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4d1ox0 | how can someone deny being a feminist whilst also supporting equal treatment of men and women? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4d1ox0/eli5_how_can_someone_deny_being_a_feminist_whilst/ | {
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"The idea feminism preaches is equality, and I agree with that, but the it seems means more than that to a lot of people.\n\nI can't agree with feminists wanting to be payed as much as men while statistics show on average women work less and don't negotiate pay as much. Men gravitate to high earning jobs and work because they are more likely to be the sole breadwinner (that is a culture issue, but no one is purposelly excluding women from working). The way I see it women by in large have all the opertunities that men have to be educated and make a living, at least in North America. If you want to be a stay at home mom or focus on your career it's up to you, the ball is on your court.\n\nI realize that as a man I'm privileged that I can walk alone at night without the fear of being assualted, but I don't feel guilty about it (that should be the job of the assailant).\n\nI have heard the opinions of women being quite blatantly dismissed (that's not cool).\n\nIf feminism really means equality, than perhaps equality is a better word to use. That I can get behind.\n\n\n\n",
"Whenever you hear the phrase 'equal treatment', you need to ask where the line of 'equality' is being drawn.\n\nConsider sexual harassment. Imagine you went out to a frat party and got a little too drunk. When you wake up, you find yourself stripped down to your skivvies with a dick drawn on your face.\n\nIf you're a man, this is something you more or less laugh off. It's your fault you got drunk and put yourself in a position where frat boys could play stupid pranks on you. No harm, no foul.\n\nIf you're a woman, you contact the police and look for people to get arrested.\n\nIf you want men and women to be treated equally in this situation, then you're either imposing men's standards onto women or vice versa - in either case, you're making half the population submit to social conventions that are likely to make them uncomfortable.\n\nAnd that's where the opposition to feminism comes in. Feminism, as practiced in the modern day, isn't really about 'equal treatment' so much as it is about imposing a feminine ideal of social convention onto men."
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8iaqd3 | how come some guys can deadlift 500+ lbs but cannot do a single unassisted pull-up? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/8iaqd3/eli5_how_come_some_guys_can_deadlift_500_lbs_but/ | {
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"lats are the muscles used to do pull-up and the muscles in you lower/mid back are the primary muscles for deadlifting. You can workout one and not the other, therefore creating an imbalance in strength. If you don't workout your legs, you could have a strong chest press, but it doesn't translate to your squatting ability.",
"Those lifts require different parts of your back. Compare it to a pull/push to open door. Its easier to open the door from the inside because of the way the force is exerted by your body onto a door. If im picturing it correctly, you only use your biceps to pull it open so its going to be slightly more difficult where as pushing the door open uses your chest/triceps. Ive always been a bigger dude, and last time i went to the gym i could squat around 500 but i cant for the life of me do a pull up without some help",
"Couple of reasons.\n\nA) A deadlift is known as a compound lift, meaning a lot of muscles are being worked to achieve the lift, including lower body muscles. A pull-up is more of an isolated exercise where it only works on one to a few muscles.\n\nB) Men who usually deadlift that high of an amount are usually heavier guys. So, it can be hard to lift your body to a certain height solely with your arms/shoulders.\n\nC) The form is entirely different, a good deadlift form should have one's arm being straight, with very little bend. Again it's more of a lower body exercise than an upper body (pull up). A pull-up has the initial pull but one has to bend one's arms to reach full range of motion.\n\nD) The range of motion is also a big factor, a man with a long arm span will have to deadlift a small height giving him an advantage. However that same man will have to pull a longer distance for a pull up, giving him a disadvantage. Which is why you could see some men deadlift a lot, but have trouble with benching, because of that range of motion. "
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177ibh | before digital film, how were rolls of film reproduced? | I was in a film class where they described the painstaking process of coloring individual frames to make a black and white film have segments in color. Did they have to color the frame for every single roll for every theater? Or in that age was there one reel for a movie that was used over and over? Was there some sort of copier for rolls of film?
I hope I've phrased it right, because my teacher didn't quite get it when I asked. In the days of rolls of film, how was the film reproduced and distributed? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/177ibh/eli5_before_digital_film_how_were_rolls_of_film/ | {
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" > Did they have to color the frame for every single roll for every theater? Or in that age was there one reel for a movie that was used over and over?\n\nBoth. They hand-colored the frames for every roll, but they didn't have the same type of \"X film opens at Y date in theaters nationwide\" distribution system. Though each reel was hand-colored, there were only a limited number of reels in circulation at any given time.",
"Yes, they hand-tinted every roll. Which is why that was basically never done.\n\nBut getting to your larger question, it's actually a lot simpler than you might think. Take an exposed, developed frame of negative film, and lay it on top of an *unexposed* frame of film. Shine a light through the developed frame onto the unexposed frame, and an image will form on the film underneath … a *positive* image this time (because the film on top absorbs all the light that would otherwise have gotten through).\n\nThis is called an *interpositive.* Repeat the process using the interpositive in place of the negative, and you get something called an *internegative.* Repeat the process again with the internegative this time, and you get another positive print.\n\nDo that a lot, and you can mass-produce prints to ship to theaters.\n\nBecause this process is hard on the film — running it through the machinery stretches out the sprocket holes and just generally degrades the film — this is typically done just a handful of times with the original camera negative, at most, creating master interpositives (\"IPs\" or \"interpos,\" they're called). Then you do the process with the master IPs several times to make a bunch of INs, then do the process repeatedly with the INs to make thousands of release prints."
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3ltcpi | why don't pro-life people push for government subsidized birth control? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3ltcpi/eli5_why_dont_prolife_people_push_for_government/ | {
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"1. Some people (like Catholics) oppose birth control as well. They think that preventing natural reproduction is bad.\n\n2. There is a strong sentiment of \"keep it in your pants\". They don't want to enable sex outside of marriage; they just want you to not have sex, or have sex to reproduce. They believe that pushing birth control encourages sex.",
"Some pro-life people do support subsidized birth control.\n\nSome, like Catholics, are against birth control. It's hypocritical because 90% of Catholics use birth control themselves, but that's still the church's official position.\n\nOthers who are pro-life for religious reasons often believe that offering free birth control encourages premarital sex. They favor abstinence, but in the event of a pregnancy the baby should be kept or offered up for adoption.\n",
"Some believe that the birth control pill is actually an abortifacient in itself. Some others believe that any premarital sex is wrong, and government subsidizing birth control is essentially condoning and rewarding that behavior. \n\nIt may seem contradictory on its surface, but with the worldview that both or all of these things are \"wrong,\" it's actually quite consistent. ",
"As someone who is anti abortion generally, I really do, I live in a country where we can get free condoms and some other stuff like IUDs and implants for free, I spend a lot of time making sure teenagers and whoever else know how to obtain those services and aren't too embarrassed to do so.\n\nI'm of the opinion that mail order should be available to stop people who aren't happy to visit the doctor or health clinic.\n\nBut then I'm against it for scientific reasons not for religious ones, which may make all the difference!",
"I personally suspect that at least some self professed pro-life/anti-birth control folk in government are concerned about population decline. One reason for this is the number of working tax payers required to support the elderly or those incapable of working. In several decades when our population bulge moves closer to the current retirement age we will either need to increase taxes or decrease benefits. Population bulges, or what is the median age in a society, can be advantageous if more youthful for other reasons as well. Although this is normally reserved for agrarian or developing societies that benefit more directly from a worker surplus. \n\nFamily planning in parts of Asia and Europe have been so successful that government officials need to proactively convince people to procreate. This is typically accomplished through incentive programs such as increased maternity leave for both parents as well as financial benefits. Limiting access to birth control and abortion has the same result without overtly increasing government expenditure. \n\nThe U.S. does not have a declining population such as in Japan or Singapore but for some an increasing population lowers each individuals' tax burden when those children enter the labor force.\n\nConspiracy perhaps but it is difficult for me to believe that educated and intelligent leaders can see a fertilized egg in a petri dish as being the equal to an infant in any way. \n",
"Would make sense, right? It's because the \"pro life\" movement isn't really about saving babies. It's more about control of sexuality and sexual behavior. In a nutshell, individual sexual freedom seperate from church or government control is abhorrent to them. ",
"Besides all the moral and religious reasons, pro-life people are often fiscally conservative. The idea of government subsidies contradicts their value of small government. ",
"There is a two-pronged answer to this question.\n\n- Pro-life people are mostly theists, and though they may not be perfect, they still believe in waiting for their kids to socially and emotionally mature before engaging in sexual activities. They believe a honeymoon bed is a more conducive place for somebody's first time when compared to the back of her first boyfriend's sedan, which she might cringe upon remembering a few years later.\n\nOf course in this age where sex is in the magazines, in TV, music, Billboards and in the movies (the media literally exists to glorify it), abstinence is unrealistic. But there is nothing wrong with teaching a son/daughter to not rely on sex for self-esteem, romance, social status, or personal development, so you can trust them enough to have birth control *brought with their own money and volition* when they decide to go down.\n\n- Pro-life people are mostly conservative and believe in limited government. Long story short, they just don't like being forced to pay for things they believe to be immoral. Surely if this country funds a war, then an activist for pacifism would take issue if we increase his taxes for it! Moreover, conservatives are against government-subsidized anything. They believe it would unnecessarily increase its cost with bureaucracy rather than having manufacturers compete to provide it with the highest quality for the cheapest possible price.",
"Some republicans support birth control being sold over the counter as a way to make it more readily available to women who are under-insured or whatever. (Mine is $9/month, and there's no reason I need an expensive yearly doctor visit to get it.) However, from what I've read, democrats don't want this because then it wouldn't be covered by insurance. It seems like maybe if the cheaper alternatives don't work, a woman could see a doctor and get a prescription for the more expensive options, which would then be covered by insurance. Here's the first link I found: _URL_0_",
"It's multifaceted. \nFor some, like Catholics, it's religious. This run the gamut between \"ban birth control\" to \"Don't want my taxes funding it\". \nFor others, like libertarians, it's an unnecessary taxpayer funded expense. Unnecessary being that unreproductive sex is basically a voluntary recreational activity, the risks of which are obvious. It's effectively equivalent to government providing free ear plugs at gun stores. If you can't afford pills and condoms, you certainly can't afford a kid, so keep your pants on. Making it a social issue is based entirely upon the existing social welfare system where society has to bear the burden of individuals' poor choices."
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abokgx | outside of the college football playoff, why don’t they set up bowl games with teams in ranking order? e.g. 5 vs 6, 7 vs 8, etc. | Why didn’t Ohio State play Georgia? That game would’ve been way more competitive than Ohio State playing Washington AND Georgia playing Texas. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/abokgx/eli5_outside_of_the_college_football_playoff_why/ | {
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"Money, money and Money. The bowl cities not chosen to be included in an expanded payoff will become less and less relevant, and therefore bring in less money for those communities.\n\nPlus the political methods of incrementalism. They had to get the 4 team playoff established before pushing for an expansion to 8 teams. It is getting more and more likely that expansion will get a a serious evaluation.",
"Before the standardized system of ranking, each conference had their own ranking. Before the national championship games there could be more than one \"#1\" team. The logistics of travel made cross country play tough. Bowl games were more about bragging rights than championships. That's why some bowl games are set conference play. Like the Rose Bowl is the best Big Ten and Pac 12 teams playing each other. Most of the bowl games were this way until we went to a rank and file numbered system. ",
"Because there is no \"they.\" There is no overarching body governing who goes to what bowl. Its up to each individual bowl committe who plays in their game. There are contractual obligations to fill with the conferences, but for the most part, the bowls choose which teams will make the most money. ",
"First; a lot of the big bowl games have conference tie-ins that cause them to favor picking up certain teams for certain bowls. The Rose Bowl is, traditionally, always the Pac 12 Champion vs the Big 10 Champion, whereas the Sugar bowl has a relationship with the Big 12 and the SEC, and thus they decided to pit the 2nd lace SEC team against the 2nd place Big 12 team (as the 1st place teams played each other in the Orange Bowl as part of the playoffs).\n\nSecond; the rankings are kind pretty subjective and really don't mean much except as a vague idea of \"which teams are generally thought of as being better than others.\" There's no objective meaning that goes into the rankings other than record and what the sports journalists think of you, so they really don't count for much."
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b6oxcj | if the cold temperatures from a freezer preserve freshness and prolong shelf life of meat and produce, would it also mean humans living in colder climates age at a lesser rate than those in hotter climates? | I understand that the body regulates body temperature through homeostasis in response to external temperatures. I was just curious if these external temperatures still affected the process of aging and specific cellular functions related to aging. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/b6oxcj/eli5_if_the_cold_temperatures_from_a_freezer/ | {
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"I'm no expert but it seems to me like it would require more energy to live in a colder climate. I don't know what other countries are like but my spot in Canada is freezing and very low humidity, we all turn into raisins.",
"Not exactly. Meat is being kept fresh because the cold is stifling the growth of bacteria (life) on the surface of the meat letting it take longer before the bacteria grows too much. While the surface of my skin might be lower if I lived in Alaska and regularly hung out in the colder climate, my insides still need to be at the same warm and toasty internal temperature or I would die.",
"Humans are warm-blooded. That is, they have systems in place for the sake of homeostasis or staying warm/healthy/et al. This means that anything outside of the norm is something the body tries to counteract, and typically means more energy is expended than anything else. While skin cells may be affected, core parts of the body such as the heart, lungs, and brain would be largely unaffected as the body tries to keep those organs from being touched by environmental changes.\n\nWhen we talk about food, you are trying to prevent the decomp/rot of the food, and cooling down the stuff makes bacteria and chemical processes hold off a bit longer, but living beings are in an entirely different category.",
"Meat that is in your freezer is not aging because it is not alive. It is dead. And the reason why it stays fresh longer is because the cold is killing/making harder the living of the microorganisms that are the cause of why meat goes bad.\n\nSo it obviously won't make people in the colder regions to age slower. But dead corpses of humans will be preserved longer in colder climates. "
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ck7r86 | how are plant based meats and burgers made? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/ck7r86/eli5_how_are_plant_based_meats_and_burgers_made/ | {
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"I did a course on plant based meats in Berkeley. It was an engineering course so I’ll focus on some technical details.\n\nSo the main idea for plant-based meat (PBM) is to find a source of protein that has similar nutritional value as meat, and optimally the same taste, texture, colour and smell.\n\nA popular material for PBM is soy protein. This is because soy protein has very similar amino acids proportions to meat, so it can function as a complete protein and you won’t need amino acid supplements. Another option is a blend of wheat, peas and another plant I forgot. This also produces amino acid proportions similar to meat.\n\nFor taste and smell, there are flavouring compounds in he industry. Givaudan gave us some fake “chicken” and “beef” samples to try out, and they are remarkably similar in smell. Not so much in taste. Impossible foods uses leghaemoglobin, a protein found in legumes, to mimic the haemoglobin in blood. This makes their PBM taste “bloody”, which is actually pretty good even though it sounds gross.\n\nFor texture, there are many tricks used to mimic the muscle fibres in meat. Quorn uses a “flowing stream” to make their fungi grow Long in one direction. The fungi is naturally chewy, so it is a pretty good analogue for meat. There are other methods like a cooking device with 2 cylinders. The PBM is placed between the 2 cylinders and the outer cylinder is spun while cooking. This applies “shear force” which stretches the material and makes the plant fibres aligned in the rotating direction.\n\nFor colour, it’s pretty simple. There are many colouring additives, both natural and artificial, that turn brown when cooked. There are also other tricks like adding searing/grill marks to PBM patties so when they’re cooked they look more similar to meat.\n\nFor the course “finals” I made fake chicken nuggets. It tasted and smelled great but was really dry since PBMs don’t hold water or oils well. You need to mix solid fats like palm oil into the PBM, but those are generally unhealthy (and palm oil itself is unpopular for ecological reasons). This is probably the largest limitation for engineering PBMs.",
"Broadly, there's five different families: \n\n\n* Whole or near-whole foods\n * Think tofu, tempeh, mushrooms\n * Doesn't require much advanced food processing, texture heavily dependent on physical processing (e.g.,tofu can be frozen, pressed, boiled, baked, fried, etc) and individual recipes\n * Think more meat-adjacent, as in maybe the same nutrient role and can be savory/have broadly 'meaty' flavors, but not really trying that hard to be meat\n* Basic TVP\n * Extract protein isolates from plants (typically soy, also wheat, pea, etc)\n * Shape and sometimes season or color them\n * Rehydrate for use\n * Common filler in cheap dollar-store burritos and that sort of thing\n* Engineered plant-based meat\n * Uses protein isolates (TVP), but involves a great deal more engineering - think Impossible or Beyond burger, Gardein\n * Often uses extrusion and cooking of some kind of slurry\n* Seitan\n * Wheat gluten, can be extracted by washing a whole-wheat dough with water, is mixed with water and various flavorings and then cooked\n * Cooking methods can vary - simmering or steaming are common, as are baking, frying, or combinations thereof\n * Think Field Roast brand\n* Quorn\n * Really cool fungus tech"
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2l1h7r | how can a lawyer get me out of a speeding ticket? can't i make the same argument he makes to get out of it? | I recently got a speeding ticket for 81 in a 70. I was cruising at 79 and got pulled over. I resigned to paying the ticket until my friend said he went to a lawyer and got off only paying lawyer fees. How can a lawyer get a judge to agree that I wasn't speeding (when I definitely was)? Why can't I make the same argument as the lawyer without paying for the lawyer and get the judge to agree with me? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2l1h7r/eli5_how_can_a_lawyer_get_me_out_of_a_speeding/ | {
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"he has better knowledge of the laws and the legal system. the judge knows this and chances are the lawyer will make a conviction a pain in the ass. the judge does't believe you have any legal knowledge. so your defense will be rejected as not valid. you're perfectly allowed to contest the ticket and try to prove your not guilty. but you'll have to come up with evidence to support your not guilty.",
"Of course you could say the same things a lawyer would say. The difference is the lawyer went to school for years to find out what to say.",
"It is about knowing the system, these lawyers work with the judges and the prosecutors so much that they know each other professionally and sometimes personally. Sadly I don't know any of the ins and outs to this but I have a story that relates.\n\nI learned the hard way to always get a lawyer. I was working at a gas station and I was 15 mins over on my shift(my relief was late). We got a weird rush for that time of night and I was by myself to deal with a long line of customers. From being tired and angry at still being there, I carded a girl for alcohol but didn't pay enough attention as she was under age and it was a sting.\n\nSo, something I didn't even mean to do, I thought I would pay a fine or something so I didn't bother with a lawyer, I just showed up on the court date to take care of it. Well, I was charged with a misdemeanor, quite a large fine and a ridiculous amount of community service and was so inexperienced and overwhelmed talking to the prosecutor I just went with it and sucked it up.\n\nNow, I had a buddy of mine get caught buying alcohol for a minor. It was a younger friend of ours, he met them at the gas station, went in to buy the alcohol and gave it too them at their car. They didn't notice a cop saw the whole thing and they got busted for it.\n\nSo he did this unquestionably on purpose, his mom gets him a lawyer and he gets off with a fine and that was it. No record, no community service, the fine was much smaller then mine.\n\nIn a just world I would have been punished much less than my friend but this is the difference that a lawyer can make\n\n ",
"A man who is his own lawyer has a fool for a client. Or how ever that saying goes."
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4j0jte | planck's quantum hypothesis and the theory of blackbody radiation | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4j0jte/eli5_plancks_quantum_hypothesis_and_the_theory_of/ | {
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"We have an oven. Not the kind of oven things like pizza come out of; more like a block of metal with a cavity hollowed out of the middle and a (tiny) spy hole drilled in the side so we can peer into the cavity. We heat up the block and measure the light that comes out of the spy hole.\n\nNow, imagine we capture the light coming out of the hole and run it though the appropriate piece of expensive gismology to measure the intensity present at each wavelength. If we plot the result, you get a curve with a hump in the middle.\n\nNow comes the problem. If you try to derive this plot using classical physics (to be honest, I don't know how to do that and I don't care) you get something that runs off to infinity at the shorter wavelengths. The (wrong) equation you get is called the Rayleigh Jeans equation and the infinity weirdness is known as the *ultraviolet catastrophe*.\n\nMax Planck fixed Rayleigh Jeans by making the revolutionary leap of logic that energy could only be absorbed or emitted in discrete chunks. Planck's result was more of a formula he concocted to fit the experimental data. Indeed, Planck apparently viewed his result as a quick and dirty patch job, thinking he'd go back someday and fix things properly using classical mechanics.\n\nInstead, Erwin Schrödinger and Werner Heisenberg both ran with the idea, independently creating an entirely new physics from which Planck's leap could be derived. The rest, as they say, is history. Fast forward fifty years, and this mathematical Frankenstein has escaped the lab and requires a decade of physics graduate school to understand.\n\nIf you'd like the rest of the story, as they say, try this:\n\n[_URL_0_](_URL_0_)"
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6uynzr | why does water feel colder from your stomach up rather than your feet when wading into water? | So like when you're at the beach or pool, you're supposed to jump in so that it isn't as cold, right? But how come when you just walk in slowly wadin in, it feels so much colder from your stomach up rather than your feet? Asking because everyone always looks awkward trying to walk in and everyone's inhaling and on tippy toes trying to not get water on their stomach because it's cold. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/6uynzr/eli5_why_does_water_feel_colder_from_your_stomach/ | {
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"That's your \"core\", your feet, legs, hands and arms can all be froze off and you can live without them, but your core holds your vital organs.",
"You feel cold because of your nerves that send short signals to your brain. Your stomach skin possesses a very dense nervous network (as it covers important organs essential to your body and that you wouldn't like to hurt) so it is very sensitive. On the contrary your feets have the thinner skin layer in your entire body and thus can't offer much space for nerves "
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4xmvy0 | what's the point of the butterfly stroke? | Most swim strokes have a benefit with them; freestyle is fastest, breaststroke conserves energy, what is the benefit of the butterfly? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4xmvy0/eli5whats_the_point_of_the_butterfly_stroke/ | {
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"It was faster than the breast stroke but legal according to the way that the breast stroke rules (at least the arm motion was) were written until 1952."
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bj2iy2 | when sleeping with two blankets of different weights, does it matter which is on top and which is on bottom? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/bj2iy2/eli5_when_sleeping_with_two_blankets_of_different/ | {
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"Not unless it makes a difference to you... Personally, I prefer to have heavier blankets on top.",
"Iirc sheets actually help keep you from overheating or sweating. If you put the sheet on top, it loses it's purpose. However, with blankets, traditionally you put the comforter on top with other blankets under it. I think it's preference at that point though because some people have to have the comforter but might wanna shed the smaller blankets, which would be easier with smaller blankets on top. Others, like me, prefer shedding the comforter first and just using smaller blankets.",
"It's more based on the type of blanket, not weight. Cotton and wool hold their heat differently. A sheet or a comforter or a cheap cotton quilt will hold heat differently. Maybe weight is another factor, beyond preference, who knows."
