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d2gmmy | how do authorities pinpoint the source of a wildfire with such accuracy? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/d2gmmy/eli5_how_do_authorities_pinpoint_the_source_of_a/ | {
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"Old way: \nPerson in a fire tower would spot the smoke and point a large wheel I the tower towards the fire. The wheel would indicate the degrees from North in reference to the tower. A plane would fly over the tower in the same dire motion until it spotted the fire location.\n\nNew way: \nPerson in a fire tower would spot the smoke and point a camera at it. They would then use a remote camera and find the smoke with it. Doing some math, based on the direction and location of each camera, calculate the exact location of the fire."
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2xydqw | what is the current definition of life? what is the difference between learning computers and biologic life? | I'm writing a novel and am flustered by the definition. I realize that whole novels and series have been written about the misconceptions and problems associated with defining life and therefore giving rights to things deemed "alive", but I just want to know what the most recent generally-accepted definition of it is. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2xydqw/eli5_what_is_the_current_definition_of_life_what/ | {
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"Here is a great video by Kurzgesagt that covers the definition of life and a bit more. _URL_0_",
"Living things: \n\n1) are made of cells\n2) contain chemicals like H2O\n3) use energy\n4) grow and develop\n5) respond to stimuli from the environment\n6) reproduce\n\n",
"It's a philosophical question, with no single totally correct answer. But the essential dictionary/scientific definition tends to be:\n\na state of living characterized by capacity for metabolism, growth, reaction to stimuli, and reproduction\n\nSo to be considered alive, it must: \n\n- Create energy through some process, usually chemical (metabolism)\n- Grow, it must be able to take part of the environment and convert it into part of itself.\n- React to Stimuli, a trickier definition, but there must be some environmental change that will cause it to act differently.\n- Reproduction, it must be capable of creating a functional (if imperfect) copy of itself that is an independent being.\n\nSome further criteria are sometimes added:\n\n- Homeostatis - Regulation of internal conditions to maintain a steady state.\n- Organization - Being made of one or more cells\n- Adaptation - The ability to change over time to be better suited to environment.\n\nBut as I said, it's a philosophical question that has long been debated, and there is not a totally agreed upon definition. For example, it is a long running debate as to whether viruses are alive. [This article](_URL_0_) talks a lot about whether viruses are alive, and about the fundamental question of what \"living\" means."
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2od4uw | if my car is powered by a whole bunch of tiny explosions why does it take so long for the heater to get warm? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2od4uw/eli5_if_my_car_is_powered_by_a_whole_bunch_of/ | {
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"It still takes a while for all those tiny explosions to warm up your cold engine block, which then has to warm up your coolant before the heater core gets warm enough.",
"Because heat does not warm things up instantaneously.\n\nIt is the same reason you microwave burrito needs to cook longer than a second.\n\nAlso, there is no reason to expect explosions to heat things up particularly quickly, especially tiny ones. A blowtorch can heat you up pretty fast without an explosion.\n\n",
"Your car engine work on combustion, not explosion. It would not last if it was explosion."
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4j0vjl | what is the rationale behind having passwords expire? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4j0vjl/eli5_what_is_the_rationale_behind_having/ | {
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"It is to limit the amount of damage leaked or breached passwords can do if you are not aware of the breach of security. ",
"Sometimes people give their passwords to other people, or others will steal their password for whatever reason. By having it automatically expire it ensures that the password can't continue to be used by unauthorized users.",
"Part of my work is in IT security, and the answer is risk reduction.\n\nThe longer the average user uses a single password, the greater the odds that they will use that password for other purposes and other systems and other access points too, or that they'll write it down on the back page of a book and lose that book (I've found people doing that and reamed them for it), or that they'll tell someone else what it is because of an emergency or convenience.\n\nThis drastically increases the risk over time that someone stealing or getting access to or finding a written-down version of that password will be able to use it to get access to whatever that password protects. The odds of this amplify if that person uses the same password across multiple systems. And whoever gets that password might have hostile intent.\n\nAn example: Staff member A is home but urgently needs something off their office computer, calls staff member B \"Here's my password, send this to my home email?\". Staff member B gets laid off the following month and is PISSED about it. Staff member B's account was disabled when they got laid off, but they still have the username and password to staff member A's account because that didn't expire.",
"It is meant to reduce the time that a leaked password is valid for, hoping that it will be scheduled to be changed before a third party tries to exploit it.\n\nHowever as /u/beerfartsandtacos [said here](_URL_1_), it has its drawbacks, people writing passwords down or using lots of similar passwords. \n\nIn the UK the latest [recommendation by GCHQ](_URL_0_) is don't implement regular password expiry."
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43enbt | any ups/fedex drivers. how does ups/fedex factor in all the parking tickets they get delivering packages in a city? | I live in a city and every time I walk by a delivery truck they have multiple parking tickets. It must eat into the bottom line of the company. For those of you who work or have worked there, what does the company say about this issue? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/43enbt/eli5_any_upsfedex_drivers_how_does_upsfedex/ | {
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"Don't work there, but it's a simple answer really, they need to deliver packages on time (especially if it's a higher priority than standard shipping, such as 2-day or even 1-day delivery), if they are known as always being late in places like NYC, people may choose to not go with Fedex anymore. The money spent on fines does not outweigh the potential lost business or lawsuits for not delivering on-time. \n \nBy the time they found a parking spot and walked to the delivery address, they could have delivered 10 packages already, especially in places like NYC.",
"Sure, it must technically eat into the bottom line but there's no better way. The city isn't going to agree to stop ticketing delivery trucks and you stopping to find a good place to park would cost you more than the fine in the long run, considering you don't get ticketed in the majority of cases you illegally park. With such a large number of comings and goings it's pretty rare the few times you get caught, plus you know the time of day that the meter maids tend to come by in that area so you dodge some tickets that way too. A few stick but it's no big deal. \n\nWhen I worked at a sandwich shop in a very packed and busy area our drivers were constantly getting tickets at delivery locations or back at the shop in the spaces in front of our very store. We'd ask the parking attendants to please not ticket our cars, maybe throw them free sandwiches if they cooperated, but when they didn't the shop just paid the ticket. We didn't outright tell our drivers that they ought to park illegally but we did expect them to get to A and back to B in a very short time. "
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4yygnf | how does french spoken in quebec differ from french spoken in france? | Hey there, I am currently self-learning french and I was wondering how much the language differs between being spoken in Canada and the french spoken in France. I live close to Ottawa where English is spoken openly as well as French, but I often hear people talk about how it is hard for people from France to understand those who are speaking Québécois. Is there any merit to this or would it be comparable to say a Vancouverite vs a Nova Scotian accent? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4yygnf/eli5how_does_french_spoken_in_quebec_differ_from/ | {
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"It's about as different as American english is to UK english. The biggest difference being the accent and the common vocabulary being different. I'm a native French speaker, both my parents are European francophones and I grew up in Quebec for most of my life and I can tell you there isn't that much difference besides that tbh. To me, if anyone (as in a native speaker) claims to be unable to understand the other accent, they're just not trying in the slightest to make an effort at comprehension.",
"Quebecois french tends to borrow a lot of english words and their swear words tend to involve religious symbols more than bodily functions. English swear words aren't really considered obscene in Quebecois, you could call your landlord and say \"mon doorbell est tout fucked up\" and it wouldn't be considered terribly rude.",
"The difference is largely just the accent. Some bits and pieces of vocabulary are different as well, but not so much that you can't understand. Think of the difference between English spoken in the Southern U.S., New York and the U.K.\n\nSome say that Quebec French has adopted more English vocabulary than European French, though that's not always the case IMO. Quebec's eagerness to protect their language from the hegemony of English-Canada means a lot of words and phrases that European French use the English word for are not necessarily used in Quebec (the French simply say \"parking\" or \"email\" whereas in Quebec they say \"stationnement\" and \"courriel\"). However Francophones in Quebec are also way more likely to speak English as a second language, so in day-to-day conversation English words are often inserted. ",
"The main difference is that we use much more contraction here in Quebec than people from France. In France they tend to cleary say every word and syllable, and we tend to shorten it and not say every syllable.\n-France Ex: je vais aller au dépanneur faire le plein d'essence.\n-Québec: jvais au dep mett dl'essence.\n\nI am a french canadian, I have friends from France and went to Paris, and that is the main reason they often dont understand us, we speak faster because we use contraction and also the other thing is we dont use the same words as them for many things. Ex: lock the doors (for a car). France would be: verrouille les portières. Quebec would be: barre les portes."
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4n39j5 | how do large websites like google or reddit stay online during server maintenance/updates? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4n39j5/eli5_how_do_large_websites_like_google_or_reddit/ | {
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"They have lots and lots of servers, plus load balancers that direct traffic to the machines that are up and away from the ones that are down. If they need *n* servers to handle load, they have *n*+*x* servers, and only have *x* offline at any given time.",
"Redundancy. When you access _URL_0_ the request will ultimately be resolved by one of many many servers. If one of those servers is broken they can just stop sending requests there. Same if they want to perform maintenance on it, they just mark that server as offline and no requests are sent to it.\n\nAlso most IT companies have tools set up that let their server administrators do almost anything remotely so where they're located isn't all that important.",
"Imagine websites are like plays in a theater, that has multiple showings of the same play/website going at the same time, 24/7. When you want to go see it, you'll get a ticket to go to any one of the theater rooms (web servers). It doesn't matter to you which one you go to because they're all showing the same play (website) anyway, and this also lets them sell tons more tickets (website viewers) than if they were just showing it one at time. \nWhen the play needs to be revised (site update), they don't need to stop all of them at once. They can close down just one of the rooms and get those actors to do their dress rehearsal (testing) for the new version, while people still see the old versions in the other rooms. Then when they're ready can start sending some people to the new version's showing and then pick another room to perform an update, until they're all updated. \n \nServer farms can be anywhere from just a few servers to hundreds. This concept also applies to the other components of a web application other than just computing what content should be shown on a web page (database servers and so on)",
"**ELI5 answer:** It's just like how mommy and daddy have 3 cars. When one car needs repairs for a few days, mommy and daddy have another car they can use in the meantime."
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brlzmg | why does pain come in waves and what's happening to the injured part when there is no pain, compared to when there is pain? | I've noticed after a recent shoulder Op that I can have long periods relatively pain free, then without any additional aggravation or movement on the wound the pain comes back full force. What's actually different? The gaps seem too long for the nerves just to have rested? Does the body repairing itself actually cause pain? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/brlzmg/eli5_why_does_pain_come_in_waves_and_whats/ | {
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"You're right that it's not just the nerves resting. That process does happen but it's very fast (fractions of a second). Instead, this is caused by the brain itself getting fatigued by the constant input from the nerves and blocking them out. Then after a while it's rested and ready to accept the input again.\n\nYou can see this same sort of thing happening if you stare at a pattern for a while. You'll see the pattern fade out, with the light parts appearing darker and the dark parts appearing lighter, until it's hard to see the pattern anymore. Then if you look at a blank space, the reverse of the pattern shows up. Your eyes and brain are blocking out the stimulation of the pattern, so when the pattern goes away the block actually creates a reverse pattern. However, if you instead keep staring at the pattern for a very long time, you'll begin to see parts of the pattern fade in and out as your brain's block fades and is replaced. This corresponds to the waves of pain you're talking about.\n\nBasically, your brain is able to get used to the pain, but it keeps checking occasionally to see if the pain is still there."
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4ih7ul | radio stations in the usa - why are they designated names like kbbl, wbbr, wcpr etc? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4ih7ul/eli5_radio_stations_in_the_usa_why_are_they/ | {
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"Every radio station in the world has a call sign -- an identifier that is unique to that station. In the US, the call sign is part of the public branding of the station. \n\nFor the most part, stations that start with W are east of the Mississippi River, and the ones that start with K are west of it. "
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3ni55l | why is it that i crave unhealthy junk food when i'm sick rather than healthy food. shouldn't my body want healthy food to help fight the sickness? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3ni55l/eli5_why_is_it_that_i_crave_unhealthy_junk_food/ | {
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"\"Unhealthy\" food is actually healthy, just not all the time. It taste good because your body needs things like energi and salt."
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4ilrsj | why do weather apps give both temperature and real feel, and why aren't they they same? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4ilrsj/eli5_why_do_weather_apps_give_both_temperature/ | {
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"How the weather feels is more than just the temperature.\n\nA humid day feels much warmer because your sweat can't evaporate so easily.\n\nA windy day often feels much colder because it carries heat away from your skin faster than a still day even though they may have the same measured temperature."
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24ekh5 | what is the supposed virtue of having religious faith? | I hope this doesn't sound like a loaded question; I'm just genuinely curious. It seems fairly plain to me that nearly everyone on the planet and every Christmas movie believes that faith is virtuous unto itself. I've heard people explicitly say that any religion you have faith in is fine so long as you have faith. When I asked them what the virtue of faith was they just sort of scoffsneerdodged.
For such a common thought, I've never once heard it explained and it seems to need explanation. Isn't faith just credulity? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/24ekh5/eli5_what_is_the_supposed_virtue_of_having/ | {
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"There's a distinction to be made between faith and belief that I think applies here. *Beliefs* can be supported by fact, or they can be unsubstantiated, but within the context of religion it's understood that *faith* is a type of devotion that is often tested and by most definitions can never be fully substantiated. Among scholars and in most mythologies, including modern stories and movies, When faith is described as being a virtue it's in the sense that an adherent remains devoted to their religion even when it is not convenient or in the face of discrimination. Unfortunately, within the context of those who have told you that \"any religion you have faith in is fine so long as you have faith\", I suspect what they're really saying is that they're comfortable with the idea of you having a belief in a god -- *any god* -- but they are not comfortable with the idea of you being an atheist. And in a scholarly sense, and in the sense of most stories and movies, this is a misuse of the term that faith is a virtue. In fact, I think some religious scholars would argue that those who use the term in this sense have specifically failed to uphold it, or have 'failed the test' so to speak.",
"Faith is belief without evidence. Objectively, it's obvious this is not a virtue and should be avoided. Supernatural claims by definition can not be tested or falsified because there is no testable evidence to begin with. \nThis should put those with religious faith in a position of cognitive dissonance but religion has a trick up it's sleeve. Indoctrination. Rather than warning people of the dangers of having faith, churches redefine it as a virtue and repeat this assertion to \"the flock\" continuously from an early age. They are taught that contradictions and absurdities in their religion are simply mysteries that are beyond human comprehension and should never be questioned. It's a powerful technique, especially when used on people with no education in fields which require critical thought (such as science and the scientific method). \n"
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abvl13 | you often "subtle hints of apricot" or other fruits in wine descriptions. how do they get these different notes? | I understand oaky notes if it was stored in oak but I don't know how grape wine has "pear" or "citrus" notes. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/abvl13/eli5_you_often_subtle_hints_of_apricot_or_other/ | {
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"It's just a descriptor, an attempt from the wine taster to describe the flavor of the grape. Like when you say \"tastes like chicken,\" it doesn't really mean there's chicken in the dish.",
"Every grape used in wine is going to be a little different in composition than a grape grown a few miles away, or one grown in a more or less rainy year, or grown on the shadier side of a hill, etc. A million tiny factors can impart very small chemical changes to the grape - maybe it picks up a few extra chemicals from the local soil, maybe it becomes a little sweeter or a little more tart than normal due to weather conditions, etc. And of course, wine is matured for different amount of times in different sorts of barrels. All of those changes make it so that any bottle of wine is going to be slightly different.\n\nOf course, at the end of the day, there's nothing in that bottle besides old grape juice and yeast. But we have to find a way to describe those slight taste or smell differences, so we like to reference other familiar flavors as a reference. Blueberries, for example, are more tart and a little more floral tasting than a typical grape. So if the wine is a little tart and a little floral, it might remind you a bit of a blueberry. If a wine tastes even more acidic or tart, it might remind you of citrus instead. Cherries aren't too tart and aren't super sweet, but still have a strong, juicy, vibrant flavor. Pears are very sweet and very refreshing. And it goes beyond fruits, though those are some of the most common. Lots of great wines have a rich and earthy smell, sort of like the smell of mushrooms, or even of wet wool. Some are very tannic, giving them a more bitter taste and a drier mouthfeel that can remind you of tea or of other plant scents like wood or spices. The list goes on. \n\nThese are all matters of personal taste - whatever a wine reminds you of is a perfectly fine descriptor. They're only meant to guide you when you're looking for a wine to try, and as a shared characteristic between certain types of wines. If you know that you've enjoyed wines in the past that remind you of cherries and you see \"notes of cherry\" on a wine label, that's a good indicator that you might enjoy this wine.",
"When grape juice is fermented the sugars are converted to ethanol, but many other molecules (amino acids etc.) are also metabolized. Many of these are converted into volatiles (they easily diffuse into air). Some volatiles are also produced in different kinds of fruit (like citrus, passion fruit, berries etc.), so wine tasters associate that smell with the fruit they come from. Methoxypyrazines, for example, make wine smell like green bell peppers. \n\nIt's also how manufacturers make shampoo smell citrussy - they put those same compounds in the shampoo and your brain associates it with citrus (look for limonene and citronellol)."
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2sx5t7 | ; why are american sports leagues broken into conferences, as opposed to being a simple league table? | Other leagues around the world have playoffs in the same way, but North American sports leagues are subdivided in a way that, from the outside looking in, is very confusing. Not necessarily by *how* they're divided, but *why*. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2sx5t7/eli5_why_are_american_sports_leagues_broken_into/ | {
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"The USA is a massive country, with professional teams spread out over the entire area. In the UK, for instance, each team can travel to play anybody because the nation is very small, geographically when compared to the USA. In the USA, teams are typically organized by geographic location and tend to play those teams more often than teams located 2500 miles away on the opposite coast. \n \n",
"Division rivalries are more profitable than watching 32 teams go at it for a whole season. \n"
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3cf275 | how can brands like equate make generic versions of products almost identical in packaging and formula to major brands? | Why would major brands agree to this, especially letting generic brands put "compare to brand name" on the front? How does this make sense for a major brand - wouldn't this just siphon sales away from their product? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3cf275/eli5_how_can_brands_like_equate_make_generic/ | {
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"This will really bake your noodle; Most of those generic products are made by the \"major brands\", in some cases on the same assembly lines with the same ingredients by the same people. The reason they don't siphon sales away from the name brands is because people like and trust certain brands, and in their mind they think the branded products are going to be 'better' simply because they are labeled. The major brands sell these 'generic' products to a company like Equate at a profit, and everybody wins.\n\nNow, admittedly this isn't true in all cases; I've had some generic products that were pretty dismal, but in a lot of cases the generics are exactly identical to the name brands. "
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3oo0ix | without showers and the products we have nowadays, did cavemen have really bad acne? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3oo0ix/eli5_without_showers_and_the_products_we_have/ | {
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"Most people don't get that bad acne even if they don't shower. I haven't had any acne since I was 17 even I've gone two weeks without shower camping in army. Sure the ones that had probably had it bad but acne ia probably least of your troubles when you run from tigers and try to find food so you wont starve.",
"Acne comes more from insulin than anything else. Other things contribute, but without insulin it wojldnt be nearly as bad. Also, there is alot of evidence to show cave men spent most of their life mear water."
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ohfer | how does real-time rendering in computer graphics work/differ from raytracing? | Posting in ELI5 because I really just want a short answer of the general principle behind it.
I understand raytracing works by sending a view-ray through every pixel in the image and calculating intersection, refraction, reflection, etc., and I also understands that it can take an immense amount of computation power and time.
So how are computers able produce 60 or even more FPS in applications like computer games? Does it still work pretty much the same way, just with a lot of simplifications, or is there a totally different technique being used? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/ohfer/eli5_how_does_realtime_rendering_in_computer/ | {
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"Sorry people, but I'm seeing some terribly inaccurate answers to this ELI5.\n\nThe realtime rendering which is done in video games using standard GPUs doesn't work anything like ray tracing. Ray tracing works by considering each pixels on the screen and shooting a ray through it and seeing what object gets hit, then calculating the colour and lighting at that point on the object to determine the colour of the pixel. Secondary rays are typically shot out too to do things like mirrors etc.\n\nRealtime 3D is done, not by starting at each pixel on the screen, but by drawing each object in the scene onto the screen itself. Each object is projected etc into 2D and drawn on the screen at that point. Lighting and shading is done for each pixel of the object.\n\nNow, some objects are in front of other objects, and you don't want objects being painted over by objects behind them. This problem is handled by use of a Z-buffer. Each pixel in the image has a depth (Z) associated with it. This just how far away the pixel is from the camera (kind of). During the drawing stage if you are drawing an object but you see from the Z buffer that some of its pixels are behind what is already in the image (i.e. you can't see them), then you know not to draw anything for those pixels.\n\nGPUs have hardware to speed up the 3D geometry transformations, drawing of objects (actually triangles), using the Z-buffer, shading the pixels (i.e. for textures and other surface effects), and probably for other things that I've forgotten.\n\nThere are also a lot of speed tricks used to figure out which objects are worth drawing in the screen and which ones can't be seen at all.\n"
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3iklgl | how do internet providers measure the amount of data i use? | Since each unit of data being sent across the Internet can be lost in transit, do Internet providers record data usage according to
1)the amount of data I request (meaning if i am missing data I have to request twice or more), or the
2)amount of data I successfully receive, or
3)use some statistical tool to strike a balance between them? If so, is it possible to briefly explain how, like im 5? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3iklgl/eli5_how_do_internet_providers_measure_the_amount/ | {
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"I'm a Network Engineer for a Tier 1 North American ISP, and might be able to help.\n\nLets say that you have an agreement with the post office that you can only send or receive X number of letters per month, using a specific shipping method. They store your address and log all incoming and outgoing mail that use it. When you drop a letter you want to send in the mail box, it bounces between a few people and eventually ends up at the post office. The postman handling your mail at the post office recognizes your address, and automatically knows that you have an agreement, and checks the log of mail sent and received using that address. Once logged, they check to see what shipping method they will use ie. overnight, 2nd day air, or standard. Your letter is forwarded and bounces around between few other people before finally ending up at its destination. \n\nIn reality, the post office is a node (computer) on the network called the PCRF (Policy and charging rules function). It retrieves, verifies, logs, and forwards data packets to where it needs to go. The shipping method is the QoS (Quality of service) specification that dictates how fast your packet is sent. This is the difference in speed you see in 3g vs LTE\n\nEDIT: Fix typo stuffs",
"ISPs would normally just add up the payload size of all the packets they send to (or receive from) your modem. It's impossible for them to know about all packet loss anyway because many protocols like UDP (used for things like video games, VoIP/phone conversations, etc.) don't even have a built-in mechanism for confirming packet delivery.\n\nIt shouldn't matter anyway though, packet loss (at least on a wired internet connection) should be negligible. In most cases you should have no packet loss between your modem and the destination server (and between the server and your modem). Under poor network conditions (e.g. ISP-level congestion) there may be some packet loss like 1-5%, but it still probably won't be that significant in terms of measuring data usage. \n\nIf there is a lot of ISP-level congestion or the line quality is really bad, then I can see the packet loss adding up, but under normal circumstances it shouldn't really be a concern."
