q_id stringlengths 5 6 | title stringlengths 3 296 | selftext stringlengths 0 34k | document stringclasses 1 value | subreddit stringclasses 1 value | url stringlengths 4 110 | answers dict | title_urls list | selftext_urls list | answers_urls list |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
21hgje | who pays for the search of malaysia airlines mh370? | I was just wondering, who stands for the costs in the big search of the missing plane? What I read in our paper here in North Europe that the searchers haven't yet even got to the possible whereabouts of the plane, and still it has cost millions. I know there are plenty of countries involved. Curiosity.
Bonus question: All the different countries who are in the search of the plane. Are they looking together or separately. Is it something like "Who finds it first" type of thing or? *(Just because in the papers there is topics like "China finds this" and then "Australia found that" which seems to indicate that they would not actually be looking for it very much together.)* | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/21hgje/eli5_who_pays_for_the_search_of_malaysia_airlines/ | {
"a_id": [
"cgd2uvy",
"cgd3eye",
"cgd8fgi"
],
"score": [
2,
2,
2
],
"text": [
"Tax payers. Solved!",
"The US had set aside 4 million dollars for the search operation.",
"When a countries armed services are involved in a sea rescue, they are doing so without expectation of repayment from other nations or the people being rescued. While the media like to place a price tag on the cost of a search and rescue effort, the armed services of the nations involved in the search don't send anyone a bill. In peace-time, it's one of their expected duties.\n\nEven if private ships are called upon to assist in a search and rescue effort, they are expected to assist under international maritime laws and without compensation. Not sure but they might be able to claim expenses under their insurance.\n\n"
]
} | [] | [] | [
[],
[],
[]
] | |
1y9n6i | why are 911 calls, when played back, always in such low quality? | I mean without subs, I wouldn't understand half of what they were saying.. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1y9n6i/eli5why_are_911_calls_when_played_back_always_in/ | {
"a_id": [
"cfijdsn",
"cfijetn",
"cfijoa1",
"cfika7a",
"cfir8em",
"cfityew",
"cfj2t04",
"cfj3bh4"
],
"score": [
39,
2,
22,
4,
9,
7,
5,
2
],
"text": [
"When you have something like the 911 call system, something that lives depend on, and something that you know works as it is right now, you DO NOT fuck with it. That means if the recording component makes it a little grainy, you live with it.",
"Panicked people tend to speak quickly and trip over words. They are also actively dealing with a situation that required them to call 911 in the first place and aren't necessarily thinking about how their words may be difficult to understand for someone who doesn't share their dialect. ALSO it's a *phone call,* not a studio quality condenser microphone. ",
"Phones in general have shitty quality. You can use the best recording system in the world, but if your microphone is crap, you'll get bad results. \n\nedit: grammar",
"There is an amazing effect when you're listening to a playback of a phone call over a medium that offers higher quality audio, such as radio and television -- the quality of the phone call sounds awful in comparison to the talking head who was just speaking.\n\nAnd the real reason is that phone calls are inherently low-quality audio by modern standards. You really don't notice it when you're on the phone, because your brain is used to it. And you may not even notice it when someone plays a phone recording in person. But on the Internet, or TV, you'll definitely notice an audio quality drop.\n\nIt really doesn't matter how good your recording technology is -- it's never going to record something with higher fidelity than the source.\n\n**TL;DR -- it's because phone line quality is intrinsically low.**",
"Software and hardware is updated *all. the. time* on critical things like banking, stock exchanges, electrical grids.\n\nThe reason it is not done is simple: money, politics, priorities, technical expertise, internal interest, and all that kind of crap.",
"Two reasons:\n\n* The recordings are digitally compressed, reducing audio quality. \n* Phones only transmit audio between around 400Hz to 3400Hz. Human speech contains some frequencies outside that range (such as the 's' sound) which are not used by phones. Cell phones also apply digital compression, which further reduces quality.",
"Have you ever used a phone? They sound like garbage. ",
"There are a couple reasons: \n\n* Like /u/004forever noted: Phones in general have shitty quality.\n\n* 911 call recordings are not usually too important. 9 times out of 10 a 911 call is placed, recorded and never reviewed. People only review/hear 911 calls in extreme cases (some sort of lawsuit, internal investigation, high profile case etc.)\n\n* Data storage is expensive. It's not cheap (let alone free) for departments/municipalities to store the HUGE about of data recorded from all the 911 calls they receive. If the majority of this data isn't ever going to be used then why record it in the highest possible quality? The conversation needs to be understandable for legal/investigative purposes but beyond that it becomes a cost/benefit question.\n\n*Therefore:* Departments/municipalities record/archive 911 conversations at lower (than normal) quality in order to make the best use of their already tight budgets while still fulfilling their legal obligations.\n\nTL;DR: It's a waste of precious tax-payer money to record every 911 call placed in the highest (but still shitty) phone quality. \n\n\n"
]
} | [] | [] | [
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[]
] | |
3ctlfm | why is that when you take a picture of a computer screen it looks all squiggly? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3ctlfm/eli5_why_is_that_when_you_take_a_picture_of_a/ | {
"a_id": [
"csyw60w"
],
"score": [
2
],
"text": [
"Because your computer screen is basically a grid. An X by Y grid of [pixels](_URL_0_), each of which has a little tiny red bulb, green bulb, and blue bulb, the lighting of which, in different ratios, produces all the [colors we see on a screen](_URL_1_). Normally, when we look at this with our eyes, it looks smooth, fluid, from more than a foot away it can be almost impossible to make out the individual pixels.\n\nHowever, when you take a digital photo of a screen, and look at it on your phone, digital camera, whatever it was you used to take the picture, it looks like there are weird random lines everywhere because you're looking at that picture *on another grid of pixels*. The device snaps a picture of the screen, and depending on its resolution, it might be able to capture the individual pixels in its fully sized image, however, theres a good chance the camera lens is a lot better than the screen of the camera, so to fit the screen you're viewing it on, it shows you a shrunken version of the true, full-size image. In order to shrink the image, some of the pixels captured from the screen in the actual image must be shrunk and pushed together, sometimes smaller and closer together than the distance between pixels on the device you're trying to view the whole thing on. The dots of light in the image in-between your camerascreen's pixels don't get shown, while the ones that just so happen to line up get shown with much more intensity, giving rise to this [wibbally wobbally pixel wave effect](_URL_2_) known as a Moiré pattern. They look like waves on the screen because if the distance between image-pixels is, say, 95% the distance between camera-screen pixels, then every 20 or so pixels, you're going through a full period of high intensity drifting off to low intensity, then back up again as the pixels line up, slowly fall out of sync, then back again. The effect can also be seen when zooming or scrolling on a screen, patterns also tend to appear when there is movement involved.\n\nTL;DR: its basically looking at a checkerboard through a screen door or window, the phenomenon is when the two grids line up /don't line up\n\nEdit: mizzpelled a word"
]
} | [] | [] | [
[
"http://photoclubalpha.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/01/microa700screen.jpg",
"http://www.stealthcopter.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2010/03/screen2.jpg",
"http://i.imgur.com/VodfqOB.png"
]
] | ||
4enlol | in movies, how do actors point an apparently loaded bow and arrow at someone safely? | In Movies like The Lord of the Rings or the Hunger Games there are characters who get upset then draw a bow and arrow and point it right at a person's head. What safety measures do they take to make sure the arrow doesn't accidentally release and harm the actors? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4enlol/eli5_in_movies_how_do_actors_point_an_apparently/ | {
"a_id": [
"d21o3mk",
"d21o7tk",
"d21oi9p"
],
"score": [
8,
6,
4
],
"text": [
"The Bow isn't strong enough to launch the arrow fast enough to pierce somebody.\n\nThe Arrow's tip isn't sharp enough to cut somebody. \n\nThe actor goes to a safety class + training on how to handle the Bow/Arrow. Normally with actually lethal bows and arrows so the actor can actually act out what shooting the bow/arrow is like. I mean why act when you can just learn?",
"They use a very lightweight string on the bow. This makes it easy to pull back, making the actor look like an experienced, strong archer. If the string is accidentally released, it doesn't have the force to propel the arrow so the arrow would just fall to the ground.",
"In some cases there actually is no arrow at all. The actor for Hawkeye in Avengers doesn't shoot any arrows. Those are added in post."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[],
[],
[]
] | |
3yunwo | why do so many people dismiss the idea of psychological addiction to cannabis? | [deleted] | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3yunwo/eli5_why_do_so_many_people_dismiss_the_idea_of/ | {
"a_id": [
"cyiryuw",
"cygtgrw",
"cygyhmw"
],
"score": [
2,
4,
8
],
"text": [
"Addicts never want to hear something negative about the substance they're addicted to. Pretty simple.",
"I don't think many people do deny that one can become psychologically addicted. It is just those that are in denial or those that have never personally seen the effect that psychological addiction can have that deny that it exists.",
"Anything can be psychologically addictive though, and it much depends on the person themselves, not the thing the person is addicted to. "
]
} | [] | [] | [
[],
[],
[]
] | |
395153 | norway's nominal gdp per capita is extremely high, around $100,000/per capita. what does this actually mean for the typical norwegian person? how does it affect their lives? | die | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/395153/eli5_norways_nominal_gdp_per_capita_is_extremely/ | {
"a_id": [
"cs0edy4",
"cs0erkj",
"cs0i3hd"
],
"score": [
2,
4,
3
],
"text": [
"Norway is the most expensive country to live in I've ever been in. It's the only place I've ever toured where the dailies paid out weren't enough to buy lunch, anywhere - not even at a fast food joint. \n\nAlso, their car prices are ridiculously over the top. A Ford Mustang is famously something like 150 000 dollars in Norway. \n\nLesson: When paychecks go up, prices go up to match. \n\nSo Norwegians have a field day when they visit other countries, but in their own country, they're just as well or badly off as we are. \n\nUnless we go to Norway. Then we're _screwed_.",
"I moved to Norway from Australia, and I would say I have a higher standard of living here. Many things are just...better. More thought out. More a question of incentives rather than punishments. ",
"Norway's wealth is also skewed for two reasons. First, they made a fortune on oil, and second, the government invested its revenues from the oil boom into a sovereign wealth fund (Norges).\n\nHow much in assets does Norway have? Well, let's just say that the Norges is larger than Abu Dhabi's famous sovereign wealth fund (ADIA) and is estimated at $840 billion. Norges aims for something along the lines of 4% returns annually and it does this through the acquisition and disposition of some of the most expensive and high-profile properties on the planet."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[],
[],
[]
] | |
1nn3wl | when paving a road, why is sand placed on the crease between the new and old pavement ? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1nn3wl/elif_when_paving_a_road_why_is_sand_placed_on_the/ | {
"a_id": [
"cck4jle"
],
"score": [
5
],
"text": [
"If you mean the crease between new and old ASPHALT then it's because after the asphalt is laid the creases are then filled with pitch/tar in order to seal them. The sand is then put on it to cover it so it won't get spread around by car tires (and thus making your car dirty too). Also when old asphlat is grinded out and new being laid on it they pitch/tar the old asphalt so the new one sticks to it.\n\nSource: Worked in road construction in Finland for one summer."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[]
] | ||
8lgb51 | why are primates the only species that have chins? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/8lgb51/eli5_why_are_primates_the_only_species_that_have/ | {
"a_id": [
"dzfcthf"
],
"score": [
12
],
"text": [
"They aren't, the chin is just our name for the protruding lower jaw. Every mammal with a lower jaw has the same anatomy, just with a different appearance."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[]
] | ||
3ycxuf | how can north korea not have nuclear weapons if they are a member of the jinr? | [deleted] | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3ycxuf/eli5_how_can_north_korea_not_have_nuclear_weapons/ | {
"a_id": [
"cyceg6t"
],
"score": [
3
],
"text": [
"There's a big difference between knowing how to build a nuclear weapon and actually making one--it requires rare resources, advanced facilities, and time."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[]
] | |
joybt | explain why when fights break out at baseball/hockey games the cops stand around and do nothing and the players don't get charged with assault. | I understand it is a support - and in hockey fights are part of the game - but clearly in baseball the MLB gets pissed and fines the players. But if I started a fight on the street I'd get arrested too... | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/joybt/explain_why_when_fights_break_out_at/ | {
"a_id": [
"c2dwucb",
"c2dygu2",
"c2dwucb",
"c2dygu2"
],
"score": [
3,
9,
3,
9
],
"text": [
"Well, these are professional athletes, and the goal of the league is to bring in money. When tow people square off in the ring, people cheer and enjoy the action. The fights bring in more fans just like crashes in NASCAR cause people to want to watch the entire race. ",
"Not just support - but it's allowed. MMA fighters or boxers don't get arrested for their actions, unless the injuries are severe beyond the norm. It's an implicit agreement within hockey that it's part of the game, and you are free to _not partake in any fights as well_. In serious cases of injuries, criminal investigations _are_ done.\n\nSimilarly, if you are in a mosh pit in a concert, where it's socially acceptable, it's entirely possible for you not to be arrested even if bodily injury occurs.",
"Well, these are professional athletes, and the goal of the league is to bring in money. When tow people square off in the ring, people cheer and enjoy the action. The fights bring in more fans just like crashes in NASCAR cause people to want to watch the entire race. ",
"Not just support - but it's allowed. MMA fighters or boxers don't get arrested for their actions, unless the injuries are severe beyond the norm. It's an implicit agreement within hockey that it's part of the game, and you are free to _not partake in any fights as well_. In serious cases of injuries, criminal investigations _are_ done.\n\nSimilarly, if you are in a mosh pit in a concert, where it's socially acceptable, it's entirely possible for you not to be arrested even if bodily injury occurs."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[],
[],
[],
[]
] | |
d795qg | how do self-driving cars handle mexican stand-off situations at roundabouts? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/d795qg/eli5_how_do_selfdriving_cars_handle_mexican/ | {
"a_id": [
"f0y9dth",
"f0y9pec",
"f0yef8y",
"f0yenk9"
],
"score": [
8,
2,
2,
4
],
"text": [
"If all three approached at roughly the same time wouldn’t all three be able to enter the round about since they wouldn’t be in each other’s way?",
"The advantage of a roundabout is that you can more easily avoid situations like this so you get a consistent flow of traffic. But there is an issue with junctions or badly designed roundabouts where three drivers each have to give way to each other. And this is indeed a very tricky situation for self driving cars that they have traditionally had a big problem with. But due to this all the self driving car programmers know of this and test it thouraly. They have designed special code that will detect situations similar to this and ignore certain rules to better the flow of traffic. But care must be taken as to not be too agressive. But then again that is the same problem as humans have. If anything the lower reaction time of a computer will make it perform better in such situations as humans.",
"What makes you believe self driving cars need roundabouts. They will know if a collision were to occur.",
"There is no such thing as a standoff at a round about. They all enter the round about and follow it around until they get to the exit road that they intend to take. There could be a stand-off at a normal junction, but the entire point of a roundabout is to get rid of that situation."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[],
[],
[],
[]
] | ||
7kil4o | why can't wild animals who have been injured and rehabilitated by wildlife be released back to the wild instead of kept in zoos, aquariums, or sanctuaries? | You know how when you go to the zoo or aquarium some animals have a sign that explains how they were "rehabilitated?" Why can't these animals be released back into the wild. I get that animals bred and born in captivity probably wouldn't survive in the wild, but what about those that were taken from the wild to be helped? Why can't they just be treated/helped and released back into the wild? Is there a reason why these zoos and aquariums keep these animals and want to advertise so clearly that they are responsible for the animal's "rehabilitation?" | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/7kil4o/eli5_why_cant_wild_animals_who_have_been_injured/ | {
"a_id": [
"drenkci",
"dreotuj",
"dresskt",
"drezu8v"
],
"score": [
11,
3,
2,
3
],
"text": [
"Many ARE rehabilitated and released. Some individual animals are not suitable for release, though, either from lingering injuries, or perhaps from behavior issues like associating humans with food. A grizzly bear cub that thinks humans are all cafeteria lunch ladies isn't going to be safe to release into the wild.\n\nA zoo also has a vested interest to keep animals for research purposes, education, and as attractions.",
"Sometimes they can.. and sometimes they are but sometimes it's not possible.\n\nSometimes the animal has on-going medical needs and it wouldn't live in the wild.\n\nSometimes the animal was hurt and has a permanent disability that makes it difficult for that animal to find food or to avoid predators.\n\nSometimes the animal got use to people and releasing it might mean that it's too friendly and would be a problem.\n\nSometimes if the animal was from a herd or pack.. we don't know what would happen to that animal if released back into the wild in a different herd/pack (or pod of dolphins).. would it be accepted or beaten up?\n\nSo really it depends on the species and the animal itself. Ideally the would want to release the animals unless they are rare and endangered and will help us to learn about that species as a whole or for breeding.",
"Typically it's because they have injuries that would prevent them from living normally in the wild (for example, a Cooper's hawkwith a wing fracture that heals abnormally and prevents them from flying effectively would not be releasable, because they need to fly very precisely to hunt). \n\nThere are very specific legal requirements that certified rehabilitators must follow in the United States (and I believe in other countries as well) when it comes to what makes an animal releasable or not. \n\nThis includes a euthanasia requirement for some injuries; however, the law makes exceptions if a licensed veterinarian writes a recommendation for why it should be kept alive with a commitment by them to take care of it, it is placed in a facility with an educational or display facility (both of these require licenses and have trained staff to handle their needs), or the rehabilitation facility agrees to hold onto it. Some may also be placed in appropriate facilities for research or fostering purposes (for example, an eagle that cannot fly enough to survive in the wild might still be a good parent), or they may go into breeding programs.\n\nThese all are typically regulated and monitored and authorized by the appropriate government agency. Typically if you see an animal in a facility that is rehabilitated, it is because every effort was made to rehabilitate for release into the wild, but ultimately it was unable to due to its injuries. ",
"It depends on two major factors, among others: the species, and the nature of the injury.\n\nSome animals don’t “unlearn” much in captivity, and when released know exactly how to survive. Others adapt to captivity more deeply and quickly, and “forget” how to be wild again.\n\nMany of the animals like this in zoos were critically injured, like an eagle with a bad wing. It can chill in an enclosure and eat and live out its days, but, despite being healed, will never fly well enough to hunt in the wild again. "
]
} | [] | [] | [
[],
[],
[],
[]
] | |
43n5h4 | why are some deaf people able to speak certain words like yes and no but they have never heard the sound the word makes when the letters are formed or the words are spoken. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/43n5h4/eli5_why_are_some_deaf_people_able_to_speak/ | {
"a_id": [
"czjgjcw"
],
"score": [
3
],
"text": [
"It depends on whether the person was deaf from birth or somewhere along their life. for the question many learn to speak through speech therapy and talk knowing the vibrations of a word. for example, the difference between popcorn and noodles, notice how they have different vibrations in your throat. that pretty much how they learn to talk"
]
} | [] | [] | [
[]
] | ||
3lq0ov | how did simple volcanic ash create statues out of its victims? | Specifically Pompeii. Were the victims still alive for a bit or where they flash frozen with ash and turned into stone? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3lq0ov/eli5_how_did_simple_volcanic_ash_create_statues/ | {
"a_id": [
"cv8bdro",
"cv8bgo7"
],
"score": [
2,
2
],
"text": [
"The \"statues\" were created by archaeologists. The volcanic ash covered the humans and as the ash compressed, the bodies remained inside the sediments. Then the bodies withered away while the sediments remained in place, creating hollow cavities in the shape of the victims. Then archaeologists poured plasters in these cavities and created plaster molds of the victims.\n\nThe victims most probably had already died when they were covered in ash, having asphyxiated or died of heat or falling debris.",
"The ash surrounding and filled in the entire town. It was a pyroclastic floe, something like and avalanche of boiling hot ash and debris. Think of it like pouring concrete. It filled in all the little spaces, everywhere.\n\nWhen it did so, there were people caught up in it. The ash surrounded them and froze them in place, killing them very quickly. Because it moves so quickly but then hardens just as quickly when it stops, not unlike a snow avalanche, those bodies would be stuck in that position. \n\nAfter some time, bodies decompose. As that happens, the organic matter will slowly leach out and there will be a cavity instead, a pocket in the solidified ash. Archaeologists have poured concrete into those pockets and then chipped away the ash around the hardened form.\n\nSo, what you're looking at is actually concrete, not ash. And if you look, you can find some pictures of bodies where the bones were preserved and in some cases had fallen into the bottom of the cavity, and they can be seen in the concrete."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[],
[]
] | |
6syh0l | how does a betting house choose their 'super boosted' odds? | How do the betting houses decide which odds to inflate as part of a promotion?
For example the odds on Team X to win a game are 1/1, however they have shown those odds to be improved and promote it as 'NOW 4/1'. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/6syh0l/eli5how_does_a_betting_house_choose_their_super/ | {
"a_id": [
"dlh1v7h"
],
"score": [
2
],
"text": [
"Whichever has less bet already made.\n\nOdds are constantly readjusted, based on bets. Betting houses want to make as much money as possible. If they think that a certain team is less likely to win, they'll put better payout on that team. If betters disagree with them and put a lot of money on that team, they'll boost the other team odds to try to get people to bet the other way. \n\nIdeally a company wants to give as little money as possible away, for obvious reasons."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[]
] | |
30v9ry | why do some men last longer in bed and some only last 5-10 mins? | I never really understood this, obviously stamina is a factor but how can one guy "come to fruition" in say 5 minutes and others won't for much longer? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/30v9ry/eli5_why_do_some_men_last_longer_in_bed_and_some/ | {
"a_id": [
"cpw42mv",
"cpw4kw8"
],
"score": [
8,
2
],
"text": [
"Why can some men eat 3 eggs for breakfast and some can eat 10? Because their bodies are different. Similarly, some react to the stimulation of sex more strongly than others. Young men are often 'faster' because their bodies are relatively inexperienced. Some medications can also inhibit the body's response so that sex takes longer to complete.\n\nSex is also psychological as well as physical. A man who is distracted by stress or just not as attracted to his current partner may take longer. Even for a single man, the 'time to completion' can vary drastically from one encounter to another.",
"I would say it's also to do with the personality of the guy. I don't feel like I've done my job properly if I'm the only to climax, if I feel like I'm close I'll slow down or even stop and continue foreplay for a few moments.\n\nIf I wanted to I could easily finish in less than 5 minutes every time lol"
]
} | [] | [] | [
[],
[]
] | |
39shdu | how do plants form on remote volcanic islands? | If many islands form from underwater volcanic activity, shouldn't they be devoid of plant life (or animal life, for that matter)? How could any land life migrate to them? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/39shdu/eli5_how_do_plants_form_on_remote_volcanic_islands/ | {
"a_id": [
"cs61e3n",
"cs61sk3"
],
"score": [
7,
2
],
"text": [
"Birds and airborne or floating seeds.\n\nFor the animals, attached to flotsam, or being able to swim/fly.",
"They are completely barren when they form, but seeds that float on water or wind will eventually find their way there. Birds can also bring seeds with them in their droppings."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[],
[]
] | |
j3xfo | can someone explain what trolling is? (eli5) | I hear the term trolling extremely often in conversations on the internet. Can someone please explain what trolling is, what its purpose is, and how one goes about trolling? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/j3xfo/can_someone_explain_what_trolling_is_eli5/ | {
"a_id": [
"c28xhw0",
"c28xi7n",
"c28xii9",
"c28y6ld",
"c28yfgw",
"c28zy1e"
],
"score": [
4,
10,
6,
2,
2,
4
],
"text": [
"Are you trolling now? I'm asking honestly.",
"I'm just gonna answer assuming you're not trolling as well: \nTrolling is behaving in a way to get people worked up. It can be done in many ways. Making typos to get people all uppity about correcting you. Pranking people. Any behavior (generally on the internet) intended to get people upset/worked up is considered trolling. ",
"Well, I guess to a 5 year old trolling is, for example, asking if you want to play with a GI Joe and then throwing it in the garbage.",
"Trolling is saying things that are mean, or that people will disagree with, in order to get people to get angry. It's a little bit like taking away a brother's doll even if you don't want to play with it just to make them upset, only the people you're making upset are strangers on the internet. If you take your brother's doll away and it makes him sad and he cries, that might make you feel good for a minute, because it gives you a bit of power, right? But then you might get in trouble for it, or maybe he'll take something of yours away, or maybe you'll think about it later and feel guilty about it. Trolling is behaving like that, only doing it to strangers from a distance, so you do not generally see the consequences of it.\n\nMaybe you've heard of people acting out just for attention? Trolling is that, but online.",
"One style of fishing is to cast your line and then slowly drive your boat forward, pulling the line through the water. This might make it look like it is swimming, and make a fish want to bite. This fishing technique is called [trolling](_URL_0_). \n\nOn the internet, when you intentionally \"dangle bait\" waiting for someone to \"bite\", it is a similar action to this kind of fishing, so it is called the same thing. ",
"Trolling is a art."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[],
[],
[],
[],
[
"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trolling_(fishing\\)"
],
[]
] | |
ce5c8v | i still dont understand how the four seasons happen ... | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/ce5c8v/eli5_i_still_dont_understand_how_the_four_seasons/ | {
"a_id": [
"etyu850",
"etyv796",
"etywpoj"
],
"score": [
4,
8,
2
],
"text": [
"Season happen because Sun sometimes doesn't heat the area you're in. The Sun sometimes doesn't heat the area you're in because the Earth is tilted. Leading to less Sun per area. Meaning colder.",
"It is 100% due to the axial tilt of the earth. In the summer, your hemisphere, north or south, is leaning towards the sun, so you get more direct sunlight, and in the winter, you're leaning away from the sun and get less direct sunlight.",
"The Earth is tilted on its axis. During summer\\*, the Northern hemisphere is tilted towards the Sun. This means there are more hours of daylight, but also that the Sun is shining onto the ground at a steeper angle, which means the same amount of sunlight illuminates a smaller area (or, rather, more sunlight is hitting the same area). These factors combined mean there are more hours of sunlight and that light is hotter, so the weather is warm. \n\nDuring winter\\* the Northern hemisphere is tilted away from the Sun so the opposite is true. Less Sun, less intense sunlight, cooler weather.\n\nIn spring and autumn the tilt is perpendicular to the Sun so there is no difference between the hemispheres and the days are roughly the same length. The differences between spring and autumn are due to weather patterns caused by the effects of weather \"warming up\" in spring and \"cooling down\" in autumn, amongst other things, but I'm not able to elaborate on that without just guessing, sorry. \n\n\\* ^in ^the ^Northern ^hemisphere"
]
} | [] | [] | [
[],
[],
[]
] | ||
2wnlfd | why is social security so expensive? | Social security makes up [24% of the U.S. budget](_URL_1_), or 845 billion dollars. There are [41.4 million seniors in the U.S.](_URL_0_). Do they actually collectively get 20.4 billion dollars every year? If not, where does that money go? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2wnlfd/eli5_why_is_social_security_so_expensive/ | {
"a_id": [
"coshbqf"
],
"score": [
5
],
"text": [
"First, you need to understand the different types of Social Security benefits. \n\nAlmost everyone in the U.S. pays into Social Security throughout their working life (\"FICA taxes\"). When Social Security was established 80 years ago, the original purpose was mainly to alleviate the crippling poverty under which the elderly suffered, by creating a program that will be funded by future recipients themselves. \n\n* [When you reach a certain age, as early as age 62 or as late as age 70, you can take \"retirement benefits,\" and so can your spouse and dependent children.](_URL_3_) \n\n* [If you die, your surviving relatives might qualify for survivor benefits.](_URL_0_)\n\n[These types of benefits are known as OASI payments. In 2013, **$672 billion** were paid to the people who qualified.](_URL_2_)\n\nThe other major type of benefit is for the disabled: \n\n* [\"if you have worked long enough and have a medical condition that has prevented you from working or is expected to prevent you from working for at least 12 months or end in death.\"](_URL_5_)\n\n[In 2013, **$140 billion** were paid to the disabled and certain family members under \"DI\" payments.](_URL_1_)\n\nThese two types of Social Security benefits are paid out of the OASI and DI Trust Funds, respectively. The estimated total for 2013 was **$812 billion**.\n\nSupplemental Security Income and Medicare ([among other programs](_URL_6_) like TANF and SCHIP) are also administered under the authority of the [Social Security Act](_URL_4_), but they are not paid out from the OASI and DI Trust Funds, so I have not included their financial statistics in this post."
