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6waony | why is velcro so loud? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/6waony/eli5_why_is_velcro_so_loud/ | {
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"When Velcro is taken apart there are many stiff plastic hooks being straightened until they release a loop of thread at which point they snap back into a hook with a tiny sound. A large number of those hooks all snapping back at once can be fairly noisy."
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3g6rhf | how can someone be immune to poison ivy at a young age but then lose their immunity when they're older? or is this just a myth? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3g6rhf/eli5_how_can_someone_be_immune_to_poison_ivy_at_a/ | {
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"Allergies can be acquired. Many allergic reactions don't occur the first time you're exposed to your allergen. In order for your body to produce an \"allergic reaction\" the anti-bodies for your allergen must exist already, which means you've had to have been exposed to the allergen already most of the time.\n\nIt's entirely possible for someone to eat peanut butter sandwiches for 15 years and then suddenly become allergic to it. "
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3497u2 | does fire burn faster or slower in extreme cold? | After looking up the [fire triange](_URL_0_) me and my collegue disscused this a bit.
Would a Fire (or a match) burn faster or slower in extreme cold? At 0 Kelvin could there even be a fire? We were just not sure how to bring the "heat" into the equasion.
| explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3497u2/eli5_does_fire_burn_faster_or_slower_in_extreme/ | {
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"You need to clarify what you mean here. Is this 0 K surroundings? Or the fuel itself is at 0 K?",
"Fire is a reaction between a fuel and oxygen. For it to happen the two molecules have to come in contact with eachother. Another thing that has to be overcome is the socalled energybarrier (this is where the heat comes into play). A reaction can only happen if a certain amount of energy is present to start the reaction. See it as to kickstart a engine. \n\nIn the case of a fire, which gives out of more energy than needed to overcome the energybarrier, the burning of the fuel will provide the energy for the next molecule to react which in turn provides it for the next etc. \nSo a fire, which already burns, will not burn slower (or faster) then otherwise when it's colder. \n\nAt 0K however, you'll get something interesting as I think about it. The molecules are standing still, so they will not move to eachother so no reaction can take place meaning no fire. So it's impossible to start a fire without raising the temperature. "
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5gamuq | the concept of "flow state" that athletes experience. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5gamuq/eli5_the_concept_of_flow_state_that_athletes/ | {
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"Never heard about. But I can correlate the expression with the feeling of when having rehearsed so many times a fast song in an instrument, and being so fluent, you get in a state of concentration, like a hypnosis, you get to a stare of not thinking about the fingers movement and reading, as if you're the watcher, not the player. Nice feeling. "
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13zpzd | how do they make decaffeinated coffee? | I would really like to know. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/13zpzd/how_do_they_make_decaffeinated_coffee/ | {
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"Hoboken N.J. used to have a large Maxwell House coffee plant- some of you long time New Yorkers will remember there used to be a huge neon sign visible across the Hudson from 14th st.. I talked to a guy that worked at the decaffeinated section back in the day. He said working in the building set aside for decaffeinating was dangerous, all hand tools were made out of bronze so that they could not accidentally make a spark. The air inside was full of explosive gas. The buildings walls were designed to fall off quickly in case of an explosion. The caffein that was extracted was in the form of a white powder and was sold to the pharmaceutical industry.",
"You know the gas, carbon dioxide (CO2)? If you squeeze it really tightly--put it under very high pressure--it actually behaves kind of like a liquid. Like a liquid, it can dissolve things, like water can dissolve salt. Imagine you have a toy that's covered in salt that you want to get rid of. A simple way of getting rid of the salt would be to toss the toy in some water. The salt dissolves, but the toy is intact, and you end up with a salt-free toy.\n\nCoffee decaffeination works in a similar way, except instead of water, this liquid-like CO2 is used. This CO2 can dissolve caffeine, but not other things in a coffee bean. So if you run this special CO2 over a batch of coffee beans, you'll take out all of the caffeine, leaving you with caffeine-free coffee beans. And, as a special bonus: you also get a bunch of pure caffeine dissolved in this special CO2, which you can sell to companies that put caffeine in their products! And getting the caffeine out is really easy. In the salty toy example, if you wanted to get your salt back, you would have to evaporate the water that the salt was dissolved in. That can take a long time. But with the special CO2, you simply un-squeeze it, and then it becomes normal gaseous CO2, leaving you with your caffeine.",
"The real question is *why*. ",
"I saw this on my front page, thinking that it was from /r/jokes. Upon reading the text I thought to myself, that's a terrible punchline. And now I feel like an idiot.",
"Regular coffee is made from beans that are roasted, ground and then brewed. Decaf is pretty much the same, but instead of roasting and grinding the beans they just brew the dirt the coffee was grown in."
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7k3nae | how does the human body convert the chemical energy from food into the electrical energy needed to power our muscles? | I know very little about biology, but I'm not aware of any tiny biological turbines within our bodies that can somehow convert chemical to electrical energy. So how is the conversion made? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/7k3nae/eli5_how_does_the_human_body_convert_the_chemical/ | {
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" > I'm not aware of any tiny biological turbines within our bodies that can somehow convert chemical to electrical energy.\n\nYou're sort of on the right track, but have things the wrong way 'round. Electricity itself isn't used to power our bodies, but a difference in 'electrical charge' is used to convert some chemical energy into another type of chemical energy. I'll try and give a run down of energy production to hopefully explain (but it's a little difficult without diagrams!):\n\nThe energy your body needs is stored chemically in a molecule called called ATP ([adenosine triphosphate](_URL_2_)). ATP is what all your food is mostly converted into when you eat - and when stored as ATP, it can be transported and used where and when it's needed, instead of having to use that 'food energy' right there and then.\n\nThe process of converting the chemicals that make up your food - say, glucose - into ATP is fairly involved, taking place inside your cells in an [organelle](_URL_1_) called the mitochondrion (which are often called the 'powerhouses' of the cell; where your ATP energy is 'made').\n\nThe process itself involves stripping glucose free of electrons. The energy these free electrons have is used by proteins in the mitochondria to pump positively-charged hydrogen ions (H+) from one mitochondrial compartment to another. Essentially, this is electricity within a cell - you're creating one compartment full of positive charge, leaving the other with a relatively negative charge.\n\nAll these positive H+ ions crammed in together *really* want to flow back into the negatively charged area whence they came (opposite charges attract) - but they can't. The only way to do so is by flowing through a specialised protein channel called [ATP synthase](_URL_0_). This is what the lil' turbine is! Acting a bit like a water wheel on a river, the flow of H+ ions through this channel spins a part of ATP synthase around, helping it form ATP.\n\n**In simpler terms:** your food is broken down into teeny molecules, made up of different atoms, with atoms being made up of + charged protons and - charged electrons. At somewhere along the line, these electrons are taken away, and their energy is used by proteins to move the remaining + bit into a sealed bag. The charge difference between the + inside and - outside forces the + bits to rush out wee holes in the bag, towards the - side. These holes have turbines attached that spin with the flow, using the energy from the current to make ATP. So you could sort of say the cell basically turns 'unusable' chemical energy into electrical energy into usable chemical energy again!\n\nOf course this is all *extremely* simplified and as a result misses lotsa' stuff and is slightly misleading (there's a lil' physical energy used in the actual making of the ATP etc.), but hopefully explains things ELI5 enough to perhaps make things a lil' clearer?\n\n"
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"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ATP_synthase",
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Organelle",
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adenosine_triphosphate"
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8og10u | what is spirituality exactly? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/8og10u/eli5_what_is_spirituality_exactly/ | {
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"I think it is a very personal thing for a lot of people, I cannot talk for everyone but I can talk for myself. Growing up my famiky were highly religious (christian) we went to cherch every Sunday and for multiple events in the week but as I grew up a d got older I got disillusioned with formalised religion and christianity. Even though I no longer felt Christian I still always felt a sense of belief and as I got older I started reading lots of religious and beleif driven texts looking at all these different idwas and approaches to spiritual well being (or mindfulness). \n\nSo in summary I call myself spiritual as I seek spiritual wellbeing from a multitude of different sources (Christianity, Buddism, Paganism, Druidic practice) and I like to be able to start a diologue with people about belief. \n\nAll in all it just helped me form a well rounded moral compass and accept myself.\n\nI hope this helped "
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do8jz3 | how does an electric guitar produce sound? | An acoustic guitar has the empty part to have the sound waves resonate like any other instrument, but an electric guitar doesn’t. How does it produce sound from just the strings? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/do8jz3/eli5_how_does_an_electric_guitar_produce_sound/ | {
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"The strings is generating the sound in both electric and acoustic guitars. However in the acoustic guitar the sound is amplified by the resonant cavity which provides an impedance match that helps the energy from the strings be transmitted as sound waves. Whereas in electric guitars there is a pickup that converts the movements of the string to electric signals that gets amplified in a guitar amplifier. So the difference is not in how the sound is generated but in how it is processed and amplified.",
"Other answers pretty much sum it up but I figured I could go into more detail, the strings of an electric guitar resonate over a pickup which is a unit comprised of magnetic poles and copper windings, when the strings move they generate an electric current in the pickup which comes out of the guitar and runs into an amplifier, in a tube amplifier the signal will hit the preamp tubes which are responsible for shaping the tone, if you over drive the tubes a distortion is produced that we find pleasing, while in the preamp stage eq can also be applied to further shape the signal before it hits the power amplifier which is the set of tubes that boosts the signal from line level to speaker level, then the signal goes out to the speaker cab, there are also solid state amps the will have a similar signal flow except using transistors instead of vacuum tubes. There are a variety of different pickup designs using two sets of magnets wound in reverse of each other makes a hum bucker pickup which cancels out the 60 cycle hum single coil pickups are susceptible to at the cost of some clarity and dynamics, there is also a type of pickup called a piezo pickup which is often found on acoustic electrics which uses crystals under the saddles of the strings that generate a weak signal that is then boosted by a preamp in the guitar, this is why acoustic electrics require a battery where passive electric guitars do not",
"There are a couple of things in physics, specifically in electromagnetism, that need to be understood before the working of an electric guitar can be well understood.\n\n1) an electrical current going through a wire will produce a magnetic field\n\n2) this can be exploited by wrapping coils of wire around to amplify the magnetic field, in a device commonly known as an electromagnet.\n\n3) Unlike a static magnet which has a set north and south pole, the polarity of the electromagnet changes with the frequency of the electrical signal (in hertz, or oscillations per second). (and as a bonus, I don't know why that's a property of an electrical charge, but it is)\n\n4) All of this works in reverse; so if you wrap a coil of wire around static magnets and then disrupt that magnetic signal with ferrous metals, it will produce some electrical signals.\n\nSo, 4 is what is really important to our tech here: an electric guitar creates sounds through the use of what are called electric pickups; these are poles of metal (generally steel) that are attached to a magnet (thus making them magnetized) with coils of copper wire wrapped around them. The guitar strings used on an electric guitar are almost always some form of steel, though occasionally a nickel alloy is used, and the strings rest above the poles of the pickup. When the strings vibrate, they do so at a certain frequency, which then creates an electrical current through the wires coming out of the pickup; these are connected to the output jack of the guitar, and the current generated is extremely small.\n\nThe output jack of the guitar gets plugged into an instrument cable which feeds into an amplifier, which works to take the signal it receives through the input and pumps it with more power, but keeps the frequency of the initial signal. When dealing with waves that get converted to sound, frequency converts to pitch (higher frequency being higher pitch) and amplitude converts to volume (higher amplitude being higher volume), so keeping the pitch/frequency is important (unless you're altering the signal with an effects pedal, but that is a bit beyond the scope of this ELI5); this boosted electrical signal gets sent to a speaker, which works in the opposite manner of a pickup; the speaker has a coil of wire directly across from a static magnet, with either the static or electromagnet (I forget which every time I think about amps or speakers) attached to a relatively thin membrane that can be moved by the magnetic fields generated, at a frequency equal to that of the current's frequency. This membrane moving then pushes air in that exact pattern, which creates pressure waves that hit your ear drum and are processed by your brain as sound."
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39jhs7 | is there a bernie sanders like candidate every election, or is this something special that reddit and some of the populace is running with? | I remember that Al Gore had a big *hopeful* following when I younger - too young to take much notice- and he has since been glorified by shows like Futurama (for example) and other media. My question is whether or not there is a glorified person that gets a lot of minority attention every election that seems like some sort of game changer, or, is Sanders really a standout in the larger scheme of things? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/39jhs7/eli5_is_there_a_bernie_sanders_like_candidate/ | {
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"Every Presidential election generally has a ton of people running, some of those candidates appeal to a small(er) niche segment of the population. That segment can vary considerably with the candidate, but since there usually is a lot of candidates, many niche groups will have a candidate that they strongly identify with. ",
"It's not uncommon. I'd say that Howard Dean was a much better example than Gore, and before him Ross Perot, and John Anderson (1980). All of them were \"outsiders\" who had some noticeable level of effect on the primaries or general elections. It's very hard for one of them to win, because the people who have gained money and/or power under the system the way it is don't want an outsider coming in changing things.",
"There's always the extra candidate who tries to shake up the election. in the last round we had Dennis Kucinich who a lot of people like for saying basically the same things as Bernie Sanders.\n\nIn 2001 you had Ralph Nader even though he did not get to participate in the debates.\n\nAnd in the election cycle before that I want to say it was Ross Perot.",
"Candidates like Sanders are very rare. Very few politicians in modern America point out the dangers of economic inequality, the abuses of big corporations, the corrupting influence of money in politics, or any number of other issues Bernie Sanders is known for. Sanders is an honest politician, there are like 10 of them total. Be glad he's running.",
"Every now and then. Not sure if you were on reddit in 2008, but Ron Paul was the bees knees that year around here. ",
"Lots of election cycles have popular outsider who are popular mostly for being outsiders. Ron Paul in 2008, Ralph Nader in 2000, Ross Perot in 1992 to name a few. They can be popular enough to throw an election one way or another. "
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1svu1d | eli 5: if the whole point of nuclear weapons is to serve as a deterrent, why do countries such as israel keep them secret? | Someone said that nuclear weapons have kept the peace as they serve as a deterrent, but if that's the case surely you'd want to let it be known that you have them?
Why do some countries like Israel go to such lengths to keeps theirs a secret? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1svu1d/eli_5_if_the_whole_point_of_nuclear_weapons_is_to/ | {
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"Israel doesn't go to any lengths at all to keep theirs secret. They don't want to formally admit they have them, because then they're subject to all sorts of international treaties regulating nuclear activities.",
"It allows them to simultaneously have the protection of reputed nuclear capability without spurring their many enemies to race toward nuclear weapons programs of their own. Also, secrecy keeps countries guessing about their real capabilities which is good considering some are rather callous about \"acceptable losses\" in potentially destroying Israel."
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mkh5u | how vision works. | Do your best. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/mkh5u/eli5_how_vision_works/ | {
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"Light enters your eye. At the back of your eye you have nerve sensors that are effected by the light. That nerve sensor sends an electrical impulse through your brain which is interpreted as sight. ",
"I can't really help to explain how your brain interprets the electrical signals, but it helped me by understanding how the eye evolved.\n\ndisclaimer: I'm a layman and not an evolution expert so I'll probably make some errors. Anyone who is more informed can correct me.\n\nThe first 'eyes' were basically single cell photo receptors that could tell when light struck them. The creature who had mutated one of these cells into existence could then tell when there was a lightsource striking it or not. It could not tell what direction the light is coming from. This cell helped creatures avoid being eaten by predators standing above them this photo receptor cell quickly proliferated. Eventually there was a mutation where a 'dip' evolved in the eye, now that there was a concave structure a creature could tell what direction a light source was in (one side has more activated cells than the other).\n\nEventually the concave structure closed to a near pinhole which allowed for crude images. \n\nthen a lens developed to allow more light into the 'camera' and sharper images. Eventually a jelly filled the medium.",
"light is made of energy and lightwaves\n\nthe eye interprets these lightwaves using specific photoreceptors for whichever wavelength (color) those light waves are. These photoreceptors make up what we call the retina (if this is messed up you're colorblind probably). The part that focuses the eye like a camera is called the lens of the eye (if this is messed up you need glasses). anyway after the photoreceptors recieve the light they release an electrical signal that goes to the back of the brain (occipital lobe) to be interpreted. The brain recieves hundreds of thousans of signals that make up your vision. The way the brain actually interprets the signals to make a picture is much more complicated",
"Light enters your eye. At the back of your eye you have nerve sensors that are effected by the light. That nerve sensor sends an electrical impulse through your brain which is interpreted as sight. ",
"I can't really help to explain how your brain interprets the electrical signals, but it helped me by understanding how the eye evolved.\n\ndisclaimer: I'm a layman and not an evolution expert so I'll probably make some errors. Anyone who is more informed can correct me.\n\nThe first 'eyes' were basically single cell photo receptors that could tell when light struck them. The creature who had mutated one of these cells into existence could then tell when there was a lightsource striking it or not. It could not tell what direction the light is coming from. This cell helped creatures avoid being eaten by predators standing above them this photo receptor cell quickly proliferated. Eventually there was a mutation where a 'dip' evolved in the eye, now that there was a concave structure a creature could tell what direction a light source was in (one side has more activated cells than the other).\n\nEventually the concave structure closed to a near pinhole which allowed for crude images. \n\nthen a lens developed to allow more light into the 'camera' and sharper images. Eventually a jelly filled the medium.",
"light is made of energy and lightwaves\n\nthe eye interprets these lightwaves using specific photoreceptors for whichever wavelength (color) those light waves are. These photoreceptors make up what we call the retina (if this is messed up you're colorblind probably). The part that focuses the eye like a camera is called the lens of the eye (if this is messed up you need glasses). anyway after the photoreceptors recieve the light they release an electrical signal that goes to the back of the brain (occipital lobe) to be interpreted. The brain recieves hundreds of thousans of signals that make up your vision. The way the brain actually interprets the signals to make a picture is much more complicated"
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a8uf6d | what a sundog is and how they're formed? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/a8uf6d/eli5_what_a_sundog_is_and_how_theyre_formed/ | {
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"Sundogs are bright spots that can sometimes be seen to the left and right of the sun, typically when it's near the horizon. They're caused by flat-edged hexagonal ice crystals. The ice crystals act like a prism, deflecting and separating the light. Due to the shape, the deflecting and separation is not very strong. If the orientation of the crystals is random, this forms a 22 degree ring around the sun. If the crystals are mostly horizontal (due to air resistance), then light gets mostly deflected sideways, creating sundogs.\n\nIt's basically the same thing as a rainbow, but with different-shaped prisms.\n\nSundog:\n_URL_1_\n\nRainbow:\n_URL_0_"
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"https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/7/70/Rainbow1.svg/1280px-Rainbow1.svg.png",
"http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/hbase/atmos/imgatm/halo22.gif"
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||
1ipade | why do mobile web browsers reload data so frequently? | If I open multiple pages on my phone, and then scroll through them, why do I see a fully loaded web page for a moment before my browser reloads it? Also, same idea with YouTube: why, after watching a full video, can I not restart the video without reloading it? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1ipade/eli5_why_do_mobile_web_browsers_reload_data_so/ | {
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"Mobile devices have much less RAM than a regular computer (Typically 512MB to 1024MB vs 4-8GB). In addition they usually don't have any swap space to store data currently in RAM that isn't being used.\n\nThis means that mobile browsers have to throw data away pretty quickly after you stop using it, otherwise you'd simply run out of RAM and the application would fall apart. Images and the like are cached to storage usually but the actual page itself isn't (since pages change frequently or may be dynamically generated) so it has to be re-downloaded.\n\nThe other thing is that on mobile devices, the OS decides when to end applications rather than the user. Applications with high memory usage end up higher on the list of those to end, so the individual browser tabs (which are separate processes) are very prone to being ended by the OS to recover resources.\n\nIf you've ever used a mobile device with 2GB RAM instead of the more common 1GB you notice a massive difference, and the experience is much more desktop-like in the persistence of tabs."
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e104by | how does alimony work? how is it calculated and what are the reasoning behind it? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/e104by/eli5_how_does_alimony_work_how_is_it_calculated/ | {
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"Alimony is a monthly payment one spouse (historically the ex-husband) has to pay the former spouse (historically the ex-wife) to support the ex-spouse. It's a thing because in the past, women only worked in very limited fields, and most women were homemakers. They might have also been prohibited from owning property. So, since they couldn't earn money while married, they had to have a way to support themselves - and that was from the husband. \n\nHow it is calculated depends on each state. \n\nIn many states, the marriage had to be a minimum amount of time (like, 10 years) for a person to be eligible for alimony.\n\nThere could be a maximum limit, too. A judge might only be allowed to order an alimony payment of up to $2,500 or up to X% of a person's salary, whichever is lower.\n\nThere could be a time limit on how long the alimony payments have to be made.\n\nAnd a person might not be eligible for alimony if they sign away their right to ask for it in a prenuptial agreement. Or, they could agree to the terms of alimony in a prenuptial agreement, too."
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3as8pf | what is dmca & why do some torrent sites not have certain movies? | i was on a torrent site (just being curious and reading the forums innocently) And someone asked why a certain movie was no where to be found, when it was extremely popular. People responded because of DMCA.
I have no idea what that means or how it is related? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3as8pf/eli5_what_is_dmca_why_do_some_torrent_sites_not/ | {
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"DMCA is a law in the US.\n\nCopyright holders can send takedown requests to websites which mean they have to remove the content. If they think they have a legitimate right to host the content the website (or whoever posted it to the website) can go to court over the takedown and settle it there."