]
} | []
| []
| [
[],
[],
[]
]
|
||
44c3s7 | what is the "establishment" everyone is referring to in these political discussions? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/44c3s7/eli5_what_is_the_establishment_everyone_is/ | {
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"The \"establishment\" is used to refer to \"The way our society works as a whole, including businesses and the government.\" It's not one person who can be replaced, but a whole system of rules, regulations and expectations that influence everyone's lives.",
"They are referring to the status quo, the way things are. Establishment is referring to established society and its norms."
]
} | []
| []
| [
[],
[]
]
|
||
nj050 | how much are stocks / shares worth? | The values of stocks and shares seem to change so often and for so many reasons (anything from the release of a new product to a simple rumour that something might be happening soon) that I wonder who decides that stocks in something are worth X amount of dollars. Thanks in advance! | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/nj050/eli5_how_much_are_stocks_shares_worth/ | {
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"They're worth what other people are willing to pay for them.\n\nNo, really, that's most of the story. The value of a stock rises when a bunch of people buy it because they expect the price to rise. The value of a stock falls when a bunch of people sell it because they expect the price to fall. This is why the value changes so often; it's based on what everyone thinks about what everyone *else* thinks the stock is worth.",
"The price of the stock is the price at which the last trade was made \n\nStockholders (i.e. owners of the company) receive dividends which is basically the company's way of distributing profits to its owners.\n\nThe underlying value of a stock is derived from the amount of dividends you can expect to receive in the future. When a company performs well its value will go up because people expect they will receive greater dividends in the future, similarly it will decrease in value if the company performs worse.\n\nIf people believe the underlying value of the stock is greater than the current price of the stock, they will me more desperate to buy it (because they believe it's worth more than they're paying) and hence the price will be pushed upwards because there is a greater demand (i.e. sellers can increase the price and still be able to sell their shares).",
"If you want something more comprehensive, that is still understandable for a layman\n\n_URL_0_",
"They're worth what other people are willing to pay for them.\n\nNo, really, that's most of the story. The value of a stock rises when a bunch of people buy it because they expect the price to rise. The value of a stock falls when a bunch of people sell it because they expect the price to fall. This is why the value changes so often; it's based on what everyone thinks about what everyone *else* thinks the stock is worth.",
"The price of the stock is the price at which the last trade was made \n\nStockholders (i.e. owners of the company) receive dividends which is basically the company's way of distributing profits to its owners.\n\nThe underlying value of a stock is derived from the amount of dividends you can expect to receive in the future. When a company performs well its value will go up because people expect they will receive greater dividends in the future, similarly it will decrease in value if the company performs worse.\n\nIf people believe the underlying value of the stock is greater than the current price of the stock, they will me more desperate to buy it (because they believe it's worth more than they're paying) and hence the price will be pushed upwards because there is a greater demand (i.e. sellers can increase the price and still be able to sell their shares).",
"If you want something more comprehensive, that is still understandable for a layman\n\n_URL_0_"
]
} | []
| []
| [
[],
[],
[
"http://www.investopedia.com/university/stocks/stocks4.asp"
],
[],
[],
[
"http://www.investopedia.com/university/stocks/stocks4.asp"
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|
|
7aw80c | the saudi arabian royalty | The recent news of all the arrests in Saudi Arabia got me wondering about how the royal system in Saudi Arabia works. Is it a strict monarchy (I assume there is a heavy religious element involved)? Were the four (so far) princes arrested brothers? Cousins? Does "prince" mean the same thing in the east as it does in the west? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/7aw80c/eli5_the_saudi_arabian_royalty/ | {
"a_id": [
"dpdqh36"
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"score": [
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"text": [
"Saudi Arabian royalty are the descendants of [King Abdulaziz 'Ibn Saud'](_URL_2_). The country actually takes its name from this man's family, and the geographical area. [House of Saud](_URL_0_), Saudi, Arabian Peninsula, Arabia. \n\nThe country was formed in 1953 in a Treaty after the fall of the Ottoman Empire. The reason Abdulaziz was chosen as King was because he was already a power house of the area at the time, specifically he was King of Nejd and Hejaz, which were areas in the Arabian Peninsula. \n\n > Is it a strict monarchy (I assume there is a heavy religious element involved)? \n\nMoreso than most other Monarchies. The term is *Absolute* Monarchy, which means the King has ultimate authority and his country is, functionally, his personal property. \n > Were the four (so far) princes arrested brothers? Cousins? Does \"prince\" mean the same thing in the east as it does in the west?\n\nI'm not sure the exact lineage of the 4 arrested, but each of them would have been direct (male-to-male) descendants of the kings of Saudi Arabia. I believe they'd each of been sons of a king, rather than grandsons. This puts them pretty high up on the pecking order in Saudi Arabia. \n\nOther useful links:\n\n_URL_1_\n\n_URL_3_"
]
} | []
| []
| [
[
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/House_of_Saud",
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Succession_to_the_Saudi_Arabian_throne",
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ibn_Saud",
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crown_Prince_of_Saudi_Arabia"
]
]
|
|
1aelfq | how exactly does uv light damage dna? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1aelfq/eli5_how_exactly_does_uv_light_damage_dna/ | {
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"Inside your body you have a lot of chemicals. Things like O^2 and others. When UV light enters out body it splits these chemicals apart. But it doesn't do it very nicely. Instead it creates these things called **free radicals**. These sound complicated but in essence what they are, are very unhappy atoms. Like when your mum took your brothers toy, and he kicked and screamed and howled until he got his toy back. Well that's what a free radical is. It kicks and screams until it gets another *electron* or loses its electron. When this happens inside your body it causes problems because this free radical will pull apart DNA in order to get its toy back. This is what damages it.",
"Specifically, UV rays form thymine dimers in the DNA. This means that two adjacent thymine base pairs become bonded together. This \"bends\" them out of place so that they cannot match up to their respective guanines. This DNA mutation can be repaired by photolyase, an enzyme that uses light for excision repair. There are other ways to repair UV ray damage (a type of nonionizing radiation), however ionizing radiation, such as X rays, gamma rays, and high energy election beams, usually cause irreversible damage to DNA. "
]
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| [
[],
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||
2q8tb7 | how do certain electric toothbrush charging stations work? | I was gifted a newer electric toothbrush that is was fancier than any I've used in the past
I was fascinated by the charging station which looks somthing like [this](_URL_0_). I tried looking for answers but all I got was more fanciness and terms from junior year physics which I don't remember. I vaguely understand what induction is... vaguely. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2q8tb7/eli5_how_do_certain_electric_toothbrush_charging/ | {
"a_id": [
"cn3wvdv",
"cn3x002"
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"score": [
5,
3
],
"text": [
"[Through the electrical sorcery of inductive charging!](_URL_0_)",
"there's a copper wire coil in that nub in the base.\n\nthere's another copper wire coil in the base of the toothbrush.\n\nthe base coil energizes. the base coil induces a current on the toothbrush coil. the toothbrush coil pushes current to the battery in the toothbrush handle"
]
} | []
| [
"http://imgur.com/juX3ZKK"
]
| [
[
"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inductive_charging"
],
[]
]
|
|
4sa3fe | why in some games, does changing the system clock/time affect the speed? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4sa3fe/eli5_why_in_some_games_does_changing_the_system/ | {
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"Many games simulate the world in small steps called \"ticks\". A tick might be for example 0,05 seconds (or 50 milliseconds) and during each tick, the game computes a new location for every object and character or whatever there is in the game, based on their current movement and actions. If player decides to shoot by pressing a button, the keyboard input will be registered but the action will be performed during the next tick. Human does not register such small delay, same way we cant notice individual frames in a movie.\n\nBack to the question. While a tick may have a fixed length, the game might manage to simulate all the actions in much shorter time, and then it waits around the rest of the time until a new calculation is requested. Sometimes the ticks are calibrated with the computer clock, to keep the simulation in its intended speed. If the calculation takes longer than the designated 0,05 seconds, the game starts to fall behind. This can happen if there is too much for stuff in the game for the engine to handle, or if the hardware is not powerful enough. On the other hand, if the game notices that the system clock is now ahead from where it should be, it can make the ticks go faster to synchronize itself with the current time. \n\nThis is actually a bad practice in programming in most cases. Many languages can use the operating system clock which usually counts milliseconds from some arbitrarily set point and converts them to hours-minutes-seconds represetantion. Better practice would be using the system time which is in no relation to the clock, but rather just keeps track of elapsed time since system was turned on.",
"It's hard to say exactly without access to these games' source code, but it boils down to how the game handles passage of time.\n\nWhen you (specifically, your game client - the program you run on your computer) send a message to server (say, \"Hey WoW server, I'm running forward now\"), you most certainly attach a timestamp to it.\n\nDepending on how the timestamp is interpreted server-side, the game server might think something like \"Hey, this guy wants to run forward, but his timestamp is off by a lot... seems like he has some latency [delay between when you send a message and when the server receives it], so I should probably speed him up a bit to compensate...\"\n\nNow, if the programmers forget to make some checks, they might not notice a situation where someone constantly has a HUGE delay and abuses this compensation mechanism, which initial purpose was to, for example, make you keep up with your teammates if you just have a slight lag for a few seconds.\n\nThis is just an educated guess.\n\nOn a side note (this is more regarding the offline games where you don't connect to an external game server), current games' speed is based on actual time passage, as in, when you walk forward, the game checks how much time passed since the previous game frame was drawn/calculated, and multiplies that by your speed (so if you can walk at 1m/s and 0.05s passed since the last frame, the game will \"move\" you by 0.05m. Old games (and new ones where programmers seem to have no idea what they're doing - looking at you, games with locked framerate) made an estimate on how many frames they can calculate per second and made the distance traveled constant, which is why these games look like they're on \"fast-forward\" on modern PCs (which can render thousands, if not millions, of frames for those relatively primitive games). It's possible that something of similar nature was happening in the games you've mentioned."
]
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| [
[],
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||
2t1g6i | why is it so hard to catch athletes who are doping? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2t1g6i/eli5_why_is_it_so_hard_to_catch_athletes_who_are/ | {
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"Because contrary to Hollywood makes people believe. Its rather hard to determine if a liquid contains a specific chemical.\n\nAlso, these days certain doping is taken during preparation/training, and is no longer in their system during the actual contests. This is why athletes need to make their location known at all times, and testing occurs at random times. \n\nAdd to this you can't just test for \"doping\" you test for specific forms of doping, if a new one has been invented, it won't be caught by current testing methods.",
"Basically, you do not screen for \"any doping\", you have to test for individual substances. You need to devise a test for each substance - or sometimes it is a group of substance, and confirm it is reliable. \n \n\nSo first of all it is hard because you do not know what you are looking and there a huge amount of molecules in a body. So research and testing take a lot of funding (and that is for science that does not really help mankind directly, like fighting a rare disease) and time, and is quite complex.\n \n\nSecond, cheaters are always looking for substances that are new and therefore currently not detected, so they can pass without trouble. This is why we now keep samples for many years and won't hesitate to retest for drugs that are discovered after, so we can catch cheaters. Amazing but obviously that takes time.\n \n\nLast but not least, some stuff is also natural, so it is very hard to evaluate if it is there at a given level because of training or cheating. Let's say you take out of your blood some cells that carry oxygen (ex take 20, leave 80), after a while your body will make some more (back at level 100). Then just before the competition you re-inject them to yourself (you are now at level 120), and your body is now much more efficient. There is no direct way to tell you have cheated when we compare to someone who went to the same level by training.\n \n\nI am sure there is more, but this is what comes to mind. Those are all good reasons, it makes catching cheaters really hard; chemistry and bodies are simply complex stuff."
]
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[],
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||
3idseq | the physics behind this falling slinky! | _URL_0_
Why does the bottom of the slinky remain stationary while the top rapidly falls? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3idseq/eli5_the_physics_behind_this_falling_slinky/ | {
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"text": [
"[Here is the video](_URL_0_) that this gif is from.\n\nBasically the change in force has to travel through the material to the bottom. The bottom of the slinky doesn't know it has been released until the wave reaches it.",
"When you stretch a slinky, you increase force acting on it (The force is proportional to the slinky's stiffness and how far you've stretched it). When you hold a slinky by one end and let it dangle, it stretches to the point that the force caused by stretching and the force of gravity are equal, meaning the net force on the bottom of the spring is zero. When you release the top, the slinky starts to compress and fall simultaneously. Because gravity and the force on the bottom of the slinky were equally balanced, the bottom part doesn't move until the top part falls/compresses into it. ",
"Think of what is happening just before the man releases the slinky. The bottom coil of the slinky is stationary because the tension in the slinky pulling it upwards is exactly equal to the force of gravity pulling it downwards, and it remains at rest. The top coil of the slinky also remains at rest because the upwards force of the hand is equal to the downwards gravity and tension on it.\n\nAt the moment of release, the top coil is no longer in balance. Both gravity and tension are pulling downwards, and it accelerates rapidly.\n\nBut, at the moment of release, nothing has happened to the two forces on the bottom coil and it remains in equilibrium, at rest.",
"A slinky is like a spring. When it gets stretched, it tries to unstretch, so the edges get pulled towards the middle. When it's released, gravity pulls down, slinky stretch pulls up, so they cancel out until it's not stretched anymore."
]
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| [
"http://i.imgur.com/gj2R9wm.gif"
]
| [
[
"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wGIZKETKKdw"
],
[],
[],
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|
3vj1lz | why alcohol seems more acceptable than cannabis or lsd? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3vj1lz/eli5_why_alcohol_seems_more_acceptable_than/ | {
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"The arguments between cannabis and alcohol are very intense, debatable, and can be largely centered around politics. \n\nUnlike the previous two, LSD and drugs that make you hallucinate can put you or others in extremely dangerous situations because you are actually seeing, hearing, and believing things that don't exist. You might be firmly convinced that the crocodiles in the river are friendly and that swimming across the river is fine, but when you get hit by a car for crossing the street you're probably going to end up in the hospital or worse.",
"Well, at least for America, it wasn't okay. They tried to outlaw it, that just went really, really poorly...",
"It's cultural. The moralists would ban every intoxicant, but Jesus turned water into wine... at a wedding party."
]
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| []
| [
[],
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||
2f4rfn | how can cars like the honda cr-x get 52 mpg in 1984 but average cars now get the mid 30's? | Explain? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2f4rfn/eli5_how_can_cars_like_the_honda_crx_get_52_mpg/ | {
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"text": [
"You're comparing a special case to average cars today. That's like asking why the average person cannot run as fast as Roger Banister did when he broke the 4-minute mile.",
"Size, weight, safety and power all have gone up. Also the crx was hardly average. ",
"Weight and Emissions requirements.\n\nCars have progressively gotten heavier for safety reasons such as mandatory air bags, and higher crash test requirements.\n\nCar engines also have much more restrictive emissions laws influencing their design. Things like catalytic converters affect horsepower and efficiency.",
"Because we care about the environment and safety now. You get more mpg if you don't have to carefully filter the output and your car weighs a good bit less because really, who needs airbags?",
"The EPA has also changed the way gas mileage was calculated since 1984. The updated numbers for the 84 Cr-X are 30-47mpg depending on engine size and transmission.",
"I had a couple of CRXs in my teen years, thanks for the nostalgia! Such an awesome car, especially considering the age in which it was manufactured."
]
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| [
[],
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|
7aujwt | difference between a potato and a sweet potato? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/7aujwt/eli5_difference_between_a_potato_and_a_sweet/ | {
"a_id": [
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"text": [
"The sweet potato is only distantly related to the potato. \n\nThey often grow in similar area, but they're not really surplantable.",
"They are different plants. The sweet potato is native to the americas while the white potato is native to europe.\n\nNo, you can't just swap one for the other in cooking. It won't taste the same, and they have different consistencies and properties.\n\nIt's called a sweet potato because it looks like a potato until you cut it open and the sugar content is like 4x greater."
]
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| []
| [
[],
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|
||
7q6c6e | why is it difficult to make a profit as a farmer? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/7q6c6e/eli5_why_is_it_difficult_to_make_a_profit_as_a/ | {
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"text": [
"Because land, hybrid or GMO seed, fertilizer, pesticide, and equipment are all expensive, and wheat and corn are cheap.",
"Well, I don't know all the economics of it, but think about this. You have many acres of landing costing you thousands to buy and taxed on. Then you have MULTIPLE pieces of farm equipment that costs mostly 50k dollars or more EACH! Then you spend every SINGLE day working from sunrise to sunset, plus you pay for other workers to help you do this. You buy seed, fertilizer, water, gas, diesel, electricity, livestock, feed for the livestock. You pay for inspections, medical care for animals, transportation of goods. After all that, McDonald's can put some of your beef, wheat, tomatoes, onions, cucumbers and more on a burger and sell it few a couple bucks. So do the math :)",
"Costs outweigh revenue most of the time is the real reason. Tractors and machinery actually cost upwards of 250k+ I know poor farmers who live in trailers yet they have a million dollars in farming equipment laying in the yard. But these farmers are then in debt paying off these tractors just to stay afloat while also never really making much money. There is never any guarantees that the growing season will be good, or that the economy will be stable. ",
"The first thing is that there are not very many \"personal\" farmers\n\nNearly all farmed goods come from giant agri-business conglomerates that produce in insane bulk and scale and can lower costs to tiny levels while producing high yields. A regular guy owning a farm simply has little way to compete, in many cases, smaller farms are really more just either OK small family businesses, or passion projects. This isn't particularly anything new though.\n\nYou'll also find many small farmers have moved to doing things such as organic only goods (profit margin is *much* higher on organic)",
"Rice farmers do well. My friend parents just owned land and a company paid them 50k a year to farm their land. Other rice farmers would come into my work and would spend extra money a year like 5k in computer shit just for tax purposes. My experience in northern California with farmers is that they make a killing especially when their crops are subsidised. "
]
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||
38fqca | why do islands like these form? | _URL_0_ I don't understand how something like this could form. Also I've noticed that there are tons of them in North America, But very few in other parts of the world. What is the reason islands like this exist? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/38fqca/eli5_why_do_islands_like_these_form/ | {
"a_id": [
"cruoud6"
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"score": [
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"Those are called barrier islands, and they are caused by receding tides dropping sediment on the oceanbed a few hundred feet to a few miles offshore. As the tide recedes into open water, the movement becomes slower, and the slower water is no longer able to keep moving the sediment. Over very long times, you get underwater dunes, followed by islands."
]
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| [
"http://imgur.com/1UcCAVx"
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| [
[]
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|
|
2a00db | why do i munch so hard when stoned? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2a00db/eli5_why_do_i_munch_so_hard_when_stoned/ | {
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"text": [
"Simply put, the THC fits into receptors in the brain's olfactory bulb, significantly increasing the your ability to smell food and leading you to eat more of it. A big part of the reason why you might eat more food after using marijuana, is simply that you can smell and taste it more acutely.\n"
]
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| []
| [
[]
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|
||
5z4a25 | the recent explosion in ai accomplishments | I keep reading about the threat of AI. Has something fundamental about AI changed recently? Have there been breakthroughs in the science? Is it due to better hardware? New data to mine? Or is it just a news trend? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5z4a25/eli5_the_recent_explosion_in_ai_accomplishments/ | {
"a_id": [
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"text": [
"Most likely a news trend. AI technologies are advancing extremely rapidly, however it's going to be a while until they are integrated into our every day lives such as the media is displaying currently. ",
"I often wonder this too, but I assume its more to do with new techniques around new hardware rather than AI in the true sense. What I mean by this is I belive most people mistake machine learning with AI in that you feed an algorithm a ton of examples on the characteristics of a tumor benign vs malignant then test it against an unknown case. 9/10 time it will be accurate in guessing the outcome. There is no real magic here its just throwing a ton of computing power with a good algorithm at problem. When I talk about AI in the true sense and coding techniques; 10 years ago it was rare to find someone who knew how to create a pice of code that branched in the correct places and threaded an application to make the most of parallel computing. Now its in most computer science courses. Applying this with gpu's in a neural network with each node designed to make basic decisions about the task and coming up with an answer which might not be 100% correct; now thats AI. But I also think the threat of AI is ill founded. All sci fi films with killer robots make the assumption that a robot with intelligence would have some desire to \"kill all humans\". Where does this artifical desire come from? Where does the artificial need come from to do anything more than sit and while 1=1 do counter = counter +1. If we program it to kill all humans then its not AI any more its a man mad death machine. I belive that the worst case scenario is that corporations go robot only and governments don't do anything to tax and share the wealth of these corporations and we have massive poverty much like elysium."
]
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|
bslxuc | how are commercial chicken eggs so consistently produced? | I got a bunch of farm fresh eggs and they are all over the place, including ones that would be too small to sell in stores. Also there are a good amount of double yolk eggs too. Do commercial egg companies throw out a lot of eggs and screen for double yolk eggs? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/bslxuc/eli5_how_are_commercial_chicken_eggs_so/ | {
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"text": [
"Commercial eggs are sorted by egg and quality into \"grades\". Different grades and sizes can be purchased at the store.\n\nLower graded eggs are mainly lower grades because of appearance, so these can be sold to commercial food producers who (rightfully) don't care what the egg looks like.",
"They get sorted and graded.\n\nYour higher grade eggs end up on the shelves, your lower grade eggs end up as liquid egg beaters or as ingredients for food production.",
"The type of egg produced by a chicken depends a lot on what breed of chicken it is, and what it's fed. Small farm and backyard chickens are often dual purpose breeds, raised for the meat and egg laying ability. And often different breeds.\n\nCommercial chicken egg facilities don't really care about the meat from the bird, it's often thrown away, for pet food or other stuff. The egg is all they care about. So it's just a large facility with the same breed.",
"One bit of your question not yet answered:\n\n > Do commercial egg companies ... screen for double yolk eggs?\n\nYes, they shine a bright light through the eggs and look for double yolks, blood spots, and other stuff that might upset the consumer."
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akti23 | why is carbon-12 the standard isotope that everything else is compared with? | Why is it only carbon and why specifically the Isotope 12? Why not Hydrogen? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/akti23/eli5_why_is_carbon12_the_standard_isotope_that/ | {
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"It's all about averages and statistics.\n\nAfter lots of measurements, they found out that the value for the mass (in grams) of C-12 / 12 was a better average than the generic (mass (in grams) of proton + mass of neutron) / 2 value.\n\nThis is because some of the mass of the neutrons and protons is used as energy to bind them inside the nucleus."
