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6recl8 | why does paint dry when it is applied to a surface but when it's in a tub remains as a liquid ? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/6recl8/eli5_why_does_paint_dry_when_it_is_applied_to_a/ | {
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"Paint is mixed with a solvent that keeps it liquid in the can. When you expose the paint to air, the solvent evaporates leaving the solid pigment of the paint behind. If you leave the lid off a paint can, it will form a crust on top and eventually solidify. ",
"It doesn't. It'll dry out in the can just like it does once it's been applied. It just takes a lot longer to try out in the can. \n\nThe reason it takes so much longer in the can is that the liquid components of the paint (or anything else, for that matter) can only evaporate when they're in direct contact with the air, i.e., right there on the surface of the liquid. Once it's been applied, the vast majority of the volume of the paint is exposed to the air. But when it's still in the can, only a tiny fraction of the paint is exposed to the air, i.e., the surface of the paint you can see when you look at it. \n\n"
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1lutgu | why do we call them chemical weapons? aren't all weapons made from chemicals? (from my 9 year old brother) | ****NEW EDIT NEEDS ANSWERS****
Thanks to my brother reading /u/reasonablyconfused comment he now wants an explanation for....
"All matter is "chemicals". It's actually silly that we specify "chemical" anything. What word should we use to refer to weapons that rely on a purely chemical/biological reaction? Biological weapons are built by us and nature with chemicals. Suggestions? "
By the many answers put forward my brother would like to know why pepper spray/mace/tear gasses are not considered chemical weapons?
Please answer above questions so my brother will go to sleep and stop bothering me.
***Original Post***
Also on a side note... in b4 everyone says they are weapons of mass destruction... That also doesn't make sense to my brother. He says that millions of people die from swords, knives, grenades, and guns. Isn't that mass destruction?
*Edit*
Wow thanks everyone. First time on the front page...
Especially /u/insanitycentral
The top commenter gave me an explanation I understood but insanitycentral put forth an answer my younger brother was least skeptical of....
He still doesn't buy it, he will be a believer that all weapons are made from chemicals and wants a better name...
I'm not sure where he got this from... but he says America should go to war with our farmers for putting chemical weapons (fertilizers) in our food to make them grow better. These chemicals apparently cause cancer says my 9 year old brother....
What are they teaching kids in school these days?
*Hello heather* | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1lutgu/eli5_why_do_we_call_them_chemical_weapons_arent/ | {
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"All weapons (except for nuclear) are made of chemicals, but those called \"chemical weapons\" kill by chemical reactions with the human body (most others kill using explosive forces).\n\nA WMD is a single weapon that can kill many people when deployed once, as opposed to swords, etc., that kill one or a few people per deployment.",
"Chemical weapons are usually referred to as chemical weapon because they produce death via a direct chemical reaction.\n\nSo for example a sword kills by cutting into the flesh of a person using Newtonian physics.\n\nA gun does so in a similar way causing damage by pushing a projectile through the body.\nAlthough the projectile is usually projected through a chemical reaction, the actually projectile does not react with the chemistry of the body.\n\nSarin gas work by causing a chemical reaction in body preventing muscle nerves from shutting off causing the person to be unable to breath.\n\nAs for weapon of mass destruction, it's really a defined term. As explained in the USA.\n\n\n*The most widely used definition of \"weapons of mass destruction\" is that of nuclear, biological, or chemical weapons (NBC) although there is no treaty or customary international law that contains an authoritative definition.*\n\nAs such inventing say a giant kitten that kills people by distracting them with it's cuteness would be technically a weapon of mass destruction as it is biological and has not authoritative definition. While a gun that fire billion of bullets killing million would not be because there is a directive for firearms.\n\n",
"First a chemical weapon is any weapon which has a primary attack supported by a toxic substance, which directly causes the damages, generally speaking chemical weapons kill life, they don't cause any physical or structural damage.\n\nSecond, though most weapons have a chemical based device in them, these chemicals aren't the primary effective component of the weapon. A gun fires a bullet which is propelled by the ignition of a gunpowder, the gunpowder is not the weapon, and thus a gun and its bullets are not chemical weapons, the gunpowder is just a component of the weapon. Same with an atomic bomb, the atomic bomb contains a really nasty chemical component, but that is a catalyst for the true nature of the weapon, which is the massive exposition it cause when you fuck with the stability of the atoms in that component, and the further radiation released through the process.\n\nAs for weapons of mass destruction. The only thing you listed there that may even come close to falling under a WMD would be a grenade, and that is really pushing the definition of WMD. A weapon of mass destruction is just that, a single item that cause massive amounts of indiscriminate damage over a given area. Chemical weapons and high yield explosive bombs are WMDs, a weapon which has a controlled damage location with minimal chance of having indirect damages occurring to unintended targets when they are properly used, like guns, swords, knives, etc. are not WMDs, yes over time they can do the same amount of damage as the biggest WMD the atomic bomb, but consider this, a gun firing off 1000 rounds per minute and accurately killing a person with each round, which would be unheard of, would take 180 to 250 minutes to kill the same number of people killed by the only two atomic bombs ever used on a population, and that is being impossibly accurate. Yes the atomic bombs dropped by the US killed that many people and it did take weeks for them all to die, but it was two attacks which indiscriminately killed all those people.",
"because they kill you chemically. No tearing from a bullet, or concussive force from an explosion, just neural shock from nerve gas, or drowning in your own lung fluid from mustard gas. ",
"If you can die by inhaling what came from the initial explosion, minutes or hours after the fact, its probably a chemical weapon.\n\nIf your pregnant wife has a 3 eyed baby with 6 limbs, its probably a chemical weapon. \n\n...this is starting to sound like some fucked up version of the \"you might be a redneck\" jokes. \n\n",
"Usually a chemical weapon is one that kills via chemical release, usually a poisonous gas, upon detonation. \n\nRegular weapons create a chemical reaction that causes explosions, which kill people from the detonation/resulting damage. ",
"Weapons of mass destruction (WMD) are usually classified into three different types of weapons: nuclear, biological, or chemical (NBC). A **single** weapon can cause massive amounts of casualties and are difficult to counter, as compared to one guy with an automatic weapon can cause lots of casualties but can be easily countered by another person with a weapon. \n\nWMDs also kill indiscriminately, whereas a man with a gun must point the weapon at individuals to target them. While mass shootings can cause lots of casualties, [the worst mass shootings usually involve less than 30 people](_URL_0_), and the worst in my recollection was less than 100 (Oslo). A single NBC weapon located in a major metropolitan area would kill thousands or tens of thousands of people, and the long-term effects of the weapon can cause harm for generations. [According to wikipedia, the atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima/Nagasaki](_URL_1_):\n\n > from 1950 to 2000, 46% of leukemia deaths and 11% of solid cancer deaths among the bomb survivors were due to radiation from the bombs, the statistical excess being estimated at 200 leukemia and 1700 solid cancers\n\nNBC once it's \"let out of the bag\" will cause tremendous amounts of damage and cannot be easily stopped. I can't reverse the nuclear fusion/fission reaction to reduce the casualties. Same way with biological weapons that are designed to spread from human to human quickly. The easiest one of the three to counter might be the chemical weapons because environmental factors can decrease effectiveness, but they still are very deadly with the right amount of chemical under the right conditions.",
"\"Weapons of Mass Destruction\" are labeled as such by the US Government to indicate that a certain type of weapon is *indiscriminately* destructive. When you shoot bullets at someone else, you are somewhat more precise with who you are aiming to kill. There won't be as many deaths of non-combatants.\n\nWhen you use weapons such as poisonous gasses, nuclear explosions, or sickness to kill people, you have a good chance of killing your intended target, but you will very likely also kill thousands of people you did not mean to kill. That's why they're worse.\n\nArguably, you could say that the firebombings of Tokyo & Dresden were also weapons of mass destruction. You could also reasonably argue that the deployment of landmines are as well (you don't kill lots of people all at once, instead you kill lots of people over the span of decades).",
"Chemical weapons are devices in which the chemicals themselves cause the damage – poisons or acid for example. Other weapons like TNT, are chemical reactions, however the damage is caused by the physical and secondary effects which are a result of the chemical reaction. The damage is caused by the heat and shockwaves of the TNT reaction. ",
"Here's a much much simpler explanation than what has been given:\n\nThe word \"chemical\" in this context is being used to mean \"poisonous\". Chemical weapons are the military application of poisons. That's it. ",
"Sweet! A chance to use my [military training](_URL_0_) to answer a question!\n\nWell, Timmy, it's like this: while swords, grenades and guns are capable of killing a lot of people, they aren't going to kill as many people *at once* like a chemical weapon can. The damage a grenade or gun can do can be protected against with armor. And you can usually find cover if someone is shooting at you.\n\nBut if someone uses a chemical weapon, it hurts you in a different way. You see, the chemical weapon (we call them \"agents\") they used in the news is called sarin, and in it's gaseous form it's odorless and tasteless and a lot of people don't know they've been attacked until they breathe it in. It can also stick to your skin and be absorbed that way. Depending on the *type* of agents used also depends on the amount of damage it can do over a period of time. Sarin is what we call a \"non-persistent\" agent, which means that it hits hard and fast, but doesn't stay in the air for very long. It's useful for killing a lot of people very quickly and unless you have the medicine and a crew that is trained to clean it up, most people will die. And once you breathe it in, you're too sick to go on fighting. It's a very underhanded way of fighting and it almost guarantees a lot of innocent bystanders are going to die slow, painful deaths.\n\nThere are lots of different kinds of chemical weapons, Timmy. Some you can even make in your own backyard! After dinner, I'll show you some pictures of what different chemical weapons can do. Have you ever heard of blister agents?",
"Chemical weapons are designed to deliver and disseminate a chemical agent (this is also true of biological weapons). Conventional weapons (such as regular iron bombs) utilize the chemicals contained within the weapon to create an explosive reaction that causes death/destruction through a shockwave, shrapnel and fire. The destructive effect of conventional weapons is immediate and short lived whereas the agents from chem/bio weapons stays around much longer depending on the life of the agent and weather conditions.",
"Whilst a gun does use chemicals to propel the slug along it is not the chemicals that kill people, it is the chunk of metal that is fired out the end.\n\nWith bombs, it is not the chemicals which kill people but the increase in pressure caused by the reaction of the chemicals.\n\n**A chemical weapon is where the chemical itself kills people.**\n\nTheir are also biological weapons that are alive such as anthrax, or weaponised small pox.\n\nSarin is what has been claimed to have been used in Syria, there is debate over weather it is a chemical weapon or a biological weapon.\n\n \n\nThe reason why chem weapons are seen as worse is because **they are indiscriminate, they cannot be targeted**, this is why they are considered WMDs.\n\nThey also can linger and cause people to die or suffer deformities for many years.\n\nAlthough it could be argued un exploded bombs can do the same.",
"From his 9 year old brother, so I will explain like he's nine!\n\nWhatever the focus of the attack is, will be its designation. If the focus is to cause a chemical reaction upon its intended target, then it's a chemical weapon. The same with a nuclear weapon (designed to cause damage based on the nuclear explosion).\n\n ",
"maybe they should be called 'poison weapons'",
"It is a chemical reaction w/ the human body that is the direct cause of death/injury. ",
"All matter is \"chemicals\". It's actually silly that we specify \"chemical\" anything. What word should we use to refer to weapons that rely on a purely chemical/biological reaction? Biological weapons are built by us and nature with chemicals. Suggestions? ",
"It's chemical because the engineer involved used ideas from chemistry to attack the body. It freaks us out because they used them in WW1 and it really sucked and people got freakish burns and horrible illnesses, not just death. They kill more civilians than military targets, whereas a (big) gun can kill people in a fighter jet (you get the idea), a chemical weapon can only really kill defenseless people and unprepared ground forces. Lastly, we dont want people using them because then more of them will be made. They're easy to sneak around and if you set one off in a big city it could kill millions of innocent people in minutes before anyone had time to react. It would take a long time to find the origin point, or come up with a cure. Finally, it is not like a gun or a bomb in that it is subject to random fluctuations in the environment to distribute it's destructive power. Meaning, bullets kinda go where aimed, so do bombs, but a chem weapon just goes where the wind blows, and that blows. The (Lives lost)/(Strategic Advantage) ratio sucks huge.\n\nOh, it also really messes up the environment and kills innocent animals too. It can destroy entire species if let loose in the wrong area.\n\nChem weapons are bad bad news.\n\nEDIT: [Tell me you wouldnt rather just be shot](_URL_0_) NSFL!!!!!",
"I think it's important to acknowledge that your brother has a great point. Even when you compare sarin, napalm, bullets, blades, etc even the physical wounds from stabbing and bashing create chemical changes in the body that cause death. In that sense, all weapons are indeed chemical weapons.\n\nThere are a few reasons for having a commonly-accepted, narrower meaning for the term \"chemical weapons.\" First, while one can reduce all violence inflicted by weapons to chemical reactions, such a meaning would make the \"chemical\" prefix redundant. In other words, \"chemical weapons\" would just mean \"weapons\". And we already have the word \"weapons\".\n\nA second reason for the distinction is that there are common characteristics particular to capital-letter Chemical Weapons that are useful to consider in terms of training, defense, reaction, safeguards, etc. An emergency team answering an attack from a *chemical weapon* will respond differently than a team answering an attack from a *biological weapon*, as both will react differently to an emergency involving units carrying firearms.",
"Your brother is a smart man. The fertalizers have been known to cause cancer. That is why so many of them have been made illegal in the US. However there are no restrictions on imported produce, since their governments dont enforce restrictions on chemicals.\n\nOn a side note, I personally beleive that the chemicals used on produce have already done too much damage by leaking into the ground water. I live near a small village /farming comunity that does not have city water supplied to residents, instead each building has its own well. That town has one of the highest rates of cancer I've ever seen. ",
"Your kid brother is smart man. ",
"Pepper spray, mace, and tear gasses ARE considered chemical weapons. They're called debilitating weapons though. My favorite debilitating chemical weapon is BZ. _URL_0_ There's some of that in the lab I work in."
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3563ee | how can companies fire thousands of employees at once? | I just read a news article, that the german company Siemens is firing 4500 employees.
How is it possible to fire so many employees at once? I assume they were doing SOMETHING, so isn't there going to be a lot more work to do for the remaining employees?
Hope the question is clear enough! | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3563ee/eli5_how_can_companies_fire_thousands_of/ | {
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"1) Easy - they all get an email with their termination notice.\n\n2) Likely whatever they were doing is no longer needed. When you're talking about this scale of lay-offs you're typically looking at an entire division or factory shutting down and the entire thing being axed in one go.",
"Well, the fact that they had to fire so many people was probably because they didn't have enough stuff for them to do, because there was a decrease in orders, leading to a smaller turnover and hence less money to play employees.",
"It's usually for precisely this reason - because there's not enough work to go around. Say you're building a car in a plant which employs 1700 people. Now, suddenly, that model car stops being made because reasons. You decide that your range is enough and you don't need to replace it with a new model. So, you have this huge plant and 1700 people. \n\nYou might shift 200 people to other plants and bump the good ones into management, but about 1500 people are going to be there with nothing to do. So, you close the plant and get rid of the 1500 people associated with it.\n\nBasically, that's how.",
"Siemens has about 360,000 employees. This means that 4500 firings = about 12 employees for every 1000. That's not a lot. Now, either entire divisions are closed, in which case there's no need to replace them, or it is a company-wide cut down, in which case the managers are told to find the bottom 1% workers and fire them.",
"Usually when a company is firing that many employees, it's a layoff, which is because they don't have enough upcoming work for them. And yes, it will mean more work for the remaining employees.\n\nBut think of it this way: you own a factory with 100 employees. Each employee makes one widget a day, five days a week. So, you are shipping out 500 widgets every week. This meets your order requirements.\n\nBut then, sales tells you that orders are drying up, and for the next year, at least, you will only be selling 250 widgets per week.\n\nSo, what do you do? Make extra widgets that you can't sell? Pay people to come to work and not make widgets? No, you're going to lay off 50 employees, and then staff back up if and when the market improves.",
"Sometimes, as a CEO, you find yourself with more stock options than tradition salary. So you want to maximize your stock value before you move onto the next company. You fudge the reports to make it look like sales are excellent while laying off massive numbers of people. In the short term the company seems to be on the rise, as profitability looks great on paper for the time being. Loads of inventors jump on the hot stock, you sell your options and move on to the next big thing. Bubble pops, company goes under, but you made yours.\n\nMaybe not typical, but it happens."
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5w8aeb | what are the real-world possibilities of interstellar travel? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5w8aeb/eli5_what_are_the_realworld_possibilities_of/ | {
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"Right now the possibilities aren't good. Stars are very far away and our propulsion systems are not capable of achieving a significant fraction of the speed of light. \n \nAt this point, a \"generation ship\" is our only practical possibility. That is, a ship big enough to form a closed ecosystem, where generation after generation of humans would live out their lives on the ship as it slowly made its way across interstellar space. Of course, that would be an incredible undertaking, and there would likely be a very low probability of success. \n \n**TL;DR** - Space is really big. "
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841w6v | how are synthetic diamonds made? what are they made out of? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/841w6v/eli5how_are_synthetic_diamonds_made_what_are_they/ | {
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"They're made of carbon, just like natural diamonds. The most common process involves large presses that can weigh hundreds of tons to put carbon under tremendous pressure and high temperatures, essentially mimicking the process by which they naturally form. There's also another method called chemical vapor deposition, which creates a carbon plasma over a substrate onto which the carbon atoms deposit to form a diamond."
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4zc6rf | truth drugs, sodium penthotal etc. how are they supposed to work? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4zc6rf/eli5truth_drugs_sodium_penthotal_etc_how_are_they/ | {
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"They reduce your inhibitions--they don't force you to tell the truth, but they make it harder to stay silent or convincingly stick to a lie in response to questioning. Think of how alcohol can make people talk about things they normally wouldn't."
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e89sxp | why is russia banned from the olympics? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/e89sxp/eli5_why_is_russia_banned_from_the_olympics/ | {
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"Because they cheat the tests for performance enhancing drugs. And all of their athletes are on them.",
"There have been several revelations the last few years which shows that Russia lacks a working anti-doping program. The program they do have is not able to confidently say which athletes are doped and which are clean due to huge corruption issues throughout the system all the way from the top politicians down to the technicians and security guards. As Russia is not able to confidently determine if athletes are doped or not none of the athletes will be allowed to compete under the Russian flag."
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aqcw32 | how can humid air be breathed in without getting water in the lungs? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/aqcw32/eli5_how_can_humid_air_be_breathed_in_without/ | {
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"It cant, we breathe water vapour in and out all the time, blow your breath onto a cold mirror and see it happen. ",
"While humid air contains a lot of water already, unless a person is very ill, the lungs will not collect any water, and will in fact exhale more water than breathed in. The average adult male will exhale around 400ml of water each day. That's nearly a quarter of what the same person would lose by urinating each day. ",
"Water is only released from humid air when it is cooled, or if it is in contact with something else, like pure salt or silica gel, that is very dry.\n\nYour lungs are warmer than the outside air, so they will warm up the air, not cool it - so the water will stay in the air. Your lungs are kept most by your body, so water won't be pulled from the air by any dry thing - instead, moisture from in your lungs will evaporate and make the air more humid."
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8tofiv | why do boat steering wheels need so much more turning than car steering wheels? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/8tofiv/eli5_why_do_boat_steering_wheels_need_so_much/ | {
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"Are you talking about what you see films or real life?\n\nThe number of times you turn the wheel is connected to the gearing between the wheel and the rudder. On big sailing ships of old, the wheel was connected to the rudder by gears and ropes. Multiple turns of the wheel was equal to just a few turns of the main gear. The main gear was connected to the rudder by chains. This is because the rudder was really heavy and so they used mechanical advantage to amplify the effort put in by the helmsman. \n\nOn a small boat the rudder is smaller. In these cases the rudder is connected directly to the wheel. This is more like a car, a turn on the wheel directly moves the rudder.\n\nOn big luxury cruisers, tankers, cargo or military warships there are electronics and motors between the wheel and thd rudder. In this case the directness between turns on the wheel and rudder movement is down to whatever the electronics are set to do.\n\nFinally, small pleasure boats used the in fun at the seaside often have the wheel clutched so that they can spin freely once the rudder has moved hard over. This is so kids can pretend to be pirates and do what they see in films. ",
"What you're talking about is Mechanical Advantage. Depends on the size and design of the rudder and steering gear. \n\nHowever the idea is that turning the rudder or propeller stem shouldn't require excessive effort on the wheel. This, regardless of the total force or torque on the rudder itself produced by water flowing around it.\n\nA fairly large rudder on a boat of 100 tons displacement is going to take a lot of force to turn over underway, so the wheel will have a fairly high gear ratio to give the helmsman easy control, and to prevent loss of control in high seas.\n\nIn general boats don't need to turn quickly to avoid sudden obstacles because they don't tend to move quickly and there's usually plenty of room to manoeuvre. So having to turn the wheel a couple dozen times from extreme port to extreme starboard, isn't really a problem.\n\nAlso makes it easier to trim the rudder slightly to maintain a straight course."
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83pde4 | how exactly does a ‘sleeper hold’ just knock the person out instead of killing them? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/83pde4/eli5_how_exactly_does_a_sleeper_hold_just_knock/ | {
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"You stop before they die, basically. \n\nCarotid occlusion - it doesn't take long when starving the brain of oxygen to lose consciousness, but it takes about two minutes of oxygen deprivation for the brain to begin dying from it.",
"A sleeper hold is executed to place pressure on the carotid artery and the jugular vein to cut off blood flow and therefore oxygen to the brain, which results and the person losing consciousness but recovering after the lock is released and oxygen is fed back to the brain. \n\nWhereas an actual air choke applies pressure to the throat, cutting off oxygen to the lungs, causing death by asphyxiation. \n\nSo in short, sleeper hold stops blood flow. Air choke stops breathing. \n\nLearned that in the Corps. ",
"Is defined by occlusion of the carotid artery, jugular venous flow and vasovagular \rneurological stimulation of the vagus nerve branch or a combination of all causing rapid \rsyncope (unconsciousness). Generally 5-11 pounds of pressure is required to achieve \rsyncope in the Vascular Restraint \r\n\nIn essence it’s a combination of three things. Lack of carotid blood flow. Jugular flow restriction creating increased pressure as well as the vagus nerve branch. Signals to the brain shut down to preserve oxygen. ",
"Sleeper holds target the major veins/arteries to the brain. Cutting off the blood flow will starve the brain of oxygen, leading to a loss of consciousness. A sleeper hold should be released at that point, since the goal has been achieved and the person can be otherwise restrained before they retain full consciousness. Not releasing the hold can be dangerous, as while a brief period of oxygen deprivation to the brain is not dangerous for a healthy adult, a longer period will quickly lead to severe and even fatal damage to the brain. The body still has oxygen even if it has been prevented from reaching the brain, and as soon as the hold is released, the oxygen already in the person's blood will flow freely to their brain and allow them to regain consciousness. Thus, a properly executed sleeper hold or choke, as they are also known, is not dangerous and does not require (immediate) medical attention if there are no symptoms afterwards. All in all, a choke is a relatively safe method of easily and quickly restraining a non-cooperative or resisting person for law enforcement and security personnel, if they have been trained in how to execute it properly.\n\nIn contrast, strangles (these two are often confused, which is why I touch on them here) target the person's airways. This means that the entire body is deprived of oxygen, but also that until the oxygen already in the body is used up, that person remains conscious and able to struggle or fight. Not having any oxygen in the blood also means that person will not resume autonomous breathing even after the strangle has been released, if they lost consciousness, and will need to be resuscitated, making this maneuver extremely dangerous to the target. It may also lead to severe damage being inflicted to the trachea even if it does not lead to a loss of consciousness. Strangles are an extremely dangerous and foolish maneuver that should not be used in any situation, considering the high risk of severe or fatal damage, the need for immediate medical attention and the relatively long time it takes for the targeted person to actually lose consciousness.",
"Also, why didn't bike guy just hit shirtless guy with the bike?"
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14w9jr | prom | Are proms really as big as they seem in movies, what are some of the traditions, where did it come from, etc? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/14w9jr/eli5_prom/ | {
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"They are a huge tradition in the US but I don't think there's as much drama as portrayed in the movies. Where I live (Texas), it's a big dance in the last year of high school. I am speaking largely from my own experience at my school (but most things are pretty common among other schools). At my school, only seniors are allowed to go, unless you are an underclassmen that is asked by a senior. From my own experience, students usually go in groups with their friends and Prom is more of an all-night celebration rather than just a dance. Actually, many groups make order t-shirts and put their members on their shirts, as well as the group name/slogan they make up. And then they wear it the day before prom. With our group (about 12 pairs), we rented a party bus (other groups book limos or nothing), went out to eat at a nice restaurant, then went to the dance, which is usually at night until midnight. The guys match their tie color to their date's dresses and usually girls buy their dresses and guys rent their tuxes. The dance usually has a theme (like Arabian nights, Midnight in Paris, Winter Wonderland, other cheesy themes). Our decorations and venue were particularly extravagant and I'm pretty sure the school spent upwards of $10,000 on the whole event, but that's not always the case. They also had snacks and drinks at the dance but no actual food dishes. Following the dance, there's afterprom, which, like prom, is school-sponsored, and it is a casual party (that you change out of your formal dresses and suits for) that lasts until 4-6 AM. Sometimes, the afterproms that schools host are lame so students host private after parties at their houses. Prom-night sex is something really dramatized in television and movies, and it does occur, but it's not a huge thing. I have no idea where and how it started but the wiki article that thderrick posted might be helpful.\n\nAnd just for some context, I am considered middle-class and the area that my school is in is considered generally an affluent area. Many students can't really afford limos/party buses, but everyone in our group pitched in.\n\n\n\nTo summarize, American students usually celebrate prom by:\n\n* going with a group of friends\n* making group t-shirts\n* renting a limo/party bus\n* going out to eat before the dance\n* voting for a prom queen/king before the dance and having the winners announced at the dance\n* going to afterprom or an after party\n* not usually having prom-night sex like portrayed in the movies\n\nEdit: Also, because most seniors are only 18 and the drinking age is 21, alcohol is a big no-no at the dance, though it's fair game (but still illegal) at private afterparties.\n\nSorry for the wall of text! Hope that helped provide some insight on proms! Feel free to send me a message if you have any other questions!"