]
} | [] | [
"http://www.upi.com/Top_News/US/2013/03/07/133-percent-in-US-are-seniors/75971362689252/",
"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_federal_budget#mediaviewer/File:U.S._Federal_Spending_-_FY_2011.png"
] | [
[
"http://www.ssa.gov/survivorplan/",
"http://www.ssa.gov/OACT/STATS/table4a6.html",
"http://www.ssa.gov/OACT/STATS/table4a5.html",
"http://www.ssa.gov/retire2/",
"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_Security_Act",
"http://www.ssa.gov/disabilityssi/",
"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social... | |
3w5utx | if an apocolypse happened why would the electricity shut down if everything is automatic? wouldnt windmills keep generating power? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3w5utx/eli5_if_an_apocolypse_happened_why_would_the/ | {
"a_id": [
"cxtmt3x",
"cxtmykr",
"cxtmypi"
],
"score": [
3,
2,
3
],
"text": [
"Most of pur power still comes from coal which requires humans to mine. Renewable sources such as wind, solar and hydroelectric would keep working for longer, but eventually would shut diwn due to lack of maintenance",
"So even if Windmills or Solar kept going until they broke (no maintenance), the vast majority of power in a most areas will probably be fossil fuels or nuclear. Fossil fuels don't mine or deliver themselves to the plants, or get fed into the plants. Nuclear Reactors would probably have at least one \"dead-man\" switch, meaning that if someone doesn't press a button for long enough, the reactor will shut down.",
"Keeping the power grid working pretty much requires constant human intervention. That said, keeping the power grid working (or getting it restored) is very high on the list of priorities for a government in disaster situations, so I would expect that in an apocalypse scenario if at all possible people would be trying to keep it functional.\n\nThat said, a properly installed solar system in a house could feasibly keep working for at least a decade."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[],
[],
[]
] | ||
1zpcto | why is being burned alive one of the worst ways to die ? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1zpcto/eli5_why_is_being_burned_alive_one_of_the_worst/ | {
"a_id": [
"cfvpm5f",
"cfvpqa1",
"cfvpt7k",
"cfvq2yz",
"cfvrafa"
],
"score": [
3,
3,
2,
2,
2
],
"text": [
"Have you ever accidentally touched a hot pan? Or had the shower water too hot? Its kinda like that but it's your entire body and it doesn't stop till you're dead.",
"Relatively slow but excruciatingly painful.",
"Ever burnt yourself a tiny little bit? Now imagine that all over.",
"Not only are you on fire, but your skin becomes like leather. Your skin become so tight it becomes extremely difficult and painful to breath. On top of that, your organs are being crushed and begin to fail.",
"The burning of human flesh is actually a really long process, it takes a long time and requires a ton of energy, like how steaks don't burn in seconds. Most deaths by fire are either from shock or suffocation. Imagine being coated in fire, everything about you in seating hot pain, it gets into your mount, every breath is fire, your lungs and vocal cords are seared and cauterized, your eyes are boiling, your muscles are failing, and all you can do is wait for the end by running out of breath.\n\nYeah.\nNot my favorite method of death."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[],
[],
[],
[],
[]
] | ||
62cry4 | how does vantablack appear so dark compared to average black objects? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/62cry4/eli5_how_does_vantablack_appear_so_dark_compared/ | {
"a_id": [
"dflie00"
],
"score": [
2
],
"text": [
"The concept of color and shade depends on how light interacts with the objects. If a paper is red, it means that all colors but red are absorbed by the paper, so the red light reaches your eye and you see red. The same with black except black takes in almost all light. The capacity of how much an object absorbs all visible light depicts how \"black\" it is. Vantablack is just a pigment that absorbs more light than other black pigments."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[]
] | ||
28230h | eli:5 does a "thought" or "idea" have an actual physical presence? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/28230h/eli5_does_a_thought_or_idea_have_an_actual/ | {
"a_id": [
"ci6m0te"
],
"score": [
4
],
"text": [
" > So are my thoughts and ideas just electrical signals\n\nPretty much. They're also influenced by the specific arrangement of neurons, and communication between neurons via neurotransmitter chemicals.\n\n > They can't just be nothing right?\n\nElectrical signals aren't \"nothing\". Electrons are actual things. Though in actuality, the electrical potential in neurons are caused by *ions*, and not free electrons, so that's even *less* like \"nothing\".\n\nBut an idea isn't a distinct object in your brain. Thoughts are *processes*, and not *things*. That is, a thought is something your brain *does*, and not something your brain *has*."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[]
] | ||
44bgno | why in the case of julius baer, the swiss bank, is it illegal for american citizens to evade taxes using overseas bank accounts but it is considered smart business for corporations to do the same thing? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/44bgno/eli5_why_in_the_case_of_julius_baer_the_swiss/ | {
"a_id": [
"czoytvg"
],
"score": [
3
],
"text": [
"Corporations are not funneling money made into the U.S. to foreign banks to avoid taxes. They are keeping money earned outside the U.S. from entering the U.S., where it would be subject to taxes.\n\nFor example, Apple has a foreign subsidiary based in Ireland and the revenue/profits for iPhone sales outside the U.S. get booked there. Since that money never entered the U.S., it's not subject to U.S. tax. If they needed to bring the money into the U.S. to pay employees or dividends, etc. then it would be taxable. But since they have foreign workers to pay, buy components internationally, foreign shareholders to pay dividends, etc. they can just keep the money from ever entering the U.S."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[]
] | ||
20wwzc | why are radar detectors even legal | I don't think there is any use for them other than to encourage speeding. So, why is something that is only used to increase laws broken legal? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/20wwzc/eli5_why_are_radar_detectors_even_legal/ | {
"a_id": [
"cg7hm1z",
"cg7jolg",
"cg808uw"
],
"score": [
3,
2,
3
],
"text": [
"Once a radar detector detects anything it's already too late since it only alerts you to detection and does not stop you from being detected",
"I fucking laugh my head off when people downvote things regarding driving like an asshole. \n\nThe **vast** majority of us do drive like assholes, but ask almost any driver and they will say \"not me, it's all the other guys\". Go ask. You'll see. That's why this post is in the negatives. This comment will soon follow. It's inevitable. \n\nTo answer your question, OP, they are illegal in many places. Places that value 'freedom' over common sense and public safety allow them.",
"You may not remember when radar detectors first came on the market. They are and were sold as a safety feature. Cops used to park in the median of interstates and would sometimes hide on access roads only usable by the cops. \n\nSuppose it's late at night and you are driving in the fast lane at the speed limit, but the car in front of you is hauling ass down the interstate. The cop, hidden on the side of the highway, has his radar gun out and clocks the speeder. He pulls out to make the stop. You don't see the cop until he has pulled out in front of you. Now you are on the interstate doing 70 mph and have to slam on the brakes to avoid hitting the cop car. \n\nWith a radar detector, you have advance warning that there may be a car pulling out into the fast lane at a slow rate of speed. Some of the newer ones will tell you if there is an ambulance, firetruck or even a train in the area to allow you early warning you may have to slow down or change lanes. \n\nThey were not sold to encourage speeding, at first. They were sold to give drivers any early warning. \n\nIn the intervening years, cops have been required to keep parking lights on when checking speed or to stay on the right side of the road. In some places where radar detectors are illegal, the local paper may even print the places where cops plan to set up speed zones. "
]
} | [] | [] | [
[],
[],
[]
] | |
1wu4po | during sex, why do some women buck, twitch and arch their backs? | Are these movements conscious movements by the woman to try to get better stimulation or are they involuntary? Or is it just a case of acting for movies?
Sometimes I notice the legs go wild like they have a mind of their own too. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1wu4po/during_sex_why_do_some_women_buck_twitch_and_arch/ | {
"a_id": [
"cf5dky9",
"cf5dr1g"
],
"score": [
3,
2
],
"text": [
"To me it's mostly to position myself so that the right spots are being hit, but it's also very natural to arch my back and throw my head back when it's really good. ",
"As a girl, the means your doing something right. Plain and simple."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[],
[]
] | |
1nlnhd | if unhealthy and fast food can make us so unhealthy it can kill, why does our brain allow it? | I don't understand why people "crave" things that are so unhealthy for the body. Shouldn't the brain be sending negative signals to the body when it eats bad food instead of "yum, that was good", and sending good endorphins when we eat healthy (because a lot of overweight people seem miserable on healthy eating diets)? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1nlnhd/eli5_if_unhealthy_and_fast_food_can_make_us_so/ | {
"a_id": [
"ccjpe1k",
"ccjpfk0"
],
"score": [
2,
2
],
"text": [
"The brain is sill accustomed to survival mode, it wasn't until very recently in Human history that man Hadi more food to eat then they did (someplaces in the world they still don't). So the brain is programmed to find the fattiest food delicious so we eat as much of it as we can to save that fat to run the body in case of future famine. ",
"Evolution programmed us to live in a world of scarce food resources, but most of us don't live in that world anymore. Our biology hasn't caught up to our reality.\n\nThing things that we tend to crave (meat, cheese, fat, sugar) are relatively rare and hard to acquire in the wild, and very concentrated and efficient food sources. So before we learned agriculture we learned to like those flavours so that we'd eat as much as we could on the rare occasions when we found them.\n\nFast forward 10,000 years or so, we have meat, fat, and sugar in abundance but our bodies and brains are still wired up to gobble it all up because our evolution hasn't caught up.\n\nEventually, unless trends change, this will breed out as people who can't modulate their food intake will get sick and have less kids."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[],
[]
] | |
cqj8y8 | how come if you think to yourself, touch you finger to your nose, you can do it accurately? how does your body know where the tip of your nose is without being able to see it? or like touch my pinky finger to my index finger, how does my body know where other parts are? | Sorry if this makes no sense | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/cqj8y8/eli5_how_come_if_you_think_to_yourself_touch_you/ | {
"a_id": [
"ewwqyww",
"ewwy1hi",
"ewwy9wu",
"ewx3o13"
],
"score": [
31,
4,
4,
2
],
"text": [
"It's one of your senses, called [proprioception](_URL_0_).\n\nYour body is full of sensory neurons that help your brain locate and track your body parts in space.",
"I highly recommend reading The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat by [Oliver Sacks](_URL_0_) if you are interested in how our senses and our brain interact and navigate the world.\n\nIt is accessible and written for lay audiences, not clinicians.\n\nHe does an excellent job of conveying the very human experiences of his subjects.",
"Your joints have stretch receptors that tell your brain how much you've bent them, so you can figure the angles and lengths and thus the position in space. \n\nFun fact: tertiary syphillis destroys this sense, producing a characteristic stompy-shuffle in victims as they don't know where their feet are until they hit the ground.",
"Like people below have said, this ability is called proprioception. How it works is really fascinating. We have several types of sensory receptors for proprioception. When we’re talking about touching our finger to our nose, the most important of these receptors is the “muscle spindle fibers”.\n\nThe muscle spindle fibers are scattered throughout all the muscles in our body. They are basically very tiny springs within our muscles. When our muscles are stretched, these springs also stretch and send signals back to our brain letting it know just how stretched the muscle is. \n\nFor example if you are touching your right shoulder with your right hand, your bicep will not be stretched at all, these springs will let your brain know the bicep is pretty much as bunched up as it can be. But if you slowly start dropping your hand down in front of you, those spring immediately get a little more stretched. They tell the brain “hey, the bicep is just a little stretched,, your elbow must not be as bent as it was”. As you drop your hand more and more eventually the message to the brain will change to “woah, your bicep is really stretched, your elbow is almost completely straight!”\n\nYour brain takes all of this info from all of the muscles in your body and uses it to determine where your body is in space, and where/how fast you’re moving. \n\nIt’s actually a lot more complex than this, and there are a lot more components at play. But that’s my best Eli5 for the finger to nose."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proprioception"
],
[
"https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Man_Who_Mistook_His_Wife_for_a_Hat"
],
[],
[]
] | |
7128qz | what kind of tangible effects does a 50% drop in stock value have on a multi-billion dollar company? | [deleted] | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/7128qz/eli5_what_kind_of_tangible_effects_does_a_50_drop/ | {
"a_id": [
"dn7ka7i"
],
"score": [
2
],
"text": [
"1. Their fundraising ability diminishes\n\n2. The shareholders may demand a change in leadership \n\n3. Consumers, suppliers and the general public may lose faith in the business. Creditors might be calling for immediate payment, sales may sag, bad pr."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[]
] | |
dg8j6b | why is the debt of a parent passed into their offspring when they pass? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/dg8j6b/eli5_why_is_the_debt_of_a_parent_passed_into/ | {
"a_id": [
"f3a2w8z"
],
"score": [
3
],
"text": [
"It isn't, at least not in the US.\n\nDebt cannot be inherited. All debts are paid by the estate, and if there's any debt leftover when the estate is out of money, too bad for the lender."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[]
] | ||
eu4qv1 | what can a nurse practitioner and a physicians assistant do? and what are the differences between them? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/eu4qv1/eli5_what_can_a_nurse_practitioner_and_a/ | {
"a_id": [
"ffl5962"
],
"score": [
2
],
"text": [
"If you’re in the UK this is different. ANP and PA roles will vary a lot depending on what specialty you’re attached to, what ward you’re on and what trust you’re in."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[]
] | ||
9gq2lc | what is the difference between chromosomes and dna floating in the nucleus? isn't dna one long string? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/9gq2lc/eli5_what_is_the_difference_between_chromosomes/ | {
"a_id": [
"e660yzv",
"e6612vk"
],
"score": [
5,
2
],
"text": [
"Chromosomes are the DNA floating in the nucleus. Each chromosome is made up of a [single strand of DNA tightly coiled](_URL_0_) into an X-shaped bundle. Other than this, there isn't normally any DNA free-floating in the nucleus.",
"The DNA in a human cell is organized in 46 chromosomes that are separate in the nucleus. Each chromosome contain a double helix with complementary stands of DNA.\n\nThe cells also contain multiple mitochondria organells that have there own DNA. A human cell can have between 1 and 2000 mitochondria where the number depend on cell type.\n\nSo there are more then one strands of DNA. The minimum a normal cell have is 93 strands,"
]
} | [] | [] | [
[
"http://services.dnadirect.com/img/content/common/cellsToDNA.gif"
],
[]
] | ||
5g51j0 | how did early humans survive without weapons and how did they go from no weapons to weapons? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5g51j0/eli5_how_did_early_humans_survive_without_weapons/ | {
"a_id": [
"dapjcun",
"dapjz6v",
"dapk1ag",
"dapk1lp",
"dapkce1",
"dapklh0",
"dapmhuy"
],
"score": [
2,
3,
2,
5,
5,
3,
2
],
"text": [
"A weapon is as basic as picking up a rock, stick or bone, which other primates have been shown to use. Early humans had weapons. Some of the earliest tools ever discovered have been weapons, predating any human civilization. Metallurgy and the production of more advanced weapons is as old as civilization itself. ",
"How do monkeys and apes do survives nowadays?\n\nthey have nails and teeth and it's clearly enough.\n\nafter this phase we learned to use tools.. like, a stone is a tool. It's simple but it's a tool, then we learned that certain kind of stones were more effective because they cut, then we learned to produce those kind of stones and not only to rely on what we were founding on the ground... etc",
"A rock and a piece of a tree can go a long way. That's what ancient arrows and hammers were made of",
"Simply put, humans picked them up off the ground. Using tools is not a skill only afforded to humans. Many primates exhibit this skill, either using rocks to break open nuts, long sticks to get at bugs inside trees, or my personal favorite, [using a branch to knock annoying drones out of the sky.](_URL_0_) \n\nThe ability to think and improve them is what separates humans from other apes in our use of tools. And that is simply human nature.",
"Every species you would call human had weapons of some sort...fashioning tools is one of the defining characteristics of human intelligence. They likely even predate humans, going back about 2.5 million years to late *Australopithecus* species.\n\nHow did they learn to use tools and weapons? Gradually. Many animals use tools of opportunity, rocks, sticks, and bones they find lying around. Some human ancestor figured out if you sharpen a rock or a stick, it is more useful, and their descendants over multiple generations got better and better at it until their tools become more sophisticated. ",
"Tool use and more importantly tool making existed long before humans came around, humans evolved from creatures that already had tool using and tool making abilities.\n\nTool use most likely came first, pick up a random rock and use it to bash seeds open like some monkeys still do. Use a fallen branch as a club. Finding and modifying a rock to be a stone axe or knife or modifying a branch to be a spear came much later.\n\n_URL_0_",
"Ugg wants to fight like Grog. Grog punches things and they die. Ugg is not a good puncher. Maybe because Ugg does not have large, heavy, and hard fists like Grog has. But rocks are large, heavy, and hard! Maybe if Ugg hold rock and punch with a rock in Ugg's fist, it will hit better. It does! Ugg uses a rock fist from now on! Ugg wonders if maybe different rocks better. Ugg will need to improve his rock punching.\n\nIt's the same with realizing that having longer reach helps in a fight, that the taller guy with longer arms can hurt you before you can hurt him. So you get a stick. Now you can swing that stick even before his long arms can reach you. But maybe some sticks are better for this than other sticks. It's time to refine the process.\n\nThe moment you're smart enough (and have hands capable enough) to pick up some object and use it to make you more effective at what you want to do, and if what you want to do is fight, then you've invented weapons. Without weapons/tools, you still have teeth and fists and nails. But add rocks and sticks, and you're a dangerous creature! The rest of history is just looking for better sticks."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[],
[],
[],
[
"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DDbyl_Q5-oE"
],
[],
[
"https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oldowan"
],
[]
] | ||
7x0d9p | why does sleep deprevation result in random spikes of energy? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/7x0d9p/eli5_why_does_sleep_deprevation_result_in_random/ | {
"a_id": [
"du4infe"
],
"score": [
7
],
"text": [
"You may feel it as 'random spikes of energy' if your talking about the sudden jitters, body heat rising and increased heartbeat. \n\nIf you are sleep deprived, the hours it takes the body to start re-building your body are no longer given at night. Sleep is your body asking you to stop so it can allocate its energy to rebuilding rather than to movement, cognitive processing etc. \n\nIf your body no longer feels that you will give it that time, it adapts and starts to attempt recovery and rehabilitation while awake. That's when the feeling of sleep goes away and you get the sudden jitters. \n\nAfter a few waves, your body will not be able to sustain this and your brain will force your body to shut down and give your mind and body the rest it needs."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[]
] | ||
apl9im | if i watched a 4k/uhd video on a non 4k/uhd supported tv would i be able to see a difference as opposed to watching it in 1080/720p and why would/wouldn't this be the case? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/apl9im/eli5_if_i_watched_a_4kuhd_video_on_a_non_4kuhd/ | {
"a_id": [
"eg99lbz"
],
"score": [
2
],
"text": [
"You would not be able to an increase in quality if you are watching on a 1080p TV. Anything over 1080p source on a 1080p TV is not necessary. The television has a set number of pixels and even if the source is able to output more, your TV can't. "
]
} | [] | [] | [
[]
] | ||
3mswdo | if there is flowing briny water on mars, why doesnt it sublimate? | NASA recently found that there are seeps of briny water on Mars. Why doesn't that water immediately sublimate in the very low atmospheric pressure of Mars? What am I missing? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3mswdo/eli5_if_there_is_flowing_briny_water_on_mars_why/ | {
"a_id": [
"cvhw9ly"
],
"score": [
2
],
"text": [
"I'm not a chemist or any such thing.\n\nI'm guessing that it's because it is very briny. It'll have a high surface tension to protect it from sublimating. In fact, it is briny because the rest of the water-- which made it \"pure\"-- has already sublimated."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[]
] | |
52e2ol | before people understood what a viral or bacterial infection was, what did they think was happening to them when they became sick? | When I get sick, my brain runs through a list of memories that involve people coughing, door handles, times I licked my finger, etc. to explain to myself why it is I feel so awful now. The reason this works, is because I have basic knowledge of how viruses function.
