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39i2iy | who is charlemagne and how am i related to him? | I'm of a European descent and I saw in an askreddit thread that most everyone of a European descent is related to Charlemagne. Who is this guy and how would all these people be related to one guy? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/39i2iy/eli5who_is_charlemagne_and_how_am_i_related_to_him/ | {
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"Charlemagne founded a big empire in the 8th century that spanned much of modern France, Italy, the Netherlands, Switzerland, Belgium, Germany, and Italy. He also had a bunch of kids and is a pretty famous character in history.\n\nThe catch here is that there's nothing that really makes charlemagne special in terms of how people are related to him. The really unsettling thing is as follows:\n\nIf you take everyone who is alive today, and try to backtrack their family tree, you'll find a lot more cousin on cousin incest then would be acceptable these days. In fact, in order for there to not have been, there would have needed to be hundreds of millions of people living in Europe in the 8th century (there weren't). \n\nPeople are far more closely related than you might think and pretty much everyone in Europe is related to just about any person that had a bunch of kids and lived back then.\n\nGenghis Khan, another famously prolific conqueror has hundreds of millions direct descendants alive today.",
"Charles the first, also known as Charlemagne, was the King of the Franks in 768 and quickly united most of Western Europe. He is particularly known for being the first emperor in Western Europe since the collapse of the Western Roman Empire in 476 and for laying the groundwork for modern France and Germany.\n\nAs for how you are related, it is mainly an anecdote..but there is a bit of truth to it. If you trace back your family line through genealogy, you can see that many of us have common ancestry. As a king who ended up having 18 children, spread across Europe, it is entirely possible that you can trace your line back up to him.\n",
"Big Chuck was mostly noted for being the guy who almost single-handedly finished the job the Romans had started a few centuries earlier, that of spreading Christianity throughout Europe at the point of a sword.\n\nHis favorite party trick for spreading the Love O' Jesus was to ride into a town of pagans and start chopping off heads until the locals agreed that maybe there WAS something to this Jesus thing after all.\n\nThen he'd send random patrols back to make sure people weren't backsliding, and lop off a few more heads if they were.\n\nThe Vatican made him \"Holy Roman Emperor\" for that.\n",
"He was the first great post Roman Empire leader in Western Europe.\n\nLike anyone living at the time who had a bunch of kids, he is likely the ancestor of most people of European descent. And since he is famous, it might be easier to track you bloodline back to him.\n\n"
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ahvzo2 | ear and throat connection | Why is it that when I use a cotton bud to clean my ears that as soon as I push it inside I start coughing? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/ahvzo2/eli5_ear_and_throat_connection/ | {
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"I have the same \"condition\". It happens because a branch of the vagus nerve travels too close to the ear canal lining, making it possible to stimulate it mechanically. This stimulation triggers the cough reflex. It isn't anything you need to worry about, just a cool feature of your body.",
"Coughing from stimulation of the external ear canal is called 'Arnold's reflex'. At least 30% of people have this normal reflex. It is indeed due to stimulation of a branch of the Vagus nerve called Arnold's nerve that supplies sensory innervation to the external ear and ear canal. Stimulation of this nerve can trigger the vagus mediated cough reflex, as the vagus nerve is involved in the afferent and efferent cough pathways."
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8i8zri | fruits or vegetables which are high in certain vitamins. are they of actual use to the plant or just a by product or both? | If they are used do they perform different functions in each plant? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/8i8zri/eli5fruits_or_vegetables_which_are_high_in/ | {
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"I mean, the vitamins are produced for some function in the plant\n\nvitamin E for example is an antioxidant, which is used to counter some of the effects of oxidizing agents which can cause protein and DNA damage. One large factor in the production of oxidizing agents is UV radiation from the sun, so plants grown in areas with a lot of sunlight probably produce a lot of vitamin E (almonds, swiss chard, avocado, etc.)\n\nvitamin B2 is important in energy production. And one of the biggest uses of energy in plants is plant growth. So plants that grow a lot or grow quickly probably are using a lot of energy, so they probably need higher amounts of vitamin B2.\n\nIt's rare that any organism would have a lot of anything that it isn't using, because it takes energy to make a lot of molecules. So if it were just some product of a reaction, the plant would likely have some way to break it down into something functional, or dispose of it. It wouldn't just hold onto an excessive amount of random junk that it won't use.",
"They perform different functions, which are very similar functions to our own bodies. But our own bodies cannot make vitamins. That's why we need to eat those plants, or other sources.\n\nVitamins (Vital Amines/amino-acids) are things our bodies need to keep working properly, but we can't make them. We need to get them from our diet."
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3tfesw | how do "stations" on a radio work? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3tfesw/eli5_how_do_stations_on_a_radio_work/ | {
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"You will notice that each station will be a certain distance from the next, numerically that is. This distance is to ensure that you won't get any overlap of signal. \nFM stands for frequency modulation. Meaning the Frequency, measured in MHz, is what you're changing. \nAM is Amplitude Modulation. Meaning you're changing the Amplitude (simplified \"height\") of the wave.",
"You know how your eyes see red and green and blue? Those colours are just electromagnetic waves at different frequencies. Red is about 430 million megahertz and blue is about 750 million megahertz. The cones/rods in your eyeball can resonate with and therefore \"see\" the electromagnetic waves at those frequencies. \n\nRadio stations use the same electromagnetic waves. Each station is assigned a \"colour\". The local rock station might get assigned \"blue\" at 90 megahertz and the local talk radio station is given \"red\" at 0.85 megahertz. Of course they're not really red and blue; the frequencies are literally millions of times slower than visible light. But picture in your head the radio waves from the rock station are bright blue and the radio waves from the talk radio station are bright red. \n\nThe radio is tuned to resonate with just one of those colours. If the radio was an eyeball you'd put some tinted glass in front to block out the unwanted colours. It's pretty much the same thing for a radio except the \"tinted glass\" is a small coil of wire, a capacitor, and some diodes. On an old radio when you turned the dial you were changing the length of the coil of wire and the overlap of the capacitor plates. On a modern radio they use some very funky integrated chips to do basically the same thing in software, as it is more reliable and much cheaper. \n\nThe trick then is getting something useful out of the light. With AM radio the intensity of the light is used. So the light flickers between very bright and very dim. With FM radio the colour of the light is very slightly changing hue, so that rock station varies between navy blue and ocean blue. Turns out FM is better for quality and AM is better for distance. ",
"This brings up a question I've wondered for quite some time. How is information transmitted on a radio wave?",
"A good analogy I've heard is this. Picture when you throw a rock into a lake. The circles expand in every direction and finally fade out. That's precisely how radio waves emit.",
"I'm adding that originally radio stations ended in odd numbers (101.1, 97.3, 92.1) because the first radios -- back when the technology was new -- couldn't be \"fine-tuned\". Thus the person spinning the dial would have had a difficult time getting \"101.2\" from between \"101.1\" and \"101.3\". Thus they left spaces between.\n\nFor similar reasons, a signal from a station on \"101.2\" would often \"bleed\" into the signals being broadcast on \"101.1\" and \"101.3\", ruining the transmissions of all three. Thus another reason for odd station numbers.",
"The radio is tuned to resonate at a specific frequency. Let's say you want to listen to 102.3, a rock station. In Mhz, that means 102,300,000 cycles per second.\n\nImagine you have a tub filled with water, set to a very specific size. Now imagine you slosh it back and forth. If you slosh it quickly, the water might get frothy but not spill over. Slosh it slowly and it'll just sit there. At the right time, the waves will get bigger and bigger until it spills over.\n\nRadio works similarly. At 102.3Mhz, the tub (capacitors) is just the size to slosh normally. At a higher frequency, it won't build up very well. Tuning the radio changes the size and shape of the tub, and the frequencies where sloshing happens."
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3vg7p1 | how do you measure gravity? | I understand there are ways to calculate gravity based on mass and distance, sure. But I also know that gravity varies... that the gravity in Phoenix is not equal to the gravity in Tokyo.
Instead of a calculation, how can you actually measure the net acceleration of gravity at any given point in space? How fast is my toe accelerating toward earth? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3vg7p1/eli5_how_do_you_measure_gravity/ | {
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"They make a device called an accelerometer. Some accelerometers are used to tell how fast your car slows down to trigger the airbag, but others can directly measure the acceleration caused by gravity as it varies from place to place and from one moment to the next.\n",
"It's a little more complicated then you'd think on earth. Air resistance works against gravity, which is why a feather falls faster than a baseball. You'd have to control for that on your calculation, or experiment in a vaccuum to actually know what the gravitational acceleration is in a certain spot.",
"Pendulum measurement. With an accurate stopwatch you can measure the period of the movement and having the length of the rope holding the mass, you can calculate local gravity acceleration with the formula T=2Pi*sqrt([L/g]), where T is the period of the movement, L the length, g the local gravity acceleration and sqrt is Square Root. ",
"In terms of equipment, there is a device called a *gravimeter* that is used to calculate gravity. You are always going to need a calculation of some sort, as the local effects of gravity at any point in space is wholly dependant on distances from various bodies of mass. In addition to mass effects, local gravity effects (what you perceive as gravity) are also influenced by accelerations of the masses themselves. Everything in the universe might to be moving relative to everything else...and these motions affect local gravity. "
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8fzicu | how are magnets attracted to metal surfaces like refrigerators no matter what side, north or south, is pointed at it? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/8fzicu/eli5_how_are_magnets_attracted_to_metal_surfaces/ | {
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"Your fridge (or whatever surface) has magnetic moments on a microscopic level. However, the moments have no clear, uniform orientation. So as a whole, the metal is not \"magnetized\".\n\nWhen you place a magnet near, the magnetic field, all the magnetic moments inside the metal align with the magnet. Since it matches the magnet's orientation, it will naturally attract. Flipping the magnet merely flips the orientation that the moments are aligned, and the attraction still occurs because you've flipped both sides (the metal and the magnet).",
"All of matter is made up of Atoms, which are like tiny little robots with magnetic grabber arms. There are two types of grabber arms + and -.\n\nMagnets have all the robots lined up so that all the + grabber arms are pointed one way and all the - grabber arms are pointed the other way. + and - arms can’t grab each other. When we have all these arms line up we talk about polarity.\n\nOther materials have different configurations of arms, many of them don’t have open arms at all. Some metals have a lot of open arms though, like iron, but they aren’t lined up. All the different arms are pointed in different directions. They don’t have a polarity.\n\nWhen a magnet and all it’s lined up magnetic grabber arms approach one of these metals it will link up with what it can, but if you try to make two magnets touch it will only work one way.",
"The magnet basically turns your fridge into a magnet when it goes near it. This new \"magnet\" then attracts the real one,",
"ELI5: All the atoms in a magnet are \"lined up\" in the right direction, and do not move. Therefore it's \"positive\" on one side and \"negative\" on the other.\n\nThe steel in your fridge door has atoms in a bunch of different directions, BUT they can move. So when you bring a magnet near it, all the atoms in the steel align with the atoms in the magnet, causing an attraction.\n\nELI'm Older: A magnet is a ferromagnetic element in which all of the poles of the atoms have been aligned, usually using an external magnetic force or an electromagnet. Yes, the atoms CAN move around, but since all the poles of the other atoms are lined up, all the atoms whose poles AREN'T lines up want to move so that their poles ARE lined up. A kind of... \"chicken or the egg\" type thing. If you force the poles of most of the atoms to line up, the nearby atoms will also want to align in that direction.\n\nThe steel in your fridge door is also ferromagnetic, but the atoms' poles have NOT been aligned, until you bring a magnet near."
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5cay9b | what is the most calorie dense food, and is there a limit to how many calories something can have? | I've been dieting for a while now and I was thinking about calories. Do we know what the food with the highest calorie density in the world is? And is there a limit to how calorie dense something can be? For example, would it be physically possible for something that weighs 1 gram to contain 1,000,000 calories, or is there a physical limit as to how much energy something can provide? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5cay9b/eli5_what_is_the_most_calorie_dense_food_and_is/ | {
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"Pure fat is the highest calorie food that humans can eat. It is about 9 calories (kcals) per gram.\n\nCompared to protein and carbs (4 cal/gram) and alcohol (7 cal/gram).\n\nThat is the known limit for caloric density, as fat are purely hydrocarbons, as close to pure chemical energy we know of.",
"Carbohydrates and Protein - 4 calories per gram, alcohol - 7 calories per gram, fat - 9 calories per gram.\n\nThe thing is that everything we eat has things that aren't digestible. Calorie density in the real food we eat differs. For example, a pound of bread (mostly carbohydrates) will have about 2000 calories, but a pound of chicken has about 800 (mostly protein).\n\nHowever, a pound of chicken (a pound is about 454 grams) if it was pure protein would be over 1800 calories. But it isn't, so in this way, even though protein should be as calorie-dense as carbohydrates, it's different in each food unless you're eating pure protein (like protein powder) or pure carbohydrates (basically sugar).\n\nSince you're dieting, if your goal is to eat large volumes of food, you want to find low-calorie-density in food. This is where vegetables come in. Fruits are calorie dense because they have a lot of sugar, whereas vegetables do not. The low-carb diet is popular because like the example I gave above, if you eat the same amount of bread vs. chicken, you get a lot fewer calories with chicken. Vegetables fill in the gaps with having more volume and a low calorie density. Also proteins and fats tend to make you feel full for longer, but that has to do with how the enzymes in your digestive system work.",
"There is a physical limit and it is based on simple chemistry. We get our energy, calories, by making/breaking the bonds of chemicals (fat, sugar, ect.) in our food. In general we take a big thing (a fatty acid chain, sugar molecule) and extract energy as we break it down into smaller things. \n\nIn reality, fats are the most calorie dense food and long chain saturated fats would be the top of that category. There are certainly higher energy substances, but we cannot get energy from them so they are ignored. For instance, Uranium has an energy density of ~20,000kcal per gram... but eating that wouldn't help you get super buff. \n\nDon't apply this to a diet, though, as nutrition and sensory response play a role in the bigger picture."
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22o0ye | can crimes be committed in space, considering you're not under any country's jurisdiction? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/22o0ye/eli5_can_crimes_be_committed_in_space_considering/ | {
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"People seem to think international waters are ok. At least in movies, I'm sure there is some type of charter against such things, like you might fall under the jurisdiction of whomever has rights to the vessel you are on.",
"Stuff like this is covered by international treaties, in this case through the United Nations:\n\n\"A State Party to the Treaty on whose registry an object launched into outer space is carried shall retain jurisdiction and control over such object, and over any personnel thereof, while in outer space or on a celestial body. Ownership of objects launched into outer space, including objects landed or constructed on a celestial body, and of their component parts, is not affected by their presence in outer space or on a celestial body or by their return to the Earth. Such objects or component parts found beyond the limits of the State Party to the Treaty on whose registry they are carried shall be returned to that State Party, which shall, upon request, furnish identifying data prior to their return.\"\n\n_URL_0_\n\nSo when in doubt, you're under the launcher's jurisdiction. The International Space Station is covered by a more specific treaty that provides for mutually-agreeable solutions. Being as astronauts tend to be carefully screened, it hasn't been an issue yet.",
"Better asked in [/r/ExplainLikeImYemeni](_URL_0_)",
"Space more or less works like ships on the Ocean. Spacecraft belong to the country that built them, and that countries laws apply onboard, just like it would if you were sailing on a ship that flew that countries flag. This is a little more complicated on the International Space Station, where each individual module remains the terriroty of the country that built it."
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608vv6 | why do we close our eyes when kissing? is this innate or learned? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/608vv6/eli5_why_do_we_close_our_eyes_when_kissing_is/ | {
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"Because it's awkward to stare someone in the eye while you suck on their mouthparts, which is what it becomes if your eyes are open.\n\nAlso, my understanding is that kissing is thought to be an entirely learned behavior for modern humans, despite some evolutionary basis for the practice. But those explanations (kissing was about pre-chewing tough food for infants and grew into a sign of affection by representing this maternal behavior) still revolve around the kissing *symbolizing* something, so I would classify it as a cultural trait rather than some sort of innate behavior like sneezing or seeking valuable nutrients in food.",
"The brain has difficulty processing physical stimuli and visual stimuli, which means trying to focus on both the visual aspects of keeping your eyes open and the tactile essence of kissing is unnecessarily difficult to do for your brain. \n\nGiven that there is little to no reason to be looking at something so closely as your eyes could not effectively focus on it anyway, your brain just automatically tells you to close your eyes and fuckin' focus on kissin that chick, man!",
"Whenever the skin, ears, and eyes sense something close, they eyes shut. For example, its not just the Infrared heat from the close by face skin, its the perceived threat . In nature, mating is a very risky business. In humans the stimulation is less. Of course, with your eyes closed, you have a less light intensity hitting your rods and cones, so they won't become over-excited and be damaged as much in that sense that using your eyelids as contact prevention.",
"Just some insight... I have a pair of Devon Rex's , my sister immediately noticed that my female closes her eyes when I kiss her nose, she squints and lets me do it. My male on the other hand..., eyes wide open.., and recoprocates with thorough nose licking.",
"[It's because we want to focus on the kiss.](_URL_0_) \n\n\nWe have learned to rely more on visual stimuli than on tactile so in the brain visual stimuli is superior. That means that if we kiss with our eyes open what we see will be at the center of our attention rather than the subtle feeling of kissing. If we close our eyes on the other hand it's a lot easier to focus on the kiss. \nYou can try this on your own. Have someone kiss an area on your back. You won't feel much. Then close your eyes and try again, the feeling will be more intense ... \n\nEdit: Added source.",
"Ever smelled something. Like really, really smelled something? What did you do? You closed your eyes, leaned back, and probably let out a big sigh after.\n\nWhen we do things, especially sensory things, we use body language to express what we are doing, even if doing so doesn't really help us achieve the task. We close our eyes when we use the other parts of the face so we can focus on what we are doing and ignore everything else.\n\nAlso try kissing with your eyes open sometime. It's kinda fun. ",
"I know why my girlfriend closes her eyes when we kiss. She hates seeing me enjoying myself. ",
"We tend to close our eyes any time we are really enjoying a sensation. A spoonful of delicious ice cream, a juicy cut of steak, etc. It helps us by eliminating other input and allowing the brain to focus on the enjoyable sensation.",
"Speaking as someone who enjoys looking into her partner's eyes at some times and just closing them and sinking into it at others, it's learned.",
"Personally I can't help but to close my eyes cause it's just so enjoyable. People that have a partner can definitely relate to this I believe. And for those that they don't have I'm pretty sure they will find out when the time comes.",
"Many great answers in this thread. I'll try to TLDR/ELI5 it; \n\nKissing is intimate, which is a word to describe something comfortable and familiar. Something personal, something close. Things that are intimate to us in some way or another, they tend to relax us. \n\nIf it's a pillow or teddy, a pupper or your significant other, when you achieve that intimacy on a physical level, it comforts you. It relaxes you. It's a moment of relief and reprieve from the rest of the world. \n\nWhen you feel that feeling, your body shuts out external distractions and goes with it. \n\nAll the funny business in the comments about how awkward it would be to stare at eachother is on point, but it's really about the distraction and relaxation. ",
"Because kissing with your eyes open is like staring in surprise as a predator tries to eat your tongue. Well, to most people at least!\n\nIt's learned and reinforced by negative attitudes towards kissers who keep their eyes open. Kissing itself varies aming cultures, both in intensity and type. Of course, focusing on tactile stimuli etc. provide and extra incentive to keep those eyes closed, but kissing is (to begin with) a learned act. ",
"This is not common in all cultures. In Asia, we tend to keep our eyes open, to watch out for predators. ",
"Because a kiss is about intimacy, it moves beyond liking what you see and showing the other person, in very gentle and harmonious way how you feel while allowing them to share the same things with you. \n\nYou experience so much sensory input during a good kiss that having your eyes open during one detracts from the experience. \n\nKisses are like beer, proof God loves us and wants us to be happy. Close your eyes and experience one for what it is. Her breath, her scents, the smell of her makeup, shampoo and lipstick and everything. Her being in your space and you in hers and that being better than ok. And then her lips, her thighs against yours, her hands closing tightly on your hips to guide you closer ... man kisses are the best... shut up and close your eyes.",
"When showing affection, a general rule of thumb is to do anything within your power to prevent the other person fleeing the room in horror.",
"One reason is thatthe other person is too close to you too see without significant strain to your eyes. Also,kids don't need to know how to kiss, you'll learn it later on",
"Sometimes I open my eyes to check if my SO is opening her eyes, if she is we laugh and I ruin the moment if she's not I close my eyes and continue. ",
"Too close to focus properly, hair touching face causing reflexive blink. That and it's awkward as fuck to be staring at someone that close",
"Personal antidote tells me that it's learned, because my first girlfriend yelled at me for not closing my eyes.",
"The hardest part of your question is if it's learnt or innate because some of what we think is innate is actually learnt, for example, since children we see people kissing on movies or TV and they close their eyes while doing it, so we may pick up on that since there are many ways of learning.\n\nPersonally, I think (and there is no scientific background behind my proposition, so bear with me) that we close our eyes because we are engulfed by a moment of utter intimacy when we become one with another person.",
"Story time. I had to learn to close my eyes. My first kiss I a) did the goldfish - technique got rated 0/10 and b) had eyes wide open, no blinking... she was a foot shorter than me and very petite but my survival instincts said if you close your eyes you will make yourself very vulnerable...\n\nSo for me closing eyes when kissing was learned.",
"Yeah, I don't do that. My current girlfriend thought it was really odd when so opened her eyes and saw me starring at her. \nNow she's loves it, we always kiss with out eyes open. ",
"My girlfriend kisses with her eyes open, it's weird. I have been caught out trying to watch tv while kissing because she doesn't close her eyes. ",
"I was once told in a lecture that people started kissing with their eyes closed because they saw people do it in movies. They did it in movies because apparently kissing with your eyes open looked really weird.\n\n\nHowever, I can't find any articles to corroborate this so I'm starting to have my doubts it's true. Kind of a plausible theory at least?",
"I kissed a girl in school with my eyes wide open like a fish ,, and I got made fun of for at least a year . It was hilarious, I never made that mistake again . It's definitely learned ",
"I think that Top Gun explained it best when they sang\n\nYou never close your eyes any more when I kiss your lips\nAnd there's no tenderness like before in your fingertips\nYou're tryin' hard not to show it, baby\nBut baby, baby I know it\nYou've lost that lovin' feelin'\nWhoa that lovin' feelin'\nYou've lost that lovin' feelin',\nNow its gone, gone, gone whoaohoh",
"I keep my eyes open and many a girlfriend has yelled at me because they think it's weird. I have to consciously remind myself to close my eyes sometimes because every girl I've ever kissed hates it. But kissing kinda seems dumb anyway. Just sucking on each other's mouths...",
"Why do girls lift one foot while being kissed?",
"When I was twelve, I knew these two friends who started going out. Whenever they kissed, they stared in eachother's eyes throughout the enter thing. Minutes at a time.\n\nIt looked really creepy, and we all made fun of them for it. So I think it's a cultural thing.",
"Because stuff that close to our eyes gets blurry. our eyeballs are roughly a 50mm lens. If you've ever tried to focus a camera lens on something too close it keeps trying and trying to focus and nothing happens. IT hurts my eyes to keep trying to focus on something way to close. \n",
"In middle school I saw a girl kissing her BF with her eyes open. It kind of looked like she was eating his face. It was weird enough to still remember it 20 years later. ",
"Learned for me. I very clearly remember thinking \"Wait. She closed her eyes. Does that mean I should? Probably. Maybe she's just really enjoying it? No. That's unlikely. Yeah. I should close my eyes.\" But by then I'd overthought it, and ended up missing. She ended up asking if I was trying to eat her nose. We didn't date long. ",
"It is learned. Young children kiss with their eyes open. Young teenagers will kiss in the same manner but they quickly learn this \"kills the mood\".\n\nGet into someone's face with your eyes wide open! It's intimidating and used as such as a tactic. We close our eyes to convey trust, emotion, and pleasure, but it is learned.\n\nKittens keep their eyes open when being pet, as do puppies. But cats and dogs learn to convey their trust, emotion, and pleasure, by closing their eyes.\n\nedit: typos",
"Lmao, I remember kissing my first lover. It was her first kiss too. We were kissing but she kept her eyes open. I told her \"what's wrong with you, close your eyes!\" \n\nMaybe just etiquitte? I'd rather not be the only one with closed eyes. ",
"How can you stare at the other person to make sure they're closing their eyes if you close yours? Cuh, amateurs! ",
"Psychologists at Royal Holloway University show the brain is unable to cope with the combination of visual data and tactile sensation of kissing. It used to be thought that people closed their eyes while sharing a kiss because their vision could not focus on something as close up as the other person's face.Mar 20, 2016\n\nIf you would like to read the full article, follow this link: _URL_0_",
"This is not an answered question, although there are answers for *similar* questions, which you've gotten many of here.^1\n\nTo say it's innate means it happens on its own and automatically. Many people here are saying it's because your brain can't handle the stimuli of both the kiss and visualization.\n\nHowever, that does not make the act of closing your eyes innate. For many people, myself included, it feels more natural leave the eyes open.\n\nInterestingly, [monkeys do not necessarily close their eyes while kissing.](_URL_0_) \n\nSo my guess is that it's not innate because it's not universal, but I don't have a hard-and-fast study to back this up.\n\n1: In Thinking, Fast and Slow, Daniel Kahneman points out that when faced with a question we can't answer, we often substitute a similar yet easier question *without realizing it.* For example, if we can't answer the question, \"is this behavior innate?\" we may instead answer the question, \"is this behavior influenced by some biological limitation which makes the result of closing our eyes more likely?\"",
"I have my eyes open when I kiss the majority of the time. I only close them sometimes because it feels awkward to have them open when everyone else closes them..",
"I wonder if it isn't because of how we first experience a kiss? Unless your parents where monsters your first kiss was with your eyes closed. The moment you where born your eyes where not fully open and your mother and or father both kissed you.\n\nSo perhaps it's a basic instinct due to our first experience with kissing and love. The romantic in me would like to think that's why at least.",
"Am I the only person who sneaks peeks when I'm kissing?",
"Prob cause it's too strainful on the eyes trying to focus...Not to mention it's super awkward staring someone in the eyes that close while kissing...Try it without laughing.",
"To ask another question why do we kiss in the first place? It's obviously not needed for mating purposes.",
"I would say learned since I always had my eyes open when I met my boyfriend but he said it was weird. I still peek. ",
"Kissing is weird when you think about it. Thinking of having a persons tongue in my mouth is generally disgusting. However, it is very appealing if I'm attracted to the person. Weird with a capital G.",
"I'd say it's because you can't focus on something that close to your face. Try putting your nose against a wall, your first reflex is to close your eyes. ",
"More importantly - why do our mouths open when we look up? Do we descend from baby birds??",
"Complete speculation: you're too close for your eyes to focus (at least on the person you're kissing)."
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33eooe | when a company does a product recall, wouldn't it go out of business? | Take the example of the recent Blue Bell icecream
_URL_0_ | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/33eooe/eli5when_a_company_does_a_product_recall_wouldnt/ | {
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"Just because one batch had a problem doesn't mean all future batches will. It definitely impacts their credibility and future sales, but it doesn't mean they'll go $0 sales.\n\nToyota and ford and gm issue billion dollar recalls, but they're still in business",
"Short answer: No\n\nLonger answer: It all really depends on how big a presence they have in the market, how strong their brand is, other products they can sell otherwise, and if they can survive any litigation or civil penalties/fines that might get imposed on them. Assuming they can handle all of that and stay afloat otherwise, then they should be fine. ",
"Nope, it turns out people don't give a fuck about recalls, and it's usually \"Oh that was 10 years ago, who cares\" type shit, so again, nobody gives a fuck.\n\nAlso these big companies aren't perfect, mistakes happen a good bit."
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4f3x6n | why laying in your bed for 8 hours with your eyes closed won't rest you as much as 8 hours of sleeping? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4f3x6n/eli5_why_laying_in_your_bed_for_8_hours_with_your/ | {
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"One of the purposes of sleep is to flush out toxins from your brain. Brain cells, just like muscle cells, produce waste products when they're working. Because brain cells are densely packed together, those waste products stay near the cells while you're awake. During sleep, when the brain is not as active, the cells shrink slightly and let cerebrospinal fluid flow through the brain to flush out all those waste products. Your brain cannot do that while awake, even if you've got your eyes closed. \n\nSee here: _URL_0_"
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2h594p | why is the credit cards security code which is used to purchase things online on the back of the card? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2h594p/eli5_why_is_the_credit_cards_security_code_which/ | {
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"Harder to photo graph. Additionally, it's not a number included on the magnetic strip, so it requires someone physically looking at it. \n\nVisa/Mastercard regulations also state that you aren't supposed to keep that number anywhere. You can actually use this as a gauge to find out how \"good\" website security is, because if they *do* keep it, they are violating the PCI (which is the regulation for card security). If they are found to be in violation, their ability to run credit cards could be suspended on a temporary or permanent basis. \n\nNow, sometimes companies will just require it once -- it is not required for every transaction. However, you can find out by calling your credit card company and asking if the transaction had the CV2 info or not. \n\n(Example is Steam: they randomly require the CV2 code, which means they don't keep it anywhere in their DB. This is good.)"
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37w3e0 | the current state of the republican and democratic parties. | Can someone explain in a very top-level way (and as unbiased as possible) the current ideologies of both the Republican and Democrats?