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74rj88 | what are ice vi and vii? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/74rj88/eli5_what_are_ice_vi_and_vii/ | {
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"At work currently and I can elaborate more later, but when you look at a phase diagram you'll see the commenliquid, gas, and solid phases at standard temperature and pressure. \nWhen you freeze water normally it forms a some what regular structureWell if you apply crazy pressure to the water it'll change from one structure to a different one. The Roman numerals are to distinguish the structures."
]
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[]
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1zumf0 | will there ever be another draft to war? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1zumf0/eli5_will_there_ever_be_another_draft_to_war/ | {
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"not for women, despite all the femi-nazi crap about needing to have combat roles to be equal, if a draft happens it will be only for men."
]
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7132ph | why is america allowed to object to other countries making/testing weapons when they have more weapons than the rest of the world combined? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/7132ph/eli5_why_is_america_allowed_to_object_to_other/ | {
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"Well, this would fall under the category of \"do as I say, don't do as I do\".\n\n\nThe US, for better or for worse, see itself as a global police. Thus granting itself the power to dictate what other countries can do. Most people agree that tyrannical dictators with a loose screw don't need nukes, so most just allow the US to do its thing. ",
"Who's going to stop the US?",
"Thanks to the UN anti-nuclear weapon proliferation treaty and various secret weapons treaties included therein, the USA is allowed to provide new nuclear weapons to several NATO allies. This treaty, however, condemns the creation of nuclear weapons and tests in all other aspects. Because the USA is not violating the treaty, and because the USA is part of the UN Peacekeeping Force, it is their job to condemn other countries attempting to create nuclear weapons **and** deploy when necessary. The UN literally made the USA the police of the world, and member states frequently complain about that decision.",
"First, there's no \"allowing\". It simply happens. Other countries don't complain because it wouldn't do much good. They couldn't put any meaningful sanctions on the US, even if they wanted to.\n\nTo answer your more general question, the US is allowed to have nuclear weapons because they developed them first. There was no one to stop them from being developed. Once the US had a large stockpile it was obvious that the US's status as a nuclear power wasn't going to change so there was no use arguing about it.\n\nIn fact, it can be argued that the US having nuclear weapons means that many of their allies don't need their own nukes. The role of the US means that they protect much of the world and those countries don't need to have their own weapons development programs. So, it actually leads to less nukes.\n\nBasically every country on the planet agrees that we need to limit the development and production of nuclear, biological and chemical weapons. The US isn't alone in this.",
"You have a country that has more military power than all the other countries combined. You do not like that this country invades somewhere.\n\nWhat do you do?\n\na) Stand up, fight, and get killed\n\nb) Speak up, get publicly ridiculed, ostracized, and cast into oblivion\n\nc) Shut up and roll with it\n\nSo far, everyone who survived has picked C."
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30l5hr | fair tax act of 2015 | _URL_0_
I'm reading the link, but struggling to understand exactly what it means. It mentions businesses will be exempt from the tax on services, so is this new tax applying to me and not business? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/30l5hr/eli5_fair_tax_act_of_2015/ | {
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"Basically it replaces income tax with a large sales tax. \n\n(you probably don't have to worry about it because I doubt it will get far) "
]
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"https://www.congress.gov/bill/114th-congress/house-bill/25"
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3ywfd5 | if i'm calling someone and they are calling me at the same time, why doesn't it connect us together? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3ywfd5/eli5_if_im_calling_someone_and_they_are_calling/ | {
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"The telephone system isn't that smart. It can only recognize whether you're on the phone or not. As you pick up the phone to dial, you're on the phone. Calls can only connect to someone who is not on the phone - and as soon as the phone computer sees that someone's on the phone, it doesn't look at why, it just rejects the call with a busy signal."
]
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7m7nu1 | binge eating | [deleted] | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/7m7nu1/eli5_binge_eating/ | {
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"The biggest issue is stretching the stomach. By eating too much, especially if you make a habit of it, your stomach will stretch to accommodate.\n\nThat doesn't sound so bad, but it does mean that you will have to continue eating a lot in order to receive a \"full\" response from the stomach, meaning you will be more likely to eat way more with every meal, leading to increased body fat and general unhealthiness."
]
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279d3j | how do cable channels without advertisements, like turner classic movies, make money? | How are channels, such as Turner Classic Movies financially viable if they don't have any advertising, especially since some create regular new content? And what about channels like Boomerang? What is the point of their existence from a financial standpoint? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/279d3j/eli5_how_do_cable_channels_without_advertisements/ | {
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"You pay them per month. Like with HBO you pay $15ish a month and a good chunk of that goes straight to HBO. So they don't need advertising and don't have to follow censorship rules.",
"Since they don't show modern movies, they can pay less to show their content, so the costs are low compared to other channels. This is the same with Boomerang.\n\nThey do collect money from subscribers. Other channels do but supplement it with ads. Since it's less costly for TCM to run their schedule, they can get away with just the money from TV subscribers.",
"They become part of the portfolio offered by the cable companies to differentiate cable from broadcast television or various packages of cable from basic cable. So...the cable company funds them. Further, with something like Turner Classic Movies the cost is nearly nothing since they are replaying low cost movies with very little production overhead, not broadcasting infrastructure or FCC fees etc. Even further, something like Turner Classic Movies keeps the movies they own the rights to front and center and more likely to produce other derivative license value rather than fading further into oblivion."
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1akpcp | loevinger's 9 stages of ego development. | Can someone please explain to me what exactly each stage is describing. I'm having a bit of a hard time understanding this principle. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1akpcp/eli5_loevingers_9_stages_of_ego_development/ | {
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"At the beginning you don't know what to care about(1)\nThen you starting caring more about what you get(2)\nThen you really care if you get hurt(3)\nThen you really care about fitting in (4)\nThen you care about making a difference and doing what's good(5)\nThen you really care about being true to yourself(6)\nThen you really care about others and them being true to themselves(7)\nThen you realize you won't be able to fulfill all 1-7, and cope with that reality(8)\nThen you accept 1-8 but love life, its lessons, and experiences. You live life with grace, passion, compassion, and prudence, believing in a purposeful destiny.(9)\n\nGod bless :p\n",
"Sorry, I had to delete my other comment so you'd get a notification about this. [This](_URL_0_) guy explains it a lot better. Give him an upvote.\n\n"
]
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"http://www.reddit.com/r/todayilearned/comments/1ajjfk/til_most_american_adults_will_never_develop_past/c8ybbzk"
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k6ucn | retained earnings | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/k6ucn/eli5_retained_earnings/ | {
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"Yes well a company does and income an loss statement which shows the total earnings, then subtracts out the cost of the goods they are making, then the expenses. What is left is net income (profit).\n\nAfter taxes a company can distribute all or part of the profit to the shareholders or retain all or part of the profit within the company. If they retain the profit that is known as retained earnings.\n\nRetained earnings are not reported as a company asset but reported as a shareholders asset. Sometimes a company holds it for later distribution or for reinvestment into the company (if approved by the shareholders).",
"The accounting identity, assets = liabilities + equity, describes something (a company) with things that will ensure it makes money in the future (assets). Although the company operates and \"owns\" these assets, different types of people lay claim to their ownership.\n\nLiabilities indicate that somebody owns some asset and will relinquish claims to its ownership if some agreeable terms are fulfilled. An example of this is that I lease a printing press to a bookmaker and either receive the machine back after a certain amount of time or desire payments to be made on the machine until I deem that the value of the machine has been remitted to me.\n\nThe equity part of ownership claims detail in which ways the company itself owns the assets. Because a company cannot own itself, the default position is that people or other companies must own it and thus its assets that are not claimed by liabilities. To be compensated for the profit-making potential of these assets, equity owners expect to share in the excess of money that the company makes beyond its debts and obligations. This extra money is called retained earnings, simply. The owners of the company can vote and decide if the money should be reinvested in the company or distributed to themselves as dividends. If dividends are declared, the accounting entry will represent a decrease in both retained earnings (equity) and cash (asset) to indicate that an outflow of assets has occurred and that there are no longer claims to those assets. Think of it as part of equity different from what the company owners initially bought in for and as more of just a label for some assets so people know they got there.",
"Yes well a company does and income an loss statement which shows the total earnings, then subtracts out the cost of the goods they are making, then the expenses. What is left is net income (profit).\n\nAfter taxes a company can distribute all or part of the profit to the shareholders or retain all or part of the profit within the company. If they retain the profit that is known as retained earnings.\n\nRetained earnings are not reported as a company asset but reported as a shareholders asset. Sometimes a company holds it for later distribution or for reinvestment into the company (if approved by the shareholders).",
"The accounting identity, assets = liabilities + equity, describes something (a company) with things that will ensure it makes money in the future (assets). Although the company operates and \"owns\" these assets, different types of people lay claim to their ownership.\n\nLiabilities indicate that somebody owns some asset and will relinquish claims to its ownership if some agreeable terms are fulfilled. An example of this is that I lease a printing press to a bookmaker and either receive the machine back after a certain amount of time or desire payments to be made on the machine until I deem that the value of the machine has been remitted to me.\n\nThe equity part of ownership claims detail in which ways the company itself owns the assets. Because a company cannot own itself, the default position is that people or other companies must own it and thus its assets that are not claimed by liabilities. To be compensated for the profit-making potential of these assets, equity owners expect to share in the excess of money that the company makes beyond its debts and obligations. This extra money is called retained earnings, simply. The owners of the company can vote and decide if the money should be reinvested in the company or distributed to themselves as dividends. If dividends are declared, the accounting entry will represent a decrease in both retained earnings (equity) and cash (asset) to indicate that an outflow of assets has occurred and that there are no longer claims to those assets. Think of it as part of equity different from what the company owners initially bought in for and as more of just a label for some assets so people know they got there."
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2040rz | how does shazam recognize a song from any part, and how does it do that so fast? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2040rz/eli5_how_does_shazam_recognize_a_song_from_any/ | {
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"Here's a [link](_URL_0_) explaining it",
"_URL_0_\nHere's the compsci behind it.",
"I've never used Shazam, but I use SoundHound all the time, and I've never seen a feature to tag a random song you're hearing. Does it work on a similar principal?",
"ELI5 version:\n\nThey run a program that listens to a bunch of songs. By taking samples of the song at different points and convert this into a unique key. The song is then stored in a huge list of songs, each labeled with that unique key. When you want to find the name of a song, you tell the Shazam app to sample the song you are listening to, it creates a key and then finds a matching key in the huge list of songs, along with the song you are looking for.\n\n\nELIprogram:\n\nAlgorithm that scans a large catalog of songs, samples peak frequency of song at sudo-random intervals, converts samples into a hash, stores song in hash-table. Similar algorithm for look-up.",
"Machine learning algorithms create information about information, then that database is compared to your input to find the closest match.\n\n[ELI5 for Machine Learning](_URL_0_)",
"I believe that is uses something called 'up, down, same' sampling.\n\nThe 10 second sample is broken down into parts where the song deviates from a set pitch or whatever, and the fingerprint is the combo of where and by how much the sample deviates"
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1ygfpj | why haven't holograms made it into main stream tech? cell phones, computers, don't we all want holographic objects to interact with rather than flat screens? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1ygfpj/eli5_why_havent_holograms_made_it_into_main/ | {
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"text": [
"because we cant make holograms that are useful in practical situations yet."
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8gvk9v | why do children develop "crushes" when they haven't reached puberty yet? | [deleted] | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/8gvk9v/eli5_why_do_children_develop_crushes_when_they/ | {
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" > In most cases they don't know what sex is, or even what the difference between the two sexes are.\n\nI think you're underestimating how much kids are exposed to and how much society instills gender expectations.",
"Who says crushes have to be sexual? Sexual and romantic attraction are different, though related. ",
"Crushes are not necessarily sexual. There are things you see as appealing, like a flower or a little kitten, that trigger little things in your brain. A crush at a young age (like 4 to 8 years old) are more sub conscious appeals, like symmetry and pattern recognition. Such as, you see a girl (or boy), and their face reminds you of your mothers (or fathers), or their face is very symmetrical, your brain likes it, and you develop a crush in that sense. "
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1x1qcs | how does someone calculate the angle of the sun when it's in the sky and how does it relate to the seasons/equinoxes? | I can't find a decent explanation on this, can someone explain to me the equation in a more simple term that can help me understand this better? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1x1qcs/eli5_how_does_someone_calculate_the_angle_of_the/ | {
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"The earth's axis of rotation does not exactly align with the sun. The line from the south to the north pole of the earth is an angle to the line from the south to the north pole of the sun. The line of the axis through the earth describes a circle during a year if you looked down on the earth from far above the north or south pole. As the earth moves around the sun, the north pole tips towards and away from the sun by a known, fixed amount every day.\n\nIf you made a measurement of the angle of the sun from the horizon each day at noon you would see that this angle changes a little bit each day. The angle gets progressively larger, then gets progressively smaller, then repeats.\n\nThis creates four points. The \"equinox\" happens twice - when the sun is right in the middle of the traverse. The point when the sun is highest in the sky is called a solstice, and so is the point when the sun in lowest in the sky. If you're in the northern hemisphere, the winter solstice is the low point, the summer solstice is the high point.\n\nYou may have been taught that noon is when the sun is \"directly overhead\". If you go out and make these measurements every day at noon, you will likely discover that the sun is never \"directly overhead\" - it is always a little bit toward the equator[*]. The further toward either the north or south pole you go, the lower the sun will be at noon.\n\nIf you stood on the equator, the sun would be \"directly overhead\" just two days a year - on the equinox days. As the sun moved towards either solstice, it would be a little above, or a little below the point directly overhead.\n\nWhat noon really means is \"the time when the sun is halfway from sunrise to sunset\". [barring oddities about when noon is on official clocks which can vary by quite a bit depending on the law in the country you're taking the measurement in]\n\nOk, so here's why all this matters.\n\nIf you know what day of the year it is, you can calculate where the sun will be at noon at the equator. The further north or south you go, that position will change by a known amount depending on how far you travel. So you can deduce your **longitude** - the distance you are from the equator - by calculating the difference between where the sun is at noon where you are and where the sun would be at noon at the equator.\n\nIf you lost your calendar and didn't know what day of the year it was, you can track the motion of the sun every day and at a maximum of six months time, you will be able to know what day it is again - because the sun will eventually reach a solstice point, and you know what day of the year the solstices happen on (December 21st and June 21 +/- 1 day, which is trivial for this discussion).\n\nKnowing your longitude is helpful if you are a farmer. The further north or south you go, the shorter the growing season and you need to know when to plant, and harvest, and when to get ready for a winter.\n\nFiguring out your **lattitude** - where you are on an east/west axis, is much, much harder, and you can't (easily) do it by observing the sky.\n\n[*] Fun trivia:\n\nThe longitude where the sun *is* directly overhead on the winter and summer solstice - the highest longitude you can be at where this ever happens - is called a \"Tropic\". There are of course two Tropics - one north of the equator and one south of the equator. They are named the Tropic of Cancer (north) and the Tropic of Capricorn (south), because of where the sun is in relation to the constellations on those days. Thus the area between these two lines, which is the area that gets the most sunlight and is the warmest on the planet, is called \"the tropics\".",
"For celestial observations such as these, we use something called the celestial sphere. Basically, we pretend that we enlarge the earth to the point where the sun, or the moon, or whatever celestial object we are observing is touching the surface of the Earth. So let's pretend we inflate the Earth like a balloon until the surface extends all the way to the sun.\n\nOn Earth, we a grid system called latitude and longitude to describe our position on the planet. Latitude is the angle between the equator and your position (North/South distance), and longitude is the angle between the Prime Meridian (which runs through Greenwich) and you (East/West Distance).\n\nNow, we use the same principles for celestial objects on the celestial sphere, but we give them different names. So, let's go back to our celestial sphere. With the Earth expanded, the sun is now resting on India, for example. The lat and long of India is about 21 degrees north and 78 degrees east. So, since the sun is on India, the sun has the same co-ordinates. However, we name them a bit different. Latitude on the celestial sphere is called declination. Longitude is a bit more tricky. On earth, longitude is divided into east and west. However, the celestial version of longitude, which is called hour angle, does not use east or west. It starts a zero at the celestial prime meridian and and rotates around the earth in the westerly direction. So, the declination of the sun is 21 degrees north, the hour angle from Greenwich (known as the GHA - Greenwich Hour Angle) is 282 degrees (360-78).\n\nNow, there is the issue of seasons and equinox/solstices. Declination is what determines the seasons. Just in case you don't know, remember that the Earth orbits around the sun with a tilt of about 22.5 degrees. Astronomical speaking, the year begins during the Spring Equinox (March 20-21). At this point, the declination is zero. This means that the sun is lined up directly on top of the equator. At this point, there is no part of the Earth tilted towards the sun. This is the first day spring in the northern hemisphere and the first day of fall in the south. We call this the first point of Aries. Afterwards, as the Earth orbits, the northern hemisphere starts tilting towards the sun. At the Summer Solstice (June 20-21), the sun reaches its maximum declination of 22.5 degrees north. We call this position the first point of Cancer. On Earth, we have an imaginary line like the equator that circles the earth at exactly 22.5 degree north Latitude. It is called the tropic of Cancer. During this time, the sun is directly above this line. This is summer in the north and winter in the south. As we continue around the sun, the north hemisphere becomes less exposed. On the Fall Equinox (September 20/21), the Sun is on top of the Equator again with a declination of zero. This is called the first point of Libra and is the first day of fall for the north and the first day of spring for the south. As we orbit some more, the southern hemisphere now becomes more exposed to the sun. On the Winter Solstice (December 20/21), the Southern Hemisphere is tilted 22.5 degrees towards the sun. This is called the first point of Capricorn, and so the Earth is directly over the Tropic of Capricorn, which is another imaginary line located at 22.5 degrees south. This is winter in the north and summer in the south. We finish our orbit and return to the first point of Aries to start the process all over again.",
"- Sun angle is measured based in the angle that the waves hit the surface. \n-Seasons are commonly mistaken for being relative to the Earth's distance from the sun, when they are actually due to the angle the waves hit the surface and the length of exposure. \n- Equinox is when the sun's waves hit perpendicular to the equator and happens twice a year.\n- Solstices also happen twice a year. Winter solstice is when the Earth's angle and orbit cause one's particular location to have short exposure to the sun and have its waves hit at a low angle (causing more reflection). Summer solstice is the opposite when the exposure (daylight) is longest and the wave's are most direct determined by your location.\n\nI apologize if I have forgotten or mistaken anything."
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5jb1ek | if time is revolutions around the sun, how can we measure the universe in years before there even was a sun? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5jb1ek/eli5_if_time_is_revolutions_around_the_sun_how/ | {
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"Time is not revolutions around our Sun. Time has existed since the beginning of the universe, long before our Sun existed.\n\nHumans measure time in repeating increments. One of those increments is the amount of time it takes for the Earth to make on revolution around our Sun. We use this revolution as a standard to reference counting, even if the objects that the reference don't exist at the time that we're trying to describe. ",
"We've established a set increment of time called the second and we've established longer increments called years. \n\nWe know that light travels at a fixed speed and so converting between the two is easy. \n\nMeasurement of distance to a star is one of the hardest things to do consistently in observational astrophysics, but the most common way is to measure the redshift of the star, apply Hubble's Law, do a power of ten approximation if you have to and voila! The distance away from us. \n\nUsing this distance we can see the amount of time that has passed since the light was emitted from the star (t = distance/velocity). We can do this for the furthest stars and get a close approximation. To find the age of the universe is much harder and is a different topic.",
"Time isn't defined as revolutions around the sun. We just have a special name for \"the amount of time in one revolution around the sun\" because we frequently need to refer to that amount of time. \n\nLikewise, we can say \"330 mL is the amount of Coke in one can.\" But Coke still exists if we don't put it into cans, and we could easily talk about bottles or glasses of Coke instead. There's nothing magic about cans, or about 330 mL, it's just a useful unit we've invented. I can say \"William Shakespeare drank 3.3 litres of water that day, that's as much as 10 Coke cans\" even if Coke and Coke cans didn't exist at the time.\n\nWhen we say \"it was 4 million years before Earth formed\", we're just saying \"you know how much time it takes for the Earth to revolve around the sun? Well, this timespan was 4 million multiplied by that.\"",
"The second is the duration of 9 192 631 770 periods of the radiation corresponding to the transition between the two hyperfine levels of the ground state of the cesium 133 atom. \n\nThat's how we actually define time."
