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5o93wc | Expand on the noise canceling please. | When you guys explained noise canceling in the recent post, you said that the wave peaks top and bottom at the same time so it cancels each other out and you said its not more noise. Maybe it isnt more, but I feel like it'd just push on your ear drum More and slowly less and vibrate differently. but the push would be like a truck see pic: URL_0 More like how you push a q-tip into your ear, its not a wave, it just pushes. | Repost | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Sound waves are mechanical longitudinal waves. In other words, the particle motion is in the direction of the wave. This can be difficult to visualize, so here's a picture: URL_0 So even though we often model longitudinal waves as transversal (like the waves in your drawing), that's just to help visualize them. When the waves cancel each other out, there is nothing. No more push. Even if the waves were transversal, the intensity of the wave is determined by amplitude."
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5o99md | why is it that in cartoons, especially older ones like Scooby Doo, Flinstones, and The Jetsons, objects that move are noticeably lighter than the objects around them. Is this to help animators know which items to draw? | Repost | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Traditional animation was drawn on transparent sheets of celluloid, which were then stacked up to assemble a scene. So you might have a sheet for the background, a sheet for static props, a sheet for a character's body, and another sheet on top for things that actually move. Things that move need to be on top because that sheet has to be swapped out for each frame, and that makes it possible to do so without disturbing the background. Since the background is behind several sheets of celluloid (and they're not *perfectly* transparent), objects that are actually the same color appear darker. Additionally, the backgrounds were often done as matte paintings rather than cell shaded flat colors, so it wouldn't be possible to match them perfectly. Modern digital animation uses similar layered techniques, but with perfect transparency and no limits on what layers the animators can work on."
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5ob10p | Why does the US not have a health care system like Canada or Germany for example? | Repost | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Without getting into a political debate about why we should or should not have a health care system like Canada or Germany, the reason is because the political climates are different in the United States vs. those other countries. The debate is different (goal posts are moved) and the overall belief of what is required from the government is different. Also, there is higher diversity and around 5x to 10x more people in the US than Canada and Germany, and there is some question about scaling of a universal health care system.",
"A lot of it stems from WW2. In the UK, for example, there was an Emergency Hospital Service nationwide to insure people injured as a result of enemy actions could receive treatment. Effectively nationalizing their health care. It was a smoother transition from that to a permanent nationalized solution. In the US, medical insurance became a perk that employers could use to keep/recruit employees. Wages were frozen, and even the ability to switch jobs was heavily restricted. But fringe benefits, like medical insurance, were still a tool employers could use to attract workers. So medical insurance as a perk, rather than a necessity, became the accepted norm in the US."
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5ob3e4 | Why does liquid stay in the straw when you cover the tip of it? | Repost | explainlikeimfive | {
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"No air can come in to replace it from the top, and the surface of the liquid at the bottom end is too strong to just break. That strength is size-dependent, though; so, with a fat enough straw, the bottom surface can break, letting the liquid spill down and out of the straw along one side while air replaces it along the other side, even while the top remains covered.",
"What happens when you suck water up a straw? The act of sucking comes from your mouth, but that isn't what actually propels the water up the straw. The force that pushes the water up is atmospheric pressure aka the weight of the air above your glass of water. By sucking on one end of a straw you lower the pressure and since the pressure on the glass of water is now higher, it forces the water up the straw. When you then put your finger over the end of the straw you are sealing it. When the water tries to fall out of the straw due to gravity there is nowhere for air to come in on the finger side and so it would produce a vacuum if it were to move down, and for that same reason, the air pressure holds it up in the straw. If you were to tilt the straw and lay it horizontal, eventually the water would pour out sideways because it would open a channel for air to move along the straw to replace the vacuum."
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5obhcx | When men get gun-shy around other men in a restroom, and can't make themselves "go," what is happening to them physiologically? | Repost | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Just like their privacy and this is a very private moment. It has nothing to do with being an Alpha male or someone else's penis. It's learned. Bathrooms in homes are typically built for only one person to use the toilet."
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5od45r | Could I essentially live off of vitamins and basic food for fuel? | Repost | explainlikeimfive | {
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"It's not even all that hard. Go buy Soylent. Its a brand of meal replacement product."
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5ofug4 | How text messages sent to a dead phone will arrive once the phone is turned on | Repost | explainlikeimfive | {
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"The text is sent to a server belonging to your service provider and is stored, when the phone turns back on it sends the server a signal saying its on and the server sends all the texts that were received and stored while the phone was off."
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5oieog | Why do humans require such a comprehensive and well-balanced diet while most animals thrive on a seemingly limited number of food sources. | Repost | explainlikeimfive | {
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"It's actually the other way around. Human can survive on one of the most diverse diet. Most animal have a very specific diet and can't usually change it. If they lose that source of food, they can often be in danger. Cats for exemple, lack the ability to produce certain aminos-acid and vitamins so they can't survive without meat to give them those things. Human can produce a lot of those so they mostly need a source of energy to produce what they need. They still need specific nutrient, but those are usually frequent and a lot of source of food can provide them. People can survive on a LOT of different diet. But of course as we know more have the exact need of our body, you can specify our diet to make sure that we get all of what our body need, but that's not needed to be relatively healthy or to stay alive.",
"We don't really \"require\" a carefully balanced diet. Humanity as a species and would do fine if we all raised three kids and died from malnutrition around age 35. The problem is, we don't really like that idea. And if you want to live till you're 80, you need to take proper care of your body. And thus people have figured out some pretty great and healthy diets. That's not required (just look at people who eat nothing but junkfood), but it will greatly improve the odds of growing old. Think of it as maintaining a car. If you plan to scrap it after 50k miles, you can do whatever you want. But if you want to drive 350k on it, you need to change the oil, clean the filters, properly inflate the tires, use the right fuel etc. But you only have to do that if you want it to last a long time.",
"Most of the advice for well-balanced diets is to extend your life. A human doesn't need to live for 60 or 80 or 100 years, but we want to. Evolution targets efficiency, and efficiency is \"live long enough to reproduce and then die as soon as you're not useful.\" Humans can live to 40 on terrible diets, which is fine if you reproduce at 20. Most people don't want that lifestyle, so we use knowledge of medicine and our bodies to extend our life further than evolution deems necessary.",
"Animals have all sorts of malnourishment problems. Humans just have enough food to be able to consider stuff like health and 'well-balanced diet'. Animals need that as well. For example cats that don't hunt need extra calcium in their food because they never eat bones (NEVER give your cat cooked bones, only raw) and so on. Without a balanced diet they will die or get sick as well.",
"It's funny, I just got out of TAing a course about human brain development where we were talking about what constraints act on the development of large brains at a species level. Related to your question about diet is the question of cooking -- specifically, when foods are cooked they can allow us to extract more usable calories from them. As an adult human, your brain requires about 25% of your caloric intake daily. The development of skills like cooking as well as biological specializations to process certain foods makes our large and complex brain (relative to our body size and food consumption) possible! Not sure if this exactly answers your question, but it's interesting at least!",
"If we had the same ambitions as most animals... To survive long enough to reproduce a few times, then die... Then we could worry a lot less about a balanced diet also. We could just eat bacon for 14 years or so, bang a few out, then die of a heart attack.",
"Keep in mind that food intolerances are actually pretty common. 65% of adults have lactose intolerance. Most food intolerances have little or no research associated with them. Part of the reason why different cultures have different foods is due to living in different geographic environments where only certain types of of food can be grown. Prehistoric immigrants to these areas were forced to adopt to the local food sources or die",
"You assumption is incorrect that animals don't need a wide variety of foods. Look up one of our closest relatives, the gorilla, for example. They eat hundreds of varieties of foods when in the wild. Think about a whale eating krill and plankton in the ocean. It also ingests every other thing in the water when it is feeding, and eats it. The problem is that in captivity it is very difficult or impossible to provide that level of variety, and we give animals supplements to compensate. The lack of variety and the lack of a need to spend hours a days foraging also creates behavioral problems for captive animals, because they don't need to and can't forage, but that's what they wired to do. Not all animals require a large variety of course. But I encourage you to reexamine the assumption in your question.",
"We don't. Humans can live on a great number of different diets. That's why we can live literally ANYWHERE on the planet.",
"There are two type of nutrients; micronutrients and macronutrients. The latter is what you need every day to keep going: fats, carbohydrates, and protein ( the body can actually sometimes finagle conversions between them). Micronutrients are vitamins and minerals we need in small amounts over the long run; they're what we need from vegetables and what makes \"superfoods\" super. Most carnivorous animals get their micronutrients from organ tissue- it's full of them, even though it's fallen out of style in our modern diets. That's how at least carnivores are able to get a complete diet; with herbivores I'd assume they just eat the right variety of plants.",
"I should mention that the \"diet problem\" was the first problem addressed by the Simplex Method of Linear Programming. The issue is how to formulate a diet which includes all macro-nutrients and micro-nutrients in a minimum cost diet. [YouTube]( URL_0 ) The actual problem is larger than you will usually find in accessible resources.",
"I lived with a guy who subsisted almost entirely on Jack & Cokes and nicotine. Not the healthiest guy but he could do it.",
"to add to other people we really dont need to eat a large number of different things. we could eat the same meals every day and have the nutrition we need but we just dont like to do that when there is such a variety of foods made available to us.",
"Isn't there a guy that's like 150lbs but has eaten nothing but pizza for the past ten years?",
"It has to do with the amount of calories our brain requires to function is relation to our size. This can be easily compared to other animals and their brain sizes. There is a Ted talk a while back were this was greatly explained. I'll attach a link. URL_0",
"Related question: How do mammals not so different form each other have such opposite diets? e.g. the grazers that only each grass and leaves (zebra, giraffe, antelope etc.) and their prey that only eat meat. (lions, leopards, wolves etc.). Isn't someone not getting their vitamin C and beta kerotene? And isn't someone else not getting their protein and iron?",
"You could survive on bread and water for a surprisingly long time (assuming it's old school bread made from unrefined stuff). However, you won't thrive. A diverse diet is recommended for best results. If you're only interested in survival, and you accept some health issues to go with it, then your diet could be very narrow and limited in range. It won't kill you, probably, but you won't be in the best of health either.",
"This isn't quite the case. For example, despite what some may say - you can't feed a dog cat food for an extended period of time and expect them to stay healthy, and vice versa. This is because dogs' bodies require specific amino acids. Some of these amino acids they cannot make themselves (essential amino acids). These essential amino acids are different for dogs, cats, and even humans. The same is true for certain vitamins. Considering the fact that many animals are not omnivores but strictly carnivorous or strictly herbivorous, their food source options are even further limited to specific sources of food for survival. This is why the changes in the ecosystem are very impactful on the animal community."
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5ojayg | Given that we don't get colds and other seasonal illnesses just from being cold, why do most of us get sick more frequently in the winter than the summer? In other words, why or how are some illnesses seasonal rather than year round? | Repost | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Winter is Just Better^TM for transmitting diseases. People stay inside more, which means they're closer together. People travel to visit family, taking the local strains of microbes with them. The air is dryer, which dries out the mucous membranes in your nose and throat, making them more vulnerable to infection."
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5ojogp | when attempting to sneeze, why does looking at the sun/a light source trigger it? | Repost | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Imagine your nerves controlling sight as a sidewalk in a neighborhood. Normally, there's a normal supply of people walking on it and everyone stays on the path. Sometimes, there's a huge burst of people (looking at something bright). The sidewalk is so crowded that some people end up stepping on the lawn of the neighboring houses. Mr. Sneeze, living in one of the houses, sees this and gets out of his house to yell at the people to get off his lawn. The process is known as photic sneeze reflex and it affects 18-35% of the population. The mechanics behind it are not fully understood but it may be due to nerve signals being confused when there is a rapid burst from seeing bright light.",
"It doesn't for everyone. About 18-35% of people are affected by this; it's called [photic sneeze reflex]( URL_0 ).",
"I shit you not, there is another name for this condition that is way better than photic sneezing. It's Autosomal Dominant Compelling Helio-Ophthalmic Outburst Syndrome. Or ACHOO for short :) [Proof]( URL_0 )",
"The optic nerve takes all the light information from the eyes to the brain. The maxillary nerve causes the sneeze reflex. These two nerves run next to each other for part of their course. When there is lots of electrical activity going down the optic nerve, then because they are next to each other, this activity can \"leak\" onto the maxillary nerve and push it over the limit, causing a sneeze.",
"No one really knows. Some scientists say it's caused by confusion in the nervous system. Since all senses are linked, the pupil dilation response to light is translated to a nasal irritation and causes a sneeze. Other scientists suggest it's evolutionary, a trait that helped our ancestors survive in primitive life. (Clear the nose of smoke/other smells after leaving a cave to help smell threats/food sources).",
"As someone who does this, I've noticed that squinting your eyes moves the sinus cavity. I imagine this affects the process as well",
"I was told that looking at the sun/light normally involved looking up, which opened your airways. And that was why it helps you sneeze. No idea how true that is, though I've noticed it has the same effect in a dark room as when I'm outside.",
"This is known as [photic sneeze reflex]( URL_0 ) caused by a genetic mutation that results in some sensory inputs to become \"crossed\" for example sudden bright light can be interpreted by the brain as nasal irritation.",
"I actually have the same thing. Strangely enough it can apparently it can be passed down. At least my mom has it and apparently my grandmother did as well. It's kinda annoying but only because the sneezes come on so quick that I can't see what I'm going and have to pause."
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5owa4i | Why has Socialism such a bad stigma in the U.S.? | Repost | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Many Americans are trained that the American dream is to work hard and become rich through that. That are also trained that socialism will steal all of their hard earned money and make the working class pay for all of the needs of those in poverty, this then removing any motivation for those in poverty to work for themselves.",
"Politics and economics are not sciences. *Gasp* but I was told they were!? You got lied to. Science is able to make an accurate prediction about the future. Economists and political scientists cannot do this accurately. Thus everyone thought Hillary would win. Everyone thought Obamacare would have enrollments twice as high as it does and at half the cost. So... when we say \"does socialism work?\" we can't look to theory and use that theory to predict the future because economics and politics can't do that. What we can do is look to real world examples and ask \"did it work there?\" And the answer to that question is always no. Some european countries flirt with some socialist theories, but they are not really socialist. The socialists are the Cubas, the Venezuella's, the Soviet Unions, the Vietnams, the North Koreas. And they just, simply, do not work. America has a more hard nosed view of this than Europe because many European countries have flavored their cup of capitalism with a drizzle of socialism and had a good result. So its natural for you to ask \"what if we add more socialism, or go full socialism\". America has had a good experience with its cup of capitalism and would like a second if at all possible."
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5oyjai | How does a sailboat get to a westward destination if the wind is out of the west? | Repost | explainlikeimfive | {
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"You don't sail in a straight line, you sail at an angle so the sails can catch the wind, then turn and go the other way, in a zigzag pattern. It's called \"tacking\".",
"A boat can only sail in 270/360 degrees of possible travel. So if you imagine a clock face on the water with noon point at the direction of travel from 10 to 2 is called irons or the no-go zone. This is where the wind is coming from and the sailboat can't sail. In order to travel in this direction, the boat has to tack (turn) back and forth and zig zag up the lake/river/ocean. *So in your example the boat would probably travel northwest and then tack to head south-west and then northwest again zig zagging so that the north/south travel is canceled out and then westward travel remains edit*"
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5p2r7n | Why do colossal creatures appear to move so slowly? | Repost | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Ask yourself this: are they really moving slowly? Say a humanoid creature ten times the size of a normal human is capable of swinging its fist just as fast as a normal human can. Well, the speed's the same, but since the creature is so large, there's much more distance to cover, so it takes more time to complete actions that would take a normal-sized creature less time, even if the two different-sized creatures move their limbs, or whatever, at the same exact speed. Your next question might be, why wouldn't the giant creature move faster since it's so much stronger? Well sure, the giant has more muscle so it can apply greater forces, but its size means it also has a lot of mass to deal with as well. This could probably be explained better, but if you take Newton's Second Law: F (force) = m (mass) x a (acceleration) and rearrange it to read a = F / m then you increase both the force AND the mass to represent our giant's increased musculature but also its greater size, you find that if F and m are increased at around the same rate, the resulting acceleration stays about the same. So since more muscles means more mass to move, and more size means more distance to travel, you end up with big lumbering giants like in the movies. It just makes more sense."
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5p79tt | What is a Denial of Service (DoS) attack. | Repost | explainlikeimfive | {
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"As some internet smartass once put it \"Wanna DDoS a bar? Get a shitload of friends to all go in and keep asking for glasses of water.\" The point of a distributed denial of service attack is to tie up one server with **so many** requests that ultimately aren't real that it has no time to service the actual users who want to visit the page. All web traffic starts with *some* form of request and conversation between the two computers. The attacking computers in a DoS scenario just drop the conversation and start over from the top every few seconds. Usually to pull off a DoS attack effectively, you need a botnet, a network of thousands of virus'd computers that accept commands you give them. If you tried to pull a DoS attack with just one or relatively few computers, it would be very easy to trace and blacklist you. But if thousands of computers all over the world all connect to your victim's server simulatenously, that server can't tell which incoming requests might belong to real users and which are bogus and going to end early."
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5p8fg4 | How are devices like cellphones and laptops still able to keep track of time even after their batteries are removed but my clocks need to be reset every time the power goes out? | Repost | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Cellphones are a bad example because they'll synchronize their time with cell towers as soon as they get powered up again. Laptops have another battery explicitly for keeping the clock going and ensuring low level settings are preserved, just like desktop PCs."
