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1a4tot | why is the great gatsby considered to be the pinnacle of american literature? | I promise this isn't part of my homework, I already read it in high school, and while I enjoyed it, I can't quite grasp why I have heard so many people including several teachers who claimed it is the greatest American work. What exactly makes it so much better than other pieces of American Literature like say The Post Office or Of Mice and Men? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1a4tot/eli5_why_is_the_great_gatsby_considered_to_be_the/ | {
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"your question is a bit flawed because all art is subjective, so what you may think to be a rather dull book can be considered to be a masterpiece by a lot of other people (myself included). And it's for the latter reason that books like The Great Gatsby attain status as a \"classic\"; because enough people agree that it's important enough to study and preserve for future generations; your teachers included.\n\nNow why \"The Great Gatsby\" in particular? It's actually an awesome book to show the depth that literature can have. It's told from a first-person POV, but the POV character isn't necessarily the main character of the book (There's an argument that I've had with my friends whether Carraway or Gatsby is the main character. I say it's the latter but I digress). It's an extremely accurate portrayal of a seminal period in American history, mainly because it was written during that time period. All that extravagance you read in the book actually happened and serves as a stark contrast to the Great Depression which would hit a few years later. Also important to note is that F. Scott Fitzgerald himself could be seen as a parable for Gatsby. He wasn't as poor as Gatsby, but he lived a lifestyle comparable to that in the '20's and had his own personal demons to wrestle with (mainly his rampant alcoholism). In addition, \"The Great Gatsby\" is a fantastic book to study symbolism. The green light represents a goal Gatsby strives for, but will never have, the eyes of TJ Eckleberg symbolize the growing commercialism of America, and of course, there's the commentary on the divide between \"old\" money and \"new\" money. Finally, and like I said this is subjective, but many people consider the book to be beautifully written. The last lines \"So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past\" is just beautiful IMO.\n\nIn short, there are lot of factors that have probably lead your teachers to proclaiming it \"the greatest work of American literature\". A lot of people would agree with them but remember, there's no such thing; it's merely an opinion, but one hammered into cultural conciousness through repitition and reputation. I enjoy \"Mice of Men\" as well, but Steinbeck is a much different writer than Fitzgerald so it'd really be like comparing apples and oranges.\n\nTL;DR: Art is subjective, but a lot of people like The Great Gatsby. I listed reasons why this may be, but remember, they're just opinions and you're allowed to have your own.",
"[crash course episode on the theme](_URL_0_) "
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19aq2z | what can vegetables give me that vitamin tablets can't? | I mean, I'm not overweight, have a beer belly (due to not being motivated over the last couple months) and I'm really not that keen on veggies. But what can vegetables really offer me in the way of nutrition that "one a day" can't? I know certain vegetables are considered super foods like broccoli and sprouts, but just curious. THANKS | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/19aq2z/eli5_what_can_vegetables_give_me_that_vitamin/ | {
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"Fiber and micro-minerals.",
"they fill you up with their fiber and water content, they keep you regular and promote a healthy digestive tract, and they have vitamins and minerals that are more easily absorbed by the body.",
"You need to consume a steady supply at least forty-two separate chemicals to stay alive. Those are just the ones we know about.\n\nIt's literally not possible to get all of them in synthetic form. There's no one pill that has them all in the right proportions and amounts, and you can't get all of them individually either.\n\nWe *do* have vitamin supplements for things that are easy and cheap to synthesize (like vitamin C) or for things which some people commonly don't get enough of (like iron). But these are, as it says right there on the label, *supplements.* They exist to provide *additional* nutrition on top of a healthy diet, for those who need it. They aren't substitutes for anything.\n\nBut even if we take that aside for the moment, even if we imagine that there existed a pill or combination of pills that could provide you with all the different nutrients you need every day, there'd still be the problem of *bioavailability.*\n\nBioavailability is a fancy word that basically means \"To what degree can your body make use of the stuff you cram into your pie socket?\" Nutrients in foods tend to be highly bioavailable, because your body is good at digesting foods. Things like fat-soluable vitamins — A, D, E and so on — tend to be found in foods that have fats in them, which is good, because you must have fats in your digestive system to be able to digest those vitamins. If you try to get those kinds of nutrients from a pill instead, you're going to end up pissing almost all of what you took back out again, because your gut didn't have the environment it needed to digest those nutrients.\n\nAll of which is a long-winded way of saying that taking vitamin supplements *without* also eating a decent, balanced diet accomplishes nothing but making your urine extremely expensive.",
"Well, depending on which doctors and researchers you ask those one a day vitamins may not being doing anything at all for your health, where as you won't find any that say eating fruits and vegetables giant helping you get your intake of vitamins and minerals. "
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rksxk | why most of us find bugs disgusting ? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/rksxk/eli5_why_most_of_us_find_bugs_disgusting/ | {
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"Because bugs can be pretty dangerous. So, we evolved not to want to cuddle with them.\n",
"The people that find bugs disgusting are those that are not exposed to them frequently. Bugs can be extremely alien and unique, and the uninitiated don't quite know what to make of them.\n\nFor example, in many cultures certain bugs make for very fine cuisine, such as roasted crickets in Singapore or silk worm cocoons in China (I think). Also IIRC from Man VS Wild some African cultures highly value those massive disgusting grubs.\n\nPersonally, I dislike roaches and termites because they're indicative of a poorly kept and uncleaned household, and I dislike caterpillars and by extension all grubs because the caterpillars near my childhood home are all huge with tons of spikes that look poisonous, which leads me to fear them greatly.",
"Because we evolved with an instinct to be fearful of certain dangerous stimuli that were present in the environments of our ancestors.\n\n[Here's an article that talks about our evolved fear of snakes and spiders.](_URL_0_) This is the important part about snakes (but it also applies to spiders):\n\n > *\"Evolution has equipped mammals with a readiness to easily associate fear to recurrent threats in their evolution... thus, given that fear is activated when a snake is around, they condition fear to the snake much easier than to other stimuli that are around.\"*\n\n**TL;DR Our brains evolved to be fearful of things that slither or crawl, as that has helped our species survive.**",
"Legs, lots of",
"House centipedes are common in my area. While doing research on how to properly execute a centipede genocide, I discovered they are actually part of the crustacean family... And then I couldn't eat shrimp for like two months. You're welcome. \n\n _URL_0_",
"My psych professor explained it as feeling grossed out by things that do not resemble ourselves. He said that too many legs or too few legs, and too much or too little hair makes us uncomfortable. That may just be his theory. "
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9wa981 | does the 22nd amendment allow a president that served to terms to be elected as vice president? and could he replace the president? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/9wa981/eli5_does_the_22nd_amendment_allow_a_president/ | {
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"No, and no. VP must be able to succeed POTUS should the need arise, and a two-term former POTUS is ineligible by the terms of ~~that Amendment~~ the Twelfth Amendment.",
"No, but if a VP assumes the role of president for less than 2 years they are still eligible to be elected president twice. \n\nEdit: I basically repeated \nu/FrankSpeakingAccount \nI should pay more attention. ",
"Well, maybe. If you consider the literal wording of the 22nd and 12th amendments, then yes. But it's probably not what the people who wrote those amendments meant.\n\nThe 22nd amendment says no one can be *elected* president more than twice. However it doesn't say they can't be appointed this position - for example if this former president is Speaker of the House and both the current President and VP resign. This means that this former president is still *eligible* to be president, they just can't be elected, which makes them in theory eligible for the position of VP.\n\nIf such a case ever came to be, it would be up to the Supreme Court to decide whether to take the literal interpretation of these amendments or not. ",
"There is no clear answer because the situation has never happened and thus the courts have never ruled on the constitutionality of the scenario. It would take a two-term President (Clinton, Bush 43 or Obama) to try to assume the office of the Vice President (whether via the Electoral College or nomination by the President and majority approval of both houses of Congress) and the courts granting standing to someone to challenge the Vice President-elect or desiginate's ability to assume the office.\n\nI think it does because if they would wanted to prevent a two-term President becoming Vice President, they would have said so. \n\nBut ultimately, it would be up to the Supreme Court",
"If you think about it, no president has ever taken a job afterwards. It's the highest office in the land (which includes the private sector). It's not likely they would take a lesser position anyways once one has held the top spot. \n\nPresidents might sit on a corporate or charitable board, do the public speaking thing, and act as diplomats (like Jimmy Carter). \n\nI will add the caveat that they could. But to take a lesser role like VP is kind of a bad thing for their legacy."
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3pg57w | why was stephen harper so bad and why is canada happy justin trudeau got elected? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3pg57w/eli5why_was_stephen_harper_so_bad_and_why_is/ | {
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"The Liberals are Canada's central (default) party [much more socialist/liberal than either of the main ones in the United States]. A decade ago they fell apart due to scandals and cronyism forcing people to choose between the Conservatives (more conservative) and NDP (more socialist). Most people still wanted something in the middle but there was nothing there.\n\nThe Conservatives (under Harper) beat out the NDP and ran the country for 10 years cutting funding to many programs to lower taxes and being insensitive to preserve the *traditional/typical* middle class. Now the Liberals are back and people can vote somewhere between the two extremes so they are happy (and hoping there isn't too much money wasted over the next few years). People who wish the Conservatives were just a bit more left leaning, but who would usually still vote Conservative, also voted Liberal because the Conservatives had caused Canada to be too far right for too long."
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fe5b4o | how can you see glass under a microscope if its clear? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/fe5b4o/eli5_how_can_you_see_glass_under_a_microscope_if/ | {
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"You can't, really.\n\nYou're seeing the imperfections in the glass (until that is, you get to such a level of extreme magnification that you're looking at the physical structure of the glass itself) or particles on the glass itself.\n\nThink of it like seeing a windowpane because it has dust on it, then cleaning it really well and thinking \"Wow, it's like it isn't even there.\""
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3n7gb6 | why do americans get so het up over the federal government? | It seems like the reaction to things is worse when it is the Federal Government rather than State level Governments. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3n7gb6/eli5why_do_americans_get_so_het_up_over_the/ | {
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"Power in the US starts with the States Governments and specific powers are given to the Federal Government. Anytime the Federal Government attempts to do something that is not specifically granted to them they are technically overstepping their authority. Often this is tolerated, but it almost always debated by the populace. \n\nEdit: Also, I have never heard of the term het. I assumed you meant \"upset\" or \"heated up\" with it. If that is not what it means then I am not sure how to answer your question. Het is not a common term in the US, or at least not a common term in Texas. ",
"We are a nation of States. We were paranoid of tyranny so our constitution only allows specific powers to be handed by the federal government with all other powers being reserved to the states. For example, all the states agree that maintaining the military should be a function of the federal government, since it would be stupid to have 50 different depts of defense all running around with different goals and constantly getting in the way of each other each other. The federal govt has a tendency to constantly try to usurp different powers that encompass all aspect of the country. Most of these are benign of course, no one would argue that the FAA or the NTSB is a bad thing, even though they arent mentioned in the constitution, but sometimes the people of a state feel like they are getting pushed around too much so they try to reign the federal government back in. Americans have an in-grained distrust of centralized power, especially when the power in question is perfectly capable of being handled by a state. We feel more comfortable when power, when it has to be centralized, is at the state level where people feel they have much closer representation. Our country was essentially built on a system of distrusting centralized government. "
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5acbhx | differences between the weak law and the strong law of large numbers | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5acbhx/eli5differences_between_the_weak_law_and_the/ | {
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"The difference relies on the distinction between a sequence of random variables \"converging in probability\" and \"converging almost surely\". As an example, let's say you're rolling a die. The expected value of any given die roll is 3.5, which we can calculate by taking the average of the faces: (1+2+3+4+5+6)/6 = 3.5.\n\n* Weak law: Choose any positive number E as a margin of error. Say that an \"unusual result\" is one where we roll some dice and find that the average of the rolls is more than E away from 3.5. So if we choose 0.1 as our margin of error, an unusual result is anything where the average of the die rolls is outside the range 3.4 through 3.6; or you could be more generous and choose E = 1, so an unusual result is one where the average is below 2.5 or above 4.5. The weak law says that as the number of rolls goes to infinity, the probability of an unusual result goes to 0, no matter how small the E you choose. If you choose a smaller E it will take longer for the probability to converge to 0, but it will always eventually happen.\n* Strong law: Here there's no margin of error. We just ask \"what is the probability that, as the number of rolls approaches infinity, the average of all the rolls will converge to 3.5?\" The strong law tells us that the answer is 1: there is a 100% chance of this happening, and a 0% chance of the average either converging to some other value or not converging at all.\n\nThe reason it's called the \"strong law\" is because the strong law says more than the weak law does. Here's an example that distinguishes the two. Say you pick a margin of error E, roll dice one at a time, and keep track of how often \"unusual events\" occur as you keep rolling dice. If an unusual result happens after the 1st, 4th, 9th, 16th, 25th, ..., rolls (i.e. every roll that's a perfect square), the weak law has no problem with this. Because unusual results are occurring less and less frequently as the number of rolls increases, the probability of an unusual result does approach 0.\n\nHowever, the strong law tells us that this series of rolls is still the sort of thing that has probability 0 of occurring. Why? In order to converge to 3.5, the running average has to get closer and closer to 3.5 as the number of rolls increases. But if unusual events happen at every perfect square, that means that the running average jumps at least E away from 3.5 infinitely often. This means the average can't be converging to 3.5, which the strong law says should only happen with probability 0."
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7tb3cg | why does ecstasy/mdma make you feel loving and dig deep into emotions? | I read that MDMA has been used in counselling for PTSD and I personally used it a couple of times when I was younger and was able to dig deep and speak about sexual assault that I experienced as a child that I couldn't speak about to my therapist. What does the drug activate that makes this happen? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/7tb3cg/eli5_why_does_ecstasymdma_make_you_feel_loving/ | {
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"it floods your brain with seratonin, one of the main hormones associated with happiness and love (the other main one is dopamine). Now we understand the brain pretty well when it comes to the electro chemical aspects, but the other aspects are not well understood at all, so I don't know if there is any solid answer on why MDMA helps people who have experienced trauma, and I'm guessing if there is an answer it's probably very contraversial. But we understand some problems we have in regards to mental illness are due to some kind of imbalance in our brain chemistry, so flooding our brain with seratonin kind of flips the imbalance the other way for a period. Also sometimes we lock away trauma in our brain due to the intense distress it has caused us, but when our brain is flooded with seratonin we block the emotions and hormones associated with trauma.\n\nThis isn't much of an answer because mental illness and MDMA and brain chemistry are all things that neurologists will admit they only have a limited understanding of, let alone me. I guess the real answer is that we have some understanding of what MDMA and seratonin is, but mental illness, trauma, memory, ect are still very hard to grasp for us. So if it helps, the reason why is a bit of a mystery."
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3pgx1o | why did canada's election seem to be completed so fast, whereas elections in the us take forever? | I understand it may be a simple "media coverage" issue, or does American Government require far more procedural debates than Canada's Government? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3pgx1o/eli5_why_did_canadas_election_seem_to_be/ | {
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"The actual election in both is just 1 day. The difference is the campaign build up to election day. In Canada, IIRC, the campaign lasted only 78 days or so. In the US, the campaign lasts multiple years; roughly a year once you're the nominee for your respective party, and years more to even get chosen by your party to be their nominee. \n\nAlso, IIRC, in Canada, you simply elect the *party*, and the leader of that party becomes the Prime Minister, while in the US, you elect the *leader* themself, which means you should need more time to get to better understand the person, as they may not match the ideologies of their party they're under 100%.",
"Canadian campaigns start when parliament is dissolved. Obviously - it's really hard for representatives to run while holding office, so parliament has to be dissolved first. This frees up the representatives to go out and campaign. Also - because the election date isn't set before then, challengers can't really campaign until they know when the election will be. Finally - federal money provided to fund the election isn't available until the election date is set. For these reasons - the moment parliament is dissolved is seen as the moment when campaigning starts. This is technically controlled by the Governor General, but almost always the Governor General acts on the advice of the Prime Minister. Unlike the United States, Canada does not have an officially predetermined election day. There's just a time limit on how long an elected parliament can serve before an election must be held (5 years). But elections can happen more frequently if people are dissatisfied. Sometimes as frequent as once a year. \nTL/DR: Because an election date is not known until parliament is dissolved, Canada more tightly controls the start of election campaigns."
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1zu8jl | how are informational/reality tv shows filmed? | Take 'The Amazing Race' as an example. While I do understand the cameras running after the contestants, how do they do the 'driving away' shots? There are shots of the contestants quickly driving off in a taxi, what are they doing with the cameraman?
Same with informational TV shows, you often see the shot of the car driving past with the scientist inside, on the way to talk to the camera about something in the wild. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1zu8jl/eli5_how_are_informationalreality_tv_shows_filmed/ | {
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"I'm not sure if it's the same for all of the shows, but in COPS, a lot of the time they did some filming during the actual events, but came back to film re-enactments to get stuff they couldn't get the first time."
]
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7r7b6u | why didn’t any astronomers see the meteor that went past michigan? | I’m not familiar with the entirety of the process but I’m assuming that there was some sort of satellite or telescope that would have at least seen it when it was further away. How is it that an object large enough to make such a big effect on Michigan was completely unforeseen?
| explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/7r7b6u/eli5_why_didnt_any_astronomers_see_the_meteor/ | {
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"It is all about the size. With current technology and resources, astronomers can detect nearly all meteors that could potentially get close to earth larger than 100 meters. If it is smaller than 100 meters, like the one on michingan (around 2 meters) we have neither the technology nor the resources to see every single of those objects. ",
"About 25 million meteors enter our atmosphere every day. Even though many of these are dust or grain of sand sized others are a couple meters or more across. Simply too many to look for. "
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5ki6re | the whole "fake news" thing. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5ki6re/eli5_the_whole_fake_news_thing/ | {
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"Fake news is detrimental in the same way false rumors are - people incorrectly believe something and allow it to color their opinions or dictate their actions. People, and even news sources, aren't bothering to fact check whether something is true or blatantly false, and then they spread that misinformation to others. "
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ev9hyh | why isn't it possible for small water filters to remove pharmaceuticals? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/ev9hyh/eli5_why_isnt_it_possible_for_small_water_filters/ | {
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"Organic molecules are much more difficult to remove from water than minerals, mostly because they really like to be dissolved in water. Add to this that some pharmaceuticals can have a large reaction for a small amount, because we've mostly evolved to tolerate most minerals because minerals have been in water forever."
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4f7zu7 | why are dogs so hyper compared to humans or cats? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4f7zu7/eli5_why_are_dogs_so_hyper_compared_to_humans_or/ | {
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"Dogs are pack animals (a variant of wolves). Their method of hunting requires a great deal of energy, chasing down prey in the wild and then fighting it to the death.\n\nCats are sneak-attack hunters. Their method of hunting does *not* require much stamina, but requires the ability to be quiet and stealthy.\n\nHumans, as it happens, are persistence hunters. Before agriculture, humans made their living partly by chasing down animals until the animal would become exhausted or overheated. This is why we are good long-distance runners with an extraordinary cooling system (sweating)."
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6i3ily | what happens when you have a 'pinched nerve'? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/6i3ily/eli5_what_happens_when_you_have_a_pinched_nerve/ | {
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"When pressure is applied on a nerve it gets activated, that's how nerves work, you will feel the pressure, pain, etc. However, when too much pressure is applied to a nerve by surrounding tissues, such as bones, cartilage, tumors, muscles, overgrowth of bone or tendons. This pressure disrupts the nerve's function, causing pain, tingling, numbness or weakness. \n"
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3hzo46 | how do animators sync video and audio so fluidly? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3hzo46/eli5_how_do_animators_sync_video_and_audio_so/ | {
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"It's easier than you think, with animation tools, you can play 1/30 a second of sound to know exactly what sound the voice actor is making, and draw based on that. With practice, you can do this very intuitively. Mimicking the words IRL helps with what mouth shapes you need to draw, and with most animation you dont need to be extremely accurate.\n\nAnd in most cases, lip syncing is done after the voices have been recorded.",
"Animation is done in layers. \"Lip syncing\" is done on the top layer. If you are animating a character talking, you will start by drawing the character with no mouth. Then you will draw a bunch of mouth shapes, like the mouth you make when you say \"Oh\" or the mouth you make when you say \"Fff.\" Then you will very overlay the mouth shapes on top of your character frame-by-frame to match the dialog.",
"The audio is recorded first (at least with American animation, Japanese animation apparently does it the other way around) so the animators have all the timings when they start. You can then look at a sound file and plan your mouth movements in time with the words. The RMIT Centre for Animation & Interactive Media has some good information on it. _URL_0_",
"In 3D animation you can put in the audio in the same file and scrub through the animation while the audio plays. Lip syncing is actually one of the easier things to do in 3D animation and it's usually left for the last. Also, the poses you have to make for the mouth are actually only a few shapes (I think it's 8 but I can't recall, haven't done lip sync in a long time) and with those 8 shapes you can animate any word in any language.",
"Nobody mentions dope sheets?\n\nI don't have time to properly respond right now. But I was the editor on a number of animated shows in the 90s (Ned's Newt, the recur DBZ, and others.). I can explain how it's done if nobody else has by then. ",
"You record audio first in most cases really not that hard once you get the hang of it. Easiest way to lip sync for me is to animate the character with out a mouth but leave a mark on the face where the mouth will be placed to keep the placement consistent then animate the mouth on the next layer up. I have been animating for 8 years and its really all just practice. The software you use can help alot as well.",
"To see an old fashioned way it was done, check out this excerpt from a [documentary on animator Lotte Reiniger.](_URL_0_) (start at 10:40)\n\nIt shows the score, literally written out as sheet music, with the number of frames needed for each measure. The shots are then planned accordingly and recorded in her shot log. \n\nThings are of course different with the ease of digital, but it generally draws from this tradition.\n\nAnd she's such a beautiful animator that it's pure pleasure to watch a bit of her process. "
]
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[],
[],
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[],
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36p52o | why non-consumer facing companies advertise at sporting events | For example Visa, who makes their money from getting financial institutions to use them as a processor - why do they advertise and sponsor big consumer events, when their job is convincing finance companies to use them? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/36p52o/eli5_why_nonconsumer_facing_companies_advertise/ | {
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"because business execs and decision makers are sports fans too. Simple as that. it reaches their target audience (as well as millions who aren't in their target audience, but they don't care about that)\n\nPro Sports is really the only thing that 90% of high powered white men have in common.",
"Business to Business Marketing is still an effective way to build or reinforce brand awareness.\n\nThink of fi this way - IBM sponsors golf tournaments not to make you as a consumer think of them one way or another - but to make it seem to their actual customers (enterprises) that they are a substantial player.\n\nThey get to put the prestige of the event alongside their brand. Their actual customers notice that and feel secure in doing business with them.\n"
]
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2gm60j | how does a flamethrower work? | Obviously there's something that you use to make the flame (napalm, gasoline, etc) and there's a torch/lighting mechanism (small propane tank with torch attachment?) on the "gun" handle part. But what actually happens (what comes from where and what goes where) and why are there CO2 tanks? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2gm60j/eli5how_does_a_flamethrower_work/ | {
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"You wear a backpack that has 2 tanks: 1 full of gasoline, the other fully of high-pressure gas like CO2.\n\nYou have a nozzle, which is essentially a pipe with a lit flame at the end of it, and this pipe is connected to the gas tank with a hose.\n\nWhen you pull the trigger, CO2 gets pumped in to the Gas tank at high pressure. This forces gas out of the tank, into the hose and out the front of the nozzle, just like a super-soaker squirt gun. However, as the gas squirts out the front, it passes through the flame and gets lit on fire."
]
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[]
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5iggj1 | what does it mean when someone says the us has 20 million dollars of debt? | [deleted] | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5iggj1/eli5_what_does_it_mean_when_someone_says_the_us/ | {
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"I think it's more like 20 trillion.",
"Someone else is owed the money. Mostly China now it seems.\n\nAuctioning off debt means selling bonds.\n\nSo if a Treasury note is sold that's a bond and it must be repaid and usually will be with interest.\n\n_URL_1_\n\n_URL_0_\n\nDue to context being fluid sometimes people mean EVERY kind of debt, credit card, home loan, bonds as mentioned above, etc., as what is owed.\n\nIt's a lot more than 20 million."
]
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[],
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"http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-06-15/what-behind-record-sale-75-billion-us-treasurys-foreign-holders",
"https://si.wsj.net/public/resources/images/MI-CM113_CBANK_16U_20151006170009.jpg"
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ogv5n | sports betting. the over/under, the spread, and all that other good stuff. please. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/ogv5n/eli5_sports_betting_the_overunder_the_spread_and/ | {
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"Over/under is simply a bet that the outcome of a game will be over or under a given statistic, usually score. In the NFL, for example, a game's over/under is a representation of the expected combined offensive output. Say it's 50, and I think both teams will have an off day. I'll bet under.\n\nThe spread is a bet on your accuracy in predicting (almost always) a score. Again using a football example, Vegas will set a spread based on the perceived difference in quality in the two teams.\n\nThe spread in Super Bowl 42 (Giants vs. Patriots) in 2007 was 12 if I remember correctly, unheard of in the championship game.\n\nYou can bet that the favorite will \"cover\" (Beat the underdog by at least the spread), that it won't, and vice versa for the underdog.",
"For the spread just add or subtract the number to/from that team's score.\n\nExample: Houston (-7) vs. Miami\n\nI bet on Houston to cover the spread. If they win 20-10, that is 13 (20-7) to 10. At 13-10 they still won so I win the bet. Now if they win 14-10, that is 7 (14-7) to 10 so they didn't cover the spread and you lost the bet.",
"To clarify, let's look at today's game between NO and SF. This is [the line](_URL_0_). You see Saints (-3.5) and 49ers (+3.5). O/u is 47. This means 49ers are the underdog. If you bet on the 49ers, you add 3.5 points to their final score to determine the victor. If you bet on the Saints, you subtract 3.5 from their score. \n\nSo if final score is saints win, 27-24, they go on to the next round as far as NFL is concerned. But as far as Vegas is concerned, a bet for SF wins. And a bet for the over wins, because scores added up to 51 ( > 47). \n\nNow, the money line bet. The money line is a bet that does not involve the spread. Just simply pick the winner, and the final score doesn't matter if your team won by 1, or by 70. However, the odds on the game affect the payout. Look at that page again. You see Saints (-195) and 49ers (+170) This means that you need to bet $195 on the saints to win $100. But if you bet $100 on 49ers and they win, you get $170. \n\nLast topic, the numbers in parentheses behind certain numbers, \"Saints -3.5 (-105)\" or o/u 47 (-110). This number is \"the juice.\" Gambling on line costs money, so this represents that cost. If I want to bet that 49ers will cover the spread, it's going to cost me $115 to win $100, as long as they don't lose by more than 3 points. \n\nNotice that money line bets do not have juice. "
]
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644rac | how does the iss keep track of time since time is relative to where you are located on the planet? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/644rac/eli5_how_does_the_iss_keep_track_of_time_since/ | {
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"The ISS uses Greenwich Mean Time (GMT+0) the time at the Prime Meridian. \n\nThis was chosen because it is conveniently between Houston time (GMT-5) and Moscow time (GMT+3) so it doesn't result in either group of controllers working crazy hours."