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2dfkib | what is the difference between grammar and syntax? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2dfkib/eli5_what_is_the_difference_between_grammar_and/ | {
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" > Grammar is a (occasionally the) set of rules for the organization of meaningful elements into sentences;\ntheir economy, in one sense of that word.\n\n > There are two basic varieties of grammar; all languages have some of both kinds, but, depending on the kind of language involved, there's quite a bit of variation in how much of each kind they have.\n\n > > One part of grammar is called Morphology. It has to do with the internal economy of words. So a word like bookkeepers has four morphemes (book, keep, -er, -s) and is put together with morphology. English doesn't have nearly as much morphology as most European languages; Russian grammar, for instance, has much more morphology than syntax. Russian is a synthetic (inflected) language.\n\n > > The other part is called Syntax. It has to do with the external economy of words, including word order, agreement; like the sentence For me to call her sister would be a bad idea and its syntactic transform It would be a bad idea for me to call her sister. That's syntax. English grammar is mostly syntax. English is an analytic (uninflected) language.\n\n[Source](_URL_0_)",
"Syntax is about how you arrange words into sentences. Grammar includes syntax but also *morphology*, or how words themselves change depending on their role in a sentence. So 'I go to the store yesterday' is a morphological error because *go* doesn't need to move around in the sentence, only change into *went* so that it is in past tense. 'I to the store yesterday' is a syntactical error - it lacks a verb and so doesn't form a complete sentence. Both are grammatical errors, though.",
"Grammar is a broader term; syntax is part of grammar.\n\nSyntax deals with language at the higher-than-word level. For example, a native English speaker will say \"Give me the chair\", not \"The chair me give\"; the difference between the two is a matter of syntax.\n\nIt's also a matter of grammar, since syntax is part of grammar. Just as a contrast, though: A native English speaker will say \"On second thought, give me two chairs\", not \"On second thought, give me two chair\". This is morphology (also part of grammar), not syntax."
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1puuhl | in detail, how do sperm actually come in contact with the egg in a woman? | I mean, I know the man has to ejaculate into her vagina. But can someone explain exactly how the sperm gets to contact the egg? Does the man have to push the semen up through the cervix? Can gravity simply bring it into the cervix? Is it possible for it to get past the cervix if neither the man, nor gravity forces it in? Once the semen is in the uterus, how does it contact the egg? The sperm stay in the semen right? So does that mean the semen needs to travel all the way up to the egg? What makes it do that?
inb4 stork jokes. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1puuhl/eli5_in_detail_how_do_sperm_actually_come_in/ | {
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"Semen have little tails that they whip back and forth madly to swim through the fluid in the vagina and cervix. The man just shoots them in the general direction of the egg and the little buggers will seek it out on their own."
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e74ob6 | how do bullet classifications work? i’ve seen 5.56, .44 and 50 caliber in video games but i have no idea what any of these numbers represent or how it works. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/e74ob6/eli5_how_do_bullet_classifications_work_ive_seen/ | {
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"Well some are in millimeters some in inches. The 5.56 is 5.56mm .50 and .44 are inches. Then there's also the length of each but I won't go into that.\n\nDepending on who you ask 5.56mm might also be called .223 because it's .223in",
".44 and .50 are the diameter of the bullet in inches - except .44 magnum is actually more like .42 inches, but it's still called .44 because it is based off of the .44 Special, which in turn was based off of the .44 Smith & Wesson American, which actually was .44 inches.\n\n5.56 is the diameter of that bullet in mm. A 5.56x45 mm round is 5.56 mm in diameter, which is around .224 inches.\n\nBasically, they're usually either the diameter in inches, or the diameter in mm.",
"Generally, the caliber refers to the diameter of the bullet itself, either in mm (5.56, for example) or inches (.45). Now, the actual diameter can vary significantly from what the name states. And the exact same diameter, and often the exact same bullet, can be used in a variety of different kinds of ammunition; for example, many bullets used in .40S & W can also be used in 10mm. The only real easy hard rule is that there are no easy hard rules. Ammunition loading handbooks contain literally thousands of measurements, variations, and sub-types.",
"Oh boy... Chambering nomenclature is an absolute Charlie Foxtrot, even for people that nerd out over guns.\n\nThey are basically all semi-arbitrary and half branding.\n\nAbout the only semi-consistent point is that the first number is the bullet diamete... unless it's the bore diameter... and the bore diameter might be measured groove-to-groove or land-to-land.\n\nAlso, the power of the round is only loosely correlated to the bullet/bore diameter, as the amount of powder behind the bullet matters a lot more for power.\n\nThat said, there are a few locally-consistant conventions that are used, such as by NATO.\n\nNATO chambering designation lists the bullet diameter in millimeters followed by the case length in millimeters, separated by an \"x\" (pronounced \"by\")\n\nFor example: the NATO .30 caliber round is designated \"7.62x51mm\" compared to the Russian .30 caliber rounds which are designated by NATO as \"7.62x39mm\" (used in the AK-47) and \"7.62x54R\" (used in the PKM).",
"The number refers to the size of the bullet, and is either the diameter of the bullet OR the inner diameter of the barrel (bore diameter) . Usually, but not always, metric is bore and inches are bullet diameter. A few older cartridges, like .38 Short Colt, use the outside diameter of the brass cartridge, as do rounds derived from them (.38 Special, which has a bullet diameter of .357 inches).\n\nFor example, 5.56 refers to the round known as \"5.56×45mm NATO\", with a bore diameter of 5.56mm, and a bullet diameter of 5.70mm (and a bunch of other dimensions related to the cartridge size).",
"And all of this gets really fun when you look at the muzzle velocities for a .22 long rifle and a .223. \nA .22LR travels at about 1200 feet per second while a .223 (the NATO 5.56x45 mentioned earlier) travels at over 3200 feet per second. A .22 won't always kill a small animal and a .223 is the most common round used in \"AR-15\" style guns. You can google search a side by side image of the 2 for a visual representation of the cartridgesizes, despite a .003\" difference in the diameter of th he bullet itself.",
"The number is the diameter of the bullet but is a mix of mm and inches. 5.56 is in mm and .44 and 50 that is 0.50 is in inches so 10.9mm and 12.7 mm\n\nBut just the bullet diameter is just one factor. It says nothing about the length of the bullet of the size of the propellant changes that determine the speed/energy of the bullet. I used the specification with bullet diameter x length of the cartridge. And added the typical weight, speed, and energy of the bullet.\n\nThe smallest common pistol/revolver calibre is .22 Long Rifle with the same diameter as the 5.56 that is the most common military assault rifle calibre in the west. The energy difference in the tow is a factor of 10x. So just the diameter of the bullet says nothing.\n\nThere is two main categories for cartridges rifles and handguns. Rifles have long bullets with relative small diameter and a lot of propellant for a fast bullet. Handguns cartridges have a larger diameter and less propellant designed and speed. \n\nThe reason for the difference is that you like a handgun to be physically smaller and light so you can handle it with one hand. For pistols, the magazine is in the handgrip. The other reason that you like less energy in a handgun because it is hard to handle high recoil without stock to your shoulder. Submachinguns uses handguns calibres even if you have a stock.\n\n & #x200B;\n\nMilitary assault rifles has in the west 5.56 mm or 7.62 mm bullet. Pistols most of the time have 9mm or larger bullets.\n\n & #x200B;\n\n* 5.56×45mm NATO (0.223 inches) an intermediate cartridge with a 4 g, 948 m/s, 1797 J \n* .44 Magnum (10.9×33mmR) a revolver cartridge with a 16 g, 360 m/s, 1005 J \n* .50 BMG (12.7×99mm NATO) heavy machinegun cartridge with a 42 g, 923 m/s, 18100 J \n\nSo you can see that similar bullet diameter like .44 and .50 have an enormous difference in bullies energy with a factor of 18x.\n\nSo 5.56 is a small light and fast bullet for military automatic rifles. .44 is a have and slow revolver bullet and 50 calibre is a very large fast bullet for heavy machineguns or in antimatter rifles, for computer games the would be a heavy sniper rifle,\n\n[An image](_URL_0_) both .50 that is the largest and 5.56 that is the second from the right.",
"[Previously asked, I answered. Cartridge nomenclature is kinda fun](_URL_0_)",
"No one has mentioned shotgun gauges yet, and they're a little more complicated. The number represents how many lead spheres with a diameter equal to that of the gun bore make one US pound. Twelve lead balls with diameter equal to the bore of a 12 gauge make one pound. The only shotgun that does not fit this schema is the .410; it is measured in inches like many other small arms. It's really a bit bigger though because you can shoot a .44 Long Colt pistol round with it.",
"Why do people make these posts for easily googleable things? This isn't a complex concept to grasp",
"Like other's have said, it's roughly based on the diameter of the bullet. \"Caliber\" measurements are done in fractions of an inch (.50 caliber being ~.5 inches in diameter). \n\nOne thing that gets confused a lot is that companies have the freedom to name their cartridges whatever they want and the name can differ from actual measurements. Sometimes it's named after the actual measured bullet diameter like in the case of 357 magnum, other times the entire case diameter like 38 special, other times just an approximation that sounds \"cool\" like 300 blackout (.308 bullets are ~.30 caliber). For instance, the \"380 acp\" (name) shoots a .355\" diameter (measurement) bullet. \"38 special\" (name) shoots the same bullet as the \"357 magnum\" (name), both of which vary from .355\"-.358\" diameter (measurement) depending on bullet type (lead, plated, jacketed), with 357 magnum typically using heavier bullets with more powder charge than a 38 special. And that's just sticking to the american names/measurements. 9mm luger/parabellum/9x19 NATO uses the same bullets as 380 acp (.356\" diameter), but 9mm makarov (also known as 9x18 makarov) shoots a .365\" diameter bullet and are entirely incompatible (for those who reload their own ammunition).\n\nOne thing I'd like to point out is that there is more to a cartridge than it's bullet diameter that defines its \"power\". \n\nFor instance if you google \"5.7x28mm vs 5.56\", you'll notice that both of these cartridges shoot an identical bullet (both being roughly 5.7mm in diameter or ~.224 inches), but one cartridge is larger. The larger cartridge has more powder, thus increases the velocity of the bullet, which increases it's energy (Ke = .5 * Mass * Velocity^2 ). On a similar note, the mass/weight of a bullet also affects the \"power\" of a cartridge. Bullets can be longer without affecting their diameter, thus adding more mass."
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3n4mvh | why do some stores have rotating employee schedules? | My girlfriend works at Starbucks and she has to check each week to see what shift she will be working. It could be the opening shift, middle of the day, or closing shift. I'm wondering why that style of scheduling would be preferable to having certain employees hired for specific shifts. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3n4mvh/eli5_why_do_some_stores_have_rotating_employee/ | {
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"Because generally there is going to be some shifts that people do not like taking, and finding people to fill only that shift will be incredibly hard. So they either have to work understaffed (not a good idea). Or they have to offer people more to fill those unpleasant shifts (also not an idea companies like). Or they have to randomly select some people and tell them 'you are now always working closing (again, not a good idea, that breeds discontent, especially when they see their fellow coworkers don't have to handle those shifts) Or they go with a rotating schedule where everybody has to handle those unpleasant shifts an equal amount of times.\n\nIt really is the best way to handle this kind of scheduling problem, with the least amount of discontent among workers. ",
"Basically what /u/palcatraz said about the shitty shifts: not many people want to work them every day of their work week. It also helps with vacation allotment and days off. If people rotate around, it's easier to accept someone's request for time off than if they have to fill an entire shift.",
"ideally you have enough people to occupy every needed position at all opening hours. But not everybody is always available at the same time for each of the seven days. Maybe I can only work M-Th 9-5pm and on Friday I have school/other duties. So now you need to move somebody or hire somebody to work F-Su 9-5pm.\n\nNow combine my scheduling preference with everybody else. Chaos ensues"
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xiz0g | entropy, and how it relates to evolution | I have seen opponents to Evolution cite entropy as a reason why evolution cannot be true, i.e. "a closed system will not move toward order, it will always move toward disorder." I read the [FAQ](_URL_0_.) version of a counterargument to this in r/evolution and became quite lost when reading this _URL_1_. I understood the idea that earth and life are not actually closed systems, but I think the rest of that link needs some eli5 clarification. Any help?
edit: After reading through that second link multiple times, I think it finally clicks. I got the main point, that the earth was not a closed system, but then the rest just confused me. I think I have it now though. They basically said that even in closed systems, there can be order as long as there is more disorder somewhere else. This makes sense, because we allow ourselves to stay alive and stay heated and energized by digesting food. By eating, we have less entropy while the rest of the system has more (if it were a closed system, this would matter).
This one point, however, is something that I could use a discussion over, but I'll read more into it before relying on you guys:
"entropy is not the same as disorder. Sometimes the two correspond, but sometimes order increases as entropy increases. (Aranda-Espinoza et al. 1999; Kestenbaum 1998) Entropy can even be used to produce order, such as in the sorting of molecules by size (Han and Craighead 2000)." | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/xiz0g/eli5_entropy_and_how_it_relates_to_evolution/ | {
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"The whole story is:\n\nThey suggest:\n\n 1. A closed system will not move toward order, it will always move toward disorder.\n 2. Earth is a closed system\n 3. Earth couldn't move towards \"order\", so evolution is false\n\n#2 isn't true, so #3 doesn't follow, that's the whole thing really.\n\n\n",
"Creationists take your statement above\n\n > \"a closed system will not move toward order, it will always move toward disorder\"\n\nand try to apply it to life over time. They say that evolution can't be true because life getting more complex/\"ordered\" over time violates this statement.\n\nThe Earth actually is close to being a closed system - the thermodynamic definition of a closed system is one that can exchange energy but not matter with its surroundings, and the Earth does not exchange much matter with space. (An **isolated** system does not exchange energy with its surroundings.) But this does not mean that **everything** on Earth **always** moves towards disorder.\n\nWhat does the Second Law of Thermodynamics actually say? In classical thermodynamics, it only says two specific things: 1) that heat cannot flow from an object of lower temperature to an object of higher temperature, and 2) that you can't produce useful work only from heat. Consequences of these facts (corollaries) include that fact that perpetual motion machines are impossible and the fact that all actions generate a net increase of entropy in a closed system. Entropy is not the same thing as disorder, but it is often a good analogy.\n\nEvolution does not violate the Second Law of Thermodynamics because the law simply cannot be applied to life over generations.\n\nIf nothing could ever get more ordered or more complex, human beings couldn't be formed from embryos and ice couldn't be frozen from liquid water. These phenomena don't violate the Second Law of Thermodynamics because even when molecules arrange themselves together into a lower entropy state, their surroundings increase in entropy even more so that total entropy increases.\n\nEntropy is a hard concept to explain at an elementary school level without oversimplifying things."
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1tg32g | are dollar stores losing money every year due to inflation? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1tg32g/eli5_are_dollar_stores_losing_money_every_year/ | {
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"No, the quality of the crap they sell just gets shittier and shittier. China will always be able to pump out cheap toxic garbage that folks will/have to buy.\n\nIt's a shame really."
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57g316 | the differences between efforts in colonizing the moon vs. mars. | title. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/57g316/eli5_the_differences_between_efforts_in/ | {
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"The main difference is that the moon has no appreciable atmosphere and no reasonable expectation of us being able to engineer one so colonies will always need to be airtight. \n\nMars has an atmosphere but it is quite thin and too high in carbon dioxide to be breathable but with its higher gravity there is a much more reasonable chance of being able to engineer a more breathable atmosphere in the future. The existence of an atmosphere also means that getting a hole in your colony would be a lot less dangerous. \n\nThe other main difference is that a colony on the moon has a much higher chance of being able to depend on a rescue mission from Earth if they need one. "
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4pbe3e | how does remortgaging your house provide you with money? | So my girlfriend is going on holiday and she told me that her parents had to remortgage their house to pay for it. How does this process free up money for them use? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4pbe3e/eli5_how_does_remortgaging_your_house_provide_you/ | {
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"The house has probably gone up in value in the years since they bought it. Let's say they bought it for $200K five years ago. They may have made a downpayment of $10K and borrowed $190K. Today the house is worth, say $230K. They refinance 95% of the value of the house, which is $218K. They pay off the first mortgage, which is maybe $175K, taking the remaining $43K in cash which they spend on hookers and blow. It's commonly called a \"cash-out refi\" and it's a reason why some people never get out of debt.",
"A cash out refi to finance a vacation is a spectacularly poor decision. \nI certainly hope that she is exaggerating.",
"OK, first of all we're talking about a *refinance*, at least in America. I've never heard the term \"remortgage\" though it's quite accurate.\n\nLet's say I buy a house, in 2011, five years ago. The value of the house is, say, $200K, and I put down $40K in down payment. That means that my mortgage is $160K, the difference between my down payment and the total value of the house. I now own a $200K house, and I owe $160K to the bank. My **net worth** is still just +$40K, just like before I bought the house.\n\nNow let's say it's 2016, five years later. In the course of paying off the mortgage over the past five years, I now only owe, say, $140K to the bank. And good news! My house has gone up in value to, say, $240K! That means my net worth is now $100K.\n\nBut let's **also** say I've had two kids over the past 5 years. Kids are fucking *expensive*. Not only do they eat you out of house & home, and their after-school activities are expensive, and their daycare is expensive, but after all that guess what? They still need to go to college. Each kid you spit out means you're now racing. Racing against their 18th birthday. If you've got a $300K saved up for their college educations by then, you win. If you don't, your kid loses. Have fun.\n\nSo all those expenses add up, and now that monthy payment you're making, of, say, $1100 a month to pay your mortgage? It's getting harder and harder to make that number work, given all your other expenses. So what do you do? Well the daycare ain't going to charge you less just 'cuz you ask. And Harvard isn't going to discount it's tuition because you ask nicely. But you *can*, if you want, lower your monthly nut on your house.\n\nYou go to the bank, and you **refinance** your house. That means you reset your mortgage, back to a 30-year mortgage. So now instead of owing $140K with 25 years left to pay it all off, now you owe $140K with **30** years to pay it off, so your monthly payment goes from $1100 a month to $950 a month. All it cost you was an additional 5 years of payments, and now you have an extra $150 a month for little Sterling's lacrosse practices!\n\nAnd maybe, if you're lucky, you refinance at a time when interest rates are lower than when you originally financed the house. So now you can pay 3.00% instead of 3.50% on your mortgage. That'll save you a few bucks as well. And because you have more *equity* in the house than when you got your original loan, the bank can consider you a safer investment and you can pay 2.95% instead of 3.00%."
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4s6ohr | why do mausoleums and in-the-wall graves not smell like decay? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4s6ohr/eli5_why_do_mausoleums_and_inthewall_graves_not/ | {
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"In some mausoleums, at least, they'll bury a body in the ground for a few years- long enough for the fleshy parts to decompose away, then dig up the bones, clean them, and move them into their permanent location in a smaller box.",
"In some mausoleums the casket and remains are exposed to conditions where air is drawn away from the remains, pulling away moisture. This results in a drying that avoids some of the less pleasant aspects of 'wet' remains. \n\nAdditionally embalming can retard the decay process itself, which may further prevent unpleasant decay effects as the body is dried. \n\nIn other cases the casket could be placed in dry conditions and sealed away from the available air you're going to be smelling.\n\nAdditionally, if you've got nice things like air conditioning, this can further help maintain suitably dry conditions and provide fresh air.",
"Body decomposition (or decaying flesh) is typically a result of bacteria using it as nutrients or as a growth factor to proliferate (reproduce). Typically, these bacteria are kept in check by the flora and fauna of the areas in which they exist. Kind of like competing forces that are checks and balances to prevent one type from completely taking over from another type, using what is known as quorum sensing. Quorum sensing allows the bacteria to regulate its own gene production based upon the density of their own kind of bacteria in the nearby regions. These chemicals that the bacteria produce range in alkaline to acidic properties and this allows for the primary breakdown of tissues that we often refer to as the putrid smell of decomposing bodies.\n\nAnyways, moisture is typically absent in mausoleums (due to open air-like constructs), this prevents most bacteria from replicating. \n\nSource: M.S. Microbiology",
"Some of the steel caskets have a gasket seal that prevent odors from being expelled. Additionally, before the front of the mausoleum is closed, the staff will through in a powdered chemical mixture that aids and abets decay and odors. Having a good ventilation system makes a huge difference, especially if it has AC. I'm a funeral director, and I've been in a non-climate controlled underground mausoleum in July in Texas, and you could definitely smell the decay. ",
"I actually worked at a cemetery/mausoleum for a few months one summer several years ago. The casket was wrapped in some kind of plastic bag before it was put in the wall, and there was a plastic piece that was sealed with caulk over the opening before the marble or granite or whatever the hell it was slab was replaced to make it look all pretty. So it's sealed really well. I think there may have been some sort of ventilation as well. But if one ever had to be reopened for some reason, like to add a spouse's body, the smell would be absolutely horrid. ",
"I was watching a documentary the other day, it was about funerals, one guy wanted his mum placed in a mausoleum and the funeral director put her in a lead lined casket, as it slows down decay, add the embalming and sealed casket, I would imagine other things are carried out too so that the body slows in decomposition. ",
"Do you smell a strong odor of pickles when you are at the grocery store? The whole aisle there should smell of pickles. Is does not unless someone knocks a jar off the shelf and the seal breaks as the jar shatters. Even then, you would smell the fluid and not the pickle.\n\nModern embalming does to the body as picking does to a cucumber. The decay process is quite stabilized and slowed to a crawl. With minimal ongoing decay, there is minimal methane produced. Dehydration can occur if there are air gaps and a positive pressure created within the casket that allows vapor to seep from the casket.\n\n\n\n",
"As someone who worked at a cemetery with a large mausoleum when I was a teenager I can answer this for you. Each alcove/vault in the wall has two holes with corks in the walls. Before we put a casket/coffin into the vault we crawl in and pull these two corks. Next we open the coffin and sprinkle the exposed parts of the skin (face and hands) with an antibacterial powder. Where I worked we used a powder with the brand name Safe®. Then we scotch the coffin lid up two inches with a small block of wood and slide the coffin into the vault. We use a pre-formed piece of concrete to cover the opening and we cement it in to seal it. Later we put the pre-fitted sheet of marble over the concrete and glue the lettering (name, dates) on. \n\nNow, why those two holes? \n\nIn the basement of the mausoleum we had a furnace that pumps warms dry air through all the vaults containing bodies. The air circulates via the two holes on the walls of each vault. It is vented outside through a vent pipe on the roof. Now this was a large mausoleum with a cathedral, alter and pews for holding funerals if the family wished to use it.\n\nFun fact: Occasionally when working inside the dead silence of the mausoleum gluing up letters I would hear an odd, almost wet *gloop* sound inside the walls. This was a poorly embalmed body bursting from the gas buildup. If you were outside and downwind the stench coming from the vent was terrible. \n\nNote: A poorly embalmed body didn't mean the embalmer did a poor job. Sometimes certain diseased or physical trauma can make it almost almost impossible to fully embalm a corpse.\n\nHope this helps. "
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2mhby9 | why do some actors get an 'also featuring' or 'starring' in film titles separate to other actors | I have wondered this for a while, in some films all the main characters names will appear and then another main character will come up as also featuring or starring when they aren't doing roles more important than anyone else.