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5p8zk9 | Why can you sometimes "feel" someone watching you? | Repost | explainlikeimfive | {
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"When you turn to look at someone they can notice the motion of you turning and look at you, so it appears to you they have been staring at you. The rest is probably just confirmation bias. A study in 1913 where the test subjects could not see the person staring reported 50.2% correct guesses, indicating that there is no basis to whether someone is looking at you. URL_0",
"There is no reason to think that a human can. My guess as to why this myth persists would be a combination of good old fashioned confirmation bias. As well the fact the **you** turning your head gets the attention of the person you *thought* was looking at you causing them to look at you. So you see them looking at you & assume you were right.",
"Your brain has evolved to keep you alive in the wild against literal lions, tigers and bears. It also helps you see prey and is geared for social interactions. You literally have brain circuits to notice when you see eyes. Even if you don't consciously notice it the feeling is there. Is it a deer in the trees? A large predator? Grognak the barbarian to ambush you? You don't know but the circuits activate and you feel on edge.",
"Most people say its not real since there has been no scientifically supported and reproduced proof of any cause or even the feeling itself. However, and this is heading into anecdotal territory, I know a number of veterans and many have told me about how their escape and evasion trainers taught them to never look directly at the person you're hiding from. Instead watch them in your peripheral vision. I do casual experiments with this technique often and to be honest it definitely seems to work. Explanations given were varied including the most convincing and succinct: \"You can camouflage your whole body 'cept the whites of your eyes so don't show em.\""
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5p945b | Why do SCUBA divers go into the water backwards instead of front first? | Repost | explainlikeimfive | {
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"If they don't go back first, they go feet first. Both for several reasons. 1. Out of the water, the tank is **heavy**. Imagine doing a belly flop while wearing a backpack full of cinder blocks. You hit the water, then the pack hits you. Ouch. 2. Hitting the water face first means you get the mask smacked into your face. Ouch again. 3. Some kinds of SCUBA gear will have bits extending behind your head. Going face first means you have a good chance of smacking the back of your head on them. Not fun. 4. When you hit the water, you are less concerned about landing on the guy that is already in the water than you are about the next guy in line landing on *you*. Going back first means you can see what's going on above you and move if needed. 5. Lastly, sometimes shit happens and you need to quickly ditch your gear. If you are face down, you have to get out from under the stuff after you undo the buckles, risking getting something getting caught in a stray loop. Face up means everything is below you, thus much less risk of getting snagged.",
"In the PNW we very rarely use the seated back roll entry technique unless entering the water from a boat like a zodiac or similar. Usually we use a giant stride entry when entering from boats or docks. But the reason for the seated back roll is because when you're diving you have a lot of heavy and loose gear, and you want to be in control of it all and yourself the whole time. The seated back roll (SBR from now on) is really good for wrangling your hoses and accessories in front of you where it can all be held onto while at the same time holding the clasp of your weight belt. It also allows you to lead with the hardest heaviest and least fragile part of your body and gear: the tank. If say, a log floated up next to the boat while you were managing all your gear and getting ready to take a dip, and you didn't see it, when you roll backwards, your tank shields you from the blow of hitting the log from a small height with sometimes nearly 100 lbs of gear on top of you. It also serves to propeller you away from the boat quickly and with little effort. This way, you clear the boat, which may be bobbing up and down on rough seas, as well as allow someone else to enter behind you. It also serves to, usually, orient you facing the boat when you surface so you can signal the boat that you're OK and do not need assistance. Also, if the seas are you specially rough, your tank breaks the water for you so you don't get smacked in the face with an upswell right as the boat breaks the crest of the previous wave and you fall face first into it (no fun). Tl;Dr - it's easier and safer than the alternatives sometimes. Source - am PADI Divemaster, out of teaching status Master SCUBA Diver Trainer. Yes, I know, we have the best \"ranks/titles\"",
"In short, divers have two main ways to ‘jump in’ from a scuba dive boat: The Giant Stride Entry (requires a stable platform from where to step off; common in larger boats) The Backward Roll Entry (preferred technique when the boat is smaller, less steady, and lacks a secure platform or ladder) Plus, think about this: walking around in fins is difficult and you're carrying the weight of a scuba tank (not light)- it's easier to roll backwards off the boat than to walk to the edge and stride off.",
"One method is to take a step off the boat into the water - this works well when your boat has a platform that you can step straight off of into the water. If you're trying to enter the water over a gunwale going forwards, your flippers will get in the way, making it difficult to smoothly enter the water. Instead, divers sit on the gunwale, which allows them to smoothly lean back into the water, rather than making an awkward forward step over the gunwale. Sitting on the gunwhale also helps ensure you won't hit your tank or head against anything as you enter the water.",
"Simple explanation for a five year old: Because it's easier to sit on the side of the boat and fall backward into the water than it is to lift your feet with fins, stand on the narrow side wall of the boat, balance yourself for a second without falling back into the boat, and then jump forward into the water.",
"I understand what you meant, in fact most people did but divers can be dicks... So we have two different kinds of entries when diving. The first is called a 'giant stride entry' which is what is says on the tin. You take a big stride into the water. This is typically off of the back of a big hard boat or from a shore entry with a drop below. Don't hop in because you're likely to hit your cylinder on the entry point and knock yourself clean out (I've dragged a couple of people out who have done this.) The second, which is the one you're on about, [is typically out of a rigid hulled inflatable boat (RHIB.)]( URL_0 ) The reason we roll off backwards is because the boat will rock like crazy if you try to stand up in heavy dive gear. It's pretty low in the water and you're also less like to knock any gear off as you enter. Everyone needs to go at the same time or you risk clocking someone in the face with your cylinder. The super fun entries are negative entries using RHIBs off of big boats in strong currents - you roll into the water as a group with no air in your jacket and head straight down. Feels like being a navy seal.",
"When walking from shore, it's easier to walk backwards with fins on. When sitting in a small boat you usually face inward while underway, and it's easier to just fall backwards over the side than to turn yourself around. Perhaps another reason is that hitting the water face first could dislodge your mask or regulator.",
"Actually most SCUBA divers dont usually enter the water backwards, and ill get to that in a second. But first the answer to your question. I assume that the entry technique you are referring to is when the diver rolls backwards of the side of a smaller boat. In that case it is because when geared up you are crazy top heavy, and most people are not super graceful on land when in full gear. Couple that with a small and rolling boat, and you must be able to put your gear on and drop in to the water without standing up. It also minimizes the risk of people dropping in on top of each other, as divers will each drop from a different spot on the boat, and once they hit the water they can see the boat and get out of the way of the next diver. As a side note doing \"negative\" (non floaty) entries from small boats in rough waters makes you feel really cool. However there are many other entry techniques which are also very common. In a lot of places people dont dive of boats in the first place, and when shore diving you would just walk out into the water, or do a \"giant stride\" if there is a dock or something. A giant stride is common from bigger boats and is just a fancy word for stepping of the boat forwards. Of course there are tons of ways to get in to the water, and a part of being a good diver is to choose an appropriate one for the situation. When diving of my familys sail boat for example I usually make my gear buoyant and throw it down first before going in after it, since the entry is quite high and there is not much room up on the back. A favourite entry of mine as an alternative to a giant step, is to do three quarters of a flip forwards and land on the tank (on my back). But that is only with people I know, it looks kind of uncontrolled and is not a favourite with DMs and boat crew, its good fun tough.",
"We only do that on boats where it's not practical to jump into water feet first, like on inflatable boats. Space in these boats is scarce and the two big tubes on the sides are hard to step over (especially with fins, in a thick suit, and with 25kg of gear on our backs). Standing on the tubes is dangerous as they are slippery, unstable and not flat , so it's easier (safer) to sit on them and fall backwards. Generally speaking, in an inflatable you avoid standing up when you have your gear on anyway. With any boat that has a big platform in the back, it's much easier to jump feet first."
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5p9u02 | If some letters are silent in certain words then why include then at all? | Repost | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Often just tradition. When they began printing books in English, there weren't many typesetters in England, so they imported Dutch typesetters who often spelled English words in a Dutch way. So that's how we got the 'h' in 'ghost' and 'ghastly.' Other times the silent letter actually serves a purpose. The difference between 'can' and 'cane' is the silent letter 'e.' That 'e' lets the reader know that they should pronounce the 'a' as a long vowel. Edit: [A much more eloquent source]( URL_0 )"
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5pahgk | How exactly is data transferred wirelessly? Bluetooth, Radio, Satellite, NFC, Wi-Fi, Li-Fi etc? | Repost | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Imagine the hose in your garden. Its connected to a faucet. If you open and close it fast enough and in a pattern, water comes out of the other end also in a pattern. Now, devices have recievers and transmitters. These know how to \"read\" and \"write\" patterns respectively. We can now set this up so that certain patterns can mean certain symbols. A collection of symbols can ultimately form an email, a message on facebook, and more complex streams like pictures and videos. in real life, these devices turn on and off at tremendous speeds, and as a general rule, the faster you can turn on and off, the more information you can send in a single time frame.",
"Imagine that you have a light that you can switch on and off rapidly. You could use this light to send messages to other people. Not just simple yes/no signaling, but actual textual messages by using a code like Morse Code. Now, computers don't use Morse code, they use other various things, but the analogy holds. If you speed up the pulsing on and off of the light to something way faster than your eye could perceive, but not so fast that it couldn't be picked out mechanically (this doesn't take much, by the way), you could have a computer looking at that light and reading the messages out of it. That's Li-Fi, which is the easiest of these to understand. Now, let's take it a step further. Let's say you made that light a single color on the spectrum. Let's start with green, since that's roughly at the middle of the visible spectrum. Green light, like all light, is made up of electromagnetic waves, and these have a *frequency* that defines the color. The frequency is the number of these electromagnetic waves that arrive in a second. For green light, that frequency is somewhere around 6,000,000,000,000,000 time per second, or 6 petahertz (PHz). If you made the light blue instead, it would be more like 7.5 PHz; red would be closer to 4.2 PHz. The human eye can perceive electromagnetic waves from roughly 4.2 PHz to 7.7 PHz. A little faster than this, and you get ultraviolet light, which is what give you a suntan or sunburn, but you can't see it; A little slower and you get infrared light, which, when you go far enough slower, you will feel as heat. What happens if you go even lower? When you go down below 300,000,000,000 waves per second, or 300 GHz, you are starting to enter the realm of radio waves. In particular, radio waves from about 400-600 MHz up through 300 GHz are called \"microwaves\", and these are used for Bluetooth (around 2.4 GHz), Wi-Fi (around 2.4 GHz and 5 GHz) and sometimes for other things. For satellite, whether it be radio, television, data or phone, the same process is involved. However, in this case, there is a relay station in orbit around the planet. A parabolic reflector (i.e. a dish) is used to focus the radio waves on the satellite so that they can travel the long distance. The satellite receives the radio waves, and then sends the same message back down on another frequency. A similar reflector is used to focus the incoming beam to make it strong enough to decode. For radio, it's much simpler. Radio doesn't use microwaves, but lower frequencies. FM ranges from 88,000,000 wavefronts per second to 108,000,000 wavefronts per second, or 88-108 MHz, and these are the numbers you see on your radio dial. AM goes even lower, running from 530,000 to 1,710,000, or 530-1710 kHz, again, the numbers you see on the radio dial. For FM radio, the \"color\" of the radio wave (its frequency) is varied up and down, so a radio station on, say, 99.5, may actually be on 99.425 to 99.575 at any given moment, this change in the frequency being what carries the information. This is called Frequency Modulation, and is what FM stands for. For AM radio, the \"brightness\" of the radio wave (its amplitude) is varied from off to double some central value, and this change in ampiltude is what carries the information. This is called Amplitude Modulation, and is what AM stands for. I can talk a little more about digital things like WiFi or Bluetooth, but it would no longer be ELI5.",
"Wireless technologies will generally use electromagnetic radiation to communicate. Well known examples of electromagnetic radiation are radio waves and visible light. We can see light, but other forms of radiation are generally not easy to detect with human senses. In a way vaguely similar to how it's possible for you to communicate without wires at a distance by flashing a torch (say, by using Morse code), you can use OTHER types of electromagnetic radiation to transmit signals between devices - so long as the devices are equipped with the right sensors and are close enough to see signals (in our morse torch example, this is just being close enough to see the torch, and having eyes to see the flashing - in technology, this is being within broadcast range and having the right receivers)"
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5paiy8 | Why all the countries can't have the same currency? It would be possible in the future? | Repost | explainlikeimfive | {
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"This would require surrendering their monetary sovereignty. Governments don't like other people having control over the figurative printing press, and would loathe to give this up to a supranational body. Furthermore, this would likely require the establishment of a global central bank, which would conduct the other end of monetary policy; the conflicting interests of member states coming into conflict can be clearly seen in the case of the European Central Bank. Basically, you need *every nation in the world* to work together. So, unless someone takes over the world and crushes all the other nation-states, it's not happening.",
"The reason the Euro is having so much trouble is all countries currency has the same value but they all have different economic policies that generate different economic worths."
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5pfdog | what are muscle knots? | I was getting a back rub yesterday and my wife found a knot in my back that kept "clicking" when she would pass over it. What is it and what is the best way to get rid of them? | Repost | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Muscle 'knots' or trigger points are a frequent discussion topic among health professionals and no one can really agree on what they are. There are a lot of conflicting opinions etc out there but we do know that muscle releasing techniques (massage/dry needling/acupuncture/foam rolling or using a spikey ball) can help alleviate any pain related to them. As for the clicking, that can be caused by rolling tendons or bands of muscle across each other or over a boney point/surface. It's normal for these to feel a bit sore when applying pressure to them so no need to be concerned or anything. Stretching and the other aforementioned methods are great for treating these 'knots'. However please don't try to dry needle or acupuncture yourself. That would be silly.",
"A swollen, torn, or tense muscle. I get them in my back and neck.. I press on the knots for a couple seconds, gets me kind of dizzy, then I massage it and take an ibuprofen to relax it."
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5ph37b | What is a pyramid scheme and why is it bad? | Repost | explainlikeimfive | {
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"The guy at the top starts and recruits 6 people to sell his product. He gets all of their sales and the only way they can make money is to recruit 6 more each. The same thing for those people. Only problem is, after the 7th or 8th generation, the number of people involved becomes greater than the global population. Big problem, right? So those at the very top get incredibly rich while those at the bottom get screwed."
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5pj0if | What do massive, widespread protests actually accomplish? | Repost | explainlikeimfive | {
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"A range of things, sometimes all of them, sometimes none: - Raise awareness for an issue or group - Tell governments (or other protestees) that many members of the public are not OK with their actions - Show decision makers that a certain action is desired by many members of the public - \"Threaten\" decision makers that your group cam mobilize many people (this is relevant, say, in trade union-employer talks, where trade unions try to proof they can mobilize the workforce for a strike with a smaller, shorter protest first to strenghen their position)¨ - Give protesters hope, show that they are not alone - Serve as a way to organize more people - by showing that you can organzie a big protest, others are more likely to join your cause or group"
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5pjuca | Why is it when you speed up a voice it becomes higher pitched? | Repost | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Another word for 'pitch' is 'frequency', which is measured in Hertz (Hz), or cycles per second. If you speed up music, it goes through the same number of cycles in a shorter time, therefore more cycles per second, therefore a higher frequency. Music is made up of many frequencies played simultaneously, but all of them are affected in the same way when sped up. Taken from [this]( URL_0 ) and /u/lithiumdeuteride",
"It's to do with the frequency. If you picture sounds as a wave. A higher pitched sound vibrates more than a slower sound. Therefore speeding up a sound causes it to vibrate more quickly, changing the pitch. The same is also true in reverse. If you slow a sound down, it vibrates less and lowers the pitch"
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5plqoe | So what powers does the Queen of England actually have? Does she really have authority to do anything? | Repost | explainlikeimfive | {
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"The Queen holds the power to deny assent. This is the equivalent of the POTUS veto power. She has only ever used it at the request of the Prime Minister, but she does technically have the power to use it on her own. The Queen also technically has the power to force a new election of Parliament if she feels it is corrupted. This power was used in the 1970s in Australia to force a re-election by her proxy in Australia. This power has also been heavily limited in laws passed in 2011 by Parliament. The Queen is the Commander in Chief of all her armed forces. So the UK military and every military division held by the Commonwealth nations that has \"Royal\" in the title are under her command. She has never (or at least rarely) ever issued a direct command and instead relies on Generals that act as her proxy but she has the power to command the troop in the same way that the POTUS has the power to command US troops. And like the US she cannot declare war, that is done by Parliament for the UK like it is with Congress for the US. She and Royal family also act as the top level ambassadors, and approve the appointment of all ambassadors. This is a function like what the US President does.",
"/u/cdb03b has answered the question well, so I'll just add something separately. The Queen has many titles and roles, but none of these include the \"Queen of England\" as England isn't a Kingdom on its own. That stopped back in 1707 when the thrones of England and Scotland were united to create the British throne. It's like calling Trump the President of California or something - it's just a bit of a larger country that they're in charge of. In this context you would call her the Queen of the United Kingdom, or UK for short. She's also the Queen of 15 other nations, and these are collectively known as the Commonwealth Realms."
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5pp1ls | Why do we have eyebrows? | Repost | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Sweat catching may have been the original reason, but it's also been shown that people are able to read facial expressions based on eyebrows far easier than just eyes alone."
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5pp5yp | How do those 'I'm not a robot' captchas work? | Repost | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Most people think those captchas are tricking the machine into not knowing where to click because it's an image, but that's not the case most of the time. When those captchas are being done, there's a multitude of things being taken into consideration, such as how long you take to move the mouse between boxes, if your mouse moves directly to the box, or a little more sporadically. It's much easier to program something to be extremely slick, direct, and careful. It's hard to program something that actually behaves like a human by not being incredibly perfect. Things like that alert the system that the \"user\" is likely just a program trying to hack into it, and it then stops access."
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5ppmcr | How is Universal Basic Income supposed to redistribute wealth? | Repost | explainlikeimfive | {
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"The simplified version is that while everyone would get some money, it would mostly be the wealthy *paying* it. Universal income requires an increase in taxes to cover it, and the idea is to have those increased taxes mostly fall on the wealthy. Say you have someone earning $10 million per year in income. Right now they pay ~40% income tax, or around $4 million per year, so they take home ~$6 million. For universal income to work, they would need to increase that person's taxes, say to 50% or $5 million per year. Now the government is getting an extra $1 million per year from that person. If the universal income is $20,000/year, that means that one person is now funding the basic income for 50 people (well, 49, since he gets a piece too).",
"Because it would phase out as one earns income from jobs, the effect would mostly be to replace funds coming from a number of different aid programs into one. Instead of collecting welfare or unemployment, housing vouchers, food stamps, school lunches, medicaid, etc. it would just provide a single sum of money to set a baseline for living on. There would be some incentive to work and keep income from a low wage job plus UBI, or at least much of it, but the types of things somebody just coming out of poverty would buy with additional income are not supply constrained to the point of causing inflation as a result.",
"It's not meant to redistribute wealth, it's meant to keep labor from starving to death when they are replaced with automation."
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5ps32a | What's the whole deal with Flint, MI? | Repost | explainlikeimfive | {
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"So, the pipes were made of lead and lined with something else to keep the water safe. Then they changed sources and the lining got stripped, leeching lead into the water. People won't fix it because literally the entire city, everyone's houses, and the pipes leading out of the city would need to be dug up and replaced.",
"The powers is group of people. They can't just wave the magic wand and everything is all dandy. They're in process of replacing a million miles of underground pipes. Digging up the ground and laying new pipe costs money and time. And nobody is willing to pay the overtime for it."
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5psffh | What are the differences between socialism and communism? | Repost | explainlikeimfive | {
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"These terms have been used in many different ways by many different people, and often if you say \"socialism\" you're going to mean something fundamentally different than what the person you're talking to thinks you mean. With that said, at least in classic Marxist theory, the difference is commonly summed up by a couple phrases: \"Socialism\": \"From each according to his ability, to each according to his contribution\". \"Communism\": \"From each according to his ability, to each according to his need\". Before continuing, a couple things should be noted here: (1) Marx viewed \"socialism\" as being a stepping stone leading from \"capitalism\" to \"communism\". (2) By \"capitalism\", he didn't really mean exactly what you might think of when you hear that term today; think more like \"robber baron\". The small ownership class just flat out exploits the masses of the laborer class, with little to no governmental regulation, and little to no hope of economic mobility between the classes. In the remainder of this post, I will be using \"capitalism\" to mean something like what Marx meant by it, not what we mean by it today. So, in classical Marxist theory, capitalism eventually collapses, because \"Jesus Christ fuck that shit\", say the huge masses of exploited laborers. This leads to socialism, wherein the state takes over ownership of the means of production (factories and whatnot), and the benefits of labor are distributed in a more egalitarian fashion (as opposed to the \"owners profit and laborers subsist\" of capitalism). But there are still economic classes, because \"to each according to his contribution\". So, you get more if you're more skilled, or you are more productive, or whatever. Eventually the economy is really up and running on all \"from each according to his ability\" cylinders. This makes the economy much more productive than under capitalism, for multiple reasons. For example, there's no longer the useless leeching of the ownership class. Another example, many truly productive people whose abilities would have been squandered by capitalism (due to just being considered things to be exploited, chewed up, used up, and thrown away) are now prospering in roles that suit them better, which leads to better production all around. So now the economy is really, really productive. It's so productive it's creating a massive surplus. The surplus is so vast that there's really no need anymore for economic classes - if someone needs something, society can provide, regardless of whether that person is some sort of production superstar or less so. So, \"to each according to his need\", and we've now arrived at communism."
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5pwho5 | Why can't bots check the "I am not a robot" captcha? | Repost | explainlikeimfive | {
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"The checkbox is not the real test. Checking a box is easy. What it does it is reada your mouse movement while you're on the page, and since you move the mouse in an organic, imperfect way it decides you are not a script or \"bot\".",
"[From May 2016: ]( URL_0 ) Google is keeping its algorithms secret so all we can really do is make guesses about how it works, but my understanding is that the new system will analyze your activity across all of Google's services (and possibly other sites that Google has some control over, such as websites that have Google ads). Thus, it is likely that the checks are not limited to just the page that has the checkbox on it. For example, if they detect that your computer/IP address you are using was also used in the past to do things that a normal human would do - things like checking Gmail, searching on Google search, uploading files to Drive, sharing photos, browsing the web etc. - then it can probably be reasonably sure that you are a human and allow you to skip the image verification. On the other hand, if it can't associate your computer with any previous human-like activity, then it would be more suspicious and give you the image verification. Though the mouse behavior as it clicks the checkbox may be one factor it analyzes, there is almost certainly a lot more to it.",
"You are definitely [not the first person to ask this question 'round here]( URL_0 ). tl;dr it's not just the click.",
"The way a human moves the mouse before checking the checkbox can be distinct from how a program (a bot) checks a checkbox. It's a game of prediction. Somehow, Google needs to predict whether you are human or a bot from what you do on their site. So first a system needs to be trained to predict whether the user is human or not. For this you need training data (which Google has plenty). That data includes sample movements of mouse made by humans as well as robots (programs). Using this training data, a predictive model is made. So when you move your mouse to check the checkbox. That movement is an input to the model and based on that it's predicted whether you are human or not. If you are then fine, otherwise the same old method of filtering humans through a distorted image is used."