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20f1oc | why are some people either double jointed or way more flexible than others? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/20f1oc/eli5why_are_some_people_either_double_jointed_or/ | {
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"When you are double jointed you actually have a really common connective tissue disorder called ehlers danlos syndrome. There are different forms of it but most people just have the basic \"you are flexible or \"double jointed\"\" and that's the end of it. \n\nSometimes it can cause problems. For instance if you have transparent skin, a type of EDS affects the aorta and may cause serious damage... And sudden death. But do not be alarmed - this is super rare. \n\nMost problems are hyper extended limbs, subluxations, or chiari malformation. But again most people experience no problem. \n\nThis is caused by a mutation in their DNA. So to answer your question, some people are naturally double jointed because they are mutants and they have a syndrome. "
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3lm5hu | when 911's police service is free, why the 911's ambulance service isn't free? isn't it inhumane to charge someone to save a critical person's life? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3lm5hu/eli5_when_911s_police_service_is_free_why_the/ | {
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"Short answer is when it comes to medical treatment, you only pay if you can.\n\nA hospital is literally not allowed to reject a patient for financial reasons; even if you don't pay, you still get treated for emergencies. \n\nThe ambulance charges your insurance, and if you have no insurance it charges you instead, but at the end of the day if you can't pay then it's basically on the house. They may try to come after you for at least some of it, but a truly destitute person who literally has nothing to pay with will be let off the hook debt-free. ",
"The police service is public. It is paid for by tax dollars.\n\nThe health care system is private. It gets no tax money (apart from Medicare/Medicaid type state insurance).\n\nDon't think that makes sense? In essentially every other first-world country on the planet, health care is also a public service, run by tax dollars. But here in the Greatest Nation on Earth (TM), that would be Evil Socialism. Just look at how people (and by \"people\", I mean mostly \"right-wing politicians and those who follow them\") freaked out over Obamacare, which turned out to be a very mild move in that direction.",
"The police are paid for by your city, who get money from you via taxes and collecting fines.\r\rThe ambulance is part of the health system which doesn't get tax dollars and instead gets money from you or your insurer."
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2ddzv3 | whats the whole deal with whole grain? | Everything needs to be whole grain. Whole grain bread, cookies, pasta, hell, you can probably find "whole grain" slapped on just about anything.
Whats the deal, man, and when does it matter, and when is it fancypants marketing?
They're better for you, right? how and why? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2ddzv3/eli5_whats_the_whole_deal_with_whole_grain/ | {
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"As opposed to \"enriched\" which means they strip out everything that gives it a darker, inconsistent texture and then add back in a few vitamins to partially replace the ones they leached out.\n\nGenerally speaking, whole-grain things are a bit better for you.",
"A lot of people believe that the wholegrain thing is a load of crap. The same way low fat was promoted in the 80s. Historically, grains were refined to make them easier to digest. The outer hull on grains contain anti nutrients that make it harder for the body to absorb the very nutrients processed grains are enriched with, namely iron, riboflavin, thiamine, niacin, b vitamins. If you compare the fiber in a whole grain to a processed one, they are both a horrible source of fiber compared to ANY vegetable or fruit. Claims that whole grains are better for blood sugar are somewhat true. The hull of the grain contains some fat and fiber, which means it is turned into sugar slower than refined grains, but it is still turned into insulin one way or another, the glycemic index means little to those not following a related diet. \n\nThese things translate to whole grains being less bad for you, but that does not mean they are good for you. If you are anemic, deficient in any b vitamins, or have digestive issues, you are much better off with refined grains. In general you'd be better off replacing most of the grains in your diet with a vegetable. Even potatoes have a better nutrient profile than any grain.",
"when I read the title it was automatically in jerry seinfields voice."
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9hq6ft | why do large companies or other businesses say they will match every donation or donate with every purchase instead of just donating the money? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/9hq6ft/eli5_why_do_large_companies_or_other_businesses/ | {
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"It's a marketing technique to encourage consumers to spend money at their business. You can help save a starving family in Africa just by buying a 2 Liter of Coke! \n\nThey oftentimes also have a limit to how much they will donate, but that's typically hidden in the fine print. And it makes the company look like a very generous one.",
"The explanation is how many people would hear that company X donated Y to cause Z if it was a pure donation? A few from a press release and recipient on the money. You could the text on products or in your stores etc but it look like you only do that for the publicity.\n\nTo get donation and match them looks a lot better and more people read and remember it then to say that they just donated. People that donate will remember it and associate the cause hat they like support with the company.\n\nThe message that we and our customers collected and donate money look a lot beter to put in advertisement the wall of the store etc.\n\nThat in combination with donate per purchase can result in more units sold is the one if you thing it is markting for the company.\n\n\nThe other way to look at is that matching donation likely result in higher total donation and the recipient can do more. It can also inform the public of the problem of Z and money will be donated, people volunteer, try to influence politicians etc. So if you what to support it or some change it is this is a good way to do it. That is in combination with the marketing argument.\n\n\n",
"No business donates out of the goodness of their heart. It's almost always a marketing or PR tactic to improve the brand's reputation by borrowing a bit of the charity's. \n\nThe charity wins because it's far easier to raise money when you have matching donors. Folks are more likely to put $20 in the hat when they know it counts for $40. Even people who hate the corporate sponsor will drop $20 in the hat just to stick it to them. \n\nThe corporate sponsor wins because they can prove that their customers are loyal and good people as evidenced by how much \"Coke Nation\" donated to the cause. Theoretically sales bumped up a little when shoppers rolling around Wal-Mart picked up an extra case \"for the children\". \n\nAlso, corporate charity partnerships usually include some form of brand requirements. For example, during the month of February, every time you see a Pink Ribbon from Susan G Komen, you'll also see a little NFL bug next to it. That way everyone knows how much they support women. Especially those in the hospital.~~..unless of course one of their players put her there.~~\n\nPartnering with a charity is also a great way to network. Personally, my business does a ton of engineering work for hospitals. So when a major client wants to throw a bowling night fundraiser, their first contact is all of their contractors. The owner pretty much has to buy the $200 lane just to keep up the relationship, but when you go we get to meet all of the other firms we work with and compete against. After a couple of beers everyone's friendly and we can build partnerships to work with each other on non-hospital projects. ",
"Companies often do both, but by staking their donation to the actions of consumers it compels consumers to act. You're more likely to give if you know your donation will result in double the amount going to the charity. Or you may buy more of an item if a donation is based on its purchase.\n\nIf a company says they'll donate $1 million to charity, the charity gets $1 million. If they say they'll match customers' donations dollar-for-dollar up to $1 million, then the charity could end up with $2 million, plus the ongoing messaging about the match gets more attention than a one-time announcement of a donation."
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8a5tmc | when you peel off dead skin, why is the new skin red, why does it hurt to touch and what makes it become paler like the skin around it? [biology] | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/8a5tmc/eli5_when_you_peel_off_dead_skin_why_is_the_new/ | {
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"The epidermis is the outer skin layer which is constantly being replaced by new skin cells called keranocytes. When you remove \"dead skin\" you're removing the older part of the epidermis. By removing this skin manually, you're exposing the newly created skin which is still developing and thickening, therefore the skin layer underneath (dermis) where your sensitive neurons are becomes more sensitive than normal skin hence turning red and hurting. Along the process of skin formation, the keranocytes deposit more keratin which thickens the epidermis along with melanin (a protein which concentration determines your skin colour) returning your skin to its original colour. "
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9qf9x8 | what's to stop us from just putting solar panels on every flat surface possible? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/9qf9x8/eli5_whats_to_stop_us_from_just_putting_solar/ | {
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"There is no single group that owns \"every flat surface possible\". So the fact you can't just do what you want with other people's property is a pretty big limiting factor. Also it costs money. And not every flat surface is a good spot to put solar panels.",
"It would be enormously expensive and cost way more energy to produce, transport, install, and repair the panels than they'd actually generate. Solar's come leaps and bounds, but just like you don't build a hydroelectric power plant in every river or just throw up a wind turbine everywhere there's a field. If you don't capture significantly more energy than it takes to install and run a thing, there's no point in building it.",
"Initial expense and cost per Joule including maintenance. Solar panels are expensive, but that isn't necessarily a prohibitive factor. Solar panels require constant maintenance and replacement, especially in abusive locations (you know how roads and sidewalks are almost always broken? Imagine that with something that is made of high purity silicon wafers). Also not prohibitive, but means we need to hire a lot of construction workers and really step up our infrastructure. What really kills this plan is efficiency. More than half a city is under clouds, shadows, or vehicles at any time. It's much more cost effective to put the solar panels in places they can follow the sun.",
"This question reminds me of my question of “why don’t we just plant fruit trees instead of trees that do not bare fruit so people have things to eat?” \n\nThe number one reason is cost. Who will do that? Who has the resources to actually go around every surface to make this happen?",
"Have you put up solar panels on every flat surface possible that you own or have rights to? If not, why not? Then consider that others may have the same reasons as you.",
"Money is the answer. Too expensive, not enough profit, taking away profits from the people in charge.",
"Regarding the edit:\n\n > couldn't we just put clear plexiglass or something similar over them to prevent wear and tear?\n\nThey're already covered with glass. The problem is that the cells themselves degrade as they produce electricity, some events (e.g. massive hail, hurricanes smashing heavy projectiles into it) will break the protective layer, and you still need to maintain the protective layer. Soft plexiglass would probably not work very well as it would get scratched, reducing the amount of light that hits the cells. Also, some materials (probably including plexiglass) absorb some of the light (specific invisible wavelengths) making them unsuitable.",
"Aside from the cost of building and maintaining solar panels, it makes managing the power grid difficult. Power companies have to generate exactly as much power as people use, within a small margin of error, at the exact moment they're using it. As things stand, there is effectively zero capacity to store electricity on the scale of the whole power grid. \n\n\n[California currently struggles with the \"duck curve\"](_URL_0_) where there is so much solar power in mid day, that the wholesale price of electricity drops near zero; there is huge demand at night. They have to have generators that cost millions of dollars to build sitting idle all day, and crank them up at night.\n\nIf batteries can be scaled up to store meaningful amounts of energy, it would revolutionize everything. That is just around the corner- [Tesla may have built the first one this year](_URL_1_.)",
"we basicly are... we are building solar cells as fast as we can. and they are all finding places to go. starting with regions with the most sun exposure and highest energy costs.\n\nGiven enough time, every south facing roof will have solar panels on it.",
"I despise the fact that cost is everyone's answer to this.\n\nIts not wrong... just... depressing? Definitely feels like we have our priorities out of order. Maybe I'm being too empirical?\n\nNot to diminish any of the other valid point: viability based on location is completely legit among other issues. It just always comes back to dollars though, doesn't it?"
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"https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2018/sep/27/south-australias-tesla-battery-on-track-to-make-back-a-third-of-cost-in-a-year"
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cbivwf | the women’s soccer pay gap | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/cbivwf/eli5_the_womens_soccer_pay_gap/ | {
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"I can't speak to those percentages, but assuming they are close enough to accurate...the number of tickets sold to the games, number of advertising firms, number and type of television coverage are just a few of the ways revenue is generated. If there was as much interest in women's soccer as men's it would appear the players would make more, but there just isn't as much interest. Similar to how the Canadian football league (CFL) players make a fraction of what the NFL players make.",
"Smaller TV audiences and smaller crowds paying less money at the grounds, increase those and there is more money to pay the players.",
"The dilemma isn't from the percentage of the pot they earn that causes the \"earning gap\" it's how much you fill the pot first, the mens team have more viewers, better sponsors and people paying into the pot before, the womens team also get a paid minimum on top unlike the men to offset this too so if they had the viewer/sponsorship as the men they would be making sooo much more than the men (not as likely to get the outcry though)",
"Used soccer/football interchangeably here - they both refer to soccer:\n\nLess money in it means less pay for the athletes. There's less money in it because, for the lack of a less mean explanation, the skill gap between mens and womens football is enormous.\n\n\nEveryone remembers stories of someone being in the bottom set of their school's football teams and being put against their county or area's best female team and totally wiping the floor with them. We had something similar, we went 8-0 our way.",
"Women’s soccer brings in less revenue than men’s soccer. If an organization makes more money, it can afford to pay its employees more.",
"Think of it as the difference between a garage band, and a big name band with a record deal.\n\nThe garage band doesn't have any other 'riders' on their income. When they get paid for a gig, the members all split the money, and don't have to pay anyone else.\n\nThe big name band's record label gets a cut of his profits... but he makes a *ton* more money. The garage band makes a couple grand a year, and keep all of it. The big name band makes millions, and keeps hundreds of thousands.\n\nThe women's team is getting a larger cut of a much smaller pie, because womens soccer isn't as popular. It doesn't get paid as much for ads, or get as large a payout for sponsorship deals, because not as many people are watching.",
"In simple terms, people are less willing to pay to watch live, pay for watching on cable, advertise during and sponsor women’s football/soccer. The vast difference in revenue is down to advertising, sponsoring and broadcasting rights. The simple but politically incorrect reason is the women’s football is not as exciting to watch as men’s football. Having watched the recent World Cup, I have to agree. Less spectacular goals, slower pace, a very high amount of missed passes and so on. Basically in cold hard business terms the women have mid range B brand business at the top their market but are upset that a premier brand that does ok earns more money. It’s simply the market at work, not discrimination. But they have decided that this is unfair and they should earn the same despite making far lower revenue figures. But as long as an amateur under 18 boys team can beat a women’s pro national team by a fair margin, there’s just no way their games are worth that much money,\n \nThe opposite side is fashion models where women get paid 8-20x more than men. The top earning female fashion model in 2018 earned more by herself than the entire top ten of Male models combined. For the same reasons, female models get a way more advertising revenue than men. But of course no calls for equality here.",
"National sports teams are tricky from a labor economics perspective because they're essentially side-jobs for their workers. This means that a key determinant of how people are paid is what they're paid at their regular jobs. \n\nEssentially, US Soccer wants to attract top talent to its teams, and it wants to pay the minimum possible to do so. It will typically cost more to get a player making $1,000,000 on their club team than to get a player making $100,000, even if those players ultimately generate the same revenue for the national team. Players weigh the costs and benefits of playing for the national team, and those with more to lose (especially from the added risk of injury) will want a higher salary to play. Thus, because female players have a lower earning potential in club play, they can be enticed onto the national team for less money. \n\nThe players speaking out about it is just an ordinary labor dispute. They believe (with pretty good reason) that they're being underpaid, so they're making a stink about it. They'd have better luck if they were making credible threats to not play for US Soccer in the future until this was fixed. \n\nLastly, there's nothing in labor economics that guarantees wages will be set in a \"fair\" way, but at the same time, we have many laws and mores in place to help steer them in that direction. In that sense, the public also have a right to put pressure on US Soccer to change how they pay athletes. You also have a right to believe that these changes would reduce fairness. Unfortunately, there's no consistent economic definition of the concept."
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50v6k3 | how is it a train engine doesn't just spin it's wheels on the track when getting the train moving? | I understand the engine has enough power to pull the ludicrous mass of cars behind it. But how is it that the wheels are able to grip the track without slipping? If Ser Gregor the Mountain tied a chain around an engine block he could probably pull it a certain distance in a yard. But if he were wearing socks and standing on a smooth floor his feet would just slip despite his adequate strength. So if a train engine has smooth steel wheels sitting on a smooth steel track, how is that even remotely going to provide enough friction to pull 125 cars each weighing about 10 tons from rest? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/50v6k3/eli5_how_is_it_a_train_engine_doesnt_just_spin/ | {
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"The same way your cars tires don't slip on the road. Train tracks aren't really slippery, and your average Diesel locomotive weighs over 100 tons. \n\nPut 100 tons of pressure on those socks on a smooth floor and you'll find they stick to it just fine. ",
"Modern traction systems are very tightly controlled with well defined power delivery profiles and feedback letting the system know when there is a problem (like traction control on a car) - in the days of steam, on the other hand, wheel spin was a very common thing.\n\n_URL_0_",
"There's also a bit of slack in the coupling between cars, so it doesn't quite move all 125 cars from rest at once. It gets itself moving, then starts the first car moving, then the second, and so on.",
"Modern Locomotives are specifically designed for, among other things like weight & cost, better traction control. Modern variable frequency AC motors with sensors to balance the rotation of the drive wheels create better differential power transmission to the drive wheels and therefore [better traction](_URL_0_).\n\nOlder locomotives can, and sometimes do create significant wheel spin, which can be a [very bad thing]( _URL_1_). "
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"http://www.photos.jcstudiosinc.com/user181/gouged-track.jpg"
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26mktf | rhythm method for birth control? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/26mktf/eli5_rhythm_method_for_birth_control/ | {
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"aka start picking out a name",
"A method of birth control with a low success rate. [95% chance of not having a baby if you do it perfectly and 88% chance if you do it like the average person would](_URL_0_). You time your periods such that days 1-7 and 20-period are considered safe for sex, while days 8-19 are considered unsafe for sex. ",
"An egg only survives 24-48hrs once released. Sperm survive 5-3days once in the vagina and as a general rule of thumb the sperm need to be in there and waiting for the egg release. So if a woman monitors her fertility signs Like: Cervical mucus becomes more copious and watery and for some it becomes egg white consistency (stretchy) leading up to Ovulation (this mucous is more sperm friendly), the cervix becomes soft, high and open leading up to ovulation and basal body Temperature increases after ovulation, You can also test for luteinizing hormone (LH) on pee sticks, because LH peaks just before the egg is released. \n\nSo If you avoid unprotected sex during these 5 days of fertility, it is almost impossible to get pregnant any other time."
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1mde39 | tsa lines | If the TSA does not have police powers, how are they able to detain anyone to do even the search they do? If they can't legally hold you, why not walk right by them? I don't want to hear "because they can." I want the settled legal reasoning for how this is possible, or have we all just been conned into consenting to this theatre without realizing it? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1mde39/eli5_tsa_lines/ | {
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"You *can* walk right past them, and they can't physically stop you. But doing so is criminal, and they will call the police, who are usually standing right off to the side.\n\nAs for the searches they perform, they are all voluntary \"administrative\" searches."
]
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e7cuej | what causes cell phone cables to go bad when there is no sign of physical damage? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/e7cuej/eli5_what_causes_cell_phone_cables_to_go_bad_when/ | {
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"Usually with lower quality cables, the connection between the wire and connector will weaken with use. The outer cable will look fine but the thin wires inside break. That’s why they sometimes work if you hold it a certain way. The broken wires inside will momentarily touch to complete the connection when you move the cable.",
"Think about when you have a piece of metal, if you bend it back and forth or twist it, eventually it becomes weaker and begins to break apart.\n\nThis can happen to the inside of cables pretty easily, especially when they are 'wound' up for neatness, twisted or pulled on.\n\nVideo on how to treat audio cables (same concept as phone chargers more or less) _URL_0_"
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48vs8x | how come so many people in the entertainment industry suffer from depression? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/48vs8x/eli5_how_come_so_many_people_in_the_entertainment/ | {
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"Confirmation bias.\n\nPeople in entertainment are more likely to share their thoughts. Therefore you are more likely to hear about an entertainer that is depressed than an accountant or a plumber. ",
"They don't, they're just more in the public spotlight so you know about it more.\n\nReally, the same ratio of people in every aspect of life suffer from depression. it's that bad everywhere.",
"Aside the confirmation bias, they are more likely to be bipolar (Robin Williams, Stephen Fry) than unipolar depressive. \n\nBeing bipolar means you have your lows, but when you have your higs, you shine. Being high is like being on coke all the time. Thoughts race, answers come before you can even formulate the question, you sleep less, you have energy. Doesn't this make one a good celebrity ? \n\nOf course only while it lasts. Then you get into depression and can't get out if bed. ",
"Another explanation might be drug abuse. On gaining celebrity status it's very common for someone to be invited to exclusive parties where access to recreational chemicals is easy and encouraged. Unfortunately a lot of harder drugs cause emotional instability and can very quickly lead to effects similar to real depression."
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davmxf | what biological, neurological or psychological actions cause someone to be unable to remember something no matter how hard they try? | For example: Tried to remember the name of a famous early 90s electronica group that I've known about for 30 years, yet whenever I tried to think about the name it just ended in a frustrated blank no matter what I tried. For me it's a little different to 'forgetting' something as I know what I can't remember rather than being unsure. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/davmxf/eli5_what_biological_neurological_or/ | {
"a_id": [
"f1veggl"
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"score": [
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"text": [
"Memory blocking. You can have old info blocking new incoming info, or you can have new info blocking old. In instances like this, you are often trying to think of that band from hearing a new band that is similar and that is causing your brain to falsely attribute the old band. Our brains are constantly trying to fill in blanks but often leads to other unintended consequences. In my studies I found that false memories were the most interesting. I can give you new information about a picture you have already seen (but the info I give is wrong) and you will now remember that detail in the photo. I studied this stuff while doing research on eyewitness testimony, which is just awful. The way police interrogate you or others is often the reason behind innocent people going to prison and it all wraps around this concept of memory blocking."
]
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| []
| [
[]
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|
|
crj3dd | how do scratch n sniff products work? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/crj3dd/eli5_how_do_scratch_n_sniff_products_work/ | {
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"Through a process called micro-encapsulation a patch/sticker or whatever is treated with a certain scent, basically coated in a perfume. It's then coated with easily breakable microbubbles that preserve the smell and break easily to release the smell when rubbed",
"It works the same way as post-it notes do.\n\nFor post-it notes it's glue that's encapsulated in tiny bubbles and released when pressure is applied or it's scratched. \n\nFor perfume it's the perfume that's encapsulated in polymers that easily break when scratched. \n\n\n\nThose 48h deodorants use the same mechanism as well: Polymer-encapsulated perfum that ~~geht's~~ gets released due to mostly friction.\n\n\nEven those laundry scent things work that way.\n\n\n\nThe earliest form if scratch'n'sniff worked by using gelatine as the polymer.\n\nBasically you use water, oil and soap to make an emulsion, and when gelatine is added and the emulsion is dried you'll get tiny droplets of oil coated in gelatine. \n\nIf perfume is added you get scratch'n'sniff powder, if drugs get added you get pre-dissolved medication which for some drugs is necessary for them to be properly absorbed by the body.",
"Lol oh man, so I had like 3 massive sticker books growing up and my scratch and sniff sections were incredible now that I think about it. I had stickers like \"tennis balls\" and \"dirty shoes\" and \"roast beef\". Man....i must have had at least 500 different scents and they were all accurate lol to this day I think that'd be an awesome job lol \"we need you to replicate the smell of tennis balls and spray it on stickers lol people want this\" bahaha too funny. I think I even had a sticker that smelled like garbage!"
