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3g2tem | why are the adult learn to swim classes i teach predominantly indian and middle eastern in the mostly white area i live in? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3g2tem/eli5_why_are_the_adult_learn_to_swim_classes_i/ | {
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"Recent immigrants generally want to do a good job integrating into their new society, so they go to community events and public gatherings to meet people, make friends, and experience their new culture.\n\nLocals typically do not, because they have other plans.",
"Because the average person in India can't afford access to a pool. In India, only the affluent can afford the membership fees to a sports club (gym + tennis courts + field + social club). \n\nAnd even if one can afford such access, especially women, are reluctant to use the pool for various social reasons. \n\nIn the middle east, it's completely impractical for women to use a pool. _URL_0_ that's a \"liberal swimsuit\" some of them even cover their face while in the pool.\n\nFirst time my wife had done anything more then dip her feet in a pool was after she left India.",
"In America, white people learn to swim when they're kids. Assuming many of your students are first-generation immigrants, they probably did not learn to swim as children in their native lands for the various social and practical reasons spelled out elsewhere. If they're native Americans, they're likely second generation, and their parents didn't take them to swim classes as children because those parents couldn't swim for the same reasons. "
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3mw0wg | why are websites forcing me to use 'mobile-friendly' websites with increasing frequency at the same time that technology is making full websites more accessible by mobile devices? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3mw0wg/eli5_why_are_websites_forcing_me_to_use/ | {
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"The reason is probably so that they can put a huge full screen ad over the page that takes way too long to load. There should be a setting in your browser to emulate a real computer, then it'll send the desktop page.",
"Websites are encouraged to have mobile versions. The algorithm that Google uses to pick the order websites appear favors the ones with mobile versions. So as time goes on more websites have mobile versions. It has nothing to do with the level of technology. ",
"My answer, as a Web developer is Boot strap. Well, Twitter Bootstrap. It is a css/java script library that makes building mobile friendly websites a breeze. Before, there would have to be a version of the page for each screen size you wanted to target. With bootstrap it is dependent on screen size so there is no \"view desktop\" page because there literally isn't a desktop page. I'm sure one could do some java script magic and build the option in, but the browser couldn't have a menu item to do it, it would need to be a link.",
"Maybe a better question based on the responses so far would be when will mobile-friendly versions of sites stop being so shitty? The problem is the site owners still want the crap on the screen, on the desktop it might only take up a small portion of a sidebar or something, and could/should be totally removed for a small screen experience. Unfortunately that could impact the revenue of the site, so instead that is allowed to stay and the content I actually want to see gets ravaged in the process.",
"My favorite is when a link to a specific page or article drops you on the front page of the mobile version. Thanks for nothing, jerks.",
"It has to do with files sizes.\n\nOn mobile sites, the size of images and videos is much smaller. This means it loads faster, a key element in wireless settings. Also it chews up less of your data.\n\nAlso, the user interface is different. Many very cool effects work well on a desktop and terribly on mobile, like hover effects.",
"Wikipedia and Google are the worst for this.\n\nWikipedia's mobile version on an iPad is literally 99% the same as their desktop version, except slightly worse for no apparent reason. If you click the link for the desktop version, you get something that _actually works better_ than the mobile version.\n\nGoogle on the iPad/iPhone is almost the same as the desktop version, except they take away the ability to go back to previous search pages. I can't figure out why the bothered to put in the effort to make this version of the website, given that the desktop version works perfectly here.\n\ntl;dr - Don't make a mobile version, please. Make an app, and let web users use the desktop version.\n"
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8y5ajl | the difference between serotonin, dopamine, and endorphins | I understand they’re all pleasure/happiness/reward neurotransmitters (I think?) but what’s the difference? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/8y5ajl/eli5_the_difference_between_serotonin_dopamine/ | {
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"Really short version:\n\nEndorphins block pain receptors. They're basically natural opioids and function in a really similar manner. They produce a similar feeling of euphoria to other opioids.\n\nDopamine controls how much you are rewarded for a positive action. It doesn't directly produce a feeling of pleasure but rather increases the desire to perform the action again.\n\nSerotonin regulates mood. More generally means that you're happier while less tends to mean you're not happy. It doesn't directly cause pleasure either.\n\nOf course, all of these have numerous other functions but you seemed to be most concerned with brain states.",
"These are natures way to motivate you to survival ,by giving you an incentive to be happy. These are responsible for your happiness. Imagine you're a cave man preparing for life .\nStage 1 :Endorphins :Physical activity ) . Activities like running climbing hunting, releases Endorphins that makes you feel good just doing physical work. \nResults: increase in physical \nFitness and skills\n\nStage 2: Dopamine:Focus and reward for hunting. you need to hunt and find fruit, which requires physical and mental ability, and dopamine is released when you find the fruit, and figure a way to bring it down. A dopamine shot is given when you eat the fruits of your hard work. \nResult: motivated to achieve goals and targets\n\nStage 3. Serotonin: Recognition for your hard work and hunting fruits. Imagine you have found a way to bring down a fruit from this tree filled with snakes. And once the fruit is down your tribe praises and recognizes your brilliance. A serotonin is given when you feel important and recognized.\nResult: Motivation to do things that are useful to the group.and Stay in the group.\n\nStage 4: Oxytocin: Love for your long term efforts and sacrifice. Now that the group recognizes you as a good Hunter, you come to the village with pride and the young women are now so attracted to you. You have sex and the women shower amazing love and affection. A oxytocin shot is given when you feel loved.\nResult: motivation to do things for the greater good and receive sex.",
"I'll copy a comment I left a month or so ago on a very similar question (that also inquired about oxytocin):\n\nDopamine is probably the closest thing to a \"happiness chemical\" of the four. It is responsible for the feeling of reward when you do something you're proud of, or when you give your body something it wants (food, drugs, sex, etc).\n\nEndorphins generally can be thought of as more of a physical happiness. They are chemicals that calm your body, ease pain, and provide a general comfort physically. This is what gets released in response to pain: after a serious injury, or even by eating something really spicy. \n\nSeratonin can be responsible for happiness because, in general, is is responsible for our overall mood. It is theorized to be at least partially responsible for consciousness in general. It is the reason we feel anything at all. It can be \"happy\" but it has many many more roles than just that. It is essentially responsible for how we perceive reality, whether that be good or bad. \n\nOxytocin is responsible for the feeling of love/infatuation, which can be considered as happy, but that is really a different feeling all together. You can be happy and not feel love, and conversely, you can feel love without being happy. \n\nThis is all a very broad generalization, as these chemicals have many functions other than this, and there is definitely some overlap, but for the most part this is accurate for the purposes of your question. \n\nYou can get a good idea of what these chemicals do by looking at the effects of illicit drugs that work on the same system. Uppers like cocaine and amphetamine affect the dopamine system in your brain. That's why they make you feel good, happy, and energetic. Opiates such as heroin and Vicodin work on the same pathways as endorphins, this is why they are pain killers. Psychedelics affect your serotonin pathways, this is why they completely alter your perception of reality. As far as I know, however, there is no illicit replacement for oxytocin. \n\nSource: Chemistry Major",
"What is the difference between adrenaline and norepinephrine?\n\n\nAnd now regarding the question.\n\nWhen I fell with my bike, I made a hole in my pants and I got a bruise but I didn't feel pain. It wasn't until 5-10 min later when I got home that I felt pain. What was being released? My guess is Adrenaline but I'm not 100% sure. \n\n\n\nWhen I have a headache and masturbate, it obviously feels good and my headache seems to dissappear but when I stop masturbating I can feel the headache coming back. My guess is endorphins but yet again not 100% sure. \n\n\n\nWhen I listen to music I kinda feel happy. I really love music and I can even stare at a wall for minutes while I have my headphones on and not be bored. I can also just lie on my bed with headphones and just close my eyes and not move a muscle for 2 hours and not be bored. This obviously only works when I have music so my guess is that Dopamine is being released but yet again not 100% sure.\n\n\n\nWhen I was a kid I played soccer and I remember once when I scored a beautiful goal and I could hear my trainer/coach say: \"What a beautiful fucking goal\". After hearing him say it, I kinda felt proud and like I \"belonged\" on the team. I also felt important. My guess is that Serotonin was being released but yet again not 100% sure. \n\n\n\nI remember when I finished my last big assignment in school, I felt like I was at piece because I've been working on this for a year. I didn't feel super happy but I did feel content and at piece like a whole chapter was done in my life. This feeling got even more intense when I found out I passed. My guess here is oxytocin but yet again not 100%.\n\n\n\nDid I get these things right or where some things wrong? \n\n\n\n\n\n"
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1269gm | the difference between advertising and marketing | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1269gm/eli5_the_difference_between_advertising_and/ | {
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"**Marketing** is a business role that analyzes and/or makes decisions about everything needed to bring a product to market: research, manufacturing, finance, packaging, advertising, sales…etc.\n\n**Advertising** is one piece of marketing: communicating a product to potential consumers.",
"**Marketing** is an encapsulating term. It refers, most generally, to what is known as \"the 4 P's\": 1) Product 2) Place 3) Price 4) Promotion. \n\nDeveloping a marketing strategy involves a multitude of elements designed to best reach your target market. This envolves figuring out what the target market wants, and putting it into the products design, manufacturing, and price. For example, a Chevy Cruze and a Rolls Royce both have extremely different target markets. When designing a marketing strategy for a the Cruze, things most important for the target market are probably, a low price, high utility, and reliability. A marketing program will be developed around those aspects in order to best sell this car to that target market. \n\nA Rolls Royce on the other hand has a target market most likely interested in prestige, and success among other things. \n\nNow, you do not see advertising for Chevy Cruzes where you see advertising for a Rolls Royce. As well, you won't see a Rolls Royce dealership next to a Chevy dealership. This is regarding the \"place\" aspect of the four P's. \n\nAdvertising, most simply, is regarding the \"promotion\" aspect of the marketing strategy. It is designed to take all of the important aspects discovered about the target consumer in the marketing strategy, and use those aspects to effectively attract someone to buy the actual product. \n\nHope that helps. ",
"ELI5: If you were to run a lemonade stand, marketing means deciding the kinds of lemonade to sell, where your stand should be located, who you're likely to sell lemonade to, and how much you should sell your lemonade for. Advertising would mean where and how many posters for your lemonade stand you should put up in your school/neighborhood."
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5ekdxh | the difference between a website and a web app | I know (well, I think I do) that an app is basically a standalone program that performs its own functions, and that a website is an external destination within some form of a browser, but where do you draw the line between a web app and a website? Something to do with the way users interface with it? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5ekdxh/eli5_the_difference_between_a_website_and_a_web/ | {
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"An web app is an App within a browser. Meaning it is an application simply integrated for use within a browser, but can be used as a standalone application. I think a good example would be _URL_0_ , it is a website that contains many web apps for mathematics and etc, but not every individual web app is a \"website\".",
"I dunno why you got automod'd twice, your post still shows up. Anyway.\n\nYou've got apps vs sites right. A web app is a website. It's just a website that runs *so much* code and functionality that the interface ends up being more like an app.\n\nIn the early days of the internet, websites were pretty \"dead\" and the most interactive thing was links that took you to other pages. (Which at the time was still pretty cool). Then came form entries, where you could type stuff in or hit checkboxes and it'd be sent to the server...but that'd still require a refresh or new page. Then came our buddy javascript, which opened up a lot of doors to running code and making lots of objects and widgets happen on a page.\n\nThe modern concept that \"marks the line\" between website and web app is AJAX: Asrynchonrous Javascript And XML. \"Asynchronous\" means that the page doesn't have to be refreshed in order to get stuff and send stuff from/to the server. XML is an open-ended way to store whatever information you might need to be moving around.",
"It's not really a well defined boundary, but more representative of a general trend. Early websites were static websites, that would simply serve content to the user. Then with the introduction of Javascript, AJAX, and later HTML5, they became more interactive. Now you have websites that behave a lot more like traditional desktop apps, and so they are called \"web apps\".\n\nModern JS engines are powerful and it's possible to do things like 3D rendering entirely in browser (technically this isn't standard, but it's still supported in major browsers). There are compilers that will take C code and compile it down to JS, and you frameworks that allow you do compile the same code for both web and native targets. That blurs the boundary between a website and an application.\n\nBut there's not really a well defined line between them. It's not a case of \"every website that uses JS is a web app\" because that's just about everything these days, even if it's just for analytics.",
"An app is client based, and a website is server based. \n\nAn app is a program that lives on your device and views information from a server.\n\nA website allows you to access information from a server without installing the program.\n\n",
"In simple terms, a web app is an application that uses a website(s) or some other web tech for its user interface."
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5s4lw5 | do ad and bc timelines literally line up with the real-life birth of jesus of nazareth? if so, why do so many non-christians use the birth of some random guy as their way to tell the year? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5s4lw5/eli5_do_ad_and_bc_timelines_literally_line_up/ | {
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"no they don't. at least not exactly: _URL_0_\n\n\"most scholars assume a date of birth between 6 BC and 4 BC\"\n\nIt wasn't changed because a) the exact date of birth can't be pinpointed and b) that would have required changing basically all dates EVER in western history.",
" > Do AD and BC timelines literally line up with the real-life birth of Jesus of Nazareth?\n\nNo they don't. They are likely off by 4 to 6 years.\n\n > If so, why do so many non-Christians use the birth of some random guy as their way to tell the year?\n\nBecause it was the calendar which the Western cultures settled upon and it is much more useful to be able to agree on dates than not. Also don't imagine that Gregorian calendar is the only one to exist or be used, it is just the one you are familiar with.",
"(1) Nobody knows. Some scholars have tried to date Jesus' birth to 6-4 BC, based on references to historical events. But since there is no definitive evidence of Jesus' birthdate, this is admittedly just an educated guess.\n\n(2) The BC/AD scheme was created in 525 AD, and became widely adopted around 800 AD. The Gregorian calendar was the most common in Europe, and as European culture and trade became supreme other cultures adopted it. Since it has been the standard for the last 1200+ years, why should we bother using anything different? Any dating scheme we pick will be equally arbitrary, and it's just easier to keep using the existing calendar than to go through the trouble of changing it.",
"All calenders throughout time have been based of the birth of a key figure, beginning of a monarchical reign or a unique event. Our estimation of dates to our calender uses these millions of different calenders to attempt to calculate simultaneous events around the world. The key BENEFIT to continuing to use the Gregorian calendar is its longevity. We can know precise dates for key historical events going back nearly 2 millenia because all the legwork for date correlation has already been done for the majority of Europe & the Middle East. Thus the calender has become the global dating system & de facto default of all Western civilization. Non-Christians (esp militant atheists) are trying to change the nomenclature from Anno Domini (Year of Our Lord) to CE (Current Era) & BC (Before Christ) to BCE (Before Current Era). "
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1jehuu | when you miss step in your sleep why do you kick your leg out in real life ? | it happens a lot to me and i just don't know why it happens, is it a chemical reaction in the body? or maybe a survival thing ? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1jehuu/eli5_when_you_miss_step_in_your_sleep_why_do_you/ | {
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"Usually when we are asleep our brain paralyses us so that we *can't* act out our dreams. When this system is overactive, a person will have [sleep paralysis](_URL_0_) - when they wake up they can't move. When this system is underactive, a person will have [parasomnia](_URL_1_) - unusual movements during sleep. \n\nSleep walkers are a type of parasomniac. "
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1gyvzr | ps4's gddr5 vs xbone's ddr3 | I did a few quick searches and came up with nothing.
Can someone give me the low down on the two types of memory? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1gyvzr/eli5ps4s_gddr5_vs_xbones_ddr3/ | {
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"GDDR5 is memory designed for use in graphics cards. It is very expensive, but very fast. \n\nDDR3 is memory designed for use in General-purpose PC's (eg, most desktop computers sold today come with DDR3). It is slower than GDDR5. \n\nThe technical difference between them is that GDDR5 is tuned to run as fast as possible, without regard for things like heat and power usage (whereas DDR3 is tuned to run relatively fast, but balanced with heat and thermal). \n\nThe PS4 has about 175 GB/s of memory bandwidth. The Xbox One has about 65 GB/s of memory bandwidth. This is a huge difference, and make a big difference in the system's ability to create \"good\" graphics. ",
"GDDR5 is a little faster than DDR3 overall. Though, despite the 5 in its name GDDR5 is actually just a variant of ddr3 memory and isn't all that different, each has different pros or cons at the detailed technical spec level\n\nWhat does it mean for the Ps4 and Xbox One? Well we don't know yet because we don't know how each will be utilized/optimizes for the system will. It's a wait and see. And specs really don't matter too much in game consoles as compared to PCs, they work very differently. "
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dn7cwq | how does a rope and pulley system reduce amount of strength needed to lift heavy objects? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/dn7cwq/eli5_how_does_a_rope_and_pulley_system_reduce/ | {
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"It pulls more. \nA 3:1 you move 3 ft, the load only moves one, but your pulling two ropes up rather then one. \n\nA 5:1 you pull 5 ft, the load only moves 1, but your pulling 3 ropes rather than two. \n\nYour pulling gets spread out more making it more efficient.",
"A single pulley doubles the length of the rope. So you end up doubling the distance you have to pull thereby cutting in half the amount of energy per unit of distance.",
"Let’s say you tie a rope to something that is big heavy. \nIf you try to pull the rope to lift it you have to have the strength to lift the big heavy thing.\n\nNow let’s say you put the rope over something else.\nThe weight of the big heavy thing is now pulling down on the something else, but you still need to hold the rope otherwise it would fall.\n\nBut since the something else is taking half of the weight, it’s easier for you to hold the rope.\n\nAdd more something else’s and you are reducing the amount of weight for you because more things are soaking up that weight."
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3ap7p3 | why isn't there one international mother's day & one father's day? | Why isn't there a international Mother's Day & an international Father's Day instead of separate ones depending on the country you reside in? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3ap7p3/elif_why_isnt_there_one_international_mothers_day/ | {
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"There are very few holidays that are international at all, and none that I know of that are near universal. Why would you think these two would be unique in that respect?"
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1mwrql | how can las vegas charge two different ticket prices for clubs depending on whether you're male or female without being sued for gender discrimination? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1mwrql/eli5_how_can_las_vegas_charge_two_different/ | {
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"Because gender discrimination laws aren't as strict as, say, racial discrimination laws. If you have some sort of business reason to discriminate based on gender, you're usually allowed to do it. (It's generally believed that clubs make more money if they have lots of women in them.)",
"Vegas resident here who has done some work for club promoters. \n\nNighclubs are allowed to do this for the same reason that hooters is allowed to discriminate against certain women. It affects the club's bottomline. Women go to clubs to have fun, men go to pick up women (I don't care if you think otherwise, this is the general truth). If clubs didn't give preferential treatment to women the amount of female club-goers would diminish--by like a lot. No straight guy wants to go to a club where the ratio is 1 women to 30 guys. So now the male demographic is gone and a club is left empty. That is bad for business. ",
"Do note that some states (e.g. California) and more progressive European countries have already banned this.\n\nIn a few decades it'll likely be banned in Vegas as well, assuming the US becomes more progressive and less conservative (which is the current trend).",
"It's a privately owned club. They should have the right to allow in whomever they wish and deny entrance to whomever they wish. Why the Hell would there be laws against that? ",
"If have a men's night as apposed to a ladies night they will assume you are running a gay bar.",
"My mind immediately jumped to that \"models that serve\" line from Ocean's Eleven (or maybe Twelve).",
"Past resident of Vegas here. They actually are not allowed to do it. Go [here](_URL_0_) for details."
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jnrxg | why norton and mcafee have bad reputations | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/jnrxg/eli5_why_norton_and_mcafee_have_bad_reputations/ | {
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"Because they really slow your system down a lot, use up a lot of your processor power and memory. There are free alternatives that are much faster and are, well... free.\nMcAffee and Norton use scumbag tricks like paying pc manufacturers to pre-install a 'trial' version on all computers they sell to make their selves know to the customer. (bloatware)",
"Both of them started out as really good programs, and had a lot going for them in the 1990's. Eventually, they got bigger and bigger, due to the increased amount of threats *and* the need to expand the scope of the products in order to get people to feel that buying the same program version after version was still adding value to their lives.\n\nThere are four main approaches to running antivirus:\n\n1 - Scan drives or directories when asked, and/or regularly scheduled.\n\n2 - Actively examine programs when they are executed.\n\n3 - Examine all content coming from and going into the internet from the local computer.\n\n4 - Examine all documents when they are opened.\n\nThe more of these approaches that are taken, the slower your system's responsiveness is, but the more secure it is. False positives, or deleting stuff that isn't *really* a problem, has put people off on various anti-virus software, including Norton, Symantec, and AVG.\n\nMore computer-savvy users can often get away with just #1, if they are rigorous about scanning documents, follow other sorts of security measures, and generally know how to \"play it safe\". People who are not \"system builders\" and are not techies may not know enough to make this sort of judgement call, and many retailers thereby put antivirus on computers when shipped, often just 30 day trials, often of Norton or Symantec (both owned by Symantec, it should be noted). Symatec pays the manufacturers to do this.\n\nThose 30 day trials come up, and then people are asked to pay for what in many cases they either thought they paid for with the computer itself, or something that *damned well ought to have come with it*. Furthermore, once you buy the product, a year later, the company is asking you to buy a license for another year. Many people, particularly those not familiar with customer-unfriendly licensing schemes, consider this a form of extortion.\n\nAs it stands, my personal recommendation is that if you're running Windows, try out Microsoft Security Essentials, regardless of how many of the above approaches you want. It surprises me to say this, as I had long been a fan of IBM's anti-virus suite, then AVG, but MSE is actually one of the least intrusive and more effective choices out there, and it's free. If the idea of a Microsoft solution simply will not do, I'd point you in the direction of Kaspersky's.",
"Norton and McAfee were popular and pretty much the leaders in the field. Everyone started buying copies to protect their computer. But this also meant that everyone had the same type of protection. Virus creators changed their tactics and started looking for specific vulnerabilities in these two programs. Because nothing is truly safe, not even a Mac, they were key targets and their services became less and less useful as more holes were being found / made than Norton / McAfee could patch.\n\nNow, not *too* many people have Norton / McAfee anymore (still a large number, but not as many before) and so they have to sell their antivirus software at prices high enough to justify all the work required to keep them tough enough.\n\nFurthermore, there are free antivirus programs out there that run faster than those two programs, while detecting and stopping even higher percentages of viruses.",
"Because THEY ARE THE VIRUS.",
"Because they really slow your system down a lot, use up a lot of your processor power and memory. There are free alternatives that are much faster and are, well... free.\nMcAffee and Norton use scumbag tricks like paying pc manufacturers to pre-install a 'trial' version on all computers they sell to make their selves know to the customer. (bloatware)",
"Both of them started out as really good programs, and had a lot going for them in the 1990's. Eventually, they got bigger and bigger, due to the increased amount of threats *and* the need to expand the scope of the products in order to get people to feel that buying the same program version after version was still adding value to their lives.\n\nThere are four main approaches to running antivirus:\n\n1 - Scan drives or directories when asked, and/or regularly scheduled.\n\n2 - Actively examine programs when they are executed.\n\n3 - Examine all content coming from and going into the internet from the local computer.\n\n4 - Examine all documents when they are opened.\n\nThe more of these approaches that are taken, the slower your system's responsiveness is, but the more secure it is. False positives, or deleting stuff that isn't *really* a problem, has put people off on various anti-virus software, including Norton, Symantec, and AVG.\n\nMore computer-savvy users can often get away with just #1, if they are rigorous about scanning documents, follow other sorts of security measures, and generally know how to \"play it safe\". People who are not \"system builders\" and are not techies may not know enough to make this sort of judgement call, and many retailers thereby put antivirus on computers when shipped, often just 30 day trials, often of Norton or Symantec (both owned by Symantec, it should be noted). Symatec pays the manufacturers to do this.\n\nThose 30 day trials come up, and then people are asked to pay for what in many cases they either thought they paid for with the computer itself, or something that *damned well ought to have come with it*. Furthermore, once you buy the product, a year later, the company is asking you to buy a license for another year. Many people, particularly those not familiar with customer-unfriendly licensing schemes, consider this a form of extortion.\n\nAs it stands, my personal recommendation is that if you're running Windows, try out Microsoft Security Essentials, regardless of how many of the above approaches you want. It surprises me to say this, as I had long been a fan of IBM's anti-virus suite, then AVG, but MSE is actually one of the least intrusive and more effective choices out there, and it's free. If the idea of a Microsoft solution simply will not do, I'd point you in the direction of Kaspersky's.",
"Norton and McAfee were popular and pretty much the leaders in the field. Everyone started buying copies to protect their computer. But this also meant that everyone had the same type of protection. Virus creators changed their tactics and started looking for specific vulnerabilities in these two programs. Because nothing is truly safe, not even a Mac, they were key targets and their services became less and less useful as more holes were being found / made than Norton / McAfee could patch.\n\nNow, not *too* many people have Norton / McAfee anymore (still a large number, but not as many before) and so they have to sell their antivirus software at prices high enough to justify all the work required to keep them tough enough.\n\nFurthermore, there are free antivirus programs out there that run faster than those two programs, while detecting and stopping even higher percentages of viruses.",
"Because THEY ARE THE VIRUS."
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51lo3w | why most house roofs are sloped as surely this will only minimise the amount of space and limit expandability. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/51lo3w/eli5_why_most_house_roofs_are_sloped_as_surely/ | {
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"Mostly so that rain and snow don't collect on the roof, but also for style as well. You'll notice that most larger buildings have flat roofs, because they (a) have regular maintenance that homes don't, (b) are built more robustly.",
"Doubg flat roofs is more expensive because it has to be able to withstand a heavy snow load and needs rubber roofing because there will often be standing water. ",
"Sloped roofs allow rain water, snow, leaves, etc. to slide off more easily, which reduce strain and stress on roof and build and reduce likelihood of leaks starting where standing water finds a weak point.",
"Snow. Rarely do you see a flat roof where there is snowfall because snow is heavy and lingers during the winter months. "
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a685l1 | if every person that had a drivers license was an organ donor would there be any one on the organ donation waiting lists? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/a685l1/eli5_if_every_person_that_had_a_drivers_license/ | {
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"Yes. But the list would be shorter.\n\nThe large numbers of car related deaths means that by chance there would be more parts available. But some people require very specific parts.\n\nAlso, car accidents can damage the goods.\n\nSo yes. It would help, lots. But it wouldn't single handedly get rid of the list.",
"Yes because of the time sensitivity of most organ transplants. Most organ donors are contributing to medical research more than transportation. ",
"It's a system called \"presumed consent\", and several countries have it. It's been debated in the US [for a long time](_URL_0_ ) (that article is from 2005). Some people think it's something of a problem to recycle folks who didn't get around to putting themselves on a \"do not donate\" list.",
"Yes of course organ donation and receiving a donated organ is a very complicated and complex process, the organ donor has to be checked for disease obviously before hand\n\nBut the patient who's going to get the organ has to go through a immunity suppressive treatment so that their body doesn't reject the new organ and just because everybody's an organ donor doesn't mean that everybody's giving up their organs. \n\n organ donation typically only occurs when you're dead but even then the person has to be a qualifying organ donor in other words if some fat Joe Schmo has a heart attack they're not pulling anything from him.\n\nNow let's say a teenager dies that's a prime organ donor right there and they will check and pull what they can to save other lives.\n\nSo in reality is a lot of people are organ donors it's just that we don't have enough healthy people who are dying to donate healthy organs it's kind of a catch-22",
"Probably. The chances of being in a state where your organs can be donated when you die is pretty low. Like brain dead after a car wreck but able to be sustained by a ventilator on the hospital.\n\nAnd then you need to actually be a match for someone. They really look for full matches (or as close to full matches as possible). ",
"A common urban myth is that the tick on your drivers license saying you want your organs donated does not actually mean anything. The moment you die it is no longer your organs to give away. Your body is the property of your next of kin. They are the ones who have to donate your organs away. Your drivers license may help them reach a decision but the doctors can not make the decision based on your drivers license or a donor card. But if everyone would donate their organs the waiting lists would drop a bit but not disappear completely. There will always be some work coordinating available organs with different types to appropriate patients."
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6u7u4y | how can soft-bodied organic lifeforms like luminescent fish survive at pressures that would instantly crush a human being to the size of a 6-sided die? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/6u7u4y/eli5_how_can_softbodied_organic_lifeforms_like/ | {
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"Three states of matter: solid, liquid, and gas.\n\nApplying pressure to a solid or liquid has no effect on the matter.\n\nOnly gases (and, in some cases, plasmas) are affected by pressure. Simply put, these little fish at the bottom of the ocean have no gases in them. No air pockets inside their bodies means no effects from the extreme deep-ocean pressure.\n\nYou know how our lungs and ear drums would immediately be crushed by the pressure if we were too deep in the ocean? Well, guess where air is found...\n\nAlso, fish in the midnight zone do not require much oxygen at all to survive and have extremely low metabolisms, which are obviously evolutionary features allowing them to live in such an environment."