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5pxfka | Why is it that when we chew mint gum, everything we drink is super cold? | Repost | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Minty flavoring works by activating the cold sensors in your mouth. It basically tricks your mouth into thinking everything got colder, and you get the minty feeling. And naturally, when you drink something that actually IS colder than your mouth, the feeling is magnified. EDIT: small correction"
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5pyx56 | Why can't fighter jets reach outer space just like normal spaceships do? | Repost | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Spaceships carry both fuel and oxidizer with them, whereas jets carry fuel only and use the atmosphere to provide the oxidizer. As the jets fly higher up, the atmosphere get's thinner, meaning there is less oxygen available for combustion, which is how you push the plane or the rocket in the first place. In addition, with the thinner atmosphere, it's harder to generate lift through aerodynamic forces, which makes it rather difficult to fly.",
"Jets move forward by sucking in air and then pushing it back out at high speed. The less air there is, the less thrust they can get. Air-breathing systems become very inefficient well before they would reach the official boundary of space (100 km) because of how little air there is at high altitudes. A rocket is different because what it shoots out the back to accelerate is gases created by on-board fuel and oxidizer rather than sucking in outside gases, so it can keep accelerating even as the outside air thins to vacuum."
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5pz24t | Why are men's nipples perfectly acceptable to show on Tv, social medias etc, but not women's nipples and breast? | Repost | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Men find these parts of women highly sexually attractive. Consider the existence on this very website of /r/boobies and /r/boobs and /r/boobbounce and /r/Nipples and and /r/nipslip and /r/BreastsInTheirPrime and many, many more subreddits whose only purpose is staring at pictures of breasts and nipples. The reverse is not equally true. The sight of male nipples is not, for the average woman (or man), a huge source of sexual arousal.",
"Also, mens nipples can be used for arousal and I'm sure there is some kind of fetish for them. Might as well cage all nipples. While were at it, a ban on showing feet since the dirty minds of humans find a fancy for those."
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5q0tzf | How can we move freely in a car when it's going at high speeds? | Repost | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Because you are moving *with* the vehicle. The key here is relative speeds -- your speed relative to the interior of the vehicle is 0. You *and* the car are both traveling at 60 mph, or whatever. This isn't the case, however, when the car is accelerating. This is why you feel pressed against the back of the seat, or against the seat belt when the car brakes. This is why seat belts are so important -- in the event of the crash, the car itself, being made of metal, decelerates rapidly. You, however, do not, until you hit something hard. Like the dash.",
"what force is it that you thing would prevent you from moving?",
"If the car goes at a constant speed, it has no impact on your movements, it's physics. What makes you move forward or backward in a vehicle is the acceleration (or the deceleration).",
"The same reason why you can move freely and walk down the street. Earth also moves at very high speeds, multiple times more than a moving car. But when the Earth or a car moves, you also move with it, thus having the same velocity. Say a bus travels at 60km/hr, and you are walking at a rate of 5km/hr. When you walk inside a bus, you are actually moving at 65km/hr relative to the Earth, thus making you 5km/hr faster than the bus. Which gives you the \"being able to move freely\" sensation."
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5q15mp | Aside from signing executive orders, what power does the president actually have to force Mexico to pay for a border wall? | Repost | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Theoretically you can threaten tarrifs on their goods if they don't pay and offer them trade deals if they do. That's about the only real power short of war. If they don't pay either we build it and pay for it or we don't build it."
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5q1hla | Why do we suddenly jerk when we're about to fall asleep? | Repost | explainlikeimfive | {
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"It's called a hypnic jerk. It's believed to be your nerves misfiring when you transition to sleep. Some say they are worse when you are stressed or have anxiety. I get them severely.",
"Its called a myclonic jerk. In essence, your brain sometimes thinks a rapid loss of consciousness might be death or shock, rather than sleep, so it sends and impulse through your body in order to verify a response and make sure you're still alive."
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5q3na3 | How does Full Disk Encryption (in particular Bitlocker) work? | So is the whole drive encrypted from start to finish with a specific password or keyword? Is this why the 'recovery key' is fairly long and unique? I understand my Windows password forces the TPM chip to automatically unlock the drive, but who creates the actual algorithm? What happens if one block of the data becomes corrupt? Does it not corrupt the entire drive? Are the files encrypted/decrypted individually on the fly, and if so, why does it not slow performance. Can a virus still infect the HDD if it's not mounted (could someone boot from an infected USB drive) or is the drive entirely locked without the key. | Repost | explainlikeimfive | {
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"A boot sequence executes during the startup process of Microsoft® Windows, Apple Mac OS X, or Linux® operating systems. The boot system is the initial set of operations that the computer performs when it is switched on. A boot loader (or a bootstrap loader) is a short computer program that loads the main operating system for the computer. The boot loader first looks at a boot record or partition table, which is the logical area “zero” (or starting point) of the disk drive. Whole disk encryption modifies the zero point area of the drive. A computer protected with Whole Disk Encryption presents a modified “pre-boot” environment to the user. This modified pre-boot screen prompts a user for authentication credentials in the form of a passphrase (a long password that is like a sentence). At this point, the computer may ask for additional credentials such as a smart card or token. After the user enters valid authentication credentials, the operating system continues to load and the user can use the computer. Whole Disk Encryption software also provides the ability to encrypt removable storage media such as USB drives. When you insert an encrypted USB drive into a computer system, it prompts for passphrase, and upon successful authentication, you can use the USB drive."
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5q3odv | why are people harder to pick up as "dead weight" as opposed to when they're letting you lift them? they don't really change weight | Repost | explainlikeimfive | {
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"They don't change weight, but they do shift and support their weight to make it easier for you to grab and maintain balance. That's also why a 45 pound block of wood is easy to lift but a 45 pound bag of water is a nightmare. You can't grab or balance the water and its center of gravity is constantly shifting as you fumble with it.",
"It's not weight but weight distribution. People tend to orient themselves for maximum comfort which helps keep weight balanced and easier to carry. Try lifting at the gym without locking the plates in. Same weight but it requires good balance and technique in addition to strength. So it's harder. It's why you center a bag on your shoulder or evenly space dishes on a tray.",
"If they're awake, chances are they're grabbing your neck/shoulders and pulling themselves up at the same time that you're lifting them. This distributes their weight somewhat more evenly through your torso, making them feel lighter.",
"Balance. Picking up a cone horizontaly by the small end is harder than picking up by the large end. That proves that balanced objects are easier to lift and handle. Alive people don't like to fall and have a sense of equilibrium that helps them balance their weight whe you're carrying them. Dead people don't do this.",
"Dancers know about this well. It doesn't matter how big the girl is, if she doesn't \"hold herself\" then it's like trying to lift a sack of potatoes above your head. A girl at my dance college was broad and nearly 6ft. When we started partner lifts, she wanted to skip class because she was \"too big\" She had a solid core and was the easiest to lift and partner.",
"Also, a conscious human body acts more like a single solid object, where as an unconscious body (or one that's deliberately limp) is more like a collection of huge sausages tied together, which is much harder to lift and carry. Which is saying the same thing as everyone else, just in a different way. When our daughter was little enough to carry you could really feel the difference between when she was making an effort to balance/hold herself together and when she wasn't, usually if she was tired. She absolutely felt heavier, it was amazing. We used to say her antigravity wasn't working."
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5q5m21 | How does the sun give us vitamin D? | Repost | explainlikeimfive | {
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"It doesn't, people just say it does as a shorthand way of talking about it. Your body naturally produces it... most of the way. But it takes ultraviolet light to trigger the last chemical reaction that makes it biologically viable to the body.",
"Vitamin D isn't actually a single chemical, but a compound material. In fact, it's not even technically a vitamin, becuase it's produced in the human body and it is absent from nearly all natural foods (save egg yolks and some fish), and even when it's obtained from those foods it must be transformed by the body before it can do any good. As our habits have changed through the years, most of us can no long rely on vitamin D produces the old fashioned way, by our bodies. Instead, we increasingly depend on supplements and artificially fortified foods, like milk. Sunlight is the key to utilizing vitamin D. The natural type is produced in the skin from a universally present form of cholesterol, 7-dehydrocholesterol. Ultraviolet B (UVB) energy converts the precursor to vitamin D3. Dietary supplements are manufactured by exposing plant sterols to UVB, producing vitamin D2. Because their function is almost identical, both types are lumped under the heading vitamin D. Most importantly, neither of them will function until the body works its magic. The suns energy converts the 7-dehydrocholesterol to vitamin D3, which is carried to the liver, where it picks up extra oxygen and hydrogen molecules to become 25-hydroxyvitamin D (this is what doctors measure to detect deficiencies) and then kidneys, where it acquires a final pair of oxygen and hydrogen molecules, and is transformed to active vitamin D. Vitamin D deficiencies were rare when people worked more outdoors in fields and such, but as work shifted from farms to offices, that changed. In addition, deficiencies are often found in people with intestinal disorders, kidney or liver disease, and people who suffer from short gut syndrome.",
"We have a molecule called 7-dehydrocholesterol, which, when properly struck by UV light, undergoes a chemical change into a precursor called Previtamin D3; it then converts to Vitamin D3 on its own (spontaneously, but not necessarily quickly)."
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5q6blk | National Debt | Repost | explainlikeimfive | {
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"> * How it works The US government issues Treasury Bills (aka T-Bills). These are low interest loans that the purchaser is giving to the government. They act something like \"Buy this T-Bill for $98, and in 2 years, we will pay you $100 for it\" > * Who the money goes to Whoever wants to buy it. Most of the US Debt is held by US Citizens and corporations. China owns about 7% of it. They have very low return on investment, but the US has always paid every single debt. It has never failed to do so. this makes it a safe investment. > * How much is healthy or not healthy This depends on the US' \"income.\" If you had a credit card debt of $100,000, that could be crippling. If Bill Gates had a credit card debt of $100,000, it would be completely negligible. So the amount that is healthy is the amount of debt that can be incurred (spending is good for the economy) while being able to comfortably pay it back. The \"income\" of the US is referred to as the GDP, Gross Domestic Product. > * What it would mean if we were \"positive\" (as in, instead of being $20T in debt, if we had a positive balance. If that makes sense?) Positive would be referred to as a Surplus. If there was a surplus that could be done in a way that doesn't harm the economy, that would be the best of both worlds (most likely, we would just borrow more anyway). Bill Clinton was the last president to have a budget surplus (not a surplus vs. the entire debt, but that the government earned more than it spent in the 10-year budget from Bill Clinton. George W. Bush gave everyone $300 on their taxes to spend that surplus)",
"> - How it works > - Who the money goes to The US borrows money mainly by issuing treasury bonds -- fixed-term, low-interest loans. [Much of this debt]( URL_0 ) is held by governments, foreign citizens, and banks or mutual funds - anybody who needs to securely invest a large number of US dollars. Famously, the government of China owns many treasury notes, because they tend to have an excess of US dollars from trade, but exchanging these dollars for renminbi would increase the value of renminbi relative to dollars, making it more expensive for the US to import Chinese goods. > How much is healthy or not healthy Typically, a debt-to-GDP ratio below 100% is considered \"safe,\" although there is no hard-and-fast rule. It is obviously not sustainable for the debt to grow faster than the economy, and sustainable economic growth rates and interest rates typically hover around 2%. The US has the advantage of borrowing in a currency it controls, so it is unlikely to face a debt crisis like Venezuela (who borrows in US dollars) or Greece (who borrows in Euros) so it they can borrow quite safely. Whenever borrowing money can stimulate GDP growth at a faster rate than interest on the loan accumulates, it makes sense to do so. > - What it would mean if we were \"positive\" (as in, instead of being $20T in debt, if we had a positive balance. If that makes sense?) Your question makes sense, but it does not make sense to maintain a cash surplus. It would make more sense to decide how best to spend this money - by improving infrastructure or education, funding scientific research, etc. Cash sitting in a vault somewhere does nobody any good."
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5q8e7e | Why are men so attracted to breasts? What makes them so sexual? | Repost | explainlikeimfive | {
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"They are indicators of fertility and so we are biologically programmed to be attracted to them. The same is true of having wide hips, and having shiny hair indicates good health. Breast firmness indicate age, so having developed and firm breasts indicates you are still young so potentially able to have more children, and having larger breasts indicates you have access to a stable food source so are a good potential mate. But these biological indicators are just starting points to things. Most of our infatuation is socially developed and due to a myriad of social factors including how taboo sex is or is not, and how taboo nudity is or is not. The more taboo something is, the more attractive we tend to find the things that skirt the limits of that taboo, or the violate it completely.",
"Human breasts are unique among mammals with no other mammals having permanently swollen breasts. For other mammals their breasts are only engorged when nursing. Some anthropologists believe this is an adaptation to bipedalism, a frontal display of virility to supplement the view of gluts from behind. You'll notice the cleavage of breasts and the cleavage of butts are indistinguishable. * Edit This has some relevant info URL_0",
"I don't want to discount any of the opinions offered, but the answer lies somewhere in the middle. There is an instinctual response as the shape and movement of a woman's breasts CAN indicate perceivable fertility and likelihood of successful child rearing. Humans vary, so hormonal variances, social stressers, and biological influence can factor into the level of sexuality breasts are designated. There are also psychological elements, experiences, and fetishes that can complicate matters further. Based on anecdotal evidence, anything more than a handful is just asking for a thumb sprain.",
"Everyone loves breasts, not just men. They are a sign of having good genes and the being able to feed their young. It's primordial and ingrained on the genetic level really.",
"Some societies don't sexualize breasts, so it isn't completely ingrained into our genes. They're sexual because they're hidden. They're attractive because they're forbidden. We grow up told they're sexual so we believe they're sexual. That's all there is to it.",
"~~The thing is breast size and fertility aren't particularly related. However,~~ breast symmetry and fertility are. Women with symmetrical breast are more fertile than those asymmetrical breasts. An evolutionary theory is that, since it's easier to tell symmetry from bigger breasts, men gravitated towards that. As a side note, evolutionary psychology has found some pretty amazing things. For example, men are more attractive when they're surrounding by other women but women are more attractive when they're not with a man. (This applies to long-term heterosexual relationships) Edit: As promised, references. As I was rereading [the chapter]( URL_0 ), I realised I misread a word: breast size is not associated to milk production but it is to fertility. Sorry for the mistake. Here's the link to the original study, if you're interested Edit 2: the second link has a parenthesis so I have to post it directly: URL_1",
"If large breasts are indication of good genes and good nourishment, then can someone please explain why some men are attracted to small breasts like me?",
"Check this out: URL_0 Brin speculates that attraction to breasts is an evolved pedophilia-avoidance behavior: he writes that most of the common desirability signals for women are youth indicators, so attraction to boobs is your genes' way of distinguishing 'young and fertile' from 'way too young dude'. No idea if there's any verified science in the theory but it's an interesting read.",
"It's half and half nurture and nature. Half is due to the fact that, as others have indicated, it's one of the visual indicators of fertility. However, a large part of it is also cultural, as the level of attraction and sexual taboo varies per culture, and cultures that put a heavy emphasis on sexuality of the breasts will perpetuate that.",
"I learned in a documentary that they are some kind of replacement for the buttocks. When humans walked around on 4 legs (like monkeys still do). The view to the vagina was always in company with the buttocks. Later when the evolving human started to walk straight on two legs the line of view changed and a fake buttocks evolved way up higher. Edit: here is a link to this theory: URL_0",
"I just want to put in here that big boobs do NOT mean a woman is more fertile and small boobs are NOT a sign that a woman can't feed her children.",
"Took an anthropology class quite some time ago. Apparently, back when we were monkeys the female buttock was the major sign of fertility. When we started to stand up and become hominids or whatever the butt moved to the chest.",
"I heard when evolution made us walk on two feet, the butt lost his ability to attract fertile males because it was no longer in middle of the field of view. So the breasts took over that role. Big breasts imitate the form of a juicy butt and are a sign that the female has the ability to feed her child and raise a strong descendant.",
"So, women are attractive to men as a biological imperative to procreate. Wide hips and large breasts are indicators that a woman is more likely to be able to be biologically capable of childbearing and feeding breast milk, further enforcing the biological imperative with the increased odds of survival for the offspring. Personal note - These factors are largely irrelevant in civilized society, but biology is a stubborn bitch, and for that, we get to think boobies are awesome.",
"The reason men are attracted to them is because they are withheld and sexualized by our culture. When I went to Spain and saw beautiful women with their tops off on the beach all around, the people around me imprinted on me a different attitude, and suddenly they stopped being what they were. When I came back to America, slowly they became sexual areas again"
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5q8tug | How are prescription glasses prescribed for infants? | How do the physicians know whether or not they got it right? | Repost | explainlikeimfive | {
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"The machines are so advanced that they can scan retnas and determine optimal prescription without user imput. I just got new glasses with this method and never had to say what was worse or better, the machine did its thing and my new prescription is perfect."
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5q96cf | Why can ocean water not be used and filtered for drinking water? | Repost | explainlikeimfive | {
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"It is. It can be expensive to do this for large amounts of water, however, and the main issue is transporting that water to non-coastal cities. Simple evaporation combined with a condenser would purify most of the water.",
"The city of Dubai is only possible because exactly this technology is used. As taggedjc said. You simply evaporate / cook water and add the right amount of minerals in after condensing it.",
"[This article]( URL_0 ) is pretty much an ELI5 of desalination. What it really boils down to is cost but given regional water shortages, the cost is becoming less prohibitive.",
"This can be done on an individual level. There are several survival/outdoors hand-pump based systems that use reverse osmosis to filter out pretty much everything, including salt."
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5q975p | How did Hitler rise to power? | Repost | explainlikeimfive | {
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"This will be a quite oversimplification. Pre World War I, Germany had an authoritarian government (Kaiser was like the Emperor). After, there was a democratic reform. Consequently, World War I occured where Germany suffered a terrible defeat. Not only did they have to pay reparations, they also had to sign the War Guilt Clause. That taken account with ravaged German infrastructure and economy led people to have a general dislike for the democratic government. Hitler's Nazi Party had a platform that appealed to industrialists, and offered to restore 'honour' to the German people. Furthermore, he said that all problems that Germany was facing were a result of the Jews; effectively directing discontent. Furthermore, he invited blind nationalism by arguing the superiority of the Germans. Although he seemed the appeal to the German citizens, who were probably desperate for any strand of hope, never actually had/formed a majority government. In fact, the most seats they had in the Reichstag were 33%. Eventually Hitler was elected Chancellor. A combination of the President's death and the burning of the Reichstag, led to Hitler passing the Enabking Act of 1933 DEMOCRATICALLY. That Act dissolved democracy and concentrated all power in the hands of Hitler. The only reason why this passed, democratically mind you, was because a) the German people were desperate for stability, and b) Hitler promised to restore stability and eventually reinstate democracy once stability was reached. As it has gone in history, Hitler never returned democracy and ala World War 2 eventually ensued after the invasion of Poland.",
"Like the populists do it today. He promised everybody what they wanted to hear while presenting \"alternative facts\". He found a scapegoat for the people to blame for their own faults: Foreigners, yews (Muslims weren't broadly known then). He promised jobs, he promised higher wages. He said \"Germany first!\". He used easy to understand paroles so that even the dumbest person could scream them. He blamed his predecessors for everything bad and even twisted the truth to depict good social changes from his predecessors as something bad. By the way...Any resemblance to a living politician is purely coincidental, likewise the resemblance to fish.",
"Top-level comment because this is important, but quoting /u/MLBlaster: > Hitler passing the Enabking Act of 1933 DEMOCRATICALLY One thing about the way the Enabling Act was passed is that it was lots of things, but it wasn't democratic. Hitler's party, the NSDAP (the \"Nazi\" party) had just been elected with 44% (not 33%) of the votes, just short of the absolute majority he wanted. This meant he had to form a coalition, and this was going to make life really difficult. An Enabling Act is a piece of legislation that grants the government temporary powers to deal with an emergency, so this is how the Reichstag fire played into this. But that kind of legislation needed a 2/3 majority to pass, and the Nazis weren't going to get that without some skulduggery. And there was a lot of skulduggery. Before the crucial vote, the Nazis managed to force through a change in parliamentary procedure. For the vote to be valid, at least 2/3 of the elected members needed to be present; the risk was that some of the left-wing parties might simply stay away and render the assembly inquorate. The change meant that any member who was absent without leave was deemed to be present, but this included about 200 members who had already been thrown into prison. As a result, it wasn't possible to sabotage the vote simply by walking out. The Nazis also posted members of their own paramilitary wing, the SA, outside the debating chamber (which, following the Reichstag fire, was now in a nearby opera house) in order to intimidate members. Later, one of the members who was there wrote that if the Nazis hadn't been allowed to do this (it was transparently illegal, but nobody was brave enough to stop them), they'd have lost the vote. Many members had even received threats to their own lives, and the lives and security of their families. The Nazis relied mostly on the votes of the Centre Party, which was deeply divided over the issue, and the Bavarian People's Party. Hitler secured their vote by making certain assurances -- basically saying, \"I won't turn Germany into a totalitarian dictatorship, scout's honour, cross my heart, etc. etc.\" That was, of course, an outright lie: Hitler had no intention of keeping his promises. And that's how the Enabling Act was passed: a mixture of political sleight-of-hand, deliberate deception and straightforward bullying. It wasn't democratic by anyone's standards, but nobody was brave enough to stand up to Hitler. Not surprisingly: 200 of their colleagues had been arrested or were on the run, and they were being threatened and intimidated."