]
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[],
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2zizyr | why doesn't chocolate ice cream taste like chocolate? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2zizyr/eli5_why_doesnt_chocolate_ice_cream_taste_like/ | {
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"text": [
"It does? Which ice cream brand are you eating, and which chocolates do you normally eat so we can figure out where the disconnect is coming from?",
"That depends on what \"normal\" chocolate tastes like to you. There are so many different flavors of chocolate. The irony is that most chocolate you can buy doesn't even taste like \"real\" chocolate."
]
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[],
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2qj0jn | why is it when i have to get up for work, is next to impossible to get our of bed, but when i have a day off, i wake up at the same time wide awake? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2qj0jn/eli5_why_is_it_when_i_have_to_get_up_for_work_is/ | {
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"Whoa. I came here to post the exact same thing. It enrages me. I am wide awake right now, but if I had to work I'd be tired as fuck and have a very hard time waking up.\n\nIt's like we're twins, you and me.",
"It's to do with your state of mind (affected by things like the amount of serotonin your brain releases in the morning). Sounds like you're more excited to experience a day off than you are a day of work. No surprises there",
"Because most people, myself included, hate working.\n\nI'm dreading going back on the 5th of january"
]
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[],
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2uiz26 | why is there so much hype surrounding fifty shades of grey? from an outside perspective it just seems everyone has a secret bdsm fantasy. | I've never read the books and I'm curious why everyone was so crazy over that book | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2uiz26/eli5_why_is_there_so_much_hype_surrounding_fifty/ | {
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"Some people are excited because it's a saucy book that sold a lot of copies, and they think it'll break down some barriers to talking about this sort of thing.\n\nOther people are upset because it portrays a very warped view of actual BDSM play and relationships. Some people are sympathetic to that, while others point out that it's only fiction.\n\nControversy and sex get air time, and this has both.",
"Funny how people is so enthusiastic about bad Twilight fanfiction.",
"Well, in terms of actual BDSM it is actually an incredibly shitty book. The guy in it is basically the textbook example of a shitty, abusive dom.\n\nThat said, the book is not aimed at people in the BDSM lifestyle. It is aimed at average women with a ravishment fantasy. And there are many of those out there. There was one college study that found roughly half of the women had ravishment fantasies.\n\nWhy? Because in general it is a way to avoid any guilt. Women are raised with lots of conflicting sexual messages. Be sexy, but don't be a slut! Wait until marriage, but if you say no to a man, you are a frigid bitch. There is lots of attention to male sexuality, but very little to female sexuality (at least not women owned female sexuality). And a lot of these conflicting messages lead to very many women having some level of guilt about enjoying sex. They enjoyed this, are they now a slut? With ravishment fantasies you kind of bypass that guilt because it is someone else 'forcing' you to do something. You weren't the one making the decisions, so none of the guilt can rest on you.\n\nAdditionally, there are many women with a very low self esteem. To these women too, these kind of ravishment fantasies can also be highly attractive, because it basically means that a guy finds them so attractive (even if they don't find themselves attractive) that he cannot contain himself. \n\nFifty Shades of Grey plays into a lot of these sexual tropes, which is what made it so popular. It is also written in a very simple, accessible way, so it is easy to pick up even by people who don't read a lot.\n\n(Just as a note, there are also a lot of men that have ravishment fantasies. Not quite as many as women, but it is not a female-only thing or something.)"
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5gnwrs | is there a scientific explanation as to why priests, deprived of sexual satisfaction, would turn to children ? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5gnwrs/eli5_is_there_a_scientific_explanation_as_to_why/ | {
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"datoff2"
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"text": [
"Well there are a myriad of complicated spiritual factors. Since your 5 how about you Come to my office and *I'll explain*."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[]
] | ||
6fkic9 | why does breathing cease in cardiac arrest? | [deleted] | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/6fkic9/eli5_why_does_breathing_cease_in_cardiac_arrest/ | {
"a_id": [
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"text": [
"Its a complex topic as there are many factors that may cause a cardiac arrest. But for the question we will assume the cardiac arrest is due to an AMI (acute myocardial infarction). This is a block in the hearts circulation that results in the hearts inability to pump blood effectively throughout the body. This means that the area in the brain that controls respiration isn't getting enough oxygen and nutrients. This causes dysfunction in respiratory control and ineffective breathing which worsens brain hypoxia. Interestingly respiratory effort may be seen without actual inspiration (called agonal respirations), which looks like a fish gasp. You see this and you know shit has hit the fan."
]
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[]
] | |
4v2wvk | why do renovated mill apartments generally have an income limit? | With the exception of renovated warehouses and mills in places like Brooklyn or SF, I've found that the general rule is that they have an income limit and others require that you specifically be an artist. Why is this? Does it have to do with its building regulations? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4v2wvk/eli5_why_do_renovated_mill_apartments_generally/ | {
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"Very often renovations will involve building permits. The local government officials will look at the requests and might impose some restrictions on those permits. They might even negociate the price down if the new renovated building will help in attracting a certain type of population. Like a neighborhood pushing to attract more artists or families within a certain range of income. \n",
"The term you're looking for is \"inclusionary zoning\"\n\n_URL_0_. \n\nThat's a zoning rule that is intended to create affordable housing in the marketplace. \n\nSay I want to build 100 units. The local zoning says that I can only build 80. But with an IZ rule I can get up to that 100 unit number as long as those extra units are committed affordable units. \n\nSometimes the housing is focused on artists since most working artists typically have modest incomes but its a fairly specialized program. "
]
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"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inclusionary_zoning"
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1wyq5m | why do planets always appear linear in relation to one another? how come they're never portrayed as being on top of another planet or at the bottom? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1wyq5m/eli5_why_do_planets_always_appear_linear_in/ | {
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"text": [
"Because most planets approximately do orbit in the same plane.",
"[Here's a perfect answer to your question](_URL_0_)"
]
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[],
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"http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tmNXKqeUtJM"
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166ej8 | what is this station i heard on shortwave radio and why isn't it broadcasting anymore? | I have a little portable radio that has (limited) shortwave radio capabilities. An hour or so ago while scanning through it, I heard a station in which a woman would say a few numbers in Spanish and there would be a few tones that kind of reminded me of dial-up connection sounds. Now all I get is static. What was this station and why can't I hear it anymore?
If it helps, the station was 1212. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/166ej8/eli5_what_is_this_station_i_heard_on_shortwave/ | {
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"text": [
"I'd say some kind of \"Numbers station\": \n_URL_0_ \nand no I don't mean the whole \"OMG spies! we're being invaded\". \nMight've been people coordinating drug sales (just a very very wild guess) or more likely a simple test transmission of a local radio station ;) "
]
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[
"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Numbers_station"
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5ii9vk | what is the federal funds rate, and why does it have such a significant impact on things such as the strength of the dollar, the selling-off of government bonds, and the global economy? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5ii9vk/eli5_what_is_the_federal_funds_rate_and_why_does/ | {
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"It's basically the interest rate at which the federal reserve lends out money to banks (it's actually money held *at* the federal reserve by other banks, but that's not really important).\n\nWhy is it important? Well, first because a lot of other metrics are tied to it (kind of like LIBOR, which is the same kind of thing but in England), and banks will often loan money at a rate of \"fed funds plus X\" or \"LIBOR plus X.\" Generally, lower fed funds rates makes it easier for banks to borrow money and thus have more money to lend/spend.\n\nSo, the fed lowers the rate during economic downturns to encourage investment and access to credit (to keep the economy going), and raises it when times are good to protect against a run-away speculator bubble.\n\nAnd then you start having to get into the psychology of markets and trying to beat the market. If the economy will grow faster after a drop in interest rates (which is really what the fed funds rate gets at, as above), you want to have invested *before* they dropped the rates. And vice-versa.\n\nSo, specific answers:\n\n1. It's related to the strength of the dollar because of how the federal reserve controls the interest rate. They buy government bonds for cash (putting cash into the economy) to lower it (more cash with the same demand means cash is less valuable which is anti-inflationary). When they want to raise the rate, they sell bonds and take the money out of the supply (oppose thing). Fewer dollars in the market means each dollar is stronger, and vice-versa.\n\n2. It's the mechanism by which the fed can control the interest rate.\n\n3. Because American dollars are the reserve currency (for the time being) of the world, and its economy is one of the most important to the world economy. Slowed growth, increased growth, any change in the US economic outlook has an impact on the rest of the world."
]
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56imzl | crazy eyes | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/56imzl/eli5_crazy_eyes/ | {
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"When someone has a lot of adrenaline in their system (fight or flight) the edges of their vision shut down. Sometimes people will try to counteract it by opening their eyes really wide and rolling their eyes around more than usual. It doesn't help, but instinct is hard to overcome, particularly if you are thinking about other things. "
]
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8bo461 | do eyes get tired from moving constantly during rem sleep? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/8bo461/eli5_do_eyes_get_tired_from_moving_constantly/ | {
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"text": [
"No. your eyes do that all day when you're awake too. They move around 100,000 times a day or so, and they're doing it constantly. they never get tired."
]
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26a7xn | why people post on /r/gonewild? | What do they get out of it? (Other than reddit karma) | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/26a7xn/eli5_why_people_post_on_rgonewild/ | {
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"text": [
"Mostly, to compare themselves with other people who post there.",
"They get attention and a boost in self esteem based on all of the positive comments left on their posts. Both of which being something that a lot of teenagers crave.",
"Sometimes I just wanna feel pretty. Maybe they just want men to tell them they're pretty. Then they feel good.\n\nOr they're lonely and they put something they're confident about out there for social reaffirmation.\n\nOr they are exhibitionists and get off on the thought of turning on others.\n\nI wish someone would tell *me* I'm pretty :(",
"They get satisfaction out of it, same reason you go looking at it.\n\nBoys post topless pictures on their facebooks all the time. It's not like these girls are doing anything that we don't consider perfectly normal for males to do.",
"I'm sure the popular ones on GW get their amazon wish list taken care of by Redditors, paying for used panties etc.",
"exhibitionism, body image validation, mostly the same reasons people post selfies or \"look what I made\" images.\n\nhumans are social creatures. it's what we do."
]
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1nwtmn | why do we sometimes know what word we're trying to say, but can't say it? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1nwtmn/eli5_why_do_we_sometimes_know_what_word_were/ | {
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"Because of the way our brain maps vocabulary. For words you don't use as often, normally there is a mental 'pointer' from the word to the definition, but no 'pointer' back from the definition to the word. Especially for definitions which could mean multiple words. Therefore, when we know what the word means, we can't always remember the word.",
"The term for this phenomenon is called \"Presque vu\" or \"tip of the tongue\". \n\nThere are two reasons this occurs. The first reason can happen when our brain recalls a memory about a word, but the memory isn't strong enough so it only triggers the emotion of knowing what the word is without actually recalling the word.\n\nThe other reason is sort of the other way around. The brain starts with a feeling of knowing the word, so your brain tries to find clues and other memories to support the emotional response. \n\nLets say there's a bunch of friends sitting around the room talking about movies. Suddenly no one can remember the actor in one of the movies even though its well known by most people in the room. What happened is that a mutual emotion was triggered in the group while everyone was engaged in the same conversation. Everyone's brains start searching for clues in their available memory which triggers tip of the tongue. Presque Vu can cause a mild state of anxiety which doesn't help the situation. Now its only until someone pulls out their iPhone and looks it up that everyone can relax."
]
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9mhsr2 | if https is a secure connection why is it recommended not to do anything data sensitive on an open wifi network? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/9mhsr2/eli5_if_https_is_a_secure_connection_why_is_it/ | {
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"Because you don't know whose wifi network you're connected to. It could be running a so-called \"man in the middle\" or MITM attack. In which you find that you're not actually getting a secure connection all the way to the remote site you're trying to reach, but merely as far as the wifi router. \n\n & #x200B;\n\n & #x200B;",
"These days it's not very common, but poorly-programmed websites often did the login process over https, but then all of the regular communication over http. Facebook was notorious for this a while ago. So you would log in over a secure connection, and get a session cookie, which was then transmitted over plaintext and could be copied by anyone who could see your traffic in order to hijack your session and act like you.\n\nOr, the ELI5 version: you go to a club and open a tab. At this club, to open a tab, you give an employee your credit card and they put it on file, then hand you a piece of paper saying \"I'm stringlesskite.\" Any time you want a drink, you just show them the little piece of paper. But someone looks over your shoulder and sees the paper, and makes their own copy of it. Now they can show that piece of paper saying \"I'm stringlesskite\" to the bartender and get drinks on your tab.",
"There's a few reasons, the biggest one is called a \"man in the middle\" attack.\n\nLet's say you want tosend a package, and you want the package to have a combination lock on it so you know noone can open it. You send a letter to the recipient, asking for a lock only they have the combination to, so you know noone but them can open it.\n\nThis is how computer encryption works, you only have the lock. Only the recipient has the key. Pretty secure.\n\nBut when they send out the lock, someone else (let's call them the shadow man because it sounds cool) steals it first, then sends you their own lock, which they have the code for. Now it's set up.\n\nWhenever you try to send something to your intended recipient, the shadow man can unlock your package, looking at everything inside as if you never picked it in the first place, then they can lock it with the proper lock and send it on, the recipient will just see their own lock, so nothing seems wrong.\n\nNow our analogy breaks down a little because in computer science, the \"lock\" is a number, which you can lock as many items with as you want, while in real life it's a physical lock, so lets pretend they sent you a bunch, all with codes only they know)\n\nNow, when you get a reply, the shadow man can do the same in the other direction, opening up the lock *he* sent, and relocking it with the \"proper\" lock.\n\nAt both ends, everything looks fine, since it's all locked up with the locks you asked to be used. But in the middle. Someone is looking at all your stuff.\n\nNow, to wrap it up, how does this apply to open wifi networks? Well, to do this someone needs to be able to get to your package before it's sent to the recipient. So this would be like an untrustworthy post office. Someone in the post office is the one opening up your packages before sending them.\n\nYour home wifi network is different, that's the post office you know and trust not to do that "
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492ddb | disney merchandise rights. | Specifically, Frozen and Star Wars...how are there so many random products (toothbrushes, toilet paper, fucking oranges!) with these brands? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/492ddb/eli5_disney_merchandise_rights/ | {
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"Licensing of the brand and images makes a lot of money for the studio. Or they might just make it themselves.",
"So if a company makes garbage cans, they pay money to Disney(or whatever company) in order to use a character/movie whatever."
]
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2mmb0j | how were tv shows distributed to the stations before digital media? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2mmb0j/eli5_how_were_tv_shows_distributed_to_the/ | {
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"The same way they are now: on tapes. Except now the tapes are (various forms of) digital, and back then they were (various forms of) analogue. \n\nThis hasn't really changed in concept, just in the details. ",
"This doesn't fully answer your question, but it's interesting, I think. A very long time ago (Like, I Love Lucy long time ago) TV shows were recorded, edited, and broadcast live. If they wanted the show to air at the same time across time zones (e.g. at 8 EST and 8 PST), they would point a film camera at a video screen playing the live broadcast, develop the film, and then broadcast it at the later time, all within a couple hours."
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1ww987 | why isn't digitally distributed music/video much cheaper than its physical counterpart (cd, dvd, br)? | It doesn't make sense that most times the digital version is just a few dollars cheaper despite the lack of manufacturing and distributions costs. One would think that if the media companies brought their prices down they would see a greater return (more people inclined to buy rather than pirate). | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1ww987/eli5_why_isnt_digitally_distributed_musicvideo/ | {
"a_id": [
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"text": [
"Because people are willing to pay it. That is quite literally all there is too it.",
"Fundamental economics. Correct prices are not set at 'cost of goods sold' they are set according to market forces, demand. Simply, what will the market pay? Apparently, just a few dollars less than non-digital."
]
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[],
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39iaok | how were musical notes defined and agreed upon before audio recording? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/39iaok/eli5_how_were_musical_notes_defined_and_agreed/ | {
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"Notes were not universally agreed upon and lots of historical instruments didn't stay in tune very well. The first step to defining musical notes was the development of the equal temperament (12TET) tuning system.\n\n > An equal temperament is a musical temperament, or a system of tuning, in which every pair of adjacent pitches is separated by the same interval. In other words, every equal temperament can be produced by repeating some smallest generating interval.\n\nNow that a stable tuning system was developed, and as the build quality of instruments and their ability to maintain 'tune' improved, all that was left was to define a 'standard' pitch as a frame of reference.\n\n > In modern times, 12TET is usually tuned relative to a standard pitch of 440 Hz, called A440, meaning one pitch is tuned to A440, and all other pitches are some multiple of semitones away from that in either direction, although the standard pitch has not always been 440 and has fluctuated and generally risen over the past few hundred years.\n\nBecause the 12TET (equal temperament tuning) defined the intervals of notes, 'A=440hz' could be used as a reference to define all of the other pitches.\n\nSource: [12 TET Wiki](_URL_1_)\n\nFurther Reading: [A=440hz Wiki](_URL_0_)"
]
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"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A440_%28pitch_standard%29",
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Equal_temperament"
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48zk36 | what the hell is going on when you see the actors credited as 'executive producers' in a tv show? | I'm watching the new season of House of Cards.
Robin Wright is listed on her own as 'Executive Producer'. The next credit is Kevin Spacey along with someone else as 'Executive Producers'.
The US Office comedy also listed lot of the actors as executive producers. I know Mindy Kaling, B.J. Novak and Paul Lieberstein (Toby the sad HR guy) were writers more than actors, but the main cast got those credits too.
**Is it just extra cash? Are there different jobs that get lumped under this title and is there a hierarchy?**
____
EDIT: *The question is specifically about television.* Writing, production and the use of titles including 'Executive Producer' is different from cinema. Hell I know this, even though I am five years old. If your answer relates to cinema or blurs the distinction it might be misleading.
| explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/48zk36/eli5_what_the_hell_is_going_on_when_you_see_the/ | {
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"It's usually written into their contract - down to the size of the font and placement on the 'card' and even whether it stands alone or is under or above someone else's credit. It can vary from contract to contract in terms of what it really means for a person's paycheck; in some cases (certain movies, for example) it might mean that a person has invested some of their own money into a project. It's a form of ownership really. \n\nBasically - it can mean many, many things. ",
"Executive producer typically is involved in the \"business\" side of making a movie or TV show. They front the money, find financial backers, work the distribution deals, licensing, royalties, Happy Meal endorsements. As such, they typically invest their own money - but also take their \"cut\" from any proceeds if the film or show makes gobs of money.\n\nFor the producer, director etc, its just a job. Think of the executive producers as \"investors\".\nI don't know the specifics, but if Robin Wright Penn and Kevin Spacey are listed as executive producers, Im sure their contracts might state that they take % of gross revenue or something equally lucrative; but in exchange might have to finance part of the up front production. ",
"Executive Producer can mean a number of things but usually in the case of actors with Executive Producer credits means that they helped with the actual production of the project. This could mean they initiated the whole project, got greenlighting, helped hire writers and directors...or it could mean they just have some creative control of the project. \n\nFor example, Brad Pitt was an executive producer for 12 Years A Slave because his production company was behind the whole project while Jon Stewart is an executive producer for the Late Show with Stephen Colbert likely because he has a small advisory role but doesn't participate in the day-today operations.",
"The Executive Producer does things like:\n\n- Provide money for the production to use. \n- Influence the creative direction of the production. \n- Acts as a representative of the Producers and the company that's publishing the production. \n\nSometimes the Executive Producer can be the creator of the production, especially if it's a TV show and sometimes writers who have been onboard for a long time are given this rank. \n\nSource: _URL_0_",
"In some cases actors are given producer credit rather than a raise.\nThis keeps production costs from getting out of hand due to salary demands, but let's the actors make up the money on the back end, including a share of sindication money for years down the road."