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5ld3ls | why does it hurt when you swallow a beverage "wrong" ? | Some people will say "oh it just went down the wrong tube..." what is the real reasoning behind this sharp pain? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5ld3ls/eli5_why_does_it_hurt_when_you_swallow_a_beverage/ | {
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"When you take too big a swallow, it stretches your esophagus, causing it to spasm. This hurts. ",
"There are two major \"tubes\" that your mouth leads into. One is the esophagus, while the other is the trachea. \n\nThe esophagus is where foods and liquids go. The trachea leads to your lungs. When you swallow something, a tiny flap called the epiglottis prevents food particles from going into the trachea.\n\nHowever, sometimes this doesn't always work, and food and liquids will go down the wrong pipe (into the trachea instead of the esophagus). This causes nervous reflexes, such as coughing and choking, to get those particles out.",
"As I understand it, your esophagus works in tandem with your mouth to time when it needs to start contracting and relaxing to move food into your stomach. Think of this action like moving a bead from the bottom of your toothpaste container to the opening using both hands instead of one.\n\nWhen you swallow \"wrong\", you might grab some air instead of the soda at first, which causes some uncomfortable pressure on your esophagus as it moves the air down into your stomach ahead of the beverage.\n\nEver notice you can give pretty rad burps after swallowing \"wrong\" like that, too?",
"The OP is talking about two different things. In the title, we are lead to believe that the OP is talking about \"stretching your esophagus, causing it to spasm\"\n\nHowever, in the comment portion, OP is talking about \"There are two major \"tubes\" that your mouth leads into. One is the esophagus, while the other is the trachea.\"",
"There are two pipes in your throat: one for food/drink and one for air. When you normally swallow, your air tube closes off and food/drink goes into your food pipe. Two things can go wrong to cause an unpleasant sesnation: 1) food/drink enters your air tube by accident, making you cough and splutter, this is the body's natural response to protect your lungs. 2) the food/drink goes into your food pipe, but something holds it up and it becomes stuck, leading to pain/discomfort.\n\nSource: Medical Speech Pathologist specialising in swallowing disorders. ",
"The muscles in your throat scramble to save you from it actually going down the wrong tube. To do that, that they have to do a lot more work than normal. And that puts unusual pressure on the nerves in the area and maybe even rips the muscles involved a bit.. both of those would cause pain that stands out from normal sensations, and would be easily noticed.",
"There's a slide that goes from your mouth to your tummy, but it's usually closed off by a little gate. When you're drinking juice, the gate opens so that Juice Man can slide down to your tummy. If you're not paying enough attention when you're drinking, the gates to the slide will forget to open. So when Juice Man jumps for the slide, he slams right through the gate. That's why it hurts when you swallow wrong.",
"Sometimes it hurts even when the drink went down the \"right\" tube.\n\nThis happens most often with carbonated drinks. The lower pressure outside of the can/bottle and the heat of your body makes carbon dioxide to come out of the soda/pop/coke as you drink it. This is what causes the fizzling effect. It's cool and tasty as long as it happens in your mouth.\n\nBut what if the fizzling keeps going on after you've swallowed? Your esophagus was preparing to handle an ounce of liquid, but suddenly it has an ounce of liquid *and* a large volume of gas in it. It's as if you swallowed a deflated balloon and it somehow inflated itself while you were swallowing it! This causes painful stretching of the esophagus.\n\n[Edit] Obviously, this is more likely to happen when the drink hasn't had enough time to fizzle out before you swallow, like when you drink straight out of a freshly opened, cold can on a hot summer day.",
"When a beverage is swallowed \"wrong\" generally it is due to a pocket of air in the throat being trapped below the thing being swallowed. This air causes a slightly more dry spot directly below the object being swallowed and thus we feel it more dramatically. This feeling is basically due to the pocket of air, but is also potentially aided by a spasm of the throat. ",
"A lot of misinformation in this thread...\n\nIt has nothing to do with water going down the wrong tube. What happens is that when you normally swallow, you initiate a series of muscular contractions in your throat all the way down to your lower esophageal sphincter. These contractions will normally work to push food/drink down the esophagus into the stomach (this is why you can swallow upside down and not have food/water come out of your mouth). Think of squeezing a pea out of a straw to visualize how it works.\n\nWhen you \"swallow wrong\", what happens is that the muscle contractions, instead of taking place right above the bolus to push it down, actually takes place at the bolus, causing pain as the muscles squeeze the bolus, instead of pushing it.",
"Basically there are two tubes in your throat. Your esophagus and trachea. Your esophagus leads to your stomach while you're trachea leads to your lungs. You basically inhaled the liquid so it went into your lungs. Your body freaks out and tries to get the foreign liquid out of your lungs causing the pain.",
"For background, I'm a 4th year resident in otolaryngology, so this is right up my alley. To first understand your question more clearly, let's define a few things. \n\nDysphasia: dysfunction of swallow\nOdynophagia: pain with swallow\nAspiration: food/liquid/saliva entering your trachea\n\nAspiration occurs when you have some type of dysfunction of your larynx (structure composed of and supporting vocal cords that elevates during swallow) and epiglottis (cartilage flap that closes over your larynx to protect airway when swallowing). Aspiration cause you to cough. Typically is not painful. This is what happens when people say \"it went down the wrong pipe.\" It can become an issue when it leads to aspiration pneumonia. Older folks and smokers (or other individuals whose lungs and windpipe cannot optimally clear mucus) can develop an infection of the lungs if bacteria continues to enter this area and is not cleared properly. \n\n\nDysphasia can be divided up into a few different categories. \n\nOral - involving the mouth, all voluntary muscle movement. Thing of someone with a paralyzed tongue trying to push a food bolus to the back of their mouth. Very difficult. \n\nOropharyngeal - a combination of voluntary and involuntary muscle movement. This phase of swallowing is basically your active swallow initiation motion followed by involuntary motion of pharyngeal muscles. Elderly with weak pharyngeal muscles, or someone who has suffered a stroke affecting this area. Additionally, at this stage, if the epiglottis fails to descend properly, aspiration can occur.\n \nEsophageal - completely involuntary muscle movement. Dysphasia in this phase can be functional or mechanical. Mechanical occurs if there is some type of obstruction in the esophagus, like a ring, web, or tumor. This type of dysphasia occurs mainly with solid food and not liquid. Functional dysphagia occurs if there is some type of improper muscle motion, like lower esophageal sphincter spasm or diffuse esophageal spasm. It occurs with solid and liquid. Basically there is either a physiologic miscommunication among the nerves or a chronic problem. \n\nAll these types of dysphagia can present with pain in different areas based on the location of the dysfunction. Typically in the morning, a short lived cramp/pain with swallowing is likely due to an esophageal spasm. ",
"Does anybody ever eat peanut butter or even chips way too fast and it feels like it's stuck in your throats moving down so slowly and it hurts. Until you get a glass of water then you're ok."
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2jkewa | why hasn't traditional text messaging (sms) changed. why do we still have things like character limitations? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2jkewa/eli5_why_hasnt_traditional_text_messaging_sms/ | {
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"Because the method of texting hadn't changed pretty much at all. Sms is still using capacities that the phone system was initially designed with. In fact Sms was a totally unintentional thing. It uses a kind of debugging and maintenance channel, that techs used to zip small messages back and forth. That evolved into Sms. Really there hasnt been a huge market push to change it. Nobody wants to text a huge wall, and if they do their phone likely will handle the breaking of the message. ",
"There is no need for it to change. very few texts hit the character limit. "
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2offkj | how do the crayola markers that only draw on paper work? | Just super curious how it works. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2offkj/eli5how_do_the_crayola_markers_that_only_draw_on/ | {
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"I know it depends on the type you get but if its the one I had as a kid it was the paper that made it magic real. the paper had a chemical in it that when the marker was pressed to it and it released it chemical colour, they mixed only with each other making a colour stoke on the page. that's also why if you did it fast enough there actually was a delay."
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729vfv | how are television shows/radio programs chosen? | I know I sound dumb, but is there someone working at the company of the broadcasters in front of a big control panel choosing what to air for which time? Or is it a playlist auto generated? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/729vfv/eli5_how_are_television_showsradio_programs_chosen/ | {
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"Its extremely planned out, you have entire teams of people doing this in their scheduling department. There's a lot of research, analysis and data that goes into exactly what to put into each time slot.\n\nIt is not haphazard at all, very detailed planning"
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3jna7y | why did myspace fail? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3jna7y/eli5_why_did_myspace_fail/ | {
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"To quote Abe Simpsons \"I used to be with it, then they changed what \"it\" was.\" \n\nThat's kind of how society works. Geocities used to be new and cool. Then something new called MySpace showed up and everyone dumped GeoCities and went to the new thing. A while later Facebook was the cool/new thing so everyone dumped MySpace. \n\nThat's just how it goes, and not just on The Internet. People are always jumping to the newer/cooler thing. Facebook isn't *completely* dead yet since they've been able to stay ahead of the curve a bit by acquiring a lot of the new/cool things, but that won't last forever. ",
"When Facebook first came out, it was exclusive to only people who had university email addresses, it was supposed to be a \"college student only social network\" The exclusivity made people want to be on it. This exclusivity combined with some key features like groups and status updates that only existed, at the time, only on Facebook made people want to use Facebook more. For a long time most people were on both Myspace and Facebook but Facebook was adding features that people wanted faster than Myspace.",
"They changed their age limit from 16 to 13, which caused all the \"older\" kids to move to facebook since myspace was now flooded with a bunch of tweens. Facebook is facing the opposite problem since those teens joined to have a place of their own, but now their grandparents are on the website.",
"A huge factor was customization: myspace was of the opinion that people want to be able to customize their space----music, flashing animation, their favorite teams, etc. And they were right, people DO want to customize their space.\n\n\nBut most people are tasteless, tacky fucks, and myspace quickly grew to resemble a chintzy E-vegas in Hell. Everyone's page took 2 minutes to load and crashed your shit. Broadband was still a thing of the future for most people. It was a nightmare.\n\n\nFb was neat, tidy, exclusive. Only college people here, all lined up and organized. Here are their pictures, there is their contact info, nowhere is their buggy green and purple layout and autoloading limp bizkit loop.\n\n\nThis is the same difference between Apple and pc: you can do anything with pc, and the results are wildly disparate. People think they love Mac, but in reality, Mac isn't better than the best pcs, or even comparably priced pcs. Macs only offer one thing pcs don't-----simple uniformity.\n\n\nTom from myspace gave the people what they asked for, and they abandoned him. Let that be a lesson to you; design something for everyone and it'll work for no one.\n\n\nEDIT: I'm not anti Apple. I use a Mac g5, a mid level pc, an Android phone and an ipad, daily.\n\n\nThat's why I know that Mac's superiority is a myth. PCs come in all shapes and sizes: economy, luxury, workhorse, show piece.\n\n\nMacs come luxury and up.\n\n\nThis gives people the illusion that Macs are inherently better, when in fact what is better is that you'll never use a weaK Mac because they don't make them for that price point.\n\n\nThis is also why there is Honda and lexus, even though they're the same----if honda and lexus merge names, their identity will be muddied. It's better that lexus be known for luxury and honda for affordable quality. \n\n\nTrue of Toyota and Infiniti, Mirimax and Disney, and a shit-ton of \"organic, fresh, local\" foods that are in fact owned by international conglomerates. \n\n\nApple guards their name as well as anybody, and at their height, they had a cult whose adherents can still be seen.....some might say in this very thread's comments.\n\n\nMacs are great machines----as would be any number of comparably priced pcs. But only Mac has a guarantee, and if Tommy Boy taught me anything, it's that people need a guarantee...And that Chris Farley was a genius.\n\n\nEDIT: I GOT MY CARS TWISTED AND I'M LEAVING EM BECAUSE THAT'S WHAT FARLEY WOULD DO heeheehaheehaheehaheeheeha\n",
"Hey do you guys remember Angelfire as well, that and Geocities were always competing for something, those were the simple days lol.",
"it mostly had to do with lax/no security on the site leading to a massive spam problem. See, Myspace was wildly popular, far more so than Facebook. This popularity lead to it being massively overvalued by investors, many of whom speculated wildly on its value without any basis for their claims, due to online social networks of that scale being very new at the time. Thus, it was bought by Newscorp for $580 million, far more than it was actually worth.\n\nThis purchase put pressure on those who ran Myspace to produce a great deal of money in order for their corporate bosses to turn a large profit, quickly. problem is, Myspace had never actually generated the amount of revenue they were now expected to. This lead to a desperate solution on the part of the programmers; spambots. they began allowing massive amounts of spambots on behalf of various other websites, mostly porn and pseudo-dating sites, to send spam through the messaging and friend request system. this quickly got out of control. And this was allowed easily because there was at first no captcha system to verify that the person creating a profile or logging in was in fact a real person. despite how easy it is to implement such a system, those who ran Myspace chose not to do so, because they were being paid off. So the site filled up with spambots. Before long, if you were a user, as soon as you logged in, you had to deal with literally dozens of messages from profiles of beautiful \"girls\" named Brittany, AmBeR, Brianna, etc., all of whom had a message in the \"about me\" section explaining that their pictures are too racy for my space, so click on this link! It was pretty conspicuous to me, because I'm a gay man and my profile made this abundantly clear. So I'm supposed to believe all these girls logged in, saw my profile, and decided to show me their tits? \n\nit's often said that this caused everyone to switch to facebook. But in fact, most of us college-age kids were using Facebook and Myspace at the same time, quite happily. so this decline happened, and we all just decided to stop going to Myspace as often, then stopped completely. \n\n[This post](_URL_0_) also details another issue Myspace had that went too far, with HTML coding. but that's only an additional factor, not the main one. There was also a serious issue with bugginess and pages that weren't working, not sure why that went downhill so fast. All these issues acted together to cause Myspace to die, but the spam was the main issue.\n\nEDIT: **tl,dr:** the creators decided to make a quick buck by letting spammers run rampant all over the site. this made most users get frustrated and lose interested. When they finally shut down the spammers, it was far too late, as most users quit coming to Myspace, deciding to stay only on facebook instead. Myspace also got buggy at the same time.",
"Two things -- among others, certainly -- killed MySpace. One is undoubtedly Facebook. The other is the website itself. The website allowed a substantial amount editing and customising which meant that the formatting on many users' pages got sloppy and slowed down browsing. Facebook had a much cleaner layout and initially controlled (you could say screened) its userbase, so you had a better, verifiable sense of who everyone was online.\n\nThat being said, I remember people joking to Rupert Murdoch in 2007 that he \"owned the world\" because Newscorp owned MySpace. Facebook was launched in 2003",
"And why does no one remember collegeclub?",
"I worked at myspace for 3 years during the heyday as an engineer. It was actually my first real job out of college. \n\nMy perspective is more focused on product and engineering since I was most exposed to those areas:\n\nProduct: the big problem we faced was that Tom Anderson held a totalitarian role as the sole czar of product. Tom, one of the original founders, did in fact do some interesting product development for the company when it was still young. However by 2006 the new ideas stopped flowing. Some attested this to the Fox Interactive Media acquisition but frankly Tom had a huge part to play in stifling product innovation. Every new idea had to be approved by him before going into production. As a result we progressed slowly. By the time Facebook opened its doors to all users beyond college students in 2007, it was our death knell. Myspace had already become stale for many. Especially those who were already in college and discovered Facebook. Which was so much superior by then. \n\nEngineering: we had the foundations of myspace built on coldfusion. You don't find stellar, CS educated engineers be coldfusion developers. Scalability became a huge problem by 2006 as we seemed to have full site outages almost weekly. It became normal to be site down collectively for 30 mins a day. In today's Silicon Valley that's sacrilege. Hell, it was taboo in the 90s. So eventually we started rebuilding the entire site in .NET. Now, the office was in Beverly Hills - not mountain view. So the only engineers in LA were .NET devs. Most are pretty good but we were still way understaffed in 2006. That started a hiring craze that lasted a few years. During that time any .NET dev with a pulse got a job at myspace. It grew too fast - sucking in anyone who knew c#. That meant hiring B, then C players who then brought their D player friends in. Guys from Countrywide who were loan software developers. There just wasn't enough talent to build out a scalable tech stack fast enough. Throw in our abysmal house security (or lack thereof), and you have an engineering team that was Mickey Mouse compared to Google and Facebook\n\nIt was a fantastic learning experience. It seasoned me big time and I'm happy I went through it. But too many things were done poorly at MySpace to keep it relevant for long. ",
"A big part of the death of myspace came from their own customization options. Leading to many myspace pages with these ugly, tacky custom made color schemes and sparkles blasting unwanted Linkin Park music, created by people who had no idea what they are doing.\n\nFacebook had, and still has it's signature blue and white format making it much easier to navigate.",
"At the time when MySpace was popular it was still taboo to use your real name on the Internet. As a result, it was difficult to find people you know to connect with because everyone was still anonymous to a certain degree. \n\nFacebook changed all that as you were required to actually use your first and last name on the service which may seem ordinary now but was actually quite unique back then. ",
"I feel like spam killed MySpace.\n\nAfter a while it was just bots auto asking strangers to be friends and then posting bullshit to your wall all the fucking time... making the site almost unusable.\n\nIt was a ticking timebomb for spam and viruses.\n\nAdd that to the fact that everybody had customized their pages to be ugly and unreadable... plus bullshit music playing everywhere... and no central place to get all of your friends updates.\n\nOn MySpace you had to visit your friends pages to see what they posted, on FaceBook friends posts are presented to you on your wall.\n\nIt was a good start, but Facebook took the same idea, and fixed everything that was wrong with it giving you the same type of experience without all of the problems.\n\nThen MySpace sold to AOL or something stupid... some old company that was completely out of touch with the people using it... and that was the final nail in the coffin.\n",
"MySpace was also full of intrusive advertisements. Flashing banners and ads on your space or other people's space were bad enough, but when you went to the main website sometimes the whole thing would be an ad. \n\nYou'd have to watch a giant movie for xmen as you are logging in. ",
"Most people are commenting on too much customization and spam killing Myspace, but there's another factor to it as well.\n\nI recently saw Michael Jones, the former CEO of Myspace, give a talk and one of the questions he was asked was why Myspace failed and Facebook succeeded. His opinion was that Myspace was perceived as just a source of entertainment, whereas people see Facebook as a utility.\n\nMyspace was like a movie studio that started producing flops. Facebook is like the electric company. Even if their product isn't fancy, it's still a necessity. Features that facebook adds are deemed as necessities, and they're continuing that trend now by making themselves a leader in video and news aggregation. ",
"MySpace, despite registering a lot of people, never engaged them as deeply as Facebook. \n\nThis is for a variety of reasons. Site speed. Usability and design. Facebook's brilliant use of personal notifications. MySpace was too much like a blogging platform and while some people used it for self-expression, that kind of thing just didn't connect with mainstream people like oh, your mom. Posting a picture of a cat and liking a picture of a sunset, now that connects with people like your mom. Facebook's engagement stats have always been incredible. Nothing like them out there. And it's the sum of a hundred different things. Algorithm tuning in Newsfeed to optimize for engagement. Better friend-finding functionality. Superior mobile experience. Facebook just executed far better. \n\nThere was never really any contest whatsoever, it just looked that way to people who compared total registered user counts, which don't actually matter.",
"I left MySpace because facebook had a better search function for finding sluts in my area. By better, I mean more filters. ",
"Back around 2004-ish myself and many others ended up using both services. Sometimes someone would leave one with a message like, \"see you on Myspace, quitting Facebook\" and vice-versa. Then Facebook's interface started to get nicer, and the whole page looked more polished. After a while I wondered why Myspace wasn't making some simple stylistic changes to keep the users that were switching to the free service with the better interface. \n\nAs an interesting aside, this was the time that articles came out showing that the userbase of Myspace was on average poorer than that of Facebook. Amazing! These were both FREE services that provided the same service, but there was a voluntary economic division among the users.\n\nAnyway Facebook kept looking nicer and nice, and kept updating it's interface. Myspace stayed the same while everyone wondered why. Then Myspace lost the war...due to it's own inertia.",
"we don't know why, but the trend seems to point that community based websites degrade in quality overtime. Founding members leave, quality goes down some more, site calls the marketing department to do something... and it's already too late.\n\n\n\nlook back on reddit, sourceforge, friendster, tumblr; they are currently in different stages right now, but the trend continues. It's like building a Utopia, then it devolves into a Sci-fi distopia after 100 years.",
"Those html codes that could tell you who was viewing your profile. There's no doubt in my mind. Everyone jokes about Facebook stalking now, but I guarantee if someone found out how to do something similar & you could know who was looking at your profile 50x a day, the place would be a fucking ghost town.",
"I mean it failed in the sense that it is not as big as facebook and it didn't last forever but if I recall Tom sold it in like 2006 or 2007 for like 600 million dollars.",
"When a business \"dies\" involuntarily it's usually a combination of two things: something with its product and competition. It's rare, but sometimes something disruptive like new legislation will wipe out an industry with no fault due to the businesses. Think about how prohibition caused many breweries to shutter who weren't able to successful adapt to producing new products. \n\nThe same thing happened to Myspace, it failed due to the characteristics of its product combined with competition. When Myspace first appeared it was a completely new experience. Of course there already existed site where users could chat and meet others online, but Myspace was kind of revolutionary in the depth that it offered users. As other posters have mentioned, customization was a huge factor to this appeal. A user could construct a page that was as potentially unique as them. Although the quality of the page depended upon their design skill and html ability. People offered their services to customize your Myspace page and a user could copy and paste scripts into their page, but the look and feel still was largely dependent on the user. The result of this was a user experience that was messy, difficult, and frankly annoying to a lot involved. Couple this with a proliferation of bots, guerilla advertising, and other annoyances, the actual act of using Myspace became less desirable as time went on. \n\nNow Myspace was perfectly positioned to attract a new generation of computer savvy users. Because of this, it's no secret that the age of the core user base skewed rather young. What happens when they age, become more sophisticated, and start desiring different features out of a product? Enter facebook. As the core user base became older and many went off to college, Facebook represented many things that Myspace was not. First it was small and exclusive because you had to be associated with a university to register an account. It was like having access to a special club that set you apart from other people. The product was clean, easy to use, and had a variety of features that lent itself to a good user experience. In short, it was a mature product for a maturing user base. \n\nI was an avid Myspace user and when I went to college I remember hearing about Facebook but was reluctant to change. However, soon many of my college friends started using Facebook, clubs had event pages, you could organize groups etc. It quickly became part of the college lifestyle and as users began to flock over, it started the death knell for Myspace. The rest is history. Myspace was somewhat successful in taking one of its most popular features (access to music) and rebranding itself as a music website, so that change is interesting in its own right.\n\nTL;DR - Didn't innovate fast enough to respond to changes in user preferences, Facebook gave them the bounce boogey and bump. ",
"My theory is that MySpace generally had the owner of the individual page as its primary user in mind, rather than the visitor, and that that was a fatal mistake. You could pretty much design your MySpace page from scratch, which is nice for *you,* but intensely exhausting for everyone else. Having to get used to a completely different color scheme, font, and, most egregiously, *soundtrack* every few minutes just hurts the brain. This also greatly impeded the sense of a corporate identity, because two individual pages would sometimes look so different that they didn't have much more than their URL in common.",
"my theory is that when facebook launched it was exclusive to certain people, then as that grew, more people wanted it, and it continued to grow and to only college kids. kids control where people go, cause they are in the know, and everybody wants to be hip...\n\nthat is one reason, but it was a bunch of things most have been listed.",
"Think a lot of people are failing to mention that facebook had chat and MySpace didn't. Me and my mates actually liked MySpace better but all left it because it had no chat.\n\nBy the time it got chat no one I knew really used it anymore.",
"Remember why you left? That's why it failed.",
"Lots of reasons, but generally lack of vision from senior management.\n- Microsoft platform for server OS and database. Very expensive\n- .NET not scalable \n- Platform architecture relied on a huge caching layer, restricting expansion overseas\n- Myspace Engineering was very slow to open up an 'apps' platform (think of FarmVille on FB)\n- The settlement with the record labels was ridiculously expensive\n- The Google deal came to an end\n- Failed to leverage the huge music catalog where they had rights to sell downloads (from the settlement with the labels and all the smaller labels (founded on music, for crissakes)\n- Failed to buy a number of different event-ticketing startups\n- Failed to get MySpace Events working across your Friends list\n- Tried to emulate the portal concept (think Yahoo) instead of a social network (Meaning they spent time building Myspace Places, Myspace Jobs, Myspace Weather, instead of a decent newsfeed)\n- Revenue became more important than features, leading to bugs festering and shitty ads like 'Meet Asian Women to Marry' right next to a Coca-Cola ad\n- Too many people were hired too quickly, meaning there were too many C and D Players\n- New c-level management pissed off and scared off some very (VERY) talented leaders (some who walked away from big retention bonuses)\n- No stock options available to rank and file \n\nI personally think the biggest failure came when Chris and Tom renegotiated their contracts; they were paid $7m over three years, but nothing tied their personal success to the success of the site. Sure there were bonuses, but nothing like a true startup, not when you're making over $2m a year base. \n \nThe whole debacle after the NewsCorp acquisition should be required reading for entrepreneur /MBA programs. ",
"Because something better came out.\n\nThe same reason why most of the stuff you used in the early 2000s are obsolete.\n\nIt will happen to reddit, too. Just like everyone thought digg and /. were untouchable at the time. When it comes to the internet, everything is just a phase.\n\nEverything dies. Even Facebook.",
"\"too much user freedom\" basically users could make there myspace pages look like utter trash. I'm not sure if you remember it but most pages had auto-playing shit songs combined with lots of \"blingy\" animated glittery shit all over the place. This left most pages looking like complete ass.\n\nFacebook gained HUGE traction among kids because kids weren't allowed. As stupid as that sounds it was something of social standing for a highschool kid at the time to have a facebook instead of myspace. It was a nice little +1 to Erika's shitty myspace page because Jennifer had a bitching as facebook page with all the hot college guys. \n\nYou can talk about systems, stagnated designs, and poor business decisions but at the end of the day Facebook largely \"won\" because it drew in kids with its exclusivity combined with most myspace pages looking/sounding like ass. It wasn't a hard sell at all for people to switch. \nJust like how people jumped from Live Journal, Friendster, etc. What really cemented Facebook from having a next big thing was there integration you started getting facebook on your phone and so on and suddenly jumping to Google+, or whatever comes next just seems less attractive without a really big reason to do so. ",
"I wonder what a reasonable expectation for the life of an online social network is. IMO MySpace didn't fail. It was successful for many years and like so much of the internet its prime passed. I feel this is just a logical and unchangeable cycle which seems almost natural. Is it just me?",
"On the plus side I hope Myspace never ever goes away because there's still music from local artists I loved in the early 2000's that are only available on Myspace besides a handful of people that might still have a burned cd of it.",
"one of the big things for me was waiting for everyone's personalized bullshit on their wall to load. The interface was crap.",
"Man, I LOVED MySpace. We were young and stupid. Ah, simpler times. I would do anything to get those years back. Best times of my life. < 3 ",
"You know why myspace failed. It let the user make the page. \n\nI remember waiting for pages to load and load cause pages displayed 100 comments which were giant twinkling fairies and so on. \n\nIf Myspace similar to facebook said here is your format it is clean and nice now go. ",
"Wait, myspace failed??!! The next thing you'll tell me is that people don't play runescape anymore, or use AOL Instant messenger \n",
"The fact that they let users control all this nonsense on their pages (music, backgrounds, flashing stuff, etc.) that inevitably made browsers freeze and crash over and over.\n\nI stopped using it once it became a total pain in the ass to use.",
"Former MySpace engineer here. Got there when it was 1500 people and left when it was 300. The company failed for these reasons:\n\n\n* MySpace sold ads to Google, ran out of ad inventory to sell and had to scramble to meet their contract obligations. MySpace had to meet an impression thresholds each month or pay penalties to Google. Google bought ads from MySpace and fractions of MySpace delivered those ads. When traffic dropped, MySpace had to put ads on pages where ads should not have been. For example, users were forced to log in each time. By doing this, MySpace could generate additional ad impressions for Google. The result was a poor user experience.\n\n\n* Tom & Chris were from an email spam shop background. eUniverse bought an email company from Tom & Chris. Once eUniverse had the emails, Tom & Chris had nothing to do, so they put their effort into creating something new. Friendster was doing well at the time, they decided to clone it, and the result was MySpace. Spam and poor user experiences were part of their upbringing and they took that to MySpace. (Side note, when MySpace was purchased by NewsCorp, most of the money went to eUniverse. Tom & Chris got salaries in the millions under NewsCorp. My guess is the high salaries were to make up for not having enough stock in eUniverse.)\n\n\n* There were no coding standards. Engineering teams worked in silos with each team having their own standards. For example, one time someone put a picture of all the different submit buttons in the break room. There were a dozen plus submit buttons each with their own style. Tom & Chris shared this break room BTW. I'm not sure if the poster was motivational or insulting. We all knew the site looked ugly and this picture of all the different submit buttons quantified it.\n\n\n* MySpace didn't leverage an API. FB users had the ability to add plug ins like calendars and classified ads from a myriad of sources. The result was users were able to choose the best solution. MySpace delivered the same tools but MySpace built the tools themselves. Those tools were pushed out in rapid succession, without much effort. Users were left with poorly created calendars, classifieds, etc. I believe MySpace did have an API and it was hardly used.\n\n\n* MySpace cherished metrics that had no meaning. Your number of friends, for example, were a meaningless indicator of success. Particularly with so many spam accounts. MySpace hired execs that cherished these useless metrics.\n\n\n* MySpace thought allowing users to create their own unique page was a competitive advantage. Users were given the ability to embed their own HTML within their own page. The result was ugly bloated pages. At MySpace, we had an internal message board to debate ideas, including this one. This idea was debated and people in product defended the ability to customize pages as a competitive advantage.\n\n\n* Chris (the CEO) & Aber (the CTO) were distracted by 'partying'. Hang out at the bars on Wilshire Blvd, you'll hear things and I'll leave it at that.\n\n\n* Employees were not given stock. Salaries were awesome but there was no stock. People did not seem to be emotionally invested in the companies success.\n\n\n* MySpace under estimated the success of Facebook. People posted signs like 'Your mom uses Facebook' on their cubicle walls.\n\n\n* MySpace over estimated their success. For example, MySpace developed a new compound with 1,000,000 square feet of office space in Playa Del Ray. It was one of the largest commercial real estate deals of the decade in LA. MySpace signed a 10 year lease and never moved it. Point being people at the top over estimated their success.\n\n\n* [edit random interesting story] The 3 story parking garage was not enough for the 4 story office. So valets were hired to double park cars. Picture a normal parking garage with every square foot occupied by cars. During all hands meetings they'd double park two floors. It was an insane fire hazard but impressive. This only incentivized people to come in late because u didn't want ur car double parked behind hundreds of other cars. The top floor parking garage spots were highly sought after because it meant you could leave at any time.\n\n\nMySpace was an interesting roller coaster ride. I went through 3 CEOs during my time there, Chris De Wolfe, Mike Jones and Owen Van Natta. I hear MySpace is still alive with a dozen employees.\n",