]
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jamf7 | what do ron paul supporters mean when they talk about "auditing" the federal reserve? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/jamf7/eli5_what_do_ron_paul_supporters_mean_when_they/ | {
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"They want the government to take a look at the Federal Reserves balance sheet, because it likely doesn't disclose everything it is doing. The Fed doesn't always report everything because it is an independently-run section of the government. The Fed was recently looked over by the Government accountability office, and it turns out it gave $16 trillion in additional, undisclosed loans, as shown [here](_URL_0_).",
"They want the government to take a look at the Federal Reserves balance sheet, because it likely doesn't disclose everything it is doing. The Fed doesn't always report everything because it is an independently-run section of the government. The Fed was recently looked over by the Government accountability office, and it turns out it gave $16 trillion in additional, undisclosed loans, as shown [here](_URL_0_)."
]
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[
"http://sanders.senate.gov/newsroom/news/?id=9e2a4ea8-6e73-4be2-a753-62060dcbb3c3"
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"http://sanders.senate.gov/newsroom/news/?id=9e2a4ea8-6e73-4be2-a753-62060dcbb3c3"
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|
||
10i5jv | how can cells be clear or transparent? | Thinking back to my high school days of science, I remember talking about all of the parts of the cell, and it made me start wondering about how things can be transparent. How does that work? How is matter...clear? I'm thinking like...insect wings and things like that. Basically anything transparent too. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/10i5jv/eli5_how_can_cells_be_clear_or_transparent/ | {
"a_id": [
"c6do5hu"
],
"score": [
5
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"text": [
"The structure of the molecules making up the material makes it so that the object does not reflect or absorb any of the wavelengths of light, but simply allows them to pass through."
]
} | []
| []
| [
[]
]
|
|
2515rn | why doesn't a broken thing reattach itself? | Example: If I break a porcelain board in two (one breakline) and put them back together, why don't the bindings between the atoms/molecules get back in place so the board is a whole again?
It's a normal thing in daily life, but if you think of it, it seems kind of strange. I mean, the binding between the atoms/molecules where there a second ago.
Is there a way to restore the bindings, beside melting the two parts together?
| explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2515rn/eli5_why_doesnt_a_broken_thing_reattach_itself/ | {
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"Im no expert, but since no-one else commented, ill have a stab.\n\nin some cases, when a bond breaks, almost immediately a layer of oxide is formed. this acts as a layer seperating the two parts, so they cant rejoin.\n\nin other cases, for example porcelein, the object is actually made up of \"grains\", like sand, only very small. so the bonds arn't actually broken, because the individual grains remain intact, it is just whatever is holding them together, such as a cement, or even just friction that is broken, not the bond itself.\n\nLike i said, I am definately no expert, so i would be interested to hear a better explination, but this is how I understand it.",
"The two pieces don't join together because most bonds in materials require an energy input to form. The bonds in porcelain require more energy to form than the surroundings can provide, so they won't reform just from the act of placing them together again. \n\nThe structure of the molecules you are trying to form also plays a large part in this energy requirement, as does atmospheric pressure, which is why variations in these result in differing materials being formed. EDIT: This is best illustrated by carbon bonding - increases in pressure and heat change graphite (pencil lead) into diamond.\n\nAside from \"melting\" the two together, intense pressure of the two broken faces being pressed against each other could theoretically do it, but you'd pretty much have to be the hulk in order for this to work. That's assuming you could apply that much pressure without shattering the remaining pieces into a million more."
]
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[],
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czn213 | can electricity be transmitted in wireless way from source to user? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/czn213/eli5_can_electricity_be_transmitted_in_wireless/ | {
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"Yes, there are several technologies that can do this. Microwave and laser transmission is the most promising way, however, these are directed, meaning that the transmitter and receiver must be aimed at each other and have line-of-sight.\n\nInductive transmission is currently the only widespread use of wireless energy transfer (IE: Your phones wireless charger). This is the most simple system, however it is vastly less efficient that direct connections. These devices can use almost 2x more energy than their directly connected counterparts. This issue also effects the aforementioned laser and microwave systems. However, those have the advantage of being able to transmit power over very long distances, making their inefficiencies less of an issue given their benefits.\n\n**TLDR; Yes, wireless power transmission is possible. However, it is inefficient, so it's only practical when absolutely necessary.**"
]
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| []
| [
[]
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||
j31nq | can someone explain tantric sex to me like i'm five, which is awkward? | Techniques? Motivation? Philosophy? Ties to Religion? Anything else? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/j31nq/can_someone_explain_tantric_sex_to_me_like_im/ | {
"a_id": [
"c28rcg1"
],
"score": [
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"text": [
"Very simply tantric sex is when 2 people enjoy rubbing their naughty bits together for a very long period of time, even hours, to increase the pleasure doing such things provide and then achieve orgasm without ejaculation, which makes the experience even more profound and mind shattering. \n\nNow, little Timmy, an orgasm is like popping the cork on a champagne bottle and doing it without ejaculation ls not having any precious champagne shoot out. Now go outside and play."
]
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[]
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|
va1lv | what does it mean to "root" something? | All I know is that if I do it to my Kindle, it'll void my warranty. Oh, and that computer-programmer types seem to treat this function like it's God.
What does it mean to "root" something, and why does it void my warranty? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/va1lv/eli5_what_does_it_mean_to_root_something/ | {
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"Like You're Five:\n\nIt means to achieve full control over your device. A lot of devices nowadays, like iPhones, Kindles, Nooks, et. al. are beholden to the rules of their manufacturers. Once you \"root\" something, you have total control over it. This can range from anything from pirated books to running programs that overheat and ruin your device.\n\nIt voids the warranty because they no longer have control over the hardware.",
"It means to gain administrator access, so if you root something on Android you gain access to features, permisions, and other things that normally would be locked away from you because most people would not know or have use for these features. \n\nIts somewhat similar to \"jailbreaking\" an iOS device. ",
"The administrator account on a linux/unix system is usually called \"root\". So, if you have \"root access\", you have full administrator control over that device. ",
"the Australian English meaning was echoing in my head and made me giggle :o)"
]
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5u6bda | how can one rocket get over 100 satellites into each of their positions around the earth? | India just broke the record for how many satellites put into orbit with one rocket. Each one travels at immense speed so must be spread out a lot surely? So how can one rocket achieve this? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5u6bda/eli5_how_can_one_rocket_get_over_100_satellites/ | {
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"I'll simplify and just consider two satellites. Their rocket launches them together into a certain orbit, and then the satellites split up and need to get far apart. They can use their own engines or one can get help by the launching rocket.\n\nIt doesn't require much rocket fuel for one satellite to go ahead of the other. One satellite just has to drop its orbit a tiny bit and it will go faster and has a shorter path, so it will steadily pull ahead of the other one. It's a bit like a racing car taking the inside lane. Once the two satellites are far enough apart, they can get themselves back into matching orbits and they'll stay with one leading the other.\n\nIt takes a bit more rocket fuel for one satellite to get into a higher orbit than the other. But not too much if you only need say a 50 or 100 km difference. And then the two satellites will be in different orbits and the closest they'll come to each other will be the difference in their orbital heights.\n\nBut it takes a *lot* of rocket fuel if you want one satellite to tilt its orbit round so it's different to another. This is because the satellites are doing about 7 km per second already, so to deflect that speed north or south requires a big push. So while the multiple satellites launched by a rocket can orbit at different heights or get into different positions around their orbits, they must all stay in nearly the same plane. If you looked at the orbits of just those 100 satellites, it'd be a bit like the rings of Saturn."
]
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3owk89 | where were muslims in biblical times? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3owk89/eli5_where_were_muslims_in_biblical_times/ | {
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"A lot of the nomadic tribes around Mecca had polytheistic religions based on idols that weren't very well defined in the sense that there wasn't necessarily a single religious book or authority. The Kaaba is believed to have housed several of these idols.\n\nThere were also some Christians, Jews, and Hanifists. Hanifism was an Abrahamic monotheistic religion that survived in that area through at least Mohammed's time. Hanifists would have believed in one God and in the teachings of Abraham, but wouldn't have believed in Jesus as the messiah or had Jewish traditions.",
" > But where were his eventual followers at this time\n\nSaudi Arabia -- specifically Mecca. Mostly Mecca was inhabited by various tribal people who had what we might think of as folk religions or other more or less organized religions that are somewhat lost to history.\n\n > Were they Jewish and their faith later evolved\n\nI think it would be a wild exaggeration to say that *most* Muslims' ancestors were practicing/observant Jews, but there was certainly some of that, especially in certain regions where Islam later spread -- IMO it's one of the [lulzier aspects](_URL_0_) of the whole Israeli/Palestinian conflict."
]
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[],
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"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7ytFneQASZ4"
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10afhe | the difference between cat5e and cat6 ethernet cables. | I found an explanation online but was left in shambles because it said things that I didn't understand :( | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/10afhe/eli5_the_difference_between_cat5e_and_cat6/ | {
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"text": [
"In each cat* cable, there are eight inner wires. Four of which are striped, and the others solid. Cat cable is known as a twisted pair cable because the inner wires are twisted in pairs; in other words, two wires twist around each other, then the four pairs twist around each other.\n\nThe reason they are twisted around each other has something to do with reducing [crosstalk](_URL_0_), which is when the wires will interfere with each other.\n\nWhen it comes down to it, the difference between cat5e and cat6, and the rest of the grades of cat* (IIRC) is the number of times that these inner wires twist around each other for a given distance.",
"Cat 6 is tested to handle a higher clock frequency to certify stability at higher connection speeds. "
]
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[
"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crosstalk"
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e11pb5 | would it be possible to develop an operating system... | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/e11pb5/eli5_would_it_be_possible_to_develop_an_operating/ | {
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"_URL_0_\n\nThere's actually a guy that developed one on his own from scratch in the video posted above. It's a bit of a long video but pretty interesting; the guy ended up going insane."
]
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| []
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[
"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UCgoxQCf5Jg"
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||
3jours | how and why do actors produce their own movies and what exactly do producers do? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3jours/eli5_how_and_why_do_actors_produce_their_own/ | {
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"The producer is basically in charge of the money. They (or a studio that they work for) provide the money and usually have the final sign off on how it's used. They're also usually involved in scheduling, picking locations, casting, etc. because all of that involves the money. Because of this position, they often have some creative control as well, and lots of directors and actors have claimed that their perfectly good work was ruined by producers getting involved and making bad decisions.\n\nSo as an actor, producing your own movie gets rid of that danger. You're backing the money for the project, so nobody can overrule your decisions unless you let them. A lot of actors do it to avoid being too controlled by a producer or a movie studio. They also often do it when they can't find a studio willing to produce a movie, but they really want to make it anyways. "
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2oy8bc | two-fold question: with the recent askreddit in mind, what makes our brains slow down time in response to life-or-death situations? and why might it run against what should be natural-based instinct? | It seems like it has to do with an obvious flight-or-fight adrenaline response, but many reports in life-threatening situations seem to severely slow-down time.
If I may add my own personal experience with my only life-threatening experience: I was within night-view of Chimney Rock for the first time, and completely enthralled. All I remember is that I glanced at the road ahead of me, and within less than a second, an antelope of some species dashed in front of my car, I swerved around it one one side and the bridge-protection gate on the other side of the road that I wasn't even consciously aware of, and back onto the straight path of my lane before I even understood what happened.
When I think back to the experience, it's like the moment played out before I could even comprehend how to play it back....and I still can't comprehend how it happened, other than instinct...but instinct wouldn't explain being able to control an external vehicle that I control like a car. You know, due to the whole cars-weren't-really-an-everyday-thing-in-my-own-grandparents'-day problem. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2oy8bc/eli5_twofold_question_with_the_recent_askreddit/ | {
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"There was actually some experiments (dropped people off a height and confirmed they felt the slow down, but they weren't able to read a display that moved just fast enough to not be readable normally) to see if this was actually true or not. Sadly, you don't actually slow things down/speed up perception.\n\nWhat happens when you experience this is your brain remembers more things in greater detail than it would otherwise. Due to the extra information, it feels like it happened slower. \nThe evolutionary advantage you this is that when you survive a life out death situation, it's great to have a lot of info about how it happened so you can survive the next one."
]
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62e50f | how could they have not known beforehand that changing flint's water would damage the pipes? | So as we all know, Flint changed their water from lake water to river water from the Flint River. As a result, the river water is more acidic, and corroded the pipes, leeching lead into the water.
For the moment, nevermind that the event happened. My question is, how could they have not known beforehand, before changing the water that this was going go be a problem? It should be know by some people, that river water is more acidic than lake water. Nobody spoke up and raised the alarm that river water is more acidic? Did nobody in charge really know this? Did they know and just not care? Did they know and just think the high lead would not be discovered? This doesn't make sense to me. What is going on here? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/62e50f/eli5_how_could_they_have_not_known_beforehand/ | {
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"You assume that anyone gave this a moment's thought, or that the people who did had any way to contact or meaningfully describe the situation to people in power. Then, you assume that if anyone knew, that they cared, which evidence indicates they would not. \n\n\"Many journalists have fallen for the conspiracy theory of government. I do assure you that they would produce more accurate work if they adhered to the cock-up theory.\" -Bernard Ingham",
"The Governor overrode the local elections and put an \"Emergency Manager\" by the name of Darnell Earley in charge. Basically he took away the power of the locally-elected officials. The idea is that this \"Emergency Manager\" would be able to cut through the red tape and get stuff done in order to fix whatever emergency the Governor dreamed up in order to justify his action. \n\nThe problem is that bureaucracy and red tape exists for a reason. Rules get put into place because someone screwed up (or was corrupt) before. When you bypass those rules, you risk making the same mistake someone else made in the past. I'm all for efficiency, but when a business screws up, it folds and people go find jobs somewhere else. When a government screws up, people die (or in this case get neurologically damaged for life). This came from running the government like a business.",
"It seems nobody purposely got anyone sick. Flint was looking to get out of its water contract with Detroit Water and Sewage, where they were receiving treated, clean water for many years. Flint River was a backup water source already. It was presumed safe to use as a backup and thus safe to use as a go forward solution until they could get something more modernized in place. The water they got from the river had to be treated, so they built a water treatment facility. However, old pipes, poor planning, etc.. created issues and the water ended up bad.\n\nSome scary things that happened was that the EPA and government officials knew the water was bad and they didn't tell the public. While the mayor is on TV drinking tap water to calm the fears, the EPA had already measured high levels of lead in the water and didn't do anything.",
"They knew. They chose not to add a recommended additive that would have prevented all of this, whether do to bureaucratic error, laziness, or cheapness we don't know. \n\nWhat I do know is they've stopped giving out water at the bus terminal, and they won't give me water at the distribution center because I can't update my address on my ID until I can get mail where I live (so, never, because my parents could then find me and start shit again) so now I have to walk 6 miles twice a day to fill pitchers at my \"sister's\" well water apartment so my cats and carer have water.",
"From what I understand, the reason the pipes corroded was because the water from Detroit was treated with several chemicals (as is necessary and normal), one of which was there to protect the pipes from corrosion. However, when flint switched to the river as its main source of water, they left out this very important chemical, there for causing all of the pipes to begin erroding, releasing lead from the makeup of the pipes. \nThis is also why even though we have switched back to Detroit water, the lead levels are still moderately high (though deemed \"safe\" now). The pipes' internal seal is now gone and they continue to release lead into the water. ",
"The information was available, but likely not all in one place.\n\nIf the group in charge of pipe replacement knows the pipes are older pipes that are subject to corrosion, and the group in charge of checking water quality knows that the new water source is more acidic, but they never talked to each other and just assumed the other guys knew what was going on and would say something, then no one group or person would have all the information necessary to conclude that there would be a problem and warn the politicians making the decisions that it might be a problem.\n\nThere's nothing wrong with using more acidic water if the pipes in use are properly coated to handle it (or made of less reactive substances or ones that don't contain harmful chemicals to leach out), so that's not an immediate red flag to the water quality group.\n\nThere's nothing wrong with using older pipes if the water source is clean, generally speaking- just looking at my own area, there are water mains that are in the range of being 100 years old, and possibly some of the pipes still in use are actually hollowed out logs. (can't find a source to verify that at the moment, but I did find an advertisement from some time around 1924 for a company that manufactured them)\n\nTL;DR: there was probably a failure in coordination between different groups or people responsible for different aspects of water management for Flint, MI.",
"There is a lot of pressure to not raise water and sewer rates. Since governing bodies have to determine these rates, the pressure is political. Historically water has been free (wells) or nearly free when a large local industry was paying a huge share of the cost (Canton NC sewer comes to mind). Modern wisdom is that combined water and sewer bills are deemed \"affordable\" when below about 1.5% of median household income. But even at this rate, most utilities are falling way behind on regular maintenance let alone keeping up with treating dirtier water, or complying with stricter wastewater pollution standards. There is indeed studying of the issue, but nobody really wants to admit that the real cost of clean water is much higher than this accepted threshold. 2%? 3% 5% of your income? We don't know really, and it's very basin specific. For some idea of the magnitude of such numbers, if your household income were 50,000 a year, that'd mean your combined water and sewer bill would be over $200 a month ($208). You're knee jerk thought that this is atrocious is exactly why elected officials won't ever consider such high rates, and exactly why even a minor cost savings as seen in Flint, can end up happening, despite the consequences. Rates as a percent of income is of course already a flawed measure, since for low income areas, food and housing eat up a much higher percent of incomes right off the bat so in a place like Flint, with a shrinking customer base to boot, any increase to rates is acutely felt by those paying it, especially on the low side of that median. ",
"The people who make the decisions NEVER listen to those who must deal with the decisions. Any water treatment engineer could have forecast the issues that would develop and devise a treatment plan that would have prevented the issues that occurred."
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8no7rw | why can’t light stay still? | Light almost always moves at the speed of light (exemption with certain materials, but its almost unnoticeable). But can it stay still (relative to empty space)?
Edit: Theoretically, can light be still due to gravity? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/8no7rw/eli5_why_cant_light_stay_still/ | {
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"Hello, so a quick disclaimer is I'm not a particle physicist, this has just come in my entry level to physics knowledge I'm trying to learn while working with biochemists.\n\nThe answer lies in the fact that light is massless (for all intents and purposes we shall assume this, it's a bit more complicated than that). All massless particles must move at the speed of light. Why is this?\n\nIt's because mass is defined based on a particles interaction with the Higgs field, which is an all-pervasive field that exists throughout our universe. It determines how objects move throughout the universe as every particle must travel through the Higgs field.\n\nSo, as stated in another answer, it isn't that something is keeping it from moving slower than the speed of light (in this case, the photon is the particle in question), it's that the particle lacks what it takes (mass) to interact with the Higgs field to move slower than the c, the speed of light.\n\nA bit trippier is that technically every particle must be moving at c, but those particles interactions with the Higgs field is what creates mass and allows it to move slower than c relative to other particles. (c, of course equaling the speed of light). It's interacting with the Higgs field in a more intimate way. Momentum, which is defined as mass (interactions with the higgs field) times velocity, will always translate in terms of c. Mass is simply the interference the Higgs field creates with different kinds of particles.",
"Light *always* has at least *some* energy. That's part of what it is. Light can't *not* have energy. When light loses its energy, for whatever reason, it literally stops being light (or stops existing, whatever — your choice of interpretation).\n\nNow, light is small. Very small. So small that, there's actually no way for it to *store* that energy — except through motion. \n\nSo, in a sense, light moves because it has to do *something*, and it's so small that moving is all it can do.\n\nAnd, furthermore, light *always* moves at \"the speed of light\". It's just that, when it enters some materials, it gets bounced around by all the molecules a *lot*, resulting in an apparent reduction in speed. ",
"I will try to make it as simple as possible\n\nImagine you have a bowling ball. You give it a push and it might move a little bit. With the same push you can make a soccer ball a bit more and a beach ball even further, because they are lighter. We often look at this as if lighter object move faster when you apply the same force on it, but actually it is the other way around, heavier objects move slower. It might sound like it is the same, but there is a difference as you change the point where you are coming from.\n\nRather than saying that standing still is the starting point, and decreasing weight increases the speed, the starting point is the speed of light. And the more mass you add, the less fast a certain object can go. The decrease of speed is caused by interactions with the Higgs field as explained by another user. Light is just a bunch of photons and photons are massless. And massless particles have another odd quality: simply existing is their push.\n\nWhile you have to push the bowling ball and the soccer ball, a photon is massless and so it pushes itself to the speed where it feels most \"comfortable\", which is the speed of light.\n\nEven through materials, light moves at the speed of light. But you could say it \"bumps into\" stuff. It is not really bumping, but it is close enough for understanding. Because of all these bumps, the light moves in a chaotic motion, zigzagging through the material. This seems to decrease the speed on the larger scale, but on the smaller scale it stays the same.",
"Think of light as a wave. Something emitting light is like someone dropping stones in a lake. You can't have waves that don't move.. it's just not a wave then. Why is light still the same speed even if the light source moves ? Imagine the person dropping stones vertically in a lake at a constant rate. Whether the person moves or not doesn't change the speed or the waves produced by the dropping stones. Dropping stones of different sizes might change the size and frequency of the waves, but they would still move at the same speed. (That's not actually true for water but it is for light)",
"I feel like these answers so far are decent but are not in ELIF format so I will try. Light is what you get when you \"flick\" the electric or magnetic field and give it energy. Light can't be still because light is just a twanging of fields, and if the twanging stops, then it's just a motionless field with no energy. It is like if you have a jump rope and you yank it to create a pulse, light is like the pulse along the rope. And it is not just the shape of the pulse, it is the motion of the pulse too. so if the motion stops, there is no more pulse and no more light."