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3ola7l | - how does dust and on the moon get blown/forced around. | I was reading a post about a Chinese rover on the moon. It was said the moon dust was a problem because it could get into the electronics and cause it to fail. How does the dust get blown around? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3ola7l/eli5_how_does_dust_and_on_the_moon_get/ | {
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"The problem isn't \"blowing\" dust, it's \"statically charged\" dust and \"disturbed\" dust.\n\nMoon dust is dry and incredibly fine, so it's highly subject to static charging and attraction to surrounding objects something like how dust in your house is attracted to and sticks to television screens. \n\nAnd when a moon rover is scooting along, it's shooting up a fine spray of dust because the surface sticks to the rover's wheels and then settles back down. You can see an example of the spray [here](_URL_0_)"
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66pdy2 | how come our bodies don't already have a resistance to the common cold? we get it a lot, so shouldn't we be resistant to it? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/66pdy2/eli5_how_come_our_bodies_dont_already_have_a/ | {
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"I'll expand on the other comments. \n\n\nYes, there are several viruses that will result in the common cold, the most common being rhinovirus. The fact that there are multiple viruses that can give you the disease is NOT the major reason that you can get the cold more than once, since you can be infected by the same virus, like rhinovirus, many times in your life. This is because the virus mutates very quickly. \n\n\nWhen human cells in your human body replicate, they have to create an exact copy of your DNA. Your cells do this very, very efficiently and effectively because there are *many* methods of fixing mistakes in your DNA. When viruses replicate their DNA/RNA, which is the part that they inject into you so you get sick, they (usually) *do not* have any way to fix mistakes in that DNA/RNA. \n\n\nThese mistakes in DNA/RNA lead to proteins (little parts in cells that actually do work) that have slightly different shapes. After infection with rhinovirus for the first time, our immune system will be trained to recognize the very specific shapes of the proteins that come from this virus. However, since the virus can mutate so quickly, the second time that you're infected by rhinovirus, the proteins from the virus will probably be a different shape than last time so your immune system can no longer fight it off effectively. \n\n\n\nEdit: If anyone has specific questions, I'll literally be sitting here all day.",
"The viruses don't cause symptoms of the cold. Your body creates the symptoms to fight the virus. The fever, fatigue, coughing, mucus, all of it is an attempt to kill/flush the virus out. Actually when we take drugs to reduce fever and symptoms, we are actually very slightly prolonging the lifespan of the disease. People who are immunocompromised like HIV/AIDs actually get the infections but not the symptoms caused by the same viruses that give normal people a cold/flu. So what happens is, the disease goes unchecked and the person winds up with pneumonia",
"Let's say that the cold virus is a group of people who are trying to get into a castle. The first time, they just march up to the castle...but the castle raises the drawbridge. Next time, the people bring boats to cross the moat anyway, but the castle's walls are too tall when they make it across. They try again, this time they bring ladders on their boats. But at the top of the wall are your white blood cell people to push the invaders off. Each time the invaders try to get into your castle, you have to come up with another way to get rid of them...but they keep learning the ways you get rid of them and change to take care of the new problem. \n\nSo even though we have a resistance to the OLD common cold (the ones who just tried to walk up to our drawbridge) we don't have a resistance to the NEWEST common cold invaders (the ones who have battle pterodactyls.)",
"Say you've got a bully at school. They say something mean to you and it hurts your feelings. Eventually, you sort of get over it after the bully gives you the same insult 5 days in a row. Then the next week, they give you a *different* insult. You weren't expecting it and it hurts your feelings just like before. Then after a while, multiple bullies are giving you new insults every week and each time you hear it for the first time, it affects you.\n\nViruses are like the bullies, they quickly adapt as they evolve to hide from your immune system. In that sense, vaccines are like a friend that comes along and says, \"Hey! You look like you've been working out. Keep it up!\" So when the bully tries to insult you by calling you \"weak\" it has no effect.",
"Shortest answer, there is no such thing as \"A Cold\". \n\nThere are lots of different viruses that can make you sick. \n\n\"A cold\" is just a catch all term we use to describe the collective symptoms you get. One of several common minor, non-influenza viruses made you sick? Now you have a runny nose, sneezing and couching? Ok, cool. It's \"the cold\". \n\nBut, if you can't use one vaccination for all of them, why can the same medicines cure all of them?\n\nThey can't. Medicine doesn't kill the cold virus itself. \n\nYou just have to sit and wait for your body to kill it on its own. \n\nWhat medicine CAN do is\n\nA. Mask the symptoms so you don't feel like you have a cold (advil, dayqui)\n\nB. Boost your immune system so your body can fight it better (coldeeze, etc) ",
"We do have \"resistance\".\n\nNotice how people don't always die of common colds?\n\nHumans, like other organisms, get infections all the time but depending on the intensity (which can be varied by a lot of different factors, such as load) one may or may not notice the immune response.\n\nFor instance - we get cancer all the time, but our immune systems fight it off successfully without us even noticing. ",
"Imagine your body is a train station, with millions of viruses, bacteria and germs coming and going every day. Well when your body caught Mr. Common Cold writing on the bathroom walls, it kicked them out and put up a picture. If your body sees Mr. Common Cold again. He will immediately get kicked out. \n\nBut Mr. Common Cold has a trick up his sleeve. He loves to wear disguises. So, he throws on a fake mustache and walks into the train station, and proceeds to pee off the balcony. \n\nIt doesn't matter how many times the train guards throw him out, because he will just put on a new disguise and come back.\n\nP.S. I know this has been answered pretty well before i posted this, I just hate that its called ELI5 and it is never explained like the person is actually 5. So i fixed that. ",
"Does it kill you?\n\nNope. In other words, you are resistant.\n\nViruses we aren't resistant to have a habit of killing us.",
"Sort of stealing this thread with a question, but if we locked down the world, just say everyone agreed to remain in their rooms/wherever for a month or two and those that were sick at the time were monitored to prove the illness was gone, would this be the end of colds/flus? I assume its so rampant because it travels the word everyday through human travel and spread? ",
"Does not getting a cold make you more likely to reproduce and have viable offspring? Colds don't provide enough downward negative evolutionary pressure to select for a mutation that would provide increased resistance/survival to them. Probably.",
"We still get sick because we're fighting a tiny war that's lasted millions of years. Our bodies have developed defences to the virus, and as it does, the virus develops defences or ways to counter the immune system. \n\nFirst, the virus attacks in numbers. The first line immune response will catch a lot of them, but viruses make it through anyway. Even though a few may attack a single cell, it only takes 1 viral 'molecule' to completely destroy a cell and release hundreds or thousands more of itself by consuming the cell's resources and making copies, then destroying the cell. \n\nFirst they get inside with a fake molecule marker that makes the cell thing it's taking nutrients in. Once inside, it is sent to a place where it is soaked in acid to break it down. It softens up and releases parts of itself that destroy this acid chamber that would kill it. Then it's free to float. It finds one of the cell's motor proteins and uses it to travel around. It will slowly try to get to the center of the cell. The cell itself has counters, including it's own little immune system that looks for antibodies attached to the viral molecules, but some manage to slip by. In some cases, before the cell is completely taken over, it will send a signal to the outside for white blood cells to destroy it, killing it, and the virus. \n\nAlong with that, once the threat it detected, the body floods the blood with antibodies, may destroy nearby cells in an area to prevent further infection by killing off potential infected before they can get out of control, and white blood cells rush to the area. Ultimately, damage is still done, the virus multiplies, and makes it's way out when you cough or sneeze, free to infect others. It's an overall success once it leaves with more than it started with, even if the rest in your body ultimately get destroyed and you heal. \n\nThe fact you can heal and fight it means your body is already prepared for it. \n\n_URL_0_"
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3k22ij | why are graham crackers or tim tams or perky nanas geo-restricted? why are popular snackfoods not just sold everywhere? | Doesn't it make financial sense to sell these popular products else where? For example [the perky nana](_URL_0_) is made by Cadbury in New Zealand, and it is quite popular, why would they not just sell this in the states and other western countries as well? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3k22ij/eli5_why_are_graham_crackers_or_tim_tams_or_perky/ | {
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"Some of the geo-restrictions are legal ones (such as Hersey distributing Cadbury products in the US and Cadbury not being allowed to distribute directly) and some are simply the local tastes not matching up. Different cultures like different things. "
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9rxivc | miller-urey experiment. turning non-living to living. was it successful? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/9rxivc/eli5_millerurey_experiment_turning_nonliving_to/ | {
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"Actually it was a chemical experiment that tests the chemical origin of life. It synthesized simple organic compound from inorganic precursor, under conditions similar to primitive earth. Yes it was.",
"Depends on what you consider successful. The experiment did result in more than 20 amino acids being produced, and since the experiment we've learned that earth's early atmosphere would've been different than it was assumed to be during the experiment.\n\nTechnically, amino acids aren't living but they are organic molecules and we consider them to be the building blocks of life. ",
"One really hot topic in biology is how life began, and there are several ideas about how this could have happened. One of them is called the prebiotic soup model, and it proposes that specific molecules were synthesized from gases in the atmosphere or arrived via meteorites. These molecules existed in the atmosphere, but in time condensed and were rained into the oceans. This created a sort of \"organic soup\" that formed the basis of the more complex organic molecules.\n\nThe Miller-Urey experiment wanted to answer a specific question-- can complex organic compounds be synthesized from simple molecules that were present in Earth's early atmosphere? To put this another way, can we re-create the first steps of the formation of life by simulating early-Earth conditions in a lab?\n\nIn order to test this, Miller set up a environment that was supposed to be similar to that of early Earth. He had a large flask that represented the \"atmosphere\" and which contained a mixture of gases, including methane, ammonia, and hydrogen. All of these gases are very reactive. He connected the large flask with a small flask with a glass tube. The small flask had about 200mL of liquid water, and it was supposed to represent the early ocean.\n\nIn order to connect his \"atmosphere\" with his \"ocean\", Miller kept that water at a constant boil. As he did this, water vapor condensed in the large flask. When the vapor cooled and condensed in the large flask, it flowed back into the small flask, where it boiled again. This kept the water constantly circulating through the system. Keeping the water circulating was important, since if the molecules in the larger glass (the \"atmosphere\") reacted with the water, the \"rain\" would carry them into the smaller flask (the \"ocean\"), and create an environment mimicking the prebiotic soup. \n\nNothing actually happens here. This is because even at 100C, the boiling point of water, there wasn't nearly enough energy to kickstart water to react with the gases in the \"atmosphere\".\n\nHowever, once Miller sent electrical discharges across electrodes he put in the larger \"atmosphere\" flask, something interesting started to happen. These electrical discharges were supposed to mimic lightning bolts and added pulses of intense electrical energy to the reaction mix. After a single day of boiling and sparking, the solution in the \"ocean\" turned pink. A week later, it was dark red and opaque. \n\nWhy? It turns out that there were huge amounts of hydrogen cyanide and formaldehyde in the early ocean, which are two really important organic molecules. Even better, there were even more complex organic compounds in the flask, including amino acids, which are the building blocks of proteins.\n\nWhat does this mean? Miller didn't create life, or anything close to it. All he did was show that it's possible to create complex molecules from simple ones, which shows that a prebiotic soup is **theoretically** possible. These results are also weakened by more modern ideas that the early atmosphere were probably dominated by volcanic gases, like carbon monoxide and carbon dioxide, and not methane and ammonia.\n"
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6tnvss | why does cabin pressure change during a flight, and not stay the same? | Just wondering because if the cabin pressure was kept the same during a flight, people shouldn't have to worry about their ears popping, right? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/6tnvss/eli5_why_does_cabin_pressure_change_during_a/ | {
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"To keep the air inside the cabin at sea level pressure would require planes to be much stronger (and heavier). Letting some of the air out reduces the strength needed to prevent leaks, and it's still enough air to keep the people alive inside.",
"You can essentially have 2 options. \n1)have the cabin pressure set at an altitude, which is fairly constant. Until you get higher than the set altitude, the cabin pressure will decrease. \n\n2)have the cabin set at a constant differential pressure to the actual outside pressure. \n\nSo what ends up happening is that the cabin slightly pressurizes to set the door seals and whatnot. This happens as soon as they push from the gate. Then the cabin reduces i pressure at a somewhat constant rate until it is equal to 10000 feet or so. 10000 feet is what is considered to be safe for humans without danger of hypoxia. If you have an unpressurized cockpit, 10000 feet is your ceiling altitude set by the FAA. \n\nI may have sone minor details wrong but thats pretty much how it works. "
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fm8grn | what do food advertisers do to make food look so delicious? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/fm8grn/eli5_what_do_food_advertisers_do_to_make_food/ | {
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"The food that they take pictures of, often isn’t even edible. they use all kinds of tricks while doing the food photography/filming, it’s pretty sneaky.",
"Long story short, a lot of it isn’t the food that makes it look good. Here’s a video of some of the tricks they use. [_URL_0_](_URL_0_)",
"Lighting and photography play a big role of course, but sometimes it’s not even real food! I once read about a beer commercial that was using light grade motor oil and soap suds to create the appearance of a freshly poured lager. But either way, these are professionals, using lots of technology and creative techniques. Check out [this burger behind the scenes. ](_URL_0_)"
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3x8liq | what happens to your brain when you "blackout"? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3x8liq/eli5_what_happens_to_your_brain_when_you_blackout/ | {
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"It stops making new memories for a while.\n\nSo, unless you find out from a reliable external source, you will never know what happened.",
"Your short term memories are not being converted into long term memories.\n\nYou can be somewhat coherent at the time of a blackout, you just won't have an recollection of it.\n\nIt is similar to how you can be driving and suddenly realize you don't remember the last 20 miles. Driving in boring and routine, and if nothing noteworthy occurs, those short term memories won't stick. You are aware and alert the whole time, you just don't remember.",
"Not directly related to your question, but you might find this episode of Radiolab interesting: _URL_0_\n\nIt explores how anesthesia works, which was a mystery for quite a while. They thought it turned your brain off, but it actually just turns off communication between your brain's different regions. All the regions are still working, but they can't talk to each other, creating unconsciousness.",
"To eli5: basictly its like a camera where tou forgot to press record, you see everything but at the end nothing was recorded",
"Blackout is a lay term which can describe several different processes but they all share a lack of memory or awareness of the passage of time in common. \n\nYour consciousness is not located in a single spot in your brain but is instead the result of several different areas of the brain interacting in specialized ways and this forms your mind or consciousness. Your brain is the hardware and your mind is the software. \n\nCertain injuries or drugs can impact the ability of the brain to retain memory such as general anesthesia and while they don't all make you unconscious they do tend to make 'you' not all there and don't allow you to form memories while under their influence. For instance when you have certain dental work done you may be given a sedative. It doesn't make you unconscious but you aren't lucid and you have no memory of the procedure. One moment you're getting an IV and the next you're asking the dentist when will it begin only to be told it's already over. \n\nAnother way someone might black out would be a sudden shock to the nervous system such as a blow to the head. This is exactly what it sounds like, it shocks the brain making it difficult for the different lobes to communicate with each other and you lose consciousness. \n\nThere are important distinctions between the two. For instance getting 'blackout drunk' could mean you take a swing at a police officer while peeing on his squad car yet have no memory of it the next day when you're in jail. IE you are conscious and moving around, but you will have no memory of it. Contrast this with loss of consciousness where you are effectively in a dreamless sleep. \n\nI had surgery a few years ago and was put under and when I woke up, there were 2 nurses and 3 orderlies holding me down, which was a bit of a shock to me to wake up like that. It turns out that while my memory had chosen that point to 'wake up', I had been semi conscious for several minutes before 'waking up' and the very first act of recovering from the anesthesia was I tried to extubate myself. In other words I woke up freaking out that there was a tube down my throat and I fought the nurses and tried to rip it out. I had absolutely no memory of this but the very strong men holding me down and the nurses giving me dirty looks did not seem to care about that. "
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3qtg76 | how does a jet engine run at 40,000 feet, where there is so little oxygen? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3qtg76/eli5_how_does_a_jet_engine_run_at_40000_feet/ | {
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"Half of the jet engine is dedicated to compressing the little air that is there, into a 'burnable' state. \n\nalso, the aircraft moves very, very fast and so has a lot of help 'sucking in' air."
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kmt50 | what is "lte" when wireless providers advertise it? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/kmt50/eli5_what_is_lte_when_wireless_providers/ | {
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"LTE stands for Long Term Evolution, meaning that they are putting the technology in place that will be the groundwork for faster communication networks. You will be able to use your LTE phone on networks as they become faster and faster, you won't have to go out and purchase the next \"4G phone\".",
"LTE stands for Long Term Evolution, meaning that they are putting the technology in place that will be the groundwork for faster communication networks. You will be able to use your LTE phone on networks as they become faster and faster, you won't have to go out and purchase the next \"4G phone\"."
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2tsefj | why don't they teach how to do your taxes (on a basic level) in public schools? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2tsefj/eli5_why_dont_they_teach_how_to_do_your_taxes_on/ | {
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"Generally speaking, it's because your parents are supposed to be teaching you life skills, while school is supposed to be teaching you academic subjects so you can be a knowledgeable person and as preparation for a future job.",
"They do. Taxes are nothing more than 1) being able to read and comprehend; 2) some very elementary math and 3) basic research skills. These things are taught in public school.\n\nUp to high school, schools are supposed to teach basic skills. Learning how to navigate the world using those skills are on you. If we are going to require that everything that is needed for life in society be taught in schools in depth, then there will be not enough hours in the day.\n\nIf we're teaching taxes, why not cooking? washing, drying, basic house chores? basic car maintenance, electrical and woodwork, carpentry? Enough plumbing to be able to replace a shower? Clothes repairs? Basic electronic repairs? Basic computer security?\n\nThose are all basic skills to be able to live well in our society. Schools can't teach them all. Schools teach the basics, and what's more, schools should teach you how to research, look for answers, and teach yourself. \n\nHaving said that, some schools do teach basic economics and the ideas behind taxes, depending on where you live. What we should ask ourselves is where the balance is: what other important things are they not teaching kids, so that they have the time and resources to teach taxes, which is something that they should be able to figure out by themselves - given a good basic education?",
"When I was in high school, there was academic math and general math. I was a slacker and dropped down to general math in my last year, and they taught how to do taxes. This was back in early 90's, not sure if they still do that or not.",
"In my high school we had a mandatory class called personal finance. You learned how to budget money and how to file a 1040-EZ. Pretty good class. ",
"They do, you just get the tax form and follow the steps, it isn't simple, but not rocket science either. Basic school math and story problems should be enough to get you through.",
"My public school taught me how to read, and how to do arithmetic. \n\nGuess what skills are necessary to do your taxes?",
"They did teach us here in Canada, as well as managing money in my junior highschool year. ",
"Because if you can't fill out a 1040EZ, you're an idiot. If you need something more complicated than that, use TurboTax ... more complicated still? Go to college and become an Accountant or simply hire one.",
"because the 1040ez form is pretty damn easy. the 1040ez only requires basic (below hs level) math and is pretty straight forward.",
"For at least the last 5 years Personal Finance is required at our local public district to graduate. My daughter is actually currently taking the class (10th grade) . Tax filing was just covered after basic checking and bill pay were reviewed from a previous class taught by the same teacher in their 8th grade year. ",
"One class I took in high school taught me to do a 1040EZ and 1040A tax form, read a map to get from one destination to another, budget to buy a car, pay the rent, etc. Might have been the best class I have ever taken.\n\nI'll never forget getting my W2 from my HS job and telling my mom I'd do my own taxes by hand when she offered to give them to her accounts in. She was stunned.",
"my school did. It was called practical math and the numnums like me who couldnt handle calculus went to this. Im glad I was",
"There should be more emphasis on social skills, communication, poise, and etiquette so kids don't grow up afraid to ask questions and learn on their own. I have dealt with teenagers sometimes at work, and they are so lost and helpless its scary. There is this widespread attitude among kids that they should automagically know everything and that asking questions is rude or embarrassing.\n\nDoing taxes is just about knowing how to read and follow directions, maybe a little bit of basic arithmetic. Tax rules change over time anyway. If there is serious confusion there are hotlines they can call, and in this internet age they could just ask for help online.",
"My high school had a senior math class called financial algebra and about three quarters of the class was how to do taxes. Of course, they only had this for like four classes a year so only about 100 kids got in at a time. It was what you took for your fourth math if you didn't go the calculus or statistics route. ",
"I was 2 years ahead in math in high school, so I studied more algebra and basic calculus (that students at normal levels didn't get)...then I went into a ton of debt going to university for 2 years. \n\nI forgot the calculus because I am not an engineer or whatever the hell you need to use it for. I remember a particular problem using rates to figure out how many irons a bodybuilder needed to eat to gain weight to compete. Yeah.\n\n10 years later, I learned to look after my finances after jumping income levels pretty abruptly and not knowing what I could afford. ",
"I guess I'm in the minority, but I learned how to in school. ",
"In Illinois they do require that high school students take consumer education which includes doing basic taxes.",
"They did at mine. We had a whole course about personal finance. Plus if you follow the directions on your tax forms it isn't too terribly difficult to figure out.",
"They do. Its called Math Essentials, essentially, for people who are not going to become accountants or bankers and who are not at the median level of math. Thus, the latter being concepts for furthering post-secondary and specific fields to math essentials the last teer for learning to only do the absolute necessity to live like taxes and budgeting things like that. I can't do math haha \"math essentials\"",
