tends to avoid the phrase because it simplifies what is a very complex system. \"Survival\" is important, but ability to reproduce rapidly and/or spread your progeny is at least as important.\n\nDarwin used the phrase to mean that only species which are \"fit\" (as in, their biology fits heir environment well) will survive. He did not necessarily mean to imply that a *single* survivor will exist; just that species which do not fit their environment will not survive. He meant \"fittest\" as a category into which multiple species might fall."
]
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9qol84 | which of the two types of weapons, chemical and biological, is more lethal and effective in the long run? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/9qol84/eli5_which_of_the_two_types_of_weapons_chemical/ | {
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"Biological weapons are more lethal over time because they (hypothetically) self-replicate. Chemical weapons degrade over time, but their biological counterparts can inoculate new victims and remain in dormant forms in the soil long enough for unprotected fools to catch it again.\n\nFundamentaly both chemical and biological weapons require quarantine in the targeted area, but biological weapons can be carried by hosts over other areas.\n\nHowever, biological weapons *can* be fought by the immune system (assuming the perpetrators didn't cook up abominations like ebolaids), while chemical weapons cripple extremely vital biomolecular processes in the body, leading to organ shutdown and death. Overall, chemical weapons are deadlier in the short run.",
"This is an absolutely impossible question to answer. There are way too many variables to consider. There are many different types of chemical and biological weapons. It depends on the specific agent, how it's deployed, where it's deployed....etc. "
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4d8w5o | how do some businesses like comic book stores survive when it is such a niche market now? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4d8w5o/eli5_how_do_some_businesses_like_comic_book/ | {
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"Comic book stores have *always* been a niche market. And in fact, comics are a lot more mainstream today than they were in the past, thanks to the advent of blockbuster superhero movies.",
"Comic book stores have always been a niche market. But in modernity it is a facet of mainstream culture now making it less niche than it has ever been before. They are in the middle of a boom. ",
"The comics industry is huge right now.[ Sales are getting close to the 1990s.](_URL_0_) There are a few reasons:\n\n- Manga sells like crazy, and comic shops get some manga in before chain bookstores\n\n- Since the 1990s prices for printing and paper have been careening downward thanks to China. This has created a wildly diverse reprint market that offers books to just about every literate demographic. And since prices haven’t kept up with inflation since the comic crash (1997)—and in some cases have even come down—comics are cheaper than ever.\n\n- All those huge comic movies making $500 million+ in ticket sales are effectively advertising for comic books.\n",
"Niche stores survive by not being as common as something like a drug store or grocery store, serving a wider georgraphic region. And because of the high level of interest in their niche product they develop loyal customers who will choose to support their friendly, local shop over getting cheapest rate online as one is more prone to do with a commodity product bought from a big chain.",
"Many don't. Some manage to stay afloat and maybe survive to better times. Comic books are now surging in popularity for example. Vinyl stores closed by the hundreds since the 90's, but now are gaining in popularity as vinyl surpass digital in sales. Why? some things just become trendy and cool."
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2yadr0 | why did nasa send a probe to ceres? | Of all objects to send one too, it's ceres? Why? If I were them, I would send a probe to Europa to search for life. Europa probably has an ocean, many times deeper than ours, and we've seen it ejecting water into space. Ceres, on the other hand, might have some liquid water, but not nearly as much. So why Ceres?