]
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6fq1iu | why do alzheimer's and dementia cause the mind to think scary thoughts? | Why do people suffering from these conditions always seem to have scary delusions? I don't understand why the mind wouldn't create a more pleasant situation. My friend had an elderly neighbor come to her house saying he was kidnapped and escaped and his wife was still being held inside. None of it was true. Why would the mind make up an awful situation like that? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/6fq1iu/eli5_why_do_alzheimers_and_dementia_cause_the/ | {
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"I knew an old lady whose dementia manifested in a groundhog day of her honeymoon cruise some 50 years earlier. It was really lovely. ",
"To start, it is worth defining the two terms. \"Dementia\" is a fairly loose term that describes general memory impairments. \"Alzheimer's,\" on the other hand, is a very specific degenerative brain disease that is diagnosed via complex brain scans. Not all people who suffer from Alzheimer's or other sorts of dementia have \"scary thoughts.\" In fact, many are characterized as being \"pleasantly confused.\" In these cases, you might encounter a 90 year old woman that will gladly tell you about the trip she took to the park with her parents earlier that day. Without speaking to which parts of the brain may be damaged, the \"scary thoughts,\" tend to be exacerbated by the individual's anxiety and frustration. Imagine being in an almost constant state of not knowing what is going on around you or how you got there where few faces are familiar. \n\nI'm not a physician or neuroscientist or anything, but I've worked in long term care as a social worker and administrator for over ten years. "
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3pi094 | what are the major differences between canada's liberal party and the new democratic party (ndp)? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3pi094/eli5_what_are_the_major_differences_between/ | {
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"It depends if you're talking from a historical perspective or more recently (e.g. this election).\n\nHistorically the Liberal party has been more centrist and the NDP has been a much more progressive (you could even say socialist) party. The NDP has traditionally been labelled as far-left (too left to appeal to the moderate/centrist vote, and for that reason, for decades it was thought the NDP could never rise above third place).\n\nIn this election in particular, the party platforms were almost reversed. Not quite reversed, but the Liberal Party action plan involves some very progressive changes that are quite left-wing and some could argue socialist in nature whereas the NDP has moved much more toward the center, almost on the conservative side on some aspects. \n\nSome notable examples from the Liberal party plan include: a major government spending plan (a large increase in the deficit over the next few years) to do things like improve infrastructure and transportation etc. and government services, reducing taxes for middle class families, increasing taxes for anyone earning $200,000 or more per year, eliminating many tax 'loopholes' that benefit wealthier people and corporations, reducing (restoring) the allowable Tax-Free Saving Account contribution per year (TFSA mostly benefits wealthier families), eliminating income-splitting tax breaks (income-splitting mostly helps wealthier households).\n\nIn sum, the Liberal plan is very aggressive and involves a large redistribution of wealth so that wealthier Canadians pay more taxes, middle-class Canadians pay lower taxes and the whole country invests a ton more into infrastructure and services.\n\nThe NDP party this election looked almost conservative in comparison. Their fiscal policies anyway were much more center-right on the political spectrum and involved creating a balanced budget without plans to make great increases in government spending. The NDP also wasn't planning on making such drastic changes to the taxation system and benefits, but they certainly still proposed some changes.\n\nCompared to the Liberal Party, the NDP still has more of a focus on environmental issues and they have some differing opinions on things like whether to legalize or decriminalize marijuana, whether to ratify or reject the TPP agreement, and whether Bill C-51 should be amended or repealed completely.\n "
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a5c5b0 | why is nutrition and the optimal diet so mysterious? | Why are the facts around diets and what types of food is good and bad for you always changing? What is the optimal diet to strive for? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/a5c5b0/eli5_why_is_nutrition_and_the_optimal_diet_so/ | {
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"Because it varies from person to person. It is nearly impossible without extensive medical expertise to figure out the optimal diet for one person."
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2fkmud | how do bottle companies suck the air out of the bottle before putting the "safety bottle cap" on? | The "safety bottle cap" pops up after I open the bottle to indicate that it's been opened. How did they suck the air out in the first place? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2fkmud/eli5_how_do_bottle_companies_suck_the_air_out_of/ | {
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"In some cases the bottle is heated, then capped. When it cools, a slight vacuum is created. This is how home canning is done. "
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4c68mu | trade deficits | I've never really understood what it meant | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4c68mu/eli5_trade_deficits/ | {
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"We buy $1 million in Hondas from Japan, but they buy only $800,000 in John Deere tractors from the U.S.... the U.S. has a $200,000 trade deficit with Japan.",
"A trade deficit(trade imbalance, it's only a deficit for one country) is the difference in value between what we export to a country and what we import from the country.\n\nBasically, if there is a deficit, it either means that we owe (businesses in) that country money, or those countries hold that proportion of US currency.\n\nThe implications of a deficit is that the country doesn't need our goods as much as we need theirs, so it can change the exchange rate between the two currencies, could increase the price of goods from that country domestically, and could result in that country buying ownership in domestic companies.\n\nThe thing about trade deficit is that it typically only measures trade in goods (how much food we import, electronics we export, etc.) and tends to ignore less tangible things, such as expertise (ie: the US has become more of a service based economy, and many US specialists work overseas and get paid by companies from other countries, which should count against trade deficit, but is not recorded in such calculations) ",
"I won't comment on the definition of a trade deficit, others have already hopped on that. I will however mention that the mercantilist stigma against having a trade deficit is very misinformed. To understand why, think about whether it's a \"problem\" that you have a trade deficit with your grocery store. Always be weary of politicians who point to trade deficits as justification for economic protectionism; it's bad economics. ",
"You buy a lot of stuff from Walmart or Target. Your trade deficit with them is absolutely severe, yet you and they are doing just fine."
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5vvvrm | explain light years to me, 40 light years away is how far? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5vvvrm/eli5_explain_light_years_to_me_40_light_years/ | {
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"It is how far light travels in 40 years.\n\n3.784 × 10^14 kilometres.\n\nVery, very far away.\n\nThat's 378,400,000,000,000 kilometers.",
"Roughly 235 trillion miles, and it would take around 39 years to travel that distance at light speed (a speed we haven't figured out how to travel yet, lol).\n\nSource: _URL_0_",
"Speed of light is 299,792,458 m/s. 1 light year is that speed for a year. So 31,536,000 seconds multiplied by that. 40 light years is the previous answer times 40.\n\nNote, the answer is in metres, so you have to do your weird Imperial British voodoo and change it to feet, yards or whatever you use.",
"Current spacecraft can travel 17,500mph, the light travels 671 000 000mph.\n\nThis means that it wouldn't take us 40 years to reach the planet, it would take us 1 533 714.2857 years. Longer than homo sapiens have existed.\n\nLet that sink in.\n\nTo get there, the humans we send would have descendents that evolve on such a scale that they wouldn't considered human anymore. "
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1xbnog | how the cyrillic alphabet works. | And more specifically, why do some countries beginning in "M" come before others in the Winter Olympic introductions. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1xbnog/eli5_how_the_cyrillic_alphabet_works/ | {
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"English equivalents: \nA b v g d ie io zh z i iy k l m n o p r s t oo f h tz ch sh shch i eh yu ya"
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1xzx9b | explain why seedless mangos don't exist? | If we can selectively grow seedless grapes, apples, melons, oranges, limes, lemons and bananas. Then why not seedless or smaller seeded mango? This should be a thing, mangos are already awesome and seedless mangos would solve world hunger. Not to mention produce bigger yields for farmers. Is there a conspiracy at hand to render 50% of a mango inedible forcing us to buy more more of this godlike fruit at higher prices? Is society just not ready? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1xzx9b/explain_why_seedless_mangos_dont_exist/ | {
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"You mean like the Sidhu variety of mangos, which has been around for a few decades now? Making 'seedless fruit' usually requires one to breed out a whole new cultivar through hybridizing previously known varieties of the fruit, so its not a clear-cut 'square block goes into square hole' process."
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2mwq7u | are these logical fallacies? if so, what are they called? | I see arguments on the internet that take this form a lot:
1. General form:
"If you're so offended by X, where were you last week/month when Y happened?"
Example:
"If you're so offended by that shirt, where were you last week when Kim K went totally nude on a magazine cover?" (referring to Dr. Matt Taylor's shirt)
2. General form:
"If you care about X so much, why aren't you doing something about X?"
Example:
"If you claim to care about feminism/equality/other cause so much, why aren't you actually out there doing anything about it?"
I'm familiar with the more well-known fallacies like ad hominem and strawman argument. But I'm not sure about these. I'm not sure if they even are fallacies, but something about them just rubs me the wrong way whenever anyone says them. I just have a gut feeling that they're wrong somehow.
EDIT: minor spelling stuff | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2mwq7u/eli5_are_these_logical_fallacies_if_so_what_are/ | {
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"They aren't really fallacies, however you may be looking at them incorrectly.\n\nThe argument they're making is one of incredulity about the stated reasons of others. If someone says: \"Things like X are offensive, and this is an instance of X\" then you might say: \"Why did other instance of X from Y days ago not get you so riled up?\"\n\nIt's an ad hominem of sorts because it's attacking the stated reasons of that individual, not the core issue of whether things like X are truly offensive.",
"That's called the \"appeal to hypocrisy\" or \"[tu quoque](_URL_1_)\" (Latin for \"you also\"). During the Cold War, it was known as [Whataboutism](_URL_0_), and was a common tactic used by Soviet propaganda (\"Sure, Chernobyl blew up, but what about Three Mile Island?\")."
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"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tu_quoque"
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5vx8yi | why do stocks change when the market is closed? is it the equivalent to when the market is open? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5vx8yi/eli5_why_do_stocks_change_when_the_market_is/ | {
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"Not all stock trading happens on the public stock market. However if the market is closed you do not have a common place to post your trades so you need to find people to trade with on your own. Stock brokers can help you with this and in modern times with phones and computers it is not hard to find buyers and sellers outside of the market."
]
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6mwtwq | difference between neoliberal and conservative economics | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/6mwtwq/eli5_difference_between_neoliberal_and/ | {
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"Don't let the \"liberal\" part of \"Neoliberal\" fool you. It is not at all similar to generally accepted economic policy in Left-wing parties (ex: Democrats).\n\nNeo-Liberalism is actually more in-line with laissez-faire philosophy, such as deregulation, privatization, and free trade. I don't think there are any countries that are actually laissez-faire, but in US politics the Libertarian party and GOP definitely try to move the US economy in that direction.\n\nConservative economics (at least in the US) probably can be more exemplified by what's often called \"trickle-down economics\". Essentially the idea is that if you lower taxes on businesses and/or wealthy individuals, then they will hire more people, or invest in more businesses, and so they will produce more goods and provide services to more people. And if you lower taxes on very wealthy individuals, they will buy more goods and that will create more demand.\n\nSometimes this is also called \"supply-side\" economics\". The theory is that if you increase supply, goods/services will become cheaper, more people will be able to afford it, and demand will increase.\n\nThere is a lot of debate for-and-against these philosophies.",
"\"Neoliberal economics\" is broadly speaking an economic current that tends towards a limited but not non-existing government role in the economy. Some safety regulation, basic consumer protections, government spending on infrastructure, some level of welfare programs, would generally be part of neoliberal economics. Just not very big ones. \n\nSo it's not like \"the more liberal an economy is, the more it becomes like a neoliberal economy\". On a scale from 1-10 of government intervention, I'd say neoliberalism tends around 2-3. \n\nAs for \"conservative economics\", that's not really a widely used term, or one with wide agreement on it. You could probably have two views on it:\n\n1 - Many/most conservatives support a somewhat small but non-zero government role in the economy, and are somewhat libertarian. Used in this way, \"conservative economics\" is pretty much the same as \"neoliberal economics\". A more well-known term is \"fiscal conservatism\", which quite strongly implies a neoliberal (low taxes, small government, limited spending) approach to government taxation and spending. \n\n2 - \"Conservative economy\" might also be used about an economy where broader conservative moral attitudes are heavily reflected. If hookers, porn and drugs are illegal because of their corrupting influence on the soul, you could probably say the economy is conservative, but in that case it's more like the country and culture is conservative. A more rare use of the term because you would rather say the culture/country is conservative."
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bs7c9j | what is a magnetosphere and why is it important? | I’m reading the Expanse series (they’re fantastic, highly recommended) and they always talk about planets needing a magnetosphere for human life. I’ve read the definition and it doesn’t really tell me what about it makes it so critical for humans. Can any one explain it?
Thanks and sorry if I tagged this wrong. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/bs7c9j/eli5_what_is_a_magnetosphere_and_why_is_it/ | {
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"The magnetosphere is the sphere-like enclosure around a planet created by magnetic fields created in the core.\n\nIt has the effect of shielding the planet from harmful cosmic radiation, which can damage organic matter and strip the atmosphere from the planet."
]
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5ur25q | how does the gdp work and how is it calculated? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5ur25q/eli5_how_does_the_gdp_work_and_how_is_it/ | {
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"GDP is calculated as Consumption (total spending in the economy) plus investment (things like homes and equipment businesses use, goods which generate future income) plus all government spending (except for transfer payments, like social security or welfare) plus the trade balance (Exports - imports, which is currently negative)\n\nThis is abbreviated GDP = C + I + G + EX - IM\n\nAll of this over a year's time. The government collects the data by sending out surveys to the appropriate sample size of US citizens. It is quite complicated when it comes to the details.\n\nImports are subtracted because imports are already counted in consumption or investment or government purchases and you don't want to count them.\n\nGDP is a proxy (or indicator) of the nation's economic strength.\n\nNormally, you want to look at real GDP, which is adjusted for inflation, unlike nominal GDP. This lets you compare the true economic change in the economy over time.\n\nReal GDP per capita is also very useful because it tells you how much income per person you have in your economy in addition to adjusting for inflation. Real GDP per capita is a proxy for how well off our citizens are, their purchasing power"
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21ajmz | why isn't there a movement in the u.s. to "vote with money" and strangle corporations that make the world a worse place? | Seems like it would be a good idea to start a movement where people look down on others that support companies that do things that are bad for the world. But why don't people do this?
Edit:I'm not sure how to properly answer this in the reddit system, but onyourkneestexaspete answered this with:
While I agree that would work, you'd have to find enough people who are willing to pay three times as much for TP, or not use iPhones, or walk to work, or pay $15/gallon for gasoline, or make any of the other financial sacrifices necessary to damage a company in the way you want. It's just not going to happen -- people don't care enough to give up their luxuries. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/21ajmz/eli5_why_isnt_there_a_movement_in_the_us_to_vote/ | {
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"You would have to organize a large number of people to make any difference. Those people would have to be willing to make a personal sacrifice in order to make a point.\n\nGood luck.",
"**First, people already do this.** Companies spend a lot of money and energy avoiding negative press---sometimes through manipulation, sometimes through doing the right thing---because people tend to look down on companies that behave irresponsibly, harm people, or make the world suck. Take Chick-fil-a, whose executives ended up severly cutting back (at least according to media) on their contributions to anti-gay groups after the contributions came to light. \n\n**Second, it's not that easy.** Not everyone agrees on what makes the world suck, and not everyone agrees that ceasing to buy from a company will make the world suck less, overall. Take Caterpillar, for instance. Lots of people oppose their sales of farming equipment to Israeli settlers. But Caterpillar is one of the world's largest and most effective producers of farm equipment. If everyone agreed that what they were doing was wrong, they'd almost certainly change policies, but until that point, it's a difficult balance, because punishing the company doesn't just punish the executives and the workers, but also those that depend on their products to produce things like food cheaply and efficiently. \n\n**TLDR;** *Fighting corporate misdeeds is like fighting cancer.* We refer to it with one blanket term, but it's actually a lot of different problems, with only some elements in common. Creating a single movement to solve it all in one fell swoop is as likely to succeed as a single drug to cure all cancers. ",
"The word you are looking is boycott ",
"In many cases, there are no viable alternatives. Even if you can force a change in a country, you cannot affect those in other countries who may come in to fill the void. It's either the devil in red, the devil in black, or the devil in the edible teddy."
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3fbgqc | why do countries that oppose democratic elections, ignore human rights, and prohibit freedom of the press keep getting awarded the olympics? | I know America has it's share of problems, but countries like Russia and China fall far behind world standards. I'm interested in understanding the process for granting this economic award to places that largely ignore human rights. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3fbgqc/eli5_why_do_countries_that_oppose_democratic/ | {
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"Because the Olympics is not supposed to be about politics. It's supposed to be about celebrating athletic achievement.",
"Because the price to run them has become insane. The only places that will pay the price are those places where democratic forces don't determine how the government spends it's citizens' money.",
"The conspiracy is that it's all completely rigged; if you're willing to bribe enough officials they will give it to you. For example, see FIFA and Qatar 2022.\n\nAlso consider that hosting a major event like this is EXORBITANTLY expensive; so expensive that even well to do democratic countries don't want to deal with it. See Norway 2022 and Boston 2024. On the other hand, hard-line countries have no problem funneling money into it because there's no one to object.",
"Because the goal of the Olympics is \"building a peaceful and better world by educating youth through sport practiced without discrimination of any kind and in the Olympic spirit, which requires mutual understanding with a spirit of friendship, solidarity and fair play\" not \"make all the world's countries do what I want them to do\".\n\nThe whole \"discrimination of any kind\" thing is very important to the IOC.",
"It's all about the $$$, plus the IOC has a long list of demands kinda like those rider sheets big music acts have. They need 5 star hotel penthouses for free and cars/limos, I remember hearing that they have to be greeted at the airport with gifts.\n\nMuch like FIFA, the IOC likes money but the Olympics cost a ton of money to host, and the host city is left with a bunch of stadiums that will hardly be used again and a gaping hole in their wallet. Some of those soccer stadiums in Brazil are being used as bus storage now",
"Because members of the International Olympic Comitee are often corrupt and anti-democratic. For example, President Samaranch hired Francis Nyangweso, Minister of defense of Idi Amin. Samaranch even openly admitted to admire Franco. The IOC is just as corrupt as FIFA - that's why they have no problem to give it to anti-democratic nations.",
"So they will do those things less.\n\nIn the case of China, it is widely speculated getting the Olympics is a way to ensure they don't force some of their territorial issues, like with Taiwan.\n\nThe Olympics is something China can lose, or at least be tarnished, if they doesn't behave."
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2yph8k | what precisely equates to a complete, irreversible death in a fully-intact (no mutilations or injuries) human body? and why can't we reverse it? | If lack of oxygen is the ultimate reason for all body functions to shut down, leading to brain death, then why can't we just add oxygen back to cells after death to reintroduce life? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2yph8k/eli5_what_precisely_equates_to_a_complete/ | {
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"The same reason you can't uncook and unscramble an egg and put it back into its shell.\n\nSome chemical processes only really go one way. Cell death is one of those. Once oxygen is deprived, cell damage occurs, and adding oxygen isn't going to make the process run in reverse.\n\nSince the only thing we know about (human) life is that it's tied to having a lot of functioning neurons all together, if enough of those neurons stop working, life stops."
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6dwil3 | why are most western breakfasts full of sugar so basically desserts? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/6dwil3/eli5_why_are_most_western_breakfasts_full_of/ | {
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"What are you talking about exactly?\n\nBecause \"Western\" covers a whole lot of culinary territory. Traditional American breakfasts for example are usually fairly light on sugar unless you really pile on the maple syrup.",
"If you're talking about cold cereal (the stuff that comes in a box), it's sugary so kids will eat it. \n\nMost adults I know in the U.S. consider eggs and bacon to be a normal breakfast. Maybe add some grits or oatmean. If they feel super frisky, they might down some fruit, like an apple or banana.",
"Kids cereals are, but kids like eating sugar. I had my fair share of Cap'n Crunch when I was a kid, but these days, I prefer turkey bacon, two eggs over easy, and some grits."
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2qzisv | if i weigh 99 pounds and eat 1 pound of rice, am i now 100 pounds? | I have asked multiple people and have always gotten different answers. Would your digestive system do something to lighten the load or would you just take on the weight like it is? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2qzisv/eli5_if_i_weigh_99_pounds_and_eat_1_pound_of_rice/ | {
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"Yes, for a very short amount of time.\n\nEventually, that food will be processed by your body, and CO2 from the starches will be lost, the sugars will be burned, and the non-digestible bits excreted in the feces.",
"Your body weight fluctuates based on liquids and food you take in. If you eat a pound of rice you will be one pound heavier. "
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4ocqxy | why is really simple stuff so expensive while really complicated stuff is super cheap | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4ocqxy/eli5why_is_really_simple_stuff_so_expensive_while/ | {
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"Firstly, both drapes and the wardrobe are thousands of times bigger than your chip. That means there's a lot more logistic cost—shipping and storing the components and the products themselves, packaging, etc.\n\nSecondly, most of the cost of a chip are up front investments—development and production environment/machinery are expensive, but once you have those, each individual chip cost pennies in material and labor. Furniture may be easier to make (though would you want to sew your own drapes/build your own wardrobe?), but it still involves a lot more work hours per unit.\n\nThirdly, mass. As you say, only a few companies make chips. So anyone that needs one has to buy one of a relatively small range of products. (The chips they made five years ago are long out of production now, they only have to focus on a narrow range at any given time). There are thousands of different kinds of drapes and wardrobes. Probably hundreds of thousands. So the per unit profit margin needs to be bigger for the manufacturers to stay in the black. (This is why e.g. IKEA can afford to sell wardrobes at much lower prices than most furniture stores.)",
"Intel has the economy of scale advantage. Intel produces literally tons of microprocessors, so the research and development investment gets offset to millions of sales. Plus they basically print hundeds of chips at once, and then test how good they are and adjust prices accordingly. \n\nYour 30 Euro processor is something that was basically thrown out, was cheap to produce to begin with, and was sold to you at production cost or less. A nicer, faster four core processor retails for like 200 bucks.\n\nSo Intel invests heavily, then produces the same line of product massively, and then sells perfect chips for much money and crappy ones for cheap.\n\nA piece of nice cloth, however, does not have this advantage. Drapes companies have many different lines, different cloths, different colors. They make small amounts of each products, and what's more they have to store many different models.\n\nA nice wardrobe is made from pretty expensive raw materials with a lot of manual work. And you can't sell the less-than-perfect wardrobes. \n\nManual work is pretty expensive - an experienced carpenter in Germany seems to have a median salary of 20 Euros, and she is expensive to train. This can't just be offloaded over millions of sold products like Intel can with their factory workers. \n\nTL, DR: Intel has the economy of scale, smaller labor costs, and can sell crap as well as high-cost products. Carpenters and cloth manufacturers need more manual labor per product, use more raw materials, need more storage space and have more lines of products which raises all the other costs. ",
"1. Materials. A wardrobe requires a lot of wood. Roughly how much should this wood cost? WARNING: MATHS \n[This site gives the weight of a wardrobe as around 60 kg.](_URL_4_) \n[This site gives the price of a piece of 89x19x2400 mm piece of pine as $11.](_URL_0_) That's about 0.004 cubic metres of timber for $11. \n[This site gives the density of pine as around 500 kg per cubic metre.](_URL_1_) So that $11 piece of timber must weigh about 2 kg, that's $5.5 per kilogram. Therefore a 60 kg wardrobe should cost about $330 in materials. Obviously carpenters can probably get the wood for less but this gives a ballpark figure. \nCompare this to a silicon wafer. [This site gives a figure of around $400 for a wafer](_URL_2_) and maybe 400 CPUs from a wafer. Many of these CPUs will have flaws and can't be sold, but even so you can see that the material cost of the CPU is far lower than a wardrobe. \n\n2. Labour. The wardrobe needs to be built by a craftsperson. This guy needs to get paid and because he is skilled he can charge a decent amount. Alternatively the wardrobe needs to be build in parts in a factory which would cost less, but the workers still have wages to be paid. I would hazard a guess that the cost of labour for a wardrobe would be more than for a CPU. \n\n3. Economies of scale. Intel makes *a lot* of processors, [this article says 100 million processors sold in Q3 2014](_URL_3_) so let's say they sell around half a billion processors per year. The fabrication facilities might require a large initial investment but they can produce a huge amount of processors at each facility. Moreover, Intel can maximise these economies of scale by only offering a small range of processors. \nCompare this to a wardrobe: there are many different types and styles to suit individual preferences, wardrobe makers can't just produce two or three styles and be done with it. \n\n4. Logistics and retail. Once created, individual CPUs are small and easy to transport. They don't take up as much space in a truck or shop as a wardrobe. The consumer expects that every CPU of the same specifications will be exactly the same. Compare, again, to furniture. Stores that sell wardrobes stores need to present the consumer with a variety of wardrobes and arrange them in an appealing fashion. This takes more space and there is probably more danger of some styles not selling as well as others which further increases the cost per wardrobe. \n",
"Your $30 CPU is a failed $1200 CPU. \n\nThat is, Intel makes a batch of $1200 CPUs. They test each and every one. About half of them are non-salvageable and are thrown away. From the rest, a small percentage is on-spec and can work at the highest speeds; these are sold at $1200 a piece. Some can work properly at lower speeds, and are sold at $800. Some of them have defects in the cache or on a single core out of the 8 that the chip has; these get the bad cache and core electrically isolated from the rest of the chip and sold for $200.\n\nYour $30 chip comes off of a production pipeline where this happens for the previous architecture, with all capital expenses paid off.\n\nWould you like to have a $50 cupboard that takes a whole wall but only 2 drawers actually open?"
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1bqesw | why pink is treated and named like it is such a distinctive color | I've been through art school with color theory. Asked several professors and other lay people. No one can give a good answer. For example as to what I mean, light blue = blue. Mint green = green. You could use "purple" to describe "lavender" but it just wouldn't be as specific as light purple, pale purple, etc.
BUT, when I call pink "light red" people get confused and look at me funny like they have never even realized that pink is in fact light red. In fact many people feel that pink and red clash. PINK IS RED. How come this color gets such special treatment?
(I've even researched it a bit. Apparently the term "pink" comes from the dutch (I think) where there is a flower called pink which is the epitome of the color pink) | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1bqesw/eli5_why_pink_is_treated_and_named_like_it_is/ | {
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"What about Maroon? Vermillion? Periwinkle? Heliotrope? Teal? Alabaster? Gray? Mauve? \n\nIt's better to give them specific names because there are many shades of light red, light blue, Eric...",
"I don't know if this is the answer you're looking for, but from a scientific point of view, pink is a \"strange\" color. It's basically a mix of violet and red, which lie on opposite ends of the [color spectrum](_URL_0_), which is basically the colors of the rainbow. You can't get pink solely using those \"natural\" colors, you have to mix red and purple light. Brown is another example of a color that doesn't lie anywhere on the spectrum.\n\nPink is *not* necessarily just light red. Very light red (which, itself, is a mix of red and white light, and white light is a combination of all the colors) gives a pale shade of \"pink,\" but other more saturated shades of pink have some blue and violet mixed in, so it's wrong to say that pink is *just* light red.",
"Maybe because pink has a stronger social connotation (as being a very \"girly\" color) than the lighter versions of most other colors? I have no idea, that's just a guess.\n\n",
"It's just a cultural artifact - we have a single word for \"light red.\"\n\nNot all languages have words for the same colors. Russian has separate, basic color words for \"light blue\" and \"dark blue\" (goluboy and siniy respectively). Hungarian has two different categories of \"red\" (piros and vörös) that aren't subsets of each other like, say, scarlet is a subset of red in English. Homeric Greek used the same \"color\" words to describe the sky and bronze, or the sea and wine, or honey and fresh leaves in spring - using color-like descriptions in a way that is different from what we think of it now.\n\nThe Russian example was even used as the [basis of a study](_URL_0_) to see that our language shapes our perception of these things. People may not qualify pink as \"light red\" because they simply never *have* thought about it that way.",
"Considering that the question has been answered, I feel I need to make this joke:\n\nIs your name Donut, by any chance?"