"Facebook had a feed and the content moved faster. Paired with game apps like Farmville young women left MySpace, and then so too did the men.\n\nThis is why Google+ failed. They rolled out to tech bloggers first, and by the time it was available to the general audience it was all 35 year old nerdy white men, so nobody wanted to be a part of it.\n\nEdit: This is the answer.",
"It was ugly and boring. It should have re-made itself as a place to follow and listen to indy bands, download their music and even catch their live shows. That to me seemed its niche, bands, and something I'd still like to see.",
"I have a more simplistic view point, A couple of my friends had myspace accounts but they never once asked me to join it, when facebook came out I was forced to join it to keep in the loop.",
"Lol I ask this a year ago and get nothing. This guys asks it and gets front page. SMH.\n\n_URL_0_",
"Sooooo no one is going to mention cell phones? The more phones became \"smarter\" the more dealers began to use FB as a selling tool. Myspace was too complicated and worked to slow on a cell phone screen. FB was just right as it was simple and easy to use. Cell phones aka mini computers helped to build Facebooks success. ",
"One thing I haven't seen here that I'll add is that, at least from my perspective, the Internet was largely still a novelty in the early 2000s when MySpace was relevant. We were watching hamsters dance, watching goofy flash cartoons (youtube didn't hit the scene till '05), and playing with neopets. The Internet was still a toy to many people and as such, there didn't seem to be a large focus on good web design for the first part of the 2000s. We were still in an experimental phase. People didn't conduct almost all their business online. Many webpages you saw then were crappy tiled backgrounds and pure html, with little to no css, Javascript, or asp that's standard nowadays. Everyone's MySpace page (including my own) looked like a 'chintsy E-Vegas in hell' as /u/DocGrey187000 points out because that was still the norm for a lot of webpages. Once we started treating the internet as a tool, or an everyday utility as /u/successadult points out, we didn't just get bored of having to copy/paste glitter text html, we wanted a true 'social media experience' where the design work was done, and we just connected with friends and shared our photos, links, thoughts, and ideas.\n\nOne last thought: had MySpace survived into the age of smartphones, it probably would have died right there. Imagine them trying to build an interface or app that lets you update your background or post new items to you page, all from a 6\" screen. ",
"Am I the only one whose Myspace page was like [this?](_URL_0_)",
"Probably because it had such a horrible interface and was so loaded with trash.\n\nFacebook came along with it's clean look and feel and everyone just moved over.",
"Does anyone remember piczo?",
"I was at MySpace from '03 til '06. I was able to celebrate hitting the first million users and can remember it like it was yesterday.\n\nI was on the creative side that worked directly with the advertisers, so I'll speak from that point of view.\n\nIn the early days, MySpace was wildly popular because of users' free reign to design their profiles any way they desired. HTML was allowed on personal profiles, and so was CSS and JavaScript, so the site quickly gained popularity as more and more users learned how to add glittery animated gifs to their profile pages. The growth of MySpace in it's glory days was phenomenal, and because of Friendster's inability to keep up with their own growth, MySpace ended up picking up a lot of the slack. Advertisers soon recognized this, and realized that they had an untapped market to reach demographically targeted consumers for products like Garnier Fructis, Toyota and Scion (several of MySpace's earliest advertisers). The best part of the advertising \"platform\" that MySpace had was that users can identify with the brand of their choice, and add them as \"friends\".\n\nMySpace didn't have a dedicated platform for advertisers for many years, which is why the Creative Services department was so successful. We would literally design branded profiles for our clients, and make them elegant using the very same HTML, CSS and JavaScript (which was later filtered out from regular user profiles because of security exploits) that every other user had. Eventually, a custom platform (unstable, at that) for advertisers was developed, but until then, I think a lot of success of the brand profiles was due to users feeling like they were more peers of the brand, rather than just a consumer that was targeted by billboards and ads and flashy ways to products down users' throats.\n\nIn a nutshell, during the glory days of MySpace's reign, the user experience was very important to the growing revenue stream. We couldn't just make a profile that said \"Buy a Sonic burger now\" as those requests from the client would get declined by our producers. Instead, we would advise that the clients put together custom campaigns that would target and pique users' interests with fun and interactive ways to get them involved. This involved a lot of custom videos, images, contests, sweepstakes, giveaways, event and concert sponsorships, etc. As a MySpace user, this was awesome! Imagine knowing that you had a direct line to every product or brand that you loved, and knowing that you could interact with them and essentially endorse the product on your own \"discovery\" accord... This inclined the users to share these pages and campaigns with their own friends, and a lot of them even put the brand profiles in their Top 8.\n\nThe revenue was pretty amazing at this point (in 2003, the average campaign spend of our clients was between $20k-$50k, and by 2006, it was upwards of $1MM per DAY which included homepage takeovers and the granddaddy of custom content delivery), and we were filtering dozens of clients every month.\n\nSo here's where it all went downhill, at least from my perspective: The acquisition by News Corporation. The FIMbots, as we called them. FIM, or Fox Interactive Media, was a newly constructed company who had no understanding of the MySpace model and why it was successful. All they saw were dollar signs. They didn't care about the user experience, but rather, the amount of money that was coming in. They eventually put their focus on the dollar signs, and I remember having to work on several projects where I literally asked myself \"What the fuck am I working on?\" We started getting an influx of suits walking around the office, who, quite literally, set up meetings for the sole purpose of scheduling future meetings. Can you imagine how frustrated that was? Processes changed. Morale dropped. I mean, one day, we're riding scooters around the office and shooting nerf guns at each other and chilling in bean bags with laptops and hell, our department even had a slushie machine (which we may or may not have used to make frozen margaritas)... Until letters and memos started circulating about how hazardous nerf foam bullets were and how we couldn't lay in bean bags anymore or ride around on scooters and skateboards because it wasn't professional, blah blah blah. We were a goddamn startup internet company for God's sake...\n\nAnyways, I digress. So why did MySpace fail? From an in-house perspective, we grew way too fast. Hired too many people (At our headquarters, we literally had to hire a valet team, but not for the luxurious reasons you may think. It was literally because they had to park our cars in order to fit every square inch of our overly-packed parking garage. And it happened within WEEKS. Going from being able to park in your favorite spot on a daily basis to having to wait in a line of cars to have valet park (and scratch the shit out of) your cars just went to show how overstaffed MySpace became.). We opened up offices internationally and hired too many people for those offices, as well. At this point, there was way too much redundancy with our production and development processes. We strayed away from the focus of providing a good user experience, and started focusing on dollar signs and revenue from advertisers. Not to mention that there were products and features being pushed out (prematurely, if I may add) at an ungodly pace. In essence, MySpace changed from its core direction of providing a simple network for friends (and more importantly an amazing platform for bands and artists to directly reach their fans) to a direction of, well... Let's just say that we grew too big for our britches. And yes, although Facebook became public around the same time of MySpace's acquisition, the demise ultimately started due to the internal problems the company developed The above-mentioned issues are just a few; there were definitely way more. The worst part is that none of the executives (from either News Corp or MySpace's sides) recognized it until it was too late.\n\nAnd the final reason of MySpace's failure? The very reason that people loved and enjoyed it is the same reason they stopped returning. The customization and popularity contest for that coveted spot in the Top 8 and the games and being able to listen to music was all fun and games, but at the end of the day, wasn't a necessity for the users. MySpace was a site where you could log in and check out your favorite artist and then hit up a couple of your friends' friends and send provocative messages... which is all fun. But there was no real value in that. Because of the influx of new features and products, users became confused and the appeal was then lost. Users don't want to learn a new feature; they wanted to continue doing things that worked and get countless hours of mindless entertainment doing those things.\n\nThe moment that MySpace tried to prove its authority is when they lost it in the end.\n\nRest in Peace, MySpace.",
"for about a year before the fall of Myspace. the entire site filled up with spam bots and scammers. Myspace's reaction was to make it a 10 click process to report these bots. it became hard to do anything on the site without coming into contact with a bot or compromised account. FB opened to the general public and didn't have this issue.",
"I kind of see it as the second mouse getting the cheese scenario. I don't feel that the platform, especially in 2006 when I switched from Myspace to facebook, was any better. Really I felt it was slightly worse (less customizable). I had just gotten to college, and I liked that only college kids were on it. The content was kind of unbeatable. All the trend setters were on it, and it was fun in a way that Myspace just wasn't. I liked Myspace when it first came out, but it became a haven for weirdos and porn actresses. I think that when facebook came out it could see where Myspace failed. It policed posts in a way that allowed things to be fun but not creepy. Which I think made young women feel safe. And if young women are at a party everyone else is probably gonna show up too.",
"Most things fail and succeed due to Luck, friend. People are fickle and make arbitrary decisions on what's currently cool or not. Facebook is a completely awful data-wasting memory-leaking privacy atrocity coded in php founded by a man who did it in order to spy on college women and who called users \"fucking idiots\"........ and it's pretty popular. Bow and fear the Great God Luck.",
"Because facebook didn't originally look like a cluster fuck. It was neat and simple. It was elitist and only let college kids on, this is the 'coolest' class of people for trend setting; all the other kids look upwards to mimic whatever college kids are considering cool. Facebook was a great place in college to organize parties etc., your mom, grandma, etc. were not on it, and there was basically zero risk with getting in trouble with it, it was honestly a shitload more fun then. People with Facebook were part of the new 'in-group' exclusive 'successful young and beautiful peoples club' and everyone else was cut out.\n\n Parents etc. naturally want to be on whatever social net their children are on and their grandparents whatever the family is predominantly on (Facebook was also easier on them too, not many options originally and one style looked good compared to the MySpace free-for-all glitterstickergif shit-fest). Basically Facebook cornered the market by establishing dominance with the cool kids by building an elitist college kids only club and then sold out on that idea to incorporate high-school kids who idolize whatever college kids are doing, who then left Myspace in droves to be with the cool-kids, it was obvious at the time only the poor and idiots who couldn't get into college were left active on Myspace, the cool kids were frolicking in their new club.\n \nSo obviously for the high school kids being part of this elite club was better than the one they were in with the losers, where the fuck-ups and idiots still lurked in equally trashy looking 'spaces' that all looked pretty much like the internet version of South African white-trash Zef. So they jumped to be apart of the socially superior cleaner looking network at first option. Myspace was literally the internet ghetto. Facebook was a middle class neighborhood with modern cookie-cutter houses, it's still a step up from the shanty towns people had self built over at MySpace. Facebook knew this and in turn continued to open it up to basically anyone and everyone shortly after. It was like a social domino effect. ",
"For me it didn't fail, I met a guy in MySpace in 2007, we went on a date in 2008, three days later he was my boyfriend, 5 years later we married and two years after that we had our baby. It wasn't a fail for me. Thanks MySpace!",
"For me it didn't fail, I met a guy in MySpace in 2007, we went on a date in 2008, three days later he was my boyfriend, 5 years later we married and two years after that we had our baby. It wasn't a fail for me. Thanks MySpace!",
"Imagine you go over a friends house. You walk through the front door and his dog just barks and barks at you until you find the dog and tell it to stop. Some friends have lots of dogs. Now your friend likes his dog, in fact he thinks that you want to hear his dog barking because he loves his dog and it's barking so much. So what do you do? Never go over his house again. And that is how Myspace died.",
"The bigger question is \"why does everyone NEED to use facebook ALL THE TIME, every moment of their life!\""
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5rviz1 | why is earth's magnetic field almost exactly aligned with its axis of rotation? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5rviz1/eli5_why_is_earths_magnetic_field_almost_exactly/ | {
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"The full workings of Earth's magnetic field isn't currently understood yet. The best model we have is called the Dynamo model, and even that is quite flawed in many respects. But it does give us a qualitative picture of what's going on. \n\nYou first have to understand how magnetic fields are created. Magnetic fields are not created in the same way as electric fields for example. While electric charges are the origin of electric fields, there are no such things as \"magnetic charges\" from which magnetic fields originate. Instead, magnetic fields are created from the same source as electric fields, albeit with a slight difference: Magnetic fields originate when electric fields move. That is to say, magnetic fields are sourced from electric currents. This is broadly why magnetism and electricity so often occur together, and why people talk about electromagnetism as a common phenomena. The exact details are described by equations called Maxwell's equations.\n\nNow suppose we have a very long straight copper while in which flows a steady current. Maxwell's equations tell us that this current is the source of a magnetic field. What does this field look like? It doesn't flow in the same direction as the wire, but around it in circles. Hold your right hand in an open first with the thumb straight out. Now point your thumb in the direction that the current is flowing. Your fingers now curl in the direction that the magnetic field lines go in around the wire. This is the famous \"right-hand rule\" from electrodynamics. It can be quite amusing to look at rooms full of physics majors playing with their hands during an electrodynamics exam. Look here for a [picture](_URL_1_).\n\nNow suppose we don't have a straight line carrying a current, but rather a circular loop of wire. It is still true that locally, the field goes in circles around the wire. But since the wire is bent into a loop, the magnetic field also gets distorted, looking roughly like a torus. Such a field is called a magnetic dipole moment, and here's a [picture](_URL_0_). Notice that this looks a lot like the Earth's magnetic field. That's because the Earth's magnetic field is just a large magnetic dipole moment.\n\nHere then is a rough picture of how the Earth's magnetic field is formed. The Earth rotates, and the interior of the Earth is mostly liquid rock and metal. Very viscous, but liquid nonetheless. The liquid metal carries within it free charge. This free charge is carried by the rotation of the Earth, and so it flows in the same direction that the Earth spins. This means that the Earth contains within it a large loop of current, flowing round and round with the same axis of rotation as the Earth. This current loop sources a magnetic field. More precisely, it sources a magnetic dipole moment. But we already know how those look like. The result is a field which is aligned with the axis of rotation.\n\nThere's a lot of missing detail here, but it gives a qualitative picture of what's going on. One reason you know this cannot be the whole picture is the fact that the Earth's magnetic field reverses itself every once in a while. In fact, the Earth's magnetic field has reversed itself roughly 180 times in the past 80 million years. We are actually due for another pole reversal any day now. There's a lot we still don't understand about the Earth's magnetic field, but hopefully this gives you a rough idea of what's going on."
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b48y4u | why are several letters in the english alphabet essentially the same character but flipped/rotated? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/b48y4u/eli5_why_are_several_letters_in_the_english/ | {
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"The alphabet has been simplified over time by countless people, so various letters were modified to look more and more like each other."
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5ezjrm | if protein is what builds muscle, why do we need to eat at a caloric surplus? | [deleted] | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5ezjrm/eli5_if_protein_is_what_builds_muscle_why_do_we/ | {
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"Calories are required for your body to do work. Anabolic pathways require calories and protein is the building block for muscle.",
"Protein builds muscle, but it takes energy for your body to convert dietary protein into muscle. That energy comes from calories in the food you consume. ",
"Your body can convert proteins into glucose. If you are in a caloric deficit, then this will be going on. Proteins turned into glucose is protein that cannot be used for muscle. Having a caloric surplus ensures that you do not have a caloric deficit, so very little of the protein gets turned into glucose, so it can be used for other bodily functions, like repairing and building muscle tissue.\n\n[This article](_URL_0_) talks about a study that tested this. Two groups in rough shape (ie fat) put on a 40% caloric deficit. One group on high protein diet, the other on a normal diet. The high protein group put on ~2.5lbs of muscle while losing 10.5 lbs of fat."
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ebv01j | does the earth technically weigh more with a growing population? in example, earth weighs more now with almost 8 billion compared to earlier with say 5 billion.. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/ebv01j/eli5_does_the_earth_technically_weigh_more_with_a/ | {
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"Everyone on Earth is composed of things that were already on Earth. If you made something out of ten pounds of legos, it would still weigh ten pounds...",
"No, because all the \"stuff\" that makes up people comes from the Earth. You can't make mass out of nothing, it has to come from somewhere. In this case it comes from the food we eat.\n\nThe Earth gains a bit of mass from stuff entering from space, and loses a bit of mass from gas escaping the atmosphere, but overall it stays mostly the same.",
"It is called conservation of mass. Matter cannot be created or destroyed, only converted. If you weigh a log, then burn it, then collect all the ash, soot, smoke, and gasses puy off by it, it will have the same mass as it did before you burned it(plus oxygen absorbed through the air, so heavier)\n\nSo no, the earth's weight would not change, as humans are a product if the food eaten which is removed from the earth(in one way or another) and when we die, we return to the earth(in one way or another).\n\nIf the earth did, we could measure it very accurately bu measuring the change in gravity, but the gravitational constant has been, well, constant.\n\nThe earth does gain mass via stardust, but its minuscule. Like the amount of dust on your skin affects your weight on a scale is probably tens of thousands if not millions of times greater than how star dust increases the earth's mass. But as of right now that is the biggest contributor to an increase in earth's mass.",
"Earth will always weight a little more compared to its past, but it's not due to human population growth; it's due to the constant falling of space debris (dust, small asteroids)."
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5ptke4 | why do we read closed captioning even when we can understand what they are saying? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5ptke4/eli5why_do_we_read_closed_captioning_even_when_we/ | {
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"Because our eyes have gotten used to reading. \n\nReading is just patterns you can place into context. \n\nIf you are reading English and you understand it your eye will go to those words. \n\nIf you turned on Mandarin subs you would spend far less time on them because they don't mean anything to you. ",
"I need it because I am gradually losing my hearing. sometimes the sound mixing on the show or movie is shitty, or the actor is just mumbling and I really need the subtitles to know what's being said. I need it very badly for the current seasons of Doctor Who because Peter Capaldi's scottish accent is really hard to follow sometimes. \n\nI can't watch shows with my mom because she can't read as fast as I do and she can't finish reading the captioning before it disappears and moves to the next caption."
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tl2lc | - why do incredibly profitable and successful companies (facebook, google) go public? | Companies go public on the stock exchange so they have more access to cash, right? But if they are already flush with cash and going public puts a bunch of restrictions on them and they don't have total control of their company anymore, why do it? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/tl2lc/eli5_why_do_incredibly_profitable_and_successful/ | {
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"Going public brings a huge amount of cash to the table in a very short space of time. Some of that will go into the company's bank account for them to spend, some will go to those who already own the company in it's private state.\n\nWhy does a successful company need a cash injection? First of all, it's not true that all companies which are doing well have large cash reserves. Some can have debts (money they spent getting successful) and some may have loads of income, but also loads of outgoings.\n\nEither way, going public should bring in much more money than is already available. For example, Facebook earned around $3.8bn last year, of which $1.5bn was profit. That's a lot, but going public could bring in excess of $5bn in one go. That'd be like someone writing you a cheque for your salary (which you get to keep on top of your salary) whilst all your bills and mortgage etc stayed the same.\n\nWhy do companies want a cash injection? Either to pay off the debts I mentioned earlier (if you pay off debts early, you pay less interest in the long term), or to get even bigger and more successful. Facebook recently bought Instagram for $1bn. Which is a huge sum of money. But imagine how much more they could do with $5bn.\n\nAlso remember that some of the money goes to the company's owners. In Facebook's case, that's Mark Zuckerberg, and everyone who invested time and money helping him set up. Facebook the company will get $5bn from going public, but an additional $5bn will go to individuals. I don't have the figures, but imagine MZ has 20% of the company. That's a $1bn pay-day for him as a person to spend on cars, houses, champagne, whatever. It's his, not Facebook's. The same for all the people he offered shares to - for example his main programmers and financial backers.\n\nWhy didn't Mark Zuckerberg keep all of the ownership to himself? Usually this is so that you can get people to help out at a low price. In the beginning, companies don't have a lot of cash to throw about. He may well have said to a few techies: \"Help me out now, and when we sell, you'll get a cut.\" Or to an investor: \"Buy me some powerful computers, and when we sell, you'll get a cut.\" They may offer their services and products at affordable prices knowing that, later on, they will be rewarded.",
"Sec regulation. \n\nPrivate companies have a lot less regulatory requirements. They don't need to file with SEC, comply with Sabane-Oxley, or generate audited accounting. Most profitable companies that don't need cash would prefer not to go public. In addition, you can hide information, such as sales numbers, number of employees, and amount of money spent on data centers, from your competitors. \n\nHowever, SEC requires that any company with greater than 499 shareholders are required to meet the reporting requirements. Companies are not required to go public, but most do at that point. Why would a company suffer the cost of going public without the benefits of being public? \n\nThe idea is that with that many shareholders, they are effectively public and need to comply with additional reporting requirements. For most private companies, this isn't usually a problem. For tech companies, there are a large number of outside investors and employees get paid in stock. \n\nFacebook encountered this problem. They broke the 499 mark last year and must start reporting this year. That is why they are going public now. \n\nSecondly, even if a company is cash rich, it doesn't necessarily mean that they have access to that cash. A lot of multinational companies have large cash stockpile offshore for tax efficiency. If they onshore that, they expose themselves to 35% taxes. In a lot of cases, it may be cheaper to issue debt than to repatriate the cash. Being public allows them to access additional source of funds. ",
"ELI5: what does it mean for a company to \"go public\"?"
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als4m9 | why is country, state...etc. necessary in delivery addresses? | There's only one postal code per area on earth, with selected street names and numbers within them, so won't those two pieces of info be enough? I've seen an incorrect address package get delivered due to at least having the 2. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/als4m9/eli5_why_is_country_stateetc_necessary_in/ | {
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"In theory yes\n\nIn practice, what if you write your numbers sloppy so that 90210 turns into 80270? Or the sorter at the post office reads 92010 as 90210?\n\nRedundancy is good to have, as it allows more data points. Particularly as our system of addressing letters started out before computers existed that were good enough to assist in finding addresses, so all of this was done by people looking at this data by hand. \n\nBut even now, the city/state will be helpful if something else is wrong; like if you're sending something from Los Angeles CA to Lincoln NE, chances are that if you mess up a postal code and get one for Decatur IL (or whatever) that the letter sorter can look up the right post code for that city/state and/or street and reverse-engineer your mistake. Or at least they're higher than if they just look for 123 Imaginary St. in Decatur and find out that that address doesn't exist in that zipcode, and return to sender."
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uz9mm | what is a credit union and why would i want an account with one? | I'm confused when people talk about banks and credit unions. I know a bank stores your money, but how is that related to a credit union? What are credit unions good for? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/uz9mm/elif_what_is_a_credit_union_and_why_would_i_want/ | {
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"A bank has to make money since it has a responsibility to share holders to try and earn them money.\n\nA credit union is not for profit, so it can usually charge lower rates because they do not need to maintain as high of a margin. It uses the money it could have earned and basically returns it to the customer by charging a lower rate for loans and possibly provide a higher rate for depositors\n\nBanks and credit unions exist because individuals have a hard time raising money by themselves for big purchases such as houses or cars.",
"Basically a credit union is typically a small bank that gives out small business loans and mortgages. They often have much lower fees than large banks do. People are talking a lot about them now because they seem to work more for their communities and customers than their shareholders and bonuses. In this current recession we saw what investment banks, the large banks on wall street, do, make tons of extremely risky investments chasing bonuses. While they gamble with money, they get to keep profits yet the taxpayer has to be a safety net because we cannot currently operate without these banks.\n\nIt pretty much comes down to a bit better service, and if you want your money to be invested in the community in the form of loans instead of used by investment banks so the people there can gamble on investments to try to get a bonus for their fifth summer house.\n\nBasically the idea of banking is that you take the money people invest with the bank and invest it in something that returns more money than the interest rate you give to the depositor. That is generally how banking historically was, and kind of how smaller banks work.\n\nWhen you get to large investment banks they take the money you gave them, borrow many times that amount of money, and then try to invest that in the most lucrative places. Some people avoid the large banks because it seems you are just the chips used in a huge game of high stakes gambling.\n\n\n",
"A bank doesn't store your money: a bank takes your money with the promise to return it to you should you come asking for it.\n\n*A bank doesn't store your money.*\n\nThey use it. It's spent the moment you deposit it, and all you've got is a promise you can get it back.\n\nYou can see this at work more clearly with credit unions, because a credit union is a group of people coming together to pool their money so as to be able to give loans to one another as they need it. When you store money with them, it's not going to sit there. Any other member seeking a loan will be given some of your money to make that loan possible.\n\nThis seems insecure and fraught with risk? But the exact same thing happens with banks! Your money isn't stored in either place.\n\nNow the advantage of a credit union is that it's owned by its members, whereas a bank is a third party you and the rest of your community are willing to use to help with financial activities. So the risk of some idiot taking out a bad loan and squandering the credit union's cash is offset somewhat by the power it grants: you're not beholden to some greater force as a member of a credit union. You might be screwed by idiocy, but you won't be screwed by greed.\n\nCredit unions are smaller, so each loan carries a greater risk that's harder to swallow for them. But because everyone's in it together, credit unions might offer *greater* security. They'd be less likely to write up bad loans or to gamble the money in investments or trading. The money at risk in a credit union is the (owner/member)'s money (Owner = member). A big bank though can lose money and its owners still claim end of year bonusses - the money at risk was never theirs (Owner =/= member).\n\nHowever, most credit unions' structures have evolved and taken on a lot of features of for-profit banks (like having a maybe-too-loose capital/risk ratio) so although the idea of \"power to the people\" is still true, a lot of the tools in place are such that the members could screw themselves over with them.\n\nA credit union, in theory, is good for security, honesty, and community power. It's the farmer's market alternative to a supermarket-as-bank.\n\nBut it's also just about as prone to malfunction as a bank would be, albeit with some different securities, but some different risks too."
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jr000 | - why is it difficult to predict the length of time copying files will take? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/jr000/eli5_why_is_it_difficult_to_predict_the_length_of/ | {
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"I'm assuming you're talking about the estimate of file transfer lengths in Windows. Estimating file copying times isn't as simple as just dividing the size by the speed, as speeds fluctuate depending on what else you're doing with your hard drives, computers, USB devices, etc. You have to work all these changes into your algorithm. When a file transfer pauses, you're adding time but not data, so that will result in the time increasing until the transfer continues, then it will come back down a bit.\n\nHaving said that, I don't know why Microsoft has always used such a poor algorithm, or formula. The ongoing joke here is that every transfer will take \"two minutes\", a number Microsoft's algorithm likes to get stuck on.\n\nOther programs in Windows tend not to have that broken algorithm. Not every algorithm is necessarily better than Windows' native explorer algorithm, but when I use Directory Opus and TeraCopy, their completion estimates generally are a lot closer to reality.",
"I'm assuming you're talking about the estimate of file transfer lengths in Windows. Estimating file copying times isn't as simple as just dividing the size by the speed, as speeds fluctuate depending on what else you're doing with your hard drives, computers, USB devices, etc. You have to work all these changes into your algorithm. When a file transfer pauses, you're adding time but not data, so that will result in the time increasing until the transfer continues, then it will come back down a bit.\n\nHaving said that, I don't know why Microsoft has always used such a poor algorithm, or formula. The ongoing joke here is that every transfer will take \"two minutes\", a number Microsoft's algorithm likes to get stuck on.\n\nOther programs in Windows tend not to have that broken algorithm. Not every algorithm is necessarily better than Windows' native explorer algorithm, but when I use Directory Opus and TeraCopy, their completion estimates generally are a lot closer to reality."
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3vcc6l | why do birds have high metabolic rates? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3vcc6l/eli5_why_do_birds_have_high_metabolic_rates/ | {
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"Because flying takes a lot of energy. Because, generally speaking, birds are small and small animals do not store large amounts of food inside themselves as fat and instead convert more of what they eat into energy. Mostly the flying thing would be my bet. "
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2pzcxc | why are so many american adults obsessed with japanese cartoons? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2pzcxc/eli5_why_are_so_many_american_adults_obsessed/ | {
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"Japanese culture is extremely different from american culture, so their cartoons don't have the same cultural taboos as American cartoons do.\n\nThese differences mean that the stories that are told in Japanese animation are drastically different from stories that are told in America. \n\nMany Japanese animated shows are explicitly *not* meant for children, including many of the most popular ones. American cartoons have been largely relegated to children's entertainment.",
"American cartoons rarely have a real plot from episode to episode, and almost never come to a satisfying conclusion. Every element of the environment and characters returns to a \"default\" each week. I think as Americans grow up, we are attracted to the more sophisticated and complete stories of anime.",
"They are cartoons, but not childrens cartoons. Your title seems to imply adults shouldn't be interested, but why not?\n\nIn American culture most animated content such as cartoons are for kids. In other cultures thats no necessarily true. Just because you see a certain art style, it doesn't mean it's for a specific audience. A LOT of those \"Japanese cartoons\" are specifically NOT for kids, and targeted at adults.",
"It's different, and some of us grow up with it. Anime is diverse, and series build on plots. It's not like an American cartoon where each episode is random. \n\nAlso it's just fun to watch. There's so many genres, from school life to physiological and action. \n\nWant an anime about murdering people? Well, we have it.\n\nWhat about a fantasy story? Yep, have that too.\n\nRomance / comedy? Yep. \n\nDon't knock it till you try it. Ya, the fanbase is sort of weird, but don't let that stop you. ( Ironically, I ignore a lot of the fanbase.) It's not just Naruto and hentai, it's so so much more. "
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65qmkb | up until around early 1930's the government forced farmers to have a portion of their land used to grow hemp. why did this stop? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/65qmkb/elif_up_until_around_early_1930s_the_government/ | {
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"Hemp is a really useful crop and can grow in many environments. It's just such a useful crop that the US required farmers grow at least some.\n\nHemp is actually pretty much the same as marijuana. The primary difference is that marijuana has more THC in it than hemp. Notably, they look the same, so it would take a bit of detective work to figure out if a farmer was growing hemp or marijuana. Thus hemp was banned too so the government would be able to tell if farmers were growing banned plants at a glance."