Honestly, if I were NASA, my priorities would be to A, prevent us from being murdered by astroids and solar flares, B, find a way to mine astroids, and C, find life on another object in the solar system. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2yadr0/eli5_why_did_nasa_send_a_probe_to_ceres/ | {
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"From the [Wikipedia article](_URL_1_) on the Dawn mission:\n\n > The Dawn mission's goal is to characterize the conditions and processes of the Solar System's earliest eon by investigating in detail two of the largest protoplanets remaining intact since their formation. The primary question that the mission addresses is the role of size and water in determining the evolution of the planets. Ceres and Vesta are highly suitable bodies with which to address this question, as they are two of the most massive of the protoplanets. Ceres is geologically very primitive and icy, while Vesta is evolved and rocky. Their contrasting characteristics are thought to have resulted from them forming in two different regions of the early Solar System.\n\n > There are three principal scientific drivers for the mission. First, the Dawn mission can capture the earliest moments in the origin of the Solar System, granting an insight into the conditions under which these objects formed. Second, Dawn determines the nature of the building blocks from which the terrestrial planets formed, improving scientific understanding of this formation. Finally, it contrasts the formation and evolution of two small planets that followed very different evolutionary paths, allowing scientists to determine what factors control that evolution.\n\nNASA has resources for more than one mission at a time. For example, [New Horizons](_URL_2_) will fly by Pluto in July, and [Cassini](_URL_0_) has been orbiting Saturn for over ten years now.\n\nAlso, Ceres and Vesta *are* asteroids. Sending probes to study them seems like a good first step to figuring out how to mine them.",
"I'm interested to see what others have to say, but just off the bat, think about the engineering required. Europa, covered in what seems to be mobile ice, so we need a rover that has traction on ice, it can swim/dive, has to have a coating resistant to whatever chemical makeup is present on that moon, needs to be able to produce energy in some way if it goes under the ice, how is the signal going to come across through ice, across space, has to have internal heating to compete with the likely extreme cold, some chemical analysis tests might not function in the cold, landing on an ice planet? I'm just getting started with the problems of rovering an ice planet. Ceres, land available, bam half our problems solved. Water available? That means samples can be collected and tests conducted that might not be possible on Europa. Baby steps man, even if they plan to go to Europa first don't you think they would go as far as to test rovers in arctic conditions here on earth as a rough estimate? Slow and steady. ",
"To be honest, NASA has wanted to send a probe to Europa for a while now, they just didn't get funding for it. [That may be changing, however](_URL_0_). \n\nFunding is always one of the big things for government programs. The scientists at NASA *want* to do all sorts of things, but what they *can* do is whatever projects Congress approves the funding for. If you think the priorities should be different, go bother the senators and representatives. "
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bhtnnh | why does scratching feel so good? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/bhtnnh/eli5_why_does_scratching_feel_so_good/ | {
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"Particle on skin may cause danger, scratching removes particle (hopefully), relief of the damaging particle releases feel good chemicals into blood. At the same time scratching slightly damages skin, skin damage releases feel good chemical into blood to counteract pain. So kind of a mix of both.",
"it doesn't feel good it just feels better than itching. you're actually replacing the itching sensation with pain when you scratch your skin.",
"Itching is low level pain and stimulating your nerves temporarily drowns out the tingling pain signal with a stronger stimulus and the relief from that irritating sensation is awesome. Your muscles relax and your body doesn't feel as tense .\n\nI find scalding a bad itch (like posion ivy) for a second with water on the hottest setting works even better as it deadens the nerve endings for up to a day and that is a lot less temporary than the relief scratching gives you",
"So this is gonna sound gross but if you ever want a top-notch scratchgasm you need a fungal infection of some kind.\n\nI got a fungal infection in my groin area from a hospital visit and it was insanely uncomfortable and irritating. However, when you went to town itching that patch of infection it felt so fucking good. Its was also bad because it seemed to cause it to spread and you scratch it raw.\n\nBasically don't ever get a fungal infection, it sucks, but if you do, you'll know a good scritch.",
"Also why when someone else scratches the itch does it feel so much better?",
"When you feel pain or any irritating sensations on your skin, pain receptors (called free nerve endings) send signals to your brain that says it’s painful. By rubbing or scratching a painful sensation, you activate a different type of receptor that doesn’t send pain, but rather duller sensations (called beta receptors), which send signals to the brain FASTER than free nerve endings. By being faster, the duller sensations (sent by beta by scratching) over rides the painful sensations (sent by free nerve endings). This is called Pain Gating.",