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729sxd | how do tow truck/locksmiths open car doors when you lock your keys inside? | My girlfriend just locked her keys in her trunk and the driver that came had a long tube that he seemingly just inserted in weather striping and the door popped open. It was dark out and I feel like I missed something. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/729sxd/eli5_how_do_tow_trucklocksmiths_open_car_doors/ | {
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"You take a small wedge like a door stop. You push that between the door and the frame. All cars give alittle so it opens just enough to get a rod in there to push the unlock bottom or a hook to pull up on the lock if it's manual"
]
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4npw8f | what are makeshift torches made out of that allows them to burn for so long? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4npw8f/eli5_what_are_makeshift_torches_made_out_of_that/ | {
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" > In many shows you watch\n\nTV's not real life. Many things you see are completely unrealistic and are continually repeated because some clueless scriptwriter saw it in some other show or movie.\n\n_URL_0_\n\n",
"Wooden log. Piece of rag cloth drenched in petroleum or some other flammable liquid. Wrap the cloth at the end of the log, and light it. Thus, you have a makeshift torch.\n\nIf you used an alcohol, then its possible for the alcohol to burn off without actually burning the cloth or the wood.",
"I would think some sort of natural tar/pitch applied liberally to a piece of cloth of some kind, not cotton, then allowed to dry to a certain point but not completely, prior to being lit. And yes, natural tar/pitch is a real thing. ",
"This was one of the things that was so ridiculous about Lost. There were torches fucking everywhere and they burned forever. Lol",
"Torches don't last very long, don't produce a lot of light, and require a relatively large amount of resources for the light you get out of them.\n\nThey're used in film as a dramatic point, and a commonly accepted form of *ancient lighting*. They weren't, and [this guy](_URL_0_) summarizes why nicely. "
]
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l0ory | the difference between battery cell sizes | Why would something need 4xAAA instead of 2xAA or 1xD? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/l0ory/eli5_the_difference_between_battery_cell_sizes/ | {
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"They all have the same voltage they just have a larger pool of energy to pull from.\n\nWith a proper adapter it's perfectly possible to replace a AAA with a D battery or D with a AAA. The only difference is the D will last longer before needing replacing. \n\nIf you stack batteries in series they do provide a higher voltage. So for example 4xAAA can provide a higher voltage then 3xD. Some systems require this higher voltage to operate for example device that have motors. It all depends on the application.",
"Most batteries that we use have a voltage of 1.5 volts. (The obvious exception is a 9-volt battery). This is true for AA, AAA, C, and D. \n\nIf you take two batteries and hook them up in series, you now have a voltage drop of 3 volts. 4 batteries gives you a voltage drop of 6 volts. Different electronics require different voltages to run - many electronics run off of 5 volts, so you would need at least 4 batteries to run them. \n\nThe different types (AAA, AA, C, D) carry different amounts of energy. This quantity is measured in watt-hours. That is, you take the power output (in watts) and multiply it by the number of hours you can run it at. So if you are running a 2-watt fan for 3 hours, that's a total energy of 6 watt-hours. \n\nThe AAA battery has a capacity of 1.41 watt-hours; the AA has 2.60; the C battery has 9.56; and the D battery has 20.83. ([source](_URL_0_)) So if you had a flashlight, you could run it for almost 15 times longer off of a D battery than you could a AAA. \n\nIt all comes down to your specific application. If you care more about size and weight, and you don't use much power (for example, a mini MP3 player), it will likely use AAA batteries. If you don't care as much about weight but you care much more about power and battery life, you would use D batteries (like in a powerful flashlight). ",
"They all have the same voltage they just have a larger pool of energy to pull from.\n\nWith a proper adapter it's perfectly possible to replace a AAA with a D battery or D with a AAA. The only difference is the D will last longer before needing replacing. \n\nIf you stack batteries in series they do provide a higher voltage. So for example 4xAAA can provide a higher voltage then 3xD. Some systems require this higher voltage to operate for example device that have motors. It all depends on the application.",
"Most batteries that we use have a voltage of 1.5 volts. (The obvious exception is a 9-volt battery). This is true for AA, AAA, C, and D. \n\nIf you take two batteries and hook them up in series, you now have a voltage drop of 3 volts. 4 batteries gives you a voltage drop of 6 volts. Different electronics require different voltages to run - many electronics run off of 5 volts, so you would need at least 4 batteries to run them. \n\nThe different types (AAA, AA, C, D) carry different amounts of energy. This quantity is measured in watt-hours. That is, you take the power output (in watts) and multiply it by the number of hours you can run it at. So if you are running a 2-watt fan for 3 hours, that's a total energy of 6 watt-hours. \n\nThe AAA battery has a capacity of 1.41 watt-hours; the AA has 2.60; the C battery has 9.56; and the D battery has 20.83. ([source](_URL_0_)) So if you had a flashlight, you could run it for almost 15 times longer off of a D battery than you could a AAA. \n\nIt all comes down to your specific application. If you care more about size and weight, and you don't use much power (for example, a mini MP3 player), it will likely use AAA batteries. If you don't care as much about weight but you care much more about power and battery life, you would use D batteries (like in a powerful flashlight). "
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1rhzlg | the udp protocol | Someone please explain TCP/UDP and why I care about it | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1rhzlg/eli5_the_udp_protocol/ | {
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"Both UDP and TCP are protocols that sit just above the IP layer. To put this in context you need to look at the OSI stack: _URL_0_. But essentially each layer wraps the one above it with some more information such as where it is meant to be going, how big it is etc.\n\nTo really understand what is happening here, you need to know at the most basic level what an IP address is and what a port is. So an IP address is your internet facing address. Forgetting lots of clever tricks where people/computers can share IP addresses (c.f. NAT, LAN), every computer has a unique address. But within each computer there are lots of processes running. This is where port numbers come in. The operating system needs to know which process to send the data to, and that is signified by the port number. Now IP has no concept of ports, so you need a protocol on top of that to contain the port information. This is UDP.\n\nSo the UDP header literally contains a 'source' port and a 'destination' port. The other two fields which are required are 'length', to tell the computer where this packet ends and the next begins. And a checksum just to add some level of reliability about the port numbers not being corrupt.\n\nSo UDP is the most basic way of sending data between processes across a network. TCP adds a LOT of other things such as congestion control, flow control and reliability; all of which UDP doesn't have. \n\n",
"TCP/UDP are basically rules for how data is sent/received.\n\nTCP is very concerned about the integrity of the data sent. UDP not so much - as long as it gets there, even if you lose some data on the way, its not that big of a deal.\n\nThink of it like this - you have some data that goes out over the internet. It gets split up into packets 1-20.\n\nWith TCP, you have to wait until you get all 1-20 packets - if 19 goes missing, you request it again, until you have it. Then you put 1-20 in order, and voila, there is your data.\n\nWith UDP, you can be missing packages 10-15, who gives a shit. I have 1-9 and 16-20, lets put together what we can and ask for the next batch.\n\nTCP is very good when data integrity matters - file transfers, for instance - a missing packet or two can cause data corruption.\n\nUDP is very good when speed matters - video, voice, etc. Losing a few frames to packet loss doesn't matter. What does matter is not wasting time waiting for those lost packets to arrive, or requesting them again. Who cares? Get what data you can, the user is more concerned with the voice/video happening with minimal lag, rather than to be super smooth.\n\nDepending on how you want the end product to look, you might choose TCP, you might choose UDP, or maybe some hybrid of the two."
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3ijn1m | how a scram jet engine works? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3ijn1m/eli5_how_a_scram_jet_engine_works/ | {
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"Basically, it is a get engine with almost no moving parts. It sucks air in by moving through the air at supersonic speeds, compresses the air, mixes in fuel, ignites it, and then forces it out the other end even faster. Scram jets only work at high velocities, while their cousins, ram jets, work at lower speeds. Both need to be moving to work.",
"Standard jet engines take in large amounts of air, compress it with a compressor (which runs off of some of the energy produced by the engine) mix the compressed air with fuel and ignite the fuel air mixture. \n\nWhen ignited, the mixture expands rapidly. This expansion is directed through a nozzle which results in engine thrust. \n\nA scramjet performs the same basic functions, except the special shape of the inlet compresses the air, eliminating the need for a mechanical compressor, and it does so at supersonic speeds. "
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2f5zyp | how does imgur stay up with heavy reddit traffic when text-only sites crash when front-paged? | Surely serving images takes more server processing time and bandwidth than serving text... right? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2f5zyp/eli5_how_does_imgur_stay_up_with_heavy_reddit/ | {
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"Imgur is expecting (and is prepared for) the reddit influx. Most websites are not.",
"When you've got a server, you're connected to the internet through a cable, like your home computer.\n\nWhether you own the server and just pay for internet service, or you rent space on a real or virtual server, you're paying for a certain amount of bandwidth -- either measured in bps, like your home internet, or in amount of megabytes of data transferred.\n\nSo, let's say you've got a website, and the main webpage is 500K when all added up. Your server has a 10Mb/sec connection to the internet -- that's mega-bits, so a little over two megaBYTES per second. \n\nSo, one computer that's got 80MB/sec internet service connects and downloads that 500K webpage -- no problem, it takes only about a second to download it, but it doesn't matter how fast the 80MB/sec connection is, they can't download the files faster than the 10MB/sec connection to the server.\n\nNext, it's a normal traffic day, and there's about 10 computers connecting every second, so that's about 5MB/sec being downloaded, or about twice the maximum bandwidth. Users will feel some slowdown, but that's an average connection; there's stretches of seconds where no new connections are being made, so some computers have to wait a second or two for bandwidth to open up so they can get their data, but most people don't notice two seconds.\n\nNow, Reddit \"hugs\" you -- there's 100 computers connecting every second, never dropping below 80 computers a second even at slow times. There's no way that 50MB/sec demand for downloads will ever catch up, so those computers that have to stop and wait because there's no bandwidth never get caught up, they time out, and the browser shows an error. That server is still running, struggling to keep up with connections, and maybe 10 or 20 computers out of that 100 do get the page sent to them, but 90% time out.\n\nImgurl and other high-bandwidth sites pay for huge 'pipes' -- connections able to handle 50MB, 100MB, even gigabit speeds. And, they don't have just one server: they use a [content delivery network](_URL_0_), which consists of numerous servers around the world, using internet infrastructure to route connections to the nearest and least-bottlenecked servers. So, they are unlikely to run out of data room, allowing thousands, even millions, of connections every second by distributing the load over several high-bandwidth connections.\n\n**Edit** to address this question: *Surely serving images takes more server processing time and bandwidth than serving text*\n\nNot really; to the server, it's pretty much all data, there's not much 'processing' going on. Some websites have the text files built on-the-fly, like a Wordpress site, or an image-sharing site might be resizing images automatically while pages are loaded, both of which take extra processing time. But, if you are just serving files without processing, a 1MB text file and 1MB image file take the same processing power. Now, there's things like inline-compression, which makes downloading text files faster but by using some CPU time, which most servers use, so it's not a clean-cut answer when you start looking at what the server is actually doing when a request is made. Images, in general, have much larger filesizes on average, which means bandwidth is probably much more relevant than CPU usage when wondering why a \"reddit hug\" causes a site to go down. For this reason, some sites put just their images in a content-delivery-network, while their main webserver handles the text."
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2ot95l | how did the world first react to public uses of 'internet' on computer? | As titled, but also, I would like to know about how its progression was in 3 - 5 years. How quickly did it expand? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2ot95l/eli5_how_did_the_world_first_react_to_public_uses/ | {
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"At first (late 1980s to early 1990s) we were all like \"hey this is kinda cool. Look, I'm chatting with strangers who live across the country!\"\n\nBut then (mid-late 1990s) we were all \"hey, this is *really* cool. I bet we can use this to make work easier for our employees and sell our products more quickly and for less and in markets we've never been in before.\"\n\nAnd finally (after the dot-com bust in 2001) we were all like \"okay, we kinda overestimated how much the internet can do. We can make some things easier and sell some things more quickly, but not everything. Lets continue doing the stuff that works and use the rest of the internet for pictures of cats, porn, and calling strangers fags when they're wrong. Maybe some day we'll have the ability to do the rest of that stuff.\""
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j2d9r | ok, here's a really difficult one...israel and palestine. explain it like i'm 5. (a test for our "no politics/bias rule!) | Basically, what is the controversy? How did it begin, and what is the current state? While I'm sure this is a VERY complicated issue, maybe I can get an overview that will put current news in a bit more context. Thank you! | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/j2d9r/ok_heres_a_really_difficult_oneisrael_and/ | {
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"\"Holy Land,\" Jews and Muslims both want it. Arabs, mostly Muslim, had it most recently. After WWII, the UN gave it to the Jews. The Arabs were obviously upset by this.\n\nNow, both sides want it, and they do what humans do best. The same thing that they've been doing right at that same spot since the crusades.",
"Here is a great letter from the King of *Jordan* in 1947, telling the reasons the Arabs had a problem with the formation of the state of Israel.\n\n[LINK](_URL_0_)\n\nEdit: Changed \"King of Palestine\" to \"King of Jordan\"",
"Every response in this topic is hilariously biased. Don't listen to any of these replies. ",
"Also, since surprisingly no one has mentioned this yet - role of the USA:\nespecially since the end of the cold war (after which geo-strategic importance of Israel is vastly diminished) the US has supported Israel with vast amounts of cash + military hardware + political backing. To me it seems this is an absolutely vital lifeline to Israel withoutwhich the situation would have resolved itslef by now. Not necessarily by the overunning of the land by Arabs, but probably by a negotiated settlement. Israel would be unlikely to have been acting in souch an arrogant and provocative manner if it didn't have the US behind its back.",
"Imagine you are a person living in an old house. \n\nYou hear about another guy across town whose roommates beat him up and kicked him out. According to legends and history, this other guy used to live in the house you have now, and his parents and grandparents before him did too, and their family always talks about it as \"theirs\". \n\nSo one day the cops show up at your door with this guy and say,\"So we've worked out a solution to this guy's problem. You know how he got beat up and kicked out of his house? Well we're going to have him move in here, with you, because his parents and grandparents lived here.\"\n\n\"But, I live here now. He, his grandparents and parents were evicted many years ago. I knew they were evicted because of fighting with their neighbors, and some racism may have been involved and it may not have been fair, but this is my house now. I do not want him to live here,\" you say. \n\n\"Well that's tough son. We think it would be great for him, and he's done a lot of campaigning about it, so that's it. He's moving in. But don't worry, we'll make it cool for you. We'll split the house up with a line of duct tape, with the kitchen being shared by both of you. So there won't be any problems! It works out for everyone!\"\n\n\"Well that's horseshi-\" you start to say, but he's already in your house, relaxing on your couch. The cops leave, and its just you and him. \n\nSo you constantly fight, physically and verbally. All his friends hate you and your friends, and all your friends hate him and his friends. You still don't believe that he has a right to live in the house, and he still thinks that he should be allowed to live there and prosper because of all the history and legends about his family living there. \n\nYou are Palestine, the other guy is Israel, all his friends are the Israeli Jews and their supporters (the U.S. being one), all your friends are the Islamic Arab world, and their supporters (which are numerous), the duct tape line is the border between modern day Israel and Palestine, and the kitchen is Jerusalem. \n\nEditors note: Obvious oversimplification. Also, I chose to make this from the point of view of the Palestinians. I will make another from the point of view of the Israelis. Also note that this is only the description of the origin of the conflict, and not the entire history. \n\nEdit: Revisions as deemed appropriate by gibson_ found [here](_URL_1_)\n\nEdit: 1. READ MY OTHER POST BEFORE BITCHING ABOUT BIAS.\n\n2.Many of you are displeased on the finer points of the history. Don't ask for a civic and get pissed when you don't get a Ferarri. I explained it as I understood it, in the simplest manner possible. If you want the entire history, you can find it [here](_URL_0_).\n\n",
"I don't believe it's possible to answer this one without showing a bias. The very nature of the dispute stems from notions of property rights and how those change based on historical conquest. Establishing who has the \"right\" to the land, in a purely objective sense, all depends on how far back you're willing to look.",
"Reposting an old comment of mine:\n\nIt all started in 1890 with the birth of Zionism, the belief that Jews deserve a homeland, by Theodor Herzl.\n\nHerzl started to work towards that goal. The the rise of Zionism along with economical problems in Europe and persecution in Eastern Europe led to the 1st Alyiah, which was a mass immigration of 35K Jews into Palestine over the course of 20 years. The rise of Zionism along with the mass migrations eventually led to the Balfour Declaration which to make it short, approved and showed support for the construction of a Jewish state in Palestine, which was inhabited by Arabs, small Jewish colonies, and controlled by England after the Ottoman Empire lost control over the zone after WWI.\n\nAs the years passed, Jewish immigration continued and Jewish socialist colonies in Palestine started rising, called Kibbutz's, and eventually also modern cities started to be built. Such development started to worry the Arab locals, and that led to attacks on Jewish inhabitants. Because of the rising immigration the British ended up imposing regulations on the amount of Jews that could immigrate to Palestine. The attacks on Jews along with the limits on the immigration led to the formation of Jewish paramilitary groups such as the Haganah which was in charge of the defense over Jews, the terrorist organization Irgun, and other organizations that were in charge of smuggling Jews into Palestine, and even attacking Brits in order to get them out of Palestine and gain independence.\n\nEventually the tensions were too big and the British started looking for solutions, and that led to the Partition Plan. There is much debate about the fairness of the plan towards Jews and Arabs but to make it short, the plan would divide Palestine into two states. A Palestinian state, and a Jewish state, with some zones not belonging to any side and being controlled by the UN.\n\nThe Jews accepted the plan, but the Arabs refused it and started more riots. Eventually, the British decided to GTFO. One day before the Brits left, the Jews declared their independence and called their state Israel. When the British left, different Arab armies invaded Israel with the intention of killing their inhabitants. This is were things start to get messy. There are some versions. One version says that the Palestinians left because the neighboring countries asked them to leave during the war in order to not get caught in the crossfire between the Jews and the Arab armies. The other version says that there was a planned ethnic cleansing of the Palestinians by the Jews and that they were expelled. I believe that it was a combination of both. There are testimonies of the Palestinians leaving on their own, and there are testimonies of Palestinian villages being massacred.\n\nThe war ended, and to the surprise of their neighbors, the Jews won. By the end of the war, there were around 900 thousand Palestinian refugees with no country willing to absorb them. They were left by Egypt in what today is the Gaza Strip, and by Jordan in what today is the West Bank. Over the years, Israel was attacked again, and again Israel was the victorious one gaining more land. I think that it was after the Six Days war in the '67, that Israel conquered the Sinai from Egypt. Some years later, Israel gave back the Sinai, but stayed with the Gaza Strip and the West Bank. So ever since the '67, Israel is in charge of the refugees. Since Israel's creation, the refugees dream with a state of their own, but resort to violence and attacks on Israeli citizens, which worsen their situation.\n\nThis creates a big problem. The Israelis tried many times to make peace with the Palestinians, but the Palestinians were stabbed in the back by Yasser Arafat, their leader over the past decades until his death, which refused for any kind of peace. With the flow of time, Israel started growing settlements in Palestinian areas in order to maintain control over the Palestinian areas.\n\nSo now we have a huge problem. The Palestinians demand that we go back to the '67 borders simply to start serious negotiations. That implies for us to displace 400 thousand settlers. Nobody is going to do that. In the meanwhile, the Palestinians are led by fanatical fundamentalists that want us dead more more than they want the Palestinians alive. We on the other side, are led by people that find maintaining the status quo more appealing than displacing so much settlers. The only man who had the courage to make what had to be done was Ariel Sharon, who pulled all the settlers out of Gaza. Sadly, that killed his political career. Moreover, the short term effects of the Gaza disengagement were so disastrous, that they killed any close possibility of getting out of the West Bank.\n\nMeanwhile, we Israelis get more and more frustrated with our peace attempts, and start turning to fascist leaders such as Avigdor Lieberman who calls for the expulsion of Israeli Arabs. That as a consequence, turn the Palestinians even more against us and start being brainwashed, which makes us turn into even more fascist leaders. So now we are on 2010, controlling the borders of Gaza and blockading it as a failed attempt to make the Palestinians understand that they only harm themselves with every rocket they shoot at us, and maintaining a military occupation over the West Bank, with fascist parties gaining power. The sittuation is at the shitter and all I can hope for, is for the future Israeli and Palestinian generations to understand that their leaders are not interested in peace and that it's up to them to solve what their grandfathers did.\n\nThese are the views of a 21 years old Argentinian who lived between the age of 12 and 18 in Israel. I hope that you find it helpful.\n",
"Israel was carved out of land the Palestinians had claim to and was made into its own country. Both groups have historical and cultural links to the area, and so there is tension. ",
"The holy land has exchanged hands time and time again, as many lands have. This is just a war for resources between those who were placed here most recently and the people who were there just a moment before them. It's just a game of king of the hill. There is no morality here, only who wins the land (or if they ever decide to share, that works too. Oh, if the book religions ever learned to share...) \n\n...Aaaaaand then the U.S. comes in and picks sides. I guess the U.S. wants a piece of the holy land too?",
"This issue cannot be summed up. It can be explained in simple terms, but there is a vast amount of information that must be considered when looking at this conflict. I highly suggest you read [*A History of the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict*](_URL_0_). It's a really good book on the subject, and the author does a good job remaining objective. This is a perfect example of why this idea is shit. If someone asked me to explain existentialism to them in a few short pages, and in simple terms, it wouldn't be difficult, but it would be a fucked and simplistic account. I simply don't understand *why* people refuse to read books if they are interested in a subject.",
"Imagine you are a person living in an apartment with some other people. You are not treated well. They harass you, they try to undermine your business dealings, they generally cause you problems. \n\nOne day, one of them beats the ever loving shit out of you. You escape the apartment alive, but find yourself homeless. \n\nYou are living at a friend's house, but apparently start to get on his nerves. You tell him all about the house your grandparents helped to build, and your parent's lived in for a long time that means a great deal to your family. All the legends and folklore of your family take place in that house. But you are aware that someone else is living in it now. \n\nSo one day, your friend says, \"look, I have some powerful connections, and I'm going to get you back your old house.\" \n\nYou are overjoyed about this, but know it will be a struggle, because of the other inhabitant.\n\nSo you get with the police and go to this house. A man answers the door. The cops tell him that you used to live in this house, and that it has been passed down the generations in your family, and that you are going to live there again. They tell him how some bullies took the house from your family many years ago. \n\nThe man protests, saying that he doesn't care who lived in this house before him, that its *his* house. The cops tell him that that's tough shit, that the house was wrongfully taken from his family, and that they're compromising by letting you both live there. They split the house in half with a duct tape line, and make it clear that the kitchen will be shared by the both of you. \n\nYou step in while he's talking to the police. You are overjoyed that you have returned to your home, the place you grew up.\n\nThe guy who was talking to the cops comes in. \n\nYou are sitting on his couch. \n\nYou look at him and say, \"Look, I wish it didn't have to be this way, but my family has always been here, maybe we can get alo-\" \n\nBut before you finish your statement, he hits you in the jaw. You are not going to stand for that, and punch him in the nose. \n\nYou fight all the time now, and he hates you and your friends, and you hate him, and his friends, and your relationship to him is causing fights not only between you two, but between your friends and his friends and people you don't even know well. \n\nYou are Israel, your disgruntled roommate is Palestine, his friends are the Islamic Arab world (which are numerous), your friends are the Israeli Jews and their supporters (of which the United States is one), the cops are the British and the League of Nations, the duct tape line is the Israeli border, and the kitchen is Jerusalem. \n\nNote: Obvious oversimplification, many factors at work. I also left out the religious aspect, as I think that that is a problem in and of itself. Also note that this only describes the origin of the conflict, and not the entire history. \n\nedit: grammar\n\nEdit: grammar 2. Thanks frankle. \n\nEdit: grammar 3. Damn, getting sloppy. ",
"The jews were being heavily persecuted in Europe towards the end of the 19th century. There were a bunch of anti-jewish riots in eastern Europe around that time that forced jews to flee the country.\n\nWith no homeland and facing severe persecution the idea of zionism sprung up. To create a jewish homeland and safe haven for all jewish people. There was a lot of discussion about where this homeland would be (Argentina and Uganda were both possibilities, and many jews emigrated to America during this time) but eventually the most prominent Jewish thinkers of the time settled on this idea that the Jewish homeland would be in Palestine, the holy land, and they would move there and create a nation where jews could be free from persecution.\n\nSo a bunch of jews began moving to Palestine on a whim, they worked their fingers to the bone on this hope that they could take desert land and make it fertile, that they could actually create this nation that the zionist thinkers had envisioned, it was a long slow process but that's where all the immigration to Palestine comes from.\n\nThen the Holocaust happened, and the need for a Jewish country as a safe haven became almost inevitable, so the U.N passed a resolution to partition the Palestinian land (which was actually under British control) and create Israel. Well right as this happened Palestine, Jordan, Egypt, Syria etc. said that if Israel became a country they would be immediately attack Israel and prevent them from ever existing. I don't know why the Arab nations did this, it seems really retarded to try and destroy a race that just dealt with the holocaust but they did. It was a really sloppy attack, the Arab nations weren't really organized and Israel ended up holding off the invasion and cementing its foothold in the region. As a result of the 1948 war a ton of Palestinians were displaced and lost their homes which Arabs see as an atrocity but I don't understand why because they chose to attack Israel in the first place.\n\nSo now there's all this tension and it finally erupts again in 1967 in which Israel obliterates Syria and Egypt capturing the Sinai peninsula and the Golan heights. Now shit's really fucked up because Israel is taking land from other Arab nations. It's like this weird cycle where the arabs attack Israel, lose, and then get pissed off at the atrocities Israel commits in winning military campaigns. \n\nThere's another war in 1973 that gets really intense, but because of the cold war and neither the US or Soviets wanting a proxy war in the region, the two powers manage a ceasefire. In 1979 Egypt signs a peace treaty with Israel, in the 1990's Jordan signed a peace treaty with Israel and progress looks like it's being made.\n\nFast-forward to now. I think the main issue is this. Palestine wants to become a country, understandably because right now Israel has all these annoying checkpoints and it makes life impossible for the Arabs there. It's weird though because the gaza strip and the west bank where most of the arabs live don't touch eachother, so how is that going to work and become one country? Also Israel doesn't want Palestine to become a country because they don't want to turn border control over to the arabs. Right now Israel controls the borders to Palestine and they think if Palestine is a self-governing nation that it will become a breeding ground for terrorism. \n\nSo Israel is oppressing arabs, they're expanding settlements into Arab land, and the arabs are worried for their sovereignty. But there's a large amount of arab extremism that wants israel wiped off the map and commits acts of terror to prove their point only substantiating Israel's worries. Then you have Egypt and Jordan who both have to support the arabs but both have important peace treaties with Israel so there's like a conflict of interest there. The USA gives Israel a ton of money in return for a presence in the region where we're fighting terrorism so that's going on. And it's just a big clusterfuck.\n\nI think we could solve it pretty easily. Israel needs to accept that Palestine will become a self governing country and prepare for the transition. The Arabs should just chill the fuck out, they should stop claiming everything is an injustice and realize they were retarded to attack the jews right after the holocaust (seriously wtf) if you get your ass kicked in a war there are negative results, it's not an injustice against you it's part of starting a war in the first place. And nobody should blow eachother up b/c that really doesn't help anything.\n\nI'm not an expert on this in any way, in fact I really have know idea why Jews and Arabs are fighting, and I'm sure some of these facts are wrong, also I don't understand the economics and politics behind it, this is just what I think the issue is.\n\n\n",
"JUST THE BACKSTORY: For a long time, Jews lived in the area of israel. After a major revolt, the romans kicked them out in 88AD. They fled to spain, and later on because of the inquisition, to germany and russia. Meanwhile, in israel, some jews and other near-jewish semitic tribes remained in the area. The vast majority befame muslim. FFWD to 1945, most of the people in Israel are muslim palestinian, with some jewish people living among them. After the holocaust, many jews sought to establish a nation in their old homeland, which leads to tension and ultimately war with the local majority at that time. ",
"If you believe what the Bible says, the conflict is an ancient one.\n\nAbraham was a man that had never had children, yet God had promised the land where Israel is to him. After many years of not being able to have children with his wife, he had one with a concubine. That child's name was Ishmael (son of Hagar). Then, soon after the birth of Ishmael, he had another child with his wife, named Isaac. Isaac, being the \"legitimate\" heir to his father's land ([this land](_URL_0_)) surpassed Ishmael in birthrights, meaning Ishmael would get none of the \"promised land.\"\n\nLater on, when the two were young adults, Ishmael and Hagar left Abraham because Isaac had essentially taken their inheritance. Ishmael would always harbor a hate for Isaac and his descendents (rightly so). Ishmael's descendents are the people that live in the area we currently call Palestine, and Isaac's descendents are the Jews.\n\nThus, the Palestinians claim to have rights to the land over the Jews, even though the Jews are technically the correct owners (according to inheritance customs in Abraham's day).\n\nMost of the other tribes that formed from splits in the Jewish family line (Like the Jacob and Esau story) have created the conflicts and general animosity that exists today.",
"I guess it should also be stressed that apart from the historical background it is important to understand that so much has happened now that it's no longer just a question of who owns the land.\n\nMany palestinians dislike the Israelis because they feel occupied and fenced in. This causes trouble - and some people get very desperate to try to do something about it. This, among other things causes terrorism.\n\nNow, Israeli civilians die because of terrorist attacks, which means the government and army must do something to protect them. Unfortunately, this tends to put more controls on the palestinians who then get even more desperate. This also includes a lot of Israeli violence (often more palestinians end up dying than Israelis, and all too often those dead palestinians are civilians).\n\nNow, what is right or wrong here is very hard to say. From a state perspective Israel does what it feels it has to in order to protect itself. For this it uses an army which often use violence that end in palestinian deaths. Palestinians don't have an army, but instead have various groups that tries to defend their people. They often use violence that end up (or perhaps fails but has the intention to) kill Israeli civilians. Again, from a state perspective this is pure terrorism, but on the other hand when you look at it from an \"individual\" perspective (i.e. not considering states - who ends up with most deaths?) it is more understandable.\n\nThus the violence from both sides fuel the conflict and it just keeps increasing the hate the one side feels for the other.\n\n ",
"how the...? your mom has been watching too much cnn... eat your apples!",