In a time when even washing your hands wasn't known to be a good idea, what was the common explanation for why all of a sudden you can become super weak, congested, and generally feeling horrible? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/52e2ol/eli5_before_people_understood_what_a_viral_or/ | {
"a_id": [
"d7jghrc",
"d7ji35h",
"d7jw1sz"
],
"score": [
5,
2,
2
],
"text": [
"A very common theory for a very long time was the concept of humors. The four humors were blood, yellow bile, black bile, and phlegm. The theory was that we have a certain balance of each humor in relation to the others, and that illness came from our humors being out of whack. For example, cancer was thought to be caused by an excess of black bile. Blood letting was practiced to remove blood from the body when it was in excess. \n\nThere were also superstitious beliefs that illness came from evil spirits, demons, or a curse from God. However the humors theory was the most popular among doctors and academics.",
"There have been lots of different theories. Curses were a quite common theory. The last favorite theory before viruses and bacterias were discovered were that it was the smell that made you bad. The sewage system in London were not made to lead sewage away from the drinking water although some people did propose it for this reason. However the established theory called for the sewage system to be built to get rid of the bad smell that made people sick.",
"Another theory (that while wrong, was still somewhat helpful) was \"miasma theory,\" that sickness was caused by \"bad air,\" and that stuff like sewage, excrement, etc. generated this bad air. The solution was to eliminate the sources of bad air, which would prevent the spread of disease. Miasma theory was still considered the explanation for the spread of a number of diseases up through the late 1800s when germ theory finally began to displace it."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[],
[],
[]
] | |
3ai3vb | why do sometimes, after i orgasm, feel a weakness in my legs and it's hard to stand up? | Before you get your dicks up I'm a guy | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3ai3vb/eli5_why_do_sometimes_after_i_orgasm_feel_a/ | {
"a_id": [
"csctjmz",
"cscyokb"
],
"score": [
56,
8
],
"text": [
"I actually already knew you're a guy. In men, post-orgasm, there is a huge release of serotonin and other relaxing neurotransmitters. That's why we tend to fall asleep after sex and why you feel weakness. Your brain is really, really content. \n \n(Edit: On a side note, I heard a hypothesis years ago that the serotonin release has co-evolved with women's lowered ability to orgasm during vaginal sex. The argument was that post-coitus the man falls asleep, and the woman, unsatisfied, goes to find another partner. This way she increases the genetic diversity of her offspring. I don't buy the idea, and I don't know if anyone else does, but it's an entertaining thought.)",
"There's also the possibility that you're holding your breath right before and during orgasm. This is pretty common, but it can make you feel weak and dizzy right after, which might be more noticeable if you try to stand immediately after orgasming or orgasm standing up. "
]
} | [] | [] | [
[],
[]
] | |
1xx5nm | why is waterboarding so tortuous that the navy seals removed it from training because even none of them could handle it? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1xx5nm/eli5_why_is_waterboarding_so_tortuous_that_the/ | {
"a_id": [
"cffe6ei",
"cfff45b"
],
"score": [
8,
8
],
"text": [
"The wet rag getting soaked repeatedly simulates drowning. Basically, every time they \"drown\" you, your instincts and adrenaline explode and drive you more and more with the urge to escape. As it continues, you turn into a caged animal who is extraordinarily stressed and slowly, your mental resolve breaks.",
"There are various methods for doing it. It basically involves tilting someone back and pouring water in their nose and mouth to fill their larynx and sinuses. This induces a gag reflex, which forces you to cough and suck water in to your lungs. If you are tilted back, you won't actually fill your lungs, so you won't really drown, but you won't know you aren't, as all of your body's physical triggers for \"I'm drowning\" have been hit. It's actually one of the most powerful involuntary reactions in the body, which makes sense, since filling your lungs with water is going to kill you more quickly than even getting burned severely or losing limbs."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[],
[]
] | ||
ckfb90 | why fleas don’t infest hairy parts of humans. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/ckfb90/eli5_why_fleas_dont_infest_hairy_parts_of_humans/ | {
"a_id": [
"evmtxb1",
"evn15pn"
],
"score": [
8,
2
],
"text": [
"They do. Humans can get and carry fleas just like any other fuzzy mammal. That's how the Bubonic Plague spread, fleas and rats.",
"Fleas actually spend a significant portion of their life stage in the environment, so while they will happily infest humans you would only have 20% of the total flea population on you at any one time"
]
} | [] | [] | [
[],
[]
] | ||
bhjfgw | when banks print/make new currency, say they decide to make £1million, how is that broken down into the various denominations? | Edit: I realise Banks themselves don’t physically make the money, that’s normally done by the Mint or treasury dept. My question is not about whom physically makes the money, it’s about how the amounts are broken down into which denominations: 100000 £10 notes, or 1million £1 coins, or 20million 5p coins? How is that decided upon? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/bhjfgw/eli5_eli5_when_banks_printmake_new_currency_say/ | {
"a_id": [
"elte035",
"eltfrx3",
"eltzws7"
],
"score": [
3,
2,
2
],
"text": [
"My understanding...(no expert)\n\nThe denomination of printed / manufactured currency is decided based on what is needed to be in circulation for example when ATMs only issued denominations of £10 this led to a reduction in the number of £5 notes circulating. They were being banked but not recirculated. The banks were told to change the m/c to issue £5 notes and the mint printed new £5 notes to meet the increased demand. There is also the replacement of old notes that are in poor condition or no longer valid following a redesign.\n\nPeople putting small denomination coins in jars at home and not spending them means they are not circulating and a shortage occurs. This can lead to overproduction of the coin or the coins being removed completely because it's not used e.g if the price of goods was rounded up to the pound / dollar and not charged at £nn.99p there would be very little need for a 1p coin.",
"Generally the reprint by the mint (not normally a bank, although in Scotland most banks have a mint division) is done to replace currency already in circulation. So when it prints, say a million pounds, they will be replacing a million pounds of old notes/coins that have been deemed unfit for current circulation due to excessive wear or damage.\n\nIn the rare case of quantitative easing (New printing to generate extra cash - not encouraged by economists due to the effect on inflation) the split is determined by the proportion in current circulation. \n\nSo if for every £5 note there are 3 £1 coins in current circulation this same ratio will be applied unless the mint/government us attempting to discourage the use of a particular denomination.\n\nAs a rule of thumb you would expect to mint more lower denomination coins/notes and a relatively small amount of large denomination notes.",
"It isn't much different than deciding how much bread vs beans to buy down at the grocers. You know what your historical usage of them is, so you buy the amounts you think you will need. If your aunt is a bean freak and you know she is coming to visit for a week, you might stock up on beans. And the grocer needs to decide how much of each to order, and does so in about the same way--looking at historical trends.\n\nMoney is primarily created in book-keeping form, not as physical cash. Deciding on how much money should exist in total is a different decision than deciding how much should exist as paper and in which denominations. The first decision is where the politics and economic theory and ideology come in. The second decision is pretty much just the boring minutiae of shop-keeping, although at a large scale."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[],
[],
[]
] | |
p24tg | why can sweat come out of our skin but rain & shower water doesn't go through? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/p24tg/eli5_why_can_sweat_come_out_of_our_skin_but_rain/ | {
"a_id": [
"c3lx4y3"
],
"score": [
6
],
"text": [
"Sweat comes out of glands in your pores. These pores do not go all the way through the skin. Thin of them as little pockets in the skin and one of their jobs is to produce sweat. Water can get into your pores, but it will not go through the skin because the pores do not penetrate the skin. Some water does get absorbed by the skin when you shower, but very little actually gets beyond the skin."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[]
] | ||
aiiin9 | what state of matter is gel/jelly? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/aiiin9/eli5_what_state_of_matter_is_geljelly/ | {
"a_id": [
"eeo0ip8",
"eeo10bq",
"eeo79al"
],
"score": [
10,
9,
3
],
"text": [
"Think of it as a sponge made out of protein, with water suspended in it. The sponge itself is solid, but the water inside it is liquid.",
"Substances like this are sometimes considered semi-solids, that is, having some characteristics of solids and some of liquids, but not fitting wholey into either category. ",
"Some compounds such as creams or mayonnaise are emulsions a liquid in liquid suspensions of two immiscible liquids. \n\n & #x200B;"
]
} | [] | [] | [
[],
[],
[]
] | ||
666yr9 | why is glass (stereotypically or not) used for beakers and vials in chemistry? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/666yr9/eli5_why_is_glass_stereotypically_or_not_used_for/ | {
"a_id": [
"dgg3vto",
"dgg3xsg",
"dgg3y4j",
"dgg49f3"
],
"score": [
4,
2,
2,
2
],
"text": [
"Glass (note that there are a lot of different types, but generally:) can withstand a wide range of temperatures, is largely inert (doesn't react with many compounds), and is relatively cheap.\n\n",
"Glass doesn't react with most of the chemicals used in a \"standard\" high school or university lab. It's also reasonably cheap, melts at much higher temperatures than plastic and is see-through.",
"1. Better resistance to heat\n2. Better resistance to corrosive chemicals\n3. Longer life\n\n",
"In addition to what others have said (non-reactive, heat resistant, etc) glass is relatively easy to form into the myriad of shapes that a chemistry laboratory might require."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[],
[],
[],
[]
] | ||
5g3f5g | why do humans grow a set of milk teeth only to have them fall out and be replaced by a stronger, permanent set for the larger percentage of their life? do any other animals share this trait? why? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5g3f5g/eli5_why_do_humans_grow_a_set_of_milk_teeth_only/ | {
"a_id": [
"dap4wor",
"dap8s05",
"dapcx1z"
],
"score": [
17,
7,
3
],
"text": [
"Many mammals share this trait. If you've ever had a puppy or kitten, you'll have noticed this happen when they're around 4-6 months old.\n\nSome animals, even mammals, handle this slightly differently. For example, a cat's canines start growing *before* the milk ones fall out, so for a while they have *both* adult and baby canines (so they're never without functional canines). \n\nOther animals do *radically* different things. Rodents' teeth, for example, never stop growing. That's why they have to keep gnawing on things. Sharks, on the other hand, have several rows of teeth at a time, that are constantly regrowing and replacing any teeth they lose. Also their teeth aren't made of pup and enamel like our's. ",
"Most mammals share this trait. A large enough percentage that some confuse it as a sign of being a mammal actually. The reason for this is that the skull is not large enough to house the adult teeth in most mammals at birth so they as a species have 3 routes they could take: Grow no teeth till they are closer to fully grown. Grow only one set of teeth and have them locked at the tiny size. Grow multiple sets of teeth. \n\nMammals tend to follow the grow multiple sets of teeth model. Some herbivores can grow up to 10 sets over their lifetime due to wear and tear on their teeth. ",
"Child skulls are smaller. If you kept your baby teeth you'd have huge gaps between your tiny useless teeth in adulthood, so they get replaced with larger ones instead."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[],
[],
[]
] | ||
69km61 | why is fire hot? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/69km61/eli5_why_is_fire_hot/ | {
"a_id": [
"dh7aovw",
"dh7cll3",
"dh7dczk",
"dh7gazk",
"dh7smq4"
],
"score": [
8,
19,
49,
2,
2
],
"text": [
"Fire is an exothermic process. Energy stored in chemical bond is release as kinetic energy and electromagnetic wave. It has a high temperature because the molecule have much kinetic energies when you get in touch with it, this kinetic energy reaches your thermoreceptors through your skin, and we call this feeling \"hot\".",
"**TL;DR**: *Fire's a reaction that takes some stuff that stores some energy and turns it into other stuff that stores less energy, and that extra energy is given off as heat.*\n\nTake a dry stick and look at its history.\n\nHow that stick came to be was there was water and sun and soil and air. The plant that the stick came from took the water and air and some other nutrition from the soil it grew in, and used the sun's energy to convert those ingredients into leaves, green twigs, and eventually, a stick. The energy from the sun got stored into the twig because it needed extra energy to convert the air's carbon dioxide into fibers in its leaves and wood. \n\nAnd that's why most plants that make sticks can't grow in caves or other places where it's dark. They need light as an energy source to take gas and convert it into wood.\n\nNow, burn that stick. If you get part of the stick hot enough and let some oxygen get at it, it breaks back down into other gases like water vapour and carbon dioxide that store less energy than the stick did. That extra energy is given off as heat and light... and you feel that heat too when you put your hands close to it.",
"This is a good question because it actually shows an example where we look at things \"the wrong way\": \n\nIt is not hot because there is fire. There is \"fire\" because it is hot.\n\nWhat do we call \"fire\": If you make things hot, anything really, it starts to glow from a deep red over a brighter red to a bright orange to a bright blue.\n\nIf you look at your cooking plate and you make it hot, that is what you see. There is no light because you have a built-in lamp, but because the plate gets hot like a piece of iron in a fire. If you have a welding torch it gets so hot you start to see the blue colour. \n\nNow if you have a chemical reaction, for example the carbon in wood bonding with the oxygen from the air, it might get so hot that the gasses around and the ash-particles start to be so hot that they begin to glow red and orange. That effect is what we call fire.",
"Heat is vibration: the faster the vibration, the more heat there is. Heat is just our way of sensing vibration. Things burn and are painful when their rate of vibration is too high, meaning it is causing our atoms to vibrate too quickly, resulting in damage.",
"It's an exothermic reaction, one where molecules of different atoms like carbon, hydrogen, and oxygen are re-arranged from a state of higher potential energy, to one of lower potential energy + heat. The heat acts as an activation energy that helps promote the chemical reaction. In other words it's self sustaining. You light a fire and it converts carbon in paper and oxygen in the air into carbon dioxide and carbon monoxide. This conversion creates more heat energy, which keeps the reaction going until all of the fuel is used up. \n\nIf you think about a room full of mouse traps, there is potential energy in a set mouse trap but it can't be triggered by itself. It needs a reaction energy to push it over the edge and allow it to spring. Once it does spring though it releases energy, which helps set off the next mouse trap in a chain reaction, like a flame spreading. Toss a ping pong ball into that room and watch the madness of hundreds of mouse traps going off one after another ensue. Using the same analogy, the sprung traps no longer have as much energy stored in them than the set traps. \n\nPlants use the power of the sun to \"re-arm the mousetrap\" moving it back to a higher energy state, and waiting for the next ping pong ball. Just like a flame providing the energy to convert cellulose in the paper and oxygen in the air into carbon dioxide produces heat to keep the flame going to convert even more cellulose into carbon dioxide and more heat. \n\nThe cellulose has more chemical energy stored in it than the carbon dioxide it forms as it burns. Plants and other photosynthetic life then takes that carbon dioxide and energy it absorbs from sunlight and stores it as sugar and cellulose, storing the energy. When you then burn the plant material you are releasing that stored energy and the process repeats. And the carbon dioxide that results from that reaction has lower chemical energy than the sugars and cellulose did. \n\nPlants turn sunlight energy and carbon dioxide into sugar, wood, and oxygen, sugar and wood get burned and release energy and carbon dioxide, which gets used by the next plant and turned into sugar and wood etc etc etc. "
]
} | [] | [] | [
[],
[],
[],
[],
[]
] | ||
2337zi | what would it take for a major company like bp, bayer, or mcdonald's to disappear? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2337zi/eli5_what_would_it_take_for_a_major_company_like/ | {
"a_id": [
"cgsyf4l",
"cgsyh54",
"cgsyta5"
],
"score": [
2,
6,
4
],
"text": [
"Well, with the McDonalds followup, it would likely depend on which country was effected. Given that it was not the USA that was effected, it would probably survive considering the the force of attraction between the obese individuals of america and their big macs. It would be ironic if India had a massive mad cow desiese breakout though. The facial expression of all of those poor souls who though they weren't eating cow.",
"A company doing \"bad\" things doesn't matter in terms of the health of the company as long as that company is still profitable. Oil companies, for the moment, are scandal-proof because we don't have any other viable options in terms of energy production. The only way BP would ever disappear is if consumers trended towards another product or industry, like what happened with the whaling industry in America after petroleum displaced whale oil.",
"The stock value might plummet, but all their people and physical assets would still be out there, so I agree - you would just see a consolidation... an even bigger conglomerate emerging, probably. Or broken down into smaller businesses.\nIt really depends on how consumer-facing that Company's brand is. Bayer... not so much, so they could just get acquired and repackaged. McDonalds, a lot harder. Their stores are physically unique in design so would be much harder to re-package. Ever seen a repurposed old Pizza Hut building? Still looks like an old PH building.\nBP... gas stations are easy enough to rebrand, and most of their operations take place far away from the public eye. Who would really know if a new owner hung their shingle on a deep-sea drilling platform? ...unless it blew up."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[],
[],
[]
] | ||
tlbhj | why are guys and girls bike seats different? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/tlbhj/eli5_why_are_guys_and_girls_bike_seats_different/ | {
"a_id": [
"c4nl3mr",
"c4nl3sq",
"c4nl6br",
"c4nlemv",
"c4nlmcu"
],
"score": [
12,
2,
2,
4,
6
],
"text": [
"Mr. Rogers said it best:\n\n*Boys are fancy on the outside,*\n\n*Girls are fancy on the inside.*",
"Your crotch is going to be the main area touching the bike seat. That's different for boys and girls, so the bike seats are tailored to each case.",
"I don't know about the seats, but the difference in the top lengthwise bar is different because the lower bar on women's bicycles accomodates skirts and dresses, allowing women to ride \"decently\" in an age where pants were uncommon attire for women. ",
"Because penis & vagina.",
"Bicycle seats are designed to support you at your sit bones (in your pelvis). There shouldn't be any pressure on the crotch area. In fact the front end it the seat is not for support as it is to keep the seat between your legs. \n\n\nFemales have wider hips so the main points of support are located a tad further outwards. Most female bike seats are just wider at the base to accommodate the anatomy.\n\nFeel free to visit /r/bicycle for more explanation. "
]
} | [] | [] | [
[],
[],
[],
[],
[]
] | ||
1k1mvx | why do certain images/photos get octagon shaped lens flare? | [Here](_URL_0_) is an example of what i'm referring to | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1k1mvx/eli5_why_do_certain_imagesphotos_get_octagon/ | {
"a_id": [
"cbkfq8p"
],
"score": [
7
],
"text": [
"That is the shape of the [lens diaphragm](_URL_2_). \n\n[Also seen in out of focus lights](_URL_0_)\n\nYou can also use [fancy shaped apertures](_URL_1_) to produce [interesting effects](_URL_3_)."
]
} | [] | [
"http://www.ghostvillage.com/resources/2006/110920065.jpg"
] | [
[
"http://i249.photobucket.com/albums/gg209/dwsewbiz/Photography/bokeh012.jpg",
"http://www.diyphotography.net/files/images/bokeh_heart.jpg",
"http://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://ih3.redbubble.net/work.5790443.1.mtd,375x360,n,s,NSBCbGFkZSBBcGVydHVyZQ%253D%253D,ffffff.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.... | |
3fpjy0 | why do subjects in pictures look clearer than they do in person? | I'm watching Moving Art on Netflix at the moment. I paused it to to post this ELI5. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3fpjy0/eli5_why_do_subjects_in_pictures_look_clearer/ | {
"a_id": [
"ctrk0ep"
],
"score": [
2
],
"text": [
"Probably because\n\n1. You are seeing very close up shots of the subjects in specific conditions to highlight a lot of detail, which is blown up to a high resolution on a big screen.\n\n2. The human eye can't make out that kind of detail from standing distance, you would have to get right up close to do that with the naked eye, but.\n\n3. The human eye can't focus on objects that are that close to it. When you are close enough to see those kind of details, you won't be able to focus on them.\n\n4. A camera doesn't have those limitations, it can simply zoom in and focus well enough to bring out those details."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[]
] | |
7d90o5 | why is mental health so misunderstood and is not funded as much as other diseases? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/7d90o5/eli5_why_is_mental_health_so_misunderstood_and_is/ | {
"a_id": [
"dpvyr3h",
"dpvyrb1",
"dpvzn3l",
"dpw08t6",
"dpw0ilp",
"dpw0y7e",
"dpw33bv"
],
"score": [
2,
56,
2,
13,
7,
2,
2
],
"text": [
"I think part of it is because it is so ephemeral. You can’t SEE the results, you receive no tangible outcome. If you try to measure it’s effect it may be mild and take years to really have an effect. \n\nThe stigma that only “crazy” people need it keeps many from getting it. ",
"Mental health is not something you can *see*. Humans, historically, have a huge problem with stuff they can't see and understand, so they make up explanations. So \"mental health\" for the longest time was basically explained as stuff like demonic possession, and treated as such. \n\nMany stigmas remain attached to mental illness to this day. \n\nIt's not so much that it's not funded, but those stigmas do deter a lot of people from taking them seriously, or even trying to understand them. ",
"There are a huge assortment of reasons for the poor conditions of our mental healthcare system. A largely ignored issue that decreases alot of the research available outside of the chem lab and in the real world comes from many mentally ill people getting frustrated by their situation and bouncing from doctor to doctor and treatment to treatment. The fact that choosing a prescription for a patient with a mental illness is often times a crapshoot. Patients can be offered any number of different drugs that may treat their illness, sticking with antidepressants for simplicity, these drugs must build up in your system over time often up to 3 months before being able to even find out if they might work or not.\nso after 6 months of dealing with your illness you get fed up and irrational about your doctor and the pills that don't work anyways. you stop going to the doctor and taking the pills. Now after some length of time you find a new doctor who basically has to start from scratch all over again. This cycle can go on for years even decades. \nThen add in the crapshoot that getting an actual accurate diagnosis for mental illness can often times take years. So you can also be dealing with incorrect meds prescribed to you. The incorrect meds for the incorrect diagnosis does nothing or even makes you worse skewing the track record of that particular drug.\nNow keep in mind the point of medical in general is to make money. You have to be realistic to the fact that a large portion of the medical population enters the field because of the substantial profits available. Far too few people enters the medical field simply out of compassion or a wish to be useful and better the lives of other people.\nSo if you were a drug manufacturer do you spend time resources and money trying to create a new drug that could possibly take the edge off of depression caused by only one of the many causes of said depression. Or do you just keep making dick pills and racking in profits?\n",
"Mental health psychology is a newer field of science and medicine being only a few hundred years old. Sure, you might be able to find some rando group of people in history that consider mental health important, but as far as a bonafide field of science: nah. \nOn top of being a new science, the brain is so complex we cave a good understanding of what it all does but not a complete understanding. \nAnd like others have said, you can’t see mental health. If someone is depressed it’s easy to say, “yo get your ass out the bed.” If someone’s leg is glowing yellow and bent in several directions it’s like, “let’s get you to the hospital and throw some money at that shit and find out what it is... I’ll call Uber cuz I don’t want you in my car.” ",
"Bachelors in Psychology here (so take my advice both slightly more seriously than others' and simultaneously with a grain of salt).\n\nMental health is on a steeper gradient than most physical illnesses. If you have all of the flu symptoms, you generally have the flu (bacterial mutations notwithstanding). Just because you may be sad or unmotivated (two symptoms of depression) does not mean you have clinical depression.\n\nSimilarly, when you compare physical illnesses to each other, they vary slightly less than do mental health problems. For example, using the same flu analogy, if someone has flu symptoms, their body can only deal with it in so many ways. It coughs, it sneezes, and it sniffles its way back to healthiness. Once your symptoms are gone, it is generally understood that you no longer have the flu (again, this is an example, please do not read too much into the specifics of these analogies). On the other hand, you can deal with mental health issues in a number of ways: if you have depression, you can cope and still be functional, even if you are depressed constantly. There are definitely greater gradients that exist in the mental health world because you can be drastically depressed with good coping mechanisms or you can be lightly depressed with poor coping mechanisms, both situations resulting in very different outcomes for the patients.\n\nI hope I explained this with the right amount of ambiguity because there are *many* other factors at play. The flu/depression analogy may not be the most relevant or ideal, but I think it covers the idea that there are certain differences between physical and mental health illnesses that make mental health illnesses both harder to diagnose and also easier to hide.\n\nThe final point is that physical illnesses are *usually* more life threatening and therefore illicit more news coverage, media response, and funding in the medical sector. \"You have depression? Yeah, just deal with it. This guy has cancer and only has days to live without chemo!\"\n\nThat about wraps it up, feel free to ask for more clarification.",
"It's less of a science; broken bone? Pretty straight forward. Some sort of mental health issue? Unclear what's wrong, unclear what to even do. \n\nSo relatively speaking because it's more complicated it's lagging behind and doesnt have great acceptance still today. So there's stigma on mental health; which means who wants to go be that mental health professional?\n\nSo you end up getting lower amounts of people going into those jobs. So now if we did suddenly heavily fund mental health. The demand on limited resources would be impossible to handle.",
"Because mental illness has negative impacts on more than just the people who have it, which leads to more animosity and less sympathy towards those who have it. If cancer made you aggressive towards other people, or heart disease made you smell terrible, there'd be less people caring about curing it."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[]
] | ||
1u3af9 | what is that hiccup like thing i feel after eating a big meal? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1u3af9/eli5_what_is_that_hiccup_like_thing_i_feel_after/ | {
"a_id": [
"cee38dt",
"cee55by"
],
"score": [
18,
2
],
"text": [
"Irritation of your diaphragm, which is a muscle under your lungs that allows a good ventilation (by allowing your lungs to expand when inhaling and decrease when exhaling), is a known cause of hiccups. After a big meal, your stomach is full and may irritate your diaphragm. Ingestion of air may also be a factor.\n",
"The \"hiccup thing\" you feel after eating a big meal really is the hiccups. Only it's not exactly from eating a big meal, it's from eating a big meal very fast.\n\nYou ate too fast, and the food you ingested didn't have time to make it's way all the way down your esophagus before you tried to eat more food, so it's packing up in a traffic jam in your esophagus. This resulted in some combination of air in the stomach, diaphragm irritation, and vagus/phrenic nerve irritation. (Mostly likely the latter.)\n\nI'd be willing to venture if you just eat a little slower you won't experience this problem. So just stop stuffing your gob quite so aggressively."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[],
[]
] | ||
2rm4o6 | why is it illegal to bring a beverage onto a plane yet the stewards/stewardesses are allowed to give/sell them once airborne? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2rm4o6/eli5_why_is_it_illegal_to_bring_a_beverage_onto_a/ | {
"a_id": [
"cnh4l2c",
"cnh4l7t"
],
"score": [
2,
2
],
"text": [
"They know where the drinks they sell you came from. Helps prevent someone from bringing a bottle full of acid, poison or explosives on to the plane.",
"It's their plane, they can set the rules for who is allowed to bring what onto the plane.\n\nJust like allowing patrons to bring their own open containers into a restaurant can cause problems with their liquor license, planes are much the same way."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[],
[]
] | ||
49qe8d | why, in the us, is corn used to produce ethanol and sweetening products as opposed to sugar beets? | As I understand it sugar beets are similar or superior to sugar cane in terms of efficiency of sugar production. Why are beets the drivers of the US's rather large refined sugar production but only nominally used in the production of ethanol and food additives? I keep hearing sugar from corn is energy neutral or negative and propped up by gov't subsidies. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/49qe8d/eli5_why_in_the_us_is_corn_used_to_produce/ | {
"a_id": [
"d0tzncg"
],
"score": [
3
],
"text": [
"Due to corn subsidies (i.e. the government pays farmers to produce excess corn) and cane sugar tariffs, dent corn is by far the cheapest material available to convert to food additives and ethanol. The Energy Neutral argument for corn-based ethanol is flawed as corn production requires inputs like petroleum-based fertilizer, pesticides and ammonia."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[]
] | |
1tvwzu | why "crazy people" have that distinctive look to their eyes | Whenever you meet / see someone with their eyes "wide open" all the time - meaning, you can see the whites of their eyes around the entire perimeter of the iris, it's virtually a guarantee that they are severely mentally unstable. The Sandy Hook and Aurora shooters are very obvious recent examples of this, but it occurs frequently enough in the news and in real life that I can't help but notice the pattern. So, what is going on there?