"This is going to sound sexual, but it isn't:\n\nTO THIS DAY scratching poison ivy when I was a kid remains one of the most pleasurable things I have ever done. \n\nI used to get poison ivy rashes so bad I had to get skin steroid prescriptions. \n\nGiving in to the itch after resisting it for while was pure ecstasy.",
"I've always wondered why I've told all my exs if you ever want to really get me in a good relaxed mood scratch or rub my head.",
"Evolutionarily speaking, you scratch that itch, now you don’t die from malaria, Lyme, anaphylaxis, cooties, poisonous insects, also in the event of a cut or crape you keep endogenous compounds cleaning the wound such as lysozyme, and general flushing of an area with blood.",
"Basically we evolved scratching as our bodies way of encouraging us to scratch off dangerous things like parasites from our skin. It feels good because our primitive part of the brain is using that as a way to get us to do it to protect ourselves.",
"when I was a kid I actually thought that it itches when the blood flow gets stuck under the skin and by scratching it you release it\n\nkid’s imagination.",
"Ever since I was little, I think the word “extinguish” anytime I scratch an itch. I’m 33 now. Still do! No idea why. I’ve never told anyone that. Figured I’d start with millions of strangers.",
"The way I remember was the brain uses the same nerves (roads) that send the itchy feeling as it does with pain feelings. These roads are small so they only allow one feeling at a time through them. When you scratch the itch you're causing pain to the area. So it takes the itchy feeling away and replaces it with slight pain in order to cause relief. You also get the same relief when you use super hot water on the itchy thing. This is why people with nerve damage that causes itchiness usually take really hot showers to make it feel better. I suck at explaining things. I'm sorry. Lol",
"Having psoriasis with full body coverage, I cannot tell y9u how hard it is no not scratch myself until I fucking bleed everywhere. \n\nMan that shit feels so good, but I had to teach myself to tune out the urge to scratch myself when I get an itch.",
"Funny you mention this. I took a drug I bought off a website. It’s called Modafinil. I took 200mg twice with 24 hours in between each time. And I’ve developed spreading itchy hives for over 3 fucking weeks now. \n\nI’ve been to the ER 3 times, an allergist, next is a dermatologist. \n\nSo far I was on prednisone 60 mg 8 days and 3 other drugs for blocking a histamines. Nothing has made it go away... it’s hell. My skin becomes itchy beyond anything you can ever imagine. Anything I ever could imagine. \n\nMy forearms, thighs, biceps triceps, stomach, torso. My fucking nipples are itchy. My genitals got it mildly even. \n\nI wake up scratching my arms or thighs. Every night. The raised hives come and go. It’s maddening. I don’t know when it will end. I don’t know if the drugs are helping. \n\nThe hot shower makes it itch sooooo intensity that it’s almost an Ecstasy in some twisted sensational way. Then a big Costco fan, anti itch creams give me some relief. \n\nDon’t ever try that “smart drug” shit if you ask me. It had almost totally ruined my life. \n\nPs. I’m normally healthy. Don’t drink. Don’t smoke. Eat healthy. I just wanted more alertness and fell for a total scam."
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9g4xef | what do dryer sheets do exactly? as a single man i never used them. my wife can't not use them. i see no difference. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/9g4xef/eli5_what_do_dryer_sheets_do_exactly_as_a_single/ | {
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"They help eliminate static and help make your clothes smell fresh, though we stopped using them about a month before our first kid was born and didn't notice a difference. ",
"From my understanding dryer sheets leave a thin wax coating over your clothes. This acts as an insulator and reduces the effect of static cling. A side effect is that as your clothing is covered in a layer of wax they do not absorb water as easily. So, in the case of a load of towels it is counter productive to the function of a towel. Lastly you clothes are also coated with a layer of chemicals like perfume so you clothes smell nice but are also exposing you to scent compounds and oils that may or may absorb onto your body. I am not an expert, just a guy who talked to a dryer repair man about dryer sheets once. I could be totally misinformed, this is only a guess."
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1gvit3 | if dc's the flash were real, how fast would he have to be traveling so the human eye could not see him? | I am not a physicist and I realize that this question relates to physiology of the eye and physics. I know that the answer would be different and there is some sort of connection with the size of the object versus the distance, but I am unsure how to calculate this. For example, I know that if we saw an object a 2x2 miles large moving 2000 miles per hour through the sky above us, we'd see it streak through the sky. But a bullet moving in front of us at 2000 miles per hour we can't see. So, how fast (fps) can the eyes see, and what is the field of vision and how does this relate to speed and size of a moving object?