"I first must state my own personal bias as being Egyptian (not arab). But to a degree I do sway in favor of the Arab peoples for a few different reasons:\nIn the 19th century the land of Palestine was inhabited by a multicultural population – approximately 86 percent Muslim, 10 percent Christian, and 4 percent Jewish – living in peace.\nIn the late 1800s a group in Europe decided to colonize this land. Known as Zionists, they represented an extremist minority of the Jewish population. Their goal was to create a Jewish homeland, and they considered locations in Africa and the Americas, before settling on Palestine.\n Eventually, fighting broke out, with escalating waves of violence. Hitler's rise to power, combined with Zionist activities to sabotage efforts to place Jewish refugees in western countries, led to increased Jewish immigration to Palestine, and conflict grew\nFinally, in 1947 the United Nations decided to intervene. However, rather than adhering to the principle of “self-determination of peoples,” in which the people themselves create their own state and system of government, the UN chose to revert to the medieval strategy whereby an outside power divides up other people’s land.\n\n \nUN Plan of Partition\nmore maps\n\nUnder considerable Zionist pressure, the UN recommended giving away 55% of Palestine to a Jewish state – despite the fact that this group represented only about 30% of the total population, and owned under 7% of the land.\n\n1947-49 tension rocketed and the helpless palestinians were cornered off and viciously pilaged... Moreover, Arab armies did not invade Israel – virtually all battles were fought on land that was to have been the Palestinian state.\n\nFinally, it is significant to note that Arab armies entered the conflict only after Zionist forces had committed 16 massacres, including the grisly massacre of over 100 men, women, and children at Deir Yassin. Future Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin, head of one of the Jewish terrorist groups, described this as “splendid,” and stated: “As in Deir Yassin, so everywhere, we will attack and smite the enemy. God, God, Thou has chosen us for conquest.” Zionist forces committed 33 massacres altogether.\nBy the end of the war, Israel had conquered 78 percent of Palestine; three-quarters of a million Palestinians had been made refugees; over 500 towns and villages had been obliterated; and a new map was drawn up, in which every city, river and hillock received a new, Hebrew name, as all vestiges of the Palestinian culture were to be erased. For decades Israel denied the existence of this population, former Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir once saying: “There is no such thing as a Palestinian.”\nIn 1967, Israel conquered still more land. Following the Six Day War, in which Israeli forces launched a highly successful surprise attack on Egypt, Israel occupied the final 22% of Palestine that had eluded it in 1948 – the West Bank and Gaza Strip. Since, according to international law it is inadmissible to acquire territory by war, these are occupied territories and do not belong to Israel. It also occupied parts of Egypt (since returned) and Syria (which remain under occupation). Basically my country, took back our beloved Sinai after letting them know they were out of line. October 6th...remember that shit? It was indeed the same war where America assisted Israel militarily \"unbeknownst\" to them that it was the same military aid that was used to illegally invade Egypt and, later, kill innocent Palestinians and their children.\n\nAlso during the Six Day War, Israel attacked a US Navy ship, the USS Liberty, killing and injuring over 200 American servicemen. President Lyndon Johnson recalled rescue flights, saying that he did not want to \"embarrass an ally.\" (In 2004 a high-level commission chaired by Admiral Thomas Moorer, former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, found this attack to be “an act of war against the United States,” a fact few news media have reported.) This was also using American made weapons, irony at its best.\n\nCONTINUING ON TO TODAY\n\nBasically fighting has been slowing down while armistices are made and broken back and forth. Palestine still in the shit storm as they fail to retort to the powerhouse that is Israel. Now, with the middle east now in a state of revolution, democracy is the best route for Israel to take or they may be in danger themselves from a uniting Arab populous. \n\nShould I continue?",
"This metaphor is extremely simplified and a bit of a stretch, but here it goes...\n\nSo there's a school bully [Hitler] who starts up a gang [The Nazi's] to pick on all the ginger kids [The Jews]. The bully and his gang are complete assholes to the gingers, giving them wedgies and putting 'kick me' signs on their back.\n\nEventually, the principle [The U.N.] finds out what happened and expels the bully and his gang. To make amends for their suffering, the principle gives the gingers the best table in the cafeteria and calls it Gingerland [Israel]. However, there was a group of spanish kids who were already sitting at that table [Palestinians], and when the gingers came some of the spanish kids were kicked out and forced to eat lunch on the floor.\n\nSo now you have the gingers who had to sit at the table because their old one had 'fuck gingers' written all over it, and you have the spanish kids who were there first and are pissed off at the gingers for kicking them out of their seats. The principle tries not to choose sides, but tends to side with the gingers because he feels bad for not expelling the bully sooner.",
"There was once a fairly unremarkable bit of land. The only thing that made it different from any other bit of land was that it contained places that were mentioned in a lot of different holy books, all of which were offshoots of one original book. That land had been tossed around from empire to empire over centuries, and the people who lived there were never the ones in control of it. A number of different people lived on the land. Some were Christian, some were Muslim, some were Jewish. Most were probably Muslim. At the end of WWI, it was the British who were in control of the area.\n\nAt some point starting about 20 years before WWI, Jewish people started trickling into the area to live a little faster than normal, because of its historical significance. In the beginning this wasn't a major issue because there was a fair amount of space and they were still a minority in numbers and power. It did spark a little bit of religious tension here and there though, but the British largely kept things in check.\n\nAfter WWII and the holocaust, the surviving Jews of Europe needed somewhere to live, and the western countries were extremely sympathetic to what they went through, so the decision was made to settle them in this holy land, under Britain's control. This boneheaded decision wasn't properly thought out and caused a lot of tension. Britain was the empire that happened to currently be in control of the land, but the people who currently lived there thought the land was rightfully theirs, and the Jews being moved in also thought it was rightfully theirs. This tension led to violence as each group tried to defend their claim to the land. Britain was in no position to impose order, as it was trying to rebuild after being demolished in the war, so they backed away quickly and let things collapse.\n\nSince then, Israel has become wealthy, partially the result of relatively wealthy jews from around the world either moving in or sending money, and partially as a result of financial aid from countries like the USA. Meanwhile, the rest of the area (Palestine) has remained very poor.\n\nPalestinian frustrations over having their land taken, the way the Israeli authorities treat them, and so on have boiled over into suicide bombings and rocket attacks. Israeli frustrations over these suicide bombings and rocket attacks have boiled over into extreme mistreatment of Palestinians, including \"settlements\", which are generally armed communities, protected by the Israeli forces, but built on land outside the borders that most of the world recognizes. These settlements often end up being built on land that Palestinians are currently living on, and that has been in their family for generations. This drives up tensions, and results in more suicide attacks and rocket attacks, which results in Israelis feeling justified in treating the Palestinians like dirt, which results in more tensions, and the cycle goes on and on.\n\nMeanwhile, the rich neighboring Arab countries (who mainly became rich after the tensions started after WWII) use Palestine as a distraction for their people, allowing the Palestinians to suffer rather than trying to resolve things because while their people are focused on hating Israel, it makes it easier for these governments to get away with bad government.\n",
"Ok, this is how my history teacher taught me. I do not know how much of this is accurate, he did however own a PhD however so I guess you could say he was pretty trustworthy.\n\nDuring WWII the allies (especially the Brits) needed money, quickly, to keep the war machine going, so they started issuing war bonds. They were getting more and more trouble finding buyers for them as the war advanced, and so they turned to a group of rich Jews. The Jews agreed, but only if they'd get their own nation in return when the war ended. The allies agreed, and when WWII was over they handed over parts of Palestine (which was British territory) over to the Jews. Pretty much every single Western country supported this, because they were pretty embarrassed about the Holocaust and this was their way of saying sorry. However, there were already people living there, and those people were Arabs.\n\nImagine someone marching into your country and saying they live there now, and they're also being backed by all the super powers in the world, so you're left without any support to fight them. The neighboring (arab-)countries responded by trying to invade Israel (several times), and every single time they got their asses kicked. During the six-day-war pretty much the entire Middle East got into war with Israel, and Israel won that war within (hence the name) within 6 days.\n\nThe Palestinian people have respondedby launching a terrorist campaign against Israel, by blowing up busses, buildings and such. The Israeli's in their turn respond by launching missiles into Palestinian territories.\n\nI personally think a large part of the Arab motivation, and this is just my personal opinion, is jealousy. If Israel was yet another poor country in the region they wouldn't be so pissed, but because Israel is very wealthy and has one of the most powerful armies in the world (thanks to the US), they're not that happy.",
"There is no five year old in the world that could be made to understand a situation so complicated that most adults don't really understand it.",
"\"It's very very hot and there's no shade.\"\n\n--President Jed Bartlet",
"TLDR (at the top); The conflict is about rights to land and ideologies\n\nThe most basic way of describing this issue without dumbing it down too much (let's call this for 12-year-olds):\n\nIsrael was officially given land in 1948 by the UN that they call the 'Jewish State' it, according to the bible, was given to them thousands of years ago and with the UN vote they have official ownership over it. Israel operates with a combination of religion and state but allows any people to live in the land as long as they go through proper immigration - as in any country.\n\nThe Arabs have a connection to the land too through the prophet Muhammad who they believe came down upon a rock which a mosque was built around (the dome of the rock) in Jerusalem (the same spot that the Jewish people believe their Holiest temple was built) - right by the Western Wall. Though Israel is not officially Mecca (the Arab holy land) the connection is still quite strong. The people who believe they are legitimate citizens of the land are called Palestinians - referring to the land by its pre-1948 name - Palestine.\n\nThe same day Britain, the previous land owners, officially gave the land to Israel, the surrounding Arab states launched a war/attack in protest as they did not recognize the state of Israel. This is a war Israel calls the War of Independence while the Arabs call it The Catastrophe.\n\nThrough many years and many subsequent wars Israel won land from the surrounding states - the same way that any country won land from warring states (Britain, Greece, Rome, Ottoman Empire etc.) *note this oversimplifies winning land in war.\n\nIsrael did give back the Sinai desert to Egypt in exchange for peace in 1978. This was a historic deal and one that has been unbroken until today.\n\nIsrael is seen today as an extremely significant piece of land considering its proximity to arab countries from a strategic point and it's historical and religious significance re: past preservation.\n\nTensions are currently high regarding Israel's legitimacy to the land it currently considers part of its state (some call it occupation others call it legitimate land). This is especially tough in areas such as the Gaza Strip and West Bank which are now Palestinian run but still technically a part of Israel. Israel, as a nation that has had to protect itself since its first day, feels threatened by certain extremist groups (such as Hamas - the current political leader and is recognized as a 'terrorist' group) and has overcompensated with high security measures such as building a fence and creating difficult check points. These are points of huge contention - some say security some say flexing a militant muscle. It really hurts the average Palestinian who has to go through loops to get to work or get basic living supplies.\n\nAlso the issue of legitimate aid - which was the flotilla problem last year. Israel tries to protect itself to the point where sometimes action is irrational and civilians (that may or may not be placed there by militant groups - the facts are inconclusive) get hurt or worse, killed.\nThere is evidence that supports provocation and by both sides and questions towards how much legitimate aid was on the ship/how much legitimate aid Israel provides for Palestinian people.\n\nMost recently Obama said Israel should go back to its pre-1967 borders to achieve peace. This would take away a LOT of current Israeli land and uproot many lives but on the other side would finally (hopefully) achieve peace and safety. Nobody knows the true term details. The Israeli PM (Netayahu) is far to the right and believes in protection of his country so will never agree to the deal while the Palestinian government has said before that they only want all of Israel or nothing. Who knows that debates actually go on behind close doors but either way legitimate Israeli and Palestinian people will be forced from the homes and their lives will be uprooted with any deal that occurs.\n\nAs a result of previous bouts of militancy and suicide bombings from extremists in Israel the debate rages on regarding if Israel is mistreating the Palestinians and preventing them from living healthy full lives (running water, electricity, having them pay for houses Israel has demolished in the name of security) or if they are providing as much as they can without sacrificing security (there are still bombs and rockets that are sent or set off on Israel soil).\n\nHamas says Israel is not doing enough, Israel says Hamas is not properly allocating resources.\n\nIt all stems down to extreme views on both sides not coming to a compromise. In some ways the way the far right and left of the US do not agree on how to balance the debt for the collective good is a microcosm of the scenario - two side staunch in their views unwilling to cooperate and the people in the middle end up the most hurt in the end. It's just a shame that the people with the loudest voices get the most attention.\n\nNote: I really tried to put aside any bias/present both sides and give the basic facts/history if anyone does find bias one way or the other please let me know and I will try to clean up my post to make it only about the facts. I am a bit better versed in Israel history which is why there are more facts regarding that side though if anyone can help out with providing dates/names/facts re: Palestinian side I would be happy to add them in at the discretion of bias\n\nedit: fixed fact re: Obama's recent speech (see: tmonkblu's comment)",
"*Selected revisions, as revised by gibson_*\n\nImagine you are a person renting a house in an old neighborhood.\n\nYou hear about another guy across town whose neighbors beat him up and kicked him out. According to legends and history, this other guy used to live in the neighborhood where you live now, and his parents and grandparents before him did too, and their family always talks about it as their home.\n\nSo one day the owner of the neighborhood shows up at your door with this guy and say,\"So we've worked out a solution to this guy's problem. You know how he got beat up and kicked out of his neighborhood? Well we're going to have him move in here, next door to you, because his parents and grandparents used to live here.\"\n\n\"But, I live here now. He, his grandparents and parents left a long time ago due to a dispute with all of the people who live here now. This is my neighborhood now, I do not want him to live here,\" you say.\n\n\"Well that's tough son. We think it would be great for him, and he's done a lot of campaigning about it, so that's it. He's moving in. But don't worry, we'll make it cool for you. We'll split the neighborhood up with a line of duct tape, with the park being shared by both of you. So there won't be any problems! It works out for everyone!\"\n\n\"Well that's horseshi-\" you start to say, but he's already in your neighborhood, relaxing on your couch. The Owner leaves, and its just you and him.\n\nSo you constantly fight, physically and verbally. All his friends hate you and your friends, and all your friends hate him and his friends. You still don't believe that he has a right to live in the neighborhood, and he still thinks that he should be allowed to live there because the people who own it told him he could.\n\nYou are Palestine, the other guy is Israel, the landlord is The British.\n\nAddendum mine:\n\nYou, Palestine, do not like the arrangement and tell your peers in a neighboring town about it. You ask them if it's alright if you move yourself into their neighborhood, and they refuse.\n\nYou tell your new neighbors that you don't like them living there, and that you feel that you're entitled to the lots that they're living on now. They tell you that they disagree, and that if you don't like the arrangement you are welcome to leave. You don't want to leave, because you believe that you were there first.",
"I'll give it a shot, ignoring the far-back history such as the Jewish Expulsion in 88AD.\n\nZionism started in the late 1800's, with the belief that the Jews should have a nation in their traditional homeland (i.e. Israel).\n\nWW1 ends, the Ottoman Empire, which controlled what is now Turkey, Lebanon, Israel, Jordan, Iraq and Syria, is defeated. The British take control of the area, and create the \"British Mandate of Palestine\" in what is now Israel and Jordan.\n\nWW2 ends, the Jews have just been genocided, Zionism was very strong, and British need to find a solution. They decide to divide the British Mandate of Palestine into two areas: Jordan for the Muslims, Israel for the Jews. However, things don't exactly go according to plan: the (modern) Palestinians, the ones living in what is now Israel, were basically rejected by all their Muslim \"brother nations\", and really didn't want to leave themselves, so they continued to live in Israel. They didn't like that for obvious reasons (the whole \"guy taking half my house\" used in the top comments). However, instead of working it out, they segregated (West Bank/Gaza Strip) and both sides got support from different areas (Israel had the US/Britain, Palestinians had the Muslim nations). Then the neighbouring Muslim countries (Egypt et al) invaded the new Israel to \"liberate their brethren\", but were beaten. Badly. Israel gained a bit of territory through a few more wars. The rest is history, with 3+ generations of hatred on both sides.\n\nI hope I got that without a lot of bias. I see both sides very clearly and try not to really pick one; the British were the ones who fucked it up in 1946-8 by trying to create a separate Jewish \"state\" and displacing Palestinians, and now here we are in 2011 trying to fix it, but it's kinda unfixable without both sides compromising. Which neither seem to want to do.",
"I feel [Tim Minchin](_URL_0_) helps to explain it pretty well. ",
"This probably won't be seen by anyone, but what the hey...\n\nIt's a pretty complicated situation with good points and strong feelings on both sides, but here is one take:\n\n**The story so far**\n\nIn 1916 the British, who controlled the area, promised the land to the Arabs in return for their help in World War I. Think Lawrence of Arabia.\n\nWith the [Balfour Declaration](_URL_9_) in 1917, the British promised the same land to the Jews. After being kicked out of Israel by the Romans in the first century, the Jews had no state of their own, and the idea of a Jewish homeland in Palestine - called Zionism - had gained a lot of currency from the mid-19th century onwards.\n\nFollowing World War II, the United Nations decided that, because of the Holocaust, an attempt should be made to create Israel. However, this required the agreement of the Arabs, who were not too keen on giving up the land where they had lived for generations, and in any case hadn't the British promised it to them? The plan was to carve up what was called the [British Mandate of Palestine](_URL_10_) into Jordan, Israel, and Arab Palestine.\n\nDespite the lack of an agreement regarding the break up of Palestine into Arab and Jewish territories, Israel unilaterally [declared its independence](_URL_5_) in 1948. There was bloodshed on both sides: Jewish attacks such as the [Deir Yassin massacre](_URL_12_) caused many Arabs to flee. The Arabs states retaliated, invading Palestine and attacking Israel.\n\nIsrael beat the Arabs in 1948, with Egypt crossing over into the [Gaza strip](_URL_3_) which they occupied. Jordan took control of the [West Bank](_URL_7_). The UN passed a resolution guaranteeing a [Right of Return](_URL_13_) for the Arabs who had been forced to flee their homes.\n\nIn 1967, the Arabs attacked again. Again Israel beat them back, but this time their military remained outside their borders, occupying the Gaza strip and the Sinai; the Golan Heights, which is a part of Syria; and the West Bank. The UN passed a resolution stating that the borders of Israel were those that were present before the invasion.\n\nIsrael ceded the Sinai when they made peace with Egypt, but the Gaza strip remained under Israeli occupation.\n\nIsrael withdrew from Gaza a few years ago, but the military occupation of the West Bank continues to this day. It is this military occupation which is the cause of the problem between the Israelis and the Palestinians. There is also the issue of Israel building settlements in the West Bank, as transplanting of your people to occupied territory is forbidden by the [Fourth Geneva Convention](_URL_6_).\n\nWhile there are inevitably some extremists who would like to see Israel wiped off of the map completely, the view of the world as expressed by the UN, and by the Arabs through the [Saudi Peace initiative](_URL_2_), is for Israel to return to its 1967 borders, according to what is called [Resolution 242](_URL_4_), and for the Palestinians, freed from occupation, to create their own state. However, there are also extremists on the Israeli side who want all of Palestine for Israel, with the settlements in places such as Hebron - the second holiest site in Judaism after Jerusalem, but in the occupied West Bank - being \"facts on the ground\".\n\n**Then why is there US support for Israel?**\n\nThe best way to understand why a US-Israeli relationship exists is to study how the relationship was formed.\n\nThe United States and Israel were intimately tied together since Israel's previously mentioned declaration of Independence - the future Israelis notified [Truman](_URL_1_) of the declaration prior to its publication. However, the issue found no consensus in the higher levels of the US government. [George Marshall](_URL_8_) famously stormed out of a meeting in protest of the recognition of Israel, and most of the State Department thought that a prompt recognition of Israel by the US would damage relationships with the Arab states. The bigger point was that the USA's prompt recognition of Israel would do little for the US-Israeli relationship, seeing as the Soviets did the same.\n\nIn 1953 when [Eisenhower](_URL_0_) and his Secretary of State, [John Foster Dulles](_URL_11_), came into office, they intended to be impartial in the Arab-Israeli conflict. Initially, this was not too difficult. The US even aided in the successful Suez Base negotiations with Britain and Egypt.\n\nHowever, things changed between 1955 and 1958. For one, Gamal Abdel Nasser's rise to power posed a political threat to Israel, and his 1955 purchase of arms from the Soviet bloc also made him a military threat to Israel. The US press were very unhappy about this, and wasted no time comparing him to Hitler. Eisenhower ultimately resisted public pressure to intervene in the Suez war, and was publicly opposed to Israeli actions. Neutrality prevailed.\n\nBut in 1958 everything changed. Eisenhower intervened in Lebanon partly because he feared that another Munich crisis was on the table. Moreover, the Eisenhower administration began to view Israel as a strategic asset in the Middle East, and the US became closer to Israel while the Soviets got in bed with the Arab states. During the second Eisenhower administration, they forged closer ties with Israel for strategic reasons.\n\nHowever, this is not to say that culture had no influence: Even before the Eisenhower administration decided to forge close ties to Israel, the memory of World War II allowed the press to compare Israel's enemy, Nasser, to Adolf Hitler. Jewish people were being publicly assimilated into American life, and many Americans praised Israel as a democracy.\n\nThis relationship endures because these cultural factors remained after Israel became a strategic liability during the cold war. The cultural attachment to Israel, which aided the strategic relationship, persisted despite the death of the strategic rationale for supporting Israel.\n\n**Where do I stand on the issue?**\n\nThe US needs to put pressure on Israel. Without significant nudging from their strongest ally, Israel will remain perfectly happy with the status quo. Considering Russia's history with Chechnya, Israel is probably paranoid about seeing a long-time enemy end up with even more land and, like Russia, adopt the hardest possible line for fear of losing their grip on other areas. Withdrawal to the 1967 borders will obviously not end violence in the Middle East, but it's the only viable first step.\n\nOh, and despite what the propogandists will tell you, anti-Zionism is not the same thing as anti-Semitism. ",
"Two groups of people both think they have the right to a couple thousand square miles of land, and instead of being decent people and just living there together they decided it would be best to murder the shit out of each other.\n\n*area fix",
"Anyone who promises that he can simplify this conflict to that level, and especially anyone who starts his explanation with 'imagine that someone broke into your home' is a liar or a brainwashed fool."
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4jrt2u | why is it expected for technology to never stop advancing? | Like why couldn't the technological advancements just have a hard stop in 10-20 years, not for a lack of trying but that there just isn't a faster computer to be made. Why is it assumed by everyone that there is no limit? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4jrt2u/eli5_why_is_it_expected_for_technology_to_never/ | {
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"There are limits, but you just work around them. Cpus have kind of hit a wall with clock speeds so now they are more focused only multicore for example.",
"It has been recognised that advancement in technology will hit physical limits.\n\nThe most well known measure of technology progress has been the shrinking of transistors to fit more functions onto the same space on a silicon chip, and the growth in size of silicon chips making room for more transistors to make more functions.\n\nWe have been approaching the limits for some time, e.g. the amount of energy that can be economically dissipated, the minimum number of atoms needed to make a transistor, the maximum size we can make a silicon chip without repeatedly hitting defects in materials that scupper the thing working.\n\n > Why is it assumed by everyone that there is no limit?\n\nThis is not a true statement. \n\nWhat has happened is this: what have been thought to be limits have been broken through or side stepped through inventiveness, but the scope to do this limited because there are a fixed number of physical dimensions to manipulate.\n\nAs we approach the limits and run out of adjustments we can make, you will see a slowing down. However inventiveness may create a way of making technical devices that don't depend on the physical properties that set the limits.\n\n",
"Because every time we've hit what we thought were the limits, someone found a way around them:\n\nIt was once thought that going more than about 30 mph would kill a human. Today, humans routinely go over 300 mph (airplanes)\n\nMoore thought that his observation that the number of transistors on a chip doubled every about 18 months thought that would continue \"for about another decade\" in the 1960s. Today, Moore's Law is an industry standard.\n\nAround 1800, Thomas Malthus believed that population would soon reach a maximum because human capacity to feed people would not keep pace with the human demand for food. At the time, world population was about 1 billion. Two centuries later; and there is a reasonable belief that at some point in the future, we will be able to sustain over 10 billion people on Earth.",
"You have several other good answers but I will talk about transistors. \n\nTransistors are basically an on-off switch and form the basis of computing. This will not be a complete history but just enough to make the point that when we reach the limits of practicality of something we find a new way to accomplish our goals.\n\nIn early computers these switches were vacuum tubes. They started a little bigger than a modern light bulb. By the time we reached the limits of the tubes in the 1960 we figured out a way to make them around the size of a small light bulb (like a car headlight bulb or small lamp bulb). \n\nWe invented the next transistor in the 1940s. It was called the bipolar junction transistor (BJT). It started around the size of a thick quarter and by the time we were done with them for making computers they were milometers in size (we still use these for some applications).\n\nAfter this we invented the MOSFET transistor (I know I doubled up). We had it before but it was not very practical to use in computers until the 1970s. We currently can make transistors that are about 7 nanometers in length reliably (intel has plans to release a 5nm transistor in 2020)\n\nThe current problem with the transistors we have now is the actual physics we rely on to make it work is beginning to break down. \n\nThis lead me to a round about way of saying why people think technology will keep advancing. It always has. Each road block we have had with these transistors we have found a different way. Hopefully, in the next 10-15 years, we will have found a new way to make a smaller switch that will allow technology to keep going.",
"Some good answers here, but with respect it seems to me that your question is backwards.\n\nYou're asking why we assume there won't be a \"hard stop\", yet without any reason to predict an outcome, surely that's a reasonable assumption for us to make?\n\nSo I'd reverse the question, and say \"why would you have a hard stop in 10-20 years?\" ... *that* is the unknown here.\n\nIt's like you and I are riding along in a train, and I say to you \"you seem happy - why do you assume the train won't crash in 10-20 minutes?\" Your natural response would be \"Do you think we're going to crash? Why so?\"",
"Look at your body, think about the power of your brain. That's the limit and we are no way near it, hundreds of years from it.",
"PE (licensed professional engineer, but in ChE) here. In my 36+ years of practice, I've seen that if one assumes the solution (e.g., some type of technological advancement) exists, then one tends to find it. In other words, if you assume that a technological improvement exists, there it is.\nTechnological advancement will never end so long as that idea lives."
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3o211j | why is it we know the composition of planets lightyears away, but didn't know a planet in our own solar system had a sky? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3o211j/eli5_why_is_it_we_know_the_composition_of_planets/ | {
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"Short answer is because the distant planets pass in front of their star in relation to our view point. Pluto will never eclipse the sun. \n\nThe reasoning scientists use to arrive at their findings are determined by the way exo planet's gravity effects the light transmissions as they pass around it.\n\nHere is a link to a very well written and easy to understand article published by USA Today explaining the different practices used involving the gravity of the planet and it's effect on light as it passes it's star _URL_0_\n\nEdit: substance ",
"A spectroscope uses light shined from behind an object to determine the gases present in an atmosphere. (It works almost like shining a light through a prism) Until the probe had effectively \"put the sun behind Pluto\" we had never had the chance to use this method. Since the only way we can see planets that are hundreds of light years away from us is if they come between us and their star, spectroscopy can easily (somewhat at least) be used to determine the composition of said planet's atmosphere."
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2dqv3v | how come i can drink milk just fine during the day, but if i do it at night i wake up with horrible stomach pains? | And its not just milk, I cant have any dairy at night or I'll regret it big time in the morning. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2dqv3v/eli5_how_come_i_can_drink_milk_just_fine_during/ | {
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"Maybe you're somewhat lactose intolerant. Since digestion slows down at night, it could be that your body doesn't produce enough lactase to digest the lactose sugar in milk. Perhaps your body has JUST enough lactase when your digestive system is most active during the day."
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5kn3r8 | why do furniture stores always have sales? all year long? why not just mark the correct price all year and not be gimmicky? if they're always on sale, there's never a sale. | [deleted] | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5kn3r8/eli5_why_do_furniture_stores_always_have_sales/ | {
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"Dumb people...thats all...\n\nAlso Car sales are the same way\n\nThere are 4 things in life that are absolute.\n\n* Death\n\n* Taxes\n\n* There is always a sale on cars\n\n* The Furniture store is ALWAYS going out of sale",
"Because it works, mostly with the older generation. It creates a sense of urgency, and even if it's false, it drives sales up. ",
"It's partly based on a psychological principle called anchoring. By suggesting the products are meant to be more expensive it appears like a good deal and so people in general feel compelled to snap the deal up. \n\nTell someone a product is meant to be $100 but they'll give it to you for $50 you think you're the winner in the situation and are getting a great deal. That's anchoring, your brain uses the fact it should be $100 to make it being $50 seem really low. If they say it's just $50 to begin with nothing seems special about it.\n\nHuman beings are full of these \"biases\". We like to think we're in control and free agents but we're actually full of these little bugs shall we say.",
"Kohl's is the worst with this. There's also Bed Bath and Beyond, where you'd be an idiot to buy something there without one of the hundreds of 20% off coupons you get in the mail (with few exclusions, usually certain brands that don't allow discounts). Just make your shit 20% cheaper already.\n\nExcept that this is exactly what JCP tried not too long ago, and people bitched about the lack of sales and coupons. It's so engrained in us at this point that anyone that tries to break free from the cycle they created, suffers. I'm tired of hording coupons in case I need to buy something, but I largely refuse to stop because that's just throwing money away. I'd love to not worry about it, but it is what it is, I guess.",
"It's been proven that seeing a $10 shirt for 60% off will generate more sales than just selling it for $4. The perception is that you are getting more value than you are paying for.\n\nJCP tried a while back to do away with all the sales and offers and coupons and just offer lower prices, calling it \"Fair and Square Pricing.\" They did exactly what you are suggesting - just lower the price to match what it would have been anyway. They did a big rebranding and advertising push for it as well, trying to make it a huge thing that would attract tons of new customers.\n\nTheir sales dropped by over 20% and cost over $150 million dollars in losses.\n\nAmong other reasons, the primary ones are that the brain wants to have a deal. It wants to feel like you're saving, like you're getting more for less. Because a $4 shirt and a $10 shirt for 60% off might be the same, but the brain is going to think that the $10 is better - it originally cost more, so it must be a better product than a shirt that originally costs $4. The sales also create a sense of urgency, or a sense of need. If a shirt is always $4, there's no need to go get it. You can pick it up any time. But if there's a sale going on, the implication (even if it's not completely true) is that the sale is limited. If you don't go get it now, you might not see that price again, so why wait?"