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5q9cil | if you have two videos of equal duration, why aren't their file sizes the same? | Repost | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Because video files are compressed. Compression depends on various factors such as how good the compression algorithm is, the level of compression (more compression = lower quality video) and how compressible is the video (for example a video of a blank screen is a lot more compressible than an action scene - see [this video]( URL_0 ) for a demonstration)."
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5qa50b | what is the feeling of a 'knotted stomach' or butterflies in your belly | And what physiologically causes us to feel it | Repost | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Stomach butterflies are associated with the body’s fight-or-flight response. When the brain perceives a potential threat to survival, it increases alertness by raising heart rate, blood pressure, and breathing rate. At the same time, the nervous system stimulates the adrenal glands, which release hormones including adrenaline and cortisol that can make the body tense. This causes the stomach muscles to get extra-sensitive during the fight-or-flight response, and that's partially what causes the butterflies. Neurons along the brain-gut axis let the stomach know when we're freaking out about something which adds to the butterfly effect. Butterflies and the fight-or-flight response are thought to serve an evolutionary function."
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5qbph0 | I'm arguing with dumb relatives on Facebook- can some one please explain global warming like I'm ACTUALLY FIVE? | Repost | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Human make carbon pollution. Trap heat. Earth get hot. Climate changes. Bambi can't handle it. Bambi dies."
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5qfz1l | Why do we sometimes feel more awake with little sleep, but feel more sleepy after a lot of sleep? | Repost | explainlikeimfive | {
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"This has been discussed on reddit before, but it has to do with natural sleep cycles. We each have natural sleep cycles; the common theory seems to be that most of us have natural sleep rhythms that occur in roughly 90 minute cycles. If you interrupt this cycle, you feel less refreshed and groggy. If you wake at the natural end of one of these cycles you feel like you've had a good sleep. We don't all follow the 90 minute average, but using that as an example, if you only slept for 3 hours (2x 90 minutes) you might wake up and feel great. If you slept for 7 hours (4.666 x 90 minutes) you would interrupt your sleep in the middle of a natural sleep cycle, and feel like you have not slept well. If 90 minutes actually is a reliable average of people's sleep cycles, the common advice of \"8 hours of sleep\" would be ill-advised. That means you would wake in 5.33 sleep cycles. You'd be better off to sleep for 7.5 hours, or 9 hours."
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5qglv4 | Wouldn't a 20% tariff on Mexican products ultimately end with US citizens paying for the wall? | Repost | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Correct. Prices will go up for the American consumer. Mexican companies will start to look for other markets in which to sell their goods. If they can't then the job market in Mexico will become more difficult, thereby increasing the incentive for them to enter our country, legally or not.",
"More than beer comes from there, my friend. A significant amount of food produce is grown in Mexico. And tes, such a tariff would make everyday purchases go significantly up for every American. And yes, Americans would be paying for the wall.",
"The general idea is that if there was a 20% tariff on Mexican goods then the price would spike and american citizens wouldn't buy them. Its more of a threat than an actual way to get money from mexico to finance the wall. Its also a terrible plan because their aren't enough U.S goods that compete with Mexican and citizens would end up paying for it.",
"It's not really a 20% tariff they're talking about. URL_0 > A tax on imports, but not on exports. This sounds like a tariff. > A border adjustment is not a tariff, nor would it give the U.S. a trade advantage. > At first glance, a border adjustment sounds like a tariff because it applies to imports, but does not apply to exports. The adoption of a border-adjustable tax is sometimes praised as a cure for the U.S. trade deficit, or promoted as giving the U.S. a competitive edge, or offsetting a competitive edge now enjoyed by foreign producers whose countries use border-adjusted taxes. Such claims are unfounded, and based on a misunderstanding. For instance, Senator Ted Cruz wrongly argued that his plan would benefit exports. > A border-adjusted tax falls equally on domestic and imported goods, in order to tax the amount of income people spend on consumption. A domestically produced good and an imported good will face the same tax. Goods produced in the U.S. and exported abroad are exempt from taxation, but exports are not consumed at home. However, the foreign buyer may be subject to a consumption tax levied in his home country, but that is not the concern of the U.S. taxing authority. > Of course, U.S. producers may think of this as a subsidy for exports because they would not be taxed on sales overseas. But if businesses were able to reduce the prices of their goods they sell overseas due to the border adjustment, this would trigger a higher demand for dollars in order to purchase those goods. This higher demand for dollars would increase the value of the dollar relative to foreign currencies and offset any perceived trade advantage granted by the border adjustment. Most of the media has gotten this wrong because they are English majors and don't understand economics.",
"It will also lead to a huge surge in illegal immigration. If jobs leave Mexico people will have no choice but to follow them."
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5qgodg | Black American accent/dialect | Repost | explainlikeimfive | {
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"This is phenomenon that sociolinguistics describes as [Speech Communities]( URL_1 ). here's a quick snippet from wikipedia. > Speech community is a concept in sociolinguistics that describes a distinct group of people who use language in a unique and mutually accepted way among themselves. This is sometimes referred to as a Sprechbund. > To be considered part of a speech community, one must have a communicative competence. That is, the speaker has the ability to use language in a way that is appropriate in the given situation. It is possible for a speaker to be communicatively competent in more than one language.[10] Speaking the socially acceptable way correctly is one way others in the group can recognize you as a \"member.\" A counterexample to this would be the stereotypical nerdy old guy trying and failing to relate to teenagers by adapting their language. > Speech communities can be members of a profession with a specialized jargon, distinct social groups like high school students or hip hop fans, or even tight-knit groups like families and friends. Members of speech communities will often develop slang or jargon to serve the group's special purposes and priorities. We all conform to different language structures and vocabulary depending on what context we're in. Most of the time, we're not accutely aware of this, but if something breaks norms, they risk isolating themselves. You know that guy who shows up at college parties using big words trying to show off how intelligent he is. We're all subject to social pressures to conform to the standard langauge, and black people can be criticized for \"talking white\" among peers, just like white people can be criticized for \"talking black\" in the same context. Keenan Michael Key from Key and Peele said in an interview that his parents were college professors or something, and insisted he speak standard english at home, but at school he would fall into black vernacular english with his classmates and friends. > Community of Practice allows for sociolinguistics to examine the relationship between socialization, competence, and identity. Since identity is a very complex structure, studying language socialization is a means to examine the micro interactional level of practical activity (everyday activities). The learning of a language is greatly influenced by family but it is supported by the larger local surroundings, such as school, sports teams, or religion. Speech communities may exist within a larger community of practice.[11] EDIT So language is highly socialized and strongly tied to identity, which is a difficult concept to parse. Ben Carson maybe speaks with his family and old friends in typical black vernacular english, but would speak to a fellow doctors in a completely different way, while adapting yet another langauge in political circles. (I'm not sure how true this is for Carson specifically, but you get the idea.) You can also delve deeper into the concept of speech communities by reading the [full wikipedia page]( URL_0 ) Edit its also worth mentioning that black people in the Northern part of the country aren't far removed from southern black communities. The vast majority of black people lived in the southern US until the mid 20th century and the Great Migration, which saw an influx of black people moving to other regions of the US, like the Midwest, northeast and West. They brought their culture and their language with them and since they came in such great numbers, it remained intact.",
"Different groups develop different dialects if they don't intermingle much- it's why you'll find people in different social strata sound different. (The guy in the bleachers at Fenway and the Kennedys aren't exactly talking with the dialect.) Since African Americans have been pushed out of main (white) Society for so long, first by slavery and then by decades of racism, they've developed their own dialects as well. You'll see the same thing in other racial groups in America, and though you might think someone from Boston and Alabama sound the same, they likely can tell the difference far more easily than you can."
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5qgwgr | How have we come so far with visual technology like 4k and 8k screens but a phone call still sounds like am radio? | Repost | explainlikeimfive | {
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"The reason phone calls don't have perfect audio has all to do with three things. * Bandwidth * Physical medium of the delivery technology * The codec used They are all closely related. If you think of a data connection as a water pipe, there is only so much data that can be passed down the connection, just like a water pipe can only carry so many gallons of water a second. If you make the water pipe bigger, the pipe can carry more gallons a second and deliver more water faster to its source. This is broadly comparable to using better connectivity for our data connections. For example fibre optic cable can carry much more data a lot faster than the copper cables that are used to connect most of our homes. To that end, when a phone conversation is initiated between two people, the sound of the voices from each party is in fact, a data connection that gets converted into an analogue frequency. Now uncompressed audio takes up a lot of space and can be slow to transfer, so to reduce it down to something more manageable, phone systems use something called a CODEC (en*CO*de/*DEC*ode) that basically analyses the audio, and throws out the bits of data that it thinks is not relevant to the clarity of the conversation. The more data it throws out, the more \"AM Radio\" the conversation sounds. The standard codec used by most public telephone systems (Generally known as the \"PSTN\" to phone engineers or \"Public Switched Telephone Network\") is something called U-LAW. Europe uses a variation of it called A-LAW. It allows 64Kbp/s of data for each way of the conversation (So 128Kbp/s total). It's been around since the 70's and is fairly embedded into most phone systems. It also closely matched and fitted the best data rate offered by twisted copper connections that where used at the time (And predominantly still are). The days of the \"AM radio\" phone call are coming to an end though, if quite slowly. Many new codecs have been developed alongside newer communications technology since the 70's that allow for greater clarity in a phone conversation. They do this by improved methods of packing in the audio data and more sophisticated ways of deciding what parts of the audio need to be thrown away and what needs to be kept. Some are even able to do this using a smaller transfer speed than the U-LAW codec. Most of these improved quality codecs are referred to as wideband codecs or \"HD audio\". This has come about with the rise of a technology called VOIP or \"Voice Over IP\" which is basically a phone system that utilizes the same technology that underpins the internet (TCP/IP) to deliver an all digital phone service. One of the most popular codecs used by internal phone systems of companies/organizations (Which is sometimes referred to as a PBX or Private Branch Exchange) is a codec called G722. The difference in audio quality between G722 and U-LAW is like night and day. Cellular technology is also catching up on the wideband conversation game. Indeed many mobile carriers are offering wideband calls between users on the same network. This uses a codec called AMR-WB. It's generally predicted within ten years or so wideband audio for mobile phone calls will become the norm **where supported**. I emphasise that \"Where supported\" bit because like most communication methods, a phone call has to negotiate down to the level of the lowest offering. So if a phone conversation is initiated between two phone systems, one side tries to use a wideband codec like G722 and the other side only supports U-LAW, then both phones will use U-LAW and the conversation will return to the \"AM Radio\" quality for both callers.",
"The history of the telephone began with Plain Old Telephone Service (POTS) which simply refers to the old, analog phone system we used for the first 100 or so years. Although humans (young ones anyways) can hear a range of frequencies between 20hz and 20,000hz, the vast majority of human speech is well below 4,000hz. The original designers of the POTS system designed what became known as a standard Voice Grade Channel (VGC) with practical limits due to the way electronic circuits worked so a standard VGC was typically 300hz to 3,400hz. When we switched to digital telephones they simply continued that standard by digitally sampling voice and consuming that same amount of bandwidth. Fun fact. I worked with digital, encrypted telephones when I was in the Air Force and depending on the quality of the phone line and the bandwidth available, the encrypted phone would start at 4,000hz bandwidth and throttle to a smaller bandwidth if it couldn't maintain synchronization. At half that standard bandwidth or 2,000hz the quality of the speech reduced so you wouldn't recognize your own mom. At half again of that or 1,000hz you could barely understand it and could not recognize male from female speakers on the other end",
"Also: it's got to be compatible with all phones on the network; theoretically your call might be digitised then turned analogue then digitised then turned analogue then digitised then sent analogue down a 100-year-old rusty copper line into a 50 year old handset. Lower common denominator.",
"Have ~~no~~ you not had an HD Voice (aka Wideband Audio) call? Most all carriers support it now, ~~by~~ but it's only if both parties have the same carrier and supported devices. T-Mobile even has a more advanced audio quality feature for a handful of phones. As for why normal calls are low quality, because that's what is decent enough to understand people, and improving that quality is way too expensive compared to implementing Wideband Audio which simply uses VoIP (the VoLTE setting on your phone).",
"I worked in telecom a long time and the answer is rather surprising. People prefer it this way. Back in the switch to digital many telecom companies converted early to save on replacing outdated multiplexing equipment. The resulting clean zero ambient noise calls actually irritated customers and made them anxious that the phone wasn't working. So they added the noise back manually.",
"To save on bandwidth, many of the audio codec compresses in a lossy format to squeeze more active calls simultaneously. There are lots of phone in a given region, and there's never enough capacity to carry all the phones calling at the same time. There's also the problem that if you don't have at least a bit of noise on the phone, people think it is not working, so even if you are in a quiet room calling another phone in a quiet room, you're likely to hear some white noise to help you differentiate between an active call with silence on the line vs a phone without an active call. Most carriers in North America should have HD voice, which should improve voice quality. But it's definitely possible that if you make a call through a network that doesn't support it, the call falls back to the older standards. In Hong Kong a couple of years ago, any calls to CMHK number would sound worse than other carriers.",
"If you call a Cisco (or other) digital VOIP phone within the same network/building, it's so crystal clear, it's like the other person is standing next to you. It's actually kind of unsettling because it doesn't sound like a \"phone\" anymore.",
"Let me shine here for a while: at the moment in the US and in the World the mobile networks still widely use 20+ years old standards for voice calls: 2G (GSM) and 3G (CDMA, WCDMA). They are still following the same voice codecs created and standartized for handset (phone) equimpent in late 80s (GSM) and mid 90s (CDMA/WCDMA). In order to keep old equipment still able to use modern network, they do not switch of completely such dinosaur codecs as HR, FR, AMR and are unable to replace them by more modern. Older mobile networks is a mess of old and new equipment which is not always economically feasible to replace/upgrade, so it is still the case you could hear voice quality similar or just slightly above than brick Nokia from mid 90's. As for modern 4G (LTE) network the standard itself offers quite good codecs on par is what used in Facetime or Skype, but the introduction of Voice Over LTE (VoLTE) is such pain in the ass, as you should retroactively support all possible connection combinations like calling from old phone old 2G base station to the new VoLTE 4G Samsung and therefor VoLTE is not adopted widely.",
"There is considerably less demand for high definition voice calling than there is for high definition televisions and screens in general. If anything, there is less demand than ever for high definition audio calling as texting has replaced a lot of calling.",
"I read all the comments so far and didn't see one thing that's very important for sound quality: the electric to sound transducer, the \"speaker\" at the end of the chain. Your phone sounds like an AM radio because the speaker is built like an AM radio. It has a very small membrane that vibrates, it cannot reproduce bass sounds well because it's too small. If you listen to a phone call through high quality headphones or speakers you'll hear a much better sound.",
"Others have answered the original question very well, but maybe as a sound engineer I can add something about why so many telecom companies still use low bandwidth for voice, even though high definition sound is available, variously branded as HD Voice or Wideband Audio. Much of what we hear is actually an illusion. Our brain fills in the sounds it expects to hear based upon what it has heard before. So, much like Compact Disc worked by filtering out certain frequencies so that huge amounts of information could be squeezed onto a format which could only store around 750MB of data, the telephone system is also designed to carry *just enough* sound information, so that our ears can reconstruct what they expect to hear in an ordinary human voice. To demonstrate this to your own satisfaction, you could ask someone you're talking with to play music over the phone. The quality quickly dips into an indiscernible mess, because there's too much sound information for the digital converter software running on the telephone company's computers to process it in such a way that it fits into the available bandwidth. However, as anyone who has ever been placed on-hold will tell you, the muzak which plays is clear enough to listen to (albeit for only a short amount of time, before losing your mind). This is because it has been *squeezed* electronically so that it only takes up the same space which would ordinarily be used by the human voice, meaning that the telephone network effectively *sees* it as such. The reason the networks do this is down to costs. You can squeeze many more separate point to point phone calls down a single fiberoptic cable if none of the data which would be necessary for a full HD quality stream is included. To get around this HD Voice systems tend to rely on the user's handset to do the encoding and decoding which would have traditionally been performed by the phone company's equipment. This is only possible because it uses the increased processing power now available on modern smart phones, but it tends to introduce a slight delay because the software running on both phones 'waits' for enough information to reconstruct a clear sound before sending it down the line. This delay can be negligible if you and the person you're talking to are geographically close to one another, but it becomes noticeably worse if you're making an international call - where the delay is similar to those which cause problems for live satellite link-up TV news reports.",
"Short short answer, is bandwidth efficiency. Back in the day, prior to mobile communications, telephony was 'circuit switched'. This meant that when communicating from point A to point B, dedicated resources would be assigned on all the equipment between. As there was always a limit to the amount of resources available, the algorithms used to compress voice into transmittable data favoured very high compression over voice quality. If the number of calls exceeds the available resources, then calls are not connected. You can imagine this like the old style telephone operators connecting calls. If there were more calls than operators, some calls wouldn't be connected. The internet, and data networks, are packet switched. This means that rather than reserving dedicated resources between two endpoints, the resources are shared. The upshot of this is that when resources are highly available, you get very high performance. As the resources drop the performance for all drops, but the communications continues for all (albeit at a lower rate). Now lets fast forward to mobile communications. You'd think it's all packet switched right? Well, no. Mobile telephony was built as a concept long before data transmissions to mobile phones was considered. As a result, mobile phone calls were always (and in almost all cases still are) circuit switched. As a result of this, and the fact that earlier radio technologies (2G/3G) had much lower available bandwidth high compression algorithms (codec's) are mainly used. Now, in 2G and 3G mobile telephony, the codec's used are AMR (Adaptive Multi Rate) and AMR-WB (Adaptive Multi Rate Wide Band - otherwise known as HD Voice). The Adaptive Multi Rate codecs are pretty clever, as they can scale their quality/efficiency based on the available bandwidth. With 2G and 3G radio's, bandwidth is directly related to signal strength. So as the signal strength drops, the quality drops. Now lets move up to today, and 4G. Unlike 2G and 3G radio's, the bandwidth of 4G isn't directly related to the signal strength, and as a result can maintain higher quality calls at weaker signal strengths. Additionally, where with 2G and 3G data is transmitted as a packet switched network over the circuit switched bearer, with 4G it's an entirely packet switched network and the voice (know as VoLTE, Voice over LTE) is carried out exactly like a VoIP phone (although the technical specs elaborate on is massively). However, almost all carriers that deploy 4G, use 'Circuit Switched Fallback' for voice, meaning that when placing or receiving a phone call the mobile phone falls back to 2G or 3G to connect the call. This is mainly because most carriers haven't yet deployed VoLTE. The combinations of these technologies mean that when you connect a call using AMR-WB over 4G (VoLTE), it supports higher bandwidth modes than over 3G, so you get even better quality. Sadly VoLTE isn't widely deployed, and even HD voice on 3G isn't that widely deployed, and when you call up your friend it doesn't matter if your phone/carrier supports the top end voice codec's if the other end is stuck on a circuit switched (2G/3G or fixed line) connection. Credentials: Telephony Consultant, specialising in VoLTE and Fixed Line IMS Edit: Grammar, spelling and some expanded information on the lack of VoLTE service worldwide",
"Try FaceTime audio, digital and makes a difference. Why all providers can't use this?",
"The issue is the bandwidth of the radio lines, your phone can record and output your voice just fine. Correct me if I'm wrong, but you can hear about 20kHz, the radio has bandwidth for only 2. To perfectly mimic real voice you have to utilize something that does not require as much bandwidth. But because of the frequency this isn't really faisable. So basically, data becomes lost and all that's left is a bad but understandable 2kHz audio signal. Also, lower frequency automatically means lower baudrate, thus a slower transmission speed is sufficient.",
"It basically boils down to cost vs. demand. Higher quality audio requires higher quality analog POTS lines (Plain Old Telephone Service) or more bandwidth for digital voice. Both of those things are a cost to the carrier (AT & T, Verizon, etc). But would you pay any amount more for better audio quality? Virtually no consumer will, so the carrier finds the lowest balance between audio quality and customer complaints in order to maximize profits. High quality audio calls are totally a thing, but you have to have a device on both end that supports it as well as a proper network to support it every hop of the way between both endpoints. You won't see this on much consumer equipment because consumers won't pay for it. But you will see it a lot more on private phone systems where the carrier isn't involved, like intra-office calling on a VoIP system (voice over internet). Source: a decade working in telecom and explaining to customers that their calls sound like shit because they won't pay for quality audio lines/bandwidth.",
"LPT: Google hangouts has some of the best audio quality for free. Works great on LTE or on Wifi and you can choose to use the video feature as well or turn it off.",
"There's also a technological thing going. Voice gets priority over data transmission. You don't want any delays not do you want missing days package resulting in voice doing out. This is why voice data is not in high bandwidth. This goes through easier.",
"Basically, people are not ready to pay more for more quality of voice during their call. Especially since most people text these days. So company probably tested that and figure out that it would cost them money to upgrade their system in term of quality of voice, and that they would probably lose consumer because of their higher prices. But people are happy to pay more to get better looking tv Show and movies.",
"A long time ago when previous generation phone networks were being built, there was very limited capacity in the system so a decision was made to only allow X amount of that capacity per call. This way the system could carry more calls that sounded \"OK\" vs a fewer number of calls that sounded \"Good\". It was simply a compromise toward capacity vs performance. These days, there are actually quite a lot of scenarios where that no longer applies and calls should sound much better. For instance, an end to end VoIP call that doesn't traverse the public telephone network (PSTN) at all. Think of Skype, Google Hangouts, Ventrio, Teamspeak, an internal call at a business using a VoIP phone system, etc. Those calls will generally sound much better than a standard phone call transiting the PSTN because they can use much more bandwidth. Of course, this is assuming that the IP network in between the two endpoints is performing well, has relatively low latency/jitter, and has sufficient available bandwidth. VoLTE (Voice over LTE) is something a lot of cell phone companies have now, which basically uses VoIP behind the scenes. This only works when the entire call path is on a compatible network (i.e. if you call a PSTN phone from your VoLTE-compatible cell phone, you're not getting VoLTE end to end so you're not going to get the better call quality, but if you called another cell VoLTE-compatible cell phone on the same carrier you should). Some parts of the PSTN are better than others. For instance, many businesses use ISDN or SIP instead of regular analog phone lines (like what you'd typically have at your home) and these are both digital technologies. So, in some circumstances, even a call you place over the PSTN could be digital end to end, and that call will typically sound better than a call that's transiting an analog network, although it usually won't sound as good as a VoIP call."