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1gywvo | entropy in information theory | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1gywvo/eli5_entropy_in_information_theory/ | {
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"I'll use my favorite example. Let's say I'm a kid working at the horse track back in the olden days. Now, You're the mobster I work for back at home. You cant go to the track cause they'll arrest you for being an illegal bookie, so you have me go. \n\nHere's the thing, there's a telegraph and it lets you send messages, but they charge you like five cents per digit! Like a 1 is 5 cents, a 10 is 10 cents and so on.\n\nAs a mobster, you want to know which horse won the race. Let's say there are 4 horses in the race. A B C and D. What we could do, is just give them names like this\n\nA= 00\n\nB= 01\n\nC=10\n\nD= 11\n\nNow after every race, you pay 10 cents to find out the winner and use it to squeeze money out of the poor bastards that cant help but bet on the games. If each horse has a 25 percent chance to win, ie, they're all the same speed, this is the lowest amount of money you can spend using their telegraph system to find out who won. Period. \n\nThe thing I send you is your random variable. You use it to determine who to pay and who to squeeze. You wait at the other end of the line and wait for a 11 to show up so you know C won. You have no way of knowing what the next one will be, but you do know that it will be only one of the four listed above, and each one shows up 25 % of the time.\n\nNow new horses are introduced. We'll keep the same names, like jerseys. The difference this time is that A is a total champ, He wins half the time. Be aint so bad either, he's still at 25 percent, and C and D are losers, winning only 12.5% of the time\n\nWe could use the same scheme as last time if we wanted and you'd still pay 10 cents. But you're a super cheep bookie and you wanna pay less to hear who won the race. Being an evil genius, you do the following\n\nIf A wins, I send you 1\n\nIf B wins, I send you 0\n\nIf C wins I send you 10\n \nand if D wins, I send you 01\n\nA is going to win half the time, so you only have to pay 5 cents to find that out. B wins 25 % and you still only have to pay 5 cents. But you get a 1 less often than you get a 0.\n\nOnly 25 percent of the time do you have to pay the whole ten cents. Over the years, this saves you money! Because you changed the names to be shorter for more likely winners, you pay less to learn who that winner is most days.\n\nThis is what entropy is. The less entropy, the less information you get. If you're the bookie and the guy is at the machine on your end reading you answers, you can say \"Let me guess, A or B won, probably A, right?\" and you'll be right. Those two always win! But if it's D, that's news. That lame horse never wins! Learning about D has more information. It's bigger news. You might tell someone later on that \"Hey, did you hear that D won?\" But if A won, no one is as excited. On average, you usually dont have anything interesting to say about who won the race. Only 25 percent of the time is it really interesting. So you talk about work less.\n\nThe more entropy, the more information you get. When all the horses are tied, each winner is news. When one horse almost always wins, you, on average, dont get as much information per transition. You know that one horse probably won. It's only news if the other horse wins, which doesnt happen a lot. The more unfair the race, the lower the entropy, because you can always guess the winner, and you dont need to spend as much money to learn who it was. \n\nSo Shannon introduced the following definition (He just fucking defined it and it works, the guy was a genius)\n\nThe entropy of a the mobster's messages is the probability for each horse, times the log of 1/probability of each horse. This is the mathy part that is beyond a 5 year old. But it lets you calculate the entropy for my system up top with a clearly better horse (the entropy for the variable is less than 2). But if each horse is equally likely, then the entropy is 2 and you have to pay 2 nickles to find out the winner. If you use my scheme, on average you pay like 1.7 (Too lazy to calculate it right now) cents per race. That's a good savings for a bookie!\n\nHere's a neat thing Shannon figured out too. Let's say that the kid sending the messages is a moron and sucks at his job. He makes mistakes some times. You would think that the bookie would have to get some races wrong from time to time, right? Wrong. It is possible for the bookie (although Shannon doesnt explain exactly how, he just shows that it IS possible) for the bookie to basically always get the right answer if he makes his naming system clever enough. It will slow down how fast he gets the answers, and he cant get them any faster than something called \"The Channel Capacity\" but even if the kid fucks up, he can always get the right answer, but it slows down how long the message takes, ie the rate of transmission of the message is slowed, but he never gets the wrong info. \n\nIn fact, no matter how much the kid screws up, there is always a speed at which he can send the right info. If the kid tries to send it any faster, he's too dumb and you basically cant tell which horse won, ever. SO you can go so fast and no faster in principle, depending on how noisy the system is and how complex the message you're sending. There is a sudden drop at a certain speed where you get jibberish, but before that you almost always get exactly the right answer, no matter what (if you invent the scheme cleverly enough).",
"The measurement of the entropy of a thing tells you how much information you need to describe it.\n\nDescribing a blank paper takes less information than describing a paper with writing, so the paper with writing has greater entropy. Describing \"aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa\" can be done with \"a*20\", so it has a low entropy, but \"gjsdngiownhprwnh\" takes more information to describe, so it has a higher entropy.\n\nEntropy in information theory is relevant for compression of data - you can't compress a file to become smaller than it's entropy content (if it has 1000 bits worth of entropy, you can't compress the file to 500 bits without data loss).\n\nFor audio and some other things, you can kind of \"cheat\" here because these kinds of files have many patterns that are very common, so you can put those patterns in the encoder, so the encoder + the compressed file together has enough entropy to describe the decompressed file. If you handle a whole lot of audio files, you might be willing to make the encoder far more complex just to be able to make the compressed files smaller."
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2qwcgr | why do people spend so much time creating/obtaining, maintaining, and uploading pirated content when they gain nothing from it? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2qwcgr/eli5_why_do_people_spend_so_much_time/ | {
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"What they gain is a reputation within the community. It's similar to Reddit. Karma has no monetary value but the majority of Reddit want it.\n\nImagine you're the first guy to get a HD rip of a new film, you upload it. You get the attention and praise. \n\nIt's like Reddit where if you're the first to submit a breaking news story you'll hit the front page and get loads of karma.",
"Pride. They are providing a service to a tight-knit community (so much so that it's called \"The Scene\"), and if they do it incredibly well in a consistent manner for a long time, they get respect from others within the group. This is why Skidrow is a household name in the torrent community, and why torrent sites put a \"verified user\" or \"VIP\" flair next to certain users. Pride in one's work, and the ability to show it off, is a great motivator for everyone to put in effort and keep the scene alive.\n\nThis principle is true for pretty much any community, be it a school, workplace, the musical community of your city, or even Reddit."
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2j7fxu | sports scheduling and arena booking | So how do schedule makers juggle concerts, special events, etc when creating schedules for teams? A lot of teams share stadiums with other teams and host numerous other events so how do they prioritize who gets the arena/stadium? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2j7fxu/eli5_sports_scheduling_and_arena_booking/ | {
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"Are you talking from the venue's perspective or the league/team's perspective? Good number of sports franchises own their own venues so it would be very strange if they couldn't book themselves. A good number of venues are *leased* and all that needs to be done is basically pick up the phone, call the venue and ask \"Hey, is this date free?\" Not much more to it than that. Sports schedules are usually planned at least a year or longer ahead of time.\n\n_URL_0_\n\nHere is an ESPN short film I think you'll find interesting. It's about a husband and wife who had managed MLB's schedule for over 25 years. They mention there was a scheduling conflict between The Pope and a home game for The Dodgers. Watch the video to find out who won.",
"One example--\n\nMajor League Baseball requires that, when a MLB team plays in an MLB stadium, the team has absolute priority over the stadium's use. So if a baseball stadium wants to schedule a concert, they cannot schedule it until the baseball schedule is out. At that point, they need to pick a date that the team is out of town. Simply choosing an \"off day\" is not acceptable, because the off day may be needed for a makeup day."
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4e88c9 | why do they label generations, for example gen x, gen y, millenials? | [deleted] | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4e88c9/eli5_why_do_they_label_generations_for_example/ | {
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"I don't think there's any huge reason ***to***. It just makes it simpler than \"kids of '80s\". Does that mean people born in the 80s? People who were in grammar school in the 80s? People who became adults in the 80s?\n\nJust call them Gen X and be done with it. It's especially dumb because no one can decide what's what: by some measures I'm a millennial, but I could vote and was drinking (if not legally) when 9/11 happened. Other people who are called millennials are barely able to vote *right now*."
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1ypud8 | when i buy a song on itunes, how much money actually goes to the artist? | I've been wondering this for a while. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1ypud8/when_i_buy_a_song_on_itunes_how_much_money/ | {
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"It depends. If the artist self publishes they get about 0.60 cents. However if its under a major label they get as little as 0.08 cents per sale.\n \n_URL_0_"
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1havfu | natural male enhancement pills. | How do they work? What's in them and how exactly does it help performance? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1havfu/eli5_natural_male_enhancement_pills/ | {
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"No proven efficacy, complete waste of money. Preying on typical idiots that believe anything they see on TV or the internet. ",
"There are basically 2 types of these. One type contains natural compounds such as Maca Root, Horny Goat Weed, Ginseng and a few other things. The former increase blood flow to certain types of tissue in the body. It helps a person maintain a stiffer erection than they would normally. Other ingredients act like a stimulant, giving you a boost of energy. These claim to work within 30 minutes and last for 3 days. Not all of them work but for those that do (Durazest, Arize) they work quite well. You take only when needed, much like Viagra.\n\nThe second type is something taken on a daily basis over a period of months that claim to generally increase libido (make you horny), give better erections and so on. No, they don't. This includes products that claim to enlarge your penis size. Nothing but surgery will substantially increase penis size and that's pretty extreme. If one needs an extended bout of medication of this type for whatever reason it's better to see a doctor instead.\n"
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4zeb2u | why do we share what we know? | Why did the first person who learnt how to make fire, spread that knowldege? (Assuming others didn't learn it by imitation) Or, closer home, why do people share Life-Pro tips? Or, if you are answering this or other questions here on ELI5, why are you doing it? What motivates us humans to share knowldege?
My question is not directed towards a single responder to learn why do _they_ share knowledge, but generally towards understanding this aspect of human behavior.
Serious replies only, please. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4zeb2u/eli5why_do_we_share_what_we_know/ | {
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" > Why did the first person who learnt how to make fire, spread that knowldege?\n\nBecause he wasn't alone. Humans have always thrived in communities, so teaching your fellow man to make fire doesn't take anything away from you. Quite the opposite, since now that they know how to do it you can spend your time inventing wheels and hand axes instead of lighting fires for the morons.\n\nAt its core, humans have empathy. We can put ourselves in the position of others, and as such the whole \"do unto others as you would have them do unto\" is somewhat ingrained in our very genes.\n\nWhy personally? Helping people is fun."
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1zbxku | why do legal agreements include numbers as words (one) as well as figures (1)? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1zbxku/eli5_why_do_legal_agreements_include_numbers_as/ | {
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"One of the main goals of legal terminology is to make the meaning of every statement completely unambiguous. When I say \"one\" I want to make sure that you understand that I mean the number \"1\" rather than \"someone\", or some other misunderstanding."
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17d65f | why do americans value the ability to own a gun so much? | I understand not ALL Americans believe they should be able to own guns, but why do so many still believe they need them after seeing/hearing/reading about all these problems they cause?
EDIT: Wow, I didn't expect so many replies. I notice people keep saying "people are the problem, not the guns". I agree to some extent but I can't help thinking that if you removed the guns surely the problem would start to disappear/lesser itself? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/17d65f/eli5_why_do_americans_value_the_ability_to_own_a/ | {
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"the purpose of the 2nd ammendment is to give us the tools to prevent tyranny. how would we protect ourselves from the govt if they turned into tyrants? guns thats how. theres also a historical track record of bad things happening after being disarmed. theres also personal protection. theres also the fact that places with guns have less violent crime. _URL_0_",
"Historically, for the same reason that you (hopefully) value the ability to own a book: there is power there. Currently, idiots.",
"Not all guns are problematic. Many people are very careful with their guns, keeping them locked up and unloaded. Most Americans that own guns use them respectfully and with the full awareness that they are weapons designed to kill and maim, not toys or part of a video game or action movie.\n\nMost guns in America are kept for one of two purposes: hunting or protection. There are still many Americans, even in this day and age of WalMart superstores giving you the lowest prices on food, who hunt and kill their own food. They depend on taking down a deer or a moose or maybe a few ducks to eat. There's nothing wrong with it, and most of those people are very responsible gun owners, who understand that it is a weapon and a tool. Guns are as much a part of their life as a computer or guitar might be to yours, and they're treated with the same kind of respect and fondness. \n\nAs for protection, there are some people who only feel safe knowing that they have a gun. They may live or work in bad neighborhoods, or have some other reason for feeling they need a gun. We believe that people should have the right to defend themselves using reasonable means. Since a pistol is much easier to carry than a sword and more effective than a knife, we have laws allowing citizens to obtain a permit to carry a gun, provided they can show they are competent and not criminals. Some argue that concealed carry laws prevent crime; that not knowing who might be carrying a gun is a deterrent to violent crime. There are examples that support both sides of this argument, none conclusive. One could argue the necessity of a gun for self defense, but most Americans accept it as reasonable. \n\nNow, having said this, there are some guns that do cause problems. There are some people in America that think they need to protect themselves from the government. There are those who are so paranoid that they fear not having enough bullets or enough guns, and so they hoard them, thinking that the end of the world is coming and they will need to fight off zombies or satanists or Mad Max in order to survive. They insist that they need more powerful weapons to be safe; that it is their right to have weapons designed for warfare and not hunting or protection. These Americans claim that taking away guns (not all guns, just some) will cause bigger problems, that it will result in only the \"bad guys\" having guns, or equating it to Hitler outlawing guns in Germany as a step in his Final Solution. Personally, I could see why you would want a gun to hunt, I can understand the need for protection, but this mentality is one that I find unreasonable and incomprehensible. Maybe I'm too trusting of the government, maybe I'm not paranoid enough, maybe I don't see the UN as a harbinger of the \"end of days,\" maybe I don't buy into the Hollywood ideal that the only way to be safe is to have a gun and shoot the bad guy. Or maybe I'm just not a nutball. ",
"I believe that I have a right to defend myself. If you break into my house I don't feel like I should have to hide in the closet and pray the police get here in time.\n\n Having a gun is an equalizer I don't want to hurt people with it I just want to be able to protect myself, I don't think that just because one group talks in class the entire class need's detention. Your regular everyday joe isn't walking around shooting people most of the violence is coming from big cities where gun's are already highly regulated the crimes are committed by criminals who don't give 2 shits what kind of laws you pass. _URL_0_\n\nMany Americans myself included feel like we are guaranteed the right to protect ourselves because of the second amendment I don't know how much gun grabbers are willing to sacrifice to take our guns. I know many American's that are willing to sacrifice it ALL to keep them though.\n\nThe biggest question I have is why do people not from America give a shit about our gun laws. I don't care how your country run's itself why do you care how we run ours?",
"Some people actually use them. Gun ownership in rural areas is common all over the world.\n\nAs for the rest, there is a common thread of fear and paranoia toward our neighbors and our government, the source of which is debatable, but the answer to which is always portrayed as \"more guns.\"\n\nI have a number of guns myself. I view them as tools. However I find if I take some of the nicer ones to the range, people come up and want to touch and shoot them...Similar to having a nice sports car. I honestly don't understand that response, but I'd chalk it up to effective marketing.",
"I think a lot of people are resistant to gun control because we're resistant to control in general. We don't like the idea of the government taking things away from us, whether it's guns, alcohol, or gas-guzzling vehicles. \n\nEdit: Yes, I will be taking all your complaints about America. I'll make sure they get into the proper hands.",
"the burden protect myself falls on me. not the police or the govt. a gun is juat an efficient way to do that. ",
"A lot of people use them. For hunting, for sport, for self-defense, [for making sure the cops and Klansmen can't intimidate you when you demand your rights](_URL_0_).\n\nGuns have a long history in this country of being used by women and minorities to maintain their safety and their rights.\n\nOne of the first large-scale advertisements for a firearm has become ingrained in our national culture: \"God made man, but Samuel Colt made them equal.\"\n\n > after seeing/hearing/reading about all these problems they cause?\n\nNot to be cliche and/or political, but people cause problems. Guns are tools that can be used or misused, just like knives, baseball bats, and vehicles. (Tools for killing yes, but the killing of deer for sport or food is far more common than the killing of schoolchildren - like the rate isn't even comparable, one just makes the news.)\n\nHistorically in the USA, violent crime rates have risen and dropped almost entirely apart from the rate of gun ownership. If you want to reduce crime, figure out what's actually causing it.",
" Gun loving Americans associate guns with the word \"Protection\". Those who are anti-gun associate the word \"gun\" with the words \"Weapon\" and \"Danger\". On a subconscious level we are arguing about a very different item. ",
"Ignoring all reasons I might need a gun and all the reasons why gun control is inherently flawed, freedom is not about what you \"need.\" We don't need free speech, free press, or free religion, but it's not the governments job to make those decisions for us. It's not called the bill of needs. It's called the bill of rights.",
"My Guns prevent someone from forcing their will upon me and my family. That's the only reason I need. I have many many others but stoping someone from forcing their will upon me is my number one. ",
"I think a lot of Americans believe that gun rights are the canary on the coal mine -the coal mine being a government that's overreaching and becoming too big. It's not really about having guns as much it is about the government becoming too powerful. That's why you'll see Americans who hate guns support gun rights; they hate the idea of a big government even more.",
"The gun issue has just become another major plank in the platform of bipolar American politics. Both political parties are using hatred more and more as a weapon and the gun issue is where the left uses hatred against the right much like the right uses abortion to generate hatred against the left.\n\nNone of these debates actually have any kind of substance behind them. While the right screams \"think of the children\" (while they're really saying \"we don't want you to have sex\") the left is screaming \"your neighbor is coming to kill your children\" (while really saying \"we don't trust you to make your own decisions\").\n\nThese hatreds play off of each other and generate what you see in American politics these days. I'd go further, but this is ELI5, and political hatred, and the response to it, is really what you're seeing here.",
"Why do you assert that guns are the cause of the problem? Unchecked mental illness is the factor. Guns are just a medium. Also, guns protect us from criminals as well as the government. If you are really informed you would know we no longer has freedom of speech, assembly, or any protections against search and seizure. We also don't have habeas corpus or a right to a speedy trial or protections against cruel and unusual punishment (Guantanamo bay). Now they are trying to nullify the second ammendment. What can the people do if they decide to declare marshal law? We would be completely at the mercy of the Federal government. ",
"I realize a wikipedia post is not the best way to go about explaining something to a 5 year old. Especially in this article but I thought I'd place it here just to give you a base definition of the camps and gun cultures in America at differing time periods.\n\n_URL_0_",
" > Why do so many still believe they need them after seeing/hearing/reading about all these problems they cause?\n\nThe guns don't cause the problems, the people who misuse the guns do. ",
"Our guns are locked up in a safe, I have a key as does another person in the family. I have a gun in case someone breaks in and decides to not leave and be violent, I don't particularly want to go into hand-to-hand combat with some robber; I can just get the gun, say leave, and if they don't comply put a round in their foot or something. I also have it because I do personally like to go to the gun range and shoot targets to test my accuracy and it's kind of fun to shoot a gun. I wouldn't shoot a person to shoot them. Also guns if kept in good condition can be sold later for money, sort of like an engagement diamond or something.",
"It's embedded in our culture to resist control and to match the government. American society was cultured on the notion that the government *should* not be more powerful than its people. To ensure this, we are entitled to our weaponry, a right endowed by the second amendment. ",
"It really irks me to see some of these comments, and people like me will never convince some of the people such as these other commenting, and at the risk of a hundred downvotes, I would like to say that I am formally willing to give up my stereotypical view of an anti-gun citizen being a turtle neck sweater, Ivy league foofoo, if you are willing to see through it that I, a gun owner and supporter of the second amendment, am not a devout Christian, abortion is cool, and gay marriage is just fine. I don't carry around a revolver and a pocket bible, and I don't hate people who don't like the concept of fire arms. I am not forcing you to. I will not and **CAN** not convince someone who's mind is made up on such a serious matter. However, as a responsible adult and gun owner, along with a large sum of the unheard community, you will see that we are careful and sentient people who just want to know that we will take up the duty to defend our families should the need arise. Average police response is three to seven minutes and a lot of really bad stuff can occur in that time. I don't want to wait around for some rookie badge to make a call. It is a shame we are seen as these people who fire our weapons to sky in some \"Jihadist victory\" scenario. Bad people are out there. Evil is ever present. In a perfect world, I would want my gun in my drawer next to the bed, with hilarious gay neighbors, and a couple who decided that maybe it wasn't quite time for a child. These should all be personal liberties and I want mine as much as you want yours.",
"Homer's got this one. \n\n_URL_0_",
"wow, so much ignorance in this thread. If you think that the second amendment isn't important anymore you should try taking a history lesson, because then you would know that \"gun control\" has historically been used to murder hundreds of millions of people, at the hands of their own government. \nAlso, the idea that the police will be able to protect you from a shooter in time is ridiculous. Why wait 20 minutes for a swat team to show up when you could pull out your own firearm in 2 seconds and stop the perp there?",
"I think there is one area regarding this that is being overlooked and helps explain why Americans value the right to bear arms - The American Revolutionary War and its build up.\n\nThe 2nd Amendment basically guarantees the right of citizens to hold Arms (including guns) despite the presence of a well regulated militia (The Army etc).\n\nBefore the revolution, when the colonies were under British rule, there were local Militias created to maintain order and the law. The red-coats (the British army) were not law enforcement officers, and the number within the colonies were relatively low. However within the militia there were both Royalists (pro-Britain) and Patriots (pro-independence). Many militia split in the years before the revolution into entirely Royalist and entirely Patriotic groups due to tension and suspicions harboured by both groups.\n\nAfter the war there was a fear of both the military and the power of government. After-all, the British government has effectively used the Red-coats against its own citizens. It had also arguably tried to restrict the rights of self-defence of its citizens by trying to limit and disarm Patriotic-aligned militia in the run up to the wart. The British had effectively waged war against its own citizens; I can understand why those citizens would then be wary when creating a new nation.\n\nAfter independence the 2nd amendment reflected both the need for a standing army, and also the need to guarantee the rights of its citizens to defend themselves. The American people were understandably suspicious of the army and power of government; the 2nd amendment was seen by some as an important part the constitution to protect their rights and to protect them from the threat of tyranny.\n\nThis is one part of the reason why some Americans are so vocal about protecting their 2nd amendment rights. They still see that amendment as part of the fundamental protections of the constitution.\n\nI can understand where this belief has come from, even if I personally do not agree with it.",
"Countries and citizens are like bosses and employees. America was founded when a bunch of people decided they didn't like their boss. They decided to become their own boss. They accomplished this with guns. They think this worked out really well for them. These original people made a piece of paper that ensured that in the future, the country would always be in control by the boss that most people liked. However, in the event that any boss tried to rig the system, they ensured that most people would have access to the tools that allowed them to overthrow their boss the first time.\n\nToday, many people feel overthrowing your boss is more important than the other issues being brought up. When you take into account that America has the longest living constitution and is currently the oldest modern government, you can see why people think what we're doing works.",
"Because it's a right protected in our constitution.\n\nThat's how to ELI5",
"I'll scream if I hear someone bring up the 2nd amendment as the equivalent of the right to hunt. \n\nIt's about protection against tyranny. \n\nAnd FWIW, tyranny doesnt generally happen overnight. It is a slow erosion and disarming the population is a key part of that. ",
"Because the people that are trying to restrict us aren't exactly giving up theirs either.\n\nMeaning, we end up being powerless and complacent to an increasingly police state.\n\nOh wait, we're already there, even with guns.\nA police TANK parked in front of my work a year back. I shit you not.",
"As a resident of Los Angeles during the [riots](_URL_0_), the police literally got the fuck out of there, leaving the population somewhat helpless. There was a lot of building burning, looting, etc. There were buildings less than a half mile from my house, on the same street, burning down... and NO POLICE trying to put a stop to it. The national guard was needed to get shit under control, but they weren't everywhere, and definitely weren't necessarily where you needed them at any given time. \n\nFor me, THAT'S when you want to own a gun. I don't kid myself that someone is going to bust down my front door and I'm going to pull out my gun and scare or shoot down the intruder. But when shit is going down in the streets, and there are very real threats that someone could try to come take all your shit by force and burn down your house because they are an angry irrational mob, it isn't going to hurt to have a big, scary gun on hand to ward people away from your property. \n\nThat being said, I doubt all Americans who value gun rights have been through what I've been through, but I'd rather let everyone own guns than try to take them away from only the law abiding citizens as a \"feel good\" measure after a school shooting.",
"It depends on where you live. My state, Vermont, has the most lax gun laws in the country. We don't issue permits, allow concealed and open carry (with exceptions; not in schools, etc) and allow individuals to own a gun at 16. Most people here own guns for hunting or sport/recreational shooting, with self-defense being more of an afterthought if anything. We also have a very, very small population ( < 630,000 people). \n\nGun violence here is among the lowest in the country. Our gun laws work well for us, but obviously would cause a big problem in states with a larger population where the majority of gun owners are not properly trained in gun safety. I am very liberal and generally in favor of bigger government, but I strongly believe gun control laws should be decided by the state, rather than at a federal level, though I am okay with fully-automatics being banned.",
"Guns don't cause problems, they're simply tools. This is a loaded question.",
"I'd like to thank you for this question as it made my English assignment a bit easier. I couldn't figure out a controversial topic to talk about & this gave me both sides.",
"Simply put its because its a promised right in a line of premised inalienable rights. If they take that one away, then they can take others away too which is a very bad thing. The bill of rights is supposed to be ten god-given rights no one should be without, listed in the very foundation of our government. I would never own a gun. But I like my free speech very much. I would fight for any amendment just as hard as the next. ",
"You honestly think guns cause the problems? People are the problems not the guns. There will always be crazy people and those that are willing and intent to kill people have no problems circumventing the law to obtain a gun. All gun control does is make it harder for legal citizens to protect themselves.",
"Americans as a whole have an extremely independent streak, compared with other many other western countries. \n\nBecause of the fact that our independence from England was won largely by Independent Citizens, using the same type of arms as the military of the day used, we recognize that an armed populace is one that is much less likely to be abused by a tyrannical government.\n\nBecause there is a much lower population density than some other countries, we are more likely to be in rural areas. Police response times take dramatically longer, and there are people more likely to be involved with hunting of, or defense from wild animals.\n\nLastly, your initial comment is based on the assumption that guns cause problems. The vast majority of Americans would disagree with that, as with the idea that knives cause stabbings, or that Forks make people Fat. People with bad intentions cause problems. The Gun itself is a tool.",
"I personally believe that on top of the idea of protecting ourselves in our homes and on the streets from criminals there is a bigger aspect to our right as Americans to bear arms. That is to protect ourselves from the government. This country was started be fighting off a tyrant in Britain and the colonists won their freedom, by using guns and a regulated Militia to gain freedoms and set up the country we have today. Taking away that right and ability to defend ourselves as citizens results in the government being able to take over completely and do as they please. \n\n\nThe 2nd Amendment reads as follows \"A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.\" This means that a group of properly disciplined and trained individuals are able to bear Arms (weapons) to keep the State (territory) free from being overtaken. \n\n\nLooking at the Declaration of Independence the Preamble, to me, explains why the 2nd Amendment is necessary. The colonies didn't have an army, they had a Militia that was able to overthrow the tyranny in said colonies and become free. The last sentence \"...it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.\" explains that perfectly. \n\n\nNow, I'm not against government or anything, but if the government takes away our ability to fight back against things that are unjust, they can then do whatever they please without fear of repercussion. The government in the United States uses excessive spending, and is pretty corrupt in my eyes, which should be put to a stop. I'm reading a book called \"Term Limits\" by Vince Flynn which talks about this. \n\n\nI know this answer may not be ELI5, but this topic is hard for a 5 year old to grasp. Aside from that if you ask a 5 year old if guns he is scared of guns, they will most likely say yes, unless there are guns in the house all the time that have never hurt anyone, they can grasp the fact that guns to hurt people, the people holding the guns do. A lot of instruments and tools are harmless in the hands of the average citizen, but a car, or a hammer, or a pencil, or even just hands can be dangerous when handled by a dangerous person. ",