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jh56x | web 2.0 | I get that it's meant to be interactive and people to people, but I don't have a clue what makes it different to the Internet now. Like, isn't this people to people right here? And, like, what even is it? Properly got no idea on this one. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/jh56x/eli5_web_20/ | {
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"Web 2.0 is kinda' a catch-all that describes the internet's increasing interoperability and customization.\n\nTo give you an idea, a standard website (Web 1.0) has its creator designing the webpage, uploading it, and then the user sees what they made. Picture it like those old printing presses where one page was etched into a block and then used to stamp a single sheet.\n\n\nWeb 2.0 is the same sort of upgrade to the web that printing presses got when they got interchangeable type. So while printing presses with interchangeable type allowed printers to swap out letters and custom-build their own pages without having to create every single page by hand, Web 2.0 lets webpages swap out **content** to custom-build pages without every page having to be specifically created.\n\nIt's the kind of thing that lets you put a YouTube video on your page, even though your page isn't YouTube - Anyone who wants to incorporate that video of the guys dancing on treadmills into their webpage can do it. Same thing for news stories and other stuff.\n\n\"So it's a way for web designers to be lazy?\" You might ask. In some cases, yes. But in others, it's a way for web designers to create pages that are more flexible without the impossible task of creating every one.\n\nLook at Reddit - Reddit lets you customize your page, to decide which topics you do and don't see. Exchanging out WorldNews and Politics for AskReddit and IAMA is much the same as swapping out letters on those old printing presses, so that even though you and I are going to the same website, we see completely different things, custom-tailored for us, and yet, *neither* of those pages was specifically created by a web designer. That'd be impossible, since there are so many of us, and so many different combinations of topics. Rather, the web designer created a system that allows us to patch together the pieces of the webpage to create our own custom-built page.\n\nThat's just within one website. There's also the give-and-take between websites. Putting a Twitter button on an article connects the article to Twitter so that you can broadcast the link on your Twitter profile - bringing your viewers to them, and giving your viewers content that might interest them. And because Twitter is designed so its information is packaged separately from the webpage, that information can be displayed differently elsewhere. Like, say, on your cell phone app.\n\nAnd that's pretty much what all of the internet is: information. Web 2.0 just breaks down the information into little chunks that can be moved around and used in different ways that we couldn't do if they were all just stuck in one webpage.",
"Web 2.0 is kinda' a catch-all that describes the internet's increasing interoperability and customization.\n\nTo give you an idea, a standard website (Web 1.0) has its creator designing the webpage, uploading it, and then the user sees what they made. Picture it like those old printing presses where one page was etched into a block and then used to stamp a single sheet.\n\n\nWeb 2.0 is the same sort of upgrade to the web that printing presses got when they got interchangeable type. So while printing presses with interchangeable type allowed printers to swap out letters and custom-build their own pages without having to create every single page by hand, Web 2.0 lets webpages swap out **content** to custom-build pages without every page having to be specifically created.\n\nIt's the kind of thing that lets you put a YouTube video on your page, even though your page isn't YouTube - Anyone who wants to incorporate that video of the guys dancing on treadmills into their webpage can do it. Same thing for news stories and other stuff.\n\n\"So it's a way for web designers to be lazy?\" You might ask. In some cases, yes. But in others, it's a way for web designers to create pages that are more flexible without the impossible task of creating every one.\n\nLook at Reddit - Reddit lets you customize your page, to decide which topics you do and don't see. Exchanging out WorldNews and Politics for AskReddit and IAMA is much the same as swapping out letters on those old printing presses, so that even though you and I are going to the same website, we see completely different things, custom-tailored for us, and yet, *neither* of those pages was specifically created by a web designer. That'd be impossible, since there are so many of us, and so many different combinations of topics. Rather, the web designer created a system that allows us to patch together the pieces of the webpage to create our own custom-built page.\n\nThat's just within one website. There's also the give-and-take between websites. Putting a Twitter button on an article connects the article to Twitter so that you can broadcast the link on your Twitter profile - bringing your viewers to them, and giving your viewers content that might interest them. And because Twitter is designed so its information is packaged separately from the webpage, that information can be displayed differently elsewhere. Like, say, on your cell phone app.\n\nAnd that's pretty much what all of the internet is: information. Web 2.0 just breaks down the information into little chunks that can be moved around and used in different ways that we couldn't do if they were all just stuck in one webpage."
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1mcwe1 | do art schools really make people paint bowls of fruit? why do they do this? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1mcwe1/eli5_do_art_schools_really_make_people_paint/ | {
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"I got the 'paint a bowl of fruit' assignment in high school art. Fruits are oddly shaped objects that everyone is familiar with, usually have bright, contrasted colors that are clearly seperate from each other. In short, it features a lot of complex art concepts in a way that is very easy for beginners to grasp,making it a popular introduction to painting, drawing, etc. \n\n",
"Yes. The reason is that fruits are simple geometric shapes with varying textures. They make good objects for studying light and shadow, which is what is being drawn/painted/etc. There are other reasons but this is the most simple.",
"I would also like to add, that fruit is infinitely poseable, doesn't squirm about (like live models), is plentiful everywhere, is easy to light, and when said painting is finished, fruit-as-subject doesn't offend: \"Here, Grams! It's a bowl of kumquats for over your davenport!\" \n\nAlso, organic shapes are a bit easier to focus on and recreate, whereas landscapes, buildings and people are much harder to abstract and pose.\n\n ",
"Not necessarily bowls of fruit, but various objects, yes. Because they're cheaper than models and it's good practice."
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dfj4iz | there are billions and billions of stars like our sun pumping out energy all over the universe. if energy cannot be destroyed, where does all this accumulated energy go? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/dfj4iz/eli5_there_are_billions_and_billions_of_stars/ | {
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"It just flies out into space, which is how we see the stars (a bit of their energy hits us as visible light). Because space is so vast, the energy at a typical spot isn't much, but the total amount is incomprehensibly huge.",
"Just as energy cant be destroyed it also can't be created, stars do not create energy, all the energy is already there. What stars do is that they transform part of the mass of the atoms they fuse into radiation aka light, heat and stuff.",
"The universe is big, really big. I know you think the fat cat that comes by and begs for food like it's never eaten before is big, but it's microscopic compared to the universe. Energy eventually turns into heat, and over time the heat spreads out. It fills up the universe, but the universe is so large and it keeps getting bigger, so the heat can never fill it. Eventually all energy and matter will become heat, spread out as thin as possible throughout the universe."
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2vlzvv | taxes and why are they so many kinds? | A government likes to keep taxing people off in SO many ways . corporate tax, income tax and VAT, import tax and gift tax and what not tax?
Why are they like that?
Just corporate tax and income tax should be enough? Why ask all other kinds and tax people to no end? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2vlzvv/eli5taxes_and_why_are_they_so_many_kinds/ | {
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" > A government likes to keep taxing people off in SO many ways . corporate tax, income tax and VAT, import tax and gift tax and what not tax?\n\nYes.\n\n > Why are they like that? \n\nThe government needs to get its income from somewhere.\n\n > Just corporate tax and income tax should be enough?\n\nTheoretically you could raise them and remove all other taxes I suppose. \n\n > Why ask all other kinds and tax people to no end?\n\nTo provide various incentives for things the government wants and disincentives for things they do not. If there's a large import tax on some goods you're more likely to buy a domestic product. If there are various luxury taxes it lets the government somewhat disincentive trivial spending, or at force the wealthier folks that can afford such luxuries to provide a bigger share of the tax required for the government to operate.\n\nAnd 'the government' isn't really one thing, either. The municipality is operating on its own usually, and the municipality needs its taxes to raise its funds to operate as well. Often the only real asset a municipality has that allows it to impose a real tax is property, and so you're taxed for the amount of property you hold in the municipality. The land-transfer tax offsets costs involved in keeping records and will affect people that are burdening the records department far more than people that just purchase a house once or twice in their life. "
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8235su | why do conservatives hang on to the fossil fuel industry so much? why do they not like renewable industries? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/8235su/eli5_why_do_conservatives_hang_on_to_the_fossil/ | {
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"Traditionally renewables have require a *lot* of government subsidies to be competitive with fossil fuels. Not true so much anymore, but the perception is still there. ",
"Money. \n\nThe oil and gas industries pump millions into republican campaigns, in the expectation that future policies and subsidies will help them to carry on carrying on making more money. (e.g., reportedly 57% of Cruz's and 39% of Christie's 'super pac' money in the 2016 presidential campaign was from fossil fuel millionaires.[^1](_URL_0_))\n\nThere just isn't that combination of 'spare' money and political will in renewable energy industries at this time."
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5zwc01 | why do most people, or some, put glad wrap/cling wrap over various items before putting them in the fridge | Wouldn't it be easier just to put them in without anything? Or is there a good reason why. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5zwc01/eli5_why_do_most_people_or_some_put_glad/ | {
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"Smells. If you are putting half an onion in the fridge without cling wrap, all non-cling-wrapped food is going to smell like onions.",
"Some food are still steamy or hot. if you put it without wrap, steam would break loose to other food inside the fridge, could cause some kind of smell. Air goes from hot area to cold area fast. With the wrap applied, it reduces the spreading; moisture from the steam condenses as liquid and sticks to the wrap instead of spreading to the fridge wall.\n\nEDIT: is also used to keep foods fresh. Plastic wrap will protect food when in the freezer. It is recommended that no air between the plastic wrap and the food. That will help protect the food from freezer burn. For long term storage, zip lock bags are recommended.",
"A number of reasons:\n\n1. To prevent smells contaminating taste of other foods\n\n2. To prevent food drying out (cooked chicken, cheddar cheese)\n\n3. To prevent oxidation of food\n\n4. To prevent contamination by germs - but I don't really think this is necessary in most cases except where you could accidentally touch uncooked meat"
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5csx7b | whats that feeling when you're about to fall asleep that everyrhing feels small and heavy? | This feeling is so fucked up I can't describe it. It just feels like when I have my eyes closed in bed everything around me feels miniscule but somehow heavier. What is this? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5csx7b/eli5_whats_that_feeling_when_youre_about_to_fall/ | {
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"Could you be describing [Alice in Wonderland syndrome](_URL_2_)? I used to get this pretty often when I was a kid. Not sure if this is what you're describing but a \"fucked up\" feeling when on the brink of falling asleep meets the criteria.\n\nThe exact cause isn't known. Basically it's a disturbance in perceptions, such as perception of time, proprioception (your sense of where your body is in space), sound (to me, very quiet sounds seemed horribly loud in a sinister way), size, and distance. The state can apparently be triggered by migraines, lack of sleep, the Epstein-Barr virus (the virus that causes infectious mononucleosis), something else, or nothing identifiable.\n\nPeople have discussed similar experiences on here before, at length [\\(first\\)](_URL_0_) [\\(second)](_URL_1_).\n\n"
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"https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alice_in_Wonderland_syndrome"
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76ze3u | what’s the difference between an embassy and a consulate? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/76ze3u/eli5_whats_the_difference_between_an_embassy_and/ | {
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"Embassy is the seat of diplomacy -- relations between the two countries, ie. government to government, like negotiating trade deals or military cooperation/coordination. A consulate is where the citizen/visitor services take place, government to individuals. So things like a citizen of a country living in a foreign country needing to renew a passport, or somebody wanting to travel somewhere that requires a visa.",
"Embassy is for ambassadors of the two countries to talk and discuss for official gov purposes.\n\nConsulates are for common folk of the host country to do paperwork business with the foreign country aka getting visas and such.",
"An embassy is the main diplomatic HQ for one country in a different country. It's where the ambassador is based and is generally located in the different country's capital city. Embassy employees work with the different country's government to represent their own country.\n\nA consulate is like a mini-embassy in other major cities in the different country. Its employees handle minor diplomatic issues like visa requests, passport updates, local business relationships (Company A has business in the country), etc.",
"Embassy is in the capital of another country. Consultate is localized in smaller towns and cities. Embassy is the main hub",
"Embassies deal with the major diplomatic missions in the host country and as has been aptly stated previously are typically located in the Capital, while Consulates serve the Embassies, and are located in other major cites, not the capital.\n\nAt the risk of being irrelevant, but for those who want to delve a little deeper... in the case of the United States, Embassies and Consulates are not actually guarded by US Marines. Marines can and do provide security, but their main function is guarding, and if necessary, destroying any classified material on site.\n\nPerimeter protection is usually provided by the host country, but if breeched, Marines (and private security if such is present) will be there to “greet” any interlopers.\n\nEdit: punctuation. ",
"Traditionally, embassies were set up to conduct formal diplomatic engagements between nations, while consulates did a lot more work helping the nation's business people abroad. This dichotomy arose as part of the expansion of the merchant republics of the Mediterranean (ie Venice and Genoa). Over time, consulates have become less about business and more about providing embassy services (paperwork, visas, etc) in areas outside of capitals where there are a lot of that particular country's nationals. ",
"I'm going to use my situation as an example here:\n\nCanada has their embassy in Washington DC, which handles all of the official gov't-to-gov't business. They also have a Visa Office that handles all of the minor citizen level stuff: Visas, Passports, etc.\n\nThere are also Consulates in Atlanta, Boston, Chicago, Dallas, Denver, Detroit, Los Angeles, Miami, Minneapolis, New York City, San Fransisco, and Seattle. All of which handle the same Visa office stuff, as well as more US company-to-Canadian Gov't business. They also get involved in Canadian Province Gov't-to-US State Gov't business. Mostly trade related stuff.\n\nThe head honcho of a Consulate is called a Consul General, all of which answer to the Ambassador of Canada in Washington DC. There are also Ambassadors of Canada to the [OAS](_URL_0_) and to the [UN](_URL_1_) both of which are the head of the Permanent Mission of Canada to their respective organization. I mention the OAS and UN because they're both located in the USA.",
"Dang it. I was gonna say \"Ohh, Ohh, I KNOW THIS ONE!\" \n\n(Served 3 years as an embassy guard)",
"Embassies also function as the 'capital' of consulates in a country. For instance, in Israel, the US has the main embassy in Tel Aviv and several consulates scattered across the country. This allows Americans in other parts of the country to receive the same services they would at the embassy without having to go to Te Aviv if they don't want to.\n\nConversely, very few nations have additional consulates in the US outside of their embassies in the Washington DC area. The countries that do have consulate systems in the US either a) conduct a lot of business with citizens of the US, b) have a substantial amount of expatriates or citizens who conduct business in the US, or both.",
"I thought it’s also the fact that an embassy is located in the country’s capitol while a consulates is located in any city that’s not the capitol. ",
"Embassy is the headquarter of a country in another country for bilateral dialogue. As a headquarter in a foreign country, the consulate is under the embassy.\n\nConsulates handle the affairs and services of citizens abroad, and of foreign citizens wanting to interact with the country of the consulate.\n\nAn embassy usually offers Consular services in its Consular section. A consulate does not perform duties that an embassy does.\n\nCountry A can have several consulates of country B, but will only have one embassy of country B. There are few exceptions to this rule, namely Switzerland and the United States. Foreign countries have embassies with both countries in their respective capitals, Bern and Washington DC that deal with bilateral relations. They also have embassies to the United Nations, in Geneva and New York, respectively, handling multilateral diplomacy with the UN.\n\nRome, Italy is another exception where there are sometimes two embassies for a given country. One which will handle bilateral relations with Italy, and another which will handle bilateral relations with the Vatican. The reason for this is because:\n\n1) The Vatican is its own country, 2) the Vatican will not accept embassies to Italy to double up as embassies to The Vatican, 3) not enough space in the Vatican city for embassies, so they have to be in Rome instead.\n\nJust a little more on point two:\n\nOften time an embassy in a particular country will also be an embassy to another country as well, especially when the other country is too small, or diplomatic relations between two countries is not important enough to warrant an embassy of its own. A good example is embassies in Bern, Switzerland often double up as embassies to Liechtenstein.",
"Embassy's are G2G (government to government), functions like discussing military, economic affairs at a very high level. \n\nConsulates are G2C (government to citizen), aka places where everyday people renew or get their Visa. \n\nAlso not mentioned is that Consulates function as foreign soil and citizens can/may seek protection (natural disaster, war, etc) there if they are a) citizens of the Consulate nation or b) they are seeking asylum to that country. \n\nOne of the rules of diplomacy is that host nations will not forcefully enter Consulates as doing so is essentially an act of war. ",
"The United States first consulate from 1790 - unfortunately the Eagle is hidden by a tree: _URL_0_\nEdit: typo",
"The ambassador of X in Y represents the government of X to the government of Y.\nA consul of X in Y represents the government of X to the people of X (and Y) in Y",
"Imagine you are travelling in a big country and you lost your passport. The capital city, where the embassy is, is very far away but there is a consulate in a big city close by.\n\nInstead of going all the way to the Embassy you can get a new passport (or temporary ID) at the consulate so you can fly home.",
"Most of these answers get pretty close, but I'm going to try and clarify a bit further.\n\n- As others have said, embassies are the main point of diplomatic contact between the governments of respective nation-states. \n\n- In some cases it is not feasible to have an embassy (US in Iran, North Korea, etc.) where the embassies of other countries can be used as diplomatic channels. ~~(The Swiss, in both the above cases)~~\n\n- Embassies provide consular services (immigration, visas, business services, support for a country's citizens overseas, G2B and B2B support). Embassies will regularly host programs and events meant to strengthen business, cultural, and governmental ties between countries. Embassies are NOT strictly government-to-government.\n\n- Consulates provide outposts for foreign governments inside countries, but are not the primary focus of diplomacy between countries.\n\n- That said, consulates DO provide some government-to-government services, especially between larger countries. Japan may use its San Francisco consulate to interact directly with the California governor's office, the Federal Treasury, or the state Department of Transportation. \n\n- Consulates provide consular services just like embassies, stamping passports, providing visas, and offering support for that country's national in case of trouble or disaster.\n\n- Consulates also provide some B2B services, and may interact with local businesses in order to promote that country's businesses/products or to learn about new products from the local market. Larger countries typically have trade promotion agencies that will either piggyback on a consulate's office or establish its own (Like US Department of Commerce or JETRO). \n\ntl;dr - Embassies are the *primary* (but not sole) diplomatic point of contact, but both offices offer business, governmental, and cultural services to varying degrees.\n\nSource: Worked at a Japanese consulate in the US for 2 years.\n\nedit: struck out some incorrect info",
"People are over complicating this. A state can only have 1 embassy in another state, usually in said state capital city. A consulate is also a diplomatic mission in another part of the country, usually to assist with consular issues. It is called a consulate, because you can only have 1 embassy. The embassy is where the ambassador and most diplomatic staff are based obviously.\n\nFor example an EU state will have its embassy in Washington DD, but perhaps also consulates in San Fran, Seattle, Austin and New York. So if people in those areas have consular issues, there will be staff nearby able to assist. As well as consular assistance, they also usually promote economic, political and cultural issues.\n\nEmbassies and consulates are diplomatic missions. All states also have diplomatic missions to UN in New York and in Geneva. EU states also have diplomatic missions to the EU in Brussels, know as Permenant Representative (Perm Rep).\n\nSource - I've work in and with embassies/diplomatic missions.",
"U.S. immigration lawyer here. An Embassy is the official seat of the foreign government where the ambassador generally resides. A consulate is an ancillary post within the same country.\n\nSome other posts here incorrectly state that embassies do not issue visas. That is not correct. Both embassies and consulates may issue visas. In the case of U.S. embassies, they usually, but not always, are responsible for issuing immigrant visas (for permanent residency), while consulates issue nonimmigrant visas (for temporary visits). This rule is not without exceptions. E.g., in Canada the US Consulate in Montréal issues immigrant visas.",
"I think Consulate are menthol? Embassy comes in a packet that look like regal but red instead of blue. "
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28y4lh | the concepts of "proof" and "theorem" in mathematics. | Pretty please. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/28y4lh/eli5_the_concepts_of_proof_and_theorem_in/ | {
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"Theorems are usually important results which show how to make concepts solve problems or give major insights into the workings of the subject. They often have involved and deep proofs. Propositions give smaller results, often relating different definitions to each other or giving alternate forms of the definition. Proofs of propositions are usually less complex than the proofs of theorems. Lemmas are technical results used in the proofs of theorems. Often it is found that the same trick is used several times in one proof or in the proof of several theorems. When this happens the trick is isolated in a lemma so that its proof will not have to be repeated every time it is used. This often makes the proofs of theorems shorter and, one hopes, more lucid. Corollaries are immediate consequences of theorems either giving special cases or highlighting the interest and importance of the theorem.",
"A proof is a deductive argument for a mathematical statement. In the argument, other previously established statements, such as theorems, can be used. In principle, a proof can be traced back to self-evident or assumed statements, known as axioms.A theorem is a statement that has been proven on the basis of previously established statements, such as other theorems—and generally accepted statements, such as axioms."
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1ycb11 | why don't we see riots in belarus, when there are riots in ukraine? | The latest riots in mainly Kijev has been triggered by heavy russian influence in the country, and the pinching between Russia and EU.
This leads me to think: wouldn't that imply, that this dilemma between staying Russia-influenced or moving towards EU would move on to a country like Belarus. It's known as the last dictatorship in EU, and is stuck in a bit of a limbo like Ukraine. I suppose that eventually there will be a heavy pressure to open up towards west, but why aren't there any rumblings in this country? Is it because that the opposition is more oppressed than in Ukraine, or are the people of Belarus keen on staying a gated country and leaving progress behind? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1ycb11/eli5why_dont_we_see_riots_in_belarus_when_there/ | {
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"Belarus was already effectively a dictatorship, and the government would never, ever have permitted a protest movement to develop and take over a public square for months. They'd have sent in the military on day one. And everyone living there knows it. \n\nSo there's no protest movement. But hey, the situation was similar in places like Libya, Egypt, etc, so who knows what could happen given time?",
"The political climate in Ukraine is very different from that of Belarus. The enmity between Ukraine and Russia has a long history and is very strong on the Ukrainian side. Ukraine has become very western-oriented in general, ever since the breakup of the Soviet Union about 25 years ago.\n\nBelarus may one day reach that point, or it may take a different route. But it is not at all similar to Ukraine politically or socially at this time."
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6igtup | why is europe getting attacked with terrorism right now, when the usa seems to be a more hated country? | When I say "the USA seems to be a more hated country," I say that from an American perspective. We may not be as hated as I feel like we are. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/6igtup/eli5_why_is_europe_getting_attacked_with/ | {
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"Europe isn't really getting attacked that much. At least, not successfully. \n\nMuslims suffer between 82 and 97% of terrorism-related fatalities. \n\nThis report is from five years ago\n\n_URL_0_\n\nThis is from three years ago\n\n_URL_2_\n\nBut trends persist. \n\n_URL_1_\n\n\"74% of all deaths due to terrorist attacks took place in five countries (Iraq, Afghanistan, Nigeria, Syria, and Pakistan)\"\n\nThe sociological/crimonological phenomenon of terrorism is complex and obviously hard to study, and therefore hard to really get a clear understanding of. \n\n",
"Americans do a fine enough job carrying out our own mass murders. to answer the complex question somewhat, xenophobia isn't just in the US, there are people who hate anyone that isn't in their group and when they are alienated by the country they reside in they may take drastic actions. it is easier to access European countries than it is to get into the US as well. "
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"https://www.state.gov/j/ct/rls/crt/2015/257526.htm",
"http://www.ohchr.org/Documents/Countries/IQ/UNAMI_OHCHR_POC_Report_FINAL_6July_10September2014.pdf"
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91v1if | what causes people to go insane in extremely quiet environments? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/91v1if/eli5_what_causes_people_to_go_insane_in_extremely/ | {
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"the answer is they don't. Verified by several people who went into the quietest room on the planet. An easy one to google is veritasium.",
"i wouldn't say insane, but you get a little uncomfortable hearing your own bodily functions.",
"Sounds very peaceful and relaxing to me--Alexander Selkirk(Robinson Crusoe)seemed to do just fine being on a deserted island for four years"
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7gwia9 | why is finding "patient zero" in an epidemic so important? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/7gwia9/eli5_why_is_finding_patient_zero_in_an_epidemic/ | {
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"How did patient zero get the sickness?\n\nWho has patient zero been in contact with?\n\nThe first question helps to guide efforts to prevent.\n\nThe second question helps guide efforts to contain.",
"It depends on the epidemic. For rare diseases that pop up now and then, like ebola, this was important because people wanted to know where ebola was coming from. Years could pass without a single known human having it, so it was coming from the environment, likely some kind of animal. After finding out \"patient zero\" for ebola outbreaks, you can look at where they lived, what they did, etc. to identify likely candidates for animal hosts, and then go into the wild and collect those animals to see if they actually have the virus. If they do, then you can now warn everyone that this is how you get ebola, so they know to be cautious. \n\nStudying diseases that can jump species barriers can also potentially teach us about which diseases might do this in the future, so we can be prepared just in case it happens. \n\nIf *very* little is known about the disease in question, tracing the path of transmission can tell you how the disease is spreading. Is it airborne? Does it live in the environment, or only within hosts? How long can it survive outside the host? Does it even spread from person to person, or were all those infected exposed to the same source, rather than one passing it to the other? Legionnaire's disease is like this, it DOES NOT spread from person to person, it spreads through inhaling contaminated water vapor. So if a group of people get it, we can look to see what water sources they've been near, so that we can stop any more people from being infected by that source. \n\nEdit: **For more information,** I recommend [this book](_URL_1_) on a cholera epidemic in London, where epidemiological techniques were first pioneered. . . by a guy named John Snow. No, really! Here's a [Youtube series](_URL_0_) on the same topic. ",
"If you want to stop an epidemic it's important to know how it started. For instance, there was a cholera epidemic in London in the 1800's that was eventually traced to a single contaminated public water pump. Shutting down that pump stopped the epidemic. If you have an epidemic that is spread person-to-person, finding the source can help pinpoint the root cause, so that you can stop it at the source.",
"Pt 0 is important for making vaccinations and containment efforts, if pt 0 was a French tourist visiting the us, the us may have the outbreak but France is at risk to. Plus it helps researchers find out what happened and how to stop it from happening again ",
"Relatedly... Why are they called patient 0, and patient 1?",
"Understanding how the first person came to have a disease helps contain further spread for comunicable ailments. But it also helps track a path that the person with the disease has taken since they acquired it which demonstrates the possible exposure to others so bodies like the cdc know where to expend man power. Quarntine procedures and the like are very costly.",
"Trying to find a cure for an illness is very difficult, trying to cure or treat it is like feeling around in the dark. \n\nFor that reason, two things are very important in developing a cure/treatment: patient zero and resistant/carrier patients. \n\nPatient zero helps give you a better idea of where it came from and how it is communicated. Knowing these things also helps you understand who's most at risk and how best to limit infection. Resistant carriers are the most critical because they help you determine how the body can fight off the infection, and they tell you what kind of reaction you need to artificially create in the body to help fight it off. ",
"One more important thing to note is that the disease samples of P-Zero are likely to be the original mutagen. Considering how diseases adapt themselves according to the host or environs they find themselves in, it is important to know what the original structure of of microbe looked like. That way it is possible to simulate the possible mutations and find a base counter to all of them.\n\nIf that isn't possible, then one needs to try out different vaccine strains which cost a lot of time and money.",
"I believe the disease can be tracked by following the location of patient zero. It helps to single out elements and various factors that may have influenced the spread. ",
"It means that the carrier is transmitting the infection, but still alive. Patient zero has active antibodies that are combating the infection/keeping him alive. Finding patient zero is valuable because you can harvest the antibodies to find how it is combating the infection and produce a vaccine/cure from the antibodies.",
"If you find where it originated you can find out how they got it (the source) and be able to find a way to fight it possibly by getting the original form of virus before it mutated. Also map out who they met and where it's likely to spread so you can get ahead of the spread and kill it off. We're pretty good at it with WHO but could always be better.",
"How fast did the symptoms start? In what order did the symtoms appear? You can learn the timeline of the disease or virus and know how long a person has once they're infected. Also you can learn who they came into contact with and that can tell you how it spreads (air, blood, or water pathogen whatever) \n",
"Biocontainment team member here.\n\nHelps to find out who has it, who the disease may have spread to and came from. \n\nSay you had a person from Sierrea Leone that was Ebola positive, we'd have to know if they took a boat or plane, did they take a direct flight or did they drive after landing?\n\nIf they drove did they use a taxi or drive alone?\n\nIs the patient wet or dry? (Are try actively vomiting/sneezing/bleeding/diarrheaing or are they just experiencing initial signs and symptoms) gives us an idea how sick others may be.\n\n\nPROTIP: don't go to a hospital and pretend to have Ebola, we lock your ass down. I think it's our safety measure to have you masked up within 5min, isolated within 7, and have EVS follow your walking path with a bleach mop.if you are just at a random hospital you will be sent to an assessment site to be evaluated if your hospital isn't.",
"I was under the impression that Patient Zero would have the most time with the \"disease\" or whatever, so the most possible mutations would be available for study and prevention. ",
"I think in addition to the items outlined below, patient zero has a non-mutated version of whatever strain of bacteria/virus etc. Being able to see how it mutates can be hugely beneficial in figuring out how to stop it.",
"You've misunderstood it. It's not about the first patient, it's about the last. You want to get the pasient count down to zero, e.g you've eliminated the virus. That's why they sey they have to \"find\" patient zero. Meaning they want to get to the point where there are zero patients. Some hollywood movies use it wrong, which might be where you picked it up. Hope that helped.",
"Take something like Ebola Virus Disease. It is a hemorrhagic viral fever with a mortality rate of between 40%-90% depending on the strain. It's a mean, scary disease. It is transmissible to another human through all body fluids...Sweat, tears, saliva, blood, semen, snot...If you can leak it, Ebola will catch a ride on it. \n\nSo lets say for example, a person in sub-Saharan Africa was exposed to the disease and got on an airplane to the US before they knew they had it. \n\nThey would sit on the plane full of people and travel from someplace like Liberia, to maybe Amsterdam, then hop on another flight to someplace in the US like Dallas. They are around people sealed up with them on two planes and three airports.\n\nFortunately, with Ebola, people are not contagious until they become symptomatic. So this guy is not showing symptoms until a few days after he arrives, so he decides to seek treatment. \n\nNo, most hospitals in the US aren't going to think much of it, nor be equipped for it when a guy appears showing flu-like symptoms, then starts bleeding out of his orifices a day or so later.\n\nHealth care workers that aren't prepared for this exposure might do something like hop on a flight to Ohio while another healthcare worker is reporting a fever. \n\nThis would mean that the CDC would have to step in and find out everyone that had come into contact with that first patient on his trip from Liberia as well as anyone he had had contact with and that the healthcare workers that were exposed had been in contact with and have them all tested for Antibodies against the virus.\n\nThis is exactly what happened with Thomas Eric Duncan in 2014. He was Patient zero (in the US). He wound up dying, but the healthcare workers lived. ",
"A virus mutates little by little as it spreads from host to host.\n\nAs a result we get numerous strains of the same virus but with slightly different characteristics, which will continue to slightly change as it spreads. \n\n\nTo combat a virus and eliminate it we need antiviral medications which can only treat some less severe infections for the most part, but more important is a proper vaccine. A vaccine itself isn't difficult to produce, but a vaccine that can treat a dozen variations of the same virus is more difficult. However, the closer to patient zero that the vaccine is derived from the more likely it is to treat all of the mutations as well. If we can derive a vaccine from patient zero his or herself, it is effectively possible to treat nearly all of the mutated forms of it. \n\nIt becomes harder and harder to identify as it goes on, and as a result more difficult to replicate and treat. I hope that helps. ",
"It's understandable that humans get diseases from other humans because the infectious agent can adapt to the new host easily, but it's important to find patient zero because that person most likely contracted the disease from a natural reservoir (animals or plants). This natural reservoir and the corresponding pathological agent needs to be identified and contained as soon as possible.\n\nNatural reservoirs are important to identify because even if humans have developed complete immunity to a particular pathogen, the disease lives on in animals that may be unaffected by its effects. Who knows when it might make a comeback. Armadillos for example, carry leprosy.",
"Epidemiologist with the CDC chiming in. \n\n\"Patient Zero\" in an outbreak is the last person with the disease. Essentially, this means that as the last person with the disease, once Patient Zero is cured, there will no longer be any people with the disease, thus the disease is now eradicated. And of course, that's the goal of responding to the outbreak. So, that's why finding Patient Zero is so important. ",
"Patient zero is the first infected, from that data point you can get a map of spread for the contagion. The easiest way to solve an infestation is to go to the root. So you find patient zero and work up from there. ",
"On top of the already excellent points made, some infectious diseases can be spread by individuals who do not show symptoms of the disease itself yet are able to transmit it. These \"healthy carriers\" are a small subset of those infected by agents such as HIV, HPV, Typhoid (look up Typhoid Mary), and many others. Detecting these individuals is especially difficult, and identifying them can prevent reoccurring outbreaks. ",
"Answers here are spot on.\nI'd just like to add that P0 might not be a case(i.e may not himself/herself have the disease), but rather a carrier as well (someone who carries the causative organism, but may not have the disease).\n\nThe classic example told in Epidemiology classes is that of 'Typhoid Mary'.\n\nIt becomes that much more important to locate P0 as they may be a carrier, and won't have any symptoms and will be difficult to locate. ",
"Because in cases where the cause of disease or mechanism of disease transmission is uncertain, patient zero will often be the 'smoking gun' that confirms everything. For example, when SARS burst upon the global scene in 2002/2003, the mechanism of disease transmission could only be figured out by identifying the patient zero/index patient in China, and then the tracing that patient zero to others who 'exported' the disease to other countries (Dr. Liu Jianlun, a 64-year-old Chinese doctor who had treated cases in China before traveling to Hong Kong's Metrople Hotel where he infected multiple other hotel clients). _URL_0_",
"Microbiologist, here. My background is in Bioterrorism Response.\n\nPatient Zero is mostly used in movies, frequently, because they are often talking about crazy fast mutating viruses. One core concept is genetic drift, which is essentially looking at how different the infectious agent is from how it started.\n\nIn simplest terms, it’s like a game of “Whisper Down the Alley,” the more people are involved, the greater chance there is for it to have changed from the original.\n\nThe concept of Patient Zero ties in with what it looks like now compared to what it started as. On a genetic level, if they *are* trying to create a vaccine, they will need to look at the areas that are the same in both the original (Patient Zero) and whatever is the newest thing. An effective vaccine targets the areas that are shared by all mutations of the infection.\n\nFor example, you have a snake, a lizard, and a wolf.\n\nCutting off the legs will harm the lizard and wolf, but does nothing to the snake.\n\nPutting them in a relatively colder environment will harm the snake and the lizard, but the wolf will survive.\n\nBut finding Patient Zero and knowing what the original strain compared to the newest mutation is like cutting off the head of the snake, lizard, and wolf. They all share that common feature, so attacking that works on all 3.",
"Read the book: the hot zone,richard Preston, true story that will make you realize how close we all came to being wiped out because humans are inherently stupid.",
"Viruses can mutate and jump from non-human species to humans. Finding patient zero helps researchers to find the person who won the most unlucky lottery in the world and the species from which the virus jumped from. From there on we can figure out what is the original virus. In the end it helps with mapping the virus and making a vaccine."