"My high school had a mandatory class for Sophomores called \"Careers\". We learned how to do our taxes, how to trade stocks, how to write a resume, how to interview for jobs, how to write a check, how to balance a checkbook, how to make a budget, etc. So, some public high schools do.",
"They teach you to read and to add subtract multiply and divide. That's all you need.\n\nWell... within reason. There's a reason you need further education in a lot of things. Tax compliance isn't really supposed to be simple, I know that sounds appealing but there's lots of different ways to get money and there isn't time to teach all of it. \n\nBut even for basic personal income tax, tax codes change every year, and they vary from region to region. Most of the tax form is irrelevant until you have income, and by the time you get to that point the tax code for that portion is likely to have changed. \n\nGetting your taxes done for you if you can't read or can't do basic math or if your income is complex enough that you need a tax professional is worth the money. For the same reason we don't teach you to build your own stove. Yes you have the requisite knowledge to learn and follow instructions if you are so inclined, but most of the time it's not worth doing it wrong for what it costs to have it done right.\n\nAnd as I say, you do get taught how to read and how to do math. It's a matter of choosing to apply those skills to tax forms. If you need to read 3500 pages of small business tax code (say if you live in ontario canada) then the limiting factor isn't your ability to read, it's the time required to do so. You hire a professional to have read the forms for you. But you can read it yourself. \n\nAlso, even for a company like H & R block their basic tax preparation training is 39 hours of instruction + 30 hours of software training, so roughly two weeks of work. \n\n_URL_0_\n\nYou can invest that much time on your own in reading or going to H & R block. 70 hours is not a lot in the grand scheme of things, but it's a lot of classroom time you could be spending on something more useful when in school. By the time you need to file your own taxes and have any meaningful amount of money most of what you learn in tax training would be forgotten or out of date anyway. ",
"My high school had this as a mandatory class for all seniors that weren't enrolled in a higher math or advanced placement course. We had \"consumer math\" and we were taught about loans and interest rates for things like cars, homes, and college and were shown what the 3 most common tax forms looked like and taught how to fill them out. We were also educated on credit cards, bank accounts, stocks, bonds, savings, and 401k.",
"It's pretty damn easy, especially with software like Turbotax.",
"Hi. Lots of good points here. \n\nOpinion, though. In primary and high school, one should learn how to learn. And apply that. It's a great way to get through college and life. ",
"Back in school they never taught you what u needed to know like how to deal with despair or someone breaking your heart ",
"They should. But in all honesty would you actually pay attention to a segment on taxes in high school? I know my 17-year old self wouldn't have. \"Taxes? Pshh. I'll worry about that when I'm, like, 50.\"",
"I've been doing my own taxes since I was 17. Figured it out on my own by reading and following instructions. It has not become more difficult in 20 years. 1040A and EZ are as simple as copying boxes off your W-2. ",
"In the high school I live by each freshman class has to take financial literacy and freshman leadership class to graduate!",
"Graduated in 2000 and I was taught in the accounting class I took. Besides taxes are super easy with all the free services and software out. ",
"They do. They teach you basic math and English, and that's really all you need to do your taxes on a basic level. A 1040 EZ is all that most people submit and it's literally written on a 9th grade level.",
"They do, in two parts -- reading and arithmetic. Tax forms contain very explicit instructions and are not as difficult as all that.",
"Mine does. Like, they give us example tax forms and such, teach us about budget sheets, etc. ",
"Public schools don't exist to teach you skills that you will use in everyday life.\n\nPublic schools primarily exist to help you develop critical thinking skills in a lot of different areas to apply in real life.\n\nThey teach you calculus, rather than how to do taxes, because the logic skills required to understand calculus and the logic skills that are strengthened in taking calculus are are what they want you to have.\n\nThey aren't teaching you calculus so that you can go and apply it in real life, they are teaching you it so that your brain grows.",
"Honestly, it isn't necessary. \n\nFor most young people, you have no investments, and very few relevant credits to apply towards your return. The 1040 is very easy to fill out, just plug numbers from your W2, interest on student loans, and.... That's it for most people in the early adulthood phase of life. \n\nIf you're new to the \"real world\" and are intimidated by taxes, ignore the marketing and download the 1040... Give it a read. Things really don't get too terribly complex when you don't have home ownership, business ownership, charity, retirement accounts, or any of the other things that actually complicate taxes. ",
"I did. Public school in Massachusetts. We learned how to do taxes, apply for car insurance, balance a checkbook, etc. Now, were you paying attention? That's a different story.",
"Need a Chrome Extension for this.\n\nFuck, I'll just make a Chrome Extension for this!",
"I'm moderately sorry for hijacking, but could someone ELI5 the US tax system, where everyone has to \"do taxes\"?\n\nI come from a country where the employer/seller pays the taxes automatically.",
"1997-1998 10th grade mandatory life skills class",
"Some school districts around me actually have classes that do. They're usually called \"Personal Finance\", and they just go through the basics. How to file taxes, keep a tab on your money, and basic economics. ",
"We had to do it as part of our final grade in pre-calc. Had a made up salary and dependents. ",
"My school did. We spent a semester learning how to balance a checkbook and even how to write a check. How to deposit a check and budget for bills. Everything from car insurance and how to get it to paying for food and all. We were given \"jobs\" and we had to deposit our pay checks in the bank, balance the checkbook and all. We were given bills to pay with due dates. We had to buy food and everything. The teacher checked our checkbook registers and all. At the end, the last week or so was how to file taxes...state and federal. The teacher went line by line down a 1040 EZ form and explained what itemizing deductions were. Final exam was filing taxes on our semester of personal finance. \n\nAfter I joined the Navy, I understood enough that when tax time rolled around I did volunteer work to file other sailor's taxes for them for free. People were blown away that a 20 year old could do taxes. My school got it.",
"Wrong question.\n'Why do I have to do my taxes at all?'\n\nMy taxes are simple. I plug in the W2's, I claim the kid. Dead simple sort of stuff. No complex wealth management shit.\n\nSome years ago I get a letter back from the IRS and a check.\nThe letter says, \nMr. dude - \nWe noticed that on line Y you wrote in that your wages were XXXXX.XX when in fact they should have been XXX12.XX.\n\nEnclosed is a check for the difference\n\nThank You.\nIRS.'\n\nThis fucked with my head for a bit. I mean, I did all this crap online. Didn't mail anything.\nAnd they KNEW anyways.\nIf they knew.... what was the point of filling out the paperwork?\n\nI mean, here we are living in the 22nd' century. Computers. Networking. processing.\n\nCouldn't a significant amount of errors be reduced if the IRS filled in what it could for you in advance?\n\nJust think about it. \nInstead of logging into _URL_0_ (or whatever) you go to _URL_2_ and log into your personal forms.\nTHEY GIVE YOU the employer submitted information and ask, is this correct?\nThen they say, 'Anyone die this year?'\nAny kids this year?\nEtc.\nThen you sign.\n\nThink about it.\n\nThen I came across this article:\n\n_URL_4_\n\n------------\nedit\n------------\nJust reread what I said. Holy shit. _URL_2_. Wow. Hope it never comes to that. Anyone remember the difference between _URL_3_ and _URL_1_ back in the early 2000's?\n\nI will give you a hint: the answer had something to do with hardcore porn.",
"Everyone who's like, \"It's so easy, just use TurboTax!\" should read about the massive amounts Intuit, the maker of TurboTax, spends on lobbying the government to make taxes harder to understand. \n\n_URL_0_",
"Because that would take time away from learning other useful life skills such as knowing the difference between a molecule and an atom.",
"I've had an idea for a sub for a while: a sub where people can help each other out in being fully brought up to speed on things like this. \n\nI'm sure there's something out there like it already, but it definitely deserves to be more popular and become a real resource. If anyone knows of a sub they can point to or would like to help set one up, that'd be awesome. ",
"My highschool economics teacher was actually a mechanical engineer who quit his job at an oil company to become a physics teacher. Yay for dual purpose positions at rural midwest schools (he was also boys basketball coach, lol...)\n\nTo the point though, the teacher had zero experience with economics outside of being an adult and paying his bills, doing his own taxes, basic investment, and buying a house and car. He told us this on day one, and said he didn't really care what the book wanted to teach us, he was going to teach us to be able to 'wipe our own asses' (he was a big fan of Adam Sandler, particularly Big Daddy...) when we didn't have Mommy and Daddy to take care of it all for us. \n\nHe showed us how to manipulate various companies to get good prices (insurance, cars, houses/land, labor, etc...), told us about the differences between banks and credit unions and when to go to each one, showed us the basics of handling credit cards and checkbooks, various types of accounts at banks, how important it was to put your name in for every bit of free money from grants for college, showed us how expensive it was to maintain a house and a car (he was great at keeping all his paid bills for maintenance in case he could write it off his taxes), made a competition for who could make the most money with stocks over 6 weeks if you had a 10k initial investment and a limited amount of trades, and a bunch of other shit like that. He was a hell of a guy, and everyone loved his econ class, we dubbed it Hoke-enomics because of how deviated it was from the book, lol.",
"I can only talk regarding the education system in Victoria, Australia.\nBasically our schooling system is designed to do one thing: \"Preparing you to go to University to study teaching.\"\nThey don't teach you taxes at school because you'll never need to be able to teach taxes.",
"I took Math essentials in grade 12 because I was a retarded delinquent who hardly showed up. It's basically the math class for people who can't figure anythig out.\n\nI learned more in that math class than I ever have in any other class. It taught us, how to file our taxes, how to learn about depreciation with cars, what interest rates mean when they vary, and so many other useful life things. ",
"We had a class in 8th grade that went over these skills and included things likes how to act in a job interview, how to write a check, fill out a w2 form, etc.",
"Just going to throw in my two cents here. I've read a few comments, not all, and most people are saying the same thing. Any idiot can fill out a standard tax for, which is true. I have a small insight to some of this though. My dad used to work for a not-for-profit called Jr. Achievement. They went around, using 100% volunteers, to teach economics to k-12 in the US. When my dad was presenting his course work to a certain school district, the head of this district though that someone coming in to their school to teach about the real world was going to ruin the childhood of their kids. Simply teaching a child how to balance a check book, how to set a family budget, anything along these lines, was going to rip childhood from these kids. Destroy their innocence. When he told me this I was floored. There are people in the world that would rather keep their child in a bubble, to try and protect them, than they learn how the world really works. I feel there is more of this spread around the country than we would like to admit. We try and shield our youth from the sad reality that is life and in doing so we end up setting them so far back that some never catch up. \n\nELI5 version: Parents are afraid to let their children grow up. Taxes are just one small part of that.",
"Bartender here.\n\nLast week, I served a teacher and this very topic came up. I had asked her why life skills weren't taught in public schools, and her response was enlightening. \n\n\"I used to feel the same way until I became an educator. What's the point of teaching kids how to balance checkbooks and pay taxes whenever they have no reason to? At their age they have no practical use for it. They have a practical use for learning Algebra and Phsyics because at their stage in life, it IS practical. It's what you're tested on and what ultimately determines your entry into college\"\n\nAs a 29 year old I see both sides. Kids should be prepared for these things, yet it only becomes relevant at a later time for most students. I know there are millions of us who had jobs at 18 and never went to college. I've held a steady job since I was 16 and I've done my own taxes ever since. The confusion and bewilderment is part of the process.\n\nHigh School isn't meant to prepare students for the world, only for more school. At least in America, that is. ",
"Hoooooooooooly shit. There are a lot of assholes assuming that we all have 1040EZ's in here.",
"Dude just get turbo tax. It walks you through the whole process and makes things a lot easier. ",
"The problem with this argument is people are saying \"basic taxes are simple, 5 seconds of googling or buying turbotax is all you need\" and then everybody is responding with \"but IRAs and investments and hard!\" -- op said \"BASIC taxes\" which easy. If you need more than that, the \"basic\" tax class would be useless anyway, and that's why CPAs go to school for it for years. Same reason we can all (usually) put gas in our own cars but not necessarily service them - we hire professionals for the hard shit, and the basic shit is obvious or can be learned by asking a random friend or family member while growing up! School doesn't have time to teach you everything. This is what families, friends, libraries, and now the internet are for.",
"Can someone give me a mini-ELI5; when an American says \"Do my taxes\", what exactly does that entail? In New Zealand your employer takes your income tax out of your pay, so if you're just a normal person who works then you don't have to do anything at all (until getting a tax return, which is another story and isn't required anyway)",
"I'm not sure about the U.S but in Canada we have financial management classes in high school. ",
"I work in a TV station and one of the freelance producers working with us has only recently gone freelance and isn't used to working for himself. He was nearly in tears trying to figure out how to do his taxes, having never learned or been told how to do them before. \n\nHe's 36.",
"I was. Intro to business was a prerequisite to graduate. We learned how to do our taxes.",
"Probably going to be buried and I'm already late to the party here, but my theory on why they skip covering taxes in public schools is that it would hurt the government. If everyone knew how to properly file their taxes the government would lose a considerable amount of money from the revenue that would otherwise be raised.\n\nCase in point, the government doesn't miss out on huge amounts of revenue if you don't know how to use a microwave.",
"There has to be a line somewhere! Teachers are responsible for teaching kids how to tie shoes, use a fork and knife, how to wash hands, be friendly, etc. Oh yeah and actual educational subjects. \n\nThere is only so much a public education should be responsible for! \n\nWhen are people going to start asking about why parents aren't teaching essential life skills?",
"I'm not being snarky, but start with Publication 17 from the _URL_0_ website. It will introduce you to most of the common items of Federal taxes for individuals. \n\nAlso you can peruse Publication 1, if you're curious about what rights you have as a taxpayer.\n\nThe IRS has 3 main groups of documents most people will need to prepare their own tax returns: forms, instructions to the forms, and publications of tax topics. \n\nState taxes are different for every State, but they usually require figures from the Federal tax return. So, always do the Federal return first. \n\nYou can use software to assist you with filing and it does make it a great deal faster. Depending on your circumstances, it may even be free to use; see _URL_0_ for more info.\n\nHowever, no matter how advanced the software is, it does not replace a knowledgable tax professional when it comes to complicated situations and asking more about your situation to help avoid penalties or to develop tax strategies. Software doesn't ask if your Roth IRA lost value before you cashed it out early or if your cancellation of debt should be used to reduce the basis of your now foreclosed property. \n",
"To keep poor people poor.\n\nEducated people teach their kids these things on their own.",
"To be brief they do, you're merely not paying attention. I've answered this exact question dozens of times so I'm a little tired of it. To be blunt schools deal in skillsets because conditions change. Those classes you take are not because they enjoy tedium but because you need to develop the required skillsets to function. They're practice > < .\n\nWhat you need to do your taxes:\n\nLiteracy, mathematics, complex thinking and of course critical thinking. \n\nThese are the core skills schools teach and allow you to practice along with effective communication.\n\nWhy don't they spell it out for you? beyond the fact that no one will do this in life if they did the data would rapidly become utterly useless due to the fact that the tax code changes regularly.\n\nWhy do so many people have trouble doing their taxes? to be blunt they don't read the required material which is freely given before they try and start. Read the tax manual before you try when you do that taxes are childishly simple. \n\nTo sum up: pay attention in school and read the damn provided tax manual before you start.",
"They do that in home economics, do they not require this anymore?",
"I agree with you fully and have mentioned this in a couple other threads as well. I apologize for the format as I am using my cell phone. \n\nI believe there should be courses on things such as:\n\nDoing your taxes.\n\nHow to look for and aquire an apartment or house.\n\nBuying property.\n\nHow to mortgage your house or property.\n\nThe process of buying a car.\n\nHow credit and credit cards work.\n\nHow to get a loan.\n\nHow to make a good, strong resume.\n\nHow to aquire insurance.\n\nAnd other topics similar to these that I cannot think of at the moment. Had I learned these things at the age of 18-19, I truly believe that I would be in a much better financial standing and would be more mature than I currently am.\n\nSemi off topic rant about education. Now I am not saying that professional athletes and actor/actresses don't earn their money. With that said, I have never understood why they are making millions and millions of dollars, then you have the teachers, the ones forming the youth of the future, the youth that will be ruling the world while we are old and retired, and they lucky if they make $35-40k, and I'm some areas more like $25-30k. I have never understood the logic in this, and I'm not sure I ever will.",
"Senior from TN here. Our school system requires you to take a 9-week course of Personal Finance to graduate, where we do learn the basics of filing taxes. Just thought I'd share.",
"Its not just taxes, its a government class that needs to be taught at the start of high school. A mandatory class that starts with the basics of how how the current government works, like math their should be mandatory 8 semesters. At least 1 semester on how the monetary system works and our roles in it including taxes and how its paid. 2 semesters of how voting works and how when and who we vote for and why. 2 semesters on the major governing bodies, ranks and their influence. the rest can be divided among more technical and detailed mechanisms, One specifically on the current system. How lobbyists and corporations effecting government, how people get elected a break down of why and how they are getting elected. So that the majority of people graduating high school actually knows what happening in their country and how its being run.",
"We touched on it when I was in school, but that was over 20 years ago. We also spoke about writing checks and cooking. ",
"My high school taught me to do taxes on a 1040-EZ... It's the most basic form of taxes. Basic income, Earned interest income (From a savings account or something.) and that's about it. Deductions are usually the standardized... No college credit deduction, no home loan interest deduction...\n\nI have usually been better off itemizing deductions due to college, then due to owning a home. I have always also had investment income.\nNever been able to file a 1040-EZ. I've always had a full 1040 with Schedule D. Now I've gotta have a Schedule A and a Schedule E.\nFML.\n\nMy dad made me do my taxes longhand from age 15 on. I'd get copies of the forms and the books from the library and write that shit out. Now I use TurboTax.",
"They do. It is just that if you want to learn real world math, you need to NOT take the recommended math track for a year. At my school it was called Applied Math. My wife said it was Consumer Math at hers. They teach you things like how to balance a check book, how to do a 1040-ez, how to measure things (liquids, distances, etc). There are a lot of people who graduate college not knowing how to do those things.",
"My brother teaches high school, and has had me in to his life skills class to teach them. It would definitely be Worthwhile thing for everyone. There is lots of misinformation out there",
"Because basic economic and financial literacy is something everyone should know, but by teaching it, we give people the tools to lift themselves out of a life of poverty and servitude. Government dependents are a reliable voting bloc for Democrats, and getting rid of them would be political suicide.\n\nFortunately for the left, through their unholy alliance with teachers' unions, Democrats have a heavy influence on what is and is not taught. Ergo, kids finish high school indoctrinated about the \"evils of inequality,\" but completely lacking in the basic understanding of economics, government, and personal finance.\n\nThen they get on Reddit and downvote conservative opinions that cause uncomfortable cognitive dissonance, thereby preserving an echo chamber of well-intended but incorrect ideas based on ignorance and envy.",
"My county has a class called quantitative literacy. They teach you about investing in stocks, buying a house or car and have a tax unit. Basically it was a finance class.",
"Economics was a requirement in my district. Taxes, balance a checkbook, investing... \n\nTl;dr- your school sucked \n",
"In school they teach you to read; the IRS gives you instructions for doing your taxes and expects you to read them.",
"I come from South Africa, here we have two basic forms of maths that are found in almost all schools. Some schools offer higher math programs. \nIn mathematical literacy they teach the basics of how to work out taxes as well as other financial maths. \n\nAlso America has one of the most outdated Education systems in the world, they are trying Educational methods that have already been scraped in other countries. ",
"Why don't we have a 10% flat income tax and everyone have their taxes online? The world may never know.",
"I was taught senior year of high school how to do my taxes. I think it should be standard. Now thought standardized testing has killed life development skills.",
"I'm doing a Maths with Finance degree (to hopefully become a full time musician) and I still don't know what taxes I'm supposed to pay and how. Not only do they not teach it in schools, they barely teach it in a finance/accounting degree!",
"Because it's not THAT FUCKING HARD to do. The forms have instructions written at the 4th grade level, and it's not that difficult to do your taxes if you actually READ the instructions and follow them!",
"Welcome to living with an outdated educational system. They belief is that it is the parents responsibility to pass certain lessons down. Realizing this can be problematic for the modern parent or guardian some districts have finance classes available for enrollment, just not mandatory.",
"Properly educated people start questioning WHY we have taxes in the first place. That's why.",
"Lots of people brushing it off as simple.\n\nSure, when most people went into the workforce, had one employer, and the most basic form.\n\nMore people freelance and contract now than ever. Young folks start Youtube channels and suddenly have revenue. If it's $500 or $500,000 they have to figure out how to do ALL the proper tax work - and deductions, etc. \n\nI have an accountant - I work from home and need one to sort out my crap. No one taught me this in school. Even if they did, I think I'd still have an accountant. If you screw up on your records all year and go \"uhh no one told me to put aside THAT much money!\" you are in deep.\n\nIt might be cultural or a reflection of the times, but I also think 30 years ago many \"kids\" got a first drop in retail or whatever, and often parents gave guidance -- but with a single job and employer its what - two forms? Three lines to enter? Ridiculously simple.\n\nNow 16 year olds are making independent contractor revenue on live streams, etc. or starting their own web businesses. Doing your own taxes for a home business is much more complicated.\n",
"The kinda do..... It's called basic math, problem solving and reading. Sorry to come off as a dick. That is all!",
"Because an educated public is harder to control than an uneducated public.",
"I completely agree with you. We don't teach the children enough about real world problems and issues and how to tackle them.",
"Because the education you receive in school is only valid if you live in the 1920's and has absolute no value in today's society. You spend 12 years in school \"preparing you for life\" then when you graduate you don't know how to do shit because none of the knowledge you gained is applicable. ",
"To keep most of the masses poor you need to keep them financially illiterate... \nNothing, not one thing, taught in US schools give information on how to get wealthy, be wealthy, and/or stay wealthy. \nWealth is the true freedom, everything else is just window dressing. ",
"At my school they called that Civics & Careers. It was a joke class people breezed through with hardly any effort, and the curriculum was a write-off. If the students & the school board both took it more seriously, that would be the class that would help you decide what you want to do with your life, and how to do everyday adult things you have to do when you're older, like file taxes, budget your finances, plan for the future, save money, get a job, and invest. ",
