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91hl6l | what is the log likelihood function and how is it different from probability? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/91hl6l/eli5_what_is_the_log_likelihood_function_and_how/ | {
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"Probability is chance some random or hard to predict event will occur. Usually, we can't compute probabilities exactly, so we create a model. We say getting heads on a coin flip is a 50-50 probability, even though when we analyze the actual physics, the chances aren't exactly 50%. Probabilities can be distributed linearly, like on a die, where each result is equally probable. Or they can have more complex distributions, like how when rolling two dice, 7 is more likely than 12 or 2.\n\nOften the relationship between the model and the data is less clear than with coins or dice. With a die roll, you just count up the sides, divide, and call it good. With something more complicated, like the chances for rain, you have to look at the data and try to guess which model works best.\n\nThe likelihood is a tool that helps you come up with the best model. More precisely, for a given model, it allows you to find the parameters that best fit your data. All models have one or more parameters. A linear model has a min and a max, you could try to simulate a die roll with a random number from 2 to 4, but that would be less accurate. Similarly, the parameters for a normal distribution is mean and standard deviation, if you don't have a good value for those, your model won't be of much use. \n\nLikelihood takes those parameters along with the model to create a likelihood function, and the maximum of that function is where the parameters best fit the model. In practice, likelihood functions have a lot of exponential terms that can be hard to work with. The natural log function is monotonic, which means that the max of (x) will be the same as the max of ln(f(x)). That allows us to use log likelihood, where we take the log of all the terms, and simplify the calculation.\n\n"
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1e4xg3 | how to simplify a radical expression | How can I simplify the radical expression 5(sqrt)6 - (sqrt)36 + (sqrt)96? I have had someone else explain it to me, but I just don't understand it. So, can someone explain it to me like I'm five? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1e4xg3/eli5_how_to_simplify_a_radical_expression/ | {
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"**Step 1:** Factor the radicands (the numbers under the radix or \"square root sign\") down to their prime factors. For most integers you'll encounter in a math class, this will just be a matter of dividing by single-digit primes. Hint: divide all even numbers by 2 until you have an odd number, then try dividing by 3, then 5, then 7. In this case, 2 and 3 are the only primes. 6=2*3, 36= 2*2*3*3, 96=2*2*2*2*2*3.\n\n**Step 2:** If there are two of the same factor in a radicand, you can remove the pair of matching factors and put one of them outside the radicand -- you're taking out a number times itself, so just taking the number by itself is the square root!\n\nSo sqrt(6) is not reducible at all (only one 2 and one 3), 36 can be reduced to one 2 and one 3 (that is, 6) and no radical, and 96 can be reduced from five 2's and one 3 down to 2*2*sqrt(2*3) -- four of the 2's in the radicand can be reduced to two 2's outside.\n\n**Step 3:** Simplify all the factors back into single numbers. Now you have 5*sqrt(6)-6+4*sqrt(6). Rearrange the order of terms to 5*sqrt(6)+4*sqrt(6)-6. \n\n**Step 4:** You can add the compound terms that contain the same radicand. 5*(sqrt)6+4*(sqrt)6 -6 = (5+4)*sqrt(6) - 6 > > 9(sqrt)6 - 6.",
"5(6)^(1/2) - (36)^(1/2) + (96)^(1/2)\n\n=\n\nby factorization\n\n5(6)^(1/2) - (36)^(1/2) + (16*6)^(1/2)\n\n=\n\nSquare root of 36=6, square root of 16=4\n\n5(6)^(1/2) - 6 + 4(6)^(1/2)\n\n=\n\nadd terms\n\n9(6)^(1/2) -6",
"Ha! Somebody has homework to finish"
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6ajyw5 | why is nuclear war generally considered to be the end of the world, when hundreds of nuclear tests have been performed around the world for decades and we're all still here and doing fine? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/6ajyw5/eli5_why_is_nuclear_war_generally_considered_to/ | {
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"Hundreds of tests in isolated areas across decades is very different than a thousand or more in one day in places like cities and military bases which will in turn burn for a long time.",
"Hundreds of people fire guns in shooting ranges and no one is injured, this must no one will get injured in a gun fight.",
"The thing about a nuclear war is this it will probably get out of hands. \nCountry A fires a Nuke on B. Now B either has nukes themselves and shots back or the other nuke owners feel threatened by A for firing nukes on a helpless country and proactively strike A for being a warmongering lunatic that uses Nukes. Long story short, there is no winner in such a scenario, just billions of dead people and a wasteland.",
"It isn't the first launch that is as worrying as the second through the hundred and twentieth, leaving very little to no land that isn't irradiated and unsuitable for living.",
"The human impact is much worse than nuclear tests in unpopulated areas (obviously). It might not kill every human but would be tragic.\n\nAlso, the world is a very interconnected place and if a nuke went off in New York for example, financial exchanges, corporate offices, and a wide variety of internet services would stop working. Not to mention electrical power, etc, though that would be somewhat more localized, while somebody in China would immediately notice those other services stopping. \n\nIt might not end the physical planet, but it would alter or destroy the structure of civilization as we know it. ",
"\"Nuclear War\" implies that 2 or more sides of a conflict are armed with and have used nuclear weapons.\n\nNuclear tests are conducted in isolated areas, with no inhabitable human population on one's own soil. Nuclear war would mean dropping a nuclear bomb over a (probably) densely populated area on someone else's soil. \n\nThat country would then in turn drop a nuclear bomb over one of your densely populated cities.\n\nAs retribution you would then drop a different nuclear bomb on a different densely populated city in their country.\n\nEventually other countries become involved and come to the defense of each of the original 2 countries at which time nuclear bombs are dropped on THEIR densely populated cities......\n\nSo along with mass extinction of the human race among the warring countries, there is also the economic impact and uninhabitable land, nuclear fallout, irradiated soils, poisoned food and water supplies.....\n\nWar is much different than tests."
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364opu | what exactly in our brains makes a person talented in art? | For example, when i was 9 all i could do was draw stick people (which is still all i can draw to this day) while my friend could literally imagine any thing and draw/color/shade it perfectly. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/364opu/eli5_what_exactly_in_our_brains_makes_a_person/ | {
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"My Sister In Law, the artist, has repeatedly claimed that there is no such thing as talent. There is practice, perseverance, and time. Not sure I believe her, but I'm a stick figure drawer like OP",
"Visual memory, relational memory, hand coordination. But they are not the most important skills.\n\nOur brain unconsciously transforms 2D images it gets from eyes (1 from each eye) to a 3D model that you actually see consciously. Mainly, it helps us to determine size of objects and distance to them. But when you draw you have to convert it back, i.e. If you draw a book, you should force your brain to stop seeing a book and start seeing lines and colors. And it is not as easy as it seems. I bet when you draw you think like \"ok, i have to draw a body, now head, arms, legs. Done!\" And what you get? You get stickman. You shouldn't see all that stuff, you should only see outline, lights, shadows, colors. Nothing else.\n\nSalvador Dali actually perfected this skill, google his paintings to understand what I mean.",
"I'm an artist, so there will be no scientific facts to back this up. I've been drawing since I could hold up crayons. My parents were very poor. Therefore, I was left to use my imagination and drew on everything all day long. When I entered school, everyone could see my talent compared to the kids my age. It's because I drew so much. I also think very very fast and notice things that others do not notice. I can draw the stitching of a tee shirt, if I'm drawing a portrait of someone. Each little stitch will be a different shade, depending on where the light is hitting it. I believe everyone can be an artist. You just need the determination. It's hard to start later in life because you realize how far back you are, but it would be totally worth it. \nThere is a lot of master to the craft. I don't just pick up a pencil and draw something phenomenal. For example, I'm drawing a portrait with a woman who has Ravens in her hair. I never drew a raven before. I researched the anatomy for hours on end. I did quick sketches of almost a hundred of them. Now I'm a master at drawing Ravens. It takes years to master anything "
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6qv23z | why do we not fall towards the direction the plane is turning in when in the air | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/6qv23z/eli5_why_do_we_not_fall_towards_the_direction_the/ | {
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"The curve and angle are made so you do no feel this sensation. \nIn car, when you make a u turn in mountain, you agree that your body is pushed on the other side right ? And faster you go, bigger is the effect. It is inertia.\n\nNow, in the plane, combine the fall you should make and inertia. With the roll the plane makes, you just feel slightly crushed from head to feet.\n\nWith parameters as speed, roll, pitch, yaw, pilots try to minimise discomfortable feeling you may have while turning.",
"In aviation there's a concept called [coordinated flight] (_URL_0_), and a coordinated turn is part of that. The pilot (or autopilot) controls the amounts of roll and yaw (side-to-side) motion through the turn so that you feel only a slight force downwards in to your seat. This is a deliberate choice: if you were in a passenger in a stunt plane, there would be no coordination and you'd be falling in *every* direction if it wasn't for your seatbelt."
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4xdx11 | wide color gamut, there are several "standards". what do they represent? how important are they when choosing a new tv? | I am lost on exactly what each standard (rec 709, DCI P3, and Rec 2020) mean and represent. Also how important is this specification when buying a new HDR capable device? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4xdx11/eli5_wide_color_gamut_there_are_several_standards/ | {
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"A color gamut is simply the range of colors that a display can support. You may have never thought about it, but a TV can not display every color available in nature that the human eye can see AND perceive.\n\nCheck out [this graph](_URL_1_). this graph shows all of the colors available in nature that can be perceived by the human eye. Please note that this does note directly correspond to light wavelengths, although the curving perimeter of this shape is the range of visible light that humans can see. The whole middle area of this shape are the colors that the human eye perceive, are are made by combinations of base light wavelengths. This graph also explains how humans have a name for the color magenta, yet magenta is not a pure wavelength color.\n\nEach standard of color gamut is a different attempt at maximizing the area of this space with a display. Note that the display that you are currently using has a color gamut that will truly prevent your eye from seeing EVERY color inside of this shape.\n\n[This](_URL_0_) shows comparisons f different gamuts that manufacturers have experimented with. You can see that some try to maximize the total amount of available colors, whereas others are simply interested in making sure that at least most of the main colors are visible. You can tell that some gamut standards aren't interested in capturing EVERY single part of the large green area at the top.\n\nWhen it comes to buying a new display, you should focus much more on overall resolution, refresh rate, number of inputs, screen brightness, and any consumer features that are appealing to you. The color gamut is not as important as these features IMO, and you will not come across content that your display cant handle. If a signal is calling for a green color that your display can;t do, it will approximate to the nearest green, which isn't far off even on the most modest color gamuts.\n\nLet me know if there are other questions!",
"A \"color space\" is the range of colors that a device is capable of recording or displaying. One you didn't mention, the CIE 1931 color space, matches the full range of colors perceivable by the human eye. All digital standards reach only a subset of that color space. The ITU-R Recommendations are broader standards that also include rules for frame rate, resolution, and the like.\n\nRec. 709 uses a color space identical to the familiar sRGB standard used on CRT monitors, and covers about 36% of the CIE 1931 space. Modern LED screens are generally capable of displaying wider color ranges than CRTs, but much of our technology crystallized in the CRT era. New specifications like Ultra HD are defining standardized ways to transition to more colorful pictures.\n\nFor a new display to use the \"Ultra HD Premium\" logo in marketing, it must be capable of displaying most of the DCI-P3 space, which is a standard from projectors. DCI-P3 covers 54% of the CIE 1931 space.\n\nRec. 2020 defines a color space which covers 76% of CIE 1931. More than that, Rec. 2020 is a referenced by Rec. 2100, which is the definition for HDR. HDMI cables that meet the HDMI 2.0 standard are capable of carrying signals with this color space.\n\n**In short: most TVs use Rec. 709; HDR will use Rec. 2020; UHD TVs might reach for DCI-P3 as a stepping stone to Rec. 2020.**"
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"https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/1/1e/CIE1931xy_gamut_comparison.svg/512px-CIE1931xy_gamut_comparison.svg.png",
"https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/6/60/Cie_Chart_with_sRGB_gamut_by_spigget.png/800px-Cie_Chart_with_sRGB_gamut_by_spigget.png"
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a5j6jv | what is superconductivity and why is it a big deal that it happens at room temperature? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/a5j6jv/eli5_what_is_superconductivity_and_why_is_it_a/ | {
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"Conductivity is how easily electrons move across something. The lower the conductivity the more work you need to put in to push the electrons through.\n\nCopper has a high conductivity for instance (a lot of metals do) and thats part of why we use it for wires (that and cost). Wood has low conductivity, so does air.\n\nSuper conductors have super high conductivity, they barely lose any energy (to heat mostly) and you dont need to push hard to get the electrons across it.\n\nThis makes them awesome for electrical technologies and reducing how much power you need to do complicated things. The catch has always been that we needed to make things super cold in order for it to work.\n\nTo have one at room temperature means we could maybe actually use it in a commercial technology one day, and that would be awesome.",
"The other post explained it well. One application for superconductors MRI machines, which use superconducting electromagnets to generate extremely strong magnetic fields, which would otherwise consume huge amounts of power and be extremely difficult to cool down.\n\nNow currently, the materials they use for these magnets have to be cooled down to an extremely low temperature, very close to absolute 0. This is a problem because it takes an extraordinary amount of energy to cool them down to that temperature, not to mention that the equipment itself is expensive. Even worse, they can't even use cheap hydrogen or nitrogen gas as a coolant, since those freeze above the critical point where these superconductors stop working. So they either have to use helium, which is expensive and scarce, or they have to find another way to cool them using solid materials (which is possible).\n\nSo while a room temperature superconductor would be awesome, that's not even what they're trying to achieve right now. What they are really interested in is a \"high-temperature\" superconductor. Scare-quotes because in this context, high-temperature is still extremely cold - they would like to be able to cool them with liquid nitrogen, which has a boiling point of 77 Kelvin (-320 °F / -190 °C). This would drastically lower the price of operating MRI machines, and would make it feasible to use superconductors in other applications like computers."
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4dfw4a | central nervous system and peripheral nervous system | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4dfw4a/eli5central_nervous_system_and_peripheral_nervous/ | {
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"The central nervous system is comprised of your brain and the nerves in your spinal cord. The peripheral nervous system is all of the nerves in your arms and legs, as well as nerves in your core OTHER than the spinal nerves (for example, nerves in your bladder that detect distension of the tissue when your bladder is full, which sends the message to your brain that you have to take a leak).\n\nThe peripheral nervous system has two main functions:\n\n* to register various stimuli and send messages about these stimuli to the central nervous system where a decision on how to respond to the stimuli can be made\n* to carry out the instructions given to it by the central nervous system\n\nThe central nervous system has two main functions:\n\n* to make decisions based on information it receives about stimuli from the peripheral nerves\n* to carry out autonomous functions such as heart rate, breathing cycle, etc.\n\nHere is an example of how that system might work:\n\n1) Your peripheral nerves register a slight pressure sensation against your legs and relays this information to your brain\n\n2) The brain makes the decision to look down to see what the source of the pressure is\n\n3) The brain sends out an electrical impulse, causing the peripheral nerves in your neck muscle to activate in a way that tilts your head downwards\n\nThen you see that the pressure was caused by, say, a cat rubbing against your leg.\n\nReflexes are an interesting exception to the rule of peripheral nervous system detects stimulus -- > sends message to brain -- > brain decides how to react and sends a message back to peripheral nervous system telling it how to contract various muscles. In a reflex, such as when you jerk your hand away from a hot stove, your hand bolts away from the hot surface before your brain even knows that the surface is hot. This is possible because the body recognizes that this is a situation that can quickly cause damage, so the 'decision' on how to respond is automatically made by nerves in the spinal cord, which stimulates peripheral nerves that control your arm muscles in a way that jerks your arm back."
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81cvza | how are crystals such as amethyst, rose quartz etc, supposed to have healing or other effects on the body? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/81cvza/eli5_how_are_crystals_such_as_amethyst_rose/ | {
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"They don’t. Crazy people think rocks are magic. Spoiler: rocks are just rocks, and magic isn’t real. ",
"Because people are gullible, and the placebo effect is a real thing. Otherwise crystals, magnets, bracelets, astrology signs, etc don't do anything.",
"First off: they don't (as others here have pointed out). It's all pseudoscientific nonsense, and all empirical evidence says it doesn't do anything beyond placebo. \n\nBut since you asked how they are *supposed* to have healing effects (that is, according to those who believe the nonsense), let me try to answer that. As usual with these practices the theory is rather vague (because specific theories are easier to falsify). Typically, though, the explanation will have something to do with \"[energy](_URL_1_)\", which might be out of balance and needing to be re-balanced, or needing to flow from one place to another, or something like that. Whenever you hear the word 'energy' used this vaguely, [your BS-meter's needle should start swinging heavily towards \"high levels\"](_URL_0_). But in any case, the idea is usually that there is something wrong with this 'energy' in or around your body (it's in the wrong place, or there is too much/too little of it), and the crystals *somehow* change that for the better, or alternatively they're supposed to create or channel a 'healing energy' (again, what *is* that? what does that *mean*?) that will fix whatever's wrong with you. "
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d4m51m | why does burning gas from gas tank makes black smoke but using it in a vehicle doesn't? | [deleted] | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/d4m51m/eli5_why_does_burning_gas_from_gas_tank_makes/ | {
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"There’s a difference between complete combustion and incomplete combustion. Burning fuel in a tank is unregulated and inefficient. The black smoke is byproducts that didn’t burn all the way. Inside a vehicle’s engine it’s highly regulated. The air to fuel ratio is optimized to burn everything and be as efficient as possible.",
"It does! \n\nWhy don’t you see it? Well the muffler has something called a catalytic converter which removes some of the things in the smoke, and it burns it in a controlled manner. This means the smoke produced per unit time is less and not as thick.",
"An open fire is just burning raw fuel in unmeasured amounts. In a car it is precisely measured, compressed and then exploded in a confined chamber and then it is forced through the exhaust system, in some cases rerouted back through the system to get reused and then gets catalyzed to remove impurities and then out the back through the tailpipe."
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4z4fgm | why are some tornadoes rain-wrapped while others are visible from several miles away? | We had a couple of tornadoes come within a few miles of us here in the Grand Rapids area. The news media said that the tornadoes were so very difficult to see because they were rain-wrapped.
What causes some tornadoes to be rain-wrapped (and therefore impossible to see unless you're very close), while other tornadoes are not? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4z4fgm/eli5_why_are_some_tornadoes_rainwrapped_while/ | {
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"The most violent part of a storm is, generally, the beginning or the back end. Recall that storms happen when cold fronts mix with warm fronts, shoving the warm, wet air high up where the moisture condenses and falls back down. Wind is also created by the differences in the density of the air.\n\nIn the middle of a big storm front, the air is mostly the same temperature: it's in the middle of the big front (probably a cold front) that started the storm. So while the rain and even hail might be the most violent in the middle of the storm, after the moisture has had a lot of time to condense into rain, the two original fronts - warm and cold - aren't mixing much anymore. At the beginning and end is where the two fronts are meeting and mixing and that's where the most violent wind is, because there's a mixture of more or less dense air swirling. For this reason, tornadoes are most likely to occur at the front of the storm or the back of the storm. That's why in many pictures of tornadoes, like [this one](_URL_0_), you can even see sunlight in the background!\n\nSo put all that together: the most torrential rainfall might happen in the *middle* of the storm front, but the tornado is probably at one of the ends, away from the rain.\n\nBuuuuut there are always exceptions. Sometimes fronts have pockets of different temperature air in the middle, or several fronts might mix and drive the warm air back down (only to be shoved back up again). You may have a storm already in progress when another front smashes into it. This is particularly common in places like Michigan, where you have warm air sweeping in from across the plains from the gulf, or over the mountains from the east coast, plus fronts picking up moisture from the Great Lakes around Michigan and the surrounding states, and cold, dry air pushing down from Canada. There's a lot of different currents and densities constantly mixing in that part of the continent, which is why, among other things, Chicago is so windy.\n\nSo you may end up with tornadoes forming in the middle of the storm instead of at one of the ends. If that happens, it would likely be in the middle of the worst of the rain. There's likely to be a ton of wind, regardless of whether or not there's a tornado, whipping the rain around, so when there *is* a tornado, who would notice? The wind would just...whip the rain some more, and pick up water from the ground. Visibility is likely to be garbage, so a tornado might not stand out as much as you'd hope."
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30xhlm | how does removing the labels from a person's clothing hinder the identification of that person? | When reading about unsolved mysteries or spy stuff I sometimes come across the fact that the labels are removed from someone's clothes. This is usually mentioned to indicate that the person's identity was deliberately being concealed. How can removing labels conceal someone's identity, though? Do that many people write their name on their clothes? Is it easy to track down who bought a specific brand of jacket? Isn't it possible those people just thought that clothing tags were uncomfortable?