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63tgvj | why are antibiotics so bad for our gut bacteria, and is it possible to potentially lose good bacteria permanently if too many are taken? are there ways to regrow healthy bacteria in your gut after a heavy round of antibiotics? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/63tgvj/eli5_why_are_antibiotics_so_bad_for_our_gut/ | {
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"Antibiotics kill all bacteria. They don't have a way to make them super specific. I don't think you can lose all the bacteria in your gut from a round of antibiotics, but you could lose a good amount. On way to regain them is through a fecal transplant: _URL_0_ ",
"Antibiotics designed to kill a specific type of bacteria will kill all of that type of bacteria, not just the 'bad' ones giving you an infection or sickness. This means that the bacteria in your gut can also be wiped out by antibiotics. To prevent this from happening, there are a few different tactics that can be employed. \n\nFirst, physicians are being urged to not over-prescribe antibiotics. This also addresses the issue of bacteria becoming resistant to antibiotics, which is an entirely different issue.\n\nSecond, many antibiotics are very specific to a certain type of bacteria that will limit the damage done to your gut flora.\n\nFinally, using a probiotic supplement at the time you begin your antibiotics will help to replenish your gut flora (and is far less invasive than a fecal transplant, though that works in very severe cases of a specific and potentially deadly bacterial infection). Yogurt, kefir, and supplements like Florastor are all appropriate, with your physician's approval, of course.\n\nHope that helps!\n\nSource: Ph.D. working in healthcare",
"This may be the purpose of your appendix, to regrow your gut bacteria\n\n_URL_0_"
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],
[],
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f6xov4 | what are the key differences between confucianism and neo-confucianism. i read a bit about it in a book and it just kinda seems like confucianism with extra obedience to those who are above you. i feel like there is something i'm missing since that seems too simple | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/f6xov4/eli5_what_are_the_key_differences_between/ | {
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"Neo Confusianism is the western name for the philosophy of Song Confucianism, which is essentially all the teachings of Confucius, but also deifying him into a god.\n\nThis gives his teachings, which in Confusianism is advice and teaching, added weight, and the force of divine law.\n\nEssentially, it is the difference between believing Jesus was a teacher and believing he was the perfect Son of God."
]
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aox82s | tiananmen square, 1989 | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/aox82s/eli5_tiananmen_square_1989/ | {
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"There is a lot of modern Chinese history behind this question. However the gist if it was that Chinese university students started a movement for democracy. They gathered in Tienanmen square to protest the communist government and demanded democratic elections. Eventually the Chinese army were sent inn to clear the square of protestors. However the soldiers in the army did not follow orders and tried to resolve the conflict without using force. Most of the soldiers grew up with and had friends among the protestors. So the government sent inn another army unit from a different part of the country. They did not show the same mercy as the first unit. They first opened fire, even on people fleeing, and then they ran over people with their vehicles.",
"1989 was a crazy year. There were huge demonstrations in Hungary (part of Soviet bloc at the time) for democracy and the Soviets started withdrawing their troops. Students in China began protesting for democratic reforms, the crowds kept growing for over a month. Some students went on hunger strike The Chinese government eventually cracked down hard, declaring martial law and sending in tanks. There was an iconic photo of one guy standing down a row of tanks. The Chinese army eventually fired on the protestors, killing thousands.\n\nChina back then was nothing like the China of today.. They had started market reforms in the 1980s but there were still very few western companies (KFC was there in Tienanmen Square). Very few people owned cars. I was in China on a highschool trip in 1988, almost exactly a year before the protests.\n\nDemocratic protests continued worldwide, especially in the Soviet bloc countries. Just a few months later the Berlin wall came down."
]
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292shw | why do they add artificial coloring to soft drinks? | I don't see the point of adding a coloring agent to soft drinks. It's not like dirty brown is the most appetizing color to drink. What would a cola look like without a coloring agent? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/292shw/eli5_why_do_they_add_artificial_coloring_to_soft/ | {
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"It would probably look mostly clear. A dark, rich-looking foamy beverage was probably settled on as it would be competing against things like beer.",
"They tried a clear cola with \"Crystal Pepsi\" and it bombed because it didn't match consumers' expectations. \rIt's the same reason they put lots of food coloring in ketchup, because the actual color would be less appealing to consumers expecting bright red."
]
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3dw2ge | which toothbrushing is most important, morning or evening and why? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3dw2ge/eli5_which_toothbrushing_is_most_important/ | {
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"You really should do both...\n\nThat being said, brushing before going to sleep is more important, because bacteria will have more time to proliferate undisturbed while you sleep.",
"Here's the important thing to remember: The longer you let food/gunk sit in your mouth, the longer bacteria has to act.\n\nWith that said, if you only brushed your teeth once per day, doing it in the evening is the \"best\" time. If you brush at night, bacteria has had since you ate breakfast to go to work in your mouth. If you brush in the morning, bacteria has had all day and night to act. Technically, the teeth-cleaning habit would be to brush after every meal."
]
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[],
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ah95l5 | bullet calibers. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/ah95l5/eli5_bullet_calibers/ | {
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"The bigger the bullet the more damage they do. But a bigger bullet also requires a bigger bang to propell it towards a target. \n\nWhen talking about bullet caliber you usually refer to the bullet diameter, i.e. a 9mm bullet is 9mm in diameter. Sometimes denoted in inch (US), like a .38 cal is usually about .38 inch. \n\nIn conclusion; larger caliber = bigger bullet = bigger gun = more damage to the target"
]
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| [
[]
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|
||
mxald | how can there be more than one lines in an elements line spectrum? | Disclaimer: Please ignore the typos in the title. Somehow I always manage to do that.
The idea that light from a Ne, H or any other kind of lamp gives off radiation of different wave lengths confuses me. Especially because the lamp is one color and the different lines in the visible line spectrum are associated with different colors.
I'm in general chemistry I, and everything has been going fine but for some reason this trips me up.
Thanks! | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/mxald/eli5_how_can_there_be_more_than_one_lines_in_an/ | {
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"Jumps in energy levels of the electrons produce different energies. The more electrons, the more complex the jumps get and so you get more lines.",
"First let's make sure you know why a color is made at all...\n\nBeen a while, this is simplified, etc.\n\nLight = energy. The amount of energy determines the wavelength. The wavelength determines the color.\n\nSo where does the energy come from? Electrons changing orbitals. Basically. You'll get more detail some other day. Think of it simply as energy levels...you get *anything* hot, the electrons in it climb up to higher energy levels. As it cools (this happens even inside a flame) the electrons fall back down to lower energy levels. To do that they give off energy, and that's the light we see.\n\nLet's make sure that's understood: Light (and its color) comes from an electron changing energy levels.\n\nNow the key part. There are different distances between levels. Think of it as climbing stairs. For hydrogen, climbing from the ground floor to the second story is one flight of stairs but going from the second to the third story is three flights of stairs, from third to fourth is twelve flights. When an electron jumps back to the ground from different storys you get different colors.\n\nEvery different element has different \"heights\" to their storys (because the nucleus pulls stronger, weaker, or just at a different angle on each electron), and when they get into molecules each one changes again. It's far more complicated than that, but it's also really more or less that simple. You see all of them at once because there are *lots* of atoms in a sample of hydrogen and every one jumps different levels at the same time. There are only four because if the electron jumps any further away from the nucleus it breaks free and doesn't \"fall\" back at all, it flies away.",
"Jumps in energy levels of the electrons produce different energies. The more electrons, the more complex the jumps get and so you get more lines.",
"First let's make sure you know why a color is made at all...\n\nBeen a while, this is simplified, etc.\n\nLight = energy. The amount of energy determines the wavelength. The wavelength determines the color.\n\nSo where does the energy come from? Electrons changing orbitals. Basically. You'll get more detail some other day. Think of it simply as energy levels...you get *anything* hot, the electrons in it climb up to higher energy levels. As it cools (this happens even inside a flame) the electrons fall back down to lower energy levels. To do that they give off energy, and that's the light we see.\n\nLet's make sure that's understood: Light (and its color) comes from an electron changing energy levels.\n\nNow the key part. There are different distances between levels. Think of it as climbing stairs. For hydrogen, climbing from the ground floor to the second story is one flight of stairs but going from the second to the third story is three flights of stairs, from third to fourth is twelve flights. When an electron jumps back to the ground from different storys you get different colors.\n\nEvery different element has different \"heights\" to their storys (because the nucleus pulls stronger, weaker, or just at a different angle on each electron), and when they get into molecules each one changes again. It's far more complicated than that, but it's also really more or less that simple. You see all of them at once because there are *lots* of atoms in a sample of hydrogen and every one jumps different levels at the same time. There are only four because if the electron jumps any further away from the nucleus it breaks free and doesn't \"fall\" back at all, it flies away."
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164o0c | what exactly happens behind the scene of a nosebleed? | More specifically; where does the blood come from? What causes it? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/164o0c/what_exactly_happens_behind_the_scene_of_a/ | {
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"Nose bleeds are caused by blood vessels in your nose bursting.\n\nSee the body is filled with very tiny blood vessels, these are used to bring oxygen to all your cells. \n\nDuring a nosebleed these burst in your nose. They burst because they get over pressured (think of a balloon popping). They get so pressurized, because of something called an 'auto-immune response', or allergies. This is caused by your body thinking what your smelling is actually an illness invading your body. ",
"I'm not a hundred percent clear on what you mean by \"where does the blood come from?\" Oxygenated blood circulates from your heart through your body by arteries, and veins return de-oxygenated blood to the heart. The blood from nose bleeds is venous (from veins) blood. \n\nNose bleeds, or epistaxis as it's known in medical terminology, can be caused by high blood pressure. Similarly to other blood vessels bursting (like hemorrhagic strokes), the pressure in the vessel can become to high, and like a weak hose filled up with too much water, a weak spot can tear open. Blood pressure can increase momentarily from a cough or sneeze or straining too hard when you are going to the bathroom, and can result in a nosebleed. Your body also feels more pressure exerted upon it while in high altitudes, putting you at greater risk for a nose bleed before your body has adjusted to the change. \n\nAlso, nasal membranes being dry makes them more prone to breaking, which means in the winter when there is less humidity you are more at risk. \n\nSome medications called anticoagulants, or blood thinners, can also increase your risk for a nose bleed by preventing your blood from clotting, making the bleeding more severe. \n\nSource: 4th year nursing student",
"Your brain is pulling off the ultimate troll move since its power is over 9000 while your nose's power level is at negative noobtastic. Your arteries active their trap cards and open the floodgates to your mother's red sea. From there, the gates of hell pour forth l337 levels of blood. If you're lucky, the spewed red liquid will both look like and taste like Vermont's famed Cherry Garcia ice cream. Good luck my friend controlling this phenomenon. It is inevitable. You can delay it but you cannot ever stop it. Just like the Slender Man................OH SHIT I HEAR WHITE NOISE BEHIND ME. HELPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPP IT'S HIM WITH HIS CHERRY GARCIA FLOOD GATES OF MATERNAL BLOOD"
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1mjk6y | what are those squiggly lines on the roads in london? | My wife and I visited London a few years back (we're from Texas). Never figured out what those squiggly lines were and have wondered ever since. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1mjk6y/eli5_what_are_those_squiggly_lines_on_the_roads/ | {
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"Approaching a pedestrian crossing.",
"The zigg-zagg lines are pre-warnings for zebra crossing (black and white crosswalks) similar to the wave lines here in the US when approaching areas where you need to slowdown.",
"As others have said, they are used when approaching pedestrian crossings and schools. They are also used at hospitals, fire stations, police stations and ambulance stations.\n\nNo one has yet told you that this is an area in which you are not allowed to park your car.\n\n[Highway Code 191](_URL_2_) and [238](_URL_0_), and the [Roadway Markings document](_URL_1_) contain all the details."
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[],
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"https://www.gov.uk/waiting-and-parking/waiting-and-parking-238",
"http://www.direct.gov.uk/prod_consum_dg/groups/dg_digitalassets/@dg/@en/documents/digitalasset/dg_070563.pdf",
"https://www.gov.uk/using-the-road-159-to-203/pedestrian-crossings-191-to-199"
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2ryg31 | how do you weigh a body part without removing it first, eg. the head or arm? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2ryg31/eli5_how_do_you_weigh_a_body_part_without/ | {
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"if you just want an estimate: \n- fill a bucket of water to the brim. \n- insert body party in bucket and collect the water the overflows out as you do it. \n- weigh the water that poured out. since the human body weighs approximately the same, you have an approximation of what the body part weighed. \n \nThis is also a goof way to measure the volume of an odd shaped volume. 1l or 1 cubic dm = 1kg"
]
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355bdt | why haven't us wealthier nations helped out third world nations enough to become 2nd world nation or even 1st world nations? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/355bdt/eli5_why_havent_us_wealthier_nations_helped_out/ | {
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"We are constantly trying. But its not a problem you can throw money at, and unfortunately a lot of Third World nations have corrupt governments that direct aid from First World nations into their own pockets or toward their militaries. \n\nTheres not much more we can do if a Third World government doesn't cooperate, unless you're willing to consider war, which is more likely to end up killing a whole lot of people and fostering hatred than it is to set the stage for improvement from Third to First world.",
"We've certainly tried, but there are a lot of factors working against us. It takes a lot of resources which we aren't always willing to part with, takes education which can be hard to find, and it takes the nation to work with us. This last part is especially hard as many underdeveloped countries are very corrupt and will use the resources we provide inappropriately. \n\nELI5: You try to help the poor kid in class out by giving him lunch money. He decides he wants some toys instead, and stays hungry, or the bully takes his lunch money becoming richer while the child is in the same place. Do you keep providing money, or do you let the kid work on his own?",
"We do a lot actually, and things are changing quickly.\n\nPeople have this weird idea in their mind that there is only third world abject poverty and first world abject wealth, but the fact is that there is a spectrum of levels of wealth, and the bottom 3 billion people could easily be brought up to the level of the 4th billion without harming our resources in a noticeable way. While it might not seem like much to us, the difference between having no shoes and having a bicycle is huge.\n\nA lot of projects are underway to increase overall global wealth, particularly in Africa where farm modernization is a growing sensation with local governments, bringing modern fertilizers, techniques, and equipment.\n\nI strongly suggest you have a look at [Hans Rosling's Latest Presentation](_URL_0_) sponsored by the BBC. It'll change your worldview.\n\nEDIT: High def link",
"i'm unemployed and going broke. Why haven't you given me any of your extra money yet?",
"1st, 2nd, and 3rd world does not refer to how developed a country is. \n\n1st world is the NATO aligned/ western countries.\n\n2nd world is/was the USSR aligned eastern bloc.\n\n3rd is the unaligned countries.\n\nThere is causation between level of development and alignment, but that's not what the terms refer to.",
"Because the number one interest of powerful nations is not improvement of human life. The number one interest is national security which does not only mean protection against terrorists, but also against any movement or idea or phenomenon that threatens that nation's superiority. \n\nThird world nations getting industrialized, no longer being dependent on the IMF - World Bank duo, becoming a global competitor when it comes to products, no longer selling cheap labor or allowing their natural resources to be stolen by First World countries, etc. These are not interests of First World nations. In fact, these are threats to their national security.\n\nNot that First World countries themselves are super evil. They're a mix of good and bad, like you know, people. Rampant and uncontrolled capitalism that will do anything for profit (currently in the form of Multi-National Corporations)... now that's evil."
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loqlg | the plot of primer, 2004. | I have watched this movie and even read the plot on Wikipedia... still lost. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/loqlg/eli5_the_plot_of_primer_2004/ | {
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"There is no way a 5 year old could understand that plot. Hell, most adults can't even get close.\n\nI KINDA get it, but not well enough to really explain it. Here's a super fast summary:\n\nGuys use the box to travel back in time. Once you hit the start point of when the box was created/started, you can't go back any further.\n\nAs a \"fail safe,\" they guys made another box that they could fold up and take with them back in time (holding it with them in the first box). They would use this fail-safe to restart their trip if they messed up (travel back to when they came out of the first box and set up the fail safe).\n\nThis occurs over and over again until there are a bunch of fail safes and various versions of each time traveler running around. Shit gets mega complicated and they fuck everything up, but have so many fail-safes that they can infinitely re-do things until they succeed.\n\nThe movie ends when the one dude, who started the FIRST fail safe (and thus can travel back to before all of the time travel started), uses that fail-safe to start anew.\n\n",
"[This](_URL_0_) is a pretty good timeline. You might check out the rest of the forum for more explanations and analysis.",
"There is no way a 5 year old could understand that plot. Hell, most adults can't even get close.\n\nI KINDA get it, but not well enough to really explain it. Here's a super fast summary:\n\nGuys use the box to travel back in time. Once you hit the start point of when the box was created/started, you can't go back any further.\n\nAs a \"fail safe,\" they guys made another box that they could fold up and take with them back in time (holding it with them in the first box). They would use this fail-safe to restart their trip if they messed up (travel back to when they came out of the first box and set up the fail safe).\n\nThis occurs over and over again until there are a bunch of fail safes and various versions of each time traveler running around. Shit gets mega complicated and they fuck everything up, but have so many fail-safes that they can infinitely re-do things until they succeed.\n\nThe movie ends when the one dude, who started the FIRST fail safe (and thus can travel back to before all of the time travel started), uses that fail-safe to start anew.\n\n",
"[This](_URL_0_) is a pretty good timeline. You might check out the rest of the forum for more explanations and analysis."
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22513a | why is it that when you're a kid, getting dizzy feels euphoric and awesome but as an adult it makes you feel nauseous and terrible? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/22513a/eli5_why_is_it_that_when_youre_a_kid_getting/ | {
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"placebo maybe? As kids we could interpret the feeling in a totally illogical way so we turn it it into fun! and as we grow we learn what dizzyness is so we don't fall for it like we used to? idk thats what I think",
"I took perception ages ago, but this is how I think of it. There is fluid inside your inner ear that helps you balance, like water in a glass, you tip it and your brain recognizes the movement, even very tiny changes. Spinning makes it slosh around, even after you stop, so you feel dizzy since your brain is getting a lot of different signals. When you are younger, your inner ear and this fluid do a good job of getting back to normal quickly (no sloshing). As you get older structures in your ear and this fluid change, making you more sensitive and less capable of recovering as quickly. ",
"The euphoric feeling that you get after spinning is caused by your brain releasing endorphins which bind to opioid receptors. The reason this happens is because the centrifugal force of spinning on an axis pulls blood away from the center of your head. This causes parts of your brain to undergo mild hypoxia (lack of oxygen), which triggers the mechanism releasing the brain chemicals.\n\nThis is also part of what causes the dizziness, although most of the dizziness is caused by the fact that fluid in your inner ear is out of equilibrium and the movement of the fluid is still running across the tiny hairs in the inner ear, playing tricks on your brain.\n\nThe long and short of it is this: When you spin, you are literally making yourself \"high\". This is very similar to the high people feel when they smoke marijuana or drink alcohol.\n\nAdditional Information: _URL_0_",
"To this I would add, why do illicit drugs(alcohol included) seem so much more fun when we are younger and later become not worth the lingering effects... Why do children enjoy being throw in the air but I as an adult would literally evacuate my bowels if I rode too extreme of a ride... ",
"you are physically larger and more massive. if a child and an adult spin at the same speed, the adult's body will be experiencing more severe forces on all counts. \n\nthis is similarly why kids are so good at being evasive. even a fit adult has more momentum while in motion and spends a lot more energy moving 2-4 times the body mass of the kid."
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1weio1 | how do dns sites like _url_0_ work? | How do I get US netflix using this service just by changing my DNS server to theirs, even though when I do an nslookup using my ISP's DNS server and the _URL_0_ DNS, it resolves to the same IP? It seems way too fast to be a vpn.
You can ELI20, i understand how DNS works and have a decent background in IT. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1weio1/eli5how_do_dns_sites_like_unlocatorcom_work/ | {
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"I'm not familiar with unlocator, but it's possible to alter the dns so all the traffic will go trough a proxyserver defined by the dns. ",
"If they're using something like anycast to announce a set of ips from multiple locations (POPs) around the planet. Each POP would announce those ips in their local BGP and serve you content from the nearest node. A dns request relayed from a California dns server for instance would hit a west coast (or nearest to it) node based on those routes. \n\nThe major players offering dns resolving are also likely doing the same anycast setup to also serve localized areas with the fastest dns responses. The ISP provided dns resolvers would also be optimized for their local customer base. So you can manipulate your dns resolver on your network to seek dns responses from a server you know in California to trick the content provider into thinking of serving you content as if you were in California. \n\nFrom the provider standpoint, having a single POP that is close to some but far for many is not optimal for a large area spanning service. You can have many POPs in major network exchange hubs spread throughout the country serving the fastest response to their localized subscribers. More spread allows you to satisfy more areas and offers you many network exchange points. Less chance for a single provider knocking your whole services out when a single POP failure can be absorbed by running the next hop over a little hot to compensate."
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26u7a0 | why don't our average atmospheric conditions ie oxygen nitrogen have a smell? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/26u7a0/eli5_why_dont_our_average_atmospheric_conditions/ | {
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"If we had the ability to smell oxygen and nitrogen, it would be a useless feature. They are both abundant everywhere, and we regulate our blood oxygen levels using processes that don't require conscious perception of oxygen or nitrogen.\n\nThere's no biological advantage to evolving an olfactory receptor able to smell oxygen, so we can't smell it.",
"I asked this to my science teacher when I was in middle school. He had us do an experiment where we were blindfolded and someone held an onion under our nose and you were supposed to say when the onion was taken away. After a few seconds, your brain stops detecting the onion smell and you believe it was taken away, although it is still there. \n"
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1rfqoz | why is it that i can by a 2" thick novel for ~$6, but a 20 page children's book will cost me $15-20? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1rfqoz/eli5_why_is_it_that_i_can_by_a_2_thick_novel_for/ | {
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"Books aren't sold by weight or volume. They're sold by what people will pay for them.\n\nThe children's book costs more because it costs more to produce (hard cover, color pages with images). They charge more for it because of that and because they know what people are willing to pay for them.",
"Things cost what people will pay. Go to Barnes & Noble and you'll find most paperbacks are in the $10-$15 range, and older non-popular books are obviously cheaper. Children's books are generally hardcover, have lots of color print which costs more (with the additional costs of paying an illustrator) and are marketed with the added incentive of helping develop necessary skills for toddlers & kids.",
"In order for a book to be printed, the potential return has to outweigh the investment.\nListing the things that cost in the production of the book we have:\n\n1) Author's salary (flat fee + royalties)\n\n2) Cost to publish \n\n a) set costs - building a publishing factory the first time\n\n b) marginal costs - cost per book.\n\nOn the other hand you have the potential return which is simply (price per book) * (copies sold).\n\nThe answer to this particular question has more to do with the second half of the equation than the first half. Specifically, when you take a look at copies sold, one of the implied questions is, how big is the market. If the market is all literary adults, then corresponding, you may be able to drop the price of the book in order to capture a greater % of the market and increase your overall return. On the other hand if your market is parents that can afford a book that will keep their toddler occupied for a little bit of time, your absolute numbers are much smaller and so you need to increase your price to compensate. Interestingly enough, this is also the reason why school texts are expensive, limited market size + potential for recirculation/reselling of previously bought texts means you have to increase the price per book or risk going out of business due to a losing strategy.\n",
"Supply and demand...Macroeconomics.",
"pictures are worth a thousand words. How many pictures are in that childrens book?",
"Not many people would by a book costing that much for themselves...however when it's for your kid? Money is not the primary concern. I used to work in a bookshop, those books are on lower shelves for a reason, so your child will see it and the harass you into buying for them. Its smart and a little bit evil.",
"Because I want it.\n\nI want it, I want it, I want it, I want it, I wan it",
"Perhaps we can have a sidebar not. Almost all questions about price have the same answer, the cost is due to what people will pay.",
"Umm... The cost of ink? Anytime you mass produce something in color it costs a shit-ton of money."
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3c3x8x | terminator timeline | I watched Genisys yesteday and the movie timeline confused me. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3c3x8x/eli5_terminator_timeline/ | {
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"I was worried about this. Haven't seen it ywt, but have heard whispers that the time line is now out of the realm of human understanding.\n\nBut then again... future past robot shotgun explosions are cool. I'd love to see a legitimate answer to this though.",
"Havent seen the new one yet, but one thing that has always bothered -\n\nThere has to be an original timeline for John Conner to send Kyle Reese back in time to save Sarah. Either Kyle isnt Johns father, or someone else sent Kyle back first for a different reason, met Sarah, had a baby, and altered the future..\n\n",
"I'm seeing Genisys this afternoon. But from the first two films, that we all consider canon, here's how I understand them...\n\n**ORIGINAL TIMELINE:** Sarah Connor conceives John Connor with oft forgot rich guy. It's mentioned in the original film that she's dating some guy with money. Judgement Day happens, John rises as leader of humanity, we win in the war against the machines. BUT-- It's discovered the machines sent a Terminator back in a Hail Mary/last ditch effort which leads us to--\n\n**Terminator/T2 Timeline:** The first film happens. Kyle Reese now becomes John Connor's father. The T-800 is destroyed but some pieces remain. Cyberdyne Systems begin their reverse engineering program which accelerates the rise of the machines in this timeline. Which is why, in this future, the machines have a much more advanced liquid metal prototype T-1000 to send back in their last ditch effort/Hail Mary to take out a young John Connor.\n\nSide note: People point out that T2's ending suffers because the heroes forget the T-800's arm is still caught in the machine shop. Wouldn't that still lead to someone getting the arm and get on the track of rise of the machines timeline? Well, I think the key component to this is the processing chip. Maybe through the arm, someone can reverse engineer more advanced robotics. But I think the AI CPU is what clinches it.\n\nSo that's my mind set going into Genisys. If anyone cares, I'll update with my thoughts on how it fits into what we have here.\n\n**Edit:** And here we go... I have no idea. I'm going to launch into spoilers (the trailer gives away the biggest surprises) but just felt obliged to warn.\n\nMy understanding is that we seem to be in the original timeline, but the machines send back a T-100 to kill Sarah Connor as a child, a T-800 to kill her as a 20-something, then infects John Connor and sends him back to ensure Skynet's survival and creation. Why all three at once? I have no idea. Paradoxes within paradoxes.\n\nWhat really grinds my gears is... They set up that *someone* sent back the \"Pops\" T-800 and question it a few times in the film. But we never find out who. Saving for a sequel? Well it was unsatisfying. I was hoping this answer would clear up the Timeline question.\n\nThe timeline is totally fucked in this movie. They posit the idea that because our hero characters are people out of time, it doesn't matter if Sarah dies because Evil-John will still exist out of time. But then why, in the happy ending, does Reese need to give his younger self the message about Skynet? Timeline doesn't make sense. Maybe someone can try to figure it out and make a graph. But that may drive someone insane. Sorry, James Cameron, I don't consider this the third film in the franchise.",
"[WARNING SOME SPOILERS AT END]\n\n*Time Line 1*\n\n[1984]\nTerminator sent back to kill Sarah Connor\nKyle Reese sent back to save Sarah Connor\nKyle Reese and Sarah get it on, Kyle Dies, Terminator killed\n\n[1985]\nJohn Connor Born\n\n[1990]\nSarah Connor Imprisoned trying to destroy Cyberdine factory\n\n[1997]\nJudgement Day\n\n[2018]\nSkynet Central Destroyed, Terminator Sent back, then Kyle Reese\n\n*Time Line 2* - Same as 1 until 1995\n\n[1995]\nLiquid Terminator sent back to kill John Connor\nReprogrammed Terminator sent back to save John Connor\nThey convince Miles Dyson to destroy the processor that would create SkyNet and prolong Judgement day.\n\n[2004]\nJudgement Day\n\n[Unknown altered date?]\nSkynet Destroyed, Terminator and Kyle Reese sent back to 1984.\n\n*Timeline 3* - Same as Timeline 1 until 2014\n\n[1997]\nJudgement day doesn't happen, but Sarah Connor dies of Cancer\n\n[2014] \nFancy lady terminator sent back to kill human resistance leaders.\nTerminator sent back after John Connor killed in 2032 to stop Ladybot.\nJudgement day happens anyways, John Connor holes up to save the world following the same future timeline, and sending back Kyle Reese.\n\n*Timeline 4* Cut off in 1973\nTerminator sent back to kill Sarah Connor in 1973\nArnold sent back to save her, succeeds in doing so, and hangs out.\n\n[1984]\nSarah Connor and Terminator (Pops) from 1973 kill the original Terminator.\nKyle Reese is sent back, but meets an unexpected Liquid Terminator, but evades him.\nSarah Connor and Pops somehow know and have planned for this Liquid Terminator even though they never encountered him in any other timeline.\n\nEdit: It's been pointed out to me that the Liquid Terminator is actually the original 1973 Terminator, that has been trying to track down and kill Sarah Connor and Pops since 1973.\n\nLiquid Terminator is destroyed.\n\nSomehow Pops and Sarah have built a Time Machine using 1984 technology that eluded the Son of Miles Dyson (Genius who would have invented Skynet eventually on his own) and John Connor with an entire corporation in the future.\n\n[2018]\nSkynet Central is crushed. John Connor sends back Kyle Reese, who is no longer a scrappy survivor, but a muscly heart throb with no personality, back to 1984.\n\nJohn is converted to a Terminator, and sent to some time between 1984 and 2017 to help create Skynet again.\n\n*Timeline 5* - Splitting the path into a future without Judgement day.\n[2017]\n\nKyle somehow receives information from an alternate Timeline where Judgement day never occurs to travel to 2017 (Which should be after Judgement day in this Timeline, even including the Sarah Connor Chronicles which moves it to something like 2015), to stop Genesys.\n\n[2017]\nSarah Connor and Kyle run into John Connor, turns out he was converted to a Terminator.\n\nAll the shit from the movie happens, they destroy the lab, and indefinitely put off Judgement day probably.\n\nThey then go to deliver the message to Child Kyle.\n\n*Fin*\n\nIt's truly kindof a mess, especially the part of creating this time machine in 1984, and Kyle not really being this scrappy traumatized survivor suffering with PTSD from the original movies.\n\nIt was fun though."