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5qgyv0 | Why do countries have huge 'national debt' and 'deficits' even if they are wealthy countries in general? | Repost | explainlikeimfive | {
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"It's all about rate of return. If my country has $1bil to invest into itself for the year, I can pour it into Solar Panel manufacturer subsides and make 10% back for the populace. The smart guys that make these estimates say that if I were to spend up to $3bil I would still make 10%. But I only have the $1bil, so to really maximize my gains, it would make good business sense to see if anyone else wants in on my solar panel action. So I start selling bonds at a 4% interest rate. Citizens, countries, companies, anyone can buy them. I'll owe them 4% every year on the $2bil we had to borrow, but I'll make 6% on that $2bil through solar panel sales. That's an extra $120mil that I give back to my people that I wouldn't have had without debt financing. The real catch is whether those estimates were accurate, and we could execute close to the assumptions they had to make. Once those bonds are sold, I definitely HAVE to pay $2bil + 4% interest to my debtors, even if we find out that the Solar Panel guys were just selling cardboard and construction paper. Just like household debt, it's not inherently bad if those making the financial decisions are responsible.",
"National debt isn't necessarily a bad thing, you have to look at it a little bit differently than house hold debt. For instance, the USA is about 19.5 trillion in debt. This doesn't mean that they have gone out and asked to borrow different countries for trillions of dollars. If you've ever been given a US savings bond, then the united states owes you money, and this is where the national debt comes from. Investors use these bonds as a low risk investment for a nearly guaranteed return. You have to look at the debt as an investment opportunity. A 30yr t-bond has an interest rate of about 3%. So if you bought a $1,000 bond, the US government is paying you $30 per year for that money, and in turn the government gets to finance national security, social security, infrastructure, etc. So that's all well and good, what about paying it? Like I said, US bonds are considered an extremely safe investment because they are backed by the US government, so they are basically guaranteed to be paid back. The confidence level is based on multiple things, but a key indicator is the Debt to GDP ratio. The [ratio]( URL_0 ) for 2016 was 71.8%, meaning that 72 cents of every dollar that the US takes in from taxes goes to servicing debt. To answer your question as to why does this happen? It happens because there is a demand for debt. As long as there is a demand for bonds, then the US and other countries will continue to issue them. If demand were to go down, then the interest yields would go down to a point that they weren't really worth investing in, and investors would be forced to move in to other investments.",
"Because having debt isn't in an of itself a bad thing, and the wealthier you are, the more confidence you lenders have in your debts being paid back. When you buy a house, you take on a huge amount of debt and have to pay interest on it. But this is usually good for in the long run...having a house **now** will benefit you more than saving up and buying a house outright 10-20 years from now. National debt works the same way. Having a bridge or school or airport **now** is worth the interest you would pay in the long run.",
"Having a lot of debt is a measure of your wealth. The US is able to rack up so much debt because they have the ability to pay it all back. They continually invest their earnings. The same is said for any major tech company. Amazon rarely ever turns a profit, but they are one of the largest and wealthiest companies. This is because they put all their profits back into the company."
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5qicwo | why do we have finger and hand prints? | Repost | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Grip. So when we go to pick things up or pull ourselves into something, there's variable traction. This is also why the skin on your hands and feet are tougher. As for the prints themselves, genetic uniqueness"
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5qlbf7 | Why/how is lobbying allowed? | Repost | explainlikeimfive | {
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"> I see it as some sort of bribery Lobbying is informing the representatives of the people what a group of people want them to do. You can't very well have a representative democracy if the people being represented can't inform their speakers what they should say. Lobbyists are professional messengers. Cleetus on the farm has strong views but he works at the farm all day and isn't the best speaker. He and his extended family can hire a city slicker who talks like greased lightning and has a silver tongue to sit in town all day and chat up the representatives for Cleetus and everyone. This is all perfectly legal and proper. How would you stop it? Can you tell the city boy that he can't be any more clever a talker than Cleetus? Can you tell Cleetus he can't talk to the representatives any more often than Jimbob who can't be arsed to ever leave his hut in the hills? Of course not! So professionals who spend all day trying to push the message of interested parties are here to stay.",
"Bribery itself is forbidden, lobbying in its allowed form not. Essentially it is supposed to be representatives from different branches talking to politicians about possible law changes or to tell them about flaws in proposed ones. This in itself is not so bad, politicians are seldom knowledgeable about their work or did not work in the industry to know about unforeseen consequences of laws. Expert groups are good and well but on-hand experience is valuable too. The problem is , the system does not work this way. The intentions while noble are forgotten. Nowadays it's just big players getting their will , instead of offering advise. Open bribes will still be persecuted but the practice itself is still legal under the pretense that it works like I stated above."
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5qmvan | Where is the Center of Universe? | Repost | explainlikeimfive | {
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"There is no centre of the universe! According to the standard theories of cosmology, the universe started with a \"Big Bang\" about 14 thousand million years ago and has been expanding ever since. Yet there is no centre to the expansion; it is the same everywhere. The Big Bang should not be visualised as an ordinary explosion. The universe is not expanding out from a centre into space; rather, the whole universe is expanding and it is doing so equally at all places, as far as we can tell. In 1929 Edwin Hubble announced that he had measured the speed of galaxies at different distances from us, and had discovered that the farther they were, the faster they were receding. This might suggest that we are at the centre of the expanding universe, but in fact if the universe is expanding uniformly according to Hubble's law, then it will appear to do so from any vantage point. If we see a galaxy B receding from us at 10,000 km/s, an alien in galaxy B will see our galaxy A receding from it at 10,000 km/s in the opposite direction. Another galaxy C twice as far away in the same direction as B will be seen by us as receding at 20,000 km/s. The alien will see it receding at 10,000 km/s: A B C From A 0 km/s 10,000 km/s 20,000 km/s From B -10,000 km/s 0 km/s 10,000 km/s So from the point of view of the alien at B, everything is expanding away from it, whichever direction it looks in, just the same as it does for us."
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5qo9b6 | Why are socialists considered "left" and extremism "right"? Why not the other way around? | I've been thinking about this for some time.. I'd like to know why one is called "left" or "right" and not the other way around. | Repost | explainlikeimfive | {
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"It comes from around the time of the French Revolution. In the National Assembly supporters of the king sat on the right and revolutionaries sat on the left. People started referring to either side as the left or the right and it's been carried on from there.",
"Fundamentalists are right wing, and can tend to be extreme. There have been plenty of left extremists (like the Bolsheviks). No one has a monopoly on extremism. If you want to diagram it, it's easier to add a Y axis and make a [Political Compass]( URL_0 ) There's left and right, and then on the Y axis, there are Authoritarian and Libertarian. Communism is left and authoritarian (socialism is too, but it's closer to the middle between authoritarian and libertarian). Fascism is right and Authoritarian.",
"\"[Extremism]( URL_0 )\" is mostly a pejorative, not an actual ideology."
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5qp08n | How do executive orders work in a system of checks and balances in the US democracy? | Repost | explainlikeimfive | {
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"1) They are limited in scope. They can only instruct the various departments of the Executive Branch on how to implement current laws. He cannot create new laws. 2) If the President over reaches too much the order can be overturned by the Supreme Court as being unconstitutional. 3) If the President over reaches too often or too severely he can be impeached by congress."
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5qu8gj | why in old hand drawn cartoons items that are gonna be intervened with look lighter or different from the rest of the background? | Repost | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Cartoons back then were animated using layers, similar to how you would on Photoshop. The back layer holds the background, and is made to be set and forgotten about. If a character is called on to interact with a background piece, that piece is pulled into the foreground layer. Because of the methods they used, as the video ages, and video playback becomes more detailed, the contrast between the fore and background layers becomes more noticeably different, and you can see the transition more easily."
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5qutec | Why is 100°F air extremely hot and uncomfortable for humans, while 100°F water is slightly warm and pleasant? | Repost | explainlikeimfive | {
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"I've seen this answered a million times before, but for whatever reason, I can't find more than one post on this subject. The answer is heat flux. Water transmits heat 20 times faster than air, meaning that you would be losing heat faster in water than air. To give you an example of this, [watch this video]( URL_0 ). Both objects are at the same temperature, but the metal in the metal hard drive transfers heat faster so it feels colder than the book.",
"100°F is pretty damned hot for water. Most hot tubs are about that temperature, and take some serious getting used to, and can be dangerous for people in poor health. Temperature and heat are not the same thing. Water has a very high heat capacity, which means it takes a lot of heat energy to raise it's temperature by 1 degree - it's roughly 4x that of air.",
"Sit in 100 degree water for an hour and then compare the experience to standing in 100 degree air for an hour.",
"100 °F (38 °C) water isn't too pleasant if you're immersed in it for a long time. When you take a shower it is warm and pleasant because you don't overheat. A hot tub is nice and cozy because it warms you up. A very weak 100 °F sauna is also nice and pleasant at first. Edit: [this article]( URL_0 ) is a great source. It mentions that air is thermoneutral (i.e. neither raises nor lowers your body temperature) only up to ~28 degrees (because it can't carry heat as well as water), while water is thermoneutral to 35.5 degrees. So 38 degree water would only be slightly above the limit while 38 degree air would be significantly above it.",
"Whether 100°F air is comfortable or not depends a lot on other circumstances. I've discovered you can be quite comfortable at that temperature as long as (1) the humidity is very low--think desert-like; (2) you are well hydrated--maybe drinking a cool drink; (3) you are not doing any physical work; (4) you are sitting in the shade; (5) there is a light breeze; (6) you are dressed in light, loose clothing. I experienced this in the eastern part of Washington state, east of the Cascades, where the humidity is typically very low in summer."
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5quvgg | How does AI (Bots) work in video games? | Repost | explainlikeimfive | {
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"AI in games has to have a couple things first; you have to have a designed goal for the AI to do first, and allow it access to stuff to achieve that goal. In a video game this might turn out to be something like a standard fighting game; where the AI is designed to win the match, and is given access to button combination inputs to achieve that. If they want to get a bit into it with difficulty settings, they could change which moves/combos the AI can execute, or how quickly it reacts. In something else like a strategy game, they tend to give the AI certain goals to hit before launching an attack/defending an attack. IE: Have 10 builders/harvesters, 20 attackers, and 2 defensive structures; then issue commands to move attackers across the map toward a target destination. How that all is built is basically programming the AI, although depending on what you want the AI to do, it might range from just mashing buttons to figuring out pathfinding for a giant army. And in plenty of cases, the person programming the AI might let the AI cheat a bit. Now in cases where people argue they want difficulty to mean something more than enemies become bullet sponges, while the player hits like a wet noodle. They want the difficulty increase to mean enemies are smarter too - but that comes at a cost in programming & CPU cycles. Is it really worthit to add in more in-depth AI that checks whether one room is good to hang out in because it has a lot of cover (and having all the programmatic checks and balances to go with that), or use those precious spare moments on the CPU to push out a few more frames per second?",
"Ill give you an example. In Dark Souls 1, there are zombie-like enemies with a spear, shield, and medium armor. The enemy is programmed to keep its shield up when you are nearby. From there it can do a few things that are reactions to the players command. Lets say I attack the enemy and hit the shield. My weapon (generally) bounces off and I have a small recover window, then it strikes with its spear. If I don't attack, after a cycle it will attack, which can be parried, blocked, dodged, or I can get hit. Sometimes it changes its cycle to throw you off. Like, the first one you encounter doesnt attack until 5 seconds of waiting, or even waiting over a minute. This teaches patience and the importance of mastering the kick attack, which (when kicking a raised shield) generally puts the enemy into a stun cycle so you can deal the damage you need. It's a more beginner enemy to teach you how to read an enemy's patterns. Also technically bots are VI (virtual intelligence) but nobody uses the term. Doesnt make any sense to me."
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5qwc2g | How does hypnotism work? | Repost | explainlikeimfive | {
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"We are not quite sure, we just know that it works. I am not a professional hypnotist, but I have learned hypnotism, self hypnotism and have been hypnotised. It is the power of suggestion, but we are not quite sure what that is. When hypnotised one comes into a suggestive state. It is my theory that this state is very similar to the state during REM sleep (dreaming) when our brains are going through all the knowledge of the day sorting and storing information. I believe any information given at this time the brain assumes is true because, normally, our brains have processed the information already for storage so has already been \"vetted\" as being true. Just a way of sticking information into the brain that the brain thinks it thought of itself. I have never heard this theory before, or even thought of it, until I just typed it."
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5qxg3u | How did "bad words" become bad? Why can't we use them as just a normal way of expressing your feelings? | Repost | explainlikeimfive | {
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"People say angry things sometimes, and they tend to use words for things that are unappealing or imply weakness: *shit, asshole, fuck you, bitch* etc. Those words tend to be tainted by their association with angry speech (in linguistics we call it pejoration), so they become \"bad\" words. The next generation acquires these words with the stigma built in: we as a linguistic community agree that these words should be avoided in polite speech, and you can't just change the way everyone uses words."
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5qy254 | Why do plastic objects (grocery bags, any plastic tubing) turn white when bent or stretched? | Repost | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Bending a clear plastic deforms the material and the small amounts of friction on the inside and outside of the materiel. Heating a polymer changes the crystalline structure of the plastic and way light scatters though the object and thus changes the transparency",
"Plastics are made up of long interlocking hydrocarbon chains. When plastic items leave the factory, these hydrocarbon chains are semi-randomly entangled, like a drawer full of computer cables or a well-stirred bowl of spaghetti. This is called an amorphous crystal structure, and it happens to be rather transparent to the human eye. Bending/stretching/slightly heating this amorphous crystal leads to the hydrocarbon chains aligning with one another, meaning the crystal becomes more ordered, more tightly packed (density increases), and harder (work-hardening). This is like the dry spaghetti when they're still in the box: long chains running (mostly) in parallel. This changes the refractive properties of the plastic, making it opaque. Another effect of this process is that the plastic becomes more brittle, which is why if you bend it back and forth a few times, the piece of plastic will break in two along the hardened line you have created.",
"I think it more has to do with the unique heat generated at the stress point causing crystallization which has different colour properties.",
"Other explanations are good but not really ELI5, so here's mine: Plastic may seem smooth, but if you look through a microscope, it's a little rough, and reflects only certain colours to your eyes, these are the colour we see to begin with. When you bend or stretch it, it becomes smoother, likens polished surface and reflects more light, and if we see all the colours at once, we see white. Extra: the reason it becomes smoother is because plastic is made of lots of little long chains of plastic and when we stretch it, they slide over each other to hold on, but it makes the plastic a little thinner as they all squish up and become smoother."
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5qynhi | Why can't America, adopt some type of healthcare program like Canada or the UK uses? | Repost | explainlikeimfive | {
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"text": [
"It's not that America \"can't\" do that. It'c clearly something that can be done. But the majority of Americans don't *want* to adopt that type of healthcare program, and they've voted for politicians who oppose that type of healthcare."
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5qyvjr | Why doesnt the earth move from under me while im in the air. | Repost | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Because of Newton's First Law of Motion: \"In an inertial reference frame, an object either remains at rest or continues to move at a constant velocity, unless acted upon by a force.\" You were moving along with the surface when you jumped or whatever and being in the air doesn't change that.",
"It's because you're moving at the same speed. This is the same reason, if you were to flip a coin in an airplane, it wouldn't go flying to the back of the plane. It's moving at the same speed as the plane so, relative to the plane, it's stationary. Likewise, relative to the surface of the Earth, you're stationary."
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5qz5cw | How come Americans don't sound like the British even though the British brought the language over? | Repost | explainlikeimfive | {
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"OK, actual professor here who teaches and publishes about Old English, Middle English, and historical linguistics (particularly the history of the English language), so I might be able to shed a little light on this topic. Two things to note when we're talking about language change: 1.) Language change is constant, and cannot be stopped. Even languages that spend centuries in isolation (like Hawaiian) will drift. Although contact with other languages can have very real effects on the direction and pace of language change, the change itself will always occur. 2.) Even relatively fast language change (such as what happened in England after the Norman invasion in 1066), is pretty slow. Everyone always feels that they speak the same language as their grandparents, and then when they are older, the same language as their grandchildren, but over the generations the constant changes add up. Let's imagine for a moment that the first human community all spoke the same language -- why then doesn't everyone in the world still speak the same language? It's because of geography ... something that you probably intuitively assume just because you realize that speakers of the same language all tend to live in the same region. So, back to that imaginary first language. If there were only a few hundred humans living in a Garden of Eden, we WOULD all speak the same language with the same accent, and although that language would drift and change, we would all drift and change together, because language is by its nature a communal activity. You speak the language you speak because you were raised in a community that speaks that way. Now then, let's imagine that our first human community grows so large that it separates -- Group A follows and hunts herds living on the east side of a mountain chain, and Group B follows and hunts herds living on the west side. Because they are separated from daily conversation by that mountain chain, the languages of Group A and Group B will both drift, but not necessarily in the same direction. After a few generations, those differences in the way the language is pronounced will become strong enough that we would talk about the Group A accent and the Group B accent. Eventually, those differences will become so strong that they will become to separate languages, and as those communities in turn divide up into geographically-separate communities, and we get different language families over the centuries. So, what about the specific case of English? Well, English starts as a language when speakers of a language we call Proto-Germanic came and settled in Britain, and the geographic separation that the English Channel provided meant that over the centuries the languages drifted off in different directions -- English developing in England, and languages like German, Danish, Swedish, Norwegian, etc developing on the continent. The different Anglo-Saxon kingdoms had very different English accents -- again, because of geographic separation. English speakers way up in Northumbria spoke quite differently than speakers in the southern kingdoms like Wessex. So, fast-forward to the settlement of the New World -- remember that mountain chain that separated our two language groups in my theoretical example? Well, take that and turn the \"mountain chain\" into the Atlantic Ocean. As English-speakers settled the New World, they were no longer in daily spoken communication with people in England, so their accents began to drift off in different directions (add to this the complicating factor that something else was going on in English called the \"Great Vowel Shift,\" but there's no need to get into that). One other little side note -- there has been a lot of discussion about whether American or British English is closer in pronunciation to Middle and Early Modern English. The truth is that American English tends to be much more conservative in pronunciation than British English, so Americans sound more like Early Modern English speakers (such as Shakespeare) than British speakers. I would emphasize, however, that \"closer\" pronunciation doesn't mean \"the same.\" If you'd like to hear a bit for yourself, check this out: URL_0 TL;DR version -- Accents develop over time because communities are not in daily conversation with one another."