"Because we need 4 years of literature, including at least 1 work of William Shakespeare per year...",
"They taught us how to do taxes in my high school.",
"TIL Europe has an easy tax system. The U.S. Is greedy and difficult.",
"Because mass ignorance is bliss for the oligarchy. ",
"Your TL;DR is incorrect and I know this is too late to ever get read by anybody but I'm going to say it anyways.\n\nIf you are due a refund from the IRS **you are not required to ever file your taxes.** You will also never get that refund. You have 3 years to file your taxes and receive the refund if you *are* due a refund.\n\n**ELI5: I have no idea why they don't teach it. But, it's a myth that you** *have* **to file every year.**\n\nSource: _URL_0_",
"This is a half answer at best, but filing taxes simply isn't that easy. Yeah, most places will give you a W-2, but that's far from the only thing you need to keep track of. Deductions, expenses, etc add up on both sides. All of the information you need is in the tax code but that thing is DENSE. What you file and what your rates are also vary significantly based on income level, family size, location, and other factors. There's a huge variety of exemptions, write offs and other things that you can't completely cover even with a year of studying tax law. \n\nI do agree that some basic idea should be taught in high school, but I would wager they don't because it simply isn't practical. What is useful for one student might not apply at all to another student. And if that second student makes a mistake based on what he learned, the school district is liable. And that's not a risk they're going to want to take. It's very much one of those \"we know it's a problem but we don't know how to fix it so we're going to ignore it\" situations. \n\nSource, if it matters: recently graduated law school, took two semesters of tax law. ",
"Not sure why some schools don't teach it. (I am sure they have their reasons) but my parents taught me but I learned the more complicated stuff first - They ran a dairy farm so everything was itemized and there were so many forms for everything down to how much you put in the gas tank so when I got my little starter job at a local camp for troubled youngsters I didn't understand the simple concept of a 1040. Taxslayer and Turbotax are nice tools that can walk you through taxes and you can ask questions at any point when or if you don't understand something or want further clarification.\n ",
"In austria we dont need to do anything, you just get less money from the company you work for. :D",
"Why don't schools teach other basic things like buying/maintaining a car, buying a house (what to look for), managing budgets, etc. The world may never know",
"OP you are completely right. There needs to be a class senior year that teaches about taxes, home mortgages, and retirement. ",
"In my high school there was a personal finance class that was a requirement to graduate. They thought us how to file taxes, about the stock market, insurance, and so on. ",
"Depending on the school, they might. My high school health teacher gave us a project that was essentially \"you have a job making $X salary, find a car and housing, make a budget that works, and file your taxes for the year\". I don't think that was required curriculum though, just a good teacher.",
"In Canada, they do teach you how to do a basic tax return by hand in consumer mathematics - grade 12. ",
"It's not on the test.\n\nIt's a flippant answer, but also a correct answer.\n\nStandardized testing is a plague upon our educational system.",
"I'm in public high school and my brother before me went to the same one 6 years prior and not only did we have a mandatory personal finance class we have a mandatory government and Econ class. I'm pretty sure any state within common core has this as well. In personal finance did we not only learn how to do tax brackets and 401ks we learned the ins and outs of the stock market on a consumer level, how to balance a check book, love on a budget, the ups and downs of credit, and different forms of deposits we can make. It was probably the most useful class I've ever taken.\n\nTL;DR: we do now and it actually rocks",
"I went to a public school in a major city. When we were in fifth and sixth grade, we were lucky enough to have Deloitte & Touche come in for a mini workshop where they went through basic banking, credit, and tax issues along with an accompanying workbook for our own reading. It was like sex ed.--if you're physically old enough to potentially bring a child into this world, here are a bunch of cold hard truths about what you'll have to deal with in adulthood to hit you in the face. I'd like to think that we would still have been able to figure it out relatively easily even without the brief introduction, but that workshop, paired with great input from future teachers and parents, certainly didn't hurt us.\n\nThis material would be beneficial for all students to cover at some point, but we run into the same old issues about budgeting and curriculum planning. If passing on basic core knowledge slips through in some schools, fat chance that specialized topics would receive much, if any, budgeting or attention.",
"I hear what you're saying about taxes, but I think it's much larger than that. Looking back, it boggles my mind we don't have any required curriculum about personal finance in high school.\n\nWant to help the poor? Want to tackle wealth inequality? What people to be more self-sufficient? \n\nRegardless of your political stripe, it's hard to argue against better financial education would make a big dent in all these things.\n\nI came from a poor family & had to piece what I know largely on my own. \n\nAnd it's not easy. \n\nI would talk with friends (when I could, because -- double whammy -- money is often a taboo subject in our society) and we would help each other out.\n\nI became surprised how many of my friends didn't understand a 401k. That they had an employer match and were basically leaving free money on the table. The benefits of a Roth IRA. The difference between a Roth & Traditional. \n\nOnly after missing the benefit for years, I learned how to do a backdoor conversion to a Roth IRA. \n\nThe difference between bonds & stocks. When you want each. How you should look at portfolio.\n\nThe risks of picking stocks. The value of index funds. How to watch out for fund expenses.\n\nAlmost all of this could be learned with a high school education in math. And the difference between knowing & it not knowing is huge. \n\nIn fact, I can see how just having wealthy parents to give you advice on your own money could be a huge help. We could do a lot to equal the playing field by at least bringing equal education to all.",
"Anything you can go to jail for NOT doing should be mandatorily taught in schools! Bank loans, cleaning, cooking, they're not putting you away for avoiding those",
"OP you are 1000% correct and I hope you initiating this well thought out post makes this a reality ",
"Someone may have said this already, but I'm not going to look through over 800 comments to check lol. IMO the main reason is because so many people are absolutely against taxes and only pay them because they are forced to by law. What I mean by that is most people enjoy driving on evenly paved roads and get to be safe knowing we have police protecting us. All which needs to be paid for by the public, so I don't have any problem paying it. It's the stuff where direct results are not seen by the payer, so they begin to hate the whole system. Then when it comes time for their kids to learn about it, parents would prefer their children to only listen to them when it comes to taxes. I can elaborate more on what I mean, but I'm sure I will be the last person to read this hah.\n\nAdditionally, from what I gather after talking to people that have been paying taxes longer than I, that was something you learn at home from parents or whomever takes care of you. So many parents think that school is the only place where learning is done, but all school is up until a certain age is teaching children HOW to learn more then actual learning. Sure you need to memorize basics such as times tables and what not, but just as some comments said, school gives you the tools to do it, i.e. reading and arithmetic. I do agree with the OP though that schools don't focus on personal finance enough.",
"While on the topic, why isn't drivers ed free and mandatory? Thousands of lives could be saved. "
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8yb4h4 | with water's persistent and powerful erosive power, how are all rivers not straight lines from source to ocean by now? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/8yb4h4/eli5_with_waters_persistent_and_powerful_erosive/ | {
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"A lot of it depends on the speed that the water is traveling. Slow moving ox-box rivers are great examples of how the flow of water changes the landscape (especially when you fly over them and see them from a distance). The water erodes the far bank of the end until it meets the other side, forming an island, until the cut off water dries up, then the process repeats itself all down the lazy river.",
"Because water has momentum. The flow around a bend digs into the far side of the curve while it slows down and deposits sediments on the inside of the curve. \n\nThe result is that curves are exaggerated over time, and can even form circular oxbow lakes. The sediment deposits close off the circle and the river continues around it. \n\nOver geological time, the actual path of a river can change a LOT, wiggling across the land, carving new paths. ",
"Because not all land/terrain are equal and water does what water does best, chose the easiest route. ",
"It does not erode all things equally fast. You have different kinds of minerals in the ground, some are harder than others. The minerals that are eroded don't erode uniformly. Think of it this way: every stone has weak spots, little cracks for example, or enclosures of different minerals that are softer and easier to erode. Water is lazy and always goes the easiest way downwards. Then, things will fall into the water or are washed out by erosion such as stones, plant material, dirt etc. This can form natural dams and obstacles. If you build a dam out of stones in a river bed, it will break trough where your dam is weakest, or overflow where it is not as high. If you build a good dam, the river will start flooding the grassland next to the river bed, creating a new river bed in the process.\n\nAlso, the landscape changes. There might be a forest in one century and then there isn't in the next. this all has an impact on the rivers in the area. ",
"It's kind of a dry read, but the book [Sand: The Neverending Story](_URL_0_) goes into extensive detail about how sand flows, erodes, and is deposited by rivers and water in general.",
"Minute Earth made a great and ELI5-y video about why rivers curve: _URL_0_"
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1c4yf5 | why is 'chained cpi' so harmful for the us entitlement programs? | Now that President Obama has released his 2014 budget proposal, the term "Chained CPI" has been thrown out a number of times, but without further explanation. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1c4yf5/eli5_why_is_chained_cpi_so_harmful_for_the_us/ | {
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"Its not exactly harming the programs, but it affects the amount of money a retired person gets as they age. On average, things will become more expensive over time, but relying on Chained CPI doesn't raise Social Security benefits at a similar rate. The longer people rely on SS, the less value they will receive and the less they will be able to afford. "
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b4en6m | what is the goal of all the "sexy girl" fake profiles? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/b4en6m/eli5_what_is_the_goal_of_all_the_sexy_girl_fake/ | {
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"The link is most likely to a service you need to pay for that will either steal your information or just get your money. That or it's a catfish. ",
"Bots, scammers, to infect as many computers as possible, viruses, and refer back to 3.\nSeriously man, it's just going to infect your device. Don't fall for it. Please.",
"I clicked one once...it exported my friends list to some spammer and now I get spam with a from name of my friends.\n\nIn general, it's all bots trying to harvest something from you.",
"There are (or used to be) dating sites that would pay you a smell amount of you got someone to subscribe.\n\nI had a friend who did those fake profiles to get guys to subscribe. He made a couple thousand bucks a year from what seemed like a lot of time to me",
"You'd be surprised at the amount of people who are willing to spend tons of money on a pretty girl just because she's pretty.",
"Also by clicking on a link, you allow the site to send you a first party cookie, which has a much longer lifetime than a third party cookie.\n\nThis means that they can track you longer and make more advertising money from you. ",
"They have different hostile agendas.\n\nBlackmail - Hostile gets you to send them a naughty pic and then blackmails you.\n\nVirus droppers - Hostile has you install something, and locks your machine, forcing you to pay up.\n\nSugar Daddy/Romance Scam - Hostile has you forward them money.",
"I've always either assumed computer viruses or something to do with a scam. Also some people are just weird. There's a documentary on the relationship between internet scams and blood sacrifice (no shit) in Africa. I think it's called Sakawa. They apparently invest a lot of time into romance rip-offs",
"Here's how it works:\n\nMost guys like hot girls. Most guys don't get hot girls. If a guy thinks there's a one percent chance he can get a hot girl he'll go to stupid lengths. Hence why like every other college girl has a guy friend who'd get up at 3am to drive her across town to the airport or some banal shit he'd never do if she had a dick. There's a reason you see way more hot girls in service jobs like barkeep or waitress than anywhere else. Online if you say you're a girl getting free shit is easy. This dates back to shit like EVE online or old school MMO's where even playing a female character was guaranteed easy items. You get weird messages to but that's kind of the price you pay for free shit. Catfish accounts just apply that idea to money. If some dude thinks a months rent will get him attention there's a chance he'll eat the bullet. Especially if it's a link that'll take your data rather than you paying.\n\nObviously this means a lot of people also want to *be* hot girls. Regardless of what 2X or AskWomen will tell you being an attractive probably white woman opens a whole lot of doors. People give you shit for free like it's normal. You get more social validation in a day than a lot of people do in their whole lives. It may be fake validation but so is a strip club and those things do a roaring trade. Because once again, being a hot girl makes money a lot easier and the guy on the other side doesn't get that.\n\n & #x200B;",
"I work customer service for an adult entertainment company. The ones we see are designed to bait you into using a link to sign up for a verification of some sort for dating or hookup ID. Typically (not always) the links are designed as a man in the middle attack stealing card information and signing you up to a variety of different trials/adult entertainment services. Usually you are dealing with us so long on the phone and trying to figure out why we charged you when our service says 'free membership' (hint: we didn't bill you) , they've already made several purchases or drained your account the best they could.\n\nThis isn't just fake profiles. This is random texts, emails and messages on various social media/dating sites sites. If you don't know her and she all the sudden wants to hook up? I recommend not. ",
"If it's a beautiful Russian woman telling you that she needs some money for a visa or what have you... then it's a Russian man with a plan to fleece you of whatever he can get.\n\n",
"they are basically called e-whorer's they have bought 1000s of images of a same person and use 3r party apps on snapchat to make it seem legitimate. These guys usually target lonely caucasian men or any indian who is stupid enough to believe in them.",
"People are less likely to fall for a Nigerian prince, even if he's hot as fuck. \n\nHot singles in your area > Hot singles in a different continent",
"So sometimes they take you to a porn site and there you do your thing everybody's happy. Except (happened to a close friend) when theyve gotten into your camera somegow and now have videos of you jerking (or say they do) and tell you if you dont pay theyll send the video to all your friends and family. My friend in this case just made a status about it and was like if you dont wanna see dont open it guys",
"i had a conversation with one for a while, basically went ‘what do you want?’ - ‘oh i just broke up with my boyfriend and i’m feeling lonely’ - ‘what do you want?’ - i just feel so horny, wanna watch me play with myself?’ - what do you WANT?’ - ‘join me on _URL_0_’ - ‘so you expect me to sign up and pay with a credit card to watch you rub yourself when i have a girlfriend and pornhub is free?’ - no reply. blocked, reported.",
"That’s just it they do t have the money for these kinds of things . But I’ve personally witnessed a guy at my job who was in a real long distance relationship with a women in his home country. She was not a catfish but they saw each other maybe twice in the last year . This man was sending money every week to Ecuador, he would lose sleep on the phone with this woman and then show to work exhausted and penniless.His desperation for money grew more and more every day and he would literally find any excuse to be allowed to stay and work overtime hours or come into work on off days. When his western union account was closed because he had reached his limit of transactions he would have other employees send the money for them until their accounts were eventually closed. The only way I even learned of the situation was because he eventually asked me to send money for him, which at first I did not thinking anything of it. I work with a lot of people from foreign countries and this did not seem irregular. Then it started to become a weekly habit, every Friday he would call me even on my off days or his off days to send money for him. This man was so desperate he had reached the limit on the amount of loans he could take on 401k so he proceeded to get a false repair quote on his house for $20,000 so he could use it as proof in Human Resources to obtain a hardship withdrawal. The breaking point for me was when one these western union transactions got double charged and the second charge came from my paycheck. My wife was really pissed that me helping him has now cost me money. I was able to recover my money from western union within a few business days but the damage had been done and I told him I couldn’t anymore. \nI saw all that because if this man can be taken advantage of from someone he knows actually exists the same can easily translate over to someone starved of human interaction and attention.",
"Try messaging them. They will most likely offer some services in exchange for money, such as nudes, videos, sexting and stuff. Sometimes they will offer a meetup...paid in advance. \n\nOf course, they can act normal. You screw around, talk, get naughtier and once they have something like a dickpic, they might blackmail you, threaten to put it on your facebook or something. \n\nBasically, if the profile pic is an extremely hot woman in a provocative pose, often with very few actual posts or little public activity, move along. She's either a he, or she may be legit, but I'm not sure how well will a girl that bends over for profile picture work out for you.\n\nEDIT: Oh and for fucks sakes don't click on links sent by them. Bye bye goes the anonymity.",
"I assumed it was to get personal data from you that is only accessible if you are actually connected with them.",
"I followed some account on Instagram, and months later it turned into an Indian politicians informational page with everything else deleted. Guessing some of them just build followers and sell the name.",
"So one scheme these fake profiles use is that they’ll say hey let’s video chat. They’ll say my audio isn’t working so I’ll have to type. The fake sexy girl will start stripping and then ask you to take off your clothes so they can see your hoo hah. They will then screenshot your dick and say hey if you don’t transfer us “x” amount of Bitcoin we’ll send the screenshots from this video chat to everyone you know. Never happened to me I’ve just heard about it from others.",
"While other commenters have already pointed out the various scams, a lot of these will also just not respond at all. Their only purpose is to be friends with people who aren't bots to make them look like humans. These accounts are then used for pushing various agendas on social media and polls, and it's difficult for algorithms to find and ban them because they look like regular users."
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bfbj0m | why is it easier for all things to get ugly rather than becoming beautiful? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/bfbj0m/eli5_why_is_it_easier_for_all_things_to_get_ugly/ | {
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"Well, people regard perfect things as beautiful. And it’s harder to be perfect than not perfect. Being perfect fits a very select few appearances from a seemingly infinite amount of possible appearances.",
"A fundamental law of physics is that in a closed system entropy tends to increase. Entropy is a scientific way of saying disorder or messiness.\n\nScientifically everything tends towards disorder."
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5uj0nh | i realize that there are colors other than just the ones on the visible light spectrum. but where would we see these other colors if we were capable of perceiving them? | From what I understand, when we perceive color, it's because the wavelengths that are bouncing off of an object correspond to a color on the visible light spectrum. There are also colors outside the visual light spectrum that we cannot perceive. But IF we could perceive those colors, where would we see them? There's nothing around me that I would describe as having "no color at all," every object seems to reflect a color on the visual light spectrum. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5uj0nh/eli5_i_realize_that_there_are_colors_other_than/ | {
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"Imagine you can only see the color red. If you have access to something translucent and red, you can basically run the experiment. (Or, if you have anything tinted and translucent, you can use that color.) With your red-o-vision, look around the room. You'll notice that [everything you see has a color](_URL_0_), all of it being a shade of red. Now, some things that normally have no red at all (like a green apple) will look black, and things that are normally white will be indistinguishable from things that are normally red -- these are just the new version of \"white\" in your all-red world. Even though you can only see red, in your perception everything will have *some* color on the way from black to all-red. \n\nNow imagine someone came up to you and told you that most humans can actually see a broader spectrum, past red all the way up to violet. But to you, there's no place for these colors to fit. You would still be asking \"IF we could perceive those colors, where would we see them? There's nothing around me that I would describe as having 'no color at all,' every object seems to reflect a color on my visual light spectrum.\" \n\nBut you (back in the real world) know that's not true. You know, for instance, that while a red apple and a white sheet of paper looked the same through your red filter, they look very different once you're not looking through the filter -- because the paper is also reflecting the rest of the visible spectrum in addition to red, and we perceive that combination as white.\n\nAnd that's the answer: all of the objects around us that reflect visible light are *also* reflecting or emitting radiation in the other parts of the EM spectrum. If an object *only* reflects light outside the visible range, we just perceive it as black, but plenty of things that have a color to us are also reflecting light outside our visible range. \n\nIf we'd evolved with the ability to see this light, we would probably have also evolved a perception of color that accounts for it -- i.e., to us, an object that reflects a particular blue looks the same as one that reflects that blue *and* UV light, but if we could see UV light, we'd probably perceive those two objects as being different colors."
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37pnwo | if the media and people know that sepp blatter is a corrupt crook, how is he still out there and in a position of responsibility? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/37pnwo/eli5_if_the_media_and_people_know_that_sepp/ | {
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"Do you have any *proof* that he's a corrupt crook?",
"because its a independent organisation essentially. If he was in government and so many cases of corruption were around him he'd likely step down, but its not so he doesn't have to.\n\nUntil he's directly and with proof linked to something he can continue to deny it, and with the elections he will continue to win as Asia + Africa wield so much power and will overwhelmingly vote for him. ",
"I don't think the media and people do *know* Blatter is a corrupt crook. Both may think so but without actual proof that he's committed a crime, there is no reason to charge him with anything.\n\nHe remains head of FIFA largely because he redistributes money from wealthy countries to poorer ones. Each country gets 1 vote in FIFA and poorer countries continue to vote for him because they need the money he distributes to them."
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bctx08 | what is gestalt psychology and how does it work? i've looked it up on the internet but tbh it just confuses me | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/bctx08/eli5_what_is_gestalt_psychology_and_how_does_it/ | {
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"Great minds think alike. I've searched tha seven seas fer an answer. Yer not alone in askin', and kind strangers have explained:\n\n1. [ELI5: Gestalt Psychology ](_URL_4_) ^(_._)\n1. [ELI5: Gestalt Therapy ](_URL_6_) ^(_2 comments_)\n1. [ELI5: Gestalt Psychology ](_URL_2_) ^(_._)\n1. [ELI5: Gestalt psychology and pattern goodness ](_URL_5_) ^(_1 comment_)\n1. [ELI5: Gestalt Psychology ](_URL_3_) ^(_1 comment_)\n1. [ELI5:Gestalt Therapy ](_URL_0_) ^(_1 comment_)\n1. [ELI5:What is the difference between the gestält theory and holism? ](_URL_1_) ^(_1 comment_)",
"Very simply it involves the body and using the mind body connection in therapy. It's a different set of techniques and that mind body connection as the driving push when approaching problems."
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46znfr | why does cold glass fog up when you touch it? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/46znfr/eli5_why_does_cold_glass_fog_up_when_you_touch_it/ | {
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"There is moisture in your skin, and a little bit of it in vapor form surrounding you. As a vapor it is invisible.\n\nWhen it hits the glass it sticks and then you can see it. It's the same as breathing on the glass, but the amount of water vapor is smaller, still enough to see though."