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1iota1 | why are hospitals allowed to sell blood to patients that is taken from donors? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1iota1/eli5_why_are_hospitals_allowed_to_sell_blood_to/ | {
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"Storing and testing blood costs money, so the blood bank charges the hospital and the hospital charges the patient for that plus the costs of administering it (and a bit extra). SOMETIMES blood doners get paid money (if blood is extremely scarce), but that's rare -- normally they donate the blood (which didn't cost them anything) for free because they know it will help someone.",
"The averege cost of collecting one unit of whole blood (1 pint) is around $900 (US). The cost includes payment of the techs who collect the blood and the opperational costs of the BloodMobile (the busses used in our area) based on an average donation time of thirty minutes, as well as the cost of the collection supplies (each collection bag unopened costs $55). Then the cost of paying a second set of techs who recieve and process the unit by seperating it into it's three components (redcells, plasma, and platelets) at rate of approximately 15 minutes per unit. From there, it goes to the labs to be tested (about 36 hours), where the costs per unit are based on paying the lab tech, the cost of the reagents, and if the testing equipment are leased or financed, a premium per unit to recoup the cost of said machinery. Finally, the cost of storage in the giant walk-in coolers and the cobalt radiation treatment to sterilize each unit is incurred. So, in three days time almost $1000 has been spent on a single pint of donated blood. If your local blood bank is registered with the AABB as a Community Blood Bank, then a minimum of 80% of the product drawn in a community must stay within a certain distance of that community (100 miles, I think) and they will maintain a registry of donors so that, if needed, regular donors who need blood will not have the costs of processing forwarded to them. The hospital will still charge for the administration of the product though.\n\nSource: Supervisor at a Blood Bank 4.5 years",
"To get the blood, you have to pay a phlebotamist and use a specially treated sterile plastic kit to take and store it. Then, you need to store it in generator-backed up freezers that have temperature recorders on them. All that costs money (which you recoup from the person that uses the blood).\n\nAs an aside, if you attempt to give blood or blood product (like platelets) and fail multiple times (due to clots, veins closing down, etc.) you will be asked to stop offering to make donations because you're wasting their time and materials.",
"**Blood collection, personnel, testing, and storage are expensive**. Even starting with the bag. **The bag**: All bags must be sterile, and lots have to be tested, shipped and stored. **The collection**: While donors are usually donating for free, those collecting it are paid employees. The equipment and infrastructure for collection costs money... vans, buildings, supplies. **Processing**: Between personnel and infectious disease detection, you're spending some money. **EVERY** unit of blood (unless you're donating to yourself in the hospital) is tested for a multitude of transmittable blood born pathogens. These machines are not cheap, neither is the unskilled and skilled labor that is required to process a recently received unit into the three blood components: red blood cells, plasma (and cryoprecipitate), and platelets. **Storage at the collection site**: Refrigeration ain't cheap. **Delivery**: Most blood collection is brought back to a tertiary site (not the hospital) and then it is delivered to hospitals on a scheduled or as-needed schedule. **The hospital's use**: you can have a small or large blood bank at a hospital depending on its needs. A large surgical center for example may keep upwards of 100+ O positive and 100 O negative units, along with the hodgepodge of A's, B's, and AB's. An important thing to remember is that blood outdates. Most units will be 42 or 35 days. But if the blood goes out to the floor (for a presumed need by a surgeon for example) and its not used and is returned beyond a certain time limit or out of a certain temperature threshold, we throw it away. If it outdates beyond 42 days, we throw it away. **Platelets**: Platelets have to be kept at room temperature and constantly rocked. The fact that they are not refigerated like red cells means that these bags are very prone to bacterial contamination (gram positive cocci from the skin at the time of collection, or gram negative rods, that just happened to get in the bag... the donor had a nonclinical bacteremia when he donated). These outdate much sooner than red cells and are expensive to keep in stock. You want to provide enough platelets for the hospital, but not request so many that you'll have to throw a lot away. **hospital blood bank and its staff**: There are trained personnel in the the blood bank along with a pathologist who have to type and cross blood for patients. If a patient needs blood, their blood type is identified. It then needs to be crossmatched with available units in house. You do this by mixing the two and seeing it it clumps (more complex than this, but this is eli5) Most people know of A,B, O, and positive or negative, but there are many, many, many more blood antigen sites on blood than most people (and most clinical doctors besides pathologists know about) that are clinically significant, and can cause a transfusion reaction. The machines to detect these reactions aren't cheap. The refrigeration at the hospital ain't cheap (could be a small fridge, could be a walk in). I could probably go on, but I'll stop here. will answer Qs.",
"I just found out the thrift store where I donate my excess clothing turns around and SELLS IT TO OTHER PEOPLE.\n\nFrom now on I'm burning it all.",
"Because it costs money to go through the procedure of blood transfusions/whatever. Someone has to pay for the containers the blood is held in, the refrigeration of it, its transport.. etc... No one would donate blood it they had to pay for all that, but people who need blood don't really have a choice in the matter. ",
"If you think that a blood transfusion doesn't have any cost just because the blood itself is free, you probably think air conditioning doesn't have any cost just because the air itself is free.",
"in canada ..they don't",
"The government should do more to encourage organ donation by offering a juicy tax credit to the estate of the deceased. That way everyone will get paid .",
"All those needles and hours cost something, son. ",
"Where to begin? Me: blood donor since 1979 (American Red Cross, but now to Stanford Blood Center, part of Stanford University Medical Center.) Total donations: 16+ gallons of whole blood and platelets. This is a drop in the bucket compared to fellow SBC donors who have generously donated 200, 300, 400 and as many as 500 units of blood, plasma or platelets to patients in critical need.\n\nWhy do donated blood and blood products cost so much for patients? Quite simply: because the costs to collect, test, transport and store blood products, and ensure safety & quality throughout the process is so expensive.\n\nLabor: for the skilled MDs & researchers, nurses & nursing assistants, administrative workers, and drivers to collect, test, transport & store, and support the collection of blood. \nSupplies: for all of the sterile one-time-use-only consumable products that are needed to collect, store and deliver all those blood products (bags, needles, test tubes, tape, iodine, etc). \nEquipment: the equipment needed to collect, test & store blood products is costly. A Trima Accel Automated Blood Collection machine, used to collect & separate red blood, platelets or plasma costs over $80,000 each, plus annual maintenance and service contracts. Adding the automated run data system option adds another $8000 to the machine itself. One set of tubes, bags, filters for a single platelet donation costs over $300. \nBlood testing: SBC performs 14 different tests to donated blood before it can be given to patients. Each test has a unique test kit, and an operator to administer and interpret the results. Plus, all data are logged in a computer and archived in case of any future blood safety issues. SBC performs the following tests on all blood donations: blood type, CMV (Cytomegalovirus), antibody Hepatitis B Core, Hep B Surface antigen, Hep C, Syphilis, antibody tests fror HIV/AIDS, HTLV-I/II, Trypanasoma-Cruzi, and Nucleic acid tests for HIV, HBV, HCV and WNV. And cholesterol testing for donors. \nRent, vehicles & utilities: for offices, testing labs, storage refrigerators, blood mobiles and transport vans for equipment and blood.\nLosses: Whole blood has a shelf life (refrigerated) of between 3 to 5 weeks, while platelets must be used within 3 to 5 days of collection. Depending on supply & demand of blood types & rH factors between inventories donors, and patients, there will always be some blood that cannot be safely used and must be discarded. (For example, in the weeks after 9/11, more than half of the excess blood donated by the general public was thrown out because there was no need, many tests were eliminated to streamline the process, and it was not possible to properly store so much blood.) \nTotal spending: SBC has annual budget of $55 million, plus another $2 for research grants. In 2012, SBC produced more than 89,000 units of blood & blood products for transfusion, plus another 52,000 units for research or further manufacture. They have a staff of 30 full-time equivalent Academics (MDs, PhDs, etc) and another 246 FTEs for operations. SBC also has a large network of volunteers who work at the post-donation canteens, help at mobile blood donation collections, and provide telephone reservation support. In all, SBC provides blood to 7 hospitals in the Bay Area.\n\nFor more information, go to: _URL_1_\n\nTrima Accel Automated Blood Collection machine: _URL_2_\n\nBad blood 9/11 tragedy: _URL_0_;",
"While we have the thread here, I have some related questions. I have known dozens of people who have given blood, many of them have done it several times, but I have never known a single person that needed a blood transfusion. Is this an accurate observation, or is the ratio far different than I'm thinking? Also, if it is accurate, why do they need so many more donors than receivers? Does it go bad, do they need a surplus, does a transfusion require more blood than just one donation?",
"Because you live where healthcare is a product, not a service.",
"The TL;DR from my roommate that worked for the Red Cross for years is, after everything they have to do to the blood to get it from donor to recipient, it costs thousands of dollars. \n\nWhen they take it they add anti-coagulants, then they have to remove them before they give it to someone. They have to test it for diseases. Then there is the time that people need to get paid to do all this. \n\nBlood is not cheap. ",
"Hospital prices are inflated, but that's beyond the scope of the question. \n\nThe reason they charge you more than what they paid for it is, the cost involved in training and maintaining staff to do it. For example, when you go to a diner and order breakfast, you're paying more than the cost of the ingredients. You pay for labor and equipment cost, which is why you don't get a whole uncooked egg when you order eggs. \n\nYou are most welcome to go get that blood directly from the donor and somehow get it into your own veins. Best of luck with avoiding infection and hemolysis, etc. \n\nYou pay for the skill and knowledge /experience of the people performing the service. They also don't set the prices (or see any incentive from whatever you pay), in case you're wondering. ",
"A better question is why do hospital charge $25 for Tylenol when it doesn't cost them anymore then buying it at the store?",
"Alright buddy, so its hot out and people need lemonade! The hottest and weakest need the lemonade or they will die of heat stroke. You cant make near enough lemonade for everyone though! So you get everyone in your school to donate supplies, time, water, lemons and sugar. Some people even donate lemonade for you to use, how nice of them!\n\nSo now you have all this lemonade and you start giving it out. People are getting over their heat stroke and living! Yay you! \n\nThen people start getting sick. These are people at their weakest and need lemonade to live so they need the best lemonade to survive. You dont know why they are getting sick but you want to know why right? So you start testing the lemonade, testing the water and looking for bad things in it. You have to test for so many things that you need to hire people to test it for you, every cup! \n\nThis costs alot of money so you need to start charging people for your lemonade, but because they need this lemonade to live they will pay you. You can use that for more testing and to let other people to know to donate lemonade. \n\nBlood products save lives and I urge everyone to donate. Donations are sold because of the overhead needed to keep the system in place to test all blood products. You can google tainted blood and people dying from bad blood. There is a huge system to keep bad blood out of the supply and keep everyone safe but that costs money, plus remember this is the healthcare system so it costs twice as much as needed. \n\nThat is why hospitals charge for donated blood. ",
"Time is money. Whenever a person expends any of their time interacting with something else they have added a cost to whatever the something is. Think of things that cost a lot and those that cost a little. Gold can cost a lot because of all the time and all the hands that are involved in bringing it to market. A dandelion may cost very little because getting one usually only involves the hand and time of a single person. If it were medically possible to just connect 2 random people together in order to do a blood transfusion, blood would be cheap. However, there are a lot of processes, paperwork, hands, time and specialized machines and people that must manage blood before it can be transfused.",
"Is there anyone else here who thought OP was asking about the legality of selling human parts and the ramifications/regulations surrounding that?",
"Are you saying that you have to pay for blood?!?! i think that's banned in my country",
"They are not, welcome to the UK",
"The stuff at the thrift store is donated.\n",
"I'm late to the convo but this is in reply to the thought healthcare is overpriced. I'm only able to address a fraction of the problem.\n\nIn the United States, the reimbursement by insurance companies has drastically decreased in the past 15 years. when I say Insurance companies, this also means the BIGGEST one of all: Medicare/ Medicaid (aka CMS). with the CMS being the biggest insurance company, all other FOR profit insurance companies let/look to CMS for precedent. If CMS is going to lower reimbursement, all others will follow suit...cuz if big government can do it and be legal, WE can do it too..\n\nNow why is this bad? Because simply put NO ONE wants to pay for healthcare, or pay EXTRA in addition to what they have paid, or there is the feeling of \"I don't have to pay no co-pay\" or \"Healthcare is a RIGHT\". When I mean NO One wants to pay for healthcare, this INCLUDES the insurance companies, INCLUDING CMS. \n\nPeople forget the goal of Insurance companies: **to MAKE $ and MINIMIZE THEIR cost. CMS, their $ is your tax dollars. Their income is set, so they focus on saving money FOR THEMSELVES, FOR THE GOVERNMENT, NOT your benefit.**\n\n\nYour goal is you pay X dollars into a giant POOL of $ (like Chris Rock said: IN CASE SHIT HAPPENS) for care, hoping government/insurance pays appropriately if/when you need it WHEN SHIT HAPPENS. \n\n* arbitrarily, you're in x demographic, need like 20 people to pay Y dollars (say only 1/10th or 1/15th the cost) in case 1 of you get sick. It is a giant gambling pool. You pay a PORTION of the cost, to minimize having to pay FULL cost when you need it. What's are the insurance companies goals? lets give you preventative care to prevent you from needing that big cost case, or pray, pray, you NEVER need it (stay healthy or just die out of the blue), so they never pay out, and make the profit.\n\n\nThe way CMS is structured, yes, healthcare is a right, but there are bare minimums the government will cover, and expects you to cover the \"extra\" stuff. \n\n\nSO what happens when insurance (INCLUDING MEDICARE/MEDICAID) refuses to pay, when people default on medical bills? Hospitals, doctors offices, pharmacies, operate on a very fine margin.\n\nyou may hear oh, xyz hospital had 5 million profit last year. But look at the context. What if the cost of operations cost 250 million. (profit of 2%)\n\n250 million to PAY for\n\n* Employees (from the doctors, nurses, nurse aids, pharmacists, x-ray tech, blood bank tech, lab tech, the men and women CLEANING THE FLOORS, the maintenance staff, human resources, billing, the administrative assistants, payroll guys, the IT guys who maintain the computers the doctors use, the cable bill, the people making and delivering your food)\n\n* Maintaining the physical buiding: paying the gas, electric, water bills, paying for labs to maintain equipment certification, fixing any pipes \n\n* compliance with thousands of laws, \n\n* office supplies\n\n* FOOD for patients.\n\n\nEVERYTHING you see in a hospital cost money. That 5 million \"profit\" goes to emergency fund, and expansion of services to patients. (well, if it is a for profit, beats me, but non-profits have to follow the rule of reinvesting into the place) That 5 million profit came from how many patient visits? (including the clinics) 25,000-30,000 or more?. Thats only $166.66-$200 on AVERAGE. There are those who cost the hospital to lose big. Big like 1-2 million.\n\n\nSo, the big named hospitals like Mass General, John Hopkins, Columbia, UCSF, they have endowments from WEALTHY (not rich like the rappers, i mean wealthy like Bill Gates) (insert Chris Rock here) to compensate and dampen for the loss. The run in the mill average hospital who relies on elbow grease, effort to save costs without harming patients, that 5 million is the difference between staying solvent and OPEN for business and care, or dip into emergency fund to just stay open before going bankrupt and closing in a few years. \n\n\nSo, CMS recently changed reimbursements. More hospitals who treat the indigent (the poor, the working poor middle class) and urban areas, and rely on CMS to stay open will suffer more. They are high risk areas, with high risk patients, so compliance with regulations is hard. Non-compliance leads to less $. Less $, can't afford new tech and smart minds to comply and provide care. Money dries up. Hospital can't afford payroll and supplies. Hospital closes. Patients go to next nearby hospital. The domino process begins.\n\n\nThis is similar for doctors. A group practice could have 8-10 hour days, 5 day work week and spend half an hour with you. You get to know them, they get to know you. They rotate as a group to cover for 24 hours for emergent calls when someone has their days off. Now, with reduced insurance $, those who can't pay, or won't pay, their office cost is up/ the same but income is lessend. The half hour visit shrank to 10 to 15 minutes. They are only paid per-patient basis. So now, they have to see more patients just to maintain/ stay open, and cut costs. (remember, Same 2% margin.) They might have had 3 full time receptionists (with benefits), and cable TV for the waiting room. Now, it's 1 full timer, no benefits, 2 part timers, no benefits. TV is just a personal collection of DVD's pooled by the Doctors. What was a 8-10 hour day, 5 days, became 12 hour days for 6 days. And 1-2 less doctors in the group. The quality of care the patient receives has been diminished. In the rush of seeing the patient, the doctor didn't SEE the patient. He/She might have missed early signs of cancer or rare disease that can be treated easily early on. But 1 -6 months later, full blown nightmare. Doctor is ridden with guilt, might even have malpractice suit. \n\n\nThis applies to pharmacies. If some small private owned pharmacy is \"expanding\" and having multiple locations, theyre doing it only 1 way: insurance fraud. MASSIVE fraud that leads to prison, loss of lisence.",
"The cost per unit depends on multiple factors in the US. It varies from facility to facility and takes into account negotiated rates made between each transfusion service (Hospital Blood Bank) and donor center, along with the cost of operations (including salaries) that varies between each hospital. Charges are also done in according to the population served. For example, if you are working for a County Hospital where most of your reimbursement is coming from public funding you are often inflating the costs to cover the fact that Medicare and Medi-caid will typically reimbursed ~40-60% of the actual cost and those who aren't under any umbrellas and can't pay. Versus a private hospital that gets most of its payments through private insurance companies. Also take into account the laboratory is a major profit center for a hospital that use the money generated to cover other non-billable departments like housekeeping, administration, maintenance, etc. Basically the billing system is extremely confusing and depends on multiple factors for those insured, unisured, medicare.\nSource: Clinical Laboratory Technologist, County Hospital",
"I am from Canada and have no fucking clue what you’re talking about. Hospitals, sell? What is wrong with your country?",
"Because your country is shit. Let us know when you're ready to come join the rest of the civilised world."
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1q378x | why should i say "an historic event" but not "an history class"? | Please. My ignorance hurts. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1q378x/eli5_why_should_i_say_an_historic_event_but_not/ | {
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"'An' is generally used before vowels much in the same way the English tend to put an r on the end of vowel ending words coming before vowels. Basically it is to divide the vowel sounds and not sound weird. 'H' is an aspiration, and doesn't even count as a real letter in some languages. Depending on the amount of enunciation, the h may or may not provide adequate separation. My general suspicion is that, because history is accented on the first syllable, the 'his' part sufficiently stands out, whereas historic is accented on the second syllable, and the first syllable is a little more swallowed, justifying the extra level of distinction provided by 'an'.",
"It apparently stems from where the stress falls in the word, e.g. his-TOR-ic vs. HIS-tor-y. Plagiarizing from the Mac dictionary app's entry for \"An\":\n\n > There is still some divergence of opinion over which form of the indefinite article should be used before words that begin with h- and have an unstressed first syllable. In the 18th and 19th centuries, people often did not pronounce the initial h for these words, and so an was commonly used. Today the h is pronounced, and so it is logical to use a rather than an. However, the indefinite article an is still encountered before the h in both British and American English, particularly with historical"
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20kqqe | why don't i lose weight when i take a poop | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/20kqqe/eli5_why_dont_i_lose_weight_when_i_take_a_poop/ | {
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"Maybe you just need a more precise scale. ",
"You do lose weight when you poop. You just don't lose body fat or muscle. But since the amount of food and feces in you is mostly constant over time, it doesn't really factor in for total body weight.",
"how big of a poop are you taking? i've had some monsters in my day but nothing that would register over 1lb"
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8ln598 | what is type 2 diabetes? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/8ln598/eli5_what_is_type_2_diabetes/ | {
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"Type 1 diabetes is also called insulin-dependent diabetes. It used to be called juvenile-onset diabetes, because it often begins in childhood. It's caused by the body attacking its own pancreas with antibodies. In people with type 1 diabetes, the damaged pancreas doesn't make insulin. This type of diabetes may be caused by a genetic predisposition. It could also be the result of faulty beta cells in the pancreas that normally produce insulin.\n\nType 2 diabetes used to be called adult-onset diabetes, but with the epidemic of obese and overweight kids, more teenagers are now developing type 2 diabetes. Type 2 diabetes was also called non-insulin-dependent diabetes.\n\nType 2 diabetes is often a milder form of diabetes than type 1. Nevertheless, type 2 diabetes can still cause major health complications, particularly in the smallest blood vessels in the body that nourish the kidneys, nerves, and eyes. Type 2 diabetes also increases your risk of heart disease and stroke. With Type 2 diabetes, the pancreas usually produces some insulin. But either the amount produced is not enough for the body's needs, or the body's cells are resistant to it. Insulin resistance, or lack of sensitivity to insulin, happens primarily in fat, liver, and muscle cells.",
"First we must understand how the body and the pancreas work before we delve into diabetes as a whole.\n\nYour body needs glucose, it's fuel. We use it as energy to function, and in order to do that we must have Insulin. Insulin, which is created by the Pancreas, Insulin is a hormone, it's sole function is to regulate the amount of Glucose in our blood.\n\nDiabetes comes in two forms, and in two varieties. There's Adult Onset, and Juvenile Onset. This distinction serves to only identify when in our life cycle someone develops diabetes.\n\nThen, we have Types One and Two. Type one is an autoimmune disease, where the body's own defense system of white blood cells attacks the Langerhans in the Pancreas, which are responsible for creating the Insulin we need. As a result, they create little to no insulin at all because they are being destroyed.\n\nType Two diabetes is quite different. Your body creates insulin perfectly well, but at some point your body just... Stops using it. It forgets how to utilize the Insulin and so as a result your Glucose, or blood sugar, is not regulated properly or at all. This can cause one of two effects, hypoglycemia and hyperglycemia. The difference between the type is that hypo means not enough, and hyper means too much. If your insulin is used incorrectly, it might over regulate your blood sugar. You might think this is Hyperglycemia, but it isn't. This causes your blood sugar to plummet, which means not enough, making this Hypoglycemia. If the Insulin isn't used at all, you end up with too much blood sugar and this is Hyperglycemia.\n\nTwo things can cause the body to incorrectly use Insulin. Either your body becomes resistant to it, meaning you need higher levels than your body can produce on its own, or it's created abnormally in the Pancreas and your body doesn't recognize it. If your body doesn't recognize it, then your blood sugar just builds up. If you are resistant to it, your blood sugar just builds up. The solution to both of these is the use of normal Insulin injections to aid in the regulation of your blood sugar. If, however, you suffer from Hypoglycemia then the solution is to use a treatment which decreases the amount of active Insulin in the body, to prevent over regulation of your blood sugar.\n\nSo to summarize: \nThere are two ways Diabetes can afflict you, either as a child or as an adult.\nThere are two types of Diabetes, Autoimmune or Dysfunctional(not a clinical term).\nThere are two types of effects from Dysfunctional diabetes, hypoglycemia or hyperglycemia.\nThere are two causes for Diabetic Hypoglycemia, an overabundance of Insulin or an overusage of normal Insulin levels.\nThere are two causes for Diabetic Hyperglycemia, Insulin resistance or Insufficient(Type One Diabetes)/Abnormal Insulin(Type Two Diabetes).\n\nMake sense?"
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cu0x0m | why can we clearly see the "floaties" on our eyes but we can't clearly see other objects if they are too close? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/cu0x0m/eli5_why_can_we_clearly_see_the_floaties_on_our/ | {
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"I think it’s because when we see “floaties,” it’s actually the shadows of whatever particles are floating around inside our eyeballs. So we see the shadows, not the actual floaties themselves."
