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368r0x | why is it that after a night of drinking, i can't sleep past 7:30 usually, however the norm seems to be that others "sleep it off"? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/368r0x/eli5_why_is_it_that_after_a_night_of_drinking_i/ | {
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"Feels. I wake up super early then can't get back to sleep. Next time when you get up try to sit in the shower for a bit, make some food and take some multivitamins + fish oil then put some calming music on and go back to sleep for another 2-3 hours. Personally the music helps me take my mind off trying to go over every detail of the night before hoping I didn't do any stupid shit.",
"With any kind of drug, after the drug leaves your system, for a period of time, you experience an effect that is essentially opposite of what the drug caused (I want to say this is called the Paradox Effect, but I think I would be wrong. This is really bugging me.) With alcohol, a depressant that dulls your senses, the effect is that it makes you extra sensitive to stimulation (such as light and sound), your brain works harder, etc. You might recognize this as classic hangover symptoms, and it affects your sleep. A slight sound might wake you, and your overactive brain keeps you from falling asleep. This effect occurs with any type of drug leaving your system, although the symptoms are different-usually the opposite of what the drug does.\n\nOn top of that, alcohol fucks with your sleep patterns. You cannot enter into as deep of a sleep, and the sleep you get is not as restful. Some people say \"Alcohol makes me sleep better\", but in reality, while it might help them fall asleep faster, their sleep is not nearly as good.\n\nI have the same reaction when I drink. I wake up at the ass-crack of dawn with a hangover and can't fall asleep. It is one of the reasons why I stopped drinking (that, and I hate the taste)\n\nEDIT: Forgot to add... dehydration as well. Drinking dehydrates the fuck out of you, and that makes all these symptoms worse.",
"I had this but I heard from a friend that you wake up so early because your dehydrated. Drink a pint of water before you go to sleep and you'll sleep right through works for me anyway ",
"The cells in your brain talk to each other using electrical signals and by releasing chemicals. The chemicals that a cell releases can either cause other cells around it get excited and start sending more electrical signals (excitatory neurotransmitters like Glutamate), or less excited causing their electrical activity to decrease (inhibitory neurotransmitters like GABA). Alcohol does a lot of different things to your brain, but the reason people get sluggish while drinking is that alcohol pretends to be one of the chemicals that decrease electrical activity (specifically GABA). After a night of drinking, your brain cells are less sensitive these inhibitory chemicals and there is less of them in your brain, so as the alcohol clears from your brain your brain cells start to get more active causing you to wake up. ",
"After a night of drinking I can't sleep for shit. I might fall asleep/pass out for a while but I'll wake back up in the middle of the night and can't get back to sleep.\n\nI like beer... good beer. But I'll limit myself to three or four and nothing after 7:00 PM. By the time I go to bed around 10:00 most of the alcohol has worn off allowing me sleep rather soundly.",
"Dehydration is a thing - i always sleep with some water next to my bed so if I wake up hungover I can chug some and try to go back to sleep.\n\nAnother thing that could have an affect is the amount of caffeine being consumed while you go out. I don't know what your drink of choice is, but too many energy drink + vodkas, rum + cokes, etc can really jack you up. \n\nI used to wake up early every time, but then I stopped drinking red bulls at 1 am. It took me an embarrassingly long time to realize the correlation.",
"How much do you drink? There is a difference between drinking 8 units of alcohol and going home at 1 am, and drinking 20 units of alcohol going home at 5 am.",
"Alcohol acts by disrupting your GABA receptors amongst other neuro trqnsmitters. Gaba in particular is responsible for basicallysane though, its what typically tells you that a building is high and you shoukdnt jump off it. When its disruoted, you get \"hokd my beer\" moments. Its also responsible for telling you when to wake up. As its depressed, your mind doesnt know when to wake up snd thus takes any cue as a reason to be awake. It gets harder to go to sleep once GABA returns to the system, and is also what leads to those existential crisis hangovers.",
"I don't now about you but after a night of heavy drinking i usually get home at 7:30 and then sleep for a whole day"
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bo31ni | why is it when you hang clothes over a rack to dry or use the dryer, they dry soft, but if they're dried in a ball they become stiff? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/bo31ni/eli5_why_is_it_when_you_hang_clothes_over_a_rack/ | {
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"My clothes come out stiff if I hang-dry them. Tumble drying, even without dryer sheets or fabric softener, they come out much softer.",
"My guess is movement while they're drying. Tumblr drying or hang drying where there is some breeze or air movement keeps the fabric moving and prevents whatever process causes the stiffening from happening.",
"One if the biggest issues is simply movement during drying. The stiff clothes will soften up if you tumble them around a bit. The dryer clothes and clothes in the wind already got this. The other factor will be speed of drying.\n\nThe stiffness is caused by various chemicals either forming large crystals or long polymer chains during gentle drying. Ruffling the clothes breaks up these crystals and polymers. Drying sloooowly also allows for bigger crystals and longer polymer chains to form, so balled up clothes that can't evaporate effectively will also have an extra level of stiffness."
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30h44o | why do american employers give such a small amount of paid vacation time? | Here in the UK I get 28 days off paid. It's my understanding that the U.S. gives nowhere near this amount? (please correct me if I'm wrong)
EDIT - Amazed at the response this has gotten, wasn't trying to start anything but was genuinely interested in vacation in America. Good to see that I had it somewhat wrong, there is a good balance, if you want it you can get it.
| explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/30h44o/eli5_why_do_american_employers_give_such_a_small/ | {
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"It depends. In a lot of instances you will get 4 weeks off eventually. It often starts with 2 and works up to 4 over time. It is really up to the organisation. I don't believe there is a federal or state mandated minimum other than public holidays. ",
"The employer sets the time off unless there is legislation overriding this. Many low paid workers get no vacation time. Highly sought workers, (small town emergency physicians), can negotiate. Some hospital administrators have learned to offer three months off a year so the physician can do missionary work. \n\n[Federal legislation](_URL_0_) can mandate allowed leave. So can state legislation. Your leave may be mandated by the government.",
"Really depends on where you work. I get 8 hours every two weeks accrued. At the time of my annual review I can choose to sell the time I don't use. The amount of time we accrue at my job increases based off of tenure. At the moment I can get about 26 paid days off with roughly the same time in sick time. ",
"In the UK and almost any other country in the world governments mandate a minimum vacation time that companies have to give their workers. Often the companies give more than the minimum, but some don't. \n\nIn the US there is no legal minimum so employers who want to give as little vacation time as possible can legally give zero vacation days to their workers.",
"Service industry jobs like bartenders, baristas, servers, cooks etc get zero paid vacation time or sick time. If you do have the time it is highly frowned upon to take it. ",
"A lot of countries have a legally mandated minimum number of paid days vacation for full-time workers.\n\nFor example, here in Poland I get 20 days by default, and after 10 years work (anywhere, not just one employer) I get 26 days. Furthermore, this 10 years can be partially skipped by doing certain things, like getting a degree. Due to the fact that I have graduated University with a BSc in Computer Science, as far as the government is concerned, I've already done 8 years work, even though I am now just 4 months into my first full-time job.\n\nThe US has no such federal mandate. So employers try to see what minimum number of days they can get away with - in this economy it's a frighteningly low number.",
"Why, because there is no law saying they must do otherwise. My understanding is that long vacations in Europe are mandated by law.\n\nThere are exceptions -- in highly competitive tech companies you'll sometimes see excellent vacation policies.",
"I work in a 911 call center and we get a decent amount of time off, but it's a stressful job, so no one could stay here long without it. We get 10-15 days of vacation depending on tenure, 12 days of holiday (24-7 job, we can't close on holidays), and 10 of sick. It will accrue up to 480 hours for each, and we get payouts for our totals if we leave.\n\nI worked for a major home improvement store before that and got roughly a quarter of that time. As far as why, it's pretty simple to me. Companies consider vacation to be wasted money, so they don't want to give it out. The ones that do usually respect their employees more than most, or at the very least realize that any decent worker won't want to be there with no extra benefits like that. And as far as why the government doesn't do anything... it's because corporations run this country, no matter who is in office.",
"The United States Army gets 30 days paid vacation a year. I've saved up and I'm sitting at 64 right now. Going to be a great time when I'm backpacking through Europe and it's paid vacation 😁\n\n",
"In the US the purpose of a company is to maximize the wealth for the company's shareholders within the borders of the law. In other countries the purpose is to maximize wealth for the stakeholders within the company within the borders of the law. (Stakeholder theory and Friedman doctrine)\n\nI think in the US people see it as a right of the owners of a company to maximize their profit. Shareholders invest in a company because of the returns so in that respect a shareholder driven company can be more succesfull.\nIn, for example, Germany companies need to actively protect all their stakeholders: which are among others their employees, customers and suppliers. \n\nIt goes so far that in Germany (and many other northern European countries) the employees have an active say in who's to become member of the board of directors effectivly help determine the company policy. \n\nBoth systems have advantages: Shareholder driven companies seem to be slightly more populair on the market, but stakeholder companies seem to be a bit more stable and longlasting.",
"As a Government state employee, we receive 14 national holidays in a year which include: \n\nMLK Day on Jan 19th, \n\nPrimary Election Day on May 5, \n\nGeneral Election Day on November 3, \n\nand Veterans Day on Nov 11th.\n\nEarn 1 personal day every 4 months. 22.5hrs.\nEarn 1 sick day every 2 months, plus 1 additional sick day every 4 months. 67.5hrs/yr. (Only used for being sick and medical appointments). \nEarn 1 vacation day a month. 90hrs/yr. \n\n*1 to 4 years of full-time service: 90 hours. \n\n*5 to 9 years of full-time service: 112.5 hours. \n\n*10 to 19 years of full-time service: 150 hours. \n\n*20 or more years of full-time service: 187.5 hours. \n\n\nTurns out to be around 30 days of vacation time, and an additional 9 days for sick time.\n",
"Because in America, money is more important than you. People used to be referred to as personnel. Now we are \"human resources\". As easily replaceable as a pack of printer paper. -\"Oh, you want time off, well, we've got a stack of applications here that would love to take your place.\"",
"I get about 30 days off a year. This includes sick days. \nNow, unfortunately, the way it works is that this is frequently used as a recruiting tool. \nIf you ever took 30 days off in a row, it would be frowned upon. If you're a grunt, they'd need someone else to do your job during that time and if they can do things without you, why do they need you? \n \nIf you're a manager / leader, the signal it sends is not positive to a team who can't really do the same. Its called managing the 'optics'. \n \nA lot of us take a friday/monday off and take four day vacations. Around the end of the year (unless you work retail) taking a full week off is a given.",
"You have to ask this? Oh you sweet summer child. Corporations make the rules here. Our options are either work or don't work. Regardless of the conditions, work is most likely the one everyone will choose. ",
"I've been with my company for 10 years now. I have 19 paid days off. 15 vacation, 3 personal days, and my birthday. I max out at 35 years with 25 vacation days, 10 personal days, and my birthday. That's 36 paid days off. Plus 10 paid holidays for a total of 46 paid days off. An average of 230-240 working days, that's almost 20% of the year I get paid to not be at work. That's a pretty good deal to me. ",
"In America, employers rob there employees, because they can.",
"Lost in this discussion - wages are based on the value of your work. If an employer has to give you 12 weeks vacation, guess what just happened to the value of your labor? A lot of people would rather take the extra income than the extra vacation. ",
"At my work, asking to use the vacation time you've accrued is heavily frowned upon. The same applies to sick days which leads to people going to work sick. People view those that don't work as both lazy and a burden since their work has to be delegated to others while they're away. If you take time off, you risk not advancing",
"You think that's bad?\n\nI worked at a Japanese company in rural Georgia, and my first year I got 5 days on my one year anniversary. That's it. It's just a national thing. And I think Americans like money more than vacation time.",
"Because the business doesn't want to give you free money. \n\"Look ol' chap, there's a small stack of hundred dollar bills worth of profit, should I keep it? Should I burn it? Or should I give it away by paying someone to not do their job?\" \n\"Well, since you pit it that way guvna, let's keep it and call it an executive performance bonus and make some unplanned purchases! Jolly good time!\"",
"Probably a little late to matter.\n\nWife works desk job, been there 10 years. She gets 6 weeks paid vacation, plus can carry unused over to the next year (currently she has 10 weeks vacation). She also gets 2 weeks paid sick, and 2 months for major illness full pay, after that 1/2 pay for up to 6 months. Another thing not really tracked as vacation, she MUST work one day at home, each month, to test the emergency systems, which equates to twelve 1/2 days, essentially, as she's only required to log into the system for 4 hours.\n\nIt really depends on where you work, how long you've worked there, and what level you're at. As stated in the thread, wage employees really have no wiggle room, they are only paid for the hours they work; some companies will have small leaves with paid vacations, but those same companies won't pay if you miss because you're sick. Salaried employees tend to get the better end of the vacation stick.",
"American here, also late to the party. Most jobs I've had (high tech, mostly software industry) gave two weeks vacation. My current job gave three weeks immediately, then went up to five weeks after five years. I figured I had found a good thing and am now approaching my 9 year anniversary. I'll stay here till I retire if I can. I like my job, but I'd have jumped ship years ago if it weren't for the vacation time.",
"It's a zero-sum game - you are paid with a mix of benefits and wages. Most Americans prefer to be paid via higher wages, and not government-mandated to take time off in lieu of those wages (yes, I understand that it's \"paid time off(!)\", but that's just because your wages are divided by 52 weeks, not because you are actually paid extra.) Companies that pay more of both (or either) will attract better talent and vice versa. Workers can vote with their feet - very few people live in a \"company town\" like those that existed 200 years ago. Government mandates on minimum wage or minimum benefits limit the work available by effectively making it illegal to employ people without an arbitrarily high skillset. I'd highly recommend reading *In Defense of Sweatshops* by Benjamin Powell, which is a cogent defense of low wage/benefit jobs _URL_0_",
"Coz FUCK YOU that's why. You're here to work for me,, not earn \"points\" for a whole paid week off. You're lucky that I \"have\" to give you two days off by law, if not, you'd be working till 10pm and then return at 5am to continue. Be lucky that I employ you which allows you to live, peasant.",
"American here. I've been with the same global manufacturing company for 7 years and I get 8 paid days off a year plus 6 unpaid. We also have 2 \"shut downs\" per year for maintenance where I don't have to work. One is over 4th of July, and one over Xmas. They both last 5 working days. I get 4 paid days off for the one in December , and none for the one in July. I'd have to use vacation. If I miss anymore than that I get fired. In 3 more years I'll get 5 more paid days per year. Yay economy!! :/",
"Because our Government doesn't give a shit about the workers.",
"I get 21 days paid vacation at an entry level job in the tech sector. Depends what field you go into in America. ",
"My boss is a saint. Super reasonable. Great guy. As long as the work is done, he lets me take off anytime I want, for as long as I want. He also lets me take lots of personal days off when I just didn't feel like working.\n\nI can't explain to you why more people aren't self-employed. I used to work for crap companies too, until I realized I didn't have to. Some people can't handle the insecurity, though. I don't have a guaranteed weekly paycheck. If I screw off too much I can be in real trouble (it's happened). But I'll never work for a big company again. When you agree to that paycheck, they own you.",
"It depends on your employer. I get 30 paid vacation days a year (6 weeks) and 6 additional sick days. Other people here have stated that it's frowned upon to use vacation time. My employer encourages healthy work/life balance. I've never had a manager even ask why I want to use a vacation day or sick day. Not all corporations in America are the devil.",
"The short version? Because they can.",
"because business interests have largely won over labor interests. ",
"Not all, though I always contribute it to a lack of unions. Most european countries have and do have strong union participation rate which ensures they get their demands met. Most American companies base it off tenure or if your lucky they will let you buy more vacation out of your check. ",
"When I worked I had 30 vacation days yearly. I started with 30 a year and ended with 30 a year. The U.S. does not mandate time off but most companies give employees vacation time. Some give it by the amount of hours you work. Others give a certain amount off the first year then more the second and so on.",
"It definitely is a huge range, from none to unlimited. \n\nService industry folks get almost none because their employer is **always** open. \n\nProfessionals tend to get more because it doesn't matter how often they work as long as they do it well and do it completely. \n\nWhen I worked in the mall in college, if I took a day off (I was part time) I was then \"punished\" by not getting any more hours \"since I didn't want them\".\n\nNow I just started a job 5 months ago and get 4 weeks off and unlimited paid sick days. \n\nI have a buddy that gets 3 months of vacation. However, he could never use that much, and the company knows it, because he has a certain amount of hours he has to bill each month. ",
"In all honesty, this is probably driven due to the appeal of entrepreneurship here in the states.\n\nTheir is a mass appeal to the idea of being your own boss here in America, and this brings in a lot of highly educated immigrants from across the world who believe that dream can come true here.\n\nBeing a business owner requires you to work a lot, and non stop. Our most revered business men, or entrepreneurs all have stories about how hard they worked to get to where they are. Taking off work is looked at is lazy, or undeserving to some extent, or that if you do take off you aren't as committed as other employees. \n\nCompanies then cannot afford to have their employees be any less driven that their competitors', and honestly if you as an employee aren't willing to do something there will be someone else who is. Employment is more competitive than ever, and we are willing to take less vacation if it means landing a higher paying job.\n\nOf course this is just a theory, but I think everyone here int he states can attest to some truth in this claim.",
"In short: because there's no law requiring them to give more. Why would they voluntarily choose to spend money on someone who isn't working?",
"It used to be that companies would give sick leave and vacation time. Some genius down the line determined they could cut costs by placing all the time into a single pool and call it employee managed time. Then some other genius down the line determined that if an employee is kept overbooked that they wouldn't be able to use their managed time at all. Then some even geinuser genius determined that if they capped out how much vacation time you could bank, they could write all the unused time off that didn't roll over from the previous year. Add to that the culture that you take time off at risk to your job, and you have an unhealthy stew cooking! ",
"use it and dump it. Health of the worker is no issue when you have big supply of workers. Murican way; the human way",
"I don't get paid vacation or sick time. The only paid days off I get are big holidays (Thanksgiving, Christmas and the like).\n\nIt is like this because employers are generally cheap fucks who will do whatever they can to save some dough and politicians are useless toadies eager to gobble corporate cock in exchange for campaign contributions.\n\nTL; DR - Because no one who has the power to make the change gives a flaming fuck.",
"Made a throwaway because honestly I think this will get downvoted and be unpopular.\n\n\nI'm a small business owner, that was raised in a family of small-to-medium business owners, so I can give you some perspective from the other side. I welcome any economists who could lay out the theory for all this, but this is all stuff I've just learned informally from me, my parents and grand parents running companies. \n\n\nMost people look at their salary and think that's what they cost the company, which is wrong. Here's the formula:\n\n\n > total employee cost = salary + taxes + workers comp^1 + benefits + equipment costs\n\n > benefits = health insurance^2 + retirement plans + etc\n\n\nSo, now how much can the company be expected to make off of the employee? At the end of the day a company needs to turn a profit if it wants to stay in business. \n\n\n > Employee value in a year = value of work done in a day * (number of days worked in a year) - total employee cost\n\n\n\"value of work done in a day\" is really vague and depending on the type of work, it might be really hard to pin down. However, if you want to stay in business, that \"value\" per day better be able to cover the employee's weekly cost + overhead (property, utilities, and other fixed costs) So we get the rule that\n\n > value of work done in a day > employee cost for that day + (fixed operating expenses per day/number of value generating employees)\n\nAlso keep in mind that none of this hand-wavy math accounts for the costs of finding replacement workers while someone is on vacation which, again depending on industry and size of company, can be a very significant cost. \n\nOk so what does this all mean? It means when you're negotiating salary that paid vacation is **more** expensive to increase than salary. More paid vacation decreases \"number of days worked in a year\" and therefore \"Employee value in a year\" while the total employee cost has stayed the same. \n\nHere's an example with some rough back-of-the-envelope numbers: Let's say you get paid 25 dollars an hour with a decent benefits package. That means that your total hourly cost is actually somewhere around $30/hr. Let's say the value you provide is worth an average of around $50/hr (Remember the boss isn't just pocketing that extra $20/hr. It goes towards fixed costs like rent, advertising, corporate taxes, book keeping, I.T., etc). So that means that a 2 week paid vacation costs the company **at least** around $4000 in lost value *plus* 30 x 80 = 2400 in wages that he *still* has to pay you. So the company is looking to lose around $6500 for a standard 2 week vacation.\n\nSo if a potential employee that I really want to hire comes in and demands $25/hr (52k/year salary) and 4 weeks vacation, I'm staring down a yearly loss of $13,000 in vacation time. If I offer them 55k/year ($26.5/hr) and 2 weeks vacation (so only losing $6560 yearly) **9 times out of 10** they will take it and I've saved about $3000/year.\n\n**TL;DR** Most Americans, as a cultural norm, would rather take more money instead of more leave.\n\n^1 This varies wildly with industry. Desk jobs it's negligible, a construction worker it could be thousands of dollars a year.\n\n^2 Note for anyone from Europe. remember that Americans have to pay for health insurance, the price is usually hundreds of dollars a month and it's usually included as a job perk. And yes, As a small business owner I would love a single payer healthcare solution so that I could stop worrying about it.\n\n",
"Yank here- most Americans with salaried positions get two weeks paid vacation to start (not including holidays)- that's kind of standard. The longer you stay at a company you can \"earn\" more vacation time. For example I've been with my company for ten years. I have three weeks paid vacation plus ten paid holidays ",
"I think a lot of people in the younger generations in America, as well as the older, are realizing that there's more to the American dream than working for success, it's about how fully you live life and the legacy you leave. This is a fairly new concept post 1950s America.\n\nIt's the beginning, but there are some chinks in the armor of the american work-industrial complex. Most newer businesses, traditional and new-tech, are building in awesome benefits packages: unlimited vacation days, paid vacations, charitable giving matches, free gym memberships, free beer in the office, and a bunch of other really person-centric options.\n\nHave to put it out there as a semi-younger (late twenties/early thirties) American, this is one of driving factors in the entrepreneurial boom in our generation, at least in my opinion. Besides the typical factors of business opportunity, natural business instincts, etc. A lot of my friends and business acquaintances, even if not for their main job, have tried to start little side gigs for extra money and to explore making that a full-time gig. They want to live a more comfortable life, doing things on their time. \n\nI have quite a few friends who were very accomplished in school (a few law school grads) who have chosen to completely abandon their profession and work on a ranch in Wyoming or somewhere else in the west. All because they want to explore what life has to offer and they feel like the working world is just a trap that you cannot escape. I sat down and talked with one of these guys at a reunion once, and his take on life and his bright and positive energy and attitude were really obvious. ",
"American employees are more attracted to higher pay than they are to extra vacation. American employers have responded to market demands accordingly. ",
"Even when you get vacation time, I have heard from more than one employer \"If we can do without you for two weeks, we don't need you at all.\"",
"In my company employees get the following.\n6 holidays paid\n6 personal days paid\n1-3 weeks vacation depending on time worked. ",
"Over the past few years, Americans have left countless hours of paid vacation on the table and opted to not take a vacation out of fear that they will look less committed to the company or that it will be discovered that they aren't needed. \n\nThe fear of work piling up while away is also enough for American workers to skip out on allotted vacation time as well.\n\nOther countries have realized that workers *need* time to relax and reset. America has not. \n\nOverall productivity will decrease as the workers don't get the respite they need. ",
"Because American employees accept employment offers with shitty benefits. There is nothing forcing employers to offer certain benefits. As a federal employee, knowing what my benefits are, I would never accept an employment offer that doesn't at least match what I currently have. If Americans want better benefits, they have to start saying no to shitty offers. Employers will then have to offer better benefits in order to compete for better employees.",
"great question! I wish the system here would be like Australia.. They are so lenient about vacation time.. A friend of mine got 3 months off and another 6 months!!!!!!!!",
"Aside from the obvious companies want to save money by not giving paid vacation, it's a cultural thing, as far as I can tell. I know a lot of people who never use their vacation days. From early school days until college, everything has a set time with scheduled breaks. You take breaks when the schedule says you take breaks. Then when you get to a work environment, it just doesn't occur to some people that they have vacation days for a reason. They are there to be used!",
"Whats a paid vacation?",
"The issue in the US is that it varies hugely depending on your job. I get 5-6 weeks off paid (not including national holidays). It can feel hard to take it sometimes, but that's more coming internally than from the company. My friends mostly get 4-5 weeks paid in their jobs, but we have a couple folks, especially when just starting somewhere new, that only get 10 days. Even for places where you can get 5-6 weeks, you usually have to work up to it (at mine, you start with 4 weeks and go up an extra week every 2 years or so, capping at 6-7 weeks).\n\nThe problem is that there's no \"standard\" amount, so you get huge variations between industries, levels, etc.",
"Hourly positions get basically no time off, if any. If you need to take a personal day or sick day, you don't get paid. \n\nAs salaried, I currently get 10 paid vacation days. 5 days are reserved for sick days, and they badger me about what I was sick with, trying to see if it was legitimate for me to stay home. \n\nWhen making plans for projects, they assume you will take no vacation time off during, so daily goals need be met. But because we're such a small company and there's basically no redundancy, if I show up every day I do 100% of the work on the projects I have. Then, if I take a day off, I have to make up that 100% over the next day or few days. Sometimes staying late to do so. Which means taking a vacation day is basically saying \"I don't want to come into work today, but I still will do every bit of work I would have done anyway.\"",
"Damn I only get 9 days a year paid vacation lol. And that's only after accumulating hours every month! ",
"Because freedom and democracy, baby. Days off are for lazy communists. Reaching the american dream $8.25 ph (- taxes) at the time.\n\nGod bless America\n\n- Kevin Harris",
"Typical american salary worker here. When I started I got 2 weeks paid, after 5 years working here I got 3 weeks. I've been here 6 years now, in 4 years I will have 4 weeks and that is the maximum. TIL most countries start with the amount of vacation time I have to work 15 years for, feels bad man. ",
"There's no legal minimum vacation days required for your employer to give you, and for some reason in the US even if you have vacation or sick days people admire you for refusing to take any time off. It's almost like a competition, who can work the most with the fewest days off. I don't understand it but that's the way it is.",
"MFW I get 43 paid vacation days a year.\n\n:O\n\nProud to be British",
"Look into FDR's Second Bill of Rights. Imagine how unbelievably different our country would be today. ",
"Because the US was behind the UK during the industrial revolution.\n\nWhy do I say that?\n\n*The US had less laborers which means less potential unions\n\n*The US had ends justify the means motives, but the UK had a much stronger sense of this, due to colonial rulings, and so the UK didn't care about workers rights until someone spoke up about it and started strikes\n\n*The US had better conditions (slightly) than the UK, leading to slightly less agitiation for workers' rights\n\n*The US had a stronger nationalistic bond between citizens, so workers had stronger viewpoints that getting lower pay meant helping out the economy (really just factory owners). Someone can expand on this",
"In the U.S. and I have unlimited vacation days. Of course, there is really no such thing as \"unlimited\" but I don't have an actual limit on the number of days that I can take.",
"The company I work for only allows 10 total paid days off for the first year (5 for vacation, a few for sick, etc.). Another first-year rule that ISN'T mentioned in the contract is that you only earn those vacation days one at a time every two months. It's pretty ridiculous. Apparently they don't want people to take all of their vacation and quit after a month. It was a bit discouraging to find out about, and I'm pretty sure implementing a policy that isn't included in the contract may be illegal, but I just need a job, so hey, I stick with it.",
"Given that I and most other people I work with do maybe 20 hours of actual productive work in any given week and our particular location is bringing in record high numbers for our (international) company, it seems plausible that we could have a month of paid vacation, a decent raise, *and* a four day work week and probably end up even more productive than we are now. ",
"Note: people out of the country, take these responses with a grain of salt. People who use reddit largely have good jobs and are reporting better working conditions than your average joe really gets.\n\nOften, vacation time exists for full time employees. It is unicorn rare for a part time worker to get vacation or sick time. \n\nI've been in the workforce for 10 years, worked over 20 jobs, and have only been offered one full time position in that entire time. For people without a college degree full time jobs just don't seem to exist. I have never been on a vacation.",
"American culture is heavily influenced by the concept of the Protestant work ethic.",
"Most jobs that people who are at least middle class are employed in do have paid vacation days, and a lot of Americans think that if you're working at say, McDonald's, it's your fault you're working at a shitty job and thus don't deserve paid vacations.",
"This is changing in the US BTW. Many companies, esp in silicon valley, are starting to offer unlimited vacation days. Vacation days must still be requested and approved, but there is no cap and no accrual. This actually benefits the company in several ways, one being that they no longer have a per-employee 'vacation balance' liability on the books any more.",
"It's almost like a badge of honor to some people to not take vacation time at all. One attorney I worked with bragged that he hasn't gone on vacation in 10 years. He was proud of it! And, unfortunately, he was my supervisor. Try asking him for 2 weeks off....haha.",
"I got in a head on collision on a friday. totaled my car, got whiplash and a concussion... Was back in work on Monday. And I have to fight and bargain with my employer to get time off for doctors appointments to address medical issues I've developed since the accident.",
"As someone who's about to graduate college and enter the American job market, this thread is extremely depressing. ",
"I don't live in the US, but I read an article once that basically said that people don't take much vacations anyway to not seem lazy infront of others.",
"While I realize I'm an outlier in the US, I get the same as you: 28 days. ",
"Its not universal here- meaning, not at all levels. An entry level McJob or Retail position may carry no paid vacation at all. Skilled labor (even those outside of Unions) may have much much more. Executive or directorial, it would be very uncommon for less than 3-4 weeks of paid vacation a year, and sometimes more so.\n\nI was original going to go on a diatribe about entry level employees feeling entitled and not working as hard to get to the level of the 28 days or above OP discusses in the UK, but that would be a broad generalization. The truth is there are many that bounce around entry level jobs and do not get more than 1-2 weeks a year; but as many have said before, there is no government mandate about how much time must be given to every employee annually.",
"I hate that we only get two weeks of vacation. I think it is ridiculous. I dont know why our labor laws allow this and why we aren't fighting for more (like in Europe).",
"Where i work, we get 10 paid holidays, 10 vacation days, and 5 sick days, but like many others have said, using your vacation time can be very tricky. It is very unlikely for an employee to take a full week off from work because its simply not possible, there is most likely going to be shit you need to be doing during that week off, you can't just leave. Its a catch 22 ",
"Capitalism. If you're on vacation, you can't produce. Therefore companies try and provide only what's been seen as the norm, or average So the employees don't get too upset.\n\nSlowly though, that norm is being shrunk around the country slowly, along with pay. You produce more revenue for the company by not taking a vacation because a) it wasn't provided or b) you can't afford the time.\n\nWork more for less so a corporation can make a % more for investors that quarter/year.",
"Don't worry, when minimum wage is increased, the entire country is going to fall into ruin, and we will not have jobs to give us vacation time.... Or so the Facebook tells me...",
"At my current job in the US, as a programmer, I currently get 10 days off + 9 federal holidays + 2 half days, all with pay. Sick days are however much you need, but only if you're sick (if you want more vacation days, you ask, but they won't be paid. \n \nAt my last job, we got 15 total days off with pay, but a few days were chosen for you.",
"I've been working for a large company in the US for 3 years, and last year got a combined total of 40 hours of vacation and personal time. Vacation had to be used in a certain amount of time, personal rolled over, but you could use personal for days you miss being sick, whereas vacation you had to request a day off and they weren't required to give you that day. I had my wisdom teeth out a couple weeks ago, and to avoid missing out on pay or have to obtain a doctor's note (which didn't necessarily excuse the absences), I asked could i request time off with my personal time. The woman I talked to (she is our HR person), passive aggressively told me, \"If you want to play the system that way, sure.\"\n\nI'm not playing the system, if I have personal time to use, and my situation allows me to use it, I should be able to use it no problem. I hate that woman, and not just for this occurrence.",
"Because they can. Like health care, vacation time is seen by many companies as a perk to attract employees. Nothing more. If they thought they could get away with it, they would offer no vacation time and have you in on weekends. \n\nTwo weeks is the begrudging standard and any vacation time you accrue is painfully accepted as the cost of keeping a long term employee from jumping ship. \n\nOf course there are a few enlightened notable exceptions but they are rare. \n\n_URL_0_\n\n",
"you don't just accidentally find your way to the top of the world's GDP list.",
"You want something rage inducing? I'm a full time gymnastics coach. I get 1 week off every year, and it HAS to be in the middle of August because that is when our entire facility is closed. ",
"I'd like to remind some of the people commenting here (particularly from the US) that the 28 days mentioned in the UK is the absolute bare legal minimum that companies can give - 20 days vacation plus the 8 public holidays per year. This is the equivalent in the US of people getting 0-5 days off.\n\nHigher amounts are not uncommon. For professionals, 20+8 is seen as miserly, 25+8 is seen as reasonable. 30+8 is not uncommon. Some unionised positions, such as some tube drivers or workers, have over 50 days paid holiday a year (I don't know whether than includes public holidays).\n",
"How do companies in other countries get anything done? Are we in America just that inefficient?",
"Employer here: I think I pay my people a decent wage (software developers and support staff, all in early to mid-twenties, community where 1/BR apt is $650/m) where the lowest paid employee is making $850 a week salary. Everyone has a flex work schedule, some abuse it but most don't, and I encourage long weekends and trips, with at least two weeks PTO. Yet what I find is every one of them lives beyond their means and struggle between pay checks, so therefore none of them choose to take a vacation. Those that choose to take their PTO typically stay home because they're broke. Last year I ended up paying 50% of my staff their PTO along with their Christmas bonus. I've had a number of discussions with individual staff members and what I've found is that most of them associate \"vacation\" with the whirlwind trip to Disney their parents forced upon them that had every moment planned and was 0% relaxing. They really have no idea what a vacation is supposed to be so therefore see no value in planning for one. \n\nFrankly for the past 5 years I've taken less and less vacation time myself and I'm beginning to think it has a lot to do with the feeling of guilt I get because the people I live with day in and day out are not doing the same. Maybe I should institute Forced PTO on them so I can get a break?\n\nSummation: People live beyond their means and see no value in vacation",
"I have an hourly job in Pennsylvania. I work 40+ hours a week. I fight to be paid overtime. I get 5 vacation days per year, and 2 \"personal days\". Oh and 1 sick day. ",