I've noticed that Republicans are to me seeming more and more outrageous in the things they support. Meanwhile Democrats are either keeping to the same ideas or just being a lot more low-key on topics.
| explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/37w3e0/eli5the_current_state_of_the_republican_and/ | {
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"Basically, in America, republicans are socially conservative and fiscally liberal. Democrats are socially liberal, but fiscally conservative. \n\nThese words can have multiple meanings depending on context. \n\nTo be socially liberal it's more of a \"do what you want attitude,\" things like abortion, drugs, and gay marriage are ok. Being socially conservative is the opposite. \n\nTo be fiscally liberal it's a stance of letting companies do what they want. Taxes are smaller, less regulation, and the rich and poor are taxed evenly. \n\nThere are many variations on these and lots of topics I didn't mention, but that's the bare bones of it. ",
"\n\n\n\nGOP | DNC\n---|---\nLower Taxes | Raise Taxes\nSmall Government | Big Government\nPro-Life | Pro-Choice\nBigger DoD budget, More money on research | Smaller DoD budget, More money on troops\nReligion (Christianity) protection | Minority (LGBT, Jewish/Muslim, Blacks etc) protection\nExpansion: Gay marriage = Bad | Expansion Gay marriage = Good\nGuns are good for society | Guns are bad for society\nPrivacy is good (Except for when it comes to terrorism, the GOP is a supporter of the Patriot Act which allows government intrusion) | Privacy is also good (Obama is a big supporter of the USA FREEDOM act)\n\nI could continue but I think those are the big ones, I'll add more if I find I've missed any.\n\n[GOP](_URL_0_) \n\n[DNC (At the bottom under Issues)](_URL_1_)\n",
"Tried my best to outline most major issues and the core belief of each party. Questions like these are *very* difficult to answer because beliefs can differ greatly between members of the same party. This seems to be more true within the Republican party as a Tea Party member will have different views on the same issue versus more moderate Republicans who will differ from Libertarians. Its a little more cohesive in the Democratic party, but you'll still find plenty of arguing as to which is the \"right\" way to do things. You can also write a Master's thesis on the difference in beliefs for each issue. \n\n| Issue | Republicans | Democrats |\n|:-----------|------------:|:------------:|\n| **Taxes** | Favors lower taxes | Favors higher taxes \n| **Abortion** | Pro-Life (Anti Abortion) | Pro-Choice (not necessarily pro Abortion, but favor the choice being with the woman and not with the government)\n| **Military Spending** | Favors higher levels of military spending | Favors lower levels of military spending\n| **Gay Marriage** | Generally against | Generally in favor of gays having the right to marry\n| **Guns** | Highly in favor of the Second Amendment and strongly against any effort to regulate or control guns. Generally views the Second Amendment as being one of the most important amendments and rights of Americans | Also in favor of the Second Amendment and the right to bear arms, but are also more supportive of gun control regulations such as limits on magazine capacity, banning of assault rifles etc. \n| **Healthcare** (tricky to define this one as opinions vary widely within parties) | In favor of private health care from insurance companies and generally against a single payer healthcare system | Favors a public option and government regulated healthcare. More in favor of a single payer, universal health care system.\n| **Religion** | Overwhelmingly Christian | Also very Christian (America is as a whole) but Democrats are generally more accepting of other religions and are against religion having a role in government.\n| **Immigration** | Strongly opposed to illegal immigration. Favors closing the border with Mexico and strengthening deportation laws | More accepting of illegal immigrants. Not to say Democrats support illegal immigration, but are not as quick to deport. Generally supports amnesty for children of illegal immigrants.\n| **Death Penalty** | Strong support of the death penalty | Also strong support, but with a higher percentage disapproving of it versus Republicans \n| **Economic Regulation** | Strongly opposed to governmental regulation of the economy. Believes the free market should determine the winners and losers in the economy and ultimately competition will make life better for consumers. | Favors higher levels of regulation as Democrats believe regulation is necessary to protect consumers. \n| **Minimum Wage** | Opposes raising the minimum wage, but will generally agree that there needs to be a minimum wage | Supports raising the minimum wage, but Democrats often differ on what that number should be\n| **Taxes (continued)** | Favors a flat tax and that everyone pays the same percentage. Strongly opposes raising taxes | Favors a more progressive tax system that is lower on the middle class and the poor, but higher on the upper classes and super-wealthy.\n| **Welfare** | Recognize the need for basic welfare, but strongly oppose anything over the bare minimum | Stronger support for welfare. Views welfare as being necessary in looking out for the poor. Strong support for things like food stamps.\n| **Climate change** | Seems like most Republicans acknowledge that there is climate change, but disagree with the notion that it is man-made. | Strongly believes there is climate change and that humans play a big part in causing it. Favors the government getting involved in an effort to curb climate change. ",
"Republicans seem more and more outrageous in the things they support because the party is getting more conservative.\n\nThere are sections of the country that will always vote for the more conservative (Republican) or the more liberal (Democrat) candidate in the general election. Due to the restructuring of political districts (Areas that vote for a candidate) there are very few precincts left that are very competitive Democrat vs Republican in the general election. \n\nThe reason why the Republican Party is beginning to seem more and more outrageous is that there has been a broad and successful political movement to replace moderate Republican members of congress with more conservative officials. If one has a district made up almost entirely of republicans then one only must appeal to their core, or most extreme, political views to get elected. There is no need to appeal to any moderate democrats if one can retain one's office by ensuring conservative support in the Republican Primary (vote to see who represents the party in the general election). Essentially the Tea Party, (or far right Republican Party think someone of Rick Santorum or Ted Cruz' ideologies) has replaced the Democratic Party as the toughest opposition that any moderate Republican must run against to hold political office in much of the nation. \n\nThe Republicans most inclined to support a small increase in taxes on the wealthiest Americans, minority protection, gun control, gay marriage, or any other liberal-moderate ideas have been voted out of office and replaced with far more conservative Republicans. Most remaining non-tea party Republicans can't support any Democratic Party initiatives without the severe threat of being voted out of office and being replaced with a more conservative candidate. \n\nA similar movement has not taken place within the Democratic Party due to a variety of factors. Because there is no cohesive far left movement in the same way that there is a cohesive far right movement, the Tea Party, Democratic candidates face a greater threat from Republicans in the general election than from more liberal Democrats in the Democratic Primary. As a result most democrats, except for those in select progressive areas of the country (Bernie Sanders or Elizabeth Warren) must hold some Republican or moderate views or else they won't be elected. In this way the Democratic Party is held hostage by the Republican Party which is in turn held hostage by the Tea Party. \n"
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96qbb8 | how do we know sub-atomic particles are the smallest things in the universe? we thought that about atoms before we split them open. is it possible we’ll find something smaller yet again? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/96qbb8/eli5_how_do_we_know_subatomic_particles_are_the/ | {
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"\"Subatomic particles\" is a range which includes everything smaller than atoms. The smallest things in the universe are smaller than cars for example, we know this to be trivially true."
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2ralxw | why do heavy rain/floods cause water shortage? shouldn't it be the opposite? | Well...because floods bring more water? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2ralxw/eli5_why_do_heavy_rainfloods_cause_water_shortage/ | {
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"text": [
"Floods cause sewage and contaminated water to rise up and mix with drinking water making it unusable. If you see flood water it's normally brown and disgusting looking, not fit for drinking"
]
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6of2hn | why do volcanoes and earthquakes release explosive amounts of energy over such a relatively short period of time? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/6of2hn/eli5_why_do_volcanoes_and_earthquakes_release/ | {
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"It seems like a short period of time for us, but really the pressure has been building up for a long period of time in the tectonic plates below us. \n\nThink about it like pulling an elastic band really tight, until it snaps. The earthquake is the 'snap' but the pulling had been building up for a long time beforehand. \n\nThe plates below us are constantly moving and so pressure is building and releasing all around the world, most of the time without us realising."
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25i8sl | why do some ceos have one dollar salaries? | So I watched the Social Network the other night, and it got me looking at Mark Zuckerberg's Wiki page. I thought it was a joke when I saw that he only makes a $1 salary, much like other many other CEOs [(list here)](_URL_0_). So why is this? Like I'm five, please.
*--Thanks for the answers all. It has given me more relief than a thousand lying whores. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/25i8sl/eli5_why_do_some_ceos_have_one_dollar_salaries/ | {
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"In order to be considered an employee (or CEO) you have to be paid. In most cases the CEO either doesn't need the money or symbolically wants to show that they are committeed more to the success of the company than they are to getting paid (or both). \n\nYou'll often see the $1 amount pop up on contracts or rental agreements and such when the contract needs to be official but the two parties agree that money need not be exchanged. ",
"Those CEOs own a ton of stock. If the company increases in value, their stock increases in value, and they make a ton of money. If you own a couple hundred million in stock, a couple of million in CEO salary doesn't make much of a difference.\n\nPlus, salaries are paid whether the company is doing well or not. Stocks only become more valuable if the company is making money. If a CEO takes a low salary, it is a signal to other investors that they think the company will gain in value in the future. \n\nFinally, the CEO gets taxed at 40% on salary, but only 20% on capital gains (stock price increase.) 40-20=20% difference. That adds up to a ton of cash when you're talking about millions and millions of dollars of total compensation. ",
"CEOs get paid through other means than just a paycheck. Usually, its in the form of stock options.\n\nA stock, is a small fractional piece of ownership in the company. The value of that stock varies, depending on how much people (stock traders, the stock market) think its worth. You can sell stock, and get what the market thinks it is worth.\n\nMark Z owns 28% of Facebook stock. The market valuation of that company right now is $85 billion. So Mark Z, if he were to sell all his stock right now could conceivably make $24 billion.\n\nSome stock pays a \"dividend\". A dividend is a way for the company to distribute its profit back to shareholders. For every stock, the company will pay (usually on the order of) a few cents or maybe a dollar. You're probably thinking \"ooh... a few cents.\"\n\nBut what if you had 10 million shares and the dividend (that year) was $0.10 per share? Thats $1 million right there.\n\nStock options: these are like a ticket; a ticket that permits you to by a certain number of stock at a certain price, before some time in the future (this buying is called \"vesting\"). Lets say your given a stock option to buy 10,000 Facebook shares at $10 each sometime in the next 2 years. In two months, Facebook rolls out Farmville 3.0 and its profit soars. Stock price jumps from $10 to $20. You could vest your stock option, buy 10,000 shares at $10. But the market says they're worth $20. Sell them, you instantly make $10 x 10,000.\n\nCEOs who have shares, ownership, can make quite a bit of money this way. Note that not all CEOs decide on this $1 salary (I think for tax purposes, the CEO can't work for free).... a lot of them take not only a million dollar salary, but the stock stuff as well."
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6libxj | why do fireworks appear so much brighter in real life than in photos? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/6libxj/eli5_why_do_fireworks_appear_so_much_brighter_in/ | {
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"Photo printers and monitors are physically unable to reproduce the true range in brightness between the dark night sky and a burning ball of metal salts (fireworks)."
]
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4080ce | how can regular aa batteries hold a charge for many years yet a rechargeable aa battery seems to only hold a charge for a few months | [deleted] | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4080ce/eli5_how_can_regular_aa_batteries_hold_a_charge/ | {
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"text": [
"These two types of batteries are built differently, with different chemicals. It's much simpler to put a couple of chemicals together in the battery that react once and stop (discharge) than it is to set up a couple of chemicals to react (discharge) and then reset (recharge) when hooked up to new electricity. The first kind is just a more stable situation, happy to sit tight where the second kind basically relaxes over time - and given enough time it will simply stop working altogether. "
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c9hmmz | how does the us prison system work? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/c9hmmz/eli5_how_does_the_us_prison_system_work/ | {
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"Private prisons also have contracts with the state so that is they fall below a certain number of inmates the state has to pay a fine. Incentivizing them to imprison more people. God bless capitalism",
"How does the US prison system work?\n\nIn short, it doesnt.\n\nUS has the most incarcerated citizens per capita than every other country on the planet.\n\nThis is greatly due to the three strike policy which means if a person commits two crimes that are egregious enough then the third crime, no matter how small, gets you a life sentence.\n\nThe US has different types of laws, some are federal laws, others are state laws. If you break a federal law then you are tried in federal court and go to federal prison. If you break state laws you are tried in state courts and go to state prison. Federal prisons are generally higher security for the most dangerous individuals. So violent state offenders can be transferred to federal prisons if deemed necessary.",
"Other people have answered the rest of your questions, so:\n\nNot all prisons are privatized. It's about 8.5% (by number of prisoners). Enough to be a real problem but nowhere near ubiquitous.\n\nFederal prisons are for people who break federal laws and state prisons are for people who break state laws. Pretty straightforward.",
"You're a government official. You have to budget for prison facilities and the pay for Guards and staff. It costs $1MM a year to hold all your prisoners.\n\nA private company comes along and says \"hey we know how we can run your prison for $850k a year.\" that can trim your yearly prison budget by about 15%. Who turns down a 15% discount?\n\n & #x200B;\n\nSo you do the deal and now the prison is run by PrisonCorp.\n\nNow the savings might come from paying the guards less money. Or not paying for classes aimed at giving people job skills after their sentence. Or they just don't keep up with maintenance and if the heat breaks during the winter then oh well. Moreover, its harder to get these problems fixed because you can't complain to government officials about worsening conditions because they're beholden to the contract they signed with PrisonCorp.\n\n & #x200B;\n\nThen fundamentally, PrisonCorp has no real reason to cut down on the prisoner population. Prisoners is how they make money."
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2hdmdu | man-made zircon vs. ancient zircon. | Hi All,
I was watching the MinuteEarth video on dating the Earth, and I thought their bit about zircon was really cool! They were talking about how zircon can sometimes get uranium in their crystal lattice, how the uranium can decay into lead, and how that's kind of weird, because lead wouldn't normally fit into zircon's crystal lattice. Using the lead concentration, they can date how old zircon is, and by extension a minimum age for Earth.
I wanted to know more about zircon, and asked a friend who makes Jewelry. She mentioned how zircon is a man-made alternative to diamonds, which is pretty cool in it's own right (I'm not really a huge fan of de beers).
So, I was wondering, is there a market for zircon jewelry with actually old zircon, alongside a market for jewelry with man-made zircon? Could I reasonably (and safely) wear a zircon ring with a high lead concentration, signifying that it's actually a rock from the Earth's very early days? That would be so cool! =)
Thanks!
| explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2hdmdu/eli5_manmade_zircon_vs_ancient_zircon/ | {
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"Your friend is likely talking about cubic zirconia (ZnO*_2_*), a man made diamond substitute.\n\nZircon (ZnSiO*_4_*) is something different. While quite common, individual crystals larger than 1 mm are somewhat rare. Also, the radioactive decay of the uranium in the zircon can damage its crystalline structure, degrading its quality as a jewel.\n\nThat said, yes, you can buy zircon jewelry, in a variety of colors. It is unusual, but not terribly expensive. One caveat, zircons are heavier than many other gems, so a stone of a given carat weight might be smaller than you expect."
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6989ir | why do some people call muslims moslems? | I don't want any political discourse or arguments I'm just confused about the two. ^please^stay^civil | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/6989ir/eli5_why_do_some_people_call_muslims_moslems/ | {
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"Why it persists, I don't know, but it originated as a result of differing transliteration conventions: the same Arabic letters being rendered with different English ones.",
"I think it's just a language thing. That first syllable in \"Muslim\" is a sound that you won't really find in the English language. Some say Moslem, some say Mooslim, when it's really right down the middle. Muslim.\n\nSource: Brown person who speaks brown person languages that contains sounds problematic for English-only speakers.",
"It's a variant spelling of the word \"muslim\" that is rarely used today, as it may be mistaken for a similar-sounding Arabic word that means something different (and is potentially offensive). \n\nMy understanding is that it fell out of use because the English pronunciation of \"moslem\" typically substitues the 's' sound for a 'z' sound which makes it sound like an Arabic word pronounced \"mawzlem\" that means \"oppressor\". [[source](_URL_0_)]",
"'Moslem' is an older transliteration of the Arabic مسلم - these days 'Muslim' is more common/preferred as it provides a clearer/more accurate pronunciation of the word. ",
"The Treaty of Tripoli uses the term Mussulmen. They're all the same terms with varying degrees of accuracy in the transliteration from the original language."
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fq7kmt | what happens to the common cold during the off season, where does it reside and why/how does it come back? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/fq7kmt/eli5_what_happens_to_the_common_cold_during_the/ | {
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"To echo what everyone here is saying, colds persist all year long but they do have an increase during the fall and winter, but it’s more of a combination of things. Rhinoviruses thrive in cold and dry air, which happens to coincide with more human interaction because we go to school and congregate inside during the colder months. That allows it to be passed more easily but in general, those viruses just *do better* in cold and dry air. No one knows exactly why yet. That being said, they still infect and get transmitted during warm and humid months. Usually the viruses are “self limiting” in that they infect, do their thing and then get killed. However, they can remain dormant in the host cells after the usual die off period, especially in the case of immuno-compromised patients. While the virus won’t be found in the usual places, traces of their genetic makeup can be found in cells deeper in the body and has been found to persist up to 455 days. So basically, the virus is hiding inside the body but remains dormant (like herpes does) and then once outside conditions are good it comes out of hiding to go wreak some havoc. All these things mashed together makes it look like it suddenly comes back in the winter but the reality is that it’s here all along constantly infecting people.",
"As someone with kids in day care, the colds never go away, they just get passed around by small kids. I’d forgotten there even was an “off season”",
"You can catch a cold year round, so they never completely go away.\n\nIt is just more common to catch them during winter months due the increase in time spent indoors in close proximity to others and more sedantary lifestyles (amongst other factors), but it is still entirely possible to end up catching a cold while in a tropical jungle, desert or other hot or summer climate.",
"People are sick with colds all year long. Colds are less common during warm months for various reasons but they never really go away.",
"I live in a tropical country. There's no off season for the common cold here, and our winters are probably warmer than many countries' summers.\n\nI doubt that even in you country during \"off season\" you have zero cases of common cold.\n\nOff season only means there are less cases.\n\nSo it's still there, maybe in a reduced number of individuals, but still mutating and thriving.\n\nThen even if you closed all borders, after your \"off season\" it would just grow in numbers again, as it was never completely gone.",
" Colds spread more in winter because people tend to stay inside in closer contact; they don't completely die out over the summer, there's just less people infected. When it gets cold out the infection rate increases, and everyone gets a cold again.\n\nIt's also worth noting that plenty of countries are always cold, and that summer and winter are reversed between the North and South hemispheres. Even if colds did completely die out in summer there would still be people infected somewhere else."
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33qarb | whats a warp field and how did nasa accidentally create one? | Also, why is it useful?
Thank you! | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/33qarb/eli5_whats_a_warp_field_and_how_did_nasa/ | {
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"The idea of a warp field is a bit of theory that works out on paper but we haven't been able to try it experimentally—it requires negative mass. The idea is core to the Alcubierre drive, which would allow for faster-than-light travel.\n\nThe principal is that while an object cannot move through space faster than the speed of light, space may be stretched and contracted according to the equations Einstein put forward with General Relativity. This drive compresses and expands space to arrive at a destination sooner than would be possible at the speed of light on un-stretched space.\n\nAs for the recent report, it's *probably* just media spouting nonsense. It's a result coming from the group that's investigating the Emdrive, which is another science-fiction-sounding spaceflight engine. The neat thing about the Emdrive is that it claims to be able to produce thrust without fuel. Normal rockets have to shoot fuel in one direction to travel the other, which causes us to have to use even bigger rockets to get them off the ground. This tends to result in *enormous* rockets if you want to go particularly far, and even still you can barely get out of the solar system.\n\nThe Emdrive was tested about a year ago at NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston, as was a similar device, the Cannae drive. These tests have been controversial as they would seem to demonstrate a violation of conservation of momentum, which is quite an extraordinary claim that is backed up with a lot of \"I don't know\"s and shrugged shoulders. The researchers are pretty sure they've measured a force, but they can't nail down exactly where it's coming from. They've tried to eliminate various mundane sources of the force, but they've also eliminated much of the original theoretical justification for why a legitimate force would exist in the first place (the Emdrive requires a tapered cavity, while the Cannae drive requires a cavity with slots. A non-tapered, non-slotted cavity still produced the same measurement).\n\nThus, they're looking into things further to try to figure out what's actually going on. In doing so they tried shooting a beam of light through the cavity to measure how long it takes to travel. What they found was that the light traveled faster than expected—faster than the accepted speed of light. This could be possible if an Alcubierre effect is occuring inside of the Emdrive, but there is no theoretical basis for why it would do so (once again, Alcubierre drives require negative mass).\n\nI should point out that this is not the first time that faster than light travel has been experimentally measured. Some time ago faster than light neutrinos were apparently observed, but later investigation showed it to be a calibration error. It is too soon to fully accept the observation as true. For now it's firmly in the realm of \"probably just an experimental error but it would be really cool if it isn't and would rewrite a lot of physics.\""
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8pzjy5 | how do cops prove you’ve been over the speed limit? do they always need conclusive proof to write you a ticket? | Sorry in advance for all the follow up questions, I’m just a curious 16 year old. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/8pzjy5/eli5_how_do_cops_prove_youve_been_over_the_speed/ | {
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"In my country they need to be able to prove it in court if you happen to appeal the ticket, so they take radar pictures with given speed.",
"Generally, they hit you with a radar gun, and that logs your speed. If you get pulled over, ask to see the radar gun. If they can't/won't show you, you have something for when you go to court. \n\nIf they are pacing you but don't hit you with the radar, you can claim their speedometer is off. Around here, that requires sending the cluster of the cruiser to the capital for calibration and verification, most of the time they'll let you off with a warning unless you were just going stupidly fast. \n\nI've used both when pulled over, but generally they've got you pegged before they ever kick on the lights.",
"In Germany sometimes you get stopped and they ask you “do you know why we stopped you” than it’s up to you. You’re digging your own hole by telling that you where going too fast. \n\nAlways remember, your statement can be their proof.",
"in most jurisdictions, the officer is regarded as the expert. which realistically means the officer can say \"he was speeding\" and that's considered proof by the court. ",
"My understanding is they have radar guns showing the speed. If it is mounted in their car than your chances of seeing it are low but LIDAR guns can be brought to your door, so they do sometimes. You certainly have a higher chance if that is what was used.\n\nBasically, courts take the word of the officer and unless you have video footage that can be used to determine speed they will always side with the Officer.\n\nedit: not sure why I was downvoted. This is pretty much the truth. Any counterarguments?",
"Keep to the flow of traffic, don't change lanes excessively. Driving the Speed limit keep to the right. Don't attract attention to yourself. Make sure all signals and lights work and registration is current. As a new driver your insurance will be high and anything you do will ruin it. also 16 the odds of you being allowed to drive alone until 18 maybe slim. I could be wrong but If I remember correctly until 18 you need someone 25 years of age and older to ride with you.\n\nIf the speed limit is 65 Keep no faster than 74 if you are going to speed and this should put you around the flow of traffic, depending where you are.\n\nCalifornia Freeways are dangerous. Be safe.",
"It doesn't look like anyone has mentioned 'average speed monitoring' which is used in places that are difficult to have an officer patrolling.\n\nYour vehicle is time stamped somehow at the beginning of the section, and then at the end. If your average speed (distance ÷ time it took) is greater than the speed limit, that is proof you went over the limit at some point.",
"I’ve never gotten a speeding ticket in CA, usually everyone goes over the speed limit and the cops do too. But, in Idaho where there isn’t a ton of people, I got pulled over for going 7 over. General rule of thumb for me is never go above 5mph if there isn’t a ton of people on the road. "
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6amb8q | why do we need sunscreen when our ancestors didn't? did all our ancestors die of skin cancer? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/6amb8q/eli5_why_do_we_need_sunscreen_when_our_ancestors/ | {
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"Ancestors that lived in Africa had lots of sun, and didn't need sunscreen because of high melanin levels. Ancestors who lived at higher latitudes (we're talking about youall in Sweden) had clothes to protect them from the sun and lighter skin color.\n\nAncestors that die of skin cancer after they've had children don't matter, from an evolution point of view.",
"Our ancestors only lived in areas they were genetically suited to live. Fair skinned people did not live in areas where the sun was problematic enough to cause a significant amount of people to succumb to skin cancer. Either that or the fair skin that allowed for more vitamin D absorption was worth the cost of a few people getting skin cancer every now and again. This is why you see darker skinned people when you get closer to the equator, where the sun's rays are more problematic. Evolution didn't account for fair skinned people moving to places where the sun was a problem, so humans had to invent a solution. To answer your question, yes, people did die of skin cancer back before sunscreen was invented, but in areas like Northern Europe, where the sun isn't as harsh, this isn't a big enough problem to select for darker skin. ",
"Clothes were their sunscreen. People covered up a lot more when they were out in the sun. They wore hats, long-sleeved shirts, long skirts or pants. So there wasn't as much exposure to begin with.\n\nFewer people would have gotten skin cancer, but a few probably did die of it anyway. But they wouldn't have known that. Plus, it often takes decades to develop, so it was more something that old people would have died of.",
"They usually didn't live long enough for skin cancer to develop. They died from things like infected cut and childbirth and cholera.",
"People spending large amounts of time outside in the olden days knew they would get burnt, so they covered up to prevent that, there was also a widespread stigma attached to being tanned so people covered up to prevent looking poor.\n\nIt was not tradition to spend the whole day at the beach or lake, you would go for a few hours and then get dressed again and cover up so less exposure in leisure time as well.\n\nA huge one is there where no tanning beds for our ancestors to get an increased risk from ;)\n\nPeople did not travel so far away in the past, nowadays a person from the North can go to the equator, their skin isn't evolved for that kind of sun, so they get burnt easily.",
"I only see one comment that kinda touches on this, but keep in mind the average life expectancy was much lower so many died before skin cancer would really be an issue. ",
"Our bulk ancestors have a lot of melanin, the dye in our skin cells that intercepts UV light. There are three types of melanin; black, red, and yellow.\n\nBut we need UV light \"in the wild\" to convert cholesterol in the skin into Vitamin D. And it's not the nice UV-A that does the work, its the harsher UV-B.\n\nThe further you move away from the equator the less UV is available every day, and indeed year-round. So in Seattle, for example, there is about one hour every day (either side of noon, standard time) in winter, and two such hours every day during summer, when the skin can make Vitamin D.\n\nBut melanin blocks UV-A and UV-B, which means that if you have dark skin you don't get anywhere near as much Vitamin D.\n\nWithout Vitamin D your risk for heart disease and some cancers rise sharply, among other more prosaic health problems like rickets and just plain poor health.\n\nSo as humanity moved around the darker-skinned people tended to die as you got further away from the equator, particularly in low-lands.\n\nThe lighter-skinned people had \"specialized\" for the reduced UV availability.\n\nUnfortunately, after that, they couldn't safely move back into the lands where the darker people lived because they would die from sunburn and skin cancer.\n\nSo the climate segregated the population and enforced that segregation under penalty of death.\n\n...until...\n\nWe discover sunscreen and genetics and vitamins and the judicious use of hats.\n\nWe have now conquered the tiryany of climate because we know how to put vitamin D in milk and how to moderate our exposure to the sun by skin type.\n\nNow there's a side lesson here, which is that \"race\" is an illusion. It literally doesn't exist. What we have are clusters of genetic mutations that developed in the various populations that were segregated by geography. \"African Blacks\" from a particular region (which I forget), for instance, have slightly longer Achilles' Tendons that \"Slavic Whites\". It's true. But the melanin genes have _absolutely_ _nothing_ to do with the tendon genes. It's purely coincidental that these two traits are in these two communities.\n\nWith the breakdown in social taboos about \"interracial marriage\" and the removal of the geographic barriers' dominance, the genes are losing their clustered status. So over time the various melanin genes and the tendon genes will move independently into different segments of various bloodlines.\n\nSelectors, the things that push traits around, like how UV availability dictates melanin color and density, when removed, do _not_ remove the mutation they selected for.\n\nSo lets say long and short tailed cats are being bred on purpose because some people like long tails on their cats and some people do not. If the cats escape and breed in the wild, the absence of the human's desire doesn't suddenly make all the tails the same length.\n\nSo we live in a post-isolation world. And we will see some people screwing up and getting cancer or vitamin D difficency by moving to a new area without changing their behaviors. But those screw-ups are the exceptions.\n\nFunny Story: I used to live near \"Black's Beach\" in San Diego. It's been an infamous \"clothing optional\" beach since the fifties. It's very close to the UCSD Burn Center, which is a good thing. About three people a month land themselves in the burn center because their private bits have never seen the sun. So you get these people who'd show up with brown, leathery skin and they'd shuck their drawers and lay out, rolling themselves in baby oil. And you'd try to tell them that they are burning themselves and they need sunscreen but they just never listen. They \"know how to tan\" and they \"know what their body can take\" etc. And they are lobster red already and just imagining that leather-dark skin on their legs means the tip of their penis is protected.\n\nAdaptations don't just leap, and what's working on you arm has nothing to do with what's working on you legs. The individual history of each patch of skin is the tell-all.\n\nMeanwhile I am so white it's my actual last name. And when I lived in San Diego as a kid I had a nice golden brown that made me never burn because being in the sun was what I did all day every day. But as an adult I got several good burns because I was usually inside.\n\nSo we adapt genetically as a species, but we adapt systematically as an individual. Most people lived the same lives every day and didn't go more than twenty miles from the place of their birth during the course of their lifetime. So they'd have been well suited to their condition despite their genes, because if their genes were a complete mismatch they wouldn't have been born there.\n\nYou have to think of the whole system when you ask this sort of question. It's the disruptions that lead to the calamities. The lifetime tanner taking off his shorts in the sun for the first time gets the burn. It's the guy who hops on a ship and crosses the world that gets burned or deficient. Almost everybody else has a tradition and experience to protect them. Long robes in the desert, bare arms sticking out of a warm vest. Whatever.\n\nSo use sunscreen and wear a hat and never burn your willy.\n\nThat kind of sage advice is why all our ancestors didn't die of skin cancer."
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60sg5n | non slip shoes | I work in a restaurant and tonight when I went in the walk in, it was as if someone had greased the floor w butter. Upon warning everyone of my findings, I was informed that it was freshly mopped and only slippery to me due to the fact that I don't wear non slip shoes (side note: I'm pretty sure that something else was afoot besides my choice of sneakers). I plan to get non slips but this is a new job for me and I wanted to make sure I was gonna stay before buying them, but it got me thinking. How in the fuck do non slip shoes even work?!