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3yghst | why are emulators for old systems (nes, snes, sega genesis, etc) considered to be illegal? the companies don't make any money from places like gamestop, are they technically illegal too? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3yghst/eli5why_are_emulators_for_old_systems_nes_snes/ | {
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"I'd like to point out that *emulators* are absolutely *not* illegal.\n\nUsing pirated software is. And you usually need to pirate the ROM or some other form of software to use an emulator. \n\nThe emulator software itself, though, is perfectly legal. And if you own a copy of the ROM, that's more of a grey area. ",
"A lot of old games are being made available for download on consoles. You can get basically all the mega man titles (just one example) on psn or nintendo's virtual console. My guess is video game companies have always considered this possibility which is why they wanted to protect old titles from being distributed illegally. That said, you may or may not find hundreds of nes, snes and psx games on various digital devices in my house.",
"ELI5: \n\nIt's like when Mom says you can't do something, so you go and ask Dad and he says you can. So, you're technically allowed to do it. Mom finds out and decides that her rules apply *before* your Dad's, thus, you're not allowed to do it anymore.\n\nELI12:\n\nThe Digital Millennium Copyright Act asserts the right to reverse engineer for the sake of interoperability [1].\n\n > (1) Notwithstanding the provisions of subsection (a)(1)(A), a person who has lawfully obtained the right to use a copy of a computer program may circumvent a technological measure that effectively controls access to a particular portion of that program for the sole purpose of identifying and analyzing those elements of the program that are necessary to achieve interoperability of an independently created computer program with other programs, and that have not previously been readily available to the person engaging in the circumvention, to the **extent any such acts of identification and analysis do not constitute infringement under this title.**\n\nThe bold portion of the quoted text is important. The EULA is seen as a contractual agreement. Federal courts have ruled that contract agreements preempt fair use and the right to reverse engineering[2]. Thus, it is illegal to do so if the EULA states it is not allowed. They almost all say it's not allowed.\n\nOlder consoles predate these agreements and fall under fair use. The newer consoles have these agreements and their manufacture has a rock solid case if they want to go after a person or group who is creating an emulator.\n\n[1] _URL_0_\n\n[2] _URL_1_\n\n",
"Intellectual property attorney here.\n\n1. With regard to selling used games, [First Sale Doctrine makes it explicitly legal to resell physical games that you have purchased](_URL_1_).\n\n2. With regard to emulators - while emulation itself is legal, the creation of copies of video games is a violation of [17 USC 106](_URL_0_) - which is the section of the Copyright title that details the exclusive rights of copyright owners, which, importantly, include reproduction (copying) and distribution. \n\n\n\n "
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6kxxsw | why do some animals have differently colored eyes (i.e. one blue, one brown)? why does this occur more often in some breeds and species than others? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/6kxxsw/eli5_why_do_some_animals_have_differently_colored/ | {
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"**Heterochromia Iridum** (a difference in coloration)\n\nTo oversimplify: eye color is caused by the production of pigment. If an animal has the gene to produce pigments, the eye will be various shades of brown, depending on exactly what pigment you are producing. The same gene covers pigmentation in both eyes.\n\nHowever, there are a lot of things that can interfere with the production of pigment. Injury, disease, or asymmetric development of the embryo can cause one eye to produce more or less pigment than it is genetically programmed for. This will cause the two eyes to be different colors.\n\nSince there are so many different ways for this to occur, there is no single cause that would explain every family's pattern of heterochromia. It may even be a plain coincidence: two members could have it for completely different reasons. Or it can be a genetic predisposition to some kind of developmental alteration. These can be dominant or recessive.\n\nThe biochemistry that causes the change in pigment expression often causes other development issues, which can result in differently colored fur. One common case of heterochromia in cats produces white fur. It can result in neurological issues as well: those heterochromic cats are often deaf.\n\nIf an animal and it's great-great.......shared some other characteristics, it might allude to an underlying genetic cause. "
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10fxzr | english currency (the old system) | Also, WHY? Isn't a decimal-based currency system a thousand times simpler? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/10fxzr/eli5_english_currency_the_old_system/ | {
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"_URL_0_\n\nAs to why, its the same reason a foot is 12 inches instead of 10. At the time it was developed, the primary difficultly in any numerical system wasn't converting between units, it was measuring those units, so it was easier to use a number system that divides in halves, thirds, and quarters easily.",
"The basics were that you had 12 pennies to the shilling, and 20 shillings to the pound. Therefore a pound was worth 240 pennies. Those were the core units of currency.\n\nAdditionally, at various times there have been other denominations based on various multiples of the above. A farthing was a quarter of a penny, a halfpenny should be obvious, a thrupenny bit was worth three pennies, a sixpence was six pennies (or half a shilling), a crown was five shillings. \n\nBear in mind that this form of currency dates back (literally) a thousand years. Over that time period various coins have drifted in and out of fashion. \n\nAs to why they chose non-decimal numbers, I believe that it was because factors of 12 give more options for sub-division. You can divide 10 by 1, 2, 5 or 10. You can divide 12 by 1, 2, 3, 4, 6 and 12. I've got a vague feeling it's related to troy weights of precious metals as well.\n"
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1x97c3 | what makes some fruits/vegetables "in season" and some not? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1x97c3/eli5_what_makes_some_fruitsvegetables_in_season/ | {
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"Fruits and Vegetables have a growth cycle from Planting, polinating, flowering, and producing and Harvesting.Some plants grow better in the Spring, Some in the summer, and some in the Fall. An some are harvested in the Fall, or Summer, or Spring. In Season Means they are being Harvested. In America you can get the product both in and out of season, either because we purchase it from a region where it is in season like South America or Asia, or due to canning, pickling or preserving it when it is in season and selling it when it is out of season",
"Fruits generally are only available naturally for a short period. For example, strawberries are typically only ripe in the late spring and early summer (I.e. They are in season). However demand has meant that many growers have used large scale artificially lit and heated greenhouses to keep a supply available all year. "
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dj7fxa | do base values change the patterns in numbers? | If you were to apply a different base value to calculate Pi, would it still show no signs of patterns or repetitions?
Would the Fibonacci sequence still produce the golden ratio? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/dj7fxa/eli5_do_base_values_change_the_patterns_in_numbers/ | {
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"Pi is irrational in every single rational base, and even in fractional bases. However, it isn't \"irrational\" in base Pi, where it simply is denoted by \"10\". It's still irrational, but we can fool ourselves in to thinking that it isn't because it gets a nice, round representation in that specific base. That being said irrational bases are pretty worthless for any practical application, as irrational bases cause all rational numbers (except a handful of exceptions like 1 or 0) to \"appear\" irrational, i.e have representations that do not terminate. \n\n\nThe fibonacci sequence doesn't care about bases, the golden ratio will still appear, just represented in the new base. \n\nPatterns that rely on the base itself will change. Patterns that follow the numbers themselves and not the representation will remain.",
"Yes. Changing the base can change the patterns you find in numbers.\n\nConsider 1/12 in the following bases.\n\n2: 0.0001010101...\n\n3: 0.002020202...\n\n4: 0.01111....\n\n5: 0.020202...\n\n6: 0.3\n\n7: 0.040404...\n\n8: 05252525...\n\n12: 0.1\n\n > If you were to apply a different base value to calculate Pi, would it still show no signs of patterns or repetitions? \n\nPi is allowed to have patterns and repetitions. It just can't be a pattern or repetition that repeats indefinitely. You can use irrational numbers as bases, in which case pi would be equal to 10. In which case it would terminate, rather than repeat.\n\n > Would the Fibonacci sequence still produce the golden ratio? \n\nYes, certainly.\n\nRemember that different bases don't change the values of numbers, just the symbols we use to represent them. And you can don't even need numbers at all to represent the Fibonacci sequence. You can imagine it as the length of a rope, for example. You can then replicate the sequence without ever knowing \"how long\" the rope is.",
"Sometimes yes, but not in the examples your provided.\n\nThings that would change: e.g. base 12 makes dividing by 3 a non-repeating decimal. Programmers often use hexadecimal (base 16) because it translates into binary (base 2 / powers of 2) really easily whereas binary to decimal can be a bit messy.\n\nThings that wouldn't change: irrational numbers like pi or e by definition can't be evenly divided by any fraction. Changing number bases only changes the fractions, not the existence of a fraction for a particular equivalent decimal. Also number sequences generally wouldn't change.",
"For integer bases, rational numbers always have terminating or repeating digits, irrational numbers never do. A terminating fraction can be repeating in different bases, and vice versa. Irrational number don't repeat or terminate in any base.\n\nChoice of bases has no impact on Fibonacci numbers, just in how each one is expressed.",
"Base only affects how you write numbers down. If you wrote thirteen instead of 13, it's still the same number. So fibonacci sequence has still the exact same connection to golden ratio.\n\nIrrational numbers don't repeat in any base. Pi is irrational.\n\nThe reason here is that irrationality means that the number cannot be written as a ratio of two integers. Like, 2 could be written as 2/1, and 1.333... is 4/3.\n\nIf number terminates(all digits after certain point are zero), then you can write it as ratio of integers. Like, 1.23 can be written as 123/100.\n\nIf number repeats, it's a bit trickier, but if you have number like 0.12121212... = 12/99.\n\n0.369369369... = 369/999\n\nYou can use these two to write any number that terminates, or starts repeating after some point, to get two integers whose ratio is that number. This same idea works for any base, in the second example however you replace '9's with the highest digit in your base. Like in binary, 0.110110110... = 110/111. Or, in decimal, 0.857142857142... = 857142/999999 = 6/7. But because we can prove that pi is not rational, and cannot be written as ratio of two integers, it cannot repeat or terminate in any base. If it did, we could find two integers whose ratio is pi, which we know cannot be done."
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4nlcy2 | what is life actually like for undocumented immigrants in uk/usa? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4nlcy2/eli5_what_is_life_actually_like_for_undocumented/ | {
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"In the US the life isn't too difficult, but it isn't ideal. A lot of it also depends on what city and/or state you live in.\n\nWe had an illegal immigrant working for the old company I used to manage. The owner brought him in while working on sponsoring him for his citizenship. He already had an ID card from the local hospital for his family to use if they needed healthcare. It was free charity care from the ER for any purpose paid for by tax payers (hospital was reimbursed by state programs). Part of sponsoring his citizenship was that we had to provide him with full time employment and healthcare insurance, but he refused our insurance policy because he already had free care for his family already and didn't want to have to pay for insurance he wouldn't use. It was a long battle on that front...\n\nWhile in the country illegally your children have access to public schools and local services.\n\nWhether or not you will be pursued by authorities depends on where you are located in the US. However, illegal immigration falls under federal authority and the states do not have the power to enforce immigration laws directly. Currently the federal government doesn't care about enforcing immigration laws and instead is working on ways to let illegal immigrants skip the immigration lines and provide them with benefits irregardless of the constitution or our current federal laws. This acts as a deterrent for states and municipalities to even attempt to turn over illegal immigrants to federal authorities. Either the federal authorities refuse to pick them up or the local police departments don't even bother trying to process them. Strangely, this is part of the reason Donald Trump has been popular as he promises to be much stricter on illegal immigration stating he wants to protect American jobs and low skill work for Americans."
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1zi2vx | why doesn't russia have a warm water port on it's black sea coastline? | Like the question states, why don't they have one on their own coastline? It seems like it would be easy to create their own warm water port so that they wouldn't have to worry as much if their lease at Sevastopol would be revoked. I realize that the port issue is a smaller part of a bigger problem, my question is more in regards to Russia's timeline as a whole on the black sea, why haven't they ever built a warm water port on their coast?
| explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1zi2vx/eli5_why_doesnt_russia_have_a_warm_water_port_on/ | {
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" > It seems like it would be easy to create their own warm water port\n\nPossible? Yes. Easy? No. Naval bases are complicated, huge, and expensive. Russia *is* actually making another one, at Novorossiysk (on the Russian Black Sea coast, halfway between Sevastopol and Sochi). But that was started when it looked like they might not have Sevastopol forever. Before then, why would they? Sevastopol was theirs for centuries. They wouldn't really need to.\n\nSo the short answer is that they are making another one. But it's not finished yet.",
"I believe that it is because Russia had the naval base at Sevastopol long before Crimea was a part of Ukraine. The Crimea only became a part of Ukraine in 1954, and even then Ukraine was a part of the Soviet Union, so the move was only out of convenience for administrators. In 1954, no one really could have predicted that the Soviet Union would collapse some decades later. After the fall of the Soviet Union, Russia tried to argue that the base and the city of Sevastopol was never given to Ukraine along with the Crimea, but eventually in 1997 they agreed to rent it out from the Ukrainians, probably because it was much, much cheaper than building a new base and relocating the fleet. It also allowed Russia to exert some power over Ukraine and never was a problem having it there with a Russian aligned Ukrainian regime. ",
"I had this same question and was reading about it this weekend. \nRussia does have a port at [Novorossiysk](_URL_0_) but it's a smaller, strictly civilian port. From what I can figure, it's not as easily accessible by rail to deliver military logistics from central Russia or Moscow, and it's not well positioned to present strong control of the Black sea for ships. The same is probably true for Rostov-on-Don, it's just too remote to effectively dispatch a navy from. Sevastopol is basically in the center of the sea, so ships can be launched rapidly to any location in the Black sea, especially the straits of Bosporus and Dardanelles. It would be pretty critical for Russia to be able to gain rapid control these in an emergency or else they shut down. Sevastopol therefore is the main naval port to to get to other strategic places in the Mediterranean, like the Syrian coast, or Suez.\n\nOther than that, the only other European seaport for Russia would be way up at Petersburg, ridiculously far away from their interests in eastern europe/eurasia.\n\nkeep in mind, I have zero background in this, and it's all speculation based on some articles I read just this weekend, but this is what makes sense to me. I welcome any corrections to my misinformation.",
"I would suggest Russia needs all of the Ukraine in order to supply their naval base at Sevastapol. It would be more difficult to send supplies to there by boats from the Novorossiysk base than it would be to truck them in through roads in Ukraine. Thus there is more to come."
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441uvx | why if it is widely known that a college professor is bad, the college doesn't just fire them and hire a better one? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/441uvx/eli5_why_if_it_is_widely_known_that_a_college/ | {
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"There's a lot of different factors to consider that students don't always understand. Maybe he's not so good at teaching, but he's a *great* researcher. Maybe he likes to do the administrative departmental stuff nobody else wants to do. Or maybe he's the only available person that can teach about public health and environmental history in the late 19th century Ottoman Empire, and the university really wants to fill that gap in its curriculum.\n\nProfessors that have no redeeming qualities are let go all the time, when their appointments expire.",
"If a professor has tenure it is very difficult to get rid of them. Tenure exists so that professors are able to have autonomy from the administration of a college, and can teach what they want. A professor that isn't a good teacher could be retained because they are a good researcher, publish lots of papers, or secure lots of grants for their department.",
"With any organization the size of a college, they'd have multiple channels that things have to go through before a tenured employee is terminated. It also depends on what exactly makes the professor \"bad.\" What the students view as a bad professor might not be in agreement with how the college views it.",
"A big part of a lot of these cases, is that the professor is probably involved in research that is bringing value to the school. Publications, grants, providing employment/advisement to grad students/undergrads. I'm not sure if that is the the particular case you are referring to, but usually, it's $$ (or tenure)",
"Professors are supposed to be masters of their area of study. Unfortunately, knowing a subject doesn't mean you have much skill or inclination to TEACH that subject well. Professors do a lot more than just teach, they also research. \n\nEven when a professor is bad at research and teaching, if they were good enough in the past for long enough, they may have gained tenure, which protects them from being fired unless they do something REALLY bad. The reason tenure exists is so the administration can't fire a good professor from studying of publishing something controversial, giving them more freedom to push boundaries. There is some dispute as to whether the tenure system is beneficial or not, but that is the original reasoning.",
"Just because some students complain, that doesn't mean the teacher is \"bad\".\n\nI've had friends complain that a teacher gave them too much work when the only requirement was a 10-page essay every 5 or 6 weeks. Meanwhile, some of their favorite teachers have the students read at least 50 pages every day on top of weekly essays and quizzes every class period.\n\nSo when this and similar things happen, it's only \"widely known\" to a small handful of students who may not even be interested in the class in the first place. You can see why this wouldn't be just cause to fire a professor.\n\n-----\n\nBut let's say the professor isn't good at explaining the topic to the students. Actually, let's not.\n\nBecause, see, the hands-down favorite philosophy professor at the college I went to spent the last 20 to 30 minutes of his classes rambling on and on about his life. Often there would only be a line or two that actually connected to anything the class was supposed to talk about...but despite this little thing where HIS LECTURES RARELY SEEMED TO TEACH US WHAT WE WERE SUPPOSED TO BE LEARNING, we learned the stuff anyway.\n\nObjectively, his method of \"explaining the topic\" would be the worst possible thing anyone could do to teach anything ever. But because we, the students, were interested in the stuff he was teaching and \"explaining\", it was the single-most fun class we could have taken and still be considered a \"Philosophy class\".\n\nMeanwhile, a similar method of explaining the content (performed with the same level of enthusiasm and the same tone) earned one of my Chemistry teachers every ounce of ire and frustration that the students refused to show towards the Philosophy professor. Which was pretty noticeable and stunningly drastic a change since most of the Philosophy class was also in that same Chemistry class. And vice versa.\n\n-----\n\nHowever, if a professor truly has no redeeming qualities then the administration will often enough have no qualms firing the professor."
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f0s39b | solid explanation about pyramids. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/f0s39b/eli5solid_explanation_about_pyramids/ | {
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"Myths about the difficulty of building the pyramids are greatly exaggerated. The real answer is very mundane: they had a lot of dudes working hard.\n\nDesigning the pyramids wasn't particularly difficult for the people educated at the time. Geometry was [well studied in ancient Egypt](_URL_0_) so it wasn't a big deal to apply that to drawing up blueprints for very nice pyramids. Even so, the pyramids **aren't** perfect. Engineers, such as they were, didn't understand the strengths of the materials and [had to figure out by trial and error](_URL_1_) that their geometrically pretty design was not possible.\n\nMoving the stones has been the subject of much debate but again, the answer is mundane: they had a lot of dudes with ropes. The big discovery was that the right mixture of water into the sand under the stones liquified the sand *just* enough to reduce friction by a great deal - enough to make dragging the stones feasible. Since there's a great big river nearby full of water, it's easy to get water, and easy to use barges to move stones down the river. The stones were arranged onto the pyramid by building up ramps made of sand around the pyramid.\n\nSure, it would take us ten years to build a replica. It took them *twenty* - again, with the help of *thousands* of stonemasons, workers, artists, engineers, tradesmen, etc. They probably worked more than 8 hours per day. Also worth noting: they probably weren't slaves, they were paid workers.",
"The short answer is that it happened 4500 years ago and a lot of the details have been lost to the mists of time.\n\nIn 450 BC, Herodotus of Halicarnassus was told it took 20 years for a force of 100,000 slaves to build the Great Pyramid at Giza 4500 or so years ago. Since that was 2000 years after they were built, that story is somewhat suspect.\n\nApparently pyramid building was learned through trial and error and evolved from early Mastabas built hundreds of years before the first pyramids. They evolved the design through the stepped pyramid (pyramid of Djoser, roughly 2650 BC) and the Bent pyramid at roughly 2600 BC. Over hundreds of years you can learn a lot about stone quarrying, making good blocks, and building ramps to hoist stones uphill, as long as you can throw plenty of manpower at it.",
"First, a lot of manual labor.\n\nSecond, a lot of time. Laborers would spend a large chunk of their lives building this monument to their ruler. Yes, this includes slave labor. But it also included the likes of paid builders and the sporadic zealot.\n\n & #x200B;\n\nThird, what many machines do, humans have been using animals to do for millennia. So where the human body fails, we can factor in a couple dozen elephants.\n\n & #x200B;\n\n\\-----\n\n & #x200B;\n\nFourth, given that the structure is inside the pyramid, not exposed to the likes of wind or rain, clearly it's not exposed to the things that wear down and damage buildings.\n\n & #x200B;\n\nFifth, on top of that we can only really access the portions that are not heavily damaged. You can't go through a locked door without a key, right?\n\n & #x200B;\n\nSixth, the pyramids are...not as perfect as you may be assuming. When exploring pyramids, cave-ins and collapsed sections are really frickin' frequent.",
"Your premise is completely false. We know exactly how the pyramids were built. Stop watching conspiracy theory youtube."
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"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Egyptian_geometry",
"https://www.memphistours.com/Egypt/Egypt-Wikis/Egypt-Pyramids/wiki/Bent-Pyramid-at-Dahshure"
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1tg0l7 | what causes savant's to have amazing talents? | I don't understand how or why these people's brains work in amazing ways. What makes their brains so special? Thanks in advance | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1tg0l7/eli5_what_causes_savants_to_have_amazing_talents/ | {
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"It's not known. Sorry to give a short answer but when something isn't known there's nothing to really say."
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4sw029 | why are the exact same ratios of isotopes of an element found all around the world? | Edit for clarity: When I was watching [this](_URL_0_) Sci Show video they talk about how french scientists expected to find a certain percentage (0.72%) of Uranium-235 because everywhere in the world, for every 100kgs of Uranium element extracted, .72kgs would be Uranium-235. Why is it found in a certain concentration everywhere in the world? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4sw029/eli5_why_are_the_exact_same_ratios_of_isotopes_of/ | {
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"Your premise is incorrect. Differing ratios will be found in different places. One basic example: the content of deuterium and tritium in water differs around the world (ever heard of how the Nazis wanted the \"heavy water\" found in Telemark, Norway?). ",
"In the case of uranium, it was all present when the earth formed, and during the process of formation, all the uranium was thoroughly mixed. The differences between the two uranium isotopes are very slight, and they separate only very, very slowly. In addition, uranium is normally found as insoluble compounds, so it doesn't move.\n\nThe result is that once the mineral deposits formed in the early earth, there was no way for the isotopes to separate. (There are a few exceptions, e.g. in Oklo, Gabon - where the uranium is depleted in U-235 - because a natural fission reactor formed and burned some of burned some of the U-235 off).\n\nBy contrast, where isotopes are able to be separated and move differently, different ratios are found in different parts of the world.\n\nFor example, heavy water has slightly different chemical and physical properties to light water. The most important is the vapor pressure. Light water evaporates faster than heavy water, so rain water and river water contains less deuterium than sea water does. Heavy water also reacts at a different speed with limestones and similar minerals, so water that has filtered through lots of rocks, will have an altered isotopic ratio.\n\nSimilarly, carbon isotopes are also found in different ratios. Carbon-13 reacts slightly differently than carbon-12; it does the same reactions, but at a different speed. This is particularly important for photosynthesis, where carbon-13 undergoes photosynthesis quite a lot slower than carbon-12. As a result, CO2 in the air contains a higher carbon-13 ratio, than plant material."