Why is this? Is it some kind of contract agreement? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2mhby9/eli5_why_do_some_actors_get_an_also_featuring_or/ | {
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"everything you see in the final result is because of a contract line.\n\nif you're a big enough shot actor, you get to ask for \"my name shows up 1st\" \n",
"Yes it's contractual. Who gets what billing (where in the list of credits you appear, and in what form) is a big deal to actors (or at least to their agents). Usually in a TV series the main character of the show will get top billing (first one listed), but often there will be other actors that are similar famous (or sometimes more famous but in a lesser role), and they don't want second billing. They will usually choose the final spot in the billing (as it's the last name you will see, and is therefore better than simply being second), and often ask for some sort of extra line added (also staring, guest staring, special guest, etc). You will even see cases where more than one person gets this special final billing."
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76de7g | how do we know how much gold has not been mined yet? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/76de7g/eli5_how_do_we_know_how_much_gold_has_not_been/ | {
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"Think of an orchard, we know that it is 1000 Sq ft, and we can measure how many oranges are on one square foot of the ground in several different spots, then average those numbers and find out how many oranges we have in each square foot of the whole field! The areas with no oranges balance out the areas with lots of oranges and give us a rough prediction of how many total oranges we would have in the field.\n\n"
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bow2vj | mirrors | I don't understand how certain particles arrange in such a way as to reflect the light hitting it the way mirrors do. When I say: "mirror" I mean any reflective surface, water, glass, etc. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/bow2vj/eli5_mirrors/ | {
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"This is a fun question because a proper answer requires a dive into quantum mechanics! But the ELI5 is that when light hits the mirror, it causes the atoms to wiggle around at nearly the same frequency of the light wave and to emit secondary waves at an angle. That energy has to go somewhere, right? Some of this energy is lost to heat so the frequencies of the secondary waves aren't exact, but for good mirrors they are close.",
"As analogy to the wave nature of light, think of a barrier in a pond - as waves hit it, they bounce off it. If the barrier is uneven, the waves will hit any which way. Only if the barrier is a straight line do the waves reflect off in an identical way and retain wave structure.\n\nIf you think of light as a particle or photon, it too will interact with a surface - sometimes being absorbed, sometimes scattered/deflected. But if surface is flat, the photon will tend to also reflect back occasionally - and will reflect more often in a certain direction. When multiple photons from an object hit a surface that is made up of many of theses tiles, they reflect off similarly if the tiles are parallel. If tiles are structured to be concave-ish, they can focus the reflected photons.\n\nSo anyway, to see a reflection, the variation of the surface should be smaller than the wavelength of the light or radiation - for example radio waves have a larger wavelength, so reflecting surface doesnt have to be mirror smooth - ie a matte but flat surface will do. But if you have visible light which has smaller wavelength, a matte surface will not reflect well, but a smoothly polished surface will do better.\n\nThe \"wavelength\" of infrared light is longer, of UV is smaller. Radio waves are longer still.\n\nWavelength relates to the distance between troughs or peaks of the wave if you think of it as a wave on the surface of a pond. Except light is waves of electrical field and magnetic field intertwined, propagating in a direction. AND it can be thought of as a particle as well - this is the wave-particle duality of light/electromagnetic radiation."
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4wpex8 | if the big bang theory is true, why is the observable universe smaller than the actual universe? | I could be mistaken! But if the BBT tells us that the entire universe was at one point infinitely dense everywhere, why isn't the entirety of existence within our light cone?
| explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4wpex8/eli5_if_the_big_bang_theory_is_true_why_is_the/ | {
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"The analogy to think of is an ant walking on the surface of a balloon.\n\nThere is a limit to how fast the ant can move. In our analogy, that is the speed of light - the fastest that anything can possibly move.\n\nBut when we blow air into our balloon, the whole balloon gets bigger. This is like the expansion of the universe.\n\nAs you blow up the balloon, and it gets bigger, if you pick any two points on the surface of the balloon they will get further away. The more distance between any two points to start with, the faster they will move away from each other. It's entirely possible for two points to move away from each other faster than an ant can move. In the same way, it's entirely possible for two points in the universe to move apart from each other at faster than the speed of light - but that doesn't mean that thing *within* the universe can move at faster than the speed of light.\n\n**Ok, now we've cleared that up, let's address your question.**\n\nFirst of all, your question suggests that you have made the common mistake of thinking that the early universe was infinitely small. It wasn't. As far as we know, it is, and always has been, even immediately after the Big Bang, infinitely *big*. So even you had existed in the very early days of the universe, there would have been points that are infinitely far away from you.\n\nThat aside, let's consider a point that's quite close to you. As we've already found, that point will move further away from you as the universe expands. And lots of those points will move away from you at faster than the speed of light. Meaning that light which leaves those points will never, ever be able to get to you."
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4jtg6b | why does cooking things using different sources of heat (i.e. pan seared, grilled, smoked, oven roasted, etc.) produce different tastes? | I've noticed that people always say the food tastes better, or at least different when cooked (grilled) outside or when camping (over an open flame), and I agree, but I don't why it that's true. Does it have to do with what is being burned to create heat, radiated vs conducted heat, temperature, or something else entirely? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4jtg6b/eli5_why_does_cooking_things_using_different/ | {
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"There are two classes of reason. In the first case, of which smoking meat is the best example, *material from the heat source winds up in the food.* Barbecue contains smoke-stuff, and that smoke-stuff has a distinctive taste.\n\nIn the other, it all comes down to just how hot the food gets, and how long it stays that hot. Food cooked right on top of charcoal, will have parts that get *really, really hot,* at least where it was right up against the coal. Food cooked in a 400-degree oven, though, won't have any parts that got hotter than 400°.\n\nNaturally, there are combinations of this; fried food has a distinctive flavor that comes from the oil, but also a particular pattern of how it took on heat from the oil. And different kinds of charcoal- some people swear- give different flavors to the meat they cook.",
"Your chose the flair \"chemistry\" for your post, and that's about half of what's going on. \n\nYour mouth and nose detects the flavours in food, which is a mix of certain tastes like sweet and salty and meat-juice, and certain smells like charcoal smoke. It's often much easier to properly sear a steak or other food when you grill it at high temperature, and that's harder to do inside because people don't want their houses filled with smoke. Most people also don't use barbecue sauces or rubs when pan-frying inside. And the fire or glowing coals add their own chemicals to the food in the form of flavoured charcoal smoke and/or vaporized meat juices that fall on the hot barbecue surfaces. The carbonized/caramelized bits, plus the added flavour, and the ability to properly cook meat so it's juicy and tender (which can be harder to do on a stove-top) makes the food taste stronger. \n\nBut there's also the psychological effect of having a \"dining experience\". I'm Canadian, and many of the less hardy of us that don't barbecue year-round look forward to barbecue season because it means eating with friends, warm weather, sunny days, and other positive memories. We associate barbecue and campfires with pleasant holiday-time or social activities, and that just makes the food taste even better.\n\n(edit: omitted a word)",
"The answer is a bit more complicated than just a single response. It all has to do with the chemistry of food. Sugars, starches, and proteins in foods all respond in different ways to different heat levels and different cooking methods...so a piece of chicken that you poach is going to taste somewhat different than a piece of chicken that you grill, or fry, or roast. Take, for example, the Maillard reaction. One of the most important bits of food chemistry when it comes to delicious results, arguably, is the Maillard reaction. The Maillard reaction is a chemical reaction between an amino acid and a reducing sugar, usually requiring the addition of heat. Like caramelization, it is a form of non-enzymatic browning. The reactive carbonyl group of the sugar interacts with the nucleophilic amino group of the amino acid, and interesting but poorly characterized odor and flavor molecules result. This process accelerates in an alkaline environment because the amino groups do not neutralize. This reaction is the basis of the flavoring industry, since the type of amino acid determines the resulting flavor.\n\nIn the process, hundreds of different flavor compounds are created. These compounds in turn break down to form yet more new flavor compounds, and so on. Each type of food has a very distinctive set of flavor compounds that are formed during the Maillard reaction. It is these same compounds that flavor scientists have used over the years to create artificial flavors.\n\nThis is just part of the answer. In addition to the chemistry of it, things like grilling over charcoal or cooking over wood will affect flavor (most would say for the better) because the fuel your heat is coming from itself imparts it's own elements of flavor to your food, via smoke, wood, etc. ",
"Some good answers here, but I can't pass up the chance [to bring up the Maillard reaction.](_URL_0_)\n\nThis is a chemical reaction between amino acids and sugars that occurs when you are \"browning\" a food, such as searing a steak, or baking bread. From the wikipedia page:\n\n > In the process, hundreds of different flavor compounds are created. These compounds, in turn, break down to form yet more new flavor compounds, and so on\n\nSo, the intensity of the heat, and the duration that it is applied, and the surfaces it is applied to, can have a big effect on flavor.",
"Grilling food over different burning materials imparts different flavors into the food. Propane doesn't impart very much flavor, charcoal imparts a slight flavor, different woods can impart strong flavors. Closing the lid to the grill can increase the amount of flavor imparted, and special \"grills\" called smokers trap most of the smoke inside with the food and impart the most flavor from the burning/smoldering fuel. \n\n\nCovering food while cooking can trap in heat, allowing for longer cooking at lower heats. This can be used to tenderize some foods via the cooking process. Prolonged low heat coupled with plenty of moisture tends to make meats fall apart, but often much of the flavor is stripped away from the meat. To make up for this, strong seasonings are mixed heavily with water and added to the mixture. This method is found in crock pot cooking. It is similar to how a \"smoker grill\" works, but without imparting the flavors of a burning fuel.\n\n\nNot covering food during cooking usually results in tough dried out food. This can be useful for cooking things like mushrooms, fruits and vegetables, allowing cooks to reduce the liquid content of those foods to increase the flavor to water ratio, and to create a more palatable texture. Cookies, brownies, and most other baked goods go through the same process. Water is evaporated from the dough leaving a dryer cookie (when compared to the dough). Leave the cookies in the oven too long, you get dry hard cookies. Not long enough and they'll fall apart when you take them off the pan. \n\n\nThe amount of heat also greatly affects foods. The same baked cookie cooked on heat that is too high, will either burn if left in for too long, or will have a doughy center with a cooked outer shell. If the cookie is baked at too low a temperature, the cookie will become hard if left in for too long, and the sugars in the dough may not have melted into the mixture properly which means the cookies may have a grainy texture to them. Meats are often seared at high temperatures, sterilizing the outside of the meat that can be infected with bacteria. Part of heat from the searing process should transfer slowly to the meat underneath the surface, tenderizing that meat, but at a lower temperature than was applied to the outer surface. The \"crust\" of the meat may be hard and tough, but the bulk of the meat is left tender and retains most of its flavor. (Contrary to popular belief, searing the meat doesn't seal in the flavor.) \n\nUsually the intent of cooking food at high temperatures is to take advantage of how fast the food transfers heat within itself. Put a thick steak on a red hot pan, and you can hold your finger to the top side of the steak for a minute or more before you'll get burnt. A flat iron steak might buy you a few seconds before your finger starts imparting flavors into your meal. Cooking at low temperatures allows the inside of the food to more closely match the surface temperature of the food. Stirring foods like mashed potatoes allow them to cook evenly throughout. Water tends to be an excellent thermal conductor, which means that a pot of water tends to be closer to the same temperature at the surface, as it is near the pan. \n\n\n"
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2cs2y7 | how do minimum-wage workers afford to live in major cities like london? | I make a semi-decent wage and live in London (£23K) and still have to be careful with my money.
How can somebody who earns minimum wage (£6.31 for the UK) possibly survive? Rent/mortgages/transport/social lives are all obscene in London and that's assuming they don't have dependents. I know the London living wage is supposed to be £8.80 but I also know plenty of employers won't pay it.
I'm only using London as an example because it's the only city I have any experience of but would welcome answers from around the world.
I want to know how the people who make my coffee, drive my bus and tidy up my office get by. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2cs2y7/eli5_how_do_minimumwage_workers_afford_to_live_in/ | {
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"USA here.\n\nIn the USA we have something called section 8 housing. Which is a govt program that allows people who make under the poverty line (something like $20k annually for single no kid adults) to pay one third of their monthly income in rent, where the govt picks up the rest of the rent. It's up to the landlord to choose to be this way and in large cities there is usually a waiting list to live in a place like this.\n\nIn addition to that when you make under the poverty line the government gives you a monthly stipend to help you pay for groceries.\n\nOff topic a bit. These reasons are why I'm in favor of raising the minimum wage as I feel that the employers are allowed to pay people less than the market rate because the government (taxpayers) pay the difference between the minimum wage pay and the true cost of living.",
"Many workers get working tax credit and housing benefit. This is because the minimum wage is not enough to live on. It means that employers who pay the minimum wage are being subsidised by the taxpayer.",
"And it's a wise thing that some governments (e.g. many in Central/Northern Europe) subsidize Housing Costs for the poor. That way one can avoid the development of neighborhoods that are inhabited only by the poor which tend to be prone for crime hot spots and other problems.",
"I temped in London for a while, and shared a house with six randoms in Finsbury Park before moving into a pretty scummy bedsit. It's possible to live cheaply if you're prepared to share a bathroom and don't mind a bit of mold, but yeah, I'm damned if I know how families manage.",
"It's not much better anywhere in the UK. Down here in Devon the properties are cheaper, but the chances of getting a decent job are significantly slimmer. So begins this whole circle, in that most of the jobs are in the big cities which cost a bomb. \nAll in all the minimum wage is certainly liveable if you are prepared to sacrifice certain things, but as cost of living rises there are many people who would kill to be in the security of earning £23k a year.",
"I am from New York City. Poor people will live in multigenerational housing. So you may have the grandparents with parents with kids. The grandparents might own the place. Also, there's rent control. So, grandma might be locked into a livable rent and her progeny live with her. In some cases with immigrants, they'll bunk together. There's a story in San Francisco about a family of six (with two dogs - ai chihuahuas!) in a SRO paying $1000 per month. Mom and dad have two jobs. They've been on a wait list for subsidized housing for five years.\n\nSubsidies help, like food stamps for low earners. I suspect in some cases, certain merchantile activities may help with the revenue stream. \n\nRegardless of your opinion of low income people, all cities need low wage workers who are not high schoolers passing through on the way to college and we, as citizens of those cities, have it in our best interests to make it possible for low income people to live and work in our cities along side us."
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3uws6i | what are some valid arguments in favour of the proposed bombings on islamic state targets in syria by the united kingdom? | I'm doing a little bit of research on differing views and have been wondering what some different arguments in favour of the airstrikes proposed by the United Kingdom on Islamic State targets. Simple terms for a simple soul like me please. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3uws6i/eli5_what_are_some_valid_arguments_in_favour_of/ | {
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"It honestly won't make a difference either way if the UK decides to blow up a few targets that the US would have blown up anyway. Maybe it will make British people feel like they are contributing, and I guess that's good."
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d0xy8b | why do these ufc fighters have weird ears? | [deleted] | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/d0xy8b/eli5_why_do_these_ufc_fighters_have_weird_ears/ | {
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"It's called Cauliflower ear, and it's caused by being repeatedly hit in the ear\n\nCauliflower ear, also known as perichondrial hematoma or wrestler's ear, is a deformity of the ear caused by trauma. Cauliflower ear occurs when blood pools in your pinna after it's been hit or struck. The pinna is your outer ear. This pooling of blood, known as a hematoma, needs to be treated right away."
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1p0h6y | why did rim/blackberry make bbm for android and ios? | Isn't one of the main reasons people had Blackberries was for BBM? How are they making money off of this? They aren't charging for the app or the service. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1p0h6y/eli5_why_did_rimblackberry_make_bbm_for_android/ | {
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"There's 4 major ways that an app can make money. So far BBM hasn't implemented any of them that I know of, but maybe they plan to do so in the future.\n\n1) Pay up front - they haven't done that and probably won't since not as many people will download their app if they do.\n\n2) Subscription - again they haven't done this yet, and I doubt they will in the future for the reasons stated above, unless everyone gets attached to their BBM. WhatsApp gives you a free year trial and then asks you to pay for additional years. Maybe BBM will implement something similar.\n\n3) Advertising - I can see them begin advertising. A lot of apps have advertising, as long as it's not too flashy and spammy it should be OK without upsetting the users too much. Maybe doing this will allow them to create a premium BBM app that doesn't have ads. I think they would have to issue an update to get the ads to start working so if you hear about ads, consider not updating.\n\n4) Pay for content - The version of BBM that was released for Iphone and Android is actually missing some features like BBM Voice and Games. On BlackBerries you can actually call your friends on BBM using wifi. You can also play games with your friends. Maybe they will try to get you to buy these extra ad-ons however I'm not sure how much that will catch on when there's already apps like Viber and MagicJack that let you call using wifi/data, and games aren't essential items that users pay for.\n\nI haven't really answered your question about how they make money right now, I don't really know how they do to be honest. I think they're focusing on creating as large of a user base as possible so that they are more likely to be successful if they do go through with any of the options above."
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15ifo9 | why do my eyes randomly need to space out? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/15ifo9/eli5_why_do_my_eyes_randomly_need_to_space_out/ | {
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"Hold your arm out in front of you. If you're strong, maybe put a bit of weight in your hand.\n\nGot it out there? Not too difficult, right?\n\nJust keep it held out there, nice and level.\n\nIs it getting more difficult? Might even hurt a bit.\n\nNow put your arm in a different position. Much more comfortable, right?\n\nYou use muscles, like the muscles in your arm, to focus your eyes. Sometimes they need to switch it up a bit."
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a69vs9 | how do linguists research pre-written languages like proto-indo european without any evidence? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/a69vs9/eli5_how_do_linguists_research_prewritten/ | {
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"They basically try to reverse-engineer the languages that developed from it, assuming it was a thing. Basically we see what we’ve got with languages now, and how some are more similar than others, and we link them based on that they all have in common. Like looking at all the branches of a tree and trying to guess where the trunk is",
"tl;dr: It's a (very carefully-thought-out) educated guess. \n\nA little background first: \n\nLanguages change over time, usually very slowly and in subtle ways. For example, some sounds are so similar that when someone is talking fast, you might not hear the difference and learn the \"wrong\" version. If enough people hear the other thing and teach their kids, the word changes *in that village*. Twenty miles away, they're still saying that word the way they always have, but they've changed some other word that your village didn't.\n\nStick some wolves in the forest so no one travels that way, and eventually, with the two village never talking to each other, they start talking differently. The teenagers make up cool new slang. They start hearing an \"accent\" when they meet someone from the other village. The accent gets stronger as they keep changing without each other. Then, one day, their kids can't understand each other. They speak different languages.\n\nNow, to answer your question:\n\nLet's say they all start writing at the same time. So you know how they talk at that point. It hasn't been that long since village A and B were talking the same, but you can see some differences. If they both have the same word for something, they probably had the same word when they were together. If the word is different, but it's still pretty close, then you do have to guess at what it used to be. \n\nBUT we can make pretty good guesses. It's fairly likely that only one of them changed. Say village A says the word \"fifth\" and village B has the easier-to-say word \"fith\". Do you think village A added an extra sound to \"fith\" to make it harder to say? Or that village B simplified the word over time? Both are possible, but one answer makes a lot more sense, and matches what we see modern languages doing.\n\nResearchers do this with grammar too, not just words, and they have a lot more than just two languages/dialects to work with, all at different stages of \"time spent apart\". "
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31xp2v | how do words end up with a different meaning. when the language is the same but you live in a diffferent region | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/31xp2v/eli5_how_do_words_end_up_with_a_different_meaning/ | {
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"Languages evolve a lot like life does! You might speak \"the same\" language, but you're separated over large distances so little differences start to arise and not get spread among everyone.\n\nLets imagine people in Chicago call manhole covers \"flimflams\". Half the people move to New York, and half move to LA. New Yorkers still know the word \"flimflam\", but they start using it to describe anything on the street, like pedestrian crossings or traffic cones. The people in LA also still use the word \"flimflam\", but they start using it to describe anything that is circular like a manhole cover, like wheels or toilet bowls.\n\nAnd there you go! We now have two sets of people speaking English, but some use the word \"flimflam\" to mean circles, like the other uses it to mean things on the street. You can imagine that this process goes on and on, with people moving across oceans and mountains over many years, and that's exactly how entirely new languages form. Just like two lizards are kinda similar, but eventually evolve into birds and mammals!"