"In the federal govt we get x hours per paycheck. (Depending on how many years in you have) We can carry over 240 hours into the next year. Anything over we have to use. Some people use up a month of paid leave at the end of the year. Us federal employees get taken care of",
"At the same time in the UK you pay $10 a gallon for gas. I find that just as crazy.",
"People get vacation time? ",
"Funny how our country preaches freedom yet we are worked to the bone with horrible pay and little to no vacation time. I certainly don't feel very \"free\". I'm constantly stressed on how to make ends meet and I'm worked to death with almost no vacation.\n\nCollege was SO worth it. Those loans will pay off in the end....",
"The simple answer is Greed. That's basically what everyother answer is going to boil down to.",
"Academic researcher here. This is why I decided against going to the USA for work even though everyone said it was a great way to improve career prospects. Postdocs are encouraged (read \"pressured\") into working > 12 hours a day, 7 days a week. If you want to fly back to Europe to see family/friends, good luck. People have been known to save up 2 years' worth of holidays to take one single decent break to go home.\n\nStayed in the UK, I get a total of 40 days off per year (holidays + bank holidays). Much happier.\n\nJust depends whether you want to live to work, or work to live.",
"I know an Irish guy who got a job in the US. After a few months he went to his boss and asked if he could add an unpaid week to his holidays because he was flying home. Only to be told that all holidays are unpaid!",
"You've opened a can of worms, OP. If you'd like to see a similar show, I recommend asking about parental leave in the US. ",
"top comment from last time:\n\n_URL_0_\n\n > Because we fucking spend the most money. 90% of the answers in here are grade A bullshit by people in their 20s who don't understand a damn thing about the American economy.\nWe spend far more money than any other nation and we spend a fuck load on luxury items. We spend huge amounts of money on entertainment like video games, movies and music. We spend huge amounts on tech toys like smart phones, TVs, and sound systems. We spend 30% more per capita on toys than the next highest nation. We spend massive amounts on bigger and better homes. Find a category of consumer spending and the US will probably be at or near the top.\nWhy do Americans work so long? To spend more.",
"You know, the dirty little secret though is that most people wouldn't know what to do with more vacation time. \n\nI mean, 8 weeks a year sounds GREAT in theory, but what are you actually going to DO with all that time? Not to mention the fact that a large percentage of people in America aren't financially secure enough to afford to do anything but sit around the house for 6 or 7 of those 8 weeks anyway... I mean, when I take a week off, I can't afford a European vacation like I'd like to, or even a cross-country drive... so I wind up taking the family to an amusement park for a day, maybe two, maybe drive to a neighboring state to hit some museums or something, but by day 4 or so I'm pretty much ready to go back to work. I'm all caught up on my Netflix queue, I've done some work around the house, but before long I'm bored, primarily because I can't afford to NOT be bored essentially.\n\nSo I don't know... the 4 weeks a year I have right now isn't as bad as it seems if you have more. I'm not sure I 'd want much more, and I know a lot of people that feel basically the same way.",
"Cuz we're all terrified of losing our jobs and health insurance.",
"Because in America taking time off still makes you a dirty communist, apparently.",
"I get 3 days of paid vacation a year. I've been with this company 3 fucken years. ",
"It depends on where you work and who you are working for.\n\nYou will hear many horror stories on reddit but it simply isn't the norm.\n\nI have worked several jobs, a majority had one week vacation plus 2-3 sick days (and also holidays) paid once you hit a 60 or 90 day on job tally. Others double that and all have had either a rollover/accumulation policy or added to your total for each year you work (up to a ceiling) it is truly not as bad in America as people like you to think it is. I truly do not know one single person (personally) that does not have paid vacation/sick time.\n\nMost of the replies saying \"I get no time off\" are either just flat out lying or they are working part time or other minimum wage \"replaceable\" jobs. And I honestly do not think a minimum wage burger flipper job should be the baseline when we discuss these things.\n\nIs it fair that Johnny who has no education and cannot really hold a meaningful (non managerial) job other than McDonalds gets only 30 hours a week and no vacation time (he does actually) No, not if you think of it in \"oh the humanity\" terms, but if you think of it as what someone is contributing then it sort of does. It's not completely \"fair\" but we (Americans) generally do not go through life thinking that is a good career choice. And I am betting you do not either.\n\nThat's not really what we should be talking about, it just what people are referencing when talking about this issue. I would bet most people on reddit actually have vacation, sick days and holidays they just want to participate in the hate America train.",
"because freedom. and shut up and get back to work.",
"Give them time. The US is still only young. The rest of us have had thousands of years to get things like this right.",
"Because in most civilized countries, people work to live. In the United States, people now live to work.",
"I feel it is a relic of agrarian society. Farmers and ranchers do not get \"time off\" or vacations. They work hard every day and, maybe, take a Sunday off to be with their family. Such a large part of our society was built on this work ethic that the concept that we don't need to work that hard to survive is difficult for us. Some employers take advantage of that mentality.\n\nOne thing that can be said for the U.S. workers we certainly know how to produce (and consume).",
"People get paid vacations? I've never had a paid vacation in the United States.",
"I get slightly over 30 days paid in the US.\n\nIt's considered a benefit to attract and retain talented employees in addition to compensation. This also applies to things like health insurance. \n\nIt's not mandatory mostly because many feel it's not the right of the government to dictate personal contracts and compensation.\n\nCompanies who don't offer these things are free to do so but suffer the consequences of having an inferior work force and probably higher turn over.",
"\"Small amounts of paid sick time\"... HA!\n\nI get NO paid sick time... And i don't qualify for ANY vacation days until I hit one full year at my job (at which point i get just under 5 days of vacation)..\n\nVacation days are the only days you get paid for taking leave where i work. \n\nIf i call in sick, there are only 6 other employee's; only two of which are capable of taking my shift. And neither are known for answering their phone. (Which means 9/10 times, I'd have to go in anyhow). \n\n\nAnd i'm not alone, I'd take a fair guess that \"most\" of the US are in the same situation as me, or at least something fairly similar. ",
"Because it's not mandated and employees are willing to bend over backwards rather than stand up for themselves.",
"Hi from France I get 40 days off paid by my company, come to France guys u won't regret it, plus we have croissant ",
"There is a quote attributed to Steinbeck that I love, and I think answers this question well. \"Socialism never took root in America because Americans see themselves not as an exploited proletariat, but as temporarily embarrassed millionaires.\"",
"I need to move to Europe. :( 8 years in a mid level job at a large company and I only get 10 paid days off a year :( ",
"Keep in mind while generally time off isn't nearly as generous as most of the developed world, this isn't true from the top down. Many, if not most professionals I know have at least 20 days of paid time off in addition to sick leave. \nI'm not saying this to excuse our laws as I wholeheartedly disagree with the way vacation time and sick leave are treated in America, I just wanted to put things into perspective. This applies to a variety of things America is seen as lagging behind in. Education and healthcare in particular. It's easy to look at the U.S. as this monolithic culture but the reality is much more nuanced. ",
"Really? Are you that naive? Greed dude, greed. Ever wonder why the U.S. does the stupid shit it does, money! Every time.",
"Because our legislators don't care about us at all.",
"I work in the US and I get more paid days off than you do. I likely also get a higher wage than you do (in my industry the pay is high in the US). The reason this happens is simple economics, people are willing to do the same work in lower end jobs for less money, less time off, etc. In industries that the employees are rare / worth more we get paid more, get better vacations, etc. For instance, I get 4 paid weeks off, all the vacation holidays including some ones most don't get off (MLK, Good Friday, etc), 2 additional personal days for anything, float days for time I work over, etc. I doubt that 90% of people on here that state they haven't gotten more than 1 week off haven't negotiated for a job, have a lower job in a service industry, or prefer to work more for additional pay.",
"I do working vacations sometimes and one thing I do is security,I earned $9 an hour way back in 2000.Today I look in caljobs and craigslist and what do i see.security paying the same $9 an hour I did 14 years ago.minimum wage means employers make huge profits.Also you have no paid days off if you earn less than say $15 hr.But the great thing is I get $11.75 in Germany doing the same security work.",
"Because American capitalists prefer there workers downtrodden and exhausted. (Source: am American worker.)",
"Don't forget that the US has a large prison population that labors for pennies on the dollar. Also, there's a cute little accounting trick where vacation is viewed as debt, so if there's a shortfall, the company can order people to take their vacation. Of course, the work still has to get done and you're still getting texted for that deadline while you're sitting at home with the sudden unplanned vacation. The management will also figure out how to do it so that you can't collect unemployment, because, hell, we all know it's a one week layoff. When your time off is also your sick time, this results in people not getting paid during flu season.",
"I will tell you why this is the case. In the United States there is a race going on. It is extremely prevalent in 99.9% of the job market. Currently, it is a race to see who will do the most work, for the absolute lowest possible wage/benefit packages there is. This race has been ongoing for the last 20 years or so, and there is no sign of it stopping...ever. American workers are so self-undervalued that people with 15+ years experience are being asked to take entry-level wages/benefits. \n\nThe race is long, and it will keep cycling around with no end in sight. Those who run the race don't realize that even if they win the race, everyone still loses.\n\n",
"What's a \"vacation\"?",
"Because what is the point of paying someone for not working? People are paid to work, not to vacation. I understand the need for vacation time, and I fully agree that we need more in this country, but paid vacation takes away from people being paid to work and from the money the company has to employ. This comes from being raised in family where my father runs a small business.",
"I work full time in the US for a company that is based out of Europe. I start with a total of 24 paid days off right at hire. I think there's a definite difference between full time jobs and part time jobs here. Most full time real jobs give fine paid time off. Part time crap jobs are usually not very lenient, but they only have to work 20 hours a week or whatever, so it's not like they need 28 paid days off.",
"As others have said, most people in America have a \"live to work\" mentality. \n\nGrowing up I was fed the idea that a man's purpose is to work, pay the bills, and that's pretty much it. \n\nI still deal with it today, as it's a big point of contention between me and my girlfriend. She is all about work, if she ever misses just one day she'll get massive anxiety over it. \n\nI on the other hand, consider work more of a burden and strictly a means to an end. I'll mention to her how the 40 hour work week is damaging to my health and happiness, and she'll look down on me for my poor work ethic, going as far as to call it my \"fatal flaw\". I'll tell her how miserable it makes me and she says, \"everyone is miserable, that's just the way it is\".\n\nI'd say her opinions match up with the majority. We accept misery and waste away our lives for the almighty dollar and believe it to be admirable.\n\n\n",
"I'm surprised no one has mentioned that we (Americans) are generally terrible at negotiating benefits and salary. I imagine a large chunk of the population would feel awkward in attempting to do so and even those that do, the negotiation frequently last less than 5 minutes. I've really only negotiated for around ~20% of the jobs I've had with this one included (which netted me a 7% boost in pay, forgot about PTO though!). That being said, certain industries are far more prone to issues with paid time off and may severely limit their negotiating capacity. As many have pointed out, the service industry is one of them, retail is often another. Economics plays into this question alot too. When your skills are \"a dime a dozen\" and you are easily replaceable, the owners will never feel obligated to give you paid time off. Being in IT, I've been able to negotiate more PTO days and better salary. ",
"Because they can. Because non-unionized workers have very little protection and employers can walk all over them. ",
"Social stigma, taking time off makes you poor and lazy and a total pussy. ",
"Americans live to work. Europeans work to live.",
"The simple \"why,\" as others have pointed out, is that there's no law specifying minimum vacation time. But presumably you want to go deeper than that.\n\nI think the reason is that, for better and for worse, Americans (both conservative and liberal) have a strong streak of what I'll call libertarianism, for lack of a better term. Of course it varies from person to person, but overall, we tend to dislike regulation, bureaucracy, and red tape more than most other nations, and value more the ability to do what we want without restraint. There are a lot of related concepts tied up together here -- e.g., we fall far closer to pure capitalism than pure socialism because the underlying assumption is that if everyone is pretty much allowed to do what they want, the free market will find the proper balance. In terms of the psychological concepts of Individualism vs Collectivism, [we are consistently considered one of the most (if not THE most) individualist cultures](_URL_0_).\n\nThe negative way to view this is with the typical redneck 'Murica \"FREEDOM!\" stereotype, and it's true that there are plenty of downsides to this mindset -- but there are many upsides as well. (I don't want the following to come across as jingoism -- we certainly have plenty of issues of our own. But everyone else's comments have already covered those.)\n\nTo start: No other nation that is anywhere as large as we are (300+million population) is anywhere near as wealthy -- Japan is probably the only other nation with > 100 million population that qualifies for first-world status. And Japan is, culturally and racially, not very diverse; if you look at the wealthiest countries in the world with the highest standard of living (e.g., Scandinavia), they tend to be relatively small in population, without much diversity (and/or their wealth comes directly from oil money, as in the Middle East -- that's more of a geographical quirk). The USA is a clear outlier in being so large, so diverse, and still so comparatively wealthy.\n\nAmericans do, in general, tend to work a lot -- but this prosperity doesn't just come from working more. In fact, [we are ranked third](_URL_1_) in productivity per hour worked -- after Norway and Luxembourg, which are both much smaller and more culturally homogeneous. Presumably, much of this productivity benefit comes from our love of individual liberty and comparatively lower burden of bureaucracy. I have never seen a statistical index of different countries' \"red tape burden,\" but I've worked both in the States and abroad, and had contact with people from all over -- and as much as we hate the bureaucracy we do have to deal with in the USA, as far as I can tell, it's even worse everywhere else. I think this has the largest benefit in fields where people of extremely high talent need to be able to work relatively unfettered to achieve great things -- fields like scientific research, the tech industry, and arts/entertainment.\n\nThe USA is a world leader in all of these fields, which makes it desirable for top talent to come here -- which can help to perpetuate our status at/near the top of the heap in those areas, and contributes to \"brain drain\" problems elsewhere. I'm an academic so that's the area I know best -- but for example, consider [this graphic](_URL_2_) of migration patterns of scientists. On one end of the spectrum, almost all the talent in places like India migrates OUT, whereas almost nobody migrates out of the USA but many researchers migrate IN. Yes, countries like Switzerland have higher rates of immigrant researchers -- but note that 1) they also have much higher rates of people migrating OUT, particularly to the USA, and 2) that chart represents percentages rather than raw population -- so given that Switzerland's total population is less than 5% of the USA's, we are talking about many, many more total immigrant researchers in the USA than any other nation on the list.\n\nIn the broader historical sense, I think this is roughly how we ended up in this situation to start with. Native Americans and African slaves notwithstanding (both of which obviously got the raw end of the deal), most Americans are descended from immigrants who were unsatisfied with their lives elsewhere and sought greater opportunity in the New World. Americans were, and are, driven by a frontier spirit -- forsaking the old ways, exploring new lands and new ways of living -- willing to risk everything for a chance at the potential benefits afforded by claiming a chunk of that frontier territory for yourself, in a place where the old rules don't apply. Our ancestors were the ones who would rather run out into the wilderness with nothing but a rifle and the clothes on their backs, than stay back in the Old Country and eke out a safe but meager existence. Of course all the land is now long-since claimed, but that attitude is still firm in our cultural DNA (and maybe our literal DNA -- those were our ancestors, after all). Presumably many other people back home were in the same situation, but chose to play it safer -- whereas modern Americans are the descendants of whatever high-risk, high-reward types actually managed to survive.\n\nTL; DR Americans now, and always, have liked to work without a net. We want the liberty to achieve whatever we're capable of, so have fewer regulations and tend to take bigger risks. There's a bureaucratic cost associated with protecting the unfortunate members of society -- it helps those people but also adds restraints to those who are luckier and/or more talented, so social protections tend to drag everyone a bit closer to the middle. Every society finds the balance it can live with -- but due to the fact that the USA was largely founded by a bunch of crazy, starry-eyed mavericks, our values tend to fall on the far end towards individualism, capitalism, and self-reliance versus collectivism, socialism, and governmental protection. This can have a great economic benefit on the whole, and a TREMENDOUS benefit for the exceptionally talented -- but of course it comes at great cost to many folks on the lower rungs of the economic ladder as well.",
"On the flip side my company is currently considering laying off all our employees in France simply because the PTO requirements are so high.",
"Because this country is a fucking shit hole full of even worse people ",
"Because 'vacation time' interferes with 'making money' time. American culture isn't directed toward living a healthy balanced life. It's everything you hear in rap songs literally \"money over everything\". Including your health, sanity, feelings, and opinions. It's 'get your ass to work at 7 a.m. or you're a lazy POS who can't handle it and you can't sit with us.' And there's not really a lot of in-between.",
"Americans are bred to distrust the government to the point where our government remains relatively powerless. Which is a good thing, until the real power in America, corporate power, becomes abusive. Empowering the government just enough to do something about it pretty much exemplifies 90% of American politics. ",
"Because they can. It's a short answer, but it's the only answer. Nothing obligates employers to off paid time off. ",
"Because we Americans by into the idea of working for our masters as a virtue rather than working for ourselves. Big \"individualist\" society that we are. Equally as hopeless as the slaves that died building pyramids for what they saw as divinity. We worship wealth and the wealthy more than anything. Everything else we spew are shallow platutudes.",
"Americans substitute ego gratification for quality of life. It therefore seems that vacations are time taken away from accumulating power, and as such are counterproductive. ",
"American companies used to give great vacation. My father started with 6weeks and would have gone to 13. It was a very large and old steel company. Guess what, because of cheap imports subsidized by governments, his company went bankrupt. American companies had to cut everything to stay competitive. Thanks NAFTA",
"In Mexico it is just 6 days the first year, and it never goes beyond 14 by law. A lot of companies give more, but just the big ones.",
"This is one reason for unions, bring on the hate. American workers have zero bargaining power on their own, as evident by the pitiful vacation allotments being displayed in this thread. My last union job started you at 4 weeks+ and then went up to almost 8 weeks, not including sick time. The pay was also higher on average, starting around 20/hr and going up to 35/hr plus time and a half over 40 and double time after 50. Plus free medical insurance, and free vision, and free dental, and free life insurance. All you needed was a high school diploma, then to pass some tests. Not anything spectacular by any stretch but better than many. Everyone was guaranteed these things. The argument is that the guys more capable are brought down by those less so, but as you can see from this thread, you are hard pressed to find such conditions in America to begin with. I know people with serious education and credentials who would kill for those things. But, unions are evil and take all your money they say. I didn't even have to join the union but even if I did it was only 1 hours pay every 2 weeks, big deal. I did join btw, but I know plenty who didn't. Oh, and also, this same company created an identical job only non unionized. Starting pay was 9/hr and max pay was 17/hr, less vacation, had to pay for medical and the rest. The techs then banned together to unionize and their max pay went to 22/hr and min 14/hr. They also got the same vacation and similar insurance. This was their first contact though so of course they were not gonna be as cushy as the established techs. Anecdotal I know, but this issue is one of the key reasons for unions. We don't have the laws in place like Europe that protect workers. 2 weeks vacation is standard and only after you have been there a while. Pathetic I agree.",
"I just started working for the Texas state government. I get 12 vacation days per year, 12 sick days per year, and 17 national/state holidays. Also, I get health insurance and I don't have to pay a monthly premium. This saves me thousands each year. Sure, the pay is low. But it's enough to live comfortably and the quality of life is not too shabby.",
"TL;DR: Greed.\n\nEdit: Fuck all of your 2000 word essays. GREED",
"Salaries are lower when there's mandatory paid leave. There's no such thing as a free lunch. Why do so few people understand that? ",
"The way it is in Arizona at least, is most minimum wage jobs will not give you sock or vacation time. Where I last worked, we were on a point system. Everybody got 8 points. If you called out, it was one point. If you were late, it was a half point. If you no call/no show, it was 4. To add to this, the entertainment place in which I worked could deem any day a \"high volume business day\" and if you had any issues, the points you got were doubled. Every Saturday and Sunday was a HVB day. You could get fired for being sick. This is also the same establishment where I was told to work an 18 hour shift (8am to 2am the next day) and given two 10 minute breaks. Arizona's labor laws are disgusting, especially considering that they could not and will not get in trouble for treating us like that.\n",
"The question could be re-framed asking why UK employers give so much time off when their economy is already so much weaker than the US. \n\nThe answer to both is the same. Cultural differences. ",
"Why should an employer be forced to pay someone to take a month off?",
"usually time off is scaled with the amount of time you have worked for a company. I started with 2 weeks and 3 personal days and with less than 20 years I have four weeks and will get 5 at 20.\n\nFrankly I see nothing wrong with this.",
"I've worked for a wide variety of places, and vacation time is seen as a \"benifit\", not a right. As such you'll see a wide variety in company policies determining how much time you get and when/how you can use it. \n \n**Burger King** for example didn't give any. Then again, I was flipping burgers. \n \n**Sprint (telephone company)** gave roughly 2 weeks paid per year, but I had to ask for permission to use it. This was a job that didn't require a college degree, but required 2 weeks of training before jumping on the soul sucking job of telephone customer service. The company wanted to make you miserable, but not so miserable that you'd quit (because they hate having to train new souls). \n \n**NASA** was where things completely changed. I had roughly 1 week sick leave, and 3 weeks of vacation. I could use them whenever, and I didn't even have to give a reason, just a simply \"I'm not coming in today\". \n \nI now work for a place that gives 3 weeks vacation start, after 3 years it goes to 4 weeks, and after 5 years it goes to 6 weeks. We can use the time whenever, for whatever reason or we can just add the time to our current hours and get extra cash in our paycheck. \n \nSo really, it's a mixed bag... but the rule of thumb is the harder your job is to fill, the better your \"benifits\" are going to be.",
"For the answer, look no further than this Cadillac commercial.\n\n_URL_0_\n\nThe Amercian Dream is as powerful a motivator as anything.",
"Maybe it has something to do with the U.S economy rebounding following th crash in 08 and Europe floundering.",
"I'm from a nordic country, working on a basic factory job that does require a 3 year degree (or a lot of previous work experience). We get ~28 paid yearly vacation + 2 weeks of paid winter vacation and 9 days of \"equalisation\" days because of we work longer days. There is also around 20 religious and other holidays that are paid (i think we have few extra ones like the day after new years eve)\nWe also get extra money on our yearly vacation that can be changed into vacation days. \n\nI think any less would result in more sick leaves, that are also a lot more expensive for the companies. ",
"28 days? My PTO is measured in hours",
"Corporate-owned media has very effectively convinced the 'Murican public that 1) \"vacation\" means going to the Bahamas on a yacht, 2) if it's a law, then the government must be sending welfare cheats to the Bahamas on yachts, and 3) making a business do anything for their employees is socialism communism fascism despotism.",
"Everyone complaining about vacation days being ridiculous in america. In my state (North Carolina) employers can fire you and give absolutely no reason what so ever. \n\nYou're puking at 3am and can't come in at 4am? Fired.\n\nYour wife went into labor and you're watching your child being born and can't make it to work? Fired.\n\nYour kid just died in a car crash and you can't make it to work? fired. \n\nI'm not saying these specific things happen often, hopefully they don't, ever. But my point is, it's perfectly legal and that's beyond fucked up.",
"Maximize profits. Everything that an american company can do to maximize profits they will do, as long as the law permits them to.",
"I get 15 days, which is pretty awesome for the US, but our corporate culture is such that no one ever goes on vacation. ever. So, if I want to take 3 weeks in the summer, I'll be tossed in to some crap project when I get back, until I prove to everyone that I'll never go on vacation again.",
"Because that's how you send a person to the moon.",
"As an American, I believe that our society is brainwashed into believing that hard work pays off. Sure, it CAN pay off if the opportunity comes around and we're taught to wait for it, pay your dues and let companies ravage through you until you can no longer keep up and then toss you aside waiting for the next willing beady-eyed acquisition. \n\nWhat you get is someone who is excited to get to learn, grow, and willing to throw their souls into the job because they feel they'll never get another opportunity like this again and hey, everyday is an opportunity(carpe diem, whatever you fancy). They're willing to work ludicrous hours and get no paid time off because your employer keeps telling you that you'll move up and you're doing such a great job. You get that 1-2 dollar raise a year and you're happy. You continue your grind until you realize you're no longer learning, getting paid a bit more each year while still being under the market value for your position and taking on no other responsibilities. You become demotivated only to find that there is an option: find a better job.\n\nYou search and search and finally find one that will give you the peace of mind that if you get sick, have doctor appointments, have emergencies, you can call in and not go bankrupt over it. You put in your 2 weeks notice and your boss looks at you like you just betrayed him because you're his most loyal employee. You start your new job and it's a breath of fresh air. You're motivated beyond belief and the happiness is literally pouring out of you. You work hard and get promoted and rise in the corporate ladder. You start thinking about how you can make a bit more money and decide that maybe management is where it's at. You take your management courses only to find out that you have to sell your soul again and you finally decide it's not worth it. You keep your job, accrue your vacation time, and live your life to the fullest, hoping that you really enjoy your job.",
"I get 2 days off a year. I work 7 days a week and we only close twice a year. Im our only day time driver. So i go in every single day. Every. Single. Day.",
"And right wing jimmies rustle in the soft breeze ever so gently. Nice thread OP.",
"\nYou can't just look at vacay really, overall comp is important. Most people would be willing to give up some portion of vacay for some amount of money. This needs to be weighted against cost of living as well and what's important to a given individual. \n\nI have worked at several companies with international presence, and got roughly equivalent vacay as my UK counterparts, but they had waaaaaayyyy higher cost of living. In fact I've been shown offers to go to London a few times and although it usually is a pay increase on dollar terms (given exchange rate if paid bps), but when you look at cost and quality of life, totally not worth it to me. \n\nAmerica is not Europe, we are very different culturally. Most of us aren't far descended from people who got on a boat and jumped into the unknown for the opportunity to make a mark. We still draw a huge portion of our identity from our vocation. In fact, it's very common that that will be among the first things talked about when making new acquaintances. \n\nI'm sure the European snobbery that persists on reddit won't like this. However, in my view, culturally, a lot of Europeans have the peasant mentality, or at least are heavily influenced by it. Making something of your self, working hard and climbing the socioeconomic ladder isn't as ingrained a thing. \n\n\nAll that being the case, a lot of Americans don't place vacay as a huge priority, particularly at lower level jobs. My first 5 years of employment after college I had two weeks and I never used it all, probably 1.5 weeks at most. \n\n\nDon't worry your heart though, I have quite a bit more now. \n\nAt the end of the day, America is changing and work life balance is becoming a bigger concern. Our vacay times will increase almost certainly. Well still probably think of you guys as lazy though ;) ",
"Paid vacation is just your employer hanging on to part of your paycheck until you take vacation. I'd rather get paid as I make money instead. I don't need a law to tell my boss how to save and budget for me. Same applies to having perks, unless they're significantly cheaper in bulk.",
"Because they are dicks. Vacations are for lazy European weirdos.\nSick days are for the weak. \n\n\nedit: missing word*",
"I work for a fortune 500 company in the US and started out with 20+ days a year. Some of my co-workers who have been here a few years get almost 2 months off a year. It is also very encouraged around here to take your full vacation time and go on an actual vacation. I don't think this is the norm, though. Most employers are pretty cheap. \n",
"We're all afraid of losing our jobs so we let employers dictate our lives and they certainly don't want you to do less work.",
"As a business owner, I try to be generous (my employees accrue 10 days of vacation a year if they work full time), but in the end, it's a question of accounting, not generosity. \n\nAnd remember, there's no such thing as \"free vacation time\". You're getting paid not to work, and that money has to come from somewhere. Some companies might be able to charge a little more, some might take it off the bottom line, and others might pay their employees a little less. It also impacts the number of employees I can hire (by raising the cost of each employee). \n\nThis is definitely one of those things that looks so obvious and easy, until you actually try to run a business (especially a small business). Then suddenly it can get very complicated and difficult.",
"I'm 28 years old and have worked at my job for 6 years full time. i took 1 week off for the birth of my daughter. I get $12/hr and no paid time off. No vacation, no sick days, not even overtime. I work on a small incorporated farm that most likely has a gross sells somewhere over $5 Million. Agriculture doesn't have to pay overtime.\n",
"We work very hard to keep that 1% where they are.",
"Here in Portugal it's the same. 28 days a year is the mandatory minimum vacation time for every job. You can, however, choose not to take them and get paid (double) for them. \n\nIf you're sick, you're allowed to call in sick up to 5 days in a row, the employer can't fire you if you do that, if though it's frowned upon after one or two days and is common practice to get a medical leave for more than a couple days. For more than that, you need a medical leave. On that occasion, you get paid 60% of your wage for the duration of the leave by Social Security, not the employer. \n\nThere are also 14 paychecks every year: one for each month plus one extra called the Christmas subsidy (also called 13th month) in December and one called vacation subsidy (or 14th month) when you take the biggest chunk of your vacation days. You can, however, get these two extra paychecks in dividends every month, instead of the more traditional way of getting them in full at their respective times. This was introduced as a austerity measure as of the bailout to ease the payment of the subsidies for the employers, but ultimately it's up to the employee. \n\nThis is all mandatory by law. ",
"It's because in America we have a little thing called freedom? Freedom to follow every law, freedom to shut the fuck up or else get out, freedom to treat your employees like scum. Freedom to get rich while pissing in the face of the working class. Freedom to be spied on! Freedom to become incarcerated! Freedom to soar like an inbred, cousin-fucking hillbilly bald eagle who has never read a single book before! Freedom!!!!! ",
"The worst part is the number of Americans who have no clue about Europe's required vacation time. I work in the tourism industry, and often make small talk with people. Sometimes Americans will comments about how the Europeans seem more relaxed and slow paced. I comment about how they are usually visiting for 2-3 weeks. That's when jaws drop and eyes get big. They are honestly shocked, and it's a 100% new concept to them. I simply explain that by federal laws in most of the western European countries, if you work full time, the company by law has to give you off a minimum number of paid vacation days, normally 3-5 weeks from what I've read. Sometimes I'll even toss in: \"Plus free health care so their higher tax rate suddenly isn't looking so bad huh?\"",
"Most American corporations don't give a shit about their employees mental faculties, and would rather see them live and die in the work place. Paid time off? Good lord, that doesn't profit the higher ups, so it is non-existent. We need better workplace laws over here. ",
"Because in America, whatever corporations want, they get. They're people too, you know.",
"A lot of people are missing the cultural aspect. America has a pervasive Puritan work ethic, whereas Europeans have a pervasive philosophical belief in balance.",
"You're getting a lot of Reddit circlejerk responses that, while not wrong, don't tell the entire picture. I'd like to chime in as someone who has worked in the UK, Europe, the U.S., and Asia. I also work in finance, and have discussed things like human capital costs with many executives at companies across the world.\n\nIt boils down to this: U.S. workers get paid more per hour worked than workers who get more paid vacation time.\n\nThis doesn't apply in all cases; for instance, minimum wage workers in the U.S. are not compensated as well as minimum wage workers in Sweden, the UK, or many other countries. Particularly on the lower end of the scale, the U.S. workers get a bad deal.\n\nBut on the middle and higher end, the U.S. workers get more in cash despite less vacation time.\n\nIn my own case, I exchanged 28 paid days off for 15, but my salary *for the same exact job* increased by about 40%. Plus my bonus is bigger. I'm a middle-income earner and when I compare friends in the U.S. with friends in Europe in different industries, it seems that the U.S. pay premium holds pretty well in the middle class. Of course there are many exceptions.",
"I don't feel that Americans employers give a small amount of paid vacation time. \n\nFor that matter, I don't know of many jobs where you could just take of 28 days in a row realistically. \n\nI get 25 days a year at my job, or about 8 hours per biweekly pay period. We just call it PTO, it is for sick leave, vacation, whatever. You need no reason to take PTO, just request it and if they can spare you you're off. It's a real no guilt system.\n\nI just bank it. We get paid back for the hours over 80 (-a percentage for a catastrophic leave fund) we don't take in november, which makes for a nice Christmas bonus. I take a day off here and there, when my wife has a baby I take 2 weeks. We also get FMLA in cases of true emergencies where we can take up to 12 weeks off work. I believe you don't get paid after your PTO runs out, but your job remains intact, and if this happens (rare) someone always starts a PTO dump where anyone can donate their PTO to the sick person so they still get paid.\n\nI have worked places where there was less vacation. It wasn't really a big deal as I've never felt I had a lot of time for a vacation anyway. \n\nI'm sitting on like 108 hours (2.5 weeks) PTO right now.\n\nI realize I am but one man, but most of the folks I know feel this way. Southern USA for reference.",
"Because they don't have to. Come to the south, where noble small business owners pay their employees minimum wage, work them 39 hours, and know you won't quit since it took you months to find this job and even if you do, they'll have another person in by the end of the week.\n\nSlavery is alive and well in the US of A.",
"In America those who take vacations don't care about their job or want to work. They inconvenience everyone they work with by insisting their laziness and desire *not* to work should be a priority. While we all might smile and say enjoy your time off, we are really saying, \"Thanks for the extra work load you lazy bum.\"\n\nThus many pride themselves in accruing unused vacation days. And this lead to the invention of Paid Time Off (PTO) buyback schemes where the employer buys your unused vacation time to show how good of a worker you are.\n\nPrior to this, I knew many people who were 'forced' to take vacation days or loose them. Often they show up on their days off to 'just finish a couple of things' and to show to their bosses and colleagues they aren't really taking a lazy vacation, but sadly a forced vacation.\n\nAnd this is the mind set of the American Rat Race.\n\nI worked as an expat overseas and my European friends would scoff at our rapid 3 day long weekend sprints on vacation. They would say if they don't have more than a week off they don't bother going anywhere. I had 3 weeks of paid vacation and they had at least 8 (we were all career company people high enough on the food chain to get expat assignments).\n\nMy lack of vacation time and our short trips were always good for a laugh with them. The corporations keep the legal requirements at 0 days and they show how generous they are by offering 2 weeks to start, which you probably don't really need to use because you like your job right?",
" > if you want it you can get it.\n\nNope, not true at all",
"America is a business. Once you realize that, everything else will make sense. ",
"Money. Companies don't want to pay it if they don't have to.",
"As an American this is one of the reason I'm self employed. I hate the way companies here treat employees. Self employed is difficult and overall I earn less but I keep my autonomy and I can take a month off to travel each year without getting fired or looked down on. Too many companies here treat employees like children or possessions.\n\nEdit: 's to s",