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20gjjj | what would happen if a single water molecule was brought down to below freezing or above boiling? | My understanding of states of matter is that they change based on how the molecules interact. So, if a single molecule of water (or anything) was isolated and brought past its freezing/boiling point, would it change its state? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/20gjjj/eli5_what_would_happen_if_a_single_water_molecule/ | {
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"It would bounce around more or less, depending on how much energy it has. A single molecule of water doesn't really have a state, it just has an amount of energy that decides if it'll settle on the counter-top or bounce around into the air.",
"The \"state\" is really how the mollecules interract with one another. \n\nThey always move, but if they are colder they have less energy so they form bonds with one another, they still try to move irratically, but those bonds keep them in place, so in the macro they appear solid. etc etc.\n\nFreezing or heating a single molecule basically means it will have less or more energy to move around. If you freeze it at 0K it will stop. But without it's interraction with others, we can't really talk about states. It has no macro meanining since we can't see it. "
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2pjw3a | ibm, plo, ups, nsa, kfc ... people really like short and three lettered words for usage. why? is this a simple thing, or a neat path dependence for ages built? | English skills like I am five, I know. but alas. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2pjw3a/eli5_ibm_plo_ups_nsa_kfc_people_really_like_short/ | {
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"Can you prove 3 letters is more popular? IHOP, USPS, FedEx, NASA, AMEX, etc aren't 3 letters. It's just one letter for each name in the company. If the company is only one word, you won't need a short form, so companies like Apple or Sony just keep their regular name. And most companies don't have 6 words, so thats why you don't see 6 lettered words often. \n\nA weirder thought is why almost all companies are either red or blue.\n\nTarget - Walmart\n\nCoke - Pepsi\n\nVerizon - ATT\n\nPizza Hut - Dominos (they use some red too)\n\nVery few are large corporations using a different color besides red/blue. \n"
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3719o6 | non-binary/genderfluid/etc. | I understand the words used to describe these concepts, but when they are strung together to actually describe them it becomes gibberish to me.
How does someone who identifies as genderfluid or non-binary *know* that's what they are? I am male, but if you asked me if I "felt" like a man in terms of gender I would have no answer for you because I don't think of myself in those terms. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3719o6/eli5_nonbinarygenderfluidetc/ | {
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" > I am male, but if you asked me if I \"felt\" like a man in terms of gender I would have no answer for you because I don't think of myself in those terms.\n\nMost likely, you do. You're just not aware of it. In cases where someone has been put into the opposite sex's role, whether unknowingly and involuntarily like [David Reimer](_URL_1_) or for the purposes of experiment like [Norah Vincent](_URL_0_), they've displayed similar distress to a trans person.",
"As you mentioned, gender (and really, identity as a whole) is often a difficult thing to pin down and put into words - it's often just a vague feeling that you really can't put your finger on. \n\nTerms like these (used by non-cisgender folk to self-identify) are simply ways to define something about oneself that's nearly impossible to define. It's part of being human; we want to know *exactly who we are* as individuals. For those of us who don't identify as wholly male or female, terms such as these are a way of doing just that. For someone who's never put a lot of thought into gender, a lot of the little intricacies and differences between these terms are hard to pinpoint or understand. For example, some of them cover similar territory and, to the 'untrained eye', might seem indistinguishable from one another. Nonetheless, each of them has its own definition, and whether or not a person identifies as one of them versus another is entirely up to what that person feels is the best 'fit' for the gender they identify as. ",
"Genderfluid - Experiencing more than one gender identity at different times. E.g sometimes feels female, sometimes male.\n\nAgender - Not identifying with either male or female. \n\nNon-binary - Not within the gender binary (which refers to male and female, including trans people).\n\nSometimes people can feel like they are one male or female, neither, sometimes both at once, and sometimes they can fluctuate between any of these states. \n\n",
"For a lot of cisgender people, gender is something we hardly ever think about. It feels natural, it feels like nothing, we don't know what it feels like to \"feel like a man\". But ask yourself how comfortable you would be wearing a dress or make-up, if people called you 'she'. It probably would make you a little uncomfortable. Not because there's something wrong with being a girl, but just because you *do*, in fact, feel like a man. ",
"Imagine you looked so much like a woman that you were mistaken as one all the time. No matter how much you insisted you were a guy, people wouldn't believe you---they'd laugh, or they'd make fun of you.\n\nStraight women or gay men wouldn't be interested in dating you---you'd only get interest from straight men and gay women, no matter your actual preferences.\n\nI don't know how you feel about masculine gender expression---do you like the way you look in a tie or a beard? Assuming that you like the way your body hair makes you look: imagine that if you didn't shave your legs and armpits, complete strangers would make disgusted faces at you, or just point and laugh.\n\nSome cis people don't have very strong gender identities, so if none of this helps you understand, you might just have to take our word for it. For many people there's a profound discomfort when you're mistaken for the wrong gender. Some people feel uncomfortable when they are mistaken for a gender that's not the one they were assigned at birth, some people feel uncomfortable when mistaken for the gender they were assigned at birth, and some people feel uncomfortable being mistaken for either binary gender."
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32rvb7 | why do humans have to use antibacterial hand soap and cover their mouths when they cough, but every other animal on the planet gets by just fine licking each other on the face? | We are super careful about germs now, but we still get sick, so I'm wondering if it has actually benefitted us as a species. After all, it's not like dogs all died of the first plague to come along just because they are unhygienic. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/32rvb7/eli5_why_do_humans_have_to_use_antibacterial_hand/ | {
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"Basically, ancient life sucked. That's the answer to most questions in this vein. \n\nAlso, antibacterial hand soap is not beneficial for most purposes, unless you *want* to make bacteria resistant to disinfectants. \n\nThe whole world is very, very dirty, and your mouth is incredibly dirty, and everything is covered with germs. Humans and other animals are badasses that can block out germs very well. Washing and other modern hygiene helps with this. ",
" > every other animal on the planet gets by just fine\n\nExcept the thousands and thousands that die of disease every day. \n\nThough animal populations (depending on the animal) don't live as close together as humans do, so direct individual-to-individual transmissions do happen less often. \n\n[Here is one example](_URL_0_) of disease threatening to drive an entire species to extinction. ",
"Before people discovered how to stop germs, 1 in 6 babies would die before their first birthday. People figuratively rolled a die to see if their child would live.\n\nIf the child did survive, it would only live to be 35 or maybe 40 on average. Now the average person lives to be 80 years old.\n\nAnimals are ok with high infant mortality and short lifespans. Well they probably wouldn't be, but they aren't smart enough to know the difference.",
"We do not take notice when the other animals get sick and die. We do take notice when humans do. Far more animals die from illness than humans. ",
"Antibacterial hand soaps (and almost any other antibacterial product) is a Bad Idea outside a hospital setting. \n\nSoap itself is antibacterial, and the process of washing the hands is extremely effective at removing bacteria, viruses, dirt, and other foreign bodies. There's no reason to add toxics to your soap. Or anything else, for that matter. \n\nAs far as licking faces... [here is a nice graph](_URL_0_) of crude\\* death rate from infectious disease in the USA during the twentieth century. Handwashing, clean drinking water and sanitation management, and improved nutrition very dramatically cut disease rates. Lots of people with poor sanitation still die from preventable diseases. \n\n\\* unadjusted for age distribution and other factors\n\n(Edit: markdown)",
"To piggyback on this question, also how can random animals smell/lick each others asses like it's just another part of their day? If this is natural behavior, is it harmful? Bacterial/viral in some way?",
"Different immune systems adapted for different purposes. Vultures, for example, are insanely resiliant. _URL_0_",
"Are you seriously not aware that animals die of diseases, namely bacterial and viral infections, all the time? "
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fjjl7p | how do iras work? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/fjjl7p/eli5_how_do_iras_work/ | {
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"Traditional and Roth describe how the taxes work. With a Traditional IRA, the money you contribute to it over the years does not get taxed upfront (ie, if you earn $50,000 a year but contribute $5,000 to the Traditional IRA, you will only pay taxes for $45,000). That money **does** get taxed later when you actually start using the IRA at retirement age. \n\nWith a Roth IRA, the money gets taxed with the rest of your income upfront before it is invested, so you don't have to worry about it getting taxed when you are getting paid out at retirement. \n\nAn IRA Rollover is moving money from one IRA or 401(K) (or other retirement plans) to a different IRA, while trying to keep the same tax rules for the money that's in the original account. \n\nWhy do people do this? Well, say someone has a 401(K) (which is an employer-provided retirement account similar to an IRA) but they get laid off. Now, their employer is no longer providing their 401(K). If they aren't able to find a job that offers another 401(K) within a certain amount of time, they have to make a decision - either withdraw the money as cash (and probably lose some to fees and fines) or roll it over to an IRA. \n\nAnother reason someone might do this - one IRA might have different benefits or more options. So a person would want to transfer their money there to be able to access those options with more money.\n\n > Is there a minimum amount I have to put in monthly?\n\nThis will depend entirely on who you decide to open an IRA through. Most will have a minimum upfront fee, but beyond that each one will have different minimum monthly or annual fees. Some might require a minimum of $100 a month, some might require a minimum of $1,000 per year, some might not have a minimum monthly at all. So make sure you read the terms of the account that they're advertising and maybe speak to an adviser there for the best information.\n\n > Is there a certain monetary goal I should meet for it to be effective?\n\nStarting at 23 and investing money is already a good goal. The amount you should be investing will vary by how much you can afford to invest. Most websites will have a financial planning tool online, plus advisers, to help you plan how much to invest. You can also use a service like Mint to track spending, set up a budget, and subsequently set up financial investment goals. \n\nHaving a budget goes a huge way. You need to look at your own personal lifestyle, how much money you make, how much you can afford to invest and how much you might need in cash/in a bank account for emergency funds. \n\nSo, \"certain monetary goal\" is ultimately a 100% personal thing.\n\n > Are there specific banks I need to go to to open one? Should I use my normal bank or go to a different one? \n\nLike anything in life, especially big things like this, you should shop around. Looking at what your bank offers is a great start. Then consider options like Wealthfront, Betterment, Vanguard, Fidelity, etc.",
"The first thing is that IRAs are individual retirement accounts. It is just a means not the investment itself. So the first priority should be to know what you want or should invest in - mutual funds, index funds, individual stocks, bond funds etc. \n\nThe IRAs are simply tax advantaged accounts. They generally allow you to delay or eliminate paying taxes on investment gains in exchange for restrictions in the withdrawal of these funds (ie to make sure you hold the funds for your retirement).\n\nBecause these are tax advantaged (ie the government agrees not to tax them as normal income) there are limits to annual contributions ($6000 a year). \n\nTraditional IRA investment allows you to deduct the investment off your income in the years they are made - so if you earn $50,000 and invest $5,000, you can deduct the $5,000 and reduce your taxable income to $45,000 (and therefore pay less income tax). If you are in a high tax bracket, then this has a lot of benefit. You pay taxes as normal when you withdraw funds from the account.\n\nRoth IRAs doesn't allow the tax deduction when the investment is made. However, future distributions from the account (presumably when you retire at 60 years old) are not taxed. If you are a good saver and have a large amount at retirement, this makes a lot of sense as you might be in a high tax bracket after retirement if your withdrawals are taxed. \n\nIt is possible to split the $6000 annual limits between both traditional and Roth IRAs (check for qualification requirements). So you might not need to choose between them and do parts in both - giving you a bit more flexibility in retirement. \n\nRollovers are simply moving funds from one type of retirement account to another - ie rolling over funds which doesn't count as a withdrawal (and avoids early withdrawal penalties)"
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1j03ki | shivering | Why do we shiver when we're cold? It must serve some evolutionary purpose, since many animals do it. And does chattering your teeth do anything? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1j03ki/eli5_shivering/ | {
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"Shivering is a way for the body to warms itself. Chattering of the teeth is an artifact of our jaw shivering. And yes, it is an evolutionary advantage.",
"When we use energy, you give off heat.\n(Ehen you run around, you get hot.)\nLikewise, your body shakes to produce heat in hopes of warming you up.\n\nThe bad sign is when you stop shivering and you suddenly feel warm. That's a pretty good indication you're in real danger."
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31nnr0 | how come, with certain antennas, when you stand in one spot, the tv signal gets better and when you move it starts to lose its signal? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/31nnr0/eli5_how_come_with_certain_antennas_when_you/ | {
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"Probably signal is bouncing off your body in such manner that it is entering antenna at better angle. Or you are shielding outside interferences from antenna with your own body, making it better path for actual signal. Some antennas are very sensitive to direction and angle of the signal - so if you are actually carrying antenna while moving around - you can provide much better reception with even very slight changes of your posture, direction, height etc. "
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29kdsu | if your employer can deny you medicine based on their religious reasons then what is to stop a jehova's witness from denying their employee blood transfusions, or a jew from denying their employees pig derived insulin? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/29kdsu/eli5_if_your_employer_can_deny_you_medicine_based/ | {
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"While I disagree with the SCOTUS opinion, it is actually very narrow in scope. Here is important context (see the updates at the end):\n\n_URL_0_",
"In concept, nothing, however, *this* ruling specifically says that it is limited to just this specific case because the government already allowed some companies (religious non-profits) out of the contraception mandate for the same reason and with an already set-up manner. *This* ruling also says that it cannot be used to justify one of the things you mention. Time will tell whether that holds up or gets side-stepped somehow in the future."
]
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"http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/supreme-court-conservatives-side-hobby-lobby-contraception"
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2l0ih5 | how did asians get their squinty eyes? (i'm asian) | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2l0ih5/eli5_how_did_asians_get_their_squinty_eyes_im/ | {
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"IIRC, it's because Asia is a very windy region.",
"It seems we [aren't quite sure](_URL_0_). What I do know is the evolutionary drive behind the races is climate based. Though sexual selection can't be ignored. ",
"The guy who said its because Asia is windy is partly right, even though he's getting downvoted. The theory I heard is that it developed to protect one from sand blown into the eyes in windy deserts, probably then originating in Mongolia or somewhere near.",
"because those are the genes of Ghengis Khan's grandfather?",
"One completely speculative thought would be that it might have something to do with the larger share of Denisovan heritage among asian populations. (Similar to how many \"white\" features match up with a larger share of Neaderthal heritage)\n\nIt is hard to say though, as we have no real idea what Denisovans looked like, since we only have a toe and finger bone and two teeth from one of them.",
"Gobi desert, wind.\n\nThis is why Northern Chinese have more squinty eyes than Southern Chinese.",
"This question is not racist, you really didn't need to specify you weren't racist to be PC.",
"They evolved at a higher average altitude and therefore had less athmospheric protection against the sun, making it advantageous to allow less light into the eye.\n",
"Northern Canadian natives like the Dene and the Inuit and others like the Northern Cree all have somewhat Asian eyes and features.\n\nThe eye shape and position under a brow and with high cheekbones protect the people from sun blindness in the bright snow conditions, from sand and dust blowing in the wind, and from insects which are very pesky in the far north.\n\nThere may also be a cultural aspect where women are selected preferentially because of their eyes since there is generally not much other than that to see in public.\n\nBut I doubt that bit.",
"It's called the epicanthic fold\n\n_URL_0_\n\nIt's not well understood",
"One correction, their eyes are not squinty, there is simply a layer of extra skin near the tear ducts that give that illusion.",
"Why should it be directly related to the environment? I mean, the windy deserts theory sure is kind of appealing, but since evolution is not exactly *directed* it can be that the genes that give people squinty eyes also gives them other important characteristics that were important in some moment in time for survival... Or maybe the guy that had this trait just was very lucky with women",
"There were once five Chinese brothers. One could swallow the sea; one had an iron neck; one could stretch his legs; one could survive fire; and the last had squinty eyes. He was also a total hunk and so, fathered an entire generation ...",
"I love how people always put (I'm Asian) or (I'm Black) or whatever, when asking what some may think is a sensitive question, or making a possibly racist statement\n \ni'm curious about the squinting too by the way, nothing against you, i just genuinely think its great people do that",
"No body has stated the obvious answer. \nAliens.",
"The kind of people who think it is racist to talk about race need to be stuffed in a burlap sack and tossed into a body of wayer"
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11jpi7 | how a single cell turns into a whole baby | I get that the zygote divides and devides and devides, but how do those cells form a human? How do they become structured, rather than floating aimlessly in the mom's womb? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/11jpi7/eli5_how_a_single_cell_turns_into_a_whole_baby/ | {
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"The egg is actually covered in an extra membrane, the cells divide within the membrane and are kept together in a bundle by it. \nThe stuff that causes periods is basically a blood filled lining in the womb, The embryo actually attaches to that. And the lining detects that there is an embryo there and doesn't disintegrate, so no period. so when a woman misses a period, its assumed its because she is pregnant. \nThe process is unclear how stem cells decide whether to be head cells in the right place or not. But it is clear that most of the early stages of growth are actually done against the wall of the uterus, kept together in a little membrane."
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k2423 | how a skateboard stays with a skater's feet when they are in the air and not touching it. | Probably has something to do with momentum. But what do I know, I'm only 5 years old. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/k2423/eli5_how_a_skateboard_stays_with_a_skaters_feet/ | {
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"When you do an Ollie (jump), the board snaps up and you guide its direction with your feet. \n\n[Here's an example](_URL_0_) of an ollie over a handrail. It takes coordination of speed, the first snap off the ground, and foot control. ",
"Try this at home: Get one ball and another one that's heavier than that. You would think that the heavier ball would fall faster than a lighter one right? Now, try dropping them down somewhere at the same time...\n\nHopefully you found out that they fell at the same rate. That's because gravity, the force that's keeping you, me and everything else from flying off into space, pulls down objects at the same speed. Now, when a skateboarder jumps from somewhere, like [a railing high above the ground](_URL_0_), they'd fall at the same rate as the board. The best skateboarders can control their body and their board to land at the same spot at the same time. The same goes for flip tricks on the ground, the person launches their board up and at the same time jumps. They both fall to the ground at the same speed, and meet together.",
"When you do an Ollie (jump), the board snaps up and you guide its direction with your feet. \n\n[Here's an example](_URL_0_) of an ollie over a handrail. It takes coordination of speed, the first snap off the ground, and foot control. ",
"Try this at home: Get one ball and another one that's heavier than that. You would think that the heavier ball would fall faster than a lighter one right? Now, try dropping them down somewhere at the same time...\n\nHopefully you found out that they fell at the same rate. That's because gravity, the force that's keeping you, me and everything else from flying off into space, pulls down objects at the same speed. Now, when a skateboarder jumps from somewhere, like [a railing high above the ground](_URL_0_), they'd fall at the same rate as the board. The best skateboarders can control their body and their board to land at the same spot at the same time. The same goes for flip tricks on the ground, the person launches their board up and at the same time jumps. They both fall to the ground at the same speed, and meet together."
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3ickbe | why is flash dying and why is this a good thing? | When I think of flash, I think of flash games I played in middle school. Not a bad thing that it is being portrayed to be | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3ickbe/eli5_why_is_flash_dying_and_why_is_this_a_good/ | {
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"Flash is extremely old, and a buggy mess. It also has a lot of security issues, lots of times, malicious code is being sent to people through flash applications (like games and ads). Flash also has lots of restrictions and does not fly very well with modern design.\n\nThe new HTML5 removes the barriers on HTML and let videos be played natively on a website, making flash obsolete.",
"It used to be that a web browser wasn't able to do very much. You could give it a few simple instructions (make this change color when moused over, display this image, etc) but nothing too fancy. However, one thing you could tell it to do is \"run this external application (plugin) and give it this file as input\".\n\nFlash was one of those plugins. You installed Flash, downloaded a file for it, and the web browser would fire up the plugin, pass in the input, and passively display what it outputed.\n\nPlugins consume a lot of memory and take a lot of time to run, because you're running a self-sufficient application (Flash) within a different self-sufficient application (the browser). What's more, having two applications running means two opportunities for criminals to exploit security flaws... and Flash has a very bad history of security flaws.\n\nToday, the people who build web browsers have given them enough features that you can tell them to do fancy things; they can play video with controls, animate assets based on input, and do everything else that previously we needed plugins for. Helpfully, all those browser people follow the same standard language for programmers to tell the browser what to do (we call that standard *HTML 5*), so we don't need the plugin anymore."
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1421r8 | why can i only hear the deep bass sounds when the local band practices in my building's basement? | I hope you understand the question.
If you stand in the same room as the loud music, you can hear the whole range, from low to high, at - what it seems - the same volume. But once you go 2 stories higher, you only hear the low ones. Why is that so?
Even if I listen to my own music at a relatively normal volume, it still seems like I'm giving it the full beans when I get out of the room and am standing in the kitchen which is 2 rooms away. That's annoying actually because it seems that I'm disturbing everyone in the building even if I don't intend to. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1421r8/eli5_why_can_i_only_hear_the_deep_bass_sounds/ | {
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"Hmm... let's imagine that you're sound, and you're going to walk through waist-deep snow. If you've got big legs, you have a lower frequency - it takes less steps for you to walk the same distance. Someone with short stubby legs has a higher frequency of steps - they must take 20 steps to walk the same distance you could walk in 10. \n\nSound has to travel through a medium. This is any substance where the particles may vibrate to conduct sound. In our analogy, this is the snow.\n\nSomeone with a long legs (low frequency, or deep bass sounds) will walk through all the snow taking fewer steps. Now, each time he takes a step, he has to push down through the snow and make room for his feet. This takes energy. Since he can take bigger steps, he doesn't have to make as many holes for his feet. THis means he spends less energy, and can travel further. \n\nThe little guy must spend a lot of energy, taking a lot of steps, and gets tired quickly. He can't go as far. \n\nLow frequency (deep bass) sound waves lose *less* energy to their surroundings. They can thus travel further before they lose all the energy they had to begin with. \n\nHigher Frequency sound waves (higher pitched sounds) lose more energy to their surroundings, and thus run out of energy faster. You may be able to hear them through a wall or two, but that's it, whereas, you might be able to hear the Bass from a block away. \n\nThere are some exceptions to this, but for the most part, this holds true. (exceptions occur when certain materials encounter sounds waves that match their resonating frequency. This natural resonating frequency will actually amplify the sound waves, causing sound of a certain frequency to travel through that material for a greater distance, potentially, than a lower sound. That, however, is a discussion for another day.)\n\nedit: minor grammatical corrections.\n\nEdit 2: It seems I've made some mistakes. Please see below for /u/ICantDoBackflips 's explanation.",
"Higher notes die off sooner than lower notes. You're hearing the lower ones that physically made the distance.",
"Okay, I'm an acoustical engineer, but I'm not great with kids so let's see how this goes.\n\nWhat we're concerned with here is [resonance](_URL_1_). Any medium that a sound passes through will have a resonant frequency. This is basically the frequency at which sound will pass through the medium with as little loss as possible. Here's how it works:\n\nResonance applies to a lot of different types of systems, but since you're 5 well talk about a swing. When your mommy pushes you on the swing, she pushes you away and only pushes again when you get back to her. Let's say it takes you 3 seconds to swing away from your mom and then come all the way back to her. Because your mom is only pushing every 3 seconds, she's matching your swing's resonant frequency. If she were to push every 1.5 seconds, she'd be wasting energy because sometimes she'd push and you're not there yet. If she were to push every 6 seconds you wouldn't swing as hard because she would only be pushing you every other time you get to her.\n\nThat's sort of how sound works. Every material has a resonant frequency determined by the ratio of its mass and stiffness (damping is also important but that's complicated). If you want to get a more accurate demonstration, imagine a spring with a weight on it. If you were to let the weight hang on the end of the spring and just move your hand up and down, the spring would transfer that energy and pull the weight up and down.\n\nNow let's say you want to get the weight to bounce as high as possible. Would you move your hand up and down as fast as you could? No, because then you'd just be shaking the spring around and most of the energy would not get to the weight on the other end. Some of the time you'd be pushing down as the weight is being pulled up, so you'd be working against yourself. So now that we've ruled out moving fast, let's see if moving really slow works. Of course not. If you move really slow the energy moving the spring will dissipate faster than you can applying new energy. So there has to be a sweet spot somewhere between these extremes. That's the resonance point. If you match this, you'll continually apply energy to move the weight up and down as it swings.\n\nSo what if you don't have too steady of a hand and you can't match the exact resonant frequency? The closer you get to the resonant frequency, above or below it, the more you'll move the weight. [This graph is helpful, but you're 5 and you don't know anything about graphs.](_URL_0_) But it shows how much energy you'll transfer the closer you get to the resonant frequency.\n\n**SO**, in your building, the walls and floor/ceiling and everything have resonant frequencies. When a complex sound from some musicians hits those surfaces some of the energy will go through the surface and some of it will bounce off. Additionally, some of the energy that travels into the surface will be absorbed by it and turned into heat, while the rest will transfer through. These walls happen to have resonant frequencies in the range that we call \"bass.\" So the resonant frequency and those around it will transfer through a lot easier than the high frequencies which get reflected or absorbed.\n\nI'm sorry that was probably confusing, but I have no idea what a 5 year old knows about sound. Feel free to ask me questions and I'll do my best to explain in more detail or think of more examples.\n\nTL;DR: Do 5 year olds even know how to read?"
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6ii7uh | how come our regular water from the pipe isn't dirty? | Title says it. I have a hard time imagining water going such a long way to our taps without getting contaminated somehow. Thanks for your time! | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/6ii7uh/eli5_how_come_our_regular_water_from_the_pipe/ | {
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"Well, to start, the pipe they lay is relatively clean. Meaning, they make a point of not rubbing the ends in a pile of cat shit. Outside of the pipe doesn't matter, but the inside of a newly laid pipe is going to be clean enough to not worry about.\n\nSecondly, the water is treated with a variety of chemicals, including Chlorine, to kill minor contamination that may slip into the piping over time.\n\nThird, the pressure from the treatment plant ensures that new water is pushed into the system, diluting any contaminates that might not have been killed before.\n\nIf any of these is neglected or lost, then the water becomes unsafe to drink directly. \n\nPipefitting error is rare, but if a major contamination occurs, like if a pipe burst next to an open sewage line, people get sick.\n\nIf the chemicals at the treatment plant are screwed up, it won't properly kill the contaminates, and people get sick.\n\nIf the water stops flowing, then contaminates get the chance to multiply in the stagnant water, and people can get sick.",
"They treat the water (filter, chlorine, etc) before it goes into the pipes in a way that kills any bacteria that may contaminate the water. If you keep pumping clean water into a system constantly, it will keep it clean. Even if there was a small leak somewhere, the system is always under pressure, so nothing can get in.",
"If you're on city water it is more or less a closed loop from supply point to you. The local water supplier handles the cleaning and filtering. The main lines have a long way to travel generally and any sediment picked up will move and settle where it's lowest. The main line essentially always has water in it, so it's constantly washing away any potential build-up. \n\nThen when entering your home it may encounter yet another filter, depending on your setup. Cold water will be likely be directly from the main, hot will be from your boiler which drew water from the main. At your faucet, the nozzle likely also has a diffuser which not only prevents the water from splashing wildly in your sink, but also serves as a final filter for debris.\n\nThink of it like a garden hose, it may fill with dirt if left uncapped, but a quick use will blow out the debris. If it wasn't open to begin with it wouldn't have dirt to blow out.\n\nShould a line be compromised you can close/open valves to redirect or isolate the contaminated water for maintenance."
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aowoyx | the difference between a burn from fire/heat, a burn from infrared, sunburn, nuclear radiation burns, chemical burns. and frost burns. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/aowoyx/eli5_the_difference_between_a_burn_from_fireheat/ | {
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"Burns indicate that cells of your skin died. \nIf you touch fire, the heat of it will kill those cells. \nSunburn is in fact similar. The UV-Rays go deeper into your skin and sometimes hit a cell. This cell will then die from becoming too hot. But one cell does not matter since you reproduce many of them a day. This explains why only long sessions in the sun caus a Sunburn. \nRadioactive rays also go deeply into your cells. Even deeper than UV. They destroy the code which tells the cell how to behave. This causes the cell to die. \nChemical burns instead attack the surface of the cell because chemicals are toxic to the cells itself. The cells will there die immediately. \n\nPS: not a scientist but learned some things in school lessons. Taugt I should share. ",
"Simply put, heat burns typically result in the rupture of cells immediately in contact with the heat source. Radiation burns (sunburns) result from UV damage to the DNA which can cause cell death and or dangerous cellular mutations. Frost burns are damaging to the inside of cells by forming ice crystals and/or by freezing/rupturing nearby blood vessels which supply vital nutrients and Oxygen to the cells. Chemical burns are typically caused by pH changes which damage biological structures on an atomic level by the gain or loss of protons/electrons depending on your definition of an acid or base. "
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870kp9 | how do screen protectors work? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/870kp9/eli5_how_do_screen_protectors_work/ | {
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"Theyre a film of tough plastic so that when your screen would get scratched up, maybe rubbing on your keys in your pocket, or whatever else, the plastic gets scratched instead. It's literally just a barrier between your phone's screen and things that would hurt it."
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66unqk | how do companies like experian, equifax, and transunion make money? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/66unqk/eli5_how_do_companies_like_experian_equifax_and/ | {
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"The credit bureaus make money by charging banks, credit card issuers, car dealerships, mortgage brokers, landlords, etc. for access to prospective borrowers' credit reports and credit scores. They also make money from consumers with Credit Protection programs, but those are just secondary revenue streams."
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3ss5b0 | how do wealthy nations provide high quality health care for half what the us spends? how do they keep health inflation low? | How do they provide care for everyone for 8-11% of GDP while the US struggles to cover people at 18% of GDP?
_URL_0_
Is it one or two big things, or 100 small things?
I know there are things like Rx negotiations, negotiations of medical devices, lower wages for providers, fewer tests/scans, fewer surgeries, etc. But I don't know if that alone can explain it.
On another note, most nations like Israel, Japan or France have kept health inflation low the last 30ish year.
_URL_1_
The US went from 9% to 18% of GDP spent on health care from 1980 to 2015. Most other nations only had their health care grow by 2-3% (Germany went from 8% to 10% for example, the UK went from about 6% to 9%). Some like Israel have kept their health spending at a stable 8% since the 1980s I believe.
Basically, if the US had been able to keep health inflation in line with other OECD nations from 1980 onward, we would only be spending 11-12% of GDP on health care in 2015 which would be in line with OECD numbers, albeit at the higher end.