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8godid | if silencers on guns actually work to muffle the sound of a gunshot, why aren’t they more commonly found in all the recent shootings across the us? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/8godid/eli5_if_silencers_on_guns_actually_work_to_muffle/ | {
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"Suppressors only reduce the decibels to a point where less damage is done to the ear. They are nowhere near as effective as movies would have you believe for most guns. Best case scenario, it becomes a bit more difficult to locate the shots. This combined with certain drawbacks to suppressors and a more difficult obtainment process, makes them pretty much useless for a mass shooting, especially when you consider that people are gonna figure out there's a shooting going on from all the screaming and commotion anyway even if a gun could be made Hollywood silent. ",
"They just reduce the sound from “jet plane” level to “louder than a heavy metal concert” level; so not that effective at muffling gunshots.",
"A suppressor really only muffles the sound of a gunshot by 20% at most. It is still a definitively loud and distinct sound. The added weight at the end of a barrel can help with stability by shifting the center of mass words the front and causing less recoil.\nAs to why they aren't used in these shootings; a suppressor can be very expensive and several states have restrictions/bans on the sale of them.",
"Good quality suppressors are very difficult to come by. They’re regulated as heavily as full-Auto machine guns and assault rifles. Building one may be beyond the capabilities of these shooters. Ordering a non-regulated functional suppressor or components could lead to an investigation which could screw up their plans. \n\nMost shootings are done with pistols. Not every pistol can accommodate a suppressor without changing some parts around. Putting a suppressor on a pistol makes it much more difficult to conceal, and also makes aiming more difficult. May cause reliability issues. \n\nAs far as shootings using rifles, again not every rifle can accommodate a suppressor easily. An AR15 could but will most likely run into reliability issues going off of the AR15s recovered from shootings. The Vegas shooter is the only one that comes to mind who had rifles and presumably the know-how to get his rifles to run reliably with a suppressor. But considering his plan involved multiple rifles and a high volume of fire, a suppressor would have been a hinderance. Also not advantageous to his plan. But just slapping a suppressor on an AR15 increases pressure and will most likely lead to malfunctions. \n\nFinal note would be that they probably don’t care. Or maybe they want to be as loud and violent as possible. Or it wasn’t pre-meditated to any significant degree. \n\nBut I’d say for the overwhelming majority of gun homicides, the perpetrator wants to be able to easily conceal the firearm and either escape with it or throw it somewhere. So they use pistols, and a suppressor on a pistol could make conceal-ability more difficult. ",
"Short Answer: Silencers don't work as well as they do in the movies (especially on full power rifles), and most shooters aren't willing to invest the time/effort to get a worthwhile one.\n\nLong Answer: Because A) Buying a good can needs a background check stricter than what it takes to buy a rifle off the shelf, B) building a good can yourself requires technical skill that the average mass shooter lacks and time they are often unwilling to invest, and C) a bad homemade can won't take enough off the muzzle blast of a rifle to make it worth the extra dicking around it takes to build one. \n\nMost shootings are taking place with entry-level 5.56mm semi-auto rifles, involving people who don't have a great amount of experience with firearms (with exceptions like the Vegas shooter), who either bought the cheapest AR-15 pattern rifle they could find, engaged in theft, or got it handed back to them in violation of the law after originally having them confiscated (thanks Waffle House shooter's dad!). Buying one of these rifles requires a clean background check (and many of these shooters are either first time offenders or got overlooked by the mental health system), plus whatever state/local specific restrictions apply. Buying a silencer under American laws takes a lot more hassle, since they're federally regulated to a much heavier degree, assuming the buyer's individual state doesn't just ban them by name. \n\nBuilding your own can is doable, but must home made cans are shit. A shit can can work fine for pistols, and especially well for small caliber rounds, even if only for a limited number of shots, but a shit can on a full power rifle is less than worthless. A \"good\" can on a 5.56mm rifle is only really expected to take the report from \"instant hearing damage\" to \"hearing damage if you do it a bunch of times\". A shit can takes it from \"instant hearing damage\" to \"perhaps a handful of shots of non-instant damage, followed by everything else sounding as bad as normal\". And that's assuming that the shooter didn't commit some kind of truly gross error (and remember, most of these people aren't 'gun people', in a sense of bothering to acquire any real skill) like misaligning the baffles so the bullet strikes them on the way out, or using materials that physically can't withstand the heat/blast of the escaping gas from the gunshot, in which case the silencer might disable the gun and/or injure the shooter. "
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1y51hr | what's the reason behind google's acquisition of military robot maker boston dynamics? | Usually i can understand the overall strategy of Google's business extension, as they want to be the all-knowing information mega company. With the acquisition of military robot maker Boston Dynamics, i have absolutely no idea what they are up to. Anybody cares to share their ideas about that deal? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1y51hr/eli5whats_the_reason_behind_googles_acquisition/ | {
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"Google has not been a solely information-based company for many, many years. They have moved to application, with interests in self-driving cars, phones, internet infrastructure, etc. My idea of their business interests is that they want to be in the forefront of technology, and what could be more futuristic than robots? \n\nAcquisition of Boston Dynamics also gives them information and technology on how robot technology could help their other interests (robot cars, for instance). And with Google's computing power, the Boston Dynamics robots can become a lot smarter."
]
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[]
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evap45 | what’s the point of those hard blowing fans above you when you go into a store? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/evap45/eli5_whats_the_point_of_those_hard_blowing_fans/ | {
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"Air curtain.\n\nI'm not entirely sure how it works - I'd expect Mr Bernoulli to get involved and throw a spanner in the works - but it basically creates a barrier between the warm air on one side and the cold air on the other; but a barrier you can just walk through."
]
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[]
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nwwsc | why are we so convinced that a meteoroid is the cause of the extinction of dinosaurs ? | it sound logical to me though if you'd say the dinosaurs started running out of food and thus reducing size and structure over time to adapt , what makes this idea invalid ?
e.g pelicans look like a downgraded version of Pterosaurs .
***EDIT :***
thank you all for the explanations , here is a summary of what has been said so far
1. the fossils have been found below the [KT boundry](_URL_1_) which contains a lot of iridium that is found in way higher concetrations on Meteoroids than on earth (also shocked quartz, and nickel magnetite ) .
2. the Meteoroid hit the [Chicxulub crater .](_URL_2_)
3. Shocked quartz can only form on high temperature from fusion outside the atmosphere .
4. iridium is found in higher concentrations on meteoroids because earth's iridium melted with the iron and went down to the core of the Earth is it was cooling whereas a meteoroids iridium didn't sunk that fast to the core because they cooled down much faster due to less mass .
5. among the theories is volcanism: Deccan traps in India suggests that a huge volcanic eruption happened throughout a million year(which is short on the geologic scale). The iridium presence is explained but it does not explain everything.
6. [this](_URL_0_) comment helps with the consequences of the Impact. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/nwwsc/why_are_we_so_convinced_that_a_meteoroid_is_the/ | {
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"there are lots of dino fossils below the [KT boundry](_URL_0_ ). this boundry is evident worldwide by a thin layer with lots of iridium in it. this is relatively rare on earth but found in higher concentrations in meteorites. \n \nafter this layer, the record shows far fewer dino fossils.",
"You might get more in-depth and professional answers in [r/askscience](_URL_0_).",
"We are not \"so convinced\"; but with the evidence in hand it looks pretty likely. That's how science works.",
"I guess I'm the only one that read \"metroid\"?\n\n/headhangofshame",
"there are lots of dino fossils below the [KT boundry](_URL_0_ ). this boundry is evident worldwide by a thin layer with lots of iridium in it. this is relatively rare on earth but found in higher concentrations in meteorites. \n \nafter this layer, the record shows far fewer dino fossils.",
"You might get more in-depth and professional answers in [r/askscience](_URL_0_).",
"We are not \"so convinced\"; but with the evidence in hand it looks pretty likely. That's how science works.",
"I guess I'm the only one that read \"metroid\"?\n\n/headhangofshame"
]
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"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/K%E2%80%93T_boundary",
"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chicxulub_crater"
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1t025c | cold doesn't spread, heat does. so why does my hand get cold when i touch a cold object? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1t025c/eli5_cold_doesnt_spread_heat_does_so_why_does_my/ | {
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"The heat from your hand is spreading to the object, so your hand is losing heat and getting colder.",
"Cold is just the absence of heat. So if heat goes from object A (your hand) to object B (cold object), cold \"goes\" from object B to A.",
"It's called conduction. You explained it yourself. The heat \"moves\" from your hand to the cold object. The better the conductor, the fast the heat loss. Conversely, insulators such as your winter jacket conduct heat poorly, helping to keep you warm these cold winter months. "
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5jds5y | how are squareroot, cuberoot, powers, sine, cosine, tanh, erfc etc. complex functions computed on various platforms when all computers can really do is add/subtract/multiply/divide? | Binary addition and subtraction and multiplication and long division makes sense as it would be like we did it kindergarten school but with 2 digits `1 & 0`. How are the more complication functions evaluated *quickly*?
| explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5jds5y/eli5_how_are_squareroot_cuberoot_powers_sine/ | {
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"Calculus, for the most part.\n\nIt turns out that you can represent the vast majority of things you need to calculate with what's called a *power series.*\n\nSo you take a function and, through some algorithm, turn it into a power series. A power series is an infinite sum of some more easily solved function, where you just replace one of the variables with increasing numbers. \n\nIn pure mathematics, what this means is that if you add up an infinite number of terms, you'll arrive at the exact answer you're looking for. In practicality, you only add up the first few terms--which still gives you a good approximation of the answer. It's very easy to get the answer to such a small amount of error that the error is irrelevant.\n\n",
"I don't know how much they get used anymore on modern, more powerful, computers, but on older computers and calculators, CORDIC algorithms were commonly used. The CORDIC algorithms, first conceived in the 1950s, have an advantage over other potential methods because they only require addition, subtraction, and left and right bit shifts. As such, they are very computationally \"cheap.\" However, their primary disadvantage is that they converge to the actual value much slower than do other iterative processes, typically averaging a rate of one bit per iteration.\n\nIf you're interested, you can read about one such CORDIC algorithm to calculate square roots on [Boulette's Institute of Technology](_URL_0_)'s website."
]
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[],
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c8w0h0 | how does anti-virus protect your personal computer? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/c8w0h0/eli5_how_does_antivirus_protect_your_personal/ | {
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"In very simple terms, a regular anti-virus would have a complex set of instructions that look for certain behaviors inside different programs and files. These behaviors can be detected regardless of how its coded, making certain anti-virus softwares very complex and effective. One works by looking for known malware by a specific set of characteristics. This would be called Specific Detection, and is able to detect pretty much most forms of malware. Another layer could be added, called Generic Detection where the process looks for malware that are variants of known “families,” or malware related by a common code base. This allows generic malware with little complex structures to be easily spotted. One final layer could be added called Heuristic Detection, which allows it to detect complex forms of malware that has never been made before using different algorithms to find patterns that fit under what would be considered malware. \n\n & #x200B;\n\nOf course, certain malware has a large database that could learn by itself, which again makes certain anti-virus's extremely effective."
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3c6p10 | when companies decide to only listen to their share/stockholders, why does it usually result in the consumer getting a worse experience? | Why don't shareholders want to have a happier customer base? Does it all come down to their paychecks? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3c6p10/eli5_when_companies_decide_to_only_listen_to/ | {
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"Stockholders only want the company to have bigger profits, in the short term the company can do this by shortchanging customers. Eventually the short changing gets caught up with them and in the long run causes damage to the company, but in that short run the investors are happy because their stocks were worth more/got more dividends etc.",
"Alternatively, you don't hear about them if they choose the right thing to do. It's a known bias and affects many other areas. You're likely to remember especially the people who you don't agree with.\n\nFor example, everyone in Europe seems to hate easyjet and Ryanair for many reasons, but you rarely hear how well they both executed an almost complete rewrite of their website and booking systems and how much better they are compared to the original. But I'm sure the company directors were involved in starting / planning the change."
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14g07f | why does broken glass cut skin so much worse than broken plastic? | I work at a bar and cut myself on tiny little chunks of broken glass quite often & it made me wonder if the same would happen if we used plastic pint glasses. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/14g07f/eli5_why_does_broken_glass_cut_skin_so_much_worse/ | {
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"Glass shears in a way that lets the edges be sharper than plastic",
"The answer is actually because glass cuts skin so much *better* than plastic. When you cut yourself, the platelets in your blood rush to the wound and pack up to form a blood clot. When you cut yourself with glass, or when shaving - the cut is so cleanly done that theres nothing for the platelets to grab onto and the blood clot is harder to form. A cut from something with plastic, or anything that creates a more jagged wound will give your platelets an easier time to do their job so it won't bleed as much.",
"machinehead933 answered, why glass cuts bleed more, so I'll answer why glass shards are more sharp. Glass is much harder than plastic. Thus when you break glass, the very thin edges will stay very thin and not just fall off or bend or get rub off. They will stay thin and sharp. Plastic on the contrary bends more easily, so instead of piercing through your skin, the thinnest edges will just bend away and after hitting on the floor a few times most of the sharp edges will just have rubbed off."
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5mguvu | so i just went to a presentation where they show you how to navigate by the stars, and one of the things i learned about was the north star... | In Hawaii, the north star (polaris) is also known as hoku pa'a, which literally means stuck star. Now the thing that is melting my mind is how, when the earth is both rotating on its axis, and also orbiting the sun, that the star remains fixed in the sky that is visible from the northern hemisphere... How is this possible? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5mguvu/eli5_so_i_just_went_to_a_presentation_where_they/ | {
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"Sorry. That star is nothing special. If it wasn't Polaris, it would have been another star. There is bound to be a star in the sky that the axis of the earth points too. \n\nAnd the stars are so far away 4 light years minimum, that the 16 light minutes Earth carved out around the sun just doesn't matter.",
"Let's think for a second about how the Earth's rotation and revolution affect the motion of the stars. In these cases, it's easiest to think about the stars as being on the inside surface of an arbitrarily large sphere with the Earth-Sun system at its center. (Obviously, this isn't actually the case, but it's easy to picture and gives you the right answer about 99% of the motions of the stars.)\nStart by imagining that you are standing on the North Pole looking up. Now say that the Earth is revolving about the Sun but not rotating. How do the stars move? The answer, which I hope is intuitive, is that they don't move at all if the sphere is big enough. And since the stars are very, very far away this answer holds in reality too - the revolution of the Earth about the Sun does not cause any apparent motion of the stars.\nNow imagine, still standing on the North Pole looking up, that the Earth is rotating beneath you. Now how do the stars move? They appear to be spinning too, and the point they appear to be spinning around is directly above your head since you are on the North Pole. In reality, purely by chance, Polaris is located almost exactly at the point that the stars appear to spin around. So as the Earth's rotation makes the stars spin, Polaris, located at the point they all spin around, doesn't move at all! As we can see, neither the rotation nor the revolution of the Earth impart any apparent motion to Polaris.\nAs a final thought, imagine that instead of standing on the North Pole, you are standing at 45 degrees latitude north. Instead of being right above your head, Polaris is now 45 degrees above the horizon. But, as you are on the same Earth as before, the stars spin the same way, that is, around Polaris which still does not appear to move. This is why Polaris is so useful for navigation - not only does it always appear to be true north of your position, but its elevation above the horizon is the same as your latitude!\nTwo final points. First, the fact that Polaris is very near the precise point in the sky that everything spins around is pure luck. There is no such star for the southern hemisphere - if you stand on the South Pole and look up, there is no star directly above your head. Second, there is actually a motion of the Earth that makes even Polaris appear to move. As the Earth rotates about its axis, its axis of rotation is also moving - this motion is called axial precession. If you imagine the Earth's rotational axis extending out to the sphere of stars, its motion traces out a circle on the sphere with radius 23.4 degrees every 26,000 years (axial precession is slow). While the rotational axis currently intersects the sphere of stars right at Polaris, axial precession means that this was not always and will not always be the case. Polaris did not become a very good north star until about 700 years ago, and in another 700 years it won't be a good north star again.\nLet me know if anything wasn't clear or if you have any other questions!"
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2q9tcw | what the fuck are eyebrows? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2q9tcw/eli5_what_the_fuck_are_eyebrows/ | {
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"Eyebrows keep the sweat from your brow out of your eyes. Eyelashes limit dust and whatnot getting into your eyes. "
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fm4ydi | what are the mechanical/biological functions of a ventilator vs. something like an ambu-bag, and what are the practical difficulties in constructing diy ventilators? |
I read a comment section somewhere where a (self-identified) ER medical staff member talked about an ambu-bag and I did a little reading. It seems as if the downfall to an ambu-bag (which I know is like calling all facial tissues kleenex) is the manual nature of it, but I can't imagine constructing a mechanical bellows would be terribly difficult. If oxygen level of the forced air is of interest, what is the fallback to rigging up a system to supplement the bag? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/fm4ydi/eli5_what_are_the_mechanicalbiological_functions/ | {
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"Keeping it clean. It's no good to pump air into someone if the air is full of bacteria that end up killing them. A manual resuscitator, only makes sense when you're in an environment with clean air.",
"There is a lot to inflating the lungs, both manually with a bag or automatically with a machine. It's more than breath size and rate. Its inspiratory flow, the \"waveform\" throughout the inspirarory phase, peak pressures, mean pressures and end-expiratory pressures. \n\nDamage to the lung tissues can result from over pressuring (barotrauma), too much volume (volutrauma) and even too little end-expiratory pressure (causing shear stresses when there are areas that are collapsed that lie next to areas that are inflated- you can shred the alveoli to pieces).\n\nThen there is trying to keep the lungs sterile.\n\nStudies on manual resuscitator demonstrate that it's very difficult to consistently ventilate the patient breath to breath for days at a time.\n\nSource: Former RT and currently working in \"the industry\"."
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7j08x7 | why we have to swallow, why can't things go straight down our throats? my son wants to know | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/7j08x7/eli5_why_we_have_to_swallow_why_cant_things_go/ | {
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"The opening at the top of your stomach is closed almost all the time, so that food and stomach acid don't splash out when you jump, or pour out when you lie down or turn upside down.\n\nSwallowing creates a brief opening for things to go in but not out."
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1nsllm | how do hookahs work and are they less toxic than cigarettes? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1nsllm/eli5how_do_hookahs_work_and_are_they_less_toxic/ | {
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"Hookahs work by making you pull the smoke down through a bowl of water using flexible pipes. The smoke is cooled down considerably as it passes through the water. This makes it burn a bit less as you inhale it.\n\nWhile some of the particulates of the smoke do stay in the water, you are still inhaling the same toxins you would otherwise.\n\nThe lower temp may reduce some of the damage to your lungs and esophagus.\n\nAlso, many hooka smokers are using shisha which can have no tobacco in it (and less toxins) _URL_0_\n\n",
"There is a lot of misinformation about hookahs for some reason. I like them a lot, and I like smoking both shisha and weed/hash out of them.\n\n1. One of my pet peeves is hookah \"purists\" who for some reason think it's evil to smoke cannabis out of them. Hookahs were not invented to smoke tobacco, they were invented to smoke cannabis products. Hookahs were invented in the Middle East long before the Colombian exchange and their inventors had absolutely no access to tobacco or even any idea that it existed.\n\n2. Shisha tobacco is rough cut and much less processed than cigarette tobacco. Generally it doesn't have nearly as many chemical additives or preservatives. Shisha is more comparable to the tobacco in cigars. This is one arguable health benefit.\n\n3. A hookah is not a traditional pipe*, a hookah - if properly used - is a sort of primitive vaporizer. The whole point of the screen is to separate the shisha from the coals, and the coals must be small and moved around often (to my chagrin, this is not how most people in the USA use their hookahs and as a result they taste awful). When you draw on the hose, the shisha is heated indirectly and begins to vaporize. This is also why hookahs are so great for smoking cannabis, they're efficient and not too harsh. This is the other reason smoking hookah is healthier than smoking cigarettes.\n\nI would like to stress, however, that smoke inhalation in any form is not \"healthy.\" But I do trust my organically grown weed and shisha a lot more than that crap they put in cigarettes. Smoking hookah is less bad for you than cigarettes, but it's still not good for you, and nicotine is still habit forming regardless of how you ingest it.\n\n*some people in the Middle East put their coals directly on the tobacco and it is an acquired taste to say the least. Also the tobacco they use for that isn't flavored.\n\nEdit: the water chamber has zero effect on the toxicity of the smoke, it is merely there to cool it down. Also, protip, put your hoses in the freezer for 45 minutes before you smoke and you can thank me later",
"\"Carbon monoxide measurements fared badly as well, as tests indicated that the carbon measurements from the three types of shisha came to 17 times the normal cigarette limit, 15 times, and 52 times the limit. \"\n\nSource: _URL_0_\n\nI've seen other studies that say that some types of Shisha are up to 200 to 400x more harmful when inhaled.",
"The major issue with hookahs is that a) you don't have a filter (although it is debatable how much those really help) and b) the coal byproducts can be very harmful to you depending on which kind you use. That being said, in my experience, most hookah smokers do not smoke as frequently as your typical cigarette smoker.\n\nI have read studies that claim hookahs are much worse for your health than cigarettes if you smoke on a frequent basis (2-3 times a week). But I would say the methodology typically used to determine this is questionable. \n\nThe whole idea that \"natural\" or \"unprocessed\" tobacco is any safer than the tobacco in most commercial cigarettes is one of the biggest misconceptions smokers user to justify their habits. Sorry to sound harsh here but there is a reason why it is mandated by the Surgeon General that tobacco products marketed as natural or additive free must have \"no additives in our tobacco does NOT mean a safer cigarette.\" on the packaging. \n\n1) _URL_0_ \n2) _URL_1_\n\n\n",
"The real benefit to smoking hookah is that the smoke is cooler, so the experience is more comfortable and less immediately inflammatory. It's very hard to compare cigarettes and hookah because doses of inhaled content are very hard to match. If the volume of smoke is matched, my bet is that hookah is safer -- you don't combust the same amount of chemicals and you're breathing in a cooler form. \n\nHowever, consider that when smoking hookah you are consuming a disproportionately larger amount of smoke during a session than you would with a couple cigarettes -- and that is partly made possible due to the less irritating affects of cooler smoke. As tar has been shown to be one of the direct correlates leading to cancer (among others), it is fair to be apprehensive by the sheer amount of smoke you are consuming alone (yes you are still smoking tar)."
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3re3u3 | why does "milli" mean a thousandth, but a "million" is one thousand thousand? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3re3u3/eli5_why_does_milli_mean_a_thousandth_but_a/ | {
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"You are comparing the metric system to the numeral system, their name conventions are not shared. That is why they don't match up.",
"The etymology of million is that it means \"a great thousand\". So while it gets the \"thousand\" part from the \"milli\" taken as a whole it is talking about a quantity much greater than a thousand.",
"It's thought to come from the French \"milione\", which is an intensification of \"mille\" (a thousand). So it basically means big thousand."