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4ch64x | why do you see the patterns you see after ingesting psychadelics ? | I'm wondering why people see the same type of patterns they see after having taken some sort of psychadelics like LSD, mushrooms or 2CB.
[Example1](_URL_1_), [example2](_URL_0_), [example3](_URL_2_).
| explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4ch64x/eli5why_do_you_see_the_patterns_you_see_after/ | {
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"What your eyes see and what your brain perceives are two very different things. You brain processes the information your eyes receive, and fills in a lot of the blanks. For example, if a friend says hello and you only see them out the corner of your eye, you brain will take that indistinct blob, and fill it in with how you know your friend looks like. At the same time, it might be ignoring the rest of your field of view, because it isn't really import.\n\nWhen you are on certain drugs, your brains ability to do this is impaired. It fails to process or over processes or processes the boring stuff and ignores the interesting stuff, all manner of weirdness. This is the main reason you see patterns."
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5taq6f | how does insurance billing work in a multi car accident (10+ cars)? | Being it snowed a foot here recently and resulted in a 25 car pileup it got me to thinking, how does insurance deal with that? Does it just pay you like your at fault or what? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5taq6f/eli5_how_does_insurance_billing_work_in_a_multi/ | {
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"I was the middle car in a five car pile up. Only the person who caused the chain reaction was charged (she was texting). My insurer tried to hit her insurer, only to discover that she wasn't current and didn't have coverage at all.\n\nI assumed that my insurer would simply make me financially whole again, and they did, but I had to testify against the woman who caused the accident on behalf of my insurer. \n\nThe trial sucked. It was a four hour drive away and it kept getting continued. In other words, I had to take the day off, gussy up, drive four hours, pay for parking, go to the courtroom and then hear her attorney ask for another delay. ",
"I was in an accident where I was hit from behind so hard that I was pushed into the car in front of me and that car was pushed in the car in front of them.\n\nInsurance dealt with it as having my front end damage being no fault to me but my insurance was 50% responsible. My insurance tried to charge me my deductible but after a little arguing, they waived it. "
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3zwyta | why can't we yawn through our noses? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3zwyta/eli5_why_cant_we_yawn_through_our_noses/ | {
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"You can. Have you never had to yawn in a 1:1 meeting with your boss?",
"Because yawn by definition means: \n\n > to involuntarily open one's mouth wide and inhale deeply due to tiredness or boredom.\n\nA yawn through the nose wouldn't be a yawn."
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ekh5oo | how do bookmakers calculate odds in play? like how do they decide what odds to give on a certain person to score or an event to happen in such quick time? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/ekh5oo/eli5_how_do_bookmakers_calculate_odds_in_play/ | {
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"Tons of research and statistics into how things went in the past. Baseball is basically all numbers these days, and other sports aren't far behind.",
"The more money bet on a scenario will lower the odds given out for that scenario. Not sure how they choose a starting point initially.",
"There’s a great book: *The Odds: Three Gamblers, One Season, And the Death of Their Las Vegas* by Chad Millman. It covers quite a bit about sports betting, odds making, setting the line, etc. It’s a few years old, now. The Stardust is gone. But the story is fascinating, and it gives some insight into the way bookmakers think, and work with data to set the line to attract as many bets as possible, and balance the book. I really enjoyed reading it, and think it would definitely answer your question.",
"Vegas has the sharpest minds coming up with the best statistical models that cover every facet of every single event that occurs in competition.\n\nEven with that, it's all about getting money to be as 50/50 as possible. Sportsbooks earn on the juice. If one side is getting too much action, they will hedge by revising the odds to incentivize bettors to drop money on the other side. \n\nAccurately forecasting the probability of potential outcomes isn't even close to as important as getting money to come in 50/50.\n\nYou can make a living (or at least a nice side income) as a sports bettor if you can come up with a model that *can* somewhat accurate predict probabilities and use that to take advantage of inefficient lines (which 100% do exist because vegas isn't trying to predict outcomes but get 50/50 action).",
"i worked as a bookmakers clerk at one point for about 10 years,so it was actually on course at various race meetings,first the starting price was worked out day or two before the meeting,then say 20 mins before the race an average would be put out on the network and we would put this price up,from then we could change the price depending on how much money we where holding and stood to lose,ie turn the price down if we took a big bet,turn it up if we wanted to take more,also if we stood to lose we would back the runner ourselves.this was done instantly as we always had everything laid out on the screen and can see all bets and totals across the field in real time",
"Former sell side derivatives trader and data scientist here. There are two basic methods of calculating odds.\n\nOne is to build a statistical model and then tune the parameters of your model to match your data. Your model can then be used to calculate to probability of some other event. Sometimes this is done purely with pen and paper. Sometimes you will use random number generators to simulate a hard to calculate event many times and learn the probability distribution that way. Card games are a good example of this approach. Since you can calculate the exact probabilities based on the size of the deck you're using, what cards have been dealt etc bookmakers can use computers to calculate the odds that each player will win. \n\nThe second way is to rely on the \"market\". The idea being that when large numbers of people bet on a specific event their behavior gives a good indication of the probability that something will or won't happen. For example say I'm selling tickets for a game where you win a dollar if a coin comes up heads. Well you should observe that people are indifferent to buying or selling a ticket to play if it's trading for $0.50. This works best when a market is two sided. Meaning people can buy AND sell a contract (a bet) since the price can be pushed up and down freely depending on the market consensus. Another example is the price of a stock. Stocks are actually extremely hard to value mathematically. But if you look at real world data you'll see that on average it's pretty hard to consistantly win by picking stocks. This is because the market usually converges to roughly the fair price (expected value) of the stock in the future.",
"I assume that in addition to the methods mentioned already, there are computers with stat-based algorithms in the case of live games, as they're adjusted play by play and you couldn't possibly have humans adjusting that amount of information in real time. With a data set as big as the NFL for example, it's not terribly hard to calculate the odds of a team scoring in any particular situation as long as you have a computer that's fast enough.",
"In a coin toss, which is a 50/50 bet, a bookies won't give you even odds. Instead the odds are weighted slightly towards the bookies.\n\nIf you were to place a bet of 1 on a coin toss and you win the bookie would give you 1.9 back, say. Not 2. So when you win, you win 0.90, and when you lose you lose 1. So the bookie stands to gain 0.10 for every 2 coin tosses on average.\n\nSimilarly with odds on sports. The bookie has computer models that are primed with information about the particular event -- which teams, which players, past scores, info on players stats, etc etc. The computers can work though simulations of the sports every time something happens (goal scored, for example) and adjust the odds, taking into account the margin for the bookie.\n\nSource: I work for a bookies looking after the systems that run these models.",
"Did you just watch Uncut Gems before posting this by chance?"
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dh8r6z | how can traumatizing events lead to sexual fetishes related to the trauma? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/dh8r6z/eli5_how_can_traumatizing_events_lead_to_sexual/ | {
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"Fetishes in the psychological world are an interesting topic. Generally you can trace a fetish back to a specific incident because effects on people vary depending on genetics and their response to stress. However one confounding theory is that sexual kinks in response abuse can be seen as actively taking control of a situation in which you had no control over. It's a way of coping with the traumatic event that occurred.",
"Giving a definitive answer on the \"how\" of any of the most simple functions of the human brain is impossible with current technology. \n\nWe can get an idea of how often traumatizing events lead to changed behaviour through interviews or by looking at communities (subreddits and offsite/real life), and them resulting in fetishes is indeed a relatively common response. \n\nWe can get an idea of whether it's more likely to hurt or help by comparing people that engage with the changed behaviour to those that don't.\n\nWe can educate others on the fact that all these things happen, to remove any stigma. \n\nBut we can't know *how* they happen. The human brain is simply far too complex for even the most advanced technology we have to go into that level of detail. Maybe in a century or two that'll have changed."
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4hg729 | how come we can send probes / satellites into space without much protection while theres a huge amount of space debris? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4hg729/eli5_how_come_we_can_send_probes_satellites_into/ | {
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"Because space is REALLY big, and debris is spread out over such a large volume of space, impacts are very unlikely.\n\nIf you're talking about man-made debris in Earth orbit, most of it is tracked and thus can be avoided, and space agencies are generally careful to either de-orbit used satellites or place them into a \"graveyard\" orbit to get them out of the way.\n\nIf you're talking about micrometeoroids, they do on rare occasion impact man-made spacecraft, but they generally don't cause catastrophic damage, and as I said before, space is so big, the risk of impact is very very low.",
"[Largely Uninformed Tag Here] \nThe correct answer seems to be statistical probability.\n\nAccording to NASA, the DoD (as a body with a huge interest in satellites not being T-boned) tracks all objects larger than a softball and can track objects down to the size of 2 inches. They pass this information to NASA who uses this for planning for both launches and the required maneuvers to the ISS to avoid known/identifiable/trackable-sized debris.\n\nHowever there seems to be a recognised gap here, that falls into the category of known risk:\n\n\"Collision risks are divided into three categories depending upon size of threat. \nFor objects 4 inches (10 centimeters) and larger, conjunction assessments and collision avoidance maneuvers are effective in countering objects which can be tracked by the Space Surveillance Network. \n\nObjects smaller than this usually are too small to track and too large to shield against. \nDebris shields can be effective in withstanding impacts of particles smaller than half an inch (1 centimeter).\"\n_URL_0_\n\nSo they do seem to be rolling the dice on objects that fall below the level of detection and the size of objects that can be reliably shielded against.\n\nKeep in mind, there's no such thing as a space program where the risk of catastrophic failure isn't present. \n",
"Briefly, because space is big, and the number of space debris, while large, is nothing compared to this vastness.\n\nA quick google search reveals that The United States Space Surveillance Network cites more than 21,000 objects larger than 10cm orbiting Earth. Imagine spreading 21,000 objects around the globe. There would be plenty of room to share. To compound the point, these objects can also be above or below each other, not just on one sphere. \n\nAnd to make collisions even less likely, objects in similar orbits will never run into each other. If one satellite is 10km behind another, but both are moving the same speed in the same direction, they are never going to hit each other. And again, objects can be above and below as well. A satellite in an orbit that never goes above 200km will never hit a satellite in an orbit that never goes below 200km\n\nOn top of all that, if a collision were to happen in space, it would likely be such that no reasonably amount of shielding could have saved your satellite. Imagine two cars hurtling toward each other at several hundred meters per second. You might save the passengers, but the car isn't going to work anymore. Satellites don't have passengers, so we just end up with two not working probes. \n\nLastly, you might have heard that putting things into space is a little pricey. The heavier your payload gets, the more expensive the launch. That means that shielding is an expensive endeavour. \n\nSuggest something costly to a company and they will probably ask if it is worth it. The statistician that they ask should answer no if they are good at their job. While shielding could save your satellite, it probably won't, and the probability that the collision happens in the first place is, ahem, *astronomically* small. \n\nOk. I'm done being negative, and I think I've made the case for not having much shielding, so I'll end with this: There are things in space we [desperately](_URL_2_) need to shield against. [Radiation](_URL_0_) is problematic, even more so for manned missions. Micrometeorites are trouble, but we kinda know how to deal with them (basically just put a small layer of armor on). And for the rest, we are what can do damage, and can generally get out of the way or otherwise prepare for an impact. I'll leave you with a [link](_URL_1_) to a rather highly relevant NASA page. "
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9np8g8 | why is it that we even feel emotions? what is it that allows us to feel love and then conversely heartbreak? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/9np8g8/eli5_why_is_it_that_we_even_feel_emotions_what_is/ | {
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"You could chalk it all up to hormones and chemicals, they're certainly part of the equation. We can measure and track the biological changes in people as they experience different moods. \n\nSome people believe all emotions are some sort of a holdover from prehistory, that they served a survival function and came around as part of our evolution. For example, anger can act as a powerful motivator. \n\nThere's also a psychological component, frame of mind and upbringing. It's why some things make you laugh only in certain contexts, and how we can induce or nudge people into specific moods with environmental stimuli. \n\nThere's definitely a scale of emotional complexity in nature. Humans being the most complex, then creatures like orangutans and elephants. This might provide some clues as to how and why we developed our own emotions. \n\nI don't think there's any consensus or straight answer. The fact is that we have them and it's more important to learn to handle them than to try and figure out why we have them to begin with. \n\nI'm sorry to hear times are tough. Do what you need to to feel better, and take small comfort in the knowledge that this is just part of the human experience and in a way, you're lucky to be able to have this emotional complexity. It won't last. "
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5c505g | why do we sleep in the same bed as our partner? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5c505g/eli5_why_do_we_sleep_in_the_same_bed_as_our/ | {
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"Sleeping together provides warmth, security & the opportunity for sex. Additionally, a single bed for two takes up less space than two separate smaller beds.",
"Sleeping near someone builds trust subconsciously. People who sleep together stay together.\nPeople who stay together have more kids.\nGenes get past on, and tradition occurs.",
"There have been lots of times in history/cultures (including early American) when most homes were a single, large room, often with a single large bed. Privacy came with a better ability to make individual rooms.",
"From an evolutionary standpoint reproduction was the main priority, therefore sleeping next to your partner served as a way to protect them should harm arise.",
"because people are tired after having sex and its convenient\n\nalso because couples like to be close to eachother.",
"Humans used to sleep in bed at a family level, i mean all the familly in the same bed. And hugs occured, no problem, it was a normal things. Even some animals sleeps into the humans bed too, goats, pigs, ect... It is a very new thing at a mankind timescale that we have to sleep at 2 max persons per bed.\n\nThat is for 98 % of the mankind (peasant) the last 2 % are few aristocratic, marginals and sufficients people.",
"This is also something that has come and gone throughout history. We do it now because society says we ought to. But if you look back even a hundred years or less, married couples would have two beds in a single room, and many of them swore by it even as it became *not* how things were done. And why not? You want to get it on, one of you goes and visits and then you both go back to your own beds. Maybe I like mine extra-firm and she doesn't; fine. Maybe she's always cold and I'm always warm; now she can have her pile of blankets and me my one old sheet.\n\nIt also used to be not-uncommon for unmarried men to share a bed, not because they were lovers but simply because they were poor. It allowed them to share a smaller space, benefit from warmth, and so on. If you watch... I think it's Abbott and Costello... a lot of their films have their characters living this way, because it was the Depression or shortly after.\n\nSo, no, it is not a constant across all of recorded history. It's something that comes and goes and happens to be sticking for kindof a while right now.",
"Not every couple does. I would if I could, but his snoring prevents me getting any sleep. He sleeps like a log and sounds alternately like a boar, a whale, or a bear. I'm an insomniac and I hear it if a bug farts. But, we're heading into our 17th year, and things are good. We always start in the same bed, and when the snoring starts, one of us goes to the other room."
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3v3fg2 | would un-polluting beijing's air be feasible or has it simply gone to far? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3v3fg2/eli5_would_unpolluting_beijings_air_be_feasible/ | {
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"No, as China shifts away from coal and enacts more anti-pollution policies (which it has been doing), the air should eventually recover. The infamous London smog is now (mostly) gone, after all. \n\nIn fact, in 2008, when China hosted the olympics, in order to look better they made drastic temporary changes and the sky was actually blue and normal the whole time!",
"Un-polluting? There's no magical device that allows you to wave a wand and it all of the sudden removes all the contaminants from the air. LA used to be like China in terms of air quality, it took decades of legislation to clean up."
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3dcwz7 | what triggers the start of claustrophobia? | I've always encountered friends and family members where some say they had as far as they can remember and some say it was triggered by an event in their life. But the question is, what really triggers Claustrophobia? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3dcwz7/eli5_what_triggers_the_start_of_claustrophobia/ | {
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"This is really impossible to answer. Phobias trigger for different reasons in different people. For some people actually experiencing the situation can trigger the phobia (they were locked in a small room at one point and experienced that as distressing). For other people, the phobia develops for a far less obvious reason like that. Maybe they were never in a situation like that, but they had a parent who was or who was extraordinarily worried about this happening and they internalised that fear. Maybe their phobia is just their mind irrationally acting on a deeper discomfort (they don't like losing control, for example, and to them being locked in a small room is the epitome of control loss so they avoid it to the point where it starts affecting their lives) "
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eao5jy | is your brain able to tell the difference between quiet sounds that are close by versus louder sounds that are far away? | For example sometimes I'll be driving and I'll hit the brakes at the exact same time a plane goes over head and for a Split Second it sounds like the Roar of the engine of the plane is coming from my brake pads. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/eao5jy/eli5_is_your_brain_able_to_tell_the_difference/ | {
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"Yes. There was a paper a few years back that identified the region in the brain the helps compute how far the origin of a sound is. And it was different than the region responsible for telling differences in intensity (loudness). I believe it was somewhere in the spatial reasoning areas. I don't have much time to give you more detail now, but they essentially found that the brain uses a combined approach of multiple intensity independent cues (in addition for intensity depending cues for familiar sounds, I.e. You know how a plane sounds, and you know it's not over your head because you can recognize it sounds like this when far from previous visual experiences). And the dominant parameter in these intensity independent cues is something called dominant to reverberant ratio. It has to do with the resonance/echo.\n\nRef: _URL_0_"
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3budmd | how come when you lose a large part of your skin, they'll remove skin from other parts of your body to graft in its place? isn't it redundant, cause you'll just have no skin there instead? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3budmd/eli5how_come_when_you_lose_a_large_part_of_your/ | {
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"Great question - and the answer is actually a little different depending on how they graft it. \n\nIf the graft is thin - meaning they're just putting a thin layer of skin over the wound to protect it and promote faster healing and recovery, they can graft that from any area where there's thick skin and they'll slice off a little bit. Yeah you're cutting out some skin but that little slice will heal up pretty quick and the wound will heal faster as well. \n\nThey can also do full thickness skin grafts which is probably the kind you're thinking of. One way they can do these with minimal complications is by grafting from a cadaver, but they have to be pretty genetically similar to keep you from rejecting the graft, especially a full thickness one. They can also take these grafts from thicker areas of your own skin as well. There are a few reasons they would choose to take a full thickness graft from part of your own body: the wound is in a prominent place (like your face) so they will take a full thickness graft from a less visible place where the scarring won't be as apparent, or the wound is severe enough that a full thickness graft is the only option and the risk of complications is too great to risk grafting from someone else. In that case, an area with thicker skin will heal much better from a full thickness graft than the wound would alone. The amount of skin required to repair the thinner skin would allow the full thickness graft to do relatively little harm to that area of thick skin. "
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bqv6c0 | why do governments want a low inflation rate instead of no inflation at all? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/bqv6c0/eli5_why_do_governments_want_a_low_inflation_rate/ | {
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"No inflation is an unstable point, and deflation is very bad. So a little inflation provides a buffer against measurement uncertainty and other possible miscalculations.",
"Inflation means you can buy less for the same amout of money. So with low inflation it‘s better to spend money now instead of just leaving it somewhere. A low inflation promotes comsumtion in that way, which is generally good for the economy.",
"If there's no inflation, my $10 is the same as $10 in 10 years. I know I need money for retirement, so I could just keep that money in my mattress. That's money that isn't be spent on anything. It's \"dead\" in a sense. It won't be used for a very long time. That's not good for economic growth, that is for jobs to be created, existing jobs to become more productive and valuable, and more money to be created to represent the added value. So a little inflation basically means that my $10 today won't be worth $10 in 10 years. In fact, I'd be lucky if it's worth the same as what $5 represents today by the time I retire. I'm basically \"paying\" money to keep it instead of use it. So if I don't want to lose money just for not using it, I have two options:\n\n1. Spend it now on goods and services. Goods can also be things like houses that also change in value so that hopefully I keep more of the original value of the money I spent if/when I sell the house. This is good for the economy, I'm supporting jobs related to the goods and services I'm buying. \n2. Invest it in banks, stocks, bonds, etc. Basically, I'm lending out my money to be used by other people to generate profits, and then I get a cut of their profits. This helps the economy a ton. So even if I'm not using my money, someone else is, and I \"get it back\" and then some. So now my $10 today might be worth the same as $20 in 10 years, which is even better for me."