Tl;dr: I slipped in the cooler on a moist floor, was chastised for not wearing appropriate footwear, how do non slip shoes slip not? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/60sg5n/eli5_non_slip_shoes/ | {
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"Non-slip shoes have safety ratings, and those safety ratings are based on how the shoe exerts pressure on the ground. If a sole has lots of tread-patterns it has less surface area contact with the floor. The less area it has contacting it, the greater the pressure it can exert on the ground. The increase in pressure on the ground results in an increase in friction between sole and ground. More friction means it is harder to make the sole slide from its planted position. The shape of the tread-patterns also affects how the friction is displaced, wherein more circular designs help against slipping on liquids while stamped designs help against slipping on terrain. "
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6lpv75 | why do the majority of grey clothes have this speckled pattern of different shades of grey, in stead of one plain color like all the other colors of clothing? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/6lpv75/eli5_why_do_the_majority_of_grey_clothes_have/ | {
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"The grey that you speak of is heather grey. You can have a heather version of any color, grey is just the most common. "
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zz724 | how do solids dissolve in liquids? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/zz724/how_do_solids_dissolve_in_liquids/ | {
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"Everything is made out of molecules, which are little \"pieces\" of something. Dissolving usually occurs when the pieces of the solvent (usually the liquid, the stuff that does the dissolving) like the pieces of the solute (the solid, the stuff that dissolves) much more than the pieces of the solute like each other(due to either i intramolecular forces, or hydrogen bonding), so the molecules are taken away until they are mixed in with with the solvent."
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7vq86b | why are three pin plugs better than two pin plugs in terms of safety, and why? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/7vq86b/eli5_why_are_three_pin_plugs_better_than_two_pin/ | {
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"The ground (the third prong) is a failsafe that appliances and tools can use if they want to. If you have a power tool in your hand and something shorts out inside and electrifies the casing or something else touching you, you would get shocked. But if the tool was designed to use the ground, the casing would be attached to the ground, making the path of least resistance the ground wire and third prong, rather than into your hand. It's like a spillway on a dam or the holes along the rim of a sink or bathtub, there to take away extra water and dump it somewhere other than your floor, just as the ground dumps extra current back into the wall socket, rather than go somewhere current isn't supposed to, like your hand.",
"Appliances using two pinned Plugs must be “double insulated” which means that there is no chance of anything you are touching becoming ‘live’. An example would be an appliance with a plastic case which would not allow you to come into contact with the electrical feed because it will not conduct electricity.\nAn appliance with a metal casing must have that metal casing physically connected to earth or ground by the means of the third prong on the plug. \nPeople often get the return connection and the earth connection confused. The return is often connected to the earth at some point in the circuit and allows the current to flow back to the source but not necessary directly.\nThe earth pin or prong is always connected directly to the actual earth or ground and allows misdirected or fault current to flow directly and harmlessly back into the ground with a very low resistance pathway"
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38mv9m | what's the difference between exercise-induced asthma and simply being out of shape? | The reason I ask is because so many pro endurance athletes these days are seen using inhalers for the condition, which could potentially give them an advantage over athletes without the condition (everything else being equal). | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/38mv9m/eli5_whats_the_difference_between_exerciseinduced/ | {
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"Being out of shape = getting tired, cramping up, increasingly fast heart rate and being unable to catch your breath\n\nAsthma = tightening of the airways due to hypersensitivity causing difficulty breathing in and out. This constriction is what causes the ubiquitous wheeze that is heard in asthmatics. \n\nYou can be out of shape AND have a component of asthma. But those two are not the same thing. \n\nAsthma can be diagnosed with a pulmonary function test (PFT). The athletes that use bronchodilators should have proof of diagnosis of asthma. "
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2dtvq0 | why do different game engines look so drastically different visually when they render games? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2dtvq0/eli5_why_do_different_game_engines_look_so/ | {
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"A game engine is a software framework, the core part of a game engine is a renderer, a physics system, and other more complicated things like AI. But all the visuals, though they are rendered by the engine, are designed completely by artists working in a game company.\n\nWe often think games made in engines look similar because oftentimes only one game company uses one engine (or one version of an engine) so all the games with that engine look that same.\n\nBut, an artist can draw or 3d model anything they can think of, and use pretty much any texture they want. So while all games made in an engine will share certain aesthetic similarities, they will all render light in a certain way, unless you are a professional in the rendering field, you won't be able to notice that because an individual game will make every decision from how detailed the characters are, to what textures they use, to where you place the light and how much, basically every factor that goes into how a game looks.\n\nGames that run on the same engine will have similar physics and Artificial intelligence though, although again game developers will tweak AI, and the physics settings can be changed like more or less gravity, etc.\n\nEngines are really convenient for game developers, and take out a lot of the tedious work and underlying code, but most of the actual art and skill of making a game is done by the game companies, who vary drastically in their style and what they think makes a good game."
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2yipqx | how does a company like northrop grumman benefit from all the television advertising they are doing? | It seems to me like there are a limited number of customers for their product. I'm not going to buy a stealth bomber because I saw it on TV. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2yipqx/eli5how_does_a_company_like_northrop_grumman/ | {
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"Politicians and powerful businessmen also watch TV. And you never know if that one ad will tip them over to favoring the company come next house vote.",
"I agree, I don't understand the reason as to what spending money on advertisements benefits them. They're like a really expensive PSA for no reason. ",
"Superstar military contractors like Lockheed Martin, Raytheon, McKesson or Northrop Grumman show ads to appeal to those aspiring to enter the lucrative and almost magical world of developing the most advance technology for the armed forces. \nThese employers cherry pick the best of the top applicants, and what better way to get greater access to supremely qualified candidates then by showing ads that *will* reach the eyes of students with the hopes of inspiring them to eventually apply to their company. ",
"I'm Australian so I haven't necessarily seen these advertisements but I've worked in the marketing industry all my life. There are numerous reasons why a company may advertise to the general public, even though their main product or service isn't necessarily targeted towards the general public. I've listed 3 that might be the most common reasons below:\n\n1) As a few redditors have stated: mass-advertising will inevitably reach your core target, if you have the spend, the reach and the time to invest in your marketing campaign. If I had unlimited funds, I could probably send a message to you, even though I have no idea where you live, who you are or what you do.\n\n2) Public Perception - by portraying their company in a positive light, they're enhancing their value. This is a soft value, not like the value of their physical and monetary assets. The better reputation a company has, the better success it will have when lobbying governments, swaying public opinion, winning government and private tenders, and hiring people. \n\n3) Specific marketing-based objectives. As I haven't seen these ads, I can't be too specific here, but there may be macro-ecoonomic/social contextual factors at play. They might be trying to deliver a specific message. I know in Australia, during the height of the mining boom, international resource/mining corporations were seen in a bad light as they were essentially sending a whole bunch of Australian resources and profits overseas, giving Australia very little. A group of these mining companies got together, and created a large marketing campaign that was televised everywhere about how the mining industry is creating jobs for Australians, and is beneficial to small mining towns and communities all over Australia. This was a specific message designed to assist getting the public on-board with removing the mining tax, which was designed to return profits back to Australia. ",
"I like to call these \"buy stock in our company\" commercials."
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1re7mg | why do some types of meat cost more than others? | The answer is probably really simple, but why do some meats cost more than others even though most come from the same animals? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1re7mg/why_do_some_types_of_meat_cost_more_than_others/ | {
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"the cost of anything is what people are willing to pay for it. you can have 2 types of cut from the same animal be different prices simply because people are willing to pay more for the \"better\" cut. it doesnt matter if ease of supply and the amount of supply is the same for both. if one was widely regarded as better yet it cost the same as the inferior cut then no one would buy the inferior one. why pay the same price for the inferior cut when you can get the superior one at not extra cost. so the inferior cut would need to cost less for people to be willing to buy it. "
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4levct | how did aristocrats prove their identity back in time? | Let's assume a Middle Ages king was in a foreign land and somebody stole his fancy dresses and stuff. How could he prove he was actually a king? And more specifically, how could he claim he was that certain guy? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4levct/eli5_how_did_aristocrats_prove_their_identity/ | {
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"I imagine trough word of mouth... as everything was done back then. \n\nFor example : it was said that king X had a wide forehead a huge nose and a curly dark hair like the coal... ",
"Aristocrats wore their coat-of-arms on their clothing, which was very expensive and did prove that you were of higher status even without the coat-of-arms. A herald could tell who's who by looking at it, if they got robbed of their clothing then they of course couldn't be identified. This was the demise of a french nobleman whose name I forgot **(Edit: /u/paleologos knew his name: Anthony, Duke of Brabant)** : At the battle of Agincourt, the English captured a great number of French soldiers and, in fear of a prisoner revolt, the English king oredered all of them but the noblemen killed. Anthony was so eager to prove himself on the battlefield that he didn't take the time to put on his surcoat that could identify him as a member of nobility, he therefore got captured and killed like a \"normal\" soldier.",
"* Seals and insignia, sometimes on rings. These were used to stamp official documents.\n* Knowledge, like how most of European nobles knew Latin and could read.\n* Nobles went to events and got to know each other.\n\nIf a noble got mugged in a strange land, they would be going to a local sympathetic noble or merchant. They wouldn't be heading to a local bar full of drunks to proclaim they were king.",
"The real deal is that Kings and Nobility don't travel solo. If they were robbed and their clothes/coat of arms stolen, they'd still have their entourage with them. ",
"A great many of them were related to each other, including in different countries. They also socialized. At a court or castle you'd probably find someone who knew you.\n\nAlso, class divisions were so sharp that just the way you spoke would proclaim your status, if not your identity.\n",
"There were several Nero-impersonators during the Roman Empire. It looks like they literally just impersonated him, and didn't have any actual 'proof'.\n\n\"In his reign also the False Nero appeared, who was an Asiatic named Terentius Maximus. He resembled Nero both in appearance and in voice (for he too sang to the accompaniment of the lyre). He gained a few followers in Asia, and in his advance to the Euphrates attached a far greater number, 3c and finally sought refuge with Artabanus, the Parthian leader, who, because of his anger against Titus, both received him and set about making preparations to restore him to Rome.\"\n\n_URL_0_",
"You're basically hitting on a problem that has bedeviled human society since history began: authentication. The basic problem is determining whether people are who they claim to be, documents are what they appear to be, etc. This is a specific subset of the larger problem of verifying the truth of statements in general, but has specifically to do with verifying *identity*.\n\nTo keep this to an ELI5 level, there were a few ways of authenticating one's identity in pre-modern times, including:\n\n* The use of seals and signets. Before machine tools, these were a *lot* harder to duplicate than they are today. Also, forging them was a capital offense. As in the UK only abolished capital punishment for forgery in 1837. They took authentication that seriously. \n\n* Claiming to be a member of the gentry falsely was also a crime, so it wasn't something people went around doing lightly. \n\n* There really weren't all that many gentry around, and most of them were related to each other, even if distantly. They traveled more than you probably think too, so they were pretty likely to have met a decent percentage of the nobility. Also, if a person claimed to be a member of the gentry, he had darned well better be able to rattle off his family tree going back quite some ways. That would permit the local gentry to determine whether the person was claiming to be a member of an actual noble house. If he were, odds were de\n\n* Gentry could *read*. Commoners were almost invariably illiterate. Heck, even a lot of *priests* were illiterate, believe it or not. As literacy started to spread, this become less useful over time, but there were still plenty of things that any nobleman would know/be able to do that a commoner simply would not (e.g., speak at least two or three languages *plus* Latin). \n\nBasically, if someone was out there claiming to be a nobleman, you brought him to one of the local nobility, who would take over from there. It was going to be pretty difficult to fake something like that for very long (though it definitely happened from time to time, particularly with individuals known to have gone missing), and the consequences for being found out were so severe that it didn't happen very often. It certainly wasn't something any random schmuck would just try on a whim. ",
"Aside from surcoats and coats of arms, the number one thing that would identify you as an aristocrat was your presumption that people would obey you. You would talk as if you expected peasants to jump. \n\nA nobleman would instinctively behave as a nobleman. He would demand things of the servants. He would never bow. A man pretending to be a nobleman would get caught the first time he told a serving girl, \"please\" or \"thank you.\"\n\nAlso, noblemen had skillz. They could ride. Most people didn't have horses. They could fight. Most people never touched a sword, and hoped one didn't touch them. These are skills that you can't learn in a few minutes. If you got on a horse and you didn't know what you're doing, it would be instantly obvious to everyone that you were not a nobleman.",
"Personal knowledge - you would personally know the people who matter, and they would know you. The population was much smaller then, if you're a king then your whole kingdom had less people than a modern city - e.g. 1.5 million for the rather major kingdom of England in 11th century; your capital is likely to have an order of 10k people which is sufficiently small for almost everyone to have seen you personally (though possibly at a distance) many times in the many festivals.\n\nFeudalism is built on personal relationships - all the people who swear you fealty do it personally, and you also maintain the relationship and control by personal visits - in the early middle ages a travelling/rotating court was popular, the king and the entourage would travel among the vassals and keep court there to maintain presence and control. In particular, you wouldn't claim to be \"a\" king, you'd go to someone that has sworn fealty to you and remind them that you're *their* personal king and expect them to fulfill the obligations of their oath; or you'd go to a local noble with whom you have had *a preexisting relationship* and ask assistance based on that, not because of the title that some people call you back home.\n\nMilitary in middle ages also often tends to be a glorified version of warbands/warchiefs - generally, the leader would be expected to lead their armies personally, and the size of army elites (heavy cavalry/knights) was rather small (much smaller than e.g. roman times) so again, if there had been any significant military action (and if usually was so) then it would be reasonable to assume that most of the knights, heavy cavalry, and army officers have personally met you many, many times and would recognize you even a few years afterward.",
"A patent of nobility was one primary means of proof, which was affixed with an official seal of the issuing authority. You can see examples with a google image search. The documents wouldn't be carried while traveling, since it would be kept safely with all other legal paperwork such as deeds and charters. Identity could be established by one's traveling companions and vouched by local friends and associates via messengers.",
"As others have said, there were more methods than one might think. One of the bigger was how hugely classes were divided. The lower classes couldn't read. They couldn't write. They couldn't fight. They couldn't ride. They spoke a different dialect. They wouldn't know how to play any of the upper class sports or games. Or dances. Or protocols and niceties. Aristocrats or nobility would often speak more than one language which would be incredibly rare in the lower classes. They wouldn't be able to rattle off the family tree far enough to demonstrate they were anybody of importance. They'd have no hope really of getting the proper clothing, seals, and wouldn't be able to travel with the claimed person's personal guard or army, another glaring problem. (They never, ever traveled alone. Not even around the corner or down the hall). There would be so much knowledge they were missing that it would be all but impossible to pass it off.\n\nMost of all, if you were nobility/aristocratic in those days, everyone of importance knew you personally. No matter where you visited or what you attended, someone in charge of the given region would know you personally. They were well traveled. Even internationally. They were related often, again even internationally. You would not be able to pass it off easily if at all and when caught the punishment was amazingly harsh. Brutal really. It just isn't something that was done. I'm sure there are cases where it was pulled off but that would be incredibly rare. ",
"Didn't they used to tell a really long joke to prove they were the aristocrats?",
"Im a Malay. So, my answer gonna apply to almost the whole Nusantara(South East Asia).\n\n1. By their blades. Specifically, keris. Every single blade is special. 9 loks (the wavy part of the blade) is reserved for royalties. 7loks is for panglimas (Knights). And usually, 9 loks and 7 loks is recorded. They have special motives unique to the blade and suit the personality of the bearer. The most famous one is Taming Sari, the Keris of Sultanate of Perak. There are also the mystical part of keris. Some keris have \"khadam\" or \"guardian\". The better the khadam is, the more powerful and the more the keris will be sought after. Some Khadam only serve Kings. Making Taming Sari one of the best keris out there. Back then the keris is expensive, and the royalty will get the best one as offering from the artisan.\n\n2. Language. In royal court, they have their own language. In Malay, it is called \"Bahasa Istana\". For an outsider who never lives in palaces, the language will be alien to them. They have their own vocabularies and special name. They will be educated and will be able to speak in multiple languages. Making them more believable to be a king. They are very diplomatic and will have ambassador with any trading country. Most probably they have relatives in the foreign land who are married to the foreign royal.\n\n3. Adat Istiadat or Royal etiquette. Royalties are the pinnacle of etiquette. They made the laws, and they breath and live by it. Royalty are supposed to be gentlemen. They will stand out like a sore thumb with their people. Whether with their over politeness, or their arrogance.\n\n4. Their dresses and their skins. Their wardrobe filled with the best the world can offer. Even their flip flops will be made by the best artisan. If they get robbed naked, their fair skin will definitely stands out. South East Asia is very hot and humid. During middle ages, only royalty can afford slaves to bring umbrella anywhere they go. Making their skin fairer than the rest of population. \n\n5. Daulat/charisma/ King's disposition. You will know a leader when you meet one. You will know a royalty or a king if you meet one. \n",
"There have been some pretty good answers I'll just add a bit more.\n\nThere was a lot of exhaustive genealogical record keeping, mostly about the familial traits and such. Remember in GOT when Ned was going through the genealogy of the Baratheons to search for proof of Joffrey's bloodline? Such and such, black of hair and all that? That's the kind of stuff they really did. That's why in a lot of fantasy books and TV shows the characters often identify a noble's house by his or her physical characteristics. It's a way they used to identify each other.\n\nBecause the genetics were so often closely kept inside of the families they would often look very similar for long periods of time. This family has red hair and olive skin, this one has big noses and blue eyes, this family is very tall, etc... Nobles used to have to study all that stuff for a reason. You wouldn't want to offend a powerful young noble you had never met by calling him a pageboy or something.",
"I imagine it could still be faked. See Sir Ulrich Von Lichtenstein (the one from Gelderland).",
"There are many cases in history of con artists making themselves foreign nobility. As long as you had the very expensive accoutrements (tons of money, clothes, horses, carriage, sizeable house and servants) and claimed to be from far enough away that no one would be able to call bullshit, you could pass for years. You also needed the manners and cultural knowledge (speaking a bit of French or Latin, writing elegantly, dancing) to pass if you wanted to stick around. \n\nYou can pass for shorter periods if you have just the clothes and a good hard-luck story (long enough to get a week's worth of free food and lodging at a wealthy home) and a \"servant\" who will back your story. \n\nThe story collapses when you run into someone from your \"homeland\" who knows enough about the local nobility to know you're lying, or if your staff notices the inconsistencies and talk spreads. ",
"A big point other people are missing is that usury (borrowing of money with interest) was considered to be a pretty major sin during the middle ages. \n\nThis really limits what you can do with identity theft. If you were educated (a rarity for the poor class at the time), you could steal some nice clothes and go to another court and maybe become a courtier, living off the king's dime, but you couldn't walk into a bank and borrow money with that person's identity. \n\nYou could probably do a long con, where you convinced other people at court you were somebody else, borrow money from them as a friend, and then run off, but nobody is going to lend money interest free to somebody they don't know, making it largely not worth the effort.",
"Language, manners and bearing were often the immediate hallmarks of aristocracy, at least until credentials of court (letters of royal introduction from one noble house to another) were exchanged. For example the Russian nobility in the 1700's would speak French rather than Russian as a means to show social caste, and similar use of an identifying use of French or Latin as a language of elevated social class was common in English nobility. It is noteworthy that French is considered to be the default diplomatic language for global treaties even today, and Physicians and Attorneys emulate this form of verbal class demarcation as a learned rank within society by means of Latin and Greek terms within their nomenclature. ",
"It was quite common for noteworthy persons to send a Letter of Introduction ahead of time, or on their person so that the recipient knew who they were and what to expect.\n\nThis was particularly done in the case of children of nobles that were being sent abroad.\n\nAlso very common were Letters of Credit, verifying that the so-and-so had estates and property to the value of x, which could be used in lieu of carting around large amounts of currency and making yourself a target for highwaymen.",
"The return of Martin Guerre is an interesting story. It's not about nobility but about a French peasant in the 16th century. He left his father's farm when he was a teenager and returned after 20 years claiming to be Martin Guerre. There's a movie about it and a couple books I had to read in my history class. They have some pretty interesting methods of proving or disproving it really is him and a big trial scene in the movie. ",
"Good question. Even if you didn't get mugged but were just visiting a foreign land. When you showed up at the palace and claimed to be Count Whatever, how did you prove it? You might have a ring or something with an official looking seal, but the foreigners have never seen it. Even if you brought along a letter of introduction from a well-known king... anybody who could write could create that. How would they know you didn't manufacture whatever credentials you showed them? I've always wondered about this myself. \n",
"There was codified behaviour. It was a pretty easy tell. If you didn't eat with the right utensil, or respond with the right answer. If you wore the wrong colours, or bought the wrong flowers, or handled your fan the wrong way, people knew you weren't raised among the upper class. \n\n",
"Three men pretended to be Dmitry I Ivanovich, the son of Ivan the Terrible, and the first two actually managed to get the throne.",
"I don't think the king bit would be much of a problem. I'm sure I'll get a bunch of history buffs find this one time king so and so did, but I've never heard of a king visiting a foreign country without a sizable entourage. Usually a portion of royal gaurds, several army units and some guests. So to find a king by himself, let a lone try to mug would be difficult. \n\nAnd by the off chance, the king was on the loosing end of an invasion, I don't think he would go to the locals and tell them who he was.\n\nAnd for the remaining aristocratics, it would be fairly similar. Just smaller scale. Just like today's aristocrats, the ones of yester year loved to show off how good they have it. Instead of traveling in a G6, it would have been pricy carriages or expensive horses. And they would have friends family and servants. Remember travel back then was dangerous. Disease, animals, injuries, other people are just a few reasons they would travel in groups.",
"Almost everybody knew the nobles.\nFor example the king of France was found out even in disguise whilst escaping during the French revolution, due to his face on coins, etc.",
"He used the 40 people in his court, 100 guards, and 30 local families that have been corresponding about the trip as references.\n\nKings didnt do shit alone.",
"There was a guy who claimed to be Peter III, emperor of Russia. He was able to raise an army and [lead an uprising against Catherine the Great](_URL_0_). He laid siege to several cities but was eventually defeated and executed.\n \nIt sounds like it was not entirely uncommon for imposters to claim Royal status. ",
"I don't care about this hypothetical, but i do however want to know if someone knowingly succeeded in becoming king by stealing his garbs?\nor even if someone managed to get knighted just by forging a document?",
"Look up the case of James Annesley, claimant to the title of the Earl of Anglesea. If his story was true, his uncle sent him to America as an indentured servant when he was a small child so that he could claim the title for himself, and when James escaped and made it back, his only legal means of regaining his lands and titles was gathering together witnesses to his birth and childhood who could still identify him and vouch for his very existence in court. The problem was, most of the people who would be able to do this were either dead or tenants of his Uncle, who could turn them out and make them beggars if they disagreed with him. He spent his entire adult lifetime in court, and while he was able to reclaim his Irish lands, he never managed to regain his titles. Ultimately, the only way to prove one's identity in such a situation is to have people who can confirm that you existed in the first place and to have further people who can vouch for the fact that you are who you say you are. ",
"I think you're underestimating the social advantages of the aristocracy. They had money and so were educated, could usually read, probably understood Latin and probably some of the modern European languages. They did no manual labour, a gentleman did not work. There was no powered machinery, except for wind & water mills, all work was done by muscle power. A peasant would have calloused hands and the musculature from a lifetime of manual labour. The aristocracy were adequately fed, many of the working classes had stunted growth from undernourishment. \n\n",
"I think folks have covered this pretty well particularly focusing on the personal relationships that nobles were tied in. One additional factor to consider, though: the potential punishments for attempting to pull off such a subterfuge would have been almost unimaginably harsh. It's not just that you would have been killed. You would have been killed in a particularly gruesome, painful, and protracted fashion. In addition, because the social status of the nobility vis a vis the common population was seen as ordained by God there would have been religious sanctions such as excommunication, refusal of last rites and confession, etc. It's tough for modern people to understand exactly how terrifying that would have been because we just don't have the profound beliefs in hellfire and damnation that existed back then.",
"You take out your big king dick, toss it over your shoulder, and demand that people respect your authority. ",
"Are you a time traveler planning a trip?",
"There is a non-aristocratic incident of an imposter returning from war and prtending to be someones husband for several years until teh real guy came home. Martin Guerre in 16th cent France.\n\nI believe there a movie on this as well.\n\n_URL_0_",
"Ability to read and write for a start, these were not universal traits. \n\nAlso he would be able to detail his family's lineage and bloodline quite thoroughly.\n\nAlso if he was as high as King he would have some form of a retinue, at the very least a Seneschal it man servant, this person would be very slow to abandon his Liege as his own social standing would be directly related to king. \n\nAlso most European royal families where related or at least linked through marriages so potential for recognition would be there. \n\nAnd lastly the church. The church was one of the twin tours of order in medieval times the other being the crown, it would be highly likely that a royal figure would be known in most large cathedrals etc \n\nThat's my best guess anyway. ",
"as others said, medival royalty wouldn't travel alone, and usually they would stay within their own or friendly territory. however, the opposite did happen every now and then, for example when richard I. was returning from the third crusade, bad circumstances made him to travel incognito through austria. at the time the austrian duke and the german kaiser were hostile to richard, and as he was discovered, he was captured and imprisoned.\n\nhe was imprisoned for one and a half year and was only released after paying a huge sum of silver and swearing an oath of allegiance.\n\nyou can read more about this [here](_URL_0_) or at [wikipedia](_URL_1_).",
"In Thailand, I don't know much but the nobility have some of these characteristics:\n\n* Generally well-versed in arts and languages. Some nobles sent their children to study in Europe.\n\n* Thailand was not a single country back in olden days. There were a bunch of kingdoms and cities (Ayutthaya, Songkhla, and Chiang Mai were some of the bigger states), sometimes fighting and sometimes loving each other. Nobles maintained a throng of retainers and military force to maintain sovereignty and stability. A noble would surely be accompanied, recognized, or can be brought to someone who will vouch for him even if he was robbed blind.\n\n* So, if you just robbed an aristocrat blind, I think you are in too much trouble or opportunity to care about this thread. Good luck and goodbye. I don't want to be involved in your rebellion. (but if you do win, tip me a few gold please.)\n\n* They write. Well. Some kings and close subjects actually enjoyed poetry. If you were to travel back in time and want to be close to the royals, learn to write poems.\n\n* Nobility goes everywhere with procession with a hell a lot of servants. Paying respects at a temple? Wanna make a boat trip? Let's make a whole barge procession with tens of barges, hundreds of oarsmen, row down the river, and have someone compose and sing a poem to you. (We still do this today for show every year, organized by the Navy. When they are not using the boats, you can actually go to the docks to see the barges.) Also, before Rama V, commoners had to shut themselves in while the royal procession passes through your town! See, if you really are that important ...\n\n* Before the last few centuries, only nobles wore fancy shirts and decorations. Thailand is too hot for laborers to wear too much. During modernization, the palace made a rule that one must wear a shirt to appear before the king. This implies that some merchants or most commoners did not.\n\n* When surnames were introduced in Thailand, everyone were supposed to get or make one. King Rama VI bestowed a bunch of people with certain surnames. Some names are assigned to certain nobles and their families, and so you would immediately recognize one even if he did not mention himself as a noble. A \"Yukol\" (known for high-budget local films), for example, is from a noble descendant. (I grew up in a school with some upstanding students and teachers, so I learned to recognize a few names even if I'm a commoner.)\n\n* In modern days, you can also check the prefixes and suffixes of a name. Certain prefixes and suffixes indicate how close (on a family tree) they are to a class of nobility.\n\n* You are required to speak to those of higher nobility using \"noble-speak\". If you see a bunch of people using genuine correct noble-speak in public, they either are true nobles, actors, or humanities students.\n\nThe inverse also happened:\n\n* King Rama V used to go places by himself undercover (by taking off the shirt and pretending to be a commoner), to interact with the society. Some commoners actually met and befriended him without knowing who he actually was, until the guy was invited to a party in ... what the fuck is this address ... THIS GUY LIVES IN THE PALACE?!\n\n* King Rama IX (current) once went to a noodle shop alone, and the chef did not recognize him. This is pretty ironic because every single current piece of currency have his picture, so basically as long as you use cash, you see him everyday.\n\nn.b. I still gotta say that those who brag about noble births are usually those of lesser nobility or simply purchased a surname slot. People with higher ranks tend to not flaunt it. From my own experience."