_URL_2_
How do they do it? How did they keep health inflation low? How did ours get so high? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3ss5b0/eli5how_do_wealthy_nations_provide_high_quality/ | {
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"There are no middle men. In the USA the middle men are the insurance companies and they get most of the profits at the first instance too. That is how they work. All of the advantages with none of the disadvantages",
"First keep in mind that while the US is well above trends, [most nations tend to increase health care spending](_URL_0_) as their economic output grows, so part of the apparent difference is that the US has more economic output per person than most comparable nations. \n\nAs to the factors for why US spending is above trend, one factor is monopsony (like a monopoly but a single buyer rather than a single seller) purchasing of drugs greatly reduces prices at the cost of lower returns that reduce global drug development. Here's [a study](_URL_2_) that estimates that over a 19 year period, the world is short 46 potential drugs that weren't developed due to this effect. \n\nAnother factor is US doctors [earn more](_URL_1_) than other nation's doctors, because the supply in the US is restricted. ",
"There's a number of factors, many of which compound each other and produce an out-of-control situation greater than the sum of their parts. In no particular order\n\n***The insurance companies*** This is a factor, only not nearly as much as some people think. Many are nonprofit or co-ops. Even for those that are for-profit, ACA limits overhead to 20%. In my state competition between companies has driven it under to under 10%. Of course there's some overhead for providers having to deal with insurance to, so lets assume 30% maximum. \n\n***No one except insurance companies have an incentive to control costs***. Doctors obviously want as much money as possible. They want plush, new offices, and someone has to pay for that. With insurance paying for most of the care, patients demand expensive care. When I fucked up my shoulder, the doctor was like \"well, we could do a steroid injection to diagnose it, but if you don't like needles we could do an MRI instead, your insurance will pay. \n\n***The US is incredibly litigious, so doctors order all sorts of CYA type testing that wouldn't be done in other countries.*** Tort reform is, in fact, the official Republican counter-proposal to the ACA. \n\n***Drug development is incredibly expensive, and the US shoulder the brunt of it.***. And drug companies are for-profit. A drug that sells for 150% of the cost to produce it in Mozambique might sell for 1500% in the US, to pay for R & D costs. \n\n***It's not just difficult, but extremely expensive to become a doctor*** And of course this goes into all sorts of other tangents as to why college is so expensive"
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32yuz6 | how are digital effects inserted into movies shot on film like the new star wars? how do they get them to blend in? | This is something that's piqued my curiosity for awhile. Do they just add fake film grain onto the effects? What about green screens, how does that work when inserting CGI into stuff shot on film? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/32yuz6/eli5_how_are_digital_effects_inserted_into_movies/ | {
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"For regular 35mm, it has a digital equivalent of around 4K, so they can scan the film and make a 4K digital copy to do the effects on. For 70mm IMAX, I don't believe you can. Think about it, for The Dark Knight, none of the 70mm IMAX shots had CGI, they were either that opening scene with the Joker, or aerial shots of \"Gotham\" and Hong Kong. \n \nFor Interstellar, their spaceships were props, see [this photo](_URL_0_)."
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1ow0g9 | why do run-way models display these wacky clothes? why do the designers make them this way? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1ow0g9/eli5_why_do_runway_models_display_these_wacky/ | {
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"Because they're not designed to be worn in public. They're for showing off the imagination of the designer. Showing how they can think outside of the box. That they can come up with new things.",
"Most fashion designs shown on the runway aren't meant for everyday wear. You can call it \"wearable artwork\", and it's more about innovation and creating something fun and exciting. If you don't push the limits and create something really special, you won't get noticed in the fashion world, so a lot of fashion design is progressively getting more and more crazy. ",
"This is the third time this week this question has been asked. Use the search > \nBut those designs are the concept cars of fashion."
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2um5m0 | how would an "off-the-grid" apocalypse go down? ie. emp attack/solar flare apocalypse. | First of all, I'm not sure if that's a myth or something people just made up; is that even a potential "apocalypse" in the first place?
Basically I was talking to my girlfriend about having a disaster plan/apocalypse preparation scenario (which we agreed is a smart idea for natural disasters and other emergencies anyway), and I found it difficult to make a plan without knowing exactly the extent of the damage caused by the EMP or flare.
How "off-the-grid" would we be, and for how long? Would generators work? Radio signals? Solar panels and battery banks? How long before power plants would be up and running? Would the internet still work since it's hard-wired, and just satellite communication go down? Would there be any sense of order or anyone "in charge" to turn to? Does NATO/US/UK/etc. have a plan for that type of thing? Would there be martial law?
Basically I want to know 1) could an EMP or solar flare actually cause an "apocalyptic" scale catastrophe, 2) how bad would the damage/disruption be and for how long, and 3) what should the average citizen be prepared for in the 72 hours or so immediately following?
Honestly after having this conversation I'm thinking about texting my brother (who lives a few hours away) and telling him that we should both get ham radios in case cell phone/internet communications go down, but I wanna make sure that's a real possibility first. heh. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2um5m0/eli5_how_would_an_offthegrid_apocalypse_go_down/ | {
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"If a nationwide/worldwide EMP were to occur, all unprotected electronic devices would be shorted out and fried. All computers and anything that contains a microchip. Clocks, cellphones, radios. Radio towers, cellular network, power plants, power distribution everything. Military and extreme mad scientist style projects that are EM shielded would be only ones that survive. Batteries would still work since they're chemical, not electronic. That means old incandescent flashlights would still work. New LED flashlights would not. It would take years if not decades to restore everything.\n\nIt'll be an apocalypse for sure. No cars to get around. No heat unless you have a wood furnace. Your local police officer won't respond to crime cause they can't even know about cause there's no 911. Rampant burglaries, residents arming and self defense. Riot Rape pillage",
"HF radio would be the only long range comms in a grid failure, though it would be disrupted during the storm itself.\n\nPretty much the only way to get through one of these catastrophic worst-case-scenario EMP/Solar events is to wait it out in isolation, and take action once the radiation has passed, which could be a day or two. To be safe, I'd hold out for a week before taking electronics out again.\n\nTo prepare:\n\n* Keep backup electronics in a faraday cage, there's a lot of info out about how to do this cheaply and easily\n* Store a generator in the cage if you can, keep fuel separate but also shielded\n* Store as much food/water as you can locally, but even just a week would be fine if you have a primary bugout location elsewhere\n* Ensure you have non electronic means of heating/cooling, depending on your needs\n* Plan your security measures, these should be independent of the actual event really\n* Plan for the worst, expect the best - plan for all possibilities, your \nlong range comms failing, your faraday cage not working, other disasters occurring at the same time. Never know what will happen, so make sure your plan has backup plans, and backup plans for those backup plans. If you told your family \"if the lights go out, wait a week then meet me at x\" well ahead of time, you should be sweet on the comms front\n* Brief your family on the plan, drill on it, ensure they all know what to do\n\nIf you receive information that a major flare or EMP is incoming:\n\n* Move all of your electronics into your shielded container\n* Keep in mind that solar events can push out radiation, and take steps to lessen the effects\n* Ensure no electronics are used during the course of the event, especially vehicles\n* Don't open your faraday cage until you're sure it's all good\n* If you have the time and resources, you could keep several cages with disposable devices, to test whether it's safe to get them out\n\nOnce the threat has passed:\n\n* Move to your secondary location, or set up your electronics locally\n* Reach out to family and the wider community to determine the impact outside of your local area (HF radio can be very helpful with this)\n* Keep your eyes and ears open for any advice from government\n* Plan your long term survival procedures, and put in place any plans that you have for food/water/security"
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oceop | why is computer emulation so difficult? | Let's take the example of SNES emulation, why is it so difficult to get it accurate? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/oceop/why_is_computer_emulation_so_difficult/ | {
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"The creator of the bsnes Super Nintendo emulator wrote a [pretty interesting article](_URL_0_) about this a few months ago.",
"If you want to translate a newspaper in another language that you don't know anything about, what do you do? (Can't use Google Translate!!)\n\nYou take a French-English dictionary. Every time you see a word, you have to look at the correspondence in the dictionary and write that down on a piece of paper. It will take a while, but you will eventually know what it means and can somewhat read it. It's not gonna be perfect though, because the grammar will be all wrong. \n\nYou have to do the same thing with programs meant for a different computers. You can easily translate instructions to one another, but you have to fake what's supposed to happen in that CPU since they don't work the same way. You have different registers (temporary places where you can put a value for the computer to use), flags, interrupts, etc.\n\nThere are even some bugs on a CPU that you have to emulate. Those bugs are not necessarily well documents in official docs, but you have to program them in your emulator because otherwise the program will behave differently than on the original CPU.\n\nEmulating instructions and changing the internal state of an emulate CPU is really complicated. One is a simple instruction and a SNES might be a couple hundreds instructions on a Intel CPU! \n\nAdd to the fact that a CPU register is inside said CPU, it is very quick to read and write to. When you have to emulate that register, it will sit in the RAM memory, which is much slower, so your emulations will be much slower because of that too.\n\n\nAlso, if a program is optimized for a SNES CPU because of certain quirks it has, that optimization is most likely lost in the emulation process too.\n\nEmulators sometimes take shortcuts so they can run faster, but in that process, they lose correctness. If you don't see much of a difference when you play a SNES game, then it doesn't really matter for the end-user if the CPU is not perfectly emulated..",
"This often reminds of audio production software and plugins that emulate hardware (often vintage hardware). It's extremely complicated to model the exact behavior of physical circuitry (and it's effect on the sound it produces). These software plugins are often very expensive because of the amount of research and effort that goes into accurate emulations and there are always those who can tell the difference between the emulations and the real deal. Or at least, they say they can.\n\nThings like valve-based audio compressors/limiters sound very different when they are cold to when their components are warmed up. Often the response of the components, controls isn't as linear as you'd expect.\n\nImagine, for example, turning up the volume from 0 on your amp/mp3 player/whatever and understanding the exact behavior of just that one component. The volume might increase more rapidly at the earlier stages (0-50, for example) and then even out or slow down at the later stages (100-127). The balance of the audio might change also, eg. as you turn the volume down towards 0, the audio might be slightly louder in the left channel. This might change depending on how long the machine has been running; how hot the components are.\n\nNow, I know that this doesn't directly relate to console emulation, but I'm sure the principle applies here."
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2q2hf3 | why do people trace the lineage of jesus back to king david through mary's husband joseph since they do not share the same genetics, per the story of the virgin birth? | Tis the season! | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2q2hf3/eli5_why_do_people_trace_the_lineage_of_jesus/ | {
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"Ancient people didn't know anything about genetics. But inheritance - in this case, a metaphorical inheritance of the Kingdom of Israel - would be passed down male-line. Adoptive children, which would include Jesus to Joseph, were perfectly eligible for inheritance. That was actually how Roman emperors would name their successor for a while - they'd adopt whoever they wanted.",
"Food for thought. \n\n_URL_0_\n\n\n\"Most conservative Bible scholars today take a different view, namely, that Luke is recording Mary’s genealogy and Matthew is recording Joseph’s. Matthew is following the line of Joseph (Jesus’ legal father), through David’s son Solomon, while Luke is following the line of Mary (Jesus’ blood relative), though David’s son Nathan. Since there was no Greek word for “son-in-law,” Joseph was called the “son of Heli” by marriage to Mary, Heli’s daughter. Through either Mary’s or Joseph’s line, Jesus is a descendant of David and therefore eligible to be the Messiah. Tracing a genealogy through the mother’s side is unusual, but so was the virgin birth. Luke’s explanation is that Jesus was the son of Joseph, “so it was thought” (Luke 3:23).\n\nRead more:_URL_0_#ixzz3MdXjxnU2\"",
"Jesus is the adopted son of Josef. So he's the descendant of David. Another example of that is Gaius Julius Caesar and his adoptive son Gaius Julius Caesar Augustus, Augustus original name is Gaius Octavian but through the adoption he becomes the legitimate son of Caesar and descendant of Venus even though he's not part of the original line.",
"Adoptive children have the same inheritance rights as biological children. \n",
"Because Jesus has to come from the line of David to fulfill a prophecy. The reason he's coming back? because he needs to fulfill the rest of the prophecies that he didn't fulfill, yet.",
"The virgin birth concept came later. it is only mentioned in two of the gospels and was not a relgious belief until much later in the history of the church. ",
"Because it was important to that Jesus fulfill the criteria to be Messiah. This means that he had to be descended of the line of David, thus tracing it through Joseph who supposedly is of that line. \n\nThere were expectations and prophecies concerning just what the Messiah was supposed to be. Much of Christian Theology stems from trying to reconcile Jesus's death with the expectations of the Messiah. The idea of a spiritual savior and a heavenly kingdom were responses to the fact that Christ failed to meet the expected role of a very real political restoration of the Jewish people."
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8blygb | how did the sizes of mattresses become standardized? is there a regulation authority for such things? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/8blygb/eli5_how_did_the_sizes_of_mattresses_become/ | {
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"It's different for each mattress factory. They design their own beds or use designs given to them by the brands they may or may not chose to incorporate into their factory. Generally the larger the area where the mattress factory is then the more expensive the mattresses are going to be since the nearby factories will be using brands like Sealy or whatevers designs and possible even materials.",
"There is no standard, it’s cultivated from years and years of different companies selling different products.\n\nFor example, if a mattress manufacturer’s 60x80” mattress (Queen) sells very well, the company that manufactures bed frames will want to sell frames that fit this size, as well as the company that sells sheets, comforters, etc. Concurrently, competitors also see this size selling well, so they will want to produce it themselves to capture some of that market.\n\nThat being said, there is still some variation in the market; one company’s King may measure 76x80” while the next company’s measures 78x80”.\n\nI believe someone else in this thread pointed out the wiki page for bed sizes, you will see some variation between the popular sizes between different countries, all stemming from the above.",
"Pre WW2 most people slept on double beds and then manufacturers started trying to upsell by selling them as \"for $1 more you can get an inch bigger bed\". As the WW2 economic boom was happening people started buying larger beds for their homes and the manufacturers were making advertisements comparing the old smaller beds to cribs, so naturally people bought into it because people are easy to manipulate. As time went on the now popular bigger beds were selling, the best sellers mostly fell into 3-4 size categories which we now know as twin, full, queen, king (matress height is not standardized in any way). They aren't truly standardized, these just sold the best. Beds also grew as average human heights have, naturally taller people need bigger beds. There are also oddball sizes like Cal Kings, Alaskan Kings, Wyoming Kings, Eastern, twin xl, full xl etc. I believe in Europe double beds are still somewhat standard. I worked in a big name matress factory for 5 years and the marketing and mark up is insane. I will never buy a mattress at retail price and I suggest the same for others. \n",
"There are no legal standards. However, there are standard imposed by simple economics. This is one of those cases. There is only a finite number of companies that make equipment to make mattresses. Manufacturers have to buy that equipment, and the parts and pieces, to keep the mattresses rolling out the door. Otherwise the manufacturers would have to build their own machines. Ask yourself this “I want to make mattresses. Do i want to build the equipment from scratch or use the already available equipment to make mattresses?”. If it’s the former, well done, you’re the new myspace. If it’s the latter, then your choices are limited to the manufacturer specs (for the most part). Manufacturer specs are what they are for historical/economical/parts specs reasons. Hence we have standard sizes. Economics rules #sorrynotsorry",
"Depends on the region. Bed sizes in countries with shorter people are smaller. Japan used to be much shorter but now with their more westernized diets they are growing taller every generation and they have been having to change bed and furniture sizes to make up for it.",
"It's just a convention. You can find a lot of places that sell weirdly shaped mattresses, but it came to a point where people needed a mattress which fit their bed frame. In order to maximize compatibility, the industry decided upon certain standard sizes which would make it easier for the consumer to purchase a bed frame and a mattress separately. It just became a \"thing\" which everybody understood. A couple big bedding companies from 1941-1965 sold bed frames and mattresses separately but assigned them sizes. These sizes had exact measurements and soon other companies picked up on this convention. Nowadays you will find mattresses that fit your bed frame perfectly because of this convention. No mattress company wants to ruin their consumer experience by selling a mismatch mattress."
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35m2qp | why is the cost of delivering my electricity so much higher than the cost of the actual electricity i used? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/35m2qp/eli5_why_is_the_cost_of_delivering_my_electricity/ | {
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"There are two costs, and it's not clear that delivery is always more expensive than production. It depends on where you live.\n\nDelivery charges in your power bill allow the delivery utility to recoup the costs of installing all the substations, poles, and wires that run from the power station to your house. The more that infrastructure costs, the more the delivery charge needs to be for the utility company to break even. Also, many of those costs don't depend on the amount of power you use, which further complicates the delivery part of your power bill.\n\nIn places with deregulated electricity, you can chose between several power producers. All these producers use the same delivery wires to get the power to you, so they don't have independent costs for delivery. The power producer only has to pay for their power plant, and the fuel that powers it. Those costs are offset with the \"power\" part of the bill."
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1tjl9d | why dennis rodman can go to n. korea but a regular citizen can't | Why can he go to any country he wants but A regular person can't go to a country we have an embargo against. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1tjl9d/eli5why_dennis_rodman_can_go_to_n_korea_but_a/ | {
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"US and South Korean (ROK) citizens are subject to restricted access since they are still technically at war with the nation of North Korea (or Korea, as they call themselves).\n\nEveryone else can go on tours just fine, but as with any dictatorships access is controlled and everyone will be accompanied by a guide at all times. Infos are even on their webpage (if you visit, don't worry, you haven't *actually* been sent back to the 90s).\n\nDennis Rodman on the other hand is a basketball player and North Korea's former Dear Leader Kim Jong-Il was absolutely crazy about basketball to the point that he once built *a whole museum* around a basketball signed by Michael Jordan. Presumably his son has carried on the tradition of basketball fangirl-ism.",
"You *can* legally visit North Korea, but you need a visa.\n\nThere are *no* North Korean embassies in the United States - so getting a visa is difficult. However, you can fly to China (they have a NK Embassy) and get a visa there. Usually, this is requires a small bribe. \n\nSome companies, like 'Koryo Tours' do all the visa applications for you. North Korea has no problems letting average American Citizens spend their money on tourism there. \n\nThe United States Government *strongly opposes* its citizens from visiting North Korea because due to our salty diplomatic relations - its citizens are fucked if they're hurt or get kidnapped. Again, its not *illegal* to visit.\n\n",
"You can. It's actually very simple. You go in with a tour group from Beijing. You have to go in through Beijing. Google Koryo Tours, that's all it takes."
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19d30z | political theories (realism, liberalism, etc.) | I am in an introductory level International Relations course and my midterm next week is largely based on distinguishing between political theories listed below. Could someone give me an overview on each of them. Thanks!
* Realism
* Neorealism
* Liberalism
* Neoliberalism
* Constructivism
* Marxist-Leninism | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/19d30z/eli5_political_theories_realism_liberalism_etc/ | {
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1mw6t3 | pawning | Hello ELI5,
First off, Thank You. I'm a long time lurker and I have really enjoyed this subreddit for some great help and explanations for a while, but right now...I'm slightly confused.
A buddy of mine told me about how he pawned his PS3 and used terms I've never really heard about. I do not watch Pawn Stars or Hardcore Pawn.
Finance Charge, Principle, Interest, "Renewing" his Loan/Pawn, "Redeeming" his Loan/Pawn back
I understand the basic idea of what pawning is, and I searched on this subreddit for an explanation...but today can you ELI5 about the specific terms of how a pawn shop works? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1mw6t3/eli5_pawning/ | {
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"Pawn shops do one of two basic things:\n\nFirst, traditional 'pawning' is using an item as collateral for a small loan. For instance, if I needed to come up with a quick couple hundred dollars, I can take my guitar to a pawn shop and they will hold the guitar for the duration of the loan. If I do not pay back the loan with interest, the shop will keep my guitar. In that sense, a pawn shop can operate like any other financing company, except they keep possession of the collateral up front, instead of accepting it after default. In this sense, the principle would be the amount of the loan, the interest would be either the interest rate, or a flat calculated amount of interest, a finance charge would be any other charge or loan fee associated with the pawn transaction itself (loan fees cover the salaries and other overhead of the company), redeeming would be paying the loan back.\n\nThe other thing some pawn shops do is straight up buy used items. This transaction is much more straightforward and functions exactly as you'd imagine it.\n\n",
"My buddy owned a very successful pawn shop where he would turn about $500,000.00 a year in just loans. \n\nThe simple explanation: \n\n1. Hold an item for people in exchange for a very small loan.\n\n2. Charge a high percentage of loan interest/fees for this service.\n\n3. If they pay, you make money of the interest/fees and give them back their item at the end of the agreed upon time.\n\n4. If the can't pay you now own that item and sell it at a mark up.\n\nYou are strapped for cash, so you bring in your watch to pawn. It's worth $300.00 but they only offer you $100.00 for you loan. You take that because you intend on picking it back up. Only thing is, at the rate of interest they charge, by the time you make all the payments you pay back WAY more than $100.00. At my buddies shop, if you made the minimum payments on time, you would end up paying back 350% of the original loan value. So quick math\n\nLoan of $100 x 350%= total pay back of $350.00 \n\nThat's more then your watch was worth in the first place. The way they make it work, is the people who come into pawn shops are usually *desperate* for cash need it immediately, OR it's people who think they can pay back the loan faster than the agreed time frame. \n\nNow if you CAN'T pay back a loan, they shop keeps your stuff and will sell it at a mark up of usually 100%. So if you had a watch worth $300.00, they loan you $100.00, but you fail on payments, they can turn around and easily sell it for a minimum of $200.00.\n\nWhere it **REALLY** pays off is when someone is making payments, but eventually no longer can. Then the shop made money on you for payments + interest+fees, and also gets to keep your watch and sell it at a huge mark up. \n\nIf you have enough capital, some know how, and a decent location, a pawn show can be incredibly lucrative.\n\nA hilarious side note, my buddy once lent a guy $100 for his very expensive prosthetic leg and the guy then walked out with a 2nd cheaper prosthetic he owned. They guy couldn't pay for the first loan and came back to pawn a SECOND cheaper prosthetic for $50. This being his \"back up leg\", he ended up hobbling out on crutches. He never came back for either leg and now my friend displays them on his shelf with no intention to sell as a reminder to people that he will literally take the legs out from under you if you don't pay him!"
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a1o298 | linear particle accelerator | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/a1o298/eli5_linear_particle_accelerator/ | {
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"Linear particle accelerators are devices used to accelerate charged subatomic particles to very high speeds using oscillating electrical potentials. Basically they grab tiny charged particles with electromagnetic fields and throw them out the end of the device to produce radiation, like powerful x-rays or high energy electrons.\n\nRadiation affects the cells within the body in various ways, but likely the useful way for your father's treatment is to kill cells. Our cells have complex molecules called DNA within them that act like a blueprint for how the cell behaves. The parts of the molecule are so small that radiation, those fast moving charged particles, can hit them and break them apart similar to throwing a baseball through a window.\n\nMost of the radiation doesn't break apart DNA but there is a bunch being used, meaning only some of the cells in the path of the radiation will be hit. If the DNA is broken that cell will die. Imagine for example only 1% of the cells in the path of the radiation beam die, in a line passing through the entire body. That isn't really that bad, you might not even notice as the body can replace and repair that loss easily.\n\nNow suppose we change the angle the beam goes through the body, on a different path that only intersects the first at one point. We fire again and a new line of 1% cell death goes through the body, except the tissue in the area they intersect gets a double dose. If we keep doing this, changing the angle but keeping the point of intersection we will end up with a good bit of the body getting a tiny, irrelevant amount of damage and the point of intersection being entirely killed.\n\nThis is useful if a patient has a tumor in a place which we really don't want to try to cut into and reach, such as the brain. By doing the radiation treatment we can kill it without any cutting at all, minimizing damage to healthy tissue and helping the patient recover."
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9b6gfz | when did humanity begin actually recording the year? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/9b6gfz/eli5_when_did_humanity_begin_actually_recording/ | {
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"Recorded history is young by comparison to the age of our species, beginning only about 5000 to 6000 years ago with the Sumerian civilization. The Georgian calendar, which is the calendar we are most familiar with, actually began in the year Christ was allegedly born, not when he allegedly died. But according to most scholars, Christ was actually born sometime before year 1 on the Georgian calendar, approximately 4 to 6 BCE and died sometime between 28 - 33 CE. So the calendar doesn't really have it right at all. But it's all symbolic anyhow.",
"You are correct. \n\nCounting the year based on Jesus's birth started in 525 by Dionysius Exiguus, but was not widely used until after 800. Prior to this the Regnal year was used, which was the number of years the current king had been in power.\n\nUsing the Hebrew calendar it is currently year 5778, as it apparently that many years since the world was created. This calendar has been in use since the 12th century. \n\nIt's year 4716 in the Chinese calendar, which is believed to be in use since the 14th century.\n\nYou can find a list of calendars here and when they were introduced: _URL_0_\n\n",
"It's more to do with civilization length. Pre Christian civilisations (and mayan) recorded time and years, but they didn't \"roll over\" when the next civilization took over. The current year format has 2000+ years of recording between Georgian and Julian calendars so it's got a pretty good in innings.",
"The after Christ dating system did not get invented until centuries after the year 1 and it took centuries more before it became widely practiced.\n\nTime keeping and calendars are a whole lot older than that of course, but for the longest time people didn't really care as much about absolute numbers of years passed since some event or other, but instead numbered years according to their rulers.\n\nIt was year 5 in the rule of king sonanso or the first year consuls a and b ruled or the nth year of some dynasty or other.\n\nThis was good enough for the people back then who mostly cared about short term stuff like the next harvest or how long it was before the next tax day or debt forgiveness or whatever. There wasn't much call for comparing stuff over decades and centuries.\n\nThis has brought some problems with it since we have fairly good idea of which year certain events happened according to their people's own calendars (the xth year of the reign of pharaoh y) but can't be quite sure how that translates into our modern timekeeping.\n\nThere have been a couple of other systems that count the years since some event, like for example the founding of Rome, but that was not actually used much in roman times itself. There are also several calendars that count up for the creation of the world like the Jewish calendar who says we are in the year 5778 (it is ending soon), but they did not actually start counting over 57 centuries ago and the fact that there have been several different calendars that counted since the creation of the world makes things a bit problematic.",
"People began recording the year several thousand years ago, usually starting from some significant date like the crowning of the current ruler. The system used by most of the world today, counting from the supposed (although probably not accurate) birth of Jesus, started in 525. ",
"We had different year numbers. \n\nEven today Judaism and Islam have their own year numbers: it's currently year 5778 in Judaism and year 1439 in Islam.\n\nEven North Korea has it's own year number: it's currently year 107 there.\n\n",
"ELI5 why is jesus's birth the base 0 for time keeping when at the time of his life, he was a big nobody just some rebel in a roman province that got executed by locals.\n\nThe religion took a very long time to gain any traction so at what point did they trace back the years to start the new calendar?",
"About five thousand years ago, when writing began. It probably began either in Ancient Egypt or Ancient Sumeria, as those were the first two places to develop writing systems, but it is hard to tell which did so first.\n\nHowever, most early dates were regnal years rather than absolute dates - for instance, the Xth year of some king's rule. Other systems actually named each particular year.\n\nAn absolute dating system - where numerical years were used independent of regnal years, but in an absolute counting sense - came along later. The Olympiad calendar used in Ancient Greece may have been the earliest such example - it was used by all the city states to determine when the Olympics were, and its use started in the 8th century BCE.\n\nThe Ancient Romans used a calendar that dated from the supposed date of the founding of the city of Rome, while the Mayans and their successor civilizations used a \"long count\" calendar for absolute dating for astronomical observations and predictions, among other things.\n\nThe Romans later used the Julian Calendar, which served as the basis for the Gregorian Calendar, which is used by pretty much everyone nowadays.\n\nThe actual numbering system came along later; the Romans used the date from the founding of Rome. The modern BC/AD system started in the 6th century. The date \"1\" was never used contemporaneously, obviously; the present numbering system dates from centuries after the death of Jesus, and actually gets its starting date wrong by 4-6 years.",
"Well, I don’t know when our current system began, but I do know that I’m on board with [this concept](_URL_0_) ",
"Is it the year 2018 in the Middle East and to Muslims etc right now?",
"You might try listening to Joe Rogan's Podcast with Neil DeGrasse Tyson. I think I got the link to where it'll start at the part about the history of the calendar. It's about 4 minutes in.\n\n_URL_0_",
"Others in this thread have covered a lot of the systems used prior to the current Gregorian calendar, but I wanted to provide two little tidbits.\n\nThe first is that you are, of course, correct - we did not just \nuniversally start counting on a specific date. The adoption process of the modern Gregorian calendar was spread across centuries, and the most recent adoptions of it were less than 100 years ago! Some elderly folks still living from places like Russia and Greece were born under a different calendar than is used today. In World War One, there were allies fighting side by side who considered it to be different days, and even years, from their colleagues at their sides. \n\nThe second is that the University of Nottingham has a useful online page talking about reading the many different dating systems used in English documents, [available here](_URL_0_). It doesn't cover ancient calendars, but gives an idea of the huge variety of dating systems in use even just in England over the last few centuries.",
"Even biblically, time was recorded by the reign of the king. \nFor example, \"In the seventeenth year of the reign of King David, this happened.\"",
"The Sumerians invented both the measure of time and calendars that we still use today. They also invented the writing used to keep history and plot future events based on the observable universe and major events that happened on Earth. They are the first known civilization that invented math and writing. ",
"So a bunch of religions started counting years differently, right? So did they all decide to use 365 days in a year? How did that work out that we can say it's x year in the Hebrew calendar, x year in this religion, etc",
"There's no \"we\". Different civilizations across the world have different calendars, developed at different times. Think of the Chinese calendar, or the Mayans. The Babylonians and Persians had (Or have in the Persians case) their own calendars, Muslims use the Islamic calendar which starts the year that Muhammad moved from Mecca to Yathrib, which would be 622AD using the Christian calendar. Speaking of which, that calendar wasn't created until hundreds of years after Christ lived.",
"Did someone record the actual question? WTH is the point of having an ELI5 and then deleting your question once it's answered?"