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5r0dcw | How did STD's originate? | Repost | explainlikeimfive | {
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"text": [
"STD only means it's \"usually\" transmitted via sex. You can get anything through a cut or other means, it's just very unlikely. In the past there was a species of hard working bacteria that was trying to spread on contact.. A few members of the group got inside someone, probably through a skin tear, and started multiplying. Some of them were spread to a partner during sex, and discovered this was a lot more effective technique. As the bacteria evolved over the years, the bacteria that spread through sex became more effective. There were more of them, and the other branch of that bacterial family tree died out. It's the same way any form of life spreads into a new niche. The first individuals to make the journey were lucky (unlucky?) and after that it's just expansion in the newly found niche."
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5r6flv | What are the implications of losing net neutrality? | Repost | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Imagine if we had a separate privatized road network where you need to pay to drive on it (sort of like a tollway but more of a global subscription). You might think it's suspicious when I suggest it now, but let's say it passes popular opinion because it's _newly built_ road that otherwise wouldn't have been built (therefore not affecting the \"normal\" road network. You might think this is a good plan. It can help ease the congestion of the normal roads since there are now alternatives available for those who can afford it. But in time, you start noticing things: * Speed limits are being lowered on normal roads much more excessively than on paid roads. This could be done to urge/pester people into paying for the subscription. * Newly invented safety measures are implemented on the paid road system first, and will not be fully implemented (if at all) on the normal road network because the budget doesn't allow for it. * Car manufacturers start improving their cars in ways that adhere to paid road standards and become less applicable on the normal road. E.g. would you pay more for a car which has bluetooth connectivity to switch road lights on (paid roads feature) if you do not have a road subscription and there is no bluetooth system on norma roads? No? So that means that a notable subset of new cars that are released are irrelevant for you (or at least unjustifiably expensive). Unless you buy a subscription... * The company you want to find a job at needs someone who starts early, and quickly loses interest in those who do not have the paid road subscription. It's never said explicitly, but it's painfully obvious in the interviewer's posture and interest in the interview. * There is a new company that builds a road that is much safer to drive at high speeds and cheaper to build. However, because this new company is not yet a big player, they might never get picked up because the old road company only just reaches the government's minimum standards for road safety (but, by definition, just over the minimum quality is allowed) * The police is seemingly more helpful to catch reckless drivers on the paid roads. Speed camera's, however, are vastly more frequent on the unpaid roads. Again, this is never explicitly stated as a rule, but rather implied through the results of police actions. * During a particularly brutal election year, the current Rep/Dem government adjust the roads. Lanes are closed, speed limits are lowered, and it will take you hours to get to your destination. \"Coincidentally\", the roads that are affected are the roads that lead towards the Dem/Rep conventions (the opposite party). * (edit: added by /u/FrogLeatherShoes, elaborated by me) Car manufacturers have to pay licensing fees to the road people to make the car compliant, preventing any new car manufacturers from entering the market. BMW can pay the $10,000 licensing fee per car easily. But a new startup will not be able to, because they can't run their business when everything they sell will have to be $10,000 more expensive to cover the licensing cost _that nets their own company not a single benefit_. There are many ways in which this system can be manipulated into urging people to pay for the subscription. Doesn't matter whether it's through making the unsubscribed version more shit (or improving it less than the paid version), preventing previously unknown companies from making the next breakthrough, or causing a divide between the subscribed and unsubscribed people (economically, employment, ...). And once we get to a point where practically everyone has the road subscription, then _no one_ gets the benefit from having a subscription anymore (since the paid roads are just as congested because everyone can drive anywhere again) **but we are all still paying for the subscription nonetheless**. ----------- This problem, and many like it, can be summed up like this: * We make a separate option that's better, but more expensive. The main argument for having it is exclusivity (e.g. uncongested roads) which makes things nicer for those who can afford it. * Big business, however, is in it for the money. They are constantly trying to get more people to partake in the system, because more customers means more money. * As the percentage of people paying the extra increases, the company's profits increase. However, the original benefit (exclusivity and separation) moves out of sight because the majority of people are now all exclusive. * Once big business has completed its goal and convinced everyone to pay the extra, the exclusivity is completely gone. People have paid for years for something that has slowly slipped from them, and they didn't even realize it. Worse still, they can't even opt out of paying extra now, because everyone is doing it and it is now expected of you. Not paying the extra makes you the poor outcast. * Suddenly, everyone is locked in a system where they are all paying more, no one is getting any benefit from it anymore, but no one wants to leave out of fear for being ostracized or simply getting the short end of the stick at a point where they need it most. ------- Edit /u/manfromporlock made a [comic]( URL_0 ) about pretty much the same analogy.",
"Remember when Facebook came around and we all switched from Myspace? Now imagine Myspace saw this threat and was able to throw around their (at the time) considerable clout and money, and ensure that anyone accessing Facebook would do so at a significantly slower speed than Myspace. Sure would make the switch less compelling, wouldn't it? In short, net neutrality ~~combats~~ protects \"free trade\" of an open internet. We choose the service we like / are better, not the one with enough money to ensure they're fastest. Imgur is en vogue, Photobucket is not. Gmail is, AOL is not. Google is, askJeeves is not. Reddit is, SomethingAwful is not. You get the idea. We evolve. Net neutrality preserves our ability for a nobody to make a website that challenges the service of a somebody.",
"1. Companies and governments can block certain websites they see against their worldview or interests. 2. Companies can make certain websites very slow 3. Big companies like Facebook and Google will destroy competition creating monopoly 4. Consumer issues will not be addressed. 5. Censorship of unpresedented heights 6. Internet as a whole will collapse as few people comtrol what is spread and shared around 7. Will impact economic growth as internet censorship affects new startups.",
"[Here]( URL_0 ) is a good representation of what it might look like if net neutrality were abolished. Basically, Internet Providers could charge you for accessing different websites the same way TV Providers currently charge you for accessing different channels.",
"You buy a microwave from Corp A. When you microwave a burrito purchased from Corp A or one of their partners, it is free. When you microwave a burrito purchased anywhere else, it costs you an additional $1 per burrito.",
"One of the many implications is the possible appearance of so called 'fast lanes'. Without net neutrality, ISPs (Internet Service Providers) could start prioritizing traffic however they desire. They could slow down traffic to website they do not like while providing fast traffic to their 'partners'. This would like lead to deals where website providers would have to pay the ISPs for them to provide fast access to the site. While this would not be much of an issue for large companies like Google or Facebook, it would essentially shut out new competition as they might not be able to afford what is essentially extortion money. And you as a consumer would only get fast access to websites that your ISP want you to go to, essentially leading into corporate censorship.",
"Basically all big corporations that sell internet connectivity also sell cable tv. They also have their own streaming services that are not as good as netflix, primevideo or hbo. And by law these corporations must treat all traffic equally. In contrast cable tv is a huge dated mess with total lack of innovation and rising costs and amount of commercials. These big players want you to use cable. They want you to think cable is what you want. By adding bandwidth caps and making online video services worse they artificially make cable look better. The thing is that when the equal traffic limitation is changed it allows the big corporations to fully control the internet as a market. They can choose who gets in and who gets out. And I'm not talking about people who use the internet. I'm talking about big and small businesses that use internet. This means the internet selling corporations can double dip. Or actually tripple dip. They can ask \"connection money\" from other businesses who use the internet. Amazon, google, hbo, netflix, reddit, foxnews, nascar... If you have a website you need to pay for it to be available to people. Then they can ask you to pay twice. First for your internet connection and then to get access to some other sites. You may be thinking this sounds right? Surely they should not be forced to offer that service for the other corporations for free, right? The thing is it is not free. YOU pay for it. You pay for your access to google, netflix or whatever when you pay for your monthly fees. You pay it through the taxes because these companies have been given billions of money to build and update the infrastructure. Which they have not done. But they want more. So those other businesses? Google and netflix buy their own server hardware so they can be connected by people like us who buy internet connections from the big internet providers like comcast, att, timewarner, verizon and such. It is not that netflix or such are being unreasonable by just trying to force comcast to play along. Netflix have even offered to pay and install their servers in comcast's server locations but comcast will not allow it. They want netflix to give them money while accepting worse terms. So what happens is that tripple dipping I mentioned earlier. What it does it stagnates the market. Because the only way to compete is to own the network and essentially own the customers. Being a newcomer like netflix is literally impossible. Not only do you need to take a gigantic financial risk to pay for the connection fees, server hardware and content creation costs but you need to compete with one hand tied behind your back. Your customers get slower speeds, worse connectivity and have to worry about datacaps. All the while the comcast's own service can utilize the full bandwitdth and users don't need to worry about datacaps. At least in the beginning. It is impossible to compete against that. And it is a huge untapped goldpot for the comcasts. How much can you ask from google, microsoft, sony, facebook etc for them to be accessible through internet? They can not afford to not pay! The profits are rediculous. All the same time you as a customer can be asked to pay more. And it doesn't even end there. These comcasts want to be the big players. They don't like facebook and google selling ads. They want to track you and be the ad server facebook and google can only dream of being. You can try to avoid services like google and facebook if you don't like being tracked. But when it is your internet connection that is tracking you then the only way to opt out is to not use internet at all.",
"Sorry! That's not available on your current Internet package! Upgrade your plan and add great sites like Reddit™ today!",
"I wrote a comic explaining it here: URL_0 . TL;DR: Losing net neutrality lets your ISP hold your ability to connect to any given website hostage, for their profit. That's from 2014, though, so I didn't go too deep into the political implications of that. Which are: It doesn't have to be for profit. It can be for political reasons--because they, or politicians who are leaning on them, don't want you reading or watching specific things on the internet.",
"Can vouch that Chinese internet sucks, living here for 3 years. Anything anti-government (or that is against the government worldview) is blocked or deleted, from websites to individual posts and comments. Imagine all those videos of discrimination against blacks by police being removed immediately, for example. Or if trump is in charge in the u.s., anything anti-trump. Certain sites or pages made intentionally slow to the point of you not wanting to use them. Shitty websites have a monopoly because they're government-supported. No porn. Etc.",
"Net neutrality came about a long time ago, actually. Back in the early telephone days in the 1800's, you'd see dozens of telephone lines hanging outside your apartment building, from different companies. This was a safety hazard, so government said \"Only one of you is allowed, but you have to share that line with everyone equally\" and so common carrier was born. This remains in effect to this day, because ISPs are monopolies, and they have to play by monopoly rules saying they have to share their line to your house. Otherwise we'd be back to dozens of different lines from different companies attached to your house. Common carrier means the people connected to your house can't interfere with the actual communications - they only sell the physical line. This is net neutrality. Without net-neutrality, Comcast, for example, can now censor your communications if you use their network. Right now you can criticize Comcast, but without net neutrality, they can monitor your communications and ban you for criticizing them. Comcast can ban you for any reason, actually, even if they just don't like you. You will have no right to their network. You will most likely have to pay for sites that you now access for free. Those sites that rely on ads are now going to have their ads blocked by default on Comcast's network. They will have to pay Comcast to allow you to use their network to reach you. If they don't, their data rates will be slowed down, if not completely banned.",
"The \"great firewall of china\" is what happens to \"the free world\" without net neutrality. You just replace China with USA. In China Google = Beidu, YouTube = Youku, Facebook = WeChat etc. Why? Because why allow foreign companies to make money, when national companies can. Many foreign services are NOT blocked or illegal - the speed is just SO bad that it just doesn't work! That Swedish Spotify? Could be slow shit compared to \"random commercial interest\".",
"It's important to remember that net neutrality in the United States only happened in 2015. So it's not like there was a massive problem that it fixed or the Internet sucked before it. That said, net neutrality came right before problems really started to occur. One of the main things that happened to create outrage was that Netflix accused Comcast, with plenty of evidence, that netflix data was being slowed down. This wasn't to charge the customer more, but for Comcast to strong arm netflix into peering agreements, and this tactic actually worked. Data is charged on both sides. You as a consumer want to access Netflix. But Comcast needs to provide access to Netflix if they're your isp. While many are correct that the absence of NN would allow Comcast to charge you more to access Netflix, they could also charge Netflix more money directly to still deliver its customers. This was the tactic previously taken before NN. To use the road analog every one else is using, instead of charging a toll to use the road, they can also charge the businesses along the road more money to allow their customers on that road. Beat Buy pays more than Walmart to use the road, so when you get on the road, you can drive faster to best buy but have to use the slow lane to get to Walmart. As a consumer, it doesn't cost you more directly, but it does influence your decision. All in all, net neutrality ensures all traffic on the Internet is created equal. It doesn't matter if you're watching netflix or pornhub, they will be delivered at the same speeds and without an additional package from your isp.",
"I'm doubtful that ISP would completely block certain websites from being accessed, as there would be enormous outcry from the public, but there is a very real danger of sites like Facebook and Netflix loading far quicker than websites owned by people who can't afford to pay the ISPs huge sums of money.",
"Net neutrality is a basic principle of the internet free and equal ability for everyone. If you register URL_0 you can technically compete with google, getting rid of net neutrality is eroding this whilst making money solely for net providers",
"A few giant conglomerates, some of the most hated companies in America, would have complete control over how you access the internet. They could exert that control in subtle ways. Oh, is Netflix slow and choppy? (because we made it that way) Are you about to hit your video streaming data cap? - just sign up for Comcast XFinity instead! It'll always be unlimited and the fastest because there's a direct pipeline between our asshole and your face! They could exert that controls in not so subtle ways. Walmart paid Comcast so that you could no longer get on URL_0 , and in fact, trying to go to URL_0 redirects you to URL_1 . Or Microsoft pays Comcast to ban Playstation network traffic. They could start trying to make up for their losing cable business by stratifying and charging for the internet in the same way. Pay an extra $10 a month for the social media tier, so you get unlimited access to facebook, twitter, etc. Pay $10 a month for a gaming tier, so you can access steam, xbox live, etc. This could also work on the back end, too. They could start demanding that Netflix, amazon, etc. pay them to get their website accessible from their network. This would ultimately raise costs for consumers too. They could start to control what information you could see at all. They could literally block sites they decide are unfavorable to them and redirect to sites they view as favorable to them. They could censor or redirect the internet in whatever way they wanted. Access to information today is as great a need to people as having electricity or indoor plumbing was decades ago. How you interact with the world and what you know is shaped by your access to the internet. Would you be comfortable giving complete control over that access to a few telecom companies that we already know are hostile to consumers and which most people despise? And for almost no benefit to the consumer. It hurts the consumer, it hurts every other business other than the telecom companies, and the only reason anyone is even thinking about it is because the telecom companies are the biggest ~~source of bribes~~ lobbying industry there is. Network neutrality has been the policy of the internet since it's inception, and it's largely why it has been the greatest market for the free exchange of products, services, information, discussion, and ideas that has ever existed.",
"There is a lot of fear mongering and Chicken Little in this thread. Net neutrality ensures all bits are treated equally, which sounds great in principle, but would have very detrimental unintended consequences. The easiest example to think about is being on a Skype call vs sending a large file over email. On the Skype call, even the slightest lag time is very distracting and disruptive to the call. But if your email takes an extra 10 seconds to get to its intended destination, you probably don't give a shit. As bandwidth needs continue to increase at a 50% CAGR, network congestion will increase. Yes, ISPs and others are constantly upgrading their network, but there are bound to be situations where nodes get overly congested. To combat that, rules can be set to prioritize traffic like Skype calls or gaming, and deprioritize your neighbor's email featuring every stupid picture taken on their family vacation. That is an oversimplified, but still accurate and relevant, explanation of why net neutrality isn't the right solution. The \"ISPs will charge for privilege\" fears listed here can be combatted through other ways the FCC can implement. Net neutrality is just too broad of a ruling to counteract those few particular fears.",
"Surcharges and packages based on what websites or content you want to access. These may be negotiated between the carrier and the content provider or between the carrier and the consumer, but either way the consumer will pay for them.",
"This was addressed in a pretty ELI5 way by The Oatmeal: URL_0 Also like this take as an explanation: URL_1",
"Net neutrality is a fancy word meaning government control. The FCC has been upset about the fact they dont have control over the internet since it was invented. Thats all this is. Its a very bad thing. The funny thing is that if the world knew it would threaten their free internet porn, it wouldn't pass in a million years.",
"the structure of the Internet itself is to be node-agnostic, i.e. traffic can flow through any available set of routers and computers to facilitate communication. DARPA did this on purpose to make the network highly robust, and neutrality is a natural consequence. Non-neutrality therefore defeats the original robustness intent. Let's just say that when the military or the government needs to use the Internet, that they suddenly won't find themselves scrambling to pay unexpected fees first. \"I gotta communicate with my battalion!\" \"Oh, military data! We have a special $299.95 per hour rate! Because obviously you'll want the best bandwidth for that right hee hee.\"",
"Imagine Verizon starting their own streaming service (assuming they don't already have one, I'm not in the US) that competes with Netflix. Let's say you're paying for a 50 Mbit connection from them, but still, for some inexplicable reason, Netflix is always slow and buffering when you want to watch Ultra HD content. Verizon's Netflix competitor, however, is always flawless. Without net neutrality, there's nothing preventing Verizon to configure their system like that. Verizon could demand that either the customer paid extra to get full speed to Netflix, or they could demand that Netflix paid them extra if they wanted Verizon customers to get a good experience, or (most likely) both. Now, Netflix is big enough and rich enough to be able to deal with this sort of extortion, so they'll stay in business. A new competitor on the streaming video market, however, might not be able to afford this, and a significant portion of their potential customers would stay away from them because they would always get poor quality video from them, which could very well lead to this new competitor going out of business. Essentially, it opens up the doors to segment the internet connection a lot. Companies that are in a near-monopoly situation in a region could demand extra money for every online service that competed with something they were offering themselves, or just demand extra money for anything they think is so important for their customers that a significant portion would pay for it. To use an analogy, it would be like the bus driver asking you what you were planning on doing downtown. If you said \"watch a movie\", the ride would cost you 3 bucks, but if you said \"buy a game\" the price would be 5 bucks. After all, the game is going to entertain you for ten times as long as the movie would, so that's a fair deal, right? Of course, it wouldn't be as easy to lie about what you were going to do to an ISP.",
"Pay walls everywhere. Websites being like tv stations so unless you pay for it you dont get it. So if you wanna look something up but don't wanna pay $50 a month for wikipedia then it sucks to be you. And more over these costs would be on the consumers and the website owners. Whose very existance is already profiting the ISP's. So it would just be giving more money to some of the wealthiest companies in the world in a market they already have huge profit margins in.",
"None of the top answers feel eli5-worthy, so I'll give it a shot. Let's say you have an electrical outlet in your room. You pay for electricity monthly, so you expect that when you plug in something like a lamp or a toaster, it's going to work. But now imagine that on top of what the electrical company charges you, they're also charging the manufacturers of each gadget for the privilege of working on electricity. So Big Toast, the world's largest toaster company, pays the electrical company millions, and passes that cost onto you, by increasing the price of their toasters. When you buy a Big Toast toaster, it immediately works, and you get delicious toasty bread within 3 minutes. But Small Toast just doesn't have the money to pay the electrical company, so it doesn't do it. And what happens when you buy this toaster? It hardly works, because it barely gets any electricity from plugging it to the wall. It's really slow to toast, and you need to wait 20 minutes to get a golden piece of bread. Small Toast didn't pay the electrical company its extortion fee, and because of that, you (who pays the electrical company every month) aren't able to use the electricity as you see fit. This is what net neutrality prevents. Cable companies can censor your internet on a whim. They can prioritize companies who pay them, or they can block access to sites they just don't like--- such as filesharing sites that will use up a lot of band-with, or porn sites they find morally reprehensible. Without net neutrality, there's no limits to what they can or can't do. And because all cable companies are doing it, switching to a competitor won't help. There's also nothing stopping cable companies from prioritizing their own streaming sites, and preventing you from connecting to their competition--- which would be analogous to your electrical company forcing you to buy their own branded toaster.",
"I've had good luck with a similar, more simplified analogy: Image if people could pay to have more green traffic lights. Instead of each car waiting their turn at intersections, drivers who pay a fee could have the light always turn green for them while non-paying drivers have to wait extra.",
"My question is, did we see any examples of these problems pre-net neutrality that didn't stand the test of capitalism? Sure, Comcast I think tried with Netflix, but ultimately backed down. Now instead, positive anti-net neutrality line what T-Mobile (free YouTube data and most music services) is doing may soon be classified as illegal.",
"Tell me if Im wrong please. With Net neutrality it puts the power into the hands of the FCC? If that is true that means that the govt ends up having the power of the net and can change the rules when they want. Also is this not happening today? In the sense that net neutrality is suppose to allow for a free open internet where companies dont dictate traffic. But yet we see companies giving free data away for their sister companies or other companies that buy into their service. Such as ATT with DirectTV and Tmobile with there stream unlimited plans. Forgive me if im wrong.",
"There are two major concerns here, and they are not what most people think they are. The first problem is that many of the largest US companies, and certainly the fastest growing US companies, are almost exclusively in the Internet business. Google, Facebook, Amazon, Microsoft, Netflix, LinkedIn, Groupon, TripAdvisor, Twitter, Spotify and even Apple all have business models that partially or entirely depend on net neutrality. One of the remaining markets where US companies can actually still successfully compete, will be devastated. The second and perhaps more disturbing, it that it makes the US infrastructure more vulnerable to attacks from terrorist organisations, foreign nations and natural disasters. If content on the Internet is limited to a certain providers network, when the next feces to fan intersection happens, and all lines are busy due to artificially low bandwidth, how is that going to ruin your day?",
"Right now when you pay for internet, your internet provider is required by law to treat any sites you might go to equally. Your ISP treats Hulu and Netflix equally. But Comcast owns a large share in Hulu, and Netflix is there competitor. So if Comcast if your ISP, they don't want to treat Netflix equally, they want to make Hulu run faster. They want to give more bandwidth to Hulu. If we lose net neutrality, your internet provider gets the OPTION to give preferential treatment to some web services over others. Netflix might slow down while Hulu speeds up. Or Netflix might never get enough bandwidth to run in HD. Your internet provider also gets the OPTION to charge you more for some services. And they could insist that Netflix pay them in order to receive the same service they had before. So Net Neutrality is bad for internet service providers (because they have fewer options) and is good for consumers and companies that are dependent on the internet because it protects them. Internet service provider tend to be legalized monopolies because the government wants to discouraging running 3 different cables through high population areas and zero cables to rural areas. instead of 3 options for cities, and zero options for rural, they want at least 1 option for everyone. In exchange for being a legal monopoly, they have traditional accepted this high level of regulation. Customer cannot leave Comcast for another ISP, so Comcast isn't allowed to screw them over."