How fast does the Flash have to move so we couldn't see him? The speed of Light? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1gvit3/eli5_if_dcs_the_flash_were_real_how_fast_would_he/ | {
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"Complex question, but the answer is *very, very* fast. To the point that he would be doing severe damage to his organs.\n\nYou can find a [partial explanation of the problem here](_URL_0_). The reason it's so complex is that it depends on the most seemingly trivial things, like what *colour* they're wearing, etc.\n\nTo even *attempt* a complete answer is fraught with danger, but consider this: Most people have difficulty seeing an object that moves more than 36 degrees per second. Our visual field is around 180 degrees, therefore anything that moves through it in less than five seconds will start to blur.",
"OP, I think the subreddit you want is /r/estimation or /r/hypotheticalsituation. "
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3tn288 | what is it that prevents xbox games from being played on a playstation but yet allows people to play music cds on either? | I have little knowledge on how cds work and was just curious. I imagine it's the CDs wanting a command or something that isn't found in that software like run .Xbox which doesn't exist on PlayStation. Thanks for any answers! | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3tn288/eli5_what_is_it_that_prevents_xbox_games_from/ | {
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"Games are a series of instructions for the device to follow. A Playstation can read the instructions from an Xbox disc just fine, but it doesn't understand them. A music CD just contains data. A program already on the console (written so that the console understands it) contains the instructions on how to interpret that data.",
"It has to do with the OS and less to do with the hardware. When you put in a game, all the console is doing is reading what is stored on the disk from the optical drive (just like when you put a CD into a CD player). But the companies have explicitly designed the consoles Operating System to be proprietary, so when an Xbox disk is inserted the OS only has permission talk to the Xbox coded disk , and vice versa with Sony. Truthfully, their graphics processors and systems aren't all that different when you look at the cold hard specs. But the OS is the biggest distinguishing factor that makes them incompatible from being read properly. This means Developers for games will have to code the disks differently at the end of the day so that the game can talk to the system properly. The only reason you can also insert a DVD or CD, is because Microsoft also built the OS to be able to read from those inputs as well.",
"Xbox and PlayStation are very different animals, just like a dog and a cat are very different animals. They have some similarities - 4 legs, 2 eyes, good pets - but internally they are different beasts. Their internal plumbing is different, even when you pull them apart and you notice strong similarities, you also notice they're not exactly alike. In Xbox vs PlayStation this is called the \"hardware\".\n\nCats and dogs also speak a different language. Your cat won't bark and your dog won't meow, and I suspect a cat doesn't really understand most of what a dog is saying when it barks. Xbox games are written in Xbox language and PlayStation games are written in PlayStation language. PlayStation simply doesn't understand the language of the Xbox, and vice versa. In Xbox vs PlayStation this is called the \"software\".\n \nHowever you can train a pet to understand human words and perform tricks. Dogs are obviously much better than cats at being trained, but something simple like playing an Audio CD is an easy trick so both the Xbox and PlayStation have learned that one. That's a language they both understand.\n\nYou can teach Xbox and PlayStation to understand other languages with \"emulators\". This allows them to understand the words of other animals like SNES and Commodore. However this needs a lot of brain power, and just like dogs and cats aren't very smart, neither are Xboxs and PlayStation, so they can only learn older (simpler) languages."
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acx9c4 | why do some viruses like distemper only affect one species while others like rabies affects all or at least most mammals? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/acx9c4/eli5_why_do_some_viruses_like_distemper_only/ | {
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"When you get down to it it's really just about what it evolved to do. Think of it like this: you have grizzly bears which are more \"generalists\", they eat smaller mammals, birds, berries, fish. And then you have pandas, which are \"specialists\", they only eat bamboo. \n\nSome bodies are built to survive on a variety of things while others specialize in one thing. Similarly, some viruses are specialized for one species while others aren't as picky\n\nI'm not sure the molecular aspect can be ELI5'd, but I think Richard Preston had a metaphor in one of his books where he described it as different species of cells having a different \"stickiness\" to them, and some viruses match its \"stickiness\" and can get inside it while others don't quite match, so can't get in"
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3utng3 | if drones are meant to be the future why are flying cars still so far away? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3utng3/eli5_if_drones_are_meant_to_be_the_future_why_are/ | {
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"Multiple reasons. Flying cars are horribly fuel inefficient. You can't trust humans to fly them so you'll need fully functional autopilot, something that is extremely experimental right now. There isn't much of a demand besides from fantasy, if you where rich enough to buy one you are rich enough to build one. They do exist they are extremely expensive."