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avnjsm | why is brown sugar always "wet"? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/avnjsm/eli5_why_is_brown_sugar_always_wet/ | {
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"More molasses in brown vs white sugar this gives it its texture, nutty flavor, and moisture. ",
"Brown sugar is just regular white sugar with molasses in it, molasses is just really refined cane sugar syrup, and when added together it makes the mixture damp, not necessarily “wet”. You want brown sugar to stay damp for different baking needs and that’s why they are always added in with the eggs and wet ingredients. "
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29zkib | why aren't defibrillators more common? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/29zkib/eli5_why_arent_defibrillators_more_common/ | {
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"In most places, they're very common. Where I'm from, every police car has one, every ambulance, every firetruck, every school has multiple ones, every supermarket has at least one. Most people are rarely more than 10 minutes away from one.",
"Why should they be more common than they are? People would probably misuse them and end up injuring themselves.\nPlus, defibrillators aren't the miracle machines that tv makes them seem to be. They are useful to treat cardiac dysrhythmias, not to bring people back to life. Besides, most people with know cardiac disease that may lead to potentially lethal dysrhythmia have implantable cardioverter defibrillators that sense the problem and automatically reset the heart to its normal state (not to be confused with pacemakers, they're not the same thing)."
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4g41i0 | if television makes money from advertising, how and why do they still make money on recorded shows, if at all, when we can just fast forward through the commercials? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4g41i0/eli5_if_television_makes_money_from_advertising/ | {
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"1. Not everybody fast forwards through the ads.\n\n2. Some shows have advertising embedded into them, as advertisers pay for product placement.\n\n3. It costs extra money for that one commercial right at the end of the show or right before the show, because people who fast forward might catch that one.",
"You don't give a network money by viewing an ad, ad agencies pay the network to let them put ads in. As long as those ads are there (whether you watch them or not), the network was paid handsomely for them.",
"The same question could have been asked back when VHS video recorders became more common. And still TV is going strong today.\n\nIt's probably due to the fact that more people watch live TV than recording shows and watching them later."
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dby9qt | how do insects react when seeing or finding another insect of the same species being killed? | Obviously if someone randomly found a dead human body or witnessed someone being murdered they would be freaked the fuck out. How do insects react? do they feel the same fear, would an ant ever get spooked if they saw another ant get smashed? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/dby9qt/eli5_how_do_insects_react_when_seeing_or_finding/ | {
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"“Yum, foods for me.”\n\nInsects are very simple, they don’t really have the mental capacity to process emotional reactions. Communal insects like ants may react to a dead ant of their colony by going into defensive or aggressive mode as this is an evolved response to threats, but they would react in the same way to synthetic alarm pheromones.\n\nOther insects without colony instincts just won’t care. The corpse is food and connecting it to personal danger just is beyond their mental capacity.",
"Ants and bees are a little special because they're \"eusocial\" and do monitor the condition of their colony sisters. If one releases a stress hormone, the others will become increasingly combative.\n\nThose special cases aside, arthropods are typically highly solitary and not very smart. The difference between friend, foe, and food isn't something that really gets processed in their little brains - many will happily cannibalize their own species or even their own offspring."
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2hrcbb | why don't cable channels "slow down" when a lot of people are watching it, like downloads or online streams? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2hrcbb/eli5_why_dont_cable_channels_slow_down_when_a_lot/ | {
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"Because of difference between broadcast and point to point transfer. In broadcast, the transmitter goes \"next bit of video is an image of a cat, then after that there's a hamster\". In point to point transfer, \"next bit is a cat. Have you got it? I'll wait till you tell me you got it. Dumdidumdidumdoo. OK you just said you got it. Ok next one is a hamster. Have you got it? I'll wait till you do\"",
"First and foremost because the TV providers dedicate bandwidth to ensure that enough bandwidth is available for your TV channels. The big Internet pipes are REALLY big.\n\nThe other thing is the way in which TV signals are sent across the networks, which is called multicast. There are three ways of sending signals on the Internet: unicast, where only one source and one destination talk with each other; broadcast, in which everyone on a network gets a message; and finally multicast, which is where the source only selectively sends a signal out to the destinations that are watching it. This minimizes how bandwidth is used to ensure that none of the pipes get clogged up.",
"It is down to the cost of managing a unique connection. Broadcasting over many wires is about as cheap as over one. You can imagine something like a magnetic oscillator inducing AC in a wire. Place a bunch of other wires in proximity and the same signal will be induced in them."
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b4s7xn | why do mental health symptoms seem more intrusive, disruptive and severe at night time? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/b4s7xn/eli5_why_do_mental_health_symptoms_seem_more/ | {
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"It's controversial, but basically there's the idea that your executive function diminishes throughout the day. It makes it so that being deliberate with your thoughts is more difficult, giving way to automatic thought, which for some people is unhealthy.",
"As someone who deals with their mental health too, I think it also has to do with how when night comes people sleep. When you are having mental health issues, these issues impact *you*, and you might need other people to help you. But when these people are inaccessible at night, you can become lonelier or fall into thought loops that others during the daytime might help you to stay out of.",
"There’s something called “sundowning” in patients with Alzheimer’s and dementia where the longer the day goes on, the worse the symptoms become. I have a handful of co-morbid mental illnesses and I experience the same things you do. As soon as the sun goes down, my thoughts get dark as well. I wonder if it has to do with often being more isolated at night or if it’s just fatigue. ",
"your brain needs to recover from being busy which is what sleep is for. the longer you don't sleep the less control you have over yourself making you more prone to have slip ups. sunlight also effects the mood, which obviously is absent at night. another thing that happens is that people are less distracted at night because during the day there are more things to do, when you have nothing to do its harder to distract yourself making thoughts more intrusive and symptoms less manageable.",
"Also more time has passed since you last slept/the more tired you are, the less critical you become of your own thoughts\n\nIt's the same reason people feel more creative at night, it's not that they have better ideas, they just don't realize they're bad ideas",
"As a person who has struggled with this, I do not have the answer but I thank you for posting this pretty great question. And thanks to all the responses as well for sharing. Each of them make sense. ",
"Thought I'd throw out there that even when I'd sleep during the day, the night would often be the worst time for it",
"I'm not an expert but this is how I see it. The experience of mental stress or anxiety is itself a process (state of mind, the sum of all mental activity) created within the mind. Left without further distractions outside of ourself (TV, computer, smart phone etc) we are drawn to our own thinking, which coincidily reflects and is a product of our current state of mind.",
"It depends on the disorder really but we don’t know 100% why but a lot of factors contribute. Your tired after the day making it harder to keep a rational perspective going.l so the more anxious/depressed/angry you get. Cue vicious cycle. You’re also more likely to have experienced averse events during the day. There are fewer distractions on a night and you’re also more likely to be alone with your thoughts. A lot of mental health disorders affect sleep patterns which also provide additional alone time (no so if someone sleeps in the day due to depression or even shift work) and further tiredness. It seems to be a combination of relativism to the current nighttime environment which make the symptoms appear worse and physiological effect I.e hormonal changes and natural circadian rhythm placement effecting energy levels etc. ",
"It has also to do with the fact that at night we are generally relaxing. It may seem paradoxical, but during the day you're doing so much usually that all that other stuff gets shoved out of your awareness. Then you get home and begin relaxing. Your defenses are down and now everything can \"bubble up\" a lot more easily. \n\nI'm a therapist and I used to have a client that suffered from awful, nightly panic attacks. They only happened when she came home from work and began relaxing, which then of course made her scared of relaxing and increased her anxiety and the cycle fed itself at that point. So the focus of our therapy came to be about how she could take care of herself during the day and provide mental reprieve for herself through her day to day routine so she wouldn't be stuck with a barrage of anxious thoughts and feelings she had just shoved away to deal with \"later.\"\n\nI hope this helps and makes sense.",
"There is also a diurnal fluctuation of some neurotransmitters. Some peak in the morning and wane at night, and others are lowest in the morning and peak at night. I’m not a neurologist, so that the best I can explain it, but that could be a contributing factor in combination with the other things mentioned. ",
"As someone who struggled with mental health in the past, for me it was actually the opposite - first thing in the morning was always the worst, but by evening and bedtime I would relax entirely. Was a bit of a blessing really.",
"as someone with mental health issues my experience is quite the opposite. i struggle a lot through mornings and things get a little better as the day goes on, nighttime is when i feel most relaxed. ",
"I suffer/deal with bipolar, PTSD, general anxiety disorder, social anxiety disorder and agoraphobia. Throughout my 40+ years I have desperately sought \"silence\" of one form or another. I am still learning how to deal with everything and that is pretty fucking depressing given the amount of time I have actively sought/consciously understood what is going on with me. \nI have not found a time, or \"better\" time, for me to combat myself. And that is exactly what it feels like - I am constantly battling myself to understand and better act with/to myself. However, the night time is the easiest time for me. The world in general has wound down. The noise of life, be it in my head or outside influence, is quieter and I can find a modicum of peace. In the light of the day, I can gain some form of calm by isolating myself and if possible find a small room, or better yet a closet, to \"hide away\" from the noise. It makes me feel safe, but incredibly weak or broken.\nTruthfully, all of this just about breaks me and often leads me to self destructive thoughts/ideations and occasionally toward suicidal thoughts. I ABSOLUTELY care about other people more than I care about myself. I will purposely damage myself (lack of sleep, poor health, shirt off my back, all of my food, my last $5) in an effort to help someone else in their time of need. It is because of that aspect of me that my suicidal thoughts will remain just that - as much as I envision how suicide will end my personal torment, it will crush and wreck havoc on those I care about or love. Still, I grow more tired every day of fighting or hiding. From the world or myself.\n\nTL;DR: As with anything, there are outliers. Nighttime provides more relief for me than does daytime. ",
"In my experience of it (from myself, my mother, my aunt, uncle, goddaughter, and several friends), it's always basically boiled down to \"in the day, I'm working, driving, just generally doing\", where at night, you're in bed, you don't have any distraction to drown it out. \n\nIt's why, when I was at my worst and I wasn't working, I would literally play a computer game until I passed out in the chair, then I'd wake up and carry on playing. I was basically working to drown out my mind constantly. It wasn't healthy, but it was the only coping method I had at the time.",
"There are several possibilities:\n\n1. People with mental illness struggle all day to appear “normal” and at some point they must relax. This was a big issue for my daughter who has Autism Spectrum Disorder. She was hyper vigilant while at school and would melt down once she got home. Home was her safe zone. Unfortunately, it made our home life very tumultuous.\n\n2. There’s usually must less distraction later in the day. At work, or school, or where ever people go throughout the day, their brains are engaged in a number of tasks and there is a lot of environmental stimuli. The later it gets, the less there is going on and the symptoms appear more prominent because there’s not as much distracting others from noticing it. \n\n3. There are natural fluctuations in body chemicals that can impact the severity of symptoms.\n\n4. Many people take medications for mental illness either just before bed or first thing in the morning. It may be that the effectiveness of meds to control symptoms is wearing off. "
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6w5tvk | why is the skin under our fingernails so sensitive? what purpose does it serve? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/6w5tvk/eli5_why_is_the_skin_under_our_fingernails_so/ | {
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"Though I'm not sure about this entirely, it's probably a result of gain control. The area under your fingernails is rarely stimulated except for just after you trim them etc. This means that the fibres etc which encode tactile information as everyone else has mentioned are activated in response to stimuli that would have previously needed to be sufficient to displace the nail on top. So after a while you get used to the area being exposed and become less sensitive to it.",
"It's sensitive because it's not meant to be exposed. That skin actually provides 10-20% of nail growth. The nail being there to provide another layer of support to help with sensation on your fingertip by providing counter pressure",
"Maybe purpose of over using the nails, showing limit of what nails can endure then forces you to stop due to pain. ",
"It's a different layer of skin that is normally never exposed unless you get cut or something to slice open your skin. Basically your skin is made up of 5 layers of skin cells that work their way up to the surface from the deepest layer. The top layer of skin is actually just a bunch of smaller layers of dead skin cells, which helps the skin withstand abrasion. The nails are just a modified form of the top layer of skin (the same type that covers your whole body). So when it gets removed, the middle layers of skin that lie below it are exposed, and are extra sensitive as a result. \nAs far as it's purpose, it houses a lot of sensory organs that give us information about things like touch, vibration, body position, etc. It also produces new epithelial (skin) cells that I believe will eventually be modified and become a fingernail (not 100% sure about that last part). \n\nHope this helped! Anyone else with more knowledge feel free to correct me or add on! \n\nEdit: forgot to address the purpose of it. ",
"The reason the skin there is so sensitive is to help with pressure. That's the purpose of fingernails in general. When you hold an item, it pushes against the front of your finger, which in turn pushes against your fingernail. Your skin there is sensitive to the stimuli so that you can understand how much pressure you are putting onto the object you're grabbing. It's what allows you to grab an egg with ease with your fingers without even getting close to breaking it, but if you tried the same thing with your forearms, it's a lot harder to tell how hard you're pushing against an object. \n\nTLDR- it helps understand the pressure your fingers are exerting. ",
"Humans have an extremely sensitive sense of touch. Your finger tips are filled with extra sensitive nerves that are stimulated as you grasp something, and the fingertips and nails work together to sandwich these nerves, and heighten the sense of touch. Humans are capable of sensing an object less than the width of a human hair, and you can test this yourself by plucking a hair, placing it on a table, and running your finger over it. This allows us to have extreme dexterity in our hands, which is likely due to being descended from primates who lived in trees where grip is essential for survival. Further selection in later hominids to make tools and perform other fine motor tasks essential for survival likely increased this ability over time. This is why you can dig around in a backpack or purse and find objects without needing to look because your fingers give you the information. It's also why humans are capable of incredible fine motor control to do things like paint masterpieces or perform brain surgery. ",
"The sensitivity is gone if it remains exposed. One of my toe nails deformed as a result of a botched removal when it used be ingrown. Now it is thick and not attached to skin except the root. It hurts when it grows so I cut it near the root. The skin there is no longer sensitive. Same thing happens when you get circumcised. \n\nEdit: Typo",
"Rather than serving a purpose it simply didn't *need* to be any tougher. As things evolved along, we used our resources to grow thicker, tougher skin in other places instead because our fingernails nearly always protect that skin anyway.",
"it serves the purpose of letting you know when you fuck up your fingernails\n\n\"ow fuck that hurts. i won't do that again.\"\n\nclaws were HYPER important for all sorts of animals that came before us. ",
"In general, all pain serves a single purpose; it prevents us from letting our bodies get damaged. Under fingernails are particularly prone to getting infected. \n\nImagine a cave man 150,000 years ago. He finds it fashionable to stick pine needles under his fingernails, so it looks like he has claws or some shit. Nature needs some way to tell him not to do this. BOOM, pain. ",
"The skin under the nail is called the nail bed. It is rich in blood supply. There are even arteries anastomosing ( joining together) beneath it. Now nature doesn't want you to go puncture those arteries. So to protect it has given you nails and nail bed with high sensitivity."
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2w9ywm | very few jobs pay any kind of retirement or benefits these days. most americans have no savings. what happens when generation x becomes too old to earn a living? | I'm 34, and seriously worried about my future. I have no savings, my parents didn't want to pay for my education and the jobs you can get without a degree don't pay for one. Even those with degrees are finding most companies don't offer any retirement or even any benefits. Lots of companies are hiring people as 'contractors' to avoid offering them health insurance.
How is my generation expected to survive without retirement benefits when we're too old to work? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2w9ywm/eli5_very_few_jobs_pay_any_kind_of_retirement_or/ | {
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"We'll make make the next generation work with set hours for sleeping instead of set hours for working.",
"There really is only one possible result: Change. Either sooner or later, this kind of economy will reach a breaking point. In the worst case scenario, the elderly will be forced out of their homes and into the streets to die or suddenly place a massive burden on social programs when they can no longer earn their living, and change will be forced upon society. In the best case, employers will reign in their ever-growing desire for short-term profits instead of long-term growth, pay better wages and benefits, and the crisis will be averted. In a more extreme case, the citizens will revolt, reunionize the entire skilled labor force regardless of the profession and use collective or forceful bargaining to demand better compensation. In any case, change is inevitable, one way or another.",
"You're not expected to survive. You're expected to die quietly, in the street. The welfare state is over, amigo, the ruling class tried that for a while, it worked great, but their profits were a little slim, so they said \"fuck it, we're going back to the Wild West days of capitalism\".\n\nIt's time to get out in the street and fight for your life before you get too old for that stuff. ",
"Homeless elderly. We cast away the mentally ill and veterans without blinking an eye. We will be surprisingly ok with this I'm sure. ",
"The wealthy were not satisfied with what they had and want the little bit everyone else had. And then they try to get the rest of us for fight among ourselves, young vs. old, black vs. white, to divert attention from themselves as they live lives of obscene luxury. No politician is perfect, as indeed, none of us are. But neither are they all the same. We have to pay attention to elections and be active. Things won't change overnight, but we need to turn things around or I dread the country my grand children will grow up in.",
"I am worried about my future as well. It will only get worse as long as politicians keep pushing the 'american myths'\n\n\"you can do anything you want, if you work hard enough\"\n\n\"American competition brings out the best in people\"\n\n\"secondary education is a privileged, not a right. If you don't want to spend the $$ on college then get a trade job\"\n\n\"a college education pays for itself\"\n\nMeanwhile the rest of the developed world blows past us. ",
"After my blowhard comments, my wife suggested something more practical. Have you looked into community college? They can be fairly inexpensive. But you have to be careful to train in a field that really has jobs. So do your research. But just a thought.",
"Move to Northern Europe and embrace the social benefits.",
"Your generation will have to come up with the answer to that question because no one is going to try to solve it except the people directly affected. Everyone is concerned about getting their own. \n\nA lot of jobs supposedly won't exist anymore in 20 years due to technology. Who knows how it will work out.",
" > How is my generation expected to survive without retirement benefits when we're too old to work?\n\nWell, you just work until you die...like every other generation that came before social security, benefits, etc. \n\n*This is meant to be tongue and cheek*",
"My retirement plans involve a road trip to the mountains, a nice dinner, good drink and a .45 to the head.",
"You don't have superannuation?",
" > How is my generation expected to survive without retirement benefits when we're too old to work?\n\nSerious question here: what do you mean by \"expected to survive\"? Who's doing the expecting - the government, or the individuals? And what is the expectation? Simple survival with not much more than food and a bed, or a comfortable standard of living?\n\nThe basic solution that we all have the most control over is to impose at least some control over our own long-term future by going out and investing in a secure retirement vehicle. In other words, build our own retirement benefits.\n\nIt's easy to blow a hundred bucks a month on the instant gratification of a data-fat mobile contract with lots of iStore downloads, a coffee a day at Starbucks, or the occasional drinks-night-out with buddies. It's a *lot* tougher when money's not infinite to have the discipline to say no to some of that stuff and sock some money away for the far future. \n\nNot thinking about that last bit at all and just assuming the government will look after us, or throwing our hands up in the air and shouting \"Hey, anyone, who's gonna do this for me?\" without taking action ourselves could make for a very unpleasant experience in the longer term for us. \n\n**TL;DR**: *If government or your company is not saving money for your retirement, sacrifice some of your spending and do it yourself.*",
"For me it has also been a concern even though I'm in a different boat. I make a decent salary and have always piled money into retirement. I'm in my early 40s and my wife and I have enough in our 401ks that we theoretically could stop and be ok. But we are going to keep at it. \n\nSome of my coworkers spend money like it is going out of style and aren't saving anything, and those are the ones I worry about. I basically push as many people as I can to invest at least something so they don't have to eat Alpo when they retire. \n\nAnd of course because I will have some money, I'll probably have the shit taxed out of it because I had the audacity to save some. \n\nAnd start small and early - get 1% of your money going to retirement and ratchet it up from there. Cut any expense you don't need, especially daily expenses. I cut the cable cord. I haven't gone to Starbucks in forever. For every dollar a day you can cut your lunch cost at work is $250/year after tax. I drive an 11 year old car with over 100,000 miles on it. I live in a house I bought cheap and fixed it up mostly myself and with cheap help. You almost need a scorched earth policy on expenses. ",
"I'm in my 30's and what i'm really worried about is my parents. They were born at the perfectly wrong time. Their parents were laborers and could earn a decent living that way. My parents on the other hand, started the same way. They didn't really consider college as they'd grown up around farms and neither had any family that continued with school.\n\nInstead, they had children at a young age and went out into the world to get jobs. Occasionally they were able to make decent money, but slowly those opportunities became harder to obtain. My father is pretty industrious and has a steady but low paying job. My mother scrapes by working multiple menial jobs. Both are getting older and that lifestyle is taking a toll on them physically and mentally.\n\nNeither have really saved a dime for retirement. I would be considered gen-x and I was lucky. I somehow fell into a path which led to a career in which I have slowly worked my way up to a solid middle class life. Likely, seeing my parents struggle while I was growing up taught me some life lessons early and I started shoving money into a 401k from the start. Likewise, i've invested a small amount of money into the market on my own just to learn the ropes. It's hard to live without that money at times, but I know that it's going to pay off in the future. Especially with the looming prospect that i'm going to have to take care of my parents when they finally break down. Again, i'm lucky, as my brother is in a similar situation to myself and so he can help shoulder that burden.\n\nI don't really have an answer OP, but it's a scary problem. These days it's something you have to think about from an unreasonably young age.",
"This is what Social Security was invented for -- but it's only barely enough to avoid starvation, if that.",
"Don't forget about how with medical advancements, people will begin to live into their 120's and up. Social Security is barely holding on as it is with people dying in their 80s. Cant imagine how long it'll last once people start living an extra 40 years.",
"**my plan C** is to learn farming and hunting, go in some rural abandoned place, buy/occupy land, hunt/raise pastures/farm, eat the fruit of your work until you die from old age or illness/work accident\n\n**plan B** make a shitload of money with any legal/illegal way possible",
"This is exactly what Social Security was made for: people without savings who had worked hard their whole lives. Contributions are based on ability, you get credit for a year when you contribute at least (insert small amount), and payouts are unconditional. $1300 a month (someone I know) is not lavish, but it's enough to live on.",
" > Even those with degrees are finding most companies don't offer any retirement or even any benefit\n\nDoes your company not offer a 401k?",
"Totally off topic, but I just had this weird epiphany for arguing against \"corporations are people\" while reading these comments. If you are an American citizen, you have to pay taxes to the USA even if you move out of the country and live somewhere else. Corporations don't have to do this, they can say they moved their base of operations to Ireland or whatever, and suddenly they don't have to pay taxes to the USA anymore.\n\n",
"Many jobs have 401k offerings and a lot of them offer a company matching incentive which is free money. If your job does not offer those options you should look into opening a Roth. The old adage of pay yourself first still holds true. At 34 it is not too late for you. Even if you are saving $10 a month it is better than nothing. Create an emergency fund too.",
"What happens?\n\n_URL_0_",
"We're going to put them out on the remaining ice floes. Once those are gone, who knows? Cannibalism?",
"Prior to social security old people were poor and unless their families took them in, when they ran out of money they lived on the street and ate cat food. Social security was never intended to be the be all and end all of retirement savings. There was an expectation that you saved. With the invention of the modern credit card (not a charge plate, like Amex) people grew accustom to living on credit. Credit like this did not exist all that long ago. \n\nSo what are you supposed to do? Live on less. Growing up, I had three pairs of pants and four shirts. Today clothing, toys, computers, ect.. Are less expensive. Look at the post where you had a whole page of items from radio shack in 1991 that today are all encapsulated in a cell phone. This is the real issue, you need shelter, food, and some clothing. But with the widespread dissemination of information most people feel they need more. Myself included. \n\nThe only way to really succeed is to spend less than you earn.",
"Posts like this remind me that my life is going to end in suicide. ",
"Ok to answer your question and give you some advice. \n\nThere will always have to be some sort of a retirement scheme by the government either SS or some other form. That is what most retirees live on now. I was a banker and a financial adviser for several years out of college and I can tell you that about 75% of retirees do not get a pension (or get one that is so small it's basically nothing). They own their homes and live off of the $1-$2k/month they get from SS. The scary thing about our generation is that we do not know how to save and plan. People refi their homes every few years to pull whatever cash they can out and blow it on stuff that is not an asset. So they may be in a rough spot when retirement time comes. The sad thing is it doesn't need to be that way. Start now! If you started having $100 deducted from your pay each month and put into a retirement account by the time you get into your late 60's you would have about $300k. (Assuming you increased it as inflation increased your income) That is assuming you don't advance your career at all over the next 35 years. $300k in 35 years will give you about $8-$10k/year in additional income (in today's dollars). That will nearly double your SS check. \n\n\nAs far as advice, the best thing you can do is work as an independent contractor. You get to write off everything and you usually get paid quite a bit more (because the company doesn't have benefit expenses). The thing is, don't worry about a pension. Why would you want to depend on someone else for your retirement? All they are doing with a pension is basically putting money into an annuity for you with a guaranteed payout. The thing about guaranteed payouts is that they are erroring on the side of caution, so if you put that same amount of money away you would likely end up with quite a bit bigger pension. Start investing in real estate, get a few rentals and that is better then a pension. I am 31 and I earn a little over $25k/year from my rentals. This is already 75% of the pension my mother makes after she was a public teacher for 35 years. \n\nAs far as your education, ditch the degree idea. Go to a trade school. A paramedic makes $50-$60k, the degree takes 1 year and costs about $15k. A welder around here makes about $50-$70k and I believe the program is less then a year as well. Go get a quantifiable marketable skill and get yourself a solid job. Then if you decide to go back for a degree later you at least have the assets to do it and not come out with $100k in debt making $35k/year. ",
" > most companies don't offer any retirement or even any benefits\n\ni've been working as a programmer since 1990. i've changed jobs 3 times, most recently in 2012ish\n\nall the jobs i've had offered retirement and benefits. the only one that didn't was a consulting company that reneged on their promise to give me those. this was my fault for not getting it written into any kind of contract. but i started looking for another job when they did this, found one and quit a month later.\n",
"You have to get it done for yourself man. I'm 25, I paid my way through school by myself (2 years of community college, 2 years of public university), I worked my ass off and got a job that has a year long application process, I have 10k in the bank, a 2013 car that is paid off, and an amazing retirement package. Gov jobs are the best.\n\nI don't say all of this to brag, but rather to show that it is still very possible to have savings/a healthy retirement/job satisfaction. The down and dirty is that it is on you to get it.",
"I think about this a lot. I live in Korea and it's pretty similar to the US in terms of embracing capitalism and consumer culture. Korean culture holds respect for elders to be very important, but still many elderly koreans are just left on their own. They go around collecting recycables for a living, even when they're too old and frail to stand up straight anymore. \n\n[This is what it looks like.](_URL_0_)\n\nThere's one lady I pass ony way to work everyday. Even now in the middle of winter she's out there flattening cardboard boxes when I leave for work in the morning and still there when I get home in the evening. She's not even the only one I see regularly on my very short walk to work. You see this everywhere here.\n\nAt first I was so shocked by this but now after seeing it every day for 2 years I've come to accept it as a normal part of korean life. It still makes me really upset though. I always wonder if this is where the US is heading and if my generation will end up like this, doing backbreaking manual labor in our golden years to survive.",
"I think we will become Japan, and kids will start having their parents live with them.",
"\"How is my generation expected to survive without retirement benefits when we're too old to work?\"\n\nI am glad you are worried, sounds like a step towards maturity. The tone of your post reads as spoiled & entitled to me (not a 34 yo adult). Sorry if I am harsh, but I think it's safe to assume you are from a western country and the tone makes me think American. I will give you the benefit of the doubt and say you are feeling overwhelmed. Let's try breaking it down into manageable portions.\n\nThe real problem: you have no savings \n\nExcuse 1: \"parents didn't want to pay for my education\" \nYou are NOT the first person to have to pay for their own higher education. You don't really seem to appreciate the opportunity of higher education. Let's strike that excuse and move on. \n\nExcuse 2: employers without benefits. \nIt happens, that's why they are a \"benefit\" to working there. An extra. Icing on the cake. Companies offer them to help lure the best and most qualified candidates to work for them. \n\nMy point is that \"your generation\" is not the first to face this issue, so perhaps you should adjust your perespective and rephrase your question to: \n\"I am a 34 year old independent contractor worried because I do not have any savings yet. Can you help me establish a budget because I know I need to start a retirement savings account?\"\n\nIf it matters, I am around your age and also an American which is why your sense of entitlement struck a nerve, sorry if I come off harsh, I really am a very nice person. Just one who thinks you need to take personal responsibility. \n",
"Did you know that you're allowed to save on your own?",
"To your educational issues - my parents didn't pay for my education either. There's a simple, albeit distasteful, solution to that. Student loans. Yeah, it sucks having loans. Yeah, it's an extra expense after school. But education pulled me out if poverty level directly into the middle class. With my wife's income, it's a pretty comfortable middle class. Just make sure you do your homework first - find a program that's well accredited, that has a good reputation, and that doesn't cost an arm and a leg. I went to one of those little private colleges you see advertised on TV. While I feel the learned material was just as good as a traditional program, and I have had no trouble finding jobs with the degree, I know now the cost was too much. My loans suck. But the alternative? I'd still be fucking poor, with major financial decisions like \"do I spend this $10 now, or save it a little longer?\" Fair trade, in my eyes.\n\nCan't argue with the contractor thing. Company I just left did a lot of that. Maybe a couple times a years they'd let one on full time. I started there like that. It sucks, but it can be a foot in the door. Just talk to the people in the workplace. The full times at my last company knew damn well the contractors weren't every going to be hired, no matter how many times the management said \"maybe down the line\". And we'd tell them too, if they asked. \n\nI wanna note the disturbing trend I see in your post, and in the world. Entitlement. Your parents didn't pay for your education. I have no savings. Most companies don't have retirements. First off, that's a lot of entitlement, and I see a lot of that in our age group and younger (I'm not much older than you). Especially among the poorer of those age groups. We have to stop worrying about what we weren't *given*. Our parents didn't owe us a college education. That shit's expensive, and they probably weren't rich. \n\nLike I said in my other post, savings is a choice you make, not something you're entitled to have, or something that magically happens if you make just a little more money. It requires a commitment, discipline, and any income at all. That's it. My kid has savings, and he works at taco bell part time. My wife's kid has savings *and he's 14 years old*. He simply has almost never spent his birthday money. When I met her, he had more in savings than I did! \n\nPlenty of companies have a 401(k). I can't imagine working for one that doesn't, because my education means that a company can't attract me without one. The world changes when your skill set moves past retail and fast food, it's mind boggling. But no one is required to *give* you one. You have to do something to earn it. I got a 4 year degree in a field that is actively hiring most of the time. Then I got certifications in that field. I worked my ass off to make myself valuable enough for companies to want to offer me these things. \n\nSo that's my answer I guess. Your (our) generation is fucked if they won't quit expecting things to be given to them. The way out is hard work and education - whether that's a degree, a certificate program, or an apprenticeship. Some kind of education that makes you different, that makes you more valuable than joe blow taking your order at Wendy's. Learn to save. It's hard. Then you'll see how it can all come together."