"Well, we aren't really the gun nuts that most would paint us out to be. I consider myself a responsible gun owner. I carry my weapon legally and am licensed to be allowed to do so. The reasoning for me at least that the constitution that the country was founded on guarantees us our right to keep and bear arms. Especially to protect against a government that would seek to control us. \n\nNow I'm not saying either that this is absolutely the case with our government, but they are to protect us from people who would do us harm and this includes the government especially. When guns begin to be collected and confiscated and the government has more power than the people, which is not how it is supposed to be designed, it should ring alarm bells for those that know their history. One thing that escapes me is why people as a group would want the government to take power from them. \n\nMany people may consider us crazy and conspiracy theorist but if back in the day I was to tell you that the Roman Empire was going to fall, or that in the 1930s that Germany is going to begin a mass genocide within the next decade, or that on September 10th, 2001 two planes were going to fly into the world trade center you would probably think I'm crazy.",
"I'll try to actually ELI5 this issue:\n\nAmerica used to be a part of England, but it was very far away from the government. For a lot of reasons, the people who lived in America thought the government was not treating them fairly - in fact, they felt that the government was an especially bad kind of government called a tyranny.\n\nBecause the Americans could not make the tyrannical government listen to their issues and start treating them more fairly, they decided to leave England and become their own country. To do this, they had to fight a war with England's government, because the only way to get rid of a bad government is a war. \n\nAfter winning the war, the Americans had to create their own government. They took a few tries to get it right, but ultimately came up with a document called the Constitution. The Americans who wrote the Constitution wanted to create a government that was specifically made not to become tyrannical, like the government they just fought to free themselves from. The Constitution gives us many rights and processes that let us solve problems with our government without having to fight, but the writers understood that there is always a chance the government can go bad.\n\nThat's why they wrote the Second Amendment, which guarantees Americans' right to bear arms (own guns). The Second Amendment is not about owning guns as much as it is about giving Americans the right to fight against their government if it becomes necessary. Without guns, if the government became a tyranny again, Americans would have no way to fight back.\n\nFor many Americans, especially vocal gun supporters, a gun is the material symbol for the superiority of the American people over their own government. America is unique this way in its history and its relationship with guns, which is why many people from other countries have a hard time understanding this idea.",
"People know the the primary and sole purpose of the second amendment is to protect the rights granted through the first amendment of the people from the government. The second amendment serves as protection of our liberties. ",
"Because we do what we want, and anyone that tells us we can't can go fuck themselves",
"Any type of weapon can be used as a deadly weapon if the person using it means to do enough harm. Gun's were given as a right to Americans from the very beginning to protect themselves against their own government. If the government can carry weapons and possibly use them against their citizens, citizens should be able to defend themselves against that with an equal force. It is the small percentage that play with weapons/guns, or use them for purposes other than what they are intended to be used for, that ruin it for the rest that are using them for their intended purpose or livelyhood. There are still people out there who have a case full of guns that use them strickly for sport. There are multitudes of persons who have owned a gun and have never actually had to fire it but feel safer knowing they have it. No one likes having something, that was just about written in stone, taken away from them.",
"Well as far as whether it's smart or not, less than 1% of Americans kill each other with guns and they're trying to take the 99%'s guns away when they didn't do anything wrong and have a Constitutional Right to own them. ",
"Here is a quote from a man many Americans hold dear to their hearts. He believed it was a citizens responsibility to rebel against the government if the government got out of control.\n\n > \"Laws that forbid the carrying of arms...disarm only those who are neither inclined nor determined to commit crimes. Such laws make things worse for the assaulted and better for the assailants; they serve rather to encourage than prevent homicides, for an unarmed man may be attacked with greater confidence than an armed one.\"\n\nThomas Jefferson",
"Having a well armed population is a check against a tyrannical government and more importantly a rise of a tyrannical government. Because of the amount of armed civilians, it is impossible to rule the U.S. by force. If you take away an armed population it could be much easier for a leadership to take illegitimate control. It's like a silent threat; a tyrant won't rise if he know he will eventually have to deal with well armed civilians.",
"It is because we are next door to the government-funded drug cartel, those guns WILL make it to the hands of criminals. We need to protect ourselves somehow.",
" > after seeing/hearing/reading about all these problems they cause?\n\nGuns do not *cause* problems.",
"Indoctrination.\n\nPlease note that I'm not saying whether owning guns is good or bad, but Americans get so excited over it because we've been taught to get so excited over it.",
"A lot of americans are indoctrinated into political and or spiritual parties that dictate their beliefs. Few actually think about arguments from both sides objectively. I know from first hand experience that even though Americans are generally very nice people, they aren't the most open-minded.",
"- Many gun supporters believe creating gun laws does little to stop crime, and they have quite a bit of data to support it.\n\n- Americans don't like having rights taken away. If the second amendment means nothing to the government, then how can we trust them to uphold the rest of the Bill of Rights?\n\n- People who support the second amendment tend to not be the ones putting the second amendment in danger. They didn't do anything wrong and don't want to be punished for the actions of others.",
"We had a world with no guns. It was called the middle ages. Sucked to be old, female, handicapped, or a member of a minority in that world. It was also called feudal Japan. Sucked to be a peasant in that world. It was also called Germany, circa 1938. Sucked to be a Jew in that world.\n\nThey're called \"equalizers\" for a reason.",
" > I can't help thinking that if you removed the guns surely the problem would start to disappear/lesser itself?\n\nDespite the fact that that's usually the exact opposite of what usually happens. In England it's now illegal for anyone under 18 to buy kitchen knives and there were calls to completely ban pointed kitchen knives because of all the knife crime that sprang up after the gun ban. In fact the UK was called the most violent country in the European Union by the United Nations a couple years ago. A lot of other countries were in that study including South Africa and the US and the UK beat them all on violence. \n\nSure their murder rate is lower than ours, but it was before their gun ban, and after their gun ban their murder rate went up for several years. It's finally back down to the level it was before the ban, while most countries' murder rates have dropped about 35% in the same time, including the US.\n\nIt's even evident inside the US. The areas with more guns are universally safer than the areas with low gun ownership, and the cities with the most restrictive gun laws are among the most dangerous cities in America.",
"It has been established in federal court that the police have no obligation to protect the citizen. Which means I need to find the simplest, most reliable way to do so myself. The police use firearms for this. The military uses firearms for this. The secret services uses firearms for this. Private security firms use firearms for this. I, therefore, will use firearms to defend myself from a physically/numerically superior enemy.",
"I would like to address the edit:\n\n > I can't help thinking that if you removed the guns surely the problem would start to disappear/lesser itself?\n\nIn fact, the opposite is true. When the world didn't have guns, there was no middle class. There were the very rich (and well armed), and the very poor. Even in the last century, mass murder by governments happened in areas where the civilian populous was first disarmed by the government. Does that mean Obama wants to kill Americans? Of course not! But by banning legal firearm ownership, he makes it easier for a government in the future to do just that.\n\nIf my 5'0\" 140 lb. wife is attacked by just one guy, 99% of the time, she would not survive unless she had a tool to help her. Now imagine she is set on by a gang. The best tool in that situation is a gun. Even if the attacker also has a gun, there is no advantage to him due to size and strength. I'm not saying it will ever happen to her, I'm saying that since it could(and at any point), why not be prepared? \n\nSo by taking away legally owned, civilian firearms, you might lessen a few suicides, but the problems that are not held in check anymore are far worse.",
"There are a lot of places which have very non restrictive gun laws that don't have nearly the problem of places which have extremely restrictive gun laws do the state I live in Virginia is a perfect example of this. Here in Virginia their are no real restrictions on guns besides the restrictions that are at a federal level and we have dramatically lower gun crime and all over lower crime in general when compared to Washington D.C. and Maryland who both have way restrictive gun laws. The county of Arlington Virginia directly borders Washington D.C and had 1 homicide in 2010 compared to D.C. with 109 so it isn't always true that more guns=more crime.",
"It's hard to explain what it's like to exercise a right. \n\nSuffice it to say, after you go shooting, for most people, there is a moment of realization. This knowledge that you have an ability, a capacity; not of violence but of facility, that you can handle yourself and your life in new and different ways. You don't depend solely on others, you have more options. \n\nA gun isn't something you depend on every waking moment; you may never use it for its intended purposes. But should you ever need it, you wouldn't put an inch distance between you and it. \n\nAnd that's why so many people in the U.S. are so ardent about their guns. Some people don't have that experience, some people have forgotten it or have justified other emotions to replace it. But for most gun owners, which is a majority of the population who may own guns, politics aside, the idea of losing their guns--and in the case of \"assault weapons\" often their best guns--means losing that certainty of capacity. ",
" > I agree to some extent but I can't help thinking that if you removed the guns surely the problem would start to disappear/lesser itself?\n\nGuns can't be unmade. We can't remove them. We have countries north and south of us. If they can smuggle drugs in, they can most certainly smuggle guns in. Transporting across the US is trivial. When you cross a border, *if* you have to stop, they ask \"Do you have any fruits or vegetables\"? And then you're on your way.\n\nEven if you could remove guns, this fails to address the underlying socio-economic issues which drive people toward violent behavior. It fails to address failures in the medical system. It's a band aid fix for much, much greater problems. It's insulting that some of our politicians try to trivialize serious issues by suggesting they can just restrict guns and magically solve real problems.\n\nEven if you were to ban guns, who's going to obey the law? Law abiding citizens or criminals?"
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76a1tx | why are college grades so test taking oriented instead of grading us on our ability to work in teams and research information on topics? | [deleted] | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/76a1tx/eli5why_are_college_grades_so_test_taking/ | {
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" > Colleges claim to prepare us for the real world\n\nExcept that they don't claim that. College/university is intended to further your education in a specific field of study, and measure your mastery of that field.\n\nIt's only in modern times that people have decided that college is some sort of \"real world prep\", when that was never its intention.",
" > Colleges claim to prepare us for the real world\n\nThis is not in fact the objective of advanced colleges and universities. Their job is to teach you how to think and how to learn, and also to to provide you with a large foundation of background knowledge and general skills such as how to express yourself or organize information. Teaching you how to get things done in a practical workplace is not, officially, their main goal.",
"Hi, college professor here.\n\nFirst, what /u/Concise_Pirate said: the purpose of college is to teach you to think and to learn, and to give you skills to bring new things into the world (scientific discoveries, art, inventions, etc).\n\nTests don't teach: their purpose is to measure whether you have learned. Because we need to measure what *YOU* learned, not what your study buddy learned, you need to do the test yourself.\n\nAs for \"researching information on topics\", that depends on the subject. For some topics, memorization is an important part of competence. Sure, an engineer doesn't need to memorize multiplication tables: she could just look up what 2 x 2 is every time, but it would slow her down so much she'd be almost useless. Likewise for a doctor who has to look up what \"anterior\" means. When testing memory is important, we can't let you use reference materials. In other fields, it's not so important so the exam may be \"open book\". But even there, we can't give you open access to the Internet, or you could email the problem to someone, they could email you the answer, and we'd be testing their skills, not yours.\n\nI hate tests too. I think they're the least important part of the class, and it sucks that they're the most important part of the grade. But they're the only way to judge what my students can actually do."
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j3ia8 | can someone explain sql to me? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/j3ia8/can_someone_explain_sql_to_me/ | {
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"Think of SQL as a way to manage a huge set of index cards with a bunch of information on them (this is your database). Maintaining a huge pile of index cards is a pain in the butt, so SQL gives you an English-like language you can use to control an index-card-maintaing robot. The key concepts are:\n\n* A single colour of index cards [table]\n* Each colour has a defined set of things you're going to note on the cards - so to keep track of football stats, you might say 'on each pink card, I'll write the \"name\", \"height\", \"weight\", \"age\" and \"team\" of a player; on each yellow card, I'll write the \"venue\", \"home team\", \"away team\", and \"score\" of a single football game' [these pieces of information are the columns; the description of each is the schema].\n* Each individual card is a [row]\n* SQL gives you some very basic operations which can be composed to do complex things to your information\n* SELECT queries the data (\"hey robot, look through all the pink cards, find each player whose first name is Henry\" might look something like \"SELECT * FROM players WHERE firstname = 'Henry'\")\n* UPDATE changes each row in a table (\"Hey robot, I'm ready for the 2012 season; go through each pink card and mark each person as one year older\" might be \"UPDATE players SET age = age + 1\")\n* INSERT fills out a new index card (\"Hey robot, the Myhometown Boll Weevils have a new Center Quarterforwardstop, better fill out a new pink card\" might become \"INSERT INTO players (firstname, lastname, height ...etc) VALUES ('Abdullah', 'McTavish', '230cm' ...etc)\"\n* DELETE throws away an index card (\"Hey robot, Abdullah McTavish quit after a cockfighting scandal, don't need that card any more' becomes \"DELETE FROM players WHERE firstname = 'Abdullah' AND lastname = 'McTavish') \n* Where SQL gets useful is that you can do much more complex manipulations. We already saw WHERE above (where you're getting your robot to give you a list only of players meeting certain criteria).\n* JOIN is like telling the robot 'for every card you bring back, also bring back a photocopy of the relevant card of another colour'. So 'bring me all the players whose height is greater than 200cm; attached to each one, bring me a copy of the green index card representing their team'. This way from looking at each result, you can find out the team's sponsor (say) without needing to go and do a separate lookup. If one team has 10 players over 200cm, you'll get a copy of that team's card attached to each player card.\n* GROUP BY is a way of saying 'once you've collected the cards, summarize the information in some way' - group some columns together, and either throw away the other columns, add them up, average them. For example you might JOIN 'players' to 'teams' (per the above) but then want to summarize per team.\n\nSo a complex example might be: 'hey robot, get me all players over 210cm, attaching a copy of the team card to each. Then go through, group all the teams together, and just bring me the sponsor of each team, along with the tallest height and average age for each over-210cm player'\n\nSo the robot brings back a bunch of cards:\n\n* John Smith, 214cm, 30 years old, MyHomeTown Bollweevils (with a copy of the Bollwevils card attached, listing the sponsor 'AwesomeCo')\n* Jack Johnson, 220cm, 20 years old, MyHomeTown Bollweevils (with ANOTHER copy of the Bollweevils card)\n* Jean-Francois Miyazaki, 211cm, 21 years old, Someothertown Honey Badgers (with a copy of the Honey Badgers' team card, showing their sponsor as \"Crappystuff Inc\")\n\nSo your robot summarizes that for you:\n\n Sponsor: AwesomeCo, Tallest: 220cm, Average age: 25\n Sponsor: Crappystuff inc, Tallest: 211cm, Oldest: 21\n\nThe SQL for that might look like:\n\n SELECT teams.sponsorName, MAX(players.height), AVG(players.age)\n FROM players INNER JOIN teams ON (players.teamName = teams.teamName)\n WHERE players.height > 210\n GROUP BY teams.sponsorName\n\nthere are other variants but that's a decent start."
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67oc3h | how does beta decay sometimes emit antimatter? | [deleted] | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/67oc3h/eli5_how_does_beta_decay_sometimes_emit_antimatter/ | {
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"There are two kinds of beta decay:\n\n* beta^- - a neutron turns into a proton, and an electron is emitted\n* beta^+ - a proton turns into a neutron, and a positron is emitted\n\nDifferent nuclei undergo different forms of beta decay, depending on when gaining or losing a proton makes them more stable."
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66hkw9 | does regular exercise produce any extent of irreparable damage to your body? | I am thinking, for example, if running on a regular basis can, little by little, produce some damage to your knees from which you cannot recover. Also if this applies to weight lifting, since you are continuously destroying and regenerating tissue.
Thanks! | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/66hkw9/eli5_does_regular_exercise_produce_any_extent_of/ | {
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"Yes. Over time the human body reaches a limit to how much trauma it can take.\n\nHumans aren't really designed to live beyond around 50 - by this time, through most of history, your vision had started failing, your teeth had gone bad, your ankles, knee joints, arm sockets etc have been severely comprimised, especially if you were an active person in your youth...or a not active person who is now overweight - there's a very fine line where the human body could balance strength, toughness, agility, running, the ability to throw weapons, etc. Without doing too much and damaging ligements, etc.\n\nWe're living longer know, due to medical and nutritional science, but our bodies still age - you'll find a whoooole lot more people in their 60s, 70's, 80s. 90's and hundreds, now...but most anyone over 50 (or even less) still ache and have body pains when they first get up. Have to take a hot bath or sit in a sauna before their muscles and bones relax and get back to some working level.",
"What about muscles? Is there a point where sore muscles are repaired with scar tissue instead of growing stronger?"
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1bbxbv | why do we grow double sets of teeth and drop the first set? | Why do we have baby teeth? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1bbxbv/eli5_why_do_we_grow_double_sets_of_teeth_and_drop/ | {
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"Adult teeth don't fit into baby jaws, but you can't go for 5-7 years without teeth.\n\nBaby teeth are tiny. When my daughter got her first adult incisor, she looked like a beaver, because all the other teeth in her mouth were tiny in comparison.",
"I beleive it's because baby teeth aren't as strong as adult teeth.\n\nWhen you are a baby, you don't have a lifestyle to give you all the nutrients, so the teeth are weak. When you lose your baby teeth, most people have a high calcium diet (aswell as other nutrients) so the teeth can be stronger, so you lose the weak ones and get the stronger ones.",
"Not a reference in anything, but after much thinking I would be led to think that it's mainly due to the fact that if it wasn't for this, we would keep our baby teeth for life, leading to undersized teeth.\n\nTL;DR: Methinks baby teeth are too small for adults and adult teeth are too large for babies so body swaps to give proper denture at all times.",
"A large factor is that the first set is to last a little less than half our lives and the second set to last as long as possible before rotting and falling to pieces.\n\nDeath from our teeth was the limiting factor in our lifespan for millennia.",
"Now, what I want to know is why nature screwed us with one set of adult teeth. Cause I for one would have liked a new set about now.",
"You're all correct in the sense that they're smaller an weaker than adult teeth... But there's more to it. The reason we grow only two sets of teeth is because before the toothbrush, teeth rotted quite easily, so they needed to be replaced. This is also why your wisdom teeth grow in; to replace the rotted teeth that were lost. You may have noticed that I said ONLY two. That's because some of you may have the question, \"So why don't we keep growing new sets throughout life?\" Well, this is due to the fact that humans haven't always had such a long lifespan, so there was no such reason to continuously grow new teeth because we simply didn't live long enough to need them. Most people usually died before their wisdom teeth even rotted out. ",
"Babies are tiny. They have to be tiny for a few reasons. First, their heads have to fit through the birth canal, and second it is less taxing on the mother to have the baby do most of its developing outside of her body. Having two sets of teeth like we do (the technical term is diphyodonty) allows us to have no teeth at birth and lets our jaw grow immediately after birth while we feed on milk. Then we get baby teeth around the age where we need them to process food. These teeth fit together just right (precise occlusion) so that the cutting and grinding functions work correctly. As we grow, can accommodate larger teeth and if we kept the baby teeth they wouldn't continue to fit together correctly. So in order to keep our teeth fitting together right, we need a new set that fits our adult jaw. \n\n\nFor more on this, look into the evolution of lactation, followed by diphyodonty, followed by precise occlusion. ",
"I'd assume because the teeth to gum size ratio changes, so as we grow older, our jaws and gums are larger so we need bigger teeth",
"I was born without wisdom teeth. Haha suckers!\n\n(Seriously, though, yes, I do realize how rare and lucky that is).",
"Not an answer, but here's something kinda fun and related. \n\nWhen I was a young lad I was running to my neighbor's house and tripped and fell from their sidewalk onto their brick stairs going full speed. I guess my arms were busy being useless but fortunately my front teeth were all \"we got you bro\" and attempted to cushion my fall. Not bad right? \n\nWRONG. Aside from considerable pain, a fountain of blood was flowing out of my mouth. It was about this time I shrieked out my neighbor's name in a manner so blood curdling it probably gave him gray hairs and surprised even myself. Through the discomfort and shock my young mind was introduced to the fact blood tastes absolutely fucking awful.\n\nAnyway my neighbor ships me off to my house and before my parents whisk me to the hospital the neighbors say they'll look for my missing teeth. Can they even do anything useful with loose teeth? Hell I dunno, I ain't a dentist. I guess it seemed like a good idea at the time.\n\nAnyhow at the hospital I'm getting checked out. My parents tell the doctors that they never found my teeth, musta been knocked clear out. The doctors suggest its possible I swallowed them during the ordeal. I get transferred to an emergency dentist guy and they do some x rays. The dentist takes a look and says \"well I know why you couldn't find those teeth.\n\nThey never left. The impact drove them back up into my skull with such force they chipped my two upper adult incisors. The dentist did a real bang up job setting things mostly right but to this day, even after age appropriate grinding, you can still just make out the small chips in those teeth. \n\nSo anywho that's my story. I suggest not falling on your teeth even if it means giving your local emergency Dentist an X-ray he can be excited to show off to colleagues. ",
"I was born with three sets of front teeth. Multiple surgeries. Wore braces twice. Had the third set cranked down with braces *inside* my gums. Good times ... not. ",
"The same reasons as every other time this question has been asked: _URL_0_\n\n\"Search before submitting to see if your question has already been answered.\"",
"Your first teeth are way too small for an adult to use, but your adult teeth are way too big for a child",
"Followup question: why don't babies have the baby teeth in place as soon as they are born?"
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f6yph0 | how are the millions of votes counted in elections? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/f6yph0/eli5_how_are_the_millions_of_votes_counted_in/ | {
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"It depends on the precinct. In some cases, there are scantron-style machines that just count up with hand counting done on a small sample for verification.\n\nIn other cases it's all hand counting. In yet others it's entirely handled by machines.",
"It's not that complex an operation.\n\nYesterday the US Stock Market (NYSE, NASDAQ, Cboe) traded 3,744,477,596 shares of stock. This is about how many they trade every day. \n\nIn 2016, Trump got 62,984,828 and Clinton got 65,853,514 for a total of 128,838,342 total. That's 3.5% of an average stock market day.\n\nWith computers, these numbers are easy to tabulate, and in 3-5 days it's common to have official, validated results for the whole country, down to ± 1 voter.",
"I don't know about the USA, but each polling station counts their votes in Canada. Each riding (district) has about 90,000 eligible voter, but only 60,000 go and vote. The amount of polling stations depends on the geographic size of the ridding. I live in somewhat dense area, so there are on 21 polling stations. Low-density areas might have hundreds. Assuming that all 60,000 voters vote on election day at the 21 stations, that is about 2900 votes per polling station. Each polling station has maybe three voting boxes with a team attached to them. This means that each team will have about 1000 votes. To count the votes in Canada, the votes are read aloud by two people and then recorded. Let's say one vote takes ten seconds. If each team does 1000 votes, that's 10,000 seconds—just under 3 hours. \n\nSo, as long as you divide the labour, it shouldn't take more than three hours to count all the votes."
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4v0fpt | why are people so much wittier and funnier on reddit than irl? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4v0fpt/eli5_why_are_people_so_much_wittier_and_funnier/ | {
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"We can take as long as we want to think of a funny answer, and you won't mind. It took me 20 minutes to reply to this. If you asked something irl and got ignored that long, you'd be pissed.",
"It's because you have time to formulate a good response. In person, you have to think of a good one and deliver it in a few seconds or else the timing is off. On reddit, you can post it an hour later. "
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bdvmal | how and why do certain salts and minerals grow into perfect geometric shapes? | It seems like the growth is controlled but how is that possible is they’re not living ? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/bdvmal/eli5_how_and_why_do_certain_salts_and_minerals/ | {
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"It's because of the structure of the ions in the salt. Different ions can fit a different number of bonds around them (for a basic example in Sodium chloride every sodium is bonded to 6 other chorides and same for each chlorine). Because bonds repel each other they want to be as far away from each other as possible, and this is achieved by them all being at right angles\nIf you have a bunch of things bonded at right angles you start to form small cubes, and as you add those small cubes together you form larger cubes (or cuboids). So basically, it's because that's the shape they make when you add lots of their small building blocks together"
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2xi9tj | from a legal and medical perspective, how can people get plastic surgery (when it's not a medical necessity)? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2xi9tj/eli5_from_a_legal_and_medical_perspective_how_can/ | {
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"There is no legal requirement that a procedure be a medical necessity.\n\nMost insurance will not cover elective procedures like plastic surgery. ",
"Medically justified because it helps meet social/psychological needs?",
"Your body belongs to you. If you want to change it, go ahead."
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1dllr7 | how might faster internet speeds (google fiber) affect the life of the everyday person | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1dllr7/eli5_how_might_faster_internet_speeds_google/ | {
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"So you immediately think of *download* speeds, right? That's normal: that's how most of us use the internet. We *consume* things (e.g.: HD video, downloading music, playing games, etc), and so download speeds are important.\n\nBut the real strength of high-speed internet comes in *upload* speeds.\n\nHaving faster uploads means you're no longer at the mercy of where the data is coming *from*. For example: if you were to try backing up your entire PC to the cloud, it would probably take hours / days to do. And that's just you as an individual: imagine what it's like for huge corporations. But with high-speed fibre, you could do it a thousand times faster, which means you can store *more* data, and backup *more* regularly, which is what good security is all about.\n\nConsider medical / research facilities that want to share volumes and volumes of complex information.\n\nConsider software applications that can intelligently 'compute' data as you go, rather than waiting until designated checkpoints, and then making you wait 10 minutes while it works.\n\nImagine being a film / music creator, and sending all your media quickly and easily to your producer.\n\nThe really impressive thing, though, is that it will evolve in ways we can't even imagine right now. Businesses have consistently been restricting themselves to low-bandwidth solutions, because it's too risky to do anything else. Once that limitation is gone, they'll find ways of maximising it that we can't even think of right now.",
"It will spawn a whole range of new and previously unknown possibilities. \n\nThink about it, a few years ago nobody thought about video chats with people across the globe, now it's possible, only because of the increased bandwidth. \n\nThe same effect will continue to happen: New applications will be discovered while current ones will be vastly improved. "
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bo62wu | how does a telescope capture light that is many years away? and if it zooms in on that object, is it skipping some of the time, or light, that it takes to reach the telescope? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/bo62wu/eli5_how_does_a_telescope_capture_light_that_is/ | {
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"It's all the same light/time. A telescope just makes it bigger, like zooming in on a picture on your phone.",
"If you can understand the effects of time and light in the Train Analogy, then it will make more sense.\nThere is no trickery, it’s just a small hole that it’s looking through and is capturing all he light in that area as possible to see what it looks like.\n\nELI5: no, it is not magic and does not skip time or space. It is a really big camera that looks at something very small. Because it is small it can look at it closely to see all the light that is coming from it.",
"That light is hitting the Earth already, just they are typically too faint to see without aid or drowned by other light sources. All the telescope is doing is narrowing the field of view and then magnifying the results so we can see it better. Zooming in merely narrows the field of view even more.",
" > How does a telescope capture light that is many years away?\n\nIt doesn’t. It captures light that is arriving at Earth right now, emitted a long time ago by a faraway object. The telescope is the end of the light’s long journey.\n\nIf a telescope zooms in, it’s changing its optics so that light from a specific direction gets spread over a larger area of the photosensor, making the image bigger."
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454r5z | when you get sick with a cold is it trying to kill you? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/454r5z/eli5_when_you_get_sick_with_a_cold_is_it_trying/ | {
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"trying implies concious thought. a virus has no thought or conciousness. all it's doing is injecting its RNA into your cells and replicating ",
"No, it's just trying to survive. Rarely do sicknesses \"want\" to kill you they merely want to reproduce and spread. Best way for that to happen is for a living host to come in contact with people to spread around. But sometimes due to evolution and mutations they'll become too strong or come in contact with people to weak to handle them.\n",
"The virus is trying to replicate itself. That is what it is doing. The virus does not trying to do anything but make more viruses.",
"Most cold symptoms are actually symptoms of your immune system overreacting, trying to get rid of the virus.",
"You dying is a problem for the virus. It's just lost its resource. If a disease kills you, it's an unhappy accident, viruses and bacteria don't have evil intent, but their processes can work at cross purposes with yours.",
"Viruses and bacteria have not real mind to desire to do harm, and doing you harm is not valuable to their continuation anyway. Natural selection has adapted them to reproduce (the viruses and bacteria which weren't good at reproducing, did not reproduce very well and died). Unfortunately for us, having these pathogens grow and multiply in our bodies can be damaging. Most of your symptoms is your body fighting back, trying to cook and vomit out the invaders. They fight bacteria when you aren't sick, too, but they go into crisis mode when the infection gets bad. \n\nDead bodies quickly decompose because there isn't an immune system actively working to stop bacteria. Bacteria just want* to eat and multiply. They don't know* or care* about you.\n\n*To say that they bacteria or viruses \"know\", \"care\", or \"want\" anything is not really accurate, but it helps to think like that. It is like saying water \"wants\" to flow down or that compasses \"want\" to point north."