Edit: Pretty happy with the response dat_joke offered. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1tvwzu/eli5why_crazy_people_have_that_distinctive_look/ | {
"a_id": [
"cebyplv",
"cebzakr",
"cebzrev",
"cec0boe",
"cec0bu7",
"cec15qr",
"cec1j5l",
"cec2e9y",
"cec37s2",
"cec8k1o",
"cec9hdu",
"ceca7sn",
"cecadrb",
"cecc0vx",
"cecflmd"
],
"score": [
120,
87,
20,
12,
723,
9,
7,
6,
3,
5,
3,
4,
4,
3,
8
],
"text": [
"People with schizophrenia process the visual world qualitatively differently. Often, they are unable to focus on features, and many do not have stable gaze patterns. For example, they would be unable to follow a cursor with their eyes smoothly; their pupils track objects in a herky jerky pattern. The \"crazy eyes\" are apparent to us because these people are seeing the world differently from 95% of the rest of folks we see.\n\nEdit: Added source of original finding.\nHolzman, Proctor, & Hughes (1973). Eye-tracking patterns in schizophrenia. Science, 181(4095), 179-181.",
"I think this might be a better question for /r/askscience. You're going to get a lot of unevidenced, personal opinions on this one.",
"I am not sure you could be so certain people are crazy because of their eyes",
" > Whenever you meet / see someone with their eyes \"wide open\" all the time - meaning, you can see the whites of their eyes around the entire perimeter of the iris, it's virtually a guarantee that they are severely mentally unstable.\n\nUm, what? I live with a serious mental illness. I've spent enough time in and out of mental hospitals over the last 13 years or so to have seen people far, far crazier than I was when I was highly symptomatic. I went and asked others who know me well and they never noticed a \"crazy look\" in my eyes. They noticed my odd behavior, but never \"crazy eyes\".\n\nI've never noticed a \"crazy look\" in highly symptomatic mentally ill peoples' eyes before. I have a lot of experience in this, mind you. I've seen them quite distracted, sometimes paying more attention to a visual hallucination than to me, but it didn't look crazy; it just looked as though they were paying closer attention to something else.\n\nI've been right up close with some incredibly fucking crazy, highly symptomatic mentally ill people before and I've never noticed this crazy look you mention. I've had very ill schizophrenic room mates in hospitals and I never saw their eyes going crazy.\n\n > The Sandy Hook and Aurora shooters are very obvious recent examples of this, but it occurs frequently enough in the news and in real life that I can't help but notice the pattern. So, what is going on there?\n\nDo you have any examples of this crazy look you speak of that we can look at? Preferably more than just a handful of examples to show that this happens as frequently as you claim? Also, do you know for certain and can you provide information to show that all of the examples of crazy-eyed people have indeed been diagnosed as having a mental illness of some kind?\n\nI'm not denying that highly disturbed people experiencing a traumatic psychological crisis may possibly have a wild look in their eyes, but from the way you've phrased things it appears that you believe all mentally ill people have this crazy-eyed thing going on, which just doesn't fit with my life experience. Ever see footage of people who aren't mentally ill who've just been involved in a life-threatening, very traumatic incident? I've seen those people have crazed eyes.\n\nThe only real explanation I can give is that if a schizophrenic is experiencing visual hallucinations his gaze may be directed towards the hallucination and not the people and things that are actually there in front of him. That sort of thing can happen when you full-on see things that aren't actually there.\n\nPlease let me know if I've misunderstood anything you've written.",
"In many psychotic individuals, the wide eyed look is because of their intense anxiety levels. It's more than just the eyes though. In someone psychotically agitated, you'll see facial grimacing and body postures indicating stress or aggression as well.\n\nThe scariest patients are the ones that have a flat affect, meaning they just have a blank stare all the time. Though many of them are lost in their own world and harmless, some are not. They are concerning because i can't judge their propensity towards violence at any given time.\n\nSource: IAMA Psychiatric RN",
"that is the look of total dedication",
"I forget where but I read the Japanese have a saying like, 'three whites of the eyes' that meant a person showing white on the sides and below the iris is crazy or possessed or something. And if you look at pix of many well known major-crazy killers and such...there it is.",
"I have a brother with mild autism and sometimes he gets a strange look when he talks to me. Its not wide-eyed or shifty, but looks as though he's looking through me and not at me.",
"We know that a person's eyes can reveal certain types of emotions. For example, your pupils will widen when you look at someone you love. That's why attraction is so hard to hide. I've spent the past few decades observing people's eyes to see if they reveal other secrets as well. One thing stands out. \n\nI have a hypothesis that you can detect in a person's eyes when they have a preference for imagination over direct observation. Let's call that look Crazy Eyes because it can be unsettling to the third-party observer. With Crazy Eyes, I think the brain is accessing the imagination instead of the rational part of the brain, and it causes the eyes to have a sort of glassy, unblinking, dreamy, scary look. At least that's how it looks to me.\n\nI was noticing this again recently as I watched a news program about religious activists who were organizing their lives around a worldview that needs to be imagined because it can't be directly observed. Their eyes had a spooky, dreamy look when they spoke of their plans, as if they were accessing their imaginations instead of whatever part of the brain does math. I'm not saying their worldview is wrong. I'm only saying that objective evidence in support of their worldview can't be directly observed, so imagination necessarily has an important role in their daily lives, and their eyes showed it. They had Crazy Eyes. \n\nSuppose you did a study where you took one group of religious people and one group of skeptics and filmed each of them speaking about whatever is important to them. Then you cropped out everything but the eyes and showed the films to a group of volunteer subjects. Could the volunteers distinguish the skeptics from the believers just by their eyes? I think they could, at least more than chance would predict.\n\nI thought of this topic because the other day while working out in the gym I was having an exceptionally good hypomanic creative flood. It was wonderful. One good idea after another was popping into my head. I stopped to use the restroom, and when I was washing my hands I looked in the mirror and noticed that I had Crazy Eyes. I was so deep in my imagination that my eyes looked different even to me. It was jarring.\n\n_URL_0_",
" > it's virtually a guarantee that they are severely mentally unstable\n\nThis is an awfully incorrect statement. Not only is it not a guarantee, but I doubt there's enough evidence to even consider it as an indication of mental health. Secondly, associating mental disease with violent behavior is a huge myth. Most mentally ill people don't exhibit violent behavior. It's scary for a violent person to be mentally ill because they might not have any control over their violence. But mentally ill people are no more violent than those that are healthy.",
"A lot of the time specific \"looks\" which make you think of someone in a particular way are due to the whites of the eyes and the appearance of the eyes. Humans have more whites to their eyes than any other mammal because it helps us to empathize and to judge mood without having to ask them.\nSo, when a great deal of white to someones' eyes are showing, it usually unnerves other people due to the fact that the \"wide eyed\" look implies that they are shocked, upset, or otherwise \"riled up\" and have a great deal of adrenaline in their systems. Sooo, you percieve these eyes as abnormal or \"crazy\" due to the fact that they show a great deal of anxiety very clearly.",
"eh....when it comes to these killers, think about the fact that WHEN THEY CAN, the authorities are going to pick and choose what pictures to release. Every now and then the media will get their hands on other pictures, but generally speaking the pics come from LE and their pics are going to show the villain in a bad light.",
"As you can gather from the replies, it's a few things, but I think the simplest and best explanation is mania. They're in a hyperactive state.",
"Wow, I have a customer that comes into my job and he always freaks me out. His eyes are always open really wide. One second he will be smiling and the next second he will be serious and just stare at me. I can never hold eye contact with him cuz I cant read his face and his eyes make me feel like im looking into something evil! Its hard to explain but a few coworkers have felt the same",
"A big part of it has to do with something called [Binocular Disparity](_URL_0_). Which is the difference is the distance seen with each eye, This is very common in people with schizophrenia and shows us that something deeper inside the brain is not using visual cues properly.\n\n(Not so much for 5 yr olds)\n Things we take for granted such as shadows, motion blur, expectation that faces are convex not concave, parallax of known objects (E.g. is it picture of something with the camera really close, Or is it a picture with the camera very far away but zoomed in a shit load)\n\nShadow edge blurring of not quite point source lighting such as the sun (look at the shadow of a small tree, the shadow of the base has a very clean edge. The shadow of the top is pretty clean, You can see the individual leaves. Now look at a giant tree, the canopies shadow is all just a blurred silhouette)\n\nThese all add up (and many many more) to meaning that the relaxed way we look at the world still gives us pretty much all the information we need to know about what and where everything is in front of us with minimum effort, This is far from true for schizophrenics. Bad visual cues or lack of them mean that they may even have trouble keeping their eyes focused at the right distance or Pointing both in the right direction at a close object. Or even recognise a simple object subconsciously meaning mundane things will take them by surprise before they have to consciously realise they are not a threat."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[
"http://www.dilbert.com/blog/entry/crazy_eyes/"
],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[
"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Binocular_disparity"
]
] | |
51bbia | where does kinetic energy go after being absorbs by an object? | Exampel: If i were to punch a pillow i would need to use some of my energy for my hand/arm to gain momentum. The kinetic energy which i now have in my arm would then get transferd to the pillow and then what?
The energy is not stored and its not transferd to a diffrent kind of energy. So where does it go? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/51bbia/eli5_where_does_kinetic_energy_go_after_being/ | {
"a_id": [
"d7aneut"
],
"score": [
6
],
"text": [
"The ELI5 answer: It gets transfered into a different kind of energy, namely heat.\n\"But the pillow doesn't get warm\", you might say. Well, it's because it takes _a lot_ of energy to heat something up.\n\nLet's do some math, but since a pillow is a difficult object to work with, so I'm going to go all physics-teacher on you, and change everything... :)\n\nLets say you drop an iron ball wall weighing 1Kg (2.2lbs) from a height of 1 meter (~3ft) onto a bladder filled with 1 liter (0.26gallon) of water.\n\nNow, the potential energy of the iron ball (before it's dropped) is 1 * 9.82 * 1 (U=m * g * h), i.e, 9.82 Joules.\n\nA \"Calorie\" (yep, same one as in food) is a measure of energy as well, namely the amount of energy to raise one gram of water 1 degree C. Since we need to heat 1 liter, we'll need 1000 calories to heat our bladder 1 degree C.\n\nHow much energy is a calorie then?\nWell, one calorie is 4.184 joules.\n\nSo, how hot will the water get?\n\n9.82/4.182/1000 = 0.00234 degrees C hotter"
]
} | [] | [] | [
[]
] | |
48lzed | why is it that some people, including myself, tend to have these life changing and existential thoughts at night? | Like "I'm totally going to ask her out tomorrow" or "I'll start acting a certain way tomorrow". But then you never actually go through with it because that's all it was, just you thinking. Why does this happen at night especially when trying to sleep? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/48lzed/eli5_why_is_it_that_some_people_including_myself/ | {
"a_id": [
"d0kmmq6",
"d0kvzco",
"d0l32n2"
],
"score": [
4,
4,
3
],
"text": [
"I'd say that when you're alone, you typically just get more time to think. Lot's of time spent playing the what if game in your own head. It's hard for me to imagine a real science behind it.",
"Imagine you are a blind person in a room. You may think the room is really large, so you start walking in a general direction. Before you expect it, you hit a wall. You turn around and hit another wall. Ahh, the room is smaller than you thought.\n\nNow you take all the walls away. You can walk as far as you want, as long as you want and never hit a wall. You can imagine that the room is an octagon, or the room is a triangle all because there are no walls to constrain your view of reality.\n\nThis is what's happening at night. Your mind is not constrained by the days events anymore. So it is able to free associate much more readily because there are no constraints to its view. It's not worried about traffic or picking up your kids. Also the night provides few distractions.",
"Your brain sets aside time while you are sleeping to go through information and organize itself. This process is referred to as *Memory Consolidation*. For instance the phrase *\"I don't remember... I've slept since then\"* means your brain consolidated the information and left bits out. In small terms, It's like your computer updating when you go to restart it and getting rid of unnecessary data. \n\nIf your thoughts are rushing at night before bed, it usually means one of two things. \n\n**Either A**: You have stress about something you should either take care of or can't quite remember. \n\n**Or B**: You've stayed awake into your regular sleep schedule and are actually awake during the time your brain normally sorts information.\n\nEither way to ease these thoughts I would start practicing \"Sleep Hygiene \". \n\n**Some quick tips: 1**. Develop a pre-bedtime ritual that is relaxing. From *10-30* minutes. This will allow your body to relax and once it's a habit will trigger your body to get ready for bedtime. \n\n**Tip 2**: Avoid entertainment in the bedroom if possible. Sleeping quarters should be simply for sleep and sex. TV and gaming can be distracting and your mind will associate your bedroom with the distractions. \n\n**Tip 3**: Make a list. If you have trouble with repeating thoughts or just can't get thoughts out of your head, then write it down! Sometimes your brain is stressed about remembering something and when you write it down you no longer have to worry. It's amazing how well this can help. \n\n**Tip 4**: Avoid caffeine after 2 p.m. Caffeine doesn't spend entirely too much time in your body and you can usually feel a crash after a few hours. However, the caffeine's effects on your body can continue to stimulate your mind hours after consumption.\n\n**Tip 5** Make your bed in the morning, and make it right. Some days are just bad, it's a given. However when you start the day with making your bed, you're are starting the day with a small accomplishment. This will cause you to want to accomplish more that day. Plus, on the chance that you have a bad day you will come home to a crisp made bed. \n\nI hope this post helps answer the questions provided and the sleep hygiene tips could benefit someone. Source: Military Behavioral Health Tech, taught weekly sleep hygiene course. \n\nEdit: Keep in *mind* it's not always a bad thing. Sometimes it's just your brain's moment to itself. "
]
} | [] | [] | [
[],
[],
[]
] | |
9srtzh | why would filing nails make them stronger? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/9srtzh/eli5_why_would_filing_nails_make_them_stronger/ | {
"a_id": [
"e8qybl0"
],
"score": [
2
],
"text": [
"Do you mean human nails or metal nails? "
]
} | [] | [] | [
[]
] | ||
4eik0w | why do people no longer smoke opium as much as they did 100 years ago? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4eik0w/eli5_why_do_people_no_longer_smoke_opium_as_much/ | {
"a_id": [
"d20ffvv",
"d20fl06",
"d20hpph",
"d20i64i"
],
"score": [
7,
9,
3,
6
],
"text": [
"Because we have plenty other drugs now. Some of them are derived for opium. \n\nAlso the war on drugs. ",
"In short: because opium has been distilled into more potent forms.\n\nThe long answer is the history of opiates, from which opium is a relative. This lead us to the drugs we have today that are related to opium such as: Heroin, Morphine, Codine, and Oxycontin. All of which are highly addictive and are regularly abused. Much like opium was 100 years ago.",
"People still smoke it in Afghanistan, other parts of Central Asia, and Southeast Asia as well",
"Smoking opium is tricky. To smoke it properly takes an old-fashioned Chinese or Persian opium pipe, and the knowledge of how to use it. It has to be prepared carefully and slowly. Without opium dens around, it's much harder for people to find that knowledge, and the equipment (pipe, tools, lamp, etc.) is hard to find as well.\n\nOutlawing opium smoking gave rise to the recreational use of stronger drugs derived from opium. Opium derivatives are much easier to smuggle, and in many cases are available as pills/pharmaceuticals. This makes them much more prevalent than pure opium today. The slow-paced and un-stealthy nature of smoking opium makes it difficult to fit into a busy schedule, and keep hidden from others. \n\nSome people prefer to get as high as they possibly can, having used stronger opiates. Smoking opium can provide a strong high with a dosage that plateaus at a certain point, so a life-long smoker doesn't need to increase her dose. However, if you've used other, stronger opium derivatives, this makes smoking opium initially a mediocre experience by comparison, especially since the process and tools for smoking opium properly (and getting the full effect) aren't likely at hand."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[],
[],
[],
[]
] | ||
c49bi4 | how did society’s typical standard for attractiveness come to mean “fit” body attributes, such as toned abs, strong jawline, larger chest, etc.? | [deleted] | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/c49bi4/eli5_how_did_societys_typical_standard_for/ | {
"a_id": [
"ervgj8z",
"ervgoox"
],
"score": [
14,
12
],
"text": [
"It's not just society, there are some instincts at work. People are attracted to potential mates who signs of excellent health, because they tend to produce healthy offspring.",
"Evolution, having a body that fits traits that are ‘healthy’ are considered attractive as from a reproductive aspect you will have the traits that are desirable to pass on, hence why you are seen as attractive with these traits"
]
} | [] | [] | [
[],
[]
] | |
umz60 | the venus transit on jun. 5th-6th | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/umz60/eli5_the_venus_transit_on_jun_5th6th/ | {
"a_id": [
"c4ws31e",
"c4wsfqq"
],
"score": [
4,
4
],
"text": [
"The orbit of Venus lines up just perfectly between the sun and the earth. So you will be able to see a little dark dot moving across the sun (do NOT look at the sun directly) it takes about 7 hours to complete.",
"It is kind of like an eclipse, but with Venus passing in front of the sun.\n\nIt only happens about twice a century, so it is kind of a big deal. "
]
} | [] | [] | [
[],
[]
] | ||
4n8nmt | what was the great arab revolution, and what is its significance? | This question came to mind when I read this [article](_URL_0_) about Jordan celebrating the 100th anniversary of the GAR. I didn't find any news about celebration for other countries, though. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4n8nmt/eli5_what_was_the_great_arab_revolution_and_what/ | {
"a_id": [
"d41rfgb"
],
"score": [
7
],
"text": [
"For centuries, the area that we know today as the Middle East was controlled by the Ottoman Empire, which was based in Turkey. During WWI, the Ottoman Empire fought on the side of the Germans. To hurt the Ottomans, the Allies, especially Britain, encouraged the Arabs to revolt and gain their independence. When WWI ended, the Ottoman Empire collapsed and parts of the Middle East became free for the first time in centuries. "
]
} | [] | [
"http://www.businessinsider.com/ap-jordan-marks-great-arab-revolt-centennial-with-parade-2016-6?IR=T&r=US&IR=T"
] | [
[]
] | |
5q1dsi | why is the night sky more clear after it rains? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5q1dsi/eli5why_is_the_night_sky_more_clear_after_it_rains/ | {
"a_id": [
"dcvlbm5"
],
"score": [
4
],
"text": [
"The air is full of dust, pollen, dander, debris and dirt kicked up from the ground, haze from automobile exhaust, smoke, and factories, and the rain wipes it all clean as it falls the same way it washes your dishes. Dirt and debris cling to the drops and it delivers them to the ground clearing the air as it falls. "
]
} | [] | [] | [
[]
] | ||
c220el | what's the big deal with people being against genetically modified porn / soy beans ? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/c220el/eli5_whats_the_big_deal_with_people_being_against/ | {
"a_id": [
"ergznzj"
],
"score": [
4
],
"text": [
"Genetically modified porn? You’re going to have to explain to me about that."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[]
] | ||
btgmzn | how exactly do faucets work? they look like saxophones so how does water go up the pipes? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/btgmzn/eli5_how_exactly_do_faucets_work_they_look_like/ | {
"a_id": [
"eoxj86s",
"eozna54"
],
"score": [
5,
2
],
"text": [
"Water pressure: either from a pump or water tower creates pressure and makes water come out the faucet",
"Try sucking up a bit of water. Then bend a straw like that faucet and blow that water through from the bottom. That's how. lol"
]
} | [] | [] | [
[],
[]
] | ||
3czkpr | laws on unclaimed islands | If some people move to a newly formed volcanic island in the middle of the ocean, and one person murders another, do they get arrested and punished?
What governs laws on unclaimed islands? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3czkpr/eli5_laws_on_unclaimed_islands/ | {
"a_id": [
"ct0fd2a"
],
"score": [
2
],
"text": [
"If you did manage to find a new island that was completely unclaimed for whatever reason, and someone managed to find out about it - I think you would probably be tried under [Universal Jurisdiction](_URL_0_). \n\n > Universal jurisdiction allows states or international organizations to claim criminal jurisdiction over an accused person regardless of where the alleged crime was committed, and regardless of the accused's nationality, country of residence, or any other relation with the prosecuting entity. Crimes prosecuted under universal jurisdiction are considered crimes against all, too serious to tolerate jurisdictional arbitrage.\n\nBut that being said, I doubt you'd find an area of land that doesn't fall within a territory or economic zone or whatever. "
]
} | [] | [] | [
[
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Universal_jurisdiction"
]
] | |
4vfqok | how redundant is "the cloud"/google drive and how do they make sure i never lose my data? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4vfqok/eli5_how_redundant_is_the_cloudgoogle_drive_and/ | {
"a_id": [
"d5y095n",
"d5y1yqt",
"d5y4ono",
"d5yrb20"
],
"score": [
2,
12,
2,
2
],
"text": [
"Companies (Google, Amazon, Microsoft, etc) store multiple copies of your data. \n\nFor business customers, a contract will specify redundancy.\n\nFurther reading on Google specifically,\n_URL_0_",
"Quite redundant, however they use enterprise methods that are quite fancy.\n\nThe main thing that they use is what is known as a RAID array. Long story short, when you have many hard drives, you can use fancy algorithms to have different levels of redundancy vs storage. For example, if you have 6 identical drives, you can use RAID 5, which allows for you to have a redundancy of one and the storage of 5 drives, meaning that one drive can die and the data can be reconstructed using the data from all the other disks. However the industry uses more advanced methods, mainly RAID 6 and variants of it, which allow for the storage of N - 2 disks while allowing for up to 2 disks to fail. Beside that, they have a massive stockpile of fresh drives which they get for dirt cheap since they buy a ton at once, and any time a new drive is needed, the servers are specifically made to just have them swap out by opening a drawer containing it, removing the old drive and putting in the new one.\n\nBeside that, there are multiple servers in multiple locations housing the data, backups are often made.",
"Google is ludicrously backed up, beyond all reasonable levels. There's reasonable evidence (based on the amount of cold storage they buy every year, which is a huge slice of global annual production) that they are maintaining backups of *everything* they have access to (including every webpage they've ever indexed, for example). Losing data isn't a thing that they're going to do. ",
"I host a cloud (OwnCloud) on a server in my basement. The disks (8 drives) are all redundant. Meaning if one fails, it has a copy of its data spread out over the remaining drives. It is also backed up nightly to ANOTHER redundant disk array (RAID: Redundant Array of Inexpensive Disks) and that is backed up weekly to a single high capacity master thats only function is storing the weekly back up data (biweekly that is stored up to my google drive in case of disaster). I could, potentially, have three disks fail and not lose everything locally. Enterprise level servers, such as the HP DL380's and DL360's in my basement, warn about potential disk failure, usually well before anything happens so the disks can be replaced while they are still viable. Think of the low gas light in your car. You can still drive for a while with it on, but you should stop and get more gas soon. \n\nELI5 answer:\nBasically, everything is incredibly redundant and spread out. The old adage of not having all of your eggs in one basket is exactly how it works. "
]
} | [] | [] | [
[
"http://googleforwork.blogspot.com/2010/03/disaster-recovery-by-google.html?m=1"
],
[],
[],
[]
] | ||
1xc8kd | in prehistoric times, why didn't insects evolve to become much larger? | as I understand dinosaurs, the reason they got so large was elevated Oxygen levels in their environment. Insects have been around just as long (longer?) and also breathe air, so why didn't they experience similar Godzilla effects? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1xc8kd/eli5_in_prehistoric_times_why_didnt_insects/ | {
"a_id": [
"cfa151e",
"cfa16w3",
"cfa1c9j",
"cfa1ejk"
],
"score": [
6,
5,
3,
3
],
"text": [
"they did _URL_0_",
"Insects were actually a lot bigger during the dinosaur era. For instance, there was a Giant Dragonfly that was approximately the size of a large seagull in wingspan, there was a Giant Centipede that was more than 8 feet long and 3 feet wide.\n\nTo answer your question: they did. ",
"It's actually not thought that oxygen concentration played a role in the evolution of the dinosaurs' size. While in theory the bigger an organism is, the more oxygen it requires, we haven't really been able to find any organisms where the limiting factor in their size is the oxygen concentration of the air. As other commenters have pointed out, there used to be bigger insects. However the insects that we currently have aren't being kept at their small size because of the amount of oxygen in the air. There are both advantages and disadvantages to being big, so it's not a given that things will always evolve to be as big as allowed by their environment.",
"thanks everyone for your replies. You've opened my eyes to an area of prehistoric evolution I was previously unaware of. Cheers!"