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3sgzng | how can it be illegal to take pictures or videos of animal abuse inside of a slaughterhouse? | Why is the government protecting this behavior? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3sgzng/eli5_how_can_it_be_illegal_to_take_pictures_or/ | {
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"Breaking into private property, illegally recording information, and then using that to damage the reputation and finances of private individuals is generally frowned upon. What with it being criminal activity and all. ",
"This could vary by country/jurisdiction, but generally you are not automatically entitled to enter private property or entitled to take photos on private property. If a property owner tells you not to enter or take photos on their property, then legally you must abide by those rules (and I'm guessing the slaughterhouses have rules about no pictures/videos).\n\nNow there is such a thing as whistleblower protections which can, under certain circumstances, provide legal protections to individuals who expose illegal behavior and/or ethical wrongdoings. \n\nHaving said that, however, whistleblower protections in the US are usually quite limited (e.g. some protections may only apply to government employees). It also depends on what you are reporting and who you are reporting it to. Sometimes, for example, immediately exposing the wrongdoings to the media (instead of going through 'proper' reporting channels first) can effectively void your right to whistleblower protections.",
"Because big business gives fat campaign contributions to politicians, and in return, politicians pass laws that crap on the First Amendment to favor big business. It really IS that simple.\n\n\n\n",
"Technically, illegally obtained evidence can be used by a court of law as long as it was obtained by a non-government affiliated U.S. citizen. Because of lobbying by the meat industry, some states have banned citizens from taking pictures of slaughterhouses without the slaughterhouses' consent. Most of these laws are unconstitutional, and in the states that they were challenged, they have been or will be nullified. However, this only happens when the law is challenged. In many states, the law is never challenged. Also, these types of trials can take years to get a final verdict and require the backing of a well funded organization like the A.C.L.U., as most concerned individuals cannot finance trials for extended periods of time."
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2fiuvs | why are there 4 bases in dna? | I know in DNA we have adenine, guanine, cytosine, and thymine. But why did we evolve in such a way that 4 was the "most efficient" way?
So why 4 as opposed to 6, 8, 10, etc? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2fiuvs/eli5_why_are_there_4_bases_in_dna/ | {
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"It just so happened that those particular 4 chemicals fit together in a way that strings of pairs of them can form a double helix that protects the information stored by their order. ",
"The 4 bases were established extremely early in the origin of life. Life didn't evolve into having those 4 bases, as far as we know it pretty much started that way. It was more chance than anything, and because it's so integral to how all the information that makes up an organism is stored, it's not really something that evolution can modify very easily, if at all.",
"Using four bases is a compromise between content fidelity and the amount of information you can store; with only two units (like machine code/binary), it would require significantly more media to store the same content (as you would need a longer total code length to represent the same content), and with more units, there is greater chance of content distortion from imprecise coding or erroneous splicing. \n\nFour bases is simply the most efficient way of storing the genetic code. Sort of like how oxidative respiration evolved. "
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5x0xqr | on 9/11, what effect caused the area of impact on the north tower to look more burnt and widespread as time went on? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5x0xqr/eli5_on_911_what_effect_caused_the_area_of_impact/ | {
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"Because it was getting more burnt and widespread as time went on. The building was on fire. And it was an office building, full of paper, carpet, and a lot of other flammable stuff that caught fire as the fire spread. Although heat rises, flaming objects can fall through parts of the floor that gave way as they burned, spreading the flames downward, and of course the flames will travel upward easily.\n\nAs more and more stuff catches fire, the fire spreads out through the floor until it can't spread out any more because it's reached the outside wall of the building. So as time went on, more flames reached the outside wall, blowing out windows, scorching and melting the outside. As the steel overheated, it bent under the pressure, and falling debris smashed more of the opening created by the initial impact. Between the blackening smoke creating the illusion of making it bigger than it was and the actual growing hole as the building burned down, it seemed to be more burnt and widespread because it was."
]
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| []
| [
[]
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|
||
1r1ael | david blane's card trick where the card the victim guessed ends up in pocket, wallet, etc. | It's a pretty amazing trick where he hands a real deck to the victim, has them do random nonsense (move deck around, split deck, etc.) and then asks them to pick a random card. The card then appears in the victims wallet, under their watch, or in their pocket. Also would like ice pick through the hand with no blood explained. When the doctors X-rayed the ice pick and it was real my mind was blown. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1r1ael/eli5_david_blanes_card_trick_where_the_card_the/ | {
"a_id": [
"cdil0gr",
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"score": [
10,
2
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"text": [
"The mark, if real, would likely have been reverse pick pocketed before the trick. Slight of hand can explain how he knew the card to put in. He shows a real deck, has them cut the real deck, then fidgets with his hands, shows you there's nothing under his (short) sleeves by touching them, lets his hands fall to his waist, you get the picture. At this point the real deck is swapped out for the gaff deck that only has the card type he put in their pocket earlier. Signatures? Their credit card has them. Behind plate glass? Anybody could have put it there, same with any other of those gimmicks. The trick is making you think the card you choose has meaning, but all it means is the magician now has 53 decks missing it. ",
"Street magicians were pretty famous for using plants. I don't know if they still do however. And I don't know if Blane does either."
]
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| []
| [
[],
[]
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|
|
63vx3e | why do americans buy drinks for home consumption in small containers but large packs? like 12-pack of 330 ml soda cans or 24-packs of 500 ml water bottles? | I get that you want smaller single serving container for school or work but why Americans do that for stuff to drink at home? I've seen countless American TV shows and movies where people have dozen or more Coca-Cola cans in the fridge, same goes for water.
But the orange juice they buy comes in 4.5 liter jugs!? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/63vx3e/eli5_why_do_americans_buy_drinks_for_home/ | {
"a_id": [
"dfxelyh",
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"score": [
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"text": [
"For convenience; you don't have to get a glass, pour a drink, remember to put the glass back in the sink or dishwasher, wash the glass, etc. \n\nAlso, carbonated beverages keep their carbonation longer in single-serving packaging, unlike the opening-closing-reopening of large soda bottles which loses carbonation with each opening.\n\nThere's also a cost component: milk and juice are more expensive liquids than water and soda, so it's cheaper to buy milk and juice in \"bulk\" in a larger container than to buy single-packaged containers (although it's available as such). If it costs that much more, the cost/benefit of washing a cup leans more towards the cup than the convenience of single-serving packaging.",
"Large soda containers go flat quickly. \n\nI can buy 40 pack of .5L bottles of water at costco for 2.99 \n\nWe dont usually buy soda and only water for traveling because it is so much cheaper than any alternative ",
"... How do you buy your soda? Soda is carbonated OJ is not. The small can size is to avoid having have a 2L bottle of flat soda."
]
} | []
| []
| [
[],
[],
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|
1rzst3 | how urls work in areas with non-latin alphabets | I tried google and reddit search, but I couldn't find quite what I'm looking for: How do URLs work when primary keyboard function doesn't feature the Latin alphabet? Cyrillic, Greek, and Arabic all use different characters, but what about Asian languages that operate vertically? And also, which came first: relative linguistic dominance by 'Romance' languages (like English, Spanish, French, through colonialism) or the use of Latin characters in computers and computer programming and function? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1rzst3/eli5_how_urls_work_in_areas_with_nonlatin/ | {
"a_id": [
"cdsiirc"
],
"score": [
3
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"text": [
"All non-latin keyboard layouts have the ability to input Latin letters, mostly because of the Latin dominance of Berners-Lee's standard URI scheme. The latin may be identifiable by different coloring on the keyboard. As far as linguistic dominance, someone else will have to answer that question for you, my answer would be conjecture. "
]
} | []
| []
| [
[]
]
|
|
7o9p5n | if an item is made in aus and then sold in usa, why is it cheaper in us than aus? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/7o9p5n/eli5_if_an_item_is_made_in_aus_and_then_sold_in/ | {
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"score": [
2,
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"text": [
"It could be you're just shopping at a particularly expensive store. Was it that expensive everywhere you have looked?",
"maybe due to the inflation of prices. since there is a much higher minimum wage in AUS maybe these companies feel they can charge more as people have more disposable income. ",
"In my country lot of export companies get goverment subsides in taxes and in some cases direct economical support ie. money. It is usually justified by working places in home country and taxes from there...\n\nBasically companies can export goods under the prices what the real value of the item is in home country when all the costs and taxes are added.",
"A couple of little factors add up to the difference. You've already mentioned the currency difference, but here's a few others:\n\n- Market Competition: the snack market in the US is huge, monstrously huge. We have 9 different variations of M & Ms alone, and you can go to candy shops and get a huge array of colors that aren't available in the normal bags. At the $8 US price point, the Australian chocolates would be competing directly with what would be considered the 'high end' of candy in the US with brands like Lindt and Godiva, which doesn't get as much business as your typical supermarket candies. The $8 market in Australia could be very different. Even if the Australian chocolate-maker isn't making money on the transaction at the $3 US price point, it's worth it to take a bite out of the competitor's profits.\n\n- Taxes. I know that Australia has a nation-wide tax of 10%, and if you're like Europe your $8 price includes that tax. In the US, sales taxes vary from state to state and aren't typically included in the stated price."
]
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| [
[],
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||
2odx41 | why does a repeating sequence of notes sounds different depending on what note i start on? | If, on a piano, i play A-B-C-A-B-C-A-B... And so on, why does B-C-A-B-C-A ... Sound completely different, despite being the same pattern starting on a different initial note? Why does my brain make the first note i play seem more "dominant" on each playthrough? And why does the music sound different, despite essentially being the same? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2odx41/eli5_why_does_a_repeating_sequence_of_notes/ | {
"a_id": [
"cmm7g9h"
],
"score": [
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"text": [
"Congratulations! You just discovered different musical modes. If you pick C as your \"tonic\" and go up to the next C, the sequence of whole and half steps results in something called a Major Scale, or Ionian mode. If you start on A, you get a Minor Scale, or Aeolian mode. The other modes aren't used as often. If you play the 1st, 3rd, and 5th notes of a mode, you get something called a \"triad\" or \"chord\". These chords, in major or minor, are the basis of all Western music. \n\nYou are trained to hear the first note played as the tonic, because it almost always is. When you start on A, your brain assumes that whatever follows is meant to be heard in the context of A, so you hear it as the first notes of an ascending Minor scale. When you start on C, your brain assumes that whatever follows is meant to be heard in the context of C, so what you hear is the first notes of a descending Major scale. Similarly, when you start on B, you hear a cadence in the Locrian mode, which is wierd and almost never used in Western music because it contains a diminished 5th, which we've all kind of decided sounds really really bad (\"the Devil's Interval\", C to Gb, or in your case, B to F)"
]
} | []
| []
| [
[]
]
|
|
49vr4z | why we still don't have a practical 128bit computers, that we cold use at home? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/49vr4z/eli5_why_we_still_dont_have_a_practical_128bit/ | {
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"text": [
"Very simply, there just isn't any reason to. Right now 64bit does way, way more than we can utilize. It'd be like if you had a giant aquarium, right, and it only had like 3 fish. You are standing there staring at the fish wondering why you don't have an entire lake, there just isn't any reason to. ",
"The number of bits for an operating system refers to the number of memory bytes that can be uniquely accessed.\n\nImagine memory being stored as a phone number. For the US, you have 3 digits for the area code and 7 digits for the number. Since you can use the numbers 0 - 9 in each digit, each digit can hold 10 possible unique numbers. This gives us 10^10 = 10,000,000,000 unique phone numbers. However, in reality, there are more restrictions on the numbers that can be used so the usable numbers is much less.\n\nNow, memory in computers is stored in binary 1's and 0's instead of a number from 0 - 9. Thus there are only two possible values for each binary digit. In a 32 bit system, you get 32 binary digits to store 2^32 = 4,294,967,296 bytes of memory. This is a little more than 4 GB. 64 bits allows you to address 2^64 = ~18,000,000,000,000,000,000 bytes of memory. Since the most computer systems use ~8-16 GB of memory, it will be quite a while to reach the memory limit of 64 bit.\n\nEDIT: Just for fun, 128 bit computers would be able to address 2^128 = ~3.4 x 10^34 = ~340,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 bytes of memory. This is more than the estimated number of stars in the universe ( ~10^29 ): _URL_0_",
"Modern computers already are 128 bit where it matters. The number of \"bits\" in this context refers to how many bits a processor can deal with in a single instruction (that's quite a big simplification, but it'll do for ELI5). Modern computers have the ability to use 128 bit numbers for some things where it's useful, but not other things which they're not particularly useful for. After all why waste all that silicon making a circuit work with 128 bit numbers when the vast majority of the time it will be dealing with numbers that can fit into 64 bits?\n\nGPUs typically do computations with 128 bit numbers, and CPUs have had extensions to handle 128 bits at a time for ages. This is often used for groups of four 32 bit numbers (i.e. a vector) which it can manipulate in a single instruction. Very useful for 3D graphics. It can also be pretty useful for doing things like encryption which normally uses lots of big numbers.\n\nBut there's still no need to use more than 64 bits for addressing memory. 64 bits allows you to address more than 17 billion gigabytes, so there's not going to be any need to switch to 128 bit any time soon."
]
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| [
[],
[
"http://www.space.com/26078-how-many-stars-are-there.html"
],
[]
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||
3jpd69 | how are newspapers made so quickly? | How do they get all the stuff for a newspaper a day? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3jpd69/eli5how_are_newspapers_made_so_quickly/ | {
"a_id": [
"cur88ov"
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"score": [
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"text": [
"The newspaper editing industry usually runs from 12noon to 2am. They collect all the information from the people all throughout the day thanks to their people around the city/nation/world who keep feeding the editors postable stuff. This then goes through editor's filters for stuff that's worth being posted and by the evening, it's all compiled and is completed by late night, making sure nothing happens in the remaining few hours. They usually leave blank spaces for pending events like sports matches and likewise.\nBig newspapers are pretty strict about their timelines. If let's say the football world cup final happens in Russia for example, and it's 3am in NYC at the time, they wouldn't post the result in the next day's paper but would wait an extra day. It's all well organized in the midst of a constant frenzy"
]
} | []
| []
| [
[]
]
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|
fnlf4g | what is bad about companies buying back stock? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/fnlf4g/eli5_what_is_bad_about_companies_buying_back_stock/ | {
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"text": [
"In a vacuum it's not good or bad, just a process companies go through to pass profits back to shareholders. The shareholders *are* the owners and profiting from the ownership is the entire point, so it's expected within reason.\n\nThe current issues are with companies who underwent excessive buyback during many years of profiting and never saved up a penny. Now just a month into a financial crisis they're completely bankrupt and begging for help.\n\nThere's widespread sentiment in the population and the government that companies who acted like your financially illiterate relatives shouldn't get bailed out without some sort of consequence for their poor planning.",
"Nothing inherently bad about it. If a company is doing well, it's a useful measure to ensure they have more financial tools during hard times. The ethical issue is when companies get a government bailout then spend that money on buying back stock. The idea being that the bailout is supposed to help keep a troubled company afloat and keep staff employed. Buying back stock does almost nothing for most workers, primarily benefiting stock holders.",
"After the financial crisis of 2008, the federal government bailed out banks and auto makers with hundreds of billions of dollars. The intent was to rescue big corporations so they wouldn’t fail and lay off millions of workers and therefore tank the economy. Corporations laid off workers anyhow to cut costs, which might be necessary to restructure a company for the long term. \n\nBut they also bought back large portions of their own stock, raising the value of remaining shares and keeping the stock prices up. This did not help the economy, result in more jobs, or even improve the efficiency of their companies. All it did was improve the wealth of CEO’s and shareholders. \n\nNow, if you believe in trickle down economics, which says that making rich people richer is the way to help everyone, then you can argue that buybacks are a great thing. But most economists believe that taxpayer funded bailout money should be used for things that actually help the majority of Americans and not just the wealthy."
]
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1yz2dx | why aren't jurors allowed to talk about a court case, yet the media can publish details about a court case in the newspaper? | I don't get why that is. When I was at court as a juror, I wasn't allowed to discuss the case with anyone at all, yet I read the newspaper and every day I see details of court cases. Could anyone shed some light? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1yz2dx/eli5_why_arent_jurors_allowed_to_talk_about_a/ | {
"a_id": [
"cfp1kvy"
],
"score": [
4
],
"text": [
"IIUC, the fear is not so much that you spill details on the case, but that you are influenced by people from outside the courtroom."
]
} | []
| []
| [
[]
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|
|
6zpbqb | what are the little holes on plugs for? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/6zpbqb/eli5_what_are_the_little_holes_on_plugs_for/ | {
"a_id": [
"dmwzyjm",
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"text": [
"They're detents to keep the plug in the wall\n\nThe socket has a pair of blades that the plug slides into. At the deep end of each blade is either a bump or a flap that matches up with the holes on the plug to keep them from pulling out, unless you pull firmly on the plug",
"The little holes on the end of the prongs match up with little nubs inside the outlet. These help hold the plug in firmly and prevent it from working its way out of the socket."
]
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| [
[],
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||
2390t5 | why does my camera take rectangular photos (horizontal vs. vertical orientation) even though the lens is circular? | Couldn't it just always take a square picture? I wonder this mostly because people seem to aesthetically find vertical photos and videos irritating. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2390t5/eli5_why_does_my_camera_take_rectangular_photos/ | {
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"cgunp13",
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"score": [
18,
8,
2,
3
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"text": [
"Because the sensor, or film, is rectangular. \r\r ",
"So many answers. Here are some:\n\n- First off, there are cameras which take square pictures. But most don't.\n- Movies are rectangular because they want to show multiple people side-by-side. Since movies are an important source of pictures, it makes sense to have rectangular photos too.\n- Most analog cameras (your dad's camera) were 35 mm cameras. The film they used is the same film that was used for shooting most major movies. The film has a fixed width of 24 mm. Film (as in movie) cameras expose the picture sideways onto the film strip - each frame is 24 mm wide and about 16 mm high. That resolution was not sufficient for good still images (moving images require less resolution). So still cameras expose pictures lengthwise onto the film strip, making each frame 24 mm high and 36 mm wide. So this was done to gain some more resolution while using film which already existed. Using square images would have made the frames 24x24, which would have had less resolution.\n- Monitors and TVs are rectangular for various reasons. It makes sense to have a format which matches that.\n- Paper and thus tablets are rectangular. Again, it makes sense to have a format which matches that.",
"The sensor is rectangular, the lens is round because of optics",
"Cropping, photographs looked like this a hundred years ago - _URL_0_"
]
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[],
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"http://www.photomuse.org/media/database/00254.jpg"
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akrg9n | what did england gain by issuing the balfour declaration? | (I think) I understand the intent of the declaration, just not the timing. Britain had been at war for 3 years, was there a quid pro quo that necessitated the timing? According to some sources, Rothschild was asked to draft the letter himself so it seems a bit theatrical. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/akrg9n/eli5_what_did_england_gain_by_issuing_the_balfour/ | {
"a_id": [
"ef7v97h"
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"text": [
"simplified:\n\nThe timing was simply at the culmination of a long process begun when Britain joined the war as part of the overall policy question of what would happen to the various components of the ottoman empire once toppled. The actual process was accelerated in mid1917 due to military operations in Palestine itself. \n\nBritain also was using it as a way to try to use Jewish people on the non allied side to switch. "
]
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| []
| [
[]
]
|
|
3qakl8 | are flexible people less durable? | Most objects when used to the point that they are easily bendable, become less durable because of the strain put on them.
Does that same theory apply to a humans flexibility? Do flexible people brake more easily? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3qakl8/eli5_are_flexible_people_less_durable/ | {
"a_id": [
"cwdqri9"
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"score": [
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"text": [
"I'm interested in any actual research on this, but I'd like to point out that so far the answers aren't really answering what I think is the spirit of the question. \n\nStretching before you're warmed up is an entirely different topic. I believe the OP is asking if people who are flexible are less likely to be injured in, say, a car accident or a fall.\n\nEverything I've read indicates that yes, they are less injury prone. An example case (not directly related but similar) is the phenomenon of how people who are driving drunk or fall asleep at the wheel tend to suffer comparatively fewer injuries. They are relaxed and not tense during a crash, whereas most people tense up in anticipation. The tensing up is more likely to cause injury. \n\nI'd also say the \"envelope\" outside of which you'd get injured is smaller for inflexible people. If you trip and fall and tear something because your leg was hyper-extended beyond its usual range of motion - that's something that may not have happened to someone who was flexible enough to move that far without tearing something. "
]
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| [
[]
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|
41utey | why can't we genetically modify mosquitoes so that they won't bite? | Why can't we prevent malaria and other diseases by genetically modifying mosquitos so that they do not need to suck blood from organisms for sustenance? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/41utey/eli5_why_cant_we_genetically_modify_mosquitoes_so/ | {
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"Because:\n\n* There are billions and billions of mosquitoes in the world and we would need to alter every single individual (or at least kill every single one we didn't alter) which is basically impossible\n\n* Mosquitoes need a blood meal as part of their mating process and we lack the capability to alter an organism in such a complicated way. We can insert a gene into corn that makes it make a protein that helps it resist a particular pesticide, but completely altering the lifecycle of many different insect species (there are multiple types of mosquitoes) is well beyond our ability.",
"Where exactly would they get their food from ? How would we go about applying this to the trillion mosquitoes on Earth ?",
"Thats a hard thing to do just straight up. \n\nAssuming you can, your genetically modified mosquitoes are going to starve pretty quickly, any offspring they do make will also starve pretty quickly. Not exactly conducive to passing on the new 'non bite' genes.\n\nAssuming you somehow make mosquitoes vegetarian or something, this changes their role in the ecosystem very drastically. There would be a massive and yet unknown environmental impact from doing this.\n\nEven if that happens, what makes your vegetarian mosquitoes better than the normal ones out there? Chances are your new species will never be the dominant species much less wipe out normal mosquitoes as they aren't even competing for the same food source.\n\nAll in all its a much better bet and far simpler to somehow make it so mosquitoes dont harbour malaria than it would be too redesign the mosquito and hope it catches on without ruining everything."