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a1l131 | why does the air quality always seem so fresh after it rains? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/a1l131/eli5_why_does_the_air_quality_always_seem_so/ | {
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"The falling water pulls dirt and other pollutants from the air, making it clearer to breathe.",
"Particle in the air get hit the water drops when they fall down and is collected in the drop. The result is that the air is cleaner. It is quite obvious is it is in a season with a lot of pollen in the air when you can see it collect puddle after the rain. \n\nThe air also have high humidity and cooler humid air fell fresh compared to dry air.",
"Its not really fresh, but rather the stimulus of a unique smell called petrichor. When it rains bacteria in the soil produce unique chemicals that you detect and perceive as a feeling of freshness in the air"
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69n6gr | why do new electric housewares smell like they are burning the first time you use them | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/69n6gr/eli5_why_do_new_electric_housewares_smell_like/ | {
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"The varnish or insulation on motor windings and anything else that generates heat will outgas until it cures and sets. What you smell when it burns out is the resumption of the outgassing from the higher than normal heat from a failure.",
"Often heating elements are manufactured and shipped with a thin coating of oil on them to keep them from rusting. The first time you turn them on for any length of time they burn the oil off."
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6fizko | why do certain countries not allow dual citizenship whereas some do? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/6fizko/eli5_why_do_certain_countries_not_allow_dual/ | {
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"As a very general rule, it seems many countries that have seen large amounts of immigration (North America, most of Europe, Australia/NZ, etc) tend to allow dual nationality. Whereas those countries that are more insular or homogeneous (China, Japan, much of the Middle East) tend not to allow dual nationality. \n\nIt's not an exact science....but I assume in the former countries, there's more likely to be a \"one nation but many backgrounds\" type mentality, so dual nationality is partly a recognition of that. Whereas in the latter case, perhaps it's more of a \"you're one of us or you're not!\" type mindset. \n\n"
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1qdejp | why do i have to eject an external disk before unplugging it? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1qdejp/eli5_why_do_i_have_to_eject_an_external_disk/ | {
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"Essentially when you save a file, it is not written *completely* and it is not written *immediately*. When you hit \"save\", depending on the device, program and OS, it won't get processed straight away, it'll be \"held\" to do that later. \n\nYou, as a user, don't really have any sure-fire way of ensuring nothing is still being written to disk. Some USB drives have a light that flickers when it is being written to or read from.\n\nWhat if you are not one of those lucky rich people who have such a device?\n\nWhen you have to \"safely eject\" the device, it means Windows will then ensure that no action (write or read) is waiting to be done on the device, and once it confirms this is true, you have a little more confidence that nothing is actively using the device and thus you can't corrupt it.",
"you really dont but it is pretty much a safe check to make sure the drive is not active and not moving or changing files. if pulled out during this posses you might corrupt the files. ",
"When you ask a program to write (or read) a file on some form of external device, it doesn't happen instantly - it takes some amount of time to actually perform that operation. During that time period, *parts* of that file are being written/read, in some sort of order.\n\nIf you pull the plug halfway through something being written, then the whole file won't have been written to the device. In the *best* case, you end up with a corrupt/incomplete file. In the *worst* case, you could actually corrupt the entire device (though that's very unlikely). Similarly, for reading, if you pull the plug halfway through a program reading a file, it will receive bad and/or incomplete data.\n\nThis is the same reason you should not just pull the plug on your computer.\n\nEdit: For the non-technical people, write = 'save', read = 'open'.",
"For the same reason you aren't supposed to power off your xbox while saving your games -- if the information is being modified and suddenly stops in the middle of changing '01001100' to '01110011', your data isn't going to work anymore. The thing about flash drives is that you stick 'em in, and the information is automatically read -- but if you're working on, let's say, a Word document that's saved on that flash drive, it does auto-saves every X minutes, and that flash drive is also active -- this means that information is being written/read to your drive. 'Ejecting' that drive tells your computer to finish it's shit up and stop the flow of information so you can remove it without loss of data.\n\nThis isn't just for flash drives -- this is for all media, however one does not normally yank out a hard drive mid-write, and CD/DVD's are 'read only' unless you're burning something, so data can't be corrupted as nothing is being replaced. However, there is thing called write-cache. [Here's a screenshot!](_URL_0_) This is on my external hard drive.\n\nWhat this does is writes the data to the USB hard drive in a seperate spot -- the hard drive then says \"a'ight, I got your data\", your operating system confirms, and says \"all good here -- delete your first copy\". So you're not 'writing over' data, you're writing data in a new spot and then erasing what would have been written over. This means if I yank the cord out of my USB hard drive while saving changes to a file, that file won't save, but since it wasn't messing with my other data at the time, I won't lose any data either.",
"Protip: By default, you don't have to do this in Windows 7.",
"Little Jimmy is coloring a picture with his crayons. If you yank the piece of paper away from him while he's thinking of what to draw next, it won't cause any problems. But if you happen to pull the piece of paper away while he still has his crayon touching the paper, you'll ruin his picture.",
"Many external drives, including USB hard drives and thumb drives, use a feature of Windows called a *Write Cache Buffer* to save wear and tear on the drive. It's also called *Lazy Writes*. The buffer stands in between the computer and the drive, and caches the write operations called on the external drive.\n\nFor example, consider that you have a text document sitting on a thumb drive that consists of the alphabet.\n\n**Without the Buffer**\n\n* You start with a text document with the alphabet.\n* You insert an additional 'J' between 'J' and 'K'.\n* The entire alphabet is written out again to the drive when the document's saved, only with the sequence \"HIJJKLM\".\n* Now you remove the letter 'K' from the document.\n* The entire alphabet is written out again to the drive when the document's saved, only with the sequence \"HIJJLM\".\n\nEvery time the document is saved, you have to write out the entire contents of the document to the USB drive. Why is this a big deal? Because there are only a finite number of times you can write to each byte location in a particular USB drive before that byte eventually goes bad and dies.\n\nNow consider what happens when you have a cache:\n\n**With the Buffer**\n\n* You start with a text document with the alphabet.\n* You insert an additional 'J' between 'J' and 'K'.\n* The entire alphabet is written out again *to the cache* when the document's saved, only with the sequence \"HIJJKLM\".\n* Now you remove the letter 'K' from the document.\n* The entire alphabet is written out again *to the cache* when the document's saved, only with the sequence \"HIJJLM\".\n* You choose *Safely Eject Hardware* from the bottom right hand side of your Desktop. The entire document is written *exactly once* to the USB drive.\n\nAs you can see this saves wear and tear on the USB drive. Now also consider this document as not a text document, but a MS Word document with *auto-save* and *track changes* turned on. Those writes can add up pretty quick.\n\nNowadays, however, two things have changed. First, USB drives have gotten both more reliable, and cheaper. So they'll take more writes to a byte before they die, *and* they've become fungible commodities. If your USB drive sucks, who cares? Go to a trade show and they'll have a fishbowl filled with freebies, with four times the capacity of your old one! So the downside of multiple writes is now less likely to occur and less damaging when it does.\n\nAlso, Windows has recently eschewed using *Lazy Writes*. Nowadays it just writes the file out as needed. In part this is because USB drives are better, and in part it's because MS products like Word and Excel are now better behaved - They auto-save and track their changes in a local directory, and only write out everything when the use calls the **Save** function explicitly.\n\nSo the whole *Safely Eject Hardware* feature in Windows has sort of disappeared as of recently. If you're still running on Windows XP, then you'll still need to eject the hardware manually, but more recent versions? Meh, probably doesn't matter. I'm not really sure whether Vista still uses it or not.\n\nAlso note, I've primarily talked about **writing changes** to files stored on a USB drive. If you just plug in a USB drive, open a document off of it, and then read it, without making any changes? Pfft - You can just yank the drive whenever you like. *Just be sure* you're not writing anything to that drive. Like I mentioned above, sometimes programs write to a file without you even realizing it. (Old versions of MS Word)",
"I like to live dangerously, I just pull the bastard out.",
"This is how my dad explained it to me when we built our first computer together when I was like 6. \n\nWriting to a disk is like driving somewhere in your car. It's a process with a beginning, middle and end. You get in the car, you turn the key, put your foot on the gas and you drive to your destination. If you decided you needed to stop and get out of the car, you would press the brake and bring the car to a stop.\n \n failing to eject a disk before unplugging it would be like if you unbuckled your seat belt and jumped out of a moving car without stopping it.Sure, you've reached your destination but there is a good chance that you could have hurt yourself or damaged the car. Similarly, If you abruptly stop a disk while it is in the process of saving data onto itself, there is a good chance that the data won't transfer completely and you will end up with a corrupt file or hard drive. \n\nEdit: I may have oversimplified the process, but this is quite literally how my father explained it to me when I was young. ",
"you don't have to eject before unplugging it.\n\nHOWEVER sometimes the operating system is sloppy and its still \"writing\" to that disk and if you yank it while its doing this you will corrupt that data and possibly corrupt the disk itself.\n\nhitting eject causes the operating system to finish and terminate all processes going to that disk \"cleanly\" so that when you remove it you won't frak anything up."
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17i6ba | why, if hemp is such an amazing crop, is it barely grown in the rest of the world where hemp production is legal? | Hemp: 30,000 tons grown in 2004 worldwide, most of it China - _URL_2_
Cotton: 25,000,000 tons grown each year - _URL_3_
**EDIT**: Alright, people, thanks! Most upvoted is HULK-SMAAASH comment, so I guess that's the answer. I personally liked JorusC and PossiblyLying 's replies just as much.
Also [skinnyhulk](_URL_0_) with hands-on experience.
Also (late edit) [KhabaLox](_URL_1_) with an authentic ELI5-type answer.
| explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/17i6ba/eli5_why_if_hemp_is_such_an_amazing_crop_is_it/ | {
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"Short answer? Because it's illegal in America and the USA doesn't look favorably on countries that grow what we classify as a drug.",
"From what I understand the industry is already machined for cotton and it wouldn't make any sense at all to completely re-tool an industry for a crop that is illegal in many countries.",
"No one has proven, to me at least, that hemp is an \"amazing crop\". There is nothing you get from hemp that you can't get from other plants that don't have a stigma of drugs associated with it.",
"Who says it's such an amazing crop?",
"Maybe you should post this to /r/askscience . It seems to me that everyone is just speculating and not backing up any of their answers.",
"Hemp production being legal != being practical. Whether it be invested infrastructure in other materials to having land simply incapable of growing it, things aren't as simple as \"hemp is amazing and legal, therefore it should be the #1 crop.\" The world isn't perfectly efficient like that.",
"Oh please, don't fall for the \"hemp is a miracle crop that evil companies are banning claiming it's a dangerous drug\" pothead speech. It's more of a conspiracy theory than anything (although a popular one on reddit)...",
"Cotton produces 2-3 tons of product per hectare per year ( _URL_1_ )\n\nHemp produces up to 25 tons per hectacre per year (but many places it is closer to 7.5-10)(_URL_0_)\n\nHemp can also be used for weed control (weeds like the things you don't want growing in your gardens, not cannabis) and its oils have many uses as well.\n\nThe reason hemp is not grown so much is largely due to USA's views on it. For instance, it was grown and used in Japan before USA imposed a ban on it. \n\nHemp is not as miraculous as many pro-hemp people might lead you to believe: it has higher processing costs than some of its contemporaries, there are a lot of plants that yield better crop for specific uses, etc. However, it is a pretty amazing plant that has been used worldwide for all kinds of uses (and many of them were very technologically advanced compared to the old materials) -- even USA pushed hemp production in WW2 with a movie called \"Hemp for Victory\"\n\nBasically, you should re-examine how \"amazing\" hemp is -- it's nothing miraculous. However, it is a very useful crop that grows easily and in large amounts. I personally am looking forward to the day when we can accept the usefulness of hemp and stop demonizing it for petty reasons. \n\n/edit\n\nSorry all, I realized this isn't a good response for a five year old, I just couldn't find a good way to do it. I personally like Khabalox's representation (one of the children of this post).",
"I hear hemp is better all the time at many different things but have to question the validity of that statement. If there wasn't a down side or consequence to the plant and it's uses besides drugs why would it be overlooked? We have niche businesses like people using EMU/Bison for meat sources even if they're less efficient/useful than cattle. I think anyone trying to run a business wouldn't overlook an obvious advantage if it existed. There was a story or something about hemp being dropped due to an agreement of people in power or something which also sounds like a terrible excuse. This country has prohibited alcohol among other odd things so I have a hard time believing that. It seems unlikely that it's a better plant considering human history. We've used animal husbandry and agriculture and exploited what's been most useful to us for thousands of years.",
"Because when hemp was starting to get popular a guy from the polyester industry realized that hemp is better than polyester and went to Congress and claimed it was the same as marijuana and that stigma has spread throughout the world. ",
"Hemp needs to get the [Brassica oleracea](_URL_0_) treatment- cultivars for specific end commercial goals, be it food, paper, or what have you. Modern wheat, corn, or broccoli (see above) looks little like their wild ancestors, but to this point the only facet of hemp we've felt the need to select for in the past 100 years, is THC content. \n\nUnfortunately, in this late-Capitalist period, if it can't be weaponised or monopolised, modern industry isn't interested. Hemp actually was a viable American crop as recently as 70 years ago (George Bush Sr. apparently had a hemp parachute when he bailed out of his plane- saved his life it did!) But being essentially a weed, nobody stood up for it like they did for carefully-bred and profitable cotton or wheat or corn cultivars. ",
"Most crops have been subject to a lot of selection and breeding. For example big agrochemical companies are rolling out new lines of common crops each year, we are making constant improvement. \n\nAs it is not adopted widely in the western world hemp has not been subject to such continual improvement and I would guess as farmers get most of their seeds from big agrochemical companies, so this would mean the quality and supply of hemp seeds could be quite variable. Farmers look for stability in a crop so will most likely go for something tried tested and marketable to grow.\n\nWe are working on hemp at the moment. [The Centre for Novel Agricultural Products at York](_URL_0_) I believe are working on selecting good agriculturally viable lines of hemp with low THC and good prospects as a low input biomass crop, as well as lines of hemp which produce desirable oils which can be used in cosmetics and other applications.",
"From what I understand it is a jack-of-all-trades sort of plant. While plant by plant it may be more useful totally than cotton or some other cash crop, those plants have advantages in being single use and having an industry already formed around them. Hemp is great and everything, but when you are using a field for textile growing cotton is going to be a better bet because it is used more and is cheaper to process. Also just because the entire plant is useful it doesn't mean its economical to use all of it. It could be inordinately expensive to use the hemp seeds for oils or something, meaning that although it is useful it isn't going to get mass produced. ",
"Having grown hemp over 'ere in the UK I have this to say.\n\nGood points: It is a very fast growing bulk crop\nIt does not require much fertiliser it typically only requires a small amount of potash per Ha. \nPrevents soil erosion.\nWe got about 14tonnes to the acre last year.\nIt grows in many soils.\n\nBad points\nHarvesting. there are several ways to harvest Dessication, traditional or forage.\n\nThis may sound good but dessication requires copious amounts of glyphosate and requires a bloody tall sprayer. our crop was about 9ft high.\n\nTraditional combine harvesting requires constant cleaning of the headers whrn harvesting hemp as the natural fibres wrap around everything. It is also hard to harvest at the right moisture content as across the crop the moisture content varies so much.\n\nForage is really the only way to harvest however 9ft high crops tend to be hard to mow. Then a forage harvester picks it up and either bales it or blows it into a trailer. This makes it more expensive to harvest.\n\nThe price of hemp at sale is very low. Roughly -90% less than wheat.\n\nProcessing. unfortunately over ere there are not many plants that can actually take the bales.\nSo unless you live near a processing facility it is not cost effective to produce.\n\nDumbasses. These are the twats who think you are growing cannabis for smoking as opposed to hemp. They tend to take a chunk out of your crop nearest the road.\n\nThe smell tends to attract the little turds like flies around shit.\n\nAlso it is a very risky crop for a farmer to grow in order to make money off of it. Long story short if everyone grew it the price would plummet.\n\nI know this is not an extensive pro-con comment. But this is the reason many farmers over here dont bother growing it.",
"who would they export it to ?",
"Those of us in the developed world have the benefit of all the machinery and infrastructure that makes a crop like cotton feasible for mass production. It's notable that we didn't get to this point without slavery. Just this morning, though, someone posted [this](_URL_0_) amazing story to /r/foodforthought about a Russian family that fled deep into Siberia to avoid religious persecution from the Bolsheviks. How did they survive when their clothes wore out and they ran out of food? Hemp. Hemp fibers for fixing and making new clothes, and hemp seeds for food. They lived this way, deep in Siberia, without contact with *anyone* for *40 years*. I bet they think that hemp is a pretty nice plant to have around, if not amazing.",
"From an anthropology/international relations student's perspective (and I must admit, I am not well versed) the fact that you can't export it to the largest economy in the world and can't eat it seems to be pretty important. \n\nIn developing nations, you want to grow things that you can export at high prices or eat, generally. (This is a vast simplification, but it's loosely followed.) Hemp isn't economically feasible because its processing methods are underdeveloped, its market-value is low (because of embargoes by western countries), and it isn't particularly tasty.",
"Hemp has historically been a major crop. It was the foundation of the import industry, since the ships needed rope, and rope came from hemp. However, cotton, and in particular the cotton gin, made cotton a much better product to use. \n\nPeanuts have as many uses as hemp, but we mostly just eat them and use peanut butter. Just because you can make many things out of hemp doesn't make it a superior crop or lends itself to mass production. It is much harder to get the fibers out of hemp plants than cotton. \n\nBy the way, many people don't realize that one of the plants that new world explorers were looking for was hemp. It was grown and used extensively in the US. Cotton just replaced it. Despite the difficulties of cotton farming, where it was hand harvested, one could argue that it was still easier to harvest that hemp, which required an elaborate process to ret and then break the stalks. Then it had to be combed, with the finest fibers coming through a process of using ever smaller teeth in the comb. \n\nAnyway, it was a pain in the ass. ",
"This is why.\n\n\n_URL_0_",
"Hemp got made illegal for political and financial reasons.\n\nOn one side, they were calling it the devil weed and using it for politicians to scare white voters into thinking that their kids were being corrupted by Blacks and Mexicans.\n\nThat issue has been going on for decades with no resolution.\n\nOn the other side, there was also the companies that stood to lose their monopolies if it stayed legal. Companies like DuPont who make plastics, and William Randall Hearst, who was a newspaper magnate who owned a bunch of forestland they used for pulp mills to make paper. He ran a huge smear campaign that took off.\n\nHemp is pretty useful. Modern farm equipment isn''t really designed to handle it but there is tons of oldschool patents on how to seperate the stuff. It could create a huge cottage industry if it wasn't intentionally priced low so that farmers really don't have much justification to grow it. The price would go up if there was a stronger market for it though.",
"There was a great answer in this thread about a guy named Sam, uncool toys v cool toys. Was just like I was reading a answer for a five year old. Now I can't find it anymore. Maybe it's because the real answer is unpopular. Maybe nobody fucking understands this sub and keeps talking over the head of the supposed five year old. (This has become a generic 'ask reddit' sub. Shame. Its a good concept.)"
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"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C... | [
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42s5fh | why will youtube show me an ad just to let me skip it? | Something about this doesn't seem to add up. If they want me to see the ad, 5 seconds often isn't long enough to even see what the product is. So I'm being inconvenienced while also not getting the intended effect of the advertising. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/42s5fh/eli5_why_will_youtube_show_me_an_ad_just_to_let/ | {
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"From Google's perspective:\n\nThere are a lot of people who might not be willing to buy a 15 or 30 second preroll but might be willing to buy a skippable 15 or 30 second preroll at a reduced price. Having that option available to advertisers opens youtube up to more customers than it would have had anyway.\n\nFrom the advertisers perspective:\n\nYou can get a cheaper ad slot and the people most likely to be impacted by the ad won't hit skip anyway (because they're interested). The people hitting skip are most likely to be those who wouldn't be moved anyway."
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5tcp02 | what is tar and how can you inhale it from cigarettes? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5tcp02/eli5_what_is_tar_and_how_can_you_inhale_it_from/ | {
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"Tar is a sticky black fluid that comes from burning certain materials. Tar is a natural byproduct of burning tobacco, wood, coal, and other materials. \n\nWe mass produce tar for use in road building and maintenance. When it's \"fresh\" it is usually in an evaporated form and can be inhaled without proper safety precautions. In the case of cigarettes the evaporated tar is in the smoke that you inhale.",
"Tar is tar. Go to where a flat roof is being retarred and sniff. There will be an ugly trailer on wheels with a heater. The heater is heating tar which gets pumped up to the roof to be spread.\n\nRoads will sometime have a form of tar applied to them. Then fine gravel, much smaller than ordinary gravel is applied. Rollers go over these two resulting in a hard surface in a matrix of the tar. It is one of the best roads for the money. But you do not want to drive a pretty car near that road for a week. Little flecks of tar will fly up to adhere to the car.\n\nYou can buy buckets of tar for roof repair. But you probably do not repair roofs.\n\nTar is a petroleum product. There are tar sands in Canada which are heated. Hot tar will flow out of the sands. It is mixed with a diluent to form dilbut which can be pumped through pipelines at high pressure. If the pipeline bursts dilbut is a particularly nasty mess to clean up.\n\nIt is a black substance which can be molded like black gum.\n\nWhen a cigarette burns the tar is heated and is breathed in. It is a particularly nasty thing to inhale.\n\nWhen analyzed chemically it will be a lot of hydrocarbons with high molecular weight. Some of them are carcinogenic.\n\n"
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3yh0jx | why is it that if i sit across the living room from my big screen tv and hold up a ruler at arm's distance, the screen appears about the same size as the biggest movie theater screen in nyc (if i measure it the same way) yet the viewing experience is completely different? | I know audio accounts for much of this, but visually it seems completely different. We could throw into the mix if I watch a movie on my cellphone and hold it closer... but assuming it's the same answer as the first question. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3yh0jx/eli5_why_is_it_that_if_i_sit_across_the_living/ | {
"a_id": [
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"Everything about a movie theater is geared towards your experience of the film. \n\n* Almost no visual distractions from the screen\n\n* very very dark which leads to excellent contrast ratio \n\n* expertly tuned image elements. Even the best flatscreens adjusted by AV professionals can't compare to the image quality of cinema projectors (film and digital)\n\n* Expertly tuned and placed speakers calibrated with specialized audio testing equipment. \n\n* Very good sound isolation from the outside environment. \n\n* Majority of the seats offer an excellent view of the screen. \n\nA movie theater has one purpose and every aspect of it is designed to fulfill that purpose. Your living room on the other hand is a giant set of compromises. "
]
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[]
] | |
5tddb5 | what exactly is the significance behind the cast iron pan as opposed to your general frying pan and why? | There's even a proper method to clean and season it.. it bothers me so much | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5tddb5/eli5_what_exactly_is_the_significance_behind_the/ | {
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"Cast Iron Pans have several advantages over non-stick frying pans made of steel or aluminum. \n\n1) They tranfer heat better. With cast iron pans you get very even heat distribution, because iron is an excellent heat conductor.\n\n2) They also preserve heat better. So once they are hot, they stay hot and need only few energy to stay so. If you are cooking something for a long time, this can save some serious energy.\n\n3) Things don't burn easily, so you need less cooking fat.\n\n4) They are more durable and tend to live far longer.\n\nOf course there are also disadvantages. You already mentioned the cleaning and seasoning.\nOthers are that they are very heavy and rather expensive. "
]
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[]
] | |
1qyz52 | why are integration/differentiation so important in math/physics? | i understand how they work and what they do, plus some very limited use cases. But they really pop up EVERYWHERE in math and physics.
why is that? How are they useful in non-trivial cases? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1qyz52/eli5_why_are_integrationdifferentiation_so/ | {
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"text": [
"Calculus is the mathematics which describes how systems change over time and space.\n \nMost things which scientists are interested in modelling can be described in this way - how heat spreads over time, how populations change over time as they are affected by disease, how fluids flow, how objects move in reaction to forces, or how concentrations of chemicals change over time due to chemical reactions and diffusion.\n \nOften scientists are interested in systems where there are lots of things interacting with each other and changing over time in complex, interdependent ways - these end up being described by systems of differential equations."
]
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[]
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9nso6e | why pineal gland is called third eye? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/9nso6e/eli5_why_pineal_gland_is_called_third_eye/ | {
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"The pineal gland has a number of visual receptors in it, and is believed to be an atrophied eye. In modern humans, and most other vertebrates, it serves as a producer of melatonin, a hormone that partially regulates the circadian rhythm of the body.\n\nIn some animals, similar structures serve as a photoreceptor.",
"Some people speculate that DMT could be produced within the pineal gland. DMT is probably the most powerful psychoactive substance on the planet wether smoked or digested through Ayahuasca. If you’re familiar with psychedelics then you know that the most powerful hallucinations you can have are when your eyes are closed. The Mind’s Eye is such a profoundly beautiful thing. \n\n_URL_0_",
"Havnt seen anyone mention this yet, but in buddhist tradition the \"Third Eye Chakra\" is associated with elevated states of consciousness while in deep meditation, and is located in the center of the forehead. People report similar kinds of experiences while under the effects of DMT, which is theorized to be produced by the pineal gland. "
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[],
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"http://beckleyfoundation.org/2017/07/05/do-our-brains-produce-dmt-and-if-so-why/"
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ejr7mr | why does tinnitus randomly “flare up” with loud tones or sounds on occasion? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/ejr7mr/eli5_why_does_tinnitus_randomly_flare_up_with/ | {
"a_id": [
"fczx4hl"
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"score": [
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"text": [
"Is it just tinnitus or is it accompanied by vertigo or migraine?"
]
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[]
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6luoo1 | why can't anybody search license plate information in a database? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/6luoo1/eli5_why_cant_anybody_search_license_plate/ | {
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"I believe you can but it's not a free service it is something you would have to sign up and pay for. ",
"ID theft prevention. A license plate is tied to a car registration, meaning the information you will find will include the owner's name and other personal information. A realtor's site will give you price and date of purchase, but it won't give you the owner's name."