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5r6s74 | Why are there so many programming languages? | I'm beginning to learn how to code, and know some basic javascript, python and c++. The question I have is why there are so many programming languages? I haven't come across anything that I can do in python that I can't do in javascript or c++, and I've heard that c++ is generally a faster and therefore more popular language for applications, but there are some things that c can do that c++ can't etc., but I still don't understand why there are so many? Why do java, python, ruby, ruby rails, c, c#, c++ etc all need to coexist? Why can't one language cover all bases? | Repost | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Practically speaking, all programming languages make trade-offs, and different programming languages prioritize some things, like performance, control, readability, and convenience, over others. For example, C++ prioritizes runtime performance, but must be compiled ahead of time and requires more lower level understanding. Python is generally a lot slower, but abstracts away certain kinds of complexity (such as memory management) and is generally easier and faster to develop. A lot like human languages, different programming languages also encourage different ways of thinking. Almost all the languages you mentioned are primarily designed to support what is called \"imperative\" programming. If you want to see something really different, look up a language that encourages \"functional\" programming, such as Clojure, Haskell, or Scheme.",
"Because who would own that language? Who knows best? And what if you want to do things differently? There are - for some languages - more technical reasons since not all languages will work in every situation. (Programming for a web environment is different from a windows environment, which is different from a unix environment, etc) But basically the same reason you have 20 kinds of peanut butter : Diversity, choice and i know better than the rest :)",
"Since programming languages were first invented a lot of new ideas and new ways to use them were created. You have different ideas about how it is easiest or best to write a program and thus end up with languages that are imperative or object oriented instead. In addition to that you have programming languages that are built for certain purposes. For example PHP while it can and is used as a general purpose programming language was originally conceived especially as a language that would work well for helping creating dynamic websites and has many tools for connecting to databases and working with html built in. That is nothing you couldn't do in most other languages, but it would be a lot harder in many of them. Other languages differ in how they are used. You have languages that are compiled into binaries and others meant to be used in scripts that are interpreted on the fly any times they are run and hybrids between the two like Java. You might say that you have some many different languages because you will always need to use the right tool for the right job, but the thing with programming languages is that you can achieve the desired result with almost all of them if you really try. A lot of it comes down to personal preferences and fashion fads in the end.",
"Different programming languages do different things, there are many, many ecosystems that require a different touch when it comes to how they're programmed. To give you an idea of the different applications, consider a hospital. Hospitals have specialised equipment, and can therefore have one 'technological ecosystem'. The hospital requires that the software written for their ecosystem be robust, to the point and able to process a large amount of data. Writing programs like this in JavaScript is incredibly difficult; JavaScript cannot *itself* communicate with low-level computer processes, it needs some sort of executor (Chrome, for instance.) Java would be a better bet, Java is a robust language that can execute low level tasks, but it still requires a Java Virtual Machine to be running on the hospital machines. This is where .Net would come into its own; able to communicate with low-level hardware, and with built in UI drawing, memory management, strict type-safety, and security. For a business? The backend would most likely be Java, but try creating a front-end in pure Java! (As an aside, I like Java FX, but it isn't a competitor to a JS/HTML front end) Java is free, quick, supported everywhere, and has a huge library of functions to integrate with other software services (Google APIs, Databases ect.) Netflix uses Java to deliver its service, using a Spring Web-MVC framework, but what you see when you log in is all JavaScript and HTML. The \"Which language is best?\" argument pops up quite a lot, and it gets to a point when you're working as a software developer where your reply is \"Well, what are you trying to achieve?\" and provide an answer with valid reasoning. When you start programming the languages seem to all do the same thing: print \"Hello World\", find the answer to this problem, reverse this string, but when you start actually working on a project you will see that development is so far beyond these simple tasks. For instance, I'm using Groovy to write automation tools for companies. Why Groovy? Groovy is an extension of Java, but what is special about it is it can run as a 'script', rather than being built into a .jar like Java. This means that a developer can use Java, an incredibly powerful language, and integrate it into other platforms in small chunks. Even popular applications like Jenkins allow you to write pipelines in Groovy, it's a fantastic language. Anyway, to learn the difference between languages, you have to ask! That's the best way to get the knowledge and become a more rounded developer. I also recommend picking up an object oriented language like Java or C++, it's incredibly useful and has lots of transferable skills when you move on to other languages. Let me know if you'd like anything explained further, I'm happy to expand on any languages I know about."
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5ratwq | Why hasn't the world try to create a unified global currency? | Repost | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Because global economics is extremely complicated and volatile for such a thing. Just look at the income/cost disparity here in the USA alone. Now try to apply that all over the world and try to get people to agree upon which units of the same currency are worth which items/functions. It would be a mess. It's hard enough dealing with our currency translations. Now, imagine every country on this planet all agreeing, all the time, to what the values of each unit of currency were."
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73kad3 | Why do mirrors only reverse images horizontally? | Repost | explainlikeimfive | {
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"They actually don't flip horizontally. They flip front-to-back. It just *seems* to flip left and right because in order for you to face in the opposite direction, you imagine rotating around 180 degrees. But since the image's left side reacts to your left side's motion, it appears to be the left side (from your point of view) of a rotated person (since they appear to be facing you), which you know to be that person's right hand.",
"It doesn't actually reverse images horizontally, it reverses them front-to-back. However, when you see the image of a person facing you, you expect it to look like you would if you stepped forward and turned around. That rotation has the effect of flipping front-to-back and left-to-right, while leaving top and bottom alone. So when you see an image that is only flipped front-to-back, you think that the mirror started with the rotated image that you expected to see and then flipped it left-to-right.",
"They don't. They flip front to back. Stand in front of a mirror. Point left. Reflection points in the same direction. Point up. Reflection points the same way. Point at your reflection...",
"Imagine yourself lying on your side, looking at a mirror. Are you flipped left to right relative to yourself, or left to right relative to the room? It depends on how you imagine yourself turning to get to that position. If you roll over, then your left hand would be where the image of the right hand is. But if you turn around a vertical axis, your head is where the image of the feet are. Likewise, when standing in front of a mirror, you could imagine yourself flipping head over heels and your inverted top to bottom."
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73l9je | If inside my house is 60° in the summer it feels nice. If it's 60° in the winter it feels cold. Why? | Repost | explainlikeimfive | {
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"The real answer is relative humidity (moisture level of air), not all 60 degree temperature is equal, you are constantly losing moisture through your skin, and for that moisture to boil off (evapourate) it saps energy from you, cooling you down. In the summer, there is a higher relative humidity in the air, slowing this process, if you heat yourself up enough, you will noticeably sweat as this moisture is having a slow evaporation process In the winter relative humidity is drastically lower, causing this process to almost immediately draw moisture off of your skin cooling you rapidly, therefore making you colder, even though the air is still 60 degrees. This is more common in older homes that don't have a vapour barrier, if you install a humidifier, (or even have a hot shower or two without running the fan to raise levels) you may see noticeable improvements.",
"It’s due to heat transfer from radiation. There are three types of heat transfer: convection, conduction, and radiation. Convection and conduction both transfer heat linearly with changes in temperature, but radiation’s heat transfer is to the fourth power of temperature. So basically if it’s 90 degrees out and you have a window pane, the inside of the glass may be 85 degrees, and it is radiating heat towards your body at a constant rate. Drop the outside temperature to 60 outside, and the drop of radiation heat transfer drops an absolutely massive amount. Remember, it’s not temperature you feel but the amount of energy that’s being transferred to your body ( think a 60 degree pool vs 60 degree air) Edit: typo",
"Neat, I know this one. There are three basic forms of heat transfer, convective (transfered through air) conductive (transferred through solid material contact) and radiative (does not need a medium to travel). If you're standing in the middle of the room, the heat transfer rate between the air and yourself is the same in both 60 degrees scenarios, however you're losing large amounts of heat to the cold exterior walls/windows through radiative heat transfer in the winter, making you feel relatively colder.",
"It is the opposite for anyone I've ever talked to. 72 indoors feels cold in the summer and 72 indoors feels hot in the winter.",
"ITT, Americans taking about temperatures casually while the rest of the world wonders how anyone could find 60ºC *cold*",
"For the same reason it feels different in winter when it's sunny or when it's cloudy even if the actual temperature is the same and no wind is blowing. The surface temperature of walls, windows, floor and roof is not the same. You feel the difference through thermal radiation.",
"As a licensed professional engineer in HVAC, there are a variety of factors that have mostly been touched on already.: **Radiation:** You radiate heat to everything around you. When the temperature of everything around you decreases (such as the walls and windows would in the winter) you'll lose more heat. **Convection:** When the walls and windows are colder than the room, the air near them will cool, and this cold air will fall to the ground and move around your feet (Called a draft). In the summer, warm air goes up to the ceiling and unless you're 9ft tall, you won't feel that as much. **Humidity:** In the winter the air is often more dry in your house because the outside air can't hold as much much moisture. The sweat that you're always producing on some level will evaporate more quickly with low humidity, making you feel colder. In general, temperatures don't make us comfortable. A certain level of **heat transfer** makes us comfortable. There's actually a standard in our industry: ASHRAE standard 55 for thermal comfort that goes into great detail on this.",
"Your question's flawed as staying inside your house being 60 degrees in any season will not feel comfortable for long. Stay in there without anything but enough thin clothes for decency and you'll end up being cold pretty soon. But this isn't so much a Physics question as a biology one. The reason it's immediately comfortable is due to a combination of humidity levels and your body being used to the other extreme. If you've been outside in a \"true\" subzero winter where you're actually cold due to not enough insulated clothing and your body has chilled down, sixty degrees coming in feels GREAT because it's so much warmer than what you've been used to. On the opposite side of the spectrum, coming inside after being outside in sweltering humid temperatures where your body couldn't evaporate sweat (its primary mechanism for self-controlled cooling) because the air was already saturated so no cooling evaporative effect could occur, that sixty degree temperature also feels great. The conditioned air in your house, which has MUCH lower humidity, helps evaporate your built up sweat, and suddenly you're almost instantly cooler and more comfortable... for a while, until that sixty degrees starts becoming chilly. And part of how you feel is what you're used to at that time of year. If a northern Canadian goes to Florida in mid-winter, they can delightedly amble around outside in a t-shirt (as long as they don't get sunburned) while the locals complain about how frigid it is. But they'll shrivel up if the temp's 85 the next day while the locals are quite comfortable.",
"I'm curious if you really have your AC set to 60. Your electric bills must be insane. If you really do, one factor is probably the relative humidity. The second is how the thermostat knows when to turn on. Usually there are a few degrees it will drift above and below the set temp before turning on or off. So in the winter it would probably get below 60 much more often than in the summer, especially in rooms away from the thermostat this would be even more exagerated.",
"I think it's expectations. Just like how if you drink room temp coffee it seems cold but room temp soda seems hot, even though they are the same temperature.",
"It's hard to say for sure without more information but it's only 60 at the thermostat. There's going to be a gradient towards the outside walls and the outside temperature. Imagine a drafty house with 60 at the thermostat. In the summer it will be warmer closer to the window but in the winter it will colder closer to the window. If you are actually comfortable at 70 and you usual sit closer to the window you might need the thermostat at 80 in the winter."
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73lfhn | What is happening when your foot/other body part falls asleep? | Repost | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Restricted blood flow to nerves or putting pressure on the nerve itself messes with the signal that can be transmitted along the length of the nerve. You perceive that \"messing with the signal\" as the limb going to sleep. You're not damaging anything in the short term, though. I've read that from the time a foot or leg goes to sleep, you're still 2-3 hours away from damage to the cells involved."
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73mbwa | How do broadcasting companies know how many people tune in to their radio shows or tv shows? | Repost | explainlikeimfive | {
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"They send out surveys through companies like Nielsen. You can volunteer to participate by filling out a form listing what shows you watched in a given week. They can also do it technologically. In the old days, volunteers would be given \"set meters\", which would record what channel the household was watching, and at what times. Today this data can be scraped from digital cable boxes."
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73mihp | Why is the keyboard arranged in the way it is and why is QWERTY the most popular arrangement? | Repost | explainlikeimfive | {
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"QWERTY is a hold-over from the days of typewriting. The common misconception is that it's designed to slow a person down, which it isn't. The fastest QWERTY speeds are on par with other keyboard layouts by and large. What QWERTY does is attempt to split up common letter patterns on different sides of the keyboard. Back when keypresses actually caused a metal arm to swing up and punch the ink onto the page, the mechanism could get jammed up if nearby keys are pressed at the same time. QWERTY helps keep more of your keypresses coming from alternating hands and letters that aren't right next to each other on the typewriter mechanism."
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73nws1 | What would happen if a US State tried to secede today? | Repost | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Last time it was tried, we had a war that killed a million Americans. There's no reason to think it would go down any differently this time. There's no peaceful way for it to go down in current law. While, technically, anything is possible if you can pass an amendment, it's highly unlikely that you could get 2/3 of the states to support one allowing a state to leave the union.",
"There's no real way to answer this question in the abstract: it would depend entirely on what state wanted to secede, why they wanted to, and how people in that state and the rest of the country felt about it. The outcomes could range from anything between an amicable dissolution to a second civil war.",
"The United States government views secession as attempted theft of federal land and property. It wouldn't be allowed. I'd imagine they would try to quell something like that first with federal law enforcement, leaving military intervention as a last resort. But they absolutely would stamp in out militarily if that became necessary. Tl;dr ain't gonna happen.",
"There is no legal process for succession. No state can do it. If a Governor attempted to use the national guard to establish some kind of independant nation regardless of legal opinion, it would likely be interpreted as an attempted coup d'tat"
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73r3w0 | Why is Semen easier to clean with Cold water instead of Hot water? | Isnt almost every other sticky material easier to clean with Hot Water, including Cyanoacrylate? | Repost | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Semen is full of proteins. When they get hot, they denature and become sticky. It's like scrambling an egg.",
"I've actually learned about this in anatomy courses (not specifically the cleaning it off surfaces part though) so here's a bit more information off the top of my head. Without getting too detailed, there are a lot of things in semen. Within the first few minutes or so, there are proteins that will coagulate and make it sticky. Heat makes microscopic things move faster, so something warm will speed up the process. There are also enzymes that will start to break down the proteins, making the semen more liquid again after another 10 minutes or so. There doesn't seem to be a reason for it as far as we know, and I can't confirm it because I've never left semen around long enough to find out. I think you'll find that if exposed to air it will start to dry up anyway, which kinda negates the fact that it gets less sticky."
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73rhl1 | If camera lenses are circular, why do are pictures come out as a rectangle? | Repost | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Lenses are round because they're easier to manufacture that way and it means they can be rotated to for zoom without that affecting how the lens works. ~~It's also easier to make a shutter that works in a circle.~~ This just gets the light in and focuses it. The light falls onto a light sensitive detector or film which is rectangular. In both cases this is because that's the preferred format for pictures...but also because it's easier to make (for film) and maximises the space used for capturing a picture (both film and digital).",
"They let the light in through a circular hole, that is correct, but the sensor that's inside the camera has a rectangular shape, and it's smaller than the hole. Only the light that hits the sensor gets recorded into the picture, the rest of the light, out of the sensor, is lost.",
"A lens in a camera collects light from a large area and bends it's path into a much smaller area. It does not record the light to form an image. The recording is done by a sensor or film that is in this small area where the light is bent into. This sensor is rectangular and thus the image is rectangular.",
"Because the sensor (or film, if you go the vintage route) in which the image is projected is a rectangle. I can go a bit more in detail (as far as I know, I'm just a hobbyst), but the base is just that.",
"The round image is croped to a rectangle. How big the rectangle is depends on various factors. First it is dependent on the size of the lense and how much light comes through. Some lenses project on a bigger surface than others. An other important (theoretical) factor is the distance of the lens to the surface the light is projected upon, think about a projector projecting a movie or a slide upon a wall: the larger the distance the larger the surface it projects upon. This cropping is not a bad thing since lenses tend to have errors on the outer edge of the lens. At the edge the image the lens gives starts to deform and give strange colors, just like when you look through a glass of water to the world. So in film you have small format (35x24 mm), medium format (starting at 4x5cm to 6x7cm) and large format (everything bigger) and with every camera type the distance of the lens to the surface it projects on further and further away. In todays digital cameras the size of the image is also dependent on the size of the chip in the camera. First the chip gives the amount of megapixel: a square of 1000px X 1000px is 1 megapixel. The other factor is the actual size of the chip. Chips that are larger give a different image what is mostly seen as a better image."
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73rknh | How do vinyl records work and how are they made? | Repost | explainlikeimfive | {
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"I googled this a few weeks ago, and literally just cannot get my head round it, I've resigned to believing it's actually magic.",
"Acoustic analog recording is achieved by a microphone diaphragm that can detect and sense the changes in atmospheric pressure caused by acoustic sound waves and record them as a mechanical representation of the sound waves on a medium such as a phonograph record (in which a stylus cuts grooves on a record) Once cranked through an amplifier, like a record player, what sound waves recorded on the record will be produced."