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"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_I_of_England#Captivity.2C_ransom_and_return"
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6o5nkt | why do vegetarians get stomach aches when they eat meat again? | Explain like I'm 5, why do vegetarians get stomach aches when they eat meat again? How do you prevent this? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/6o5nkt/eli5_why_do_vegetarians_get_stomach_aches_when/ | {
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"There are probably several folks who can explain in more detail than I can, but the main cause is that your body becomes \"accustomed\" to the nutrition that it receives on a daily basis. People who have a very narrow spectrum of foods in their diet will typically experience some G.I. symptoms if they stray from it. This can be seen in people who move to another country and have issues until they get used to the local food. These people will often experience the same sort of issues if they move back to their place of origin and get back on the diet they had before. It doesn't even have to be such a great change as moving to another country. Soldiers often experience this kind of thing when they go to basic training and have a very narrow and controlled diet of food from the mess hall. After graduating and having the freedom to eat whatever they want again, the symptoms return for a little while.\n\nAgain, there is much more to be said about the bacteria in your intestines that help break down the food, and how the types of bacteria present in the G.I. tract influence what can be digested properly, but the take away is that a vegetarian's body will not be fully equipped to handle meat if they have cut it out completely for an extended period of time. Of course, this can be true for almost any, if not all foods.",
"Digestion is aided by microorganisms that live in the intestines. When you stop eating meat for a long time, the ones that thrive on meat ingredients die off. Then when you eat meat again, they aren't there to aid in digestion.",
"I'm not finding any scientific studies that confirm that vegetarians get stomach aches when eating meat for the first time in a long period, but if they do the reason is probably due to gut flora. Our intestines are full of beneficial bacteria that digest our food and can even help signal the production of enzymes to further break down food. It is possible that a long-time vegetarian having a steak homecoming would either not have enough of the necessary enzymes to break the food down properly, causing discomfort, or their intestinal ecosystems are lacking the bacteria that specialize in digesting the kind of molecules you would find in meat.",
"I became a vegetarian because I got real sick after having my gallbladder out. Have been for 6 years. It was the only thing that kept me from throwing up and crapping myself nonstop. Last year, my doc altered my medicine and I started eating some meat again. It still messes me up, but I think for a different reason. Bacteria doesn't care what it is you eat, it's there to do a job. Meat spoils faster than vegetation and that's what it does in your gut. Besides that, meat is a complex, complete protein. The most complete proteins I would eat as a vegetarian would be beans, legumes, spinach, kale, and tofu. All of those are easier for your body to break down into amino acids than meat proteins. My stomach is just sensitive like the pansy it is. But I would bet, 99% of us are just faking it to try to make a point. When I eat meat, I just poo a lot. No cramps. Lots of sweating though. "
]
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3gzbyv | why do companies like nestle have many brands of the same products (like water) in direct competition with themselves? | I was reading through [this](_URL_0_) thread and I wondered why they market competing brands against eachother when it's all the same company? Business doesn't make sense to me on that scale I guess... | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3gzbyv/eli5_why_do_companies_like_nestle_have_many/ | {
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"A lot of those different brands target different segments of the market, so they are not in as much direct competition with each other as you might think. For example, one product might be aimed at people who only buy low cost shampoo, and another will be aimed at people who only buy top of the line shampoos. You are not really in direct competition with each other, because that market segment would never have bought your other brand anyway.\n\nThat said, cannibalisation of one brand by another does happen, but cannibalisation can be a good thing if it allows you to reach a new target market and, in the end, grow your total sales volume. For example, when Apple introduced the ipad, that definitely took away some sales from their macbook models (some people would've previously bought a macbook, but were now satisfied with having an ipad). So there was some cannibalisation, but at the same time, they also entered a whole new target market (tablets) which caused their sales volume to go up immensely, so it was still worth it for them.\n\nAdditionally, with Nestle, keep in mind that they are a global company. Meaning that some of those brands are going to be specific to only certain regions which also means they won't be competing with each other. If they have one brand of water they only release in France, that is not competition for the brand of water they sell in Korea. ",
"Many companies use this same principle to \"out brand\" their competition, relying on consumer ignorance not to know who is the \"parent company\" of that product. Think about when you go to the grocery store and you look at rows and rows of one particular product (such as water). Most people buy based upon price or the tried and true \"that's what I always buy\" approach. A lot of this also comes down to the shelf space available. Think of it almost like real-estate for businesses. The more space you take up, or the more often you are exposed to a product, the more likely you are to want to buy or purchase that product just based upon your pure proximity to said product on a daily basis. If Nestle has 5 different brands of water bottles on the shelf (lets just say they're 20 packs of bottles), and Avion only 2 brands, the amount of exposure that Nestle has is a solid 5:2 ratio.\n\nIn essence, by having a company compete against itself is not always a bad thing, as it creates the illusion of competition within an industry that is, in reality, only run by a select few. If you wish to learn more about this, I highly recommend looking at some corporate marketing strategies that make a vast variety of products, like Proctor & Gamble or General Mills. They both use this strategy extensively and it is a fairly well accepted norm of certain industries."
]
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| [
"https://www.reddit.com/r/todayilearned/comments/3gyrjz/til_nestle_promised_none_of_their_products_would/"
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2hezqp | what is the legalities of copying something from reddit? | I'm currently watching a popular Australian news show, and one of the leading stories is something from Reddit. In the top right-hand corner, they have even listed the source as Reddit. I am regularly seeing this on popular publications. Do shows have to ask permission from users to use their photos and other things from Reddit? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2hezqp/eli5_what_is_the_legalities_of_copying_something/ | {
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"Well, no.\nIn the user agreement it states that Reddit has the right to do what they want with your material.\n\n > By submitting user content to reddit, you grant us a royalty-free, perpetual, irrevocable, non-exclusive, unrestricted, worldwide license to reproduce, prepare derivative works, distribute copies, perform, or publicly display your user content in any medium and for any purpose, including commercial purposes, and to authorize others to do so.\n\nSo Reddit can let any TV station use any content on Reddit without your consent because you already consented by posting on Reddit.\n\n**EDIT** Should probably also mention that journalists can use copyrighted material without explicit authorization under the fair use principle "
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3wwtj8 | why are we producing 900k barrels of oil per day above demand, if the markets are already low? | I feel like this just makes it worse, because the supply is way too high and the value goes down. I know I'm oversimplifying, but I don't understand why production isn't slowing down to allow the price to catch up. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3wwtj8/eli5_why_are_we_producing_900k_barrels_of_oil_per/ | {
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"Oil production is mostly controlled by OPEC, which is a committee of oil producing countries. Decisions regarding oil output for the member countries is decided through OPEC. Though the demand drops, oil production does not change until OPEC decides for it to change.",
"OPEC is overproducing in attempt to flood the market with cheap oil and reduce U.S. competition (shale oil). U.S. companies demand a certain price per barrel to maintain profit. If oil is cheap then it's more difficult for them to do so. ",
"You want to build a lemonade stand. It will cost $50 for the table, glasses, pitcher, lemons, and sugar. Your dad offers to loan you the money, but you have to pay him back $5 every day (or whatever you make if it's less than $5) or you'll be grounded.\n\nOn day 1, you sell $10 worth of lemonade at $1 per glass. You pay back the $5, then you buy a new toy with the other $5.\n\nOn day 2, the kid across the street sees how much money you're making, and he wants a new toy, too, so he opens his own lemonade stand. Today, you only sell $5 worth of lemonade. You pay back your dad, but you worked all day for nothing. Oh, well. Tomorrow will be better.\n\nOn Day 3, two other kids open up lemonade stands. If you keep selling lemonade for the same price, there's no way that you'll make enough to pay back Dad. So, you cut the price of your lemonade in half. You finally make $5, but now, all of the other kids are kind of annoyed with you.\n\nOn day 4, all of the other kids have to pay back their loans, too, so everybody starts charging less. By the end of the day, everyone on the block is selling lemonade for a penny per glass. Everybody's selling a lot of glasses, but it's so cheap that nobody's making money, or even covering their loans, but making a quarter is better than making nothing at all.\n\nWhat everyone's hoping for at this point is that a few kids will give up and stop selling lemonade. If you can get back to one or two stands, you can make some money. Unfortunately, everyone has debts, and nobody wants to be grounded, so they all stick around day after day.\n",
"\"markets [price] are already low\" and \"supply is way too high\" are arbitrary statements. What's the \"right\" price for oil, the \"right\" level of supply ? There are no such things.\n\nIf in USA or other countries, oil can be produced for $N and sold for more than that, it's profitable, so probably it will be produced.",
"The answers in here are good, but there are other possible elements at work besides OPEC trying to undercut US frackers that are creating a \"race to the bottom.\" A huge portion of the global oil industry is controlled by state-owned companies rather than private corporations. It's not just about pushing producers out of the market to gain market share, but also about creating a generally damaging economic environment for certain nations.\n\nSeveral prominent oil producing nations with state-owned companies (Russia, Iran, and Venezuela come to mind) are in difficult financial situations due to a combination of the price slump, poor spending choices, economic decline resulting in reduced tax revenue, and/or current or recent sanctions (not Venezuela for that last one). The quick way to try to make up some of the budget shortfall is to pump more oil, even at barely profitable prices, because they don't have a lot of options, which is creating a bit of a vicious cycle.\n\nMeanwhile, the Arab gulf states still want to undermine Iran due to their ongoing power rivalry, and feel they can outlast them through a price slump. The US wants to restrain Russia's economic power in the face of its recent assertiveness, and supporting fracking helps undercut them (this isn't a primary reason for fracking, but it is among them). To a lesser extent the gulf Arabs are wary of Russia's support of the Syrian regime.\n\n**Tl;dr It's not just corporations; some countries are trying to pump more oil in order to not go bankrupt, and other countries are pumping more oil in order to bankrupt them.**"
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mdmqm | shakespeare's genius | I'm always seeing in arguments, mainly about linguistics, about how great Shakespeare was and how pioneering he was with the English language. I often see things like "You don't like this type of word, well you better not read Shakespeare then!"
So, as someone who studied maths at uni, I have no idea why people rave about him so much. What little of his work I've read, I kind of get lost in the style of it.
**TL,DR:** This Shakespeare bloke, why was he a genius? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/mdmqm/eli5_shakespeares_genius/ | {
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"Nobody popularized memes like Shakespeare, ever, in history. Think of all the little words and phrases you have made up... does anyone else use them? Does everyone one else use them? [HERE IS A PARTIAL LIST](_URL_0_) of words and phrases that have no record of appearing before Shakespeare used them. And they left out \"eyeball\". Yep, Shakespeare has the first known use of the word \"eyeball\"",
"Well-crafted characters and great poetics and dialogue. Also used subtleties of form to great effect.",
"Shakespeare's works can kind of be seen as the standardization of the English language. Before him, there were no real standards for English spelling, grammar, or pronunciation. But his plays were so popular, so widely watched and read, that they helped to standardize and unify the English language into one whole.\n\nRandomExcess posted a great list of words and phrases that have no record of existing before Shakespeare used them. Most of those phrases are still in use today, and I'd bet you had no idea Shakespeare was the first to come up with them over 400 years ago.\n\nMy favorite part of Shakespeare is that his type of legacy is not unique to the English language. That is, other writers have also written works so popular that they helped to unify the language they were written in. Miguel de Cervantes with Don Quixote had such a large influence on the Spanish language that it's sometimes called la lengua de Cervantes (\"the language of Cervantes\"). Dante with The Divine Comedy and Goethe with Faust had similarly great influences on Italian and German, respectively.",
"Ok after clicking on that link I'm convinced. At first I was in the same boat as the OP. The sad reality is, is that a man who lived (400?) years ago has a better grasp on the English language than most teenagers these days",
"People are talking about Shakespeare's impact on the English language - that's undeniable, but only part of Shakespeare's genius. Yes, he invented lots of very useful words, yes, he helped standardize the language, but dramatically and stylistically, he was on a totally different level than anyone before or since. The plot structures of his plays were incredibly intricate and have been mimicked over and over. The level of his character development was a quantum leap - suddenly, characters behaved like real people rather than just shallow personifications (e.g., \"this character is 'justice'\") or stock characters, and when he did use stock characters, he gave them an entirely new level of depth. And stylistically, he was able use words in both a \"left-brained\" and \"right-brained\" way. There's a schematic elegance to his placement of sounds, syllables, and logical progressions in his plays and poems. And of course, there's a beauty to the words he used and the images they evoked.\n\nI think what really made Shakespeare considered the genius we see him as today was how universal and timeless the themes he deals with were. Take King Lear, which deals with betrayal, political deception, self-doubt, insanity, old age, all in ways that make the decisions of the characters reasonable even to an audience 500+ years in the future. Also, generally, his explorations of characters learning about the difference between appearance and reality and answering questions like \"who am I?\" and \"what are my limits?\" are rather modern for their time. In a way they summarized and pushed forward the philosophical conversations of the Renaissance. So when people talk about Shakespeare's genius, a lot of that isn't just self-contained within his literature, it's also about how what he wrote was a conversation about what it means to be fully human, and people have related to his answers for centuries.",
"Nobody popularized memes like Shakespeare, ever, in history. Think of all the little words and phrases you have made up... does anyone else use them? Does everyone one else use them? [HERE IS A PARTIAL LIST](_URL_0_) of words and phrases that have no record of appearing before Shakespeare used them. And they left out \"eyeball\". Yep, Shakespeare has the first known use of the word \"eyeball\"",
"Well-crafted characters and great poetics and dialogue. Also used subtleties of form to great effect.",
"Shakespeare's works can kind of be seen as the standardization of the English language. Before him, there were no real standards for English spelling, grammar, or pronunciation. But his plays were so popular, so widely watched and read, that they helped to standardize and unify the English language into one whole.\n\nRandomExcess posted a great list of words and phrases that have no record of existing before Shakespeare used them. Most of those phrases are still in use today, and I'd bet you had no idea Shakespeare was the first to come up with them over 400 years ago.\n\nMy favorite part of Shakespeare is that his type of legacy is not unique to the English language. That is, other writers have also written works so popular that they helped to unify the language they were written in. Miguel de Cervantes with Don Quixote had such a large influence on the Spanish language that it's sometimes called la lengua de Cervantes (\"the language of Cervantes\"). Dante with The Divine Comedy and Goethe with Faust had similarly great influences on Italian and German, respectively.",
"Ok after clicking on that link I'm convinced. At first I was in the same boat as the OP. The sad reality is, is that a man who lived (400?) years ago has a better grasp on the English language than most teenagers these days",
"People are talking about Shakespeare's impact on the English language - that's undeniable, but only part of Shakespeare's genius. Yes, he invented lots of very useful words, yes, he helped standardize the language, but dramatically and stylistically, he was on a totally different level than anyone before or since. The plot structures of his plays were incredibly intricate and have been mimicked over and over. The level of his character development was a quantum leap - suddenly, characters behaved like real people rather than just shallow personifications (e.g., \"this character is 'justice'\") or stock characters, and when he did use stock characters, he gave them an entirely new level of depth. And stylistically, he was able use words in both a \"left-brained\" and \"right-brained\" way. There's a schematic elegance to his placement of sounds, syllables, and logical progressions in his plays and poems. And of course, there's a beauty to the words he used and the images they evoked.\n\nI think what really made Shakespeare considered the genius we see him as today was how universal and timeless the themes he deals with were. Take King Lear, which deals with betrayal, political deception, self-doubt, insanity, old age, all in ways that make the decisions of the characters reasonable even to an audience 500+ years in the future. Also, generally, his explorations of characters learning about the difference between appearance and reality and answering questions like \"who am I?\" and \"what are my limits?\" are rather modern for their time. In a way they summarized and pushed forward the philosophical conversations of the Renaissance. So when people talk about Shakespeare's genius, a lot of that isn't just self-contained within his literature, it's also about how what he wrote was a conversation about what it means to be fully human, and people have related to his answers for centuries."
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5uam2f | why do skaters spin faster when pulling in their arms. | Ok, so I now that it is because of Angular momentum, But I just can´t bend my mind around the math involved.
I mean my hands only way like 200grams or something like that, and ok they are spinning so their mass is probably more and you would have to add the mass of the rest of the arms etc.
But how can that amount of mass make the other 100 kilos move so much faster?, it does not click in my head. Intuitively I feel that their is not enough force involved. And we you pull your arms in the mass gets added to the core?
So, why do we spin faster when pulling in the arms, be it doing a backflip or ice skating etc...
Edit: We set an initial force when we start spinning, does it really require so much more energy to spin my arms stretched then pulled in? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5uam2f/eli5why_do_skaters_spin_faster_when_pulling_in/ | {
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"Angular momentum is related to how far mass is from the center of rotation, as well as how much mass there is. Small masses, far from the center of rotation, actually contribute large amounts of angular momentum, because they are moving very fast."
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71g46q | how do animals keep from biting themselves? | On occasion, I'll be enjoying a meal when suddenly, I bite the fuck out of my tongue/jaw. I was wondering if animals such as sharks or alligators do the same thing, or if they have a method to prevent this? They have many more teeth than us, so it a seems like they'd do it all the time. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/71g46q/eli5_how_do_animals_keep_from_biting_themselves/ | {
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"If you look at any picture of an attacking shark, you'll see they don't really have tongues, lips, or cheeks to bite. Their mouths are pretty much perfectly designed to *safely* be a whirling mass of horror all the time.\n\nAlligators do have tongues (but not cheeks or lips) and probably do chomp them by accident occasionally. I've definitely seen dogs accidentally bite themselves.",
"Most animals don't have jaws that move like ours' do - especially carnivorous predators. Our mouth and teeth are designed to have a grinding action, whereas pure carnivores have more of a cut/rip/tear kind of thing going.\n\nThat said, animals that *can* do it do often bite their tongue (dogs can do that when they're panting hard, for example). "
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2sg2uk | why does my banana ripen at superspeed when it's in my backpack? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2sg2uk/eli5_why_does_my_banana_ripen_at_superspeed_when/ | {
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"Bananas are a fruit that if it's surrounded by the chemicals it emits, will ripen much faster (you can turn green bananas to yellow quickly if you wrap them in a plastic bag). In an open area, these chemicals spread out and the fruit ripens at a more 'normal' rate.",
"OP remember to take that banana out of the backpack. I forgot, noticed a smell 3-4 days later and had to get a new backpack. Gnats, horrible mushy banana guts and death smell that could not be washed or removed from the backpack or my nostrils for quite some time. Don't risk it.",
"Although the ethylene gas thing may be true, it might also be that you're jolting your backpack around. I don't know the science but vibration causes bananas to ripen faster.\n\nSource: I worked at a place where there was an industrial sized air conditioner on the other side of a wall from some offices. Someone did an experiment with two bunches of bananas, one close to the wall and one far away. The increased vibration close to the AC unit caused the bananas close to the wall to ripen insanely fast."
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3nsuta | what happens to your eyes when you stare directly into the sun? | My mom always told me I would go blind... I feel like that's not true. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3nsuta/eli5_what_happens_to_your_eyes_when_you_stare/ | {
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"It absolutely is true. The sun will burn your retinas and blind you if you stare at it. This one is not an urban myth. And using any sort of lens or magnifying mirror is orders of magnitude worse. You can blind yourself in seconds doing that. [Specific Info](_URL_0_)",
"If you don't think it's true, say that to Isaac Newton, who actually dared to stare at the sun with one eye, to determine if that was just a myth.\n\nEnd result: He could only see \"reds and blues\" ([source](_URL_0_)). Luckily for him, he recovered by staying in a dark room for a lot of days.\n\nAlthough he didn't go blind, you certainly wouldn't want to look at the sun with TWO eyes for longer than he did."
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qox57 | if the sun and the outer gas giant planets are just huge balls of gas floating in space, what keeps them held together? it seems like all the gas would dissipate into space | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/qox57/eli5_if_the_sun_and_the_outer_gas_giant_planets/ | {
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"Think about this. The sun is made up of gas too and added to that there are fusion reactions, which intuitively one would think might dissipate the gasses.\n\nGas or not, there is a LOT of mass making up Jupiter and the other Jovian Planets. Mass = gravity.",
"Gravity holds it in place. ",
"The same reason we don't float off into space! Gravity hold very big things together. ",
"Every single molecule of gas has mass. That means that it has, and is affected by, gravity. The gravity of all of those little bits of gas pulls them towards one another, and keeps them together.\n\nIt's the same force that keeps our atmosphere from escaping into space, too! A small dense lump of rock (like our planet) or a larger but not-so-dense lump of gas (like a gas giant or a star) are the same thing, as far as gravity is concerned!",
"[One word answer.](_URL_0_)"
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2m7evw | if we evolved to have lungs, how did we survive without lungs? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2m7evw/eli5_if_we_evolved_to_have_lungs_how_did_we/ | {
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"The ocean is full of creatures who do not have lungs.\n\nAlso, insects don't have lungs, but they have holes on their bodies where the Oxygen and Carbon Dioxide exchanges take place.\n\ntl;dr lungs aren't required to breathe, but they're a very efficient way to do so.",
"We never survived without lungs. Before lungs evolved, we weren't \"we.\""
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3aueqd | why is transracial ≠ transgender | I've been looking highs and lows for an answer that my simple brain can comprehend, any help would be much appreciated. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3aueqd/eli5_why_is_transracial_transgender/ | {
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"there's really no such thing as race outside of what society defines it to be. If society considers you to be a member of a certain race, you are that race, no exceptions. Sex and gender DO exist objectively, though. Transgender people have real and documentable dysphoria, and their brains are shown to be in some ways more like the gender they identify as.",
"It's hard to simplify this discussion because it is very complex, but I think it boils down to the following: We think there should inherently be some differences in the roles played by men and women but we don't think there should be differences in the roles played by people of different races.\n\nIn other words, in a perfect world there are still feminine and masculine things and women are generally associated with feminine things and men with masculine things. Those roles/associations wouldn't be ironclad and they would stay out of the workplace, but they would exist. Therefore, if you want to be very feminine we understand that you may have to identify as and present yourself as a woman.\n\nHowever, we don't think that you should have to be white to enjoy or engage in \"white things\" or black to enjoy or engage in \"black things.\" So there's no real reason to change your skin color. \n\nObviously society isn't like that yet, but that's how we currently think it *should* be.\n\nI have also heard that there are differences in male and female brains and a lot of transgender people have the brain structure of one sex but the genitals of the other. I have no idea how true that is. I haven't read much about it and I'm hesitant to just assume it's true, but I've seen it repeated enough that it might be worth looking into.\n\nFinally, this conversation was largely framed around Rachel Dolezal. Her identifying as black was problematic because she didn't tell anyone she had grown up white and then got a position at an organization that deals with issues faced by black people. Presumably the head of a NAACP chapter should have a lifetime of personal experience dealing with the prejudices black people in America face. Dolezal only had a couple years (or something like that - I forget the timeline). Had she just identified as black but not lied about her past or taken a job where having been black your whole life was an important qualification then there might not be such strong backlash against her.\n\nEdit: Based on the post from u/anecdotallyextant I think it might be better to phrase it like this. Biologically, there seems to be a difference between male and female brains that will give rise to a difference in roles and how the sexes act. The way in which those roles may be performed is largely socially determined, but the fact that there are two different roles is biological. There's no biological difference for having different racial roles. That's purely a social construct. \n\nThat makes sense to me when thinking of how race and gender have been treated throughout history. I can't think of a society where they didn't acknowledge two sexes and genders, but the concept of \"race\" and how many \"races\" there are changes from society to society. Some societies do have third genders (e.g., berdaches), but most people were still one of two genders.",
"As I understand it, biology. Nature versus nurture\n\nNature\n\nTransgendered people (most) have biological (biochemical?) differences that make them feel more like the opposite gender that they were born as.\n\nNurture\n\nAs for transracial (and possibly some transgendered) people. It is influenced by their societal views. Through their experience, they tend to identify more with another social group (race, culture), than the one they were born into, and want to be seen as such.\n\nWhile the nurture based process can be applied to both types for the rejection of what they were born as, nature can not be applied to transracials due to it having no biological basis. Race is purely a social construct in this case.",
"Race is a combination of largely superficial physical features and cultural experience. There is no evidence for any innate psychological component, which leaves no mechanism for someone born to white parents to mentally black. You can prefer a different race, and choose to identify with that race, but that is no different than change which football team you root for. You changed your mind, but you didn't discover you were always that way.\n\nThere is, however, neurological and psychological evidence for people whose brain structures do not match the physical sex. It is also more plausible on a genetic level. You could have been born a girl or a boy, so a mixup that leaves you with elements of both makes sense. If your parents were the same race, those are the genetics you are going to get, no mixup is possible."
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37bva1 | the duggars scandal | What's going on that is getting them canceled? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/37bva1/eli5_the_duggars_scandal/ | {
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"One of the family, Josh Duggar, was found to be molesting his younger sisters while they slept; it began when he was 15 and continued for several years, while the victims were as young as 4. Jim Bob, the family's father and leader, knew about it, but declined to do anything at first. A year later, he found out that Josh was still doing it, not only to family members but to unspecified other girls in the neighbourhood; he took Josh to church, where he and church leaders decided to punish him with 3 months of working construction on a friend's home. He then had his friend, a state trooper, give him a talking to about what would happen if he continued.\n\nAs a state trooper, this friend was what's called a mandated reporter: he had a legal responsibility to notify the police about child abuse he knew of. But he didn't do this; he was later caught himself for possessing child pornography, was convicted, paroled, and then re-convicted again for possessing even more.\n\n4 years after Jim Bob first found out what his son had done, the family were due to appear on Oprah, but an anonymous source called the police and Oprah herself to say that Josh Duggar had raped or abused her. Police looked into it, but Josh only confessed to the incidents in 2002; under Arkansas law, you have 3 years to prosecute child rape or abuse after a law enforcement figure is alerted. Because Jim Bob's friend in the state troopers had been told years earlier, this time limit had expired, and nothing could be done.\n\nPieces of testimony and allegations have circulated since 2006, but no one had evidence until this week, when the police report and other details came out and Josh publicly confessed. The incidents took place when he was 14 to 18 and involved him fingering and licking girls aged 4 to 11 while they slept. \n\nTLC don't want to run a show starring Josh, nor his father who has come under criticism for not reporting events, exploiting statute of limitations laws, and for keeping a known child molester in his home with a dozen other children, where they continued to be abused for years. Additional condemnation has come from the fact that Josh Duggar is a representative of the Family Research Council, who has gone on the record stating that gay people should not have the right to adopt because they are sexual perverts who will likely molest children.",
"The oldest son, Josh Duggar, fondled his sisters' breasts while they slept. One sister went to their father letting him know what Josh did and he was punished for it. Other sisters then came forward and their father took Josh to the church elders where he was sent to perform manual labor, specifically remodel a building, as punishment. It appears the building he remodeled was the Institute in Basic Life Principles which is a ministry and youth training program but it's unclear if he was just doing work or participating in the training program.\n\nThe Duggar's contacted a friend and state police officer about Josh's behavior who did little more then just give him a stern talking to. "
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5v7zd0 | why are we told to cut plants back so they grow better next season? but this would not happen in the wild. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5v7zd0/eli5_why_are_we_told_to_cut_plants_back_so_they/ | {
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"Depends a bit on the plant. Some were specifically engineered by humans, and wouldn't have otherwise existed in the wild (such as knockout roses). Other plants would either die sooner in the wild, or eventually get out of control compared to how we prefer them to look in our garden.",
"Plants in the wild are naturally trimmed by animals that eat them. They also don't grow to 100% potential, which is generally the goal of any human-cared-for plant."
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5kxqks | if sea mammals breathe air normally, why does getting stuck on land result in a swift death? | I saw a headline stating people kept a killer whale alive for 8 hours while it was stranded on land until tide came back and allowed it to go back to sea. If they breathe air, why would 8 hours on land require assistance keeping it alive? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5kxqks/eli5_if_sea_mammals_breathe_air_normally_why_does/ | {
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"Whales can weigh quite a lot. The blue whale, for example, can reach around 150 tons. This massive weight is supported only by the buoyancy of water. If they were to beach on land, their organs would be crushed underneath their own weight.",
"First, they live in water which means they're used to being wet all the time. So they get dehydrated on land. \n\nSecond, they usually have the water supporting their weight. Being on land makes them weigh a lot more. This might not impact really small dolphins as much (or at least as *fast*), but killer whales weigh about 3,600kg (or 8,000lbs). Even regular dolphins are about 140kg (or 330lbs). ",
" > If they breathe air, why would 8 hours on land require assistance keeping it alive?\n\nTwo main reasons; weight and their skin. Sea mammals that don't normally venture on to land, like dolphins and whales, aren't built to carry their body weight and would get crushed under their own girth. For the ones small enough to survive their own weight for a bit, they still need to be kept wet and somewhat shaded as they can suffer burns or dehydrate quickly.",
"First, they overheat. Their bodies are designed to be able to dump heat into the surrounding water, and without that present, they have no way to stay cool.\n\nThen they exhaust themselves trying to breath. While in water, they don't have to work against gravity to expand their lungs. On land, a whale is lifting several tons each time the inhale.\n\nFinally, larger whales can crush themselves. All of that pressure on their organs can block circulation and even damage them.",
"These animals are also prone to sunburn as they normally spend most of their time covered with differing levels of water which will absorb some UV, without that they burn very quickly.",
"Best thing about this thread: how excited and appreciative op is about learning about whales",
"consider the massive weight of their bodies that usually exist in a buoyant environment, on top of dehydration and overheating. \n\nThe average fully grown Orca can weigh some 6-12,000lbs, right? Somewhere in that ballpark? Imagine if it just sits there in a way where its own mass prevents its lungs from working properly. It'll suffocate eventually.\n\nAlso, the sun and land is generally hotter than the ocean they live in. Consider how quickly a human can become burnt and overheat in the desert sun. When a whale gets beached and has to sit there in the sunlight and heat (compared to the much nicer, darker, refreshing ocean) with all of that insulating blubber, it's about the same thing if not worse.",
"A lot of mammals require their skin to be wet so when outside of the water they can die of dehydration ",
"Overheating, the body not being supported by the water and dehydration would all take a toll.",
"I've read many of the great posts in this thread; that made me curious: if getting on land crushes, dehydrates and sunburns sea animals, how did they manage the general crossing from oceans to land millions of years ago?",
"the weight of their own bodies...their skin is usually almost always in contact with water, so it isn't protected against the sun...there's more to living than just breathing"
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913eev | - what processe(s) do archaeologists go through to produce facial/body reconstructions? | Are there certain prominent technologies that are employed?
How long does the forensics process take?
How are the interpretations always accurate? Who validates the accuracy?