]
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[],
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5k6npk | when and why did christians stop celebrating hannukah? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5k6npk/eli5_when_and_why_did_christians_stop_celebrating/ | {
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"Christian here, Hannakuh has a lot more to do with Jewish identity than religious tradition, it began being celebrated as a commemoration of a Jewish revolt against oppression. There are Jewish Christians who celebrate both, but Christians in general don't really have any religious attachment to Hannakuh because it's not exactly a religious holiday.",
"There is a popular misconception that many Jews became Christians. Actually it was pagan Greeks who by and large converted to Christianity. Many Greeks lived in Jewish areas and liked the morality but didn't want all the rules and rituals. It then spread further through pagan civilization. So not many Jews joined the new group and the new group never saw any need to perform all the Jewish traditions. "
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167s83 | how the "trillion dollar" coin idea would work, and why it wouldn't throw the us economy in to hyperinflation | I was watching the news and saw this "trillion dollar coin" idea that congress had talked about. Can somebody explain how this would work, why it isn't an insane idea, and why the US economy wouldn't turn in to an economy like post WWII Germany's with hyperinflation? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/167s83/eli5_how_the_trillion_dollar_coin_idea_would_work/ | {
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"It is basically a totally arbitrary way to raise the amount of money we can theoretically borrow. \n\nIt isn't introducing new money into the economy it is just an accounting trick. ",
"What would happen is Tim Geithner, Secretary of the Treasury, would instruct the mint to strike a $1,000,000,000,000 coin and basically deposit it in our \"bank account.\" BAM! We've got $1,000,000,000,000 to pay bills with!\n\nAs for inflation, most serious proposals I've heard include a requirement that the coin be then withdrawn from the Federal Reserve, and melted back down by the Treasury once the Debt Ceiling is lifted. There would be no effective difference between this approach and had we actually lifted the Debt Ceiling in the first place like responsible adults.",
"The \"Trillion Dollar Coin\" couldn't cause inflation, because it would never circulate. Inflation is caused by growth of the money supply, this coin would sit in a bank vault. No massive change in the money supply = no hyper inflation. The only point of it's existence would be to have more collateral on hand to borrow more money to avoid default. \n",
"Let's pretend that the US has a credit card with a set credit limit. The credit card is the national debt and the credit limit is the debt ceiling. The US has bills coming up that will need to go on the credit card, but we are already at our limit. That leaves us the following options:\n\nOption 1: Convince the credit card company (Congress) to raise our limit (debt ceiling). The problem is the credit card company doesn't want to raise the limit unless we promise to cut down our cell phone plan. We really like our cell phone plan and don't want to give that up.\n\nOption 2: Is to borrow cash from someone else. Dad (the President) can pay our upcoming bill if we promise to pay him back. In the end we still owe the same amount of money, but we get around the whole issue with dealing with the credit card company (Congress). This will make our financial planner mad because it doesn't really addressed the real debt problem. However, it gives us the ability to keep paying our immediate bills without paying any late fees or dropping our credit score.\n\nThe reason option 2 wouldn't cause immediate inflation is because it is the exact same physical outcome as option 1. The US still continues to pay its bills as normal, all its creditors get their scheduled payment on time, and no new money is entering the system. The credit limit is simply artificially raised by borrowing from a secondary lender. Inflation generally happens when new money enters the money supply. Money enters the money supply when the government spends it or lends it out, raising the credit limit is neither of those. Although it is a sign that the government will spend or lend in the future, which could lead to future inflation.\n\nFinally the reason the money provided by the President (or the Treasury to be more specific) needs to be a trillion dollar platinum coin is due to archaic and somewhat random rules on the type and denomination of currency they can print. A coin of that value is basically a loophole in the established laws; the transaction wouldn't be allowed with a trillion dollar bill or a trillions dollar gold coin.\n",
"I think the point most people are leaving out is that it is more a symbol than anything. It is a political play by the Democrat-controlled executive branch (the treasury) is response to the Republican-controlled legislative branch (congress). \n\nIt is akin to the concerns around the \"fiscal cliff\" debates a few weeks back. In those talks, Congress (with Republican control) would not come to an agreement with the President (Democrat). Most of the concerns were about taxes. (Republicans generally prefer cutting spending instead of raising taxes, while Democrats are generally of the opposite persuasion). Obama threatened to allow Bush-era tax cuts to expire if Congress did not cooperate. This would have raised taxes on the wealthy anyway.\n\nThis is probably why the trillion-dollar-coin tactic came about anyway. It is a similar way for the executive branch to \"get around\" Congress, or at least threaten to do so. The hope is to avoid a [Prisoner's Dilemma](_URL_0_) by forcing a compromise with the threat of a worse outcome. \n\nIn the case of the fiscal cliff, letting the tax cuts expire wouldn't be as helpful as the compromise, and would have arguably hurt both parties. In the case of the debt ceiling, the trillion dollar coin would cause future inflation (maybe not hyper-inflation, but inflation nonetheless) and that would hurt everyone."
]
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[],
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[],
[],
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"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prisoner%27s_dilemma"
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] | |
xxwpy | scratch and sniff | How do they contain the scent and what does scratching do to it? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/xxwpy/eli5_scratch_and_sniff/ | {
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"Ever had candy with a liquid center? Scratch n' Sniff is *exactly* like that, except the candy shell is a very small bubble of wax, and the liquid center is some sort of perfume. The Scratch n' Sniff patch is made up of hundreds of tiny bubbles, and when you break a few open by scratching it you can smell what's inside."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[]
] | |
44zxor | why could you make a pay phone ring by picking up the receiver, dialing 958 plus the last 4 numbers of the phone's number, then hanging up the receiver twice? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/44zxor/eli5_why_could_you_make_a_pay_phone_ring_by/ | {
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"text": [
"I can't wait to hear, \"Millions of redditors have started using pay phones, are pay phones coming back into fashion in 2016?\", on the news.",
"It is a way for a telephone technician to make sure a new telephone line is working. 958 is a special exchange for ring back so you know the phone can route calls.\n\n_URL_0_",
"958-xxxx is what some (most? all?) phone companies use in the US to handle ringback tests in order to test lines. When a lineman is testing to see it they can get a call on your phone, that's the number they used to test.",
"I also remember if you simultaneously pull on a newspaper dispenser while pushing the coin return button, it would open. You had to be spot on timing though."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[],
[
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ringback_number"
],
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6lpp03 | why do our joints "squeak" sometimes? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/6lpp03/eli5_why_do_our_joints_squeak_sometimes/ | {
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"text": [
"Usually it's just the wear-and-tear to the cartilage in your knee joint. The cartilage can get worn down and causes the bones to rub against each other which leads to the \"creaking\" or \"squeaking\" sounds you hear. This sound is also referred to as crepitus. "
]
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[]
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1uqoxc | why do animals survive extreme temps wearing the same fur while humans can't stand a 10f temp change? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1uqoxc/eli5why_do_animals_survive_extreme_temps_wearing/ | {
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"All animals undergo a process called Thermoregulation, which means they have systems in their body that are used to keep their internal temperature at a more or less constant rate even when the air temperature changes. Unfortunately for humans we're pretty bad at it (at least in terms of keeping warm when it's cold out, we're actually one of the best at keeping cool when it's hot though) because; our skin is directly exposed to the air, we don't have comparable fat insulation to many animals, and we don't have any fur.\n\nWith virtually no barrier between our skin and the air there is very little to stop heat from escaping our body which is why we need winter clothing to survive in cold conditions. Some animals, notably sea lions, are in a similar boat however they can over come the cold by having large fat stores to insulate their bodies from the cold. Also, the type of fat these animals have (called blubber) is different from ours and more adapted to insulating their bodies. Lastly our biggest disadvantage is not having any fur. Animal fur is an incredible insulator and in many cases works better than even modern clothing options. Fur is usually found in two types; down fur for insulation, and guard fur to protect the animal. Down fur is usually very soft and thick (and depending on the animal can be very oily) while guard fur is very coarse and almost hair like. The down fur works by creating a virtually solid barrier to trap heat in their bodies.\n\nHumans also have very few natural defenses for the cold, basically only have two ways to warm our bodies in adverse conditions, shivering and goosebumps. Shivering is an involuntary way for our body to generate heat through muscle use. By using our muscles we consume energy stores in our body and one of the by products of that is heat, that's why when you're cold the best thing you can do to warm up is staying active. Goosebumps cause our body hair to stand on end and decreases the surface area of our bodies touching the cold air and helps restrict the amount of heat we loose. ",
"A big part of it is how hair actually works. \n\nHair doesn't keep you warm, per se. What it actually does is keeps you at the same temperature, reducing temperature changes. The hair traps a layer of air next to the animal's skin, which acts as insulation against the outside environment. In most cases, that air is warmer, keeping heat in for the animal. But it can also help in hot times! \n\nEver noticed how, in a heat wave, wearing a very light and loose shirt will keep you cooler than no shirt at all? The shirt is trapping cooler air next to your body! \n\nEver noticed how a kiwi fruit has hair on it? The trapped air around a kiwi fruit helps prevent it from drying out! \n\nAlso, I'll just point out - humans can definitely survive a 10 degree temperature change. We just don't like it. If you grew up with no control over your environment, never having experienced air conditioning or electric heaters, you would be much hardier. Just look at the Inuit people. They had fires and animal furs, and they do just fine in the arctic."
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6oovg0 | why do these rocks split so perfectly down the middle? im located in alaska if it matters. | This is just one example there are many of them like it directly nearby.
_URL_0_ | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/6oovg0/eli5_why_do_these_rocks_split_so_perfectly_down/ | {
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"That could be shale or slate.\n\nShale is a sedimentary rock formed by success layers of silt deposits, and tends to split along those layers.\n\nSlate is a metamorphic rock formed by compressed shale. The metamorphic process causes some of the rock particles to realign along those layers, leaving a strong rock that splits easily in one direction. It is used as roof tiles, and used to be what chalk boards were made of.",
"It's exploiting some kind of weakness in the rock that's there because of some planar fabric. It's pretty hard to tell what the rock is from photos alone but it looks like a fairly standard fine sedimentary rock to me, perhaps a fine sandstone or siltstone. Looks a bit too coarse to be a shale from the photos but again, it's hard to say without having the actual rock sample. I don't think it's slate. \n\nWhen sediment is deposited, it generally forms layers (planar surfaces). Differences in properties between layers (either stemming from the original sediment itself, or the way the sediment has been cemented together due to burial) or the alignment of sediment grains (particularly things like clays if this were indeed a shale) can cause planes of weakness within the rock parallel to bedding planes, which can allow it to split preferentially along them, as is the case here.\n\n",
"Thanks for the answers, my coworkers and I couldn't decide on a good answer because there are so many of them and a huge majority f them are split almost like a laser cut them perfectly. I thought maybe moisture but the split is so clean I thought maybe there was some other answer. "
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az9wjn | how do game developers generate fog? | I started learning opengl and I know about vbos, vaos, and shaders. I know what fog is in real life, but in video games, what *is* it? How do you make weird and realistic bumpy and foggy shapes?
To clarify, I'm not talking about rendering distance here. I mean the physical up close oozing around and even reacting to the player kind of fog. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/az9wjn/eli5_how_do_game_developers_generate_fog/ | {
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"Particles. I wish I could tell you more about it than that, but I can tell you that much. It’s the same way they generate fire (and sometimes water). As I understand it, it basically involves rendering colored points rather than shaded/textured polygons and then writing rules about how they behave collectively (how they move together, stick and break apart, etc.).",
"The idea is to simplify what is at first a hopelessly complex problem. True fog would be a complicated, constantly varying 3D shape which needs to interact with other objects in the scene. How in the world do you model that?\n\nWhat they do is make a bunch of \"particles\", single point objects with certain properties. They might want to maintain a certain distance from other things, both polygons and other particles. Each one is very simple and they just need to model a bunch of them. The visual effect is formed by increasing the density of a fog effect depending on how many particles are nearby. If all the particles are falling down into a gully then there is a dense fog down there, and if a player plows a path the fog moves away."
]
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61g4u9 | why aren't libertarianism and classical liberalism the dominant economic and political philosophies, respectively, in the united states? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/61g4u9/eli5_why_arent_libertarianism_and_classical/ | {
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"Because theoretical economics and the real world aren't the same thing... real world isn't all rational and devoid of emotion/morals. For example, economic theory of supply & demand suggests people would move from a place of few jobs/high unemployment to one with more plentiful jobs in a perfectly rational way. But theory doesn't factor in things like needing to sell a house, or a spouse having a job, or disruptions to kids' school/friends, proximity of family, etc. Or the fact that skills aren't easily transferable -- just because there is a shortage of nurses and unemployed apparel factory workers doesn't mean they can just jump jobs from one day to the next without training. Or in education, the moral belief in universal education for equal opportunity to get ahead vs. a theoretical model that would only provide schooling to those who can themselves afford to pay educate their children, etc.\n\nIn all aspects of pure economic theory, there are similar breakdowns from theory to reality that need to be mitigated in the real world by blending economic styles."
]
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7542fj | why things like wood, noodles, paper, etc. become more pliable when wet? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/7542fj/eli5_why_things_like_wood_noodles_paper_etc/ | {
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"One effect is water temporally breaking the hydrogen bonds between molecules or polymer chains (starch, cellulose) which would allow the chains to move past each other. Another effect is plasticization. where the glass transition temperature (where something goes from rigid to soft) is lowered - this is the principle behind drip dry clothing. There also may be a bulk effect where large fibres get locked due to friction, but are able to slide past each other when wet. "
]
} | [] | [] | [
[]
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cpayf7 | if using screens before bed makes it harder to fall asleep - how do you explain people that fall asleep watching movies on tv or their phones while in bed?? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/cpayf7/eli5_if_using_screens_before_bed_makes_it_harder/ | {
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"Conditional formatting to a continued pattern, essentially we get used to it, our brain thinks, okay we got our comfort and now we need some entertainment. \n\nSo ELI5 brain recognised that it needs the phone before bed because it gets used to it and sees it as routine",
"Watching TV is a passive activity, scrolling your reddit and facebook feeds are not and involves more mental stimulation.",
"Blue light makes it harder to fall asleep naturally (not impossible) and eventually, even while watching tv or sth (and exposing the eyes to blue light), the body is too tired and their brain is \"off\" enough and they fall asleep.",
"It makes it harder to fall asleep because of the blue-ish/cold light screens emit. This light is similar to a sunrise/crisp morning light thus our body gets somewhat into 'wake up mode', absorbing more of the 'tired' hormone (melatonin) & making more serotonin. Also some screen activities can make you feel more agitated in general, for example when you are watching tense scenes, play games or - well - text your crush/partner etc. This can then again make it harder to sleep. \n\nHowever it doesn't prevent you from falling asleep completely. If you are tired enough or just exhausted, you will eventually fall asleep no matter what. Many of the devices also have light settings to make the light less cold/blue and more warm/orange, so a lot of people who do screen activities in bed usually switch to 'warm light' or they use a special app for it (there are many). \n\nSome people who do have hard time falling asleep because of other reasons - especially stress, rumination, thought circles etc. might also use the screen to distract themselves so they can focus on something more pleasant or distracting than their own thoughts keeping them from sleeping. \n\nUsually it's just about being tired enough, tho. I'd assume most people just watch movies until they are tired enough to sleep, and then doze off while watching movies or whatnot. I dozed off multiple times while reading a book, for the same reason. This is no problem if one still gets enough sleep, or if there is no issue with being tired the other day. However if you have trouble sleeping, don't glare at the blue-ish light of screens before going to bed.",
"It make it harder to fall asleep, not impossible. Watching something engage your brain, making it harder for it to turn off, but eventually you will be tired enough that your brain won't pay attention to the screen and fall asleep."
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1kw9jf | is progressive taxation a bad thing ? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1kw9jf/eli5_is_progressive_taxation_a_bad_thing/ | {
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"\"A bad thing\" is a moral determination. That's too subjective to get an ELI5 answer from."
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2b33t8 | what is the difference between a book's "foreword" and "preface"? | Many books begin with either a preface or foreword, or in some cases both. They usually just seem to be short introductions giving some background, context, etc.
What is the difference? What makes one a preface and the other a foreword? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2b33t8/eli5_what_is_the_difference_between_a_books/ | {
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"text": [
"I believe a foreword is written by someone other than the author, and a preface is written by the author of the book. I think. "
]
} | [] | [] | [
[]
] | |
6vchn0 | how come the triangle and the two horizontal lines have become the universal symbols for stop and play on videos, dvds, etc...? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/6vchn0/eli5_how_come_the_triangle_and_the_two_horizontal/ | {
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"text": [
"Play is a triangle pointing to the right because that is the direction actual, tape reels would move when you pressed it. The tape would move from the left reel to the right reel.\n\nFast-forward is this with two triangles because it's faster. Rewind is the same but in the other direction, so the triangles face left.\n\nPause and Stop represent symbols in musical notable for... [pausing](_URL_1_) and [resting](_URL_0_).",
"iec (international electrotechnical commission) 60416-5107b designated the symbol I believe in the later 1970s. A lot of common everyday symbols o, electronic devices were designated by them all that time ago. They also designated a lot of the common warning symbols you see on a daily basis.",
"It is believed that the Pause icon is based on the caesura.\n\n_URL_0_\n\nThe Play icon is an arrowhead, indicating the direction tape would roll in a tape recorder.\n\n"
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cp1xjd | what causes the snot in our nose to become a different consistency? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/cp1xjd/eli5_what_causes_the_snot_in_our_nose_to_become_a/ | {
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"Mosture mostly.. new mucus is runny..\nThe hard ones you pick are just hardened from consistent breathing and air exposure...\n\nThat's why when you pick the hard ones sometimes the bottom is still runny."
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b01nbj | why is some fish served rare or even raw (tuna, salmon, etc.) while others commonly aren't (cod, tilapia, etc.)? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/b01nbj/eli5_why_is_some_fish_served_rare_or_even_raw/ | {
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"In general, fresh water fish cannot be safely served raw. I say “in general,” because I’m not an expert and there may be some exceptions to this.\n\nFish that is sushi grade must reach certain food safety standards, and I’d suspect farm raised fish like cod and tilapia (many fish go by the name) simply do not meet those standards ",
"To say that it is served raw is a bit of a simplification. Sushi rice is prepared by hard freezing and treating with salt and vinegar, which kills bacteria and parasites.\n\nCod, in particular, can contain a nasty parasite called cod worms, that aren't easily removed by the sushi making process, but can be dealt with in traditional cooking, making it a poor choice for sushi."
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21i0wu | why do people say us citizens votes do not count when they vote for the president? | It's confusing.
Why do they still vote?? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/21i0wu/eli5_why_do_people_say_us_citizens_votes_do_not/ | {
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"US presidents are voted in by the electoral college. Each state has a number of electors equal to their number of Senators + Representatives. So, highly populous states like California have a lot of votes (55) while sparsely populated states have few (minimum 3). \n\nThe issue is that in most states, the **winner takes all**. So, no matter *how many* New Yorkers voted for Mitt Romney, more voted for Barack Obama, so all 31 of New York's electoral votes went to Obama. \n\nMost states in the union have a clear majority of Democrats or a clear majority of Republicans, so year in and year out, you can usually tell early on which states are going to vote which way. So, the election comes down to a few key **swing states**. States whose populations are large enough that they have a worthwhile number of electoral votes and are even enough that they might be persuaded into voting one way or another. \n\nSo, if you don't live in a swing state, your vote doesn't matter because it is already being cast for a candidate of your state's choosing. \n\nWhy do people still vote? Well, the president isn't the only thing voted on. In a federal election, you also have representatives and (sometimes) senators to vote on. States also have their own issues and government positions to vote on.",
"There are a few issues that keep showing up:\n\n* One vote sometimes doesn't feel significant.\n* There are still doubts about how absentee ballots are counted. In theory they should be counted, but in some states 40% of them are found to be wrong in some way (usually because they aren't signed and dated). In some counties 50% of the absentee ballots are not counted because they have two marks on them, while in neighboring counties none of the ballots are found to have two marks on them.\n* [Gerrymandering](_URL_2_) and adjusting of the boundaries of voting districts can have a [huge effect on the voting results](_URL_1_) to the point that the vote rarely reflects popular opinion.\n* In the US there is a multi-level system. In reality a state is just electing members of the electoral college who vote for the the president. Sometimes the members of the electoral college vote differently than how the state voted. This is called a [faithless elector](_URL_0_). The last time this happened was in 2004, but it was a much bigger factor in the 1800s.\n* Money, in particular corporate money, drives advertising campaigns which can sway public opinion, and have a huge effect of voting patterns, regardless of actual polices.\n* Swing states. When a vote is close it gets a lot of attention. When a state is either small or leans too strongly in one direction or another then no one bothers to campaign there and they feel like their vote doesn't matter.",
"This is due to the electoral college. These two videos are incredibly helpful in explaining what others have stated:\n\n_URL_1_\n\n_URL_0_\n\nPeople feel this way about the national elections, but there are still municipal/county/state elections that are far more important because these are \"closer to home\" and have a much larger impact on the day to day operations of citizens and businesses. This is why it's important to vote local and have your voice heard. \n\nAdditionally, even if you don't like your representative because of his/her party, it's important that you tell their staff how you feel about an issue, and encourage others to communicate with them that share your viewpoint. Even if it's against their party stance, if enough of the rep's constituents voice opposition (~400,000) the rep will definitely take this into account and speak on it. This is the other problem: on a national level one person's voice is insignificant. ",
"The last five or six election cycles have focused on the popular vote as well. So if a candidate were to win the popular vote by say,10 million votes yet lose the election, then that could throw our system into chaos.\n\nGet enough americans agitated and eventually the majority will fall in line(i.e. homosexual marriage). So even though I live in a state that always votes democrat, my vote actually does matter. ",
"The electoral vote is one reason as people have said, another would be many don't think there is much of a difference between the two major parties. In my eyes they are both the \"Corporate Party\" the only difference is the GOP is openly hostile to the average person and the Democrats talk about progress or change while pushing for the same things the Republicans want. Neither party will truly put a stop to bad behavior by the other because they are just waiting until they are in power again and its their turn to do it. \n\nNeither mainstream party represent my views and the candidates are always corrupt self serving scum no matter the party they come from."