"Short answer: American employers are greedy cunts\n\nLong answer: The bargaining power of employees vs employers is so incredibly lopsided in the employers favor that getting much more than a weeks vactaion time UNPAID is a blessing.\n\nA combination of labor/benifits fixing between companies, the lack of proper union pull, companies being entirely profit driven to the point of self destruction and companies getting away with anti-trust non-sense that 70 years ago would have destroyed them all contributes to this.\n\nPretty much they see all employees as an expendable, easily replaced number so why offer them anything when they are practically begging just to not be replaced?",
"The really annoying part is the trend of mixing vacation days and sick days together and calling it \"PTO\".\n\nYou end up doing everything you can to avoid wasting a \"vacation\" day just because you feel sick, when really you should be home recovering so you can be better aster and not infecting the rest of the office. Then when you do want to plan a vacation, you have to make sure to leave yourself a buffer in case you get sick afterwards.\n\nNo problem right, you'll just save up a whole bunch of days. Except they thought of that too, so there's a \"cap\" which comes in two forms. The \"rolling cap\" that states you can't have more then X days off accrued at any given point and prevents you from gaining more if you reach it and the \"year end\" cap that will simply throw away any unused days you have at the end of the year.\n\nMy company just retroactively changed the year end cap to a lower number so a large number of us lost a full week of time off that we had saved up. They paid us a \"bonus check\" for the week. But hell, I really wanted the time off, not an extra week of pay.\n",
"Because unions bad, corporations good. \ncitation: fox news ",
"America is not all its cracked up to be people. Our way of life is poisonous to a persons mental and physical health. I've traveled to 37 countries so far exploring ways of life and meeting people. I'm amazed we haven't imploded yet here in the states. ",
"The GOP, who have successfully indoctrinated the idiotic masses into voting against their own interests because le JAYSUS and le PATRIOTISM.",
"Because North America has an unhealthy attitude towards balancing life and work. ",
"Why? Because it costs money. And the owners of my company don't want to part with their money.",
"I think it is a combination of a very competitive work environment coupled with strong work ethics and companies abusing that to make more money. It's not about the employee, it's about profit! ",
"I live in the US and my boss lets me take off as much time as I need any time I want. He's a pretty good guy and it might not be the norm but with the attitude he has I will pretty much do absolutely anything he wants of me. Honestly his happiness means the world to me and because he knows that he wants nothing more than to see me happy and smiling.\n\n*I work for myself*",
"Because freedom has a price and American freedom is the highest quality and most expensive freedom. We enjoy it while we can. ",
"Same reason that my wife and I don't get any paid leave for our baby being born in two weeks- they don't have to. We just moved to our current city and both have pretty good jobs full time and because we haven't been employed for a full year at our current jobs we aren't even eligible for FMLA. America is just the best. ",
"Because the execs want to overwork you and underpay you so they get the vacation time. ",
"It really depends on the industry/business/etc. I work in education, I get 20 days paid vacation, I accrue sick leave, I get multiple federal and other holidays or time off, some for long periods of time such as a Spring Break, Christmas, Thanksgiving, etc. I also get snow days, snow delays, and closings for other emergencies.",
"Greed for the larger companies, need to for Mom and Pops shops.",
"As a teacher in America, I feel like there's resentment for our time off. It's great to have spring break, Thanksgiving break, winter break, and summer. I'm incredibly grateful for the vacations I'm able to take. However, having this time off balances out with the salary, level of respect, and the wear and tear of this job.\n\nI can't help but think that in other countries the resentment towards teachers for their time off would be less. I imagine other countries to be less critical towards teachers' having time off. ",
"American living in Germany.\n\nIt's become clear to me that the attention to mental health is the main issue.\n\nMy American company frowns upon vacation time and it always causes issue when I take time off. Also, long work hours are celebrated to the point where working a standard work day limits your upward mobility.\n\nMy SO works here in Germany and they actually have reprimanded SO for working too much and demanded at least 10 consecutive business days off.\n\nAmericans still think mental health care is for crazy people and that working long hours is a good thing.",
"Because they can. \n\ndon't like it? Go find another job.\n\nthere are 1 job openings forever 20 job seekers...",
"because most dont give 2 shits about their employees. its all about profit and if you dont like the job they tell you to go get fucked because they can find someone else.",
"I'm a doctor and I don't own the practice I work for. I get 10 days paid vacation. No sick days. And no other benefits. The owners of the practice are European and take 16 weeks of vacation, at least. I graduated when the recession began and could not open my own bc no banks were lending. Paying my student loans and other debt obligations (car, mortgage, medical bills (I have MS)) keep me from quitting. ",
"I get 5 days a year outside of holidays. Next year I'll be bumped and topped out at 10 days. No wonder everyone is going crazy.",
"There are many stories About not having vacation but without many reasons.\n\nThe United States doesn't have strong workers protection. Our unions have been busted and broken with membership declining since Ronald Reagan's administration. There simply aren't people in our political system who are defending the middle class. Democrat or republican. Our benefits system was at it's best just after world war 2. There was a boom in our economy because of the war effort and there was a massive increase in open positions. Which meant as a skilled employee finding another job would not be hard. So to maintain good employees companies offered good benefits.\n\nHowever unlike Europe our political system incentivized our politicians to put the benefits of companies before citizens. So we did not see much progressiveness. So things like maternity leave vacation times etc were left behind and what we had already accumulated in benefits were slowly being chipped away.\n",
"Because America is not as first world and democratic as it wants to pretend to be, and it has duped everyone into thinking it somehow harms the economy to \"allow\" vacation.",
"Our bosses suck here, that's why. Our happiness/well being < their profit",
"Slavery and paid slavery are still very much a thing here in the Land of the Free.",
"I take my vacation at lunch time and in the evening... weekends are great too.",
"It's extremely difficult to buy a mega yacht when you're paying people to have time off.",
"Capitalism/consumerism. Not the best mix for a country. Great for a shopping center.... or a amusement park.. But not for government... \n",
"It largely has to do with an unregulated culture. A large part of the United States' population would much rather not have the government tell businesses what they have to do/not do--that's been the norm for most of the country's history, until an issue becomes pressing enough, like environmental distress, minimum wage, etc.\n\nThe younger voters that are emerging seem to be in a place where they would much rather have the government dictate practices like this to private companies. People like my parents, though (the older crowd), are very wary of setting the precedent of allowing the government to have the power to make decisions like this.\n\nHaving said all of this, my most recent employer started employees at 20 days paid time off with unlimited sick days and each year of employment allowed and additional four days. My father has also always had at least 20 days paid time off, and he lives in a completely different part of the country. \n\nSo there are plenty of employers who give very reasonable amounts of time off, sick days, other benefits--you just have a lot of full-time retail, service, and other blue collar employers who don't provide much time off because the competition for those jobs is so voluminous.",
" > ELI5: Why do American employers give such a small amount of paid vacation time?\n\nBecause they can.",
"Because America is an achievement culture vs a nurturing culture.",
"Little late to the party but oh well. I work eighty four hours a week. I get five sick days a year that roll over and five vacation days a year that do not. In the two years I've worked for my company I've taken two vacation days total. See although they are offered and the company acts like they're giving them to you it is actually a system designed to keep you from using them. So you've got five days but here's where it gets convoluted. Your vacation days must be asked off for six weeks in advance, and they must be pre approved by your manager. If your manager determines that six weeks from now he thinks we're gonna be busy your time will not get approved. We might need You here that's gonna be a busy time. You aren't allowed to use any of your five days on actual holidays. If any date you ask for coincides with a holiday none of your time will be approved. And last but not least any one that uses their vacation days is treated like shit for the six weeks leading up to there time off. Called lazy, not a team player, treated as if you're weak for wanting to use your vacation. Oh and you get a \"random\" drug test your first day back to make sure you didn't have too much fun on your vacation. Oh and you aren't allowed to take off all five days consecutively. I assume they do all this because there is no law telling them otherwise and in America no one has any moral obligation to do anything that hasn't been made a law forcing them to. ",
"because **FREEDOMMMMMMMM!!!!!!!**\n\nseriously. people here think unions and corporate income taxes are bad. If a study on Stockholm Syndrome took over an entire nation? That'd be us. We're totally in a codependent relationship with an oligarchy of plutocrats.",
"I get no days off. Sick? Fine, miss work, don't get paid. Personal day? What is that? Vacation? Dream on.\n\nYeah, I'm a wage slave. Sucks.\n\n",
"while yes, there are 20% or so of americans without PTO, even factoring that in [the average for first year employees is still 2 weeks](_URL_0_) and that goes up to 21 days after 5 years. On average. \n\n\nThe bigger issue is the concentration of no PTO jobs in the lowest income sector. The people most likely to need them don't get them, which can cause them to be fired and end up in worse off situations. \n\nAnd there are some states that have PTO requirements, not many, but some. ",
"Because they can. It's really all about supply and demand. The demand for labor is low and the supply is high. Simple.",
"Because desperate, overqualified labor is easily replaceable in a crappy economy. The job market being what it is, American workers don't have all that strong of a bargaining position. The squeaky hinge no longer gets the oil, it just gets replaced.",
"American here. Whats this paid vacation time you speak of?",
"Mandatory paid vacation time and ridiculously high minimum wages are two of the primary reasons why youth unemployment rates are so insanely high in Europe. Economic freedom works better.\n\nThis is why even though we're in bad economic shape in the USA, we're still in better economic shape than the Europoorean countries.",
"Because they are selfish self serving c#nts?",
"It's crazy, how from my perspective as a Brit, I used to always assume the Us was the ultimate super power. Advanced in every way. And now, the more I learn and the older I grow, I realise that nothing is what it seems in this world. \n\nNo one is run by governments of people. We're all just run by fear.... hang on a second. Yup... yup. Watching Fightclub way too much. I'll er, just leave. Sorry.",
"US active-duty military gives 30 days paid leave (2.5 per month) regardless of rank. On top of convalescent leave and holidays, it adds up to a good deal.\n",
"Normally I think the US gets an overly bad rap on reddit, but this is one of those times where you're dead right.\n\nAmerican work culture is terrible about this. In most white collar jobs (read: salaried exempt, where working overtime gets you no extra money at all), you're expected to work at least a few hours a week extra, regardless of whether you have anything productive to do. I've overheard people saying things like, \"So-and-so is only working 45-50 hour weeks... What a slacker.\"\n\nAlso, taking long vacations is heavily frowned upon, and you'll have no chance of getting time off if you're in the middle of a busy project. And for some reason, most people seem to value more money over more free time here, so we're stuck with this extremely shitty status quo.",
"Republicans, Deregulation, Capitalism. If you expect vacation time or parental leave then you are a waste of skin, and don't deserve a job. Explains the war on unions as well.",
"I'm a US Federal bureaucrat, and I get 26 days a year, or 8 hours per pay period (every 2 weeks). Granted, I had to work 15 years before getting it. You start off with 4 hours per pay period. After 3 years, you get six. After 15, you get the 8, but then its maxed out. This is in addition to 11 federal holidays. I can only carry over 240 hours per year, which I do every year, leaving me with 4 1/2 weeks of \"use or lose\" vacation per year. \n\nSick leave is always 4 hours a pay period, but never runs out. There is no use or lose. \n\nBut my job sucks. It's soul killing, thankless work. Try telling people what they can and cannot do on their own property every day. Try writing permits and letters all day, every day, only to get them heavily scrutinized, told you are lower than dog shit as a professional daily, and endless emails from your supervisors concerning your incompetence. \n\nWhy do I do it? I love my family and I can spend more time with them. I work 40 hours a week. Not 41, not 42, not 70. And I get almost 5 weeks a year to spend with them. Totally worth it.",
"Because we're descended from a small band of buckle-hatted, sexually repressed puritan refugees who believed that hard work was synonymous with holy favor.",
"Paid time off varies wildly in the US. My company offers about 30 days per year, some companies offer more, some offer less, many offer none.",
"The American job market is about leverage. If you have the skill sets and qualifications necessary to climb the 'corporate ladder' then you get better / the best benefits. You can also dictate what you want, signing bonus, vacation days per year, bonus structure, full spectrum of health benefits, life insurance etc etc etc.\n\n\nHowever, if you are working for low wages usually businesses think you are replaceable because the qualifications necessary to 'wash dishes' or 'wait tables' is basic.",
"I'm curious about non-Americans.....I get 6 or 7 \"Federal holidays\" off in addition to my vacay (which is now 25 days but hard for me as a manager to take it). Are there major international holidays taken?",
"10 days off in 6 years. Work in ad sales and for a company that every single male sports fan has heard of. ",
"About half of the tech companies I interviewed with a few months back offers unlimited vacation time. (more accurately untracked vacation) same for my current job, basically take a reasonable amount when you need it.",
"I worked for a big corporation in th US and got the usual 2weeks paid vacation, which I never fully used. Then I worked for the same company in the UK and had 5weeks paid vacation. I had a really hard time taking all of that time, but my boss insisted.\n\nThen I worked for the same company in France and had 7 weeks vacation. Another big multi-national bought us and we ended up with 10 weeks paid vacation a year. We're back down to 7 weeks now, but I keep accumulating vacation days since I simply can't take it all. On top of the 7 weeks per year, I've saved up over 50 days.\n\n",
"Serious honest answer: Because they can legally get away with it.",
"They do it because American employers are greedy. When there's no minimum required amount of vacation they must give, then they are free to give none, which many do. ",
"I work construction....I get 0 paid time off...no holidays",
"American here. I didn't know we got less than everyone else. That's probably part of the problem. Most people don't know.",
"Because lobbying is causing less and less regulation on corporate entities. And when there's more people than jobs, companies can give shit pay/benefits and still retain employees.",
"force you to work as much as possible for little pay so they can make as much in profits as possible. in most retail jobs, you get 0 days paid off, not counting holiday pay",
"I got better sick days and vacation days in the Army than I have in civilian circles. You earn 2.5 vacation days per month in the US Army, so over 12 months you essentially earn a month of vacation. This can accumulate to 60 days until you can earn no more and are forced to take days off. Nowadays I work in a very competitive tech industry and get no paid sick or vacation days. Of the few companies I've worked for, only one offered both and they were limited to one week per year.",
"Because America sucks in things like giving a shit about it's citizens. God I need to figure a way out of here and into a better country. We're the rednecks of the West basically.",
"Because americans don't stand up for themselves.",
"There's no such thing as \"paid time off\". They just pay you less when you're working in exchange for getting some of that money back when you aren't working.\n\nAmerica has lower taxes on wages than other countries. We also have lower consumption taxes. \n\nAs a result, we prefer to be paid in the form of wages rather than time off. That allows us to buy more stuff. We think this makes us happy.",
"I totally wish I had paid vacation time, and/or paid sick days. That would be so cool.",
"It depends where you work. My former consulting firm is 5-6 weeks altogether between personal time and holidays when the office just closes. The firm also does flex time so if you need for example an extra 2 weeks or something you can just make up that time later on. During slow times you can work 4 days a week (10 hours a day) if you want. And they'll negotiate your salary for part time if that's your thing. I know there was a girl that would work 2-3 days a week and she just made 60% of what a full time employee would.",
"I currently get 15 and that is a lot of time off from a US perspective. However if you actually take it all there is a likelihood you will be looking for a job. In american businesses everything is a priority and must be done immediately... Definitely contributes to our declining life expectancies. The US use to be much better to their employees.",
"As an Australian, this baffles me! I am currently sitting on 7+ weeks of banked vacation leave, I take AT LEAST two weeks a year off, and the rest gets banked to use when I feel like it. I've been working for a small business for less than 5 years, and we get a minimum of 4 weeks a year.",
"29 days paid holiday, plus bank holidays and I'm on flexitime, meaning I can take a maximum of 4 days per month if I accrue enough hours... ",
"I work in a company with a lot of people who have been here for 15+ years. Most of these people have so much vacation time that they need to take a day off a week or they will lose that day (the maximum amount of vacation time an employee can hold is 40 days or 8 weeks). Many of these employees will hold on to their time off as a kind of savings account so that if they get laid off the company would have to pay out that time off, besides any other severance package.\nI think they are crazy, though. These same people will say they are taking a week off, and then show up at the office after being gone for 3 days because they were bored. Obviously my co-workers have no life.",
"I get 6 weeks paid holiday in the UK. (I work in Higher Education) So I only work 36 weeks of the year aswell",
"Can we make this an issue for the next presidential election? Please?",
"My question is, why does it have to be PAID? I am all for time off. And I think people should receive about 4 weeks off a year. But if we did the whole unlimited thing but unpaid time off I think it would work much better. Those who need it would use it, and those who don't wouldnt abuse it. Also people would feel less guilty for taking it and the company would be more willing if they don't have to pay the person for not being there. It's a win-win. ",
"If even half of the dozens of (American) redditors who responded to this post with some version of, \"holy shit! Y'all work for companies that treat you like you're humans and not slaves to the corporate machine??!! I can't believe it!\" decided to support candidates (Democrats or Greens, because Republicans, despite all their hype about family and life are just hypocrite tools for Big Corporations), we might start changing the shite state of affairs for workers in this country. \n\nGo vote, people. But think before you do. ",
"I just started working for a tiny business in the U.S. a few months ago. I get 12.5 days personal time off for my first year. It includes sick days and vacation time. But I've got big things planned for that .5 day off. Don't worry.\n\nAnyway, I took three days off a few weeks ago, and when my boss found out I was taking three days, he said, \"Okay. I guess we can manage.\" If the newest (and most useless) employee taking three days off is going to break the company, he has other shit to worry about. He also might just be a douche.",
"I get 3 weeks a year. Currently sitting on 7 weeks accumulated. Haven't taken a day off in 2yrs. Its crazy stressful when I do. I've never understood how people pull it off. Shit just piles up on you.",
"USN here, I as well as the rest of the military get 30 days of leave(vacation) a year. 2.5 days a month.",
"Because we're the same country where the politicians also say that corporations are people, too... we have our priorities all screwed up. ",
"I know you're accustomed to thinking of the USA as a single country, but, well, that's like thinking of the EU as a single country. The States of the US have a lot of legislative power and a lot of widely varying laws. For the most part, employment law falls to the states, so it's mostly meaningless to say that the US doesn't have a national standard-- even if every state guaranteed 30 days of vacation, it wouldn't be a federal law. Thus, we have 50 sets of employment laws, 51 counting Washington DC. \n\nThe federal government's employment laws mainly exist to guarantee the rights of workers and businesses, prevent discrimination, etc. Vacation days is a kind of detail that would be gross overstepping by the Federal government, and a serious intrusion into the rights of states to make themselves as friendly or unfriendly to business as they please. ",
"Because we're cheap and don't care for the well-being or happiness of our workers.",
"Many small business owners never take days off. Maybe they take a day on national or bank holidays. If you are lucky enough to work for a corporation who give you PTO in addition to national holidays. Rejoice.",
"Why aren't we like that? Because we're hard-working Americans. That's why. ",
"Honest question: when you say 28 paid days off, is that total, or just vacation, on top of which you might have holiday or sick time. One of the things I've often wondered when these debates arise regarding PTO in the US vs other countries is if there is a simple matter of differing definitions. \n\nFor example, I started off at 2 weeks vacation and have since moved up to 3 weeks vacation. However, if you also consider my one week of sick time and 2 weeks worth of holidays, I'm now at a potential 30 days off paid a year, with more to come as I continue with the company. Even then, I work for a very small company with limited resources to support a more expansive paid time off program, and I know some larger companies which support even better paid time off programs (particularly with respect to sick time).\n\nEven when discussing PTO with friends (I'm in the US), we often realize we're talking apples to oranges when one of us has vacation vs sick vs holiday delineated, and the other simply has generic paid time off.\n\nA caveat in my comments is that I can only refer to my experience with highly technical positions and companies. Skimming through some other comments, I see some people providing experiences in having had to deal with particularly poor situations, especially in the service or restaurant industry.",
"28 days? Holy fuck. I was really excited to get 12 hours this year. ",
"If you are in a union or a highly valuable person, you get paid time off.\n\nOtherwise, written up for taking a sick day. No vacation, paid or otherwise.\n\nThe top and bottom of America are very different.\n\nIf I get fulltime with my current job; I will get paid vacation days each year.\n\nRight now, good enough that if I need a day off I just ask. Its not paid; but I can ask.",
"I work an hourly job. We get no breaks, no paid sick days, no paid vacation. We can take time off unpaid, but if you took a lot you'd get fired. But I love my job so I try not to think about it.",
"Every job I've had started with two weeks and went up every few years. Right now I have 5 weeks of vacation. 25 days. That took me 10 years to earn, and I have a hard time using it all. Max I will get is 6 weeks after 20 years on the job.\n\nI find it is hard to use 5 weeks in a year.",
"Because it's not illegal to do so.\n\nI really wish there were AT LEAST legally mandated sick days.\nI got the flu, was ordered by a doctor to stay home and in bed and was given a note. Still got in trouble at work.",
"It's because in America, we've been brainwashed that work is more important than life, and that work defines us. So they sold us on this minimal time off BS because we were 'Building America'. Now that America is build though, employers get huge amounts of productivity, and no one requests time off because they believe they don't need it. People in the EU make much less than I do but take a month vacation every year because they and their employers, make living their lives a priority. American employers are getting the benefit of this ideology, and they'll go leaps and bounds to continue to manipulate the populace to keep their productive drones working.",
"I work for walmart full time at a dc. (Distribution center). I only work sat sun and mon. 12 hour shifts but I still get vacation 1 week the first year. I only work 43% of the year and I make about 30k it's enough for me and my son. So I'm not really in need of more vacation. ",
"I get decent vacation at my current job. What's funny is that our job descriptions for our US offices list 4 weeks vacation, and the job descriptions for our Germany office lists 6 weeks vacation. Tempted to move to Germany...",
"American here working for a Fortune 500 company...can confirm that I get 4 weeks paid vacation, albeit I've been here for 10 years. New hires get 2 weeks out of the gate.\n\nBonus paid leave of 6 weeks paid \"vacation\" when the baby comes. ",
"California resident here. I have about 229 hours of vacation time. I imagine if I used that much I would return to someone sitting at my desk. Work has a panic attack every time I take my yearly 4 to 5 day vacation...",
"Because Americans let their company treat them like shit.",
"Where I work I get 3 weeks paid vacation. They'll give you 1 week after a year of employment, 2 weeks after 3 years and 3 weeks after 5 years. I usually schedule one full week off and use the others to piggy back on holidays and memorial/labor day wich are paid days off anyway. I typically have a couple days left over to pad my hours if I want to make up hours for calling off for whatever reason. ",
"I get 10 days of Vaca after the first year with the company I work for. I get another 5 days after my 10 year anniversary. :/ ugh.",
"I work for the 23rd biggest Restaurant Supply Company in the States and after 4 years I get 3 weeks pto and all major holidays paid and tax free cash bonuses at Christmas. My position is nothing very illustrious as a docks manager on a $16.50 hourly wage but in Mississippi this place is a Mecca compared to the other options around here. Peavey Electronics on the other side of town keeps outsourcing and laying people off so we're attractive to a lot of those poor souls. When your options and skill set get mangled by local job market opportunities people tend to take whatever the businesses offer. I would like to spend more time with my 8 month old than what I have but them diapers aren't gonna buy themselves. So nose the grindstone and all that.",
"No, it's not a possibility in most job sectors. Most jobs do not give proper vacation time (maternity leave, or *any* paternity leave, if we're on the subject of benefits). ",
"I work at a university. I have 45 days leave including bank holidays etc.\n\nSeems pretty generous to me",
"Americans largely see themselves as business owners, not so much slaves to the \"class\" they've grown up in. You have to work hard to get ahead. ",
"Because **** you, that's why. (censored for 5 year olds)",
"There are no laws requiring sick days, and there are so many people looking for jobs here in the U.S. that employers can demand whatever they want from their employees. Not only do i have 0 sick days, but I'm not allowed to be sick. (service industry)",
"My bank gives me 35 days. 10 are fixed holidays. 20 are standard given elective. 5 are gained through something called a PTO buy. They take about 20 bucks out of each check but I get 5 extra off days paid. This is my first year with the company. ",
"IT, 2 weeks off. After 5 years, 3 weeks off.\n\n4 weeks off after 10 years.\n\nNo sick time, no paid time off. You get to enjoy working holidays, and then you earn an extra day of \"paid vacation\". So I generally accrue 15-16 days a year paid vacation that way.",
"After reading most of the comments, I admit I am speechless. I get 30 days a year paid vacation plus all the 16 national holidays and paid sick leave. \nYour situation would be intolerable here in good, old Germany. \nYou have to do something about your situation, my US American friends. Go on strike, join a union, let them feel the wrath of the worker class!",
"Most reports on PTO use averages. There is a large amount of class inequality in the US and at the lower-middle/lower class are taken advantage of with little-zero or no days off. The shrinking middle/upper-middle class and the upper class can have anywhere from mediocre to fabulous PTO.\n\nSince a large part of the US population is lower-middle/low class they have a larger affect on the US average PTO used in reports and also have more people to be vocal about it.\n\nWith all that in mind there are people in the US with PTO on par with all other PTO-leading nations. I personally have never been at or below the US average and for the majority of my career at or above the average PTO in the UK.\n",
"We accrue a week of vacation every six months, in addition to an hour paid time off every two weeks and quite a bit of unpaid time we can take with no penalty. It takes about six months before an employee can benefit from the paid time and vacation, but that appears to be to prevent abuse of the system by new hires.\n\nHere, people seem to think my company's vacation policy is great. Compared to the UK, I can see it's pretty underwhelming.",
"A number of people have raised good points on why this is so. One major factor is that in the U.S., management has been exploiting the weak bargaining position of labor (skilled and unskilled) since around the middle of the 20th century. The glut in the labor supply thanks to outsourcing, downsizing, and other factors means that companies can basically work their employees until they burn out and then replace them. It's not unheard of for salaried employees to be expected to put in 50-60 hours per week while earning a salary that presumes a 40 hour work week. Employees are willing to take this because of the looming threat of losing their jobs and being replaced.\n\nSo it isn't just that we're a workaholic culture. The Protestant ethic can explain some aspects of our work ethic, but what we're witnessing now is a different (and more desperate) thing altogether. What's happening now is a realignment of the workforce as the U.S. adjusts to being a post-industrial society. \n\nThe social effects of this change have also been disastrous for the American family as we've transitioned to the two worker household as a norm.\n\nOn the historically weakened position of labor, this has to do with not only competition in a global economy and outsourcing, but also the diminished presence and general political weakness of labor unions since mid century. Right wing elites have managed to wage a propaganda war in their own favor by painting unions to be everything from bloated and corrupt, to radicalized and trouble-making, to communistic. The federal government also shoulders some of the blame, as employers will tend to give workers exactly as little paid time off as they can legally get away with. If federal laws required a higher minimum, then it would change, but short of that, American companies tend to care more about their own bottom line than the quality of life of their workers.",
"Because they can. Why would they do that, when they don't have to? Its more free market in the states. Which is why there isn't as much labour laws.",
"A lot of companies increase your time the longer you work there. IE: I got no vacation time my first year, two weeks vacation and 3 personal days for my 2nd through 5th, than 5th year I get an extra week vacation and an extra personal day, 10th year another week vacation and another personal day. ",
"I work 40 or more hours in a factory. I get zero time off, period. Even better the boss will ensure you have 24 hours minimal if work is short so he doesn't have to pay us unemployment. He will also make SURE that you don't make money by adding shitty workers to your team and taking the good ones away.\n\nTldr work in a factory with a greedy owner where pay is production based\n\n\n",
"in capitalist america, profit is king, not happiness. even though studies show happiness makes workers do way better, the american business owner has not given in yet",
"I'm surprised no one has mentioned the lack of unionized work places as a big factor in this. \n\nI'm seeing a lot about there not being laws mandating a certain amount of vacation time (we don't even have mandated paid sick leave, incentivizing people to work sick and get others sick) but how do folks think we got the laws that give us the few worker protections we have in the first place? That's right unions.\n\nUnions in part brought their own downfall in the U.S. with some of the corrupt things they did, but that was also exploited by the powerful to bring them down to the point that unions almost don't exist in the private sector anymore. That's been a huge loss for any kind of modern worker's rights and is undoubtedly a part of why our generation is getting paid less than our parent's generation.",
"Because owners of companies are trying to make money. ",
"Because when we're rich business owners we don't want to have to pay our lazy employees to take so many days off. What's that? You say we'll never be rich business owners? Don't be silly, of course we all will. ",
"Because in America we take advantage of others in order to be successful",
"I get PTO that accrues at time and a half instead of overtime pay. It would be awesome if I could actually use it when I wanted. Instead 90% of time off requests.are denied, then they send you home against your will when the mandatory payout time is coming up. Shit sucks.",
"The real question is why don't Americans demand time off work??",
"Not all American employers area like this. Some of the better ones give unlimited time off and mean it. You just don't hear about them. I've worked for both. This year I've taken more than a month off. Friends have taken more than two months. When you get into higher skilled jobs,vacation is almost required. Companies should really adopt that policy because from my experience you get better work in the long run.",
"There is no such this as paid vacation days. Or paid sick days or employer paid healthcare as well. No one will pay you for not working. What they will do is withold money that they are willing to pay you, then give it to you in the form of vacation or sick pay, and healthcare. All the while they are earning interest on the witheld money, getting tax breaks for using your money to get you healthcare, and fooling ignorant employees into thinking their employer is great because of the benefits, never being able to understand that their employer is paying for these things with the employees money.\n\nAsk your employer for no benefits but higher salary, then make sure you save money for your own sick or vacation days. This way, if you are not sick or do not go anywhere, you keep the money!",
"My company only gives me 10 days of PTO a year (vacation/sick leave smushed into one). It is only March and my PTO is already almost gone because I was sick with strep throat for a week. The reason I had strep in the first place is because another coworker was sick. Since she didnt have much PTO either, she continued to come to work while contagious. So now since I have gotten sick one time this year, I can forget about going back home to see my family for the holidays...for the second year in a row. Not to wallow in my own self pity, but I am pretty bummed out. I wish we had more time off. ",
"Because someone else is willing to do the job for less. \n \nWhen you have high-level/skilled positions you find that things like vacation pay are included because the people required for those kinds of jobs refuse to work for less than they think they're worth.",
"A lot of Americans really tend to be more culturally isolated than their international counterparts. The worldview is very much often \"There's America, and then there's the rest of the world.\" So for a lot of people, that's just how it is. The fact that the rest of the world does things differently isn't treated as some cause for concern, because it's just some \"other\" place where people do weird things like drive on the wrong side of the road, use metric, and the like.",
"US military gives 2.5 days a month for a grand total of 30 days per year. The fact that the private sector doesn't compare to this is pretty crazy to me.",
"It really all depends where you work. Where I work I have 15 days PTO and another two flex days along with unlimited sick days. I also get to work a flex scheduled giving me additional days off every month. Next year I will have five years experience and I will be up to 20 PTO days with 2 flex days. This does not include the 10 holidays we receive each year. My boss really trusts us to do our job and so long as things get done I could take off as many days as I want. This is my 3rd job in the US all in different states and they all have provided similar time off.\n\nI suppose in some places in America people feel pressured not to take their PTO. At my job it would be unusual for myself or any of my peers to have any PTO left over at the end of the year\n\nFrom what it sounds like, a lot of people are afraid to take advantage of the benefits their companies provide which I totally don't understand. If you feel pressured not to use them go to a different company, otherwise that is your fault.",
"Because Americans live to work not work to live.",
"As trite as this may sound there are a lot of people here in the US that have decent vacation policies and simply choose to never take or use the days. In this country you are constantly pushed to work longer and harder for less and less and made to feel guilty by simply using the benefits promised to you. Never mind that am overworked employee tends to put out an inferior product that will cost more time and money down the line. Fear is the main driving force in this country now. Fear that taking more than a week for the birth of a child and you may look like you're slacking, fear that perhaps if you go on a vacation with your family and recharge your batteries that you are somehow trying to game the system, and finally the fear in knowing that the company you work for has zero loyalty to you even when you show years of it to them. I used to be one of these people until I had my first child and now I take all the time promised me and that I earned. I feel no guilt in staying home sick so I don't put others at risk. I feel no shame in taking several weeks off during the holidays. I'm motivated by the fear that as I lay dying one day I look back and realize I could have spent more time with the people who loved me and truly cared for me but instead I chose to make a few extra bucks being around people who where pretty much indifferent about me.",
"I have maxed out my 30 days accrued vacation time, but I dont want to use it since I like working and suck at personal life. I'd love the option to cash out a few of those days for more pay. That would be excellent!",
"Supply and Demand. The supply of workers is quite big and saturates the demand so it's easy for employers to pay less/offer fewer benefits because there is always someone willing to do the work for less.",
"Sadly we as American just accept this instead of banding together and saying no to shitty vacation policies.",
"TL;DR: no other country in the world exploits thier workforce like the US does",
"It's simple. They don't have to. \n\nLabor laws in the US are more corporation-friendly than those in Europe. Therefore, unless there is a severe shortage of labor in a certain area, there is no reason for employers to provide anything more than what the law requires. ",
"Its not mandated by law is the correct answer. Thanks to wallstreet and stock owners, companies constantly are trying to cut costs anywhere possible. This leads to hiring as few employees as possible. When you barely have enough employees to run the place fully staffed, its almost impossible to run the company with someone on vacation. Someone from another store has to work extra and cover for this employee. The less vacation they give you, the less they have to beg someone to work extra for you. Hell I have sick days that I've still never gotten to take. They made me come in to worm 30 hours in 3 days all while running a 105 degree fever with strep throat! It always leads back to corporate greed in my experience."