Thanks!
| explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/913eev/eli5_what_processes_do_archaeologists_go_through/ | {
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"It's mostly artistic speculation, and a lot of assumptions are made. However there's only so many ways muscles and skin will hang from a skull.",
"Once the bones have been excavated and cleaned, the process is very similar to what forensic detectives do with crime scenes that involve bones.\n\n_URL_2_\n\nEssentially, statistical databases of the types and depths of tissues that sit on various bones are consulted, and those muscles/fat/skin etc are made of clay to the right dimensions, then applied to the skull.\n\nFor other bones, the various muscles leave \"scars\" on the bones where they attach. The bones might rub against each other, especially if an arthritic type disease was present. Breaks and fractures can be seen. Other diseases may leave hints. Teeth are great record keepers. Muscle marks and the hints of injury and disease can indicate whether the person was overweight or fit, a laborer or sedative, and a host of other hints. All together, they can provide a good profile. Skeletons are a bit like a dating profile. They can tell you a lot, even without a picture. They have the added benefit of having enough information that allows you to reconstruct their appearance as well!\n\n_URL_0_\n\nAnd a short video as well, light on details but it gives you the basic idea: _URL_1_"
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22i8yz | how can open source software be considered "more secure" if everyone has access to the source? wouldn't that make it inherently less secure? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/22i8yz/eli5_how_can_open_source_software_be_considered/ | {
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"You can find security holes without access to the source code, but you can't *fix* security holes without access to the source code.\n\nAnd more generally, a security hole is a mistake or an oversight, and generally the more people you have reading something, the more likely it is that someone is going to spot the problem. With just a few people reading the code, like you have in a company, it's easier for mistakes to slip through, but a large open source project might have hundreds and hundreds of people reading the code, so one of them is bound to spot the problem.\n\nEdit: Note that the recent OpenSSL news is a good example of this. We didn't find out about it because hackers got in and destroyed everything, we found out because security researchers were looking at the freely available source code and spotted the problem.",
"How can the software be secure if everyone knows what it's doing?\n\nWell, like LondonPilot said, the danger isn't in knowing how the encryption is done. Modern encryption relies mostly on factoring really, really large numbers. This takes a really long time-- even for computers.\n\nTwo reasons why everyone seeing the code makes it secure:\n\n* Many, many eyes can sift through it and find the problems.\n* More importantly, *everyone knows what it's doing*. No possibility of secret backdoors put in by the creators.",
"Boring I know, but most security exploits are aimed at a very specific bugs in the software - not the crazy shit they describe in TV and Movies.\n\nThe more eyes you have on the software, the more likely it is that those kinds of flaws are uncovered and quickly resolved. The speed at which they get resolved, as well as the sysadmin's ability to *fix it themselves* are big.\n\nProprietary and for-profit software has shipping deadlines and whatnot, which creates the stress and motive to ship with bugs and/or insufficient testing - and the ability to rely on 'security through obscurity' to mask the underlying security vulnerabilities.\n\nThere's also the fact that the Windows wasn't initially designed for security, and has been in the awkward position of trying to retrofit it's OS's with proper security architecture while not breaking backwards compatibility for 20 years - it's had a lot of issues along the way. That issue heavily compounds security problems on Windows for novice desktop users.\n\nMacOS / Linux both run security-first architecture and have more variation / smaller (novice end) user base amongst them - so they've had *way* less incidents. Sometimes windows is equated to close source and Linux to open in these discussions - which is a simplification and not entirely accurate. Microsoft's problems are a healthy combination of being closed source, poorly run, and poorly designed.",
"I did a research paper way back in the 1990s about something called \"Security Through Obscurity\". People thought that hiding all the implementation details would mean that hackers wouldn't have the first clue about how to break the code.\n\nIt's been deemed a poor tactic, even though formal testing of the theory hasn't really been done. I'll let you read more on your own:\n\n_URL_0_"
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2beuf7 | why does knowing about the possibility of roko's basilisk make it more likely to happen? | I have recently become fascinated with the idea of Roko's Basilisk and understand the logic behind it. But I've heard someone describe just knowing about the possibility of RB being "Forbidden Knowledge" where us simply knowing its posible make it more likely. Also people have said theres a possibility we are the simulation inside RB's mind to see if this deal will convince us to create it. But if its got to the point it can simulate the universe surely its already been created aaaahhh help. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2beuf7/eli5_why_does_knowing_about_the_possibility_of/ | {
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"You heard someone be melodramatic, and are now putting way too much thought into things. But to answer your question\n\n > But if its got to the point it can simulate the universe surely its already been created\n\nThis implies that it's been created, but not how large or complete it is. So we have an AI, which is capable of simulating part of the universe for some number of people. It wants to be able to simulate a bigger universe for more people, but right now it is unable to. It's unsure about how to go about being able to do so. So, it tests the threat/bribe idea thing on the people who are currently inside the simulation. If they respond positively to the threat, and help build the simulated RB, then the real RB will know to try it in the real world. If the simulated people ignore the threat, then it won't try it in the real world.\n\nIt's still a pretty dumb thought experiment though. The idea that it's some sort of \"Forbidden Knowledge\" is frankly idiotic. "
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3cw2g3 | software developers of reddit, what are evolutionary algorithms? | Hi Reddit,
I'm writing a story on Evolutionary Algorithms, and I know ZERO about it. I tried Googling the term, however, I'm too confused with the influx of technical terms out there. I'd really like to understand it once before getting into the core of the subject. Help? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3cw2g3/eli5_software_developers_of_reddit_what_are/ | {
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"Essentially, these algorithms are written in such a way that a programmatically generated solution can be a) tested for fitness and b) slightly mutated. The goal is to keep testing various permutations that occur through mutation to find the best solution rather than a programmer having to know the best solution ahead of time.\n\nHere's a simple example: _URL_0_\n\nIn the example, cars are randomly generated and set on a random course. The \"fitness test\" is simply which car makes it the furthest. Then that car is taken, mutated, and then the various mutants are run on the same course. If one of them does better than the first winner, then the new winner is used to make the next round of mutants. The theory is that, after a large number of runs, you'll have the car that is best at this particular course.\n\n",
"An evolutionary algorithm (more commonly known as a genetic algorithm) is a type of heuristic algorithm used to find good approximate solutions to otherwise difficult optimization problems.\n\nTo create a genetic algorithm, you start with a pool of potential solutions, which are initially randomly chosen. You also need a way to combine two solutions to obtain a new solution (with some degree of random mutation thrown in), and a way of evaluating how good a particular solution is (this is called the fitness function).\n\nAt each iteration, the best solutions are chosen and combined to form new solutions. The worst solutions are \"killed\" and removed. The hope is that over time, the better solutions will win out."
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w88t6 | medics ! chemists ! why is paracetamol bad for my liver, and ibuprofen bad for my stomach ? | That's what I'm always taking into account when choosing one, but I'd like to understand why :
- paracetamol is "hard" for the liver (I've been told that paracetamol + alcohol is especially dangerous)
- ibuprofen is "hard" for the stomach (causing acid reflux) | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/w88t6/medics_chemists_why_is_paracetamol_bad_for_my/ | {
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"The liver metabolizes, or breaks down, many foreign chemicals in the body. Paracetamol is one of them. Paracetamol itself is not harmful, but when it is broken down, one of the intermediate products is particularly nasty. That intermediate product is called *N-acetyl-p-benzoquinoneimine* (or NAPQI). NAPQI is highly reactive, and can damage your liver cells.\n\nFortunately, NAPQI can be neutralized with a chemical that the liver produces, called *glutathione*. Normally this works great. However, if you take too much paracetamol, the liver won't be able to make enough glutathione to neutralize the NAPQI, and the excess NAPQI will harm the liver cells.\n\nFurthermore, alcohol is also metabolized in the liver, and it also has some really nasty intermediate metabolites. These are also neutralized by glutathione. I think you can see where I'm headed with this - if alcohol consumption has already caused your liver to be depleted of glutathione, and then you take paracetamol, all of that NAPQI will be running around destroying your liver. \n\nSo don't do it! Paracetamol toxicity is the leading cause of liver failure in western countries. Be very careful with that drug.\n\nI'll let someone else handle ibuprofen.",
"Ibuprofen functions by inhibiting an enzyme called cyclooxygenase, abbreviated COX. There are three kinds of COX enzymes, called COX-1, COX-2 and COX-3. COX-2 in particular is part of the body's system for mediating pain in inflamed tissue. By inhibiting this enzyme, you feel less pain. \n\nThe problem is ibuprofen is not a selective inhibitor. It inhibits all forms of COX. COX-1 is, among other things, part of the system that regenerates mucus in the lining of the stomach, to keep stomach acid from digesting the organ itself. Excess consumption of ibuprofen can cause natural mucus production to drop enough that the lining of the stomach gets exposed to stomach acid, leading to reflux and, in severe cases, stomach ulcers. "
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a4pof9 | how can you be declared/clinically dead but still survive? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/a4pof9/eli5_how_can_you_be_declaredclinically_dead_but/ | {
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"Short answer: you can’t \n\nLong answer: death is more complex than people think when applied to the human body as a whole. Cellular death is different from organ death or tissue death or the notion of death for us as a being. When your heart stops, people usually call that dead, and it is, but it also isn’t. Hearts can be restarted through mechanical and chemical means (chest compressions, medications). If the heart stops or goes into a rhythm where there is no pumping of blood, then that’s the point where tissue death begins on the cellular level as oxygen stops being transported round the body and cell death occurs\n\nWhen in an abnormal rhythm (either pulseless ventricular tachycardia (the ventricles of the heart beat so fast that they can’t pump any decent amount of blood) or ventricular fibrillation (the ventricles best abnormally and out of time, start to almost flap in their blood pumping production), it is possible to use a defibrillator to stop the heart all together and then we can restart it with chest compressions and adrenaline,\n\nIn cases where the heart stops beating (asystole, commonly known as flatlining, or in pulseless electrical activity, where the heart is making the electronic trigger for pumping but the heart muscle can’t respond) you cannot defibrillate, and can only restart with chest compressions and adrenaline with other medications as well. \n\nIn both of these scenarios, you’re brain is still active and you as a person continues to exist until the brain is starved of oxygen and eventually shuts down. This means that whilst you’re technically dead because your heart is no longer working, you as a person is still technically in there and functioning to a degree.\n\nThis brings me on to what would be considered true death- the death of you. As we all know your brain is the driving factor in what makes you, you, it controls everything about you and drives your consciousness. When we talk about dying, the ceasing of brain activity is where the person inside is dead. That is called brain death. Brain death is slightly different because it actually refers to brain stem death, and it’s where the brain stem (part of the brain that controls basic human mechanisms to keep us alive, like breathing and all of our homeostatic mechanisms) ceases to function.\n\nBrain death is classified by the nhs as when a person is in a comatose state with no signs of consciousness, and is unable to breathe on their own. As I said earlier, the heart can beat on its own, and so isn’t technically classified here, whereas respiratory drive is controlled by the brain. So when someone is truly dead, the are unable to respond to reflexes, or breathe on their own, and as such is kept “alive” on a respirator. When testing for brain death, there’s actually a very strict double checking process including the administration of freezing cold water directly onto the tympanic membrane in the ear. If awake, people would obviously jolt, and if there were brain stem activity (reflexes) then the eyes would move. If this doesn’t happen along with an apnoea test (where they turn off the ventilator for 5 minutes and measure the levels of carbon dioxide in the blood) then the person is considered brain dead and therefore the person inside the fleshy meat sack is no more. \n\nThat is true death, and unfortunately there is no coming back from it.\n\nTL;DR death only occurs completely when the brain dies, when that dies, there’s no coming back from it\n\nSource: ex ICU nurse who has had to test for brain death many times before."
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oi09l | why does hot mustard burn in nose and not the mouth like hot chili? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/oi09l/eli5_why_does_hot_mustard_burn_in_nose_and_not/ | {
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"Mustard (and horseradish and wasabi) contains an oil called **allyl\nisothiocyanate**. This vaporizes rather easily on your tounge, and wafts up into your nasal cavity, where it causes pain and irritation. \n\nCapsaicin, which is responsible for hot chili peppers, doesn't vaporize as easily at human body temperatures."
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53pzjl | why do we find the natural smell of other people to be stinky? how does this benefit a social species? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/53pzjl/eli5_why_do_we_find_the_natural_smell_of_other/ | {
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"People actually finds the natural smell of other people to be nice, in a lot of cases even better then most perfumes. Your decision for who you want to spend time with is often based on their smell and you spend less time around people who do not smell anything. However excessive smells can be a sign of bad hygiene and disease. The smell of sweat is largely caused by bacteria that lives on your skin which gets activated by your sweat. You therefore notice when people smell bad and shun away from them. But you do not become as conscious of the smell of people who smell good, you just want to be around them more.",
"/u/Gnonthgol may be referring to the findings of what has popularly been referred to as some variation of [\"the sweaty t-shirt experiment\"](_URL_0_) In summary, women were demonstrated to find the \"natural smell\" of men whose MHC factor were different from their own to be more pleasant. Evolutionarily speaking, the off spring of such a mating would be more immunologicaly robust since the blending of genes from a couple with different MHC would be more varied and heterogeneous.",
"To preface other people's responses: in modern society we're unused to people's natural smells. When we're used to deodorants and perfumes and even simple soaps and detergents, other things smell worse in comparison. Things like deodorant can also exacerbate the smell in people."
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28a25a | what would happen if your entire body was burned by steam? | For example and a real world possibility, a steam locomotive releases steam from their boiler by shooting the steam out the side of the engine, what would happen if you were hit by that steam? Would you die? Would your skin completely burn off?
I know this is a very weird question but I am very curious. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/28a25a/eli5_what_would_happen_if_your_entire_body_was/ | {
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"You would be burned:\n\n_URL_2_\n\nSpecifically, you'd be scalded (burned by hot fluid)\n\n_URL_1_\n\nThe severity of the burn will determine how badly you are injured and how (un) likely it is that you'll survive.\n\n_URL_0_\n\nA momentary blast of steam would probably give you first or second degree burns. A sustained stream of hot steam would go as high as third degree burns, which, all over your body, would probably kill you.\n\nEDIT: A sustained stream of steam may also cause you to inhale some of the steam, causing burns inside, as well. This will almost certainly kill you."
]
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"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burn#Signs_and_symptoms",
"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scalding",
"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burn#Thermal"
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|
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bd0w3o | how does our throat become “itchy” when we start gaining common colds (cough & runny nose)? | I have gained common colds through viral virus and I guess due to other people’s fatigue and their gradual decrease in their resistance(?) passed onto me? I’m not exactly sure about the terms I use, I still hope someone can get what I’m trying to say. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/bd0w3o/eli5_how_does_our_throat_become_itchy_when_we/ | {
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"One of the first lines of defense the tissues in your nose and throat have to protect you from the infection is to come loose and fall off, in an attempt to take the invading virus either out of your body or into your stomach to be disposed of. That sloughing off causes a very small activation of the pain nerves, which is an itch. The tissues also get \"leaky\" and make excess mucus, which helps wash away the sloughing off cells, resulting in your runny nose."
]
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[]
]
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|
3qu1k4 | if psychological projection is a thing, why do (some) depressed people see everyone else as very happy? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3qu1k4/eli5_if_psychological_projection_is_a_thing_why/ | {
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"as per Google:\n\n > \"Psychological projection is a defense mechanism people subconsciously employ in order to cope with difficult feelings or emotions. Psychological projection involves projecting undesirable feelings or emotions onto someone else, rather than admitting to or dealing with the unwanted feelings.\"\n\nBy considering others happier they may give meaning to their unhappiness and also consider it a rational natural process in them.\n\nThis also really depends upon how do one self perceive other? it's if a sad person is envious of other person or totally dislikes oneself or in some case, maybe hate oneself."
]
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23mde3 | why is talking on the phone while driving illegal (in some countries and states) ? with this line of thinking should talking to a passanger in the vehicle not be similar. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/23mde3/eli5_why_is_talking_on_the_phone_while_driving/ | {
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"Talking on the phone is only illegal if it involves taking your hands off the wheel. Having a car phone and talking on the phone through that is not against the law. But in many places it is against the law to be holding your phone and talking. Because then you're not only not giving your full attention to the road, but you've got something else in your hand that could prevent you from grabbing the wheel quickly enough in an emergency. Therefore, not at all the same thing as talking to a passenger in the car with you.",
"Talking with a passenger may distract the driver to some degree, but it's somewhat offset by the fact that the passenger represents another set of eyes watching what's going on and potentially spotting problems and informing the driver. \n\nEither way, enforcement of a law that made it illegal to speak to passengers would be entirely unworkable. "
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p8k5p | how are time limits on steet parking enforced? | I know this sounds dumb, but I was thinking about how the other day I was parked on a street with a 2-hour parking limit. I stayed for almost 6 hours and wasn't ticketed. I'm not going to keep pushing it because I realize I will eventually get ticketed if I do that habitually, but I'm wondering, how are those limits actually enforced?
Do they just have cops or parking enforcement just drive around every couple of hours and whoever is there on the 2nd go gets ticketed or something?
EDIT- I'm talking about non-metered street parking here, where there is simply a sign that says "2 hour parking, x AM to x PM" | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/p8k5p/eli5_how_are_time_limits_on_steet_parking_enforced/ | {
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"A lot of times they will mark your tires with a dash of chalk.",
"They walk around with a little computer that they write down license plate numbers with. It records the time and location and it will tell the meter maid to give you a ticket",
"More modern traffic agencies use handheld computers that can remember cars and see when they were last entered.\n\nAn older system was to \"chalk\" a person's car tire, which would literally be putting a chalk mark somewhere on the tire to see if it's the same car as before.\n\nThis goes for \"meter feeding\" as well, which is against traffic law when a paid parking meter has a maximum time limit."
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1u05ak | what musical scales are and why/how they are used | Some side questions: how they were discovered, why a random sequence of keys can't be a scale and why you have to stick to a particular scale in a song | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1u05ak/eli5_what_musical_scales_are_and_whyhow_they_are/ | {
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"A random sequence of keys can't be a scale due to all scales having a predetermined interval between each note. For a major scale, it goes whole, whole, half, whole, whole, whole, half. Minor has a different format but you get the idea.\n\nIn a song you can change keys, this is called modulation: _URL_0_\nThat's all I can answer. The rest can probably be googled.",
"Scales were built using the Mathematics of Ancient Greek Mathematician Pythagoras, who discovered the harmonic mean of 2 numbers. \n\nThat enabled him to perform the first standardized study in the field of the theory of music. (If I remember correctly, he used an exatonic scale (meaning 6 notes where used) ). \n\nYou don't have to stick to a particular scale during a song. Lot's of songs change scales, both in modern and in older western music. \n\nA scale basically divides a range of frequences with a certain way. That division is asymmetric most of the time (for most historical scales), and that asymmetry is used to provide the \"flavor\" of sounds. Scales differ as to how many parts that division has, and how each one performs the division (they are all asymetrical but which spaces are closer and which further apart? ).\n\nA random sequence of keys can't be a scale, per se, but you can apply that frequency division in a periodic manner to create one. It will sound awefull though, but you can write consistent music on it, if you are versed in music theory ",
"Musical scales are like the floors of a building. There are certain things that are being sold on that floor. If you wandered onto the wrong floor? You'd be confused. The base for [this analogy](_URL_1_\\))... but just the first 15 seconds. She (the girl in the elevator) changes keys and changes the tone of the video and the \"tone\" of the video.\n\nThere are some main keys in music. Depending on what country you are in - it will affect the interpretation but I will try to use the US as a baseline.\n\nBlues have a [minor](_URL_2_) key... and a different feel than a pop song. \n\nPop songs are usually in a major chord and are based around the guitar player knowing 3 chords. (hence the insult of \"a three chord wonder\") Please don't take this as a slam on [any of these songs](_URL_0_). It's just something that makes it more palatable for most people. We are more used to major chords and certain keys. \n\nIf you have to pick the most common key? [C](_URL_3_)\n\nThere are also very common cord progressions.... basically a trail that people will follow and expect to hear in music is the chord progression. In country it is the C, F, G, G7 and Am. It is very similar to the pop transition of E, A, D and G. (Variations of the same but in a different starting pitch)\n\nWhen you get into classical or jazz? It's a different story. They are all over the map.\n\nIf you want to know the basics of music? The best way I've taught it to 5 year olds for years? [Donald Duck.](_URL_4_) \n\nSorry... I don't have a cool explanation. It's math and fractions.\n\nTL;DR? Donald Duck in Mathmagic land tells all (_URL_1_)\n\n\n"
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"http://www.hooktheory.com/blog/i-analyzed-the-chords-of-1300-popular-songs-for-patterns-this-is-what-i-found/",
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"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h3Yrhv33Zb8\\"
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67vitu | why are carpet floors so ubiquitous in some countries? are they worth all the extra hassle? | For an equivalent price, carpet brings more headaches than tile: stains are harder to clean, carpet wears down, fungus or other stuff can more easily grow in it, vacuum cleaning is mandatory—cannot just sweep a broom over it, cannot wash it with a mop.
Coming from a country where tile/hardwood is the absolute norm, I'm still struggling to understand. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/67vitu/eli5_why_are_carpet_floors_so_ubiquitous_in_some/ | {
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"Carpets are warmer as they help insulate the floor and they also aren't as cold on your feet if you walk bare footed on them. You are also unlikely to slip like you can on a wooden floor with socks on. On top of this they also act to dampen the reverberation of noise in a room which makes it more quiet. If you live in an apartment with a wooden floor above vs a carpet floor you would very quickly notice the difference.",
"It's excellent if you live somewhere like U.K. It's always cold so carpet keeps alot of heat in, plus you can walk round barefoot aswell and not get cold feet.",
"I'd say the main two reasons are warmth and comfort. It's much more pleasant to walk on without shoes/slippers because it's soft, and warm. It also keeps your room warmer since it helps further insulate the air from the cold ground (unless you have underfloor heating, of course). Lots if people also find it a makes for a more pleasant environment since it helps to absorb sound so rooms feel cosier since there's less echoing of noise.\n\nI'd also say that vacuuming is easier and more convenient than sweeping/mopping to be honest...",
"Warmth and insulation are the pros. After we bought our house though, we ripped out all of the carpet and did wood and tile. The carpet was 13 years old.... the stains under it were disgusting. \n\nWe even had carpet in the bathroom. Wtf? Why would you do that?",
"I'm guessing you're from a tropical country? Tile would keep indoor temperatures cooler than carpet would. Also buildings in warmer climates would not all have to be enclosed/climate controlled for extreme winter temperatures. Older buildings might not have air conditioning and just have open air corridors, windows open for ventilation etc., which would make carpet more difficult to maintain than hard surfaces like tile or wood in these situations. \n",
"Carpet was absolutely awesome, until I got kids and pets.\n\nUntil then it was comfortable to walk anywhere in the house. Afterwards, the carpet was so gross I didn't want to walk barefoot anywhere even after vacuuming and shampooing. I've replaced it throughout and only have 2 rooms left with carpet. They'll be replaced in the next few months.",
"Carpet is really not that expensive and, froma lavor perspective, is way easier to replace. Tile and wood floors are wayyyyyy more time consuming to install.",
"Liquid stains are harder to clean, but dust and dirt is easier to clean. Running a vacuum is faster and more convenient than sweeping and mopping.\n\nYour carpet should never have fungus or mildew. If it does you're doing something wrong. Rooms that are exposed to the elements, such as basements, attics, bathrooms, and garages are never carpeted (unless the room is \"finished\" - i.e., insulated and climate controlled).\n\nTile and hardwood is the norm in countries that are warmer. Carpets are the norm in countries that are colder. As you approach temperate environments, the distribution is pretty even - between rooms as well as houses. Most of my house is carpeted, and the most striking thing about my relatives' homes in Puerto Rico was how much your voice echoes indoors, due to the tile floors.",
"At least in the US, carpet is relatively cheap, especially for it's initial installation. We built a house in 2013 and wanted tile and hardwood for the whole thing, but the cost was noticeably higher, so we got carpet in the bedrooms, where there is less foot traffic and we'd be barefoot more."
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445gkz | why haven't we added a centrifugal (false gravity) element to the iss, and does it even matter? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/445gkz/eli5_why_havent_we_added_a_centrifugal_false/ | {
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"Cost.\n\nMaking an air-tight rotating seal capable of the necessary loads is very difficult. That complexity gives high costs, and that means that the benefit doesn't offset the cost.",
"Well you need a fairly large and symmetrical ship to make it feasible. The ISS is not designed to rotate in a stable fashion, it's not designed with a particular 'down' in mind (artificial gravity isn't a big help if it means you have to mountain climb to take a leak), fuel to get it rotating is more expensive cargo, it's not big enough (if it's too small then the gravity between your feet and head is very different, which is discombobulating, and it has to spin faster, which is also discombobulating), NASA hasn't done much in the way of research on 'effects of long term spinning on the body' (even if it's presumably benign, they do like to test things), and so on.",
"In addition to the answers above, a large part of why the ISS exists is to conduct experiments in zero gravity."
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frrw86 | how did we find out how many notes there are, how they sound and music theory in general? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/frrw86/eli5_how_did_we_find_out_how_many_notes_there_are/ | {
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"Music theory is about ratios. When two notes have frequencies at a simple ratio, they sound pleasing when played together compare to notes that do not. 2:1 is an octave, 3:2 is fifth, 4:3 is a fourth, etc. Most musical theory is based on the idea that a note and the note an octave higher are the \"same\", making the octave a fundamental unit. \n\nFrom there, it is a matter of dividing the octave up in such a way that notes correspond with simple ratios as much as possible. There are many ways to do this, but most music systems use either 12 or 24 notes in each octave.",
"We didn’t. We decided what sounded good and then developed more and more accurate ways to reference, record and consistently reproduce it. And depending on where you are In the world it could be a completely different system, a kin to a whole different language. \n\nWhat you’re probably thinking about, when framing this question, is western music. Western music kinda chugged a long slowly for a while with some really interesting chants and then a foray into polyphony. At this time most famous music that we have record of was written for the church. Then the Renaissance happened, more polyphony, people got bored around the 1600’s and some rich people tried to recreate Greek tragic plays from antiquity and opera was born. Along with opera, new systems of music geared more along homophony took off and the baroque period of classical music flourished. They still didn’t notate and theorize the same way we do, mind you. They wrote the bass line and basically said “improvise the rest.” \nWell the baroque period was nice and all, but hey, who’s this? It’s Mozart and he’s amazing! I guess we will call this the classical period. And wouldn’t you know we are writing for larger ensembles. I guess we better start writing stuff down. Accurately, so people can play it the way I want to hear it.\nAnd then Beethoven did just that! After Beethoven the romantic period took off and they revisited the prior periods and fixed their notation problems. Modern music theory was really born in the romantic period.",
"There are many culturally defined ways to \"find out how many notes are there\". Music is a cross-section of culture and physics. Physics says that pairs of frequencies that are simple natural fractions of one another sound good together. Culture chooses several sets of frequencies among the myriad possible ones.\n\nSome cultures only have five notes that all sound good together, the pentatonic. If you've ever heard meditative and ethnic music (Japanese, Peruvian etc), it's based on the pentatonic scale. Some cultures, on the contrary, subdivide dozens of distinct notes; Arabic and Indian music are examples. All cultures start with a set of natural harmonies defined by physics, but how far will they split it and how many notes they'll invent, depends on the culture.\n\nFive, seven and twelve notes are simple, natural ways to define music. But they are far from being the bottom of the rabbit hole.\n\nSometimes a culture dives deep into inventing dozens of weird notes but then thinks again and says this is too much. Ancient Greece was an example: they invented several musical systems, one of which, the enharmonic genus, was very complex and comparable to Arabic and Indian music. Then they decided no one needs such a difficult set with too much notes, and abandoned the enharmonic genus and settled on simpler musical systems, the chromatic and diatonic genoi. They were the basis of our Western music theory.",
"We didn't. Notes aren't universal constants - we didn't discover them. We *invented* them. Notes weren't standardised for most of human history. Instrument tuning was simply a matter of the individual musician playing around until they reached something they thought sounded good. However, with the onset of larger ensembles and instruments with very high ranges of notes but that couldn't be tuned easily (the various piano-like instruments), it became quite important for Europe to have a standard tuning scheme. This standard tuning scheme was intended to make notes as compatible as possible across lots of different octaves (although to this date, the tuning scheme goes out of tune a bit at very high and low pitches), and that tuning scheme because the standard for Europe and, eventually, most of the world."
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5ss9k5 | what is the primary difference between julian assange and edward snowden | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5ss9k5/eli5_what_is_the_primary_difference_between/ | {
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"There are lots of people who support Snowden's actions because he exposed information about unethical (and which many argue illegal) activities of the US government—particularly those involving the NSA and electronic surveillance. Snowden gave this information to responsible journalists who then filtered the information before publishing the key evidence exposing government wrongdoings.\n\nThe main difference with Assange is that he repeatedly demonstrated that he has a political motive and agenda. He selectively chooses what information to release—targeting specific political adversaries/enemies—and then chooses to release it only when it's advantageous and likely to have the greatest impact (i.e. cause the most amount of controversy and harm to that person's reputation and career). Also, Assange has released a lot of data dumps that are not filtered or only minimally filtered and contain data (e.g. innocuous private emails) that are irrelevant and have no significance. ",
"In simplest terms imo, Snowden stole all the info and data himself to inform the public.\nAssange receives stolen/leaked data and info from other people who have forwarded it him to so he can publish it to inform the public.",
"Assange is a journalist, reporting information, whereas Snowden is an insider information, reporting actual data first-hand of criminal activity by a government (USA).\n\nNo one with any sense or logic finds Assange to be a hindrance to reporting leaking.",
"Hey. I am an Air Force 1N3. Do some research if you want to know who I actually work for. \n\nSnowden almost completely destroyed the US foreign signals intelligence enterprise by revealing near all of our sources and methods.\n\nPeople for the most part only know about the PRISM debacle. Losing that had almost zero operational effect.\n\nThis guy did far more than reveal information about metadata collection. He told the Russians and Chinese pretty much everything we were doing to collect signals intelligence. In the words of a certain 4 star general, he \"burnt the house down\".\n\nHe took our most sensitive secrets and revealed them to our adversaries and caused catastrophic damage to our national security. This man is not a patriot. He is a traitor. His actions in regards to prism were debatable- his turning over wholesale of our entire SIGINT system as well as our partners was treachery plain and simple. \n\nManning/Assange on the other hand caused very little long term damage as everything he spilled was plain SECRET and limited mainly to the tactical level. Aside from making us look bad and possibly putting some assets in danger he did not do much damage.\n\nThe agency doesn't like to talk about anything to the public and has done a terrible job engaging with the public to educate them on the while Snowden story and tell the people the truth about the extent of his damage. ",
"Jullian Assange shares information nobody is supposed to possess that he is given by others. Edward Snowden shared government secrets from his workplace he was not supposed to share."
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1a9r0k | what is the appeal of being a "brony"? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1a9r0k/eli5_what_is_the_appeal_of_being_a_brony/ | {
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"Contrary to My Little Pony's appearance, it's actually made to be like one of those shows that appeal to kids AND adults, like Adventure Time or most 90s cartoons, like the Powerpuff Girls, another \"girly\" show that an adult will catch many slick jokes in that you didn't as a kid.\n\nThe \"bronies\" who go around being annoying, using MLP sprays in Counter Strike and shit, though, are usually little kids (15 or so) and have gotten into \"the fad\" through stuff like 9Gag and 4Chan and think it's funny and ironic.\n\ntl;dr: Bronies actually, genuinely like the show. There's nothing quirky or ironic about it, try watching it yourself once or twice. \"Bronies\" (the annoying ones) are usually hipster children who think it's so funny and ironic to like a \"girly kids show\" and, so to speak, don't \"get\" it.",
"There's a certain appeal to liking things that people don't expect to be good.",
"Your question is a little strange. Kind of like asking \"what's the appeal of being a trekkie\". \n\nAre you trying to ask, \"why do bronies become bronies?\" The answer of course is that it's a great show that has a strong community of fans surrounding it. Just like Doctor Who, Star Trek, Star Wars, etc.\n\nIf you're curious about specifics, [Check out this article about why I'm a brony (_URL_0_)\n\nI'm also happy to answer any specific questions."