]
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[],
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1q5dbo | why are blueprints called blueprints? | I guess I could probably ask Google this, but would rather refer to the hive mind | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1q5dbo/why_are_blueprints_called_blueprints/ | {
"a_id": [
"cd9cbp5"
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"score": [
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"text": [
"I typed in \"why are blueprints called blueprints\" into Google. It had it's own box above the search results that said.\n\n > In the early 1940s, cyanotype blueprint began to be supplanted by diazo prints, also known as whiteprints, which have blue lines on a white background; thus these drawings are also called blue-lines or bluelines.\n\nNot to be a smart-butt or anything. I was curious too so I looked it up."
]
} | []
| []
| [
[]
]
|
|
8otl4s | why do robocallers and telemarketers still exist? if they are so universally despised why is it not illegal or how can it be prevented/penalized | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/8otl4s/eli5why_do_robocallers_and_telemarketers_still/ | {
"a_id": [
"e05zebz"
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"score": [
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"text": [
"They are banned unless you give the company consent beforehand. It's just virtually impossible to enforce these rules.\n\nMany calls come from outside the US. Even those that come from within are costly and difficult to pursue and are pretty low on the totem pole of valuable crimes to spend resources pursuing."
]
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| []
| [
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|
||
31id3p | was africa always in a bad position economically and agriculturally? or was this famine, drought, disease and poverty caused by europeans? | I am just curious as to how this would have occured. What was africa like before white people came? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/31id3p/eli5_was_africa_always_in_a_bad_position/ | {
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"text": [
"Economically the banks fucked them over by giving them a massive loan to set up their international trading, knowing full well the whole of Europe and America was going to undercut them and basically cut them out of world trading. When it all collapsed and they couldn't pay back their loans the countries that borrowed the money was fucked they are still paying it back today.\n\nThe brocca divide screwed them over culturally when the west went there and gave them technology they was not ready for. Tribal warfare went from spears and shields killing a few to guns killing thousands in less than a decade. That mentality is still present in African countries now. That's why theirs been at least one mass murder every few years there. ",
"Africa was a area already suffering heavily from environmental concerns but obviously the people living there had more or less adapted culturally. They lived mostly a nomadic and subsistence hunting exisistence. When Europeans came they saw this existence as primitive and even evil. \n\nThey needed people and infrastructure to exploit the resources and so brought people together into cities in a way the land would struggle to support and made them forget their old ways. Missionaries told them they had a duty as Christians (Muslims have the same I think) to procreate resulting and still results in unsustainable population explosions.\n\nAdd to this that the arbitrary dividing up people's and even picking out a better people has created some really nasty conflicts (Rwanda for just one example) and the cultural scars from occupation that seem to resulted in a whole series of passionate leaders who seemed to start out with the best of intentions but for whatever reasons (scale of the problems, confusion/conflict about their own culture, dissent or just the apathy of the people they were attempting to lead etc.) became increasingly tyrannical and only added to problems."
]
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4cimg3 | why don't space suits more closely resemble scuba diving suits? | Looking at the spacex designs - _URL_0_
The deep ocean requires heating, oxygen supply, and other life sustaining features. It's less bulky, easy to move around in, etc. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4cimg3/eli5_why_dont_space_suits_more_closely_resemble/ | {
"a_id": [
"d1imwly"
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"score": [
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"text": [
"Space suits have to seal a pressure differential, with positive pressure inside and vacuum outside. Ambient pressure diving suits have to seal against water leakage, but not at any significant pressure differential. Atmospheric pressure diving suits like this one: _URL_0_ have to seal against immense external pressures."
]
} | []
| [
"https://www.reddit.com/r/Gundam/comments/4chvbr/"
]
| [
[
"http://nuytco.com/products/exosuit/"
]
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|
|
7xuho3 | how does the equation for a pendulum bob period? | Hello everyone! So I am doing a science lab on pendulums in grade 9, and it is assessed on our ability to write lab reports, but I became interested in the subject. So while doing the lab we observed that the angle at which you dropped the Bob does not impact the amount of oscillations done in 30 seconds. I was trying to look up the forces on the bob throughout it's path, but I became stumped. I stumbled upon the equation for the period of the bob(T=2pi times the square root of the string length times gravity) and I was wondering if you could explain how it works. Why does this equation work to find the period of the bob? How is the bob accelerating during it? How does the path(arch) of it impact it's acceleration from gravity? I am trying to explain WHY the angle of the bob does not matter, so this is why. It would be great if you could find sources for this information that I could source, although I could always source you as well with back up research. Thanks for any help! | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/7xuho3/eli5_how_does_the_equation_for_a_pendulum_bob/ | {
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"Ignoring friction, there are two forces acting on the pendulum bob. One is gravity, and the other is the tension in the string. The total gravitational force on the bob is equal to the mass of the pendulum times the acceleration due to gravity (which is 9.81m/s^2 , usually denoted g). We are only interested in the component of this force that is tangent to the arc of the pendulum's swing, because we only care about the motion along the arc.\n\nTherefore the acceleration of the pendulum is given by a=-sin(θ)\\*gm/m. The masses cancel to give a=-g\\*sin(θ), so we can conclude that the mass of the pendulum bob will not affect its motion.\n\nThen the angular acceleration (by which I mean the rate at which the angular velocity is changing) is equal to the acceleration of the pendulum bob divided by the length of the string, so we get θ''=-g\\*sin(θ)/l, where θ'' denotes the angle of the pendulum.\n\nThis is an example of an ordinary differential equation and it's actually quite difficult to solve. But you can approximate it - for small enough θ, sin(θ)≈θ. This process is called *linearization*. So we conclude that θ''≈-gθ/l, provided g is small. This is much easier to solve and the solution is θ=A\\*cos(√(g/l)\\*t), where A is the initial angle of the pendulum upon release.\n\nNow, the cosine function has a period of 2π, so cos(√(g/l)\\*t) has a period of 2π/√(g/l). This is where the formula for the period of the pendulum comes from, and you can see that it doesn't depend on A. \n\nNote that there was an approximation made - in reality, the period of a pendulum does depend somewhat on the angle of release (unless it is a [tautochrone pendulum](_URL_0_)), but for small angles, the effect is small and the approximation works well enough that pendulums were used for timekeeping for hundreds of years.\n\nA pendulum is an example of [simple harmonic motion](_URL_1_). This might be a useful term to search for if you want to find links on this."
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7jig5p | how do explosions work? and do different material explode harder than others? | Take gunpowder in cartridges for example. Would the velocity of the bullet decrease/increase if another kind of explosive powder/alchemical was used instead? And noticeably so? If say one would shoot through an iron breastplate, would a less explosive matter make the bullet stop in the breastplate while another would pierce, or is it only dependant on the shape and material of the bullet? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/7jig5p/eli5_how_do_explosions_work_and_do_different/ | {
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"Explosions are extremely fast chemical reactions that release large amounts of energy. Some of them release more energy or explode faster. I don't think a gun could withstand the pressure of most modern explosives inside the barrel. Gunpowder is relatively slow, and needs the pressure to propagate. To make bullets faster you can use more powder. You could use wider cartridge so it has more area to burn as the reaction moves down the cartridge and into the barrel but that doesn't help the reaction go faster once it is reacting in the barrel. You could make the barrel longer to give the powder longer to burn and accelerate the bullet. You could use a faster burning powder to accelerate a bullet more in the same barrel length. Or you could use a lighter bullet so it goes faster with the same charge of powder. There are limits to the materials making it impractical to just jam in as much of the most energetic and fastest burning power as you want into a large cartridge and having it still be practical. For something really high velocity look at 338 lapua magnum or 300 Winchester magnum. If you had no concerns about it wearing out quickly you could push velocity much higher.\n\n\nEdit: for shooting through tough materials the amount of gunpowder absolutely matters. Harder bullets that are narrower do better than softer fatter ones but velocity is super important too. If you took some of the powder out of a bullet that goes through a iron plate normally it might not go through any more. Depending of course on how much you took out.",
"An explosion is typically defined as a violent and rapid increase in volume of the explosive material, usually with the conversion of said explosive material to another form, be it a simple phase change from one state to another and the release of a considerable amount of energy in various forms. Most explosions that we are familiar with involve chemical compounds that when subjected to the appropriate stimulus, begin the chemical reaction that releases the energy and byproducts that form the explosion.\n\nThe explosion itself depends on the explosive substance in question and how its set off. C4 is a common explosive used for many purposes, and is a mixture of several other substances, including RDX (the main \"fuel\"), a plasticizer, a binding agent, and a small percentage of mineral oil. C4 requires what is known as a blasting cap or other explosive source to initiate the detonation process. C4 will not detonate otherwise, and even setting it on fire directly will not set it off. When it does detonate, the detonation front through the explosive clocks in at a little over 8km/s.\n\nAnother common explosive is called ANFO (Ammonium Nitrate Fuel Oil), widely used worldwide as a mining explosive. Unlike C4, it detonates at a much slower 3.2km/s, but is still a proper blasting agent. Like C4, it requires an initiation source of some kind to detonate, in this case typically a couple sticks of dynamite.\n\n\nNow, moving on to the gun questions.\n\n* Q: Would the velocity of the bullet decrease/increase if another kind of explosive powder/alchemical was used instead?\n\n*A*: Absolutely, its one of the reasons why there are many different types and brands of gunpowder available for purchase, as each powder burns differently under different conditions. A powder that may work wonders for shotgun slugs may have less than stellar performance for propelling a .22 cal bullet.\n\n* Q: If say one would shoot through an iron breastplate, would a less explosive matter make the bullet stop in the breastplate while another would pierce, or is it only dependant on the shape and material of the bullet?\n\n*A*: Gunpowder type and quantity have just as much an effect on bullet effectiveness as does the actual projectile itself. There was a recent Taofledermaus video on youtube where they were shooting some ridiculous slugs at 2000 feet per second that drilled right through bulletproof steel plate, and as a comparison they fired a Federal Foster slug at the same plate. The Foster slug failed to penetrate and made one hell of a dent in the plate, mainly due to its lower velocity. Video here: _URL_0_\n\nThe projectile itself also plays a pretty big role in how well it does it's job. A copper jacketed hollowpoint is going to have a harder time punching through that iron breastplate than something more solid, as the hollowpoint is primarily meant to impact flesh then dump its energy into flesh as fast as possible for maximum damage. A copper-jacketed solid round will go through better, with effectiveness improving as the shape becomes more pointed and the materials its constructed of harder and more dense. Its why armor-piercing tank rounds and the like use tungsten or depleted uranium as part of their composition. The materials are dense, will not deform easily under the enormous stresses of impact, allowing more energy to be delivered to a smaller area, improving the odds of the projectile getting past whatever protection being employed to kill the squishy inside. This all of course is dependent on the initial powder charge being strong enough to impart the requisite energy to the projectile in the first place. If it's not strong enough, the projectile may fail to penetrate the armor sufficiently, either getting lodged within the armor in question or failing to penetrate, thus allowing the victim to retaliate.\n\nHopefully that is enough to get the general gist of it across."
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9yuwx1 | how do video game display mechanics work? | On my PC, FPS shooters (COD BO4) get's between 90 and 110 FPS. I understand how the eye works and all that Jazz.
What I really want to understand is how things are updated FROM the PC side. How often is my characters information / position etc updated. By having powerful hardware I get the 110FPS, but is it actually giving me any more information or are some of those frames duplicates because the game hasn't displayed the next frame?
& #x200B;
Does that make sense? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/9yuwx1/eli5_how_do_video_game_display_mechanics_work/ | {
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"This is highly dependant on the game.\n\n & #x200B;\n\nOne semi-common option that some developer's do is tie the updates to the framerate (and lock the framerate when they do that). In those cases, you won't get a higher FPS with a better PC because the game is artificially limiting the rate to keep the physics working as expected. (There are some stories of games like this where if you remove the limit on the FPS everything in the game suddenly moves much, much faster). Additionally, this can be bad as a slow computer will run at a framerate less than expected, and the physics will slow down accordingly. Its done, but doesn't seem to be good game design.\n\n & #x200B;\n\nThe other common way that I know of is to just have 2 threads: one for graphics updates and one for physics updates. In this case, whether or not your 10000FPS actually shows you 100000 different unique frames per second is dependant on how often the developer chose to update things. Its possible that the physics only get updates 60 times a second, but your camera movements and character position (i.e. things that are based on user input and not on time) might be capable of updating much faster. (Pure speculation, but I bet most games \\*don't\\* do that, and instead update character/camera position at the same time a slice of physics is calculated. I may be wrong though)",
"It depends completely on developer how quickly and often the world data updates. Often it is quicker than graphics frame rate but sometimes developer lock the two together."
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zcasq | what is the point of making youtube videos not available on mobile? is there some benefit of doing this? | Edit: Sorry I'm getting back to this late. Thank you for all of your answers. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/zcasq/eli5_what_is_the_point_of_making_youtube_videos/ | {
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"Some mobile devices don't have ad support, people like getting paid for *their work.",
"There is a 10 year history here of the RIAA (Sony, Universal, Warner, etc) getting burned by the openness of the Internet. \n\nMobile devices provide a closed system, running only approved applications, providing a single store to purchase media from. Unlike PC's, which are open and uncontrollable, Mobile devices can be tightly controlled and regulated into a neat business plan. Instead of allowing Youtube to distribute content, they prefer Vevo, which they have more control over.\n\nELI5: Big companies like to make money"
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a28u8d | why does cold weather cause plants to lose their leaves/die? do plants have metabolisms that are slowed down in the cold? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/a28u8d/eli5_why_does_cold_weather_cause_plants_to_lose/ | {
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"It's usually not the cold weather, it's the lack of sunlight. In the winter, as the days grow shorter, there is less light for the leaves of the plant to collect and turn into energy. Having the leaves costs the plant energy and if they aren't collecting enough from the sun, then it's not worth it to have them. It's more efficient for the plant to drop its leaves, go into a lower energy hibernation and wake back up in the spring when there's more light."
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dabts8 | why do people have outerwear for their upper body (e.g. jackets, coats, etc.) but not for lower body/legs? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/dabts8/eli5_why_do_people_have_outerwear_for_their_upper/ | {
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"There is less blood-flow to the legs, so the blood reaching them doesn’t affect the core temperature of the body so much.",
"What about snow pants and rain pants? Although upper outerwear is alot more commonly used."
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67671c | why would the us have the best funded and best trained soldiers in the world still need to hire mercenaries? | [deleted] | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/67671c/eli5_why_would_the_us_have_the_best_funded_and/ | {
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"Mercenaries are sometimes cheaper depending on the operation. They are also 'displaced' from the central government's chain of command and influence, meaning that operations carried out by mercenaries are rarely publicized or known about outside of the contractors and clients. \n\nIn summary, mercenaries can be more cost-competitive and they are fairly quiet, publicly speaking. ",
"Merc's can still have better training and tactics for the area and per merc have better equipment. \n\nAlso you can easily sell out a merc or have the merc do something off the books and not officially be responsible. ",
"One potential reason is so that the government is not officially aware of the atrocities they are committing. ",
"If you refer to military contractors that was controversial in Iraq. A reason to use them is to reduce the number of solders you are using. \n\nIn 2006 the was 150 000 coalition troops in Iraq whew the largest part was 130 000 from the US. It was estimated that there was 100 000 contractors to the DoD in Iraq.\n\nIt looks better for a political to say that there was 130 000 US troops and ignore the contractors instead of 230 000 US troops. Contractors was not included in reports of number of dead and it not on the news. So it is quite clear that it politically beneficial to use contractor.\n\nBut using contractors it not necessary as bad as it sound. Construction workers, cooks, laundry personal etc are included in the figure. It it not strange to use contractors for things like that inside a base. \n\nThe contreversial part is using the as protection, convoy guards and driver where they are in harms way and they are armed and are allowed to fire back in self defense."
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2197ob | if the black box aboard mh370 is the most likely to have survived in the event of a crash, why are countries barely attempting to use instruments that can locate it. | I read that the U.S. Navy is sending an instrument that can detect the black box's ping even if it is 6000 meters below the water. Considering that: this has been such a large event, that the search has been on-going for over 2 weeks and that the transponder on the Black Box has a limited life, why is the search for the black box barely becoming an option, especially since it is the most likely part of the plane to survive a crash? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2197ob/eli5_if_the_black_box_aboard_mh370_is_the_most/ | {
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"Covering the entire search area is equivalant to driving each and every road in the entire United States while listening for a beeping noise miles away from each road.\n\nWhere do you start? Which roads do you drive first? Unless you wait until the search area has been narrowed down, you will expend a lot of effort and resources that could be put to better use later on.\n",
"The black box locator they're using needs to be [towed behind a ship at a speed of about 1-5kt](_URL_0_). That's very, very slow.\n\nBecause of the very slow speed of the locator, they need to find debris first to be sure of the location. They can do this in aircraft going 100 times as fast as the black box locator can go. Then, once they've found debris, the black box locator gets brought in to scour the exact area where the debris was found."
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11g3ln | why do many songs have the same four chord progression? | Uncountable songs all have the same progression - pop, indie, classical, you name it. This goes back to *at least* Pachabel.
Is there something scientifically/theoretically special about these chords together?
Are our ears just used to that progression and tend toward it? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/11g3ln/eli5_why_do_many_songs_have_the_same_four_chord/ | {
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"IIRC there have been scientists who have done studies that said people like to hear things that are familiar. Like stuff they've heard before. It triggers a dopamine reaction. Dopamine is a chemical in your brain that makes you happy. So when you hear that 4-chord progression, it sounds subconsciously familiar and therefore you like it, even if it's in a song you've never heard before. It sounds \"good\" to you and it sounds \"good\" to the artist when they made it. \n\nNow obviously it's more complicated than that, but that's basically my understanding of why we have so many 4-chord songs. ",
"It's mostly *Western* music that does this, because of our scale-system. Different cultures do different things, but *we* have identified [12 'primary sounds'](_URL_1_) on which to base our music. \n\nWhy 12? Why not 20? Or 50? That's to do with how well the human ear can distinguish between frequencies. The system isn't 100% perfect, but was 'close enough' for most people, and became the standard.\n\nEach tone has its associated chords. For example, if we decide that the first tone is C, then a 'C Major Chord' (by definition) must be comprised of [C, E, and G](_URL_0_).\n\nNotice, that you *already* have the note 'G' in a C Chord. So, when you're looking for a chord to transition to, it makes logical sense that you'd choose a G Chord, because you're already using one of the central notes. To go to something else (e.g.: B major, made of B, D#, F#) would be quite jarring, because your brain isn't 'prepared' for any of those notes. Or a more complicated example: A major (A, C#, E). Yes, this chord has the note 'E' in common, so why wouldn't you use it? Because the other note (C#) is in direct contrast with the root chord (C). So, by dint of chordal-structure, there are some combinations that just don't work as well.\n\nSo yes, partly it's conditioning. But there's also a real reason why some chords (the 'famous 4 chords') are used so frequently."
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4mj54s | why do some animals reject their young if they are exposed to human scent? | I don't understand why animals will risk their lives to protect their young but that maternal bond is seemingly dissolved if the offspring gets a whiff of human scent on it. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4mj54s/eli5_why_do_some_animals_reject_their_young_if/ | {
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"This is a common misconception perpetrated by your mother to keep you from messing with baby birds. While it is true that some animals will eat their babies after trauma. You touching them doesn't qualify as such. \n\nEdit: I cant spell unless my phone does it for me, it didnt. ",
"Smell and taste form the maternity bonding between a mother and a child in the case of some mammals (pheromones mediated). If the baby loses his scent the mother doesn't recognize it anymore and can be left to die, depending on the behavior of the species/breed.\n\nLet's take sheep for example: if labor and delivery occurs in outdoor conditions and rainy weather, the lamb may lost its scent and be left unclaimed by the ewe/mother. In some cases the farmer can take the lamb and scrub its forehead with other ewe's placenta forcing that sheep to recognize the lamb as hers. Or you can raise it as you would with a puppy.",
"They don't in most cases. Its just a tale parents tell children so they don't hurt baby animals by curiosity. \n\nBut now it's kind of backfired because parents even themselves believe it to be true, so when they see sometimes when people see a baby animal wandering around they assume its just abandoned and take it for their own. Sadly this usually just ends in the baby animals death, when if they just left it alone or returned it to its nest or den or whatever.... "
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a1kh6f | how do tax returns/refunds work in canada? | Hi everyone,I'm 17 and I just got a part time job but I have no idea how taxes work, I work in a federal job part time and this stuff is all confusing to me, who is eligible to file a tax return? What are they and why are they given out? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/a1kh6f/eli5_how_do_tax_returnsrefunds_work_in_canada/ | {
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"If you’re working and getting a paycheque, you need to file income tax. Early in 2019 (Feb - Apr) you will get a T4 and you will use that to file your taxes."