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73rssl | Why do some people put on weight in different areas of their body to other people? | Repost | explainlikeimfive | {
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"RN but this is not my field. I'll wager a somewhat educated guess though. There are two answers. Fat cell distribution, and ascites. Your fat cell location determine where the fat deposits on the body. Women carry more fat under their skin, particularly thighs (storage for milk production). We all have an omentum which is a lacy layer of fat surrounding the abdominal cavity. The bigger we get, the thicker and less lacy the omentum is, in general. Ascites. Alcohol drinkers in particular will stress the liver to the point it becomes leaky. Free fluid will then build up in the belly giving a \"pregnant\" appearance. The omentum could also be thicker which compounds this appearance. As I said. I'm not a doctor or have any specialized experience in this area. This is purely an educated guess based on what I know about the human body."
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73upba | How do companies like whatsapp earn revenue? | Repost | explainlikeimfive | {
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"It doesn't at the moment really. As more and more people get it and it becomes ingrained even more in most people's routine, that's where they can strike... while they may not go obvious advert routes, they have previously said they will allow people to chat directly with companies they want to hear from.... which sounds basically like an ad.",
"Whatsapp is quickly growing. It operates at a loss to sustain the growth, which is funded by investors who feel that it may make money in the future."
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73y4ct | why do fans make air feel cold even if it’s just pushing around hot air? | Repost | explainlikeimfive | {
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"text": [
"It only works because you sweat. The moving air carries the moisture off your skin, which carries away heat. This is why those spray bottles with fans are so effective and is also why moving air doesn't make you cooler when it's humid (because the already-saturated air can't carry away any additional moisture).",
"Air is a poor conductor, but a good insulator. Your skin warms up the air in thin layer surrounding it and the fan blows that air away."
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73yvvd | Voltage vs. Current in electricity | Repost | explainlikeimfive | {
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"text": [
"Current is the amount of electric charge passing a point per unit of time. The unit of current, the Ampere, is equal to one Coulomb (6.24x10^18 electrons) per second. Voltage, or potential difference, is the amount of energy electrical charge gains from being allowed to pass from one point in space (of high electrical potential) to another (of low electrical potential.) The unit of potential difference, the Volt, is equal to one Joule per Coulomb."
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73zot0 | Why is it so hard to pass a gun control law in the US, even though the majority of the citizens are for some gun control? | Repost | explainlikeimfive | {
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"It's a complex scenario. Firstly, the NRA has an enormous amount of sway with the US government, whether Democratic or Republican. They will try their utmost to prevent gun control being tightened, because they stand to lose a huge amount of money. Secondly, there's a large, very vocal, very politically active segment of the US who are very much in favour of keeping gun laws as they are now, for their own personal gain. This may be driven by fear, desire for power, or other motives. They also tend to be collected into individual states, which tend to vote Republican. As a result, they have strong voting power. And a party that wants to get into power is unable to declare that they want to restrict gun ownership, as a result. Thirdly, the US has gone too far along the path of gun culture. There are now significantly more firearms in the US than people. If the government were to announce a buy-back and subsequent ban, law-abiding citizens would be the only ones who would return their weapons. Criminals would keep theirs. And that, needless to say, is unpalatable to the majority. Put simply, the US desperately needs to tighten gun control, and needs to make it a federal law rather than allowing states to set their own rules. In Nevada, it is shockingly easy to acquire an arsenal of semi-automatic rifles, as has recently been proven. The same is true in several other states. If a federal law were passed, it would be the same for all, and it would be easier to control weapon acquisition as a result. But for that to happen, a party willing to do so needs to be in power of both the House and the Senate - and that is not something that is likely to occur in the near future.",
"If you pass such a law, the gun manufacturers stand to lose a lot of money, and they don't like that idea. So, they throw shitloads of money at the government to make sure that such a law doesn't pass."
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7414pq | Why can a 30 minute nap do you wonders, but sleeping too long makes you tired? | Repost | explainlikeimfive | {
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"All right! One I can actually answer. So generally it’s actually a 15 to 20 minute nap that does your wonders. A 30 minute nap is almost pushing your luck -of course you may be factoring in the time it takes to fall asleep, too. Sleep happens in roughly 90 minutes cycles and each 90 minute cycle is broken down into four phases. The first phase is the lightest phase of sleep and it lasts about 15 to 20 minutes before you switch into the deeper phases. It’s easy to wake up out of that first phase but each successive phase is harder to wake in the middle of. A power nap seems to improve blood flow in and around the brain, which helps improve peoples’ memory, cognition and many fine motor skills such as playing the piano. There is still a lot of research to be done as to what exactly our brains are doing when we sleep, but it seems like taking a power nap allows you to start reaping those benefits without getting your brain into the depths that will leave you groggy, should you wake up in the middle of them. Apparently a 90 minute power nap will also leave you feeling great and re-charged, but you’re very lucky if you can afford a 90 minute nap before 4 PM each day. [Night School by Richard Wiseman]( URL_0 ) is an excellent read on all things we’ve learned about sleep.",
"My understanding of the sleep research is that short naps (no more than 25 minutes) put you in one phase of sleep, but sleeping longer than that puts you in a deeper sleep cycle that takes 1.5 hours. Interrupting that 1.5 hour cycle can leave you feeling groggy and less rested. So ideally you want to sleep for no more than 25 minutes or some multiple of 1.5 hours."
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746sl4 | Why do some people always sneeze 2 times in a row and other people 3 times in a row. | Repost | explainlikeimfive | {
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"text": [
"for me at least, i sneeze anywhere from 1-4 times. lately though (past year or so) i have been sneezing like 6+ times sometimes. so yeah i doubt there is anything making someone \"always\" sneeze a set number of times"
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7479dc | When an organ is removed, like a kidney, what happens to the space where the organs used to be? | Repost | explainlikeimfive | {
"a_id": [
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"text": [
"The organs is not fixed rigidly in place. It is more like a gym bag where the clothes will be pushed around and squashed between the other clothes and the side of the bag. In the same way organs is squished between other organs, the skeleton and the skin. So any voids will be filled by the other organs.",
"Other things fill the space. Our bodies are good at moving everything around to make room - look at a pregnant woman and wonder where all the stuff in the bottom half of her abdomen went to make room for the baby. Hint: it all went up and now she has constant heartburn and can't breathe.",
"FYI: For kidney transplants, the bad kidney is more often left inside the person... so they now have three kidneys."
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747rkj | While traveling to and from a location, it always seems to feel quicker when returning | Repost | explainlikeimfive | {
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"text": [
"Because you already \"know\" your way back and does not need to pay attention to not get lost. Also, since you fulfilled your needs, you are less anxious while \"traveling\"."
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748du7 | Why do you occasionally get hickups, after eating really hot food? | Repost | explainlikeimfive | {
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"text": [
"This happens to me when I eat spicy food too quickly. Now I can feel it before it comes on and just slow down for a minute. Seems to help",
"Yo ho ho! Yer not alone in askin', and kind strangers have explained: 1. [ELI5 Why do people hiccup when eating spicy food? ]( URL_4 ) 1. [ELI5: Why spicy things often cause hiccups? ]( URL_6 ) 1. [ELI5: Why do I get hiccups every time I eat really spicy foods? ]( URL_5 ) 1. [ELI5: Why is it some people hiccup when eating spicy foods? ]( URL_7 ) 1. [ELI5: Why do hiccups occur, what causes it to stop, and why does it sometimes hurt? ]( URL_0 ) 1. [ELI5 Why do some people get hiccups from spicy food? ]( URL_9 ) 1. [ELI5:Why do some people get hiccups from spicy food? ]( URL_3 ) 1. [Why does eating extremely hot peppers cause hiccups? ]( URL_1 ) 1. [ELI5: why does spicy stuff make you hiccup? ]( URL_2 ) 1. [ELI5: Why do hiccups happen and how can I easily get rid of them? ]( URL_8 )"
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"https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5ckxdi/eli5_why_do_hiccups_occur_what_causes_it_to_stop/",
"https://www.reddit.com/r/NoStupidQuestions/comments/4dwnrq/why_does_eating_extremely_hot_peppers_cause/",
"https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3zis6v/eli5_why_does_spicy_stuff_make_you_hiccup/",
"https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4it9vo/eli5why_do_some_people_get_hiccups_from_spicy_food/",
"https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/6utpi1/eli5_why_do_people_hiccup_when_eating_spicy_food/",
"https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1jt52v/eli5_why_do_i_get_hiccups_every_time_i_eat_really/",
"https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/6kc5n4/eli5_why_spicy_things_often_cause_hiccups/",
"https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/6493v0/eli5_why_is_it_some_people_hiccup_when_eating/",
"https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1n2qsn/eli5_why_do_hiccups_happen_and_how_can_i_easily/",
"https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5ixbbv/eli5_why_do_some_people_get_hiccups_from_spicy/"
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74a50m | Why do ice cubes pop sometimes when water is poured over them? | Repost | explainlikeimfive | {
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"text": [
"That's the ice fissuring due to the large difference in temperature causing a high amount of stress and slight expansion on the structure of the ice It's the same concept with a hot glass and cold liquid breaking the glass",
"Ice you make in your fridge is under stress. When you freeze ice in an ice tray, the cold hits it from all angles, and the ice forms from the outside in. As you may know, water expands when it freezes. Since the outer shell forms first, the inner water expands, which puts stress on the outer shell of ice- this can also cause the funny shapes you some times see on the tops of ice cubes. When you pour water over ice, that melts away the outer shell, weakening it. The ice cracks because the stress that it is under is not strong enough to break the fully frozen ice cube, but is strong enough to break the weakened outer ice that has been partially melted. What other said about temperature differential is also true.",
"Water is warmer than ice, and when ice gets warmed up really fast by pouring water over it there's too much energy brought in for the ice to stay together, and it cracks inside from the pressure and shock."
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74ajts | How do body wash and shampoo differ? | Is there really a need to buy separate shampoo and body wash or would either one work well enough to wash both your body and hair? | Repost | explainlikeimfive | {
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"text": [
"The ingredients in shampoo are designed to make your hair soft and shiny whilst maintaining natural oils. Body wash is usually just soap based. Using body wash on your hair will clean it but can leave it feeling dry and less manageable. Using shampoo on your skin can cause irritation and/or a slimy feel due to the extra ingredients not designed for bare skin.",
"Soaps and shampoos have things in them called surfactants. This is what makes them lather. They coat the dirt and oil and then wash off. These also have a tendency to dry out your skin. Your hair and skin have a certain pH. Shampoo and body wash also have certain pH. Changing the pH of your hair or skin changes how it feel and acts. For example, your hair is basically a thin strand of protein, coated in tiny translucent scales. When your pH goes higher those scales stand or open up. On a minor scale this makes your hair frizzy, on a major scale its what lets you change the color or curliness of hair permanently. When your oils seep back out and mix with your sweat it creates a protective layer on your skin and hair and rebalances your pH. Anyone who's bleached or dyed their hair and gotten it on their hands can tell you that your skin on your body and the skin on your scalp react very differently to chemicals. Because of all of this, body wash, soap, and shampoo have different conditioners and use different surfactants for different uses. Shampoos are also made to balance out different \"issues\" with your scalp. There are moisturizing shampoos, thickening shampoos, sensitive scalp shampoos, clarifying(which just means it's strips everything from your hair and are often used to remove build up of product). Higher quality shampoos will be more closely balanced to your natural pH. The skin on your body is much rougher than your scalp for the most part and can withstand rougher chemicals and don't generally need to treat any issues unless you have a skin condition. Using a body wash on your hair would be too rough and would strip too much of the natural oils without replacing them. The same goes for face washes. Those will be the most gentle soaps because the skin on your face, neck, and collar are thinner and more sensitive. As for the 3-in-1 soaps, there's nothing technically stating you can't use the same soap for all of those uses but those things really tend to be harsh. They tend to be more targeted to men who are low maintenance because it's all in one and its easy. Ultimately it comes down to what each individual values though. Hope that helped. I'm a licensed cosmetologist btw."
],
"score": [
4,
4
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74b48n | How are car blinkers perfectly in-sync for s few seconds, then not? | Repost | explainlikeimfive | {
"a_id": [
"dnwvynn",
"dnww4nj"
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"text": [
"Because they weren't perfectly in sync. [Here is a gif to show you what you witnessed more eloquently.]( URL_0 )",
"> How are car blinkers perfectly in-sync for s few seconds, then not? They are not perfectly in sync for a few seconds, they are at most theoretically in sync for an infinitesimal period of time which they may not even be lit up for. What is happening is that for a period of time they are so close as to be indistinguishable to you and then they are not. Any regular sequences which are not of the same period will gradually tend toward synchronization and then away again afterwards. Turn signals don't have any compelling reason to have exactly the same frequency of blinks so it is the norm that whatever timing method they use is consistent for a given vehicle, but not between different kinds of vehicles."
],
"score": [
4,
3
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"text_urls": [
[
"https://media.giphy.com/media/KrzvaTeFSvUk0/giphy-downsized-large.gif"
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} | [
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|
74ccog | can someone please simplify an EMP? | Repost | explainlikeimfive | {
"a_id": [
"dnx6api",
"dnxakwd"
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"text": [
"When a magnetic field moves relative to a conductor, or vice-versa, a voltage is generator in that conductor. An EMP is a very big, very fast magnetic field; when it hits conductors (like every wire within range), it generates large voltages in them (because it's so big and moving so fast). These voltages are enough to damage a lot of electronics. Keeping them in a faraday cage, basically a complete layer of metal that is insulated from the contents, can guide this field away from them, thus keeping them safe.",
"You know how if you put aluminum foil in a microwave, it will spark and create electric arcs? That's essentially what an EMP does to electronics. Nukes can generate an EMP but usually only when detonated above the atmosphere. This is because the atmosphere absorbs the radiation that generates an EMP before it can do so. Without the atmosphere present, nuclear detonations generate WAY more high energy radiation like Neutrons, X-Rays, and Gamma Rays. All this high energy radiation interacts with the Earth's magnetic field to generate the EMP. It's possible to block the EMP from damaging electronics but it usually requires electrical shielding like Aluminum Foil, Faraday Cages, or burying them underground. This can be bulky and difficult and is hard to integrate into already established electronic devices."
],
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4,
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|
74d4ye | Why do coupons often write "Cash value 1/100 of 1 cent" in the bottom print? | Repost | explainlikeimfive | {
"a_id": [
"dnxdqv6"
],
"text": [
"Coupons were introduced to American customers about a hundred years ago, along with a thing called \"trade stamps.\" You know how you can get 10 hole punches in a card at a coffee shop and then get a free coffee? Same sort of thing. The coupons and trade stamps were a big hit with most customers, but some of them were anxious about this new-fangled invention and felt like they were getting ripped off when they got \"trade stamps\" with their purchases. So various local governments stepped in and said \"Okay, you can keep doing this weird coupon stuff, but you have to give people the option to just take cash instead.\" So all the coupons and trade stamps were assigned some minuscule cash value. Now, a hundred years later, all the people afraid of coupons are dead. But the laws remain. So companies still put on coupons that they are worth some ridiculously small amount of money."
],
"score": [
9
],
"text_urls": [
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} | [
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|
74exe7 | How did E = mc² become a famous equation? | Repost | explainlikeimfive | {
"a_id": [
"dnxqk5d",
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"text": [
"It stated that energy could be converted into matter and vice versa. That's a big shocker in physics to the layperson. We all know, or think we know, what matter is - stuff we can hold, or at least contain. But energy appears different. Light, heat, motion, they just feel like they're in a different class of stuff. But Einstein says they're the same, and he can prove it.",
"What's important to consider is that \"E = mc²\" is the culmination of decades of painstaking scientific research by many brilliant scientists. In the end it lead to the theories of Special and General Relativity: arguably the most profound development in our understanding of the universe of all time. \"E = mc²\" is one of the conclusions Einstein was able to draw, after years of hard work and number crunching for conclusive, airtight proof of all of their findings. It is, in fact, an extremely condensed equation and a mathematical explanation of why this equation is true and the mass–energy equivalence is indeed what it is, would require many, many pages to explain. Since us mere mortals couldn't begin to understand all the theories and mathematics behind it all, E = mc² became General Relativity's catchphrase as it were. Great marketing, really.",
"Aside from being elegant and simple it has a lot of application (nuclear bomb, nuclear fusion, ITER).",
"Einstein came up with the Theory of Special Relativity which describes how things behave when they are traveling very fast (i.e. close to the speed of light). One of the main equations in this theory is: E^2 = p^2 c^2 + m^2 c^4 (where E is the energy, p is the momentum, m is the mass, and c is the speed of light). If p=0, then you get E=mc^2 . This is different from the Newtonian equation E = p^2 /2m which works well for large/slow things. The key difference being that an objects mass (multiplied by c^2) can be considered as an energy. Now energy can be converted from one form into another, e.g. from potential energy into kinetic energy. So people could see the possibility of getting energy from this rest energy mc^2 term. This is exactly what happens, for example, when we split a Uranium atom (fission) or combine two Hydrogen atoms (fusion). So the E=mc^2 equation more-or-less leads to Nuclear power. This is why the equation is important in Physics, as to why it became famous in the general public is down to a mix of wanting something short and sweet and the awe people felt for the atomic bomb in the 40s & 50s.",
"Einstein was ridiculously famous & Relativity was a huge discovery. E=mc^2 is short and sweet and easy to understand, even if you don't know what it means. Perfect recipe for a pop-culture phenomenon."
],
"score": [
11,
7,
6,
6,
4
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"text_urls": [
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|
74fe17 | Why do we see strange patterns when we push on our eyes when they are closed? | Repost | explainlikeimfive | {
"a_id": [
"dnxsvz4"
],
"text": [
"There are nerves in your eyes which are especially sensitive to light. But that does not mean they will not respond to pressure. They will send signals to the brain which the other nerves will interpret as light."
],
"score": [
5
],
"text_urls": [
[]
]
} | [
"url"
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"url"
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|
74jv2l | why does 70 degrees from an air conditioner and a heater feel different? | Repost | explainlikeimfive | {
"a_id": [
"dnyuktm"
],
"text": [
"A thermostat sets a destination, not a course. The output from an Air Conditioner will be in the 50s or 60s. The output of a heater will be in the 90+ range. Once they get to the target temperature they turn off, but they don't output air at the target temperature, it would take forever to reach it that way"
],
"score": [
6
],
"text_urls": [
[]
]
} | [
"url"
] | [
"url"
] |
|
74nad0 | How are video game environments with vast proportions created? Does it take a painstakingly long time to code or are there any design hacks to create environments? | Repost | explainlikeimfive | {
"a_id": [
"dnzldtf"
],
"text": [
"Short answer is both. Take for example The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion, this was a procedurally generated world(something like how minecraft worlds are created), and probably had some added polish after it. The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim was a different story, and there were more level designers and less of the world was procedurally generated. So yes, it is painstakingly long but there are also design hacks to shorten the time needed to create an environment, though most of the time the game world is 'better' if its more level designers working, and less hacks to shorten the time"
],
"score": [
3
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"text_urls": [
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|
74oizt | Why do stimulants calm ADHD/ADD people down when they have an opposite effect on everyone else? | Repost | explainlikeimfive | {
"a_id": [
"dnzvyk8",
"dnzw2k9",
"dnzy4bm"
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"text": [
"Stimulants can help a person who has poor concentration (like a person with ADHD) to [focus]( URL_0 ). It's related to parts of the brain that make use of a chemical called dopamine which is responsible for the pleasure of anticipating a reward, but people with ADHD find it hard to get that kind of pleasure so they can be hyperactive to try to achieve that feeling. Stimulants make it easier for a person with ADHD to activate the reward anticipation parts of their brain, which suppresses their hyperactive behaviour.",
"It doesn't \"calm\" anyone down really. It just makes you focus the energy you have. Some will apear calmer from an outside perspective but its because all of the energy that was being used for 20 things is now being used for 2 things.",
"Imagine being bored at school to some place, so your mind wanders, in an effort to not be bored, and you try to find some way to entertain yourself. People with ADD/ADHD struggle with that feeling in many situations other than just school. Now imagine if you could take a pill that made school interesting to you. Now you're paying attention because you aren't worrying about finding something to entertain yourself because you aren't \"bored\" anymore. Now imagine that you don't normally have a problem with paying attention, but you take one of the pills anyway. Now school is more interesting, but this is in addition to the fact that you usually concentrate fine, so now you might tend to act in a hyperactive manner. Also note that if you have ADHD/ADD and you take too big of a dose, you can also become hyperactive in this way."
],
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"text_urls": [
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"https://allpsych.com/disorders/neurodevelopmental-disorders/attention-deficit-hyperactivity-disorder-adhd/adhd-stimulant-paradox/"
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} | [
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