]
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[],
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"http://www.dol.gov/whd/fmla/"
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"http://www.danieljacobson.com/blog/285"
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"http://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/2s4j54/why_do_americans_have_such_long_work_weeks_and/cnmda2y"
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[
"https://hbdchick.wordpress.com/2013/09/07/national-individualism-collectivism-scores",
"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(PPP\\)_per_hour_worked",
"http://spectrum.ieee.org/at-work/tech-careers/the-global-brain-trade"
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"https://youtu.be/qGJSI48gkFc"
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"http://www.salary.com/time-off-paid-time-off-from-work/"
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29yzzq | why are x-rays dangerous but microwaves not dangerous? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/29yzzq/eli5_why_are_xrays_dangerous_but_microwaves_not/ | {
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"Microwaves and x-rays are in completely different parts of the electromagnetic spectrum. X-rays have much more energy than microwaves.\n\nIt's much like how UV light can cause skin cancer, but red light won't."
]
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[]
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79ls1e | what exactly is the purpose of a mlb coach? i understand the strategy need for football, hockey, basketball, but isn’t baseball more straightforward? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/79ls1e/eli5_what_exactly_is_the_purpose_of_a_mlb_coach_i/ | {
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"Here's where I try my best not to sound super pretentious about baseball.\n\nIt's more complicated than you'd expect. Each player or team have their own unique talents or traits. A certain pitcher might be better at throwing curveballs or outside strikes than a fast line drive. You might have a team that's known for being really strong hitters or really slow on stopping people stealing bases. It's a lot of information to handle.\n\nWhile a lot of people like to make fun of baseball for being \"slow,\" there's a lot of moments that take place in split second decisions - where to throw, how to throw, who to throw to, do I run here, do I turn around, etc. Especially moments where you might have an instant to catch a ball, move into a certain position, and tag your base/runner. The coaches find out where each player has their best skills and how to best work together, how to make the most of what each player is best at and how to react to what they know *other* teams' players are best at.\n\nThere's also doing things like managing pitcher rotations (knowing if it's safe to bring in a relief pitcher, or when to save their best pitchers), rotate players when they need a break or can afford to rest a bit extra to keep their strongest players fresh, etc."
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2cdjz6 | why do some people walk down the street talking to themselves quietly? | Not talking about hands free kits.
Edit: the question is not why do people talk to themselves in general. It is specifically referring to people walking down the street doing it audibly. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2cdjz6/eli5_why_do_some_people_walk_down_the_street/ | {
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"Some people talk to themselves because of mental illness.\n\nSome people just think aloud.\n\nI'm sure you could find thousands of reasons.",
"I'm not a native English speaker, so for practice I often talk to myself or talk about something in English while I'm walking on the street.\n\nI find it also helps organizing ideas when you talk aloud.",
"Some people remember things better when they hear them too and not \"only think\" them, so it's easier to make though chains and \"hold the thought\" when thinking out loud. You can find yourself doing this when you are repeating some number chain outloud when you have to remember it for the time it takes to read it from somewhere and write it down to another place.\n\nTalking also gives you more time to form the sentences than pure thinking. When you \" just think\", you can sometimes revert to thinking with consepts and images and memories and not actual structured word chains."
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1a2hyt | how hair grows and how your body makes it. | I've heard that it is basically the same material as your fingernails but a different composition. Im curious as to how the body uses or pulls certain nutrients out of your food to use to make hair and what puts them together.
Forgive the poor wording. I am five after all. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1a2hyt/eli5_how_hair_grows_and_how_your_body_makes_it/ | {
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"The cells that make up hair follicles are full of organelles (like organs in your body, but in cells) called ribosomes. Ribosomes use the stuff you get from food to make proteins (like carotene, the stuff hair is made out of). The ribosomes use a lot of fancy chemical processes to turn food stuff into hair, nails, antlers, and whatever other protein stuff you need. "
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368jv1 | what happens to the electrons in a depleted battery? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/368jv1/eli5_what_happens_to_the_electrons_in_a_depleted/ | {
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"After traveling through the circuit, they end up back in the battery (on the other end of the cell), but in a lower energy state (bound to a different atom or molecule). The electrons aren't \"used up,\" but they do carry less energy when they return. ",
"A depleted battery and a charged battery have the same number of electrons; they're just organized differently. One way to think of it is like a waterwheel between two ponds. If the water level is higher in one, you can let water run from that into the other and capture some of the energy with the waterwheel to power your mill or whatever. Once the water level is the same in both you can't do that anymore, but all the water is still there. A battery is sort of like that: electrons come out one side, go through your phone or whatever, and then go back in the other side.",
"Electrons travel from the negative end of a battery to the positive through a circuit in an effort to equalize the charge of the battery on both ends. Once the charges at both ends are equalized the battery is \"dead\". ",
"The battery isn't depleted, it is 'balanced'\n\nimagine a water tank with a divider down the middle. one half filled to the brim the other with much less water.\n\na pipe runs out the bottom of one side, round and back in to the other side.\n\nopen the valve and the water will run through unil each side is 'balanced'. The amount of water remains the same.\n\nin a battery it is the transfer or 'balancing' of negatively charged electrons that make it work in a similar (but more technical) fashion to the water tank.\n",
"In a battery, there is a forward and backward net reaction where one side is gaining electrons and the other is losing them. \n\nExample: 2Ag^+ + Cu + 2e^- ⇋ Cu^2+ + 2Ag + 2e^-\n\nIn working batteries, electrons spontaneously travel mainly in the one direction, generating electricity (electricity is flow of electrons). However, over time, the forward and the backward reaction reach equilibrium (where the reaction goes equally in both directions). Therefore, the net flow of electrons is zero and energy is no longer generated.\n\nTherefore, the electrons are still there. They just aren't flowing in mainly one direction, meaning energy isn't produced. \n\nSource: Currently studying to be a chemist."
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4ah9uk | why is an automatic transmission much more expensive in europe than driving stick shift? | Eli5: why is an automatic transmission much more expensive in Europe than driving stick shift?
In the US it's the opposite, everyone buys an automatic, and it's generally cheaper. Yet in Europe, for some mysterious reason it's still more expensive? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4ah9uk/eli5_why_is_an_automatic_transmission_much_more/ | {
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"It's cheaper in the US because it's the standard option in most models sold here now. In Europe, where many people prefer manual, the automatic option is an upgrade.",
"It's not cheaper in the US, either (at least last time I checked). Cars come with \"standard\" and an automatic is an extra. \n\n...unless you're buying a sports car. Then for some reason an automatic is standard and if you want a manual it's extra. ",
"No. An automatic is not generally cheaper. You can purchase a standard transmission for less money than an automatic transmission. But you might have to order it from a dealer.\n\nPurchasing a new car from a dealer, with the depreciation of the first year, would probably make it easier to buy a used car with an automatic transmission for low cost transportation.",
"Manual transmissions are rare in the US but when they exist they are cheaper. With a modern automatic transmissions you need more electronics to make it function than a manual.",
"Supply and demand, on average automatic is more expensive because it's a more complex technology. In Europe it's not very desired, most people are used to changing gears and notice that automatic cars don't do it as well as them, so it will probably remain uncommon until the technology improves. Since it's more requested the sellers make sure to have a higher supply of manual, and it someone requests automatic it has to be ordered separately, i.e. more expensive.\n\n\nIn US people got used to automatic for some reason, perhaps because American brands advertised the automatic gears better, perhaps it just became a habit and Americans don't think the added effort of selecting gear is worth it once you got used to automatic gears. So automatic is more demanded and the supply is higher, decreasing the price offset to around zero or even below, despite the technology being more expensive.",
"Automatics are never cheaper unless it is a fringe case of an exotic or collectible sports/performance car. Not just in marketing terms either, automatic transmission are more complex and more costly to manufacture and maintain.",
"I'm from south america and automatic transmission is ridiculously more expensive than stick shift. I guess maybe it is because in other parts of the world auto transmission wasn't introduced and popularized until de last decades of the twentieth century so that's why it costs more. Also, stick FTW",
"As most have pointed out, automatics are typically more expensive in the US - particularly on low cost cars, they will use a standard to advertise a lower \"starting\" price.\n\nHowever it is also true that the cost of an automatic transmission is higher in many other countries comparatively to the US. This is because Americans long ago embraced the automatic transmission, once seen as a luxury it become an essential. This means cars are almost never designed in the US without assuming the transmission is part of the process, and many more cars are sold with transmissions than without. This creates both economies of scale but also shifts the additional cost of having the option in the first place, back on to the standard. The net result is the difference in price is much smaller in the US than in other countries, and this helps perpetuate the preference here, where a larger price difference perpetuates the preferences in other countries.",
"Bought a brand new car several years ago I live in North Carolina the manual transmission (which is what I got) was about $1500 - $2000 cheaper ",
"On my car - Hyundai Genesis Coupe 3.8 rspec only a manual is offered. However, the other trims that come with manual or auto the manual is always cheaper. \n\nI should also point out that while manuals are for \"enthusiasts\", the dual clutch 8 speed automatic is actually faster off the line and rev matches better than pretty much any person outside of a professional driver. So there is that to consider.",
"The last time I've checked, in the United States, automatics either cost the same or more than a manual. Never less. This is because you've gotta pay the extra for \"convenience\", as well as the extra engineering and tech it takes to put an automatic transmission. The manual is rather basic, compared to the automatic. "
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16pmej | if i buy a brand new computer, what programs must i have to protect myself from cyber security threats? | Most computers come with trial software like Norton Anti-virus but is there anything needed beyond that? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/16pmej/if_i_buy_a_brand_new_computer_what_programs_must/ | {
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"Microsoft Security Essentials is all you need. Get rid of Norton or anything else that is on there.\n\n",
"Microsoft Security Essentials. Admittedly, it doesn't offer live protection, but Google Chrome should tell you which links are harmful. An alternative to MSE is Avast. It's funny, because of antitrust law Microsoft can't sell Windows with their AV software, which is really good, but they are allowed to sell it with Internet Explorer, which is, you know, Internet Explorer. \n\nAlso useful is the Chrome extension NotScript (and its original Firefox counterpart, NoScript), which allow you to enable or disable flash/other functions of a website (they're all disabled by default). "
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c06fma | when a seed grows, the plant seems to be creating matter from nothing. where does this matter come from? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/c06fma/eli5_when_a_seed_grows_the_plant_seems_to_be/ | {
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"The plant consumes dirt nutrients and air molecules to make more plant parts. It's loosely similar to how you consume food and water to make poop and muscles.",
"A lot of a living plant's mass, and volume, is likely to be water.\n\nYou can see this in a leaf, pick a fresh one and watch as it loses mass and shrivels while it dries.\n\nHowever, most of a plant's 'dry' biomass is made from carbon.\n\nThis is primarily extracted from the CO2 (carbon dioxide) in the atmosphere.\n\nEssentially, the plant 'inhales' carbon dioxide, and through photosynthesis, forms it into glucose, which is then used in cellular respiration or converted to more complex sugars (cellulose being one of the most common) and becomes part of the structure of the plant.\n\nIn this way, plants grow and trap carbon from the atmosphere.",
"There's a great bit from Richard Feynman on this...\n\nTrees grow from the air. Trees breathe in CO2 and exhale O2... so they're keeping that little Carbon atom. They take in water when it rains (which also comes from the air/sky). They rearrange the Hydrogen and Oxygen from the water molecules with the Carbon from the CO2 molecules and create complex hydrocarbons. This is the tree. It's made from the air. Think about that the next time you walk on a wood floor or sit on a wooden chair... you're sitting on rearranged air molecules.\n\nThe opposite is true when you go on a diet. When you burn calories, your body is burning these hydrocarbons. You breathe in O2 and breathe out CO2, so each exhale contains some extra carbon atoms that you didn't inhale. You're literally losing the weight out of your breathe, and turning it back into air (you also turn the rest of those hydrocarbons into H2O which you sweat or urinate out)."
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1mmz7b | in calculus, what is the physical meaning of curl, gradient and divergence? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1mmz7b/eli5_in_calculus_what_is_the_physical_meaning_of/ | {
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"Wikipedia has pretty good intuitive interpretations for all of these, but I will give it a shot anyway.\n\nFirstly, curl and divergence have to do with vector fields. An easy way to imagine a vector field is to imagine the velocity of the water in a river that is represented by an individual vector at every point. This gives a direction and speed for the water at any point in the river.\n\nGradients deal with scalar fields. An example of a scalar field is the temperature of a room. The room has a temperature at every point, and is represented by a scalar quantity.\n\nNow for the operators.\n\n**Curl**:\n\nThe curl of a vector field yields a vector field that describes the infinitesimal rotation at every point in the original vector field. Imagine a small textured sphere placed at some point in moving volume of water (the previously mentioned river). The moving water will cause the sphere to rotate in some way. The rotation caused by the river on the sphere can be characterized by a vector. This vector is the result of taking the curl of the river's vector field at that point. The direction of the vector represents the direction of rotation (right hand rule), and the magnitude represents how fast the sphere spins. \n\n**Divergence**:\n\nDivergence is a little trickier. The divergence of a vector field at a point yields a scalar quantity. The quantity represents to what extent that point is a source or sink. Imagine a vector field representing the velocity of air at every point in a room. If the air were heated at one point, the air around it would expand outwards. The velocity vectors would point away from this point giving a positive divergence (source). If the air were cooled at a point, the air would contract, causing the velocity vectors to point towards the point, causing a negative divergence (sink). The magnitude of this divergence represents how fast the air is moving towards or away from that point.\n\n**Gradient**:\n\nThis is an easy to concept grasp when imagining the scalar field representing the temperature of a room at every point. The gradient of a scalar field yields a vector field, with each vector pointing in the direction of the greatest rate of change (with respect to position), with a magnitude equal to that rate. So at any point in the room, the vector obtained from the vector field given by the gradient would point in the direction that has the greatest temperature increases most quickly. The faster that increase, the larger the magnitude of the vector.\n\nEdit: Expanded the curl example to three dimensions. Clarified a few points. Spelling.",
"Let's start with the gradiënt because in my opinion it's the most intuitive thing.\n\nLet's say we have a function of three variables f(x,y,z). This function assigns a value to every point in the 3D coordinate system. The gradiënt at a point is an arrow (vector) pointing towards the path that will lead to the highest increase in value of the function. The magnitude of this arrow also represents how strong this increase will be.\nSo for example we have a point P with function value 1 surrounded by points with function values 2 and only one point with value 3, then the gradiënt at P will point towards this point with value 3. The gradiënt for a single variable function is just the derivative. The gradient is for functions! \n\nDivergence.\n\nThe divergence is a concept used not for functions but things called vector fields. A vector field is really like a function in three dimensions, except it assigns to every point a vector with a specific direction and magnitude. So a vector field is a field where in every point you have an arrow with a certain magnitude. The divergence at a point is a value for how strong the vectors are pointing away from that point. The physical meaning of this is:\n\nIf the vectors in the field represented the velocity of the flow of water, the points at which the divergence would not be zero would be points where water would be added, because only this way you can have a net outgoing flow.\n\nCurl.\n\nThe curl is also a term used in vector fields which I find the least intuitive. The curl at a point is a value for how hard the vectors of the field tend to rotate around this point. If again our vector field represented the velocity of water flow, the curl would be non zero at the points in which you could place a stick and it would start rotating. \n\nSummary\n\ngradient: kind of a derivative for more variables - used for functions\n\ndivergence: how hard something tends to flow away from a point - used for vector fields\n\ncurl : how hard something rotates around a point - used for vector fields",
"Only two answers in two hours? Fine, I'll throw in my penny.\n\nAt the center there is either a source, or a sink, for a flow of something. Usually you're talking about electro-magnetism fields.\n\nGradient is obviously just the rate of change in the intensity of that field.\n\nDivergence is basically the same as gradient, it is a measure of how much is flowing from or into the source or sink.\n\nCurl is how much the field is twisting around the source or sink, and that usually related to magnetism.\n\nPretty straight-forward, and honestly apart from line integrals you'll almost never be hassled by vector calculus later on.",
"Gradient: How steep something is (like a mountain)\n\n\nDivergence: How much of something is being added or removed (imagine a spring adding water, or a drain removing water)\n\n\nCurl: How much something rotates (like a whirlpool).",
"As a college student, it feels great to know the answer to an ELI5 before opening it.",
"Imagine a flat surface that small objects move on, and we are following one object across that surface. \"Curl\" is a measure of how fast and in what direction the object is spinning. \n\nNow imagine that the surface is no longer flat, but instead has high parts and low parts, like a topographical map. Carefully place a ball bearing at any high point on the surface, and let it roll to a lower point without pushing it in any way. It will follow the same path every time. The \"gradient\" of the map shows the paths the ball might take for every starting point you might place it from.\n\nWhat would this \"gradient\" look like? It would be a flat surface where each point has an arrow and a number. The ball rolls in the direction of the arrow, at a speed corresponding to the number. Low points will have the surrounding arrows pointing at them, and the high points will have the surrounding arrows pointing away from them. \"divergence\" is a measure of how many arrows point away from the object, and how big the numbers of the associated arrows are.",
"Oh man. This is when I started sucking at math."
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8ohqgx | how do the spacex rockets land upright? | I’ve been amazed again and again by the way SpaceX rockets are able to land standing up, can anyone explain how this is possible? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/8ohqgx/eli5_how_do_the_spacex_rockets_land_upright/ | {
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"It's a technique that the Soviets developed but didn't have enough computing power or sensitive enough instruments to do successfully. It's called a suicide burn and its technically the most efficient way to land a rocket from space. The idea is that the rocket will thrust at the last possible moment to minimise the time for which its delta v is working against its weight.\n\nThe main problem is that retro thrusting at full throttle leaves a very small margin of error. If it thrusts too late, it will hit the ground with a tank full of explosive fuel and oxidant, and if it thrusts too early, it won't reach the ground before accelerating up again and will then drop.\n\nUntil recently, nobody has had powerful enough computers to do this or accurate enough equipment to have the data to pull this off. ",
"Imagine you have a ball in a bowl and you want to keep that ball at the very bottom of the bowl. You as a human can visually detect when that ball is at the bottom of the bowl so when the ball has moved to the side you can tip the bowl to return the ball to the bottom. Here, your eyes are working as a sensory feedback system which causes your body to physically act. The spaceX rockets are essentially doing the same thing, they have a sensor network that can detect the orientation and position of the rocket, so when the rocket is not in the orientation and position they want, the rocket has small boosters placed around the body of the rocket that will act to return the rocket to the position and orientation they want. ",
"Actual 5 y.o. explanation, in case anyone but OP needs one:\n\n1. Take an empty can of Pringles\n2. Glue something reasonably heavy to it's bottom from the inside.\n3. Glue a plastic disc on around the top part.\n4. Throw the whole thing into the air, see it come down bottom down every time.\n\nYou just made an aerodynamic model of a Falcon 9 without thrust. It's center of gravity on reentry is very low, and it's center of drag \\(where the grid fins are\\) is quite high.\n\nThe tricky part is targeting the reentry \\(vector thrust of the engines, timed backburn, adjustable gridfins are doing that\\) and slowing the rocket down in time with precise and short burn so it lands safely instead of what's sometimes called 'lithobreaking', which was explained in other posts here.."
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5uqkug | why does eating something help with an upset stomach? | I'm not talking about eating saltines, but often when I feel sick, if I eat something small, I feel much better. It seems counterintuitive to me. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5uqkug/eli5_why_does_eating_something_help_with_an_upset/ | {
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"In the case of hypoglycemia one of the symptoms is nausea so you eat something , your blood sugar goes back up and you feel better"
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4yq7pf | can a vacuum cleaner work in space? | If It Can, Why or How So? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4yq7pf/eli5_can_a_vacuum_cleaner_work_in_space/ | {
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"Do you mean in space, like the vacuum of space? Or do you mean something like in the International Space Station?\n\nIf the former, then no, but for the latter, yes. Vacuum cleaners work by creating low pressure areas inside of them that pull air up through the bottom or the hose. So if you have air, it will work, but without it, there's nothing to suck with.",
"Technically yes. In space its not a completely vacuum, its just effectively so. Just like if there's one drop of water on a towel, that makes the towel not \"dry\", there's a couple of gas molecules floating around. \n\nSo the vacuum motor will spin and move gas molecules around. But there's not enough that the vacuum cleaner will be effective.",
"It depends if you are talking about somewhere in space their is an atmosphere (space shuttle, mars) or space where in practical terms there isn't an atmosphere.\n\nA vacuum cleaner works by creating a pressure difference between the outside air and the cleaning portion on the vacuum. The cleaning portion uses a pump to maintain a lower pressure than the surrounding environment so that air, and dirt that gets dragged along with it, get sucked into the cleaner and trapped in the filter. This fundamentally relies on having some sort of gas/liquid atmosphere (you can vacuum under water too).\n\nIf you don't have an atmosphere you won't be able to create a lower than ambient pressure in the vacuum so it won't be able to suck stuff in. This is why they use things like auger drills or other mechanical scoops to take samples from the surface of the moon. This also applies if you have an atmosphere, but it's barely (small fraction of what the earth has) there so the pressure differential that a pump would create is so low that it would be useless."
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f6uqqn | how can our eyes tell the difference between a close object and a far object? | How can our eyes tell the difference between a close object and a far object | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/f6uqqn/eli5_how_can_our_eyes_tell_the_difference_between/ | {
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"Two ways. One is just the size of what we see compared to how big we know that object to be. The second is based on the angle of your eyes. Use your left and right hands to point at your computer screen. Now instead point at something very far away. See how the angle between your fingers changes as you point to things further away? Your brain can tell how far something is by how it has to aim your eyes in order to focus on it.",
"Binocular/stereoscopic vision basically each eye gets a separate view of the object and by comparing the two visions the brain is able to perceive depth, the binocular vision is why predators have the eyes facing forward where as herbivores need close to 360 degree vision to see what is sneaking up on them _URL_0_",
"There are a few ways that you can do this, and it's really quite complicated. \n\nThere are things called monocular cues to 3D space. Monocular cues are methods that let you tell the difference between a close object and a far away one with only one eye. For example, occlusion is one example of a monocular cue. Occlusion describes the situation where one object covers the view of another object. The object being obstructed is typically seen as the one being further away. \n\nAnother monocular cue is relative size. Simply put, smaller things are typically seen as being further away. Relative size is often paired with a texture gradient, where closer things are typically seen closer to the \"bottom\" of your visual field, and things farther away are seen towards the \"top.\" You also have an implicit understanding of how big or small things \"usually\" are. If you see a coke can and a person, and they look almost the same height, you can infer that the person is probably very far away since you have a decent idea of about how large a coke can is. \n\nYou are also born with an implicit understanding of properties of the atmosphere. Things further away have to pass through more air, and so the light reflecting off of them is more scattered and appear fainter and more distance. This is called aerial perspective, and its another clue to which things are further away and which things are closer to you.\n\nYou also have the tool of linear perspective. Imagine a road going off into the distance. In this case, the two sides of the road are parallel, but from your perspective they will converge onto a single point called the vanishing point. Linear perspective helps you understand that the vanishing point is probably very far away.\n\nThere are also motion cues that you can use to determine depth. When you're driving in a car and look out the side window, objects close to the car like the railing on a bridge seem to zoom past, but that tree in the distance appears to move a lot slower. This is an example of something called motion parallax, and it's a situation where you implicitly use outside influences to gain an understanding of depth.\n\nThese are all monocular depth cues, and they're all very basic. They seem obvious to you, but only because they're so hardwired into your brain-- don't take them for granted, since such a well designed visual system took millions of years to evolve.\n\nThere's also stereopsis. I won't get very much into this unless someone specifically asks, since it gets pretty complicated pretty quickly, but here is the short version. The nature of the way your eyes are set up is that they see slightly different images. There is an imaginary circle going around your head called the horopter. Again, without going into the geometry, objects that fall on the horopter are seen by the \"same\" cells on each retina-- they fall on the same relative position. As objects get farther from the horopter in either direction, the disparity the two retinas gets larger and larger. This is another way that you can tell the difference between close objects and objects that are farther away. How does your brain take the fact that the two eyes see slightly different images and combine them into a single coherent perception of the world? That's a fascinating question that I won't go into here, but I'm also happy to talk about.",
"It's mostly your brain doing it, not your eyes. /u/OccassionalReddit194 described it well. \n \nA lot of people think it is just because we have two eyes and hence a slightly different view from each eye. That really only works for things that are quite close. For distant objects, it's pretty much useless, since both eyes get the same view. You can easily test this yourself. Cover one eye and look around. Can you tell what is close and what is far? Yes, you can. \n \nLens focusing is a pretty minor part of it. People with artificial lenses in their eyes (which do not change focus) can perceive close/far objects just fine. Many people have artificial lenses to cure cataracts (me, for example). \n \nMost of the work is done by your brain. You are constantly updating a model of your environment, figuring out what is close and what is far. Your brain does this in a variety of ways, such as seeing what objects obscure the view of others. But it relies on experience to a great deal. \n \nInterestingly, your brain doesn't keep an exact \"image\" of things to make this map. It seems to have a more abstract model to let you know just enough about the things that you aren't actively looking at and concentrating on. Presumably that limits how much \"processing power\" or memory you need to be aware of your environment, freeing up your brain to do other tasks."
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4t7r7w | how do blood tests for stds work? | So they draw your blood, then they test your blood, but how do they test the blood? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4t7r7w/eli5_how_do_blood_tests_for_stds_work/ | {
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"They look for antibodies related to known diseases. If the antibodies show up they know the disease has been there. If it hadn't there wouldn't have been any need for an immune response "
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5jzoiy | how can the r9 fury with 7.1 tflops of compute power and the gtx 1060 with 4.3 tflops of compute power preform the same in gaming loads? | The Fury also has over double the number of transistors | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5jzoiy/eli5_how_can_the_r9_fury_with_71_tflops_of/ | {
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"FLOPS and number of transistors is just metrics for some workloads but not others. You might also get different results if you run different benchmarks or different games. Computation power is not the only thing you need for gaming. You might have issues with memory or memory throughput so your computing process gets starved of data to compute. You can have different types of operations so one system needs to do more operations for the same task. There might also be different algorithms for the graphics rendering so one is much faster then the other one."
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4isluz | when does being unconscious become classified as a being in a coma? is there a period of time or is it your state of mind? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4isluz/eli5_when_does_being_unconscious_become/ | {
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"There's a scale of unconsciousness (\"Glasgow\" I think), that rates several criteria based on how a patient responds to stimuli. Things like: can they open their eyes in response to verbal commands? Will they react physically to pain? Generally if you fall in a portion of this scale you're considered comatose. (\"In a coma\")\n\nLook up the Glasgow scale; I think you'll find at least a Wikipedia article."
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50v74a | why do peoples voices sound completely different over the phone? but when ever someone records their voice on camera it usually sounds relitivly the same? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/50v74a/eli5_why_do_peoples_voices_sound_completely/ | {
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"The telephone network was built a century ago. Most of the standards for audio over that network are decades old as well. Even the new standards like 4G LTE (which has a section on audio encoding, it is still a telephony standard) are built to interface with the ancient network and older standards. Back in those days, materials and technology weren't as good as they are today and the standards reflect what was possible at the time. \n\nBasically while the microphones and speakers are good enough for decent communication, the network and standards that interface with it are not. ",
"It's because telephones only carry a narrow range of sound frequency; modern recording devices store the whole range of sound you can hear.\n\nThe human ear can detect sounds in the range of (roughly) 20 to 20,000 cycles per second (those are called \"Hertz\", abbreviated Hz). The more Hz, the higher pitched the sound is.\n\nBut most of the sound in speech is in a narrower range - around 300 to 3000 Hz. So when telephones were developed, they were designed to carry only that range - dropping the rest of the range meant a big savings in hardware cost.\n\nWith today's technology it's just about equally easy to cover the whole range of 20 to 20,000 Hz as the narrower \"speech band\" of 300 to 3000 Hz. So modern sound and video recorders do the whole band, which makes speech sound more natural.\n\nBut telephones are still designed the way they were 100 years ago - they just carry the minimum range to sound intelligible."
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4jpykp | why do tv stations cancel their shows, saying they don't have enough viewers. how did they get those exact numbers? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4jpykp/eli5_why_do_tv_stations_cancel_their_shows_saying/ | {
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"Through ratings! Nielson is a company that monitors TV shows by the amount of viewers the show has. This is done a number of ways. One, the Nielsen people send you $50 and a log book to track everything you watch for one whole week, you send it back they give you another $50. Secondly, Nielsen can send you a set top box to plug into your TV and monitor your watching habits immediately. Now let's break these down into demographics, while total viewers matter somewhat, what advertisers are looking for are capturing working people, so the 18-49 year olds are the most tracked and catered to of all viewers. Example, you've watched cable news before, compare the commercials to TBS or TNT, FOX, CNN, MSNBC track 35-69 year olds, which is why you see commercials for chair lifts, AARP, and other old fogie stuff. Interesting fact, there are about 400 million people in our country, only 100 million have TVs in their homes, Nielsen tracks about 50,000 households or .05 percent. That .05 percent basically determines what gets renewed and what gets cancelled. Hope I answered your question. Tracking TV numbers is a very intricate, complex science. God I love it!",
"Data analyst from Nielsen here. We have more than 100 k panel households on which we do our analysis and we receive data of what they watch(TV), buy(From stores), listen to(Radio) and read(Magazines, news papers) on a daily basis. A combination of all this is used to determine the feasibility, ratings and so on. We can even forecast in advance the number of viewers for each show and give an in depth and detailed analysis."
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4fqap1 | why does the desktop reddit site load up faster than the mobile reddit site on my phone? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4fqap1/eli5_why_does_the_desktop_reddit_site_load_up/ | {
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"The real answer is poor coding for the mobile version. Most web designers do not put as much time and effort into the mobile version than they do on the desktop versions.\n\nA better answer would be for reddit to use a responsive design that works on any device.",
"When you visit _URL_0_ your mobile browser sends information about the type of content it wants, when you request the standard webpage your Browser says, hey i want the normal page and the Server delivers it to you. \nWhen you want the mobile page the Server responds with \"wait, I have something special for you, go here\" so your Browser asks for the New link, which should only take a few extra milliseconds. \nIf you have not visited the site before then it has to load all the fancy mobile optimized data, wbich can take some more time. Even worse if they are doing some testing for a different mobile site you may get redirected to another URL path few times.\n"
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2uxsl0 | why are happy hours usually only available in the bar? | My understanding of happy hour is that places offer discounted food and drink to entice customer to come in and purchase said food and drink at a usually slower time. So why only offer it in the bar? This eliminates customers who are under 21 (for example those who are early in college but possibly off at 4pm) or people who want to drink but your bar is full (we just left a restaurant that we were excited to give money to in exchange for drinks but their bar was full).
| explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2uxsl0/eli5_why_are_happy_hours_usually_only_available/ | {
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"Because people who sit at a table on average take a lot longer to finish than those who sit at the bar. Longer visits mean less turnover, mean less money for the restaurant.",
"Alcohol is where restaurants make nearly all their profit. Someone at a table is there to eat, and may buy one drink, while someone at the bar will buy a few drinks."