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"http://youtu.be/7wC42HgLA4k"
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aq1y0a | photography shutter speed, iso and aperture. | Getting more into photography and i want to stop using auto. What does each one do, how and when should i adjust them and what is good to use for day time and night time photography. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/aq1y0a/eli5_photography_shutter_speed_iso_and_aperture/ | {
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"Shutter speed is how quickly the shutter remains open, letting in light (typically displayed in fractions of a second, but can be in whole seconds as well).\n\nAperture is the amount of light that is let in. If you have a faster shutter speed, you need more light, which means a higher aperture (represented in f-stops or t-stops, which are mathematical representations of the light transmission). \n\nISO was originally the \"speed\" of the film. It is the chemical makeup that affected how the chemicals in the film absorbed light. \"Faster\" speed film has a higher ISO, and is more sensitive to light. It needs less light to activate the chemicals in the film (the drawback to this is it produces a more grain literally more visible grain in the film).\n\nISO in digital cameras obviously don't use chemicals, but the sensor attempts to react the same way as film speed does; i.e. faster ISO means less light needed, at the trade-off of more \"grain.\"\n\nFaster shutter speeds can catch movement with less blur, but again need more light.\n\nHigher aperture lets in more light, but gives you a deeper depth of field (more stuff in focus), so it's not great if you want to artistically have less things in focus.\n\nHigher film speed lets in more light, but gives a grainier, less clear image.\n\nThe trick is to find a balance between all three that gives you the image that you want.",
"ISO refers to a standard (ISO 5800:2001) of how fast film responds to light. Digital cameras also rate their sensors using an equivalent system since that's what everybody knows.\n\nAperture is the size of the opening in the lens. A bigger opening lets in more light. Shutter speed is the amount of time the shutter is open letting light hit the film/sensor. You need to adjust all 3 of these so that your photo is properly exposed.\n\nYou probably want to start at ISO 100. Next you set your aperture or shutter speed based on the effect you want. If your shutter is open too long, anything that moves will be blurry. Maybe you want this if you want a bit of motion blur. If you want a crisp image then you want a fast shutter speed. \n\nThe bigger the aperture (which is actually a smaller number i.e. 2.8 is bigger aperture than 4) means less of your image will be in focus. Tiny aperture means everything in focus. Landscapes you probably want everything in focus. Portraits you probably want face in focus, everything else blurry. \n \nOnce you know the range you want your shutter speed and aperture, if you can't get photo exposed properly, then it's time to change your ISO.\n\nAfter auto, you probably want to try shutter priority or aperture priority mode. They will let you pick one of shutter or aperture which automatically adjusting the other of shutter or aperture to properly expose the photo. If it can't do it, you may need to manually change ISO. Higher (faster) ISO has more grain / noise than lower ISO, so you want to use lowest ISO possible.",
"Taking a picture is like filling up a bucket of water. The shutter speed is how long you keep the hose on. The aperture is how big the hose is. And the ISO controls how big your bucket is.\n\nYou don't want to overflow your bucket (over-exposed image) and you don't want to fill it too little (under-exposes image). You want to fill it about halfway.\n\nSo if you have a big hose (wide aperture) you need a bigger bucket (lower ISO) and/or only turn the hose on for a short time (faster shutter speed) in order to get the bucket filled just the right amount.\n\nSimilarly, if you have a small hose (narrow aperture) you might have to run the hose for a long time (slow shutter speed), or use a smaller bucket (higher ISO).\n\n--\n\nEach of these decisions has trade offs in how the picture will turn out, but I don't know how to describe them as ELI5. Also, setting those values depends on available light, which doesn't really fit the analogy. The analogy works best if you assume you have constant lighting conditions, then figuring out what the settings should be can be done with some trial and error, which helps solidify the concepts.",
"Shutter speed is how long the shutter stays open, exposing the film or sensor to the light. Since it's a fraction, the bigger the number (only the denominator changes generally) the shorter the exposure and the less light hits the film/sensor. So that's a bit counterintuitive. 1/60th is half the light of 1/30th as an example.\n\nAperture is how big the adjustable hole is, behind the lens, but in front of the film or sensor. Sadly, the bigger the number, the smaller the hole, and the less light. So that's a bit counterintuitive.\n\nLet's ignore ISO for a minute.\n\nFor most of the time, and most of the situations the shutter speed and aperture are on a see-saw. If you increase the shutter speed (less light) you have to increase the aperture size to compensate. So it's very likely your camera has ten different (or a 1,000 different) combinations of shutter speed and aperture that give just the right amount of light to the film.\n\nBut, even though the total light entering is the same, the effects on the picture are NOT the same. Examples:\n\n1. A fast shutter speed (not much light) combined with a wide open aperture (a lot of light to compensate) will be great at capturing a sports shot with a lot of action, and minimize blur. Sounds great right? It also gives you a very narrow depth of field, so you have to be damn sure the camera is focused right on what you want to be sharp. Otherwise it will be out of focus. And what if you want the action to be blurry, like a waterfall. Well, then this combo sucks.\n2. A very slow shutter speed (like a whole second or two, gobs of light) combined with a very small aperture (to make your film happy with the total light. You didn't forget about the see saw right?) will allow the the water to be blurred by the motion over time, but allow the not moving bits like rocks and trees to be nice and clear. Awesome! Oh yeah, won't work without a tripod. the camera can't move AT ALL for two whole seconds. But the tiny aperture gives you fantastic depth of field, so your camera will capture everything from two feet to infinity with beautiful clarity. \n\nISO or film speed describes how sensitive the sensor or film is to a given amount of light. So some film was designed to be super sensitive to light so you can take pictures without a flash, even though the room or whatever is not super bright. Let's say it's ISO 800. That's pretty sensitive to even small amounts of light. A typical use case would be getting good indoor photos at night (no sun) and no real bright lights or flash is allowed. A \"fast\" ISO let's you get nicely exposed photos, even though there's not much light.\n\nGreat! yeah, but it doesn't capture detail as well as the lower ISO ratings. But without the \"Fast\" ISO sensor setting, even with your slowest reasonable shutter speed (to get more light) and your biggest aperture (more light) there *still wouldn't be enough light* to get a good exposure. All your pictures would look dark, and there would be no detail at all in the shadows.\n\n & #x200B;\n\nTo me, the best way to think about, is to think about what you want to achieve first. example: there's this famous picture of the Queen inspecting the troops, a whole row of them. If you use your point and shoot on Auto, since it's outdoors, it will pick a smallish aperture (because you have gobs of light outside) and a fastish shutter speed to pretty much guarantee you don't get a blurry pic from camera shake, and everything will be crispy sharp because of the tremendous depth of field from the small aperture.\n\nOh........but the photographer didn't want that. They wanted it to be totally obvious who was the whole point of the photo. The wanted a very narrow depth of field so the Queen was is great focus, and all the soldiers in the line behind her and ahead of her, were all blurry.\n\nThat makes sense. How do we do that? We don't want or need a small aperture, we need the biggest aperture we have. Small hole = pinhole effect = verry deep depth of field. Big hole = very narrow depth of field.\n\nOk, got it. So we open the aperture up wide open (giving us gobs of light, which we don't really need since we're outdoors anyway) so we have to compensate with a super short exposure length, like 1/2,000th of a second. Even then, it might not be enough so reduce the total light down to where the film or sensor is happiest. Then we need a film or ISO setting that makes the sensor *less* sensitive, because we have this huge excess of light, because we *have to have* the big aperture to get the effect we want.\n\n[_URL_0_](_URL_0_)\n\n & #x200B;\n\nOnce you decide what you want the effect to be, then you can look up how to get it. Here's the cheat sheet to know what you must have, and then you arrange the other two things to suit that:\n\nblurred motion, must have slower shutter speed. Anything below 1/30th of a second, you pretty much have to have a tripod.\n\nSharp motion, must have \"faster\" shutter speed to \"freeze\" the action. 1/400th will do pretty good, 1/1000th, or even 1/2000th, even better at freezing the action.\n\nGood exposure in dim lighting, must have longer shutter speed AND likely a bigger aperture to make use of low light. If that's not enough, then add higher iso value too.\n\nBig depth of field, must have small aperture.\n\nTiny depth of field must have big aperture.\n\nused to be a photographer and journalist 100 years ago. Ended up being an eye doctor it was so interesting.",
"Pretty much everyone has given a good explanation of what the different parts mean, so just going to add this in as an extra tip. \n\nOne of the biggest changing points of my photography was learning about exposure. It took me way to long to learn that there’s a little meter that tells you how exposed a photo is going to be, and it saves you a hell of a lot of time taking photos and seeing if it’s what you want.\n\nFind the exposure/light meter for your camera (google if you don’t know what it looks like) and it’ll help momentously. Once you’ve found that, it’s much easier to fiddle with the other settings to get the look you want. Best of luck! ",
"[This cheat sheet](_URL_0_) is a good very brief overview of what all the settings are.\n\nThe basic idea is this: you want an image that is bright enough to see clearly, but not so bright that it's all white. You have three knobs to control how much brightness you get. Each affects the picture differently.\n\nShutter Speed: Shorter times (like 1/2000) get you very little light, and longer times (like 30s) get you lots of light. Shorter times also freeze action (because you're only gathering light over a very very short period, so nothing has time to move. Longer times produce blur in anything that moves *even a tiny bit*. Anything much longer than about 1/10th - 1/30th of a second, and you won't be able to hold the camera steady enough without aid (such as a tripod).\n\nSensitivity (ISO): Lower numbers (like 100) mean less sensitivity, which means less brightness. Higher numbers (like 6400) mean higher sensitivity, which means more brightness. This is like boosting the gain on a microphone. The more you turn it up, the more noise you get in your result. Your image will look more \"grainy\" the higher you turn ISO. It'll look like static is partially superimposed on your image.\n\nAperture (f-stop): Lower numbers (like f/1.8) mean a wider opening and more brightness. Higher numbers (like f/16) mean a narrow opening and less brightness. Lower numbers (bigger opening) also allow more light that's coming in at odd angles, which will decrease how much of the image is in sharp focus (also called a \"shallow depth-of-field\"). Higher numbers (smaller opening) will cause more of the image to be in focus together. That cool \"portrait mode\" thing that all the new phones do with their multiple cameras is simulating the effect of a wide aperture (low number) -- where the subject is in focus and everything else is a creamy blur.\n\nYou pretty much always want an image whose brightest points are almost-but-not-quite 100% white, and whose darkest points are almost-but-not-quite 100% black. You can play with these three adjustments in different ratios in order to achieve that, but you'll get a very different image depending on how you combine them. That's the artistic part!",
"What lens do you have? So i know your limits inside your home, I need the numbers on the front of it. The rest is really straight forward, and you have the greatest learning tool photography has ever produced instant digital feedback on the camera so walking around the house testing it out is easy peasy. We used to have to develop the film and gauge off the neg if we couldn't print it right away. \n\nI could write a wall of text but you'll learn way faster by taking some pics with some quick tips.\n\n & #x200B;",
"It seems that other users have covered shutter speed and aperture pretty well, so allow me to go into a little detail on ISO\n\nBack when we used film, the film was covered in tiny grains of crystals which harden when exposed to light. If they dont get enough light to harden, they washed away when developed (blacks/underexposed), resulting in a clear portion of film. If they get too much light, they harden completely and cannot harden any more (washed out whites/overexposed). Hardened crystals do not wash away in the development process, resulting in an opaque portion of film\n\nA bigger ISO number = a bigger crystal size. A bigger crystal is able to absorb more light (because they have a larger surface area), and so it needs less of it to become \"Exposed\". However, the bigger crystals were more visible to the naked eye and made the images look grainy/noisy.\n\nIn digital photography, the crystals were replaced with pixels. The pixels dont get any bigger or smaller when you adjust the ISO, instead the image processor inside the camera takes the value of the output from the pixel and amplifies it. A photo with an ISO of 100 has its pixels amplified 100% more by the camera's image processor than a photo taken at ISO 50.\n\nThis would be fine and dandy, but electronic components do a funny thing when they have electricity run through them: they heat up. Not every pixel is created equally and one pixel might heat up more than its neighbors. As a pixel heats up, it becomes more and more sensitive to the light hitting it, resulting in a stronger signal which is then passed to the image processor. When the processor amplifies the signal, the already over-sensitive pixel is amplified even more. This is the digital noise created in high-ISO digital photography.\n\nBecause of this noise, if you are trying to produce the cleanest image possible, you want to use the lowest ISO possible. This is not a golden rule however, as the aperture and shutter speed also come into play.\n\nFilm grain and digital noise are not the exact same thing, but they work in similar ways. This isnt a complete answer, but I hope it helped you understand the basics.",
"People with dark skin need a lot of sun exposure to get sunburn, while people with pale skin need a lot less. This is like ISO - you’re changing how sensitive your camera is to light. If you’re trying to get a tan and there’s not much sun, you’re better off being pale, but If there’s too much sun then you’ll burn (or in your cameras case, be overexposed). Likewise if you have dark skin and there’s not much sun then you won’t tan at all (underexposed). Find the lowest ISO you can use after picking your other settings - start low and bump it up until you’re happy. High ISO means more sensitivity and also happens to add graininess.\n\nAperture is more like how your eyes get bigger at night to let more light in, then smaller when you turn the bathroom light on and more light is around. Changing this also happens to affect your “focal length”. A smaller number means the camera eye is more open, there will be more light entering and things in background will also be less in focus. A larger number means it’s less open, so less light is entering and things will be in focus both in the foreground and increasingly so in the background.\n\nImagine having your eyes closed and opening them for a set amount of time before closing them again. If you open them really really fast, you’ve let hardly any light into your eyes so you won’t see much. Open them for a full second and much more light has entered your eye to help you see. This is like shutter speed. Shutter speed is like taking an awesome snapshot of a moment in time - if everything is really still you can use many tenths of a second or even seconds to capture the light around you for a single picture. This is how we can take pictures of things like the Milky Way - the light is there but we need to capture many seconds worth of it for a camera to see it. If there’s movement though, things will be blurry. Figure out the best shutter speed by thinking about movement in your picture; eventually you’ll develop a feel for what you need to use here, as with the others.",
"Everyone’s giving good explanations but here’s the trade offs for each one:\n\nAperture (aka exposure/f-stop): brightens image the lower the number gets, but lowers your depth of field. Depth of field is literally how big (or deep) the area is that’s in focus. So a prime lens may be able to open to f1.2 which allows for great low light stuff, but your depth of field is so shallow that a person’s nose could be out of focus while their eyes are in focus. meanwhile if you’re shooting at f22 with enough light (let’s say a field in daylight) most of the field could be in focus. Depth of field also can change based on sensor so you have to figure out the relationship between your camera and lens. Most cameras I use have focus peaking to help tell you what part of the image is in focus.\n\nISO: brightens your image the higher the number gets. But cameras have different thresholds for noise at certain ISOs. In film it used to be the amount of film grain. Now in digital you’ll see bits of digital noise in the photos if you crank your ISO up too high. This also means a lower iso allows for better color capture generally.\n\nShutter: brights your image the bigger the number, but keep in mind it’s measured in fractions of a second, so 1/50th is a bigger number than 1/200th. The trade off is motion blur. The bigger the number the longer the shutter stays open which if something is moving means it blurs across the frame. This is why on a still image you cannot ever have a super long shutter speed and do it handheld, even your micro movements of your hand will make it blurry. This is also why high frame rate capture looks weird when everyone is used to seeing movies in 24fps. Since FPS while filming is a measurement of shutter, 48 or even 60fps is much faster and doesn’t allow for much motion blur. Ex: a picture of someone in the shower on a really slow shutter the water is a blur. On a really fast shutter you’d be able to see every individual drop clearly.\n\nSo, how you use them is you assess what you want your shot to look like and try and get away with as much or little light as you can from your other sources. So for example if you want a really shallow depth of field, but it’s quite bright out, you’ll have to make a really fast shutter speed and a really low ISO. There’s basically no downside to a low ISO but shutter speed being fast will mean you’ll have to account for less motion blur. Also realistically you’d probably need extra filters on the lens. But now let’s say you want a larger depth of field and there’s not a lot of light. You’ll have to get your shutter as slow as you can before the blur becomes an issue then do the rest with ISO until it becomes too noisy. After that you’ll have to sacrifice some depth of field or add more light somehow.",
"Oh the holy trinity of exposure. So our eyes do a phenomenal job of properly exposing scenes in our day to day life. Rarely are we sitting there thinking “it’s too bright” or “it’s too dark”. Our eyes have a lot of dynamic range, meaning we can see very well in shadows and in bright areas in the same scenes. Cameras have a much smaller range where things look ok. There is no “proper” exposure, you need to decide how bright or dark to make a photograph. There are three mechanisms that you can use to change the brightness, and each one has its own side effect. Changing any one changes how bright but it will inherently have a side effect, so you want to change which one to adjust based on what effect you want (or want to avoid).\n\nAperture is like the iris of your eye. It changes exposure by making the iris in the lens bigger or smaller (so yes aperture is dependent on your lens). The side effect is the bigger the opening, the fewer things will be in focus. The amount of things in focus is called depth of field and having a “shallow” depth of field can be a desired effect, often a result of a high end, expensive lens. Adversely sometimes you want as much in focus as possible, but stopping down the aperture to be a small opening will make the picture darker. \n\nShutter speed is how long the camera is taking the picture. The longer it’s exposing the sensor (or film) to the world, the brighter the picture. Of course the side effect is being able to stop time or show motion. With a fast shutter speed you can stop motion like a drop of water or with a slow shutter speed you can show motion like the streak of a car driving by. Don’t confuse motion blur with focus. Motion blur has “streaks” showing the motion. \n\nISO is how sensitive your sensor (or film) is to light. The more sensitive, the brighter the image, the less sensitive the darker. The side effect is increased noise or grain as the ISO increases. It’s generally considered desirable to shoot with the lowest ISO setting possible. The ISO is kind of the last thing you want to change when you’re out of options in your other two, however these days, cameras are getting remarkably good at shooting with high ISO and not having it be a big deal. But back in the day you had to change FILM to change ISO 🙀\n\nHope this helps! ",
"There are some great comments here. I would suggest googling a chart. Those helped me immensily when i was getting started. \n\nFor a different angle on the question, consider your goal. You usually will sacrifice two aspects in order to focus on the improtant one. Experimenting with different types of photos will teach you more than reading will.\n\nDo you want to take a picture of something moving fast? Focus on short shutter speed and sacrifice ISO and open the aperture up wide. \n\nLong shutter speed is for if you are trying to capture something that isnt moving, or you want long exposure/ cool visual effects with flashlights in the dark. You will want the camera to hold still for this. Or not. Have fun.\n\nLow ISO makes for crisp images. High ISO gives you grainy/ noisy images, and dead pixels. You can purposely get the image to look like its from the 80s with a high ISO. Also, high ISO is often necessary for capturing images with poor lighting, especially if you or your subject isn't holding still.\n\nYou will mess with the aperture most often to get a deep (everything in focus) or shallow focus (fuzzy for ground and/or back ground). Makes a big deal for Macro (close up) photos. Experiment with the aperture. It is an amazing piece in the puzzle that often gets ignored. It can really change the image.\n\n_URL_0_\n\n\n \n",
"There is a sensor in camera that \"captures\" the light, the more light is captured, the brighter will be an image. This amount can be controlled in three ways:\n\nShutter speed: how long your shutter is open. The longer it is opened - the brighter will be an image. Bonus: shorter shutter speed allows to capture moments, while longer one allows to capture a process, blurring moving objects; if you you make a photo of streaming water you will get sharp image with pletora of drops in first case and blurry images in the second.\n\nF-number: shows how wide your aperture is open. The bigger the hole - the more light will be captured. The notaion is usually f/1.4, f/4, f/10 etc, the bigger denominator - the tighter the hole. Bonus: because of optics, depth of field is also depends on the F-number, more objects will be sharp if your aperture is closed.\n\nShutter speed and f-number are paired: f/1.4 1/500s allows to capture as much light as f/2 1/250s, you make the aperture hole tighter but at the same time shutter remains opened for a longer period. It may be useful if you need specific effect on photo: specific depth of absence of blurring etc.\n\nISO is a different thing for digital and film cameras. In both cases it shows how film or sensors are sensible to light. The bigger ISO - the brighter the image. Bonus: due to limitations high ISO cause noise on the image so if you don't have decent camera(in case of DSLR) you are usually limited with 100-800 ISO.",
"Let's do a cooking analogy.\n\n & #x200B;\n\nLight=Fire/heat\n\nISO= Frying Pan\n\nShutter Speed= Time\n\nAperture= Knob on your stove to adjust heat.\n\nEgg= Exposure\n\n & #x200B;\n\nLet's assume perfect exposure is a fried egg that is sunny side up (solid egg white and a bright orange runny yolk)\n\n & #x200B;\n\nYou can fry your egg in a thin aluminum skillet (ISO 800) on medium heat (F5.6) for 6 minutes (1/60 shutterspeed) to get a perfect egg (exposure).\n\n & #x200B;\n\nAlternately, you can also fry your egg in the same aluminum skillet (ISO 800) on high heat (F2.8 ) for 2 minutes (1/250 shutterspeed) to get a perfect egg (exposure) however the edge of the egg may have some subtle differences such as a crust (bokeh). \n\n & #x200B;\n\nYou can also get the same perfect egg on a cast iron skillet (ISO 100) on high heat ( F2.8) for 6 minutes (1/30th shutterspeed)\n\n & #x200B;\n\n & #x200B;\n\n & #x200B;",
"They are just three ways to adjust the light captured in the camera, each with a side effect.\n\n* **Shutter speed** is how long the sensor is exposed to light. Faster speed gives less light but a sharper image. Slower speed gives more light but also more blur as objects or your hand move even the tiniest amount. \n\n* **Aperture** is how wide the opening is. Smaller opening gives less light but more focus to everything in the shot. Wider opening gives more light but some things are out of focus. \n\n* **ISO** is digitally amplifying the light captured. Lower ISO is less amplification. Higher ISO is more amplification (more light) but also amplifies imperfections (more noise). Use high ISO sparingly to prevent noise. \n\n\nUse them in different combos based on the effect you want. Your goal is to get evenly balanced light - white whites and black blacks. \n\nWant to capture fast moving action in a still frame? Increase the shutter speed. Quick snapshot of light, no blur. It also means it’s super dark, so you’ll want to increase the ISO or widen the aperture so you can get more light and see the image. \n\nWant to play with the focus? The aperture will do that, but then you need to adjust either the shutter speed or the ISO to account for the increase or decrease in light. \n\nWant to shoot at night? You can raise the ISO, but too much will add noise. Decrease the shutter speed instead to capture extra light. You’ll need a tripod though. Over the longer period of time in the shutter, the smallest movement in your hand will cause blur. A tripod will keep it nice and steady. \n\nDecreased shutter speed can also be used to show motion. Sometimes you *want* the blur. Like showing how fast a car is moving, or a river flowing. Again, you’ll need a tripod. \n\nAlso important is framing the shot / composition. Thinking about what is in your shot, the angle, how it all fits together, etc can make or break the photo. It’s not as easy as it sounds. ",
"A lot of analogies in this thread, but no actual explanation with them. \n\n\nA camera, just like an eye, is basically a light-sensitive little plate that translates what is shone onto it into either an image (the old-fashioned way) or into digital data. It's ISO value is simply how sensitive it is to light. This thing can't really be turned off with precision; one can only prevent light from being shone onto it. Enter the shutter: it opens when a picture must be made, and it closes when not. \n\n\nIf it stays open, the sensor will keep capturing light, and overexpose the image. Movement of the camera therefore also results in a blurred image. We don't want these, so the shutter closes as fast as it can. However, if it's too fast or if it doesn't open wide enough, it won't capture enough light. A balance must be struck then between capturing enough light and not overexposing or blurring the image. A good photographer can experiment with these to get strange or gorgeous results. \n\n\n\nThe lenses simply concentrate and aim the light onto the sensor, and allow zooming and focus. ",
"[_URL_0_](_URL_0_)\n\n & #x200B;\n\nI'm a novice but what i've discovered that:\n\nFor shutter speed, use 1/250 and above, for slow movements, like when a ballerina is pausing for a while, you can use 1/60 for more light. \n\nFor ISO, use 300 and below so you won't have so much grain. \n\n & #x200B;\n\nFor daytime i just adjusted to the what I can see, and if Its too bight like as though there is a white filter over it. you can tweak it back at home. \n\n & #x200B;",
"A couple points that really helped me:\n\nI haven’t seen it mentioned but most people don’t realize that your aperture, or f-stop, is a fraction. \n1/22 is quite small, 1/5.6 is bigger, 1/1.2 is probably the widest aperture you’ll encounter. \n\n\nDepth of focus is relative to your aperture and focal length (zoom/lens). \n\nF22 on a 50mm lens give a lot of focus depth, but requires much more light than f1.2. \n\nF1.2 is fantastic for low light, but requires near perfect focus. \n\n\nCamera shake is often confused with focus. You can have sharp focus but have too slow of a shutter speed to hold the camera steady for the duration of the exposure. \n\nThe rule of thumb is based on your focal length, make it a fraction and it’s a good start. \n\n50mm=1/50 of a second\n\n200mm=1/200 of a second\n\n\nI’ll edit if I can think of more, but that’s a start!\n",
"Shutter speed is how long the shutter is open. 1/30 means 1/30th of a second, so light enter the lens for 1/30th of a second. Smaller denominators (number after the fraction) results in a brighter image.\n\naperture controls how large the shutter opens, denoted by f stop numer. The larger the f stop smaller the shutter hole.\n\nnote: Shutter speed and aperture are usually changed in opposite directions to counter act each other.\n\nISO is the sensitivity of the sensor. A smaller number lets in less lights but your pictures will come out less blurry. Higher ISO results in a more noisy (grainy) image.\n\nWhite balance affects the warmth or color temperature of your image. Lower white balance results in a cooler/bluer imager and higher results in a warmer more orange/red image.\n\nRaw mode is also useful if you plan on post processing through photoshop, light room or any similar software. It saves a lot more of the information captured by the camera. When taking photos, the camera software does some sort of processing directly. With raw mode this is minimized so you can adjust more once you have the photo on a computer.\n\n & #x200B;\n\nI'm not a photographer and don't even personally own a DSLR (broke boi struggles) but there was a period where I was very into photography. I researched a lot and took as many photos with my phone's limited manual settings as much as possible and also fucked around with my friends' cameras. The easiest way to learn is to just mess around with the settings yourself. ",
"To try and avoid any elaborate analogies and give you the couple of quick rules I work from...\n\nAperture controls the depth of field - how much is in focus in front and behind of the point you focus on. Wider apertures (low f numbers) means less stays in focus.\n\nShutter speed controls how the camera records movement (both your subjects moving and the hand holding the camera). Faster shutter speeds freeze movement, slower shutter speeds blur it.\n\nIso controls how quickly the camera reacts to light - higher numbers means the camera works quicker (good in lower lighting conditions) but also the higher the number, the more noise will appear.\n\nThe technical side of photography is learning to juggle these sensibly - because each setting affects how much light hits the sensor, you have to prioritise which are important for the photo you are taking and balance them.\nTaking a landscape, you want high quality and lots in focus, so a narrow aperture and low iso would be ideal - this means a slow shutter speed and perhaps using a tripod.\nShooting handheld in low light means a high iso and wide aperture are needed to allow a fast enough shutter speed to stop blur.",
"I always explain it like this:\n\nImagine you’re filling up a bath and for the sake of this hypothetical, the water flows at a constant rate.\n\nYou want to get the right amount of water in the tub.\n\nYou can adjust how much water goes into the tub by either:\nA) increasing the diameter of the spout\nB) keeping the tap open for longer.\n\nA tap wide enough for 100ml to pass through the tap per second will need to be open twice as long as a tap that allows 200ml/sec.\n\nA photo is the same, but with light in the picture instead of water in the tub.\n\nIf you are in a dark place, you will need to allow longer for the light to get into the frame, or open the aperture wider. If you’re in a very bright place you only need the sitter open for a timely amount of time to let the light in.\n\nAlso, if you want to capture some motion blur, you will want a slower shutter speed. To keep the shutter open longer without flooding too much light into the picture you should compensate for the slow speed with a tight aperture.\n\nMost of all, play around and have fun with them and you’ll get a feel for them.",
"Most people talk about the \"exposure triangle\", but this leaves the available light out of the equotation. \"Exposure square\" would be the better word, because in fact you have four factors: Exposure time (how long will light hit the sensor?), aperture (how much light will hit the sensor?), ISO (how much will the signal on the sensor be electronically amplified?) and the available light (cloudy or sunny, shade or direct sunlight etc?).\n\nIf one of these factors is reduced by 50% (1/100 second exposure time instead of 1/50, ISO100 instead of ISO200, aperture 4 instead of 2.8 or cloudy instead of sunny weather) you will need to double another factor in order to get the same exposure. Easy, eh?",
"It is helpful to remember it is about the amount of light: ISO x Aperture x Time = Brightness\n\nTo make it simple, we stick to twos, because everyone can multiply or divide by two. When a combination of settings is \"right\", if you divide one by 8, to keep things right you just double another and multiply the last one by 4. And so on. So many combinations are \"right\". But each setting has slightly different effects.\n\nThe art of photography is picking one and adjusting the other two. \n\nAperture when small means lots more \"depth\" will be in focus. Unfortunately, smaller is bigger numbers (f/16 is smaller than f/8), but you get over this quickly. If Aperture is very big, you may have someone's nose very sharply in focus and their eyes blurry, if it is very small, the background and foreground will have the same focus. \n\nSpeed when small means the shot will be very fast and can stop motion. 1/5000 of a second will stop a water-drop in flight, and a 20 second exposure will almost erase a speeding car from the scene. However, if too slow, you may get blurring from camera shake. A good rule of handheld photography is keep shutter faster than the lens length (100 mm, 1/100 seconds). \n\nISO means how much the sensitivity of the sensor will be amplified, or how sensitive the film is. Bigger means higher amplification, less light needed. However, as the amplification gets higher, the minimum distance between nearby colors gets bigger. The image gets more grainy and you will start to get green splotchyness in the dark areas. At very high ISO, robust colors end up with a texture like sandpaper and you lose fine lines and details. Try to keep ISO as low as possible - for great rich colors, I like it below 400. \n\nAll together, this explains all the weird units on a camera: each click is a factor of two away. Aperture: F1.4, F2, F2.8, F4, F5.6... each of these ticks \"doubles\" the amount of light going through the lens (it's a circle, so they are a square root of two apart). ISO is ...200, 400, 800... again, doubles. And shutter speed is in seconds ... 1/100, 1/50, 1/25... doubles.... approximately... there's a little shift in scale at ... 1/25, 1/12, 1/4... second.\n\nThe whole camera is designed so if you click one scale in one direction, you have to click one of the two in the other direction. So you start to think in terms of \"stops\": adjust aperture two stops down, adjust shutter two stops up... \n\nUsually you pick an ISO that you want based on the amount of light around you, and then either aperture or shutter speed based on what you want, and let the camera choose whatever is left. ",
"I tend to think of photographic exposure like cooking. Two main variables:\n\n- how much heat (light)\n- cooking duration\n\nSometimes you'll want to nuke things for a short period. Sometimes you'll want to slow cook them.\n\nSlow moving/non-moving can be cooked slowly. Fast objects generally get nuked.",
"Think of your eye as a camera. Eyelid is the shutter, iris aperture and ISO is sensitivity to light. Now close your eyes, open them for one second and close them again. You just took a photo with the exposure of 1 second. You eyelid controlled how long the photo was exposed, your iris controlled how much of light got through and the rods and cones your retina controlled how sensitive your eyes were for the light.\n\nIn photography terms your eyes are always on Tv (time value) mode, since sensitivity and aperture is controlled automatically.",
"Some great explanations here, but I don't think any really \"ELI5\". \n\nI used to TA for an intro to photography class in college, and here's the ELI5 I always used for the class:\n\nImagine that trying to get a proper exposure is like trying to fill a bucket full of water. You want to have the bucket be full the right amount--not overflowing, but not half-empty (or half-full, depending on your view). \n\nAperture is like how big of a faucet you're using to fill the bucket--how quickly the water flows. If you have a really big faucet, and you open it up really wide, the water flows quickly, and you fill your bucket faster.\n\nShutter speed is how quickly you open and close the faucet. If you have a really big faucet, you only want to have the faucet open for a short time, or the bucket overflows. On the other hand, if you have a small faucet, less water is flowing, you'll need to leave it open longer to fill the bucket, or you won't get enough water (the picture will be under exposed).\n\nISO is a bit more abstract, but for our purposes here, it's basically the size of the bucket. How much water does it take to fill the bucket? Having a really big bucket (low ISO) is going to make it take longer to fill the bucket, but you'll be able to do more things with all that water in the end. A high ISO exposure is like a very small bucket. It fills very quickly, but in the end you have less data, and your photo ends up suffering for it (it may be grainy etc.). \n\nYou use aperture, shutter speed, and ISO to create a proper exposure (fill a bucket the right amount), and changing any one of those requires you to adjust the others, or the bucket will be too full or not full enough. ",
"Think of shutter speed as how long your eyes are open (the shutter of the camera is like your eyelids). Aperture is how much you open your eyes when you take a photo. (Open them wide and a lot of light gets through - the aperture is in the lens of the camera). And think of iso as how sensitive your eyes are to light. If they're not very sensitive, you'll need to open your eyes wider or for a longer period of time (or both). Or if they're overly sensitive, you'll need to squint or keep your eyes open for a shorter period of time. \n\nThe correct combination of how long you open your eyes (shutter speed), how wide you open them (aperture), combined with how sensitive your eyes are to light (ISO) all combine in correct amounts to give you a good exposure. "
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9p5lgh | with the odds of winning the mega millions jackpot at 1 in 258.9 million and having a current $900 million jackpot, could a billionaire buy every ticket combo and guarantee a win/profit assuming they are a solo winner | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/9p5lgh/eli5_with_the_odds_of_winning_the_mega_millions/ | {
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"Not anymore. There are rather specific rules against doing that ever since a group of people actually did it in the 1980s and split the money.\n\nBut especially nowadays with the sheer numbers involved, it just isn't feasible. One person buying lottery tickets 24 hours a day with no time spent eating or sleeping could still never hope to buy all the tickets for a Mega Millions drawing. And even if you somehow could, it still wouldn't make very much money considering you would either have to take the multiple payments over time (losing money because money becomes less valuable over time because inflation) or take the lump sum (losing money immediately, plus losing more to income taxes).",
"It's physical impossible to print tickets with every number combination, with every machine working, within a week. ",
"So there aside from everything else people have mentioned, there are a few quirks of the lottery that you have to keep in mind:\n\nThe jackpot is advertised at $900M, but that's only if you take the annuity payout over 30 years. The immediate cash out is usually somewhere in the range of 1/2 to 2/3 of the listed jackpot value. The reason for the difference is that if you take the annuity they basically invest all of the money and they get to keep a notable amount of the interest. In the case of the $900M advertised jackpot, the cash option is $513M. \n\nSecond is that taxes then come into effect. Depending on where you live, you basically should assume 40% to 50% tax rate. Uncle Sam takes the biggest cut (currently at 37%), then most states charge a state income tax and some municipalities will charge tax on it as well. Your $513M is now probably closer to $300M in cash.\n\nThird is that your investment per ticket is now $2, which means that to hit all 302 million different combinations, you have to pay $604M in cash up front.\n\nFourth, and most important, is that there are no limits on the number of jackpot winners, and the jackpot is split between the winners. If there are two jackpot winners, that $300M cash is basically divided into two pools and now you're left with $150M in winnings on a $600M investment. Not really a great investment strategy when all is said and done."