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1fmboh | what are the differences between different anit-virus software. | What makes one different from the rest? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1fmboh/eli5_what_are_the_differences_between_different/ | {
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"Aside from being fundamentally the same in terms of how they work, what often denotes a \"good\" AV program from a \"bad\" one comes down to two aspects: resource management and invasiveness.\n\nGood anti-virus programs use low system resources (they don't slow down your computer that much) and do not restrict the use of your computer (they just watch for bad software and trust you to use your own computer). Most importantly, they are updated efficiently with virus definitions so they can spot more/new viruses that may infect your computer.\n\nBad AV's usually hog your resources, are poorly updated (they use old definitions and can't always identify viruses quickly), and put restrictions how how you can manage and access certain parts of your hard drive. In many ways, these programs (like Norton and McAfee) act like viruses themselves.\n\nSource: I work at my campus tech support.\n\n"
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6ux4ne | why do some micro usb cords charge certain devices but not others? | I have many micro USB cords and devices that they charge. Some cords will work to charge certain devices, but then won't work at all to charge my phone, vape, ps4 controllers, etc. Sometimes I'll have a cord that works to charge a device for a while and then all the sudden it just won't charge that device any longer (but WILL charge some other device).
What gives? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/6ux4ne/eli5_why_do_some_micro_usb_cords_charge_certain/ | {
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"I'd also like to know, can charge my phone with one but not my ps4 controller. Annoying as hell",
"USB is an open standard, but there's nothing stopping people from putting their own proprietary protocol on it. so the cable will physically fit, but the software doesnt recognize it and refuses to interact with it",
"First, proprietary *charging* protocols. While USB is an open standard, it originally allowed carging with currents up to 1 A, and even less before that. IIRC, safe fallback current for charging through motherboard USB port is only 0.5 A, it could provide more only if device actually asks for it.\n\nThat wasn't enough, so various manufacturers developed several unofficial extensions to the standard. Usually this is done by connecting data wires to power wires through resistor with certain value.\nSome manufacturers (most infamously Apple) has gone even further and included advanced circuitry to detect that compatible device plugged in compatible charger. This also helps them to sell those chargers and cords at higher prices.\nNowadays there finally are some official standards like USB 3.0 and QC\n\nSecond, on the other hand, cheap cords might actually be unsuitable to high currents - wires too thin, resistance too high.\n\nLastly, in your case I would also suspect some defect either in cable or in connection to charger."
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3vy3f2 | how can you tell which sources to trust? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3vy3f2/eli5_how_can_you_tell_which_sources_to_trust/ | {
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"To evaluate a source, you need to do independent validation and verification, which often means consulting multiple sources and comparing, or doing independent first-hand investigation of the material. Here are some key factors:\n\n* Authority - Is the publisher of the source an authority in the subject? Is their authority of the subject clear and valid? Do they have qualifications?\n\n* Accuracy - For statements of fact, can you verify them by relying on a known legitimate authority? For statements of opinion, do you have other opinions you can vet them against?\n\n* Objectivity - Is the publisher or author biased? Is the language impartial? Is the material free from advertising?\n\n* Currency - Is the information up to date? Does it rely on research that is up to date?\n\n* Coverage - Is the information complete and comprehensive? Has it been taken out of context? Does it include citations for its references?\n\n_URL_0_",
"Sources of information earn the trust of the people by providing good, timely and accurate information, and maintain a reputation for being trustworthy by doing so. If a given website or newspaper starts to provide false or ill-informed information another source of positive repute will contradict it, someone will fact check, and the inaccurate information will cause the source to lose face, and people won't trust it. \nExample: The Times is known for reporting good information on stories and such, whilst the Inquirer and similar papers have a reputation of reporting anything that sounds exciting and will sell product, true or not. ",
"There is already an excellent overview in comments, but I just wanted to add my 2 cents.\n\n* Look at what sources that source it using to. This may or may not always be possible. However, the sources should reflect that research has not only been done, but peers can verify the facts used. If using this method, make sure there is enough sources and citations. For my first historical research paper, I had over 50 citations for a 15 page paper. \n\n* What sources are good or bad? Is the source a left or right-leaning website? Probably not a good source since they would have an agenda or bias to report information a certain way. Is the expert a PhD or a hobbyist? Have they worked extensively in this topic? If so, where do they stand on issues? It takes research to verify a good source.\n\n* Who is funding the study, report, source? Is a study on the effects of smoking being funded by tobacco? Then you probably cannot trust it. Peer review journals are usually held in high regard because before it goes to publication it is blindly reviewed by other in the field for accuracy and the author or researcher does not usually make much money on it. But not everything published is necessarily peer reviewed. Double check if it is or isn't if you need it to be. For commercial publications you may have to dig a little deeper to see if there is any bias. \n\n* A word of warning. Be careful using stats in sources that seem less than trustworthy, or even legitimate. Even a student just taking an intro course in Statistics can make you realize how easily stats can be altered to come up with a certain result. For this reason alone checking to see if a source is accurate is required. For many Pew Research is the gold standard in stats.\n\n* Don't forget to be weary of translations. Even the very best translations in the world are not a word-for-word copy of the document or source. Language has to be adapted to be translated and feels or subtleties can be lost. Even with the best intention and education, research based on translated documents has the possibility of being a little off.\n\n* A good topic to explore bad sources in \"Lying About Hitler\". It is about a court case in which a historian was being sued for libel by a holocaust denier. The said denier has access to good source material, extensive (self-taught) knowledge on his topics, and was able to translate german topics first hand. Nevertheless, his biases and unethical research produced false information that seems legitimate. ",
"Don't automatically trust any source. Look for signs of an agenda and/or bias in anything you read. Compare multiple sources with varying viewpoints. Try to establish the most likely truth using your experience. Question your own bias as it is also easy to believe something is true if it confirms your own beliefs.\n\nEstablishing truth or likely truth given the state of today's media can be intellectually challenging which is why most people are bad at it."
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3ug3ik | why are degrees from for-profit schools considered to be useless? | I don't get it; if you're still taking classes and learning from professors why does it matter if your school is for profit or not? I'm sorry if I sound ignorant, I really just don't understand. I'm talking schools like devry, chamberlain, u of Phoenix, etc | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3ug3ik/eli5_why_are_degrees_from_forprofit_schools/ | {
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"The problem with for profit schools is that the Cost/Benefit ration for students is highly disproportionate from non-profit schools and they also lack a lot of funding, grant, scholarship opportunities offered at Non-profit schools.\n\nFor-profit schools also tend to be more bare bones and have less of a feeling of community and camaraderie. They don’t often have a campus; instead they frequently lease building space. This means they lack the resources or training opportunities that other schools have. An example would be if you want to be a nuclear physicist, many non-profit schools have active cutting edge research going on which students can partake in or take lessons from professors doing this research. You will never find this as a for-profit institution.",
"For profit schools are generally viewed as selling a degree rather than educating people so they can earn it. As a result they are often associated with plagiarism and teachers passing people who should by all rights fail.",
"The term 'for-profit college' often has a negative connotation and typically refers to the type of for-profit colleges that have campuses all over the place and advertise on TV a lot.\n\nThese colleges are basically begging for students to apply. They often don't care what your academic background is and instead they're purely interested in churning out diplomas for profit. It's basically a total numbers game: get as many students to apply as possible, admit virtually everyone, take their money, and then handout diplomas once they complete a program.\n\nThe standard and quality of education and instruction at these types of for-profit schools is often sub-par. Some instructors may not be qualified or have special expertise in the area they are teaching in and often lack a doctorate (PhD) degree. The curriculum and academic programs offered at these institutions also often fail to earn accreditation by independent organizations that assess the quality of educational programs and instruction at colleges and universities throughout the country.\n\nPublic/non-profit colleges and private/for-profit colleges that don't follow this 'business model' tend to be a lot more selective in their acceptance (i.e. they want the best and brightest students and have all sorts of admission requirements to weed out applicants that are lower-performing or lazy).\n\nThe instructors at these schools also usually have PhDs and are highly qualified in the field they are teaching in (i.e. they teach what they know best, usually from knowledge they have acquired from first-hand research and experience). The academic programs offered at these institutions also usually receive accreditation from independent organizations and may have developed a strong reputation nationally and internationally.\n\nSo basically, employers have good reason to be skeptical of degrees handed out by the aforementioned 'for-profit colleges' whereas employers can generally trust that public/non-profit colleges and for-profit research institutions meet a certain level or standard of education and instruction."
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9sjr4v | why do white erasers seem to erase so much more cleanly and smoothly than other colors? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/9sjr4v/eli5_why_do_white_erasers_seem_to_erase_so_much/ | {
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"I think it's just a different material that's being used in the eraser. It's more of a plastic product than a rubber/latex product. The old-fashioned gum erasers and kneadable erasers worked well also. In general, softer erasers seem to be better than firmer ones. "
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2gamq7 | why does it seem like jordan has its shit together while we always hear such negative things about other middle eastern countries? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2gamq7/eli5_why_does_it_seem_like_jordan_has_its_shit/ | {
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"The kingdom is strongly tied to western Interests. Strongly: almost all their high level policy makers graduated from Georgetown or gw univ in DC. \n\n",
"Kim Jong Un has a western education (went to school in Switzerland), so a western education doesn't necessarily mean that you aren't a murderous terrorist or dictator."
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1rxhsv | why do big trucks need so many gears when a car can get by with four to six? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1rxhsv/eli5why_do_big_trucks_need_so_many_gears_when_a/ | {
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"Large diesel engines have a lot of torque but a very narrow RPM band. Truck drivers have to be constantly shifting while accelerating or decelerating to keep the engine in that band.",
"Big trucks are heavier, so you want to minimize the strain on the engine and transmission that occurs when you switch gears. The way you do this is by including a greater range of gears so that the transmission can climb up smaller increments.\n\nThink of it this way. If you have to carry a piano up a flight of stairs, would you rather the staircase have a few steep steps or twice as many smaller steps?\n\nThis also works in reverse, it takes a lot of energy to build momentum on a big truck, so if you need to downshift temporarily then you don't want to lose all of the momentum if you can help it. Better to have half-steps so that you can downshift just enough to suit your need while retaining momentum."
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okmv7 | why hasn't anyone invented a small device that can separate salt from salt water and make it drinkable? | They've invented small water purifiers.
This guy invented this compact water filter that can let you drink filthy pond water with rabbit dung in it -
_URL_0_
Why hasn't anyone made ^ that for salt water? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/okmv7/eli5_why_hasnt_anyone_invented_a_small_device/ | {
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"Boil saltwater, collect condensation, drink.",
"It exists and it's pretty simple. The Sun evaporates the water under a cone, the water turns back to a liquid on the sides of the cone and it's collected.\n\n[image](_URL_0_)",
"There is. \n\nReverse Osmosis Filter, are devices that basically force water the wrong way through an osmosis gradient (look up Osmosis if you want).\n\nPortable RO filters are available, but they require pretty high pressure to work so usually you need a pump of some kind to work them."
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2k9sba | why do computer screens on tv shows have seem to have light waves running through them? | It seems like it's gotten better over the years, but in the 90s and 2000s it was everywhere.
I did search before I asked and didn't see this question. Sorry if I missed it. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2k9sba/eli5_why_do_computer_screens_on_tv_shows_have/ | {
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"It happens when the TV screen is out of sync with the camera. Remember, the TV displays several images per second, and the camera records several images per second. So if the TV is showing 30 frames per second, and the camera is recording 50 frames per second, there's going to be a lot of times when the camera takes a frame just as the TV is in between frames, so you see a black stripe on the TV where it's in between drawing two frames. \n\nYou're right about it getting better in recent years. In the 90s, TV and PC screens were mostly CRT screens. They created images using a beam of electrons that would sweep down the screen, drawing the frame from top to bottom. So a video camera would often catch it while the beam is in the middle, so you see half of the previous frame and half of the currently-drawing one. Now, we mostly have LCD and LED screens, which update the frame all at once - so even if you film it between frames, all you see is the previous frame (until the moment it redraws the whole screen). "
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7k2kxh | how do programmers code chess-playing computers to make mistakes? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/7k2kxh/eli5_how_do_programmers_code_chessplaying/ | {
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"Most typically they are simply told not to look far ahead.\n\nThey can also be told to randomly pick from among the top few moves instead of the single highest-rated move.",
"You don't specifically code it to make mistakes. You code it so it doesn't pick the best move.\n\nChess programs work by testing out a large number of moves into the future and assigning points generally based on how many pieces it is able to keep and how many pieces it is able to capture from the opponent.\n\nOn \"Easy\" mode, the computer just won't look as many moves into the future, or won't pick the best possible moves out of all the possibilities it found.",
"The algorithm works by trying a selection of moves, and using rules to determine a score. It then chooses the highest scoring move.\n\nIf you add a random number to each score, then the computer will still usually make the best move, but occasionally make the second or third best move. But will still have a bias towards the better moves.",
"Chess isn't a \"solved\" game; there's no known sure-fire path to victory. \n\nThis means your chess machine can make mistakes because it's hard to tell what a mistake even is, even if it's playing it's best. It's not like naughts and crosses where you intentionally have to not play optimally if you don't want a 100% win rate. \n\nFor an actual answer, a chess engine typically looks a certain number of turns into the future, computing all/the most likely options and deciding which one it will take. To limit a chess engine you can simply limit the number of turns ahead it can look. It's currently impossible to look through all possible moves to the end of a game, so this limit exists anyway and you just have to lower it. \n\nAnother way to \"weaken\" a chess engine is to change the way it \"scores\" a move. I touched on this earlier when; there's no objective way to say one move is better than another for any two arbitrary moves. You might be able to say \"moving your queen in a place where a pawn can take it is an objectively bad move\", but it's a lot harder to come up with a way to compare any 2 given moves. \n\nA simple method would be to say that every piece is worth so many points (1 for pawn, 4 for bishop...) and see if any moves will make the opponent lose more points than you. This is a very simple one with obvious flaws. \n\nSo you come up with the best way of evaluating a move that you can think of, and let your chess engine use that. For an easier setting, you make it use a worse way of evaluating moves. \n\nLastly, you can have the engine work out the best 10 moves and then pick randomly from those, perhaps you weight it so that it's more likely to pick the best ones on \"hard\" and less likely on \"easy\". ",
"So the points have been good so far, but I want to add a bit of specificity as well.\n\nLet's take the Monte-Carlo Tree Search as an example, because it shows how this might work and also is my favourite use of dumb shit.\n\nThe MCTS in something like Chess will begin by looking at an unexplored potential move. It will then say, basically, \"Ok, let's say I make this move. I'm going to make completely random moves from here on out and see if I win\". This is obviously super quick, because there's no real decisions going on in picking future moves. If it wins, that move gets +1. If it doesn't win, that move doesn't get a +1.\nMCTS also will then do this with further moves. So maybe it'll make Move 1, simulate randomly, etc. etc. Then once it's worked for a bit on other moves, maybe it'll go back to one of the moves that was possible after move 1, which we'll call move A. If move A wins, Move 1 *also* gets +1.\n\nThe idea here is that if the selected move was good, and you go only a few steps deep into the tree, you'll start getting a picture of what moves are *probably* good. If you win a majority of games that are played completely randomly from any one position, that position is probably a strong one, right?\n\n\n\nSo with that super basic and only marginally accurate version of MCTS, let's apply it to having a computer make \"mistakes\". Well, what if you only look at, like, the possible moves to a second order of depth? So when selecting a possible move, you randomly simulate from that move and from all of the moves that won afterwards, but no farther. You'll get an ok picture of how strong that move is, but not nearly as strong as if you did that like 10 levels deep, or waited until a move had gone 0 for 5 or something before eliminating it from the search.\n\nSo maybe an \"easy\" version of a chess playing computer would go 2 deep, a \"medium\" version would go 4 deep, a \"hard\" version would go 6 deep, and a \"true\" version would go as deep as it could while considering time constraints."
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5g9thg | why is wine aged in oak casks and not in larger containers with oak in them? | Nice wines are often characterized by an oaky flavor achieved by aging the wine in oak casks. Couldn't the same effect be achieved by using large casks of an inert material (stainless steel possibly) into which one inserted oak pieces such that the surface area of the oak to wine ratio was proportional to that in an oak barrel? Would this achieve the same oaky flavor as traditional methods? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5g9thg/eli5_why_is_wine_aged_in_oak_casks_and_not_in/ | {
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"There is one difference: Wooden barrels are not completely sealed, and they will always have some loss due to evaporation. So by storing the wine in an oak barrel, it actually gets slightly concentrated. This is significant for whiskey, where very old barrels lose a lot of their content over time, but probably not so much for wine. Otherwise, it should be the exact same thing.\n\nThe main reason this isn't widely used are measures in place to protect traditional winemakers from competition of big companies, which could then mimic the taste of high quality wine using tricks like this. ",
"Oak barrels \"breathe\" as they aren't airtight, which is part of the \"terroir\" of the wine, which roughly translates to \"the influence of the environment in which the wine is produced\". For example it might breathe in sea air giving it salty fresh notes. \n\nIn reality it's probably just because when wine was invented oak barrels were the best container the technology of the age could produce and has stopped as a tradition justified by the reason I gave above. Whisky is done the same way. ",
"This idea is, in fact, already in use. It is traditional to use barrels, but some companies and many home vintners use flavor chips made of oak.",
"Depends on the brand and grade of wine. Fermenting and storing in stainless steel tanks that may have a few chunks of oak tossed in is common for cheaper wines. Especially table wines.\n\nHigher end wines that want the flavors (that others already explained) from aging in oak barrels do that.\n\n"
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2nnjt3 | what is this antitrust case eu runs against google? | Done some reading and searching but I just can't wrap my mind around it. Why does EU want to sperate the search engine from the rest of the company? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2nnjt3/eli5_what_is_this_antitrust_case_eu_runs_against/ | {
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"Theoretically to fight monopoly. Because we are now at the point where Google can easily root out any emerging competition, and has a very strong influence over most of small/medium companies. If they remove your company website from their search results you might have a very hard time. And since they are involved in many different markets, there might be temptation to \"help\" their own products by removing competition. \n\nImagine what would have happened if you couldn't find any information on the iPhone on the internet. I would expect Android sales to go up :)",
"The vote wasn't specifically on calling to break up Google, though Google was clearly the subject. It simply noted that a search engine with 90% market share has great potential to abuse that position to promote other products at the expense of their competitors. Separating search from other services was mentioned as a possible long term way of protecting against this.\n\nIt's really raising the idea that there is a potential net neutrality issue with search engines as well as ISPs. Since it's not practical to ask Google to prove that their algorithm is neutral, separate companies is raised as one possible way of enforcing neutrality.\n\nThe relevant part of the motion was:\n\n > Notes that the online search market is of particular importance in ensuring competitive conditions within the digital single market, given the potential development of search engines into gatekeepers and the possibility they have of commercialising secondary exploitation of information obtained; calls, therefore, on the Commission to enforce EU competition rules decisively, based on input from all relevant stakeholders and taking into account the entire structure of the digital single market in order to ensure remedies that truly benefit consumers, internet users and online businesses; calls, furthermore, on the Commission to consider proposals aimed at unbundling search engines from other commercial services as one potential long-term means of achieving the aforementioned aims;\n"
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4i96jx | after getting poked in the eye, why does closing your eyelid relieve the pain? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4i96jx/eli5_after_getting_poked_in_the_eye_why_does/ | {
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"I'm not sure but I assume it's something to do with getting rid of impurities or making your eye wet again, and that's just out reflex for doing that :) "
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5jila6 | could solar power solve the worlds energy problems and stop pollution at the same time? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5jila6/eli5_could_solar_power_solve_the_worlds_energy/ | {
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"Could it stop pollution, no. Its a bit too far gone for that and its not just energy creation that creates pollution. \nSolar should be exploited on all the really sunny and hot (optimal) areas. And then exported around the world to those countires that need it. Just like oil and gas is now. \nWe will still need oil and gas for all the other products that use them. \n\nUntil we find a simple fast and light way of storing electicity we are still pretty boned really. ",
"It could drastically cut the need for fossil fuels and wind, wave and geothermal energy could supply the rest of the world's energy needs. However it needs massive investment in the energy sector across the whole of the world and there are large vested interests which wold want to stop it or slow it down.",
"Solar alone is not going to be a complete solution, since there are parts of the world that get less sunshine. Where I live (Ireland), wind power is much more widely used. What people need to understand is that even if alternative energy sources are not a complete solution, they are still worth pursuing. Energy storage options are being actively investigated too, such as pumped energy (dams) and cryogenic (liquid nitrogen), as well as local storage (Tesla's battery systems).\n\nSay you end up in a situation where you have to run a fossil fuel station to cover \"base load\" 20% of the time: that's still a *massive* improvement in the fossil fuel / pollution situation and definitely worth doing. "
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eoc4fa | how does grape juice/wine "dry" our tongues despite being liquid? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/eoc4fa/eli5_how_does_grape_juicewine_dry_our_tongues/ | {
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"Wine, especially red wine, has large amounts of tannic acids. Tannins from tannic acids bind with proteins in your mouth and saliva; this causes these proteins to stick together, producing a rough and dry feeling.\n\nThis is why wines are often paired with cheeses - tannins also bind to fat, so the fat from foods like cheese will bind instead of the proteins in your saliva."
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mz40k | eif: what happens to all the money "lost" when an economic bubble crashes? | So when the internet bubble burst in 2001, there were $5 trillion in losses. Where did that $5 trillion go? Where did the money from the housing bubble go?
I understand that there are many different places it may have gone and that the money could have been pocketed before the crash. But who are these peoples/firms that pocketed the money, or how was it lost?
**EDIT:** Ok, let me clarify. Like posted below, the money doesn't 'vanish'. It goes towards salaries, equipment, services, etc. But if the company buys a crate of paper for $100 for its documents, and it goes under, that money still went to the paper company, right? Isn't that $100 still in the company? Who's "losses" are we talking about?