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aovkqh | after a night of drinking, why does cold air make me less nauseous and warm air make me more nauseous? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/aovkqh/eli5_after_a_night_of_drinking_why_does_cold_air/ | {
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"Probably because your body is dehydrated, overheated, and your systems are all backed up. Cooling yourself off would reduce your blood pressure and help speed things up again. Warning yourself up does the opposite. ",
"Your body is basically overworking itself because your spent a night drinking poison. The cold air helps cool you down. There's also the possibility that you're not smelling any unsettling smells that would add to nausea. Cold air doesn't really carry smells as well as warm or hot air. "
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5kjtqf | what causes those random little shudders you sometimes experience for seemingly no reason? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5kjtqf/eli5_what_causes_those_random_little_shudders_you/ | {
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"what are the shudders/why do I shudder sometimes when I pee??",
"As a reaction to stimuli, usually music...\n\n\"Frisson (French for 'shiver') is a sensation somewhat like shivering, usually caused by stimuli. It is typically expressed as an overwhelming emotional response combined with piloerection (goosebumps). Stimuli that produce a response are specific to the individual.\"\n\n_URL_0_",
"It's called myoclonus, and it basically can be thought of as a benign little seizure that almost everyone gets",
"[here's a past ELI5](_URL_0_) ",
"I found this question so interesting, and the answers so inadequate (Come on guys! Explaining the neurobiology is like saying men get erections because their penis fills with blood. True: but not illuminating) that I did a little digging myself. After finding nothing very helpful in my old neuro books, I found [this](_URL_0_) answer on Quora, which was written so well I'll just quote \n\n > Thrill-induced chills are a physiological response to a number of seemingly unrelated types of emotional stimuli. The exact mechanism is still the subject of scientific investigation.\n\n > Thrill-induced \"chills\" are a physiological response that is called \"frisson\" by researchers. The main effect is \"goose bumps\" or \"hair standing up\" (piloerecetion), which is caused by contraction of tiny muscles around the hair folicles. There is also the full-body shudder, which is related to shivering and is caused by rhythmic oscillating contractions of the major skeletal muscle groups, most likely controlled at the level of the brain stem and spinal cord. Shivers are normally intended to generate warmth through physical exertion of the muscles.\n\n > The interesting questions are: 1) why is the sensation pleasurable? and 2) why can this response be induced by stimuli unrelated to cold (music, aesthetic awe, primal scream, threat of loss, certain physical and tactile sensations)?\n\n > On the first question, a PET scan study at McGill university looked at the effect of frisson in response to peak experience while listening to music (\"musical frisson\"). (_URL_3_...). They found that dopamine was released during this peak experience. Dopamine is the neurotransmitter associated with \"reward\" which are positive experiences that the brain attempts to repeat in the future. [1]\n\n > On the evolutionary origin or purpose of chills, David Huron argues that they come from our instinctual reaction to human screams, which is an alert and orienting reaction. Human screams are audible at a longer distance than any other sound, and are critical for avoiding danger (warnings) and protecting infants (distress calls). So a scream is an important sound that completely consumes attention.\n\n > Huron argues that in music, certain sound elements may trigger the alert reaction (causing the chills effect), but then are realized to be harmless, inducing the pleasurable response. The musical features invoking the sensation often involve a sudden increase in loudness which might normally be a signal of surprise and danger. (_URL_1_...)\n\n > Grewe et al (2010) argue that chills have many unrelated causes including \"fight and flight reactions, aesthetic awe or social loss\" and so may not have a single explanation or evolutionary origin. [2]\n\n > Overall, chills may be an ancient physiological response that has been (accidentally?) co-opted by evolution for new purposes, such as social danger alert. Art forms such as music and painting have found clever ways of activating this response.\n\n > -----\n\n > [1] Salimpoor VN et al (2011). Anatomically distinct dopamine release during anticipation and experience of peak emotion to music. Nature Neuroscience. (_URL_2_...)\n\n > [2] Grewe et al (2010). Chills in different sensory domains: Frisson elicited by acoustical, visual, tactile and gustatory stimuli. Psychology of Music. \n",
"and why do they almost exclusively happen when I'm pissing mid stream???",
"This is an odd thing but possibly related. I get shivers when I cuddle with my boyfriend. It feels a lot like pee shivers in that it causes my body to spasm. Sometimes they're small spasms, and other times I violently jerk. They can happen 5-10 times in a row. It's usually a nice sensation. Once in a while it happens unexpectedly when he touches me in public, and I become alarmed. Never happened with anyone else before though. \n\nWould love to have a better understanding of this if anyone has some insight or know if this happens to anyone else!",
"While on the topic, can anyone else get their shivers at will?\n\n I don't get them very often at random (maybe 1 every couple months) but if I want I can get the same 'random' shiver just by focusing, though after a few waves of shivering they lose their intensity/warmth.\nmade an account to comment, I really want to know if anyone else can do this or perhaps try to :)",
"I know for me, it's because I have essential myoclonus (a benign form of epileptic-like activity that isn't well-characterized or understood). Things that lower the seizure threshold, like sleep deprivation and stress, cause me to have them more frequently, and it feels like a constant shiver/tickle. When I'm really messed up (ie: 16 hours of sleep over 6 days the weeks of med school finals), it progresses from just shivers to full-on jerks where my limb/trunk muscles contract suddenly. \n\nThis isn't to say that everyone who has this sensation has epilepsy or essential myoclonus. However, it can be the case for people who experience it more frequently than others. But since it's yet another medical case of \"we don't know why some people have this and others don't,\" it's not a great explanation. ",
"Changes in body temperatures......generally caused by external temperatures that modulate quickly while you are not ready for it.",
"They are also usually the first sign of opiate withdrawal. Very unpleasant. Goosebumps and shivers non stop. Must somehow be linked to when your body feels uncomfortable. Surprised this doesn't get brought up more whenever I see one of these threads about shivers.",
"ASMR or [Auto sensory meridian response](_URL_0_) Different things trigger it, and it can happen by command if you can (like me.) Changes in temperature, hearing good music, feeling a strong emotion, putting on comfortable clothes, or any of the many ASMR videos on YouTube can trigger it, everyone has their own. ",
"Are you referring to /r/frisson or uncontrollable shudder/tic that reoccurs like a neck tic?",
"I like to think of those as ASMR (autonomic sensory meridian response) moments. Check out the wiki of it (link below). I've noticed a lot of my \"ASMR triggers\" are really pleasant sensations like getting the hair on the back of my neck buzzed and that moment when I realize I have an imminent opportunity to take a leak when I really got to go. \nA lot of people watch youtube videos to try to trigger it, (search ASMR in youtube) Also, it's more fun to talk about if you pronounce it as \"Ass-Mar.\" For example, saying 'I got the \"Ass-mars\" right now', or talking about your \"Ass-mar triggers\" in front of strangers. Great time. \n\n_URL_0_\n",
"IMO this is very important for taoist meditation--and some other styles as well--as it comes from some of the practices where you are trying to move \"energy/chi/Prana\" around the body--kind of a great way to describe how energy might feel if it did move around!",
"Adrenaline build up that randomly stimulates your nervous system. It can be a result of stress or sudden physical movements.",
"Since I've quit drinking, it usually happens when something I did before I quit drinking pops into my head. ",
"Look into ASMR, you can get the feeling by listening to people tap, type and talk softly. It's intense. ",
"One of your dead relatives walking right past you letting you know that they're keeping an eye on you.",
"I have CRPS from chronic pain and I get shivers up my left side all the time but I don't think that is what you mean. Mine comes from acute pain and when it hits hard I get a shudder from my left arm that goes all over the left side of my body. If it is really bad I also have a weird sight issue that means I cannot tell how far I am from things on my left and I walk into walls and doors and stuff."
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jiuao | hinduism | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/jiuao/eli5_hinduism/ | {
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"Hinduism is a really old religion that comes from India. People there believed in many gods at first that were all in charge of different things they saw around them like fire, rivers, and things like that.\n\nToday, most Hindus (people who practice Hinduism) believe in a lot of gods that they think love them personally and can help them. They believe these gods can bless them and help them do things like learn and be good.\n\nThey also believe that when they die, they'll be born again in hell if they were bad, earth if they were okay, and heaven if they were good. They believe that praying to the gods and offering them worship can help them stop being reborn and go to heaven.\n\nThey worship by using pictures or statues of their favorite gods and offering them the things they love to show the gods how much they love them. They also \"meditate\" which means they think about their god and what that god teaches.",
"Hinduism is a very old religion from india. The main concept is that you are a part of the \"Whole\" and you are on a journey, from being born as a bacteria, to ascending to be a human, to finally being part of the \"whole\" god again. Imagine you are a lego. You are one lego in a giant box of other legos. However, when all of the legos are put together, it forms the \"whole\". Each human is a lego, and when they lead a life following their dharma (their way), they are returned as a piece of the \"whole\". The other gods that hinduism refers to are actually mini-structures of assembled legos that are still part of the whole, but are different aspects. Eventually, through fulfilling your dharma in each role of life you are (a bacteria, plant, animal, human), you will eventually be placed into the \"whole\" to rest forever. \n\nEssentially, this is what i was taught, and tried to explain it like you were five\n\nSource: I'm a Hindu. ",
"I don't think the responses thus far have been a very adequate or a very thorough explanation of what the OP is requesting an ELI5 for.\n\nHinduism in and of itself is not a united entity. A really amazing compare/contrast that was made by Edward Said in Orientalism describes it as such: imagine grouping Judaism, Christianity and Islam under one heading and labeling them as one religion. This is very similar to the way \"Hinduism\" is. If you are familiar with the Abrahamic religions, you will know that similarities such as monotheism, an omnipotent, omniscient and omnibenevolent God, and other strong correlations. Yet, as you look further and further into these religions, you realize not only are they not the same, there are very strong differences that set these religions apart. The problem with the concept of \"Hinduism\" is that the differentiation into actual separate religions never occurred.\n\nWhen the British colonized India, there were Muslims, Sikhs, Buddhists, and then a whole host of other practices that they couldn't group. So for the British to be able to categorize and label these individuals, they assigned them as \"Hindus.\" This helps create a context as to how the misnomer of Hinduism as one religion came about.\n\nHinduism, as practiced across India, varies from region to region. It is a \"religion\" in which practices, traditions, rituals and beliefs will not only vary from region to region, but even from village to village. This is not abnormal for religions in general, Islam, Judaism and Christianity all have subsects, but the differences in practice amongst \"Hindu\" practices tend to be a little more striking than those amongst subsects in the Abrahamic religions.\n\nMore importantly, which many people wonder, how many \"gods\" do Hindus believe in? If this hasn't been made clear by now, let me reiterate, these beliefs differ from region to region. But across India, you will see oftentimes there is something called the \"istadevata\" which is the personal god of the family. These families oftentimes will believe in multiple gods with multiple roles. Other families may believe these gods are simply representations of one god, whilst other families or individuals may believe the concept of \"god\" in and of itself is flawed as are concepts of good and evil. This last philosophical concept has strong parallels with Buddhism.\n\nSome of the points made by the others who have replied have merit, but I think the history of Hinduism is what helps in understanding the religion moreso than the random beliefs and tenets you will hear from multiple sources which may or may not pan out as true depending on who you talk to.\n\n\n",
"Hinduism is a really old religion that comes from India. People there believed in many gods at first that were all in charge of different things they saw around them like fire, rivers, and things like that.\n\nToday, most Hindus (people who practice Hinduism) believe in a lot of gods that they think love them personally and can help them. They believe these gods can bless them and help them do things like learn and be good.\n\nThey also believe that when they die, they'll be born again in hell if they were bad, earth if they were okay, and heaven if they were good. They believe that praying to the gods and offering them worship can help them stop being reborn and go to heaven.\n\nThey worship by using pictures or statues of their favorite gods and offering them the things they love to show the gods how much they love them. They also \"meditate\" which means they think about their god and what that god teaches.",
"Hinduism is a very old religion from india. The main concept is that you are a part of the \"Whole\" and you are on a journey, from being born as a bacteria, to ascending to be a human, to finally being part of the \"whole\" god again. Imagine you are a lego. You are one lego in a giant box of other legos. However, when all of the legos are put together, it forms the \"whole\". Each human is a lego, and when they lead a life following their dharma (their way), they are returned as a piece of the \"whole\". The other gods that hinduism refers to are actually mini-structures of assembled legos that are still part of the whole, but are different aspects. Eventually, through fulfilling your dharma in each role of life you are (a bacteria, plant, animal, human), you will eventually be placed into the \"whole\" to rest forever. \n\nEssentially, this is what i was taught, and tried to explain it like you were five\n\nSource: I'm a Hindu. ",
"I don't think the responses thus far have been a very adequate or a very thorough explanation of what the OP is requesting an ELI5 for.\n\nHinduism in and of itself is not a united entity. A really amazing compare/contrast that was made by Edward Said in Orientalism describes it as such: imagine grouping Judaism, Christianity and Islam under one heading and labeling them as one religion. This is very similar to the way \"Hinduism\" is. If you are familiar with the Abrahamic religions, you will know that similarities such as monotheism, an omnipotent, omniscient and omnibenevolent God, and other strong correlations. Yet, as you look further and further into these religions, you realize not only are they not the same, there are very strong differences that set these religions apart. The problem with the concept of \"Hinduism\" is that the differentiation into actual separate religions never occurred.\n\nWhen the British colonized India, there were Muslims, Sikhs, Buddhists, and then a whole host of other practices that they couldn't group. So for the British to be able to categorize and label these individuals, they assigned them as \"Hindus.\" This helps create a context as to how the misnomer of Hinduism as one religion came about.\n\nHinduism, as practiced across India, varies from region to region. It is a \"religion\" in which practices, traditions, rituals and beliefs will not only vary from region to region, but even from village to village. This is not abnormal for religions in general, Islam, Judaism and Christianity all have subsects, but the differences in practice amongst \"Hindu\" practices tend to be a little more striking than those amongst subsects in the Abrahamic religions.\n\nMore importantly, which many people wonder, how many \"gods\" do Hindus believe in? If this hasn't been made clear by now, let me reiterate, these beliefs differ from region to region. But across India, you will see oftentimes there is something called the \"istadevata\" which is the personal god of the family. These families oftentimes will believe in multiple gods with multiple roles. Other families may believe these gods are simply representations of one god, whilst other families or individuals may believe the concept of \"god\" in and of itself is flawed as are concepts of good and evil. This last philosophical concept has strong parallels with Buddhism.\n\nSome of the points made by the others who have replied have merit, but I think the history of Hinduism is what helps in understanding the religion moreso than the random beliefs and tenets you will hear from multiple sources which may or may not pan out as true depending on who you talk to.\n\n\n"
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1pmquy | peta | PETA (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals) are constantly in the news for being radical animal rights activists. But then, next thing you know they're abusers of animals?
Wat?
EDIT: Thanks everyone, seems that PETA stands for People for the EXTREME treatment of animals.
And not extreme in a cool way.. :( | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1pmquy/eli5_peta/ | {
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"I'm not a PETA fan - they are too extreme for me. But running shelters is a hard, nasty job - there are just so many unwanted pets with no place to put them. Sometimes PETA compromises on their principles by euthanizing thousands of animals - while at other times they take animal rights to absurd extremes like defending cockroaches.",
"According to PETA, the keeping of pets is inhumane in and of itself, animals are to be treated the same way as humans, and the ownership of other people is generally frowned upon. The shelters take and euthanize animals that they can't afford to keep, can't be released, and according to their principals shouldn't be given up for adoption. ",
"And they are hypocrites.\nPETA Senior Vice President MaryBeth Sweetland on her use of insulin, which was tested on animals:\n\n “I’m an insulin-dependent diabetic. Twice a day I take synthetically manufactured insulin that still contains some animal products — and I have no qualms about it … I’m not going to take the chance of killing myself by not taking insulin. I don’t see myself as a hypocrite. I need my life to fight for the rights of animals.”\n\n –Glamour, January 1990",
"PETA does not believe in a right to life for animals.\n\nThey believe that pets and domesticated animals should not exist. If they had their way all pets and domesticated animals would be exterminated. ",
"Vegan here. I absolutely hate PETA. Mostly because they make vegans look like assholes, but also because they are a profit driven organization that preys on shocking tactics and sexism to sell an argument. PETA is an extremist organization. \n\nMore info about sexism and PETA? Check out their [twisted website](_URL_0_) that promotes sexual abuse in the name of veganism? WAT? I seriously wrote an entire essay on this shit. It infuriates me. \n\nAs an (almost) life long vegetarian, my first introduction to PETA was their slaughterhouse videos. These violent, and (sometimes) fictionalized videos had a lasting impression on my mind as a child. Emotionally preying on weak minds is not a moral way to stage an argument. Nevertheless, I went vegetarian at 12 and vegan at 18 and I do not regret either of these decisions. Since then, PETA has launched a campaign targeted at children. It's called PETA2. \n\nTL;DR Please don't equate veganism with PETA. We're not all insane. "
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2eu17k | the difference between all of the time travel rules in popular shows/movies | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2eu17k/eli5_the_difference_between_all_of_the_time/ | {
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"Because it's fiction writers can change the rules as they please. Most scientist believe that travelling back to the past or into the future is impossible. "
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2kyo96 | how did some states education system get so bad? | It hurts my pockets. And my job outlook. It just hurts. I know income equality is what america is about, but why do they have such a disparity in education too? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2kyo96/eli5_how_did_some_states_education_system_get_so/ | {
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"lack of parental involvement. The areas with the lowest literacy rates are often the areas with the highest per capita education funding.\n\nYou can't expect schools to teach kids magically when the kids are being told at home that education doesn't matter.\n\nThe thing is in the US there is a defeatist culture among the urban poor that everything is a matter of luck and they don't have any. "
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6f8j8l | how do you extract and process gold? | As the title says. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/6f8j8l/eli5_how_do_you_extract_and_process_gold/ | {
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"This guy did a whole series of youtube videos on how to do it at small scale.\n\n_URL_0_\n\nIndustrial scale is different, but in small scale: Basically dissolve the gold from your mixed material in insanely strong acid. Drain the gold-bearing-acid-liquid into a new container. Mix the acid with a base, and the gold will come out of the solution.\n\nThe Cody's labs videos show the whole process from gold-bearing scraps to having a little nugget of gold."
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c7lr9i | how does natural gas get made into synthetic oil and why is it better? | After seeing a commercial I looked on Google and saw lots of big words. Husband wants to know. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/c7lr9i/eli5_how_does_natural_gas_get_made_into_synthetic/ | {
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"Natural gas is mostly made of the chemical methane. Methane (CH4) belongs to a category of chemicals known as hydrocarbons, meaning the main structure of the chemical is hydrogen and carbon.\n\nOne possible main component of synthetic oil is isoparaffin (CxH(2x+2)), another hydrocarbon. The knowledge of how to convert hydrocarbons into different forms is part of organic chemistry. Different reagents, catalysts and heating processes are used to convert the methane into isoparaffin.\n\n[This](_URL_0_) is a patent I found for the process. It’s very technically detailed, but the main takeaway is that the size of the isoparaffins produced is tightly controlled to 4-7 carbon atoms.\n\nThe final product (synthetic oil) is very uniform, which would have less impurities or unwanted compounds, and improve consistency. This would improve overall performance of the synthetic oil, because of the controlled sizes.",
"This topic is a bit complicated for 5 year-olds but I'll do my best:\n\nOil is a mixture of molecules called hydrocarbons. To make these molecules synthetically you need to start with 2 things at a minimum: carbon and hydrogen. Natural gas (mostly methane, CH4) has both, and it's combined with water (to provide additional hydrogen) in a reaction called Steam Reforming:\n\nCH4 + H2O < - > 3 H2 + CO\n\nAfter reacting natural gas and water you get a mixture of hydrogen gas and CO. This is called *synthesis gas* or '*syngas*', because it can be used to build many different organic molecules, such as the hydrocarbons found in oil. Here's an example of a reaction that uses syngas to make butane (C4H10):\n\n10 H2 + 4 CO < - > C4H10 + 4 H2O\n\nVoila, you've made a synthetic fuel starting from only natural gas and water!\n\nYou might assume that making a hydrocarbon absorbs heat, because burning a hydrocarbon releases heat. In fact making hydrocarbons from syngas actually releases heat as well, because the reaction produces water as a byproduct, which is a very stable molecule that releases a lot of heat when formed, so overall the reaction is exothermic. However the reaction has very low conversion unless performed under extremely high pressures.\n\nThe specific process that makes 'synthetic oil' is called **Fischer-Tropsch synthesis**, and it was developed in Germany almost a century ago, so it's far from new technology. Nazi Germany relied on this process to produce oil when they couldn't buy oil on the international markets due to trade embargoes.\n\n'Better' could mean a lot of things, but the biggest benefit is that synthetic oil won't contain any impurities like sulphur, which is a major source of air pollution."
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3vbvo3 | why people are upset with mark zuckerber's decision to donate 99% of his fortune | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3vbvo3/eli5_why_people_are_upset_with_mark_zuckerbers/ | {
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"No one's upset, but if you really believe he's giving up 99% of his money for strictly altruistic reasons, you're pretty naive given that he's made every penny by scamming the general public. \n\nAnd that's assuming it's even true he's \"donating\" his money to begin with, which I don't for even a second.",
"People are accusing Zuckerberg of tax evasion because the initiative he setup and will donate his fortune to is a LLC instead of a charitable trust. From _URL_0_: \"He explained that if the L.L.C. sold stock, Mr. Zuckerberg would pay a hefty capital gains tax, particularly if Facebook stock kept climbing....would be to have the L.L.C. donate the appreciated shares to charity, which would generate a deduction at fair market value of the stock without triggering any tax.\"",
"He donated it to an LLC that he made and not actually to a charity. \n\n[Fortune](_URL_0_)"
]
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[],
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"http://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/04/business/dealbook/how-mark-zuckerbergs-altruism-helps-himself.html"
],
[
"http://fortune.com/2015/12/02/zuckerberg-charity/"
]
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|
||
d08ipn | how doctors can get near exact how much radiation people were exposed to if they weren’t wearing dosimeters? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/d08ipn/eli5_how_doctors_can_get_near_exact_how_much/ | {
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"Radiation is not common in random amounts. When there is a significant chance of a significant amount, people wear dosimeters. The rest of the time, it's usually estimated (not necessarily exactly) from other known facts. Did you get a dental X-ray? What was the machine, what were the settings, from this informaiton the dose can be calculated."
]
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| []
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[]
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|
||
46y00m | fibonacci's golden spiral and the golden ratio | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/46y00m/eli5_fibonaccis_golden_spiral_and_the_golden_ratio/ | {
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"First, it is very important to understand what Fibonacci's sequence is. Fibonacci's sequence is the sequence wherein the last two numbers are added to form the next one. The first few digits are 1,1,2,3,5,8,13. \n\nThe RATIO comes from what happens when you divide a number by the last one in the sequence. The answer usually is quite close to 1.618. What's really interesting is that the ratio of 1.618 shows up a lot in nature. As such, things with ration properties of 1.618 are extremely visually pleasing. This includes the golden spiral, which gets wider by a factor of 1.618 every quarter turn.",
"A lot of the \"interesting facts\" about the Fibonacci sequence are BS. There's litte particularly special about it. Check out this lecture from Stanford University\n\n_URL_0_"
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1mla9l | what is the fourth dimention? | I never seemed to understand the concept of the fourth dimention. Some say that the fourth dimention is time itself, however, recently there was a theory that the Big Bang was a result of a 4-d blackhole which did this and this and that. What exactly is that 4th dimention? Is there some model explaining the whole concept or at least what the 4th dimention is presumed to be? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1mla9l/eli5_what_is_the_fourth_dimention/ | {
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"Assuming you're speaking of spatial dimensions, I'll try my best to explain. \n\n*The \"0th\" dimension is a single point. Think of an infinitesimally small dot. \n\n*The 1st dimension is a line, consisting of an infinite number of dots placed next to one another. Think of any line you see as just dots put shoulder to shoulder along the axis of \"length\".\n\n*The 2nd dimension is a plane, consisting of an infinite number of lines placed next to each other. Think of a square, for instance, as just a bunch of lines placed next to each other along the axis of \"width\". \n\n*The 3rd dimension is a three-dimensional plane, consisting of an infinite number of planes placed next to each other. Think of a cube, for instance, as just a bunch of squares placed next to each other along the axis of \"depth\". \n\n*The 4th dimension is a four-dimensional plane, consisting of an infinite number of three-dimensional planes placed next to each other. Think of a [tesseract](_URL_0_) (four dimensional cube), for instance, as just a bunch of cubes placed next to each other. Unfortunately, as we are not able to adequately perceive the fourth dimension, there is no universally accepted next axis to stretch along; you can try to use your imagination, however! ",
"Asking what is the 4th dimension is like asking \"what is the 2nd dimension?\" We ordered them for convinence, but the dimensions don't have an order. It's better to say \"There are 4 dimension: 3 spacial and 1 temporal\", or depending on what version of string theory you subscribe to, i think it goes up to 26. \n\nWhat all these extra dimensions are is unknown. It's believed that the reason we don't know about these dimensions is that they are too much for us to interact with. The way I heard these described is to imagine a distant wire. From far away, it appears to have one dimension, length, that you can move about, but if you zoom in, you'll see that you can travel around the circumference of the wire. Some believe that these extra dimensions are just rolled up real tiny so that we can't see them, but something extremely small, like a string, can move between them"
]
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93qct4 | how do insects like spiders and centipedes come to be on islands formed from volcanic activity in the middle of the ocean? | I mean I understand how rodents, mammals, and obviously birds can arrive at an island but larger insects would have to be on items that float to shore right? Some of these islands are extremely far from other areas with life and that's potentially a long ride on something in saltwater just to arrive on a newly formed island with limited reproductive opportunities. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/93qct4/eli5_how_do_insects_like_spiders_and_centipedes/ | {
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"It can be couple of eggs on a piece of bark that flow to the shore. Or even rain - there are reports on raining frogs so raining insects or their eggs is possible also.\n\n(obligatory spiders are not insects comment :) ) ",
"The first chapter of James Michener's book, Hawaii, has a really nice, almost poetic, description of an island being born. And for this purpose it makes a good primer on how.\n\nPut simply, we are dealing in time spans of thousands of years. Every now and then a bird would make it to the island and leave some seeds behind in it's poop or from it's feathers before moving on. An insect carried great distances by storm winds lays it's eggs. Driftwood brings more. Etc, etc,etc...\n\nNot all would survive but over the years more and more would. All it takes is time."
]
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4nj69g | why do humans and chimps look so different even though their dna is 99% identical? | There are many similarities of course, but it doesn't feel like we are physically and mentally 99% identical. Why does this tiny 1% make such a massive difference? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4nj69g/eli5_why_do_humans_and_chimps_look_so_different/ | {
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"They look different because your brain is programmed to notice the differences. You've evolved to be very, very good at judging differences between facial features so you can recognize people you know. It's part of what makes you a social animal.\n\nIf you step back and consider it from a structural point of view, humans and chimps have far more in common than different. Like, say you were an alien who's job it was to catalog the different species on Earth. How would you describe the human and chimp specimens you had? Both have Male-female sexual reproduction. Body hair. Four limbs. Five fingers/toes with opposable thumbs. Heads contain mouth (taste), nose (smell), ears (hearing), eyes (sight) all configured in the same way. Internal organs are remarkably similar. The differences you'd observe are actually quite minor - relative differences in size and shape. In the grand scheme of things you might not even realize they were different species.\n\nIf you were to inventory the structural, functional and aesthetic structure of a man and a chimp, I suspect you'd find they were about 99% identical.\n\n*Edited to make more ELI5.*",
"We share around 92% with a mouse, and around 26% with yeast.\n\nThis suggests that just percentage comparisons can be misleading. A lot of what we share is the underlying stuff that makes organisms work. The small percentage of difference (most sources suggest around 2%,not 1%), is much more significant than it might appear.",
"Basically, our DNA *isn't identical*.\n\nWe have most of the *same genes*, but these genes are written differently.\n\nImagine you have an apple and it's bright red. I have an apple and it's bright green. They are both ripe, but they look different. They are both definitely apples. \n\nTwo different copies of a gene are a bit like two different apple trees. They make the same thing, but they make it slightly differently.\n\nYou can see that we are definitely apes because even though we look quite different, there are a lot of similarities with other apes. Many of these similarities are even more obvious if you ignore all the hair. ",
"The truth is the majority of DNA is \"junk\" that is it is DNA that doesn't code for anything anymore. Instead its bits and pieces accumulated over millions of years from when we were far earlier creatures. So we have genes in our body from when we were single celled life forms and every stage of evolution from then until now. As we share the same ancestor with chimps we also share all that left over baggage.",
"There's a few things here to consider:\n\n1) In the grand scheme of things, while we may be different because humans are very self aware, we aren't really that different from Chimps. We have the same basic anatomical systems, from skeletal to organ system, \"wild\" humans would have a similar diet to chimps, we share many instinctual habits, etc. Its hard to fully wrap our heads around this because humans no longer act \"naturally\" because we're trained by society, but many of our natural inclinations, which are based off of DNA, don't tread too far from chimps. Sure, we're different from them, but not nearly as different from them as we are different from say...horses...or birds...or crocodiles...or...bananas.\n\n2) A lot of the DNA we have is \"essential for life\" DNA. This is DNA that pretty much anything that is alive is going to have. Every creature that has a heart, has to have DNA for a heart. While there might be some differences in how the heart functions, the sequencing for the heart will be relatively similar, because the hearts themselves are very similar. So, again, with point 1, we share a lot of similarities with our genetic cousins, so we have a lot of similar requirements, which means a lot of similar DNA\n\n3) On top of 2, a lot of the DNA we have is left over from when we were growing up, evolution-wise. There are sequences of DNA for parts we no longer have, and then \"counter\" sequences that stop the aforementioned sequence from activating. For example, both humans and chimps could have a DNA sequence for an organ that lets us breath fire, but evolution said NVM on that idea, and gave us a new sequence to cancel it out. This is something both of us are lacking, so its hard to see the similarity, but its something we share. Of course, its more likely that these canceled sequences are for something thats harmful to us, but that was just what first came to mind.\n\nAll that considered, 1% is a lot. We have a couple billion pairs, and even if you cut out the 99% we share, you're still left with more than enough to make a huge difference. "
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2m13sc | why does the nyt best sellers list differentiate between hardcover and paperback books? | To me nonfiction is nonfiction and fiction is fiction, regardless of the cover it has. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2m13sc/eli5_why_does_the_nyt_best_sellers_list/ | {
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"text": [
"New release books are almost all hardcover books, at least the ones that could possibly make that list. Paperbacks usually come out on the second or third printing. So think of the list like theater vs DVD sales for movies."