]
} | [] | [] | [
[
"http://listverse.com/2013/01/14/10-prehistoric-bugs-that-could-seriously-mess-you-up/"
],
[],
[],
[]
] | |
4gyl2u | why are gifs categorized as images and not videos? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4gyl2u/eli5_why_are_gifs_categorized_as_images_and_not/ | {
"a_id": [
"d2lvp1l",
"d2lw85u"
],
"score": [
2,
4
],
"text": [
"Wikipedia: The Graphics Interchange Format (better known by its acronym GIF) is a bitmap image format. Thus it applies to both still and animated images composed of still images. \n\nSo if one wanted a low memory image of their flat color logo for their web site and were not so picky as the color accuracy they would use a GIF, otherwise they would use a jpeg or other web compatible image format that would need more memory to load.",
"GIF is fundamentally an image format. It does the capability of having animations, but it was only intended for small animations a few frames long.\n\nBut people started using this animation feature for videos. The problem is GIF is massively inefficient for video as each frame is stored as a separate image. Where as proper video formats tend to work by storing only the changes between frames. So videos encoded as a GIF are way larger than the equivalent video encoded with a proper format.\n\nI really wish people would stop using GIFs as videos. Change is coming as there are now proper video formats designed to be used in the way people use animated GIFs (i.e. they can be directly embedded into a page, auto play, etc). But it will take time for people to switch over to browsers which have built in support for them."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[],
[]
] | ||
puni9 | the palme affair/ cia leak scandal | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/puni9/eli5_the_palme_affair_cia_leak_scandal/ | {
"a_id": [
"c3sfjfj",
"c3shnnb"
],
"score": [
6,
2
],
"text": [
"Valerie Plame and her husband both worked for the government, he as an ambassador, she as a secret agent. When her husband wrote a series of op-eds for the NYT about how the claim that Iraq was buying nuke material from Niger (a major part of the reason they went in looking for weapons of mass destruction in 2003) was bullshit, the administration was angry and an official, Scooter Libby (yes, that's what he's called), released the identity of Valerie Plame ( an undercover agent) as revenge for the husband's actions. Scooter was arrested and sentenced to 30 months in jail but G.W. Bush commuted it so he didn't actually serve any time. ",
"**Like you're five:**\n\nYour little sister is telling lies to your daddy, and you know it.\n\nSo, you tell your mommy that your little sister's boyfriend takes drugs and steals money."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[],
[]
] | ||
8vtghl | why do stairs always exhaust me so easily if i’m in pretty good shape? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/8vtghl/eli5_why_do_stairs_always_exhaust_me_so_easily_if/ | {
"a_id": [
"e1q3ifx",
"e1q3ol9",
"e1q5syz",
"e1q76br",
"e1q86oc",
"e1q8lfj",
"e1q964r",
"e1q9zv7",
"e1qawa9",
"e1qbc8r",
"e1qc9v4",
"e1qcdtp",
"e1qcshz",
"e1qggs8",
"e1qj09y",
"e1qjtw1",
"e1ql4v9",
"e1qmt7z",
"e1qnzcv",
"e1qpccv",
"e1qqyr8",
"e1qrquw",
"e1qs4wl",
"e1qs7sf",
"e1qtx6b",
"e1qvngl"
],
"score": [
36,
17,
2,
1904,
63,
60,
366,
2,
5,
36,
107,
6,
24,
5,
3,
2,
2,
3,
2,
2,
4,
2,
5,
2,
5,
2
],
"text": [
"You might not have strong muscles for stairs. If you worked out your legs more, things such as squats, deadlifts, you would easily be able to climb stairs without issue.",
"You may be in shape from a BMI and even an endurance level, but your muscles may not be strong enough to endure a sprinting-like motion of stairs. \n\nRecommend squats and sprints and you’ll be fine. ",
"In addition to what others have said regarding lack of muscles: Maybe you also lack technique. Just like running is more than a combination of endurance and leg muscles, efficient stair running/walking also requires proper technique. If you are really keen on it you could train stair runs/intervals, they are great fun and very effective.",
"You need to output a lot of energy, more than you might realize, compared to walking a similar speed on flat ground.\n\nWhen walking, it takes energy to get your body moving. But the only thing holding you back afterwards is inefficiency in moving your own bones/muscles. Think of how easy it is to get a bike moving on a flat surface, then glide without pedaling very much. Or how efficient trains are, which can maintain momentum instead of needing to start/stop wastefully. \n\nEach stair you climb requires enough energy to move your body mass that distance *directly against the force of gravity*. There is no equivalent force *directly* opposing your movement while walking/jogging on a flat surface. ",
"In addition to what others have said about different muscles, and technique, it could be environmental. I gave up stairclimbing in one building because the ventilation was so poor, and a few (seriously fit) colleagues had done the same.",
"i used to do the stairmaster at highest setting for 45 mins a day 5x a week. Fat fucking fell off. I was 6'5\" 250 12% bfat and the 5 flights I had to take at work STILL made me breath heavy once I got to the top. ",
"Stairs are a deceptive amount of work, especially if are a larger person. You are lifting your entire body weight 8-10 feet upwards, using just one leg at a time. That will usually put you into the anaerobic range, so even if you can run a mile, stairs still ming leave you a little out of breath.\n\nThere is also a psychological aspect. When you work out, you expect to breath hard and sweat. But when you are just walking around, you don't expect to tire like that, so it is more noticeable.\n",
"I mean... Is this a specific set of stairs? Try outside stairs, stair machine at the gym and a control stairs to whatever stairs makes you winded, could be a low oxygen pocket or some kind of chemical leak. Otherwise I would stop by the doctor to rule out some kind of infection or whatever. Just thinking outside the box for ya",
"When you walk up the stairs in general day to day you probably don't take deep breathes initially like you do exercising. So as you climb you start getting out of breath and only then do you start to breath harder so you feel like you are not as fit when its likely just your breathing.\n\nWhen you exercise you generally prepare yourself from the start.",
"Some mountain biking tips I read long ago mentioned increasing your breathing rate and depth BEFORE you begin a long or steep climb, something to do with the fact that you breathe harder to expel more CO2 from your harder working muscles. I try to start deep breathes at the bottom of the stairs, and it seems to help. It could be psych, but as long as it works, who cares?!",
"In addition to what others have said about stairs being a considerable amount of work... They're also a pretty specific and unique form of physical activity. Your body adapts quite specifically to the exercise you make it do. This is known as the SAID principle (Specific Adaptation to Imposed Demands), or more simply, 'specificity'.\n\nIt's the same reason that champion swimmers are not necessarily great runners and vice versa, and even why great sprinters tend not to be great long distance runners.\n\nYour body gets good at the things you make it do. Start taking the stairs regularly and you'll find them less challenging over time.\n\nIf you already take the stairs regularly, then it's probably something else :D",
"Something that I don't think anyone else has mentioned yet, but are very important, are body proportions. How long limbs are relative to torso and so on will affect your centre of gravity in certain motions. There's a good video about this [on squats](_URL_0_). So, aside from the fact that stairs are hard anyway, your body proportions might be making them more difficult as well.",
"Breathing technique?\n\nSounds silly but I think that's the root of my problem. \n",
"Now that I remember it, I had the exact same thing. What was my problem I think: my hips and pelvis have pretty limited movement, combined with short hamstrings, I didn't know it but I used the upper part of my legs for everything, not my butt muscles or my hammy's. Like, for short sprints (accelerating) I use(d) my abdominal muscles, not my glutes. \nSprinting up stairs 2 steps at a same time would be fine, walking with a backpack on, including stairs and moving my weight from left to right was fine, climbing stairs on the tip of my feet was fine as well. I mean, I rock climbed with less effort than just walking up a plain set of stairs. \n\nChanged my posture and using those specific muscles helped me (i think, I completely forgot walking up stairs took me effort, everything fine now) \n",
"I've been hiking the steepest mountains I can find for the past few years, and I catch hell from my coworkers when I take the elevator to avoid the stairs. I tell them I've earned the right not to take the stairs if I so choose.",
"Stairs are the ultimate test for me. I noticed I was starting to get winded going up just one flight of stairs at work. That's when I finally took my ass to the gym consistently.\n\nIt changes everything. I can sit up and squat down normally. Get out of bed with no trouble. Fly up and down stairs. Sex is completely different. I was a lump on a log before with no stamina. Idk how people let them selves go to the point they can't even touch their toes. It's like your trapped in your own body. ",
"I'm an active cyclist. Just this week I completed a 100 mile bike ride that included some heavy climbing (11% grade). I did most of the ride at about 130 to 140 watts, the climbing was more like 220 watts. (For those that cycle, my FTP is about 240 watts)\n\nSo I wondered the same thing as you, why do I still notice it when I walk up five flights of stairs? \n\nI estimated the power to get up the stairs at about 200 watts (by computing the energy I put into lifting my weight and the time I take to walk up a flight of stairs). I have the cardio to do that for a long time but it still creates a noticeable stress on my cardio system. I start breathing a bit harder than I would just walking down the street. \n\nFor perspective a pro cyclist might spend most of the day riding around 200 watts during a multi-day race going above that for tough climbs or sprints. \n\nBeyond the improved heart capacity cycling also improves vascularization in my legs so that specific training improves the blood flow to my legs. You may be otherwise fit and have strong cardio but not have specific training to improve your legs. ",
"After 94 answers, I may as well: you're using different muscle fibers that you probably don't use as often and do not work-out at the gym. Therefore, they're using more energy that they're used to. Muscle fiber determines our strength and how much energy we are required when they operate.",
"Have you been checked by a cardiologist? I mean, with a full Bruce stress test and everything. It's possible that the stairs provided extra strain and your heart couldn't keep up. It might also explain why you seem to be the only one affected. Not to be a downer, but it seems like a legit thing to get checked out.",
"Being in generally good shape, and being in good cardiovascular shape, are two different levels of fitness.\n\nI used to take long bike rides for fitness. Like 20 mile rides. I thought I was pretty fit. Then I started running and realized that on a cardiovascular level, I was not very fit. I had strong legs and core but running requires a lot more of your lungs and heart. \n\nClimbing stairs is easy if you are in good cardiovascular shape.",
"Climbing stairs is much more taxing than most people realize. Not only do you need exceptional cardio vascular endurance, but also great muscle strength and endurance in your legs.\n\n\nThis is why mountain climbing is so unique and grueling. As an example, a climber who summits Mt. Rainier via the standard DC route will gain nearly 9,000 feet in elevation. That is the equivalent of taking the stairs to the top of the Empire State Building... 7 times. That's over 708 floors worth of stairs. Except it's on snow and ice.",
"I work in a Max security prison and everyday, for 12 - 16 hours I am non stop going up and down stairs. Our housing areas for inmates have 3 \"floors\" and 2 stair cases per floor. Each stair case is 6 steps. There are 3 sections with 12 stair cases to go up and down constantly. That's a total of 36 flights of stairs.\n\nI gatta tell ya, you really work out muscles you never knew you had going up and down stairs constantly. And then add to that running around the Unit constantly, whether responding to an incident or just trying to get from A to B.\n\nMy legs are in the Best shape of my life! Wish I could say the same for my gut...",
"What happens when we approach a flight of stairs, with the intention of darting up them quickly, is that *our brain tells our body to stop breathing*. Humans stop or slow their breathing when concentrating on a specific task for a short period of time. The outcome, of course, is that we combine a small burst of oxygen consumption by our muscles with a small burst of oxygen deprivation through our reduced respiration. Together, these two forces make our blood oxygen level plummet. (source: [_URL_0_](_URL_0_))",
"Depends on how you define pretty good shape and what the average number of stairs a person in pretty good shape can walk before achieving fatigue. Doing anything for a long enough tome will fatigue the person in even the best shape. Stairs are tiring tho. The stair climber at the gym is a beast of a machine lol, everyone at the gym looks like they wish for the sweet release of death after about 5 minutes on it haha",
"Sports Dietitian here.\n\nA lot of good answers here but they don’t explain why you get exhausted compared to similar activity.\n\nThe answer has to do with some basic principles. One, you’re not warmed up like you would be before doing strenuous activity. You’re going from an essential “cold” state of a leisurely walk to an activity that requires hefty muscle work in your legs - your heartbeat rapidly speeds up to compensate for the lack of oxygen and preparation.\n\nTwo, we don’t psychologically prepare for a workout and therefore things are physically harder. We actually have receptors in our body that respond to perceived future activity. Like a natural reaction to stimulus, except the stimulus occurs from our perception of what is about to happen. This happens all throughout our body and we don’t always realize it, for example (a more noticeable one) bracing yourself for a car crash.\n\nThree, we also use different energy systems for the length and intensity of the activity we are doing. ATP for 1-2 seconds of movement, creatine kinase for a little bit longer and more strenuous, glycogen for strenuous and moderate length, fat for longer and slower pace. The fact of the matter is we do a pretty terrible job at managing these systems and eating right so it’s not unusual for us to feel sluggish during activity.",
"The air is thinner. Less oxygen with each step. That’s why going down stairs is easier. More delicious oxygen. "
]
} | [] | [] | [
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[
"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Av3LO2GwpAk"
],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[
"https://www.psychologytoday.com/gb/blog/beastly-behavior/201605/is-why-stairs-can-leave-you-out-breath"
],
[],
[],
[... | ||
4haalh | how do the international football leagues all tie together? premier, bundas liga, etc.? is there an international club champion crowned? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4haalh/eli5_how_do_the_international_football_leagues/ | {
"a_id": [
"d2omzsh",
"d2on4ug",
"d2onsy4",
"d2oob0v"
],
"score": [
2,
3,
2,
2
],
"text": [
"There is a Europe-wide club tournament every year. Each of the national leagues is given a certain number of spots in the tournament and they then compete against each other.",
"Each country has many tiers of competition. The best teams from the tier move up the ladder while the worst ones from the upper ones go down to the lower tiers. In the uppermost tiers, like the Premier League (England), Bundesliga(Germany) and La Liga (Spain), the top teams (usually 3-4, but that depends on several factors such as the league's coefficient, etc.) qualify for a tournament called the Champions League. The Champions League is exclusive to a continent. Finally the winner of the Champions League from each continent go on to play in the Club World Cup. This goes on every season. \nNow for Leicester, last season they were lurking around the bottom of the Premier League with fears of getting relegated to the Championship - England's second tier. They somehow survived by winning crucial games at the end, and now this season are about to win the Premier League which will mean that they qualify for the Champions League of Europe where they will play against teams like Bayern Munich, Barcelona, Real Madrid, etc. And could possibly become Club World Cup champions if they win that too! But that's a long shot! ",
"They're pretty much all separate. \n\nThere's 92 full time professional teams in the English leagues. Each league has its own champion & all teams promote to the league above (except the premiership which is the top league), & also leagues relegate as well (the bottom teams in the bottom league go into a semi professional division). \n\nIncidentally Scotland have a separate league to the English one, so it's not the UK in this case. \n\nThere's two European tournaments that teams from European leagues can get entry to by placing well in their leagues, this runs at the same time (more or less) as most of the major European leagues have their own league games. \n\nGenerally speaking you would regard the winner of the most premium European cup (known as the Champions League) to be the best team in Europe. Of course not everyone will agree with that distinction though!",
"They have the UEFA Champion League and the UEFA Europa League for international competition between the leagues' teams.\n\nBasically every country is ranked by points by UEFA (_URL_0_). The top three clubs from countries ranked 1 to 3 automatically gain access to the group stages of the CL. Rank 1 and 2 from countries ranked 4 to 6 and champions from countries ranked 7 to 12 also gain entry into the CL.\n\nThe UEFA Champions League is the higher ranked one of the two competitions. \nThe UEFA Europa League is for those teams ranked lower than those qualified for CL. In Germany that is places 5 to 7. \n\n\n"
]
} | [] | [] | [
[],
[],
[],
[
"http://de.uefa.com/memberassociations/uefarankings/country/"
]
] | ||
c1chaq | how on earth does the power supply to an entire country fail? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/c1chaq/eli5_how_on_earth_does_the_power_supply_to_an/ | {
"a_id": [
"ercadrx"
],
"score": [
13
],
"text": [
"There is a problem with turning the power back on again that makes it difficult to do it:\n\nMany appliances in a normal home are consuming a lot more electricity for a while when you start them up. Fridge? Needs more electricity. Freezer? Needs more electricity. Some tv start up, realise that they are not supposed to do anything and hibernate again. And so on.\n\nNot to mention that a fridge that has been turned off for a day will have a pretty rough time cooling down the food in it again. It will consume a lot more electricity in the upcoming day than it usually does during a day, just because it has to catch up.\n\nNow, imagine that a whole bloody country does this at the same time. It'll demand so much from the producers that you literally can't turn it all on at the same time. You have to turn on a section at a time. And pay attention to the load you get, and then carefully pick a section to turn on after an hour or two. And still pay close attention to the load.\n\nAnd at the same time you run into other problems. When you turn on power, it's a really large circuit breaker that has to be moved. I'm gonna bet you that if you open 20 really large circuit breakers that haven't moved in a decade, then one or two of them will probably fail. Or at least be bit cranky.\n\nAnd some of the large breakers are fully manual. How...how do you manage to get personell out to that breaker, when gas stations can't sell gas to the company vans and cellphone towers are knocked out for lack of electricity?\n\nThere is a lot of practical problems that...are not necessarily solved in advance. Not all the line workers have satellite phones. Not all the depots got their own fuel depots with a hand-cranked pump for emergency refuelling. And...\n\nWell. Yeah. Once it's blacked out, you face a lot of practical problems with the restarting procedure, if you wait for too long before you get started.\n\nAs for the question on how things fail... that is a good question. But it literally only takes that a very, very, very large power line gets disconnected before there is a fault on it. Or that a large producer has a failure. I haven't read up on what the problem actually is, but it's usually one of those two. There is a problem with production or there is a problem with transmission.\n\nEDIT: I browsed a news article or two about it.\n\nThe problem appears to be that the consumption is so large that the producers can't meet demand. Producers can't maintain the goal frequency on the production. Voltage goes down. Voltage goes up and down violently when the producers try to meet demand and can't.\n\nEventually, lots of equipment will start to disconnect, because when the voltage does that, it's...an obvious problem. In a perfect world, it means that the production units will have a less rough time keeping up. In a real world, it can mean that the producers loose *too much* consumption, and force them to do an emergency shut down because of that instead. And once a large producer shuts down, it'll give too much load to all the others. And the vicious circle continues.\n\nIt's all a matter of failed load balancing. Production can't meet demands. And whoever it is that has balancing as their job failed at it. Or reacted a hint too slow. And now they have to start up slowly. From scratch. One consumer area at a time. one production unit at a time. Probably for days."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[]
] | ||
5a85hp | if a president goes to jail, what happens to secret service detail? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5a85hp/eli5if_a_president_goes_to_jail_what_happens_to/ | {
"a_id": [
"d9eeu95"
],
"score": [
4
],
"text": [
"A President will not go to jail while they are President. If they commit a crime they are impeached, and if found guilty they are removed from presidency then sent to prison if it is merited. They would not have a security detail, but they would likely be in high security and may be in solitary confinement. "
]
} | [] | [] | [
[]
] | ||
5qblyz | how can a judge request a jury not take into account certain pieces of evidence in a trial, and have their ever been unashamedly where a jury refuses to do so? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5qblyz/eli5_how_can_a_judge_request_a_jury_not_take_into/ | {
"a_id": [
"dcxvvk2",
"dcxvxdg",
"dcxzqeg"
],
"score": [
14,
2,
8
],
"text": [
"A judge does this by making jury instructions to not consider it.\n\nOf course, the jury can't \"unhear\" something, and it's not always possible for someone to completely disregard something that is disturbing, but legally inadmissible. If the jury hears or sees something that is ruled inadmissible, it could be ground for a mistrial if the judge feels that it's so prejudicial that the jury won't be able to ignore it.",
"It's easy, the judge just gives then instructions.\n\nIf it's later revealed that some member of the jury refuses to follow the instructions, the jury may be dismissed and a retrial required.\n\nOn the other hand, juries are not required to \"show their work\". If the prosecution shows a video of the defendant shooting the victim, the jury can still say \"innocent\". That's how the system works.",
"They say \"that's not relevant, please disregard it\", and hope they do the right thing. In practice, the negative impression of admonishing a lawyer can outweigh any advantage sharing that information might give. If the breach is too serious, a mistrial and be declare and the lawyer sanctioned.\n\nJuries are not required to give reasons for their verdicts, and cannot be held accountable for them. It is entirely possible juries take into account things their were told told to disregard, and we would never know."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[],
[],
[]
] | ||
4fvgma | why is this alarm scary? | This may not belong here but I couldn't really find another place.
I was going to set my alarm sound tonight and I thought : hmmmm, that one from alien was quite cool". So I search it on YouTube and find it, but then when I listened to it again, it genuinely scared me. Why is it that I found this alarm so scary? Is it because I associate it with Alien or is it more to do with the sound itself?