And what about the mortgage crisis? If an investment bank encourages an investor to purchase a subprime mortgage product, and those mortgages go bad, then where did the investor's money go? Was that money sunk into the person who defaulted on his/her debt obligations (at the lowest rung of the ladder)? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/mz40k/eif_what_happens_to_all_the_money_lost_when_an/ | {
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"You know that 1% people are talking about?",
"Regarding the internet bubble, basically the investors (people who purchased the stocks during the IPOs) suffered.\n\nLet's say, everyone thinks PetStore, an online pet store is going to be a big hit. The initial public offering raises 100m. (There was a lot of over-optimistic estimates of companies' financial back then) The company tries to keep running but loses money every year until it declares bankruptcy. \n\nThe investors are crap out of luck in this situation. \n\n",
"Let's say you buy a pack of Pokemon cards for $5 and it has a super-rare card in it. People might try to buy it off you for $20, making it \"worth\" $20. You hold on to it, hoping that somebody will offer you $25. The next printing of cards makes your card ultra-common - so common that people won't give you more than a quarter for it. Did you really 'lose' $20 because somebody was willing to pay you $20 for it earlier?\n\nNow, let's look at this a little differently - let's say that, when the card was worth $20, you sold that card to your friend for only $15. Did you 'lose' money there? When the card becomes worthless, does he 'lose' money?",
"Mortgage crisis:\n\nA mortgage broker facilitates the sale of a mortgage. The mortgage agreement starts at an introductory rate, and after a set period of time, the monthly payment amount goes up to the normal rate.\n\nThe broker gets a nice bonus.\n\nThe family starts living in the house, and has a debt for the balance of the value of the house. They don't have enough money to cover the normal payment of the mortgage (they can only afford the introductory rate), but they didn't read (or couldn't understand) the terminology used in the mortgage agreement, so they trusted the broker (who probably lied to them, saying that \"now is a great time to buy\", and \"house prices are only going up\", \"you'll be able to sell in a few years and make money\" - whatever)\n\nThe debt is \"bundled\" with a lot of other (very risky) mortgages into some acronym-laden \"security\", which is given an unrealistically high estimate of how well it's going to pay out, and sold to some other suckers. (Individual investors, Pension plans, etc -- any company that does invest in these probably gives their management a bonus or a raise for finding such good investments)\n\nThe company that bundles the mortgages gets a bunch of money. They see their profits go up, as they \"discovered\" a whole new market of first-time homeowners. They pay out very large bonuses to their executives.\n\nA year passes, and even the companies that are bundling the mortgages start thinking that they're worth a lot, so they start investing in their own securities -- which puts more and more money into encouraging people to buy homes they can't afford by telling them that they actually can afford them.\n\nMortgage brokers, security-creators, and executives give themselves larger and larger bonuses (as they're making more and more money for their respective businesses).\n\nSome smart, rich people look at the market, see that it's not sustainable and make bets that it's going to collapse. (Hedge Funds) Banks take these bets because the securities are rated so highly it's safe money for them (then they give their executives bonuses for finding another source of cash flow).\n\nFinally, the monthly mortgage payment goes up for the families. They, of course, can't pay. Suddenly, these securities are not paying out what they're \"guaranteed\" to pay.\n\nThose who made bets against the securities make an enormous profit. The banks lose a huge amount directly to the hedge funds. Anyone who invested in these \"highly rated\" securities have lost their investment.\n\nA number of executives who were in charge get fired (with a nice \"golden parachute\" as they leave).\n\nSo, who got the money?\n\nIn no particular order:\n\n* Mortgage brokers\n* Creators of bundled securities (both the people who thought them up in the first place and those who sold them to other companies)\n* Executives of every place who touched the bundled securities\n* Hedge funds, hedge fund managers, and those who invested in them\n\nWhere did the money come from?\n\n* People who bought houses believing that they could afford them (though they might \"just\" be stuck with more debt now)\n* Anyone who was left holding the bundled mortgages, including banks, any investors, etc",
"I think ameoba did a great job explaining this. \n\nI'll try to further clarify a bit. Nobody just keeps all their cash on hand. Think about it, if you kept your cash sitting around it would do you no good. No, you go buy that pack of Pokemon (or, in my case, Magic) Cards. You buy stuff. Maybe you invest it in something, hoping for a gain.\n\nSo you have stuff, instead of Cash. This is essential to understand.\n\nIt doesn't matter what the stuff you have is. You can have a shoe collection, a stock, a bond, whatever. Doesn't matter. The reality is that the cash is gone and you exchanged it for something you saw as valuable. \n\nNow, one day you decide that you want cash instead of some of your stuff. Again, doesn't matter why. Maybe you are sick of your shoe collection and want to get into Native American baskets. Doesn't matter. But - and here's the essential part - you find that nobody wants to buy your shoe collection. Nobody wants to buy your stuff. At least, not for what you paid for it.\n\nYou thought your shoe collection was worth $100,000. And maybe it is. But the most anybody will give you is $75,000. \n\n25% of your money just vanished.\n\nNow, things get worse. Why? Because ameoba has a shoe collection and noticed that you couldn't sell yours. So he runs out to try and sell his. The shoe buyers notice that suddenly there's a *lot* of shoes available, and they start offering less and less for the shoes. So you try to sell your collection again and discover that the largest offer is now $50,000. Now you're down 50%. In a panic, you sell, worried that you're only going to lose more money. This means that shoe buyers *know* they can offer 50% of the price of shoes and get away with it. Now *every* shoe collector has lost half their money. \n\nNow... What about if a company goes under? \n\nLet's say you buy a crate of paper for $100 bucks, but eventually go under anyway. What happened to that money? Well, like you expect, it's in the value of the paper. The owner, hoping to recoup some of his losses, will sell the crate and hope to get at least $100 for it. Maybe he will. \n\nWhat if you're a company that sells a crate of paper for $100, but then you go under. What happens to the money? Well, the money would have had to been spent on something else like wages or paying off some debt. Does it disappear? Not really. \n\nNow what if you own stock in a company that just went under? You bought a tiny piece of the company for $100. The company took that $100 and bought a crate of paper, whatever. Then, for whatever reasons, the company goes under. You still own a tiny piece of a bankrupt company. One of 3 things will happen: You will sell your stock (at a huge loss, because who wants to buy a piece of a bankrupt company?) or you will hang onto your stock until the company sells all its crates of paper and hope you get some of that liquidation (Not likely, since stockholders are relatively low on the bankruptcy payback totem pole) or you will hang onto your stock and see absolutely no return from it. In any case, you lose money. (The fourth option is the company recovers and you get your money back, but that's not the topic here.)\n\nSo the mortgage crisis:\n\nYou, an investor, buy a chunk of a mortgage as an investment for, say, $1,000. (we could go into [the details of a toxic asset](_URL_0_) but I don't think it would help maintain the quiet, peaceful joy of the ELI5 subreddit.) So, you hope this investment will *create* money for you over time by either bringing in a little cash flow of interest or by being worth more when you sell it. Instead, somebody, some astute know-it-all named onewatt comes by and says \"Hey, that thing is toxic.\" \n\nSuddenly, nobody will buy it from you. What makes it worse is that this particular investment *should* be bringing you a wee little interest income as people make their mortgage payments. The problem? Nobody's making their payments. So that $1000 you dropped into it? The investment firm took it and spent it on a day's worth of coffee. \n\nWhat did the coffee shop do with your $1000? Payroll to 10 guys. What did those 10 guys do with their $100 each? Turns out all of them bought the collectors edition of Starcraft 2. What does Blizzard do with that $1000?.... \n\nBut now, the investment companies can't sell their remaining mortgage products. So no coffee. The coffee shop can't pay their 10 employees, so layoffs. The employees can't afford Starcraft 2, so minecraft.\n\nAnd that, my friend, is where your money went.",
"You know that 1% people are talking about?",
"Regarding the internet bubble, basically the investors (people who purchased the stocks during the IPOs) suffered.\n\nLet's say, everyone thinks PetStore, an online pet store is going to be a big hit. The initial public offering raises 100m. (There was a lot of over-optimistic estimates of companies' financial back then) The company tries to keep running but loses money every year until it declares bankruptcy. \n\nThe investors are crap out of luck in this situation. \n\n",
"Let's say you buy a pack of Pokemon cards for $5 and it has a super-rare card in it. People might try to buy it off you for $20, making it \"worth\" $20. You hold on to it, hoping that somebody will offer you $25. The next printing of cards makes your card ultra-common - so common that people won't give you more than a quarter for it. Did you really 'lose' $20 because somebody was willing to pay you $20 for it earlier?\n\nNow, let's look at this a little differently - let's say that, when the card was worth $20, you sold that card to your friend for only $15. Did you 'lose' money there? When the card becomes worthless, does he 'lose' money?",
"Mortgage crisis:\n\nA mortgage broker facilitates the sale of a mortgage. The mortgage agreement starts at an introductory rate, and after a set period of time, the monthly payment amount goes up to the normal rate.\n\nThe broker gets a nice bonus.\n\nThe family starts living in the house, and has a debt for the balance of the value of the house. They don't have enough money to cover the normal payment of the mortgage (they can only afford the introductory rate), but they didn't read (or couldn't understand) the terminology used in the mortgage agreement, so they trusted the broker (who probably lied to them, saying that \"now is a great time to buy\", and \"house prices are only going up\", \"you'll be able to sell in a few years and make money\" - whatever)\n\nThe debt is \"bundled\" with a lot of other (very risky) mortgages into some acronym-laden \"security\", which is given an unrealistically high estimate of how well it's going to pay out, and sold to some other suckers. (Individual investors, Pension plans, etc -- any company that does invest in these probably gives their management a bonus or a raise for finding such good investments)\n\nThe company that bundles the mortgages gets a bunch of money. They see their profits go up, as they \"discovered\" a whole new market of first-time homeowners. They pay out very large bonuses to their executives.\n\nA year passes, and even the companies that are bundling the mortgages start thinking that they're worth a lot, so they start investing in their own securities -- which puts more and more money into encouraging people to buy homes they can't afford by telling them that they actually can afford them.\n\nMortgage brokers, security-creators, and executives give themselves larger and larger bonuses (as they're making more and more money for their respective businesses).\n\nSome smart, rich people look at the market, see that it's not sustainable and make bets that it's going to collapse. (Hedge Funds) Banks take these bets because the securities are rated so highly it's safe money for them (then they give their executives bonuses for finding another source of cash flow).\n\nFinally, the monthly mortgage payment goes up for the families. They, of course, can't pay. Suddenly, these securities are not paying out what they're \"guaranteed\" to pay.\n\nThose who made bets against the securities make an enormous profit. The banks lose a huge amount directly to the hedge funds. Anyone who invested in these \"highly rated\" securities have lost their investment.\n\nA number of executives who were in charge get fired (with a nice \"golden parachute\" as they leave).\n\nSo, who got the money?\n\nIn no particular order:\n\n* Mortgage brokers\n* Creators of bundled securities (both the people who thought them up in the first place and those who sold them to other companies)\n* Executives of every place who touched the bundled securities\n* Hedge funds, hedge fund managers, and those who invested in them\n\nWhere did the money come from?\n\n* People who bought houses believing that they could afford them (though they might \"just\" be stuck with more debt now)\n* Anyone who was left holding the bundled mortgages, including banks, any investors, etc",
"I think ameoba did a great job explaining this. \n\nI'll try to further clarify a bit. Nobody just keeps all their cash on hand. Think about it, if you kept your cash sitting around it would do you no good. No, you go buy that pack of Pokemon (or, in my case, Magic) Cards. You buy stuff. Maybe you invest it in something, hoping for a gain.\n\nSo you have stuff, instead of Cash. This is essential to understand.\n\nIt doesn't matter what the stuff you have is. You can have a shoe collection, a stock, a bond, whatever. Doesn't matter. The reality is that the cash is gone and you exchanged it for something you saw as valuable. \n\nNow, one day you decide that you want cash instead of some of your stuff. Again, doesn't matter why. Maybe you are sick of your shoe collection and want to get into Native American baskets. Doesn't matter. But - and here's the essential part - you find that nobody wants to buy your shoe collection. Nobody wants to buy your stuff. At least, not for what you paid for it.\n\nYou thought your shoe collection was worth $100,000. And maybe it is. But the most anybody will give you is $75,000. \n\n25% of your money just vanished.\n\nNow, things get worse. Why? Because ameoba has a shoe collection and noticed that you couldn't sell yours. So he runs out to try and sell his. The shoe buyers notice that suddenly there's a *lot* of shoes available, and they start offering less and less for the shoes. So you try to sell your collection again and discover that the largest offer is now $50,000. Now you're down 50%. In a panic, you sell, worried that you're only going to lose more money. This means that shoe buyers *know* they can offer 50% of the price of shoes and get away with it. Now *every* shoe collector has lost half their money. \n\nNow... What about if a company goes under? \n\nLet's say you buy a crate of paper for $100 bucks, but eventually go under anyway. What happened to that money? Well, like you expect, it's in the value of the paper. The owner, hoping to recoup some of his losses, will sell the crate and hope to get at least $100 for it. Maybe he will. \n\nWhat if you're a company that sells a crate of paper for $100, but then you go under. What happens to the money? Well, the money would have had to been spent on something else like wages or paying off some debt. Does it disappear? Not really. \n\nNow what if you own stock in a company that just went under? You bought a tiny piece of the company for $100. The company took that $100 and bought a crate of paper, whatever. Then, for whatever reasons, the company goes under. You still own a tiny piece of a bankrupt company. One of 3 things will happen: You will sell your stock (at a huge loss, because who wants to buy a piece of a bankrupt company?) or you will hang onto your stock until the company sells all its crates of paper and hope you get some of that liquidation (Not likely, since stockholders are relatively low on the bankruptcy payback totem pole) or you will hang onto your stock and see absolutely no return from it. In any case, you lose money. (The fourth option is the company recovers and you get your money back, but that's not the topic here.)\n\nSo the mortgage crisis:\n\nYou, an investor, buy a chunk of a mortgage as an investment for, say, $1,000. (we could go into [the details of a toxic asset](_URL_0_) but I don't think it would help maintain the quiet, peaceful joy of the ELI5 subreddit.) So, you hope this investment will *create* money for you over time by either bringing in a little cash flow of interest or by being worth more when you sell it. Instead, somebody, some astute know-it-all named onewatt comes by and says \"Hey, that thing is toxic.\" \n\nSuddenly, nobody will buy it from you. What makes it worse is that this particular investment *should* be bringing you a wee little interest income as people make their mortgage payments. The problem? Nobody's making their payments. So that $1000 you dropped into it? The investment firm took it and spent it on a day's worth of coffee. \n\nWhat did the coffee shop do with your $1000? Payroll to 10 guys. What did those 10 guys do with their $100 each? Turns out all of them bought the collectors edition of Starcraft 2. What does Blizzard do with that $1000?.... \n\nBut now, the investment companies can't sell their remaining mortgage products. So no coffee. The coffee shop can't pay their 10 employees, so layoffs. The employees can't afford Starcraft 2, so minecraft.\n\nAnd that, my friend, is where your money went."
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2f5549 | what makes the puppy breath/baby smell do addicting? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2f5549/eli5_what_makes_the_puppy_breathbaby_smell_do/ | {
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"What puppy's breath are you smelling?",
"Uhh, those both smell horrible. What weird fetish do you have?",
"There's something wrong with you, like those people who think cilantro tastes like soap.",
"Are you referring to when their breath smells like crackers? I want to say that it's from the puppy food. I have a 8 month old puppy and it stopped smelling like that after maybe 4 months."
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2na0b2 | how exactly do certain birds (hawks, crows, etc.) "see" better than humans? do they see everything magnified? or do they just see the same as us but in extremely high detail? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2na0b2/eli5_how_exactly_do_certain_birds_hawks_crows_etc/ | {
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"Some birds, like Sparrows, of all things and for some reason, can see into the ultraviolet and near infrared. A cursory googling tells me many birds can see UV, and many bird species have UV reflective feathers.",
"Ah ha! I can help! Biologist with a small emphasis in birds.\n\nSo, first of all, birds have really, really big eyes. They might look small, but that's because birds have small heads. Their eyes are actually pretty big how small birds are! This is really important because science tells us that the most important part of an animal's body is usually really big, and/or really good at its job. Like humans have big, smart brains and dogs have big, smart ears and noses; birds have big, smart eyes.\n\nThe other big reason is because a really big part of birds' brains are only there to think about what that they see. Human brains do a lot of different stuff, doggy brains are really good at smells and sounds, and bird brains put almost all of their brain into understanding what they see. Birds hear okay, but they don't smell very well at all, so all those brain parts get to go to their eyes.\n\n\nAny further explanation would be way above a kid's head, and those two reasons are the major ones anyway. They see so well because so much of their physiology is devoted to visual information. Vision is the most important part of a bird's survival, arguably tied with motility. They see in high detail, and are able to \"zoom in\" better than humans (big eyes, big pupils, big irises)."
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eelojc | when windows xp froze and you dragged the window around, why did it make a bunch of copies of the window or error popup? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/eelojc/eli5_when_windows_xp_froze_and_you_dragged_the/ | {
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"each window (including the desktop) has its own content that has to be redrawn as stuff moves in front of it. it's not a priority when a program or OS is struggling with something else, so the area that used to be covered by the window you're dragging doesn't get updated",
"Windows only redraws what it has to. Unlike a game, the entire screen is NOT refreshed every frame. This means portions are only redrawn when necessary, like when a window hides part of another application or when displaying video. Each window is responsible for drawing itself.\n\nThe image of the window you’re dragging is drawn on top of whatever froze, as it should. But when Windows asks the frozen application to redraw, it’s frozen so it can’t respond to that request. Thus, it can’t redraw the part that was hidden and so the window you’re dragging is leaving a mess.\n\n[Edit]\n\nAs /u/arcosapphire pointed out below, I'd like to add that Windows ~~7~~ Vista changed how drawing works from Windows XP. This doesn't happen anymore because Windows is constantly refreshing the last known image, even if an application is frozen and can't respond to redraw requests. Windows Vista and up does, in fact, redraw the whole screen every frame -- preventing the \"drag mess\" -- but only *updates* necessary parts as Windows XP did (which, from the perspective of an ordinary user, isn't much different from updating the whole thing at once).\n\nFrom a practical perspective, Windows XP did what it did the *way* it did for performance reasons. Windows Vista completely changed the underlying method of how it draws the screen. A super brief ELIALittleOlder since this post is already long: it went from DirectDraw \"bit block transfer\"s to Direct3D and textures.",
"Also does this graphical effect have a name?",
"Hmm.\n\nI have experienced the jerky window movement when an application freezes on thin clients which ran some distro of 7 called Windows Embedded.\n\nMaybe it's still there in modern os like thin clients.",
"This is because Windows XP used a \"stack\" based window manager as opposed to a modern \"compositing\" based window manager now used in all major operating systems.\n\nWhen a window becomes unresponsive in a stack based window manager, it cannot draw new frames. So if you drag another window over it, ghosts of the top window will appear over the window below.\n\nIn Windows XP it was common for the entire desktop to become unresponsive except for the error dialog that pops up telling you something is wrong. When you drag the dialog around and have ghost copies of it appear all over the screen, essentially what is happening is the window manager is supposed to redraw what was below the dialog now that you're moving it out of the way, but it can't, so ghosts of the last frame linger because the window manager has nothing else to draw.\n\nModern compositing window managers avoid this problem by buffering the last paint of each window in memory. So if a window freezes, it will always display its last frame regardless of what you drag over it because it has a copy of its last frame in memory and can always redisplay it when you drag something out of the way. Compositing is also what makes it possible to have drop shadows, window scaling, and 3d window management effects.\n\nIf you're feeling nostalgic for stack based window manager ghosting, play around with another web-based simulator here: _URL_0_",
"The first time I took mushrooms I kept seeing this happen to people and moving things in real life. I could not for the life of me figure out how to explain what everything looked like to the people around me.",
"One of the processes of windows is to redraw the background of the screen when you move a window. That process wasn't running. So the background behind the previous windows was not redrawn.",
"Crashing actually makes Windows stronger, supercharging your PC. Eventually your PC would be so OP that it would need to initialize it's self-cooling protocol. That's why the screen turns blue when it can't stop crashing. Built in cooling lights.\n\n*Credentials: 30+ years swearing at computers.*",
"I don’t know if this is going to be removed for not being useful but thanks for my new favourite website.",
"_URL_0_\n\nDoesn't answer the question, but the band Ok Go used this effect in one of their music videos, and it's remarkable.",
"it's stuff to do with how windows are drawn and how applications also draw. ima get a bit technical here but i believe with the old win32 api windows (like what file explorer, control panel, etc, uses) they act a bit odd. the windows OS draws the windows like the title bar, border, etc and the application draws all the content inside, however when you move the window, windows sends a message called WM\\_PAINT when moved or resized. this tells the application to redraw everything, like the title and content inside. (atleast from what i know from messing around in c++ for fun)\n\nIf your program is frozen, windows is still drawing the title bar and border whereas the application isnt doing anything because it's frozen. this means the application cant clear the screen (which is what every application does. renders, clears screan, renders, forever until it exits). sometimes windows will draw the content too but i have no clue why. However now i think microsoft changed some of this so that the win api handles drawing and clearing things.",
"Real question is, why was it so fun?",
"In Windows XP, a \"window\" was more like a region of the screen you were given control of; initially it would consist of whatever had previously been there (a portion of the desktop, another window etc) and most applications would use it to \"draw\" a familiar window-like interface.\n\nFor performance reasons, this drawing did not take place constantly, but, rather, \"on demand\"—whenever a part of that window, which had previously been obscured by something else (e.g. an error message) would be \"revealed\", the owner of the window was asked to redraw the revealed region (most lazy programmers would redraw the whole thing anyway).\n\nHowever, this only worked well as long as the application owning the window was responsive and able to redraw things on demand; when it couldn't, as I said above, the \"default\" state was \"whatever was there before\", so you'd get a fragment of the error message that was \"stuck\". Every time the application failed to redraw, you'd get another stuck fragment, and so on.\n\nThe last bit of relevant information would be that the desktop itself is a window of sorts and it, too, can fail to redraw, leading to the described effect.",
"Um how long have you been wondering about this?",
"Is windows technically frozen when I win solitaire?"
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9n0jcx | speaking ethically, why should i try to avoid buying products that contain palm oil? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/9n0jcx/eli5_speaking_ethically_why_should_i_try_to_avoid/ | {
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"Slavery and child labor are bad (ethically). The palm oil industry is notorious for it's use, so you should avoid buying products containing Palm oil for ethical reasons.",
"Palm oil comes from oil palm trees, which are grown in the tropics. In many cases, due to the increasing demand for palm oil, native rain forests are cleared to make room for more palm plantations, which can lead to significant negative environmental impacts.",
"The problem with 'ethical buying' like that it that it tends to be very 1) conditional, and 2) 'top of mind'. \n\nPut differently, where does it begin and end? What's special about palm oil besides the fact that its on your mind right now? Carbon is bad for the environment - have you given up on all carbon-based transport including public transport? 90% of our apparel is made under conditions that we prefer not to think about. Is it ethical to buy Nike shoes? Obviously we can go forever. \n\nAnd, no, this isn't a never ending game of 'its complicated.' The issue is this: giving up A, but ignoring B isn't 'ethical buying' - its performance art (yes, this is tough love, but its also completely true). If the conditions under which palm oil is harvested are something you believe need to be changed, don't quit buying it and call it a day. Quit buying palm oil ***AND*** get directly involved with groups that are trying to improve the practices under which palm oi is harvested."
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4nieta | how much can my company monitor while using wifi? | Say I'm browsing Reddit or tumblr on my iPhone while using my company's wifi, can they see the links or videos that I watch within the app? Does it just show that the one app is being used a lot? Can they tell what apps I'm using? Or does it just monitor the amount of data that I'm using? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4nieta/eli5_how_much_can_my_company_monitor_while_using/ | {
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"The answer to your question isn't a clear cut answer. It depends on what their systems are setup to watch for. Really, they could track everything you do at any given time. \n\nPS: Get a VPN and it will encrypt your data so they can't see it anymore. They'll still know it's you on your phone though.",
"They definitely can see all of that. However they may have trouble identifying exactly who you are if you are using a personal device.\n\nIt might be that they can get some very specific data, like the name of your phone, the MAC address, etc. But if you are logged into public wifi then they may have trouble finding out *who's* phone that is (unless the name is obvious).",
"They can absolutely see every site you're looking at, and if they're not idiots, they're keeping logs.\n\nIf the site you're connected to uses https, like reddit, they can't see the content of the page, or the text of anything that you post, without some effort. But they still see the URLs.\n\nSo they can see that you're looking at _URL_0_, or the reddit equivalent. \n\nGiven your user name, that's what I assume you're using the company network for. I advise against it.\n\n\n"
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1ygi02 | washers and bolts | What is reason for needing to use a washer with a bolt? Why when I am putting together furniture or an office chair, I only use washers on some of the bolts? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1ygi02/washers_and_bolts/ | {
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"Bolts attach things by squeezing them together between the bolt head and the nut, and keeping them there. A washer distributes the same force over a wider area, so that when you're tightening the bolt you don't damage the material under the bolt head.",
"More surface area, no surface marring. A good example would be what is called a fender washer. Using a smaller diameter nut and bolt would mean as you tightened nut it would marr the surface of the material being bolted and possibly pull the bolt head through material. The fender washer prevents this as well as giving the bolt/nut more surface area so that when binding thinner materials you do not have tear through. Lock washers/thread locker are used for things that vibrate/move a lot to prevent loosening."
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3cwfii | how do we not "run out" of jobs every year if there are so many graduates? | For example let's say I did computer engineering. How can there be people graduating every single year and the market be still stable? Wouldn't that overflow the market? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3cwfii/eli5_how_do_we_not_run_out_of_jobs_every_year_if/ | {
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"Actually, as a psychologist in Belgium, we have that problem. There are too many graduates compared to the amount of available jobs.",
"Well, that does happen. There are plenty of parts of the job market that are absolutely glutted with new graduates that can't find a job because A, the market isn't growing as strongly as they anticipated and B, people are retiring later and later. \n\nMostly those people end up either unemployed for a long time, or having to take other jobs in the mean time and hope for the best.",
"Imagine if the USA had only 1000 people. Presumably there would be enough jobs for everyone. Now imagine 1,000,000 people. Still enough jobs. How does that happen? Because jobs are basically people making goods and services *for each other.* More people create more demand.\n\nThe limits happen when either (1) there is not enough material or equipment so that there's nothing one can do, or (2) automation becomes so effective that it doesn't take many people to produce enough for everyone. We are starting to see more and more of limit #2. Experts strongly disagree about whether the solution will come from the creation of new jobs that only humans can do well, or from saying that huge numbers of people should never be expected to get a paid job."
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49mg2v | what is the microwave oven doing after the countdown is finished but it is still running for a few seconds. | [deleted] | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/49mg2v/eli5what_is_the_microwave_oven_doing_after_the/ | {
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"Chances are it is running a fan to vent any hot steam, so you don't get a warm blast to the eyeballs.\n\n"
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1njw78 | why a 4d hypercube is represented as a cube within a cube. | I'd like to know the geometrical reason we represent it as such in everything I've seen modeling it. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1njw78/eli5_why_a_4d_hypercube_is_represented_as_a_cube/ | {
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"[This](_URL_0_) should help explain it nicely, worth the 8 or so minutes",
"It's taking it to the next level.\n\nA 1-dimensional line segment is a good place to start.\n\nYou form a 2-dimensional square by connecting a pair of equal length line segments to each other using another pair of equal length line segments at right angles.\n\nYou form a 3-dimensional cube by connecting a pair of equal area squares to each other using four equal area squares at right angles mated to each side.\n\nYou form a 4-dimensional tesseract (hyper cube) by connecting two equal volume cubes to each other using six equal volume cubes at \"right angles\" mated to each surface.\n\nThat last one is a natural extension of the earlier progressions, but we can't see in four spatial dimensions, so it boggles our normal perceptions. The math works just fine, though.",
"It's one of the most common 3D shadows of a hypercube (or tesseract) because it's easy to visualize. Imagine you're drawing the shadow of a cube on a piece of paper as follows: first you draw a big square, then a smaller square inside of it, connecting the corresponding corners gives you the [2D analogue of this representation method](_URL_2_), a square inside a square.\n\nBut you know [the most common way](_URL_3_) to draw a cube on paper is to make two squares and connect them which makes some lines intersect but gives us a different perspective in our representation of the cube in 2D.\n\nThis is exactly the same as with 3D models representing 4D objects, [the nested cube model](_URL_0_) is just one way of squishing down a 4D object into a 3D representation, there are other ways to demonstrate a hypercube's structure in 3D, such as [this more squished model](_URL_1_) that looks like it has the flat cubes we normally draw on paper."
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6x4t0r | how do animals eat others without having them chew through their throats or stomachs to avoid being digested? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/6x4t0r/eli5_how_do_animals_eat_others_without_having/ | {
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"Most animals, if not all, kill their prey before eating it. Besides an animal would have to swallow their prey whole and alive for the prey to be able to eat it's way out, and most animals don't do this.\n\nThere has been one instance though where I believe it was a giant anaconda tried swallowing a crocodile whole but the crocodile clawed the anaconda to death from the inside but the crocodile was still stuck and died eventually."