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91l5e8 | why do humans assume that we need earth conditions for life to exist? is it not possible that other life forms could exist under different conditions? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/91l5e8/eli5_why_do_humans_assume_that_we_need_earth/ | {
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"We don't know if it can or not.\n\nWe have theories of lifeforms using other elements in place of the ones we use but *we have no proof*. More importantly we do have proof and data that carbon-based, water using life is very possible and also what it looks like. \n\nSo basically we prioritize searching for what we know can exist.",
"We believe it can, but we don't know what we would look for, therefore we look for what we know can support life",
"We don't assume that. However, we only know what life with earthlike conditions looks like. What it breathes, what it exhales, what conditions signal its possible presence.\n\nSo we can look for those.\n\nIt's very hard to look for \"x, which exists where y, and gives off sign z\" if you don't know what x, y, or z are. At that point you're basically just \"Searching the universe\" which is not very precise. ",
"It's not so much that we think life *cannot* exist outside of earthlike conditions so much as we we are only certain about life existing in approximately-earthlike conditions, so we narrow our search for extraterrestrial life from a stupid-high number of low-probability potentials to a smaller, more manageable number of higher-probability potentials.",
"Because we can only understand life in the terms of what we have already observed. Most if not all life on Earth revolves around Carbon and/or water. Other forms of like on different planets could in theory develop around different elements and compounds but we have no way of proving this as we haven’t been able to observe life arise from conditions different from ours.",
"You are waking home one night, and you find a tipsy man crawling on the ground in front of a lamppost. You ask him what he is doing. \n\n\n\n\"I've lost my keys!\", he slurs, \"Help me find them!\" \n\n\n\nBeing the helpful sort, you jump right in, asking where he had them last. \"I dropped them way over there...\" he says, motioning to the far corner of the parking lot. \n\n\n\nIncredulously, you demand he explain why he is searching here. \n\n\n\n\"It is too dark over there, I'd never find them, so I figured I'd look where the light is better!\" \n\n\n\nThe search for extraterrestrial life something like that, we are searching in the light. We know a lot about earth life, and what impact it might have on a planet. We know that plants take in carbon dioxide, which is somewhat common in the universe, and convert it into free oxygen molecules, which are rare. We can detect free oxygen from light years away, which makes it a pretty easy thing to look for. Oxygen, organic molecules, radio waves, theses are just some of the many telltale sign we can look for if we assume extraterrestrials are something like we are.\n\n\n\nOn the other hand, aliens could be superconducting crystal matrices living beneath oceans of liquid nitrogen and communicate using magnetic fluctuations. Not only do we not have a good way to look for such creatures, but we have not idea we should be looking from them, as opposed to a swarm of weakly interacting exotic neutrinos in the interstellar void. The possibilities for life other than Earth-like are so endless, we just don't know where to begin.",
"We don't. We just approximate that it would be easiest for life to develop if a particular exoplanet had all three states of liquid water and has a significant amount of carbon or silicon.",
"We don't assume that. \n\nWhat we know is that it is logistically impossible for us to check every inch of the universe for life, and it is unlikely that we would recognize life significantly different from what we see here on earth so we narrow the search parameters to conditions similar to earth so that there is less for us to look through and we are more likely to recognize life when we see it. ",
"I totally agree. It seems so strange to me that most people think that life is only possible with the conditions we have here on earth. Maybe life as we know it. But I'd have to imagine there are almost unlimited ways life can be supported in the universe. \n\nBut what is life? It's almost impossible to define. One could argue that anything is alive in some sense. On the other hand, we certainly can build machines today that simulate life, but aren't \"alive\" in the sense we are familiar. \n\nWho is to say that other life forms out there are even on the same time scale as we are? Are there beings out there moving so fast or slow that we don't even recognize it as life? The same could be said for physical scale - large or small. We are super-familiar with space-time, but there are certainly other dimensions out there we aren't aware of. So to imagine life couldn't exist in some other chemical configuration and environment than what we have here on earth seems really short-sighted to say the least. Life as we know it is the result of such a vanishing narrow set of circumstances unique to our planet and solar system, that it seems almost impossible that we are the only ones who just happened to strike the right balance.",