Here's the alarm : _URL_0_ | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4fvgma/eli5_why_is_this_alarm_scary/ | {
"a_id": [
"d2ce6wv"
],
"score": [
2
],
"text": [
"It sounds like a square or sawtooth waveform to me which is generally perceived to be harsh.\n\nELI5 of square waveforms: Sounds are made by tiny changes in pressure happening really fast. An airplane trip is an example of large pressure changes really slow. If you were to draw out the pressure over time, most sounds look like a roller coaster, moving up and down but smoothly. A square wave looks similar view of a city with buildings and sharp edges. A sawtooth waveform looks like a bunch of ramps in a row (also having sharp edges).\n\nExamples video: _URL_0_\n"
]
} | [] | [
"https://youtu.be/t-K8qP1m_s4"
] | [
[
"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j2uB4nKzGlg"
]
] | |
3nkuro | why are anime titles often translated into nonsense english? | Examples: "Full Metal Alchemist", "Attack on Titan"
For a long time, I assumed the latter was a space opera centered on one of Saturn's moons. These titles don't really mean anything, and you might assume it's a result of translating the original Japanese titles too literally, but that does not appear to be the case. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3nkuro/eli5why_are_anime_titles_often_translated_into/ | {
"a_id": [
"cvoxhwc",
"cvoxr58"
],
"score": [
2,
10
],
"text": [
"\"Full Metal Alchemist\" isn't any more nonsense than \"Green Lantern\" or any similar English-language title.",
"It's very case-by-case. Sometimes it's a poor (or too literal) translation of the original Japanese. Sometimes, the original Japanese title is shitty English itself, and the English title is just a direct transliteration of that. Sometimes the Japanese authors have English titles in mind. Sometimes a good translation of the title from Japanese to English would violate copyright on an existing English title (of something unrelated). Sometimes a good translation is impossible, because the Japanese title is built around Japanese language idioms, puns, or rhyming.\n\n\"Fullmetal Alchemist\" I'd argue is a pretty good title. The original Japanese title translates to something like \"Alchemist of Steel\" but in a way that's really explicitly meaning \"An alchemist who is made of steel.\" It's tough to communicate that in English; a \"Steel Alchemist\" could mean an alchemist who manipulates steel, rather than one *made* of steel. \"Fullmetal\" or \"full metal\" are existing concepts in English that imply something is explicitly *made* of metal, such as a \"full metal jacket\" round of ammunition. Combined with the implicit combat reference in that, \"Fullmetal Alchemist\" makes it clear that he's an alchemist made of metal, while also having some implication that war/combat is in play.\n\nAttack on Titan is a bizarre one though. The Japanese title is more like \"Advancing Giants\" which isn't a great title in English, but makes a lot more sense than \"Attack on Titan\". So where does it come from? Straight from the Japanese creator. In the original manga, \"Attack on Titan\" was the Japanese creator's (broken) English subtitle for the series. "
]
} | [] | [] | [
[],
[]
] | |
2g0xux | what is added to natural gas to give it its smell, and does that affect the way the gas burns? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2g0xux/eli5_what_is_added_to_natural_gas_to_give_it_its/ | {
"a_id": [
"ckekqo8"
],
"score": [
3
],
"text": [
"It's called Mercaptan: _URL_0_"
]
} | [] | [] | [
[
"http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/what-exactly-is-mercaptan-8462250.html"
]
] | ||
8p3ivw | when facetiming someone on speaker, how do they not hear themeself through the microphone from the other person? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/8p3ivw/eli5_when_facetiming_someone_on_speaker_how_do/ | {
"a_id": [
"e085cb9"
],
"score": [
17
],
"text": [
"It's due to \"echo cancellation\". The software checks the microphone input for the same sounds going out of the speaker. If it is there, it tries to subtract it out. Good speakerphones all do this. Older (or crappier) speakerphones just cut off the mic when playing anything out of the speaker.\n \nThis not only prevents echoes, but it also prevents \"feedback\". If you get a sound coming out of a speaker that goes into a mic then out the speaker and then in the mic and then out the speaker etc. etc, being amplified even a bit at every step, it quickly gets out of control and leads to a loud squeal coming out of the speakers as the amp circuits max out. Not nice. "
]
} | [] | [] | [
[]
] | ||
qjlay | what is the point of wearing a wife-beater under a shirt? | I was asked this today and I couldn't come up with a good answer. If the goal is to wick sweat, armpits are traditionally the sweatiest part of your upper body, but the beater neglects this. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/qjlay/eli5_what_is_the_point_of_wearing_a_wifebeater/ | {
"a_id": [
"c3y3azb",
"c3y3fyw",
"c3y3h1g",
"c3y3hhm",
"c3y3rze",
"c3y48yj",
"c3y4abv",
"c3y4ga2",
"c3y4gv6",
"c3y4qdm",
"c3y5800",
"c3y6hbg",
"c3y6ja0",
"c3y7igr",
"c3y87ra",
"c3y9bhz"
],
"score": [
34,
4,
11,
21,
41,
9,
11,
3,
21,
2,
4,
2,
2,
3,
2,
2
],
"text": [
"Because you don't want people to know you beat your wife.",
"I've never understood this either. A t-shirt, I can understand. I asked a friend of mine who does this, and he said the usual, \"Because of sweat, etc.\" But when I pointed out, \"Uhh... it doesn't cover the really sweaty parts\", he was lost for an answer. He said he never thought about it like that before. What the hell?",
"Some shirts are really uncomfortable otherwise.",
"I've been known to wear one in extra cold weather, in addition to an undershirt. It has no sleeves to bunch up, but adds another layer to my core. Other than the extra cold days, I don't see a use for it.",
"Being chubby, I have found that if you wear a wife beater that is a size smaller than your shirt it actually kind of slims down the tummy.\n\n**tl;dr they cure Dunlop disease**",
"As a skinny guy (6'1\", 130 lb.) They help me fill a shirt better without ruining the fit of the shirt by wearing a full tshirt under it, and (even in warmer weather) helps keep my body warm. In addition, being as skinny as I am, I can't really pull off the whole bare chested thing on hot days, but beaters are comfortable enough and I'm not walking around looking like I just got out of a Turkish prison.",
"First, not about sweating, if the dress shirt material is on the thin side i.e. you nipples show through, then an A-shirt will obscure them nicely without the bulk of sleeves or around the neck. \n\nSecond, and this maybe just me, but I find if I wear only a T-shirt or dress shirt with nothing underneath during the hot, humid summer and sweat at all, then I will break out in a heat rash on my torso. \nI don't know why it works, but this doesn't happen if I wear an A-shirt. A bonus here is that an A-shirt will absorb the sweat and prevent it showing on the outer layer shirt, for the most part.\n\nThird, as already mentioned, the A-shirt acts as an easy and lightweight extra layer for a bit of warmth. \n\nWhether this factors in or not, I find that even with a regular undershirt my pits can sweat to the outer layer on hot days. However, they will dry and cool faster if there is only a dress shirt layer to worry about under my arms. ",
"For ladies, it adds an extra layer of modesty and comfort. A lot of female shirts would look rather slutty without another shirt under it. ",
"I live in FL and 9 months out of the year it is fucking hot. If you don't wear a wife-beater then your shirt will be soaked in sweat. I never sweat from armpits because I use an anti-antiperspirant, its my chest and back that sweat. I also like to where them whenever I wear a long sleeve button up.\n\nIt is also like wearing an undershirt without the burden of dealing with two pairs of sleeves rubbing up on one another. ",
"i mainly wear one because i often end up doing something that could get my shirt dirty, so having the beater underneath enables me to take my shirt off without looking like a total douche",
"cause it's socially unacceptable for men to wear bra's. \n",
"I wear a wife beater shirt under my work polo, it acts as a layer of insulation round my trunk.\nIt help keeps me warm.",
"I have a few shirts that rub against my nipples and if I don't wear a beater/t-shirt they will get sore. \n\n",
"It's like wearing a hug all day!",
"For me, I wear them when a regular undershirt doesn't work. Like if I have a t-shirt and its hot outside, wear a beater. If i use a t-shirt then the sleeves get all messed up.",
"so i can take off my shirt and look like tupac"
]
} | [] | [] | [
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[]
] | |
4g18z6 | how can things that aren't real (like the number "i" in mathematics, the sq. root of -1) be used to model things that are real (it's application in different fields of engineering, etc.)? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4g18z6/eli5_how_can_things_that_arent_real_like_the/ | {
"a_id": [
"d2draxt",
"d2drc35",
"d2drq7g",
"d2drvd9",
"d2dyjj6",
"d2e55sz",
"d2e7hw1"
],
"score": [
6,
95,
8,
18,
10,
2,
2
],
"text": [
"To put it simply, i allows you to use a 2D plane instead of a 1D line all in a single equation. And you can use real and imaginary components to get X and y components. ",
"Numbers themselves are not real. The term \"imaginary number\" is kind of a misnomer since all numbers are imaginary. The reason we call the square root of -1 imaginary is because it defies the internal logic of mathematics being that you can't square any real number (numbers we use to represent things) and come out to -1 or any negative number. That's why when we take the square root of a negative we factor out the -1 and square the absolute value. But sometimes we need to take the square root of a negative number that represents reality. To keep the logic consistent, we use an imaginary number even though it is very \"real\"",
"Forget the words \"real\" and \"imaginary\". Those are just arbitrary labels we use to talk about different numbers of numbers. In fact, \"imaginary\" comes from someone trying to make fun of the concept and it stuck...that doesn't make those numbers any less real.\n\n\nNumbers can refer to real things or not, depending on context. Consider negative numbers. You can't put -3 apples in a basket, but that doesn't mean you can't have -$3000 or the temperature can't be -3 degrees. Or fractions...you can't have half a child or see half of a cloud in the sky...but you can have half a pizza.\n\nAll of these are just special kinds of numbers, that can be \"real\" or \"unreal\", depending on the situation.\n\n\n\n",
"Don't think too much about the word \"imaginary\" - it doesn't have the same meaning in math. All numbers are just a method for describing quantities, and \"imaginary\" numbers are just another set of numbers that we can manipulate according to the arithmetic rules.",
"The numbers you are probably most comfortable with are named the \"natural numbers\" or \"counting numbers\". 1, 2, 3, 4, 5. Those may or may not include zero, depending on who you ask.\n\nThe concept of zero was relatively late in western math. The classic Greeks fought over the concept, several cultures even condemned people to death over zero claiming heresy. It wasn't until around the year 1100 that it entered the culture of European mathematicians. There's a great book on that called [Zero: The Biography of a Dangerous Idea](_URL_2_).\n\nLet's look at negative numbers.\n\nNegative numbers are a concept that is not \"real\". You cannot physically have negative applies, or negative coins, or negative mass. In financial transactions you can understand the concept of a debt which most naturally translates to a negative number, and in physics you may have an opposite that also naturally translates to a negative, but you cannot have negative of something in a physical sense.\n\nIn the physical world you have a force pushing one way and another force pushing the opposite way. Those are two positive forces in opposite directions. In the model it is often convenient to have something pushing forward has a positive force, something pushing backward has a negative force which cancels. The model is not reality.\n\n\nReal numbers, as in the mathematical name [Real Numbers](_URL_0_), also include many things that cannot exist. There are \"definable real numbers\" and \"constructable real numbers\". Most values represented as Real Numbers cannot physically exist as tangible things. \n\nFor example, in a mathematical model I may be able to use a real number to state the width of a hair. Maybe I'd call it 97 micrometers. Or maybe 97.4681329731298746373218 micrometers. In my model I can be as precise as needed. I can be more precise than the size of an atom. I can be more precise than the diameter of an electron. There is a theoretical size (the [Planck Length](_URL_1_)) that is so tiny the physical distance does not even make sense any more. ... but in my numerical model I can measure smaller distances than that.\n\nI can also go the opposite direction. In a mathematical model I can make numbers larger than the estimated size of the universe. I can even declare that I want to use numbers so big that the number cannot physically fit in the universe. If the entire universe were used to write down that number, the model could be designed that is bigger than that. A small math model can represent something larger than many universes.\n\n\nScientists knew about 'imaginary numbers' since about the 1500's. They were named \"imaginary\" because the guy writing a book was trying to make fun of other scientists of the era and was trying to insult them and their work. \n\nIt turns out that if you want to work in math in 2D space, imaginary numbers work really well at encoding rotation. That is a pair of numbers called a \"complex number\", made up of one Real Number and one Imaginary Number. So when things move around in a circle, instead of trying to work with sine and cosine and similar trig functions, scientists can use the so-called imaginary numbers in their model. \n\nJust like negative numbers in a physics model and negative numbers in a bank account, you cannot physically hold imaginary numbers or complex numbers. But if you are doing a simulation of something moving around in 2D, Imaginary numbers and Complex numbers can make the model of movement much easier, just like negative numbers make accounting easier.\n\nIn 3D space, there is a similar way to represent an object's orientation. That is called a Quaternion. Physically there is no way to build the thing, but it works as an amazing model in math that represents the way things are oriented. Concepts like \"roll 45 degrees clockwise, then tilt 12 degrees back\" work well for some problems but mathematically they break down in a few important points. If you are at the north pole, asking someone to turn north no longer makes sense. But if mathematician uses a quaternion, the model never breaks down. When you play a video game and push the controller to turn left, the game is almost certainly using quaternions to do it. Any motion is valid in 3D space, and you can add motions together even though physically the motion may be impossible to directly work physically.\n\nThat's several different examples about how math items that are not physically real but useful in modeling how real life works.",
"A lot of the other answers here are *just* looking at the complex numbers as rotations in the plane. You can use them for this, and it's convenient if you're already used to dealing with complex numbers, but you don't really *need* complex numbers to handle that and it's a misleading motivation for them.\n\nThe complex numbers are the algebraic closure of the real numbers, so if you're okay with the real numbers then the complex numbers are literally unavoidable.\n\nFor instance, you presumably know that there's a quadratic formula that tells you the solution of a quadratic equation. Of course sometimes the solutions of a quadratic equation aren't real, but if you were only interested in real solutions you could ignore the complex solutions.\n\nNow, there's also a cubic formula that solves cubic equations. And of course since some cubic equations have roots that aren't real, you can get numbers that aren't real here. But one would think that if we considered a cubic equation whose solutions were all real, then we wouldn't need complex numbers to solve it.\n\nAnd one would be wrong.\n\nIn fact it is *impossible* to write down a radical expression for the roots of a cubic whose roots are all real without using non-real numbers in intermediary steps.\n\nThis was discovered around the same time as the cubic formula, in the 1550's or so. It was the first indication that complex numbers are completely unavoidable in mathematics, but it was far from the last.",
"It's because we can put 1i, 2i, 3i, 4i, 5i etc as points on the y axis of a graph, and 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 etc on the x axis.\n\n\"i\" is just a different *type* of \"1\".\n\nA right handed triangle, for example, might have 2 sides of 1 unit long, but those lengths of 1 are different types of 1 - since one of them is horizontal and the other is vertical!\n"
]
} | [] | [] | [
[],
[],
[],
[],
[
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Real_number",
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planck_length",
"http://www.amazon.com/dp/0140296476"
],
[],
[]
] | ||
b4v6ev | cannabis induced psychosis | [deleted] | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/b4v6ev/eli5_cannabis_induced_psychosis/ | {
"a_id": [
"ej9bbly",
"ej9h23f",
"ej9iwiy",
"ej9nflr",
"ej9p6om",
"ej9v5bm"
],
"score": [
376,
8,
71,
2,
2,
2
],
"text": [
"Psychosis is mental state in which you experience a break or disconnect from reality meaning hallucinations and/or paranoia. Some people are more susceptible or prone to mental health conditions like psychosis and substances such as cannabis or methamphetamine can trigger or induce these conditions",
"ELI5 answer is: a very low percentage of people who smoke instantly develop psychotic behaviour, and sometimes, unfortunately it can be permanent. There's an arguement to be made as to whether these people are predisposed to mental illness.\n\nIt could be schizophrenia, paranoia, anxiety/panic disorders, etc. The wires get crossed in your head and they don't get uncrossed when you come down from the high.\n\nIt's definately a scaremongering tactic though. It would be like saying we should ban peanuts because they could kill you.",
"Smoking a lot of cannabis during adolescence can increase your risk of developing psychosis. That's fairly well substantiated. We don't 100% know why, but it's thought to be related to something called neural pruning that takes place in puberty continuing into your mid twenties, in which little used synapses are elimitated. Heavy cannabis use seems to interfere with this process.",
"Any time you put a chemical into your body it has the potential to fuck your body up. Alcohol ruins your heart and liver. THC can\\* ruin your brain.\n\n\\* the thing to know here is that the research showing this is in fairly early stages and really only seems to be a significant concern for three groups 1) extremely heavy users, 2) people who start to use before the age of 25 when brain growth is still occurring, and 3) people who have a family history of mental illness and are basically walking down that road anyways (in which case weed speeds up the walk to a jog).",
"Some people who have certain psychological conditions, many of times undiagnosed, are predisposed to experiencing psychological episodes. These episodes dont always involve the same experience. For example a cousin of mine who had smoked weed many times, one day went for a walk to smoke a joint, saw a dude who looked just like him and he went into some crazy episode where he thought he wasnt himself anymore and that he didnt know who he was, like the person he saw was who he thought he was. \n\nThat's obviously the kind of experience he may have had without the help of marijuana but the argument is that marijuana can help bring those episodes about.",
"It's still a bit of a mystery however there seem to be some people who have a 'mistake' in how their CBD receptors work (the little things in your brain which 'light up' when someone takes cannabis); this seems to cause them to suffer from psychosis when they take cannabis; although not every time and it does seem to be strongly dose dependent (why the 'skunk causes psychosis' thing became so popular...it's just stronger.\n\nWhats not clear is whether they could have gone on to suffer from psychosis later on anyway (so cannabis just makes it appear earlier not really \\*cause it\\*). \nIt does seem to affect younger people far more than adults; this may be because adults have already gone on to develop a mental health issue anyway and you can't unpick the 'cannabis related' element of it. \nAs usual with cannabis the research is really poor currently; however it \\*seems\\* to be that legalising cannabis doesn't cause an \\*increase\\* in psychosis in places where it's been legalised; likely because it's controlled and younger people have less access..."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[]
] | |
5kqt5g | why do we think mammals are cuter than non-mammals? | [deleted] | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5kqt5g/eli5why_do_we_think_mammals_are_cuter_than/ | {
"a_id": [
"dbpw1uy",
"dbqc847"
],
"score": [
7,
3
],
"text": [
"There's no scientifically proven reason for why this is, but there are some theories out there. The most common one is that we find certain animals cute because they have many of the same characteristics that we find cute in babies.\n\nHuman babies need more care and nurturing than pretty much any other animal baby. Humans usually find babies cute and they want to nurture and take care of things that they find cute. Specifically, babies tend to look cute because they have big eyes, big heads, round faces, soft skin, and appear helpless. Baby animals share many of those same characteristics. Adult animals do too.\n\nEven if the baby thing isn't the only reason we find things cute, I think the fact that mammals are more closely related to us compared to other animals plays a large role.",
"One theory I've heard about this is in regards to facial expressions. So perhaps it's not so much that mammals are cuter than non-mammals, but more that most mammals happen to have intricate facial expression. We like primates, dogs, cats, and horses because they have the ability to communicate with their face. That may allow us to have more empathy for certain mammals than say, fish. "
]
} | [] | [] | [
[],
[]
] | |
4b3eeh | is there a reason why lobsters are thrown into boiling water while alive? wouldn't it be more humane to quickly kill them before boiling or is there a reason why this is not done? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4b3eeh/eli5_is_there_a_reason_why_lobsters_are_thrown/ | {
"a_id": [
"d15ph4u",
"d15pn0c",
"d15pqwg",
"d15pvxk",
"d15v09g",
"d15vp4s",
"d15w1bs",
"d15w1wy",
"d15w7al",
"d15wfq6",
"d15wh1k",
"d15wt4t",
"d15ykmg",
"d15zfyv",
"d161meq",
"d1626cf",
"d162doq",
"d164cjy",
"d165g4j",
"d167q4y",
"d1687n2",
"d16bmta",
"d16bs32",
"d16bw57",
"d16c3mz",
"d16c5cr",
"d16caf6",
"d16chy0",
"d16d4ic",
"d16d5fe",
"d16d5fo",
"d16deu3",
"d16di87",
"d16e5sm",
"d16e9je"
],
"score": [
11,
1916,
464,
197,
63,
310,
30,
5,
2,
16,
63,
4,
4,
2,
10,
3,
2,
11,
2,
8,
3,
2,
2,
5,
2,
2,
2,
11,
2,
2,
2,
11,
2,
2,
2
],
"text": [
"Throwing them in the boiling water almost instantly kills them, no?",
"The bottom dwellers of the sea harbor a huge amount of bacteria that produces toxins which are harmful to humans. By keeping them alive until you're ready to eat em, it prevents the bacteria from decomposing the lobster and producing more toxins. ",
"The meat in their exoskeleton goes bad very quickly when they die. They have bacteria that lives inside them and it multiples quickly when they die. By boiling them alive you reduce the meat from going bad as well as getting a food borne illness.",
"It's actually really hard to quick kill a lobster just before boiling. They don't have a brain, their nervous system is decentralized. The humane method to kill a lobster is to freeze it solid as they pass out in any kind of cold, so they die asleep. \n\nThis takes hours and ruins the flavor. Prior to the boiling alive method, eating lobster was considered an awful fate, something reserved for the homeless or very poor. There were actually humanitarian laws prohibiting serving lobster more than once a week at prisons as it was deemed cruel and unusual punishment. Only the boiling alive method produces a palatable meal.\n\nPerhaps that means we shouldn't eat lobster at all. That's a question that remains open. But if boiling them alive while they scramble and scrape to get free over the 45 seconds it takes them to die is inhumane, then there's no humane way to enjoy them.",
"Being dunked in boiling water kills them really quickly and is honestly one of the best options. Splitting the head is done sometimes but if you're doing to out of a sense of humanity and you bungle it then you're doing much more harm than just boiling them.",
"I watched the finale of Top Chef this week, and the chefs actually tore the lobsters in half alive before boiling them. Same with sea urchins. I don't know enough to know what methods are most humane. but being ripped apart alive doesn't SEEM very humane. This could be me anthropomorphizing, I don't know.",
"Others have already covered the bacterial reasons, and how it's kind of hard to kill them quickly. I wanted to address the \"more humane\" part. \n\nLobsters have very primitive brains compared to mammals. They don't process pain or emotion in the same ways. It's not even clear if they \"feel\" pain at all, or if they just experience muscle reactions. Most researchers believe that they don't really suffer or fear as they don't have a concept of suffering/fear. Just automatic response to negative stimuli. ",
"I worked at Red Lobster and selected many lobsters to die from the tank. This doesn't make me an expert by any means but the first thing the cooks did was flip them on their back and stab them in the chest with a large knife - not sure what they did after that. I'm guessing that if the largest server of cooked lobster can get away with it, it's probably ok. ",
"It is more humane to kill them first. Some restaurants use a zapper, as a home cook I take my sharpest knife and quickly split the head in half. They squirm it's gut wrenching but I can't imagine having to watch one boil to death. The idea behind it is that the meat begins rotting as soon as it dies so it's fresher if u boil it alive. The 2 minutes extra that it takes to humanely kill it is negligible to the flavor and quality of its meat",
"My question is, is there any sort of humane way to prematurely end the life of a living organism?\n\nBoiling water, or swift chop to the head. In the end, it still sucks to be the lobster",
"It's believed that most invertebrates, including lobsters, are incapable of feeling pain. Nocioception is an extremely complex phenomenon that slowly evolved over time. It's unlikely that lobsters, with their primitive nervous system, are capable of nocioception, so boiling them alive isn't considered inhumane, yet is important in killing the harmful bacteria that quickly multiply once dead.\n-Neurobio Grad student at UChicago",
"As there's good reason for doing so due to bacteria forming, I'm all for it. A heightened spread of bacteria with possible health risks for humans is not worth a more \"humane\" treatment (and especially not so for animals who can most likely not even really feel it either way).",
"Why live? that's the way lobsters are supposed to be cooked. You'd be surprised how many actions are preformed simply because that's how people think its supposed to be done.\n\nWhy are lobsters boiled? Simple lobster used to be a poverty food.\n\nLet me digress a bit. \n\nIn the maritimes you'll sometimes find deposits of chitin, the substance lobster shells are made of, inland. It used to be utterly shameful to eat lobster so you didn't dare dispose of it where people may see so you buried it. You did not want people to know you were reduced to eating lobster. Plain lobster is rather flavorless. \n\nLobster is outer shell is tough and the people eating it had limited resources and cooking implements. The most common cooking implement a poor person had was a pot. There was no refrigeration technology so they were eaten not long after the catch. It takes time to boil up a pot of water on a wood stove/ fire so they started heating the pot before hand it was simple necessity to cook them in this manner. \n\nSide note: My grandfather who grew up dirt poor in Nova Scotia used to tell me stories about lobsters and how nasty those little guys can get. This was in the days before rubber bands.\n\nSo these people had a pot, an inefficient means of heating said pot, a food with a tough shell and didn't want people to know they were eating lobster to boot so it was a practice of necessity. I say again lobster on its own is bland and flavorless even fresh out of the ocean. \n\nSo what happen? it became fashionable to be blunt. Someone figured out, its debated who, lobsters bland tasteless mass was great for holding expensive seasonings. Yes we're talking extreme levels of poverty here.\n\nSo what happened? The rich started taking this poverty food and dressing it up keeping up the practices dictated by poverty while adding things like butter and cream sauces to the mix. The \"authentic flavor\" bullplop isn't anything new, nor is the rich adopting the food of the poor the most recent example being Quinoa. They became tied to the rich and the middle class when they got access assumed them to be a luxury food keeping the trail of stupidity going. \n\nSo to sum up? why do we boil lobster live? we're frigging idiots. ",