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7otztg | ; how do ghostwriters get reputation? how do they prove their ownership on works when getting employed? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/7otztg/eli5_how_do_ghostwriters_get_reputation_how_do/ | {
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"they build their reputation through networking, it isn’t uncommon for artists/labels to pass around a GW. \n\nalso — they prove ownership through credits. if it’s a commercial project, it’s illegal to withhold the credit of the GW. "
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8i89dx | why does a smaller gene pool lead to more genetic diseases? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/8i89dx/eli5_why_does_a_smaller_gene_pool_lead_to_more/ | {
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"With a smaller gene pool, you have less variation. \nGenes are present on chromosomes, and each gene has two copies - alleles. Alleles can be the same (homozygous) or different (heterozygous). Say you have a disease that is caused by having two of the same copies of an allele. When you have a larger gene pool (say 30 alleles of one gene), you have less of a chance of picking up the \"bad\" disease causing copy of the gene. However, when the gene pool is small (3 copies), theres a much greater chance of picking up the disease causing copy. \n\nSo, since there's less variation in the gene pool, there is a higher chance of genetic diseases. ",
"By having a smaller gene pool, you'll have a higher chance to pick up a bad gene.\n\n\nIt's like picking the ONLY black ball in a bag of 5 random other colors, compared to picking out the black ball in a bag of 50"
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3mogks | why are thousands of people worldwide joining isis? especially women? | Referencing this article from the news: _URL_0_
| explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3mogks/eli5_why_are_thousands_of_people_worldwide/ | {
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"isolated from the rest of society for any number of reasons, and either consume themselves with their holy scripture, or somehow end up befriending someone who convinces them that the way they feel is the fault of the West/world, and that they should join ISIS for freedom and liberation and happiness.\n\nImagine you're a moderately religious person, who fled conflict in your home country. In your new country, you try to find a job/make friends, but it feels like everyone you come across thinks you're ISIS/Al Qaeda, just because of your race. You begin to hate going outside, and give up on all those dreams you made for yourself. To find peace, you dive into your religious scripture heavily. You:\n\n* begin to read too deeply into it, and take parts of it out of context, or focus too heavily on a part, and begin to radicalize yourself, to the point you blame your new home and the people there. You flee your new home to join ISIS, who hold the same views as you, and are willing to fight those who you view as attacking you.\n\nor\n\n* end up meeting someone that, unknown to you, is already radicalized, while studying your scripture (either in person, or online). They begin to convince you that the reason you're so upset/depressed, is that Western life is evil, and that you need to come home to take to arms/live among your brothers in sisters in peace and happiness. ",
"Religious movements can quickly rise to power at the prospect of instituting a government in the form of their favor. All it takes is a movement against that government, that might just be mainly seculars wanting democracy. Egypt and Syria are both examples--Arab Spring, the series of uprisings in the Middle East, was initially about democracy. In both cases, extremist elements utilized this chaos to advance their own cause, thus attracting people based on hatred of a regime, and wanting to form their own theocracy.\n\nIn addition, this isn't for ISIS, but anti-US sentiment always is easy to exploit. Engage in hyperbole about drone strikes and civilian casualties in the Iraq/Afghanistan war, and it's easy to get people to join an anti-U.S. movement.\n\nI wouldn't know as much about ISIS itself, but I'd keep those two points in mind.",
"It is very hard to really understand someone else's deeply held beliefs. If you saw someone else's baby in the middle of the street about to get hit by a car would you run out into the street to save it? If yes, why? It is not your child. Why would you risk your life for someone else's genetic legacy? Maybe the child is stupid and it would be better for the species if darwin won this round. But you might feel a moral imperative to save that baby. Justify it.\n\nThe same is true with people joining ISIS. They, for whatever reason, feel that it is the right thing to do and are willing to risk their lives, and give up physical comfort, to do so.\n\nReally though this is why everyone commits acts of violence. The Nazi's thought they were doing the right thing. Arab suicide bombers think they are doing the right thing when they get on a bus in Jerusalem. American drone operators think they are doing the right thing when they pull the trigger and send a missile into a building on the other side of the world.\n\nWhether these people are right, or wrong, is a question that we can't answer in an ELI5 kind of way. But the point is some of those people are right, some of those people are wrong, but they are all doing what they think is right - that's why they are doing it.",
" > **FOR PEOPLE ON MUSLIM COUNTRIES\n\n\"When you make peaceful revolution impossible, you make violent revolution inevitable.\"\n\nAfter 100 years of oppression by western countries, and democratically elected leaders being overthrown by the west for extremist dictators, and generations after generations being born in war zones. the people born in those countries are unstable due to those 100 years of humiliation and oppression.\n\nThere is a extreme feelings about the need for change one way or another by those people to stop this cycle. \n\nISIS Alqaeda are all tapping into that sentiment.\n\nWhen west overthrew Morsi and the muslim brotherhood, (which will come out soon enough). That was it, everyone who had been on the fence due to the Arab spring, knew violence was only option left for real change.\n\nThey hold the belief that they need to do this evil for the greater good. That once ISIS have established a caliphate and western atrocities on Muslims lands are stopped, Muslims can then build a stable normal independent nation.\n\nSo they see it as a stepping stone to create the strong muslim nation needed to stop the west putting dictators like saddam, shah, saudi family, suharto, Alsisi in charge of muslim countries. a nation that can then create universal welfare, stop mass starvation, stop palestinian oppression, free healthcare, that can create homes for everyone, jobs for everyone etc.\n\nOne isis soldier was asked, what happens when ISIS wins, his reply was then we'll all be able to get jobs.\n\n > **FOR PEOPLE IN WESTERN COUNTRIES\n\nThey are individuals, and you'd have to look at it on an individual case by case basis.\n\nBut it mainly stems from anger over the oppression carried out by the west, lack of Islamic education, and a need for a purpose in their lives. \n\nWhich is why you will see a lot of converts who come from troubled backgrounds tend to suffer from all 3 of these things, tend to join extremists the most easily.\n\nThere are the odd educated extremists you may find, but you'd probably have to look at their history. Were they physically abused as kids (quite common in asian culture), did they lose someone they cared for due to a drone operation etc. \n\nNearly all the Palestinian and Afghan suicide bombers are people whose families, spouse, children, parents were killed by israeli attacks, or US drone attacks. They tend to be mentally unstable after losing everything and want revenge as well as release from the pain of being alone.\n\n",
"Take a look at this TED talk. It seems like a large part of the problem is that Middle East governments are ineffective at providing public services. Terrorist organisations then provide those services and maintain a high level of popularity in those regions. _URL_0_",
"The simple answer is that for Muslims who feel like they are culturally isolated and downtrodden, ISIS is attractive because they actually seem to be winning. ISIS propaganda is very good at making them look like the only Muslims who are able to stand up to the United States When you have been on the losing side your entire life it feels good to suddenly be part of something where you seem to be accomplishing something. Young recruits also ignore all the horrible stuff ISIS does because they are brainwashed into believing that all those reports are lies spread by Western media.",
"Many people have felt maligned or are told they have been maligned by western nations/cultures. ISIS is a sort of reactionary movement which promises potential to refute westernization.",
"Let's start with who these individuals are. The majority of foreign-born ISIS recruits come from Egypt, Jordan, Libya, and Tunisia. The vast majority are from middle class, secular families. Critically, most are not well versed in the Koran at all and are only casually observant Muslims.\n\nLet me describe a fictional but realistic narrative.\n\nAhmed is a 24 year old engineering student from Alexandria, Egypt. He grew up in a comfortable, single family apartment with his parents and four siblings. His father works for a bank, and his mother teaches music at the local school.\n\nAhmed's family doesn't go to mosque every week, but they go on important holidays and consider themselves good Muslims. His whole life, Ahmed has been told that he must be a good Muslim, and the chief way that he will do this will be by marrying a good Muslim girl from a good family, probably chosen by his parents in consultation with members of his extended family.\n\nBut Ahmed has also been on the internet since he was 14. He watches hardcore pornography, listens to Western music, and reads a lot of blogs. When he talks about politics with his friends, it's with the bitter cynicism that characterizes the Arab world.\n\nHe looks at his father and is humiliated. Egyptians have never been free to choose their own leaders. His father has played by the rules, worked hard within the system, and he has relatively little to show for it. Ahmed himself has been unemployed his whole adult life; he's a good student, but there just aren't enough middle class jobs in Egypt.\n\nOnline he starts talking to a guy named Mahmoud who has some wild ideas. He tells Ahmed that he *should* be embarrassed of his father. His father, and the entire generation of Egyptian men he's a part of, have failed to live a righteous life, and have tolerated like sheep the injustices perpetrated on them by Egypt's secular regime. He points out to Ahmed that this regime will never give up power willingly, just look at the results of the Arab Spring, in which the military government pretended to cede power to democracy, only to snatch it back. He tells Ahmed that democracy, even Islamic democracy of the sort advocated by the Muslim Brotherhood, is merely a Western plot designed to keep Muslims weak and fighting each other. Only a righteous theocracy, a caliphate, can be strong enough to stand against the West when the great battle comes.\n\nMahmoud also tells Ahmed that the life he's preparing for, a life of struggling to find work, a life married to a boring, maybe homely girl not of his choosing, isn't the only one available to him. He can live a much more meaningful, exciting life that will also be far more righteous.\n\nAhmed, Mahmoud tells him, is living in the most important moment in history for Muslims, and God expects him to restore God's empire on earth. Ahmed hasn't read the Koran that carefully (it's in Classical Arabic, which is poorly understood by many modern Arabic speakers, like Ahmed, who haven't studied in religious schools), so when Mahmoud quotes it from memory to him, and explains the meaning in terms of his own radical ideology, Ahmed is impressed and finds him persuasive.\n\nMahmoud tells Ahmed that if he comes to the Islamic State, he can live the life of his dreams. He can shoot a gun like the guys in American rap videos he likes. He can fuck as many women as he likes, because according to Mahmoud the Koran allows a righteous Muslim man like him to take non-Muslim women as concubines. His sexual life needn't be confined to just one women as he's been told all his life; all of the fantasies he's had watching porn that he'd resigned himself to never realizing can now come true, and they don't make him any less righteous a Muslim.\n\nMost importantly, though, Mahmoud tells Ahmed that he's important. That he matters. That despite his very average life so far, he's destined to be a famous and powerful warrior of God.\n\nSo when Mahmoud tells Ahmed during one of their Skype conversations that his friend Salman is going to be in Ahmed's neighborhood soon, Ahmed is excited to meet him. Salman has all the fiery conviction of Mahmoud. He laughs derisively at the lives of the sheep around them when they drink tea in a cafe together.\n\nHe chides the waiter at the cafe for his clean-shaven face, telling Ahmed that it's pathetic that Muslim men would ape the fashions and hairstyles of European non-believers. He mocks the skirt of the waitress to Ahmed, telling him that in the Islamic State, she would be flogged for wearing such whorish clothes, and maybe she'd even be given to Ahmed as a concubine for him to \"instruct\" in the ways of being a good Muslim wife. This notion excites Ahmed, especially when Salman assures him that this is not only acceptable but demanded in God's eyes.\n\nSo when Salman returns a few days later with a fake passport with Ahmed's picture that will allow him to travel to Turkey, and from Turkey into Syria. Ahmed decides this is his moment. The picture of the Yazidi girl that Salman promises Ahmed will be his first bride doesn't hurt either.\n\nOf course, life in Syria is not what Ahmed expected. There is no Yazidi bride, for one. For another, he is not commanding God's armies in battle, as he had in the fantasies Mahmoud and Salman had painted for him. He's the lowest of the low, constantly subjected to physical abuse by his superiors. He has no patron here. Salman and Mahmoud are gone, and Ahmed is sent into battle again and again until after six weeks in Syria he and the rest of his unit are killed by in an ambush by Kurdish fighters.\n\n••••\n\nThis story ended up being longer than I expected, but I wanted to rebut two common misconceptions, chiefly that ISIS recruits:\n\na) are deeply religious individuals consumed by faith. They are not. Most are poorly versed in Koranic Arabic and have had only casually religious upbringings. It is precisely this relative lack of knowledge that makes them vulnerable to the recruiters (who know the Koran *very* well).\n\nb) are isolated from Western culture. They are not, which is why ISIS propaganda videos look like well-produced rap videos or action movie trailers. They are developed to appeal to young people who grew up watching music videos on YouTube and American action movies on DVDs with their friends.\n\nThis story is just one narrative. It is one that characterizes the experience of a lot of ISIS's *foreign recruits from Arab countries*. It does not describe the experience of Iraqi or Syrian ISIS members, nor does it describe the experience of most European or American-raised ISIS recruits, although it may not be too far off for some.\n\nSource: I'm a graduate student in security studies who's done a lot of (non-original) research on violent extremism and national and transnational efforts to fight it. I've also recently returned from living in Egypt.\n\n**EDIT:** Thanks, someone, for the gold! I cleaned up a few typos, and I wanted to add one more point:\n\nI don't have an answer. My story was purely descriptive, not prescriptive. What if Ahmed survived the ambush, and managed to flee across the border back into Turkey. He might make it back to Egypt, but then what? His parents know where he's been. They might be ashamed of him, even terrified of him. Or they might view him as a victim of brainwashing, and want to help him.\n\nBut what do we as societies do? Do we treat him as a terrorist and a criminal and lock him up for life? Do we treat him as a surrendering soldier in war, and lock him up until the war ends? Will the war ever end? Do we treat him as part victim, part perpetrator, and try to rehabilitate him? Will that work?\n\nI don't have answers to these questions, and as far as I can tell many of those making these decisions don't either. But I think these are questions we need to ask.",
"Have you heard the nasheed? That shit is catchy.",
"Because there are billions of total people in the world and many of them are either bored, or disappointed in themselves, or believe this gets them into heaven. Its a new thing because the internet is a new thing.",
"As a Muslims I know some people (not personally but I've seen them before they went to Syria) who joined ISIS or Jabhat al-Nusrah.\n\n@DasWraithist told a pretty good story from the perspective of someone from the Middle East, I'll try to tell a story of someone living in the west.\n\nI'll also try to explain it using a fictional narrative.\n\nBilal is a 20 year old guy from The Hague, his parents are from Morocco. His dad worked in a factory but turned disabled and now spends his days in a Moroccan coffeeshop. His mom is a housewife who does nothing else but watching Turkish soaps on the Moroccan television. His 26 year old sister is just like Bilal a student.\n \nUnlike [Ahmed's family](_URL_0_) Bilal's family does attend the mosque weekly, at least his dad does. And Bilal went with his dad for years. In the mosque the imam is a Moroccan guy who tells the same old stories week after week. \"Obey the law!\" \"Obey your parents\" Bilal knows the drill. Bilal doesn't like the mosque, the old Moroccans over there are old fashioned and repeat themselves for years. \n\nBilal is on Facebook a lot and sometimes sees pictures with text on it. Harsh words, condemning the current Muslim leaders. Quotes by Osama bin Laden, Sayyid Qutb and Anwar al-Awlaki and others. \"The Muslims used to rule the world, now they're dogs of America and Israel\". Bilal checks Wikipedia; \"Muslims were indeed great al-Kindi, al-Ghazali, Ibn Khaldoun, but where are the current sciensts?\" Asks Bilal. Facebook has the answer. The Middle-East has been colonised, Morocco is a puppet of France and the West (read: America and Israel) and the West doesn't want the Middle-East to flourish again because that would mean the Arabs would control the oil. Bilal is mad at the world, on his twitterfeed he sees the Muslims being humiliated day by day, he sees his Palestinian brothers die, he sees Afghan sisters get raped by the hands of Americans. He hates the West. How can the Muslim world become great again he asks himself. He gets the answer online. \"We as an Ummah (The Muslim world ) should return to the fundaments of islam, only then can we enter the new Islamic Golden Age, and we can achieve this by establishing the once great Khilafah\" Unlike Ahmed there is no Salman for Bilal, no Bilal did not need someone to push him towards Syria. Bilal sees his father, a loser who worked his whole life for nothing. Bilal looks at his mother, a lazy loud snob who does nothing but sleeping in front of the tv. Bilal sees his sister, a whore in skinny jeans. No, this is not the family a Muslim should have, Muslims were once feared and respected. Now we've turned into apes and swines. \n\n\nBilal then goes to the mosque for the first times in years, but not to the Moroccan one with the old Berber screaming at kids that they should respect the authority. No Bilal starts visiting a mosque he found on Facebook. It's not in a fancy building, it's in a flat. The imam here doesn't scream \"Obey the law!\" \"Obey your parents\". Instead he talks about politics and the filthy Arab leaders who sell their people. Bilal continues his visits to the mosque. Bilal starts growing a beard, he wears shorter pants and instead of reading school books Bilal reads \"In the Shade of the Qur'an\" by Sayyid Qutb. Bilal starts watching lectures by Anwar al-Awlaki and others. \n\nOur Moroccan friend gets into trouble with his parents lately. Bilal called his mom a disbeliever because she went to a fortune teller. \"Shave your beard!\" \"Wear normal pants\" his dad screams. Bilal starts to hate his parents, they're disbelievers, they mock his new lifestyle. His parents aren't intellectuals and don't even know Arabic, they know little about islam and can't refute the claims and opinions of Bilal, instead they get mad and yell at him.\n\nAfter a few months Bilal gets fed up with [\"Dar ul-Harb\"](_URL_4_) (AKA The West) he hates his fellow Moroccans, \"They're thieves, whores, pimps and drugdealers\" Bilal wants to go to a place where he can follow the rules of Allah without being mocked. He wants to go to a place where adulterers and drugdealers get punished\" He wants to go to the land of [\"Tawhid\"](_URL_3_) some of the brothers says he must make [hijra](_URL_1_) to Saudi-Arabia for that is the land of Tawhid. But nay, Bilal thinks the King of Saudi-Arabia is (along with all other Arab leaders) a filthy [taghut](_URL_2_). Bilal wants to go to Syria to establish the Khilafah. The Islamic State where everyone lives under the rule of Allah and his Messenger Muhammad (pbuh). Bilal goes to his mosque and asks a brother there if he knows a way to get to Syria.\n\nThe brother does know someone and he sets up an arrangement. \n\n",
"Some people don't like the societies they are currently in. Some societies are shitty, like Pakistan or Afghanistan. Some people are in OK societies but don't feel OK about them. If you're not pretty or funny or smart or popular, secular democratic capitalist can be tough. If you lack confidence and have a nagging feeling you're not as good as other people, going and hiding in a society with strict hierarchies and well defined roles can be attractive: if you feel out of place, going somewhere that tells your your place can be reassuring. \n\nI don't think that people are making the right choice going to join strange groups (ISIS is really just the far end of a spectrum starting with much more benign groups like sports teams and PTAs, running through most orthodox religion, past Mormans, strict Judaism and islam). But it's important to realise that modern, western society is much easier about some traits (being gay) but much harder on others (being meek).\n\nI don't know if we can make a society that suits everyone all the time. But groups like Isis are the unfortunate fate that same people we make unwelcome here in the west because they're not attractive, charismatic, rich, or otherwise useful.\n\nThis is universally what would be recruits have said: there was nothing for me back home. That's true for people from places with no opportunity and for places with opportunity for people lacking the force of will to sieze that opportunity. \n\nThe problem with equality of opportunity is that losers have no place and want to leave. The problem with equality of outcome is that winners are frustrated and want to leave. Isis is the wolf waiting at the door, eating both types of person.",
"Islam [in English: \"Submission\"] is a totalitarian ideology that aims to control the life of mankind in all its religious, social, and political aspects. The religion based on 3 basic texts : the Quran - revealed by Allah to Muhammad, the Hadith - the literature which recounts the sayings and actions of the Prophet, and the Sira - the Biography of the Holy Prophet. The Sira, which overlaps with the hadith, is used by the clerics in Islam to select / emphasize different aspects of the tradition, depending on the political circumstances that the *Ummah* [The Comminty of Believers] face.\n\nIslam goes like this: *There is no God but the God, and Muhammad is His Prophet*.\n\nOr this is sometimes translated as : *There is no God but the God, and Muhammad is His Messenger*.\n\nWhat is the Message of Muhammad?\n\nThe Message of God's Messenger is that the Believers will be victorious over the Unbelievers, the kuffar. The Believers will win control of the the entire earth, and the Unbelievers will be punished in the Fire. The Believers will go to Paradise if they follow the Way of Islam, the Straight Path. In Islam this is called the Sunna of the Prophet, which is documented by the Hadith literature. If they don't follow it, then they have committed transgression and will go to the Fire. \n\nHow are the Believers to follow the Sunna?\n\nThe Believers are told that to follow the Straight Path to Paradice, they are to struggle (in Arabic: *jihad*) until their *dying breath* to convert, subjugate, or kill non-Muslims, the Unbelievers, kill apostates from Islam and conquer the world, until the entire planet is politically united under a single ruler, a Caliph, in a political state called a Caliphate (in Arabic: *Al Khalifat*), with a system of totalitarian law called *Sharia*, and an army called the *mujahideen*, which has a battle cry that goes \"Allahu Akbar!\".\n\nThat's the religion of Islam. It's a totalitarian ideology.\n\nThe first clue as to Islam's totalitarian nature is the title of the religion and its followers. Contrary to the lie that you may have heard \"Islam\" does NOT mean peace. It means \"Submission\". And \"Muslim\" means \"Submitter\", one who Submits.\n\nSo Muslims are Submitters that Submit to Submission, and Submission tells them to fight to conquer the whole of the world, and force everyone to either become Submitters, or submit to the rule of the Submitters under Submission (in Arabic: *Islam*).\n\nIn order to accomplish this enormous task, the Muslims, the Submitters, are called on by Allah to terrify the Unbelievers into Submission, to make them to afraid to resist. \"Strike terror into the hearts of the Unbelievers\", the Quran says, in 8:60. \"I have been made victorious through terror\", says the Prophet Muhammad, in Sahih Bukhari in 4:52:220 \n\nThat's why all the terrorism. And that is why some Muslims are traveling to Syria to join ISIS, or setting up ISIS franchises in places like Nigeria, Pakistan, and Canada. ISIS, in the view of these believers, represents the true Islam, and they are right. Al Qaeda, Boko Haram, Al Shabaab, ISIS, and countless other jihad groups are acting canonically. Their actions reflect the teachings and values of Islam, whether found in the Qur'an, the Hadith, the Sira, or the histories of al-Tabari [the religious hagiography of the Caliphates]. \n\nIt might help you to understand if you read what a popular Muslim cleric had to say:\n\nMaulana Abdul A'la Maududi, the Pakistani theologian of the Sunni tradition, was perhaps the most popular and widely read Muslim theologian of the 20th century. The Saudis with their petro-trillions took a great liking to him (as did millions of Muslims worldwide), and printed up his books by the millions and distributed them all over the planet. You can go into any Islamic bookshop and find his books and annotated Koran. He's very mainstream. He founded the Jamaat-e-Islami, the largest Islamic party in Asia, which has millions of members and branches in India and Bangladesh. He is seen by many as the forefather of the Islam revival movements, which aim at restoring the Caliphate, which is exactly what ISIS is doing. \n\nWhat did the wildly popular sheikh [have to say](_URL_0_) about Islam?\n\n > *Islam has its own particular ideological standpoint and practical programme to carry out reforms for the welfare of mankind.* **Islam wishes to destroy all states and governments anywhere on the face of the earth which are opposed to the ideology and programme of Islam regardless of the country or the Nation which rules it.** *The purpose of Islam is to set up a state on the basis of its own ideology and programme, regardless of which nation assumes the role of the standard-bearer of Islam or the rule of which nation is undermined in the process of the establishment of an ideological Islamic State. Islam requires the earth—not just a portion, but the whole planet—not because the sovereignty over the earth should be wrested from one nation or several nations and vested in one particular nation, but because the entire mankind should benefit from the ideology and welfare programme or what would be truer to say from ‘Islam’ which is the programme of well-being for all humanity. Towards this end, Islam wishes topress into service all forces which can bring about a revolution and a composite term for the use of all these forces is ‘Jihad’. To change the outlook of the people and initiate a mental revolution among them through speech or writing is a form\nof ‘Jihad’. To alter the old tyrannical social system and establish a new just order of life by the power of sword is also ‘Jihad’ and to expend goods and exert physically for this cause is ‘Jihad’ too.*\n\nISIS and its followers are following this same worldview. It's the same thing that's being taught in Sunni mosques all over the planet. If you want good info on ISIS, check out Robert Spencer's new book on it."
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"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hijra",
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taghut",
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6u3cov | what does it mean to be alt-left? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/6u3cov/eli5_what_does_it_mean_to_be_altleft/ | {
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"It's not really a thing, per se. People on the right want a label for what they consider extreme leftists. Since alt right is now a label for extreme right wingers, they just used the same convention. While there ARE a few pretty extreme people on every part of the political spectrum, the term itself is new.",
"An important part of the answer is that the term \"alt-right\" is an *inside* term: some people created it to describe themselves and it spread from there. \"Alt-left\" is an *outside* term: people are creating it to describe others, either to muddy the waters or out of a preference for viewing politics as having two symmetric sides.",
" It's a classic american political tradition to deflect claims that you're a bad guy by pointing to a worse guy. For the \"Alt-Right\" to prove they're not racist Nazi bad guys, they need to be \"protecting\" America from a worse guy. \n\nBack when hating brown folks and gays was cool, they could point to organizations like the Black Panthers and crime ridden cities with black populations. It's not that they were racist, they just felt brown folks were responsible for all the problems in the world and people needed to know. Conveniently, the Black Panthers & friends took offense to this and would literally shoot back, \"proving\" the KKK & friend's points that they're predisposed to crime and violence (so long as you ignore the all-white lynch mob that got the offended black community fired up in the first place). \n\nToday, lynch mobs have gone out of style, and the various civil rights movements have seen more success in non-violent tactics, leaving today's \"Alt-Right\" without their much needed \"worse guys\" to \"protect\" america against. \n So, they start calling \"Social Justice Warriors\" the \"Alt Left\", claiming they are people who seek violence against american political conservatives. Good examples would be those who throw literal and metaphorical stones at pro-life demonstrations, Westboro Baptist Church, and show up armed to counter-KKK rallies. \n\nHowever, the \"Alt-Left\" hasn't been kind enough to actually show up and threaten violence as the Alt-Right would like them to. This makes it hard for their narrative to actually gain traction, so now they just look like a bunch of racist assholes. ",
"There is no alt-left; it's Trump trying to equivocate the Nazis in the alt right to the counterprotestors.\n\nGranted, there are leftist groups like Antifa and Black Bloc who tend to instigate conflict in these protests, and who have done some rather [reprehensible things themselves](_URL_0_), but they're not really unified under one set of ideals like the alt-right is (instead, they're all a mix of communists, anarchists, socialists, and people who just want to cause trouble, all of whom dislike Nazis).\n\nFurthermore, as disgusting as Antifa tend to be, the Nazis are still worse.\n\nMost of the \"alt left\" that Trump is talking about also take into account things like BLM, SJWs, feminists, and other leftleaning groups that the alt right find to be icky, but whom are generally capable of peaceful protesting."
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5tsxb2 | how can our ears listen to specific conversations when you're in a room filled with people talking? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5tsxb2/eli5_how_can_our_ears_listen_to_specific/ | {
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"Our ears don't listen to specific conversations, our *brains* listen to specific conversations. We hear the combined sound from the room and the complex pattern-matching abilities of our brains pick out specific voices from the mix. Precisely how this happens is extremely complex and in large part unknown."
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4e5o8p | the 2nd amendment. when can citizens legally use deadly force and against whom? | [deleted] | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4e5o8p/eli5_the_2nd_amendment_when_can_citizens_legally/ | {
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"Situations vary by State. \n\nIn a \"Stand your Ground\" State you can use lethal force any time you feel that your life is threatened without needing to seek retreat. \n\nIn a \"Castle Doctrine\" State you can use lethal force any time you feel threatened in your home, and the act of breaking into your home is considered a threat. \n\nAnd in those States that do not have a \"Stand your Ground\" law or a \"Castle Doctrine\" law you can use lethal force when you feel threatened and fleeing is not an option. \n\nMost States also allow you to use these situation in defense of another. ",
"As a general rule, it's when you think your life is in danger. Now states have different rules on what that means. Some places the law is written so that you only have to believe there's a threat. In others, there actually has to be some proof that you were in actual danger.\n\nThere's also been a lot of controversy on situations where a home invader was shot, even though it was very clear that he was in the process of fleeing. These cases are always controversial and there's been a wide range of verdicts and charges brought on the shooter ranging from manslaughter to no charge at all.",
"Generally, the Second Amendment has nothing to do with self defense laws. \n\n\"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.\"\n\nMany look at this as saying that the Second Amendment was put in place to ensure that citizens would have the ability and means to create a militia, today's version of the National Guard. \n\nOthers argue that the Second Amendment was more targeted at ensuring that the government did not outgrow it's power and usurp inalienable rights of the people. \n\nConcerning self defense laws, there are exceptions, but the general thrust is that a person can use lethal force if it is a proportionate response to the action being perpetrated upon that person OR such force is necessary to prevent proportionate harm upon a third party. Another test some courts look to is whether the person using such force reasonably believed such force was necessary to prevent a harm of similar effect to themselves or a third party.\n\nLastly, you may hear of Castle Laws, which, in a simplified way, state that a person is justified in using deadly force if another person has illegally entered their home; the belief behind this is that the illegally entered party is assumed to have intent to harm. ",
"First of all, the 2nd Amendment is the right to own firearms...it has no direct legal standing on self defense.\n\nSpecific self defense laws vary from state to state. But typically you can only use lethal force when:\n\n* there is a threat of death or bodily harm against yourself or someone nearby\n* the threat is credible, and the person is able to carry it out\n* the threat is immediate\n* you cannot safely remove the threat without using lethal force\n\nThere are lot of variations from state to state. Some states require you to retreat from a situation if possible, some do not. Some allow you to presume you are in danger within your own home, some do not. Some expand the list of crimes you can use deadly force against to include sexual assault and property crimes."
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9edmjd | why is trauma inflicted on your temples more serious than anywhere else on your head? your brain is still protected by your skull in that area, so what specifically makes it so much worse? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/9edmjd/eli5_why_is_trauma_inflicted_on_your_temples_more/ | {
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"Your temples are a critical pressure point, such that a small amount of concentrated force in the area can cause death from brain damage. More specifically, a punch there could fracture the skull such that it severs the meningeal vessels, which branch out in the general area of the temple, causing internal bleeding and eventually death. It's why backfisting is not allowed in boxing. It's not something you do to a person to incapacitate them temporarily, it's something you do to kill them.",
"None of the answers so far are quite right. \n\nFirstly, as you quite rightly say the it is still protected by the skull. The skull is not a solid structure though, it's made up of many boned that fuse together as we age. The temple is one place where the bones join together. Because of this they are a bit of a weak point. \n\nThe issue is that theres a load of important stuff below two of the joining bones - the parietal bone and the temporal bone. \n\nThere are major blood vessels under there. Blood vessels in the skull are not all veins/arteries but cavities called sinuses. Most of them run just under the skull and when the skull breaks it can stab through into them causing a serious bleed. The skull is really bad at regulating blood pressure, and loss of blood can lead to certian areas of the brain been starved of oxygen and dying.\n\nA lot of our more obvious functions are associated with brain areas on the side of the head too. When the bone breaks around the temple it can (and often does) crack horizontally. This can cause damage to areas of the brain associated with language, movement and sensory information. Most of these are near the temple, rather than under it. The extent of damage depends on the degree of skull trauma. \n\n\nIn summary, it is a weak spot and there are some important things going on nearby.\n\n",
"At the temples, your skull is made up of the temporal bone, which is very thin in comparison to the rest of the skull. You also have your meningeal artery, which is just below that temporal bone, that can be damaged when hit there. Arteries are under high pressure, compared to veins, and your brain is very squishy and your skull is a fixed structure. So if you have high pressure bleeding in your skull, your brain gets compressed very easily and then you die",
"It all comes down to the middle meningeal artery that runs right below the temples. Any blow to that area that fractures the bone will also inevitably rip through the artery causing a massive brain bleed. "
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2uftrn | why does it seem like dogs want to kill eachother when they meet on the street? | Everyone has experienced this in one way or another. Walking your dog, meeting another person with a dog, and they start to bark like the other dog is some kind of terrorist, and pulling the leash like it is about to kill the other one.