]
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jiwxs | how the reddit frontpage is determined | How does the algorithm work? And I assume it's the same once you sign in for all of a user's selected frontpage subreddits, correct? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/jiwxs/eli5_how_the_reddit_frontpage_is_determined/ | {
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"The most amount of upvotes in the shortest amount of time.\n\nOr at least that's how I understand it.",
"45 upvotes in an hr and this is on my front page. I guess it really is how fast it gets votes. ",
"It depends on whether it appeals to the hivemind or not. Intelligent, insightful links are ignored, whilst pictures of cats, a negative news article about the republicans, and a single image of a video game from the 90's amass thousands of upvotes.",
"why does my frontpage differ drastically from the 'all' page? if i don't check the 'all' page i'm bound to miss a ton of great content even though i am subscribed to the subreddits the content comes from. at any given time there might be 5-10 links with 1000+ upvotes at the top of the 'all' page that are nowhere to be seen in my personal page. it's a bit perplexing.",
"Not like you're five, because I don't know how:\n\nFirst, the frontpage only has the stuff that you want it to - the subreddits that you've picked to be on your own frontpage.\n\nThe algorithm also boosts some posts from each of your +frontpaged subreddits so that you have a diversity of content, even if your subreddits are more or less popular.\n\nBeyond that, the program looks at how many upvotes a link is getting, with a handicap for how long its been submitted. That's why its near impossible for anything to stay frontpaged for more than 24 hours.",
"Here's an attempt at a LI5 answer which says more than \"most upvotes in littlest time.\"\n\nImagine a racetrack for horses that goes on forever in one direction. The start of the track is labeled \"Jan 1, 1970 12:00am\" and there are equally spaced notches labeled \"Jan 1, 1970 12:01am\", \"Jan 1, 1970 12:02am\", and so on.\n\nWhen you submit a post, a horse representative is dropped onto the racetrack at the time of submission. If I submit a post now, it will be dropped at the marker reading \"Aug 15, 2011 1:02am.\"\n\nNow hopefully, my horse will start running! Every time my post gets an upvote, it gets a little burst of energy and moves forward. Every time my post gets a downvote, it trips up and loses some distance. If it doesn't get much attention, it'll stay around the marker of the time it was submitted. But if it gets lots of upvotes, it will start to race faster and faster, even past the horses that are being dropped onto the track upstream for newer posts!\n\n**The front page of r/all is a top 25 list of the horses currently winning this race.** The front page of a given subreddit is the top 25 list of the horses *from that subreddit* currently in the lead.\n\nEven the very best submissions will stop getting upvotes after a while, so the horse will start to slow down and eventually come to a stop. Even if it ran out way in front of the other horses, newer horses will have the advantage of being dropped further along the racetrack, so even if my post got a whole ton of upvotes in its lifetime, it won't stay in the top 25 for much longer than a couple hours.\n\nTo make up for this, there's also the \"top all time\" option, which lists the horses who traveled the longest distance, so the time they were submitted plays no role anymore.",
"Does a given user's frontpage take into account subreddits that the user has visited, but not frontpage'd?\n\nI accidentally spent a bit of time in the Starcraft 2 subreddit, and now I'm getting links from that subreddit that I really don't want.",
"Nice try, Digg",
"The most amount of upvotes in the shortest amount of time.\n\nOr at least that's how I understand it.",
"45 upvotes in an hr and this is on my front page. I guess it really is how fast it gets votes. ",
"It depends on whether it appeals to the hivemind or not. Intelligent, insightful links are ignored, whilst pictures of cats, a negative news article about the republicans, and a single image of a video game from the 90's amass thousands of upvotes.",
"why does my frontpage differ drastically from the 'all' page? if i don't check the 'all' page i'm bound to miss a ton of great content even though i am subscribed to the subreddits the content comes from. at any given time there might be 5-10 links with 1000+ upvotes at the top of the 'all' page that are nowhere to be seen in my personal page. it's a bit perplexing.",
"Not like you're five, because I don't know how:\n\nFirst, the frontpage only has the stuff that you want it to - the subreddits that you've picked to be on your own frontpage.\n\nThe algorithm also boosts some posts from each of your +frontpaged subreddits so that you have a diversity of content, even if your subreddits are more or less popular.\n\nBeyond that, the program looks at how many upvotes a link is getting, with a handicap for how long its been submitted. That's why its near impossible for anything to stay frontpaged for more than 24 hours.",
"Here's an attempt at a LI5 answer which says more than \"most upvotes in littlest time.\"\n\nImagine a racetrack for horses that goes on forever in one direction. The start of the track is labeled \"Jan 1, 1970 12:00am\" and there are equally spaced notches labeled \"Jan 1, 1970 12:01am\", \"Jan 1, 1970 12:02am\", and so on.\n\nWhen you submit a post, a horse representative is dropped onto the racetrack at the time of submission. If I submit a post now, it will be dropped at the marker reading \"Aug 15, 2011 1:02am.\"\n\nNow hopefully, my horse will start running! Every time my post gets an upvote, it gets a little burst of energy and moves forward. Every time my post gets a downvote, it trips up and loses some distance. If it doesn't get much attention, it'll stay around the marker of the time it was submitted. But if it gets lots of upvotes, it will start to race faster and faster, even past the horses that are being dropped onto the track upstream for newer posts!\n\n**The front page of r/all is a top 25 list of the horses currently winning this race.** The front page of a given subreddit is the top 25 list of the horses *from that subreddit* currently in the lead.\n\nEven the very best submissions will stop getting upvotes after a while, so the horse will start to slow down and eventually come to a stop. Even if it ran out way in front of the other horses, newer horses will have the advantage of being dropped further along the racetrack, so even if my post got a whole ton of upvotes in its lifetime, it won't stay in the top 25 for much longer than a couple hours.\n\nTo make up for this, there's also the \"top all time\" option, which lists the horses who traveled the longest distance, so the time they were submitted plays no role anymore.",
"Does a given user's frontpage take into account subreddits that the user has visited, but not frontpage'd?\n\nI accidentally spent a bit of time in the Starcraft 2 subreddit, and now I'm getting links from that subreddit that I really don't want.",
"Nice try, Digg"
]
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5qa4yk | why do large companies rebrand their name? | Recently Time Warner Cable changed their name to Spectrum. Comcast has almost completely gone to Xfinity. Why do large companies do this? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5qa4yk/eli5_why_do_large_companies_rebrand_their_name/ | {
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"Because their previous name has a lot of baggage. Time Warner Cable and Comcast are both known for terrible service, so they hope using a different name will disassociate them from their past, even if they're still terrible. A few other notable examples: \n\nClear Channel took over broadcast radio during deregulation and made it generic and bland, becoming the poster child of big media. They changed their name to IHeartMedia. \n\nPhillip Morris is infamous for covering up health studies to keep cigarette sales up. They became Altria. \n\nTrump hotels are now called \"Scion\" for obvious reasons.",
"TWC is a specific case of the merger between Charter and TWC. Spectrum is the new \"combined\" name for the two companies, even though they still functionally operate as two companies. The reasoning behind the name change is still pretty much the same as in /u/snoodidit's excellent answer."
]
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| []
| [
[],
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2x0xdf | why do males experience "shrinkage" in cold temperatures, but nipples harden and enlarge in cold temperatures? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2x0xdf/eli5_why_do_males_experience_shrinkage_in_cold/ | {
"a_id": [
"covw5aa"
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"score": [
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"text": [
"Not sure on the nipples but shrinkage is so warmth is not lost."
]
} | []
| []
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[]
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||
amvyck | how do (non-flying) animals populate new islands? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/amvyck/eli5_how_do_nonflying_animals_populate_new_islands/ | {
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"text": [
"I'm sure most were transported my man. Either on purpose or by accident. ",
"In a lot of cases the terrestrial animals on islands like Madagascar are endemic, and unique. They and their ancestors evolved on those islands since they split off from the mainland, in this case mainland africa. In other situations, there may once have been land bridges between continents and islands across which species would emigrate. Many islands in modern times have been artificially populated by animals from other places by the interference of humans, these are called invasive species and are a serious threat especially to vulnerable indigenous island species.\n\nAnd lastly, yes, sometimes they swim. The lack of large predators and a usually plentiful supply if food can make a long swim worth it. Asian elephants famously migrated from india to sri lanka by swimming the palk strait.",
"Baby spiders float on the breeze across oceans and seas. They set out a long filiment of silk and ride airstreams until they land on an island, or larger mass of land. ",
"Yea most of the time they would cross on land bridges that form when the sea level was lower, then they get cut off. Depending on how far the island is from the mainland, most animals, such as Monitors are surprisingly good swimmers. In rarer cases they can float on natural rafts or floating debris such as logs etc. My guess is it's not intentional and they probably fall in the water or jump in to escape danger and get washed out then end up on the island."
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1pbd7w | if i were to be free falling infinitely, what would kill me first? | Would it have something to do with the air constantly pushing on me? Or would I be more likely to starve to death? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1pbd7w/eli5_if_i_were_to_be_free_falling_infinitely_what/ | {
"a_id": [
"cd0mgua"
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"text": [
"Nothing about the falling would affect you in any way. Assuming you can breath just fine the next thing to kill you will be **dehydration**. You can go a few months without food, you can't go more than a week without water. "
]
} | []
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42mmph | how can we see through glass but also see our reflection at the same time? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/42mmph/eli5_how_can_we_see_through_glass_but_also_see/ | {
"a_id": [
"czbfl1e"
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"score": [
2
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"text": [
"It's not perfectly transparent. Some of the light is being reflected when it strikes the surface, instead of passing through the glass. The reflected light then strikes your retina."
]
} | []
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[]
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||
100een | what is fundamental difference in the way german (or in a more general sense, european) cars are engineered versus american cars versus japanese cars? | While I definitely had the more premium cars like BMWs, Audis and Porsches compared with the American muscle cars in mind, feel free to explain the difference between any two cars of different origins as well. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/100een/eli5_what_is_fundamental_difference_in_the_way/ | {
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"text": [
"Lıke you are five?\n\nDifferent kids like different stuff. Lets say you have 3 class mates Bud, Gunthar & Ryu. They all live in different places. \n\nNow Bud lives in a big house thats got lots of long corridors and he really likes running up and down those corridors alll day, he carries his back pack with him all the time. Bud lives right next to a Wallmart so all his food is real cheap, his parents can always go and get him more food so they tend to buy food thats not so healthy lıke burgers and fries because thats what keeps Bud happy.\n\nGunthar lives in an old castle - theres still lots of corridors but they're all twisty and Gunthar needs to run up and down a lot of stairs when he plays. Gunthar still needs to carry around his backpack but he doesn't carry around as much stuff as Bud. Gunthar lives next to a high end supermarket so his food is more expensive than Buds, his parents need to think about how much food they're going to eat each month so they make sure that Gunthar only eats really healthy food.\n\nRyu lives in a small flat so whilst he likes runnıng around he's got to be careful not to run ınto anything. His mum and dad buy him a lot of electric toys to play with. Like Gunthar, Ryu still carries his stuff in his backpack but he's more organised than Bud. Ryus parents also make sure that he only eats healthy food because food is real expensive near to where he lives - in fact they're so health consious they've started putting him on multivitamins to make sure he stays healthy.\n\nNot like you are five:\n\nAmerican cars tend to be large, buılt for straight line speed and give little thought to fuel ecconomy \n\nEuropean cars tend to be smaller, are built to handle corners and climbing and are fuel efficient\n\nJapanese cars tend to be technologically advanced, smaller, handle well and are fuel efficient / hybrids.",
"German cars are designed for very high speeds on the Autobahn, so they are stable at higher speeds and feel more confident and solid than typical Japanese and American cars. European cars have a long history of racing on twisty road courses (Formula 1 being the biggest race) and fuel is expensive, so efficiency is important.\n\nJapanese cars are designed for reliability and efficiency. When it comes to performance, like the Europeans, Japanese manufacturers emphasize handling as the fastest way through a race. Fuel here is also expensive.\n\nEuropean and Japanese people live in dense cities with better public transit (trains).\n\nAmerican cars come from a history of long, open roads and plentiful resources. Fuel is cheap. Straight-line drag races are easy in new towns with big roads. Americans are bigger and think a bigger car carries more status, is safer (wrapping yourself in a tank), and can carry more cargo and amenities as we drive to work and go on road trips. (European and Japanese people use trains.)"
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a7b4gw | why do non-human animals have a relatively superior flexibility without needing dedicated training? | Is there any genetic predisposition that allow monkeys, for example, to do flexible shit like [this](_URL_0_) without needing to do dedicated stretching excercises (like splits) for years or is it a consequence of natural movements improving their flexibility as a side effect? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/a7b4gw/eli5_why_do_nonhuman_animals_have_a_relatively/ | {
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"An animal that moves through the trees and rarely walks upright has a competitive advantage to being able to extend their limbs that far. It means that they can more quickly find sources of food and escape danger.\n\nHumans that walk upright on the ground have no particular reason to be that flexible. Additionally, being that flexible would probably make it harder to stand upright. It would be a disadvantage to be that flexible.",
"2 big things at play here.\n\nJoint structure. Ely5: shapes of the ends of bones are slightly different for each animal. Ligaments holding those surfaces together also have different properties.\n\nTypical movement: Animals move a lot more than we do. Something stereotypically correlated to “good health” like being able to touch your toes is only really correlated in that someone who is able to touch their toes might be more active than someone who can’t. However, dedicated stretching exercises designed to help you touch your toes will not provide any significant benefit to your health. Ely5: Moving more makes moving easier.\n\nSource: BS in exercise science and I wrap up my physical therapy degree next year",
"They're not really *more* flexible, just flexible in different ways. Orangutans have different hips, shoulders, and wrists than we do; they're not super different like how different cats are from us but the little differences can still have a big impact on movement. This is the case with most of the great apes. Their bones are shaped in a way that makes their main way of living (for orangutans that means spending most of their time in the trees and rarely moving on the ground) much easier.\n\nLike cat aren't really more flexible (their spine is a little more springy but that's it), they're just built to move differently. Like cats collarbones aren't attached to the rest of their skeleton, they have a \"floating\" collarbone, same for their shoulder, it's only attached by muscle and ligaments so it can move more freely than ours. Because it's not attached like ours is, their collarbone and shoulders can bend and flex very easily without breaking; this has the cool effect that they can fit their whole body through any space big enough for their head. (This is also why they have whiskers, so they can feel how much room is around them even when it's too dark for them to see.) And because the shoulder is only attached by muscle, a cat can stretch its front legs out a lot, giving them a longer stride which, when combined with their super springy spine, helps them run really fast (Usain Bolt would have trouble catching a cat that's running at full speed, lol).\n\nSome animals that look more flexible actually have a more restricted range of motion than we do. Like snakes! A lot of snake species are built so the bones of their spine interlock with each other in a way that makes it really easy for them to move a lot side to side but they can't move up or down very much.\n\nAnd sections of a horse's spine actually fuse together at a certain age (usually they start fusing around 4 years old and usually finish around 5.5 years old) but they have a floating shoulder just like cats. So they get the advantage of a long stride and the stability of a sturdy spine means they can run fast for long periods without hurting themselves or getting too tired. [But they can still reach their ankles with their nose!](_URL_0_)\n\nSkeletons are weird and complicated in general, basically, lol."
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3aklie | why do some humans find it calming to look at the ocean or at a gorgeous view? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3aklie/eli5why_do_some_humans_find_it_calming_to_look_at/ | {
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"Gorgeous views and water are usually associated with a fertile land, either for agriculture or hunting/gathering. It is my presumption that we are attracted to it because it is beneficial to us, and this manifests itself in a pleasant feeling...sort of like men are attracted to women with symmetrical youthful faces and good waist to hip ratios. To you, this woman is \"gorgeous\" but what your brain is actually saying is that she is fertile. Again, this is manifested as \"pleasant to look at.\""
]
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| []
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naeky | the kyoto protocol | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/naeky/eli5_the_kyoto_protocol/ | {
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"It was a protocol established by the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. It's goal was to lower greenhouse gas emissions X% below 1990 levels in many countries. \n\nThe United States and Australia were the only ones not to have signed it originally. Australia eventually signed onto it, and Canada recently pulled out.\n\nNo country has met its goal or even decreased greenhouse gas emissions. A lot of people think the protocol was inflated garbage due to this which gave countries a fake sense of progress and self-praise.",
"It was a protocol established by the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. It's goal was to lower greenhouse gas emissions X% below 1990 levels in many countries. \n\nThe United States and Australia were the only ones not to have signed it originally. Australia eventually signed onto it, and Canada recently pulled out.\n\nNo country has met its goal or even decreased greenhouse gas emissions. A lot of people think the protocol was inflated garbage due to this which gave countries a fake sense of progress and self-praise."
]
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[],
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2y75rj | why are keycard locks popular in hotels/dorms and not in houses or apartments? | It seems like every hotel I go I get a keycard, but I almost never see them in apartments or houses. I've seen them in dorms too. Houses and apartments seem to only have mechanical locks though. Why is that? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2y75rj/eli5_why_are_keycard_locks_popular_in_hotelsdorms/ | {
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"They are great for when lots of people are coming and going because it saves them from having to change the locks. When someone checks out of a hotel, the hotel just invalidates the card. People move out of houses and apartments much less frequently, so its not as big of a burden to change the locks.\n\nAlso, those electronic locks require power and an active computer network. Hotels and dorms can be trusted to have backup power available, but apartments and homes are much less likely to have them.",
"Because key cards have to be programmed and managed and are expensive. ",
"Hotels change occupants every day. Houses, less so. Keycards are less secure but have a more secure barrier of entry than your front door. "
]
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[],
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d8juhv | how does a server know my password is correct if it doesn't store the password? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/d8juhv/eli5_how_does_a_server_know_my_password_is/ | {
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"It stores a version of your password.\nIt stores a hash (a non reversible encryption) which it compares with your input and allows you to sign in.\n\nWell that's most decent servers anyway, a lot of less secure servers store your password in plain text (like Facebook used to do) or reversible encryption versions of your password.",
"When you enter it the first time they jumble it up in a very special way and save that. Then every time after that they jumble it the same way and compare the jumbled versions to see if you entered it right.",
"The server doesn't store your password. But it stores the result of a complicated mathematical formula (complicated in the sense that it's difficult to calculate it back to your password) that your password has been run through.\n\nEvery time you type in your password, the mathematical formula is done again on what you typed in. If the result of what you typed in matches what is stored in the database...well...then you obviously typed in the correct password, and are allowed to log in.\n\nThe whole idea is that since it's difficult and time consuming to figure out what your password is, it'll be useless to know the mathematical representation of your password.\n\nIn reality, time consuming means that it can totally be done if you just happen to have enough patience or enough computing power at your disposal.\n\nWhich means that even though it's a neat trick, it's not a foolproof protection.\n\nThe next step is that the site that got hacked and got their database stolen needs to be honest with that they messed up, so that you have time to change your password long before someone attempts to use it.\n\nBecause getting access to a computers password hash database is, literally, a matter of time. It's that it takes time to crack the passwords that makes safe. Not that it IS safe, because it isn't."
]
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52mpal | greece's cross-currency swap with goldman sachs to hide its debt | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/52mpal/eli5_greeces_crosscurrency_swap_with_goldman/ | {
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"Suppose I'm a Greek company that makes money in Euros. However, I need to borrow money to build a new factory or whatever, and I can only borrow what I need, or borrow at affordable interest rates, by selling bonds denominated in US dollars (because that's what my investors want). Also assume that the exchange rate is EUR 1 = USD 1.50.\n\nI'm now exposed to currency risk, because today, if I want to make an interest payment on the loan of USD 1, it costs me EUR 0.67 - but if interest rates move, say to EUR 1 = USD 1, then tomorrow that same interest payment of USD 1 will cost me EUR 1 out of pocket - my costs have increased in terms of my EUR cashflows. But if the opposite happens: the exchange rate falls to EUR 1 = USD 2. Then my interest payment is only equivalent to EUR 0.50, so I'm paying less out of pocket. \n\nAnyway, I don't want to deal with this currency risk, so I decide to lock in my exchange rate at 1.50 USD/EUR by entering into a cross-currency swap with Goldman Sachs. Every interest payment date, I pay them EUR 0.67 and they pay me USD 1, and I use that to pay interest on the debt. \n\nOn day 1, that swap has no \"mark-to-market\" value, because the swap rate is the same as the spot rate in the market. But if the spot rate moves, the contract becomes valuable to either me or to Goldman Sachs because one of us is paying more than we'd have to if we were exchanging currencies at the spot rate and the other is paying less.\n\nBUT: if you enter into the swap at an exchange rate that is NOT the spot rate in the market, it will have a mark-to-market value on day 1. And so the party that's \"in the money\" will have to buy the swap by making an upfront cash payment to party that was out of the money (because otherwise, why would they enter into it?). That's not a windfall to the other party, though, because the party out of the money is paying out more over time than it would if the swap were struck at the spot rate. \n\nFor example: if the spot rate was 1.50 USD/EUR on the day the swap was entered, but we struck the deal at 1 USD/EUR. You pay me USD 1, I pay you EUR 1, you take your EUR 1 to the bank and exchange it for USD 1.50 - presto, you've made USD 0.50. Why did I agree to do that? Because you paid me some amount of money up front for the extra value you're getting.\n\nSo how does that relate to Greece and GS? Greece sold these out-of-the-money swaps to GS, receiving a bunch of cash on day 1 that it could then use to reduce its official national debt that was reported - the figures that were used to determine eligibility for EU membership. They still had that debt, in essence, since they had to make a higher stream of payments to GS over time - you could look at it as an amortizing loan that GS made to Greece. But the key difference is that THIS implicit debt was one that didn't get reported in the official national debt figures.\n\n[More info / different explanation here](_URL_0_)"
]
} | []
| []
| [
[
"http://blogs.wsj.com/marketbeat/2010/02/17/goldman-and-greece-what-the-heck-are-currency-swaps/"
]
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|
||
27czx6 | if an astronaut threw a paper airplane into open space during a spacewalk, what would happen to it? | How far would it go before it was sucked into the gravitational pull of our own planet or another object? If thrown hard enough, could it break away from the pull of our planet? What would happen to the paper over time? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/27czx6/eli5_if_an_astronaut_threw_a_paper_airplane_into/ | {
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" > How far would it go before it was sucked into the gravitational pull of our own planet or another object?\n\nThat depends entirely on its trajectory.\n\n > If thrown hard enough, could it break away from the pull of our planet?\n\nSpacewalking astronaut is already in a stable orbit around Earth, so if he threw it away from Earth, it would just drift away into space.\n\n > What would happen to the paper over time?\n\nNothing in particular, I don't think? It would be eventually bleached by the UV radiation from the Sun, if it wasn't white already.",
"[According to this](_URL_0_), escape velocity at the altitude of the ISS is a little lower than it is at ground level, at only 10.9 km/s.\n\nThe ISS is traveling at about 8 km/s, so the astronaut would need to throw the paper plane about 2.9 km/s (in the right direction) to have it reach escape velocity. That seems unlikely.\n\nThe fastest baseball pitch in history only went about .048 km/s, so that's not fast enough.\n\nEven a bullet isn't fast enough to break orbit from the ISS. A Google search says that the fastest production round in the world is a Winchester .223 short magnum round, which only goes 1.3 km/s.\n\nThe paper airplane would orbit the Earth for a while.\n\nAssuming that:\n\n* The airplane was thrown ahead of the ISS\n* That it would burn up in the atmosphere when it reaches 150 km altitude\n* That the ISS was orbiting at the altitude it was at in 2000 \n* The additional speed imparted by the throw was fairly insignificant\n\nThe airplane would spiral down to 150 km altitude in about 450 days [according to this source](_URL_1_). Obviously, I've just substituted the plane for the ISS here.\n\nIf the airplane was thrown in another direction it would still not be free of Earth's gravity but I don't know how to calculate orbits."
]
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[],
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"http://www.marstravel.org/2011/09/using-international-space-station-as.html",
"http://spacemath.gsfc.nasa.gov/earth/WeekAK.pdf"
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6gabp7 | can wolves actually hear things a mile away? do sharks actually smell blood from a mile away? | Humans can hear loud things like planes and gunshots from a mile away to what extent are wolves hearing things and how do they pick it out between everything else they are hearing. If you can see blood in water how would the scent travel a mile? Is it just how we used to explain sharks movement sensors? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/6gabp7/eli5_can_wolves_actually_hear_things_a_mile_away/ | {
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" > If you can see blood in water how would the scent travel a mile? \n\nIt doesn't. They sense blood when it reaches their nose. The whole 'they can smell it a mile away' doesn't mean they have the ability to detect blood a mile from their current position, it means that they can detect very small amounts of blood, so they can pick it up even when it has been diluted by the ocean and traveled a mile from its source (the wounded something'erather). \n\n",
"Well, not sure if this will help but here goes.. \n\nWolves sense of hearing is thought to be greater than domestic dogs, with having around 16-times better hearing than us. Plus they hear a wider range of sound frequency. \n\nPredators as they are, from far off they can tell the difference of noise made from an injured or dying animal, (food!), and that say of a water fall or a rock tumbling down a cliff. Same as us. \n\nWithout able to see them, I can hear the differences from a deer, a steer, a wild boar walking through brush. So, bet a wolf can, too, again being the full time hunter they are.\n\nHow far off something is heard is determined also with how sound travels what with wind, and anything dampening it such as trees or hills. Hard to pinpoint both distance and direction at times. \n\nA wolfs keenest sense, though, is smell. Which ranks up close to bears who have the best noses. Bears sense of smell is a 100-times greater than humans. And is why a they can smell food inside a home's refrigerator!"
]
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[],
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8ckkk2 | what is hysterical strength, and what causes it to be triggered? | [deleted] | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/8ckkk2/eli5_what_is_hysterical_strength_and_what_causes/ | {
"a_id": [
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"score": [
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"text": [
"It is caused by adrenaline flooding the body after there is some sort of trauma or other trigger for a \"fight or flight\" response."
]
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falay2 | what’s the goal of philosophy? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/falay2/eli5_whats_the_goal_of_philosophy/ | {
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"In a very literal sense - to obtain wisdom. Philosopher directly translates (from Greek) to \"lover of wisdom\". \n\nThe goal is to understand things. To debate and refine ideas and grapple with moral dilemmas. Think of it as science without so much math - it is an attempt to hash out answers to questions that lie more in the domain of the humanities than physics/chemistry/math. These can include ethics, existentialism, politics, law, and the like."
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1jmskc | how do harmonics work and why do they sound so good? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1jmskc/eli5_how_do_harmonics_work_and_why_do_they_sound/ | {
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"Harmonics are the result of something called \"resonance.\" The classic explanation is:\n\nImagine a string fixed at both ends, like a guitar string. If you pluck it, it will make a sound at some pitch. If you pinch it halfway down its length and pluck it, it will make a sound at a higher pitch. If you pinch it a third of the way down, the pitch is higher. Quarter of the way down... well, you get the idea.\n\nAll of these tones are *resonant*, meaning that they \"fit\" the string. The length of the vibrations are just right so that something can vibrate at that \"wavelength.\" If the wavelength is off, it doesn't fit because the ends of the string are fixed, and the wave wants to make the ends move. To illustrate the idea better, here's a [picture](_URL_0_). You can see that the ends of the \"string\" are fixed, even though there's vibrations and such going on in the middle.\n\nThis is how you can make the \"harmonic series.\" The scales we use in music are based on that series. The notes that sound good together are (generally) close together. A major chord, for example, is basically the first few tones in the harmonic series.\n\nSo, the idea of harmonic resonance (what sounds good to us) and physical resonance (the way waves work) are basically the same. The question of why we like sounds that are physically resonant is trickier.",
"A tone is a wave, that \"beats\" a certain number of times each second.\n\nImagine a tone that beats 12 times a second, and another that beats 6 a second (forgetting for a moment those are too low to actually hear :) ).\n\n 12 12 12 12 12 12 12 12 12 12 12 12\n 6 6 6 6 6 6\n\nEvery time the second tone beats, so does the first. The human ear finds this combination pleasing. The same is true with 2, 3 and 4 beats a second, they are going to match up with the 12 beat tone, and sound pleasing.\n\n 12 12 12 12 12 12 12 12 12 12 12 12\n 6 6 6 6 6 6\n 4 4 4 4\n 3 3 3\n 2 2\n\nBut what about 7 beats a second? Those tones don't match very well at all:\n\n 12 12 12 12 12 12 12 12 12 12 12 12\n 7 7 7 7 7 7 7\n \nAn they dont sound could when played together.\n\nHarmonics are the sounds that are mathematically similar, and sound good when played together."
]
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"http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/c/c5/Harmonic_partials_on_strings.svg/250px-Harmonic_partials_on_strings.svg.png"
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vymja | the difference between atheism vs. nihilism. | Dunno what else to say besides no bias and what-not. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/vymja/eli5_the_difference_between_atheism_vs_nihilism/ | {
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"Nihilist believe that life has no meaning.\n\nAtheists don't believe in any gods. \n\nSome nihilists are atheists. Not all atheists are nihilists.",
"I can't promise to be totally unbiased as I'm an agnostic atheist myself (shocking, an atheist on reddit). I will do my best, though.\n\nAtheism is the belief that there is no god or divine entity. Conventional religion holds that the purpose of life is to serve God, live according to that religion's set of rules, and aim for reaching some sort of afterlife.\n\nAtheism does not accept that reaching heaven or nirvana is a valid goal. If god does not exist, then heaven does not exist, Therefore, it's pointless to live your life trying to reach a place that isn't real.\n\nNihilism, on the other hand, holds that *all* life has no meaning. Art, literature, science, and religion are all pointless because in the end it is all ultimately worthless. A nihilist would say nothing in life has meaning. If you've read *Watchmen*, Rorschach is a nihilist.\n\nThe difference between the two is that while atheism holds that god is not the purpose of life, it accepts that people can find meaning for themselves in other activities. An atheist might decide that the purpose of his life is to provide vaccines to developing nations to reduce disease, like Bill Gates. A great deal of scientists are atheists, but they still work in their respective fields because they find meaning in discovering how the world works. A nihilist would reject all these attempts at finding a purpose in life. \n\n**TL;DR**: The difference between the two is that atheism is open to finding a nonreligious meaning to life, but nihilism is not.\n\nSources: [The God Delusion](_URL_0_) | [Nihilism](_URL_3_) | [Rorschach \\(comics\\)](_URL_2_) | [Relationship between religion and science](_URL_1_)"
]
} | []
| []
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[],
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"http://www.amazon.com/The-God-Delusion-Richard-Dawkins/dp/0618680004",
"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Relationship_between_religion_and_science#Studies_of_scientists.27_belief_in_God",
"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rorschach_\\(comics\\)",
"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nihilism"
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1e4410 | what is going on with /r/circlejerk? how does /r/unlimitedbreadsticks come into play? and what's a shadowban? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1e4410/eli5_what_is_going_on_with_rcirclejerk_how_does/ | {
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"The situation with circlejerk can be understood better if I answer the last 2 questions first. \n\n/r/unlimitedbreadsticks is a circlejerk subreddit whose focus is pretending they're paid shills (people who are paid to covertly endorse things on reddit) for Olive Garden, spawned after controversy about someone posting an image to /r/pics about Olive Garden giving them a discount because of a recent tragedy in their life (I can't remember the full story, but all you need to know is a lot people assumed they were working for Olive Garden as part of an advertising scheme). \n\nShadowbanning is a form of banning the reddit admins often use to combat spammers & advertising bots. The shadowbanned user doesn't know they're banned, & may keep posting comments & submissions, but everything they do will be caught by the spam filter, so no one besides themselves will be able to see their posts & cannot upvote or reply to them. This is helpful because it means people running spambots won't make a new account to circumvent a ban, since they don't know they're banned.\n\nCirclejerk closed down ( & subsequently went approved submitter only mode) as a form of protest about several moderators of /r/unlimitedbreadsticks being shadow banned for vote manipulation (they requested mass upvotes in the modmail). [More details can be found here](_URL_0_)."
]
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[
"http://www.reddit.com/r/SubredditDrama/comments/1dyvu1/wherein_prominent_circlejerk_users_are_shadow/"
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||
fnckhc | what causes headaches to occur shortly after eating a salty meal or snack? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/fnckhc/eli5_what_causes_headaches_to_occur_shortly_after/ | {
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"Salt messes with blood pressure and changes in blood pressure can cause headaches. See a doctor. Most people don’t have that problem."
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3ezzn6 | how do the police find callers that are too incoherent to give their location? if they have some method of independently finding you, then why don't they just do that every time, instead of wasting time asking you? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3ezzn6/eli5_how_do_the_police_find_callers_that_are_too/ | {
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"It takes time and effort to try and track location using phone lines. Time and effort that the police could use elsewhere if they can. So asking you saves them time because it's faster and easier.",
"In the USA, the emergency operator (police) knows where you are, 95% of the time, as soon as they answer the call, especially if you're on a \"landline\" (not a mobile phone). Even with a mobile phone, they can usually find you pretty quickly.\n\nLog into Google Maps with your mobile phone. See? Your phone knows where it is. Of course, older mobile phones and phones that block information are a bit more difficult to locate.\n\nIf an emergency operator asks for your location, they are just making sure that there is nothing that is causing them to see a false location. Also, they are trying to keep you occupied and on the phone with them. Emergency operators are trained to \"chit-chat\" (not the correct thing to say, but you get the idea) until someone physically arrives.",
"Another reason they ask is because the emergency may not be at your address. Auto accident may be at the corner but the 911 system would show your address. Not a big difference but important. Here in Las Vegas they ask \"Where is the emergency?\" and \"Where are you calling from?\""
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6zsk7o | why are the zero to 60 times such an important piece of data in the car industry? | I've always wondered why this specific piece of information is of such interest to practically any medium that devotes itself to automotive reviews.
Why is this so relevant?
How and when did this come about? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/6zsk7o/why_are_the_zero_to_60_times_such_an_important/ | {
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"60mph is your \"normal highway speed\" so it measures a vehicle's ability to accelerate to freeway speeds and safely merge with traffic. Because of this, it's become a pretty standard measure of performance.",
"I've only ever thought it some use when comparing performance vehicles. As a demonstration of acceleration only, I think it may have come from drag racing days before actual dragsters were really a thing, or from the days of stop light racing in the 50s, 60s and 70s (the 60s & early 70s being the hey day of muscle cars).\n\nYou would probably notice the 0-60 figures are rarely listed for \"shitty cars\" (for want of a better term). For example I would be surprised to see a review of a daewoo matiz, or similar, listing the 0-60 unless it was for a laugh (0-60 in 28s, amazing, it tore my face off\" - Clarkson).\n\nTldr: probably comes from the muscle car era.\n\nE: all praise u/HarrisJB78, the only one with what seems to be the right answer of the 0-60 origins.",
"It came from a man named Tom McCahill who was a road test editor for a magazine in the 40's. It became \"normal\" just as sort of a standardized test in that it was a good comparison. \n\n_URL_0_\n",
"It's a measurement of *acceleration*. \n\nWhy a time over 0 to 60mph? the max acceleration varies a lot depending on your current velocity, so instead of giving a number of acceleration a time as a measurement of average acceleration when increasing the speed from 0 to 60 is more describing. \n\nWhy stop at 60 and not 50 or 100? Probably because 60 mph is very close to 100km/h which is used in metric unit countries.",
"It's a decent measure of the kind of low end accelleration that impacts a car's day to day performance."
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98aiji | if skin is dead cells already, how does lotion work? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/98aiji/eli5_if_skin_is_dead_cells_already_how_does/ | {
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"I don't know who told you skin is dead cells. Skin is *not* dead cells. You shed dead skin cells constantly (which make up 80% of the dust in your house), but the skin as a whole is very much a living organ of your body, made of living cells. \n\n*Hair* and *nails* are dead cells. Skin is not. "
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4fdsi9 | is there an "international" law? | Even the most basics such as homocide, may be illegal but it is not enforced in many countries. The only enforced law I can think of is the Geneva Convention Law on Collectual Punishment and War Crime. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4fdsi9/eli5_is_there_an_international_law/ | {
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"No. There are treaties and agreements that countries promise to follow when they sign them. Whether they actually do that is entirely up to them.",
"Yes, there is an \"international\" law. The other answers are not quite accurate, but they are correct that it comes down to what the countries voluntarily agree to do. But countries can (and do) voluntarily agree to submit to the jurisdiction of international tribunals, such as the International Court of Justice or the World Trade Organization. For another example, countries in the EU all agreed to be bound by the European Court of Justice and the European Court of Human Rights. The decisions, including levying of punishments, of these various international tribunals are binding on those countries that have agreed to be bound. Of course, the countries can (and sometimes do) ignore them, but the other countries can in turn punish them for doing that. But it would be quite a scandal if, for example, an EU country ignored the ruling of the ECJ on, for example, an antitrust matter.\n\nBefore the rise of these international tribunals (i.e. before World War II), there was still some semblance of international law, such as the law of war or admiralty law, where certain norms of engagement were understood to have existed. The enforcement of those laws did depend on the standing of the country trying to enforce it (i.e. some larger country isn't going to care about a much smaller country trying to enforce laws against it), but the law was still understood to have existed.\n\nInternational law also plays a part in domestic tribunals when relevant. For example, I once represented an asylum seeker who had to argue about which country he was a citizen of, and we cited to international law regarding nationality as persuasive authority on that point."