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1xc15p | are there any negative consequences to getting rid of the penny? | Many people argue that we should eliminate the penny in the US because it costs more to make than it is worth. But wouldn't this cause issues with pricing? For example: if I need to give 17 cents in change how am I supposed to make that without pennies? Also, how if anything, would this affect the inflation rates in the US? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1xc15p/eli5_are_there_any_negative_consequences_to/ | {
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"multiple countries including new zealand and canada got rid of the penny, and they had no problems, economically it makes perfect sense, and we ourselves long ago got rid of the half penny, and haf no problems then either. [pennys must die](_URL_0_)"
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4hntze | at its very core, how does a stock markets trading reflect the stock price? | I understand that basically the price is a reflection of recent buy/sell prices. But how is that accurately reflected as a stock price? Is there a large bank of computers that create that price? If so, can't that be hacked? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4hntze/eli5_at_its_very_core_how_does_a_stock_markets/ | {
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"The price is actually set in the stock market. Stock is constantly offered for sale. There are life events which mean it is time to sell stock.\n\nPeople will always buy a stock based on the earnings of a company, their assets, their future ability to earn money.\n\nDuring the great stock market crash I saw an article which pointed out that stock in many companies was selling for less than their assets. They actually had more money in the bank than the whole company's stock was worth on the open market. So I bought.\n\nThere is always a bid price for stock, the price at which the someone is willing to buy stock. There is always a price at which stock is offered, slightly higher. The brokerage houses charge a commission for executing the trade.\n\nThere brokerage houses will maintain ownership of a certain amount of stock in many companies by buying and selling. Any trades ordered by their customers will be filled from their own shares. Thus they can charge a commission for an internal transaction.\n\nThe large stock markets, NASDAQ, the NYSE, are very serious about security and have systems which are basically impossible to hack. There are computer operated trading programs designed to make money by executing trades very fast based on their programs. Occassionaly they will crash the market and automatic suspensions of trading will occur. But this is not hacking. A smart human can see a sharp drop in prices is unwarranted and execute a buy order at that time.",
"The price is the last executed trade. That's it. When you go to buy you always have the chance to renegotiate by setting a buy price or a sell price. If that gets accepted by another party then the price is updated to reflect your transaction and until the next transaction your price is THE price."
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627j71 | with the new bill that allows you're isp to sell your internet history. what is the upside? how do politicians defend this? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/627j71/eli5_with_the_new_bill_that_allows_youre_isp_to/ | {
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"They don't need to defend it. There doesn't have to be an upside. The American people voted to give them control of all branches of government. They can more or less do what they want, and as long as people aren't rioting in the streets and literally threatening to burn down the white house, nothing is going to stop them.\n\nBut of course, the \"upside\" is that ISP's get to make more money."
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27cqhz | what is an action potential? what is happening on a basic, cellular level when a neuron "fires"? | Do neurotransmitters cause them to fire or are they simply regulated by their own free will? Do they produce electricity? What are CAT scans picking up on when they detect brain activity?
Thank you for your replies! | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/27cqhz/eli5_what_is_an_action_potential_what_is/ | {
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"The interactions are all chemical. I actually really dislike the use of the word \"electrical\" in relation to neurons, because it's not really electricity as you know it (currents flowing through wires and stuff).\n\nNeurotransmitters play a big role, but before all that, let's talk about a single sensory neuron. A cell in your eye detects light, and that is turned into a chemical signal. The chemical signal triggers neurons to release ions (like calcium and potassium). The ions are electrically charged, but they're definitely not flowing across neurons like an electric current.\n\nHere's a somewhat more detailed explanation.\n\nA neuron has sodium and potassium ions (both are positively charged) both inside and outside the cell (usually more sodium outside, and more potassium inside). This is the resting state.\n\nThe neuron receives a stimulus. Sodium gates open; since there is more sodium outside than inside, sodium starts rushing in, making the interior of the neuron more positive. This triggers a biochemical pathway which results in the stimulus for the next neuron.\n\nNext, potassium gates open and sodium gates close. Since there was more potassium inside the neuron originally, the potassium now rushes out by diffusion. This reduces the electric charge inside the neuron, closing off the biochemical pathway (stopping the signal from being repeated!). The cell now looks like this: more sodium inside, more potassium outside.\n\nFinally, the cell has to return to normal, so it starts using energy to pump sodium outside and potassium inside (using sodium-potassium pumps). Eventually, the cell ends up back to its starting condition: more sodium outside, more potassium inside. Pumping stuff takes time, which is why neural impulses travel in pulses. Once you send an action potential, the neuron basically doesn't respond to any more stimuli for a short period of time. This is part of the reason why you can't, say, tap your fingers ridiculously fast.\n\nSo the neurons don't really have free will. But there are some instances in which you could argue something about free will. For example, there are neurons in your spine. When you touch something hot, it takes too long for the signal to reach your brain, so once the signal hits your spinal cord, the neurons there will send a signal back telling you to take your hand off the hot object. This is a reflex, it occurs very fast and without conscious thought. In this case, the neuron itself is making a decision instead of the brain, so perhaps you'd consider this to be free will."
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3socnb | why is it offensive to dress up as an indian or a black person? | As a white guy I just don't get it. If someone wants to dress up as a cowboy, a hillbilly, etc. it doesn't hurt my feelings. I'm not offended. Why is everyone so easily offended by silly costumes? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3socnb/eli5_why_is_it_offensive_to_dress_up_as_an_indian/ | {
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"Cowboys and hillbillies aren't races, they're things you choose to do. They also aren't necessarily \"white things\" Being Indian or Black isn't a choice, it's an integral part of who you are. When you dress up as another race/ethnicity, you're essentially taking their identity and reducing it to a costume that can be worn. It may not be *racist*, but is almost always insensitive and even partially dehumanizing.",
"Essentially, comedians in the past ruined it for the rest of us. In the past, most portrayals of blacks (black face) or Native Americans were insulting and pathetic. They were portrayed as stupid jokes.\n\nSo, fast forward to today. Anything that reminds us of that results in us being reminded of that!\n\nSort of like you don't make Hitler jokes about his treatment of Jews unless you want to instantly be taken as an ass.",
"Different people, different cultures, different sensibilities. And not everyone is offended by this stuff, it just takes one to get their panties in a twist. Remember that someone somewhere will be offended at what you do or don't do regardless. But some costumes have been worn specifically as a slur. \n\nBlackface in particular has a bad history of being used as an insult. It was used in racist comedy routines. So that's understandable. It really doesn't matter what it is, but if a group of people use it as an insult to another group, eventually that thing is a slur. It's kinda like... you know how \"retarded\" is an insult now a days? Yeah, it used to be the politically correct clinical term to protect people's feelings instead of calling them \"slow\". But it was used long enough to refer to really stupid people that it became an insult and grew connotations. Blackface STARTED as an insult. And in the same way that an elderly doctor might make a faux pase and say something like \"Madam, I believe your child may be little retarded\", someone dressing up in blackface and \"acting black\" is bound to be politically incorrect.\n\nAnd there was a period there where indians were the universal \"bad buy\" and kids played cowboys and indians. Like... 40's to 70's... -ish? maybe? Whenever that whistling/singing cowboy trope was a thing. People who remember that might get offended at people dressing up as a native american. I dunno, I never quite understood this one as much. \n",
"Imagine if Hitler had been successful in wiping out most of the Jews in Germany and then 200 years later Germans thought it would be fun to put on yarmulkes and go trick or treating. That's basically what it's like for people in America to dress as Native Americans. We came here and took their land, murdered their people, eradicated their culture, and now we wear their headdresses to celebrate the overindulgent holiday we stole from pagans? Dick move all around.",
"1) Anyone can find anything offensive for any reason they want. Offense is an emotion and like anger, love, arousal, or happiness can be brought on by rational or irrational connections.\n\n2) Some costumes are actually racist statements. If a black person dressed up as a white plantation owner, wearing a sign that read 'All White People' and lead another person around by a collar and leash, that would be racist. If a white person dressed up as a KKK member and carried a big sign reading \"I Hate Ni88888s\" they would be trying to be deliberately offensive.\n\n3) Beyond that, as you will see in this thread by other people, there are also carefully crafted historic / academic arguments about cultural appropriation and why somethings like blackface have a racist past that may taint whether it appears to be overtly racist currently. These arguments are not universally accepted. Take them, or leave them, but understand there are those out there who agree with them, and those out there who disagree with them.",
"Dressing up as a black person evokes memories of minstrel shows, in which performers used to paint on \"black face\" and portray themselves as simple and stupid for entertainment. This type of performance emerged after The Civil War and through the early 20th Century and is obviously seen as horribly racist.",
"From my perspective, it's not explicit Racism like the KKK, rather it's the more casual and insidious racism that's quite depressing to face on a daily situation.\n\nThe main problem is that dressing up as a native American or an African American reduces the culture to a caricature - especially since these ethnicities have been really downtrodden in America and take a lot of meaning from their culture. Do you know much about native Americans, yet wearing clothes you've seen on a TV show somehow makes up for that? ",
"[This American Indian woman explains why she was offended when seeing the Chief Illiniwek sports mascot dressed up and dancing in ceremonial dress at the University of Illinois basketball game.](_URL_1_)\n\nThe ceremonial dress of American Indians holds great symbolic value for the members in the community. By seeing a dancing \"Chief\" making a mockery of it is deeply offensive.\n\nAlso checkout this 4 minute clip about the Redskins sports team: [Last Week Tonight with John Oliver: The Washington Redskins (HBO)](_URL_0_)",
"so theres the common sense answer that says that its belittling an entire people.\n\nin your defense though, the line is a bit blurry.\n\nwhen i was in 5th grade, we had to do reports on someone we admire. i did michael jordan and, like a fucking idiot 5th grader, gave myself blackface because we were supposed to dress up like them.\n\n\nnow seeing my horrible sloppy blackface would be patently offensive to any black person because it seems to imply that this ridiculous sight is how i as a white person see their race. on the other hand, the whole reason i did this is because i was trying to be like a black person i admired.\n\n\nbasically, its insensitive, even if it isnt meant to be hateful. in 2015, people are hypersensitive so do yourself a favor and avoid the headache of explaining how you arent a racist. ",
"So, IASIP has an ongoing joke about whether or not blackface can be tasteful or not with their Lethal Weapon movies. But they have this very discussion. Now, in the context of the gang talking about the philosophy behind it and then using it simply to look more like Danny Glover, is it racist? Dennis also makes a point to \"sound black\" in a counter argument to blackface being racist. If used to portray a character that is indeed black and sounds similar in the fashion that Dennis used, is it still racist?\n\nWhile IASIP has no shortage of offensive moments this particular gag is kind of thought-provoking.",
"Black and Indian are also not generic types. Thinking they are tends to lead to offensive and characatured stereotypes.",
"It's called [cultural appropriation](_URL_0_). The fact you do not take offense to someone dressing as a caricature of your culture/background/idendity does not diminish the fact other caricatures you wish to portray, perhaps with no ill intent, will be offensive to those that have special meaning and pride.\n\nAs an analogy (all analogies break down but I think there is some correlation there), consider you are not catholic and attend mass with devote catholic friend/relative out of respect for their wishes or perhaps to learn more about them. They have a ceremony where practictionishers receive the body and/or blood of christ (waffers/wine blessed by the priest). \n\nAccording to their doctrines only those in good standing with the church may receive. When it comes time, especially if you don't know and have just been following the standing, kneeling, sitting actions of others, you may think you should follow the masses to get communion. \n\nIf you were not a practicing member in good standing with the church this is considered a sin and would be offensive to those that took their time/life to follow the faith accordingly. \n\nIn the case of indian headdresses, even though you mean no offense and think you're \"just doing what 'they' do\" those that recognize the meanings facepalm at you for thinking that's all there is with out knowing the back story.\n\nBlackface I think is a bit different in it has a history of very intentionally marginalizing and mocking blacks. (And yes I think blacks is very appropriate term here as people doing the dress likely made no distinction of national origin, just skin color; jamacians are not african etc). ((doubple paran and yes being jamacian doesn't necessitate a darker skin color. Dave Mathews is African American in that this white boy was born in south africa)).",
"I mean this in all seriousness and without intention to offend, but your question and the way you've phrased illustrates perfectly the attitude of white privilege. As a white male, you're the default race and sex. No one would dress up like what people already are. \n\nImagine instead if someone dressed as a caricature of you personally and walked around like it was a joke. ",
"the bigger question is why do white people feel the need to dress up as other races? "
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5th5ad | why do many discount retailers create their own generic products to undercut name brand products they're trying to sell? | [deleted] | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5th5ad/eli5_why_do_many_discount_retailers_create_their/ | {
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"Because the generics cost less for the store to purchase than the name brand. And the bigger margin on generics than name brands."
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jgy3v | the difference between a mac and a pc | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/jgy3v/eli5_the_difference_between_a_mac_and_a_pc/ | {
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"When computer were first being made they were really big and expensive and usually made by a company called IBM. IBM was like \"We make big computers and everyone in the company can share this one computer.\" They sold special monitors called dumb terminal which allowed people to hook up 100 of monitors to one computer so everyone could share it.\n\nOne day this guy called Steve Wozniak was like... I want to make my own computer so that I can do whatever I want on it. So he built a smaller computer that you could do a couple thing on (Not like IBM's big computer.) and his friend Steve Jobs was like \"This is awesome Woz let me sell this.\"\nPretty soon other people were like those small computers are pretty awesome... let's make small version of IBM big computer. But those smaller computer needed some software to make them work. So this guy called Bill Gates bought some software from some guy and started selling it to IBM and was like \"I'm Bill Gates, and I sell cheap OS's. Their awesome.\" And people bought Bill's software because it was cheaper and Bill made alot of money.\n\nBut Apple computers had their own hardware and their own software. And they were like... I will make the most awesome software and hardware that will go together and be awesome... Our computer will be more expensive and stuff but they will run better. And Bill Gates was like \"I will make my software run on any computer, people will make cheap computer and I will get money cause every computer will run my software... which I will call DOS and then Windows. All PC's run Dos or Windows. And you can buy very cheap PCs and very expensive ones.\n\nSo the big difference was that Apple made Computer and Software and made them run together. This made all the part work better together... but Apple couldn't make as many... or as cheaply as other companies. PC run DOS and Windows and Bill Gates tried to get it to run on every computer. This mean Windows run on really cheap computers and expensive computer but because it run on so many different kinds of computer sometimes it has problems running, especially on cheap ones.",
"These days the differences are minimal from a physical standpoint. The primary difference used to be what kind of processors Macs used vs PC -- much of the rest of the hardware was the same, at least in spirit (memory, motherboard, video card, hard drives, etc).\n\nWhen Apple switched to Intel processors, the differences became very small. These days the primary difference is the operating systems -- i.e. OSX versus Windows. However OS differences is a whole 'nother broad topic.\n",
"I'm assuming you mean \"what's the difference today\" instead of a history lesson in how all this came about.\n\nRight now, a Mac and a PC running windows (or Linux or something more obscure) are pretty much identical except for the Operating System, and for a home user the main difference between the two is the way it looks and how it's organized (where certain files are supposed to be, which kinds of buttons generally do what, that kind of thing). \n\nNote that in general, it's not easy to adapt programs written for one OS to run on another (especially not between OSX and Windows), so you also have many programs that are available on OSX but not Windows and vice-versa.\n\nThere's also a difference in philosophy between Windows and OSX. Windows is designed to be very broadly used with lots of little tweaks available to the knowledgeable user, and also puts a lot of emphasis on being able to run programs that were written decades ago on pretty much any consumer computer you can buy (and then some).\n\nApple's computers at least since the Mac days puts a lot more emphasis on running as smoothly as possible for their ideal user on the latest Apple-supplied hardware and they're not nearly as concerned with breaking old ways of doing stuff.\n\nBasically (and subjectively) this means that Apples machines tend to look and act a little smoother while Windows machines are just a little rougher around the edges but will support more stuff for longer.\n\nAs a significant side note, since OSX the core of Apple's operating system is based on BSD (a UNIX variant), it's also fairly easy to write software on OSX that will also run on many other UNIX-like operating systems, like Linux, Sun/Oracle OS, various BSDs etc, which has made OSX pretty popular with developers for those platforms.",
"About $1000. Amirite?",
"The only porn you can get on a MAC is gay!",
"This is massively oversimplified, doesn't scratch the surface but I'll try and keep it neutral.\n\nPeople who feel just want to use a computer as a means to end, don't want to get too complicated and are prepared to pay a little more usually prefer Macs - they like the minimalist designs and it's pretty hard to screw them up with viruses or important files.\n\nPeople who like to tinker about more with the inside, built their own custom setups and want to save some money often prefer PC's, especially gamers as the support for PC gaming eclipses that of the Mac.\n\nIt's worth noting however, that many people have managed to install Apple's OS X operating system on PC's (known as 'hackintosch's), and you can also install Windows on a Mac so there aren't many limits to using either platform in that respect.",
"When computer were first being made they were really big and expensive and usually made by a company called IBM. IBM was like \"We make big computers and everyone in the company can share this one computer.\" They sold special monitors called dumb terminal which allowed people to hook up 100 of monitors to one computer so everyone could share it.\n\nOne day this guy called Steve Wozniak was like... I want to make my own computer so that I can do whatever I want on it. So he built a smaller computer that you could do a couple thing on (Not like IBM's big computer.) and his friend Steve Jobs was like \"This is awesome Woz let me sell this.\"\nPretty soon other people were like those small computers are pretty awesome... let's make small version of IBM big computer. But those smaller computer needed some software to make them work. So this guy called Bill Gates bought some software from some guy and started selling it to IBM and was like \"I'm Bill Gates, and I sell cheap OS's. Their awesome.\" And people bought Bill's software because it was cheaper and Bill made alot of money.\n\nBut Apple computers had their own hardware and their own software. And they were like... I will make the most awesome software and hardware that will go together and be awesome... Our computer will be more expensive and stuff but they will run better. And Bill Gates was like \"I will make my software run on any computer, people will make cheap computer and I will get money cause every computer will run my software... which I will call DOS and then Windows. All PC's run Dos or Windows. And you can buy very cheap PCs and very expensive ones.\n\nSo the big difference was that Apple made Computer and Software and made them run together. This made all the part work better together... but Apple couldn't make as many... or as cheaply as other companies. PC run DOS and Windows and Bill Gates tried to get it to run on every computer. This mean Windows run on really cheap computers and expensive computer but because it run on so many different kinds of computer sometimes it has problems running, especially on cheap ones.",
"These days the differences are minimal from a physical standpoint. The primary difference used to be what kind of processors Macs used vs PC -- much of the rest of the hardware was the same, at least in spirit (memory, motherboard, video card, hard drives, etc).\n\nWhen Apple switched to Intel processors, the differences became very small. These days the primary difference is the operating systems -- i.e. OSX versus Windows. However OS differences is a whole 'nother broad topic.\n",
"I'm assuming you mean \"what's the difference today\" instead of a history lesson in how all this came about.\n\nRight now, a Mac and a PC running windows (or Linux or something more obscure) are pretty much identical except for the Operating System, and for a home user the main difference between the two is the way it looks and how it's organized (where certain files are supposed to be, which kinds of buttons generally do what, that kind of thing). \n\nNote that in general, it's not easy to adapt programs written for one OS to run on another (especially not between OSX and Windows), so you also have many programs that are available on OSX but not Windows and vice-versa.\n\nThere's also a difference in philosophy between Windows and OSX. Windows is designed to be very broadly used with lots of little tweaks available to the knowledgeable user, and also puts a lot of emphasis on being able to run programs that were written decades ago on pretty much any consumer computer you can buy (and then some).\n\nApple's computers at least since the Mac days puts a lot more emphasis on running as smoothly as possible for their ideal user on the latest Apple-supplied hardware and they're not nearly as concerned with breaking old ways of doing stuff.\n\nBasically (and subjectively) this means that Apples machines tend to look and act a little smoother while Windows machines are just a little rougher around the edges but will support more stuff for longer.\n\nAs a significant side note, since OSX the core of Apple's operating system is based on BSD (a UNIX variant), it's also fairly easy to write software on OSX that will also run on many other UNIX-like operating systems, like Linux, Sun/Oracle OS, various BSDs etc, which has made OSX pretty popular with developers for those platforms.",
"About $1000. Amirite?",
"The only porn you can get on a MAC is gay!",
"This is massively oversimplified, doesn't scratch the surface but I'll try and keep it neutral.\n\nPeople who feel just want to use a computer as a means to end, don't want to get too complicated and are prepared to pay a little more usually prefer Macs - they like the minimalist designs and it's pretty hard to screw them up with viruses or important files.\n\nPeople who like to tinker about more with the inside, built their own custom setups and want to save some money often prefer PC's, especially gamers as the support for PC gaming eclipses that of the Mac.\n\nIt's worth noting however, that many people have managed to install Apple's OS X operating system on PC's (known as 'hackintosch's), and you can also install Windows on a Mac so there aren't many limits to using either platform in that respect."
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22qr1i | how did people not think the witch tests such as checking if a person would float or drown were completely illogical? | So in modern day, it's pretty obvious that not getting oxygen would eventually kill you. Did the people back then not know this or was there another reason that this belief was so prevalent? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/22qr1i/eli5_how_did_people_not_think_the_witch_tests/ | {
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"At the time, witch accusations were not all genuine suspicions. Often, people would accuse high ranking and powerful people to get them out of the way.\n\nAnd for those honestly believing in it, they were really just too afraid to consider how effective their methods were. If they got rid of an evil magic-wielding creature, they would be MUCH safer.\n\n |\n\nedit: genuine suspicions because some people don't like the context i used. V",
"Well, the witch hunts weren't about actually finding witches if you look at it. The reason the tests were so illogical stemmed from the fact that the whole concept was illogical and merely an excuse to either get rid of people you didn't like or to get everyone scared. It didn't matter if the person was a witch or not. All that mattered is if you didn't like them. Have an issue with the person? Witch. Bad luck in town? Person looks slightly off? Witch. The very idea was so illogical. They couldn't have cared less about the tests. They couldn't have cared less about fair trials. All they wanted was revenge/ to feel good about ridding the world of evil. \n\nTL;DR: Witch hunter's didn't give a shit about logic, killed people as a feel good or for revenge."