Are dogs just pure idiots, or do they actually have a sensible reason?
| explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2uftrn/eli5_why_does_it_seem_like_dogs_want_to_kill/ | {
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"If your walking down a street you usually walk down with just your dog then it will more than likely be a territorial issue your dog sees another dog in an area it is calling its own and see the other dog as a challenger and vice versa. ",
"People often unknowingly stir up their dog's attitude toward other dogs. Almost always are the owners MORE nervous of *their* dogs potential demeanor seeing another dog, than their dog is initially.\n\nOddly enough, when you unleash almost ANY dog near others, they miraculously stop acting aggressive. The dogs are playing off their own owner's demeanor.\n\nVery few people actually understand how dogs think. They believe yelling \"DOWN\" \"STOP\" etc will actually be understood by their dog, when in reality, the dog interprets that as \"ARRGGG!!!!!\" \"RAWWWRRR!\"\n\nThey then associate (in dog language), \"When my master sees another dog, he holds my leash tighter and starts barking at us. I should bark too!!\" This only ends up as an endless cycle of nervous behavior, creating more nervous behavior. And you'll also notice, the more fucked up the owner is, the more fucked up the dog is.\n\nA friend of mine owns 2 chiuahuas, and anytime she gets near other dogs, she quickly snatches them up and hugs them and coddles them, \"Awww Chewey, youre scared, right?! Awwww poorrrr thhiiinnnggg\" So now, a dog that was initially totally chill but frozen in the face of a peaceful bull-mastif, is now shaking and nearly pissing itself in her arms.... BECAUSE she *reinforces that feeling* in her pet. The dog thinks \"Oh yes, another dog, and my owner is crying at me. I should be scared of other dogs\"\n\nThat Ceaser Milan dude knows whats up.",
"My dog does this, and the term for it is leash reactivity. We adopted her as an adult dog and don't know her experiences before, but the shelter said she was neglected and found wandering around unleashed \"too many times.\" She has fear and anxiety issues and in her case she's trying to keep other dogs (people too but her threshold distance for people is much closer than for dogs) away from her. It's made worse by the dogs being leashed, because they feel trapped, and they can't just choose to run away. And it works, no person approaches a dog who is acting like an aggressive lunatic and even unleashed friendly dogs tend to give her a pass, which means the behavior is self-reinforcing. You can see it is fear in my dog because if people/dogs continue to approach anyway, she will cry and try to hide behind our legs. There are other reasons for leash reactivity than fear, like dogs who want to greet other dogs and find that the leash prevents them. In terms of training to reduce this behavior you need to know why the dog is doing it--but the dog does have a reason that is perfectly sensible from the dog's point of view. And yes, owners who become stressed at the behavior can make it worse--but learning how to manage it and condition your dog to better behavior is also something owners can learn to do."
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3e5vdd | is a bmi calculator a good indication of good/poor health? | Considering it doesn't take into account how much muscle you have | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3e5vdd/eli5_is_a_bmi_calculator_a_good_indication_of/ | {
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"NOTHING is a definitive indication of good/poor health by itself (unless it's an EXTREME reading). You should take into account a variety of factors and the opinions of trained professionals.",
"It's a loose guideline but you shouldn't read too far into it. Besides muscle mass, it also ignores things like skeletal structure and density. It's a good way to quickly determine whether someone is *close* to a healthy weight, but lots of people are in gray areas where the BMI says they're slightly under or over healthy weight but they're actually fine. \n\nYour weight also isn't necessarily a good indicator of health. You can be at a healthy weight but have tons of other issues, and you can (rarely, admittedly) be at an unhealthy weight but be totally fine.",
"BMI was designed for looking at populations. It works really well for measuring, say, middle-aged white women in the US. It was never meant to applied to individuals. But it is a really easy to use metric. Doctors already record your height and weight when you go in for a check up. That means it's really easy to get a BMI. Ultimately, it's a pretty simple guideline to assess health, but has the limitation you described. But to be fair, given that 69% of Americans are overweight or obese, it's not like most people's results are getting skewed by too much muscle. I wouldn't put too much stock into it. Body fat percentage is a much better metric of muscle and fat. Also, as a final point, keep in mind that weight is just one metric of health. A normal weight smoker probably has worse health than someone who is slightly overweight.",
"Consider that the majority of Olympic athletes would considered overweight if not obese according to the BMI. It's one of the reasons I tell people they should never have the goal of \"losing weight\". better to go with a distance run, or even \"no more than 1 cookie a week\" or some other metric. BMI is simply too little information to be accurate enough."
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a4dupd | why isn't beef bacon more common? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/a4dupd/eli5_why_isnt_beef_bacon_more_common/ | {
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"Because it is not possible to make it. Bacon only comes from pigs. Imitation bacon can be made from other animals such as Turkey, or from tofu or something similar but it is not bacon. \n\nAs for why imitation bacon is not made from beef? There is no reason for it. Beef is more expensive than pork, so the imitations are made for those who have reason to not eat pork. That market is not big enough to support the a beef product more expensive than pork. "
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33skkl | why are we paying politicians to filibuster and how is it legal? | I have been taught in school that politicians can simply go on forever in their claims stating nonsense in these filibusters that have no connection to the bill attempting to be passed with no end in site. Even it if they are making an argument in regards to the bill in question, they are allowed an extraordinary amount of time to convey what they have to day. How is this legal and why do we pay people to waste our time doing nothing? Or if they do have a valid rebuttal, why do we pay them to drag it on? Are these politicians incapable of condensing and communicating the message efficiently? If so, why do we elect people that can not perform the simple, core fundamentals of what the job entails of communication. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/33skkl/eli5_why_are_we_paying_politicians_to_filibuster/ | {
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"It's legal because they made it legal (they make the laws and rules themselves).\n\nFilibusters can also be used by both sides and both sides know that they will use it so that is why they don't want to stop using them. They can be politically good moves too if the constituency doesn't support the bill in question. \n\nRegardless they create a lot of deadlock and sometimes the mere threat of filibuster derails bills. "
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9q1pr2 | if someone gave all their lotto winnings to charity immediately would they still have to pay tax? | Say someone won a large lottery jackpot but elected to give it all away to charitable organizations would they get in trouble for tax evasion? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/9q1pr2/eli5_if_someone_gave_all_their_lotto_winnings_to/ | {
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"Their best bet would be to donate the winning lottery ticket to the charity before the ticket is turned in to the lottery. Once they accept the prize, they create a taxable income, and I believe the max they can deduct is 50% of your Adjusted Gross Income.\n\nOf course, it goes without saying you should consult tax attorneys in your state and local jurisdiction if you are really in a position where this is a concern."
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2lz3a6 | how do i know i exist? | I know the Descartes quote "i think, therefore I am" is probably the basis for an answer. But I don't understand how you can get to anything further like "How do I know this lamp exists", because he assumes things like God exists to fulfill his answers.
What is the modern commonly accepted argument(s) to this question? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2lz3a6/eli5_how_do_i_know_i_exist/ | {
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"It is tautological. If you don't exist then you cannot be wrong in saying you don't exist, because you couldn't have said it.",
"Philosophically, you can't. Practically though, it's kind of a pointless question to ponder anyway. Whether you exist or not, your experience is real to you. ",
" > But I don't understand how you can get to anything further like \"How do I know this lamp exists\"\n\nStrictly-speaking, you can't. You can't know that anything outside of your own mind exists. You can only act on the *assumption* that external entities exist, which itself relies on the assumption that your senses reflect the state of some sort of external world (and that this external world does not behave in an illogical, unpredictable manner that would render observations of it useless).",
"I personally don't feel there is any rock solid defense against solipsism. A common scenario for this is the Brain in a Vat scenario. All that you perceive is fed into your brain from external inputs. If those inputs could be manipulated perfectly, you would have no way of separating whether you are experiencing reality or not.\n\nPersonally, I 'resolve' it for myself from a utilitarian standpoint. If the universe I perceive is real, and I respond to it as though it was real, I benefit myself. If it is real, and I respond to it as though it was false, I harm myself. If it is illusory, then no action is necessarily good or bad.\n\nSo I may as well treat it as real, as it is the the only course available to me that provides a clear (but possibly false) form of guidance. "
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1whns5 | how argentinian currency devalued 15% overnight and the upcoming emerging markets financial crisis. | Bonus: How does the parallel currency black market work in countries such as Argentina and Venezuela? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1whns5/eli5_how_argentinian_currency_devalued_15/ | {
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"A currency, or a Promissary Note, or \"Bill\" is essentially a promise by a government to pay you. Currency is a much easier way to make a transaction than bartering. \n\nBut the currency must have a value. It can be backed by gold (the gold standard), which is why many (most) countries keep gold bricks under lock and key. Or currency can be backed by other, more stable foreign currencies - such as the US Dollar, Euro, Yen, etc. Some countries keep a mix. \n\nThe key to a stable currency is trust by the public that it holds its value. But some countries print more bills than they have foreign reserves to back it up. \n\nThis devalues the currency. A Government can announce what the currency trade value is and force banks to trade at that trade rate (example: officially Argentina offers 8 AR Pesos for 1 US Dollar). But if the public does not believe it, then they can create their own market (sort of like a flea market) and trade 12 AR Pesos for 1 US Dollar. \n\nArgentine citizens can also cause panics, if they don't trust their government. Even if the government really and truly can back up 8 AR Pesos per 1 US Dollar, if the public doesn't believe it, they can panic and still create their own market trading at 12 AR Pesos for 1 US Dollar."
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3hpx4p | why do new albums on itunes cost the same as the hard copy in the shop when you're getting less for your money and there aren't any shipping costs involved etc? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3hpx4p/eli5why_do_new_albums_on_itunes_cost_the_same_as/ | {
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"The answer to \"why does X cost $Y\" is almost always because that's what people are willing to pay you for it.\n\nAs a business, what it costs you to sell the product (CoGS) is just a starting point. You poll your typical customer, construct strategy models, compare test results, etc...\n\nThen you price your good at whatever price point you think is going to maximize profits.",
"As /u/riconquer has stated it's because people will pay the same and the labels want to maximize profit. When Apple announced that songs would only be 99 cents years and years ago there was a lot of push back from the labels. But Itunes was already big enough that it would hurt too much to pull albums in protest. \nThe labels still haven't changed their stance. They are very much against digital being cheaper than physical even if they save a dollar or two per sale by not having to print CDs. They don't want it getting into consumers' minds to expect downloads to be cheaper, they want to maximize their profits and keep them maximized for as long as possible.",
"The cost of producing the album is 99.9999% of the cost of selling the album. Distribution channels are dirt cheap and comparable whether they're printed on discs in China and sold at Best Buy or sold on iTunes from their own servers. You're paying for the piece of media, not the $0.001 disc. ",
"Because the people are willing to pay it. Just like video games, the physical copy cost the same as the electronic copy.",
"There is a ton of answers citing greed and market value. \n\nNo one is taking the actual business model into account. It costs money to record and produce albums and singles. And most albums and singles that are recorded and produced don't make any profit for the studio.\n\nWhen you buy a recording, you're not really paying for the physical cost of the item. You're subsidizing the cost of recording and producing that song, and the many many performers that the recording company took a risk on that didn't pan out. *edit: thanks /u/coconutP for keeping me on track: I got so caught up in minutiae I failed to convey the main point. The reason they cost the same is that the cost of pressing and distributing all those albums still needs to be subsidized.*\n\nIf your money only went towards the cost of producing that one song or album that you purchased, that would mean recording companies could never take any risks and every single song and album they produced would have to be profitable. Every. Single. One.\n\nThat's pretty much impossible. Not to mention it would lead to a ton of stagnation in the music industry. \n\nPS\nIn case you were wondering this is the same reason ebooks cost the same as regular books. You're subsidizing the many books that publishers took a risk on."
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6txwcs | why people nowadays have more anxiety and stress problems than older generations? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/6txwcs/eli5_why_people_nowadays_have_more_anxiety_and/ | {
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"More competitive job market, less pay, higher housing prices, higher cost of education, less family support. More expensive to thrive, less money to do so.",
"Lack of having to deal with hardships when they are younger. People try to avoid hardship and [discomfort](_URL_0_) as much as possible. When they encounter problems they can't avoid, it creates a lot of stress and anxiety because they don't have the proper coping mechanisms. ",
"I can't disagree with any of the other answers so far, but would like to add our access to information. \n\nWe are the most informed of any group of people in history. We watch history being made in real time. We have hundreds of people giving us information from so many sources like TV, social media, the internet new sites, etc. Being inundated with information allows us to focus on that info, stew on it, stress over it. \n\nFurthermore, I don't like the idea of wealth being distributed improperly as we are wealthier now than we've ever been. Though I would say that corporations are fighting harder and driving their employees harder for every dollar. Life is a faster pace, IMO, than ever before. \n\nFinally, I kind of second what the other poster said; we don't have to face hardship today like generations before us. My grandparents each had at least one sibling die in childhood from illness, disease or disaster. Thankfully, VERY thankfully, we are healthier and safer than previous generations. I don't know of very many families that have lost children, at least not the way they seem to have 50-100 years ago. That does have kind of make us less callous and hardened to deal with struggles and grief so that when hard times do hit it hits harder. \n\nI think back to my grandparents who were born during or shortly after WW1, lived through WW2, just a few short years later had the conflict in Korea, and Vietnam. As shitty as the wars and terrorism we've experienced in the past 20 years is it really doesn't compare to the political state of the world back then. \n\nThe end result is, as I see it, we aren't as groomed and conditioned to deal with hardships as they come, hence the stress gets to us more. I speak as a person who has a diagnosis of PTSD and deal pretty regularly with shitty anxiety. I fully admit that I'm pretty weak in that way. "
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a8fd8f | why is it that we don’t immediately get salmonella when eating raw cookie dough? i’ve consumed so much cookie dough over childhood years while baking with my mom and i’ve never gotten it, yet it’s always a big warning? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/a8fd8f/eli5_why_is_it_that_we_dont_immediately_get/ | {
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"It is not that big of a threat. In fact, it’s pretty rare. You have to have an outbreak of salmonella infect chickens at the egg production facility and then eat those eggs in order to get the illness. It’s sort of like E. Coli - when there is an outbreak, everybody knows about it and is told to avoid certain products. It is not like a lottery where some eggs will just happen to have salmonella. ",
"From what I understand, the danger in raw cookie dough is raw eggs, which can carry salmonella. But the incidence of salmonella in raw eggs is way way way lower than it was decades ago and continues to decrease. So, the danger of getting salmonella from raw cookie dough is greater than zero but extremely small.",
"It’s super unlikely to give you salmonella.\n\nHowever, if you get salmonella from it, it’s going to hurt. A lot. Like seriously a lot. ",
"I pasteurize my eggs with my sous vide circulator, 2 hours at 132 deg F. But I'm immunocompromised from meds for autoimmune disease. And the eggs keep longer, which is good for a smaller family. I haven't tried pasteurizing cookie dough mainly because I shouldn't be eating cookie dough, but I do wonder if that would mitigate the small threat from the flour."
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4fvehb | what would happen if we completely turned our backs on saudi arabia? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4fvehb/eli5_what_would_happen_if_we_completely_turned/ | {
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"They're not really an ally in that they don't really bring very much to the table. The US doesn't depend on them for security. The US doesn't really need their oil. There may be intelligence that they provide the US, but for people on the outside that's hard to evaluate.\n\nUS would lose basing rights, which would disrupt operations for a while. However, in these trying times everyone and their brother wants a US base on their soil.\n\nI suppose the US and Saudi are bound together due to the oil shock/petrodollar recycling deal back in the day. It could be a simple as the Saudis are blackmailing high-level people in the US government, or paying them off. As a client state they seem to be more troublesome than they're worth.",
"A whole lot of American companies would be really sad. Saudi's produce next to nothing, except oil. They buy everything they need to survive from places like the US and employ thousands of Americans. \n\nI suspect the concern is that they would shift their buying power to folks that aren't friendly to the US. So, we would lose money and our enemies would make more.\n\n\n\n"
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wph27 | what jobs will disappear if america taxes the rich more? | Tax reform is a hot, hot issue right now. Many claim raising taxes for the rich will cause America to lose jobs.
Which careers are most at risk, and how are we arriving at this conclusion? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/wph27/eli5_what_jobs_will_disappear_if_america_taxes/ | {
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"Businesses hire based on whether or not they need employees. The lost jobs are largely a scare tactic and a bargaining tool, though some organized political retaliation can't be entirely ruled out.\n\n",
"The argument is just that the rich use their money to create jobs, so taking money from the rich means they can create fewer jobs. To the best of my knowledge, nobody has proposed anything more concrete, so there's no way to say *which* jobs would disappear if the argument is true.",
"I don't think any specific jobs have been associated with it. Pretty much anything private sector, though, obviously. Whether you agree with those arguments or not is another story, but I don't believe any specific field is targeted by it.",
"A few maids jobs, landscapers, the odd private chef. Not many really. ",
"This is called trickle-down economics or rather a theory. Rich people are the people that can afford things like open new businesses and things like that. More businesses mean more jobs. It's much harder for the average person to start/find funding for a company....poorer people, such as myself, tend to spend money on consumables, bills, etc....not long term investments. When rich people are taxed more, they have less money to fund projects, invest in start-ups, etc.\n\nThere's also the notion that higher taxes will cause rich people to move out of the country/invest elsewhere.\n\nJust to say a quick word about the other competing theory....some people believe that jobs/wealth is generated by an increase in demand (the one I described above is called supply-side economics). Basically, it's good that poorer people buy shitty consumables, because demand will create supply, which creates jobs. We'll assume this is wrong for the second part of your question, but I just wanted to point out that tax increases for rich people does not necessarily mean less jobs, but if it did.... \n\nWe'd have less start-ups. So, probably less tech/online companies in the US. Less little mom and pop stores. And presumably less jobs that tailor to rich people (butlers? yacht drivers? hansom cab drivers?) We'd have a lot more Walmarts.",
"The key idea here is none. No jobs will be lost. In fact, jobs should be created.\n\nYou see, no business wants to employ people, they cost money. However, businesses need these people because they must produce the products and the more products that needs to be produced, the more people you must hire to do it. \n\nTherefore, the only way to raise the number of jobs needed is to increase the amount of products that needs to be produced. The only way to raise the amount of products that needs to be produced is to be sure that consumers have enough money to purchase new products.\n\nThe majority of consumers in America fall into the \"middle socio-economic class.\" We need to make sure that this middle class has more money to spend on products. \n\nWhen you don't have a lot of money, and you have to spend $100 on things like taxes or healthcare, you are losing a significant portion of your money that you could have, instead, spent on products. When you do have a lot of money, and are forced to spend $100 it is like a drop in the bucket, in fact you can even be forced to spend $500 or $1000 and still not feel very much impact.\n\nWith these principals in mind, it makes good policy to have our wealthiest people spend more money on public services that serve everyone and make sure that those middle class people pay less and therefor have more money to spend on products. This IS a form of wealth redistribution. Rich people do not like it, but economically, it makes sense, creates a stronger middle class, creates jobs, and boosts business; which in turn benefits wealthy people who own those businesses.\n\nFinally, many people think that the more money a person has, the more they spend, so if rich people have more money they will also buy more products. Unfortunately, this is not the case. They DO spend more money, but this money is spent on luxury goods that cost a lot because of status and not because the company had to employ a lot of people to make it. ",
"Overall, there's absolutely no reason to believe that raising taxes for the rich will cause job loss. Clinton raised taxes on the rich and employment went up. Bush cut taxes on the rich and employment went down. \n\nCertain *types* of jobs will probably suffer--specifically, jobs that provide services to the rich. So, personal shoppers, the third pool boy, etc. Nobody who actually does anything useful need worry, because the rich will keep spending money on things they actually have a use for--they just won't be spending money on the things that even they barely want but buy because they have the money.\n\nIf we're lucky, one of the careers that will suffer is the very cushy, very well-paid job of claiming bullshit things like \"raising taxes for the rich will cause America to lose jobs.\"",
"None of them."
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1qe5c0 | how does solar reducing global warming | I was curious about how solar reduces global warming. By this I mean it absorbs energy from the sun and transfers it to electrical energy. As I understand it that would be opposed to reflecting the energy away from the earth. So the energy would then be stored and/or used on earth and more or less trapped instead of being released. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1qe5c0/eli5_how_does_solar_reducing_global_warming/ | {
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"Short answer: Less Greenhouse gas emissions ergo less warming.",
"The extra energy that a solar panel would absorb is offset by the lack of greenhouse gases is releases.\n\nAlso note this extra energy is not unique to solar. With fossil fuels, you are converting chemical energy that would have sat dormant for millions of years into heat that is used immediately. And that chemical energy, in part at least, originally came from the sun.\n\nSo it is just a question of using solar energy product today, or produced millions of years ago.",
"The amount of energy that the sun adds to the Earth is going to be the same regardless of solar power generation. \n\nIf the energy is allowed to act naturally, some will be reflected directly back into space. Most will be absorbed and become heat. And then eventually that heat will dissipate as well. But in the meantime, humans who need sources of energy will use other fuels, including fossil fuels which release greenhouse gases. Those gases slow the rate at which heat dissipates while the rate at which it is added by the sun remains the same. Eventually the temperature rises.\n\nConversely, if some of the energy from the sun is converted to electricity and used for other purposes, the amount of solar energy which becomes heat is reduced by a very small amount. At the same time, the amount of energy we need to get from other fuels is reduced, presumably reducing the production of greenhouse gases. So the rate at which the energy dissipates from the Earth remains the same."
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76eazi | if and when all the sea ice melts will it change the salt levels in sea water. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/76eazi/eli5_if_and_when_all_the_sea_ice_melts_will_it/ | {
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"There's a LOT of fresh sea and glacial ice, enough that if it were all to melt sea level would rise by 70 meters (230 feet). So yes, the salt levels in the oceans would drop noticeably and probably enough to significantly alter ocean currents and change weather patterns across the planet."
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562i8b | why do we find it difficult to get past somebody if you are walking straight at each other? | We all know the feeling. It feels like every time you move one way to get past them, they move the same way. Is there a specific reason we do this? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/562i8b/eli5_why_do_we_find_it_difficult_to_get_past/ | {
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"text": [
"Because you're making eye contact with them and you're both looking at each other's eyes to see where the other is going. When you feel that starting to happen, break eye contact and focus on the path you want to walk. As if by magic, you and the other person will cease doing \"the dance\" and continue on your way. ",
"As said before: eye contact. \n\nEye contact is typically a show of good manners but doesn't really help a person in this situation. If you completely avoid eye contact and simply look where you're going this will never ever happen unless the other person is severely confused or distracted. Usually simply glance shortly at the person to acknowledge their existence and then look where you're going.\n\nThis reminds me of my driving teacher when I was taking my license. He would always say \"Look where you want to go, the car will follow\" because I had the habit of staring at possible places I could crash during a turn etc. \n\nThis also reminds me of a book I read several years ago about a racing driver. I believe it was called The Art of Driving in the Rain, I think it's pretty well-known, it was a best-seller. It had the quote \"the car goes where the eyes go.\" Here the car being a metaphor for your life, basically. It was a self-help book in a way told through the eyes of a dog owned by a guy pretty obsessed with Ayrton Senna. I remember it as being pretty good. "
]
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[],
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30m9vj | why do many recipes call for the use of kosher salt instead of sea salt or regular table salt? is there an actual difference when using one over the other? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/30m9vj/eli5why_do_many_recipes_call_for_the_use_of/ | {
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"For fermentation pickling, it's important to use non-iodized salt; kosher salt is rarely iodized (I've never seen it), while common table salt almost always is. It can make a difference in a lot of recipes where microbial action is important. There can also be texture concerns; for instance, when making pretzels, the size and shape of the salt granules is important.",
"Kosher salt is coarser, so it draws out fluids more efficiently.\n\nThis is what makes it \"Kosher\" because it makes other foods kosher by drawing out the blood, which isn't allowed in Jewish cuisine.",
"Chef here. Yes there is a big difference in different types of salt. The first, and biggest difference, is the sodium to salinity ratio. Iodized salt (table salt) has the highest sodium to salinity ratio, meaning it takes more of the actual salt to give it a salty taste. Kosher salt has a medium ratio, and sea salt usually has the highest ratio. This means that you will get more flavor from less sea salt than you will with iodized salt. This is very important for people who have low-sodium dietary needs, as you can use less sodium and get the same taste. This is why you will not get the same flavor using iodized salt for a recipe that calls for kosher salt. \n\n\nThe second difference in salt is the size and shape of the grains. Notice how iodized salt is all the same size and very small, whereas kosher salt is usually very coarse grain. This affects not only the solvent time of the salt, but also your ability to consistently measure the same amount of salt with your hand. The grains of kosher salt make it the easiest to measure out by hand. \n\nThese properties of salt give different salts different uses. Iodized salt is more commonly use to finish salting fried foods, as it sticks to the surface of the food better. Kosher salt is used in most commercial kitchens because of the ease of measuring, and also because its shape and salinity allow for bleeding meat. Sea salt is most commonly used in desserts in order to balance the intense sweetness of some items.\n\nEdit: For those wondering about the S/S metric of salts, it is caused by the different crystalline structure of salts. As salt forms, it doesn't always form in the same crystal structure. This means that in some salts more ~~sodium~~ NaCL molecules form in a more densely packed fashion. This causes a higher sodium content, and less taste because it breaks down slower in your saliva. The less densely packed molecules have less sodium per volume, and dissolve more rapidly in your saliva.",
"I do believe iodized salt contains an anti-caking element. This is why most canning recipes call for kosher salt, as the anti-caking agent will cloud the packing brine.",
"The different salts also measure differently by volume since they are shaped differently. A cup of kosher salt will weigh less than a cup of iodized salt since the crystals are larger and irregular. this can be important in baking. If in doubt, measure by weight not volume.",
"This question would stop getting asked if they just called it \"Kosher*ing* salt\" instead of \"Kosher salt\"...\n\nNot sure why it got the name without the \"ing\"...",
"I was taught that canning pickles etc with iodized salt will result in a product that becomes much darker. So this is more an aesthetic matter."
]
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803b3a | why is it called a chinese fire drill? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/803b3a/eli5_why_is_it_called_a_chinese_fire_drill/ | {
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"Copied from Wikipedia, because it explains it in fairly simple terms: \n\n“The term goes back to the early 1900s, and is alleged to have originated when a ship run by British officers and a Chinese crew practiced a fire drill for a fire in the engine room. The bucket brigade drew water from the starboard side, took it to the engine room, and poured it onto the 'fire'. To prevent flooding, a separate crew hauled the accumulated water from the engine room, up to the main deck and heaved the water over the port side. The drill had previously gone according to plan until the orders became confused in translation. The bucket brigade began to draw the water from the starboard side, run over to the port side and then throw the water overboard, bypassing the engine room completely.[2] Additionally, the term is documented to have been used in the U.S. Marine Corps during World War II, where it was often expressed in the phrase \"as screwed up as a Chinese fire drill\".[3] It was also commonly used by Americans during the Korean War and the Vietnam War.[4]\n\nHistorians trace Westerners' use of the word Chinese to denote \"confusion\" and \"incomprehensibility\" to the earliest contacts between Europeans and Chinese people in the 1600s, and attribute it to Europeans' inability to understand and appreciate China's radically different culture and world view.[5] In his 1989 Dictionary of Invective, British editor Hugh Rawson lists 16 phrases that use the word Chinese to denote \"incompetence, fraud and disorganization\".[6]”"
]
} | [] | [] | [
[]
] | ||
1xpulw | when your tv doesn't catch a signal, what are those black and white 'dots' that you see quickly moving in the screen? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1xpulw/when_your_tv_doesnt_catch_a_signal_what_are_those/ | {
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"[TV Static on Wikipedia](_URL_0_)\n\nSimmered down, it's basically all the random signals traveling through the air that the antenna or electronics are picking up, when there's not an actual TV station on that channel. It's random noise that the TV is still trying to interpret into a picture",
"About 1% is radiation from the big bang."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[
"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TV_static"
],
[]
] | ||
2r2w22 | why does the cheese flavor disappear from mac & cheese once it gets cold? | My girlfriend and I are stoned and hopeful that we can solve this mystery. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2r2w22/eli5_why_does_the_cheese_flavor_disappear_from/ | {
"a_id": [
"cnby86l"
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"score": [
2
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"text": [
"Warmer stuff has more taste. Cold decreases the flavor of everything."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[]
] | |
1lxga1 | why is australia's conservative party called the "liberal party"? | Tony Abbott just won the Australian Prime Minister election. So I read up on him and he's the conservative leader of a center-right party. Ok, so he's the Aussie equivalent of an American Republican. Then I look at what his party affiliation is, and it's "Liberal Party". What?!?!? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1lxga1/eli5_why_is_australias_conservative_party_called/ | {
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"\"Liberalism\" in a political sense has two meanings: social liberalism and economic liberalism.\n\nSocial liberalism is the belief that the Government should not be interfering in its citizens' personal lives, and is the meaning most Americans associate with the word \"liberal\".\n\nEconomic liberalism is the belief that the Government should not be interfering in corporate or economic life, and this is the sense in which the Australian Liberal Party uses the term.",
"On a side note, he's not the equivalent of an American Republican. The Democrats are a centre-right party. The Republicans, on the other hand, are a fairly-far right party, more so than any mainstream party in almost all other countries."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[],
[]
] |
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