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5bbrbs | when a bird goes from being a fuzzy baby to a feathered adult, what exactly happens to their hair follicles? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5bbrbs/eli5_when_a_bird_goes_from_being_a_fuzzy_baby_to/ | {
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"They never had hair nor hair folicles. \n\nThat fuzzy is a kind of feather called down. Some species replace all of them with the stiffer adult feathers, others keep a good amount of down as it is a great insulator. "
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1zoha1 | what is the difference between the bbc and rt? | Both are government owned news organizations, yet the BBC is considered honest, unbiased, and trustworthy whereas RT (at least on Reddit - I never hear about it anywhere else) is called a mouthpiece for Putin? I'm not disputing either characterization (nor am I claiming they are true), just wondering what accounts for the difference in public perception. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1zoha1/eli5_what_is_the_difference_between_the_bbc_and_rt/ | {
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"The BBC has complete editorial freedom, RT does not (what's with Putin's tendency of beating dissenting journalists to a pulp).",
"RT is Russian based. From their website:\nRT provides an alternative perspective on major global events, and acquaints international audience with the Russian viewpoint.\n\nBBC is British based; though I've found BBC that airs in the US is very US-news-heavy"
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cbhlhu | can any federal judge in any part of the country block a move made by the president? how does this work? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/cbhlhu/eli5_can_any_federal_judge_in_any_part_of_the/ | {
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"I am a lawyer. The answer is yes. The courts, pursuant to Article 3 of the Constitution, have the authority to interpret and apply the law. Federal courts have jurisdiction over questions of federal law. When a judge decides a question of federal law, that has effect. It means something. When a judge decides that something is illegal or unconstitutional, that means the person doing it has to stop.\n\nAll matters, except a few very unique circumstances, start in district court. There's several for most states, based on geography. There's nowhere else most federal cases can start. If the judges in those district courts didn't have authority to render decisions or enter orders, the entire process would be meaningless.\n\nTo unpack a bit, usually, when you hear about a judge \"blocking\" something, usually you're hearing about an injunction. An injunction is a temporary order that enters at the start of a case that says because the complained of action is very likely to be illegal, and the doing of that action causes irreparable harm that can't be fixed later if the action is deemed to be illegal or unconstitutional, the actor must stop doing it while this case is pending. Especially when you hear about the administration being blocked, such injunctions are usually appealed immediately up to the circuit, and possibly from there to SCOTUS. Even when it's a final order, it still usually gets appealed. So in this way, district courts don't have plenary authority to block, because there's always at least one layer of appeal above them.\n\nEdit typo"
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38pyam | for drugs that an addict needs to be weaned off of, how exactly do rehab centers get them? | Do the rehab centers buy illegal drugs for their patients? Do they just let the patients out to get the drugs themselves? Do they make the drugs themselves? Is there any legal problems involved in obtaining the drugs? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/38pyam/eli5for_drugs_that_an_addict_needs_to_be_weaned/ | {
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"In the case of heroin and other opiates, there are plenty of opiates available by prescription that can be used as part of recovery, so there's no need to use street drugs.",
"For most drugs the withdrawals alone aren't deadly, someone going through heroin withdrawals will wish they were dead though. \n\nFor opiate users with a high enough tolerance, they'll probably get put on a methadone treatment. Methadone is a powerful opiate with a long half-life(how long it takes the body to eliminate half of what is in it) that ranges anywhere from 12 to 47 hours depending on numerous factors. The theory being that the long half life will help keep addicts from going into withdrawals and ease them down. Often what happens though is they just go from being heroin addicts to being methadone addicts, but the success is outside the scope of this question. \n\nFor patients without a high enough tolerance to justify methadone treatment, they might be given a tapered dose of morphine over the span of a few days or weeks to help ease them down, but for the most part those users would be forced to suck it up.\n\nStimulants are a little more difficult to simulate. With opiates it's possible to take a small enough dose of heroin that someone accustomed to taking codeine wouldn't be able to tell the difference because most opiates act on the same areas of the brain, whereas stimulants have a wider range of receptors to act on, stimulate, and inhibit. This makes it a little more difficult to make substitutions that will give the brain what it's looking for. In those situations there are some medications that are used to help reduce the cravings, but it is largely behavioral therapy with 200cc of \"suck it up and deal with the withdrawals and soul crushing depression.\"\n\nFor Benzodiazepines(Valium and Xanax being the most famous of them) the withdrawals alone are potentially fatal and addicts basically have to get given a daily dose that is slowly tapered down to nothing. Death by withdrawal isn't common, but it's common enough that benzos should be looked at with a certain amount of respect and caution that other pharmaceutical drugs aren't.\n\nSide note: pharmaceutical drugs should ALL be looked at with respect and caution. They account for more deaths annually than all illegal narcotics combined, and I suspect a large number of those deaths are caused by the assumption that pharmaceutical medications are safer."
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2wa5uw | http/2 vs regular http | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2wa5uw/eli5_http2_vs_regular_http/ | {
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"HTTP is the protocol which browsers use to communicate with websites. HTTP/2 is the next planned revision of this protocol (the current one, HTTP/1.1, was standardized in 1999).\n\nHTTP/2 mostly improves on HTTP/1.1 in terms of speed and latency. It does this by:\n\n1. Compressing to the HTTP headers.\n2. Receiving multiple request and sending multiple responses on the same connection (currently, browsers have to use multiple connections for this).\n3. Allowing the server to actively push responses to the client, without the client asking for them first (for example, if you load a page that automatically loads some javascript and css file, then the server won't wait for the client to request them).\n4. Splitting the requests and response to frames, which can be processed concurrently. For example, in HTTP/1.1, the client first needs to read and process the HTTP headers before it can read the rest of the response, but in HTTP/2 it can process both at the same time.\n\nYou can find more details [here](_URL_1_) and [here](_URL_0_)."
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"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HTTP/2"
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21971i | what is dubstep's place in the history of musical theory? | Hey ELI5--
This is kind of a weird, loaded question, but I'm looking for a simplified version of how Dubstep came to be and why. Some other questions asked about Dubstep seemed to be destructive (as opposed to constructive) about the genre and complaining that it doesn't use real instruments. So here I am.
A few weeks ago, on an AskReddit question, someone discussed how music evolved from basic notes, to layering by octaves, to something else more layered, etc. etc. And basically that you can record and measure, throughout history, as collective humanity discovers the proper patterns and layerings and harmonies that sound nice.
So my question is, where does Dubstep come into this? Although it is an artificial sound, there is something natural about the way it works and the way it layers itself.
Also, any insight on what is next? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/21971i/eli5what_is_dubsteps_place_in_the_history_of/ | {
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"You're asking about the origins of electronic music. \n\nThe short story is that after the impressionist period around the turn of the century, a composer named Igor Stravinsky catapulted the modern movement by redefining the meaning of melody, harmony, and rhythm with his work \"The Rite of Spring.\" This period inspire composers to look beyond traditional views of what music was, even to the point of a movement known as \"Musique Concrète,\" a French modernist movement which sought to find the musical beauty of all sound, not just the well defined sonorities of traditional instruments. These composers would perform by banging garbage on stage and creating the strangest noises they could and utilizing new techniques of playing old instruments for creating new kinds of sound. New instruments were built, such as the Rhythmicon, Etherwave Theremin, and Ondes-Martenot. \n\nAt the same time, popular music was being redefined by electrically amplified instruments such as the electric guitar and electric piano. By the 50s they had become staples of pop, rock and jazz. This is when the first synthesizers, the size of rooms were built. \n\nThe composers latched on to these wonderful devices. Unlike their earlier sound experiments, synthesizers allowed them to craft sounds from nothing. \n\nBut they were still massive, expensive instruments that took lots of skill to operate. These were the instruments of experimentalists, not popular musicians. \n\nIn the 60s a man named Bob Moog redefined the synthesizer. He had his start building Theremins and radios in his teens before going to MIT to study physics (or electrical engineering, someone might want to fact check me). He built large modular synthesizers that were the staple of the day... Before inventing the \"mini-moog,\" a table top synthesizer with a piano keyboard. This was the first fully integrated synth that could be used by keyboardists. \n\nThe pop musicians and composers who had experience with the large modular synths immediately fell in love with the minimoog. It helped craft the sound of progressive rock, becoming the iconic sound of artists like Steve Miller, the Who, and Rush to name a few. \n\nEnter disco towards the end of the 70s. This upbeat genre was a derivative of the R & B scene, but focused on dance. these artists as well began the use of synthesizers along with the rock gods of the 70s. \n\nAt a gay disco club in Chicago called the Warehouse, a DJ named Frankie Knuckles started using a technique called 'beatmatching' where with a mixer and two turntables he would spin multiple records, speed them up and match the tempos and mix between them. \n\nPeople started loving the style, and producers started making tracks just to be spun at the Warehouse. This \"warehouse\" or \"house\" music started a revolution. These bedroom producers were using samplers, drum machines, and synthesizers to generate music almost entirely electronically. Electronic dance music was born. \n\nSo TL;DR it's a long history that spans every genre of the last century. "
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2gf9zp | how do cities get named? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2gf9zp/eli5_how_do_cities_get_named/ | {
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"In a lot of cases, cities form out of a collection of small growing towns that merge together. The most centrous, or most prosperous (to where people gravitated) became the \"downtown\" core of the new city and the old towns became neighborhoods or boroughs or suburbs. The city of Detroit was formed around the old Fort Detroit and has suburbs named Lansing and Hammtramick and Deaborn Heights which were all towns back in the day.\n\nThe city of Toronto was renamed to use a Mowhawk term for what is now the Humber River (in Toronto).... they ditched the old name of Town of/Fort York because of old perceptions of \"dirty little York\" (I'd love for a historian to synopsize that one)"
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vim3b | why did osama bin laden orchestrate the attacks of september 11, 2001? | Did he have more than one motive? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/vim3b/eli5_why_did_osama_bin_laden_orchestrate_the/ | {
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"He didn't. Khalid Sheikh Mohammed did.\n\nBut the tl;dr version is that OBL wanted to restore an Islamic Caliphate that spans across the Middle East, Africa all the way to Indonesia. He was doing it as a call to arms to Muslims everywhere.\n\nI am sure someone can give better details that I have here.",
"Bin Laden had a lot of beefs with the U.S., and yes, support of Israel was one of them. In 2002 he wrote a [\"Letter to America\"](_URL_0_) where he basically said that the creation and subsequent support of the Israel was a crime against the Arabs in the region.\n\nAnother motivating factor was U.S. military presence in his home country, Saudi Arabia. During the First Gulf War, the U.S. had a couple thousand troops in the Arabian peninsula. Many Muslims found this American presence upsetting when taking into consideration the fact that Saudi Arabia is home to the holiest sites in Islam: Mecca (Muhammad's birthplace) and Medina (Muhammad's home following the [Hijra](_URL_1_)). Bin Laden was certainly no exception. \n\nFinally, there is the sanctioning of Iraq following its invasion of Kuwait (again, tying into the First Gulf War). Basically, bin Laden wasn't cool with the western world, headed by the U.S., telling an Arabic nation what to do. \n\ntl;dr Bin Laden believed that America had too much power in the region, and was abusing its power to the point where something had to be done. \n\n2 things: 1. I tried being objective with all that. I, in no way, support his message. 2. This is my first time posting here. I hope I didn't fuck up the explanation too much. ",
"*Why against the US?* As others said, he wants to reestablish the caliphate and he objects to the strong US military presence (and Israel's existence) in the Middle East, and especially American bases in Saudi Arabia, what is considered the Muslim holy land. In addition to American military power, he objects to American economic influence. That's why the attacks were against both a symbol of US commercial power (the World Trade Center) and symbol of our military power (Pentagon). It was not simply calculated to be the highest casualties possible- there was meaning in the targets.\n\n*Why a terrorist attack?* A terrorist attack is always directed at one or more audiences. First of all, it drew attention to his cause in general. Toward Americans, the intent was for us to want to give in and pull our military out of the Middle East because it wasn't worth the possibility of future attacks. That didn't work out. It also sent a message to America's allies, who would be risking attacks in their own countries by continuing to support US policies. Finally, the attacks had an effect in the Muslim world itself. It was meant to be a rallying cry. Having, from their point of view, a huge success is great for recruiting. Also important is that the attacks showed that the US was not immune or invincible. Thus for those who are already radical, it offered hope of success. For impoverished young men with no prospects, al Qaeda is a cause they can be a part of.\n\nedit: formatting",
"-In 1990, faced with possible aggression from Iraq, Bin Laden (born in Saudi Arabia) told the Saudi King that his forces (who had fought the Soviets in Afghanistan) would protect the country. Saudi Arabia declined and instead sought US/NATO assistance in their defense. \n\n-Bin Laden, a vicious anti-Semite, viewed America as one of the chief reasons for the continued existence of the state of Israel who \"occupied\" Jerusalem.\n\n-Bin Laden believed Sharia law was the only right way in which people, especially those in Muslim countries, should live (which is why he liked Afghanistan under the Taliban.) He viewed the USA as the chief opponent to the expansion of these beliefs. \n\n-His idea to eliminate the problem of potential US intervention in the future would be to attack the US and draw them into a prolonged war in a Muslim country. By his logic, Muslims from around the globe would come to fight off the 'foreign invaders' (as he had against the Soviets in the '80s) and that eventually a long, drawn out conflict would lead to the collapse of the US economically. \n\n-With the threats of the Soviet Union and the United States both eliminated the road would now be clear for the rise of his idea of true Islam throughout The Middle East and the destruction of Israel. ",
"[The onion did a good job](_URL_0_)"
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4unsed | what goes on that makes humans sometimes lose all focus thought for a split second? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4unsed/eli5_what_goes_on_that_makes_humans_sometimes/ | {
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"I don't find that I lose focus, I find that I'm focusing on something inside (internal) or intensely focusing on something outside (external) that consumes all of my attention. Those things might not be what I'm trying to focus on, mind you.\n\nAn excellent example, instead of working on my homework, I'm writing this post on reddit about losing focus.",
"Usually it's an acute response to a highly stressful situation. This may be obvious (you're crossing in the middle of the road when you realize a car out of nowhere is about to hit you and there's nothing you can do about it), or not very obvious (you have several annoying things on your mind that are demanding your attention, and that moment comes when you realize you can't focus on any particular one, yet can't do anything about rest either). \n\nThe brain will switch off to free itself from a sensory input overload. This is the best time to take a walk and think about nothing. In the car situation, there's not much you can do, except your brain will save you from experiencing and recalling the horror of the impact ( I've been through this situation). ",
"There are several situations that can explain the phenomenon, depending on how OP mean it. First two already mentioned by separate individuals, but I thought, for the sake of being complete as I can be...(anyone feel free to add another). \n\nA. An overload of stress can cause you to freeze up. Stress often results in decision fatigue and this can be a very short term thing.\n\nB. A seizure of some sort(epilepsy mentioned but iirc, there are other types)\n\nC. Being over-tired and having a \"microsleep\"[there is a wiki with this term if you'd like to know more you could google it for specifics]. This often comes when you're doing boring activities, may or may not be accompanied by head nods. This is the split-second power outage or flicker. It is a reaction to your brain thinking it is falling asleep, which it is even though you don't notice it. This is also often accompanied by spastic jerks or ticks just as if you'd waken up suddenly from a dream or an itch or pinch or whatever.\n\nEvolutionarily, this is thought to be our protection from just drifting off to sleep in dangerous situations as you end up more alert even when tired and can go on for quite a long time without sleep.\n\nSource: Head injury which caused chronic insomnia makes me experience C quite often.",
"There was an exelent three part documentary on Netflix called \"Your Inner Fish\" about the evolution of man from fish, and if I remember correctly, the host said it was like a computer code glitch in the brain as it developed over time. \n\nCheck it out to confirm, it's worth watching anyway. ",
"Our mind has basically two modes that it operates in, The mind-wandering mode and the central executive mode. They work in opposition to each other, if one is activated, the other one is deactivated. The mind-wandering mode is basically a brain network that supports a more fluid, nonlinear mode of thinking. When the brain has an opportunity to rest so to speak, the brain shifts into the mind wandering mode. Daydreaming and mind wandering are such a natural part of the brains activity that the mind wandering mode has been dubbed the \"default mode\" by its discoverer Marcus Raichle. The central executive mode, on the other hand, becomes active when you're engaged in something. It's your focus. So to answer the question; Your brain literally shifts from a mode of being engaged to a mode of mind wandering. These are only two parts of the four-part human attentional system. "
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nske2 | what the deal is with hugo chavez? | I know he called out Bush a bunch of times in public forums, I know he admires and perhaps models himself off of a lot of the famous Latin American revolutionaries, I know there's been some controversies about the way he rules his country, and...that's about it. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/nske2/eli5_what_the_deal_is_with_hugo_chavez/ | {
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"He was the one that helped turn Venezuela into a democratic country. His first job was a military worker, and he viewed the government at that time as corrupt, so he built a movement to try and overthrow it. After an unsuccessful coup d'etat, he was imprisoned in 1992. Two years later, when he was freed, he formed a democratic party and became president in 1998. When he took office, he soon introduced a new constitution that both increased rights for marginalised groups and altered the structure of Venezuelan government. During his second presidential term, he introduced a system of Bolivarian Missions, Communal Councils and worker-managed cooperatives, as well as a program of land reform, whilst also nationalising various key industries. The opposition movement, meanwhile, arguing that he was a populist who was eroding representative democracy and becoming increasingly authoritative, attempted to remove him from power both through an unsuccessful military coup in 2002 and a recall referendum in 2004. In 2005, he openly proclaimed his adherence to socialism, and was again elected into power in 2006, following which he founded his new political party, the PSUV, in 2007.",
"I don't want to start a debate but Booyahhayoob's little recounting leaves rather a lot to be desired. While this isn't comprehensive, here are a few of the major issues that have occurred with the Chavez regime:\n\n1) Food shortages. In 2003, Chavez imposed price controls on food. As is predictable by basic economic theory, these led to shortages as food was hoarded, smuggled out of the country to be sold elsewhere, or simply not grown to avoid taking a loss. In recent years the Chavez government has seized farms and food warehouses, arrested people for exporting food, and ordered farmers to meet minimum production quotas. Government-seized and -run farms have had massive amounts of waste and inefficiency, leaving food to rot as cronies without any agricultural experience were put in charge of the nation's food supply.\n\n2) Suppression of free speech. Opposition media have repeatedly been [fined, shut down, and attacked](_URL_1_) for criticizing the regime.\n\n3) Increasing crime. The murder rate has more than doubled under the Chavez regime. Kidnappings have become commonplace (for an idea of this see the movie 'Secuestro Express'). Drug trafficking is on the rise.\n\nAll this does not even take into account the widespread corruption, the decline in the Venezuelan oil industry, or the [crazy statements](_URL_0_) Chavez makes on the world stage.",
"I know this is not an actual answer but if you are interested you should check out a documentary called \"South of the border\", its not really good but the first minutes about venezuela are spot on.",
"All you need to know is in the documentary \"The War on Democracy\". Watch it please.\n\n_URL_0_\n\nEveryone who lives on the planet needs to see it. ",
"My post will be bias because I know the Colombian side of the story. The thing about Chavez is that he's leader in a country that produces an important amount of oil. That, of course, gives him power. Now Chavez considers himself the reincarnation of Simon Bolivar. It's important to know who Simon Bolivar was to understand more about Chavez. Now Simon Bolivar was a revolutionary back when Venezuela, Colombia, Ecuador, Panama, etc were Spanish colonies. He was able to free all those countries that at the time formed one single big country known either as the La Nueva Granda or something like that. Anyways, Bolivar's dream was to keep all this countries united but as you know, that didn't happen. \nSo Chavez wants to accomplish what bolivar couldn't and reunite all these countries together. That's one of the reasons he doesn't approve the American presence on south-america. And since he can exert some sort of influence in south-america, he dares to call the former American president a drunk on national television.\nLike it was mentioned, he's a socialist and well, he somehow supports the armed forces that are based in Colombia, aka FARC. It is believed that FARC have some training camps on Venezuelan soil.\nSorry for not explaining this like you were five, I can't see how i could :/",
"He was the one that helped turn Venezuela into a democratic country. His first job was a military worker, and he viewed the government at that time as corrupt, so he built a movement to try and overthrow it. After an unsuccessful coup d'etat, he was imprisoned in 1992. Two years later, when he was freed, he formed a democratic party and became president in 1998. When he took office, he soon introduced a new constitution that both increased rights for marginalised groups and altered the structure of Venezuelan government. During his second presidential term, he introduced a system of Bolivarian Missions, Communal Councils and worker-managed cooperatives, as well as a program of land reform, whilst also nationalising various key industries. The opposition movement, meanwhile, arguing that he was a populist who was eroding representative democracy and becoming increasingly authoritative, attempted to remove him from power both through an unsuccessful military coup in 2002 and a recall referendum in 2004. In 2005, he openly proclaimed his adherence to socialism, and was again elected into power in 2006, following which he founded his new political party, the PSUV, in 2007.",
"I don't want to start a debate but Booyahhayoob's little recounting leaves rather a lot to be desired. While this isn't comprehensive, here are a few of the major issues that have occurred with the Chavez regime:\n\n1) Food shortages. In 2003, Chavez imposed price controls on food. As is predictable by basic economic theory, these led to shortages as food was hoarded, smuggled out of the country to be sold elsewhere, or simply not grown to avoid taking a loss. In recent years the Chavez government has seized farms and food warehouses, arrested people for exporting food, and ordered farmers to meet minimum production quotas. Government-seized and -run farms have had massive amounts of waste and inefficiency, leaving food to rot as cronies without any agricultural experience were put in charge of the nation's food supply.\n\n2) Suppression of free speech. Opposition media have repeatedly been [fined, shut down, and attacked](_URL_1_) for criticizing the regime.\n\n3) Increasing crime. The murder rate has more than doubled under the Chavez regime. Kidnappings have become commonplace (for an idea of this see the movie 'Secuestro Express'). Drug trafficking is on the rise.\n\nAll this does not even take into account the widespread corruption, the decline in the Venezuelan oil industry, or the [crazy statements](_URL_0_) Chavez makes on the world stage.",
"I know this is not an actual answer but if you are interested you should check out a documentary called \"South of the border\", its not really good but the first minutes about venezuela are spot on.",
"All you need to know is in the documentary \"The War on Democracy\". Watch it please.\n\n_URL_0_\n\nEveryone who lives on the planet needs to see it. ",
"My post will be bias because I know the Colombian side of the story. The thing about Chavez is that he's leader in a country that produces an important amount of oil. That, of course, gives him power. Now Chavez considers himself the reincarnation of Simon Bolivar. It's important to know who Simon Bolivar was to understand more about Chavez. Now Simon Bolivar was a revolutionary back when Venezuela, Colombia, Ecuador, Panama, etc were Spanish colonies. He was able to free all those countries that at the time formed one single big country known either as the La Nueva Granda or something like that. Anyways, Bolivar's dream was to keep all this countries united but as you know, that didn't happen. \nSo Chavez wants to accomplish what bolivar couldn't and reunite all these countries together. That's one of the reasons he doesn't approve the American presence on south-america. And since he can exert some sort of influence in south-america, he dares to call the former American president a drunk on national television.\nLike it was mentioned, he's a socialist and well, he somehow supports the armed forces that are based in Colombia, aka FARC. It is believed that FARC have some training camps on Venezuelan soil.\nSorry for not explaining this like you were five, I can't see how i could :/"
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31fvnf | who filmed the astronauts first stepping onto the moon and who filmed them leaving it? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/31fvnf/eli5_who_filmed_the_astronauts_first_stepping/ | {
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"There was a camera mounted on the outside of the lander",
"There were cameras attached to the outside of the lunar module that could film them going down the ladder.\n\nThe astronauts also had cameras attached to their suits but they could only press the shutter, they couldn't detach the camera and line up shots with the viewfinder.\n\nEdit: Spelling",
"The lunar module did. Or if you want to be pedantic, Armstrong himself flipped the switch to turn the camera on. Found on the second link of the Google search results for \"who filmed the moon landings\":\n\n > Neil Armstrong's \"First step on the Moon\" was filmed by a camera installed on the MESA (Modularized Equipment Stowage Assembly) at the side of the Apollo Lunar Module (LM) descent stage that Neil Armstrong had to pull a lanyard to unlock the pallet and make it drop open. A switch inside the LM, operated by Buzz Aldrin, then activated the TV camera which was installed there",
"Apollo 17 leaving was filmed by a camera that was remotely controlled by one of the mission controllers. "
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73mvni | how can a man be raped by a woman? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/73mvni/eli5_how_can_a_man_be_raped_by_a_woman/ | {
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"I ordered a paid dominatrix service off the internet years ago. Set up to meet at a fairly nice hotel room where I was waiting. She made me go to the bathroom upon arrival and when I came out she had a mask and full outfit on. Tied me to the bed, gagged me and roughly anally penetrated me. Then I was chloroformed and I assume more penetration. When I woke up all my belongings and wallet were gone",
"The human body will respond to physical stimulation even if you haven't consented and don't want it to happen. Mind over matter only goes so far, so sufficient stimulation will still have a predictable effect. The fact that your body responded in the way it is physiologically meant to respond has nothing to do with whether you gave consent for it to happen.\n\nIn short: no means no, and what your body does when pushed doesn't mean a damn thing in the face of that.",
" > How can a man be 'hard' and be considered a rape?\n\nErections aren't something that you need to want to have, they happen with stimulus. Regardless of how you feel about it. ",
"Same way a woman can be wet and nonconsenting. The penis responds to physical touch\n\n\nNot even mentioning penetration of the anus, forced to eat a woman out, etc",
"Along with the other responses here, I think you're jumping to a conclusion that raping a man involves his penis.\n\nThere are plenty of other non-consensual sexual assaults that can happen to a man in a compromising position.",
"If my eyes get watery after I stub my toe, it's not because I wanted them to do that and willed it to happen; it's because that's my body's response to that kind of sensation. \n\nIf I have a dick and someone touches it, and it gets hard, it's not because I wanted it to happen, it's because that's the body's response to that kind of sensation. \n\nRape isn't bad sex. It's not based on whether you got hard or had an orgasm. Rape is about the mental state of the people involved: specifically, did both people want sex to happen? If not, then that is rape."
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56hgkp | why are female butts bigger than male butts? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/56hgkp/eli5_why_are_female_butts_bigger_than_male_butts/ | {
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"Sexual selection. Wide hips are useful for giving birth. Men are as a result attracted to wide hips. Women who have wide hips, and more importantly women who can *simulate* having wide hips are more likely to have more children because men find them attractive. The genetics for wide hips and simulated wide hips thus become more common among women. In this case, a large butt coupled with a narrow waist exaggerates the size of the hips and acts as a reproductive advantage for women. \n\nEDIT: Apparently there's some confusion, so let me elaborate. Big butts do not contribute to increased survival odds. They do not increase the *actual* hip size. What they do is make the hips *look* bigger, especially when the woman also has a narrow waist. Because men who were in the past attracted to women with actually larger hips were more likely to have surviving offspring, men are attracted to what look like large hips. By having hips that *look* larger, women can manipulate this attraction and win more mates, increasing their reproductive success. This is all part of sexual selection, which is a form of natural selection.",
"Yes. Women generally have a wider hips, just as men generally have wider shoulders. \n\nIt makes giving birth is somewhat easier (or, you know, possible). That is why petite women have more problems during pregnancy and childbirth. As to *why*, as in, how it developed - natural selection, I guess?",
"Women have wider hips than men, because the baby passes through the pelvic bone during birth. Because if this, wider hips are a sign that a woman is more likely to have surviving children. This causes the selection of women with the \"hourglass\" shape, but also selection for men who desire that shape in women. Once most men have that desire, women with larger butts will appear to have even more of the hourglass shape, leading to a larger avarage butt size. ",
"No one's mentioned breastfeeding yet. The butt is the primary fat source the mothers body pulls from to make breast milk. Women with bigger butts provide more omega 3s to their children and possibly have smarter kids. ",
"Many comments are about estrogen hormone levels in women causing fat deposition in regions of the body. A more technical (and slightly less ELI5 answer) is that there are other hormones that signal for fat deposition in certain areas of the body. For example, the release of oxytocin will cause more fat deposition around the mammary glands (milk glands) in women's breasts and also signal for more milk production. Other hormones also control other regions. Estrogen is a factor, but not the only factor. Another reason for the \"increase in butt size\" is that, with only a little research conducted on this, women have more elastin and collagen (proteins that allow for the stretchiness and binding of skin cells) in their face, breasts, pelvic region, and butt region of their bodies. Due to this, more water and fat can be stored due to the increase in possible stretch of the skin. Don't take this last part as fact though, as only a little research has been done on it. \n\nSource: Pre-med student.",
"Genuinely asking: wouldn't fat at butt and hips also be an advantage during pregnancy, since the nutrition for the baby is very close to the womb?"
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