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7pq2ex | with all the wireless signals going around (mobile phone data, digital tv, text messages, phone calls, etc), how do they not interfere with each other? | Also how does a wireless signal find the receiving device? When I'm driving in my car and streaming media, how does the signal keep up? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/7pq2ex/eli5_with_all_the_wireless_signals_going_around/ | {
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"They're all on different frequencies for one thing; what ones that they use are regulated by national law and international treaty.\n\nThe wireless signal doesn't need to find your receiving device in particular; it's broadcast from the cellular masts in the area and your device acts as a receiver. Your little device will request what it wants and the relevant data comes down in various 'packets' that your device will grab from the transmission.",
"The signals don't interfere because they use different bands of wavelengths. They just pass right by each other.\n\nWireless signals are sent out in all directions, or in a broad range of directions. It doesn't need to \"find\" the receiving device: rather, the receiving device just needs to hear the transmitter. Think of it like this: when I am shouting at you in a room, my voice doesn't need to \"find\" you. I make noise that travels in pretty much every direction... you just need to hear it.\n\nWhen you're driving, you're moving at best maybe 80-100 mph. That's NOTHING compared to the speed that radio/cell/wifi signals travel. As far as the signal is concerned, you might as well be staying still.",
"They use different frequencies and wavelengths, meaning they will not interfere with one anotehr, and wireless signals don't actually rely on finding the correct the device, but are instead broadcasted and require the receiving platform to correctly identify traffic intended for it and to capture it.",
"If you have two devices sending at the same time using the same frequencies, they'll interfere with each other. But as long as the frequencies they use are a bit apart, the waves just go through each other without issue. \n\n > Also how does a wireless signal find the receiving device?\n\nMost of the time, the signal is just blasted in all directions, and can be received by all devices listening on that frequency. A connection between two devices is established through a process called arbitration: The way this usually works is that one device that wants to establish a connection sends a message saying something like \"Hi I'm device X, I want to send a message to device Y\". Y then responds with \"This is Y, I'm ready to receive your message\", followed by information when and how the data should be transmitted so they don't interfere with other devices using the same frequencies.\n\n > When I'm driving in my car and streaming media, how does the signal keep up?\n\nThis can actually be a problem. Since the signal moves at the speed of light, it has no problem catching up with the car - but it is altered by the doppler-effect, the same effect that makes a siren sound change as it drives past you. This can make a signal coming from a car interfere with a signal from a stationary object if they have frequencies really, really close to one another. Mobile data for example can drop if you're driving in a fast car.",
"Think of it like the alphabet.\nyou have several devices all broadcasting a separate letter.\nso you have device a)sending AAAAAAAAA\nand device b)sending BBBBBBBB\nand device c)sending CCCCCCCCC an so on..\nnow if you could see the radio spectrum it would look kind of like\nABCCBBAAACCDGGGSSSJJJJLLLLLLLLBBBASSBBKKK\nan alphabet soup if you would of all the different signals. Now the receiving devices are only set to receive their one particular letter, like your cellphone only looks for C's.. so in the above alphabet soup it would only pick up\nCCCC\nyour wireless router is set to only pick up B so it just receives\nthe BBBBBB's and so on..",
" First a disclaimer. I have not worked in this field in many years and so my information may be incorrect or out of date. That being said what is being said about changing frequencies and power levels (that are tightly controlled by law and international standards) is true but it is only part of the picture.\n\n Modern wireless communication is almost always some form of spread spectrum. That is the frequency of the broadcast is being changed constantly. So any interference will quickly be hopped away from. What's more is that your phone is not even receiving data in the form of \"bits\" (your basic ones and zeros) but in the form of \"chips\". A chip can be thought of as a vote for a one or zero so even if something interferes with some of the votes the rest make up for it so you get the right bit which is the data that matters. This also allows us to broadcast at even lower powers (since we are not worried about dropping a chip or two) and that allows us to cram even more devices in the air.\n\n As to the security issue there is a procedure not unlike the protocol that you laptop uses when you connect to a wireless router. It is for a couple of reasons a bit more secure than you WiFi network. The thing is whenever you use your phone you are receiving a half a dozen or so other phone calls but you can't decipher them because of these protocols. Think of it like trying to eavesdrop on a WiFi connection when you don't even have the password to the network much less the individual code that the target computer is using. So while anybody can hear your broadcast it is not practically possible to determine what you are saying/doing with your phone. Hope this helps you.",
"What everyone has said thus far is true, the different frequencies are used to cut down on inteference, but that doesn't mean interference doesn't exist between close frequencies. A lot of design work is set in place to keep signals from having too much \"phase noise\", or too high \"harmonic interference\" which will affect nearby frequencies.\n\nThings like WiFi use different channels to control interference, 2.4 GHz Wi-Fi only uses 14 channels but the standard is set up for only 3 channels to be used at a time so they don't overlap. (If you were to look up a Wi-Fi channels image you would see that some of the channels overlap in frequency)\n\nThe other thing I see mentioned is the coding that's used. What most new transmitters use is a digital code of random bits to modulate the data that wants to be sent in a specific way only known by the transmitter and by whoever wants to receive it. In the cell phone bands these signals are set up to be orthogonal to all other cell phone signals so only you and the person on the other line hear your call. (Orthogonal also means perpendicular, this whole thing is a way more complicated concept than what I can do in an ELI5) \n\nThis coding is very useful though and is actually a great way to keep signals from interfering with each other. The US uses CDMA for coding but another similar coding concept to this is DSSS (direct sequence spread spectrum) \n\nI can definitely talk more but typing this on my phone on the train, \n\nSource: PhD student in Electrical Engineering going on 6 years of experience in RF & wireless \n\n\nEdit: 14 Wi-Fi channels, realized I typed the wrong number",
"If you can accept that two radio stations can broadcast without interfering, then make the leap to every other signal. ",
"So far a lot of the answers are glossing around the interference issue, or giving incorrect information.\n\nIf you open your Wi-fi settings and see a dozen or more Wi-fi networks, those are all sharing the *same* frequencies. Even though there are multiple Wi-fi channels, there aren't enough to completely separate all of the different Wi-fi hot spots you often find in a typical neighborhood or building these days.\n\nPlus, consider the fact that all of the devices in your room are all communicating with the same router at the same time. They definitely all interfere with each other.\n\nThe correct answer is that a lot of interference happens, and a huge part of making mobile data and Wi-fi all work is dealing with that interference.\n\nThere are lots of techniques to try to minimize interference, even when multiple devices are all communicating using the same frequency. Using multiple antennas to pinpoint the direction of each device can help separate their signals, for example.\n\nHowever, a huge piece of it is that all forms of network communication involve a lot of re-trying and re-sending of data.\n\nInternet data packets are about 1500 bytes each. Voice data packets are typically only about 5 ms worth of audio data.\n\nYour device tries to send the packets to the router as fast as it can. Each packet has a lot of information about where it came from and its sequence number, and information about how to verify that it wasn't corrupted. The router acknowledges each packet. If a packet got dropped or the interference was too high, it asks for it to be transmitted again.\n\nThis retransmission normally happens so fast that the overall data stream is barely affected.\n",
"If you’re interested in learning more about RF and radio, check out r/amateurradio and consider getting licensed yourself! ",
"[This is a cool chart](_URL_0_) of how the US government allocates frequencies on the radio spectrum.",
"The devices frequency hop along their operating spectrum so that they don't interfere with each other. Thank [Hedy Lammar](_URL_0_) for discovering this.",
"Wi-fi signals do interfere with each others, especially with the old 2.4 ghz band. A new standard was developped using 5.0 ghz signal for wi-fi but on 2.4 ghz, it can get tricky when you're living in an apartment complex. All your neighbors are sending and receiving wi-fi signal on 2.4 ghz (unless they are tech savy enough to use 5.0 ghz) . You will get performance degradation (loss packets and slower internet).",
"So how would I explain to a five year old? Think of radio frequencies as different colors of lights. One place sends red another sends blue another sends what ever color. You can put on glasses to filter out different parts of the light spectrum and that's what the radio does. Very dumn down and can be expanded on, but that's the simple way of explaining it, remember this is ELI5. ",
"At the micro-level: how can one \"station\" talk to multiple \"users\" at the same time? A station is a cell tower and users are different phones. \n\nOne solution is called time-division. This is like a standard lecture: only one person speaks at a time, at a high \"volume\" and everyone else stays quiet. The cell tower rotates between speakers very fast, so each user gets a few milliseconds to speak before they go back in to the queue.\n\nAnother solution is frequency-division: users are told to speak at low \"volume\" but at different \"pitches\" so everyone can talk at once and the station can still differentiate between different conversations. \n\nAnother solution is coded frequency division: now each user is given a different \"pitch\" and a different \"instrument\" and the station listens to make sure each instrument is playing at the correct pitch and ignores instrument sounds at the wrong pitch. This can happen when the lecture hall has \"echoes\" and the \"echoes\" get distorted, or when the speaker is running around the lecture hall due to the doppler effect. So by assigning different instruments for different pitches, we can ignore most of the noise created by echoing speakers, i.e. if an instrument isn't at the correct pitch, we don't listen. \n\nYet another solution is called \"carrier-sense multiple access with collision avoidance\". Now everyone wants to talk at once, but before anyone talks, they wait for a silent moment. This is the \"carrier-sense\" part. Once you don't hear anyone else, you start talking: this is the \"collision avoidance\" part. If you realize someone else started talking at the same time, both of you stop talking for a random amount of time. This ensures that they don't try to speak at the same again. This is called random back-off.\n\nNow there might two people trying to talk to the professor at the same time at different ends of the room. They can't hear each other, so they both sense silence, and thus think they can talk but the professor can't listen to both at the same time. To solve this, each person waits for the professor to say \"Go on\" after each sentence, if the prof doesn't, they know they spoke at the same time, so both stop talking for a random interval. \n\nThankfully, these solutions are only needed at the micro-level: between a wifi access point and different devices or between phones and a single cell tower. The government allocates different frequencies for different uses. [Here's](_URL_0_) the full allocation table (this is a bit dated, it's just to show you how complicated it is). For most of the spectrum, you need a license from the FCC to broadcast a signal in it, and it's illegal to do so without one. \n\nSignals at different frequencies don't interfere with each other. So Verizon LTE buys an allocation from the FCC, as does AT & T LTE and AT & T LTE users don't compete with Verizon LTE users in the same area. TV and radio stations buy different bands etc so they don't interfere with cell communications. The FAA is given a frequency so that Air Traffic Controllers can always talk to planes and don't compete with other signals. Similarly, the military has reserved bands, as does GPS satellites and NOAA satellites to talk to weather balloons and ships at sea. All of these entities are licensed for a given band.\n\nWhat about WiFi and bluetooth? Since users don't have their own licenses, they have to use what are called Amateur Bands, bands allocated for amateur radio use without a license. In the table above, zoom into the 5th row labeled 3Ghz, near the very left end, you'll see 3 thin dark green bars labeled \"Amateur\" between the labels 2390 and 2450. This is the 2.4 Ghz WiFi bands. When standards committees were first implementing WiFi and Bluetooth, they were limited to this tiny area of the spectrum. ",
"Take two analog FM radios (not digital). Place them near each other.Tune one to some station in the upper end of the band... Tune the other down 10.7 MHz from than frequency. They will null each other out. Used to piss off my apartment neighbor :p",
"Electromagnetic fields have a property called 'linearity.' Two fields or waves from different origins can overlap in space without affecting one another. For example, the light from your headlights can propagate normally even though the sun is shining; the light beams just pass through one another.",
"The answers here don't really do a good job of ELI5, so I'll give it a shot:\n\nThere are a few different ways that wireless signals don't interfere with each other - first by \"amplitude\", but then either by separating by \"frequency\", or by \"code\".\n\nAmplitude is easy to understand, it's just loudness. And like with your ears, a devices ability to pick up a signal is not just based on the amplitude of the signal, it's the \"signal to noise ratio\". It's easy to hear someone whisper in a library, but you need to shout to be heard at a concert. Different types of wireless signals are allowed to be broadcast at different amplitudes by the FCC. So most signals (like a radio station) have to get approval on every location and every maximum power level because the signals are \"loud\" and meant to go a long way. Some signals (like some remote control devices or other low power devices) are even allowed to broadcast over the frequencies used by other entities because they are such low power they only go a few feet and won't interfere with other signals. And even non-wireless devices (like motors) can be regulated by the FCC if they give off noise that interferes in someone else's spectrum. The amplitude of the signal (and hence the signal to noise levels) are controlled by using directional antenna in some cases, by constantly adusting the power levels of the transmitter to be at the minimal required, or by using physical features (topography, or distance) to keep interference down. \n\nNext, signals are divided and regulated by frequency by the FCC. Heres a chart showing all of the frequncy \"bands\" and who uses them:\n_URL_0_\n\nYou can think about frequency like the pitch of sound. Imagine listening to your favorite song or an opera with the baritone singer and soprano singing at the same time (or bass guitar and lead guitar). You know how you can focus on just the bass line of the song or just the soprano and ignore everything else? Your wireless devices work the same way. They are tuned to just listen to a certain band of frequencies. Some devices (like radios or phones) can jump around to different frequencies within a subset of the whole radio spectrum, or even listen to multiple ones at the same time.\n\nFinally, within frequncy bands, some digital signals are divided by \"codes\", called \"spread spectrum\". There are various names for this (for example \"CDMA\" in the mobile phone industry), but the bottom line is that it's possible to differentiate two signals broadcasting on the SAME frequency by using codes. \n\nHeres an example to explain:\nImagine that you're a spy sitting on a hillside waiting for your instructions from someone across the valley. That other person will signal you by flashing their car headlights at a specified time. So at midnight you look in the direction of the car to get your instructions. If the headlights flash once, its a yes, if they dont flash it's a no. \nIf there are other cars and lights flashing in town, you can imagine that it might be easy to get confused. \nOne way your spy counterpart could ensure you get the signal is by buying super bright headlights (increase the signal to noise level). But engineers figured out another way, which is by using codes instead. So when he wants to send a \"yes\", he sends out a series of flashes (lets say \"on-off-on-off-off-on-on\") and the opposite of that for \"no\" (\"off-on-off-on-on-off-off). It turns out that by doing this, they are able to send a signal which is actually BELOW the noise level of the other lights in the valley. The errors you get in receiving the data are corrected (and in fact \"amplified\") by the redundancy of the codes. (The codes are also orthogonal, but thats beyond ELI5). So you can have multiple people sending signals at low levels using unique paired codes. This is how military planes can communicate with each other without being intercepted or even detected.\n\nSource: was formerly a wireless engineer, worked on mobile phone systems internationally. ",
"The best analogy that I can think of for how mobile phones work is to imagine that you have four people in a room. Three speak different languages, let's say English, Chinese and French, and the fourth person (the phone network base station) speaks all languages. Now the three 'phone users' talk to the base station, sometimes at the same time. The base station shouts out in every language. The room is very noisy but because each person knows how to recognise their own language they are able to pick out the words that are for them out of the noise. "
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4s9pwz | how do internet speed upgrades work? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4s9pwz/eli5_how_do_internet_speed_upgrades_work/ | {
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"You have to seperate 2 different elements:\n\n* technical upgrades\n* contract upgrades\n\nI will start with **contract upgrades** as it is easier.\n\nUsually your speed is not limited by technology, it's limited by software. Your user/modem/access-data is linked to a set on a database of your ISP. The settings for this entry of the databse define your properties.\n\nAn upgrade on this level is usually a switch on the database and a little waiting time to get this in effect. But there is a limit, that is set by the technical maximum speed.\n\nOk next the **technology upgrades**\n\nThose are way more complex, and way more expensive.\nAs there are several techologies with different ways to upgrade on the market it really depends on your ISPs choice/field of work.\n\nFor some of those upgrade new cables need to be put below the street or in your house. Others only need upgrades at junction points. Whereas some don't require physical changing and can be achieved via protocol changes within software or device-BIOS."
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emq7cw | what is os-level virtualization? | All articles I read are too high level for me. I want to understand this term to be able to understand what Docker does. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/emq7cw/eli5_what_is_oslevel_virtualization/ | {
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"In regular virtualization one physical server runs multiple instances of an operating system to keep users and their actions separate.\n\nIn OS-level virtualization, one *operating system* has multiple self contained partitions to achieve separation. So rather than have one OS per user, you have one OS for all the users, and the virtualization splits that one OS."
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5ld1ko | how are pop-up and generally annoying web ads viable? | Go to a news website, or any website in general, and you get bombarded with pop-up ads, ads that start playing videos automatically, etc. - how is this intrusive advertising even remotely beneficial to the advertiser anymore? It seems like this type of advertising would do more harm to their brand than help. Do they actually generate substantial traffic and revenue for the advertiser? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5ld1ko/eli5_how_are_popup_and_generally_annoying_web_ads/ | {
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"The same reason you get viagra and penis pill spam in your email.\n\nSome people are unbelievably stupid and willing to spend money to prove it.",
" > It seems like this type of advertising would do more harm to their brand than help\n\nI suspect most of us associate annoyance with the *ad* itself, but not the *brand* behind the ad (E.g., I know I don't hate Coke because of their annoying ads). It also doesn't matter much if ads are annoying. Half the job is making people remember. What annoying ads do? Make people remember. If we forgot them in 30 seconds they probably would be annoying in the first place. There's also a few interesting studies I've heard of about us being more receptive to the '*skip this ad in 5 sec*' type, because for that five second period we are paying attention to try and skip it asap, whereas on telly we zone out almost immediately. \n\n > Do they actually generate substantial traffic and revenue for the advertiser?\n\nThey don't even need to generate revenue directly or immediately. Many marketing things are long term and look like they are losing money on paper. Primarily, they just need to make sure you are aware of that brand. Do you know how often I see ads to [Grammarly](_URL_0_)? Sure, I find the ads annoying. However, I now *know* about the product and if I wanted a service like that it's the first one that comes to mind. Because of those ads, before I even used the service or product, I have a 'stereotype' of that product. People often use these stereotypes when making purchases. In this case, I'd be making a comparison between a complete unknown and something I've seen on an ad. For many, that's enough to change their decision and behaviour. ",
"Like many things, there's no one reason why the intrusive, annoying ads you describe are more common now than ever before. One reason is that the primary purpose of ads is to get the viewer to click on them, which requires being noticed. \"Traditional\" banner ads have been around for so long that most people just tune them out anymore, barely giving them a second thought. Ads which use pop-ups, cover the entire screen, or even force a video to autoplay, result in the viewer seeing them for a longer time. Most people will simply scramble to close the ad or pause the video, but others may find themselves attracted to the ad and thus more likely to click.\n\nAnother reason is that using intrusive ads may allow websites to have fewer overall ads because the intrusive ads pay far more. In April 2012, Dustin Rowles, a writer for Pajiba, [discussed their decision](_URL_0_) to use intrusive ads. He says that the banner ads paid just 30¢ for every 1000 views. By contrast, intrusive ads could pay as much as $30 for the same number of views, although Panjiba averages $7 per 1000 views. For them, the intrusive ads were seen as a necessary evil:\n > Those obnoxious intrusive ads that pay $42 a day are the *only* way a site like ours stays afloat. The day that we were accepted us into an intrusive ad network was one of the best days of my life, because it meant we could keep the site running.\n\nAdditionally, the \"everyone else is doing it\" defense seems fairly common. As a few companies began using intrusive ads, others saw it working well for those companies and jumped on the bandwagon. Randall Rothenberg, CEO of the Interactive Advertising Bureau, predicted in July 2014 that \"There’s at least an even chance that autoplay in interactive environments will become very much standard operating procedure.\" Unfortunately, his prediction seems to have proven correct.\n\nIn the end, however, regardless of the reason why the ads were introduced, the end result has been a user base that's growing increasingly frustrated with the intrusive ads, to the point where many people have boycotted entire websites because of it. Initially the idea was that using these ads would be mutually beneficial to websites and advertising companies, making them both more money, but it majorly backfired. So, the answer to your question of \"Do they actually generate substantial traffic and revenue for the advertiser?\" is probably no. In fact, in some cases, they may ultimately *decrease* overall revenue.",
"The dude that invented the pop-up apparently publicly apologised recently for his invention. Can't remember any more details but should be easy to google as I cba"
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28ryh2 | why can't buying a car be as simple and pleasant as buying any other commodity? | Why can't car dealerships be similar to other retail establishments? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/28ryh2/eli5_why_cant_buying_a_car_be_as_simple_and/ | {
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"Because car salesmen work on commission. The more you spend, the more they make. Getting you to buy just a couple of extra things can mean thousands in commission for the salesman. You have an office full of aggressive, Type A personalities, so it's a more competitive environment than your average retail store.",
"Same reason why when you purchase a house its a huge deal, the larger the amount of money, the more you reason that you should be able to lower the price a 0.5% which translates sometimes into a couple hundred dollars. So people generally try to go for that extra savings because the things are worth so damn much.",
"because normally people don't have the money or available credit to buy cars the way they buy groceries. Car dealerships have to see if anyone is willing to loan you $25,000 to buy something.",
"Saturn gave it a go and had quite a bit of success in the 90's with their \"no haggle\" prices. Sadly, the 2000's brought nothing but problems. Their new models were not well received and they suffered from strained relations with the UAW and GM. Once the bailout happened they got killed off along with Pontiac and Hummer. I was sorry to see them go as I had one in the 90's. They were well made, cheap cars that got good mileage and were fun to drive."