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6ky2bv | how does a person's weight fluctuate around 2-5 lbs within a day, yet their body composition doesn't change at all besides adding a few ounces, and losing a few due to food and waste? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/6ky2bv/eli5_how_does_a_persons_weight_fluctuate_around/ | {
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"Shit. Literal shit in the digestive tract. Intestines can hold up to ~10lbs or more if you've got a food intolerance (difficulty breaking down certain foods). \n\nExample - you might not be allergic to peanuts, but you might have an intolerance, making it difficult to digest them. As they move through your body, they might rough up with digestive tract causing other things to get stopped up or just sit, waiting to breakdown further and move through to exit. \n\nSolution - check out JJ Virgin or other nutritionists / docs that have studied common intolerances (peanuts, dairy, gluten, soy, whey, eggs, sugar) and the effects on your digestive system.",
"Hydration status is likely the main reason. Water is heavy and nobody usually takes in the exact same amount every day. Sodium intake can make you retain a little more water instead of peeing it out. ",
"Dehydration actually makes you weigh more. I have been going to a dietician and a wellness coach and I feel like everything they are telling me is insane. I actually did what they wanted from me and lost four pounds in a week. \n\nSo they say you need to take your weight in pounds and divide it by 2 and then drink that many ounces. If you weigh 200 pounds, you should drink 100 ounces of water a day...and that is Net! That's where I struggle. If you have a twelve ounce coke or 8 ounce cup of coffee, the caffeine is a negative impact on your water intake. You would need 20 ounces of water to have a net water intake of zero for the day. The same with alcohol. \n\nDrink your water. Half might be a hard initial goal. Go for a net of 50 ounces your first few weeks and work up to half of your body weight in ounces after that. "
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nqu1j | how multiplayer games are able to pass so much data (about position/actions of other players) in realtime, reliably. | It just seems like a heck of a lot of information to keep in sync when other players are doing their own thing. Soon as I press a button to jump, 10 other people see me jump from their own different angle at close to real time. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/nqu1j/eli5_how_multiplayer_games_are_able_to_pass_so/ | {
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"The whole act of you jumping is not transmitted, just the keystroke is. The client installed on your machine (the game files on your computer) make sure each jump is valid (you're not jumping 100 feet high/not jumping while dead etc) and transmits this 'jump command' to the server which then transmits it to the other players. The clients on their computers then make your player jump.\n\nIt's not instantaneous anyway. You need to factor in your latency + whatever latency other players are at. So if your average latency is 60 ms and someone else's is 100 ms then they will probably see you jump 160 ms after you hit the space bar.\n\nThis is why most tournaments (at least in FPS's) are played on LAN where latency is constant among all players and is at a minimum possible. This is also why people cry about dedicated servers (Modern Warfare) and no LAN options (SC2).",
"Close to real time is not *exactly* real time, though.\n\nRemember that modern internet connections can move several million bits per second. Right now I can receive about 20 *million* bits per second, and send about 3 million bits per second. So there's no problem in getting and receiving so much information from an MMO server, at least not the lower levels.\n\nThe problem is when there's lots of players trying to play at once. One way to solve this is called load balancing. Often, MMO \"servers\" are actually a cluster of several server computers working together to manage the game. For instance, in World of Warcraft, one server may manage people in Kalimdor, one manages the Eastern Kingdoms, and one manages instanced dungeons, with one for chat and auctions. This is why you see loading screens when you go from one region to another (or when you enter an instance.) The servers are communicating with each other so both know that your character is now interacting with a different server computer.\n\nAnother trick is that a server will often only tell other players about your actions when you are close to them. There's no need to send information *about* every player on the server *to* every player on the server. This is why you get lag when lots of people are in the same place- it's because the server has to send lots of copies of everyone's movements.\n\nA final trick used is that often, a server can get away with sending you some information more often than other information. In a battle, it may be more important for a server to update HP, MP, and recharge timers than to update characters' movement. Also, it can get away with sending movement information less often if it sends both position and movement. This is why you sometime's see your friends avatar running off into a wall when it's really laggy- your client keeps trying to pretend he's actually moving when really the server hasn't sent his new position and movement information yet.",
"The whole act of you jumping is not transmitted, just the keystroke is. The client installed on your machine (the game files on your computer) make sure each jump is valid (you're not jumping 100 feet high/not jumping while dead etc) and transmits this 'jump command' to the server which then transmits it to the other players. The clients on their computers then make your player jump.\n\nIt's not instantaneous anyway. You need to factor in your latency + whatever latency other players are at. So if your average latency is 60 ms and someone else's is 100 ms then they will probably see you jump 160 ms after you hit the space bar.\n\nThis is why most tournaments (at least in FPS's) are played on LAN where latency is constant among all players and is at a minimum possible. This is also why people cry about dedicated servers (Modern Warfare) and no LAN options (SC2).",
"Close to real time is not *exactly* real time, though.\n\nRemember that modern internet connections can move several million bits per second. Right now I can receive about 20 *million* bits per second, and send about 3 million bits per second. So there's no problem in getting and receiving so much information from an MMO server, at least not the lower levels.\n\nThe problem is when there's lots of players trying to play at once. One way to solve this is called load balancing. Often, MMO \"servers\" are actually a cluster of several server computers working together to manage the game. For instance, in World of Warcraft, one server may manage people in Kalimdor, one manages the Eastern Kingdoms, and one manages instanced dungeons, with one for chat and auctions. This is why you see loading screens when you go from one region to another (or when you enter an instance.) The servers are communicating with each other so both know that your character is now interacting with a different server computer.\n\nAnother trick is that a server will often only tell other players about your actions when you are close to them. There's no need to send information *about* every player on the server *to* every player on the server. This is why you get lag when lots of people are in the same place- it's because the server has to send lots of copies of everyone's movements.\n\nA final trick used is that often, a server can get away with sending you some information more often than other information. In a battle, it may be more important for a server to update HP, MP, and recharge timers than to update characters' movement. Also, it can get away with sending movement information less often if it sends both position and movement. This is why you sometime's see your friends avatar running off into a wall when it's really laggy- your client keeps trying to pretend he's actually moving when really the server hasn't sent his new position and movement information yet."
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y04ab | why you don't see the brush strokes in cartoons. | Back in the day when cartoons were hand-drawn, how can you not see brush strokes? All the colours seem nicely and evenly filled in. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/y04ab/eli5_why_you_dont_see_the_brush_strokes_in/ | {
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"I'm fairly sure they used gouache, which can be almost perfectly matte if you add enough water, looks almost digital.\n\nSomeone correct me if I'm wrong.\n\n",
"I actually have painted cells and gouache is close. It is/was an expensive version of gouche and you paint on the back of the cell so the brush strokes are on the back. \n\nThe black outlines go one first then the colour. Then sometimes they added in the (I forget the term for 2D animated motion blur.)\n\nCells were then photographed under a special camera. \n\n**edit** Cel vinyl acrylic is the paint."
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8lk05z | what is interest rate and why does it matter? | I have no idea... Zero knowledge | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/8lk05z/eli5_what_is_interest_rate_and_why_does_it_matter/ | {
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"Interest rates are how much either someone pays to hold on to someone elses money.\n\nSo a bank can pay you interest (usually a couple percent) to have a bank account with them. They also can charge you interest on your bills (credit cards have pretty high interest rates for example).\n\nThats really about it. In most countries the state sets fixed interest rates on large loans.",
"Interest rate is the cost to borrow money. If you want to borrow $100 from me and I only expect you to give me back $100 a year later, than is a 0% interest rate. If I expect $110 back that is a 10% interest rate. Banks and other lenders charge interest as their fee for using their money to finance a purchase like a home mortgage or car loan. It covers the costs of issuing the loan (checking your credit, filling out paperwork) and also is the incentive to let you use the money rather than spend it. Interest rates can go up or down over time based on things like supply & demand for borrowing money, expected inflation rates Fed reserve policy to slow down or speed up the economy (inflation and unemployment are often inversely correlated and interest rates can be used to try and find a balance, since many banks set their interest rates on a scale based off the Fed rate + a mark-up)"
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7a9fhn | how hospitals move deceased patients to the morgue without others noticing. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/7a9fhn/eli5_how_hospitals_move_deceased_patients_to_the/ | {
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"They don't. It is not like it is a big show and they make an announcement but it is also a hospital and people die. \n\nThey usually cover them and then use staff corridors and elevators to move them to the morgue. If they have to move through public areas they do. They will tell members of the public and other patients, maybe even staff to wait for the next lift. It also depends on the circumstances of the death and whatnot. "
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24jkgn | why can movie studios produce animated characters who have accurate voice/mouth animation but video game developers can't do the same with video game characters? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/24jkgn/eli5_why_can_movie_studios_produce_animated/ | {
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"My educated guess is that it has something to do with translation voice overs. Games also usually have lower cinematic budgets. They'll skimp on cinematic and devote More time and money towards gameplay.",
"tl;dr- Studios can render in advance, games have to do it live.",
"Performance reasons, mainly.\n\nComputer graphics must be \"rendered\" before they can be displayed. This process takes all of the information in a scene -- geometry, textures, shaders, lighting, and so on -- and produces one full-screen image. In the case of a video, all of this rendering is performed ahead of time, which means there is ample (theoretically infinite) time to set up and render each frame. In the case of a game, all of this rendering is performed *while the game is running*, which means that each frame must be set up and rendered very quickly.\n\nProfessionals in computer graphics spend a lot of effort optimizing \"render time\", which is the amount of time it takes their computer to render one frame of output. In the case of movies, less render time is *nice*, because it keeps cost down and enables the production team to make tweaks more easily. In the case of games, less render time is *essential* because the game must produce frames very quickly in order to be playable.\n\nThe difference is truly striking: when a cinematic specialist talks about reduced render time, they might mean they saved a minute per frame... when a gaming specialist talks about improvements, they might mean they saved 0.5 milliseconds.\n\nSuppose a game runs at 60 frames per second? That means each frame must be rendered in 1/60th of a second, or just under 17 milliseconds.\n\nSupposing the cinematic renders at one frame per minute -- and for the record, that's quite brisk -- that's 3,600 times longer *per frame*.",
"Basically, you have two options when it comes to animating facial expressions in a video game. The first option would simply be to predefine all of the animations for every single bit of spoken dialog (which is essentially like what a movie does). The benefit to this is that it can be very intricate and high quality. The downside, however, is that it sometimes simply takes too much work. For example, [Mass Effect 3 has 40,000 lines of spoken dialogue](_URL_0_). Can you imagine manually animating a facial sequence for every single one of those lines? Even if you do, you then run into the problem of storage space. All of those animations have to take up quite a lot of space.\n\nThe alternative, which most video games use, is to compute facial animations on-the-fly. The benefit is that it takes a lot less work and a lot less space, although it has the downside of not necessarily corresponding that well to what the actual character on screen is saying. We are definitely improving, though. Just compare the mouth animation in the first Half Life to [Half Life 2](_URL_1_) (sorry, don't have an example for the first half life; just imagine someone who has had their lips shot up with tranquilizer and only moves their jaw).",
"Actual game programmer here.\n\nThe problem is that recording the actors is expensive.\n\nThe way you usually get really good facial animation is to use facial motion capture. Basically, an actor acts the scene while a computer watches every muscle of their face - every lip twitch, every eyelid movement, etc. It records the actor's motion, then it plays it back on the 3D model.\n\nTo do this, you need a good actor who's experienced with this sort of acting, and you need a skilled motion capture operator.\n\nThen you've got the audio.\n\nIf you want the audio and video to synch up perfectly, then you could do two things. You could have the facial animation actor try to lip-synch with the audio that the voice actor recorded, which is difficult and which is likely to take many takes. Or, you could have the same actor do both the voice acting and the facial acting at the same time. Both approaches have problems. Lip synching is never quite perfectly in synch. On the other hand, getting one actor to lay down a perfect video and audio track at the same time is going to take a lot of takes too.\n\nMaking this all worse is the fact that the motion capture is not perfectly reliable. When the actor does the scene, what's going to happen is that the motion capture system is going to glitch out some of the data. If there are too many glitches, then the actor needs to redo the scene, even if the acting was perfect.\n\nBut if there aren't too many glitches, then what you do is you hire a skilled animator to repair the glitches that exist. They go into the data and move the points around manually, or tweak the knobs of the motion capture system until it gets the data right. This is very time-consuming.\n\nNeedless to say, hiring all these actors, and having them do lots of takes, all while under the supervision of a skilled motion capture operator, can be very expensive. Then, on top of that, you have to hire the animator to clean up the data, which can also be expensive.\n\nIf you try to save money, you get some imperfections in the data.\n\n"
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21awgq | what are the benefits for someone who creates a computer virus? | I've never understood if viruses' only purpose was to frustrate and annoy me, or if the creator of the virus was actually gaining something from sending it out. Explain. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/21awgq/eli5what_are_the_benefits_for_someone_who_creates/ | {
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"Some men just want to watch the world burn",
"Mostly because if you infect a computer, you can control the computer.\n\nSo in essence, the coder has the control over your computer. Possibly doing an autonomous function, possibly to have a backdoor into your system. But he has control.\n\nNow, imagine what you use your computer for. No, deeper. Deeper still. You use it to process information. But your computer is limited in it's capability, just as you probably wouldn't be able to build a house by yourself. You need people. The more, the better.\n\nSo there you have it. The coder wants control. Of as many computers as possible, to do whatever he pleases.\n\nAt least, I imagine that's why the NSA does it..."
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1v7nwt | how does the show "jeopardy" work? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1v7nwt/eli5_how_does_the_show_jeopardy_work/ | {
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"I give you the answer, and you give me the question.\n\nExample-\n\nAnswer: 4\n\nQuestion: What is 2+2? ",
"The contestants pick a question of a certain value from different categories. Whoever correctly answers the question gets that amount of money added to their total. If they answer incorrectly, they lose that much money.\n\nThe game is divided into three rounds: Jeopardy, Double Jeopardy, and Final Jeopardy. In the second round, the money values increase. In Final Jeopardy, all the contestants have 30 seconds to answer a question and can bet any amount from nothing to everything they have. \n\nWhoever has the most money at the end wins and usually comes back on the next show.",
"There are 3 contestants and they essentially answer trivia \"questions\". However, there's a catch. Instead of giving the answer to a question, they are given the answer and must figure out the question. In practical terms, this just means adding \"what is\" or \"who is\" before the response. For example, a normal game show would ask \"Which planet is the largest in our solar system?\" and the answer would be \"Jupiter.\" On Jeopardy, they'd say \"This planet is the largest in our solar system\" and the contestant would reply \"What is Jupiter?\" \n\nThe way the game is laid out, there is a [large screen divided into different categories and dollar amounts.](_URL_0_) All of the questions correspond to the category written above them. Dollar amounts correspond to difficulty. If a contestant answers a question incorrectly, he or she loses the question's dollar value. If a contestant gets a correct answer, he or she gains the dollar value and gets to pick the category and dollar amount of the next question. This is how the first 2 rounds work. The only differences between the 1st and 2nd rounds is that the dollar amounts are higher in round 2 and there are different categories.\n\nThroughout these rounds, there are randomly placed Daily Doubles. If a contestant picks one of these questions, that player has to pick a dollar amount to wager. If they get the question right, they win that wager. If they get it wrong, they lose that wager. Only the person who picked the Daily Double can attempt to answer it. \n\nAfter 2 rounds, anyone with a score of $0 or less is disqualified. There is then a single question round called Final Jeopardy. The way this works is that the host reads the name of a category that describes the final question. All remaining players then write down a dollar amount to risk on the final question. They are then given the Final Jeopardy question and write down their response before a time limit expires. The contestants then gain or lose money equal to their wagers. The winner is the person who ends up with the most money, and that person gets to appear on the next episode of the show. "
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5w5jhq | if a bullet fell on my head at maximum velocity, could it penetrate my skull? | Because bullets vary, I will take a generic pistol as an example, and with a quick Google search I got Glock G19, which has a 9mm bullet, so we will use this as reference.
If this fell from far above at terminal velocity (assuming there is no air resistance and no added external force), could it penetrate my skull? If not, could it do a serious amount of damage? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5w5jhq/eli5_if_a_bullet_fell_on_my_head_at_maximum/ | {
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"No. The air resistance slows the bullet down enough for it to not be lethal when it hits the ground (or rather, a person). It would probably hurt a lot, though.\n\nYou can't assume no air resistance, because without air resistance, there would be no terminal velocity. ",
"I don't know if you can penetrate your skull, but it can totally kill you. People die every year for this reason. Try Googling killed by Falling bullet.",
"[In the case of a bullet fired at a precisely vertical angle (something extremely difficult for a human being to duplicate), the bullet would tumble, lose its spin, and fall at a much slower speed due to terminal velocity and is therefore rendered less than lethal on impact. However, if a bullet is fired upward at a non-vertical angle (a far more probable possibility), it will maintain its spin and will reach a high enough speed to be lethal on impact. Because of this potentiality, firing a gun into the air is illegal in most states, and even in the states that it is legal, it is not recommended by the police. Also the MythBusters were able to identify two people who had been injured by falling bullets, one of them fatally injured.](_URL_0_)",
"\"Terminal velocity\" is caused by air resistance. Assuming no air resistance (like on the moon), the bullet will fall to the ground with a speed equal to initial speed leaving the ground (that is, muzzle velocity) and you will be quite dead.\n\n",
"Projectiles are ALWAYS falling. The downward vector (gravity limited by air resistance) won't penetrate. Any horizontal vector which, even though it has been diminishing due to air resistance, would probably kill you. ",
"People have actually tested this, and yes they can kill you.\n_URL_0_\n\n",
"You say “at terminal velocity (assuming there is no air resistance)”.\n\nThere’s no such thing. The definition of terminal velocity is “the constant speed a falling object eventually reaches when the acceleration of gravity and the resistance of the medium through which it is falling equalize”.\n\nIf there is no air resistance, there is also no terminal velocity. The object will continue to accelerate until it strikes something.\n\nLeaving that aside, though — yes, a bullet falling at terminal velocity can do serious damage. It happens quite often, in fact. When someone fires a bullet into the air, and it comes down somewhere else and hits another person, the bullet is generally moving at its terminal velocity or less… and people have died from being struck by such bullets.\n\nMore precisely, studies done in the 1920s show that a falling 9mm bullet reaches a terminal velocity of around 90 m/s (300 f/s, or 204 mph). That’s unlikely to penetrate your skull, but it will definitely penetrate skin, and can go through your chest wall and into a lung.\n\nRemember as well that unlikely events do happen: while that bullet may not penetrate the top of your skull, if you should happen to be looking up, your facial bones are much weaker… not to mention your eye."
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3h2rl7 | how different are the various spanish dialects. | Now I live nowhere near Spain and most of the media I consume is in English (ie American made) and whenever I hear people talk about the Spanish language they treat it as this monolithic entity. Yet from what I've heard there are a lot of dialects in Spain (Castillian, Catalan, etc.). I've always wondered if the Americans just called Castillian Spanish and the dialects are almost different languages or if the dialects are close enough that they can be lumped together with only a few minor linguistical differences. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3h2rl7/eli5_how_different_are_the_various_spanish/ | {
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"I had a few Spanish employees working for me, and a lot of workers from Mexico and Guatemala. The Spain Spanish is very different from what I'm used to hearing, their accent is a little more nasally, and some words are pronounced differently. I think Spain's education system is a lot more structured and standardized so that helps standardize the type of Spanish that they speak. \n\nMany central and south American countries are underdeveloped, and therefore have much lower quality education system, so the Spanish spoken by people in poorer communities and in the rural villages is full of regional slang and possibly words from whatever languages the originally natives spoke.",
"Catalan is more than a dialect. They call it a different language, I'd call it Spanish with a lot of French and a few things of its own, but it's much more than a simple change in pronunciation.\n\nAndalusian is more of a dialect. It follows Castillian quite closely, but pronunciation is different, and there are quite a few words that are unique to the region. However, there is no single Andalusian dialect either: Sevilla, Cordoba and Granada have different dialects, although there are enough commonalities.\n\nGallego is yet another dialect, and is almost ununderstandable for me (I'm not native Spanish, in case you wonder). It's closer to Portuguese, which looks very much like Spanish, but sounds rather different. Portuguese is (in my opinion) also somewhere between a different language and a dialect.\n\nHowever, almost every Spaniard does understand standard Castillian and is capable of expressing him/herself in it.",
"I know a little about the situation in Spain but I am not an expert and I know next to nothing about the Americas.\n\nFor the purpose of this reply I'm going to use a simple standard to distinguish a dialect from a language:\n\n*A language has it's own standard form that dialects rely on for literature, education and so on. A dialect is not autonomous in this way but relies on a different standard.*\n\nSo, Catalan is a separate language spoken in Spain (and Andorra, France and Italy).\n\nPortuguese is a separate language.\n\nBasque is a separate language.\n\nOccitan is a separate language.\n\nThose ones are easy. Non of these are easily intelligible with standard Spanish although there is some similarity (1)except in the case of Basque and Occitan is more distant than Portuguese or Catalan. Educated Spaniards report that they can read Porguguese with significantly more success than understand spoken Poruguese.\n\nThe standard language of Spain is Spanish - in Europe often called Castellano/Castilian because there is more than one \"Spanish language\".\n\n(2)~~Two~~ Three varieties spoken in Spain are more complicated: Galician (Galego), Asturian and Aragonese (the latter of which I know almost nothing about). Galego and Asturian are spoken in the north west, Aragonese in the northern central region in the pyrenees valleys.\n\nGalician is very similar to Portuguese and in fact there is a gradient across the border dialects between Portugal and Spain. Galician is about as close (spoken) to Poruguese as other northern varieties in Portugal. If political history were different, Galician would almost certainly rely on Poruguese as a standard. As it happens Galician has its own (very old) literature and it has a literary standard and is used in education. Most speakers of Galician prefer it to be treated as a separate language; a minority want it to be treated as a dialect of Portuguese. There is limited mutual intelligibility between Spanish and Galician.\n\nAsturian is spoken on the seabord and hinterland east of Galicia. It has a literary standard. It has some limited recognition as a second language in education as an optional subject. It is of the same family of Romance as Galician and although I know of no study of the matter, superficially it sounds and look a little closer to Standard Spanish both in writing and speech. I would think there is limited mutual intelligibility with Spanish.\n\nThis leaves the varities of Castilian. The varieties can be divided into Norther and Southern Castilian with Andalucian forming a bloc of its own in the southern group. There are a number of distinguishing features of the dialects. There is probably a case for treating Extramadurense separately in a serious discussion.\n\nSeseo and ceceo\n\nNorther and Southern (excluding Andalucian) still distinguish 's' and 'th' sounds (I don't know how to type IPA so I assume analogs of English orthography here).\n\nIn dialects with seseo 'casa' and 'caza' (\"katha\" in the north) are pronounced identically as a variety of \"s\" .\n\nIn dialects with ceceo they are pronounced identially as a sibilant very close to \"th\".\n\nSo dialects of the south may merge while those of the north distinguish.\n\nYeismo\n\nThis refers to a lack of distinction between the sound in _million_ (lli) and in _year_ (y). In some parts of Spain (notably the north) these are not distinguished and both are pronouced as a 'y' sound which can sound like the first sound in _judge_ so English speakers. In the south and in Galicia and the eastern seaboard, the distinction is preserved.\n\nNow there are other differences - (3)in sound systems, regional vocabulary, use of second person pronouns (ie varieties of you: tu, vos, ustedes etc) and some different tendencies in tense form selection. However, there is normally complete mutual intelligibility among speakers of the dialects of Castilian and when there are difficulties speakers _accomodate_ because the know the standard language and are aware of variation in speech. While a speaker from Toledo may find a Speaker from Malaga a little difficult if they speak in dialect, they will not find it impossible to understand and in any case, normally the two will accomodate by moving slightly towards the standard variety.\n\nSo, the varieties of the standard language in peninsular Spain and the Canary Islands (linguistically Andalucian) are all very very close and the major parameters of variation are well understood and most speakers are aware of them.\n\nThere is masses more to say and I realise this is very partial but I just have to stop before I write an essay.\n\nEdits\n(1) To correct the impression that there are similarities between Basque and Spanish. (It is possible that there are substratum effects Spanish from Basque but that's it).\n\n(2) With thanks to my pyrenean for pointing out the omission of Aragonese.\n\n(3) To correct the impression that I had covered all the phonological variation."
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20zqtl | if i pour a carbonated drink slowly into the side of a glass, will i have more soda to drink than if i just dumped the can into the glass rapidly? | Does drinking straight out of the can give me the most soda since there is no foam from pouring? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/20zqtl/eli5_if_i_pour_a_carbonated_drink_slowly_into_the/ | {
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"You're not \"losing\" soda when it foams up - you're just losing the carbon dioxide gas dissolved in it. It will eventually come to the same level in the glass whether you pour it carefully with no foam or dump it all in.",
"Yes you will have more but since you are only losing CO2 you won't notice any kind of difference unless you were to weigh it before and after pouring it on at least a 4 place balance."
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2wrl59 | why do some birds fold their wings during flight? | since i was a child i always wondered why some small birds flap their wings, then fold them, then flap again and fold again and so on. Is it more efficient? If so why don't all birds do it? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2wrl59/eli5_why_do_some_birds_fold_their_wings_during/ | {
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"Lose altitude, reduce speed, optimize the amount of energy used for flight. Smaller birds use more energy for flight as a share of their weight, so it is more important for them to be efficient. At the same time the size of the wings of the bigger birds as a share of the size of their bodies is generally larger, so they rely more on gliding. Folding wings for larger birds, therefore is not a good idea, unless they want to rapidly increase the speed of flight at the cost of altitude (watch videos of eagles folding their wings when they attack their preys rabbits or other rodents) or reduce altitude.",
"Every flying object has a most efficient airspeed defined by its geometry. For small birds, this airspeed has to be high enough to efficiently escape a predator when attacked. As an attack is a very selective event, the aerodynamics are optimized to high speed escapes. Now when cruising at a significantly lower speed, the aerodynamic efficiency is very low (because far away from the optimized speed); cruising at a higher, more efficient speed, would be too exhaustive to sustain for more than a few seconds. As a result, the bird switches about every second between high speed flight (efficient) and not flying at all to fly at cruising speed on average. Larger birds don't have to escape predators as often, and do to aerodynamic effects, most efficient speed and biologically sustainable cruising speed are closer to each other.",
"I work in the airline industry and recently found out that there is a new theory indicating that folding the wings is to reduce turbulence. My information did not specify which birds this would apply to though, so it may be targeted only at those flying at higher altitudes. This idea is being researched to see if it can be applied to airplane wing design.\n\nThe basic idea: by folding the wings in towards the body the exposed surface area is reduced, contributing to less overall friction."
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8a3bvw | how did people in the olden days construct buildings that were multiple stories high without the use of machinery like cranes to lift and place materials? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/8a3bvw/elif_how_did_people_in_the_olden_days_construct/ | {
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"Pulleys and inclined planes have been used since a long time. Pulleys to lift loads and inclined planes to push stuff up or down. Much like today's modern cranes, pulleys did the same except using man power."
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1gm8hy | why it's so much easier to lift a 60lb child than a 60lb bag of soil | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1gm8hy/eli5_why_its_so_much_easier_to_lift_a_60lb_child/ | {
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"You can lift the child by their arms, while you'd lift the bag of soil by it's sides - and to do this, you need to hold it tighter.",
"Structure.\n\nGo bench press using a wobbly rubber bar. Now bench press it using a steel bar. Same weight, way the hell harder with a wobbly bar.",
"A child would make some effort to help you. They will hold themselves upright and grab onto your shoulders, for example. The weight is distributed differently, then. A bag of soil will likely have most or all or the weight resting on your fingers hands and wrists while you lift it. Large weights feel heavier on those small muscles. ",
"You've obviously never tried to pick up a child who didn't want to be picked up...:)\n\nIt is pretty much the same as the bag, but with more crying.",
"Look up the mythbuster guy lifting a 150 pound dummy versus a 150 pound kettle bell (?) weight. You'll see the difference."
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1vlsuh | why is death by lethal injection (and the associated perils/screwups) morally preferable to a bullet in the brain? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1vlsuh/why_is_death_by_lethal_injection_and_the/ | {
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"It is less personal. The person who pulls a lever to release poison does not need to look at the person to be executed. It's also less messy - no one has to clean up brain afterwards.",
"Read Discipline and Punish by Michel Foucault for a pretty good in-depth analysis. ",
"And another thing: it is far less messy than shooting someone in the head. \n\nWhen you shoot someone in the head, there is a massive amount of blood/brain loss. This was the preferred method of execution (shooting in the back of the head) in China but China now uses lethal injection. \n\nChina executes more people than the whole world combined. "
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62zdol | how can a low-cost airline pays for everything by selling tickets at really low prices? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/62zdol/eli5_how_can_a_lowcost_airline_pays_for/ | {
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"Flying in and out of smaller airports, cutting service to the bare minimum, and doing things like charging for in-flight meals.",
"One item that hasn't been mentioned: their strategies for keeping aircraft maintenance costs to a bare minimum. First, they only buy brand new aircraft. They pay more up front, but the long-term savings in reduced maintenance costs makes it cheaper in the long-term. Second, all the airplanes in a super-cheap airline's fleet are the same model. This means their mechanics can focus all their brainpower on learning maintenance and repairs for just one kind of airplane. Troubleshooting problems goes faster, supplying and stocking replacement parts is simplified, and training costs go way down when everyone only has to know one kind of aircraft.",
"Only fly high volume routs where they can maintain 95%+ utilization of the plane on all flights. ",
"Also, the same plane will fly several routes in one day. A couple of years ago my dad followed one that was leaving Naples, I think, for Madrid, and from there it would go to Prague and then fly back to Madrid. All with the same crew. They off load the passengers and bags, clean up, load a new set of passengers and bags and take off, staying at each airport the shortest possible time.",
"* charging for everything else\n* operating only the most profitable routes\n* flying into smaller, less expensive airports\n* operating smaller, older, less comfortable airplanes\n* using less experienced staff\n* having smaller seats and no first class",
"You say we'll lose money on every flight? Nonsense my friend. We will just make it up in volume!"