Examples: [The Somerton Man from the Taman Shud Case](_URL_1_), [Andreas Grassl](_URL_2_), and at some point in [Burn After Reading](_URL_0_) Linda tells Chad to remove the labels from his clothing (pretty sure that's just a jab at what people read in spy novels, but it makes the point). | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/30xhlm/eli5_how_does_removing_the_labels_from_a_persons/ | {
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"Cutting out the labels makes it harder to identify what country the person is from. If you find a body with all New Zealand brands in their clothing then you've narrowed your search down quite a bit.\n\nThis was more important in past decades when brands were more localized and less global.\n\nIf the person was wearing tailored clothes (again, more relevant decades ago) then you've narrowed your search down to a handful of shops."
]
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"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burn_After_Reading",
"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taman_Shud_Case",
"http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/magazine/4176032.stm"
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6u3yc3 | why do babies heal so fast? if they get a scab or cut, it is gone by the next day, but sometimes it takes months for me to experience the same result? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/6u3yc3/eli5_why_do_babies_heal_so_fast_if_they_get_a/ | {
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"text": [
"Babies grow *really* fast. That's really all there is to it. Wound healing and growth are both powered by division of cells, and since babies grow so fast their wounds heal more quickly too.",
"Babies make a ton of new skin cells all the time because they grow so fast. Most babies double their birth weight by around 5 months, where if an adult doubled their weight in five months that would be a serious issue. When you heal a cut, you grow new skin cells over it, so it's much easier to do if you grow new skin cells really fast anyway"
]
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5x79ee | how do musicians come up with chord progressions? | e.g. the guitar here has a tritone tuning, does that completely jumble up how you create chords? I know how scales work and how you can make chords from them, but how do people create a progression of many chords that work together, especially in complex music like this?
_URL_0_ | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5x79ee/eli5_how_do_musicians_come_up_with_chord/ | {
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"That's where the art comes into it. It's intuition and taste. Sure, some people can write brilliant music with a mathematician like rigor, but I think most writers just feel it out. Trial and error.",
"There are so many different approaches to composing music. Some examples:\n\n- Diatonic - or \"in the key\", simply reorder the 7 chords from one key the way you like. Tons of pop music is diatonic in the sense that the songs never leave one key. Take that \"four chord songs\" viral video as an example.\n\n- Process music - an intellectual take on composition that involves composing within a set limitation, or using a mathematical or numerical process to determine which chords or keys to include, or some other random deciding process like rolling a dice (think \"random name generator\" before computers). For example, you could give each side of one dice a chord type, and then each side of another dice a root note, and roll them till you have a chord progression.\n\n_URL_0_ \n\nWhen John Coltrane composed his jazz work \"Giant Steps\", he was obsessed by symmetry, groupings of threes, the Holy Trinity, and wanted to push the boundaries of jazz. Therefore his key centres modulate by thirds.\n\n- Functional vs. non-functional - I use this within the context of jazz, but I'm sure it applies to other styles. Functional jazzharmony will have chords that lead to other chords in very specific ways, rooted in the classical tradition of the 5 chord always resolves to the 1 chord. There are other hierarchical examples of which chords go to what. In this tradition, musical resolutions or \"resting points\" can be anticipated because they fall within a familiar context.\n\nIn non-functional jazz harmony, chords can lead to any other chord you wish for the purposes of creating \"sound colours\". Chords may still resolve, but not necessarily the way we expect them to. Or they may keep building more and more musical tension, float around chomatically without any resting point, or not. It's a lot more up to the discretion of the composer, what kind of sound painting they want to create.\n\n- Polychords and slash chords - a polychord may be two or more triads from any key happening simultaneously, creating musical tension and dissonance because of many notes clashing side by side with other notes. Polychords are often notated as one chord symbol directly over top of another with a line separating them, which I can't create visually on the computer. But say you played a C major triad, and then added an F# major triad in the other hand. Boom. Polychord.\n\nA slash chord is usually a 3 to 5 note chord with a non-chord-tone in the bass, creating a different mood, tension, or musical texture. An example would be a C/F, or a C major triad (C-E-G) with an F in the bass. These are non-diatonic, as in, they don't occur in the natural chord hierarchy of any key, but are created purposefully for a specific musical sound.\n\nBut ELI5? These musicians probably started learning about chords from a \"functional harmony\" perspective, whether through classical music, jazz studies, or the basic language of their folk music tradition, and then learned about all the many many different ways to add, change, and elaborate on those chord progressions.",
"Also yes, guitars in non-standard tunings will require different hand positions for chords."
]
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1btt3o | why is there little to no coverage of the nazca lines being destroyed, at least partially? | This [ariticle](_URL_0_) is currently on my front page. Needless to say I'm shocked. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1btt3o/eli5_why_is_there_little_to_no_coverage_of_the/ | {
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"Because the article doesn't say that. There are a *ton* of Nazca lines; this is just the destruction of a few particular examples of them. Which may or may not be bad, depending on your personal opinions and a lot of things the article doesn't say, but it's definitely not international news."
]
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| [
"http://www.peruthisweek.com/news-3743-peru-heavy-machinery-destroys-nazca-lines/"
]
| [
[]
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|
|
9wwhul | how is uranium mined? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/9wwhul/eli5_how_is_uranium_mined/ | {
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"Pitchblende, or now renamed Uraninite, is a steel coloured mineral which contains high amounts of uranium oxide (UO2 or U3O8). This is found in many parts of the US, South America, some parts of Europe, South Africa and Australia. Other minerals exist but this is the most common.\n\nThe mineral can be crushed, then acids, alkalines and peroxides are added sequentially to leech out almost pure uranium oxide. The uranium oxide can be combined with fluorine gas to produce Uranium Fluoride (UF6), which is a gas.\n\nThe gas can then separated by centrifugation. Enriched uranium-235 (which is lower density than uranium-238) can be extracted this way.\n\nThe uranium fluoride can be reduced to uranium metal, then placed into nuclear reactors / weapons.\n\n\nThe whole process to produce viable uranium fuel requires insane amounts of resources, produces lots of radioactive waste, and uses hundreds of specialised gas centrifuges. This makes it impossible for any nation to hide that they have nuclear capabilities.",
"Last January I went to a mining conference and talked to a guy who did prospecting for uranium mines in Northern Saskatchewan. He said that deposits are often small and very high grade. He also said Uranium dust is extremely toxic, because it is both poisonous similar to lead but many times worse, and it is radioactive, also it gives off radon gas.\n\nThe main method that is used in uranium mines is cut and fill, where they drill and blast out a cavern underground and then after the ore is extracted waste rock is put back in the stope. Except it is all done with remote machines, usually driven by cables because radio doesn't travel too good underground. "
]
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3ajh5e | with emojis now getting their own unicode value, why is the image of the character not consistent throughout android/ios/web? | Why do my emojis on Android not look the same as on iOS devices? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3ajh5e/eli5_with_emojis_now_getting_their_own_unicode/ | {
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"For the same reason that the letter 'A' in one font may look different from the letter 'A' in another font. Different implementations essentially use different \"fonts\" for their emoji.",
"Emoji is part of unicode, and the Unicode Consortium does provide [sample art](_URL_0_) for the new additions (whether regular characters or emoji).\n\nEmoji are just text, and like any text, the font you're using is allowed to make it look however it wants. Fonts can make the letter 'A' look how they want, and they can make the emoji look how they want. Usually they way it looks is inspired by the official art, but this doesn't have to be the case.\n\nThe most famous example of a font looking completely different from the reference characters is [Wingdings](_URL_1_) which was designed to allow something like Emoji for Microsoft systems. It straight up changed every letter to be some sort of image. If you don't have Wingdings installed, you might find people randomly ending their emails with a J. This is the smilie face in Wingdings, and when your system fallback to the default font, it comes out at J."
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yxr3v | eil5: how submarines function | More specifically, how is a submarine capable of controlling depth level? How long can a crew stay inside due to oxygen restraints? Are there rules to depth level so that crew are not affected by cabin pressure? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/yxr3v/eil5_how_submarines_function/ | {
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"When you want to lower the sub tanks are filled with the surrounding water causing it to sink to raise it you empty those tanks. I'm not sure how deep they can go but below a certain point the sub would be crushed but as long as the hull is intact the crew should be okay. \n\nIf I have made any errors corrections would be appreciated. ",
" > How long can a crew stay inside due to oxygen restraints?\n\nNuke subs can actually use electricity from the reactor to electrolyze water into hydrogen and oxygen. So they can make their own oxygen while underwater - they only need to come up for food."
]
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g2gz69 | is there a legitimate strategy to rock paper scissors? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/g2gz69/eli5_is_there_a_legitimate_strategy_to_rock_paper/ | {
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"yeah it’s a mind game but I usually win if I go w rock every time until my opponent thinks I am going with rock and then I change it to scissors. To me it’s about baiting some outcome and going w what beats it [Better In depth strategy here though ](_URL_0_)",
"I always play 2 out of 3. I actually look people in the eye and tell them what I am going to choose. Then I do it. Then I tell them again and depending on what happened the first time I may or may not throw what I told them. Really ups the mind game.",
"Studies have shown that when someone wins at RPS, they are most likely to keep the same pick again, and if they lose, they are most likely to move to the next choice in the line (rock- > paper- > scissors- > rock).\n\nOnce you win, you can substantially increase your chances of subsequent wins by moving BACKWARDS through the line to counter your opponent's moving forwards. You can pretty reliably beat regular opponents with this technique but you have to practice to do it without pausing in between matches (or your opponent will have time to analyze and may second-guess their pick).\n\nIn competitive RPS, most people know about that and it goes back to calling bluffs."
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ahrecx | why do airlines wait so long to notify passengers of delayed or cancelled flights when they know the necessary plane hasn’t taken off from its prior point of origin yet? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/ahrecx/eli5_why_do_airlines_wait_so_long_to_notify/ | {
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"They might be able to use a different plane. Until the actual delay is known and other avenues of delay-reduction are applied, it would be a waste to tell customers there has been a delay because in the end, there might not be.\n\nPlus, people should be at the airport early for their flight, which often means by the time a delay is confirmed the passengers will already be at the airport. Since they shouldn't try leaving and coming back in case the delay is lessened while they are gone, it makes little difference how early they are notified of a delay."
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43jhn6 | why do most of the books have between 200-400 pages, and not more or less? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/43jhn6/eli5why_do_most_of_the_books_have_between_200400/ | {
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"The same reason most movies are 85-125 minutes.\n\nThat's roughly the amount of space required by the creator to tell the story they are trying to show.\n\nIt stops it from being too short to get you involved, but isn't so long that they are boring you with unnecessary details.",
"It is actually a result of marketing and production. Within a genre of books people are generally willing to pay (approximately) the same amount of money no matter the length of a book. People will pay the same for a novel that is 200 pages as they will for a novel that is 400 pages.\n\nIf a book is shorter than 200 or so pages it makes the customer feel like they did not get a long enough experience for their purchase. However the longer a book is the more it costs to produce. Paying an editor, layout person, and the physical production of a book all costs more the more pages there are. \n\nSo the combination of costs, what people are willing to spend on books, and a desire to give a good value for the purchase results in a \"sweet spot\" of 200-400 pages.\n\nHaving said all this there certainly are books that are longer and books that are shorter. ",
"If you make them thicker, not so avid readers are scared of them and won´t buy them (which ist strange, because I have 300 pages books with tiny font size, and 500 pages books with much less text because the font is so huge)\n\nmake them thinner, and people think that they aren´t getting enough book for their money."
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2ds15z | why is my sandwich's roast beef iridescent like an opal? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2ds15z/eli5_why_is_my_sandwichs_roast_beef_iridescent/ | {
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"[Diffraction grating](_URL_0_) ... elements in the meat near the surface reflect light like a prism and cause light to split into different colors. ",
"This has shattered my mind forever (laziness has never led me to Google I suppose) but I was thinking of this the very other day, thank you for settling one of my great life riddles.",
"Culinary graduate here... its due to the pink curing salts that are used in the seasoning/preservation process. Curing salt is a mixture of table salt and sodium nitrate. It is due to diffraction grating of light like the top comment says, but its caused by salts added to the meat. ",
"We've officially run out of questions for eli5."
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6r872r | before scientific awareness, during eclipses, did ancient generations experience visions problems en masse looking at eclipses? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/6r872r/eli5_before_scientific_awareness_during_eclipses/ | {
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"With most people not being able to read, driving not being a thing, and the fastest travel being on horseback where the horse has their own eyes, vision problems were already rampant. Glasses were not available for everyone and if you spent your days farming it wasn't uncommon to have poor vision.\n\nEven back then people tended not to be idiots and stare at the sun when it is painful."
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6q2bj5 | why does bleeding in the mouth coagulate faster than anywhere else in the body? | Just left the dentist after my regular plaque-cleaning appointment and was wondering: why does it seem bleeding in the oral cavity subsides much faster than all other body parts?
Bonus question: what do people on blood thinners do if they need a dentist? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/6q2bj5/eli5_why_does_bleeding_in_the_mouth_coagulate/ | {
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"The mouth is a wet place filled with bacteria. If you did not clot fast you would be very likely to get an infection and die. The Anus also clots very quickly for similar reasons. \n\nGenerally speaking people on blood thinners inform their dentist of the medications they take, and if necessary they will stop taking them ahead of the surgery and for a set period after it. ",
"The answer is saliva. \nYour mouth is constantly covered in it. \nSaliva contains a protein that causes blood to clot faster.\nIt's humid, so the cells that fix wounds can survive longer. \nIt has an enzyme in it that kills bacteria. \nIt also contains a bunch of other proteins those cells need to fix the wound. "
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2yqx6y | when do speed limits start. is it when the driver see's the sign or where the sign start there on? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2yqx6y/eli5when_do_speed_limits_start_is_it_when_the/ | {
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"Speed limits start at the sign. When you go between speed limit signs you should always be going the lower of the two speed limits. You can accelerate after the sign when entering a faster zone and you must brake before the sign when entering a slower zone",
"**sees** - < sigh > \n\nThe limit starts as you pass the sign."
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1qbap6 | vevo, what is it, what does it do, and why does everyone seem to hate it? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1qbap6/eli5_vevo_what_is_it_what_does_it_do_and_why_does/ | {
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"When it comes to *really* major players concerning popular music there are two: UMG - Universal Music Group and Sony Music (here is a partial list of [UMG artists](_URL_1_) and [Sony Music artists](_URL_0_) ).\n\nThese two record companies along with Google are the major owners of Vevo, which they formed to manage their music videos and rights on the net. \n\nBecause of this they have the actual control over a *lot* of the popular music shown on the web and of course they try stop other people from using their music. ",
"Am I the only one who doesn't actually hate it?",
"Youtube/Google was in danger of being sued by Sony Music/UMG music. To prevent a potentially devastating lawsuit, Google's CEO (at the time) Eric Schmidt made a deal with Doug Morris, CEO of Sony Music, to build a parallel video platform based on YouTube tech where Sony could control the monetization settings and sell their own ads. Vevo V1 was basically a shell website that hosted an embedded YouTube player which in turn loaded Vevo's own ad module at runtime. This allowed YouTube to keep the music video content, provided a link was present to the 'official' Vevo page (effectively, a rebranded YouTube page.) The videos were still hosted on YouTube.\n\nSource: I was a YouTube software engineer who worked on the Vevo launch.\n\nEdit:\nWow, this thread really blew up! I'm a bit amazed at the sheer amount of nastiness lobbed at my inbox, but I guess that's par for the course on the internet. As far as my opinions on YouTube's changes since I left: they're completely inconsequential. YouTube costs a ridiculous amount to run and provides a pretty amazing platform for free video hosting. It's a rare day I don't search YouTube myself or get directed to a YouTube link by a friend or colleague. Whatever your beef with it, I can assure you that if that beef were strong enough to force a decline in viewership Google would be making changes tout de suite. I'm afraid I can't help all that have asked how to increase their channel's visibility, make more revenue, get Sergey Brin's phone number, etc.\n\nAs far as working at Google/doing an AMA: I think that subject has been covered pretty extensively and I'm not sure I have much to add to that conversation. My path to becoming a software engineer was pretty atypical, so I'm afraid I don't have much career advice to offer either. I suppose if you want to follow my lead: spend a good long while in art school, play in a lot of bands, and read everything you can get your hands on dealing with software development.\n\nSilicon Valley loves a disruptor. If you really think YouTube has lost the plot, and that your UI/video player ideas are superior, start working on your website! The worst that could happen is that you learn a ton about web/software development and perhaps get a better understanding of what makes hosting/serving video at Google scale such a challenge. The best that could happen? Ask Steve Chen and Chad Hurley.\n\nEdit again:\nReddit gold! I feel as though I have now truly arrived. Thank you kindly jlota. I honestly had no idea Vevo was this contentious of a subject, but I'm glad I could answer a few questions.\n",
"I hate it because it censors songs and you'll see a video with 50,000,000 views below a VEVO video which only has like 8,000 when you go to search for said song. ",
"Why does Vevo disallow viewing videos on mobile? That is extremely annoying. \n",
"Why are VEVO's videos such shit quality, letterboxxed, cropped, and censored? It seems like they torrented the worst videos and posted them to youtube.\n\nWhy are they not taking them directly from the original production source for a crisp uncensored video?",
"It basically destroyed what YouTube set out to do. Created it's own network within YouTube based on selling ads, and not sharing media with the world. Can't necessarily blame them because of the Viacom suits and such but my inner fuck the man says fuck them.",
"Well, the reason I hate it is because sometimes the videos aren't HD. Other people used to easily upload the music videos in HD, but now they can't because of copyright issues, which I understand. But if you're gonna be monopolizing the right to own/upload a music video, at least give us the high quality. Example: Lady GaGa's Bad Romance (Vevo) video is only 360p. Given that the video is from 2009, which is not old at all, I find it unreasonable and frustrating that they won't upload HD.",
"Why do I hate Vevo? Because they put a commercial before [Never Gonna Give You Up](_URL_0_), effectively ruining my Rickrolls. ",
"VEVO is the government's attempt to eradicate all positive vibes and destroy the entropic nature of our biosphere.",
"I need to start reading more carefully. I thought this post was about Velcro.",
"Also, since Sony et al. had full free reign to sell their own advertising off the back of the site, they were commanding ad CPM rates of $20-$30 for their videos. To figure out how much money record companies were making, take the number of views of a VEVO video, divide by 1000, and multiply by $25. Yup.\n\nCompare this to the typical $2-3 CPM rates for everyone else.\n\nSource: I'm a YouTube partner with ears in a lot of places",
"I dislike VEVO because they have no idea how to advertise. When I'm watching an Anthrax video, they show me a 30 second ad for Lady Gaga. How many Anthrax fans like Lady Gaga? It's as though they go out of their way to advertise for something they know I won't want to see.",
"Vevo is like that 1 guy you hate that you end up seeing everywhere. You always try to avoid him, but end up getting into a conversation with him every now and then and you do everything you can to run away.",
"Because fuckin \"Gema\" doesn't allow to watch any of them(in Germany)!",
"They actually censor the swearwords themselves: _URL_0_",
"They messed up Eminem's Stan so much with censoring that you couldn't tell Stan's girlfriend was in the trunk.",
"Now I want to ask why everybody, according the title, hates it?",
" > Why does everyone seem to hate it?\n\nI tried to watch a commercial that I thought was funny (don't remember what), and I had to watch a 30 second commercial to watch a 30 second second commercial! Fuck VEVO!\n ",
"the reason i hate vevo is because they are usually the only upload of popular music videos, and they censor the songs they put up. now theyve stopped doing that for some things but i still have bad blood.",
"Why does everyone hate it? Adverts are spammed everywhere and they take up spaces from other hard working people.\n\nPut it this way: [this](_URL_0_) is the list of the top 10 subbed YouTube channels.\n\nNumber 8 right now is Rihanna. She most definitely does not deserve to be there. Why? She already has fame and a lot of people think the top YouTubers should earn their spot.\n\nTake PewDiePie as an example. I hate his videos but god damn has he earned where he is. He deserves to be where he is because he worked hard. Rihanna doesn't deserve to be number 8 because she has outside of YouTube fame.",
"I hate Vevo because all of Eminem's music videos are on there, all of them have swearing in them and al of them have said swearing censored.",
"It's basically the MTV of the internet. Not much more left to say...",
"I hate it because they bleeped the word \"bomb\" out in Jamiroquai's Seven Days in Sunny June. The context is a girl saying they she has been friends to long with a guy for them to be anything more than that and he responds \"why'd you have to drop that ~~bomb~~ on me?\" ",
"The only thing I know about Vevo is when I see its name on many of the music videos I watch on YouTube. What am I missing here?",
"Vevo killed my parents.",
"Because their pages load slower, always have an advert (unless ABP), and then the video it self always buffers slower than anything else. Not to mention they pay to be the first result.\n\nYou can get ad-less videos that load quicker, who's pages are without bloat, and is uploaded by a guy that loves the music, not a drone that was paid to.",
"Vevo is like the Origin (game distributor for PC) of music. Sure they have everything you want, but you end up hating them for what they do.\nNow see, that unnecessary censorship and insane amount of ads is what makes everyone hate it.",
"I thought this said velcro and am now really disappointed...",
"I hate Vevo because it doesn't allow me to view their videos because of the country I live in. \nBut, thank god for Proxmate! \n \nPS: Fuck you Vevo!",
"I don't care if it's uploaded on a Vevo channel, actually, it's reliable because I know it's not some bullshit troll video (especially for new songs).\n\nHowever, I hate how they censor songs. Why... WHY.",
"Not sure if this has been mentioned, but one reason people hate VEVO is cause they censor the FUCK out of \"their\" songs...\n\nMy hate for VEVO began when I listened to Still Dre. censored.... fuck that shit",
"The name sounds dumb.",
"They are song censoring cuntbags, Fuckin oath mate.",
"I like it because for some reason work hasn't blocked it yet but have blocked all my other streaming music services. It is kinda sad though streaming the video uses so much more bandwidth than streaming music."