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56a2qu | what roles do central banks, commercial banks and/or banking system play in capitalism? | Googled. Some pages don't even list banks/banking with capitalism. Some say banks/banking are the heart of capitalism. Confused. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/56a2qu/eli5_what_roles_do_central_banks_commercial_banks/ | {
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"Capitalism as a general concept isn't really relevant to the question. Central banks set interest rates (basically). Commercial banks are retail banks, so they sell financial services to the masses. The banking system on the whole is known generally as the heart of the economy because it pumps money into everything. Hope that helps."
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bbmiww | what are the implications/pros and cons of having an economy built on a few big businesses vs many smaller businesses? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/bbmiww/eli5_what_are_the_implicationspros_and_cons_of/ | {
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"There is no hard-and-fast rule for this. In theory, a bigger business can take advantage of [economies of scale](_URL_0_) and use their large size/market share to deliver lower prices.\n\nHowever, in a market that has a small amount of competition, there's also less incentive to be efficient and bring the price down. Plus, a large, powerful company may also use it's power to prevent new, possibly more efficient, companies from entering the market.\n\n & #x200B;\n\n**TL;DR** It depends."
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1jzq0y | why do most countries in the world prefer parliamentary(unicameral) systems vs. congressional (bicameral) ones? | why does virtually all of Europe, Japan, most of the middle east, and even France who is a Republic prefer this Parliamentary system against a Congressional one? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1jzq0y/eli5_why_do_most_countries_in_the_world_prefer/ | {
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"It's more representative. Works a lot better for minor parties. Could be more difficult to govern. Trying to build coalitions amongst the varying parties can be difficult. Of course the US government is running like absolute shit right now, so the first past the post system doesn't seem very effective either right now.",
"Whether a system is unicameral or bicameral has no bearing on whether it is congressional or parliamentary. \n\nUnicameral parliaments have one chamber, whereas bicameral have 2. The uk for example is parliamentary but it is bicameral. There is a House of Commons (aka representatives) and a House of Lords, similar to the senate in the US.\n\nThe difference between parliamentary and congressional (although those aren't strictly accurate terms IMO) is the strictness of separation of powers. \n\nParliamentary systems have separation of power only between the judiciary and everything else. The legislature and the executive are not separated. \n\n\nThe logic is that cabinet (the executive) forms part of the lower house. Most often it is made up of the senior members or whichever party holds the majority in the lower house. This comes from the principle of parliamentary supremacy. The idea is that you vote in a party, they have a plan and they have enough of a majority that they can pass most of the laws they need to implement it, unless the Lords block them. \n\nThis is a strong government system which arguably makes it quicker and easier for government to respond to things than the US congressional system. The US system, expressly makes it hard for government to do stuff, which is why you get congressional deadlocks and the like, by contrast parliaments make it easier for the party that is in power to do things, although it still has ways for government action to be blocked.\n\n\nEdit: also both Japan and France have bicameral systems, in France the National Assembly and the Senate make up parliament while in Japan I believe the National Diet is made up of the house of councillors and the House of Representatives\n"
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2erkt2 | why is it socially acceptable to boil lobsters alive? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2erkt2/eli5_why_is_it_socially_acceptable_to_boil/ | {
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"Because when they are dead and left uncooked, they become poisonous and make humans sick",
"because how you kill something is less important than how you treat them while they live.",
"Well for starters, tradition. We also don't believe they feel pain the way we do due to a much simpler nervous system. Even if they did, shock and death would set in about as quickly as trying to kill them before hand. Butchering animals is never going to be a positive experience for the animal.",
"The biggest reason is that lobster is delicious. If you kill it first and then boil it the meat gets tough and rubbery.\n\nThe accepted reason is that all shell fish have a lot of bacteria. The risk of food poisoning is lowered by boiling them alive.",
"It's socially accepted mainly because it's tradition, and partly because when people want to eat lobster they want it to be as fresh as possible because they know that a spoiled lobster will make them *very* sick. \n\nOne reason for this is a wide belief that lobsters become poisonous if killed before cooking. This is not true. They do, however, rapidly spoil if left uncooked for a while, but they are edible if killed just prior to cooking. Commercially sold lobsters are commonly killed and frozen prior to cooking, while lobsters sold at restaurants are almost always cooked alive.\n\nOne reason is that when a lobster dies, it's tail loses its elasticity and ability to curl under the body. When a lobster is cooked alive though, it will curl it's tail under the body prior to dying. So the curled tail has become a sign of freshness, and people don't want to take the risk of becoming seriously ill so they generally won't accept lobsters that doesn't show that sign of freshness. ",
"Because they are bugs.",
"Most restaurants kill the brain just before boiling them now."
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3qzakk | why does leap day have to be feb 29 (why can't we subtract that day from other months)? | Weird enough that February already only has 28 days while other months have at least 30, then we have to add the leap day to that every 4 years. Why? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3qzakk/eli5why_does_leap_day_have_to_be_feb_29_why_cant/ | {
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"When Julius Caesar came into power, there was a 355 day calendar. Every few years, a leap month was added to correct for changes in the dates when seasons began. This extra month was February and it was even shorter back then. As a result, February has historically been the strange month designed to adjust the length of the year. \n\nAnother issue was that July and August are named after Julius and Augustus Caesar. Julius didn't want either of those months to be short, and therefore less important, than any other month. To keep both of those months at 31 days, February was shortened to compensate. ",
"You can thank the Romans for that.\n\nOriginally the year began in March and had 10 months. At first the winter at the end of the year didn't really have any months so it wasn't important that these month-less winter days were not really as long as two whole months.\n\nLater they divided that winter time into two months that were both shorter than the others. January had 29 days and February 28.\n\nThey had some complicated method of fixing their calendar to align the natural cycles of months and years with their calendar, by inserting entire leap months after February (shortening it even more in the process) but it didn't really work very well.\n\nJulius Caesar reformed the whole thing by introducing his Julian Calendar and switching the beginning of the year to January and making January a month of normal length, but leaving February as short as it had always been.\n\n(The whole moving the beginning of the year back two months is why month with obvious number meaning like **Sept**ember, **Oct**ober, **Nov**ember and **Dec**ember are not the 7th, 8th, 9th and 10th month as their name would imply.)\n\nWhen we switched to the currently used Gregorian calendar, the shortest month of the year made for an obvious place to add an extra day every four years or so."
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9moqtn | how would me turning off faucets in between brushing, taking shorter showers, etc help with water conservation? in other words, can the little things done in the home actually make an effect? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/9moqtn/eli5_how_would_me_turning_off_faucets_in_between/ | {
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"I mean... yes. I stopped washing my clothes with my own water and dryer, the electricity and the water bill went down noticeably. It took us more time and more money to wash our own clothes, which says a lot about our eco-friendly efforts or lack thereof.",
"Absolutely. Avg person in the USA uses between 80-100 gallons a day. \n_URL_1_\n\nNow in the UK 🇬🇧 they use 1/4 the water we do. \n_URL_0_:\n\nSimple things add up. ",
"The average person uses about can 100 gallons of water per day. A shower might use 2.5 gallons per minute and a sink may be 1. If you shorten your shower by 4 minutes and leave the sink running for 5 fewer minutes a day, you'll reduce your water consumption by 15%\n\nIf you and the rest of the country do it(~300M), that's a savings of 1.5 billion gallons of water per day\n\nLittle things add up quickly and most faucets have significantly higher flow rates than you'd expect",
"Your biggest water consumption is probably the meat you eat. About 2400 gallons of water is used to grow a pound of meat. ",
"I'm sorry, but I have to ask: why would you not turn off the faucet while brushing your teeth? You wet your toothbrush, and then you brush for two to three minutes without needing any water. Why would you not turn off the faucet in between?"
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"https://www.google.com/search?client=safari&hl=en-us&ei=PqC8W-jkBMLwsQXf45SQCA&ins=false&q=average+water+consumption+per+person+per+day+by+country&oq=average+water+use+per+person&gs_l=mobile-gws-wiz-serp.1.1.0i71l5.0.0..45654...0.0..0.0.0.......0.Ihb1_NxXfUA#imgrc=ClqxLfY7sXz9MM",
"https://water.usgs.gov/edu/qa-home-percapita.html"
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1t2i01 | how come people can "feel" like they're being watched? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1t2i01/eli5_how_come_people_can_feel_like_theyre_being/ | {
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"Its a combination of things, but in Western society, those feelings are mostly caused by the stereotype of \"I'm being watched\" and the scary movies/books that go along with it. How it probably got started though are traits given to us by evolution. After millions of years of evolution, animals that knew (or had their instincts tell them) when they were being hunted were favored and became the majority. Small things like noises that maybe only your sub-concious picked up on or movements in your peripherals would trigger this feeling and subsequently release adrenaline making you more prepared for attack.\n\nTL;DR: The Western scary movie stereotype of the \"I'm being watched\" feeling and our instincts cause it.",
"[It's hardwired](_URL_1_). Whether there's anyone there or not our brains get that \"sixth-sense\" that we're being looked at when we're feeling exposed, around people whose eyes you can't see, or even paintings whose eyes are aligned just right. You can look at it as an evolved \"early warning system\" that makes us more aware of our surroundings, but more study is needed to determine if it's always been there or if it's a more recent development. Walking by a large bush at night and getting an eerie feeling would make you more prepared if something did actually jump out at you. And to make it even more interesting, as the article states: someone with autism has a harder time knowing if someone is looking at them even when, to a non-autistic person, it's perfectly obvious, or someone with social anxiety is positive they're being watched (not necessarily looked at) when, to a non-social anxiety person, it's obvious they're not.\n\n*Edited Disclaimer*: The next paragraph is mostly anecdotal (or \"bullshit\" according to some commenters =) ), about my experience with this feeling of being watched as someone with pretty intense social anxiety. At the time I wasn't expecting to be the top answer so I didn't cite more sources, I apologize. It's not completely understood by neuroscience, whether it's learned or genetic, and is treated as part of social anxiety. [_URL_3_](_URL_0_) has many, many threads about different people's experiences.\n\nSimilarly, there's a disorder called [Scopophobia](_URL_2_), \"an anxiety disorder characterized by a morbid fear of being seen or stared at by others\". While I'm not crippled by it as a phobia demands, I do have social anxiety about having too much attention drawn to myself, and get intensely uncomfortable around cameras. I used to take very long (3-4 hours) midnight walks and it took me a lot of practice to stop being hyper-aware of bushes or people's houses, living in a crowded city is not always pleasant, so being unseen for a while is the only way to really relax.",
"Anyone else notice something like a subtle change in air pressure or temperature when someone is near us? Also something like a subtle ringing or buzzing sound or maybe a vibration? I think this might contribute to our awareness of being watched. Maybe I am just imagining things though.",
"It doesn't only happen at night, but is more likely to happen when you are alone. \n\nThis is a useful trait in animals, evolution has selected animals that are more fearful. If you are scared MORE often than you need to be and run away when sometimes you didn't need to you will live and go on to breed, if you are scared LESS often than you need to be and don't run away when you should, you will be eaten by a predator and your genetic line ends. \n\nThis means that as animals we tend to imagine monsters in the dark, and be scared of small noises when we're alone in the house, and imagine we are being watched (whether we are or not)\n\n\nPersonally I believe this is why people imagine they see ghosts, and why children think there are monsters under the bed, and possibly why we have any belief in the supernatural at all. Imagining something is there when it isn't is actually a useful genetic trait!\n\nThen also people often think their ability to feel they are being watched is some sort of magic power but I think it is due to a combination of things:\n\n\n1) Confirmation bias. \nHumans often have a feeling of being watched (dues to evolutionary processes), and then when you turn around and see that you are being watched you will remember it as having a 'sixth sense'. You will forget the times when there was nobody looking.\n\n2) Sometimes you CAN tell you're being watched.\nYou might see someone's head turn towards you out of the corner of your eye, or spot the position of their body. It's possible that you can perceive things in your peripheral vision without consciously realising.\n\n3) You might combine the feeling of being watched with the feeling of someone 'creeping up behind you'\nOften you can tell when someone approaches you from behind - you might see imperceptible changes in shadows, or you might 'feel' other environmental changes like a difference in the way the sound echoes through the room, or they might give themselves away with a small noises that only your subconscious notices.\n\nI think all these combine to make people think they have some sort of sixth sense, but they don't really!\n",
"I've read before that this sensation can be explained be also looking at the other scenarios... \n\n\n1. you're being watched and you notice\n\n\n2. you're being watched and you don't notice\n\n\n3. you're not being watched and you notice\n\n\n4. you're not being watched and you don't notice. \n\n\nsince you won't remember things that you don't notice, and most of the time you won't bother remembering something as pointless as no one watching you, that leaves option number 1 being the only scenario worth remembering and can give the illusion that you have some secret spidey-senses tingling. ",
"Latent psychic powers.",
"They actually can't. A study was done where people were covertly watched, and then later asked if they had sensed being watched. They responded no more accurately than if they had been guessing.\n[source](_URL_0_)",
"There are two types.\n\nPeople who think they can detect or feel others are being watched. These people are not psychic, they just believe in the occurrence and occasionally are right, thus reinforcing their misplaced psychic powers or non rational explanation.\n\nThe other type are people who's mental capacity is able to take into account their personal situation, who've they have seen on their way to a location, the time of day, the probability of such an occurrence, and factor all of these things repeated a hundred times as each variable changes and adds up. These people are occasionally right but its because they are situationally aware.\n\nTL;DR. Some people use intuition and figure out their immediate situation. Others are going to tell you they have magic powers because it makes them feel good that they can detect things and detecting things only reinforces their belief in magic.",
"This is why you should look slightly to the side of a person you are stalking, use those peripherals.",
"That's perfectly normal paranoia, everyone in the universe gets that.",
"Well I think it's because you're not feeling comfortable while walking at night, because you're scared or any other reason. So you're listen to every sound and watch every movement. When something happens you can counter anything that would happen. There is always someone looking at you, you don't always notice it because you're comfy and relaxed.\n\ne.g: It's like when you're in class and you need to answer a question, you feel everyone is looking at you. But when you're just sitting in class listening to the teacher, the girl/boy behind you might be looking at you because he/she likes you and you wouldn't notice.",
"We are animals. Don't ever forget that. ",
"Just a thought, but peripheral vision in humans is very good and we often see things but don't perceive them consciously. Could the feeling be partly attributed to this? ",
"As an aside: has anyone else but me NEVER experienced this sensation? I literally don't know what people are describing when they talk about this.",
"ITT: Assumption, a lot of it.",
"Sometimes I feel like someone's watching me, can't get no privacy"
]
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| []
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[],
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"http://www.socialanxietysupport.com/forum/",
"http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/science-news/9989623/Feeling-of-being-watched-hardwired-in-brain.html",
"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scopophobia",
"SocialAnxietySupport.com"
],
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"http://www.csicop.org/si/show/can_we_tell_when_someone_is_staring_at_us/"
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||
5br8ui | why do we say "mister/madame president" but not "monsieur/madame president"? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5br8ui/eli5_why_do_we_say_mistermadame_president_but_not/ | {
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"Probably because in English, \"Madam\" has a formal quality that \"Mrs.\" doesn't. \"Mrs.\" particularly is a married name, implying her name is secondary to her husband's (which she probably took). Usage, I'm going to guess perfectly seriously, cemented by Battlestar Galactica."
]
} | []
| []
| [
[]
]
|
||
1rwfhg | how can companies like mozilla make profit by providing open-source software like firefox, if its code is available to everyone to view and edit? | How can you make profit by engaging your business in open-source software? It looks like that's profiting from community (suckers?) that builds and improves the code?
Thanks for the answers! | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1rwfhg/eli5_how_can_companies_like_mozilla_make_profit/ | {
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"The critical thing to understand is that a business built around open source software does *not* usually want to make money from the software itself. Instead, they have a different product that benefits in some way from the existence of the free software; this can be directly related to the free software like technical support, or the benefit could be much more indirect simply from many people using the free software.\n\nFor example, the Software company Red Hat makes a Linux distribution, Red Hat Enterprise Linux. Their business model is to give away the software to get companies using it, then they make money providing technical support for those companies.\n\nAnother example: Google has Chrome. Chrome is free and open source, so it is not Google's plan to make money from Chrome directly. Instead, Google makes money from online advertisements. It's been extensively researched that users turn away from a web page very quickly if it's slow, so it's very good for Google if users use fast web browsers. That's why it's good for Google to make a very fast web browser and give it away for free: it will have benefits for Google elsewhere.\n\nIn a similar vein, Google is pretty much providing 93% of Firefox's money. With Firefox and Chrome in the market, competitor Internet Explorer will *have* to make their browser better to stay competitive. Now, *all* the web browsers around are getting faster, which is even more better for Google.\n\n**tl;dr**: the basic idea is to give something useful away for free, hoping that many people will start using it, then charge for additional services that get the most out of your free thing."
]
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[]
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|
2up8l8 | how does the mercenary business work? is it a legal enterprise? | I know there are private military contractors like Blackwater. How does all that work? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2up8l8/eli5_how_does_the_mercenary_business_work_is_it_a/ | {
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"text": [
"Blackwater is a grey area. They claim to be a private security firm and totally deny that they are mercenaries.\n\nMercenaries are illegal under article 47 of the geneva convention.",
"The term mercenary is a bit general, referring to those willing to fight or even kill in exchange for money.\n\nYou can hire people to *guard* people/things legally.\n\nYou can not hire people to *attack* people/things legally.",
"I agree with Msj2705. Most mercenaries are really guards. I have friends who did the contracting thing after we left the USMC. They mostly just guarded bases in Afghan and throughout the Middle East. ",
"Blackwater--which changed its name to Xe in 2009 and again to Academi in 2011 to try and remain under the publicity radar--is a company that employs and contracts out mercenaries. You can lather on all the corporate spin bullshit you want on that, it doesn't distract from the fact that they are mercenaries.\n\nThe US started using them in the Iraq war as \"security contractors,\" partially because of the popular conservative myth that a private company can always do things cheaper and more efficiently than a government agency, but also because they were a quick and easy way to get dirty jobs done without anyone in the government being accountable for their actions. \"Oh, the Blackwater guys got all trigger-happy and massacred a bunch of civilians? Gee, that's too bad, but they aren't US soldiers, it's really out of our hands. We'll write a stern memo to Blackwater management and ask them to be more careful in the future.\"\n\nIt's typically not against any specific laws to be employed as a mercenary, as long as you're not conducting operating in your own country, or working for a country yours is engaged in hostilities with."
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2rblin | when girls exercise, why do our abs feel cold even when we are sweating? does this happen to guys? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2rblin/eli5_when_girls_exercise_why_do_our_abs_feel_cold/ | {
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"I'm a guy and this happens to me from time to time.\n\nWhen you exercise your body is focused on pumping blood to the muscles that you're using. So if you're running your body wants to get blood to your legs. While your body is focused on getting blood to your legs, it cares less about digesting food in your stomach and will take away some of the blood that would normally go to your stomach area. The lower amount of blood leads to less body heat there."
]
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| []
| [
[]
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|
||
5fm995 | how do other planets affect ours? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5fm995/eli5_how_do_other_planets_affect_ours/ | {
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"Not a thorough answer, but the Sun comprises 99.8% of the mass, meaning the planets only make up .2% of the mass, with Jupiter and Saturn making up most of that. Jupiter acts as a shield against asteroids with its massive gravitational pull. \n_URL_0_",
"People argue that Jupiter either helps shield earth from incoming asteroids, or it pulls asteroids from outside the solar system into the inner circle and puts us more at risk. Mercury has a chance of crossing orbital paths with ours. Mars is close enough that people think the possibility of colonizing it will save humanity's butt as we destroy the earth. Some people base their life decisions on their positioning at a given time.\n\nThat's about it. They are too far away and relatively small to have much more of a profound effect.",
"They have very little effect at all. Technically their gravity influences us, but such effects are negligible compared to the moon (which is so close) and the sun (which is profoundly more massive). Hence when you hear about tides, you hear about them being caused by the moon and to a lesser extent the sun.\n\nJupiter may influence our climate on large time scales, although I think there is debate in that subject, through influencing our axial tilt. Otherwise it may have functioned as protector, as others have noted. A lot of people think the moon did as well, but in truth it is too small and too far to offer much protection."
]
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||
ev0xj6 | why do marshmallows harden? | Does this have to with the sugar crystalizing?
I read something about it being the gelatin, but this also happens with vegan marshmellows, whose binding agent is (i think:) carrageenan.
many thanks | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/ev0xj6/eli5_why_do_marshmallows_harden/ | {
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"It dries out. Most food has some water content in it. When we seal the bad it keeps most of the water in as the air in side reaches and equilibrium with the food for moistness level. When we leave a bag open suddenly there is a whole lot more air to try to reach stasis with."
]
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| [
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|
1pg3n0 | who exactly is jd power and association? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1pg3n0/eli5_who_exactly_is_jd_power_and_association/ | {
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"And how the hell can they hand out awards like candy",
"You pay them to give you awards. \n\nTheir awards mean nothing. ",
"Jd Power and Associates is a marketing research firm that claims to be global in scope.... it isn't. It was founded by a great guy JD power in 1968 in Westlake, Ca, but the sold to McGraw Hill, several years ago. At one time they were as highly regarded as Consumer Report in their research, but they name recognition has declined. Their reports are either annual reports which they do and the provide subscribers and sell the rights to use the JD Power award in advertising, or hired to do custom research and reports\n\nTheir reports were a great way to track find and actual solve problems with autos, because they include actual customer comments. "
]
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