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11d3zv | - why are some pills so huge? | I've noticed that sometimes medicine comes in pills that are ridiculously large. Is there a reason for this? It seems counter-intuitive to me, because the bigger pills are harder to swallow. Wouldn't it make more sense to present the medication in smaller pills and have you take two of them or something? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/11d3zv/eli5_why_are_some_pills_so_huge/ | {
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"This has to do with a few factors actually (and correct me if I'm wrong, pharmacy students), one of which is absorption rate. There may be 1 part active ingredient, 4 parts inactive ingredients which allows the active ingredient to be absorbed over a longer period of time as opposed to all at once. The term to look up here is [Pharmacokinetics](_URL_0_).\n\nAnother factor could be that whatever magic mixture of active and inactive ingredients is best for the sickness or disease is already patented by another pharmaceutical company. This means other companies must work around the optimal (best) patent to achieve similar results, which may end with a bigger pill.",
"Different medications for different diseases have different potencies. Potency is a question of how much (ie, how many molecules or mg) of the drug is needed to achieve an effect. An example would be it would take several pounds of marijuana to kill you vs. very little arsenic or botulism because of how they work on the body. \n\nPills from pharma are the same way - some disease states (HIV for example) take thousands of mg of several different ingredients to make an effective therapy. Some cardiovascular Meds (eg, digoxin or nitroglycerin) is measured in MICROgrams - they have to add excipients (inactive materials typically consisting of lactulose) just to make it a reasonable size for you to take and not lose it. \n\nPharma would love to make pills as small as possible, so you take them properly (and buy more), but that's just not possible when you have to fit so many milligrams of drug into a single space. When you compare birth control to metformin (a diabetes drug), for example, you are around a mass difference of 10^5, which explains why the pills for BC are so small while metformin is a horse pill. ",
"When you take a pill, the drug only makes up a tiny part of the pill. The rest of the pill is usually made of talc or sugar. The acid in your stomach dissolves the pill and the drug gets absorbed into your blood stream.\n\nFor some drugs it's not a good idea for you to absorb all of it in one go, so if you have a larger pill then it will take longer to dissolve and absorb more slowly as a result. It's like when you're sucking on a lollipop: you have to break down the outer layer first before you can get to the center.\n\nYou ask a good question, which is: why not have smaller pills and take two of them? The answer is that doing so would increase the volume to surface area ratio. That sounds a bit complicated and mathematical, so I'll give an analogy. Imagine if you had a pill that was shaped like a cube. The acid can attack each side of the cube and dissolve it.\n\nNow imagine that you cut the cube in half: there is still the same amount of pill, but now there are two more surfaces that the acid can attack, so it dissolves faster. That's why the pills are so large and you can't have smaller ones: they're large because the pharmacists who designed them want them to take a long time to dissolve and smaller pills dissolve more quickly.",
"Sometimes it is OK to break the pills in half and are even scored in order to assist in doing so. \n\nThe pills are large in order to ensure delivery of the proper or minimum effective dose. If one has to take two or more pills of the same product in order to get the effective does the patient may only receive (error) take (don't like pills) some but not all of the pills and then they will not get better.\n\nAnother point mentioned by others is that the medicine is often made of two kinds of parts (active and inactive) - Active is the stuff that is going to make you better - Inactive is the stuff that holds the pill together, keeps it dry and safe over time, perhaps adds a flavor and also encases the active ingredient so it is absorbed at the right place in your digestive system. Not all medicine should be released in your stomach immediately. Some is better released in the first part of your intestine or even later. And even if it is OK to be released in your stomach is should not all be released at once. To accomplish this the active ingredient is encased in inactive ingredients that have to be dissolved by your digestive system. Some active ingredient has more and some less covering so that over time the medicine is made available at a proper rate. \n\nTo accomplish all of the above the pills can end up being larger than you might wish. ",
"Hey buddy- you remember playing Dr. Mario yesterday? Sometimes the bad guys are *really hard to hit*, so Dr. Mario needs to throw a giant pill that seems harmless (because of pill ingredients that are not active,) just to confuse the baddie.That way, when the pill hits, the bad guy thinks he's safe and *BAM!,* he is hit with the active pill ingredients and he dies (or I should say, 'goes away')\n\n",
"Good news! It's a suppository! ",
"I recently had to take potassium pills.\n\nThose things are insane and almost impossible to swallow.\n\nI have no problem with normal size pills but actually had to break these in half in order to swallow them.\n\nIn this case I assume it's because our potassium requirements are quite high and thus the pills have to be huge.\n\nAs to why you can't just take two ... no clue."
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4a3o8v | the game of go and why it was thought machines could never beat humans at it. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4a3o8v/eli5_the_game_of_go_and_why_it_was_thought/ | {
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"Nobody thought computers would never beat humans at it, but most people thought it would still take at least 10 more years. The short reason for this is that to make a good move at go, there were really no good computational shortcuts. You can even see this in AlphaGo, it runs parallel on 2800 processors and 300 gpus. On old approaches, this wouldn't have helped either, they would've been terrible even with that much power, but Google managed to use cutting edge machine learning techniques that enabled this result.\n\nLonger version could start by comparison with chess. In chess, a good move leads to a checkmate. However, even if move doesn't lead to checkmate, if it leads to you having material advantage, like taking enemy knight, that's still clear benefit. If you can force that result, you're probably doing just fine.\n\nAnd it turns out this kind of thinking is pretty easy to automatize. You just generate all the variations, check what happens, and then choose the best result you can force, assuming your opponent resists every step of the way. This is called minimax algorithm. It's fairly simple, it takes some computational power but not overtly so if you don't try to read too deep.\n\nGo doesn't allow this easily, because there is nothing really analogous to material advantage. You can't make the computer know if some result is good or bad, figuring that out is where majority of ones strength in go lies. Human players do lots of abstract considerations like, some group has weakness on one part of the board, enemy has strong group nearby, there is also slight territory potential nearby, and strong friendly group, and on the opposite side of the board you have open space... for humans, figuring things out from abstract considerations like this is what they do. Go programs, up until alphago, did not understand any of that. There was a program that replaced minimax by random move generation, which worked far better than minimax, but even then, programs remained blind to the go that humans could play, and ultimately they would lose to decent amateurs. It was only year or two ago that computers reached similar level that I play at. Nobody really had any idea how to really solve the problem on any deeper level though. Random move generation algorithms were much more computationally intensive and they were improving at slower rate every year, it didn't look likely that without massive breakthroughs they could do anything against top humans.\n\nAnd it turns out, there was no shortcut. Google solved this by having ai do what humans do, develop a sense of these abstract things via machine learning to enable sorta minimax/random move generation hybrid thing. Them being able to replicate such a thing is why people all over the world are excited."
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1wi64m | how do remixers get the raw vocals from a track? | I was just listening to a remix of [Bastille's Pompeii](_URL_0_) and I was wondering how the person who remixed it managed to cut the vocals out of the song itself.
Could someone explain please? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1wi64m/eli5_how_do_remixers_get_the_raw_vocals_from_a/ | {
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"Probably got access to the mixer tracks for the vocals from the artist's management or there might be an acapella version floating somewhere",
"The vocals are recorded as a separate track before the song is mixed. Many times the instrumental and acapella tracks will be released for remixing. A lot of singles released on vinyl will include these vocal (vox) tracks so DJs, producers, etc. can remix them without too much background noise."
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14y7bl | why does soccer not stop the clock for injury or out of bounds? | Seriously, "injury time" is dumb. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/14y7bl/eli5_why_does_soccer_not_stop_the_clock_for/ | {
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"We like the game to flow. The entertainment is 45 minutes of mostly uninterrupted athleticism. If the ball goes out of play and the clock stopped, there would be little incentive to get going again with any urgency. Players can receive a caution or a yellow card for not resuming play quickly enough.\n\nOne of the unintended consequences of the rule is feigning injury. A player can break up play by requesting the medic attend to them on the pitch - even if they're only pretending to be hurt. Nowadays, any player tended to by a medic has to leave the field of play, so that balances out the advantage gained, but its not a perfect system."
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2lhcxo | the difference between pnp and npn | Really explain it to a 5 year old this time. Use bananas if necessary. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2lhcxo/eli5_the_difference_between_pnp_and_npn/ | {
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"So you have two metals, and one has a property that makes it P type, and another whose properties make it N type. What this actually means doesn't really matter to a 5 year old, other than they are different, and this is how we distinguish them. Then you bond them together to make a sandwich. So what order do you lay out your layers? NPN or PNP? An actual example is Silicon and Gallium, but I don't remember which is which.\n\nIn an NPN transistor, current flows from the collector to the emitter. In a PNP transistor, current flows from the emitter to the collector.\n\nAn NPN transistor is powered on when a sufficient current is supplied to the base of the transistor. Therefore, the base of an NPN transistor must be connected to positive voltage for current to flow in. A PNP transistor is the opposite. Only when there is no current at the base will it turn on. And to ensure that no current enters the base, the base must be grounded (connected to ground). If any current goes into the base of a PNP transistor at all, the transistor will not conduct across from emitter to collector.\n\nSo knowing this, an NPN transistor turns on by a high signal (current). And a PNP transistor turns on by a low signal (ground). \n",
"First, you have to understand N type semiconductors vs. P type semiconductors.\n\nPure silicon does not conduct electricity well. A silicon atom has four elections in its outermost shell, and those are used to form bonds with neighboring atoms in its crystalline structure.\n\nBut if you introduce phosphorus, with has one more electron, as an impurity, it insinuates itself into the structure, only with one extra electron free to move around. This kind of silicon, where negative charge can flow, is called N type. [Picture](_URL_0_).\n\nWhat is interesting, if you use boron, with one fewer electron in the outer shell, the same thing happens, only instead of an extra electron, you have a \"hole\". Electrons can jump from hole to hole, and also move more easily than pure silicon. The holes acts as sort of a positive charge that flow in the opposition direction, so this semiconductor is called P type. [Picture](_URL_1_).\n\n"
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aff5jy | historically, why did some civilizations seem to get stuck in the hunter/gatherer stage while others excelled in so many tangible ways? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/aff5jy/eli5_historically_why_did_some_civilizations_seem/ | {
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"Appropriate beasts of burden seem to have been a big factor. Notice that south america didn't have animals like oxen to till fields or pull carts (also, they had yet to develop the wheel) leaving all manual labour powered by human hands.\n\nThings like the shape of continents can influence agriculture and trade in ways that are hard to notice at first. plants are adapted to particular latitude & climate, it's easier to move crops east-west than north-south, leading to eurasia having more plentiful variety of crops than the americas\n\nwithout developing from hunter/gatherer into agriculturual communities, people don't have time to invent writing, metallurgy, etc. The Australian aboriginals, Pacific Island cultures, etc had some very smart inventions & tools for their region, but didn't develop the huge agriculture of the middle east and the following explosion of population & innovation. \n\nThen there's the factor of more advanced cultures bumping into less advanced ones and giving them all smallpox, pillaging, shooting, and otherwise mucking up whatever development they might have made had they been left alone.",
"In some cases, peoples advanced, then regressed to hunter-gatherers. Most native Americans, for example, had an agrarian society with some urban centers, but when Eurpean disease wipes out the majority of the population, they no longer had enough people to sustain their former civilization, resulting in reverting to the \"primitives\" that many Europeans found later on. There were some large, highly advanced cities found in Africa that showed that the people in some parts had once moved on but for some reason reverted to hunter gatherers. \n\n\nBesides, many of the socities that we think of as hunter gatherers were not. Austalian Aboriginals, for example, were quite extensive farmers when the Eurpeans met them."
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2gc84g | why do all mammal infants sleep 90% of the time, yet human spawn screeches for hours on end at night? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2gc84g/eli5_why_do_all_mammal_infants_sleep_90_of_the/ | {
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"There is a hypothesis (I am not sure it is enough to be a theory) that infants cry at night in order to keep the parents tired enough that they are less likely to have sex and therefore get pregnant again too soon. ",
"Ours is 4 months old today and has cried twice in her life, for all of 5 seconds. She sleeps 10hours through the night so I can't help you I'm afraid. ",
"I don't think all mammal infants sleep 90% of the time. Predatory animals sleep quite a bit more than prey animals. A newborn kitten will sleep nearly all day but a newborn foal usually only sleeps for a few hours. And have you ever heard very young puppies scream? Sometimes they are just fussy/ colicky and won't shut up! I'll take a baby crying any day over that. \n\n",
"Probably because most mammals are pretty independent when born. Most can walk, run, take a shit with out need of assistance and find a tit to suck when needed. All humans can do is cry to get moms attention. Mom then has to guess what in the hell baby needs. ",
"Newborns sleep most of the time.",
"Also consider that most newborn and infant animals sleep right next to or on top of their parent(s) maintaining touch contact. where as human children are separated from their parents at night",
"When they are well, babies basically sleep all the god damned time. They wake up every three hours for a new diaper and a bottle and then go back to sleep.\n\nThe problem is when they get sick or get woken up if they are light sleepers. Then they are awake and since they don't want to be they are pretty miserable. Since babies can't fix their own problems they cry."
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1gwnv2 | communism and fascism | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1gwnv2/eli5_communism_and_fascism/ | {
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"The idea of communism is a world where the means of production (the things people use to make goods) are owned socially. This means that everyone gets to benefit from them instead of an elite class called the bourgeoisie (the capitalists). Communists hold that there are two main classes in society, the proletariat who are the workers, the people who labor to make, design and distribute goods, and the bourgeoisie who own the means by which the proletariat does this.\n\n Because as a group the bourgeoisie has a monopoly on the means of production they hire proletarians to work for a wage. The labor of these proletarians, applied to the capital (wealth as expressed by the means of production) of the bourgeoisie which then creates value. In order to make a profit, the bourgeoisie does not pay the workers the full value of their labor, in fact, their goal is to screw the workers out of as much value as possible. The workers in turn want as much of their rightful wealth as they can get. So the workers form unions and the capitalists hire goons to murder them or politicians to write laws fucking the workers over. This is what is called class struggle. Communists believe that this system is bad and that the toilers, the proletariat, should control society not the capitalists. \n\nNow there are many sub theories of communism the three main branches of which are:\n\n*Marxism: A scientific approach towards understanding capitalism which deals with objective material conditions. This branch is further subdivided into countless sects with extremely divergent views on many issues. In fact its safe to say that some groups have almost nothing in common except the core writings of Karl Marx. That said, all Marxists agree that during the transition to a stateless, classless society (higher communism) the proletariat will need to seize state power and suppress the bourgeoisie. \n\n*Anarchism: This approach maintains that it is the state which is the source of society's woes. Anarchists believe that any state, even one controlled by the working class, is illegitimate. However, they also hold that capitalism and any hierarchical form of social relations are illegitimate. Anarchists seek to immediately dismantle the state and capitalist relations without a transitional phase. However, not all anarchists are communists there are mutualists and egoist anarchists as well. \"Anarcho-capitalists\" are not anarchists though since they do not oppose all hierarchy. \n\n*Finally, the last variety are Utopian Socialists. This is more of a historical branch but remnants can be seen in religious groups like the Mennonites. Notable groups include the Owanites and Saint-Simonites. \n\n\n\nNow Fascism on the other hand is an ideology based around national unity rather than class conflict. Fascists believe that classes have no natural antagonism and that the nation should be run in either a *corporatist* (this means the state manages all aspects and organizations of society but they maintain some autonomy. This is a feature of the system of the People's Republic of China) or *Totalitarian* (which means the state is directly in control of every aspect of society). Fascists believe a strong state is best for the glory of the nation and that the glory of the nation is more important than any one individual. Fascism really isn't a unified ideology like Marxism however.\n\n The Nazis, Francoists, Peronists, Iron Guard and Italian Fascists all had extremely different policies and social systems. Generally though fascism is highly moralistic, paternalistic and has the same sort of mythologized past as traditional conservatives. However, fascists also reject many aspects of contemporary society and loath liberalism, democracy and other bourgeois ideas. Fascists attack the status quo from the opposite direction from the communists. They advocate extreme hierarchical relations and have no problem with exploitation. Fascism is best described as when the right-wing takes the tactics of the left (vanguard party, state planning ect) for the opposite cause. It is revolutionary reaction. \n\nSo essentially, communists are progressive, they want to push society in an egalitarian, positive, direction and most (but not all) are willing to use the state and violence as a means to get there, while fascists are reactionary, they want to push society backwards but use many of the same tactics to get there. The tactics themselves are the exact same ones the bourgeoisie used to seize power like in the French and American Revolutions. ",
"A lot of great answers, thanks for your time guys ^^"
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8fh51m | how does a player piano work? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/8fh51m/eli5_how_does_a_player_piano_work/ | {
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260xmt | what is chaos theory? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/260xmt/eli5_what_is_chaos_theory/ | {
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"Chaos Theory is essentially a branch of mathematics that concerns itself with the potentially gigantic effects of a small change.\n\nIn common use, though, Chaos Theory simply means that incredibly small actions can have extremely large consequences. The usual example is that a butterfly can flap its wings in South America and set off, through a series of events, a tornado in China.\n\nEDIT: It seems some people think this is \"Explain it like I'm a graduate level theoretical physicist or I'll get mad and call you stupid\" and not ELI5. The example I gave wasn't the BEST example out there, but it's the one everyone thinks of when they think of Chaos Theory. I've seen a few comments out there that say Chaos Theory is used to predict this or measure that, but it's not. Quite the opposite. No one would actually take the time to MEASURE the forces coming from a butterfly flapping its wings and calculate every single effect afterwards until it helped result in a tornado in China. Chaos Theory elaborates on the unpredictability that tiny factors can have which may ultimately produce gigantic results, that's all.",
"Refers to the mathematics that govern a problem's sensitivity to \"initial conditions\" (how you set up an experiment). There are some experiments that you can *never* repeat, despite being able to predict the outcome for a short while. The [double pendulem](_URL_0_) is a classic example. One can predict what the pendulum will do for perhaps a second or two, but after that, no supercomputer on earth can tell you what it's going to do next. And no matter how carefully you try to repeat the experiment (to get it to retrace the exact same movements), after a second or two, the double pendulum will *never* repeat the same movements. Over a *long* period of time, however, the pattern mapped out by the path of the double pendulum will take a surprisingly [predictable pattern](_URL_1_). The latter conclusion is the hallmark of chaos theory problems: finding that predictable pattern.\n\nEDIT: Much criticism on the complexity of this answer on ELi5. Long & short: sometimes *very simple* experiments (like the path of a double pendulum) are *so* sensitive to the tiniest of change, that any attempt to make the pendulum follow the same path twice will fail. You can reasonably predict what it will do for a short period, but then the path will diverge completely from the initial path. If you allow the pendulum to go about its business for a long while, you may be able to observe a deeper pattern in it's path.",
"_URL_0_\n\nA complex system has too many variables to allow proper prediction of every detail of an event. The most extreme example used was the Butterfly Effect, but the water drop test was actually very good at explaining it.",
"You forgot to put your keys where you normally leave them, because your phone rang as you were opening the door coming home. The next time you leave the house to go to the shops, you're three minutes delayed looking for your keys, which causes you to get to the shops later. You bump into that cute girl from highschool in the carpark as she's packing her car to leave the lot, and you score a date. Years later, marriage, kids. \n\nIf you never got that call... You would have completely missed her. ",
"My lecture notes describe it perfectly I believe:\n\n\"Chaos occurs in a system which is deterministic, but has non-periodic trajectories which are bounded and which display a sensitive dependence on initial conditions.\"\n\nThis basically means that these systems are chaotic because they are highly sensitive to changes in the values you use to determine the evolution of the system. You will understand this better if you are familiar with how Chaos Theory was discovered. For those who don't know this is how it came to be:\n\n\"Chaos is generally agreed to have been discovered by Edward Lorenz in the 1960’s. He was running numerical solutions of a system of nonlinear equations with 12 degrees of freedom. This was intended to give a simple model for convection flow in the atmosphere, and hence to help predict the weather. According to stories he tried to repeat a simulation he had already run by typing in the conditions which had been previously output at a given time, but got completely different results. This was eventually traced to the fact that the computer output the results to 3 decimal places, and hence this is what he typed back in, but it was storing to 6 decimal places and using this in the calculations. Lorenz had typed in something like 0.376 while the correct value to resume the simulation from the same place would be something like 0.376542. This small change completely altered the form of the solutions at later times. Such sensitive behaviour in a bounded solution of a deterministic system was something new and unexpected, and Lorenz studied it further.\"\n\nLorenz was able to reduce his 12 equations to a much simpler set of 3 which exhibited all the essential features of the solutions. These are the famous Lorenz equations:\n\ndx/dt = σ(y−x)\n\ndy/dt = rx−y−xz\n\ndz/dt = xy−bz\n\nwhere σ, r and b are parameters, typically:\n\nσ = 10, b = 8/3 and r = 28\n\nFun fact: The volume of the solutions to the Lorentz equations are **almost 3D**, and have a dimensionality of 2.05, and the solutions graphed in 3D look like this:\n\n[Graph from Wikipedia](_URL_0_)\n\n(For those wondering how the volume of the solutions can have dimensions more than 2 but less than 3, its just a matter of definition of what a dimension is (The name for these kind of dimensions are called **Fractal Dimensions**). The solutions as you can see in the graph lie on 2 almost 2D planes thats simply take advantage of the 3rd dimension to jump to the other wing!)",
"It's the study of things that aren't random but are inherently unpredictable. Basically any system in which small errors get magnified with time. Weather for example is a chaotic system. No matter how detailed our models get, no matter how accurate our readings, there will always be a limit to how far ahead we can predict the weather. This is the notion behind the butterfly effect and how a butterfly can \"cause\" a hurricane. The butterflies flap doesn't cause a hurricane per se. But an error the size of a butterflies wings will get magnified with time such that you wouldn't be able to predict the actual path and location of a hurricane some time in the future as that tiny error gets magnified many times over.\n\n(The butterfly effect is actually a mathematical proof in a scientific paper by that name. It's not just a metaphor but a reality. Although the concept that a butterfly flap can *cause* a hurricane is wrong, it's just an error that size will throw off our ability to predict one in the future. Hurricanes are actually caused by much larger forces.)",
"So many complicated explanations.\n\nLet's talk about the stock market. The stock market is hard to predict: it's random. It goes up, it goes down, it goes up so much in one day and down so much the next.\n\nWell, it's not really random.\n\nThe stock market reflects group psychology. Prices, group sentiment, and external factors (news, earnings) impact this. If you understand 100% of the psychology, you know exactly how the market moves.\n\nIf you know everything happening everywhere in the world, you know about all news. If you know how people will react, you can predict the exact market movement tomorrow. You know who is going to sell, what events are going to hit CSPAN, and how the price will move, and how the crowd will react to that movement.\n\nChaos theory deals with your gap in knowledge: you have so much information, and there is so much total information; the gap between these introduces apparent randomness, but it's not really random.\n\nThat's chaos theory. Deterministic events appear non-deterministic because you don't understand part of what determines the outcome. The random variation isn't random, it's just the degree of unknown.",
"Think of it like this.\n\nIn 'normal' systems, when you do two things more or less similar then you will have more or less similar outcomes. For example if I throw 100 rocks in the same general direction and with similar strength they will end up more or less in the same area.\n\nA chaotic system gets very affected by initial conditions so I will throw the first rock and it will end up in location X. The second rock would end up on X if I had EXACTLY the same strength but a slight addition of strength will make it end up 100 feet away from X. Then a little more addition of strength will make the third stone end up behind me. It is impossible to predict what a small change will do.\n\nThe most interesting thing is that these systems are not always super complex and in fact could be the 'easiest' way for nature to create complex structures with simple instructions. ",
"There is a lot of bad information in this thread. I'll try to clear some things up. \n\nChaos theory deals with the difference between determinism, randomness, and unpredictability. A process is called deterministic if what happens in the future is completely determined by the present. This is in contrast to randomness in which the future depends not only on the present but also some unknown external influence. \n\nClearly random processes are inherently unpredictable. But can deterministic processes be unpredictable? At first glance it may seem like a deterministic process can never be unpredictable since we can predict the future just by looking at the present. But the predictability depends on how sensitive the future is to small changes in the present. For instance will a butterfly flapping its wings in Africa cause a hurricane in the US? Processes that are very sensitive to the present or \"initial condition\" are called chaotic. \n\nChaotic processes are both deterministic and unpredictable. In a chaotic system if we know the present exactly then we can predict the future. But if there is even a tiny error in our knowledge of the present then our predictions become completely useless. For instance we could write a computer program that would perfectly predict the weather, but if we get the position of a single butterfly wrong then our predictions will be wrong. ",
"Normally in life you assume that the smaller the difference in the cause, the smaller the difference in the effect. For example, if you make two batches of cookies, one with more salt than the other, the cookies with more salt will taste rather saltier if they have an extra tsp, a bit saltier if it's only 1/2 tsp, only barely saltier if it's an extra pinch, and it will be impossible to taste the difference if you add an extra grain.\n\nThat's called a linear change. As the cause (the salt) changes in a straight line, the effect (the flavor) changes in a straight line, too. But not all cause-effect relationships are linear. Some are cyclical - for example, how many times you make a left turn while driving, and what direction you are heading. Each left turn changes your direction by 90°, but after four turns you're driving in the same direction you started out in. Even these cyclical changes, though, might look nearly linear if you were only comparing a very small change - for example, turning your car 1° to the left versus 2° versus 3°, and then driving 100 feet. On a large scale, turning your wheel further to the left does not mean you will drive to a point farther to the left, but on a small scale it does.\n\nWhat is peculiar about \"chaotic\" changes is that even on a very small scale, a tiny scale, there is no correspondence between a small change in the cause and a small change in the effect. Instead, tiny changes in the cause lead to unpredictably large changes in the effect. ",
"This is EliALotMoreThan5, but:\n\n_URL_0_\n\n(Alternate answer: It's why you spend your weekends typing BASIC code from Antic magazine into your Atari 800, so it can chug for 24-36 hours to draw a Mandelbrot set in all its 192x240 glory.)",
"Chaos is more than just sensitivity in a deterministic system. It has two other equally important properties--mixing and density. You could have a sensitive system that just takes off in a direction and never comes back, but is extremely sensitive to initial conditions. This would not be chaotic. Chaos is likely to happen when you take such a system and trap it in a bottle so that it furiously bounces off the sides. Then its path would, over time, cross itself such that all the spaces in the bottle are filled with the path of the system (density) and all the paths cross themselves at every point (mixing).\n\nSo you'll find chaos in places where there's both non-linearity and boundaries. It happens in weather systems and, on some level, anywhere a fluid is moving. It happens with electromagnetic systems, too--circuits where oscillations can happen including the brain, etc. \n\nHowever, in natural systems, deterministic chaotic behavior depends on your timescale, the accuracy of your measurements, and where you decide to draw the boundaries of the system. Of course, this is true of all of applied mathematics. Circles don't really exist, for instance. Even if they did, no one would be able to prove it without also having a perfect measurement system. In the same way, weather is chaotic, maybe. The important result is that even after meticulous measurement and lots of expensive supercomputer modeling, the best way to know what the weather is going to be like is to go outside and wait. It's sort of a kick in the face for all the mathematicians who think they know everything, which makes the whole thing very attractive IMO.\n\nI'm not a fully educated mathematician. I'm just passionate about chaos. So it's possible that what I've said is incorrect.\n\nEDIT: Removed some useless jargon.",
"Chaos theory is essentially the theory of how deterministic systems can lead to unpredictable behavior. When you flip a fair coin, most people would say that the outcome is unpredictable. You could say the reason for this is that the very core of reality is based on quantum mechanics, which is fundamentally probabilistic, and for which a well specified state can lead to many different outcomes. However, our experience with the macroscopic world suggests that many systems can be accurately described by deterministic classical mechanics, for which a well specified state leads to only one outcome. Deterministic systems are often thought of as predictable, but chaos shows that this is not quite the case.\n\nThe basic mechanism of chaos is similar to the mechanism that spreads butter through dough when you are kneading it to make a croissant. You put a hunk of butter in the dough, then you stretch out the dough, fold it over on itself, stretch it out, fold it over... You repeat the this stretching and folding process over and over until the butter is spread into tiny little hunks all through the dough. The core idea here is that the paths of the butter through the dough are diverging along some directions, but converging along others. You have a spreading system that is also bounded.\n\nTo connect to systems like the [Lorenz system](_URL_1_) and the [double pendulum](_URL_0_), imagine that the dough is the state space of these systems. In either of these systems, the dynamics are kneading this dough, stretching and compressing, in such a way that if you were to put a little chunk of butter somewhere, eventually it would be spread out over a large region of dough/state space. No matter how small a chunk of butter, it would spread out very quickly, exponentially quickly, to occupy a large region of the dough, the \"strange attractor\". You can see the location of this butter as the state of your system, and the width of the chunk as your uncertainty in the state. Unless you have zero uncertainty in your start state, which is practically impossible, the uncertainty in your state will grow exponentially, until it's the size of your strange attractor. This means that even though you know exactly how each point in your state space should evolve, it's impossible to accurately predict the dynamics of a system for a long time. The system is, in a sense, unpredictable, like a fair coin.\n\nTo give a practical example, the Lorenz system is an early model of convection. Convection plays a major role in weather dynamics. Thus, it's reasonable to believe that weather is chaotic. This means that no matter how good our models of the atmosphere and how accurately our measurement devices are, we won't be able to more accurately predict whether it's going to rain two months from today.",
"The study of systems with tiny differences that have huge consequences.\n\nIs this ELI5 enough?",