]
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[],
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6apg1y | why can we easily remember sounds but not the pitch they were in? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/6apg1y/eli5_why_can_we_easily_remember_sounds_but_not/ | {
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"I can remember pitch (and yes I realise that's very rare)... I'm REALLY confused what most other people are hearing or remembering when they recall sounds.\n\nLike... do you just hear the spacing between a bunch of notes all of which sound the same..? That makes no sense to me.\n\nOr do you just... mis-remember everything and jumble all the sounds up? I don't get how you can remember a sound but not remember what sound it actually is...\n\n\nBut anyway, I imagine it's the same way some people [can't think with mental images](_URL_0_), yet still recognise people etc."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aphantasia"
]
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23h3ge | if following the insurgency is a one way ticket (meaning if you join, you die) why are so many young people joining it? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/23h3ge/eli5_if_following_the_insurgency_is_a_one_way/ | {
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"Because you believe you won't get anything better in this life and your sacrifice will make it better for others. YMMV",
"Imagine you're a young man, you live in a terrible place, and the future is bleak. \n\nNext, imagine that one day you learn that the rich, well-armed people who've come to your country have killed your child/wife/mother with a drone/roadside checkpoint/tank/rifle round through a mud wall. Your family is all you have. \n\nCheck that, it's all you *had*.\n\nWhat are you going to do?",
"99% of the time the people blowing themselves up are not the ones with \"ideals\", they're victims. Most \"suicide bombers\" are young men, women, or children coerced by threats to their family or controlled by drugs. \n\nYes, some people join insurgents because they have lost family and friends to the conflict. But those people are typically soldiers, not suicidal \"martyrs\". \n\nSource: former US Army Intelligence",
"I find that the best explanation comes from Flammel et Citron.\n\n1. Career\n2. Ideology- for the fatherland/motherland\n3. Hatred of the enemy",
"Imagine you are you. You live in a great place, future becomes bleak. \nNext, imagine that one day you learn that some people are going to take a shit on your life kill your parents burn your house down shoot rex in the head and grill him for dinner and if you do nothing it will happen. You realize you can do something about it because you love these things. \n\nMoral of the story, you do it for love. You love something, whether it be family, a car, a dog, a place you drink beers, your home. Love causes so much war and death, yet it can cause so much peace."
]
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[],
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c3t01v | how do you differentiate east from west at the poles? | Bit random but i was just listening to a Star Talk Radio podcast and they mentioned how Antarctica is losing more ice in the west than it is in the east, only problem is for some reason i can't seem to wrap my head around identifying the points of a compass at the poles.
Thanks in advance. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/c3t01v/eli5_how_do_you_differentiate_east_from_west_at/ | {
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"Exactly at the poles, there is no east or west. From the south pole, every direction is north. Close to the poles, east and west still exist; that latitude band is just a really small circle",
"Earth have a western and eastern hemisphere and that is what is used.\n\nLook at for example [_URL_2_](_URL_0_) you see a map where East Antarctica is the part that is in the eastern hemisphere and west Antarctica is in the western hemisphere. Some part of the East Antarctic Ice Sheet is in the western hemisphere but most is in the eastern hemisphere. It is the [Transantarctic Mountains](_URL_1_) that separate it from the West Antarctic Ice Sheet",
"The western area of the poles is the area around the 90th meridian west (north of canada) and the eastern area is the area around the 90th meridian east (north of Russia)"
]
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[],
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"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/East_Antarctic_Ice_Sheet",
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transantarctic_Mountains",
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/East\\_Antarctic\\_Ice\\_Sheet"
],
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] | |
3oo8o3 | why is it so rare to hear about female pedophiles/child molestors. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3oo8o3/eli5_why_is_it_so_rare_to_hear_about_female/ | {
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"There's lots of reasons for this and all of them are deeply complex. There is no one simple answer. It's difficult for people to let go of the notion that women are good, caring, and kind people all of the time because we are conditioned as a society to think that about women so when a woman breaks that mold it's hard for us to digest due to our cognitive dissonance. There's also the perception that a woman is not physically as strong as a man so the harm inflicted by abuse will be less than what it is if a man did it. That is simply not true. Abuse hurts no matter who is the perpetrator and who is the victim. \n\nIn other instances families are stuck in a culture of abuse where there has been sexual or other forms of abuse for generations and the normal response of the family unit is to protect the abuser. Simply put you don't want to believe that someone you love, grew up with, and have spent a great deal of time around is capable of doing something so horrible. \n\nSociety puts a lot of blame on the victims which shifts the attention away from the abuser. As far as the law goes, some states give children 5 to 10 years after their 18th birthday to report abuse. Children sometimes don't have the vocabulary or emotional maturity to verbalize or process what happened to them and sometimes there's a great amount of fear involved. The person in question may threatened to kill their family or pets, they may threaten violence against them or loved ones, or they may threaten to embarrass them in some way. That fear can linger well after the abuse stops and in the eyes of the law a child is supposed to figure all of this out and navigate it within a small window. The more time has passed the more victim blaming is involved. I've seen many people on reddit, for example, ask well if it happened when they were 8 then why did it take them 20 years to say anything? Rape does a lot of things to a person like possibly giving them PTSD as well as warping their sense of what normal sex and normal relationships are supposed to be. It's hard to figure all of that out sometimes and put all the pieces together in that window especially if the abuse is ongoing or happens with multiple family members.\n\nAs far as male victims go there is a wide belief that men or boys just can't be raped because they want it. Language is important when talking about all rape victims but it's especially important when talking about male victims because we tend to talk about male rape victims like no matter what they secretly wanted it. Rape is rape no matter who the victim is and it hurts just the same and has similar psychological consequences as a girl getting raped. We tend to blame male victims in a different way as in the case of the 11 year old boy who was raped by his 20 year old babysitter. The boy has repeatedly stated that he didn't like it and didn't want it but the judge and the father stated that he was mature enough to handle it and must have liked the experience in spite of the boy saying he didn't. Instead of looking at the fact that a fully grown woman raped a child we congratulate the child for \"having an affair\" with the grown woman. If it is a full grown man who raped a girl we throw the book at him and want him arrested immediately. In the case of boys we're ready to throw a celebration and ask if she was hot or not."
]
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[]
] | ||
eispo5 | why is it so easy to reopen a book to the page it was previously on when the book is dropped or the place is lost? | This is a bit of a tricky concept to word, but I’ve noticed that when a book is dropped on the floor, and I go to pick the book back up after the place is lost, it is easy to find the space it was originally open to. Anyone know why? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/eispo5/eli5_why_is_it_so_easy_to_reopen_a_book_to_the/ | {
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"People tend to open the book more or less flat at the pages they're reading, and the spine of the book relaxes there during the time it takes you to read the pages. When you pick up a dropped book, the most relaxed point in the spine is the place you were reading last, so the book often falls open in your hands at that point (or close to it).",
"i agree with the dude who answered before me, but i also just think it has something to do with our eyes working faster than our brains. i think we see how the book fell and where the page we were on dropped so to speak, without even realizing it. and then we sort of just, know where to open it."
]
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[],
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adtvkm | how will the guy that paid 3.1mill for a tuna make profit from that? | I am wondering if anyone can help answer this question. It seems impossible for him to make any kind of profit from this tuna? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/adtvkm/eli5_how_will_the_guy_that_paid_31mill_for_a_tuna/ | {
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"See tuna are giant fish, they are one of the top predators of the ocean in fact, so these boys get huge. Some get 300+ lbs. what they do is turn it into sushi, and I’m guessing it must’ve been a giant tuna the dude bought. But you can usually get between 3,500 -8,000 dollars per lb of tuna when you sell it as sushi though.",
"the article about this said the owner didnt expect to make a profit. its a first sell of the new year and more of a public relations stunt than anything. the purchaser was a huge chain company like Chile’s."
]
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33bev9 | why am i scared of my own dark house after a scary movie even though usually i feel safe here? | Just finished a scary movie and had to turn on every single light on my way to the kitchen while usually I can walk in the dark. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/33bev9/eli5_why_am_i_scared_of_my_own_dark_house_after_a/ | {
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"It is not the house you fear. It is the potential to happen in that house that you fear."
]
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[]
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3s26yf | halo story and the various key players | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3s26yf/eli5_halo_story_and_the_various_key_players/ | {
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"_URL_0_ \nJust watch this. More thorough and easier to grasp than whatever most people will try to type out on here.",
"Ok, so halo started out as us waging war against the covenant. A group of alien species set on the destruction of the human race because they worship the forerunners, a now extinct group of aliens that we and the flood fought against a long time ago. \nAfter the covenant loses in halo 3, mcc is stranded in space until they happen to find a forerunner plannet, however by this stage cortana is becoming old and crazy so she sacrifices herself to save chief. \nHalo 5 then starts with chief recieving a message from cortana so he takes blue team/childhood friends on a mission to find her. \nSo ONI sends Spartan Locke to bring him back."
]
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"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eGMy7T0gDyc"
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65gsk6 | why if someone is being bullied on school property or if it's between students why is the school's responsibility | [other] | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/65gsk6/eli5_why_if_someone_is_being_bullied_on_school/ | {
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"The school has a special responsibility to act \"in the place of the parent\" (legal Latin: *in loco parentis.*) They aren't just the owner of some land, they are the temporary guardian of the kids.\n\n_URL_0_",
"The school is taking the place of the parents in certain legal senses, including the responsibility for the child's welfare. This is a legal concept known as *in loco parentis*: _URL_0_\n\n > [Latin, in the place of a parent.] The legal doctrine under which an individual assumes parental rights, duties, and obligations without going through the formalities of legal Adoption.\nIn loco parentis is a legal doctrine describing a relationship similar to that of a parent to a child. It refers to an individual who assumes parental status and responsibilities for another individual, usually a young person, without formally adopting that person. For example, legal guardians are said to stand in loco parentis with respect to their wards, creating a relationship that has special implications for insurance and Workers' Compensation law.\nBy far the most common usage of in loco parentis relates to teachers and students. For hundreds of years, the English common-law concept shaped the rights and responsibilities of public school teachers: until the late nineteenth century, their legal authority over students was as broad as that of parents. Changes in U.S. education, concurrent with a broader reading by courts of the rights of students, began bringing the concept into disrepute by the 1960s. Cultural changes, however, brought a resurgence of the doctrine in the twenty-first century.",
"Schools operate under the legal concept of [*in loco parentis*](_URL_0_) (Latin for \"in the place of a parent\").\n\nSchools have a legal responsibility to protect children that are under its care, as if they were the childrens' parent. So if a child is being assaulted or harmed in any way, the school has a responsibility to step in and resolve the situation if feasible.",
"The school takes the place of the parent while the child is there and everyone who works there from principal to janitor is a part of that process. "
]
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"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/In_loco_parentis"
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69msnc | why is regional australia (before you reach the outback) so fertile, yet so sparsely populated? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/69msnc/eli5_why_is_regional_australia_before_you_reach/ | {
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"1) What makes you think regional Australia is fertile? Even much of the Eastern Seaboard is not that fertile. Soil in Australia is well-known for having much less organic content than those in other continents. Only tiny parts of the country, like Hunter Valley and the area around Brisbane, have rich soil. Source: [1](_URL_0_) [2](_URL_1_)\n\n2) Modern civilisation took hold in Australia very late. It pretty much means the country has still not had enough time to reach high population density.\n\n3) In terms of land use, the land that can be developed has been developed for the primary industry already.\n\n4) Even if you go only 100 km inland, the summer will be scorching hot and dry. There is also a feedback loop of people not wanting to live in a place where you need to travel hours to get to the nearest Coles, which in turn keeps the inland areas from developing."
]
} | [] | [] | [
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"http://www.fao.org/ag/agp/agpc/doc/counprof/australia/australia.htm",
"http://www.abs.gov.au/ausstats/abs@.nsf/Previousproducts/1301.0Feature%20Article801966"
]
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6gfa2h | how does having the engine in the back of a car change how it drives? | I was wondering whether changing where engine is in the car changes how it drives. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/6gfa2h/eli5_how_does_having_the_engine_in_the_back_of_a/ | {
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"Engines are extremely heavy. Moving all that weight from one end of the car to another is going to affect how the car handles. ",
"engines weigh alot. typically 500 pounds ball park. put a 500 pound weight on a lever about 15 feet long and you can see how that would affect weight transfer"
]
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2xgg3w | how do we verify banks don’t just add numbers to the system? | David Mitchell: _URL_0_
So this may seem like a stupid question but…
We have all this ‘money’ / value being created across the globe in different countries.
Depending on the system, banks buy the debt from governments and then loan those funds out fractionally to collect interest, etc.
All of this is (I assume) closely monitored so that the system at large stays ‘balanced’ (aka… not more money in existence than should be).
My question is, now that our systems are largely digital, and operating at such high numbers - what’s to stop some high level banker from simply ‘adding some more numbers’ to the system?
If they didn’t report this increase anywhere, how would anyone know?
Is there a public record of a banks digital funds (liquid + on loan), that's not supplied by the bank itself?
Like an actual check of the bits in the system?
I don’t doubt that there are 3rd parties checking the accounting practices of every single bank, I’m just not sure that if I were stealing money digitally, that I’d actually put it on the balance sheet.
I know if I was printing physical money, I would just keep it under the table and not tell anyone - that way the books look fine and I have extra money in my pocket.
| explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2xgg3w/eli5_how_do_we_verify_banks_dont_just_add_numbers/ | {
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"I've wondered the same question myself, so I'm also interested to know how this is monitored.\n\nOn a similar theme, I remember reading a story (I think it was in China) a couple of years ago where some dude was initially hailed a big success for buying a foreign bank, but then it later turned out that he had made the whole thing up and the bank didn't exist and it was just a clever fraud (or not so clever as it turned out, cos he ended up getting caught).",
"Every number on a bank's books represents one side of an asset/liability transaction. When you deposit money, you are lending to the bank, and expect to be paid back on demand, at the corrwct amount. When the bank creates credit, they are lending you money, and usually have a set contract or plan for you to pay back. \n\nAs the liability is always against a specific individual or entity, it will probably be disputed if not legit. \n\nBanks also keep giant accounts with each other, which we call settlement accounts. If bank A customers buy 1 mil worth of stuff from bank B customers on a lazy Thursday, all of that goes on to the settlement account and BAM bank A owes bank B 1 million. All the tiny transactions will be recorded on both sides, and banks have gotten very good at making sure this is done accurately. \n\nBanks can't just 'make up numbers' giving themselves a 10 mil account against their own bank. Who owes that money? Where is the liability? Where is the corresponding record of the debtor? \n\nTL; DR bank numbers are just one side of a loan. Without the other side from the guy that owes money, it's clear something is fucky. \n\nELI10 bonus: Central banks however, are granted authority by the government to create money in the form of cash or credit 'out of thin air'. This is used as a mechanism to control the macroeconomy, usually to achieve stability and prosperity for the people. I say usually because the US fed is apparently privately owned. I still don't fully understand what they're doing over there, or what their official charter is.",
"Our whole financial system is based on banks \"just adding numbers.\" It's called fractional reserve banking.\n\nIf it's a 10-to-1 fractional reserve, they can use your deposit of $100 to loan out $1000 - all with interest.\n\nSo you get two funny things from that: one, debt literally grows the economy. And two, banks make billions and billions for themselves out of thin air every year. \n\nEdit: I'm really surprised none of the other responses are mentioning fractional reserves.",
"The software used in banking is very sophisticated. You can't just add money into the system without having a source of that income. All of these transactions are audited on a regular basis and the penalty for messing around is really high. It's really easy to get caught. "
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czs6eg | what makes a country non democratic? | [deleted] | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/czs6eg/eli5_what_makes_a_country_non_democratic/ | {
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"The elections aren't \"fair and square\". They are basically just for show. Saddam Hussein also had elections, and was consistently re-elected with 100% of the vote.",
" > In russia there are elections and people are allowed to vote (though putin always get the most votes), so how is russia a dictatorship and not a democracy?\n\nThe government has re-written the Constitution to allow the president (cough Putin cough) to serve for more terms than he was originally allowed to. They have multiple political parties in the Duma (like parliament), except the ruling party (United Russia - Putin's party) has so many votes that even if all the other parties voted uninanimously they would still be **232 votes** short of a simple majority (aka, they basically have to do what the majority party wants). \n\nThe government harasses and prosecutes political candidates who have a real chance of gaining enough political support to challenge the post of President. They arrest them and charge them with crimes to disqualify them from being able to campaign. \n\nIn the most recent scandal, they denied tons of applications for candidates who wanted to campaign for the Moscow city Duma because \"their signatures weren't legitimate\" (even though it's physically impossible for them to determine that the signatures aren't legitimate). \n\nAnd there have been video recordings of ballot locations destroying or throwing out ballots (basically, rigging the election). \n\nBesides all that, there have been too many people (political activists and journalists, for instance) who have wound up dead under *extremely* mysterious circumstances after releasing very damning reports critical of the government. \n\nAnd the state controls the media and monitors all telecommunications and mail.",
"Democratic studies is a field within political science. I've taken a couple of course on this topic and will do my best to explain it simply. Please note that there are whole books written on this subject, so I'm providing a very high-level review. Im sure others can add or correct me if I missed something. Also, when I refer to Liberalism, i mean the political philosophy, not political parties or affiliations (progressives in USA are often labeled liberals regardless of their political ideology).\n\nFirst of all, there are different type of democracies. Liberal democracies are what we often think of when we talk about democratic countries. It means that these countries (very often western and developed) combine principles of Liberalism (individual freedom, free markets, civil rights, etc - this is not an exhaustive list) with the principles of democracy (freedom of assembly, free elections, etc - again, not exhaustive list). \n\nOn the other hand, you have illiberal democracies, which are countries that use democratic principles, but are not strictly Liberal compared to the west. In my class, Turkey and South Korea were given as examples (it was many years ago, so that may have changed).\n\nThe House of Freedom organization is a great source to learn more about the level of freedom in each country. _URL_0_ \n\nKeep in mind that liberalism is a western concept, not a universal one, so some societies do not have the same assumptions about freedom, civil rights, free elections, etc.. as such, the House of Freedom is somewhat biased because it compares all countries to western standards.\n\nLastly, I want to point out that there is a big difference between Athenian democracy, which existed ~2000 years ago, and the modern concept of democracy, which began to spread out in the late 19th century in western Europe. In other words, democracy was never a constant ideology, and what we experience as democracy today is less than 200 years old, and was adjusted to fit in with the Liberal mindset if the time.\n\nSo to answer your question, Russia is considered a democracy because they are able to sustain and express some democratic principles, but they do not fit well with the western conception of a liberal democracy.",
"Nations vary in levels of democracy. \n\nBut if the leader is president for life, that's a dictatorship. \n\nA dictator will oppress dissent including rival parties. If they have elections, it will be just for show. The president for life runs the elections."
]
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fcsmlj | what causes ne to seemingly "hear" voices or sounds that aren't actually there in total silence? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/fcsmlj/eli5_what_causes_ne_to_seemingly_hear_voices_or/ | {
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"ok being \"fairly certain\" is NOT a diagnosis. You need to speak to a medical professional as this indicates a neurological issue. these might not be scizophrenic episodes but could indicate any number of issues that need to be dealt with.",
"I'm not a healthcare person, and you should probably talk to one. This can be anything, really. Some sort of anxiety, stress, a dissociative episode(s), sign of schizophrenia... no one here can really tell you, and it can probably be something else entirelt. I'm leaning towards some kind of anxiety.",
"I had it happen to me but I actually saw the people and talked to them. It turned out that my high blood sugar had resolved and I was on too much insulin. After I stopped taking it, they immediately stopped. Long story short, it could just be a medication issue but you definitely need to talk to someone. It could be that you are just more aware of your inner voice.",
"Speak to a doctor. This might either be a mental health issue (a lot of things can cause psychosis; schizophrenia, ptsd, etc.) or a temporal lobe seizure.",
"I am a mental health professional working in Australia, and predominantly with people experiencing psychosis. Voice hearing is a really common phenomenon world wide. From memory it's about 1 in 10 people say they hear voices, waaay more than end up with psychosis (3%). Generally, criteria for a disorder need to have it cause you distress or impact on your functioning. If it does neither of those things, then generally you probably don't need a diagnosis or treatment. Probably worth getting checked out anyway to rule out organic causes (e.g. tumours etc) .",
"Many people here are telling you to see a doctor and if you can go to one I will always support that decision. As a side note, however, after reading your post I'll admit to experiencing the same thing when I am EXTREMELY tired or already dozing off. It MAY be just a side effect of your drifting off to sleep and \"half-dreaming\" you hear a voice in your ear."
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3f8yuv | how come in the summer i always see tons of flies but never see maggots? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3f8yuv/eli5_how_come_in_the_summer_i_always_see_tons_of/ | {
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"text": [
"Because maggots tend to live in rotting flesh. If you take a look at a fresh animal carcass left outside during the summer you're sure to see maggots."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[]
] | ||
melnr | how does the prisoner's dilemma game give us insight into the free rider problem that occurs with common goods? | Like it says. Can someone please explain this to me? It's a practice question for my econ class and I can't think of how it gives said insight.
Also, "common goods" meaning rival & non-excludable | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/melnr/eli5_how_does_the_prisoners_dilemma_game_give_us/ | {
"a_id": [
"c30a349",
"c30a349"
],
"score": [
7,
7
],
"text": [
"Quick version:\n\nPrisoner's Dilemma states that you should screw the other guy before he can screw you, right? The basics of that are that if both guys kept their mouths shut, everyone wins. But if you do and he doesn't, he's fine and you're screwed. So in order to keep the worst outcome from happening to you, you do the bastardly thing.\n\nDitto with the commons. If there's a common resource that everyone has access to, and if I think other people are going to misuse / overuse it for their own gain, I would want to do it first, so that I get the gain and they don't.\n\nThe moral of both the Prisoner's Dilemma and the commons is \"Screw them before they screw you\". Yay, capitalism!",
"Quick version:\n\nPrisoner's Dilemma states that you should screw the other guy before he can screw you, right? The basics of that are that if both guys kept their mouths shut, everyone wins. But if you do and he doesn't, he's fine and you're screwed. So in order to keep the worst outcome from happening to you, you do the bastardly thing.\n\nDitto with the commons. If there's a common resource that everyone has access to, and if I think other people are going to misuse / overuse it for their own gain, I would want to do it first, so that I get the gain and they don't.\n\nThe moral of both the Prisoner's Dilemma and the commons is \"Screw them before they screw you\". Yay, capitalism!"
]
} | [] | [] | [
[],
[]
] |
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