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6deu63 | why do we as humans have the initial "eew, boys/girls are gross" cooties mentality at first, and then become attracted to whatever it is a person ends up being attracted to? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/6deu63/eli5_why_do_we_as_humans_have_the_initial_eew/ | {
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"i wonder if any evolutionary biologists could weigh in on this question. From a evolution perspective, girls simply arent ready to have a child until maturity so boys being \"attracted\" to girls as a young age could be downright dangerous. I wonder if the \"eww gross\" reaction signifies a biological imperative to not mate with that person which then reverses as they reach maturity. This kind of reaction would act to protect children from dangerous pregnancy at their age. I have no expertise on the subject but its an interesting discussion and I wonder if there is a connection.",
"Evolutionary biologist chiming in.\n\nIt is a difficult question to test experimentally, but the explanation that I think match data best consists of several factors:\n\nFeelings of disgust are usually evolved to keep us away from things that we have attraction to in general, but could harm us because they are in an undesirable state. Think nice grilled beef vs. rotted meat, cool water on a hot day vs. a slime-filled pond. We don't use disgust to avoid things that are always dangerous, like lions or falling trees; there fear is used to cope. \n\nFrom here on I assume heterosexual relationships, not because same-sex attraction is unnatural, uncommon, uninteresting or unexplainable. Simply because this is ELI5 and I want to leave out complicating factors for now (but feel free to ask later...)\n\nSo, there are pretty obvious reasons why evolution has given most of us a strong interest in the opposite sex. Thus, we need instinctive disgust to keep us away from those we should not have sex with. This include near relatives (parents, siblings and children in particular), which again is easy to explain as a mechanism to avoid inbreeding.\n\n\nNow it is worth noting that the \"cooties\" do not keep kids from falling in love within their peer group, form friendships and strong social bonds. The \"cooties\" are, I suspect, a lot more general in societies where children are actively told that the opposite gender is something very different and sex is alluded to as something disgusting and forbidden. This will strengthen the disgust response, as it is capable of learning both ways. (Think acquired tastes in food for example.)\n\nSo why the cooties disgust at all? \n\nThe underlying disgust that kids seem to have is towards physical aspects of love and sex. So what is the danger of sex? \n\nFor boys the main factor may be mate competition. If you try to enter the arena of attracting women before you have the strength and experience to do it properly, humiliation is your best-case scenario, being killed or driven away from your tribal group by an angry rival quite likely. This is essentially why boys enter puberty later than girls: it is better to use an extra year to grow and enter the adult population properly later than too early. \n\nFor girls the risks are even more easy to spot: the lifetime fitness for a woman is less dependent on how many mates she has, more on her own health and the quality of her mates. Getting a pregnancy before her body is ready, or injuries to her reproduction systems, or disease, or a low quality mate all spell disaster, and thus is a risk to avoid. \n\nIn addition, for both genders, there are other dangers of sex such as disease or simply being embroiled in the complex games of mate choice and power in the adult world before body and brain has matured enough to partake on reasonable terms that makes it something to avoid until ready. \n\nThere are obviously all sorts of interesting complications, caveats and game theory, but this is at least a start.\n\n**Edit:** Grammar, because English is not my first language."
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1rhibg | what do you learn during an engineering degree? | What exactly do you learn during an engineering degree and why is it considered such a difficult field? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1rhibg/eli5_what_do_you_learn_during_an_engineering/ | {
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"I am a chemical engineer. My degree included things such as: \n\n* The fundamental science behind the way energy and mass move around: heat transfer, diffusion, fluid flow, solubility\n* Rates of reaction, what they mean and what affects them\n* How to use this understanding to design ways to mix, react and separate all kinds of different substances\n* The mathematics needed to describe the way these systems behave and solve those equations to predict what will happen\n* Numerical methods for solving the more complex sets of equations, and how to use computer programs to do this\n* Specific applications of all the above, e.g. very common applications such as distillation, or new and unusual ones such as microprocess engineering\n* Some basics of economics, including how to cost a plant and calculate returns on investment\n* Safety in design and operation of your plant\n* A bit of business and management knowledge\n\nA lot of these topics require a very good understanding of the other topics listed to be able to learn them, and engineers need to apply the fundamental principles and tools to many different situations so that they can generalise and know how to investigate the unique situations they will encounter in industry. ",
"Engineers learn the theory and practice of physics and mathematics to make science useful for mankind through problem solving. Example: making buildings resistant to collapse during an earthquake. It'll take the understanding of physics and where forces are applied to the structure. Then come up with ideas to make them resistant. And finally, problem solving which ideas would be most beneficial.\n\n > why is it considered such a difficult field? \n\nMy vote goes to...\nconvolution.",
"Part of the difficulty is the volume of knowledge you need to have and draw from to solve complex problems. A typical engineering student has 30-40 hours of class a week and take 7 or 8 courses at a time. \nWhen I have hired engineers, more than their technical knowledge, I am looking for them to have good problem solving skills, working alone or on groups coming up with logical and creative solutions. They not only have to have an analytical approach but need to consider how their ideas fit in the organizational and cultural context they are working in. Finally they need the interpersonal skills to build and lead teams, communicate and sell their ideas, and work with people from other fields.",
"Why is it a difficult field?\n\nFirst, you have to study a shitload of math & science. Once you've learned it, you don't get to just *forget it* and move on to the next class - all your later classes expect you remember it and use it correctly. In contrast, while I had to learn differential equations studying CS, none of my later classes actually expected me to remember or apply it.\n\nSecondly, there's a shitload of math and science to learn. Trying to cram it into a 4 year program means you have to take a lot of hard classes at the same time.",
"An engineering student has to learn:\n\n* almost enough math to get a math degree\n* almost enough science to get science degree\n* how to use to both to solve real world problems"
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umafv | what is it about freezing inoperable hard drives that makes them work again? | Are there other applications to this as well? Plenty of electronic devices overheat, but nobody rushes them to a freezer. Why should temperature extremes affect the functionality of such devices in different ways? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/umafv/eli5_what_is_it_about_freezing_inoperable_hard/ | {
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"If your hard drive is suffering from [stiction](_URL_0_), then freezing it may cause the metal parts inside to contract enough to relieve the problem. However, freezing your hard drive is not a silver bullet - it won't do anything at all to help if you have burned out circuitry or such. Also, it can do more harm than good if you don't [wrap the drive](_URL_1_) in an airtight bag to prevent condensation. ",
"If a hard drive's mechanical parts fail, it's often because something is warped or out of alignment in a very, very minor way. Freezing the drive causes the metal to contract, which can sometimes pop the warp out, or re-align a component. Think of it similarly to how sometimes the doors on houses can get slightly out of alignment in very warm or very cold weather.\n\nOf course, the defect could still recur, so if freezing it works, you'll want to get your data off ASAP."
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"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stiction#Hard_disk_drives",
"http://howto.wired.com/wiki/Save_Your_Hard_Drive_by_Freezing_It"
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1q3fur | why does computer overheating matter if silicon has such a high melting point? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1q3fur/eli5why_does_computer_overheating_matter_if/ | {
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"Firstly transistors are heat sensitive. Meaning heat actually effects how they work. The properties of a transistor change as heat changes.\n\nThis is a bit of an oversimplification and maybe someone with a bit more knowledge of the actual factors involved can clarify but:\n \nIn a transistor you have three terminals. One of these terminals called the base, usually has a small current flowing between it and the another terminal called the emitter. The third terminal called the collector has a much more substantial current flowing between it and the emitter.\n\nAs heat goes up a problem called \"leakage\" arrises. Leakage is when current starts to flow between the collector and the base. The problem with leakage is two fold. Leakage causes the difference between \"on\" and \"off\" to become smaller so it can cause errors. The other major problem with leakage is that leakage produces heat, and more heat produces more leakage which produces more heat. So leakage can lead to thermal runaway which can destroy the transistor or other more sensitive components around it."
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3e0w5f | how did we, as a society, manage to progress in the last 100 years? (at which point in history did we get to where we are today) | 100 years ago, we were in the midst of world war 1. The level of technology was (considered) good for that point in time.
Fast forward 20 years later, I am guessing that the level of technology was somewhat similar?
Only up till the point of the creation of the internet (mid to late 90s), was creativity and innovation much more rampant (at least from what I observed). This is due to the availability of ideas and communication being so readily available.
So where in the last 100 years did we, as a society, 'evolve' (for lack of a better word) to what we are today?
Additional question: How did technology exponentially increase in the last 100 years? Was it exponential?
EDIT: Thanks for the insightful comments. And I know that my examples were un-satisfactory. Sorry for that. However, I think u/elkab0ng gave a pretty good answer and said that commerce/communication/transportation created the world we currently live in. But still did not figure out an exact point in time that all happened. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3e0w5f/eli5_how_did_we_as_a_society_manage_to_progress/ | {
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"I would have to say right after World War 2 is when the human race wised up and realized that if World War 3 happened, there wouldn't be any human race to speak of. The post World War 2 era did have the generation that gave birth to the baby boomers that ended up being involved in some of the technology era's greatest inventions, discoveries, etc.",
"Your observation leaves a lot to be desired. For example, between the end of WWI and 1938 planes went from rickety canvas deathtraps to intercontinental airliners. We went from the invention of powered flight to the moon landing in only 66 years. The 20th century has been a whirlwind of innovation.",
"Communications are the biggest revolotion if you ask me. \n\nA century ago, if you knew someone across the country, it was possible to communicate - but it was expensive and very slow and could be interrupted by many things. Travel more than short distances was expensive and often dangerous.\n\nA couple decades ago, it was possible to communicate with people overseas, if you had lots of money (telex or phone) or time (3-4 weeks for a letter. Maybe). Doing business overseas was too complex for all but the experienced export/import person - my parents had a relative purchase something overseas, it took MONTHS and dozens of phone calls and letters and dollars to get it through.\n\nToday? I expect that people reading this message might be from 50 different countries on any continent on earth. More amazingly, they might respond, and I'd read that instantly - and be able to exchange ideas. I can follow local events in any city on earth effortlessly - and ask someone who lives there what they think of things.\n\nToday if I get lost, I don't park and rummage for a map, I push a button and give a vague description of a place to someone named Siri, who usually figures it out and finds the shortest route, then talks me through the trip.\n\nCommerce? I wanted to get my wife a gift, I picked some earrings, only noticed as an afterthought that they were coming from the other side of the earth - at no cost to me, with the currency conversion done automatically for a fraction of a penny.\n\nThis has a snowball effect; as it gets easier and easier to exchange information, the people who can use it to develop new ideas can get that information faster, and turn it into something customers can see in weeks instead of months or years. People are smart and will learn even better ways to use this as time goes on.\n\nThe cool part? My kids are smarter than me. In 50 years, I just can't imagine what their world is going to be like. Hope to hang around long enough to find out.",
"In the past 100 years, we've vastly improved our ability to transport people, cargo, and data. We developed reliable flight, metal fabrication techniques, plastics, the transistor, integrated circuits, television, computers, the internet, mobile phones and then smart phones. A single iPhone is more powerful than the computers that landed Apollo 11 on the Moon. We've sent probes to every planet in the Solar system, built intercontinental cables and satellites and started exploring the depths of our oceans.\n\nWe've split the atom, discovered four fundamental forces, and fit billions of transistors on a chip that's so small that we're using lasers to cut channels that are smaller than the wavelength of light.\n\nWe've had two world wars, developed the League of Nations, followed by the United Nations, fought a worldwide Cold War, developed nuclear arms and nuclear power, had the whole space race, seen the birth of new governments in China, Russia, Germany, Japan, Israel, Palestine, India, and so many more.\n\nIn the US, we've given women the vote, desegregated our schools, enacted civil rights, birthed the modern LGBT movement, founded and dismantled the Prohibition, weathered the Great Depression, had the Red Scare and the AIDS crisis, had more military conflicts than I can count, and so much more.\n\nNot much has happened in the last 100 years? There's plenty of history if you're willing to learn."
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11bimu | what are the arguments for and against vegetarianism/veganism... | Are humans really meant to eat meat? if no, then why did we start eating meat? what are the arguments that both sides present? im not looking to become a veg(an) as i love meat too much but im curious nonetheless. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/11bimu/eli5_what_are_the_arguments_for_and_against/ | {
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"\"meant to\" isn't really a meaningful phrase.\n\nWe are certainly ABLE to. Our incisors (sharp teeth in our mouth) are particularly good at that, and aren't found in other animals that are primarily vegetarian.\n\nWe started eating meat because it provides MUCH more energy then plants do.\n\nThere are a lot of reasons people use to explain their own vegetarian diet. Meat (particularly red meat, like burgers, steak, etc.) isn't all that great for your health, particularly in higher amounts. Meat has to come from animals, which must be killed to get it, some people think that's not a good thing to do. Those animals also rarely have a pleasant life before the death, to the extreme of being forced to spend their entire life in a dirty tiny cage.\n\nPeople who want to not be vegetarian generally don't consider the death of animals for their food to be a moral issue. They also like eating meat, and either don't know or don't care about the potential health concerns over it (or they eat it in moderation).",
"Humans aren't \"meant\" to do anything. (Unless your religious tradition says otherwise, in which case that's fine.)\n\nHuman beings eat meat because we can. We eat *everything* we eat because we can, and the number of different things we can eat is pretty huge. A scientist would say human beings are *omnivores,* which literally means \"eats everything,\" but actually means that humans can eat a lot of different kinds of things. This is distinct from other kinds of animals called *herbivores* which are obligated to eat plants and *carnivores* which are obligated to eat meat.\n\nThe case for vegetarianism and the case for veganism overlap quite a lot, but there are some differences. Broadly we can break it down into four categories: ethics, environmentalism, economics and nutrition (and don't think I didn't spend a good minute or two trying to find a fourth \"e\" word to use there).\n\nThe ethical argument is that animals are alive, and therefore we should not kill them if we don't have to. Since we're omnivorous, and also since we've got ten thousand years of agriculture under our belts, we have the luxury of being able to to choose not to eat animals; we can survive without doing that. So ethically speaking, we should exercise that option.\n\nThere's also another dimension of the ethical argument that touches on cruelty. Some people believe that raising animals for food — animal husbandry, it's called — is cruel, compared to say hunting a wild deer. Therefore animal husbandry is ethically unacceptable, while hunting is ethically acceptable. But this argument doesn't really come into the vegetarianism thing, so we'll just leave it there and move on.\n\nThe environmental argument says that animal husbandry and the meat-for-food system in general do disproportionate harm to the environment, so we shouldn't eat animals. A popular invocation of this argument is the example of Brazil, a country in which some tropical rainforest has been cleared and converted into grazing land for cattle. Rainforests are nicer than pastures, some people say, therefore we should stop eating meat so we don't have a reason to cut rainforests down.\n\nThe economic argument basically considers the cost of eating meat compared to eating things meat animals typically eat. The meat animals we eat — cattle, sheep, pigs, fish — are mostly *primary consumers,* meaning they eat things called *autotrophs.* For example, grass is made of nothing but sunlight and air; grass is an *autotroph* that \"feeds itself\" by using the energy from sunlight to filter carbon out of the air. Cows, on the other hand, are made of grass, and a person who eats a steak is made (partially) of cow. There's waste and inefficiency at each step of that process. You eat the steak but only turn *some* of it into more of yourself. The cow eats grass but only turns *some* of it into more cow. If people stopped eating cows, then, and ate grass instead, we'd have more food to go around, because we wouldn't have that inefficient middle-man in there turning grass into mostly … um … well, poo. That's just an example, but the reasoning is basically the same wherever the economic argument is applied.\n\nThe nutritional case holds that not eating meat at all is — or at least can be — a better diet for you than eating meat and also other things. This argument gets pretty murky, because nutrition isn't a simple thing. It's really complex, and statements like \"vegetables are good for you and meat is bad for you\" simply aren't true. While it's certainly possible to have a healthy vegetarian diet, it's generally considered more difficult to do so, because there are things your body needs that are easy to get from animals but really tough to get anywhere else. For example, there's a class of essential nutrients called omega 3 fatty acids; \"essential\" here means you *have* to eat them to be healthy, because your body can't make them on its own. It's very easy to get omega 3 fatty acids in your died if you're omnivorous, because they're found in abundance in both fish and grazing animals. But there are only a *handful* of other good sources of these nutrients. In that specific case, eating animals makes it easier for you to get the nutrition you need because the animals you eat have gone to the trouble of collecting these very sparsely distributed nutrients from the environment and concentrating them into a nutrient-dense form that's easy for your body to use. So the nutrition argument really comes out to be a wash, with no clear case to be made either way.",
" > Are humans really meant to eat meat?\n\nIs anything \"meant\" to eat meat? No. Our ancestors lived in an environment where they had to eat meat, and natural selection created a population that *can* eat meat.\n\nIn other words, we evolved to be able to eat meat, and we get necessary nutrition from it. Granted, there are other ways to get those things through vitamins and fortified foods and such, but it may be easier and cheaper to just eat a steak.\n\n",
"Fifteen year vegetarian here. I switched at the advice of a doctor because of (at the time) my high metabolism and my being underweight with a small stomach. I like it. If there are other ethical or beneficial results to my diet, great. I do love animals, but I hate PETA and the bad name they give us."
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8ii4gv | is there any reason broken pieces of technology start working again after you stop using them for a while? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/8ii4gv/eli5_is_there_any_reason_broken_pieces_of/ | {
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"If the reason a device stopped working was due to a thermal shutdown (it got too hot so it shut itself off to prevent damage) then yes, it cooled down. But otherwise I have no idea what you might be referring to. ",
"I think one explanation for what your are talking about is short edit:circuits in wires. As words are bent and used and pulled they can fray on the inside where you want see it and this can't short out the circuit or cause it to not work. But just wiggling the wire can make the contact again....",
"Bad solder joints. They don't connect completely. As humidity/temperature/etc change, the solder expands or contracts and the connection returns. A good whack can often have the same effect."
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5zfo02 | why do americans seem to argue much more in favor of big corporations than other nationalities? | Whenever I see someone on Reddit defending big coporations, trickle-down economics, tax cuts on the rich, privatized healthcare or education etc. they're 99 times out of 100 Americans.
I really wonder why is that so. I'm a European, from Luxembourg, and no one I know defends big corporations like that.