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7gxdr8 | why does the sky turn dark when it's about to rain? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/7gxdr8/eli5_why_does_the_sky_turn_dark_when_its_about_to/ | {
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"Cumulonimbus clouds are the ones that rain, and they are very thick and dense. Their density is *why* they rain in fact, it's too much water too close together so it clumps up and falls out of the sky. They will block more of the Sun's light than any other type of cloud, so that's why it gets dark when it rains. \n\nHowever, a cumulonimbus cloud doesn't have to be between you and the Sun. The Sun could be setting in the west and the clouds are right above you, and it will be bright and rainy."
]
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d2nb3h | what stages of sleep do we get into from a nap? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/d2nb3h/eli5_what_stages_of_sleep_do_we_get_into_from_a/ | {
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"It depends how long your nap is. Let's say a 30 min nap vs. a 2 hour nap. In a 30 minute nap, as you drift off your brain produces alpha and theta waves. You are asleep, but your brain is not officially in \"deep sleep\" mode. You can be easily woken up.\n\nDuring a two hour nap: after the first 90 minutes, your brain has shifted from the alpha & theta waves, to frequent sleep waves, and then slower waves. You begin to enter REM sleep. (Rapid Eye Movement). This is the deepest kind of sleep, in which it is hard to be woken up because your body is repairing and restoring all of your muscles, organs, etc. which is necessary for daily function. During a regular night of sleeping, the average adult has 5-6 REM cycles.\n\nIt really all depends on how long your nap is. You will most likely wake up very groggy if your nap is longer than 90 minutes."
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3yncxh | why, in a deck of cards, does the king of hearts always have his sword pointing through his head where as the rest of the kings don’t | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3yncxh/eli5_why_in_a_deck_of_cards_does_the_king_of/ | {
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"text": [
"[Wikipedia](_URL_1_) says the sword is a corruption of the axe the king held on the card originally.\n\nI don't know if this is true for every deck, but [this](_URL_0_) is an interesting take on the sword hand itself."
]
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"http://new4.fjcdn.com/pictures/Cards_65eafe_5116399.jpg",
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/King_(playing_card\\)#King_of_hearts"
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agjhc0 | can you use a gpu as a cpu? why/why not? if not, what's the difference between them that makes it impossible? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/agjhc0/eli5_can_you_use_a_gpu_as_a_cpu_whywhy_not_if_not/ | {
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"A CPU and a GPU are both just beefy microcontrollers (oversimplified) so in theory you could write an operating system that runs only on your GPU, but it would not be really practical because a GPU is a completely different architecture than a CPU so software support would be more than lacking",
"While a GPU can do all the operations a CPU can (which mean that you could, *in theory* use it like a CPU), the architecture isn't optimized for it would make it very inefficient.\n\n\nWhile CPUs and GPUs are basically the same thing (processors), both have different goals: the CPU is optimized for latency, and the GPU is optimized for throughput. (The goal of the CPU is to do any sequence of operations in the smallest possible amount for time, while the goal of the GPU is to do the maximum amount of work per amount of time).\n\nTo do this they both use different architectures/layouts: the CPU has a few, very big, fast cores and the GPU has hundreds/thousands of tiny, slow \"cores\".\n\nSo to make an analogy:\n\n * The CPU is a supercar: two seats, 200mph top speed.\n * The GPU is an articulated bus: 400 seats, 30mph top speed.\n\nIf you wanna do *one* (or two) things really fast, the CPU wins. If you want to do the same thing over and over and over again a billion time (and don't care how long it takes to do it just once), the GPU wins.\n\n\n\n\n************************\n\nHow does this look like on the chip then?\n\nTo really understand this, you need to know that in a CPU, the circuit that does the actual computation (let's call it the ALU) is incredibly fast and the most important thing for CPU speed isn't to make it faster, but to keep it fed with work to do and data to work on. \n\nFor this reason CPUs have a ton of extra circuits whose job is to keep the ALU busy (caches, predictors, schedulers, buffers, ...). GPUs don't do that as much. \nGPUs are designed to process pixels or triangles, and there are millions of them on a screen.\n\nThe repetitive nature of the work done on a GPU means that most cores will work on the same kind of thing at the same time, and the circuit that feed them with instructions and data can be shared across cores. And since you don't care how long it takes for a single pixel to be computed, but rather how long it takes for the whole screen, each GPU core can afford to compute several pixels in parallel to amortize wait times (if the computation for a pixel has to wait for data from memory, the core can just switch to some other pixel).\n\nThe resulting architecture is very different: instead of having big cores with their own ALU and a huge control circuit to make the ALU happy, The GPU has groups of cores that share the same control circuit. This means that they can have a lot more ALU (because they don't need as much control stuff), but that cores aren't all independent. Cores withing a group have to work on the same thing, which is fine when doing graphics but can lead to atrocious performance when trying to do one single thing.",
"CPU is general purpose. It knows to do a lot of different stuff - math operations, logic operations, memory operations, jumping back and forth in the code, etc.\n\nGPU on the other hand knows how to do a smaller subset of operations (mostly math operations), but it can do them really quickly.\n\nGPU cores are a lot simpler than CPU cores, which means it can contain a lot of them - while a CPU normally has between 1 and 16 cores, a GPU can have hundreds or even thousands of cores, all of them making calculations at the same time.",
"a true ELI5: \n\nThe CPU is like the bosses on a construction site: the Foreman, Manager, Chief Architect, Etc.. they have a few jobs to do that need to be done well\n\nthe GPU is like the actual work crew: Brick Layers, crane operators, truck drivers, they have many jobs to do that need to be done over and over and as fast as possible while doing the job correctly (though occasionally a small goof up is acceptable)\n\n & #x200B;\n\nyou don't want the truck drivers/crane guys/brick layers being the boss of the whole operation, they already have more than enough work to do, and doing a single job well would be both a waste of time and out of their experience (they'd do it slowly and still have a high chance of screwing up).",
"A GPU is made to do simple, repetitive tasks really well, really fast.\n\nA CPU is made to do as wide a range of tasks as possible, with the understanding that it's not as fast as it could otherwise be.\n\nSo yeah, you could technically use one as the other, but you're not using the right tool for the job.\n\nThis obviously simplifies things, and leaves out a lot of nuance and exceptions and edge cases, but should give you a super clear overview",
"A CPU is a single superman doing superman work.\nA GPU is a collection of small tiny elves doing a large quantity of small tasks.\n\nIn short, you cannot expect superman to assemble a million toys per second, and you cannot expect a million tiny elves to do superman's work.\n\nedit: typo expect/except",
"CPU is better at tasks that require decisions and branch, GPU is better at repetitive tasks that take input since it's built to handle millions of pixels having their lighting shaded for example (based on the angle of the light and surface and other material properties). Because the formulas (or series of) are more of a todo list and all the same, they can be executed in parallel, which makes the GPU so fast. You can kind of see why decision based code (if, else) would interrupt this.\n\nIf you've ever written a shader this is why using conditionals (if, else) isn't advised, though modern gpus are getting better at this.\n\n\nBoth can do eachothers job, but they are slower. Old school Runescape is a good example of a game that does its graphics on the CPU (aka a software engine).",
"There are two main differences between CPU and GPU design.\n\nFirst is the one many others have mentioned - GPUs are crazy parallel, doing millions of computations at once, while CPUs can only really do small amount of tasks at once (but get individual tasks done faster). GPUs are designed this way because graphical rendering is a textbook example of a problem that can be very nicely solved by parallel computing.\n\nThe second difference is speculative execution. Executing an instruction on a modern computer is a surprisingly complicated, multi-step process. Because each step is done by a different part of the processor, multiple instructions, each at different stage of execution, are being executed simultaneously. This is called the \"instruction pipeline\". You can think of it as an assembly line, where many products are being created simultaneously. Modern CPUs and GPUs both have long pipelines. For good performance, we want to keep the pipeline full, which is an easy task if the instructions are just a list we can sequentially execute, however, unfortunately, that is not the case, because most programs contain a LOT of branching. When we hit a branching instruction, we have to wait until it is fully executed before we can load the next instruction (because that's how branching instructions work - they tell us which instruction is next). Modern CPUs (but not GPUs!) try to make educated guesses based on past results and start executing instructions that are likely to be needed (this is speculative execution). If it turns out the guess was right, hurray! If it was wrong, it needs to do an undo, but if the predictions are good enough, it's a performance gain in the long run. Branch predictors are huge chunks of hardware, and by choosing to install one, you are leaving less space for the rest of the processor, sacrificing raw performance. For CPUs, this is worth it. For GPUs, it's not, because the computations they need to do usually consist of simple number-crunching without much conditional logic.",
"In one sense, yes. In any reasonable sense, no.\n\nGPUs have become quite general, and are used for general-purpose computation, up to a point, and there are libraries like GPGPU and OpenCL which assist with this. Some compilers can even take code and instead of making that code target a CPU, can compile it to run on a GPU instead. However, GPUs are much better at SIMD work -- single instruction, multiple data. i.e., doing the same thing, lots of times. They also lack the advanced, specific features of modern CPUs.\n\nCPUs, for example, now include specific instructions for memory protection, virtual machines, hardware transactions, and so on. Even though GPUs can do similar calculations to a GPU, they cannot do system-management stuff like controlling virtual memory protection, virtual memory address mapping, and things like that (at least, not as far as I know).",
"CPU: an excavator that can dig a deep hole easily and quickly.\n\nGPU: an army of men with spoons on a field. \n\nHope this helps. Dunno, maybe they should be given shovels.",
"Imagine that you're doing some shopping. You're waiting to purchase your groceries. One store has a CPU as a store clerk, and the other a GPU as a store clerk.\n\n & #x200B;\n\nThe CPU store clerk is a super robot from the future who is inhumanly fast. It has 4 arms that simultaneously grab and scan your items, take your money, and bag your groceries before you can even blink. The only problem is that there is only two store clerks and its rush hour in a Costco before a big holiday. You wait 15 minutes to be served but your order takes 20 seconds to process and you leave for Best Buy.\n\n & #x200B;\n\nThe GPU store clerk is a big fat lazy employee. The cash register is so old and slow that you're not even sure if it is digital. It looks like its the employees first or second day because they clearly don't know what they are doing and they don't even bag your groceries so you have to do it yourself. There was nobody waiting in the line before you, it takes 5 minutes to process your order.\n\n & #x200B;\n\nIt took 3 times longer with the super robot. This is only because GPU store has more than two store clerks, in fact they have 2816 store clerks, even if they were all slow and lazy they are greater in number to a large degree. \n\n & #x200B;",
"Relevant video - [_URL_0_](_URL_0_) \n\nCPU vs GPU\n\n & #x200B;",
"A modern GPU might be capable of performing many of the functions a CPU handles but probably not.\n\nGPUs are designed to perform a few tasks very well and at a very large scale. CPUs on the other hand are designed to perform a variety of tasks reasonably well but not generally at a large scale.\n\nTo use a metaphor, imagine a CPU is a pair of scissors and a GPU is a three-hole-punch. Both scissors and a three-hole-punch cut paper but they do it very differently and the three-hole-punch can really only cut small circles out of paper while a pair of scissors can be used to cut any shape.\n\nYou could use a three-hole-punch to cut paper in other ways by making a series of punches but it would be very difficult and tedious, and there would be a lot of cuts that are impossible. On the other hand you could use a pair of scissors to cut just about every shape imaginable including little holes that a three-hole-punch would make however it wouldn't be very good at those.\n\nIf you had to put 3 holes in 1000 sheets of paper, the three-hole-punch could do it in about 5 minutes where as you'd probably spend a week doing it with scissors. The same is true of rendering graphics, a GPU can draw all the pixels in a 1080p display 30-60 times a second where as a CPU would struggle to do even a few frames a second."
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fs9pcr | what did they do with babies allergic to milk before the invention of substitute baby milk? what did they feed them with and with what results? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/fs9pcr/eli5_what_did_they_do_with_babies_allergic_to/ | {
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"Milk allergies is allergies against cow milk. Other types of milk like human breast milk or goats milk is some of the viable options for people with milk allergies. On the other hand soy milk formula is not a safe alternative as some babies with milk allergies also react to soy milk. It is therefore still the recomendation today that infants be fed exclusively on breast milk for several months before switching to formula.",
"Ooooh, I have first hand knowledge of this. I was born in the 70's. I was fed from the communal breast milk supply while I was in hospital (3 weeks, all the mothers expressed and babies were just fed from what was there). After leaving hospital my mother was unable to breast feed (hooray I almost died), I was unable to tolerate either of the milk substitutes. My mum had friends with babies and I was given \"donated\" milk when it was available. I went on to solids under the care of a pediatric nurse (at under 2 months) and occasionally got boobie milk from other sources. \n\nSo my answer to\" **What did they do with babies allergic to milk before the invention of substitute baby milk?** \" - communal breast milk from other mothers."
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4ku4q9 | why can my laptop and cell phone charge all day and night, but the batteries won't explode? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4ku4q9/eli5_why_can_my_laptop_and_cell_phone_charge_all/ | {
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"text": [
"This isn't a chemistry question. Laptops and cell phones use lithium ion batteries that would explode if over-charged. A small electric circuit is put between the battery and the source of power and regulates the charging so that the battery doesn't go over voltage. ",
"Lithium ion batteries are very dangerous when they are either over or under charged. They can explode/catch fire if this happens. To prevent this, the devices you listed have sophisticated circuitry to prevent this from happening.\n\nEssentially, the circuitry monitors the voltage of the battery. When it reaches a predetermined level it stops charging it. When the battery is too low it shuts off the device. This is why they do not explode."
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95u2j7 | how do beer cans (and pop cans) open without a sharp edge? | I've cut aluminum before and that stuff can be sharp. Yet I have never cut myself on a can. How!? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/95u2j7/eli5_how_do_beer_cans_and_pop_cans_open_without_a/ | {
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"The opening is scored, so a sharp edge has already done its work, just not deep enough to open the can. When you flip the top, it punches through the scored area.",
"The amount of engineering that goes into the opening on coke cans and coke bottles is mind boggling. Ever single line is at a very precise angle to make it work. When you lift the tab on a can it flexes the top. If it was just simple leverage the tab would bend before the can opened, but the flexing of the top causes the score to break first.\n\nWhen you cut something you pinch down on it till it shears. This pinch creates an edge. A coke top basically rips open along a scored path. There is no pinching action. ",
"Have you ever tried sticking your ginger throigh the opening of a can? That shit is incredibly sharp.\n\nIt’s just that there’s a lip around where the hole is and you normally don’t stick your mouth through the hole so it’s hard to cut yourself on it without doing something stupid",
"others have explained it well, but here is a video of a guy going over all the physics of the soda can. its set to the point just about the pop top. _URL_0_"
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c00dwx | why is it easier to recognise things that we know than recalling them? | For example: it is very easy to recognise that you know an actor, but sometimes recalling their name is harder. However, you can recognise their name if you were given options to choose from. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/c00dwx/eli5_why_is_it_easier_to_recognise_things_that_we/ | {
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"If you're given a list of names to choose from, and one is correct, you can basically do process of elimination to get rid of any you don't recognize, and any you *do* recognize, but you know aren't the right name.\n\nThe flip side of that is similar in process. Your brain says \"do I recognize this thing?\" So you'll know if you recognize it, or if it's new. \n\nTo recall a name on your own, your brain has to make an extra connection from the face to the name. If you have a list to choose from, that extra connection is done for you.\n\nSome connections are stronger than others, so it might be easier to recall one detail over another.\n\nFor example, think of an actor/actress you've only seen in one or two roles. I bet you can remember their character's name easier than their real name.\n\nNow think of a super famous actor/actress who has been in films for like 15+ years. I bet you can remember their real name better than the name of the characters they played. In this scenario, you've had more opportunities to make connections to their real name than the name of one specific character."
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cwhq1q | why do bacteria/viruses target human body in a bad way just to ultimately get killed by medicines than to help the human body by symbiotic relationship and thrive? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/cwhq1q/eli5_why_do_bacteriaviruses_target_human_body_in/ | {
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"They don't know that what they're doing hurts their host. They don't \"know\" much of anything, in fact.\n\nBacteria and viruses are just following their programming (in the case of a virus, that word is pretty literal), simply doing what it is they do.",
"Bacteria and viruses that are too quick and deadly actually do die out. They are subject to the same evolutionary pressure as everything else. Part of the reason Ebola outbreaks are generally localized is because after 10 days when you begin showing symptoms and become REALLY contagious you are immobilized and then dead in short order. When someone has the common cold they are able to walk around and sneeze on everything and in general a cold does less \"bad\" stuff to the human body but is much more successful as an organism than Ebola.",
"It's not usually the pathogen that's the one dealing damage. In viral infections, the damage is usually done by your own immune system, which will destroy cells that have viruses in them before the virus can replicate more. The immune system's presence is also the cause of damage in a lot of bacterial infections. Bacteria sometimes have toxins though, which are chemicals they emit that can disrupt the host in some way. This isn't \"intentional\", the toxins are just byproducts of their normal metabolic processes. \n\nThere are also plenty of bacteria that live symbiotically, such as those found in our gut.",
"Quite a lot of the disease organisms live symbiotically in their original host animals. They're balanced to that animal's internal \"biosphere\". However, when they cross species into humans, the \"biosphere\" isn't the same and the result is disease."
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1txavm | what is carl icahn trying to do with apple? | I'm confused as to what it means by buyback and all this financial stuff, like this article: _URL_0_ | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1txavm/eli5_what_is_carl_icahn_trying_to_do_with_apple/ | {
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"When a company buys back shares, they are reducing the number of shares outstanding. Since a share of a company basically means you own a \"piece\" of that company's net assets and earnings, when the number of shares gets smaller, the \"piece\" of the company that each remaining share holds gets bigger, all else equal.\n\nFrom a shareholder perspective, this is good to the extent that Earnings Per Share and Book Value (the company's assets less its liabilities) will increase.\n\nBut when a company chooses to use its free cash to buy back shares, that means it can't use that money for other things. A technology company like Apple might want to instead use that money to invest in Research & Development to develop new products that will increase the long-term value of the company. \n\nThis is an example of the many ways investors like Mr. Icahn may have short-term goals that don't necessarily align with what may be best for a company in the long-term. "
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"http://tech.fortune.cnn.com/2013/12/28/apple-cook-icahn-proxy/?source=yahoo_quote"
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uvyvu | from my 5 year old. why can't we feel the earth spinning? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/uvyvu/from_my_5_year_old_why_cant_we_feel_the_earth/ | {
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"Inertia, mostly.\n\nFrom the moment we're born, we are moving along with the earth at a pretty constant speed. Think of it a bit like being in a car moving without speeding up or slowing down, we don't feel the fact that we're moving. The same is true with the earth. Because we're not changing speed relative to our place on the earth (we're moving at the same speed it is), we don't feel the spinning. But, if the world stopped for a moment, we'd feel the stopping. And if it started up again, we'd feel the starting of the spinning.\n\nThere's a lot of complicated math behind **why** we aren't changing speed relative to our place on the earth, and stuff about inertial frame of reference, but that's not like you're five.\n\nEdit:\n\nSince people seem to want to create some weird competition between this answer and the other most-upvoted answer, I wanted to clear up something.\n\nNot only are both explanations compatible, both explanations say the same thing. My explanation focused on the mechanics of how our relative acceleration is stable (friction and air resistance, both of which are moving at the same speed as the surface is rotating). Brainflakes is explaining, essentially, why that is able to function.\n\nWere it not for the forces I explained, the slow speed of the earth's rotation would still be noticeable. Were the earth moving too fast, those forces would not function the way they do. Not everything in life has to be about one person being right and the other being wrong, we're all trying to explain the world to a five-year-old.",
"Because you're on the earth as it's spinning, so you're spinning along with it at the same speed. ",
"It rotates too slowly to feel any effect, the earth rotates once in around 24 hours, if you stood on a playground roundabout that took 24 hours to turn round you wouldn't even notice it was moving.\n\nNow for a slightly more sciency answer, while the earth is moving very fast at the surface you don't actually feel speed, only change in direction (acceleration), and because the earth rotates so slowly (as per the first part of the answer) this change in direction is very slow.\n\nYou also don't feel how fast the earth goes because the air is moving at the same speed as the ground, so you don't notice it. Until people figured out that the air was being held in position this was one of the main arguments against the earth revolving around the sun.",
"Ask your kid if he/she has ever been in a bus. When the bus is driving, it's easy to walk around and stand up. You only feel the bumps and the turns. If the bus comes to a sudden stop, people fall over. Much like that with the earth spinning. It has an effect, but because it never starts or stops spinning, you don't feel anything.",
"It looks like most comments here address Earth moving, not _spinning_. Spinning is _always_ an accelerated movement, so 'inertia' is not applicable here.\n\nActually, the effect from Earth spinning can be easily detected, but it's just too subtle for humans to notice. See: [Foucault pendulum](_URL_0_).\n\nBasically, Earth is spinning relatively slowly, so we don't notice.",
"I strongly suggest the book \"There's no place like space\". It's Dr. Seuss themed and answers this question (we don't feel it spinning cause we're spinning too!\") and has other awesome factoids about space perfect for 5 year olds. Actually, a whole series with each book talking about a different theme (animals, fish, weather, etc.) My kids love them.",
"when you're driving your car, you only feel motion if there is a change in speed. We don't feel the motion when we ride things, (weather or not it be cars, bikes, ladies (bad example), or the planet.) You can feel a change in motion called \"Acceleration.\" Take your 5 year old for a drive. FLOOR IT and watch as the force pushes him back against the seat. Then slam on the brakes, and watch as his face explodes against the object in front of him.. \n\nNow try driving at a consistant speed, with no change, and tell him \"this is why you can't feel the earth moving\"\n",
"To a 5 year old?\n\nWe are moving with the earth, and always have been.",
"Because you've never felt it NOT spin. The earth spinning is what normal feels like.",
"He obviously isn't drunk enough...",
"Same reason you can't see the retinal veins that are blocking the light sensitive cells in your eyes. It's been with you since the moment you were born. You don't know what it's like to not experience it, so your brain has learned to ignore it.",
"Since the earth is spinning, how come if I jump I land in the same spot?",
"You do. A 200 lbs man weighs about 1 lb less at the equator. (A 90 kg person is about 0.5 kg lighter).\n\nCan't you feel it?",
"because we are moving at constant speed. as long as we don't accelerate or retard, we can not feel any force. \n\nrecall newton's first law from school, *a body continues to be in a state of rest or constant motion until a force is applied. this force causes acceleration or retardation to a body*",
"Fun question because you can explain it practically. You're the earth and he's hisself. Pick him up, tell him to close his eyes, ask him if he's rotating. Now spin him fast, ask him again. Now spin him really, real slow, as slow as you can. Ask him and tell him to open his eyes. There you go, the Earth is spinning very, very slowly, she's real big and real lazy, that's why we don't feel it. ",
"It's just like riding in the car on a smooth road. If you close your eyes, you do not feel the motion. Only a change in acceleration is felt.",
"Take your daughter for a drive and put on the cruise control. Ask her if she can feel the car moving, making sure to emphasize feel, not hear or see. ",
"You know how when you turn left in the car, you feel a push to the right? Well, the Earth is turning around its center, which means you should feel a pull upwards. But at the same time, gravity is pulling us downwards. Gravity is much stronger than the upwards pull from the rotation, so we only feel the gravity.",
"I'm not quite satisfied with the answers here.\n\nTo put it simply, we *can* feel the Earth spinning! We would feel a bit heavier if it wasn't.",
"Because it's always spinning. You would only notice if it *stopped* spinning. ",
"Oh... This question just made me really nauseated. Thinking about spinning as fast as the earth and... Ugh. I don't feel well now. ",
"Make your kid stay up all night. Drive 100 km or 50 mi from any town on a clear night, and find a grassy hill. Lay back and watch the milky way. You will see it moving, but it isnt really(well it is, but...) Rather, know that it is the earth spinning, and you are laying on a tiny rock hurling through space."
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4b52ot | why are font sizes so strangely picked? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4b52ot/eli5_why_are_font_sizes_so_strangely_picked/ | {
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"The unit of text sizes, [point](_URL_0_), has a very colourful history. Basically nobody agreed to what the sizes very specifically are until the age of computer typesetting, when people basically just decided \"let's make a compromise, one point is 1/72 inch\".\n\nAnd that's why 72 point text is so frequently seen - letters that are 1 inch tall. 48 points is 2/3 of inch, and so on.\n\n (...of course, personally, I still think it's *completely* arbitrary and confusing, because, well, metric system here, dammit.)"
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1wr258 | if there are 1071 satellites in orbit, does that mean there were 1071 rockets launched into space? | I guess I want to know how that many could have been sent up if it is so expensive, and how come you never hear about them. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1wr258/eli5_if_there_are_1071_satellites_in_orbit_does/ | {
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"there were way more than 1071 rockets that were launched.\n\nit's expensive. but that doesn't mean big companies and big governments won't spend expensive amounts to send up a satellite",
"Yes and no.\n\nThere have probably been more than 1071 rockets launched - you have to account for rockets that were launched as tests or purposes other than puttin a satellite in orbit. You also have to factor in satellites that have since deorbited.\n\nBut, a rocket can also launch multiple satellites. Depending on the size of the satellite, you might be able to fit 10-20 satellites on a rocket. CubeSats (which are 10 cm x 10 cm x 10 cm) are becoming more popular as the shrinking size of electronics and sensors makes them more capable. You could launch hundreds of those on a single rocket if you wanted to.\n\n[Here](_URL_0_) is an article addressing the question. It comes up with a number of 5,038 rockets launched as of 2010."
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1qk25r | why can i kick a ball moving towards me faster and further than one already moving in the direction i'm aiming for? | In games like football (soccer), you often have a ball moving towards you. Why is it that you are able to kick the ball much further and faster when it is travelling towards you than when it is already moving in the direction of travel, or if it is still?
| explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1qk25r/eli5_why_can_i_kick_a_ball_moving_towards_me/ | {
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"Inflated balls can compress the air within them, acting like a spring. This enables a kicker to make the ball accelerate faster than the foot that hits it, as the expansion of the ball will cause it to spring off the kicker's foot.\n\nA stationary ball can be compressed, but as it is free to move the full force of the kick is difficult to apply into compressing the ball. A ball moving toward the kicker's foot has momentum which will keep the far side of the ball moving toward the foot, compressing it more and storing that energy for the bounce back.\n\nMore simply, consider what happens if you throw a ball at a wall compared to if you set one next to it. The original force of movement of the thrown ball is redirected, but the stationary one doesn't have any."
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124ex3 | how does any politician deserve credit for finding bin laden? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/124ex3/eli5_how_does_any_politician_deserve_credit_for/ | {
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"Only the Commander and Chief does as the head of the military. But specifically President Obama made some decisions leading to bin Laden's death that others have said they would not have made, such as Romney. Mainly going into Pakistan without asking for permission first. ",
"They don't deserve all of the credit, but in Bin Laden's case the final call came down to Obama.\n\nHe had to make a choice between attacking without warning Pakistan or hold off and work with Pakistan. He made the call to attack without telling Pakistan for fear that Bin Laden would escape, and because it worked he is praised for it. ",
"If you had said killing bin laden than I would have been more inclined to agree but from what I understand Obama made a concentrated effort to focus CIA intelligence in Pakistan."
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7k6ayo | could a person get access to the internet without an isp? how much money and equipment would it take to connect to the internet by yourself? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/7k6ayo/eli5_could_a_person_get_access_to_the_internet/ | {
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"Your ISP is very much like the post office, it helps you send and receive packages of data (packets) between you and your destination (a server). \n\nSo, along these lines you are asking the question of “how can a person get mail without a post office?”\n\nWell, he would have to create his own post office. You will find very quickly that you end up right back with the same system you were trying to get rid of. \n\nIn reality you would have to recreate the massive infrastructure that Verizon, Comcast, and the rest have collectively spent trillions on in the past 100 years. It’s just extraordinarily prohibitively expensive. "
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2zdajo | how come my iphone says it's using 11.4gb of storage when in my "manage storage" it is barely using 2gb | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2zdajo/eli5_how_come_my_iphone_says_its_using_114gb_of/ | {
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"It could just be holding on to storage in a \"temp\" area. A lot of my apps do that. Just plug it into your iTunes, and back it up. It should release all the \"phantom\" storage."
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2lxlz1 | with the separation of pangea, how come we didn't evolve into several different species? | How come we are all human? Since the geographic isolation would not allow us to see others for several generations, shouldn't we all of evolved into entirely different species that were so different they could not longer breed by the time man could use ships?
Several generations in would be Isolated and there would eventually become another separate species, right? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2lxlz1/eli5_with_the_separation_of_pangea_how_come_we/ | {
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"We weren't around back then. The continents were already in their present form when humans evolved (in Africa, almost certainly).",
"Because hominins only evolved 6.3 million years ago, when the continents were pretty much in their current configuration.\n\nAlso, humans only left Africa and travelled to different continents 120 000 to 60 000 years ago, not enough time for major evolutionary differences to accumulate.\n",
"Pangaea was long gone by the time humans hit the scene. The continents looked more or less like they do today, although sea levels were probably lower. The entire world was colonized by people migrating out of East Africa.\n\nThis means that before the advent of high-speed travel, people were very isolated from one another, but it wasn't for long enough for different groups to totally diverge into different species. It is responsible for the traits that differentiate the \"races,\" such as skin color.",
"Pangea existed 300 million years ago, humans evolved in Africa about 100,000 years ago. ",
"First, to bound this discussion, Pangea was long gone before the first hominids (Humans and our closest relatives / ancestors) evolved on the planet. The continents were pretty much in their current configuration when the first hominids appeared.\n\nOn why we are all human, it is pretty simple that Humans survived and the other species did not. When Humans left Africa they interacted with a fairly large population of Neanderthals in Europe and a small population of Denisovans in Asia. We can't be precisely sure why Humans won out, but they did. Our luck.\n\nWhile yes our Human ancestors didn't have the travel efficiencies we have today, Eurasia and Africa have always remained in some amount of contact and A-B, B-C, C-D propagation would maintain the gene pool. Human settlement on the American continent is very recent in evolutionary timescales. ",
"People didn't evolve on all the continents simultaneously. Pangea split up into a bunch of sections. People evolved on one of the section (Africa) and then traveled to all the others over time.\n",
"The separation of Pangaea happened hundreds of millions of years ago, humans and our predecessors only evolved about 500,000 years ago, give or take. In fact, ape evolution happened so much later that all apes don't live naturally in the Americas. The only primates that live in the Americas naturally are one type of monkey, and then some types of lemurs and tarsiers. All the others, especially the ones closer to humans, like chimps, most monkeys, gorillas, and of course humans, all of these species come from Africa, Europe, and Asia originally, (mostly Africa). Modern humans evolved in Africa about 100,000 years ago and only came to the Americas about 10,000 years ago.\n\nAnd as for why we didn't evolve, it's because speciation (evolution into an entirely new species) doesn't take only a couple generations, it takes thousands of generations. 10,000 years of separation between Europeans and Native Americans is not nearly enough time to evolve into separate species. The only differences that evolved at all are, well, what you see today: differences in skin color and hair color, and minor facial differences. That's it. We're still very much the same species, all living humans are, for probably the past 30,000 years at least, when the last neanderthals died. ",
" > Several generations in would be Isolated and there would eventually become another separate species, right?\n\nNope, speciation doesn't need to happen. It usually does given enough time, but it is not required by evolution.\n\nSpeciation is a process. A process that can take thousands, if not hundreds of thousands of years, especially for a species like ours. Species characterized by long life spans, small litters, long generation times, slow to mature, take a long time to fully speciate. \n\nIn order for speciation to come into fruition, there needs to be a barrier to reproduction. This barrier might be external (e.g. different reproductive periods, different mating rituals) or they may be internal (e.g. The penis cannot fit into the vagina, the sperm cannot penetrate the egg, chromosomal or genetic barriers, the fetus cannot come to term, hybrids are sterile).\n\nJust because two populations of the same species live on different continents does not mean that they will speciate. First, there must be a random mutation that produces a reproductive barrier. This random mutation may never happen. This random mutation never happened for early humans living in distant parts of the planet. Humans in the Americas maintained the ability to reproduce with humans living in Africa, or Europe, or Australia. No reproductive barriers arose, and all humans remained part of the same species. Nowadays, humans can move between populations much more easily, to such an extent that it is very unlikely that any given population is isolated enough to have a reproductive barrier selected for."