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e4oxi4 | why do guns kick up instead of down or sideways when shot? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/e4oxi4/eli5_why_do_guns_kick_up_instead_of_down_or/ | {
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"The axis on which the barrel sits is above the arm/hand, not directly in to the hand. this cause force to rotate backwards.\n\nIf the barrel was somehow below the arm/hand, it would rotate down.",
"Where they are held vs where the force from the bullet is directed. The bullet firing exerts a force backward near the top of the gun (in the barrel). The gun is held low, and toward the back. Since the force from the bullet goes back, the reactionary force from the hand goes forward. Since these forces are at different heights, on opposite sides (top vs bottom) of the center of mass, it rotates in the direction of the two forces.",
"Because the barrel is above the grip (in the case of pistols) or the butt of the rifle that you place on your shoulder. So the recoil pushes the barrel backward, and because of the way you're holding it, your hand or shoulder \"push back\" to hold it in place, and the weapon starts to rotate /pivot up.",
"it has to do with the position of the barrel in relation to the closest moving joint\n\nin the case of a pistol you have the barrel being in a higher position than the wrist/arm, if there was no joint there the barrel wouldnt move, but the force of the shot would be felt a lot more in your arm, instead the force of the barrel pushes the wrist ot rotate upward"
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2e0e1p | how exactly is rick perry being indicted? it doesn't seem like he's violating any laws by exercising his ability to vote | Whatever your personal stance on his motives are, I don't see his exercising his ability to vote one way or the other a crime. Someone please explain | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2e0e1p/eli5_how_exactly_is_rick_perry_being_indicted_it/ | {
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"To prevent him from running for president in 2016. "
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2c47c9 | why do commercials have to put in disclaimers (stunt driver on closed track, do not attempt, etc.) but actual tv programming does not? | The programming nearly always has far more outré and extreme shit. Also, movies seem to be exempt. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2c47c9/eli5_why_do_commercials_have_to_put_in/ | {
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"Because commercials are trying to sell a product, which implies that the product can do the things they're showing.",
"Commercials, particularly for cars, are supposed to show what is capable in reality whereas TV it is implied that it is fiction. You can see it however in reality TV shows like jackass or whatnot where it can be deemed as reality, they apply the same disclaimers"
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qsbid | how did governments/business keep records before the internet? | How did people back in the days before the internet and electronics keep records of personal information, transactions, bank accounts, etc? For example, if I deposited money in a bank in New York, how would a branch of the same bank in Los Angeles know who I am? There are plenty of other examples as well but I think you guys get the idea. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/qsbid/eli5_how_did_governmentsbusiness_keep_records/ | {
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"Paper. Lots and lots of paper. Things also just took a lot longer. ",
"When you say \"before the internet\", you're probably thinking the early 90s or maybe even the 80s. Banks were using computers and networking back in the 50s and 60s to keep things straight.\n\nBefore that, people used a lot of cash. If you wanted to travel, you'd get travelers cheques. If you wanted to move, you'd get a cashier's check to take to a bank in another city."
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3qhi31 | why is pbs always asking for money when sesame street makes so much in merchandise sales? | Seriously they have the hottest toy on the market every year | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3qhi31/eli5_why_is_pbs_always_asking_for_money_when/ | {
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"PBS does not get the money from Sesame Street Merchandise sales. Children's Television Workshop, the production company that owns and makes Sesame Street is the one that gets the money. \n\nIn fact PBS does not even own the new episodes of Sesame Street. HBO does as of August. ",
"The actual organization of this is pretty complicated. Lets start with one aspect. Sesame Street is just a show that airs on PBS, its not PBS. It's made by a company called Sesame Workshop, a non-profit.\n\nThey make about $50M a year selling Sesame Street merchandise. They have an operating expense of about $150M to run the company. Now OK that seems like a lot right? $150M to make Sesame Street? Because it is! The company Sesame Workshop actually does a ton of other shows, outreach, and education stuff, Sesame Street itself only costs around $20M a year to make.\n\nThey need more money to continue to operate all of those other things as well. Sesame Street helps to fund part of their other endeavors, as well as needing funds from private investors, and some other ventures (they do make some money elsewhere of course). But they simply don't make enough to get by without donations, unless they drastically cut down what they do.\n\n\n\n"
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3dawdu | why do some japanese game developers release games in japan (like yakuza or persona) and then wait months or even a whole year to make a world wide release. isn't that a bad buisness decision? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3dawdu/eli5why_do_some_japanese_game_developers_release/ | {
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"I can't speak to all scenarios but from the software I publish that goes worldwide: \n\nFirst I have to modify my software to handle effective localization. This goes (or could) go beyond simply translating the text bits. I need to be able to handle arbitrary langues switching in run time (ideally) .... and accomodate different character sets. Hopefully I've got smart developers who have been designing for localization up front, but sometimes its left as an after thought.\n\nTake a dialogue box with the message \"Launching game. Click ok to continue\" and a single \"ok\" button to dismiss. Does the button and the dialogue use text widgets that can handle unicode (non ascii fancy/foreign characters) or similar, or did the dev just use the quickest easiest text widget.\n\nNow the dialogue box is set to be exactly 100 pixels wide. Wide enough for the english... but german likes long words. The message above is this in German: \"Dies ist nicht wirklich der Übersetzung Im einen Punkt , der in einem verallgemeinerten Fall gültig ist.\" 100 pixel wide dialog box is too small, the message gets cut off.\n\nSo now Im making software changes - usually cosmetic but you still have to retest.\n\nNow I need a german QA team to test the game out in German. Add some more weeks.\n\nOh by the way, I have 10,000 lines of text (think all that text in Pokemon games) that need translation. My translation service will take a month to turn that around.\n\nOh and to sell my game into France, I need a government certificate that certifies that my software works in French and all my user documentation is in French.\n\nSo, this could delay my synchronous global launch by several months past when the game - in Japanese - is actually done. I could wait and launch globally, or I can get it to market in Japan, build hype and leaked Youtube gameplay walkthroughs, earn some revenue earlier."
]
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3g55h4 | if muscles can work anaerobically, why do we need to breathe oxygen, on a biological level? | If the lungs enrich blood which the heart pumps to the musculature, and heavy exercise switches from aerobic to anaerobic, what specific purpose does oxygen provide? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3g55h4/eli5_if_muscles_can_work_anaerobically_why_do_we/ | {
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"Without oxygen we would lose about 94% of our capacity to convert glucose to energy usable for our body. It generally doesn't take too long for this to become a problem.",
"The metabolism of sugar involves three steps, the first splitting up the sugar into two parts and producing some energy, and the second one breaking up these two parts completely and producing some more energy.\n\nHowever, these two steps both require an enzyme, a so called carrier protein, which can store hydrogen atoms. If all of this enzyme is loaded up with hydrogen, metabolism can't continue. This is where the oxygen comes in: In a third step, the hydrogen atoms from the carrier proteins react with oxygen, forming water. This produces the most energy, and releases the carrier protein.\n\nAnaerobic metabolism is only a short term solution: The carrier proteins bind the hydrogen atom to the products of the first step, forming lactic acid and freeing the protein up. This way, metabolism can continue without access to oxygen. However, it is not possible to break down the sugar completely - you're missing out on most of the energy. Lactic acid also happens to be toxic, having too much of it in your blood can knock you out. \n\nBy the way, yeast producing alcohol is a very similar process to our anaerobic metabolism. With access to oxygen, their metabolism is almost identical to ours, but their way of freeing up the carrier protein without oxygen is a bit different - producing alcohol instead of lactic acid."
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5h1z8t | why do some foods sound good at certain times and not other times? what happens in your brain that makes you think "i want mexican food today?" | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5h1z8t/eli5_why_do_some_foods_sound_good_at_certain/ | {
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"These are known as food cravings. Our body is telling the brain that they want more of one nutrient or response from food. The brain then looks up what foods satisfy that requirement and make you feel like eating them.\n\nIt's very common in pregnant women as they need more nutrition than normal due to the developing baby. It can lead to strange cravings such as the [peanut butter and pickle sandwich](_URL_0_).\n\nHowever, these food cravings can also go wrong. If you have a very limited diet of junk food, your brain only has a limited number of things they can crave. Thus, you may have cravings certain foods that do not have many nutrients but it's the only nutrient source you know, resulting in you eating more calories than necessary.\n\nAnother way they can go wrong is how these cravings are associated with the response of eating food. Comfort food makes us feel better after eating them. However, if eating food is the only way you can feel better, these cravings can cause eating disorders that are difficult to get over (because no matter what, we have to eat something to survive)."
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"http://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/24/dining/making-a-meal-out-of-peanut-butter-and-pickles.html"
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3dlnnl | why does this math "trick" work. | I was taught this ages ago as a way to "check" if I did a multiplication problem correctly. I've never seen this anywhere else ever.
Explanation: Take a multiplication problem with 2 numbers.
1. Draw a large X. (Optional)
2. You add all the digits of the first number. Get an answer and if the answer is more than 2 digits you keep adding them together until there is a single digit left. Write this number on the left side of the X.
3. Do the same with the with the second number. Write this number on the right side of the X.
4. Multiply the 2 numbers from steps 2 and 3 together. If you get a number with 2 digits you add them together to get a single digit. Write this number on the top of the X.
5. Take the answer of the original multiplication problem and add all the digits together. Keep adding them together as many steps as necessary until you get single digit. Write this number on the bottom of the X.
6. If the top and bottom numbers are the same, your multiplication is correct.
Pls ELI5 this witchcraft.
Example: _URL_0_ | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3dlnnl/eli5_why_does_this_math_trick_work/ | {
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"ABCD represent digits, not values. eg if A is 2, A0 represents 20\n\nWhen you multiply AB x CD, you can break it up (I want to say expand, but it's been a while since I used that word and I can't remember if this is what it is) into\n\n(A0+B) x (C0+D)\n\nYou can break that up into\n\n(A0 x C0)+(A0 x D)+(B x C0)+(B x D)\n\nWhen you place a digit on the left, it's like adding a 0 on the right, that is multiplying by 10. Putting B on the left puts it in the 1s position. What this trick does is it lets you do the 4 small steps individually and says 'place on the left' instead of x10 to make it sounds less intimidating.",
"The process of adding up all the digits of a number, and repeating that process until only a single number is left, is called the Digital Root of a number. \n_URL_0_\n\nNow as it turns out, forming the digital root of a number is \"compatible\" with performing a bunch of different mathematical operations. That means it doesn't matter if you first form the digital root and then do the operation, or the other way round.\n\nIn our concrete example, it means that the digital root of the answer to the original multiplication problem (what we put in the bottom of the X) is the same as taking the individual digital roots (first and second number) and then multiplying them (and taking their digital root).\n\nThe proof for that goes a bit beyond the LI5 part of ELI5. \n\nNow what the means is that if you did not do a mistake, then the values in the top and bottom of the X must be the same. If they are not the same, you made a mistake. But be careful: If they're the same, it doesn't mean you're 100% right. It just means you're a bit less likely to be wrong! For example, let's say I'm stupid and say \n\n9 * 9 = 18.\n\nI do your trick, left side get's number 3, right side get's number 3. Obviously their product is 81, 1 + 8 = 9, so I put that in the bottom. Now 1 + 8 = 9, so I put that in the top. But hey, 9 * 9 is not 18! \n\nFun fact: The same trick works for addition and subtraction, not only multiplication",
"The process of adding the digits and reducing them is called 'casting out nines'... the result you get is the same as if you kept subtracting 9 until you got a single digit for a remainder. (11 - > 1 + 1 = 2, and 11 - 9 = 2.) This is the same as taking the number modulo 9, and the same as the remainder you get after dividing by 9 (since dividing is basically repeated subtraction/'casting out'). In this post I'm going to call that process 'casting out nines', but I'm not introducing something new; it's just a name for the exact same thing you are already doing by repeatedly adding and reducing. \n\nFor your 'trick' to work, some trait or aspect of the original numbers must survive the process of casting out nines. You can see why if you think of what casting out nines does to the original number. Using the numbers from your linked example, and using '- > ' to represent the process of casting out nines: \n\n 8659 - > 8 + 6 + 5 + 9 = 28 - > 2 + 8 = 10 - > 1 + 0 = 1\n 732 - > 7 + 3 + 2 = 12 - > 1 + 2 = 3\nSince casting out nines is the same thing as figuring out the remainder after dividing by nine, we can rewrite the numbers like so and get the same result: \n\n 8659 = (962 * 9) + 1\n 732 = (81 * 9) + 3\nBut *any* number can be written this way - try it, if that sounds like BS - so we can look at the generic case using \n \n x = 9a + b\n y = 9c + d\nWhat happens when we multiply those numbers, keeping them in their 'nines and remainder' form? \n\n x * y = (9a + b) * (9c + d)\n = (9a * 9c) + (9a * d) + (9c * b) + (b * d)\n = 9*9ac + 9ad + 9cb + bd\n = 9 * (9ac + ad + cb) + bd\nThat's just normal multiplication, using the 'nines and remainder' form of x and y and keeping track of every step. But it reveals something interesting: that the answer *also* ended up in the 'nines and remainder' form. This the heart of why your 'trick' works. \n\nThe answer turned out to be \n\n 9 * (something) + (b * d)\nIf we go back to what b and d stand for, we see that they were the remainders, after casting out nines, of the numbers being multiplied (x and y in the generic case). Those remainders are the same numbers you are calculating by repeatedly adding and reducing. So now we have a way to see if the answer you get from multiplication is *wrong*: just multiply the remainders of the original numbers, and compare that to the remainder from the answer you got from multiplying those original numbers: \n\n If x * y = (x * y), which it clearly is, then \n (remainder of x) * (remainder of y) = remainder of (x * y) \n\nThat's your trick in a nutshell. But there is a warning: this process can show you right away that the answer is *incorrect*, but that's not the same thing as proving that your answer is *correct*. We can see why by looking at the 'nines and remainder' form again: '9 * (something) + (remainder)' can give you the same remainder as '9 * (something + 1) + (remainder)' or '9 * (something + *anything*) + (remainder)'. When you reduce a number until you have a single digit, you are discarding information: the answer can be off by a multiple of 9 and still give you the same remainder. It's still a useful trick for detecting errors... there are only 10 single digits in base 10, and the single digit you get from this process can only be one of them, so if it's any of the other nine you know *something* went wrong. Just remember that this isn't the same thing as telling you that the answer is correct."
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2j9ahh | why is the american public school system set up like it is? (detentions, lunch, classroom periods) where did schools all learn to have the same basic structure? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2j9ahh/eli5_why_is_the_american_public_school_system_set/ | {
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"The purpose of the American public school system is to create a productive workforce. In the early agrarian economy, there was little need for education. Much of the population learned from their parents or caregivers. \n\nWith industrialization, family members had certain work hours out of the home that they needed to maintain. And public education was devised as a way to allow for the parents to work while also training the children to adopt an industrial labor regimen.\n\nThe school bell, lunch breaks, cafeteria, dress codes and discipline were all adopted from factories. This was both a management strategy (for principals to oversee teachers) as it was a teaching mechanism (learn to be on time, kids, your employer expects it!).\n\nThe general expectation was that primary school would train the laborers, secondary school would train the managers, and universities would train the experts/specialists. But by the middle of the 20th century, it was clear that a high school education was important to get a good paying job and university programs were created to specialize in the growing fields of management, administration, and finance.",
"I particularly like [this talk by Sir Ken Robinson!](_URL_0_). He says our current system is modeled on the interests and image of industrialization.\n\nIf you want to skip to that particular part of his talk, check out around 6:33ish\n\nBasically, schools are organized like factory lines: specialization by subjects, children organized by \"made-by\" date (aka birth date), etc.. "
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3mq40u | the fear of muslims and the religion of islam (in the u.s. and europe) | This is a long intro, but I am looking for a traditional ELI5 answer. If possible please explain whether the fears of the European countries facing the immigration crisis are in any way rational? (Fear of religion, not economics.)
I like to consider myself an open-minded person, but lately I've been really wondering about the religion of Islam and whether some of these fears are justified or not? One thing that really isn't helping are how they are portrayed in U.S. media. Whether its the news, war/crime shows where the enemy is often Muslim, and video games.
Some things I've heard from people in my life:
- The Quran really does say things like "Kill non-believers"
- Muslims who aren't terrorists aren't true Muslims. They can be compared to those who claim christianity but do no go to church on Sundays
- We have no way of knowing who is an extremist and who is not. Our safety is most important so we should be less accepting.
After watching the latest [John Oliver: Migrants and Refugees](_URL_1_) on The Immigration Crisis its really made me think. He was very accepting of them just like I've been taught to be my whole life, and want to be. But as I was watching, it made me want to get the viewpoints of those people who are against them only for religious purposes.
Are they simply being racist and closed-minded? Or is there a legitimate reason to worry? I remember reading a German article where refugees who had been accepted started a riot after someone incited them by ripping a page of the Quran. There was a lot of violence and police had an extremely hard time getting them under control because they were throwing rocks at them. These are the stories that have me worried. [Here is youtube video about that story](_URL_0_)
The one thing I do know is that these people need help, and they should be given support. However, is there a reason to worry?
Edit: [This is a 1:30 long video](_URL_0_) on youtube about the riot in Germany I mentioned. To summarize, the person who ripped the pages (not page) of the Quran, also lived in the immigrant-center and some of the muslims attempted to lynch the man for it. "15 were injured and [there was] considerable damage to property." | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3mq40u/eli5_the_fear_of_muslims_and_the_religion_of/ | {
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"The bible also says all sorts of crazy shit, but we don't just assume that all Christians blindly follow those rules as we (apparently) assume for Muslims.\n\nMost Muslims don't live in the middle east, don't pray 5 times a day, and don't just not participate in terrorism, but actively advocate against it.",
"I think there are some real problems. Of course not all Muslims are terrorists, that is just a silly. But there are quite a big number of them that hold beliefs that could reasonably be called extreme. For example if you are for women's rights, gay rights, freedom of speech and freedom of religion, you will quickly run in to opposition with Islam.\n\n[Maybe you have seen this.](_URL_0_) When the Muslim world is polled about specific questions, the result are worrying to say the least. Apparently a third of Muslims in the world believe that leaving the religion should be punished with the death penalty, which is a law that is enforced in some countries. I would say that is an extreme position to hold and is a serious problem.\n\nAnd really in comparison, this is just a minor problem in the west. The real victims of extreme forms of Islam are for the most part other Muslims.\n\n[I think you will find this interview with Sam Harris (atheist) and Maajid Nawaz (muslim) interesting](_URL_1_)\n\n[Also this if you have even more time](_URL_2_)",
"Watch [this video](_URL_0_) and all you need is the first minute and a half. Western cultures, especially over the last few decades, **really** don't take kindly to religion provoked violence threats."
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1kabp2 | why does gas (in the us) cost less with cash than with credit? | Going down the road you'll see signs that say either "Same price cash or credit", and other signs "3.54 cash, 3.64 credit", or whatever else. Why is it a different price (a), and (b) how are they legally allowed to change the price based on how you pay for merchandise? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1kabp2/eli5_why_does_gas_in_the_us_cost_less_with_cash/ | {
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"When retailers take credit cards, they have to pay a fee to the credit card company in order to process the payment, and often a percentage of the actual sale. If you pay in cash, then they don't have to pay these extra fees and they are passing the savings onto you in the hopes that you will buy gas from them in stead of one of their competitors."
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11yb3i | why the obsession with zombies? | As an Engineering geek, I understand the typical geek appreciation for shiny objects with cool flashing lights. I really don't understand the geek obsession with zombies, though. Is it just an excuse to collect insanely overpowered weaponry without looking like an NRA Gun Nut (tm)? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/11yb3i/eli5_why_the_obsession_with_zombies/ | {
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"It's an escape/revenge fantasy. Popular kids and figures of authority are turned into zombies, geeks and outcasts can take revenge against them without feeling guilty, then take the now-vacant position of power and authority.\n\nFootball player got all the popular girls while you were playing WoW? Now you can blast his zombie head off with a gun, and take the girls for yourself.\n\nBoss being a jerk to you? He's dead, now you're in charge. \n\nRich guy has a nice house and you live in a crappy apartment with a smelly roommate? He's a zombie, you can kill him and party in his mansion and drive his Ferrari.\n\nYou leave your life of low social and/or economic status behind, assume a much higher social and economic status, and hurt the people you dislike along the way with no remorse.\n\nNotice how it's always a lonely, sad guy who becomes the post-apocalyptic hero. You never see someone who had a high socioeconomic status become the hero, and you never see the geeky outcast be immediately killed, or take a menial position in the new social hierarchy."
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3czm94 | why is it when you get stabbed by a pencil it leaves a blue mark forever? | Is there still a pencil chunk stuck in there? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3czm94/eli5_why_is_it_when_you_get_stabbed_by_a_pencil/ | {
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"mos likely, i remember getting stabbed by a pencil by my enraged sister lol, was bluey black for ages, started digging at it one day and turned out to be more lead stuck in there. The marks gone now, that was a few years ago",
"Mine is greenish blue like old tattoo ink color. Got stabbed in the palm of my hand in 5th grade. Still there",
"You might wanna check it, because if it is there after more than a couple of weeks it means that there is probably something stuck beneath your skin. \n\nIt isnt dangerous by itself most of the time, but after some time it will be really hard to get out if you have to."
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98x76y | why do religious people have death anxiety | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/98x76y/eli5why_do_religious_people_have_death_anxiety/ | {
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"This is somewhat of a false premise and a gross generalization. Many people have death anxiety. Why? Because avoiding death is the most powerful biological urge there is. Even those that fully accept that life will just move on and they will in fact move to a better place, can be afraid of change for its own sake."
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5i1r18 | why did ancient multi hundred year civilizations barely advance tech wise? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5i1r18/eli5_why_did_ancient_multi_hundred_year/ | {
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"1) You are mistaken that technology barely advanced for centuries at a time in ancient and medieval times. Your idea for what technological advancement is, and what advanced technology is seems to be biased by the level of technology that we have. This is true for most humans so it is not a bad mistake. \n\n2) Technological advancements occur more rapidly when there is a pressure of some kind. This pressure could be economic, it could be disease, it could be famine, it could be war, etc. So for much of the time there was likely not pressure for rapid advancement. \n\n3) We live in an abnormal time in the broad scope of history. In the last 200 years we advanced more rapidly than the previous 4000 years or so. So it is not a question of why they were slower, that slower pace is the normal pace. The question is why are we advancing so rapidly. ",
"Infrastructure, limtiations due to trade, and ultimately lack of innovation itself.\n\nFirstoff, What was the first REAL invention made by modern humans? It's kinda like chicken and the egg, but its either the modern wheel, fire or agriculture. \n\nThese three inventions, regardless which came first, were really the starting point for more advanced tools. Prior to these inventions, we were no better than monkeys holding sticks, and maybe lsightly smarter monkeys who figured out how to attach rocks to sticks and make them sharp for better killing.\n\nFire, to cook with and create new materials was the first to spurn innovation. With fire, you could transform materials into different materials. You could melt things like ice, and if you got it hot enoguh, you could melt special rocks.\n\nThe Wheel, it made it easier to move things back and forth. Didn't really make it FASTER speed wise, however gave us an ability to move greater amounts of materials in one trip over longer distances without straining. Speed comes later w/ horses, oxen and motor engines eventually.\n\nAgriculture, gave us the ability for the first time to sustain civilization and grow our own food. This took many generations of trial and error, finding out that if you took a seed and put it in the dirt, something would pop up and replace the plant you picked it from. Then how to water it, care for it... and ultimately, how to raise sustainable crops year over year.\n\nUntil these three things were achieved, man was a very nomadic species, moving around from place to place, never really settling down or creating a culture.\n\nHowever, once it became feasable to gather materials and horde them at one location instead of moving with the herds of animals for nourishment, other developments could slowly make their way to the table.\n\nNot long after agriculture, would have come Domestication of Animals. \n\nFire, would eventually beget Pottery, glassmaking and metalworking. It would take someone either intentionally or accidentally creating a reaction in which these improvements occured.\n\nThough once the first few inventions would happen, others would keep following. The foundations of many things had been discovered by the time the first major civilizations had developed.\n\nRefining those ideas and moving from Bronze to Brass to Iron to Steel and going from a crude wheel, to a refined wheel, to a wheel with spokes, etc... this takes time but ultimately, the information did not travel fast.\n\nThe one limiting factor that held back innovation back in the olden days of human history is that information traveled at no faster than the speed of human walking. It would take years for information, basic to the creation of Brass to work its way through cultures, and then some propbably didnt even know what this \"Brass\" was or that it was a composite material of Copper and tin.\n\nMaybe they didnt have proper supplies of iron to experiment with, so the blacksmith that could have invented it never had the chance until later in history's timeline.\n\nBut ultimately, the speed of innovation grew, with the creation of transportation and the increase in travel. Exponentially almost with the increase in speed that man can travel, also so did the increase in evolution in technology.\n\nWhenever there is a large development with transportation, there is a huge boom in technological achievement. Because now information and materials can be brought to new locations, and traded faster than before, people don't have to wait as long for results or experiments to get there. We also develop new tools as a result for finding raw elements to experiement with.\n\nThe Speed of Information, is only as fast as the transmission medium and without that medium, we become stagnant with innovation. For thousands and millions of years, information and technology only spread at the speed of human foot travel.\n\nWe domesticated Animals, and speed increased.\n\nWe devoloped animal pulled carts, and capacity for trade increased.\n\nWe bred faster horses and ultimately maxxed out speed of horse.\n\nWe developed sailing ships that could sail faster than a horse and carry more than a cart, and speed increased.\n\nfor nearly 2,500 years until the Romans would begin making paved roads, and even then, speed only stayed at the speed of a horse. It would not be until nearly 1800AD when the first steam engines were developed and speed increased again.\n\nIn the 1840s, The Telegraph was invented, along with significant advancements in electricity, Batteries and Steam engine efficiency, by 1870, we had the Transcontinental Railroad and 25,000Km of Telegraph wire in the United states, with a Trans-atlantic Telegraph cable under the atlantic ocean. For the first time in human history, we could communicate faster than we could travel ourselves.\n\nWith further advancements to steam engines and eventually developing coal and diesel combustion engines, we could make ships that coudl cross the ocean in 2-3 weeks instead of 2-3 months. We made trains, that could cross the USA in less than 5 days non stop. We first made CARS!\n\nAnd Innovation Exploded.\n\nTL;DR: Innovation and the speed of technolgy increased proportional to the speed in which information could be transferred from one person to another in a timely fashion."
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