Are Americans raised in a different mindset than us, in that matter? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5zfo02/eli5_why_do_americans_seem_to_argue_much_more_in/ | {
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"I'll put it in the form of analogy. I don't mean this to be some sort of conservative shill session for corporatism- I just want to frame this in slightly different perspective for you:\n\nLook at your smartphone (if you aren't already.) A smartphone is a fucking miracle of human technological achievement. Even 20 years ago, the iPhone I'm typing this on would have been science fiction. A smartphone is intuitive, practical, portable, and yet still broadly affordable for all but the most impoverished members of Western society. \n\n All smartphones are the products of massive, profit-hungry, extraordinarily wealthy multinational corporations. These corporations certainly aren't incapable of wrongdoing, but the smartphone as we know it could not have come from any other type of entity. \"Small businesses\" could never have developed and commercialized smartphones. No government could come even close. Only a private entity with a massive amount of scale and capital could research, design, market, and sell such a complicated tool. Not coincidentally, the power players of the tech industry who continue to pioneer this technology are overwhelmingly based in the United States. \n\nThe reason why many people, Americans especially, shy away from demonizing large corporations is because they understand the role that they play. There is no alternative to providing goods and services for the masses. That's not to say they should be unregulated (and they're not), but one has to understand the vital role they play in a consumer economy. They're a bit like the role great white sharks or tigers play in an ecosystem- they can eat us if we're not careful, but overall the system would be unsustainable without them. "
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5ty0yc | why does the second bounce of a bouncy ball jump off the ground so much differently? | This isn't something I have experienced with any other round ball, like a basketball, volleyball, soccer ball, tennis ball, ping pong ball, or golf ball, so please explain this to me. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5ty0yc/eli5why_does_the_second_bounce_of_a_bouncy_ball/ | {
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"They're solid rubber, when thrown they tend to spin top side towards who threw it as a result of it spinning off and out of the hand. Then when it hits the ground it \"grabs\" the ground and the outside stops spinning and the inside retains its inertia and when the rubber is stretched to its max the rotation inside reverses and takes the outside with it. If you watch the change of direction will continue every time it hits something until the elastic ability is used up and it simply bounces as anything else would. Golf balls would except they tend to not be solid, they're hit and not thrown, and tend to be used on grass and sand wich cannot \"grab\" the hard outer shell (which makes it hard enough to act like a rubber ball would anyway) like brick or concrete would."
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62yj9t | would it be possible to implement universal healthcare by state? | Since some states like California have equivalent population and GDP of some countries with universal healthcare, would it be possible to implement it by state rather than the United States as a whole? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/62yj9t/eli5_would_it_be_possible_to_implement_universal/ | {
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"When Mitt Romney was governor of Massachusetts, the state passed [major healthcare reforms] (_URL_0_) that helped most people obtain health insurance. So States can have their own systems, as long as they don't clash with Federal policy. As noted, a true socialised medical system is unlikely in the USA because medical providers are rich, private companies, and any state interference with their business would lead to massive legal problems. Any law passed at the State level can be challenged at the Federal level e.g. socialised healthcare could be called \"restraint of trade\" under the Sherman Antitrust Act and end up in the Supreme Court.",
"Assuming the federal governments support in adjusting laws to give states more freedom it could be possible. \n\nThere are many ways to implement universal healthcare with 58 countries as of 2009 doing it there is a lot of information available on what works and what doesn't. This is a huge advantage to countries changing healthcare system so late.\n\nOne key aspect is having a single fund manage the purchases. So a state government would negotiate the prices of drugs, medical equipment and related services. For drugs where there is an alternative the cheaper equivalent version could be purchased. It's this competition combined with the volume being purchased that results in cheaper prices. \n\nFunding the system is a problem for states because the total tax (without any state taxes) is already very high once you factor everything in like social security, welfare contributions etc. If the governments were to refactor wasted spending such as reducing unessesary military spending it would easily be possible to support. The federal government could provide some financial compensation or tax discount to a participating state. Is that unfair to non participating states? Yes but at this point it has to be encouraged as the world has agreed on it being a human right.\n\nSo the next aspect is how to deliver the coverage and what is covered. Contrary to popular assumption many universal healthcare systems are not completely free, it depends on the type of treatment required. Typically... Emergency is always covered completely free. Anything classified as an accident is free except perhaps subsidized costs for X-rays or prescriptions. Doctors visits are free or dirt cheap. Serious surgery that is not urgent sch as hip replacements are free but require waiting. Cosmetic treatment is usually not covered at all. Dental is usually covered for children only. Low income people usually have an additional discount on aspects that cost such as prescriptions.\n\nIn this system nobody is required to have insurance because it is not needed but you have in many cases the optional insurance market. This can provide premium healthcare to those middle-upper class folks who want it. It can include dental, access to private hospitals and faster access to non-critical and cosmetic treatments etc.\n\nThe state would have to carefully consider how to handle patients from out of state. If a person from another state on holiday gets into a car crash and needs surgery do they get it all free? Probably. Most countries with universal healthcare will treat tourists especially in accident and emergency. But there is definitely room for abuse by neighboring states. Some sort of resident card or registration would be needed and potentially protections from volumes of older and sick people choosing to live in the state specifically for its healthcare benefits.",
"Sure. That's what Canada does. Both Vermont and Colorado have said they're looking into it, at some point in the recent past. I think that shows that it is possible to some degree, and experts have at least toyed with the idea.\n\nI imagine state taxes will go up by a bit, but I think people will be fine with it eventually, because you wouldn't have to pay insurance premiums anymore (it's effectively paid for through the taxes).\n\nI moved from US to NZ. In US, I had private insurance from work. In NZ, I have universal public healthcare. I earn about the same in NZ as what I earned in US, but I took more money home, because my taxes in NZ is less than what my taxes plus premiums were in US.",
"Well, the basic problem is that we are trying to turn health insurance (which was premised on people paying day to day healthcare expenses, and insurance paying big bills) into health **care.**\n\nInsurance is based on the probablility of something horrible happening. Using that model to pay for events with a 100% chance of happening is rather silly.\n\nSo, healthcare would look differnt. We spend about 30% of health funds on End-of-life care (mostly last year of life). That would certainly have to stop.\n\nBut, to your original question, it might work in some states, but would have to seriously cut back the expectations of what healthcare does.",
"Probably not, because there would be a serious risk of adverse selection problems with sick people flocking to the nearest state that offers universal healthcare when they're sick. Current precedent states that it would be unconstitutional to prohibit access to state welfare to a person merely because they've only lived in the state for a short period. [*Saenz v. Roe*](_URL_0_). \n\nAdmittedly the scope of that doctrine is very fuzzy (no court has found against in-state university tuition, for example). Realistically, if we have a conservative Supreme Court they could potentially apply that precedent to essentially kill any state-based universal healthcare system, whereas a liberal Supreme Court could just as easily interpret the caselaw in a way to get around it. Something similar happened in the famous case of [*Gonzales v. Raich*](_URL_1_), where the Supreme Court interpreted a doctrine in a way that made state legalization of marijuana very difficult (without a promise, like Obama gave, of non-prosecution), but where there was easy (and recent, conservative-driven) precedent available to reach the opposite conclusion."
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57wdie | why is gambling addictive? | [deleted] | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/57wdie/eli5_why_is_gambling_addictive/ | {
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"It's the random chance to win. It's not that losing money is addictive, but that sometimes when people gamble they do actually win. Win once, and they know it's possible, and they want to win again. Gambling addicts truly believe they are going to win. \nIt does cause chemical reactions in the brain that alter mood/behavior. Gambling can be just addictive as drugs or alcohol (if not more).",
"Because walking into a casino with $20 and leaving with $400 is a good feeling. There's more to gambling than simply losing money, it's *risking* your money to win it back twofold or tenfold.\n\nIn most cases the addiction part comes when you're trying to 'get in the black', or to make back the money you've lost. Let's say you've lost $20 in the pokies already trying to win the jackpot. Most people would say 'okay, I'm down $20, I should leave now'\n\nThe addict says to themselves 'I can win that back with the right push' and boom they're now $40 down. 'Well I can't leave while I'm down $40' they say, feeding another note into the machine. \n\nThat number starts creeping up to three figures and all of a sudden half your paycheck is in there and you have to decide whether to leave with massive hole in your bank account (embarrassing) or risk *the rest* of your paycheck in order to break even again (frightening and exhilarating). \n\nIt's a viscious cycle because then you're playing catch up forever, expecting that your gambling will eventually save you when it's actually crippling you."
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3ofo6d | is there a difference between growing plants with sunlight and artificial light (e.g. lightbulb)? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3ofo6d/eli5_is_there_a_difference_between_growing_plants/ | {
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"There can be, depending on the type of \"light bulb\". Plants are very good at absorbing light of certain frequencies that can make it through the atmosphere. Light bulbs that can duplicate this most closely do well for growing plants indoors, and there is little difference between the growth rates or health of plants. The main difference is when a light source that is very different than sunlight is used, as plant cannot get as much energy from it, or can be harmed by it. using the wrong type of light is a great way to wilt plants."
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21xajz | why does my iphone die after reaching 1%, but won't turn on until it's reached 5%? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/21xajz/eli5_why_does_my_iphone_die_after_reaching_1_but/ | {
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"Probably because of initial energy requirements - it takes a lot of energy to start a computer (like the one in your iPhone) compared to how much energy is required to keep a computer running."
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2oamhs | if my girlfriend gives birth to our child in a foreign country is the baby a citizen of that country? | Say if we as British citizens go on holiday to America and my girlfriend gives birth whilst were there, then we go back to the UK does the child have American citizenship? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2oamhs/eli5_if_my_girlfriend_gives_birth_to_our_child_in/ | {
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"Rules for citizenship vary from country to country. For some it is based on the citizenship of the parents, others the location of birth. You can end up being citizens of multiple countries if your parents tried.",
"Yes, any child born in the United States gets citizenship. Chances are is that they would be given citizenship to the UK as well. However, this is not the case for all countries, it varies based on where you are. ",
"It varies from country to country. The big difference is between countries that follow [jus soli](_URL_3_), where being born in the country makes you eligible to be a citizen there, and [jus sanguinis](_URL_0_), where being the offspring of citizens makes you eligible to be a citizen.\n\nMany countries have a combination of both, with some restrictions. That includes the U.S. and the U.K. So: if she gives birth in the U.S., the child would be eligible for U.S. citizenship. Since you both are U.K. citizens, the child would *also* be eligible for U.K. citizenship. The U.S. documentation would be taken care of at the hospital with a birth certificate. It looks like you'd want to then bring a copy of that birth certificate back to the U.K. to [register a foreign birth](_URL_2_) in order to smooth their recognition of the child's U.K. citizen status. If I'm [reading this page right](_URL_1_) the fact that you're unmarried means the child would have to have their citizenship officially recognized before their 18th birthday or they lose their eligibility, which is kind of weird. If you were married there would be no time limit.",
"It depends on the laws of whichever country you're in. In some countries (like the USA, I believe) being born in country means automatic citizenship. But this isn't the case in many other countries. If you had a baby in a Persian Gulf country where you weren't a citizen, for example, I'm pretty sure your child would not get automatic citizenship.\n\nIf you wanted to go to the USA and have a baby there so it would be a citizen, you could definitely do that. But customs may try to prevent you from traveling if you're pregnant and they think you're only coming to have an American citizen baby. This may not apply so much to people from developed nations like the UK, but would probably apply more to poorer countries.\n\nBut many people do seem to do this. I've heard reports of \"baby tourism\", pregnant women coming in from other countries, like China, on organized tour packages to have \"American babies\". Then when the child is older it can take advantage of its American citizenship."
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3qadm6 | why does it feel 'satisfying' to elevate your legs/feet whilst sitting/laying down? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3qadm6/eli5_why_does_it_feel_satisfying_to_elevate_your/ | {
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"Because when you sit the blood flow towards your leg is restricted, so after a while your leg will feel exhausted. However if you raise your legs the blood flow return to normal making you feel satisfying!",
"In addition to circulation, bending your knees or elevating your legs when you're sitting and laying changes the tilt of your pelvis and takes strain off of your psoas and weight off your tailbone.\n\nAnd your mindset changes. You kick your feet up and think \"aw yeah, time to relax.\" You put then back down again and it's business time.",
"Some say 'elevating' the legs all the way back to your shoulders makes for greater amounts of satisfaction. "
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2nmeyx | why does pregnancy increase your libido? | I know it's the hormones, but it doesn't make any sense biologically. It makes more sense if the woman is horny during her ovulation and it decreases during pregnancy so that sex wouldn't damage the fetus in its most vulnerable stage. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2nmeyx/eli5_why_does_pregnancy_increase_your_libido/ | {
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"If I had to guess, from an evolution stand point (bio major here). Its probably a trait that has evolved in order to prevent human male abandonment. If you want to have sex more, you're more likely to keep that man to protect you while you're in that vulnerable state.",
"Not always true, I know I and others I know all had zero libido during pregnancy. Sex won't damage the fetus at any stage (unless you're doing some crazy kind of moves)",
"Im curious as to where you read or were told that sex will damage the fetus. It won't, also during the third trimester nearing delivery sperm will actually cause the cervix to ripen and can initiate labor.\n\n\n\n\"During the first trimester, freedom from worry about becoming pregnant or the need for contraception may provide a sense of freedom and enhance sexual interest in both partners. However, nausea, fatigue, and breast tenderness may interfere with erotic feelings. Fear of miscarriage may cause couples to avoid intercourse, particularly if the woman has previously lost a pregnancy or has had infertility therapy.**Nurses can reassure the couple that no evidence shows intercourse to be related to early pregnancy loss when no complications are present.**\n\nIn the second trimester, women experience increased sensitivity of the labia and clitoris and increased vaginal lubrication from pelvic vasocongestion. Nausea is no longer a concern by this time for most women. Many have a general feeling of well-being and energy that may increase sexual responsiveness. Orgasm may occur more frequently and with greater intensity during pregnancy because of these changes. Although orgasm causes temporary uterine contractions, they are not harmful if the pregnancy has been normal.\n\nDuring the third trimester, the “missionary position” (male on top) may cause discomfort because of abdominal pressure. Heartburn, indigestion, and supine hypotensive syndrome also increase in this position. The pressure of the fetus low in the pelvis may add to the discomfort. Moreover, fatigue, ligament pain, urinary frequency, and shortness of breath may be problems.\" (Murray, 2014, pp. 125-126)\n\nMurray, S. S., McKinney, E. S. (2014). Foundations of Maternal-Newborn and Women's Health Nursing, 6th Edition [VitalSource Bookshelf version]. Retrieved from _URL_0_\n",
"My perspective only....I am currently 9 months pregnant and we are going at it all the time. My whole vaginal, anal area is hyper sensitive (in the best possible way) and sex is great for both of us. For me this starts around month 5 and stays right to the end. Fetal damage is a myth...the baby/fetus is well protected. If sex caused an issue the fetus was at risk to begin with. \nAgain just one perspective since I am living it for the time being.",
"I don't know man, I'm just into pregnant chicks.",
"This isn't necessarily true. Some women do have an increase to their libido, while other women have their libido decrease to nothing. "
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axsknc | what causes those random extra long hairs on your body? | Sometimes they're also a different colour. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/axsknc/eli5_what_causes_those_random_extra_long_hairs_on/ | {
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"Genetic damage, usually. Common on ears because of uv damage. I don't have a reference, but I read once that the follicle genes may degrade like that because of natural selection, so it may be an adaptive trait. The hypothesis is that the gene switches the growth pattern as part of correction to genetic damage from UV sunlight.",
"I call them \"overachiever hairs\".\n\nOur hair normally falls out and is replaced at an average rate, but the ones that don't are just hairs that haven't fallen out yet. \n\nWhen hairs get to a certain length and weight, the follicle can't support it anymore and falls out. The ones left end up looking like they're growing faster, but they are really only the ones that haven't fallen out yet. \n\nCertain types of hairs have different thresholds for falling out, but the ones on your eyebrows seem to have the most disparity in which stay and which go. ",
"All hair follicles grow for a while, then drop the hair and rest for a while. Extra long hair is grown in those which didn't rest as soon as the others did. Baldness is the opposite of this. The follicles spend more time resting than growing hair.",
"Follow up question, why do old people often have those long bushy eyebrows?",
"Why do skin moles sometimes grow hairs that are thicker and longer? \n\nI have a mole on my left forearm. a single hair grows out of it that is longer and slightly thicker than those around it. what is interesting is that on the same spot on my right arm, there is also a single thicker and longer hair, but on that arm there is no mole. ",
"Related question, why do certain hairs only grow for a certain length, e.g. eyebrows but head hair grows indefinitely nonstop. ",
"Hi, OP. Doesn’t seem as if anyone has answered this seriously yet. So, let’s get into it: basically, the reasoning differs between males and females. Androgens are male hormones, and when there are high amounts of the androgen testosterone, this can trigger hair growth in males in random places. In females longer, different colored, or random hairs may appear when there is a disrupted balance between their female hormones (estrogen) and testosterone. In some cases, dermatologists have said it can sometimes be chalked up to random gene mutation as well. Hope this was helpful!"
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3vly0m | how does one discern which foods are healthy and which are to be avoided/limited in a society with constantly changing/conflicting information? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3vly0m/eli5_how_does_one_discern_which_foods_are_healthy/ | {
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"it's hard. however, there is a whole bunch of stuff that is totally consistent, never changing. For example, eat a bunch of vegetables. Eat less meat, especially red meat. Eat a moderate amount of carbs and favor whole grains. Beans are awesome. So on and so forth. If you pay attention to very specific considerations like the status of bacon (I pay a lot of attention to this) it can get complicated. But...if you in 1975 \"i want to eat the best diet possible\" the differences to now wouldn't be that much. If you said \"i want to each a ton of things that I really, really like - which of those are on the OK list from my top 10, then...you might see differences. Our perspectives on fats have changed, but we don't need all that much fat. Our perspective on red meat has changed, but we don't need that much meat at all.... so on and so forth.",
"Pay close attention to how the things you eat affect you. Not everything that is \"healthy\" is going to be healthy for everyone (strawberries are healthy, but could be deadly for someone with a strawberry allergy). Likewise, not everything labled \"bad for you\" is bad for YOU. Everyone's bodies are different and have different requirements--hell, your own body will have different requirements throughout your life! Get a feel for how your own body works and responds to different foods. Use what you read as a guideline, but not as law. \n\nSome examples:\nLots of fiber is supposed to be good for you, right? (it makes you poop!). There are some digestive issues that exist where fiber has the reverse effect, causing extreme constipation. \n\nRed meat and high fat foods are bad for you, right? But just doing a bit of research into the \"Paleo\" diet shows a great number of people who got into the best shape of their lives increasing their intake of those things (and decreasing their intake of other things).\n\nThere is a lot of information out there and a lot of individual stories. The fact is, everyone is different; our bodies are different, our genetics, our metabolism and digestion, the chemicals we produce that affect what we require, environmental pressures and our current state of health at any given time. \n\nChoose those things that you think are goung to be healthful FOR YOU and pay attention to how they make you feel. Start with someone else's guidelines if you need to, but pay attention to how your body reacts to it. Food that is good for you will make you feel good in some way even if you don't like it at first. Food that is not good for you will make you feel bad in some way (even if it makes you feel \"good\" at first--brain fog, \"hangover\", joint pain, digestive issues, etc). It takes some practice but you can train yourself to know what helps you and what's hurting you if you pay attention and are honest with yourself.\n\nSource:\nSome very unusual health issues made me unable to digest many \"healthy\" foods for a long time and I learned a lot about how different conditions can affect our food requirements. Subsequently, LOTS of practice learning to understand what my body needs (which has been quite unusual at times). It's a work in progress, but things have greatly improved.",
"Well, the basic rule can be: Eat food, not too much, mostly plants. Fitted well with past knowledge, still fits well now, and probably will be good for the future."
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82kba1 | why are old/damaged ships deliberately sunk instead of salvaged for their steel? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/82kba1/eli5_why_are_olddamaged_ships_deliberately_sunk/ | {
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"cheaper to get new steel than to scrap the old. \n\nCould be there are not dry docks available for it\n\nCould be that there are dangerous materials in the boat (asbestos, lead, ect) that would complicate the salvage effort.",
"One reason can be that they make good reefs for coral and habit for other sea creatures, another reason being to expensive to even make scrap from.",
"Some old ships are held onto for salvage purposes. At the Naval base in Bremerton WA there is line of WW11 era carriers, mothballed for salvage. It's the most impressive sight in town tbh. ",
"Several reasons.\n\nThe biggest reason is that they are very useful as targets. As you might imagine most navies don't get a lot of chances to get real world data on how their weapons and armor perform. Sinking a few old ships with torpedoes, missiles, or gunfire can give you very valuable feedback about how well your weapons work.\n\nSunken ships also make good coral reefs, and are usually in relatively high demand for that purpose. A good wreck can be worth millions over time to an area's fishing and tourism industries.\n\nScrap steel also just isn't worth very much. Usually less than $200 a ton. Which means even the US Navy's large Arleigh Burke class destroyers are only worth about $2 million for their steel. That's simply not enough money for anyone to really care. Especially considering how expensive ship breaking is in a first world country."