]
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[],
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2gdkhe | why is anaerobic cellular respiration so much less efficient the aerobic respiration? | Hey guys, long time creeper and first time poster here! I am in bio 114 at Oklahoma State University and my prof is just driving me nuts with the way he explains this. So far, all i can gather as far as differences between the two is that aerobic has the electron transport chain but all the explanations I've found online are just as confusing as my professor's. Help me ELI5, you're my only hope! | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2gdkhe/eli5_why_is_anaerobic_cellular_respiration_so/ | {
"a_id": [
"cki26pk"
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"text": [
"The electron transport chain creates a hydrogen ion gradient outside of the mitochondrial membrane (where it takes place). This gradient is used to power ATPsynthase, the enzyme that creates ATP. It can make about 32 ATP per glucose molecule (the number varies slightly depending on the source). Anaerobic respiration, which goes from glycolysis to either ethanol or lactic acid fermentaion, only produces the ATP from glycolysis (net gain of 2 if I remember correctly).\n\nSo you get about 32 ATP per glucose with aerobic, or 2 ATP per glucose with anaerobic. "
]
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[]
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1qsbmu | what is the technology at work in the power balance performance bracelets? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1qsbmu/eli5_what_is_the_technology_at_work_in_the_power/ | {
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"text": [
"Pure weapons grade bullshit.",
"Nothing. It's a complete lie. There have been no peer reviewed and accepted scientific studies that have found Benefits from such products. \n\nmagnets, rocks, crystals, etc do not affect your body in any way. "
]
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[],
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6f76en | how does stock investment and monthly dividend works? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/6f76en/eli5_how_does_stock_investment_and_monthly/ | {
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"There's 2 parts to stock investments actually making money for you.\n\nFirst, you have the appreciation of the stock value itself. If you buy stock at $10/share and then the company has a good year and shows growth, it might be valued st $15/share. Sell your shares, make the profit.\n\nSecond, as you mentioned are dividends. Companies (at no required timeframe) can decide to pay their owners i.e. shareholders money or give them more stock in the company as a \"thanks for investing\" type of thing. The size and frequency of the dividends is approved by the Board of the company and all registered shareholders get a check in the mail"
]
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59ottn | how did "buh-dum-tss" become the post-joke norm? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/59ottn/eli5_how_did_buhdumtss_become_the_postjoke_norm/ | {
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"text": [
"[This is known as a sting](_URL_0_) or also a rimshot."
]
} | []
| []
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[
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sting_(percussion\\)"
]
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|
||
4js5og | why are there different kinds of sand (white, yellow etc) and what makes them different besides colour? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4js5og/eli5_why_are_there_different_kinds_of_sand_white/ | {
"a_id": [
"d392hts",
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"text": [
"Sand is an incredibly local thing. The sand represents what happens to the silt and rocks in the hills nearby. Essentially, mountains and hills become boulders and rocks. Rocks become stones. Stones become pebbles. Pebbles become sand. And it is generally from the area around the place with sand.\n\nSo, sand in Hawaii is usually black because the volcanic basalt that makes up Hawaii is black. Those white beaches are mostly shipped in!\n\nSand in an area with lots of quartz ends up being the color of the quartz in that area...red, white or yellow. \n\nEssentially, if all the rivers in the world stopped flowing, all the beaches would go away pretty quickly.",
"Sand is all derived from weathered rock and sea shells. Depending on what the composition is will change what the resulting sand is. Common brownish-sand beaches are typically weathered quartz with some feldspar (which oxidizes to the brownish color). In a place with less feldspar and more quartz, the sand may appear whiter. On the other hand, Hawaii has a famous black-sand beach with its sand coming from weathered volcanic rock."
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eni9lz | if the civil war was about slavery, then why did the amendment banning slavery not just make the south become it’s own slaving nation? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/eni9lz/eli5_if_the_civil_war_was_about_slavery_then_why/ | {
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"The south tries to secede because they opposed the end of slavery. That's what the civil war was about; the North didn't want to let them secede.",
"That's what the southern states did, they split away from the United States and attempted to become their own country were slavery was permitted.\n\nAlso, I think you misunderstood a key point in the movie. Nobody believed that ending slavery would end the war, but the opposite. In the movie, one key dilemma that Lincoln faces is the decision between ending the war early, or pushing to end slavery. At some point in the movie, some Confederate diplomats talk with the North and offer a type of peace deal. However, the peace was conditional on abandoning the banning of slavery. In the debates, one of the Democrat delegates, when hearing that South is willing to end the war, says something like, \"well, we should obviously not pass this amendment and make peace right away, ending the war is more important than ending slavery.\" Lincoln chooses to push to end slavery, even if that means ruining peace talks with the Confederacy."
]
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c83uzf | how are so many nuclear weapons regularly tested if we know what consequences they cause? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/c83uzf/eli5_how_are_so_many_nuclear_weapons_regularly/ | {
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"Testing serves two main purposes: (1) to measure the effectiveness of new designs, and (2) to measure the effectiveness of aging weapons that have been in storage for years.",
"There are not regular test of nuclear weapons today. Non of the major nuclear powers have tested there weapons for a long time.\n\nThe last US test was in 1992, Russia(USSR) in 1990, UK in 1991, France in 1996 and China in 1996,\n\n & #x200B;\n\nAfter that only India and Pakistan in 1998 and North Korea 2006-2017 have tested nuclear weapons. For Pakistan and North Korea it was there first test ever so the needed for validate there designs. India had a single test back in 1974 to send the message to China and Pakistan that thy could developed nuclear weapon if it was needed and after \n\nSo the statement that there is many regular test today is not correct.\n\n & #x200B;\n\nMost test in not to determine the destructive effect of nuclear weapons even if there was test back in the 1940-60 for that but to validate design of nuclear warhead and to show that they will work even if stored for a long time. Since the Partial Nuclear Test Ban Treaty back in 1963 there have not been any test above ground so no test after that is to determine effect of nuclear weapons on the surrounding area but to show that the design works as expected.",
"Nuclear weapons tests are relatively rare. Even in their prime, people were't just lobbing nukes around like grenades. However, tests have been internationally banned in the last 20 years, due in large part to the damage they cause.",
"The only nation that has tested nuclear weapons in the last 20 years is North Korea, and has done so only 6 times since 2006. This has been done in a highly calculated fashion, RNK is a very strange country with a strange power structure and shouldn't necessarily be expected to do things that are in it's best interest. \n\nRNK has not participated in a range of multi national treaties that have worked to ban nuclear testing and nuclear development.\n\nIran may seek to develop and test a nuclear weapon since the current US president has chosen to violate treaty arrangements with them and imposed a host of sanctions with no treaty justification. (This is of course moronic for a host of reasons and doesn't benefit either party.)\n\nIran may see developing a nuclear arsenal as the only way to get the US to honor it's own agreements."
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3lrpyd | why does ice taste bad with milk, even though it is great with every other cold beverage? | [deleted] | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3lrpyd/eli5_why_does_ice_taste_bad_with_milk_even_though/ | {
"a_id": [
"cv8v0fy"
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"score": [
3
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"text": [
"Personally I enjoy ice in my milk, I like it to be ice cold and don't mind if it'd a tad watered down at the end"
]
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[]
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ajbd5x | what is the concept of purgatory? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/ajbd5x/eli5_what_is_the_concept_of_purgatory/ | {
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"According to some Christians, purgatory is the place you end up after you die but before you go to Heaven or Hell.\n\nWhile you are in the \"waiting room\" of purgatory, the prayers of your loved ones can purge your sins. (In medieval paintings, purgatory was often shown as a giant flaming sauna that \"burned\" your sins away.) This means that if you have a sinful relative who just died, you can still pray for them and help them reach Heaven.\n\nDifferent Christian denominations have different beliefs about purgatory. The Roman Catholic Church has officially said that purgatory exists. However, other traditions such as Protestantism and Orthodoxy state that purgatory doesn't exist at all and you just go directly to Heaven or Hell when you die.\n\nThere are other religions that preach of a purgatory-like state between death and afterlife, such as Gehenna in Judaism and Barzakh in Islam. In a more metaphorical sense the term \"purgatory\" can be used to refer to any painful or hellish experience.\n\nWikipedia article for further reading: _URL_0_",
"In Catholic traditions I believe purgatory falls under the category of speculative theology (basically meaning that even highly regarded theologians are unsure if humans can know any of the specifics with any certainty). This being said, it is speculated that Heaven is the state of being fully in communion with God, Hell is the state of the lack of communion with God. Purgatory is the state of being purged of faults in preparation for coming into full communion with God. It has been speculated that the cleansing \"fires\" of purgatory would be worse than hell, but purgatory would be a definite period. So in that sense it is a \"waiting room\" as others have described.",
"Purgatory is a place or process (it's not entirely clear) in which those who died in the state of grace (that is, with their sins forgiven and destined for Heaven) but still with some attachment to sin, or with a debt of justice still outstanding from their sins. They are saved but not perfect, so Purgatory is the means by which God supplies their perfection so that Heaven can actually be enjoyed. It is not a \"second chance\" at salvation. Nor is it a third eternal destination; Purgatory will eventually be empty.\n\nThe best biblical description of Purgatory comes from St. Paul: \n\n\"According to the grace of God which is given unto me, as a wise masterbuilder, I have laid the foundation, and another buildeth thereon. But let every man take heed how he buildeth thereupon. For other foundation can no man lay than that is laid, which is Jesus Christ. Now if any man build upon this foundation gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, stubble; Every man's work shall be made manifest: for the day shall declare it, because it shall be revealed by fire; and the fire shall try every man's work of what sort it is. If any man's work abide which he hath built thereupon, he shall receive a reward. *If any man's work shall be burned, he shall suffer loss: but he himself shall be saved; yet so as by fire.*\" (1 Cor 3:10-15)\n\nThe Catholic Church solemnly affirms the existence of Purgatory. Some other forms of Christianity strongly deny it."
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7h7k3p | how do inverters change direct current into alternating current? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/7h7k3p/eli5_how_do_inverters_change_direct_current_into/ | {
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"The simplest way to convert direct current to alternating current is to turn it on and off. If you toggle it 100 or 120 time a second depending of where you live you create a alternating current. The result is not a nice sine wave like in the wall but a square wave. Som equipment works fine on it like lighting and heating but something does not work.\n\n\nMore advanced ones switches faster with filter or used other ways. look at \n_URL_0_ for more information.\n\n\nAnother way to look at is that battery powered device with a speaker does the same thing. It converts direct current to alternating current. If the sound is only a 50 hz or 60 hz tone you will create alternating current with wall frequency. A transformer could up the voltage but the design would be quite insufficient and have low max current with the hardware used for speakers."
]
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| []
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[
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Power_inverter"
]
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nzl4y | please explain mono vs stereo sound specifically in regards to records released in the 60s | I've read the wikipedia explanations and I'm just not picking it up. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/nzl4y/eli5_please_explain_mono_vs_stereo_sound/ | {
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"Older audio equipment only had one track for recording sound information. This means that when you play it back in headphones, you get the same sound in both ears (monaural).\nWhen stereo equipment came along, it finally introduced the concept of two channels for sound, a left channel and a right channel. This allowed recordings to have different information for your left ear and right ear. This adds depth to the sound because now your brain can process the difference of the same sound in both ears to determine distances. It is a fuller experience.",
"Also, as technology progressed, we added the concept of \"surround sound\" where multiple sound inputs with a known distance between the microphones are recorded, and can be played back using a receiver that can adjust the sound distances in your specific speaker setup to make it sound identical to how the recorded sounds were, creating true 3 dimensional sound.",
"Each ear by itself can only hear how loud a sound is. However, both of your ears combined with your brain can tell the direction a sound comes from because one ear is often closer to the sound than the other ear, so that ear hears the sound first. Your brain can also tell that the quality of the same sound in one ear is different than the same sound in the other ear as the sound wave wraps around the shape of your head and the shape of your outer ears.\n\nWith mono sound, there is only one channel of audio, so no matter how many speakers you have, they all play the same sound at the same volume. If you have one speaker, the sound always sounds like it comes from that speaker. If you have more speakers, the sound always sounds like it comes from a fixed spot in between the speakers. This is unusual in the real world, because imagine listening to a band where every instrument and the singer's voice are all \"placed\" in the exact same position making their sounds. Instead, a more life-like sound spreads the instruments and voices in different locations.\n\nStereo sound gives you two channels of audio going to separate left and right speakers, and this lets you \"place\" different sounds across different locations anywhere between the left and right speakers, making a virtual stage. If a bell plays louder from the left speaker than the right speaker, your left ear hears it first and hears it louder than your right ear, and your brain figures the sound comes from the left. The difference in how loud (volume) each channel plays the same sound is basically how stereo sound works.\n\n**For recordings in the '60s**, sound engineers did not have experience yet to figure out what sounded good, and they may not have had good mixing technology that let them spread sound finely between the two channels. They often just recorded vocals in the middle (played identically from both left and right speakers), drums on one side (say from only the left speakers), and a rhythm instrument on the other (say a guitar only from the right speakers). The thinking here is that the speakers represent the actual band members performing.\n\nIn practice, this doesn't sound very good because now you're back to mono sound for each channel. If you have a piano and guitar in the right channel only, they're now both \"placed\" in the same spot on the far side of the room. It sounds horrible on headphones because if the sound only plays from one side, one of your ears hears nothing and your brain interprets it in an odd way because sound in nature almost never skips one ear.\n\nBetter stereo mixes after the '60s avoid playing sound from only one speaker. A more sophisticated trick is to play an echo in the opposite speaker if you want to make a sound play from one side only. Better mixes can give any number of instruments unique positions across the stage in between the two speakers. There are some audio tricks that expand some sounds past the width of the stage created by the speakers, and even more advanced tricks for headphones that take advantage of the way sounds change as they wrap around your head for placing sounds behind you."
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5x7spm | why are headaches and toothaches much less tolerable other kinds of body pain? | Like its *really* hard to do just about anything with a headache/toothache than having a cut or some other form of pain. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5x7spm/eli5_why_are_headaches_and_toothaches_much_less/ | {
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"I'm not totally sure on the reasons for tooth pain being string but head aches are specifically created by the brain as warning signals. There are no actual pain receptors in the brain itself so any pain is coming from signals the brain is giving you. This makes them hard to ignore because they are designed SPECIFICALLY to get your attention.\n\nFor example. If you are dehydrating and the brain needs water it will give you a headache to tell you it needs water.",
"As far as teeth go, it's that teeth nerves are hardly shielded at all from debris and other shit. Cavities are basically tunnels leading to nerve endings. If we had our nerve endings exposed in such a way, it would also hurt quite badly. \n\nThe equivalent of a cavity would be for someone to stab a hole in your skin, going into your nerve endings, except that your teeth do not heal naturally. \n\nAs far as the head goes, it really does depend heavily on what kind of pain you're talking about. "
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7108cw | how do bananas become sweeter as they age? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/7108cw/eli5_how_do_bananas_become_sweeter_as_they_age/ | {
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"text": [
"The sugars that they're made of at a basic level slowly break apart into shorter (and thus sweeter) chains, this is also why/how they turn brown"
]
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[]
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|
||
8ebcli | what is the benefit of restarting a phone or computer on a regular basis? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/8ebcli/eli5_what_is_the_benefit_of_restarting_a_phone_or/ | {
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"Clears memory and ends processes that stubbornly don't end because of poor coding,\namong many other reasons\n\nAlso windows installs updates when you restart",
"Adding to this if allowed; does it make a difference whether you restart a phone or turn it off and then on again"
]
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7n1bwd | why do japanese people keep using logograms (kanji) when they could write everything using their syllabaries (hiragana/katakana)? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/7n1bwd/eli5_why_do_japanese_people_keep_using_logograms/ | {
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"text": [
"Many reasons. Why do we use abbreviations instead of writing everything out fully? Much quicker to write NASA instead of National Astronautics and Space Administration, for example. Harder for outsiders to get into, yes, but who cares about outsiders? \n\nThen there's culture - people will continue doing something simply because that's the way it's always been done. There's an astonishing amount of information and art stored in Kanji documents.",
"In languages such as English you use a space between each word so you reader can understand you. In Japanese there are no spaces so writing only with hiragana/katakana would be somehow confusing.\nAlso in the eye of a reader a kanji is quick to catch, so you'll easily find the verbs and the adjectives.\n\nTL:DR Without kanji reading Japanese feels like \"textwithoutseparationnorpunctuation\"\n\nSource: Japanese studies master degree",
"Languages are conventions. So like any convention, they are internally consistent, but do not need to abide by any set of external rules/logic. So while to an alphabet/abdjad/abugida writer a logogram looks unnecessary, to a culture that developed using both is seems perfectly consistent and logical. Same way that katakana will only be used to sound our foreign words - you could write them using hiragana, but no one doesn’t. Just like fish could be spelled ghoti, yet no one would do it :) ",
"The English word is \"homophones\". In the English language, there are words that sound the same despite drastically different meanings.\n\nLet's take this sentence I just created: He led the lead lead thoroughly through the fair in order to obey his fair master's order.\n\nI use \"led\" as in the past-tense of \"to lead (something somewhere)\", as well as \"lead\" as in the metal often used in plumbing. These two words sound the same despite one being a noun and one being a verb.\n\nI also use \"lead\" as in someone of more importance than others, in context the person who is the star of a performance or plays the protagonist although it could be any sort of hero. This word is spelled exactly the same as the metal, but is pronounced differently.\n\nI also use \"fair\" as in a social gathering offering access to different worldviews and activities and such, as in terms of the \"Renaissance Fair\" or \"Great New York State Fair\" or \"Science Fair\" or \"Scholastic Book Fair\". And along with this, I use \"fair\", which is spelled and pronounced the same way, meaning \"beautiful\".\n\nAnd, similarly to \"fair\", I used \"order\" both in terms of a command (i.e., \"I order you\") and in terms of signifying a means to achieve one's goals (i.e., \"in order to\"). Same word, same pronunciation, same spelling, but different meanings.\n\n-----\n\nJapanese has a similar problem. You mention the 46 Hirigana characters, but those correspond merely to vocalizations of the desired words. With \"thousands of\" Kanji characters, you get the same mix of Hirigana covering dozens to hundreds of Kanji that have different meanings.\n\nI know that some \"compound\" kanji have upwards of 5 syllables to them, and as such when written in hirigana it becomes quite tricky trying to determine if a phrase with those 5 syllables refers to the compound kanji or if the syllables/hirigana characters are supposed to be split. Meanwhile, you just have the one kanji to worry about.\n\n-----\n\nIn short, two (or more) different \"words\" can have similar pronunciations, just because there's only so many ways that things can be pronounced. Thus kanji clarifies the meaning: a specific kanji has either a specific meaning or specific range of similar meanings, significantly narrowing the potential for conflating or misinterpreting the word with a homonym/homophone.",
"The main advantages to using kanji are:\n\nOnce you have learned them, it is much faster read kanji than to read hiragana/katakana. \n\nThere are many more homonyms in Japanese than in English, and unlike English where you can use alternative spellings (to, too, two/ flour, flower), in hiragana that is impossible. Kanji allows you to distinguish homonyms.\n\nFinally, having four different writing systems (kanji, hiragana, katakana, romaji) allows you to add nuance in a way that is really impossible in English. To give but one example of this, a few weeks ago I was at a dinner where a Japanese-American man attended, and everyone had their own place card to tell them where to sit. Now despite the fact that this guy grew up in Japan, was a native Japanese speaker, and had a Japanese name, they wrote his name in katakana. This made it very clear that whoever made the placecard did not think of this guy as Japanese. "
]
} | []
| []
| [
[],
[],
[],
[],
[]
]
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4i1iz0 | why is jumping off a bridge a means of suicide, when i've seen countless videos of people jumping off taller cliffs into rougher waters? | What kills you quickly enough off the bridge, that doesn't when you jump off cliffs for fun? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4i1iz0/eli5_why_is_jumping_off_a_bridge_a_means_of/ | {
"a_id": [
"d2u770u",
"d2u7gjc",
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],
"score": [
5,
5,
3
],
"text": [
"The world record high dive jump is about 200'. Thats with training... the average mortal would probably be risking their health higher than 50'.\n\nMost bridges are 200-250' high. you COULD survive it, and some do. but if you dont go in just right, you'll die for sure. edit: maybe not immedietly, but if you break your leg, hip, ribs, arms, neck, concussion, ect; you'll end up drowning.",
"The faster you go, the stiffer water turns out to be. After you fall a couple hundred feet, water is about as stiff as concrete.\n\nPeople who know what they are doing, and have trained for high dives, produce very different results than folks trying to kill themselves. ",
" > when I've seen countless videos of people jumping off taller cliffs into rougher waters?\n\nYou probably haven't.\n\nWorld record high dives are about 170 feet, and your typical Acapulco cliff dive is a little over 100. The Golden Gate Bridge is 220 feet from the surface. \n\nAlso, divers are trained to displace as little water as possible when they enter, which reduces the force on their bodies. Your flailing bridge jumper will have it a lot worse.\n\nFinally, those divers have crews ready to rescue them if they get knocked out or injured. People who jump off bridges and are still alive but incapacitated stand a very good chance of drowning. "
]
} | []
| []
| [
[],
[],
[]
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267fwc | why are "bad smells" associated to bad stuff like rotten food or bad breath and "good smells" to good stuff like roses or cooked food? can't bad things have a good smell for our brain (ie: poop that smells like roses)? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/267fwc/eli5_why_are_bad_smells_associated_to_bad_stuff/ | {
"a_id": [
"chocrwv",
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"score": [
5,
2,
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"text": [
"We evolved to associate smells that are beneficial to us (such as food, sources of sugar like flowers or fruits, etc) as good... And things that are bad for us (like festering microorganisms in rotten food or excrement) as bad.\n\nYou can change this association, yes. However, it's probably more trouble than it's worth.",
"Bad smells typically are that way because they belong to things bad for us. All the humans who liked eating their own poo died out for example.",
"\"Bad\" smells are generally a warning of some kind - food that has spoiled, waste that might make you sick, poisons that might kill you. It's been programmed into your brain over many generations that something that smells 'bad' might be dangerous and should be avoided or cleaned up."
]
} | []
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[],
[],
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361lrp | what is total harmonic distortion in ups's | How can you work it out and is lower or higher better? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/361lrp/eli5_what_is_total_harmonic_distortion_in_upss/ | {
"a_id": [
"cr9v1km"
],
"score": [
2
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"text": [
"Lower is better. [Harmonic distortion can have detrimental effects on electrical equipment. Unwanted\ndistortion can increase the current in power systems which results in higher temperatures\nin neutral conductors and distribution transformers. Higher frequency harmonics cause\nadditional core loss in motors which results in excessive heating of the motor core. These\nhigher order harmonics can also interfere with communication transmission lines since\nthey oscillate at the same frequencies as the transmit frequency.3\n If left unchecked,\nincreased temperatures and interference can greatly shorten the life of electronic\nequipment and cause damage to power systems](_URL_0_) It is reccomended that it be kept to less than 5% total and 3% for any individual harmonic. "
]
} | []
| []
| [
[
"http://www.aptsources.com/resources/pdf/Total%20Harmonic%20Distortion.pdf"
]
]
|
|
5z5c12 | is it possible to spy on people through a microwave? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5z5c12/eli5_is_it_possible_to_spy_on_people_through_a/ | {
"a_id": [
"devd3b2"
],
"score": [
3
],
"text": [
"Not unless you put a bunch of new hardware into the microwave's box. The machine itself contains no sensors that could be used to eavesdrop on people. It has no camera, no microphone, no radio receiver, etc."
]
} | []
| []
| [
[]
]
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