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1cseyp | how are the posts ranked on the front page and how does this vary with time? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1cseyp/eli5_how_are_the_posts_ranked_on_the_front_page/ | {
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"_URL_0_\n\nEDIT: now that I think of it, not very ELI5. I'll sum it as I see it:\n\nImagine the point in time when this point was made, since it happened time went by and that point in time gets farther and farther away from us. The ranking algorithm (the thing that decides which posts are higher) takes the time since the submission into account, by saying that older is worse, but the upvotes actually make this post go higher in ranking, thus saving it from the built-in time decay of the algorithm. That's why the guy called it time travel, by upvoting you are essentially *keeping* the post up. As time goes by, upvotes matter less and less and the post disappears because a new post with 1 point is better than a two-day post with a 1000 points"
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43ep13 | what happens to the earth as we ground charges? why don't feel the effects of the charges? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/43ep13/eli5what_happens_to_the_earth_as_we_ground/ | {
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"The Earth has a perfect method of restoring the balance. What do you suppose are lightning bolts made of? "
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9qkzhu | how accurate are the projections used to determine which strain of the flu to produce protection for in flu shots each year? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/9qkzhu/eli5_how_accurate_are_the_projections_used_to/ | {
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"Depends on what metric you want to use. On any given year, the effectiveness is typically 40-60%. Some years are less. However, that's mostly just measuring \"how many people got the flu.\" Another thing to consider is the severity of disease. People that are vaccinated will develop some immunity, and even if they still get sick, they tend to have a much milder disease course. There isn't a single really good metric to quantify this. Maybe you could look at \"number of inpatient days per thousand\", or maybe ICU days. Overall, it seems to be fairly accurate, in the sense it can prevent about 50% of the disease, and prevent the majority of mortality and morbidity."
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6n9aao | why do some products say they "contain 99,99%" of something, rather than just saying they're made of it? | [deleted] | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/6n9aao/eli5_why_do_some_products_say_they_contain_9999/ | {
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"If I remeber correctly, companies cannot make claims that their product is in fact 100 % of something or effective at something. Lets look at antibacterial hand sanitizerd for instance. They all say kills 99.99% of all germs, but they can't say it kills them all because in fact they do not. If I'm not mistaken, companies are allowed to say their product is 99% something and do not have to prove it, but if they add that one percent in they will have to prove it. Source: some shit Im trying to remeber way back from cullinary school.",
"I believe it is actually because if they claim for something to be 100%, it would have to be proven that at sale it was still 100%, and to prevent microbes from contaminating products is near impossible on a mass production scale, and if any single unit was found to be not 100% and had .00001% impurity it is false advertisement. They would be in trouble"
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3jkkvr | in proffesional tennis, why are the players always thrown so many extra balls when they always throw back at least one of them before they serve? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3jkkvr/eli5_in_proffesional_tennis_why_are_the_players/ | {
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"They're choosing which ball they want to play with. The balls rapidly degrade in a professional match and they always want to use the best. \n\nNew York Times has a long article about this: _URL_0_"
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3c99e4 | how come cars are able to go up to 220 km/h but highways only allow speeds of up to 110 km/h. wouldn't it be wiser to have cars max out at 110 km/h-ish and reduce the engine capabilities? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3c99e4/eli5_how_come_cars_are_able_to_go_up_to_220_kmh/ | {
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"How long do you want to take to accelerate? Merging onto the highway in a reasonable time takes far more power than maintaining a constant speed. There are plenty of 1.0 l cars for sale in Europe. They take about 17 +/- seconds to reach 100 kph, but they are very fuel efficient. No one would buy them here in the US because it would be frankly frightening to try to merge onto our freeways in a car that slow.",
"Better question: many cars have electronically limited top speed, normally 135-155 mph. Why is it so much higher than most state's maximum speed limit and most people's maximum safe driving speed? ",
"If the top speed of your car was the speed limit it would mean more work for your engine. Slower acceleration, more time at high revs which would lead to more strain on the engine and a shorter life span. \n\nAs safety standards increase so does the weight of cars so engines seem like they are much more powerful than before but they are just making up for extra weight. ",
"German here: u wot m8?\n\nNo seroiusly. Cars aren't only sold at one specific country. And slow cars wont sell no matter what the speed limits are",
"Manufacturers make cars for sale all over the world. Speed limits vary, and some don't even have speed limits on the freeways (think Autobahn). It would be difficult and a waste of money to install per-country limiters.",
"Basically it comes down to passion being more important than logic.\n\nSure it would not be technologically that difficult to engineer a car that is limited to 110kph, or any other arbitrary number chosen. As I recall Japan actually does this, all vehicles have a specified top speed.\n\nThe problem is human. Tell people \"You can never do X\" and a lot of people will do whatever it takes to do X. You can't do 111kph leads to people making it their life's work to do 111. As an example many BMW, Mercedes, Audi vehicles come with a limiter at 250kph. The very first thing a lot of tuners do is remove that limit. \n\nWill you ever drive faster than 250kph? No, and neither will almost anyone that has that modification done. They do it for bragging rights. They do it to say \"But mine does 270kph\".\n\nAs I mentioned Japan. I looked it up. The limit is 190kph, although apparently it is not legal, it is instead by agreement much like the German 250kph agreement. Again though, the very first modification done is to remove the limit. Not because they plan on driving faster, but just for bragging rights, just so they know they can. \n\nSo there it is, because humans will always brag about who is biggest strongest, fastest, dumbest, those limits would be immediately removed.",
"An engine with reduced output that could only get your car up to 110 km/h max like you suggest, would have such piss-poor acceleration performance that you could hardly get enough speed to merge onto the freeway or make a safe pass on a two-lane highway.\n\nAlso like has been mentioned multiple times, speed limits are different, or non-existent, in countries other than yours.",
"I had a datsun 120y which could merge safely onto the expressway but it's top speed on level road with my foot to the floor was about 105km/h. The speed limit here is 110km/h.",
"Some folks mentioned about smaller engines being more efficient-\n\nThey're not, not really. Tiny-engine vehicles tend to get put into small cars that don't require as much energy to move, and they may not be driven all that fast.\n\nWhat you're looking for is a Brake Specific Fuel Consumption (BSFC) map. What you're gonna see is an engine is most efficient at around 40% of its max HP. Varies a lot... but like that.\n\nNow it depends on what the body is, and honestly it's not well-documented. But a sedan on the highway can require over 30 hp easy. So a 75 hp engine would be needed for efficiency.\n\nExcept on hills, that engine falls significantly out of the sweet spot. It may be more efficient to go with a larger engine.\n\nLarger engines run at partial throttle aren't the liabilities they used to be. Some super-efficient engines out there with like 150hp. You might say \"well then it'd be MUCH more efficient if it were half the size.\" Probably not, though. That would require higher RPM to cruise on the highway- it'll be LESS efficient to use a smaller engine of the same tech and run at higher throttle most of the time."
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4sbj7i | why does looking at a bright light leave image impressions for long periods? | When you look at something really bright ( a bare light bulb for example), why do we see that object when we close our eyes for several minutes? What happens to make this occur? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4sbj7i/eli5_why_does_looking_at_a_bright_light_leave/ | {
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"Very basically, the intense light \"burns\" an image into your retina. It takes time for it to normalize. What's going on is more about light and chemistry, but it's very simple to say that the light just \"burns\" an image in your eye and it takes a minute for your eye to recover and see clearly.",
"You've probably heard there are two kinds of light sensors in your eyes, rods and cones. Rods are based a chemical called rhodopsin. When you see a bright light, that molecule kind of unhooks itself and tells your brain that it saw a bright light. That molecule also takes time to reset to the initial position though, so you tend to see afterimages when these molecules are activated from a particularly bright source.",
"In the true sense of this sub:\n\nYou have different chemicals in your eye that are released for different colors of light. If you look at a bright light, you \"use-up\" all of one kind of chemical. The opposite kind of chemical has not yet been used up, so you brain perceives this chemical. This is why the \"spots\" you see after looking at a bright light are often blue-ish. You used all the \"yellow\" chemicals, and so there is more \"blue\" in the areas that are missing the \"yellow\""
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20d40c | if someone who has a life sentence plus 20 yrs, dies in prison but brought back to life, could they legally serve the 20 yrs and leave | I understand life without parole means prisoner x (John for now on) will not be released and life with the possibility of parole means John could be paroled. But when John is sentenced to life plus 20yrs is this the equivalent of life without parole. If John 'died' but brought back, would John be able to claim the 'life' portion of his sentence was fulfilled and serve the remaining 20yrs? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/20d40c/eli5_if_someone_who_has_a_life_sentence_plus_20/ | {
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"No. You have to be considered legally dead, not medically dead.",
"If you believe in zombies, does it count?"
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56anyo | protons and neutrons | Why does losing neutrons make an atom unstable when the overall charge stays the same?
Thanks in advance for the answers :) | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/56anyo/eli5_protons_and_neutrons/ | {
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"Neutrons act as a buffer/glue between the positive charges in the nucleus. When you group two or more protons in a tight space (like the nucleus) they will repel each other due to the fact that they are both positive. This repulsion, along with the attraction of the protons to the electrons in the outer shell will make atoms unstable. Neutrons group with the protons and hold them in place with a force called Strong nuclear force. This is the strongest natural force in physics.\n\nSo, when you start losing neutrons, the overall force holding the nucleus together diminishes, making the protons repulsive forces towards each other able to overcome the strong nuclear force of the remaining neutrons, making the nucleus unstable.\n\n"
]
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5y7dtu | will we be able to visualize 4d objects using augmented reality? | [deleted] | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5y7dtu/eli5_will_we_be_able_to_visualize_4d_objects/ | {
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"Not in a better way than we already can.\n\n3D visualizations on 2D screen are just a projection, they do not \"fully\" visualize the 3D object, but since we are used to living in 3D world, our brain can reconstruct the 3D structure from the 2D projection very well. But it's still only a projection and doesn't capture the whole object - for example if you look at a photo of a house, you can't see it's back side and so you don't comprehend it's full 3D shape.\n\nIn this way we can project 4D, 5D etc. to 3D, 2D, 1D etc. We can even fully visualize high-dimension object using for example mathematical graphs. We can visualize 4D as 3D + time, i.e. 3D animation - take a look at [this article at wiki](_URL_0_). All of these are however only helpers for us that try to transform something that's foreign to us to something that we're used to and there will always be trade-offs.\n\nVR offers nothing more than our 2D screens other than bigger field of view and better interactivity. It does not offer extra dimensions, only better immersion. Everything we'll ever be able to see with our eyes will be 2D projection on our retinas, so VR does not provide a way to visualize higher dimension in a better way than we already can."
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g06roo | why does pain get worse at night? | As the title says, why does physical pain get worse at night? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/g06roo/eli5_why_does_pain_get_worse_at_night/ | {
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"Because you notice it more. You are no longer distracted by your daily activity, and are trying to reduce sensation so you can get some sleep. The pain makes this harder so you notice it more, because you have nothing else to notice. Also, adjusting your position occasionally can often alleviate pain, but this makes it harder to go to sleep.",
"Just to add to the above, also at the end of the day, you've been working your muscles all day so when you get a chance to let your muscles relax, they can flare from the work they did that day, after sleep, the muscles have had time to relax and recoup. If you did something strenuous (like run a marathon or just overworked yourself) your muscles need a longer break depending on how much lactic acid has build up \n\n(I live with a connective tissue disorder and this is how a doctor explained it to me)",
"The best theory I have heard is that the hormone cortisol which follows a 24 hr rhythm is lowest at night and since cortisol is an anti-inflammatory that your pain level goes up at night",
"This isn't a universal quality of pain. A lot of pain tends to improve with rest or sleep.\n\nPain that gets worse at night is more likely to be related to a disease than to simple injury or overuse. This is because when you're in bed at night, you're not longer using most of your muscles or joints, so there's no longer much physical stress on them. If the pain is due to disease, then sometimes during the day, the regular use of those joints or muscles sort of 'numbs' the pain, the way rubbing a bruised leg does the same. At night, there's just the disease, so it gets more painful.\n\nThere are lots of perfectly benign reasons to get pain at night, but if it's getting worse, or has lasted more than a week or so, or doesn't respond to simple painkillers, then you should see your doctor because it might be something more serious."
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3fbkwj | reddit told me ebola was so severe it would wipe out most of africa. where did the ebola go? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3fbkwj/eli5_reddit_told_me_ebola_was_so_severe_it_would/ | {
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"Reddit says a lot of shit, maybe you shouldn't believe all of it and do your own research. ",
"Effective procedures damped the current outbreak. Just yesterday a [paper was published in the Lancet](_URL_0_ ) showing a 100% effective rate (n=4000) for a vaccine against Ebola. It might actually be on the way to extinction."
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261byu | multivitamins, how can they fit hundreds of compounds stably into one pill | Without having them degrade one another | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/261byu/eli5_multivitamins_how_can_they_fit_hundreds_of/ | {
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"thousands of pounds of pressure and stabilizing agents? That's pretty much the only ingriedents in most multivitamins. In vitamins, cellulose serves the important role of helping to combine vitamins -- some of which would otherwise be liquids -- into a single cohesive pill. That plus the PSI used to compress the pills helps stabalize them into a single pill.\n\nEdit: [source](_URL_0_)"
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2xcya9 | how does classification of national secrets work? is there one person "who knows everything"? | In light of all the revelations about America's vast intelligence industry/community...the "deep state" and so on...I would really like to know all that's publicly knowable about how keeping secrets actually works.
For example, if a document or program is classified "top secret" -- does anyone with a top secret clearance have the right to search through classified databases and read about it?
Who keeps track of all the secrets? I'm familiar with the notion of compartmentalization, but it would seem like there would be lots of problems associated with it. (Made-up example: if one group within the CIA is trying to make an ally of a foreign leader and another group is trying to put him out of power, etc.)
Does the president have access to everything? Did Obama know everything about the NSA's surveillance activities/capabilities? Can the president say to the CIA or the NSA "tell me everything you know about X?" What assurances does he have they are actually sharing all the information?
Do secrets die with old leaders/members of programs? I've often read (and who knows if these things are true...) that all the records are destroyed of things like government testing of LSD on civilians...if it never comes out, does the history of what happened truly die with the last dude who was there?
I know this is a vast, complex and vague question, but I am wildly curious about anything you folks know about the mechanics and challenges of tracking, organizing, sharing, compartmentalizing, implementing and keeping reams of secrets.
Thank you! | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2xcya9/eli5_how_does_classification_of_national_secrets/ | {
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dc30e9 | how do logic gates calculate their output? | Do transistors calculate the output? If so, wouldn't transistors be the most fundamental logic of computers?
Thanks. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/dc30e9/eli5_how_do_logic_gates_calculate_their_output/ | {
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"If you're interested, I highly recommend trying this online game: _URL_0_\n \nYou start with a nand gate, and combine them for form new gates, and eventually create a basic working CPU (in a digital sandbox).",
"Yes, transistors are the building blocks of logic gates, which are the building blocks of computers. But they don't really 'calculate' their output: they're too simple for that.\n\nAt its most basic, a transistor is a switch that lets electricity flow through it when it receives electricity from a \"control\" input. So for example:\n\n`power`\n\n`|`\n\n`T ----A`\n\n`|`\n\n`output`\n\nThe transistor is labeled \"T\". If electricity is put in on input \"A\", electricity will flow from the power supply to the output. If \"A\" is off, nothing will flow to the output. So if we hook two transistors up in a chain:\n\n`power`\n\n`|`\n\n`T----A`\n\n`|`\n\n`T----B`\n\n`|`\n\n`output`\n\nelectricity will only flow all the way to the output if there's electricity coming in on both input A **and** input B. This is an \"AND\" gate.\n\nBut if we create two parallel paths like two lanes of a highway, and have A and B each control one \"lane\", then electricity will flow through if either A **OR** B is on. This is an OR gate.\n\n(Unfortunately I can't draw this with ascii art on Reddit.)\n\n... and that's the starting point for all of computers.",
"To understand computers you have to understand that everything is built upon layers and layers (and layers and layers) of abstraction. Just like a computer language like C is an abstraction of a more low level form like Assembly (which is itself an abstraction of the pure binary), logic gates are an abstraction of groups of transistors that together do a simple operation.\n\nSo, if I'm going to design a circuit that adds two numbers together, yes I could go down to the very lowest level and map out every circuit and transistor involved, but doing so would be complicated and difficult to troubleshoot. Sticking an abstraction layer of logic gates in there makes it a much more human tractable problem.\n\nIn reality a ton of chip design is done by computers these days with even higher level abstractions on top for human readability and input. Verilog for instance more closely resembles computer code than what you might expect chip design to look like.\n\nBut none of that is a very good ELI5, so let me try again. \n\nLogic gates are like Lego blocks, the simple old fashioned ones. You **could** build the exact same models out of only flat Lego pieces and not using blocks at all, just stick the flat plates together until you get the shape of the larger blocks. But no one would want to do that, it would be tedious and you'd likely mess it up somewhere along the line. If you really had to build a whole set out of only flat pieces, you'd probably start by putting flat pieces together into the shape of the larger more friendly blocks that the instructions actually call for. \n\nTransistors are the flat pieces, by themselves it doesn't look possible to make much interesting out of them. But when you think about a collection of flat pieces as a bigger block it's easier to imagine making a huge castle from them. \n\nSo what's more fundamental, the shapes that people build with every day or the shapes that deep down make up those shapes? It's just a matter of semantics.",
"Let's define a transistor as a 3 pin device that uses a signal at one pin to control the current flowing between the other two pins. In digital electronics that control signal would either be 1 or 0. With multiple transistors we can connect the transistors in such a way that only certain combinations of inputs at the control pins will allow current to flow through the load. I recommend looking up CMOS gate circuits to get a better picture of how this works.",
"You can make some gates with just diodes, but you'd need a transistor to get the voltage back up near the input voltage. \n\nFor example diodes in parallel, plus a resistor can make an OR gate or an AND gate. A transistor and a resistor can make an inverter. An AND gate and an inverter is a NAND gate. NAND gates can be used to make all the other gates.",
"A transistor basically has three connections. Input. Control. Output. (This isnt totally correct but works for this purpose)\n\nThe input can be a very large amount of electrons compared to the control. So the control is used to tell the transistor that it is ok to switch on and pass that high power from the input to the output.\n They can also take that control input and instead use the transistor to amplify and output the amplified control signal. By varying how they are used and connected you can create very complicated computational \"chips.\"\n\nA transistor needs to have an input in able to produce an output.\n\nIn the old days you needed almost 5 volts for the transistors to switch. Now I'm sure that is much smaller. But that's there 1 and 0 came from 1 being on or 5 volts and 0 being off or anything below 5 volts. \n\nIn electronics when we used to troubleshoot at board level we would have a schematic that we could follow and understand. Using calculations and by measuring various points for the high and low we could find the problem if say a 1 bit was only 3.2 volts. \n\nOnce you understand the basics of electronics, computer programming becomes a hell of a lot easier and makes sense.",
"[I can’t believe this hasn’t been posted yet. It is Matt Parker(not South Park) showing logic gates with dominoes.](_URL_0_)",
"I would highly recommend checking out Ben Eater’s channel on YouTube. He has great videos that explain how computer hardware works, and he does so by building them out on a breadboard, accompanied by diagrams, etc.\n\nFor your particular question, his 13 minute video ‘Making Logic Gates From Transistors’ (_URL_0_) takes you through each logic gate in a simple to follow format, and he builds them out with transistors.\n\nOther videos of his include building a basic 8-bit computer, RAM modules, and even a video card from scratch with explanations. He’s also now selling kits so you can follow along with his builds.",
"Transistors do ultimately calculate the output. It would be fair to say they are the most fundamental logic element in a computer.\n\nUsing methods described by other people ITT you can build basic gates like OR, AND, NOR, NAND, XOR, etc. The next step is to chain multiple gates together to come up with something more useful. You can implement a lot of surprisingly complex calculations by doing this. Addition, subtraction, multiplication, and a lot more are possible using only basic logic gates. This is called combinational logic.\n\nTo take it to the next level you need *sequential* logic. You use a *flip flop* (which itself can be implemented using transistors) to store the output of one calculation. Then you can feed that output into another combinational circuit to do the next step of your calculation. This allows you to chain multiple calculations together. That's essentially what a program is. A list of operations which are calculated sequentially.",
"here's the tl;dr version:\n\na computer doesn't \"calculate\" anything in any cognitive sense like a human does, it just ends up throwing out electrical pulses that add up in binary to the numbers added, like some kind of automatic electrical abacus.\n\n & #x200B;\n\nI know people are gonna gripe with this explanation, but I was going for very short and succinct.",
"P1 Introduction \nSo traditional math is decimal-based, or base 10. This mean number representation can be represented by exponents of 10. Notice the bolded. \n\n\nA number like 69 would be represented by **6**\\*10\\^1 + **9**\\*10\\^0. \n\n\nA number like 420 would be represented by **4**\\*10\\^2 + **2**\\*10\\^1 + **0**\\*10\\^0. \n\n\n \nP2 Binary \n\n\nBinary is base 2. So numbers are represented by exponents of 2. So, 2\\^0 is the right most, 2\\^1 is the second right most, 2\\^n is the n+1 right most. \n\n\nA number like 69 would be represented by 1000101. or **1**\\*2\\^6 + **0**\\*2\\^5+ **0**\\*2\\^4+**0**\\*2\\^3+ **1**\\*2\\^2 + **0**\\*2\\^1 + **1**\\*2\\^0 = **1**\\*64 + **0**\\*32 + **0**\\*16 + **0**\\*8 + **1**\\*4 + **0**\\*2 + **1**\\*1 = **69** \n\n\nP3 Logic Gates\n\n & #x200B;\n\nLogic gates are, well, what the name implies: logic gates. They just take in two inputs and throw out an output. The two basic logic gates are 'AND' and 'OR'.\n\nThe outputs are as followed:\n\nAND GATE = f(a,b) = a\\ & b; f(0,0) = 0; f(0,1) = 0; f(1,0) = 0; f(1,1) = 1, which makes sense for an AND gate. It should only throw out TRUE or '1' if both are 1. \n\n\nOR Gate = f(a,b) = a|b; f(0,0) = 0; f(0,1) = 1; f(1,0) = 1 f(1,1) = 1, which makes sense for an OR gate. It throws out TRUE or '1' if either a or b is TRUE or 1. \n\n\nThere are more gates like XOR, NOT, and NXOR.\n\n & #x200B;\n\nP4 Adding\n\n \n\n\nDecimal adding is simple. 10+9 = 19. You sum up the ones column, and then sum up the tens column. 9+2 is a bit funky, but we know it's 11. It's 11 because since the biggest that a place can hold is 9, we carry over values into the ten column. So, the problem becomes 10\\^1 + 1 = 11. \n\n\nThe same concept applies to binary. \n\n\nWe want to add A and B, but we have to keep in mind that the biggest digit we can hold is 1\n\n|A|B|SUM|\n|:-|:-|:-|\n|0|0|0|\n|0|1|1|\n|1|0|1|\n|1|1|??|\n\nWe can see that this is pretty much an OR gate but with ?? \nSo what becomes of the ??. We would expect to be 1, but we know that it's not true. It should be 10. Since, we had to carry over the 1. But this is only the 'ones' column, so ?? is just 0.\n\n & #x200B;\n\n & #x200B;\n\n|A|B|SUM|\n|:-|:-|:-|\n|0|0|0|\n|0|1|1|\n|1|0|1|\n|1|1|0|\n\nAgain, this looks like an OR gate, but 1 OR 1 should be 1, not 0! Though it's not an OR gate, this is still a gate, this is actually an output for an XOR gate (where you only want one true value). \n\n\n & #x200B;\n\nBut, what do we do with the carry digit? Well, we want some form of logic that only does a carry digit when we see 1 + 1.\n\n & #x200B;\n\n|A|B|CARRY|\n|:-|:-|:-|\n|0|0|0|\n|0|1|0|\n|1|0|0|\n|1|1|1|\n\nNow, this is just a straight up AND gate. \n\n\n \nNow we have just made a basic adder (half-adder call it). \nMeaning we can show A+B with just an AND-gate and XOR-gate. Though, it can only add up to 3 (or in binary '11')\n\n & #x200B;\n\n|A|B|CARRY|SUM|\n|:-|:-|:-|:-|\n|0|0|0|0|\n|0|1|0|1|\n|1|0|0|1|\n|1|1|1|0|\n\n \n\n\nTo make a full-adder, of which I won't go over, to do math like 19+21, where you have to add the carry value into 1+2 in the tens column, we need another OR gate. You can probably find a break-down of the table somewhere on google. But, in any case, if we just extend a bunch of these adders together, it becomes a simple adder, where the number of digits is based on how many full adders you have.",
"It's like playing red rover and keeping score. When a player breaks through, it's a 1. When a player doesn't, it's still 0. Each turn you add up the score and that's your output.\n\nTransistors have no logic though. They're simply in a simple state of yes, no, or maybe. They *enable* logic by storing states, but they themselves are simply flag posts: the CPU turns it into logic via binary and higher level code.",
"Compute is probably the wrong word at the level of a transistor. At this level you’re just describing components. Transistors don’t compute as they alone don’t allow you to recognize any mathematical output for a given input. They simply control the flow of electricity. You need wires, at least two transistors, a voltage source, and a voltage drain to create a unit of computation called a gate. A gate is a configuration of electrical components, that’s flow of current represents a mathematical computation on some input to derive an output; it only means something because it can be interpreted by a human. A gate is the smallest unit of computation because nothing smaller actually computes anything, whereas a transistor, like a wire or a voltage source, cannot represent any mathematical process. The two fundamental gates are NOT and NAND (or NOR) and all other computations can be generated from configurations of these gates.\n\nEdit: I want to say there *is* a trivial computation that can be performed by just a single wire: the identity function, f(A) = A. This is computed by simply connecting an input pin to an output pin. This is not very interesting and it can’t be used to construct more interesting computation so it’s not really fair to call a wire the basic unit of computation."
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45shto | how does hd/4k work and why does your tv need to have special capability to support it? | I was told HD/4K is basically just having smaller pixels, and more of them, to produce sharper images. Is this true? If not, how does it actually work? Also, if it is true, why does your TV need to support the definition - can't it just automatically make pixels smaller without needing special technology.
Nerds/remotely intelligent people (whichever applicable), please don't shoot me for asking this. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/45shto/eli5_how_does_hd4k_work_and_why_does_your_tv_need/ | {
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"Yes, it's basically just having smaller pixels and more of them. Your TV can't just make the pixels smaller because they're a physical feature of the screen. They're either little lights that can be on or off, or little filters which can either block or let through the light from a backlight behind them. It was manufactured with a certain number of pixels, and that's how many it will always have.",
"The size of the pixel is based on the physical size of the TV. 4K means there are 4 times as many pixels as a 1080p TV. This doesn't *necessarily* mean the pixels are smaller. The pixels on an 80\" 4K TV are gonna be even bigger than the pixels on a 24\" 1080p TV. \n\nNo, the TV has a set amount of pixels and cannot change their size. Pixels are physical things. ",
"Not necessarily smaller pixels, they are often smaller but the main importance in 4K is that there are more pixels, 4 times as many as in HD. \n\n > can't it just automatically make pixels smaller without needing special technology.\n\nBecause the pixels are a part of the hardware, they are physically there and cannot be made smaller unless manufactured smaller.",
" > I was told HD/4K is basically just having smaller pixels, and more of them, to produce sharper images. Is this true? \n\nThats a simple/eli5 way of putting it yea.\n\n > can't it just automatically make pixels smaller without needing special technology.\n\nEhhhhh... kind of.\n\nYes, most tvs can downscale a higher resolution video to fit it. But that video would look better on a tv of proper resolution. Pixels aren't just a digital thing, they're an actual physical part of the screen, you can't just make them smaller to get a better image.\n\nThink about actual photos. If you have a high quality picture the size of a piece of paper, and you shrink it down to fit on a post card, you wont be able to make out as many details in the picture. ",
"A 1080p video, if talking about FHD, means it has a resolution of 1920x1080, meaning 1920 columns with 1080 rows, each with a pixel. To display this fully, you need a 1080p tv. \n \nA 4K UHD video has a resolution of 3840x2160, meaning 3840 columns with 2160 rows, each with it's own pixel. You need a 4K UHD tv to display this properlly. \n \n > having smaller pixels \n \nWith the same size screen, yes. However, an 80\" 1080p tv will have bigger pixels than a 20\" 4K UHD tv/display. \n \n > can't it just automatically make pixels smaller without needing special technology \n \nNo, the pixels on your tv are physically inside the tv. [Here is what they look like when displaying your mouse cursor on a white background.](_URL_0_) \n \n > to produce sharper images. \n \nDepends on what you mean by \"sharper\". If you mean they allow a more accurate representation of what they are recording, then yes. \n \n4K UHD video/displays can also take advantage of Rec. 2020 and HDR, but that's a different topic.",
"Both are resolutions, the number of pixels in an image. Pixels are hardware, the number that a display has is fixed at the time of manufacture"
]
} | []
| []
| [
[],
[],
[],
[],
[
"http://c8.alamy.com/comp/BN9NWT/monitor-screen-pixels-closeup-BN9NWT.jpg"
],
[]
]
|
|
3zfxar | cheap low voltage plasma balls. | In the late 80's I so very badly wanted a plasma ball - but they cost the same as an Amiga 500 and from what I understand used almost the same amount of energy.
This Christmas I bought a little one as a gift - it cost me £3.50 and is powered via a USB port. What's changed - how is this possible? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3zfxar/eli5_cheap_low_voltage_plasma_balls/ | {
"a_id": [
"cylupl8"
],
"score": [
3
],
"text": [
"There really was no good reason in the 80's for a \"plasma ball\" to cost as much as it did...at least from an electrical components point of view. It's essentially a Tesla Coil and a lightbulb...but the bulb filled with a more interesting gas than argon. There certainly was no sophisticated electronics (i.e. chipsets) that have massively come down in price since then. I suppose it was expensive back then simply because the massive factories in China has not yet decided to churn them out. Here's a simple schematic: _URL_0_\n"
]
} | []
| []
| [
[
"http://www.personal.psu.edu/sdb229/plasma%20schematic.gif"
]
]
|
|
7d7px9 | how do crt displays have the ability to display video below the maximum resolution without the use of interpolation? | I hear that the old CRT displays can operate at different resolutions without the use of any upscaling methods. The flat panel displays can only operate at the maximum resolution format. That means digital video upscaling is required to match the maximum resolution of the display. It is hard to find a good explanation on this. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/7d7px9/eli5_how_do_crt_displays_have_the_ability_to/ | {
"a_id": [
"dpvpjte"
],
"score": [
5
],
"text": [
"Digital displays have a fixed number of pixels, which is what is called the \"native\" resolution of the display. Because of this fixed number, any resolution that tries to display less pixels than what are physically present requires interpolation if you want the image to fill the entire screen (display scaling). If you turn off display scaling, you get a sharper image at lower resolutions at the cost of the image not filling the entire display (black bars).\n\n & nbsp;\n\nCRTs on the other hand, shoot electrons at a screen which excites material on the back of the glass display, and creates an image. CRTs being analog, you have a theoretically infinite number of resolution possibilities without needing any interpolating, because there are no fixed number of pixels on the display. This gets into the differences between digital and analog in general. Hope this helps."
]
} | []
| []
| [
[]
]
|
|
1ekrdg | why monsanto is lobbying so hard against having gmos labeled on food. | This may be a naive question with the simple answer that because the public associates GMOs with danger it will loose business, but in [this article](_URL_0_) it says GMA estimates "70% of non-organic grocery store processed foods contain GMOs." If they are that prevalent, please explain why this is such a big deal. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1ekrdg/eli5_why_monsanto_is_lobbying_so_hard_against/ | {
"a_id": [
"ca16dwy",
"ca16hts",
"ca17vh5"
],
"score": [
22,
4,
12
],
"text": [
"Because labeling invites demonization. If you put \"no pesticides\" on one box and not on another, people buy the \"no pesticides\" one despite the fact that neither one has pesticides and no food with them could be sold.\n\nGMO food is completely irrelevant to the consumer, it is simply a marketing ploy to hurt a major player in the seed market.",
"okay johnny. lets say you and your friend both start making milkshakes.\n\nin your milkshake you put bananas, rasperries, strawberry ice cream and apple. \n\nyour best friend makes his with bananas, blueberries, strawberry ice cream and apple as well.\n\nyour friend also uses a different brand strawberry ice cream in his shake\n\nnow, you are both selling to the same customers, but a large amount of your customers dont like your particular brand of ice cream. you dont have to say what particular brand it is, just that you have strawberry ice cream. \n\nNow someone comes along and says that you have to be more specific and label the brands of ice cream. many people dont like your brand so they stop buying your milkshakes, even though they liked them all along. they will start buying your friends milkshakes instead\n\nreplace the ice cream with wheat and the the milkshakes with any type of food. Many people like and survive of wheat, but they may not like the GMO label (or brand) wheat, and will buy others instead",
"_URL_0_\n\nIt's pretty simple. GMO is a term that has a lot of negative stigma attached to it. It doesn't deserve this stigma, but activists and organic food companies have spent millions on making this way. Even without this effect, very few people realize *what* the term means, leading to an effect where people avoid the food simply because of the label.\n\nThe real issue at stake here (one that the biotech companies care very little about) is that food labeling is supposed to have a beneficial purpose to the consumer. Mandatory GM labeling does NOT fit this criteria. Show the government some proof that they need labeling and you'll get your label, but \"I want to know\" doesn't fit the ticket. Don't want to eat transgenic food? That's what USDA-Organic is food. Should we label all non-Kosher, or non-Halal food?\n\nTl;Dr: Monsanto cares because of profits, I care because bullshit labeling isn't a good idea."
]
} | []
| [
"http://www.commondreams.org/view/2013/05/17-4"
]
| [
[],
[],
[
"http://xkcd.com/641/"
]
]
|
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