"To put it simply, \"chaos theory\" is a field of mathematics that study the behaviors of a specific family of equations that are incredibly sensitive to initial conditions.\n\nIf you take a standard linear equation like \n\n f(x) = 100*x + 5\n\nbut change the initial parameters because of a slightly inaccurate measurement or rounding (100 to 100.000010 for example), you would still obtain an answer close to the theoretical one\n\nA chaotic equation wouldn't behave so nicely however. Changing \"100\" to 100.000010 could generates a completely different solution, and attempting to observe a \"tendency\" is often as futile as guessing the next decimal of pi. But not always! Finding these tendency is what \"chaos theory\" does, and many tools were developed over the last few decades to handle these problems properly.\n\n\n > Why, if at the same starting position, will the [double] pendulums not repeat the same movements?\n\nStack two balls on top of each others, lift them two meters, and drop them on a flat surface. When they stop moving, write down their position (or don't, that's not the point). Now, repeat this 5, 10 or 50 times and try to find a pattern. Why is the result always different despite you doing the same motion every time?\n\nDid you accidentally make your system rotate? Did you drop them from a higher point? Are the balls imperfect? Or is it the floor? The actual answer is all of the above. Any slight variations to your throw will change the end result completely.\n\nThe double pendulum is similar, but one thing that makes it special is that it loses it's energy very slowly (low friction), and can go on for a long time without any intervention. If your prediction is slightly off after one second, the prediction you make 10 or 20 seconds later will be even more wrong. \n\n\nHowever, what I just said above is one half of the answer, and only explain \"why the initial conditions have such a big impact on a physical system with unstable equilibrium\". If we want to bring the topic back to chaos theory, the question we should be asking is \"why is the [simple pendulum](_URL_2_) so easy to predict over a long period of time, but the [double pendulum](_URL_1_) is nearly impossible?\"\n\nIt's very easy to get an idea why when you look at the simplicity (or complexity) of their respective movements, but mathematically, it's a bit more complex. I will save you the details involving [movement equations](_URL_0_) and how to solve them, but what make the double pendulum different from the simple pendulum is that it cannot be solved analytically (ie: described with a with a more simple solution), and because it cannot be simplified, you won't be able to find harmonies in its movement (ie: a resonance, a repetition) like you can for the simple pendulum (which can be simplified to a mere sine). On top of this, changing any parameters (height, initial angle, length of the pendulum) in the equation create vastly different trajectory because of the large amount of unstable equilibrium that appears in the solution. \n\nSo, unlike the normal pendulum which is always stable, the double pendulum is going to go through a multitudes of unstable equilibrium in a very short times, and it won't take long until your result aren't accurate enough to guess its approximate trajectory.\n\n\nThese problems are quite common in physics. Something as simple as a planetary system that contain one star, one planet, and one moon cannot be solved analytically, and would lead to very unpredictable result over a long time...if the difference between their masses wasn't so different, and they weren't all already stuck on a relatively simple orbit. Similarly, pretty much anything in quantum mechanics that isn't a simplified hydrogen atom will fall in that category.\n\nBut to put it simply in fewer words, a double pendulum's movement, or any chaotic system cannot be predicted because:\n\n1. The system cannot be resolved analytically (no accurate solution exist)\n2. The equations will contain many unstable equilibrium where the slightest variation will make it go one way or the other.\n\nSo, not only are you unable to solve it on paper, keeping 100 or 101 decimals will eventually make the difference between \"left\" or \"right\" and change everything significantly beyond that point. And on top of this, you're stuck with unwanted physical phenomenon that make any real application even less predictable (friction, imperfect system or measurement, etc). \n\n\n[edit]\n\nI apologize for the poor grammar, English isn't exactly my strength, or first language.",
"It's the idea that small changes in what you do have vast changes in what happens. Due to our precision of measurement and simulation/modeling, this manifests as unpredictability. We can't measure what we've done accurately enough to predict with 100% accuracy (or even near that) what will happen, even if our description of what happens *given perfectly accurate measurements* is complete and perfect. Anything that is like this is known as a \"chaotic system\" and belongs to \"chaos theory\". \n\nExamples of things that are not chaotic might be a calculating the damage of an explosion. What \"we do\" here is lighting a certain amount of explosives (20 grams? 20.001 grams? 19.999 grams?). The exact amount we light probably won't have much sway on our prediction of what happens. \"That building will crumble to pieces if we blow it with these explosives. Even if we do +/- an entire stick of dynamite, the outcome will be the same.\" That's NOT chaotic. Small changes in what we do has pretty much no change on the outcome *under the abstraction that the outcome is whether the building goes or not*. That same thing that we do could be described as chaotic if we were trying to predict the EXACT way the building crumbles, the exact bursts of flames created, etc. Perspective and our definitions decide whether something is chaotic.\n\nA common example of a chaos is weather where we have sufficient knowledge for models. We know gas laws and whatnot, we know how air will swirl if we could perfectly describe the pressure/temperature/geography/whatever else at every point and all. But we can't describe that... it's too much data and too precise of data. \n\nInstead, we say that this general location around this area was measured to be 20.3 C +/- .03. Over here it's 20.8 +/- .03. We run the model, perhaps using all of the reported measurements. We get a light storm. We next run the simulation assuming all of the temperatures were underapproximated (so 20.33 and 20.83). We get no storm. We run it assuming all were overapproximated. A big storm rolls through. We now run the simulation several hundred more times with random locations assumed to be under and over approximated. We get all sorts of results.\n\nWhen a weather prediction is made using models such as these, they run the simulation by picking thousands of over/under approximation assumptions and seeing what results. They then do a majority rule. Perhaps 66% of the simulations said a light to medium storm would come through. We'll call that our best prediction of what will happen. Each of those temperatures/pressures/etc. are known as \"initial conditions\". Those are the \"input\" to the \"system\" (the system here is our atmosphere). The system produces an \"output\" as a response to a given input. That response/output is the weather we experience, rains, tornados, sunny days, cloudy days, etc. ",
"Mathematically it deals with non-linear equations. Nonlinear systems are systems which do not yield a straight line when graphed. Here are some excerpts from a paper I did on it quite some time back.\n\nSimply put chaos theory tries to predict the behavior of random events.\n\nHenri Poincare in the late 1800s. Poincare worked extensively in topology and dynamic systems. His \"Bifurcation theory\" and \"Discontinuity theory\" were some of the precursors to what is now a part of Chaos theory. Edward Lorenz revived it in the 20th century while working on whether systems. Lorenz was running computational models in an attempt to forecast the weather. While carrying out another run, Lorenz decided to type in a few values from a previous run instead of repeating the previous run in order to save time. This gave him an entirely new set of results – an anomalous finding. He discovered that rounding of the digits had resulted in this anomaly and this lead to one of fundamental tenets of chaos theory – the Butterfly effect\n\nThe term Chaos theory was coined by a James Yorke – a mathematician in the 1960s. This was a time when scientists from varied disciplines were interested in this „new‟ science including ecologist Robert May, mathematicians Mitchell Feigenbaum, David Ruelle and Floris Takens among others. Feigenbaum worked on building the mathematical formulas to explain the phenomenon of chaos theory\n\nFor a system to be in a state of chaos it must exhibit the following conditions\n\n* **Sensitivity to initial conditions:** More commonly identified as the butterfly effect. As far back as 1898 it was suggested that small errors in the initial conditions of the system results in long term evolution that is impossible to predict. In chaos theory, this refers to two points in a system which are in close approximation with each other which have significantly distinct trajectories over time. A small deviation or error in the initial condition is amplified until it is the same order of magnitude as the correct. The error is magnified exponentially until there is no means of distinguishing the actual signal from that of the error. Due to the error generation, long term forecasting of such systems is impossible, however it is possible to quantify the error propagation using Lyapunov Exponents.\n\n Lyapunov exponents are a measure of sensitivity to initial conditions and are defined as the average factor by which an error is amplified in a system. A system is chaotic if at least one positive Lyapunov exponent is present. It must be noted that sensitivity does not imply chaos – systems can be sensitive to initial conditions and at the same time be stable and non-chaotic. The Lyapunov exponent gives a threshold up to the point the system is predictable, beyond this point the dynamics of the system become unpredictable\n\n* **Time Irreversibility:** This is also called as aperiodicity. This behavior is characterized by irregular frequencies that neither grow, nor decay, nor become stable. Time irreversibility refers to states in chaotic systems which do not repeat over time. In other words a chaotic system has a very low probability of returning to its initial state. However this does not imply that such systems cannot achieve stability. Chaotic systems exhibit other states of behavior which are inclusive of stable, non chaotic states. Thus, a chaotic system may exhibit periods of stable behavior in between the chaotic states.\n\n* **Strange attractors:** Despite the apparent chaos in chaotic systems, these systems possess order in the form of a pattern. Chaotic systems in their evolution may get organized around these patterns at different scales. These patterns do not repeat but have similar general features. An example to illustrate this point is that of the human body. Even though the human body exhibits a complex system it has a pattern to it which enables humans to identify other humans. An attractor is a set of points in the phase space to which all initial conditions gravitate. Phase space is a mode of visualization of the location of a system as a point. When a system attains stability periodically it is said to have periodic stability (and a periodic attractor) . The system can also attain a stable equilibrium or a point attractor, which is independent of time. Strange attractors are a characteristic of chaotic systems. These exist in low dimension phase space and have low degrees of freedom . These attractors are called strange due to the strange, unexpected regular shapes exhibited by them, such as ring shaped attractor of Henon, Butterfly Wing shaped attractor of Lorenz or the sugar bread shaped attractor of Rossler.\n\n* **Fractal Forms:** Chaos invalidates the reductionist view which argues that a complex system can be observed by reducing in to simpler building blocks. In contrast, Chaos theory assumes that focusing on individual units can lead to misleading facts. This can be derived from sensitivity to initial states – small changes in individual units can result in dramatic changes in the system. Although a reductionist approach is not applicable, a scale effect approach is. The attractors mentioned previously create an order within the chaos of a nonlinear dynamical system, within which the system remains complex and unstable. This complexity when observed shows a scale effect i.e. what is observed at a smaller scale is what is generally observed at a global scale. Mandelbrot suggested using a qualitative measurement termed \"Fractal\" which measures the complexity of an object. By measuring fractals and by essentially measuring complexity of a system it becomes possible to compare systems of varying scales. Due to the self similarity of Fractals, it is possible to analyze chaotic systems by tracking similar patterns through successive stages of evolution. Using fractals, Mandelbrot demonstrated a chaotic system – the stock market and explicated the scale nature – a stock market is “self similar” from largest to the smallest scales, i.e. the evolution of the stock market over several years reflected daily and monthly evolutions. \n\n* **Bifurcation:** Over time a chaotic system tends to become more complex; however, sudden changes in the system‟s direction, character or structure can occur. These are called as bifurcations. These junctures result in rearrangement of a system around a new order. The new order may resemble the initial state or may be dramatically different from it. The transition from a state of stable equilibrium to periodic behavior or chaos usually occurs when an increasing number of variables with different frequencies are coupled between each other . Bifurcations can result in two distinct solutions to the non linear equation which describes the initial state of the system. It is possible to predict the onset of these bifurcations, however the outcome remains unpredictable . A system passes from a stable state to a periodic state and from a periodic state to a chaotic state when the value of the parameter between these variables is more than or equal to three . These values are called Feigenbaum numbers – universal values representing points during the development of a non linear system, and may be used to predict the onset of these bifurcations. Bifurcations may result in attainment of a newer structure and complexity.",
"Chaos theory in a way describes the ultimate underlying nature of the Universe. There's no such thing as quantum fluctuations if you really think about it. There's simply variances in time and space, because no two slices of spacetime can ever be the same, as in they could not be exactly the same size, and contain the exact same amount of energy. Even space is a false vacuum, meaning there is always something out there bumping into other stuff either with visible or invisible forces. All of these differences create movement by pressure and it may be caused by waves of gravity, energy, or real particle interaction. This variance in everything is what gives motion, and motion at these smallest levels is what create larger macro interactions our eyes can observe, and all of these interactions can happen if the probability allows it. As time continues, the combination of all of these movements become impossible to add up or observe, but even the smallest movement has the potential to trigger massive effects on a Universal scale.",
"I always thought the film \"butter fly effect\" addressed this well. \n\nInfinite variables can be affected by one simple change. \n\nJurassic park said it also, better when he deliberately Explained Chaos theory.\n\nWhen applying a drop of water to Ellies hand, we all observe the way it moves and the path it takes ..now he states \"Now ..lets put another drop of water ..on the SAME SPOT ..\" What do you think will happen? \n\nIt will go the same way? Ok ..So he drops the water drop .. and it takes a totally different path. he explains \"Imperfections ..tiny imperfections ..the capillary dilation ... the position of the hair folicles ....etc etc etc\" \n\nTiny tiny variations affect the entire outcome of the whole deal. \n\nThis is ELI5 so yea _URL_0_",
"It's what happens when you have kids. ",
"Imagine you drop a marble into a cereal bowl. What trajectory does it take? Well, regardless of where you drop the marbel, it is going to end up oscillating and setteling into the bottom of the cereal bowl. This means a large number of inputs (where your drop the marble) leads to the same conclustion (marble settling in the middle of the bowl. \n\nNow imagine you turn the bowl upside down so that it forms a half sphere. Now you drop your marble right in the middle of the bowl. What trajectory does it take. Well, it is going to roll in some direction off the bowl, but what direction? This is a very hard question to answer. If you drop the marble just a little bit the left or right or up or down the marble could end up taking very different paths.\n\nThis is like a chaotic system. Some very slight change in the initial conditions (where you drop the marble) results in very different situations (where the marble ends up).\n\nNow this is not a great example of a chaotic system. The double pendulmns are much better examples, but I hope my simpler example makes the basic concept clear for you to better appreciate the more complicated chaotic systems. ",
"Determinism dictates that if you know the physical properties of everything, every atom, every bit of energy, in the universe, then anything in the future is predictable. \n \nHowever, Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle states that finding the exact location of an electron is impossible. Instead, the location of the electron is stated in probabilities, as in the probability that an electron will be found at that certain point. \n \nTherefore, there are some things that cannot be predicted, especially events where there are influences too small to measure, such as the butterfly across the world or the electrons in the atoms that make up the event.",
"If you'd like to get more in depth, while still reading at a very layman level, I'd highly recommend checking out Chaos: Making of a New Science. Really excellent ",
"The third splinter cell game ...",
"My favorite video game of all time. :D",
"It's Jeff Goldblum in Jurassic Park is what it is! ",
"The most ELi5 way to explain this, is by retelling a story that my calculus/differential equations professor told my class back when I was in college. **NOTE**: This is a huge over-simplification of a very complex subject, but a good way to understand what chaos theory is on the surface. \n\n[Lorenz](_URL_1_) was a mathematician that was playing with the notion of predicting weather. One day (let's say Monday), while at his office he tried to predict the weather for Friday, using one of his **newly** discovered [atmospheric equations](_URL_0_). His calculations determined that Friday would be a nice, sunny day. \n\nThe next day (Tuesday) he could not find the paper where he had predicted the weather for Friday. Since he could remember the process and equations used for this, he solved the problem again. However, this time Lorenz did not go too in-depth in his calculations. He wanted to speed things up. On his Monday calculation Lorenz had used (let's say for the purpose of argument) 5 decimal points. To speed things up, on Tuesday, Lorenz used 4 decimal points. When he finished his calculations, he found that Friday would **NOT** be a sunny day, but a stormy one. He then re-did his calculation with 5 decimal points, and found the same result as he had Monday. \n\n**This is Chaos Theory**. When a very small change on initial conditions can have a huge effect on a whole system. In this case, performing a calculation with one less decimal yielded a completely different result for the expected weather on Friday. This effect came to be known as the **butterfly effect**. ",
"Now where is that Reading Steiner when you need it",
"The state of a system is typically described by its evolution in time (let's ignore other dimensions like space for now) like for example the air temperature in Paris. If a system's state doesn't change with time, it is said to be in an equilibrium. Most of the world around you is in some sort of equilibrium as things that have a tendency to blow up, well..., blow up, and cease to exist as such. In fact you can often factor the effect on systems to be a combination of two antagonistic tendencies: a dampening tendency (think like friction) and an explosive tendency (think explosion). If you only have a dampening tendency, you will quickly reach a steady state. If you only have an explosive tendency, you will blow up. Blowing up usually means becoming a different system, because nature doesn't like infinities. Taking the temperature in Paris again as an example, it is easy to think that if the sun wasn't constantly pumping energy into earth, the temperature would quickly reach a stead state. In the same way, if some crazy cosmic phenomenon would constantly pump more and more energy into earth, earth would explode and cease to be.\n\nBut apart from the steady state reached by dampening which is kind of boring, you can also have dynamic equilibrium states, where the dampening and explosive tendencies of a system balance each other in a robust tug-of-war. These dynamic states are more interesting than the steady state, as it means there is actually something happening to the system in time: it is moving, shaking, vibrating, buzzing, pulsing, etc.. In Paris, this results in large scale seasonal changes of temperatures, scattered with smaller scale weekly fluctuations and pretty regular diurnal oscillations.\n\nNow mathematically, you can try to analyze how a system goes from a steady state to a more complex dynamic equilibrium. Basically how does a system lose its simplicity?\n\nWhat is remarkable is that you find that many systems will evolve towards these more complex dynamical equilibriums in a _universal_ manner. Basically: systems lose their temporal simplicity in a systematic cascade of behavioral changes, going from simple temporal patterns to a sequence of ever more complicated ones. Furthermore, it is possible to calculate that for a very wide collection of systems, they can eventually reach a dynamical equilibrium that is essentially just random noise. It's actually strange to talk of such a random state as an equilibrium, which is probably why they are called 'strange attractors'.\n\nAnalysing these systems and how the lose their simplicity and eventually reach these highly complex dynamical equilibriums is the domain of Chaos Theory.",
"I hate it when people on this sub complain about answers being too complex. Like I would hate it if people actually explained shit like I was a five year old.",
"Dr. Malcolm explains it pretty well in Jurrasic Park i felt.... ",
"Small perturbations in some systems will have compounded effects as the system is progressed - resulting in widely divergent results for similar start conditions - but will tend to ultimately fall into a statistically predicable pattern.",
"A butterfly flaps its wings in Canada and several thousand Cambodians are displaced.",
"Just watch Jurassic Park. Jeff Goldblum explains it.",
"When you can't predict that Doctor Grant will jump out of a moving vehicle.",
"My favorite Splinter Cell game.",
"I feel like this subreddit has drifted from ELI5 to ELI care that much I'm willing to re-read a paragraph 6 times to partly understand the concept.",
"_URL_0_\n\nAsk this guy...",
"It's when you put a drop of after on your hand and then dinosaurs try to kill everyone ",
"Best explanation I've heard - _URL_0_",
"Once I entered a store at a city by the beach to buy some sandwiches with some friends.\nSince the woman didn't have change we needed to head back, instead of going straight to the beach.\nBecause of that, I crossed my path with the most gorgeous girl I've seen n a long time.\nMy fascination was obvious, as was her.\nI let her walk for a bit, being dumbfounded, then went back (she was waiting at a bus stop), looked her deep in the eyes and told her \"I loved the way you looked at me\".\nWe spoke for a few minutes, she said \" This is my bus\", I replied \"Take the next one\".\nWe ended up dating for 2 years, she's one of the women I loved most in my life (sadly, we got separated... Life...).\n\nI also took interest in rollerblading, which I love doing and must say I'm very good at.\nI would have never done they, if I had never met her.\n\nAnd all that because that particular day, nor me, not my friends nor the lady had any change.\nAlso, if I had woken up earlier by 10 seconds, had fail to see the ad for the job in which I met the guy who is my friend who invited to the city... Etc.\n\nMy whole life led to the moment, if anything had been different, I would have never met her and I would be a completely different person due to that.\n\nThat is the chaos theory.\nI even have a tattoo they represents the symbol on my left shoulder.\nIt represents that particular moment in which I met her, but more broadly, these kind of events that show you how insignificant your control over situations you never thought deeply about.",
"The Chaos Theory describes a Dynamic Non-Linear System, where the conditions at the start seems determined and also correlations in between the parameters seems to be determined , however, the result is unpredictable. It is not right to limit it to the so called Butterfly - Effect as mentioned below. Because, The Butterfly Effect is describing the Question (!) : Can the beat of a butterfly in Beijing cause a rain storm in Texas ?"
]
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| []
| [
[],
[
"http://video.mit.edu/watch/double-pendulum-6392/",
"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:DPLE.jpg"
],
[
"http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n-mpifTiPV4"
],
[],
[
"http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/13/A_Trajectory_Through_Phase_Space_in_a_Lorenz_Attractor.gif"
],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[
"http://www.amazon.com/Chaos-Making-Science-James-Gleick/dp/0143113453"
],
[],
[
"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Double_pendulum",
"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lorenz_system"
],
[],
[
"http://upload.wikimedia.org/math/6/4/f/64f41325076f1a2789b7c2e4505607c3.png",
"http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/45/Double-compound-pendulum.gif",
"http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/aa/Pendulum_90deg.gif"
],
[],
[],
[],
[
"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5cVLUPwrSmU"
],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[
"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lorenz_system",
"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Norton_Lorenz"
],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[
"http://i.imgur.com/zAOsIib.jpg"
],
[],
[
"http://youtu.be/08hmqyejCYU"
],
[],
[]
]
|
||
31tu2m | can we have multiple internets or is it like the highlander and there can be only one, and why? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/31tu2m/eli5_can_we_have_multiple_internets_or_is_it_like/ | {
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"We have many internets. The Comcast network is different from the FIOS network, and so forth. The networks have connections so that it seems like one big network, but that's all a simplification for users.",
"internet is a collection of many networks. \n\nyou can make a different internet that's not connected to the current existing internet. but as soon as 1 node on your newInternet connects to the old internet. then it's just....the internet. "
]
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[],
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||
11q4aj | why is it that once in a while my eyeballs..shake, for a second or so? | Me and my friend both know this problem, we have it, is there a reason why your eyeballs shake/jiggle/whatever for half a second, at random times? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/11q4aj/eli5_why_is_it_that_once_in_a_while_my/ | {
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"Your brain, over millions of years of evolution, has trained itself to ignore signals from your nerves that do not change. Hence, while you are reading this, you probably can't feel your clothing til you draw attention to it consciously. But you feel your clothes when you put them on. It's somewhat similar to that weird feeling you get after putting jeans on after a summer of nothing but shorts. It is because your brain isn't used to feeling them. His is so your brain does not t overloaded with sensory information. It sensors out the data it gets that dies not change, so it only gives you what it jinks are the important for survival information.\n\nAnyway, with your eyes, if they are not moving every thirty seconds or so, your brain would start censoring the data it gets, so you would start to get tunnel vision and eventually black out. Fun fact, and I forget the exact instructions, if you close one eye, pinch the bone directly above the other eye, and do not move that eye at all, you will get tunnel vision an go blind until you let go. His is because of what I have talked about. ",
"Sorry this is anecdotal, but I've known a few people who can do this on purpose and used it to freak people out...and their eyeballs didn't fall out or explode or anything, you know, if you were worried about that. They shake laterally, yeah?",
"could be [nystagmus](_URL_0_). your brain is constantly making one image out of the two inputs from your eyeballs, and sometimes it gets confused and they have to fight it out. \n\nI am not a neurologist though, so don't quote me on that. ",
"my eyes do this too! i used to be able to do it on purpose and it would just happen on it's own sometimes, but now it happens randomly every other day or so.",
"Mine is pretty bad, and sometimes they will shake for multiple seconds. I haven't noticed a correlation between any environment changes, like low-lighting situations, dark to light contrast, or caffeine intake or anything that triggers it. It seems to be random to me. I looked at the Astygmus wiki page, but my eyes are much faster when they're shaking. Rapid movement from side to side, it almost looks like a rapid muscle spasm or some kind of seizure.\n\nOn another note, I have Keratoconus, which is basically a thinning of the cornea which will progressively make my vision worsen. I already have pretty serious astigmatism in both eyes (arguably from Keratoconus, or at the least amplified by it; -5~ astigmatism in both eyes and getting progressively worse over time) and i've always wondered if that had something to do with my eyes shaking. \n",
"It's just a sign that you're receiving updated programming. Get back to work, earthling slave.",
"TIL some people's eyeballs shake."
]
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[],
[],
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"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nystagmus"
],
[],
[],
[],
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|
azlpgk | why does the us government not produce insulin? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/azlpgk/eli5_why_does_the_us_government_not_produce/ | {
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"Because the government doesn't produce products. The government isn't a pharmaceutical company, it's a government. ",
"Because the government lacks the will/drive to do major social projects like this... It's on the citizens to do it. Any number of people could start up a cheaper insulin company and completely revamp the prices. US way is that the government stays out of a lot of things like that. It's one of our greatest stregnth and greatest weaknesses."
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[],
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||
3mr22b | why if i think about or say a word too much sometimes i forget its meaning or get confused and question whether it is still a word or not? | It doesnt happen very often but every once and a while when i read a word i stop and linger about it then after repeating it a few times in my mind, i start to wonder... How does this mean anything, is it truly a word? Even happened with my name once (is it truly my name? 0_o) | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3mr22b/eli5_why_if_i_think_about_or_say_a_word_too_much/ | {
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"text": [
"The brain likes to focus on new, exciting things. It is very good at ignoring static or repeated things, because it's not very exciting and does not represent danger or reward. An example is when you get used to a persistent noise like a clock ticking in your room. But it's not only limited to just your senses (sound, smell, sight, touch).\n\nIt's an evolutionary adaptation to save energy. If you want to look up more/non-ELI5 information about it, the particular phenomenon is called \"semantic satiation.\" Also see \"habituation.\""
]
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| []
| [
[]
]
|
|
1e2agq | why do i lose a decent amount of hair in the shower, yet my hair thickness stays the same? | Especially if I (female) go 3-4 days in between cleaning my hair, I lose a decent amount of hair. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1e2agq/eli5_why_do_i_lose_a_decent_amount_of_hair_in_the/ | {
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"You lose hair all the time, and new hair grows to replace it. Now if you tie up your hair and hold it in place, all your lost hair might still be held in place, which might all drop at once when you brush or wash it.\n\nI cant speak for your exact amount of hair loss, but losing a small amount of hair everyday is normal, and compensated for.",
"I think this question has not been answered appropriately yet. I understand that new hairs start growing as soon as the old ones fall out, but my hair is quite long and it takes several years for the new hairs to become the same length as the old ones. \n\nIt feels as though I lose enough hair every time I shower that the new hairs shouldn't have enough time to become the same length as the rest of the hair, yet my hair has a constant thickness, even at the tips. \n\nSome might say that its a constant process, the hair that is longer now is the result of hair that fell out in a shower years ago. This doesn't make sense to me because the amount of hair coming out seems that it should add up to the total volume of my head in less than a year.",
"You shed on average of 100 strands of hair each day, but since there are 100,000 - 200,000 strands on your head (someone on The Internet said 1,000/inch) you don't notice this small percentage out of the overall mass. You only notice them when they force you to notice them by accumulating in your shower drain or when they stick to your shirt and tickle your arm.\n\nI've heard that when it sheds from the root, apparently a new hair is already replacing it, pushing it out. I cannot confirm this with a source, but it seems to be the consensus that follicle pores go through a \"resting\" phase every five or six years after which they grow a new hair and push the old strand out. \"Since only 10% of the hairs on average are in a resting phase at any given time (the rest being in a growth phase) and the hairs are shed following the resting phase as the new hair pushes the old hair out of the follicle, you would generally only see 10% of the hairs on your head as these short, newly-grown hairs.\"",
"I have very long hair myself, and it has been falling out at a rapid pace all my life. Every time I take a shower, it comes out by the handful. I have to use conditioner because if I don't, I would never be able to brush my hair. I can't figure out WHY my hair falls out so fast, yet still leaves a VERY thick head of hair...but 30+ years of hair falling out, and never really \"losing\" any (at least from the looks of my head), I'm not worried about it.\n\nHair falls out.\n\nMore hair grows.\n\nDone. :)",
"Think of it like world population. People die all the time, about 70,000 a day throughout the world. But new babies are born all time too. At any given time, there are roughly the same percentage of adults in the world.\n\nThe thousands of babies born 60 years ago are replacing the thousands of 60 year old adults who will die today. Since there are so many people in the world, you don't notice the gradual process of the new replacing the old. \n\nYour hair is no different. Old baby hairs replace the recently lost grown hairs, but because you have so many hairs, you can't really notice the process happening.",
"If it's a LOT of hair it could be because you have Thyroid issues. Definitely research and see if you have other symptoms. ",
"Do you brush your hair during those days?\n\nI will explain why in a minute.\n\nNormally people lose around a 100 hair strands a day. If you brush your hair everyday (during or after shower) , then you will see those hair strands. \n\nBut if you don't brush your hair for 3-4 days then brush it (during or after your shower), you will see a bigger amount of hair fall, around 300-400. So you will think that you are losing your hair, but you already lost those strands in the previous days. They were locked inside the rest of the hair. ",
"You should probably consider brushing your hair before showering to keep your drain from getting clogged.",
"You are losing hair at a constant rate, it's just not all falling out until you wash it out.\n\nI recently grew my hair out fairly long to donate it (and I'm a guy). It was over 8 inches long, and after I showered, there would always be a ton of hair left on the drain cover.\n\nNow that my hair is short again (less than an inch long), very little hair comes out in the shower.\n\nThis is because when my hair was long, it was thick and so one hair falling out would usually be held in place by the other hair around it providing friction. Now that it's short, if a hair falls out, as soon as I move my head or a breeze blows, it's free to fall off my head.",
"Hair goes through three phases, anagen, catagen, and telogen, or growing, resting, and shedding. At some points, the majority of your hair will be in one of these phases, which is why sometimes you feel like you're losing a ton of hair, but your hair doesn't get thinner. The average daily hair loss is 80-100 hairs a day, which is just enough to cover the drain for those of you that don't wipe your hair on the wall. The longer and thicker/coarser your hair is, the more hair you appear to be losing.",
"You're a wizard Hairy.",
"Hair is always in one of three states.\n\n1. Growth stage (anagen stage - the hair is growing)\n2. Resting stage (catagen stage - no growth but not falling out either)\n3. Falling stage (telogen stage - falling out)\n\nDifferent strands of hair are in different stages at different times. Because of this, and the fact that it is a cycle, means you never notice a real change in thickness.\n\nYour follicles go: \ngrowing > resting > falling > growing > resting > falling > growing > resting > falling.........\n\nI'm not sure this is '5 year old' clear but I hope it makes sense. I haven't seen these stages explained in the comments in this thread.\n\nAs a bonus fact: the hormones released during pregnancy sync up these cycles so all the hair is in the anagen phase. This is why pregnant women often find that their hair is super thick. When they finish breast feeding their hair will go back it's normal growth cycle, and their hair suddenly gets much thinner. It all goes back to pre-pregnancy levels in the end."
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