"There are certain components of life on earth that work very well: We have temperature that doesn't mean the liquids freeze or boil off. We also have common liquids that are very soluble to many things, such as water. Also, the basic blocks of our life are made up of some of the most common building blocks in the universe.\n\nWhat works well does so for a reason. Its quite likely that other life forms would follow a similar format to what works.",
"One of my favorite people, Neil deGrasse Tyson, talks a bit about this [here](_URL_0_) \nI don’t know that he would agree that earth conditions are needed for other life forms, but other life forms would probably be composed of the same elements as us. Carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, nitrogen.\n\nEdit: A word"
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1lcwze | what is the purpose of boxers? (the undergarment, not the sportsman) | Sounds like a dumb question, but my wife asked and I didn't have an explanation. Briefs hold the "equipment" in place, but boxers just kind of hang there, seemingly doing nothing. So what's the purpose? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1lcwze/eli5_what_is_the_purpose_of_boxers_the/ | {
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"They keep your dick from piss-staining the front of your trousers. They also avoid panty-lines.\n\nedit: they also cover your butthole",
"They are roomier. It is a known fact that tight fitting shorts and jeans can cause a man to become steril or at least less fertile. Plus some men just like the feeling of free range if you know what I mean.",
"To protect your pants from your ass\n\n-jake johannsen"
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5bx2iw | how can a state be called one way or the other when 0% or < 1% of districts have reported the results? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5bx2iw/eli5_how_can_a_state_be_called_one_way_or_the/ | {
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"A combination of polls leading up to the election and exit polls (people polled about how they voted as they exited their voting location). If the numbers are large enough, you can be extremely confident in the results even before they are officially counted."
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2mwn7n | why is the typical mass shooter so incompetent? | Today's would-be killer at Florida State failed to kill a single person. This is true of a non-trivial portion of mass shootings, and it's very rare for a gunman to kill more than a handful of victims despite typically being armed with multiple (often semi- or fully-automatic) guns, knives, bombs, et cetera. What's the deal? Am I underestimating the ease-of-use of deadly weapons? Are the type of people who become mass shooters so incompetent in most areas of their lives that they are often just unable to operate a weapon effectively, regardless of intent? Do they lack the courage of their convictions, and just want to attract enough attention to die via suicide-by-cop?
Apologies if this is too soon, but when are we ever going to go long enough without a mass shooting for it to not be? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2mwn7n/eli5_why_is_the_typical_mass_shooter_so/ | {
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"If you've never shot a weapon before, you're probably underestimating the ease of use. It's hard to aim a gun. It's especially hard to aim if you keep shooting quickly because the recoil will keep knocking your arm up.",
"Guns are a lot harder to aim than people think. IIRC, the average successful range for a handgun is 11ft or something, beyond that even trained people can miss from surprisingly close range. \n\nAdd a surge of adrenaline making your hands shake, how disorientating loud gunshots in an enclosed space are, screaming etc, missing quite often is going to happen.\n\nThen there's that gunshots aren't always lethal. IIRC, about 80,000 people a year get shot in the US, around 10,000 die (these figures might be a few years out of date though). With hospital care as good as it is, as well as a good first responder time, you have a very good chance of surviving most gunshots (let's not forget a few of the victims are in ICU at the moment).\n\nI agree with it being surprising at first glance, but if you try and use a firearm to hit even stationary targets, it's difficult for beginners, never mind when you're moving, the victims are, and the other reasons i mentioned above, it becomes a little less surprising.",
"Similar to what you see in the movies, under pressure, without a firm base (perfect stance for a handgun, or a table to rest a rifle on) and especially with moving targets, it's HARD to hit a target, even if you are trained. Even seen a movie scene where you were like, \"dude that guy is a bad shot\"... well that's more realistic than you'd think. \n\nAlso, most mass shooting gunmen are NOT extensively trained in shooting. Statistically, it's rare that a person brought up with guns, and who trains with guns often enough to be above-average at shooting, is the one actually going out to shoot. Who is statistically doing the shooting is the mentally unstable person who thinks they can just go out and buy/steal guns and start shooting. \n\nAnd further, contrary to what we see in the movies, when you ARE hit by a bullet, you aren't always thrown back and killed instantly. I'm not speaking specifically for the FSU event but in many \"mass shootings\" there are a lot more people wounded than killed.\n\nFYI I shoot fairly often, with an SR-9 handgun. Standing calmly with time to aim, I hit a 12\" target at 30 feet away about 90% of the time. But, if I'm even walking towards it, my accuracy is more like 50%... and if I'm walking sideways \"parallel\" to the target, it's 25% or less. Especially if I'm shooting quickly. \n",