"As demonstrated by Gordon Ramsay when killing a lobster, a stab to the back of the head with a sharp knife, followed by quickly bringing the knife down to cut the head in two symmetrically is the cleanest kill. Skip to 30 seconds. _URL_0_",
"At work we used to put them in the freezer for about ten minutes before boiling them. They quietly drift off to 'sleep' before we drop them in the water. It was our humane way of doing things.",
"Julia Child is on _URL_0_ at the moment. Last night I was watching and learned that a lobster will be killed immedietaly by putting the lobster in head-first. ",
"I heard that freezing them puts them to sleep, then you can plunge them in the water guilt-free",
"Well, the whole lobster shouldn't be thrown into the pot all at once anyway.. There should be three pots; two with boiling water and the other for stock. The claws and tails have different cooking times, so throwing the entire lobster in the water means you lose out on the stock and you'll end up with overcooked tails.. \n\nI was taught to rip the claws off while it's still alive then grab the body, rip the tail off, clean out the torso and save it for stock. MAKE THE MOST OF YOUR PRODUCT!! YARRRRR!!!\n\nEdit: Also, the noise you're hearing when you boil a lobster is the air escaping the cavities of it's body under an immense amount of pressure.. Sort of like a tea kettle! ",
"They release large amounts of Iodine in there bodies when they die, but cooking them stops the process.",
"I believe that there are processes that occur when it dies (another poster said iodine, although I'm not sure that that's correct) which tend to mess up the taste.\n\nThe 'humane' way of killing them is to first fully freeze them (which knocks them out) and then boil them. That way, they die unconscious.\n\nSource: I work in hospitality, my father is a chef.",
"Many times growing up, I was made to kill lobsters by \"drowning them\".\n\nBasically involved putting them in an eski (cooler) and filling it with *fresh water*, causing them to drown.",
"Alton Brown, had a show, Good Eats. Check it out! But one episode was about lobster. Two things. One, lobsters are giant bugs. They don't have a centralized brain. Two, putting live lobsters directly into a rolling boil kills them in some 10 seconds.",
"Dead is dead....its more humane to drive a knife into it?....whats next? Are we gonna debate how 100 million sperm died in your stomach?",
"Though suggesting a five year old read anything by David Foster Wallace is a bit unreasonable... this is really a fantastic article about the ethics of our lobster eating.\n\n_URL_0_",
"Largely, this is just convention - boiling used to be a very common cooking method and it's just stuck. \n\nGenerally speaking, what is considered the best way to kill/cook them is to put them in the freezer, which sends them, not necessarily to sleep but into forced hibernation. And then you put a knife through their skull to sever their consciousness - they don't feel it because they're \"hibernating\", and they don't have any biological response to the boiling water to spoil the meat. ",
"You can freeze them before you steam or boil them. But they're bugs, they don't really feel a thing",
"Minimizes the chance of food poisoning from bacteria build up. \n\n_URL_0_",
"I'd made it to the age of 21 having never tried a lobster. My father-in-law invited us over for a lobster feast and I watched in horror as they dropped the live lobsters into a boiling pot of water. As if the screaching wasn't bad enough, one of the lobsters managed to launch himself out of the pot and onto the floor, where he was picked up and placed back in the pot to die for my consumption. It was too real for me. This little guy was trying to save himself. To this day, I've never had lobster and probably won't because of that experience. Poor little lobster.",
"I often kill them right before. If boiling ill knife them behind the eyes or put them in the freezer for a bit. If grilling Im cutting them in half length wise anyway.\n\nHonestly cutting them in half while alive appears to me to be much worse then boiling.",
"Quick stab downward to the back of the lobsters neck,\nmost \"humane\" and common way before cooking \n",
"There is a well known steakhouse that I worked at that cut their brain stems before the water.\n\nI don't know why more places don't do that.",
" Every day, Federal cooks are looking for new ways to cook lobsters.\n\nYour basic lobster warrior isn't too smart, but you can cut off a limb and it's still 86 percent combat effective. Here's a tip: Aim for the nerve stem, and put it down for good.\n\nWould you like to know more?\n\n\n",
"Because people don't think they have emotions. \n\nMy faster's trick is to use centrifugal force to make it unconscious then throwing him in water. \n\nYes I said him. ",
"Let me just leave this 5 out of 7 gem for you guise: _URL_0_",
"Finally, a question that my job cooking at a cajun restaurant gives me an answer to! To be gentle about it, dead shellfish taste terrible. The meat rots incredibly fast, and even if it isn't, it takes on a bitter taste withing a few hours of death. I cook crawfish, and I have to go through the 30 pound sacks and pull out all the dead ones. "
]
} | [] | [] | [
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[
"https://youtu.be/B9QA4L8FtAw"
],
[],
[
"Twitch.tv"
],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[
"http://www.gourmet.com/magazine/2000s/2004/08/consider_the_lobster.html"
],
[],
[],
[
"http://www.scie... | ||
dkk7sv | - how do sea monkeys come to life from a packet? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/dkk7sv/eli5_how_do_sea_monkeys_come_to_life_from_a_packet/ | {
"a_id": [
"f4h4r2x",
"f4h5har",
"f4hv93k"
],
"score": [
2,
14,
3
],
"text": [
"Sea monkeys, in reality, are just brine shrimp. The packets that you buy are simply brine shrimp eggs that you're hatching under the right conditions (right temperature & lighting).\n\n Since they're very adaptable, they're able to survive a pretty long time in packages, which is why they're sold so commonly.",
"Sea monkeys are actually brine shrimp. The eggs they lay can dry out and remain viable for years. The stuff you pour into the water are the eggs and when exposed to salt water the eggs hatch and the shrimp start growing.",
"Many small invertebrates have \"resting eggs, \" some of which can dry out completely, and stay viable for years or decades. Under the right conditions, like re-wetting or temperature, the eggs hatch."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[],
[],
[]
] | ||
47x29m | why are there so many holidays around 25th december? | Hanukkah, Yule, Saturnalia, Pancha Ganapati, Kwanzaa and obviously Christmas, why do so many holidays across all cultures, past and present, fall around the date 25th December? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/47x29m/eli5_why_are_there_so_many_holidays_around_25th/ | {
"a_id": [
"d0g09my",
"d0g0kz2",
"d0g0omz",
"d0g3z3a"
],
"score": [
8,
5,
2,
2
],
"text": [
"In the Northern Hemisphere the shortest day of the year is December 21 / 22. These are celebrations of this event, because longer days mean warmer spring will soon be here.",
"The winter solstice is in late December, and ancient humans were **very** interested in the coming and going of the seasons, and the shifting position of the sun. The winter solstice marks when the days stop getting shorter and begin getting longer again, which made it a great time to celebrate the \"rebirth of the sun\". Thus a lot of holidays tended to congregate around that time.\n\nOf particular interest there is the fact that Christmas was merged with Yule in an attempt to convert pagans to Christianity. Jesus would have been born in the spring, not in the winter.",
"They mostly fall around the winter solstice. Most religions in the world, have events around the 2 solstice and 2 equinox. Also Pancha Ganapati is a recently made up holiday, so it doesn't really count.\n\nFall equinox is near time of harvest, weather is still good, food is plentiful. Halloween (a month later), Diwali, Feast of Saints Michael, Gabriel and Raphael, Archangels.\n\nWinter solstice the rough times are almost over. \n\nSpring equinox is also another major one, easter, holi, time to plant crop, raise the young livestock, etc.",
"The other answers are correct, but I'll just add that Kwanzaa is the same time as Christmas because it was specifically created as an alternative to Christmas, and Hannukah commemorates the Hasmonean revolt which just happened around the same time. "
]
} | [] | [] | [
[],
[],
[],
[]
] | |
7gjbo2 | what that shift in perceived direction while watching something spin is and why it pccurs | I.E. if I spin a fidget spinner really fast, it looks like it's spinning the way I spun it initially then will 'slow down' and look like it shifted direction.
Edit: grammar corrections | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/7gjbo2/eli5_what_that_shift_in_perceived_direction_while/ | {
"a_id": [
"dqjj9fc"
],
"score": [
2
],
"text": [
"It depends on the lighting. Artificial lights always flicker really fast, partly because of the fact that the alternating current powering them does the same. When the flicker rate of the light is the same as the time it takes the spinner to complete a full revolution (or a third or two thirds of a revolution, assuming a 3-lobe spinner), it will appear stationary. You only see it in a certain position because the light's only hitting it when it's in this position. If it's spinning slightly faster than the flicker rate, it will complete a bit more than one revolution between flickers, and therefore appear to be moving slowly in the direction it's spinning. If it's spinning slightly slower than the flicker rate, it will complete slightly less than one revolution between flickers, and appear to be spinning in the opposite direction.\n\nSo, when you see it slow down and change direction is when its spin rate approaches the flicker rate then drops below it.\n\nNote that you won't see this effect outside in sunlight, as it doesn't flicker."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[]
] | |
31orlv | why is milk made from nuts low in calories and the raw nuts themselves are high in calories? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/31orlv/eli5_why_is_milk_made_from_nuts_low_in_calories/ | {
"a_id": [
"cq3jm63"
],
"score": [
10
],
"text": [
"Because it's not actually milk. It's more of a tea or coffee. They pour hot water over ground up nuts. It's the same as saying that coffee is low calorie, but if you were to eat the bean, it would be substantially higher in calories. "
]
} | [] | [] | [
[]
] | ||
54jiwa | why arent placebo antidepressants prescribed instead of standard ones for mild/moderate depression if they are just as effective with less side effects? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/54jiwa/eli5_why_arent_placebo_antidepressants_prescribed/ | {
"a_id": [
"d82esot",
"d82f10x",
"d82g4ah",
"d82jvsf",
"d82jyq2",
"d82mva9",
"d82yqxa",
"d830e6r",
"d836op0"
],
"score": [
230,
394,
6,
45,
12,
6,
11,
5,
3
],
"text": [
"Whatever study you've read is comparing placebos to single antidepressants—which is typical for a clinical study, but not how antidepressants are used in real life.\n\n > ... American Psychiatric Association President-elect Nada Stotland, MD, maintained that studies like those reviewed by Kirsch and colleagues, which compare a single drug to placebo, do not accurately reflect the way doctors prescribe antidepressants.\n\n > \"We know that many people who are depressed do not respond to the first antidepressant they try,\" she says. \"It can take up to an average of three different antidepressants until we find the one that works for a particular individual. Therefore, testing any single antidepressant on a group of depressed individuals will show that many of them do not improve.\"\n\nSo if placebos have a 50% effective rate, and antidepressants have a 50% effective rate—*but you try up to three antidepressants*—you end up with placebos (50% effective) and antidepressants (50%+25%+12.5%=87.5% effective).\n\n[(source)](_URL_0_)",
"In order for a placebo to work, the patient would have to be unaware that it's a placebo. So the doctor would have to prescribe sugar pills, and the patient would have to pay for them, which is very different from signing up for an experiment where you know you might be given a placebo, and quite possibly illegal. Also, in the event that the patient kills themselves, the doctor would be in a tough spot.",
"Its easy !\n\nPlacebos are part of the testing process of new medicines.\n\nWhile the medicine is being tested, the placebo is used a control, to give an understanding of whether the medicine is better than no treatment at all, for any illness or disease or pain.\n\nIn many cases, the placebo also gives rise to a healing effect. Its known as the placebo effect.\n\nFor a medicine to be an effective treatment, it must produce a greater effect in relieving pain or disease than the placebo.\n\nMedicines that do this are approved by doctors, hospitals and government health departments after their scientific testing has proved that they work better than the placebo, and also after they have been proved to be as safe for use as the placebo - that they have few or manageable side effects.\n\nEven if a medicine for cancer makes you throw up or have diarrhea, it is better to take it if it will save your life in the long run. And its also better to take than a placebo, which will most probably not save your life in comparison with the medicine. ",
"There is also the ethical consideration of patient autonomy. Giving a patient a placebo without their knowledge violates a patent's autonomy because they are unable to make informed medical decisions because we are not giving them all the necessary information with which to make an informed decision. \n\nIn other words, patients can't make informed decisions in physicians are lying to them about their treatment. ",
"The short answer is that modern medicine has decided that prescribing placebos to patients, whether they know it is a placebo or not, is considered unethical. Why is it considered unethical? Well there's no definitive answer for that, but a lot of it probably has to do with the current philosophy of science. \n\nScientists these days tend to argue that existence is simply materialism (matter is the only thing that exists) rather than dualism (conscious and matter co-exist) or idealism (only consciousness exists). Therefore if consciousness is simply an emergent property of materialism, medicine can only be defined as things that effect matter directly, and consciousness should be ignored.\n\n A skeptic could argue that pharmaceutical companies can't make money on placebos and therefore remedies that work with consciousness will always be marginalised. \n\nAs an interesting side note, A counter-skeptic could argue that all healing is done by consciousness and all medicine is merely active placebo. It has been shown that the more expensive a drug, the more side effects of a drug, or the more invasive a procedure is, the greater the placebo effect occurs. ",
"They are not just as effective. While the placebo effect is shown in antidepressants, sugar is not as effective as medicine in treating depression. If it were, we would prescribe sugar because it is cheap and its side effects are mild. ",
"Because the placebo effect is unpredictable and if it doesn't work the doctor would be hugely liable for any negative outcome.\n\nIn the particular case of antidepressants there's a huge double-edged problem...\n\nSee, most people who are \"mildly depressed\" don't need any chemical remediation at all. This is particularly true for depression-by-cause events (like the death of a pet or parent etc). Time is the actual remedy.\n\nSo if it takes a couple weeks for someone to \"just get over\" a problem, and it takes a couple weeks for a maintenance grade antidepressant (like an SSRI) to build up a working dosage; then for that two week period it doesn't matter what you are taking.\n\nSo when people go to a doctor they pretty much _demand_ a pill.\n\nFor some years now that pill has been an anti-biotic for almost any physical problem. You feel achy or sneezy, you've probably got a cold, but putting you on ten days of antibiotics will likely be harmless.\n\nKnow you've got a likely infection, put you on an antibiotic while we wait for the tests to see what kind of actual antibiotic you really need.\n\nThat works great for that realm (except for the whole anitbiotic resistance thing that created).\n\nSo now you come in \"depressed\"...\n\nIf I give you a month's worth of an anti-depressant you don't need then there's no harm.\n\nBut if I give you a month's wort of sugar pills and you _did_ need an antidepressant then I've got a huge legal problem and the real moral dilemma behind it.\n\nSo that gets us back to your question. That's a mighty big \"if\".\n\nA lot of people just don't need an antidepressant at all either because they're not depressed enough or because their symptoms are cognitive. For these people the antidepressant might even be harmful.\n\nSo the statistics create a false sense of parity.\n\n* Some people don't need it, and it makes them worse.\n* Some people do need it, but get a placebo.\n* Lots of people don't need it but neither does them any harm.\n* Lots of people could be helped by it and their results are neutral.\n* Lots of people do need \"something\" and the promise of help is enough.\n\nFive patterns; the bottom three are neutral and the top two are antipodes to one another...\n\nSo you get a suspiciously even graph that's really the intersection of two graphs very close together.\n\nSo a lay reading that \"they are just as effective with less side effects\" is probably one that's been over-simplified right into the land of being wholly incorrect.\n\nTL;DR :: your question presents a false choice between two apparent equals, but the truth is far more messy. So better to err on the side of actually trying to help the individual rather than statistically satisfying the community.\n\nSuper Short Answer: Statistical probability is a suck way to manage individual medical issues. ",
"Because if a patient kills themselves while on a placebo that's a huge malpractice lawsuit doctors do not want to risk dealing with",
"This has been answered really well already, but there's one aspect that I haven't seen mentioned yet.\n\nIf placebo started being prescribed in place of medicine, then word would get around that this was happening. Then people would be more skeptical of the medicine they were being given and concerned that they might not be taken seriously by their doctor. This would create many very distrustful doctor/patient relationships and lower the overall quality of care.\n\nThat being said, it WOULD be interesting if you could sign an agreement stating that you agree to be given placebo under the doctor's discretion. That way you'd voluntarily agree to the possibility of being given a placebo if the doctor thought it would benefit you similarly to the real medicine."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[
"http://www.webmd.com/mental-health/news/20080227/antidepressants-no-better-than-placebo"
],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[]
] | ||
37eq5l | why don't police officers have some type of malpractice insurance like healthcare practitioners do? | Or Police Departments for that matter. Instead of using taxpayer money for settlements...
This probably makes too much sense. Or none at all. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/37eq5l/eli5_why_dont_police_officers_have_some_type_of/ | {
"a_id": [
"crm4yj1"
],
"score": [
4
],
"text": [
"Most local governments do have insurance policies for this sort of thing, which is why they are the targets of lawsuits, not the individual officers. I suppose a few high profile lawsuits directed at the officers themselves might change this."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[]
] | |
2zvcf1 | how does a ponzi scheme work? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2zvcf1/eli5_how_does_a_ponzi_scheme_work/ | {
"a_id": [
"cpmm9ky",
"cpmmc8j",
"cpmmq0t",
"cpmn6xp",
"cpmndn3",
"cpmnfec",
"cpmp20x"
],
"score": [
2,
2,
117,
12,
8,
35,
4
],
"text": [
"Eventually, there are no new investors, so everyone who hasn't been paid yet just loses their initial investment. This is a majority of the people who invested.",
"The original Mr. Ponzi had some scheme to make money (I'm not sure it was realistic, but at least he had a plan), and seemingly believed that he really would make all this money and pay back his investors. Meanwhile he paid himself well, kept recruiting new investors, and was able to pay \"dividends\" to the original investors. But as you have guessed, eventually he couldn't get enough new investors to keep it going, and it collapsed.\n\nIndeed to succeed it would have to be a never-ending, *expanding* cycle.",
"You start off with 10 people in your kindergarten class. You see they all have candy. Now, you have some of your own, but nowhere near as much as they do. But you, being the clever 5 year old you are, think of a plan. You promise each of them that if they give you, say, two pieces of candy today, in a month you will give them all 3 pieces of candy. Now that you have 20 pieces of candy, you go to the other classes about two or three weeks later and offer them a similar thing, but you ask for more and promise a greater return. As a result you get more candy, with which you not only pay off the old investors, but with which you stuff your pockets with because the extra investment outweighs what you owe. You now have a reputation as someone who makes good on their promises, so you take it to other classes, and even other grades. You perpetuate the cycle, putting more and more money in your pockets without anyone finding out.\n\nThat is, until you stop getting new investors, or if you are otherwise unable to make good on what you promised.",
"Okay a pyramid scheme is what I described. A ponzi scheme is more like this:\nYou approach your friend Alice and tell her \"If you give me five thousand dollars I'll increase it to seven thousand in two weeks\". You then approach your friend Bob and make him a similar deal. You now have ten thousand dollars. You pay Alice back seven thousand. Alice is impressed and gets her friend Carol to invest seven thousand more each. You now have eighteen thousand dollars. You pay Bob back his seven thousand and he and his friend Dave each invest an additional seven thousand dollars. You now have twenty-five thousand dollars. You've done nothing but move other people's money around. You go to Aruba with that money and have your name changed to Alfonso for six years.",
"You pay off the first few rounds of investors to make your scheme look legit. This helps you get more investors.\n\nAt some point, you just walk away with all the money. **That's** the scam.",
"So, Its snack time and everyone has 10 goldfish. Now I, the ponzi schemer, want more goldfish, but I don't want to buy goldfish. So I promise Joe (that dope who can barely count) to give me 5 of his goldfish and I will give him back 10 goldfish tomorrow. Sweet, I now have 15 goldfish, but OH NO, I don't want to give that idiot Joe 10 of my fucking goldfish. So, I go to Sarah and Phil, \"if you give each give me 10 gold fish, i'll give you 20 goldfish tomorrow.\" So, they both give me 10 goldfish and and I give 10 to that dumbass Joe and keep 10 for myself. Now, so I had 15 (+5) goldfish yesterday and 20 (+10) goldfish today. but I don't want to pay that bitch Sarah or that asshole Joe with my goldfish. So I find more kids to give me goldfish and to pay off Joe and Sarah while keeping some for myself. Then when I run out of kids to get goldfish from and they are coming with pitchforks to get their goldfish, I transfer schools, never giving them back their goldfish, and repeat the whole process.\n\nTrue story.",
"It's not that they're borrowing money from other investors to directly pay investors, it's that ponzi schemes claim that new investments from new investors are returns on the previous investment. The system collapses when people start trying to take their money out of the system.\n\nFor example I tell you I'm starting an investing company, and I get you and two other people to invest $500 in the company. ($1500). In all likelihood, I'll throw this into a legitimate investment opportunity (lets say with a 10% return, which in reality is really good, but lets say its only average). So lets say after 1 year, those original $1500 have grown to $1650. You might be happy, but I really want to wow you. I've recruited 3 more recruiters who've invested 500 each (total 3300 (six ways)). I'll count those 1500 into our collective profile, but I won't count those 3 people (or maybe I'll just count 1 or 2 of them). So while your profile should say 550 in your account, if I only count 2 of the 3 new investors (3300/5), it says you have $650, or a 30% return on your investment. The problem is that I only have 3300 but according to my books, there are $3900 worth of assets in my investment company (6x650=$3900). \n\nFrom what I've heard about Ponzi schemes, a lot of times these investment groups start out legitimate, but managers get greedy by skimming off the top, or try to make up for dissapointing quarters or encouraging more investment with them by fudging the numbers and making it look like they did much better than they actually are doing, hoping to make up the gains later. Of course they don't, and the hole keeps getting bigger and bigger as your fake returns are attracting more investors and your real returns are continuing to fall short of the fake numbers.\n\nNow, lets say that what I was talking about before, with that $600 deficit after my first year, continues. Lets say after 20 years the entire value of all my clients' profiles is 40,000,000, but I only have 20,000,000 in assets. Maybe if a person here or there cashes out, I'll be okay, but once have my clients hit retirement, I'll be flat broke. At that point I can try to tell them I don't have any money and they're screwed. "
]
} | [] | [] | [
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[]
] | ||
3b74fc | how can apple/at & t/verizon get away with charging $650 for an iphone | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3b74fc/eli5_how_can_appleattverizon_get_away_with/ | {
"a_id": [
"csjfkso",
"csjfli5"
],
"score": [
3,
2
],
"text": [
"Apple prices the iPhone at $650 because that's what people will pay for it. Factor in the cost of parts, R & D, advertising, transport costs, employee salaries and many, many more costs and its not like they can release it for $50.\n\nFurthermore, cell phone contracts are, to my knowledge, almost completely exclusive to the US (North America?) and most of the world has always paid full price for their phones.",
"People are willing to pay it. It's as simple as that. If people refused to pay so much for an iPhone Apple would be forced to lower their prices.\n\nI don't know if it's still the case but Apple also used to enforce universal pricing on all the carriers. Meaning that if a carrier decided they wanted to get more iPhone customers by reducing the price, they would be breaking their agreement with Apple and Apple could stop providing them with iPhones to sell.\n\nSo in short, they may not be able to charge anything less than what Apple dictates."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[],
[]
] | ||
amnmqc | how is hiv/aids treated? how do the hiv antivirals work? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/amnmqc/eli5_how_is_hivaids_treated_how_do_the_hiv/ | {
"a_id": [
"efnd9j2"
],
"score": [
2
],
"text": [
"You answered the first part of your question with the second part, which is antiretroviral medications. Antiretrovirals work in a number of different ways to try to get a person's viral load as low as possible. Some of them work by preventing the virus from entering cells in the first place. Others work by preventing the viral RNA from replicating once inside the cell, and others work by preventing the virus from emerging from the cell so it can't go infect new cells. Most HIV treatment protocols call for the use of 2 or more of these different types of antiretrovirals to attack the virus in as many ways as possible. This is usually very effective, and can reduce a person's viral load to the point of being undetectable, although this isn't a cure, because unfortunately, no antiretroviral is 100% effective, and so there will always be some of the virus present, and stopping the medications could cause the viral load to increase. Also, some strains of the virus are resistant to certain drugs, and the virus can mutate to become resistant to a drug a person is currently taking."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[]
] | ||
6levy8 | how did 4chan become so heavily affiliated with/occupied by members of the alt-right? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/6levy8/eli5_how_did_4chan_become_so_heavily_affiliated/ | {
"a_id": [
"djt9nt2",
"djta6o9",
"djtalrh",
"djtanyk",
"djtar05",
"djtco7o",
"djtcp1u",
"djtdwns",
"djtfmvc",
"djtgnnd",
"djth7zc",
"djtm9he",
"djtp83e",
"djtxfhq",
"dju6orx",
"djuji4q"
],
"score": [
343,
35,
13,
11,
15,
8,
2,
80,
9,
22,
5,
3,
6,
3,
7,
2
],
"text": [
"Many internet forums such as 4chan serve as a home for the counter-culture and contrarian opinions and personalities.\n\nAlt-right seems to be a backlash to a culture that is moving left and, in their opinion, seeks to accommodate and \"baby\" the general citizenry at the expense of individual freedoms.\n\nIt is a counter-culture and contrarian movement that fits with the personalities and opinions that find a home in such internet forums.",
"It's an extreme example of [GIFT (Greater Internet Fuckwad Theory)](_URL_0_).\n\n4chan provides an ever greater level of anonymity than typical internet usage, and therefore the \"edgy\" troll posts and extremist viewpoints are posted there due to the absolute lack of repercussions.",