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7j1tlp | how do principal and interest payment work ? how to calculate them ? | Hi sorry I know you can calculate them using Excel, but I don't understand the meaning or the mechanics behind it ? Why does one number decrease why the other one increase etc ? Any explanation would be appreciated thank you | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/7j1tlp/eli5how_do_principal_and_interest_payment_work/ | {
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"The *principal* is the actual amount of the loan that you are borrowing.\n\nThe *interest* is a percentage of the principal that you pay the lender that they keep as profit.\n\nMany large loans, such as mortgages or car loans, use what is known as an *amortization schedule* \n\nWith this, a portion of each monthly payment goes to pay back the principal and another portion goes to pay the interest. Though the total monthly payment stays the same, the portion of each part to pay of the principal and interest changes over time.\n\nUsually, more of it is used to pay the interest, and this decreases over time, while the amount used to pay the principal increases over time.\n\nThe exact way to calculate depends on a lot of specific factors.\n\n* The principle;\n* The interest rate;\n* The duration of the loan;\n* The monthly payments;\n* The exact amortization scheduled used by the lending institution;",
"If you just pay the interest, the amount you owe will never decrease. \n\nTherefore, you have to pay a little more than the interest. With your very first payment, the amount you owe decreases a little, and therefore so does the amount of interest that is calculated for the next payment. Just by a very tiny amount, but that's what is required.\n\nYour payments stay the same, but with each payment, less is required to cover the interest, and the remainder reduces your principal. \n\nThe principal reduces slowly to begin with, but increases more quickly over time. Your very last payment will reduce the principal to zero, and a very small amount of it will be for the interest on that last portion of the principal. ",
"It's because of an artificial restriction that people want to pay the exact same amount each month. Without that you could calculate it much easier. \n\nOn a $96,000 loan at 5% yearly interest for 48 months you could pay $2,000 in principal the first month and $400 in interest (5%/12 = monthly interest rate, then multiply by the total amount). For a total of $2,400.\n\nNext month is another $2,000 in principal but only $391 in interest (We paid $2000 of the actual balance of the loan so we only pay interest on $94,000). So we total at $2,391 for our payment. \n\nSo if we try to make the exact payment every single month the interest will always decrease which would force the principal paid to be increased. For the full equation on what this 'level payment' would be see below. Where L is the total loan amount, i is the interest rate (make sure it's the same as the payment period, such as monthly instead of yearly), and n is the number of payments.\n\nPayment = L* i(1+i)^n /((1+i)^n -1)"
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5k9rls | why do humans express themselves in different ways (eg act cranky, get angry etc. ) when they are in pain or discomfort or are sick whereas animals just seem to "deal with it" quietly? | For example, if my puppy is sick, she will just lie down and not do anything whereas human babies get cranky and cry in the same situation. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5k9rls/eli5_why_do_humans_express_themselves_in/ | {
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"Animals do get cranky. Lots of dogs and cats are likely to nip (small bite) a person who tries to pet them when they're in pain. And if the pain is strong, dogs may whimper a lot.",
"Because we are social animals. *Extremely* social.\n\nDogs and cats will often stay quiet when they are sick, because drawing attention to themselves when sick is the *last* thing they want to do in the wild, so evolutionary factors have driven them to hide signs of weakness. The obviously sick gazelle is the one that gets focused on and eaten, and thus doesn't get as much of an opportunity to reproduce.\n\nHumans on the other hand have evolved to be extremely social. We rely and depend on each other. So when we are sick, we benefit more from showing that we have discomfort so our parents can give us better care, since we are not at risk of predation as a result of getting fussy (and if we would have been on our own we also weren't solitary or even family-unit creatures but instead members of much larger communities and our tribesmen would protect us). ",
"Physical pain is hard mentally. You might not show it on your face but you act like something really irritates you",
"A few reasons. \n\n1. Animals often live in an extremely competitive society, competitive for food, authority, mates. You have to remember that dogs are descended from wolves. If a wolf shows weakness, it can be usurped by another member of the pack, which results in the loss of mating status and feeding order. In animals that don't live in pacts, there's no reason to. It could attract predators, and for predators that are solitary, like cats are, it does no good. In animals that have a more caring structure, like apes, humans, elephants and the like, crying has a purpose. It draws attention from friendly sources, the family. Most animals don't grow up with their mother or family.",
"Animals get cranky and some will protect themselves merciless. Dogs and cats when in pain will act depressed and shy, and dogs in particular will when in extreme pain will bite and attack anyone trying to help. For example if a dog breaks a leg or get bitten by a poisonous snake while hiking , you will often have to tie something loosely around their snout so that they won't bite you when carrying them home and to the vet."
]
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c8ctps | how do cops/hospitals track down families so quickly after an accident? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/c8ctps/eli5_how_do_copshospitals_track_down_families_so/ | {
"a_id": [
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"Most people carry ID on them which means someone unconscious can be identified, from there it's generally from public records or other databases. Say you get in an accident and are unconscious and cannot identify yourself - police get your purse or wallet and look at your drivers license. If you're not driving with it, chances are you have registration in your car, or a credit card, or something else to identify you. From there, the government has vast records at their disposal - everything from birth records to marriage and divorce records and tax returns - that could be used to identify a spouse or parent(s) or other relative. As well as such things as place of residence, phone number, employer, etc.",
"The easiest way would be to look at your ID. It will list your address and they will send a cop there to see if anyone is home. \n\n & #x200B;\n\nIt gets more complicated if that fails."
]
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1odlsx | how come that a handful of carbon, oxygen and hydrogen atoms combined in different ways have so varied effects and uses? | When I see the structure of drugs, medicine, or any other compund, I noticed that most of them are formed by a bunch of atoms of those elements, how does that work? Am I missing something?
Thank you- | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1odlsx/eli5_how_come_that_a_handful_of_carbon_oxygen_and/ | {
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"text": [
"It's not necessary the kind of atoms a molecule is made of, but it's rather the shape it will have, which allows it to dock to or interact with other molecules.",
"Upvote because I find this very interesting and am hoping to hear an elegant and complete answer. This is one of those pieces of the puzzle I (and I suspect for many others too) only understand very vaguely, and has never been explained in detail for me, even though I'd like it very much.\n \nIf anyone can explain it intuitively, that would be so awesome!",
"Carbon, oxygen, and hydrogen (along with nitrogen, I'd say) can be combined in virtually infinite ways. One analogy might be to words and language. The word \"here\" only has three different letters, but if you add one more to make \"there\" it means something opposite. And if you rearrange those letters to make \"three\" you have a completely unrelated word.\n\nWith atoms, the ways they combine mean a lot. Is the molecule small? What shape is the molecule? Are the atoms combined in a ring or a long chain? Are there flexible single bonds or sturdier double or triple bonds? Is the molecule polar or non-polar? How are the electrons spread out? What part of the molecule is most reactive?\n\nIt's the answers to questions like these that give different compounds their extremely varied properties. Different parts of your body react to specific classes of molecules (based on shape or reactivity or whatever), so the addition of just a few carbons and hydrogens can make a huge difference.\n\nEdit: many drugs and medicines make use of carbon, hydrogen, and oxygen (and nitrogen is also pretty common). But obviously there are many other elements that can add even more diversity to the structure and function of molecules.",
"Some examples of the things that influence properties of organic molecules:\n\n1. Proteins work entirely based on shape. The chemical formula is (mostly) only there to ensure that the interatomic forces pull it into the correct shape.\n\n2. You smell and taste based on molecule shape as well. Multiple molecules that fit into the same receptor (same shape, different formula) will smell the same, or at least extremely similar.\n\n3. A lot of the time the hydrogen and carbon essentially serve as a backbone, with the extra exotic parts prodding out producing varied effects. This is the *main* reason. The hydrocarbon (plus oxygen, commonly) serves as a backbone for the other key things, which are then placed at strategic points. For example, *glucose* is normal sugar. [this thing](_URL_1_, thanks to the fluorine attached, is used for antimatter (specifically positron) beam imaging. [Sucralose](_URL_0_), closely related to sucrose (another sugar) is non-caloric, and (IIRC) known commercially as *Splenda*. In many cases it's the *most reactive* parts you want to watch for.\n\n4. molecular size affects physical properties. *Hydrocarbons* are a carbon chain with hydrogens filling up the remaining free spots. The smallest is 1 carbon, 4 hydrogens = methane. It's a gas, because it's so light. Next is 2 carbon, 6 hydrogens (they're bonded to each other, so only 3 remaining free spots on each). This is also a gas, but *propane*, which is the third in the bunch, is a liquid because it's heavier. If you keep increasing the size these become solid, and include things like paraffin wax.\n\n*Many* aspects of a molecule go into its functioning. The atoms it contains don't describe all that much about the molecule: it would be quite easy to come up with several molecules that have the same chemical formula as glucose (in fact, there are multiple distinct forms of glucose with the same formula!). Shape, size, and placement of more reactive sites will make a big difference in how a molecule behaves."
]
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"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sucralose",
"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fludeoxyglucose_(18F)"
]
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|
m0fxf | what is "alcoholism" and how does it differ, if at all, from habitual heavy drinking? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/m0fxf/eli5_what_is_alcoholism_and_how_does_it_differ_if/ | {
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"Alcoholism is an alcohol addiction.\n\nAddiction is when you continue to do something despite repeated negative consequences.\n\nIf someone is able to drink often but drink responsibly and avoid negative consequences then they may be a heavy drinker, but it wouldn't make sense to call them an alcoholic. If someone is getting busted for drunk driving, losing their job, alienating friends and family, etc., but still continue to drink then it would be fair to say they have an alcohol addiction and are therefore an alcoholic.\n\n(note: I am basing this on a phycholigical definition of addiction which can be applied to all forms of addiction, rather than a definition based strictly on physical dependance, which I don't think applies to many addictions)",
"Alcoholism is an alcohol addiction.\n\nAddiction is when you continue to do something despite repeated negative consequences.\n\nIf someone is able to drink often but drink responsibly and avoid negative consequences then they may be a heavy drinker, but it wouldn't make sense to call them an alcoholic. If someone is getting busted for drunk driving, losing their job, alienating friends and family, etc., but still continue to drink then it would be fair to say they have an alcohol addiction and are therefore an alcoholic.\n\n(note: I am basing this on a phycholigical definition of addiction which can be applied to all forms of addiction, rather than a definition based strictly on physical dependance, which I don't think applies to many addictions)"
]
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1s4ivh | why do we all have school nightmares? | So this morning on Facebook a friend posted about having that nightmare where it's the end of the semester, and he apparently forgot to go to class all semester and now it's finals. I've had this dream approximately one billion times, and it seems like it's a dream almost everyone has.
How is it that this dream is so eerily universal? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1s4ivh/eli5_why_do_we_all_have_school_nightmares/ | {
"a_id": [
"cdttpm9"
],
"score": [
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"text": [
"You, and most people you know, spent at least 12 years going to school & worrying about due dates & classes. So did almost everyone you've had contact with. People dream, to a certain extent, about things they know. If you, and everyone you knew had fought in a war for 12 years, you'd all likely at least sometimes have dreams involving battle. \n\nIf everyone dreamed about submitting their application for the inter-galactic army 2 moon-days late, and thus having to do another turn in the nutra-chambers, (i.e. nothing any of us had previously experienced or even heard about), *that* would be spooky. \n\n\n"
]
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30xdjd | how it is made that cars speedometer's arrow shows the car's speed at crash moment? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/30xdjd/eli5how_it_is_made_that_cars_speedometers_arrow/ | {
"a_id": [
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"text": [
"This isn't something speedometers do. Many cars now though do have black boxes that record the speed at moment of impact. It can do this because its a computer that records data as it happens and then can sense a crash via sensors."
]
} | []
| []
| [
[]
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|
||
3r6a5i | why do game apps require access to your photos, contacts, personal info, etc? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3r6a5i/eli5_why_do_game_apps_require_access_to_your/ | {
"a_id": [
"cwlaj6n"
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"score": [
5
],
"text": [
"To sell that information to advertisers to make money off of a free app. If you aren't paying anything you aren't the customer, you're the product."
]
} | []
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[]
]
|
||
1ul7fq | black holes and spacetime warping | What makes a Black Hole so unique as to be capable of bending spacetime? I understand how it bends light (because light can act as particles through photons, which are sucked in), but not how it's able to functionally alter reality.
Note- Since this question probably requires more than an ELI5, I'll clarify that my understanding of this probably can go up to a college freshman/high school senior level | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1ul7fq/eli5_black_holes_and_spacetime_warping/ | {
"a_id": [
"cej6z8z"
],
"score": [
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"text": [
"It isn't unique. Any mass bends spacetime, black holes just do so in a particularly extreme manner."
]
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1yzxkf | if mcdonalds food is fresh off the farm then frozen like they claim, why is it still so bad for you? | A little more detail into my question:
Everyone knows McDonalds is bad for you. And there are tons of stories about the awful things they do to their food before it is served which is what makes it so bad. But then they post a video like this one, busting the "pink goop" myth and claiming they basically get the chickens, debone them, cook them, bread them and boom done. How can they still be so bad for you if this is the process?
They obviously leave out the awful parts, but how is that even legally allowed?
Here is the video I'm using as an example: _URL_0_ | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1yzxkf/eli5_if_mcdonalds_food_is_fresh_off_the_farm_then/ | {
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"text": [
"Just because it's \"natural\" doesn't mean it's \"healthy\". It's still full of fat and calories and low on vitamins and other nutrition.",
"Lard is natural and so is belly pork, Bread fried in butter could have been milk and wheat 5 hours ago. \n\nIt's called marketing. ",
" > Everyone knows McDonalds is bad for you.\n\nFalse.\n\nMcDonald's isn't particular bad for you. It doesn't make for well balanced meal, being high fat, sodium and calories, but nutritionally, it is not much different than ingredients lovingly grown on a family farm.\n\nMeat processing is gross, no question about it. But don't confuse emotional squeamishness with food safety."
]
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"http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ua5PaSqKD6k"
]
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[],
[],
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3ez970 | why is it so hard to replicate how the eyes view things when it comes to cameras/photos? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3ez970/eli5_why_is_it_so_hard_to_replicate_how_the_eyes/ | {
"a_id": [
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"score": [
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"text": [
"The brain does a lot of image processing that we largely do not notice. The pupils automatically dilate/contract to control the amount of light entering the eye, the lens quickly changes focus as needed, and the brain can stabilize the image much better than a camera using additional motion data from the semi-circular canals in the inner ears."
]
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6pudj8 | what's happening internally when volume of a device is raised or lowered | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/6pudj8/eli5_whats_happening_internally_when_volume_of_a/ | {
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"text": [
"I assume you mean the sound volume of speakers or headphones?\n\nThe basic answer is that more power is being provided to the amplifier circuit. An amplifier with no volume control would be at top volume all the time. The volume control limits the amount of power that is sent to the amplifier. It does this by sticking a variable resistor in the flow of electricity. If the resistance value is high then not much power gets through and the volume is quiet. If the resistance value is low then more power gets through and the volume is loud.",
"The other two answered one of the three (well 2 plus one weird unusual one) options. They answer well so I won't reanswer that.\n\nThe other happens when you have digital transmission of sound and two volume controls. You're most likely to notice this in a car when playing music from a phone. The radio has a volume control, but the phone volume control also works. What happens here is your phone is doing multiplication, each of the (generally) 44,100 samples per second is being multiplied by by a volume, say 63%. This adjusted number is then sent to the next stage.\n\nThe weird option is something that you likely won't see. A first amplifier is used, and the result sent to a second amplifier system. This actually uses the reasonable method described by others and then confusingly combines it with the cascading one and then another reasonable one. You won't find this used much of anywhere as a consumer but professional equipment uses this extensively."
]
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1qoldp | why do people over 50 refer to asians as 'orientals'? | Further, why did the term become derogatory? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1qoldp/eli5_why_do_people_over_50_refer_to_asians_as/ | {
"a_id": [
"cdev5xw",
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"text": [
"During WW2 when we fought the Japanese there was a *a lot* of racism-based propaganda aimed at the Japanese. You'd probably be horrified at old WW2 posters - and even old disney cartoons / warner brothers cartoons produced during that era. They showed them on TV as late as the 1980's... you'll have a hard time finding them now.\n\nThen plenty more (though not as institutionalized and captured in children's cartoons) during the Korean and Vietnam war, cold war, and resumed relations w/ china in the early 70's.\n\nWhile I don't think the world 'Oriental' ever carried any racism (and hence the elder generation using it as simple description), it's disuse these days is mostly due to a few decades of consciously and subconsciously distancing ourselves from that stuff.",
"Everything East of Europe used to be called the Orient. Europe used to be called Occident. Those from the Orient were referred to as Orientals. Somewhere along the line people, especially in the US, started thinking Oriental was a racist term. Elsewhere in the English speaking world it's frowned upon as being old fashioned but not thought as that offensive. "
]
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4dytu4 | why spacex falcon 9 landing on a drone ship is a big deal? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4dytu4/eli5_why_spacex_falcon_9_landing_on_a_drone_ship/ | {
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"text": [
"Money. It is absurdly expensive to lift pretty much anything out of Earth's gravity well. The cost savings of returning a stage to the surface, checking/refitting/refueling and then reusing it are significant vs. building a new rocket from scratch for every launch, as we've always done in the past.\n\nThe estimated cost (per pound) of putting something into orbit varies depending on the vehicle used:\n\n* Falcon Heavy: $2200\n* Falcon 9 v 1.1- $4,109\n* DNEPR- $3,784\n* Ariane 5- $10,476\n* Delta IV- $13,072\n* Atlas V- $13,182\n\nThe objective SpaceX and other companies are shooting for is getting the cost down to tens of dollars per pound instead of thousands, which would jumpstart an entire new era in human spaceflight.\n\nedit: formatting",
"A large portion of launch costs go into that first stage, and usually they're just considered trash once you use them. This will allow SpaceX to reuse the first stage, making the cost of getting a payload into orbit much lower.\n\nThe barge is important because they can put it 'down range' and use far less fuel to bring the first stage back to earth.\n\nNow, we'll see how quickly they can prep the stage for reuse and how much it actually saves them.\n\nTL;DR - Putting things in space just got cheaper."
]
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3rjsrz | why do we perceive our vision as a single frame when we have two eyes? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3rjsrz/eli5_why_do_we_perceive_our_vision_as_a_single/ | {
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"cwoos3h",
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"text": [
"We have binocular vision, by using two eyes our brain receives to separate images with everything shifted slightly left or right. Your brain then takes the images and process them together into a single image, using the differences to give you depth perception and three dimensional vision.\n\nFor example I am sitting at my computer screen. If I close one eye, then quickly open and close the other my computer screen seems to shift, this is because it's close to me. If I look out the window at a tree down the street and do the same that jump is minimal or imperceptible. This tells me the tree is far away. \n\nYour brain is doing this in real time with the two images to constantly keep up our sense of depth. \n",
"The above is extremely accurate! Im commenting just to tell you if stuff like this interest you I'd suggest watching the show \"Brain Games\" they have an episode on how vision works! The show is on Netflix, enjoy! "
]
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69hlex | what are enthalpy and entropy, respectively? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/69hlex/eli5_what_are_enthalpy_and_entropy_respectively/ | {
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"text": [
"Enthalpy is how much heat is contained in a system (internal energy of the system (the energy required to create a system) and the energy required to make room for the system (energy of the pressure and volume).\n\nEntropy is a measure of how disordered the system is (how many different states a system can be in). So for example, if you had two red cubes, you'd have less entropy than if you had a blue and a red cube, since the number of possible states with the red cubes is one (R|R) and the red/blue cube is 2 (R|B and B|R)"
]
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ept12z | why does it feel like your heartbeat is in your stomach? | I know it isn't, but sometimes if I put my hand on my stomach I can feel a pulse that matches my heartbeat. Why is this? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/ept12z/eli5_why_does_it_feel_like_your_heartbeat_is_in/ | {
"a_id": [
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"text": [
"You have major arteries in your torso that wrap around your intestines and stomach to allow you to get nutrients into your bloodstream",
"You can feel your pulse in many spots all over your body.\n\nEverything is connected, and places with larger blood vessels, or a greater blood supply, you will notice it easier.",
"Because you have a major blood vessel called the aorta that branches down from your heart through your chest and abdomen until it branches to other vessels like your femoral arteries in your legs. It is perfectly normal to feel your “heartbeat” from your aorta. Sometimes especially when you are older and have risk factors like heart disease or smoking the wall of the aorta can weaken in a spot and balloon out causing an abdominal aortic aneurysm. If this weakened wall bursts it has a high fatality rate. Just feeling your heart beat in your abdomen does not mean you have an aneurysm (AAA)."