" > Am I underestimating the ease-of-use of deadly weapons?\n\nQuite possibly. I am a moderately skilled marksmen, I go to the range a few times a year, for the most part I don't embarrass myself. Taking careful aim and under no pressure, I will still occasionally miss a human sized target at 30 feet with a handgun.\n\nUnder pressure, running around, shooting without aiming, and maybe having some hesitancy, I doubt I'd be better than 50-50 at that range.",
"Its because shooting a real gun is nothing like COD/games, and under extreme preassure even the most skilled soldier wont hit a barndoor at 100feet. The trick is to keep calm and take your time. And when you are a \"disturbed\" person shooting up a school you are anything but calm...",
"People who learned everything about guns from watching movies sometimes seem to think that they are magic deathsticks that just need to be casually waved in the air to instantly put large masses of people on the ground.\n\nThe reality is *quite* different. Turns out, it's actually quite difficult to kill lots of people with a gun, and merely being trained in it is *just the start* of your problems, of which there are several. Let's look at the major ones.\n\n--\"I'm Annie Fucking Oakley on the practice rage!\" Groovy. You're going to discover you're an Imperial Stromtrooper in a real shooting situation. Aiming is hard even when your heart *isn't* pounding, when there *aren't* people screaming, and--especially--when there isn't anyone *firing back.* All that, plus the chaos of an actual gun battle, tends to toss all your mad skills right out the door. It has been found, for example, that a cop's proficiency on the practice range is *almost entirely* unrelated to their actual performance in a real shooting situation.\n\n--\"Go ahead. Make my day.\" Something the military has known for quite some time is that actually aiming a gun at a human being and pulling the trigger is *hard,* a LOT harder than these open-carry Rambo wannabes realize. It's been found from analysis of military battles that an uncomfortably high percentage of the shots fired were aimed well over the heads of the enemy.\n\n--\"Spray and pray.\" Something every computer gamer who has ever played even a vaguely realistic shooter game has found out is that that cool Rambo thing where you scream incoherently while holding your fingers down on the triggers of your dual big-ass guns does nothing aside from emptying your clips fairly quickly and killing a surprisingly small number of enemies. Half of the reason for this is because real guns don't hold anywhere NEAR as many bullets as movie guns do, and the other half is...\n\n--\"Location, location, location.\" When the Germans first started using modern machine guns in WW I trench warfare, the strategy was to aim the guns square at advancing enemy lines, and then just hose them down with bullets. Turns out that didn't work, *very* few targets were hit. That's because when you shoot at the front of an advancing line of troops, MOST of the space in your sights is empty, it does not contain targets. So unless you take your time and aim (thus defeating the whole \"hose them down with bullets\" thing), most of your bullets pass between individual targets. What they eventually discovered is that you want to put your machine guns on the *flanks* of advancing troops, and shoot down the depth of the line. Any bullet that misses a particular target will still find many, many more possible targets as it penetrates the depth. Further, any bullet that passes through a target may still hit another.\n"
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1fpfkk | why aren't recording devices allowed in courts but artists and stenographers are? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1fpfkk/eli5_why_arent_recording_devices_allowed_in/ | {
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"In the UK, that's the way it's been since the Criminal Justice Act 1925 came into force and banned photography, and really the reason it's still like that is because no one has bothered changing it.\n\nThe Government published their [\"Proposals to allow the broadcasting, filming, and recording of selected court proceedings\"](_URL_0_) last year.\n\nTheir own proposal lists three disadvantages of allowing filming:\n\n- The cost to broadcasters\n\n- The cost to the court\n\n- Research from other countries, showing that many witnesses would be less happy to testify if proceedings were filmed, and many people would worry that filming a trial reduced the chances of the trial being fair.\n\nBut it makes a very good case for why filming should be allowed.",