"Another poster is a long the right track. Any forum that is more open and accepting of different opinions and views and behaviors typically trends towards right sided political beliefs(not going to call it alt right for many reasons, primarily the name and birth of the name being stupid).\n\nYou may think that reddit is this way but it is far from it. Everyone hates subs like r/the_donald but what if I told you reddit's ceo modified comments of users then mentioned those modified comments to a news organization. Imagine I take your words, change them without any evidence, then bring them up as something you said. That's damn terrible, but nobody cares because that part of reddit is so \"awful\". That's before I mention their top posts being downvoted from thousands straight to zero and other shady things to keep it from getting exposure on people's feeds or r/all. \n\nThe_donald has a strong presence here so it is to hard to leave (even though the admins would want it). But 4chan, Pol specifically, is more free to do as they please and the two are quite similar. \n\nPeople with right sided beliefs don't have a place in a censored state, they aren't accepted, and left sided beliefs are circlejerked to death. The leftward leaning leaders of forums like this one remove anyone who doesn't agree with them and it is somewhat..ironic.\n\nSo to prove my point you'll see I'll get downvoted to oblivion because I'm not anti-trump. This place is bombarded with one sided beliefs and promotes it's own agenda so much that having a different opinion is almost criminal. \n\nEdit: do you see my point now op? I've been called stupid several times in the thread, nobody is giving any evidence as to why I am a homophobic racist but for some reason I am, as is anyone who voted for trump. The only \"evidence\" so far is people saying names over and over \"Gorsuch! Pence! Trump!\" without any articles or evidence of what they did either. ",
"It mostly has to do with /pol/, the \"politically incorrect\" board that with time came to be almost exclusively populated with people with \"alt-right\" opinions. There's also a positive feedback loop, as the media reporting on the alt-right and using 4chan (in general) as an example meant that more people with similar opinions went to the site.\n\nBut as always for the site (and pretty much all imageboards), one has to remember that a lot of it is mere shitposting. There's certainly some true believers, but a lot of it is just people taking the piss.\n\n8chan, the offshoot an competitor of 4chan (there was a migration for Internet drama reasons I won't expand here) also hosts a /leftypol/ board, which equally has a mix of genuine left-wing opinions and edgy memes.",
"4Chan provides absolute anonymity, and therefore no accountability for what you say. This means you can say literally anything, and not only will it disappear in a few days (or a few hours on fast-paced boards) but you can never be tied back to something horrible you've said. This means the the entire culture is based around the most stripped back and primal thoughts and interactions with no filter. On Reddit, you might think about what you're saying, you might research your point, or you might be kind to an \"opponent\" because what you say and do is tied to your user name, and your \"karma\" pool, if you're into that sort of thing. On 4Chan, you can say or do literally anything you want, and it can never have a negative impact on your experience, except for a couple of very egregious acts that can earn you a ban. \n\nThis leads, over time, to an INCREDIBLY toxic horrifying atmosphere that attracts people who feel like they can't express their emotions and feelings and ideas on \"hugbox liberal fag fest\" places (like Reddit). Over time, spending hours and hours there, day in and day out, week after week, transforms people into that sort of thinking, and continues to attract the people who are drawn to that environment. \n\nAlt-Right people tend to feel attacked and held down by \"PC culture\" and seek a place where they can \"Tell it like it is\" and express their feelings without repercussions. \n\nNon-alt right people tend to want to avoid that sort of atmosphere as it becomes filled with more and more insanity, so it slowly empties of rational fun conversation, and refills with the dregs. ",
"4-Chan has always been a counter-culture. \n\nIn the waves of patriotism following 9/11 and the beginning of the WoT it wasn't ok to be unpatriotic. It wasn't OK to criticize the government. \n\nThe culture started to shift.\n\nNow it's not ok to support President Donald J. Trump. Look at the cesspool /r/politics has become. It used to lean left (as most of reddit does) but since the election it's gone into full retard mode where any positive news story about president Trump is slammed & downvoted and the most meaningless speculative bullshit is thrust forward as long as it paints President Trump negatively.\n\nLook at the media, who again are traditionally leftists. I mean certain Fake News Networks (CNN) are running stories that they admit are [\"Mostly Bullshit\"](_URL_0_) because it gets them ratings.\n\nSo now that the mainstream culture is left and anti-Trump it makes sense the 4chan which has always been a counter-culture would swing to the right.\n_____________________________________\n\nIt also helps that 4chan is (for the most part) completely unmoderated. This means that no views are shut out. You *could* go there & post ShareBlue (Read DNC Propaganda). Nothing is stopping you.\n\nWhere as on reddit, I posted [This comic](_URL_1_) in one thread, as a joke, and got banned from 6 subreddits within an hour, 5 of which I never posted on, or even looked at. I contacted the mods of the base subreddit, apologized, I said it was a joke, that I wouldn't do it again, and that I'd accept a temporary ban. I was informed that the ban is permanent & non-negotiable. I had **NO** prior offenses.\n\nSo when any views get shut up by moderators, it doesn't get rid of those views, the posters just find somewhere else to go.\n\nI mean look, /r/The_Donald is (iirc) the #2 or 3 most active subreddit. Behind only Askreddit (again iirc). Some people say \"Oh it's all bots\" no, no it isn't. I'm sure there are some, but when you go around banning people for minor offenses, they will go somewhere their \"offenses\" are not.\n\nAnd that place, where all is fair game, is 4chan.\n\nSo when snowflake gets triggered, and big brother moderator shuts a poster up, the poster goes somewhere they can say something many would find offensive, and not be shut up for saying it.\n\n",
"/b/tards and their raids. \n\nThis may not be the only factor, but it's certainly a factor. \n\nA friend of mine used to participate heavily in 4chan, particularly /x/ (paranormal), and toys as well as many others. /b/ which is 4chan's \"Random\" forum would \"raid\" most of the rest of 4chan which involved making hundreds of posts containing images of child porn, violence and gore. They used other tactics but you get the idea. They forced the reasonable people out for their own entertainment. \n\nAlt-Right people may have some reasonable points here and there which are completely undercut by /b/tards and their kind.",
"As a user of several 4chan boards, I reject the premise of the question. Crazy I know, but allow me to explain.\n\n4chan is likely not significantly more conservative than other social media platforms,\n\nThe right are more vocal than the left, or at least they are recently. 4chan gives equal footing to all posts, where on reddit and Facebook there is an echo chamber effect, meaning if you're not a trump supporter, you're generally less likely to see pro trump posts.\n\n/pol/ is the alt right board of 4chan, and they have a tendency to post political posts on other boards such as /trv/, making them seem more numerous than they really are. If you want to see more left oriented discussions, check out /news/.\n\nI'll also point out here that the lack of an echo chamber means the alt right is challenged on their beliefs on 4chan, where on reddit and Facebook they spend their time constructing strawmen.\n\nIn short, 4chan makes it easier to make more noise as one person, but demographically, 4chan is likely not much different than reddit.",
"Not sure if this is what you're getting at, but it's because 4chan actually has free speech.\n\nThis is a common internet effect, anywhere there is free speech without moderation will inherently lean right with the way politics are right now. Let's be honest, no matter what side of things you're on, the left & left media has become insanely inaccurate in modern times. To participate in an argument about whether leftist media claims are correct, you basically have to censor facts, have moderators take out \"offensive\" ideas etc. In an open debate, there is zero ways that leftist media would ever be perceived as \"true\" or fair. If there's freedom of speech, and ultimate argument of ideas, which there definitely is in 4chan, things will lean right for now.\n\nAlso, even your usage of alt-right wrong, if that term really deserves to exist as a consideration in this convo to begin with. Part of 4chan is that people do not filter themselves through other peoples labels, especially ones designed to progress the term, become less offensive etc. Alt right is a negative label, a product of media creating an easy way to group people together, attack & dismiss them. There's nothing that could possibly tell you 4chan leans alt-right specifically, just expressing conservative values or beliefs doesn't really fall into determinable alt-right territory by any means. I love how a convention of maybe < 100 \"alt-rightists\" has immediately made the rest of anyone expressing conservative ideas part of that group. 50 people calling themselves alt-right at a single convention do not represent a movement, and they certainly don't represent a fraction of people who voted for Trump, that's just silly. If you can't immediately distinguish for me what makes someone alt right versus traditional right, you are just prescribing to a made up label. If you want to consider the origin/ proper terminology of alt right, it actually comes from the idea that so many libertarian and left leaning people have aligned with the right currently because the left is such a damn mess, causing an influx of people who hold beliefs and values usually wouldn't be considered right, hence alternative right.\n\nLastly an example of a progressive term, and why that doesn't work on 4chan. Leftists have made the term \"illegal alien\" a bad term, immediately ridiculing and insulting anyone who uses it to describe someone who immigrated here illegally. This is a filtering of language that 4chan doesn't allow. You will be laughed out of the argument if you try to critique someones use of illegal alien, or divert attention from the argument to their non politically correct term. On a site like this, an overwhelming amount of upvoted comments stating that illegal alien is a derogatory term might suppress that persons post, or even detract so hard from the original debate it becomes impossible to present their side. An excuse to dismiss them without debating, \"oh well you said illegal alien so you're just some stupid alt rightist, I don't need to hear anymore I already know your sides wrong\" < - actual reddit post type I've encountered endless times. The example is an exaggeration, but that attitude absolutely isn't. The entire purpose of the label \"alt-right\" is so you can dismiss their ideas. It clearly worked. The entire purpose of new terminology, 50 genders, etc, is to make people who use the \"traditional\" terms seem antiquated, and make them easier to slap labels on. It's a form of censorship, to call people out for not using \"progressive\" terms. Wanting girl to mean girl and illegal alien to not mean something insulting is considered \"conservative\", these new terms are invented to make you seem bigoted for not prescribing to them. Illegal aliens been the phrase for decades, but only in 2010+ the left decided it's incredibly offensive? This is a form of censorship itself. Then, when you're caught using conservative phrases, wrong insulting/non pc terminology etc, you're easier to label and attack. It is no different from a woman making a compelling argument but she uses the phrase \"wage gap\" and an idiot yells out \"wage gap has been disproven, all feminists are irrational boooo\" without actual consideration of the merit of their statement or an attempt to debate the ideas. That's all the term \"alt-right\" is. The HRC campaign tried it with \"Bernie Bros\" too, maybe some of you remember.\n\nIt's very hard to fight with just labels on 4ch. You have no history, you have no identifying statements, you have no comment history to check popularity. There's no such thing as identity politics, there are no posts begin with \"As a trans black woman\"- 4chan reduces everyone to anon. If you make a claim, you better know all the ins and outs of the argument. You cannot dismiss someone for being white, you can't qualify your phrase \"well my experience as a _____\". You must be able to defend your statements and argue for them using world examples, statistics, evidence, and convincing writing style that applies to everyone. Your argument will not get bonus points because you are x race or y gender. There's no talking over someone because one identity's experience is valued more than another- if you can't make an argument that applies to all, you can't make an argument. You will not be sided with because you are more popular with karma, nor due to the harshness of tone or how rude your opponent is. Nothing other than the exact merit of your claims, and how well you can justify them.",
"I've been a semi-regular 4chan poster for about 10 years now and it really hasn't changed all that much in that time. There are ever more boards, but /b/ is still /b/ and /v/ is still /v/ and so on. Some people come and go, however, the general place stays the same.\n\nWhen the whole \"Anonymous\" hacker thing happened nothing changed on 4chan. It was still the same groups of people hanging out there that had always been there. With the creation of a collective name though it gave a small sub-set of people an easy way to coalesce. Suddenly 4chan hacker \"Anonymous\" became a thing everywhere even though it was no more or less of a thing on the site than it had been before.\n\nThe only thing that has changed on 4chan is the creation of the term \"alt-right\". Now all the little bigots have a common name to collect themselves around. With a name, cause, and rules they seem like a bigger group to outsiders. To those of us who have been there a long time it is the same group as always. No more. No less.\n\nHonestly, if somebody came up with a name for it you could just as easily make 4chan out to be the home of an open progressive sexuality movement. An active /lgbt/ board, /soc/'s nebulous sexuality, and /b/ & /v/ love of transporn would make the perfect examples. Just give it a good name to gather around and watch it take off as the next group defining 4chan.",
"I wouldn't say 4chan is right winged. I would say a lot of their political beliefs are just about right in the middle of the spectrum. The thing is, though, that 4chan does something few other places do. They allow dissenting opinions. 4chan may seem like it is right sided but that's mainly because they have nowhere else to post their opinions without being called certain buzzwords (racist, sexist, homophobic, etc). \n\nSay women aren't oppressed on Reddit? You're most likely going to be downvoted to oblivion and called sexist. Say police violence is a war on poverty and not a war on blacks? Downvoted AND racist. Say Hillary would be just as bad as trump? You're a racist, sexist, homophobic, uneducated redneck. 4chan has no voting system and is completely anonymous. It's a way to discuss things that left-heavy sites would never allow. \n\nThe day Trump was elected, /pol/ had a thread that I thought was very interesting. 'Why did you fucktards vote for trump?' The most common reason? People were tired of being accused of being all these horrible things simply because they didn't follow 100% of the liberal agenda. There are a lot of people on 4chan who share that experience and have nowhere else to really go. This is what makes it seem more right winged than it actually is.",
"Two points that I would make... \n\n1. 4chan has always wanted to be the \"unrepresented\" voice. In recent years, we have seen a huge increase in censorship in the media and sites like Reddit. This censorship has been mostly targeted at any opinions that go against the left. So 4chan is kind of a natural home for them. All of the people that feel slighted or censored start to seek a place where they won't be silenced. And 4chan is that platform. \n\n2. The term \"alt right\" has taken on an entirely new meaning and people are very loose with this label. Initially \"alt right\" referred to white supremecists and bigots. But now it is commonly used to define anyone that is very vocal against the left. So when you widen that definition, and you go from a more leftist and censored site like Reddit to a site like 4chan where it's essentially the wild west, it is naturally going to *feel* more \"right\". And I think that pushes people on the left away and they seek out sites like Reddit. Then a very broad label of \"at right\" is slapped on 4chan.",
"tl;dr: People who hold taboo beliefs gravitate to anonymous forums where they can express themselves honestly without the usual consequences.\n\nI would say it's because these days, racism, sexism, and so on are taboo. They're not things you can say in public without consequence. They're not things you can express at most workplaces without fear of being fired. They're not things you can express at school without, at best, risking peer ostracism or, at worst, official disciplinary action. The political rise of the alt-right notwithstanding, racism and sexism are what homosexuality, or racial minority assertion, religious minority status, or other things like that used to be: a thing not tolerated in polite society.\n\nMost people just conform to polite society in public, but this doesn't mean they agree with the cultural hegemon. They go along to get along, with their actual beliefs hidden away, expressed only in absolute confidence. The only people who express the minority position in public are those who have nothing to lose. The taboo belief becomes associated with people of low class... but they're just the only ones openly expressing it.\n\nEnter the anonymous forum. Here, people can express their actual opinions without consequence. They can be as weird, or as awful, as they wish to be without consequence. As a result, these places attract people who wish to express what cannot be expressed in public. The population of the anonymous forum is not representative of the population at large... but neither is what people are willing to say in public, either.",
"Okay, some people are throwing words around however not knowing quite how to use them correctly. First of all it needs to be established that, despite what people say, 4chan is heavily liberal. That's a fact. However where it gets confusing is in defining Liberal. 4chan subscribes to classical liberalism, which is essentially freedom above all else. And that is 4chans main driving force (or was, some say it became to moderated so 8chan became a thing, but that's besides the point). However done confuse that with being altright. There is a large socially right wing faction on 4chan (different to economically right), which opposes socially progressive.\n\n As to how this happened, it is partially due to simple politics. To understand 4chan you must understand it's antithesis, Tumblr. Tumblr represents the far left side of the internet (socially speaking) where as 4chan are the far right. This is largley why 4chan and Tumblr are what they are, they stand tonoppsoe each other. That is not to say that they could not exist without each other, however they both grow due to their reactions with each other, and both attract people who oppose what the other site believes.",
"Like, ten years ago, 4chan was a novelty because of you could make any dumb post you wanted and never worry about it again. This was the genesis of modern shitposting. On the /b/ forum, which famously has no rules except \"Don't post anything illegal,\" ironically posting racist shit became a fun thing to do, but even on /b/, at the time, far-right bullcrap was the subject of mockery. See also their raid on white supremacist talk show host Hal Turner.\n\n\nThe original owner of 4chan, created /n/, a board for discussing news and current events. Stormfront, a racist website that /b/ would often raid at the time, moved in and started posting unironically. The board was closed, and eventually reopened as /pol/ and /int/ - Politically Incorrect and International. Stormfront returned and continued to be awful. This time they weren't stopped, because it was funny, at first, to see white supremacists from the previous generation being all \"HOW DO YOU DO FELLOW KIDS, THE BLACKS SURE ARE UPPITY AREN'T THEY HA HA HA.\" It became less funny when they snared angry young people that were better able to fit in and spread their toxic beliefs to other popular, loosely-moderated boards like /v/. This eventually resulted in shenanigans like gamergate.\n\n\ntl;dr Any community that gets its laughs by pretending to be idiots will eventually be flooded by actual idiots who mistakenly believe that they're in good company.",
"To some extent it is people who are spreading alt-right memes ironically.\n\nPeople who don't actually follow it, and think it's funny to tell people that X meme is a symbol of the alt right. \"Because then actual Nazis use a silly flower to represent them, isn't that funny\"\n\nThese people don't realise that the original meaning of the symbol is irrelevant. If the symbol is being used to represent Nazis, then that's what it represents. The swastika was originally a symbol of peace. It is not that anymore.\n\nThen actual Nazis see alt-right posts are common on 4chan, and start going there. The site becomes occupied by two groups both saying pro-nazi things. 50% ironically, 50% straight faced.\n\n\nGoing off topic a bit below.\n\nIMO ironic Nazism stopped being funny the moment people took it seriously. When there are people who actually agree with your parody, then you need to tell them that it's a parody, and this is wrong to actually believe. If you carry on the joke, they believe they have more support and are even more dangerous."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[],
[
"http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/GIFT"
],
[],
[],
[],
[
"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jdP8TiKY8dE",
"https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CigQ4sLUkAAZwbR.jpg"
],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[]
] | ||
6zv98w | are the calories that i burn during exercise the same unit as "kcal" on food labels? | [deleted] | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/6zv98w/eli5_are_the_calories_that_i_burn_during_exercise/ | {
"a_id": [
"dmy97vu",
"dmybhd4",
"dmyqc30"
],
"score": [
15,
9,
6
],
"text": [
"We use the word \"calories\" when it comes to food and exercise, but they really are kcalories. So you're just cycling for 30 minutes. ",
"Yes, same thing. For reasons unclear to me, some years back people started referring to kilocalories (kcal) as Calories with a capital C. We measure exercise energy expenditure in these Calories, just another name for kcal.",
"A calorie (lower-case C) is the amount of energy needed to raise one gram of water by one degree celsius. Like a gram, it's too small a unit for most purposes. So, the kilocalorie (or \"Calorie\" with a capital C) is used, it's the amount of energy needed to heat one *kilo*gram of water by one degree celsius. That's a much more useful unit, and is what's meant pretty much any time you see the word \"Calorie\" *or* \"kilocalorie\"."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[],
[],
[]
] | |
4g2220 | how much detail can a satellite pick up from earth? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4g2220/eli5how_much_detail_can_a_satellite_pick_up_from/ | {
"a_id": [
"d2dz7id",
"d2e7zf7"
],
"score": [
5,
2
],
"text": [
"Best government spy satellite resolution is believed to be about 10 cm. Of course, the exact values are classified.",
"I would be specifically interested in the resolution of the best commercial satellites since, as another poster said, we have no idea the resolution of the best military satellites."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[],
[]
] | ||
o4xas | how the magic eye books work | the only explanation is god | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/o4xas/eli5_how_the_magic_eye_books_work/ | {
"a_id": [
"c3eep2t",
"c3ekrm8"
],
"score": [
7,
2
],
"text": [
"Let's look at an example:\n\n_URL_0_\n\nFirst of all, notice that a Magic Eye image always has repeated patterns. \n\nWhen you \"get\" the image, you brain has overlapped the patterns \"one off\" - so for example, where your brain sees the blue candy at the bottom left as seen by your left eye, it sees the blue candy _one over from the left_ as seen by your right eye.\n\nThe 3-d effect emerges because parts of the patterns are just a bit offset (to the left or right) from being perfectly identical from one repetition to the next. If the patterns are perfectly matched your brain can overlap them even one-off as a flat image, but if parts are offset, your brain compensates by telling you that it's because the those parts are closer or farther than where your eye is actually focusing. This is how we have binocular (depth) vision. The more the pattern is offset, the closer your brain interprets it as being. You can see this effect if you stare at a raised finger with one eye, then the other. The closer it is, the more it moves against the background. (This is called parallax.) Then when you view it with both eyes, your finger merges into a single image and you can tell how far away it is.\n\nA magic eye image is created by a computer program which precisely calculates how much to offset each part of the pattern to fool your brain into thinking how much closer (floating above the surface) it is.",
"Were you looking for such a complicated explanation as some of these? Here's a simple one. \n\nYou see the world in 3d because your eyes are a distance apart. Each eye is seeing a slightly different view of the world and your brain can calculate the 3d nature of the world based on that offset. Cover one eye and try to judge distance in an unfamiliar setting - it's almost impossible without the feedback from both eyes. \n\nSo, in a magic eye image, there are two underlying images, drawn or pictured from offset directions much like your real vision, and set next to each other and offset by a small amount. When you look through the image (thousand yard focus, if you will) and slowly bring your focus back towards the page, you will find an equilibrium point where each eye is seeing a separate offset image directly. The images line up and your eyes see \"into\" them as though it was a real 3d object. "
]
} | [] | [] | [
[
"http://www.soon.org.uk/humor/candy.jpg"
],
[]
] | |
9u5bto | how does hdr work in newer tvs? | Many newer TVs are advertised with HDR technology.
Wasn't the contrast between black and white always there? sometimes as high as 1:10,000?
What is HDR and how does it really work? is it technologically difficult to implement? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/9u5bto/eli5_how_does_hdr_work_in_newer_tvs/ | {
"a_id": [
"e91ktvo",
"e91kvs1",
"e91za6r"
],
"score": [
3,
3,
2
],
"text": [
"Contrast. Giving a Higher Range means you get bigger contrast between the darkest dark and the lightest light, allowing more detail in dark regions. \n\nNew tvs are able to be much brighter than old tvs could. Plus, it is contrast without i.e. light bleeding from lighter to darker regions",
"Basically it means that there is more detail displayed in the shadows and highlights before they are completely lost to pure black and pure white.",
"The backlight is getting an upgrade. Before, it was either a simple tube light or now a more power sipping set of LEDs. But they both didn't change their brightness very well over the entire image.\n\nSo now with HDR the backlight is going to start turning off completely where it needs to based on the image displayed. And in places where the image is bright, that particular spot of the backlight is getting turned up(higher nits). Thus, a change from a static backlight to a dynamic one."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[],
[],
[]
] | |
4ly58g | why do so many people turn to alcohol when facing a dark time considering the awful ramifications on the mind/body? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4ly58g/eli5_why_do_so_many_people_turn_to_alcohol_when/ | {
"a_id": [
"d3rclqq",
"d3r1io6",
"d3r2450"
],
"score": [
2,
3,
4
],
"text": [
"There's a quote: \"an addictive thought is one over which rationality has no power\"\n\nIt's a frustration and a compulsion to have the separation from your emotions and situation which alcohol gives you. There isn't a cost-benefit analysis.",
"Because when you're drunk you don't need to think or worry about anything other than being drunk ",
"Early stages of intoxication produce a mild euphoria and sense of well-being. Later stages of intoxication tend to render one largely \"numb\" to topics beyond one's immediate surroundings. \n\nIt's not hard to understand why both of these effects can be desirable to one seeking a temporary escape from their problems. "
]
} | [] | [] | [
[],
[],
[]
] |
Subsets and Splits
No community queries yet
The top public SQL queries from the community will appear here once available.