]
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2078aj | why do many music fans prefer going to concerts when the recorded audio versions are much better quality? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2078aj/eli5_why_do_many_music_fans_prefer_going_to/ | {
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"text": [
"You're not going for perfect music quality. You're going for the atmosphere the experience, the bragging rights, to see your celebrity in the flesh, for the change-ups they do, and the commentary they add while speaking to the crowd.",
"It may be better fidelity but the performance is usually better live, depending on the band. It's a completely different experience. I don't know how better to say it than when you listen to a record, you just listen. For most of us it's in the background. When you're at a show, you're in the moment, experiencing the music as it happens with people around you all brought together by the same vibe in the same moment. It's the most spiritual experience I can attest to, and I'm not spiritual at all. It's something innately human, coming together to experience music. ",
"There are a multitude.of different answers for this question and many depend on the genre of music, a few are.\r\rConcerts are typically more than music, a band like muse is fantastic at creating a mind blowing technical feat beyond their music only. Many artists tie huge sets and showmanship into concerts that play on more than one sense.\r\rConcerts are typically more personal than recordings. One can really get to know an artist by listening to them in person. \r\rSome artists perform vastly better in person with energy that is irreplaceable in studio. It is a gamble to get that magic show.\r\rIt is a way to show support for a band or individual.\r\rIt is an easy way to meet people with a similar passion. \r\rThough this seems shallow, concerts are often an easy way of hooking up.\r\rMost artists find their way into fame not from their abilities in studio but for their performance qualities.\r\rI could not tell you why people attend hip hop concerts for the most part. \r\r",
"to meet girls with nose rings"
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9rbjrz | how do clorox wipes kill viruses if viruses are not alive? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/9rbjrz/eli5_how_do_clorox_wipes_kill_viruses_if_viruses/ | {
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"text": [
"Whether viruses are alive or not is still somewhat disagreed upon, and also in part revolves around the definition of life. However, either way, you could take its meaning to mean \"inactivates\" or makes harmless, but \"kill' is a bit less of a mouthful. ",
"Because viruses are \"bad\" and the best word for a marketing person to use regarding a bad thing is \"kill\". The labels are designed by marketing people, with a marketing person's vocabulary, and only corrected by scientists if they can convince legal that the wording is objectively untrue. Thus the wipes container isn't going to be getting into the mechanism used or the chemistry involved. That wouldn't sell more wipes.",
"Being dead or alive are definitions we came up with. Viruses are considered not alive because they dont fulfill certain criteria that we determined for something to be alive. For instances we assumed for something to be alive it must be made from one or more cells, it needs to be able to produce energy and components on its own(have a metabolism), it needs to be produce more of its kind (reproduce). Viruses do not completely fit into these definitions, they are not cells, they dont have a metabolism(they hijack a cell and use it's \"metabolism\") and they also need cells to make more copies of themselves. \n\nBut viruses still have DNA or RNA and other types of biological components. Bleach is a strong oxidizer, it basically \"burns\" any of these components. So it destroys viruses. ",
"Doesn't matter if you decide that my computer is alive or not. If I smash it with a hammer or drop into the ocean, it will stop functioning. \n\n\nWhether viruses are a simple life form or an organic machine, exposing them to certain chemicals will still destroy them and render them inert, call that process whatever you like."
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5mdaxu | how are charities able to feed multiple children with small individual donations of $7/day when here (usa) it would be enough for basically 1 maybe 2 children. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5mdaxu/eli5_how_are_charities_able_to_feed_multiple/ | {
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"text": [
"Food Banks can buy in bulk. Food Pantries and Soup Kitchens get more for their money and feed more people.",
"This depends heavily on the charity, so this is in general for very large international charities. \n\nYou aren'y buying wholesale prices. You're buying from a supermarket or other shop. There may be several different layers between the production of food and you buying it. With each layer the middleman needs to make a profit. On top of that each one often has taxes associated with it. \n\nCharities skip all of that and buy direct, tax free. Because they are charities and buy in bulk they can sometimes even secure discounts. Charities often don't have the same wage pressure other places do either. People are willing to either volunteer or be payed very low for their work. The combination of those two reduce the greatest costs businesses have: Wages, taxes, products. That cost saving is reflected in the feeding cost per person.",
"$7 a day can feed multiple people quite easily here in the US, too. Go buy a giant bag of rice, and a few bags of dried beans. That can feed a single person for about $1 - $2 per day.\n\nOf course, you have money, and you're not starving, so you're not satisfied with just eating rice and beans.",
"You could buy several pounds of dried rice and dried beans for under $1 if you purchase it whole-sale and not from a super market. Considering both of those expand a ton when cooking, it's a very cheap and efficient food source. A pound of rice could be like $0.50 or less, and that could be like 4-5 cups uncooked, which could make 8-10 cups when cooked. That's a lot of rice. ",
"1.Things in other countries are cheaper. \n2. Adding multiple donations togethers allows charities to buy in bulk, thus saving money. \n3. Large charities rely in part on deals cut with suppliers. They are able to by things more cheaply than a common consumer. \n\nSource: Former charity volunteer \n",
"Food prices vary from country to country. A pound of rice in the U.S. might cost $1, but in SE Asia it might be the equivalent of 10 cents. Also, they are able to buy wholesale by the truckload rather than individual portions prices. Even in the U.S. while a 3lb. bag of rice at the grocery store might cost $3, a 30lb. bag at Costco might only be $10. Now, buy a truckload that starts at 1/10 the price, and cut out the middleman by buying directly from the producer, and they're paying a few cents a pound. And they are mostly providing cheap, basic staples like rice, beans, corn, etc."
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3elkb4 | what is special about japanese engineering that makes their cars so reliable and inexpensive? | Why are American cars historically unreliable and generally expensive? Capitalism? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3elkb4/eli5_what_is_special_about_japanese_engineering/ | {
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"An American developed a system of quality manufacturing and was ignored by American companies. He took his ideas to Japan where they were universally adopted. \n\nHis name was Denning and his story makes for a good read:\n\n_URL_0_\n\nCompanies that make stuff want the stuff that they make to wear out so you have to buy more. That's called \"planned obsolescence\". Japan's manufacturers chose a point on that spectrum further out than American companies did so their stuff lasted longer. American companies scoffed at the idea that people would pay for \"quality\" and then got their asses handed to them when they were proved wrong.\n\nTo learn more about how and why Japanese quality practices haven't taken root in US manufacturing, check out the story of NUMMI:\n\n_URL_1_\n\n\n\n",
"I think it's as much of the quality of the manufacturing process as it is the quality of the engineering. You can have an awesomely engineered product, but if you're manufacturing allows defects through, in the end product is going to be crap.",
"NPR just did a really in depth story on this. They took experienced workers from an American plant to watch how they Japanese do it. \n\nAmericans motto \"never stop the line\" if you screw up we'll fix it later. Problem is now everything that is put on after had to be taken back off, fixed, and put back on by someone not specifically experienced with all those parts. \n\nJapanese stop the line for everything even a bolt being on backwards. Also if you are slower in your area than others management will ask you what you need to make it easier or better and then go make that part for you. ",
" > Why are American cars historically unreliable and generally expensive? Capitalism?\n\nYou don't think Japan is a capitalist country?"
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4wx16x | we can control our vision by closing our eyes, we can control our breathing by closing our nose, but how come we are not able to close our ears to naturaly control our hearing? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4wx16x/eli5_we_can_control_our_vision_by_closing_our/ | {
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"Well in the same way that we can close our nose using our hands, we can also close our ears, and that does in fact affect our hearing.",
"You can close your nose? I think you may be some kind of genetic freak.",
"You don't control your vision by closing your eyes, you're just blocking the light. The problem with hearing is that sound is vibration and anything you stick in your ears to block sound will also vibrate.\n",
"Maybe it’s a safety mechanism. If we have our eyes closed we can’t see predators, but we can still hear them. Since that’s no longer as important as it was, say a million years ago, maybe we're already on our way towards evolving a way to consciously disconnect our ears so that we don’t have to hear those noisy neighbors all night long."
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3grdw8 | why is the iran nuke deal a good thing? | It sounds like we are letting Iran have nukes. That sounds horrible. I have, however, seen multiple instances of intelligent people praising it. Can someone explain this to me?
Edit: thanks for all the responses. I read them all. I did not reply because frankly I do not understand it well enough to contribute.
Edit again: I didn't see the option to make the thread as explained on my phone. oops. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3grdw8/eli5_why_is_the_iran_nuke_deal_a_good_thing/ | {
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"We're not letting Iran have nukes - that's literally the opposite of the intention of this deal, regardless of what some media is saying.\n\nA bit of history - for years, Iran has been working on their nuclear industry, for both peaceful purposes (nuclear power) and non-peaceful (nuclear weapons). The world isn't really worried about the nuclear power part, only the weapons, so the idea is that we will let them continue the nuclear power usage so long as they abandon the weapons. The key difference is the quality (enriched percentage) of the uranium that they use.\n\nThis deal is about letting them have the lower-enriched uranium, and physically taking away their enriching equipment. This lets them have their nuclear power, without getting the weapons grade material.\n\nWith no deal in place, they would continue what they were doing, and would certainly get fully enriched material at some point. There's 3 real options then - strike a deal, increase economic and diplomatic sanctions to the point where they quit on their own, or go to war. Since the economic sanctions haven't really convinced them to stop up until now, it seems reasonable to try a deal instead, because war is a real mess anyway.\n\nThe deal is not nearly as good as some people would like. Some would like for all nuclear activity of any kind in the country to stop permanently. There's also time restrictions in the deal where certain restrictions stop after a period of 10 years, and they might then have more abilities to get enriching equipment. But it's still a deal, and at least if followed, it really will remove the weapons abilities from Iran for at least 10 years. It's fair to say that they might not go along with the deal, but as structured, economic sanctions will come back into place if they don't play along, so that's something to fall back on.",
"It's not about giving them nukes, it's more about letting them keep enough of what they already have for scientific reasons instead of proliferation (making bombs). Under the deal they'll only be allowed a fraction of the dangerous material that can be weaponized, meaning they shouldn't have enough to make a devastating bomb. They've also been forced to retire some of their advanced equipment so that their production capabilities have been crippled as well. And in turn some of their sanctions are being lifted, so the countries imposing them aren't losing anything.\n\nThis is all only for a certain period of time, I can't remember what the timeline is but after around 2 decades these restrictions will be lifted and they could potentially start back up again. I guess the idea is that they'll be so far behind and they'll have been audited this entire time that other nations won't see them as big of a threat.",
"Iran could build nukes right now. But even without inspectors crawling all over the place, hiding a full-on nuclear weapons program is virtually impossible. So they work on something called the \"break-out time\". That is... getting all of the pieces in place for a weapons program in case one is desired. That's what Netanyahu is talking about when he says Iran is two years away from a bomb. They are. If they chose to? They could refine what they need in two years. But we'd know, so they don't, for now.\n\n\n\nThis deal is all about extending the \"break-out time\". It removes almost all of their centrifuges, and it puts inspectors at every stage of the supply chain. Yes, Iran could still decide to pursue nuclear weapons, just like they could now. But the response to them launching a weapons program doesn't change, only the amount of time to make that response. \n\n\n\nWould you rather have an Iran with a twenty-year break-out period and joined to the world economy? Or would you rather have an Iran with a two-year, and shrinking, break-out period? and cut off from prosperity? That's the question.",
"In exchange for no longer throttling the Iranian economy to death, Iran has agreed to: \n\n * have international inspection of their nuclear facilities\n * convert their nuclear facilities into physics labs\n * decreasing their capacities to enrich uranium to power-plant levels\n * decrease their amount of enriched uranium\n\nIn a more ELI5 way:\nNukes are big bombs that no one wants used, kind of like paper airplanes in class. What the Iran deal is, is that in exchange for being nice to Iran and beginning to share some of our toys with them, we now have the teacher watching what Iran does with their paper, and decreasing both the amount of paper they have and how good their paper is, to make sure that they're coloring on it, not making paper airplanes out of it.",
"One thing that nobody is mentioning is the releasing of sanctions on Iran. Lifting sanctions is supposedly releasing 100 billion dollars into the Iranian economy. It's believed that once the population of Iran feels the benefits of increased prosperity due to international cooperation, they will become accustomed to it and more likely to support governments in the future that are willing to 'play the game' with the West. ",
"One thing that hasn't been brought up yet is that the 10 years until they restrictions on enrichment end is longer than even the best case scenario for slowing Iran down with anything else.\n\nIf we were to magically go into Iran and remove everything they have that could help make a nuclear bomb today, they still could build one in 4-7 years. And that is what opponents of the deal are saying. Sorry I about not sourcing this I will go look for it, but don't expect me to find it.\n\nAlso almost every expert in arms control has praised the deal, saying the inspection regime is very strong. Furthermore there has been no alternative given to the deal except \"we should have negotiated a better deal\", which isn't an alternative. On top of that the people opposing this deal were opposing it before it was even done, so the only way the argument get a better deal is intellectually honest is... actually scratch that, it is intellectually dishonest.\n\nEdit: It is Senator Tom Cotton quote in this link _URL_0_",
"**This ELI5 has some awful responses.**\n\nIran isn't going to be allowed to have nukes under this deal. The deal is that they won't be enriching past ~4% enrichment for the next 15 years. Iran has already achieved 20% enrichment and weapons grade is 90%. They've completed the hardest parts of enrichment which is the lowest ranges, the higher ranges and actually building the bomb are the simpler parts. This deal is to freeze the ETA on Iran making a bomb for the next 15 years.\n\n*Was Iran ever making a bomb?*\nProbably not. They were following their obligations under the NPT and no evidence was handed to the IAEA to conclusively show Iran had a weapons program.\n\n*Why are negotiations happening now?*\nThe Democrats put on the toughest sanctions possible in 2009 in expectation it would bring Iran to the negotiation table. Instead, Iran gave the finger and ramped up their nuclear program, they stockpiled 20% enriched uranium enough to build several bombs if they wanted. The issue was that if Iran decided they wanted a bomb, they had the means to build several and nothing short of bombing Iran was going to stop them. The US government had to change strategy to keep the ETA for a nuke. This deal keeps the ETA frozen for the next 15 years at which time the Obama administration expects relations between the USA and Iran to settled down a bit and Iran won't see the need for a bomb.\n\nThis was never about Iran going to nuke Israel. It is totally bullshit and is just a simplification of the issues to get people on board with it"
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3qjgvq | why are tvs seasons so short these days? | After a Netflix binge of House and That 70s Show, I notice there seem to be a lot more episodes in a season in older shows, and with newer shows we get like 10-12. What happened, why are we getting jipped? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3qjgvq/eli5_why_are_tvs_seasons_so_short_these_days/ | {
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"In the US we have two formats for TV series. The Short format used for summer programming that is 10-14 episodes and the long format for fall-spring series that are 20-26 episodes. \n\nYou also have the fact that expected production quality of TV shows is higher than it used to be so fewer episodes can be made in a given period of time. ",
"Supernatural has had 20+ episodes every season for the past 10 years, Walking Dead and Fear the Walking Dead are both greenlit for 15+ episode seasons, Arrow and Flash both have seasons running 23 episodes a piece.\n\nThere are two types of seasons.\n\n1 - Short season meant for the season to play out over a single season, A spring, a fall, a winter, a summer. These tend to be the shows that have a lot more happening every episode like Sons of Anarchy, Justified, Zoo, Breaking Bad, Daredevil, Game of Thrones etc. Your major dramas.\n\n2 - Long Season, meant to be played out over multiple season with a midseason hiatus. Typically having two different storylines before and after the hiatus. These are shows like Supernatural, Arrow, Walking Dead, House, etc. These are shows that have a lot of filler and often drag storylines out over multiple episodes that other shows could have resolved in an episode or two.\n\nThat 70's Show is a sitcom, which generally don't have much of an overarching story and dedicate more episodes to one off adventures. This usually leads to them being the second type of season.",
"Look at the channels that produced the shows. Broadcast TV tends to do the Long Season, while Netflix (and HBO, and AMC) tend to do the shorter type. In fact I recall early announcements for Daredevil and the other Netflix Marvel properties being 8 episodes, and what we've got so far is 13. \n\nSo your normal show on ABC, Fox, etc still tends to be 22 episodes. But your pay networks tend to be shorter seasons. ",
"That's a particularly American thing - it's never been the case in the UK, for example. *Fawlty Towers* may only have two series of six episodes each, by so much drama is packed in to each, you're a wreck after watching just one.\n\nWith the amount of effort that goes in to a show like *Game of Thrones* - set building, location shooting, post-production etc. - 10 episodes a season is plenty. *House*, by contrast, is entirely studio-based on mostly static sets, and therefore lest costly over the run. (Which allowed them to pay a previously unknown-in-the-USA English comedian a ton of money for playing an American curmudgeon.)",
"I hate this personally. \n\nSouth Park used to be ~22 episodes a season and slowly slid down to around ~16. Then it went to 14 a season and now every season will be 10 episodes. \n\nI used to love South Park but now I cut even be bothered to watch it because there's just no overall story anymore and every episode is just stuffed with random one time occurrence jokes, like family guy. "
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66yxg4 | is it healthy for me to eat 1 meal per day? | [deleted] | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/66yxg4/eli5_is_it_healthy_for_me_to_eat_1_meal_per_day/ | {
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"Basically you'd be intermittent fasting every day, google \"intermittent fasting\". It's good for you. "
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2asahu | is bandwidth finite? can it be upgraded with hardware or not? | Both in the sense of bits per second and in the sense of range of frequencies.
EDIT: as asked in a below comment, what about airwaves and 3G? can the air clog up with radiowaves or cell towers run out of frequencies?
| explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2asahu/eli5_is_bandwidth_finite_can_it_be_upgraded_with/ | {
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"Absolutely! We're only limited by law and thermodynamics. ",
"Bandwidth is finite, and sometime it can be improved with new protocols but generally you need hardware to improve it.\n\nYou can't make more viable frequencies for communication, though, and there's a limit to what a given frequency can bear.",
"Bandwidth is dependent on the maximum capacity of the lowest performing part of the link - this particular part of the link is referred to as the bottleneck. This can be cabling or equipment, and upgrading various parts of a link will shift where your bottleneck is and what needs to change to make it better. \n\nIf I have a dial-up modem connection, your limitation is by the fact that your modem is trying to use the voice-only portion of your phone line. The phone lines themselves have more bandwidth capacity than 56k (hence why DSL works over phone lines), but your modems limit it. So you upgrade from dial-up to DSL, and now the limitation is the wire. Then you upgrade from copper to fiber and change your hardware to talk over the fiber, and then it's mostly a matter of upgrading your hardware until you're to where you want.\n\nNote that it's not always more cost efficient to upgrade the hardware - sometimes it's cheaper to put in new cable (which isn't cheap), but once you start getting into DWDM systems running multiple 100G links it can get really pricey to buy the equipment."
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2ejocp | could ebola become airborne? | Is it possible for the Ebola virus to mutate so it can spread through the air? Right now it spreads slowly because you can only contract it through contact with bodily fluids but how likely is it to eventually spread through the air? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2ejocp/eli5_could_ebola_become_airborne/ | {
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"yes, it's possible. but probably not very likely.",
"Depends how much bodily fluids you need to contract it. The \"airborne\" route only means that the amount of bodily fluid contained in sneeze droplets has enough virus to infect someone if they inhale it. This is called the infectious dose. For example the infectious dose for norovirus (winter vomiting, common on cruise ships) can be as little as 100 virus particles & you can be infected if you breathe within 100 ft of someone throwing up as virus is left on the throat & swallowed. At the moment, the infectious dose of ebola is much much higher than this, and the airways are not the major route by which the virus enters the body. Ebola mostly infects the cells of the blood circulation, of which there are a lot in the lungs, right at the surface, so there is no reason why this couldn't theoretically happen. The limit is the infectious dose, so respiratory/airborne spread currently seems unlikely.\n"
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52qj1t | how is glassware mass-produced? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/52qj1t/eli5_how_is_glassware_massproduced/ | {
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"A lot of glassware is produced the same was as by hand except with machines blowing the little blob of glass on the end of the tube into a mold. the mold lets go and you have a glass. that's why you see the seam in some glassware."
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2ome08 | why do some gadgets work after being exposed to water when they're placed in a bag of rice? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2ome08/eli5_why_do_some_gadgets_work_after_being_exposed/ | {
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"It's for much the same reason as why you see rice in salt shakers in humid environments: the rice takes the moisture out of whatever it's put in. That's why the common convention wisdom of \"bring a bag of white rice\" exists.\n\nNote: this trick doesn't work with brown rice, or any rice with the hull still on. The hull will block the moisture-absorption.",
"The problem with water in electrical circuits is that it is conductive and causes short circuits, which is where the current jumps to the path of least resistance directly to the other end of the circuit without going through the wire properly (a 'short circuit'). \n\nThis causes damage by overloading the circuit, and in the case of water damage, by causing current to pass through sensitive parts that need the amount of current passing through it to be regulated and lower than other places. \n\nDry rice is very hydrophilic, and will draw water out of the device. If you cover the whole thing with it and leave it in there long enough, it will draw out enough water that the device will work normally when taken out, because there is no longer enough water left to cause a short circuit. ",
"At night the rice attracts Asians, who fix your cell phone."