"It depends......\n\nThe big thing in the US (more specifically the state of Wyoming) is that the court is as impartial as possible (within reason). So in a Jury case for example. The Judge is there to mediate. The stenographer writes everything down. Word for word. This becomes the official record of the proceedings.\n\nThe Court artist is also impartial, but this is where we get into details and the whole \"it depends\" bit.\n\nDepending on the judge's preference he may choose to allow reporters and the press in. Also depending, they may be able to bring in recording equipment.\n\nNow, here's where this comes into play. The press doesn't *have* to keep everything literal. They can do whatever they want with what information they have. (Within reason. If they do something too much, they may get sued themselves for libel) So they can destroy context, and this is why the court report is very important. For example:\n\nIn the court, the defendant says something along the lines of \"I did it for self defense\" the court knows this and writes it down as he said it. However, say the press for some reason doesn't like him. They can take their video and cut it so that it says \"I did it\". Completely different meaning, and it *technically* is true.\n\nThis is why as a jury member you are told to completely avoid the media so that you have no bias towards the plaintiff or the defendant. \n\nMind you, if it's a case that only has a judge, they may have a bias already, and in that case, there's nothing you can do about removing that. You only have to hope that the court in question has regulations regarding the court recordings so that you can be granted an appeal or some such.",
"Artists aren't allowed to draw in court, they have to memorise what they have seen and draw it outside of the courtroom.",
"In some places, recording devices are allowed. My mom used to work in a courthouse in Annapolis years ago and one of her duties was to sit next to the judge and press record on the cassette player. ",
"to add to what others have said, you also have more freedom to strike things from the record. any inappropriate things that may sway someone even if it's not actually fair to be said in the hearings ",
"Some courts do allow recording devices. In Utah, for example, press are now allowed to film. First they must submit a request. The first station to do so is usually granted \"pool\" access. This means they can film but are legally required to share the video with other stations. This prevents a mass of cameras. The stations here basically all have portable recording devices (sad with HD video inputs) that are used. Federal Court however is still very tricky. I realize that doesn't even remotely answer your question but I like reddit in the morning. ",
"One of the reasons against having cameras in the US Supreme court (or other Federal Courts, for that matter) is the belief that Justices\\Judges\\attorneys will be more concerned with \"grandstanding\" for the camera and not focusing on their job.",
"Another thing to consider. Court officers and other security staff don't want too many pictures or video recordings for safety reasons. Beyond not wanting pictures of jurors and witness, they don't want people to know exactly where they are standing and what they're doing, so that you can't study them and plan a break based on how they run their court room. \n\nSource: my job. "
]
} | []
| []
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[
"https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/162260/broadcasting-filming-recording-courts.pdf.pdf"
],
[],
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||
1kkjcd | how does fdic insurance work? | Hey All,
A bit confused on FDIC Insurance. Why is it even needed into today's world? I could understand it's importance back in the day, but it seems unnecessary today? If I have a Chase account with $50k in it, and that branch is robbed, I don't lose my money right? Chase won't say" Sorry we lost your money?"
Or if a chase branch goes out of business, my money would still be safe. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1kkjcd/eli5_how_does_fdic_insurance_work/ | {
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"text": [
"Since the financial crisis started, 65 banks have been acquired by the FDIC with well over 150 becoming insolvent (the remaining were acquired by other financial institutions). This is still very much an issue!\n\nIn the 1940s, when a bank was even close to being bankrupt or whispers got out, people would panic and run to the bank and whoever got there first got their money. The rest would lose all their savings. This made the depression spiral a lot worse than it would have been. This led to FDR creating FDIC insurance. Banks that opt-in to FDIC insurance, virtually all banks these days, have to pay a small premium every year. In return, all money up to 250k is insured for each depositor.\n\nBy knowing all money is secure and backed by the 'full faith and credit of the US government', financial institutions can be a lot more stable as well as people keeping their money.\n\nAlso, this has to do with entire financial institutions, not branches nor robberies.",
"Person above explained all the details, but it does not matter if your Chase branch gets robbed, goes out of business or even if \"big\" Chase Bank goes out of business entirely. If your money is FDIC insured you're not going to lose anything. If \"big\" Chase Bank went out of business, you'd just go to the FDIC and make an insurance claim to get your money back -- I'm sure there would be a bit of red tape and hoops to jump through/forms to fill out but FDIC insurance is meant to bail you out in exactly that circumstance."
]
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[],
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