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vba92 | how 20k a plate dinner fundraisers are ok when individuals can only donate up to 2500$ to a campaign? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/vba92/eli5_how_20k_a_plate_dinner_fundraisers_are_ok/ | {
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"It's called a \"loophole.\" You can only donate a certain amount. However you're free to hold a dinner and charge people to attend."
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6crdh7 | how are there millionaires in communist nations? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/6crdh7/eli5how_are_there_millionaires_in_communist/ | {
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"China isn't communist no matter what they call their political party. They have not been communist for quite a while, so presumably your question no longer applies.",
"I don't think there's any true communist nations anymore (except maybe North Korea?).\n\nChina for example has doubled down on capitalist economic reforms, starting with Deng Xiaoping's Shenzhen special economic area in the 80s (Shenzhen is now part of an urban area of 100+ million people and one of the richest parts of China). \n\nThese include increased ownership of private property, freedom to do trade, basically a similar day to day life as you'd experience in any capitalist country (although ofc China is still poorer and less orderly than most of the developed world). ",
"There are no real communist countries left. China is a one-party oligarchy, with the rise in power and status in the oligarchy based both on merit and on political skill. \n\nThat one party is called the \"communist party\" but it does not have communist principles on the economy. It has pragmatic principles, with the stated philosophy of \"Practice is the Sole Criterion for the Truth\" - meaning we are going to do what works, rather than what fits with ideology. And the actions of the 50s, 60s, and 70s most certainly did not work, while the economic liberalization of the 80s and 90s did work. And allowing millionaires worked - provided they don't challenge the Party politically and pay taxes (and the right bribes). \n\nNorth Korea is a total fascist and nationalist dictatorship police state that has allowed some private markets to survive. But at this stage, their leaders are less concerned with communist ideology and more concerned about total power and obedience to the Kim family, and won't allow freedom because it may challenge the Family. \n\nCuba is slowly liberalizing and has a partially mixed economy, although still lots of socialist state ownership of a lot of different things. ",
"They are usually government workers and members, or people connected to them.\n\nOnce the government places incredibly high taxes to take in money to redistribute, the government takes a lot of that money for themselves, then puddles out just enough to keep people alive, and most often not even that.\n\nIn a more basic sense, there are millionaires because in reality not everything is perfect. Greedy and power hungry people still exist. Only difference is now they have lots of official state-sanctioned power.",
"Because true communism is a pipe dream. People are greedy assholes no matter how you indoctrinate them, and they will find ways to corrupt the system heir own personal gain."
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14zw9r | video game emulators and isos. | I'm not trying to find any such things. I just want to understand a little more about what a downloadable program does to play games from a completely different system. And what is needed to make that happen. I find it all very confusing. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/14zw9r/eli5_video_game_emulators_and_isos/ | {
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"from what i've seen there's 2 ways of making an emulator, one works with any system (eventually) but it expensive and slow, tho other only works on fairly simple systems so was used a lot in early emulators. i'm oversimplifying this, so if anyone can thing of a better way to describe it, or i've made a mistake please correct me :)\n\nMethod A: (the easy one) \nWhat this method does is find out what a program on the original hardware can ask the hardware to do, every processor has a list of instructions it can complete, these lists can be very small or very large. if the list is rather small and you have a way of knowing everything on the list you can code you emulator to respond correctly to those instructions when it's processing the \"ROM\" that is basically a dump of the program to be run. this works very well for well known and older systems, but can have unexpected results when the program being run uses quirks of the hardware, that aren't accounted for by the implementation of the the instruction set\n\nMethod B: (the expensive slow one) \nIn this case you can't find the instruction set, or you want to make a 100% accurate emulator,(you can't, so you use this to make one that will respond as closely as possible to how the the real thing does.) in this case you need to get your hands on the hardware, and you basically reverse engineer the circuits. if the components used are known this makes this task merely laborious, if a custom or unknown chip is used time for the high powered microscope. the reverse-engineer cuts open the chip revealing the circuit embedded in the silicone and maps out the gates (how it works, and what is wired to what) by hand. with newer chips this could take a very very very long time, and you need a very expensive microscope. once the reverse engineer has a complete knowledge of the circuit and how each chip works this info is then turned into a simulation of the hardware, this is as close as we can get to an exact emulation, because the simulation is not exact (the layout is exact but a simulated \"and\" gate responds slightly differently than a physical one) so when the emulator is run it feeds the data (the rom and any inputs) into the simulation of the hardware and then takes the output of the simulation and turns it into something that can be displayed on screen. this method is very cpu hungry but is more accurate.\n",
"Think of game systems of nothing more than computers. They have a processor, gpu, memory, ect. Processors have different \"languages\" so to speak, people usually refer to it as the processor's architecture. Intel processors have x86 architecture; and pretty much any processor that speaks this \"language\" can run programs made for it. \n \nNow your game console has a processor that speaks a different \"language.\" Playstation, PS2, PSP, and N64 are MIPS architecture; Wii, 360, and PS3 are PowerPC; SNES had W65C816S; NES a 6502; ect. It would take a while to name them all.\n \n\n Anyway, in order for your computer to be able to run games made for these systems, they would need a translator that would translate the language the game was written in into a language your computer understands. These translators are the emulators themselves. There's more to emulators than just this but this is the main function. They also simulate the memory size, and other hardware in the system. They also emulate the behavior of the specific CPU chip. Just because 2 CPUs have the same architecture, they can still do things differently internally. In the end, the emulator copies the behavior of the console as a whole in order to run programs made for the console."
]
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3omda4 | how do people keep losing shoes and socks on the road? | I mean come on! As someone who clean streets on my walks from times to times, I find this really disturbing to have found many socks and shoes lying there. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3omda4/eli5_how_do_people_keep_losing_shoes_and_socks_on/ | {
"a_id": [
"cvyhsf9"
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"score": [
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"text": [
"The trash bag your trailer park mom put the dirty clothes into had a rip in it and the wind from the ride in the back of the rusty pick up tore a sock out and it landed on the roadside."
]
} | []
| []
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[]
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alovn5 | g-suits | How do g-suits prevent the body from g-forces despite they can't prevent the acceleration if the body? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/alovn5/eli5_gsuits/ | {
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"text": [
"They don't prevent you from experiencing g-force. You can still go into G-LOC in such a suit. They just make it easier to resist the effects. For example, they compress your legs so that blood can't all pool in your lower extremities and make you black out as easily.",
"They don't make the body experience fewer G-forces, they instead make the body more tolerate to G-forces\n\nUnder positive G forces, your blood will move down and pool in your legs, this can result in you blacking out. G-suits squeeze your legs to prevent the blood from pooling there and can bring your G tolerance up from 5-7 Gs to 7-9 Gs which for a fighter pilot means they can make tighter turns for longer than the enemy and could save their life.",
" Basically, a g-suit has tight fitting bladders around the lower parts of your body. These are pressurized during high g maneuvers. \n\n\nDuring high g maneuvers, blood would normally \"fall down\" inside your body, causing blood vessels to swell. That is, the blood would tend to accumulate in the lower parts of your body, forcing your body to expand to make room. This reduces the amount of blood that gets to your brain, potentially causing you to black out (lose consciousness). \n\n & #x200B;\n\nThe bladders in the g-suit get pressurized (by air, I think) to squeeze in on your body so it can't expand. This keeps the blood from pooling down there, so more is available for your brain. With the g-suit pressurized, you can tolerate a higher g-loading and remain conscious. "
]
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655c3w | why do we have the constant need to swallow saliva? | I often feel uncomfortable and strange whenever I attempt to discontinue swallowing saliva at a controlled rate. It's a thing we always have to do, why is that? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/655c3w/eli5_why_do_we_have_the_constant_need_to_swallow/ | {
"a_id": [
"dg7iuan",
"dg7llmn"
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"score": [
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"text": [
"We constantly produce saliva, so you either have to swallow or spit or your mouth will soon be full of it...",
"There are touch receptors in the back of your throat. When saliva builds up and touches your throat it initiates a swallowing reflex which is just a series of muscles contracting and relaxing that make you swallow. "
]
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[],
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3ypqve | why do parents keep pressuring their children to go to college and take out school loans when there are all of these statistics about then national loan debt. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3ypqve/eli5why_do_parents_keep_pressuring_their_children/ | {
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"text": [
"It's pretty difficult to land a job without a degree. And the really high earning jobs (lawyer, doctor, banker, etc.) are pretty much off the table ",
"There is a larger wage gap between college and high school graduates than ever before. Among Millennials it's about $17,000. I'll bet it will only increase. You can pay off your investment in a state school in four years of average higher salary. Additionally, unemployment among college grads is half that of those who have a high school degree. \n\nSources:\n_URL_1_\n\n_URL_0_\n",
"Because there are also a lot of statics about the lack of earning potential if you don't have a college degree - _URL_0_\n\n\n > The economic analysis finds that Millennial college graduates ages 25 to 321 who are working full time earn more annually—about $17,500 more—than employed young adults holding only a high school diploma. \n\n > Millennials with only a high school diploma earn 62% of what the typical college graduate earns.\n\nYour job opportunities are also very limited without a BA in the very least.\n\nThe thing is, that most students don't need to break the bank on going to a big name school and get in debt for all 4 years. It's possible to do something such as go to a smaller, local college or community college for the first two years then transfer to a bigger university for the final two years.\n\nThere are also schools for learning a trade but most middle-class families looking to push their kid into college probably aren't interested in optics of having their kid in a trade.",
"And I am just going to leave this here.\n\n_URL_0_",
"College is the lesser of two evils. You have to go deeply into debt to get a college degree, but it's the only way to even have a chance of staying in or making it to the middle class."
]
} | []
| []
| [
[],
[
"http://www.forbes.com/sites/johnebersole/2012/08/08/why-a-college-degree/",
"http://www.usnews.com/news/articles/2014/02/11/study-income-gap-between-young-college-and-high-school-grads-widens"
],
[
"http://www.pewsocialtrends.org/2014/02/11/the-rising-cost-of-not-going-to-college/"
],
[
"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qzKzu86Agg0"
],
[]
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|
||
45z61g | is there a reason why the middle finger is the longest on the hand but the thumb toe is the longest on the feet? | I was reading Norwegian Wood by Haruki Murakami, and in chapter 10, the narrator says, "Doctor Miyata popped over to our table at dinner to explain why people's middle fingers are longer than their index fingers while with toes it works the other way." The book never actually explains this, so I was wondering if anyone here knows? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/45z61g/eli5_is_there_a_reason_why_the_middle_finger_is/ | {
"a_id": [
"d016wol",
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"text": [
"The big toe is big because it is an evolutionary leftover thumb, essentially. When we were evolving, the innermost finger became thicker and stronger to help us grab things. The same thing happened in out toes, when we used to have opposable feet. We eventually lost that trait, but never lost the big toe because we had no evolutionary reason not to, and because it helped us balance when walking upright.\n\nThere isn't a consensus about why the middle finger is the longest finger yet, but the prominent theory is that it is also an evolutionary holdout, from when we used to walk on all fours. then, having the longest finger in the middle kept the foot symmetrical, making it easier to walk. Again, there was no survival incentive that led to it shortening when we started walking upright, so it stayed longer (Also, there are some people who say that it became longer so that all our fingers meet the palm at the same time when clenching out fist, since that helps us grab things better, but I'm not quite sold on the idea).\n\n",
"What are you talking about? [My my big toe is not the longest toe.](_URL_1_)\n\nBefore you ask, it's called [Morton's Toe](_URL_0_) and no, I have not washed my foot in days."
]
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| []
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[],
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"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Morton%27s_toe",
"http://imgur.com/e3yuqn2"
]
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2h0vjb | why do i have more stamina during my runs after over-eating? | I normally keep to a diet of about 1600 calories a day (5'8M). Normally when I go for a run I run 2 miles straight, then walk 1/2 a mile, then run 2 miles, then walk 1 mile, then run 1.5 mile, then walk the last 1.5/2 miles. This past Friday and Saturday I ate over my typical calories by at least 300 each day (if not a little more). I went for a run tonight and managed to go 7 miles straight which I haven't done in a really long time. The only thing that is different is my calorie intake. What is the relationship between calories and stamina? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2h0vjb/eli5_why_do_i_have_more_stamina_during_my_runs/ | {
"a_id": [
"ckobayo"
],
"score": [
3
],
"text": [
"Jesus, man, eat some more food. Friends I have who were training for Ironman ate pasta and carbs all day. Doesn't mean you have to, but you're burning so many more calories than you're taking in that it doesn't sound healthy. Eat clean-ish, lots of protein, lots of veggies but for christsakes as a male who is obviously very active, eat more. 2000 cals at least. Better yet, start hitting the weights and eating 2500-3000 cals a day with lots of protein. You'll gain muscle very quickly and easily."
]
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| []
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2f83ka | do files completely disappear when you delete them? how do recovery tools work and can you find these deleted files? | A bonus question: Due to the recent celebrity leak, I was wondering if iCloud and other online services store data after you delete them | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2f83ka/eli5_do_files_completely_disappear_when_you/ | {
"a_id": [
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"score": [
3,
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"text": [
"When you delete a file off your hard drive, all that happens is that your computer marks that file as \"overwrite when necessary\". The file is still there *until* something needs to overwrite it. ",
"no they do not- you have to \"scrub\" your hard drive all the way through to completely delete files. When you \"delete\" a file, the OS just tells the system that the space it was on is not free to use in the future. Recovery tools will find block chains of data and reconstruct them in to their original file. Same goes for cloud and facebook. It stays there forever. (mostly)",
"OPs got nuuuuuuuudes "
]
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21snvp | whats up with the "higher altitude" baking instructions on my cookie dough packaging? | no pun intended | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/21snvp/eli5_whats_up_with_the_higher_altitude_baking/ | {
"a_id": [
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"text": [
"The decreased atmospheric pressure makes water do different things than it does at sea level, like not boil at 100C/212F (it boils at a lower temp). You have to compensate for those sorts of things when you're cooking at altitude.",
"At higher altitudes, water will boil faster and with less heat required. However, the process for cooking food is usually not simply he water boiling, but the chemical reactions facilitated by the water's heat. If the water isn't hot, it won't cook, even if it boils."
]
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[],
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63urt4 | water is a stronger base than milk, but why does milk seem to soothe heartburn more than water? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/63urt4/eli5water_is_a_stronger_base_than_milk_but_why/ | {
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"text": [
"Milk already has lots of other molecules diluted in it. Proteins, calcium, fats, sugars. Water is more ready to dilute the acid from the stomach. The proteins and fats coat the esophagus protecting it from the acid to make contact with it.",
"Pure water is pH7, milk about pH 6.5 so neither is basic so as to be able to neutralize acid, although they could dilute it. Half a pH unit difference is tiny in relation to the 1.5 to 3.5 pH of the stomach, considering that the scale is logarithmic so 1 pH unit represents a factor of 10 in acid concentration\n",
"I know that heartburn is generally associated with acidity, however, with many people, myself included, heartburn is often triggered or exacerbated by spicy foods. Milk binds to capsaicin receptors (chemical found in most spicy peppers) and therefore relieves the burning sensation caused by capsaicin. This could be part of the reason why, but I am sure someone here will have a better explanation."
]
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1ugm71 | why do i need to drink 1.5 to 2 liters of water every day even though i will end up peeing most of what i drunk? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1ugm71/eli5_why_do_i_need_to_drink_15_to_2_liters_of/ | {
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"text": [
"Your body loses some water through sweat or your moist breath but also you urinate to remove waste that otherwise builds up in your body. That waste is what turns your urine more and more yellow the longer you go without urinating.",
"That water is used for various parts of your body. Your kidneys use them to clear out toxins from your body and maintain homeostasis (correct levels of water-minerals-vitamins in your body). If you do not drink enough water to expel these toxins from your kidneys, you develop kidney stones. Unlike, say, camels, our kidneys need a lot of water for homeostasis. ",
"The drink 2 litres of water a day is actually a bit of a myth; you only need to replenish what you lose. You will actually absorb a lot of water you need from your daily food intake (unless you were eating a lot of dried or salty/sugary food). You can actually die from drinking too much water, by flushing essential salts out of your blood stream. \n\nIn other words, you need about 2 litres of fluid day, but you don't necessarily have to drink 2 litres of water, most of the fluid content will be in your food. \n\nOne of the best gauges of how hydrated you are is the colour of your urine; it should be a pale straw colour. If it's really dark (and smelly) then you are likely dehydrated, if it's colourless, then you are probably getting rid of an excess of fluid intake.",
"The whole 1.5 to 2L a day is just an arbitrary value. You don't actually have to drink that much or that little. The rule is, \"if you're thirsty, drink\". However, don't underestimate how thirsty you are. You need a lot of water to dilute salt levels in your blood and getting rid of excess chemicals as well as helping filtration in the kidneys. Many metabolic processes also need water in order to occur. \n\nI could go on and list why water is so important, but just remember the rule: if you're thirsty, drink."
]
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6dk9px | why do parks close at night? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/6dk9px/eli5_why_do_parks_close_at_night/ | {
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"text": [
"It depends on where you live, but in most cases it's because parks provide a secluded area that can be used by drug users and other people that may harm the area. It's to avoid health hazards and criminals.",
"Public safety. It prevents people from being there who are then at higher risk of being a crime victim. End of the day, a criminal will disregard the posted signs... but that girl walking home alone will not take the shortcut through the park and stick to the more visible streets. Also, parks can be dangerous in low/no light... somebody in the park and trips over a tree root, tried to sue. But if park hours are posted and it's after park hours, can limit liability. Also, it's way to shoo homeless from sleeping in the parks."
]
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2on9m9 | when a bank goes bankrupt where does all the money from people's accounts go? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2on9m9/eli5when_a_bank_goes_bankrupt_where_does_all_the/ | {
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"text": [
"It gets put into custodianship by the FDIC. But I would love to know the procedure by which that works from someone who actually iknows what they are talking about.",
"I don't know if this is what you are looking for, but it's important to keep in mind that banks don't just hold onto your money after it's deposited.\n\nIn some sense, what you're actually doing is loaning your money to the bank in return for some (admittedly small) amount of interest.\n\nThe bank then takes that money, and loans it to other people, in the form of mortgages or other loans, or even invests it (usually in bonds).\n\nThey then get a higher amount of interest than what they pay you, and this is how they make money.\n\nA bank probably doesn't have enough money on hand to pay back every account people have opened with them. In most situations, that's not a problem, because some people are usually depositing money when other people are withdrawing it, and it mostly balances out. They also have a steady stream of loans being paid back, so there's money available from that.\n\n(as a side note, this is part of why banks close so early. A large part of their business is not actually dealing with the public, but instead tracking where all this money is at any given moment. Closing early stops new transactions from coming in so that they can sort through all the existing ones and move money around appropriately.)\n\nTo answer your question, when a bank goes bankrupt, it's at least in part because they don't have enough money to pay back all the loans they have taken out, including the savings accounts from individuals. In a bankruptcy, it's mostly a process of all the people who loaned money to the bank lining up in some order of priority (determined by a court) and taking what they can get.\n\nBanks are also a special case, in that they are insured by the FDIC. Basically, the federal government has said that it's in our best interest to protect people's bank accounts in the case that a bank goes bankrupt. They'll step in, and pay back all the balances on people's accounts up to $250,000. Any more than that, and you'll need to wait in line like every other creditor.",
"Assuming we're talking about US banks, it depends on the bank. Most US banks nowadays are insured with the FDIC, aka the government. So if your FDIC insured bank went bankrupt, you're money is still guaranteed by the government (up to a certain amount, usually $250,000).\n\nHowever, if your bank isn't insured, and the bank goes bankrupted, then kiss your cash goodbye. This was one of the factors in the Great Depression, when the FDIC didn't exist yet.\n\nEDIT: a word",
"It is gone. It is no different than loaning your broke friend your car only to have it stolen.\n\nThe bank is responsible for your money, but if they don't have it, they don't have it.\n\nA government might insure that money, or might choose to bank the bank out with taxpayer money. The US federal government insures deposits to $100K or so.",
"Banks have their own special bankruptcy regime, they don't really \"go bankrupt\" in the way that ordinary companies do.\n\nOnce it looks like a bank is heading in the direction of bankruptcy, their government regulator will seize the bank. Who that regulator is depends on what type of bank you have, it could be either a federal regulator (comptroller of the currency, federal reserve, etc.) or it could be a state regulator. Regardless of who the regulator officially is, they will almost always turn the seized bank over to the FDIC for 'receivership'. (Probably what really happens is that FDIC tells the regulator to go seize this particular bank, but officially it is the regulator of record, not the FDIC, that makes that decision). \n\nThe FDIC will try to sell the seized bank off to a competitor bank, who promises to make good on the account deposits. They usually succeed at that. If it can't do that, then the FDIC will pay off the insured depositors from its own funds, and then it will sell off the bank's assets piecemeal. It uses the money it gets from those sales both to pay off the uninsured depositors at whatever rate it can, and to pay itself back for the insured deposits it already covered."
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lgmkc | how can countries export goods? | This is my first time here, so I apologize if I'm breaking any rules.
I always hear that "Venezuela produces most of the world's oil" or "Thailand is a major producer of rice", and that this is somehow related to how wealthy that country is.
How does a country export anything? Aren't those goods produced by private businesses? Am I supposed to read "Venezuelan oil companies produce most of the world's oil?".
Similarly, what does it mean that "The US navy controls trade routes?" Do we take a cut from every ship that plies the ocean? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/lgmkc/eli5_how_can_countries_export_goods/ | {
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"text": [
"Some of [Venezuela's oil companies](_URL_0_) are owned by the govt so the country does produce the oil. Not all countries are capitalist.\n\nIf a private company is exporting rice for example then it is paying taxes on these and generating money and jobs for the govt therefore it is seen as good for that country.",
" > Am I supposed to read \"Venezuelan oil companies produce most of the world's oil?\".\n\nPossibly. It can also mean that the country itself (i.e. the land) contains oil fields that produce the most oil. I would interpret both of your quotes to mean \"within the borders of\". \"A major amount of rice is produced within the borders of Thailand\" for example.",
"It doesn't really matter if the company(ies) is private or government owned. The money is coming from a foreign land into the exporting country. That money ends up in the workers bank accounts and is eventually used to fuel the local economy (This is in theory. If the country has near slave labor than you end up with a poor country that has a few insanely rich people.)\n\nThis is why it's bad that the US has such a huge trade deficit. We are buying tons of exports, the money we used to buy those exports goes on the fuel foreign economies rather than our own.\n",
"Some of [Venezuela's oil companies](_URL_0_) are owned by the govt so the country does produce the oil. Not all countries are capitalist.\n\nIf a private company is exporting rice for example then it is paying taxes on these and generating money and jobs for the govt therefore it is seen as good for that country.",
" > Am I supposed to read \"Venezuelan oil companies produce most of the world's oil?\".\n\nPossibly. It can also mean that the country itself (i.e. the land) contains oil fields that produce the most oil. I would interpret both of your quotes to mean \"within the borders of\". \"A major amount of rice is produced within the borders of Thailand\" for example.",
"It doesn't really matter if the company(ies) is private or government owned. The money is coming from a foreign land into the exporting country. That money ends up in the workers bank accounts and is eventually used to fuel the local economy (This is in theory. If the country has near slave labor than you end up with a poor country that has a few insanely rich people.)\n\nThis is why it's bad that the US has such a huge trade deficit. We are buying tons of exports, the money we used to buy those exports goes on the fuel foreign economies rather than our own.\n"
]
} | []
| []
| [
[
"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Petr%C3%B3leos_de_Venezuela"
],
[],
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"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Petr%C3%B3leos_de_Venezuela"
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7gp2xz | how do our cars keyless entry systems know which car is ours in a sea of cars using similar technology? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/7gp2xz/eli5_how_do_our_cars_keyless_entry_systems_know/ | {
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"They're coded. If the radio signal from your keychain doesn't broadcast the same pattern the car is expecting, it doesn't unlock the door. When you push the button in a sea of cars, the majority of the sea hear the message, and say \"meh, not mine.\" They also operate at fairly short range.",
"There's a unique* string of letters and numbers in the messages between fob and car. The unlock system checks for the right string before it unlocks.\n\n*its not actually garaunteed unique. There's not like a registry for every person. There are just so so many codes that the chances of two people near each other every having the same one is near zero",
"The keys just transmit a code (usually some type of changing code), if it's keyless entry the car can ask it to transmit it's code.\n\nThe car then checks if the code it received is from a key that was programmed into it, if it's not it doesn't do anything. If it is it unlocks or whatever else the key tells it to do.",
"Your key fob sends out a short-range radio signal saying \"What's A x B?\n (912837x32894?)\", and all the cars of the same make and model as your key fob pings back their answers, but only your car has 30026860278 as the value of A x B. Because your car has the only correct value, it is the only one that unlocks.\n\nThis is a vast simplification, and some fobs might use different formulas, but they'll all come down to some simple mathematical equation that only one car within the limited range (statistically) has the right answer to.\n\nThe same thing happens for those new-fangled rear doors that open when you put your foot under them. They rely on extremely short range RFID/radio transmission, so when the key is nearby, the sensor kicks on and your foot works. If the key isn't within a meter or so, it won't work."
]
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[],
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|
||
3gjoij | why do teenagers and young adults tend to side with their parents on political issues, but almost nothing else? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3gjoij/eli5_why_do_teenagers_and_young_adults_tend_to/ | {
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"Do they? When I was a teenager, I listened to Rush Limbaugh and whatever the current version of Alex Jones was back in the 90s. I was a hard-right conspiracy theorist, while my parents are Liberal Democrats. Looking back, I think I embraced Conservative politics as a rebellion against my parents.\n\nPersonal anecdote only, but still...",
"For me once you understand the persons background and history their political views make a lot of sense and seem to have sound reasoning, as a young adult / teenager you and your friends don't talk politics so when you hear political conversations it is between your parents or between you and your parents so the issues you see discussed are framed by the your parents to make their position sound stronger and more sound. So when the youngens branch out and start viewing the world on their own the foundation in which they view things is very close to that of their parents because that is all the youngens know, but as they get older they start to have their own experiences and start to build their own foundation based of their own life experiences and it may change ",
"I'd say a lot of the time it's ignorance (though I don't mean it in a negative way). When a kid/teen is faced with a political question, they don't want to say that they have no idea about any of it when virtually everyone has a basic opinion on politics. So, you'd generally answer what you know best. If Dads a Republican and talks even vaguely about it, you'd have a better understanding of Republicans than democrats, especially a more biased opinion since everyone is pretty vocal about what's wrong with the opposing party. \n\nJust my opinion!",
"Teenagers and young adults side with their parents on almost everything. Food, where to live, sports, hobbies, etc...\n\nWhere do you get this idea that they do not?",
"Is that empirically true? I didn't think so!",
"Where are you getting this idea, OP? My parents are extremely conservative Christians, but I'm as far left as they come (I'm 16). And I'm not alone, I have plenty of friends in a similar situation. ",
"Anybody here grow up with liberal parents and are now staunchly conservative after doing your own world research? Just curious. Just people 20+ years old, please.",
"I don't know if it's the case that teenagers and young adults really do side with their parents on political issues.\n\nThat said, one of my parents is a moderate Democrat, and I'm a far-left Democrat. On the other hand, my other parent is a far-right conservative Republican. So no matter which direction I went politically, you could somehow connect my politics to my parents'.\n\nAssuming that you saw this in some kind of study/have backup on this data, I'd also say that the voting age probably has a degree of influence. You can't vote till you're 18. My biggest rebel years as a teenager were more like 15-16. By the time I was old enough to vote I had a degree of logic, reason, and ability to think through larger issues. Politics is never something I've been kneejerk against my parents about, in the way that I have felt that way about for example tattoos or fashion or other more surface/aesthetic issues. I mean I will still date people to piss off my conservative mom (I'm in my 30s, yaaaay!) but my politics are just my politics, period.\n\nI do think the sorts of political extremism that either aren't connected to electoral politics or are part of one's life before voting age *can* be subject to teenage rebellion, though. See for instance the more extreme/uninformed aspects of \"social justice warrior\" behavior. Those folks remind me much more of myself at 15 than myself as a voter. Probably because most of them are 15.",
"do they? i never really agreed with them on political things, especially as a teenager when i was really busy being Punk as Fuck.\n\ni do have to hand it to my dad though. he waited until i was an adult to start spouting off racist right wing shit to me."
]
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8yu72z | airline baggage handlers: i really want to understand the logistics of checked bags | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/8yu72z/eli5_airline_baggage_handlers_i_really_want_to/ | {
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"text": [
"This should hold you over until someone can answer those specific questions: \n\n_URL_0_",
"Depending on the airline and the aircraft being loaded, bags for people that will be picking it up at the destination (local) are put in one bin and connection bags (hot connection, in this case) are loaded in a separate bin. The hot connection bags are usually higher priority to offload so the connection runner can take them to the flights that are leaving soon.\n\nThe ramp agents at your origin airport know which bags are hot connections from an onload plan that specifies the locations for various types of bags (local, hot connection, cold connection, international connection etc) and load it accordingly. That plan also specifies which connecting flights are to be considered hot connections.",
"I used to work as a baggage handler. When your bag is checked, it is put on a conveyor belt and sent down to the bag room where workers wait at a baggage carousel similar to the one the passengers use. A worker will be assigned to your flight and will be looking for bags tagged for your flight. Most bags will not be connecting to other flights and are all packed together in the hold. But connecting bags are loaded on to a separate cart and typically loaded last and kept slightly apart from the rest of the bags. The ramp workers at the connecting airport will know the exact number of connecting bags and will grab them first, load them onto a cart and whisk them directly to the connecting flight. So while you're still waiting to get off the plane, your bags are on a cart somewhere already well on their way to the connecting flight.",
"Yay, a question I can answer fully!\n\nSo yes, I am a ramp agent for a major airline, aka baggage handler, so I've done most of the jobs at my airport.\n\nSo first off, everything is scanned as it is loaded/unloaded, transfered, etc. These scanners are connected to a server with a baggage reporting tool that has all the information necessary for the bag along with it's audit trail. When the aircraft is loaded, the bags are usually separated based on if they are city/terminating bags, priority terminating bags, transfer bags that stay with the airline, and transfer bags. In most cases, they are segregated into separate sections in the aircraft, or pits in the case of narrowbody, non container aircraft, or bag containers, or ULDs with wide body aircraft. As for the smaller regional aircraft, we just stack them into the single compartment hold, no real separation.\n\nWith our software, we know what plane you bag was loaded onto, where it is in the aircraft or container, what sequence it was scanned into it and your routing. So when a plane arrives, we have a dedicated group of baggage handlers that will come and pick up your bags. They are given the assignment beforehand and know how many bags they are picking up, what type of bag, their destination and the departure time. On our mainline flights, there will be multiple runners that have specific tasks, some could be there just for the \"hot\" bags, bags that have a connection of less than an hour. These guys will take the bags and deliver each bag to the waiting aircraft. The \"cold\" runners will take all the bags that have connection times of an hour or more and drop them all off to a cold input belt that goes to the baggage sorter, where they will be brought up later. Then there is the \"city\" runner, who will take all the terminating bags and deliver them to the claim area.\n\nBack to the scanner and software, when the runners pick up the bags and scan them, their scanner will now show them what bags they have in their possession, where they are going and how much time they have left, in real time, so a surprise gate change won't affect them that much."
]
} | []
| []
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[
"https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/7v6gog/eli5_how_do_airlines_get_your_checked_luggage_on/"
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[],
[],
[]
]
|
||
4fatf4 | how heavy water is made | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4fatf4/eli5_how_heavy_water_is_made/ | {
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"In large quantities, it is extracted rather than made. Heavy water is water in which the two hydrogen atoms have a neutron as well as a proton in the nucleus. \n\nThese molecules of water with the heavier version of hydrogen (called deuterium, symbol D rather than H) are actually naturally occurring and in cup of regular water H2O, there are a few molecules of heavy water D2O.\n\nThere is a process using hydrogen sulphide and water, where by varying the temperature, the heavy hydrogen atom (D) will alternately prefer to bond with the sulphur forming D2S and or with the oxygen forming D2O.\n\nRun this back a forth a few times and you build up a higher and higher concentration of D2O. Finally, you is a distillation process to get it up to 99.9% pure.\n\nTL:DR, you extract it out of regular water\n"
]
} | []
| []
| [
[]
]
|
||
5nyta8 | who's with who and who's against who in the middle east regarding syria, iran, lebanon etc and why? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5nyta8/eli5_whos_with_who_and_whos_against_who_in_the/ | {
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"text": [
"Vox and Kurzgesagt made pretty good videos 'bout it.\nCheck 'em out [here](_URL_1_) and [here](_URL_0_).\nYou're welcome!"
]
} | []
| []
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[
"https://youtu.be/NKb9GVU8bHE",
"https://youtu.be/AQPlREDW-Ro"
]
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|
||
5t0yeb | how is elon musk able to accomplish so much? | He always seems to be Musking it up, doing crazy cool things for the world. What's the story here? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5t0yeb/eli5_how_is_elon_musk_able_to_accomplish_so_much/ | {
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"Guy's rich, spends his money on R & D and makes it very public. A lot of companies are doing the same, the difference is their R & D is in a less \"cool\" field.\n\n\"Hey everyone, take a look at this slide of a genetically engineered virus destroying a cancer cell but leaving the other cells alone!\" doesn't have the same oomph as \"Hey everyone, check out this rocket car!\"\n\nEdit: He also invests a lot into tech schools and hosts all kinds of competitions and stuff which adds to his popularity.",
"He's a billionaire, what more explanation do you need? The fact that other billionaires don't seem to accomplish as much as him says less about him than it does about the other billionaires",
"He's very intelligent and determined and works very hard, but also had to have a ton of luck, be at right places at right times. There are many intelligent hard working people in the world, some fail just out of bad luck, most have some success and some failures, and then there are a few who succeed at everything. He's that person.",
"(Explaining like you're five here) He's pretty much Tony Stark. Yes there are more effective companies / more practical inventions / more influential visionaries, but nobody does it quite like Tony Stark. His inventions are fun and exciting, and not always addressing the needs of the people. They're fun and innovative. It's not like he's two steps ahead of the other companies, it's more like he's doing another thing entirely, and it's almost Sci-Fi like. That's where the Iron Man comparison comes in closer. Tony didn't need to make Iron Man suits, but he did, and it's awesome. Musk didn't didn't choose to work on electric cars, or SpaceX, or the freaking HyperLoop because of it's practicality. He's changing the world his own way."
]
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[],
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|
eeu8vk | why is there sand then water then sand when digging a hole at the beach? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/eeu8vk/eli5_why_is_there_sand_then_water_then_sand_when/ | {
"a_id": [
"fbwkn9m"
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"score": [
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"text": [
"The sand isn't \"floating\" on the water. Water is filling in the gaps between the grains of sand."
]
} | []
| []
| [
[]
]
|
||
luj5k | el5: where does the mass of a tree come from? why isn't there a vaguely tree-shaped hole or depression in the ground beneath? | Some trees are enormous, but I've never noticed any significant depression around them. Even if they take many years to reach full size, I find it hard to imagine where all that bulk really comes from. How much is accounted for by water? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/luj5k/el5_where_does_the_mass_of_a_tree_come_from_why/ | {
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"Most of the mass of a tree comes from Carbon atoms. The tree (or any plant for that matter) takes in CO2 from the atmosphere and then releases oxygen (which we then breath in and turn into CO2 - its a good cycle). Therefore most of the mass of a tree comes from the air, not the ground.",
"Plants derive most of their mass from the air! CO2 (carbon dioxide) is converted into fuel and mass for the plant via photosynthesis. \n\nFrom their roots, plants acquire water and nutrients. Water is transitory in the ground, and thus the large amount of water used by a tree wouldn't cause a depression. And the nutrients acquired by the plant are in very minute quantities.\n\nSo, in summary, plants get their mass from the air! Cool huh!",
"Trees grow from the top, not the bottom. If you take a tree, make a mark in it, and then come back in 20 years, the mark won't have risen.",
"[Richard Feynman Explains](_URL_0_)",
"Thanks for posting this question. It's interesting, and something I've never actually wondered about before.",
"I remember answering this very question, asked to me by an eight year old.\n\nMy answer: Out of thin air. Really.\n\nOf course, he thought I was pulling his leg. Until I explained about carbon atoms. Then he thought that was the coolest thing ever.\n\nIt also goes a long way to explaining why we're so concerned about global warming. Shove a bunch of carbon into the atmosphere from burning former plants (oil), kill off a large portion of our forests which use that stuff to make more plants, and you have a big problem.\n\n",
"Most of the mass of a tree comes from Carbon atoms. The tree (or any plant for that matter) takes in CO2 from the atmosphere and then releases oxygen (which we then breath in and turn into CO2 - its a good cycle). Therefore most of the mass of a tree comes from the air, not the ground.",
"Plants derive most of their mass from the air! CO2 (carbon dioxide) is converted into fuel and mass for the plant via photosynthesis. \n\nFrom their roots, plants acquire water and nutrients. Water is transitory in the ground, and thus the large amount of water used by a tree wouldn't cause a depression. And the nutrients acquired by the plant are in very minute quantities.\n\nSo, in summary, plants get their mass from the air! Cool huh!",
"Trees grow from the top, not the bottom. If you take a tree, make a mark in it, and then come back in 20 years, the mark won't have risen.",
"[Richard Feynman Explains](_URL_0_)",
"Thanks for posting this question. It's interesting, and something I've never actually wondered about before.",
"I remember answering this very question, asked to me by an eight year old.\n\nMy answer: Out of thin air. Really.\n\nOf course, he thought I was pulling his leg. Until I explained about carbon atoms. Then he thought that was the coolest thing ever.\n\nIt also goes a long way to explaining why we're so concerned about global warming. Shove a bunch of carbon into the atmosphere from burning former plants (oil), kill off a large portion of our forests which use that stuff to make more plants, and you have a big problem.\n\n"
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"http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ITpDrdtGAmo&feature=related"
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2i4fra | how is it discrimination for employers to not hire young women because they "statistically" are very likely to get pregnant, but it is totally legal for insurance companies to charge young men more because they "statistically" get more tickets? | I'm not sure what the difference is, legally...is there one? Is it actually illegal for a company to not hire a young woman for that reason, or is it just sort of taboo? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2i4fra/eli5_how_is_it_discrimination_for_employers_to/ | {
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"text": [
"Because we as a society think it's very important for everyone to have an equal shot at a job. It's not as important that everyone pays the same amount for car insurance.",
"It's discrimination in both cases, however it isn't always applied the same, and whether it's legal depends on if there are any statutes on the subject. Not all jurisdictions allow insurance companies to charge different amounts based on gender. In the UK a few years ago the insurance rates were challenged and now they have to be the same for both genders. It's also this way in some other countries, but I don't drive so I never bothered looking into it closely.",
"The entire point of insurance is to make statistically sound generalisations.\n\nJobs should be based on the individual's skills.",
"How many pregnant young men do you know?",
"Illinois Lawyer here, I worked in labor/employment law. First off, one part of your question is a bit misleading. Businesses are not allowed to discriminate in hiring on the basis of gender (Title VII). They also can not discriminate against someone in hiring on the basis of pregnancy (ADA). Businesses can, and do, discriminate against someone because they are young. This is perfectly legal unless there is a separate state law barring it (which I don't think any states have). But they can't discriminate against someone because they're too old (age 40 and up)(ADEA).\n\nHere's the rub, a young woman would have to prove she was \"not hired\" because of her gender/pregnancy. This is very difficult to prove, since the employers usually aren't going to explicitly state it or put it in writing. The best she can usually do is subpoena the resumes of all the other applicants and show that she was far and away the best candidate, thereby creating an inference she was discriminated against.\n\nInsurance companies don't stand in an employee-employer relationship with their customers, so its a totally different area of the law. Just look at medical insurance- it costs a 60 year old much more to purchase a medical insurance policy than it does a 20 year old. This is due to necessity of insurance companies to use actuarial sciences to remain profitable. \n\nI'm also sensing that you are trying to set up a \"women get treated better than men under the law\" point. Please note that both men and women receive protection under federal law against gender discrimination in the workplace. It is illegal to fire someone because he is a man, for instance. "
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1tqsxn | why do we perform better (sport, school, etc) when we are really happy? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1tqsxn/eli5_why_do_we_perform_better_sport_school_etc/ | {
"a_id": [
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"score": [
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"text": [
"Can you provide documented evidence that indicates that this is true?"
]
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[]
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